I have just finished putting the final touches to the WST06 website. Here you can view the full-length DVD (in optimised SWF format), courtesy of YouTube, Google maps, and a little bit of nifty AJAX coding from myself.

If you dig it, then please send me some feedback.

So I have been dong a freelance project (on behalf of Dare Digital) for Barclays Bank which uses the google maps API. Learned some new skills and can now write XML that is interpreted by JavaScript and then plotted on a google map and does some funky stuff, all good.

Anyway, whilst I was at it, I had a little play around with a few well known addresses and found these alarmingly detailed images of 3 places I dig the most.

1. Home

2. Dad’s house

3. Elise’s house

Man it is amazing what you can find on the internet, I bet if you looked hard enough, you;d be able to see me sitting in the garden sunbathing, listening to my iPod. They have eyes, they are out there and they are watching you…(that includes you Jonny Deep)…

So I have been doing a little research into possible places to go and check out for 2007 and (very rough) list is looking something like this: Maine (USA), Winnipeg (Canada), British Columbia, Oregon, San Fran, Dan Diego, Baja, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru and then Salvador da Bahia (Brazil).

I am hoping some of you lot might want to join me this time around, as Sulli was the other one last year with enough balls (and cash I guess) to come to Bali for reef inspection.

So boys, there are plenty more reefs for you all to get up close and personal with, so why don’t you go outside the box and come on the tour, if not the whole thing, then at least a leg. Dru, Chris Cole and Sulli have mentioned an interest, all good!

PS: Sulli is right about that shirt in the photo, I love the skin tight look, and that shirt is one of a kind, made by mumma circa. 1983, the year of high fashion.

A few week’s back I wrote about our local re-cycling programme, all good. We have made real efforts over the past month to re-cycle loads of stuff. But you kind of sometimes think is it all in vain when a huge country such as the USA hasn’t signed the Kyoto treaty yet and led by a dickhead, who doesn’t even recognise that global warming is a problem. Until that pri*k gets ousted and they get someone else in, America’s wasteful consumption of the world’s resources will continue. Ok we aren’t saints over here in the UK, but at least we have started to do our bit…

Enough enough yankee bashing for one day

Not sure why this came into my head this morning, but I guess I was thinking back on my previous travels this year and remembered my time in the USA. More so, I was thinking about when I was eating and drinking out. I have to say, I think the way in which you are (almost) forced to tip between 15-20% when you go out, regardless of the quality of service is absolute bullsh*t. Aparently waiting staff get paid really poorly over there, so they rely on tips to make up the deficit. My argument is that I shouldn’t be made to feel guilty ‘cos I want to give the dude a few dollars instead of a fat wad. I don’t ask my clients for extra money on top of what I charge, just to do my job. I think that if they want to be paid beter, then it is the employer’s responsibility to pay them a decent standard wage.

Don’t get my wrong, I think a tip for good service is a nice touch, but not when you are almost forced to do it. Slightly different, but in the same ballpark, is this thing where you have to tip the barman when you buy a beer. if you do’t then I heard that they don’t serve you again. I think it is this expectation that I find rather off-putting. At the end of the day, if I want a beer I shouldn’t have to pay the barman extra, just for doing the job he is already paid to do.

If you want to take the argument further you could say you should tip the staff on the checkouts at super markets, or staff at bookstores, Mc Donalds, Starbucks, where does it end.

Anyway nothing that I say will make any difference, maybe I will just take a stand and not drink too many beers when I next go over there. Ok rant over…

If have uploaded some of the pics that I took when Elise was over, some from Brussels, London, Cambridge and Richmond, check em out here.

Oh BTW, I am honored that people feel they need to take time out of their day to check the blog and that is cool, and I am all for a joke about etc, but if people haven’t got anything positive to say about me and Elise then I suggest they shut their fu*king gobs, the joke is a little boring now. Enough said…

Talking of which I am booked to go to DC 1-16 Nov, can’t wait.

Decided to re-join the gym today, so gonna step up the exercise to former levels and get on the 5-6 times a week regime, you know it makes sense.

Also decided to post some new photos to my Flickr account, this may/may not become the new place where I put photos, rather than my own site, not sure yet!

One of the projects I worked on for Electric, a site for Barratt Homes, has now gone live, I built the whole thing from scratch (my first outing in AJAX too), check it out.

Peace all…

So I decided to try and upgrade my version of MySQL on my PB yesterday and managed to delete it via the terminal and lose about 15 client databases in the process, nice one, teach me to f*ck about with the terminal without thinking.

Managed to get the data back via remote backups, so all good.

Just created an account on Flickr, rock ‘n’ roll on a Friday night man.

So after 2 amazing weeks of hanging out, having fun and checking out the sights of London, Essex and Cambridge, Elise had to return to DC yesterday. I drove her to Heathrow airport yesterday morning and we regretably said our goodbyes. It was so hard saying goodbye to someone who you love and want to be with all the time. She is back at uni now, with a new term, new flat and new courses to get stuck in to. At least we will hopefully have a trip planned for me to go over and visit in early November.

In the mean time I am keeping busy with some freelance work and have a stack of Hungry Browser projects to get stuck in to. Hopefully we will also get some autumn swell coming through soon, as it has been too long since I was last in the sea surfing my butt off. I am also gonna restart at the gym and get stuck into a new training programme.

Looks like someone doens’t have much to do on a Friday night, got a load of weblog spam last night from someone trying to be funny. Unlike them I was out having the crack with my family, friends and girlfriend. Now nursing rather horrible hangover…grim, nothing more to report…peace…