Yesterday was actually a pretty good day.  Heather and I sort of celebrated Chinese New Year a few days late by eating some Chinese food – that was the excuse anyway.  It’s not too bad as it wasn’t takeaway so I really don’t feel bad about it.  I also got the final graphic done for the ticket and poster re the event we’re hosting at college so I don’t have to worry about that anymore.  It’s not a bad thing to be doing, I just wish it was over though as I really don’t feel it’s adding much to what we learn through college.  I didn’t sign up to plan an event and if I had, I would have put more effort in.  I don’t think it’s even a core part of the course meaning that the college chose it for us instead of giving us a list of options.  That sort of pisses me off as reading the course material online makes it sound like there were numerous options available which might have been more appropriate or interesting.  Ah well, too late now and the event is only 4 weeks away so don’t have long to go.

Got Heather to watch The Departed last night!  I thought she’d hate it but when it came down to a choice between The Departed and Pulp Fiction, The Departed won.  I think it’s because I told her it was just full of violence, start to finish.  She loves some good violence lol, not a typical girl but that’s why she’s amazing (not being a typical girl rather than the violence thing which is a bit worrying haha).

I’ve made a decision that whenever I go out now, should I end up in a pub, I will order cranberry juice.  It’s what I used to order (before watching The Departed lol) – besides Irn Bru – when I wasn’t drinking for a couple of years so why shouldn’t I order it now just because people expect me to drink.  It might look a bit weird ordering a cranberry juice while I’m buying everyone else vodka, beer or cocktails but fuck it, it’s better for me and doesn’t make me look as cheap as ordering water which really gets on the nerves of some barmaids lol.  We’ll see how long it lasts…

Squats program is going pretty well; I’ve some leg pain but nothing too bad and usually at night/morning rather than when I’m active during the day.  I’m hopeful that I can reach the end of the 6 week plan without damaging myself and hopefully see some good results.  Same for the push-ups, I can feel them working when I wake up the morning after but it’s “good pain” rather than something trying to tell me that I’m hurting myself.  Again, hoping to see some good results especially with the added work with my dumbbells that is starting today after some green tea, eggs and getting rid of the head/throat problem which really isn’t as bad sitting here as it was when I was lying in bed.

Completed Dante’s Inferno!  I’m thinking about going for 1,000 gamerscore on it, not because it seems easy enough to get but just because the game is actually fucking awesome.  It ends with a “to be continued…” so I’m hoping for a sequel in the near future.  I found a trailer on YouTube but it’s just a few obscure-ish scenes from the original game which aren’t instantly recognisable mish-mashed together to make it look like a new game.  I don’t know why people waste their time on that sort of stuff, surely they don’t get any enjoyment out of it?  Strange people.

Spent a lot of today reading a book about Edinburgh attractions, hotels etc. as we’re planning on going there for a week/weekend, maybe for Valentine’s day.  There’s a few places I want to go, mainly Arthur’s Seat as the views look amazing and I like an excuse to walk.

Obviously, we’ll throw in some more romantic places to visit as well but Heather wants to visit the dungeons so I get to visit Arthur’s Seat.  Just a bit of give ‘n’ take really lol..

I’m not sure if the Thermobol is working or if it’s just down to the fact that I’ve probably eaten less carbs in the last couple of days than most people have in one meal but I’ve actually lost 5lbs in the 2 days since starting the pills.  I’ve obviously been eating a lot better and was ill yesterday which might be contributing to it along with my usual exercise which I still done last night despite the feeling of shitness but even if the pills are only producing a sort of placebo effect, that’s enough of an incentive to keep taking them especially as they don’t seem to be the cause of the bug I apparently had/have.  Time will tell how good they are as it really has only been 3 days now and that’s no time at all in which to make a decision.

Watched Hustle today… I have to say I was actually a bit disappointed in the lack of originality.  It was another “police are onto us, we’ll play with them” plotline which they seem to be using quite a lot in the last few seasons.  I’m still upset that it’s the last planned season but maybe a break will do it good and then, if it does come back, things might seem a bit fresher.

Skye Lourie is also in this episode, playing Kat.  I remember her from Pillars of Earth but had no idea she was actually 20-something and pretty hot.  During Pillars of Earth, I just assumed she was a young girl, who couldn’t act, but then again, I don’t suppose they could have let her rapist husband at her if she was as young as the character she was playing so I just wasn’t thinking.  Anyway, she’s pretty and seems like a good actress in the little time she actually had on screen.  Not much about her on the net but apparently she’s from New Zealand so I’m really impressed with her accent in this episode.

Got loads of stuff to get done for college… can’t be arsed at all if I’m honest but it needs to be done.  I’ve got a Business Information Management practice assessment, two parts of a Business, Culture & Strategy assessment to type up then turn into a report, posters and tickets to design to a printable stage for this event we’re organising, 3 sections of an Advanced Database booklet to finish and notes to read over for the Office Management class I finished.  I’m really not liking all these strikes days they’re having at the moment, it’s holding me back.  I suppose it’s holding everyone back but I hate having to be organised.

I had a lot of stuff to write about today but it has actually all gone right out my head.  I’ll leave you with some Staind.  Not amazing, but still good. I was listening to it quite a bit the other day.  Enjoy.

It was a fun day but I can’t be arsed drinking anymore, it really doesn’t do anything for me.  Also bought a bottle of Thermobol which is an workout supplement that raises your metabolism and burns fat.  I’m not sure how good it is but it’s highly recommended if you workout often so thought I’d give it a go for a month.  Anyway, that’s my brief summary of yesterday done.

Today, I was awake at 5.30 and up, ready and going a walk through the frosty morning by 8 in just a t-shirt.  It was actually a really nice morning even if it was absolutely freezing.

Came home and made breakfast… black pudding, egg and tomatoes.  Not the healthiest but it tasted awesom after the night before lol.  After that, I just chilled for a while reading Men’s Fitness then we went for another walk, just down to the bank so Heather could take some money out.  We were planning to go to the park but it started raining so we just jumped on a bus to get home.  Shared a pack of sushi for lunch then got some stuff done before going another walk… this time in the snow and with the intention of going to the park so I could try some pull-ups on the monkey bars lol, don’t even ask.  Anyway, we left and made our way through the snow then realised we didn’t have any money to get the bus back so we raced back home for money, then back out into the even heavier snow and saw the bus coming so we jumped on that, got off at a stop not too far from the park, made our way down to it to discover that there are no fucking monkey bars.  Heather thought that was funny then hit me with a snow ball.  She was left with some cold boobs.  Muwahaha.

Anyway, we raced back up the hill and managed to catch another bus home.  Fucking hell, we spent a lot on buses today.  We usually just walk!

Made myself a lovely salad for dinner, lots of rocket, sliced tomatoes and gherkins with a chicken breast.  Heather had brown rice and chicken.  We then spent some more time chilling infront of cheesy tv programmes, talking about the future and generally shit like that.  We got some ideas about how we want to decorate as well.

I need to get some college work done for tomorrow and do today’s squats/push-ups so that’s it for today.  Hopefully I’ll have some more interesting stuff to write about tomorrow but who knows.  Got a few things planned so maybe I will come up with something.

We had a really nice day especially as we haven’t really spent a lot of money going out lately.  Grabbed a cappucino to begin with in a nice looking little bar that Heather had problems getting served in before as she had no ID so she went up to the bar to order the coffees today, passport at the ready and they didn’t even ask her for it.  I found that hilarious, she didn’t.  The thing about the cappucino was that some bright spark thought it would look cool to put a line through the froth/chocolate :\ I dunno why, it didn’t add anything to the coffee which gets spooned and then mixed up within seconds of them sitting it down.

Weird stuff, indeed but it tasted nice all the same.  Heather took a few pics of me and we got a few pics of eachother as well.  Here’s one of me since I haven’t bothered to let anyone on here even see what I look like yet:

Ignore the t-shirt, it means nothing!  There’s actually better pics than this so I might look one out and use that instead, if I can be bothered lol.

Anyway, we then went shopping.  Checked out a couple of clothes shops but couldn’t find anything so we settled on a magazine and dvd before going for lunch.  The waitress looked like she thought I was a bit mad when I asked her for mash potato with my Chicken Caesar Wrap instead of fries lol.  Tried a new cocktail in here as well; Tennessee Tea.  It’s pretty much what that link lists with the addition of Angostura Bitters which I assume is just use to coat the glass along with ice before being poured out.  I also got my own back on Heather in here by taking a few pics of her.  I’ve edited one of them a little – I say a little…

Very purple.  I sort of messed up the editing a bit – see the large patch on the arm? – but it’s not that bad.  I’m not sure how I managed to keep the lemon colour in lol, was a bit of an accidentl really.

After lunch we went hunting for a new mattress/bed but didn’t have much luck although we did see a few ideas we want to implement when we get round to decorating.  Hopefully we’ll start that soon, probably next month to be honest.  After that we just headed back towards the bus stop, both a couple of bottles of fruit cider and another cappucino which I had to leave sitting in the bar because Heather apparently thought she saw the bus passing the window – she didn’t so it was a wasted cup of coffee.

I’ve also had an N-Dubz song stuck in my head all fucking day and I have absolutely no idea why.  First of all it was a Pink song I couldn’t remember the name of and now it’s N-Dubz.  I really don’t know what’s happening to me, I barely listen to that type of music these days.  Here’s a video anyway, maybe some of you will enjoy it.

The music sounds a bit weird in that video for some reason I think or maybe it’s just the volume I have my laptop at just now, who knows.  Hopefully it’ll be alright for any of you.

Found out tonight that following exact instructions for Microsoft Access that were written using Office 2003 really doesn’t work when you’re using 2007.  I’m still able to do the work but the instructions make no sense so I’m just gonna catch up in college so I can answer questions based on the proper version of the program.  Bit annoying but oh well.

Started a push-up program today.  It follows the same sort of plan as my squats program so I should be able to stick to without any problems.  Was really surprised at my form during the intial stage as I haven’t done any push-ups for ages but managed an almost perfect form.  I think it’s probably got more to do with the added muscle on my arms rather than some new found ability for the exercise.

College tomorrow but I’m really not tired so I see myself ended up rolling into the class after 9 lol, hopefully the lecturer will be a bit late as well.

Speaking of college… I’m not sure if anyone else in the UK is experiencing this as much as I am at my particular college at the moment but there have been a lot of strikes lately – at least 2 a week.  It’s now moving up to 3 a week so we’re gonna miss so many classes.  While this is pretty cool on the surface it means that my class in particular is gonna miss classes relating specifically to our graded unit which affects our final grade for the course.  We’ve already missed 4 out of 6 classes due to strikes and closures so we can’t really afford to keep missing so much of the one thing.  If anyone else is experiencing the same thing, let me know as we’ve tried googling but can’t find much about it at the moment and all the schools in the area seem to be open.

Just remembered the name of the Pink song that was stuck in our head today… I don’t even own it and I don’t remember ever listening to it so it must have been playing in the background somewhere.

Seriously, I don’t remember ever going out of my way to listen to this but whatever.  Enjoy it as it’ll probably be the last time I ever post about one of her songs, no matter how awesome a voice she might have on occassion.

Finished the first week of my squats program today.  Thankfully I’m not experiencing any pain this time round.  I never really explained the fact that I’ve had a lot of trouble with my legs since I was young but yeah, my legs trouble me quite a lot and are beginning to lose the pretty hefty “diamond”, as people like to call it, I built up over the last few years so I’m trying to build them back up until they can cut glass again lol.

Made some shortbread today as well.  Everyone seems quite surprised when I tell them because I’m more of a “MEAT.  GIVE ME MEAT!” type guy but yeah, I made some last week for Heather because I was bored as fuck and I’ve made some more today since she loved it.

It’s not the healthiest thing to be eating but having a bit now and again isn’t too bad, although I normally try to stay away from stuff containing a lot of flour or sugar.

Completed another circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno today.  Didn’t think I’d get a chance to play it again until Friday/Saturday so that was cool.  You get to kill your own father who’s a huge, crucifix wielding freak of a guy that walks about in molten gold.  He didn’t say much when you killed him, the arrogant bastard but then again, neither did Dante while he melted his face off.

Had a think about posting recipes, book reviews etc. but I’m not sure if it’s really an idea I’m gonna run with… I see this as more of a personal blog type thing and don’t want to fill it up with a load of shit that makes it look like I’m trying to bring in views or something.  I’ll keep it in mind as WordPress does offer quite a bit of space and allows you to make seperate pages etc. so maybe I could add it there rather than make seperate posts but until then, if I think a book is great I’ll tell you in a blog post and you can read it and make your own mind up.  If I make some food that tastes fucking lovely, I’ll post a pic.

In response to a conversation I had with Martin a few nights ago and him taking my “Potential” post too seriously, he’s run with an idea of mine and made a wrestling news/views/comedy type thing and uploaded it to YouTube.  Enjoy, the last 10 seconds is worth sitting through the rest of it even if you don’t really like wrestling.

Hopefully he’ll carry on with it – he has to for at least one more episode due to certain purchased items but whether he’ll keep going after that will depend on what sort of response he receives.

Oh fuck, yeah… opened my shed today and the whole inside was covered in fucking water.  I have no idea what happened as I was in the other day, after heavy rain I might add, and there was absolutely no water in there so it’s happened in the last couple of days.  I keep a TV in there along with old consoles, books etc. but thankfully everything except the TV – which I won’t use anyway, I just didn’t want to throw it out straight away – is safe in awesome plastic boxes so not too much damage done.  I’ll get some tar for the roof or something in spring, it’s too wet to do anything just now anyway.

I think I mentioned that the second series of Lip Service is starting this spring on BBC.  If you’re not quite sure what it is, here’s a few clips involving one of the characters from the first series:

She’s the main character, and a seemingly crazy, lesbian bitch that’s had a bad life.  The series doesn’t revolve just around her but her character really evolves brilliantly during the series and she becomes the main reason for me, and others, appreciating the show rather than the lesbian sex.

Anyway, since then I’ve done… nothing. Honestly. I had a list of stuff I had to do today and have got absolutely nothing done. We had dinner, had a few drinks, done a workout, watched some Doctor Who and played Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

This has honestly been the least productive day I’ve had this year (not long into the year but my point still stands).

Oh, I did stub my toe and break the fucking nail in half so that’s keeping me in a nice, constant state of agony.  Lovely.  Anyway, I only posted to keep up my rhythm and apologise for any boredom it may have caused.  I’ll try and get you those 20 seconds of your life back one day.

I know it looks like I didn’t change that much, but it did take a while and I’m pretty happy with the result especially as it was my first time using GIMP.  I’ll improve on it or upload something completely different at some point in the future but it’s staying for now.

I also took down my poetry and photography links.  I don’t feel that they were contributing anything at the moment but might add them back again at a later date when I can think of a better way to implement them.  Other than that, everything else is pretty much the same for now.

I didn’t get up to a lot today apart from redesigning things here but I did complete another circle of Hell in Dante’s Inferno.  I’ve been taking the game slowly as it’s actually really entertaining but apparently very short i.e. short enough to complete in one or two sessions.  I don’t have the time to sit down at my Xbox for 4/8 hours right now so I’m happy that it’s split into 9 handy little segments.  It really is a good game though and I highly recommend you pick it up as it’s pretty cheap these days if you buy it pre-owned.  Martin got pretty (scarily) excited when I told him there are dead babies with swords for arms in it so yeah, if that gets you going then buy the game.

I also watched the last episode of Sherlock today and now that the second season is finished, I have to say that I enjoyed it just as much as, if not more than the first.  I don’t know what it is about it that really draws me in, it’s just a really entertaining show and the jokes just hit on my type of humour I suppose.  It’ll be interesting to see where they go with it in the next series which has already been given the greenlight.

I’ve also been reading Dragon’s Den: The Perfect Pitch and I have to say that it’s actually pretty interesting.  I’m not planning on pitching a business idea but it’s still a really interesting read and I think it’ll help me when it comes to doing the huge project I have to take on for college over the next couple of months.  Apart from offering advice on presenting a good pitch, the advice can be carried over to other aspects of your life e.g. a lot of one of the early chapters describes different personalities, what makes them tick and how best to use that to your advantage which is always useful.

Also, for anyone interested in bullshit EULAs, have a quick google for “iBook Author”.  The news is everywhere so it won’t take you long to find out what I mean.

Sticking to the BBC topic at the moment… Hustle is back on TV.  It hasn’t been amazing since Danny (Marc Warren) left the show but it’s still got somelaugh out loud moments and keeps up the same face paced action it always had.  Apparently this is the final series which is a shame but means that we’ll get something new and original.

Another series of Lip Service is being aired in early Spring as well so I’m looking forward to that.

Anyway, moving on… College wasn’t bad today; got the venue booking set in stone, been offered some more support for the event and the head of Marketing at college is releasing a press pack for us which will get us coverage in all the local papers in the area and a local radio station so things are looking pretty good.  We’ve also had quite a bit of interest from people regarding tickets so we’re pretty confident the event will be a success.  What wasn’t a success today was my Office Management assessment, part of which required the creation of a job advertisement which is fine, quite easy assuming you remember to tell people where to send applications to!  Yeah, looking over my assessment I was pretty happy with it until I realised that any applicants for this imaginary job would have to send the application to an invisible fucking man.  So, yeah, definitely got some remediation to do there.

Apart from that, I haven’t been up to much today.  Spoke to my mate on the phone for a while and had a laugh over some internet bullshit and talk about Hitler (don’t ask).  Oh, and bad news about MegaUpload, eh?  Shame.