Have been back at work nearly a week now, and I suspect today is going to drag somewhat. Got a few things to do this weekend, bit of web-learning to do, and want to write a couple of things, get ahead of myself on that count. Other than that, S’s parents are up to visit, so we get another trip to our favourite restaurant Next Door.
Blog
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The joy of Sopranos
We’ve had a new tv channel start here this week, More4, which is an extension of the Channel 4 brand. It is pretty good, but the key thing they have done is to start showing The Sopranos from the first episode. Now, I didn’t see it when it was first on, and when I did start to express an interest, fans told me “You have to see it from the start”. So this is what I am doing, and I have to say, it is fucking fantastic. I am so glad I made the effort, because it is just so beautifully done. You can’t beat an hour of quality tv a night, and the prospect of it going on for the best part of a year four times a week is frankly magnificent.
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Back in action
Just getting back into the swing of things now. Had a great two week break, including a week in the south of France visiting my sister, which was also possibly the longest I have been offline in two years. Odd being away from it all, even my mobile. In a nice way, read loads, talked loads. In the main, just relaxed. Not that I am a massive one for stress, I am lucky with my work in that respect, but still, I am so chilled at the moment I could sleep on my desk quite happily.
Lots to do, websites to design for a couple of people, so I am taking the opportunity to try and update my css skills, and do a better job. The idea is ultimately that I will then use those to improve the look and feel of here. That may be a few months away, but I may tinker a bit in the meantime. Fear change.
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Two weeks holiday starts in 7.5 hours!
And I cannot wait. One week here, one week in the south of France, visting my sister. All sounds good to me, I must confess. I hope to catch up on my lazing and gaming in the first week, and will take it from there.
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World of Sport?
Wonderduck asked me in the comments to my previous post if World of Sport had anything to do with Wide-World of Sport on CBS. Am I going to miss an opportunity to write at length about World of Sport? Damn straight I’m not.
It was indeed quite the rip-off. At the time it started in the UK (around 1967) if you watched sport on TV, you tended to watch it on the BBC, they had most of the contracts. ITV decided they needed a focus to their sports coverage, so created World of Sport, and borrowed much of the philosophy of Wild World of Sport, in particular the idea to show lots of different sports from around the world, rather than being particularly UK-centric. So this was where I first saw the Indy 500, NASCAR, and indeed the NFL, NBA and NHL, this was where my passion for American sports was formed. Along with also being the place to see Evel Knievel jump as well, and I believe the CBS show had the main contract for those jumps, then selling them on around the world. It also was where I saw James Hunt win the Formula 1 world championship in the rain in Japan in 1976.
World of Sport was also where wrestling was shown in the UK. British Wrestling. Old School British Wrestling. Which I loved at the time, but in general it was appalling compared to its American counterpart. Bizarrely my mother can recall watching American Wrestling in the late 50s-early 60s on ITV, but once World of Sport started, we were “treated” to this endlessly.
My first memory in life is watching World of Sport. Most Saturday afternoons, for most of my childhood would be spent watching it. The scary thing about the documentary was how many of the “weird and wacky” I can clearly remember watching. The World Firemans Championship from New Jersey in 1980 for one, along with the Lumberjack’s Championship from Canada, which I believe was in Autumn 1976. They also didn’t show enough barrel jumping on ice-skates, as that was a particular childhood favourite.
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Well that was a bit of a break
Just not a lot happening at the moment. Nothing bad, just been busy with stuff, and not much to tell. Have played a lot of NHL Hitz 2003 on the Gamecube. I need to win the Stanley Cup before my wrists give out, and I think I made the mistake of setting it to an 80-odd match season. So far I have scored around 10 goals a game as well, which suggests I may have it on the slightly too easy setting. But I have started now, so seems a shame to stop it.
Good programme on ITV last night about World of Sport, my much-missed obsession from childhood. Have a little tear in my eye thinking about it now. Did get it stored on the Sky+ box for later enjoyment though.
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Belgian Beer is very nice
but not the best idea on a schoolnight. Ouch. Still, only 7.5 hours to go before I can sleep.
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Still not over the weekend
Tired now, tried to get an earlier night, but it was just too hot to sleep well, so I am grumpy and trying to cure myself with coffee. Have some new things I want to read up on, namely a web technology called Ajax (which I don’t really understand yet, but basically it does some of the twizzy javascript things in gmail) and Tomcat, which allows Java applets to be run on a server. It is something that is used at work that I don’t understand, but I might have a bash at setting up on my webserver if they let me (which I suspect they might just). If I can, there may be an interesting announcement in a few weeks about something new on the site, won’t spoil it until I get myself motivated to do it.
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Long Lazy Weekend
Not much to report, mrsfb’s brother A came to visit us, we took it easy, went out for a meal, played plenty of console games, generally took it easy. Good fun. I found a real console bargain, picked up four old games for £20, Tony Hawks Underground, TOCA Pro Racer, Wave Rider, and the unexpected star of the show, NHL Hitz 2003. Very good sports game, beautifully done. And not bad at all for a fiver 🙂
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Google Talk
Well, signed up to it. Very easy to get online with it, and to start using it under Linux, which impressed me greatly. Have it running in GAIM on there. One thing I do like is that if you reply to an e-mail in gmail, it adds the person as a potential contact immediately. I suspect partly with Google Talk that it is something the financial sector in the states had suggested they do, and they have done so in a very cheap and effective manner. Their share price went up 2% in the states within a day. Nice.