Being a metalhead at heart, my top 10 records of 2007 is ... well, all metal. That being said, if you saw my record collection, you'd all be somewhat surprised :)

• Machine Head - The Blackening
• Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos
• Megadeth - United Abominations
• Rotting Christ - Theogonia
• Paradise Lost - In Requiem
• Soilwork - Sworn to a Great Divide
• Dark Tranquility - Fiction
• Nile - Ithyphallic
• Gamma Ray - Land of the Free Pt 2
• Job for a Cowboy - Genesis

Actually I turned 30 back in August. However, what I am referring to is that 23 years ago today I made the trip into Yorkhill hospital in Glasgow to be diagnosed with Diabetes.

I've now been taking 4 injections of insulin per day for .. I'm not sure actually. Maybe 17 years. I can't actually remember if I started on one injection or two, but anyway.

Anyway, happy Diabetes birthday to me :)

I'm finally back on the airwaves, after a database server meltdown as well as a knackered connection.

Our business broadband line went down Sunday past and never got reinstated until Monday evening. Then, a busted motherboard on the database server which powers both this blog and the Fuzzy Orange website meant even more downtime.

As I was recovering on Monday from a serious hangover (Sunday was my 30th birthday) I never got around to things until Tuesday, but I was booked in for meetings up until yesterday ... well, I've only just got around to getting things going again.

Typically this had to happen now, and not in a weeks time when all our new kit from Dell arrives. Four swanky new Quad core servers with 4gb ram that is going to replace the current hardware. Yummy.

All the servers will be running Linux - no more Windows baby - and I'm grinning like a maniac as I'm also awaiting the arrival of my MacBook Pro. The only machine left running Windows natively will be the accountants laptop (for Sage purposes).

Ah, good times.

Sorry to go wildly off topic here on my blog but I just had to post about this. One of our local government offices, South Lanarkshire Council, have decided to ban mankind. No, really. It's bad enough that the UK government are spending in upwards of £100 million on political correctness, but now Gender Equality Officer, Ms Gill Williamson from South Lanarkshire Council has decided that council employees can no longer use words such as "pet, dear or love" when referring to women. Additionally, she has also banned terms such as manpower as they exclude women. If employees are caught using such terms they are subject to disciplinary action, which may go as far as dismisal. So, chairmen, laymen, storemen, etc are all now referred to as people. Human race replaces mankind and women's good old favourite menstruation, becomes a right bloody nuisance. I'm glad to see my tax money goes to such a good cause. I think this is one woman who needs a good dose of reality, or as my girlfriend puts it, a good roll in the hay.

Seriously though, I was just reading Jen deHann's excellent coverage of yesterday's MAX keynote and noticed something I hadn't seen anyone else blog. The quote...
"Ben Forta - hit 3 millionth mile spreading the good word about ColdFusion. Ben took a few weeks off, and during that time actually received a letter about the airline has noticed his mileage has 'dramatically decreased over the past few weeks' and checking on his well-being."

OK, to save me constantly blogging about having X invites to give away for Wallop I've add a wee pod on the right hand side that displays how many invites I have to give away. So, assuming I have some, and you want Wallop'd, email me a joke.

Well I finally got an invite to Wallop. It appears that my somewhat satirical email may have just done the trick. I've not messed about with it too much as yet, but it is sort of funky. And of course this does mean I have some invites to give away. If anyway wants one, then send a joke to andy@my_domain_name_above :)

Sometime back in the dark ages of 2002, when the National Team was run by Bungle from Rainbow, the Scotland football team had become a joke. OK, it was actually a halfwit German by the name of Berti Vogts who was in charge, but never the less, things were grim. Berti opened his account with a friendly against then World Champions France, in Paris. We got hammered 5-0 that night, and I'll always remember the image below, of France's David Trezeguet letting our Gary Caldwell know what the score was. Four and a half years on though, it just goes to show what goes around, comes around. On Saturday, Scotland played France at Hampden Park in Glasgow in a Euro 2008 qualifier. France, currently ranked number 2 in the world (as well as the runners up in this years World Cup) were massive favourites to win this match. In a bizarre twist of fate, it turns out that Gary Caldwell scored the only goal of the match to give Scotland a 1-0 victory, and see them lead Group 2 in the build up to Euro 2008. Oh, here's the goal ... Update The video I'm linking to seems to have thrown a wobbly, so here's a few other versions: BBC Sport
View from the West Stand

After some prompting from podcasts, and a blog entry by Charlie Arehart I've finally got around to re-adding some personal gumph about myself. You see, I used to have a box full of stuff about myself but when I upgraded from v3 of Ray's BlogCFC to this version it all sort of got lost (mainly cause I got sick of having to redo the look). Anyway, there's now an "About Me" pod on the right hand side with a link to all those glorious facts about me!!!

Wallop ... what the hell is it? No, it's not some dodgy double entendre for getting up close and personal with Pamela and her five sisters ... no, it's a new social networking experience. Think MySpace only stable, and not shit. Actually I can't guarantee that of Wallop, but I can 100% confirm that MySpace is both shit and about as stable as me after 10 pints. Currently access is by invite only...