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Photo Wallpaper and a shoehorned meme

Apr 28th, 2010
by Dan.
33 comments

This is my first ever entry into Tara’s galley meme. But before we get to the photos I have a story to tell.

A few weeks ago I went to visit the offices of Huddersfield based company myphotowall.com in order to pick up a very generous donation for the Joseph Salmon Trust.

Those of you who follow Englishmum’s blog may have seen her myfotowall competition a few months ago. If you did you’ll already know that the company produce huge bespoke photo prints that cover entire walls. And if you don’t, well you know it now.

These aren’t the big posters you get in Ikea where you can choose between a black and white photo of New York or a bunch of over saturated tulips. No, myphotowall.com allows you to upload your own photo to their website, make it exactly the same size as the wall you are covering, and then get it delivered right to your door. Bloody marvelous.

Here’s an example:

Fotowall-girls-bedroom

While I was there Stephen, the managing director of the company, showed me some examples of his product on the walls of his offices.

They were absolutely stunning.

When I first heard about myfotowall I must admit I was skeptical. I had visions of huge tacky glossy pixilated overgrown posters. But as soon as I walked in the office my mind was changed instantly.

These wallcoverings are truly wonderful. The matt finish and deliciously tactile feel of the paper lend it a subtly and class that I really wasn’t expecting. I instantly made the leap from “that’s a pretty cool idea” to “I want one now damnit!”.

To be honest I was a little confused about how it could looked so good. Especially as Stephen walked me though the process of creating one on their website using some of my own photos from Flickr, and assured me that despite their crappy resolution they would come out just fine.

Apparently Myfotowall have developed a way of converting graphics so as to eliminate all visible signs of pixilation. In addition the process you use to upload and resize your photo to the exact dimensions of your wall also warns you if you are zooming in on the photo beyond the systems ability to make it look good. That’s a process that’s patented by the way, so you’re not going to find it anywhere else.

Let’s face it, I was always going to be positive about myfotowall after they made such a generous donation to the walk. But I can honestly say their product blew me away with its originality and its uniqueness. It really is good stuff folks and if you are after a really original feature in your home you should definitely check them out.

Here’s another example of what the company have done in the past. I assure you the photo don’t do the product justice:

Fotowall-dining-room

So how am I going to shoehorn Tara’s gallery meme into all of this this? Well after visiting myfotowall.com I started thinking about what photos of my own I’d get made into wallpaper. After the obligatory geeky gut reaction photos of the Death Star or screenshots from Lord of the Rings, I started to flick through my photo albums.

How about this for a alcove in the bedroom :

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Or this for the dining room:

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Or maybe even this for the bathroom:

Mad Max 4

Oh, ok – so I’m pushing the boundaries of the rules of the Gallery here a little bit. But I just wanted to run with the cool kids for a while, is that such a crime?

Newsflash: Giant stalks Huddersfield

Dec 19th, 2009
by Dan.
10 comments

I was in the local paper on Thursday. It was an article about myself and a very lovely woman called Helen being appointed as new Trustee’s of the Joseph Salmon Trust.

The story focused on Helen more than myself, which is fine by me – I’m not sure I could cope with the celebrity anyway. I have enough trouble answering the fan mail I get from being featured on the letters page of Whizzer and Chips back in 1985 without adding to my fame further. Plus there is that infamous “I’m a very sweaty man” incident on Radio Leeds last year.

But what tickled me most was the photo (excuse the shoddy scan quality):

Is it me or do I look like some Hagrid like giant, too huge for mere page boundaries to contain? I’m surprised that on publication there wasn’t panic on the streets, with people fleeing their homes in fear of me crushing them with my gigantic feet.

You can see the full article on the Huddersfield Examiner’s webpage here. amd of course you can donate to the charity here.

Hair today

Dec 3rd, 2009
by Dan.
42 comments

These are two, seemingly identical, photographs of me:

Dan, Ireland, July 1980

Can you spot the difference? I know it’s a tricky one, but if you look really closely you might just see it…

Yes that’s right! In the first photo my hair is blond, and in the second it’s a sort of brown. Well spotted!

The second photo isn’t a particularly good one of course, but seeing as though I was searching for one that showed at least a smattering of head hair I’m surprised I came up with anything at all.

The point is I used to have blond hair, and now I don’t. I’m not actually sure which point in my childhood my hair turned from beautiful shiny blond into drab and dirty brown, but I suspect it was probably at around the same time that I became responsible for my own personal hygiene. Whatever the reason, I turned.

In fact these days I’m showing signs of switching hair colour yet again. I keep finding an alarming number of grey hairs in my beard. But surely that can’t be right? I’m not old yet am I? I must be one of those people who turn grey early, like Steve Martin. Yeah, that’s it. That’s almost cool in a way isn’t it. Isn’t it?

Anyhow…

This is a photo of Evan. Notice his beautiful hair.

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But last night Kerry found a solitary traitorous brown strand buried in his mop of golden hair. Say it ain’t so son, say it ain’t so.

————————————————-

On a different note, and because I can’t be bothered posting twice in one day, I’d like to point you over towards the folks at MyChild.co.uk who have very kindly interviewed me this week as part of their ongoing spotlight on parent bloggers. You can read it here

(N.B. I would just like to point out in their otherwise judicious editing of my answers the people at MyChild substituted the word “computer” with the letters “PC”. I would like to make it clear that I do NOT own a stinking PC. Its Apple all the way baby, Apple all the way)

Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!

Nov 23rd, 2009
by Dan.
38 comments

IMG_3739

Not only bad, but awkward and wooden too.

Oct 9th, 2009
by Dan.
25 comments

Here’s an extract from the comments section over on my Blood Bowl blog. You know; that site we don’t really talk about here as it exposes me as a sad geeky nerd who plays pretend American football with little models of orcs and goblins.

I am a bad bad brother.

Today my sister Megan got married to a very pleasant chap called John. And despite all the odds I managed to actually turn up on time and appropriately dressed (oh, and I also managed to sneak a game of Blood Bowl in beforehand too – hurrah!).

Congratulations to John and Megan, and here’s to a future full of happiness.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to head off to the evening do and shatter my diet into tiny pieces.

But before I go I’d like you to provide you with further evidence of my bad brotherhood. When we got back home I took cursory glance at Kerry’s excellent photos of the ceremony. I thought that Jo in particular would like to see this one, as it shows in clear detail the hereditary Hughes gene that causes us to shun all physical contact with other human beings.

“Can’t you put your arm round your sister on her own wedding day!?” Kerry implored to Sam and I as she focused the shot.

No” I muttered through gritted teeth as rigor mortis set in.

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I’m sorry, but aside from my wife and my children I just don’t do hugs. My personal space boundary extends to such a distance that it is close to being classified as it’s own parish council.

As my new brother-in-law John so accurately pointed out, there isn’t a person on this earth that poses for a photo more awkwardly than me. Get used to it John, because along with your new lovely wife you’ve got a new socially retarded family member thrown in as part of the bargain!

Congratulations!

Daniel-san

Sep 29th, 2009
by Dan.
35 comments

We’re back from our weekend in the lakes. Did I find my mojo? I’m not sure, but if I didn’t I certainly came close.

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We stayed in Windermere, which is far from my favourite place in Cumbria – the main reason for which is that it’s constantly heaving with tourists. How dare people wish to holiday where I am holidaying?! It’s a bloody disgrace! However our accommodation was free (won in a raffle) and so it’s probably best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, we didn’t end up spending much time in the town and the room was nice, so ultimately it didn’t really matter where the hotel was situated.

I won’t go into a blow by blow account of our weekend. Suffice to say that we did a little bit of walking, a little bit of sitting on boats, and a little bit of buying unnecessary plastic objects from the Lakeland shop. Kerry also took some rather nice photos too.

IMG_6788

I also had a bit of a resurgence of motivation to lose weight. For the past six months or so I’ve been struggling to scrape up the commitment to lose the final 30lb I need to get rid of to get to my target weight. This sounds crazy considering prior to that I managed to lose 70lb in just nine months without much bother.

I’ve come to realise over the last 12 months that dieting is all about state of mind. You need to train yourself to just accept that you are just not someone who eats chocolate, pizza, and deep fried mars bars. Limiting myself to a set number of “sins” a day doesn’t work for me; because once I pop I just can’t stop.

So today is the first day of phase two of Operation Blubber Loss. I am officially dieting again. And this time, in an effort to shame/motivate myself to keep with the program I’m going to publish a weekly update of my progress. Yes it will be boring, yes it will be monotonous; but in the words of Lesley gore- it’s my blog and I’ll post drivel if I want to.

So here goes.

This morning after I went to the toilet, before I ate something, and whilst I was holding twenty two helium balloons and standing on my tiptoes my weight was:

17 stone 3lb (or 241lb)

Yes yes, I’m a bloater. But remember I used to be 22 stone (308lb)

Let the not eating as much as I normally do commence!