16 November, 2005

Not really, but to the residents of DC it will feel like it. I am flying out on Sunday for a meeting and coming back on Tuesday or Wednesday. It’ll be great to see everybody again and hang-out in old town Alexandria, go down to Chadwicks for a few Yinglings! See ya’ll there!

Not only have they destroyed my data but it now appears that the entire contents of my site are locked for editing, so I can’t upload photos, change the CSS, change the stylesheets etc.

Just what I need in the middle of a busy week packing my house up, moving this weekend, possiby flying to Washington DC for a few days next week and then going to Paris next weekend for the rugger. When am I going to find time to sort this mess out!

To say I am pissed off would be a major understatement. Some of you may have noticed that over the past two days something funny has been happening to my site. Firstly it wouldn’t load, and then it loaded with data up until October, uhhhh, where the fark is all my November stuff!! What gets me most is that I have completely lost all the “behind the scenes” changes I have been making recently with the CSS stylesheets etc. Great, back to square bloody one!

Luckily I was able to recover the text of my recent posts by using Google’s cache function and then cutting and pasting the text back in, although unfortunately I wasn’t able to recover some of the more recent posts.

I am really annoyed with the company who host my site Addaction.net !Firstly let me say I have never had a problem with them before and they have been great up to now, wouldn’t it be lovely if that was the end of it.

Well it isn’t! Yesterday, after establishing that something was wrong I emailed them for support. They replied that the server was down for upgrade and would be up and running again shortly, they told me that I could email the billings department and request a free months hosting - great, an extra £3 !?! Then today I notice that my site has been reset to the 25th October!!! I have received another response from them saying that all my data will be restored as they are still working with the system. Ordinarily this would make me content and I wouldn’t let the red mist descend until they had come back to me again. BUT, again another but, Brendan also has his site hosted with Addaction.net and he got two completely different responses!! They told him that the site is being upgraded AND DID NOT offer him a free months upgrade. They then told him that all information and data had been lost and could not be recovered by their system!!!!

Thanks Addaction.net , thanks a lot, my advice to anybody out there looking for a good hosting service is definitely not to go with Addaction.net !!!

Great sporting weekend with South Africas hard fought victory over Argentina and Manchester United breaking a Chelsea team who haven’t lost in over a year.
My prediction, Alan Smith will be ready at the end of the season to take over from King Keano!

Another bender of a weekend has come and gone leaving me sitting in my lounge on Sunday night wondering where it went? On Friday night we went to Sarah Carvers birthday party at the Bedford in Balham. Stumbled back home at 3am after the “Comedy Evening” turned into a raging nightclub!
With little more than 3 hours sleep I left the house at 7am to pick up Manus and Gavin and head north of London for a days flyfishing at Rib Valley. There is only one large lake stocked with Trout but the fishing was superb. We left just before it started raining ‘cos a night of revelry was planned to coincide with the late broadcast of the South Africa v Argentina game. For the second week in a row we went through to Thai Square on Saturday night. This place gets a huge thumbs up from me, the perfect location, its always full of angels and the music is hundreds. If you’re ever looking for a solid place to go on saturday night look no further than this Putney venue.
Had a great night with Hatch, Grayskull, Simon Bloom, Dave Winch, Don Bumfleas etc. I tried to convince myself that I was still sober at 2:30 am but when I got home I realised I was whipped. Didn’t help that Sky changed their broadcast and decided they were no longer showing the game!!

Andre Watson, a man who can easily be classed as a rugby legend has quit the game. I have just read an interview with the great man and it has brought back huge memories for me. Who can forget the game where Balie Swart pulled a red card out his pocket and carded the referree. What about the game where NZ beat Aus in 2000 in front of the biggest crowd ever in what what was possibly the greatest game of all time.

Looks like Andre might be releasing a book soon and if it has anymore quotes like the following, then I’ll definitely be buying it:
Rafael Ibanez, French Captain to Andre Watson in the 1999 World Cup Final “Andre, these Australians, they’re pissies man!”

It looks like the muppits at Sky aren’t going to show the SA vs Argentina game! I don’t believe it.
Does anybody know if it is actually on, or maybe even know of a pub showing the game?

The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder. Who gives a *&%, the Springboks are playing in Paris on the 26th November and a bus load of savage South Africans are on their way over.

I’m getting excited already just to see the Stade de France.

I think that my Apple iBook might just be fixed. I love my Mac, the functionality, the usability and of course the operating system with the amazing programmes that go with it. Recently though (Last 6 months) I have had major problems with it but yesterday was a watershed in the life of my little ibook. The guys who were “repairing” it said that it could now only be one of two problems, either the Logic Board or the Memory card. Well a Logic Board costs over £500 to replace so we swopped out the memory hoping for a cheaper result.
Last night I used it without a hitch so I think I can safely assume the problem is sorted. There is still a slight niggle in the back of my mind - the fact that the Logic Boards on all iBooks are actually inherently faulty and they are known to die roughly 1.5 years after purchase. This little fact has caused massive controversy and general outrage from iBook owners. Apple have implemented a Logic Board replacement scheme but this only covers iBooks from 2001 to 2003 and there are thousands of people who claim their Logic boards are faulty on iBooks older than 2003. So, if you’re thinking of buying an iBook, do yourself a favour and get a Powerbook!! You don’t want to be left signing online petitions and shelling out shed loads more cash in under two years.
If my Logic Board is stuffed I’m gonna be really pissed.

There is a massive debate raging in England at the moment regarding Identity Cards. The government wants them, but the opposition don’t and it appears the general population don’t either. How ridiculous and stoopid is that!! They think that having ID cards will lead to a “Big Brother” type situation. Bunch of bloody laughing boys I tell you!
If you want to do anything that requires identification over here eg. open a bank account etc. you need to produce all sorts of ridiculous info to prove who you are. The primary requirement is to produce 2 recent bills in your name eg. Gas, Water, Electricity etc. as well as providing a drivers license or passport.
I lost the adaptor piece for the anti-theft wheel nut on my mag wheels recently and in order to get a replacement one BMW require me to produce the vehicle registration form, my drivers license and two utility bills. Crazy hey!?! As if the vehicle reg form with my name and address and my drivers license aren’t enough. And what about a passport, apparently that is not enough either!! To make matters worse, most utility companies are starting to produce online bills and email bills and no longer send out posted copies. The advance in technology relating to online billing could lead to an indentity crisis in Britain.
Imagine if I lose my passport and drivers license, it’ll be up to British Gas to re-introduce me to the world! You gotta love this place, they take stupidity to new levels of anonymity!
PS: You can buy the adaptor on Ebay for £20!

Very interesting the way this was done!

Sony made an advert on the streets of San Fran whereby they dropped 250 000 coloured balls onto the streets. Instead of using CGI -the norm these days- they did it for real. Here is Sony BRAVIA - The Advert. website with video clips, behind the scenes etc. Definitely watch the advert!

It looks likely that the hosting rights for Rugby World Cup 2011 will be awarded to favourites South Africa just a year after we host the Soccer World Cup 2010! The other contenders are Japan and New Zealand although by all accounts they only have an outside chance.
Forget New Zealand, if you’re going to have a World Cup hosted by a rugby superpower then it is clearly a one horse race and New Zealand are the donkey. SA are on the same time-zone as Europe, we have massive stadiums in comparison and enough hotels where NZ does not, plus experience at hosting big events.
SA could host a great tourney in 2011. But I sincerely hope that we don’t get it. For the greater good of the rugby game I would love to see Japan get it in order to spread the sports popularity outside the traditional rivals!
One of the allegeded reasons that the Japanese bid is not favoured is because the cost to host the event has not been unerwritten by the government whereas SA and NZ has. The Japanese bid has been underwritten by 20 different corporate sponsors whose equivalent GDP is greater than both the SA and NZ governments!!

Sorry if you can’t post comments for the last couple of weeks, I have tried to eradicate the ridiculous amount of spamming on my site and as a result something cocked up and nobody can comment anywhere! Great, I’m working on the coding of what looks like a dodgy php file right now.

What a weekend. The highlight was probably the Tottenham v Arsenal game up at White Hart Lane but the Friday night party (mini-Albion reunion, Dylans Farewell), the Saturday night party (Bruce Olifant in London) and the Sunday party (Ryan Norries farewell) took some beating.
Arsenal were very lucky to come away with a draw, contrary to the ramblings of a one-eyed “fan” I know who didn’t even watch the game, admittedly kinda difficult if you live in another hemisphere! Its a pity that he doesn’t know what its like to be surrounded by the Yid Army on a chilly Saturday afternoon, with helicopters permanently overhead and riot police guiding you down to the ground, it makes you realise the importance of the occasion to the people around you and adds an edge to the pure sporting occasion. In fact its a shame that a lot of people don’t know what that feels like, I love the atmosphere and the “reality” of watching live football, the pace of the game feels supersonic when watching live, the tackles look harder and the goals more spectacular. The same can probably be said for any sport, but there is no atmosphere any where in the world quite like English football!
The game was a draw, not for Tottenhams lack of trying but more for a lucky late equaliser by Arsenal. FACT, I was there and I know football!

The Chicago White Sox are the World Champions of baseball after sweeping the Houston Astros last night 4-0 in the World Series. Most of you couldn’t give damn about baseball and I wouldn’t blame you, I didn’t either until earlier this year. I always viewed baseball as a boring game lacking in the variety that is required to captivate my attention for 3 hours. How wrong I was! Baseball is a tactical game, the subtlety in the tactics and the minor nuances in skill and luck that can swing a game are dramatic.

So in the season that I finally understood the game of Baseball the White Sox have come out champs. Last year it was the Boston Red Sox who reversed the “Curse or the Bambino” by winning the WS for the first time since 1929, this year the Chicago White Sox reversed the curse of the “Black Sox” where Shoeless Joe Jackson conspired with 7 other teammates to throw the 1919 World Series.
You have to read this article, as passionate as any I have ever read!

Its official, Pekstas latest stab at literary creativity will be able to tickle the worlds funny bone if his attempt to describe Rockys entry into puberty is anything to go by.

This weekend I have managed to procure tickets to see the big norf London derby Tottenham vs Arsenal at White Hart Lane. I’ll be sitting amongst the yiddos cheering them on and singing “Its a long way to seven sisters, its a long way to go……. ”

Flan will be in the Arsenal end sh*tting himself!