0 Days Without Crisps

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It's Monday and time to continue a trend of promised new and positive habits only for them to fall apart midweek. Often that involves maintaining a regular (and high) attendance at the gym - there is really no positive benefit to going only once or twice in the week, well that's what I've found anyway. Another positive habit that keeps getting restarted is a better diet which brings me to the title of this post - the countdown ( or up) has started -- today is 0 days without crisps.

Google Analytics and Censorship

A bit of a meta post this one. Google analytics is a free service that anyone with their own website, even just a simple hosted blog like this one should give a try. google analytics is basically a site usage reporting tool - a big step up from the hit counters of the internet's infancy.

The statistician in me loves to pour over the reports it offers and it's always interesting to discover how people find this blog and also what they check out while they're here. I usually check once a month or so and see how the latest ran has been received etc and to see where I get he visitors from. I've linked the blog from my facebook profile, my Twitter and other social bookmarking sites so the majority of direct traffic comes from there. the other traffic comes from search engines like good ol' google. i can reveal that the most popular searches have been along the lines of "gym motivation" thanks to the couple posts I did on that and also Jonathan Ross whose podcast I wrote a review of - I guess the scandal with Russell brand has kept those searches going. There is of course some gaming and f1 searches due to my leaning toward writing about those subjects. in the past I've tried those search terms which have led people here and fair play to them digging deep through the search results as they didn't show on the first couple of pages for me!

Getting in on the act...

It's very predictable for me to start a new post by exclaiming how long it's been since my last post. Avoiding that common pitfall (whilst simultaneously referencing it), let's move on to something that has been preoccupying my time and that's my lovely new iPhone, yay!

I sent out a twitter update a while back of a sudden urge to have an iPhone. Fortunately, Apple have announced an updated iPhone at the WWDC in June for the last couple of years, so I didn't have long to wait.

Long story short, I now have an awesome iPhone 3Gs which I stoked to have. One great thing about the iPhone is the breadth of the app store where you can install applications (or "apps") onto the device. The problem arises when trying to find the quality in the mountain of offerings already available - often there are several apps that do . To that end, I'm going to get in on the act of app recommendation as that method has developed as a way to counteract the difficulty of finding the needles in the haystack. I'm not claiming to be a definitive source (at least, not yet!)

#4 Jenson Button, F1 World Champion 2009 (?)

Yep, I really am going out on a limb here - Jenson Button will be this year's F1 World Champion. Is there anyone out there that wants to bet against me?
The F1 season is quickly approaching half-distance, We've just had the Turkish GP and Silverstone is in less than 2 weeks. Button has chalked up six victories in the seven races so far. Now that's definitely Championship-winning form, but it seems to be the British way to lack the self-belief in our sportsmen. I won't go on about the fairytale of how this team that almost-never-was, I will throw out some thoughts on how I feel this season is pretty much decided (whether that's a good thing or bad...)

I'm leaving on a Jetplane...

Continuing my posts detailing my trip to the US further and looking back on my Trans-Atlantic flights, a really big deal for me. I've only been on a plane once before (twice if you count coming back :D).

Unfortunately I didn't take any pix, the authorities may have thought me a terrorist after pointing my camera at airplanes and security personnel was my paranoia. Anyways, to brighten up the site enjoy another *random* snap taken on my travels.

Note: It's a pretty obvious sign that I play video games too much that I thought of the Dead Air finale from Left 4 Dead when getting on the plane...

I wanna be in America (Again!)

Long time no see Blog. Yes it's been a while, but at least 10 days of my absence can be accounted to my visit to America. It's been about a week since I got back, and well there's loads to blog about, but a combination of jetlag, work and general laziness means it's taken this long to post.

So you can expect my next few posts to cover the fun times that were had during my time in the US, although this post is tainted with sadness. The main reason (maybe joint with just visiting any part of the US in general) for my visit was my good friend Andy's wedding, and having received an invite last year, it's been something I've been very much looking forward to - in fact, I would go as far to say that it's was and has been the highlight of my 2009. The sadness comes that with the trip now over, I must return to my shitty existence with nothing obvious on the horizon to look forward to (There's the trip to France for Le Mans, but that's about it).

Trying not to feel down, it kinda feels like the start of a new year, or more accurately a restart. The break gave me an opportunity to refocus on my goals for the year. I set myself 3 main resolutions, and well progress hasn't been great. Those resolutions being: Learn to drive, Get a new job (ideally in the Shropshire area) and get a lot fitter with the help of the gym. Honestly, only the third one I've made any progress in, and to be honest I have been quite slack in the weeks leading up to my trip.

To that end, I leave you with a pic I snapped in my first visit to a Walmarts (proving that I still am really juvenile) and to watch this space for more US trip related posts.