hintofsarcasm
am i still ill? Archive for June, 2004
June 26, 2004 at 12:31 · Filed under Uncategorised
As Peter stated in his comment on my last post, It does seem as though I have been locked in the Big Brother bedsit.
I haven’t had more than a moment to myself in the last week and a half, so I haven’t had the chance to update at all. It’s been a total nightmare.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers played Cardiff (Millennium stadium) on Tuesday night, and it was, excuse my french, fucking amazing.
Capacity crowd (69,000) in the amazing venue that is the Millennium stadium.
I’d never been in there before that, and as a result have only just found out what I have been missing.
The atmosphere was electric, warmed up by the talents of the legendary James Brown, who on the night performed amazingly, got everyone dancing and singing (or maybe just the drunks).
The Chilis then went on to do all of their classic (”Under the bridge”, “Can’t stop”, “By the way”, “Zephyr song” etc.), well known songs, as well as a few new ones from their upcoming album.
Overall the night was great, I came out smiling anyways.
OK, I know you’re going to be dissapointed, what with me only updating once this week, but tomorrow morning (early hours) I fly out to Greece (Kefalonia) for a two week holiday in the sun with Laura and her family 
We leave the house at about 5am, to catch the flight from Birmingham Airport.
I’ll try and find an internet cafe to log on at to update, but I can’t guarantee it as Kefalonia is apparently a very quiet island, not a tourist hotspot, so they may not have any in my area (which is apparently very rural).
June 17, 2004 at 13:46 · Filed under Uncategorised
Oh the excitement!
I’ve been reading about the developments in the Big Brother house last nite, and now I can’t wait to get home and watch! I’m so glad now that I subscribed to Channel4 broadband, just to see what happened, it all sounds so amazingly exciting!
The entire living area got trashed in a huge brawl between all the housemates, tables were flipped, chairs thrown, food strewn everywhere.
One of the more dainty housemates, Shell, collapsed through the grief and stress of it all (although she wasn’t actually arguing with anyone) and for the first time in UK Big Brother history, security guards had to be drafted in to split everyone up, and the live feeds on both E4 and the internet were cut for a few hours too.
What will the producers do now? They can’t let everyone get back in the same room again, for fear that it’ll happen again, which most likely it will. Do they cut the entire programme? Eject all housemates and bring in totally new ones? Who knows..
The Channel4 Big Brother website is certainly feeling the strain this morning, for the first time this series, as I’m getting timeout errors every other page, and the site is just amazingly slow at loading anything up. Thousands must be logging on to read, and I’m sure the ratings for the next few shows will succeed any other programme this series anyway.
Read the full synopsis here..
June 13, 2004 at 13:50 · Filed under Uncategorised
Once again, for the third time now, the BBC have decided to showcase a piece of my photography on their “Pictures from Wales” page. 
(see post 25 March)
See picture number 10 on the following URL.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/photo_gallery/3785801.stm
June 13, 2004 at 09:03 · Filed under Uncategorised
I’d love to have a class with this person [Link]
June 12, 2004 at 14:44 · Filed under Uncategorised
I’ve been sat here, at work, grinning like a cheshire cat at my screen for the past 25 minutes, as I read the news that Cardiff Council leader Russell Goodway has resigned as council leader, following the heavy defeats of the Labour party, not just in Cardiff, but all over England & Wales.
The party that I voted for, the Liberal Democrats, made the biggest gains in Wales, gaining 48 seats across Wales, whilst Labour took the heavisest losses, losing 57. Absolutely phenomenal.
Cardiff is no longer ruled by Labour, it is now a council of “No Overall Control”.
Although the Lib Dems do hold the most seats, which is very pleasing, very pleasing indeed.
The reason I hate Russell Goodway? Well since he took over the leadership of Cardiff Council, he has taken pay rise after pay rise, bonus after bonus, to the tune of over 2 million pounds, in the last 5 years or so.
He and his council are being taken to the High Court now, regarding these payments, which have been deemed by the District Auditor, as unlawful.
Good riddance Goodway, thats what I say
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3800057.stm
June 8, 2004 at 10:39 · Filed under Uncategorised
Incubus last night were absolutely amazing.
I take back any doubts that they were going to be shite, based on the performance they gave at Reading 2002, they totally gave it their all.
A two hour set! Almost definately the longest set any band has played, that I’ve seen anyway.
Highlight of the evening? A fucking amazing rendition of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun”. I couldn’t believe it when I heard the riff, and Brandon sings it so brilliantly too.
They played mostly the new album, but a lot of old stuff too.
I can’t believe they didn’t play Pardon Me though! That’s the song that got me into them back in ‘99. Bah.
But still, great show. Great night.
June 7, 2004 at 17:29 · Filed under Uncategorised
Incubus are playing tonight at the CIA in Cardiff, and we’re going. Woohoo!
I bought tickets at the eleventh hour last week, due to the fact that I really am bad with buying presents, and it was mine and Laura’s first year anniversary.
I wasn’t impressed by Incubus the last time I saw them, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that it was a large festival (Reading) and Brandon did repeatedly have bottles of warm piss thrown at him for reasons I’ll never understand. (Why DO people do that?)
The new album is……average. But we’ll see how they do live tonight.
June 6, 2004 at 11:36 · Filed under Uncategorised
Branille has made a post concerning the first anniversary of the re-naming of her blog, which has prompted me to inform you of, what would usually be a silent, informal celebration that I partake in every year.
June the 12th is rolling around fast, if you don’t know what that means, then you obviously aren’t a hardcore fan of hintofsarcasm 
Well, just to fill you in. June 12th 2004 will be the 7th anniversary of my first blog.
Hintofsarcasm, as many of you will remember, hasn’t always been called that. In fact, it’s only been called it for just over a year now.
Various names have been used, and over 25 designs too (all of which I do still have).
It’s life started off in 1997, a site with no name other than “Nathans homepage” hosted at Virgin.net’s freespace (which is ironic as I now work supporting Virgin.net customers). The site was manually updated, ie. every time an update was placed, I’d have to put one entry into an archive page, then update the html manually in notepad. It was all very fiddly, thus didn’t get updated much, once a week at the most. Bear in mind, I was 13 at the time. Quite an achivement I think, since the internet was still in its infancy.
Admittedly, the design was atrocious. It consisted of a left hand frame (for the navigation), and a larger, main frame, for the content.
Yes, I did say frame. Argh, what was I thinking?
The entire site was also a puke green colour, the type that really burns your eyes to look at. Great.
I’m sure it didn’t get many visitors though
From there, I did eventually get an autoupdating program (similar to Movabletype) in about 1999, which is where I started getting more serious about my blogging (although it wasn’t called blogging then, or at least, I didn’t know it as that) and even get my first domain then.
Over the years the site has had many names and domains, just a few of them are;
toasty(.co.uk), supersadist(.com), fairygothmosher(.com), cheesetoasted(.com), purplelollipop(.net), pblog(.com), rockisdead(.co.uk)
Unfortunately, due to a hard drive crash in late 2001, I lost all archives from before that time, so I don’t have the posts to import into movabletype (unless maybe I can find some on some very old webspace, which is very unlikely), but, I do still have a lot of the old designs, of which I will be putting up in an archive sometime over the next few days.
Ah the memories.
So get the balloons out, next Saturday I’ll be having my celebration with a bottle of vodka and some creme cakes
Thanks to everyone who has supported me and the site through the years, it really wouldn’t still be alive today without you all.
Especially, the following people:
Nick Malyon - All that code would never have made sense without you
Daisy - I wouldn’t have had anything to write about if it weren’t for you back in the beginning. If you still read the site, mail me.
Chelsea - You’ve finally started your own blog, hope it runs as long as this!
Branille - Without Sit Down and Relax, I probably would have given this up.
Laura - I’d have no inspiration to write anything without you at my side.
June 1, 2004 at 16:34 · Filed under Uncategorised
From a column written in 1997 by Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune, and it really is great advice.
You’ll probably remember it as the 1999 hit song, “Everyone is free (to wear sunscreen)” by Baz Luhrmann.
The original is printed below and was printed in Mary Schmich’s column, but was the sent around the internet as a chain mail purporting to be from a commencement speech given to MIT students by arch-cynical author Kurt Vonnegut, which it was not.
It caused great embarassment to both authors and was probably one of the first, and most notorious hoaxes of the internet.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ‘97
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen
would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been
proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no
basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will
dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind.
You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth
until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look
back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp
now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you
really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying
is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things
that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you
at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with
people who are reckless with yours.
Floss..
Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead,
sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end,
it’s only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you
succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with
your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at
22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most
interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them
when they’re gone.
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children,
maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance
the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you
do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself
either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of
it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest
instrument you’ll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone
for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to
your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the
future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few
you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography
and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need
the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.
Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you
soft. Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians
will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll
fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable,
politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust
fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when
either one might run out.
Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it
will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way
of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting
over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.
