About Steve
On Me
As you’ve gathered by now, I’m Steve. I was born right at the end of 1980 (which makes me 25 27 at the time of writing this) and have lived in various parts of Edinburgh since then.
After I left school, I got a job with a charity for whom I’d been volunteering for a few years. It was an office job, but it seemed like a good idea at the time – I had just started a new relationship, was moving out of home, and the salary seemed pretty good for a school leaver compared to 4 years of not much money.
THAT’s why I don’t have a degree… yet. I’m studying with the OU, but due to the nature of Open University degrees the following two things are true:
- I don’t know when I’ll graduate… yet.
- I don’t know what my degree will be in… yet.
I live in Edinburgh with my girlfriend wife, K. At the time of writing this we’re about to move into live in a rented flat in Morningside with our friend Magda no-one else a Kiwi and a friend who was going to be homeless.
K moved to Scotland last year bloody ages ago from Poland. Since then, I’ve been learning about that particular part of Eastern Europe. I’ve been learning small fragments of the language, I’ve had a crash course in culture, and I’m becoming a big fan of the food (and the beer!).
On Blogging
I’ve been blogging since the end of May 2005. My first post was this (not this – which was backdated so that I didn’t have a photo of K on the front page for too long – after all, it’s my decision to blog, not hers – she has a right to her privacy!).
I started off using blogspot because, well, almost everyone does. I registered forlovenormoney.me.uk a short while later. The blogger format was good to me, but I get bored easily and like to fiddle with things, so my recent move to wordpress has given me lots of new toys to break. I like wordpress for the same reason I like Firefox – clever people who know what they’re doing invent toys for idiots like me to play with.
I get confused easily when it comes to CSS, PHP and HTML. One day I will buy a book (or three) and learn some. I don’t think I will learn much though – my brain is just not wired up that way. I bought this current theme for $10 off the internet. It allows me to fiddle without breaking too much. I managed to add the header photo myself, although I still haven’t worked out how to rename it something other than ‘autumn bliss’. Some you win; some you lose.
The name “For Love Nor Money” has little to do with the blog really! Imagine the situation, I was sitting in front of the computer one day, signing up to blogger on a whim, when suddenly it asked me to name my blog. Humph. I hadn’t thought of that. I originally planned to have a semi-workplace-related blog after a brief warm up on personal things – I work for a voluntary organisation and volunteer for one too. Volunteerism is a big part of my life, so I thought a play on the old expression “I wouldn’t do that for love nor
money” would be appropriate. I quickly put a stop to that work-blog idea when I realised that a) my job wasn’t that interesting and b)people get fired for that kind of thing.
It was too late by then though – For Love Nor Money had stuck. I now sit in envy of those with sexier names, or at least names that begin with “A”… I’m always stuck halfway down blogrolls – nowhere near the top or the bottom.
I am still learning about blogging, and the biggest thing I’ve learned is that you’re never more than three clicks away from a MEME…. so, in that noble tradition, here are two of them which sum me up:
Four jobs you have had in your life:
Volunteer Manager
Prison Officer
Sales Assistant in an āadultā shop (oh yes)
Administrator
Four movies you would watch over and over:
Amelie
Itās A Wonderful Life
Ma Vie En Rose
Metropolis
Four places you have lived: (having been rather boring and lived all my life in Edinburghā¦ Iāll do it by area):
Baberton
Dalry
Leith
Tolcross
Four TV shows you love to watch:
ER
Family Guy
American Dad
Question Time
Four places you have been on vacation:
Lower Silesia, Poland
Ontario, Canada
Cardiff, Wales
Southampton, England
Four websites I visit daily :
BBC News
Haloscan Comments
Scotsman.com
Wikipedia
Four of my favourite foods:
Pierogi
Fresh Tuna
Brown Rice
Parsley
Four places I would rather be right now:
Krakow
Toronto
Somewhere remote in the Highlands
Iceland
and….
There seems to be a bit of a meme explosion at the moment. The Four Things one has been popping up all over the place. My guess is that bloggers the world over are having a quiet January and as such have bugger-all to write about. Thatās what Iām doing, hereās another ā this time itās the iTunes meme:
How many total songs?
1714 items, 4.9 days, 8.21GB (edit: wow… that was ages ago – i’m up to about 40GB now!!)
Sort by song title ā first and last?
First: ā39 by Queen (From A Night At The Opera); Last: Zombie(Acoustic) by The Cranberries
Sort by time ā shortest and longest?
Shortest: āGreat Speeches ā Breastsā ā Ivor Cutler (the fantastic Scottish-Jewish humourist, poet and songwriter ā wonderful guy. This one is simply āIf your breasts are too big, you will fall over, unless you wear a rucksackā.)
Longest: Part one of La Traviata. I canāt remember who recorded it, as iTunes didnāt import the CD info. Itās an old one though, I think from the NY Met. My favourite opera, as it happens.
Sort by Album ā first and last?
First: another apostrophe ā āOā by Damien Rice
Last: Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie
Sort by Artist ā first and last?
Fist: 4hero ā Les Fleur (a great version of the Minnie Ripperton classic!)
Last: Zero7 ā When It Falls
Top five played songs?
Light And Day ā Polyphonic Spree
Grey Gardens ā Rufus Wainwright
IV – 4 (just numbers, but itās Violettaās death scene from la travā¦ nice bit of tragedy!)
Bitches Aint Shit ā Ben Folds (genius ā the only man in the world who can turn āBitches canāt hang with the streetsā into a singalong chorus!)
Secret Hidden Track ā Timmy The Dog (actually āCanvas Bagā by Tim Minchin ā who I saw in the Fringe last year)
Find the following words. How many songs show up?
Sex: 4
Death: 3 (all Queen ā Death On Two Legs, twice ā live and album and a track from Flash)
Love: 75 (thatās more like it!)
You: 145
Home: 26
Boy: 18
Girl: 18 (awwā¦ balance)
So what have I discovered? Well, I donāt have nearly as much music on my computer as I thought. I havenāt transferred all of my CDs over yet ā I have an excuse though. Until recently, I have been the owner of a series of rubbish computers. For years I have made-do with the old, the decrepit and the second-hand. My most recent (a nice but slow ultra-portable Compaq) was great, but I could only us the CD drive when it was plugged into the docking station, and even then, it only managed 1.5x importing with iTunes. You can see why I didnāt bother importing. Last week I treated myself to a shiny new laptop courtesy of 12 months interest free credit), so now I have a much faster computer, and 100gb to fill. Since then weāve added a 24ā iMac to the line up, and a works laptop tooā¦
2 Responses
For Love Nor Money… » Spring Cleaning - March 20, 2006
[...] About Steve [...]
Have just discovered Family Guy – Am currently working through season 3….how fantastic is Stewie??!! Lol