Brushes

A brush is a brush. It serves a very simple purpose: to brush things. And as such they were created as very simple, inelegant and pretty boring organisms. Take, for example a sweeping brush; It has a long pole with bristles on the end. The hair brush has a small handle with bristles on the end. The brush from a dust-pan and brush is a mid-point between these two - it has a medium sized handle with bristles on the end. Generally, the brush species each share the common traits of a handle with bristles on the end. Like I stated earlier, they are simple, boring creatures. They usually live hidden out of sight...

Why then do we put so much emphasis on the bog-brush? Why can't we just let them be a natural species? Why do we need to genetically modify them to produce fancy looking things? Take these examples:



Considering this species of brush is generally used for swishing around in wee and poo infested toilets, you'd think they'd be bred to be a bit plainer like the other brushes...

MaFt

Busy Busy Busy

Last night I was up until about 1am sorting out both Mini-MaFt's website and getting my head around setting up a Cron job and associated php script to automatically create a backup of a MySQL database...

It was fun, and we got there in the end with some help from the excellent Support guys at Blackfoot Hosting!

Having said that I'm only up to August 2006 for Mini-MaFt's site so there's still a bit more to do...

MaFt

Changes

I've (rather reluctantly) moved my blog back onto the Blogger hosting to take advantage of some of the new features available which they don't let you use if you FTP to your own host...

Because of this you may need to change your link to the RSS feed, if you use it, to this: http://maftmaft.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Cheers

MaFt

Not Again...

Carrying on from yesterdays mis-adventure I nearly did the opposite earlier on... King of Shaves shaving gel nearly went in my hair...! Luckily I noticed (unlike yesterday) and didn't actually squeeze any out this time!

I blame a long night with little sleep (cheers Mini-MaFt!)

MaFt

Don't You Just Hate It When...

You start using hair-gel instead of shaving-gel...

Animal Farm

Received this the other day:

Dear Reader

Petitioning the Prime Minister seems to be very much in vogue at present, with the media giving a great deal of coverage to Number 10's dedicated website. A new petition has been set up via that website in support of animal research, stating:

Animal research has enabled scientists to find treatments for cancer, vaccines and antibiotics. This does not advocate using animals unnecessarily but animal research is required because sometimes there are no other viable alternatives. In addition it is unrealistic to force animal research to stop by a certain date since nobody can predict future scientific progress in finding other methods that produce accurate results compared with those from animal research. It is for these reasons this petition calls for continued support for animal research.

If you would like to support this petition, it can be found at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/animalresearch/

Thanks again for your continuing support.

Yours

Jo

Jo Tanner
Chief Executive
Coalition for Medical Progress

Go on, do it for the kids!

MaFt

The Verdict.

Anyone else watching this? It seems pretty good so far actually but like most 'reality' TV there's a cynical part of me that thinks that it's not going to actually be that real...

The 12 jurors (some random 'celebrities') have to decide the outcome of a rape case. The case is fictional and is based on evidence taken form actors after an unscripted, ad-libbed 'event'. Because of this then surely the witnesses etc aren't going to be realistic as they know all along what happened and that none of it was real... Also, the jurors know none of it was real so they'll have to be very strict with themselves to treat it as such and not to just have fun with it.

Still, it's good telly and the first proper use of my DVD Recorder too! What would have topped it all off though was if they had got Judge Judy to preside over the case!

MaFt

How Do The Canadians Do It?

Why does Britain come to a total standstill when there's the slightest bit of snow?!

However, the really annoying thing is that, with working from home, I can no longer phone up and say "My bus hasn't turned up because of the snow so I won't be in work today".

MaFt

Mmmmm

There's nowt beats a freshly baked Pork Pie!

MaFt

The Cupboard Conversion

In a bid to create some more space in the attic Mrs-MaFt had this crazy mental idea to convert a cupboard on the landing into a computer area. I had this crazy mental idea to agree and actually pull it off!

First task was to get everything out of there - a set of drawers and a bunch of coats and other random crap. I did find my Voice Of The Mysterons badge though! And once that was done I got measuring - ya know, to make sure it was feasible and so that I didn't have any nasty surprises later on...

Phase 1.5 was to drill a few holes and stick some cables in fr the power. Phase 2 was to stick up a load of brackets for the shelves to sit on:


Just look at the lovely aqua coloured walls...

To cut the shelves I hired a magical saw that cut them itself without any kind of human intervention. As you can see from the photo below, I'm not telling porkies - you can clearly see that there are no hands assisting the saw.


The magical 'self-cutting' saw.

With the drawers cut to size and their perfect fit(!) confirmed I went about painting over the garish aqua with a nice, plain white.


White wash!

The next step was obviously to fit the shelves and then get those painted too. For the keyboard tray I just robbed the rollers from my old computer desk and used those - no point reinventing the wheel eh?


Shelves in place...


...and painted in matching white.

It was then time to move in. All was going well until I tried to put the monitor in... Erm... My measuring clearly wasn't up to scratch as it didn't fit... Neither did the 15inch monitor I swapped it for with Nephew-J... Damn, I'm going to have to buy a nice 19" Widescren TFT monitor. What a shame that will be :D For the meantime I'm using TightVNC to control my PC via the laptop. Works well too!

Anyway, here it is in all it's glory (sans monitor):


Ta-Da!

MaFt

Update

I'm not ignoring you all, I've just been busy with trying to get stuff sorted at home! I've been busy converting an old cupboard into a computer hideout but my monitor doesn't fit in there so I can't really use it yet (hence the lack of updates).

So, once I'm sorted and can pull a load of pictures off my phone I'll get the blog updated!

Cheers

MaFt

Steven Spiel-MaFt

Blimey, I've let a week slip by again without any posts... So, I'm not sitting here with a pint of Wells Banana Bread Beer bringing you up to speed.

So, basically I've been getting lots of work done - both paid work and unpaid work. I've been a busy bee getting a load of video editing done but have hit a potential stumbling block... Disc space, or rather the lack of it. Never the mind though as I've worked out a way around it - it took a lot longer to work this out than I believe it should have though... I'm just putting the finishing touches to the bonus disc of the Punk Worship DVD I'm doing so once that's burnt I can get rid of the raw footage which will free up enough space (about 30GB) so that I can finish off my wedding video and Brother-A's wedding video.

Once those are done I'll have enough free space to do the main disc of the Punk Worship DVD set, for which I'll need about 45GB just for the raw footage. Then when that's done I can get cracking on Mini-MaFt's First Year DVD and a tonne of other odd little recordings I need to sort out.

It's scary to think that I can happily sit and manipulate 20GB files when only 7 years ago my first computer had a (then) massive 6.4GB hard drive. Big Brother-T said at the time "you'll never need all that space but if you've got the money you may as well have it". Well, now I have 18GB free space out of the 320GB I have available - and I cleared about 10GB the other day just from odd video files knocking about...

Space, the final frontier - I'll never have enough...

MaFt

Vegetarian Haggis

I'll try anything once. Well, maybe not anything, but most things. When Dougsy the Scottish Beast came down for PW2 last month he brought with him a gift. That gift was a Vegetarian Haggis made by Macsween of Edinburgh.



The other day I finally got around to cooking and eating it. After removing the outer packaging and inner packaging I was faced with this:



The instructions said I could either oven it for 45 minutes, boil it for 45 minutes or microwave it for 8 minutes. Being both a modern man and a lazy man I opted for the microwave approach. This involved having to cut the haggis up into slices:



...slapping it in the microwave...



...and, after 8 minutes, removing the now cooked haggis:



Then came the scary part. Actually eating it! It was quite nutty and stodgy although I think I only managed to finish one slice of it... Don't get me wrong Dougsy, I certainly appreciate the gesture but vegetarian haggis is one thing that is being put on my "I've tried it once, and only once" list. Cheers though!

MaFt

New Year, Old Jokes

Yesterday we decided to take all the decorations down and rearrange the living room. While we were taking the tree down we realised we had not pulled any crackers! We'd put them on the tree as decorations but owing to us eating out on Christmas day (if you were about to ask, it was pretty crap) and being at various family members' houses for the rest of the week we never had time for them.

So, in case you were wondering on the quality of the gifts and jokes that we had, here is the run down of all 12 jokes and all 12 gifts (in no particular order):

Gifts:



1. Fiddly Metal Toy Thing - one of those little things you fiddle with for hours on end and then finally manage to complete it, only to discover you can't get the thing back together...

2. Wax Crayons - set of 4 (yellow, green, blue and red) wax crayons. Presumably for use with #10. Small, fiddly and hard to hold unless you're a mouse.

3. 'Purple' Pen - a low quality, purple-plastic pen that actually writes in blue. Has a smooth click action for extraction/retraction of the nib. Good, all-round use and can also be used along side #2 with #10.

4. Whoopee Cushion - more of a 'squeek' than a 'parp' but then it's easily portable due to it's small size. You can't have everything, can you?

5. Green Plastic Hair Clip - one for the girls I guess, but I find it hard to imagine an outfit that it would go with. When I do manage to imagine an outfit it may go with it's a truly hideous one...

6. Tape Measure - A whole 60 inches / 5 foot / 150cm. Useful for measuring things less than 1.5m. Not many other uses really.



7. Set of Marbles - 6 marbles in a stunning red bag. Pretty useless really as the rules of marbles clearly state that you need 13 in the middle of the ring and then you need ones to play with... Still, it could be used to add to your marble collection (if you have one).

8. Whistle Lips - simply pop it in your mouth and blow it to make a noise like the secret Thistle Whistle only not as loud and without the Scottish Sea Dragons...

9. Playing Cards - small pack of cards for mouse-sized hands. Crackers seem to cater for very small people. I'm presuming it's a full set as I've not been bothered to open them yet to check; I doubt I ever will either.

10. Notepad - small (mouse-sized?) notepad with special 'silver reflective cover'. Contains 50 sheets (well, I got to 27 and figured I was roughly half-way through) and suitable for use with items #2 and #3.

11. Pink Water-Pistol - holds approximately 7ml of liquid and has a range of around 6 foot (180cm) depending on the Strength-of-Squeeze Factor and other GCSE Physics constants.

12. Star Pencil Sharpener - sharpen pencils and other objects of similar girth. Not suitable for use with #3 but will work with #2 (although no guarantee is given).


Now, onto the 'jokes'. It will soon become clear why I have put the word 'jokes' in quotes... Each 'joke' had a number in the corner, presumably so the monkeys packing the crackers did not duplicate a 'joke' in each set of crackers.

1. What lives at the bottom of the sea and shivers?     A nervous wreck.
2. What do you call a crate of ducks?     A box of quackery.
3. Waiter, what's this fly doing in my soup?     The breast stroke, sir.
4. Why can't you play cards in the jungle?     There are too many cheetahs.
5. What do cannibals play at parties?     Swallow my leader.
6. How do you get down from an elephant?     You don't, you get down from ducks.
7. What would happen if pigs could fly?     Bacon would go up.
8. How do you get two whales in a car?     Over the Severn Bridge.
9. Why does a giraffe have such a long neck?     Because its feet smell.
10. How do you start a bear race?     Readdy, teddy, go.
11. What's sweet and swings through the jungle?     Tarzipan.
12. Why did the jelly baby go to school?     Because it wanted to be a smartie.

Boom boom! That's the noise the writers of these 'jokes' will be hearing if I ever met one of them... Not that I own a gun, or condone the use of violence...

Happy 2007!

MaFt

More Spaces Than Ever Before

Most people who chat to me via MSN will probably be able to tell you that my keyboard sucks. The space bar tends to be a bit reluctant to do any work so you would quite often have to decipherwhatexactlyiwastyping! However, Mrs-MaFt bought me a shiny new keyboard for Christmas (amongst other things) with, wait for it, a fully functioing space-bar! The possibilities are endless!!

See ya

MaFt

More Daftness

I'm sure that old-age is making me lose my mind. I mean, 26 years old IS pretty old really - I'm probably a third of the way through my whole life...

I did another stupid thing yesterday although not quite as girly as being scared of a spider! I was hoovering up in the lounge (ok, maybe it IS as girly...) and there was a big bit of stuff on the floor. The hoover didn't pick it up first time so I tried reversing over it, you know, just to make sure. It still didn't manage to suck it up into the spiders new abode. So I tried again, both going forward and in reverse. Still no luck.

So what did I do? I bent down to pick up this bit of stuff to make sure that it wasn't stuck in the carpet and after confirming that it wasn't stuck in the carpet I put it back on the floor and tried to hoover it up again. Why I didn't just put it in the bin when I'd picked it up I have no idea... Perhaps it was just to make sure the hoover was really working, perhaps I'm just daft... It can't only be me that does it, surely?!


Her With The Hoover

DaFt (my new name?!)

Spider!

T'other day, while I was tidying the cellar head and generally sorting out a mass of tools and junk that had been dumped there over the last few months or so, I came across one of these:



OK, it wasn't quite as cartoony as that, but artistic license allows me to use such images. I'm not a big fan of anything that creeps and crawls unless I can easily destroy it with a something the size of a BIC Pen - so this one was out of my league as it had a span of about 15mm; far greater than the preferred method of destruction. In my panicy wisdom I resorted to vacuuming the little blighter up. Problem solved, and how easy was that?!

It wasn't until later on that evening that I realised the spider could simply crawl back out of the bag/hose once I had switched it on... So much for my wonderful plan! It's amazing how thick we can be when we panic about something so pathetic as a spider.

MaFt

A Decade Has Passed!

Well, 10 days rather than 10 years... I'm still dead busy hence my complete lack of Blogness! But all is almost done! PW2 went really well and the decorating at the Mother-In-Laws is coming to a close. Once that's done I can get cracking on all the video editing that has been building up since Summer 2005...

That's about it really, nothing of interest has happened! I'll try make the blog a bit more interesting in the near future too!

MaFt

So Much To Do!

Both Mini-MaFt and Mrs-MaFt are ill... great... puke and poo everywhere! Seriously!

It has just dawned on me how much I need to get done this week! Not only have I work to do but I also need to get some decorating done at the In-Laws. Then on top of that, tomorrow night we're off to St Georges Hall in Bradford to see 'Love So Amazing 2' - a collection of modern worship stuff. Mum and Dad are singing so we're off to support them. Ro, Punk Worship bassist, is operating the projector for the night so he's gonna spam it with PW2 adverts so I'll have to get a photo of our massive promo!

I also need to get the laptop's prepared for various events at church this week: Thursday is Brigades Christmas event, Saturday is PW2 and Sunday I'm on the rota to project the normal worship service... Thing is, I can't get hold of the church laptop until Wednesday and I'm STILL waiting for people to send me what they want putting on it!

So, that's about all!

See ya

MaFt

Mini-Mrs-MaFt

Those who are a bit more alert may have noticed that for a while the sub-title for the blog has said "... dad of one (and another one on the way)..."

Well, here's the other one:



She's due May 1st 2007 :) We're well chuffed!

MaFt

Beat The System!

It's December tomorrow and that means Mrs-MaFt will soon be demanding I get the step-ladders out and risk life and limb balancing on them with Mini-MaFt running underneath me getting the Christmas Decorations up.

The Mother-in-Law has been sorting through their lights and all that lot over the last few days and found that most of them don't work - most of which they only bought last year. However, they bought them at the wrong time.

It got me thinking that if you don't mind having your decorations put up a week or so late every other year then you can beat the warranty system and show the big light companies that "you're the man". Well, here's my great money saving idea:

December 20th 2006: buy new Christmas lights with 12-month warranty. Put them up, get drunk and enjoy Christmas.

December 10th 2007: put your decorations up a bit earlier and if they don't work then they are still within their 12-month warranty period and you get them replaced. If they do work, then great, you've not lost out on anything!

For the following years: if you need new decorations then get them as late as possible to ensure you have some time left in your warranty to get them replaced the following year if things go wrong.

Dead simple isn't it? I have far too much time to think...

MaFt

Punk Rock 101

"It's stupid, contagious
To be broke and famous
Can someone please save us from punk rock 101
My Dickies, your sweat bands
My spiked hair, your new Vans
Let's throw up our rock hands for punk rock 101"
'Punk Rock 101' - Bowling For Soup

I had a message via MySpazz yesterday saying how the Punk Workshop I was running sounded like a great idea and this guy was going to try get some of his friends to come along.

Now, hopefully, it was a simple typo that was supposed to read 'Punk Worship' and the poor lad wasn't actually expecting a workshop on how to be punk...

In case I am actually mistaken and he WAS wanting a punk workshop then below is my quick guide on how to be punk depending on your age:


Young Punk:

• ensure your wardrobe consists solely of: atticus, lowlife, vans or black clothing
• deny you are 'emo'
• slag Green Day off for 'selling out' after releasing [insert any Green Day album title here]
• listen only to the latest 'cool' bands
• claim loudly that [insert last week's 'cool' band here] have sold out because they got radio airplay
• only go to see your mates bands and download their cd instead of supporting them
• have a MySpace page with your friends made up of bands you've never seen and your school chums
• explain to everyone that being 'punk' is about not following fashions and thinking for yourself then go around dressing the same as everyone else...
  

Old Punk:

• hate new punk rock groups for at least one of the following reasons: they have good quality recordings, they're in it for the money, they're too young, it's just not '77
• wear an old, tatty leather jacket with some dodgy 70's bands Tipp-Ex-ed onto it
• go on constantly about '77-'79
• show how much you 'hate the system' by working 9-5, 5 days a week, for a multi-national company that exploits cheap labour in China
• explain to everyone you meet that 'punk' is about not following rules or a fashion but then dress the same as every other punk and slag off various groups for not fitting the punk rules that, according to your own beliefs, don't exist anyway...
  
• never shut up about the time you saw [insert any 70's punk band here] at [insert any small pub name here]

OK, so that was slightly tongue-in-cheek, but some people annoy me! Having said that there are 2 'types' of punk person that I respect:

• 1) The young punk who'll go to see old bands and respects the fact that this is where their current 'new' bands got a lot of their inspiration from
• 2) The old punk who accepts that times change and will go to see and support the new punk bands

That's all for now, I feel I may have babbled! Anyway, it's not 'punk' to moan about stuff that's not government (old punk) or fashion (young punk) related...

MaFt

The Separation of Work & Home

It may seem kinda weird but since I've been working on a PC all day long at home I hardly ever seem to have any inclination to use my own PC! While this in itself is no big deal it just means that loads of stuff I need to do keeps getting put off - like the pile of camcorder video's I need to edit and burn to disc, websites I need to make etc etc.

I suppose it's like when I made drugs for a living at Nektar I never wanted to come home and make drugs. Now I work on a computer all day I hardly want to use one in my spare time. But, hey, at least I can make all the drugs I want to now!

MaFt

Damn...

MySpace Quizzes

Bugger...

MaFt

The Greatest Band In The World!

On Saturday night I, once again, witnessed the greatest band in the world playing live.

Scru', Jim and me headed over to Leeds Uni to catch the Rancid gig. Absolutely fantastic stuff! About 30 songs covering all their albums over the last 15 years as well as a couple of Operation Ivy songs thrown in for good measure. You can't beat the best punk band in the world coming back for their encore branding acoustic guitars - how weird it seemed but it sounded awesome.


Rancid

A good night was had by all. And a sober night too, flippin' £2.70 for a can of Carling...

MaFt

Just Warning You...

I've just switched to Blogger Beta where I can now add labels for each post that I make. So, I'm starting to go through all the posts to add the relevant labels to each one. However, if you subscribe to my RSS Feed then you may find that it suddenly seems to repost everything all of a sudden... This is because the posts have to be re-uploaded to add the labels and the feed thinks it's new...

So, sorry if you see lots of posts, but you have been warned!

MaFt

Top 10

According to MediaMonkey these are my top 10 most listened to songs:

Welcome to The Black Parade- My Chemical Romance
Since U Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson
The Darkest Places - MxPx
Blessed Be Your Name (live) - Punk Worship Band
Stars - Dude Fish
Punk Rock Princess - Something Corporate
You're Beautiful- James Blunt
The Story - MxPx
Friendly Fire - 3Dbs Down
Divide, Devoid, Devine - Chucky No Stars

What a mixture eh?! Wonder how different that list will be on my laptop... That's for another day!

MaFt

Izzit Cos I Is Black?

Well, the blog has gone all black n orange! My two favourite colours. Well, not my favourite colours, more my favourite colour scheme! More changes to come, this is just the start for now!

I'm finally gonna get around to updating my site - well, that's a massive over-statement, the plan is actually to just change the main page to make it either a link to the blog (regularly updated) or the main site (badly updated) - at some point I'll actually update the site a bit but since Mini-MaFt has been born I've not had much chance to write any songs so it's a bit pointless so far! Still, it'll get done.

I recorded the vocals for OPEN YOUR EYES last night which sound pretty good. Just a few more finishing touches and we should be able to get some samples up and get them off to the printers too.

Right, break over, back to work!

MaFt

All Up In Smoke

We had a bunch of people round last night for some fireworks. What started off as me, Mrs-MaFt and Mini-MaFt quickly ended up being both our families and a whole bunch of other people too! Still, I'm not complaining - it was fun and Sister-In-Law-H's neighbour made a fantastic corned beef and potato pie.

We'd bought some fireworks from Tesco - just kiddy ones so no big bangs or anything and so had Sister-In-Law-H. I got a text at about 5pm from Brother-T saying 'Got shit loads of big fireworks and rockets see you later'. Well, they were big and there were lots of them, however, they were just bigger versions of the kiddy one's we had bought! Brother-T was gutted that he'd spent forty quids on 'pretty-pretties' of which only two banged. The rockets were good though!

So, it just goes to show that just cos you pay more and they're bigger that that doesn't mean they're gonna be any better! The big-ass fireworks required us to be 25m away from them as opposed to the 5m ones we'd bought originally. So, even though they were bigger they looked the same cos they were 5 times farther away...

MaFt

Almost Recorded

Yo, spent most of the day in the crèche at church recording both the drums and guitars for the Punk Worship CD. We rn out of time for getting the vocals done so I'll be getting those done during the week either on my 8-track or down at Ro's... No doubt you'll be kept updated!

Anyway, I'm off to catch up on Torchwood.

MaFt

Enough To Drive You Mental!

Yesterday, wherever I drove I seemed to get stuck behind either a learner doing 20mph in a 40 zone or a bus that wanted to pull up every 100m at some imaginary bus stop. Why people don't give me priority on the road I have no idea...

Hopefully today will be better as there's no school traffic to get caught up in!

MaFt

Busy-ness

Had a pretty busy week last week! Monday we headed over to Blackpool to see the lights - I'm sure they get slacker each year... I remember the North end used to have loads of big displays at the roadside but there's only about 10 or so now. Maybe it's cos I'm getting older and everything seems much bigger and more fascinating when you're younger! Mini-MaFt enjoyed himself even though it was flipping freezing!

Tuesday was Niece-C's birthday party so that took up the best part of the evening then the day after was her actual birthday - so, again, another afternoon taken out! Working from home is great as it meant I could finish early in the afternoon then just make up the hours later in the evening!

I'm also enjoying Firefox 2 - particularly the in-line spell checker so as I type here it underlines spelling errors! Great stuff!

Then, my free time this week has been spent sorting out the stuff for recording the CD on Saturday and getting music sorted out for PW2... Busy busy busy!


OPEN YOUR EYES

Ta-ra for now, I have to get back to work ;)

MaFt

OPEN YOUR EYES

www.PunkWorship.co.uk will be recording a mini-album on November 4th with the aim of providing fundage for future PW events. And also to add a kick-ass CD to your collection!

It will feature 4 or 5 new recordings (more details later), a live track from Punk Worship earlier in the year; technology permitting, it should also have some special magic enhanced CD content including a video. There might also be a little extra there too....

So, why am I telling you this? Well, we figured that if a handful of people pre-ordered the CD at a special reduced cost of £5 (plus 50p postage) this would help us with the initial funding for getting the CD's duplicated and the artwork printed. Normal price will be £6 (plus postage) and all profits (around £2.50 at full price) will go towards future PW events which, at present, cost us around £300 (hire/purchase of equipment, admin costs etc etc)

I'll post details in the near future about how you can pre-order OPEN YOUR EYES either by cheque or through PayPal - keep checking www.PunkWorship.co.uk too as well as your inbox - what? you mean you're not signed up to the mailing list?! DO IT NOW: PW Mailing List


Open Your Eyes

MaFt

Lo-Fi.. Why??!

Today as I was walking around town for a bit I noticed more and more people walking round with music blasting out from their phones. Well, I say blasting, it's hardly loud - just more of an annoyance.

Back in the day the kids had ghetto blasters perched on their shoulders - they looked like complete tits but at least you could make out what music they were listening to. These phones may be alright as music players when you have headphones attached but through a crappy little speaker it's just pointless.

Maybe I just don't understand, you know, with not being part of the MySpace Generation - I never really got into MySpace and I doubt I'll ever get into listening to music in poor quality either...


Much cooler than hanging a phone around your neck...

MaFt

Finally started working!

Right, I've spent the best part of the day on my new job. Working on behalf of www.PocketGPSWorld.com. I've still got some bits to get used to and learn but I seem to be getting the hang of it so far. The good thing is I'm working from home so can listen to music all day long too! So, if you visit the site during the day you're actually likely to see what I'm listening to (on the left) as opposed to it saying "Nothing".

Also, Grandma died at 7am on Saturday morning. We expecpected it but it's like she was waiting until everyone had seen her before she 'let go'. Mrs-MaFt says that sort of thing hapens a lot - she's a nurse and deals wth death quite a lot. Well, she's not in pain anymore.

And, finally, we had our first practise for PW2 on Saturday morning too. We got through a bunch of songs that we did previously but have made a start on some new songs, including som eChristmas carols too! They sound great :)

Anyway, back to work!

MaFt

Feel Better For That

Well, I've got to admit I feel a lot calmer now I've actually seen Grandma. It was a long drive to get down there but was worth it. She was very drugged up on pain killers but we managed to get a few grins from her and an almost 'hello'. Thing is, I didn't want to leave - it was like an admission that that was it I suppose. I'dhave happily sat there all day holding her hand but to actually leave was both weird and pretty upsetting.

Still, she's had a long life, had her husband taken as a POW during World War 2 then lost him at a fairly young age (around 50 or so, I think), battled with three lots of cancer but remained optimistic for most of her life.

Not wanting to make this blog too morbid (what with the death of Tinkle the other week!) I'll talk about something happier tomorrow! PW2 is on it's way!

MaFt

Grandma, We Love You!

Well, I was going to be starting the new job today but we're now having to drive down to Reading. Grandma is essentially on her death bed so work has been cancelled and re-arranged for Friday.

It aint gonna be nice going to see someone and saying 'bye' when you know you'll never see them again. With her living so far away it's been hard getting to see her, but at least she got to see Mini-MaFt last Christmas and didn't stop talking about him for a week!

The chorus of that world famous Space Monkey Three song goes:

"Death comes around to all of us sometime,
At least in Heaven, there'll always be sunshine"

Take your suncream Grandma, and I'll see you soon.

Love Maff

Jobness

Thought I'd give you motley lot an update! I got a job! Starting from tomorrow I'll be working from home playing on the internet all day, every day! I'll givemore info tomorrow after I've read through the confidentiality agreement as to what I can or can't say about it!

Ta-ra for now

MaFt

Tinkle: August 2001 - September 2006

There was a stuck on a lamp post near our house yesterday saying:



We'd not seen her since Tuesday night andshe fits the description... Bit gutted really cos she was the first thing we got when we got home after our honeymoon so she was a part of the family from day 8. I know she's only a cat but it's still sad.

Here's a few pictures in memorium:





Rest in Peace, puss.

MaFt

Still Here!

I've had a few things going wrong this last week or so and now it's time for my excuses as to why I've not posted for 8 days!

First up my wireless router that I picked up for nothing melted. Yes, melted. Dunno what happened but it stopped working and a circlular bit of melted plastic appeared in the outer casing... I opened the router up and one of the capacitors had erupted it's innards all over. Fun! It took a few days to get a decent signal from my older wireless kit. Think I'm gonna save up and get a decent wireless router soon.

Then, the cd player in Mrs-MaFt's car decided it didn't want to grip the cd's anymore. So, after stealing some torque screw-drivers from Brother-T I had the thing opened and tried to fix it but to no avail. Seems that when it couldn't grip a cd it assumed that it assumed that slot was empty so when you added another one (it holds 6) it tried to forde it into the same slot thus knackering the whole thing... Also, the tinymechanical bits that grip th cd didn't appear to want to work anymore. Hunting round I found out that Ford wanted £250 for one!! Get stuffed! Ended up getting a 1cd version off eBay for £80 including postage.

It doesn't help that Ford make their stereo's too big and with non-standard connections so the best bet was to get a Ford one. Also, the dash in Mrs-MaFt's car is all silver so we wanted a silver one to replace it with. Most are black or grey so it was 'fun' trying to find the right one!

So, there'smy excuses! I'm off down to Northampton tomorrow for an interview so I'm gonna get an early night!

See ya

MaFt

Complaint of the Week

Working in a complaints department can be pretty depressing but every-so-often you get something that makes you literally laugh outloud. Take this example: someone wrote to complain that a 'half-day jeep safari' excursion they went on was misrepresented as it was not a Jeep, but a Toyota Land Cruiser. Apparently a Toyota with a sticker saying 'Jeep' is not good enough...

To give him credit though he did have some other complaints too but the bulk of the letter appeared to be describing the difference between a Jeep and a Toyota Land Cruiser!

Ta-ra for now

MaFt

Bradford - City of Surprises

One thing I love about living in Bradford is the fact that you can drive around randomly and one second be in a busy village and then the next in the middle of nowhere with fantastic views all around.

I went for a drive earlier with Mini-MaFt up to Denholme and then after that I just took random turns (I had my Sat-Nav with me in case I got lost!). Halfway between Denholme and Oxenhope I stopped off and took these 2 photo's:





So, If you'er ever in or around Bradford just head out of town about 5 miles in pretty much any direction and you'll get some damn good scenery!

See ya

MaFt

Weird...

Dunno what happened t'other day... Tried blogging from Opera Mini on my phone but it only seems to have done the title and not the content!

Anyway, I'm temping at Thomas Cook for 8 weeks in Customer Relations - it's amazing some of the things people complain about...

Tired now, going to bed! More later

MaFt

back to work!

International Failure!

Well, I didn't get the job with Yorkshire Water so I'm still on the hunt for jobs!

Went to town today for the Bradford International Market - t'was very very busy and had lots of stalls but all we ended up buying were some sweets for Mini, Mrs and myself... Ah well, we're just not international people! Some piccies below from my new 3 mega pixel phone (spot the Peter Kay reference ;) )



MaFt

Back Again

Well, my computer is running again and has officialy been 'pimped' - see below! I'm still trying to get hold of a PSU that will fit inside though...


Officially 'pimped'!

MaFt

Hope exits stage left

Not had much luck finding a new power supply so am just gonna rig it up to a normal one and leave it on the outside for now. talk about pimp my ride! it'll look just as bad as some of those 'cars' that they deal with on there... i can understand americans doing it to hide their lack of personality but english people?! i thought we were more advanced than that... obviously not, we'll be suing our kids soon for loss of earnings during child birth. i'm sure i've already seen that on judge judy. maybe i'm as bad for actually watching that show! laters, MaFt

A possible result...

Been up to ccl computers earlier today and they're gonna try get hold of a psu for me. nice chaps! on the way up though brother-n phoned to ask if i could look something up online for him... couldn't have rung at a worse time really! oh well, hopefully i'll be up and running again soon seeing as i sent out an email to 801 people yesterday promising i'd update my Garmin sat nav site tomorrow! doh! it's scary how much you rely on computers as i was planning on printing out my application form so i could refresh myself with what i wrote to help at the interview on monday. bad timing in lots of ways! see ya, MaFt

Bang!

My power supply on my computer went bang this morning... normally this wouldn't bother me cos it's dead easy to replace a power supply. however, when you have a diddy little computer like mine with a stupid shape and size power supply things get a bit tricky... i've tried it with my mum's psu and all is well so i know it's just the power and not anything else. so, now begins the hunt for a power supply for a biostar ideq 200v small form factor case! let the mobile blogging commence! MaFt

Wrong Name

OK, so the name of the blog isn't really that accurate butI've been away! After getting back from a week in Alcudia (Northen Majorca) we headed off down to a village called Catchall which is about 5 miles from Lands End. It's a hell of a drive down there! Therefore I'm gonna leave theblog until I've recovered from too much driving and holidaying...

Still, I got back to see I had a letter from Yorkshire Water asking me to come for an interview and assesment too. Things are looking up on the job front!

MaFt

Thought i'd try...

Just on a mini bus heading back home after a week in majorca. eventful journey going, mini bus crashed and we had a delay of two hours with the plane... great! weather's been good, mini-MaFt's had a great time and the beer's been cheap too! i'll write more later when i'm more awake. oh, and i'm still looking for a job unless Yorkshire water have got back to me while i was away! wonder if this mobile email blogging will work this time! MaFt

LongTime

Blimey, I've not blogged for over a week! In fact, I've hardly been on the computer for a week...

Been busy doing other stuff like doing some recording for Mr Flett and spedning time mixing it all etc, decorating at the in-laws, looking and applying for jobs and watching Family Guy. I'm pretty much done with the mixing, got a bit more decorating to do and still need to find a job; but after that I promise I'll post a bit more!

In other news, isn't the weather still great? We're off to Shibden Park again tomorrow, apparently there's some rides there that I missed last time. Me, Mrs-MaFt, Mini-MaFt, Mrs-L and Mini-Mrs-L are going so should be good. It's supposed to be 31 celsius tomorrow - now that's hot! That's nearly 90F for you oldies out there.

Talking of oldies and people not understanding modern terms, I heard once that nearly 90% of people thought that 'blogging' was the same as 'dogging'. If you don't know what 'dogging' is then just do a google for it - for some reason I don't feel inclined to hunt out a link for you...

See ya

MaFt

The Plan For Today

By wearing a red t-shirt I can claim that my red, sun-burnt face is merely a trick of the light reflecting from my clothes...



MaFt

A Few Recent Piccies

Thought I'd do a lazy blog entry and just stick a few recent photo's up here... (hint: clicky for biggy)


Mini-MaFt in the sun


Broadways Not Ready at the 1-in-12, Bradford


Jess the dog moving too fast for the camera

Sorry, none of me ;)

MaFt

What's The 'Plus' For?!

I had my 'interview' at the Job Centre Plus this afternoon. What a complete waste of time! The guy didn't even pretend to be interested; I was expecting at the very least a false-front but no, not even that.

He did a job hunt for me but didn't pull anything up, that is unless I wasnted to be a bean-picker in Eastbourne or a cleaner in Rochdale. Neither of which apealed to me and, besides, I haven't had the training. I have to go back to 'sign on' next Monday and then once every two weeks after that. Hopefully by then I'll have found something more appealling than going back there! I can only hope...

So, the great job search continues! I'm signed up to a few agencies and looking every where I know so there must be something for me! No doubt I'll keep you updated!

Ta-Ra fornow

MaFt

Red Red Wine

We were at a 90th party yesterday and Miss-L on our table was drinking some red wine. Her younger brother came over to try some and found it pretty repulsive. I too find red wine repulsive but it reminded me of the one time in my life hen I enjoyed some red wine.

When I was at Uni, Shoetree had a habit of buying expensive bottles of red wine and sitting drinking them over a couple of consecutive nights. I had a habit of buying massive bars of chocolate and eating them over a couple of consecutive nights. One night, Shoetree decided he'd nick my chocolate... So I threatened to nick the last bit of his wine if he didn't give me it back.

"Yeah right, you're not gonna do that cos you don't even like red wine" is what he said.

I couldn't resist the challenge, so I braced myself , took his glass and finished his £15 bottle of red wine. Damn, it was disgusting! However, Shoetree was shocked and actually gave me my chocolate back! I felt really tight though for finishing off his wine so I let him keep the chocolate.

Revenge is sweet, and that is the only time I have enjoyed red wine! Just thought I'd share that with you.

MaFt

Innit Init

Innit hot? Or should I say init hot (with one 'n'). I got told off by my mate, Ro, for spelling 'innit' with two 'n''s in the middle in a text. Apparently you should only put one 'n' "cos den u got mor spce in yr txt to tlk crp init".

Yeah, whatever...

So, anyway, it's hot, in(n)it? Thought I'd share that with you in case you hadn't noticed!

Right, I'm off to see Broadways Not Ready now with their new line-up - should be good!

See ya

MaFt

Parkour

One of the beauties of not working is not having to worry about how late you go to sleep. So, last night I ended up watching a documentary called 'Jumping Britain' which was all about this new(ish) craze called 'Parkour'.

Parkour originated in France and seems to have picked up s steady following in the UK. Now, imagine mentalist freestyle skating/bmx, jumping between buildings, over walls, down stairs and through gaps - now imagine it without any bike or skates: that's Parkour. The site, Urban Freeflow, has a tonne of pictures, info and videos on it. Check it out, it's pretty impressive! Or do a google for 'parkour' and see what wonders you find.


Photo's from Urban Freeflow.

MaFt

The Grand Finale

Well, that's it, all done! We've had out last supper with Nektar Therapeutics UK Ltd - and what a blast it was. We had a meal at the ChinoThai in Bradford - a top meal it was too! Followed by a fewdrinkies in Lloyds next door afterwards.

Unfortunately I had to leave early to get Mini-MaFt else, in the words of Mr-B, "there would have been carnage". It's weird to think that I may never work with these people again, but I'm trying to get a barbeque sorted for over Summer to catch up with everyone. I can but try! So, another chapter in my life over! Best get on with editing Brother-A's wedding video...

My plan forMonday is to head to teh Job Centerto sign on - I hope there aren't too many scum-bags there... I've only been in there once before and I felt dirty when I left!! Maybe it's got better, who knows!

See ya

MaFt

Update

Thought I should update you all! The site is closing so as of Friday 30th June I will be officially redundant and unemployed :(

Went out for a few beers yesterday and then had today off. Tomorrow will see us signing everything we need to sign and then Friday we're off for a meal and some more drinks.

It's weird... I'm gonna have to find another job. I might try it Yosser Hughes style:

GISSA JOB, GO ON, GISSA JOB!

Later

MaFt

Forgot to Mention My New Best Friend!

I had a reply last Friday from my new friend in California, Jazz-Fairy. See previous post: I Am Jack's Headache.

Here's the reply (again, the name has been changed):

Hi Matthew,
Don't be headache. This is Jazz-Fairy, I have been in Nektar more than 8 years. I work in R&D manual filling group in Building 4, California, USA. I am glad to talk to you by email in UK. Your e-mail is really fun and impressed me that you are a very kind person and boss.

My boss (another Matthew) didn't approve my Monday PTO. The problem for me is how I cook the breakfast Sunday middle night and work 7:15 AM Monday morning. I am really headache now. I will be fine and I am always peaceful.

You have a good day!

Jazz-Fairy
Office: 650-xxx-xxx
Cell: 650-xxx-xxx

One thing remains unanswered though... why would you need to cook breakfast in teh middle of the night? Isn't it more appropriate to cook it at breakfast-time in the morning before going to work?! These Oriental-American types crack me up!

MaFt

Slight Change of Plan

After a brief text exchange last night with Brother-A I don't think I'll use the intro I did the other day. Looking at it again it's not really appropriate for the wedding video! I might keep it on the DVD as a 'deleted scene' or as a hidden extra :)

Anyway, we have a meeting today at 2pm where we shall find out our fate... Off to the pub for a last supper of chip butties (bread) and Carling (wine).

MaFt

Crashed The Wedding

I've finally got around to starting Brother-A's wedding video! If you recall from previous episodes of the blog they were due to be wed in Mexico just as the hurricane hit last October. In the end they got married over here in Bradford.

So, take a look at this to see the intro for the video!

MaFt

Ta-ra For Now

Well, we've been sent home from work cos there really is nothing else to do! Just need to wait until the meeting on Monday/Tuesday (still no one really knows...) then it's pretty certain that we're all gonna be redundant!

Have a good weekend, I'm gonna shut down this incredibly slow PC and go take Mini-MaFt to the park for a bit!

See ya

MaFt

I Am Jack's Headache

I'm in wind-up mode today. I think it's gallows humour setting in!

I had two emails from an employee in America asking for some time off:

Subject: PTO second half year/1 day emergency off

Hi Matthew,
I got a call last night that I have guests from south California this Sunday and the following Monday. I will take Monday 6/26/06 off for my emergency PTO. Sorry for the short notice. Please approve.

I have 3 days PTO in August
I have 3 weeks PTO this October instead of December, 2006.
I have 2 days PTO in September.
I will try to fix the date and let you know and approve.

I am very headache because all my friends not inform me more than 1 week for their visiting.

Jazz-Woman (name changed to protect the innocent)

I had one soon after explaining the mix up:

Hi Matthew,
I sent to a wrong person. Please review and approve 1 day PTO.

Matthew Morley,
Sorry for the confusing.

FYI.

Jazz-Lady (name changed to protect the idiot again)

It would appear that Jazz-Dudette was supposed to send it to her boss, Matthew, and not me. Yet another example of Microsofts Auto-Assumption feature of Outlook. Remember kids, "assumption is the brother of all f**k ups"

Well, anyway, I couldn't resist so sent off these replies making out that I had not seen the second one until later on...

Hi Jazz-Girl,

Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem for Monday 26th. However, I only seem to have you down as 1 PTO day in September… I will look into this and let you know my findings. Hopefully it will not make me headache either.

In the mean-time I sincerely hope you are no longer headache and hope you enjoy the time you spend with your friends from Southern California.

Yours,
Matthew

... and then a few minutes later...

Hi again Jazz-Mistress,

It appears that I too was headache and made a mistake in who you were. I thought you were someone else. This is why our figures for September did not match! Who is headache now?!

Please ignore that last email as it was not you who I thought you were! Oh headache.

Enjoy your weekend.

Matthew in Bradford, not in California!

I hope they have a sense of humour! I wonder if they'll reply? They're about 7 hours behind so I won't get anything until later anyway. I think I'll have to set up a sarcastic Out of Office reply for when we all get the chop next week.

See ya

MaFt

Woman-ness

Mock me as much as you feel fit for I believe I am turning into one of the female persuasion... Ya see, yesterday I spent about £110 on new clothes! Well, actually I spent a tenner on new clothes as £100 of it was from a Debenhams gift card from work. While I'm on the subject of work we may have an extra day until we all get made redundant - no one is really quite sure when 'big boss' is coming over next week! It's either Monday or Tuesday.

Debenhams isn't cheap ya know, the stuff I got I could have probably got equivalent items for about £60 but still, it wasn't my money so I'm not too fussed. I'd give you an exact list of what I bought but even if I could remember then I feel that would be far too girly! And I'm not a girl. I could prove it too by posting a photo of my Nether-regions, which is near the Netherlands, but my camera decided it didn't want to work any more... How convenient that was!

Not much to do at work in the run up to the day of the great "Goodbye you lot". Could you tell? Everyone sees to be aware of this and are even considering letting us have a few days off just so we don't waste electricity and run up huge internet bills watching the World Cup live on the BBC website.

Anyway, I'm off for a can of pop!

MaFt

Vista Sunday

Bit of inactivity on the blog... sorry guys! Been having a play with Windows Vista and Office 2007 on my machine at work. I had to get the IT guy to get me some more RAM and a 2nd hard drive though so I could run it (just) and dual-booth with XP so I can still do a bit of work as well!

What's it like? well... erm... it's ok. It's just another operating system - it looks nice though but you need a bloody high-spec PC to get it going well! It's very 'graphical' which obviously uses a lot of resources. Office 2007 has some very nice features though. Still, I think I'll stick with Windows XP and Office 2003 for now. At least until I can afford to have a serious upgrade on my home PC.

Also, had this sent to me: George W Bush 'singing' U2's 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' thanks to Telefiend for that one!

See you guys!

MaFt

Long Weekend

13 days to go...

Had a great weekend! Saturday was spent relaxing in the sun listening to the football on the radio for a bit then headed over to Halifax for a bit of shopping while it was quiet. Mini-MaFt isn't far from walking now, he managed 2 steps and can toddle about for a while if he's holding onto someones fingers.


Mini-MaFt posing in his England kit

On Sunday the weather continued to be officially 'rather hot' on the MaFt scale of warmness. Mrs-MaFt had a set of 2 nights to do at work so in the afternoon while she had a nap I headed down to Brother-T and family's house with Mini-MaFt. Sat about in the garden drinking a few beers and playing football with the kids and going on the slide. Ended up staying for quite a while before getting pizza for tea and heading off home.

Yesterday I had the day off work to watch Mini-MaFt while Mrs-MaFt slept. Ended up going over to Shibden Park in Halifax with Mr, Mrs and Mini-L. Had some dead nice ice cream and plonked the kids (Mini-L is a few months younger than Mini-MaFt) on the various swings and slides after having walked around the boating lake that seemed to be surrounded by ducklings! Mrs-L had just got a new camera so was in 'doting parent' mode - I just referred to her as Jonathan after a guy at church who used to take pictures of everything and everyone... It has to be said that she wasn't impressed with that! Still, she got some good photo's - just hope she can figure out how to email them to me. We got back and let the Mini's play on the field while we sat on the rocks and had a few drinks.

Today I came to work...

MaFt

The Countdown Begins

Seventeen days to go until Big Boss comes over from America to decide whether we will all lose our jobs.
Seventeen days to go for management here to try get funding for a management buy out.
Seventeen days to go until there's a good chance I'll get a bit of money.
Seventeen days to go until I may need to find another job.
Seventeen days to go until games 5 and 6 of the 2nd round of the World Cup.

MaFt

Toys Just Aint How They Used To Be

Remember the days when you bought a new toy with your £6 of birthday money and rushed home, ripped it out the box, played with it for half a day then left it forever in the back of your cupboard? Well, those days are long gone. Not just because you can't get any toys for £6 any more but the whole getting it out of the box and playing with it now requires a masters degree in engineering and psychology...

Why do toy makers insist on putting those horrible little ties all over the packaging? A kid just wants a toy to play with right away! By the time the adult (trust me, it's even hard for an adult to get the damn toy out of the box) has removed the toy from teh box the kid doesn't want to know anymore...

What makes it even more frustrating is when they not only put the tie there in the first place, but twist it with a pair of industrial pliers and then stick it down with sellotape as well! I mean, Mini-MaFt is 1; he wants to play with a toy bus that plays music not have to work out how to carefully extract said toy from the grip of the box and ties.

It took us 15 minutes to unpack the bus last night! Bring back Zoids is what I say - box, bag, toy. Dead simple!

MaFt

Happy Birthday!

Mini-MaFt is one today, can't believe how fast it's gone! I can believe how tired we all are though... We had a party for him on Saturday so we were shattered from that and then, to finish off the night, we went to a friends engagement do as well! Still, it was a good weekend. I'm gonna have to remember to update his site again, not done it since March...

More posts later, bit busy at work - lots to get done before the end of the month that I've just been putting off as long as possible... My own fault really... Athough it's nice to blame someone else so I'll blame the mental guys on the busses that always sit next to me.

MaFt

Sand, fivemiledrive and Geek Time

Yesterday's BBQ was good! Mini-MaFt discovered sand, and how funny it makes your mouth feel when you eat it... I also had the nicest pork burgers ever! Seriously, that's no exaggeration! Turns out they got them from a butchers near where my mum works so I might send her to fetch some when she's back.

Anyway, a couple of recommendations for you. First up is a great little CD from the UK punk/emo/rock band fivemiledrive called 'Houston We Have A Pop Song'. A very well done EP with a varied selection of songs on it - it's 3 tracks but each one is unique enough but still having their own sound. Check them out if you like that sort of thing!

fivemiledrive - 'Houston, We Have A Pop Song'

My second recommendation is for users of Firefox and FTP. There's a great little extension called 'fire FTP' which essentially turns Firefox into an FTP client. Great for uploading your website while you're at work ;). Get it for free here: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/684/.

That's all for now

MaFt

BBQ Time

Knocking off work in 45minutes for the annual company barbeque! SHould be good as the sun's come out now. It was miserable this morning though, hardly barbeque weather! Although it pee'd it down at the MaFt 'n' Family annual barbeque last year but that didn't stop us! Alright, people were indoors but me n Pete still slaved away cooking in the rain outside.

Mmmm, free beer :D

MaFt