Category: Personal

Misc.

Some quick updates, all misc.

  • Unlucky St Johnstone. Watching the game as a whole you couldn’t tell who was the first division team. In fact Rangers were shocking and it was St Johnstone who showed more ingenuity and had good spells of possession. I fear that tiredness and injuries are finally catching up with Rangers and i have the genuine ‘The Fear’ for the remainder of the season. Thank goodness we’ve at least won something this season already.
  • Tempted to buy a Wii. The urge to play Mario Kart is strong despite some of the iffy reviews. However, I’ve put it off this long and I’m still expecting (really desperately hoping) that a 3G iPhone will drop in June which will need funds. And GTA IV is next week. So I really shouldn’t. If only I didn’t have that urge.
  • While on the topic, how good does GTA IV look? Bloody amazing! Watched all the trailers again and I just can’t wait. Spent the weekend listening to Vice City and San Andreas soundtracks – class.
  • Not class is Konami. Metal Gear online beta was due to launch today. Firstly the download took a few hours on Thursday. Then as soon as you launch t it requires another 400Meg download which took a very long time and couldn’t be downloaded in the background. Now you need a Konami ID and a Game ID to play the game….which doesn’t work. And their website is virtually unusable. WTF? Why they wanted to use their own ID’s to play the game baffles me and also shows the lack of cohesion throughout the PS3. Shame. Hopefully when the beta finally gets moving later this week the game actually plays well…although Pro Evo online is hardly a good advert of what they can achieve online.
  • Alex Salmond. Honestly. Why are you such a smug git?
  • Fuel shortage? Panic buying? Doesn’t really take much to get people into a frenzy these days. It’s time we relied less on petrol, cars etc. I’ll fill up tomorrow though, just because I really don’t have any fuel left. The price at the moment is shocking too.
  • New BBC idents – very nice but how long has it taken to get to this point and how much money did it cost?
  • Job still going well. Time still flies, it all still feels new.
  • Radiohead tickets arrived. Just over two months until the concert at Glasgow Green. Cannot wait for that one.
  • Weight loss still progressing although rate of weight loss has slowed. Still, can’t complain really although clothes are starting to look baggy so shopping trip required soon.
  • Speaking of job there is one downside. There’s a right old moany bastard that sits close by three days a week. Tue-Thurs. Thank goodness for iPod and also being busy as it keeps me focussed. That guy just sucks the life out of anything in the vicinity. Annoys me even as I write this.
  • I’ve got a week off soon – first holidays of the year. Lot’s of jobs around the house so hopefully the weather gets a bit better.
  • The back lawn we put down last year looks pooh at the moment. Lot’s of moss and what looks like lots of weeds. Sigh. It’s at times like these concrete and chuckies sound like a great idea.
  • Still got some old drafts to post here. Onkyo 705 thoughts and also how GT5 plays. Don’t know if I’ll finish them off or not.
  • Mum’s birthday at the weekend and I’ve got no clue what to buy her. Wonder if she’d like a Wii?

Easter Eggs

As it was quite a nice day yesterday I took a walk down to Maplins for a couple of bit’s and pieces which also meant I got to see the annual Easter Egg Run to Yorkhill Hospital. There were thousands of bikes!

Endless

The noise was superb and even 30 mins after it had started there were still bikes passing by. I can remember when this event started. I was living in Argyle Street and over 3 or 4 years it grew from a few hundred to a few thousand bikes. Estimates yesterday were of over 10,000 bikes from across the UK. Impressive.

Great Trike

Full set of blurry pic’s can be found here.

It’s Been a While

Not posted much recently. A horrible man flu bug has got in the way of things recently but feeling better now. It got in the way so much that my new amp has been here a week now and it’s still not out the box. I picked up an Onkyo 705 to take advantage of the new audio formats now on offer. Looking forward to setting it up this weekend.

Thats assuming I’ve not been blown away – the wind has been pretty bad over the last few days. Just some snow to look forward to now. Joy!

Two weeks left before I start my new job. Can’t wait. Starting to pick up new work already and it’s looking sufficiently different, exciting, new and that’s before I start. Will be coding again when I move jobs and I’ve started to mess around with APEX in my own time – pretty powerful package and you can get a lot done with very little effort, or so it seems.

Weight loss continuing at an OK pace. Lost the Christmas gains and creeping towards 2.5 stones lost since last September. Back on to the badminton also although the calf is tightening every time I play. Not good.

Trying MarsEdit, loving CSSEdit, wondering why I didn’t use 1Passwd sooner, resisting the iPhone with it’s new tariff’s although now that I’m contract free I’m finding it more difficult than ever to resist.

Loving seeing Tory Derek Conway getting caught with his nose in the trough. I can’t understand why we can’t sack MP’s who are obviously abusing the system.

Anyway, another gale’s whipping up. Time for bed (not sleep – got the whistling wind to listen to).

Looking Forward

I’m not sure if it’s the new year, the new job at work that’s coming soon or just the fact that it was so grey at the weekend that I had to do something else but I’ve been thinking a lot about the tasks I’d like to do to the house over the next year or so. I didn’t do as much as I hoped last year so that means there’s a lot more to do than usual. I’m also looking at re-doing a couple of rooms as well. Getting a bit bored of the various beige colours used throughout the house.

So I’ve brain dumped into iGTD this weekend and I’ve got a massive list of tasks now – just need to sort them into some sort of order. At the same time I’m thinking of re-doing the blog theme again. Scribbling down some idea’s only at the moment but hope to get something together over the next couple of weeks.

Finally got all the cd’s ripped this weekend too so need to get them boxed and into the attic. That place needs a clear out also – so many boxes and old stuff that I no longer use. Hopefully by next weekend my new amp will have arrived and I can get the old one onto eBay. It’s been a while since I’ve eBay’d anything although there’s probably quite a few things in the attic that could be sold. Mmmmm.

So hopefully you didn’t get too wet this weekend. Our garden gets serious puddles in new places due to the path and grass we put in this year. I was going to try and sort it on Saturday but it was a bit cold. That’s another task for the year ahead. It’s going to be a busy one!

Resolutions

Almost a year ago I did a quick best of 2006 and also mentioned that I had some goals for the year. Well one of the goals was to lose some weight and I’m pleased to say that I have.

It took until August before I actually did anything when I bought an exercise bike and started playing badminton again. It was hard going at first as it wasn’t just the fact I was obese. I was totally unfit. Really, really unfit. When I think back a few years to when I was at uni I was doing lot’s of sports and I walked everywhere. Fast forward 12 years and there is no sport and almost no walking – everything is done via the car now. From leaving uni to now I reckon I’ve put on around 6-7 stone. When I started exercising in August my weight was 124kg (19.5 stones). My BMI was 38.3. Shocking.

Weight Loss

Over the last four months though I’ve lost 13.4kg (just over 2 stones) and the BMI has dropped to 34.2. I’m really chuffed with the progress so far as it’s not been without hiccups. I had a quick trip to hospital, a really heavy cold (man flu – honest) and I also managed to tear my calf playing badminton in mid October. Despite this the weight loss has been slow but constant but I won’t be stopping there. I first need to work off the Christmas excess as I’m in no doubt that I’ve put on some weight while I’ve been off and away from home. However I’m keen to keep going and see if I can get the BMI away from obese so that I’m just overweight. That would mean getting down to 97kg – another 13kg so I’m halfway there at the moment. A big ask but something I’m pretty confident of achieving. Once I get to that point? Not sure really. Probably a wardrobe shop is required as I’m already noticing that some of my clothes are looking a bit looser than they used to.

At the moment I’ve not changed my diet really. I’ve cut out snacks and also reduced biscuits – my main failing. However my diet as a whole is pretty poor so I’m sure there is a lot to be done with it. As for exercise, I’ll continue with the bike at the current rate and also return to badminton. I’m a bit fearful of badminton as the calf is still not recovered 10 weeks on from the injury but a proper warm up and gentle introduction should see me OK. As for the bike I’m currently doing 50-70 miles a week and I think that is OK. Since the end of August I’ve done 770 miles on the bike burning off 23000 calories. Allegedly.

Apart from that I’m looking forward to a new job next year. Still at the same firm but moving to IT rather than Engineering so should see quite a change in day to day work. I can’t wait. I’ve been stagnating for a while now and I’m hoping the change will work out well.

Apart from that I’m itching to start programming. I’ve a couple of web app’s that I’ve been wanting to do for a while but I’ve never got round to it. It’s also been a long time since I’ve hacked anything together so it will be great to brush up on skills. There also a couple of house projects to get done that I’ve put off for a while.

And that’s it. Happy 2008 to anyone that has the misfortune of reading this blog and getting this far in the post. Hope it turns out well for you.

Where’s the Truffles?

Every Christmas I usually pick up a couple of tins of Celebrations. One for work, one for home. At work the Galaxy Truffles always disappear first with a pack of hungry wolves searching through the tin devouring all in their path. So it got me wondering – are there less Truffles in a standard tin? So I took my 2 * 1KG tins and counted out the split. The results are of no surprise but still disappointing.

Celebrations

So that’s why the Truffles and Galaxy’s always go first. At least the Topic’s are no longer part of the tin but it’s poor that the sweet’s aren’t split evenly. If only they would sell a packet of Truffles on their own. Mmmmmm – lovely. Still – none for me as I’m still trying to keep the weight loss going at least until Christmas arrives.

Random Stuff

  • Picked up a new router as the old Linksys was starting to misbehave with Xbox Live. The D-Link DIR-655 has performed admirably since purchase with no issues to report. The wireless N has also increased speed for the laptop and has a far better range than the G Linksys. Gigabit ethernet has also increased speeds from the NAS and web sites and downloads are also a lot snappier. A great purchase!
  • Turned 34 last week. Getting old. Fast.
  • Spaces on the laptop works really well.
  • Still not bought an iPhone 🙂 Getting over the initial urge is the biggest hurdle on holding off for version 2. Christmas is next followed by official app’s in Feb.
  • Leopard is performing well although there are a few niggles here and there like images not dismounting or Finder taking a while to refresh. Nothing big really.
  • Four shopping weekends to Christmas – not got a clue what to get.
  • Weight loss still progressing well. I’ll do a proper progress post later in the year.
  • Some job changes at work are in progress. Hopefully. Maybe. Probably.
  • If you miss OS X hierarchical folders then OldFolder is for you.
  • The new Worpdress plugin update feature is great. Makes managing plugins a lot easier than it used to be.
  • Shut down Forza Leagues this weekend. We put a lot of effort into it but unfortunately the game and the small community let us down really. It still niggles just how much people demanded from the site and the admin team but put little back in themselves. It’s the first time I helped to run a community site and it’s an experience I don’t fancy repeating soon. Once bitten.
  • Still got a really nasty cold. Tiredness now gone but the snot hasn’t.
  • COD4 is the new Halo 2. The abuse and shouting before a game is tiring. If the dev’s could have picked up one thing from the beta or Halo 3 it should have been a quick method of muting and no way of hearing the other team until AFTER the match. Still, it’s a great game and the upcoming patch should address the small issues the game currently has.
  • OmniFocus now available. Looks nice and integrates well with iCal and Mail. Need to see how it stacks up against iGTD which is free and includes .Mac syncing.
  • Car passed it’s MOT with little trouble. I’ve had the Focus for six years now. While I’d like a new car, I don’t really need one so I’ll have it for a while yet I’d imagine.
  • Only four more weeks at work before I stop for Christmas break….and three weeks off. Bliss.