Dodgy Carling Academy

Links:- Dodgy on MySpace | Amsterdam | Mark Morriss

Yay! Dodgy are Back!!

Me, Ste and John went to The Carling Academy, last night to see them on their comeback tour. What a night. They were supported by AMSTERDAM who were very good indeed. The Gig was opened by Mark Morriss from The Bluetones, but we missed some of his set cos we were in the pub.
The gig was in the little room on the first floor, We had a really good spec, 12 feet from the bar and 6 feet from the stage. Everyone was invited to The Cavern for an after show do. But Ste and John had their sensible heads on and decided it was time to go home. So We Did:( !!!

Today I found out that they did an acoustic set in The Cavern. I'm gutted!

But in hindsight, it's a good job I didn't go. I was in work at 6am this morning. I probably wouldn't have made it.
Here's a couple of drunken phone pics

Dodgy

Amsterdam

Team Lard Website

I decided to do a new TeamLard Website. More out of guilt, than anything else. I'm off work today and theoretically I could have driven down to Beddgelert for the day and drove back, this evening.
But it's bloody freezing, and i didn't fancy doing anything strenuous after doing a night shift. besides, I'm back in work at 6am tomorrow for a week of earlies.
So to make up for it, I decided to give the Team Lard site a new look. I've moved it onto my 1and1 webspace and I've ditched the iWeb software and used Good Old Rapidweaver. So hopefully It will be able to do a few more things, that the old site couldn't do. And a bit faster too.
All that remains is the help of the Lardy Boys, to feed it some content.

Link:- teamlard.co.uk

Klunkerz

While everybody's off having fun, on their bikes, and I'm sitting here, waiting to go to work. I started thinking about the first time I got into bikes. Not 1989, when I got my first Mountain Bike, but about 1977, just after the skateboard thing was dying out.

Me and Ste built ourselves a couple of cool bikes. Ste's was his dad's Raleigh Wayfarer with the biggest pair of cow horn handlebars, in the world. Mine was some little 20 inch wheeled thing which i found dumped in the back entry. I took it home and sprayed it Ford Escort Lime Green. I put the rear wheel from my Raleigh Chopper on it and my chopper handlebars. We used to ride them for miles. We took em into Liverpool town centre and had riding in places we shouldn't have. I particularly remember riding down the escalators in Lime Street Station and then through the underpass to St Georges Hall. We rode up and down the famous steps and then proceeded to head for the Pier Head. There was an enclosed footbridge, across The Strand at Brunswick Street. We spent a long time there. . . . . there were escalators at one end and we just rode up and down them, all day.

We were limited to where we could ride them, only because we were 13 and 14 and obviously couldn't travel anywhere by car. But in a way we were mountain bikers, even then.

I remember reading Motocross Action a couple of years later (when I had left school and was working), and there was this piece in it about Mountain Biking the new craze. There was a picture of a bike that looked remarkably like Ste's Wayfarer. Mountain Biking was being born, But now I was "Too Old" to be doing that stuff. It took me another 10 years before I was (im)mature enough , to take the plunge and get myself a bike again. I wish I'd done it earlier.

A couple of nights ago, Ste put me on to this film that has just been released on DVD "Klunkerz" It's a documentary about the birth of the mountain bike in California. But it was happening all-over the world at the same time.

I'm sure we invented the mountain bike in the UK :)

I Can't go Camping , This Easter.

This Easter will be the first time i've ever missed my annual mountain biking trip. Due to work commitments (I never thought I'd be writing that in my blog!) and the lure of mega bucks (That's a given) I'll be happily(?) Spray Drying stuff and generally saving kid's lives!!!

So Here's a little vid for you Lardy Boys, who will be missing me loads, especially Spike, you had better go!!!

John, just give Beerdy 40 quid (each) for those pedals. I'll take no less.

Ste, drink a box of wine for me, on Friday

THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN! p.s. The rabbit skates might catch on :)
Cab Calloway was the coolest man around. This proves that Bohemian Rhapsody wasn't the first music Video, by about 40 years. Look at that drummer in the background! You can see where Keith Moon got his tricks from.
I really do wish i was going too :(

THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN! p.s. The rabbit skates might catch on :)

More Updates

I've added a lot more Links to the Links Page.

Go and Visit MAGNUM PHOTOS and have a look at some of the photo essays. The site is great and is full of the works of some of the worlds most famous photographers.

I've changed the front page too. But you've probably noticed that already :) I'll change the photo on the front as often as I can.
I've been up since 4am doing this , so I'm going back to bed for a bit.

ZZZzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzz ZZzzzzzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzz zzz

Blog Address Change

If you are a subscriber to my Blog. You will need to re-subscribe to my RSS Feed. As from today, the new address for my blog is: http://mikeys.org.uk/blog/files/blogRSS.php. You'll know if you need to re-subscribe because you'll get an error 404, if you're still subscribed to the old feed.

Sorry for all that geekery, for all you normal people.

Site Update #2

I updated my site design again. Twice in one month!!!
Now there's a selection of my photo's and digital art, as the backdrop.
I've also added a newer links page. This page contains links to sites I like to visit and I hope you'll visit them too.


There is a Store page built and ready to go. All I need now is some stuff to sell. :)

Beach Lawn - Crosby (Waterloo)

Beach Lawn

This is Beach Lawn in Crosby. It's a row of Victorian villas that were built overlooking the Mersey estuary. The one slightly off centre, to the right, with the arched attic window was once owned by Thomas Henry Ismay, 1837-1899. He was the owner of The White Star Line.
Sadly the villa's have lost a lot of their Victorian elegance.

Happy Birthday Jonny Boy!

Happy Birthday Jonny Boy! 41 today

Now you're officially, "Over The Hill"! Do you want to borrow my wig? Is the blue beard coming back this year?

Twitter

Forget Facebook. It's a pain in the arse with all those apps. If you just need to get a message across to your community of friends, use Twitter.
You can update your twitter messages (tweets) from your Twitter Home Page, your instant messenger or via text from your phone.
Your "tweets" will instantly be forwarded to your Twitter buddies. If they have registered their mobile number, they'll receive a text message.
Webmasters can also display twitters on their websites.

I've added twitter to my site. All I need now is some twitter buddies. :)

Links: - My Twitter Page - Twitter

little cat

One of my cats died today. "little cat" was the littlest cat ever. Even littler than me. She was 14 and I've had her since she was six weeks old. To say I'm very upset is an understatement.
I want to write loads of stuff but I cant think of anything to say, that would make me feel any better.

Mike Cookson

Today I processed some photos for my mate Mike Cookson.

once . . . again :)

I Found this on YouTube. . ..

It's nearly as good as the film.

once

Links:- ONCE Official Site - The Frames - The Swell Season

I bought the album a few months ago, and I've been waiting for the DVD to be released ever since. I bought it today. . . :)
This is the best film I've seen all year. And Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová have just won an Oscar™ for best song "Falling Slowly". Here they are performing it at The Oscars Ceremony.

Cocklers

I took this at Crosby a couple of weeks back. This is the first image I have processed using the HDR method.



I think it came out quite well. I purposely didn't bring out the detail in the foreground as it was very noisy. Although it is a HDR I processed it from one exposure.
First I opened The RAW in Lightroom and saved it as three separate files. Each at a different exposure. -2 stops, normal exposure and +2 stops.
then I imported all three files into Photomatix and fiddled about until i got this. Far easier than it sounds and all in my first attempt.

Here's a few useful links:

Adobe Lightroom
Photomatix
Pete Carr's HDR Tutorial