Bomb.org.uk
June, 2006
26.06.2006 Lagging…
I guess I’ve been a bit lax on the old updating my blog thing of late haven’t I? That’s mostly because I’ve been focusing on my new photoblog amongst other things (I’ve changed the backend again to use pixelpost). I’ve also been revising for my ITIL exam which is next week and will hopefully open up a few new avenues for the future employment wise.
I’ve finally gotten round to ordering my new compact digital camera from Amazon which should arrive tomorrow. I’ve bought it because the f828 is just too big to take out on nights out etc, and I wanted something fairly small that I could keep with me at all times for those moments where something is just too cool to miss. This should hopefully mean that I can get some really spontanious photos on the photoblog. Hopefully after a few days with the new camera I should be able to post a review for anyone else interested in purchasing one of these.
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13.06.2006 Improved…
I’ve enhanced the new photoblog further by ditching my bespoke system and switching to ‘folderblog’ which does everything I wanted to do in the way I wanted to do it, so it seemed kind of pointless to continue writing my own.
The good news is that you can now leave comments on the pictures! so go n do it! 
13.06.2006 Frustrated…
I’ve been making a big thing about going out at the weekends lately, deliberately with the intention of taking photos. Usually in a day (like Sunday for example, when I went out to the canal near where I live to get photos) I can take 200+ photos. Of those 200 maybe 10-20 will be good photos that I’m ok with sharing with the world.
There’s a good reason for this. I simply don’t know what it is that makes a good photo. I have no knowledge of things like composition and very little knowledge of how to get the best from my camera. I know what most of the settings do, but have no idea when to use them. Most of my good photos are flukes taken with the auto-focus setting on my camera.
I find it frustrating when I hear other photobloggers talking about the shutter speed that they use or why they used x lens with y filter, because it’s gibberish to me and I want to know more. I want to know much more and I want to be a good photographer.
So… hopefully soon, I’ll be enrolling on an evening course in photography, where I’ll learn the ins and outs of camera work and hopefully be able to turn my hobby into an way of making art. I’m also buying myself a new compact camera as the F828 is simply too bulky to carry everywhere (meaning I miss loads of photo-ops) and my compact is on a permanent loan to the girlfriends sister.
08.06.2006 Gone n Got a Photoblog
The other night the missus buggered off for the evening to go ghost hunting again and I was left in on my own with not a lot to do. So I got text wrangler going and coded myself up a simple photoblog and backend management system.
There were a couple of reasons for this, firstly I haven’t done much php development recently and wanted a project to help keep myself sharp. The second reason is that I’ve been taking a lot of photo’s lately and don’t really want to clog up my blog with too many picture posts.
At the moment, it’s very simple and has no commenting functionality or even any information about the pictures beyond the date that they were posted and a simple title for the alt tag. So, for know, I’m just going to let the pictures do the talking.
I’ve had a passion for photography for a long time, but never really published the photo’s, so I’ll likely be publishing quite a few from my ‘back catalogue’ 
One more thing… I’m not a professional photographer and most of my good shots are achieved by either taking lots of photos or sheer luck, so don’t expect anything pretentious like a ‘buy this photo’ link, or information about the shutter speed and aperture, in fact… you’ll be lucky if you get pictures with a decent composition.
Anyways… they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so…
06.06.2006 Snot Bubbles
I’m seriously pissed off at the moment. Late last week I was suffering from a bit of a cold, I had coughs, headaches, sneezing, aches and pains etc etc and was feeling generally shit. Typically by time it was time to return to work on Monday the worst of it was over, however I’m still left with one symptom and I can’t shift it for love nor fucking money.
I seem to have a large collection of phlegm jammed down the back of my throat and despite my best efforts I can’t get rid of it. It’s annoying me because when I speak it has a tendency to form bubbles in the back of my throat which are causing me a few issues with talking and breathing at the same time. Only problem is, that I work in a call centre environment and have to spend a lot of time on the phone etc. The only way to solve the problem and restore my ability to breathe is with a huge snort (think that gross noise that people make before gobbing on someone from a great height and you’ll get the idea) and that isn’t really something you can do when talking to someone on the telephone.
I’m really hoping that this will clear up before long as it’s really doing my head in.
To sum up this post: snot bubbles, cant breathe, pissed off.
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05.06.2006 Photomographing…
I was a bit bored yesterday, so armed with my trusty camera, half a gig of memory and my car I went for a drive in search of something to photograph. My wheels led me to local place of ’scientific interest’ – Hartlebury Common, which is a strange in land sand-dune place in the middle of Worcestershire.
So I took some photos. I took some black and white shots:
I took some landscape shots (not all at HC):
I also pushed the macro button and got up close and personal with nature. Nature smells funny:
I also took some nice pictures of my car, but I’ve posted enough pictures of my car for one life time, so I won’t include them here.
After that, I just kinda drove around for a while and ended up in Hereford which is quite a drive away, but the sun was warm and I had the roof down so I didn’t mind. The pug is also quite economical as it has a diesel engine so fuel costs were pretty minimal despite the length of the journey.
02.06.2006 A Public Apology to Chicane (and Tom Jones)
A few posts back, I slagged off Chicane’s recent release ’stoned in love’ on the basis of seeing them perform live on the Jonathan Ross show. I can now say quite honestly, having heard the proper single release that it is in fact a really good track and the audio setup for their live performance must have been wrong.
Stoned in love is a classic Chicane track and they’ve made great use of Tom Jones’s vocals, which sound far better than I would have expected. It’s amazing what you can do in a studio nowadays!
There… I’ve said it. I’m sorry.
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02.06.2006 I’m not dead! Honest!
Yes, I’m still alive and well, but I have been fucking busy as hell over the past few weeks with various things.
First and foremost, I’ve been driving my new car into the ground. I’m absolutly loving topless driving (no not *that* kind, you dirty perverts!), I just can’t describe what it’s like to cruise around in the baking heat with the roof down, the sun overhead and an open road in front of me. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a normal car again. On the back of this experience, I’ve also taken over the website pug-cc.com (if you have a cc type peugeot, you should head over!), as part of this I’ve been doing a full CSS redesign, patching the message board, working on a content management system etc etc etc, and it’s keeping me quite busy!
Secondly, I’ve been looking after my two new hamsters. I originally bought just the one hamster, but she was so cute and so much fun that I went crazy and bought another. I now have two hamsters, One is a tan coloured, shorthaired female Syrian called Minni, and the other is a dark grey long haired syrian male called Max (minni and max, gettit?). They both have very different personallities so require different approaches when it comes to getting them used to being handled. Minni was a biter when I first got her, but has recently chilled out and become quite easy to handle, Max on the other hand is chilled out and very docile until you pick him up at which point he likes to go crazy and jump out of your hands, no matter where you are. I’ll post pics of these guys very soon hopefully.
Also, last week I went on a crazy stag weekend in Berlin and I can honestly say, spending time in Berlin has really changed my view of the Germans. I used to think they were all precise, cold uptight pricks but I couldn’t have been further from the truth. In my whole time in Berlin, I didn’t meet a single German that met my stereo type, in fact, most couldn’t have been further from that! Also, while in Berlin I discovered that I quite enjoy a round or two of the old Kareoke and that Germans make very very nice beer. I really want to go back to Berlin for a week or more, so I can see a bit more of the place without the influence of quite so many beers.
On top of that, of course, theres the day job plus running my own business, spending time with the missus and various family bits and bobs as well. You could say that there just aren’t enough hours in the day!
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