Benscomputer.no-ip.org


Pages not Rendering Properly? Home News About me Contact Me Phorm's History Porcelain Pictures Services Projects Articles Whitepapers Getting Started With Linux Documentation Reviews Dispute Archives Page Archives Yearly Indexes Archived Links Terms and conditons of webhosting Links Sitemap Search Benscomputer.no-ip.org Copyright Information Privacy Policy	I've never seen myself as some one who could blog but they say talking helps. So In order to try and keep my sanity I have started this blog. There may be offensive language on this page, so please do not read if you are easily offended. 2nd April 2007 Post 2 Just a quick note to say that the blog has now moved to Myspace, it should help free up some bandwidth and means I won't be deleting anything by accident. I have had problems with Myspace before so I may well move the blog back to the server at some point. New URL for the blog is http://blog.myspace.com/shifty_ben 2nd April 2007 Well the last couple of days have been somewhat strange, it must be the giving up smoking that does it. I just haven't seemed to be able to concentrate, and I haven't stopped eating. It kind of makes a mockery of me giving up smoking for Financial Reasons, still everyone around me seems to think I should stick with it, and I can't entirely deny that they are right. The last time I tried to give up, I noticed what a change it brought to my energy levels, these last two days I feel like I have had unlimited energy. Admittedly I have drunk a lot of relentless, but even in the mornings before I have had my coffee I feel so much more awake than normal. It's strange really, but this time I feel quite motivated to ditch the fags permanantly, although I have had moments of really fancying a cigarette, I have not had any chemical cravings. All the moments have been down to habit, the fact remains that I have always found smoking to be quite pleasurable, but I simply cannot afford to do it anymore. Saying that I do need to curb my appetite a bit, otherwise it is going to cost me more money than smoking does, hopefully it will die down soon. No news on Tiscali today, but I didn't overly expect CISAS to reply in a day, it would just be nice to know that the files I sent them were received, still can't be impatient. Incidentally I just found out how much it is going to cost me to re-tax the SV at the end of this month, �64.00 a year! whilst I realise that that is lower than most cars, it's quite a jump from the �15 that the CBR was costing me. Why did I ever start smoking? I still feel that it is enjoyable, but I care more about my life than I did when I started, though I am likely to find myself getting killed by something long before the cancer could get me, I can't risk the fact that it may in fact be Lung cancer that ends my life prematurely. In site related news, I have been considering the possibility of replacing this blog with a more up-todate one. Technically speaking that is, this page is just a html page that I edit when I want to update it, it may be worth changing to wordpress or similar. The change may come soon, depends on what I decide! 1st April 2007 Well it's April fools day today, but for once I am going to be restrained and see if I can spend the day without offending anyone. I got a letter from Tiscali yesterday, I will be posting it here soon. It makes for interesting reading, it seems that if you mention CISAS Tiscali are perfectly willing to do a 180. However their 'writing off the charges' could potentially affect my credit rating, as I did not run up those charges in the first place this would be a bit unfair for me. Given that my credit rating could be at risk, it is my intention to carry on down the CISAS route. Especially as this whole debacle with Tiscali has left me somewhat out of pocket. It's amazing how much it can cost just to send a few letters, especially when you then have to photocopy all these letters and then send them to an adjudicator in duplicate. Anyway other than that, not much has really happened recently, its the same old day to day of going to work, earning a pittance and coming home to sleep. Still could be worse I suppose, at least I have a job. 24th March 2007 Well I completed my application form for CISAS today, so hopefully Tiscali are now going to see themselves set in order. It about time, that company is like a bad kid that just needs to be disciplined. I dont know if it is related to the change in weather but the SV650 seems to be drinking far less petrol, still leaks oil from time to time but only when I am at home. I have come to the conclusion that the bike just doesnt like my road. Still it could be worse I suppose. Not much new happening at the moment for me to talk about, I am having stir fry for dinner tonight and that is about the only thing that could be of interest. 17th March 2007 Once again I have been neglecting the site a little recently, have been spending far too much time at work, still thats often the way it goes sadly. Got an email today from someone who had read my Tiscali archive, it seems she is having similar issues, although Tiscali are arguing about 12 pounds in her case, they had by the sound of it written of the charges and then changed their minds!! Where Tiscali is concerned nothing surprises me anymore, they do seem to be taking a while to reply to my last letter however so I may have to chivy them a little, I wouldn't like to think they are ignoring me. Problem is that the Customer Service centre uses a P.O. Box so you can't send items recorded delivery, however they do have a head office address so I may well have to send a recorded letter there if I do not get a reply soon. As usual I am skint, but I will muddle through, I normally do. Thinking about trying to get the company to give me some more training, something that leads to a proper qualification as opposed to an in-house qualification. Speaking of which I should hear about my WSET soon. Still I'd better crack on, as ever there is much to do. I'll try update the site more frequently ;-) 17th February 2007 Well the site hasn't been updated in a little while, I just haven't had the time or the energy. On Friday we travelled up to Welwyn Garden City to start the WSET course. Has to be said it could be far worse, it was quite interesting and the concept of being paid to taste wine is fantastic! Having said that finding oneself in the position of having had 8 glasses of wine by 1.30 in the afternoon is a bit of a shock. Some of the wines we were tasting were slightly on the pricey side and I just couldn't bring myself to spit them out. Given that I wasn't driving it wasn't too big an issue but I think I will make sure I have breakfast before the next one. I'm thinking about giving up smoking, it will help my health and finances but most importantly will give the government less of my money to squander. I daresay we will see a duty rise on Tobacco on the 1st of July when the new law comes into effect, similarly when the smoking age changes to 18 we will see a hike in duty (and no doubt a rise in the amount of theft and violent attacks.) The net result is that everyone will start to buy from abroad, and the government will use tht as an excuse to raise our National Insurance, Road Tax, Income Tax and any other tax they can think of. The government are pricing themselves out of the market. Smokers may use the NHS more, but they also pay a far higher amount of tax than most non-smokers. Still I'm sire Mr Blair has a plan up his sleeve somewhere, although as he is leaving he may in fact have decided to ignore it! 2nd February 2007 Fucking Chavs!! Well I collected the SV yesterday and had the restrictors put into the carbs so it is now a fully legal road bike with a power of 33bhp. However during my riding about and getting used to the bike I had an unfortunate incident. I was going up the road following a small black hatchback that was doing 15 in a 30, there was no other traffic so I attempted a perfectly legal overtake, upon drawing level with the car I heard the sound of an engine revving very loudly. It turns out that the old biddy I had assumed the driver to be, was in fact a chav in a fully loaded car who was obviously trying to get me to race him. I figured I would complete the overtake but he sped up to keep level with me. The obvious thing was to instead drop back and pull in beside him, but as I slowed so did he, again keeping level with me. The road was wet and i did not want to risk slipping out by braking to a stop so I had to carry on, by which time a roundabout was upon us, he must have dropped back a bit to let me in but it was too little to late so I had to do an emergency stop to avoid hitting the roundabout. I would ahve made it but unfortunately my rear tyre hit an arrow on the road and skidded. The result was that I ended up on the roundabout but under the bike, and the chav drove on. With heinsight I could have taken some other steps such as pulling into someones driveway (although turning that suddenly on a new bike may also cause an accident). It didn't occur to me at the time. Despite what I could have done the fact remains that the chav precipitated the accident by not allowing me to re-enter the lane either in front of or behind him. Thankfully the damage is limited to a broken wing mirror and a slightly bent bar end, but it could have been far, far worse. I have injured my wrist and ankle, but not seriously and I am sure they will heal soon enough. The irony of the whole incident is the fact that I am the one who is restricted to 33bhp for 2 years. Had the road not been wet then I could perhaps have shot off in front of him and then slowed down once I was safely in lane, but even so I am not sure that he would have let me re-enter the lane too easily. I commonly see and hear of accidents caused by these Chavs and their souped up cars. It is time something is done about them, my accident could have been far worse, in fact I could potentially be dead. It is only because I refused to go over 30mph that the accident was not more severe. Anyway as promised here is a picture of the new bike, it's a bit blurry but I will post a better one soon. (Note the different wing-mirrors). 31st January 2007 The Interesting thing about teenage girls is.... For the most part they are either to stupid or too pathetic to think of insults that don't defy logic. Let me explain, one unfortunate aspect of my job is that I have to deal with the General Public which for the most part a problem. However I do also have to refuse service to anyone who I believe may be underage which often results in me getting some abuse. As any who have looked at my profile will know I have an afro (that pic is about 3 years old now), and I commonly get comments about my 'greasy hair.' Funny because I would have thought it would be obvious to anybody that my hair is frizzy because it is so dry, where it to be greasy then it would hang down in curtains rather than going straight up as it tends to. The fact that at least a percentage of the people who use this insult probably want to go into hairdressing or fashion does underline the pig ignorance of those few. Then again it could just be laziness, perhaps they cannot be bothered to think up a more logical insult, or perhaps they think I will never have heard it before. To be fair to the Teenage female population this does not apply to all, simply those who think an afro must be greasy, I meet a few who take the fact that they have not been served with a pinch of salt, I am after all only protecting my job. I'm collecting the SV tomorrow with any luck, assuming this virus (found out its name, Labyrinthitis) doesn't decide to confiscate my sense of balance again. Hopefully I will be back to work on Monday, I am so bored of being at home. Either way I guess the rest has done me good, I've just got to avoid going mad! 22nd January 2007 My full licence has come through! I also have a new bike to use until my partner passes her test, or will do in a few days when we collect it. Sad to say I have been off work ill since last Friday, I have caught one of those wonderful viruses with Latin names that you forget 30 seconds after the doctor has told you. Whatever it is it affects my balance, energy and general mood. In the last week I have had several people have a go at me down the phone and I haven't even been able to get up the energy to get angry. When I received my letter from Tiscali I simply read it and went, well I will have to deal with that later. Although I am getting better I am certainly not myself, I just wish this bug would go away, I'm fed up of these four walls and scarily I actually want to go back to work! Not that Work is without its hassles, but worse things happen at sea! Since last writing I have also received my personal licence enabling me to authorise the sale of alcohol on Licensed Premises, this means that I really have to behave in future. I cannot afford to lose my licence (either one) so I am going to be perfectly good law abiding folk from now on, or thats the plan. Not that I was ever that bad anyway ;-) 12th January Several days ago I wrote a piece questioning whether or not DSA Practical driving tests are fair, regardless of whether they are or not I took my test today and PASSED!!!!! Its taken four tests but I now hold my full Motorcycle license (or will do when it comes through in a few weeks) it hasn't entirely set in yet but I am sure it will when the license comes through the door. I still believe that the focus put on the Turn in the road is unfair, however with practise it can be done almost perfectly every time. I went out for an hour or so before my test today and did U-turns both in car parks (using bays to mark the roadside) and on the road with high kerbs. My emergency stop was not as controlled as I would have liked it to been in that for some reason I pulled the clutch in at the same time as the brakes and so cost myself a second or two. However I still managed to stop before the examiners hand was even fully up. It is not the most perfect test I have taken (putting aside the fact that I passed this one) 4 minors is quite a lot compared to my previous test, however because I did not get any majors it makes all the difference :-D Much as I would like to sit here and type all day (actually I would rather be out on the bike) I have to leave for work now. Still plenty of time to be riding later :-D Posted by Shifty_Ben 6th January 2007 Happy new year! I realise its a little late, but I have had a lot oging on recently and just haven't found time to update the page. All last years blogs are now found on the 2006 Archive Th front page will also be emptied soon when I create the 2006 archive for news stories and articles. As I have written about here we will be seeing the banning of smoking in Licensed premises fairly soon. I think it is a huge shame that the Government have once again fucked up, and I quite honestly cannot wait to be rid of them. Perhaps one day we will get a government who think with thier heads instead of their asses. It has been an eventful week, and I must say not a very good one, I don't think I have ever had such a crap start to the new year, but hopefully it will get better. Posted by Shifty_Ben 2006 Blog Archives

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