Rise and shine my eternal day

Well, today it’s been 12 months since Jan Werner – the best vocalist Norway has ever seen (or heard, rather) – went ‘home’. It’s been an odd year, that’s for sure. In more ways than one. But the weirdest part is probably how I feel today, which can’t be described in any other way than – well – ‘awesome’. I know, odd. Every month from it happened and till now I’ve felt a slight stab this time of the month (no PMS jokes, please), but today I woke up thinking, “He’s probably popped the Champagne, so why should I be feeling down?” My guess is, wherever he is, he’ll be jammin’ with the likes of Mercury, Cash and Pavarotti

Who’s to say ‘this is it’? Isn’t it better to think that something *else* happens when your time is up other than being thrown in a 6ft hole followed by eternal darkness…? In a way you can choose to think of it as eternal separation – or just imagining that whoever is gone just moved to another part of the world and been robbed of their passport. Also, isn’t it a bit ignorant to think ‘we’re all there is’?

I’m not looking for an excuse to start a “what happens when we die” discussion, btw. I’m just throwing possibilities out there.

As JW sang himself in 1997:
“My life is still to come when they row me to the other side…”

Think your data is safe? Think again

The following was sent today to http://www.pikaone.com Not expecting a reply, obviously, or anything to be done, but thought I would spread the word that their piece of crap technology is a waste of money. Usually harddrives can be recovered. This, however, can’t. So steer clear of these external harddrives.

As you can tell from the email, if you want an external harddrive that actually takes care of your files, go with something else.

To illustrate the point: PikaOne FlyCASE Silver. FLS-U2-250.
MOVE ALONG if you see this. Quickly.

Hi -

I thought I would amuse you with a little story.

My computer was going a little funny, so decided to start from scratch. As you do sometimes with these things. So I got one of your Pika Flycases. Easy to set up, fine to use, transferred rather well. So I took everything from my computer, onto said Pika Flycase. Everything should be safe, right? All my files, pictures, music… oh, and I’m a writer and journalist, so everything I’ve ever done is on there. Irreplacable in other words.

Thinking all is well, I wipe the computer. Clean. I start up again, everything’s going well until I was connecting the Flycase to transfer all my really important files back to the computer. What did I get? Tick… tick… tick… tick. Like a bomb that was about to go off, it was ticking. So I panicked, naturally, as you do, considering – as I’ve underlined before – everything I’ve ever done of importance is on there. I take it in for repair. It has to be rebuilt, I heard. They wanted £250 up front to rebuild something that cost me £150 to begin with. But this is important stuff, so I do it.

So I wait. And wait. And then I get an email back saying they couldn’t recover one damn file. Not one. So, naturally, as you can imagine, I’m pretty keen to make someone pay for the damage caused. Not only the cost of the initial disc, but also the repair of the disc that didn’t result in anything. Did I mention that everything of any importance was trusted onto your company’s external harddrive and now I’m stuck with… that’s right… nothing.

What I would like to know is, what do you want to do?

Sincerely,
xxx

What happened to Madeleine McCann?

OK, this is what I reckon;

The kids are left alone in the hotel room, the twins fall asleep, Madeleine can’t sleep, is upset and goes to find her parents. She leaves her bear behind, manages to get out, she runs into someone outside and asks if they’ve seen mummy and daddy. As kids do, thinking that everyone knows who their parents are. She’s taken away by this someone that maybe does/knows someone that does human trafficking and think that an English child will go for a lot of money somewhere. They take her away, saying they’ll take her to her parents, and dump her off with locals that deal in the trade. Whether she was actually sold on or maybe smacked dead when she wouldn’t stop crying… who knows.

For a while, I did tink it might be her parents. Kid wouldn’t sleep, made a fuss, gave her a sedative (after all, they’re both doctors), she overdosed accidentally, they panicked and created all this.

The only issue I have with that is that is that from the second she was gone, they had paparazzi up their arses – and they haven’t been left alone for a second. Their phones have been tapped, their emails read, their hotel rooms bugged (I’d imagine). How would they manage to dispose of a body 3 weeks later? “Yeah, we’ve got this relatively smelly bag that might look a bit like a child that we’re going to dump in this river. Never mind us!” The media, in general, are clearly banking on the fact that they’re guilty, treating it as the Ian Huntley case (giving him enough rope to hang himself) and eventually he did. But how would they be able to dispose of anything?

What’s your theory?

Read about the case.

Star Wars meets George Michael

Thanks to Oliver for this. Excellent!

Star Wars meets… the dark force.

Recipe: Love Song

Ingredients:

1 guy in love
1 lady that doesn’t know it
1 ex boyfriend that treated her badly
4-5 “Baby”s and/or “My love”s (possible alternatives: “darling”, “honey”, “sweetheart”…)
3-4 breathy “Oooh”s and/or “Mmmm”s
1-2 long-ass scales to impress said woman
Misc variations of “love”, “heart”, “break”, “pain”, “cry”, “tears”, “I’m better than him”, etc

Mix all this with at least one very calm part, where said male mainly whispers what his heart desires, followed by a fantastically overdone Andrew Lloyd Webber-like arrangement, scaling into exactly how much in love with this woman this man is, as he pours his heart out in said long-ass scales and notes (if this is someone that REALLY knows how to play on heartstrings, he’ll change between minor to major as well), only to fade out into what can only be described as a mix of despair (that he doesn’t have her) and hope (that he might get her, after she’s heard his side of the story).

Voilá: 1 pompous love song done.

BTW, after 3 days of strike…

…on the underground, this is all I have to say about it:

Pavarotti Is Dead

What does one say?

As Queen sang: “…and another one gone, another one bites the dust…”

I grew up with Pavarotti’s music cause my mother has always been a huge fan.

Another big voice has left us to go home.

R.I.P.

Sorry guys & gals

I’ve been off the blog for a while cause things have happened for the past months; I was in Norway for 2 months (eight weeks I’d rather forget ever existed), I’ve moved, I’m holding down two – soon to be three – jobs in addition to a writing project I’ve been commissioned to do, back to doing my freelance journalism again after a bit of a break (got 2 quiiiite possible interviews coming up), doing interviews and subediting for medical journals… The list goes on. Try squeezing a social life and blog entries into that schedule… Hell, this is a good example, I’m up at 8 on a Sunday morning to work!

Hopefully, by the end of October, I’ll be on a more normal schedule. Until then…