... earlier today I came back from the gym to see a bit of paper stuck through the letter box.

I was initially pi$$ed off because I thought it was another flyer stuck through the box by some idiot who thinks that "no flyers, no junk mail" doesn't apply to them, however it turned out it was a note from the house over the road saying that they're having a 21st birthday party tonight and apologising in advance for any noise.

Not only that, but they even gave a contact number too!

It's good to see that at least *some* people think of their neighbours :-)

... this sort of kite flying any time soon...!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/8362671.stm

I was cycling up to the gym in Portsmouth this evening and found my normal route up Victoria Road North was being blocked by the Police, so I nipped through a couple of back streets and glanced back down the road to see a car which had somehow ended up on its roof!

It's not exactly a fast road (30 limit, although you do get some cars doing a bit more) and it was on a straight section of road, so how the hell did someone manage to flip their car down there...?!

So, after seeing the amazing Revolution Kites at the Southsea Kite Festival (and not a small amount of hassle getting lines and handles for it!) I finally got to try out my Rev EXP kite on Southsea Common today and...


... WOW! They are FUN!!! :-)

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Over the last month I became a victim of a clever 'Eastern European' scam while out shopping. Simply dropping into Tesco's has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naive enough to think it couldn't happen to you. Here's how the scam works:

Two seriously good-looking voluptuous 20-21 year-old girls come over to your car as you are packing your shopping into the boot. They both start cleaning your windscreen. Their large firm young breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts. It's impossible not to look.

When you thank them and offer them a tip, they'll say 'No' and instead ask you for a lift to another supermarket. You agree and they both get in the backseat. On the way, they start undressing, and both get completely naked. Then, when you pull over to remonstrate, one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over your lap, kissing you, touching you intimately, and thrusting herself against you, while the other one steals your wallet!

I had my wallet stolen June 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th, 24th, and 29th. Also July 1st, 4th, twice on the 6th, three times last Saturday and very likely again this coming weekend. So Be Warned!

P.S. Lidl have wallets on sale for £1.99 each, Aldi are £1.75 and look nicer.

... the wind, that is! :-(

I visited watervole and took the Power Kite down with me as she'd wanted to see it in action.

Unfortunately after getting to the Recreation Ground we were stymied by an incredibly fickle and patchy wind that would blow enough to get the kite off the ground, but then just die away as we watched the kite slowly settle back down again.

Even her much lighter stunt kite wouldn't stay in the air long enough for any real flying :-(

Oh well, I'll have to visit again when there's a bit more breeze.

On the 7th of May a customer sent me an order for a Strait Jacket to our PO Box. A few weeks later they contacted us because they'd not heard anything and, on checking, I realised the order had not been recevied, but we got things sorted out.

It's now the 5th of October and we have just received their letter and cheque!

Well, it only took five months...

Excuse the rant but...

You get on a train, yakking loudly on your mobile phone, you walk into a carriage with blue stickers on all the windows saying "Quiet Zone" asking you to NOT use mobile phones etc in there and plonk yourself down in a seat *still* blathering on about something totally inconsequential and then you act pi$$ed off when someone points out that this is a NO BLOODY MOBILE PHONE CARRIAGE!

So did you think that the signs and the nice little pictograms not apply to you? Or are you just an inconsiderate prat?

I've just received an e-mail from someone addressed to collars@affordable-leather.co.uk saying:

Hello ,
I have visited your very nice website
I did like it a lot
We also have dog related website
www. fordogtrainers. com
Would you like to partnership with our
website so you will be able to make
profits like our other partners do?
Waiting for your answer
Sincerely,
Dan at www. fordogtrainers. com

Given that the collars@ address is the one that comes up if you search for "collars" on google, something tells me that, perhaps they didn't actually visit the site.

So I've e-mailed them back saying "perhaps you'd like to take another look...!"

;-)

Well I had a damn good time at this event and when they do the next one in April I'll certainly be giving it another visit :)

I got to do an assessed ride-out (basically going out on a ride being followed by an experienced instructor) on which I made a whole bunch of technical errors, but nothing actually unsafe! I also got some slow riding practice and hints and even with just those I could feel an improvement in my riding on the way home.

There was also talks on cornering and filtering and a very good one on what to do if you're first on the scene at an accident: Don't take risks and become another victim, make the scene safe by alerting other traffic, stabilise casualties by checking ABC's (airway, breathing, circulation) and how to remove a helmet without damaging someone's neck further.

All in all a most fun and worthwhile day :-)

I've watched this over a dozen times now and it still makes me laugh!

... you don't appreciate it until you haven't got it.

Back in July I mentioned how I seemed to have either picked up a virus or had a recurrence of an old one that left me feeling wiped out.

Well finally it seems I've got over it because this evening at the gym doing Body Combat we were halfway through the class and I'd been taking it easy as I've had to since I caught it, when suddenly I thought "hang on a minute, I'm not feeling knackered! I've got some energy back at last!!"

So for the second half of the class I was having a great time belting out the moves, chucking in the odd Kiai and just generally enjoying myself :-)

Here's hoping that I keep feeling this way...

I've just been visiting this event with watervole and we had a great time!

There were all sorts of kites from tiny little ones (a few inches across) up to huge parafoils, cody kites, classic diamonds, power kites any many more.

Most impressive of all, however, were the Revolution Kites, these are 4 control line kites which can launch, hover, spin, move forwards and backwards and, when combined with other kites and a bit of music, perform an incredible aerial ballet!

Last year at the festival there was a celebration of 20 years of this style of kite and here's a video clip, where you can see the stunning control the flyers have (the reaction of both of us was "me want!!" :-)

I have a sign on my front door. It's A4 in size and says in big, bold letters:

No Flyers

No Menus

No Junk Mail

No Cold Callers
Yes, this does mean you!

So, unsurprisingly, I was more than a bit pi$$ed off when the doorbell just rang and I stopped what I was doing, went downstairs to find this older guy with a youngish girl in tow standing on my doorstep and asking "We're asking people what their two main concerns in life are?"

"Excuse me? What is this about?" I reply.

"Well, we're Jehovah's witnesses...." comes the response.

"Oh, well, tell me, which part of NO COLD CALLERS didn't you understand? Don't come here again." I say, shutting the door in his smug face.

I don't know if they considered that to be rude, but given that they had *already* been rude by ignoring my clearly stated wishes, I didn't feel much inclined to politeness.

Over last night and this morning, I've had someone try to post about 20 or so Product Reviews on my website.

Naturally all Reviews are subject to scrutiny by me first, which is a good thing as the appear to be attempting to spam the site with links to Viagra and other medications...

... Except they don't seem to be valid links anyway or the formatting is screwed up or something, so someone's been wasting their time.

However I've also had someone post a one-star review of one of the Corsets I sell claiming the busk broke (and the person posting is only a UK size 6) and the quality was poor anyway.

The only thing is, I've not actually *sold* one of that particular corset for the past year and certainly not to someone who was a UK size 6! So I have no idea who posted this or why (all I have is an IP address).

Dumb...!

... and once again I feel like I need to have a holiday to recover from it.



Unfortunately that's not necessarily a good thing this time.

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Well tomorrow I'm off on my annual jaunt to spend a week in skintight black rubber...

... surfing, you dirty minded sods ;-)

The Sat Nav says the quickest route to Croyde Bay in North Devon is about 4 hours, but I'm going to take one that is more like five and a half hours because it's much more fun if you're on two wheels :-)

I'm also going to meet up with a few people from a bike forum I use and we're going for a bimble up to Exmoor which should be fun.

PS Happy Birthday to esmeraldus_neo for tomorrow!

Well it's taken me a while, but I've just finished entering 271 books onto Library Thing, not to mention scanning in several book covers that weren't available.

I've found that I've got one book that nobody else has (Kung Fu 4, from the David Carradine TV series) and another, Blake's 7 "Scorpio Attack" that only two other people have :-)

Now I can get recommendations for new books and when I've finished reading the five I picked up from charity shops and a couple I got from Book Mooch, I'll be able to read something else...!

About three years ago I picked up a virus that left me feeling completely wiped out for almost six months.

I don't know if it's always been the same thing, but, since then, there have been times when I've had absolutely no energy and, on Tuesday at the gym doing Body Combat (high energy exercise, basically martial arts moves set to music) it hit me again and half way through the class I'd totally burned out.

Today I was doing Body Pump (exercises using weights) and the instructor was concerned because I was struggling so much. I was using lighter weights than I'd normally have used, but the problem was not lifting them, it was the total lack of any endurance when doing repeated moves.

I didn't want to not go, if I start skipping classes and get out of the habit it's sometimes difficult to get back into the habit, but it was not fun today and now I feel, well, like it says, blah! :-(

Philargyrist - someone who loves money :-)

I've just adopted this word through http://savethewords.org/ (takes a while to load)