Mr Daz

In the current economic climate, with redundancies and closures happening in sectors throughout the country, many people are taking it upon themselves to set up in business for themselves. Whether it’s for the freedom, the promise of untold riches or just the ability to get into work late and not have to face the boss’ wrath, many people are choosing to be their own boss. But what is the reality of working for yourself in the current climate? Is it all puppies and sugar cubes? (That made sense in my head).

Let’s look at the fiction and the reality of anyone would want to become their own boss.

The fiction:

• Money: You can pay yourself whatever you want
• Freedom: You don’t have to go into work if you don’t want to
• Boss: You don’t have a boss
• Stupidity: You don’t have suffer anyone else’s stupid business decisions
• Holidays: You can take holidays whenever and wherever you want

The reality:

• Money: You pay yourself only what you can afford, and that usually isn’t much – sometimes nothing at all
• Freedom: You don’t have to go into work, no, but then nothing will get done and you’ll have no business to speak of
• Boss: You have a boss. It’s you, and if you slack off you have to deal with yourself, wondering why you can’t pay the bills this month or your clients are unhappy work hasn’t been done
• Stupidity: The only stupid decisions you have to suffer are your own, so the buck stops with you
• Holidays: Holidays? Holidays??? Are you serious? You can’t take holidays – who will cover for you?

Do you still want to be your own boss? The reality of working for yourself isn’t quite as exciting and rewarding as the notion may first seem, but (and there is a but) it does offer you the sense of freedom and achievement you just can’t get by working for someone else. The opportunities and potential of becoming your own boss are also unlimited (as the risks, of course) so you succeed or fail depending on your own ability and dedication.

What are you waiting for?

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As someone who has had to buy items for a new home, on more than one occasion, it’s always amazed me that the many ‘home starter’ kits you get in Argos and Sainsbury’s etc seem to contain glassware. Glassware isn’t something I have ever been short of, and have more beer glasses in my home than most pubs – as I’m sure most guys my age do.

While it is true my glass collection doesn’t necessarily match, with different branded beer glasses all sat next to each other in various cupboards and cabinets, I never have the problem of drinking a beverage out of the wrong glass – something that I have to put up with in many pubs and bars. For example, I find there’s nothing worse than drinking Peroni in a regular beer glass. If you’re paying £3-£5 for a Peroni (as it can cost in some bars) then you’ll want the entire drinking experiencing that the money affords. In my house this isn’t an issue. Equally, when you’re drinking a Guinness (as I do regularly) you’ll want a Guinness glass to complete the experience. Some pubs have the audacity to serve Guinness in a non branded glass or, worse, in a Carlsberg glass (or some such inferior lager glass).

This annoys me, as a great many things do, so I’ve made sure this doesn’t happen in my house. Whatever the lager or beer, I have a glass available. Where did I get these beer glasses? The same place every guy gets his glassware, and it wasn’t from Sainsbury’s or Argos.

If, by some chance, I have a beer for which I don’t have a glass I can cover it by using one of my Beer Festive beer glasses, which were obtained legally at the Stockport Beer Festival… happy times.

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Having just switched to a new PC I faced the same problem that bugged me for months with my laptop (before I found a fix and then lost it again) so, as much for me as for anyone else, here is the solution to not getting any audio tracks in Adobe Premiere CS3 when importing files from a Sony Handycam.

My particular model Handycam is a DCR-SR36 – although I believe the issue may affect other Sony Handycam models as well. The problem is that when you take video files from the camera into Premiere, you’re left with video only – and no audio track. The fix, as it happens, is quite a simple one and requires you to download this dll file (right click and save target) and copy it into the root folder of your Adobe Premiere.

Before you do, I take no responsibility for anything that goes wrong – but it worked fine for me on both computers for which I’ve tried it.

If you restart Premiere, you should find your video files now have sound.

On a related issue you may find that Adobe Premiere isn’t playing any sound at all through your speakers, even though you now have an audio track in the timeline. This can be fixed by navigating to: Edit –> Preferences –> Audio Hardware –> ASIO Settings

Then ensure that each device is checked (as they’re not all checked by default, so you may end up with no sound).

This is the double headed problem I just faced today (and again last year, but didn’t make a note of the solution) so the next time I get stuck on it, I’ll know where to go. Hopefully it’ll help someone else too.

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If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, or if you’re unlucky enough to know me, you’ll be familiar with the fiasco concerning my car. I won’t go into detail (because it’s all on this website in various blogs over the years) but in short I bought my car in 2004 and, in that time, it has broken down a few times, been crashed by me a few more times, had its roof slashed, been crashed into, been stolen, been falsely claimed on the insurance by someone else and has been the subject of a dispute between me and not just one, but two insurance companies (use the category tags below for details).

Anyhow, as I mentioned I bought this convertible back in 2004 and, as has become apparent over the years, it’s not the best car for the UK (or for me, really). The pictures below will show just one of the many problems associated with this very low down, two seater, real wheel drive convertible with low profile tyres.

The last few years have seen some pretty heavy snowfall in the UK over Christmas (probably something to do with polar bears and ice caps) and it’s made my car practically unusable for the duration. I’d have been better off with something like a 4×4 (such as the Toyota Landcruiser I once had) or even a small quad bike or ATV snow plough, which I have been looking at online!

Quad bikes aside (because they would be somewhat chilly) I have been looking at a new car in all seriousness. My BMW is about to tick over the 100,000 miles and, having owned it for 7 years, it’s probably due to be replaced. Of course, it may have 100,000 miles on the clock but the engine has actually only done about 45,000, because it was replaced after some idiot stole it while it was in for repairs and completely knackered it, so it has a new engine. Also, I may have owned it for 7 years, but for 18 months the car was in hiding because Direct Line insurance wanted to repossess it.

For the sake of argument though, it’s a 100,000 mile car that I’ve had for 7 years and it’s nearly time to swap it. So what should I get next? Something practical? Something economical? Something that just makes sense?

What do you reckon?

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This week I found some old photos that were taken during my student days, back when I was young and carefree (and had hair, no gut and had just discovered vodka). These pictures reminded me of my one time pride and joy, my coin operated pool table – the source of many happy nights and one or two arguments.

I’d always wanted a pool table since I first played the game at the age of 9. I thought I was brilliant at it (naturally) and wanted my own table. It wasn’t until I moved into student accommodation in Newport in my third year that I actually realised I could get one. We had a shared house with 5 bedrooms, and there were four of us… so the additional room was just redundant. I checked many pool table companies in the Yellow Pages (because Google wasn’t particularly big back then, it was 1997) only to find that pool tables cost over £500 each.

Now, I had a student grant (yes, back in the days when students got grants rather than loans) so I could have afforded that, but then I wouldn’t have been able to afford anything else (such as vodka and beer, you know, essentials). So I checked the free press, and found a pool table for sale in Pontypool for £150.

Being in with the guys at the university, we were able to ‘hire’ a college van for free to pick up the table, and bought it from a guy who was ‘forced’ to sell it by his wife – a concept to which I was alien, at the time!

As you can see from the photos, the pool table was a central part to our university days and was involved in most pre-night out drinking sessions, or warm-ups.

Eddie, one of our housemates, didn’t like the guttural element that the pool table attracted, with mates of mates often coming round to play on it, and it did result in people staying up to all ours playing when other, more academically interested, students wanted to sleep – but it was an excellent purchase, and one that I want to make again one day.

So what happened to the pool table? Well, when I left the house I didn’t want to sell it (much to my dad’s dismay) so needed to store it. I convinced my sister to let me store it in her garage, but she neglected to mention that her garage leaked… leaked like a bloody waterfall. The table was ruined, and ended up being collected for scrap.

I was heartbroken. So many great nights, so many memories (or rather photographs to tell of nights for which we should have memories) and the pool table ended up scrapped.

One day I’ll get one again.

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I have a few friends who are into camping, for some strange reason. My former lodger loved nothing more than packing his rucksack, taking his tent, his mini burner and a tin of beans and heading off up the Lakes to spend days freezing his nuts off in the wilderness.

Oddly, I didn’t fancy joining him. I also have friends who are into ‘podding’ which, although it may sound as though it’s some wife swap game, is in fact a cross between camping and staying in a hotel – you stay in a purpose built wooden structure, one that is still too much like a tent for my liking.

Now it’s not like I haven’t tried camping, because I have. I have tried it once, and hated it. My loathing for this most British of tradition wasn’t down to the loathsome British weather either, as I tried my camping experience in Cannes, in the South of France, where the weather is decidedly more ‘un-British’.

The problem was that I was completely unprepared for the whole ordeal, having borrowed a tent from my Aunty (who, at the time, ran a caravan and camping shop, so you would expect success). Despite being asked, nay, ordered, by my friend to ‘check’ the tent before we set off, I presumed that, because it came from my Aunty, that it would be ok. I presumed wrong. Firstly, the tent didn’t have any poles. For some reason my aunty had forgotten these most vital of camping paraphernalia. Secondly, even if the tent did have poles, it would have been uninhabitable anyway because the last person to use it hadn’t let it dry before packing it away, which apparently you’re supposed to do before storing a tent. It stank. It stank so bad it spelled as though a rat had died in there, and had been rotting for years.

We slept in the car.

The next day I, under orders, found a camping shop where I, using my best French, managed to purchase what I believed to be a tent. The keyword there is ‘believed’. Once again my lack of care and attention at what should have been a straightforward task was set to bit me on the ass, as I delayed putting up the ‘tent’ until after we had returned from ‘le pub’. It was now dark and, in some ironic twist as though Cannes knew we were from the UK, it was raining.

As we attempted to erect this tent under nightfall, and in largely unpleasant conditions, it became apparent that it wasn’t particularly ‘big’. In fact, it was very small indeed, almost as though it were half a tent, with no roof.

It was. It was a windbreaker.

My failure at ensuring the first tent was complete and didn’t smell of ‘merde’ was compounded by my failure to actually buy a tent the second time.

We slept in the car.

So you see, camping isn’t for me. Unless you can buy tents that are inflatable buildings, where you erect them simply by pulling a chord and then sleep on a cushion of air, rather than on a sheet resting on a rock hard floor that hasn’t seen rain until the very night I attempt to erect a windbreaker, then I’m not interested in camping.

I’ll settle for hotels, with king-size beds and room service. Camping is for other people.

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As an avid watcher of the Apprentice on BBC1, I often think how I would have fared with some of the apprenticeship jobs that they’ve had to do over the series. Tonight sees the budding apprentices travelling to France where, no doubt, we’ll see which of them are educated in the classic sense of the word (and can pass a sentence or two in French) and which of them opt for the speaking slower, louder and in English tactic of communicating.

Looking back at previous tasks however, it’s clear that some of the ideas on offer from the apprentices are truly shocking. The mobile app task springs immediately to mind, where both teams decided upon an App that simply makes annoying, and not particularly amusing, noises. One app was simply awful, while the other app was awful and mildly offensive – while also alienating the ‘worldwide’ audience by focusing on UK regional accents.

I did notice that one of the other apprentices mentioned the idea of a bubble wrap popper app, which was quickly dismissed in favour of the badly executed regional accents app. This, of course, was a much better idea and would have been far more successful – certainly would have won them the task.

It was, though, the general lack of ideas that I found surprising on this task, and on others. Mobile apps is such a big industry that ideas should have been flowing, although of course they would have been limited with the short, overnight, development time (which is very limiting it has to be said).

The dog food challenge where the budding apprentices attempted to brand a dog food ‘Every Dog’, which could then be broadened out to ‘Every Cat’, ‘Every Horse’ and ‘Every Elephant’ was a monumentally bad idea. Even when the focus group, which contained a vet, said that it wouldn’t work they still went for it.

If only they’d just targeted puppies, as dogs tend to have three stages of dog food during their lives (puppy, adult and senior) they’ve have won the task – as their branding and their advert was very good. It was just the basic idea that was flawed.

I look forward to seeing what they come up with tonight, and who embarrasses themselves with their lack of education or willingness to even attempt the French language.

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Within the next few weeks I should be moving house once again (assuming the buyers of my house manage to move in time) and leaving rainy Manchester for the slightly sunnier climes of Ellesmere Port. I’m buying a bigger, cheaper house, to be nearer work and, as it’s a repossession, I need to move fast and complete within four weeks. This isn’t a problem for me, as I’m ready to go whenever, so hopefully it’ll all go off without a hitch assuming my buyers can move quick enough.

What is quite interesting though, and I believe unique, is that in the years I’ve owned property dating back to 2000 in Bracknell, I’ve only sold two properties (my flat in Bracknell and now this house in Manchester) and, when I sold these two properties, I did so with just one viewing apiece. That must be some sort of record?

I sold the flat in Bracknell, where I worked as a web designer for GAME, back in 2003 (just two and a half years after buying it) and moved to Cwmbran to a four bedroom house. I still own that house and let it out (although that’s causing a few issues at the moment with troublesome tenants who can’t budget). In that house in Cwmbran I worked, at first, in Bristol – doing the long commute over the Severn Bridge and paying the scandalous toll to work as a New Media Design for MM Teleperformance, and then I worked for a company called Black Sheep, doing web development and web design in Cardiff.

My gradual move North took me to Manchester, from Cardiff, and now to Ellesmere Port where, hopefully, I’ll actually be able to walk to work in a few weeks.

Of course, just because I ‘can’ walk to work, doesn’t mean I will. I might even get my old Micro Scooter out of retirement and use that to travel to work, as I once did when I lived in Bracknell and worked at GAME.

I’ll have to get pictures this time if I do.

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