This evening, Daisy was wanting to play with my Canon 5D mk2, a rather expensive bit of kit. So I wouldn't let her and she went MENTAL as you can see. You can't help but appreciate the quality of this camera, the tears in her eyes have really come out. She's really getting in and about stuff at the moment, I found her tub of blowing bubbles in the fridge and one of her dummies behind the playstation. Her favorite game now is to hide in a room, something she did earlier and scared the bejesus out of me as I couldn't find her.
Tuesday is D-Day. We've got a damp specialist coming to tell us if we are going to get shafted or not. Carol and I are getting fed up of waiting to get this place on the market, so I'm hoping the news is going to be good, but guessing by the luck we had so far with trying to get selling, I'm not too optimistic.
We are never getting on the housing market. We got our floors fixed up and the surveyor won't complete the survey as the joiner's report wasn't satisfactory. So we now have to get a 'qualified' damp specialist out to look at a floor that moves a few millimeters, well it no longer moves as it's been fixed, and say whether or not if we have damp. The house is old and will have some amount of damp. The 'qualified' damp people will find something wrong regardless, I just know it!
As you get see in the image across, I'm losing my mind due to the stress of it all and have taken to wearing Daisy potty on my head.
I really want to move to a house that doesn't require the floors to be taken up. Two thirds of the joists in our house have been replaced now. Thankfully, the floor should be back down tonight but may need re-sanding and staining again. I'm hoping Gerard, our joiner, can get the floor boards back neatly and we can cover the joins with a carpet.
We haven't been up to much, apart from feeding the birds up at Hollyrood Park on a freezing cold Sunday. Click on the image to see the photos.
On the house front, we are waiting to get our floor looked at before we can go on the market, so things feel like they have somewhat slowed down. We got our valuation back on the flat and it came back at 210k, 10k less than I hoped for. It means we will loose a bit of money on the place, but we had a very good meeting with the bank so my target for buying our next house is still achievable.
We've just forked out 670 pounds for a home report and it came back with this (see image across) - it works on a scale of 1 being good and 3 being bad. So when you look across and you see a 3 next to what we've got. You wouldn't go near the place.
This is the result of a loose floorboard, 3 feet long and 5 inches wide, in the spare bedroom. The board moves a third of an inch down, so the surveyor has said the floor has to be ripped up and a damp specialist needs to inspect whats beneath. Look 2 posts down, I'm not surprised the surveyor missed this!!
I got a new car a couple of weeks back. An Audi A4 2.0 tdi (170 bhp). It sounds like a taxi when running. Audio qualms aside, it's not too bad and is an absolute requirement with baby boy only 2 and half months away. Magoo says it's a grandad car, but he's got a volvo, the gayest make of car on the planet, second to the Toyota MR2. Click the image to see more.
These past couple of weeks have been dragging! Selling a house sucks. I keep imagining in the not too distant future that I'm sitting outside in a sunny back garden that's all mine drinking a nice cold beer and then heading inside to a designated TV room, exclusive to dads, to watch a Euro 2012 game, not worrying whether the psyco cat hole cutting neighbour will strike again, or stepping in dog shit by the back door, or running into evil Davy across the road when he's drunk. It will be bliss!!
I can't believe it! We are on the cusp of being on the market and this happens - the bloody storm we had caused this, ANNNND after we paid 20k to get he roof fixed a year and a half ago. I have written to the roof people to get it fixed but they haven't been back in touch...pricks! It has now been removed, but I know the fookin' surveyor will pick up on it. Not on that, our creepy cat hole cutting neighbour has had ago at us cos' we've covered his cat hole. The guy is a lunatic!!! I can't wait to get out of this place. The home report guy is due on Wednesday, so I hope it comes back in good order.
We've been busy since we got back from Inverness. The house is looking amazing now and is ready for sale. Click on the image to see some of the brochure photos, the outside pic is a bit cold and burnt out so will need to take another. I'm going to get a few quotes from solicitors on Wednesday when everyone is back to work so fingers crossed we'll be on the market in a couple of weeks. After that, the next step is to see an IFA and see how much I can borrow. Complicated and stressful times ahead.
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in the house, it's yours for steal at 250,000 bob.
Ahhh, it's good to be home. We spent a week up north with Mum and Muncle, Magoo's new nickname. Mum did a fine job of keeping us all well fed and looked after. It was a bit hairy driving home as we hit a snow storm at Slochd Summit. I was worried it was going to be bad all the way down to Perth, thankfully it stopped after Aviemore.
I'm off to check out a new car tomorrow. It's an Audi A4 estate. In the words of Chief Brodie, we need a bigger car. We've had to leave some stuff up north as there wasn't enough room in the Golf. The car is being sold by a dealer and I hate dealing with dealers. I'm going in with an amount of money in mind and won't go beyond that as I'll be trading in!
I've thrown some photos of Daisy's Birthday up. Click on the image across to see.
The day of rest is not a Sunday, it's Boxing day. Ate and drank way too much yesterday and last night it was a bloody hard job to get Daisy to sleep. So today is piratically relaxed. George and Isobel have gone over to the west and currently Daisy and Carol are having a nap, so it's nice and quiet. Probably going to see the Radical Pat tonight and will probably be talking babies.
Apart from the above, not much to report. You can see picture of Xmas Day by clicking on the image across.
Feeling rough as fook today. The LP4 last night was a good laugh and the 1st one to feature wives. We went bowling and had a load of lager, then to the Snowgoose for some food and after that the Kep. By the end of the night, I was struggling and that is evident today, my hangover was pretty awful. We just had a house full of kids and it's was quite hard to concentrate, and Daisy had a cracking tumble giving herself a massive bruise, so needed a couple of beers to take the edge off and settle the nerves. You can see photos of the LP in the photos drop down. There are also a few photos up from our wee gathering today.
I'm looking forward to Christmas tomorrow. I think I'll need some champers in the morning to perk me up.
After 3 days of getting organised, we made it to Inverness.
Mum seems to think that we'll have a week off, but it's twice as much work as we are in a different environment where there are more interesting, though dangerous, places for Daisy to investigate. So yesterday, our first day here, was pretty stressful. Today is a much more relaxed affair. There's also quite a bit of negotiation going on with regards to the LP later today, the wives are trying to get in on the action. I think the solution will be that they will join us later on, just like the the London marathon where the men, who do the longer harder run, start first and are then joined by their more delicate counterparts.
Pictured is Magoo with his hair down. He was deliberating weather to have his lovey locks cut off. He asked me to take some fashion shots to aid his decision.
Ahh, the quintessential snack for the Christmas period - the Mince Pie.
I bloody love mince pies. They are brilliant with a cup of tea while watching some festive TV. Carol bought two boxes the other day and I've made my way through one already! The mince pie comes with it's own little tin foil bowl, but does a poor job of collecting crumbs. You have to be delicate with the pie as it's pretty flimsy once you've taken a bite. After about two of them, you feel pretty stuffed, but that passes quickly, then it's time for another.
Magoo wasn't that impressed with my last 2 efforts of LP propaganda. So I've been racking my brain to come up with some new ideas. Today, I've created an ad that's suits what we'll be up to. You can listen by click here, or via the audio drop down at the top of the page.
A week tomorrow the Walker-Lyon family will be heading north for Xmas. Woo, getting quite excited now. The forecast for Xmas in Inverness is looking like a white Xmas, so fingers crossed!!
If you are a mum in Edinburgh, you go to the Botanic Gardens as it's a nice place to walk around and there's no dog poo unlike on every street corner in Edinburgh (Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland and only the city centre is looked after. The rest of the city is a shite hole. I can't wait to move out of this pig sty to civilisation) Anyway, the Botanics, the past couple of times I've been have been awful. Earlier this year, we went and Daisy scream the place down. I believe some species of Squirrel have yet to return after that. So on Sunday, the Botanics have a new baby area, a round carpeted area for babies to play in, so naturally we took Daisy. She's walking around quite confidently now, but she's still a little wobbly. So this big ugly baby boy called Euan and I mean really ugly, this thing looked like Winston Churchill, walked up to Daisy and pushed her over. I tell you, my fists was clenched and was ready to throw haymakers at this little fucker. Thankfully, after the incident, the fat baby took off to the outer part of the play area, tripped over the edge and did a super man into the floor and was well funny to watch. But, 2 minutes later, Daisy was walking back over to us and she too took a flyer, going head first into the floor creating a huge lump on her forehead. All very stressful.
Less than a couple of weeks until LP4. I'm well looking forward to it, so much so I've started the propaganda. Click the image across to see. I have also create the Shed's Night Before Christmas, it's in the audio drop down, or you can listen to it by clicking here.
The Super Caley play Scumdee United today. If we win, I predict a winning streak for the next 3 months.
We got our Christmas tree up last night (ooh err missus), much to the delight of Daisy who is fascinated by the baubles and flashing lights. I'm sure over the next few weeks the tree will be down and under it will be a crying Daisy. I got all the Christmas presents wrapped up last night too, so with that and watching Polar Express, I was feeling quite Christmassy, a sensation that has eluded me for many years. Perhaps having Daisy has reminded me how exciting Christmas can be.
This weekend, more decorating is on the cards and I'm not talking about 'lets decorate the tree' fun decorating, I mean getting deluxe gloss on the wood floor and going mental decoration. After this weekend, there's only the kitchen to do and then we'll be ready to sell.
Not a lot going on. I discovered an unfortunate rat outside our work office. It was quite some size as you can see from the photo. He looked a little flat, so may have been run over, but if that were to happen, I'm sure his innards would all over the place. He was at the foot of a building, so probably jumped. Maybe he had money in Greek bonds.
That's it. No news. Apart from a deceased rat.
When I say 'fookin cold' in the title of this post, I'm killing two birds with one stone. It's fookin' cold out and I have yet another fookin' cold, this is the 3rd in as many weeks. It's all in my throat so I sound like this guy. I'm hoping that this is my quota of illness out of the way before the christmas holidays.
The forecast is for snow today and there's live coverage of the snow on the BBC Scotland News webpage....hhhmm, no news then. Obviously the huge news of two impotent bears arriving at Edinburgh zoo is not big enough.
A fine weekend of football. The might Caley get an important win and the sheep shagging dons drop down to the bottom of the table. Could this be my dream season where we see Aberdeen go down?
Team Red Facilities made £125 for prostate cancer. Not bad considering that I thought I would only raise £20. Unlucky to Tim who wrote on my Movember message board "How come mum and chris sponsored you and not me?" Did you tell them about it monkey man? AND where's the proof of your tash?
It's now December and Christmas is approaching like a maniac wielding an axe. I've pretty much done all my Xmas shopping so the main focus is finishing the house. This weekend, decorating the hall, the next is the Livingroom, the one after that - do nothing, then it's Xmas. Proper bo I tell thee!!!
I'm well please!!! I managed to get to my £20 target. I've raised £45, so the amount has been doubled and will keep the tash til' the end of the year. Thanks to Magoo, Carol, Mum, Carol's Mum and Day and the mysterious Magnum PI for your contributions. You can still donate if you like as there are a couple of days to go by click on the image across.
Carol's cousin and family came to visit this weekend. Joe, Fiona, Barny and Elkie. It was good fun seeing them again and also interesting to see how the double children family unit functioned. It's going to be interesting when our boy comes along. I've thrown some photos of the weekend up. Click here to view on click on the photos drop down.
OK. I'm £5 pounds off my target for Movember. I'm desperate to get to £20. I hate asking for money as me and charity don't mix and should be left to students and the people who believe in life after death. But I've been looking like a pedo for the past 3 weeks and I'm determined to get to my target. In fact, if I get to £40, I'll keep the tash until the end of the year.
If anyone feels generous, please donate some dough to my Movember page. I look like a right pedo at the moment with this weak looking tash, so there needs to be some good to come of it. Just click on the image to head to my movember page.
We've got our baby's 20 week scan today, so pretty excited to see my unborn baby kicking aboot!
Looks like there's a palooza a bewin' - Friday the 23rd of December in Inveress.
Canon have announced a new camera - the C300 - the 'C' stands for Cinema. Unfortunately it's a little out of my price range - $20k. But the good thing about these expensive units is that the technology eventually filters down to prosumers level AND gues what? Canon have also announced that they are working another cinema camera for the common man a.k.a me, though won't be out for a while. It too will be a little pricey with one speculator suggesting a price tag as high as $8k. Exciting times though!
Getting the house ready to put on the market this weekend. Today I'm gonna be phoning around for quotes on storage. I've really got itchy feet and can't wait to move, so I'm a little anxious with the house market being so stale, that I'm going to be stuck for longer that I want to be. And with baby number 2 on the way, time is against me, hence the rush.
Next month, we are doing Movember in the office. So if you wouldn't mind donating a couple of quid so that I don't look like a fanny it would be most appreciated. I'm not into the 'doing things for charity' stuff as I'm a miserable git, but growing a tash is important and this charity is a step forward in the right direction for the reintroduction of moustaches back into everyday life. Click on the pic to see my progress and to donate:
I've had man flu over that past week and a bit. So have been feeling a bit crap and hence for the lack of posts. So to cheer my self up, I've bought some new camera stuff. Oh yea!
Daisy took her 1st proper steps yesterday. It's quite a feeling when your baby starts walking as she doesn't seem like a baby anymore. We will now have to keep an eagle eye on her from now on as she'll be falling all over the place, though a good thing will be the re-straightening of our backs. Walking a baby around if pretty hard going.
I finally got round to editing the footage I took in Inverness and features the new roller dolly. The RD provides smooth tracking shots and makes the film look sexy as hell.
Click on the round fountain to watch. As some PC users have trouble watching my films in quicktime, you can now view on YouTube by clicking the 'YouTube' button in the movie play window.
The image across is our neighbour who recently resisted arrest which took 4 cops to drag him from his home to police van. He seemed like a decent guy as he would always say hello to you if you saw him. It turns out he's an alcoholic and has been beating up his wife and kids. The wife and kids left him in the middle of last week. So yesterday I saw him sat on his front step with his head against the wall and then fell to the floor. A couple of minutes later he starts convulsing, so I called an ambulance. Magoo, who was here at the time, went over to see if there was anything he could do to help, I was telling him to keep clear of this guy as he's big and could lash out. Carol also went over to see what was going on. Then good Davy came out and explained everything to Carol that he had beating up the wife and kids. Had we known this, I wouldn't have called an ambulance. This morning, we saw the cops at his house, they were wearing blue gloves, I thought they were corpse handling gloves, but unfortunately, evil Davy was still alive and was being ushered to his 3rd abulence in 6 days.
Trying to be a paparazzo, I snapped a couple more pics, click on the drunk to see.
A bit of a sad day today - poor old Steve Jobs died last night. I know you PC fans won't be that bothered, but for us Mac geeks it's not good. The last 10 years have been pretty exciting, not to mention expensive.
Will the next decade be as rich with technological development? yes! Will it look sexy and awesome? probably not.
Just so you know, I've been booted out of Google+ for slagging off facebook. So will create a new account soon that won't include the instruction for Facebook to suck my balls.
We were back in Inverness at the weekend to check out mums new gaff. There's still quite a bit still needed done, but it's taking shape nicely. Once the extension is finished and all the snagging done, it's going to be pretty funky!
I was hoping to chill out in Inverness, but it's pretty hard to do with a baby. Being away from home, all your stuff and the baby's is in bags, so you are back and forth getting things. You are also mind full that you are in a different environment so there are more objects for Daisy to crack her head on. Also, mum's furniture is pretty bad, as in old and uncomfortable, so sitting down was hard work. I'm going to start nagging so that she sorts out some decent furniture before the christmas extravaganza!
Have a look at this video. I've been having fun playing around with 1000 fps super slow mo.
I can't believe how hot it is today. We are heading up to Inverness tonight to see Mum and Magoo and to see the renovations. Macleod Road has literally been turned upside down. Lets hope the heat continues over the next few days.
Carol and I are preggers again. A bit of a surprise this one as we didn't expect to get pregnant so soon. Our due date is the 5th of April so I think we're gonna need a bigger boat...house actually and car.
Congrats to Pat and MC who are expecting their 1st baby. They had their 1st scan last week and everything is going well. Ahhh..it brings it all back.
Daisy has learned to play 'peek-a-boo'. Last night I was getting her ready for her bath and she lifted Carol's pajamas over her face and then brought them down, looked at me and smiled, so I said 'peek-a-boo' and she did it again. It's quite a feeling when you create a person and you see intelligent thought start to develop...I am a god!
We took Daisy to Blairdrummond Safari Park at the weekend, she was, as most children of that age, unimpressed with seeing the unusual animals. If anything, when she gets older will be expecting to see elephants and tigers in the wild.
The Safari Park is way better than Edinburgh Zoo as you can get right up close to the animals. The ring tails Lemurs were brilliant, I could have popped one in the car and driven off we got that close. The Lamas on the other hand were not as fun. I went to feed one (pictured) and the fucker spat at me in the face. I got Lama gob in my eye!! I was a little worried about infection, but according to the internet, the chance of this is highly unlikely. So I've now a score to settle the next time we go back. I'm going to hunt this Lama down and offer it some food and as it reaches over, I'm going to punch it in it's long stupid face!!
Daisy loves smashing things. Our latest game is to build a tower out of wooden blocks as quick as we can before Daisy smashes it down. Apparently this is standard baby behavior, learn to pull apart before learning to build.
Keeping an eye on all things shed related, I was astonished to hear that multi millionaire, tv cooking star and international model Sophie Dahl is looking for half a million pounds from the public to help move her grandad's 'alone time' shed from the bottom of her garden into a museum! Eh? It's a shed. So what if it was his place for inspiration, how hard can it be to move?!
Like I said, it was Roald's 'private' shed where he used to spend hours alone, and with that in mind, the idea behind the 'big friendly giant' makes a bit more sense now.
You may have noticed the Google+ logo on the Shed's home page. I really want Google+ to take off and destroy Facebook. Facebook's policy of ownership of personal material (message content/photos/movies) on their site is disgraceful. As soon as a photo goes up on FB, it no longer belongs to you and become property of FB. Even the content of your messages are owned by FB, so for arguments sake, if you were to write the worlds funniest joke on your FB page, FB would have legal copy write to that joke.
So move to Google+ now. I'll send you an invite if you need one.
OK. The FF is getting a little embarrassing! I'm rock bottom as a result of some sound decisions. I believe the FF curse is well established and the only way to break it is to bring everyone else down with me! How? I hear you ask. Easy, I'll just choose players who are doing well in other peoples teams and it'll all go pear shaped for those players. So, if you have Dzeko, Aguero, Silva or Rooney, look out, as they are going in my messed up team!
Today is Magoo's birthday, so happy birthday Magoo! As he's somewhere in the wilds of eastern Europe where the the royal fear to venture, instead of sending a card, I've created a homage to the birthday boy. Click on the image to watch.
Daisy can't fall asleep without sucking on Carol's finger. So this weekend we tried some controlled crying to try and break her out of this habit. Controlled crying is where you put the baby to bed at a set time and you leave them to cry to sleep. You do this for a couple of nights and then the baby should sleep at the chosen time once put to bed with out any hassle. Sounds simple, but to deliberately let you baby scream themselves to sleep is barbaric. I've never felt so distressed. Take your worst dumping by a girl, multiply is by a thousand and you are still no where near how bad I felt. We had to give up after 5 minutes. So we've managed to get her to sleep without giving her the finger (if you excuse the pun) with rocking and pushing in the pram, so the next step is to slowly introduce her to the cot when she starts to get groggy. This is a more humain way to get her to sleep than the victorian method.
Fantasy Football - I don't really want to talk about it being rock bottom of the league.
As I fall towards middle age with no means of slowing down. This year, I'm going to try and be super healthy. I've still got the baby fat on and want to trim down over the next 4 months. Sitting at a comfortable 12 and a half stone, I want to lose the half stone, maybe more and see if I can keep it off. So fruit for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and a simple dinner. I'm going to allow a few treats in the evening and one bad breakfast at the weekend.
This week I go the worst points in the FF ever and currently sitting second bottom. I thought I had a killer team this week. It's like the harder I try the worse I do. This weekend, my blood is on the team so will see what happens.
Also, Magoo is threatening to stop making his Magoo's Sports News as he believe there's a lack of interest. Please show you support, watch his latest episode here.
I've just started my 37th revolution around the sun! We went of for dinner to celebrate (pictured). Another good thing about this time in August is that the Edinburgh International Festival ends AND there is only a week of the Fringe Festival to go. Yeah!
I can't stand the Edinburgh Festival as town get overcrowded with tourist and performers. The only good thing about the Edinburgh Festival is the End of Festival Fireworks because it's fireworks at the end of the festival, no more street performers and bad drivers!
It's been pretty quiet at the moment. Apart from giving Daisy bubble hair doos and honing my FF team, I've not been doing much. I am looking forward to Hearts' drubbing from Spurs in the UFFA cup tonight, it's on ITV4.
Not doing much this weekend. May do some cleaning. Woo, rock and roll!
It it wasn't for Tim not submitting a full team, I would be second bottom. Little Chris was unlucky too, for most of the weekend he was on minus 5 points. The race has now begun to become champion of the shed league 2011/12.
Was out with Rick on Saturday to watch the Caley vs Rangers game. Rangers had help from the ref in the game giving them 2 penalties. Anyhoo, whenever I meet up with Rick, I normally feel rough for the next few days. BEER BRING PAIN!
Less than a week until the start of the Premier League and more importantly the Fantasy Football. It's gearing up to be a good season and a fine competition!
A bizarre thing happened the other day. I looked outside my living room window to see my neighbour opposite outside with her kids and talking to a couple of cops. They looked pretty worried and thought they had been broken into. After about five minutes, Davy, the husband and dad, appeared at the front doors in handcuffs and was being dragged out of his house by 3 policemen. He was going mental, screaming his head off that he wasn't a threat to the cops and that the cuffs were hurting him. He must have been drunk as he's always very polite and says hello if you bump into him. The cops managed to get him out of his house and toward a police van where on being pushed in, he started kicking the van the head butting the sides. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen, it was the sort of behavior you get from minkers on rough estates. It's the talk of the street and I'm desperate to find out what was going on.
We had a nice weekend up in Inverness catching up with Mum and also Colin and Family. We also took a trip out to Culloden Battlefield where I have been digitally immortalized as Murdo the Mole. Next time you are at the Battlefield, ask for the children's handset when head outside and you'll hear me! I've uploaded photos of the weekend.
A crap result for Caley at the weekend - losing in the 92 minute sucks. But it wasn't all doom and gloom, Aberdeen got a good result at St Mirren, they lost 1 nil.
Daisy went to the pool for the first time today. She had fun but I think she was a little cautious as there was more water than there is at bath time. I want her to learn to swim as young as possible as it's equally important as learning to cross a road.
We took with us one of her new toys bought last week, the signing tortoise. It's a wind up toy and swims when wound, but when the thing starts singing it's a pain in the arse as it's quite loud and it goes off all the time, even in my bag after when trying to order some breakfast.
My prediction was correct for the opening game of the season. ICT lost 3-0 to Motherwell. I like to think that Motherwell are our bogy team, but so are Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, Kilmarnock, St. Mirren, St. Johnston, Dundee United and Dunfermline. Lets hope we do better at home to Hibs this Saturday.
I'm so please the Fantasy Football is up and running again as it take my mind off how crap our summer has been, and for those living in a warmer more stable climate thinking of writing something funny on the message board, you can get stuffed!
Here are the details you need to join the Shed League:
It's an open invitation, so anyone can play and I mean ANYONE! Duplicate teams will be removed, if I'm not convinced that the team is genuine, after 1 week the team will be removed and banned.
This season, you are playing for the coveted Shed League Trophy. As Paul has a hat trick and is looking to win his 4th successive title, you have the chance to get your hands on the Paul Simon Challenge trophy. A magnificent glass statue, which if you hold at the end of the season, will prove beyond doubt, that you are the greatest Shed League Manager of all time!
You have plenty of time to perfect your teams for opening weekend, so lets make this season the best yet!
Toy shopping is harder than I thought. I tell you what, I wouldn't like to do it hungover. There were only about half a dozen people in the giant Toy R Us at Kinaird Park and the noise of the screaming kids was terrifying, adding to the pain was the same song being played over and over again on the stores sound system 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' - pretty creepy. You could here the Dads in the store saying repeatedly 'but you've already got that one at home, so you can't have it' - reason doesn't exist in this shop!
We got a bunch of toys for Daisy, typically, she's not interested in the more advanced stuff, her favorite is a round ball with a hippo inside that you roll on the floor. I'm hoping soon she'll be taking an interest in electronics and I'll be fighting her for the PS3 controller.
We are now on the final stretch (breath a sigh of relief). Never in the history of football has there been such a short gap of football during the summer, Euro and World cup finals aside. This weekend the SPL is back in action. The reason for the short break is so that the players have more time to recover form getting drunk at Christmas time, fare enough I say! On Saturday, yes that's THIS Saturday, the Super Caley play Motherwell and my prediction is that we are going to lose! Pessimistic I know, but there is only one way to go when you optimism is rock bottom!
Daisy is getting a little bored of her current toy collection, so tomorrow, we are off toy shopping!! I'm really looking forward to this. Normally I find shopping with Carol pretty hard going, even food shopping, buy when you shop for toys, the game changes.
I'm going to buy Daisy some musical instruments with the hope she shows some musical interest, I may even go as far as buying her, her 1st camera, which I'm sure she'll have no idea how to use but will be something she can chew on. I believe Daisy also needs some new PS3 games and maybe something new for the Wii. It's going to be well exciting!
Well not really a miracle as that would require the belief in a higher power, and there ain't no higher power than me!! Daisy slept from 11:30 till' 7:15 this morning, in her new cot, in her room!! I had to check this morning at 6am to see if she was still alive.
I really hope she does the same again tonight as it feels exceptionally liberating! I'm trying not to get my hopes up and I'm sure there will be difficult nights ahead, but all we need to do now is get her to sleep earlier and we will reclaim the evening!!!!
I'm loving my new toy - the Macbook Air. This is my new traveling buddy, where ever I go, it will follow, like the littlest hobo on a grand though overly melancholic adventure. This magnificently petite machine is the result of a dream, a dream of going to the 5th avenue Apple store in NYC and buying one of these bad boys and it was everything I thought it was going to be. This little machine can do everything the Mac Pro can do, all be it a little slower due to the smaller processer, but you forgive it because it's so portable and light. I'm so please with it and looking forward to taking it to all sorts of places.
We are having a hell of a time trying to get Daisy back onto UK time. She's been wide awake from 1 till' 3am most days this week. So this weekend has been trying to get her sleeping pattern back to normal.
Has anyone else had loads of thunder storms over the past couple of days? It's been mental here, and I hear Inverness has had it bad too! I love the sound of thunder, being in the line of work that I'm in, you appreciate sonic extremities.
We got back from our North American adventure on Monday and today, Thursday, the jet lag is plaguing us, Daisy won't sleep until the early hours of the morning. That aside, the trip was a pretty amazing experience and was all topped of with Pat and MC's wedding. Photos of the day are in the photos drop down.
I've taken just under 3,000 photos on the trip, so getting through them all is a pain. I'm a bit disappointed that I could managed to do something a bit more exciting for the Shed whilst away, but with wanting to see loads New York and looking after Daisy, there just wasn't enough time. My plan is to refine the system I was going to use to make it easier to do what I wanted to do, because being someone who hates traveling, by adding an element of taking photos/movies while on route, makes it bearable.
It's Carol's Dad's birthday today - happy birthday Howard and thanks again for looking after Carol and Daisy for over a month traveling around Canada.
Man, trying to update the shed as we travel with a baby is impossible! There is no spare time available. As we are only here for 4 more days and with one of those busy with Pat's wedding, I'm gonna wait to upload all the photos, of which there hundreds to go through, till' I get back. We arrived in Montreal on Tuesday and had an awful flight into the city, the turbulence was dreadful, so bad that the stewardess reminded us where the emergency exits were.
So, yesterday we went for a hike around the old part of town and are nackered today. So we are being lazy and chilling out and about to head out for lunch. It's raining now, so I think we'll find a place to eat and not move for a bit. Tonight we meet up with the wedding party for dinner.
It's been amazing catching up with Daisy. She has changed so much, the main difference is how alert she is. Her new thing is sticking her tongue out all the time. She looks like a mental case when she does it, but we think it's partly to with her teeth coming in.
Over the past couple of days its been pretty relaxing. We've been out for food and done some off roading in the Jeeps. Tomorrow morning we leave Vancouver Island and head for Vancouver city.
I was counting the seconds as we drove up from Nanimo to Carol's parents house. I was so excited about seeing Daisy and Carol. When we arrived I jumped out of the car and ran into the house to see Daisy, but she didn't recognise me, as soon as she saw me she started crying. This was pretty hard. It's taken most of the day for Daisy to get used to me again.
So we pretty much chilled out for the rest of the day and caught up.
Today I took things a little easier as my feet were falling off my legs. I know, I sound like an old man, but I've been walking a lot.
I went to the Empire State Building and it's pretty awesome. It's cool to be at the top of a building that a giant monkey climbed, then fell off again. The building is bit higher than the Rockafeller centre, but the view isn't as interesting. The ESB is better to look at than to look from.
After being at the top of NY I headed to Macies, a massive department store and ended up getting lost inside. The onto B and H Photo, probably the biggest photo store in the US. It was weird being there as all the staff were Hasidic Jews. Next and final stop was the Apple store again for some purchases. So tomorrow morning I have to be up at 3am to catch my 7am flight to Vancouver.
Jim
By the way, the photo across is of the top of the ESB, you can go up into the very top to be 10 floors higher that everybody else. It was nice in there as it was air conditioned.
I now have massive blisters on my feet. As a result of my bad feet, I used the subway today and totally got lost. I missed one of my stations 3 times in a row. But it was good not to walk. By the way, more photos in the drop down of day 2.
I went to the statue of liberty today. It's alright, it's just a big statue, I'm sure it has more meaning to your average American. The cues to get there and get back were a nightmare too. I also checked out the Brooklyn bridge, Wall Street, Ground Zero (i had breakfast about 20 yards from there) Bloomingdales (shite shop) and the MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art - most of it was bollocks, there were only a couple of decent paintings, a few of Picassos and a Pollack - the worst exhibition there was a photographer who took snaps of these old Romanian tramps getting their tramp wives naked, it was pretty disgusting.
Tomorrow is my last day and I'm off to the Empire State Building and then going to make a final decision on weather on not to get a macbook air. To clarify this, I always had a dream to jump on a plane from Edinburgh and head to new York and buy a macbook air form the 5th avenue store, odd I know, but it was always something I've wanted to do. BUT... the rumors are that there's a new Air coming our soon, so what do I do, wait to see if it comes out in the next couple of weeks while I'm here in North America as it will save me a load of cash, but if it doesn't come out, it will be too expensive to buy back in the UK. Bite the bullet and pursue the dream, what to do?
I should point out that my last day here is a formality. All I really care about is getting to Canada to see Carol and Daisy. I've waited 4 weeks and I almost can't believe that the time is up. Bring on Tuesday afternoon when I get to Vancouver Island!!!
It was a long day getting to NY yesterday and it didn't help that my Toronto flight to NYC was cancelled cos' of thunder storms. I left the house in Edinburgh at 7am and arrived at my hotel at 11:30pm. So went to sleep quite easy last night and got us about half 6 and got ready and headed out. I've been walking every where for about 8 hours, so my feet are aching. This city is nuts, the sky scrapers are amazing and what's really funny is that you'll see somewhere that's been used in a movie, for example, I noticed these Lion statues out side a grand looking building and it's the New York library featured in the opening of Ghost Busters. I been to loads of places today, too many to write about, but here's a few; The 5th Avenue Apple Store, the place John Lenon was shot, the Rockafella Building, Greenwhich Village, Chelsea Pier, Grad Central Station.
It's 5pm and I'm about to have a shower and head out for something to eat. Don't think I'll be doing much after that, probably heading to bed to get ready for the highlight of NYC tomorrow - the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty!
I'm off to the NYC tomorrow for a 3 day stop over before joining Carol and Daisy in Vancouver on Tuesday. I'm a little bit apprehensive about heading to NYC on my own as I haven't done this sort of thing since Boston in 1999, but I suppose I've got plenty of money and a bag full of cameras and lenses and that's all I need. I was hoping for blue New York skies but by the looks of things, it's going to be hot and stormy.
Anyhoo, keep an eye on the Shed as I'm going to do my best to document the trip. I don't know what form the documenting will take as I'm not sure how the trip will go and I'd rather the impromptuness govern the style. Just so you know, I've thrown a few photos from today on the Shed, they are in the photos drop down.
It's official, I'm calling it a day on getting smashed. I'm still in a world of pain this morning from my escaped with Rick on Saturday night. The calculation of being smashed to the amount of time it takes to recover is too much in favour of the recovery, I believe it's not a viable means of entertainment anymore. A gentle couple of beers and an early night in bed is what the doctor ordered. Oh Yea!
I'm fed up of women getting in my way when I'm shopping for clothes. The men's section of any clothes store should be off limits to women. They cease to be women when they shop, becoming vicious monsters barging in front of you just in case there is only one size left. They also have to go through every item of clothing on the rack, what's the deal? you see what you like, then you find your size and that's it, rummaging through the whole fookin' shop like a mad badger just seems unproductive. What surprises me more is that there are men out there who are quite happy for their female counterparts to buy clothes for them, are they mad or just plain lazy? I imagine these men at home sat in the toilet shouting for their wives to come and wipe their arses!
I'm meeting Rick for some beers this afternoon. I'm bit worried about this. I've only been drunk once this year and that was Pat's stag do, the recovery was long and hard. Since the arrival of Daisy, being a patron is not that appealing. At least I have plenty of time to recover tomorrow if things get out of hand.
I've been missing Carol and Daisy badly this weekend, especially yesterday. I've done everything needed doing with my free time, so trying to fill time productively is tricky. There's always gardening and sorting out the garden shed, but that can wait as only a nagging wife will get me motivated for that type of work. I'm half way through the wait, 2 weeks tomorrow and I'll on Vancouver Island with my family.
Went to see Thor yesterday. I was looking forward to it, but looking forward to a film is a bad idea as you will always be disappointed. The last time I looked forward to a film and enjoyed it was District 9. Thor was dull with a couple of funny bits, so I would avoid at all costs, even on DVD.
Today Apple are launching some new products. A new operating system for iPhones and iPads and hopfully some new gadgets!!!
Today is Tim's birthday. He turns 40 today. Congratulations Monkey!!!!!!
Days like today, weather wise, should be a national holiday. We have clear blue skies and a predicted high of 26 degs c. They are so uncommon here in Scotland and should embrased.
LA Noire is being punted around as being a ground breaking game with digital face mapping to create a real feel. And I have to admit, the characters do look amazing in the non-play story telling. But that's it. It's the dullest game I've ever played and so repetitive. All you do is drive to a crime scene, look for clues and interrogate suspects. As one reviewer said, it's like having a real job. The main character you play is an honest John wet blanket family man, so the chance of the game giving the player the option to corrupt just wouldn't happen. Rockstar Games produce two of the greatest games the world has ever seen, Grand Theft Auto 4 and Red Dead Redemption, and with LA Noire feeling like a money spinner and very disappointing, Rosckstar's next release needs to be something special to instill confidence with it's loyal gamers.
I have to say it was quite an emotional morning saying goodbye to Carol and Daisy at the airport on Wednesday, I was balling my eyes out and Carol was telling me to stop but I couldn't, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, to say goodbye to my baby and wife for a month. I can totally sympathise with Tim who went off to Iran just after Andrew was born for 6 months. The fookin' ash cloud didn't help matters either adding to the stress of it all. Thankfully, it buggered off to bother the Germans...stun!
Anyhoo, once I got back to work after dropping Carol and Daisy off at the airport, I started to feel a little bit odd, my legs started to hurt and I was getting really hot. By that evening I had a full fever and couldn't move from the couch. I though it was flu. Yesterday I was aching all over and was feeling rubbish. My temperature went up to 39.1. But by tea time, the fever broke and started to come back down to earth. Today I'm still a bit dodgy but not half as bad as yesterday. It was either a 24 hour virus, or I'm a pussy and being separated from my family caused it!
It's actually going to be an exciting weekend. There's the Champions League final, the Monoco GP and Paul and Kirsty who are due to give birth! Good luck guys!!!!!
Wooo, 3rd place for me in the FF. I managed to beat little Chris and Nase to gain 3rd place. You could argue that it was an easy 3rd as Little Chris and Nase weren't really playing the game towards the end of the season. But they both had string teams and kept gaining points.
I can't believe the fookin' ash cloud is back, the week that Carol and Daisy head off to Canada! Thankfully they are flying with BMI to London, who believe money comes before safety, and are still flying today where as BA and even Ryan Scare have halted flights in and out of Scotland. My only concern is that they get stuck in London as we only have a finite amount of food for Daisy.
That's another season of football over and it's a long baron wait until the next game in August! It's also the end of the Fantasy Football too! Paul, again, crowned champion and Magoo in second. But third place is yet to be decided, with 10 points between 3 teams, it's a nervous wait.
Due to Paul's success, I've created a challenge for the rest of the Fantasy Footballers, the Paul Simon Challenge or PSC for short. All you have to do is beat Paul next season or the season after that and so on, and you will win this magnificent trophy and gain mountains of kudos by knocking this legend from the top spot!
Carol bought Xanadu the other day as it's got Olivia Newton John and lots of songs. She probably thought it a would be another Greese and money well spent. How wrong she was! Now, I'm the first to say that Greese is bollocks, but compared to Xanapoo, it's the Godfather. It so shit, even Carol said it was shit. Too much roller skating, spandex and crap special effects and when I say 'special' here I mean someone with learning difficulties. A true e waste of an hour and a half!
Still feeling the pain of the stag do. Age and booze are a leathal combination!
Due to one of the under developed users of the shed (monkey man), the 2011 photos can now be viewed in a basic mode. You'll see what I mean when you click on the photos drop down.
It's now only a week on Wednesday that Carol and Daisy head off to Canada for a month and a half. I'm meeting up with them in Vancouver for the last two weeks of the trip, so I'm going to have a month at home on my own and I think it's going to be pretty weird! I have two main concerns with not seeing Daisy for a month, the first is how much she will change in that time and the second is if she fails to recognise me when we are reunited. It's also going to be pretty lonely (I'm so ronery!) without Carol and Daisy. But I will have my friends Playstation, Nintendo and Apple to keep me entertained for the duration.
The logistics of flying with a baby are pretty mental, especially if you are on your own, so I've been wracking my brain to make life as easy as possible for Carol. Our main problem is our pram, the quinny 3, it's a brilliant pram but far too big for the plane and considered as additional luggage costing us 150 bucks. So I though it would be prudent to invest that money in an 'umbrella' pram that would taken on the plane for free and will be useful when Daisy is older. Because I didn't consult Carol on the purchase, she wasn't pleased. But like most of my purchases, I always talk Carol round, I can't wait to see her face after my trip to the New York Apple Stone - WOOOOOOOOO GADGETS!!!!!!!
I hate Edinburgh Zoo. It costs 15 squid each to get in and it's full of ill and mangy animals. The Zoo has been under construction for about a decade and is obviously not using their over exuberant profits to improve this exotic animal hospice. The only good thing about the Zoo are the penguins as they don't look as sick as the other animals. You can see photos of this sad day in the photos drop down.
I love the premier league! Last week, Aberdeen, who are 3rd bottom and possibly the worst team in the league, beat us 1-0 AND last night, we beat Celtic 3-2. Where's the sense in that! It's always nice to beat one of the old firm because they always think it's going to be an easy win whenever they play us! I watched the highlights today and Inverness looked amazing! It's a shame we didn't have this form a couple of months back.
Check it out. I've been digitizing all my old cassettes, about 300 of them, and found a rehearsal of the Ely Jones gig I did at Chili Palmers. I've thrown it on the shed (audio drop down) if you fancy a listen. Most of it is rubbish, but there were a couple of jokes I thought were still funny. My favorite is:
'people say that some of my products are disreputable, and may cause premature birth, even if you are not pregnant!'
On the day of the royal wedding, I bring you something far more interesting and exciting, Magoo has started up a You Tube Sports Channel. If you looking for a sports opinion from a man from Inverness, then click on the image across to watch. So far he's only produced one episode and although it's 'low budget' I tip my hat to Magoo for giving it a try. Lets see another one!
OK, the royal wedding. I was glad to hear the news today that the forecast says it's going to rain in London today. I know it's not nice to wish rain on any bodies wedding day, but to see the gimps camping out all week, to watch a trolly dolly's daughter and a lanky hook nosed slap head mince down a street, get soaked, or if I'm really lucky get struck by lightening, would simply make my day, I wouldn't even begrudge the £2 or so it's costing me. I know Carol wants to watch it, I may too, but only with the hope that something goes very wrong!
I'm on holiday, at home and there's not a cloud in the sky. Today is going to be a beautiful day...BUT...guess what! I've got a fookin' cold! and it's a monster one!
It's so unfair, if I was a religious man, I would be blaming god because he created suffering, wanker! This cold has gotten the best of me. It started last Thursday evening when I was about to start my holidays. It didn't seem too bad at the time, so I've been busy round the house, done some gardening and haven't really rested. Yesterday, the virus punched me in the balls and gave me a smack on the face for good measure.
So it's the nicest spell of weather Edinburgh has seen for at least 5 years or so and I'm indoors sticking kleenex up my nose to stem the flow of snot running from it. As a result, the coffee table looks like a teenagers bedroom with an over active arm and a healthy imagination.
Colin and Deirdre gave birth to a wee boy on Sunday, baby Euan weighing in at 7lb 13oz! Welcome to the wonderful world of parenting, there's nothing quite like it!
I do feel sorry for Carol sometimes, Daisy is turning into a real daddy's girl. She's teething right now so is pretty narky, but for some reason whenever Daisy goes nuts, she will only calm down whenever I hold her. I also get the biggest smiles too. It must have something to do with the way I smell and look.
The FF is drawing to a close and unless Paul withdraws his team from the league, it will be yet another victory for him. Magoo looks to have guaranteed another silver and the battle rages on for 3rd with Nase (who's no longer playing but his players are pulling in big points) Little Chris and me. With only 4 games to go, it's going to be tight for bronze!
David brought in Daisy The Dog to the office today. She's just a little bit older than Daisy the baby and is brilliant fun. The old trick of pretending to throw her toy, only to drop it behind you is well funny and gets her every time, the same tricks works with Daisy the baby too.
Yea! after today, I'm off until the beginning of May. We have 3 days of work next week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and by the looks of things, nothing is going to come in work wise. So I thought I'd take the days off and have some home time with my two ladies; the PS3 and the Wii...only joking, I meant my Mac Pro and Ipad....only joking, seriously, my Canon 7D and 580ex flash...only joking...Carol and Daisy!!!!
Carol's brother is getting married in June just before I arrive in Vancouver and they are going to be having, wait for it, a free bar at the wedding. I can't believe I'm going to miss this!! I've only experienced a free bar once before, it was a corporate event for the radio station I worked at in Aberdeen and it was brilliant! Its a bizarre feeling asking for a drink at a bar, getting it and not handing over money.
In all seriousness, it's a shame I'm going to miss Andrew and Leigh's big day. It's probably for the best, as free bar and a man from Inverness is a dangerous combination.
Whilst sat on the can this morning and with nothing to read, I was checking out some of the bathroom products on the shelf in front of me and was surprised to discover that Johnson and Johnson Baby Softwash doesn't sound as sweet and innocent when you read some of the ingredients on the back, which includes:
Yea! It's Carol's birthday today. Today she moves into a new decade, she's 30 again. She got lots of nice presents this morning and is off out for sushi later today. I'm hoping she will wear the badge I got her, it features her age, it's huge and flashes so people will notice.
We've been pretty quiet. Not been doing much too exciting, not unless you consider tidying up, or buying high chairs an absolute thrill, then we've been going mental! We hooked up with Fiona for some lunch on Saturday (pics in the photo gallery) and lost money on the grand national, which means it's Colin's and Deirdre's anniversary soon or has recently passed. Mum is popping down to see us tomorrow as she's dropping Mangoo off at the airport, so it'll be nice to see her for a couple of days.
A busy day on the Shed yesterday. I believe the high number of hits is down to shady software poking around the Shed looking for information of use, personal identity information etc. Every so often, there is a flurry of hits, but not a lot of bandwidth used. You can even trace the IP addresses, most come form China, which is a bit of cheek from a country who censor their own people's web use, pricks!
Carol and I experienced one of the magical moments of parenting last night. Daisy loves it when you blow a raspberry at her. Now, after a month making fart sounds and getting giggles, the tables have turned and she's blowing raspberries back at us to make us laugh. It's our first two way communication with Daisy and it's was amazing. I feel so proud, I can now communicate to my baby with farts.
My new retro leather camera bag arrived from South Korea a bit quicker than expected. It's not too shabby, the quality isn't as I hoped it would be, but being originally made in China, what do you expect. The material is real leather, so it's a little stiff, but once I get some use out of it, it'll soften up.
Magoo made is safely to Germany this week. He and Elena are moving into there main flat today which they'll stay in for 3 months and then they are off to Serbia...mental or what!! I have to say, I admire what he's doing. It must be pretty hard to up and leave and travel all over the place. I know I couldn't do it, so I tip my hat to thee!
I wouldn't believe that the only style of walking shoe was that's synonymous with German tourists, employees of the Warehouse and geeks. After much searching online I found my shoe, the North Face Summer Sneaker. It was released last year, so stock was severely limited. Thankfully I managed to get one of the last pairs in the UK and they fit like a glove. They have the style and function I was looking for.
Whilst in pursuit for these magical shoes, I found another amazing camera bag, it's on it's way from South Korea at the moment. Can't wait!
I can't believe how much stuff we had to take up north with Daisy. We literally had no more room in the car. It was an interesting experiment and has given us some food for thought for our trip to Canada in 2 months. Carol's mum and dad have just bought a super duper motor home, so Carl and Daisy's journey from Calgary to Vancouver is going to very comfortable. To see photos of our trip up North, click on Magoo's ugly mug across.
I think i may have solved my walking shoe problem, hopefully tomorrow I will have an answer.
Of late, I've been looking for a decent looking walking trainer type thing for my trip to North America, but everything I've seen looks awful. For the first part of my trip, I'm going to be walking around NYC for 3 days and I don't want to look like a '1st day of the Edinburgh Festival' target. It's fookin' New York and I want to look smart. There must be a shoe that offers function and is aesthetically pleasing, right?
I'm loving Canada's Deadmau5 at the moment. The progressive house tunes are very familiar to the mid 90's stuff when I used to go clubbing - fuck I feel old!
'Daisy's Wants My 5D - No Chance!'
This evening, Daisy was wanting to play with my Canon 5D mk2, a rather expensive bit of kit. So I wouldn't let her and she went MENTAL as you can see. You can't help but appreciate the quality of this camera, the tears in her eyes have really come out. She's really getting in and about stuff at the moment, I found her tub of blowing bubbles in the fridge and one of her dummies behind the playstation. Her favorite game now is to hide in a room, something she did earlier and scared the bejesus out of me as I couldn't find her.
Tuesday is D-Day. We've got a damp specialist coming to tell us if we are going to get shafted or not. Carol and I are getting fed up of waiting to get this place on the market, so I'm hoping the news is going to be good, but guessing by the luck we had so far with trying to get selling, I'm not too optimistic.
Jim
'Going Potty In The Brain!'
We are never getting on the housing market. We got our floors fixed up and the surveyor won't complete the survey as the joiner's report wasn't satisfactory. So we now have to get a 'qualified' damp specialist out to look at a floor that moves a few millimeters, well it no longer moves as it's been fixed, and say whether or not if we have damp. The house is old and will have some amount of damp. The 'qualified' damp people will find something wrong regardless, I just know it!
As you get see in the image across, I'm losing my mind due to the stress of it all and have taken to wearing Daisy potty on my head.
Jim
'Floors Up Again!'
I really want to move to a house that doesn't require the floors to be taken up. Two thirds of the joists in our house have been replaced now. Thankfully, the floor should be back down tonight but may need re-sanding and staining again. I'm hoping Gerard, our joiner, can get the floor boards back neatly and we can cover the joins with a carpet.
Jim
'Feeding The Birds'
We haven't been up to much, apart from feeding the birds up at Hollyrood Park on a freezing cold Sunday. Click on the image to see the photos.
On the house front, we are waiting to get our floor looked at before we can go on the market, so things feel like they have somewhat slowed down. We got our valuation back on the flat and it came back at 210k, 10k less than I hoped for. It means we will loose a bit of money on the place, but we had a very good meeting with the bank so my target for buying our next house is still achievable.
Jim
'Home Report Waste of Time'
We've just forked out 670 pounds for a home report and it came back with this (see image across) - it works on a scale of 1 being good and 3 being bad. So when you look across and you see a 3 next to what we've got. You wouldn't go near the place.
This is the result of a loose floorboard, 3 feet long and 5 inches wide, in the spare bedroom. The board moves a third of an inch down, so the surveyor has said the floor has to be ripped up and a damp specialist needs to inspect whats beneath. Look 2 posts down, I'm not surprised the surveyor missed this!!
The whole process is criminal!!
Jim
'New Car'
I got a new car a couple of weeks back. An Audi A4 2.0 tdi (170 bhp). It sounds like a taxi when running. Audio qualms aside, it's not too bad and is an absolute requirement with baby boy only 2 and half months away. Magoo says it's a grandad car, but he's got a volvo, the gayest make of car on the planet, second to the Toyota MR2. Click the image to see more.
These past couple of weeks have been dragging! Selling a house sucks. I keep imagining in the not too distant future that I'm sitting outside in a sunny back garden that's all mine drinking a nice cold beer and then heading inside to a designated TV room, exclusive to dads, to watch a Euro 2012 game, not worrying whether the psyco cat hole cutting neighbour will strike again, or stepping in dog shit by the back door, or running into evil Davy across the road when he's drunk. It will be bliss!!
Jim
'Fookin Roof'
I can't believe it! We are on the cusp of being on the market and this happens - the bloody storm we had caused this, ANNNND after we paid 20k to get he roof fixed a year and a half ago. I have written to the roof people to get it fixed but they haven't been back in touch...pricks! It has now been removed, but I know the fookin' surveyor will pick up on it. Not on that, our creepy cat hole cutting neighbour has had ago at us cos' we've covered his cat hole. The guy is a lunatic!!! I can't wait to get out of this place. The home report guy is due on Wednesday, so I hope it comes back in good order.
Jim
'House For Sale'
We've been busy since we got back from Inverness. The house is looking amazing now and is ready for sale. Click on the image to see some of the brochure photos, the outside pic is a bit cold and burnt out so will need to take another. I'm going to get a few quotes from solicitors on Wednesday when everyone is back to work so fingers crossed we'll be on the market in a couple of weeks. After that, the next step is to see an IFA and see how much I can borrow. Complicated and stressful times ahead.
Incidentally, if anyone is interested in the house, it's yours for steal at 250,000 bob.
Jim
'Back Home'
Ahhh, it's good to be home. We spent a week up north with Mum and Muncle, Magoo's new nickname. Mum did a fine job of keeping us all well fed and looked after. It was a bit hairy driving home as we hit a snow storm at Slochd Summit. I was worried it was going to be bad all the way down to Perth, thankfully it stopped after Aviemore.
I'm off to check out a new car tomorrow. It's an Audi A4 estate. In the words of Chief Brodie, we need a bigger car. We've had to leave some stuff up north as there wasn't enough room in the Golf. The car is being sold by a dealer and I hate dealing with dealers. I'm going in with an amount of money in mind and won't go beyond that as I'll be trading in!
I've thrown some photos of Daisy's Birthday up. Click on the image across to see.
Jim
'Boxing Day'
The day of rest is not a Sunday, it's Boxing day. Ate and drank way too much yesterday and last night it was a bloody hard job to get Daisy to sleep. So today is piratically relaxed. George and Isobel have gone over to the west and currently Daisy and Carol are having a nap, so it's nice and quiet. Probably going to see the Radical Pat tonight and will probably be talking babies.
Apart from the above, not much to report. You can see picture of Xmas Day by clicking on the image across.
Jim
'Ladsapalooza 4'
Feeling rough as fook today. The LP4 last night was a good laugh and the 1st one to feature wives. We went bowling and had a load of lager, then to the Snowgoose for some food and after that the Kep. By the end of the night, I was struggling and that is evident today, my hangover was pretty awful. We just had a house full of kids and it's was quite hard to concentrate, and Daisy had a cracking tumble giving herself a massive bruise, so needed a couple of beers to take the edge off and settle the nerves. You can see photos of the LP in the photos drop down. There are also a few photos up from our wee gathering today.
I'm looking forward to Christmas tomorrow. I think I'll need some champers in the morning to perk me up.
Jim
'Inverness'
After 3 days of getting organised, we made it to Inverness.
Mum seems to think that we'll have a week off, but it's twice as much work as we are in a different environment where there are more interesting, though dangerous, places for Daisy to investigate. So yesterday, our first day here, was pretty stressful. Today is a much more relaxed affair. There's also quite a bit of negotiation going on with regards to the LP later today, the wives are trying to get in on the action. I think the solution will be that they will join us later on, just like the the London marathon where the men, who do the longer harder run, start first and are then joined by their more delicate counterparts.
Pictured is Magoo with his hair down. He was deliberating weather to have his lovey locks cut off. He asked me to take some fashion shots to aid his decision.
Jim
'Mince Pies'
Ahh, the quintessential snack for the Christmas period - the Mince Pie.
I bloody love mince pies. They are brilliant with a cup of tea while watching some festive TV. Carol bought two boxes the other day and I've made my way through one already! The mince pie comes with it's own little tin foil bowl, but does a poor job of collecting crumbs. You have to be delicate with the pie as it's pretty flimsy once you've taken a bite. After about two of them, you feel pretty stuffed, but that passes quickly, then it's time for another.
All hail the mince pie!
Jim
'Time'
Click to play.
Jim
'Magoo's LPP'
Magoo have thrown his weight into the LPP creative spree and created his own propaganda.
Click on the image of Scud Dog looking like a gay wrestler to watch.
I should have my final LPP ready today and will upload tomorrow.
Jim
'Propaganda Ahoy!'
Magoo wasn't that impressed with my last 2 efforts of LP propaganda. So I've been racking my brain to come up with some new ideas. Today, I've created an ad that's suits what we'll be up to. You can listen by click here, or via the audio drop down at the top of the page.
A week tomorrow the Walker-Lyon family will be heading north for Xmas. Woo, getting quite excited now. The forecast for Xmas in Inverness is looking like a white Xmas, so fingers crossed!!
Jim
'I Hate The Botanics'
If you are a mum in Edinburgh, you go to the Botanic Gardens as it's a nice place to walk around and there's no dog poo unlike on every street corner in Edinburgh (Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland and only the city centre is looked after. The rest of the city is a shite hole. I can't wait to move out of this pig sty to civilisation) Anyway, the Botanics, the past couple of times I've been have been awful. Earlier this year, we went and Daisy scream the place down. I believe some species of Squirrel have yet to return after that. So on Sunday, the Botanics have a new baby area, a round carpeted area for babies to play in, so naturally we took Daisy. She's walking around quite confidently now, but she's still a little wobbly. So this big ugly baby boy called Euan and I mean really ugly, this thing looked like Winston Churchill, walked up to Daisy and pushed her over. I tell you, my fists was clenched and was ready to throw haymakers at this little fucker. Thankfully, after the incident, the fat baby took off to the outer part of the play area, tripped over the edge and did a super man into the floor and was well funny to watch. But, 2 minutes later, Daisy was walking back over to us and she too took a flyer, going head first into the floor creating a huge lump on her forehead. All very stressful.
Jim
'Less Than 2 Weeks To Go!'
Less than a couple of weeks until LP4. I'm well looking forward to it, so much so I've started the propaganda. Click the image across to see. I have also create the Shed's Night Before Christmas, it's in the audio drop down, or you can listen to it by clicking here.
The Super Caley play Scumdee United today. If we win, I predict a winning streak for the next 3 months.
Jim
'Christmas Tree'
We got our Christmas tree up last night (ooh err missus), much to the delight of Daisy who is fascinated by the baubles and flashing lights. I'm sure over the next few weeks the tree will be down and under it will be a crying Daisy. I got all the Christmas presents wrapped up last night too, so with that and watching Polar Express, I was feeling quite Christmassy, a sensation that has eluded me for many years. Perhaps having Daisy has reminded me how exciting Christmas can be.
This weekend, more decorating is on the cards and I'm not talking about 'lets decorate the tree' fun decorating, I mean getting deluxe gloss on the wood floor and going mental decoration. After this weekend, there's only the kitchen to do and then we'll be ready to sell.
Jim
'Deed Rat!'
Not a lot going on. I discovered an unfortunate rat outside our work office. It was quite some size as you can see from the photo. He looked a little flat, so may have been run over, but if that were to happen, I'm sure his innards would all over the place. He was at the foot of a building, so probably jumped. Maybe he had money in Greek bonds.
That's it. No news. Apart from a deceased rat.
Jim
'Fookin' Cold!'
When I say 'fookin cold' in the title of this post, I'm killing two birds with one stone. It's fookin' cold out and I have yet another fookin' cold, this is the 3rd in as many weeks. It's all in my throat so I sound like this guy. I'm hoping that this is my quota of illness out of the way before the christmas holidays.
The forecast is for snow today and there's live coverage of the snow on the BBC Scotland News webpage....hhhmm, no news then. Obviously the huge news of two impotent bears arriving at Edinburgh zoo is not big enough.
A fine weekend of football. The might Caley get an important win and the sheep shagging dons drop down to the bottom of the table. Could this be my dream season where we see Aberdeen go down?
Jim
'Money Raised!!'
Team Red Facilities made £125 for prostate cancer. Not bad considering that I thought I would only raise £20. Unlucky to Tim who wrote on my Movember message board "How come mum and chris sponsored you and not me?" Did you tell them about it monkey man? AND where's the proof of your tash?
It's now December and Christmas is approaching like a maniac wielding an axe. I've pretty much done all my Xmas shopping so the main focus is finishing the house. This weekend, decorating the hall, the next is the Livingroom, the one after that - do nothing, then it's Xmas. Proper bo I tell thee!!!
Jim
'Woo - target reached!!'
I'm well please!!! I managed to get to my £20 target. I've raised £45, so the amount has been doubled and will keep the tash til' the end of the year. Thanks to Magoo, Carol, Mum, Carol's Mum and Day and the mysterious Magnum PI for your contributions. You can still donate if you like as there are a couple of days to go by click on the image across.
Carol's cousin and family came to visit this weekend. Joe, Fiona, Barny and Elkie. It was good fun seeing them again and also interesting to see how the double children family unit functioned. It's going to be interesting when our boy comes along. I've thrown some photos of the weekend up. Click here to view on click on the photos drop down.
Jim
'Money needed'
OK. I'm £5 pounds off my target for Movember. I'm desperate to get to £20. I hate asking for money as me and charity don't mix and should be left to students and the people who believe in life after death. But I've been looking like a pedo for the past 3 weeks and I'm determined to get to my target. In fact, if I get to £40, I'll keep the tash until the end of the year.
Click on the image across to donate.
Jim
'Baby Boy'
Our next baby is going to be a boy! Mental!!! Carol and I will have one each now.
The scan went well, the boy was jumping around a lot so the Ultrasound Technician had a bit of a job to pin him down.
Our due date is around the 5th of April. It could be very close to Carol's birthday on the 12th.
Jim
'Tash for Money'
If anyone feels generous, please donate some dough to my Movember page. I look like a right pedo at the moment with this weak looking tash, so there needs to be some good to come of it. Just click on the image to head to my movember page.
We've got our baby's 20 week scan today, so pretty excited to see my unborn baby kicking aboot!
Looks like there's a palooza a bewin' - Friday the 23rd of December in Inveress.
Jim
'Baby Number 2'
We managed to get a listen to baby number 2 tonight. If you click on the photo accross you'll be able to have a listen.
Jim
'New Camera'
Canon have announced a new camera - the C300 - the 'C' stands for Cinema. Unfortunately it's a little out of my price range - $20k. But the good thing about these expensive units is that the technology eventually filters down to prosumers level AND gues what? Canon have also announced that they are working another cinema camera for the common man a.k.a me, though won't be out for a while. It too will be a little pricey with one speculator suggesting a price tag as high as $8k. Exciting times though!
Getting the house ready to put on the market this weekend. Today I'm gonna be phoning around for quotes on storage. I've really got itchy feet and can't wait to move, so I'm a little anxious with the house market being so stale, that I'm going to be stuck for longer that I want to be. And with baby number 2 on the way, time is against me, hence the rush.
Jim
'Tash Ahoy'
Next month, we are doing Movember in the office. So if you wouldn't mind donating a couple of quid so that I don't look like a fanny it would be most appreciated. I'm not into the 'doing things for charity' stuff as I'm a miserable git, but growing a tash is important and this charity is a step forward in the right direction for the reintroduction of moustaches back into everyday life. Click on the pic to see my progress and to donate:
I've had man flu over that past week and a bit. So have been feeling a bit crap and hence for the lack of posts. So to cheer my self up, I've bought some new camera stuff. Oh yea!
Jim
'First Steps'
Daisy took her 1st proper steps yesterday. It's quite a feeling when your baby starts walking as she doesn't seem like a baby anymore. We will now have to keep an eagle eye on her from now on as she'll be falling all over the place, though a good thing will be the re-straightening of our backs. Walking a baby around if pretty hard going.
Jim - a proud dad!
'Roller Dolly'
I finally got round to editing the footage I took in Inverness and features the new roller dolly. The RD provides smooth tracking shots and makes the film look sexy as hell.
Click on the round fountain to watch. As some PC users have trouble watching my films in quicktime, you can now view on YouTube by clicking the 'YouTube' button in the movie play window.
Jim
'Wife Beating Dickhead'
The image across is our neighbour who recently resisted arrest which took 4 cops to drag him from his home to police van. He seemed like a decent guy as he would always say hello to you if you saw him. It turns out he's an alcoholic and has been beating up his wife and kids. The wife and kids left him in the middle of last week. So yesterday I saw him sat on his front step with his head against the wall and then fell to the floor. A couple of minutes later he starts convulsing, so I called an ambulance. Magoo, who was here at the time, went over to see if there was anything he could do to help, I was telling him to keep clear of this guy as he's big and could lash out. Carol also went over to see what was going on. Then good Davy came out and explained everything to Carol that he had beating up the wife and kids. Had we known this, I wouldn't have called an ambulance. This morning, we saw the cops at his house, they were wearing blue gloves, I thought they were corpse handling gloves, but unfortunately, evil Davy was still alive and was being ushered to his 3rd abulence in 6 days.
Trying to be a paparazzo, I snapped a couple more pics, click on the drunk to see.
Jim
'Cawdor Castle'
When we were in Inverness a few weeks ago, we recreated a photo taken in 1976 with my Gran's cousin Bill, Tim, Mum, my Gran and me.
Click on the image to enlarge.
Jim
'A Sad Day'
A bit of a sad day today - poor old Steve Jobs died last night. I know you PC fans won't be that bothered, but for us Mac geeks it's not good. The last 10 years have been pretty exciting, not to mention expensive.
Will the next decade be as rich with technological development? yes! Will it look sexy and awesome? probably not.
Just so you know, I've been booted out of Google+ for slagging off facebook. So will create a new account soon that won't include the instruction for Facebook to suck my balls.
Jim
'Inverness'
We were back in Inverness at the weekend to check out mums new gaff. There's still quite a bit still needed done, but it's taking shape nicely. Once the extension is finished and all the snagging done, it's going to be pretty funky!
I was hoping to chill out in Inverness, but it's pretty hard to do with a baby. Being away from home, all your stuff and the baby's is in bags, so you are back and forth getting things. You are also mind full that you are in a different environment so there are more objects for Daisy to crack her head on. Also, mum's furniture is pretty bad, as in old and uncomfortable, so sitting down was hard work. I'm going to start nagging so that she sorts out some decent furniture before the christmas extravaganza!
Jim
'Flying Baby'
Have a look at this video. I've been having fun playing around with 1000 fps super slow mo.
I can't believe how hot it is today. We are heading up to Inverness tonight to see Mum and Magoo and to see the renovations. Macleod Road has literally been turned upside down. Lets hope the heat continues over the next few days.
Jim
'She's A Fighter!'
Check out this video - Daisy thinks fighting is funny as hell.
Jim
'Baby Boom!'
No, this image isn't Pat and MC's baby!
This is baby Walker-Lyon number 2.
Carol and I are preggers again. A bit of a surprise this one as we didn't expect to get pregnant so soon. Our due date is the 5th of April so I think we're gonna need a bigger boat...house actually and car.
Jim
'Congratulations'
Congrats to Pat and MC who are expecting their 1st baby. They had their 1st scan last week and everything is going well. Ahhh..it brings it all back.
Daisy has learned to play 'peek-a-boo'. Last night I was getting her ready for her bath and she lifted Carol's pajamas over her face and then brought them down, looked at me and smiled, so I said 'peek-a-boo' and she did it again. It's quite a feeling when you create a person and you see intelligent thought start to develop...I am a god!
Jim
'Blairdrummond Safari Park!'
We took Daisy to Blairdrummond Safari Park at the weekend, she was, as most children of that age, unimpressed with seeing the unusual animals. If anything, when she gets older will be expecting to see elephants and tigers in the wild.
The Safari Park is way better than Edinburgh Zoo as you can get right up close to the animals. The ring tails Lemurs were brilliant, I could have popped one in the car and driven off we got that close. The Lamas on the other hand were not as fun. I went to feed one (pictured) and the fucker spat at me in the face. I got Lama gob in my eye!! I was a little worried about infection, but according to the internet, the chance of this is highly unlikely. So I've now a score to settle the next time we go back. I'm going to hunt this Lama down and offer it some food and as it reaches over, I'm going to punch it in it's long stupid face!!
Spitting Lamas aside. It was pretty impressive.
Jim
'Destroy!'
Daisy loves smashing things. Our latest game is to build a tower out of wooden blocks as quick as we can before Daisy smashes it down. Apparently this is standard baby behavior, learn to pull apart before learning to build.
Click on the image to see Daisy in action.
Jim
'The Fonz with An Honorary OBE - NBL'
I think it's cool the Fronz got an honorary OBE from the Queen. I hope he said "Aaaaayyyyyyy" and gave the thumbs up when they pinned on the medal.
Jim
'Half A Million To Move A Shed!'
Keeping an eye on all things shed related, I was astonished to hear that multi millionaire, tv cooking star and international model Sophie Dahl is looking for half a million pounds from the public to help move her grandad's 'alone time' shed from the bottom of her garden into a museum! Eh? It's a shed. So what if it was his place for inspiration, how hard can it be to move?!
Like I said, it was Roald's 'private' shed where he used to spend hours alone, and with that in mind, the idea behind the 'big friendly giant' makes a bit more sense now.
Jim
'Storm A' Brewin'
According to the weather, we are going to get the tail end of Hurricane Katia on Sunday night.
This is great news for power companies with wind turbines! But shite news if you want to wear a hat on Monday.
Jim
'I'm a Murderer'
Check it out. I was on Horizon last night sporting a top tash and being portrayed as psycopathic killer!
Aparently I killed my wife and her best friend and was let off for 1st degree murder becuase part of my brain was missing. Crazy eh!
Click the image to see more!
Jim
'Google Plus'
You may have noticed the Google+ logo on the Shed's home page. I really want Google+ to take off and destroy Facebook. Facebook's policy of ownership of personal material (message content/photos/movies) on their site is disgraceful. As soon as a photo goes up on FB, it no longer belongs to you and become property of FB. Even the content of your messages are owned by FB, so for arguments sake, if you were to write the worlds funniest joke on your FB page, FB would have legal copy write to that joke.
So move to Google+ now. I'll send you an invite if you need one.
Jim
'Time To Knuckle Down'
OK. The FF is getting a little embarrassing! I'm rock bottom as a result of some sound decisions. I believe the FF curse is well established and the only way to break it is to bring everyone else down with me! How? I hear you ask. Easy, I'll just choose players who are doing well in other peoples teams and it'll all go pear shaped for those players. So, if you have Dzeko, Aguero, Silva or Rooney, look out, as they are going in my messed up team!
Jim
'Magoo's Birthday'
Today is Magoo's birthday, so happy birthday Magoo! As he's somewhere in the wilds of eastern Europe where the the royal fear to venture, instead of sending a card, I've created a homage to the birthday boy. Click on the image to watch.
Enjoy!
Jim
'Controlled Crying'
Daisy can't fall asleep without sucking on Carol's finger. So this weekend we tried some controlled crying to try and break her out of this habit. Controlled crying is where you put the baby to bed at a set time and you leave them to cry to sleep. You do this for a couple of nights and then the baby should sleep at the chosen time once put to bed with out any hassle. Sounds simple, but to deliberately let you baby scream themselves to sleep is barbaric. I've never felt so distressed. Take your worst dumping by a girl, multiply is by a thousand and you are still no where near how bad I felt. We had to give up after 5 minutes. So we've managed to get her to sleep without giving her the finger (if you excuse the pun) with rocking and pushing in the pram, so the next step is to slowly introduce her to the cot when she starts to get groggy. This is a more humain way to get her to sleep than the victorian method.
Fantasy Football - I don't really want to talk about it being rock bottom of the league.
Jim
'Trying To Be Healthy'
As I fall towards middle age with no means of slowing down. This year, I'm going to try and be super healthy. I've still got the baby fat on and want to trim down over the next 4 months. Sitting at a comfortable 12 and a half stone, I want to lose the half stone, maybe more and see if I can keep it off. So fruit for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and a simple dinner. I'm going to allow a few treats in the evening and one bad breakfast at the weekend.
This week I go the worst points in the FF ever and currently sitting second bottom. I thought I had a killer team this week. It's like the harder I try the worse I do. This weekend, my blood is on the team so will see what happens.
Also, Magoo is threatening to stop making his Magoo's Sports News as he believe there's a lack of interest. Please show you support, watch his latest episode here.
Jim
'Yea, It's My Birthday'
I've just started my 37th revolution around the sun! We went of for dinner to celebrate (pictured). Another good thing about this time in August is that the Edinburgh International Festival ends AND there is only a week of the Fringe Festival to go. Yeah!
I can't stand the Edinburgh Festival as town get overcrowded with tourist and performers. The only good thing about the Edinburgh Festival is the End of Festival Fireworks because it's fireworks at the end of the festival, no more street performers and bad drivers!
Jim
'Not A Lot Going On'
It's been pretty quiet at the moment. Apart from giving Daisy bubble hair doos and honing my FF team, I've not been doing much. I am looking forward to Hearts' drubbing from Spurs in the UFFA cup tonight, it's on ITV4.
Not doing much this weekend. May do some cleaning. Woo, rock and roll!
Jim
'Thank god for Tim!'
It it wasn't for Tim not submitting a full team, I would be second bottom. Little Chris was unlucky too, for most of the weekend he was on minus 5 points. The race has now begun to become champion of the shed league 2011/12.
Was out with Rick on Saturday to watch the Caley vs Rangers game. Rangers had help from the ref in the game giving them 2 penalties. Anyhoo, whenever I meet up with Rick, I normally feel rough for the next few days. BEER BRING PAIN!
Jim
'Here We Go!'
Less than a week until the start of the Premier League and more importantly the Fantasy Football. It's gearing up to be a good season and a fine competition!
A bizarre thing happened the other day. I looked outside my living room window to see my neighbour opposite outside with her kids and talking to a couple of cops. They looked pretty worried and thought they had been broken into. After about five minutes, Davy, the husband and dad, appeared at the front doors in handcuffs and was being dragged out of his house by 3 policemen. He was going mental, screaming his head off that he wasn't a threat to the cops and that the cuffs were hurting him. He must have been drunk as he's always very polite and says hello if you bump into him. The cops managed to get him out of his house and toward a police van where on being pushed in, he started kicking the van the head butting the sides. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen, it was the sort of behavior you get from minkers on rough estates. It's the talk of the street and I'm desperate to find out what was going on.
Jim
'Inverness'
We had a nice weekend up in Inverness catching up with Mum and also Colin and Family. We also took a trip out to Culloden Battlefield where I have been digitally immortalized as Murdo the Mole. Next time you are at the Battlefield, ask for the children's handset when head outside and you'll hear me! I've uploaded photos of the weekend.
A crap result for Caley at the weekend - losing in the 92 minute sucks. But it wasn't all doom and gloom, Aberdeen got a good result at St Mirren, they lost 1 nil.
Jim
'New Movies'
I've uploaded a couple of new movies to the Shed.
The 1st is my 10 Top Movie Moments. The 2nd is Daisy's first word.
The Movie Moments film is about 10 minutes long, so give it a minute to load.
Jim
'Daisy's First Swim'
Daisy went to the pool for the first time today. She had fun but I think she was a little cautious as there was more water than there is at bath time. I want her to learn to swim as young as possible as it's equally important as learning to cross a road.
We took with us one of her new toys bought last week, the signing tortoise. It's a wind up toy and swims when wound, but when the thing starts singing it's a pain in the arse as it's quite loud and it goes off all the time, even in my bag after when trying to order some breakfast.
My prediction was correct for the opening game of the season. ICT lost 3-0 to Motherwell. I like to think that Motherwell are our bogy team, but so are Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, Kilmarnock, St. Mirren, St. Johnston, Dundee United and Dunfermline. Lets hope we do better at home to Hibs this Saturday.
Jim
'Fantasy Football'
I'm so please the Fantasy Football is up and running again as it take my mind off how crap our summer has been, and for those living in a warmer more stable climate thinking of writing something funny on the message board, you can get stuffed!
Here are the details you need to join the Shed League:
http://uk.premiership.fantasysports.yahoo.com/football
Group ID: 1767
Password: shed
It's an open invitation, so anyone can play and I mean ANYONE! Duplicate teams will be removed, if I'm not convinced that the team is genuine, after 1 week the team will be removed and banned.
This season, you are playing for the coveted Shed League Trophy. As Paul has a hat trick and is looking to win his 4th successive title, you have the chance to get your hands on the Paul Simon Challenge trophy. A magnificent glass statue, which if you hold at the end of the season, will prove beyond doubt, that you are the greatest Shed League Manager of all time!
You have plenty of time to perfect your teams for opening weekend, so lets make this season the best yet!
Jim
'Football'
Toy shopping is harder than I thought. I tell you what, I wouldn't like to do it hungover. There were only about half a dozen people in the giant Toy R Us at Kinaird Park and the noise of the screaming kids was terrifying, adding to the pain was the same song being played over and over again on the stores sound system 'Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' - pretty creepy. You could here the Dads in the store saying repeatedly 'but you've already got that one at home, so you can't have it' - reason doesn't exist in this shop!
We got a bunch of toys for Daisy, typically, she's not interested in the more advanced stuff, her favorite is a round ball with a hippo inside that you roll on the floor. I'm hoping soon she'll be taking an interest in electronics and I'll be fighting her for the PS3 controller.
We are now on the final stretch (breath a sigh of relief). Never in the history of football has there been such a short gap of football during the summer, Euro and World cup finals aside. This weekend the SPL is back in action. The reason for the short break is so that the players have more time to recover form getting drunk at Christmas time, fare enough I say! On Saturday, yes that's THIS Saturday, the Super Caley play Motherwell and my prediction is that we are going to lose! Pessimistic I know, but there is only one way to go when you optimism is rock bottom!
Jim
'Woo, Toy Shopping!'
Daisy is getting a little bored of her current toy collection, so tomorrow, we are off toy shopping!! I'm really looking forward to this. Normally I find shopping with Carol pretty hard going, even food shopping, buy when you shop for toys, the game changes.
I'm going to buy Daisy some musical instruments with the hope she shows some musical interest, I may even go as far as buying her, her 1st camera, which I'm sure she'll have no idea how to use but will be something she can chew on. I believe Daisy also needs some new PS3 games and maybe something new for the Wii. It's going to be well exciting!
Jim
'It's A Miracle'
Well not really a miracle as that would require the belief in a higher power, and there ain't no higher power than me!! Daisy slept from 11:30 till' 7:15 this morning, in her new cot, in her room!! I had to check this morning at 6am to see if she was still alive.
I really hope she does the same again tonight as it feels exceptionally liberating! I'm trying not to get my hopes up and I'm sure there will be difficult nights ahead, but all we need to do now is get her to sleep earlier and we will reclaim the evening!!!!
Jim
'Ooooohhhh - So Sexy!'
I'm loving my new toy - the Macbook Air. This is my new traveling buddy, where ever I go, it will follow, like the littlest hobo on a grand though overly melancholic adventure. This magnificently petite machine is the result of a dream, a dream of going to the 5th avenue Apple store in NYC and buying one of these bad boys and it was everything I thought it was going to be. This little machine can do everything the Mac Pro can do, all be it a little slower due to the smaller processer, but you forgive it because it's so portable and light. I'm so please with it and looking forward to taking it to all sorts of places.
Jim
'Non Sleeping Baby'
We are having a hell of a time trying to get Daisy back onto UK time. She's been wide awake from 1 till' 3am most days this week. So this weekend has been trying to get her sleeping pattern back to normal.
Has anyone else had loads of thunder storms over the past couple of days? It's been mental here, and I hear Inverness has had it bad too! I love the sound of thunder, being in the line of work that I'm in, you appreciate sonic extremities.
Jim
'Too Much Jet Lag'
We got back from our North American adventure on Monday and today, Thursday, the jet lag is plaguing us, Daisy won't sleep until the early hours of the morning. That aside, the trip was a pretty amazing experience and was all topped of with Pat and MC's wedding. Photos of the day are in the photos drop down.
I've taken just under 3,000 photos on the trip, so getting through them all is a pain. I'm a bit disappointed that I could managed to do something a bit more exciting for the Shed whilst away, but with wanting to see loads New York and looking after Daisy, there just wasn't enough time. My plan is to refine the system I was going to use to make it easier to do what I wanted to do, because being someone who hates traveling, by adding an element of taking photos/movies while on route, makes it bearable.
It's Carol's Dad's birthday today - happy birthday Howard and thanks again for looking after Carol and Daisy for over a month traveling around Canada.
Jim
'No Time!'
Man, trying to update the shed as we travel with a baby is impossible! There is no spare time available. As we are only here for 4 more days and with one of those busy with Pat's wedding, I'm gonna wait to upload all the photos, of which there hundreds to go through, till' I get back. We arrived in Montreal on Tuesday and had an awful flight into the city, the turbulence was dreadful, so bad that the stewardess reminded us where the emergency exits were.
So, yesterday we went for a hike around the old part of town and are nackered today. So we are being lazy and chilling out and about to head out for lunch. It's raining now, so I think we'll find a place to eat and not move for a bit. Tonight we meet up with the wedding party for dinner.
See ya'll back on the other side of the water.
Jim
'Catching Up'
It's been amazing catching up with Daisy. She has changed so much, the main difference is how alert she is. Her new thing is sticking her tongue out all the time. She looks like a mental case when she does it, but we think it's partly to with her teeth coming in.
Over the past couple of days its been pretty relaxing. We've been out for food and done some off roading in the Jeeps. Tomorrow morning we leave Vancouver Island and head for Vancouver city.
Jim
'4 Weeks of Waiting Over'
I was counting the seconds as we drove up from Nanimo to Carol's parents house. I was so excited about seeing Daisy and Carol. When we arrived I jumped out of the car and ran into the house to see Daisy, but she didn't recognise me, as soon as she saw me she started crying. This was pretty hard. It's taken most of the day for Daisy to get used to me again.
So we pretty much chilled out for the rest of the day and caught up.
Jim
'Day 3 in NYC'
Today I took things a little easier as my feet were falling off my legs. I know, I sound like an old man, but I've been walking a lot.
I went to the Empire State Building and it's pretty awesome. It's cool to be at the top of a building that a giant monkey climbed, then fell off again. The building is bit higher than the Rockafeller centre, but the view isn't as interesting. The ESB is better to look at than to look from.
After being at the top of NY I headed to Macies, a massive department store and ended up getting lost inside. The onto B and H Photo, probably the biggest photo store in the US. It was weird being there as all the staff were Hasidic Jews. Next and final stop was the Apple store again for some purchases. So tomorrow morning I have to be up at 3am to catch my 7am flight to Vancouver.
Jim
By the way, the photo across is of the top of the ESB, you can go up into the very top to be 10 floors higher that everybody else. It was nice in there as it was air conditioned.
'Day 2 in NYC'
I'm still totally nackered!
I now have massive blisters on my feet. As a result of my bad feet, I used the subway today and totally got lost. I missed one of my stations 3 times in a row. But it was good not to walk. By the way, more photos in the drop down of day 2.
I went to the statue of liberty today. It's alright, it's just a big statue, I'm sure it has more meaning to your average American. The cues to get there and get back were a nightmare too. I also checked out the Brooklyn bridge, Wall Street, Ground Zero (i had breakfast about 20 yards from there) Bloomingdales (shite shop) and the MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art - most of it was bollocks, there were only a couple of decent paintings, a few of Picassos and a Pollack - the worst exhibition there was a photographer who took snaps of these old Romanian tramps getting their tramp wives naked, it was pretty disgusting.
Tomorrow is my last day and I'm off to the Empire State Building and then going to make a final decision on weather on not to get a macbook air. To clarify this, I always had a dream to jump on a plane from Edinburgh and head to new York and buy a macbook air form the 5th avenue store, odd I know, but it was always something I've wanted to do. BUT... the rumors are that there's a new Air coming our soon, so what do I do, wait to see if it comes out in the next couple of weeks while I'm here in North America as it will save me a load of cash, but if it doesn't come out, it will be too expensive to buy back in the UK. Bite the bullet and pursue the dream, what to do?
I should point out that my last day here is a formality. All I really care about is getting to Canada to see Carol and Daisy. I've waited 4 weeks and I almost can't believe that the time is up. Bring on Tuesday afternoon when I get to Vancouver Island!!!
Jim
'Day 1 In The Big Apple'
I'm totally nackered!
It was a long day getting to NY yesterday and it didn't help that my Toronto flight to NYC was cancelled cos' of thunder storms. I left the house in Edinburgh at 7am and arrived at my hotel at 11:30pm. So went to sleep quite easy last night and got us about half 6 and got ready and headed out. I've been walking every where for about 8 hours, so my feet are aching. This city is nuts, the sky scrapers are amazing and what's really funny is that you'll see somewhere that's been used in a movie, for example, I noticed these Lion statues out side a grand looking building and it's the New York library featured in the opening of Ghost Busters. I been to loads of places today, too many to write about, but here's a few; The 5th Avenue Apple Store, the place John Lenon was shot, the Rockafella Building, Greenwhich Village, Chelsea Pier, Grad Central Station.
It's 5pm and I'm about to have a shower and head out for something to eat. Don't think I'll be doing much after that, probably heading to bed to get ready for the highlight of NYC tomorrow - the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty!
Jim
'Here we go!'
I'm off to the NYC tomorrow for a 3 day stop over before joining Carol and Daisy in Vancouver on Tuesday. I'm a little bit apprehensive about heading to NYC on my own as I haven't done this sort of thing since Boston in 1999, but I suppose I've got plenty of money and a bag full of cameras and lenses and that's all I need. I was hoping for blue New York skies but by the looks of things, it's going to be hot and stormy.
Anyhoo, keep an eye on the Shed as I'm going to do my best to document the trip. I don't know what form the documenting will take as I'm not sure how the trip will go and I'd rather the impromptuness govern the style. Just so you know, I've thrown a few photos from today on the Shed, they are in the photos drop down.
Jim
'Never Getting Hammered Again!'
It's official, I'm calling it a day on getting smashed. I'm still in a world of pain this morning from my escaped with Rick on Saturday night. The calculation of being smashed to the amount of time it takes to recover is too much in favour of the recovery, I believe it's not a viable means of entertainment anymore. A gentle couple of beers and an early night in bed is what the doctor ordered. Oh Yea!
Jim
'Segregated Shopping!'
I'm fed up of women getting in my way when I'm shopping for clothes. The men's section of any clothes store should be off limits to women. They cease to be women when they shop, becoming vicious monsters barging in front of you just in case there is only one size left. They also have to go through every item of clothing on the rack, what's the deal? you see what you like, then you find your size and that's it, rummaging through the whole fookin' shop like a mad badger just seems unproductive. What surprises me more is that there are men out there who are quite happy for their female counterparts to buy clothes for them, are they mad or just plain lazy? I imagine these men at home sat in the toilet shouting for their wives to come and wipe their arses!
I'm meeting Rick for some beers this afternoon. I'm bit worried about this. I've only been drunk once this year and that was Pat's stag do, the recovery was long and hard. Since the arrival of Daisy, being a patron is not that appealing. At least I have plenty of time to recover tomorrow if things get out of hand.
Jim
'2 Weeks To Go'
I've been missing Carol and Daisy badly this weekend, especially yesterday. I've done everything needed doing with my free time, so trying to fill time productively is tricky. There's always gardening and sorting out the garden shed, but that can wait as only a nagging wife will get me motivated for that type of work. I'm half way through the wait, 2 weeks tomorrow and I'll on Vancouver Island with my family.
Went to see Thor yesterday. I was looking forward to it, but looking forward to a film is a bad idea as you will always be disappointed. The last time I looked forward to a film and enjoyed it was District 9. Thor was dull with a couple of funny bits, so I would avoid at all costs, even on DVD.
Today Apple are launching some new products. A new operating system for iPhones and iPads and hopfully some new gadgets!!!
Jim
'Happy Birthday Monkey Man'
Today is Tim's birthday. He turns 40 today. Congratulations Monkey!!!!!!
Days like today, weather wise, should be a national holiday. We have clear blue skies and a predicted high of 26 degs c. They are so uncommon here in Scotland and should embrased.
Jim
'I've Been Robbed!'
LA Noire is being punted around as being a ground breaking game with digital face mapping to create a real feel. And I have to admit, the characters do look amazing in the non-play story telling. But that's it. It's the dullest game I've ever played and so repetitive. All you do is drive to a crime scene, look for clues and interrogate suspects. As one reviewer said, it's like having a real job. The main character you play is an honest John wet blanket family man, so the chance of the game giving the player the option to corrupt just wouldn't happen. Rockstar Games produce two of the greatest games the world has ever seen, Grand Theft Auto 4 and Red Dead Redemption, and with LA Noire feeling like a money spinner and very disappointing, Rosckstar's next release needs to be something special to instill confidence with it's loyal gamers.
Jim
'Carol And Daisy Away'
I have to say it was quite an emotional morning saying goodbye to Carol and Daisy at the airport on Wednesday, I was balling my eyes out and Carol was telling me to stop but I couldn't, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, to say goodbye to my baby and wife for a month. I can totally sympathise with Tim who went off to Iran just after Andrew was born for 6 months. The fookin' ash cloud didn't help matters either adding to the stress of it all. Thankfully, it buggered off to bother the Germans...stun!
Anyhoo, once I got back to work after dropping Carol and Daisy off at the airport, I started to feel a little bit odd, my legs started to hurt and I was getting really hot. By that evening I had a full fever and couldn't move from the couch. I though it was flu. Yesterday I was aching all over and was feeling rubbish. My temperature went up to 39.1. But by tea time, the fever broke and started to come back down to earth. Today I'm still a bit dodgy but not half as bad as yesterday. It was either a 24 hour virus, or I'm a pussy and being separated from my family caused it!
It's actually going to be an exciting weekend. There's the Champions League final, the Monoco GP and Paul and Kirsty who are due to give birth! Good luck guys!!!!!
Jim
'FF Results In'
Wooo, 3rd place for me in the FF. I managed to beat little Chris and Nase to gain 3rd place. You could argue that it was an easy 3rd as Little Chris and Nase weren't really playing the game towards the end of the season. But they both had string teams and kept gaining points.
I can't believe the fookin' ash cloud is back, the week that Carol and Daisy head off to Canada! Thankfully they are flying with BMI to London, who believe money comes before safety, and are still flying today where as BA and even Ryan Scare have halted flights in and out of Scotland. My only concern is that they get stuck in London as we only have a finite amount of food for Daisy.
Jim
'Fancy a challenge?'
That's another season of football over and it's a long baron wait until the next game in August! It's also the end of the Fantasy Football too! Paul, again, crowned champion and Magoo in second. But third place is yet to be decided, with 10 points between 3 teams, it's a nervous wait.
Due to Paul's success, I've created a challenge for the rest of the Fantasy Footballers, the Paul Simon Challenge or PSC for short. All you have to do is beat Paul next season or the season after that and so on, and you will win this magnificent trophy and gain mountains of kudos by knocking this legend from the top spot!
Jim
'One of The Shittest Film Ever!'
Carol bought Xanadu the other day as it's got Olivia Newton John and lots of songs. She probably thought it a would be another Greese and money well spent. How wrong she was! Now, I'm the first to say that Greese is bollocks, but compared to Xanapoo, it's the Godfather. It so shit, even Carol said it was shit. Too much roller skating, spandex and crap special effects and when I say 'special' here I mean someone with learning difficulties. A true e waste of an hour and a half!
Jim
'Monkey Paws'
Still feeling the pain of the stag do. Age and booze are a leathal combination!
Due to one of the under developed users of the shed (monkey man), the 2011 photos can now be viewed in a basic mode. You'll see what I mean when you click on the photos drop down.
Jim
'Pat's Stag'
A brilliant stag do!
Why such a short post - too huungover! Pic's of the weekend in the photo's drop down.
Jim
'Canada Looms'
It's now only a week on Wednesday that Carol and Daisy head off to Canada for a month and a half. I'm meeting up with them in Vancouver for the last two weeks of the trip, so I'm going to have a month at home on my own and I think it's going to be pretty weird! I have two main concerns with not seeing Daisy for a month, the first is how much she will change in that time and the second is if she fails to recognise me when we are reunited. It's also going to be pretty lonely (I'm so ronery!) without Carol and Daisy. But I will have my friends Playstation, Nintendo and Apple to keep me entertained for the duration.
The logistics of flying with a baby are pretty mental, especially if you are on your own, so I've been wracking my brain to make life as easy as possible for Carol. Our main problem is our pram, the quinny 3, it's a brilliant pram but far too big for the plane and considered as additional luggage costing us 150 bucks. So I though it would be prudent to invest that money in an 'umbrella' pram that would taken on the plane for free and will be useful when Daisy is older. Because I didn't consult Carol on the purchase, she wasn't pleased. But like most of my purchases, I always talk Carol round, I can't wait to see her face after my trip to the New York Apple Stone - WOOOOOOOOO GADGETS!!!!!!!
Jim
'The Edinburgh Zoo is Shit!'
I hate Edinburgh Zoo. It costs 15 squid each to get in and it's full of ill and mangy animals. The Zoo has been under construction for about a decade and is obviously not using their over exuberant profits to improve this exotic animal hospice. The only good thing about the Zoo are the penguins as they don't look as sick as the other animals. You can see photos of this sad day in the photos drop down.
Jim
'Ha Ha - Celtic Are Shit'
I love the premier league! Last week, Aberdeen, who are 3rd bottom and possibly the worst team in the league, beat us 1-0 AND last night, we beat Celtic 3-2. Where's the sense in that!
It's always nice to beat one of the old firm because they always think it's going to be an easy win whenever they play us! I watched the highlights today and Inverness looked amazing! It's a shame we didn't have this form a couple of months back.
Jim
'Ely Jones'
Check it out. I've been digitizing all my old cassettes, about 300 of them, and found a rehearsal of the Ely Jones gig I did at Chili Palmers. I've thrown it on the shed (audio drop down) if you fancy a listen. Most of it is rubbish, but there were a couple of jokes I thought were still funny. My favorite is:
'people say that some of my products are disreputable, and may cause premature birth, even if you are not pregnant!'
Jim
'Magoo's Sports Channel'
On the day of the royal wedding, I bring you something far more interesting and exciting, Magoo has started up a You Tube Sports Channel. If you looking for a sports opinion from a man from Inverness, then click on the image across to watch. So far he's only produced one episode and although it's 'low budget' I tip my hat to Magoo for giving it a try. Lets see another one!
OK, the royal wedding. I was glad to hear the news today that the forecast says it's going to rain in London today. I know it's not nice to wish rain on any bodies wedding day, but to see the gimps camping out all week, to watch a trolly dolly's daughter and a lanky hook nosed slap head mince down a street, get soaked, or if I'm really lucky get struck by lightening, would simply make my day, I wouldn't even begrudge the £2 or so it's costing me. I know Carol wants to watch it, I may too, but only with the hope that something goes very wrong!
Jim
'Here Comes A Moan'
I'm on holiday, at home and there's not a cloud in the sky. Today is going to be a beautiful day...BUT...guess what! I've got a fookin' cold! and it's a monster one!
It's so unfair, if I was a religious man, I would be blaming god because he created suffering, wanker! This cold has gotten the best of me. It started last Thursday evening when I was about to start my holidays. It didn't seem too bad at the time, so I've been busy round the house, done some gardening and haven't really rested. Yesterday, the virus punched me in the balls and gave me a smack on the face for good measure.
So it's the nicest spell of weather Edinburgh has seen for at least 5 years or so and I'm indoors sticking kleenex up my nose to stem the flow of snot running from it. As a result, the coffee table looks like a teenagers bedroom with an over active arm and a healthy imagination.
Jim
'Congratulations And Poor Carol'
Colin and Deirdre gave birth to a wee boy on Sunday, baby Euan weighing in at 7lb 13oz! Welcome to the wonderful world of parenting, there's nothing quite like it!
I do feel sorry for Carol sometimes, Daisy is turning into a real daddy's girl. She's teething right now so is pretty narky, but for some reason whenever Daisy goes nuts, she will only calm down whenever I hold her. I also get the biggest smiles too. It must have something to do with the way I smell and look.
Jim
'Who Will Be Crowned Fantasy Football Champion?'
The FF is drawing to a close and unless Paul withdraws his team from the league, it will be yet another victory for him. Magoo looks to have guaranteed another silver and the battle rages on for 3rd with Nase (who's no longer playing but his players are pulling in big points) Little Chris and me. With only 4 games to go, it's going to be tight for bronze!
Jim
'Say Hello To Daisy The Dog'
David brought in Daisy The Dog to the office today. She's just a little bit older than Daisy the baby and is brilliant fun. The old trick of pretending to throw her toy, only to drop it behind you is well funny and gets her every time, the same tricks works with Daisy the baby too.
Yea! after today, I'm off until the beginning of May. We have 3 days of work next week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and by the looks of things, nothing is going to come in work wise. So I thought I'd take the days off and have some home time with my two ladies; the PS3 and the Wii...only joking, I meant my Mac Pro and Ipad....only joking, seriously, my Canon 7D and 580ex flash...only joking...Carol and Daisy!!!!
Jim
'I Can't Believe It'
Carol's brother is getting married in June just before I arrive in Vancouver and they are going to be having, wait for it, a free bar at the wedding. I can't believe I'm going to miss this!! I've only experienced a free bar once before, it was a corporate event for the radio station I worked at in Aberdeen and it was brilliant! Its a bizarre feeling asking for a drink at a bar, getting it and not handing over money.
In all seriousness, it's a shame I'm going to miss Andrew and Leigh's big day. It's probably for the best, as free bar and a man from Inverness is a dangerous combination.
Jim
'A night out'
A few photos from our night out at dinner now in the gallery.
Jim
'Not so soft!'
Whilst sat on the can this morning and with nothing to read, I was checking out some of the bathroom products on the shelf in front of me and was surprised to discover that Johnson and Johnson Baby Softwash doesn't sound as sweet and innocent when you read some of the ingredients on the back, which includes:
Cocoamidopropylbetaine, Hydroxpropyladimonium chloride, Lauryl methyl gluceth-10, Di-PPG-2 myreth-10 adipat, Quaternium-15, Tetrasodium EDTA, PEG-150 pentaerythrityl tetrastearate
Just what baby skin needs!
Jim
'Birthday Snaps'
Carol had a nice birthday yesterday. As always, I took some pictures, you can see them in the photo gallery.
Jim
'HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROL!!'
Yea! It's Carol's birthday today. Today she moves into a new decade, she's 30 again. She got lots of nice presents this morning and is off out for sushi later today. I'm hoping she will wear the badge I got her, it features her age, it's huge and flashes so people will notice.
Jim
'Not a lot going on'
We've been pretty quiet. Not been doing much too exciting, not unless you consider tidying up, or buying high chairs an absolute thrill, then we've been going mental! We hooked up with Fiona for some lunch on Saturday (pics in the photo gallery) and lost money on the grand national, which means it's Colin's and Deirdre's anniversary soon or has recently passed. Mum is popping down to see us tomorrow as she's dropping Mangoo off at the airport, so it'll be nice to see her for a couple of days.
Apart from the above, it's pretty slow.
Jim
'Stats Ahoy!'
A busy day on the Shed yesterday. I believe the high number of hits is down to shady software poking around the Shed looking for information of use, personal identity information etc. Every so often, there is a flurry of hits, but not a lot of bandwidth used. You can even trace the IP addresses, most come form China, which is a bit of cheek from a country who censor their own people's web use, pricks!
Jim
'Communication'
Carol and I experienced one of the magical moments of parenting last night. Daisy loves it when you blow a raspberry at her. Now, after a month making fart sounds and getting giggles, the tables have turned and she's blowing raspberries back at us to make us laugh. It's our first two way communication with Daisy and it's was amazing. I feel so proud, I can now communicate to my baby with farts.
Jim
'New Camera Bag'
My new retro leather camera bag arrived from South Korea a bit quicker than expected. It's not too shabby, the quality isn't as I hoped it would be, but being originally made in China, what do you expect. The material is real leather, so it's a little stiff, but once I get some use out of it, it'll soften up.
Magoo made is safely to Germany this week. He and Elena are moving into there main flat today which they'll stay in for 3 months and then they are off to Serbia...mental or what!! I have to say, I admire what he's doing. It must be pretty hard to up and leave and travel all over the place. I know I couldn't do it, so I tip my hat to thee!
Jim
'There is a shoe god!'
I wouldn't believe that the only style of walking shoe was that's synonymous with German tourists, employees of the Warehouse and geeks. After much searching online I found my shoe, the North Face Summer Sneaker. It was released last year, so stock was severely limited. Thankfully I managed to get one of the last pairs in the UK and they fit like a glove. They have the style and function I was looking for.
Whilst in pursuit for these magical shoes, I found another amazing camera bag, it's on it's way from South Korea at the moment. Can't wait!
Jim
'Daisy's 1st trip to Inverness'
I can't believe how much stuff we had to take up north with Daisy. We literally had no more room in the car. It was an interesting experiment and has given us some food for thought for our trip to Canada in 2 months. Carol's mum and dad have just bought a super duper motor home, so Carl and Daisy's journey from Calgary to Vancouver is going to very comfortable. To see photos of our trip up North, click on Magoo's ugly mug across.
I think i may have solved my walking shoe problem, hopefully tomorrow I will have an answer.
Jim
'Why do all walking shoes look gay?'
Of late, I've been looking for a decent looking walking trainer type thing for my trip to North America, but everything I've seen looks awful. For the first part of my trip, I'm going to be walking around NYC for 3 days and I don't want to look like a '1st day of the Edinburgh Festival' target. It's fookin' New York and I want to look smart. There must be a shoe that offers function and is aesthetically pleasing, right?
Jim
'Deadmau5'
I'm loving Canada's Deadmau5 at the moment. The progressive house tunes are very familiar to the mid 90's stuff when I used to go clubbing - fuck I feel old!
Jim
'George is The Troll Hunter!'
The Troll Hunter is a brilliant film and the similarity between the Troll Hunter and George is quite scary.
Jim