YES! That’s right!

That’s right, following my 3 hour lessons in Milton Keynes snowdome, I’ve decided to up the ante a little for the remaining lessons: Jimbo (from work) and myself (and Squage, natch) are heading off to the south of France in just over a week for a week of Snow Boarding fun amoungst beautiful scenery! In the words of Peter Griffin, it’s going to be freakin’ awesome:

The Chalet.

The Resort.

This is the connected (massive) Les Arcs

Fortunately James and I have been down the gym 5 times this week and planning at least 4 next week too, so we’ll be in some kind of fit state to give it a go! I’m still gonna ache like a bastard but you know what: I don’t care. It’s going to be SO worth it.

Expect a full report on my return :-)

On in the mean time, today is the return of the Daily Photo. Today it’s of two stuffed toys on Reg’s desk at work:

Ride ‘em, IUM * Monkey!

Toodles,

Pat

* IUM = Image Utility Model. Basically it’s a printer leasing scheme, but as it’s at my place of work it needs to ensure it’s got a TLA **

** Tasty Lumpy Artichoke

F*£king Legend!

“What the hell?” You might ask. Well, if you did then I guess you’ve never seen Kevin Bloody Wilson live, because if you’d seen him you’d know he ends up coming back to that song salute several times during a set.

You’d also know that he’s fecking hilarious!

Last Tuesday evening the Old Server Team Crew (consisting of Jimbo, Gib, Tony and myself) trundled along Saffend sea front and to the Cliffs Pavilion Theatre for a night of entertainment. And entertained we were.

After a long and taxing (for old man Tony anyway ;-) ) walk up the steps to the Cliffs, we made it to the bar to grab a nice chilled pint to start the evening off. Alas, it seemed for some reason the Cliffs figured it only needed 2 rather slow bar staff to cater for many, many beer hungry attendees so by the time I’d got served I ended up getting 2 pints each rather than one.

A quick necking later we were in the theatre itself, whereupon James revealed that he’d actually bought us tickets in the 2nd row! This was both great and worrying news:

• Great – We’d be right there in front of the action with an awesome view
• Worrying – We’d be in full “have the piss ripped all night” view

You might think that I’m being a wuss with the worrying (Yes, yes we do – Squage) but it’s with just cause: the last time I was close to the front of a comedy gig I had my face licked to death by a mental, sweaty canadian. Phil Nichol’s a frightening man.

Anyway I needn’t've worried as both Kevin and his support act were lovely and only ended up picking on one poor bugger who’s birthday it was (who was amusingly unimpressed).

Speaking of the support act, she was great. None other than Kevin’s own daughter, Jenny Talia (yes, Jenny Talia) was damned funny herself, following in her father’s footsteps of performing her own damned funny and clearly-not-for-kids tunes (highlight probably being “The Bastard Song”) with some great chatty bits inbetween to the great entertainment of everyone there.

We like her stuff so much we decided to buy two of her albums between us… and even got a photograph with her:

I was worried that my phone camera wouldn’t quite do the job in dim light, but as you can see this picture is PERFECT so that’s lucky!

After a short interval (and an obligatory pint) we sat back in our seats for the main event… who did not disappoint.

From “Do Ya F*** On First Dates”, through classics like “DILLIGAF”, “It Was Over”, “Five Seconds Of Foreplay” and “The Public Hair Song” to a sing-along version of “Santa Claus You C***”, Kev was definitely on form. That’s not even mentioning the great stand-up bits inbetween songs, or, of course, the ever-returning “Nigel” (who I believe is a f***ing legend).

The man himself, although thanks to the Nokia 6300 you can hardly tell…

All in all, an awesome night. It was their last date on the current tour so they’ll not be back in the UK for a fair bit, but if you ever get a chance in future, SEE THEM.

I’d not laughed that much in such a long time… we were all still laughing as we left the theatre, on the drive home and indeed I spent a good part of Wednesday morning laughing at my desk. The last bit was possibly because of the Kevin Wilson and Jenny Talia MP3s I was listening to, to be honest…

Jimbo: I salute you for booking those tickets. Tony: I salute you for driving us there and driving a drunk us back. Gib: I salute you for the awesome 5 litre barrel of joy you provided me yesterday – although that’s not really relevant to this post.

Right, lunch break over. On with writing envelopes and playing with Excel. Live the dream.

Tarrah,

Pat

I’ve been looking for a Winamp plugin that actually did compression / limiting etc PROPERLY for a LONG time… and on checking out winamp.com recently, I finally found it.

It’s rather humbly called “STEREO TOOL”, rather than “FECKING GREAT PLUGIN WOT CAN MAKE YOUR OUTPUT SOUND ALL TASTY, LIKE” and if (like me) you’re a bit of a saddo and like to have your songs sounding as though they’re playing on a radio station, you really should go here and download it.

Couple it with Sqrsoft’s very tasty Advanced Crossfading Output plugin and you’ll be laffing all the way to the bank (where you’ll take out some money in order to buy that £100 boxed set of old Radio Caroline Jingles…)!

Pat

P.S. I’m actually interested in this for some podcast / online radio ideas I’ve got, not because I’m a sad case. Well, not only because I’m a sad case…