Gym me up Scotty!

Yes another blog from work, just keeping it brief, heralding the imminent return of the Gym Impressions posts which had a short-lived history last year. Obviously, since moving I have not been able to keep up my regular attendance at Wem's excuse for a gym, but rejoice! I have joined my local JJB fitness club and pretty swish is it too.

Obviously the amount of people is a lot higher, i.e. more than 1 but with that there are more machines and apparatus for me to look very cool struggling away, sweating like a bastard, I belive is the term...
I am of course taking my mini mp3 player along with me, as I am not partial to the dance rave-a-thon themed music they have booming out. So this would mean a chance to stick on some choons and jog the night away. Speaking of which, Reuben's "We're all going home in an ambulance" is an absolute must for upping the pace. It starts playing and I reach for the speed up button = winnar! Other possible gym reviews coming up would be Motion City Soundtrack's latest venture "Even if it kills me", (mmm, no emo vibe going on there, lol) and Tellison's "Contact! Contact!" which have been recommended to me by Adam, has a lot of promise.

In other news, the look of the blog needs a bit of work, I changed the header image as I was annoyed that the image wasn't stretching at higher resolutions, and even post-change it's actually no better. Do not view this at 1680x1050 like I did with my shiny new monitor, it's scary! So I will put aside a bit of time to sort that.
I also want to spruce up the site with a few more pics. Blogger have produced a Flickr slideshow widget so I need to populate my Flickr account, and get that happening. Unfortunately, as I discovered just before I went to the NFL london game last year, my digital camera has stopped working, so I was left to cope with my mobile phone camera, which is frankly a bit rubbish. Anyways, I have some pics on there, some fun, some a little random from my travels on the train.

A lot of my stuff has been broken, or in need of replacing when it came to the move, and I'm slowly working through all my material goods. The first thing that needed replacing was the weak 14" TV - I now have a lurvely 37" HD TV monster! (again pics have been promised for some time...). I have just replaced my 15" monitor which my Mother broke but refuses to admit to it. So the next thing I need to replace is the digital Camera, and I'm also hell bent on finally getting myself an iPod classic, it will happen, maybe after next payday.

That's enough of my lunch hour spent blogging, time to go eat. So yeah, look forward to Gym Impressions blogs coming soon, and I also want to have a positive rant about the xbox 360's latest dashboard update so check that out.
Take it easy.

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An Apple a day keeps Microsoft away...

Hey hey hey! Just doing a mini-post from work, a habit which I could possibly develop if workload is low, but anyways, here was me saying I would blog more, and oh crap! we're already a month down of 2008. My friend Adam has decided to go on a solo
holiday to Amsterdam, and he's documenting his travel adventures here, so go check that out, it's got lots of lovely pictures (which can be enlargened oh yes!) and it's well written, but I've got a slight bias there.

Anyways, Adam was going through selling a lot of his stuff, and naturally being one of his good friends, I got first dibs on some of the stuff. I got a few games, Halo 3 legendary edition (yes, the one with the helmet! :D) and the ultimate amongst the list is the Mac Mini. Slightly embarassingly I have not properly set it up, but what began with mere curiousity to the Apple approach, is slowing becoming fanboy status of the sliding scale. I'm not there yet, but I would only keep Windows for games and really the only games I stick on my PC have been WoW and the football manager series, and it is possible to get Mac versions for those, and if that's not enough, thanks to the Macs being Intel-based, it's much much easier to get Windows apps or indeed Windows to run natively without any hacky emulators and the like.

I am slowly going to make the transistion. Although not really an Apple product as such, but around the same time, I've been checking out some podcasts. It kinda started out with ExtraLife Radio (please check out this guy he is super talented, so much so a part of me resents him) and having that play whilst I've been working through the tiresome later stages of the career in Forza 2. Oh yes, please check out the rest of the site, the web comic he makes is absolutely pr0, I stumbled on it thanks to the heavy WoW content much earlier on, but basically it's a geeky comic, so win!
This led me to check out iTunes, again with the Mac influence (I've tried it before and found it rather clunky compared to Winamp). Anyways, I will eventually get an iPod classic (I know, too many Apple products), so it's good for me to get familiar, make sure all my music is added etc. Anyways, I have to say that using the iTunes store to find podcasts is awesome, so I've added all my old subscriptions and a couple new ones, like the Jonathan Ross one which I still need to check out.

I also took this opportunity to check out the diggnation podcast which is really really good. I've got the HD one so I can enjoy it in all it's lovelyness through the 360. Anyways, it's basically two guys (which actually work for digg I later discovered) that have a chat on a couch over some popualr digg stories drinking beer. It doesn't sound much as a concept, but it's pretty godamn entertaining, and the two boucne off each other really well. It's so good in fact, I've downloaded some of the back catalogue as I really don't mind the chat about old stories such as the Halo 3 4 player online coop announcement etc etc. Yeah so check it out, I did it and think it's awesome.

All this podcasting stuff got me thinking that maybe I could knock one together, just have it be a light-hearted topical chat/rant show. From my limited past experience it is best to have 2 contributors, just 1 and it's just a monologue, not that great, any more, and there's just words everywhere. So, I'm appealing to the intermawebs to see if someone would like to be a co-presenter of some kind. Scott Johnson of Extralife seems to simply record his skype conversations, so it wouldn't be too hard to get up and running, and plus it would mean that I would be posting to here more often, so it's all good. Comment me up and that would be cool.

Anyways, posting in my lunch hour when I really should be lunching.
Take it easy

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Happy new blog spot 2008!

Yes, it's been a long time coming, but here's a fresh new post on me blog! Crowds rejoice!
It is a little bizarre that the gap has been such a huge 'un as it's not like there hasn't been things to post about.
Probably the biggest change, which I alluded to in some posts ago was the fact that I have a job! horray! I've finally gone and joined the rat race, and have been slowing waking up to the realisation that I should no longer see myself as a student anymore.
Obviously this is more of a "hey Internets! I'm not dead yet!" type message (of course, I hear you all cry), so content is actually a bit on the sparse side. I'm not sure if I can be bothered to catch up on some of the major events of the last 3 months or so, that's not to say there haven't been that many.
Along with the jobness, I've managed to get my own place and all the fun that has been getting that all sorted, and settling in. Also of course, there have been some pretty huge releases which I have purchased in the fields of music and games, possibly the most immediately significant of those being the latest Coheed album and Halo 3, but more of those later.

...And to wrap up the post, it might be worth jotting down some new year blogging resolutions which I will attempt to keep. I think the first one would be of course to blog more, and leading on from that, I've never been much of an online blogger, I usually have to force myself to blog and then upload it later which usually leads to mammoth posts which trail on for too long, kinda like how this one is turning out. So yeah, more online blogging, prefer the better, short but sweet, a quick judgement on some news article I've read, we'll see how it goes...

Till then, take it easy and watch this space, there is a lot more to come...

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You don't have to be mad to work here...

b

ut don't worry training will be provided.  That is indeed what Simon from work (that sounds a little weird to say that just yet...) told me on my first day.  Two days in and still not anymore comfortable I have to say.  Today was spent attending the training course for the software product (known as "Prestwood" or "Professional") that users/financial planners would normally attend.

The first day was a real onslaught, a barrage if you will of financially technical information, and today was a day spent actually using the product which I will be providing support for in just a few weeks time, mmm not at all scary there...

It was very productive in a way to actually get the experience with the product itself.  It is a very powerful product which obviously has to cope with all the possibilities out there which can be done with money, or capital as I should really call it lol.

A lot of the day was spent running through a case study, so that equaled lots of data entry.  It wasn't so bad a day, it was still a lot of information to take in, and I don't think it's gonna ease up for a while.  This guy, Chris, the other guy along with Simon that is based in the same room as me did actually say that we are not expected to know the complete ins and outs of being a financial advisor because if we did then we could do the job itself - all that is expected of us is to master the software and get it doing what it should be doing.

As an unexpected bonus, we went off to this pub for lunch on the company.  It's actually been my first proper meal since moving into this B and B in Stourbridge if I'm completely honest.  Yep, we took a short drive out of Kinver with Diana, the trainer, and the two ladies, Lynn and Sue, who were on the course to the Fox Inn - a nice little place hidden away on a small road running through some woodland.  We got a look at the menu beforehand, and well a lot of it was unsuitable for me so that really shortened my options.  I did opt for the steak, which upon arrival was told that it was being done medium, which would have been fine.  In actual fact, the steak was pretty rare, very bloody in places, tough to cut and very chewy = not the most enjoyable meal.

My free time is spent catching up on TV shows.  I started watching season 1 of Curb Your Enthusiasm and have finished it off in the last day or two.  I actually looked to see if I could find some other seasons on the ol' intermaweb but to no avail.  I've now started watching, or rather rewatching Heroes.  I watched a load off the back of a recommendation from my good friend Adam (thank you buddy) but then stopped when I went to Coventry for the course at JBC.  It then got aired on BBC2 and I again started to watch it from the beginning there, but lost track even quicker than the first time thanks to people's drinking habits getting more and more unhinged.  But this time through I promise I'll see it through, especially considering that season 2 of said show begins airing in a few weeks, possibly sooner.

It only dawned on me today that once I have moved in, I will have to sort out an Internet connection.  A lot of my stuff won't be moved in to this new place until not this weekend, but the following weekend which will be only slightly less lame than my current situation in the B and B.

Here's putting an end to my rambling...

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testing the WLW text template plugin

Just posting some stuff to see if this works, the enlargation (it's a word!) of the first letter of the post seems to work from the template just fine.

The problem seems to arise when working with the span which is responsible for masking the majority of the post, lame!

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Ma First Daiye....

Hey, so here we are, long time no blog but it's time to share again.
A lot has happened in the last few weeks, especially considering how little I've been blogging in these last couple of months so it's a bit of a mystery what's actually happening right now.
I'm sure I'll be able to expand on the events of the past another time, but in a revision session, catch up type thing, it's best just to spell out the simple facts so that you can pass the exam (There is no exam).  Basically, off the back of this JBC Course in Coventry I have managed to get a job hurray for me! Yeah, today was in fact my very first day, so it's pretty scary to finally be part of the rat race proper.I am working for Prestwood Software based in the Stourbridge area, who offer financial planning software, and my job is to provide support for this software product to its users.  Also somewhere down the line, within a year or two, I will be able to move into the programming side of things, which is what I really want to be doing with myself so feeling pretty optimistic.

I have had my first day, indeed the first day of five week's worth of training, to get me upto speed with the software product, how the company operates and more generally the, frankly scary, world of financial services.  Yep, I have my own desk and PC in the offices.  The PC itself is running Vista so that will be good to get some hands on experience with that.  My first day started off with a crash course in financial services, learning what endowments, annuities etc are.  I was asked a few times how I was getting on, what I actually wanted to say was what a mindfuck all this information is - I was feeling really stretched and my concentration levels seemed all over the place.
The main reason for that is probably the living arrangement I am currently engaged in, and other arrangements I am chasing. Simply put, Stourbridge is too far to commute from Wem so I set on sorting out my own place.  Unfortunately time spent chasing this other job in London (more on that later), I was only able to spend Tues to Fri of last week flat hunting.  That being said, I've done rather well I thought and with the help of my good friend Wilson [picture missing] I've decided to go for this house in Kidderminster.  Kidderminster being a short train ride from Stourbridge for those geographically-challenged people (like myself). I sent the application off for that on Sunday, and if all goes to plan I could be moving in this Saturday. I am very pumped about that, my very first place plus being in Kiddy I am quite close to Wilson so I won't be in a new strange land completely on my own, which is a bonus.

Yeah, so currently I am shacked up in a B and B in Stourbridge. It's not too great, put simply it's a room with a bed(double) in, an ensuite bathroom and a TV, the TV being a big surprise.  The only proper benefit is the price, this place being cheap.  Money is getting very tight, and the whole application process and the required deposit all adds up to a small fortune.  Yeah, so slumming it a bit in this B and B till Saturday when it hopefully should get a load better.  I should be contacted on Thursday with regards to my application but hopefully it should be fine and I'll be in my very own place before I know it.

Continuing my trend in offline blogging I will no doubt build up a backlog of blog posts while I seek to find ways to spend the time at the B and B, especially lacking the money to go out, have a pint or two, go watch a film etc... It's ok, as you may have guessed by now, I've brought my laptop and my trusty external HDD to provide with TV based fun to keep me sane.
Here's taking the first steps in becoming a working professional...

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