Blog Fodder - "Define your musical tastes in 10 songs."

Okay it's back with a bang, okay maybe not a bang but hey it's my topics turn on Blog Fodder this week.

Define your musical tastes in 10 songs.

Okay this is actually quite a tricky one as I have well quite a varied taste in music, but I'll try and see if I can't summarise it.
Let's start with an anthem shall we..
1) Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody - Why it's a good song and a good start point I feel.
2) Meatloaf: Bat out of Hell - This song would never make it in "modern charts" where they insist a chart song is around 4 minutes - this 9 minutes of magic, guitar solos, drums it's all here and the video is well just go you tube it :D.
3) Alanis Morisette: Hand in my pocket - It could actually one of a few of her songs I don't know why it just works for me.
4) Mylo: Drop the Pressure - A little bit of Electro to liven things up.
5) Muse: Invincible - Great song, air guitar riff totally.
6) James Blunt: Your Beautiful - It's a good ballad and I just love it.
7) Prodigy: Smack my bitch up - Good solid meaty track with plenty of bass :D.
8) Snow Patrol: Chocolate or Chasing Cars - Both are so good I can't pick between them, I have a live version of Chocolate and am I glad a friend of mine pointed this wonderful band out - they are irish but they are a scottish band :) go figure.
9) Delta Goodrem: Not me, not I or The Analyst - Again both good track from 2 good albums as you can see I have trouble picking favourite songs.
10) K T Tunstall: Suddenly I see - It's a good track of a great album and well what can I see she's all from my part of the world.
I could have easily gone on, I mean there isn't a entry in there for Coldplay although I have the CD's right in front of me now, I do have many quirky albums in no particular order:
Kate Bush - Aerial, Antony and the Johnsons - I am a bird now, Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Punks, Jamie Cullum - Pointless nostalgic, Eminem - Curtain call, Pink - Missundastood, Ash - Interlactic Sonic 7"s, B*Witched - B*witched and to round off Richard Clayderman - Souvenirs amongst many others.
So you can see I listen to a wide range of music, different genres and so forth and don't go dissing anything until you've listen to it with an open mind.

Someone's DVD Collection

Dear Stanley,
Well I'm pretty impressed by this guys collection. It's got everything from "Lilo & Stitch" to The Matrix Trilogy, funny stuff to more funny stuff.
I've watched all the Harry Potter ones (erm a few times).... I watched Pirates of the Caribbean, he's not got the 2nd one, just have to erm twist his arm to get it for me :). I even watched the Original Italian Job - I didn't get it I like the new one better more understandable, I've even watch that one called "Nanny McPhee" pretty good, I loved the 5 rules part - I'd certainly start to behave better (not that I don't of course). A lot of it I wasn't meant to be able to watch due to the certificate that was with it but erm I snuck a look at most of them anyway (Authors side note: That would explain why a few were out of place). Well I'll sign off for now as it's late and this poor guy has to work early tomorrow.
Love

Stana

Can someone get a Doctor Please!

I need some air, anyone got any spare air? I'm feeling weirdly light headed - I was fine until I read here, now I feel weird and in need of some form of medical assistance...
*faints*

A little trip to the cinema

Captain Jack

Dear Stanley,
Well I managed to get to see Pirates of the Caribbean III - At Worlds End last night. It was really good, I had to hide behind someone a few times as it got a little bit scary in parts I was getting a little bored as it was a really long film but then they had a little break and was really good and well I was kept guessing as to the exact ending right to the end. So all in all it was a good film. Oh and sorry for the poor picture I had some really good ones to take as well but the camera decided to have a flat battery at that time, I wasn't happy to say the least but I'll forgive him as the few sweets I had were really good, different I don't think I've seen any of these at home but maybe I have..
Love

Stana

It wednesday already!

Hey guys, is it really Wednesday already I seem to be missing a day or something like that. Yes it's been that kinda week so far at work all good of course :). Fully tested a load of new kit that came in last week, well we did ONCE we got all the parts. I'm saying no more than that.. The weather has been pretty good over the last few weeks as you've no doubt seen from the pictures of my guest postee. I'm gonna fess now, I didn't actually go anywhere at the weekend I just stayed in and sipped on some beer, I still ran a few errands on Saturday, saw the nephew on Sunday (he wore me out playing football and stuff). Thus sorry Stanley, Stana was let loose on my DVD collection so she might just come back a little less flat, oh that and she likes my leather jacket I think...

World Record Attempt - Failed

I should really have written about this on MONDAY but I totally forgot...
Now your wondering what world record could I possibly be doing - well none.
It's a radio presenter who's doing the record and he just so happens to work for my Local Radio Station: Kingdom FM.
He was trying to beat the current world record of 125hrs set by an Italian radio DJ but his voice finally gave out it was flagging toward the end. He did last 108 hours though and raised a load of cash for the radio's charity "Kingdom Kids". I just rechecked the site as found out this, I had to reboot my PC to install something and forgot to switch the stream back on, just checked it as I was writing this and heard music thought okay then heard someone else I was like "Damn!".
Never mind Mickey is okay but just can't talk he did want to go on but was told "no!".
Well Done Man :)

We Went Bowling....

Bowlplex Anyone?

Dear Stanley,
The weather here isn't always nice and sunny, sometimes it does rain just like it did today which spoiled plans we'd had. However since it was raining and I figured I needed sometime to relax we went bowling. I only have one photo as it was kind of hard trying to take photos of him bowling, I must say he wasn't as good as you are.
So I'm afraid you'll just have to do with a single picture of us outside.
I know you think I'm not having a good time but I am, he's got all the harry potter novels but they have funny titles so I'm keeping myself amused with them as well.

Love

Stana

Here, There and many points inbetween

It's been a busy week here at Chez Gopher.
Sunday - It all kicked off again with my WoW Guild - when my So CALLED friend decided to Boot n Ban me off the TeamSpeak server they used, why because he was being an ASSHAT and using a stupid voice (think those voice boxes for people that can't speak right) it was getting annoy I did say it was getting annoying on TS and then switched channels so I can at least THINK. I say in Guild Chat that I had and next think I hear is "You have been Kicked from the Server" to which I replied in Guild chat something like fine be like that then "bye" followed by 3 things: 1 x hearthstone back to a city then /gquit followed by /quit to quit both the guild and the game, I didn't go near the game again until Thursday.
Monday - Bank Holiday here but as normal I worked it, I do get this Monday off so it's okay :P.
Tuesday - I finally get around to helping Stana post the pictures we took on Saturday, I know my bad. Well that and work was kinda interesting running around the place.
Wednesday - Erm Let's not talk about then shall we, All day to replace a simple alarm panel - no comment!
Thursday - I go out to trouble shoot the system - find problem (could have solved in 5 minutes but I have someone rewire just to make sure.
Friday - hmm middle of nowhere is just about right for where I was, nice day out.
That is all.

Some Photos as promised

My Arrival

Dear Stanley,
Well as I promised some photos for you to look at while I travel to a few places, don't know where I'll be going yet not quite decided but there are a few places I could go all with in easy reach (so someone says). I just had to show you my arrival photo as I thought it was quite funny.
I went out at the weekend as you can see. It was a great day out although as you can see from some of the later photos it wasn't a crystal clear day there was a little bit of mist (they call it mist don't know why yet).
It was some climb it don't look too bad from the bottom but the steps we went up were pretty steep. I saw some pretty flowers and had to stop for a rest, when I asked what they were I was told they are "bluebells" and they are pretty don't you think.
Once I got to the top I was pretty tired, I needed another rest but wow the view was worth the climb :) and I wasn't even at the very top but pretty close.

Me Preparing for the trek

I Climbed This

I needed a Rest

I Got there

The View - Finally

I then felt I had enough energy to go up to the top even if it mean a lot more walking than at first appeared. I would have taken one from the top but it was way too windy and I was getting blown about as it was. I manage to find a spot so I could look at the other side of the "hill"..
The view to the other side is just as spectacular as you can see if you look at the pictures I'd sent you as well. I've been assured the the "loch", these people have strange names for things I'm beginning to realise, it looks like a lake to me, is pretty famous as some queen or other was famously imprisoned in a castle on the island in the picture with the smaller island on it, people pay money to go over in a boat and look at what's left of the castle. The other island has the ruins of a monastery on it, just so you know if you upset me too much I'll try sending you to a place like this. The other picture is just a random one to show you that "mist" again.

Love

Stana

The Other Side

View from someplace

View from the Other Side 2

View from the Other Side 1

Friday Night

Well I know this is Sunday so why am I writing about Friday night well I've been busy and forgot to post even although I was posting for someone else that night.
I was out with a friend again, we went for a meal then to the cinema to see Spiderman 3. I adds a new twist to a few things and well it was a good all round film where friendships old are remembered for what they were and not what they were perceived to be, broken although I don't know if it was an entirely happy ending, well maybe it was.
You'll just have to watch it and see..

I've Arrived....

Dear Stanley,
I arrived a few days ago, but I've only just got around to writing to you.
It is a little hard being flat and trying to write so I asked someone to kindly give me a hand to do that.
The weather here is lovely right now, not a cloud in the sky. I'll write to you again soon with tales of my adventures here is somewhere in Scotland. I might even be able to tell you where, even if just roughly. I'm having a little difficulty in making him understand exactly what I'm saying and vice versa but I think I'll get him talking like we do soon enough..

Love

Stana

Voting!

I don't know what it's like in your part of the world when it comes to voting for people in an election but well today took the "biscuit" so to speak. Why you ask, I'll tell you....
Now I was voting not just for my Local Councillor, but also my Local MP in Westminster and my Local MSP in Edinburgh... Confused yet...
To say we have a slightly funky way of doing things here is an understatement.
Now in Britain - we have the Houses of Parliament in Westminster that looks after the WHOLE of the UK, we have local councillor's which look after a local view and in Scotland and Wales we have the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly that are partly devolved and are allowed to make modifications, adjust and refine the laws of Scotland and Wales respectively. Now they normally just take what the MP's at Westminster say and pass it as law, or adjust it so it's more locally suited.
As a result of this of course I got 3 ballot papers to fill in, well 2 as 1 was a dual paper. Now the dual paper had one side for the Scottish Parliament and one for Westminster - the Scottish one simply mentioned the Party I'd like simple enough. The other part was The MP I'd like to vote in, again simple enough, put a cross on the one I wanted to vote for. Now the LOCAL council election that was the complex part I had to vote which candidate(s) in order of Preference I'd like to represent me at a local level - writing 1,2 and so forth in the order of who I'd like voted in. Now you could put "1" in one box and be done or vote for as many as you like. They even had someone there who's job it was to explain all this. I mean okay it's complex but it's not "Rocket Science" is it or is it..
Comments please and is there any where it's more quirky or "interesting".

Bloody Banks

Well today was an absolutely glorious day not too warm, blue sky, just perfect weather for sitting out catching some rays (if only!).
Me I was stuck in one of the works vans most of the day driving around Glasgow, if you don't live there never try and navigate without the aid of a High Grade SAT NAV System, even then I think it might still be possible to miss turnings. It was fun anyway got the jobs done that needed doing..
I leave work at 4, drive to bank, hand over bank card, take out from the nice brown envelope it was in my wage cheque which is machine printed. The teller says that will be ready next Wednesday........ Of course I meant to remember that I need to say the one small detail that it's a Salary / Wage Cheque not just a cheque but PLEASE! how erm much clearer do they need it - it's on a Company Cheque - PRINTED, It came out of a pretty unopened brown envelope it's the beginning of the month and well it what always happens at the beginning of the month or the last day of the month (depending on when I get the thing / when I can get it in....) So I have hmm about £50 to keep me going till it clears... I had PLANS this weekend that are now screwed.. I AM going to see Spiderman 3 - I'll just have to erm wing it for that one. I was going to take newphew and his dad to the local bowling alley as it's my brother-in-law's birthday soon so it would have been nice but now I can't at all.
Oh well another day over, just have to get on with it..

2 Randomly Picked E-mails I received today....

Subject: *** SPAM *** =?ISO-2022-JP?B?km6Ms4LMg0mDb4NUg5OC8JX4gquCvYKigsWCt4KpgUiDjIN4g4uCzZLhgqKCxYK3gqqKbY7AgsmV+IKvgtyCt4LmISE==?=
From:
Resent-Sender: yasuko4589@sina.com
Message-ID: <20070424201838.50075@sina.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-2022-JP"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Resent-Message-Id: <20070424164111.77BF64D560F@mail>
Resent-Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 20:18:38 +0900 (KST)
Resent-From: yasuko4589@sina.com (Apache)
X-me-spamlevel: med
X-me-spamrating: 100.000000

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^^^^ please not that this appears as japanese on my preview of it..
----------------------------------
From: "Lemony Snicket"
To: me
Subject: *** SPAM *** Your application has been accepted
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:03:42 -0200
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/related;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0001_01C786BC.6B9837E0"
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.5510
Thread-Index: AceGvGuY5LPaLir5S8qMYK6uB8MrRg==
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2869
Message-Id: <0C506E0DB2855A7.5D53D8381E@t-com.sk>
X-me-spamlevel: med
X-me-spamrating: 92.804371

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(sent as HTML encapsulated so the link would have worked - I do not suggest you GO near this site - got it 3 times exactly same e-mail different e-mail addresses ).
This is just a snippet of what I receive on a daily basis on my ISP based Inbox..

Blog Fodder - "Did you have a teacher that left a deep impression on you (good or bad)?"

Thanks to Kim over at kimbofo for this weeks topic which is....

Did you have a teacher that left a deep impression on you (good or bad)?

This is a difficult one as often at the time you don't realise the impression they are leaving it's years later that you realise it. The ones that left a good lasting impression are for the better part dead unfortunately so I've never been able to go find them and say "thanks". I was never in trouble at school well once maybe twice but that was sufficient suffice to say.
I had primary school teacher that left an impression on me that I had a brain use it but learn to write properly so everyone can read it (Side note: I can if I really want to). Few teachers at high school left an impression on me, one or two bad impressions well not so much bad as "in bad taste" - I mean was highlighting my spelling mistake in an essay from my Biology class REALLY required to be brought up in my Sixth Year Studies (SYS) Physics class, the teachers were friends and the look they got said it all.
I person at school who left what is probably the most lasting impression wasn't even a teacher, he the school headmaster, a great guy who shared the same first name as me, he brought back the yearly prize giving ceremony which hmm I won a prize a year for a few years. He brought changed the way the school thought of itself gave it purpose we did win a few inter-school sports prizes and other things besides. He was deeply religious but didn't try and force it on anyone something I do to this day, If you had an idea for the school, he'd listen as well, I do that. Okay I don't have his fine baritone vocals which were just great to hear.

That is all I think.

Funk it all to HELL!

This post has been removed by the author.

Day off

Well it's a rare day off for me, well I was MEANT to get LAST Monday off but as we are a 24/7 company and am the only day shift person on, it fell to me to cover last week but I get a day off for it to take when I like generally I'll be taking the Monday after off makes sense after all. So let me see how I've spent my day off so far....
I got up, I've polished the car and oh yeah I'm going to be acting as "Chauffeur" to my dear father as he has a hospital appointment and MOTHER decided that since today she'd have been going shopping anyway but my sister would have gotten her and the shopping home, it's now MY job - I don't mind I would just like to have been ASKED first!!!

That is all.

Update: well it was a fun day oh and now it looks like WE ARE ALL STUCK with the new version of blogger if wanted it or not!
Do I need "labels" not really, and what is added to this "new" blogger - it's attatched to a google account - sorry Im VERY suspect about all of this!
Ignore me.

Blog Fodder - "What are some of the more bizarre bits of spam you have received, whether through emails or comments?"

Thanks to Raj over at Radioactive Jam for this weeks topic

What are some of the more bizarre bits of spam you have received, whether through emails or comments?

Well let me see I use Mailwasher Pro to clean my ISP based inbox out, my gmail, hotmail, yahoo all take care of themselves and I got checkers for them all so I know if I get new e-mail anyway.

Let me just grab some stats of the e-mail from the last 4 weeks...
Spam : 1416
Legitimate E-mail: 136
Spam e-mail is on processing bounced, deleted from my isp inbox, the e-mail address or domain (if I choose to add that) is added to my ever growing blacklist of junk e-mail.
Now since I got the Pro version I can report all of them but when I do I get a 2nd e-mail back telling me to click-a-link to finish reporting and it gives me an idea where the spam came from as well, I ONLY now do this for spam that "appears" to be from my subdomain i.e from me.
I've reported 29 pieces of e-mail this way I used to report them all but that gave me loads of work even using the tabbular functionality of Firefox it was a bind doing the find the report button using the text on the line below, clicking it, ctrl + tab to move tab, f3, repeat ad-nauseum.
Now as to what the spam contained..
If I replied to 1/10 I'd have a few million $$$'s in loans, enough "drugs" to keep me going for oh 10 years "solid" if you'll pardon the pun..
Software coming out of my ears, pump n dump stocks galore etc, etc...
I do have a personal website using my ISP provided webspace and I have a Guestbook there, which for some reason stopped e-mailing me when a new comment was added so I didn't know when comments were added I checked it one day and well hmmm 30 comments for "crap" were there all very similar as well, deleted and moderation turned ON.
when I had a Tag-board a while back I got SPAMMED on that as well :| so took it down got money back etc..
okay Im done I think..

Blog Fodder - "What are your top 10 reasons to blog?"

Thanks to Chrysalis! for this weeks blog fodder topic which is:

What are your top 10 reasons to blog?

Tricky one but I'll give it a go..
1) It's easy to post things up, random musing etc.
2) I've made a few friends on here and like to touch base with them all without having to e-mail them (I know such a lame excuse eh!)
3) I like the feedback I get (or not as the case maybe)
4) It's like a modern day diary but you can change it and no-one need know as there is no crossed out bits or bits that have been over written.
5) It's a way of meeting new and interesting people, found a few I even call friends.
6) Moogie made me (no just kidding but moogie's blog was the 1st blog I ever read).
7) With a little effort I can change things around, add / remove entries, change the template to suit - reminds me need to change the look a little maybe.

I can't think of any more right now but I might do later on..

8) Comments can trigger off new ideas for posts
9) Meme's are fun to share.
10) Expression is the key, oh and did I meanion it's all moogie's fault oh wait I did already...

Okay that should keep "someone" happy (for now).

Reality.check

Scanning please wait..............................




Reality: Found - just about
I am alive honestly and feeling 100% if you ignore the FREAKING GOD damn head cold I seem to have that likes me so much it doesn't wanna go away, right now it feels like someone is using my head as a set of drums.
I'll post on the Blog Fodder Topic / other crap later on maybe I don't know, this is just a check-in.
On a Side note...
I wonder why I bother - no comments are made, need to check my stats pages to see if Im only being visited by Robots.
Ignore please *slaps self about head and then doses back up on nurofen*