Well, OK, it’s not quite as normal as I’d like, but this is a bit of an attempt to get back into “blogging” now that Daddykins has gone to bed, and I have a bit of time to myself. This is the first time I’ve had proper time at the computer for a week, so I apologise if you’ve sent me an email / message and I haven’t replied.

Firstly, the exciting news is that the Google Streetview car has been spotted in Hartlepool – officially. Now, I can’t remember if I blogged about a possible sighting of it several months ago, spotted by a relative of a friend, shortly after the partial UK map came online. It still remains a mystery if that was Google, or something else.

However, Andy The Iridium Fan spotted the elusive mechano-beast this morning, as I received a text from him…

11:27 Andy: “I am going to be on quite a few streets on Google Street map in my area. I followed the car
11:29 Me: “Any Photos of it?”
11:32 Andy: “No photos. the car was an Astra. They will be on the net in a years time”

Shortly after, I took a walk to Morrisons, in order to get Daddykins some food. It’s slightly easier to get to than Asda, yet the choice in some departments is lacking. You may remember this particular branch of Morrisons having a total “epic fail” moment, as described on ItsJims blog. I still chuckle to myself about that, and am happy that he managed to get a photo. Another reason I chose Mo’s over Asda was the recent discovery of Chicken Vindaloo. I know I really should cut down on the ready meals, but these are the taste explosion I’ve missed for so very long. More on those later.

Anyway, back to Streetview. I had hoped that the walk would allow me to also see the afore-mentioned black vehicle. Sadly not. The walk there, and the walk back went truly without incident (unless you count the disaster I faced whilst trying to eat an incredibly delicate mince pie on the way home with two bags of shopping under my arm). I have yet to see the Street View car.

Later tonight, Andrew texted me again…

20:32 Andy: “I caught up with the Google car and took some photos”

Bimler! Tomorrow, I shall either update the gallery with them, or post them on here. Or both, depending on how things are.

I have been catching up on my darts playing recently, due to the close proximity of where Daddykins sits, should he need me. Several days ago I did, what can be only described as an “impossible shot”…

No, don’t worry, I can’t work out what happened either. What I do know that the flight was pierced irreparably. Obviously.

Well, I’m shattered. Another “early night” for me, and undoubtedly another trip to Netto for me. Or Morrisons. Or Even Lidl??? Naaaaaaaaaaaah.

Technorati Tags: andy the iridium fan, car, dart, google street view, peirced, photo, vindaloo

In my best “tabloid newspaper” headline pun, I shall start this with the announcement that Hartlepool (or at least part of it) residents will be waking up to the prospect of filthy water emerging from their taps.

I first learned of the development thanks to Twitter, and a post by Noscere, which I shall copy and paste here in its entirety without due regard for any of the copyright laws…

“Water pump has failed. 99% of hartlepool has no water.”

Nasty. Now, I have no idea how sweeping the outage was, but the locality of Employment Place was unaffected, and the water ran smoothly all night. Note, however that I have always been a bit dubious of the water supply there, after hearing rumours when I first started that the water in that area wasn’t safe to drink.

Mercuryvapour Towers, however, was affected, and I returned home, only to find that any plans I have of actually doing some washing this morning, have quite literally, gone down the drain.

And the water from the taps doesn’t look too appetising…

It DOES clear up if you leave it to stand, but the last time I had water this low quality, I was in London.

Oddly, over the last couple of days, when I’ve been in Asda, I’ve been buying bottled water. Yes, I know it’s a bit poncy, but since I’ve just been drinking water and a small amount of pop, I’ve felt better for it.

I would normally get 2 bottles, as they’re 2 for £1.00. One of them would get taken home, and stored in the fridge, which meant luckily, I have a couple of bottles already in the fridge ready to drink! What are the chances of that? There should be more than enough to last me until the clean water pulls through. And if it doesn’t pull through in time, I’ll just start on the beer. Everyone’s a winner!

More on this breaking news story when I wake up. Or before I go to bed. One of the two.

Technorati Tags: broken, cloudy, hartlepool, murky, off, pump, taps, water

Well, as mentioned in an earlier posting, I’ve managed to get that Dag Kolsrud record converted to MP3. Took me about a week, but I’ve finally done it. It wasn’t easy, thanks to the fact my laptop wanted to play around with its sound devices, meaning that it didn’t recognise the signal format given from my record deck. A minor annoyance, and one I never experienced with XP in any way, shape or form.

Anyway, onto the record itself. If “synthtastic” isn’t a word, it really should be. The backing track really could have been taken from an unreleased “One 2 Many” track, with the same synthy drums, bass and “trumpets”. The version I have is mostly instrumental, with different sections of xmas songs thrown in for good measure. Well, I say good measure, it all seems a little haphazard, not quite sure whether it wants to be a generic “pop” song, or an even more generic “xmas” number.

It’s not bad, but I doubt whether I’d give it a second glance, or second play, if it wasn’t One 2 Many related.

In other news, I did continue to trawl fkickr to see if I could find any more pictures of myself.

If you thought the sunburn was bad on the last one, take a look at this…

Technorati Tags: dag kolsrud, flickr, jingle bells, photo, sunburn

Ok, this is a slightly late post, rather shutting the stable door after the man dressed up as a horse has bolted.

I didn’t stay long on the 2nd day. I ‘d pretty much seen everything I’d needed to see, and most of the stuff going on was a repeat of the first day. Still, I stayed for a couple of hours, snapping away as usual…

After I’d taken these photographs of the 2009 Hartlepool Beauty Pageant (giggle), I moved slightly to my left, and took photos of the juggler, whose name escapes me now (Defying Gravity, perhaps?).

Well, that’s what is says on that sail thing anyway. Unfortunately, that particular act only gripped me for the same amount of time as it took for me to focus the camera lens and take about 3 shots.

Off we went for a walk over to the food tent. Once again, they’d been cooking something with fish in, but they were about to demonstrate the “smoothie bikes”. A clever conception. Strap a blender to the back of a normal bike. Stick a dynamo to the back wheel, and connect the dynamo to the blender. You can then pedal your way to a healthy, if slighty disgusting looking drink! Of course, the slight drawback is that you have to get someone to hold the lid on the blender whilst you pedal like fuck, mashing the fruit into oblivion.

I was hoping, at the end of the demonstration, the ‘chef’ would remove the lid and say “Smoothie Smoke, don’t breathe this!” Unfortunately, there was no smoke and so, no hilarious end to the demonstration.

We left the tent in time to see an amusing spectacle. Apparently, we’ve “grown out” of hanging monkeys here, instead, in the 21st century, we prefer to hang dogs…

Well OK, hang a bloke in a dog suit. This particular character was Barry The Beagle from Real Radio. And, apparently, he wasn’t any worse off for his ordeal…

I was hungry, and thirsty by this point, so it was time to refuel from one of the eatery vans dotted around. After having a (rather disappointing) tray of curry and chips the previous day, I decided to have a jacket potato, with a choice of topping. Naturally, I went for the chicken curry. This set me back £3.50 but I must admit it was one of the nicest things I’ve ever had from a mobile eatery establishment.

So, at this point Andrew decided he could hold off no more, and headed off to the sweetie stall. You see, placed right in the middle of the main area was a tent selling sweets, sort of a pick ‘n’ mix, but in a tent. While I waited, Andrew chose come confectionery. I asked him the price it came to.

£5.30

I thought he was joking, but clearly wasn’t. Five pounds, thirty pence. I almost fell backwards off the chair I wasn’t sitting on at the time.

At this point, there wasn’t anything else going on. Everyone was getting prepared for the big show in the main tent. This was of aboslutely no interest to me, so I phoned Daddykins to pick me up. This was one of the very rare occasions where he hadn’t had a drink on a Sunday. The phone call was interrupted by some people on stilts. I would class that as being one of the more peculiar moments of the two days.

So, as I disappeared off into the distance, Andrew stayed down to watch whatever was going on in the main tent. I got home, and laid on the couch whilst watching Wimbledon. Predictably, I drifted off on the couch, only to be awoken at approximately 5:30 by a thunderstorm. Wooo. I was hoping it would blow over by the time I’d planned to set off for the night’s festivities, which I’d planned to set off for at 6:30.

Thankfully it did, but I decided not to take my chances walking over, and instead got the bus down. Turned out, it would have been quicker for me to actually walk than to get the sodding bus.

By the time I got there, the queue was about half a mile long. Joy. Thankfully, Andrew had got there early, and was about 6ft away from the entrance. I “tagged alongside”. We were guaranteed awesome seats, and we got those. Second row, just left of centre.

In fact, I can be clearly seen in this picture. Obviously, it’s not my photo, so there’s only a link. Just look for a huge slaphead on the right hand side.

Unlike the music night, I was overjoyed with the three acts that performed on the main stage that night. The host himself was awesome, very quick witted. After some heckler shouted out something random, he replied with “Shall we get you some crayons? Do you want the blue ones because they taste like the sky?” Oh, man, I really did think I was going to fall off the chair at that point.

Sean Lock was predictably brilliant. I did get photos. Obviously, you weren’t supposed to take cameras in, but nobody said anything about cameraphones. Sadly, the images are currently “locked” into my phone, as I have no way to transfer them over. I’ve lost everything to do with my phone’s data transfer abilities. Whoops.

So, anyway, another brilliant night took place, and I can personally hail the 2009 Hartlepool CockDockfest an absolute success.

Technorati Tags: 2009, dockfest, hartlepool, hartlepool dockfest, ivan brackenbury, marina, me, Photos, sean lock

As I type, I’m “getting my shit together” and “about to bust all sorts of moves”, after under 2 hours sleep, as I head off to the CockDockfest. Be aware, however, that I shall also be twittering from there. Whatever that means. So feel free to follow me, and I might follow you in return. Maybe. Possibly.

In other news, I received a few records today, including Dog Kolsrud’s version of “Jingle Bells”. No, really. It appears to have been released (or at least given its catalogue number) during his stint with One 2 Many, as its catalogue number is AMY 489, whereas the three One 2 Many singles have catalogue numbers of AMY 476, AMY 490 and AMY 518.

More on that when I actually get round to playing it.

Technorati Tags: dag kolsrud, hartlepool dockfest, jingle bells, one 2 many, records, twitter, vinyl