Using Spotify more...

The title says it all really. I've known about Spotify for a long time but I haven't been a bigger user of the service. I personally struggle to force myself to spend time crafting playlists - I much prefer to stick the iPod on the overall shuffle and go with the large hopper of songs.
That being said, I'm slowly coming round to the use of Spotify and believe it's only a matter of time before I end going for the subscription and removing the annoying ads (oh and allowing more plays of individual songs and being able to play more songs in a month of course!). To that end I've set myself a challenge to use Spotify more proactively - a lot of the times I will create playlists which are simply whole albums of artists.

Satisfying the DJ inside me, I've decided to put together (at least for now) one playlist a month with the aim of approx CD length i.e max 74 mins so if someone wanted to rip to a CD they totally could. Another restriction is an artist only appears once in the playlist (a golden rule of a good DJ set) plus I like there to be some kind of a flow through the songs.
To which I present you my May 2012 playlist - enjoy!

I'm also going to impose an extra restriction and that an artist can't appear in my monthly playlists in consecutive months. Maybe a little harsh if I'm going through a particular band phase but hey, variety is the spice of life!

I appreciate any feedback and look out for next month's playlist.

Read full post >>

Jonny plays Draw Something

Just in case you've been living under a rock these last couple of months, there's a cool mobile game called "Draw Something" which has come out and simply blown up.
A very simply asynchronous game which is perfect for the mobile platforms (Apple, Android) where you have to draw something (geddit?!) from a small list of words, submit the drawing and then have your mate try and guess it. Swap over and repeat. Lots of times.
So, I'm pretty addicted to this and with the latest update, it makes it easy to export your drawings. So that's what I've been doing and then sticking up on the tumblr I set up linked below.
The cool thing with tumblr is you can queue up posts so check back often - I currently have enough sketches to last up until Thursday!

Jonny plays Draw Something.

Read full post >>

Late Lunch

I've been trying something new and have started eating my evening meal much later (around about 9pm). I have been trying to save some money and have buying the 3 for £10 gammon from Sainsburys. Yes I know, it's probably not the best thing I could be eating but it's cheap and fills a hole. I'm still recovering from Christmas fallout plus badly timed expenses such as the cost of a crown on my tooth, an upcoming eye test which will no doubt lead to new glasses being purchased. There's also me being a little silly and getting the new iPhone 4S - that one's on me but hey my old 3GS was really beat up and the home button was not consistently working, see I can rationalise it away. I was noticing that when I was eating straight after getting in from work I would end up getting peckish before I went to bed, eating far too much cheese etc and then feeling bad for having a weak spirit. So that's the main motivation of eating later.

As a desired by-product of eating later, I'm trying to spend the 2-3 hours from getting in from work to eating being productive as is one of my new year's resolutions. This has meant that I've got back into my online programming course that I neglected for long (embarrassingly long) periods of last year. In less than 2 weeks I've effectively coded the final assignment and am getting back to the previous assignment which I hit a roadblock a long time and left.
I'm also putting aside at least one night in the week to write on my blog(s) like now! I aim to write a number of posts and then schedule them across the next week or so. Nothing I write is truly that topical so it doesn't matter if there's a 4 day lag from when I wrote something to when it appears on the Internet. So if I get inspiration for a post I can choose to take a night away from the programming and get the idea down on paper, so to speak.

The above usually takes me up to about half 7, 8pm so that's when I go out for a walk. I take a 40-50min walk doing a circuit round the streets of Bridgnorth usually clocking in around 3 miles. My good friend Rob has become infatuated with the Appalachian Trail - the longest trail in the US I believe and he has (hopefully not so serious) designs on us walking in a few years time - a feat that takes good hikers approximately 6 months. Even if that never happens, walking is very good for you and primal for those interested. I usually pick a route that has a gradient and good ol' hilly Bridgnorth does not disappoint in that respect.

I think it's been going well so far (and even longer by the time this post appears) and I'm pleased at how productive I've managed to be. I have of course let myself have the odd day off from this routine, usually round the weekend but this is more recharging the batteries...

Read full post >>

Smooth move

In my continuing quest to eat healthier and more primal, I finally pulled the trigger and got myself a smoothie maker machine.
The aim is to get myself eating more fruit, particularly those that are considered more primal. These fruit are generally berries and not the high-sugar citrus fruits.

Yeah, so I want to eat more strawberries, blueberries etc but I'm not a huge fan of the texture. Now that would probably go away with time but it's difficult to get into new habits if the journey isn't very enjoyable.
The solution (at least for me) is to make a smoothie containing these desirable fruits. So I'm now in the process of working on a good recipe(s). Currently I can't be bothered with taking exact measurements - I don't have a beaker etc to easily measure 200ml of apple juice or scales to weigh 80g of raspberries so right now we're just throwing stuff together to see what works. Maybe I'll have to get to that point but for now we'll see how it goes - would ideally not want to make further purchases.
I'm taking inspiration from the awesome Innocent smoothies that give a breakdown of their ingredients on the side of their cartons. I've learnt pretty quickly that banana is a good base to get a thick smoothie - my first effort was sans banana and it was more bitty juice.

The ultimate aim is to get down some tasty smoothie recipes with which I will make smoothies to have for lunch at work. Personally I find it the hardest to stick to a primal diet if I'm away from home where I can't control ingredients, hobs to cook with etc. Right now, I feel that my lunch could be improved to make another step to a balanced diet. If I have a smoothie for lunch every day then it's going to be very easy to hit the recommended 5 servings of fruit and veg a day.
I welcome any recipe suggestions; I'm doing some Internet searching and trying some experimentation, hell if I arrive at a recipe that works for me I'll probably post it here.

Read full post >>

I *heart* my Kindle

Reading is something I used to do a lot. I would always read before going to bed, but I guess when I got a TV for my own room and then after moving out whether that be at University, or post-Uni and all the media that the Internet can offer, meant I was more likely watching some right before bed, and often in bed.
Now Amazon's Kindle had been out for a while and I had been tempted by it for a while. The year previously I had made an effort to read more books and had bought some paperbacks but having space-saving digital e-books that can often be cheaper than their paper based siblings was very attractive. I went for it late Jan/early Feb last year and have not looked back!
There are those which say it's not the same as holding a real book. Well yes, they are right, there aren't physical pages to turn but the counter to that is that instead it's super thin, lightweight and with the e-ink, there's no glare on your eyes and it's effectively like reading off paper.
I do all my reading in bed pretty much and sometimes I will read whilst lying on my side. With a book I have to crane my neck to read both pages, a little awkward especially if the book is large. With the Kindle, this is not a problem.
Reading the Game of Thrones books in particular has meant I've made good use of the dictionary function. I simply hover over an archaic word and get an immediate definition - it's fun to learn!
Battery life is also very good, page turning is very fast and it can even display web pages and play mp3s if you so desire.
It's awesome and as in the title, I <3 my Kindle, plus they've recently released a new version which drops the keyboard for an even smaller form factor which is dirt cheap. If you like reading, just go and buy one. I didn't go for the 3G one as I'm happy to do any purchases or transfers off my Mac over the Wi-Fi. If you travel a lot then the 3G connection sounds good for purchasing books whilst out and about.
Click for a list of books that I've read since getting my Kindle.

Read full post >>

The Prescription Challenge

For those not in the know I am a coeliac - gluten intolerance to not use the medical term. So that means I can't have regular bread, flour or any dough based foods (e.g. pizza) etc. Getting special "gluten-free" products is available to me on prescription which I have got in the past, and still can in the future which brings me to the challenge.
When I was first diagnosed I was still at school so I got my prescriptions for free on the NHS. That extended to age 18 I believe as I carried on with further education but following that I would have to pay. Now I was getting the prescription of bread, bread rolls, crackers, pasta etc on a pretty regular basis so it made sense for me to get what they call a pre-payment prescription certificate - pay so much up front, and get as many prescriptions for the period.
Now that I'm eating a lot less (if any) of the gluten-free bread products, I'm throwing down the gauntlet - can I go without the certificate and try and save a bit of money?

Read full post >>

New Year Resolutions

Just like everyone else it seems, I'm penning some new year resolutions to attempt to improve myself. Now generally I'm not one for saving all these changes for the new year - if you truly want to make a change, then start doing so tomorrow, or better yet, later today. Ignoring that here are some resolutions for the coming year, not necessarily every one I will start acting on immediately, but will definitely aim to at some point.

Read full post >>