Running is fun

It was a quite but productive weekend in some ways. I didn't doo all that much, but I did take a load of crap to the tip on Saturday and then had a bonfire on Sunday, so that was good. Otherwise I just ended up watching DVDs. I'm now up to season 9 of South Park and I also watched the first season of Breaking Bad, which Rob and Em lent me on DVD. I really enjoyed it.

Running was good last night. The class this time was 2.5 minutes walk, 5 minutes running, which was a bit of a step up from last week. I wasn't looking forward to it as it was cold, threatening to rain and I was feeling a bit tired. But by the second 5 minute run I was feeling fine, and I really enjoyed it.

If only I could rein back on my diet, still struggling to get into that mindset I was in before Christmas, but just need to work at it in small steps. Oh well.

The project bass I got off someone in work has had some work done on it. I've replaced the strings and sorted out the neck. As I suspected, it's got 4-string pickups, so I put some Seymour Duncan Quarter Pounder pickups I had spare in it, which have gigantic magnets and cover the 5 strings quite well. The standard wiring was pretty crappy so I've ripped it all out ready for rewiring. I tested the neck pickup briefly by wiring it directly to the output jack and it sounded good. All good fun. It's nice having a project to work on, I didn't realise how much I missed it when I was trying to find the perfect bass.

The car is booked in for an MOT next Monday. I asked the garage about the issues with the headlight stalk and the scored windscreen and the guy said they would be advisories. Oh well, just have to see how it goes. It's due an oil change as well.

Tired tonight, it's been a long day for some reason.

Granch

Not much to report this week, it's been fairly quiet. I went to the gym on Wednesday, which was annoying because I've lost my key to the machines. I've no idea where it's gone. The session was good, although it was the first time in a month that I'd done any weights and my shoulders really felt it the next day. Thursday evening was the repeat of Monday's session. That went OK but I found it a bit harder, partly because I had a bit of a headache and felt a little out of sorts, and I think we were running a bit faster.

Otherwise it's been fairly quiet. I've continued my South Park binge and have nearly finished season 7. Not as good as 6 I think, but then there's 8 to come, which I've already seen and enjoyed. Rob and Em have also lent me the first season of Breaking Bad, so I've got that to look forward to.

Spent this evening having a nice quiet one. I put the Rammstein Live Aus Berlin DVD on, and let that play in the background while I fooled around on the Surface Pro. I still remember how the DVD blew my mind when I first saw it, and it's hard to believe it was recorded in 1998. The early Rammstein stuff is really good.

I've gone against my clearout policy at the moment, and picked up a project bass from a colleague in work. The reason is that it's a Westfield which is almost identical to one I had years ago, other than it being a 5-string. It's been neglected for years and needs some TLC, but I've missed having a bass that I could tinker with and try different pickups and wiring and things. It's one of the ones where they cheated a bit and made a 5-string with narrow string spacing and used 4-string pickups. I like the narrow string spacing because I'm used to it on the Jackson now, but I'm not sure the pickups are up to it. Oh well, it'll be fun getting it up and working again. However I need to clear out some other stuff to justify keeping it...

Not sure what I'm going to do this weekend, but I do want to have a go at clearing out some crap, and go to the gym. I also need to find a replacement number plate bulb for the car, since the electrical woes the other week seem to claimed that as well.

See LL run. Run LL run.

Second session of the run for fun class, so it was three minutes walk, three minutes run, repeated five times. It went pretty well I think, I was quite pleased with how I felt during the run and afterwards. I sort of feel like I could run a lot further but at the same time it's probably sensible to build it up again slowly and not risk damaging something. Still, I'm feeling good about it. The only downside was that I fucked up the Strava recording, so I didn't get to see the results. Oh well, not the end of the world. The leader of the group I was in was talking about the speed training that he normally does with the Harriers, which was interesting. Eventually I would like to work on improving my pace.

Due to not being able to watch stuff on TV and things, I'm having a bit of a binge on South Park and working my way through Stargate SG-1 season 2 that Steve lent me in December. I'm still slightly ambivalent about SG-1 - I am enjoying it, but I'm not quite sure how it made it for 10 seasons and has such a devoted fanbase. Still, apparently it kicks into high gear by season 3, so I'm still giving it a good chance. I do find the cynical aspect of O'Neill's character somewhat wearying though.

When it comes to South Park, I've just finished season 6, and have just received seasons 7, 9 and 10 because Amazon is flogging them off pretty cheap. I already had season 8 because it was one of the last things left in the local Woolworths when they closed it a few years ago, and I got it for a few quid. It's interesting to see how South Park developed when it got beyond the time when it was stupidly popular. So I'm looking forward to getting stuck into season 7. It's easy to power through South Park though because the episodes are only 20 minutes or so.

The new keyboard cover for the Surface turned up. I have to say, despite it being so thin without much key travel, it's one of the best keyboards I have ever used, nice and clicky. It also has a backlight, which has some sort of sorcery that makes it light up if you just hold your hands over the keyboard without pressing a key - first time in a while that a piece of technology has made me go 'woah' out loud. It's made the Surface much more usable and while it is a bit thicker and heavier than the touch cover, it's definitely worth it, and I can always put the touch cover back on if I need it to be a bit lighter.

Uneasiness.

It's not been a productive day. I didn't sleep well last night due to my nose being all tickly which led to snotting and sneezing, then the dog had one of his dramatic moments and would only settle down on my bed, which didn't help. My nose has been the same for much of today as well, it feels like one of my rare bouts of hayfever but I have no idea what's triggered it.

Pretty much the only thing I've done is finally get hold of a replacement casing for the car key after the unlock button finally fell off for good. It was only a few quid off Ebay and fitted right on, although I only put the button half on as it was a replica and didn't have the Peugeot logo on the other side.

The Xbox 360 has been playing up recently. The disk drive drawer won't open, and I have to lever it out. This hasn't done it much good and the silver front has broken now. Not sure how much longer it'll last, although it still reads disks fine once they're in. I've gone off the 360 quite a bit these days, the new dashboard with all the adverts was pretty much the point where I started to dislike it. The last thing I played on it was GTA V, which I got bored of quite quickly after I finished the campaign, and GTA Online didn't grab me at all. I did buy some gold to play something with Rob and Steve but that never really happened so it's still sitting around.

Also it's dawned on me that it's a right pain not being able to keep up with what everyone is watching. I don't have access to TV and the Internet connection is too crappy for something like Netflix, so I'm resigned to waiting for the DVD or doing the naughty thing, unless it's on iPlayer which works OK if stuff is downloaded. It's annoying to hear everyone banging on about stuff like Breaking Bad and suchlike without being able to join in the conversation.

Meltdown

It's been a week of ups and downs.

The run for fun class on Monday was a definite up. I thought at first it was going to be a nightmare as it absolutely pissed it down when I left work, but fortunately it was clear when we met up for the class. I was a little late and I was rather taken aback by what seemed like a vast crowd of people in hi-vis jackets. It turned out there were 24 of us, so they split us up into groups to make it all more manageable. After my knee, cold and back I hadn't done any exercise for three weeks at that point so I was quite anxious about it, but to my surprise I did OK, as did Steve and Dave from work.

Tuesday was DnD for the first time this year, starting a new quest. Steve had made us do homework to explain what our characters had been doing for five years, which was interesting. On the way home however I started to dwell on problems and had a bit of a meltdown about the house, turning 36 this year, being perpetually single and various other things. I slept like crap that night and had a grump day in work on Wednesday, ignoring everything with headphones on all day.

I'm feeling a bit better now, having decided that having a mega strop isn't going to solve anything. Last night I went to Mold to meet up with Steve and Dave to repeat Monday's running session, which was good and helped boost our confidence.

The Alienware M17x has been sold and posted to the buyer in Northern Ireland. I'm actually surprised at myself that I managed to do it - I was very attached to the old beast. I didn't get as much for it as I hoped, but it was enough to cover the cost of the Surface Pro, which I'm still very pleased with. I've also ordered a new cover for it, the one with the physical keyboard. As much as I like the concept of the flat touch keyboard, it's not great for typing much on

Still absolutely loving the Jackson 5-string bass. I'm still not quite sure why, but it just feels so great to play. I'm even getting used to playing stuff on it that I'd normally play on a 4-string.

Running envy

The Twin Piers yesterday was good. The weather was really good, although perhaps a little chilly. There was a really good turnout and a good atmosphere. Andy did well, although found it hard.

Today wasn't hugely productive, although I did take the car to town and give it a long overdue wash. The amount of shit that came out of the wheelarches would have done a Land Rover proud, let alone a humble 206. I also got some new front sidelight bulbs for it since they seemed to have been blown by the electrical problems last week.

Not mch else to report. Spent the rest of the weekend watching DVDs and playing with computers. My back has finally returned to normal, which is good as the running class starts tomorrow. Not sure if I am looking forward to it or not as it's now been over three weeks since I did any exercise. Still, hopefully it will give me me the kick I need to get back into it again. It's also been a scary long time since I've been out on a bike.

I listed the M17x on Ebay. I did my usual 5 day listing and it's already had three bids and some interest, so that's a good sign. The money will go into my savings, although I might use some of it to get a different keyboard cover for the Surface Pro.

Also need to get hold of my eating habits again, as I was doing quite well before Christmas.

Slow return to health

It's been a fairly quiet week on the whole. I went down to Steve's on Tuesday evening to check out th giant slab that is the Xbox One. I enjoyed trying out the gore-fest Ryse and Forza. They did look good, I have to say. Steve has also had my spare 2DS on long-term loan.

The car played up again this week, with the battery light coming on more and more often. It reached a peak on Thursday morning and so I dropped it into a garage. They checked it over and decided it was the alternator as I had feared. They had to order one in so they kindly lent me a Fiat Punto to get home in. To be honest though, the old one must have been going for a while though since it was quite startling how much brighter the headlights are now and the wipers are much faster too. Annoyingly though the electrical issues seem to have blown some bulbs so I need to sort those out.

I've sold my project Alienware M14x for parts, couldn't be arsed with it after I found the issue with the keyboard connector - good thing I did really since it helpe pay for the work on the car. I've also finally wiped the M17x and listed it on Ebay. I will be sad to see the old beast go, definitely. The Asus G73 now has the 16gb RAM and 256gb SSD from the M17x. It has a total of 20gb RAM now, which is how I found out that Windows Home only supports 16gb. Still, I had the spare Windows 8 upgrade from the M17x, so I installed that on it. I had to phone activate it though, annoyingly, and of course it wants shedloads of updates, including the 3.5gb 8.1 update.

Still chuffed with the Suface Pro. The single USB3 port was a bit limiting so I ordered a neat little 3-port hub that includes a gigabit Ethernet port, which works perfectly. That combined with a mini-DispayPort to DVI adapter means it can now do everything the M17x did. I do need to do something about a keyboard though. The touch cover is OK and I like the idea and design, but it is not great for typing a lot on. I've also put a 64gb MicroSD in it to expand the storage. It's about OK for now, will keep me going until I can save up and get one of the 256gb models or a Surface Pro 3, hah.

Tomorrow I'm giving a lft to Andy so he can do the Twin Piers 10k. Hopefully that'll be good. Wish I was doing it too, but my fitness needs a lot of work. My back is nearly OK now though, so I'm looking forward to the new running class on Monday. It's been exactly three weeks since I did any exercise, but it feels like a hell of a lot longer.

Been playing the bass a fair bit over the last few days too and really enjoying it. The Jackson 5-string is really working for me and I'm starting to get the hang of using the 5th string for the extra notes. So pleased with it that I might look into selling the Squier Jazz.

Started rereading the Caves of Steel by Asimov. The last time I read the series I was thwarted by losing my copy of Robots and Empire, but I found a copy on Ebay for a quid.

Hmm. iTunes is randomly playing Follow the Leader by Korn, something that I've not listened to in ages since I didn't like it, but now I'm actually quite enjoying it, although I still detest the clickety-clack bass style.

Surfaced

I left the Surface updating to 8.1 last night and it got there OK. my back was killing me at about 3am though, so I got it through the rest of the setup then. This evening I've put more of my usuall apps and things on there. I have to admit that I am wondering if I'm doing the right thing as I am very fond of the big old M17x, but it's crazy to just keep it out of basically vanity. Still, it's fun seeing how well things work on the Surface. iTunes is a problem without a pointing device, since Apple decided to put no borders on the window, so resizing it is impossible. The sole USB port is an issue too, meaning a hub is basically essential. Still, the Surface is getting nicely close to that ideal where a portable or handheld computer is powerful enough to do everything, and you just dock it when you want to work at a desk. Shame the 8gb RAM and 256gb models are so crazy expensive.

Touchy feely

New Year's Eve was good fun. It was once again round at Rob and Em's, and the usual crowd were in attendance. It was a really good evening, lots of food and conversation. If I hadn't been ill, I would have been tempted to have a drink, but I was still feeling a bit crappy. The most hardcore thing I drank was some Lemsip, after Em said they had some of the apple and cinnamon one, which is really nice.

There was a ridiculous amount of food, highlights being Robert and Chelsea's home made pies and and flapjacks, and Rob and Caroline's stuffing roll and epic cake. For some reason everyone brpight cheese, so there was a truly insane amount of that. There was also the mysterious Partty Cannon brought by Steve. It wasn't very clear what it did, so everyone was quite wary when he let it off. In the end it made a hell of a bang and threw tissue paper all over the place.

Didn't do much yesterday. Had a quiet philosophical day trying to think of the things that are making me unhappy at the moment and what, if anything, I can do about them. Not sure if I made any progress though.

The Surface Pro finally turned up. I've rebuilt it with a fresh install and installed some of the updates, although the 8.1 update will have to run overnight as it's a 3.5gb download. So far I quite like it. It's pretty fast and responsive and I like the way that it has enough power to do the usual PC things as well as being a tabletty thing. The battery life remains to be seen however, as it's the pre-Haswell proessor in this model. The touch cover is interesting. The flat keys work better than you'd expect, but your fingers definitely feel it after a while. It's actually pretty worn and has a US layout though, so might look into another one, or the type cover with a proper keyboard. Of course there is also the onscreen keyboard, but that obviously has even less give. I hope I don't get too used to the touchscreen and start prodding at other machines that don't have one. One thing is that it didn't come with the pen, but it's standard Wacom technology, and I found that the pen from my Galaxy Note works fine with it.

The question of whether it has enough power to becpme my primary machine remains to be answered, but I think it does. The aim is to keep the Surface and the Asus G73, which will be fitted with more RAM to become a virtualisation behemoth. That's the idea anyway. I need to get back into this sort of thing again. In fact, that could be said about many things, including interacting with people...think that is something I really need to get working on again.

Still feeling a bit crappy overall, but there is definite improvement. My back is aching, partly because I think I pulled it with all the cooughing, and the other day I had to take a server to another site, and I had to carry it up tp the first floor because the lift was broken. Hopefully I will be better by the weekend so I can start exercising again.