New Year Resolutions

I think one of the most perpetuated myth/lies of modern society is the belief that people actually keep new year resolutions. I can safely hazzard a guess that, for the most part, most of them are out the window by the end of February. If I was a gambling man I would put a figure of say 98% where my mouth is. Don't get me wrong now, I am not saying don't, what I am saying is if you do, make the effort and make it reasonable and attainable. You hear everything from losing how many tens of pounds to finding a new soul mate to giving up smoking. Not saying they can't be done, but are they being done for the right reasons and is your heart really in it. I stopped making those things before I even started so I guess that's why I can proudly say that I never break them. If I were to make them what would mine be......hmmmmmm???? I have no idea. Maybe to help more around the house. Put the clothes and shoes where they belong. I don't smoke or drink (an ocassional beer). I know...focus more on school adnd stop the last minute assignments. Wish it were that easy. Yeah they are all attainable...do I really want to do them...nope.....will they be resolutions....nope....will I be any worse off for not making them....nope...don't think so anyway. So I save myself and those that have to endure the misery of me trying the heartache and pain.....yay!!!! Daddy not making any resolutions this year. I did some blog readings today and actually left a few comments on some new blogs. I have been really terrible in these last months. I haven't done any return visits nor have I welcomed any of my visitors.......no excuses so that I will make as my 2006 resolution...be courteous to my guests and be polite to visitors...go check out their sites since they were nice enough to check out mine. One and only one. Anyways have a Happy New Year and may 2006 be better to you than 2005.

Holiday Mood

Well to tell yuh the truth, I'm still very much in the holiday frame of mind. I'm not on leave and I have to report to office daily but........... The Christmas was good. I would be wicked if I said otherwise. I've had the rounds.....family dinner on Sunday (which was excellent) and visiting friends on Monday. Tuesday I decided to lay off a bit and never left home. I was feeling a bit under the weather and had enough time during all the merriment to be sick for a few hours, so I actually ran the gammit. A friend who I haven't seen in 5 years is visiting from the US and I'll make sure to see her before she returns. We used to interact a lot before she migrated and since then we have stayed in touch but just barely. the contact, limited as it may be, is not devoid of the friendship that exits and I will definitely make the extra effort to pass her way before the week is out. Last night the bloggers link up took place. It was a good evening as we got to know some of the bloggers a little better. In the roll call was: CaliJ, Stunner, Shotta M, Owen, Mad Bull, Dr. D, and Scratchie. Owen had to leave early and it was a pity. The remaining bloggers chatted up a storm over a few well earned drinks and you would have believed that we had all known each other since yesteryear. It would have been difficult to believe that I was actually meeting several of the bloggers for the first time. CaliJ, Shotta M, Stunner and Owen...I am pleased to make your acquaintance. The blogs will keep us in touch. At least one photo will come from Dr. D at some later date. The place was kinda dark and so photo taking was a chore but somehow we managed at least one good one. My only question and I'm sure the question on all the attendees' minds is...WHAT HAPPEN TO ALL DI WOMAN DEM???????? Not even one!!!!!! We had a total bull show (no pun intended). It turn out to be a stag session. Is it that the women are all show and no go? Well all I can say is...you lose :( The women are desserters, Benedict Arnolds. Anyways I not gwine dwell on that...a good time was had and I can say that I've met a few more people through what started out as random ramblings on a hidden piece of cyberspace. What's up for the weekend?...I have no clue. Maybe I'll just keep it quiet and chill with family, or maybe I'll go to the beach or something. I'll let the spirit decide when the time comes. Until then...take care of you.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Just say to all who come my way...May you experience the Peace Love Joy and Hope that the true meaning of Christmas brings to us. May you find happiness in your lives, in your families and friends. May the spirit of this Holy Season stay with you throughout the years. To those who are not spiritually inclined....may you enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas to All!!!!!!

Crying Out

Well people my blog is crying out......for neglect. I have been having a really busy time at work and being out in the open just isn't helping so I tried the night thing but then it's a competition with the kids who want to play Sims and Virtual DJ andMSN messenger so I'm left out in the cold. So I've decided that enough is enough...they can have the machine. I'm gonna go find something less interesting to do. Sleep...gardening...washing the car maybe. No :) I'm gonna buy a router and have an adventure networking my house. I'm pretty proficient with the computer but have never gotten into the whole networking thing so I figure that I'm gonna have a few mishaps but I'm gonna try it....worse thing that can happen is that it fails miserably. Other than that Christmas is coming and I'm not quite ready for it yet. I think I'm going to mount a demonstration this morning. My placard will read.."We want Christmas postponed..." Think it will work? I figure that if I get it pushed back by about a month I should be good to go. The last couple of nights has been spent updating compi which is also suffering from neglect. I reloaded everything last week but because the kids have been at it I haven't been doing the updates and so every time i turn on the machine it does a few. Last night it did like about 26. I turned off auto update and am going to do some reading because I don't think it needs every and any of the releases, so I've set it to alert me about available updates and let me choose which ones apply to me instead. Last night the updates and the antivirus were fighting it out for bandwidth with me chatting to friends online...a most annoying experience so no more auto anything....me run tings.

Oh...I decided to go to the mall on Saturday and part of Sunday.....nuff chaos. Luckily The family decided to go early. My early was like 10:00a.m. If yuh eva si di crowd :O I got parking in the 4th shopping centre (Tropical Plaza) and just stayed put for the day. (Oh there are 5 shopping centres joined together to make what we Jamaicans call the plazas. It is nowhere as big as the US malls but hey...we gotta work with what we got ;) The rest of the day was spent walking back and forth and trying to deal with gifts for the family type people.

Sunday I actually went to see King Kong. It's the 1st in a long while since I've been to the movies. School always came 1st. I like this idle time. I think it's the longest break I've had from classes since I started in 2002. All my exams were crammed into the 1st half of the schedule so it resulted in extra vacation time for me. The movies was......no comments. Not my style but not a bad movie either. All I can say is that the directors spent a lot of time getting up to the meat of the matter and then seemed to rush through the meat part to the dessert.

I'm going to pay some more blog visits later on, but in the meantime...take care.

I'm Baaaacckk

Greetings and hailage all Caribbean and International massive. I and I deh bout again. I finished my exams on Tuesday but as luck would have it I finished off my compi on Tuesday as well. :) Nah not true. I was the subject of a disgusting little insect type virus. My son apparently downloaded some music and whatever it was bypassed the firewall and did a number on the compi. I cleaned it off but it was still behaving a bit quirky so tech Scratchie went to work. New hard drive, reloaded and activated Windows XP and now in process of getting all my software loaded. Downloaded SP2 last night and auto update is doing something tonight so I am back on track it would seem. I ordered the laptop on 2 December with a slated delivery date for 29 December but guess what....our mailing system has gotten efficient. It is already in the island and I should have it in hand by Monday...all of ten days early. I was actually laughing at the situation just today. I had ordered 3 items at three different times....the laptop 1st then about a week later the carrying case for it and then a piece of software for the home compi. Guess what, the software arrived on Friday. (The last shall be the 1st I guess). The case came in yesterday and I hadn't heard about the laptop until this afternoon. Not to mention that the shipping manifesto shows that the laptop has travelled more than me all over the place. Dell has a wild network for the delivery of their products. The exams were not so bad. I am still awaiting results before I predict pass or fail. Typical case of the examiners trying to cover too much ground so they water down the content. Other than that I'm still tired nuh hell. Well I actually went to the shopping mall this week after my last exam. Things expensive nuh backside. Lots of people looking but minimal buying in my estimation. I saw a head line in a newspaper this week that accused JPS of putting out the festive lights. It stated that the public were less inclined to put up Christmas lights because of the exorbitant light bills. Somebody need to tell that to my wife and kids. Tree light up...verandah light up....grill light up.......every corner of the house have light. My daughter is a real gladice so she enjoys the season and I ain't about to kill her spirit. I'll just have to foot the bill later I suppose. Apart from that, my nephew tief ou his mother's van on Sunday and nearly kill himself...write off the van and leave them with a hell of a bill. We are glad he wasn't hurt but somebody needs to kill him for that. Not my son or my car so I just stand back and watch. Other than that...I'm baaaaccckkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Exams!!!!

Everythig I have to say can be summed up in one word... "EXAMS". You guys will have to do without me until Wednesday. Until then.......take care. Had the first one yesterday. One will be on Monday and the final one on Tuesday. Yesterday's own wasn't too bad.

RJ05

Well the final major event of the Jamaican Racing season was held over the weekend in the form of the Rally Jamaica 2005. The event had numerous sponsors including Petcom, KFC, and Digicel. These and other sponsors ensured the success of the event. I was a spectator for the New Kingston stage of the event. Building on the experience of past years, I arrived at the venue from 2:00p.m. for a 4:00p.m. start. That way I got to choose my viewing spot and a "secure" parking space in view of my perch. Spectators came alive at about 3:30 with the sounding off of the Digicel truck and the mc's fastest fingers game giving away free credit to spectators by calling out credit codes and having persons enter them on their phones. This final stage of the rally started at 4:00 with a drive through by the Clerk of the Course and the Opening Marshall. The crowd visibly shifted for viewing vantage points as the cars did their drive through and parade. exhaust gases filled the ait and there was a short break as they returned to the start. The crowd was treated to a mix of car and driver capabilities. from the lack lustre to the sublime. The event showed that there are drivers and there are DRIVERS and that there are cars and there are CARS. The crwod was hell bent on seeing WRC driver Didier Auriole at the wheel but after a quick run through of the cars it was obvious that he had retired. :( Anyway the show continued. The smell of tires and exhaust, the near crashes, the spectators and camera men who almost got creamed by the white GTI Swift/Cultus, the scream of the engines and the sound of blow off valves from turbo charged machines, the slides and the show boating by some of the drivers all ensured an enjoyable afternoon for most. Off special note was the presence of so many Subaru Impreza's both WRx and WRC's that dominated the line up.....GO Scooby!!!! Ok ok yeah there were a couple of Evo's too....maybe one or two. BTW, you Bajans should be proud. Your drivers did extremely well in the event. I guess we'll hear the scores later. I know they have been published (even prelims) but I'm just too lazy to go find them and most of you not interested anyway, yuh just humouring me. :) Panton needs another year in the Evo to get it just right. It was obvious from his lack of antics for the crowd. New cars always do that to you. All in all a well spent even. The stage ended with a display of automibile handling craftmanship by none other than Mr. Auriole himself in a car borrowed from one of the other competitors. And yes it was a Scooby. :) :) :) Watching these guys you realize that they are definitely in a different league. The Tall One said as we were leaving "I waited all year for this event and it was well worth it." I think I echo his sentiment. I was only able to catch one stage because exams are actually on Thursday for me and then Monday and Tuesday following so no driving all over Jamaica countryside to watch cars for me. Anyways I was just giving you all a hail and gone so till later.

Update

Well I took your advice..... Dudes getting a Dell. Stayed away from the Compaq. And the Acer, as alluring as the package was, the hassle to get it to Jamaica was just too much. Truth be told, by the time I pay shipping, handling, and mailbox charges it would have been way over my rounded up cash. Dell delivers it to my door with a one time shipping charge which they tagged to the machine. All things being equal I should have it before school reopens. I am being conservative because we in the Caribbean know how shipping goes during the Christmas season. The final major racing event for the year is underway here and I'm missing it. Schoolwork and exams are playing a major factor in this but "if yuh want good...nose haffi run". I may visit the New Kingston special stage tomorrow but the cross country thing never swing this year at all. Other than that.....I won my Kalookie match last night. I was too tired to even think about the game and just simply played by reflex, no planning and gues what...I beeat the ish out of the other guys and set a meeting new low total score of only 157 points from all the games. Other than that...idle weekend filled with study. Enjoy the rest of it.

Lights! Camera!....Christmas

 Well Christmas is definitely in the air....at least it is in New York. Last night I sat and watched the lighting of their huge Christmas Tree and it marks the beginning of the season in my neck of the woods. I swiped this photo from the WNBC site. Apparently they have a tree cam so if you want you can go there and see it live at any time. It was sooooooo much prettier in the night but I saved that picture at home so this will have to do.

I'm still not feeling the season but that will come too I guess. The last few days have been spent hunting for a computer. The one at home is working fine all be it 5 years old. But I had spent a lot of time and effort building it so it can still run with the best of them. Only thing showing some date is the processor and I'm not too worried about that since it is still pretty fast. I've finally decided on a notebook. Don't know where the cash is gonna come from yet but frankly, with these lots of presentations and group assignments at school the laptop is fast becoming a necessity and not a choice. I'm am tired of having to borrow them and beg and then end up still not getting the work done as how I would want it so I am gonna make the plunge. Choice right now is between an ACER and a DELL. I like the Compaq for looks but I've had bad experiences with their desktops in the past so not sure if I should chalk it up to "one of those things" and try them again. I like the ACER because all in all it offers the best package but then shipping to Jamaica is gonna be an issue...(an expensive issue I might add). DELL sends their stuff here so that won't be a problem. Which do you guys like Heard them debating in the news this morning about whether or not the newspaper carries too much about the violence and crime. It seems that one newspaper has vowed to stop carrying it front page. I don't want to quote since I haven't seen the paper as yet but apparently it is felt that by carrying all this stuff on front page it glorifies the dons. I can't argue with that. Frankly speaking I find the front page of the weekday papers depressing most mornings hence me not buying a during the week newspaper in years. I buy the Sunday Gleaner because usually the paper is a lot tamer then. Will it help?...Your guess as good as mine but it certainly can'thurt. I got my ham last night....yessssssssss!!!!!!!!!! Pork haffi deh yah fi di season. Sorry fi all di dread dem roun di place. Dem cyan call dun fyah pon mi if dem want....gwey!!!!!! Ham fi nyam!!! So last night I was reminded twice that Christmas is around the corner. Anyway I gone....have a great day.