The Beauty of Gray

The Beauty of Gray, originally uploaded by Zepsis.

After going to the Job Centre the other day I decided to head up to Alexandra Palace as it gives you a good view of the city and you can get some great photos plus is also a fabulous place for running due to the hills and greenery.

Anyway it was a broody day and the way the sun was dropping behind the building with heavy clouds all around gave me a tremendous opportunity to obtain some dramatic black and white shots, two of which you can see here.

Light my dark path, originally uploaded by Zepsis.

It is not far away

As we are all aware the FIFA World Cup is not very far away and as always nearly every advert contains a footballer whether it is the epic Nike ads, funny Pepsi ads or now even silly Pringles adverts.

So I decided to take a look at some of my favourite football adverts produced over recent years and share them with you.

So here is the recent Nike advert



And here are some of my favourite past Nike football adverts

1. Good versus Evil Who can forget the collar up and Au Revoir.


2. Footballers versus Ninjas It is only a ball. No, it is rounder.


3. The Cage


There was even a short follow up to his with
3a. The Rematch


Nike favoured using the Brazilians in the 90's and early 2000's with samba football and all the tricks.

4. Portugal versus Brazil OLE!


5. Brazil Changing Room


6. Brazil Airport


As mentioned at the beginning other companies have produced good adverts using footballers so lets see some of these now.

Pepsi

1. Oh Afica


2. Foot Volley


3. Surfing Footballers


4. Table Football


5. Medieval Football


6. Cowboy Football


Adidas also popped in some great adverts in the past.

The all stars and classics teams


The Impossible Pitch


The Square



Thank you for looking at my favourites and if you have any yourself please do put them in your comments or add a link to them for others to see.
Whoever you support I hope you enjoy the FIFA World Cup

Catch you next time.

In my spare time

Hello again all sorry I've not been around to blog but to tell you the truth I've had no inspiration and plus the weather here has been gorgeous so who wants to be sat at a computer indoors when the sun is shining. What I have been doing lately is getting myself ready for the British 10K London 2010 in July. Some of you out there may be keen runners or gym bunnies and think 10K is nothing short of a quick jog but, for me it is a marathon, seeing as a child and teenager my longest distance to participate or compete in was the 200m and I'll tell you something I'm nowhere near as fit as I was then so this is going to hurt.

I will be running with my lovely girlfriend who has participated in this run twice before and wants to
1. Beat her previous times
2. Beat me

I'm adamant I will win but after some short training sessions I've realised I may actually lose, which, is not good for me, my ego, masculinity or the entire worth of men in general. I recently found a website called Map My Run where you can decide on a route designed by others or build one yourself which is great as it tells you the distance (miles or kilometres), any hills and their gradients etc. So I designed a short 8km route around Finsbury park near me see below.



My first attempt was yesterday and took a lot longer than anticipated but I'll put that down to the hot weather, not warming up beforehand and not taking my iPod (Who am I kidding I am just so unfit at the moment really). I was surprised to see so many other people out running in the park, maybe I just never noticed them before or maybe I just didn't want to notice them in case I felt guilty for not being more energetic.
I've convinced myself that next time I attempt this run I will do it without stopping.To do this I believe warming up and getting a good playlist together for running is essential.

I have a few songs in mind but I relish your thoughts on what will be good motivational running music. Here are 5 to get you started.

1. Omen - The Prodigy


2. Keep on running - Spencer Davis Group


3. Rocky Them tune


4. The Great Escape - We are Scientists

5. Pump It - The Black Eyed Peas

Lazy Sunday

Now this is what you need to be doing on a Sunday not sitting at your computer writing applications or re-working CV.



There are so many distractions on the internet nowadays it is impossible to name them all but for every vice there is an outlet. This can easily take your mind off job searching so don't concentrate all your time on the internet. I'm one to talk I facebook, tweet etc all the time then play games so this needs to be scheduled into the day so that the hard work of producing quality applications is achieved.
If you really want to waste time try Some of these and you will.
One of my favourite things on a Sunday is to go the pub and have a great roast, chill out, read the paper and have a pint. A simple luxury but well worth it see below.

Well cheerio for now peeps and I'll catch you tomorrow with some serious job hunting stuff and maybe something worth reading for once.


Zepsis

First things first

For all you people out there stuck in the dreaded spiral of job hunting like myself all I can say is make sure you try your hardest to keep a life. I mean the old days of friends, the pub, clubs, football, dancing, galleries in fact whatever you class as a social life but maybe not to the extremes of when you were earning. If you become a hermit then you may become a little loco.

To the actual job hunting: We all know that getting a job is no walk in the park but I'm not going to go in great detail of what to do because really we know what to do but are just struggling in these over competitive times.

Resume/CV - Make it up to date and to be honest try to make it as relevant to each job application you send and not a boring generic straight in the no pile, easily fogettable two pager.

Online Job Boards - Create a profile and update at all times and I've found this encourages recruitment consultants working in your specific field to actual contact you with relevant work. When you see a lot of jobs online posted by recruitment agencies a lot of the time there is no actual job and they are fishing for new candidates to put forward in other roles that come their way.


Networks - By this I mean people you know both personally and professionally. These are some of the best people to find out about work. Their company may need temps, contract workers etc. and they already know what you can do work wise so could put in a good word. Utilise your networks whether it be just chatting or using a website like Linkedin which is excellent for professional networking.

Start on getting these things right and it may just get a little easier. I've already noticed the difference in the number of positive replies to applications I've made recently and so things are hopefully on the up.

Au Revoir for now and I'll catch you job seekers soon.

Zepsis