Life is okay, all things considered. Sometimes I do not appreciate the way things are and how great things actually can be. So much has happened in the past few weeks but I am trying to remain positive and realising that those things I can change, I will and everything else can just wait. Things are going to be difficult, tough and hard but we shall see it through, like we always do. An extremely packed weekend coming up. In fact my weekend starts from Thursday night. Clive comes over for a very early birthday meal. Friday I am off to the O2 to see Afrika!Afrika! with one of my friends who was able to blag a pair of free tickets. I may pop over to Maidenhead for Trance Planet at Phatz Bar to continue in my new guise as Friday Night Terry (depends on how tired I am). Then Saturday, big scary grown up meeting at midday and off back into London for my friend Harp’s birthday party. Not seen her in nearly four years (since I left Uni) so it will be good to catch up. Doubt I will be staying up partying in the CC club until the small hours though. I am getting to old for this… I have a love hate relationship with Pav’s home FTP server. It has come to the point now that Pav finds the whole affair quite funny. So funny in fact that he has changed the prompt when I login with my account, under the name of “Terry”.

With other people downloading off the server or his Dad surfing some graphics intensive web site the transfer rate dips to a low 9kbit/s. Yes, it is as if I was back in the good days of the 56k modem. At this rate a 350meg file would take over nine and half hours to download, longer than an average working day. Eventually Pav hits a switch or does something and the transfer rate jumps up ten times to over 90kbit/s, then the file can be downloaded within the hour. We go through this ritual every week, I think my account should get precedence but Pav is quite diplomatic about it, “Share and Share Alike!”. Before I would just let my FTP client (FileZilla) just continue to crawl without breaking the transfer rate into double figures. However it was far too painful, particularly as it would take over eleven minutes to download just one percent. I would pause the download (even though it perhaps be quicker to start a fresh once all other users had logged off Pav’s FTP and he had blocked port 80 on the Sky router to stop any of his users at home accessing the web. Of course, eventually I get up to full speed and download the file, it is just a struggle. As Pav put it on MSN yesterday, “Terry 1 FTP 0” but it is a score line that is bound to change over time. I thought I would watch the Super Bowl for the first time in my life on Sunday evening. I got as far as watching the National Anthem (my favourite!) sung by American Idol winner Jordin Sparks. A great rendition and I would go as far to say she did a better job than Miss B. Knowles four years ago at Super Bowl XXXVIII. (Which is more famous for a wardrobe malfunction!) We will get back to the wonderful Sparks later. Firstly the game that is American Football. I was too tired to stay up and watch on BBC2, but opted to listen to live commentary on Radio Five Live as I got into bed. As I tried to explain to Chris via e-mail on Monday, I think it is an organised sport that I will never learn to understand let alone love. I think I will stick to the beautiful game (soccer!) It was all going according to the script as I drifted off to sleep. The Patriots were in the lead, or so I could make out. Even with British voices doing the commentary, some of the play was difficult to comprehend. By the time I found out the final score (when I logged onto my laptop at work and opened Fire Fox on Monday morning!) Seems like I missed out on a dramatic final quarter. But then again, how can I feel so passionate about such a sport? I give the Americans credit where it is due. No other country on this rock, or in this universe for that matter could put on the ‘greatest’ show on Earth. Even I get dazed by all the razzmatazz.

We must return to Miss Sparks. She was fantastic and although my sisters watch American Idol, I have never caught the show. So the name, face and more importantly voice were all unfamiliar. After a fantastic retention to a worldwide audience into the billions, I thought it only fair to check out the back catalogue from this young lady. On her official web site, I caught the video to Tattoo. However switching over to Lime Wire, I just entered her name and downloaded a few tracks which appeared. The first to appear was a duet with Chris Brown, “No Air“. What can I say? The amazing element of the song, is not the vocals (which are absolutely outstanding, Brown and Sparks combine fabulously) it is the piano in the background. Maybe one day I will be able to play that tune. Being British, I should really be supporting and fighting the cause of one of my own. Leona Lewis is fantastic and her album is great but you can see or at least feel that she has limits to her powers. However judging Miss Sparks on just this single track, I have to say that she is from a different planet. Excuse me while I go and ‘obtain’ some more of her music and amazing voice. Meanwhile, I will let you judge for yourself. The established superstar up against the reality television winner. Just eighteen days until the video to No Air will be released, I cannot wait!

Tell Me How I’m Supposed To Breathe With No Air Can’t Live, Can’t Breathe With No Air It’s How I Feel Whenever You Ain’t There It’s No Air, No Air Got Me Out Here In The Water So Deep Tell Me How You Gon’ Be Without Me If You Ain’t Here, I Just Can’t Breathe It’s No Air, No Air