I’ve been threatening to throw down some thoughts for a while, I just didn’t want to write something for the sake of it. I gave in, here they are.
Mainly inspired by my day today, and also a few bits and pieces to catch up on.
It’s Saturday night and I’m lay on the sofa with the TV on in the background, the kids enjoying some rubbish on it as we wait for Penn and Teller (I do like that show). Michelle is out getting drunk, helping our friends celebrate their wedding today. Congrats to Christina and Genaro !
Earlier I took the kids for the short walk to the beach, well I say short walk – I decided to drive a little further along to a spot where there were no rocks to hurt my delicate little tootsies. After playing with the kids in the waves for some time I proceeded to top up my tan, whilst lying there watching the world go by. It was that precise moment that I decided to write this blog.
I LOVE people watching, as do many others, although sometimes I feel myself actually being nosey I watch people so much. This isn’t reserved for the pretty young ladies, far from it, I enjoyed watching all the different types of people on the beach and making assumptions as to their personality and circumstances. I am sure that’s why I used to love Facebook so much in the beginning, it was a window into people’s lives that you could look through at any given moment and see what was going on, more some than others (myself definitely). Anyway, I could ramble on and on about that whole topic of people watching, but I actually went off on a totally different tangent and ended up deleting loads of it…I blame the wife.. she just came in and caught us all unawares, we were expecting her home about 3am !? Just in time for Penn & Teller… good girl !
So, from Facebook let me skip to the new sensation that appears to be about to blow up – Google+.
I received an invite to join this from a friend who works for Google and thought I was in some uber secret testing group… yeah, me and 10 million other people !
The long and short of it, from a few days looking at it, is this. It is basically another Facebook, except people don’t post onto your wall. The big thing is that you can put all your friends into seperate “circles”, meaning you can choose out of your friends who gets to read or see certain things (an indepth look at Google+ can be found here.) It allows people to follow my posts (well the stuff I choose the ‘general’ public to see) but I don’t have to read theirs.  This sounds interesting to me, as I can share photos of my various DIY projects with the people I know care (I think that’s 2 of you), I can discuss Vocal Booth stuff with only the Vocal Booth Family, and so on and so on. It is currently in testing stages with few invites being shared out, but this will change anytime within the next 2 weeks.. just you watch ! I am concerned that this may release the demon inside me that is always about to blurt out some nonsense just because I can, giving a whole new group of people the wrong impression of me. Fuck ’em !
Next up is a great little tool I came across today for anyone that would love a website but never got around to having one. Take a look at www.onesheet.com/djandyward. Obviously I don’t really have the need for this but I strongly recommend any of you to take the few minutes it takes to register for free and link all your accounts. Literally, 10 minutes and you can have your very own page that looks as good as any standard website.
Staying on the web, if you are about to travel anywhere soon, take a look and join www.planely.com.  This is what looks like a very simple site but has some serious works going on in the background. I have been speaking to the guy behind the site and some interesting developments may be taking place in the not too distant. So don’t forget, if you’re about to get on a plane anywhere soon, log in and register your flight, you may be surprised who else is on it with you !
Ok, so it’s commercial break on Penn & Teller and I want to pay tribute once again to Dave Camacho who sadly passed away earlier this week. He had been ill for some years and it has been some time since I had the pleasure of his company. Through the years I got to hang out with him a few times in various places around the world, we were far from close friends but I definitely connected with him and felt honoured to be able to sit and chat with him. A few weeks ago I was told he was quite ill now, and that he would relish a phone call from his mates. I didn’t really feel I fell into that category, had I known how ill he actually had become then I would have, without doubt, rang him up just to say hi and to let him know that in no uncertain terms his legacy would live on, and live on it will. Myself and a few others very close to him are in the process of paying tribute in a small way. RIP Dave !
This brings me to the Vocal Booth Weekender. Time is rushing by like I just cannot believe. I bite my tongue every week when I do the show for fear of saying the same old phrase “Where is the time going?”, but come on.. where is it going ??? It’s the bastard middle of July ! In less than 9 weeks myself and many others will be going crazy to some sweet soulful sounds, in the company of great people in the glorious Spanish sunshine. I have been going crazy and tested to my last ounce of patience over the last couple of weeks trying to co-ordinate 107 DJs and get them all to answer a simple email, or three. At some points I have snapped and one or two got the wrath of my fingertips but generally all is going great guns and if you are interested in how the Weekender is shaping up then be sure to subscribe to the mailing list.
Before the VBW is a small matter of a trip to the Balkans for myself. On 27th July I play in Bosnia at a large festival headlined by Kelis and Tricky, then my good friend DJ Sparks will drive me down the coast to Croatia for the Suncebeat Festival. I am really relishing the thought of 6 days in the sunshine with no responsibilities, listening to great music amongst great people, I’ll see one or two of you there.
With the summer well and truly underway here, it’s astonishing just how quickly one can get sick of the incessant sunshine and heat. Anyone that will have taken the time to read up on my home improvements will know how much I was looking forward to chilling out in the sunshine in my lovely new terrace. It took 3 days before I was locking myself inside with the aircon on. Another 8 weeks or thereabouts left of the children’s holidays to go and I am loving the fact that they are old enough to take care of themselves to a degree now, and with most of the tough stuff out of the way (for now) associated with the VBW I am going to enjoy the rest of the summer as much as possible.
I finally wanted to point out, as always, how nice it is to be able to share such thoughts with you. From time to time I feel it therapeutic to let go of all the junk in my head, I have toyed with the idea of doing a daily blog.  Sometimes I think I’d like to do it and then other times I call myself a knob for thinking such jibber jabber.
I had stated some time ago that I was changing the way I wrote my blogs, this came after I realised that the figures of website visitors that I thought were correct (millions and millions) were very misleading and in fact there is only you, my mom and that twat that hacked into my Facebook that bothers to read these… so thanks again and much love !
Final thought – Saturday night TV is shit.  I wish I was a DJ or something so I didn’t have to stay in to watch it.
Final, final message – I just found out that Schooly and his wife, Jenna,  had their second baby daughter born earlier today.  Congratulations to them all xxx.