31st August
Lots of riding at the weekend. I am working on some updates. It's 8 in the morning and I am at work.

This is work pictures below again: Getting juiced up at lunchtime with the Asda 3 for £2. Go for grape, apple and raspberry for the flavour, orange with juicy bits for the texture and cranberry for the heath boost, plus it's a good for mixining. There are 7 combinations and I have tried them all.

Ok, in the middle we have another picture of Shrimmo, now with his new haircut. Shrimmo got fired on Friday so it's goodbye to him. On the right of that is the boss, sneakily photographed though the filing on my desk.

Recently I bought two Jeff Buckley albums: Mystery White Boy and Live At L'Olymia. I haven't listened to them enough to review them yet so I thought I could review his first album Grace.

Then I thought about it some more and realised that I don't really like CD reviews. Whate people usually do is a track by track analysis comparing it to other bands and then when you get the CD it sounds nothing like you expected from the review, so I am not going to try that.

Then I thought about writing something about Jeff Buckley's short life and untimely death, which is quite interesting, but has been done before a lot of times. Instead I wrote what is below, which is original at least, if a little opinionated.

I think one of the problems is that music is such a personal thing and it sounds different to everyone. Rebekah really likes Jeff Buckley, maybe more that me. I think music affects people in different ways and that is why people like different music, but that is more to do with the people than the music.

Most people try and define what kind of music they like by the sound of the music. This is also called the genre. Some people like dance music, some people like punk, some people like metal etc. It seems that what people like about these genre's is the way that the music sounds.

I do agree that the way the music sounds is important but I think there is more to it than that. Content is incredibly important. For example, the song, Feeling Good has been covered a lot of times and in a lot of different ways, from a slow jazz version by Nina Simone to a rock metal version by Muse. I think this demonstrates that it is the song itself which is good or bad, not the style in which it is done. When I listen to new music I try to hear the good bits in it, whatever style it is in.

That's not to say that I enjoy listening to all music, far from it. In fact I think when you start to listen to the quality of the music, and how it is affecting you, you realise how much rubbish music there is, of all genres.

However, sometimes you find something truely good, like Jeff Buckley. I remember getting back froma day's riding one day and Rebekah was sitting inside reading a book by the fire with Jeff Buckley on. I came in and just sat and stared at the fire and listened until the CD stopped. There's not many CD's I can listen to without doing anything else, but this is one of them. If you are open to new things then listen to Jeff Buckley. He has written some of the most beautiful music that I have ever heard.

27th August
Tim has is operation yesterday so I guess he is on the long road to healing. He escaped a bone graft from his hip too so that's good i guess. Oh yeh, he broke it skim boarding which in effect means that he landed on it when he fell over, which has to be one of the most annoying ways to break your arm.

If you are one of those people who reads boring stuff on the internet and then moans how boring it was, here is a quick tip for you, move your cursor to the top right of your screen and click the little cross. byebye. To the rest of you, enjoy.

It's Friday and both of my bosses are on holiday. This is what goes on when the bosses are away and it's Friday. That's me there on the left with some kinf of rubiks cube in my hand, and on the right a flying pig picture which is now up on the wall. I didn't color it in but I did cut it out so that's a good use of work time.

Left: Aisha doing some colouring in. Right: Steve doing some cutting out. Teamwork.

Left: That's Mark, Aka Shrimmo. He wanted me to mention that the reason he has playbus on his desktop was because we work on buses. He has had his hair cut now too. It's his last day today.
Right: Steve looking a bit red around the eyes - no reason.

Left: Angus pretending to work. Angus has left now which is a great shame becasue all the ladys love him, including my Mum. I think she will be suprised how old he is though.
Right: This is evil bear. I coloured his head in so that he looks like hitler. Other interesting things to note on my desk: The Street album I lent to Steve,  Pauls box of dodgy disks, Angus' Zyban stress ball, some money, scissors, a glass, tippex, 2 puzzles, oh and a little bit of work.

Left: Aisha, Right: Paul.

See, isn't going to work interesting. It's still raining. I am really sorry you had to read this.

26th August
Pictureless update. So last night after my boring html training with a big guy called geoge I went to Tenterden to do some digging. No-one was at the trails so I dug on my own for a bit and then on my way back to the car I saw Tom and Nigel and Paul so we rode street for a bit and Dean turned up. We went to Tesco and got some beer and rode some more and Paul told us some sick stories.

Then when I got home I got a phone call saying that Tim has broken his arm again. The same one. That is really bad - breaking it twice in a year. So he is being operated on right now I think. Bad news.

Tim on a driving lesson. I am a great driving instructor. Just sit back and watch the action. He's in sunny Devon enjoying the nice weather with Seb and co. Yuk, these pictures have gone blocky. I am in html training at the moment. The teacher is like Keith from The Office. Boyakasha.

This weekend I watched two films. Work is really boring, so time for a review:

Saturday Night: Rushmore
If you have seen Donnie Darko it will be much easier to understand what I mean when I say that this is strange. Both films are set in an American High School setting, which is so over used in American films these days, but both deal with it very differently.

Whilst Donnie Darko takes the horror/mystery line, Rushmore goes down more of a black humor route. Although the film is seldom funny enough to actually make you laugh, is it nevertheless entertaining enough to keep you watching. There are a few dull lovey moments where you look down at your watch, but generally there is enough going on.

Someone at work made me a birthday compliation CD, but most of the tracks are off this film. I couldn't tell that until I saw the film which is a testament to the quality of the soundtrack.

It's pretty wierd though, just a film about this weird kid who loves his school.

Sunday Night: Pulp Fiction

If you've not seen it before Pulp Fiction is one of those must see films. It's like a few sketches out of Quentin Tarantino's notepad but all of them are linked and work really well together.

The film is not seen in chronological order. It's as if the director has decided which scene fits in each place in the movie best, and put them together like that, regardless of time.

There are so many bit of this film that I really like and I think that's one of the things that is so good about it. Tarantino has taken 3 stories which would all have made good films, stripped out he boring bits and stuck them together into one amazing film.

Ideas of things to do this weekend:

Dig at Tenterden
Go to Yaks and Kiddy
Go to Chad's if he will let us and maybe Sidley woods.
Go somewhere where the trails might actually be dry maybe burgh heath
or ride some park somwhere.

23rd August
Ok, I'm going to try and not moan about this summer.

Usually when cameras take pictures of stuff moving it goes blurry, but it seems my new camera scans across the image so if something is moving it get stretched and you get odd photos like these:


We went to pick up my Mum from her holida but she was late so we amused ourselves as below. No that's not anyone we know in the Limo, we were just waving to everyone. The Limo driver missed the exit and reversed back about 20m when he could have just gone round the roundabout.

This is interesting.

I don't have anything else to say that isn't moaning about rain and things so I'll shut up now.

20th August
I hate it when this happens.

17th August
Tim went to ashford yesterday and met some people that come on this site. If you look at the site and I don't know you then leave a message in the book. I have no clue who 90% of my hits are from. I left Tim the camera today so maybe he'll take some pictures.

It's meant to rain again today, but I think Kent is meant to escape most of it, so hopefully the trails will dry out a bit.

11th August 2004.
That's Tim on my bike, X-up. I am very tired. Go and update http://www.unknowntrailsrider.tk/ with some rubbish off google.

10th August 2004.

This is officially the first time that the word "Shrimmo" has been used on the internet. His name is Mark Shrimpton but we all call him Shrimmo. It's someone at my work. He has the picture below on his desktop:

Tim works at the same place as me now which is a bit weird.

I just went onto kazaa lite, searched for Elliott Smith, and downloaded every result. I strongly suggest you do the same.

It's raining so why aren't you digging?

7th August 2004.

Welcome to Scruffian.com. This site isn't just about bike riding. In which case you guess it's a lifestyle thing. Wrong again. Its even more pretentious. It's about art. Well that's what I think. I know how bad that sounds and I hate the word art, but that is the only label that seems to fit. Riding is art, photography is art, websites are art, music is art. I nearly called in Artyfag.com.

Anyway that's the deal so live with it. Updates everyday (fingers crossed), bad ones in news, good ones in media. Do your stuff in the book and links are the same.

My two favorite films are on TV so which one do I watch?

Oh yes, I have a new job which starts in about a month. It's in maidstone so this winter I will be a maidstone local.

Not all of the old media is working yet. I am on the case...