Happy belated New Year!  I’m a few days behind due to sheer laziness and the continued delicious nod of the remainder of the holiday period.  It’s been a great end to the year with pubs, parties, lunches and a great couple of days in the northern English town of York.  But with the fun finally coming to an end, I’ve spent the evening trying to get back into the swing  of things, cleaning the house, doing shopping, writing a budget, going through some photos and getting some New Years resolutions sorted out, all at the expense of my ever latening (if thats a word) sleeping pattern.  That’s something I’ll have to brave before work and fight tiredness for the first few days.

Yorkminster, York UK

We’ve just got a new rental apartment in the lovely London area of Clapham, which for the uneducated is spread over a rather large area which contains an area like Queens, and one which is a little bit more like the Bronx, thankfully we’re somewhere in the middle on the North side which is a short walk from just about everywhere, including the Thames, London, Clapham Junction, Clapham High St, etc etc with lots of links to transport as well.  The best thing is the large savings which we’re looking to make by firstly moving closer into the city (reducing transport costs), not living in Richmond/Twickenham (reducing bills and local council tax rates).

Clapham Area

I was looking through the list of New Years resolutions that I made this time last year and while some of them were a farce, I’ve managed to stick to about 50% of the valid ones, so I wouldn’t mind seeing this year improve a little on that.  I would say the major goals of this year are:

• Money Money Money - With the move to our new apartment we’re looking at a monthly saving of approx £200-300 with less taxes and transport costs.  If i’m a little more responsible to money and cut the £100+ dinners we should have the potential to save a big chunk before the end of the year
• Buy a house - I’m happy renting for now, but with house prices due to bottom out late next year, the obvious plan seems to be to use the saved money from above in a deposit to purchase a house.
• Pursue out-of-work work - I did alright with this last year, but with regular work coming in this has huge potential.  Just a matter of finding work consistently.
• Walk home from work, especially as it starts heating up.  With a walk of approximately 3 miles it shouldn’t be too hard.
• Drink more? Drink less?  We’ll see

Anyone else have New Years Resolutions?

I know recycling is an expensive process and its the responsibility of the recycler to put the correct items out (depending on what can be recycled in the local community), but around here, things are getting mad.  Over the past few months, we’ve had an ever increasing amount of recycling which has been rejected by our council workers, everything from some plastics, tins, milk cartons.

I got home the other day, and was confronted by this:

All the clear plastic is recyclable, as well as the milk cartons.  I can’t help but thinking they’re now probably spending more time sorting through my rubbish (and everyone elses for that matter) to reject stuff they don’t want, than they would if it was done down at a sorting/trash centre.  Gah

Note: Attempting to recycle wire coathangers might have been pushing it.. Maybe just a little.

This may be a case of the grass is always greener, but these last few months seem to be lacking greatly in the way of good entertainment, television wise anyway.  I know there’s off peak, on peak, ratings and holiday seasons and the usual summer rerun period, but I can’t help but think that this past year has lacked a bit of the goodness of more recent years.  I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, and I’m sure I’m watching just as many show’s as I was before, but something is missing.  I just don’t know what.

When I compare what was I was watchinga couple of years ago to what I’m watching now the titles nine times out of ten are the same that they were before but maybe there’s just less of them.  The writer’s strike was the root of the problem I think, but that was last ratings year (pre U.S summer), but it still appears to have a knock on effect now, with some series starting late, or having reduced length seasons.

I’m watching a mix of:

• Comedies (The Office, The I.T Crowd and Peep Show)
• Docucomedies (Top Gear UK & AU, Mythbusters)
• Drama/comedies (Californication and House)
• Police Shows (Law And Order, Criminal Intent, Special Victims Unit, NCIS and Life); and of course
• Cartoons (Family Guy, Simpsons, American Dad, Futurama Movies and South park)

When you tally that altogether, on a full week there’s probably the better part of a 16 hours worth of TV watching there!  Maybe I should be thankful the seasons appear to be showing so slowly and off schedule.  It’s funny, I don’t actually consider that I was terribly much TV, I’ll usually watch 30-45 mins when we get home and have dinner and thats about it, but I’m just as bad as any other couch slob when it comes to watching other shows.

Maybe I’m getting old?

I haven’t started watching the f**kin Golden Girls though…

I was surprised this year by the apparent surge in popularity of the charity-come-cool event that is Movember, a group month-long facial hair growth that raises money for Prostate Cancer awareness, and you guessed it lasts for the month of November.   It was a huge to-do in Australia with many people taking up the sport to see who could grow the biggest oral shrubbery, and often quite prominent in the media in the lead up and during the month.  But I don’t remember it being terribly big here in London last year, which seems to have changed a fair bit this year as it’s been in the papers a few times, and a few of the peeps at work seem to be taking part.

I myself didn’t shave for the first 16 days of the month, but caved in last week when the attempt to grow a full beard failed miserably with sporadic poor looking growth over most of my cheek area, so until I become more of a man, it’s back to the Craig David for the near future.  Not to say he’s not a man, just that strip lining the chin line I’ve taken to naming after him, as I’m sure others have before.  (What the hell happened to that guy)

I think Movember is a perfect example of a charity event where adding a bit of fun to it can get the masses involved (even if in this case, the masses are predominantly male), and a quick peruse of the Movember page backs this up.  In Australia alone over 120,000 people have entered and are collecting donations with over AUD$8million collected so far, with the rest of the world included (apporiximately 170,000 in total) that total is closer to $12million or over five million pounds.

So whether its the 70’s porno, the handlebars, the bikie goatie, the hitler/chaplin toothbrush or any other type of growth your into, those who didn’t participate in the charity event (me), get into it next year, I definitely will.  As an incredibly self centered reader posted in the paper (something to the effect of):

“Yea, I always laugh at this time of year, seeing wallies with uncouth facial hair on the streets, but I’ll give them a little donation anyway if anything, it’s such a real threat I’m practicly paying for support that will one day probably save my life”

I think a day by day time lapse photography style blog and photo stream would be an ace idea, especially if done with 10 guys at a company or something:

Day 1: Meet Dave, the head financier at Rankin Walter, for charity he’s planning for the Magnum P.I look

Day 8: Remember Dave?  The ambitious Tom Selleck wannabe?  The only girls he’ll be pulling his current Dirty Sanchez are ones who don’t mind the smell.

Day 14: Dave’s magnum has taken a turn for the worst, he’s now got a porno-style sslug that makes even the likes of Eric Edwards (II) shiver in his boots

** A big shout out to the H-Man, for his transition from baby face to goatie royal, and raising a big chunk of cash.

I’ve wasted a ton of time recently being annoyed at my recurring absense of any kind of motivation, and concentration, though I find the two go nicely hand in hand.  I seem to have fallen into the same trap of late where I want to get a chunk of work done, the desire’s there, but when it comes to actually putting pen to paper (so to speak), I’m off with the faries thinking about whats for dinner, or the last time I had a Guiness, or perhaps how great I looked in my mankini last night.  You get the picture.

Wind back 6 months ago when I was noticed myself having the same problem (it’s definitely a common recurring theme for me, but its been especially bad over the last couple of weeks), and I was thinking about what I was doing back then to try and improve the situation.  I spent a few minutes trawling google earlier yesterday for some answers to curing motivation/concentration issues, and the common theme seemed to be depression and other mental health issues.  This is nonsense of course, I’m just as happy and laid back ask I’ve always been though I definitely feel the stress of money and financial situations a hell of a lot more than I used to.  If anything being motivationless is depressing, but not so much vice versa, I don’t think.

Money is definitely an ingredient of motivation though, I can usually push out required work with ease if theres an instant reward at the end, but this seems to fade when the money is not bankable within a month or so!

So, I’ve spent a few days just thinking about what I’m going to do about the situation, and i’m noticing (obviously) that some of the things I’m figuring out, I worked out last time I felt this way, so like a viscious cycle, I’m once again learning from past mistakes

I’ll attack it this way, and like a childish game give myself a score of 1 - 10 for my percieved moto-rating.

Thinking about:

• Being positive at all times, despite what s*#t the day throws
• Systematic approach to get a job done by cutting down everything into miniscule tasks
• Attempt to fight laziness and apathy by not checking email/forums every two seconds, just because
• At work, Insist (unless its important) that communication is carried out via email/IM, as being interrupted 30 times an hour is a recipe for mind blocks and mental muddle

Now the question one might pose to me, is why on Earth am I posting this?!? I answer in one way, if this I.T jig falls through but my self motivation is successful, coach the other 87.3% of corporate/business workers in my way of thinking.

I’m going to be the next Anthony Robbins… Bitch!

I’m not sure what happened to me in the last six weeks, I got back from Greece and apart from a brief post a few weeks ago, I’d all but forgotten about HD911.  I seem to have been floating in some kind of bubble for the past 4-6 weeks and have forgotten all but a few responsibilities and I’m starting to go stir crazy in my own head at the boredom that i’ve created, in my head… Or something like that.

I figured I’d pick up where I left off, and give an after thought on the book I was about to read at the time called Playing for Pizza by John Grisham, and after reading the blurb on its cover, I sniggered and panned it like an arrogant film critic pans a Rob Schneider flick.  Well, shame on me for doing so, and I hate to be cliche’d, but there must be some truth in that saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover…”

Quite frankly if there’s one author who can turn a short story about a failed NFL footballer who gets shipped off to Italy to play in their (minor) league and gets friends, a girl, a love for pizza and a championship trophy into a good story, even in my short experience in reading, I’d have to say it’d be John Grisham.

I’d love to say it’s taken me all this time to read and was a really complex story, it wasn’t, but I was interested from start to finish, and I liked not having to thnk about what I was reading.  So kudos to you, and shame on me for my quick judgement and poor form.

I’m almost 800 pages into the 1,000 page mammoth that is Shantaram Gregory David Roberts, which has kept me right on the edge of my seat since I first picked it up, until last Thursday, when I left it at the pub, moments before stumbling on to the last train home, only to pass out and wake up one stop from Windsor (yes, the place with the castle) in the lovely town of Datchet, to finally get home an hour later cost of £50 as a result of a late night cab ride from the outskirts.  But that’s a story for another day.

John Grisham does In a League of Their Own crossed with The Wiggles

I finished my latest book the other day (Andy Mcnab’s - Crisis Four), which ended dissappointingly I’m sad to say, but we’ll get back to that later, and my housemate handed me a book by the famous author, John Grisham. Not that I’ve read any of his wares, apart from about an hour spent trying to get into The Firm, but a world famous author with such titles (and Hollywood movies) as The Pelican Brief, The Rain Maker, The Firm and The Innocent Man I was expecting a top notch crime thriller.

The books title is Playing for Pizza, and this is it’s blurb:

“Rick Dockery was a quarterback for one of America’s most famous football teams when he gave arguably the worst performance in his league’s history.  Overnight Rich became a laughing stock and unemployable in his own country.

But somehow RIck’s agent finds him a job.  He is guaranteed a starting position and a salary.  The only problem is that the team that wants him is in Parma, Italy.  The American footabll league in Italy is tiny and unlike RIck, the Italian players only get paid in free meals.

Rick has never been to Italy, so it’s no surprise that the country has a few surprises for him.  What follows is a delightful, heart-warming storay of an innocent abroad.”

Now, I’m not one to judge.  I’m not a critic, and my experience with reading books for pleasure only goes back about 9 months, but could you think of a more boring (nor ridculous sounding) synopsis for a book?  It’s like every 80’s American sports movie (… You know the ones, underdogs fight hard to win all season, then drama, then the team wins in overtime), crossed with the likes of Home and Away (an Australian soap opera).  

I honestly thought I was being had, and the cover was indeed a satircal ploy to get you sucked into a book with all kinds of death and debauchery, but on inspection, its a real book, by a real author, and a good autor at that.  The top of the book even claims it to be, “The International Number One Bestseller”, though I’ll garuntee that has nothing to do with this particular title.

As I said though, who am I to judge?!? The quagmire of life experiences undertaken in the story surely leave my solid reading history of crime thrillers for dead, and put the reader at a new level of enlightenment.  At least I hope this is the case.  I’ll read it though, it sounds interesting enough, and I’m intrigued to find out if there’s something I’m missing like the short for a movie that tells you nothing at all about the movie in general.

Time for me to get started, and report back as soon as possible.

What a movie!

The Growing List

Since I started reading again I’ve notched up fair few titles on the literaty bed post, whatever that means, and I’m loving it so far.  I’ll be looking at branching out a bit and trying some new genre’s too.  Any suggestions?

The list so far, in the last 12 months:

• I Hope They Server Beer In Hell - Tucker Max
• The Alphabet of Manliness - Maddox
• Gun’s Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond

• Playing for Pizza - John Grisham (I’m looking forward to it now!)
• Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts (Sitting here waiting to be read)
• Freakonomics - Steven Levitt
• Digital Fortress - Dan Brown
• The rest of the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child
• The rest of the Nick Stone series by Andy McNab
• The Cuckoo’s Egg by Cliff Stoll
• Kite Runner
• One of Peter Hamilton’s Trilogies
• More Harlen Coben
• Try John Grisham’s more serious titles
• One of Len Deighton’s Non Fiction books (a recommendation)

I’m always open to suggestion though, so post any replies, please!  I’m turned off by girlie stories (Danielle Steel), middle earth Scifi (like Lord of the Rings, I’m not sure why) and Mills and Boon (If I wanted porno, i’d download it).

Afterthoughts

I said at the top of this post that I’d get back to why I found the end of Crisis Four (the third book in Andy McNab’s Nick Stone series), and it won’t mean much without having read the book, but I just thought it was too transparent.  I could see the outcome of the story after about the first 15 - 20% of the book, and it just ended so abruptly.  

I’d say this is a really good reason to space out these series I’ve been reading as I guess like anything else thats done repeatedly you get to know the author, and how his/her writing works, and can quickly weed out plot lines if they’re similar to previous titles.  Not only this, I found a dissapointing book a bit of a kick in the guts from what is so far such an awesome series, I’d imagine its better to space out the pleasure of the other books as long as possible.

It’s not quite as catchy a title as Enter the Dragon, nor does it pack the one-inch-punch shown off by Bruce Lee, as shown in the movie, but my new toy can take a fantastic looking picture.

It’s my new Nikon D40, an entry-level Digital SLR camera that’s small, light and packs a load of features that I couldn’t list, nor describe off the top of my head.  I’ve had what you might call a keen interest in hobby photography for a while now without good equipment or any real knowledge of what I should actually be doing.  Basically this has meant keeping my phone or our Sony Point&Shoot camera in my pocket and pointing it at anything (everything).

Nikon D40 - My new baby

I’ve had my eyes opened though, not just with the quality of the photos or beauty of the camera (yes, its awesome looking), but I’ve very quickly started to understand all the photographic terms and tools in a way that I’ve never been able to before.  Having full control (SLR helps.. a lot) over manual settings and seeing the result has helped to immediately see some of the places I’m going wrong and how to improve on these.

I can remember from a very young age my father (an avid photographer hobbyist from way back) explaining in super technical terms what exposure, aperture, ISO speed and shutter speed were, or what a light meter, polarising filter or macro lens does.  I felt I knew the basics, but it didn’t really help to understand when to use a high aperture, or change ISO speeds (an old Canon Powershot I own allowed manual controls over such things).

I’ve had a whirlwind introduction to the basics and I’m starting to understand how differing ISO speeds affect the shot in different situations (low light, speed/motion blur, etc), and how changing the aperture or f number (ooooh techy!) can give a different depth of field.  The main thing is though, just how good the photos come out as a finished product.  WIthout any post editing (though most still need it, I’m in no way perfect) or cropping here are some examples of a few shots:

Temple at top of Acropolis, Athens

Late Afternoon in Santorini

Dusk in Paros

The main thing I’ve noticed is the colour and clarity, (I know, I sound like a diamond salesman), in the photos, like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  The detail that comes out from a closeup portrait is nothing less than amazing, and this is all from the basic entry level Digital SLR with the standard kit lens (18-55mm) taking 6.1 megapixel photos.  And crazy enough, the resulting JPEG image is smaller than our previous camera, the lower resolution and MUCH, MUCH lower quality Sony Cybershot.

So much to learn, but I’ve found the main thing I’ll have to master first is how to compose each shot, as I found from almost 900 photos taken over the week in Greece at least 90% of them are either completely wrong (out of focus, wiped out exposure), or are just taken incorrectly with the wrong amount of information in (or out) of the photo.  Learning exactly what to photograph in a way that actually looks good is the first hurdle.

It’s going to be an expensive hobby though, as upgrading the lens (to a much higher zoom such as the 18-200mm) costs almost three times as much as the camera did to start with!

Check out Ken Rockwells site for some D40 lovin: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40.htm

I’ve been lazy recently, and haven’t really posted for the better part of a month.  This is not my usual style and I’d like to get back to my normal routine of posting crap and nonsensical tales.

But I’m going to Greece next week to tour the islands, so it’ll have to wait.  Enjoy

Ah! Paradise

A few things to part with the boredom:

• Damn Interesting is back after a long recess (while they prepared/published their book), with two new articles,
• Coding Horror’s author Jeff Atwood has finally finished his side project, Stack Overflow, a digg-like tech FAQ system.  This was unfortunately at the expense of his usually regular blog posts.
• Photoshop.com’s Flex based gallery/photo storage app has been released and gives you full drag & drop access between other common Photo storage apps (Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Photo Bucket).  All that with a fairly nifty online photo editor under the name of Photoshop Express (a plus version with Photoshop filters and advanced editing exists too).

I’ve never really been interested in the whole social networking scene, especially not for anything other than communication.  But due to recent boredom with my music collection (mostly after running out of songs on my iPod on a daily basis), I’ve taken to listening to Last.fm recently.

It’s great so far, and is turning out to be a welcome change to being mid way through a 2 hour mix as I’m currently used to, and I can listen to a whole range of music I wouldn’t usually get to.

I’m still wondering what the point of the social networking side to this is though, so I can compare my music taste with someone named jeebee34 halfway accross the world and realise my music compatitibility with him/her is only 12%?  What does this prove, that I should start listening to Madonna or Justin Timberlake to boost this rating with my new found online friend?

Last.fm makes use of the concept of scrobbling, which is where whatever you’re currently listening to is submitted up to the last.fm server for everyone to see, and scrutinise.  This doesn’t just work for when you’re listening to last.fm radio itself but through any popular media player (such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, amarok, Exaile, etc), or through any number of music devices, such as an iPod or my Nokia N95.  You’ve go to wonder though, what do they do with all those stored music preferences?  Could it be used to tailor a bunch of music adverts to our inboxes around Christmas time, or perhaps used in court to prove that we’d listened to a bunch of Metallica music, far more than one person could possibly own?

All that aside though, I’ve been quite impressed at how well it can map music choices to a chosen genre or tag, and searching by tags or artists return results you’d expect (mostly, anyway).  A friend searched for music like Daft Punk the other day and was blessed with the sweet soothing sounds of koRn, so I’m not sure what went wrong there.

Favourite Tags so far:

• dnb
• progressive trance
• psytrance (see a trend happening here?)

So if you’re a last.fm’er, jump on, look at my profile and add me