Gregor Smith

Author: Greg

  • CPWABWDGTWATD

    So it’s July already, where does the time go? Right now we’re getting our shit together in time for a visit from my brother and his family on Thursday who are coming to us by way of Chicago, for some reason they feel the need to go on a long road trip and take 4 days to travel Chicago to Cincinnati (I believe) to Washington to Charlotte, roughly a 1,225 mile trip. Apparently they want to go back via Memphis, making it a 2,387 mile round trip…

    That’s assuming they go the most direct route… Crazy…

    The downside of them visiting is I won’t be able to watch Doctor Who on Saturday night, its the last episode of this series and has the makings of being a classic. Maybe I was a little too quick to criticise the writing of Russell T. Davies and the acting of Catherine Tate because the last 5 episodes have been marvelous. So to anyone who does watch it, no spoilers!

    In other news, I’m branching out, becoming more focused as I was invited to be the lead “soccer” (urgh!) blogger for a sports blog, this has now been spun off into its own blog (actually it was spun off before Euro 2008 some weeks ago, I’m just too lazy to link to myself). So if you’re looking for some non-inciteful football related nonsense, there you go. Now Euro 2008 is over I need to “research” (read: watch copious amounts of) world football, tough life, the downside is I’ll be podcasting tonight LIVE on Nosebleed Radio, if your free around 8pm EST come listen (and watch other people) as I push the boundaries of good taste and wrap up my Euro 2008 coverage.

    Expect cursing…

    Oh, and before you ask, CPWABWDGTWATD is my version of APWBWGTTD. If APWBWGTTD stands for “Atlanta People With Blogs Who Get Together To Drink” then CPWABWDGTWATD equals “Charlotte Person With A Blog Who Doesnt Get Together With Anyone To Drink”. I miss the old Atlanta Bloggers, the Charlotte blogging scene sure is lonely…

  • Killer Ride

    A teenager was struck and decapitated by the Batman ride at Six Flags Over Georgia. The 17-year-old park visitor was killed after scaling two fences, one of which was six feet tall, around the Batman roller coaster, park spokeswoman Hela Sheth said in a statement. It was unclear how fast the outside-looping coaster was moving when it struck the teen, but according to the park’s Web site, the ride reaches speeds of 50 mph.

  • NBA Draft

    Not many surprises in this years NBA Draft. Derrick Rose goes number one, Michael Beasley two and O.J. Mayo three. The draft isn’t as good now there aren’t as many atrocious GMs at work, can we petition to bring back Isiah Thomas and Billy King?

  • George Carlin 1937 – 2008

    George Carlin, best known for his “Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV” routine, has died of heart failure aged 71. His death came only a few days after he was selected by the Kennedy Center to receive the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for lifetime achievement in comedy.

  • Exodus

    I’m so lazy I’m now using one word titles…

    So the (preemptive urgh) “blogosphere” is all a twitter at the recent spate of rats jumping ship executives leaving Yahoo! So much so there is even a nice automated Yahoo! resignation letter generator. The reason I’m slightly worried is the two main people at Flickr, Catarina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, are leaving Yahoo! too. Add a recent tweet by community manager Heather Champ and things don’t seem to be going well in Sunnyvale.

    Trouble ‘t mill, one ownt crossbeam gone out askew on treddle!

    Now I’m pretty heavily invested in Flickr, I’ve been a member for 4 years and I have nearly 4,500 pictures on there, plus this site is knee deep in Flickr hosted pictures. So any sudden changes would affect me greatly, but I’m seriously wondering how long it has left, and when I should begin to start looking for an alternative, and the pain that’s no doubt going to cause. I can’t use Zooomr as I have a personal vendetta against Thomas Hawk (over a year old) but I sadly don’t know any other alternatives, can anyone recommend a good Flickr clone?

  • Upgrading

    Finally after some 2½ years of using the version 9 label and theme, I’ve upgraded to version 10. If version 9 was served up from a Commodore 64, then version 10 runs off a Pentium 2 running Windows 95.

    Not a lot has changed bar the look, and its another third party theme, this time I’m opting for the less is more look of DePo Clean by Derek Powazek. Though I do need to get my hands dirty and bend it to my will, so this is just a starting point, there shall be no fancy stuff going on, just simple tweaks and, if your lucky, actual content.

    In reality I’m pretty much done with blogging, I’ve been doing it for eight years almost now and it just isn’t as fulfilling as it used to be. When the hefty renewal notice for this domain comes in around August time, it might be time to let it go, while its unique and fun, its certainly not worth the expense of being a .co.uk in a .com world…

  • Atrophy

    This isn’t one of those “I’ve had enough, I’m shutting this down” posts, nor is it a “my life is boring so I’m not blogging” either, its more of a “I needed a good WordPress plugin as the default admin area didn’t play too well with my iPhone”. Sad as it may seem, this is how I browse now, I basically only use the desktop upstairs for sending out resumes, downloading Doctor Who episodes, IMing Robyn during the day and occasionally watching TV.

    Also sadly, the job searching isn’t going as good as I would have hoped, but thats a different story altogether, I’m trying not to let it get me down though. The flip side is I get to live out my dream and watch Euro 2008 for five hours a day, but I’d much rather have a job.

  • Triple Digits

    Flickr: Triple Digits

  • US to Tighten Visa Restrictions

    The US is to tighten visa restrictions to allow it to screen all short-term visitors from Japan and Western Europe. US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said visitors to the US who do not need visas will be required to register with the government online. The security regulation, set to begin next year, will require visitors to register three days before they visit.

  • Bo Diddley 1928 – 2008

    Musician Bo Diddley has died at the age of 79. He had suffered a heart attack in August 2007, three months after suffering a stroke which affected his ability to speak.

  • One More Candle and a Trip Around the Sun

    Today I turned 30, how the hell did that happen? To mark this special occasion we’re having a party, I hope it ends better than my last party when Duane got me liquored up on pints of Tequila and I then killed Bohemian Rhapsody, but who’s kidding who here?

    Here’s to my next thirty years!

  • Highway Robbery

    Flickr: Highway Robbery

  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars Trailer

    Star Wars: The Clone Wars Trailer. Serving as a prequel to the Cartoon Network show of the same name, it’s set in between Episode II and Episode III. But didn’t they already do this some 4 years ago?

  • Changes at Doctor Who

    Russell T Davies is to step down as executive producer of Doctor Who, the BBC has announced. I’m actually glad as his work has went a little downhill recently (case in point: this years series opener “Partners In Crime”). The good news? Steven Moffat will succeed Davies as lead writer and executive producer of the fifth series of Doctor Who. Yes! He’s written some of the best episodes of the series’ (case in point: “The Girl in the Fireplace” (my personal favourite and an episode everyone should see) and “Blink”).

  • A Day at the Races

    Flickr: Dale Jr. Passes Kyle BuschOne of the many benefits of Robyn working for Lowe’s is the amount of free stuff she gets, like tickets to basketball games and NASCAR races. Like last year, she came home with free tickets to the All-Star races, and as I actually had a pretty enjoyable time last time, I took them.

    With Robyn’s parent coming up this weekend, I went with Frank. Like last year we also had passes to the Team Lowe’s hospitality tent, which equals free food and drink and complimentary items from vendors before the race, and because of this all we spent at the track was the price of parking, pretty sweet if you ask me…

    The format for the All-Star race has changed slightly from last year, instead of 4 20-lap segments, it was now 4 25-laps segments, but everything else remained. The race in race had a few good moments, like crashes happening in front of us and such like, in the end it was the unlikely combination of A.J. Allmandinger and Sam Hornish Jr who came through to qualify for the main event. Kasey Kahne finished poorly in the Sprint Showdown, but made the main event as the fan vote…

    Now after a little wait, the main driver introductions begun, mostly everyone was booed, Kyle Busch especially, all except Dale Earnhardt Jr. As I’ve said before, watching a NASCAR race on TV doesn’t do it justice, the sound of 21 750+ horsepower cars screaming round a bend is really an awesome sound, so I succumbed to the lure of Flickr video and captured the start of the race, poor camera work and all.

    What happened afterwards was pretty non-descript really, Kyle Busch had a heavy foot and took a big lead before blowing his engine, but not before Dale Jr passed him to the delight of many, in fact the place pretty much went apeshit when it happened, the only way it could have went better is if Junior jammed Busch into the wall. After this a fight broke out a few sections over from us, seriously. In the end there was no cautions for the whole 100-lap sequence, and Kasey Kahne somehow emerged victorious despite not being in the race until shortly beforehand.

    Then came the chaos of leaving a track with 180,000 of your closest friends, it only took 2 hours to get home. Not bad if you ask me.

    NASCAR All-Star Race – May 17th 2008 (Set)

    Originally uploaded by FLC.