Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

I’m currently at the ancient age of 30.

I’ve had a few observations about some people of a similar age. I wonder if it’s some unwritten rule of rite of passage?

If you’re a male with long hair, you will feel the need to cut it short (understandable if you’re receding though)
There’s a high chance you will be married and have kids.
You will put a photo of your kids as your personal profile picture on your Facebook/Twitter/MySpace/etc. page. rather than yourself, as you feel people who are searching for you must be mistaken and are actually searching for your kids instead.
You will develop an uncanny fetish for scat, where you can discuss the colours, consistency and odour of your kids’ faeces with other parents for hours at end.
If not with another parent, you will still discuss your fetish for scat anyway, in the aim to covert other people into your fascination with turd.
You will find getting a new co-ordinating coffee-table for your lounge brings you greater satisfaction than a good shag
On the subject of sex; Rather than just getting on and doing it, you will instead talk and joke loudly about it with lots of smut and cackling/sniggering with other people, as if it is taboo.
You will have no comprehension that people who do not join in with your joking obviously know you make such a big song and dance about it because you’re not actually getting any.
You will willingly choose to shop in a 24 hour supermarket at the busiest, most chaotic time on a Saturday afternoon.
Your cool clothes will be replaced with the drab range from the “I secretly wish I was 40″ range.
If not, they wil be upgraded to “I think I’m still 19″ range.
If a parent, they will be replaced altogether with the “as long as my child is co-ordinated, then it’s ok if I just wear a track-suit as it’s easier” range.
You will name pets with cute or sensible names, rather than funny names.
You will put on a few stone but deny it’s anything to do with eating too much and exercising too little, but put it down to age.
You will get drunk on a few pints, but claim you could drink 27 pints in your early 20’s and still want more.

Any cool people out there still? Or should I just grow up?

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

Sunshine! Wonderful! It is so nice to be able to sit out in the garden in summer clothing.

We invested in a garden table and chairs (metal and glass table rather than plastic) and a decent parasol, so have been enjoying sitting outside chilling and having meals outside as well. This weekend we had fish and chips with a bottle of chilled cava. Perfect!

I’ve also been painting all the fences which thankfully is nearly done now (I hate tedious work like that) and I’m still trying to revive our lawn, which has a lot of bare patches and dried out straw like parts. I’m hoping weed and feed and lots of watering helps. I put grass seed down, but that’s done f-all.

In other news we saw some people trying to break into a neighbour’s van on the weekend, so called the police who caught all three of them red-handed. Result.

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been neglecting this blog of late, as most of my mundane activities are ending up on Twitter these days, so rather than blog posts there is a running commentary instead.

I have lost interest in Facebook altogether now. It seemed fun at first, but these days it looks like it’s aiming at the MySpace mentality. Every time I log on I see pages of crap about someone sending easter eggs or lollypops, ratings in daft surveys, random quizes etc. At least Twitter just cuts out all the crap, if that’s your thing.

Went to Ireland for a week at the start of the month, been to a couple of Salsa nights, been going to the gym. Other than that, there’s not a huge amount to write about.

My Cuba trip is creeping up on my though, so that’s something to get prepared for. Some more hard graft at the gym to help me fit into some beach wear a bit better, brushing up on my basic Spanish and a few trips to the tan shop to prepare my skin gradulally for the Carabean sunshine is in order. Looking forward to it all.

Oh well, that’s about it. I was going to do a longer post but it’s taken a sodding age to load up my blog. Bah!!

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

Fucking wind has snapped one of my front yard fence posts so my fence is ready to fall down. Tried screwing in some brackets to secure it until I have time to get a new post (I’m away this weekend) but the wind is so strong it’s riped these out as well. Now have a creaking fence all night that’s ready to fall down and rip the other posts up with it and I have no free time to try and repair it

My bike cover is gone, again thanks to the fucking wind. Somehow the wind has got through two luggage straps keeping the cover on and it’s nowhere to be seen. Just what I needed - my bike on display all weekend to any thieving scumbag who happens to walk past my house.

An ebay order that I’ve been waiting for for nearly two weeks have finally appeared in the form of a letter, where good old Queen Liz’s Customs and Excises want £66 before they let me have it.

Fucking fuck fucks

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

Friday evening was a Salsa night in Long Eaton, hosted by the chap who organises all the lessons. It was a ticket only affair and only open to the various class members. Even so all the tickets sold out before the night, so glad I got mine when I did.

I’ve been to Salsa nights before, however previously I really didn’t know enough to do much, but it was all good experience anyway. However this time was a lot more enjoyable as I’ve been having lessons for a few months now, so whilst I’m only just being classed as an “improver” from a “beginner” and I’m still leaps and bounds behind the people who have been doing it for a couple of years or more, I know enough moves to have a good old boogie which made all the difference.

In addition this night was all R&B music as opposed to the traditional Latin American salsa tunes. Whilst many “purists” hate R&B, personally I much prefer it - especially as a lot of the tracks I know (yes, I do listen to other music than just rock). We stayed from 8:30pm through to midnight and had several dances. It actually got a bit tiring and I was breaking out in a mild sweat (but thinking about it, salsa dancing is pretty energetic). As usual at these do’s, I don’t drink much but thanks to a cheap bar I had a steady suplly of rum and cokes feeding me.

Being able to hold my own at a Salsa night finally is a great feeling and I am really loving the whole scene. My aim for New Year’s Eve this year is to be at a big Salsa party somewhere and also hitting the clubs in Cuba when we go in a couple of months is still on the agenda.

I had two experienced girlies ask me for a dance which threw me off guard a bit and let to a blurting of “But! I’m shite!” (or words to that effect) and let one to tell me to just relax on the dancefloor,  but with a bit more experience I won’t be such a wuss

I did take a few pics, however lack of flash on the iPhone (thanks Apple!) means I won’t bother posting them

Next dance night in two weeks. Woo!

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

This weekend just gone has been very bike related, which was much needed as this was the first chance I’ve had to properly deflower my R1

Saturday was a trip to the Burnt Stump pub in Arnold where I met up with three other guys off the Nottinghambikers forum and went for a blast around the roads near Southwell and the like. Suffice to say my bike coped a lot better than it’s predecessor and I now remember how nicer Sports bikes are for that style of riding that Sports Tourers. Afterwards it was a trip to Junction 27 to see who else was there doing some knee down antics before a ride back home.

The next day it was up early for the Nottingham Easter Egg Run. I had raised £15 from donations at work and Lisa had collected about £70 from her workplace, plus I had a backpack full of easter eggs.  First off was a trip to McDonalds at Castle Marina to meet up with the rest of the nottinghambikers forum before heading off to the main meet at Forest Fields. All in all there were 800-1000 bikes there which was a great turnout, and the Trent FM girlies and various journos giving it some good publicity. We also had John Reynolds (three times BSB winner) leading the ride.

The ride finally headed off to the Mansfield fire brigade HQ who organised it for a bloody great meeting place with stalls, presentation, food stall, raffles etc. Some pics of the days events are below:

Get thee here if you wanted to see all the photos from my flickr site.

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

I picked up the R1 today.

Took a stroll to the bike shop, went throught the paperwork, paid the outstanding balance, went through everything with the mechanic and then up, up, up and away.

Fast, very fast. 0-60 in about 2.5 seconds fast. Proper sports bike handling as well and you can certaily hear it coming with the growling akropovic pipe.

Most of all though it’s just great not having to knob about with my old bike. This is fuel injection so no messing with the choke lever, I have a light switch again (not linked to the ignition), no corrosion, bits falling off, rattling fairing etc. Just a sweet performing bike.

It now has residence in the front yard with my ground anchor:

As for the old bike, well that needs some work doing to it and I didn’t want two bikes out the front, so I thought I’d see if it would be possible to get it into the back yard, which I really doubted I could do as not only is there a narrow alleyway:

But at the end there’s a 90 degree turn with the gate to the yard on your right:

There’s no way to push the bike around that turn, so I thought I’d have to see if any of that gym work has paid off and can I lift a sports tourer Kawasaki?

Well, my shoulders ache, my arms are probably an inch longer, but taa-daa:

Makes a change to a garden gnome, don’t you think?

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

I decided to move my ZX10 this afternoon to make room above the ground anchor for the R1 on Monday, but also so I could put it on it’s centre stand to give it a check over to see if anything is needed to get it through it’s MOT (I’m pondering keeping it fully legal, as it makes life easier moving it from A to B if I do get rid of it).

It required all my effort just to move the bike a few inches, as once again the brake callipers have totally seized up and the pads are locked onto the disc. A spray of WD40 made it possible to move at all, but I decided that I’ll give it a bit of TLC and remove the brakes, dismantle them, clean them and put them back on. It’s a tedious task (especially bleeding the brakes after I reconnect them), but I thought I have a couple of hours, so why not.

It required a bit of welly undoing the two bolts that hold on each side of callipers, but I got a brake calliper remover from a land rover tool kit off ebay ages ago (basically a really big alan key), which is great as it’s so big it’s easy to get a good pivot on it. The callipers, rather than just slide off once the bolts were off though, again required lots of brute force to get them free of the discs.

And then to undo the brake hoses from the callipers.. After lots of force all I got was my hand slipping twice when the spanner lost it’s grip and bruises under my nails. Soaked the bolts in WD, reattached the calliper to the forks to hold it in place, tried gently tightening and loosing it, but the fucker would not budge. After lots of trying, the most I got was the spanner turning but the bolt staying glued on - a sure sign the bolt head is sheering off.

And this to me really sums up my Kawasaki ZX10 - nothing but fucking stress!! There is no such thing as a simple task, as a routine job needs to be multiplied several times to take in the down right fucking awkwardness of that damn bike. There’s never any sense of achievement either, as solving one problem just means it’s time to tackle the next, and the next and so on.

It’s things like this that is one of the main reasons why I decided that enough is enough and I need to get a new bike before that pissing Kawasaki swats the biking bug out of me once and for all.  I need to think about going for a two hour bike ride with enjoyment - not wonder if it will make it there or I’ll be sitting at the side of the road. I want to do some basic servicing myself, not already prepare for seized on bolts, rust and sheered off bolt heads.

Time has taken it’s toll on that bike and it might do for an experienced mechanic who knows tricks of the trade to not let all the problems if has get them down, but that person is not me.

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

I run the risk of opening myself up for lots of abuse by typing this, but hey-ho, freedom of speech and all.

I honestly do not see why serving in the army automatically makes you a “hero”

Perhaps in the days of old where you generally joined the forces to protect your county, but these days soldiers seem to be fighting other people wars (and illegal wars at that)  and fighting more for oil than freedom.

If we’re on the subject of heroes, then perhaps nurses, carers, police and people from other walks of life are more heroic?

I don’t want to tar everyone in the forces with the same brush here. Putting your life on the line, dodging bullets and risking your limbs being blown off by land mines is not my idea of fun - and putting yourself in that environment either takes a lot of courage, a lot of dedication or a blatant disregard for your own well-being. Does it make you a hero though?

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

This might sound snobbish, but I do get surprised when I see people who I would have classed as fairly intelligent join some really small-minded and petty Facebook groups. I have to wonder if I knew that person at all.

It’s the “tabloid” witch-hunt mentality I really despise. The typical knee-jerk reaction to a current event based purely on emotion rather than any drawn out thought process as to it’s effectiveness or feasibility, with such a two-dimensional view. And if anyone does dare to inject any logic into the argument, then they are classed as the “enemy” to the cause or a worthless do-gooder.

These groups do spring up on Facebook, and when I see “person x has joined this group” (when it’s someone I know), I have to think wtf?

I won’t mention the groups or the people, as everyone is entitled to their opinion and I don’t want to upset anyone.

It’s hardly a surprise that parties like the BNP are gaining popularity though.

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

A bloody good game I found.

I was expecting a 2-0 defeat or at least 3-1, so to make it through to penalties against what is arguably the best club team in the world is a big achievement IMO. The Spurs did me proud. It’s disappointing about the penalties, but such is life. You’d think we would heave learnt the golden rule by now - Englishmen can’t do penalty shoot-outs! Put the foreign players in!

Some points for the Man U fans though:

I don’t care if you have a replica shirt. If you’re born and bred on Nottingham and have never stepped foot inside the city of Manchester (yet alone Old Trafford) then don’t go on about being a die-hard fan. You’re a glory hunter.

Yes, you fielded some of your kids. Spurs were without Keane, Defoe, Cudicini, Woodgate and Chimbonda (so none of this “we played out reservers against your first team!”)

You beat Spurs. A team in a relegation battle who struggled to beat the likes of the mighty Hull and Stoke. Perhaps you should brag about beating larger teams.

You won on penalties. Don’t you think it’s bad it had to get to that stage?

Silly people

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

Whoever said gyms were healthy were so wrong!

They are the ideal places to pick up various bugs and viruses as I’ve found out on several occasions now when I’ve picked up a cold or something equally annoying.  Enclosed spaces, air conditioning, lots of sweaty people breathing heavy and a cleaning policy that leaves a lot to be desired.

My latest ailment is a sore throat and congestion. Yes, I know it’s not life threatening and it’ll have gone in 48 hours, but still a right pain. You expect to feel better after lots of exercise! Not bunged up and groggy. Pah!

My running is still improving at what I like to consider a good rate, especially as it’s something I am very new to. I now have a plan to build me up to running long distance over the next several months. I’m also having to research it more as I’m finding out the hard way that it’s not just fitness that is the only factor in running ability, but also breathing and as I found out yesterday - not to drink too much water.

My aim is to get at a particular standard by September, so here goes

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

Well a big thankyou goes to the staff at the pub in the Village Hotel.

I’m sure the other ten people in there watching the North London derby between Spurs and Arsenal with me felt the same, when the bar staff decided to switch the game off on 75 minutes and refuse to put it back on.

And their reason for doing this? Because they wanted to put on the rugby.

Being a rugby fan myself and a player all through my uni years, then this would be acceptable in certain circumstances - however switching the London derby off three quaters of the way through a match is not one of these circumstances and neither is switching the football off to watch WALES VS SCOTLAND (unless perhaps you were in Wales or Scotland).

Unsuprprisingly there were only two Welshmen in their smirking to themselves for getting one over on the English in England. Perhaps there would have been more people there watching in, however it was being broadcast on BBC1 so they were all no dount at home watching it unlike to London derby which was on Sky Sports.

So well done to the staff at the Village for their shrewd business sense in loosing the custom of ten people (some of whom were ordering meals after the game) to satisfy the two instead. Perhaps business decesions like this explans why your pub is empty on a Friday night and you have to chage £4 for a bowl of chips.

But the part of this that really has riled me to the point of near voilence, is that when I arrived 40 minutes before kick-off to get a good seat, I asked before ordering any drinks if they were definitly showing the London derby at 1pm. Two of the staff said they definitly were. Had it been “I don’t know” or “No” or even “Maby” then no problem, I would have just taken my custom elsewhere.

I wrote a complaint when they lied to me about what games they were showing before and got an apologetic letter back explaining this was a one-off human error (basically saying that their staff were just retarded so say “yes” to whatever question even if they don’t know).

So, shall It ake it up with their manager again I wonder?

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

Am I missing something here?

We are in winter and we have had some winter weather, including snow and ice.  It’s quite novel to get snow that settles, however we are only looking at about 15 cm

Why then is it front page news with a mass crisis being broadcast, akin to an asteroid hitting the UK - with the transport infastructure coming to a standstill in some parts, schools closing down, half the country not being able to get to work, cars driving at 5mph on the roads etc.

This gets said every year, but why is the UK so totally inept every time there’s a small change in the weather, either a heatwave or some snow. Why do other countries cope perfectly fine even when faced with a few feet of snow?

I have to wonder at the following:

Are all these people not being able to get to work just playing on the the mass hysteria to get out of work for the day?
Are all the schools shutting down more worried about the pathetic health and safety regulations meaning a child cannot step foot into a playground without being wrapped in a protective bubble with 15 teachers and solicitors supervising them?
Is there not much else in the news, so the journos are feeding the panic to sell more papers?
Are we just that bad at driving that they cannot cope (either not knowing how to drive in the snow, or just crawling along under 5mph even when they’re on a snow/ice-free and gritted road)
Do people not know to get out of bed a bit earlier to warm their cars up?

I bet many Europeans are having a right laugh at the delicate little British, struggling to cope with the “severe” weather conditions

Yesterday I got to my car 10 minutes earlier to leave the engine running with the blowers on the windscreen and used a scraper/de-icer to get some of the more tougher ice off. I then drove to work slightly under my normal speed on the ice free roads, but slowed down when driving through the snow and allowed extra braking distance for turns and junctions. At one point my wheel was stuck on a patch of ice when I tried to pull away, so I put it in second gear and pulled away slowly.  All in all my normal routine was put out by about 15-20 minutes maximum. I got to work fine, I got to the gym fine, I got home fine and I stopped at a supermarket on the way home as well.

And don’t even get me started with the “When I were a lad” stories of getting to school in the snow.

What  molly-cuddled buch of wet fairies we have turned into…

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

Phew, this week has been very busy. Looks like the Christmas/New Year lull is over and normality is back with a vengeance.

I’m keeping up with my gym visits each lunchtime which is going pretty well, and a good way of doing something physical as well, as having a desk job can take it’s toll at times, so it’s fantastic to actually get your pulse going and get out of breath with a bit of physical grafting. Leaves me a lot more alert and focussed in the afternoons. I’ve been doing more running on the treadmill as that’s the one area I’m really crap at, however doing it frequently (and wearing better trainers) means I can clock up some more distance each time. Who knows, marathon next year perhaps?

Off to a Salsa night in Attenborough tomorrow which should be a good evening as it’ll mean catching up with our old dance instructor, Francis, and also his assitant, Lynn (though Lynn actually works for the company that lease our office ground floor out so I see her nearly every day anyway).  Lisa’s brother and his gf will be there too so should be a merry get-together. Along with the normal Salsa, there’s going to be some Tango instructors there so I think I’ll try my hand (or rather feet) at that again. Perhaps I should watch “Scent of a Woman” again this weekend?

Bike still off the road, which is painful. It still rides fine however with the uber-budgetting we’re doing at the moment I just can’t justify getting it MOT’ed when I already have a fully legal car at my disposal. Nah. If it wasn’t for the bloody Carb Icing problem in December then I’d have put the car off the road and stuck with the bike.

On a more geeky nature I’m going back on World of Warcraft tonight, soley because some of the work posse are up for a game on it - so I’m actually looking quite forward to playing it. I got bored shitless before playing individually before, but as part of a group with headset and mic chat then it should be a laugh.

Right then, one hour left and then it’s the start of the weekend. Wooo!!!

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

According to Blizzard, there are over 11, 500,000 subscribers to World of Warcraft. Each of these subscribers pay £9 a month (IIRC).

By my calculations that totals a rather lot of money. Apparently their revenue is over $1.5 BILLION a year

Obviously they need to pay for their staffing and coders, however even so I don’t think they’ll be out of pocket too much.

So you’d think the fuckers would pay some money for their patch downloads to come directly from their servers rather than torrents using other people’s bandwidth

update: ok, apparently Asian users pay a much reduced hourly rate, but even so - Blizzard are still raking in hundreds of millions or dollars

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

The ongoing trips to the vets for our cat, Miffy came to a sad conclusion last night.

After seeing her deteririate more and more, we both made the decesion it was time to take her in to be put to sleep rather than prolong it any more. The vets had given her two weeks maimum before she died from the cancer anyway, and although it had only been around a week since then - her health and quality of life was getting worse and she really did seem to have had enough after not moving from the same location she was sleeping in for over a day and being very unresponsive.

Lisa’s had Miff for 12 years and got her as a rescue cat originally, where she was very feral. Over the years she became more trusting which is a big compliment for a cat as they usually are fiercly independent.

Out of all the cats, not having Miffy about is probably going to be the most noticibale as she had a very distintice personality for a cat. She was also very intelligent by animal standards and very inquisitive, which is no doubt how she survived in the early days before she was rescued. She was certainly the Alpha cat out of the original 5, despite having a male cat there. Out of all the cats we had, she was the one that sussed out the locking mechanism on the catflap so knew to pull it open rather than push it like normal when it was set to ‘out only’ and she was on the wrong side of it. She also knew ways of getting attention, such as pawing the catflap to make it bang shut when she wanted something (very annoying on Saturday mornings). Usually if any cat was pissing about on the top of a warbrobe or shelf then chances are it would be her.

Another uniqueness was she never really done the typical meow cats do, but made these warble sounds instead that I swear had intonation in them when it was a request or a moan. Very few people believed this until they experienced it first hand, and found themselves having a small conversation with a cat.

It was a shock as all this came about so suddenly. Our male cat has gradually failing kidneys so is on medication (though he is 16 years old so geriatric by human standards) so most of our concern was on him, until overnight Miffy developed a limp in her front paws. Several trips to the vets thinking she had had a bad fall or been knocked by a car and we finally found out about the cancer after blood tests and x-rays came back.

Alas, she’s gone now and our home will be a lesser place without her and we’ll have to see how the remaining two change their personalities now the alpha presence is gone. It was still good to see her defiance and pride still showing through even at the end, despite the discomfort of her condition.

Only two left now out of Lisa’s original six.

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

You don’t have to be a Spurs fan (or even a Sports fan) for this to interest you, but there’s a petition to give ex-Spurs player Walter Tull the recognition he deserved as being one of the first black footballers and also an unsung hero of World War Onehttp://www.ipetitions.com/petition/spurs4tull/

There is already talk of honouring him in the new Spurs ground being designed.

Originally published at supple.co.uk. You can comment here or there.

My noisy neighbours have left the house, so it’s now nice and quiet again.

Hopefully the home owner will realise that renting his house out to noisy undesirables is not going to be a quiet life for him, as he’s going to get the people on either side of his rented house calling him telling him to sort it.

Apparently one of the ex tenants now has his accommodation curtsey of her majesty’s prison service. Real quality people living next door it would seem.

Always a risk as a home owner that a buy-to-let bugger is going to purchase a house nearby and move some toerags into it, especially if he/she wants a quick fix by moving the benefits class into it. Without sounding like a snob, when people don’t have to get up to go to work in the moring like the rest of us then they tend to be less than considerate late at night when the rest of us are trying to get some sleep.