Ugly

I figure that I'm not the only one to have received baby pictures from a friend or relative. As nice as these first images of their child are, I cannot help but wonder whether the parents are concerned about the appearance of their little bundle of joy.

I have found that the majority of babies are indeed ugly. I've come to the opinion that it's one of those unavoidable things in life but have often wondered if parents know how ugly their child is but are keeping quiet about it, constantly re-assuring themselves that the pride of their loins is in fact a frog prince/princess?

I have to bite my lip whenever I see a friends new born to stop myself from laughing at the hideous little troll in the crib. "Poor bugger" I think to myself, "Nine months of worry, hospital visits, doing up the house, back ache, eating the right food; buying clothes, prams, cribs, play pens, and more for something that looks like it's related to Gollum! "

If any of my friends try to hide a wry smile in the next few weeks then I will know what they're really thinking!

Temptation

Unfortunately I gave in to my craving last night and switched the Channel 4 news on. To make matters worse I also had a cigarette.

The main headline was about the government losing 25 million child benefit records.
I immediately felt myself become incensed at such incompetence, but then started to think that it was a good job they lost them now rather than in a few weeks when they will have all my details.

I really don't know why I get so riled when watching the news. It's not as if I know anyone affected in the stories or had them alter my life in anyway. The perceived "terrorist threat", or Immigration have had no influence whatsoever on my daily comings and goings. Sure, I might see a few more foreign people here and there
but it's not something that I feel particularly strongly about.

I think I shall put it down to the emotive broadcasting that the media pumps out. It makes you feel as if you must have an opinion on everything they transmit otherwise you're some sort of ignoramus.

Tonight I'm going to paint the spare room in anticipation of Juniors arrival (Just over two weeks). I figure that this should keep me away from the television and the evil weed.

What's happening in the world?

I'm have now been news free for 24-hours.

It is quite a liberating feeling but I do confess to being tempted to flick onto a news website for a brief sneaky peak at the days events.

It reminds me of when I was giving up smoking - I still have the craving to know what is going on but so far have managed to resist.

Seeing as the missus is now on her maternity leave, I bet that she has the six o clock news on when I get home.

No News day

Most evenings I watch the national news.

Then i watch the local news.

I usually follow this up with a current affairs programme.

Once this has finished it is usually time for the Ten O'clock news - which I watch.

To send me off to sleep I watch Newsnight or Question Time - whichever happens to be on.

The purpose of watching all of these programmes is so that I can feel like an informed worldly person, and not one of those people who rant and rave when they only know half the facts.

The effect of watching this many "factual" programmes is that I end up utterly depressed at the end of it. My good lady and I have started arguing about topics that have no impact on our lives. We feel compelled to form an opinion on topics such as: immigration, chavs stabbing people, binge drinking, the state of the NHS, etc.

So in order to have a happy home when Junior arrives (in just over two weeks) I have decided to have a news blackout at least three times a week.

Instead we will have conversations about nice things and think happy thoughts.

I'm really looking forward to it.

Master Chief

This weekend my 16 year old brother challenged me to a game of Halo 3 with a few of his friends. He was adamant that he would be able to "pawn" me and was going to"own" my ass. Considering that I was the one who taught him how to play video games, I felt that a swift victory was assured (It made me wonder if this was what the British Generals thought the night before they started they're attack on the Somme).

There I was, a man of nearly-thirty facing off against 15 testosterone fueled adolescents, split into two teams - red & blue; confident of handing them their proverbial arses on a plate. I had after all, years of gaming experience to call upon and have been playing games since before they were a twinkle in the eye.

And so the game began.

I immediately started shooting the first thing I could see.

Unfortunately there were so many people to shoot that I could not decide which one of them should be the first to feel my wrath. I would start by hunting down a member of the blue team (I was red), only to decide that one of his colleagues would prove to be a better target. During these brief periods of deliberation the blue team thought it jolly good fun to snipe, beat down, kill, splatter, assassinate, or stick grenades to me. No sooner had I respawned and decided on a target, I was dead by one of the methods mentioned above. This continued until the game came to it's inevitable conclusion.

Red team: 45
Blue Team: 100
My kills: 3
My deaths: 32

The moral of this story?

Procrastinators do not make good Halo players.

The day after yesterday

Well fellow procrastinators; you'll be glad to know that Ive had a somewhat more productive day today. Instead of doing those oh so important jobs of yesterday (pencil sharpening etc ) I have actually done the things I was supposed to do!

The computers fixed, the editorial is almost complete, and the show stand is at a stage where it's out of my hands. I still haven't phoned the roofer but I will once Ive written this entry.

Spoke to my good woman about my dilemma last night and she was very understanding -despite the fact that she is six weeks away from giving birth and full of raging hormones. She said that it explained quite a few things and that she had put my lack of doing things down to the fact that I walk around with my head up my bottom.

Another productive day....

I had lots to do today. I had an editorial to write, a show stand to design, and a computer to sort out.

What did I do?

I drew a diagram of how I'm going to re-organise my working day, spent 20 minutes sharpening pencils, and once I had the sharpest pencils in the office I proceeded to check the amount of toner in each printer.

We have 15 of them.

Do you know what I else I didn't do today?

I didn't find a roofer to come and have a look at my roof which is in need of repair. Instead I'm writing this blog entry.

The missus is going to kill me.

And it continues.....

Well, here iam sat at my desk yet again and the wall has wasted no time in scrambling my train of thought.

I started the day with a very simple task. I had to the company who we lease our network printer from and find out why it's taking them so long to come down here and fix the bally thing - maybe they're procrasinator's as well

Procrastinating -

Being a procrastinator is not easy.

I know exactly what I have to do, and how to do it. So what's stopping me?

When I start a task I almost immediately encounter an invisible brick wall. I don't know of anything I can do to avoid this wall because I don't know exactly when it is going to present itself. All I know is that at some point I'm going to get a complete mental block. It's as if my thought process just shuts down and I can't get it up and running again.

Maybe it has something to do with my job. I currently work in an office. I avoided office work like the plague for the first ten years of my working life and revelled in jobs that were of a hands-on nature. I was effectively a "people person" but became uncomfortable with this title. I then got the opportunity to work in an office in a business environment. It was here that I first encountered the dreaded brain-block.

Right, Ive got to get back to work as my job isn't going to do itself.

I wonder how long it takes before I'm lost again.

Photo's

At last I have gotten off my lazy arse and decided on some more photo's to share. Quite why it takes me so long to do things is really quite puzzling.















Kimi Raikonnen.
Eventual Winner.
Looked very quick right from the word go.


This is quite a clever pic. If you look closely you can see that I have managed to get both Mclarens centered in a hole in the fence.














The next British Champion?
Here's hopeing so!
Good luck for Brazil Lewis!





Eau Rouge.

I must admit that watching the F1 cars go through here was a little underwhelming. I guess it's a result of traction control and very sticky tyres.

The mini-coopers and GP2 were much more exciting to watch through here.

Ive got a few more good quality images, but I don't know how long it will be until I get the urge to post them.

Spa Francorchamps

It's taken me a while but Ive finally got round to posting a pic from our Belgium adventure.

Ive got hundreds more but as yet have not decided which ones are worthy of posting. I thought I would show this one as you can see how much we saw of the track. The crowd was particularly excitable whenever a red car passed in front of us but I put this down to the fact that it was made up of mostly Italians & Germans. I guess that the Germans had to continue shouting for Ferrari in memory of the Red Baron & the Tifosi are never going to support another team other than their beloved Ferrari.

Of course, as a Brit, I was shouting for Mclaren but as the weekend went on I had less and less to shout about (I'm not even going to mention the spying drama). Lewis did well but was given a driving lesson by his team mate and the Ferrari drivers. I think he will finish the year as champion if he can find a bit more speed and start to put pressure on Alonso rather than having Alonso put pressure on him.

Here is a video of the last lap.

As you can see the Ferrari's were pretty much untroubled.

GO! GO! GO!

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm an avid Formula 1 fan.

So when it came to choosing where we would spend our last pre-baby holiday there could be only one destination:

Spa-Francorchamps.

This track has been my Grand Prix wet dream for years and I simply cannot wait to see those cars flat-out through eau-rouge.

I will be sure to post a few pictures when we get back.

And it's hello from me

Hi all,

Just thought i would introduce myself to anyone who reads this before I start getting to the nitty-gritty.

To start, a little about me.

I'm quickly approaching the top of the hill and within the next few months I will see what is on the other side. For years I have denied that this will ever happen and thought I was exempt from the ageing process. However, as the big "three oh" approaches I have come to realise that I'm just like everyone else and can do absolutely nothing about time ticking away and the onset of grey hair. My waist line is steadily increasing as a result of spending my twenties drinking, smoking, and generally enjoying the good life, and I'm now "thinking about joining a gym" in-order to regain some of my youthful vigour.

In 3 months I will become a Father for the first time and this has been the biggest wake-up call of all. Having spent the earlier part of my life detesting children and the people who have them I now find myself looking forward to children's parties, changing nappies, and sleepless nights.

What the hell is happening to me?!!