Archive for the 'Events' Category

President Obama And The Chance For Change

Published by Jon on 2 November 2008 in Events and Politics. 0 Comments

The latest Gallup poll has the Democrats sitting on 52% of the vote and the Republicans on 41%. This is good news.

Americans have spent the last eight years living in what amounts to a dictatorship. With fudged elections and battles with fictitious, unseen terrorist enemies Bush has lost credibility.

On top of this his attacks on foreign countries, each of them carried out with a cry of freedom, being little more than attempts to seize control of their resources, it’s about time the USA stood down from its role as global oppressor.

Should Barack Obama win tomorrow’s election, and I for one hope he does, he will have a monumental task ahead of him to convince the world that the USA can change.

Too long have Americans been seen as illiterate, boastful and brash. As bullies that proclaim their superiority to the rest of the world by dint of the fact that they claim to have God on their side and have the guns to back it up.

The USA is simultaneously enriched and bankrupted by the notion that you can be what you want to be and that everybody has the chance to control their destiny.

Sadly this is not true.

One look at the top ten in the Fortune 500 from 2008 shows you that only a select few are in charge of the world and chances are you’re never joining their club.

  1. Wal-Mart Stores
    CEO: Lee Scott
  2. Exxon Mobil
    CEO: Rex Tillerson
  3. Royal Dutch Shell
    CEO: Jeroen van der Veer
  4. BP
    CEO: Tony Hayward
  5. Toyota Motor
    CEO:Fujio Cho
  6. Chevron
    CEO: David O’Reilly
  7. ING Group
    CEO: Michel Tilmant
  8. Total
    CEO: Christophe de Margerie
  9. General Motors
    CEO: Richard Wagone
  10. ConocoPhillips
    CEO: James Mulva

Oil, automobiles, a bit of money and a retail giant. The men at the helm of these companies, and they are all men, are in control. It is these people that Obama will have to deal with.

Now I don’t know enough about Senator Obama to know which side of the fence President Obama will be on. My guess is that he’s not too deeply ingrained into the world that President Bush is, I can only hope that he will be enough of an outsider to effect the change required.

My fingers are crossed.

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Apple Say Let’s Rock! I Say That Ain’t Rock Motherfucker?

Published by Jon on 11 September 2008 in Announcements, Events, Geeky Stuff and Unbelievable. 0 Comments

So the Apple event has been and gone and with it my faith in Apple. What the fuck was that about?

My predictions proved very hit and miss, primarily because it was so short.

  1. iPod Touch redesigned to have physical volume control, possibly built in speaker
    Victory is mine! Correct
  2. iPod Touch range repriced, possible introduction of 64GB model
    A little bit wrong with that one, half a point
  3. New iPod Nano design with widescreen
    Correct again, but an obvious one really
  4. Possible bump in capacity of 160GB iPod Classic, 80GB to remain
    I would never have predicted a downgrade!
  5. iPhone/iPod Touch firmware 2.1 released
    This was touch and go but right nonetheless
  6. iTunes 8.0 released, introduction of a subscription service sadly unlikely
    Good guess!
  7. Mac Mini possibly dropped from the Mac range
    Given the title of the gig I should have guessed, no Mac news
  8. New MacBooks introduced
    See above, October for this now I think
  9. iPod Shuffle to receive storage boost to 4GB
    Just plain wrong

4½ out of 9 isn’t bad, probably enough to get an A at A-level these days.

The actual content of the announcement was wank though. ‘New Nanos!’. Yay! Hardware! In lot’s of colours, now we’re talking.

‘The iPod Touch now has volume controls and a wee speaker!’. Good, ok, I can wait for the cool shit.

‘iTunes 8.0 with Genius’. Hmm, yes ok.

‘We’ve decided to downgrade the iPod classic range from 160GB to 120GB!’. Hang on? What?! Eh?

‘Ladies and gentlemen, Jack Johnson!’. Ah-ha, so here we go a bit of Jack and then it’s the one-more-thing announcement!

‘Bye.’. What? Eh?

Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

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Apple Say Let’s Rock! I Say How Hard?

Published by Jon on 8 September 2008 in Events, Gadgets and Geeky Stuff. 0 Comments

It’s less than twenty four hours until Apple make their latest announcement.

As ever I proffer up my predictions on the content of their Keynote.

  1. iPod Touch redesigned to have physical volume control, possibly built in speaker
  2. iPod Touch range repriced, possible introduction of 64GB model
  3. New iPod Nano design with widescreen
  4. Possible bump in capacity of 160GB iPod Classic, 80GB to remain
  5. iPhone/iPod Touch firmware 2.1 released
  6. iTunes 8.0 released, introduction of a subscription service sadly unlikely
  7. Mac Mini possibly dropped from the Mac range
  8. New MacBooks introduced
  9. iPod Shuffle to receive storage boost to 4GB

I’m usually completely wrong with these sort of things but it I would say that iTunes is a dead cert, as is the new Nano and the increased capacity Shuffle.

Of course all of this will undoubtedly result in me being parted from my cash at some point down the line, although I don’t need any more iPods I think a nice little aluminium MacBook might be nice.

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Andy’s Stag Do

Published by Jon on 18 August 2008 in Events, Friends, Going Out, People and Photos. 1 Comment

Ladies and gentlemen I present the photos from Andy’s stag do.

It was very good of Andy to let it go ahead.

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Segways Rock!

Published by Jon on 18 August 2008 in Announcements, Cool, Events, Gadgets, Geeky Stuff and Love. 3 Comments

For those not in the know a Segway can be best described as being the horse-less carriage version of the chariots they rode around in, in Ben Hur. It sounds freaky but it’s great fun, I suggest you try one at the first opportunity.

Sadly I didn’t manage to get a picture of myself on one, scooting around Bermuda on our Segway tour but let me tell you I want one.

Just thought you’d like to know.

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Gleneagles

Published by Jon on 7 May 2008 in Events and Places. 2 Comments

I’ve just spent the past couple of days at Gleneagles and I must say it’s really very nice.

As I type I’m sitting in Braid’s Coffee Lounge having a latte, passing the time until I get my ride back to Edinburgh airport to catch a jet back down south.

Gleneagles is just like you’d imagine it, grand old magnificence side by side with an air of understated grace.

According to my boss, Colin Montgomery was here playing golf yesterday, for those in the golfing know this is a good thing. I imagine it would be a bit like me bumping into Jeff Minter while playing Tempest 2000, sort of.

Still I’ve had a lovely time and enjoyed every minute of it. I’ve done Claridges and now I’ve done Gleneagles, I guess that just leaves the Waldorf Astoria…

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Welcome To The Planet Reuben

Published by Jon on 9 March 2008 in Announcements and Events. 0 Comments

My brother and sister-in-law, Mark and Cheryl have had a baby!

The lovely, sweet little Reuben was born on Wednesday night. He’s gorgeous. See for yourself.

My nephew Reuben!

Good to see you little man, we look forward to spending lots of time with you.

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Party Of The Year!

Published by Jon on 30 December 2007 in Events, People and Photos. 1 Comment

Andy and his mate, whose name I do know but can’t remember, threw a fancy dress party to celebrate their 30th birthdays. We went along and took photos, this is the result.

Oh yes, I should add that the theme was 1977, which in fairness you’d probably get from most of the costumes.

You’ll notice I reference no one by their real name? This is because I can’t actually remember what half of the attendee’s names were (see comment above).

You see, I was very, very drunk…

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The Sammons

Published by Jon on 11 November 2007 in Announcements and Events. 0 Comments

My very good friend Tor got married yesterday!

How she managed to snag someone as clearly lovely and well adjusted as James is beyond me, but manage she did! Anyway here’s a couple of the shots I managed to get of the reception.


Well done Mr and Mrs Sammons!

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The York Birthday Extravaganza

Published by Jon on 3 November 2007 in Events. 1 Comment

We’ve come to York for Suzanne’s birthday! I’m sitting in our very nice room writing this post on a stolen wi-fi connection while Suzanne is listening to her iPod at a volume that would wake the dead.

Last night we went to a Chinese restaurant for a spot of tea and very nice it was too. What’s more the lovely ladies in the place found out it was Suzanne’s birthday and brought us a free dessert!

Now, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because as you know I’m not, however it was all quite bizarre. They came out of the back singing happy birthday but when they got to the name bit they all stopped, one of them asked Suzanne what her name was and then all started up again.

The dessert itself was a banana fritter with a couple of wee blobs of ice cream (strawberry and vanilla, if you’re interested) and to top it off they stuck two birthday candles in the ice cream. This would all have worked had Suzanne liked banana fritters, still she bravely had a bit.

I’m not sure what we’re doing today but I’d guess it will involve vikings, trains and alcohol. I’m sure we’ll also have time to squeeze in a row!

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This Is Sparta!

Published by Jon on 13 October 2007 in Events and Gaming. 0 Comments

Bridz popped round this evening for a spot of gaming and a pizza, and what an evening it was! Just look at this!

If only he did it using his own Mii.

How fucking awesome is that? 300! A perfect score at Wii Sports bowling.

It was touch and go for a while when on the seventh frame it dawned on me that he’d had seven consecutive strikes and I made mention of it. Oops. The last pin on the eighth frame wobbled for a while before finally falling, jinx over! Phew.

If only he’d done it using his own Mii!

Still at least he can gloat that in a handful of frames he managed to match the score I’ve been working on for about a year. Smart arse!

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The Stag Do!

Published by Jon on 28 August 2007 in Events, Going Out, People and Photos. 5 Comments

Well it finally happened and here are the pictures to prove it. I really do need to say thank you to everyone that came along, you all contributed to my having a fantastic day. Thank you all very much.

I learnt many wonderful things over the course of the night. For example Sambuca comes in regular, black and flavoured varieties, some drinks can be referred to as pure filth and there are more germs on a slightly dirty glass than there are in a bin!.

For those that couldn’t make it you can PayPal me the money you owe me, just click the button below. That includes you Purdy. By the way, this isn’t a joke, you all owe me £25. So pay up.

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