The Last Post Of 2006

I've not made any changes yet. I've not posted for ages either for a couple of reasons.

1. I got complacent - viewing figures are at a record high (mainly thanks to the "Google whore" Toph Bei Fong trick). They are 20% up on the previous best and just short of 400 this month which is good given the average is under 200. It was the highest viewed week last week too with 120 hits. But I must remember that while being popular is good, these people are unlkely to return so it's regular readers who keep me happy. I think that came across a bit wrong. it's nice if you read it but i'm not going to hate you if you don't and I'll just write it for myself anyway.

2. I've been bloody busy:-

23rd - Had a fairly long sleep and went to JJ's with Rosie and then I showed them round my house and took them home.

24th - Had a fairly long sleep and went to church. The service was performed by the new vicar of Rastrick to be and was one of his first so that was quite exciting and it all went well. A man dressed as Santa and stinking of alcohol came in after about 20 minutes. When communion was taken he rushed up from the back when the front people were going, had his bread and wine, and was not seen for the rest of the service. It's amazing what some people do for a bit of alcohol!

25th - It was Christmas Day and neither Phil or I got a computer/console game for the first time in about 20 years. Hence no need to put the computer on. Merry Christmas everyone.

26th - Had a long sleep in (til about 12:45) then watched 3 football matches, had my tea and went to bed at 9:00.

27th - Got up at 2am and watched a few minutes of cricket. Australia were about 104-5 and struggling in the 4th Test. Maybe we could win this one. Took Phil to Liverpool airport for his "skiing" holiday in France. "Skiing" is because there is no snow. Got home about 5:45 after getting to the wrong house to pick Phil's mate up (he'd rcently moved - twice) and the wrong motorway on the way home (i was tired). Australia had progressed to about 310-5, It was painful to listen to all the way there and back. I watched the end until 7:00 and then went to bed. I got up about 2:00 with my sleep pattern ruined. In the evening I went to Sarah's house for a gathering. John was there and in the end Kate, Ed, Bill, JJ and myself all seemed to have a good evening. I then watched cricket until I was tired about 3:30

28th - Had a long sleep until about 1:00 but was still tired for the rest of the day. I went to Kate's with JJ in the evening to watch a play by "The Newarks and Moneypennies" (Kate's mum and step dad are in it). Things then got a bit musical. I played Jelly On A Plate and then sung along to Abba. JJ wouldn't sing :-) Bedtime 1:30

29th - Kate and JJ came to my new house and watched Cars which was good although I haven't quite worked out how to get the surround sound back to how it was before. Never mind - it works on Sky and Phil is home soon!

30th - My first day which was sort of free so I continued clearing my room

31st - Transported lots of things from my old room to my new room. It's getting quite sentimental now. Oh and it's new year in less than four hours so i'm going out now. I'm driving as I don't have a lift, don't fancy getting a taxi, don't fancy leaving my car on a road with winds at 80mph, and i'm not a big new year fan. I'd better go or I'll be late. Happy New Year!

Changes Ahead

It's the last Friday of the year. Well, proper Friday anyway as i'm not working again this year. We finished at lunch time and i've been drinking for about five hours including a beer and a half so I'd just like to give a big shout out to Dave and Steph as they asked for one while they were drinking with me and it's Christmas and i'm a bit tipsy perhaps. I'm certainly in no fit state to be driving my brother to Bradford for his Christmas party.

The blog may get a new look in the next couple of weeks but i'd like to be sober when it happens so who knows when it'll happen.

Out Lots

I've been busy recently so here's a brief update.

Last Thursday was the HCASS Christmas Social, 25 people attended at Cibo's, food was nice, drink was even better.

Friday was big poker night - see here.

Saturday was The X Factor Final - see here.

Sunday - slept.

Monday was the Christmas quiz where we ended our run of coming last as there were lots of students there and lots of students tend to have a bad track record as we well know. We came about joint 10th out of 13 with 68 out of 128 but it went on for three hours and I was very tired when I got home.

Tuesday was the work party at Bradley's food was ok, drink was excessive and early.

Wednesday was the audit do at Gringo's, food was spicy, drink was good.

Yesterday, Bill came home so Kate, JJ and I went to The Moorings with him to catch up which was fun but we kept things quite early as the rest of the week was still catching up on me.

Last day today so I didn't drive in hence me writing this as i'm early. Drinks this afternoon being the reason.

Time for work now :-(

Biggest Poker Win 2: The Reinvestment

Last Friday, against the advice of many and being willed on by erm one (a non reader as it happens) I reinvested $530 of my win in a big tournament with 125 players. The first was $21,750 which I found too tempting an opportunity to turn down. Anyway technical info follows:-

Blind levels were 30 minute so I just sat back and let other people play unless I had a really good hand. I was about 79th about 40 mins then I had a pair of aces which beat a pair of kings (very harsh n the other guy) and then flopped a full house shortly after and led for about 2 hands before slowly dropping down the order. The Blue Square Pro Micky Wernick then joined my table for a couple of hours but I saw him off and then his son as well. I was in last entering the final table and got up to 7th before trying to double up with ace king suited but was beaten by a pair of queens and then finished off with kings against my ace five.

I won $2100 which was about £870 profit. Not bad for five hours work, but it was hard work. There's even a report here. Fame again!

Leona And Emma Bunton

I stopped in on Saturday night and watched the final of The X Factor. Leona beat Ray with 60% of the votes which is pleasing as she deserved to win by virtue of being the better singer. I even voted and it's the first time i've voted for a winning act. Losers I have voted for are Gareth (he's got his own show next week after getting a hit or two), Darius (taking a brak and writing for his third album (hopefully better than the difficuly second one)), G4 (just released their third album) and sweet little Aimee (now in CLEA who get the odd top 40 hit every year or so). That might have been more for appearance than talent but she was good. People seem content with Girls Aloud I guess. They have all turned into winners in the end though.

Emma Bunton (addresses as well as pictures - not sure they're meant to be there) was eliminated on Strictly Come Dancing last night. She's a big fave of mine so it's sad to see her knocked out. She seems to be going down in public opinion though with her latest single for Children In Need only reaching top 5 (charity singles normally get to number one whoever sings them) and her latest album failing to chart in the top 40. The judges thought she was 2nd best on the night but in the previous two weeks the judges liked her best and the public least. Poor baby. Anyway at least she reached the top 3. Let's hope Mr smug Matt Dawson doesn't win and Mark Ramprakash can make it two in a row for cricket after Darren Gough's victoy last year.

Bad Stuff

I'm quite annoyed with life at the moment as most things seem to be going wrong. At least I'm not stressed about work this week as I took the week off to sort my room and transfer everything to my new house.

However, the electrician is now not coming until after Christmas to fix what he needs to fix. The roof leaks (see picture) which we are getting sorted next week. The kranky carpet man decided that he didn't want to put hard wood floor down in the kitchen so we did that ourselves (I have a picture of that too but a picture of a floor isn't very exciting). The water tank had a leak which has now been fixed. We aren't really very organised re transporting furniture and that needs putting in before the beds which would have been delivered yesterday but have now been postponed by three weeks which means we can't move in for another three weeks and my room is still a mess.

Period.

I've also scratched my car on the wall at home after twice clipping it this week going into the space i've been going onto for four years. Cricket went bad on the last day of the 2nd Test as we were crap. Town are crap.

We lost the quiz for the 4th week running on Monday even with Kate's mum's help. We got 80 out of 138 but there was one team who left after round one due to their poor performance.

It's rained everyday since we noticed the leak in the roof. Why can't it ust be fine like the rest of the year?

Good things that I haven't mentioned are Sky HD is great however it was the idiot who fitted who broke part (four things wrong with it) of the roof so that didn't go perfect either.

Other than that i'm all smiles and looking forward to the student society Christmas Social tonight.

Biggest Poker Win

Last night I entered a normal multi tournament with Wood who is back in the game after a while out. He came 47th out of 117 and I came 1st. $27 (£14.23) was the buy in and I got paid $936.02 (£484.31) which is a decent profit. I plan to withdraw some and reinvest (gamble) the rest.

Now for the technical explanation (some people may not be interested):-

Things were running smoothly until just before the prize positions (top 18) when I went all in with QQ and a shorter stack called with KK leaving me struggling to survive getting anything out of it. I held on then folded 66 in the button after an early raiser which I believe was the key hand. Then on the next hand no-one was in so I raised with K9 and doubled up. After that I kept getting nice hands and quite a lot of luck and kept doubling up. It was fantastic going from 2000 to 234000 chips in about an hour!

Anyway, my next post will contain less good news but hopefully a picture.

Toph Wallpaper

Ever since I mentioned wallpaper there's been a lot of people found the blog searching for "Toph Wallpaper". Why would they want me on their walls or while they're looking at their computer screen all day long? Well, the truth is, they don't (as far as I know anyway, if anyone does please contact me and I'll get the peole in white coats for you).

The Toph you may be looking for looks likely to be Toph Bei Fong, a 12 year old blind earthbender from Nickelodeon's TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender. At this point I lost interest and remembered the good old days of a postman with a act delivering the mail and tales of tank engines and the like. Earthbending - what is that all about? Well, if you care go to Wikipedia and have a look.

Now those who want wallpaper should visit here for a wallpaper of "sexy" (not my words it's in the comments) Toph. You may also be able to download this one. However that's not really to my taste and while searching, I found Britney. She's not a cartoon character, she's not 12, and she's single. Hot.

Hat Trick Of Losses

After not losing the quiz for ages until two weeks ago, we have now lost three in a row. Last week Kate, her mum, JJ and I were only three points off not last but with 51 out of 133 deserved it really. I thought i'd kept my record of winning the raffle when coming last too. I had 101. The first ticket was picked, "It's a palindrome" said John "it reads the same upside down." Yes, I thought. "It's 88." Bollocks, I thought. The next number also read the same upside down but that was 96. All our chocolates got eaten as we'd passed them round :-( Just not my night. Maybe it was the curse of 101 or something.

Unlike last night when we were 5th out of 7 going into the final round then Kate (without mum this week) cocked the question numbers up so we had to rewrite most of our answers and didn't really have time to finish the pictures (not that we knew any anyway). The team who were well behind in 7th had decided to quit at this point so we came last by 13 with 60 out of 131. We got a big bag of Daim bars (they are mini Dime bars with foreign packaging) which I now have at home :-) I also won the raffle with 121 winning a single use £1.99 camera. Kate won some 3 bottles of alcopops. Ironically the two people that left early would have both won the raffle so they missed out on three prizes!

This week I shall be mostly nailing hardboard to the kitchen floor.

Grandma's 80th Birthday

My grandma was 80 last Thursday so on Sunday we went out for a family meal to The Holiday Inn, Clifton. The food was great and I didn't need to eat anything else all day after a big plate of Hors d'oevres, roast beef and huge Yorkshire pudding, and chocolate fudge cake for dessert. Pretty much the perfect meal for me.

Unfortunately I could hardly move I felt so heavy afterwards so settled myself down in front of Man Utd v Chelsea and watched them play out a 1-1 draw.

New Stuff

Well, to be more specific, a new TV. The beast (mentioned in an earlier post) came last Friday and it's great. The cinema sound is now connected along with the DVD player and the Sky HD is being fitted on Sunday.

I went to Jumpin Jaks (after loads of other places) on Saturday. I saw Spencer, Brook, Amanda, Shelley and Jess again which was good. I've not had a night out for a while now where I haven't seen anyone I know or knew who I wasn't expecting to see as a couple of weeks earlier I'd met Louise and her mum. Some guy saw me who knew me but i'm not entirely sure who he was but he'd seen me in the Courier so we made conversation for a few minutes about that before I exited the conversation still not knowing who he was!