Mathew Browne

Been busy recently with various websites, visits to the in-laws and pressing deadlines at work.

WWE Raw last night at Wembley was fucking SWEET! Managed to get 3rd row tickets right next to the aisle where the performers entered the arena. Everyone, even the seemingly small guys, are enormous. The women, by comparison, seem diddy. Apart from their surgically augmented chests. Which were appropriately massive and static. Sadly, I was busted by my Missus for shamelessly ogling the girls. This behaviour usually passes under the radar, but unfortunately for me my slack-jawed staring was projected onto a massive screen behind me, much to the amusement of the women in attendance who weren’t fixated on the totty in the ring.

Going to see WWE Smackdown tonight, but having checked the seats out last night I know they aren’t as good. They’re still excellent, mind you.

Full report soon.

I had been very much looking forward to Sunday evening, where I was supposed to watching Wrestlemania at Belushi’s in Camden. Unfortunately, Sky are being rubbish and not letting pubs show it. Very embarrassing, having only just managed to convince some of my friends to tag along.

My missus is getting very smug that recently she has been able to predict the outcomes of all the matches and storylines better than me - a lifelong wrestling fan. (Yes, we know it’s scripted, but we don’t script it.)

Therefore, there are a wealth of domestic bragging rights riding on our respective predictions for Wrestlemania. She is going with: HHH, Rey Mysterio, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Ric Flair, Trish Stratus, Torrie Wilson, Mick Foley, Chris Benoit, Kane & Big Show, Boogeyman. I must concede that she has made some wise choices. However, I go with: HHH, Rey Mysterio, Shawn Michaels, Undertaker, Ric Flair, Mickie James, Candice, Edge, Chris Benoit, Chris Masters & Carlito, Boogeyman. And I will be right.

Monday is going to be a 9am - 8pm extravaganza at work schmoozing with various important persons at the official opening of the Centre for Medical Image Computing. I have to dress nice and show people around. At least now I won’t be doing it having only had about an hours sleep. And have (comparatively) ample time to shoehorn myself into my ill-fitting smart clothes, now I’ve become a fat bastard.

So, I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen about the marvels of Filmnight’s Easter sale. They’ve been selling single DVDs at £2.95 and box sets for £9.95. Nothing to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ than a DVD sale. I ordered a few DVDs. Which explains why my postman delivered 29 parcels today. And likely another 29 tomorrow. And the day after that.

Oh, and my golf clubs arrived yesterday. Yeah.

I believe it was Marek who once ranted how he despises sites / sales pages which have those shitty gold “100% satisfaction guaranteed” icons. I thought I’d share one with you here (above…) God knows I saw enough of them over the weekend… I was working for a client who insisted on having one of those awful single sales pages cuttered with too many H1 tags and prices ending in 7. Didn’t listen to a single word of design advice I had to offer, but at least he paid.

I’ve had my parents staying for the weekend, which has been nice. Despite being our guest my mother has insisted on cooking, then criticising the weight I’ve put on in recent years. Joyous.

I was pleased to hear that a good friend of mine (and reader of this blog) has finally plucked up the courage to ask out his crush, and is waiting eagerly for their first date. How very Dawson’s Creek.

My father and I were out shopping on Saturday, passed a generic electrical retailer and were rather pleased with ourselves at Wales’ 8-0 lead over Italy. We weren’t so pleased when we got home to find we’d drawn the match 18-18, at home no less. We were equally unimpressed by today’s cack-handed performance by England against the French. What a load of bollocks this Six Nations tournament has been. However, it must have been great for the bookies.

Speaking of sport, rumour has it that Joe Calzaghe will headline a monster night of boxing in the Millennium Stadium, sharing top billing with Ricky Hatton. Looks like I’ll be in Cardiff on July 8th then… Of course, barring a sudden lottery win or the abolishment of airport taxes, this will certainly put paid to my plans to see Guns N’ Roses in both Dublin on June 9th and Paris on June 20th. Nevermind. Speaking of Guns N’ Roses, Gilby Clarke is playing in London in May. I must get myself a ticket.

On Friday I’m at Guy’s hospital manning a stand promoting the site that I’d made for work, in the company of a Nobel prize winner, no less. I also need to somehow find the time to get the medical image database up and running, which is a tall order considering I know fuck all about databases or web servers, and my go-to guy leaves his job on Friday.

Ooh, and I won a Wrestlemania T shirt. If good luck comes in threes, then I’m due my third soon…

I was pleased to hear that a friend of mine showed this blog to a kid who is in hospital at the moment (and very bored, it would seem). He liked the Family Guy videos that I posted. This pleases me.

I redesigned my own website over the weekend in anticipation of my pending search for a webby job. A vast improvement, even if I say so myself. Unfortunately, I hate writing the “why you need a website” and “hire me, I’m great” blurb that such websites require, and as such it’s looking a little sparse on that front, at least until I find a couple of hours to write something more professional.

There is a conference for beauticians at Excel today, according to an announcement at Canning Town DLR this morning. It certainly accounts for the legions of plucked-and-preened, fake nailed, impractical high heeled, enormous-hooped-earring-wearing Essex girl types sporting bottle-blonde hair and/or hair extensions who were frequenting the eastbound platform today. If there are single male readers who go for that sorta thing - and I know there are - you might want to go and hang around the Excel centre like the creep you are. They’re beauticians after all, ergo there’s a 96.7% chance they favour a Brazilian…

Uh oh, now I’ve gone and said too much…

I have been spitting venom all morning because - for the second month running - UCL have screwed up my monthly salary. Resultantly, I hurriedly arranged a bank transfer from my parents to cover my rent (due tomorrow) and various bills that have been piling up. I got through to the HR department a few moments ago and asked them to put the money in pronto. I won’t hold my breath for it.

Wales v Ireland was a depressing affair…

On my way in to work I was stopped by a Frenchman (who couldn’t speak a word of English) requesting directions to Rotherhithe from where he was (near London city Airport). My A-level French finally came in useful for something. That, or I told him something like “The library is open. Grapefruit. Go there under car. Ice cream. Eric Cantona. ”

I watched the first 8 episodes of Family Guy series 4 last night. Easily the best cartoon series ever shown. “Quick! To the Hindenpeter!” You haven’t seen it? Bah, the reference is wasted on you.

I was forced to get the Jubilee line to work this morning. It goes through Canary Wharf. Thankfully, rush hour had been and gone, so there weren’t as many mergers-and-acquisitions types about, guffawing about the “bullish second quarter performance”, and how Piers in the next office “only drives a Jag”. That isn’t to say there weren’t any (there always are at Canary Wharf), but their comparative absence was heartening. Did I ever mention I really don’t like Canary Wharf? Not the buildings themselves, but some of the people who occupy them. They’re such… Oh, I did this already…

Words fail me.

I just got up for a walkabout for the first time after sitting at my desk working non-stop for 6 hours and 3 minutes. I wonder if I can sue UCL when I develop deep vein thrombosis? My thighs and lower back are now a mess thanks to my self-enforced immobility. My stomach, too, is a mess, owing to the fact that I only had time to bring a measly sandwich with me today which did not do the old hunger-satisfaction thing.

Tomorrow I leave the house at 5:30 am to join the motley queue of WWE (née WWF) die-hards forming outside HMV on Oxford Street, because the first 500 people to buy the 3-DVD box set chronicling the career of wrestling legend Bret “Hitman” Hart will get to meet the guy at 6:00 pm that evening - an opportunity I simply cannot pass up.

A similar event took place at Hamley’s last year, featuring current WWE wrestler Big Show. I felt pretty clever catching an early (for me, a student bum at the time) tube at 10 am for a 2 pm signing, only to find about 1000 die-hards queuing ahead of me, over a hundred of whom had done so overnight. Suffice to say I didn’t meet him. I did, however, find a place to grab some breakfast, followed by several beers at a pub off Carnaby Street. Then I waited by the staff exit at Hamley’s to get his autograph on the way out. It was a great (albeit slightly stalkerish) idea, except I wasn’t the only one to think of it. In fact, I think every 4-child family within the M25 perimeter had thought of it and descended like locusts when he made his appearance. Big Show came out and shook everyone’s hand, but only had time to pose and sign autographs for the kids in attendance (the snivelling little shits) and bugger off. C’est la vie.

My internet with Newnet is activated on Tuesday, allegedly. Woo!

Last night was pretty good. What was supposed to be a straightforward drink with some friends turned into a pub crawl, meandering through the streets of Central London from Bond St to Edgware Road. From humble beginnings in a packed Mayfair boozer, we staggered into pub after pub after pub, then ventured into an upmarket Brazilian cocktail bar (sampling a fantastic Caipirinha), then ended the night in a West London tapas bar, where the alcohol I had consumed (despite my insistance to stay relatively sober) was soaked up by octopus, clams, chorizo and wine, and various other delicious edibles. Yum.

Today, by contrast, is a bit of a downer. I didn’t win the Euromillions jackpot. Or the National Lottery jackpot. Then I watched Battle Royale 2 - a film I have anticipated for quite some time, and which I had devoted 2 hours to watching this afternoon - and was thoroughly disappointed. Not a patch on the original.

And now the poor Thames Whale has gone and died.

I just finished a three-page epic complaint letter to the head of the Royal Mail Docklands delivery office, owing to the fact that the gimps he employs can’t do anything right. In summary:

- They lost 2 special deliveries in as many months worth several hundred quid
- Postmen never buzz to see if anyone’s in before leaving a “sorry, you were out” card (especially if you’ve taken a day off because you knew there was mail coming…)
- Put recorded items in your mailbox without obtaining a signature
- If they do leave a card, the phone number of it doesn’t work and the identifying details of the delivery are omitted, rendering the mail near impossible to trace
- Etc.

I don’t have much luck with mail or couriers.

the good - Fedex (though hideously expensive), Special Mail Services
the bad - Initial City Link, Parcel Force, DHL
the ugly - Royal Mail

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.