All Smiles
Originally uploaded by Tom Scholes

Just a quick one...

Gem, Caz, Skip, Julia and Helen all ran the Race For Life 2007 today in Birkenhead Park. It was in aid of Cancer Research. I'm happy to say they all did as well as they expected - if not better!

Well done to you all, I'll give you your sponsor money soon - HONEST!

/ By Tom at 8:33 PM [+] 0 comments

Dancing
Originally uploaded by Tom Scholes

I'll make this post quick, because after editing a whole lot of photos I don't really feel like writing a hell of a lot.

I've had a good weekend, being a bank holiday weekend and all. Saturday we went to Lee's house to celebrate his birthday. I some how managed to not take a single picture of Lee. Having said that I'm sure there's some missing that I did take. Still, you can go see the ones I did take on flickr. I think the highlight of the night would be the dance off that for some reason went on. I took a video of it, and posted it on YouTube, so you can view it here.

God knows what inspired all this. It just kind of happened like everyone suddenly thought they were in West Side Story or something...

JETS!

Then last night was Karaoke night at the Swan. For Char-i-dee as normal. It was a good fun night but the judges were being right fucks. They seemed to take things too seriously and held weird little grudges. Like the way Dave got 4 out of 50 points just because he is in a band. Maybe I'm just bitter because they only gave me 9 points, but I dunno. It's like someone drove over their collective dogs that day or something.

Next one is the August bank holiday though. I know I'll be there - but will I bother singing?

Probably. I'm a sucker for punishment.

/ By Tom at 6:52 PM [+] 0 comments

Virgin Megastore PS3 sign
Originally uploaded by Tom Scholes.

The picture to the right is one I took today outside Virgin Megastore (and I have another from inside the store on my flickr account). It reads:

"PS3 Console

Released 23/03/07

...

Customers who have placed pre-orders with us will be served as a priority.

We have 100 additional consoles to sell on 23/03/07.

These will be sold on a first come first served basis.

Please be prepared to queue for this event."

As it shows the PS3 will be available to buy off the shelves from this Friday. This is opposed to the Xbox 360 and Wii launches where it was impossible to get a console unless you had pre-ordered (and even then you might have not been allocated one on the day).

Now, what I don't know is if this is because Sony has made sure there's plenty of stock (let's face it, they could have shipped some over from the US or Japan where it's not been selling amazingly), or because the pre-orders have been poorer than expected. It's bloody hard to tell because Sony spin things harder than the government.

I blame Mad Ken :-)

/ By Tom at 6:51 PM [+] 0 comments

Fingers
Originally uploaded by Tom Scholes.

Just real quick, to say happy birthday to Joe, who was 25 last Sunday (it was Sunday right?) We went out to celebrate last night, right in the middle of all the St. Patrick''s Day celebrations.

It was just a little bit busy in town, but I think we all had fun. I met a lot of people I know, drank a lot and took a few pictures (available on my flickr account as usual). It was a good blow out after the pure shit that was this week in work. I had been miserable all week, but I think that's out of my system for now. Well, until tomorrow anyway when it all begins again.

Here's to hot, sweaty and loud fun... Matron.

Oh, and just going back to Thursday last week, I went to see Deftones along with Skip, Al, Hellen, Michelle and the other Nature Boys. I was actually expecting them to be a bit rubbish really, but in fact they were pretty bloody good. They started the gig with Be Quiet and Drive and My Own Summer so from that point on all I could really think was "fuck yes!"

Good job too, I've been a fan of the Deftones for quite some time. It would have been sad if they were a disappointment. Disaster averted! Panic over!

/ By Tom at 3:16 PM [+] 0 comments

Stuck Mojo - Southern Born Killers
Originally uploaded by Tom Scholes.

It really was like Christmas all over again today. I got home today and found four parcels waiting for me. I guess the postie has been holding on to some for a while :-(

Anyway, in those parcels was Police Squad - The Entire Series, Airplane box set, Clerks II and the CD pictured... Southern Born Killers by Stuck Mojo.

What makes this CD special though is the fact it's numbered 501 out of 1000 and signed by Rich "The Duke" Ward. Been waiting for this to arrive for ages. Also included with the CD - an unlabeled DVD (hmmmm) and a shiny Fozzy sticker. $22 well spent I think (about £11.20 at the time of ordering).

One thing that wasn't like Christmas today though - I made the pancake mix ready for tomorrow. If you don't make your own - you bloody should it's easy. A five minute job at most. Here... have the reciepe:

6oz flour
4 (large) eggs
1/2 pint of milk.

Beat the eggs and milk together, sieve the flour into the bowl. Then slowly add the eggs and milk mixture to the flour, stirring the whole time. Mix until the lumps disappear. Put it in the fridge ready to go for tomorrow. All I'll have to do is give it another quick mix tomorrow and then stick some in a pan.

Mmmmmm pancakes.

But what can I have with them?

/ By Tom at 7:39 PM [+] 0 comments

The Playhouse, Southport
Originally uploaded by Tom Scholes.

Today I went to Southport as Gem was attending a wedding fair at the Floral Hall there. I decided to have a walk around the town centre while I waited.

So much has changed in Southport. There's MANY more closed shops there now, most of the small businesses are gone. I used to like shopping at places that you just didn't see anywhere else - now Southport is full of the high street stores you get in every town.

Then I decided to check out what happened to The Playhouse, the crappy indie game store where I used to work. Well, the picture says it all - it's been knocked down! This actually made me feel pretty damned satisfied actually, but I wondered what happened to the brothers who ran the place.

Well Nick still appears to be running his Sports Signings website. This was the reason he lost interest in the Playhouse - signed memorabilia goes for a lot of money. Seems like he has ramped the business up a lot. I wonder if he still gets the signatures by telling the sports people that it's for charity when in fact he's keeping all the profits? He certainly did when he first started, I remember him proudly showing off a newspaper article about him doing just that.

Ben appears to still be selling cars on ebay. Back in the day he used to sell them from behind the Playhouse and used to just park them in random places around Southport with ads in the windows. Just outside people's houses and the sort. I would have been pissed if I found a car "abandoned" like that outside my house. He's got some glowing eBay feedback though, so good on him.

Boy, and I moan about working for BT... My job is SO much better than working at the Playhouse!

/ By Tom at 7:00 PM [+] 0 comments

I actually wrote all this in work earlier in the week, and then kept forgetting to send it back to myself at home

So, that 2006 thing that we all just experienced…

It was a year that really was dominated by weddings, and talk thereof. I went to two, (Hello Joe and Nich, Beth and Dave) but Gem went to more and of course I proposed to her in August, which you'll be hearing lots more about in the next year and a bit - 30^th May 2008 is the wedding date. It also means I kept my one and only new years resolution for 2006 as well, which was nice.

That's the big happy news of last year. There were down points and bad news during the year of course, but I'm not going to go over them again. It's not the time to dwell on the bad, we should be looking forward to the good. Plus I'm in work, and therefore in a foul mood as it is and therefore don't want to dwell on it any further.

But what I can happily look back on is time spent with friends. Both out and about with new friends, or having get togethers - Guitar Hero party for the ultimate win! It's also one of the main things to look forward to in the new year as well. Another thing to look forward to in 2007 is a hopeful improvement in my situation at work. Again, it's not something I want to go into, but I will say at this time I am not happy. Perhaps a change of job is what is required, sadly suitable work for myself is hard to come by in Liverpool.

This year will mark the start of my third year living with Gemma. Now that has gone fast, we've got to look into changing our mortgage as the end of the 2 years also means the end of our 2 year fixed rate. More serious, grown-up stuff… Ah to be a kid again. I didn't worry about much back then.

But then part of the fun of life is not knowing what'll happen next. Who knows, this time next year we might be reminiscing about how different life was before the space ants took over the world.

And I for one welcome our new insect overlords…

/ By Tom at 1:49 PM [+] 0 comments