Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Si's LiveJournal:

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Monday, October 9th, 2006
11:15 am	We Won I'm still in a state of shock, we beat France, I was kinda kidding myself on when I said I was confident in gettig a result, but a win against one of the world's best is something else.  Our first half was rough, France should've had a couple and seemed to be strolling, then be got a lot better in teh second half, had good shape, passed well and the Bhoy Caldwell got the unexpected goal.  I ended up with my scotland top covered in drink after the goal then covered again a few hours later when I got caught too close to a fight in the pub and ended up wearing a glass of Morgan's and coke. Embrace is tonight at Carlisle, can't wait. Current Mood: surprised (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 6th, 2006
10:27 am	Scotland play France tomorrow and for the first time in a while I've been confident in getting a result against one of the top teams in the world, granted we may have less energy up front without Kenny Miller but I think we can get something out of this. I've really been getting into Sigur Rós recently, it's great to listen to at work on the MP3 player, very relaxing too. I also found an album by Mono which I liked so much I got a couple of tickets to see them in Glasgow in November, it's a Monday night so I'm not sure where I'll be working the next day, hopefully it'll be up the road, Stacey probably won't be able to go with me (she doesn't like post-rock anyway) so I think I'll see if big Steve wants to go, I think his birthday is around about then so beign the nice guy that I am I'll give him a ticket. We're going to see Embrace in Carlisle on Monday, they get a lot of stick but I love them, we saw them earlier on in the year at the Barrowlands and they were tremendous, easily one of the best gigs I've seen in Glasgow, Danny doesn't have the greatest live voice but is a great frontman who can really create an atmosphere.  The Sands Centre in Carlisle is a small venue so it'll be even better. My old iPod (3G 40Gb, 3 years old) had a meeting with the pavement a few weeks ago and died, really died, so I replaced old dopi with pido, an 80Gb Video iPod, £100 cheaper than my first one but with lots of new features, video being the main one, compilation mode being the other and a huge hard drive to load with obscure stuff that my brother has on his hard drive. The integration with Last.FM via iscrobbler is a great feature too - http://www.last.fm/user/SiMania is my profile. Current Mood: geeky Current Music: Sigur Ros - untitled track (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 21st, 2006
3:20 pm	I need to rant I work as a contractor on a fairly long-term contract, I usually get 3 or 6 month extensions at a time and 20 days a year paid annual leave, this has never been a problem as I'm told to take my holidays within the calendar year, the only restriction being that I need to take 3 of these days over Christmas, which leaves me with 17 days to take whenever I like. My current contract runs until the end of November and recent changes have meant that I need to take all my pro rata entitlement by the end of November, then when my contract gets extended I have to take the holidays I accrue during that contract within the contract period. This is even more frustrating when my boss is off on long-term sick leave so no holidays are being approved. It also means the 3 days I've saved for the Christmas period have to be taken before the end of November and the 3 days over Christmas have to be taken from the next contract period - WHICH MEANS I'LL ONLY HAVE 2 DAYS TO GO FUCKING SNOWBOARDING BEFORE THE END OF FEBRUARY. The only hope is that they can make an exception, there are only 2 people that are contractors on the current contract (the rest all work permanently for the contracting company, I turned their offer down) so they might find some compassion in their cold capitalist hearts to help me out. I need a new job. Current Mood: angry Current Music: Depeche Mode - It's no good (Comment on this)
Saturday, September 2nd, 2006
11:12 pm	Do the quiz dude The Veteran You scored 72%! You've picked up the majority of the classic rock basics. You probably have a classic rock collection and can sing along with most of the songs on your local radio station. This is not the highest score, but it is arguably the best: that subtle combination of impressive knowledge and not being a pretentious geek. My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on notes Link: The BASIC classic rock Test written by allmydays on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 11th, 2006
3:54 pm	Tinges Back to work today, but my 11 days off have been the longest I've had since I started my proper working life nearly 4 years ago, and I feel refreshed and raring to go! Except I don't and I can't really be bothered to do anything - which is good because I've not got much to do anyway. My holidays started off on Wednesday 28th June which was the night of Annan cornet's ball, I washed my neck, got a haircut and squeezed my belly out as far as it would go to fit into my Dad's kilt (I really need to get my own) to look good as I knew Stacey had been getting her hair done, had a nice ball frock and looked very pretty. The night was good, we ate at the Bruce, I drank lots of wine, danced a lot and got home about 6 in the morning and ate super noodles for breakfast. Way better than last year. After lazing about on Thursday we (me, and 14 others) headed off to Tinges in the French Alps for a spot of snowboarding, it was Pauli's stag-do so instead of spending a weekend getting drunk, he decided to spend a long weekend snowboarding and getting drunk. We flew from Newcastle to Geneva then got transferred to the French Alps by some crazy drivers on a 4 hour journey, it was hot. After unpacking we headed to the Alpaka (http://www.alpaka.com/) for a few beers and to watch the football, thanks to big Tony who runs the place for the honey vodkas and for being a great bar man! We didn't stay out too late but a few of us were pretty wrecked come closing time which meant a rough start the next day. The slopes were open from 7 til 1 which meant we were up just after 7 each day for breakfast, we all stayed in the same chalet and woody was our chef, he made nice scrambled eggs (I think that's what they were). I had my first ever shot on the slopes that day with 4 others, James (who rented us the chalet) took us up for lessons and surprisingly I picked it up pretty easy, by the end of the day I was doing red runs but still falling a lot. Everyone's arse was rotten by this point, high altitude = smelly farts. Apres-snow we had lunch, a snooze then went out for the football, what the locals thought of 15 Scotsmen sitting in the prime viewing spot for their big tv I don't exactly know. I think everyone knows the scripts now, England play poorly and get knocked out of the world cup on penalties, Drunken Scotsmen cheer, Ronaldo gets treated like Hitler and Beckham cries again. Sunday was spent hungover, Shaun still didn't know who his roommates were, we were boarding in the morning (injury number 1, I fall and my elbow gets pushed into my ribs, thankfully nothing was broken but it bloody hurt!) We did some walking in the afternoon and at tea-time we had a game of football, France trained here a couple of months ago for the World Cup and I can see why, the air at that altitude kills you when doing cardio, thankfully my rib got sore and I ended up in goals, but picking the ball out of the net so many times is still tiring!) We all went out for a meal at night, the steak was nice but the service was shit. Most of the boys then went back to the chalet for a game of cards and a quiet night in, but the party animals (like me) went back to the pub, there was some guy with a guitar singing and lot's of Edinburgh Uni Students, so we sat in the corner ignoring them getting drunk. Monday on the slopes was the best day, I'd been mastering one of the red runs and was getting good at it until I injured the ribs again (did the same thing as I did the day before) but unfazed I decided to go with Lee to the top of the Glacier (the picture of me with my hands in the air was taken at the top - 3500m above the sea) and board down that - it was fun, about half an hour of non-stop runs, I managed to fall over trying to link in a turn at quite high speed and my left arm is still sore now, after that we decided to call it a day and return our gear to the hire shop, 45 for 3 days (boots, bindings and board) was very reasonable. After getting back to the chalet a few of the boys went out on a bike run, up the gondola then back down the hill, Shaun went up and down twice, and had 2 beers and a spliff in-between (the crazy Canadian) 3 of the others weren't so lucky, whilst Shaun and Boggers made it down ok, the others took a wring turn and headed down Val D'Isere which would have added an extra 20Km onto the journey, but on the way one of the guys had a fall and ended up in une ambulance, a broken collar bone (in 4 places) was the damage. Whilst this was happening, me Dixie and Scott had taken the gondola up the mountains to look over Val D'Isere, it was stunning scenery and Dixie was showing us where the runs are in the winter (only the Glacier where we were boarding had lots of snow on it, further down there was the odd patch) which means I need to go back as it'll be amazing in the winter. At this point a huge thunderstorm broke out in the hills opposite us, the lightning was superb but we figured it would be wise to get off the hill before it came across our way) when we reached the bottom and got back to the lake where we were staying, it had started to piss down, followed by hailstones, we just gave up trying to stay dry and legged it to the chalet where we watched the storm from the patio, it was really cool. During the storm a few of the lads decided to run to the pub, we waited a while longer for Stuart to get back from hospital so we could hear how the French nurses looked. The rain then stopped, we went to the pub, Pauli got very drunk, we sang stone roses songs, got asked to leave one pub, and I celebrated the early hours of my Birthday with cocktails and Tequila slammers. We got back to the chalet and someone had trashed the place, there was sick on a duvet and I went straight to bed. Tuesday was my birthday (26!) so I went for a long walk round Tignes, saw some Valleys and some stunning scenery. Then we packed up and waited for the Airport transfers to come get us, they were an hour late but we managed to make it back the Geneva in time, on the way there we passed a lovely lake, it was massive (miles and miles long), the sun was beating down but we didn't have time to stop for a swim :( we made it to the Airport but there was nowhere to watch the semi-final, Geneva Airport ranks up there with Beuvais in the Si Galbraith list useful airports. Fucking awful and the rudest staff I've met. We got home about 1am Wednesday morning, the do was ace and I got bit by the Snowboarding bug. Current Mood: okay Current Music: Eels (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 20th, 2006
3:59 pm	I'm having so much fun in life I've forgotten to update this.  World Cup - Possibly the best cup so far that I've seen, great games, some great players and the big guns have yet to meet, all this coming from a Scotsman??? My pick is still Brazil, they've been underwhelming so far but look like they can up the pace whenever they feel like it. England haven't lived up to the tremendous hype they've received in the past months but I still suspect they've got a lot left in the tank especially with young Wayne back in action - it'd be a shame if he hadn't made it as the World cup is for the best Football players, and he is one of them. Sticking with the great game, my team have been busy, W G Strachan had a couple of weeks in Germany and signed two players in as many days since he returned, one midfielder and a full back, we just need a left back, maybe a defensive midfielder and a bit of strength up front to replace John Hartson, but I think we'll only get the left back. I've joined a new gym too! My existing one was pretty poor to be fair, in 1 year there I only ever saw an instruction in the gym once and they're not replacing any staff that are leaving so it's just going to get worse.  It's partly funded by the local council but someone made a balls-up with a swimming pool project that went above budget so the gym got its allocation cut.  The new gym is a private one run by an ex-pro Bodybuilder and the difference is night and day, my old gym had one shiny new machine to exercise the chest, the new one has 3 (incline and decline chest press and vertical bench press) and the instructor dude has got me doing dumbell fly's too, it's so much better as he's in or around the gym all the time so is constantly checking my form, encouraging me to lift more and giving me advice nutritionally, all this for less that I paid at my old place! And it's located in the town I work rather than the one I live so I can go there at lunch-time and have my evenings free to do what I like. Big Brother is still a pile of wank though, Current Mood: pleased Current Music: Embrace - Sainted (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 13th, 2006
9:43 am	I haven't updated this in ages, not sure why as there's always stuff to write about, like winning the league, with six games to go, 23 points ahead of Rangers, by beating or nearest rivals, awesome. I couldn't get a ticket for the game so watched it in The Shed with my Dad and a few others, The Shed isn't a wooden hut at the end of my garden but is a pub round the corner from me which shows lots of live football on it's many screens, it's good. Easter holidays start tonight and I really need a few days off to recharge my batteries and sleep lots. Tonight we're off to see Embrace at the Barrowlands, they're one of my favourite bands and I haven't seen them live for years so really looking forward to it. Ideally we'd then be heading off to a posh hotel for a weekend away, but i'm skint and Stacey's technically still a student so she's skint too. Film wise I saw Syria last night, and have to say it confused me, at times it was difficult to understand everything that was going on but it was s really well made film, I'll watch it again when the DVD comes out. I still haven't had any desire whatsoever to see WrestleMania either, Velocity on the other hand...... Current Mood: tired Current Music: Silence (Comment on this)
Monday, February 13th, 2006
11:43 am	21 points 21 points ahead of Rangers with 12 games to go - it doesn't get much better than this. After the dreadful start to the season being this far ahead is way beyond our dreams. I remember after the Leicester and Sporting Lisbon pre-season games when my girlfriend's brother was proclaiming the league over before it started and that the Celtic team were too old, my response was that experience and youth combined would prove successful and that the team at the time needed a while to gel and to get to know each other. 6 months on and I think they've done exactly that, players are playing well with each other rather than playing as individuals, Neil Lennon and Stan Petrov have always done this but it's becoming more prevalent in John Hartson's game too which is making our strikers more forceful. We may not have a great team (although we get told that both the old firm are crap after each meeting), but we're the best in Scotland and that's good enough for me. Current Mood: satisfied (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 12th, 2006
1:33 pm	What an eventful 3 weeks I've had, to sum it up Left old job Had Christmas Started new job Had new year Got beaten by Clyde Left new job Went back to old job (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 21st, 2005
2:17 pm	Nicked from steve Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! In January I pulled clarky_boy's hair (-5 points). In March davepick and I robbed a bank (-50 points). Last Wednesday I bought porn for amancalledmikey (10 points). In May I ate my brussel sprouts (1 points). Last Sunday I gave cdm316 a Dutch Oven (-10 points). Overall, I've been naughty (-54 points). For Christmas I deserve a spanking! Sincerely, simania Write your letter to Santa! Enter your LJ username: (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 15th, 2005
1:41 pm	Keano Opponents in the picture above, but soon to be linking up are the two best players in Scotland - Roy Keane and Stiliyan Petrovm and I for one am delighted.  There's been a lot of talk regarding the guy's age, attitude and health.  The first isn't really a problem as we've seen the likes Of Lubo come in at a late age and still shine, his attitude should be an asset, his drive and enthusiasm matches that of his fellow mid-fielders Petrov and Lennon.  Health wise there's a bit of a doubt as he's been injury prone in the past, however he'll be 100% dedicated to getting fit and pulling on the hoops.   I can't wait  - Hail Hail! Current Mood: ecstatic Current Music: Hail, Hail (Comment on this)
Monday, December 5th, 2005
12:03 pm	Saturday I forgot to mention that I eventually got to the Greek restaurant in Carlisle that I've wanted to go to for years, Stacey was never keen until she read the menu (just recently) and wanted to go. It was quite pricey and didn't quite live up to our expectations, although my 14" Grilled Sea bass was lovely! There was a bit of foil in Stacey's main meal so she got it for free! (Comment on this)
10:21 am	Football: Looking good so far, we came back from last week's shock defeat and pulled out a 3-1 win after going 1-0 down.  Petrov was great again and it was good to get Magic and Naka back, ideally Maloney would be starting but with wee Aiden playing so good it'd be bad to drop him. I see Neil Lennon's been getting abuse again, this time getting a coin thrown at him from an Aberdeen fan, Strachan's comments were priceless though "He's not mentioned it. He was too busy celebrating." Rangers look like they're really going for 10 in a row, this time I'll be hoping they get it though. Movies: Saw Harry Potter last week, it was quite good, I'm really not a fan of these movies so can't get excited like Stacey does but I can appreciate why they're held in such high regard.  I've got so many films on DVD and on data DVD's that I really want to see but never get the time too becuase Stacey refuses to watch anything that is A: Foreign, B: Martial Arts C: anything to do with sports D: Anime or E: Hardcore porn.  Music:  Saw Franz Ferdinand last week, they were pretty good, the new stuff isn't as good as the first album and the SECC is a shit shit shit venue, still we had a good sing-along and went to the awesome Canton Express in Sauchiehall St afterwards for some roast duck and crispy pork, yum yum. Me: I've been on a dairy-free diet for the past 5 weeks adn have severely cut down on my wheat intake - the good news is that my IBS symptoms have pretty much disappeared since then, I've have no diarrhoea (I used to have it every few days) and can go out for a meal and not have to worry about feeling terrible afterwards, I've also lost a few pounds but that's probably due to water retention or something that women go on about.  But the lack of bread and easy to eat snacks is a killer, Christmas will be difficult but I might just end up eating what I want and hoping for the best. Christmas: My 26th Christmas and I'm just not feeling the love just now, Stacey got mega-excited about putting up the tree, I sat watching football and told her it was squint (by about 1 foot), maybe I'm getting old or maybe I'm just a miserable git.   Current Mood: okay (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 14th, 2005
10:03 am	damn Eddie Guerrero is dead, amazing wrestler, amazing mullet and an amazing on-screen personality. Those who know anything about the wrestling business have pretty much drawn their conclusions on the cause of the death, it's a shame as it won't be long before it happens again.....and again.....and again. That's just one of the reasons that wrestling is shit, but it's guys like Guerrero that also make it so great. What a fucked up business. Current Mood: indifferent (Comment on this)
Friday, November 4th, 2005
11:42 am	Bored, lots I'm so bored with my job, I usually do about 20 minutes work a day and spend the rest of my time trying to look busy or looking for other jobs so yesterday I decided to be proactive and made a request to the contract manager of the company I work through for some training. I'd found the course I wanted to do, it was a project management computer based cd-rom, a manual, an exam guide and a voucher for the exam, the contract manager replied with......wait for it...... "Would you like a book?" What a numpty. Current Mood: bored (Comment on this)
Monday, October 31st, 2005
11:06 am	Back on top! At long last we're bakc on top of the SPL, after being 1-0 down after 5 minutes we came back to win 4-2 in a great performance, going on top is great but I was much happier with the way we picked ourselves back up each time Dundee Utd scored. It's a good time to be a tim. I'm back at work today, I miss being on holiday :( Current Mood: accomplished Current Music: Hail, Hail (Comment on this)
Friday, October 21st, 2005
4:28 pm	New toys I've got a new phone!  My other phone had been through the washing machine, the replacement stopped working one day so I was borrowing phones from people until I could upgrade.  It's a swanky XDA with windows mobile smartphone as the OS, it does everything I need it to plus more.  When I get home tonight I'll set it up to synchronise with my plusnet email account so it'll make running wrestling dvd uk a bit easier. Today is ma 'n' pa's 30th wedding anniversary so my brother and his girlfriend Clare (or is it Claire?) are up tonight so we're going round there for some food and lot's of wine, my sister will be there (she still lives with them, pity her) and Stacey's coming too, should be lots of fun as I really enjoy our family get-togethers. Finished season 2 of arrested development, the last few episodes were brilliant, David Cross is very talented and the Britisms of his other character had me in stitches, I'm now only 2 episodes behind the yanks which means the nightly "let's watch some arrested development" thing will be replaced with some girly shit. Current Mood: happy Current Music: Bloc Party - Helicopter (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 20th, 2005
1:32 pm	Alton Towers was awesome, I hadn't been in about 10 years at least and had forgotten how cool it was, myself, Chris and his two mates Stuart and Bob (brothers, Rangers fans) made the trip down south leaving at 6am, we got caught up in traffic about 8 and moved about 4 miles in an hour! That's why I like living where I live, no huge traffic queues on the way to work! We arrived about half 10 and eventually made our way to the park and had our first meal of the day, it was a McDonalds, the first one I'd eaten in nearly a year, their food still sucks. Throughout the day we went on the big rides - Nemesis, Air, Oblivion (awesome ride, the vertical drop is great) and some of the smaller ones. I beat Chris at Rock Climbing too but that's probably cos he was too small to reach the grips). The best was saved til last when we went on the log flume type ride, I headed the way towards the ride with Chris behind me and Bob and Stu tailing at the back, this pre-meditated plan worked as Chris got in the back seat, me in the second back, Bob in second leaving Stu at the front, he got soaked...three times, but he's a Rangers fan so he deserved it. More junk food and a 4 hour drive and I was back home in my bed ready for another early morning working in Glasgow. Rangers failed to beat Bratislava at home last night, as a neutral fan I can't see why Rangers didn't have this one tied up in the first half, now they have to beat them away from home, which won't be easy going by the way we played against them away. I've nearly finished the second season of Arrested Development, this is one of the best comedies I've seen, the humour is dry and it's a refreshing break from "catchphrase comedy" which although I like, tends to get a bit too much for me at times. I'll be needing a new comedy or drama to follow soon so any suggestions are welcome. Current Mood: calm Current Music: Arctic Monkeys (Comment on this)
Sunday, October 16th, 2005
10:14 am	Crap, Celtic didn't beat Hearts and go top of the league, we got a draw which wasn't too bad but we had so many chances in the second half that weren't put away. I'm off to Alton Towers tomorrow as it's a local holiday, I haven't been there for about 10 years so it should be a good laugh. (Comment on this)
Friday, August 12th, 2005
7:18 pm	Me, interviewed by Steve 1. Have you ever cheated on a girlfriend? Yes, not a nice thing to do I know but I was a bad boy. 2. Most money you've ever spent on one single item? £5000 on a car, or £48,000 on a house. 3. 1989 - WWF or WCW? Why? WCW - The tag division was awesome, Muta was on fire, Flair and Windham were great too and Sting was coming through, brilliant stuff. 4. When was the last time you cried and what about? 5 years ago at my Grandpa's funeral 5. 2006 SPL Champions - Celtic, Ranger or another? Celtic :) The Rules 1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview Me." 2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions. 3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions. 4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post. 5. When others asking to be interviewed comment, you will ask them 5 questions. (4 Comments |Comment on this)