So I get a phone call on Saturday morning from me dear old mum. "What you doing today??" ..."Errr...nothing..." "Great, I'm coming to see you". So, ended up spending the weekend with my mum (who had yet to see my flat). Was great as I don't get to see her all that much and while she's not altogether supportive/on board with my eventually wanting to do MMA - she still watched UFC 90 with me which was a total trip.

"BUT HE'S KNEEING HIM IN THE FACE!"

Bless :)
Oh yeah, apparently she doesn't rate Anderson Silva - HAHAHA!!

So yeah, that was a weird one but I gotta say, a cracking weekend all in all.
A total blast!

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, MMA, Personal

Labels: Friendly Thoughts

Read this in the Metro this morning. A superb and extremely inspirational story.

A mouse gets fed to this snake, the snake is thinking "Ahhh....lunch....", the mouse if thinking "FUCK YOU!"

I hate rodents but I want this mouse as a pet!!!
More info here...

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, In the news

So - in training last night we were doing this thing called "Stop Point" (atleast I think that's what it's called). The whole idea is, you square off, the ref says go and whoever gets the hit in first gets a point, everything is stopped and you start again. The entire point of this is to build up attack speed to ensure you're the first one in and we usually work to a "first to 5 points" system. Being as I ain't exactly got fat wedges of muscle weighing me down I'm able to bring speed pretty easily and I've not had a great deal of luck executing the Super Man punch during sparring being as my opponent usually see's it coming a mile off. A friend of mine suggested that I set it up with a Jab (cheers chunky) so I've been practising this little manouver infront of the mirror. Anyways - yesterday...saw an opening, threw the jab and then went in with a superman punch and totally nailed it. Unfortunatley - I ended up hitting my sparring partner square in the eye (Sorry Cuan) and the point didn't count - BUT the fact still remains that I executed that bad boy to a Tee.

I was apologetic as anything being as it's never my intention to hurt sparring partners but I was chuffed as a basta*d when I actually realised I executed it. HAPPY DAYS!!

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, MMA, Personal

I am now the proud owner of tickets to UFC 89 - Bisping vs Leben. Managed to get tickets closer to the Octagon this time for the same price as I got the last tickets. Also...no more driving for hours - it's in Birmingham which is where all my homies are at, so I'm chuffed as a button!!

From Mike Bisping...

"Thanks Tim, much appreciated. Thanks for the support. It means alot. Hope
you enjoy the fights in Birmingham.
Be lucky

Mike"

Prediction : Bisping wins by 2nd round knock out.

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, MMA, Personal

OK, so I must be getting on in years being as one of my birthday presents to myself this year was a Tassimo! 5 years ago I wouldn't have dreamed of getting one but now...it's one of my favourite gadgets (sad I know). You get these cool little pods, you put the pod in the machine, press the button and 60 seconds later you got a hot drink. Cafe Creme people!! It's pretty much the same coffee you get in Amsterdam not the shat they serve over here...anyways...get one!

Oooh - got me a stupidly expensive surround sound system too. HD and Optical inputs n all o that, woop ass speakers, think I prefer the Tassimo ;)

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, Personal, Technology

Does anyone every consider that Whales that beach themselves are the retards of the Whale community??

Go buy this little snippet of the Rogan (from Shiny Happy Jihad which is REAL funny!) - swiftly becoming my favourite stand-up comedian.

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, In the news

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, Personal

OK, I mentioned few posts back I have my 1st MMA fight in November. I'm pretty sure whoever I'll be going up against will have some pretty decent ground work and being as mine is relatively non existent - I went and got me a copy of Eddie Bravo's book "Mastering the Rubber Guard".

Eddie Bravo is a few things in my opinion.

1. A bad ass Jui Jitsu dude.
2. A fucking revolutionary!

I ain't got to the bit about the moves yet, the foreword has set me off on a completely different tangent altogether. This dude is a stoner basically. Only unlike me and many of the worlds population this guy actually knows the truth about weed. I ain't talking that shit the government tells you about how it causes psychosis and that it's X times more carcinogenic than cigarettes. I'm talking the truth!! Think about it like this, the War on Iraq was "apparently" started because of all these alleged Weapons of Mass destruction needed to be removed before they were used against us (and ain't been seen yet!). A few hundred thousand pointless deaths later and where are they? "Woops...sorry...our mistake...but hey...we got oil!". If they can lie to us about something like that - they can certainly lie to us about the benefits of weed. Why? a few reasons. When it boils down to it and I'm going to paraphrase Chris Rock here:

The Government = a bunch of freaking drug dealers!!

If you're selling chocolate which is basically bad for you and some guy comes along and starts competing with you selling something far nicer but way healthier - are you gonna say "You know what...his stuff is actually nicer and healthier - go buy that."?? Hell no! You'll pimp your stuff as much as humanly possible and kick dust in the face of this other dude at every available opportunity. Same situation here but instead of Chocolate, it's Alcohol and Cigarettes. Lets do a little statistical comparison shall we?

Alcohol
More than 100,000 alcohol related deaths occur each year in the US alone. That's people drinking so much that their body gives up, fools who drink and drive and go killing innocent bystanders as well as the related violent incidents that occur.

In the UK there were 4,144 alcohol related deaths in 1991 which rose to 8,757 in 2006. Apparently, the possible reason for the doubled number of deaths is because of the increase in the population. WRONG! The population of the UK has not doubled in the space of 15 years!! So the validity of 4,000 people dying is questionable at best (more propaganda to dilute a situation that is messing up the country).

"Between mid-1991 and mid-2006 the population grew by an average annual rate of
0.4 per cent and the average growth per year since mid-2001 has been 0.5 per
cent."
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?ID=6

Lets look at another source shall we. This article was written 8 years ago and suggests that the number of alcohol related deaths is closer to 33,000. Considering the drinking culture in this country and how it has snow balled over the years you can pretty much guarantee that figure has risen. So - let's be nice and split it and say 15,000 per year. 15,000 per year!! We ain't got the land mass of Africa!

Cigarettes
440,000 people die per year in the US from toking that stuff! That's nearly half a million people in a year...gone! In the UK around 106,000 people die per year from smoking.

Marijuana
Now lets take a look at the so called "Evil" Marijuana.

Deaths in recorded history EVER: 0, Zero, Nish, Nuthin, Nada, Nil

So why is it illegal?? Simple version...the government wants you to use their drugs. Smoking messes with your respiratory system and is one of the primary causes of lung cancer on the planet. Chemicals are added to keep you hooked and you can buy cigarettes from pretty much any newspaper shop, supermarket and public house in the country. Alcohol abuse tears apart families (I know this from 1st hand experience), makes people act totally retarded and causes so many negative situations that I can't even be bothered to start listing them. This too is available from pretty much every off-licence, supermarket, restaurant, bar and public house on the planet, all with the blessing of the governments of the world. Marijuana is not worse than smoking cigarettes and there is no evidence to suggest that it increases the risk of lung disease. Compared to smoking cigarettes, Marijuana is far healthier and has a number of medicinal uses (which are used to this very day by the same governments that have banned it!).

http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/#tobacco
http://sansstride.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/making-the-case-for-legalization-clean-lungs-clean-money/

Now I'm not going to say that there is no evidence to contradict what I am saying. Even research at Harvard has apparent evidence to the contrary. In this instance however I will merely quote Upton Sinclair.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on
his not understanding it."

The government has no problems with lying to you as a method of control - it has happened many times in the past, it will happen many more times in the future. Do the research, don't believe everything the government says and free your mind. Marijuana can be used as a conduit to change you state of mind for the better and Eddie Bravo's book is a testament to that. Joe Rogan himself says that his Comedy routines had flew of the chain due to his relationship with Mary Jane.

Eddie Bravo - I thank you for showing me the path. And to think I was gonna break up with Mary because of all the Government hype. If 1 person reads this and is enlightened by what I have written, my job here is done and I have every intention of fighting for "The Cause".

In the words of Eddie Bravo

Get Smart, Smoke Weed!



Some media that may help you:
- Magic Weed: The Truth About Cannabis
- Reefer Madness
- Jack Herer

Labels: Articles, Friendly Thoughts

Most people in the UK don't know that Joe Rogan is a comedian...they just think he's the dude from fear factor. Anyways - he freakin kills me!! This little clip of him giving some shit to a Heckler is sweet...don't fuck with the Rogan!!

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, MMA

Started training again this week. Things have been a bit slack on the training front since the move. Having to setup the multi-gym again was not as bad as I thought and took me all of 90 minutes this time round (instead of the 6 hours it took me when I 1st got it). I think that's mostly down to the fact that I managed to dismantle it into about 20 pieces as opposed to it's original 200! Anyways, Mondays MMA session was good, Thursdays was pure pain and I loved it...been running, lifting weights and doing drills. Did nish on Wednesday as that's my designated day off and from here up until Monday...will be nothing but resting and stuffing my fat face.

Apparently we may well have a little club on club competition - if so proper looking forward to it. Soon as a date is confirmed I'll be training like my life depended on it up until that point. I have no problems with losing to an opponent (although I have no intention of that happening), I do have problems losing to fear (and I have no intention of that happening either).

Also been told there is a distinct possibility that we'll be going up against Rosi Sexton's crew in November which I am really excited about. I've seen her on the Fight Network (Bodog fight) so there's a touch of Hero worship there too - not to mention the fact that she's bad ass! Saw her pull a very sweet arm bar on this Brazilian chic who was dressed all in pink (I ain't a fan of pink in any capacity - not as bad as green though). And if her homies are anything like her...I'll be training until I'm close to death and a little bit more until that point!! (I'll also try and score me an autograph!)

Oh yeah, that date on Saturday...went OK. I get the distinct impression she thinks I'm some kinda play boy so not too sure how far that's gonna go. Not much you can do about someone who has already made their mind up about you and I ain't about to start trying to prove that's not me. Nothing worse than being judged because you got a few nice garms and a cool pad. But such is life.

Anyways - 9 more days until my birthday...15 until the housewarming/birthday party. Still not told the neighbours yet...we'll see what they say I guess.

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, MMA, Moans and Groans, Personal

So things are on the up for Timmy Boy. On the way home last night and bump into hot chic that I'm taking out this weekend (her name is Tisha). Took her for a quick drink which turned into a few which turned into something to eat. Next thing you know it was almost 11pm! Anyways, gotta say, very great chic. Gorgeous and Extremly funny and very genuine (she's alright too - Boom Boom!). Happy days - sooo looking forward to Saturday :)

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, Personal

Yeah, not bad in terms of timing. Oh the joys of renting...could have been quicker but I decided to go for the nicer apartment (see the screen shots from the previous post) which meant I had to wait until the 23rd to move in. All worked out perfectly though. Had enough time to order new furniture, get stuff packed up, notify all the companies of my new address etc and to top it all off...got this hot chics number and taking her out on Saturday - Boo Ya!! Living the dream peeps...living the dream!

Love the new pad, it's funky as hell. High ceilings, floor to ceiling windows in the living room, double doors that open onto a balcony which is bang on the canal. Lights in the hallway that turn on automatically, built in dishwasher (makes life so much easier) so yeah, happy as larry. And now that I've settled in, more general posts coming soon.

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, Personal

So, was a friends birthday a couple of weeks back and didn't feel right calling her but still wanted to say Happy Birthday in some way, shape or form...so - Paulette - Happy Birthday! I didn't forget.

Meanwhile, my "A year in the life" book arrived today. UFC are doing a special run of 500 of these bad boys so decided to score me a copy. Now this is not the 1st thing I've purchased from the UFC store. Got my Octogan Necklace from there too and all went well with that so I figured this should be the same. Now, the book itself is pretty much a picture book with photos from the best fights of 2007. It's nicely bound, looks cool and for a book - weighs a ton. Here is where the problem comes in. Go to the UFC store and the book is down as $50 (£25). Add another $20 for carriage (£10) and thats not a bad score at $70 (£35). Now here is where the b*tch comes in - I had to pay frieght and duty on this bad boy which cost £67 ($134)! So I am now the proud owner of a book that cost me £102 ($204)! 3 words jump to mind at a time like this....WHAT THE HELL??!!!

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, MMA, Moans and Groans, Personal

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, Politics

So while rambling on last week about the state of our dear old planet that has been a haven for us for oh so many years, given us some excellent sites and hosted our short and parasitic little lives for us to pay her back by pretty much pimp slapping, desecrating and down right treating her like a 2 dollar whore I decided to not be one of those people that moans about things and does nothing myself to stop it. To take the initiative and help the old girl out! In doing so I stumbled upon The Big Green Switch. This is a cracking idea for a site which gives you hints and tips on how to slow down the inevitable destruction of this fine lady who we refer to as Planet Earth. Trust me when I say some of these things are so simple even a child could do it.

So instead of being the flat mate that always leaves the place in a mess expecting someone else to clean it up or 'That guy' who says to himself "I'm only one person - what difference can I make", visit the site and try a few of these things out. Remember - she's your mom too!

Labels: Environmental Issues, Friendly Thoughts

I gotta say, Gordon Ramsey is most definitely one of my heroes. He'd kick the ever living f**k out of Simon Cowell in a fight in 3 seconds flat!! I was having kind of a down day today...got home...decided to watch some Hells Kitchen on You Tube and sat here laughing my ass off!! They've been playing Hells Kitchen USA on ITV2 quite a bit so I been watching it when I remember...shame I only caught the last few episodes though...cos he seems to go absolutely APE SHIT at the group while he's getting rid of the chaff.

Anyways - decided to dedicate a little blog entry to the big man and even add a little You Tube video for your viewing pleasure.

Here's to you Gordon!

More Gordon Ramsey posts on Technorati

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, TV and Movies

Added a little update called "Snap Shots". This is a cool little feature that shows the preview of any external sites before you actually navigate away from my lovely blog. If you have a site of your own, it's ridiculously easy to install and all you have to do is answer a few questions, they generate some javascript for you which you put in your site and DING - All good to go.

Meanwhile, the countdown continues! Exactly 3 weeks before I'm off to my home from home...Amsterdam. I can't wait as it's going to be a much needed break...3 days of chill chill chill in one of the most relaxed places on the planet (WOOHOO!!!)

On the subject of the Dam, I was doing a little bit of "research" and stumbled upon this awsome website called dope fiend! It's basically THC induced pod casts and this geezer brings on the Herbal Verbal on a weekly basis...makes an interesting listen if you're a smoker or not. He's on Episode 100 so I certainly got some catching up to do but I had a listen to 1 of the casts while I was coding away last night and it was a pleasure to listen to, information on great places to go...experiments...lock stock the entire lot. Definatley a site I would recommend (so much so that I've chucked it into my fav links!)

More THC posts on Technorati

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, Personal

Was doing a little trawling around the internet as you do (oh the joys of wireless) and came across this poem written by Bruce Lee. Very inspirational...

Who am I?
That is the age-old question
Asked by every man
At one time or another.

Though he looks into a mirror
And recognizes the face,
Though he knows his own name
And age and history,
Still he wonders, deep down,
Who am I?

Am I a giant among men,
Master of all I survey,
Or an ineffectual pygmy
Who clumsily blocks his own
way?

Am I the self-assured gentleman
With a winning style,
The natural born leader
Who makes friends instantly,
Or the frightened heart
Tiptoeing among strangers,

Who, behind a frozen smile
trembles
Like a little boy lost in a dark
forest?

Most of us yearn to be one
But fear we are the other.
Yet we CAN be
What we aspire to be.

Those who cultivate
Their natural instincts,
Who set their sights
On the good, the admirable,
the excellent,
And believe they can achieve it
Will find their confidence
rewarded.

And, in the process,
They will discover the true
identity
Of him who looks back from
the mirror.

Labels: Friendly Thoughts

My cousin, who may I add is one of the nicest people I know sent me this over the weekend and I thought I would share it with the world. Some very true stuff!

• You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period this time around.
  
• You are enrolled in a full time informal school called life. Each day you will have the opportunity to earn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
  
• There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. “Failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately work.
  
• A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. Then you can go on to the next lesson.
  
• Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
  
• “There” is no better than “here”. When your “there” has become “here” you will simply obtain another “there” that again, looks better than “here”.
  
• Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
  
• What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need; what you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
  
• The answers lie inside you. The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.
  
• You will forget all this.

Labels: Friendly Thoughts, Personal