A Long Return……A Hobby Of Mine

After ages I have come back to blogging, a lot has happened and a lot of things have changed but I think now is the time to return, and I’ll start with a hobby of mine, recently restarted after a long pause. 

 

Now back in the 90’s I was fascinated by a TV show that had action and to some excitement, its was Haim Saban's Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers!

 

Now looking back I can see this show was clichéd, you had the main bad guy (or girl as it was a witch) the helpless super being who needed someone or something to stop her from taking over the world, and of course five teenagers who would gain special abilities and powers capable of stopping her and her villainous schemes. 

However, what impressed me at the time was the fact that the toys were based on another concepts from the 80’s, Robots that combined and became a mega-robot, or as this show called them `Zords`….Surely an idea copied from transformers or any of the cartoons showed in the 80’s?

Anyway, when they released the figures I used to pester my aunt to let me buy them, not for collectors value, simply because they were toys! the one things she would refuse to allow me to get were the huge zord figures, simply because they cost (and still do) £30 or £40 for a set. 

well, fast forward a few years…..

I’m traipsing around the car boot sites when I came across the figures for the (then) latest series of power rangers……the mystic force series (imagine harry potter power rangers and you might get some idea)

i bought them for two reasons: 1) I like sorcery fantasy and science fiction stuff like that 2)I had a hankering for nostalgia and decided then and there to start collecting the different sets of power ranger zords as easily as I could. 

Since then I have built up quite a collection, also when buying them because many of them were separated and in pieces I found it easier to ask for the whole box of things they were in and ended up with a collection of figures, bikes etc..

take a look at this pictures, very few of the sets are complete, but there are some that i have had trouble finding and some I’ve gone and bought from Ebay practically brand new to finagle missing parts etc.

This is from the first 3 season of the series, we have three movie figures, Goldar (bad guy) Ninja Megazord, Original ultrazord (megazord, dragonzord & titanos) four ninja Rangers, Ninjor and the green ranger that went with the dragonzord

This are the zords from Power rangers: Wild Force One of the series owned (i believe) by Disney, in this there were new bad guys and new zords based on wild animals featured here are wild force megazord, Kongazord (exotic animals jungle mostly) and what i think of as an amalgam of zords from the series, as many of the parts were interchangeable, giving kids endless hours of fun!

This is from  Power Rangers: Ninja Storm, this one went back to a theme of ninjas as power rangers, originally there were only three rangers in this series but as it developed, they added three more to the hero roster giving the usual compliment of 6 rangers

show here are: ninja megazord (not be confused with the ninja megazord from third season), tsunami cycles and the lightning megazord

These are from  Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, This series had a distinction of showing the 500th episode and as such contained a video diary detailing all that had gone on before, it also included one of the original power rangers, now a high school teacher and anthropologist returning as the new black ranger and training his team. 

show is yellow,red,white rangers the thundersaurus megazord with dimetrozord attachement, two black rangers and the red ranger again

Now imagine if the power rangers became police officers? thats the premise behind S.P.D a future team of power rangers who act as the local law enforcement officers to the galaxy, one of my smaller collections as now we are getting closer to the current era of the show

these are my first collection and are the ones I described above as harry potter meets the power rangers, basically these rangers are wizards, spellcasters and warriors, they also share a link to the original rangers as the villianess in the original series is now one of the heroes (heroines?) of the new series!

These are my favourite set and as such I have them as pride of place on my display

This final set is from a series that used the basics of certain zen beliefs as the founding of its story, that all martial arts have some basisi in the animal world and that within a martial arts student there is an animal spirit, these rangers had to battle a demon who believed that animals should rule the planet and all mankind was to be exterminated, as such their zords are in fact their animal spirits, wolf, lion, bat, shark, tiger, jaguar, cheetah, chameleon and elephant

Now I’ve bored you to tears with my hobby I hope to continue boring you or entertaining you with more blogs as time allows…

Keep smiling!

The Deep

Today Gary and myself went across the Humber bridge to Hull, we decided that we wanted to go visit `The Deep` Something that could only be described as a extremely large aquarium, that explores the oceans of our world. 

While we were there we had a look at how our planet has evolved over the few million years, and of course we saw thousands of different fish and animals, including mantas, sharks and anemones

 

 

 

Part of this was a birthday treat for me, although i hope to show photos of my holiday very soon

New Home.....Part 2

Four months ago, I was placed into council property, this was because my previous landlord was selling the property and as such a new home was no 1 priority.

I moved on the 3rd of march, this in itself was complicated as i had booked a week off and was spending the weekend down in Devon with my partner, when we returned the chaos of moving hit me yet again!

this time though we didn't have to redecorate and i managed to get all my stuff with little to no difficulty, I say little to none although the helpful parties might disagree!

I am now the proud tenant in a ground floor council flat, 5 minutes away from work and 30 seconds away from the nearest bus stop, this means travel into the city is relatively easy, its not the quietest neighbourhood but you take what you get offered!

Unfortunately the happiness was short-lived, within two months I was broken into and my Sony playstation 3 and all the games and dvds were stolen! to add insult to injury I was not insured at the time though that was the next priority!

I will commend the police for their swift action unfortunately there was an assault which escalated into a murder in the city and the officer who was dealing with my burglary was called away.

I will not go into the feelings of hurt at the invasion of privacy much less the wanton theft of my property but it has taught me a bitter lesson which now has ensured that I am insured, and that policy has now been put to the test.

My replacement playstation was faulty and was replaced and delivered recently, which has restored the hole (ok trifle over dramatic but I'm sure someone will understand)

The flat is divided into three sections: Bathroom, Bedroom and Living room/kitchen I have an electric oven in which I am learning to cook albeit tentatively, and Gary my partner is acting as my guinea pig!

After recent events I have been rearranging furniture slightly to ensure nosy little wanna be thieves don't get any ideas!

Still I am Enjoying being up here although I do miss people down south!

family

I've been sat here thinking about families latley, maybe because its that time of year and most people will be seeing theirs.

Unfortunatley i wont be one of them...most of my family has died and the rest dont get along.
I think that for me family are not just people who are related to you somehow, i think family is/are those people who shape and form our lives by being part of it, many of the people i have met in the last 7 or 8 years since my parents past away have helped guide me and nudge me when ive needed or required it, and it is these people i consider my family.

as i write this its about 11:30 at night and i've been hyome for a couple of hours from work and im deciding what to do with my time and i find that some of the people i want to talk to arent around and yet i find i cant just ring them a) becuase of the latness of the hour & b) i dont know what to say; it never occurs to me that i should be the one to start a conversation or to do something....

Recently ive had some people in my life declare that i `have and attitude` now i understand that many people seem to think that this means im bossy, opionated and rude...yes i suppose i could be all these things but i also like to think that in fact i have as much right to express my feelings and thoughts as much as anyone...i aklois have the right noit to take abuse from people!

I often think that taking crap from people is a form of surrender, i dont always agree that its the best thing to do, ill be damned if im going to keep quiet just so i can be steam-rollered into something, nor am i going to let myself fade away when i have an opinion of something!

before anyone reading this jumps to the conclusion that i am unhappy, let me clear this up...i am happy where i am. i just would enjoy some of my friends spending a little time with me rather than just deciding im out of sight...out of mind!

long time no notice!!

Hi, sorry to anyone wondering what ive been upto, and the fact that i havent posted for ages....

Simple fact was i had totally forgotten to do any and i also lost my blogger password (obviously found it again).

Well looks like summer hasnt exactly been a lovely one this year! well, it hasnt exactly been a good one from my perspective; what with the cases on swine flu now sweeping across the country and even my mate Tony coming down with it

So what have I been up to?

Well ive been visitng the local nature reserve, Whisby is a wildlife park where people go locally; it has hides for birdwatching and loads of walks for people to...well walk!

I've also been working hard at my job, this sadly isnt much of a progression from what i was doing down in Devon but it is a faster career improvement, here i can get training easier without feeling like im not up to the task; (apologies to anyone who reads this and thinks im being mean to my former bosses)

Anyway, ive also been indulging my passion for carboot sales, now when i lived down in Devon it was difficult to attend these because i worked on days when they occurred, it was only by arranging time off that i was able to go and buy stuff.

Here its been easier; for one my shifts are unfixed; this means that i have different days off each week and the rotas are arranged very much ahead of schedule (pardon the pun) therefore some weeks i have Saturdays and some weeks i have Sundays off and sometimes i have other days off.

Now i love going to car boot sales, they tend to be the best place to pick up bargains; best bargain i got was the stereo i picked up at a local auction for the cats protection league here in Lincoln...i got it for £1, yes! £1! and it works wonderfully

Anyway I'm due to Go on holiday soon with my partner and his friend mike, we're trotting off to sleepy old teignmouth for a week to celebrate my birthday...hopefully ill have some pictures for everyone to see!

New Computer Time

Well after much nagging from my one and only fan (they know who they are) I've managed to put my ass back onto the computer chair and found something to chat about.

On Tuesday My partner gary and myself needed to do some shopping...I had just been paid and wanted to look for a new game or something in which to enjoy.
Anyways I found a game for about £20 and was about to go and pay for it when my eye caught something that I thought at first was too good to believe...namely a new pc!

Now recently my poor 6 yr old pc was having a hard time of things...it couldnt keep up with its owner's relentless demands on its poor processor and failing hard drive, therefore I had decided to replace it but had resigned myself to the fact it wouldn't happen for some time yet as desktop pc's were still expensive and therefore I would have to save up.

Anyway I had noticed this PC....a Medion dual core pentium processor (to the non techno out there thats a very whizzy brain) PC with vista home premium and a 250GB hard drive plus a DVD-RW drive capable of burning to nearly every type of disc out there...excepting blu-ray.

Now how much did you think this PC cost? £250? £300? or even £400?

Nope I bought it for.....£194 (originally £199 reduced by the new VAT rate)!!!!!

So after lugging the machine back to my comfy bed-sit/flat I had the interesting task of copying everything of value and interest to DVD+RW and then disconnecting, installing and transferring everything to the new PC....not an easy task and one that certainly caused friction between gary and myself!!!!

So now I'm the proud owner of an updated PC...and the old one? last seen at gary's place about to be erased and reformatted ready for his use. :-)

Hopefully I'm also going to be going out and about in a few weeks time so I will have more Photos to add.

New Home, New Life and New Friends

Ok first post of 2009!
First off I apologise for anyone who has been trying to find out what i have been up to recently; i have only just unpacked the pc from the pile of boxes that used to clutter my boyfriend's hallway

From that i hope you will gather that I now have my own space to call my own: before the questions start to fly i will point out that my poor other half has a very poky flat and there simply wasnt enough room for all of our stuff combined....it does not mean im going to break up with him but i have wanted some room for myself should disagreements become inevitable!

I have moved into a lovely bed-sit near the city centre of lincoln....unlike most bedsits this one consists of two rooms one that has been converted into my living room/study and the other which is my bedroom.

The last three/four weeks have been taken up with decorating and furnishing the living room; when i moved in the walls were a pale green and looked seriously unpleasent (well to me anyway) we repainted it a lovely sky blue and painted the skirting boards chocolate brown

There is a bed setee in the living room...perfect for guests and friends should they decide to pay a call (hint hint).

secondly with christmas out of the way ive managed to break the ice with my work colleagues, they're very nice although i would be lying if i said they are better than my old mates and i have forgotten about my teignmouth pals...far from it!

Anyways as soon as im all sorted ill add more posts...until then!!!

almost a year gone!

First i apologise for not blogging for almost a year, but so many things have happened and i havent been able to get myself time to write.

First off this will be a sort of round robin (sic) of the year to date but some things may be out of order so i apologise.

Well at the beginning of the year i attended a civil ceremony reception for two of my friends ho got spliced on valentines day no less :-) i hope they're happy and still going strong, last i heard they had been forced to retire from the jobs they loved and were looking at working as a private courier service, i cannot be sure if this is accurate but if so i wish them many successes.

the next climatic thing was my plans to move (gasp) from teignmouth after living here for over 17 years (8 of which i spent in the local co-op supermarket) i left in july with many tears from my mates and friends but more of that anon

before that i celebrated one of my mates 21st birthday, well i say i celebrated but i had 2 drinks then escorted a young lady back to her bed, (alone, before the suggestions start running)

then in july i bid a tearful farewell to my home, i decided to move upwards to be with my partner, who must for his own wishes remain anonymous, however we are both happy and are enjoying our time together. i miss my mates obviously and i stay in touch whenever possible.

after a hiatus of roughly 8 weeks i got a job working in a shell garage on a major roundabout...40 hours a week! good i suppose except that the hours were long, busy and on occasion solitary!, my partner was worried for my safety and therefore when the lincolnshire co-op offered me a job i cant say i agonised over the decision to leave.

i'm now working as a sales assistant for the co-op and i'm ion training for my keyholder/supervisor stauts which is quite a privilege :-D

well that's about it for now, i might have missed some details but i will add more when my mind is capable.

Christmas Joy!!!

What a week it's been for thos of us who work in the retail industry; My heart goes out to the people in stores like Argos, GAME, Gamestation, Debenhams, Virgin etc. you must be shattered with dealing with the christmas rush like thos of us who work at the local supermarkets!
Yes as you can see here we are working hard as usual (!) NAH! I'm joking as usual with this time of year it's the time for festive cheer and as usual our bosses didn't not disappoint!

As you can see we all had a lovely time!, although some of us had too much of a good time (and they know who they are!)

Electronic Mayhem

Well, in a rare occassion I'm blogging again in the same month!

Now, those of you who know me and read this will know im an avid (some might say obsessed) console gamer, others who dont will no doubt be wondering "what's a console gamer?"

Well to those who have only just arrived into the 21st century, allow me to give you a very brief(ish) history of gaming from a fan's perspective.

I was born in the 1980's during which time the only computers available were from either BBC or a company know as Acorn computers (nothing to do with a certain Ms.Wood and Ms.Walters) the rest were know simply as `mickey` mouse computers that plugged into your tv via the areial box and used either cassettes or big floppy disks that were square and (unlike todays obsolete models) floppy, these used a language called BASIC and a slighlty more advanced language called ASCII.

then a japanese company arrived called nintendo, they originally developed games for another minor games firm called Atari, the most famous model from Atrai was a console called the 2600 and was one of my first console machines, it played pac-man and donkey kong, two characters that now remain in our hearts and (to some) our memories.

Now, A rival company sprang up called Sega; they developed a machine which like nintendo used a cartridge based system, theyre also famous for giving us a rather unsual sight back then....a blue hedgehog that ran on two legs and wore a ridiculous pair of red sneakers (trainers to those unfamiliar to americano) called Sonic, rival to nintendo's main star....A plumber with a penchant for rescuing princesses from monkeys and overgrown dinosaurs going by the name of Mario.

As the years rolled by the two companies battled it out for control of the teenage market by introducing new and more advanced systems, as this progressed other companies rose to try to unseat these two powerhouses from their thrones as the top console producers but only one managed to cause a furore.....Sony

Yes! Sony, the company that first introduced the CD to our world now decided to try and enter into the fray after an unsuccessful attempt with nintendo to develop a CD based console nown then as the PSX.......

They developed a major selling product that caused consternation to Sega and Nintendo, namely the Playstation.

This little machine is still selling despite the fact that its two younger brothers have pretty much taken over the mantle of financing Sony Computer Entertainment, although that being said its selling relativley cheap (£20 will buy you a brand new one).

Sony decided to try and bring more to the forefold by introducing a variety of characters to its world and allowing the market to bring in the adults with a range of more......`grown up` titles to the world and so sega and nintendo retailiated by designing abd releasing their own CD based machines, although nintendo did not release their version till much later.

Sadly Sega was forced to give up its console development after a while as sony and nintendo were out-selling them in temrs of the hardware, and reluctantly they became sofware developers and publishers toi the other concoles, including a new rival to challenge the rest.

while the main war had been between Sony,Sega and Nintendo and fourth rival had been biding its time and now struck into the struggle for dominance......Microsoft released its first games console....namely the Xbox.

The xbox was released roughly about the same time as the successor to the original Playstation...the unoriginally named Playstation 2 and Nintendo's first widely known CD machine....the Gamecube and boasted a unrivalled amount of detail and performance by utilizing actually PC technology as part of its circuitry.

Only one thing hindered the Xbox; its size, for while the xbox was powerful it was also the size of an old VCR and weighed something similar too!

now the battle continues with the Playstation 3, the interestingly named Nintendo wii and the sequel to the xbox....the Xbox 360!

who will win? it's upto the buyers!

The Christmas Countdown!

Well! The dreaded christmas is creeping up on us and with it is coming the annual round of madness that comes with it; namely, the mad rush around the shops, the terrible christmas songs both past and present and the demands for toys, gifts and presents from all and sundry!

From reading that you'd think i hated christmas........Not so!
I do love chirstmas its just getting harder to think of it as anything but an excuse fopr kids to demand all sorts of things that they'll play with for approximatley 2 hours (if youre lucky) and then declare "I'm bored!"

Although i'm not exactly know for religion or my beliefs I would like to think that we should try to remember what christmas is actually about......You'de be surprised to realise most small children these days think only of it as a chance to get great pressies! Plus with all the political nonsense around, most people are afraid to remember the correct meaning of christmas for fear of offending muslims, jews, buddhists and all the other major and minor religions out there.

May I point out that these faiths share their own versions of celebrations for the coming season, in fact if my memory serves me correctly, the muslims religion has just completed or is celebrating divali (apologies if the spelling is incorrect; i dont not mean to offend anyone but my memory on these things is a little rusty) which I believe translates as `festival of lights` and around the same time of year as christmas the jewish community celebrates hanukkah, they have no problem with celebrating these and not offending christians, agnostics and goodness knows who else! so top the PC brigade I say.......Put up or shut up!

Ok tirade over, next thing on the agenda.

So christmas is coming, which means absoulte chaos to anyone thinking of venturing out there to shop for their loved ones......my advice: Plan about three weeks in advance and have everything written down in a special christmas diary or notebook, that way when the event gets closer you can do it all in one fell swoop and save agonising over whether aunt Ethel would really like that mauve jumper or if cousin Mark wants the nintendo Wii or the remote controlled interstellar death blaster that you saw in toys r us.

Of course this would be hypocritical of me if i didnt admit ive had christmas in my head since the end of October and given thought to what i would like; problem is theres loads id like but like most people i have to try and stick to a budget! so right this point id like the new harry potter film (Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix) so santa if youre reading this from lapland or wherever you happen to be, please note ive been a REALLY good boy this year!

After The Party's Over

Hey everyone! sorry I haven't been posting but a couple of things have been keeping me busy.


First off, when I came back from my holiday, I had a major problem which prevented me from posting.......My dear computer crashed beyond retrieval so i had to fork out £40 for a new hard drive (not the nicest thing to do when youve come back from a relaxing holiday)


Anyway, its now working fine and im back to blogging.

This gentleman next to me is my mate in Lincoln, Gary. Here we are about to order dinner from a very nice pub restaurant with two other friends, in a rare occassion i was able to match appetites with him (but only just!)

Yes, I went back to Lincoln, Don't know quite what it is about the place but something about it makes me keep going back over and over again.


Secondly, a few weeks after coming back I ended up partying again!


Yes I Know I'm putting a little weight on, but frankly, given what I was like when I was younger (thin as a beanpole and hardly ate anything!) I dont really mind!

No! im not pissed in the bottom left photo I always close my eyes before a picture because i end up with red-eye!

In fact I was a very good lad and left them to it at 11:30pm as I had work the next day! The poor guy in the top right however had work, he looked like death warmed up and probably felt worse!

A Birthday To Remember

Well time for some scary news........In less than two weeks time I'll be 25!

Yup 25! I must confess I can't quite believe it myself, to have reached the first quarter of the hope-to-reach century!

Given my family history, I haven't really thought much about growing old, the mere fact scares the living daylights out of me! I prefer to focus on the here and now, I'll worry about the future when I have to!!!!

Still, 25! a nice easy to remember number and in fact I'm stretching this one as far as I can, although my birthday isn't until the Saturday, I'm starting it from payday, the 13th September and working it till the 23rd! in fact it works like this:

Payday: Thursday 13th September
Day off: Friday 14th September
Birthday: Saturday 15th September
Party!: Sunday 16th September
Holiday: Monday 17th September

Cool eh? looking forward to it!

Summer Holidays Abound!!!!

Well it's been a while but I'm back!

One of the things about working so hard (ok, stop hissing back there I know some people work harder) is that you can appreciated the free time you get and in my case i decided to get away from it all.....

.....To Lincoln! Yeah yeah! classy I know but hey! decent enough weather and a limited budget requires I stick to this country and enjoy its sights and sounds

Anyway, I hit trouble almost immediately, due to the lovely weather that Britain has been enjoying, my train was cancelled and nearly `De-railed` the entire holiday! however my mates up in Lincoln refused to let things end there, they travelled the odd 260 miles and came and picked me up! (however this did entail a £60 petrol charge to yours truly but hey! part of the fun is the surprises isn't it?)

Well, Lincoln is certainly a different place to teignmouth, many of the buildings in the city center are medieval in appearance but they blend in with many of the more modern features around the city. What struck me was the fact that the railway is an integral part of the city, throughout the city there are level crossings that require patience and skill to cross

Of course the most wonderful part of the city is the great cathedral, high on a hill (which is a murder to climb)

This is the entrance arch to the cathedral, as you can see it makes for a beautiful site, and the following pictures show even more of the outside:

Film buffs will recognise some of the interior shots from the Tom Hanks film The Da Vinci Code In fact a few of the props are still there and unless you were really looking, you'd swear they were real headstones (in fact they were plywood, polystyrene and fibreglass)

The main entrance to the cathedral proper is a cavernous hall and filled with beautiful stained glass windows which when the sun hits them leave wondrous patterns of colour!

I enjoyed my week in lincoln, though i will point out that you cant really fit everything into a week, so perhaps id better make a second visit!