Sites I like
Look at me
I've been looking at myself a lot recently, hence the changes round here to reflect what I see. If you are interested, a further explanation can be found with my articles, otherwise simply enjoy the new improved photoblog(ish) site. Hopefully most posts will consist of a bit more than just a photograph, so I'll have to start taking some 'stock' photos that will be able to accompany my random thoughts. Not as easy a task as it might seem but I could always try using el cheapo digital camera to speed the process up a bit!
Posted on July 30, 2004 | Comments (2)
No time for words right now
Posted on July 29, 2004 | Comments (6)
A new perspective
Posted on July 28, 2004 | Comments (8)
Quote-y-licious
I can't recall the exact phrasing but this is a reasonable representation of what Topper said on Saturday in Top Shop, Oxford Street: "If powerstations ran off pert, this place could power an entire city!" Browsing for a party frock for me and then waiting to pay for a very pointy pair of shoes has never seemed like less of a chore, I'm sure.
Posted on July 27, 2004 | Comments (9)
London Calling
I'm off to the capital again this weekend and will be returning to a week off work. As well as plenty of dull house and garden tasks, I have a day trip planned to somewhere with a beach. My camera has silde film in it so, if I cross process (i.e. get it developed as if it were a standard colour negative film), perhaps even bad weather might look good! Some people think this is the way to go for creating vibrant, exciting photo images, while others argue that technical skill should be used instead of gimmicks like this. While I'm devoid of technical skill as a photographer, I need all the clever tricks I can get! Although there are some cross processed and double exposure images on my lomohome at the moment, I am nowhere near having them as the dominant feature. If you experiment so much that it becomes the norm, surely it's not exciting any more?
Posted on July 23, 2004 | Comments (2)
Quote of the day
"For such a vast amount of car, the Mercedes offers curiously little beyond the usual SUV attributes of height, aggression, showing off opportunities, cupholders, impossibility of parking, massive consumption of fossil fuel, etc." From Catherine Bennett in today's Guardian (surprising, eh?).
Also... I know I post a fair bit about cars, but no one was going to be fooled by the forty or so spam comments I received yesterday promoting car hire. Leaving your name as Car Hire UK is a bit of a giveaway to begin with. I'm being inundated with this sort of junk at the moment - anyone else out there using MT and having the same problem?
UPDATE: Found a 'better' one... "I want to deal with women's issues, because I just don't think they clean behind the fridge enough", from an MEP who has no doubt been added to the hit lists of Green Fairy and all her readers. Who votes for these people? To be fair, I expect he didn't put that point of view across in his publicity material so it's not really their fault.
Posted on July 21, 2004 | Comments (4)
The next step?
It's getting to that point in my life where something needs to happen. You know... have car, have relationship, have house... what next? If I were to follow the traditional paths through life that many people still take, I would be planning for a wedding and babies. But I really don't want children and doesn't that leave marriage a bit redundant these days? Nick Duerden wrote in the Observer that having kids and dying are the only two things that make it worthwhile for a couple to be married rather than simply co-habiting (I'm paraphrasing a tad here), but his partner added "I hear marriage also has certain tax benefits". Now this would be a reason that applies to me but I was under the impression that this was all shelved years ago. Can anyone clarify this for me?
Before Topper starts planning his escape, I'd just like to add that I am merely curious. As a young teenager I planned to wed simply for the gifts and the name change, but now there's not much I really want and I'm totally happy being a Smith. Besides, Topper is Topper so how could I be one too without taking away part of his identity? There really does seem like no reason to get hitched apart from a desire to do 'something' to mark this point in my life. Perhaps I should fill my time with something more productive than pondering such things, but I'd like closure on this and also a reason to give the many people who are bound to ask 'why' over the next decade. A photo of a drunken Vegas wedding, complete with crap Elvis impersonator and no legal validity in this country, should do the trick. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Posted on July 20, 2004 | Comments (10)
Ooh, suits you 51R!
Personalised number plates are a potential minefield of faux pas - too subtle and you could be wasting your money but too ostentatious and you could be a laughing stock. So kudos to the driver of the black Aston Martin DB7 who passed us on the way up and back down the M6 this weekend. I have no idea how much a three digit registration must cost, but the purchase of 51R to adorn such a beautiful car was money well spent. It certainly won't depreciate in value and must raise a few smiles wherever he goes. Of course, if the guy's a prick it won't have earned him any respect amongst those who already know him, but what do I care?
Posted on July 18, 2004 | Comments (5)
Money doesn't grow on trees (sadly)
As the saying goes, it never rains but it pours. This has never been more true for me than this week due to the inclement Manchester weather and some unexpected outgoings. In fact, this month may rate as my third most expensive ever (behind signing up for a mortgage in July 2002 and buying my car in November 1997). So far this week I have forked out a couple of hundred pounds on glasses I have yet to receive** and almost the same amount on my car's 72,000 mile service, but next week the horror continues as a leaky head gasket, new cam belt and two new tyres will push July's outgoings over the 1k mark. An email this afternoon from a colleague requesting cash up front for a Christmas night out almost earned her a punch in the head... if only the Gloomy Bear* on my keyring were real, he could have done the job for me. Still, I'm calm now I've had my Dermot fix off tonight's BBLB. Simple things, eh?
* Fresh from Japan. Thanks Finn!
** Picked them up now. What do you think?
Posted on July 15, 2004 | Comments (11)
Four eyes
When I attended secondary school, I had a few friends who wore glasses and was fascinated by the differing prescriptions and styles they wore. I used to try on their glasses and wonder if what I could see with them was how the world looked to them without. When designer frames became more affordable and available I found myself wishing I needed glasses myself as my friends arrived at school sporting the lastest look in one of the few ways that was possible without breaking any school uniform rules. My mum told me to stop wishing for bad eyesight, but I didn't see it that way.
Fast forward a decade or so and motorway journeys are becoming a strain, especially in bad weather, as I squint to read the road signs in the distance. Rather than rely on Topper to read them for me or just hold on a couple of hundred metres more until they came into focus, I figured it was time for another sight test. Turns out that, although I'm still legal to drive, glasses will help and it wasn't just because I was tired that I was having difficulty focussing. So, in a week or so my teenage wish becomes reality and I will be speccy Lori (in the car and the cinema, at least). It's just a shame the damn things will cost so much.
Posted on July 14, 2004 | Comments (7)
People you met on the internet?
The weekend is almost at a close and what fun we had. After the thrills and spills of a day off work for a lie-in and spot of Move, I awoke early on Saturday morning with a blinding headache and a 196.8 mile journey ahead of me. Much as I wasn't feeling up to it at 8am, an hour later my little car was heading for the M6 as Chris, Topper and I prepared to add to the disaster zone that is now Adrian's flat. The braai was a delightful affair with 'interesting' alcoholic beverages, tacky darts, whips, furry handcuffs, bondage tape and cheap UK softcore DVDs (look, just don't ask, OK). Adrian's meat was wonderfully tasty too - must have been the special sauce. Actually, it wasn't nearly as dodgy as it all sounds... honest! I'll prove it with photos, but I have to get them developed first as I use, to quote Chris, "film; old-skool, yo".
Thanks to everyone who attended for being wonderfully friendly and not the killers that XFM DJ predicted. Isn't the internet great? *hugs computer, NTL and Topper for making it all possible*
UPDATE: Oh, and don't forget to sign up for the forums at www.blogmeet.co.uk to arrange more blogger fun and frolics!
Posted on July 11, 2004 | Comments (5)
Where we're going, we don't need tents
Badged as an 'urban music event', Move doesn't really cut it as a fully fledged festival, but that's fine by me. For a start it's far easier to select just one day of an event like this when it's so easy to get to - we got the bus there but the walk home from Lancashire County Cricket Club to our house only took an hour. I thoroughly enjoyed my Friday of music from opening act Longview performing a cover of the Depeche Mode track Stripped, right through to The Cure ending on Boys Don't Cry. You can't get much better than Keane belting out Somewhere Only We Know in the afternoon sun with an aircraft leaving a pretty vapour trail in the sky above them, or Robert Smith singing Pictures Of You while the sun set. I just wished I'd taken my camera to capture all the interesting people we saw in the crowd. Note to self: Take my LC-A everywhere in future.
Tomorrow morning (well, later today as I am writing this after midnight), I'm heading down to Londinium to meet up with some other bloggers. Needless to say, my trusty camera will be at my side this time. Photos will follow but, for the meantime, check out my gallery for the ones I took of the American Car Show at Tatton Park last weekend. Furry-dice-tastic!
Posted on July 09, 2004 | Comments (1)
Crime Watch
At work the other day a woman was taking 'orders' for CDs from her colleagues as she is going to a car boot sale this weekend. I was a little shocked that these people never seem to purchase an album that isn't an illegal copy, despite the fact that places like Play.com and Asda regularly sell new releases for well under a tenner. I'm not one of those who likes to preach that 'home taping is killing music' or whatever phrase has replaced it, but why put up with inferior goods and break the law just to save a few quid?
Today another colleague was talking about some dodgy geezer she knows (only without using the word 'geezer' as, let's face it, that's not very northern), and mentioned that she once had him dispose of her car so that she could claim on the insurance. This made me wonder... why was I totally OK with someone defrauding their insurance company out of £400, yet practically outraged at the idea of someone buying a load of knock-off compact discs? Insurance companies may make so much money these days that it's good to see someone getting something back and lots of people do it which is why my premiums are so painfully high, I suspect, but that's still no reason for me to be thinking that such shenanigans might be a good idea.
I suppose that a little law breaking here and there has become so common place that we all cherry pick the things we consider to be OK. I break the law every day as, when traffic allows, I usually exceed the speed limit but why do I think that doing something which could potentially kill is 'better' than the actions of someone who sells inferior goods to suckers? Anyone who has an explanation for the workings of the human mind is welcome to come up with a theory as I really can't think of one.
Posted on July 02, 2004 | Comments (9)