baltic's blog: "my first ramblings spewed forth...."

1. Pat Glenn, weightlifting commentator "And this is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning and it was amazing!" 2. New Zealand Rugby Commentator "Andrew Mehrtens loves it when Daryl Gibson comes inside of him." 3. Ted Walsh - Horse Racing Commentator : "This is really a lovely horse. I once rode her mother." 4. Harry Carpenter at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race 1977 "Ah, isn't that nice. The wife of the Cambridge President is kissing the cox of the Oxford crew." 5. US PGA Commentator - "One of the reasons Arnie [ Arnold > > Palmer] is playing so well is that,before each tee shot, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them .....Oh my god!! What have I just said??" 6. Carenza Lewis about finding food in the Middle Ages on 'Time Team Live' said: "You'd eat beaver if you could get it." 7. A female news anchor who, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked, "So Bob, where's that eight inches you promised me last night?" Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too, because they were laughing so hard! 8. Steve Ryder covering the US Masters: "Ballesteros felt much better today after a 69 yesterday. 9. Clair Frisby talking about a jumbo hot dog on Look North said: "There's nothing like a big hot sausage inside you on a cold night like this." 10 Mike Hallett discussing missed snooker shots on Sky Sports "Stephen Hendry jumps on Steve Davis's misses every chance he gets." 11. Michael Buerk on watching Phillipa Forrester cuddle up to a male astronomer for warmth during BBC1's UK eclipse coverage remarked: "They seem cold out there, they're rubbing each other and he's only come in his shorts." 12. Ken Brown commentating on golfer Nick Faldo and his caddie Fanny Sunneson lining-up shots at the Scottish Open: "Some weeks Nick likes to use Fanny, other weeks he prefers to do it by himself."

Ok, so its 50 years since the publication of On the Road by jack Kerouac, which in my mind was one of the greatest novels of the last century. Not only did it start the whole Beat Generation with the Beatniks and hippies that followed, but it was also that the youth of the world really stood up and where noticed by the wider society as a whole. However it does sadden me that the message of the book seems to have been lost of millions of people. Most people seem to go ‘yeah, its great, loads of drug taking and sex and dropping out of main stream society’, but to me that’s not really the point the book is trying to make. It’s about the journey of self discovery, and looking for something spiritual or fulfilling in your life. It’s about making the decisions in your life the way you want to and not settling for what is expected of you. It’s about challenging society’s expectations and following dreams. Its about seeing the good in people, and the bad in society. I think from reading it, it gave me a huge travel bug. I still dream of visiting every country in the world, which I knows probably unlikely. Im only 18 countries down, which leaves about 180 still to visit. I still love travelling, just sitting back watching the world fly by. However for Kerouac it wasn’t to last, by the time On the Road was actually published he had lsot his love of travelling, the whole ‘beat’ scene didn’t appeal to him. He was fed up by the new people who only wanted to look cool, and talk cool, but weren’t really digging what it was that made them ‘beat’. By the time the book was published he had settled into living with his mother, until his death in 1967, 10 years later, but he still managed to write some other excellent works. Its true to say he was ahead of his time, with his worrying over state of the planet, and animals. The man was a visionary, and I just hope his works are still as important in another 50 years

OK I'm bored again so time for another rant about nothing really in particular. Infact today i cant even think of anything to rant about, well apart from the lack of people reading my blogs, but hey, what can i really do about that? Its not as if I can force people to read them. Well i could but that kinda defeats the purpose. Like on another site (WYHT) i run a group called gnosis (if any ones a member there, please check it out). The whole point behind starting it was to discuss interesting topics etc. But it never got off the ground until we started doing the usual tat like the above below threads etc, picture competitions etc then loads of people join and were posting. I was happy as there was one or two interesting threads in amongst all the drivel, but after a few of my regulars left for different reasons those dried up. Its still running pretty well, and its a cool bunch of people, but its not anything like it was supposed to be. Someone asked me why when the groups description is all about discussing current affairs, politics, history etc is there nothing of that in the group, and when you said you wanted to do something different its now like every other group? But if that's what the people want that's what you have to give them. I know i should have stuck to my principles, but if i did i wouldn't have had a group. Maybe then i should change my blogs? Nope, as this is completely different. I've already had some positive comments on the ones I've put up so far, so I'm going to continue my blogs they way there are. Hopefully more people will start reading them and appreciating them. Maybe I'll get a gig with Hell-A magazine (lol yes Californication is now my favourite TV show), maybe that'll be my next blog.

what has happened to music in the last few years. Were are all the bands gone that actually have something to say, something of relevance? I remember back in the day you has people like Dylan and Morrison in the 60's and 70's, along with a whole loads of protest singers. Infact back then if you had an acoustic guitar you were a protest singer. Then along came the whole punk movement with rebelling against who knows what, but at least they were trying to prove a point, then in the 80's and 90's you had Morrissey and Rage Against the machine trying to prove a point through music. But today what do you have? I mean all the punk bands are just completely self obsessed, is it just a sign of the general malaise with society? Music used to men something, who can forget Geldof and the guy from ultravox during band aid / live aid. No what do we have, a whole concert against global warming that probably used up more fossil fuel to put on than is used to heat a medium sized town for a year. Well done to all involved. Isn't it true that the youth follow what the bands say, or do bands just follow what the people want?

OK time for another blog, i thought i my never get round to a second, but here we are. I thought I'd just thought I'd carry on from where i left off the last time, just wondering what is the point of a blog really. I mean, should i expect that people are going to read it and think, "wow he's so right I'm going to immediately change my ways", or should i be happy that someone's actually reading it in the first place, like only 15 people read the first one after all. I mean i do like to think that my opinions are valid and may actually make a difference to someone, even if its only a passing, yeah he might have a point. After all if only one person at least stops to think about things then maybe i have made a small difference. After all, If someone else was claiming to be some sort of new messiah, I'd be the first one shouting to pull them off the cross as we don't need another saviour. Surely by know people should have realised we are all responsible for our own actions, however large or small the consequences of them. Then again looking at the most popular blogs on here its the exact same people as the most popular in terms of friends so I'm sure its not because they all have anything interesting to say. But then again who is actually here to learn anything. Which is maybe the problem with the world today, but who am i to criticise when i do the exact same thing. To me it seems like we've become a civilisation of voyeurs rather than a people that would rather get up and do something for ourselves. The popularity of the "reality" shows just goes to show that. I mean, in one series of Big brother (uk version) the had 2 people moved to another room, watching what was happening in the house for a week. Now we were sitting watching 2 people in a room, watching 10 others in a room. Seriously its bizarre what our culture has become. But that takes me back to my point about the blogs to begin with. Maybe that's what people want to hear about is the detail of the "he said she said" as people are so much more interested in other peoples lives than their own. Maybe people want to read blogs about the man a work who i think likes me but I'm not sure. I mean "What Paris Hilton wears on a night out" seems to get more column inches and TV time than massacres in darfur or HIV epidemics in Russia, seems to sums up the problem perfectly

Ok so this is my first ever blog so please bear with me. As I wasn't sure what i was supposed to put in here i thought id check out other blogs and see what they were about. There seems to be 2 kinds, one a kind of emo diary of how everything is so unfair and the world owes me a living but really everything is against me and the other is opinions on events or just random thoughts on subjects. As i don't think the world is going to end just because someone said the latest album by my favourite band sucked, even though everyone else in the world knows it was just rushed out to meet the record labels contract, and the hurt from the comments isn't going to make me want to kill myself, I'll go with the 2nd type. I mean seriously what is with kids these days. I mean when i was 15 or 16 my biggest worries centred around was i going to be able to get drink on Saturday night, did someone have fake id, could we find some old drink to buy it for us, etc etc. Yes there was the normal teenage angst of girls, sports teams you supported, friends etc etc. However none of these seemed to important, you had friends, you went to school, you hung out and that was about it. Yes you had the group of popular kids, but there were loads of other groups as well. I was part of my own group, that used to hang out get drunk and have fun. We were never the most popular but we all knew the most popular and at time we would hang out with them. We just got on and did our own thing without really bothering what anyone else thought. Todays kids though seem so wrapped up in how other people will perceive them, its getting beyond a joke. I mean kids at 14 on diets, counting calories. Girls at 15 getting boob jobs and nose jobs, is it really necessary? Kids dressing 'emo' (whatever that may mean) just because you think your being different. Well I've got news for you, you look exactly the same as 20 million other emo kids. its not being different its just following another trend. And what gets me more is that they profess not to judge people by there clothes, but when infact do exactly the same themselves. I remember being out once with some friends and there happened to be some emo / goth kids there. I was in my usual jeans and shirt or something similar, and we were talking about some band or other. I used to know my stuff, infact i played bass in a band myself for a while. However these kids were like what do you know about the music your not goth / emo / rock / indie (delete as appropriate). now if that isn't stereotyping what is. I mean after i told them to f off and go sacrifice a lamb to Marilyn manson while slitting there wrist they were no to pleased. But back to my point what is going on with todays kids. I blame the parents, oh and the liberal do-gooders. I can say that as I'm a liberal myself, but some of it goes beyond the joke. You hear kids now rattling off a list of problems be it ADD, ADSD, ASDA etc etc. What are these things, who made them up? I think its just psychiatrists making a fast buck telling parents who cant control there kids they have these problems and prescribing them drugs that they happen to hold shares in. Most of these parents if they had any nouce would know that if they stopped feeding there kids E numbers and let them actually burn off energy by playing the problems would go away, but hey its easier to feed them junk, sit them in front of the TV and feed them full of drugs. But hey why deal with the actual problem when you can sweep it under the carpet. But then again that seems to be the same with everything. Poverty in Africa, send them some money and we all feel better about it, when the actual way to solve the problem is stop trade embargo's on the countries products and give them an even playing field when they try to sell stuff into international markets. Prime example is cotton. African countries produce it cheaper and to a better quality than the US farmers, but due to the huge subsidies the US govt pay to the farmers, and the huge import taxes Africa nations have to pay, they cant sell it to the US. Makes you think that everytime you buy a cotton towel, that not only are you paying $10 for the towel, but your also paying another $2 or 3 in tax to subsides the farmer. If things were fair you'd be paying $5 or 6 for a better quality towel, nothing extra in tax, helping the poor in Africa, but some senators best friend would be feeling the pinch. Which do you prefer? Ok sorry for the ramble, back to work now