Just enough time left today to post a couple of seasonal pictures of Pete and to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas.

I hope that everyone gets all they wish and that, even if it's only in a small way, happiness touches all of your lives.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

:D:D

"Seize the day!" That's a phrase that I've heard used a fair amount over the last few years, but what is it about the day that you are supposed to seize? Of all things that come to mind for me when I start off on one of my mind meanders, one of the most interesting to me is the fact that I find a swell of blackness around the back of my eyes and sometimes the down gets so bad that the swell makes my eyes hurt. Figures roam freely around in the increasingly empty hallways that circle my mind and I have no idea who or what they are, or where they are going, or where they've been, or even if I care about any of those things even if there was any way that I could find out the answers or if they mattered at all. Yells echo and cries swoop around the billowing emptiness that is everything, and yet all I hear is my own soft hiss in the ear, and that is more than a little annoying but also comforting at the same time. All in all I can see that there are more than a few things that I need to focus on but when I do they all merge into one unfocused mess that just keeps getting more blurred and more messy the more I look at it, and yet when I don't look at it all it does is mock me while all the time swapping colours and form so that when I look again it is even more confusing than it was.

I can't really say exactly why for sure but I haven't been a fan of this time of year since I was about 15, I think, and now I find myself living with Niki and with Pete as well, and am sober, I keep trying to get into the spirit of it all but am finding it difficult.

Hopefully my state of mind wont put a downer on the whole thing and we will have a good time.

I don't know how much I will blog during this period, but in case I am not around much I just want to wish all of you a happy Christmas and hope that both Christmas and the New Year bring you all that you need.

This is just a quick post to say that I've started another blog on here under the name Maniacal (now at the top of my friends list), I don't know why really but I just wanted a place to vent my spleen about things that piss me off but are not necessarily directly conected to me or my life (although some of them will be).

Don't know if anyone will want to read any of the things I have to say but that's not really the point of it, although if people do read it I'd love them to let me know what they think about what I say.

See ya!

Well, here we are again then.

Not too many people seemed to pick up on my Ron Jeremy laughter moment in my last posting, but hey, thanks to those who did.

All three of us are doing alright in general. We're working our way, slowly, up to Christmas although most stuff looks like it will have to be left to the last minute because of the problems with our benefit, although they seem to be getting worked out slowly as well.

So, a little while ago my friend Mr Kelly contacted me and mentioned about a band called GMT, made up of Bernie Torme and John McCoy and Robin Guy, so I found their My Space site and have been keeping an eye on it every now and then ever since. Imagine my suprise when out of the blue they issue some gig dates and one of them was for a gig at The Standard in Walthamstow for the 14th of December. I talked to Mr Kelly last week and we decided that we were both free to go and so we went. It was great. The support band, The Racket, were really good and had some excellent songs and a good front man, the only thing that let them down was a guitarist that, although very good, just didn't seem to fit with the rest of the band and almost seemed like he couldn't be bothered when he was playing. GMT were brilliant they played a lot of songs from there new album 'Bitter & Twisted' and also some great covers, namely 'New Orleans' 'Smoke On The Water' and '(Let Me Stand Next To Your) Fire'. They put on great show despite the fact that there were only about twnety people in the place. Bernie Torme can still make the guitar talk and John McCoy is simply an amazing bass player as well as looking fantastic on stage, the drummer Robin Guy (who I must admit I don't know at all) was really great as well, and all three of them seemed to be having a real good time all the way through it. Here's a few pictures of the on stage:-

The bestest thing about it was that because there was hardly anyone there I got to meet the band afterwards and get their autographs. It was quite weird though because Bernie Torme was really quite chatty and saying hi to everyone, the drummer Robin Guy was a really nice bloke who wanted to know all about how I'd heard of the band and why I'd come to see them, but John McCoy was really timid and reserved as if he didn't want to meet anyone or talk to anyone at all, not what I expected given his stage persona. Still it was a really good night out and I enjoyed myself. If you want to know more about the band, check out their MySpace site HERE or their web site HERE

Well I think that's all from me for now, see ya.

What a day it's been. Niki went to work today and I stayed at home with Pete. All hopes of going out dashed but a large amount of wet stuff falling from the sky. Not normaly a problem, but today Pete decided that he didn't want to be put down (even when he was asleep) and that, apart from about two hours spread accross the day when he was smiley and playing, when he wasn't either sleeping or eating, he'd whine and scream at me. I think the fact that I've been feeling a bit low and also a bit below par physically as well for the last few days (and having tooth ache that comes and goes whenever it feels like) made things a bit worse and left me feeling more than a little stressed by it all. Still, that's one of the joys of being a parent I suppose

Niki seems to be doing alright, although I still wory about her not getting enough sleep and stuff.

I know I haven't been blogging as regularly as I have in the past, but lately I just haven't felt that anything that has been going on in my head or anywhere else was worth blogging about really, but today I had a great experience of mis-hearing something that made me laugh for ages and still makes me smile thinking about it, and is the reason for the title of this entry. Earlier today there was an advert on TV for the Royal Variety Performance, Pete was making a bit of a fuss so I wasn't paying that much attention to the TV (not that I would have been glued to it for info on the show anyway). Part of my mind wandered to the thought "I wonder what kind of rubbish they've got on it this year", and I noted a couple of names as I half listened. Then I stopped and stared at the TV in disbelief, as the picture revealed Jon Bon Jovi singing, I laughed out loud. I was absolutely certain that I had heard the anouncer say 'Ron Jeremy' and not 'Bon Jovi', now that would be a Royal Variety Performance I would watch The more I thought about Ron Jeremy performing live on stage for the Queen, the more funny it became, and then there was the thought about the line-up when the stars are presented to the Queen and Prince Phillip, that made me laugh even more. Lets face it it would be a million times better than what's actually on it, I know it's just a personal thing but anything with Russell Brand on it is not something I want to watch, I just can't stand him, I have a growing group of "comedians" that I switch over or off if they are on a show (unless there are other people on the show that I like enough to put up with them for) and at the moment it consists mainly of Russell Brand, Jimmy Carr, Alan Carr and Graham Norton, they're all crap as far as I'm concerned, so there!

Anyway that's my laugh and rant out of the way for today, just before I go I will leave a couple of links for anyone who doesn't know who Ron Jeremy is check out the links HERE and HERE , see ya later!

I am feeling a bit odd right now. Firstly I don't seem to be sleeping very well (once again) as can be seen by the fact that I'm writing this at 3.20am, this has made me feel a bit buzzy. Secondly I still seem to be in this down turn, there have been a few more up moments but mostly it's been very flat for the last few weeks. Thirdly, I had an appointment with my heart specialist today, once again I was told that apart from the fact that I have a heart condition and need triple bypass surgery which they can't do because I'm too much of a fat bastard, I really healthy, all I want to know is if that's true why do I feel so unhealthy so much of the time? You don't really need to answer that question, it's purely rhetorical. Don't you just hate people who ask rhetorical questions?

Anyway, apart from the above, I don't quite know what is wrong with me right now. I really feel a bit out of place (if that makes any sense at all), I feel like I don't belong, even within myself. The only time I seem to feel focused is sitting doing mindless and not really necessary crap on the computer. Maybe that's why I sit and do it until such ridiculously early hours of the day. My mind doesn't so much wander at the moment as take a three week holiday in Benedorm every few hours. I have been trying hard to do some of the things my counsellor has talked to me about and have been thinking a lot about the things I have lost from my life and the things that have changed, both good and bad (relative though those terms are) and it doesn't seem to have made a great deal of difference. I think what I need to do is vocalise the thoughts I've been having and get someone to just sit and listen to me drone on and on for hours about me and my life, which means it can't really be anyone that has been involved in my life (and that includes my counsellor really), the trouble is I don't open up well when talking to strangers and wouldn't know either who would want to listen and where to go to find them. Still they you go.

I think Niki is doing alright. I'm not totally sure because I have been a bit caught up in my own stuff, and I worry that I have been leaving too much to her although she assures me that I haven't. She's also tired, more because of Pete than anything else I think, but I do worry about her and am sure that when she says she's fine she's not really, but that could just be my paranoia kicking in again.

Pete is doing alright, still a few problems with the reflux and stuff, but other than that he seems to be absolutely fine. Niki is going to take him to get weighed again, last time he was just over 15lb so we reckon he'll be around 17 to 18lb this time, which isn't bad for just over 3 months old.

Well, I think that's about all from me for now. Just going to leave you with a couple of links to sites that Niki has shown me this week:-

Great hats for women who want to go to stoneings or anyone who wants to hide there identity HERE.

A must have Christmas gift for all bikers HERE.

See ya!

Well, it's been a while. Possibly longer for me than for you (I have no idea if that makes any sense).

Niki is doing ok, she went into work a couple of times last week to help them out and she's got a couple of teaching days lined up before Christmas, then she goes back to doing more regular work in the new year.

Pete is not doing too bad, although he seems to be having trouble with the reflux thing which has come back after his cold, and he's working his way up to teething. At the moment he's all slobber and trying to chew a lot of the time. He's also got two friends that seem to make him happy, here's a picture of him with his friend Jack:-

and this is a picture of his best friend Glen, if he's not feeling too happy all he has to do is look at Glen and he starts smiling and laughing:-

Yes I know it's a bit odd but there you go

As for me, life is a funnt old mixed bag of stuff annaldat. I know I haven't mentioned it before but I am doing an English GCSE course at the moment (partly as an encouragement to Scott, partly to stop my brain from siezing up, and partly because the exams I took when I was at school are not now worth the paper they're written on), anyway I had to do a presentation to the rest of the class/group. I decided to do mine on the history of The Blues (that's the musical genre, just for anyone who wasn't sure), I was supposed to do it two weeks ago but due to technical problems couldn't do it until last Thursday. This meant that I have been mightily stressed out about it for a couple of weeks now and as soon as I had done it I relaxed and started feeling ill. On Saturday I went to see Alice Cooper, Motorhead and Joan Jett at Wembley Arena with Old Nick, Mrs F and Shipscook; I won't bother too much with a review as Old Nick and Shipscook have both already done one, all I will say is that Joan Jet was alright but a little lack lustre for my taste, Motorhead were Motorhead and as always were brilliant, and Alice Cooper (who, unbelievably, I had never seen before) was absolutly excellent, so all in all it was a good night made all the better for the fact that I got a chance to catch up with 3 old friends, 2 of which I hadn't seen for a good few years. I tried to take some pictures at the gig but didn't have a great deal of luck, this one of Alice Cooper (if you look really hard you just see him around the middle of the stage with his back to the audience) is the best of them :-

I managed to spend some time messing around with some music yesterday while Niki was out with Pete and her friend Lixie, and the result is a strange (Niki says oriental sounding) instrumental that I have called Winter Ride and have posted on my Kizlode MySpace site. I was in a pretty good mood until we got a letter today saying that our Housing and Council Tax Benefits are being suspended until we can sort out with them our finances, this is because we've been awarded Child Tax Credit which means we now get too much to recieve Income Support, I used to work in the system and I don't understand it sometimes. Still it's not something we can't get worked out, hopefully, but it's just that I'm fed up with having to sort thins kind of thing out. It seems that just as we get stuff sorted and we start to get used to our situation and work within our budget, something happens to change it all and we have to readjust everything. So at the moment I'm a little pissed off and fed up, but hopefully it will be better tomorrow when I go to the housing office to try to sort it out.

Well that's about all from me (that's more than enough, I hear you cry), except to ask you to check out the new tune on my MySpace site and let me know either here or there what you think.

See y'all.

Well let's start with the answer to the picture poser from my last entry. Faffa got it right, it is a hot dog from a tin we opened to have as part of our dinner a couple of nights ago, I just thought it was a bit funny. Here's a fuller picture:-

We've had a weekend of it. On Saturday we got up earlyish with the full intent of going over to see the women Niki works with at Stash and then going on to visit her dad. We left a little later than we had first intended, but not too late. We got a bus to Elm Park station, we were going to have a quick look at the shops there before our journey, only to find that a section of the District Line was closed for works. So was the whole of the circle line and big chunks of other lines. We worked out how to get over to Putney but also worked out that it would probably take a lot longer than normal. So after some thought we decided not to go and to leave it until Monday. We spent the next four hours walking around Elm Park looking at the shops and buying some stuff from charity shops. That has meant that today we've both been a bit tired because we had two days of walking around shopping in a row, which is not something we normally do at all. Still it wasn't too bad, and tomorrow we get up a reasonable time and go over to Putney and Barnes and possibly Chiswick to see people, which should be a good day.

I'm going to leave you with a couple of links to videos. The videos are basically the same but with a few differences, they are from a 70's TV show called Twentieth Century Box and these particular clips are from a show they did about Neal Kay and the Bandwagon, which was a place that I went to a few times in my youth before working for Mr Kay as a roadie. If you don't know anything about him or the Bandwagon and want to, you can find out HERE. Anyway, here they are:-

Clip 1.

Clip 2.

See ya!

I have absolutely no idea why I gave this blog entry the title I did, but it just came to me as I sat here.

Anyway, Pete is much better now. The cold seems to be basically gone and he's starting to settle back into his routine. Niki is doing ok, apart from being a little deluded (see her comment on my last entry), although we're both a bit tired tonight as we didn't sleep too well last night and have been out a lot today.

Lixie, one of Niki's friends, came over today and we went to have a look at an indoor boot sale in Romford, and then wander round the market and shops. It was fun but we're a bit out of practice at this sort of thing so it was a bit tiring as well.

We had a visit from Becca and Lauren, and Jay's cousin Claire and her boyfriend, tonight which was really nice.

I suppose that's about all I've got to say right now really. I just want to leave you with a picture puzzle:-
What do you think this is a picture of?

I'll leave you to ponder that and will give you the answer in my next entry.

See ya!

Well, Pete is better today than he has been for the last week. He's still a bit snotty, but not as much, and still has a bit of a cough. Unfortunately because his appetite has come back, so has the reflux and/or colic (we can't quite decide which), so we'll have that to deal with again for a little while.

I'm still worried about Niki, she keeps telling me she's fine but I think she looks completely worn out a lot of the time and she also looks a bit down sometimes. All I can do is try to share the problems and work involved with having Pete, and tell her I love her. It just doesn't feel like enough sometimes.

As for me, I'm still where I am.Trying to lay to rest some of the stuff I've carried around but finding it hard to do so because I have other things that I feel must take priority at the moment.

On a less deep note, I ment to make comment last time about the god awful version of Frankenstein that was on TV this last week. I don't know if anyone else saw it but I'd like to know what you thought of it if you did. Frankenstein has been one of my favourite books, and films (and I like more than one version) for years and I thought that what they did to it when they tried to bring it up to date was absolute rubbish. It lost all the power, passion and atmosphere of the original. I even more disapointed in this than I was in the rubbish that was Jeckyl, and that's saying something. I don't know why it seems that there are no writers that can adapt great horror classica for a modern audience, or maybe there are but they are just not given the opportunity.

Here are a couple of links for you:-

Real Life Sculptors.

Free Rice.

And this is a cartoon that Niki found and sent to me, she said it reminded her of herself but it reminds me more of me:-
www.weblogcartoons.com" />

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Well that's all from me.

Well now, here I am again sitting at the computer typing. Niki is upstairs in bed with Pete, she's been getting a bit stressed out (as have I) with Pete not being well and how it's effected him but other than that and tiredness seems to be ok. Pete's cold is still with us, he's now on to the "snotty/having trouble breathing sometimes/coughing a lot/sore throat/crying" stage, what I'm hopeing is that the snotty bit will clear up soon so he can breath a bit better and maybe cough a bit less, although the cough will probably go on for a while after the cold has gone like they normally do.

I, apart from feeling a bit stressed about Pete and tired, am still handling the whole depression thing and trying to get some of the underlying stuff dealt with, I also have a bugger of a tooth ache. I'm going to have to regester with a dentist sometime soon because this is getting silly, I've been dosing myself up on paracetamol with codine which seem to work ok but not all the time. My teeth have been a problem since before I stopped drinking and now they seem to be hitting back.

On top of all this I am starting to have a few times when I seriously question my sanity. For all those in the UK that watch TV, I'm sure you must at some point have seen the current Kellogs Nutri-grain advert (at least I think that's what it's for, it's something like that) with a horse, sitting on hay bales with his back hooves in a bath of water, phoning his wife to say he's still stuck at work horse-jumping (if not don't worry, it does exists, this isn't the insane part). I watched this advert just the other day and found myself questioning something about the advert. I was fine with the idea of a talking horse, that was married, owned a mobile phone and was talking to his wife on it telling her he was still at work, which was jumping fences, whilst sitting on hay bales with his back hooves in a bath of water, but all I kept thinking at the end of the advert when he starts to eat the Nutri-grain bar was, "How did he pick it up?" And I couldn't get it out of my head for hours.

Anyway, I'm going to go and do something else for a while, don't know what but there you go. So I'll leave you with a couple of links.

KNITTED CAR. I actually saw them putting this together at the show I went to with Niki at Ally Pally last year.

ZOMBIES. This is for Halloween.

See ya!

What a few days we've had. Pete has got a cold, picked up from his big brother we think, so have we a bit. All in all this makes things fun. He's not too bad, got a cough and a bit of a snotty nose, and has been a bit difficult to settle to sleep, but otherwise seems ok. We're alright but tired.

It seems that my last entry was a little misunderstood by some, although stuckinarut seemed to get the idea, so I thought I'd try to explain a little better.

My counsellor and I have worked out a few things about my cycle of depression. Firstly, due to the counselling, I can now see the beginings of a depression coming on and have a much better idea of when it's going to hit. Secondly, we have worked out between us that I have a tendancy to try to find ways to deliberately brake myself out of a depression without either trying to see what was the trigger or useing the depression to deal with the issues at the root of it. By this I mean that sometimes you need to take time to use the depression to mourn losses and come to terms with feelings, thoughts and memories, and unless you stay with the depression (without actually wollowing in it) you cannot do that. If you come out of it quickly you are not in the right frame of mind to actually look at these things in the way that you need to. That is what I, and my counsellor, meant about staying with my depression, I hope that explains things a bit better.

I am still in the depression, but nowhere near as deeply as I was and have started to deal with some stuff in my own head and time. This is the first time that I have been able to stay with it long enough to really start doing this and I'm hopeing I can stay with it long enough to come out a bit better and happier than I was before.

Anyway, enough of that, hope you are all good and I'll be back soon.

I have no idea why I gave this post the title I have, it was just something that came into my head as I started typing.

Well. here I am again. Still down and staying with it, as recomended by my counsellor, although I'm not sure exactly why I'm down and why I'm staying with it, but there you go.

Niki has seemed a bit stressed out of late, and I don't think my state of mind has helped. Pete is doing ok, but can be a bit draining at times when he's not in a happy place and/or sleeping well.

We've had some interesting stuff going on recently, depending upon your point of view. My brother and sister-in-law came over to see us on Sunday, which was really nice and we had a good (if slightly tiring) day. My nephew and his girlfriend are coming over with their daughter tomorrow, and Becca and Jay will be coming over as well, so we'll have a full house for a couple of hours. I don't normally see much of my family, so this is quite nice in a slightly stressful kind of way.

My mind is doing some funny things right now. Sometimes I'm just feeling a bit lost and can't seem to focus on very much at all, other times I can focus really well on one thing but everything else gets a bit lost, and others I just want to cry and haven't got a clue what I'm crying about. God I hate depression!

Can't really think of anything else to say really, here's something I've been using to get away from myself a bit. It's an odd game that's on the Salford University web site, after many times of getting stuck on level 3 I finally made it to the end and completed the game in 19.22 mins, maybe you can do it quicker:-

Curious

See ya later!

Yes, exactly.

I had hoped that once a line had been drawn by the studio going we could move on and not be bothered by the agent (god, I hate him). What I wouldn't give to be able to get my hands on enough money to pay off all debts relating to that place just so we wouldn't have to deal with him any more. I was in quite a good mood up to about 5 minutes ago when he phoned, now I feel tense and stressed, and can feel the start of a down coming on. Maybe I could just find someone to kill him and then we might get to deal with someone that more resembles a reasonable human being, but knowing our luck we probably wouldn't.

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for this rant.

I'm going to start with a thing that is on Niki's blog:

Alright, on with the rest of it all.

As some of you have asked I will tell you that I got completely fed up with the clicking of the cooker the other night and went up to ask Niki if she had any ideas. She said 'There must be a swith or something somewhere to turn the lighting spark off', I looked at her dumbly as this is the first time I've ever had a gas cooker and had no idea how the spark thingy worked at all. She said that she was going to the toilet and would have a look on her way back. After a while she came back upstairs and said it was done, she had found the switch and turned it off, after some stupid questions from me based upon my total lack of knowledge of gas cookers she assured me that the rest of the cooker still worked fine. I later discovered that in order for her to switch the thing off she had moved some of the furniture to get into the cupboard where the gas meter is and had eventually found the switch under the cooker (which is fitted into the work surface in the kitchen) right at the back, so she had to stretch to reach it, bruising her arm in the process. Then the following day I went out and bought a gas cooker lighter from the local supermarket. Still, at least it's not clicking any more

We're all ok at the moment, usual tiredness and stuff but otherwise not too bad, although I have been feeling a bit odd today and have a few moments when I've felt a bit lost and down, but Niki says it might be the tiredness getting to me, I don't know.

There are times when I feel completely focused and my thoughts are well ordered (for me), and there are other times when my mind is like: "Green, green, green, with a few red and some bits in the. Oh, look the sky, it's all kind of, and then there's the blackness of the grass, who could've known where that would have taken us. I am standing in a sitting position with my hands held firmly in my head, smile!! There's the bell, better be off then, you never know when it's going to be time to see what you have in the bag!" That's today really.

Anyway I thought I'd end with some video links to show why I never bothered to learn to play guitar properly, mainly because I don't think I could ever do this kind of thing:-

Four Hands Guitar

Guitar Skills

Mozart Bass

Ah, well, I suppose that about all from me, see ya!

So, it's been a while.

I'm doing fine, kinda. You know somewhat tired sometimes, and for some reason have been a bit down lately, but there you go.

I am a bit on edge right at the moment, because I was doing some washing up a little while ago and managed to drop some of the soapy washing up water directly onto the automatic electric spark thingy on the gas cooker. It then started sparking and is still doing it, and I don't seem to be able to stop it. I can't just go to bed and leave it clicking and sparking away to itself all night but have no idea how to stop it. And that bloody clicking is really starting to get on my nerves.

Niki is doing ok, she is feeling tired some of the time and a bit run down, but seems to be coping reasonably well.

Pete is down well, putting on weight (he's up to 12lb 5oz now) and giving us grief. I know that things could be a lot worse than they are, and I am grateful they are as easy as they are.

We managed to find him an outfit for Halloween, here's a picture of him in it:-

Well that's about all for now from me.

Sometimes I seem to do things wrong without even knowing I've done it or meaning to do it, or what I've actually done, as such, and this causes problems. I'm sure it will all work itself out, at least I hope so, but at the moment I feel angry with myself for causing this kind of thing again, and I'm not totally sure why.

On to other stuff.

Pete is doing well, growing well and stuff, although a bit grizzly sometimes, but then he is only just over a month old so I suppose it's to be expected.

Niki seems to be doing well, although tonight I'm not too sure.

We finally got rid of Niki's studio in Barnes, so now all we have to do is try to find a way to pay off the overdue rent on it. Maybe I'll do the lotto this weekend.

Can't think of much else t