switchfoot

so, earlier in the month phil and i checked out switchfoot on their european tour at shepherds bush. i've been a big fan of switchfoot since anna first chucked me 'learning to breathe' when it was released sometime around y2k, but since then they only seem to have been to england once - and i missed it.

then, back in summer 06 they announced their european tour....and i couldnt make a single date, anywhere in the uk. gutted. somehow though, they made history by cancelling the tour due to family reasons - the first ever time they had cancelled show(s) in their history.

late in 06 they had rescheduled for february 07, and i managed to snaffle a couple of tickets. i've been to shepherds bush empire loads of times - but until now i'd never sat on the 3rd level - it's seriously high and you get glorified benches to sit on! that said, we got front row centre(ish) seats and had a great view.

everyone seemed really up for it - as they opened with a number of classics from past albums even though their newest offering, 'oh! gravity' was released only weeks beforehand. it seemed the crowd was packed with die hard fans - almost louder than the band. makes sense really - since the last time switchfoot graced the uk with their presence was sometime in 2003.

the dynamics on stage, the quality of the performance and probably partially the immense anticipation of seeing a live switchfoot show made this one of my favourite and most memorable gigs in recent times. i had that feeling of parital nostalgia mixed with contemporary enjoyment as various songs reminded me of various past times - homework at school, long summer evenings in the car, driving to/from my work placements at oxsemi, second year at uni (release of beautiful letdown) whilst others were straight off the new album, as they played for around 80 minutes.

all good things come to an end, and this did in style as they pulled out a hard, driving delivery of 'dare you to move' in the encore. the iconic introduction instantly recognisable; the inevitable end of show culminating in characteristic switchfoot style.

a great evening...i'll be there next time.

set list:

stars
politicians
gone
we are one tonight
on fire
faust, midas, and myself
dirty second hands
this is your life
ammunition
american dream
awakening
learning to breathe
shadow proves the sunshine
oh! gravity
meant to live
only hope
dare you to move

snow!

well it's been a while since i've blogged...apologies. the excitement of christmas and new year obviously got the better of me, and it's taken another month for me to get over it. i don't make new year resolutions, but i am going to commit to writing here more often =)

anyway, today we've had loads of snow. being a man though, snow won't stop me getting to work. i'm hard. i can take it. so, having backed out of my parking space outside, i attempted the slight incline out of our residential parking area. i'm sure it's not usually a hill - it must have appeared there in the night. i mean, it's usually flat (isn't it?). anyway i made it...(with the help of a neighbour, but i'm sure he wasn't really pushing...).

on to our road. a few cars had bravely been there before, but more snow was falling, covering their tracks. made it to the end fork in the road. turned out and....we're stuck again. no problems, take it easy....sliding around...as i reach the top of the close i notice the main-ish road hasn't been gritted. there's a car stuck on the hill to the left. no problems, i'll go right. hehe learn from other people's mistakes and all that.

by now around 15 minutes has passed, and i could have walked three times as far. but i'm doing it. oh yes, i'm driving in the snow. so i move on, slowly, slowly, wheels spinning, no grip....and the car in front is stuck on the hill this way too. great. i've now travelled about 20 yards from the end of our road, and i'm never going to get up this hill.

i know, i'll pull in and park. yes i'll pull in to the side of the road where no cars have been and there's three inches of snow. that'll work. not. a few centimetres off the centre of the road and i'm stuck. in the middle of the road. blocking the whole double carriageway. not going anywhere. on a hill.

a hill? another hill? i know we live on the side of a hill, but why is it when the snow comes out, all the roads magic themselves into upward hills? i'm sure on a normal day it's not a hill; it's flat. then the snow comes, and the landscape miraculously transforms under the influence of magical white blossom.

half an hour longer and i've hand-dug channels from the wheels to the side of the road, and with the help of two neighbours and the contents of a roadside grit bunker, the car is now "parked" at the side of the road somewhere near the kerb. well i say 'road'; i mean relatively flat looking ground covered masses of snow. i say 'kerb'; i mean relatively flat looking ground covered in masses of snow. i say 'parked'; make your own conclusions.

well that was a fun 45 minute "drive". i guess i'm working from home today then ;) still, there's a nice view out of the back of our house

100 things we didn't know this time last year

whilst browsing the bbc news website i came across an article which a number of journalists have probably had a lot of fun putting together. and i must say, it has enriched my life. i mean, before today i would have guessed that in the 20 most popular names for boys born in england and wales you'd find names like thomas, james, william, rhys and lets face it, dafydd. 'mohammed' on the other hand, would not have rolled straight off the tongue.

embarrassed by your irrational arachnophobia? give yourself a break! nicole kidman is scared of......butterflies apparently. hate computers? the queen's never even used one. think you're extravagant? tim henman owns a tennis court he's never even used, and the average britton will spend £1,537,380 in their lifetime and buy 3.2 cds a year. 3.2? i'm not even a massive music listener but i'd say there must be some people buying negative amounts to make up for my 2006 purchases.

i could go on...fed up of insurance bills? place bets with bookies instead! Let's face it: it's the same concept.

but then there are some downright ridiculous entries. i mean, these are meant to be things we didn't know last year. a towel doesn't legally reserve a sun lounger. no! surely we would positively expect that somewhere down the line tax payers money has been wasted by an ancient conservative government proposing some sort of legal lounger regulation for our annual 16.72 day summer. 99% of pumpkins we buy are made into lanterns. of course they are - have you ever eaten one? bill gates doesn't own an ipod. i mean come on, get a grip! do you think that the md of tescos ever shops at sainsburys?

overall though, i'd like to think i have filled my head with more useless, strange but true information, just like those books you give your dad every christmas. and i fully identify with george bernard shaw, who, not wanting to tell outright lies, named his garden shed 'London' so when unwelcome guests visited his house, his absence could be legitimately qualified.

my good friend and monopoly nemesis peter has recently both passed his driving test and bought a house in croyden. being part of the legal fraternity (you never know what these people really get up to) peter, you should know that there are more cctv cameras in your new neighbourhood than in new york; that driving at 159mph takes over a third of a mile to stop (and if you're good enough at your job you'll also get yourself off the hook); and that your analysis of the orange sites is correct: they are tactically the best properties to own. although having said that, i don't see the royal opera house milking that claim for all it's worth...

google apps for your domain

google apps for your domain is a web-domain management system currently undergoing beta trials. it's a web-based package containing a selection of free tools that you can use on any of your web domains.

google start page, google talk, google calendar, google page creator all look slightly interesting, but i wouldn't have usually paid much attention. but what attracted me was the email capabilities - you are able to administer all the email accounts at your domain, and give each account web-mail and pop3/smtp access. how? yup, gmail.

gmail already revolutionised the world of email when it came on the scene a few years back, with a claim that you'd never have to delete your email again. now each email address @yourdomain.com can get a 2gb gmail account @yourdomain.com! that's right, no @gmail.com needed.

there are a couple of things to configure at your domain hosting company - first you need to prove the domain is yours by adding a google-tagged CNAME to your DNS (or easier, just upload an html file containing the google-tag to your website) and second you need to [re]point your email delivery to google's servers by adding a bunch of MX records. sounds complicated? it really isn't. you simply log in to your account at your domain host and follow google's instructions. DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate, but mine reached google within a couple of hours. the mail changes seemed instant (under 5 minutes), but i believe that depends on your domain host.

consensus? it's pretty good. as long as you're happy that pop3/smtp gmail access runs on non-standard ports and requires encryption, no problem. oh and if you didn't understand that sentence, the chances are you don't care and you're unaffected.

i haven't looked at the other apps yet - but judging by this, it looks promising.

blaze

wow so where have i been for the past month? long story. well it's not (it's not even a story) but that's another story. (or not as the case may be).

guy-fawkes night was not the only celebration observed by 5 november 2006. blaze is a regular 18-30 event hosted by city church, cambridge. being cambridge it seems to attract a lot of students; an observation substantiated by an abundance of bikes and few cars in the car park. having been invited to demonstrate my percussive skills, we arrived at around 17:15 with a feeling of mixed excitement and anxiety heralding my first band experience on drums, ready for a 19:30 kick off.

our 45 minute opening set was followed by daniel goodman (previously of note for a child) speaking on 'the heart'. then it was back over to us for a final 15 minute response. what i took away was the atmosphere of honesty and reality that permeated the whole event. here was a band that wasn't there to play songs to a bunch of punters who weren't there to sing along. here was a young man who wasn't there to stand on a soap-box and preach a disconnected message to maybe 50 or 60 young adults who weren't there to 'do church'. this was your living room, where you wanted to go, wanted to stay; comfortable and inviting. only from the outside, it was a warehouse next to tescos.

in today's news...

well, you're looking at a pubished writer. a journalist -- sports journalist -- if you will.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/5398156.stm

(i'll save you time. scroll down to the end of the main article - that's about half way down the overall page)

sheep dash

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/

interactive, educational, informative, blah blah blah...

highly addictive.

get better than 0.1854 average and you beat me. get 'turbo-charged cheetah' and i will respect you...

...and then we will all remember its a stupid sheep game and realise how sad we are.