Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody

This made me laugh oh so hard, the Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody!

I also apologise for my lack of communication recently, immigration is a nightmare, but I am slowly getting through it, also my workload has increased tremendously, while on the plus side this means more money, on the downside it also means more work.

Fortunately things have been taking off on one of my projects (find out more on Clearview Writing) which is earning me $300 a month, so I am investing a lot of time in to that!

Amsterdam was an amazing vacation, i have returned to a factory job to keep some kind of a cash flow coming in. To be honest I am enjoying factory work a hell of a lot more than my old office job, my value was instantly recognised, and I was offered a full time position with a view to training for further career opportunities. It is therefore unfortunate that I had to decline, since I hope to be leaving the country within the next 2-3 months.

In the meantime however enjoy the hilarious Muppets Bohemian Rhapsody!

Luck o' the Irish

I had to feel for the Irish as I got back from work and saw the numerous replays on TV. Their chance to enter in to the world cup dashed by the cheating French in extra time.

The Irish, ever the good sports, took this reasonably well, I would have been livid. they looked at it philosophically, I on the other hand wondered how the hell the referee and his attending staff failed to notice Henry pick the ball out of the air as it sailed wide of the goal, drop it to his feet and then kick it across for the goal.

How can we expect players to play fairly and honestly when there are no repercussions for vile cheating acts such as this.

Norton NIGHTMARE

My Norton 360 subscription ran out today, OK I though, I'll just renew it.

I clicked renew now, expecting to be done in five minutes, until I was given the bill.

£59.99

£59.99?

SIXTY FUCKING POUNDS and thats just for ONE YEAR!

If I pay £110 I get two years, nice enough to save me a tenner I suppose. But come on, this is not even for updates here, my software has stopped working!

Now I know businesses get shafted by these yearly renewal costs every year, and have done for a long time. But Norton has brought these yearly renewals to the public domain, and in doing so have just lost me, my family and as many friends as possible as customers.

If I buy software as a home user I expect to be left with that software, with security updates. If I want more features, a new PC tune up tool, or similar, then I will buy a new version.

For now however, Symantec can suck my rather large cock. I will be going to the numerous, less resource intensive, free antivirus and firewall options out there.

I do not know how Symantec can even try and sell their product for £60, especially when you consider the American version is, wait for it, $60, with a regular 50% discount, meaning overseas they are expected to pay around £15.

On top of these blatent rip off prices they do not even give you the latest version of the software, my renewal only giving me security updates, not product updates. For an extra £5 however they will allow me to use their latest software, as long as I keep paying them that additional £60.

So on top of us having to pay a value which takes the UK and US exchange rate as 1:1, we also fail to benefit from their discounts.

Goodbye Norton, Goodbye Symantec, Price gouging has pissed me off royally, so I am bidding thee farewell.

I hope your company burns to the ground.

Bring on the free software!

Currently in Amsterdam

Amsterdam, the city of red lights, green lights, and waggamamma. Yes, I am there!

My fiancee and I have toured a fair amount of the city, from the small markets, to the red light district. The red light district is not as seedy as I expected, the window girls have their underwear on, I have not been mugged yet, but the smoking is FANTASTIC!

Anyhow, I will be returning shortly with a more indepth story of my times here!

The Count - Censored

It's been a while!

My posts seem to have slipped from the daily, to the weekly and finally to the monthly. This is not intentional, but my life has slipped in to a slight ditch of monotony, with factory work, sleeping, and eating comprising the majority of my time. While I do try to stay on top of things it is not always easy, especially when I am trying to foster a writing career.

So I guess I should fill my few remaining readers in!

I have been accepted for the process on my new American visa, now I just have to prove that my relationship with Jade is real. Her website (http://www.myveganplanet.com) is doing really well right now, and she seems to be getting some good freelance catering work sorted.

Apart from the boredom, and spending 3 months away from the woman I love, things are pretty much ok, while my life may not directly be progressing anywhere, things are moving forward for my future life in America onwards.

Oh, and Manic, give me access to your blog!

If you want to see something pretty funny, check out http://thejagster.blogspot.com/ for the latest post, which shows a chav getting knocked to the floor by a man who he had been verbaly abusing and pushing for nearly three minutes. The chav who acted so hard gets knocked to the ground in one punch, and then crawls away, not quite so up for the fight as he had been moments before.

So the Post Office Won't be Sold.

"Jesus Christ" I thought to myself this morning, when for the first time I found out that they were going to sell the post office. I mean if the government has not learnt from the mistakes of the Thatcher era sell offs, how it bankrupt our country and skyrocketted our taxes (Despite being meant to reduce them) then I really should despair.

This is the latest worry following our governments initiatives, such as hiring foreign contractors, and selling off our key infrastructure to foreign countries. While I am far from BNP when it comes to immigration policies, I do worry that no other EU country takes the number of immigrants, allows their business to be sold to foreign countries, or allow their currency to be worn down quite as much as our ludicrously inept British Government.

Concertanation

While the American thing may not have gone to plan right off the bat things are still progressing and I will be heading out over that way soon enough.

in the mean time I just have to sit back and relax, chill out and boogey down while I wait for something, anything to happen.

Life goes slow here, and while I may soon kill myself with boredom I cannot help but enjoy the occasional glimmer of sunshine that breaks through the stollid grey British weather.

I have been writing A LOT recently in some vague attempt to make money without a job, I have applied for a bar job close by to keep the cash coming in, but untill that comes around I will have to work hard on finding money where I can.

So - if anyone has any odd jobs and would like to hire a Yorkshire man + Pay travelling expenses, leave a comment!

Made me chuckle

Things have been pretty busy over here, I have been working hard to get a lot of sites back in to some semblance of order, with a little success on some fronts.

I may be getting a part time pub job to keep things in order till I head to America, it is a little weird being out of work but I am sure things will pick up soon.  

Me and Jade spent a week in York. Since things didn't go to plan she came back to England, this does mean we are both living with my parents. To quote Mike Myers "This is both bogus and sad".

For the remaining length of time we are here however ti does not seem worthwhile finding a new place, and since getting an office job for a couple of months untill the new visa comes through my realms are purely within those of Pub Job and boredom.

I have just seen a child fall off a trampoline and nut herself, I worry that made me smirk too much.

Pink

So after the drab nine months of British summer I was pleased to look outside and find a beautiful sunny day presiding over the city of York.  This prompted me to put on my summer attire (Something similair to my winter attire but without a t-shirt) and sit outside.

It was around two hours later that I went inside and was reminded just how my body works.  You see, I could stay out in the Sahara all afternoon and not burn, I will infact stay a pasty white.  Around 20 minutes of entering the shade however my hours of sunshine excess suddenly hit me with the force of a lump hammer.  My skin turns a lobster red, the stinging starts, i become unable to enter any water, or even room a slightly different temperature.

All in all i think I would prefer it if my skin just warned me by becoming pink a soon as I started to burn.

American Customs

Had a nightmare with American customs, will fill in the details shortly, for now however I am back in the UK, and will soon be looking in to getting my freelance writing on full time, wish me luck!

In other news though, apparently on Britain's got Talent they had someone who could eat a shit load of ferrero roche in a short amount of time. Personally I don't think this reflect the true nature of Britain during the financial crisis, where Kit Kats are preferred.

Texas Sunshine

After 8 months of miserable weather it finally seems that Britain has once more reached that sunny plateau that is the British summer.  The sun I shining, the air is warm and the landscape is beautiful.  This two week period that is British Summer time is the rare period of time within which you can enjoy the United Kingdom amidst the ravages of the average British weather.

It's this time of the year that heralds the start of the after work pint, sitting outside and absorbing the rays while they last.

Of course in less than 2 months I will be in Texas, where the sun is infinitely more prevalent.  However in Texas it lacks the soft cool breeze which keeps the body temperature down under the sunlight.  That does not exist over there, I will burn, horribly. 

Of course what I really am looking forward to in Texas is the evenings, when the sun is close to setting, the air is warm and you can drink the night away till the early hours.  This, to me at any rate, seems like heaven, I love that kind of atmosphere and really hope it is how I imagine over there.

In more serious news, the government has responded to their lack of money by printing off £70 billion.  This has pretty much completely f'ed over the UK economy even more with some completely idiotic short sightedness. 

I hate to say it but I am glad to be leaving this country while we have such a collection of incompetents in charge of our country!

The Weekend

I spent this entire weekend, up until now chilling. This has been just what I needed, relaxing with my girlfriend, sleeping the day away and eating to excess. The last couple of months have left me feeling a little stressed, my trip to America coupled with handing in my notice during a recession are just some of the things playing on my mind. I know it is gonna be a great thing bit the build up to it requires a lot of work!

The life I lead is about to come to an end, leading me to warmer climates, big city life and a girlfriend who is one of the sweetest things to happen to me.

Going in to Freelancing Full Time!

Well, pretty soon it may be the final encore of this blog that has seen me through my years as an office worker, I am moving with my girlfriend to texas and will be persuing my career as a (Skint) freelance writer. This will involve me grovelling around the internet for freelance work while championing my own websites such as My Vegan Planet, Geekywood, Freelance Writing and I'm a Pundit.

These websites bring me in a little easch month, and by working harder on these and other websites I think I can make a passable income on my own, in a warmer climate, because lets face it everyone, England is going to shit.

With our incompetant government, increasingly grey weather and so many pussy ass whiney bitches complainging about their own self absorbed worries without seeing teh bigger picture (Animal rights etc - get a life)

So with that in mind I am going travelling, working for myself and will be waving goodbye to my job and country.

I will miss the security of the day job, but to be honest I want to do something where I don't wake up every morning to teh same old routine.

On that note, I will be shortly setting up a donate button, because lets face it, i'm gonna fucking need it!

A Quick Though

The TV licence pays for a lot of the BT entertainment services, including BBC Radio, so could someone please tell me why the fuck 90% of the time the music played for anyone under the age of 6 is also played soley for people under the age of 16, who coincidentally pay sweet fuck all.

Hilarious Blog

A quick shout out, blog out or write out, of one of the funniest blogs I have read in a fair long time.

Check out http://of-course.co.uk/blog/serendipity.php

Particularly This Post

I have some big news coming up soon, have to keep it under wraps for now though, you will however be seeing more regular updates and a big change in tone!

Update

I apologise for the scarcity of posts on my blog in recent months, things have been a little busy with a new girlfriend and plenty of new projects to keep me busy, I promise to try and update more regularly in the coming year but untill then I hope you had a happy Christmas and a booze filled New Year!