Killer Cars

I did not have the energy to blog last night, if I had I would simply have written my weekly Japanese was hard post. In truth I am still really shattered from the weekend and its so cold and oppressive at the moment

"Going out for a little drive and it could be the last time you see me alive", could have been my theme tune this morning. I defrosted my car, not very well dumped a load of hot water over the top, unfortunately it was so cold that I only got quarter of a mile before the damn thing refroze over I couldn't see a thing an had to drive for a few moments with only about 5percent visibility until I could find somewhere to stop.

Apparently it will be a very cold night tonight, talking of cold I think Paul and Ian must be annoyed with me. I know it was crap I did not "play out" this weekend, even though it totally was not my choice neither of them returned my calls recently.

I went to the gym tonight for the first time in over a week, I kind of went a little crazy and my body feels rather abused now. I still have not managed to get back to where I was before the Christmas break in terms of the weights, though my running is going well. I managed to beat me (quiet poor) best 5km time, did it in about 29 minutes. I was absolutely knackered but still managed a weight session afterwards. Perhaps a short break was not so bad after all.

I spoke to to ex girlfriends today, they both contacted me randomly, in either case I have no real idea what the purpose was, perhaps they just wanted to make sure I am not doing better than them?

Training aides

Found a really cool website you can draw on a map to work out how far / fast you have run http://www.mapmyrun.com

People are strange

Today has been a strange day for me, I actually received high praise for my work over the weekend which was very welcome but also pretty strange. It kind of shows that when all our effort is put into one project we can successfully complete it, promptly.

This evening I went for a quiet drink with Bruce at the Thieves, on the walk there we noticed a man stood at the side of the graveyard taking photographs of the church (or the graves we weren't sure). Given it was actually freezing we thought it was a rather odd thing to be doing. Bruce and I were just leaving the pub when a random women approached me and asked if my surname was Cooke. She told me she knows my dad from way back when he was a child, and my grandparents, the ones I never met. It was a rather surreal conversation and ended rather abruptly when I told her I still lived with my parents and never got to meet my grandparents on my fathers side. She told me he probably would not remember her and left without telling me her name. It all made for a very surreal evening.

Bruce and I had been having a quiet drink and chat about his search for a house. It looks like he has been gazzumped on his uncles place so he is looking around at some other properties. Current favorite is one in Cheadle. He was pretty upset at all the money needed to pay for other things, surveys, legal fees, and lender fees amongst others totaling somewhere around £5000. Its an expensive business this home buying that is for sure.

Which Superehero are you?

Your results:
You are Hulk
You are a wanderer with
amazing strength.

Hulk		65%
Spider-Man		65%
Robin		62%
Superman		60%
Iron Man		55%
Green Lantern		55%
The Flash		55%
Catwoman		45%
Supergirl		40%
Batman		40%
Wonder Woman		20%

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

I am not entirely sure how I ended up being 20% Wonder Women, I definitely said no to the push up bra question.

For all the cows

Was interesting waking up this morning, I had two rather weird text messages sorry cant make the contents public. Contrary to message two sentiment I did not make it to Leamington, it was very upsetting for me but I have spent the majority of the weekend at work creating new mortgage screens.

Despite having worked yesterday everything I did needed to be changed despite it matching the brief the brief didn't match peoples ideas. I spent about 2 hours reworking to the new plan, and another couple of hours adding new features. Then I had to do the testing. I had to put up with a horrible anally retentive call center nobody, and a rather annoying call center manager. They apparently has to fight off girls with a stick, Jesus he is so fucking ugly in manor and tone are women so simple? Surely not, its bad enough I get asked to go dancing with my friends girlfriend, but being dissed by a call center pleb was nearly enough to bring on he red mist. Especially after two day super hard graft. I did have one new experience today,I had my first ever KFC meal. The IT managers girlfriend bought it for us which was pretty good to be honest I was getting hungry. However no exercise and a KFC I a on a dark path :(

I drank two bottles of Belgium beer tonight so my head is mashed. I also watched a film called the children of men about a future with no babies, its quiet scary guessing what England maybe. I hope it doesnt come to that, I would like to have some kids one day, if I find the right partner.

Oh Yeah

Some days things just don't go to plan, and unfortunately today was one of them. Everything started as usual I got up went to work, spent the morning working on a project to optimise some programs. At lunch time I came home and ate lunch with my parents, I got back to work on time at 1.30 then the bomb dropped, the big boss man at the customer had decided some work needed to be ready for Monday. The first I had heard of this work was yesterday when I was asked for a vague time estimate on producing a cu t down mortgage application, I had suggested it would take two days. That gave me less than half a day to complete the work, and get it tested, impossible.

After speaking to my boss I was persuaded that I was the only member of the team available (there is also another software roll-out at another customer happening on Monday). All this work related nonsense means I had to cancel my trip out with the boys, Paul sounded particularly annoyed with me. I find it hard to balance my career and social life. As Paul said I am not a director but if I had not have agreed one of my colleagues would have had to do the job, and I know they would not have thanked me for it as I would not I the position were reversed.

Its hard trying to make your way in this world nobody can tell you what the best thing to do is. I am trying to make a career; the problem is I am not sure if I am a model employee worthy or a promotion / pay rise. Or am I just another part of the machine downtrodden and ignored. All I know is all I have is my own efforts, there is nobody to bail me out, I cannot afford to take a big gamble and lose.

Anyway's, I hope everyone has a good weekend, albeit one without me joining in the fun. My weekend will be spent designing screens. I did manage to go to the gym tonight but have ruined the good intentions somewhat by starting back up on the beer. There were some cans in the fridge left over from the pre Christmas party at Jo's. It has been a month since I last had a drink and all the time they were sat in the fridge begging to be consumed.

Annie

My blogs have been a bit dull recently, I am afraid I think this is a by-product of me cutting back for January and staying tee total. However January is now over so I can have a beer again. more good news is that the trip down to Paul's is definitely on. So this weekend should be great llaugh as, myself Woller Ian and Paul out in Royal Leamington Spa :)

Upgraded the mono engine at work this morning, it went pretty well which was very lucky really its needed for a new project.

Managed 30 minutes running at 10km/h which I thought was pretty impressive for me, I was totally knackered on the cooldown I nearly walked straight out of the gym. I have meant to do a weights session but my arm is still bruised from donating blood.

I found out that on Firefox for Linux and Mac you can type define:word into the address box and it does a dictionary lookup rather than a websearch very clever. I also managed finally to get British English dictionaries on so no more red wavy lines under colour ;)

I spent this evening tussling with Ian' smartphone. It is a Sony P910, the same model as some the guys at work have, we managed to get Imap email working and with a bit of messing about I even made the sync software play ball. Its actually quiet a feature rich phone, though I don't really like the flip bit I certainly thinks it one of the best smart phones at least until the Apple i-phone comes out.

Entropy

Had the most difficult Japanese class this evening basically had to write ask and understand only in Japanese a list of 25 things from radio to chocolate. It was very confusing. I spoke to some of the others they also found it difficult, so at least I wasn't. I think that Emi, our teacher likes to keep think moving at a fair pace. I think her expectation we will pick things up or give up.

After class I had the pleasure of meeting Nick and Mike for a drink. I stuck to diet coke, its still January after all. It was good to see Mike it has been a while. Ever since he became a father I have seen him only infrequently so it is always quiet fun having a chat. Nick was tired as usual, he has been having trouble with his lettings one of them caught fire after a tenet feel asleep holding a lit cigarette.

Higher than reason

I spend a lot of time contemplating things, probably far more than is healthy to be honest. I have always found thinking easier than action, unless the action is to think of course. A lad at work was talking about houses today, it came up after I stumbled upon then 1000 / month article. He travels everyday from St Helens. He is in a similar situation to me commuting to Accrington in my previous job. He is looking to buy somewhere closer which is cool trouble is he is 3 years younger. I guess it makes me feel a little left behind. Stupid I know life is only ever a race against oneself not others.

I need to take some action stop being a stay at home boring nothing, I have hardly done anything this month. Though to be honest, I seem to have timed it so all my big bill hit in January not the best planning ever. I will have to raid some of my savings accounts in order to pay for everything. I guess on the positive side at least I have savings, rather than having to get into debt.

I have now been alcohol free for nearly a month to be honest I am looking forward to having a drink soon! I would have saved money except I spent it on Amazon buying books to try to learn about web services. Unfortunately, they mostly sit on my shelf unread. I only ever really use them for reference I am falling into my dads trap.

I managed to have a bit of a chat to Lulu today; she is still addicted to World of Warcraft and prison break! Oh someone asked my why she is called Lulu its not a very Chinese name and you would be right it isn't as I understand its an anglicised name as the Chinese doesn't go into English very well (hope that is correct ;)

Why I'll never own a house

A BBC Story reports that house prices will rise by an average of £1000 per month during 2007. Thats way more than I can save and already the prices are out of reach.

Facebookage

After having a long boring chat with one of my clients about how their website wasn't working and that I should refund them for months despite the fact they never bothered to mention it I was feeling slightly annoyed. So I decided to do some shameless self publication and set up a profile on Facebook. It is another of the (in)famous Web 2.0 sites with plenty of community content primarily focussed on University/ College graduates creating groups of friend for people from the same University or area. Its a lot more slickly designed than myspace I especially liked the fact you can embed the rss feed from other blogs rather than being forced to use the Facebook one. So far i only have a few friends so if there are any other Facebook users reading this please feel free to add me.

I had basically a geeky day in fact apart from going for a swim (for the first time in months) I mostly spent the day upgrading SuSE on my works laptop 10.2 is great it even does the power management properly (provided I add a few extra modules to the autoload). I also tried to get the new server up and running but it still refuses to boot, I think its cursed to be honest.

Someone took it upon themselves to give me a major dressing down for living at home, and not being married yet. It was quiet depressing and they had a point but what am I meant to do, I can't really see a point in moving out to a really crap area where I would have a constant struggle affording to live. As for the lack of relationships I am working on it, just I haven't been able to meet the right person yet.

Fussy Fish

My fish have turned into gourmets; a few weeks ago, I bought the more expensive food because the cheap one was out of stock. After consuming it, the Oscars are refusing to eat the cheap variety. It is going to end up costing me twice as much to feed them now, and I wasted £13 buying a tub of the cheap food. I find it raterh funny how the fish have personality. I mean not the same way as humans do, but still they have individual characteristics.

I stayed in and watched a film with Bruce and Phil this evening. Called Severance the film was a cheap British slasher. Focusing on a group of weapons company employees on a team building retreat in Eastern Europe. It was quiet entertaining shot in a post-modern ironic style lampooning some of the horror conventions whilst keeping a certain level of tension. I especially liked the Russian chicks with guns scene after the British person could not work out how to fire a rifle.

Endgame

Listening to a song [endgame] Jo gave me apparently its one of his friends songs I quite like it. The sone is an ambient electronic track with a female singer, its a little overlong but otherwise quiet a pleasent song.

Today I have had two meals out :) bad me, I gave blood good me and I sorted out some bits and bobs for Ian.

The first meal out was lunch with my dad and my great auntie, since my great uncle died my dad often goes round to see her she was in a fine mood today having a joke about Harold Shipman of all things.

After work I went to a blood drive at the parish hall, I missed my last session as it was timed to be the night of Sandbox's last gig. It was quiet; the quietest I have ever been too, the nurse told me the earlier session had been manic though. The donation went ok though the nurse bruised my arm a little. When I went for a cup of tea afterwards one women's arm started bleeding badly, the nurses rushed into action and it was soon sorted out but was scary for a moment.

For dinner I went out with my parents and my mums friend Kath to the La Quila for a curry, as usual the food was excellent though the services was a little sub par. The waiter forgot some of our order and seemed to have selective hearing when I was asking for some water.

Ian bobbed round this evening; I only just beat him back from my meal. He wanted his website loaded onto his laptop (and my Apple) so that people coming to a show he was doing could view the site whilst getting a drink. Contrast, on Ian's laptop had to download and install a web-server to load serve his website whereas on the Apple on the Mac had to click one button to turn on web sharing and copy the files on. I could not find a way to make safari go full screen though that was a bit of a blow.

The Apologist

Several notable things happened today, well to me at least. The first one was receiving a very random text from Dan. He is in Barcelona with Jen and wanted to know the location of Margarita Blue, hopefully he found it after I gave him directions from the net I couldn't really remember the names of the streets other than the Ramblas.

Continuing the randomness this evening I got back from the gym to find a message from a very anxious co worker, something was up with the subversion repository a quick check reviled another colleague had accidentally deleted part of the repository. It was fine on a version from 6 minutes earlier, I can only imagine his tool foo barred badly.

Finally, more annoying than weird, the server once again made it difficult for us to install our software. This time it looks like the CD drive has failed the damn thing is cursed I am sure!

Went for a drink with Nick and Becky at the thieves neck, I still stayed off the beer (but ruined it later by eating chocolates oops). Got a look at her Blackberry, I must admit the new model looks a lot better then the ones from my previous work. Though still on the big size it is functional and easy to read email, I still would not buy one though. I thought it is a little strange that she has a phone and a Blackberry; I guess contracts get in the way.

はい

Japanese class was the high point of today, so there is a bit of a Japanese title and theme to this post. First to work though, it complexly sucked today. I feel like I have become cut off like an island of my company in a sea of the client. Due to my close relationship witht he client and inexperience I have become somewhat shunned by my colleagues. They treat me as a kind of second class citizen as I ask too many questions, well I do not have years of experience to draw on I need professional development to learn the skills they possess. To the customer I am just a cheap resource to be exploited. So far my career development has been pretty thin, I was meant to work with other developers and learn instead I am on my own. I did for a while get a taste of working on newer things but surprisingly enough I was almost straight away put back onto the same old garbage.

Today I was forced to sit through a meeting with the big wigs and our competitor as usually I was a junior there. I just had to sit and shut up whilst the competition walked all over us, sigh. Fortunately they aren't half slick as they imagine or they would really be able to cause issues.

I am just about entering pre school for Japanese class, today were learned the equivalent for this, that and over there, found out that the Japanese don't use 'or', they say is this, is this. Its different, it actually allows us to put a lot more vocabulary to use now we can construct more sentences though. I am hopefully going to put some more time into learning Kana this week as I was pretty woefully bad looking up words.

I found out my Apple has a built in Japanese (and Chinese) virtual keyboard and character set making it much superior to windows. It the text on the header doesn't display is say HiI which is Japanese for yes.

Brrr

I spend an exorbitant amount at M&S today, I had to buy some new clothes for work my suits are starting to fray and most my shirts have been through the wash so many times there fading. I went a little mad I must admit but I hate shopping so much I just wanted to get enough that I can avoid it for another 6 months.

This evening I walked into the gym it was wet and cold did an hour and a half picking up heavy bits of metal then walked out to find myself in a picture postcard scene. Snow was falling and my car was already dusted with an inch of snow, I love snow it really pretty brightening up winter.

Bruce braved the inclement weather so we could look into an email problem, then go to the pub. I stuck to diet coke I still have managed to stay off beer so far this month, only 10 more days to go. I haven't lost any weight yet though, I really need to diet but its been very difficult with my parents always make so much food. To be honest it’s the worst thing about living with them, I have tried on several occasions to speak to them but its always the same old story they say one thing and do another, I find it incredibly frustrating.

Blunt force trauma!

I went to Didsbury this evening with Ian, Bruce and Bruce' friend Steven to see the new Rocky film. To be honest I did not have particularly high expectations, though I liked the original film I found the 4th and 5th sequels to be pushing it somewhat.

The first amusing thing about the evening was that whilst waiting for Ian in the foyer of the cinema I was able to survey the storm damage, the powers that be had forgotten to take down the Christmas decorations including one super-sized snowman. Said snowman is now laid across the front of the cinema the wind delivering a knock out punch.

Once Ian arrived we grabbed the tickets and made our way upstairs the cinema was rammed obviously Rocky appeals to the masses. Then the second funny thing, some guys were walking round dressed up as Rocky and Mr T, the Rocky guy even dank some raw eggs! Top class funny stuff I don't know if they were paid by the cinema or just some mad fans, they were entertaining though.

It was a very inspirational tale, continuing on after Adrian's death Rocky has little purpose in his life a son who cannot find his way out of his fathers shadow. After another anniversary of Adrian's death spent wondering old hunts and a chance meeting with Marie a character from the original he decides to get back into the ring. His application for a boxing licence coincides with a computerised match-up of Rocky (in his prime) against the current undefeated (but unloved) world champion.

OK the plot is thinner than Tesco value wafer thin ham. However its all inspirational stuff Rocky battles ageism prejudice and even has the media mocking in I guess a kind of self parody of the film concept itself. Also and not to ruin the film he doesn&39;t actually beat the champion and the fighting is pretty artfully done. I must admit I enjoyed myself and even managed to empathise with the characters. I do wonder what the point of the Marie character was she alone the impetus for Rocky to return to the one constant in his life? I am not sure Stallone (who wrote and directed) had a clear idea other than she was a mirror for Rocky, living a mixed up and unhappy life.

The atmosphere in the cinema during the film was high it reminded me of seeing the premier of Star Wars episode one, all the expectant fans clapping the opening shouting out. People whooping when the infamous training scene started, yes he really does run up the stairs again and yes it real is cool!

Video Mac

Bruce managed to get hold of an S-Video connector for my Mac, I just gave it a quick try. Oh dear why did I wait so long, it was unbelievably easy to set up ticking two boxes over-scan and optimise for video resulted in the best picture I have ever got out of my TV! Another example of the famous Apple it just works design, and on that fanboy note it must be time for bed before I embarrasses myself some more.

Skip Divided

I am finding blogging very difficult at the moment maybe its a result of me not drinking, or just of being in a low mood I am not sure, I keep thinking of things to say but have trouble getting the words onto the page and have given up more than a few times. My other projects are also in a state of flux.

The not drinking thing is leaving me with a lot of spare time in the evening I am really missing going out to the pub, and have managed to spend most of the money I have saved ordering stuff from Amazon to keep me occupied, only half a month left!

Japanese class is getting harder I think, Hiragana is quite a bit more difficult then Katakana thanks to the fact several of the characters are virtually identical except for a line or two. I had fun in class though Eme is a good teacher though she does tend to rush us through, perhaps one day I will make it out of Pre School!

I got a letter through asking me to donate blood, I was meant to just before Christmas but I really wasn't in the mood. I think I will go to this next one, it will my ninth donation. I think that means I have donated my own bodies worth of blood so far!

Whilst looking up my next working out men's health I that the average age to get married these days is 27. Looks like I am bucking the trend. Talking of marriage, I spoke to Maia today. She has had a falling out her new husband's mother, looks like they will have to find somewhere else to live. I would not want to start out married life on such a negative note, so I guess I should count myself lucky.

Annie, lets not wait

Well 15 days into 2007 so far I have had 0 alcohol units, that is not counting the continued drinking into new years day. I have done 16km on the running machine (over 2 sessions, I am not that fit, yet!). Work is even going OK I am getting through it slowly, I had a bit of a bad patch over the weekend but I am trying to be positive.

I went round to Nick's house last night, handed Becky her present she seemed to be pleased which is great. I had her and Nicks holiday pictures printed and put into an album, I was a little unsure if it was a good idea or not, but if she enjoy it that's all that matters. I think Nick was pleased to see them as well.

My legs ache this evening I was going to use the cross trainer but they were al in use in fact almost every runner all the cross trainers and most of the bikes were being used I had to wait a for minutes to get anything. I hate January for that so many people join up to the gym go mad come lots. I think people come to the gym too often don't see results quick enough or simply burn out in the first couple of months. By the end of February things are quiet again, and apart from a bit of extra activity before summer with people desperately trying to get fit for the beach, then again the month before Christmas party season.

In my experience losing weight and changing body shape isn't something that can be done overnight. Admittedly I have taken a long time over it, but that because I never dieted, I simply cut back a little on snacks and exercised more. Its taken years to drop the weight but at the same time I have more tone and am much fitter. Personally I would not trade these extra benefits for some quick weight loss which leave you body tired and emaciated. Prefer to have a bit of meat and tone it up, I guess your mileage may vary.

I might rework my previous post into something that's not quite so crazy I might not time will tell. I do not usually like censorship but in this case I went a little too far despite my openness on this forum there are still a lot of things I keep to myself I think this is one, for now at least.

Post withrawn

I decided my last post needs some more work so its gone for now.