Blogs

100 Happy Days - Day 65: I actually started a new blog the other week. Not listing it here as it's purely a personal finance one that's an incentive for me to save and invest. Anyway, got my first comments today on it, yay!

I've made a few posts on this blog in reference to saving and money recently, but didn't want this blog to go in that direction. In fact, I'm not sure what will happen when I get to the 100 Days!!! Will I stop being happy??

MMM

100 Happy Days - Day 57: This post from Mr Money Moustache's website explaining (in his own way) how to make money buy happiness.

Full of great hints and ideas, some of which I already apply to my life, others which I need to start applying to my life!

Save and Save Again!

100 Happy Days - Day 56: Came across an interesting quote today from this blog:

"If you don't find it painful saving money, you're not saving enough."

So clearly, I need to do more than my 52 Week Money Saving Challenge.

Why does this make me happy? More steps closer to retiring earlier if I can do this!

FIRE

100 Happy Days - Day 42:  Came across this blog yesterday, written by a 32 year old bloke about how he plans to retire in 5 years time (FIRE = Financial Independence, Retire Early).

5 years is a tough one for me to aim for but there're some good ideas and hints here that I could apply myself to help me retire earlier, even if it's only by a few years! I'll be following his adventure closely!

"I Don't Watch A Lot Of TV But..." (meme thing)

...it appears I used to! (must be when I had no internet!)

Nicked this meme from Rol and hope it'll be a step towards kickstarting my blogging activities again...

Rules:
•Bold any of the following TV shows if you’ve ever seen 3 or more episodes in your lifetime.
•Italicize a show if you’re positive you’ve seen every episode.

You probably won't have heard of all these shows (I certainly hadn't but some brought back nice memories!). So feel free to add your own favourites that might be missing, there's sure to be loads

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
•24 [every episode up to Season 2]
•7th Heaven
•Airwolf
•Alan Partridge
•ALF
•Alias [every episode up to Season 3)]
•American Gothic
•America’s Next Top Model
•Angel
•Arrested Development
•Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World
•Babylon 5 [was a big fan of this, even going so far as to attend B5 conventions...]
•Batman (60s)
•Batman: The Animated Series
•Battlestar Galactica (the old one) [Thought a remake would be sacrilege...until I saw the new one]
•Battlestar Galactica (the new one) [Just got the final season to go - top series]

•Baywatch
•Beverly Hills 90210 (original)
•Bewitched
•BJ & The Bear
•Blackadder [4th series is my favourite, closely followed by 2nd]
•Blake's Seven [I only watched from when Blake was dead...]
•Bonanza
•Bones
•Bosom Buddies
•Boston Legal
•Boy Meets World
•Brass Eye
•Bring Em Back Alive [Yep, a show about a great white hunter catching animals...]
•Brothers And Sisters
•Buffy the Vampire Slayer [probably only the odd episode I haven't watched]
•Cagney & Lacey
•Californication
•Chappelle’s Show
•Charlie’s Angels
•Charmed
•Cheers
•CHiPs
•Chuck
•Clarissa Explains it All
•Columbo
•Commander in Chief
•Cracker [my little sis was an extra on a Cracker episode, she even had lines to say!]
•Crazy Like A Fox
•Crossing Jordan
•CSI
•CSI: Miami
•CSI: NY
•Curb Your Enthusiasm
•Dallas
•Dark Angel
•Dark Skies
•DaVinci’s Inquest
•Dawson’s Creek
•Dead Like Me
•Deadwood
•Degrassi: The Next Generation
•Designing Women
•Desperate Housewives
•Dexter
•Dharma & Greg
•Different Strokes
•Doctor Who [Had a tear in my eye when Tennant bowed out at Christmas]
•Dollhouse
•Dragnet
•Due South
•ER
•Everwood
•Everybody Loves Raymond
•Facts of Life
•Family Guy [Boom introduced me to the delights of this show - love Stewie!]
•Farscape [one of my fave shows of all time - was gutted when it got cancelled. Ben Browder - yum!]

•Father Ted
•Fawlty Towers
•Felicity
•Firefly
•Frasier
•Freaks & Geeks
•Friends
•Fringe
•Futurama [Bender rocks!]
•Get Smart
•Gilligan’s Island
•Gilmore Girls
•Gossip Girl
•Grey’s Anatomy
•Grange Hill ["Just say no!"]
•Growing Pains
•Gunsmoke
•Happy Days
•Hawaii Five-O
•Hell’s Kitchen
•Hill Street Blues
•Hercules: the Legendary Journeys
•Heroes [Only up to series 2, need to catch up]
•Home Improvement
•Homicide: Life on the Street
•House
•I Dream of Jeannie
•I Love Lucy
•Inspector Morse
•Invader Zim
•Invasion
•It's Gary Shandling's Show
•JAG
•Jackass
•Joey
•Kim Possible
•Knight Rider
•Knight Rider: 2008
•Kung Fu
•Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
•La Femme Nikita
•LA Law
•Laverne and Shirley
•Law and Order
•Law and Order: SVU
•Law and Order: CI
•Leverage
•Little House on the Prairie
•Lizzie McGuire
•Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman [Dean Cain was a nice bit of eye candy at the time, Teri Hatcher in pre Bond and pre Desperate Housewives mode]
•Lost [still love this but only watched up to 3rd series. Beautiful cast and location!]
•Lost in Space
•Lou Grant
•Mad Men
•M*A*S*H*
•MacGyver
•Magnum PI
•Malcolm in the Middle [Malcom's voice had broken when I started watching this but it was quite funny]
•Manimal [bet the effects would look so ropey if shown now]
•Married… With Children
•McLeod’s Daughters
•Melrose Place
•Miami Vice
•Millennium
•Minder
•Mission: Impossible
•Mod Squad
•Monk
•Moonlighting [I loved this- Bruce Willis with hair; classically 'Will they, won't they?"]
•Mork & Mindy
•Murphy Brown
•My Life As A Dog
•My Three Sons
•My Two Dads
•Mythbusters
•NCIS
•Ned Bigby’s Declassified School Survival Guide
•Nighty Night
•Nip/Tuck
•Numb3rs
•NYPD Blue
•One Foot In The Grave
•One Tree Hill
•Open All Hours
•Oz
•Peep Show
•Perry Mason
•Power Rangers
•Press Gang
•Prison Break [not seen any, must do at some point]
•Private Practice
•Privileged
•Profiler
•Project Runway
•Psych
•Pushing Daisies
•Quantum Leap
•Queer As Folk (US)
•Queer as Folk (UK)
•Quincy ME
•Red Dwarf
•ReGenesis
•Remington Steele [Pierce Brosnan could have been Bond earlier except he was contracted for this TV series at the time]
•Rescue Me
•Road Rules
•ROME
•Roseanne
•Roswell
•Sanctuary
•Sapphire & Steel [didn't always understand the storylines but recall they were cool and creepy!]
•Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?
•Scrubs
•Seaquest DSV
•Seinfeld
•Sex and the City
•Simon & Simon
•Six Feet Under
•Slings and Arrows
•Smallville
•So Weird
•South of Nowhere
•South Park
•Space: 1999
•Spaced
•Spin City
•Spider-Man (Nicholas Hammond version)
•Spongebob Squarepants
•St. Elsewhere
•Star Fleet [like Thunderbirds - superior Japanese style, with fighting robots!]
•Star Trek
•Star Trek: The Next Generation
•Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
•Star Trek: Voyager
•Star Trek: Enterprise
•Stargate Atlantis
•Stargate SG-1
•Starsky & Hutch
•Streethawk
•Studio 60 On Sunset Strip
•Supernatural [See above for Prison Break]
•Surface
•Survivor
•Taxi
•Teen Titans
•Terrahawks [kinda like Thunderbirds, cool robots like silver footballs]
•That 70’s Show
•That’s So Raven
•The 4400
•The Addams Family
•The Amazing Race
•The Andy Griffith Show
•The A-Team [Mr T rules and it's great to see him in the WoW adverts!]
•The Avengers [I wanted to be like Purdey!]
•The Beverly Hillbillies
•The Big Bang Theory
•The Brady Bunch
•The Cosby Show
•The Day Today
•The Daily Show
•The Dead Zone
•The Dick Van Dyke Show
•The Flintstones
•The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
•The Golden Girls
•The Honeymooners
•The Incredible Hulk [always wondered why the Hulk's trousers never split like his shirts]
•The Jeffersons
•The Jetsons
•The League Of Gentlemen
•The L Word
•The Lone Gunmen
•The Love Boat
•The Magnificent Seven
•The Man From UNCLE
•The Mary Tyler Moore Show
•The Monkees
•The Munsters
•The Office (UK) [Love this]
•The Office (US)
•The Outer Limits
•The Powerpuff Girls
•The Pretender
•The Prisoner
•The Professionals
•The Real World
•The Return Of The Saint
•The Rockford Files
•The Shield
•The Simpsons
•The Six Million Dollar Man
•The Sopranos
•The Streets Of San Francisco
•The Sweeney
•The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
•The Thick Of It
•The Twilight Zone
•The Waltons
•The West Wing
•The Wire
•The Wonder Years
•The X-Files [was a huuuuuge fan of Mulder and Scully - then it went all funny towards the end]
•Third Watch
•Thirtysomething
•Three’s Company
•Thunderbirds [episodes were very long, only bits interesting were the Thunderbirds themselves. And Virgil was fit for a puppet...!]
•Tru Calling
•True Blood
•Twin Peaks
•Twitch City
•Unfabulous
•Ugly Betty
•Veronica Mars
•Weeds
•Whose Line is it Anyway? (UK)
•Whose Line is it Anyway? (US)
•Will and Grace
•Wings
•Worzel Gummidge
•Xena: Warrior Princess [Girl power!]

Belated Happy Twenty-Ten

Happy New Year!

One of my NY resolutions is to get back to blogging, both writing and reading...

Ahem.

A lot to catch up on - not sure I want to do one big long post or lots of little ones.

Think about it...

Good job...

….I'm not unscrupulous.

I have just received bank transfers and cheques totalling over £1200 from over 40 strangers who have never met me but who trust me implicitly due to my conduct on an internet forum. Hey, I could just go away on holiday again….as if!

No, I just agreed to run a lotto syndicate for MyFootballClub members. I figured the easiest way to do it was to run it as a closed syndicate, all monies paid up front for the year. I can't be doing with chasing people for payment, it just won't work here, not with the members scattered around the UK. There's even a guy from Italy who's in it and who paid via paypal!

Any winnings will be split 50/50 between Ebbsfleet United and the syndicate members. It's just a bit of fun, since there are so many syndicate members, we'd have to have a huuuge win for it to be a good split but anything towards the club will be great.

I've been struggling majorly blogwise since I got back from my hols. In fact, I've been struggling with everything, housework, paperwork, the garden is a jungle! Work's been really busy; WoW, Boom and MyFC have taken up a lot of my time plus any spare minute, I've just been reading.

I'm sure I'll get over this apathy. Well, this post I guess is a start anyway. Must have a look at my holiday pics and sort out a post to preserve my memories! Must catch up on my blog reading too.

Um

I am still here, really struggling with my time juggling.

Anyway, I survived the latest cull of employees at work as did Boom at the company he works for.

I guess we should be celebrating.

Combo

A combination of me not being well and it being a busy couple of weeks has meant I've not had the chance to update.

But I'm going to be away for a wee while to sunny climes so the update will have to wait.

Laters, peeps!

Bits and Bobs

Yes, I've been rubbish at blogging, both updating and reading.

For starters, aside from spending far too much time on WoW these days (and nights), I've been involved in the forum shenanigans of MyFootballClub - we vote today on whether we give the manager of our club Ebbsfleet United another contract - I shall vote 'Yes'. Recently, we voted to ratify the prudent budget (playing budget now lowest in the Conference) and I've been involved in an ideas committee for fundraising for the club and MyFC.

Also, the weekend of glorious sunshine meant that I swapped laptop for bikini and I spent a fair few hours in the garden soaking up rays.

Anyway, in the weeks I haven't been posting, I watched Star Trek (I got gold class seats for Boom) - I enjoyed the film more than I thought I would, the casting was perfect as the old characters previously made iconic by Shatner and Nimoy were brought to life with new, younger actors in a cracking movie with great effects, action and storyline - Kirk, I thought was excellent, loved his arrogance and swagger!

So the football season is finally over with Man U crowned champions again - I'm gutted as Liverpool had the title within their grasp but blew it. It was our best season in a long time but still not good enough so I can only say "Maybe next year!"

Also caught Angels & Demons - a good film (aside from Ewan McGregor's dodgy Ulster accent but somehow, I did wish that I hadn't read Dan Brown's book as I knew how it was going to end! , the wonderful setting in Rome just made me want to visit the place (properly this time!).

Work's been really busy, so not really had a lot of time to do my blogging. Time seems to be whizzing by so quickly, a blur of work, gym, WoW and Boom.

It's my birthday soon and I'm not really looking forward to it for various reasons...

Need a holiday and hopefully Boom will get the time off so I can book something to get away.

Still Around

Oops - not updated in a while - will do a brief update shortly.

Anyway, all I'll say is that I did cheer loudly when those goals went in last night - Barca were awesome, United surprisingly poor.

The commentators were spouting about everyone back in England rooting for United - they do talk a load of tosh! As if any Man U fans wanted Liverpool to win in Istanbul in 2005??! Nearly all the non-United fans I know were supporting the Spanish side last night, it's nothing to do with patriotism (tribalism though?) and no, I don't deny being bitter at all!

I did feel a little sorry for Boom though so haven't given him any grief (yet).

Guy or Gal?

According to Gender Analyzer, (nicked off Red Squirrel) this blog is probably written by a guy (59% guess), although it's quite gender neutral.

No real surprise there, apart from the fact that I'm not a guy (I checked this morning in the shower), it's actually pretty accurate since my interests and lifestyle could be considered more blokey than girlie.

I wonder if this changes depending on the next few posts I make? If I suddenly started mentioning knitting, cooking, shopping for clothes, shoes and handbags, makeup... might be worth checking back again!

Friday Puzzle

I just got forwarded this Maths puzzle and the grey cells must still be functioning because I got it right!

==================
There are 7 girls in a bus.

Each girl has 7 backpacks.

In each backpack, there are 7 big cats.

For every big cat there are 7 little cats.

Question: How many legs are there in the bus ?

=========================

Will post the answer in my comments at some point....

To Get Or Not To Get...

...that is the question.

Pondering.

Anyway, this blog is 4 years old now.

I'd like to say it's gotten better over the years but I probably can't! Ok, maybe a bit better.

Big Sis and little nephew are up for the next few days so will be nice to spend more time with them.

First football match of the season for me too this weekend - looking forward to it.

Behind

Head's upside down with stuff in and out of work - am so behind on my blogging and blog-reading - will attempt to remedy today!

Behind

Am behind on my posts and my blog reading.

Been too (combination of the following):

a) Ill
b) Sociable
c) Distracted

Will update soon.

Quirky Six

Haven't done one in a while so here's a meme-thingy that Mosher tagged me with:

Six 'dodgy' facts about myself that people may or may not know - it's difficult cos you know, I'm not a dodgy person at all ...

Um, here goes:

1. I had major surgery when I was younger so have an 'impressive' foot long scar and hey, you can still see where the staples were to hold me together...
2. I can't remember the last time I bought envelopes, writing pads, stationery etc for personal use as I just 'borrow' from work.
3. I wrote off my first car by crashing into a jack-knifed lorry and had to be cut out of the vehicle.
4. I pull out my grey hair with tweezers but am fighting a losing battle :-(
5. I use Johnson's Holiday Skin lotion to give me a nice glow to my skin (without being orange).
6. I get CDs from the library and copy them for my ipod.

Not going to inflict this on anyone by tagging them!

Shortness Is Bad For Your Health...

....according to this Department of Health study.

Short people apparently suffer worse physical and mental health than those of normal height, scientists claim today.

I now have a very good excuse for taking a loooong time off sick....

It's been a tough week - work's been relentless (soon to be more disruptions) and the England football team put in a diabolical performance and now may not qualify for the European championships next year. And today, the glamorous C leaves for her trip to China - who's going to keep me sane for the next two weeks?? Good job I have something planned for the weekend to distract me.

I'll also be shedding some of my online anonymity this evening when I meet up with a fellow blogger after my gym session for a swift drink.

Hope it's not too scary (for either of us)!

Celebrity Lookalike

Haha, seems I might give the glamorous C a run for her money!

Got this from Misty, where you upload your photo onto myheritage.com and the face recognition software works out which celebrities (from the my heritage database) you resemble the most!

Well, I would have been well disappointed if there were a couple of mingers in there but they're all hot babes... brilliant, this has made my day!

Form an orderly queue, lads! :-)

Another Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen random tracks I've recently slung into my ipod:

1. Runaway - The Corrs

2. The Everlasting - Manic Street Preachers

3. Brown Girl In The Ring - Boney M

4. Adelante - SASH!

5. Crash - Primitives

6. This Charming Man - The Smiths

7. Since You Been Gone - Rainbow

8. Opportunities - Pet Shop Boys

9. Time Is Running Out - Muse

10. Sk8r Boi - Avril Lavigne

11. White Flag - Dido

12. Nancy Boy - Placebo (pictured)

13. Basket Case - Green Day

Kind of a mixed bag really!