Evenin’ Kiddies,

As you may be aware I’ve been taking some time off from this website for a little while, I am still alive (not that you’d be that bothered anyway :-p). Regardless I’ve been taking sometime off to try and get my life sorted pretty much, no easy task there. This website has been great for me, it’s been so good to be able to blog away about any old crap and get away with it.

I sort of dropped off with posting at Christmas, I’d had a very busy few weeks and the site got forgotten; periodically I’ve been stopping by to check things and to make sure it’s still here. I haven’t also been podcasting at all.

I think maybe I’ve wanted to just have normal life for a while. I still plan to keep up with The Rant, but for now it’s got to take a back seat. I haven’t been twittering either, unless it’s a special event; you might have seen my Tweets for Eurovision and some for the MHL Parties which I have a big hand in running, but other than that it’s been pretty quiet on this website.

I’m still toying with the idea of semi-closing the site.  I haven’t a clue whether that’s a good idea or not.  This website still gets a fair few visits which is a testament to you dear reader.  When I stared this site a little over three years ago, I spent a large amount of time getting it right, it was a labour of love and I still love it, I always will.  The Rantastic is my baby, she’s a bit screwed up and very raw but she’s a big part of my internet based life.

I’m not sure I’m ready to say goodbye to her just yet; but something has to break for me to carry on with a ‘normal’ life and maybe The Rant is that thing.  Maybe it won’t be? I honestly can’t say.  We’ll see what the next few months bring, if I haven’t got back into it by August I think that might be a sign that maybe I shouldn’t be running this website any more.  If I do close it and I’m not ready to, I’ll miss it a lot.  So for now you’re stuck with reading back over the 156 posts I’ve made in the past.  It’s funny looking back over the development of my writing style from post one to this very one.

I’m still very proud of this website and my writing.

“Keep holding out for Mr. Rant”

That’s the motto I’m living by at the moment.

Thanks for reading.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but fear of no entries has prevented it, but now I’m gonna give it a bash seeing as it’s Christmas!

All you need to do is answer the following question and you could win a fantabulous Rantastic T-Shirt!!!

On which date is Christmas celebrated?

Send you answer and your name to: mr.rant@therantastic.com and we’ll pick a winner on 21st december 2009!

Please put competition in the subject line.

For a copy of the terms and conditions please send me an email asking for them.

As you can see this little old blog is back to it’s usual styling.  I’m sad to see the crazy background of noses go I really liked them. Kind of psychedelic. Anyway, it’s back to being it’s usual boring self.

I plan to do some major redesign work in the next few weeks, so watch out for some updates, better integration with Twitter and the beginnings of my “Have a Rant on me campaign!”.   You should see changes in the next few days when I start recoding and jigging the page designs around.  So it should be a few interesting and exciting weeks for this blog.

Now on with The Rant…

I’ve always been a supporter of some charities, even though I’m miserable and most of the time screaming at the world I do like to make a difference if I can.  I support a wildlife charity called Secret World, it’s not by any stretch of the imagination anything remotely kinky, it’s mostly about badgers.  I support them mainly because our natural wildlife is so pushed these days to survive with the problems we’ve caused for it, that it needs the intervention of ‘man’ to help out every now and then; and besides I like badgers.

Something grated on me last night.  I usually enjoy Comic Relief; it’s good wholesome fun – most of the time.  However something made me see it in a new light.  It’s been said many things that Comic Relief is all about Africa and for the most part it is; it is this with which I disagree.  Charity starts at home is what I was always told and to me that’s the way it should be.  I understand and get why we need to help people in other countries that’s a basic human compunction, the need to help; ‘human nature’.

It annoys me vehemently that in a time of recession at home we’re being told that we should put our hands in our pockets and support people with the little money we have or not as the case is likely to be.  As I said I’m not a hard person… much but I really started to disagree with Comic Relief last night. I have a pang of guilt writing this but it needed to be said and someone needed to say it.

All sorted I hope. Had a HTML tag open hopefully all nice and back to normal.

I’m currently sitting in Starbucks, Birmingham, which one you may ask and I’ll tell you, at this present second, I’m plonked in front of my laptop typing this very blog post. However, I’m not writing it in the usual manner which would be to log directly onto WordPress and tip-tap away there and then and it would be uploaded immediately. I am, at the moment typing this into Microsoft Word. The reason behind this is that the T-Mobile cloud I usually use has gone down and I’m not able to connect to it or the BT OpenZone cloud. Both Services or maybe its my laptop but both don’t seem to want to work. It may have something to do with my Windows 7 antics and that Windows 7 is inherently security conscious and doesn’t let you connect to any kind of open WiFi network. At present, how to fix this issue eludes me.

So I’m being forced to blog the old fashioned way that a journalist would, and then I’ll upload it when I’m home which is a bit of an arse as you can imagine. I like to be able to check my emails and make sure I’m up to date with whatever is going on in the world at this very second; it would seem that the Digital age which is so vastly complex sometimes it just can’t cope. Maybe it’s to do with the snow, you never know. It makes me realise how much I rely upon the infrastructure that is in place in so many places these days which allows a remote connection to the internet, and conversely a connection through to my house via my desktop pc which is acting as a server for network access. The very same pc is providing the host for the webcam, and periodically uploading an image to this website for you all to enjoy. It’s a complex web of cables at home right now as the server whirrs away attempting to provide me with a WAN connection. If I had an active internet connection right now I could connect and drop a copy of this file directly on to my pc.

I’ve just remembered that I do have an active internet connection hence how you’re reading this before I’m back home.

As a test for the next few months The Rantastic will have it’s very own webcam.

Please note that currently we’re working on updating the way the webcam works.

To view it please use this link: The Webcam.