Hello Everyone, it’s Jim, Alli, Claire, Rob and Lisa all typing on Jim’s blog late on a Sunday evening:

Jim - Lisa made us all eat chips at 10:00 at night after eating a large roast dinner at lunch time. We did not really want them but you can’t just sit there while others eat chips can you?! Earlier on Simon and Jane were here and we all played board games, sang songs and had some obligotory random chit-chat, t’was a very spendid afternoon.

Alli - We have had some very strange conversation topics today, global warming, being hung drawn and quartered, brass monkeys, beans in Jim and Claire’s bean bags etc…

Claire - Yes we have eaten lots of food today but it has been very yummy especially the pudding we had called Eton mess which had icecream, rasberries, cream and white maltesers.

Rob - Well they’ve stolen all my ideas, and I dont really know what else to say, so I think I’ll round this blog off with my favoruite poem, written by Spike Milligan:

Through every nook and every cranny,
The wind blew on our poor old granny,
Around her knees, into each ear,
And up her nose as well I fear.

Throughout the night the wind grew worse,
(It nearly made the vicar curse)
The top had fallen off the steeple,
Just missing him and the other people

It blew on man, it blew on beast,
It blew on nun, it blew on priest,
It blew the wig off aunty Fanny,
But most off all it blew on granny!

Lisa - Yes today has been marvellous, I have laughed many laughs and been accused of many things. I wish to contest my competitiveness and remark only that my love of the game is only to be admired. I admit that my hair is a bit monica but that again adds to the beauty of my character. Yeah let’s all go to bed.

“That’s right, I stepped up! She’s my friend and she needed help! If I had too, I’d pee on any one of you!” –Joey, Friends

It makes me laugh each time there is an advert on TV for women’s beauty products, and after studying a few I have noticed a definate formula. The first thing that every beauty product advert should have, above anything, is a totally made up chemical name and that classic line “With xyz technology” some of my favourite random chemicals include ‘Nutrillium’, ‘Boswellox’, ‘Par-Elastyl’, ‘Pro-Tensium’, ‘Pro-V’, ‘Elastium’, ‘Bio-Vityl’ & ‘Collagen’. Another important component in beauty adverts is some totally cheezy model/celebrity who has been dubbed so badly that the words do not even match what appears to be coming out of her lips. The model’s eyes must also have those bright rings in their eyes from the intense lights which are being beamed directly in their face, Claire has also noticed that it is obligatory to have a couple of scenes of slow motion hair flicking.

Now, I thought that I would be a great idea to invent my own silly chemical name ‘Whimbillyoxydren-Y’, and should the likes of L’Oreal, Pantene, Maybelline or Garnier decide to put any ‘Whimbillyoxydren-Y’ in their products I can sue them and get lots of money!

On a similar subject, another observation I have made recently is that every woman seems to hate the Herbal Essences adverts which always contain a deranged woman making orgasmic “oooo, errrr” sounds. So what I don’t understand is why women still continue to buy it, I mean we even have some in our bathroom! Women will always remain a mystery, but I love mine anyways.

“At this time one beautiful mermaid called Nelarrina came to him and spoke to him. Ygg swooned at the beauty of the maiden and fell in love with her. She soothed his cold heart and Ygg became changed.” –Ygg (God of the warring sea storm), Copyright (c) 1997 Ben Staniford

Ok, so, last weekend (23rd - 24th September) myself Simon and Craig were firmly clinging onto a rock, a rock which was firmly clinging onto a mountain, Glyder Fach (994m). We had just climbed Tryfan (915m) and were a little shaken by two facts, firstly how un-fit we were having not done any hiking for some time, and secondly the fact that we had to ascend the top of both of the mountains by scrambling up a couple of rather technical climbs including Bristly Ridge. Now, I will not kid you into thinking that it was only Craig and Simon that were a little scared at times, I too had the feeling of ‘I don’t want to be here’ on occasion, but I just want to focus on a few good points…

One major benefit which was gained from scaling these mountains was the amazing view across Snowdonia national park, they were amazing! Looking down from the top at the flowing landscape with rivers weaving through the valleys it put our human size to perspective. Not only were the views stunning, the rock formations on the top of the mountains were beyond understanding, huge pieces of stone erupting out of the peaks, set in position way back in history when things were a little more turbulent than they are now, two such formations include ‘Adam and Eve’ on Glyder Fach and ‘The Cantilever’ on Tryfan, both are popular rocks for posing for photographs at the top (There were no Trig Points!).

Another great benefit of this trip was the way it built up our little team, at times one of us may have been feeling low, lagging or a little freaked at going first, and in such situations we kept together, encouraging and helping each other out. Even things like distributing the heavy load and sharing water built our little team further, and when we reached the peaks we gave each other a verbal pat on the back.

On the Sunday we took it fairly easy and took the ‘motorway’ up Snowdon (1,085m), our initial plan was to walk up and get the train down, but when we got there we found out that the train was only running a half-way-up service, and because of time-table constraints we were forced to walk both up and down Snowdon, which did give us a bit more of a sense of achievement (and 2 Trig Points!), but did put us a bit off our originally planned departure time from Wales, a departure time which after a 6 hour drive I got home to Portsmouth at midnight. Poor Claire, who was starting her new job the following day, was very very sleepy, having waited up for me, a little miffed at my lateness, but pleased to see me in one piece.

As for the quote competition, all your entries were of very high standard, and it was very hard to choose a winner, but there has to be one! The winning quote was submitted by Julie and was chosen because I like carrots…

“There is a certain ‘Je ne sais quois’ about a firm, young carrot” –Uncle Monty, Withnail & I

Many of you may have noticed that at the end of each of my blog entries I always put a quote or famous song lyrics, I choose each of these quotes very carefully and they quite often represent my mood, situation or something that has tickled me. Now, I fancy a bit more interaction from this blog so want to ask you all for your favourite quotes? For the full list of all my quotes see my wesbite. Please leave your quotes in a comment, the winning quote will recieve the greatest honour of being published in my next blog entry! Of course in writing about this subject in this blog entry I have just put the pressure on for which quote I choose for it, here goes…

“Crikey means gee whiz, wow!” –Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter

This is a blog of gratitude to all those who made my birthday ’surprise’ yesterday so special (when I say ’surprise’ I mean ‘ever so slightly advertised by Ben’). I had a great time seeing some old faces (when I say ’some’ I mean ‘one’ old face, Sarah Wallis) (and when I say ‘old’ I mean ‘I have not seen for a while’, not ‘haggard and droopy’). Run of events…

• 19:30 Myself and the ladiez, Claire, Julie, Alli pile into Lisa’s Car, with the rear tires rubbing on their wheel arches we drive off to the Akash curry house, Albert Road, Southsea.
• 20:00 Meet Ed, Jon and grab our table in the restaurant.
• 20:10 Ben, Sarah, Rob, Simon and Jane park along side us around the table and the poppadom cracking activities commenced! I decided to order a curry which I had never had before, a Chicken Biryani (I am adventurous like that!), much to my surprise when the curry arrived, in the middle of it was sitting a whole boiled egg! never the less it was very nice, and it did not take very long until there was nothing left on my plate.
• 22:00 Few pints down, pay our bill and rumble back to Ben and Julie’s for another surprise. The banging which was going in the kitchen earlier in the day was in fact Claire and Julie taking their stress out on a packet of biscuits in order to make the base for a Banoffee Pie/Birthday Cake (my favorite Pudding!).
• 23:00 I opened my cards and presents, a book of facts from Rob, a board game from Ben, Julie and Sam and a vase and little rubber lizard from Lisa. The remainder of the evening was spent with everybody playing a crazy party game whilst rolling around on the floor exclaiming how utterly bloated they were.
• This morning I woke up almost crying because I did not want to get up for work, Claire soon sorted me out with a nice cup of coffee and some special birthday presents from her.

Thank you all for a grand evening and also thank you to Ricky and Laura who, although were unable to join us because of tiredness due to baby growing activities, were with us in spirit.

What I have learnt recently: In Chicago a by-law states that it is illegal to fish whilst sitting on a giraffe’s neck.

“You! Cake or death?” –Eddie Izzard, Dress to Kill Stand-Up Comedy Show

Right now I have been banished from any involvenent in the goings on this afternoon. Everybody is being secretive, sneaking in and out of Ben and Julie’s kitchen and muttering things like ‘oh wots-er-name may be here later’, ‘oooh I don’t know what we are doing tonight’ and ‘Josh has offered to be our babysitter’.

Now, bearing in mind it is my birthday tomorrow and the fact that Claire and Ben were organising a ’small dinner’ for me, I can only guess that things have snowballed somewhat and that there may be a small army of people turning up for some curry tonight, whether they are coming because of the food or because it is my birthday is not really known!

Things are really a bustle, a number of plastic carrier bags are passing through the house, there is a great deal of banging going on in the kitchen and there is whispering to the max, Sam Stan is also making his hunger known.

Well I best get off now as I am being a bit anti-social on the computer and, if I don’t start talking to my friends, I may not be doing anything exciting tonight!

“Of course, the real reason for the lack of interest in Airfix might be that the paint always ended up on the carpet and you always found the pilot as a spare part just after sealing the cockpit” –Martin Veitch, The Inquirer

It strikes me, that when I Blog I do so about a large selection of geek subjects, but not a great deal about myself! So here, this time I will devote this whole Blog entry to me…

Now a happily hitched man, I can firmly say that married life is amazing! Since getting wed over 3 months ago, Claire and I have become even more in love, of course things have changed in both our lives as we adjust to living with each other, but changed for the better! It is quite extraordinary how we both adore to meet each others needs, this, I guess is the whole reason why marriage is such a good thing, because you are constantly thinking of the other person you naturally become closer. As time goes by we learn more and more about each other and our little habits, as Claire has already shared about in a previous Blog entry, many of our ‘features’ soon become cute, and I would imagine we would miss them if one of us stopped.

On the Job front, I am still working at NTL:Telewest and am very happy to be in such a great team. Although at times I do get a little square eyed from looking at the hundreds of tiny little boxes of Microsoft Excel, and sometimes things are a bit laborious, but the I think to myself “This is a company which I have always wanted to work for, and a job which gives me really great experience, and a position that uses my skills and interests”, I like my job!.

My family, I love them all lots! It is strange, having left home nearly 7 years ago, I increasingly feel that my relationship with my parents is growing and I am really proud of both of them. I no longer see my Dad a big ogre but now just take the Micky out of him, he weekly goes out on the hills with the Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team, a group of people dedicated to reach out to those who are depressed and suicidal and bring them a bit of hope and love. I really love my Mum for her guidance, I credit a great deal of my domestic training to her, she is currently studying hard to improve her IT skills in order to further her career as a teacher and she is doing really well. As for my legendary brother, he is now living up in Scotland, he is working for YFC (Youth For Christ) and is doing amazing work with the sometimes rough and tumble youth of Inverness, he goes into schools and churches spreading the word of Jesus, along with some more hope and love.

My friends, well that is another story but in a nutshell I am a happy chappy, I have a beautiful wife, go to a great church, have a good job, great parents and amazing friends. Thank you guys!

“Your letter was only the start of it; One letter and now you’re a part of it; Now you’ve done it, Jim has fixed for it you, and you and you and you-ou-ou.” –Jim’ll Fix It Theme Tune

Following the recent mergers of various large companies, ATI and AMD; BT and Yahoo; Friends Reunited and ITV; Skype and Ebay; NTL, Telewest and Virgin Mobile; comes the merger between JLSNet and MSN Spaces! Yes it is true, honest! Sadly no money has exchanged hands and I am not totally sure Microsoft’s solicitors (read: lawyers) know about the affair. In actual fact what has happened is that the JLSNet website now pulls the RSS feed from my MSN Spaces weblog and outputs it in the news section of the site (including this entry!).

JLNset has also had its 5th facelift. Whilst keeping with the general look and feel of the previous design the new coding is 100% valid XHTML 1.1 and CSS 2 and the main site templates are compliant with Section 508 and are WCAG double-A rating, for those of you less technical… it looks pretty!

I have a few more tweaks to make to the site (I always do!) and then I really must start thinking about updating and adding some more content, namely some more Cisco Configuration articles. I am also considering whether to put some of my family history research up on the site, as it would be a great way to share my findings and possibly meet new relations.

“Pour me somethin’ tall and strong; Make it a hurricane before I go insane; It’s only half past twelve but I don’t care; It’s 5 O’clock somewhere” –Alan Jackson Song Lyrics

Hello world! Yes the new Mrs S has been coerced into writing a blog entry. We have now been married for three months which has gone very fast. Married life is great fun, Jim is my best friend and it’s great to wake up with him each day (ahh!). We have learnt new things about each other since getting married such as how Jim regularly leaves his clothes in a special pile on the floor at night and Jim has learnt that I need at least an hour to get ready in the morning before we can go out. Jim’s latest hobby is growing a little patch of lawn in a seed tray which is our ‘garden’. Our small but beautifully formed flat doesn’t have any outside space. Jim is very precise in cutting his grass so that it is all the exact same length, after which he always sits back and admires it with pride (how sweet). We are on the first day of our holiday (Jim is still in bed - how shocking!). We are going to go to the new forest on Monday for a spot of camping, which I am really looking forward to as haven’t been camping in ages. I love the new forest as it reminds me of childhood holidays with my grandparents in their Volkswagen camper van. We always took bikes with us and had great fun cycling around the forest looking at the cute ponies and the big ant hills in Ashurst.

Little Esther Arthur Worsop is geting dedicated tomorrow, she was born on 2nd June 2006 at 8:25pm and is very beautiful with amazing eyes that are very alert - she is always looking at her surroundings. I wonder who she’ll grow up to be - it’s very exciting.

Well I think I’ll end my first blog there, I hope you’ve enjoyed it! Love Claire xxxx

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife” –Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

I am back! It has been a long time since I last posted any Jimbo news, in fact the last time I wrote anything I was a bachelor! I am now married and have a steady job (both of which are contributors to me not doing much website or blog). One reason for me writing this is because a) I am stuck in my brokendown car at the side of the A3 waiting for the AA to come rescue me (I have over heated!) b) I have got a funky new PDA Phone free from Orange after I thretened to leave them for Virgin Mobile. The phone is a SPV M600 and I am currently learning how fustrating it is to get the handwriting recognition to write the letter ‘k’ (here, I will have a go now… 11 t- ft 1X K k …yay, got it eventually!). So what has been going on? Claire and I got married on the 6th of May and had a lovely time despite having our wine stolen out of our marquee while we were saying our vowes in church. We had a lovely honeymoon and are both enjoying the fun and games of married life. I am still working at NTL (soon to be ‘Virgin Something’ after its merge with Telewest and Virgin Mobile. Oooo yay AA man is here…

…It is now the day after the car broke down and I am now sitting on the platform waiting to get on a train to work, from this you may guess that the car is still dead! The fan had stopped working causing it to overheat and blow its thermostat and temperature guage, if I were to drive it before getting a replacement fan, I risk turning the engine into a large rock. I am now on the train… I must also say thanks to Ben who gave me a lift to Winchester station on the way to his work this morning to save me such a long journey. I think I will leave this disjointed blog there before I am sick from staring at this phone screen while moving. I will try and post some more news soon.

What I have learnt recently: Cows chew in a figure of eight motion.

“we can’t stop here this is bat country.” –Fear and Loathing in Las Vagas

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