Christmas time everyone!!!

Jingle bells, Jingle bells... Christmas has arrived early folks. LOL.. yup... was on my way to uni today and was passing Lakeside Shopping centre, and from the train I could see them putting up the Christmas tree for the front entrance. Ok, it wasn't completed in that it was decorated, but still, it is only October, still a good 2 months away from Christmas. Well.. they might as well do something, since shoppers aren't really spending money now are they.. hehe...

In other news, yesterday was Michael Schumacher last ever Formula 1 Grand Prix. The 7 times world champion failed to add another world championship, as Alonso won it. But yesterday confirmed what we will be missing from this great sports men... He started 10th because of some kind of engine problem, so he was already wrong footed. Then he had a puncher to his car, which put him to the back of the grid, 70+ seconds away from the leader. But he some how clawed his way back to finish in a not to distance 4th, only 24 seconds behind his team mate, Massa. A truly great performance which future stars will find hard copy.

Oh ya, I made it to the badminton team, well the second team that is... lol... pretty random, since on Saturday, this guy called Matt came up to me to ask if I would like to be on the team or not. And being me, I jumped to the chance, but I didn't know I was in already. I thought that I have to show what I was made off.. and then today, I got an email that I have to play on Wednesday against, Hertfordshire University away. So yeah, pretty pleased with that.. got to show my stuff now.. lol..

Anyway.. I have some issues that I have to sort out with my laptop.. ya.. I formatted on the weekend so just installing stuff, so erm I leave you with a youtube video. No.. it isn't me playing guitar, but a clip on Ben from the X-Factor singing. I think he is going to win it... you can judge for yourself. View the video below and tell me what you think via the shout box.

The View was worth watching...

Went to see "The View" gig yesterday. It was amazing. To start the night of, we had some supporting bands. We had 3 altogether and I cannot remember what their names were, but the first band wasn't too bad. They played music that is er... probably a harder edge to the kooks... The second band were the worse of the night. They were ok I guess and are kinda like a bad version of the verve mixed with the libertines. But yeah, they didn't really command the stage and lack something special that makes them exciting to watch. The next band were amazing. In my opinion, this band will be big soon. Their stage present is like oh my god. Their last act, the guitarist and the bassist climbed onto the railings where the lights were situated and jumped from them.. hehe.. well good.

And now at around 10:10pm, The View came on, and at first they played some songs that I have no idea, and then... WASTED LITTLE DJ came on and the whole place went mad. People were coming on stage singing (2 girls and some blokes in the background I think) with the band and then some of the people from the crowd tried to get on. And then came the last song. Superstar tradesmen, and now it was getting insane. People were somersaulting on the stage and trying everything to get a piece of the view. And then, it ended, but it was a great night out.

But yeah, today in the London Lite, there was an article about the view gig last night, the one I was at. And it got 5 out of 5.. lol.. here is the article.

Written by Sophie Harris

If you bought The View's debut single which crashed into the charts at No. 15 in August, then you might have some idea of what the Scots four-piece sound like. Wasted Little DJs is jangly, raw and catchy. But nothing you can buy really prepares you for the exciting experience of seeing this special new band live. It's little wonder then that Rough Trade A&R guru James Endeacott (the man who signed The Libertines) nearly fell over himself getting the View to sign to his new label, 1965. And their forthcoming debut album was recorded by Owen Morris, who produced The Verve's Urban Hymns and Oasis's Definitely Maybe, and Primal Scream's leading man Bobby Gillespie, is a big fan. Hailing from near Dundee, The View have an average age of 18, and it was striking just how young they look - a mess of curly hair; volatile skin and recalcitrance. But the fervour with which they sang and played made their three-minute songs feel mighty. The View's guitar hocks recall The Clash, but equally some chord changes sounded like The Wonder Stuff's Unbearable and their rompy basslines summoned the spirit of Chas 'n' Dave. Ultimately though, The View sound like youth, in all its sweaty, manic glory. The show's pinnacle arrived with their hit. The audience roared, and two your ladies in shiny blouses ran onstage and ooh-ed into singer Kyle's microphone. Then with the same immediacy as they began, Bang! It was over. No encore. Just a very, very happy crowd.

Lots of things happening around here

A very long time since my last update, and there are reasons for this. The main reason was that today was meant to be the launch of my next version of my website. But due to time constraints and also pressure of my uni project, I am disappointed to tell you that this will not be ready until mid 2007. But in the mean time I have given a preview to the site, which can be found using the link above.

Also, another thing that has happen is that I have switch web host, and also the shout box has been totally redesign. What does this all mean? Well for one, my site will be more reliable and you should now be able to access it without any difficulties. Second, the URL, www.richardtan.co.uk is much easier to remember. And the third reason is that it will be much faster to load the page due to the redesign to my shout box. So yeah, that’s about it on my website. But yeah, if you do have time, please check out version 3 and drop me a note on what you think of it, since soon it will also be your web blog.

Oh yeah, I have an ipod!! WOOHOO.. at last I can ditch my stupid 3 year old 256mb mp3 player, with a diabolical battery life and also sometimes go out of tune. In replace of this, I have the new second generation ipod nano 8 gig. It is amazing. I mean the sound quality is amazing... I just can’t believe how good it is. But I have some complaints. One is the headphones. There is this little moveable plastic that separate the headphones ear pieces right, and when I first saw it, I thought great, you will be able to wear the earphones around your neck, something like it allows to where like a necklace. Well I tried to wear it like a necklace, but the stupid wire is too short, and usually you would be able to extend the amount of wire you can use, but there is another plastic that gets in the way of this. Any one with an ipod will probably get what I mean... But if they design the earphones to not be wore like a necklace, what the hell is that little plastic thing for? If any body knows, tell me... since I want to know.

Now second thing that is wrong with the ipod is the SLOW response rate when you are in the middle of a song, and you want to change tracks. It is so slow, I mean it takes like 2 seconds for it to change. I don’t know if it is just my ipod or not, but I don’t think it is. I think it is the ipod cache... don’t know. But apart from these little things, the ipod is amazing...

Erm, what else should I talk about, erm... don’t know... I have some more stuff to do with version 3 to make it previewable... So I work on that... but again, do check it out. Anyway, I say goodbye to ya guys!!!

3rd year, here i come

My god, how time flies. Only a week and a bit ago I was working at Detica, and now back to the full flow of uni. And it is October as well. Scary man, where does all the time go? Anyway, uni is starting to get busier. Not that the lectures are intense or anything, it is just that project are coming up and reading other stuff, and just realised just how busy I am going to be over the next few weeks. Not looking forward to it at all. But everyone is in the same boat.

Was watching a TV programme just now (yes, I am always glued to the TV, lol) and it was about this boy aged 4 from India. He was a poor boy and was taken in by this judo guy so that one day he can train to become a judo master, or something like that. Anyway, this boy was always being naughty and the teacher didn't wanted to punish/hit him, since he was still so young. So what he did to try to teach the little boy a lesson was to ask him to run around the track outside his house where they do judo training. So the boy did. But the teacher forgot that he sent the little boy running and after 3 hours he realised that he forgot all about him and went to see on him. To his surprised the little boy was still running, and he asked the fellow student if he had been running all this time, and they confirmed that he did. After that, he began to train this little kid. Now this part is just inhuman. What he did was trained the kid to run at least 20 miles a day in the soaring heat and what is even worse is that the teacher doesn't allow the little boy any water whilst he was running. He said that it will make him weaker if he does take water. I mean come on, he is 4 years old for god sakes, why put him under so much stress. Ok he has talent, and yeah maybe he can do the running. Maybe 20 miles a day is a bit too much, but having no water. That is just sick. LOL... but this show was a good insight on what people in countries like India, where money is so hard to get, and how one will try to earn a bit of money. But yeah just something I like to share with ya!

You know, I would like to have some comments on this, but my site doesn't allow this. LOL... but not for long. Yes, now I am talking about version 3 of my site. And it is erm complete, well it is functioning; just that it doesn't have any layout or any proper navigation. So hopefully I can get it out soon, just depends really. I want to get it out of the way since I have big project that I have to do for uni, and I don't want this cloud over my head, and also I don't want to waste my web space I have bought. Oh yeah... got a new domain.. www.richardtan.co.uk. You can now access this website via this link.