Watching other people exercise = 12cals/min...

Hey, another gym-related post as it is something I am very pleased, excited and generally happy with.  The second time I went (Thursday) I unfortunately was not alone like the first time.  It did mean having to potentially worry what other people thought of me, but it was ok, as these two older women come in, and they were larger than me, one in particular was very much so, the mechanics of it don't bear thinking about (except the initial thought which determined that the mechanics would not be appreciated if thought was applied to calculating their values).

 

Anyways, I can appreciate the social aspect of going to the gym. Many people go with friends/work colleagues.  Some people pick up dates at the gym. Hell, there's a lot of people that express going to the gym as a hobby, which seems bizarre. Bizarre enough to warrant my current facebook profile (see facebook).  That being said, these girls were coming to the gym, you know good for them, it's the one of the steps towards improving yourself, but it seemed they spent most of the time chatting to each other, either one of them walking on a treadmill and the other on a bike machine, or one of them on the rowing machine and the other with the crayzee sit-up aid thing, and vice versa.

 

It wasn't that much of a problem to me, I was pretty much able to use the equipment when I wanted, all the weight equipment was available, and I got in my mile and a half jog so I was ok.  Now, the gym itself is just off to the side of the sports hall which as you imagine is used for extra curricular activities - that evening's was five a side football.  Anyhoo, the last 10-15mins of their "workout", which turned out to be about 40-45mins of the allotted hour, was those two watching the football. Now I don't think for a second that these women were fans of the game, even at this, one of the lowest levels you can technically have, it was just those two checking out the guys on display in the hall.  That made me shudder to myself, but then again, fat girls need lovin' too...

 

Here's waiting for the Girl's five-a-side tourney at the school...

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"Is it Jim?" / "No, it's Hughes, I'm here for the gym.... crap" *holds head*

Hey all, Just thought I'd blog about my recent ventures to the gym, something I intend to do heavily on a regular basis.  I've been putting it off for ages, but the start of July came, and I thought hell, why not, I'm not getting any fitter/losing any weight, sitting on my ass trying to force myself to go.

Now, the gym is in fact the small one they have at the Secondary School, and although it's not much, I am happy to use it as leaving the house, jogging to the school actually puts me in the correct frame of mind for some mean gymming.  One goal I have set myself apart from the general ones, those being to improve my general fitness, lose weight, get some proper upper body strength.  Yeah, it's a little worrying that I'm a little out of breath after climbing  a reasonably large flight of stairs - that's when I started to think to myself, I need to do something about this.   The losing weight is pretty obvious, although I'm not really fat, I do have a bit of a belly which my Nan attributes to "beer", but yeah I'm about 12 and a half stone now, although haven't weighed myself for a while, but that weight I am happy with, just want to work on the process of making that weight more productive, i.e. turning some fat into badass muscle, grrr. The general fitness is my main aim, there are times at work, when I'm moving boxes etc and I find myself for want of a bit more strength lifting things, particularily over my head, so there are the straightforward, logical reasons, oh and finally to pick up chicks lol. Nah, as I said, it's a small gym so it doesn't get that many attendees, and even less that are in fact hot...

 

At the turn of this year, Eric had this plan of joining the Navy, of which the only fitness requirement is to be able to run a mile and a half in under 12mins.  Along with the general fitness, the aim of achieving the 12min target seems a sensible long-term target to work towards. I say, long-term because despite my questionable fitness, my second time on  the treadmill, and my first attempt at the full mile and a half distance, I ran it in just over 15mins.  Still a bit off, but I reckon I can get that down by some next time (Friday), it's just a case of getting used to the distance, and then working at getting the time down.

 

Speaking of the gym more generally, I am concentrating on the treadmill as mentioned above, the rowing machine, which is good for arms and actually quite a lot of fun, and the varying methods of lifting weights.  Mike asked what am I benching (obviously gym/work out slang), to which I can confirm that after feeling out where I was the first time, I have settled on 35kg as a basis to work from, although the last time I went (Thursday) I tried out 40 and obviously a bit tougher going, but manageable. 

 

It was particularly cool the first time I went the first time as I had the equipment to myself, so I didn't have to worry about looking flustered, or straining to pump the iron (that's the correct terminology right?).  I also had a go at a few chin-ups, man they are tough, and I conclude that after doing a fair few reps of varying weights I cannot hang from the chinup bar with one hand - perhaps I needed chalk?...

 

Also the great thing about going to the gym and the jogs there and back is what it is doing to my self-esteem. It is very premature to expect my build to be changing, but it may be down to an inflated ego, but already I feel better in myself. It does honestly feel good to do a workout, once resting pulse is reached again, to actually be making a difference to myself. Contrary to what Fight Club says, self improvement rocks!

 

It does seem really weird when in the gym, myself personally I'm making it a habit of jogging at least a mile and a half and rowing 1km but it's very weird that all that effort doesn't actually get me mile and a half down the road (or river)

 

Also something I am also quite pumped in doing is taking my music into the gym, block out everyone else and have something actually decent to listen to. I've also decided that it may be worth using the time to listen to some new albums (or old ones :D) which I've been meaning to give a proper listen, so more of that later.

Here's feeling fitter already, and you can too!...

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The State of Blogs to come...

Hey all, again I have neglected this blog over the last few weeks despite a couple of noteworthy events happening etc. Anyways, I plan to hit the heavy stuff a little later in the evening, but first some lighter stuff.

First things first, I've made a few small cosmetic changes to the look of the blog. Probs the most noticable is the header image I've added to the, believe it or not, header.  Yeah, no particular reason for the water, I was just looking through this archive of random wallpapers I downloaded a while back, looking for something I could take a slither off to turn into some cool artsy background. Well I went for this ocean scene with dolphins jumping. I almost cropped a dolphin into the header image but thought that would be a little lame, so just kept to the waves.  The colour of the sea being pretty close to the standard background I had before has meant that I have kept the header text white.  I've also changed the blog title and added a subtitle, subtly withdrawing one of the many names under which I go.  Wow, who thought you could talk at length about some small changes to a blog header lol.

There is one small problem with the new header image, in the fact that it has a fixed size. I spent some time trying to find a solution to the problem as if the blog is viewed in resolutions of 800x600 or dare I say it, lower then the header image overhangs the header and doesn't look very pretty indeed. Also due to the limitations of my available monitors, I have not seen it above 1024x768 and I don't want to think about it - I was suprised it was not more of a common problem, but I gave it a good search but gave up after a few hours. My advice, only view this site in 1024x768 resolution, kthx :D

 

Other changes are to do with the Last.fm quilts sitting in the sidebar.  Thanks to the efforts of the last.fm development team, they've now developed multiple sizes for the quilts, so I've opted for the smaller ones. It's ok folks, the pictures swap round so you can still watch in awe and see/read the artists/albums I hold dear.

Also new in this post is my use of Windows Live Writer in composing this blog entry.  I read that version 2 had entered beta phase on the blogger main page, so I'd thought I'd give it a go, hopefully it won't fuck it up completely.  It has been found to work ok with Blogger so I don't foresee any problems, so if it works out I will use it more in the future, and possibly make more exciting blog entries, with pictures and definite links, rather than me kinda rambling about something I read/watched but may in fact of dreamt up, mmm.

 

Take it easy...

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Some F1 thoughts (overdue :s)

Hey all, it's been a while since my last moan to the internet so here we are, late but not really that sorry...

Not only am I overdue a blog in general, but an F1 themed blog which I've been meaning to do for some time - in that time, Hamilton has won for the first time, twice, but more on that later.

So yeah, in the past, I've put down some thoughts concerning the championship hunt, health of teams etc. Unfortunately this season I haven't had anyone to properly bounce off my ideas with, that person of course being Will for the last few years.

So let's start right at the beginning, that seems the traditional thing to do, no? Anyways, ahead of the start of the season, it's not uncommon for us in the red faction house to get out our wallets, and really think about putting our money where our mouths are.
Pushing Will to commiting to a pre-season prediction, he opted for Kimi and Ferrari for their respective championships. I went for Alonso and McLaren, and I am happy to say that Kimi's form this season has been sub-par after his maiden win in Austrailia for his new team. McLaren have also been doing well, although it actually has been Hamilton that has been more consistent , and thanks to his two wins in the North American leg of the World Championship, he finds himself 10 points clear of Alonso who resides in 2nd place, as the standings below show:

Standings as of US GP:

Driver's Championship
1 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes GB 58
2 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes Spa 48
3 Felipe Massa Ferrari Brz 39
4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari Fin 32
5 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber Ger 26
6 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault Ita 13
7 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber Pol 12
8 Heikki Kovalainen Renault Fin 12

Constructor's Championship
1 McLaren-Mercedes 106
2 Ferrari 71
3 BMW Sauber 39
4 Renault 25
5 Williams-Toyota 13
6 Toyota 9
7 Red Bull-Renault 6
8 Super Aguri-Honda 4

I am a little annoyed that we me and Will didn't actually put anything on the bet, although it would be hard to collect it as we're opposite sides of the country more and less now. Plus I only say that because my chances of winning the bet look very healthy at the moment lol.

I might as well take this moment to repeat what has already been said in the press like a million times, but Hamilton is now the most successful rookie in the sport. He has been on the podium in all 7 races so far in the championship, and he has won the last two. Granted, he is racing in probably the best car in the current field which is obviously helping to propel his perfomances and successes that he is gaining from them. Even with a great car, he has not succumb to the pressures of racing in F1 against the best drivers in the world, with the current double World Champion as his teammate no less. It's weird, it actually hasn't properly sunk in, for me at least, that we now have a successful British driver in F1 (sorry Button). I was cautious in the first few races, and actually incredibly annoyed that itv's F1 coverage was being terribly biased towards Hamilton - He's done a great job, a couple of podiums at the time of me thinking this, but people seemed to be overlooking the fact that his teammate is a double world champion for christ's sake - surely a pre-season favourite for the title.

Now, you have to give some realistic thoughts to the future, and that Hamilton could win the World Championship in his rookie year. It's an exciting thought, and it's unclear if McLaren will engineer towards allowing that to happen. Recently inter-team quabbles have broke out with Alonso feeling not completely comfortable in the team, and having the discouraging concern that the English team is taking preference with their English driver. Apparently the Spanish press misunderstood this, although it seems difficult to misinterpret those comments, and it's not that suprising that Alonso is getting worried that perhaps his third championship is not as guaranteed as it maybe once was.

Alonso's problem is not the pressure of his rookie teammate outperforming him, but technical problems with the car, if the publication F1 Racing magazine is to be believed. Alonso has had to make the transistion from Michellins (which he used to win both titles) onto the Bridgestones, and he has struggled with them. These different tires have compromised his driving style, which he has affectively had to relearn. Alonso was renowned for a sharp steering input when turning into the corner, and with these new softer Bridgestones, the tyres do not react by giving Alonso as much grip as he once obtained but understeering instead. Hamilton, as it has been widelt documented, likes an oversteery car, and he often is throwing the backend out, sliding the car round corners, leaning on the rears as opposed to the front tyres which Alonso extensively leans on. Saying that, Alonso is a great driver and racer, and despite these problems is still competitive, but has fell foul to bad luck, notably in Canada with being caught out by the safety car deployments.

Speaking more generally now, and I am saddened to see that Steve Ryder's post qualifying interview on a Saturday afternoon/evening with Jenson no longer happens. Unsuprisingly it is now replaced with an interview with Lewis Hamilton. For the last couple of years, the British press were convinced that it could finally be Button's year, the year he would breakthrough and start challenging for the World Championship. Everyone was convinced that 2006 would be the year. but the Honda car was not truly competitive and suffered some reliability issues. This was the year that Steve Ryder started the interviews with Jenson. Jenson eventually made his breakthrough and won the Hungarian GP, thanks to unpredictable weather conditions, but then went on to the highest point scorer for the remainder of the season. 2007 comes round and you would not be considered crazy to think that Honda and Jenson could mount a serious Championship bid, but the car has been frankly awful suffering from poor stability, particulary at the front. Yep, the Honda team have been struggling towards the back of the midfield, and subsequently Steve Ryder has stopped booking Jenson and moved onto Lewis for his interview with a Brit. Although, again according to F1 Racing magazine, Jenson's stock value is still healthy in the paddocks, I fear with the arrival of Lewis he may just fade, and never reach the pinnacle of the sport which so many were convinced he would.

On a final note, with the advent of Steve Ryder into itv's F1 coverage, itv seem to no longer feel it necessary to fork out for a studio in which to use for pre and post-race coverage. No, us loyal fans have to put up with Steve and Mark Blundell speaking in front of a Camera in the middle of the pit-lane, often having to move out of the way because they are in the way of the team's preperation, or deafened by the emergence of the cars from their garages. Itv, just get a studio, godamnit. Also, while I'm on the subject of itv's coverage, they have to do something about relying on local directors to decide what gets aired. More often than not, drivers whose home GP it is get biased coverage, which if they are a midfielder, compromises on the more exciting battles that are occuring elsewhere on the track. Take the US GP for eaxmple, the director was giving precedence to Scott Speed early on in the race - I was there shouting, "No! We don't want to watch Scott Speed! Arg!" to which he promptedly locked a brake and ran wide into turn 1. Luckily this bias didn't continue thankfully, but it's something that even the itv commentators concede is a problem with their coverage. Unfortunately, for those that do not subscribe to Satellite or cable, itv's coverage is the only option for F1 fans else I would probably watch another channel's coverage. As much as I respect and enjoy Martin Brundle's racing driver-informed commentary, I can not stand James Allen. Poor Hamilton will have the moment where he crossed the line for his maiden victory with James Allen going in his silly accent "Lewis Hamilton... Wins!".

Here's wanting Murray Walker back, a TV ad for Silverstone is not good enough, come back Murray, I'm sure they'll take good care of you.

Take it Easy.

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Northampton nor Telford... erm ..ampton

Hey all, been a while since I've checked in but not a lot of things have changed since my last admission to the intermaweb.

Probs one of the biggest things that has happened in recent weeks is the event of a possible move to Northampton with Adam, a move which has fallen through I am sad and a little angry to say.

Let's go back a few weeks to the day of my interview with Telford based company Midland Computers. I was up for the role as web programmer and was given a lift to their premises by my Uncle. The job had it's allure as it was a relatively local job and "could" be commuted from Wem, although if I obtained the job, I would aim to move out of Wem, perhaps to Shrewsbury. Anyways, that aside, combined with a recon trip to suss out where it was, and our efforts to find the place on the day I discovered that the company is nowhere near the centre of Telford, and frankly a bitch to get to.
Nonetheless I went into the interview with a lot of hope that I could get the job. Saying that I am pretty sucky in interviews, getting far too nervous unfortunately. Coming out of the interview, I felt relieved that it was over, felt the interview could have gone better (as always) but thought it was alright enough to warrant a 2nd interview.

I got home a little later, just coming down from the stressball I had ingested prior to the interview, and my old friend Adam came up on the MSN with some important news.

Quite a while ago, Adam had this crazy idea of sorting out houses/flats in a Friends style that we could all live in, those people being me, Adam, Billy and the possibility of Eric and/or Derron etc. Well it all sounded pretty good, but I treated it like one of those pipe dreams, or a large "what-if" question. Anyways enough of the background, Adam came on MSN to say that he's found a house, and proposed that I take up the last and fourth spot.

The timing couldn't have been worse - here I was about to potentially commit to working in Telford for a lengthy amount of time, and I was asked to commit to living in Northampton, a fair distance the other side of Brum for a fair amount of time. This was only made worse by an extremely stupid and choking deadline, my signature was required in at most 4 days.

The simple fact that the Telford job was more than slightly inconvenient to get to, meant that I was considering going for the Northampton house, the thinking being that I can continue my so far unsuccessful search for a job there, being closer to the larger cities etc.

Put on the backfoot, and having this pressure to commit forced upon me there and then, I hastilly agreed to go down to Northampton for the weekend, Adam sorting out a viewing of the prospective house.

I arrive at Northampton station and was met by Adam and then when straight to the house. The house itself was amazing, large spacious rooms, good kitchen, back garden for bbqs, it was a great house. It also had the cherry on top, the icing on the cake, that being the 3rd storey or the attic, was one giant room cut off from the rest of the house with a door and a staircase. Adam was saying that they were going to turn it into an entertainment room, and rightly so, it was an awesome expansive space.

We left the house shortly after, and I was starting to give serious weight to a move to Northampton - Adam was keen for that to happen too, and he was more than willing to sell the house and the surrounding area to me. The formalities of the visit aside, and I was left to enjoy myself as a guest with Adam. That meant promptly acquiring some beverages and then putting on the FA cup which we had missed, but had been fortunate enough for Adam to record.

A few beers later and we then moved on to the new and very shiny Halo 3 beta and spent a considerable (to under-exagerate) time, learning maps, new gametypes and the tactics that go along with it, not to mention pushing up our rank levels in the ranked matches.

The next day I had originally planned on going back, but too long spent in spoons eating and creating "Plate-face Man"(tm) meant I missed my train, but I could afford another day in Northampton, and so it was. That meant more Halo 3, a bit of filming for a documentary that Adam was co-producing for some coursework - not sure exactly what it was although they had me saying "it's a cunting disgrace", so there you go.

Late in the evening, another suprise from Adam, we paid (literally) a visit to the Casino which Adam frequents. So much so that some of the staff know him on a first-name basis. The Casino itself was actually quite a lot of fun - Adam treated me to having a go on two tables of poker, and well I didn't get very far, cos well I was a bit nervous that we were playing money and as my Red Faction friends will testify, I can't bluff for shit, but saying that it was a lot of fun. I was quite proud of winding up this guy commonly known as "Mad Dog" so much so he was physically rubbed his face - yep, I bluffed him good, all I had was a high King lol.

That aside, I had enjoyed my time in Northampton, we went back after the Casino, got some food and watched a french free-running-themed film which was actually not too bad. I had to leave quite early the next morning, but I had all decided that the move to Northampton was the right choice. I had visions of getting my life back on track after what has been a year of stalling it has to be said.

But, as the twist in the story goes, it was not to be. I got a call from Adam a couple of days later in which he told me that him along with Billy and Wu, the other housemates had a vote to who should be the fourth and last housemate. It was made out to me that I was the only option and when I had had my arm twisted rather easily, I assumed that that was that. But as I said they all had a vote, and Billy and Wu had decided to go with someone else, someone they knew from University I assumed. Adam backed me, but unfortunately he (and myself) was 2-to-1 down. He told me that he was sorry, and there was no real way to change it. I had to be forever diplomatic on the phone, but I was pretty much fuming underneath but I'm sure that I covered it well enough and Adam didn't detect.

I was angry at Billy and Wu, but had no right to be, but for the short time I felt I had to dump the blame somewhere. No, it was not their fault, they would have to live with this person for probably a year, perhaps more and it was the blaringly obvious truth that they simply did not know me that well, I was effectively a random in their eyes. With the roles reversed I would make the same choice, and it's not even a difficult choice to make, in all honesty. For a time I was particularily angry with Adam, although I didn't tell him as much. It was his fault that he pushed me into thinking that it was a viable option, and had me thinking that I was the last piece in the puzzle, the only piece that would fit. I don't enjoy rejection especially when it comes after getting so close to the "reward" of what I'm aiming for/trying to achieve.

On a closing note, I also did not get the job in Telford, so I am continuing to search for jobs, this time not letting the locality of the position blur the negative aspects of the job. I borrowed some games from Adam and need to return them, which will happen after he has finished moving into this new place. I'm not even sure I can bring myself to visiting this new place, the house that for a short time I was destined to be living in. I fear that I may just flip out at Adam for getting my hopes up over the place and that I may let out too many passive aggressive remarks out of the side of the mouth towards the new housemate, and those that voted against me. But we'll see that it just over a week away - I may try and make my excuses and put it off, hopefully forever.

Begrudgingly still in Wem

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Last.fm update - 20,000 songs yay!

Hey peeps, I have recently reached a landmark on last.fm music profile. Yep, I've past the 20000 song mark so I thought I'd take a quick look at how my charts are doing and make a blog out of it.

I think I remember mentioning in a previous blog when I hit the 10000 song mark and the artists at the top haven't changed much since. Yep, Coheed and Cambria still grace the top spot by a healthy distance, which is probably fair they are probs my fave band, and statistics prove this lol. I remember at the last milestone, Matthew Good Band were higher, once holding 2nd, but they've dropped down a few.

Checking my weekly charts now and again, I am quite proud that I can boast 100+ artists in some weeks, and well that does mean that the not-quote-so-popular artists grow at about the same rate and so there aren't too many fast climbers.

I have been listening to a crap load of MCS and Sparta, or at least what I thought was a crapload, but they currently sit in positions 31 and 28 respectively.

Some that I am suprised are still up there are the likes of bands like Bad Religion, but that is only because I have pretty much their entire discography and well some songs of theirs get played on my huge "All Music" random playlist that I feed winamp with.

The "Top Tracks" chart I was convinced was bugged as songs like Hundred Reasons' No Pretending and Coheed's The Suffering were up there pretty much since I signed up for last.fm and the chart hasn't really changed that much (again I think it's the same songs getting played at the same rate). Anyways, while I listened to the commentary to the playoff final featuring Shrewsbury (they lost sadly :() I decided to loop a small song and see what happens. 42 plays of Von Bondies' Going Down, and I can now confirm that the chart is working, like it always has been, no doubt lol. Yep, that song now sits in third in my all time top tracks (on last.fm).

Contrary to the disappointment of MCS and Sparta's poor performance in the charts, if the rolling charts are taken a look at - genius idea - it turns out those artists are very close to the top. When I discovered the Juliana Theory, their stuff got some heavy play and that has resulted in them lying in 12th.

Last.fm is a great idea, but one of the few criticisms I have is that the lists aren't weighted with how much material you have of a particular artist. Now this can't be implemented using the current online method, but bands like Bad Religion, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden etc are so high simply through attrition rather than geniune plays - don't get me wrong these artists have a load of good songs, just that sometimes the less-favourable songs get played cos they crop up more on the random playlist, simply due to the greater number of songs that belong to a particular artist. The idea of weighted lists is something I'd like to do in my own little music player if it ever gets off the ground.


Looking forward to the next milestone whichever I decide, whether it be 30000, or I wait till 50000. I'd like to think I could possible hit 50000 by the end of the year, and with my music collection growing and growing we'll see if Coheed will ever be knocked off the top spot. My music collection stands at about 40Gig atm, probably half of it I know pretty well and will listen to it comfortably, rather than making the effort of checking out a new artist etc.

I've just got winamp to add up all the songs and here are the results (lol):
I have 9783 songs (damn so close to 10G), which taking the track lengths makes a total length of 652 hours 3 minutes 55 seconds. That works out at just over 27 and a half days. Wow! I didn't realise it was that much. Ok, challenge to the masses, who wants to spend the entire of next February listening to every last song in my possession.

I have just under half of those songs of my mp3 player, and I may be slightly bragging that I can pretty much recognise them from the first few seconds of play - maybe someone would like to challenge me on that lol.

It blows my brain, I may have trouble sleeping, what with comprehending how music that is :S
Take it easy
J-Man.

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