Happy Blogday!

Hooray! You're Born And Then You Die is 1 year old today. I can't believe it's been a year since I did my very first posting. I'm also amazed that I've kept going this long. Today is posting number 145. That equates to an average of a posting every 3 days which I reckon is not bad at all.

In the last 12 months I've posted my thoughts on a huge variety of subjects including: football, trees, work, my wife, cars, poo, booze, relationships, the weather, my parents, lighthouses, being 40, Birmingham City, iPods, iMacs, flags, British barbeques, language, DIY, rozzers, the Simpsons, tennis, refrigeration, ballooning, the cat, mobile phones, shopping, Tony Blair, Greenland, fish & chips, dry cleaning, public transport, scissors, podcasting, zoos, holidays, burgers, pigeons, murder mystery, pears, Captain Pugwash, Citroen 2CV's, walking, false boobs, Hallowe'en, global warming, neck pain, Iceland, sheep, weddings, horses and carts, wee-wee, facelifts, computer games, nuclear testing, broadband, tinned fish, iTunes, Cricket, chestnuts, the ELF Cup, digital radio, car parking, being ill, food, arrogance, tiredness, plagiarism, movies Christmas and cheese.

Not bad eh? Mind you, one of the reasons I've kept YBATYD going is all the support I've had from my band of merry readers, especially those who give me feedback in emails and by posting comments. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed. I really, really do appreciate your sterling efforts. If you haven't done so, do give the comments a read as there is some pure, golden wit to be found. Another thing you may like to try is the 'Lables' facility. Each posting is tagged with labels that connects posts with related content. I've tagged nearly every posting now so if you liked a posting on, say, gadgets or Greenland, then just click on the label under that posting and everything I've ever written on that subject will be presented to you in a flash. Go on, have a go.

Finally today, I'd like to say that YBATYD has been a real revelation to me. I never realised what a wonderful diary it would become. However, it's so much more than a diary because it contains the feedback and thoughts of people (some of whom I don't even know) who have actually read what I've written. I really like that because it's great to share your views with others and with a 'normal' diary you just don't get that outside input.

Well, as we teeter on the precipice of a new year, I hope you've all enjoyed reading YBATYD. I try to make it amusing, even funny on occasion, but tempered by realism. Heaven forefend that I should become a parody of myself. That would never do.

And so, dear readers, it's goodbye to 2006 and a Happy Birthday to YBATYD. See you next year!

Happy iPod

I have had a problem with my iPod. I was getting the dreaded 'Error 48' which basically means that you cannot update your iPod from iTunes. Not only that, but all the album artwork gets jumbled up, photos won't display and ... and ...

Well anyway, I rang the friendly Apple technical support chaps and they fixed it for me. If anyone's actually interested, the solution is a temporary workaround until they issue some updated firmware for the iPod. Hooray.

So now my iPod is a happy gadget again and I am a happy chappie again. When my gadgets become poorly I get really hassled. Like I did when my iMac was unwell a while ago and like I did when my Xbox 360 felt unwell a few months back. So as you can see, my personal happiness is directly related to the well-being of just about any electronic, inanimate items that I own. Is that weird?

Oh who cares? I'm going to give my telly a cuddle.

Amnesia update

Thanks to Kelvin (comment on previous post) regarding the film I was waffling on about yesterday. Yes indeed, it's Memento (2002) starring Guy Pearce. Of course I would have remembered it eventually. Possibly. I wonder if there are any other memory-loss-related films out there? Actually, I don't really care if I never see another amnesia-related movie.

I'd only forget I'd seen it.

Back to work

I suppose it had to happen. Work. The weird thing is though that when I came back, everything was almost exactly the same as when I finished work on Saturday afternoon. Now that's both good and bad. It's good in that I was able to slide back into things without any problems. It's bad in that it made me feel like I'd never been away. It's almost like Xmas never happened.

Now feeling like something never happened has got me thinking about amnesia. There was great film I saw which was all about a bloke who lost his memory and had to piece his life back together bit by bit to find out how and why he murdered someone. The thing is, I can't remember the name of the bloody film. My wife will remember though.

She has an astonishing ability to recall characters, plots, sub-plots and actors from tons of films. She's also very good at watching films. By this I mean that even if something is evidently quite seriously crap, she'll just keep right on to the end. I don't think she's ever given up on a film, no matter how abysmal. Now, me, I'll happily press 'stop' on the old DVD player if the film is really poor, but not her. She'll carry stoically on to the bitter end regardless. I really do admire her fortitude.

She reminds me of a film critic. If you're a crtitic you simply have to watch movies in their entirety so that you can provide a full and detailed critique afterwards. So that's what my wife does, which is admirable but not always neccessary. For example after about 4 minutes of the 2002 film 'The Secretary', I was able to declare that it was indeed, crap. 100 minutes later my wife came to the same conclusion. And my point? I saved 100 minutes of my life. Yet, I must be fair. She often watches films that have had awful reviews or start off really badly but have actually turned out to be little crackers. So maybe she's right after all. Oh, I appear to be rambling. How did I get on to this subject? I can't remember.

Oh yes, amnesia. Er..

Blogging on Boxing Day

Well Christmas is over for another year and as a result, the sales are already on. We're being inundated with ads on the telly for 'massive discounts on all sofas', 'huge price reductions on shagpile carpets' and 'amazing savings on all printers'. Oh the joys of retail mania. I don't know if any of you brave souls will be venturing out to DFS, Carpetrite or PC World today, 'cos I know I definitely won't be.

So if you're not going to be buying stuff you can't afford, maybe you'll be enjoying your Xmas pressies? I did really well on the gift front. My top pressies included 'Monty Python & The Holy Grail' on DVD (along with 'the Meaning of Life'); the new Bill Bryson book; some very funky new shoes, a Jamie Oliver 'flavour-shaker' and ... well, it can only be described as a suspiciously sexual-looking banana-holder. Just see the photo and we'll talk about it no more.

Well, as I type I'm having a Skype conference call with my two sisters (one in the UK and one in the USA) which is always an incredible experience. This is because my two sisters are loudest human beings on the planet. Really. However, I'm pretty loud too so when we are all talking at the same time, we can shatter windows and make birds drop out of the sky with no problem. If you add in various nieces, nephews and other relatives it can end up sounding like Krakatoa on steroids. It's just great to chat to everyone though.

Ah well, it's time to head off to some more in-laws now for yet more food and drink although unbelievably, I only drank one glass of wine yesterday. This must mean I'm not 100% well, which I'm not. And no, it's not man-flu either, before you ask. I'm sure I shall soldier manfully on despite my illness and suffering.

And I'll only get hammered to be polite. Obviously.

Merry Christmas!

I can't stop - Chrismassy things to enjoy, so here's to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and I hope you have as much fun as I'm having. Full, present run-down soon, including my new shoooooes!

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way ....

My Christmas Eve message

This could be one of my shortest posts ever. I would just like to wish all my readers a very merry Christmas for tomorrow. Wherever you are in the world tonight, I just hope that your Christmas is a special, warm and loving time where you get a chance to experience the humanity of your fellow man. Even if it's just for one day out of the year - share some love with someone because ...

... you're born and then you die, so you may as well enjoy the bit in the middle.

Random occurence of the day

I was driving to work this morning and I witnessed one of those delightfully random sights that make you feel so pleased that you own a pair of fully working eyeballs. Now in the photo above you can see a young chap using a 'diablo'. A diablo is one of those 'circus-skills' pieces of equipment that many people have tried but few have mastered - myself included.

The way it's supposed to work is that you hold a stick in each hand. They are connected by a length of string/twine upon which you place the plastic bit, shaped like two cups stuck together, on. Once it's sitting there you start moving the sticks up and down, alternately, so that the plastic 'cups' thing starts to spin. Once you get up some good speed you can then flick it into the air and then (and this is the hard bit) catch it on the string again as it comes back down. That's just the basic method and as you can tell, it's really pretty tricky to achieve. Once you get really competent you can do loads more, but just getting started is a real challenge.

So imagine my visual joy when I drove past this ancient bloke who was attempting to master the diablo, this morning. He must have been about 80. He was wearing a flat cap, cardigan and old trousers that didn't quite reach his ankles. He was standing on the pavement next to a busy main road at 8.55 am - with a bright orange diablo set.

I don't know if he'd escaped from somewhere or was just a sad, old circus grandad who was trying to re-live the glorious diablo-days of yesteryear ... on the pavement. Don't get me wrong though. He looked very happy and was obviously having a whale of a time.

Oh the fun you can have with two sticks, a bit of string and a lump of plastic.

Thank you Secret Santa

I don't know who he or she is but I love them. If you don't know what Secret Santa is, it's one of those stupid ideas that got made up by someone, once upon a time that is still around now. And actually, it's not so stupid, it's actually quite nice and even good fun.

The idea is simple. At your place of work you pick a name of a colleague out of a hat, buy them a pressie worth about a fiver (or more if you work in London or Haverford West), wrap it and lob it in a box. On the big day, someone dresses up as the big, fat jolly fella and hands out the gifts. The thing is though, no-one knows who has bought which present. It's all very exciting, especially as some people get crap presents and others get truly wonderful ones.

Well, guess who got a wonderful one? Moi. Oh yes indeedy. I got a Birmingham City scarf and how chuffed was I? Very, extremely a lot chuffed. It's something I've been meaning to get for years as my old scarf died when I was about 16 and ever since I've always felt a bit naked in the neck department so this was the perfect gift. The only downside is that as I don't know who bought it for me, I can't thank them. Maybe they'll read this and then they'll now how really grateful I am. I wonder what I'll get next year?

Birmingham City pants maybe?

Too busy?

Aaaarrggh! My God, I can be so unreliable sometimes. OK, enough of me going on and on about not posting much at the moment. I did say this would be the case a while ago, so in my defence, I did warn you, dear readers. There, I feel better now.

So Christmas is nearly upon us again. I feel a tad guilty as this year, a large proportion of the presents I've bought have been purchased either via the wonders of the Tinterweb or have been the 'safe' sorts of presents that require little or no planning / tortuous trips to every shop in town. However, I actually know that these gifts will be just what people want ... er, I hope so. Oh well, everyone finds a portable toilet seat warmer useful. Don't they?

I promised I'd give you some detail on some recent events. One of these was (one of) our office party(s) that we had at lunchtime last Friday. There was the interesting mix of extroverts, show-offs and professional drinkers on our table whilst all the other tables housed accountants, council workers and solicitors. We stuck out like the proverbial 'sore thumb' which is exactly the way I like it. God we were loud, especially when we won, by some miracle, the obligatory, festive 'pub quiz'. There were rumours that we had cheated by using Google on someone's mobile phone but the solicitors were obviously a bit crap as they failed to make the allegation stick. Ha!

The highlight of the whole 'do' was the drunken version of 'Oops Upside Your Head' performed by some of our most esteemed staff in front of a hundred or so stunned onlookers. This was at 2pm. That's 2pm. It's just a shame I had to go to work afterwards. On second thoughts...

If you can bear it, I'll be back soon with more excitement and tales of wonder from my fabulous world. Oh yes and in response to a comment - no I'm not the burly copper. I'm also not a cross-dressing, Welsh hermaphrodite with a penchant for pink leotards and lemming milk.

Sometimes I worry about me. This is one of those times.

Sorry sorry sorry

Oh my God. I haven't posted for THREE days. I'm so sorry my loyal readers. I promise to get back on the straight and narrow immediately. My only excuse is that life/work is very busy right now and I'm immensely tired. OK, that's a crap excuse so I apologise for that as well.

Right, well as this is merely a grovelling apology, I'll write no more for now but I will write again tomorrow and let you know all about my amusing/bizarre Xmas 'do' at work, Birmingham's brilliant victory on Saturday and the ear-shattering pub band I had the er, joy of hearing tonight.

So don't despair, I shall return. Oh and I'll tell you about me, the drunk and the off-duty policeman on Saturday night. That's all I can think of for now but I shall furnish you with all the juicy details in the coming week. Oh and I have to 'sorry' yet again as I haven't had time to do my podcast which was due this weekend. I just can't cope with having to do all these things at once.

If only I'd been born a woman...

One in 52,000,000

Apparently I'm a minority. I'm one in only 52 million people who have their own blog. I've just been reading about a report by some analysts that says that blogging is set to peak in 2007. Ooh, I hope I don't peak too early.

Anyway, the story (click the title of this posting to take you to the BBC site) says that "during the middle of next year the number of blogs will level out at about 100 million". However, what's more interesting is that according to the report by analysts Gartner, 200 million people had stopped writing their blogs. Now this got me thinking about this blog. Back on the 25th Jan 2006, I wrote in a posting about my blog fatigue, saying that the 'pressure' of having to come up with (hopefully) witty and interesting stuff regularly is actually quite pressurised. So I decided that I'd just post my thoughts when I felt like it and not when I felt I should. This made a big difference and in fact, I now blog every 1-2 days but if I have to leave it any longer, then that's OK by me.

So I suppose 2 million people just couldn't face the self-imposed pressure of writing stuff on a regular basis. A major factor for me keeping on writing, is the feedback (be it emails or comments), that I get from you, my loyal and lovely readers. It's provides me with a real incentive to continue my vague ramblings and inane thoughts.

So thank you for reading and remember: You're born and then you die, so you may as well enjoy the bit in the middle...

You'd be proud Mrs Curbishley

Alan Curbishley is a football manager. Today, he was announced as the new manager of Premiership team West Ham Utd. As well as being a manager, he was previously a player at several clubs including West Ham and Birmingham City. I remember watching him play for the Blues back in the early 1980's.

It was also at this time that I used to insist that my mum should learn all the names of the Blues players. This was so I could impress my mates with my mum's excellent footie knowledge. Ha, it makes me laugh just recalling the hours she spent pretending to be thrilled at having to learn all these blokes names. However, she did so with gusto and my mates all thought she was dead cool and a credit to mum's around the world. Well, the village anyway.

So imagine my surprise and joy when I received a text message from her yesterday saying "Didn't Alan Curbishley, proposed manager of West Ham, used to play for Birmingham?" Obviously I fired off a speedy response in the affirmative, adding that I was well impressed with her knowledge. So, if Alan's mum ever reads this I hope she realises just how memorable her little lad has become.

1-0 to my mum I think.

Xmas lights

Following on from a previous post and due to popular demand, here is a photo of our neighbour's magnificent light display. The photo just cannot do it justice but believe me, the flashing-ness has to be seen to be believed. We love it. Click on the photo for a larger (grainy I'm afraid) version.

Let there be light ...

Friends are great

Just had a really great weekend and it was great because we saw some of our friends. On Friday we went to see two people who we always love going to see. You can always tell when you get on with someone when you feel like you're just going into another room in your house. I like that feeling.

Whilst we were there, aside from all the usual stuff - eating and drinking, we also played this DVD pub quiz game. Oh hilarity abounded. Why? Well most of the questions were completely impossible to answer. Questions like 'The first television broadcast was in which year? 1915, 1924, 1926, 1929'. Er.... There was another question that asked what relation someone whom we'd never heard of was to someone else we'd never heard of. Tricky. So the whole thing became lesson in guesswork and thus, the game was the winner. Thank God for alcohol.

On Saturday we went to see some other friends and their beautiful 5 month-old baby girl. She's a right looker even with a chin full of dribble and, as they say, will one day break a thousand hearts. Bless her. Babies are great. They do such random things like laughing, crying and vomiting. She did two out of three as crying ain't really in her repertoire which is quite unusual for a baby. It must be her wonderful parents influence.

I learnt one new and disturbing fact about babies on that night. Apparently it's really easy for milk to find it's way into the folds of skin round the little 'uns neck when it's very young. This milk build up can go un-noticed until bathtime by which time it's magically turned into a form of soft cheese. Oh my God! Mind you, if you've run out of Dairylea ...

Sorry about that last comment. The weekend was also the time to out up the old Xmas decorations and erect the magnificent tree (Homebase £39.99 last year). So now it all looks dead festive although I'm on the hunt for some outdoor fairy lights seeing as how we have Blackpool illuminations over the road, I don't want to feel left out. I strongly believe that whatever lighting I put up, it will still pale into insignificance when stacked up against our neighbours amazing display.

Maybe I'll just wrap some tinsel round the drainpipe.

Cor blimey, a tornado

I was talking the other day about the lack of severe weather recently. Now I'm not advocating meteorologically-induced death and destruction, just a bit of flooding, heavy snow or strong winds. Strong winds, yes but surely not tornadoes? Well, as you may or may not know, we do get a few 'tornadoes' in the UK each year although these tend to be ickle, teensy-weensy efforts that may just manage to lift a bobble hat off a toddler or whip a stray raspberry from an outdoor trifle. However we don't usually get full bifters tornadoes like the one that hit part of London the other day.

OK, so it's not quite the F5 tornado that nailed Oklahoma a few years back but it was still pretty impressive by UK standards. However, being England, there had to be a funny side. I was watching the news and they were reporting on the whole thing. They were interviewing eye witnesses and most people were quietly saying how shocking and unbelievable it all was. Suddenly this mad Londoner appeared. She was very excited and was describing this "major tornado". The best bit was when she said the following (picture it - eyes wide, hair all over the place and talking like a rabid goat-herder)- "... it was so loud and you could hear the wind rushing through the house ... it sounded like the doors were going to be ripped off and they nearly were!" Brilliant. 'The doors were ripped off'. No-one died, her house wasn't torn from it's foundations but a door nearly came adrift from it's frame.

Now that's cutting edge reporting for you.

Second Life

No, I'm not talking about the return of Jesus or my alternative, weekend persona - Cassandra. I'm talking about that oh so bizarre phenomenon that is the online, virtual 3D world with over a million 'residents,. I've heard a lot about it in recent weeks and was intrigued to find out what all the fuss was aboutand I took my first tentative steps into this other world today.

It's actually quite an overwhelming experience. Yeah, I know that sounds a bit odd/dramatic/geeky but it's true. The first thing I must say is that Second Life (SL) is NOT a game. It's a whole 'world' filled with virtual people who are created by real people. You can choose to look however you like (200 tweaks can be made) and you can change your appearance whenever you wish. So what do you actually do there? Chat, communicate, share experiences, fly (yes you can fly), build homes, set up businesses - anyting you can do in the real world and a whole lot more.

What's really amazing is that although everything in SL is virtual, there's plenty of real money involved. I haven't learnt all the details yet but I do know that in SL is a virtual currency called the Linden dollar. You can buy virtual dollars with real-world cash. You use this money to buy and rent land, build property and a myriad other services. There are even real-life companies existing in SL. Companies such as Adidas, Dell (you can buy a real PC there), MTV, Reuters, Toyota and the BBC who recreated the 2006 One Big Weekend event on a 64 acre virtual island! Just to demonstrate how big this whole SL thing is, in September 06 the Second Life economy generated US$3,596,674 in economic activity and as of September 2006 Second Life was reported to have a GDP of $64 Million. However, I'm not interested in any of that right now.

I'm just trying to get my hair colour right.

Top 5 websites

I was asked to suggest my top 5 websites for a magazine the other day. I had to write 100 words on each site and why I liked it. I thought it would be easy but, surprisingly, it was much harder than I had expected. You see, in reality, my favourite websites are mostly technology or news-related sites and I thought it would come across a bit narrow-minded if my top 5 were all in the same vein. The other problem was suggesting sites that are really obvious or bog-standard ones like the BBC website. Mind you, I did choose a couple of very well-known sites but hopefully I managed to give a different perspective on them. Gosh, isn't this serious and grown-up?

So what did I choose? Well, I resisted the urge to mention YBATYD which I thought was extremely modest of me. The ones I did choose were: Stuff (gadgets & tech); Google (not the search engine bit - things like Gmail, Reader and docs); Apple (not just Mac's - movie trailers too); Fuel of Britain (Pot Noodle game! 2D platform game where a fat Welsh miner digs fro Pot Noodles); YouTube (yeah I know, but it's a Web 2.0 site so therefore, socially important. Er..)

www.pantswithgravy.com didn't make the cut. Sadly.

Podcast

Just a quick one. It's podcast time again although my podcast site seems to have gone all to cock. I'm working on it. In the meantime, if you haven't done so already, you can subscribe from the podcast site, via iTunes. Just click on the 'podcast' link at the top of the YBATYD blog page. The podcast is available to you now.

It's been a busy weekend as we went to see the panto on Friday followed by the traumatic experience of Christmas shopping yesterday followed by the slightly more enjoyable activity of going to see the new James Bond film, Casino Royale today. It was really pretty great although a million miles away from the glittery, cross-dressing extravaganza that the panto was.

You can't beat watching hairy blokes in dresses, dancing though.

Hello December

Oooh slap my thighs and go to the foot of our stairs. Haven't I been remiss? No postings for two whole days. I think I may have contravened the International Blogging Code of Conduct, section 228k, sub-section 9, paragraph d, point 11a (revised) which states that "the blogger shall, notwithstanding acts of God; force majeure; actual or attempted terrorist actions; flood, fire, earthquake, volcanic eruption, hurricane, tornado, stiff breeze or lack of interest, ensure that a posting (henceforth referred to as 'a posting') shall be actioned on a daily basis insofar and without prejudice, it is feasible and safe (without contravention of local and/or global health & safety regulations) to do so."

So I apologise.

Well, what's happened in those 'missing' days? Well my Xbox 360 returned from Microsoft's repair centre, somewhere in deepest southern England into my excited, sweaty little mitts. Er, that's about it other than to mention our fantastic neighbours over the road who yesterday switched on their absolutely wonderful Christmas lights. They are a joy to behold and I shall endeavour to get a photo for you all soon. I assure you, it'll be worth the wait.

So December is here and that means the festive season is now definitely upon us. Mind you, just about every retail outlet in the land seems to think we want to start buying Christmas presents in bloody September. I really hate that. It's nearly as bad as the January sales that actually start 14 seconds after Christmas day. And don't get me started on Easter.

Prepare for the 'January-Easter-Xmas-Passover-Diwali bonanza sale special'