Curious Geek

What a crazy month I’ve had. I’ve gone from being employed part time by Local Community Recycling to a full time employee. It’s taken a while to adjust back to full time work, especially as I was quite enjoying being a lazy bum. However, the new jobs good…I’m back using a computer for starters, where I belong!

All these changes have led to a rather empty blog and twitter feed for the last month. I am going to return though, with my pointless posts that no one reads. I just need to find some time somewhere in my day…

Tonight I had tickets to the opening night of Peter Kay’s massive UK tour, the question is, does the man from Bolton still have it?

The answer to that is an unresounding yes. He offered a packed out M.E.N Arena a laugh a minute, only pausing for a quick drink and a short interval. The man who we all fell in love with when watching Pheonix Nights, Max and Paddy or one of his brilliant Stand up DVDs is still pumping out great jokes which, once the DVD is released, will be the only jokes people will be telling many weeks afterwards. “I can’t believe he kissed his cock at night”, you’ll know what that means soon enough.

As for the warm up act, nobody had a clue, it had been a total secret. Then on came Rick Astley! Perfect for most of the women in the audience, with a women behind me proudly proclaiming “This has made my night!”. He wasnt particularly bad if I’m honestly, although not really my cup a tea.

If you can find tickets anywhere (hello, ebay) then I advise you to grab them quickly as this is one show you do not want to miss.

As for me, I got lucky (or I’m extremely skilled) and managed to bag some Lower Tier seats from Ticketmaster, back when the tickets were first made publicly available and he was only going to do around 5 nights. That didnt last long, popularity soon had more and more dates being announced with the final figure coming in at 82 dates by my count!

I’ll leave with you with two words…

GARLIC BREAD?!?!?

After having a relatively relaxing couple of weeks following my placement, this week has been crazy. I started a new job this week, I’m doing some local charity collection work. It’s pretty rewarding but my feet are killing, they haven’t walked this much in a long time. It’s only part time though, so I’ve been able to use the afternoons to continue developing my Android applications. My first release is coming along now and I’m hoping to have the first version out in peoples hands in a couple of weeks. I’ll keep you posted.

That’s all for now, I should have some interesting Android articles coming up soon once everything has settled back down. If anyone in the Staffordshire or Derbyshire area likes the idea of some part time charity work (You do get paid) then the company I’m working for can be found here.

I almost forgot to mention. Formula 1 this weekend. Don’t miss it.

I suddenly find myself with a lot of spare time on my hands following the end of my Placement. Between looking for a new placement and taking the dog out for long walks, I’ve found myself becoming obsessed with coding again and it feels good.

Whilst at Galleria, I had so little spare time on my hands that all the coding I did was at work and because all I got the opportunity to work on was Visual Basic 6, some of my other skills fell to the back of my mind. However, I recently decided to take the plunge into Android application development and it’s started to take over my life like programming used to when I was at University. It’s great to really get my teeth stuck into something and feel like I’m learning again. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this especially as I never felt particularly pushed when it came to writing code at Galleria, it would have been nice to get on a C# project and allow me to further my skills.

If your all wondering what application I’m working on, then your going to have to wait a little longer for any more details. I can tell you it will be free and it will involve Twitter but it’s not going to be just another Twitter client. It’s also been a while since I’ve done any OO development and it’s been a little hard trying to lose the habits I got from all my time with VB6. I’m definitely getting there now though and being back with Java has been great, Android is a superb platform to develop on. One other thing, if anybody has an Android phone and feels its lacking an application in a particular area, or theres any area where the existing applications are severely lacking. drop me a line as I’m still thinking of ideas for my next project.

More blog posts coming soon by the way. I know that I’ve been slacking again but as I said, I’ve become obsessed and its brilliant.

Today I was reading Google’s Blog and I stumbled across an article which I felt I had to post about. 3 Employees from Google have been convicted of failing to comply with Italian privacy code because an awful video of an autistic child being bullied was upload by some italian school children to Google Videos. The video was taken down and the children were were found and dealt with appropriately, but how on earth is it the fault of the Google employees?

This is very worrying indeed and I hope Google’s appeal is successful as more of these cases could start appearing if this conviction sticks. Google shouldn’t need to vet every video which is uploaded to their sites, neither should any other company. They just provide a platform for users to share content and it is up to the user to decide if what they are uploading is legal. Imagine if Google did have to vet every video? The internet wouldn’t be the same. This wouldn’t just apply to Video’s either…it would have to apply to everything which is hosted by a provider and that is very worrying. I’m relieved to see Google feel so strongly about it and that they will be fighting this. If you want to read the article, click here.

How I love pancake day! This years Pancakes went much better than last years i.e. they didn’t fall apart! Here’s a couple of pictures of this years pancakes, followed by one shot of last years…

It’s been an incredibly tough week at work which is why there has been a lack of posts recently. I’m not going to give any more information than that at the moment but the past week has all been about relaxing whenever I got the opportunity.

It’s not all been doom and gloom though. My relationship is back on track and I had a good night out with my family at a cousins engagement party. My Android development has re-commenced as well, as I’m starting to prepare for my final year at University.

however work continues to be tough, so if my post count is a little lower than usual at least you know why.

*Sigh*

It appears I’m pretty good at saying I will do things and then I don’t.

That’s pretty evident on this blog, I said I would review my HP Notebook and my Ford Fiesta. I also promised more Albums of the week.  I could use the excuse that I’ve been busy like I normally do and whilst I have been busy, that’s no excuse! So expect these reviews and some Albums of the Week soon!

Laziness...

Here’s another massive image for your enjoyment.

15 things about coffee...

Off I go to the Kitchen…

*Sigh*

Most of you who read this probably know by now about the little accident I had in the snow last week. Not the yellow sort of accident, the car crashy sort of accident.

I hit a sheet of ice on my way to work and slid into a wonderfully placed bollard. My car was left in a drivable condition (once the spare wheel was on) but I still managed to do £2500 of damage. So I’ve been stuck at home for the past week with no car, because between my insurer and the repair centre its taken them a week to get me a courtesy car. I finally got one today so I’m back at work and I’m back blogging!

I got a brand new Ford Fiesta as my courtesy car, which I’ll write a little review of once I’ve had some more time in it. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures of my car, so I don’t have anything for you to look at (I was a little distracted to remember to take pictures). Everything is back to normal now (besides the little incident with the police – more on that when its sorted out) and I have no injuries, gotta love the Bravo’s 5 Star safety rating.

Stay safe and if you see somebody driving a silver Fiesta at 10mph, its probably me. Or a granddad.