And we’re back.

It’s time to restart the engines, reboot the mainframe, relaunch…. the product? Whatever. I’m back, and that’s the most important thing.

Time to sweep the yard a little, a lot has changed since I was last online in the blogosphere (that’s what they call it, right?) – the sad passing of MyGamerCard means my Xbox Gamercard has gone for a burton. I’m going to have to rummage around the web and see if I can find a new one, although I have a feeling whatever I come up with will look like  a turd on a tugboat, MyGamerCard really had it down.

In other news, the goatee has returned. It has also gone again, so that works out rather well when it comes to updating my photograph. But things may change once again in the near future, and of course, I’ll keep you all apprised to the important topic of my facial hair.

Speaking of blogs, I’ve spent a lot of my time away (apart from the usual sleeping, eating, drinking, and smoking things) working on another blog. TWO BLOGS, I hear you cry, how on earth are you going to manage that? Well, I don’t know yet, but we’ll just have to see how it pans out. But this new blog is for matters of a serious nature.

SERIOUS NATURE, I hear you cry, how on earth are you going to manage that? Well, I admit it sounds farfetched, but it’s true. You can check out The Hosting Folk’s Web Hosting Blog over here. You can read all my fasinating tips into webmastery, SEO, hosting, domains, industry news, and other exciting offers and deals.

Anyway, time to update WordPress, update the menus a lil’, and…. WRITE AWESOME BLOGS!

Sunday Musing

Before you ask, I didn’t steal that title off Inside Xbox, it’s a completely different day for a start.

Anyway, I’m wondering weather to bother with a blog site page anymore. I had a fan once who used to read it but, I have the feeling she probably isn’t bothering anymore. Frankly I don’t blame her.  Apart from the distinct lack of content, there’s also, ultimately, the inescapable fact that I am a complete penis head. That and she actually has far better things to do with her time than look up little old me I imagine.

So, assuming I do bother to stop bothering, where does that leave my presence on the world wide web? Well, I’ve got a couple of exciting web projects on the go at the moment, and recently I’ve been putting all my free time into those.

The Hosting Folks, my web hosting company, has recently gone through a major overhaul. Year on year our product offering, website, systems and customer base has been increasing, and this recent update gets us ready to launch into something (I hope) much bigger. As well as a major site overhaul, bringing what I believe is my best web design to date together with a much improved ordering system and control panel – we’re also now launching a new advertising campaign on various internet sites and – for the first time – Facebook.

I was skeptical of using Facebook ads for a long time – I wasn’t sure that there was enough of a target audience, however since launching the campaign a week ago, the result has been phenomenal, with a 20% increase in sales traffic generated via the social networking site. This is quite exciting and hopefully with substantiate in some growth to the company.

We’re also running some exciting offers at the moment, for example, you can order a .co domain name for just £6.99 during February – which is a pretty amazing price considering everyone else is selling around £30 right now. In my opinion, .co is the future for the internet, as .com domains become more and more sparse – they’re shorter, just as meaningful, and now, cheaper. Just use the discount code CHEAPCO.

We’re also doing 20% off all web hosting products – which you can now pay for on a yearly basis for a further discount – meaning huge savings. You can get professional, unlimited bandwidth hosting for around £17 a year that way, that’s just £1.40 a month. Check it out at http://www.thehostingfolks.com/

The other exciting project of course is FileSheep – a project by Dom “Sheepeep” Lamb and myself to create our own php based forum software. We’ve really gone to town over the last few months, and I  honestly believe it’s the best looking, most intuitive, and most importantly, the fastest forum software out there.  We’ve also got a nice community of folks, so come check it out at http://www.filesheep.com/

My next project is to re-launch my rail website, using the new domain uklo.co – I plan to create a mini social-networking site for rail enthusiasts, as well as providing a platform for my own rail videos and photos, as well as for others.

Remember folks, I do web design for anybody so, if you need a site creating, get it touch and I’ll see if I can accommodate you! I do cheap rates and, most of all, I’m frickin amazing at it. Well I think so, anyway.

Until next time?

Pre-Rumble Ramble – Fat Wrestlers Rule

Much is made these days of America’s problem with butter. Didn’t know they had a problem with butter? They do. And bacon, and fudge and sandwiches that replace bread with cheese-filled sausage patties. It’s a broken record in the media and we all get it. But let’s not overlook all the good that fat has done for America. For instance, fat keeps you warm. If I ever get abducted by dark forces and dumped in the deep Arctic with Keira Knightley, I am going to be sledding to safety on her frozen carcass after a single day. Not only does fat ensure Americans will outlive Hollywood starlets and sometimes deflect errant slaps, it also entertains us. John Candy, John Belushi, John Goodman (the Holy John Trinity) have shown that big is hilarious. And in the WWE, big means athletic. Fat means nimble. Elephantine means competitive. Yes, the wrestling world is the last, best place for the criminally obese to rise to stardom and even be heroes. Heroes with boobies. Let’s take a look at some of the best athletes ever trained by numerous hams.

1. Kamala

Billed as the Ugandan Giant, Kamala’s real name was James Harris and he was from Mississippi, which is sometimes mistaken for Uganda by Kentuckians. Part of his gimmick included eating live chickens or, as you might expect, holding a chicken, waiting for the camera to cut away, then spitting feathers out. The idea of a giant African cannibal (or whatever the hell) who weighs around 400lbs is clearly awesome because this sentence can’t be ended in a logical fashion so here comes the period. On the bright side, James is still around and he writes music now, according to Wikipedia.

2. Yokozuna

Yokozuna is a real title for sumo wrestlers when they prove to be the most immovable of immovable objects. Because racial sensitivity is very high in the WWE’s list of proprieties, like Kamala, Yokozuna portrayed someone he wasn’t. In this case, he was a Samoan named Rodney pretending to be a Japanese sumo wrestler. All you really need is black hair, a giant diaper and a hell of a lot of body to fill that diaper and you qualify as honorary Japanese, it’s in their constitution. Anyway, Yokozuna is often credited as being the fattest wrestler ever, weighing in at around 600lbs. Do you know what else weighs 600lbs? 6 Keira Knightleys.

3. Mabel/Viscera/Big Daddy V

Look at that bosom. Holy crap. Big Daddy V, aka guy with a terrible name, has spent a lot of his wrestling career wearing parachutes and other billowy fabrics because he is pretty spherical, with the exception of those taters. Dude carries his weight poorly. He has gone in and out of the WWE under a number of different nicknames but pretty much the same cup size. His awesomeness was cemented, however, when he took up The World’s Biggest Love Machine gimmick and tried to do Trish Stratus, which is offputting yet somehow fantastic.

4. Earthquake John Tenta

Tenta had one of the best debuts in wrestling history. The camera kept “accidentally’ panning across this really huge guy in the audience during the broadcast, until the time came when Hulk Hogan, in a display of bravado inspired by his desire to forget he was married to a leather bound CHUD (I assume) asked for anyone at all in the audience to come sit on his back while he did push ups. Any volunteer at all. A little girl pointed to the innocent-looking fat guy on the end of the aisle. How could this go wrong or be staged? Long story short, Earthquake totally sat on Hulk Hogan, like a lot. Because when you’re that big, sitting is actually an offensive maneuver.

5. Rikishi Solafa Fatu

Sometimes known as Rikishi, he was a big Samoan dude. The only thing I know about the Samoan people, as a matter of fact, is that they breed wicked huge wrestlers. What you need to know about this particular wrestler is that his uniform, for quite a while, consisted of a thong up his ass that facilitated his very athletic signature move the “Stink Face.” Yeah, he just rubbed his giant ass on people’s faces.

6. Giant Haystacks

This one’s a bit of a classic but worth mentioning because there are few land animals in North America that are bigger than this man used to be. Giant Haystacks, another wrestler victimized by terribly terrible nicknames, looked like every Deliverance nightmare you ever had. He was nearly 7 feet tall, nearly 700lbs, bearded and used a rope as a belt. Fun Fact – dude didn’t need a belt. Rumor has it he ate 3lbs of bacon and a dozen eggs for breakfast every day. I tried that once and shit an oil slick for the next three days.

7. Happy Humphrey

Another blast from the past, Humphrey used to wrestle back when the world was all in black and white and men wore hats just because. And why was he so happy? Hard to say, he weighed 800lbs. Obviously I never saw this guy wrestle but I find it hard to believe he did more than simply exist in the ring. Word has it Humphrey was discovered on a farm and made his debut by wrestling a bear for half an hour. I appreciate how none of what I just said sounds even remotely real, but it’s still the story we’re supposed to believe. In his prime, it’s said he would eat 15 chickens in a single sitting.

8. King Kong Bundy

An icon and one-time guest star on Married with Children for no other reason than the word “Bundy”, King Kong Bundy was the fat guy when wrestling rose to prominence and a generation realized for the first time that a fat man in a unitard could be seen as more than a neighborhood sex offender.

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9. Tugboat

Also known as Typhoon, Tugboat also had a brief stint as The Shockmaster, known for being one of the awesomest gimmicks ever because it was unintentionally butchered by Tugboat when, during his debut, he tripped and fell on his ass. A fat guy falling down? Priceless.

10. Abdullah the Butcher

It’s said that Abdullah the Butcher was raised in the Sudan and was batshit insane and that’s almost true. He was raised in Windsor, Ontario and his real name is Larry. Windsor, for those who don’t know, is Detroit of Canada, so like Detroit of America, only with beaver traps and drunker hobos. With a skull full of grooves that may or may not have been surgically implemented, Abdullah is famous for being insanely hardcore and for having what has to be a pair of K cups. He also owns a BBQ in Atlanta. Tasty!

11. Bastion Booger

While none of these men are particularly attractive, Bastion Booger wins an award for looking like a Gorg from Fraggle Rock. Arguably if your name is Bastion Booger odds are your gimmick isn’t going to be that of a suave lady’s man, but damn, look at that guy. And his Barbarella-meets-seatbelts outfit wasn’t helping either. However, if not for Bastion Booger, where would Larry the Cable Guy be today?

12. The Big Show

Big Show suffers the same condition as the awesomest wrestler of all time, Andre the Giant, acromegaly, though he has had surgery to stop the condition from progressing any further. However, thanks to its effects, the man is pretty much a giant at over 7 feet tall and about 480lbs. The most notable moment of his career, however, involved a guest appearance on Conan O’Brien in which he, along with Tom Selleck, were scared into a pale-knuckled panic by elderly sex educator Sue Johansson as she strapped the Accommodator, a chin-mounted dildo, to her face, on live TV. Can a giant cry? Yes he can.

My prediction’s for 200910… reviewed!

It’s amazing to note that this incarnation of my website blog thing, which exists purely to serve my amazingly oversized ego, has existed now since April 2008. Can you believe I’ve been writing this crap for nearly 2 and 3 quarter years?

I’ve decided to celebrate the new year by looking back at the post I made last year, and seeing which of my predictions came true, which did not, and which were so hilariously off the mark it now looks silly! You can click here to view the blog I wrote last year.

The first thing to note is that, at the top of that post, I do give Matt Smith a hard time as the 11th Doctor, calling into question his jawline and the bow tie. I now feel very silly as, having watched the series, I do love Matt Smith as the Doctor and, of course, now realise that bow ties are cool. I really should learn not to make snap judgments like that.

Anyway, let’s begin!

Manchester City might actually win something.

- Well, uh, didn’t happen. We bombed out of the only cup we had a chance of winning. But things are looking good for the premiership this season I understand so, there’s still time, just not in 2010.

Michael Jackson will return Tupac style and release a new album.

- Sadly not, but as predicted, every single type of re-release, remix and even a new Kinect video game did come out, but until he walks amongst us again, this one is also a “didn’t happen”.

Woolworths will return to the high street.

- Eh, uh, again, nada.

Sonic The Hedgehog will return to his #1 spot as the king of all Video Game time.

- Sonic 4 did happen. And then it came out. There’s still time for the situation to be redeemed however, and Sonic Colours is doing really well so, this one sort of happened, but perhaps not as strongly as I had hoped.

Star Trek II will be properly announced.

- More rumors but nothing substantial yet. This year is turning out to be a real letdown, huh?

Red Dwarf Series IX will air on Dave, over a decade since Series VIII aired. Rejoyce.

- ……ditto. Filming begins NEXT year now. God how you must make me wait for all my favorite things.

Nothing at all will happen with the Afghanistan situation.

- DING DING DING, WE HAVE A WINNER! I sware we’ll be having problems in that country for the rest of my lifetime, just last week there were more deaths involving our troops over there. It’s just all so sad.

President Obama will improve the lives of all working class Americans, and in return they’ll remove him from office.
George Bush’s new son, Bushdroid, will take office.

- Yup. In comes new healthcare reform, and in return he’s now a hated character. Joy. Thankfully he’s not out of office yet and the democrats managed to defend their senate seats earlier in the year. No sign of Bushdroid thankfully.

GLADoS returns to extract revenge, and ensure that she triumphs in huge success.

- Portal 2 indeed announced and, it does look rather awesome.

The Conservative Party will return to power for the first time since 1997 and privatise the last remaning public services.

- Oh boy, where to begin? David Cameron has indeed managed to grab power thanks to Nick Clegg and his Liberal Pussycat party, and we’re all now feeling the devastation of that decision. As a nice new year present, welcome to 20% VAT.

David Cameron will stop riding his bicycle to work.

- Yup. Like that kid gives a shit about the environment. Have you ever seen him go NEAR a bike since he took residence at No. 10?

The New Doctor Who will either Flop or Fly.

- He flew. By God he flew. What an awesome series it was. And Karen Gillian is so hot.

Bioshock 2 for Xbox 360 will be made of epic win.

- And it was. Not to mention as an added bonus. Bioshock Infinate was announced and that looks to be made of even more win. Win all round!

Finally, as a footnote, none of my predicted deaths occurred except perhaps for one. I made reference to the following; “Smithy from The Bill will be killed off in a freak handgliding accident.” – while this did not happen, rather ironically The Bill itself died as, after 20 years, ITV canceled the show. Yes, ITV sucks. The Bill, you will be missed.

And that’s it for this year. Coming soon: more fun and frolics in 2011!

Happy New Year everybody!