Andy’s Blog

Another interesting read on the BBC News website; according to Professor Adrian North, of Heriot Watt University, my musical tastes are linked to my personality.

Apparently the type of music that you listen to shows what type of personality you have, for example;

• Listening to Classical music means you have high self-esteem, creative, introvert and at ease.
• Listening to Heavy Metal  means you have low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease.
• Listening to Chart Pop means you have high self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle, not at ease.
• Etc…

Which is a bit of a buggar for me, and a friend I was chatting to about musical tastes last night, as we both have somewhat ‘eclectic’ tastes in music.  My tastes range from Classical (when mellowing out), to 80’s pop (ahh my yooof!) to Heavy Metal (when in a good or ‘fast’ mood). 

It looks like I am a very confused little individual, which is probably not such a surprise to people who know me!

Quite why my friends are still surprised when I turn up with a new gadget is a bit of a mystery to me, you’d think after all these years (and all these gadgets) they would have learnt by now.

After thinking it a bit of a gimmick, plus already being in a contract with Vodafone, I have finally gotten myself an iPhone after O2 rather kindly offered to buy me out of my current contract. So I am now the proud owner of a 16Gb Apple iPhone 3G!

…and I have to say I am MORE than delighted and impressed with it.  Up till now I have been using a combination of other products to be the uber-chic man about town;  My Nokia 6500 Classic mobile phone (with Vodafone data tariff), Nokia n810 Internet Tablet for accessing the Internet, and an Apple iPod Nano 4Gb for music.  The iPhone now replaces all of these.

Now there is a bit of a wrench in dropping the Nokia n810 as this runs my Operating System of choice (Linux) and allows me to run a large number of Open Source products which I also use on my desktop PC at home (see my previous post here for more info).  However all these apps never really ‘fitted’ together in a seamless way, which the iPhone does.  Also, the need not to waste batteries (on both the mobile and n810) when bluetoothing between the two devices so I can 3G connect to the Internet is a bit of a bonus.

It’s not entirely a perfect device, but the advantages far outweigh the imperfections;

• Where’s cut-n-paste?  I would love to be able to snip bits of information out of websites or emails and post them in the notebook.
• When you minimise an app, it closes it (apart from the music)!  So when you are in the facebook app, and then decide to check your email, it disconnects you from any chats you were in
• iTunes!  *sigh* I have to run Windows to update my iPhone with music or install apps.

That all said, I am online now stalking friends on facebook whilst listening to some very early Genesis tracks - bliss!

I have been asked, on a fair number of occassions, why does everyone call you “troozers”?  So, to hopefully shortcut the next asker and provide the definitve answer… here is the full, sordid, story;

Many, many, (way too) many years ago when I was a teenager in the fine borough of Corby, or little Scotland as it’s sometimes called, my friends decided it was time that I had a nickname - they all had one; Moggie, Caz, Rocky, etc.. why didn’t I?

The decision process was long and convoluted and some of the suggestions were downright rude, but no name was settled on until the father of one of my friends told us that I had a famous namesake; Andy Stewart the  Scottish folk singer.  Worse still, my friends father had one of Andy Stewart’s records!  When the offending item was found and placed on the record player, out popped the song “Donald where’s ya troosers?”

…and as they said, it would be ridiculous to call me ‘Donald’ so they settled on ‘troozers’.  Yes the spelling is different, we didn’t actually bother to look at how you were supposed to spell troosers - my friends just decided that it was spelt with a ‘z’.  And, thus, a legend was born (in my own mind at least) and I have been called troozers ever since.

A boring, yet truthful, humdrum story of troozerdom!

It’s official, I have become a facebook addict.  I find myself, almost unconsciously, wandering back to facebook to check out what my listed friends are upto, moving my cars around in Parking Wars, building up my castles in the Knighthood game, updating my profile and uploading more pics.  She-who-must-be-obeyed is starting to feel like a facebook widow.

As some of you may know, I am an iterate IM’er (Instant Messaging), and facebook also allows you to IM friends when they come online - hallelujah!  …or as I am beginning to wonder “uh-oh”.

IM’ing for me is a simple, and cheap, way to chat to friends and gets over some of the inate shyness that is, unfortunately, built into my DNA (which is one reason why I don’t use the phone on a constant basis).  However I am beginning to wonder at what point does IM’ing friends start to become, for them, something coming close to stalking?  The unfortunate element of IM’ing is that you don’t know what the person is doing or feeling at the time you send a cheery little “hello” down the line to them, and people (despite beliefs to the contrary) will always try to remain polite, especially to friends, whatever their mood.

So I think, from now on, I shall try and keep my IM’ing to a minimum and only on a as-needed basis - unless of course I am IM’d first.  Maybe I am overly worrying about a non-issue, but that is a side effect of having too much time on one’s hands during the wee hours (I go to bed WAAAAAY too late).

So if you do find yourself being pestered one too many times, a “feck off” is always taken in the mood it’s given . What’s more worrying, is the following reply given by a friend when I brought it up with them;

coooooool, i have my own stalker….wicked !!

Buggar!  Left it WAY too long to update this blog, so in ‘twitter‘ stylee here’s a VERY rushed update of life so far;

• Didn’t get sunburnt on hols! yay!
• Sitting in the total darkness of a Toledo countryside, with a beer in hand, and family around you looking up at an unspoilt view of the stars IS as good as it gets.
• Number 1 son finally learns how to use the gears on a mountain bike. yay!
• Coming back to a rainy Luton after the hols have finished is a rude landing back to reality.
• Being in a hall full of 300+ karate instructors and black belts, being taught by the founder, and moving in perfect synchronisation is VERY cool!
• Visiting Alton Towers this Bank Holiday was loads of fun.
• Being able to sit on all the BIG and SCARY rides with Number 1 son was a defining moment.

All updated? Good

Am on the countdown, in hours, to the official start of my hols for this year!  Not sure I am going to be able to dial in at all during this little break, as we will be in the back of beyond in Spain - in splendid isolation in the hills around Madrid.

Plenty of grounds to go cycling in, our own private pool to splash around in….. and probably no wifi that I can hack into to be able to check in on my facebook progress or update my blog whilst bored… EEEeeeekk!!  For the more mentally balanced amongst you this may not present any kind of problem, but for this technofreak - it is.  I’ll be like a junky without his fix.

Looks like I should be coming back a wee bit fitter than I left, and finally get the boys and myself fully trained up in Saifa and Bassai-Dai.

For the longest time, whenever a census came round or a questionnaire required filling in, I always wrote “Christian” in the box labelled “Faith”.  This was always unthinkingly and without giving much consideration as to what this meant.  I wasn’t muslim or hindhu, I had very little idea what it meant to be agnostic and I thought I believed in something; so couldn’t be athiest.

However over the last couple of years I really started to think about faith and what it meant to be “Christian”.  The problem was in the fact that I just didn’t believe there was some omnipotent being ’somewhere’ in space watching everything I did.  I also believed that when I die, I would be worm food, rather than transcend my body into heaven - and what was wrong with that?  Worms need to feed too!

I started to, privately, label myself as agnostic.  I thought I believed in something, just not the faintly ridiculous God that would be preached to me on the odd occassion I did go to Church (baptisms, marriages, deaths, etc).  In fact on a number of these occassions I felt I had wandered into a Monty Python sketch;

Ooooh God, you are so big,
so absolutely huge,
Gosh, we’re all really impressed down here, I can tell you.
Forgive us, O Lord, for this, our dreadful toadying…

However, in the past month I have come to the realisation that I am neither of these but am in fact an atheist.  There, all said and done!  So I can happily walk around without having to justify ridiculousness such as intelligent design, extreme pro-lifers, women and homosexuals being some form of ’sub-human’, and the list goes on…

A lot of these views have been cemented (notice the boldening, it was only a cementing not a conversion) whilst reading “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins, which I found to be a bloody good read, when not wandering into the realms of Fundamentalist Atheism in some places (..also I think he is bidding for entry into the Guiness Book of Records for the most use of the word “zeitgeist” in one of the chapters).

Anyways, I have now “come out of the closet” as it were and trying to understand how this plays out with the work I do with the Scouts… after all, the main promise for the scouts is;

I promise to do my best, and to love God

How can you love something that does not exist?  Interesting times (..and my longest post to date!)

I hate not being part of the “in crowd”, and in that vein of vanity I have re-created my facebook account.  I did have one previously but, deleted it after getting swamped with emails and games, quizzes, pokes and a multitude of other things I didn’t understand.

So…. I am trying it again with a more “open” mind, but with a warning given to me by a very wise man;

“I used to have an open mind, but my brains kept falling out!”
Mr F.

I have gained my Black & White Belt in Karate!  (Yes I do know that the cartoon is of Hong-Kong-Phooey, and yes I do know he did kung-fu not karate - however I thought putting a piccie of The Karate Kid would look a little weird…. that and I LIKE hong-kong-phooey!).

This now means that I am teaching new students in the noble art of self defence, or at least attempting to.  Trying to get a mix of 28 adults and young children to punch, kick and strike ‘funny’ poses whilst shouting “KYAAAAAIII” is probably not as easy as it sounds.

Please be assured that this blog, when it does get updated, will not be a litany of wise sayings and thoughts based on the teachings and study of ancient Japanese warrior arts… just the usual ramblings of an aging idiot.

Do you know, one day I will actually remember to update this thing on a more regular basis!  I suppose the underlying issues that I have are;

• An inability to write good prose
• A very hum-drum life
• An inate laziness, which is becoming more ‘inatier’ (I love creating new words!)
• …Zzzzzz