Early Jurassic - Mum takes you to playgroup, kicking and screaming and your friends are forced upon you. Free milk at 11 am. Cretaceous - Primary school. You go round to Robert’s for tea and Robert comes round to your house for tea. Painfully shy in female company. Middle Monolithic - Secondary school - you hang out with the kids who play football and avoid those who threaten you with knives at the bus stop. ...

Google have recently added some ‘social’ features to Google Reader which enables much improved sharing of people’s Shared Items. The features have re-energised my use of Reader as these were features I have wanted for a long time.

Friday ‘Can I touch them ?’ ‘No. Not yet.’ ‘Look - it’s been four months now. When can I touch them ?’ ‘Not yet. I’ve already told you, I’m not ready’. Sunday ‘Please can I touch them ?’ ‘No - not yet. Just a couple more days. But you can help me, if you like.’ ‘Oh what is it now ? The footy’s on in a minute.’ ‘Listen. Forget about the god-damned football for just one minute. Put your pole in here now because I want to drape them all around your pole.’ ...

I like most sports but I hate rugby union with a passion for the following reasons: At (Grammar) school, I was forced to play rugby because it was somehow viewed as ‘character building’. On a cold, wet autumn day, a sports master took one look at me and grunted ‘You. Second row’. I then proceeded to grab the crotch of the boy in front of me while a boy behind me grabbed my crotch. I then had to insert my head between the thighs of two boys in front of me. ...

17 August 2005 - Started life on Blogger. 12 October 2005 - Moved to self-hosted Blogger 13 November 2005 - Moved to hosted WordPress.com. 30 September 2006 - Purchased domain name and moved to self-hosted WordPress.org 01 July 2007 - Adsense appears. 29 August 2007 - One of many crises of confidence where I nearly shut down the blog and deleted all content. 19 January 2008 - Adsense disappears. 15 February 2008 - Moved from WordPress to Habari. ...

This humble blog is four years old today so tonight I will be taking ‘Blog in isolation’ and some of its closest friends to LazerQuest (Mega Death Match Party Edition with Pizza and gallons of Coca Cola to ensure the kids are well and truly revved up). Everyone loves meaningful statistics so here is a pretty chart of posts by month (for all you management types): Curiously, since I returned from my holiday, I seem to have rediscovered a little of my zest for blogging. Also, I have a feeling that things are gradually turning full circle. My initial decision to dip my toe in the water was prompted by reading and enjoying the writing of other people and I sense that element is slowly returning. More recently, reading blogs had turned into mindlessly hitting ‘J’ in Google Reader as fast as humanly possible simply in order to say ‘Done’. ...

Memories of the annual summer vacation are now fading, the digital photos have been rationalised and printed, the video footage remains on the camcorder (thankfully) and the entries for ‘Holiday Highlights’ have now been received and short-listed. Norma - ‘So many memories. Catching up with friends and family, the climate, the lifestyle, The awesome scenery of the Bungle Bungles, the idyll that is Hamilton Island, sailing to Freemantle, cuddling a Koala, the endless miles of white sand and blue sky at Cable Beach.’ ...

There’s been a lot of chatter recently about Feedburner’s support for the PubSubHubbub protocol. Apparently, it means that blog posts show up much quicker in FriendFeed, Google Reader and other services. I must admit I was fairly sceptical as my posts still take a couple of hours to appear. However, I was wrong (again). Look at this recent example. The post showed up a full three and a half hours on Google Reader before I published it. ...

Recently noticed a couple of additional HD channels now available on Virgin Media. C4 - not that much of a bonus. ESPN - will broadcast all the football matches previously screened by Setanta - in High Definition - at no extra cost. Superb. Slightly irritating that Virgin Media can send me a fun packed newsletter (via email) but don’t have a blog or sensible way of communicating this useful information to me. ...

Mum and Dad Having cool time on Crete (geddit ?) with Bazzer, Nobby, TenBob, SickNote and the three ‘S’s. Sun = wicked. Sea = wicked. Sex = wicked (geddit ?). Loadsa Brits out here. Able to get The Sun delivered. Happy hour - all day long (nudge, nudge). Last night, I asked a bird if she fancied a ride on my very own ‘banana boat’. She slapped me (just like being back at home :-) then she poured sambuca all over me balls. ...