Snow and cold and snow and cold

New Year's Resolution #98: Update this thing more often.

Christmas was OK, split the day between the parents as usual. Got the soldering iron I needed. New Year's Eve was good, spent at Em's parents with the usual gang. Good time had by all, but I felt slightly odd that evening and the next few days confirmed why as I came down with a cough and a head full of snot.

It's been snowy and cold for a number of days now, leading to yet more traipsing up and down the track. We had to leave work early yesterday due to snow and while I thought I had a rough time, it was nothing compared to people's experiences in apparently more civilised areas. I was able to make it to work today, although the roads were pretty bad with a layer of slippery slushy stuff. The Focus had previously shown itself to be pathetic in snow, sliding all over the place with no grip at all. Fortunately it had four new tyres on Monday and they've made a massive difference to how it handles in difficult conditions. It's still no 4x4 though, and this time of year I really miss the Discovery.

Not much else to report really. Difficult month financially, need to put some more stuff on Ebay and get rid of more crap. Eaten badly the last couple of days after a good start on Monday. When you have to carry it half a mile up the track and have limited water supplies it's best to get easy, convenient food that doesn't need too much cooking and doesn't generate too much washing up.

The double neck is basically done at last, all wired up with the help of a nice diagram and the new soldering iron. It does however need new pickups. The ones in it are cheap, and one is much louder than the other. Come next payday I'll get a matched pair and install them. After that the only thing left is to put a finish of some kind on the body and shield the cavities.

Need to stop getting computer and bass stuff I don't need. If my bass and computing needs can't be met by six laptops and four basses (including the doubleneck), then that's just stupid. Also the retro computing stuff needs to go. I'm not really fussed any more about collecting it and it never gets used. Interesting item I did get recently though is a 32gb OCZ SSD which went into one of the Dells. It's running Windows 7 at the moment and it's pretty responsive. Can't wait until SSDs finally become mainstream.

Saw Avatar in 3D. Unoriginal plot and characters, but the CGI was absolutely amazing, and it's very well made. I liked the 3D but would probably have enjoyed the film just as much without it to be honest. Definitely one to watch in the cinema though. That night was the busiest I've ever seen the Llandudno cinema, and Will and I had to go to a later showing than we had planned. We subsequently found that Tesco is very boring.

Been playing the Sims 3 a fair bit. It's not bad, much like the previous games but with a few things added in. I'm finding it much more fun to have insane or evil Sims, which have far more interesting quirks and do quite peculiar things if left to their own devices. It still lets you do fun things like wall up neighbours and stuff like that, which is good, and you can also bring people back as ghosts. I've got a married couple where one is living and the other a ghost, which is quite weird.

Wasn't too convinced by the end of Gavin and Stacey to be honest, or the whole third series really. Just wasn't the same as the first or second series. Also wasn't too convinced by the Doctor Who special.

Trying to approach the new decade with optimism and hope about many things, not entirely sure how successful I'll be. Sorting out my finances is still the thing I really want to do, but might take some time. Really need to get going to the gym properly, first was foiled by illness in December and now because of the wretched snow.

Up to Feet of Clay in the epic Discworld reread marathon. One of the ones I really enjoyed, probably because of the similarity of the golems to robots. Also got another German book and a decent dictionary to try and help learn some more. I've also built a Latitude D800 out of parts and it's running Windows Vista in German, which is fun. It's a nice machine, but it has a 1920x1200 15" display, which is ridiculous really. Running at the native resolution, things are absolutely tiny, which is understandable given that 24" monitors typically run at that resolution.

Current music is the album Cult by Apocalyptica. Stunning music. Just wish I could listen to it in the car, but the stereo died the other day and wouldn't read any CDs, not even pressed ones. What a pain. I've got a spare stereo, but I need a fascia adapter and cables, as Ford use a weird size.

Shaved my head again. I don't do it very often but it's nice when it's freshly done, all smooth. Shame it grows back so quickly.