2006 - Was it worth it

AHAHHA. Of course I jest. Naturally it was worth it. But what a year eh? Not that I'm one for political comment but.. Well actually I'm not going to bother summing up the year politically. Or by newsworthy events. We all know there are other better sources for those kinds of summaries.

My next idea was to tell you my most played song for each month of the year. But I don't have that information.

So what did happen of note?

JANUARY - El was 24, I started taking 2 days off a week, new Star Chamber Songs, Jack's Open Mic nite happened for the first time and my first picture day on tobiwan.co.uk
FEBRUARY - Cooked Coq au Vin for 13, started buying albums from ebay (that didn't last long though), Cambridge and Rock garden gigs, It snowed!
MARCH - Dead iPod, Recorded guitars at Aaron and Hannahs, Megin came to stay, Alison's birthday
APRIL - Fizzle was 18, Went Skiing in Andermatt, Mark's party, Got addicted to slitherlink/kwontomloop
MAY - Nice weather, Rock Garden Semi Final, Third Annual BIRTHWEEK!, Dylan Moran, KICKASS PARTAY
JUNE - Nicer weather, Work went crazy, WORLD CUP, the infamous alcohol watch, Anthony's Stag Day IN FRANCE, New fence, First Cricket Match
JULY - England out of world cup, Gotta Dance.., THE HORSE-FLY BITE!, David & Jo's wedding, got the new job, THE PERFECT post, New phone, HATT's Birthday
AUGUST - Went to Switzerland - AGAIN, El's Blog begins, Finished at GWS, Matt & Catherine's Wedding, Posh Hermit starts blogging, Album sent off to be mixed & mastered
SEPTEMBER - 2nd new iPod, Design fun, NEW JOB, 8 NOT OUT, infected mosquito bite, bin marrid for 4 years, Bobcat gone to uni, LORD OF THE RINGS DAY
OCTOBER - Center Parcs, Temporary Deafness, BROTHERS HAWKS, 2 years of AIADW, GIGS!, Filming in Canterbury
NOVEMBER - Anwar's BIRTHDAY, Lemon meringue madness, Azzman Network online, Life Sentence Album Launch, The great tea hunt
DECEMBER - Post 500!, El finished her painting, Album Promo Video, MINESWEEPER RETIREMENT YAY, 24 day, Christmas things!, Third visit to Switzerland in a year..

That's about it. I'm sure some more important stuff happened but this is casting an eye over what I felt it necessary to blog.

Tonite should be fun. I've spent too long sat here so I'm going to wake up El and make some tea.

Overandout

Oh my word

So you didn't have to wait until May after all..

Here are teh holiday snappage.

This picture shows you what I had for Christmas lunch. I have to say that Christmas day was probably the best day skiing.

I am tired and so I will sleep now. Can't say fairer than that now can you..

You can't have it allllllllll

Suppose I'd better

Hello there..

We're back. It was a great holiday. Lots of pics (and videos - eek!) to come (with the usual proviso that they probably won't until I remember in May).

Now I just have to settle into that weird back from holiday feeling. The passing eased by a new Cd (Iron Bottom Sound by Flick) and the fact that New Year's Eve is but a day away.

I'm glad to be back but also a little bit sad to not be with the snow and mountains. As I say, weird.

I will go now. Look after your fattened calves and eat your food.

oh you don't even know..

I'm skiing it up baybe. This is quite tricky as I had an 'incident' yesterday. This involved a slight twisting of the knee in a direction that I'm pretty sure it shouldn't twist in. Nevermind.

Tomorrow is Christmas day and so we will be skiing and sledding. Down a freakin' mountain people.

I'm going to stop being antisocial right now so I'll leave you with a picture.

Oh. Apparently I won't be leaving you with a picture as the computer apparently don't like my phone. Never mind.

I don't doubt.

Overandout...

aaaaaaaaannnnnnddddd..

We're off!

goshdarn

These has been the busy days. Perhaps the busiest of days.

The album is finally off for duplication. We're getting close. Oh yes.

Aside from that I've been doing 'other stuff'™

Switzerland tomorrow. Who knows what the blogging is like there. I'll let you know.

Have a great christmas if I don't see or speak to you before then.

Peace.

And goodwill to all men and out

Londinium

The glitz. The glamour. The lights. The razzamatazz!

tempting

Should I not blog today?

It's a conundrum.

Not doing my reputation any favours..

Hello.

Here are some phrases I think I need to try and use more often:

"ETA on.."
"Move into position"
"Where are we staging?"
"I hope I'm not a psycho-path"
"We don't have time for your personality disorder"
"We've got to put all our energy into finding that nuclear warhead."

I think I can work all of them into daily use. Possibly not the last one though..

You may or may not be able to tell that I'm watching 24 season 4. And I have been since around 6am this morning. I think that unless you watch them on Tv this is probably the best way to do it. The adrenaline based plotlines that kick in around 2/3-3/4 the way through a series keep you awake. I am watching 7 hours more tv in one session than I ever have though (18 hours compared to Lord of the Rings' 11).

Still, 5 real hours left and 6 and a half 24 hours left. We'll get there my peoples. We'll get there..

Overandout

Oh bugger

From the article, How To... Blog

Posting bad things on your blog is like dumping rubbish in space.

Ah well, what does he know, eh?

tobyandout

well fed

I helped cook a christmas dinner for the first time today. It consisted of washing things up to make room and all sorts of other fun.

I'm actually rather short of offerings for now. It's been a good weekend so far.

And you'll never guess what we're attempting on Monday..

So close

good advice

Getting a chest infection then singing rock and or roll for nigh on 2 hours?

I wouldn't recommend it.

Last day of work before christmas tomorrow. Bring it.

'bout freakin' time

This right here marks my retirement from playing minesweeper. Thank god.

it's not that I don't want to..

more that I can't be bothered.

You can work it out.

Blowin' on my own trumpet

I wouldn't ordinarily do this kinda thing, but I'm quite proud to have been involved helping the Hat put this lovely thing together..



Big love on a Tuesday nite to all of yous.

By the way, check the link to Matt's youtube page above to see the video that I mentioned filming here.

a cheery thought on the bus

I was sat on the bus today, thinking. For some reason I got to thinking about afterlives.

Pretty much any concept of the afterlife is bearable except hell.. I know that's fairly obvious, but there you go. I'm a fairly obvious kind of guy.

Think about it..

annihilation - wouldn't care would cease to exist
joining a greater consciousness/god/whatever - weird but again would cease to be self-aware so dealable with
reincarnation - pain in the ass going through life to get to the fun bits again but again, wouldn't realise I'd already done it and you get to try some different stuff to what you tried this time round
heaven - best of the bunch. Or else it wouldn't be heaven

All good and well. The beliefs essentially stack up as don't carry on, carry on in a new form, carry on in the same form in a different place. But hell is unthinkable. I think someone once conceptualised hell as being like here but going on for ever (basically saying that that would be hell). That's dumb. Sometimes life can be a chore here and life going on for ever here would be an eternal chore but there's so many opportunities to take joy in small pleasures - a glass of wine, laughter, a mountaintop etc etc - that you could deal with it. Now imagine the worst parts of life as we know it and imagine that there could be no respite from them. Gah.

Oftentimes when I start things like this, I have no idea where I'm going. This is no exception.. ha.

Often people questioning beliefs in a deity of some description will say, "how can you believe a good being would send people there". I would tend to struggle with the same question, although I still believe in God. But I can't help but wonder, what if there was such a place and you went there of your own choosing?

Frightening.

carry on regardless..

Going through a 'having problems with titles' phase. Not that I care. And nor should you.

This whole labels thing is weird as well. Trying to choose what labels to use. I mean after all I could just use a different one for each post but the point would be somewhat absent.

Guess where got snow? Oh you can guess you're smart people..

Also, here's some photos that got uploaded recently. It was Boy Crossroads' birthday. We had a finger buffet and played Risk. Who said Aran only ever comes up with weird ideas?!?

Family is fun is what I say.

Finally, El finished the painting. It's called Blood In The Water.



Wow. This was a long one. Sorry about that folks..

Overandout.

Work in progress..

Do you recognise it? El is at pains to point out that it's not finished and also she's not sure if she likes it.

calm before the storm..

Hello there..

I don't have much to say to you. People are coming over I think and I need to do another round of washing up before that happens. I did see this in the Word magazine and it made me chuckle. The basic context is about the difference between the world of the TV series, West Wing, where the president is played by Martin Sheen, and the real world, where the president is played by George W. Bush. To the top right of the article there are two pictures very similar to these with the following captions:

"President Bartlet: well-read, civilised, passionate, quick-witted and capable of fielding the most difficult question."

"President Bush"

Hopefully I've actually conveyed the funniness of this, but if not, just pretend I have and laugh at your computer screen like I am the god of all that is uproarious and humorific.

Overandout

all in all

That was a pretty good evening.

Scored a bloody good goal.

Had a couple of pints.

Ate crisps until my mouth hurt.

Hung out with friends.

Played pro-evo (although I lost).

Got a good score on kwontom-loop again.


Tomorrow I might try and take over the world. See if I can continue to be on a roll.

I've just moved over to blogger beta. I don't know if this will make any difference. It's saying something about labels for this post. Thing is I'll probably have to hack up my template again for it all to work. Chances of that happening? Fairly slim I should think. Busy boy right now. Got an album launch to plan for (27th January if you're asking).

You can't have it all..

Half Millennium

The wait is over. Now you know what today is. As well as those other things, it is post number 500. Who would ever have thought I could make it this far.

To celebrate the big five-zeroh-zeroh I bring you this:


Within those 500 posts you will be able to find 301 images. Here they all are in their glory (click for closeups).

See if you can spot yourselfs, your favourite tobiwan.co.uk moments or these classic pictures:

my colleagues think I have issues
hove town hall
the mossie bite from hell
picking frodo's nose
the mighty tea-bag hunt
sad ipod
aragorn smelling my finger
horsefly bite!
Celebrity Size competition

Overandout my people

game pot

Hello

Fancy seeing you here. It feels like we're meeting almost every day. We should stop really but I can see that we're both of us drawn to the shared experience of real world that draws us away from life in la-la-land.

Tonite I had a work meal and I ate the game pot. It had elephant, lion, tiger, ostrich and zebra in it and boy did it taste good.

Steak on Saturday. Yay!

All of which means bedtime for our young padawan.

Do you think that if you fail at Jedi-ness you revert back to padawanity? I think I think that..

Overandout.


ADDENDUM: DO YOU KNOW WHAT TOMORROW IS?

did I say post a blog?

I meant go to bed.

Really? No not really.

Here's a little somethingsomething for ya.

We were all talking about/reading that Jack Bauer email earlier. You know, the one that's all like:

• Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.


• It's no use crying over spilt milk... Unless that was Jack Bauer's milk. Oh you are so screwed.


• There are three leading causes of death among terrorists. They are all Jack Bauer.


• Jack Bauer can leave a message before the beep.


• etc..

I want to make up some more like "Jack Bauer sometimes.. is.. Jack Bauer has.. Jack Bauer's really great!". Shouldn't be too hard. But then it is late and you're all really small miniature people sitting hooked up to the real world like when you're in the cinema and you're on the screen and you're all big and the people watching are really small. I think it actually might be time to go to bed after all. Ok then bye bye now.

did i mention that..

• I've never broken a bone


• I'm like a fish out of water with the opposite sex


• I'm a ruthless procrastinator


• I'm a hopeless romantic


• I say yes to too many things


• I'm a defiant optimist with a cynical streak


• my face is decidely wonky


• Anything I've said that's funny is probably consciously or unconsciously stolen


• I once fell on my head and I don't tihnk it's affceted me


• I dreamt a lot last nite but I don't remember what it was that I dreamt

mistake

This was the photo I meant to post with yesterday's entry. But I screwed up. I sincerely apologise for all the trouble I've caused.

As an aside (or if you prefer - following that aside) what is it that draws me to dead celebrities? Seriously. I discover these really cool musicians, comedians, song and dance men, whatever and then realise they died in the the nineties or eighties. I think it started when I realised/discovered John Lennon was dead. Since then there's been Kurt Cobain, Andy Kaufman, Jeff Buckley and now Bill Hicks. I've a vague feeling there's been some more.

The only minor positive is that I was into Elliot Smith before he died, not after.

Ah well. It's probably nothing.

Overandzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Time to take over the world.

I'll let you know how this works out though.

yesterday

Hello.

Here's yesterday by locations I was active in. Give or take a few.

Today is today and all that will follow.

G'bye

Happy Advent

Not long til Christmas now. And top of the advent to ya!

Once again everybody leaves it to tobes to shoulder up the burden of bloggin hard. Sob etc.

I got plans for a picture post today. PLANS™

Time to go to work. Bye