Well I tried posting over here again but I prefer Wordpress much more and that will continue to be my new home, so check out the new dad blog over there

http://taro.wordpress.com

Well as you can see I'm back and there are a few changes around here, for a start I had a pretty amazing New Years Day as.......

I found out I'm going to be a Dad!

All planned and everything just didn't think it would be this quick.  It's weird, hasn't really sunk in yet and it's been a couple of weeks now, probably as Teenie hasn't changed at all, I guess once we go for the first scan or she starts throwing up every morning it will.  So the date according to the Doctor was 12th September but according to the internet the 8th September.  After the first scan we shall know for sure but woe betide any Doctor out-scienced by the internet!

It's even stranger as just before I become a Dad I'll be an Uncle, so we've been doing the baby shop rounds all ready.  I already refuse to brand my baby with a bib plastered with Gap advertsising.  I've been told that it is the Chinese New Year of the Pig and the element is like my own Fire so we shall have a couple of fire pigs crawling around this time next year.

Well as the baby doesn't quite feel real yet my first thoughts after the suprise have been, where are we going to live?  We need to move anyway as they are selling our flat and it's on the second floor of the building so not very baby friendly.  Suddenlly I'm seriously thinking about moving out of London even though I hate the suburbs.  I think once you've lived in a big city a small city or town just won't work you need something different so maybe we'll push the commute thing as far as we can take it and find something villagey and see how it goes (must be a chav free zone!).

Well I always found blogging without a purpose, just chatting about myself a bit weird, as basically I'm not that interesting, but expect to see more baby news and thoughts appearing here as now I have something to say.  I thought it would be interesting to look back on a diary of the whole pregnancy and baby thing but from a blokes point of view, which reminds nine months to finish Zelda on the wii...

After playing around with my blog on Wordpress I've found out it completely blows Live Journal out of the water, embed video have feeds from other sites.  It's much more what I've been looking for, so come over and say hi you don't have to log in to post comments and you also get to see Kevin Spacey doing an impression of Christopher Walken auditioning as Han Solo.  WHat more of an incentive do you need!

https://taro.wordpress.com

Not quite what you'd expect

Ad for Amnesty done in the style of a home shopping channel for AK47's. I believe it's done by the agency Mother. One of those rare ads that makes you laugh and think.

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I have an odd week, for a start I'm not supposed to be at work today as it's my second wedding anniversary and we originally planned to go away somewhere, but instead something has come up at work and I have to stay and see it through but it also kind of scares the hell out of me.

Next week I'm directing a trail for a big dance event to be seen on the most popular channel in the country.  It involves 9 dancers in a street, a huge crew, a small crane a dolly amd tracks and two well known TV presenters one of whom has been on TV for about 50 years. 

Oh yeah and one more thing, this is my first time doing something to go air with actors involved.  Christ I could make The Blair Witch Project on this budget but it's all going into just 20 seconds...

no pressure then.

Hopefully this works



If not the link is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4 it really is the best thing I've seen on the web for ages and after you've seen it I know you'll be walking around with a huge smile on your face. Just found another one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WmMcqp670s

A way to block pirates at the source by creating an area where the cameras won't work. Could there be a more sinister side? As an amateur photographer and film-maker this could be great if just applied in cinemas, but what about in public?





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Nope not Johnny Depp but a movie reviewer selling screeners on ebay, now P2P is one thing SHARING files isn't quite the same as profiting from them.  You just think surely this guy already earns shed loads, and what has he made £5000, it's just greed

Check it out here

Well how could I let the world cup go by and not mention it.  I've been watching a fair few matches and some of them in various bars and there's something very wierd I've noticed, that's actually really nice. 

Football means so much more in countries other than England, for example you go to the pub to see an England match and there are two main emotions or vibes running through people Expectation, and nervousness.  I went to see a Brazil match in a Brazilian bar and it was an attitude of celebration.  Before kickoff a DJ was playing loud non stop Samba everyone was singing and dancing (this was around 3'oClock in the afternoon as well), as kick off approached everyone proudly sang the national anthem waving flags, and for 45 minutes everyone was engrossed in the screens dotted around the bar, the moment the whistle blew for half time the DJ started up again as did the dancing and the singing, now you have to bear in mind that at his point it had been a pretty poor performance by Brazil but no-one seemed to care, the second half Brazil turned on the style and the celebrations got wilder and wilder, until the full time whistle blew and the DJ put the music back on.

Later the same night we were passing another bar which had a huge screen and loads of noise coming from it, we had a look in and guess what football mad nation was going crazy, South Korea not a particularly famous footballing nation but the passion of the crowd even topped the braziliians.

This sense of national pride is odd to me, nationalism is something I don't particularly like and living in a city where I can go down the street and have a bar full of Koreans, a bar full of Brazillians, an Aussie pub, and Italian restaurants all showing different games it's hardly a suprise that I don't feel particularly English, I have more in common with the rest of Europe, I've probably even seen more of Europe than I have Britain.  But the way they do have pride in where they are from is something I feel is really missing here, if you see a car going down the street with an Itallian flag flying from the window honking the horn and celebrating it's cool, and funny.  You see an English flag in the same situation you think thug or hooligan.  I don't know why but the national anthem and flag does seem to have been hijacked, and even if it's untrue the reputation sticks.  This isn't something UK based, I was chatting to a French girl from Paris who really hopes the French team loses, and she's not the only one I've heard the same from other Parisians, they find there compatriots too arrogant.

This got me thinking is this a generic City thing, do people that live in big cities with a large group of nationalities completely lose their national identity, or even get to the point where they are ashamed of it?