26.point.1

Bill.

// March 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Reviews

So, I moved into my new home last June, and when I did so I had trouble getting my hot water to work… It annoyed me at the time until I found the switch behind the boiler that apparently turned the hot water system on. I merrily flicked it on and then used the hot water and heating panel on the wall. Happy times. My electricity meter reading at the time was 42,100 units.

I thought nothing more of this until just after Christmas when I returned home from my parents to find there was hot water in my taps - “Strange I thought… maybe I left my hot water on while I was away?” but mostly just ignored it and went around Christmas festivities.

So, about 8 weeks ago I got a new estimated electricity bill. And because it seemed quite high I phones E.ON up to enquire about why it was so high - now of course at this point the person on the phone was a numb nuts and couldn’t help, but did a very good job of reiterating that I should just get my meter read - as I’m in a block of flats the nice concierge man has to read my meter.

So, the next day I asked Barry the concierge to do me a meter reading and then went off happily to work.

When I returned home I almost died - Barry had put the meter reading into my mail box and it was 24,100 units… I was slightly mortified as my head went back to having hot water when I shouldn’t have and I once again visited my boiler.

Turns out - it’s an immersion heater and I’d been boiling water solid for 9 months - at this point in the story I got VERY worried, very worried indeed - stopped sleeping, became moodier than morning, started snapping… wasn’t a good time to be me. 80,000 units of electricity, in my head that must be about 80,000 pounds?! Yes, very worried.

Well, the end of the story comes this past week when I sat in the pub recounting this exact story to a few friends - one of whom did the sensible thing and actually looked up the price of electricity - not the £1 a unit I thought it was, nearer 11p - so I’d gone from owing £80,000 to only owing about £9,000 - funnily, at this point I was really happy. Only 9k?! Peanuts. So much so that I thought I’d go out and celebrate, but decided to take my laptop bag home first.

As I walked into the flat and saw the E.ON bill I thought that I’d been fated to have a shit day after all and it was a 50/50 decision whether to get the pain over with or put it off till the next day.

Needless to say I kinda thought “fuck it” and opened the mail… they’d performed a meter reading, they knew how much electricity I had used, I was in deep shit… Yes, I’d used 44,160 units… I read the bill again, more than a little ecstatic… turns out that Barry the concierge had read the first 4 as a 2. Turns out I had no need to have sleepless nights. Turns out that I owed 250 quid to the electricity company. Turns out that I didn’t need to be a miserable bastard for 8 weeks.

So, do I sue Barry for emotional distress?

Review and Resolutions

// January 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Diet and Exercise, Money, Quiz, Random Stuff, Reviews, snZero

8/10 & 1920 x 1200 for the laptop, about the same for the Mac on the TV.

2009 has been and gone now, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I’ve made a load of new friends through taking over the quiz at The Adelphi, Pin and doing one at the Nation of Shopkeepers here in Leeds. I’ve made a fair few new friends through my endeavour to unite the digital folks of Leeds with snZero, which is still getting more than 50 people a month turning up. I even made random friends in the shape of The Salts girls through a drunken night out early in the year. Truth be told that my facebook friend count has gone up quicker and to a greater degree than ever before. And for this I am happy.

That said, work has been a up and down slalom of emotions, busy for 12 months, new clients, demanding decisions, new people, old people, gone people. And for the first time in my life I think I really know what stress is. Even when I used to work 18 hours a day it wasn’t as stressful as the last year has been. If I had hair I think that it would have deserted me by now. But of course it deserted me ages ago.

On the plus side, I went and lost almost 4 stone in the middle of the year. Granted I then went and put a stone of it back on. But hell, only a couple of stone too heavy … and not “obese” any more. So that made me a happy bunny. Not happy enough, but happy enough to fit into a 34″ pair of jeans - and my black Boss suit from years gone by. So yeah, happy.

And on the minus side, I’m still single. And still have no hair. Though I do have  an ace flat. Rough with the smooth eh…

Back at the start of 2009 I made the following guesses for what the year would bring…

• Sort out my tooth-ache.. Yeah, I did this. Not had a toothache since March.
• Cut out 90% of my Coke intake.. Yup, did this too really. Not had more than a can a week really.
• Lose 1/4 of my body weight.. Probably managed 1/5 … ish.
• Become financially viable.. I have a credit score of 900/1000 - which must be good? Still owe almost 20k…
• Blog… Yeah, not really.

So as you can see I managed most of them to a degree of success. 2010 is all about…

• Lose 1/5 of my body weight.. I want to get down to 12 stone… ish.
• Become financially viable.. I want to be down to 10k debt by year end…
• Blog… NO, not really… Though I do want to take a photo a week…

And those are my real resolutions.

Avatar

// December 19th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Reviews

Last night I went to see Avatar. I saw it in 3D.

From a technological point of view the 3d is simply breathtaking immense, I was expecting something more than the heady days of red and green lenses, but I was not expecting it to be jaw droppingly amazing.

From a movie point of view it’s like going back to being 6 years old and seeing all 3 original star wars movies for the first time, but possibly better.

There are no mere human words to express how much I recommend that you all spend £8.10 on a cinema ticket for the 3D version of this movie – if it was a choice of seeing this film or cancelling Christmas, then I’d cancel Christmas. And shoot Santa.

Three months of snZero

// November 28th, 2009 // No Comments » // Reviews, snZero

That’s right it’s been three months since my foolhardy decision to bring to Leeds a new social event aimed at a more broad spectrum audience than GeekUp, Girl Geek Dinner and Open Coffee mornings have traditionally allowed for. And each month seems to bring new things - both good and bad.

Month one was held in the Adelphi pub at the end of September and was a sponsored event (by Hotfoot Recruitment and myself) who generously paid for the bar tab on the night. It was a night which I spent running around much like a deheaded chicken attempted to say Hi to as many people who would chat back. And while lots of Hi’s were said I didn’t actually get to say anything meaty to many people. That said there was lots of very positive twitter feedback after the event and many emails of support from people who’d had a good time - and as my only measurement for success for the night had been to speak to 10 people that I’d never spoken to before the 100 people or so that turned up meant that for myself the event was a success.

Month two was again at the Adelphi pub, but was unsponsored - after getting 8 agencies wanting to sponsor us in month one they all dried up in the space of 30 days. Having already done one event the second was a little less frantic, both for myself and for the bar staff who were presently surprised that in month 2 people actually used words like please and thankyou - something that had apparently been missing when the event had free beer. Month 2 had less people than the first month with probably only around 80 turning up, and without the free beer people came and went throughout the night as opposed to all turning up at 6pm with pint glasses in hand. With month 2 I’d had no real measurement for success, I was just hoping for a good crowd of people and some good feedback - and we got both. And personally I thought it was a better event than the first.

Most agreed, with a few exceptions.

It turned out that people had been expecting more of a format to the event than just come along and talk to people who work in the same industry as you - they wanted things to break the ice, they wanted talking points, they wanted presentations. It was at this point we put together a steering group that consisted of myself, Guy Redwood of Simple Usability fame, Andy Banks of Digital Welly and Andy Hey of Enjoy Digital amongst many things. And on a rainy Wednesday in October we can together and agreed the way that we wanted the event to go - yes to talking points, yes to ice breakers and ways to get people talking, no to sponsorship and definitely no to talks and presentations. And it was with this in mind that we set about event 3.

With new discipline appropriate stickers to scribble on and introduce yourself, with new talking point boards to give people without much to say something to talk about and with no presentations in sight we headed into event 3 - the final snZero of 2009, and in a new venue - the Brewery Tap.

A smaller venue and less people again, we probably only put about 50 people through the doors in November it again had a good buzz and I met some really good people - and actually got to really talk to some cool people too - I had a great conversation with Tero Väänänen for example on photography and how it doesn’t matter what equipment you use, it’s about the final article. And in itself I just now realise it’s a fantastic analogy for snZero as a whole - because for all the stickers and boards that we produced they had a limited effect in my opinion on how much fun people had. And I’d hope, and truly believe that the people who turned up had a good time. Darren Scotland was vocal on how the event has attracted a much wider audience than other similar events he’s been to, and that’s something I’m more than happy to hear given the reasons that I set the event up.

So for 2010? Well, we’ll be back in the Adelphi pub now that it’s been refurbished and hoping that word of mouth will start to spread, that we can get some larger agencies involved (Pi, Swamp, etc) and that I can have some useful, entertaining and interesting chats with people who sit at their desks and make websites everyday - while at the same time having a few pints as well. Will it happen? I don’t know in all honesty - I’m not reading too much into the diminishing numbers at the moment - we’re going towards Christmas and people have less money, and even with 50 people those 50 people were all good people who I could hold a conversation with and have a chuckle with too. So I’m happy. And again I hope and believe that people were too.

I’m proud of snZero, and happy for all the people that I’ve met so far - and so to all those that have attended an snZero in 2009 I would like to say thank you, and for the rest of you I hope to see you in 2010 - because I’ve got a LOT of stickers left.

40 x (8) days of random girls…

// September 3rd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Random Stuff, Reviews

Been looking forwards to (500) Days of Summer for a while now, and it didn’t disapoint - Isn’t Zooey Deschannel almost perfect? Awesome movie - funny, sad, happy, funny, good soundtrack… Zooey Deschannel.

It did however occur to me that my life mimmicks the first 8 days of the lead male characters life quite a lot… time and time and time again. And then some more.

I should man up.

Star Trek

// May 7th, 2009 // No Comments » // Reviews

The first movie of the year to live up to the hype. As a die hard trekkie there was always a chance I’d hate it - but I think that it works on both the level of long term fans and also those that are looking for a really great science fiction story.

If you’re a fan of the original series then there are some epic funny moments, and the guy who plays Bones is genius casting - in fact the only real let down (but from an under-utilisation angle, not from him being shit) was Simon Pegg’s ‘Scotty’. The story is great, the acting is great, the effects are great.

I honestly loved this movie. And then they played a reworked ToS theme over the end credits and made the whole thing perfect.

10/10

Valkyrie

// January 29th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Reviews

Über scientology nut Tom Cruise tries to convince us he’s German (slipping in and our of a very good american accent at times), as do the rest of the supporting staff with their faux German (sounding very British/Yorkshire) accents… Very good movie let down by a couple of major flaws. Besides the accents that is.

The first being that our ‘hero’ and his wife both have brown hair - and their 17 children are all little nazi slave kids with blond hair and blue eyes… The second being that we all know there were no nice Germans during the war - or at least not in any part of the war where the Germans seemed to be doing well and I resent being told that there were… The Germans were bad (this is more a gripe with history than the movie though I guess if this really is based on a true story).

Thirdly, we kinda know the ending already… how much suspense can there really be? Anyone seen the blooper reel for history where Hitler died? No, thought not.

My Bloody Valentine

// January 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Reviews

A technology led movie - as it should have been in 3D if my cinema was any good - which puts little interest in story, acting ability, or story - choosing instead to shower the viewer with gore, lingering (way too long) shots of eyeballs, pick handles and sharp jabby things meant to impress upon us a feeling of depth to the screen (which we all know would be better if we were at one of the 7 global multiplexes showing it in 3D), and some bouncy breasts to boot (about the only thing I would have been interested in experiencing in 3D).

Crap story, shit actors, and so many plot holes it could be a pair of fishnets… And “valentine red” coloured ones at that!

Oh, and let’s not mention the ending eh? It’s like Shrooms all over again…

Wagamama screw up vouchers… Again!

// January 2nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Random Stuff, Reviews

Which is to say that just as last year, Wagamama spent the entirety of December giving away vouchers to people inviting them back to enjoy 2 for 1 main meals, as well as vouchers to get a free side dish with any main meal. These deals in themselves are great - it’s just that (and this is possibly just confined to the Leeds restaurant) they totally forget that they’ve done this and expect absolutely no uplift in the number of people coming into the place.

This means that when you arrive you have to wait over 10 minutes to be seated, even though there are plenty of empty seats. This means that your drinks take ages to arrive. This means that your food takes even longer, and if you’ve got a starter it also means that if you want to enjoy it as a ’side dish’ then it will probably be cold before your main arrives. It also means that when you ask staff for anything that they just ignore you. And then look grumpy when you don’t tip them.

All in all, totally not satisfied.

The Dark Knight

// July 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // Reviews

While full of expectation, The Dark Knight is truly a movie that takes hype and eats it up for breakfast, and I emerged from the auditorium with my special edition holographic poster clutched tightly in hard, and a warm feeling in my gut - from the pitch perfect performances of Heath ‘The Legend’ Ledger, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale and pretty much everyone else for that matter - to a story which had my mouth agape in more than one spot, pretty much everything about this movie is brilliant. Well, pretty much…

• The Bat Pod reversing up walls is fairly crap
   
• Harvey two face is NOT brilliant as per reviews I’ve read - he is in fact a bit shit. Think Evil Dead.
   
• The sonar crap is well, crap. Yes, Bats have sonar, doesn’t mean that The Batman needs sonar. And if you’re going to do it then do it - but do it for the reason it was intended, don’t then make Batman’s eyes blue and attempt to fuck up a perfectly brilliant movie (You know there is an extra action figure planned with blue eyes… )

Yeah, they’re pretty much the negative points… Absolutely, without a doubt, 100%, one of the best films ever! It’s dark, it’s real, and it dares to show us where our societies are probably heading… So, will the real Dark Night please stand up?

9.5/10