What the hell happened to the last two years?

Well, things changed, drastically.

How much can things change in two years?

A hell of a lot, due to relationship breakdown after 15 years, and my third redundancy in 4 years, and having to find a house and get settled I haven't chance to blog at all.

That might sound like a crappy 2 years, but not so, it had its ups and downs, but things have turned good and I'm happiest I have been in years.

1. I'm broke but happy.
2. I have my own home for now, buying not renting.
3. I'm slowly getting setup as self employed making Vegan friendly BDSM toys.(Floggermeister.com) using recycled materials where possible.
4. I'm engaged to a wonderful beautiful feisty sexy lady, and hopefully this time next year We will be getting married (Steampunk/Victorian themed).

Quite a change in two years. So, what does the next year hold? Well, We need to plan the wedding, the business needs to get going, planning on hitting the Twisted Leprechaun in September, with a full and expanded range of floggers, cuffs and collars, quirts and other assorted fun things, and I will shortly be joining the veggie fuels movement with a change of vehicle to carry stock and materials around.

Even though things are tight at the moment, I am in the best place I have been for so long, spending every weekend with someone I love, and actually planning for the future instead of living in the moment and worrying about it the next day.

The new Star Trek movie.

Thank you JJ Abrams.
I wanted to hate this film being a fan of Star Trek:TOS. But so much was done and undone during the watching that I can't help but love it and I really hope that there is a spin off TV series in the wings featuring the talents of the movie cast to their best to build on relationships forged in this opening stanza of what could have been simply a rehash of an established televisual and artistic SF canon.

Zachary Quinto is magnificent as a troubled young Spock , and the fighting between the contrasting halves of his genetic makeup is enthralling, and goes someway to dispell the worry we all feel everyday about somehow changing history through a temporal paradox. We see an older mellowed Spock giving the sage advice his younger self to provide the stability a new future needs.

My biggest plaudits have to go to Karl Urban however as a young Leonard "bones" McCoy. This role is legendary. DeForest Kelly made it his own, featuring as far into the future as Star Trek:TNG as a very old man who never got over his fear of having his particles scattered across the universe. Karl Urban does the unthinkable and out "bones" bones in this film, and even manages to capture the essence and even the look to a 'T'. Don't even get me started on how JT Kirk got his name.

But that is the best thing about this film. We see so many back stories filled and developed in parallel and what feels like real time that you wonder how we have managed for so long to live without knowing how Spock met Kirk, and why there was always so much tension between Kirk and Uhuru.

If you see one pulp SF film this season see this.

I have that yearning. A car from my past.

We all have that car from the past we regretted selling.
For me it was a Saab 900 T16S. It cost me £300 because it was an "early" one, was badly advertised and only had a short MOT. Up until then I had an obsession with old soviet era Skodas, basic simple old and cheap. The 900 was my first grown up car. With the help of the guys over at Saab Central and Saab Scene I was able to tweak it a little and fix a couple of niggle and make a lot of friends.

Thing is, apart from the odd front handbrake, a very early T16S is the ideal car to have. OK so it wasn't black and didn't have leather or air conditioning, it boosted properly and pulled like a train, and it passed the MOT with a tweak of the handbrake settings.

Drove that car for two years and lived with a mystery oil leak. I couldn't fix it and finally gave up.

Then the day it was sold and due to be collected I found it was either the oil cooler or one of it's hoses that had split and was spraying back in the wind when the engine was running and the car was moving. I was gutted.

So now I have that yearning again. OK this time I want a later one. It must be black and it must have Buffalo leather interior with with a Suede Momo or OMP steering wheel. I have a decent CD/MP3 headunit to go in, and it has the benefit of a bluetooth handsfree built in.

It wouldn't need much tuning, stock performance would be fine, but I would like to tweak it to make it personal, like fitting a Bi-Xenon H4 H.I.D Kit and LED bulbs throughout the rest of the car, including the dash and interior lights will lower the current requirements and put less strain on the alternator.

Carbon fibre trim would make a change from the usual wood, and make it look a little more modern with aluminium switches.

A suspension a fettle would help with the handl, dropped springs decent heavy duty shocks and some polybushes would help there.

Then there is the brakes. A set of 9000 Aero caliper and 9000 Aero fitting Brembo grooved discs and some decent ceramic pads will make things stop properly.

Once I'm happy with that, who knows, the sky is the limit, they are a tough old car and love to be loved and love to be driven.

The world is doomed and we are all going to die!!!!!!

Seems we are all going to get flying pig flu.
Apparently the latest potential pandemic that is going to decimate the civilised world is a mutation of Avian, Porcine, and Human influenza, skipping the pig to human phaze and transmitting directly between humans with fatal consequences.

So is it part of the new world order conspiracy?
It is if you read the story over on Alex Jones's Infowars.com where everything is the work of the Bilderberg group and the Illuminati, planning to reduce the world population to 10% to secure it's hold with a global language, currency and government. I'll leave you dear reader to decide.

So is bacon safe to eat?
Don't know, but I'm going to risk it.
But on a lighter note in these times of financial austerity, at least bacon should come down in price, because a) people will get scare stories about eating it, b) the flying pigs can deliver themselves to the slaughter house, saving the farmer the cost of fuel for one leg of the journey.

It's that time again

The Migrating goth heads to a small Yorkshire fishing town overlooked by the ruins of an Abbey.
Yes, it is the spring Whitby Goth Weekend, the first of 2009. 5000 dark clad individuals swell the population adding to the already growing native gothic contingent.
Good spread of bands this year.

Friday 24th April
Abney Park
The Last Dance
Zeitgeist Zero

Saturday 25th April
Diary of Dreams
The House of Usher
Razorblade Kisses

And on the side.
Don't forget there is the Whitby Fringe, and no that isn't the crimped dyed mop hanging in their eyes,
This is the loverly side events list that includes the Kumquat/Dead Funny comedy festival.

So go on, spend money, drink loads and enjoy yourselves. I won't be there in body but I will be in spirit.

Mourning the demise of hat wearing men.

Once upon a time, the hat was universally worn by men. It served a multitude of functions.

Most obviously it protected the head against the torrents of rain, and the hottest of sun, but also, waved enthusiastically in the air it made a great method of gaining attention or spreading a familiar greeting, and once more, doffed to the fairer sex it showed a lady that she has been noticed by a gentleman, or held across ones heart, a declaration of solemnity or respect. The hat is one of the most versatile elements a man can have in his daily wardrobe.

Sadly these days, most headgear seems to consist of either protective hard hats, the ubiquitous base ball cap, or the comedy snowboarding/music festival hat. Such a shame the most common form of headgear is the choice of the thug element of today's society.

I say it is time to reclaim the hat, be inspired by the likes of the indie kids, they have revitalised the stingey brimmed fedora, and the ska classic pork-pie hat, will Pete Docherty at the vanguard being seen in public with it tilted at a rakish angle. A good hat can even hide a bad hair day in way that no ammount of product can manage.

Why not bring back the top hat, the Fedora, the Trilby, the Bowler and the Panama. Wear a hat with pride and feel good. A hat makes a man. If you are feeling fruity why not try a tricorne to bring out your piratical Captain Jack streak.

So what has happened to the MP's expense details? Time to get political

If you have a spare £330k, you can find out what the MPs spend your money on.

For my overseas readers, our lords and masters elected public servants have to submit full details of expenses paid out tax payers money. They don't like doing it, it means someone knows what they have been upto. And now, thanks to an offered leak, for the right money you can too.

Police now investigating to find the source.

Now I don't want to be over critical of our police, but surely it doesn't take the deductive reasoning of the great detective to work out who the most likely suspect is. Britain is broke, we need some cash, 50p down the back of the sofa might come in useful, who would benefit most from making a lot of cash from leaked expense details.

?

I wonder if anyone has asked that man? I reckon he could benefit to from having access to a quid or two.