iPod in the car

I have been wanting to get my iPod wokring with my head unit in the car for ages but I bought my Alpine in November in 2003. Two months later they brought out new versions that had iPod connectivity for less than I paid for mine (typical). I wasn't going to buy a new head unit just so I could connect the iPod up, not when it works perfect besides for that and I paid about £300.

I'd been looking at iTrips but at the time they were illegal in the UK, not anymore. Although wasn't too sure about how well they would work. I then saw the Dension IceLink FM, which lets you tune your car radio to your iPod but this actually connects into your car aerial so the signal is less affected by interferrance. It also comes with an aux input so could connect my other MP3 players up as well if I needed to.

My head unit does play MP3 CDs but I never get around to writing them and if the aux, I could load up my Zen with the latest songs from Napster on Monday morning and listen to them in the car :-)

I am spending money again but this will be the last purchase, I'm telling myself its a reward for doing the Great North Run. Yet not actually running it until tomorrow. Hopefully this will arrive next week from the Apple Store, which was as cheap as anywhere else and have had good experiences from them before.

I may need a Dashmount adaptor, so I don't have stick holes in my car but will see how it works first.

1 Day to Go

Well there is only 1 day to go (less than now) before I run the Great North Run. My number is 37745 (pink) if you want to look out for me. They give you colours depending on your expected pace, mine is pink. Then you are sety away in staggered groups according to your group colour, the slowest is white.

They can text my time to people if I set it up, not that I have enabled it yet, better do that in a few minutes.

My digital watch had broke, thought it was the battery but it wasn't. So I bought a new watch for running. An Adidas thing, all I wanted was something with a decent size display and not a Casio that had easy buttons to press. This fits the bill perfectly :-)

I have been loading up on carbohydrates the last couple of days or trying to by eating potatoes and bread. I weighed myself today and I am 11 stone 2. Last time I weighed myself I was about 12 stone 8 or maybe just over that, I think that was in June. My aim had been to get down to 11 stone 6 for the race. So I easily achieved that and I haven't really worked that hard to get there.

I will try to remember to post my time on here once I am texted it. Hopefully on my way home from the race, that's if my brain is still functioning.

Corpse Bride

Corpse Bride: I watched this last night, the first animated film for a while. When the singing started I was thinking "oh no" and thought about swapping films but I kept watching.

It had a good story and it did keep me watching. The Corpse Bride herself reminded me of someone which was amusing but will keep that to myself ;-)

At the end I did quite enjoy this dark animated story and gave it 7 out of 10.

Children Of Men

Children Of Men: I went to watch this on Wednesday and very high hopes. Maybe that's why I was slightly disappointed. The story was really good, although some parts weren't explained well enough (why everyone had become sterile). I'm never sure about Clive Owen either, although was good in Inside Man. He gives an average performance here, but unfortunately Pam Ferris is a bit shit and the pregnant lass is rubbish. The only person who puts in a really good performance is Michael Kane ("pull my finger").

Having said all the negative stuff there are some really good parts to the film, the camera work is excellent and the sound is fantastic especially in the prison/detention place.

It's worth seeing but some people may be confused and its a film that makes you think and doesn't bring everything to a neat conclusion. Read into that "A strange ending".

I gave it an 8 out of 10 after a lot of changing my mind, it was a 7 at first. One of the people I saw this with gave it 5.

Changes at work

there are several changes taking place at work. my unit is merging
with teesside, although the only IT person left over there is leaving
in about a month. this leaves myself and my line manager, there are 2
information staff in teesside that help as well but one is hoping to
get a job in a different role. the other doesn't appear to be sure yet
but has mentioned going part time or retiring.

i have known about the merger for some time now. i was told this week
that myself and my line manager have been given permission to go over
to teesside for 2 or 3 days a week. well i think one of us HAS to
spend 2 or 3 days a week over there. this is potentially good but i
also have some concerns. the worst thing will be the travelling, its
all well and good being paid mileage but its the time travelling that
worries me. from home to middlesbrough takes a long time especially at
peak times. i would be spending probably over 90 minutes travelling
each way. thats over 3 hours a day, i'm sure you worked that out. at
the moment it normally takes no more than 30 minutes to get to work.

i have other concerns, i'm not sure exactly what is expected if i go
there. am i there to learn how they do stuff or will i be told to do
this that and the other and end up feeling like i have 2 managers for
the next month at least?

hopefully these and other concerns will be addressed over the next few days.

potentially it could be very interesting and i was pleased to hear my
ACO mentioning some of the things i had been thinking about over the
last day when i spoke to her this afternoon. hopefully having some of
the Teesside processes moved to durham and a single access. there was
also several other things mentioned that i can't really mention on
here as they are only ideas and thoughts but it sounded like it was
hopefully going in the right direction.

one thing that i am sort of suprised about and disappointed about it
that no one has really asked for my views or EXPERIENCES on merging
with Teesside since i came back. as far as i aware i am the only
person who has been through the exact same thing before and seen what
can go wrong as well as advantages. When i worked for the red cross in
Durham they merged with Teesside and my unit was, as now the first to
merge. i was an IT assistant but based in finance. shortly afterwards
it all merged. then a year or so after that we then merged with
Northumbria, which is when i took redundancy because i didn't want to
travel to Newcastle, especially doing the job they wanted me to do.

if they aren't careful the same thing will happen here and they will
lose all of their experienced staff. at times it seams like the exact
same mistakes are being made. when at the red cross i think just about
every person from durham and teesside offices left and masses of
experience and knowledge was lost. of the few that stayed on i think
just about all have since left, could still be a couple remaining.

most staff appear to have some concerns over what there jobs will be
and whether someone is going to be employed over their heads rather
than existing staff being allowed to progress and having a career
path. there is also the job evaluation that has been going on,
hopefully the results of which will be revealed next month. although
they will soon be wrong as the roles change.

from my own point of view i have some things in my head and if they
don't happen, i feel i will have to leave or go insane. i guess we
will all find out just how much our knowledge and experience is valued
in the next few weeks.

i just hope they get it correct for more than my own sake!

Sponsorship

I decided to take sponsors for the Great North Run. I wasn't going to bother but a few people have asked me, so decided I shouldn't turn the money down when a charity could use it.

I chose Cancer Research UK as my chosen charity, if you would like to sponsor me, let me know or use this site.

Losing Weight

I have lost quite a lot of weight over the last couple of months and to be honest I haven't done that much to achieve it. I have cut back on chips and bread. Although still eating both, I haven't really drank any alcohol either, other than last Friday.

Although I have been for some runs, I have done nowhere near the amount that I should of been doing as training. Even after Sunday, I am intending to keep up the healthier eating and exercise. I want to increase the exercise, hopefully start going to boxing with Jay as well.

I don't think it would take all that much to have a six pack show through, haven't seen one of those for a lot of years. If I add some crunches/sit ups in and increase the cardio work I will get there. I should of been doing all this for the last few months but my mind has been elsewhere...

Haven't weighed myself, might do that tomorrow night. I need to buy some new clothes because most of mine are now too big and baggy.

I'm off to the cinema to see Children of Men.

Dinner Time Run Again

Distance: 3.15 miles
Time: 34 minutes

I went out for a run at dinner time with Mandy again, eventually we got to go out. I kept getting delayed :-(

We set off at a comfortable pace and that's how I tried to keep it. Mandy has a tendancy to try to go slighly to fast and has to walk parts. So tried to keep at a nice pace, which wasn't hard as Mandy was a bit tired anyway.

I felt a lot better today than the last time I did this run, I ran up the cobbles up side gate no problem and waited at the top of the steps for a minute or so for Mandy to catch up. Th eonly others section where I slowed down or waited was up the bank to the Car Park near work. I decided I would just go though after slowing down for a minute.

I did the run in 34 minutes but was very comfortable and could easily sprint at the end if I had needed to, Mandy was only another minute behind. I think if I feel like today again, I could do the run in under 30 minutes, if I wanted to push it, but why kill yourself on a dinner time. Should go out for a nice steady run but might try it one day on my own to see if I can break the 30 minute barrier, although probably quite some time after the Great North Run. I guess I should try to get some sponsors the next couple of days.

From the bath

change of location for this post, i'm in the bath. i better try not to
drop my phone in!

its been an expensive day. i took my car into the garage and it cost
me £420, argh. i had to get a whole new exhaust system including cat.
which is what i feared yet expected. the car not only sounds better
now but is a lot quicker again.

i just need to earn some money now, i'm skint :-(

GeoTagger

Just read about GeoTaggeer which fits onto a camera's flash shoe and records your precise location (GPS) and the direction you are facing. Then you will always know where a picture was taken. I thought about this years ago and sites like flickr already support storing the location a photo was taken.

When this is built into all digital camera it will be excellent, although the draw back is it wont work indoors for the GPS co-ordinates.

If you look at the demo it shows how it over-lays it onto google maps.

Garden Progress

I finally got around to taking a picture of how my garden is at the moment, it needs some weeding (again). The pictures below show how it has changed since March. Still loads to do, but will get there in the end.

(Above) 23/09/06

(Above) 21/08/06

(Above) 14/06/06

(Above) 29/05/06

(Above) 26/03/06

Transporter 2

Transporter 2: I watched this tonight and it wasn't as good as the first one. It has plenty of action in it and for some reason the director forgot to give Amber Valleta a wardrobe, not that I should be complaining.

I read a review on the IMDB that said "Action, explosions, total disregard for physics. EXCELLENT." That sums it up perfect, at times I found myself shaking my head in disbelief but if you just look at it as a action film with loads of stunts you should enjoy it.

I gave it 6 out of 10, maybe it should of been a 7.

Roddymoor Farm Auction

Its a bit hard to see in the small picture above but in the field above the gardens, there is loads of cars parked for the auction of the animals, machinary and tractors. That was yesterday.

not much

i haven't felt like doing anything all day and was a bit hungover this
morning. i had to get up and at least be slightly alert for a
conference call i had to do for work.

then this afternoon i changed the oil and filter on my car. i need to
take it in to the garage on monday because the noise from the exhaust
is getting worse. i am hoping it is just the gasket by the cat.
otherwise could be expensive.

it was a strange and quite sad day today. ian who is my godfather (not
that i am religous) was selling off the animals, machinary and
tractors from the farm. i spent most of my childhood down there and
sad to see some of it going. i suppose much like my life at the moment
everything changes and evolves. i wonder if the so called nature
reserve actually happens or if its just gossip?

there must of been 100 vehicles down the farm today for the auction. i
actually took a picture of all the cars. i Havent seen so many cars in
the village since the eighties when there used to be a Roddymoor
carnival.

i have to get up in the morning to go to work to do some testing and
another conference call. i also have to tidy my house up before a
friend comes over tomorrow night. i also need to go for a run and will
hopefully get time to go to my sisters to watch the Newcastle match.
so a busy day ahead!

Muse

I was talking to Tony tonight and he said we should book up to see Muse at Newcastle Arena, even though we could only get seating tickets. I was thinking about going on my own anyway, so pleased Tony wanted to see them.

I could of got slightly better tickets when I first mentioned it but who cares, gonna try and get into the Standing part anyway. I will make it, hopefully without being thrown out!!!

Durham Night Out

I have been on the Durham Night Out tonight. It was very quiet, maybe its because its the first in over 2 years since I have not done any rounding up and encouraged people to go out. I was talking to Val and Craig, if it weren't for them it would of been shite. Then I met up with Tony at about 10:15 in the Coach, is always good to catch up with Tony coz we get on well.

Night Watch

Night Watch:Another I have put off, mainly because its Russian and is subtitled. Yet it is very good visually (somersaulting rocket powered truck). The main problem is there is often too much going on at once. This maybe makes it harder to follow when subtitled.

Having said that I could still follow it and made a change from the usual hollywood fantasy style films. This is suppposedly the first in a trilogy, so I look forward to the next film. There are parts that I am still slightly unsure about but having said that I have been like that watching many Hollywood movies.

I would give it 7 out of 10 because it looks fantastic and does have a good story.

Run

Distance: 1.8 miles
Time: 18 minutes

I took some time off work this afternoon, intent on running one last long run (9 miles or so). I stopped at our Consett office on my way home to fix something and by the time I got home it was 1:45. I was starving so had to eat something and gave myself 45 minutes afterwards for my stomach to settle. So I set off at 2:30 intending to run around the back roads to Harperley Round-a-bout, down the A68 to Fir Tree, then down to Howden, then up to Crook and back up to Roddymoor. It probably isn't 9 miles but don't want to measure it until after I have ran it.

Yet today when I set off I just didn't feel right from the first few steps and almost turned around and went back but thought I would go on. I still went at a slow pace in case I felt I could go the route I wanted. Ran up the the nasty bank towards White Lea Farm, its hard going because its steep and very rocky and uneven. I had decided by this time that I wasn't going to run much further just didn't feel right and I'm now becoming paranoid about getting injured. Once I reached the track down to Roddymoor after Arthur Pit Cottages I decided I should at least work up a sweat and picked up the pace. I ran the last half a mile in under 3 minutes but don't know exactly what time. The overall time is just a nice pace, 10 minute mile.

I am now going to have to find some time to do a longer run, unless I do several short runs. Maybe I could do the run I did the other night but go round twice, could be a good idea. It has just the right number of uphills, downhills and some nice flat sections. The uphills maybe too much the second time around though.

So today's supposed long run never happened :-(

Boxing

I am going to boxing tomorrow at Spennymoor Leisure Centre. I nearly went a year ago with a friend from work but talked myself out of it because worried about my temper.

Jay rang me tonight and asked if I fancied going, more to get fit than to actually box. I have thought about it a lot over the last few months anyway but haven't really mentioned it (maybe once).

I agreed to go and have a look around tomorrow night but said I didn't actually want to start until after the Great North Run.

I will start out just training but I think I will be drawn to the ring, I have had dreams about getting in the ring as well as some of the other stuff I dream about. I intend to stay out of it for as long as I can. You need control to be a boxer, I'm still not sure I have enough to get in the ring.

If nothing else it will be a good way to get fit and actually see Jay more, hardly see him these days.

Brancepeth, Willington & Oakenshaw Run

Distance: 4.86 miles
Time: 50 minutes

I took my running gear to work with me today, but decided not to go out at dinner time and go on the way home instead. I got changed before leaving work and headed for Brancepeth which is on the way home. I intended just to run along the old railway track to the Works then turn around and go back the way I came.

As I was approaching the Works I decided that I would keep going and aim for the 100 acres Nature Reserve at Oakenshaw. There were some steepish uphill sections to Oakenshaw and was pleased to get to the flat.

I ran through the Nature Reserve looking at the scenery as I went and avoiding all the people walking their dogs, its a nice place to run and the whole route made a change. There was only about a mile or so in total of it on the road, the rest was tracks and bridleways. I got back to the car and wasn't out of breath at all.

I estimated the time, but it will be quite accurate because I took it from how far through a playlist I had listened. So will only be about a minute out at most. I'm fairly happy with the pace, 10 minute mile. If I could keep that up for the entire G.N.R. I would be completing it in under 2:15. It's not very likely that I could keep that pace for over 13 miles but would like to do it in under 2:30. To be honest will be happy just to finish nevermind aiming for times.

As always click the image at the top for a larger version.

Little bit more thinking

I have done very little over the weekend other than house work and spending a few hours doing some gardening today. I gave the grass it's first cut, weeded and acquired some more plants. I could do with doing loads in the garden but my money is being diverted to other things at the moment as you can probably tell from the previous posts. I wouldn't be spending all that much time in the garden now the autumn weather is on its way, so may wait until next year before finishing it.

What recent events have shown me more than ever is that I have to do things now, you never know what life is going to throw at you next. I have spent most of my life putting off things and saying I will do this, that and the other and never doing any of it. I am gradually changing, watching things happen to friends and family and realising that it could all too easily happen to me, is making me rush to do as many things as possible NOW. I can't wait for tomorrow, for all I know it may never arrive.

I wrote the other day that it was a new beginning, thats what I was thinking about. My dad's sight is getting worse and he has asked me to come and help him with a few things recently. I have friends who's family have been ill and was thinking about a few people from my year at school who are now no longer with us. I am writing about negative stuff again, but in a good way because it's really pushing me to enjoy my life. No matter what has been thrown at me recently, there have been people there who have been there for me, family of course but also friends who I haven't really known all that long as well as some who have been there my entire life. I am grateful to all of them. I had some very difficult moments, no one quite knows how difficult, but I am stronger for them (strangely Christina Aguilera - Fighter has just come on).

"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger" Friedrich Wilhelm

I would like to close a chapter in my life and start a new one, there are still some lose ends to tie up. I know at the end of this year, I am going to look back and see it has been the most difficult and life altering of the last 27 so far. I would like to make the next 3 months some of the best, after the last 2/3 months being some of the worst. It will start off with the Great North Run on the 1st of October, if that ain't life altering like my parachute jump a year ago, I dunno what is. One thing I really want to do more of is walking, I have missed not going off the last few weeks. I haven't dared in case my knee gives out, which would be a nightmare so close to the 1st. My walks will start again after the G.N.R.

I am hoping to take Wednesday afternoon off to go for a long run, the last long run before the big day. I am working next weekend so wont get the chance. The advice is to ease back the week before, not that I have ever been exactly pushing myself.

More Stuff Booked

On Friday I booked up to see Basement Jaxx at the Arena, can't remember if I mentioned that before or not. I saw them live before Robbie Williams and they were amazing live, so decided to see them again on 6th December. I'm going there with a friend from work, who seams to be doing much the same as me and trying to say yes to stuff.

I have just booked up to see Dirty Pretty Things at the Carling Academy in Newcastle the night after Basment Jaxx on the 7th December. I saw them live in May @ Hi-Fi. Although at the time I din't realise who they were but was the best live band that day, certainly better than Ian Brown. That could be a busy week if I end up going to the Peterlee Xmas party as well, I went last year and had a good laugh.

I am toying with the idea of seeing Christina Aguilera, I do really like her music but don't think anyone will go with me. Although do know a few women from work who are going but thats kind of a womens night out. I better not leave it too long to decide or wont get a ticket. I went to see the Subways on my own so I guess I could do this too. I will make my mind up tomorrow which more than likely will be me deciding to go on my own. Listening to her new album while typing this.

November is looking bare except for watching a mate boxing in Wales, so do need some live music to go to. I a hopefully going to see a musical at the theatre in the next 2 months, possibly Chicago. I've never been to a musical and not sure if I will like it. I was tempted to see the Rocky Horror Show which is on in Sunderland this next week, but can't afford everything (unfortunately).

Lost

I finally got around to watching the last 5 episodes of Lost. I have been meaning to watch them for months. The end of the second series is even more bizarre and annoying than the end of the first series.

I suppose the third series starts in about 3 weeks in America, so not too long before I can start to see what its all about. I hope they end it after the third, sick of it being left on cliff hangers and it keeps getting stranger by the episode.

Here's a clip from the 3rd series.

MediaMonkey

After my post yesterday about MusicIP Mixer I was reading something on a forum about MusicIP and in the signture of someones post it mentioned something about MediaMonkey. So I clicked on the link and ended up finding a program that is billed as a Free MP3 Jukebox Player, Music Library Organizer. I thought not another, I've tried loads of these from major programs like iTunes and Windows Media Player to smaller programs that I can't even remember the names of. All have been slow or had other problems and faults.

Yet for some reason I read on and could see that MediaMonkey had a lot of features and it mentioned about working with large libraries of files. Most programs seriously start to slow down once you have a couple of thousand files and just get slower and slower the more files you have. So when it says, designed to work with libraries of 50,000+ files it caught my eye.

I installed MediaMonkey last night and I have been impressed with how well it imports information from other programs and devices and how quick it works. It is highly customizable and there are quite a few plugins, scripts and skins for it. A huge bonus is it actually works with most Winamp plugins so there are tons of plugins out there that will work.

I intended to try it to organise my music and play the songs with Winamp but I have been playing music all day with the built in player and other than it sometimes taking a few seconds to start to play WMA files it has worked perfectly.

I have installed a couple of plugins, MonkeyRok which displays loads of extra information about the song that is playing and AutoRate which automatically rates the songs you play by number of times played and if you skip over a song it get a low rating. I have yet to try and sync it with my iPod or Zen but hopefully it will work as well as it says it does.

So I now have an arsenal of excellent programs and websites that I use for music:

Winamp - The Best MP3 Player
Tag&Rename - Rename and Tag your audio files
dBpowerAMP - Convert between audio formats
Cool Edit Pro (now Adobe Audition) - Excellent Sound Editor
MusicIP Mixer - Help dicover your music library
MediaMonkey - Manage your audio files
Album Cover Art Downloader - Download and tag your audio files with cover art
AllMusic - Excellent music site with reviews and details of albums and artists
Napster - As much music as you can download, but renting it
AllOfMP3 - Buy albums in just about any format or bitrate (haven't used for a while)

MusicIP Mixer

I mentioned the other day that I was trying Predixis MusicMagic and that it seamed quite good but it was slow and did choose some strange songs. As a recap the program helped you find music in your collection you would like. If you have a large collection like me, you end up not listening to most of your music.

I received 3 comments on the previous post from people involved with MusicIP Mixer which has replaced MusicMagic, they recommended I try the new version and if I had any problems to let them know. It seamed rather strange at the time but I'm actually grateful now because the new version is loads better, it took over night to scan my music which isn't bad. The old program wasn't even a quarter of the way in that time.

MusicIP also seams to have less restrictions on playlist size in the free version and find it hard to see what extra features I would want, to make me pay money for?
Maybe more control over moods and filters like formats and bitrates?

MusicIP isn't integrated into Winamp like the MusicMagic version I tried before but this is probably an advantage.

Below is an image of the program:
It's extremely simple to use, just import your music into it. The Winamp import didn't work for me, it only imported the Genres and never imported any artists, albums, tracks. So I just used the Add Songs option from the menu to import my music, then you select a track, tell it how many songs you would like in the generated playlist and press the mix button. It creates a playlist based on the selected song. If you don't like some of the songs it chose you can right click the song and ask it to replace it and another song will be chosen.

Below is a playlist MusicIP Mixer created and I have just about finished listening to. I chose the top song in the playlist and a playlist was created based on that song. The program did a very good job, there were a couple of songs I hadn't liked and I asked it to replace them. The resulting playlist was more or less what I was looking for (good background music). The only song that has felt out place so far has been the Temptations - Get Ready, but 1 out of 50 aint bad. I am up to song 45 in the playlist and have been impressed. I would highly recommend anyone with a colection of probably over 700 songs to try this out.

Click above image for larger (readable) version.

The only criticism isn't actually of the program but the website, the frontpage does't tell what the program is and lots of people would just not bother reading any further. To be honest when I first saw MusicIP before my previous post, I thought they had some how high jacked the Predixis domain because there was no real announcement saying that it was formerly known as MusicMagic and it looked less professional than the Predixis old site, which is still accessible. If the website was improved a lot more people would try the program I'm sure, rather than having doubts like I did. There does appear to be good help in the forums though :-)

Go try it!

House Prices

While mentioning useful sites I guess I should mention Net House Prices, it's an excellent site that I've used for over a year now. It shows every house that has been sold in the country and the prices they were sold for since 2000. Interesting to see how prices have changed and how much people have paid for their houses.

Planning Applications

I just found a site that lists Planning Applications for the entire country. I have always wondered why there wasn't an easy way to find planning applications on the internet. I guess there now is.

The site is Planning Portal which is a government related site but I hadn't heard of it before and I have looked for this sort of thing in the past. you have to click through a few links which eventually take you to the search here.

It lets you search the whole country for planning applications, there is up to a 3 week delay before they appear but more chance of finding them here than through the normal process.

World Cruise

I was listening to someone at work talking about the cruise they had been on to Iceland and Greenland and I thought it sounded fantastic, right up my street. I used to think why would anyone want to go on a cruise but I have changed my mind over the last year or so and think it could be an excellent way to see lots of places. I often get bored easy when looking around places so a cruise where you only spend a few hours in a port would mean I wouldn't have the time to get bored.

While looking at the cruise mentioned at work I saw this one. an epic 85 day cruise around the world stopping in 24 ports. I might book it after tomorrow when I win the lottery (yeah right). You can see the ports of call here. I would maybe get bored spending so much time on the boat, unless they had wi-fi access, lol (wonder if they do?)

It would be nice to have the money to do something like this, the prices start from under £3000 for 4 people sharing but there are big suppliments depending on rooms and number of people. There's a nice Grade 2 Balcony Suite 3 berth with a £25,900 supplement ;-)

Run @ Dinner Time Again

Distance: 3.15 miles
Time: 36 minutes

I went for a run at dinner time with Mandy again today. We set off a little slower than last week. Although last week when we went up side gate (cobbles) we walked, this week me and Mandy decided to run up and we stopped just before the steps, walked up the steps then ran from Main Street USA all the way up the bank. Mandy didn't expect to make it all the way up.

I was actually tired half way around today for some reason, too many late nights maybe. We speeded up the second half of the run and Mandy felt certain we were faster than last time I went. According to signing in and out times we did it in 36 minutes, a minute slower than last week. I have been thinking about it though and neither of us was wearing a watch and just went off the wall clocks and Mandy signed out and me in on different clocks. So we could of been faster or slower than we said. I think we were probably faster!

When I went out last week with Mandy and Helen they said they normally didn't really walk any of it, yet they did when I was with them. Yet Mandy told me that last week was the fastest they had ran it (36 minutes), so think they must of been putting a spurt on with me running or something?

Maybe they are trying to kill me off, I have been intentionally trying to run slowly in my training (if I can call it that). I don't want to run too fast at the Great North Run or not gonna make it halfway nevermind to the end.

I spoke to Denise at one of our other offices today who was intending to run the GNR as well, but she has injured her knee and can't do it. She is trying to get it organised so she can run next year, she sounded like she really wanted to do it. She also mentioned that Gemma from the same office was running it as well.

Listening to..

I haven't wrote a post with what I'm listening to for a while. I was supposed to still be trying to work my way through 1001 albums to listen to before you die, but I kind of got side tracked as usual.

Below are some of the albums I have been or am listening to:









In case you can't tell what the albums are from the covers, I've listed them below. I haven't listened to all of this on constant repeat, some like the Vines I have only heard once and need some more plays.

• The Automatic - Not Accepted Anywhere
• Basment Jaxx - Crazy Itch Radio
• Blackbud - From The Sky
• Kasabian - Empire
• The Kooks - Inside In/Inside Out
• Missy Elliott - Respect M.E.
• Morcheeba - The Platinum Collection
• Robbie Williams - Greatest Hits
• Orson - Bright Idea
• Megadeth - Rust In Peace
• The Subways - Young For Eternity
• The Shys - Astoria
• The Vines - Vision Valley
• Classic FM - Relax and Escape
  

I think from the above list, it shows the fairly broad selection of music I listen to. As well as full albums, I have listened to a lot of individual tracks. To look at more of the music I have listened to over the last year see my Last.FM page.

Nigel Boxing in November

I got a text from Jay tonight to let me know that Nigel is boxing in Wales on November 18th against Gary Rhys, its a British Eliminator. So its another trip off and I'm looking forward to it :-)

Just as well I didn't book tickets for Muse today on the 19th, I'm sure I could of still gone but probably as well I didn't.

The Sentinel

The Sentinel: I went to the pictures to watch this tonight and it was very much what I expected. It's a good film but the beginning was a little drawn out. Some good performances from Kiefer Sutherland and Michael Douglas but nothing special.

The movie is good and certainly worth watching, but nothing new.

I think I might of made it sound a bit crap but I did actually enjoy the movie, I gave it 7 out of 10.

new start

today one chapter in my life drew to a close or at least i hope it
did. i asked to speak to the chief at work today and if managed to
answer some questions i had. i then said what i needed to this
afternoon to put an end to the nightmare that i have been in the last
god knows how many weeks. i was careful how i worded things.

i now want to think of things as if i am making a new start from
tomorrow. you hear that people dont change but that's rubbish i have
been like a chameleon over the last few years and have completely
metamorphised myself.

i want to change the things i dont like in my life and increase the
things i enjoy as well as trying new stuff and of course learning new
skills that interest me. where all of this leads me i dont know.

i really want to go off walking on my own again but trying to put it
off until after the great north run. i am really going to struggle at
the run. i have less than 3 weeks and still can't motivate myself to
get off my arse and train.

one of my previous posts was about concerts to see. as well as booking
some more of them, i need to enter as many other tasks and activities
into my calendar as possible and somehow make sure i actually do
them.

i would like to find a friend who i get on well with who would enjoy
going walking. my parents just cant cope with some of the walks i want
to do now. i like to do some on my own but other times it could be
good to go with someone else!

i really need to get an increase of income to enable me to do more.
there just isn't enough time to fit everything in and i certainly
don't have the money to do it all. i don't want to waste the time i
have left being sedentry like i have for much of the last 27 years.
when i go i want to be able to look back and think of all the things i
experienced in life :-)

New Live Chat & Meebo

I have been using Meebo for a while. It's a website that lets you login to all your IM clients from anywhere and all from the website. Excellent when away from your normal desktop but still want to be able to chat.

They have just added a new feature which allows you to add a chat feature to a website. On the right of this site is a chat feature and if I'm online at Meebo you can chat live with me :-)

Concerts

I decided to have a look at what concerts/gigs are on over the next few months that interested me. I obviously wont go to all of them but would like to see some of them. The ones is Red are already booked.

September
29th - Northern Sinfonia (The Sage)

October
8th - Level 42 (The Sage)
10th - Frog Tour featuring Babyshambles / Holloways / Noisettes (Carling Academy)
12th - Orson (Carling Academy)
12th - Automatics (Newcastle Uni)
16th - Tom Jones (Newcastle Arena)
25th - NME Rock 'n' Roll Riot Tour [The Fratellis, The Maccabees, The Horrors] (Nothumbria Uni)
29th - Ross Noble (Newcastle City Hall)

November
1st - Jet (Carling Academy)
10th - Pink (Newcastle Arena)
19th - Muse - (Newcastle Arena)
19th - The Feeling (Carling Academy)
20th/21st - Paul Weller (Newcastle City Hall)
23rd - The Killers (Carling Academy)
25th - Thunder (Newcastle City Hall)
30th - Snow Patrol (Newcastle Arena)

December
6th - Basement Jaxx (Newcastle Arena)
17th - Iron Maiden (Newcastle Arena)
21st - Kasabian (Newcastle Arena)
29th - The Blue Planet (Newcastle Arena)

January

February
12/13 - Roy Chubby Brown (Newcastle City Hall)

March
6th - Black Label Society (Carling Academy)

Hopefully I will be booking Basement Jaxx and The Killers before the end of the week.

Bed or Not?

I'm not sure whether to go to bed yet, I will probably just lay there thinking about tomorrow and get more and more worked up and angry. Could be an idea to keep messing about on the computer until I can't keep my eyes open like I used to do for years.

I did want to go to bed early and get up for a run but not sure I will make it up in time. I have already organised my running gear and just ironed a shirt and stuff for tomorrow so I don't need to rush around in the morning.

A few people have given me advice on what to say tomorrow but will probably ignore all them and just say what I think is right. So wonder if I have a job after tomorrow then?

Still fairly pissed off that someone said it would all be at an end if what I said was acceptable (or words to that effect), grrr that makes me angry. I do nothing wrong yet my fate lays at someone liking or not liking what I say. Where's a lottery win when I need it?

Trying to tell myself to keep smiling but on the other hand I have ingrained in me now "Live each day as if its your last". I should stay true to myself and do exactly that (there must be a devil inside me).

I spend far too much time thinking about things, especially pointless stuff. We live in a world full of rules, do most of these rules make things better or just stiffle us and create pointless barriers? We are hearded about like sheep, I don't want to be a sheep, I want to be me!

Sometimes I let people into the chasm that is my head and allow brief glimpses of the goings on in there by writing on this blog. I am always constantly aware of who is reading it, which tends to hinder what I write. I don't undertstand most of what goes on in my head let alone try and write about it. I have never known anyone like me for having such an active mind once I try to relax.

I have a million ideas, thoughts, feelings, worries, hopes, desires, ... constantly jumping into view when I close my eyes. My head is like being in a gigantic room with thousands of screens and each one displaying a different thought, I will look at a screen and suddenly another will come into view then another and another. Every now and again one will remain in view for longer this will interest, upset, worry, intrigue me or various other things then I will move onto something else. This happens constantly until I am exhausted or until I have to get up. I don't actually see computer screens it was just an example of how my mind is constantly jumping from one thing to another. This isn't always a bad thing its my way of coming up with ideas, plans, decisions (on a rare occassion), it's how I work out things on my own.

I think I have mentioned before on here that I have many times dreamt exact situations exactly as they then happened. It starts as a case of De Ja Vu where things seam familiar then I realise that I know exactly what is about to happen. I don't just mean broad things I mean who is about to walk past, what they will be wearing, talking about right down to the minutest detail. I could tell you exactly what someone I was walking past was about to say or do even though I have never met them in my life. It is very strange, it hadn't happened for while until the last couple of months. Its happened on a couple of occassions, the last time on Friday when at the Robbie Williams concert.
I was stood there with Leila and it started like I described like De Ja Vu. I recognised a few people and what they were doing. Then I realised I knew what was about to happen, a lady I noticed and pointed out was very drunk. She fell down and just sat there on someones blanket and started talking away, then I knew who was about to appear and what was going to happen. I didn't mention it until now. There was another occassion on the night as well but wasn't as memorable and several occassions of extreme De Ja Vu.

I'm starting to wonder if these happen on occassions of extreme emotion, happiness, sadness, loss and on a rare occassion love. It would of been happiness on Friday :-)

I probably should of kept some of this post to myself, as I normally do.

Kasabian

I booked 4 tickets to see Kasabian today @ The Metro Radio Arena in Newcastle on December 21st. Me, Tony, Leila and her son is going. We had to get seated tickets, there was no standing left.

I intended to look at Basement Jaxx and the Blue Planet shows which are also on in Decemer but my mother rang and asked if I could copy a cassette of Indian Dance music to a CD, it was for the school and they needed it for tomorrow. So my plans for the night went out of the window.

Predixis MusicMagic

I am giving Predixis MusicMagic that is included in Winamp a test. I have briefly looked at before and expiremented with the standalone program a few years ago and something similar called Moodlogic I think, which I did really like but didn't want to pay for.

The first impression of MusicMagic is SLOW, it takes an eternity to scan your music. If you have a large collection. It has been scanning mine for over 24 hours and it is still less than a quarter of the way through it.

I guess I should explain what it does, it scans your music which then helps you create playlists, by creating a fingerprint for all your songs. You select a song you like and would like similar music to. It then scans its database and trys to pick songs that it thinks are similar.

It is an excellent way of hearing music in your collection that you may not of heard in a long time or in my case never. It is far from perfect as the screenshot of the last playlist it created shows below. I selected Twisted Sister - I Wanna Rock and it created this playlist.

How the hell did it think that 2 Take That songs and Shakin Stevens were similar, oh and Merry Clayton, sadly I didn't mind listening to Merry Clayston (oh dear). I guess the question could be what am I even doing with those songs, lol. Besides for those it did pick some excellent music like Van Halen - Atomic Punk and some classic Ratt. I had never heard Talking Heads - Burning Down The House before, only the Tom Jones version a few years ago. The original is fantastic :-)

There are some limitations to the free version included in Winamp. The big one being it will only generate playlists of 20 songs.

I might give MoodLogic another spin, I can remember thinking it was excellent. If it's as good as I remember I just may pay for it. There is also another similar program called MusicIP and it is free. So will test them out and see which comes out on top.

Below is another playlist created from "The Subways - Rock & Roll Queen". I have only added Artists beginning with P-Z so far to MusicMagic, will get a broader range when its all added. This looks like it did a better job, less strange tracks (Pink maybe).

The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift

The Fast And The Furious - Tokyo Drift: This gets a poor score on IMDB but I would imagine most lads like me would enjoy the movie. It's got cars, crashes and women. If you're wanting a film with an excellent plot or something look elsewhere.

Its a fun film and doesn't pretend to be anything else. If you like cars, watch it otherwise stay away.

I gave it 7 out of 10.

What will my PVR do?

Below are some of the features my PVR when it is eventually built will do:

• Pause, Rewind, Fast-Forward "live" TV.
• Watch and Record TV at the same time or record 2 channels at once.
• Watch recorded programmes in other rooms in the house.
• Skip Adverts
• Schedule Recordings from TV Guide
• I will be able to copy recordings to DVD or to a laptop to archive or watch away from home.
• Schedule recording from the internet, so if I forget I can login and schedule remotely.
• If I add in Orb I could stream Live TV to any internet connected computer in the world. So if really sad could watch stuf when on holiday or round a mates house.

There are tons of other features it should do, many are not exactly PVR related like weather and stuff but I can already do most with my Xbox.

PVR & Projects

I think I mentioned a week or so ago I was looking at a PVR (Personal Video Recorder), which is like Sky+. Sky+ costs too much and there is an ongoing cost which I don't like and don't want to pay. I looked at the other options, Freeview PVR and Media Center PC. I had sort of talked myself out of it for the moment.

Yet I have been frustrated when I have missed a couple of things this week that I had been watching. I don't want to hook up my VCR because they are shite. Sometimes I manage to find the programmes on the internet which has helped in the past.

So because of the frustrations this week of missing stuff I decided to have another look after noticing an article on MythTV. MythTV is a free program that lets you do everything that a Media Center PC can except it runs on Linux. This means there is no cost for software, don't need to buy any version of windows or any other software it is all free. I can remember reading about MythTV a long time ago but at the time it was very complicated to setup which didn't necessarily put me off but it was also in an early stage and not everything worked.

Since I originally read about MythTV masses of work has been done on it and it now looks like a complete package. One thing that really jumped out at me is that it can be setup in different configurations. You can have what you call a backend, which basically mean you can put a nice big, fast computer with all the recording hardware hidden out of the way in a cupboard somewhere (under my stairs). Then have a slower, silent, tiny PC in your living room or wherever acting as a Frontend. So you when you pause live TV or schedule recordings when sat on your couch it is actually being recorded on the PC in the cupboard. Yet to you sat there it looks like its happening in front of you. This sounds like an excellent idea, this means I can have a nice fast noisey PC under the stairs. One of the major problems I was having when I looked the other week was how to make a fast PC that was going to be quiet enough in the living room. This isn't so bad when you only need a slow PC in the living room.

I had read all of this and could feel another project coming on. I then read late last night that some people had managed to write some scripts to enable an Xbox to act as the frontend, so don't even need to put another PC in my living room. The Xbox is already there, this is getting even more interesting.

I decided to plonk down the money on the TV Tuner card. I already own an old one but it doesn't have any hardware encoding and is basically rubbish. But the new one a WinTV-Nova-T-500 I ordered enables me to receive 2 digital terrestrial TV channels (Freeview) at the same time. So I can record one while watching another or record 2 channels at the same time. I very nearly bought the WinTV-PVR-350 because everyone was banging on about the card but what most people fail to mention is that it doesn't have a Freeview tuner so you would only get the 5 analog channels.

The tuner card is the only part I have bought so far. I intend to just fit it in my main computer while I do some testing to see how well it works and use the bundled software that comes with it and may test out GB_PVR another free solution but it runs on Windows. I decided not to go to Wallington, the Northumbrian Coast or the Ice Hockey tonight and have saved the money which has enabled me to buy the above mentioned card.

It's good to have another project underway. I have had quite a few over the years. One of the early ones I can remember doing was making a PC that streamed MP3s and displayed what was playing on a small LCD screen I built. It had full remote control. This was long before the likes of Streambox and the dozens of other products now available but it did the same thing (I've still got it in the spare room). I suppose before that there was building my own PC, this was before most people did things like that. I also hacked the Xbox to enable me to use XBMP or now XBMC. That was probably the most worth while project and was the whole reason I bought an Xbox so I could play my movies and music using it. It was a bit nerve racking doing it as lots of people had turned their Xboxs into bricks (unusable) doing it, especially when I had only bought it for over £200 a few days earlier.

There have been other projects like networking my parents house (twice) originally as 10-Base-2, then 10-Base-T, then 100-Base-TX, hopefully I got that right. Then in my own house I ran cables through out the house, even into the attic. With proper wall sockets and everything linking back to the cupboard under the stairs where I have my cabinet and server.

If all my testing goes well I may have another server in the cupboard for the TV recording. Although I never ran the TV aerieal to the cupboard and not sure if the signal would be strong enough splitting it again in my bedroom and running it back down to the cupboard. I can't run it from where it enter the house as I now have laminate flooring down. Where as upstairs I have carpet and could take the floor boards back up if needed. Will see how everything works first.

I had mentioned about the networking in my house but I forgot about the Wi-Fi betwen my house and the parents, this was a bit of an experiment that has really payed off. It lets us share one internet connection. They can listen to the music on my server and access any files we let each other see. We can also share printers. They could if they ever buy an old Xbox watch the movies and TV series on my server. When I get my PVR project finished they would also be able play the things I have recorded as well from the comfort of their house. How cool is that, yeah I know I am a geek and sad :-)

There have been numurous other projects from MP3 jukeboxes, web servers, mail servers, dedicated downloading computers, linux installations and tons more. I could do with 2 external networked camera, that's another I would like to do, would know what happened to my green recycling box if I had that running. Just a shame I don't have the money to do all the projects I would like to.

Robbie Williams

I've just got back from the Robbie Williams concert, it was excellent. I am happy he played a lot of his older songs, Angels, Let Me Entertain You, Rock DJ. He also did a swing song and his new song "Rudebox" which is starting to grow on me now. He was on stage for nearly 2 hours.

There was supposedly 90,000 people there (certainly a lot). I had a spare ticket so I sold it to Leila from work. We stood further back on a bank so we could see. We could of gone closer but would of had peoples heads in the way and would of probably seen less.

The show started like a scene for Close Encounters of the Third Kind with the music from the film and the lights flashing, then Fireworks went off. It was certianly impressive :-)
I am pleased to of seen him live. Leila said the same, she was really excited. She did say she doesn't know if she would see him again though. Not that he was a dissapointment or anything far from it he was excellent, exactly what you expect.

Before Robbie the support acts were Orson, who were good but I only knew 3 songs. Then the big suprise was Basement Jaxx, I like their earlier songs but after listening to their new album I wasn't impressed. So I wasn't expecting very much at all. I thought it was just a couple of DJs with guest vocalists. I was wrong there are proper singers and I thought they were excellent, I knew just about every song they played. Would even think about seeing them at Newcastle in December.

The strangest thing was how far the car park was from Roundhay. It was a park and walk, but the walk was over 2 miles, maybe 3. I think there was a closer car park but it was full.

So it was an excellent night and really pleased I got talked into getting a ticket, even though that person couldn't go in the end.

Off To See Robbie...

I'm setting off to Roundhay Park in Leeds to see Robbie Williams in about an hour and a half. Really looking forward to it now :-)

Orson and Basement Jaxx are the other people playing before Robbie Williams.

I better stop writing on here and make sure I have everything (tickets).

March Of The Penguins

March of The Penguins: I watched this on Wednesday night but this is the first chance I have had to write it on here. I had heard quite a lot of good reviews about it.

I don't think I need to write a description of what its about. It is an interesting and visually stunning film but I did find myself a little bored at times even though it wasn't on very long.

It was good but not a patch on Baraka, that is a visually stunning documentary film. I gave March of the Penguins 7 out of 10.