So the most important thing that I haven’t blogged about (but have actively spoken about on Twitter and Facebook) is the birth of our son Mason. Excuse me while I potentially gush a little. He is a little bundle of joy and an amazing addition to our family I can’t wait to see him and Ruby grow up together.

Of course as amazing as he is being woken at 4am is rarely fun but it’s all part of the process so you just get on with it. The response from friends has been great, visitors and well wishers a plenty, we are indeed blessed. Ruby is coming round to the idea of him being around too which is great, she’s always wanting to hold him and gives him kisses all the time.

Basis of this post is that Jen and I couldn’t be happier and if you have congratulated us at all through any medium we are so grateful and feel really lucky to have you all as friends.

I did warn it might be a bit gushy.

Yesterday was our little girls 3rd birthday. A fabulous occasion which everybody enjoyed thoroughly especially her. Some family members came round for present unwrapping and party food etc. It was all going nicely until i had a brain wave. “hey” i thought to myself “I’m on the XBOX 360 preview program, why don’t i take advantage of that by putting Last.fm on for some background music”.

This idea it appears was only great in theory, it appears my previous experience of Last.fm was no indicator of all of it’s content. I had only previously listened to things like Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden etc but was aware that more family friendly music was available. I switched my XBOX on, moved through the menu’s to Last.fm and selected a station appropriate to our daughters musical taste being Lady GaGa. The musical offering was as you can imagine, Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, Jessica Simpson, Britney Spears, Pussycat Dolls and weirdly Heidi Montag. Pop music basically. Last.fm on your XBOX displays a slide show of photo’s of the artist while their song is playing, it appears at this point it should perhaps change it’s name to Lust.fm. The ensuing photostream of pictures could have been likened to softcore porn which is something i normally would not have complained about (other than the god awful sight above), but seeing as the music was mainstream pop listened to mainly by young people and the XBOX does try to market itself as a family console i thought it was pretty inappropriate.

Scared I’m sounding like an old fuddy duddy right now but i don’t think anyone would knowingly put the above picture and many like it on the telly knowing that their 3 year old was in the room. I am certain as well that there are far more “family friendly” pics of these artists available for use.

Update: I sent a link to my blog to Last.fm through twitter about this, they responded saying it was an issue they were working with Microsoft on. They also sent me this link to a post made by Major Nelson on his blog. It refers to the new features like Last.fm etc not being available to under 18′s right away as they are working on parental control’s for these features, this is of course is great news especially in light of the things i was saying about family orientation.

It would appear though that my issue would be unresolvable. My 3 year old does not have her own XBOX LIVE account where i can set parental controls to protect her from adult materials for obvious reasons, she’s 3. Therefore as with any other adult themed materials for the XBOX it would be up to me to not access those materials in front of my daughter, and that’s fine. I would never play any games in front of her that involved blood and gore or sexual themes, but the issue is that i was trying to listen to music, music which as far as i am aware does not require pictures of the artist in scantily clad attire or in some cases completely nude with limbs obscuring breasts. So my only answer is to not use a service I’d like to take advantage of, shame really.

….. Is hopefully legal in the UK!!!

My friends got married in Vegas while on their 2 month trip across the states. I know I’ve already tweeted this and put something on facebook but I just wanted to blog about it too and I don’t give an impotent wallabys flacid penis if you want to read this particular post or not cos this ones for me!!!

The wedding was filmed and the uploaded to a website so I got to watch it actually happen which was really cool and a truly unique experience for me. Then came tech fail in the form of an attempted video conference between the happy couple and friends and family. It appears popularity is a curse when on a shared net connection in a hotel. They made Skype calls to us all individually and it was cool to chat with them now that they is all hitched N wotnot. It has made me think about my wedding when I eventually have it, guess I’d best propose at some point eh.

It’s exam results day and i’ve passed. Praise be and all that. I’m not gonna drone on about it, i’m happy i’ve passed and i’m looking forward to my final year… and shitting it too. Off to a coincidentally timed party thrown by friends as they go away for a reeeeeally long time next week. It’s time for booze and and a celebratory cigar.

As you may have already noticed my blog has a new look. I’d like to say thank you to Sian Gibson who you can also find in my links. She used the design from a tattoo on my back for the sites design and there is a pic of the tattoo on me below. I’m really happy with it because it’s clean and simple and uses something that is a big part of me (literally) and who i am. In some circles i am known as Big Bear and that is exactly what the tattoo is in totemic form. Cheers again Sian.