Puentae the Mexican Tea Fairy

The Kinks

2010-01-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

Just bought Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One by the Kinks, stunning album. In the past i've tried to listen to the Kinks but never really found anything special about their early albums but this is grand, cheers for the recommendation Greeny.

In other key news I bought the NES Synth app for the iPhone, its great fun using the accelerometer to bend the notes and pitch of those beautiful 8 bit sounds! Talking of Apple I watched the super-geek-engadget live feed of the iPad unveiling, I have a love hate relationship with these sort of events, Jules forced us to watch so many PS3 launches and all the presenters are so smug and the audience are so easily impressed, anyway I was hooked to the apple feed and I canne' wait to have a go on the iPad it looks like Apple have seen the Netbook market and trumped it with something so much more fun and more accessible. Considering it appears to be in the same price range as an EeePC it looks so much nicer and you know its just going to work rather than fiddling with clunky Linux.
I thought they were going to announce iPhone OS 4.0 at this thing anyway?

New Fiery Furnaces

2010-01-12T03:08:00.000-08:00

Whats your favourite cable?

2010-01-11T03:33:00.000-08:00

If your anything like me you have a plethora of cables, some in use, others that have not been used but despite what 'her indoors' says they are extremely important.
My favourite cable of all time (yes I do have a favourite cable of all time) fits into neither of these categories, its somewhat of a 'cable of all trades'
'What cable can this be?' I hear you ask, well... Its a five metre USB male to female cable, and what a stunner it is. I initially purchased said cable when occupying our student diggs to solve a wi-fi problem for my flat mate John, who was limited to a Wi-Fi USB dongle for his desktop, it was simply to far from the router to get a signal, so the best/cheapest way forward was to bring the dongle closer to the router apropo 5 metre USB cable.
It worked a charm but really came into its element when I got my hands back onto it, these days everythings USB but the trade unionist manufacturers keep pieing us off with shamefully short usb cables. For example Apple make stunning tech but always, ALWAYS give you the shortest amount of cable they possibly can, which is fine if you are sat at a static desktop iMac but with your iPod/iPhone/iBook you want to operate while charging in the comfort of your favourite chair. Sony are even worse; the PS3 promises wireless controllers, great, except when they run out of charge and your in the middle of killing someone so you have to plug it in and sit a foot away from the console, closer than yesteryear on PS2.
If you experience these problems, don't be coy and buy a 2 metre cable or even a 3, go the whole hogg and get 5 metres its practically as good as wireless.
Do you have a favourite cable? Please tell me, I do love a goodun.

Blow away those blogwebs!

2010-01-09T07:43:00.000-08:00

I must start with an Apology, Sorry for not writing upon't here for a long period of time, I have an excuse though. I no longer go onto my laptop, since I have bought the best thing that man has ever created; the Apple iPhone 3GS. I just don't use my PC anymore; why would I? I have to log onto a PC at work everyday, they are boring, stagnant, uninteresting devices that just don't pocess the flare of anything with an Apple logo on. The iPhone litreally does everything and as soon as I can be assed I will move back to Wordpress, why? Because theres an App for it of course!

The last time I spoke on here was August, that is herrific. So what have I got to tell you? I have a permanent contract at work now which is nice, I have an iPhone which is good (see above) and Christmas has been and gone.

I am currently typing from a farely old desktop PC that my pop provided me with as a media server, I plan to fill the bastard up with music and pump it across the network to my PS3. This new desktop is my first experience with XP Pro and I have been setting up remote desktoping with my iPhone, it works a charm, not that I use it alot but it means I can be sat in front of my PS3 and realise the media server isn't turned on; no matter, in the comfort of my armchair I can operate the PC from the iPhone, boomshanka.

I haven't really thought about what else to write here, but will update here more often. Another thing thats distracted me is that bastard Twitter! It's so much easier to just be lazy and micro-blog.

Technology of the week/decade is/was the Apple iPhone, obviously. Everything is awesome, I forgot how cool it is just having a rack of music in your pocket, my old Pod3G wasn't up to the challenge of just playing music without having a little battery accident. But on top of the iPhone's basic function as an iPod it also suffices all other idle thumb needs such as a multitude of games, Google Map GPS capabilities and a handful of utterly superb but pointless Apps (Applications) oh, and its a phone in the most basic form, it has THE best address book, THE simplest phone based functions of any mobile phone I have ever used.

App of the week is Blurb, I'll let you find it and enjoy the brilliance of it in a social situation. Enjoy.

Calm down dear its an Eastern European Meerkat

2009-08-13T04:37:00.000-07:00

So I am currently looking for cheaper car insurance, I'm currently with Admiral who have beat everyone else for the last 3 years. Once again I have compared the market/go compare/confused yadda yadda yadda, and once again no one can beat my renewal quote. The reason I'm telling you this is because I want to know if anyone has success with these compare sites, beccause if their not working and we all boycott them we will no longer associate Meerkats with car insurance or Michael Winner and women who need calming down or that bloke drinking a cartoon pint in the confused advert, if you ask me he's very confused, he should have gone to spec-, actually I won't complete that sentence.
It seems insurance works on a loyallty basis, if you stay with the same insurer they quote you satisfied with a sensible reduction each year, what more could you ask for?

LOLz

Casio Databank Telememo

2009-08-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

Got a new watch, its a modern classic; the Casio Databank Telememo!
I don't think there will be any watches made that can compete with gadgetry on the modern mobile phone, this is classy bit of kit for its time; it stores names and phone numbers, scheduled memos and has a full calculator keyboard! TOTW

Science and Technology is less interesting

2009-07-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

Sure, I love technology news now, especially when the internet is involved, we're at such an interesting point in its history however I can't help thinking recently that 50 years ago everything was so much more exciting.
This week marks 40 years since man landed on the moon, now seriously wow! No one had done that before and most folk were god fearing back then, what a turning point in the history of man?! And where did it go from there? Well the space race sort of pissed off and no one is living on the moon in a bio-field-geodetic-synthetic atmosphere dome sort of thing, which sucks.
Secondly I was reminded of how literally incredible Concorde was; it got from New York to Paris in 3 and a half hours, not only is it stupidly fast but it looks like the coolest thing ever, it literally could join the Thunderbirds. No longer does it fly and no longer can the public travel at SuperSonic speeds, I can't imagine what its like to tell people I've traveled with such haste that sounds can't even catch me, Super Sonic as it were.
Thirdly I just watched BBC South News and found out its the 50th Anniversary of the Hovercraft this weekend. The technology department at Solent University is named after its inventor; Christopher Cockerell. Now don't get me wrong the Hovercraft is the biggest pile of shit when it comes to personal mobility because when you decide you need to turn its to late, turn and lean as much as you like but your gonna get impaled on whatever your trying to avoid because they simply don't turn! Anyone who tried to play Hover! on Windows 95 will know what I'm talking about. The idea is there but its not quite there, until hovering is exactly like the Hover board in Back to the Future II no one cares. Never the less the idea never developed, looking at the first one that crossed the english channel isn't that different to today's latest model, nowadays they've whacked a skirt on it and put a bigger fan on the back.
So why don't things that promise to be awesome amount to anything? Ideally I want to be traveling to my 2nd home on the moon in a Galactic Concorde and watching the Hovercraft Olympics on my 1 Terabyte internet connection recieving iPhone 3GS GTi Space tourer.

Find more awesome pics of space houses and that http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/in_pictures/6210518.stm

Football

2009-07-18T06:23:00.000-07:00

Chris Zeborski hasn't changed much, here he is kicking someone in the neck on the football field back in Febuary, seems like only yesterday I was sharing a classroom with him doing similar things.

Football appears to be showing its face again, as I type Southampton fans are gathering in their masses outside to watch Southampton play Ajax is a pre season friendly, it would appear their in the same league as Swindon now, lol.

Why I love Bacon...

2009-07-14T03:47:00.000-07:00

I've just had a bacon Sandwich, I had one yesterday around this time also. Both times it was great, I can't think of a time when Bacon isn't a good idea. Its so flavorsome, its a breeze to cook and serve and the smell is exquisite.
I prefer unsmoked Bacon to smoked and when making a sandwich of normal propotions I favour three rashes and opt for the '69 technique' which essentially involves putting your bacon top to tail to encourage a healthy bacon to bread ratio.
I have attended 1 official Bacon Party in my very own backyard in Swindon however several unofficial ones have been held since then by simply buying large quantities of bacon and consuming, one of my favourite 32 rasher pack puraches I've made was in Lidl; where the tail of the bacon was triple the length of normal, great day.
I strongly disapprove of this and this, Bacon is already fairly cheap and shouldn't be compramised in either squeezy or can form. To summarise bacon is outstanding in its field, well when its a pig anyway.

Go back ten years ago sunbeams dancing round

2009-07-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

It has been to long that a sustained period of time off of work has been enjoyed by myself and Kelly but this week the beauty of free time will unveil its beautiful face. The weekend kicked off with a bang, we went to Kelly's brothers wedding which was grand although sometimes awkward as it was hard to escape the fact we are technically next in line and don't the family know it and ask several questions about it. Anyway I got suitably drunk, full of cake and enjoyed the general wedding ambiance.
We stayed in the hotel overnight and joined the family for a hangover squelching fry up the next morning. We headed back to Kelly's parents afterwards to nurse our hangovers in front of the Grand Prix which we mostly slept through. However newlyweds Daniel and Hannah turned up to do some post wedding admin and Daniel took us out in the Wedding vehicle of choice; a jumped up Ford Mondeo, I mean the 3.0 litre V6 Jaguar XF, which is essentially a Mondeo with more knobs on. Nevertheless, I do enjoy a nice car and this was it, the speed and acceleration was immense even though you felt like you were sat in the smoking room of a gentlemans club. You could seriously do to 170mph top speed and light up a pipe at the same time, beautifully smooth and quiet.
Still not my choice of car though, it just isn't quite unique enough as a Jaguar should be, it really does from the outside look like a Mondeo slept with a lexus on a pile of chrome.

Anywho, its technology of the week time, this week bionic limbs! ...for a sick Goose.

Betty the Goose was disappointed when she woke up from the operation to find she could now walk but possesed no bionic super powers or retractable laser systems. Although something of a lame duck, or goose if you will, this technology shows promise for the future, i'd like some sort of turbo foot upgrade.

Michael Jackson

2009-06-26T13:26:00.001-07:00

Michael Jackson is a pop legend, he has plastic where his face should be, he has/had his own theme park, he's also responsible for that look on Macaulay Culkin's face on the cover of Home Alone, however the man has passed.

I can't imagine how the fans feel who had tickets for one of his dates at the O2. Talking of Moonwalking plastic men I heard this week NASA have a new Moon mission, they want to send men to the moon to see if there is any water! That will be the first moonwalking in my lifetime which I think is exciting, I hope they televise the shit out of it, I want to see the moon in HD-round-the-clock-interactive multiscreen it would be marvellous. Times Article

TOTW Plugeriffic!

2009-06-23T13:21:00.000-07:00

You can't beat a British plug, its all about the 3 pinner, strong and secure. However plugs are a bit of a pig to carry around with Laptops and iPods, cameras etc, their always hard to pack into a laptop case or scratch the crap out of everything. Well some Dragon's Den A student has come up with this:

Bloddy good eh? Not only does it look like it works well nicely, it solves the problem and the USB attachment things are the future. This easily has the technology of the week crown.

Some say Top Gear is running out of ideas

2009-06-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

I was well glad Top Gear was on again tonight, I hadn't heard anything about this 'the stig will be reviled' bullhockey, anyway they properly got us all believing they were going to reveal the stig because the media speculation regarding his identity had led to the man wanting to reveal himself, apparently.
Now don't get me wrong I've wanted to know who the stig is simply due to his lap record that beats several Formula 1 greats, however all the no speaking, tame racing driver character crap has some what destroyed the fact its just a better version of that Masked Magician: Secrets Revealed programme on sky one, we all like a bit of secret identity people, I mean who is Puentae the Mexican Tea Fairy?
Anyway, the stig was initially revealed as Michael Schumacer, now I always had my suspicions it was an F1 test driver or Tiff Neddell who licked the back of an F1 career with a couple of races. Nevertheless it seemed plauseable that Schumacer could be the Stig, he is credited as the best F1 driver ever, hence the time on the lap. But then Clarkson began taking cheap shots at him by bringing up the fact he literally took Damon Hill off the track to win a championship and how he promotes Don't Drink and Drive campaigns but "Here are some photos of you pissed", instantly seemed like an interview with a guest rather than the Stig.
Then at the end they show a video of Michael doing a lap in the old reasonably priced car and failing to drive it, then for no reason whatsoever he sods off out of shot and off the track, Clarkson then announces he's lost and then says Michael Schumacer is not the Stig.
The whole thing perplexed me really, it just came through as a waste of my time, we got a weird interview with Schumacer and a load of hype that just stirs the media speculation shite up even more.
Turns out, the Stig was revealed as the stunt man who works on James Bond films and had single seater racing career. This was in the Telegraph in January after the last series of Top Gear, therefore like the last Stig his identity has been revealed so they get rid of him.
How cool would have an interview been with the James Bond Stuntman? Not only would the BBC pissed in the eye of the "STIG REVEALED!!!" media stuff but we could have seen some genuine James Bond stunt stuff, but no, mainly for two reasons, firstly Pinewood Studios would have been queer about it and charged all the behind-the-scenes stunt footage at 900 billion pounds and secondly the BBC are the biggest spoon turners in the spin of the Stig because they can sell t-shirts saying "I am the Stig" and Stig USB Pens.
Everyone is on Twitter saying "why use Michael Schumacer though? Double bluff maybe?" But no, this actually relates in to one of my favourite bits about Top Gear. Tonight they had a go with a Ferrari FXX which is basically a super-race-bastard of the Enzo, however Ferrari wouldn't lend Top Gear an Enzo to test, or its predesor the frighfully pornographic F50.
In comes Schumacer, the very efficent Ferrari straddling German that gets paid to simply stand next to anything with a Fiat Ferrari badge on it. When he decided he'd won enough Formula 1, Ferrari gave him the 30th Ferrari FXX claiming it to be the last ever made, it is also the most unique being the only black one, and the one used on Top Gear.
Why they can't just tell us all that I don't know, I think its quite funny that Ferrari won't lend cars to Clarkson; it makes them look like poncey-italian-types and Clarkson look like a big-shouty-tyre-burning-buffon who can't have a go on the big posh car because he'd arse it up. Absolutely mind blowing awesome Ferrari though, it shat all over the power lap time, although it won't be there next week because its not street legal, however it sounded like an awesome piece of machine and looked incredable on the track.
Sorry for the rant but I hate to see what is one of the best bits of TV over the last few years fall subject to mindless crap that the tabloids can't wait to dig their claws in, the fact is Top Gear is a car show, and they've always upheld some merit in car journalism despite being a trio of oafs who fall over alot!
Below is a video of Schumacer in his FFX, it really is an awesome car, I do love a Ferrari.

We're all gonna f***ing die!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!

2009-06-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

A Wiltshire farmer was mortified this morning when he found a crop circle in his field that undeniably marks the end of the world. Its a bit of a winner of "Look at my big queer crop circle 2009" which normally can be found somewhere visible on a road to Stonehenge, set your eyes to spirograph and get a gander of this:

"Investigators claim more formations are referencing the possibility of a cataclysmic event occurring on December 21, 2012, which coincides with the end of the ancient Mayan calendar. "

"The formation, measuring 150ft in diameter, is apparently a coded image representing the first 10 digits, 3.141592654, of pi. " Telegraph

Its a phoenix rising from the ashes, its hardly a comet destined for New York or a finger slip in a Secret North Korean Uranium base. Nevertheless it shits on the norm, some cider swilling yeoman hardly made it with a plank on a string, neither was it E fucking T, good job though it looks gnarl.

This is the future! TOTW

2009-06-14T06:58:00.000-07:00

This is incredible! I want every surface to incorperate this technology. Just looking at my cup of tea from an hour ago, wish I'd been informed it was getting cold!

IOW Festival 39 years over done

2009-06-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Contemplate this; its 1970 your on an island with 600,000 other hippies and your about to see the likes of Supertramp, The Groundhogs, Procol Harum, Chicago, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Doors, The Who, Free, Jethro Tull and Jimi Hendrix just to name a few. I think that would make my face fall off with excitement.

Sadly though its 2009 and the hippy vibe has gone; O2/Nokia/Virgin/Some Mobile phone super bastard has hired a school field to sell phones to people through the power of The Ting Tings! Yay!
Now don't get me wrong Neil Young and the Pixies are there but both acts are old enough to pre date the mobile phone and you would think it would be pssible for someone new to come along with the ability to headline.

The music festival has been ruined, I urge you to watch the IOW Festival in 1970 if you haven't just to learn what its all about. I plan to go to End of the Road festival again, the possibilty of Devandra Banheart is to good to miss. However if your after a new phone its probably not the place for you.

I can see cleaaarly now its in HD!

2009-06-11T02:06:00.000-07:00

From black and white TV to colour, to technicolour, to big screen, to 60hz, to 100hz to widescreen, to LCD to Plasma the TV often has a fancy word attached that just makes it 2 million times better than the version you've got in your living room. Not any more though; I am now a proud owner of 32" of HD Ready TV, the old telly not being at all ready for the world of High definition made the use of my PS3 somewhat limited, but now? Phhhooooooaaaarrrr!!
I went for a somewhat cheapy model, however it really is a world of difference, viewing webpages on it and reading text in games is beautiful, basically like a PC screen. Today is my day off and I plan to race a Ferrari F430 round Monza and enjoy the crisp HD details of my surrounding Ferrari racers.
BBC iPlayer works a charm through the PS3 now as well, it all just fits on screen without any fiddling, just as god intended. The other day I was even lucky enough to have a pinch more internet than usual from BT and managed to stream iPlayer in HD. Possibly the best part of the telly though is the connectivity, every other TV I've used on a regular basis always falls short on the SCART front, but this TV has a plethora of different sockets, 5 HDMI slots, 3 SCART, 1 S-Video and 1 VGA, 1 Ariel and Freeview built in.
Got a hell of a weekend coming up next, Transformers 2 on friday night, paintballing stag thing on saturday, stag do saturday night, British grand prix - the last at Silverstone on sunday, followed up by a return of Top Gear to BBC2!!! Gran Turismo 5 preview is out, and on Wikipedia it says the Top Gear test track is going to be on it, can't wait for GT5, the preview looks superb.

Been on the Highway to Hell with BT

2009-05-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

Its good to be internet'd up again, that was a scary three weeks... We've just moved house and BT haven't been the most helpful in moving the broardband, 120 quid later and several eye curdling hours of phone time with their good people of India and the North-East and 2 weeks of waiting we're finally online. Hey-Ho, here we are and it good to be back.

I left you with news that I was off to see AC/DC, some of you I imagine were aware I was about to rock and saluted me for it. The O2 was a suprsingly awesome venue, felt like a stadium gig, they've basically sectioned off the middle to olympic gynasium sort of size, but AC/DC fucking rule, it was just the best gig ever, I mean AC/DC. Highlights were of course Thunderstruck, Whole lotta Rosie, TNT, The Jack and best of the new album War Machine.

The stage appropriately had a rock and roll train derailed on it with AC/DC decals and we also saw Hells Bell come down from the roof, a giant inflatable Rosie and several canons. My god, their looking like old guys now but Angus still cracked out an outragous ridiculously long solo.

The day after that we moved house! Still in Southampton just in a bigger, better, tiger swingingable flat. Really liking it; technolgy of the week actually relates to our new place. Downstairs is a light up LCD display board which displays realtime statistics of the solar panels on the roof, it displays kW generated over the period they have been there and the kW being generated at this presice moment.

This is all quite nice and 'green' but when walking past it at night the glowing red lcd display board gives of enough red light to develop photos in front of, simply displaying that 0.00kW is being generated at this moment, so how much energy is it using to run the LCD display board every night I hear you asking? Its got that chocolate teapot sort of vibe to it.

I tried to purchase myself an iPhone yesterday only to be denied after they took all my details, some problem to do with my address only just changing. So sadly I have to live iPhoneless for at least another month. I can't tell you how bad I want a spirit level on my phone, and all the other incredably awesome (open source) apps that I've seen.

So to evaluate, BT are rubbish, get internet through Virgin, AC/DC are awesome, Solar Statistics panel is Technology of the Week but pretty shit and iCant iPhone. Peace out for now.

Sweet sweet day off

2009-03-25T04:02:00.000-07:00

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Yes thats right, I have today and the 'morrow free from the shackles of work. I have some Bacon which I'm yet to cook, I simply can't wait.

Saw this billboard on the junction near the Mayflower theatre yesterday and was just shocked. I take it CCTV has won, we can't question its existance anymore and even worse than that we are supposed to be being cautious of people who look at CCTV cameras.
It's tempting to prove it wrong by going round with a clipboard and taking notes while staring at cameras, I bet you won't get arrested. I feel sorry for this guy, he just genuinally likes looking at lamp posts, what if he gets done under the terrorism act when he's checking out a nice Yablochkov candle.

I am going to play some serious PlayStation today, although I want to be playing Broken Sword on the Wii but it isn't out for three days yet. If you haven't played Broken Sword before the new one on the Wii is your chance to catch up, its a remake of the 1st adventure with added wii friendly bits. Broken Sword is a point and click game that requires a bit of thinking instead of just quick thumbs. I can't explain how well the wii remote is going to work perfectly for it! Hopefully Monkey Island will be next...

If I were a carpenter, and you were a douchebag!

2009-03-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

Bonjourno! Firstly I'm very excited at the moment for two reasons, most importantly we're moving to a snazzier 2 bed modern flat in under a month. Its got a balcony and a washing machine and all that jazz which is nice. Secondly I've been watching the Soprano's back to back for the last couple of months and we've just started Season 6! Oh my god, its the best programme ever 'over here!'

On the technology of the week front; Southampton made its street view appearance on google street view this week and my car is visible in its designated parking area! check it out... click it.

Also went to see Ross Noble the other week at Salisbury City Hall, he is simply the funniest man in comedy, well worth catching him on his tour at the moment because he's in Australia more than the UK these days.

Not long until AC Fucking DC! Wooo!!!!!!! Come on England beat those Kilt wearing, sheep gut eating, shortbread producing scots!

Last one on drugs is a poofter says Portilo + TOTW

2009-02-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

The week has been a fun filled pile of excitement as usual, firstly Kelly, Jules and I have taken to watching The Soprano's from the start again and it is litreally the best programme ever made so that has occupied me in the evenings. I have been on the late shift this week, lunchtime till 8pm so I don't get much of an evening but a bad ass lie in!
The snow has been rather grand, it even settled down here in Southampton for the early part of the week but I was most jealous of the photos of Swindon some of my pals posted on Twitter, some of the most snow seen there in 20 years!
I got offered full time work this week for the Royalist Jock bank we shall keep nameless, I was rather pleased as I have been working there through an agency and only on a six month contract, so now I've got a nice little bit of security for a while.
On to the new part of my blog which will feature regularly...

Well, technology of the week this week has to be the integration between PS3 and Windows Media Player, I can't believe how well this works; I can look at all kinds of media thats on my PC through my PS3. You would think Microsoft would make this only work for Xbox but it works a charm on the station, I love it. How to.

Bye for now.

The corporation cannot hear you

2009-01-25T12:26:00.000-08:00

Now I work in customer services and the only thing that gets me through the day is when I get the oppurtunity to solve a customers problem, I get genuine satisfaction when I solve a big problem for someone thats been ongoing a while and others haven't been able to solve it. Now today I have had to problems that have involved phoning the companies involved.

Firstly my PlayStation was presented with a DVD for the first time since I bought it and it was only working in black and white, I did a quick search on the net and came across various answers that led me one step forward but to steps back, they were very confusing. So I gave the Playstation hotline a ring, I was of course on hold for a while but eventually came through to a person who had some understanding of the English language, we ran through the whole lot, turning off and on and all that, but came to the conclusion I needed a HDTV to watch dvd's on my PS3. I knew this wasn't true and was disgusted by all the suggestions I had recieved from this so called expert. Then it occured to me to look at the DVD region, which turned out to be Region 1. So I tried a region 2 Alan Partridge DVD, and A-Ha! it worked! Granted I should have thought about this first, but the so called proffesional didn't even ask anything about the DVD she simply suggested I needed a better TV.

Secondly I opened up my BT letter, which I knew would be about my recent amendment of my direct debit from quartely to monthly. When I had spoke to Sinjab from BT she assured me I would not be charged now until March because my last bill had covered the quarter, but todays letter states otherwise, apparently my next payment is due in Feb. I tried to phone BT but after four calls trying to reach an actual person I got so fed up I gave up for the evening. I was lied to on the phone, Sinjab lied to me, its just disgusting that such simple customer service can be actioned incorrectly.

And finally I emailed Orange enquirying about my cancellation of phone contract, long story short; I cancelled my contract because I don't use the Sim card and contract anymore but use the phone with a different sim, the day the contract was cancelled the phone stopped working. I have been using the phone now for nearly a month with the new sim and it has been working fine. I explained all this in great detail to Orange with my main question being have they somehow stopped the phone... below is their response.

Dear Matt,

Thank you for your mail regarding you phone.

I was sorry to learn that your phone stopped working after you cancelled your contract. May I apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Unfortunately, Blyk SIM cards can only be used in a phone that is not linked to any network. Therefore, for your phone to work with this SIM card you will need to have your phone unlocked from the Orange network.

There is a charge of £20.00 (including VAT) to get your handset unlocked and the phone needs to have been registered in your name, to your account for a minimum of 3 months.

To unlock your pay monthly phone, please call our Customer Service team on 150 from your Orange phone, or 07973 100 150 from any other mobile or landline. Orange can only action this request if speaking to the account holder.

Alternatively, call 07973 100 450 from any other mobile or landline or 450 if the phone has been used with a pay as you go SIM.

I hope this information is of assistance and we look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards

Jean
Orange Customer Services

Great one Jean, round of the plause for you. That just doesn't awnser my question and its just plain wrong. How do these people get jobs? They just don't help in any way, they don't awnser questions or action instructions correctly, they are quite simply useless. It boils the blood that its simply impossible to get things done if your a customer of a national company. Glad i've got that off my chest, but i'm not looking forward to paying for my BT internet for the second time in Feb and buying a new phone handset because either Orange are incompetent and are not telling me my phone will no longer work or the phone has broken because they are built to go wrong after 3 years. Bastards.

PlayStation, Real Ale and Home made Pie

2009-01-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

Long time no blog, well alot to report...
First off I bought myself a PlayStation 3 which is big and shiny and best of all it replaces EVERYTHING!, well accept the TV, and the Wii, and speakers. When I say everything I mean our DVD player and more impressively the Freeview box as we bought Play TV which is recordy Tele for the PS3 and it works really well, best freeview I've ever seen. On top of all that I bought the greatest game known to game console kind, Warhawk, enough said.
LittleBigPlanet is in a world of its own, its just so clever and fun its unbelieveable, that one game puts the Wii's 'everyone will enjoy' to shame, its four player and is narrated by Stephen Fry, enough said, again.

Secondly I had the best pint i've had in ages last week, Abbot Reserve. A beer with a fantastic rich malty taste that goes down really well, considering its 6.5% it has such a smooth fruity flavour, truly a fantabulous Ale.

And on a final note as I have to go out in a mo, me and a pal made a Steak and Ale pie from scratch, i'll upload pictures and info later. But i'm mainly talking to you here Greeny, this pie was beyond all pie expectations, and there was so much, you would have wet yourself.

All in all its been a good couple of weeks ps3'ing, ale drinking and pie eating!

Happy Christmas!

2008-12-27T07:59:00.000-08:00

Hello all!
Happy Noel! Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas, I haven't spoken in a while so I thought I'd update you on the modern advances in my household. First off I have a new phone sim card from Blyk, which is a completely free phone network, I get 200 odd texts and 40 odd minutes free every month on the condition I recieve advertising messages, and you don't even get many at all! I'm not gonna lie to you; its cracking.
Also I've been watching a fantastic programme on television of which I will tell you about, its called Gavin and Stacey. My favourite character and scene has involved Chinese Alan, "did someone order a Chinese?" Rob Brydon is brilliant in it as well, he's always come off as an Alan Partridge rip off but some of the lines he comes out with in Gavin and Stacey put him in a comedy class of his own. The christmas special was classic as well, loved the festive "oh, oh, oh!"
I got some stuff for christmas by the way, jumpers, socks, chocolate etc... but perhaps best of all a warm welcome from my girlfriends family as we spent Christmas in the village of Liss. I ate in biblical proportions, I'm not going to lie to you, but best of all Kelly's grandmother brought her famous Apple & Blackberry Pie, I put that away.... truly stunning, handpicked fruits and the finest pastry all topped off with cream. One slight problem though, everyone else was eating it with something I'd not heard of before which goes by the name of Ideal Milk, I can't for the life of me work out why its so ideal. It is essentially condensed milk but apparently more ideal...

Confused XP

2008-12-13T10:46:00.000-08:00

I've confused my Laptop with an OSX style dock, its given XP another lease of life, love it!

The dock software is call RocketDock and it works an absolute charm. I've also gone back to Trillian IM just to see what its like now, you can get some nice skins for it and its still nice and simple.
Also I managed to get rid of the Recycle bin off the desktop with a little bit of software called Tweak UI.

The mighty Micra lives on!

2008-12-11T03:20:00.000-08:00

Rather pleased today as my old car flew through its MOT again, you honestly cannot beat Japanese build quality!

Oh and also I went into town for a massive German market hotdog thing and it was rubbish, you get a massive hotdog and a tiny little bun which would suffice for a regular sausage but just didn't cut the mustard for a foot long power house. It almost looked comically lame when it was sat there on the counter, the meat to bread ratio was laughable.

Mental Oriental

2008-11-30T04:54:00.000-08:00

Went into town in Southampton yesterday, it were mental, everyone is out buying Christmas and that. Southampton always has this gnarly German market and every year I want to get one of the massive hotdogs they do and a massive beer but its really busy already, and I mean ridiculously busy. I had to buy myself some clothes and shoes and that and I noticed everywhere you go gives you massive bags now; it makes it really hard to walk around shops, you end up dragging all the shop displays around with you if you've got a few bags.

In other news check this tunnel out in London thats for sale, it would make a good evil genius base I reckon.

Top Gear

2008-11-23T13:06:00.001-08:00

Ken Dodd was mentioned in Top Gear twice tonight which I rather enjoyed.

Lol check this place out, Curdridge Lane, Curdridge. Just outside Southampton.

The filthy sweaty BBC

2008-11-23T04:05:00.000-08:00

I payed for my TV license last week, which ok I've done before with flatmates but now I'm literally paying for the whole ruddy thing, £139.50 worth of BBCidge. So I turn on BBC1 that evening and am disgusted to see the crap I am paying for, Strictly come dancing - seriously why does anyone care? I can't imagine anything less interesting and anyway this weekend English rugby on BBC3 so I miss the first half because i'm expecting it to be on BBC 1! As I am in England and would expect that to be the main game they would show, but no, Ireland, Wales and Scotland are more important apparently.
Now it seemed the BBC had made some good changes recently, that complete failure of a comedian and ex-junkie Russell Brand (spit) was hoiked out on his ridiculous looking face and hair, hopefully he'll take up the smack again and die in an alley, but sadly the BBC have decided not to sack Jonathon Ross, who is just a complete failure of an entertainment presenter; he just likes everything and everyone, his taste in music contradicts so badly and he makes a complete fool of himself prentending to like people on his joke of a show. (i.e. 50 cent) Also if I see that man interview the once funny Ricky Gervais one more time TV will have litreally disappeared right up its own arse. And above all he has a fucking irritating lisp and therefore should not work on TV because he sounds like a mongoloid! And this all annoys me so much because I'm now lining these arseholes pockets!

So I have emailed the BBC asking if my £139.50 can be a complete contribution to Top Gear as this is the only good thing on the BBC, or at least can they use it as Richard Hammond's rudendency pay because the man is possibly the wrongest person in Britain about cars and has made a complete tool of himself by advertising Morrissons.

Day Off

2008-11-19T03:12:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That was my long satisfied sigh because I have today off, and so far I've merely got up drunk tea and indulged in some of the finest internet pageidge.
Most exciting thing i've discovered so far is that the IT Crowd is coming back for a third series which is rather awesome. If you've not seen the IT Crowd its well worth a watch, that crowd of comedians are geniuses, further viewing includes Garth Marhengi's Darkplace and Man to Man with Dean Learner.

In more boring technology news Ubuntu announced an alliance with some mobile phone chip designer meaning Ubuntu will be on more netbooks and mobile devices, which is fairly cool because it is basically the easiest Linux to use and by far the snazziest. Hopefully I can whack it on my Asus Eeepc, Ubuntu will give users a better battery life which is always handy for a mobile device.
You can get a free copy of Ubuntu from their website, if you whack it on a CD you can boot from it and have a little play.

Internet ahoy!

2008-11-15T09:57:00.000-08:00

Wahey, i'm officially on the internet now! BT have just about managed to provide us a stable line. Anyone with a Wii send me your code thing and we'll hafto get some online gaming on the go!
In other news I recently was bought tickets to AC/DC at the O2 in April by a friend, so thats a rather exciting massively awesome gig to look forward too, so I went out and bought their new album yesterday and it's everything you could have dreamed... Just classic rock and roll. The beauty of AC/DC songs is they need the word 'rock' and something powerful i.e. thunder, TNT, etc and a girls name and prefably some kind of sexual innuendo incorporating those key ingredients, and you've got yourself a classic AC/DC epic!

James Bond: it were rubbish.

2008-11-04T11:04:00.000-08:00

Went to see the new Bond at the weekend, hopes were held high after Casino Royal. The new one however was a bit of a failure, from the off I wasn't impressed. The bond theme was done by Jack White from the white stripes and some face-magnet and it just didn't have the glamorous bond sound to it. Then the car was all wrong, since Aston Martin got there Vanquish into Die another Day everyone instantly fell in love with one of the most beautiful looking cars of the last 10 years, but now the haven't really updated the car from a james-bond-gadget-car perspective, it served literally as a car and nothing more. There were no snazzy little one liners in the film like the glory days of Roger Moore and all the gadgets in the film were real not fictional; face recognition on a mobile phone camera is old hat, not worthy of James Bond in my opinion.

Anyway on a more positive note I am finally getting a decent internet connection into the flat, so i'll be wired and online at the latest next week!
Now some of you may have noticed all the credits that are crunching at the moment, now I work for a high street bank and have to pay attention to all of it and one thing thats been annoying me in recent weeks is the media saying the phrase "...the current climate...." in reference to the current financial climate, now i'm no Englishist /englitician but i'm pretty sure this is wrong use of the word climate, without financial in front of it, or any word for that matter i'm sure it solely means temperature, please correct me if i'm wrong.

Paperless Paper

2008-10-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

I've always thought this stuff was gnarly, but it seems to be kicking off properly now, basically its a really thin screen which you can view all sorts of stuff on. The science behind it is plastic chips as appose to silicon. I quite like the idea of carrying one of these around and downloading newspapers by walking into a 'newspaper bluetooth hotspot'

BBC

The Flat Earth Society

2008-10-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

Now I understand there is some things about our planet and universe that will never be understood in my lifetime and probably never understood throughout the existence of mankind, but believing and trying to prove that we live on a flat earth just seems backwards to me. The Flat earth society believe the earth is a disc shape and the south pole does not exist, they think it is a 150ft mountain range covering the perimeter of the earth. There are so many flaws in their theory and like all the great nutjob theories out there they put this down to government conspiracies. Below is a picture of how they think the earth looks.

Have a look on their forums, there is some real radical thinking. Don't abuse the forums though, constructive thought out criticism is the way forward with people like this. I particularly like their comments in the FAQ about NASA and sunsets and sunrises.

Birthday Cakes

2008-10-06T13:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday was an amazing day, we were already into October, my birthday was a solid half a month ago now; but nevertheless I received my 4th Birthday cake of the year. I'm quite proud of that to be honest, 4 cakes is probably my personal best, if you feel you have a better record please feel free to tell me, but 4 cakes has certainly got my biological new year off to a bang...

Cake 1: Thorton's super chocolate super-bastard
Cake 2: Chocolate sponge with chocolate icing and hundreds & thousands
Cake 3: Tesco generic birthday cake, victoria sponge with Marzipan
Cake 4: Chocolate sponge + chocolate icing with white choc "Happy Birthday"

In other news I managed to take a leaf out of Jamie Oliver's new idea thing today, I passed on the recipe of a Nutella and Bacon Sandwich to the internet's very own Y2Kjon, "it was pretty good." his words, not mine.

By the way I have no idea what a dog cake is or who Spratts are.

Old London Town & the HungaMunga Festival

2008-09-29T13:46:00.000-07:00

The weekend saw a trip up to Old London Town for myself and associates, we went to the rather avant-guarde Hunga Munga music festival in the somewhat odd setting of deepest Bethnal Green.
What a fantastic little musical event! We wondered into a dingy looking working mens club to discover a fantastic little make-shift delightful festival, there was basically a stage upstairs and down, upstairs the stage was surrounded by tables all populated by folk beavering away a various arts and crafts. As the evening progressed we managed to make:

-Various editions to 3 pairs of glasses (pipe cleaners, feathers etc)
-A little pipe cleaner guitar man rockin' out
-A balloon man with a ginger beard and a silver top hat
-A Flavour Flav 'you know what time it is' clock
-2 Shakers
-And a gnarly pirate ship

It truly is a fantastic combination; good music, crafts and cakes. The highlight of the night was the Wave Pictures who were stunning. The other bands were pretty awesome too, some a bit outlandish for me, and thats saying something. Cakes were bloody good too!

Also I stood next to an octopus as we watched a bit of stand-up downstairs, its all good.

HungaMunga Festival 2008

2008-09-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

Yay! The weekend is upon't and some live music, better yet, a festival is on the cards! After missing the End of the Road Festival this year I can't wait. I'm particularly looking forward to the Wave Pictures and Stanley Brinks from Herman Dune.
Pretty uneventful week really, one stunning little achievement though; worked out how to change the 'you are here' arrow on my TomTom GPS to a picture of my choice! More on that later.
I'll update you on the festival come Monday night, peace out.

Rooibos, the South African Powerhouse

2008-09-21T03:42:00.000-07:00

I never thought the day would come when there was a tea greater than standard black tea, but I truly believe now that Rooibos is a greater tea. 'Redbush' (Rooibos is Afrikaan's for Redbush) is grown only in a small area of the Cederberg Region of South Africa.
When you brew Rooibos you get a beautiful red colour in the cup and the smell is simply exquisite. Rooibos is Tannin free, which is the stuff in regular tea that leaves a bitter dry taste in your mouth, so its nice with or without milk. It's quite a naturally sweet tea and almost tastes a bit nutty, but the best thing is the fact its so similar to regular tea but just a bit better.
Tetley introduced Redbush to their range at the end of last year, nearly all the supermarkets stock it, but if you want a truly stunning Rooibos you need to turn to the Dragonfly Tea company, Tick Tock is their regular Rooibos but Rooibos Vanilla is their creme-de-la-creme. It simply is a powerhouse of flavour. I highly recommend this tea, even if it doesn't do it for you straight away, try another, and another, and another and eventually you'll think its the nuts.
Those of you who know the true identity of myself will know I like my tea and my reviews have been scarce for a long period of time, well this is to make up for that really - trust me, try this tea and tell me what you think.

Hola!

2008-09-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new online palace, I am Puentae. My previous web antics exist only on MySpace where I share with the world my musical workings. I thought I would branch out into blogging and share some of the day to day odd things that interest me.

Firstly I want to tell you all about my new song on MySpace entitled 'Ice Cream Truck' sadly I sung on this one and i'm not exactly Ken Dodd when it comes to singing.
The start of the song is sampled from the film Down By Law which if you've not seen it's well worth a watch. But back to my song, its all about the fact i've had to take up a job I don't want to do and how much better off i'd feel if i'd bought an Ice Cream Van rather than going to University.

On another note I recently found one of the best websites on the internet the other day, Uncyclopedia looks and feels just like Wikipedia but it is hilariously infactual, some of my favourite pages include Stephen Hawking, Big Sandwich and the many quotes by Oscar Wilde on various topics.

Thats about it for now, keep coming back, they'll be loads more to read soon and listen to some music on MySpace.