Belblog

I was way on it

09-Sep-2008

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A typical bank holiday weekend includes...

25-Aug-2008

...bad weather, BBQ, beers and some form of DIY, it's what us Brits do best, it's part of our Great British Institution. With BBQ ruled out, I was left with DIY. Having brought the flat packed shed for about a month now, the recent down pour meant it has spent most of it's time as target practice for birds to sh1t all over it, and I have to admit, they are pretty good at it. In between the dry spells, I have given the panels a couple licks of Ronseal's Eco-Friendly, odourless, water soluable "it does what it say's on the can" wood preservative for sheds to reduce the painting time later on once assembled. Seem like my days of Airfix logic has finally paid off. I have finally put the shed together with the help of my parents and Suzy after some local Chinese Dim Sum today. We started the project off with the obligatory pot beverage.

Dad acts as surveyor and chief QA

Mum is project manager and I am labour gimp on minimum wage

Rehearsing for my MTV shed cribs pose

A job well (almost) done.

The weather wasn't too bad today, so I got to paint the trim and tidy up the roof lining. Still needs more pinning.

Clearly this shed owns the other shed on the left.

Now where's the beer?

Home office at Tse Towers

17-Aug-2008

Thought I use this as evidence to just show you my "home office" for the "working from home" excuse. The Macbook Air is loaned from a friend, although I like to pretend it's mine, just like his guitar. Wonder if I get away with the M3? Hopefully with my min wage, he'll take some sympathy.

Not spending shed loads of money and time in the garden

31-Jul-2008

Such a wordsmith. There comes a time in every man's life where he will be faced with the dilemma and life changing experience of purchasing a shed. It's inevetible, I never thought the time would come for me since I am merely "26" years young and way to cool for that kind of behaviour, however, my "garden project" has been an ongoing and painful saga for the past nine years, and what better way to hide the mess by covering it up with a shed as big as my house, only stronger and more luxurious (Tools and plants not included). Having had this veto'd by the better halve at a wallet friendly £4000:

I settled fot this instead. Life's full of unhappy compromises.

Rockstar debut

27-Jul-2008

OK, maybe not, I won't give up my day job just yet. This is for Kiku Hotta in Japan, a friend and colleague I used to work during my time in Japan. Today marks her 21 years young again. I didn't have time to find one decent place to send a credible gift other than cheesy flowers, overpriced chocolates and cuddly toys. She will have to make do with this my rock star debut. For those who can read Japan, I apologise. Yes it's back to front, but not because of my piss poor Japanese this time, it's because I haven't figured out how to flip the video in Photo Booth yet, or whether it's possible.

It has been an expensive week...

26-Jul-2008

Having recently spent a small sum (about £700) in the garden with less than adequate results, I have also had an expensive week with car maintenance. £748.14 (Service and MOT) + £490.71 (insurance) + £185 (DVLA) = £1423.85 + a thirsty car that requires a £55 refill every five days. Not too bad in the greater scheme of things I guess, and perhaps a price more digestible if I had a decent looking and performing motor, still I think I used to pay that for car insurance alone. The joys of motoring offset with the pain of escalating petrol prices and global warming. Isn't living in Britain great. Still, a price worth paying for the privelage we have here as opposed to the costs you would incur in either Hong Kong or Japan.

How to rack up a nice motor bill...

23-Jul-2008

Yes, completely unimpressed and just shy of seven hundred and fifty notes to get it through MOT. It's probably more than what the car's worth, and you can probably build one for cheaper. Needless to say, it was expected, having neglected the car for three years and washing her just the once once. I like them dirty, the car too. Here's hoping to another three years of trouble free motoring. In fairness, it does have new shoes on the car, and I have something of a rubber fetish, as well as sheds.

judgment day awaits...

22-Jul-2008

well, it's that time of year again when the MOT is due and my wannabe Batmobile in on death row to the scrap heap. Just another blatant reminder of upcoming costs associated with it. I genuinely should stop buying these so called "grey" imports, in which the goverment have conspired to fleece the average punter from saving a bob or two, but then again, I needn't have to worry about passing MOT, since I don't ever recall a time where my car hasn't gone under the scrutiny of "it's gonna cost ya", be it from dealers, insurers, service and repairs, parts, import, tax, petrol and so on... anyway, judgement day tommorrow as it goes in for the full service which it rightly deserves, since it hasn't done so since I bought the car 3 years ago. Proving Japanese car manufacturer Toyota do seriously make robust cars, and proving my case further, in Japan, it's the local cabbies prefered mode of transport, and you can even be seen chaufeured around in an early 80s number. Having spent 3 hours this evening changing one brake bulb clearly highlights their durability and workmanship. Removing panel after panel, albeit plastic, then nut after nut, just to replace one bulb?! they don't just make it easy no more. To be fair though, I also change my JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) rear plate to a more conservative OEM (Original European Market) rear plate, thus giving maximum exposure to my poncy plate and clarity to traffic cameras so I can be fleeced further caught speeding. Fingers cross, and I promise to treat my car with more respect if it passes MOT, like buying her a brand new set of oversized spinning chrome alloys.

Probably the lamest weekend ever...

20-Jul-2008

As most of you who know me, I rarely turn down any opportunity to go out and get myself bladered, however for the first time ever this weekend, I blew mates and family out in order to subject myself to an arduous task and physical pain of performing some do it yourself. This by no means was an easy decision, however, I have developed a strange fetish for sheds recently and I'm not too sure if this is the result of getting old and senial. Having yo yo'd my way to and from Homebase 3 times this weekend in my car (which is on it's last legs, however if it passes MOT this week, I will treat it with all the respect she truely deserves), I managed to buy a total of 36 paving slabs, 12 bags of sharp sand, 4 bags of mortar and 28 bricks. The result so far:

This is marking up only before prying off the 35 slabs of paving and laying on the mortar. As far as hated chores around the home, this has to be right up there next to ironing. I'm not particularly looking forward to the back pain which has already begun to work it's way to every muscle I didn't know I have. Yes, I have a really lame garden, but it was even worse before.Think I'm gonna have to pay some cowboy to put the shed together for me.

It's been two months since my last post!

15-Jul-2008

So I feel mildly ashamed being a webjam fan boy, and letting team "Greenwood" down into my belief of him and associates' company. In my feeble lame ass defense, I have genuinely been quite busy at work, amongst improving on my own personal website in recent times for greater exposure, thus including a new blog feature. Yes, it still looks just as good as it did last year, proving my point of a classic and timeless design, but there are also things happening in the background. So here's a shameless plug of the site itself. I promise to post something up soon.

Whitstable, May 2008

05-May-2008

We decided to head towards Whitstable on the East Coast during the long bank holiday weekend to have a final peruse at Marcus's "boat house", before he moves onto new pastures and even more poncier places. What initially appeared to resemble an over-sized garden shed, turned out to be somewhat of an architectural marvel. Exposed galvanized 'i' beams were left exposed inside, while camouflaged behind the solid wood paneling on the outside. A sign of sloppiness or creative genius? you decide. Although unfinished, the floor to ceiling, huge double french doors did provide optimum viewing angles of the coast and sea. An ideal setting, and all of this would have been so perfect had it not been for a fault on the boiler, despite valiant efforts by the boiler man "specialist", aka Marcus, we had to settle with colder water than the sea itself. The front slopping decking on either side of the boat house could also be hoisted and wound shut by high tension steel cables by means of a giant reel to seal and secure the whole house during the uninhabited and cold seasons. The raised pitched roof offered sleeping space for two as well as spectacular views of the coast and sea. As an addition, one of the rooms had a sliding floor or sliding ceiling if you're downstairs, allowing views from either end of the house. Pointless, but novel never the less.

Clearly not ready for "alternative pop"

More pictures can be found here.

the WAGS choice of being proper posh

27-Apr-2008

other than being called the 'C' word on Friday (inappropriately), I couldn't help but notice Sarah's level of poshness having been in London for just over a month. It seems her time spent in Tokyo has clearly rubbed off. I apologise for the less than adequate photograph, but afficionados should be able to recognise the brand.

you can take the girl out of Japan, but not the the Japan out of the girl... making girls proud in Shibuya.

Doin' the webjam @ frevds

27-Apr-2008

We decided to try something different this friday and attempted to go to some 'different' bars. To be honest I felt slightly lost - 'thrown' if you like. Then we even went to a weird unfamiliar restaurant with a waitress so rude you almost had to respect her for it.

But as sure as the sun rises in the east, as sure as day follows night, as sure as the catholic church will get into trouble again for some huge child molestation scandal, we could surely only end the night in one place: frevds [sic].

Here's a pic to prove it of Ken and Sarah 'doing' the webjam!

Time for a posh pie?

20-Apr-2008

Do you think Sarah is ready?

London Bridge shenanigans

19-Apr-2008

Proving not only is my camera phone is even worse than the iPhone, but what an incredibly shit photographer I am.

Yup, I am seriously shit at photography

It's all greek to me

12-Apr-2008

It all started with the flowers. As soon as I realised that the flowers the Bryan bought were not in fact for me, lets just say that things got a bit awkward.

I just about managed to calm Ken down enough to stop him going all 'gangsta' on their asses!

This morning at 9am

06-Apr-2008

Last Friday was probably the first taste of British summer, but then in true British fashion, a good thing never last.

Webjam at Freud Bar

03-Apr-2008

Sarah and I decide to hang out with some "webtwopointzero" people from Webjam. Those aren't fruit juices despite their appearances.

Sarah decides to hang out with some really really cool people, and then she met up with us

25-Mar-2008

Spring is here!

25-Mar-2008

As you can see, to my amazement spring arrived early