all in a day's work

axiomatic..

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:18:00 +0000

Ordinarily I'd be keen to update you all on progress of how things are.. um.. progressing, but we all know how that update would go.

I think I've got a way forward. But I'm not announcing it until it's at least some way along. Because otherwise it'll be a case of "I'm doing this" and then it never happens. Or doesn't happen until August.

Welcome to my world baybee.

Spent a weekend in the hometown. Or what I consider to be the hometown.. It was the nice times.

Bits and Bobs are coming to play tonite. Nicky-Nine is cooking. Yum.

I gotta buzz..

tobiwan

Well look who it is..

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:20:00 +0000

Go on, just look..

I know, I know. Privacy blah blah. I was still excited. And so should you have been. So you should have been? So should.. So you..

And so you ARE!

overandout looking for a google van..

Of mice and mice

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:08:00 +0000

When did free speech become the excuse for behaving like an idiot? I'm all for freedom of speech, but I don't think using it to be petty is exactly a noble use of the privilege.

You can just imagine what those in oppressive regimes make of people who use their freedom of speech to call people 'low-grade bank clerks'.

I mean really..

I've tried to articulate a thought I have quite frequently on here for a while but never got it down satisfactorily. It boils down to a 'great power/great responsibility' type thing; essentially yes we have freedom of speech, but just because we can say something doesn't mean we should. It seems that in our great media age this would probably be lost on a lot of people.

I usually have a lot more than that swirling in my mind tank but I think it's too transient to nail down. As is usually the case I end up writing myself in circles and not posting.

So be glad that I got some of it out at least.

I'm a little further along in my plans post-26 March, but it remains to be seen what timeframe we're looking at here.

Have a nice weekend y'all..

End of an Era / Decisions, Decisions

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:59:00 +0000

Don't worry faithful chum(p)s, I'm not kicking the blogging habit. Nothing like that.

However, those good people at Blogger/Google have informed me that as of 26 March I will no longer be able to post my blog via FTP from Blogger. This isn't an unreasonable diktat. It's a fair decision. I'm told that less than .5% of active blogs on Blogger publish via FTP to their own hosting.

But it does mean the following:

I need to decide whether to continue with Blogger
Whatever I do I will need to rehack my blog to pieces to make it work again
Updates may well disappear from March 26 until when I get my arse in gear to sort it out

The simplest solution would be to stick with Blogger, but I would lose the ability to customise my template with PHP additions etc which I do so love to do. I've been wondering for a while about the possibility of moving to a different blogging solution which I have complete control of so mayhap this is a good chance to do so. Although this will mean trying to find a way to transfer all the posts.

Or perhaps this is time to archive All In A Day's Work and start something new..

Whatever I choose, things will never be the same..

Not that they ever are anyway.

Since you don't normally come here for me to bore you to tears (HAHAHA) with this type of carp I will also let you know that I have started writing some songs for a potential solo EP(s). Oh gosh. Strangeday will still be feeling my love, but I'd like to try something a little different alongside that. Knowing as you all do my high capacity and dedication to things like this, I think we can expect the results of this project sometime in 2020.

Have a good rest of the week.

overandout..

on memories

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:24:00 +0000

It always surprises me to learn that a memory I would have placed good money on being true turns out to have happened differently or not happened at all..

It seems the mind is a strange beast, if beast it be.

(A thought I had and didn't post on 29/11/08 at 10:24)

Obligatory Mountain Shot

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Taken whilst skiing the 'fat one'. So you know.

for shame

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:02:00 +0000

Hello..

I had a nice holly day. Thanks for asking. I skied the Fat One. I didn't break anything. Apart from a ski pole. But that's progress.

I realise I hadn't actually mentioned the holly day yet, but you should be careful with your informations in the Real World.

I'm not one for getting p'littycal very often, but I was listening to the radio this morning and the announcer casually breezed over the fact that an ex-News of the World editor is the Communications Director for the Conservative party. Yes yes I know this is old old old news. I think I missed that one. But it's the kind of statement ("..who is now Communications Director for..") which should at least be made with a rhetorical raised eyebrow. Isn't it?

In other trivial news I'm loving putting my whole music collection on random at the moment. How else would you have Rage Against the Machine followed by Simon and Garfunkel? Delightful..

I'm out.

In Four Minutes Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:50:00 +0000

My my my

In Four Minutes Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:48:00 +0000

My my

I forget which..

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:28:00 +0000

It's almost February. I guess you didn't need to come here to hear that. It's self-evident. Actually, it's not self-evident. But it's fairly well known.

Just trying to think of stuffs that I have been up to so far in the new year. Here's a little listy:

North Kent Bands Vs South Kent Bands foop-ball - lost
Staff foop-ball - lost
Open Mic with the most hokey set up to date. We're talking serious last minute bodging here. We managed to stop short of actually butchering cables to make it work.
Covers gigs woohoo (although I already mentioned those)
Shaunfest (with Shaunfest II - The Legacy of the Perfect Balance pencilled in for tomorrow)
GOD OF WAR
Organising our calendars oh my

Then this weekend it is the turn of the Boy to have his birthday shennanigans. Good skills.

I should think that's your lot.

Time to go.

It's the taste

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:13:00 +0000

So to speak..

I had a Peter Gabriel day. Musically speaking. It was damn good.

I forget why I'm here. Perhaps I left my keys somewhere?

I stared off in the distance for a while and then I realised that I have to put on some pasta.

Still.

I think this is still probably one of my better posts.

overandout..

A productive day

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:28:00 +0000

Once again, all in a day's work

Train journey

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:02:00 +0000

Brain journey

With a dark sense of foreboding..

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:01:00 +0000

Hello campers. Hope you're having a good Monday. I'm chipper.

Oh yes.

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:46:00 +0000

That is a big off snowman. He is called Horace. And he was built by Team Respect Courage. Dares Wins!

Gatekeeper..

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:27:00 +0000

Anyone seen the keymaster?

toujours les mêmes

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:56:00 +0000

Well we're here at the kitchen table again. Nipper is doodling again. So I thought it opportune to make a doodle of some words in a box on the internet again.

For your general consumption and entertainment. Or otherwise.

This is another wholly unformed thought, but over this week it keeps occurring to me that all too many people mistake change for progress. And then they take it one step further and assume that instant change is the best indicator of progress.

I was reading a Malcolm Gladwell article the other day and it talked about a profiling test with a question about what you'd do if you'd just taken over a department that was performing mediocrely. There were several responses, one of the best being: help all the members of the department to feel completely responsible for their work". And he said that the one that all bad managers chose was "completely shake up the department, getting rid of all the 'dead wood'".

Sound familiar?

The argument I can hear in the back of my head is that the problem is "the public" expecting things to change immediately. But I wonder how much it's "the public" and how much it is the manager's perception of what the public thinks.

Either way, any change or progress that's worth having is going to take effort, but also time. And it's likely that any short-term gain will be deceptive and elusive.

Blah blah. However, progress should also react to the latest information. There's no point sticking dogmatically to a plan for 20 years that got outdated 2 years in.

Also, I don't really get on with any kind of profiling test.

Full circle I think. I'll post a pretty picture later to take your minds off of it.

The Saffa is getting marrid today. And we played a sweet sweet covers set at a 60th birthday yesterday. Absolutely the funnest of times were had.

I gotta buzz.

overandout.

Give the man a hand

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:15:00 +0000

A shiny sparkly hand.

Warning sign

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:56:00 +0000

Morning sigh. Holy cow. Happy new year by the way. O-o

A Big Ol' Can O' Crazy

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 11:02:00 +0000

Nothing to do today.

Very nice. This may well be the last or the nearly last post of the decade so I should try and make it sweet.

We had our Christmas Open Mic last nite. I nearly never say much about these apart from that they are good. If you don't hear from me about it, it probably means it wasn't much to write home about. Write to the RealWorld about. Put out for public consumption to everyone with access to the internet (apart from maybe China and a few other countries - although I don't think this blog is too Dissidentatious so maybe I'm not blocked; I'll probably never know).

I digress. Again.

So anyway, I thought I'd tell you the songs I played: Lovely Day, Lucky, Have Yourself A Bitter Little Christmas, The Luckiest, God Only Knows, Plane, Long Black Veil, Do They Know It's Christmas. That's quite a few. We had some good acts, including someone new. Do They Know It's Christmas was a big ol' drunk singalong which rounded off the evening. That's a good community feeling to end on. The crowd had their moments of lethargy during the evening, but there was a goodly amount of people there so all's well as ends well.

Got a couple of Gladwell books for Christams. Definitely worth checking out. Although if you're a conservative you'd probably think he's a liberal. Those of us in the know are very well aware that there's no such thing as conservatism or liberalism. It's all perception.

As I sit here typing this, my daughter sits next to me doodling with pens. I'm not sure whose output is more meaningless.

And so we come to the close.

It's been a fun decade. Here's to another one.

overandout of 200*

So.. yeah.. like.. right..

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:17:00 +0000

At this point it's sounding a little like a Matt Hat post.. But I always deliver, so that couldn't be possible..

Christams has been very cool. Is it possible to enumerate? Probably not, but let's have a go:

Drinks, Surprising Number Ones, Gigs, Wiis, Turkeys, Sleeps, Beefs, Pokers, Skadoos, FLCs, SGRs, Backpacks, Cutes..

I'm pretty sure that'll do for now. Some of those weren't plural, but you live and learn. Or you deal.. And for those of y'all wondering, Skadoo is a game. Although it would have been awesome for Christams to include Skidoos.

I feel I owe you some groundbreaking revelations, or at least some kind of pertinent Christams message, but all cards on the table: I got nothing..

If you ain't got 'em, then you hit rock bottom..

I will say that it's been less than a week since I realised that we're at the end of the decade. I don't know what this says about me.

Overand out

Christams

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:38:00 +0000

Only two days of work left before the good old Christams time. On the first day of Christams my true Matt sent to me a bloggins for all to see.

Maelstrom

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:06:00 +0000

Hail storm? SNOW WATCH: SO MUCH YES!

Membrane

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 11:46:00 +0000

Zen brain.
It's the Network's birth celebration later. And I'm having a curry. Cashback.

take flight..

noreply@blogger.com (tobiwan) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:23:00 +0000

Well well

Here we are again. The times are a rollin' it would seem. It puts me in mind of some kind of freight transportation.

Here's another roundup of fascinating insights into my psyche:

- I don't understand the attraction of personalised number plates that aren't quite right.. Like you know, there's 3 i's in someone's name, or you have to settle for one that says T011BY or something. I don't really understand the attraction of personalised numberplates full stop, but I can appreciate if you got a good one (or better still a subtle one, with your initials at the end or something), but why the hell go for something that's not quite right? Do they actually think someone's going to look at their numberplate and go "YEAH COOL! GO YOU!".

You must understand that this is coming from someone who actually thought he looked the bomb-diggy in his shell suit and Paul Gascoigne crying t-shirt (although I was 10 at the time - give me a break) so I understand the mindset of someone who thinks dumb stuff is cool, but I still can't get my head round this one..

- I'm still in awe of newspapers that think that the unceasing dreary installments in the ongoing saga of some media-managed wants-to-be-a-fairy-tale story from washed up attention-hungry fame-whores constitutes front page news. I honestly can't tell:
if people who lap up this, for want of a better word, crapmongery, are as stupid as the newspapers/fame-whores are cynical and manipulative; who's feeding who; how anybody could possibly care.

Perhaps everyone just leads such mind-numbingly boring lives that any sideline or distraction in between getting drunk will do.

Also falling into this category, people who have nothing better to do with a Saturday nite than to watch still more crapmongery and then advertise this sad truth by taking to the intertubes to bitch and moan about whatever heavily stage managed and entirely planned injustice has been done this week.

My my. I'm all hot and bothered now.

- All the policy decisions in the world aren't going to change the fact that greed always floats to the surface like scum on a pollution-riddled waterfront. Doubly so because policy makers are also greedy (or did the expenses scandal not teach us anything). This is behind the times, but anyone who was genuinely surprised that the banking industry sat on the big pile of cash given to them to help them out of the black hole they found themselves in is seriously deluding themselves.

Not that I don't have faith in the good of mankind by the way.. I have utter faith that the light shines all the brighter for all the darkness, but you're not going to find it anywhere obvious..

I think I need to go and sit in a darkened room someplace and tie some lavender under my nose or something.

Keep it real peeps.

oversandouts