Mistletoe and Wine

Wasn't built in a day
Originally uploaded by Ian Wilson.

Ahhh... so Christmas has come and gone, but the spirit still lingers around as people gear themselves up for the new year celebrations.

I had a great, although very quiet, Christmas. Santa bought me a new 55-200mm Canon lens for my EOS, a USB coffee cup warmer, a new t-shirt (thanks Cha - it fits and it rocks baby!), a book, and some socks.

There's something so perfect about getting socks for Christmas. I don't think I've always felt this way. I think in my teens I was more interesting in getting a new Pentium 7 million CPU with a million megs of ram and a million megabyte hard drive and a one million inch monitor. Socks are good though. It may be that I've grown up, but it may also be down to location. Christmas in London was a parky 3 degrees C and didn't get much better for a few days after. New socks may be the single most comforting piece of clothing when the weather's drawing in.

Speaking of the weather... it's pants. I haven't seen a blue sky for about a fortnight now and I may be in danger of actually forgetting what one looks like. With every day that passes I look more and more forward to 3 weeks in the African sun come February. Not to mention the prospect of a week in New York come April - possibly.

I PWN FLICKR YAHOO PWNS ME

100,000+ Views
Originally uploaded by Ian Wilson.

I have no idea what the hell happened to my flickr account overnight but I scored a fair few thousand hits. They're literally climbing in hundreds every couple of minutes and I have no idea where they're coming from. I've checked the 'interesting' pages in Flickr and they're not showing there. Theories currently are thus: either thousands of people searching for Christmas photo's are finding mine, or somewhere someone with a VERY popular website has linked to my picture without mentioning it to me.

Still, I feel rather good about myself right now. Merry Christmas everyone.

I've now also gunned the pic across a whole host of extra pools to see exactly how many hits I can get - it's for experimental purposes.


**UPDATE**
The question has finally been answered. Yahoo put together a Flickr photo set of Christmas lights from around the world. Mine was lucky enough to be first in the set, as well as being used for the link on the main Yahoo page.

Sick Like Dog

Well, it was always going to happen. It's not that I'm particularly unlucky myself. I haven't walked under any ladders, broken any mirrors, or even seen any black cats recently. It's just the way of life really.

Today is technically the last time I will work in 2006 - I'm on holiday until the second of January. This is also pretty much the first holiday I've had since March (barring a long weekend to Dublin), so it's been a long time coming and it should feel great.

But it doesn't.

Nope. Instead it feels like slight dizziness, scratchy throat, headache and fever. In fact I think I have a mild form of pretty much every symptom I care to think of. And I hate being sick. Really. Really. Hate it.

Today I've tried the modern remedy: pills. The traditional remedy: Lucozade (the fact that I have an unending supply of free Lucozade has nothing to do with it). And even the Jewish remedy: chicken soup.

The chicken soup worked best.

If anyone has any other recommendations I'm willing to try anything right now.

Work on Sunday... WTF!

Work on Sunday!
Originally uploaded by Ian Wilson.

This past weekend seems to have just shot by while I was looking in the other direction. I finished work late on Friday, slept late on Saturday, went to London, got royally lambasted with Nat, Gareth, Craig and Ed (who we randomly bumped into at the pub), slept late on Sunday, and then worked through Sunday afternoon and evening.

I still have a mild Hoegaarden headache from last night. Well it was either the Hoegaarden or the Smirnoff Ice and Pimm's cocktail that Ed and I created and happily christened 'Spimms'. It was quite a success.

Tuesday is my last day at work until the new year - what a great thought. I intend to spend much of my time relaxing, getting in some good photography, and teaching myself how to build a database from scratch so that I can take over the world with my fantastic idea (and become mega-rich in the process). More about that later.

Christmas is still looking dire - no definite plans yet. Nat and I have decided that we're going to wait until it snows somewhere and then just go there for a few days holiday. At least that plan is suitably 'on the spur' be quite exciting. Unless of course if it snows in Mansfield or something...

Bored, Tired, Stressed Out

Oh Lord. I'm so bored, I have nothing to write about, Christmas plans seem to be falling through, no one seems to no what's happening for New Year, work is MENTAL, I wake up tired every morning, and I think I'm losing my mind.

Well it's all true except for the last one, which I wish was true - I could use the entertainment. Thankfully after the 19th I'm on holiday until sometime in the new year. Hopefully it will be enough time to recharge and do something apart from the usual 9 to 5 grind.

Looking back I think I've only had about 2 days holiday since February, which probably accounts for my current lack of energy. And when I say lack of energy I kid you not... I can't get out of bed before 8am at the moment. Thankfully my job gives me some modicum of control over what time I start work because I really don't know what I would do if I had to be in an office at 9am.

I think this is just me hitting the blocks at the end of the year. I've been chasing some pretty stretching targets all year and have (I think) just managed to sneak across the line with, literally, days to go. But enough about that.

Winter is definitely making itself felt right now... but I love the UK winter. It's gives Nat and I the perfect excuse to drink sherry on a rather regular occasion. Sherry is good. REALIZATION: Sherry could in fact be the reason that I can't get out of bed in the morning!

;) No really, that was a joke.

I'm getting massive photo frustration at the moment. I've got this great new camera and I'm struggling to find opportunity to use it. I'm tired of photographing the inside of my flat.

Which reminds me how much I hate it when people whore their photo's out to a million zillion pools in Flickr! I've decided to conduct a Flickr test to see how many thousands of hits I can get on one photo: I'm going to take a lewd photo of my girlfriend (when she's not looking... haha) and post it on Flickr with as many sexual tags as my twisted mind can think of. Then I'm going to shotgun it across as many Flickr pools as possible (including all the stupid ones which have no real subject). I mean, 'Flickritis'? WTF! Their goal was to become the BIGGEST group of Flickr. Bah. So no everyone just posts random pictures there to "thank the creators of probably the best site on the internet." What crap. Now their mission is to be the FUNNIEST group on Flickr. Yes, because Flickr is a joke website. IDIOTS. The result is that they've managed to create a subject-less photo database within Flickr. Isn't Flickr itself a subject-less photo database.

Well done you muppets. You've intra-Flickr'ed Flickr.

Anyways. I just want to prove how easy it is to get a billion zillion hits if your photo has even the slightest sexual element and is gunned out across the whole of the network. It's just for shits and giggles really. The photo's of mine that have the most hits are the weirdest. I mean... a stack of books, a poster for a festival, and a sign that says 'Deaf Cat'. Well, there's also the photo of Natalie sleeping with the remote in her hand... but 'sleeping' could be construed as being slightly sexual and would have attracted all the Flickr perverts.

PS. That was a joke about taking lewd pics of Natalie and posting them on Flickr. I keep those ones for myself. Not... I WISH! I'll post some naked photo's of ME instead. Waaaaaaaay!

Ho ho ho everyone.

Danish War on Speed

“It’s degrading,” said Randi Theil Nielsen, of Denmark’s Women’s Council. “It is based on the idea that young men are preoccupied with sex and this view of young men is wrong.”

Uh... no it's not. We are.

From this article about the success of Denmark's new road safety campaign (which involves topless Danish blondes in hotpants holding 50km/h signs above their heads).

See video here.

PS. It's a campaign... this doesn't ACTUALLY happen in Denmark... although I personally feel it's an option.