A Quick Run Down of My Life Right Now

It seems sad that I don't really keep this site up to date anymore. Every time I come back to it I feel sad, like seeing a photo reminding you of a lost childhood.

The truth of the matter is that since now most of my earnings come from writing copious amounts of bullshit, it leaves me rather drained when it comes to writing for fun on my blogs such as this.

Despite this I am going to soldier on and give you a little rundown as to what has been happening over here in America!

First off the whole immigration proceedings seem to be going really well. Things are progress nicely enough, and pretty soon I should get that good ol' permanent residence status. This means that I will soon be entering the working world once more, and will finally be able to live up to the title of this blog again!

Living in America is strange. It is similar in so many ways, and yet there are little differences which set me apart, and can often make me feel like I am in a foreign country.

The weather here is so much better though, seriously. The heat might get a little bit too much sometimes, but trust me on this, it is way more tolerable than three months of grey skies!

One of the biggest differences over here is undoubtedly the size of the bugs. Cockroaches are just euurrgghghhhh, but even the butterflies are larger than what we seem to get over in the UK!

All in all life is pretty good, hopefully when I get back in to the swing of a day job I will even find some of the old office wit come back to me, and you can once again come here to find depressingly sarcastic posts filled with spite at least once a week!

Google PacMan Game!

Check out Google today, for the 30th anniversary of pacman they have changed their logo to a fully functioning Pacman game in the shape of, you guessed it, the google logo!

The Best Criminals Ever.

When it comes to criminal activity the master criminals who became the most famous where not the ones who stole the most, but the ones who carried it off with the most style and self acknowledgement.

It is for this reason that I think that at least two of this group of criminals sentenced in York this week are destined for great things.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/8175395.Russian_credit_card_fraudsters_jailed/

On the Road Again

Looks like it's that time again, in just over 24 hours I will be landing in Austin, Texas, where I will start a life as a true American, and will be starting by getting married to one!

Yes, I am getting hitched, not sure if I had mentioned it here, but I am looking forward to it all!

I will seriously try to get some updates up here soon, but I have been way too damn busy!

Yet Again I Apologise....

It seems I have lost track of this blog yet again, this is not anything intentional, I have just been incredibly busy trying to make money online, and fortunately I have been succeeding!

Life has been astoundingly hectic though, the good news is that my American Visa has been approved, and I will soon be living in Austin Texas, where I will undoubtedly at some point re-enter the working world as an office lackey.

I have been writing a lot on Hubpages, and recently wrote a page entitled Hubpages Sucks, since some people were putting down a system which for me has paid off big time!

I will be attempting to catch up on a lot of your blogs soon, but life is very busy.

I would like to point out that I met the lovely Celeste the other day though, a woman jsut as charming in real life as she is on her (unfortunately neglected :P)

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!

Since I am so good at shamelessly plugging websites I though I would mention a new website I have set up called My Vegan Planet.

This site is as the name suggests a vegan website that provides an ever increasing number of healthy vegan recipes from different locations around the world.

Now I know I have slated vegetarians and vegans in the past, but now I am going out with one so if I did not agree with them I would get a slap so I am now more understanding to their reasoning. Besides, my girlfriend isn’t one of those namby pamby idiotic vegans, but rather one who does it for dietary reasons.

As it so happens my girlfriend is infact the author of this site, since she is a professional chef and has spent a lot of time working in raw food and vegan kitchens, giving her a great insight into vegan recipes and some fantastic tips for people new to the vegan world.

So take a look at My Vegan Planet now and Digg, Stumble, add to Technorati faves and advertise on your blogs please so I can become a successful millionaire off the backs of the greenies to help me start promoting the worthy vegan dietary cause!

Mhhhh Argos

If you are looking for any Christmas gifts take a look at Argos

argos

Support the site and get free delivery if you use our special promo code AFD10 on orders over £75!

C2C Making Travel SImpler - You Have to Laugh

Just been looking for train tickets to London and came across this...

Can't help but laugh.

Michael Crichton Died Age 66

I was sad to learn today that one of my all time favorite writers Michael Crichton passed away today aged 66. The writer, famous for films as diverse as Jurassic Park and Andromeda strain succumbed to cancer last week.

My heartfelt condolences go out to the families and hope that some solice lays in the fact that his work will continue to entertain hundreds of thousands around the world for decades to come. A feat achieved by few other people, let alone authors.

His work always cast a skeptical yet raelistic glance against both Technology and fantacism, with a huge amount of abuse coming from gobal warming enthusiasts after he used his analytical brain to argue his case as he did with matters of technology.

It is a sad day for the fiction community and I can only but hope that a writer of such intelligence arises again during my lifetime.

Thud

*Thud*

We chuckle as another student slips over in the spilt beer.

*Crack*

We laugh as a young girl with poor high heel walking abilities goes flying before landing heavily.

"Booooo" we shout as the bar staff put a wet floor sign over the puddle.

It's the simple things in life.

One of those erm, what was'its Updates!

Life has been busy over the last few weeks, the rock and roll lifestyle of the blogger is beyond bounds. Today however is the last day of a lazy Sunday, so I thought I would have another bash at writing a post.

I thought I would however make a quick statment about Russel Brand.

Russel Brand is a Twat.

I am not sure what it is thats so annoying about him, be it his complete lack of humour, annoying as fuck personality.

After redeeming himself slightly in the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall he recently pulled a prank phonecall on the old faulty towers star Manuel regarding his 23 year old daughter.

Now I am a man with pretty broad taste, but making llewd prank phone calls to a 78 year old man puts me in mind of someone who picks on the weak, infact it doesn't take much watching of Russel Brands shows to show that he regularly picks on the weak for the content of what can only be technically called humour.

Overload

Things have yet again became quiet aroud here as I took over 2 jobs for a couple of weeks, it left we a little knakered but fortunately i had the accidental foresight to book next week off, this should give me chance to catch up, get my affairs in order and start posting properly again.

I am working pretty hard to get my own business underway at the moment, curerntly bringing in a regular $350 a month. In the near future I am looking to expand that to around $4000, quit my job and relax a lot more :p

In the interim however I will keep my job on the go and focus on my work outside of the ol' office hours!

I have however been interested in the current governments throw money at everything approach.

Instead of say, reducing taxes and fuel duty, simplifying taxation rules to cut abck on red tape and allow businesses to grow again we instead seem to be throwing billions of pounds that has appeared from nowhere in a futile attempt to save the economy.

In my eyes though this not only simply stalls the problem but severely amplifies it, what happens when the £500 billion runs out, throw 1000 billion pounds at the economy instead?

The market needs to crash, everything has become too expensive, it will crah, normalise and grow again, its what the market does.

With our current idiotic financially incompetent ministers in charge though Australia is looking evermore attractive.

The new facebook has turned me off what was once a great networking tool, it put me in touch with a lot of old friends, it got me talking to some new people interested in similar music and it let me beat my friends at scrabble time and time again.

Now however there is 'new' facebook. As with many 'new' products it is an overcomplicated, messy and un-intuitive design. If 'old' facebook had been 'new' facebook you can guarentee it would not have taken off.

I would boycott faceebook if it was not for the fact that my entire bloody social calender, contacts and pictures are all now managed by that bloody website.