It's taken me a long time to get round to saying this... but I'm back in Southend having lost my job. The company I was working for, A1 Fasteners in Eastleigh, 'released' me at the end of my 3 month trial period. Their reason - I was lacking the knowledge and skills they required for the future of the company!?! So, having worked in the same industry for 17 or 18 years that was a bit of a surprise. But, the real reason they 'let me go' isn't something they'd willingly discuss with any of their customers. The real reason was in fact, that I'd put getting goods to a customer on time first - before making a profit. I'd actually made a loss on the order! Yes, to prevent a customer losing a contract, I was losing the company £80.

When the higher powers were discussing it with me and why I'd done it, I never mentioned all the orders that I had made a profit on. Not even the order for £2100 that I made about £700 profit on! I didn't even mention the hours and hours of work I'd saved them on labels for Knorr-Bremse kits. They were actually photocopying A4 cad drawings on to A4 sized sticky labels by the 100's, then cutting out a small box of info from the middle of the page to stick on the kit packages. Whereas I just edited them with Paintshop Pro, imported them into Illustrator and converted them into PDF files that could be printed directly on a roll of labels. No waste paper and no time spent cutting them out, it took me about 5 minutes to create each label and they were printed at about a label/second. And once the label was created as a PDF all they have to do is print them off - as many as they want in next to no-time

As it happened, I was already thinking about looking for another job as I was sick to death of having to 'mis-inform' customers about why they hadn't received their deliveries. But I was hoping to last long enough to get relocated to the area and then start looking.

If you happen to be an A1 Fasteners, Croma Industrial or Gluelines customer and you are reading this, then good luck. You might want to ask them why most of the old A1 Fasteners staff left? Or why some staff are working a 55 hour week? Or why you never get what you want when you want it?
Remember - there are plenty of other fasteners companies in the area!

The Olympics

I've got to say, the opening ceremony to the Olympics was absolutely amazing. The sport side of it I find totally boring but hey, at least the football season has begun LOL. When we host the Olympics in 2012, we are going to have to come up with a hell of a show to beat the Chinese - and somehow I just don't see it happening, do you? In fact, it'll be bloody amazing if we even get everything ready on time when you think about how late Wembley Stadium was.

Other Stuff

Firstly, a BIG thank you to Carl & Karen for putting me up and putting up with me for 3 months.
Secondly, a BIG hello to everyone who has joined the Canute Facebook group and to those likely to be attending the Canute Reunion at the Firehouse Pub, also to the old rockers in Recluse who look likely to be doing the gig there.
Lastly... I'LL BE BACK!

This is the second weekend in a row that I've come back to Southend to see the wife and kids. Last weekend wasn't particularly eventful - just a nice quiet weekend with a 2 1/2 hour drive there and back to Southampton.

But this weekend has been quite interesting. Firstly, I didn't realise until Friday that it was Southend Airshow. So I expected to be able to get some good photos or video of the various planes flying over the seafront. It's generally quite good because the view from our balcony allows us to see most of the action without having to struggle through the massive crowds. Needn't have worried too much this year though, Sunday ended after about 5 displays due to low cloud. Though we did get to see the Red Arrows first. Worse still, today being bank holiday Monday, we had typical bank holiday weather which left the skies empty of everything but rain.

Nevermind', I said to the wife, 'Peppa Pig is at the Victoria shopping centre and the kids will love that!'. So off we went, did a bit of shopping then decided to hang about and see if we could see Peppa Pig. Sure enough, after about fifteen minutes of waiting, I spotted Peppa Pig and George upstairs, or at least, 2 people wearing Peppa and George suits!
Both myself and another dad, watching these people wearing great big pig outfits and heading towards the escalators, were hoping that they would end up tumbling down the escalators, nut the spoilsports decided to use the lift instead.

Anyhow, it wasn't long before these big pigs were surrounded by a hoard of young excited kids, ours included. I took some photos and the wife, armed with her new mobile phone, took photos and video clips. Our kids excitedly wandered back and forth between Peppa and George. When the wife started videoing it on her phone, I didn't realise she was doing it and better still, we didn't realise what she would capture. My son certainly didn't realise what was going to be caught on video and neither did Peppa Pig.

As the above headline suggests, yes... Peppa Pig HIT my son! He grabbed hold of this giant Peppa Pigs nose and pulled it downward and received a smack around the head! I was gob-smacked. I saw it but the wife, still videoing on her phone didn't notice. When I told her she burst out laughing in disbelief! So here it is, the moment my son was assaulted by a childrens TV character....

(watch carefully, Peppa is behind George and he is the boy in the red and blue t-shirt)

Well, hopefully this is my last post as a resident of Southend-on-Sea. I'm moving down to Totton, Southampton, tomorrow. I didn't expect to be doing a post here as my computer has been playing up... freezing for no apparent reason, but it's been fine all day today. The wife is now moaning that I'm spending time posting this instead of spending time with her LOL!

It is gonna be weird being away from the wife and kids for a few months, but hopefully it will all be worthwhile in the end. Just got to find somewhere to live now.

So, farewell and good riddance Southend... I won't miss it one little bit!

The end is nigh... one of those sayings that people have ridiculed for years. I don't even think there are any people walking around with signs saying that anymore. It's just too ridiculous to be true... isn't it?

Maybe? Or maybe not?
But I think I might be the first of a new breed of doom mongers. An internet doom monger. I'm starting to believe the end IS nigh!

I'm not talking about a massive meteorite hitting the earth and causing a global catastrophe or anything like that.
No, I'm talking about something a lot more realistic. Something a lot more disturbing in many ways.

I'm talking about the end of Civilisation as we know it!

The way things are going at the moment with global warming (whether it's a man made problem OR a natural occurrence), which is affecting food supplies and causing shortages in basic staple products, which in turn leads to an increase in food prices, which in turn leads to higher wage demands, which in turn leads to price increases for other products. And they are just small parts of the chain reaction.

Then there is the situation with oil.  The worlds oil supplies are running low and it's only a matter of time before we run out completely. But regardless of that, the price of oil keeps rising and rising and that also affects the prices of transport, heating, food and virtually every other consumer product. Again, this also leads to a demand for higher wages. And with banks refusing to lend money because of the global economy situation being so bad, it's only a matter of time before things start to turn very ugly.

When I say 'ugly' I mean:
War - countries may go to war to attempt to secure valuable resources (water, oil, wheat, rice etc.).
Civil War - one part of a country might start fighting another for resources.
Rebellion - the man in the street is getting more annoyed. Put enough of them together, make them angry enough by not giving them enough cheap food, housing, clothing, security etc., and that's where we're headed. Those who remember the riots in the 70's & 80's will know how quickly these things can spread.

It may sound like madness. But in psychology there is a well known theory called 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs' (click the red writing for more details). It explains the  basic needs that every human requires for a happy, fulfilled life. You start taking away the basic needs like food, water, shelter, heating, clothing etc., and the human race as a whole will turn against those it sees as being responsible.

Unless something is done, and soon, to turn the tide of unhappiness that is spreading through our country and other countries worldwide, then the human race has a very bleak future. It may not be 'just around the corner' yet, but it's something we are well on the road to.

Can you imagine life without cars, computers, the internet, TV, electricity, heating, lighting and many of the other luxuries we have now. Think about it... and think about what life was like in the dark ages.

That's where we're headed!

The bank charges test case has been heard... and the banks are not too happy about the result. Many people (including myself) have already claimed back 'unfair' bank charges, and now the Office of Fair Trading has won the first court test case against the extortionate fees levied by the banks. It's not the end of the matter, as the banks are likely to appeal again and again to try and stall having to pay out massive sums of money to all the people waiting for claims to go through or those that haven't yet claimed.

So, we're all happy but the banks will have the right 'ump! What with the global financial markets in crisis and this happening, you could almost feel sorry for them. But try not to feel sorry for too long, because it's only a matter of time before the banks find other ways to deprive us all of our cash. They might start charging you for having an account... or they will stop paying interest... or they might add a small charge for virtually every transaction... only time will tell.

Brace yourselves... it's going to happen one way or another.

Yes, I know that's a bit of a Sun Newspaper headline. But I couldn't help myself.
And if anyone thinks the headline is about Virgin Media, you have guessed right. Yep, the Richard Bransons' shambles that is probably one his biggest mistakes yet.

I'm sure many of you have had experiences with Virgin Media that have been less than successful. I've rarely read a complimentary comment about their service. Even Telewest Blueyonder wasn't as bad according to most. And the thing is - I'm not even a Virgin Media customer. Although I did try, for about a year, to get Telewest Blueyonder in our flat. But after a year of promises about when they could install their service and excuses about why they couldn't (even though we had the cables already), I gave up and went to BT.

But since Virgin Media took over Telewest, it just seems things have got worse. Most of their customers seem to be promised one broadband speed and are lucky if they get a 1/4 of the speed promised. On top of that, they also cap download speeds at peak time and slow down the service even more (allegedly this is only for high volume users).

Worse still, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law had Telewest for years. Virgin took over and it went downhill rapidly. It recently took them about 6 weeks for Virgin to correct a problem with their service which left them struggling to load even the Google homepage. Since then, unfortunately, they have split up (and no, I'm not blaming Virgin!).

The account they had was in the brother-in-laws name, so as he moved out they had it disconnected. Obviously my sister-in-law wanted to have the service put back on, which you would think is a fairly straightforward procedure. So she phoned Virgin who said ok, but she would have to pay a £25 deposit. She then waited to make sure she had the money in the bank to pay it and phoned them again about a week later. This time she was told 'sorry, but you have bad credit, we want a £100 deposit instead'. So, being very pi**ed off about having the goalposts moved and after debating whether or not to change to BT (who wanted over £100 to reconnect her line), she decided to stick with Virgin and saved some money over the last 4 weeks to pay for it.

So last Thursday or Friday, she phoned them up, paid the deposit and was told that she would receive her modem, TV box and welcome pack on Monday. On Monday she contacted me, all excited, because she'd received her equipment as promised and asked me to set it all up for her. After the kids got home from school, over we all went and I set her gear up - all she had to do was phone Virgin Media and ask them to connect their end. No problem.

NO PROBLEM - HA! She phoned them up, they checked their system and... guess what... her connection had been CANCELLED! 'Why?' she asked.... 'because you owe O2 £135 and we won't connect you until that's paid'.

What have O2 got to do with Virgin Media? Why didn't they tell her this when she paid the £100 deposit? And why the hell did they send her the equipment and then cancel the installation?

Needless to say, she is even more pi**ed off now. And what makes it even worse is that whichever way she goes it will cost over £100 to get connected again. If you don't use a cable service, you have to take a BT line (You don't have to get BT to re-connect it anymore - apparently any provider can organise this through BT Openreach for you) which still costs in excess of £100 (this price is often less if they find the line is intact).

Anyway, BT's legendary lack of service is another matter. For those of you brave enough to try Virgin Media... Good luck!

I, like many of you, have been using the Spaces PHOTO ALBUMS for displaying pictures. Many people also use pictures in backgrounds and various other places on their pages. But I wonder how many of you actually realise that you are possibly breaking the law by doing so.

Just like CD's, DVD's, and many other commercial products, pictures on the internet may also be subject to COPYRIGHT laws. For example, all of my images (that I designed myself) carry a copyright '©' symbol. Personally, I don't mind anyone using my work on their site/page, and I wouldn't follow up on breach of copyright unless someone was gaining financially from my work. I'd also prefer that, if someone wants to use any of my work elsewhere, you ask first (out of politeness) and possibly link back to me or 'credit' me for the work (a note saying that I created the picture). This isn't a demand, just a polite request. A few people have asked permission and I gave it - but most don't.

But please bare in mind that not all artists feel this way. MSN and most other social networking sites will state, in their terms & conditions, that you must not post material on THEIR NETWORK that infringes copyright. Be it music, videos, text OR pictures, YOU should own the copyright for any material that you publish online (unless, of course, it is made available in the PUBLIC DOMAIN). If you fail to abide by their T&C's and an artist sees their work on your page without permission, you may become the subject of a DMCA Notice (Digital Millenium Copyrights Act or, in Europe, EU Copyright Directive) . If you receive such a notice and do not remove the stated material, MSN (or whoever) may well delete your page/site.

Unfortunately, many people think that anything that is on the internet is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN. They think they can get anything they want, from wherever they want and from whoever they want. It's understandable that many people think this way, but things are changing. It's only a matter of time before illegal downloading of copyrighted material will get you a ban from your ISP, especially if the government in the UK have their way.

So, before you post anything anywhere, think about it. It may save you a lot of trouble.

Yep, the last couple of weeks have seemed very long... and remarkably busy.
I recently mentioned how fed-up I was with Southend. Well, I decided to do something about it and began looking for jobs back in my hometown, Southampton. So, I've been to 2 interviews in Southampton over the last 2 weeks.

The first interview was for a job that I wasn't really interested in, and luckily I didn't get it. But the second interview, last week, was for a company called A1 Fasteners ( www.A1-fasteners.co.uk ). And I GOT THE JOB!
It's not actually in Southampton, it's just outside in an area called Eastleigh which is pretty much part of Southampton now. And OK, so it's back to selling fasteners (nuts, bolts, washers etc.) again. But it's good money AND there's also a web design side to it. Besides, I can do design work at home in my own time as well.

The funny part (no pun intended) is that the road the industrial estate is just off of was called Leigh Road, but is now called BENNY HILL ROAD (or Lane... something like that)... hehehe. So I know what tune will be running through my head every time I go along there!

The only problem now is that I need to find somewhere for us all to live?! So if anyone in Southampton, Eastleigh or Totton is looking to rent out a 2/3 bed house/flat, for a reasonable price, then let me know. Alternatively, if anyone wants to do a Council/Housing Association swap from those areas to Southend then I'd also like to know.

I'm going home... yaaaaay!

Last Monday afternoon, I made my way to Southampton by train for an interview on Tuesday morning. I was wandering around Southampton, for a few hours, after the interview and I couldn't believe how warm the weather was. I came back home the same day and even on Wednesday, it was nice and warm here in Southend. Since then the weather has been rather erratic, but I couldn't believe it when I woke up at 7 o'clock this morning and saw that it was snowing! We don't usually get snow here, as we are right next to the seafront. Weird weather!!!

If you saw the image I recently posted on here and Caedes.net, called 'Living Dead', you may have noticed that the background was very dark and lacking clarity. After a week of messages between myself and a friend in Canada, I came to the conclusion that my monitor needed calibrating. So, here is a new version of 'Living Dead', enhanced by having a slightly darker monitor with better contrast.

Hopefully you will see some improvement over the original, below.

If you think your screen might also need calibrating (you might be surprised if you try this), or not, it's worth taking a look at this simple test to see how well your screen does.

To try the test, click HERE.

A brief guide to how it works.
You will see 3 rectangular boxes. The top box should be white on the left and very pale grey on the right.
The middle box should also be white on the left and a slightly darker shade of grey (than the box above) on the right.
The bottom box should be black on the left and very slightly lighter on the right (very dark grey).

Bare in mind that you may have to adjust you graphics card settings (or onboard graphics) and/or your monitors physical settings to achieve the right results.

Have fun!

Just for UK fans of Def Leppard, Whitesnake and Thunder (who are gigging together this summer), I have created commemorative desktop wallpapers. These are available on the below links to my relevant Flickr pages...

Click HERE for Def Leppard/Whitesnake (as below)

And click HERE for the Def Leppard/Whitesnake & Thunder (as below)

Here's my latest image for a contest on Caedes.

The full size wallpaper version is available from Caedes HERE.

Why does Easter Egg chocolate taste nicer? More milky? Is it just psychological? Who cares? Mine's gone anyway lol.

I completely forgot to post my newest pic on here, so here goes...

Available for download from Caedes, as usual, HERE.

Another fun video from YouTube, especially for rock fans with kids...
(The last bit with Guns N' Roses doing a McDonalds ad is worth waiting for!)

If you haven't seen this video on YouTube yet, take a look.

A hilarious and brilliant re-wording of Nicklebacks 'Rockstar'.

Could the guy who made this be any more spot on?

Yep, some scumbag has done our car AGAIN. This time the back window has been smashed, probably by a stone.
And for me it's the straw that broke the camels back. I don't care what I have to do to get out of Southend-on-Shit, but I've got to do it. This town full of chavs, boy-racer morons and scumbags can rot in hell (or can it - it is hell!).

The only thing about this that makes me laugh, is that all these scumbags will grow up one day. And when they do, they'll want to settle down, get nice houses, cars and all the other nice stuff they might want from life. Then they'll find out what it's like to be on the receiving end of the next generation of scumbags activities.

Scumbags is quite a mild word for these people. I'd probably get booted by MSN for using the words I want to use to describe them. The kids, teenagers and even adults that I'm talking about here are the ones that do things like vandalise cars and other property, car thieves, burglars, arsonists, muggers, shop-lifters and many other minor crime misfits and miscreants. The type of people who have no respect for anyone else or anyone's property.

And don't even think about calling the Police to deal with any of these crimes. I phoned them a couple of weeks ago because it sounded like someone upstairs was having their front door kicked in for about 20 minutes. They said they'll send someone to check it out. Two hours later a policewoman phoned me back and said she'd just come on duty and she'd be coming down shortly with another officer. By then the family upstairs could have been murdered by a mad axeman!!!

A couple of years ago, just after someone was stabbed to death on our estate (the Woodgrange Drive or Kursaal Estate), I phoned them to report seeing a man running around with a bloody great knife. Again, about 2 hours later a cop turned up at our door to ask what he looked like?!?! Around the same time, just after the murder, I also reported seeing a knife that had been thrown up on to a scaffold gangplank near our balcony. It was still there a week later!

Since then Estuary Housing Association have installed CCTV on the estate and security door entry systems in all the blocks. Obviously, all the tenants on the estate have had to pay extra in our rent for these wonderful deterrents.
Yet, since then I've had one car stolen, one broken into and badly damaged and now the broken window. The security door entry systems can be prised open with any key and even then, people don't need to do that as most of the door windows have been broken, so people can simply put their hand through and open the door. In most cases, the doors don't even close properly!

On top of all that, there is the fact that the local council haven't got a clue. They waste money hand over fist on pointless crap while the useful facilities and services in the town deteriorate from underfunding. The existing roads and pavements are falling apart while they spend money 'talking' about new roads. ALL of the local community centres have been closed because the council can't fund them.

Well that's enough ranting for now. The sooner I can move back to Southampton, the happier I'll be. I just hope Southampton hasn't turned into a hell-hole over the last 8 years that I've been here?