The Gospel According To Rhys

A Year In Review 2006 - Growing Up

2006-12-29T00:45:00.000Z

As I'm off to Cardiff to see the gorgeous Han for the remainder of 2006 (which reminds me, is there anything I must do in Cardiff? We're there for two days, and also New Years Eve. A good place to go on New years would be appreciative too - does Cardiff have a Walkabout or a Barracuda?), I'd thought I'd do a quick year in review for 2006. Be warned, this is a long post, and it gets annoyingly mushy towards the end.

So, 2006: What did it do to me? Was it a good year? That kinda thing that's everywhere at the moment. Only this one has less Jimmy Carr. Re-fucking-joice.

Looking back at January - April, I actually realise how miserable I was. I was doing too much, drinking too much and resting too little. I kinda was the smily, happy Rhys you were accustomed to, but I was not happy. Suppose it didn't start well with me getting dumped 3 days into the year, but I put on a brave face. It wasn't all bad, I was living in the house of trouser with friends, and did have some good times (a couple of nights out and my birthday, sans the rejection email). But the whole eating shit, drinking loads and working in a high stress job with no rest eventually took it's toll on me.

I went into A & E.

Hate to say it, but that was a defining moment for me. When you're lying in a hospital bed, with wires attatched to you that you look like something from Ghost in the Shell, you look at life differently - maybe I was doing too much, and chasing the almighty dollar in the worst possible way. It's horrible having people come upto you saying "ooh, we never have 22 year olds with heart trouble in here", cheers doc, thought the NHS wasn't supposed to judge. It still effects me, my trip into hospital. I do get - uncomfortable chests every now and again, and have been pretty much burping constantly for the past two or so weeks. Normally I'd put it down to diet or something, but because of my history it does scare me a bit. However, I know that whenever I'm with friends or watching TV or something, it goes. I think it's psychological, but I'd like to make sure, and see if the NHS can do something about it. I know it sounds pathetic, and I don't want to do it believe me, as much as I love her to bits - my mum has been less than supportive and doesn't understand what I'm going through.

The problem is nobody does I suppose, people do try, but unless you've been in my situation (22 years old and wake up one morning with heart palputations, with no real cause except circumstancial evidence such as bad diet, stress), any words (particularly "oh, just put it to the bavk of yout mind, just enjoy life!") are little comfort. I mean, physically I'm fine - I have a half an hour walk to work every day without fail, plus 3 10 minute walks through the day (i know it's not much, but I can do it) - it's just mentally I'm still a little screwed from the events in April.

Ironically, in future years when I do get my head sorted, find the cause of my constant belching, and live a long and prosperous life, the trip to the hospital could be a blessing in disguise. I returned home and quit my job at the call centre. Ironically I was offered a promotion for a position that paid nearly £400 a week (which, for a 22 year old living up North is huge money) in order to stay, but at the time there were more important things to me than money. I applied for a few jobs around the North Wales area - but generally limiting myself to administration work. On one search, I did feel adventurous and look for IT jobs, and on page 14 out of 14 I found a web design job for Colwyn Bay. I applied, thinking "I'd never get it, they'd want somebody with experience". Lo and behold after a 2 hour of the most brilliant-yet-informal interview ever, I got the job.

I don't reallty talk much about my time in work - reason being is because my work colleagues read this blog. Truth be told I am happy there. I go through times of not enjoying it and all (everybody does), but overall I'm doing something I like doing for money. I've learnt so much from my work colleagues - both using software I never knew existed before (Groupmail is my baby!), and also in design (I now see things design wise and say "that's clever"). I know for the fact that rhyswynne.co.uk would still be available and there would be no forum nor toplist if I hadn't of got the job I am in today. So you've got to be greatful too! It also gave me money, and time to blog (though - contrary to popular belief - not in work: I usually blog the night before, give it a 11:00AM timestamp then publish it before work). Both of which lead to a holiday.

Ironically I first met Han on Myspace, when she joined a long dead group (this is our first ever conversation), however things kinda blossomed where - unusual for me - I kinda started e-mailing her when she was in China, just out of curiositiy (seeing if she was interesting to talk to), and she was! MSN then phone number soon followed, and I then arranged a holiday - which was originally "have a few days away near where Guy lives", but became "see a few bloggers, especially Han". It was at that point that actually I had begin to have a bit of a fertile spell with the ladies, getting a few dates of varying successes (which - for Han's sake - we won't discuss here). I'll be honest though - and this is the truth, not me being mushy - I was prepared to let all of those dates fail because I was going to London. If Han turned out to be "just a friend", that would be cool. However, if it turned out to be "a bit more", it'd be unfair for everybody. I just needed to know. After two days, I knew, and was happy with the result.

It's odd. Han and myself have spent less than a week together in person. Our relationship at the moment is usually Skype. After January 1st, I don't know when I'd next see her. I dunno whether - even though we've had 2 months of going out - we're still in "New Relationship Territory". However, I am unbelievably happy at the moment. I tried to describe it to Sibley (who, bless him, is probably sick of me talking about the poor girl at the moment). I used a terrible euphanism: "You know when you're walking down the street, and you see somebody, and you think to yourself 'They....look different. Are they a celebrity?'. It's a bit like that.". My mates are probably sick of me talking about Han, but I don't care. She really is fabulous and we get on fantastically when we're together, and nearly as well when we're apart (though blame skype for that). I know that she'll probably e-mail this paragraph all about her with "less-than-3" in symbolic form underneath it, I know quite a lot about what makes her tick. She's understanding for someone so stubborn (she puts up with my "bad boyfriend woe is me" rant whenever I forget what her third favourite anime movie is), and I'm happy just talking to her and picking her brains and see what makes her tick. I share ideas with her about web pages and vice versa. She likes me belly, unmuscly arms and unbelievable geekiness. I like her gorgeous face, boobs and amazing bottom, as well as her geekiness and her humour. She makes me laugh! Christ, no woman makes me laugh! Women are the least funny gender (not racist, truth), and occasionally I feel like my luck's going to run out, she'll come to her senses and leave me, but then she texts me saying "we just got married.....in the Sims". I don't find it stalkerish, I find it amusing, because that is what Han'd do. Relationship wise, I've had relationships that are for a reason, and for a season. This is definitely the second one at the moment, may push into the third category eventually, but - realistically I'm just happy with a girl who I really, really like.

So, my resolutions for next year? Learn to drive and get fit. I have a reason for both now ;).

Happy new year everbody! This blog will be quiet for a good part of next week, but there is a very good reason for it. Some of you - be it me telling you or checking your referrals may know - but the rest of you will have to wait until 2007!

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Sony Ericsson K750i, Opera, and Blog Awards

2006-12-28T11:38:00.000Z

Q. What has James Brown, my phone, and Liverpool's Title Chance got in common?
A. They all died over the Christmas Period.

I was going to say "Gerald Ford", but it was too soon. Anyway, my phone half died unspectacularly. It still works, just very temperatmental - text messages taking forever to arrive etc. My diagnostic was the battery was loose, which didn't cause the phone to crash - but the battery was holding in the SIM. I could've either got a new battery, or a new phone.

Oops.

Meh, I had it 2 years, and I bought it 2nd hand anyway - it's lasted me so well, and still in an ebayable condition. It's a Sony Ericsson K750, and it's fucking ace. I admit, I'm still playing around with camera though - below is a picture of my ace firefox T-shirt Rick got me.

Tis a work of genius that tee. I also took a photo of the japanese instructions for my alarm that Han bought me, if anybody could give me the general jist of it, it would be much appreciated, cheers. Click here to read the instructions. EDIT: Further to the mysterious commenters request, I am most interested in this paragraph. ~~As I said, it's the best I can do, if somebody could give the jist to that paragraph, I'll be eternally greatful.~~ Cheers Oscar for decoding it for me!

The video player is pretty standard too, but I'm happy to have one. I've recorded a few videos - alas Mum made me delete her hilarious rendition of "Flying Without Wings" with me, Wiz-Style Guffawing in the background. All videos recorded so far have me in the background either saying "Put it on Youtube" or "Send THAT to Tim and Helen". Catchphrases that are pathetic, unfunny and annoying. Much like any other catchphrase then.

On top of all that, the thing which I like most of all is the applications and games, they're fucking ace! Essentials include Ridge Racer - yes, it's only slightly worse than the arcade original, an old game called The Chaos Engine, a good athletics game and Opera Mini, which makes browsing the internet a joy on my phone - I will never be without the net again! And no, I won't be looking at WAP porn on the way down to Cardiff.

In other news, I have been nominated for an award at "Blog About Your Blog" - click here to go to the post about it. Go here, vote me, vote fast, vote often!

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Blogging On Boxing Day

2006-12-26T22:53:00.000Z

Merry Boxing Day everybody! Hope santa emptied his sack at the end of his bed and left you everything you so desired. Christmas in the Wynne resident was a lot quieter than previous years, some may actually argue it was decidedly unfestive. It didn't help with dad wrapping our presents at 10am Christmas Morning, in front of Soccer A.M., setting a new Wynne record. I even spent a huge amount of time online - ironically I spent ages reading this - though mainly speaking to Han.

I will share some of my new toys which I got online.

My main present is a smoothie maker. Yes, I do drink a lot of real fruit smoothies, (it's all I drink in coffee shops, being caffene intolerent). This gave mum licence to get me anything smoothie related including - but not limiting to - straws, books, fruit, nuts, ice cream and drinking chocolate.

I was right about my joystick shaped box! It was a Commodore 64 30-in-1 Joystick!, and it's brill! Best games so far are Paradroid (which I loved anyway), Tower Toppler and Pitstop 2. Though the old addage of "They don't make games like they used to" is especially true, Cyberdyne Warrior is especially hard!

Han also got me two wonderful presents. The first is an Atari Paddle Game similar to this, which is annoyingly addictive. I played Pong for half an hour when I should've been in the pub. It's that addictive. Her 2nd present was a Nintendo alarm clock shipped in from Japan. All the instructions are in japanese, so I can't figure out a few things

Rick took the biscuit with the most "unexpected (yet coolest)" present, which consisted of a Firefox t-shirt. Aled got me the excellent Tekken 5.

I got two other books (other than the afformented "Smoothie Book"): Blog Digest 2007 by Justin McKeating and a "How to Win at Internet Gambling". Why mum? It's the gift that will take from me!

As well as all this, I got some ace golf balls, and the usual beer and chocolate.

As far as the day went? It was mainly wake up, pub, lunch, sleep, Vicar of Dibley, sleep. With all speak to Han, eat nuts and play with our toys inbetween.

In other news, the forum now accepts guest posts on the introductions and guest forums. If I get spammed out of my boots, it's going, but hopefully I can attract a bit of banter there. Go! Now!

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Merry Decemberween!

2006-12-24T17:06:00.000Z

Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse

It was there Rhys sat
Bored off his tits
"I'll have another blogging party"
"They're surefire hits!"

He rang his dearest girlfriend Han
"Bring tunes or this party blows"
"I'll bring my iPod, and my Mac Powerbook"
"No way I'm I trusting your Windoze"

"Fine!" said Rhys, taking Han inside
When suddenly, there was a ringing door bell.
Four jolly americans came through the door!
They were, Merrick, Randi Jessica and Manuel

"Here you go Rhys!", said Manuel, "a gift"
"Wow" said Rhys, "A brand new xbox!"
But no time to speak more, the next guests arrived
Jake, Lottie, Jenny, and the rest of Punclox

It was just bloggers who came to these parties
Mates also flock to these do's
Guy, Sibley, Ian, Tom and Z come
Though only for the free booze

Ally arrived next to the feast,
And she brought some homemade wine
Celeste brought some Caviar from a London hotel,
And Tilesey some steaks on which to dine.

Lasty the Aussie Contingient arrived.
Fern, Dan and the Demon Spawn.
My namesake also arrived, and gloated
"What England will never have is a Shane Warne."

Midnight arrived, and each guest raised a glass,
And the host Rhys proclaimed, with such delight
Merry Christmas to all bloggers, all my readers and friends
And to all, a fucking good night!

Despite the fact I'm not feeling 100% festive, got hungover to buggery, and wishing I'd asked Santa for a new phone - I'm happy. Nadolig Llawen i chi gyd!!

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Spell Check Your Articles!

2006-12-23T12:26:00.000Z

When Time announced that "We" (errr...."You") were person of the year, I honestly thought it was a bit of a cop-out. I mean, some of us are good writers. Some of us are excellent writers, but it did seem like we haven't given professional journalists a run for their money.

Or so I thought.

During that moment discribed in the last post with the Spice Girls, this below was the article I focussed on, in the North Wales Weekly News. All spelling mistakes are intended.

"Beer at £1 a point is on offer in the social club for this Saturday's home game against Woodley Sports (3pm). Spectatorsa will also be given a voucher wich allow admission into the Boxing Day game at Cammell Laird for just £2"

£1 a point? I doubt even Chelsea have stooped that low....yet, sure though a few of the regulars would club together and cobble about a hundred quid to make the title race beyond doubt! That is shocking "professional" journalism. Sack the proof reader. Meh, could be worse: one of my friends think we're playing Camel Lard on Boxing Day.

So yeah, if you fancy a few drinks on the cheap, and a quality game of football today, get your heiny down to Llanelian Road for a quality game of football. Go! Now!

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Embarassing Moments With the Folks & Blog Awards

2006-12-22T00:56:00.000Z

Ah. We've all been there. We sit in front of the TV watching "Nature's Greatest Miracles", and then. Two anmials start humping away at each other like rabbits. Usually, they are rabbits, but even so. It's very embarrasing.

However, I've experienced worse tonight. I was watching the "20th Greatest Christmas Songs Ever" on Magic with my Mum and brothers, and this video came up.

I looked up 3 or 4 times duing the video: mainly to look at Emma Bunton at her prime. But by god! I never realiesd the subtle undertones in the video. Okay, they're hardly subtle - the line "I wanna make love to ya baby!", isn't exactly playing hard to get. But those nights I spent alone with a copy of Smash Hits and this song on repeat. I just feel.....dirty. Call me naive, but I thought it was all about Marriage (the 2 surnames becoming 1: doubled barrelled, I assume), I had no idea it was about fucking! I lead a sheltered childhood!

In other news.I'm an occasional blogger on Blog about Your Blog, and they're having a blog of the year award ceremony. Unlike the bloggies, I actually have a chance of winning. So don't enter. Please?

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Ajax, Web 2.0 Gaming Is Like Heroin Pringles

2006-12-21T20:58:00.000Z

Last few days, I have been fairly busy in work. However, I've had a lot of rest bite, and found a doozy of a game.

Kdice is a multiplayer, Ajax based strategy game, that is far far too addictive. It's a bit like Risk, but a lot simpler, and a lot less imposing. Simply dominate the board with your dice before the opponent does the same. Simple. Yet a hell of a lot of fun.

If you do decide to join, my profile with fair to middling stats is here. Add rhysboy84 to your friends list, and I may give you a game.

Right, I'm off to the pub now. Aled turned 18 today so I feel it's only right I take him out for a few drinks. I don't really fancy it though, so have asked a few of my mates to join me. Hopefully it will all be well when I go down there, and the beer gets flowing.

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Fucks sake

2006-12-19T11:21:00.000Z

We. Were. Dire.

Yes. The convicts have reclaimed the ashes in a humiliating 3-0 defeat in a test of five. Not many of you readers follow or even know much about cricket, so I'll just leave it at that. As a result, I've subjected myself to a barrage of Pommie Bashing - please do so in the comment box below or in the appropriate thread on the forum. Thank you.

For those without a passing interest at the Gentleman's Game, suggestions. With Cricket and Football being dire, and Rugby being not so great, tell me: What should be the UK's new national sport?

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Time Person Of The Year: A collection of Ace Blog Posts

2006-12-18T08:31:00.000Z

Time Magazine has voted that this years person of the year is Me! Well, You. But Time told me "You are time's person of the year." Anyway, I digress. I think they mean that bloggers, youtubers and all sorts of user generated content genrerators are this years people of the year - so all those who don't fit into the category (and even Tommy come Latelies - though your blog is ace by the way Tom), can ignore this post. As it's us bloggers, myspacers and Second Lifers who shape this world.

"It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes."

So, what will I do with my latest edition to my CV? Well, I suppose I could go on a long, thoughtful and intelligent rant about how we are underapreciated by the Main Stream Media, but I do enough of that on my mylot account. Instead I'm going to link to my favourite posts of the year, and how bloggers and the general Web 2.0 have wrecked havoc this year.

Lets start with the big gun, and my favourite Web 2.0 Story this year. North Korea's web portal was found online in autumn. Now, this is big news, so it was put on Fark.com. Almost immediately, the website - and therefore an entire nation's internet went down. We were hoping it'd spark riots in the street (lord knows I would if I couldn't get online). It didn't. Still, made me laugh.

Something else that hasn't faired too well thanks to the internet has been Sony. Bloggers think they're a bunch of arseholes, so if you can't beat them, join them. Only that their blog didn't go quite as well as planned..

On a personal note I posted an April Fools Gag this past April. Whilst Ally commented on it, Fern's comment took the biscuit. I mean, I have ex girlfriends who deny ever having intimate relationships with me. For her to claim that she's done sexy time with me (when she quite obviously hasn't), damn that made me smile!

Hannah's Blog has been excellent since November. If you're thinking I'm saying this because she's seeing me at the moment.....you'd be right.

Finally, Tilesey's world cup post makes me laugh. Still does 6 months on!

I suppose really from 2006 I didn't really gain a number of new blogs to read. Sure, there was Han, and Manuel. But from the top of my head that's all there have been. Merrick made a welcome return to my feed list too. But apart from that, there hasn't really been any new blogs out there that have grabbed me. Like wise any new consistant readers.

However, the readers that I do have, I have got to know better. Seriously. Some of you I feel I know better than my mates. I also took the plunge and met a few of you, and I was plesantly suprised you weren't serial killers. Celeste is as warm and as bubbly as she appears on her blog. And I really don't need to tell you what I think about Han, who I met 24 hours later.

So, Mr and Mrs Time People Of The Year, thank you for reading my blog, feeding this blog and commenting on this blog (this'd be a good point for you lurkers to make yourself known!). As a group of people, it's nice to be recognised. We're certainly more deserving than Bono - the hypocritical wankstain of a man who won it last year.

PS. The Bloggies Are Soon

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It's Christmas Time! Wii needn't be afraid.

2006-12-17T16:32:00.000Z

I'm beginning to get excited for Christmas, it's bad. I've been a bit subdued and disinterested when it comes to Christmas, but this year, I'm genuinely excited. It's driving my mum mad though, as I'm self-questioning myself out loud: I wonder what Han got me? I do hope Han like's my presents?! I wonder what is in that Joystick Shaped Box? I wonder if they'll have "A Blonde For Christmas" in the Pen this Year? I wonder what will happen between The Mighty Bay and Woodley Sports (£1 a pint in the clubhouse, 23rd of December, be there!)? These sort of questions we must all be asking ourselves at this time of the year.

I suppose I can semi-relax now that I have pretty much finished the Christmas shopping. Half of Mum's present has yet to arrive yet, but that should arrive tomorrow. All I need to do is wrap it, test it, and then I should be ready to eat, drink and be very merry. Not even the fact that I know I've got a Bounty on Christmas Eve in my Advent Calendar can put me in a horrible mood.

Yesterday was the unofficial "End Of Christmas Shopping" Day, getting things for the more important members of the family (that'd be yourself, Bonnie), and I had a surreal experience in Game.

Around this time of year, shops take on extra staff just to give a gentle nudge to people to part with their hard earned dollah. I should know, I applied for a position with one of them. I was having a look through the Wii games at game when one of these people came over to shill me some products.

"Hey, did you manage to get one at launch?"
"Alas no....it's a shame really, is a lot of fun."
"Oh yeah, they're hugely popular, makes my job a lot easier!"
[Forced laughter not seen since You Been Framed was stopped being filmed in front of a live audience]
"Want a PSP?"
"Not really"

Poor Sony, goes to show that if you put rootkits into discs, have borderline racist ads, and produce comedic corporate blogs as a vain attempt to be hip, people are not going to like you very much.

In other news. I now have a gmail account! I also have integrated Google Reader with Firefox, so i need feeds to populate it. Any gooduns out there? I'll be honest, I've never really used RSS before now, so it's a bit bare!

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Want Your PC to Look Like A Mac?

2006-12-16T10:32:00.000Z

As a self confessed computer geek, I'm all for technology, and the advancement of our civilization as a whole though it. However, there's one thing I cannot stand.

Technology for the sake of technology.

More to the point, useless technology.

Now, understand I'm not having a go at things like USB Missile Launcher, they serve a purpose (to entertain by firing rockets at Bonnie). Plus they look like fun.

What I don't like is when somebody thinks "hmmm....there's this idea, why not stick a USB connector to the end of it, then we can fleece it to geeks?!?!" My mum is brilliant at finding this crap: she's bought me a USB fan, and a USB keyboard cleaner in the past. However, those pale in comparison to - what I believe - the most useless advancement of technology ever.

Since last weekend - I've become a little bit of a macwhore. They were great, so pretty, and not as backwards as PC users would have you believe. Han has already talked in length about methods of simulating Macs on PCs, including a version of expose for windows. I on the other hand wanted desktop widgets. I found a program called DesktopX, which allows you to add widgets to your desktop. However, therein lies two problems.

First one is that widgets are cluttered when compared to the macs. Reason being is that one of Expose's features shows and hides a collection of widgets, meaning that it doesn't clutter the desktop.

The second thing is that some of these widgets are just horribly designed. I mean, take the calculator. It has the most useless button for a PC calculator - an off button.

I mean, why? My solar power scientific calculator doesn't even have an off button, why should a desktop calculator need one? "Aha!" I hear you say, "I bet the 'off' button is a clever way of shutting down the application?"

Wrong!

So yeah, any suggestions to what the off button does, answers on a postcard please to the usual address. Also, I believe this is the most pointless piece of technology ever (the off button), what about you? You seen anything worse?

Oh, and to all those PC converters who want the look of the Mac.....errr......I suggest you buy a Mac.

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Blogging Around The Christmas Tree

2006-12-14T00:03:00.000Z

I'm sorry, I don't like our Christmas Tree this year.

Now, I know what I said last year, and I do think white trees are homosexual. However, like homosexuals, white trees fill the room with an air of brightness and chirpyness. We went green again this year, and I really, really don't like it. Instead of dominating the room like a poof, it just sits there like a straight guy. It should be saying to me "grrr, you've had me in the attic for the last 11 months, I'll show YOU what I can do, so that you maybe keep me up beyond 12th Night this year", it instead just sits there and takes my abuse like a man.

The problem comes when you get close (as the picture above shows). It is an utter chaos state up close. Maybe it's because I've done a shit load of design work this year, but I just find my tree clattered and uncoordinated. It's become so much of a problem with me that I actually refuse to spend much time in the lounge now. That, and of course I can skype Han senseless in my room and nobody'd be none the wiser...

Seriously, it's got to go before 12th Night.

I also cannot help feel guilty asking my mum to buy me a book for Christmas: The Blog Digest 2007. The unnofficial sequel to 2005; Blogged (the latter compiled by Tim Worstall, the former compiled by Justin McKeating. I'm in neither). Mum has a cut off period where she goes from "give me your suggestions, I have fuck all clue what to get you" to "Stop with your suggestions, I got you Fimbles' DVD, and you better love it!". I had missed the cutoff period, and boy - did I know about it. I simply said in return that I didn't know you were stopping shopping, but now I feel like I'm going to hell.

Oh, and we've discovered a bonus use for the flat screen TV. Now cards from ungreatful members of the family which we felt we had to put on the TV for the world to see can now be safely relegated into the general mish mash. That TV is turning out to be the gift that keeps on giving.

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Apple Han, School Discos and Rude Restaurants

2006-12-11T22:33:00.000Z

I'm back from my weekend away from it all with the gorgeous Han. As you can imagine, an obscene amount of the weekend is unsuitable for this blog (kids, the elderly and - worst of all - my mum read this 'ere site), so as opposed to the comprehensive write up my first London trip got, this one is going to be a lot more concise!

First notable point was Saturday day. Me and Han headed into Canterbury for one of her mate's birthday. I actually blogged about it extensively on Han's blog so I won't repeat it here, so here's a quick summary: we waited an hour for cardboard based food with chavs entertaining us by flashing old men. When the food finally came the waitress confused poor Han into accepting someone else's meal and then insulted her. Trust me, that post on Han's blog is a watered down post.

In the night, we went to "The Venue" for school disco night. Both of us looked fabulous in our uniform, but alas this didn't reflect in the photos where I look either psychopathic...

drunk....

...or just downright perverted....

....one thing I will say is this - it's ironic that only when you are with somebody you really, really like you realise what you really hate. I do not like middle of the road nightclubs - they're usually garishly coloured concrete blocks, devoid of any personality. The Venue was one of these, with an added bonus of having a DJ that gave a running commentary throughout each song. Consider Bryan Adams "Summer of 69"

"What did you get?"
"I got my first real six string"
"Where did you get it?"
"Bought it at the five & dime"
"What did you do with it?"
"Played it until my fingers bled"
"When was it?"
"Was the summer of 69"

But yeah, fantastic company aside, the venue was a bit of a hole.

On my way back, I had a good hour stopover in London. I had a beer, a burger and something I've never had before - a Krispy Kreme Doughnut. I'll be honest, it would also probably be my last. It was so saturated with sugar I was almost sick. A couple of pints later and my excitement levels was back to usual levels. I'm not good with sugar rushes. Anyway, it was there overlooking Euston Station that - I dunno - I just seem so much happier down this end of the country. I know there's a difference between visiting somewhere and living/working somewhere. It just seems like a better place to be than Colwyn Bay - and I'm sure that my family, friends and CBFC (the only things I truly like about my home town) would be able to cope if I do depart - providing I visit every now and again.

To close, thank you for all your e-mails regarding Christmas Cards. Due to sheer workload, I've yet to post them. I will do so on Wednesday, so you have another day to get in your request (if you've yet to already) - click here to email me your address for postage.

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Canterbury Tales

2006-12-08T09:11:00.000Z

Tomorrow, I pack my bags and spend three days with my gorgeous blogger girl formally known as Hannah. It will be the first time I've seen her since London that I've seen her, and to see her again involves a trip through London to Canterbury. It feels odd going through London again so soon after I last went, considering it's a decent train ride away, and my time in the nations capital is little over an hour. Still, it'd be an amazing weekend, with the highlights (for me) being tomorrow. Saturday involves looking around Canterbury at the sights/shopping, followed by a pub lunch, topped all off with a School Disco Party at Kent SU. Tilesey, I can see you seething from here!

Before I'd go, I'd like to say that this monday will be the last day that I will send out Christmas Cards, so if you want one - please email me your address. So far, only MrManuel has taken me up on this offer, and I've got a shed load of cards to shift!

Right, I must dash, there are reports that Han is already waiting for me at Canterbury station. Have a wonderful weekend - have a look at my forum too, there is a maths geek question that is unanswered, winner gets a medal!

See you Tuesday!

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Top of the List

2006-12-06T08:29:00.000Z

Some people scoffed at my present list, calling myself the "most favourite grandson". What I'm about to show is conclusive evidence that I am.

First of all, a little history. There is a local Welsh paper that serves the Abergele area, where my gran lives. It is purely in Welsh, and it is a prime read for all the farmers (well, the ones who can read), largely because it's such a small community, and they're often in it. Recently, my gran turned 85, and this was her birthday message in the paper. Which mentions all the grandsons. In importance order.

So, relatives, you heard the paper....get to it!

To my regular readers: sorry about the poor quality of blogging recently. Been a bit miserable through one thing and another. Seems to be the case that before I do something fun, I'm usually at my lowest ebb right before doing something fun. I'm at quite a low point at the moment. Hopefully, a weekend with Han and the fact that over 100 blogs link here on technorati will put a general smile back on my face.

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Being a Football Fan

2006-12-05T08:19:00.000Z

On Saturday, after the great storm of 06, it died down enough so that the Colwyn Bay vs. Bradford Park Avenue game was not cancelled. I put on my shirt, and trudged unexpectant to Llanelian Road.

I'll be honest, I was not looking forward to it. I had missed a couple of games recently through sexy distractions from Han, and the results have been not going our way. However, me being me, I only read the results, rather than the reports that - well - we've actually been playing well.

We started brightly putting BPA under the cosh from about the first 5 minutes, creating a lot of good chances in the first half. However, we were unable to capitalise on the dominance we had. Most of the talk was on one of the BPA players - who, honest to god, played in the Premiership not that long ago, and how will we ever cope against an ex-Premiership Quality Journeyman.

The answer would be handed to us in the second half - rather bloody well. In a complete role reversal from the first half, BPA dominated the game, but didn't make a breakthrough. It look like it was going to a 0-0 draw when Christ Priest fired off a volley in the 92nd minute to put the Bay 1-0 ahead. And that's the way it stayed.

We. Were. Elated. When I got home, I was drunk on a deadly concoxion of Boddingtons, Orme's Best and happiness, and spoke far to fast and far to happily to Han for a man who had been standing in the cold for two hours.

It's funny supporting the Bay. We're not a big club. The players usually join us after the game in the club house. We don't have a club credit card. Nor do we have an "official supporters club" that demands £100 a year to join, just for tickets. We aren't owned by a foreign businessman, instead a sizable proportion of the club income is generated by loyal fans. Our "Corporate Hospitality" is a free beer, free entry into the ground and first pick of sausage rolls. Nobody is on mega bucks, with the players and officials often having second jobs on top of their playing career. And we most definitely do NOT have a training school in Dubai.

I switch off whenever my mates talk about "The Premiership", as - truth be told - I just don't find it interesting anymore. I don't like the fact that around the table in the pub, some of my mates are more concerned with a team that plays a hundreds miles away than just down the road. Sure, I have my favorites in the Premiership, but there's one team I want to do well, Colwyn Bay. But by and large I doubt I would now ever pay to go and see a premiership game, nor would I ever purchase a credit card scheme just because they have the club logo on it, and there is a "fans APR".

I'm sorry, but they're not fans, they're customers.

Colwyn Bay is currently undergoing a scheme caleld Raise The Roof. Fans around the world are digging into their pocket to give a little bit of money to the club, so we can put a roof on the terraces. When the roof goes up, a plaque will be put on the wall in the social, with all the people's names and inscriptions from people who have joined. I have started an "Old Sheddites" collection fund, which I will donate to the powers that be in the new year, as well as a list of all the people who have donated (I'm planning something along the lines of "Old Sheddites - ", then a list of names. I'll see if it can be done though). If you would like to donate any amount, and get your name inscribed in history (plus keep me warm and dry during the winter months as Llanelian Road), please e-mail me, and I will sort something out. I will also - should you ever be on the North Wales coast - take you to a bay game and buy you a beer.

Cheers.

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Citizen Journalism at it's Finest

2006-12-04T16:43:00.000Z

On Saturday morning, I was planning to go to Llandudno to to a bit of Christmas Shopping. Mum had to dash to the post office first, so I stayed in bed whilst she went, no point getting up than any earlier on a Saturday, eh?

I was all set to go to Llandudno when mum burst through the door, windswept. "It's chaos down there, the power's gone due to the storms we've had overnight!". Cool. I grabbed my camera, and embarked on a bit of Citizen Journalism.

It was probably one of the most surreal sights I've seen in the Bay. Behind somebody famous being here.

All the power was down in the bay, which meant, that anywhere with traffic lights was a dangerous area.

We drove a little further, and there were more lights down, these ones were particularly dangerous, as it was where the expressway joins with the traffic.

Further on, you could see that even the street lights, that were on in the rest of the town, were off.

So....there you have it. My first attempt at citizen journalism, and probably the last. First of all, I'm pretty crap (as the above few paragraphs would testify) at "reporting" stuff that's actually important, secondly I doubt I could have the balls in like going to - say - a bomb location to take photographs of people dead and dying. It's all rather morbid.

However, Golden Cock award of the day however does go to me, for saying "but the cars lights are all on!".

I swear to god I'm beginning to get stupider.

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An Open Letter to Relations (and a note to everybody else)

2006-12-03T13:09:00.000Z

First off, for everybody else: I've started writing Christmas Cards, so if you want one (can be anywhere in the world), drop me an e-mail with your address on, and I'll send one out to you.

Right, onto the relatives.

Dear Relatives,

Hello! I know you all read it! Thankfully, both my mum and my dad are both wanabee marketers and have told all of you about this site, and I know you read it! As such, be it that I entertain you at work, a launchpad for your own websites, or just your favourite little Welshman. I bet you're wondering what to get your favourite relative for Christmas.

Well, worry no more, as I'll tell you!

First and foremost - for those who want to make me really happy - here's my Amazon Wishlist. Full of all sorts of electronic and literal masterpieces. One word of warning, if you are going to use this method, please don't do what my mate did and ordered his christmas present via the Amazon search box on the left. Seriously. It spoilt the suprise!

Worried about spending too much money on me? Don't worry! There's this brilliant website which I use called Freefivers, which earns you cashback should you buy something online. Okay, it isn't much, and it's not going to make you a millionaire, but I use it and I must've saved about, what, £50 so far? I opened it in March. May as well!

Okay, you want to get me something edible or drinkable? Fine. That's cool too. I have completely gone of Lager and realised that it is the piss flavoured water that it truly is. Instead, I prefer ales - Boddingtons being my favourite. Also, I've become a bit of a coinneseur with real ales, so get me them. Just don't get me anything that tastes like antifreeze.

Food wise I prefer Miniture Heroes to Celebrations, and not a huge fan of overly salty snacks.

Hope that's some help to you dim and distant relatives.

Merry Christmas!

Rhys (your favourite Grandson, nephew, hanger on).

Right, normal service will be resumed tomorrow. This weekend has been rather fun, but more about it tomorrow!

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Dodgy Package, Dodgy Shirt, Do Dah! Do Dah!

2006-12-02T10:17:00.000Z

Oh thank god!

It came in the post this morning, so either the package at the post office is my train tickets, or it is mum's memory card. All I can say is I can sleep easier.

It's been a distrubingly productive Saturday Morning for Wales' favourite blogger. It's been mental, and everything has gone well. Amazing how a Galaxy Truffle in your advent calendar can make a day seem good. I've even managed to have a good chuckle at the same time.

Take this example. This time next weekend I will be with the gorgeous Hannah down in Canterbury. Amongst the weekend's festivities is her mate's birthday on the saturday. For it, they have decided to go to the Venue (Kent Uni's Student Union), in what will be a School Disco night. Now I have been told that if I go as Minietta, I will be left in Canterbury's bustling Red Light District, which is a bugger - as the only "school univform" I have is a tight (lot tighter than that photo) shirt that excuentate my unnattural 42FFF Breasts which can be barely contained in my emerald 38B bra. Socks are wonderful things. I also have a disturbingly short knee length skirt.

So, I had to find man uniform. Luckily, I have a pair of grey trousers which I may or may not modify into trouser shorts (it is December mind you), but the shirt was a problem. After much pre-Han-waking-up rummaging (to be honest, the only time I ever get anything done, stupid sexy distractor), I found an old M & S shirt that fits pretty much perfectly. On closer inspection of the tabs, I found this label on it....

Genius! I know the quality of parenting has gone downhill, but surely even the shittest of Chav Mothers of 12 will know that you should NOT put Children into fires?

I worry about this country. I really, really do.

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5pm-6pm

2006-12-01T23:48:00.000Z

There are hours that are testing times, adrenalin, emotion and other words ending in "n" kick in, to help you get through them. Largely they come at once a year, and can hit you for six. Today, between the hour of 5pm and 6pm, my life seemed to come crashing down. One humourous, one not so humourous.

The first the not so humourous. Dad on one of his extra duties of delivering compost to customers, cracked his head open on the boot (trunk to all you yankenites out there) of his car. Luckily, he wasn't far from the hospital (which not that long ago was due to be shut down, luckily it was saved), so he drove there, got stiched up, and - although he's not allowed to drive a vehicle - he's alright now. He does worry me at times as he works far too hard considering he could probably retire now, but that's the Wynne gene. Luckily, I have a mutated form of the Spence "work hard and play hard" gene, which just makes me bone idle. I must be adopted.

It is worrying however, as I was simply told "Dad's gone to hospital". That got me worried and also made me break open the Jack Daniels.

However, no disrespect to my dad, but there is something a lot worse.

I've ordered a couple of things in the past week - one of which is train tickets to see the Gorgeous Han next Friday. The other is an item that - for reasons that my mum reads this blog - I can't say what it is. Both items are in my name, however I got a suprise today when mum finished work....

"There's a parcel waiting for us in the post office"

Oh shit, I really don't want to pick it up with my mum there.

"We should go now, both of us, to pick it up."

As harsh at it may sound, It was almost a relief when Aled rang to say Dad suffered a minor accident. Gave me time to think. Until the dinner table, that is.

"Rhys, I understand that you're going to watch Colwyn Bay tomorrow, do you want me to pick up this parcel?"

I swear to god I hope it's the train tickets.....

James Bone: Casino Royale Review

2006-12-01T13:23:00.000Z

On Monday night me and a few of my friends went to see Casino Royale, the latest in the series of Bond films. I love James Bond films, romanticising the life Bond leads, and this film continues the trend - and it is rather good. However, I wouldn't quite go as far as "the best film ever" as some of my mates call it. I'm not going to spoil the film if you haven't seen it (I do suggest you do, it is pretty good), but here are some notible points. Some of it is whitened out, highlight it to see the spoilers.

We loved the poker scenes - with one of my non poker playing mates saying "I see why you enjoy playing it, it is rather exciting", however I only wish I was that good at calling hands as I was in the cinema. Predicted the result of every hand.
One scene I didn't like was when Bond is poisoned and suffers a cardiac arrest. Having the heartbeat played over the speakers unnerved me, though I do not like heartbeats - ever since I went into hospital with heart palputations. A little bit uncomfortable watching it.
Another scene that made me uncomfortable (though I wasn't alone) was the chair torture scene. Though I suspect I wasn't alone.
The line "It's amazing what you can do these days with Photoshop" made me chuckle. Yes I'm a geek.
It was untypical bond in that it was a lot darker than previous affairs, it was far more believable too, with Daniel Craig appearing hurt every now and again (I cannot remember the last time that a Bond was injured for the sake of injury, rather than continue the storyline). Everybody said that it was darker, but I didn't expect it with the first scene featuring an amazing fight on a construction yard, but it did get a lot darker. Which I'm not 100% sold on. I like that perplexing gadgets in miniscule form, I like the cars that can be driven on two wheels, I like the women who can crush you with their thighs. I dunno though, we shall see with the next one.

The other thing I really didn't like was the ending. It just sort of...well....ended. Sure, it leaves the possibility of a sequel open. But I would of prefered it if they dragged out the 2nd to last scene a bit more. I suppose they didn't want a tragic ending. But seriously, I'd watch it, it is rather good.

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Firefox to Paypal: You Fraud!

2006-11-29T10:21:00.000Z

Forgive me for being a big dirty fanboy, but Firefox is amazing, no doubt about it. I had my brother come upto me and say that the Script Kiddies in his class thought IE7 was better "because it has tabs". I promptly disowned him.

However, it does have it's moments.

Cue the anti phishing device. A email from e-bay perked my interest, I clicked on the link (paypalchristmas.co.uk), and the Firefox anti-phishing device kicked in.

Oooh, nice of Firefox to protect me, but there's one problem - the site is legit.

I've fired off an e-mail to paypal, enquiring about it, and I don't blame Firefox - after all, it's better to be safe than sorry. But it has amused me greatly. How does Firefox decide what is phishing and what isn't? Is it user based? There's a button underneath the "Ignore this Warning" which has the words "this site isn't phishing", is there a way of saying that a site is phishing? If there is, what's there to stop 100's of Firefox fanboys going to, say, Amazon and saying that it is a phishing site?

Now that - whilst bad for Amazon - would be rather impressive.*

* I cannot be held responsible should Amazon go out of business overnight....

EDIT: Just got this e-mail from Paypal, just to be sure.

Dear Rhys Wynne,

Thank you for contacting PayPal in relation to a Christmas Promotion that we have in place at the moment.

I can confirm Mr. Wynne, that this is an official PayPal email and web address.

[Promotional Blurb Here]

Sincerely,
Laura
Resolution Services Department
PayPal, an eBay Company

So there you go!

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GATR Christmas 2006 Underway! Bounty Exchange and Christmas Cards

2006-11-28T07:55:00.000Z

Friends, Bloggers, Countrymen. Remind me, just how bleeding old am I?

Yes, sandwiched between my CD ROM drive and a flag of the nation which is named after a fish with the biggest dick in the ocean is my 2006 Advent Calendar. I neglected one last yaer - and I lived to regret it, with a certain ex housemate of mine scoffing down Fimbles shaped chocolate last year. Made my shredded wheat most unappealing. Which leads me to this years advent calendar.

The more observant amongst you may see that it is a Celebrations Advent Calendar. The reason being is that it's cheap, and the only one left in the shop that didn't make me look like a peadophile walking around Colwyn Bay with it under my arm. Now, I'm sure you're wondering "ooh, I'll bet he list his chocolates in an order, with his least favourite at the bottom." And you'd be right. The official GATR League Table for Chocolate in Celebrations is: -

Galaxy Truffle
Teasers
Snickers
Galaxy
Topic
Mars
Galaxy Caramel
Milky Way
Bounty

I fucking hate Bounty, which is where you come in. Anybody want a Bounty Exchange? All offers considered. I will mail you my Bounty on the 27th December and you mail me your replacement chocolates too. 3 Bounties won't hurt the impending new year diet!

In other news, I'm reprising a tradition I did a few years ago - the annual GATR Christmas Card list! It's simple - email me with your address and I will send you a christmas card. I would like one back, so I will reply with my address, so you can send one. Do so and you'll feature on my "wall of fame", and be loved forever. I may even put you into my Big Red Book.

Of course, obvious people (such as Han, Guy, Sibley and Sarah) will get one. Tom (if you read this) I'd send you one, but I don't know which country on this god forsaken planet you'll be. So let me know!

28 Days to go!

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You'd Never Guess I Work In IT

2006-11-26T00:42:00.000Z

In my last post I suggested that I wanted to try Ubuntu, Yesterday, I:

Spent 8 hours downloading the iso file associated with it.

Borrowed a DVD drive from work.

Realised the DVD drvie wasn't a rewriter, so tried to attach Aled's 30 gig mp3 player to my computer - to transfer the file to the computer downstairs with a CD-RW

Didn't work, so found a program that splits files into "manageable chunks". Split iso into 4 files of around 180 MB each.

Used a 256MB flash disk to transfer the files across.

Burnt the disk.

Inserted it into the computer.

Only to find out I had downloaded the Mac Distribution.

On top of that, I fucked up my forum beyond repair, and neglected to keep any backups. Cue 3 hours restoring my forum to a usable state now from eons old backups.

In happier news - I'm seeing Han in less than two weeks! Her mates want to meet me, as so far to them I appear to be some sort of mythical sexual creation. I can hardly wait!

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The GATR Guide to Partitioning a Brand New Hard Drive Without A Boot Disk or CD Rom

2006-11-23T22:42:00.000Z

First a little introduction. I recently on a whim purchased a massive 160GB hard disk. It was actually dirt cheap (god bless work contacts), and so I didn't feel too guilty purchasing it. I had no idea what I'd use it for - my porn collection isn't as big as it used to be, so any ideas would be appreciative (was thinking about dual booting it with Ubuntu, so any Linux advice would be appreciative also). After a big BIOS message in red (which scared the shit out of me), I took out the behemoth, skype'd Han, who calmed me down from my "it's not working" blubbery state, told me exactly what to do, and mocked me for requiring a girl for his computer problems.

Lo and behold, she worked her magic tutorial skills on me, and it worked. In part. Plus point - my computer was starting up. Minus point - I couldn't use it because it was unformatted. Every single tutorial I found required either FDisk (something in Windows 2000 and below), or the XP boot disk (which I do have, however my CD-RW drive is screwed). Nothing on how to do it on a stand alone machine....until I found an unlikely source.

An old .net magazine.

Lo and behold, it worked! Now, as I couldn't find it online, I've taken the liberty to rewrite the article so that it can be here for time to come. Aren't I lovely? Here goes anyway.

1. Bring up the Control Panel, and click on "Administrative Tools"

2. Click on the shortcut icon to Computer Management. It should bring up the following screen.

3. Click on "Storage", then "Disk Management (Local)". The right side of the screen should look similar to this

4. One of the drives (the unformatted drive) should be unallocated (usually the disk1), right click on it and check "Initialize Disk"

5. Right-click the drive and click "New Partition". In the partition wizard you should be asked the Partition Type; specify primary, the partition size; specify the full drive capacity, the drive letter; specify the drive letter you wish to have the drive to be, and the format partition; specify NTFS or FAT32. I'm not going to bore you with the details of it, as if you are able to install a new hard drive, you should be able to know what I've just talked about.

RIght, sorry for the boring entry, but I imagine somebody would find it useful. My life however hasn't been much more blog worthy. I've been working, eating a lot, drinking very little and skyping with the Gorgeous Han all my days. Not exactly mile a minute living, is it?

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Dodgy E-mail and the Ashes

2006-11-22T23:57:00.000Z

Hey everybody, just a heads up. My e-mail is well and truly fucked at the moment, taking upto 6 hours to deliver an e-mail. Han's given me an earful on how I should use G-Mail as opposed to a POP box based e-mail, but I don't care! I like my POP box, it's ace.

Anyway, in light of my hormonal POP box, I'm pretty much stuck without e-mail for the time being. If you're desperate to get in contact with me, I really do suggest the forum - I do spend an obscene amount of time on there. We're currently undergoing a "Drive for America", after we realised we had none of our Atlantic friends on the board. So - this thanksgiving - why not sign up? It's rather strong community there at the moment, plus probably the best way of getting hold of me. Thanks.

Of course, you could also send me a myspace message or leave me a comment, as I check those regularly, however I'll probably be quicker to respond on the forum. Cheers.

In other news: The Ashes begins today! Lots of Connie bashing will be carried out over the next three days. Unfortunately, it's in Australia, so - at 10 to midnight UK time - we're nearly beginning the days play down under. If only I was a milkman, I'd watch it. Fucking Sky, promoting the "Ashes Live" - but then not saying "ooh, it's held in Australia, so you have to be nocturnal to watch it". Of course I knew this, but I'm sure a lot of people, swept up by the emotion of beating the Aussies and jumped on the bandwagon, didn't.

I'm just tired, and a little angry. I'll shut up now. I'm getting a new hard drive tomorrow! 160Gig!

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Blogging Research, The Ashes, Dentists, Forums and Mybloglog

2006-11-21T11:50:00.000Z

One thing over the last couple of weekends is that I have not stopped. Seriously, I have been so busy that I haven't had time to reflect over my last two weeks. What with London, Children in Need and the gorgeous Han taking up so much of my life, I've almost become reclusive, so that when I do get time with my mates and my blog I have so much to say, but not enough time to say it. So, this weekend it was rather nice doing fuck all. In fact, it was bliss. I've always been quite a lazy person, so having time to actually do nothing and not feel guilty is nice.

As a result, I managed to get a few things done. Which is what I'm going to talk about here.

First off, I got a new photo for the top of the blog. One thing I gathered during my "blogging research trip to London" (oh no! It wasn't just a holiday with meeting up with bloggers and eating pizza/hugging & kissing them, I worked on getting some Market Research!) was that both Celeste and Han said that the picture up the top right hand corner didn't do such a hunka burning welshman lurve such as myself justice. As such, me and Han managed to get a picture of myself in picadilly circus to use on this here blog. What do you think? One thing me and Han couldn't decide on (awww....our first falling out!) is the blue translucent layer over the picture. Do you think it adds (as I thought) or subtracts (Han's opinion) from the quality of the blog?

Secondly, I joined "Mybloglog", I got the link from that 92 year old blogger on Boing Boing. All I can say is it's a bit like myspace, but for bloggers and website authors. You can join communities linked to the blog, showing the support for sites. As a result, my profile is here, and my communites are here for this blog, here for rhyswynne.co.uk, here for the toplist and here for my forum.

Speaking of my forum, I have spent most of last night on Skype talking to Han. But whilst I was chatting away to her, I also found time to install some games on my forum! They're rather fun and have become a bit of a bragging rights for the community, as they save the high scores. So join up to play them, if you're bored!

Finally, tomorrow I'm off to the dentist for (hopefully) the last time in 6 months. God my teeth are fucked. I'm having to pay for it, but nevermind. Least I'm still NHS baby! Expect for me to be in sheer pain before the Ashes, which start on Thursday. It's the only sport where I (on a technicality) support England, so expect nothing but convict bashing and cricket for the next month or so. I apologise. Profusely.

Children In Need In Colwyn Bay: Or, as my mum said - "OMFG RONAN KEATING!!!!"

2006-11-18T20:14:00.000Z

Motorhead once sang a song called "A Short History of a Boring Town". He sung it about Colwyn Bay. To quote Del Amitri - "Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all". It's true though. I've had so much trouble adjusting to life back in Colwyn Bay from London. London was all go, go, go. Colwyn Bay - if life moved any slower - it would be going backwards.

So, imagine our thrill as a town when we realise that the Children in Need concert would be in Wales. We all discussed it in the pub: we didn't give a shit who was playing - we'd go even if the line up was Victoria Beckham, Paris Hilton and Des O'Connor. Turned out the line up was The Feeling, Jamelia, and Ronan Keating. An inoffensive line-up, as my mate said. Tickets were free. Which was good. I left work yesterday to be there early at the "Party for Pudsey" - officially the biggest thing to happen in Colwyn Bay since the Rhiw Road Riots in 1978.

It almost nearly didn't go ahead - high winds on Wednesday meant that the stage collapsed. Luckily, the BBC spread around a bit more taxpayers money to probably the world's most efficient builders to get the stage up and ready for Friday night. All these pictures (and more) are available on my Flickr Site

One thing that suprised us was that the lack of kids at the concert, sure there were a few - but the average age of the concert goers was late teens. At 7pm, during The Pippettes set, they went live on BBC, so we all had to watch the big screen as McFly performed, even the Pippetes, which looked rather surreal.

After The Pippettes left the stage, I manage to get a little bit forward, and The Feeling came on. They were the only band on the list I would've paid to see, they are brilliant. So I was bouncing away when they performed three of their songs: "Fill My Little World", "Never Be Lonely" and "I Love it When You Call (But You Never Call at All)". They then buggered off to do a concert in Liverpool, that's Hardcore.

I should also mention that there were 3 big acts, 1 major act (The Alarm) - who played a good handful of songs, and other artists who appeared. These included Cherry Lee Mewis (who I apparently went to school with), Elin Fflur (from Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch), The Pippettes, Will Martin and (I think) somebody else. But we'll concentrate on the main ones.

After a few videos from London of random pop acts I really didn't care much about, Jamelia came on next. My first reaction was "who?!?" (all R & B types kinda blend into one for me), but then she started singing, and my reaction was "oh yeah! Her." I actually don't mind her stuff (considering it's R & B).

Following Jamelia was the main singer: Ronan Keating. My mum's favourite (and Han's 4th favourite). The two compere guys warmed up the cold crowd with Mexican Waves before Ronan. Some of them didn't needing warming up. Bless them, we must've appeared to be an insane (in a bad way) rabble in North Wales. So - thank you Jordan from Old Colwyn for being a screaming chavvy fangirl and making us look like a bunch of complete and utter retards on national television.

Yes, myself and Ronan were on National TV. If you don't believe me, Han took a photo, and she claimed to have seen me. I doubt it though.

All in all, it was a good night. I rang my mum during "Iris" (as she did when she watched the Goo Goo Dolls), and she texted me to say it looked amazing. Considering I didn't really like any of the bands there....it was.

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I Went To London and All I Got.....

2006-11-16T17:36:00.000Z

I was actually feeling a bit depressed for Saturday, I awoke stupidly early at Guy's at around 7. I lay awake, thinking about how awesome this holiday was. I was with a good mate, and - well - I was thinking about something else. But we'll get onto that a little bit later on. It just felt like a different world down in London. I'm not sure if I was thinking "yes, this is where I want to be" as Celeste put it, but I was thinking "yes, I'd like to experience it more". Four days was just not enough.

Anyway, I got the train at 10 to meet Han. The nerves were replaced by a sense of happiness - Han really was fantastic company, and we got on so well. She even said her night out was canceled - so if I didn't screw it up, the opportunity was there for her to spend an evening in London - something she'd never done before. She said that Covent Garden is full of good restaurants and bars, with the opportunity then to take the second of my bunk beds in my room.

I admit, I was late - some Frenchie was being an arse and I also respectfully observed the two minute silence. I got a text off Han with two words - "BEAT CHOO!!", which just made me smile. We met in Waterloo, and headed to the Tate Modern. Now. I never told Han why I wanted to go there (she had no idea), so I let her in on the secret.....Slides!

She ~~quite cowardly~~ sacrificed her go on the slides to take a picture of yours truly...

It was fast, and it actually hurt my knee going down, my legs were to long to make the turn. As I was nursing an injury from the day before on my right knee, and the slide re-aggravated it.

After seeing the globe, and walking over the millennium bridge, I stole Han's virginity.....her Subway Virginity, that is! She paid for mine too! Though, I was skint, and I did pay her back as we headed for the Trocadero.

The Trocadero has the biggest amusement arcade in London, with some of the best games around. One of them I saw - I had to go on. Mario Kart Arcade. I've never seen it before! Not in Blackpool, not in Llandudno, not anywhere. I just had to play it. It also had extra characters in it from the Pac Man Universe. I was Pac Man, Han was Mario. Like the day before, I won.

Han then said I had to go and do a little bit of shopping. We went to Hamleys, the biggest toystore in London, which was fabulous. They had a Street Fighter 2 Machine for £2,800! Unfortunately, Han declined a challenge. There were far too many cool things in there, which makes this self confessed grown up re-discover his childhood. I took a picture of Han underneath a giraffe, which seemed to piss off a number of Londoners.

Obviously somebody had been dragged in.

We then went to the Apple Store, as Apple Han demanded I'd go there. They had free internet! Though it was too busy. It was one of those cool stores I heard about. Han wanted to buy the Sims, but she couldn't afford it.

Han wanted to show me Camden Market, which is North of the city. I'll be honest, it was like a gothic Eastenders, with lots of scary people dressed up. Some cool t-shirts though. We then found a ungothic cafe, and sat down for a tea/hot chocolate. She said that she would like to go to Covent Garden for a night out, so I said we should head back to my place to drop off my bag, before heading out.

Then what? Well, that story is between myself, Han and the pervy pigeons.

One thing I will say: we never did make it to Covent Garden.

Sunday I awoke early and rather rudely woke up Han. Fuck it, I wasn't going to see her for a while. May as well make use of the little known 7am-8am hour. At around 10, I kissed her goodbye from Waterloo, and prepared for my hugely long journey home.

I admit - it won't be easy being far away from each other. However we do speak loads (we've now progressed onto Skype. It sounds odd but it felt like she was in the room with me!), I'm chuffed to bits with what's happened - Han truly is fabulous. I'm going to Canterbury in Decembertime sometime to see her (and a few of the sights). I've pencilled in a long weekend away from work to see her, and I cannot fricking wait.

Selective Amnesia

2006-11-15T18:33:00.000Z

Despite having a restless night (I was above the bar and Aussies doing bad kareoke is a horrible thing), I was suprisingly awake for somebody who had zero sleep. Probably because I was meeting Han at South Kensington.

I was almost sick with exctiement as we were going to the Game On exhibition, to play a stupid amount of video games. It was cheap, a lot of fun. I even set the highest score of the exhibition on Street Fighter 2.

Han fancied her chances against me, and - due to a mild case of amnesia. I can't remember the outcome of the Ken vs. Chun Li match.

After about 2 hours of video games and me instigating a major beating on Mario Kart, Han and I plotted to find a Chinese that she liked off Leicester Square. We got the underground to Trafalgar and took a few photos which would've been amazing, if some random woman hadn't spoilt it.

After a little bit of searching we found the Chinese (which future reference Han, it's Lido now don't ever forget the name of it again! Or bookmark this page!), the searching was made worse by the fact I was crippled in one leg, but the chinese made up for it.

I'm generally used to "all you can eat" chinese, but this was different. Kind of like a mini all you can eat.....you order a rice and a couple of dishes and share. It was all rather confusing for the country bumpkin so I followed Han's lead. Itwas good food, great company and pretty cheap too! After a quick sit down in Leicester square we said our goodbye and headed for a night in Marlow with Guy.

Now, I've never been to Guy's house, but I was made to feel welcome by his whole family, especially Toby - his gorgeous dog.

I was fed, and his mum and sister was preparing for neighbourly get together. I kinda camped out in Guy's room with a bag of crisps, some fine Rebellion Ale, and a PS2 controller. After a few games with a 10 year old at Pro Evo (which I cannot remember the score, damn amnesia) I went to find Guy. He was speaking to a very sporting gentleman who used a phrase you don't hear everyday : "I'm not going to the rugby, as my horse is racing tomorrow". We said our goodbyes and headed to Marlow for a night out.

Whilst it was nice catching up with Guy, it was rather unspectacular night amongst the rather older inhabitants of Moarlow, we headed home about 1, whereby I headed to bed, to prepare for another day with Han, and the final day of my holiday.

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Pizza, Blogmeets and More Rude Waitresses

2006-11-14T08:42:00.000Z

"The highlight of my trip to Laaahndaaan was meeting Celeste. She is great. I thinks he is the fittest girl I have ever seen - wow. I think there should be a town in Wales re-named to 'Celeste' in some megre attempt to pay tribute to the wonderfulness that is Celeste!"
- Celeste, last Thursday, My blog notepad

I agreed to met Celeste for some Pizza and soft drinks, I was getting more and more comfortable with the underground, so I braved something that shouldn't be attempted by anybody, especially a country bumpkin such as myself: rush hour. I was only going a few stops and managed - somehow - to get a seat. I was early, as I managed to find the restaurant so easily. Celeste was right, it really was next to the station.

I stood outside which seemingly pissed off a number of Londoners and a guy tried to hand me a free paper, three times. I politely refused thrice, and waited.

Whilst waiting I saw a petite blonde that could've been her - the half light made it difficult to see. Instead of walking over and making a tit of myself if it wasn't her, I'd send a fairly safe text to her, to see if it was her. Lo and behold she took her phone out of her bag and read a text! I walked over to say hi when I realised....it wasn't her.

The official Celseste arrived about a minute later. She's just as bubbily and happy as she appears in recent blogs. We got a seat upstairs and waited to be served.

We got served by this Aussie waiteress. Now, I'm perculiar with my soft drink in that I can't drink fruit juices - they're too sweet. So I ask for a orange J20, watered down with soda water. Now, for a bright button such as Celeste it's fairly easy to comprehend what I want. Not so our Shiela. She made a few jokes about it which I suppose were designed to come accross as welcoming but instead came accross as offensive. It affected her tip.

The company was fantastic though, I've never been to Pizza Express, and eating pizza with a knife and fork is very alien to this northerner. However, we talked about all sorts: blogging, London, rugby and boobs. I think I ermbarrassed myself by saying rather loudly "LOOK AT MY BLACK NIPPLE HAIR! DOES THAT MAKE YOU HORNY BABY?!?!". Luckily, Celsete didn't get up and leave me to foot the bill, she found it amusing, which is good.

Celsete, the busy HR dynamo she was, had to run, so we took a picture. We were at Liverpool Street Station, and didn't fancy stopping some commuters to take a picture of us, so a Myspace angle jobby was necessary.

We tried again.

I looked like a pervert in one, and fat in the other. Boo myspace angles, boo them!

Right, Han has been annoying me for the last couple of days, saying "when you're going to talk about me?" She hasn't read or seen this entry yet, so I can imagine she won't be best pleased with it. Next two days will be Han, with side note on London. Trust me, the next two days will explain why London was such a good holiday. You - honest to god - don't want to miss it!

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Thursday....could've been 9/11 (British 9/11)

2006-11-13T23:03:00.000Z

Thursday was set aside for "get the touristy shite out of the way": see London's most beautiful sights, such as Big Ben, St Paul's Cathedral and Celeste before my 2 day excursion with Han. It was just by chance I stumbled upon a "free walking tour" of London. I also met a couple of Aussies who became friends during my stay.

The walking tour was very nice - I'm not going to bore you with the details and pictures you've seen a million times before, but I will tell you a couple of stories. All of the pictres from the holiday (including the touristy ones) are avialable on my flickr site. Go there and comment!

Three general observations about London:-

It's not as expensive as I thought.

It's not as busy as I thought.

It's not as racially diverse as I thought.

Don't get me wrong - it is all those things. I just expected to not being able to move in a multicultral sea of people whilst queueing for a sandwich that'd cost the earth.

Also, our American tour guide was a legend. The second American (behind MrManuel) to like football. Not the poxy padded wank-ball the yanks play, oh no, proper football! He was knowledgeable, calling Arsenal's (his team, I can hear Guy grinding his teeth in sheer anger all the way in Marlow) "Ashburton Grove", it's proper name. He called Ashley Cole a "wanker" (I love it when Yanks use that word) and thnking Alan Pardew's celebration was "total bollocks".

Outside St. James' Palace we goot our photo taken with one of the famous London Guards. It was not the trational one with the fluffy hat, but we did have a rather impressive sword. What wasn't impressive was his face, he looked about 12! Bless him, he was a babyfaced assassin

We then went along Whitehall, saw Downing Street and Westminster. Now the cops there scared me with their massive guns,but I tried to ignore it. I did have something to worry about.

From our vantage point, it appearaed as if a blimp was heading to crash into Big Ben. It wasn't just us, two RAF helicopters were watching it closely. It got close.

Very close...

But it thankfully missed, and the helicopters returned to base. In Britian, we list our dates as day, then month. The date on Thursday was November 9th, which - if it did hit - it would've been 9/11. Freaky!

What was freaky too was the whole culture shock. The talk on Westminster was about Guy Fawkes night, which nobody else knew. Odd to be around people that had no idea on Guy Fawkes Night.

It was a cool day. I met a few people who were staying in our hostel who became friends over the next few days, but I left them to look at Buckingham Palace (we skipped it because the toure guide said it was "crap", according to my hostel buddies, he was right), I had to scoot....I had a date with Celeste!

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Back From London Town

2006-11-12T21:56:00.000Z

Rhys Note:Hey everybody! I have come back from a thoroughly enjoyable holiday. There are hundreds of stories to tell, and I will share some tales on this here blog, not everything I will tell - I forgotten things, and also there are some things I really don't want to share. However, I have kept a notepad for the past 5 days, there will be guest entries from Celeste and Han. This holiday was a crap start, developing - getting better and better - until a very very brilliant Saturday night. Got you interested? Damn straight. Here is Wednesday's entry.

I arrived in London at around 2pm. I was slightly early, but check in at the hostel was no problem. I'll be honest, my room was...rustic. If the walls were a shade of white, I would think it was a prison cell. I was hungry and so I walked to Weatherspoons at the end of my road for some food.

When I went to the bar (like I assumed you'd do in Weathers) to order, I was shunned "Be seated" said the Spanish waitress "Don't you know anything? We offer a waitress service here!" After the food (which had a bitter aftertaste to the rudeness of the woman), I returned to my room, and used my time effectively, by sleeping for a few hours.

I was awoken by Guy ringing me - he was in Londn for the Chelsea vs.Villa game, and wondering if I'd come for a few pre-match pints. I'd have to get over my fear of the underground, and fast.

Luckily, I did. My first trip was short, a few stops to Paddington, then longer trip to Fulham I was with Guy. I got refused from the first pub we went into (two refusals to serve alcohol within a week....not good!), but we did find a pub. Unfortunately for Guy, it was full of Villa fans. I spent only 15 minutes with them, but I already reckon they're the most welcoming fans in the premiership.

After my 15 minutes of life as a Villian, I returned to the hostel bar. I'll be honest, it was a bit like my penis - a lot bigger on the internet than in real life. Nevertheless, they weren't showing the Liverpool vs. Birmingham game (heathens), so instead I wedged myself beside the pool table - and waited for somebody to talk to me.

It was there I noticed something, every single racial stereotype is true! To quote Avenue Q: "Racial jokes appear uncouth, but you laugh because they're based on truth.". The Aussies and the South Africans spend all day drinking, smoking and doing "nudie runs". The Dutch are a bunch of perverts, Asian women throw off the shackles of supression making the Asian men uncomfortable (think of the relationship between Sun and Yin from Lost season 1) and nobody likes the French. So, in this international hotbed of activity, did I make any friends in far off places?

Well.....there's Dave. He's 33, a bricklayer, from Manchester.

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The GATR guide to Confusing Londoners

2006-11-10T09:38:00.000Z

Yes, I'm blogging on my holiday. It's rather cool holiday, but I'll explain more when I get back. I will share on thing you Londoners can try to confuse your fellow citysmen.

London has two free newspapers, thelondonpaper and London Lite. Both these papers are thrusted on you during the day (read Scaryduck's perception of them....it is based on fact) and are light reads. To find out more about the papers, read Diamond Geezer's views on the paper here. Now, this is for people who have a backpack, so it helps, and it takes two days.

First day. Do nothing - just obtain a paper from a purple fleeced impregnator. It's not hard. I got asked three times if I wanted one whilst waiting for Celeste, by the same guy. Keep the paper, instead of littering the tube.

Second day. Take said paper out in the tube and read it. People give you funny looks - ranging from confusion, to anger, to jealousy. Seems to be a recurring theme I found in London, everybody else's paper is more interesting than yours.

So, in that respect, I'm launching a campaign to confuse as many Londoners as possible. Send me your pictures of you achieving this feat to the usual address, entitled "I confused the shit out of a suicide bomber".

Right, I'm off to meet Han now. Is it wrong to say that I'm horribly excited for today?

Ready To Go

2006-11-07T19:30:00.000Z

Thanks again for all your comments and e-mails, I'm no longer going on this holiday completely clueless of our nation's capital. I'm still not sure of the exact plan, but fuck it - I'll decide when I get there! I have finished packing as you can see from the image below.

Yes! It took me most of today, but I'm ready for my 4 day trip to the big smoke. Well, kinda. You see, I have been struck down with a cold that won't seem to budge. I will probably spend most of my week therefore infecting as many Londoners as possible with Welsh Germs (which, contrary to Han's belief, did not originate from sheep). Fucking typical, I tell thee.

Fingers crossed I'll shake it, however I'm sure come Sunday I'll have stories to tell! In the meantime, here's a list of things you can do, should you miss me....

Join My Forum!: I'm serious you guys, I fear for the place now that I'm gone. It's been doing so well recently. Alas, I fear that it will die flat on it's arse over the next few days with me not around. Don't let that happen. It is rather fun there.

Join My Toplist: However my toplist has been very strong lately, with excellent blogs joining and contributing. Feel free to join yourself, and see where you rank overall!

Have a goosey's at my myspace! I've put a video up of Jim Jeferries, the guy I saw a week or so ago. It is only short, but it is very very funny. Go se!

Start up a fake blog pretend to be written by me: If you do do that, give me the link. I want to see.

Cry. A lot.

Visit me in London. I won't be completely out of touch (I'm sure I.W.S. will kick in by Friday), so you can email me at the usual address if you fancy a spur of the moment trip to London. Especially Friday. Got fuck all going on friday.

So, without further ado, Big Smoke - Here I come!

See you Sunday....

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London Calling

2006-11-04T18:45:00.000Z

This is going to be my last entry for a little while, and it's not for sinister reasons.

On Wednesday I start my first holiday in two years, down to London. Yes, I still haven't left the country, but considering all that I've been through in the last 12 months, I think getting away - even for 4 days - is still a horrendous achievement. What's nice is that by going now - not only is it cheap - but it's also slap bang in the middle of so many good exhibitions in London. There's the Game On exhibition, a fantastic exhibition in the Tate Modern consisting of nothing but Giant Slides, and the Christmas Lights are being switched on too! I'm meeting Han (who I'm going to the Game On with) and Celeste from blogging, plus also meeting up with Guy as well at one point.

However, there is one problem.

You see, with the exception of Han and Celeste (the former on Saturday, the latter after work on Thursday), I'm pretty much on my own, with no definitive plans. With Guy it's a case of "whenever you're free, I'm seeing you", but he has a job too. So, I can imagine for large parts of Thursday and Friday I'll be with myself, twiddling my thumbs, trying to find entertainment.

That's where you come in.

What do you recommend I do in London? Even want to do something crazy and meet me? I've got two days to fill and fancy some sort of "alternative" experience. Sure, I'll see Big Ben, Tower Bridge and the like, but fancy something a bit different. What do you recommend doing that's a little different? Remember I like sports, and not a big fan of traditional art galleries and museums. Also, the cheaper the better.

Right, that's your lot. It is my last entry for a while (until I reckon Wednesday morning, which will be a case of "wish me luck!"). I'll still be online. Check out my forum for me posting (and post a lot of good messages yourself, it's turning into a right goer), and I'm also playing around with my toplist, so join that too - I've been writing a few articles about blogging and SEO stuff, which you may find interesting. I've got a fantastic idea for a blog, but that can wait for when I return from me hols!

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Bonnie's New Clothes and Children in Need

2006-11-02T21:56:00.000Z

Some of you may rememberBonnie's Op a few weeks ago, whereby she had to wear a collar. We certainly do, and it was heartbreaking to see Bonnie in that state. However, my mum has knowingly and willingly put Bon through more emotional pain, and purchased her this.

"It'll keep her warm!" she said, "It'll stop her smelling like wet dog!" she said. "Bullshit", I said. At least the lampshade was fun as we could chip golf balls into it. What can we do with that? Bonnie looks like she's been subjected to a shopping trip with a Scottish Paris Hilton. Poor girl, you can see the dejection in her eyes.

In other news, in two weeks I'm going to a pop concert! Yes, Children in Need are holding their Wales concert in the atheletics track in Colwyn Bay, and apparently 10,000 people will turn up. 10,000 Bay people in one place cannot be good, hence that's why I've got 4 tickets. Currently announced is The Feeling (Cool), Ronan Keating (Crap) and Jamelia (Who?). But fuck it, it's free, and nothing happens around here anyway. I am the sort of person who sat through VIctoria Beckham and Richard Blackwood's concert, because it was free. Which leads me nicely on to the question of the day.

What would you go and see, if it was playing on your doorstep and it was free?

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Halloween

2006-11-01T13:04:00.000Z

Let it go on record that I hate Halloween.

It's something about it - the ASBO kids running around the estate blackmailing you into giving you treats (that line courtesy nicked from a poem by Sarah), the fact that all the way through university you were forced to go out and spend money on shit you throw away November 1st. The fact it signals the beginning of "Lets give over as much money as possible to consumerist crap", with masks, face paint and god knows what else selling like hot cakes.

A lot can be said for the costumes - in my day it was generally "Witches", "Vampires" and "Frankensteins" going around. Today it's scream masks (lazy fuckers), Pirates (why?) or whatever is popular on the telly. I give a damn about this non-entity of a holiday that's only one place up on the "Cliff Richard Scale of Holidays" than Earth Day. I mean seriously - if you have to work, it's not a holiday.

If I was king of the world (and here's hoping), I would make sure Halloween always falls on a Tuesday. Why? So I can go to the pub and watch the football. Thank the lord that last night - the mighty Colwyn Bay Super Blue Seagulls entertained Warrington Town in the cup.

Suprise suprise, we went 1-0 up just after half time, we were never in the game, but a flash of brilliance got us a goal. However, on the 86th minute of what was truly unwatchable football, a Warrington player chipped the keeper sending it to 1-1 and, worse of all, an extra 30 minutes of football. Colwyn Bay went behind on the stroke of half time in extra time, and ended up conceding another at the death to lose 3-1. To be honest, it was a meaningless game in a meaningless cup, so - whilst it would be nice to have a trophy - we weren't hugely concerned. Well, I wasn't.

I went home half an hour later than expected, and more than a little tipsy. Turns out that a storm prior to kick off had turned a number of Trick or Treaters away. Long story short - I've got a lot of Miniature Heroes to get through, result!

Question of the day: What is the best Halloween costume you've ever seen?

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Never Meet Your Crushes....

2006-10-31T09:22:00.000Z

When I was 13, I got my first real crush. I had to really, I was in the generation of Girl Power - and bands such as Spice Girls, All Saints and B*Witched meant that it was easy for a boy to become a man. However, none of the members of said bands stirred my early teenage giggleberries quite like Billie Piper.

I dunno, it was a hint of rebellious older teenager yet still lovely that caught my eye during her infectious (at the time, now I think it's vile) song "Because We Want To", as the years went by she slipped into an older age bracket, with naughty interviews in FHM whereby she revealed she was bi-sexual. As a overly virile 16 and a half year old, she was my dream girl. Slightly posh, minted, and partial to a bit of girl on girl action. However, around this time I started making friends with real girls, Billie knobbed a ginger and went on to appear in Dr. Who, and we went our separate ways.

Until Saturday.

Whilst myself, Guy and Zandr were walking down to town to help Zandr pick some clothes (though, like asking me for fashion advice is like asking Mahatma Gandhi to be your army general) - there was a large queue formed outside Waterstones. "Wonder who it could be?" we thought - and then (as we are gamblers) wagered. I said "oh, some kid had a Doctor Who book, so I reckon it'll be the guy who plays Dr. Who". Turns out it was Billie Piper, who - despite being only 2 years older than yours truly, had her autobiography out. At this point I said to my mates "I'm going to get a picture", so I peeled off and went into the shop.

At this point I'd like to explain something. Colwyn Bay is completely devoid of anybody that can be called a celebrity. If there are, they're usually in the Pen-Y-Bryn, whereby Welsh Legend Craig Morgan was in last week, as well as the brother of Colwyn Bay's defensive rock Neil Coverley. But apart from that, nobody really famous. Hell, by the fact that I walk the streets mean I'm probably the third most famous person you will see on Colwyn Bay's street at any one time (behind Richard Brunstom, and the guy who has a beard, never washes, draws porn and rides a bicycle). So, with the chance of seeing a real life celebrity and one of my crushes, I thought "fuck it", skipped the queue, and tried to take a quick picture.

By god you would of thought the Pope was in town. She had a bigger entourage than most rappers. However, using my previously unfounded skills as a paperazzi photogropher, I realised that if I stood on the stairs and took a photo down, I could bypass the bouncers and take a photo.

Or so I thought.

Turned out there was a plain clothed bouncer on the stairs, who made it his sole responsibility to ruin my photo.

That man ruined what love I had for Wiltshire's finest, and ruined a perfectly good blog article for you. I'm not one to complain, but one picture wasn't going to hurt anybody - it's not like I'm jumping around in her face and stuff. Christ, she was going to be there, just didn't see the point in queuing. In my opinion - asking for a footballer's or sportsman photo/autograph is rude, because they don't need to entertain the public for their success. Actors and certain other people in the public eye who need your support (providing your not too much of a dick) should be nice if you ask for a photo/autograph, because they're success is supported by people like yourself.

Actually, I suppose I should cut Billie some slack, I'm sure she wouldn't of mind if I got a quick - non intrusive snap of her on a shitty mobile. Oh no, the real sods are the profiteering bastards at Waterstones who have pissed me off twice within the last month (time #1 was when they took over Ottakers in Llandudno - which was ace - and made it shit). A bunch of wankers who are stifling british authors: think about it, if I got a clean shot of Billie, this entry would be so much better, alas - it's not.

So, in closing, even though I doubt she wrote a single word of it, you can buy Billie Piper's Book, I'm not going to stop you. However, for my sake, please don't buy it from Waterstones, they're utter cunts.

Question: if you wrote an autobiography, what would it be called? Bonus points for titles that are so ambiguous and vague you have no idea who it's by (as in Ms. Piper's book - "Growing Pains". Got fuck all to do with her. Better title would be "Because I Wanted To", in my opinion).

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Comedy Night In Liverpool Royal Court, Sexiness and Dominos Pizza

2006-10-30T08:35:00.000Z

I'm back from Liverpool on what must have been one of the best weekends this year. Saturday Night was brilliant, and it began at around 5:30, watching the football results come in and around the country.

We origianally planned to head to Weatherspoons for a spot of tea before the comedy, however we decided against it to have a Dominos. We forsaked it the night before instead going for the better value of Papa Johns. However, we realised the errors of our ways with the stodgy horrible pizza we got. Dominos is the king, and we tucked into the into the Tex-Mex and Pepperoni Passion pizzas, we were happy chappies.

After the Dominos, we headed out to the main event of the weekend - Comedy Night with Jim Jefferies. We saw Jim earlier this year and promised ourselves we'd go and see him should he ever be in Liverpool. After what seemed like an eternity, the show began.

A wierd disappoinment with the first act - Chris Cairns. Nothing against the guy, I've seen him before and he is hilarious, but truth be told I couldn't understand him! Maybe it was the obscene amount of boddingtons in the bloodstream, but I could not follow what he was saying. I think the main - almost disturbing reason - was that I've been out of Liverpool for 6 months, I'm once again not used to the accent. Shame, as everybody else in the audience was laughing, so meh - he was probably very good.

Second act was Duncan Oakley, boy - this was a treat. He had a guitar, which generally means that he'll be amazing, or he'll be shit. Luckily he was the former. It must be hard to do 90% of your routine in song (not just song, but constantly playing the guitar), but he pulled it off. To top it all off, he was better on the guitar than most band members of real rock bands. His version of "Wonderful Tonight" was brillaint.

Then came Jim Jeffries. Now, as much as it hurts me to say, he didn't have a good night. His humour - i feel - didn't connect with the whole audience. It did with me, Guy and Zandr - who was in tears all through the set. However, the bunch of gingers on their hen night (it's always a sad day whenever a ginger gets married before yourself) and the couple to the table left of us didn't find him funny. The table to the left of us actually got up and left - the Irish bird on it saying "I'm shocked and speechless". Humourless bitch - I take it she didn't appreciate the IRA Joke then.

As I said myself, Guy and Zandr found him amusing and, with Jim plugging signed copies of his new CD, we had to go and buy one. b3ta.com said a few weeks ago "Never meet celebrities, they are all cocks" - however, Jim (and Duncan who was also sat at the bar) seemed to really appreciaate that we liked the show. We got their Myspace details (how sad is that?!?!) and left. So, b3ta, semi-famous comedians are not cocks, which is more can be said about another celebrity. More on that story tomorrow.

At this point, I was planning to ring Ian, to find out where he was. However, my phone battery ran out, si I had to forsake meeting him - even though I promised I would. Ian - I am really, really sorry.

Instead, we went to a club called "Le Bateau". It's a bit off the beaten track, but boy is it gould. It's cheap, underground (which somehow makes clubs seem so much better), and played indie rock all night. Fabulous.

It was there I noticed something that I've never experienced before - female attention attention in clubs. Celeste noticed this herself, as have I last night. I never wanted to admit it as a fat bastard, but I'm happy to do so now. Losing 2 stone has made me feel and (according some girls last night) look - dare I say it - sexy.

Unless I am to continue my train ride home diet of Dr. Pepper and Haribo for the next two weeks, I'd like to issue a warning to all the ladies of London. Be prepared, this Welsh hunka burning love is coming to your town!

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Things I Love About The Internet

2006-10-27T08:18:00.000+01:00

Last 24 hours, the internet have produced two stories to make me chuckle. Here they are.

First - step up b3ta.com. Many people know the love I share for this amazing site. It is purile, sick, and offensive to all. By doing so, it appeals to a large proportion of the internet - who are purile, sick and offensive to all. However, they do also have a conscience - in that they cannot be bought.

Virgin Money wanted to start a Viral Ad Campaign. They contacted b3ta to say "open a weekly competition on what it would be like if you said 'yes' to everything, you can win X360's!". b3ta responded with "alright, but you must be pretty thick skinned". Virgin said "No worries, we're hip and cool and trendy, we can take a bit of stick.". So the compeition went ahead, b3tans stuck by their guns and instead of producing witty insights into what the world would be like, instead posted rather crude and funny creations such as this. Virgin then responded with "TAKE IT DOWN! CEASE AND DESIST! etc.", and the competition was pulled. Rob (the ginger guy getting weed on by Branson) put his version of events here, and it has been picked up by a few news sources already.

Second story surrounds the recently Nucleised North Korea. Deemed by some to be a terrorist threat, for our generation Kim Jong-Il is a comedic figure - especially with the likes of Team America. Step up Waxy.org, who has appeared to find online the Web portal for North Korea. Not wanting to go in there, but we can assume that this is the only website that North Koreans can look on - and not have any other websites the people can access.

So, step up Fark.com, which linked to the website. As such - the website suffered a slashdot effect, making it almost completely unusable (as you could probably tell - it's so slow). Fark is famous for taking down sites that can't handle it's bandwidth. It's a different thing taking down an entire nation's webspace. Hey, if it starts a revolution because people can't access email, then by god, we'll take credit for it!

Right, not going to be here for a few days, as I'm off to Liverpool for a bit. This week has been a bit poo, and I'm feeling a bit low, hopefully I can pick myself up with a night of comedy, dominos pizza and the company of two good mates, I'll be able to pick myself up again. Leave me nice messages on the forum guys!

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Firefox 2.0

2006-10-25T08:36:00.000+01:00

So, today is when us normal people get our grubby mitts on Firefox 2.0. It was released at 0100 GMT, which means - like boxing matches, WWE PPV's and World Cups in shitty part of the world that don't care too much about football (some people exluded), we had to stay up late to install it.

Except I didn't. In fact, I've been playing with it for a few days thank you very much Han and Life Hacker. Of course, if you were a member of the awesome forum, you too could of been playing with Firefox two days ago, like myself! But you weren't. Tough poopies! You'll have to join up so that whenever news breaks, you'll hear it there first.

Anyway, what has changed? Well, the first thing that strikes you is the new tabbing method. Instead of an "X" on the far corner, each individual tab has an "X" on it. Sure, I had a plugin that did that, but it seems much better implemented, on the new chrome toolbars.

Apart from that, I didn't really find many differences initially, but this is what I love about Firefox: to begin with, there aren't many differences. However, give it time, and you'll notice things which make you go "oh, cool!". Han noticed the Spell Checker, I noticed the "Reopen Recent Tabs", and the ease you can add search engines to the search bar (visit said search engine, click "add to search bar", and you're laughing). The manufacturers say "oh, it has amazing RSS and Phishing Pheatures", though I rarely use an RSS reader and I don't make time to go to Phishing sites.

Problems? Well, I don't really like one of the features. It sounds okay in principle - the fact that should you shut down your browser unexpectedly (ie. ctrl+alt+del), then you can restart with all your old windows open. The problem exists that shutting down the PC with Firefox open (something I regularly do). As a result, the next time I open Firefox it re-opens all my old windows. Now, you may say that's all well and good, but often I don't like having the windows I have open at night the first thing in the morning, especially if the last thing I look at is b3ta.com, and it's in the middle of the gayshift.

Late last night, I remembered something - that I subscribed to World Firefox Day by getting my mum to use it. One of the things that came with subscribing to World Firefox Day was to have your name in Release 2.0! I found out how to access the names....

Bollocks! It's in alphabetical order....okay, I'll have to wait.

Hehe....Sherman Dickman!

What? How gay is that? Why am I not in there?! Boo Firefox. Boo you Firefox! And boo the boat you sailed in on! You are lucky that IE is a big pile of donkey semen, otherwise I would of seriously considered switching!

Anyway, to get firefox 2.0, you can download it from this address. Do it now.

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Fishes in Buns, Wynne Ale Brewery and rhyswynne.co.uk

2006-10-24T08:28:00.000+01:00

Saturday was particularly good day for me, and not because of usual weekend japes. Oh no. After a night of drinking and no hangover (god bless real ales), me and my mum decided to head into Llandudno for a bit of shopping and a spot of lunch.

After a fairly successful trip to the amusement arcade on the promenade, I was a whopping £15 up. Being a gentle soul I treated my mum to lunch (she insisted on going Dutch later), in Fortes. "I like it here", mum said, "the portions are huge, and well presented". After seeing the Ploughman's Lunch (which we dubbed "A Ploughmen's Lunch", because no way 1 man should eat it), we decided to play on the safe side - Mum with a mushroom omlette, myself with "Fish In A Bun" a seside alternative to "Chicken In A Bun". I was expecting a McDonald's style "Fillet O Fish", though with real fish as opposed to shredded newspaper in it. I got something very different.

That my friend is a fish. The fact it dwarfs the bun knows that it comes from the sea. No newspaper shaped like that my friends. The tartare sauce was nice and chunky too. However, I did the very sensible thing - take the fish out, and had a chip butty with the fish on the side. Was rather nice.

It was there that I had one of my passionate revelations. I occasionally get these once about every 6 months, whereby I have to follow up with achieving it. They come like a flash and I have to follow them through. Half way through my fish in a bun/chip butty, I looked at my mum, and said what I say when I have my revelations.

"Mum. I need to brew some beer!"

I've decided I want to do as much as possible. Being at home limits certain opportunities, but brewing my own beer is one thing I'd like to do. After asking Ally for some excellent advice, I made a few purchases, and will hopefully be brewing fine ales to drink at my leisure. This purchase has - what I will discribe - as being a "Goz Purchase" (only certain people will understand that phrase), and I can see myself dragging the keg around to events for us to drink. It works out at about 40p a pint of fine ale, but I'm not starting the brewing process until I get back from holiday. Hopefully, if the readymix turns out alright, I'm going to do it from scratch. I'm still willing to take some more advice, anybody want to give me any assistance/encouragement?

Finally, I spent a portion of my weekend updating rhyswynne.co.uk, especially the front page, which includes up to date information from the forum amd the toplist, but now I think the homepage is a bit too texty. What do you people think? Would a generic picture add or detract from the site at the top? I think it wouldn't but Han thinks it would. EDIT: It looks crap in IE6. I will fix it later tonight...

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It's Coming: TV Cards, Xbox 360 and Smoothie Makers

2006-10-23T13:19:00.000+01:00

I'm 22, had a few girlfriends and done things that my parents wouldn't approve of, or indeed know about. I have a full time job, an ISA and a degree. I watch adult documentaries on cars and nazis, whilst still having a liking for cartoons. I enjoy piece and quiet, tea, and vegetables. I haven't been refused a drink in the pub in about 3 years, and I've yet to be refused a credit card, or entry into an 18 movie. I have a credit card.

I am, on all accounts, not a child.

So, imagine a little bit of horror when my mum said to me "Rhys, what do you want for Christmas?".

I'll be honest, I have no idea what I want Santa to pull from his sack for me. Last two christmases have been great. The reason being is that my mum has only had to catered for five of us, as opposed to 25 previous years. We wake up, have breakfast, open a few presents and generally eat, drink and be merry. We head off to the pub at midday, get nicely toasted on beer, before returning for some food. We then fall asleep on the couch in front of a movie, and drink, eat and merry more until late at night. Presents, by and large, aren't important for me. It is the day that is important.

So this got me thinking, what do I want for Christmas? I did want something - but that went out of the window this weekend (I will explain more tomorrow, or ask Ally, she knows what I bought). If money was no object, I'd get an XBox 360. We've got a HDTV and Router in the lounge, and mum has said she would happily accommodate it downstairs. Pro Evo 6 looks awesome on it, and it doesn't seem as stupid as the PS3 (in that it's under £500). However, I'm realistic. The only person who would splash out for a X360 would be me. Mum could not afford it.

I suppose i'd like a TV Card for my PC. I'd like one that can pick up freeview, the only problem would be aerial from it. I won't have access to the main aerial, only a little portable one. Will that be good enough to pick it up, or not?

The second thing is a smoothie maker. It will balance out my other invested interest that I mentioned above. I had a banana and mango smoothie on Saturday, and it was very nice. They're not too expensive (from from £24 on Amazon), go with my health kick I'm on at the moment, and could do me the world a good.

So, readers. It's 62 days until Christmas. What do you want Santa to leave you?

We Want A Refund!

2006-10-21T11:19:00.000+01:00

This week hasn't been too good a week. I've visited the doctors, the dentist and the vet all in a space of a week. All are pretty minor stuff, but the vet is what I want to talk about.

We spayed bonnie.

I did mention it in what my many millions and millions of fans have called the worst post ever (Sibley: I assumed they wanted mundane, so I gave them mundane. HB: I spelt "thought" correctly in the proper post, just didn't change it here), but I'll go into gory detail here. She had her womb ripped out, stitched up, and she became drowsy with a lampshade on her head.

"Awww", everybody said, "She's tired!". We wish she was still drowsy.

You see, Bonnie loves light and reflection, she is fascinated by it. If the light catches my belt buckle, or she knocks my optical mouse over exposing the innards, she stares at the wall for days. As I speak, it's a fairly bright day, and the light has more than one occassion caught her collar, which generates a relection. As such, bonnie has spent her day doing circles, it's highly amusing, and I wish I had a video on my phone to show you, alas I don't. But she's not exactly been easy to control the last few days, and I have been trying to avoid touching her wound.

At least it's stopped the main problem of her humping pillows, right? Wrong. At 7pm last night, she was once again straddling the pillow, rubbing her bits on it like a big fluffy doggy dildo. "Awww!" dad said, "she's weed on the pillow again, I thought we were meant to stop this!"

Yes dad....'wee'.

Mum wasn't at first best pleased, screaming "I want it put back!" and "I want a refund!", but then she thought of the problems that bonnie's mother had with phantom pregnancies, and became philosophical - comparing bonnie's situation to a friends who had a hysterectomy.

"As my friend told me: When you have an hysterectomy, you take away the nursery, but leave the play ground"

I love my mum when she spurts gems like that...

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Just A Day: October 17th 2006 - One Day In History

2006-10-20T10:06:00.000+01:00

This blog was originally written for the One Day In History Project. As such, it's a little more patronising than my usual self, as I explain things that regular readers would be very familiar with. I apologise profusely, but I don't want the people of the future thinking I'm a sloppy writer, do I?

I awoke on Tuesday 17th October by the binmen, regular bin men this week, not the recyclable lot from a week ago. Beginning to wish we recyled every week, as the quiet recycling truck just stealthy drives along, as opposed to the flashing yellow light behemoth that is the bin lorry. Then I heard scratchings on my bedroom door, it was bonnie, my dog, wanting to wish me a good morning.

If only she knew what we were doing to her today.

Today, we were taking her in to be spayed, a simple operation that will leave her wombless. However, it does mean that she's groggy for the next few days - a sight I cannot bear.

An hour after waking, I got up, to go to my day job as a web designer. I'll be honest, it a was fairly uneventful day, and most of what we do we can't really speak about - history museum piece or not, I'm not losing my job. The big joy comes at 7:45pm in the evening, when I take myself off to the football. So, 5pm rolled around, and I headed home, where I was greeted by my impotent dog, groggy, with a lampshade over her neck, which stops her from chewing at the stitches, after a quick tea of sweet & sour chicken with rice, I put on my football shirt, and went to Llanelian Road.

Llanelian Road is the home ground of Colwyn Bay FC, my local football team. This game was promising to be something: three wins on the bounce, two groups of supporters with brand new flags, and the prospect of facing lowly Warrington Town meant that surely, we could make it four wins out of four?

We lost 2-0.

Dejected, I had a pint in the club house after the game. "Don't put this performance in your blog" they said, "don't want Colwyn Bay going down in history as a team that produces shocking performances on the pitch, because we're so much better than that.". I apologised, saying my blog is warts and all, and - it's what the museum would have wanted.

At 10pm I went home, and saw my dog again - she still had the lampshade and stitches, but she was a lot more awake, scoffing chicken. "So, my October 17th kinda sucked, but at least my dog is getting better", I thouhgt as I drifted off to sleep.

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Trip To Blackpool Photos

2006-10-19T18:52:00.000+01:00

Argh! Sorry for the lack of updates, been really busy with one thing and another. Was supposed to update last night, but unfortunately (for you) I got dragged to the pub to watch Chelskum vs. Bartha, I'm still quite busy at the moment, but as a peace offering, here are some pictures from my trip to Blackpool, with humourous captions:-

Staying at the service station, we saw this coach, and it amused me greatly. Elcock! Mum said I was immature.

We arrived at blackpool 40 minutes later, and met up with Sarah shortly after midday, we then took a stroll along the North Pier (which is the quiet one), which my mum thought was a good photo opportunity.

By this time, we'd been in a few arcades, and Mum won a dog - called Winston, so - chuffed to bits, she took a few photos with it.

We then had a bit of lunch (fish 'n' chips!), and then we headed onto the beach for a walk.

Myself with a donkey called Lennox, Sarah was sure it was a gay Donkey.

Yes, Lennox. It was such a chavvy name. Here is Lennox with Chelsea. Bah, Donkey naming has gone downhill.

Proof we are in Blackpool by the way.

We walked along the beach, and we saw the cutest thing ever.

Everybody say "AWWWW!!"

We then went on the Central Pier, whereby I had two goes on the dodgems for the price of one!

After a cheeky half at the end of the pier, Sarah had to love us and leave us, leaving myself and Mum to cruise the Illuminations alone. Those photos, and more, are available in my Flickr Album

British Bloggers Will Make History Tomorrow and rhyswynne.co.uk

2006-10-16T09:59:00.000+01:00

One of my life's dream is to be immortalised in some way, kind of like have something here that - when I'm gone - something of me remains. Sure, I've this ere blog, but should I pop my clogs tomorrow, it would be gone in March, when the hosting is due to expire. So, imagine my curiosity when this story popped up on Yahoo! News.

LONDON (AFP) - The details of a day in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Britons will reportedly be recorded and compiled into a digital time capsule that will be stored permanently at the British Library.

The "One Day in History" project, described as a "blog for the national record," will feature British celebrities such as actors Stephen Fry and Derek Jacobi, and the writer Bill Bryson contributing to the compilation, along with any Briton with access to the Internet who wants to participate, The Sunday Times reported.

Students and teachers at 29,000 schools have also been invited to join in the project, along with pupils at the Dubai British School, who will blog about expatriate life in the Middle East. Any Briton who logs on to the website www.historymatters.org.uk can also submit their own contribution.

Anyone who participates is asked to submit between 100 and 1,000 words about their day on Tuesday, in either English or Welsh -- the project was inspired by mass observation exercises conducted by sociologists through and since World War II to record the details of daily life.

"We want this day to have its own place in history and be a snapshot of everyday life at the beginning of the 21st century," said Fiona Reynolds, the director-general of the National Trust, which is organising the project.

This sounds like such a cool idea - hundreds of thousands of diary entries recorded for posterity tomorrow. Of course, the most exciting thing that is happening tomorrow is the mighty seagulls play Warrington Town, so the majority of the blog will focus around that. But still, british bloggers, will you be participating in this project?

It will probably be reposted on here, even though the link in the article doesn't work yet.

Oh, and incase you missed it, visit my new webpage: rhyswynne.co.uk, it contains my web design and programming work, a link to the toplist and also a link to the forum. If you spot any mistakes, please let me know.

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The Dentist, Bottle Caps and rhyswynne.co.uk

2006-10-14T00:03:00.000+01:00

People worry me, they really do.

As I told everybody on here - I was off to the dentist yesterday. Everybody who I've mentioned that I was having root canal work has said either "ouch" or winced. My mum did her usual fabulous job of reassuring me, saying "oh, after mine, it only hurt for a few days.". Cheers for that. So, imagine my apprehension as the dentist plunged a needle directly into my gums. Oh, and the reassuring line whist doing it: "This is just phase one of the treatment". Bollocks.

I got called back in 10 minutes later, my mouth numb. So begins the root canal work. Suprisingly, it was painless. I know I was smacked off my tits on anaestethic, but - whilst I gagged more times than a prostitiute - I wasn't in any pain. Sometimes even when I am high as a kite, I still feel pain. However, this would be just like when I had the filling at christmas - fine until the anaestethic wears off, then in horrible pain. However, unlike that Nightmare Before Christmas, I would prepare with enough ibuprofen to kill an elephant, but I'm crap at swallowing. I needed some water. Cue Highland Spring with one of the most ill thought out sports caps ever on a bottle.

I mean seriously, how the hell are you supposed to open that. In the end I bypassed the device that added 20p to the price of the thing, and drank the water. But I didn't need the ibuprofen, as I was in bearable pain. I know I mock and knock, but I really do have an awesomely good dentist. It's criminal that he's on the NHS, but I'm so happy he is. And he refuses to see chavs too, as they waste his time by cancelling all the time because they cannot be arsed getting out of bed.

In other news, I launched rhyswynne.co.uk today. Go check it out! It's nowhere near finished, but I feel it's got enough content to start promoting it. So, check it out and try and spot any glaring errors, you all know my address, but if you don't, just leave a post on the forum, or use the contact form, to say "Rhys, this part of the site is fucked!"

Right, I'm off to Blackpool in the morning to see the lovely Sarah. Pictures will be taken, and this time, I won't spend all my time in the arcades with Guy. Though that was an awesome day, and no mistake.

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Euro 2008, Wales vs. Cyprus. England vs. Croatia

2006-10-12T08:34:00.000+01:00

I feel I must owe my nation an apology.

As many of you know, I chose to watch Colwyn Bay instead of Wales on Saturday, and my post was less than complementary. Truth be told, I haven't seen any of the highlights from that game, just the result. My post probably reflected this. Some people who did watch the game were complimentary, and it's largely been echoed by a number of people saying "Give Toshack and Wales time, it's a young side. There will be good days soon".

Last night, was one of those good days

Wales dominated the first half, playing with passion and fire. Craig Bellamy looked unbelievably passionate and strong, Lewis Price did everything he asked for in goal, Koumas had a good game, Robinson was clinical, Davies played well. Everything just seem to get right. Our left back - Gareth Bale - is usually the talk of Wales games, because even at a young age he looks dangerous. He didn't get a mention in most write ups. That's not saying he played poorly, it's just how strong everybody else played. We only conceded a goal when we got complacent. But there were so many positives from the game (including ex Bay boy Craig Morgan's first cap for Wales - another strong performance), that we'll ignore that. Sure, detractors say "it's only Cyprus!". Well, they beat Ireland on Saturday 5-2. And Ireland are not a bad team. It's the Irish who we play next, so fingers crossed we get a good result. I doubt we will qualify for the Euros, but by god - being a Welsh football fan has once again made me happy.

The other thing that made me happy was another result. Okay, 2-0 was a fair result (the overpaid multimillionaires didn't look like they wanted to be there), but it should of been only one goal in the game. Have a look at the second goal, and laugh.

Certain things in this life get funnier the more you see them. That video is one of them.

Right, I'm off to the dentist. Expect a blog post tomorrow consisting of nothing but ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!

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Driving Tests, Mp3 Players and the new Renault Clio

2006-10-11T13:30:00.000+01:00

I've started getting junk mail. Lord knows where they get my details, but by and large it's for generally cool things like beer and Subways. Always nice when a card pops through the door from "The Sub Club" saying that I've got a free 6 inches of sandwichy goodness. However, this morning, this popped through the door, curteosy of Renault.

The market research department in Renault are brillint! First of all, I'm 22. Secondly, I'm skint. Thirdly, I can't drive! I am not qualified to drive the new Renault Clio because - well - I'm not qualified to drive anything!

Speaking of unqualified, Aled failed his driving test. He failed by hitting the kerb (something he's never done), and "Lack of Observation when pulling out" - something I've been guilty of in the past. I broke my Mp3 player too.

All in all, not a good week for the Wynne family, and I've got the pant-soiling dentist tomorrow. Join my forum to make me feel better.

Recycling, Councillors and Conwy

2006-10-10T11:30:00.000+01:00

Today marks the first delivary day in which we are forced to recycle. Well, we're not forced, it's just that our binmen only come once every two weeks. Every other week instead of a bin lorry we get a recycling lorry which (I think) is electric, and the binmen sort it into cans, paper and bottles.

I think it is a very good idea, and on my walk to work this morning, there were tons of metal, bottles and paper waiting to be recycled, I never realised we lived on a street with so many alcoholics! Sure, we're not going to save the world, but it's a quick and efficient and easy way to do our bit. My mum has transformed from a Daily Moan reading Conservative into a recycling mad enviromentalist conservative. She has really got into it, and we were discussing this a few weeks ago, and Mum came up with an idea.

"Why can't we have a few recycling bins up here? I mean. We have to go to either Rhos on Sea, Abergele or Mochdre to recycle our stuff. Surely if instead of getting in our gas guzzling cars, we could drop off a few bags a week when we walk our dogs, for example. There's a carpark outside the community centre that is never been full. Surely a few recycling bins, emptied every so often wouldn't go a miss, surely?"

What a brilliant idea.

My mum - being that sort of person to get on with things - wanted to pen a letter to the local council, but she didn't know who our councillor was. So she made a phone call to the council to find out.

Nobody there knew either.

I've been searching through the Conwy site and I'm just as confused. Nothing really says (I mean, I haven't looked really hard) that "Colwyn Heights people can write to this person to get recycling bins here".

I'm actually feeling quite passionate about this, and want to do something to the community - my mum's lost a bit of interest. I'll keep searching to see if there are any clues, but if anybody else wants to assist me, that would be brilliant.

EDIT: Haha, I'm so crap. 10 minutes after writing this, I found it. They have e-mail too. I'm going to write to them!

Mum, Goo Goo Dolls, Facebook and Norf Korea

2006-10-09T23:08:00.000+01:00

After the success of Mum & Dad's holiday to Belgium earlier on this year (I'm still drinking the beer they gave me as a present, damn it's good stuff), Mum has decided to bugger off again, this time to Nottingham, to stay with Rick where they will do all sorts of fun stuff. As we speak, my mum is bopping around to everybody's favourite One Hit Wonders: The Goo Goo Dolls (Controversial statement I know, but come on. Name one other song bar Iris without clicking on that link*). In her absence, I have once again be promoted to mother, with the rest of the family positions re-organised, with each family member taking up a tempory more important role. Aled has been promoted to "Older Brother", Bonnie's been promoted to "Younger Brother" and Dad has been promoted to "Dog".

Mum is not without her influence in her absence though. The notices have once again appeared on every single door. Giving instructions on what to do.

However, Mum does have more faith now. They were up about 3 months before she went last time, and she hasn't called me once yet, as opposed to the 20 million times she called me from Belgium (ironically, as I wrote that statement, she called me. She played me Iris down the phone. By god, it sounds like she's at the most conservative gig ever. No bloody noise!). So I must be doing something right.

In her absence, I've started up a Facebook account. Everybody is whinging at me to get one, so I did. I'm not sold on it, to be honest. It has some nice features - allowing you to import RSS feeds into your Facebook blog is something I wished Myspace did, and the Facebook game is quite amusing, and there are groups that promote my way of thinking. But by and large it just seems a little dry. Anyway, if you want to add me below is my facebook badge, promoting my excellent forum and my excellent toplist.

But yeah, as I said - Facebook I'm not liking. Sure Myspace is full of dicks, but Facebook is full of students, and students are by and large anti-war, which makes them pussies. Also Facebook don't allow changing of colours and anything, you have to keep them all the same. And by keeping everything the same, you're bowing to communism. And do you know who's a communist? Kim Jong Il. And, if Team America has taught me anything. It's taught me that Kim Jong Il is an asshole. Anyway, pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate - and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves... because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!

Ahem....sorry, it just seemed appropriate.

* If you name another goo goo dolls song, I'm assuming you're cheating

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Colwyn Bay vs. Osset Albion, Wales vs. Slovakia, Euro 2008

2006-10-08T10:46:00.000+01:00

I made a decision to forsake the Wales game for the Colwyn Bay, we haven't been playing well recently, and was expecting another defeat. I heard good news on the gate: apparently, the league had sent extra staff to watch over the referees, or something. Either way it's a good thing, as dodgy officiating have plagued are last two games.

We pressed forward, and - although Osset scored a goal, it was ruled offside. Lewis Callaghan who has been inspirational and a hell of a worker scored after 20 minutes to make it 1-0 with an excellent chip over the keeper. It remained scrappy football with us firmly in control for the middle third of the game. Darren Wright missed a few good chances, as he was on a scoring drought only beaten by Andriy Shevchenko. However, his hard work paid off as he was released down the right side of the box, firing past the keeper - to the delight of the Bay faithful and to himself. Then followed a period of dominance, with the occassional Osset chance. Steve Hussey came off the subs bench to kill tge game off towards the end. Final score Colwyn Bay 3, Osset Albion 0.

So many positives can be taken from the game. The fact we didn't conceed, the fact we won convincingly, nobody had a bad game. The next game is against Chorley, who are 2nd from bottom with 3 points so far this season (compared to our 20). The other major positive is that my shirt is not bad luck! Only if I wear my scarf with my shirt is it bad luck. If I wear my shirt sans scarf, or scarf sans shirt, then it is good luck. But overall, a lot of positives, and not many negatives.

Which is more than can be said for Wales, losing 5-1 against Slovakia, at home. I haven't seen the game, and I don't really want to, but from what I've heard there are hundreds of areas that need to improve on before Cyprus. Euro 2008 is all but over for us now, I can't see us coming back. Slovakia was a must win game, we fancied our chances, we got massacred.

Right, proper un football related post soon, I promise.

Oh, and everybody go over to eruanna.net and wish Han a happy birthday! 19 years old today! I put her present up on the forum, so you can go there too to see it!

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Search Engine Optimization, Last Night "Date", Club vs. Country, Wales vs. Slovakia

2006-10-07T13:19:00.000+01:00

One of the highlights of my job (because I'm rather good about it) is Search Engine Optimization. I SEO'd this site, the forum and my toplist site. When rhyswynne.co.uk gets launched, I'll probably SEO it too. It came around to bite me in the bum last night.

"So how's your groin?"
"Fine"
"Sexual Karma Fairy been good to you?"
"Wait a minute.....how do you know about that?"
"Oh, I was search for a ringtone of Glyn off Big Brother, and your site came up first.
"Ah right. Cool."
"So.....this is a date?"

Cruel fate, Sexual Karma Fairy, whatever. Why dost thou mock me?

Actually, that being said, I had a fabulous time. I been having a realisation that, fuck it, I'm 22 and going on a few trips and holidays soon, so I don't really want to be tied down with a relationship. She's cool with that. Drink did quite a bit of talking last night, but she seems understanding. Which is great. She's asked me out for a drink on Tuesday, I said yes. Just as friends though.

3pm today is presenting a massive dilemma. Osset Albion play The Mighty Seagulls at the same time as Wales vs. Slovakia. Club vs. Country. I can either go and watch Bay play, or watch Wales play at home. After a huge wrestling match with my conscience, club won out - even after they teased "Big News" on the site (headline: "EX-PREMIERSHIP STRIKER COULD END DAV’S SEARCH" story: "Matt Le Tissier holds up a Colwyn Bay Scarf", jeez boys - whats Brett Angell doing nowadays?). My rationale was that I think Wales would manage fine. Mark Lawrenson has tipped them for a win 2-1. Mark Lawrenson is usually very wrong though. There'll be dancing on the streets of Colwyn Bay should both results come good though, I'll make sure of it.

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An Open Letter #2 and a New Toplist

2006-10-06T09:40:00.000+01:00

Dear Sexual Karma Fairy,

First of all, I want to thank you for the joy you've brung me. Tonight, as you may know, I'm on a date. Not just any date, oh no. This date is the first one in a year I've actually want to go on. No disrespect to the nutty veggie in June, but she was a nutty veggie. For that, I'm very, very appreciative.

You've filled me with an emotion I haven't felt in ages: giddy anticipation. Maybe it's just me being blinded, but I really can't see anything going wrong, short of being hit by a car. In the 7 short days I've been aware of this girl, we have got on seemingly like a house on fire. Even my percieved "worse case scenario" of - "lets be friends, we'll just see how it goes", would stil be great. Maybe it's just because my social life is a bit poo at the moment, maybe it's because since January I've not been able to get laid inside a women's prison, but something has got me squeeing (as Apple Han would say). I even got jittery leg in anticipation - something not seen since that time I went to watch the WWE in Manchester.

I think the thing I'm most proud of, irrespective of the girl, is that you've given me the confidence to actually ask out a girl. She said yes too! That's never happened before, as I'm usually too shy. First time I've actually grown a pair to ask out a girl, and it was actually incredibly painless.

Sexual Karma Fairy, you have - for a short time - made me feel positive, and I thank you.

But really, when I was walking down to work, did you really have to make me trip up, causing me to lose my balance, resulting in a minor groin strain? I'm in fucking agony!

Your Pal.

Rhys Wynne BSc. (Hons)

P.S. I have also created a toplist stie, and would appreciate you joining. Add your site and link code into your blog, and we can get a ranking (or, how mispronouncing Chinese people would say - "Wanking") system, to see who really is the best blogger in the world ever. And don't forget to join the forum! Will posted a hell of a good programme up there, but I'm not going to tell you what it is! You'll have to visit the site to see it!

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Students, Forums and T-Shirts

2006-10-05T08:47:00.000+01:00

Behold my NUS card. For 3 years it gave me 10% off in Topman, Burger King, HMV and Pizza Hut, as well as discounted buses. It was ace. What made it even better it was before the NUS realised they could make money out of it and started charging for the "NUS Extra", which basically was all the fun stuff from the original card. Nevertheless, some "Unofficial NUS Partners" (which I was told by a mate of mine that "Should shop there, they'd be harming the Student Community cause using unapproved discounts". Bullshit) remained, one of which is Peacocks.

I love Peacocks, it's cheap, it's relatively plain fashion, and nobody ever wears their stuff. Most of my clothes are from there, and I'll be damned if anybody can tell the difference. I was browsing there today for a shirt for friday, when I found it. Pale brown with "Legend" written across it, I was sold, when I noticed a sign that tempted me.

"Students get 10% Discount"

Brilliant. Even 18 months after I've finished university, my card is still valid. It's great, just stick my thumb over the date, or give the old "oh, I'm on a gap year working in an orphanage, I haven't got my new one yet", and I usually get my discount*. So I tried the same again today.

She was having none of it.

Shit, did I feel silly.

I mean, it's only 60p, but by god by trying to claim it, the cashier looked like I was grandmother. I even claimed "Oh, I've just started today in Llandrillo", for insinuating I went to Llandrillo Technical College, I'm sure my brother will never speak to me again.

All for 60p.

In happier news, I've got my forum set up! I've been tinkering around with it, caving in to people's requests for updates like the spineless admin that I am, and it's beginning to show a little bit of life. However, I could use more members, as - although the current ones are fab - many discussions seem to revolve around my apparent homosexuality. I don't like it, please help sway the tide. Join, post, and make fun of Guy. Cheers.

* Should anybody from the mighty seagulls (who lost last night. Comment of the night: "Blog about the match? Pfft. I dunno how you can put a positive spin on it!") be reading the above statement - don't worry. I always pay full price, and never decieve you with my expired card. HMV are faceless corporations. CBFC is my second love. I would never cheat on it!

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Google Adsense, rhyswynne.co.uk, b3ta.com and fark.com

2006-10-03T10:58:00.000+01:00

Nothing has happened within the last 24 hours, so this post is mainly a "look what I've found!" post.

Ahh Google Adsense. How you dangle a carrot of "Making money from my blog" in front of me. Everybody in work seems to be making a shed load off Adsense, I'm not doing horrendously bad, it comes in spits and spurts (I think I made 5p in clicks yesterday, go me!). Nevertheless, I don't really have too much on what appears, they're usually blogs or blogging, except for when I do the odd post about North Wales or Football. However, I've generally never had any bad ads, until yesterday. No, it wasn't viagra, no it wasn't sexual. It was just....depressing.

We're all going to die!

In other news: I had my first Greenlight of Fark.com last night! Greenlight is when you submit a thread that appears on the main site. The thread was here, and I thought it was Asnine the story (hence the Asnine tag). However, opinions is divided. What do you all think?

If you need a good laugh today, check out b3ta.com's "Question of the Week", which is entitled "Inappropriate Crushes". We've all had them, fancying people we really shouldn't. Some of them are comedy gold. My inappropriate crush is in there, somewhwere. If you find it, you can share it. Share also your ones in the comment box!

Finally, there is a young woman in Kent this morning dancing for joy as I've bought PHP and MySQL hosting! I'm thinking of using it for my rhyswynne.co.uk (as I think I need it). Anyway, I'm thinking of starting a fourm and a topsites - esque link list. Would you join them, or am I just wasting my time?

Think Unsexy Thoughts, Think Unsexy Thoughts......

2006-10-02T10:34:00.000+01:00

I woke up this morning at the fantastically late time of 8am, after falling asleep sometime after 10. Groggy and disorientated, I stumbled my way into my dressing gown and into the bathroom to do my duties. After the loo, washing teeth and a shave, I took my dressing gown off and stood on the scales.

Fuck.

For the first time since forever, I've put weight on, meaning I'm over 13 and a half stone again.

I knew I didn't feel brilliant, I knew that I was miserable. Well, not miserable, just unsexy. I had began to feel good about myself, and I was experiencing a confidence that I wasn't feeling for a long time. However, a weekend of hedonistic activities. Curries, ham sandwiches and all sorts of foods went into my system. Not to mention 3 days of nights out - the curry night, friday night down at the local drinking 10.5% beer that nearly took my head off, and Saturday Night.

Boy, Saturday night.

Me and Jay went out to Llandudno. I wasn't expecting Jay to be back from university, but meh - he was. A quick ring to yours truly, and I decided to go out. We managed to get a seat suprisingly - Llandudno is packed on a Friday night, and we put the world to rights over the course of 3 hours. We sat by the quiz machine and we assisted two ladies playing the machine, who responded with "We're on the BHS night out, everything's paid for, have a few drinks on us.". Result! Again, we got drunker and drunker on real ale, and we left at around half 1 ish.

And now, I'm paying for my weekends activities. I'm over 13 and a half stone, and I feel dead ugly. My hair is a mess, and I think I smell. I'm not miserable, just feel very unsexy.

Which - all in all - is painful irony. The reason? I have a date on Friday.

Curries, Good Times and Great Memories

2006-09-30T09:00:00.000+01:00

On Thursday night, me and a few choice friends (okay, anybody who could make it) went to Llandudno for a curry. Sibley was due to go back to Bath the day after, so we piled into Sian's car and headed for Llandudno. I also suprised everybody by taking a camera, and I caught Sibley unaware.

Hehe, he says I never blog about him enough. We then put the world bang to rights whilst drinking a hell of a lot of Cobra/Bitter/Coke and catching up. Also, Sibley took a picture of yours truly, with an unbeleivably cheesy grin. The cobra went straight to my head.

Beautiful. After a while the curries arrived. Since Weatherspoons took my precious chicken balti off the menu, I've had to make do with my second choice: Hot Chicken Ttikka Masala - 4 Chilli's on the Weatherspoon Chilli Scale

Gorgeous. Weathspoons have a habit of sticking flags in the curry, because the staff are usually inept of telling the difference between them. At which point a flag fight began, which my poppadom suffered gravely.

Not good, not good at all. Though, I picked myself up after this violation of my poppadom and it was really, realy nice. It almost took my head off with it's spiciness, which is rare for Weatherspoons curries, however it didn't make me cry or my nose run like proper curries in a curry house. So all in all, I got a nice balance between taste and spice.

I went to order pudding, as well as a beer. The barman enlightened me with his knowledge of beer....

"You know, they don't have Cobra Beers in India."
"Really?"
"Yep, spent 6 months out there, couldn't find one. And they don't have Fosters in Australia."

Now, Aussies, is this true? Can you not get The Amber Nectar in Prisonland? I find that hard to believe. Not wanting to be outdone, I offered my beer fact.

"You know, you also can't get Corona in Mexico?"
"Liar"
"Awwwww"

With my head lowered, I returned to my seat, and had my pudding: The Chocolate Bomb! Chocolate covered Chocolate Ice Cream. Sigh, it's going to go straight to my hips....

Gorgeous.

All in all, I had a good times. More pictures are on my Flickr Site.

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An Open Letter

2006-09-29T07:33:00.000+01:00

Dear Sexual Karma Fairy,

Quite frankly, I'm a bit narked with all the obsticles you are placing in front of me. Christ, Hugh Hefner I'm sure didn't experience as much hardship as me, and look who he's ended up in. First there was wheelchair foot fetish man, which I could tolerate, as it was a hell of a funny thing to blog about, but the endless strains of internet wierdos are beginning to take it's toll. They all begin the same, "I really, really fancy you!", but then it degenerates after that. Not all of them are ugly, which I appreciate, and my library of nipples and bums is getting bigger by the week. But mentally they are a bit screwed. I mean seriously, how can I go from "Rhys, I really fancy you" to "Rhys, die in a fire, now, please", in 20 minutes. Am I really such a dickhead with my flirting that no woman would want to be anywhere near me?

No. It can't be me. Managed it before, and I've had no complaints. I dunno, does this seem to you be a nice comment? Would you never speak to a fancy piece again after this comment? Please SKF, tell me what I'm doing wrong!:-

"So, you're Welsh*. You a shepherd? :P"
"Hehe, I can be. Will you be my Bo Peep? ;)"
"Bye"

That's it. No explanation, no "stop it", just "bye". She disappeared off my msn contacts list after that, assuming I'm blocked. SKF. What's wrong with that comment, and what can I do to fix me? Or is it just a cruel game your playing that you are putting me with a bunch of cyber cock-teases?

Yours,

Rhys A. Wynne, BSc. (Hons)

In other news: My mum has bought "The Andrew Lloyd Webber" collection. A part of me has died inside.

* Interesting side note. When I started going out with Sarah my mate Paul refused to accept that I had a girlfriend, and still called me "Sheep Shagger". Sarah at which point went by a short lived nickname of "Sheep". She'll make a lesbian very happy one day with brilliant humour like that.

BBC, Richard Hammond and a dull 24 hours

2006-09-28T20:16:00.000+01:00

One obvious side effect to not being in university anymore is that I really don't have time to do a number of interesting things. If this was 2 years ago, I would be pissed, or doing something remotely fun around the house, such as play Mario Party with friends, or Landing Cricket. These - these - is what student life is about. Not studying, not getting drunk and knobbing some bird named "Sheryll". It is the time when you make your own entertainment is the best. Young padowan, you have much to learn.

Of course, living with your mum and dad in a house with a tiny crease, err, I mean landing means that the greatest ever game known to civilization has to be put on hold. Instead, you spend your days watching TV and surfing the internet, which (no disrespect to anybody I speak to online) has gotten really boring when one of your best mates is offline.

Guy's great, me and him have disturbingly similar sense of humour (everything is funny) and we spend most of the day insulting each other. Him, and Sibley are my closest friends, and it sucks that I don't see both of them nearly as much.

Anyway, Guy has problems with the internet in his house - he's just moved in - so I don't speak to him online too much, should he be on MSN he usually sends me links, and he sent me one today that was absolute genius. This video here contains the last time that Richard Hammond was in an induced sleep (what? He's gonna be fine, we can make subtle jokes), and is well worth watching.

Sorry, this post is going to be a "look at what I've found on the internet!" post. Our second link today is this story on the BBC, curteosy of Fark. Basically, one line in the story grabbed my attention:-

"She said it was a "worrying trend" and was particularly prevalent in north-western cities such as Liverpool."

Now, I lived in Liverpool for near enough 4 years, and not once did I encounter people selling alcohol on a takeaway menu. I even lived in the dodgy part of town that would sell alcohol on takeaway orders. I'm pissed off about this, thinking about all those times I did a food and a beer run. Liverpudlians, could you name some takeouts which do do this?

Finally, a little bit of news about me. I was on the BBC website for the third time ever! This time I was in the Magazine Section, in the Punorama. Those who think they've clicked on the Beeb enough today will rejoyce - I've taken a screenshot below for your viewing pleasure.

Riz-fucking-ault!

Right, I'm off to bed now, busy day tomorrow in work, followed by a curry night in the local weatherspoons with Sibley. Should be fun. Good times, and great memories will be had!

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Free Technical Support, Computer Science and Colwyn Bay FC

2006-09-26T23:17:00.000+01:00

When I worked in the call centre, I used to hate telling people what I did. Call centre work does have a a stigma attatched to it whereby you leave your souls at the door. We were an inbound call centre, which meant we didn't have to ring up people and sell things to them. Instead, we answered people's problems. 9 times out of 10, they finished the call happier than when they picked up. However, because we worked in "a call centre", we got bounded with the arseholes who roll off sales pitches parrot fashion, bully old ladies, and probably rape their own children. We were professional, friendly and had to think in our job. We also won "Call Centre of the year 2005". I know, I never knew such an award existed, but yeah, apparently it does.

Roll on six months later. I have increased the number of dates been on in 2006 on from "one" to "two", and changed my job. When I got the web design job, I felt great! Comedians held me with more respect, women didn't seem so repulsed, and - by having a job like web designing - I became part of a hard working learned elite in Colwyn Bay (yes, it does exist, we don't show our faces much, due to the fact that we may suffer intellectual osmosis with the amount of chavs walking around the place). Now, instead of muttering "callcentre" under my breath, I scream "My name is Rhys Wynne! And I am a web designer!"

Then we get problems.

I'm sure I'm not the first, but whenever I mention I'm an IT guy, people think I care about their PC problems. Conversations usually go like this: "So what do you do Rhys?", "Oh, I'm a web page designer.", "Oh really? Well why is it that whenever I visit slutseatnuts.com, my computer drops to a crawl?". I usually have to explain to them it would be like asking a cardiologist to have a look at my balls to see if they're fine, and that my area of PC expertise is in creating things, rather than fixing things. I mean, I know a little bit about it, but not a huge amount.

It's like because I work in IT, I care about PC's, and that is my life. It isn't. I like beer, football and other things. Nobody ever asks me a football question, but people ask me about PC's. The other thing is that - by not answering - I'm keeping people in work. People should be paid a lot of money to fix people's PC's, I just couldn't live with myself costing thousands of people their jobs. I'd be like a geeky, liberal and more attractive Maggie Thatcher.

My mate Goz had the right idea. Whenever he needed some IT work doing, he showed his appreciation. His appreciation usually came in the form of beer and having my tea cooked, but I - for one - appreciated the gesture. Also, should the person with the PC problems be attractive, I will usually be happy to service them.

I've started fighting back now. I told a taxi driver a few days ago "so, what IS the best route from Colwyn Bay station to Colwyn Heights?". After that, I'm out of ideas, any suggestions for questions to ask various people in trades outside of office hours which would only annoy them?

In other news, Colwyn Bay lost 4-0 vs. Woodley Sports. Woodley (which is near Stockport) has a pitch which is made up of artificial grass. It blantantly gives them the home advantage. Well, that's the excuse we're giving.

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Best of a Bad Situation, Classy Ladies and Very Tall Lesbians

2006-09-24T22:59:00.000+01:00

I'll be honest, my weekend in Liverpool didn't start too well. I woke at 6am on Saturday morning, and I'm generally pretty shit at going back to sleep whenever I awake, so I blogged, changed the timestamp so it didn't look like I woke at stupid o'clock to blog. I then packed, headed off to Liverpool, and about then the weekend started to go a bit iffy.

Bowling was a nightmare, to be honest, it wasn't the club's fault.The alley knocked up the prices when we were there and - due to the fact we'd travelled from all over, we had to comply. The alley was hot, noisy and full of kids, and my game showed. I scored a 153 but the next two games I struggled to break 100. I was very hungry, lethargic, and didn't think much of the weekend so far.

We then got word that we didn't have somewhere to drop our stuff after the bowling, scuppering a possible night out. After a quick ring around we manage to obtain a place to stay at a friends house, and a night out in Liverpool, what I really wanted. A chinese takeout and a couple of fine ales (Cumberland Ale being the best of the three) later, we were ready to hit Liverpool.

We started out in Old Lloyds playing the drinking game "I have never" - which is ultimately pointless, as the few depraved things I've done in my life, I am not shy about.Following that, I headed to see my ex-workmates for a quick drink, before meeting the rest in the Raz. It was there that, well. I got licked.

You see, I was with my mates up on the first floor, when a short brunette came upto me and said "can you take a picture for us?". Fair enough request I suppose, one snap looked horrible, with TLC (Tall Lesbian Chick - I'll explain in a bit) doing her best Undertaker impression - rolling her eyes into the back of her head. The second pic was a picture of them kissing. The brunette then said "why don't you two get a picture together?", which consisted of TLC licking my left cheek, and me grinning to the camera.

At which point I kinda rued my behaviour with her, without even achnowledging her presence. I **think** she fancied me (hell, you wouldn't lick just anybody, would you?), but I was kinda taken aback by it. She was taller than me too, fuck's sake I'm 6'1", and she was taller than me. Unsuprisingly, I have nothing in my arsenal which lists how to act when a taller lady who is probably a lesbian (according to one of my mates) licks you in a club. Sexual Karma Fairy would be disappointed with me.

Sexual Karma Fiary would be less impressed with the brunette who made the first move. After seeing me reject her friend (I wouldn't say that, but she came on so strong I was confused), she cornered me.

"Bet you never kissed a girl, have you?"

I was shocked by this, and answer the only way I could "Yes, yes I have actually.". Jeez, talk about a conversation killer. I usually don't enquire about my fancypieces previous relationships until at least the third date. Luckily, she broke the conversation ice with a classy line.

"I think I'm going to be sick on you..."

I ran. Quickly.

However, it wasn't all doom and gloom, I enjoyed seeing my mates for the first time in ages,And the night was one of the best this year, even with the whole TLC thing. Besides, I woke up next to some pussy anyway. Click here to see it. (WARNING: Said pic has me topless in it, so those of a nervous disposition should not look at it!).

The Ryder Cup, Bowling and a Blogger Declaration of Love

2006-09-23T09:20:00.000+01:00

Thanks to my mum's acquisition of Sky Sports just over a week ago, we are able to watch a hell of a lot more sports. One of them is The Ryder Cup, which is Europe vs. America in a battle of golfing's heavyweights. Led by everybody's 9th favourite Welshman (Ian Woosnam) into battle, Europ have taken a 5-3 lead in a race to 14 points. I know it's not over yet Yankees, but we look dangerous, and even Tiger Woods seems to look a bit dodgy, compared to Segio Garcia, Luke Donald and Darren Clarke. Of course (no pun indended), I am sure that none of you are interested, but I'll continue.

Whenever there's golf on the telly, the one thing I want to do is play golf. Yesterday was no exception. I was planning on going to Liverpool for a long weekend, instead I decided to take an extra day back home, and went with Sibley and Chris to Betws-yn-Rhos golf course. I've never been before, but a lot of my mates go. We paid £6 to play on the New Course, which had stunning views (apologies, but the camera is not brilliant on my phone).

Brillaint views, brilliant company. Shame my game wasn't upto scratch. It was largely a par 4 course. Now, I started off rubbish, scoring a 7 and then a 12. However, I did have a hell of a run on 3 or 4 holes, managing to hole in 5's. And then we got to hole 6.

I was scared at hole 6, as there was a lake between myself and the hole, meaning that my usual tactic of daisy cutting it wouldn't work. I took my pitching wedge (the only club I can get lift on), and swang. Boy did I swing. I caught it perfectly, and the ball hit a ridge, which bounced it towards the green, almost holing in one! However, it didn't stop, overshooting the green. I ended up with a 5. I finished on a 68. With my 12 being the only real disaster. Sibley said that - as a beginner - I played really well. However, no hole in 1 exploits again.

Afterwards, we went to the Wheatsheaf for ham butties and bitter. The Wheatsheaf in Betws-Yn-Rhos holds a special memory for our family as it was there, 25 years ago, that my mum met my dad. It holds an even more personal memory for me: I won £10 on the fruity there. Ding, dang do.

Right, today I'm off to Liverpool to bowl in a student vs. ex-student tournament. I haven't been to Liverpool for about 2 and a half months, so lots of alcohol will be had, and I will have fun. A word of warning however.

In the last week I've acquired a couple of blogger's mobile numbers. I'm using this as a public warning, as I know they'll read this. When I get drunk, I usually text people football chants, or declarations of undying love. If you recieve a text from me after - say - 9pm. I will probably be drunk. Think of it as like a blogging watershed. A bloggershed, if you will.

Right, see you tomorrow!

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Sucks To Be Me....for a day

2006-09-21T08:44:00.000+01:00

I'll be honest, the last 24 hours was the most suckiest I've had in a long time.

It began at around 11am at work. Lo and behold, I started sweating again, just in my chair. Was a little frightened due to my history so booked myself an appointment with the docs, just to make 100% sure. The appointment was at 3, cue 4 hours of not being able to concentrate on my work, and getting all worked up. When I went to the docs though, they said that I was fine, and he had no problem in me coming in to recieve a checkup (he had heart palputations when he was my age, and he remembers that pyschologically it's a terrible thing to deal with, as unless you've had it yourself, you don't really understand mentally). He's inviting me back for a ECG in a few days though, just to further keep my mind at rest. I went back to work a lot more relaxed.

He did also mention that probably what was making me ill is that I have an intollerance to orange juice. It's genetic - my mum is the same - but unlike my mum I drink it in alarming qunatities every day. He said that it would work it's way out of my system over the next few days if I stop drinking it. Largely through natural means, but I could throw up as well. With that in mind, I'm giving me until Saturday before heading off to Liverpool.

Then, at around 6pm, Bonnie's ever-up tail dropped, and she started doing somethig with her tongue. It's hard to describe, but imagine trying to scrape something off your tongue by using your top teeth. It's probably easiest to describe it like that. Anyway, it was very scary, as the Bonz just felt cold and weak. This was literally in the space of about an hour. We went to the vet, just to get her checked out, and the vet diagnosed her as a potentially very serious condition that she swallowed a wasp. There was a large amount of swelling in her windpipe, and it could of closed up. Luckily, the vet gave her a couple of shots, and she seemed right as rain this evening. Ha, even as I write this she's barking at the hoover.

I then - horror of horrors - I actually began to enjoy myself for the first time in about a week. My chess game improved (though I still haven't won yet), until at around 11pm I read this article on the BBC. God it got me worried (though, thankfully, not about myself). That Hamster was the best! I went to bed fearing the worst (the condition was marked as "critical"), so that's been playing on my mind last night. However, this morning it seems that his condition has been upgraded to "serious but stable", which is an improvement. I hope he gets better though, for his family mainly. I swear to god though, If I become king of the world (and here's hoping), I'm going to make a law that any death or serious injury to any person can only be announced between the hours of 9am and middday. That way, it doesn't play on constant worriers such as myself.

All in all, yesterday pretty much sucked cock. Send me warm thoughts/pictures of gorgeous women to make me feel better!

Technorati Tags:health, dogs, vets, top gear, richard hammond
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Pirates, Chess and My Cock

2006-09-19T23:40:00.000+01:00

Arrrr!!! Today be International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Shiver My Timbers, Set sal on the seven seas with Seaman Staines, Master Bates, and Roger the Cabin Boy looking for gold and tresure. Arrr! I'll stop now.

In the past few days, I've been playing a game that I haven't played in years - Chess. I used to be really into the game in a "fuck it, I'm not going to get laid, I'll have a go". However, like most competitive sports, I found I was shit at it. Nevertheless, I tried. My younger brother used to be better than me, and I think the house record of "longest time undefeated" was when he beat me constantly in 99 games. However,.before the 100th game, mum bought him an ice cream "just to let me win".

I mean, I understand it, I understand the moves you do, it's just cominng up with a way to beat people. I feel that every move leads me closer to my impending doom. With that in mind, I joined the Free Internet Chess Server for a few games.

I got my arse handed to me well and truly.

30 games played, 30 losses. Elo Rating of -54*. I came close in one game, but ended up short. I just can't formulate tactics on it. One opponent, from Belarus (yes, I'm suprised they have the internet there) even said "good game" to me 13 MOVES BEFORE HE CHECKMATED ME! What a dick. Least in my country we have such things as running water, lesbianism, and more than 2 busses. Easten Bloc Cocksucker.

Speaking of cocks, I have actually gone all the way and posted a picture of my cock on Celeste's blog. Go see. I promise it's not some lame chicken related joke.**

* May not be true....
** Sucker....

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Sick on a weekend. What are the chances? About a million to one!

2006-09-18T20:05:00.000+01:00

"Hey boss, I'm ringing in sick today."
"Oh really. Just how sick are you?"
"I am fucking my sister. Is that sick enough for you?"

You know I said in my last entry that today was going to be a good day? Well, it wasn't exactly.

At around midnight on Saturday night, I woke up, cold-sweating, dizzy and shaking. Immediately, I thought "fuck this", and went downstairs to get some water to steady me out. This was not good, not good at all. I lied on my couch, watching all manner of things (Match of the Day had just finished, boo), before heading back to bed. I didn't sleep until around 4am.

Three hours later, I awoke, nauseous, loss of appetite and sweating. My first thought was obvious. I've got it again. But it felt different. Then, everything except my ticker was fine. This was the direct opposite. My heart was around 70ish (perfectly normal), but I just felt like shit. Of course, ending up in hospital had made me a little bit of a hyperchondriac. I knew deep down inside it wasn't, but I refused to accept that.

After eating a couple of shredded wheat, I collapsed on the sofa, a little exhausted but unable to sleep. Mum appeased me with a fantastic whimsical purchase of Sky Sports, so that's where I stayed, Chelsea vs. Liverpool, Manchester United vs. Arsenal, Rugby followed by Top Gear. I didn't move until 8.

I tried a bit of light surfing, but I couldn't concentrate. Instead, I watched the final half hour or so of Equator, and then had a fairly uncomfortable night. It was however better than the night before, largely due to the fact that my dream involved doing all sorts of unmentionables with Dido.

I woke up at around 6:30 this morning, still feeling a lot worse for wear. Nevertheless, I thought I'd brave work, and I'm so glad I did.

Immediately, my work colleagues did a hell of a lot better job at reassuring me than my mum's "Snap out of it, you're 22" 'assurances' are. "Probably the Sun Centre", they said, "think about it. It's hot, humid, and all sorts of people have been in there. I wouldn't think it's the most cleanest thing in the world. Just have plenty of rest and rehab, and you'll be fine.". They also bought me lentil soup. I have the best job ever.

It's now nearly 8 o'clock. I don't feel 100% yet, but I do feel a hell of a lot better than I did this morning. Give me another 24 hours or so, and I'll be back to my best.

The Seedy Underbelly of Colwyn Bay

2006-09-15T08:27:00.000+01:00

"Rhys!", Mum squealed down the phone, "Dog's run out of treats, could you go to the pet shop to pick up some fishy chews?". I agreed, by and large because the girl who works in the pet shop is cute. She has a "farm hand" quality about her, which conveys an innocence, yet possibily cheeky quality that is so indearing. She also has massive breasts.

Anyway, off I toddled to get those fishy chews that bonnie goes apeshit over. Pets Shop Girl was there in a black cardigan with a polka dot top , stretched sot it looked more like polka ovals. She smiled, I smiled.

You'd like to believe I asked her out, she said yes, everybody's a winner. Alas no, she has a boyfriend. I did get propositioned yesterday, but not by her. I did however see this in the shop, which amused me greatly.

The cheeky minx!

So, this proposition. It came after I left the pet shop and was heading back home. I didn't have my mp3 player with me, so I kinda kept my head up, listening to the aural delights Abergele Road offers yours truly. It was there I heard something I haven't heard in about six months.

"D'ya want business?"

I turned around, and saw this skanky lady wearing a belt, massive mole on her cheek and a distubringly low cut top smiling a toothles grin back at yours truly. We've never had prossies in the Bay before, and certainly not at 1:30pm on a Wedneday afternoon. In my limited experience, early afternoon sex sucks, no matter who you're with. It's not quite as awakening as morning sex, but not as down right naughty as late afternoon sex (best time is around 3:30, when the TV was switched on to The Tweenies on Childrens BBC, it fells, so, so naughty). Early afternoon sex, I dunno, doesn't feel special. On top of that, she was a skank, so I didn't want knob rot for £20.

Speaking of dodgy Colwyn Bay people, hello to all my fellow loyal Seagulls who have come here from the Official Colwyn Bay Website! You're probably going to want to read this article, more than my "woe is me, I'm actually still a teenager trapped in a 22 year old's body!" crap I usually post on here. Still, it's a nice gesture. I doubt Guy will be getting a link to his Myspace from his precious Chelsea FC Official Site anytime soon!

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Lily Allen, Myspace, and Being, Really, Really, Angry

2006-09-14T11:29:00.000+01:00

Recently, to prepare for my interepid trip down to the mightly London (LONDONIANS - Fancy a blog meet? Email me at the usual address with the subject "Meet me in London!", and I'll see what I can do), I have been listening to London's finest station: XFM. Despite them being utter cunts as they bash the North (typical Southerners, bashing people when they can't respond), they're music selection is pretty good. One song they're championing is "Meds" by Placebo, which is bloody brilliant. However, one artist that is played nearly constantly is quite possibly the musical equivalent of Syphilis.

That artist is Lily Allen.

At which point I'd like to apologise for the use of the word "artist". She is no more an artist than people who work in Subway are "artists" because they're job title is "Sandwich Artist".At the risk of starting a flame war with one of my groupies, but I will go so far as saying that she is more annoying than James Blunt. Why? Well, two reasons. First of all, for all James Blunt's fault, he at least can sing. Albeit in a whiny high pitched way, but by god he can hold a note. Imagine a kareoke night, with 3 drunken girls blaring out "I Will Survive", also roping in the designated driver too, who really doesn't want to be there. Now, remove the drunken girls, leaving the shy little sober one signing alone. That performance is what you're left with with Lily Allen. It's like she doesn't care.

Pointless Poll

Who is more annoying?

	James Blunt
	Lily Allen

Current Results

The second point is relating to emotion. Sure, James Blunt makes you feel depressed, but I guess you're supposed to. He sings about break ups, death, Chelsea winning the Premiership, and other really miserable events.The only thing I want to do when listening to Lily Allen rape my eardrums is throw a large metallic object at her in a fit of red misted rage. She is no more a musician than I am a pornstar. The only reason is that people who wouldn't know a good tune if it hit them in the face declared Lily Allen popular was "That she had a big Myspace."

Speaking of Myspace, it has done nothing but annoy me today. One of my friends has requested for me to join. However, she sent the email to my hotmail account (rhys_boy84). So, instead of a recieving a "....wants to be your friend!" email and a link to her profile, I get a ".....wants you to join Myspace!" with no link to her profile. Reluctantly, after finding no other way around it, I sign up to my third myspace account. I can see why it has over 100 million profiles, some of them a probably people like me who sign up multiple accounts. You would of thought by then I would see her friend request, and then add her. But oh no, on signing on, it sends a friend request to her from me. It's all rather frustrating, as I've hit my 100th friend (which is doubly impressive, as I generally don't add random bands), and I can't seem to get 101. Woe is me.

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Colwyn Bay vs. Skelmsdale United....for free!

2006-09-13T20:25:00.000+01:00

Last night the Mighty Seagulls played Skelmsdale United in a league match. What made this slightly more special was that this game was sponsored by the company I work for, which meant we got two complimentary tickets, food, drink and a complementary programmme. We arrived at around 7pm, got in. From this point on, the Colwyn Bay faithful referred to me as "The bloggy Guy", "The guy with the blog" and other deriveratives.

Anyway, we were soon ushered in to the Private Corporate Suite, with the trophy cabinet and bits and pieces on the wall. Had a few discussions, which started off with the future of the clubs website (which we host), onto an area I have a strong (albeit very blind) opinion of - Colwyn Bay's chances this season.

Gametime happened and we started brightly, going 2 - 0 up within the first few minutes or so. Two own goals as well. However, defending errors cost us dearly, and the match ended 3-3.

I'm beginning to worry about my shirt now. Three games played, and three draws. Thankfully the nipple chaffing has stopped (thanks to a good wash with fabric softener), but I'm not enjoying all these draws. I don't want my shirt to be bad luck!

Update: I found the below on the Colwyn Bay Messageboard (big thanks to oldcolwynkev for this). It's rubbish quality video, but this should hopefully give the scale of football at Colwyn Bay. Okay, it's not by any means Premierleague, but by god, it's good fun to watch and cheap too.

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Youth Hostels, Hotels, London, France and Colwyn Bay

2006-09-12T08:38:00.000+01:00

Although yesterday was a worldwide day of morning, personally yesterday was very successful on a number of fronts. Two things made me happy.

Firstly was a phone call we got into the office from Colwyn Bay FC. I don't know whether I've documented this or not, but the company I work for provides hosting now for the Colwyn Bay website. As a token of our appreciation, our company are Match Sponsor of tomorrow's match vs. Skelmsdale. Basically, we get two free tickets, and a buffet in the boardroom at half time. There are a few other bits and pieces associated with it, but I'm looking forward to tomorrow immensely.

On top of that, the real big news is that I have booked myself a holiday. This is big for me, as I never do anything big like book a holiday. It's only a short break though, in London for 4 nights, staying in a hotel/youth hostel for 4 nights. It seems a pretty nice hostel too, as it seems more like a university halls bar, with entertainment on every night, and activities that practically encourages you to mingle with your fellow stayees. It also has 24 hour internet access (very, very important), and a 3 hour long happy hour. Of course, I'm not going to stay in the hostel all the time, I am going to see the area (and maybe get my arse on the Eurostar and bugger off to France). I'm going on the 8th of November, and need ideas for things to do. So, blogosphere, inspire me!

The fact that I've booked a holiday has had me smiling like a loon with happiness. Can't believe I'm going on one! It's going to be awesome, even if it is in November. So - by grabbing life by the testicles and saying "fuck it, I'm going on holiday" - I've made myself really, really happy.

Then, I remember that before my holiday, I need to endure the dentist. Twice.

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First Posted 8:15PM, September 11th 2001

2006-09-11T19:11:00.000+01:00

I woke up early for me (about half 6) and switching on the TV. Breakfast News was on and Richard Branson, who was planning to go to mainland Europe on the UK's behalf to campaign to the European Court of Human Rights about the prices of cars in this country. In the end, I went down to the train station in Colwyn Bay, as I was ready to go to Leeds University, to have a look around.

I arrived at the station at about 7:30, and Goz was already there, the train arrive, ironically a Virgin, and we left for the trip to Leeds, with one 1/2 hour stop in Manchester. To be honest, the journey was pleasant, I just sat and read the paper that Goz bought (Daily Star, an unusual choice) while he listened to his minidisk. The train from Colwyn Bay to Manchester was nowhere near as packed as the one from Manchester to Leeds. Probably due to the open day.

So the open day started, my first talk was at about midday, where Goz's was at the same time. I took my seat in the lecture hall. We basically got gist of the course, and my ego went through the roof when I was the only person in there with prior C++ knowledge beforehand (although very little, I may add). To be honest, I don't think I'd like the course there. Some of the people in that room scared me. After the lecture was finished, I took a seat on a bench and had my packed lunch. Feeling my ego could do with a bit of a battering, and also that Goz doesn't finish his talk until 2, I decided to sit through the Mathematics lecture. Some Asian guy sitting next to me made a lot of notes about the course and details, and the lecture lasted for about 1/2 hour, and after we got "fun sheets" to fill in for about quarter of an hour. Luckily, about a couple of minutes into these sheets, I got a text off Goz, telling me to come to the bus, we're going to the station. I gladly oblige. We stopped the bus outside the station, got off, and immediately went into the adjoining Wetherspoons for a bite to eat. Goz had a bitter and Chili and Chips. I played safe and stuck with Coke and chips. After that, we decided to head home, as it was 3.

On the way, we heard in the four seats opposite us that one of the World Trade Centers towers have been hit. Although details were sketchy at the time (we were overhearing another conversation) it seemed pretty definite.

"You hear that Rhys?"
"What?"
"One of the Twin Towers has been hit by a plane"

At this point, everybody on the planet did a collective "What the hell?". Not me. Call me ignorant, call me a insensitive bastard, but this was my honest to god reaction.

"What the hell are the Twin Towers?"

Gozzard then proceeded to speak to me about the Towers, giving me an education in them that only an A Level Geographer could, saying such things as "I cannot imagine the New York Sky without them". To me, the Twin Towers were The Big Boss Man and Akeem.

Only when we got to Manchester did we understand what had happened. People were listening to radios in the middle of the station, talking to people they'd never knew before existed, all talking about the attacks, and shaking their head. Saying things like "ooh, it's terrible". As a country bumpkin in Manchester, I just wanted to get home, and bury my head in the sand.

On the train back from Manchester, I just stared out of the window, for two hours.

Finally I got to Colwyn Bay, and Aled said "You've heard the news.". I didn't answer. Mum said "You wouldn't believe Alun (Mum always called Dad by his first name), he's acting like an idiot. He said to Al that he wouldn't be alive at Christmas". I broke my silence. "That's a bit sick, isn't it? I mean, who's going to attack Colwyn Bay?". I found my escape. I had something to talk about. No matter what has happened today, I'm safe and everybody I share my daily experiences are safe. Little consolation for over 1000 dead, but it was something that helped me regain my voice.

I arrived home at about 6, and immediately sat down in front of the TV. Dad, ominously, gave his "You won't be here at Christmas" which is complete baloney. Dad, unlike me, is a pessimist as they come. To him, everybody he cared about had a big nuke over their heads, and the rope was breaking.

Dinner, understandably, was a solemn affair. Mum tried desperately to break it, but my Dad wouldn't have none of it.

"Maybe now I can see a change of scenery on the net" I thought. It's not that I'm insensitive, just that whenever things like that happen, and I run out of things to say, I generally just try and find means of escape, or signes of normality. To me, the Internet seemed like one. Unfortunately, everywhere I turned, it was there. Yahoo, 9/11. E-fed's, 9/11. Blitz, 9/11. Fantasy Footy, 9/11. I almost gave up, when I went into my IRC rooms. Notably the clan's [EDIT: "The Clan" referred to =FP=, a bloody good Team Fortress clan I was in for a time being late last year, something like 20th in the UK. I managed to fluke my way into it, as I was nowhere near as good as any other player there, I just was a regular as clockwork, and they let me joined. Although I resigned around Christmas time]. Finally, my sense of normality was found.

"Hey Rhys, We got a game tonight, want to play?"
"Sure, count me in"

Anyway I'm off to play DDT in a few minutes, so I'll be off. See you all later.

So, this begs the question, where were you when the 9/11 happened?

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Would Like To Meet - Rhys' Foray into the Online Dating Scene

2006-09-10T23:55:00.000+01:00

I got bored today, and when I'm bored I'm dangerous. So, to keep me amused between playing Team Fortress Classic (trying to get good before Team Fortress 2 comes out) and Bush talking about his Cash Flow Forecasts (he's got an accounting exam tomorrow), I did something I've been tempted to do for a long time, but never actually done.

I joined an online dating firm.

I know, I know, it's sounds pretty desperate. I assure you it's not, I just fancy meetting as many people as possible. Actually, it isn't so much of a "dating" side of things, more of a social side of things I want to be involved in. I am however a skinflint, so I instead of going for the "pay" side of things, I typed in "free uk dating" into google, and clicked on a few that came up. One of them took my fancy, so I signed up. The first thing was to make sure I didn't come from certain blacklisted countries....

Luckily, I didn't (some of those seem strange, oh well. I suppose marrying your cousin isn't out of the question in all of the above countries). Filled in a few details, upload a photo, and I was ready to go.

Actually, that was a lie. I had to select a number of bands I like, from a choice of around 80. Now, normal people this wouldn't be a problem, but when you are as selective and indecisive as me, it's a nightmare! After that, authors, and favourite TV shows. Remember, they didn't just leave a textbox, oh no. Full on "Here's what you can select. Anything else and you're a loser!". Next sports (which was a fairly easy jaunt - even though I didn't select "bedroom gymnastics", it's just too obvious!). Then you could add "optional categories".....I tried adding the Mighty Seagulls, but they didn't have them. One quick letter of complaint later, and I began to browse.

I'll be honest, nothing was grabbing me by the balls. People were either average and their profile with abundance of text speak let them down, or didn't have a picture (I'm looking at you "DoubleD83". Double D? Double chin more like).. Dejected, I signed out.

20 minutes later, I had two emails, from girls who wanted to meet me. Woo! The first one was from a girl in leeds calling herself "theleedsrhino". Apt name, when she lists her hobbies as drinking, rugby league and darts. I apologise if this is sexist, but by god I like my women to be slightly effeminate.

The second thing I'd like my women to be is intelligent. I'm not talking university degree here, but a basic ability to hold an intelligent conversation is paramount. As bloggers, you all meet that criteria. However, this girl didn't. Sure, she was attractive, single and lived in Rhyl. But one thing put me off.

She spelt Rhyl as "Ryll". A number of times.

I'll think I'll give this online dating a miss.

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Technorati Tag Generator, Web Design, and Forrest Gump

2006-09-08T08:47:00.000+01:00

Abolsutely nothing, apparently.

I'm having a creative lull at the moment, actually that's a lie. Creatively I'm worn out, as for the last few days I have been designing flyers and adverts in work. It's thoroughly enjoying, don't get me wrong, but it means when I get home, I usually just want to mindlessly blow up things on Team Fortress, rather than blog. Nothng has happened to inspire me to blolg. Really. Do you want to know what's top of "things that have inspired me to post?.

Some dude sat down next to me on a public bench.

I know, it's a public bench and everything, but there were benches free in the park (I was on my lunchbreak), and I always thought "take up a new bench, before sitting on an old one". On top of this, he had a goatee, spiked up air, small sunglasses and a trenchcoat. He either looked German or like a Bond Villian. Either way, I was more than a little disconcerted. I got involved in a small battle of wits with him, before I surrendered, standing up, and walking pretty damn fast from our friend Gunther.

I suppose I'll do what I always do when I get bored of this site - redesign it. Okay, I don't fancy going through a complete redesign, but I do want to change a few things, most of all the navigation bar. I admit, it was thrown together, but it manages to be both ameteur looking and inefficient waste of space. I'd like to include some more links up there, including a direct link to my myspace account, and I've always liked Fern's idea for my life online, so I may do something like that. Two features I definitely want to include (and need your help) are the following:-

Technorati Tag Generator Links: Scoot on over to my Technorati Profile and you'll see a number of backlinks for Technorati Tag Generator. I'd like to include them in a page, sort of like a directory, to say thanks. Some blogs I have begun to read, such as this one. I don't really want to sspend all my days inserting links, so would appreciate a perl script to do something similar. Any ideas?

F.A.Q. - I wouldn't mind an FAQ, but there have been no frequently asked questions. So if you've got any questions, please let me know at rhys@gospelrhys.co.uk, and I'll answer them.

Right, I'd better get up to go to work.

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St Ebenezer Day and Looking Underage

2006-09-06T08:34:00.000+01:00

Happy St. Ebenezer's day for yesterday everybody! For the unaware - St. Ebenezer's day is the first day that Christmas Goods appear on sale in the UK. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Christmas - what with the food and the drink mainly, but September 5th is a bit early. Especially when I saw this abomination in Morissons in Colwyn Bay.

Okay, it is a selection box, which - while quintessentially Christmas (the present you give to people you don't really like) - it's not too bad. It's when those kids adverts begin that really pisses me off. Christmas only begins when two these two conditions are met:-

When I first see the Coco-cola "Holidays Are Coming" advert.

When the BBC change it's programme links into something festive.

Either way, it's not Christmas now! Grrr.....even writing this part of my blog I switched on to Firebox.com to see what I can get my nearest and dearest. It's a disgrace.

Reason number 19452 to hate Morissons as well is that yestrday I got refused........for cigarettes.

The tobacconist said I looked 15.

Now, before I begin, I'd like to inform you that I haven't started smoking. At the risk of restarting this blog's only flame war, I don't like the smell, and the damage it causes - even passively. However, one of my mates does smoke. He was in Morrissons carrying about 8 or 9 shopping bags, and he needed some fags. So he asked me to get some. Whilst giving him the usual "It'll make your penis smaller!" arguement I use on most blokes, he was unrepenting, and asked me to get him some. Fair enough, it was his decision.

I got ID'ed.

I explain the situation that - as I don't drive and I haven't been abroad - I don't have any forms of ID. I do have a Portman Group card. He said we don't accept it. I then said "they're for a mate of mine", which probably wasn't the best thing to say, as the guy gave me funny looks. Bless him, he looked foreign.

I returned humbly to my mate, who found it hilarious, saying it gave him a high "better than any nicotene could".

Somehow, the fact he stopped smoking for a little bit, because of my humiliation, makes it all worthwhile.

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Steve Irwin, South Park and Pirates of Colwyn Bay

2006-09-05T09:03:00.000+01:00

Does it make me a bad person taking 20 minutes out of my day to pay tribute to Steve Irwin? No. But instead of watching one of his shows, I instead watched 'Prehistoric Ice Man' - an episode of South Park that - whilst doesn't reference him directly, a character is based on him, jamming his thumb up people's buttholes to really piss them off (I won't bother with the accent). Okay, he does go on to die in the episode (hence why I felt guilty) - but he gets chewed up by by a helicopter rotary blade.

Oh well, it's more classy than Tilesey's Tribute, though just barely. We're still both going to hell though.

In other news, I found this somewhere: myheritage.com. Amongst various things that Geneologists would wet themselves over is a fun "Which celebrities do I look like?". I say fun, because look who came out that I look like....

Johnny Freaking Depp! Awesome! Not only has he been in Edward Scissorhands, but in one of my favourite movies ever: Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas. Topped off with playing a Pirate too (pirates are the coolest thing ever), and I'm chuffed to bits. I'd shag him, I really, really would. Do it yourself people, who do you look like, celeb wise?

Begs the question though: if I have an IQ of 142 and look like Johnny Depp, why the bleeding hell can I not get laid?

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Crikey.....

2006-09-04T10:39:00.000+01:00

Steve Irwin: 1962 - 2006

I am proper gutted about this, as it feels like another aspect of my childhood has died, we used to watch his shows religiously on a Tuesday night, even surviving the time when we got the internet installed. I even am unwilling to participate in "the arms race", I'm that shocked by it. Least he died doing something he enjoyed doing. It'd be like me dying blogging/alcohol overdose/sexed to death.

Rest in peace Steve Irwin, I'm pretty sure there'll be a crocodile named after you in the Welsh Mountain Zoo, they do things like that for publicity, naming a sealion "Rooney" after Euro 2004.

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Euro 2008 Heartbreak, FA Cup Replays and IQ Tests

2006-09-03T17:02:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was not a good day to be myself. The weekend officially began at 3pm, at Llanelian Road. Where the mighty seagulls entertained Osset Albion in the FA Cup first preliminary qualifying round (or something to that effect). Despite playing against a group of squirrels, we dominated against them in the first half, going one-nil up with a bullet header. We would have advanced if not for a penalty (which it blantantly was, though I think we were hoping for a repreieve with a card-shy referee). So, it finished 1-1, and we earn a lucrative away tie at Osset Albion on Wednesday. Fantastic.

Then the evening game, and the blue and white was switched to the lycra top of Wales, to cheer them on against the Czech Republic, our first game in the Euro 2008 qualifiers. We took it to them, one of the top teams in the world. We defended well for 75 minutes, frustrating them. Then a breakthrough for the Czechs. A typical sloppy goal. Toshack, to his eternal credit, swapped things around and brought on two strikers immediately. 86th minute, it paid off, with an own goal thanks to Cotteril being very, very dangerous. It was going to a much deserved point, when there was heartbreak. The ball looped in to the Welsh goal on 89 minutes. A few people cheered the fall of Wales. These people are cunts. Final score, Czechs 2, Wales 1. Utter dejection.

We switched pubs, to the classier Litten Tree, whereby Test the Nation was on. Now, I was planning on doing it online, and the fact that it was on annoyed me. I asked the barstaff to switch it off, but one (who I knew) said I was being "pathetic". Yes mate, the fact that I wish to engage my brain in activities means that I don't work behind a bar at 28, unlike your good self. So a lot of time was spent in the pub facing away from the screen and saying "LALALALALA, I'M NOT LISTENING!!!", except when the brilliant Danny Wallace was on. Luckily, I only heard that one answer was "North", so humourously 69 questions I didn't know the answer to. I took the quiz this morning, hungover, and regular commenter Laura on MSN annoying me (okay, I was annoying her, either way she was a distraction). I got a hugely whopping Krypton Factor total of 142! That not only makes me eligable for Mensa (who, I'm sure I could redesign their website, it looks horrible) but I can also amuse myself by lifting small objects/animals using Telekenisis.

To take the test yourself, click here. It takes a while, but if you are brave enough, leave your results in the comments!

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Doctors, Dentists and Toothbrushes

2006-09-01T00:03:00.000+01:00

My name is Rhys, and I'm rubbish at oral.

We arrived 20 minutes early for my much dreaded dentist. I had a fear that I was going to pay for the checkup (what's worse than a dentist? Having to pay for it), but I didn't because I was under 25, makes it slightly better the fact that my mouth would have unwanted appliances in it. Also what made it better was a copy of Edge magazine, with a nice article on one of my favourite games as a kid - Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker. I was almost about to embrace the field of dentistry when the nurse called mum "Stella Wynne", her real first name (she goes by Jane), which brought me to fits of laughter. To occupy us, we were given forms to fill in between patients. One question, thanks to years of good health, promoted some queries for Stella.

"What's our GP's name?"
"Dr. H Williams"
"Is it now. What happened to Dr. H Sissons?"
"It's the same person, she got married."
"........Dr H Sissons was a woman?"

I was second up, and I told him about my 6 months dental history - it was on the tip of my tongue. I told him a few toothaches here and there, but otherwise fine. Built myself, only for him to knock me down. My mouth was like that of a pornstar's. Well and truly fucked.

A number of fillings, an abcess, and root canal work. I do believe that's a Wynne Family Record.

I was shocked. I mean, I'm not in any pain. He said it's not really too much of a big deal, but it could be. Hence he wants to put it right. Which I suppose what he's there to do. So I'm going back there twice in October, having needles and all sorts put into me, and paying £39 for the priveledge. God bless the NHS.

I came to work a little dejected, but otherwise fine. At lunchtime, I went on an "oral binge", and bought all sorts of mouthwashes, flosses and a new toothbrush. I bought a "fancy toothbrush" - one of the three things I wouldn't buy for fear of turning into a metrosexual (the other being an electric razor* and bottled water).

Isn't it unnescessarily complicated? All sorts of bristles, whistles and thingamabobs. It's like using a blast furnace to cook some toast. One thing really made my blood boil....

A tongue cleaner! Soon I'll be ringing up Richard Hammond for teeth whitening tips. It's not good.

Tomorrow the mighty seagulls play Ossett Albion (not Town) in the FA cup, and I'll be drinking Real Ale. I will not be metrosexual!

Oh, and if Sarah from the comments is reading this, the website for the Fun Centre mentioned a couple of posts ago is thefuncentre.co.uk.

* Guy with his bumfluff asked me to teach him to shave with a proper razor, after using nothing but electric. The sheltered child he was!

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Toes, Drawers, and The Laws of Gravity

2006-08-31T07:30:00.000+01:00

Yesterday morning, I woke up sore all over from yesterday, and a bit of a blocked nose. Not good. Due to the bank holiday, this was my Tuesday. Tuesdays are days that I generally don't like, I'm either on a physical or emotional low. Nevertheless, I was hoping today would be different. I went to my jeans draw, which has put together been put together like a cheap knock-off of Ikea furniture. When removing said jeans from said draw, the front of the draw fell off, onto my foot. I proceeded to jump around like a over-stimulated kangaroo, and collapsed on my bed in agony. A few hours later, it had developed into this.

Not pretty is it? But by god those people into BDSM Foot Fetishists would be absoultely creaming themselves. I'm sure the Sexual Karma Fairy is taking notes.

Right, I'm off today to do one of my least favourite things: go to the dentist. Wish me luck.

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20ft Drop Slides and Drinking

2006-08-30T08:43:00.000+01:00

You know yesterday I said that tonight was going to be Laser Quest? Well, it wasn't, instead it was a giant adventure playground. Kinda a bit like Fun house, though you can't win a mystery tour, or your very own bank account. And less Pat Sharp too. Part of the attraction were 2 20 foot drop slides, which were hugely entertaining (though I only went on one, it went into a ball pool).

We nearly didn't make it, we got a lift (we being the zoo members and ex-members of staff) on the Zoo minibus. We we're drinking and laughing and joking when all of a sudden, the gearbox went on it. Luckily, we were not on the motorway, nor were we far from the place. So we walked the short distance to the place, wondering how they're going to run the zoo tomorrow, what with no zoo bus, no zoo staff, and no zoo web designer. Luckily, we decided "fuck it, I spent £13 on this, lets go play!"

We were greeted at the front door by a girl who sounded like the female version of Glyn. She proceded to read through the rules with the kind of enthusiasm that minimum wage employs - "No going down the slide more than 2 at a time, keep your arms in, tuck your shirt in, no jumping, go down on your bum. We can't be held responsible, etc. etc. etc.".

Like all of them were going to happen.

Instead of going down the slides to begin with, I checked out everything else, and was generally running around, acting like a tit, and signing the Crystal Maze music. A lot of the apparatus was ruled redundant (the rope swings I could just jump across, for example). But nevertheless, it was all rather fun. I never realised though how unfit we all were. Kids are just so fit, after about 20 minutes I was out of breath, and I assure you I wasn't the first.

The AA came and picked us up to take us home, so that wasn't a problem. Still wouldn't like to be in the office when the words "Um....I broke the minibus" is heard.

Better update tomorrow, I promise.

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Pride of Wales - Colwyn Bay Football Club

2006-08-29T08:41:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went to the Colwyn Bay vs. Rossendale United in the Unibond League (only 7 promotions off the Premiership). I was alone, as my partner in crime Jason was at a wedding. Nevertheless, the new Colwyn Bay kit was due out, so I had to go along and buy one. I'm not usually this bad, with the only tops I have is a 3 year old Wales top and a Welsh Rugby top I got for my 21st. Nevertheless, I fancied getting a bay shirt as it's something a bit different. Jay got the away shirt too, which I picked up for him also.

It's a similar style to last year (which means that we can't be the "Claret and Blue Army" for at least another year), but we have new sponsors: Boddingtons. It's quite nice having a sponsor that most out of towners have heard of, rather than "Dave the Garage in Old Colwyn". I never really bought a shirt before because it would have a company that I'd have to explain to people "Who are they? Oh, they're the 9th biggest teacosy manufacturer in Wales!", that and being poor, of course.

On top of that, Han duely noted that the sponsor logo was in the right pocket area of the shirt, rather than prominantly displayed in the centre, as is tradition with football shirts. Of course, Han (being Han) didn't say that, she simply said "hehe, you've got Boddingtons on your boob". At first I wasn't sold on it - prefering the traditional placement of sponsorship in the centre. But the more and more I think about it, the better I think it is.

Onto the match, Colwyn Bay drew 1-1, we didn't play at all well in the first half but we did pick our heads up when we dropped a goal behind. Maybe towards the end of the game we could of sneaked it, alas it wasn't to be, as the referee, linesman and a pigeon being against us. Luckily it doesn't make my shirt a "bad luck" shirt, so hopefully it will have some good luck in it as we entertain Osset Tow/Albion (don't know which one, can't be bothered looking) in the FA Cup on Saturday.

Tonight I'm off to Laser Quest, so that will be fun, wish me luck!

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Fruit Machines, Cars, Mobile Phones and Transfer Lists

2006-08-28T12:22:00.000+01:00

First of all, I'd like to point out that I was successful in preventing both the fruit machine arriving and my mum finding out. The person suspected I was drunk!

Last night I went to the Pen-Y-Bryn with a few mates of mine to have a few beers. As nice as the Pen is, there are no itboxes so you have to, horror of horrors, speak to each other. Even the odd game of Hangman (which I lost, due to the fact that somebody threw a double bluff at me and said "We're not allowed to use Colwyn Bay footballers", then proceeding to use ex-Man U and Colwyn Bay centre midfielder Craig Lawton, grr) was not enough.Anyway, couple of interesting observations made.

First was the talk about the "pre-season" transfers (one of my mates has been in the US for the past few weeks, so missed all the gossip), and then we got talking about the Transfer List. When a player wants to leave a football club, or a player is no longer needed by a club, he's put on a transfer list. I always thought it was just an expression, but I would like to be proved wrong. Is there, in existance, a transfer list. I don't care if it's full of Oxford United players, but I would like to see it. Paper based preferable, but web based would do.

Second point of note was something on Braniac a few weeks ago. Brainiac is an awesome science programme hosted by the best member of the Top Gear team (sorry Han), Richard Hammond, and Jon Tickle, a man who was both successful post Big Brother and not annoying. The experiment in question requires a remotely locked car, and a mobile phone. Apparently, if you were to get somebody to stand by the car with a mobile phone and call the person who has the remote locking device, they can sound it down the phone and it will work. I think a diagram is in order.

Apparently, it works. However, my parents can't afford remote locking, so if anybody has a car with remote locking, two mobile phones and a friend you can trust with keys, could you try it to see if it works? Cheers.

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Llandudno Pubs, Drinking Souvenirs and Fruit Machines

2006-08-26T13:52:00.000+01:00

Tilesey a few days ago posted about the last time he'll be in his favourite pub in Southampton. Last night was something similar - the Navy Club in Llandudno is closing it's doors, and yesterday was it's last night. It was simple, drink the bar dry.

It's quite sad that a place like that closes, as the people who were in there are usually the older crowd (we were easily the youngest people there), who shunned the traditional haunts of the Llandudno residents on a Friday, preferring the more quiet, serene private bar. Alas, it closed last night with a game of bingo and kareoke, though no songs were under 30 years old.

It's quite wierd being in a place like that, for the last time. It's like "woah, this is the last time I play pool", or "I could be the last to take a wee here". Stupid stuff like that comes into my head. I felt sorry for all the people who were losing their favourite watering hole (I go in there because Jay works there, else I would easily be kicked out). Such a shame.

Nevertheless, times changed and I manage to pick up a couple of souvenirs. First is this beauty from one of the bar taps.

The second, well. I may not get it, and if my mum found out, I'll be killed. But the conversation went something like this.

"Everything is included in the bar, pool tables, dartboard, taps. Only thing that isn't is the fruit machine. I dunno what to do with that. I mean, I can fit it in my van, no problem, but nowhere to put it."
"Oh, I'll take it off your hands."

Now, instead of watching the football, I'm going to make a few frantic phone calls to stop it being delivered.

Woe is me.

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SSG Update, Myspace and The Sexual Karma Fairy

2006-08-25T12:02:00.000+01:00

A little update on the Sandwich Shop GIrl Situation. I think I know her name!

I didn't ask her her name, which shares it's name with a capital city (clue in the picture). That would of been noble, manly, and something I wouldn't do. Instead, I used my hearing and powers of deduction I overheard another customer saying her name. However, she did say it rather loud, which has gotten me paranoid. I reckon it was a plant, you see, to say try and catch me out.

Think about it, a little amount of googling for any Colwyn Bay resident brings up my page. Pretty much for the last week or so this blog has been nothing but her. She probably put two and two together, and asked her mate to set a trap for yours truly, so see if I'd blog about her. So as if to say "Aha! My name isn't really a capital city, it's is in fact Craig! You stalk me online! I'm going to get somebody to arrest you!". Thus, scuppering my chances forever.

I know. I worry about me too.

Another romantic setback is that last night, I had a choice in my dream to have illicit relations with a well known TV presenter, or help my mum put the bin out. I chose helping my mum. Even in my dreams I can't get laid.

Finally, it appears that everybody has a Myspace account these days, including certain faries. View. Add. Believe.

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Comedy Nights, Mech Warriors, Space Websites and Bluetooth Spam

2006-08-24T11:12:00.000+01:00

As I really cannot be arsed posting today, here's a collection of links that I've found over the past few days.

Firstly is Andrew Lawrence. Veteran readers may be aware that for around 4-5 months this year Thursday nights were spent at comedy clubs up and down Liverpool. One of the first acts I saw was this comedian called Andrew Lawrence, who came out of nowhere, and was one of the funniest things I ever saw. Anyway, turns out he has a myspace on the new myspace comedy site, and he has posted two videos of him performing. I urge you to check it out, especially if you like my sort of humour. The link is here. Check out video 2, which was almost the exact same set as I watched. Cheers to Guy for digging that one up for me.

Secondly, from Fark.com is this. How cool is that? I used to love playing the Mechwarrior games, even managing a go in those mechwarrior games they used to have in the Trochadero in London. That was fun. But a real Mech Warrior (even if it's slow and only fires rubber bullets)? That's awesome!

Next, we have the rather intreguing (if mind fucking) Deep Sky Frontier (thanks Gorillamask. It a webpage which supposedly shows the amount of stars in space (or something) and - if printed out, the amount of paper used would run from the centre of the Sun to Saturn. I dare you to print it out!

Finally, I suffered one of these myself recently. We drove past a billboard in Colwyn Bay's East End, and I had a message via bluetooth from Land Rover. I accepted it, and it was a video which couldn't fit on my phone. It's a cool idea, though I can imagine it get annoying and cause accidents. What do you think?

Proper update soon, I promise.

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It's Not The End of the World

2006-08-23T16:10:00.000+01:00

Pat yourselves on the back, because we're still here.

Was reading Celeste's blog earlier that due to her toothpaste having 2 stripes instead of 3, that the apocolypse is nigh. When I read that, I remembered a news article that said that yesterday* we were due an apocolypse, not according to some whacko who predicted World War 2/JFK's Assassination/Pete Winning Big Brother 7, oh no. This was based on religious fact**, between Islam and Judaism, or some twaddle. Anyway, a quote from a blog about it:-

"“[The long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil] may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the US about nuclear development by Aug. 22,” which this year corresponds “to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to ‘the farthest mosque,’ usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1).

Now trust me, this isn't going to be a mocking post about "Oooh, look! I survived ANOTHER apocolypse! People will think that I'm Bruce Willis soon!", because should there ever be an apocalypse in my lifetime, I want to be on the winning team. So I'll leave you with this question.

If there was an apocalypse tomorrow, what would you spend the last 24 hours doing?

Difficulty: you cannot spend time with your family.

Proper update tomorrow, I promise.

* Yes I quite realise that I posted "today" in the comments - sue me.
** Again, I realise the irony of this statement.

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I Don't Like Tuesdays

2006-08-22T20:51:00.000+01:00

Tuesdays are fast becoming my least favourite day of the week. Last week I was miserable to the point of Sibley texting me beacuse he was worried about me. The main reason was (and this is going to sound stupid) I was putting profiles together for a client, and they all looked so young and happy, and it made me miserable. Today I'm in a fairly good mood, but those of you who have recieved an email off me will know I've a spot of tummy ache. I say spot, I was considering ringing up ill for work. I'd of loved to have used my favourite excuse.....

"Hey boss, I'm ringing in sick."
"Really? How bad are you?"
"I am fucking my sister, that sick enough for you?"

.....but I have no sister. Even if she did, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't put out.

So I made it to work, and there seems to be a stigma attached to 22 year olds with tummy ache that they ahd drinks the night before. I haven't touched a drop since Saturday! Also, I went out and played football for two hours (I truly am dire at football) last night, so I've been good lately. Nevertheless, three people said to me "oh, you're hungover aren't you.". Pfft.

Anyway, I'm taking it easy tonight, even if it does mean sacking off the football. Was tempted to drive to Alsager to watch Colwyn Bay vs. Alsager Town in the Unibond league. However, 3 hours in a car with the only sustenance being a meat & potoato pie with greasy chips is not what I want in my system at the moment. Though what I need is a lot of sweet tea and strawberries, preferably delivered to me by a loving caring nurse, who would manipulate more than my pillows.

In semi-related news: SSG wasn't working today.

I still don't know her name.

Blame Canada

2006-08-21T22:02:00.000+01:00

Today I went for my first sandwich of the week in the sandwich shop. Sandwich Shop Girl was working, and I did a very sad and pathetic thing by making sure she served me, by using a "oh, I haven't decided" until she came. To me that is. Lo and behold she seemed blissfully unaware at my quite pathetic attempts to speak to her, au contraire she actually said something that shocked me.

"I saw you in the Madoc on Saturday."

I beg your pardon? Not a "Oh, were you in the Madoc on Saturday?" No, straight for the the throat.I had nothing to say to that, I wasn't expecting it.

"Err...yes I was. Sorry I didn't see you."
"That's okay! I was going to come over and say hi and introduce myself, but you seemed busy with that girl."
"What girl? Oh, Canadian Girl! Don't read anything into it. I only met her that night, she'd have buggered off back to Toronto by now."
"Cool......do you want mayo?"

Good news! She's over 18! A big plus point for me, as 17's too young, it's "refused from pub, can't buy fireworks and unable to get a credit card" young. Though I'm a bit gutted that she said she would have* come over, though I think she was just saying it. Still, not like every day you meet a Canadian is it? Unless you live in Canada, I assume.

But it's obviously a positive. I mean, she saw me in a pub where the smoke means that you have trouble seeing your own catteracts. And thought "ooh, there's that blisteringly hot Welshman who buys sandwiches from us. I'll make note of that should that, by speaking to Miss Canada, he contracts Canadaitis which grows two balls in his scrotum, and actually takes the trouble to ask me my name, so that I can at least yell out his name during our one night stand."

Ahem. Yes. I still don't know her name.

In other news, my shoes exploded today! No, I wasn't on a plane, and the only damage done was to my socks, as it was pissing it down. Therefore, I bought some new ones. With the rather sexually dynamic phrase of "Dragon Power". I took a photo of them, with my very sexually static-bordering-on-retarded face behind it.

Grrrr....baby yeah!

* LOOK YOU PREDANTIC GRAMMAR NAZIS!!!!

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Cassy the Canadian in Colwyn Bay

2006-08-20T19:48:00.000+01:00

Last night after seeing the Mighty Seagulls dominate Wakefield (proper update of that will be tomorrow), I went with my brother and a couple of ex-workmates to the Prince Madoc in Colwyn Bay. It's only the third or fourth time of going in there, and it was mainly because there was a happy hour, two drinks for one. Get in! I had a few at the football, but nevertheless handled myself pretty well.

About half way through the night, a girl came over to our table, and said "Hi, I'm Cassy! I'm visiting this area, so I'm just finding a big group of people to hang out with!". Fair enough, as the group which started out with just six of us swelled to around 15-20 people in the Madoc, probably the biggest group of people there and - knowing the people that go in there - probably the nicest. Eventually, I got hold of her ear (not literally), and made my introduction.

"Hi, I'm Cassy, what's your name?"
"Rhys."
"Oh like Reese's Pieces?"

Now, I'm quite aware that there is some sweets in America called "Reese's Pieces": and people often bring me back Reese's Pieces when they go there. However, as far as things to say when they mention my name - "Reese's Pieces" is the best. I much prefer it to "Like Reese Witherspoon?" and definitely to "Like that asshole kid off Malcom In The Middle?". So it's not too bad.

We then got talking about everything - music, sports, mocking American foreign policy. Anyway, she wanted to sing Kareoke, but the guy who ran it said no. Not even seemingly infinite pleas of "But I'm CANADIAN!!!" did anything. "Yeah," said the Kareoke Guy said, "that's what they all say.", "But I SOUND Canadian!". No joy was had. Anyway, the company was brilliant - she was very intelligent (I'm a sucker for intelligence, trust me. My future wife has to be intelligent. I'm not saying that she has to go through University, but I would never have a trophy wife) and at the end of the night I gave her my number.

Big Mistake.

You see, she was going back to Canada eventually. Chances are that she wouldn't call me from Canada, an e-mail address would of worked. I was immediately reminded of what Fern said ages ago: "Rhys probably hands out business cards to strangers in clubs with only his url on them". Last night, I wish I did.

And so to this entry: this is the first time I've actually used the name of the person I want to get in touch with on an entry, as opposed with giving them names like "Sandwich Shop Girl". Reason being is that if she is egosurfing for herself, this page may, just may, come up highly in google. How many famous Cassies are there? I also took the liberty last night of friend requesting every 22 year old Canadian called Cassie, Cassy or Cassandra on Myspace for exactly the same reason. Sad I know, but I really wouldn't mind getting back in touch with this girl. Not because of "oh yeah, I want a long distance relationship with a Canadian" (I had trouble when my girlfriend lived in Chester, I would not manage Canada), just because she seemed cool, down to earth, fantastic company and a nice person to be around, and something that I have been taught far too often in my life.

If you like someone, by god, do your best to keep in touch with them.

Fingers crossed for developments, which knowing my luck, could take the form of a major international diplomatical incident as there is a scary stalker Welshman blogs about a Canadian he met in a bar in North Wales.

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Ballsing up Chances, Big Brother Glyn and Football

2006-08-19T12:04:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I managed to do what I always to with women: fuck it up. I went to the Sandwich Shop and got served by SSG, and she spent ages on my sandwich, slicing up olives individually (if the shop likes you, they slice up spherical accompnyments) and laying them on my sandwich. I even managed a funny compliment: "I don't whether to eat or frame that sandwhich!". Okay, it's hardly hilarious, but it's a safe way to make her laugh, can't really launch into an aristrocrats style joke with people I don't know, can I? Nevertheless, she giggled and began conversation.

"So you've been coming in here quite a lot recently, what do you do?"
"I'm a web designer."
"Cool!"

At this point I remembered advice that Sarah gave me: ask questions to make them like you, as then you'll seem interested. So I did.

"So, what do you do?"

Foot. Meet mouth. She stared at me, cajun chicken covered knife in hand, and tilted her head as if to say "what a dumb thing to say.". I giggled and left it. I changed the subject to something else, and got talking about Colwyn Bay FC, which - luckily - didn't seem to bore her. I said I was going today, so hopefully she decides to take a chance and go to Llanelian Road today.

In other news: Big Brother finished last night, with Glyn finishing second. I'll be honest, I watched none of it, just the first 3 or 4 episodes. Nevertheless, I liked Glyn. He seemed normal and very amicable, and has done a hell of a job promoting North Wales and Welsh, proving that we're not all inbred hicks. It's been quite surreal in that - footballers aside - I know very few "celebrities" from North Wales. Since Glyn entered the house, everybody has claimed to know something about him. I've heard "oh, I've played football in his back garden", "my mate dated his sister" and the strange "oh, when I was swimming and got in trouble, he came and rescued me". If he stays in the North Wales area, rather than go chase his fortune in London, he could be very popular, and switch on the Christmas lights everywhere. Though he seems grounded - and is going to Bangor University in September, good on him.

I don't often say "I wish I was more like somebody", but I wish I could speak Welsh as well as him. And to answer the most popular e-mail question I've had in the last few weeks: no, I sound nothing like him.

Right, it's nearly midday, and I'm still in bed. I'm due to be at the football in an hour, to take advantage of the new clubhouse and our sponsorship by Boddingtons, which makes a change from the usual "Who?" question I ask whenever they announce who is sponsoring us this year. However, may take it a little easy today, because as well as my lucky scarf, I've also got my lucky hangover. I drunk quite a lot of an ale called "Fish King" last night that I was slurring my words so bad at the end of the night, I asked the barmaid for a "Fisting".

Urgh.

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Sandwich Shop Staff, Sheddites and Students

2006-08-18T00:05:00.000+01:00

Hi. I feel like I've been neglecting my blog a bit recently, and not really explaining what I've been doing. So, to hopefully provide you with a bit of an update, here's what's been happening.

Well, work is continuing nicely. I passed my 3 month trial period and they're keeping me on, which is good. First time ever I feel like I'm getting a bit of money behind me, and I don't know what to do with it. I'd love to go on a holiday somewhere, but the original plan (which was to stay with Guy in Buckinghamshire for a few days) looks set to be breaking, what with Guy's new job going swimmingly. It's quite bad really, as work are asking me when am I going to take my first holiday. Truth is I have no idea.

It's not all doom and gloom. Something has given me a bit of confidence. Maybe it's the feeling of safe and regular (because I'm at home), but I seem to be quite chirpy recently. Even staying 15 minutes later in work. My mum isn't happy with me at the moment though, with the fact she's had to throw out sandwich fillings, which I usually eat. Tonight, she cornered me and asked me why. I gave her the honest answer.

"Oh, I just fancy the girl in the sandwich shop."

It's the problem wiith having a blog that everybody knows about - I can't really talk about people that I fancy, as there are some who are reading this blog. Yes, you! As such, I can't talk about "oh such and such is gorgeous", because there's a very real chance that Miss Such And Such will read it. But looking at Sandwich Shop Girl (SSG from now on in) has made me quite happy, which means I look forward to lunchtime even more so than normal. Anyway, I'm not sure if she likes me. I mean she's begun to notice me when I walk in and always makes a point of asking how I am, and she makes damn fine sandwiches and gives me discounted muffins (though I think that they are just cheap). Apart from that, I know nothing - what her name is, her age, or what she's into. I haven't seen her around town or anything, but we shall see.

In more certain news Colwyn Bay kick off their season against Wakefield. It also marks my first Colwyn Bay game in nearly 4 years, and the first in Unibond Division 1 (we were in the Unibond Premier). On top of this, only two of the original Sheddites can make it, but if anybody can make it to Llanelian Road, Colwyn Bay on Saturday, come and join us in the Shed, and sing with us, and listen with intent as we bore you with stories of Shedites past - including the classic story between Colwyn Bay vs. Stafford Rangers, FA Trophy, Third Round, October 1999. Saturday, the we return - this time, we can get into the clubhouse.

Finally, congratulations to all of you who are reading this who got the results you wanted. Han ended up in Kent, and Aled got a A, B, C and U (I think, know he got a U in Chemistry). All cousins of A-Level age all got into their respective universities, and the hoohaa is over for another year. Not before the papers praise the students hard work on one hand, and then bitch about them being too easy on the other. Everybody did it in their own way, especially the Sun, who had these girls adorning the story about A Levels.

I don't know their results, but by the look of it it looks like they got D's.

I'll leave now.

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itBoxes, Firefox Crop Circles and Football Stickers

2006-08-16T08:42:00.000+01:00

Hi all, after a disappointing night in the quiz (for the team, was quite fun the quiz) I'm feeling a little bit worse for wear. I needed the pub, as I had a bit of a bad day yesterday. Don't really want to go into the main reasons, but here are two of the more humourous reasons:-

Doing a website for a client, for some reason one page on the "employee's profile" listed this girls occupation as "Chief Sex Inspector" as opposed to "Chief Tax Inspector".
Saw Disabled Gay Foot Fetish Man. Saturday's events and non-pulling have led me to believe the Sexual Karma Fairy doesn't exist, so I had no trouble in ignoring him.

As such, today - we're going to have some linky love as opposed to a decent entry.

This (from Fark) has become my new desktop. Years ago when I regularly visited the farm Dad owned, you did see crop circles around the place, and often wierd and wonderful designs. However, this I think is the greatest piece of firefox promotion ever. Even beating the Firefox for Prom Queen link Han posted, which had the excellent "the prom queen election officials informed us that web browsers, no matter how awesome they are, are not eligible for prom queen." line in it. If Google are reading this take note: get your google earth satellites over to Oregon now!

This story grabbed my attenition on Fark (again! I will find another link whoring place). For those of you who don't read the Sun (and I don't blame you), the link goes to two Cambridge Graduates who - after finding a loophole in an itbox game and armed with a basic level of general knowledge - managed to take nearly £10000 (which is around $20000 in a weak currency) out of various machines over a long period of time. My mate Jay does something similar. He generally goes to Rhyl arcades (where stupid people hang out) and reguarly takes about £10 or £20 out a time. We used to go to JMU student union and do the same, because we'd get beaten quite badly if we played Liverpool University's quiz machines, due to our superior intellect. Likewise, I also took out £4 of the quizzer last night, result!

Finally, thanks for all your ideas for what I should do with my football stickers (well, both of you anyway. Sayre's answer sounds the most appealing though (even though I will have to take the stickers and stick them on some card - there's no space for phone number/email on the back, and was thinking about it quite a lot in the pub. Then, when at the bar (at the time), I actually got chatting to the barmaids. I never do that! Okay, it's not much of a start and will go nowhere, and I know that - after dating Sarah - that they usually be all nice and friendly, but I felt quite pleased of myself for doing that. I still want your ideas though, so send them in!

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My Panini Premiership Sticker Update

2006-08-15T00:02:00.000+01:00

Some of you may remember this post from a few weeks back. In it, I urged you to visit Mypanini and make a football sticker for "Gospel Rhys XI". So far, only Han have committed to the team, but I'd like to get 11.

Anyway, that's not the reason for this post. The reason is that through the website, you could also buy the stickers. Now, I said I wouldn't, but unfortunately, I left the computer on with the window open and went out for a few beers. Long story converted into a picture form:-

These came through the post this morning.

Question is, what to do with them. Well, Han suggested that two of them could be used as prizes for the fantasy football, which is a fabulous idea and if it doesn't convince you to join the league which starts on friday, then by god, I don't know what will. That then leaves 8 stickers left, suggestions would be well appreciated.

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School Reunion and Chester Blogmeet

2006-08-13T23:11:00.000+01:00

I'm afraid I told two porkies in my last entry. One promised "Minietta", the other said that I wasn't going to the blog meet in Chester (well, it was more of a maybe, but that was my nice way saying I wasn't coming).

The school dress idea was knocked on the head pretty early on, so Minietta remained in the closet. Nevertheless, I arrived at the pub with Sibley at around 6ish, and we slowly made our way across the bar. It was good seeing him again - never really spoke to him as much as I liked at the last reunion, so it was good to sit with him for about an hour and a half talking about stuff, and generally catching up. In the end, there was 8 of us, and - whilst the company was fantastic - I had a cob on all night. Why, I've no idea, probably because Broadway was crap this time around, and I was lead to believe it was amazing. Sure, I've been in when it's been crap before, but this time I felt cheated. As well as the company, the only other highlight was playing the Deal or No Deal fruit machine and fluking a £19 win. When the only blogworthy thing from a night out is playing on a fruit machine, it's not good.

In the end, I left at around 1ish, and headed home with Sibley. About this time I was thinking "I'll be in bed by 2, ooh I wonder if I can make that blogmeet thing?"

Fast forward to Sunday morning, about 10. I awake with slight - but not unmanageable - hangover. A quick bacon butty and I was good to go. I'm going to make go. Concocting a plan to justify my trip to Chester - I don't think "I'm going to Chester to meet some random people I've never seen before!" would cut it - I told my mum "Me and Sibley are going to Chester for a bit" and Sibley "Me and my mum are going to Chester". I pray to god that they don't bump into each other in the street anytime soon.

Anyway, there was 4 of us (Andy, John and Jeane), and - whilst apprehensive to begin with - the conversation began flowing and a good time was had by all. I was a bit unsure about meeting people off the internet, and looked at today as testing the water. If 20 people turned up, then the chances that 20 of them were rabbit murders would be slim. Luckily, not only were Andy, John and Jeane not bunny killers, they also were nice people, and I'm looking forward to meeting more people off the internet, whereever you may be.

If you're lucky, I'll even turn up without a hangover.

Pictures to follow...

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b3ta.com Multiple Underwear Wearing Challenge, School Reunions and Blogmeets

2006-08-12T09:53:00.000+01:00

b3ta.com is one of my favourite sites out there, and it is the only newsletter that goes directly into my inbox. This friday's newsletter introduced the "Pant Challenge" basically - how many simultaneous pairs of pants can be worn. They said 8 was physically impossible. I laughed in the face of physics, as I managed a massive 13 pairs, plus 1 pair of jeans.

Sure, it just looks like a pair of boxers, but no, I did manage to get proof. Have a gander at this photo.

13 pairs, count em! 13! Couple of observations though that need to be made:

Colour: It is important that you use clearly contrasting colours. Otherwise people may not believe you, and you have to stretch your pants out more.

Balance: It's tricky to balance with tons of boxers on, so just don't climb any stairs.

Blood Flow: With the sheer amount of elastic around your waist, blood flow is restricted. My legs went a little numb when taking off the boxers.

So the gauntlet has well and truly been laid down. Can anybody beat it? Alternative challenge for the Ladies - the record for bras is 7, won by a friend of mine who used enough fabric in those 7 bras to make an awning.

In other news, I've a busy weekend ahead of me. Tomorrow is the second school reunion in Llandudno. I've been told to expect a "different crowd" to last time. I prepared for cutting my hair and buying some new jeans. I really went to town and thought that with my new look the Sexual Karma Fairy may take pity on me and help me out. That was until one of my mates said it "could be a real school reunion - ties, white shirts, the works.". All in all, we could see the re-emergence of Minietta this weekend. Bet the filthy little minx can't wait.

As a kind of a knock-on effect, my participation in the North By North Wales Blogmeet has been labelled as a 'Maybe'. Trains are dead bad on a Sunday, and I have been so busy I was kind of looking forward to a lie in. I'll be honest, it completely slipped my mind when people started making plans around me. If I can make it for an hour or two, I will come. Guess I'm mentioning it not to feel guilty!

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The Sexual Karma Fairy Owes Me Big....

2006-08-11T07:55:00.000+01:00

Certain times on this blog, I stretch the truth a little bit. Occasionally I flat out lie to get a cheap laugh. What I am about to relate to you - I can assure you - is 100% fact.

I was sat in Colwyn Bay yesterday on my lunch break. I had bought a cajun chicken sandwich and thought - as it was a nice day - I'd eat it outside. I could of gone down to the beach, but instead I found myself a nice little bench outside the Colwyn Centre, and watched the world go by, until I heard a voice.

"HELLLOOOO!!!!"

I turned and saw a guy in a wheelchair coming towards me. Me being polite, I answered with "Alright mate!". I've spoken to him before - he appreciates the company. This time, he didn't want general chit chat, he wanted more.

"You have very nice shoes, how much do they cost?"

I wasa bit taken aback, "Errmm....well, thanks. They were only cheap."

"Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiccceeee. Are they real leather?"

"No," I said, with a dismissive laugh, "you couldn't kill a cow for £15"

"Can I have a closer look?"

Bit of a strange thing to ask, but never mind. I put my foot on the bench for him to see. He twitched, sighed, and then continued.

"Do you wear socks?"

"Ummm....yeah, I do. They're black."

"Can I see them?"

"They're not exciting, but yeah.". I roll up my trouser leg just a little bit to show my socks. He twitched harder, sighed harder, and then it struck me. Although a fairly innocent act of rolling up my trouser legs, it appeared to him sexual. My god, he was getting off on me! To him, it was like a model rolling up her skirt to show her suspenders, I kept my deadpan expression, whilst trying to search my conversation libarary for "Things to say to a gay disabled foot fetishist in order to say to 'no' without hurting their feelings". All the time, my concentration being violated by his further requests.

"I bet in this weather your feet are nice and sweaty."
"I'd love to see your tonails."
"Take your shoes off, for me please?"

Dejected to not find an solution to this, I made my excuses that I have to go back to work, and walked away. Briskly.

My mate told m once about a "Sexual Karma Fairy". Apparently, she's a bit like Cupid. But she decides who you end up with in life. She creates happy marriages to beautiful people for people have been good, and punishes those who have been assholes with strings of unhappy marriages to munters who don't give oral sex. The Sexual Karma Fairy tests you with situations you don't want to be in, and scores you on the way you handle them. Today was such a test and, despite my less-than-perfect end of the conversation, I think I handed the situation pretty well. Although I don't know what the Sexual Karma Fairy has in store for me, but you can bet that - after the today's performance - I would be miffed at something less than "Average Looking Normal Person/Below Average Looking Celebrity".

1980's Cartoons - Not Dangermouse or Thundercats!

2006-08-10T08:40:00.000+01:00

As it's apparently all kicking off at the moment (I've been considering doing a James May and applying for a pilots licence. No bombs on my light aircraft bitch!) and to kind of apologise for last nights fairly drunken entry, I'm going to talk about 80's cartoons.

They say there are two ways to know what a man's like. Look at his porn collection, and look at what cartoons he liked when he was a kid. Now, suprisingly, I never jumped onto the Dangermouse/Thundercats/Transformers franchises, as they were too popular (yes, I was an alternative kid). I was never really one for guns and swords in a fantasy world, I prefered more serene cartoons.

My absolute favourite was Stoppit and Tidyup. I loved their japes with characters such as Comb Your Hair, Eat Your Greens, Clean Your Teeth and the Big Bad I Said No. Narrated by Terry Wogan, no episode was more than 10 minutes long - catering to my short attention span, bordering on ADD levels. You can now buy the whole schebang on DVD. Anybody want to be nice and buy that for me? Fuck it, it's only £3!

I hate Disney, but for some reason I loved Chip 'n' Dale. Something about the bastard child of Walt Disney that were named after strippers made it watchable. Something has played on my memory the whole time, and I'm not sure if this is true, but did they kill off a number of the Rescue Rangers in the last ever episode? Wikipedia has not come up with any answers. Any ideas guys?

It's amazing cartoons like Dangermouse and Thundercats have quite a rabid cult following. Some don't. I wondered why Teddy Ruxpin doesn't have one, partly because I used to love it as a kid. Looking at the intro, I can see why - it is kind of gay. Nevertheless, it must be fairly popular, as it's also on DVD as well.

Onto more manly matters is The Hurricanes - the global "Soccer" Team owned by the oldest looking 12 year old girl I've ever seen. These band of football superstars made Chelsea look like Halifax Town. This cartoon was introduced to get Americans into football after the 1994 World Cup, and failed miserably. As such, nobody remembers it except for me and Guy.

I also enjoyed Captain N - The Game Master, primarily because I loved playing Castlevania as a child, and the hero from that was in this program.

Finally, although I never watched it, Power Rangers had a fairly big influence on me through my brothers. As such, we stared a football team called Queens Park Power Rangers. Now, remembering this winning name for a football team, I attempted to change my Fantasy Football team name to that, but unfortunately they said it was "too long".

Heh. Story of my life really.

So, dear readers, what cartoons did you enjoy as kids?

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Cold Showers and Liverpool Champions League

2006-08-09T23:36:00.000+01:00

Bah, what's wrong with all of you? Less than a week that I posted that I was a bit down with my dating calamity, this - this - is what I've had to put up with within the last 24 hours.

Logging on at 8am to blog (seriously), and being greeted with Vicky talking about Japanese porn.

Fern talking about Morgan's boobs and snogs.

Celeste talking about knobbing minor royalty/BBC Reality TV stars.

Guy wittering on about this girl he met in real life off myspace and used the ";)" a lot.

Closest that I got? A mate of mine talking about his Hypospadias* condition to me, with detail. And pictures.

All in all - in my semi drunken state, I am feeling fairly left out. STOP IT YOU LOT AND JOIN MY FANTASY FOOTBALL LEAGUE!

In other news, I mostly spent tonight watching the match between Liverpool and Maccabi Haifa. Before I talk about the result, I just want to say: were Marc Gonzales (Liverpool new signing) and Chris Coleman (Hannah's favourite football team - Fulham manager) separate at birth?

Scary.

Liverpool went on to beat the Israel side 2-1. Hezbollah must be chuffed to bits.

* Men: google that word and wince.
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