I’ve also been enjoying some fun adverts recently, the pick being the Guinness “hands” adverts. You can see the first [here] and the second isn’t online, but it’s one for St. Patrick’s Day. Though I’m no surprised in some ways as, usually, the best ads on TV are for alcohol. Maybe at some point I’ll list or link to my favourites, who knows.

So aside from that is there anything else going on in my life? Well yes, one thing in particular I’ll keep to myself, but other than that a not a lot has happened. My project is a little further on than it was an I’m a little happier with that know that I’ve at least started something and that’s really it. Boring I know, but right now there isn’t much going on. Maybe when I’m working and I get out of education more will happen. I would bore (and possible give you TMI) about my toe, but less to say it’s been looked into. It also means I’m taking some antibiotics so no alcohol for me, shame really but that’s life.

Other news though, United are still top of the league, so I’ve always got something to smile about.

Aside from that I’ve been panicking about my final year project and generally worriting. Hopefully once all is a little more settled I’ll get back into a groove more frequent blog posts.

Aside from that the eagle eyed among you may have noticed that I’ve finally upgraded WordPress to version 2.0.4 and my theme to Beta 2. I did actually try Beta 2 of Squible a while back but I had too many issues with it so decided to keep with the old version. However, a recent spate of annoying bot comments, pushed me into upgrading to see whether they were exploiting a bug (they were able to post comments on a topic where you couldn’t). So I decided to start fresh and give Beta to a whirl again. This time there hasn’t been any issue expect one with Flickr which I hope to resolve soon (i.e. it doesn’t seem to retrieve my pics instead it pulls random ones). Either way I’m up-to-date now and that’s a bonus I suppose.

In other news I signed up at 360voice.com to give my XBox 360 a “blog” of sorts and it’s an amusing read, anyone who really wants to see what my 360 says about me should visit this page. My NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, have gotten off to an indifferent start to the NFL season. They’ve currently won one and lost two and just don’t look as good a unit as they did last season. Granted we no longer have Jerome “The Bus” Bettis, Randle El or Kimi VO but you’d have thought we’d be a lot better. In contrast United has gotten off to one of the best starts I’ve seen in a while though at the moment we’re stuttering. I think that’s mainly due to Giggs being out but then we should still perform better than we have been doing.

Oh well, anyway, I’ll be down in Bournemouth again this weekend for Ruth’s birthday. Should be a laugh as it has a bouncy castle and everything, should definitely be a good weekend!

Either way things are good, Cat is is Tieze on a retreat and, from the phone calls, she seems content which is good. I’m hoping it’ll give her renewed sense of self and give her strength while she goes on the hunt for a job. My parents wedding gift, a dishwasher, arrived to day. Not installed yet as I have to fit a new u-bend and a splitter for the cold fill but that shouldn’t be too difficult.

Aside from that things are pretty cool. Went to a gig last night. The band is called Shmir and they really did rock, too bad the two bands who played either side of their set were really crap. I mean, it pained me to hear them play and I’m not overly fussy but they were just awful! Anyway, good Road to Perdition is on Film4, time to watch.

Moving on from that my Easter holidays from Uni start this Friday, granted I have Web Tech and Embedded to do whilst I’m on my hols but it will give me a chance to take at least a couple days to “un-plug” from everything not to mention get to grips with the fact it’s roughly 3 months & 4 days until Cati & I get married (OMFG!). It really does seem that time has flown by and that’s a good thing, means I’ve been keeping busy. On the subject of holidays Cati has been on her Easter hols since last week and is currently in Lincoln after spending the weekend with a friend and her sister in Durham. She sounds like she’s having a good time which is great and then she’ll be back next Monday to spend time here revising and stuff which’ll be nice, not long now till the permanent move-in. Wedding plans are moving on with most things now being sorted.

Switching subject over to footie and it seems that Chelsea aren’t going to win it by a huge margin (well the may still do). I don’t think the title race is back on like the odd one are two are saying as I think Chelsea still have the quality to seal the title up soon enough. What it is showing though is that next season Chelsea will have to do a lot more to win the title as I think we could have a 3/4 way title race between Chelsea, Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool & the possibility of a 5th team depending on signings. So yeah, it looks like next season we might see something more exciting, let us hope.

So, a quick trip home, a quick google, I found that I most probably had an abscess which wasn’t good news as according to the site I read it could involve a root canal which didn’t sound great. So out I went to the dentist and managed to get myself squeezed in between two appointments. When he had a looked he confirmed it was indeed an abscess and that my tooth would need to be removed ASAP. I decided to go for it, I have a mental thing with teeth and dentists which I won’t go in to but you have to understand that for me it takes a lot to go to the dentist not to mention keeping them clean. Say what you will but you won’t understand unless you’re me.

Anyway, that was sorted and things are feeling better if a little weird with not having a tooth where there once was a tooth. Still there was good news today. I found out that the last of my Web Technologies projects will actually be an essay which will suit me more than a coding based project. So yes, it wasn’t all bad but I certainly didn’t see me having a tooth removed when I woke up this morning.

Switch topic though, the Steelers made to the divisional final after defeating the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. Its the first time in history the 6th seed team has made it to the final and I really do hope we beat Denver and make it to the Superbowl. Its been interesting to watch the Steelers this season and with the prospect of getting cable at our new place I may be able to watch more games next season.

I also got my DVD order from amazon today, the Back to the Future box set which is really cool. I love my 80s movies as I honestly do think they were a lot more original and creative as budgets for movies were a lot more limited that the $30million blockbusters we get today. That isn’t to say good movies aren’t made with that kind of money its just things were a lot more “real” in the sense that since they couldn’t painstakingly recreate places on computer they had think of other ways of doing it. I mean, in the first BTTF film, there were only 31 special effects shots compare that with some of todays movies and I hope you see what I mean. Either way I love the BTTF trilogy and I now have my favourite 5 multi-film movies in my collection (Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Alien, Star Wars and now Back to the Future).

I’m also going home this weekend for my mums 60^th birthday. It’ll be the first time I’ve seen my family since my Grandpa’s birthday a few months ago as I wasn’t at home at Christmas. It should be interesting. I’m going to take my laptop and show them photos of our recent trip to Australia and I’m sure my dad and brother will be interested in the shots I took of the WACA. It’ll be nice to see them all again as I probably won’t see my sister and brother until the wedding in July.

Rising Dutch star Jelle Klaasen caused a huge shock beating defending champion Raymond van Barneveld 7-5 to win the Lakeside World Darts championship.

In a thrilling final, Klaasen made a whirlwind start, winning the first two sets before the four-time champion found his rhythm.

The 21-year-old Dutchman began to exert his authority and led 5-4 with some exciting darts against his compatriot.

He won the crucial 11th set to lead 6-5 and kept his cool for a famous win.

So there you go, the person I tipped to be the suprise package goes and wins it and boy do I regret now not putting a bet on. True it could be said that if I had put a bet on he probably wouldn’t have won but at 100/1 at the start of the Championship (though probably 80/1 or 60/1 after his first round match) a £3 flutter wouldn’t have mattered much. Still I’m happy he’s won I mean he was a qualifier, a wild card if you will, and he’s beaten everyone and no-one can say he played weak opposition. He’s beaten the World #1 in the Quarter Finals and the defending champion in the Final. So fair play to the guy though what is interesting is whether he said yes to his girlfriends marriage proposal as she said she would ask him to marry her if he were to win; so if you did say yes, best ‘o luck to you :)

In project news I’ve progressed. It now has a register page, login page and the beginnings of a treasure hunt create thingemy. My issue at the moment is that the uploaded image doesn’t display and I’m not quite sure at the moment so for now things have stumbled until I can figure this out.

As for Uni things aren’t looking so rosey I just can’t get myself into the groove for doing the work. Hopefully I’ll snap out of it at some point tomorrow and with any luck I’ll have it done for Sunday. This, however, doesn’t leave much time for revision but I’d rather resit an exam than re-do a coursework, sounds strange but that’s me for ya!

On the upside again though I bought NBA Live 2006 for my XBox and its proving quite difficult to get used to. I am trying to avoid my usual “take it back” syndrome when things don’t go right so I’ll keep plugging away and hopefully I’ll get the hang of it. It will at least give me something to do till I have enough money for an XBox 360. I also got my hands on Kingdom of Heaven on DVD; probably one of my favourite movies from last year. That said I had quite a few favourites but this is one of the few I’ve purchased on DVD. You see I have quite a sizeable DVD collection (around 130-140) and I decided that this year I really should only get the top notch ones if I wanted to get a new DVD. The up shot of this is my purchasing of DVDs has gone down which is good and for now, long may it continue.

So for now all is well.. ask me again on Monday night ;)