Define irony

I’m an avid recycler. In fact, I now actually cringe if I have to put a glass, plastic bottle or tin can in the regular trash. I go so far as to take my recyclable rubbish with me if I’m not able to recycle it there on the spot.

I think it’s true to say of most people who recycle that they’re inclined to make a little bit of extra effort in order to do their recycling. Indeed, in most cases where recycling pickups don’t happen, you will need to keep your recycling in your house until such point that you can take it to a nearby recycling centre and then deposit your stuff in the appropriate bins. This certainly requires extra effort, and perhaps, recyclers do feel a tad smug about their apparent helping to save the planet. I’m not saying they’re on the same level as the sanctimonious wankers who drive a Prius – I don’t care what you say Top Gear reporter Paul Horrell, it’s a shit car, stop saying it’s good – but nevertheless, the very fact that people are prepared to put the extra effort to separate your stuff and then actually take half an hour out of a weekend to go and deposit it, says something.

Well, it says something about some people. I’m not sure what it says about these people:

Recycling madness

In case that’s not clear… virtually all of the visible plastic bottles in the near-overflowing plastic bottle recycling bin still have their plastic tops on, despite the BIG sign that says please remove bottle tops (presumably because they can’t be recycled).

So, the types of people who care enough to actually separate and keep their recyclable material, take it down to the recycling centre on their own time, put it in the right bin… can’t manage a further 3 seconds just to remove the bottle tops and put them in the regular trash.

Idiots.

Come on Stifler!

OK, so he might have put out our boy Andy Murray, but I’m still rooting for Andy Roddick over Federer in this year’s Wimbledon final. It’s not because I care particularly, but because he looks a lot like Stifler. And Federer is just a good looking amazing sportsman with a beautiful girlfriend and lots of money. (I’m guessing.)

So c’mon Stifler!

Andy Roddick	Steve Stifler

30 in 30 for Les Bourgs Hospice

So that’s that. Completed the 30 in 30, raising money for Les Bourgs Hospice. Well done to everyone who took part, including the 4 people who completed 3 100 mile rides in 3 days, and the one crazy foo’ who rode his bike continuously for 30 hours. Nutcase. Personally I managed 613.6 miles – so roughly 20 miles per day. I’m happy with that!

Combined, we’ve raised over £35,000 for Les Bourgs Hospice.

There’s still time to sponsor me if you want, clicken sie hier.

isolation

I wrote this nearly 3 years ago. Nothing has changed. I’ve done nothing about it. I’m in the same shit situation as I was then.

Except maybe now I get paid a little more at work.

What does it take for someone to finally grab life by its arse and start making changes? I watched the film `Wanted` the other night – the theme of which is just that. Some guy, living a meaningless life and things eventually change. OK, so it’s because he’s apparently son of some legendary assassin – right – but ignore that and look at the bigger thing for a second and it helps with some perspective.

The only person you’re kidding, is yourself. YOU KNOW the issues. Yet you mislead yourself. How pathetic is that?

The only way things will change is when you make it happen.

So do it. Now.

sometimes

you need to put yourself out there. you take a risk. maybe it’ll pay off.

most of the time it won’t, but at least you tried. hey, it’s better to try and fail, than to not try at all.

so i end up back at square 1. start again. from the beginning.

but new starts are a good thing.

How to access iTunes Store from restricted location

I recently posted about how it was impossible to access the iTunes Store if you were in one of the Channel Islands such as Guernsey or Jersey. Specifically, when you were updating your account details, it used to be possible to enter your postcode in lower case, or, enter a valid e.g., UK mainland postcode to get around it. This stopped working and all workarounds were essentially dead – the only explanation was that iTunes now uses some geographic IP address matching to check you were physically where you say you were. So it seemed like there was no way around it.

However, I’ve found a way around it.

Read the rest of this entry »

Guernsey iTunes store hack patched?

If you live in the Channel Islands – Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm – you are not allowed to use the iTunes store. Entering your postcode in the billing section simply gave you a message “the iTunes store is not available in your region”.

UPDATE 1: Friends of mine have said that if you enter a valid postcode in the mainland, then that worked for them in the past. In theory that should ruin any chance of people able to buy something (your CC shouldn’t authorise…).
UPDATE 2: I just tried the above and got an error message, asking to enter a valid postcode (despite entering a bunch of valid postcodes), so it seems likely that they’re doing an IP address check now as well. Bastards. I have a few ideas on how to get round this.
UPDATE 3: Please read my post on how to access the itunes store from a restricted location which has instructions on how to get around this problem.