26.point.1

My telly is gone…

// January 29th, 2008 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

Suddenly I have nothing to watch in my house…

For the last few months I’ve had intermittent blackouts of my television by which the screen would go black for 3 minutes before coming back on - the audio stayed on while the screen was black, so I hadn’t just managed to put the TV into standby without noticing.

Well it’s taken the best part of 2 months to get someone out to me - and the nice chap came today to fix it. He rampaged in, used his screwdriver like a pump action shotgun to take the back of the set off in less than a minute and then proceeded to fucking break it.

Yes, he’d brought the wrong board to replace the old one with - and then when he realised that and that it wasn’t working, he tried to put the old board back and it didn’t work either.

I did very well to not throw him off my balcony. So, the long and the short of this one is - don’t let people who can’t speak English take the back of your television off. I just hope that I get my lovely Samsung back soon.

twentysix launches…

// January 28th, 2008 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

That’s to say the twentysix website, not that we’ve launched twentysix things. We’ve had a trusty contact form up for way too long now and London have does us proud by creating a fantastic effort. Complete with a lovely show reel of all the combined clients of both twentysix Leeds and London, the site not only does a great job on conveying what twentysix are actually about - but also offers staff, and the public, the chance to comment on topics of the day!

Well done guys…

One Night Only

// January 28th, 2008 // No Comments » // Reviews

I DO NOT CONSIDER MYSELF A TREND SETTER. Let’s get that out of the way. However, I do think that One Night Only are possibly one of the best bands I’ve heard in years and will storm through 2008 with the ferocity of a wildfire in a fat farm (fat burns right?)…

One Night Only’s latest single released today “Just for Tonight”, which you can download on iTunes, was used as the title track from last years brillian E4 teen drama “Almost Famous” and was an instant hit in my head.

Keep an eye out for this Yorkshire bunch, they’re brilliant. Fact. 10/10

Mum, I got an A* in Burger Flipping…

// January 28th, 2008 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

Today the rapidly diminishing in my eyes Gordon Brown announced that organisations like McDonalds and flyBe will start to train their staff with diploma level qualifications.

Now I appreciate that with labour bringing in university fee’s a few years back and forcing lower income families to not even consider university that this may well be a way to get in around the back - work at MuckyDee’s for 4.27 an hour and pay your way through university - and also get the grades you need to get into unviersity.

I don’t know… can’t seeing anyone getting into Oxford or Cambridge on 5 A’s from Network rail…

I’ve turned into what…?

// January 28th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Random Stuff

Something strange happened… I just went to the shop to grab some milk. And in doing so I bought ‘Mens Health’… Thinking that possibly my new years resolutions have gone to my head. PC magazines, XBOX magazines, Arena… Yes, these are all perfectly acceptable. But I’ve turned into the kind of prick who buys Men’s Health.

Really not happy with myself…

A V P R - Alien vs. Predator - Requiem

// January 28th, 2008 // No Comments » // Reviews

A movie so great they named it twice. Yes, of course. AVPR has these great closing credits, big and metalic looking in a stupidly large typeface that just scream “we’re soo far up our own arse we really want you to know who made this movie” - I mean, for christ sake… DIRECTED THE BROTHERS STRAUSE… utter bollocks. Unfortunately the credits are jsut a continuation of the rest of the movie - which as far as I’m aware isn’t meant to be a comedy of plot oversights and completely ridiculous cliches. As action movies go, there is blood, there is gore, there are men running around trying to be manly - there are women running around trying to be manly - it’s just that I didn’t care. I actually prefered the first one of these outings, which is probably the worst thing that I can say about this movie - as the first one was crap - but at least a little funny. This effort just made me want to go to sleep. It was so droll that I didn’t at all mind the bunch of scally bastards sat in the seats in front of me - though at one point thought it might be nice to try a predator move on their faces - SLASH, SMASH, CRUSH… 3/10

Rise of the Machines…

// January 27th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Random Stuff

Today I had the pleasue of seeing how Tesco’s are hoping to make the majority of their staff redundant… the Auto-Checkout. Now these have been around for ages with big supermarkets having hand scanners for years - but, as I’ve kinda lived on takeaway Chinese and Pizza food for the last 20 years I’ve had little reason to go into super markets and see them. Was super easy to use, though I felt like a right idiot not being able to find the barcode on my Observer.

My initial response however is that it make me want to steal things. Just to see if I could fool the system… Wonder if i’m the only one…

Hey Ho…

// January 25th, 2008 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

The witch is dead…

And noone is not clapping their feet! In a spectacular leaving do a work colleague called Heidi once again forgot where she lived after drinking herself to oblivion. This is of course any persons right, however when she spoils the evening of other people this is unacceptable and just one of the reasons that people aren’t overly bothered to see the back of her.

For myself, I threw back 4 pints of cider and then lost at bowling (quite badly), before going on to consume a small amount of sambuka, vodka and more cider besides. And after all that - not really hungover this morning at all.

But I do need coke…

Things NOT to do…

// January 24th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Random Stuff

So, a few little things not to do…

Don’t have a sodding unix box which is going to be compromised and have a script on it which sends a mail out every second.

Then don’t NOT notice it for over 8 months.

Then don’t try to delete all the unsent mails from your badmail folder on the Windows server that the unix box was routing through.

Because that’s what we’ve found today - and the files in my badmail folder have been deleting for over 90 minuntes. At best guess we reckon that the folder must have 8 months worth of files in…

That’s 21,037,950 seconds and a file for each one. I could be deleting for quite some time.

I blame James and Greg - both of whom shall be promptly sacked.

My belated New Years Resolutions

// January 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // Random Stuff

I got to thinking last night that I need a record of all the things that I promised to myself when 2007 rolled into 2008 - just so at the end of the year I can laugh at them all, and make them again having failed every one of them. So, here they are…

• Sort out my tooth-ache.. some time in 2008 I plan on visiting the dentist and having my tooth sorted - the tooth that has addicted me to Codiene in 2007.
• Cut out 90% of my Coke intake.. that is the brown syrupy liquid as opposed to the white powdery nose muck… Which leads nicely to…
• Lose 1/4 of my body weight.. that’s right, I’m about 25% too heavy/fat for my height - I’m hoping that by July I can be well on my way to this. Then maybe put it all back on it time for Christmas 2008. But in the mean time, no domino’s pizza’s 3 nights a week, no eating out for lunch every day. Which leads nicely to…
• Become financially viable.. the last few years have been good ones and I’ve made real in-roads into my 60k’s worth of unsecured debt. 2008 will be the year that I eventually bring this debt completely under control and by the end of 2008 I want to be down to only 1 loan. Finance before Fun. Which is totally non-condusive to…
• Move to London.. the last few years have seen a desire within me reawaken - and that desire is to move back to our fair countries Capital. Light is lighter there, people are nastier there, and the streets are paved with GOLD!
• Blog.. I want to make sure to blog at least once a day on here or write a scathing paragraph or two over at Matts 2 Minute Reviews… This is the one least likely to happen.

So there I am, 6 steps to happiness for Matt in 2008.