I must try harder

I apologise for my extended absence recently. Oh dear, I seem to have fallen into the very trap that I predicted for myself in my first post - that I'd never come back. But I will, I promise. Just as soon as the whole moving house saga has finished (don't ask, unless you want a very long story!) - I will be back.

Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

HTML, Web 2.0 and CSS - FYI

It has always been a longing of mine to actually learn how to make these pages pretty - instead of having to rely on the rather standard templates provided.

So I bought myself a book.

It is going well so far! I'm on page 246 out of 894 - yes, it is rather a big book. And actually I'm really enjoying myself. I feel like a proper, geeky, techie now! Well nearly. As you can see I haven't quite managed to put what I've learnt in to practice yet. But bare with me. One day you will come to my blog and be blown away by the innovative design concepts...well, maybe.

Now, I went to a seminar the other day about the future of the web and internet marketing. I found myself in a room with mainly middle aged, male suits who had obviously been sent by their various companies to 'get the latest know-how' and were sulkingly hating the powers-that-be at that precise moment. The main thought in the air seemed to be - "but, why should I care about Twitter/Facebook/Blogging" (delete as applicable).

We started with a few questions.

Who has a Facebook page? A smattering of hands were raised. Who uses Facebook for professional reasons rather than personal? A couple of hands. Who has a Twitter account? Again a few raised hands. Who keeps a blog? This time it was only me and my very great friend who was accompanying me, who raised our hands. The organiser looked mildly impressed. We seemed to be streets ahead of anyone else in the room.

It just amused me that what we think of as hypothetical, stereotypical web-shy users - actually exist. And in great numbers too. Think on dear bloggers. If you're reading this then you're probably streets ahead of most people out there!

Quick single to mid-off

It may seem unlikely to you but this Panto Princess is rather a fan of the quintessential English summer game - Cricket.

Yes, I have spent many a happy afternoon listening to the thwack of leather on willow and the polite applause that drifts along on the breeze. I've also spent many more happy afternoons at Trent Bridge watching the William Clark stand become increasingly more boisterous as the afternoon wears on - directly correlating to the number of pints consumed - and then seeing the rise (and usually fall, as the stewards intervene) of the infamous beer snake. For those of you who do not know what a beer snake is, it involves stacking up all the empty plastic pint glasses that the stand can muster and then passing the resulting 'snake' around until it either breaks (generally showering people with the remnants of the beer left at the bottom of the glasses) or gets confiscated by fluorescent yellow clad stewards. As a member however (oh yes, the plot thickens even further, - a Panto Princess, the member of a cricket club??) I am conditioned to sneer at such behaviour, but must admit it does add a certain jollity to the day and often proves more entertaining than what's happening on the pitch...sorry, was that a wicket?

Anyway, what has spurred me to write this post today is the arrival of my Twenty20 World Cup Semi Finals tickets which were bought an extraordinarily long time ago, in the heyday of the lazy days of last summer. Actually I paint that as such a nice picture - I'm sure it was probably freezing cold and raining as I ordered them - for that is my overriding last memory of last summer! To be honest I had only half remembered I had even bought them! In fact getting them delivered to me hasn't by any means been an easy task. In a top-secret ICC-to-take-over-the-world kind of way they have all been sent out by recorded delivery. Fair enough. However, they seem to have used the most obscure secure mail delivery company on the planet. Not Royal Mail. Not TNT. Not anyone I had heard of and at first I thought it was a scam when I found the little yellow card pushed through my letter box saying I had missed the delivery - mainly because I know there had been someone in all day. However, I dutifully rearranged the delivery to my work address in a vague hope that it would get to me - and lo and behold it did!

I have to say though it has only managed to bring back my slight level of annoyance that Trent Bridge have missed out on an Ashes Test Match this summer - we got the World Cup as a sort of consolation prize. I have great memories of sitting on the edge of my seat, fingers pressed into my mouth on the final day of 2005 as England set about the seemingly simple task of gaining 129 runs to win - only to run in to the might of some incredible bowling by Brett Lee and Shane Warne, which left everyone wondering who was going to come out on top. Thankfully, in the end we did, but my, my it was close!

So who has the privilege of hosting this mighty spectacular instead of us...Cardiff - where did we go wrong?!

It's like panto...oh no it isn't!

Sometimes I think my job is amazing. Now, don't get me wrong - I don't ever dislike it - just some days are more exciting than others!

Take today for example (and it's only 3.55pm - plenty more time for more exciting/odd/bizarre things to happen!) It started out as a normal, Monday morning. Yes, I realise that it's actually Tuesday, but being a Bank Holiday yesterday means that it is the start of the working week today and therefore, a Monday. If you're still with me, you're doing well! Anyway...I got in to the office and was immediately caught up in the whirlwind of sorting out a photo shoot for a our latest poster image - always interesting and exciting - and it gets you away from the desk! Even more exciting, my hands star in said poster shoot - oh yes, the humble hands that are being used at this precise moment to type this very blog. They're stars. I do hope they don't start to get big headed and demand ridiculous things to be sent to their dressing rooms.......sorry, I digress.

Onwards, with my other exciting tale of the day. I've just returned from 'meet the company' - which is basically where us lot here at the Playhouse say hello to the latest set of actors and creatives coming in to work on the next show. It's all very jolly usually and involves having a cup of tea, trying to remember your name and job title and then going back to work, having only spent time talking to the people that are in your office. Ahhh politics..... Well this afternoon I was very excited as one of the actors and the MD for the next show 'Garage Band' are in fact regulars of the Playhouse pantomime. If you need a refresher for why that's exciting then simply read the title of this blog. Are you back? Good. Another particular highlight was the sight of our Artistic Director trying to scramble up on to a counter to deliver his speech. Incident has been caught on camera so look out for it on a YouTube near you.......tube. Hmmmm that's too many tubes but you get the idea. So to summise, it was rather like panto, only it's May not November!

It's still raining though! Some things never change...

It's arrived and to prove it, it's here...

Oh yes, sound the trumpets, put out the flags and raise a glass in cheer - my MightyMac is finally here!

Sorry, I apologise for the ryhme in that previous sentence - I promise it won't happen again!

It is sat proudly on my desk in front of me and I'm even using it to write this very post. So I'm sure you're all waiting with baited breath for my opinion of the new beast - what can I say about it so far - ummmmmm, I like the keyboard......ummmmmm, yep the keyboard is AMAZING. To be honest that's about it at the moment. I know, I know, I'm trying my hardest but it's just not happening right now. Mainly because I'm having to run windows to get on the work network and get my emails, but all the other programs I'm using are on the Mac and as of yet the two don't seem to like each other. Which is pretty understandable, seeing as they're arch rivals, but still, it doesn't make for a happy working environment. Hopefully though all my issues will soon be ironed out and me and Mac will become best friends...

Well, I'm off home to hug my PC...

MyMac

Computers - you can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em and most of the time they don't want to live with you either!

Hello, by the way, and welcome to my new blog. Who knows how this is going to go - i'll probably write in it once and then give up, but never mind. Good intentions, roads, fiery places and all that!

I am currently quite excited as my new computer should hopefully be waiting for me on my desk on Monday morning when I arrive at work. The emphasis in that last sentence should be on the hopefully...we shall see! Now, once our I.T. guy has finished messing around, ahem, sorry I mean setting it up (i'll leave you to guess where the emphasis should go in that sentence!), I will be the proud user of a brand new, shiny iMac.

Oooooooh a lot of you may say. How exciting. Now don't get me wrong - I'm all for a new computer, as the one I currently have at work dates from circa. 1950 and takes around 3 days to do anything useful before breaking for the rest of the week. However, I am (oh dear, dare I admit this...?) a little nervous by the fact it is a Mac. Ok, OK all you Mac lovers out there you can shout at me all you want and tell me I should be running round jumping for joy, but the truth is I've never really used a Mac before and I'm quite fond of a good ol' PC. Apart from Vista - now don't get me started on THAT! So we shall see how I get on - watch this space. I do hope I become one of the legions of Mac lovers out there, really, I do - it's just at the moment I can't quite see it...They're all, well, different to be honest. But as they say, change is good - especially, I must add, when you find it at the bottom of an old handbag and had forgotten it was there.