Mathew Browne

I’ve really let myself go this summer. First of all, I had a cousin stay with me for a while. All well and good except my treadmill and weights bench are in my spare room and were being used as makeshift clothes horses.

Then I went to Florida for a week. The all-you-can-eat buffets, huge portions and ridiculously cheap prices were too much temptation. I ate like a pig every single day. Though given that I was walking around the theme parks all day I’m reasonably confident that the excess was walked off.

Finally, several weeks staying with my parents back in Wales. As I’ve blogged about before, my mother loves cooking as much as I like eating. Couple that with several weeks of relative inactivity and you have a recipe for a fatty.

Does anyone know of a decent fitness/exercise/health/nutrition/whatever blog where I can pick up some good fitness and diet tips?

Good question.

This is a place for me to post random “off-topic” articles pertaining to my interests outside of the world of web development. As I’m a professional web designer, being a geek is part of the job description, so expect to see plenty of posts about video games, professional wrestling, TV, music, computers… anything except “on-topic” posts about web design, search engine optimisation (SEO), and the state of the web generally.

Whether I have the time to post all this material is another matter entirely.

And who are you exactly?
I’m Mathew Browne, a freelance web designer from the United Kingdom. MB Web Design is my business, www.mbwebdesign.co.uk is my domain name, this is my site. What you’re reading now, however, is my personal blog. Nothing to do with web design, nothing to do with search engines and nothing to do with HTML. In fact, this blog really is just a big self-indulgence.

What are all these adverts on this blog?
[If you did actually ask yourself this question, then clearly I finally got round to adding the adverts.] There should be adverts to third parties featured on this blog, provided via Google AdSense. This is the only area of the site where you may expect to see external advertising. As this blog serves no business purpose - it is solely a place to post “off topic” links, articles, photos and random thoughts that others might appreciate - I thought I’d try to fund this blog by other means. Without veering too much into “on topic” territory, blog advertising is a contentious issue - this will be an interesting exercise in online advertising if nothing else. (Now please click on the pretty adverts.)

And now for the tough questions:

Sonic or Mario?
Sonic. I never owned a Nintendo as a kid, so for pure nostalgia, Sonic wins it. Mario 64, however, is the greatest game I’ve ever played.

Ryu or Ken?
Ken. His Dragon Punch has flames.

Coke or Pepsi?
Can I have Mountain Dew instead?

Axl or Slash?
Tough call. Slash, because he still puts out records.

Tea or Coffee?
Nothing, nothing beats a cup of tea. (I hate to play up to British stereotype but it truly is the finest drink.)

Blur or Oasis?
1996 says hello. I didn’t care then and I care even less now.

Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 or Playstation 3?
It’s the Wii for me. Despite the silly name. I’d really like one for my birthday. (Louise, this is aimed at you.)

I got a number 2 clipped haircut the other day, albeit accidentally - the guy mistook “four” for “two”. As you do. By the time I noticed he was using the wrong clipguard the damage was done. Not sure whether it suits me or not, probably because I haven’t really deviated from my usual haircut for about 15 years. (Not counting my ill-advised blond curtains I proudly sported upon starting university) That was 6 days ago and already my hair’s grown back sufficiently that my head doesn’t feel cold. Which is nice.

Had a weekend at the in-laws, which was a stress sandwich. The highlight was leaving the house to visit the local shopping centre - I had the dubious honour of returning to the car with 4 bags, all containing nothing but confectionary of some sort. They had a Thorntons and a Cadbury outlet shop… hence I snapped up broken Crunchies and abnormally-shaped truffles at bargain prices. They’ll last me about a week. Expect a less-streamlined Math when you next see him. Type 2 diabetes beckons.

At least when I was at their house I got to relegate myself to their spare room and get some work done. I have recently finished a site for a cleaning firm and a new site for my boss’s company, but I still have a bunch of sites to work on / begin, for the following people/organisations:
- botox clinic
- 2x sites for a dating agency
- greeting card manufacturer
- 2x sites for personal trainers
- and finally, a Flash photo gallery for a guy wanting to distribute his wedding photos online. novel idea

That’ll keep me busy for a while!

I was asked to produce a website for someone claiming to own “London’s biggest escort agency”. Two thumbs up! Except they wanted to pay me with “store credit”, so I passed up the opportunity, much to the chagrin of some (single) web dev friends of mine. One in particular was furious that I hadn’t thought of negotiating a good deal and referring the job to him.

Looking forward to seeing Tim Vine on Friday night. Also, I may be seeing the Wales vs New Zealand match at the Millennium Stadium on November 25. I’ll gloss over the fact that we don’t stand a chance.

Halloween and Bonfire night fast approaching… I really miss being a kid, then these nights were a big deal. This applies even more to Christmas, which the shops would have you believe is next week.

$ky Television have acquired the rights to Lost, right from under Channel 4’s nose. Either Sky have been unscrupulous shits, C4 have been poor negotiators, or both, but either way all parties are bastards for denying me some great TV for free. Some people would resort to downloading the episodes off Bittorrent, but everyone knows I’m not such a person.

I know I sound like a stuck record, but I really am looking forward to leaving London. 5 years ago, I was stuck record preaching the benefits of going to London. Now, older and wiser, the honeymoon is over. Unless you are earning a lot more than I am, or unless you have rich parents to leech off, London simply isn’t viable. It’s a shame.

I shall leave you with
something you don’t already know

For the first time ever, I tonight experienced the culinary delight that is a battered Mars bar. It is actually very, VERY nice! It sounds like it should be hideous, yet it isn’t. Delicious and confusing though it was, I think the artery-clogging effect of it has cropped my lifespan by about 6 years.

So my visit to the Planetarium was enjoyable but brief. Louise and I then got some of those new Creme Egg bars, which were as excellent as they sound.

It seems I successfully negotiated to keep my rent at it’s current rate for an extra year, saving myself the princely sum of £520. Unfortunately, that’s only two-and-a-half weeks rent. Such is life.

I’ve recently been fuming that someone I know has dared to schedule their birthday party on my (actual) birthday, which conveniently falls on a Saturday this year.

I am incredibly annoyed.

Is my fury childish? Perhaps. But ask yourself this - even if you had nothing planned for the day, would you really want to spend your birthday at someone else’s party (someone who doesn’t even share your birth date, rather, they have knowingly nicked yours this year because it falls on a Saturday)? Exactly.

I splashed out a whopping £10 on a haircut this morning, marking the most expensive haircut I’ve ever had, and the first haircut I’ve ever paid for. Joyous.

I’ve been steadily offloading all of my old CDs and DVDs via Amazon. In the process, I discovered one of my old Buckethead CDs is now out of print and actually worth twice as much as I paid for it in the first place. Back in the drawer it went.

My website was hacked a few days ago by some Turkish script kiddies. Thankfully they weren’t destructive - all my original files were intact - rather they renamed my index files and uploaded their own, which pointed to a suitably humiliating “Ha ha. You’ve been hacked” -esque page. Given my profession I feel suitably punked.

I picked up my guitar for the first time in months yesterday. Within half an hour I’d torn up my fingertips with the strings. That’ll teach me for letting my musical instrument get dusty…

I was accused yesterday of being sad. Not sad in the depressed sense of the word either. Now let’s just review the evidence shall we?

- Today I got up at the break of dawn to queue in the freezing cold in order to obtain a wristband that provides me access to an autograph signing. The celebrity in question is a wrestler.
- I then had McDonalds breakfast. On my own. (By that I mean I was the only customer in the store.)
- I then actually LOL’d (”laughed out loud”) when a monitor in the window of Silverscreen was displaying the blue screen of death.
- I just used the terms “LOL’d” and “blue screen of death” and it doesn’t feel that stupid.
- I am now sitting at my computer listening to a playlist which includes the Beach Boys, the theme music of the Cannonball Run, and four Street Fighter music discs, which were only released in Japan.
- Having just eaten one of those Kinder Hippo things.

Now come on. Does that sound like the diary of a sad man to you? What? Yeah, well fuck you for thinking it!

Louise’s girly (read: “lilac”) phone decided to pack in last night, thanks to a gimpy software bug that turns off the phone as soon as you try to get into your inbox. Helpful.

Today, I marched angrily to Vodafone on Oxford St seeking a repair or replacement, making sure to mention - loudly - that the phone was my fiancée’s. The guy in the first shop I went to knew the fault before I even mentioned it, just by seeing the phone. He told me that hundreds of people have returned phones with the same software bug. Unfortunately, they were a “sales” not “sales and repair” store, so I was directed to their Bond Street store.

And what a waste of time that was. Their customer service people fobbed me off with the “your phone isn’t in warranty” line. Admittedly, the phone is out of warranty, however the fault in question is due to a software fault rather than wear and tear. And, importantly, it’s a major fault that they’ve known about for months but with no product recall. I made this point to their manager. I might as well have been talking to a stack of crap. He looked at me blankly and reiterated “it’s out of warranty, repair will cost you £40″.

It was time for a change of tact. I got the tube to Charing Cross and went to the Vodafone shop, found the first female member of staff, and told her the phone fault (but held on to the receipt for the time being). All the while making flirty bullshit smalltalk and generally feeling like the Missus wouldn’t approve of my conduct. Eventually she asked to see the receipt and noticed it was out of warranty. But then I sweet-talked her into getting it repaired for free anyway.

I trotted off feeling like an absolute smug bastard.

Mid-morning tubes are almost empty, so I took the time to scour the Metro newspapers scattered everywhere for the 2-for-1 Subway vouchers on page 20. I found 4, much to the dismay of my fellow passenger, who was visibly disapproving of my voucher-scavenging ways. But fuck him. Minutes later, I was tucking into a fucking enormous sandwich at half the price.

For the second time this morning, I trotted off feeling like an absolute smug bastard.

If you’ve seen Google Earth, you might find this news story rather interesting.

Speaking of going overboard with post-Christmas sales, here is a photo of the trolley-full of chocolate I got on sale at Sainsburys. Oh yes.

I don’t think this photo does justice the sheer weight of artery-clogging, hyperactivity-triggering, sugary, cocoa-laden goodness that I’m diligently ploughing through.

I fail to see how Costcutters got their name. Are they being sarcastic? Every time I go into Royal Victoria Dock’s Costcutters, going to the counter follows this pattern:

- Pick up item, slowly.
- If the item has a price label on it, grimace and type said amount in. Glance up and glare at customer for getting an item at a reasonable price.
- If the item doesn’t have a price on, jabber something to someone in a back room in a language that I don’t understand, receive an equally unintelligible reply, then type in a price that far exceeds any sane cost for said item.

Case in point: I like Bird’s Eye Veggie Fingers. (There’s probably an obscure sexual pun to be made there but it’s too early in the morning to find it.) One day I bought them without a price tag on, and upon checking the receipt afterwards found I’d paid £2.50 for them. The following week it had on a price tag of 99p.

They are scum.

If anybody reading this is planning on getting me a Christmas present (and yes Louise this means you) I want a box of Crunchie bars. Not the crappy mini ones they put in Celebrations tins, but the proper ones.

I’ve started getting a Crunchie with my lunch every day from Tesco and am getting scarily addicted to them.

Reminds me of the time I was in school and would blow all my lunch money on a few packs of Space Raiders (which at the time were 10p and still are…) to fill up my savoury stomach, and then about 6 Cadbury Creme Eggs. My Dad was not impressed. So, in the ultimate act of being kind to be cruel he bought me THREE BOXES of Creme Eggs - that’s 144 gooey chocolatey treats.

Of course, one week and about 80 eggs in, I was sick of the fucking things, and never blew my lunch money on Creme Eggs again. A lesson hard learned.