Missing iPod

Amazon sent out my iPod yesterday and provided me with a Parcel Force Tracking Number. I checked this morning when I got up and it said it was out on the van for delivery. Great I thought, I will get it today and can play tonight. I told the lasses on reception @ work I was expecting a parcel but as they day wore on nothing arrived. It got to 4:30 and I decided to check the website in case for some reason it had gone back to the depot.

To my horror it had been signed for at 12:02 by an "A Mitson", there is no person by that name in our building. I walked over to the building opposite to see if they have received it but they hadn't.

I rang up Parcel Force and got transfered to the Newcastle depot, the woman was helpfull and said she would ask the driver where he had taken it when he got back and ring me.

She rang me back about 6 o'clock and the driver said he had taken it the Police HQ by mistake but would pick it up in the morning and deliver it to me. I didn't complain and just thanked the lady for finding out what had happened.

I'm a bit pissed off because I was hoping to play with it tonight and payed for next day delivery for that reason, when I could of had free delivery in 2-3 days. Nevermind at least I found out where it went and someone isn't walking around with a free iPod (I hope).

Parachute Jump

I have finally booked and paid for a parachute jump. I've always wanted to do it but like many things I say, I want to do something and never do. I'm gonna be jumping from Peterlee Parachute Centre, it's costing me £250 but will be worth every penny when I'm hurtling towards the earth at 120 mph!!!

I'm doing a tandem jump which means I'm strapped to an instructor and he pulls the chute, the only other one I could really do was a static line jump. Where when you jump out of the plane the parachute comes straight out but I want to freefall and with a tandem you have the added bonus of not having to do 6 hours of training 1st :-)

I think most people thought I wouldn't do it when I've been mentioning it for the last couple of works but this is the start of turning my life around and actually doing things I want, rather than just letting life pass me by.

:-(

Well the weekend has disappeared again and have to get up for work in less than 7 hours. I have done nothing really all weekend. I've never set foot outside the house since getting in from work on Friday night.

Tomorrow I have to ring up the finance company I used to buy my laptop, I got it on one of those buy now pay later things. I don't have to pay for it until March before it would cost me a fortune in interest but I am gonna pay it all off now while I have the money.

I am also gonna ring to see aboout doing the parachute jump :-)

I've jotted down a load ideas for things to do when I'm off for the 2 weeks, I'm gonna do part of the Pennine way walk with my dad (well a short one day section to Alston). Plan on going to Scotland for a few days again, may stay in Amulree again but only for a night then want to travel on up to the North West but that is just an idea at the moment. Loads of other things wrote down as well but gotta plan out each day and what I'm doing or will end up doing nothing as usual.

Well, think I will get into bed and listen to some music...

Headphones

Just wrote that I have ordered an iPod, the other thing I am very tempted to buy are some more headphones. I already have some fairly good Sony buds but after spending so much on the iPod I think I need some higher quality ones.

I've looked at some Sure E3C, but they are a bit too expensive. So I think I will go for the Etymotic ER-6i Isolator In-Earphones, they are £80 on Amazon but you can buy them on Ebay shipped from America for £55. Which is still a hell of a lot of money for headphones but as you can tell from this blog recently how much I like my music.

Gonna wait for payday before investing in these, got some other things to sort out 1st. Like a parachute jump ;-)

iPod

After 2 years I have finally sucombed to buying an iPod. I have held off for so long because I have/had some major problems with the iPod. It was too expensive, I guess it still is. I just spent £280 (cough!) @ Amazon.

I've wanted a large Hard drive MP3 player for ages but held off in the hope I would see something better than the iPod, without so many restrictions (iTunes), but nothing has really turned up that beats it or not in large HD sizes (60GB).

Another reason I've disliked the iPod besides for them trying to force you to buy your music from iTunes is I hate following everyone else. I like to find hidden jems but unfortunately I'm still searching, lol.

After all this dissing of the iPod why did I buy one. I think it is the best overall MP3 player, it has an excellent UI, good size and there are now some hacks for the iPod and iTunes. I think Last.Fm may of been the final thing that swayed it, I can get the songs I play on the iPod submitted to Last.Fm.

I am still never gonna buy a song from iTunes unless they start a subscription service like Napster. Its too expensive and too many restrictions, why pay the prices on iTunes when you can buy the CD from Amazon cheaper and rip it without any restrictions and at whatever quality I like!

Anyway I will post what it's like when it arrives in a couple of days (hopefully), looking forward to it.

Northern Star

I re-discovered a song tonight, I had never really looked at the lyrics before either I just liked the music. But after reading the words it's even better.

Melanie C - Northern Star

They tried to catch a falling star.
Thinking that she had gone too far.
She did but kept it hidden well.
Until she cracked and then she fell.

If all the history is true.
She's gonna end up just like you.
You made it to the other side.
But tell me who will be my guide.

They build you up so they can tear you down.
Trust the ocean you'll never drown.
Who is next? Who's gonna steal your crown?
You'll see.

I have learnt my lesson well.
The truth is out there I can tell.
Don't look back and don't give in to their lies and goodbyes.
Northern Star.

Fulfil the longing in your heart.
Then we will never be apart.
And if they dare to question you.
Just tell them that our love is true.

They buy your dreams so they can sell your soul.
Is it any wonder we've lost control?
Feelings come, feelings go.

I have learnt my lesson well.
The truth is out there I can tell.
Don't look back and don't succumb to their lies and goodbyes.
Live your life without regret.
Don't be someone who they forget.
When you're lost reach out for me.
And you'll see she's not far.
Northern Star.
Northern Star.

I have learnt my lesson well.
The truth is out there I can tell.
Don't look back and don't succumb to their lies and goodbyes.
Live your life without regret.
Don't be someone who they forget.
When you're lost reach out for me.
And you'll see she's not far.
Northern Star.
Northern Star.
Northern Star.

Friends

Although this week has been quite hard at work for reasons I'm not going to go into. The one thing that has really come out of it, has been how a few people have been real friends to me this week. I think the main reason I still work where I do is because I've made so many friends.

That is also the reason I stayed at my job at the Red Cross for so long, when I think about it I make good friends where ever I have been. Right from starting school, to Y.T. to each job I have had there are still people I am good friends with from each place.

Anyway a few people this week have said if I needed to chat just to let them know, although I'm not always good at speaking like that. Words always seam to escape me. That's sort of why I set this up but it seams I have to be careful what I write these days for fear of upsetting someone or it being missinterpreted. I should just say fuck it and write what I want to, will make a decision on that when I'm off. Life is too short

To end this post here's 2 links about Pathological Liars, lol.
Link 1
Link 2
Bonus Wikipedia link

Holiday

I've finally got some time booked off at work, I'm off from the 1st October for 2 weeks. I was hoping to go to Las Vegas for 5 nights but after finding out it was gonna cost me at least £860 (because its short notice) I have now changed my mind.

I've been looking @ doing a parachute jump as well, originally I was looking at somewhere in Cumbria but found out I can do one in Shotton near Peterlee. It will cost me £250 but I think its worth it, always said I would like to do it. Thats for a tandem jump where you are strapped to an instructor. At least that way I can't choose not to pull the cord, lol.

I'm gonna make a list of the stuff I want to do when I'm off, otherwise I'll sit on my arse staring at a computer all week and it wont seam like much of a holiday.

A holiday can't come soon enough, I was fucking fuming today when someone started twisting at me for supposedly not doing some work. Yet I had done it 2 weeks ago and was waiting for some information back, think I kept my calm quite well and just finished it off. Might Chin the next person that says TEMPLATE, though. (joking!!)

Last.FM again

I've mentioned Last.Fm a few times in the last week, see my other posts or the site itself for more info. I have totally got into using it and have listened to some good new music because of it.

I decided to actually pay them some money for 2 months subscription, you don't have to. I wanted a few of the extra features like playing my favourite tracks from Last.FM radio and getting priority for stuff other non-subscribers. Its not like its gonna break the bank at £1.50 a month!!

Here's the link to my user page, didn't use my real name because I was just testing it at 1st (Can't change name). You can see what I've been listening to.

Angry

I've managed to avoid any situations for well over a year where I would get angry and lose my temper but today I woke up "full of hell" as someone once described me a couple of years ago. I used to be fairly miserable and kept everything to myself and because of that I could go from joking to ready to jump down someones throught within a blink of an eye. I haven't been that bad for years and can't see me ever being that bad ever again. I've changed far too much for that.

I woke up in a bad mood because of stuff at work, wont go into it on here (yet!). If there is one thing I hate its people lying about things that will impact on others, even more so when its me they are lying about. Thats why I posted "The Rolling Stones - Lies" last night as a song that reflected how I was feeling. I'm sure people will twist at me for writing this on here but I don't care, why should I be made to feel like I've done something wrong when I haven't!!

Holiday

I am in desperate need of a Holiday but not sure what to do or where to go. I would love to go to America but would rather not go on my own, although maybe I need to go away on my own.
I have the money burning a hole in my pocket which I was trying to save.

At the moment I think some time away is more important than saving, had enough of the lies and shite being said about me at work at the moment.

Trust No One.....

Messing about with Last.Fm

I've been trying stuff out on Last.Fm tonight although they have been experiencing some problems the last few days. They are installing another cluster (more computers) but its causing problems while they upgrade.

I can live with that seeing as it's free and an excellent service.

In the sidebar to the right I have added a listening to image, it shows the last song I have listened to if anything. Its just an image so it will only refresh if you press refresh your browser (F5). There are some problems with it, if the song name is too long the picture will be wider than the sidebar.

Here's another image with the last few songs I've recently listened to (again if I've just listened to anything):



The image above is too wide for this site. Hopefully when I get chance I will create my own script to produce these images then I can limit the size of them but at the moment they are running from someone elses site.

I've noticed that FireFox often doesn't refresh the image properly and pulls a cached version (saved version of the image). Also the times shown are an hour behind coz of daylight saving.

More songs for how I'm feeling

I was looking for some songs for how I'm feeling and my situation. I couldn't find much the closest might be Rolling Stones - Lies. I also think the Beatles - Nowhere Man is also sort of approriate. The Lyrics for both are below:

Rolling Stones - Lies(M. Jagger/K. Richards)
Lies, dripping off your mouth like dirt
Lies, lies in every step you walk
Lies, whispered sweetly in my ear
Lies, how do I get out of here?
Why, why you have to be so cruel?
Lies, lies, lies I ain't such a fool!
Lies, lies in my papa's looks
Lies, lies in my history books
Lies, lies like they teach in class
Lies, lies, lies I catch on way too fast
Fire, fire upon your wicked tongue
Lies, lies, lies you're trying to spoil my fun
Lies, lies you dirty jezebel
Why, why, why, why don't you go to hell?
Why, why you think me such a fool?
Lies, lies, lies honey that's ya rules!
Lies, lies, lies, lies, oh my lies, ...


Beatles - Nowhere Man

He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his nowhere land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.

Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere man, please listen,
You don't know what you're missing,
Nowhere man, the world is at your command.

He's as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere man can you see me at all?

Nowhere man, don't worry,
Take your time, don't hurry,
Leave it all 'till somebody else
Lends you a hand.

Doesn't have a point of view,
Knows not where he's going to,
Isn't he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere man, please listen,
You don't know what you're missing,
Nowhere man, the world is at your command.

He's a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his nowhere land,
Making all his nowhere plans
For nobody.
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.
Making all his nowhere plans
For nobody.

Top Music Lists

I watched a show on VH2 last night "100 Classic Anthems" it was on for hours after watching most of it I decided to have a look at the website to recap, but the website was rubbish there is nothing there. I wrote the top 9 down seeing as I couldn't find it any where on the internet, it was:

9 - Joy Division - Love Will Tear us Apart
8 - Guns N Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
7 - David Bowie - Heroes
6 - The Who - My Generation
5 - Rolling Stones - It's Only Rock & Roll
4 - Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven
3 - Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
2 - Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody
1 - John Lennon - Imagine

It's in reverse order because thats the order I heard them (couldn't be bothered to re-rder them).

While searching for the full list I found a website that had tons of music lists on (DigitalDreamDoor). There are lists by decade and Genres of music, I'm gonna work through some of the lists to hopefully hear some good new music. My Napster subscription should come in handy for this and will finally get some use :-)

Pandora

After messing about with Last.fm the last few days I also found Pandora, this is an excellent way to find music. You type in an Artist or Song you like and it creates Radio Stations of music similar to what you chose. You can listen to the 1st 10 hours for free after that you have to pay. I've only used it for about an hour but I may end up paying for it. Give it a go :-)

To The Pub!

I decided that for a change I would go to the Pub at dinner time today, recently I've just been sitting in the staff room but it doesn't really feel like you have had a break. So I went down the Garden House with David for a few games of pool and drank some Pepsi (Can't drink when @ work). We both enjoyed it and we are gonna do it again. I think David enjoyed it slightly more than me as he won overall, lol!!

www.last.fm

The last few days I have been messing about with Audioscrobbler which sends every song you play on your computer to www.last.fm, I originally heard about it over a year ago but couldn't see the point in using it at the time and wasn't all that impressed when I looked at the website.

But over the last week I was messing about with Jinzora 2 and XBMC on my Xbox both support Audioscrobbler. So decided I would give it a go, I have been hooked ever since.

Basically whenever you listen to a song the name of the song, artist and album are sent to www.last.fm, so at the most basic level you could see every song you listened to. This information is then made into charts so you can see who you listen to the most. You can click on the song, artist and album to see more information about it and which tracks are the most popular. All this information is used in various ways. You could see what people with similar tastes in music to you are listening to and discover new music.

Anyone who knows me will know how much I like collecting stuff on the computer like music and logging stuff. People at work say I have some sort of Obsessive-compulsive disorder, lol. So having all this information logged without me having to physically do anything is like heaven to me. Well that's going too far but is interesting (to me at least).

So far I have listened to about 270 songs but that will quickly rise with the amount of music I listen to. Maybe the people at work are right about the Obsessive-compulsive disorder thing I do for some reason still store every Text I've sent or received since April 2003 not sure why maybe they will come in handy one day (how I don't know). Although it does come in handy after a drunken night out when I've texted people, I can see what I've said and spend the next few days apologising, lol...

Any way if you listen to music on the computer check out www.last.fm and give it a go. When I have 500 songs submitted I will post the link so you can see what I've been listening to.

Out on the piss

Its been a week between posts mainly because I've been so busy this week and I was out on Thursday and Friday nights.

Not much exciting happening at work at the moment (not that I can be arsed to write about anyway), just very busy with several staff away on long holidays. So not gonna bore anyone including myself by writing about it!!

I went out on Thursday night for Sandy's leaving do, I said I would go (Sandy is a good laugh). We were going to an Italians in Durham (La Spaghettata) I had been to it before and knew there was one thing on the menu I would manage to eat (hate Italian food). I was told during the day that they had changed it to Pizza Express instead (Oh no). I downloaded the menu and there wasn't a thing I would eat (don't like, cheese, garlic, tomatoes, etc..). So I said I wasn't gonna go didn't want to sit there and eat nothing but I was disappointed.

I dropped Katy off in town on my way home, as she was going out for the leaving do, then set off for home. I got a few miles and Katy rang me to say they were changing it back to La Spaghettata so I could come out. I turned around and drove back to Durham, only problem was that I hadn't got changed at work because I thought I was going home. I parked up by the County Hotel and got changed in the back of the car, it must of looked very dodgy as it was very busy with everyone walking past my car and me changing in the back!!

Anyway I met everyone in Chase and we then went on to the restaurant, I was still dreading it because I hate the smell of cheese and garlic never mind the taste. I survived on my mucus chicken (Lemon chicken). We all had a good laugh, then we moved on to Jimmy Allens. Quite a few went home, we stayed there for a while and a few more left. We ended up down to the last 6 of us in the Hogs Head, Ian left in there and ended up being me, Katy, Sandy, Pete & Howard we decided to move on to O'Neils but was too busy so walked back out and went to The Jug. It was quiet in there and we spent about an hour or so in there before I drove Katy, Howard and Sandy home.

I had a really good night, normally I hate going out and not drinking when everyone else is but for a change it didn't matter.

Hell that was a long story (and probably very boring). Friday I went out to the Durham Night as I always do. It was another good night and I spoke to a couple of people I don't get much chance to talk to out of work which made a change. The rest of the night though I spoke to the regulars (Katy, Craig and Tony). We had a good laugh and had a couple of bets on stuff through out the night. One was about what time 2 people would kiss, I missed out on winning the bet by 40 seconds!!!

I was the most sober I can remember being at the end of the night for ages, I was stood there at midnight thinking hell what's going on I'm never this sober at this time. The plan was actually to stay fairly sober but didn't really expect to achieve it, lol.

Anyway this has been a long and boring post but I don't care the idea of this was to log what I had done as well as writing what I think.

Suspect Zero

Suspect Zero: I watched this last night, it didn't have brilliant reviews but it was the 1st film I picked up. It's about a killer hunting down other killers by remote viewing and the FBI trying to catch him.

The film wasn't brilliant but did find the remote viewing part interesting probably only because I have watched documentaries and read about it before. Ben Kingsley did a good job but Carrie-Anne Moss & Aaron Eckhart were a bit wooden. I gave it a 6 out of 10 on IMDB.

Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo

Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo: I watched this on Friday night, wanted something that was easy viewing, that’s exactly what I got. I knew from the rating at IMDB it wasn’t going to be brilliant but with that in mind I enjoyed it (sort of). It was OK as a bit of light entertainment but not a lot of laughs really..

Best album in ages!

I’ve been listening to a lot of music as always recently. I was listening to Festival, an excellent album of the biggest songs played at the festivals recently. When listening to it, one song jumped out that I hadn’t heard before and really liked. It was “Oh Yeah” by The Subways.


I decided to find out what else they had done and listened to their album “Young For Eternity”. Initially I listened to the song I had originally heard “Oh Yeah” but the other songs on the album are as good “Rock & Roll Queen” and “Mary” but all the songs are excellent. I think is probably the best new album I’ve heard this year.

Exercise

I got up and decided I had to do some exercise today. I went for a run/walk, I knew I couldn’t run the whole way around the route I was gonna take. So I set some aims, 2 longs sections I wanted to run. I managed my target and could of ran further but didn’t want to kill myself on the 1st run I’ve done for weeks.

The hard part now is keeping it up, I have some more targets in my mind that are a little further around the same route. My aim is in the next 4 weeks to be able to run the entire route. This should be fairly easily achievable if I keep going out!!

Why are women so complicated?

Me and Kelly have been in touch a lot over the last few days, we sort of didn't talk much for a few weeks. Probably because of the situation she was in being in a relationship and having a son. But as we always were, we are still very close and really understand each other. Hopefully chatting (only by texts) has helped us both. (I better clarify this, I don't mean Kelly Johnson. In case anyone from work reads this)

I just feel as confused as ever, still really care about Kelly but always find it hard to drop my guard, been hurt too many times before. She said I need to learn to let go and let someone in. Don't think she was necessarily meaning her but she is right.

It was a bit odd yesterday, when at one of our other offices at work, the person I keep never mentioning the name of. I was working upstairs on my own and she came to tell me that someone needed my help. The weird thing is the room I was in isn't on the way to anywhere and not her job to do that sort thing. Especially when she had been trying to avoid me recently. When she spoke I got the feeling she wanted to say more than just the message but didn't know what to say. I didn't either as I was surprised she came to find me.

I sent an email later on saying that sorry we didn't get chance to speak coz she disappeared quickly. She said that she didn't know what to say. I said I didn't want to go back to ignoring each other again. I just don't understand her.

I was a bit pissed off recently with her because I was told some stuff that she had supposedly said to others at work and it wasn't true, but I shouldn't go off hearsay. Why can't people just talk (this coming from me, lol).

This makes me sound like I've been stringing to people along, I haven't me and Kelly decided it wasn't working a while ago and I realised how much I still cared for the other (this is getting hard not being able to say a name). I am still very close to Kelly though and often wonder if I made the right decision? (from recent events anyone would think not, sick of being treated like shit)