i dont feel too good

So my friend got back from a long trip the Asia yesterday so we had a night of drinks planned to catch up and what not. Now getting older you would think that you get wiser when it come to the old drink or two, you know like have something good to eat and don’t go out for a night of drinking when you have only had a sandwich for the entire day, I wish I had followed the rule. So only after a few hours drinking and may I point out a few hours of heavy drinking I was not the best and then started to feel not too good. So I gave the international recognised look to my girl friend that I wanted to go and up she was saying good bye and covering me by saying she had to at work the following day (which she did and is right now). So the walk back was only 10mins but my situation worsened and I didn’t feel well at all and I was quickly put in bed with pain killers, water and a bowl just in case.
I like to think I trust a lot of people but trust is not a simple as black and white, I feel there are so many types of trust for many different aspects of your life but when you have someone who you trust for every aspect of your life its a wonderful feeling, no matter how stupid you are or look or what secrets you have or the things you want to keep from some people you know as you want to have a good appearance its not very often in life someone comes along and you can open up your heart and soul and feel safe at the same time. I think we all want to feel safe in some way not matter how old you are.

And my video's of the event,

Touch the Sky



Learn to Fly

The day I touch a cloud,

So today I had the wonderful pleasure of touching a cloud. Think how often you have seen clouds in your life time, think how nice they look some days and think of how many interesting things they can resemble. Have you ever touched one? If you would like to touch a cloud all you have to do is get someone to take you up in a micro light and fly in to one which I did today. Now like most people I tend to think that the bigger planes are more safe and more of a smoother ride and I was expecting for my day in the sky to be a scary and bumpy one but this was not to be. Once getting to the air field (no thanks to GPS, I didn’t think a farm would also do flights) I was expecting a 20/30 min lessen in what not to do when up there but after getting out of my car it was 2/3 mins before I was kitted up and sat in the motor bike of the sky. After a few “don’t do this” lessens we say at the end of the air strip and waited for clearance to take off, now these little things are really like motor bikes of the sky. You ever seen a motor bike at the lights? As soon as the light goes green they are off with this is the same for micro lights, as soon as he got the ok we shot down this grassy runway like we were being powered by a rocket and within seconds we were up and up and up. I think most people have been on a plane and for me take off is one of the more interesting times, not good just interesting so I did expect the same type of feelings but nope. It was such a smooth flight as we went out to the cost of Liverpool. as we got there, there were some clouds which he was going to fly under as the last thing both of us wanted to see was a easy jet flight up close and personal but as we start to go under we flew straight through one which I did reach out and touch (with permission) we flew down the beach passing Formby (location of the lovely picnic last year) and then down until you could just make out the Liver building, then we heeded back in and passed over Magul before turning back for the air field. While up there I chatted to the man flying who was telling me how easy these micro lights are to fly at which point he took both hands off the controls, at this point I did close my eyes waiting for the noise of the quickly approaching ground but after a few seconds this was not the case and the micro light just flew its self, even with a bit of turbulence. So after about 20 mins we were back at the air field and starting our decent at a fast rate, with in mins we were quickly approaching the ground and in the blink of an eye we were down and moving back to the safe area.

I know it didn’t last for long but I can tell you that is an amazing thing to do, its not what you expect and is a smooth, worry free, beautiful flight in a wonderful place. I would recommend it to any one

Tim Burton to shoot 3-D Alice in Wonderland

Director Tim Burton has signed a deal with Walt Disney Studios to produce two 3-D films, kicking off with a version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

The film will, Variety explains, combine "performance-capture imagery" - currently wowing the crowd in Beowulf - and live-action footage. Linda Wolverton of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast fame is penning the screenplay.

The second production will be Frankenweenie, based on Burton's 1984 short film about "a pet dog brought back to life by his loyal owner". It'll be a stop-motion animation production, shown in digital 3-D.

Alice in Wonderland is slated to go into production early next year, wrapping in May. Burton is currently putting the finishing touches to Sweeney Todd at Paramount and Dreamworks. ®

a new kind of tree

I have a gripe, after hearing about this I had to see it before I would even believe the possibility of this being true. The reason for this is it just astonishes me how stupid things can get all due to the fact its Christmas.

It would appear that the new big thing this Christmas is to have your Christmas tree upside down, now I would hope as you read this you now have a slightly confused look on your face as I did when I first heard about this new idea. And I would hope like myself you still don’t quite believe what I'm saying, well here is a photo from the John Lewis catalogue.

Now if you do think about it hanging things from this tree would be better as they would have more room to swing or just hang as they are supposed to do but this not account for the pure stupidity of an upside down tree, I mean where is the fairy supposed to sit? Maybe this is the best idea for years and I'm just a little too old to accept the change but I will think you are odd if you get an upside down tree.

the start of 2 weeks off

So I now have 2 weeks off, 2 weeks one after the other. I have never had this amount of time off in one go, ever. I'm now day 3 in and I'm enjoying it. You know I have not reall come up with any master plan for my time away from work but I have a few things I would like to do. I need to plan more.

So last week with work we went on what I thought was going to be a team building day, you know the one where you all work together outside of work which brings you together,.. well we went paint balling! And it was great.

I finally got my micro light thing booked for next week, its about time as I have had the thing now for the last year or so but now I'm going. You know you go up 1500 feet, I'm not too sure on how high that is but I have a funny feeling its high. But I'm sure I will be fine and I'm sure it will be fantastic.

Now Tuesdays is a big day as its my girlfriends birthday. Now I do wish I could do something wonderful like you hear of, you know someone taking someone away on holiday, or a hot air balloon ride, or a really nice expensive meal but I'm still on a semi tight budget and I cannot afford it. I could just afford to get her a SLR camera which she really likes, its not that I'm bothered about not having the cash but it does bother me that its not just me it affects. Now I know if my lovely girl friend was hear she would say that none of this matters and if it was the other way around it would not bother me in the slightest but I think we all know that you would want to buy the world for the person you love if you could

me!

I have started to work on plans for Christmas presents and without going in to too much detail I ended up scanning some old photos of me, well I got someone to do it and it is not cheap if you want them doing to a good quality. But seeing as I have them I thought I would put a few up. Enjoy.

this week, that week, it all some sort of week.

So this week has not been to good, im still battling the flu and some days I think im winning but some days this is not the case. as I said the last time I stopped by I had a meeting I had to go ot and I was not expecting much and I would have been mistaken. There were time during this meeting I was ashamed to work for Odeon, not the site I work at but to work in projection. I would say 60% of the people there were some of the most un-nice people I have meet in years and I would be more than happy if I never had to see them, talk to them or even know they exist. I know this may come across as strong but I cannot describe in words alone the attitudes of some of these people.

Having got a new laptop a few weeks ago I can now afford to eat seeing as payday has finally come along and non to soon as I was starting to think if it would be ok for me to eat the grass in piccadilly gardens (it does look nice), this payday would also include my beautiful and lovely girl friend birthday, I would tell you my plans but im not underestimating the lengths she would go to just to find out what im getting her, I think I have a good idea of what she would like and a few things she would not be expecting so we will see if that plan comes together.

Moving on I have a question, how many people walk to work and listen to some sort of Mp3 player? I bet there are quite a few out there in blogger land who do and I am one of these people, there is always a sound track to my walk everywhere I go, but for a change just try one day where you don’t! I know it may sound simple but I tried it the other day and the world seemed so quite, and that was Manchester city centre at rush hour. HA maybe listening to music day after day had make me slightly deaf, hummm that would not be good.

Harmonisation part 2

So now Ex UCI and Ex Odeon have merged to become New Odeon the projection department has to become one in everything we do, this is from how we schedule staff to how the budget is managed. Over the last few months the power that we have started to roll out the changes to both side but from an EX UCI side there are not so many changes as UCI was a very profitable company and all things have been managed like you would expect a divers company to do but this is not the case of the stereotypical Ex Odeon. In the next few days I have to attend a meeting where they try to roll out some more of the changes they expect everyone to do. This would not be the 1^st meeting like this and the last meeting was very hard work. From what I could see the people tended to fall in to 2 groups, group one are people who are willing to change but just need to get their heads around how and what they need to do. The second group are militant people who are stuck in their ways and any idea which is not their own is not going to work and they won’t even give it a try. Being a person who has done everything they are proposing for many years there is nothing new out there which would cause a problem or a challenge but the main reason I’m there is to try and help make the process easier. But it is hard work as most of the people at this meeting are 10/20 years older than myself, I like to help out and I will do my best but there are still some tensions between the two old companies as you would expect from any 2 company who have been competing for years and years. All this is on top of the fact I have a horrible cold at the moment and seem to be grumpy. I think it will make for an interesting day.

Today I spent £3, all day

London!

Weekend just gone had a trip down to London for a friend’s wedding but seeing as it’s a long way to go just for a wedding we decided to venture down there a day early and do the sights, so drove down Friday morning to come back Sunday. You I have to say that it’s a big drive so stopping at some point was always on the agenda but we stopped at what has to be the nicest services I have ever been to, it was a tranquil Mecca of happy people. I just this is what you get when you have to pay on the M6 Toll road. Anyway the drive was ok but a little busy once in to London and for some reason my GPS decided to take us past every sight London had to offer but driving through London is not the time to have a good look around as there are cars, bikes, people all coming at you from different angles all looking to get hit by a car. So once parked up at the hotel (glad I paid the congestion charge from the 5 feet of road I had to use just to get to the car park) off we went to get some sights is, 4 mins down the road and we were at tower bridge, then on to the tower of London, short trip on the tube to Trafalgar square, down past Downing street and on to parliament and Big Ben and Westminster abbey. Then we went off to Leicester square to meet up with some friends to have some food in China town. After that and a few drinks we went off to Camden Town to meet up with some more friends and have what would turn out to be too many drinks, it was nice at the time sitting in the street drinking wine but the morning after was not so good.

So the day of the wedding, it kind of went to plan, getting there nearly 2 hours early and then for the bride to turn up late meant I had about 3 hours in the church and I think that may be a new personal record or something, the groom looked a little nervous as the time started to tick by. That is where the normality of this wedding ended as my friends and his wife are both royalty to a cretin degree. He is a tribal prince and she is a princess from Nigeria (I think) and with that come the rituals of such a wedding and they were wonderful, apart from the kolanut which was not so good. This was the day after the night before where I vowed never to drink wine again but after a few beers wine sounded like a really good idea red/white what every was going. One of the nice things of the right was when you had to dance up to the bride and groom and put dollar bills on their heads and let them fall off, I know it may sound simple but when you have known this bloke for quite a few years it was a strange moment in our friendship.

So back to Manchester on Sunday with a little stop in Derby for my girlfriends nephews 2^nd birthday, that kid loves tractors, I wanted to live my youth through him and get him some Spiderman PJ’s but it was not to be, well I was not allowed! I decided when booking the time off for the wedding to get in a few extra days in as we come close to the end of the year so I got another 2 days off, good job seeing as the laptop I wanted came out and even after the trip to London I could just by the skin of my teeth afford it. I have never just bought a laptop out right and at these prices its no surprise but the last one I got lasted me for about 4 years so I think is a worth wile investment. And I would like to say that this keyboard is lovely to type on, it may even improve my spelling! One can wish.

How to tell when you have grown up?

So knowing I was due some extra pay this month I have been checking out laptops for weeks and weeks finding the best laptop out there for me, everything from size and weight to the speed of the processor and front buss speed, size of the hard drive and making sure it would be able to handle video editing and odd game I want to play. Having owned the laptop I'm sat at right now for the last 4 years it’s something that will have to keep me going for some time. So I found it as stated in a earlier post, The Sony Vaio CR11Z/R and it’s the top of its range so my decision is set, all I needed next was the funds to get this wonderful piece of human engineering and that would have been today (even though the tax man took nearly £850 off me) so I potter down to the two shops in Manchester who have it in stock and I was going to play one off against the other until I got the deal I wanted as the cheaper deal would have taken too long to come. So off I went only to find out there is a updated model coming out in the next few weeks* with a larger hard drive and faster processor. * Now I say a few weeks but every where I look its due to come out ‘the beginning of October’ now for me that’s the 1^st but the sneaky people at Sony I believe don’t see it this way so I'm betting on mid October. Now to my point, think you have finally got the money to get that one thing you have wanted for some time, you have sat there just waiting to get your hands on the thing but now I could get more for my money, 10 years ago I would have got one today but I now find myself not and willing, if not too happy about it, to wait until I can get my hands on the better of the two.

I'm now grown up (to a certain extent)

Over the past few weeks I have had a lot of old friends coming out of the wood work so to speak, I went out with a bloke who I shared a house with 9/10 years ago, we also worked at the same cinema cleaning screen and the normal usher duties. It was really good to catch up with him for a few hours and chat about the good old days, I also had another friend from the same time in my life wanting to go out for a few, sat I'm going out with another old friend from Blackburn and I have a school friend who I have not seen for 12 years wanting to catch up. I'm not complaining and I'm looking forward to it but have I won the lottery or something? Maybe there is just something in the water.

Ok you may remember that I had some issues with my bank (That would be you NatWest) and there complete incompetence with home insurance and the loan I had with them, well I did get round to sending in a letter of complaint as the customer service I revived was below piss poor, please don’t just thin I wanted to vent me anger at them, I would in a very customer service orientated environment and I only expect the same service they would get coming to watch a film at my cinema. So one complaint was about the fact they were still trying to get money out of me for something that my name was not on and after informing them of this they then had wrote my name on the top (spelt wrong by the way) still wanting about £80 all down to the fact they could no longer find the person whose name was on the policy and all this was sent to my mums house and she was not happy, the next part of my complaint was about the fact I had tried to pay off a loan for 6 weeks and then they tried to charge me interest and fines for paying late and then put poor credit on my name all down to the complete failing of the loan department. So I hope you can see why I would not be a happy bunny.

So I got 2 letters back, 1^st would be the loan wanting more details back from me, they are MY bank, they have all my details and this is my reply, I also go along to point out that I would hope they would be able to check my details for a loan in my name and that I would hope there computer systems are to a point where they would save information.

The 2^nd letter back would be regarding the insurance, this one started off really good, they said they had sent a letter to my mum apologising for her distress and they would no longer be trying to get any money off me (ITS NOT IN MY NAME!) and that they have listened to my conversation (one on many) I had where I changed my address. Well not only did they get the address wrong but my mum received no such letter, the address they said I had changed to is 126 miles away from where I had moved to! Does this mean I had post going to Durham? In my reply I ask how can my bank who I entrust to look after my money not even get the small details correct like address and the spelling of my name?

To be honest I am not letting this go easy, I could just drop it but the amount of crap I got from NatWest during a very difficult financial time without any support has given me the right to give them a hard time during this time and im enjoying pushing the customer services as any one should come to expect from any service they get from any company.

I’ll keep you updated as im sure the next set of letter I get will be interesting.

Tech Blog Vista Vs Xp

As you may have noticed I like my computer, there are people out there who don’t like computers or want anything to do with them well I'm at the other end of the scale. I like making web pages, editing videos, playing games, surfing the web, most things computer related. I thought I would give the new vista a go so installed it so I have Xp and vista in the same computer and just picked which one I would like to boot to at the start, I wanted to do this just in case I thought it was crap, things went well until 2 days in and somehow I lost the boot sector and my computer would no longer boot! Well for me that’s not a good thing, to be honest its not the extra work and problem solving its losing things like photos that is important to me, you can get back your music and you can go out and buy your photos. So I got a pucker copy of Vista and installed it and you know what I like it, before all you Mac users start to explode your right, they did sit there with a Mac and seal loads of ideas but what you going to do about it? There are some niggles like the ‘are you sure’ aspect, everything you would like to do you have 3 buttons to press to say it ok, I switched this off within minutes. The other problem was hardware, the only thing which is not compatible was my TV card so I had to get a new one for it to work. If you are getting a new computer soon I would recommend Vista as there would be no hardware issues and it a easy OS to use but if you are thinking of upgrading check out the Microsoft compatibility web site also the manufacture of you motherboard, graphics card, hard drives, TV card, sound card and any usb devices you may use as drivers still seem to be a problem.

So keeping on the Tech side of blogging I went out for some food last week with some friends, out of the 10 of us 3 had Mac’s (and 1 really wanted one) and 4 had PC’s (the other 2 didn’t want to going the Tech conversation. The topic of me buying a new laptop came up and we discussed what is the better of the two, PC or Mac? We all had good arguments but one thing that I did notice is how PC users tend to see why someone would want a Mac and why they are good but Mac users don’t have anything nice to say about PC, May be you have to be like this to own a Mac! Don’t think so but I did think it was strange.

Started to play Medal of Honour 82nd's First Airborne on the Pc and what a good game, we all have different interests and one of mine would be war, not just the killing but deeper than that, the friendships formed like no other and the things people have to do just to survive, I find it truly amazing. So I like war games, granted its not like the real thing and I don’t think it ever will be unless the game starves you, kills of some of your friends and puts your life in real danger but I still like to play them and 82nd's First Airborne is a good one, if you have seen Band of Brothers its like that just you get to run round. If that’s the type of game you like I would recommend it.

So as I said I'm thinking of getting a new laptop, the one I have now is good but it does not have the power I would like to edit videos so seeing as I may have a little extra money coming my way I thought it would be a good time to upgrade so I have been looking around, The one which caught my eye is the Sony Vaio CR11Z/R which RRP’s for £999 but after a little web digging I found it for just under £900. This may be a lot for some people to spend on such a thing as you can pick up a ok laptop for sub £500 now but this will keep me happy for some time (I hope) and I will sell the one I'm typing on now for £250+.

One thing I did spot (ok the Girl friend spotted) was how many bars now have free Wifi, one being the Trof! This is great news. Quite Sunday, Girl friend has a new book, I have some videos to edit and we both would not mind a drink, hey presto we are there strawberry beer in hand. L like this plan.

Ps i have no idea what is going on with my font, Blogspot is in German aswell!

2 weeks of work

So my boss was on his hols the last few week so I got to do everything I normally do and everything he normally does and some more just for fun. You know it was hard work and it did take a lot of my energy but I did enjoy it, it was not just the amount of work which was hard but having that feeling that you are the one responsible for it all, if something goes wrong it may not have been your fault but you are the one who has to answer for it. In the space of two week we had the Superbad prem (see last post) the Imax bulb needed an unplanned change (£7400 pounds per change is a big deal) and a list of normal things that needed doing. One thing which I was happy to see was the support from the full team over these 2 weeks, it really good to see everyone working in the same direction.

So after spending the last few years going through a work harmonisation I spent most of the time not really thinking about it to the point it would make my angry/upset/pissed off ect as there was and is very little I really could do about it well it finally gone through, what does this mean for me? Well more money for starts and that would be for less hours (now salaried) that means I MUST do 39 hours a week or get them back somehow and trust me I intend to. Another good thing about going from hourly to salary is I get 2 wages this month, Yes 2! And some back pay! I'm sure I will be able to find something to spend it all on but it nice to get something back for once.