If I remember how to do this it'll be a miracle....

Its been a long time. A very long time…..

First of all, to anyone who actually reads this (other than Calvin), let me offer my apologies for not updating this blog for nearly an entire year. I could launch into a lengthy diatribe as to why I haven’t done so, but that would take another year, so here’s the truncated version:

Aug ‘05: My computer died. Didn’t have much time or inclination to fix it.

Sep ‘05: Left my job. All computer access now gone.

Oct ‘05: Got a new job, still now computer access. Life kinda got in the way…

Jan ‘06: Job, which had previously only been temporary, was made permanent.

Apr ‘06: Job moved to another town, increased hours.

May ‘06: Finances became a lot more secure. Bought a new lap top!!!!!

June - July ‘06: Been a bit too preoccupied with work and e-fedding…..

Okay, so I will elaborate on some of the above; After I left my job, I had NO computer access at all. It was really weird, and I did try to replace it with using computers at my local library, but that didn’t really work. Other than losing this place and not being able to e-fed, the real bummer was that I had to put the writing of my novel seriously on hold. I’d been on a roll in the previous months, and had written almost 60,000 words. As of yet I haven’t really got back into it, which isn’t good. I know the bloody thing will never write itself, and by the end of this month it will be two years since I began it. I’ve kind of changed my priorities slightly over the past year, and while I do want to finish the book, and get it published, but I no longer feel that this is going to be something that I’m going to devote my life to. I may change my mind at a later date, it depends how the book is received, but in any case, I intend to finish it towards the end of this year, and endeavour to get it self-published when funds allow….

Next, the new job. I started working at GAME as a Christmas temp in October, and my boss loved me immediately. I had worked in the same role three years previously, but I hadn’t got on with the manager half as well. By this point, he had moved on, and the new manager, Ian, was someone I had a lot more in common with, possibly because there’s only a year between us. Anyway, as I said, he thought I was brilliant, mainly because of my amazing skills at getting people to buy consoles. He said in early November that he didn’t want me to leave after Christmas, but he didn’t know how many hours he’d be able to give me. As it turned out, it was very few. From a practical, financial sense, I should have turned him down, left, and found something full time. But I was pig-sick of starting at the bottom; I now have six years of retail experience, including eight months of management training, and two years of telephony and administrative experience. So as far as I’m concerned, I’m too good to be a dogsbody anymore. And as I’ve tried to tell my Dad before now, it’s got bog all to do with university these days; experience counts for more than a couple of letters. So anyway, I stayed, doing sometimes as little as four hours a week. But I stuck it out, no matter how much of a monetary pickle it put us in. Then sometime in April, things began to change….

We found out that the region was having a management move around. Basically, a manager from a bigger store couldn’t cope with the pressure, and got to choose where he moved to. This meant Ian was leaving our store, and got shunted off to Preston, which is a lot closer to his Lancaster home. Our Senior Sales Assistant, Chris, also left the store at this time, moving to Wigan. This left some hours up for grabs, between myself and another member of staff, who had also been kept on after Christmas. However, almost immediately, I realised that I just didn’t click with the new manager. Maybe it was me, maybe I didn’t give him a decent chance, maybe I just got on too well with Ian, but I felt it wasn’t working. So, with one last roll of the dice before I conceded defeat, I asked Ian for a couple of shifts at Preston….

The first shift I did, he wasn’t there, and I worked the day with his deputy manager, Neil. We
got on really well, and before the end of the day I was talking to Ian on the phone about more shifts. The following week, he offered me a contract at the Preston store. Which I took without a second’s thought. About a month later, after I’d come back from a week’s holiday in Bulgaria (more about that later), I left the Southport store completely, and have been working solely at Preston ever since. I’ve been averaging 30 hours a week, on a contract of only 20, and I’m being pushed by Ian, Neil, and the deputy from another store in the town, to be trained up to Senior Sales Assistant. I haven’t yet decided whether or not our current SSA is bothered by this or not….

So yeah, that’s work. I know I waffled about it, but at the end of it all I feel very justified in sticking it out during the early months of this year, because now for the first time in over three years I actually feel like my job might be going somewhere. I found out a couple of days ago that the area manager is keeping an eye on me, as well….

Back to the main story; in May of this year, Beth walked into her bank to check her account, and twenty minutes later walked out with a five and a half grand loan. Which sorted out the financial problems we’d accrued since last Summer instantly. And also, finally gave us the opportunity to fix our computer problems. Rather than actually fix the computer though, I opted to buy this rather stylish laptop that I’m currently writing on. I used the excuse that it will help me to fix the computer and finish my novel. Two months later and I’ve started neither. What I have done, however, is get heavily back into e-fedding. Unfortunately, I’ve not had half the success I had previously, and after looking back over some of my older stuff from a couple of years ago, I don’t feel that I’m as good as I used to be. Maybe it’s just because I’m rusty, but I’ve been back for nearly two months now, and feel like I’m floundering. I don’t want to give up, because it’s something I enjoy far too much, but I think its time I reassessed my efforts.

Aside from all this, I’m actually feeling in a pretty good place at the moment. Beth and I are looking at moving soon, to a bigger and nicer flat, and Beth is working on the Nurse bank at a private hospital. It’s not perfect, as the hours aren’t always there, but its given her the experience she didn’t have when she first qualified in May of last year. On top of all that, she’s just got her provisional driving licence, as I’ve finally conceded to let her learn to drive. For those of you who don’t know, Beth is epileptic, and as such, I told her I couldn’t agree to her driving until her specialist gave us written evidence that she is not photosensitive. He did that in January of this year, so she’s been very excited about starting ever since. The licence came yesterday, and she’s going to spend tomorrow morning looking for an instructor. She has decided that this means in about six months we’ll need to buy a car….

I was going to go into my lads holiday in Bulgaria in June, but I’ll leave that for another post. I might even show some of the photos of my friend Max flashing his backside to the whole country. I also intend to share my views on the outside world, football, films etc, as I used to. And yes, I do intend my next post not to take as long as this one…..

The Triumphant Return!

After far too long away, I've decided to return to blogger! I made a bad decision in going over to Microsofr Spaces, or whatever it's called, as half the stuff doesn't work! It's all colour and no substance! Anyway, after a breather from writing since the end of February, I've thrown myself back into things, and decided to come back here as well!

I'm not going to bother with songs and quotes and other stuff like before, I'm just going to rant about whatever's on my mind at the time. Which could be dangerous. As this is my first entry in four months, it could be a long one....


I'm still e-fedding. I took a break from that as well, around the end of March, but that was pretty much out of my hands (my computer died). I got back into it about six weeks later, and now, since about a month ago - I'M WORLD CHAMPION! I know getting excited about this is utterly sad, but anyone who has read my earlier post on e-fedding will understand that that is me all over....

Because I know Calivn already has, I'm going to comment on Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I never used to be into these books, but started reading them about a year ago, and was waiting as eagerly as every ten-year-old in the land when the new one came out last month. At first I was a bit unsure by Rowling's decision to kill of Dumbledore, but I'm sure she knows what she's doing.... Also, after long discussions with a friend (fellow geek), I'm almost convinced that Harry himself is one of Voldemort's horcruxes. But that's another story for another time....

Something quite strange happened to me a while back; I discovered in April that a Great, Great Aunt of mine, who I had met only once, about nine years ago, had passed away. Now, about five years ago, I was contacted (through my grandmother) by her solictors, who informed me that she wished to name me in her will. I was therefore not surprised when they contacted me upon her death, but WAS surprised to discover that my Great Great Aunt had left me the sum of five thousand pounds! Now, I know in the grand scheme of things this isn't a huge amount of money, but to my and my wife, it's a great help to get rid of some debts we've had hanging over our necks since university, start saving for a deposit to buy a house (which will hopefully happen some time next year), and generally blow some cash on whatever we want! I finally received the money last week, and I'm sorry to say I have spent some of it on pointless rubbish already (like beer!), but I am determined that this money will help Beth and I be a bit more comfortable, and give us some enjoyment while it lasts.

Football. If I never watch another game of football in my life I will die a happy man, after what happened one Wednesday night in May. Standing in a pub full of scousers as mad as myself, watching Liverpool win the European Cup, was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. At half time, when we were three-nil down, I said to one friend that if AC Milan scored again, I was going home. I'm very glad that didn't happen.
Now, a new season is upon us, and already Steven Gerrard has seven goals in the champion's league. I don't think we'll win it again (although I wouldn't complain if we did), but I hope to god we do better in the league this season. We HAVE to. I have faith in Rafa Benitez, but as for his summer signings, I have this to say - Peter Crouch, Bolo Zenden. WHY??!??
Also, for anyone who's followed this from the beginning, I was right about Souness at Newcastle last season. They finished 14th. Keep going Graham, if you try hard enough you'll get them relegated this season...


As a final note on football and a final note in general for this post (which wasn't as long as I expected, after all), can ANYONE please explain to me how in the world Tottenham Hotspur managed to sign Edgar Davids?!?! Surely, he's finally lost his eyesight, and thinks he's at Arsenal or something.....

If I get the time, I'll do a full football pre-season thingy later this week. Maybe. Tattybye!

Moving Time...

This is just a short one - as of now, I'm moving my blog. Y'see, I'm extremely lazy, and the less amount of websites I have to go to, the better. MSN have just created a blog-like thingy, called 'spaces,' which seems able to do a hell of a lot more than this, and I'm intrigued. It also means I can log onto it whenever I log onto my hotmail account. It might actually encourage me to write my blog more often, which is the plan. So, I'd like anyone who actually reads this (that's YOU, Calvin...) to follow me over to http://spaces.msn.com/members/bloosmarti where I'll be archiving all my entries from this blog, and I might even get around to blogging about our recent trip to NY. I may even attempt pictures....

By for now.....

English Hero, American Nightmare

Song of the day: "The Touch" - Stan Bush (from the "Transformers: The Movie" soundtrack)

Site of the day: http://s8.invisionfree.com/nwfewrestling: Possibly the greatest website I've ever been to (This is the link to the forums, there is a link to the main page from there)

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I had become a member of an e-fed, a website where strange people like me pretend to be wrestlers. Well, at the moment, e-feds are taking up a large part of my time. I'm still in the first one I joined, WWF, and I've joined a couple that have gotten nowhere, and I've quietly left. I even tried making my own e-fed, but it looks very amateurish, and I don't think it will last long.

But, at the beginning of December, I stumbled across a place called the NWF. I've been there less than two months, but I really feel like part of the furniture there. My character, the Eagle, an American-hating Brit, has taken off amazingly well, so much so that I was awarded the Best Newcomer of 2004 Award at the end of year awards show, less than 5 WEEKS after I joined! Everybody who is part of that fed, from the owner and the executive team down, make it feel like a great place to be part of. I was drafted into the writing team early on (always an honour), and have already written a fair few matches, but I get one hell of a buzz doing things on this fed. I think this is the first internet-related hobby that I've really felt that about.

No offence to any other feds I'm part of (especially the WWF, where I cut my teeth as an e-fedder, and have just been drafted into the heel faction of the World Champion), but the NWF feels like a professional outfit. Just today, I was browsing the site, and I discovered something amazing, which I didn't know before. They have their own internet store. And on that store, amongst parafanalia of almost every member of their roster, is a long-sleeved t-shirt bearing the name 'THE EAGLE' in Union Jack colours, and the slogan 'English Hero, American Nightmare.' And you can actually order these things, for real!!! It was utterly amazing to see, and as soon as I pay my credit card bill next week, there is nothing in the world that will stop me from ordering that t-shirt! It will cost me a paltry fifteen English pounds, including shipping from America (the irony of which is that it will probably arrive whilst Beth and I are on holiday in New York....), and that is too good a price to pass up to own a t-shirt of my very own e-fed character.

I feel like I could be part of NWF for a long time, and I'm damn sure that when I get that t-shirt i'll where it with pride. So, to D-Will, the owner of NWF, this is a huge THANK YOU for letting me be a part of your fed, and for giving me the opportunity to own a unique peace of nostalgia. My success in e-fedding is one more thing that makes me thing writing is the right career for me.

And if anyone's interested, today's song of the day is the Eagle's entrance music......

Season's Greetings!

Song of the day: "Confusion" - The Zutons

Site of the day: http://www.ellismodels.co.uk A great place where sad people like me buy Japanese versions of toys I had twenty years ago.



Pre-rant notes: I'm abandoning quote of the day for now, 'cos for some reason I'm having trouble thinking of them. I just realised that I'd already used the last one in an earlier post.


Right then.

This is just gonna be a general post, with various different topics, 'cos I've got a lot to say (as usual).
First off, immense apologies to anyone who actually reads this thing for my total lack of posts over the last few weeks. I've barely had any free time, work's been really busy in the run-up to Christmas, and I just haven't had the inclination, to be honest. But I promise I will try harder to blog more. I'm gonna make it my New Year's Resolution.

I've also not spent too much time recently on what I hope will become my first novel. At last count I had 142 pages, and almost 34,000 words. I'm really pleased with it, but again, I need to spend more time on it. I'm not discussing any more about it here, cos then if it ever gets bought by a publisher you'd all know the story and won't go out and buy it to make me very rich......

I've been spending more and more time recently on wrestling e-feds. I'm in three now, and doing quite well in two of them. Not a champion in any of them, yet, but I do have a title shot in one of them very soon.....

As for real wrestling (real in the fact that it's on the telly instead of in my head), I'm quite happy with the way things are going on WWE Raw right now. Triple H has been deposed as world champion, and there will be an Elimination Chamber match at the next pay-per-view on the 9th of January to decide a new one. An Elimination Chamber match is when four guys are shut in little boxes, with two guys in the ring. Every five minutes one of the guys in boxes is let out, and it goes on until there's only one left. And it all takes place inside a great big metal cage surrounding the ring. It's a very painful match, and one that will provide lots of intrigue. After that, at the end of January, comes the Royal Rumble, my favourite wrestling event of the year. But I'm not gonna talk about that now, 'cos I'm gonna do a post on it nearer the time.

Over in the world of football, Liverpool have a mixed first have of the season. We've had some bitty games, where we've struggled to eke out draws against teams like Aston Villa who we should be walking over, and we've had some amazing games like when we beat Arsenal 2-1. We've been seriously unlucky with injuries (if there are any Americans reading, picture this - the club spends two years chasing a French stiker who's touted as one of the best in the world, then finally get him for a club record of 14 million. He takes a couple of months to settle into the team, but when does he starts banging the goals in. Then some git breaks his leg and he's out for the rest of the season. Which runs until May......), and need to buy well in January, but I'm hopeful of a better end to the season than last year. And on a non-Liverpool note, I was spot-on about Souness going to Newcastle. He's done bog all but complain since he got there, and the team are rapidly slipping down the league (although not as fast as Bolton, who, when I last wrote about football were in third place, and 12 games later are languishing in 13 without a win in seven games). I'd like to say I feel sorry for Newcastle, but they're all a bunch of overpaid primadonnas who need teaching a lesson, so I really dont!

We've not done much in the way of Star Wars roleplay recently, because my friends and I have discovered the wonders of Star Wars Battlefronts on the X-Box. This is quite simply the greatest multiplayer game I have ever played. There is nothing more exhilarating than being a rebel soldier hiding in a tree, picking off Imperial Stormtroopers with a sniper rifle.....

On the non-StarWars gaming front, I've become totally addicted to Splinter Cell, also on the X-Box. I've always preferred games that you have to think about rather than just shoot your way through, and this is ingenious. There are levels where you simply aren't allowed to shoot stuff, and have to find another way through, be it tiptoeing through shadows, sliding into buildings on the wire of a giant crane, or rappelling down the side of a building and smashing through a window with you feet. It's an amazing game, and it and its sequel should keep me going until the new Zelda game comes out for the Gamecube later this year.....


Well, despite thinking I had lots to say, I've more or less finished. Just want to wish a Happy New Year to anyone reading, and I promise I'll do a new post soon.

And I promise it will be good....

Trading Places

Quote of the day: "What I told you was the truth - from a certain point of view..." - Sir Alec Guinness, Return of the Jedi

Song of the day: "Good Vibrations" - The Beach Boys

Website of the day: http://wwf.com/forums - A wrestling E-Fed of which I am a member

Pre-rant notes: I've added a 'website of the day,' as the more astute amongst you will have already spotted. This first one was mentioned in one of my early posts. Its a place where lots of strange people like me pretend to be wrestlers. Check it out.




Over the last few years, entertainment shops have developed a brilliant knack of getting us to pay for something twice - trading in.

I think it was something that started in videogame shops. If they didn't start it, then they definitely perfected it. When i worked in such a shop two years ago, there was a huge emphasis on pre-owned games. A brand new game, let's say, for instance, GTA San Andreas, as that's just come out, sells for £39.99 full price. If a customer wishes to trade it in, they'd get, at the extreme most, 20 quid for it. The shop will then put it back out, with a pre-owned sticker, for £34.99 Five pound off full price. And the thing with pre-owned games is that they don't have to give a cut to the manufacturers, as they already got their money in the original sale. And because most of them give value off other goods rather than cash, the customer then has to add money to what their trade-in is worth in order to buy something new.

So shops encourage trade-ins as it's a win/win situation for them.

Just recently, its a fad that seems to have spread from game shops to bigger entertainment shops selling DVDs and CDs. Again, this will improve their profits no end, but surely it will envoke anger from music and film manufacturers?

Since the boom in game trade-ins, the larger games companies such as Nintendo have been complaining that it is as bad as piracy, what with them not getting a cut. With all the uproar about file-sharing on the internet with regards to music and films, surely trade-ins will be attacked next?

To be honest, I actually think trade-ins can be a handy thing. Just the other day i was clearing out my shelves, and took a pile of DVDs i haven't watched for ages and turned them into a brand new Quantum Leap DVD box set. And i'm amazingly poor at the moment, so there was no other way i could have got it. So yeah, I personally think trade-ins make sense, but I just get the feeling that they ain't gonna be around forever.....

The Monster Mash

Quote of the day: "We must all have waffles forthwith!" - Tom Hanks, The Ladykillers.

Song of the day: "Friday I'm in love," - The Cure


Last night was Halloween. Halloween is, essentially, another money making American marketing idea, albeit based on a Pagan ritual, that is aimed at having hordes of kids roaming the streets begging for sweets and egging your front door.

I can remember trick-or-treating when I was a kid, usually not overly successfuly. My mum always went to a lot of trouble to create me a really good costume, be it a vampire, zombie or whatever, but no matter what day of the year it is, people don't tend to be happy when a gang of pre-teen lads in funny clothes appear at your door demanding feeding. And if there was some sort of fancy dress party organised, at school or some other place, it was always the girls who one prizes for best costume.

But girls always go as witches!

It's only really in the years since I've discovered alcohol that i've really begun to appreciate Halloween. When you're in a pub full of people, you don't care what you're dressed as, or how many women are there as witches. Last night, my wife and I went to a charity thing at a nearby health club, mainly because we knew people involved with the organising of said event. Whilst it was also aimed at children, the beer was cheap, and most people got into the spirit of dressing up (I went as a zombie, in case you're interested).

So yes, Halloween is another commercial event, but it's a good excuse for people to get together and act daft, and that can't be a bad thing.

Not that I've ever needed an excuse......