bookmark_borderOn getting older

I am middle aged. I am in the middle of my life, the young foolish years are behind me, the more sensible, thoughtful years, lie before me.

Or so says convention but, you know what, I can’t say things like convention have ever bothered me all that much.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very conventional in all the nuances of the word. I live in a semi-detached house, in a cul-de-sac. I have a sensible car, I have a good job, I have Sky+ HD and many other trappings of middle age, middle class life. Oh dear, did I just say I was middle class?

Anyway, none of that is really what I was going to discuss. Instead I was going to muse on how my body and mind have changed in the past few years, through various factors, and how much I’m enjoying being me.

But that all sounds a bit twee and I very much doubt that it will be of much interest to anyone else, other than me (I do find myself endlessly fascinating, it’s true).

Suffice to say that I am noticing that I am aging. Not something I’d been hugely aware of in the past but then what young man ever is? Mostly I am realising that life goes on, regardless of what happens, something that you can really only get a feel of from life experience.

I say all this against the backdrop of yesterdays date. It was supposed to be a special day for our family, but things changed so instead I sit here and remind myself that, no matter how hard it is now, life goes on.

bookmark_borderMore nothing

I’m not sure if it’s the lull after the last few frantic weeks but I find myself ebbing between tasks, bumping around on the current, rudderless for the moment, with nary a breeze to prod me gently onwards.

In saying that I did re-organise the bedroom yesterday, whilst Louise shampooed the living room carpet. We were going to shuffle the living room about but, due to the space and dimensions we are kinda limited. As we had talked about doing the same with the bedroom I tackled that, moving a chest of drawers into the next room (now known as the “walk in wardrobe”), and moving the bed under the window. It gives us a lot more floor space although I’m not entirely sure what to do with it all!

We paused in the afternoon and nipped out to see Wall-E. It’s a great movie, quite dark in parts, but well-paced, funny, moving and thought provoking. Quite a feat. The story telling is first-rate, and whilst I was expecting more time to be spent setting up the premise and allowing the audience to buy-in to Wall-E’s plight, I now realise that as that wee robot is soooo darn cute they didn’t need to.

An aside, the scene where Wall-E is chasing the red laser dot across the terrain, I’m pretty sure they stole that from the way Oll-E (as he will now be known) does exactly the same thing.

And so to today.

Today I’m on holiday. I’m waiting in for the nice Sky installation engineer man to arrive (before 1pm, he promised) and install our Sky HD box. I’m both excited and sad about this.

Excited because I’m really looking forward to watching HD movies!

Sad because my gadget splurging is at an end. Guess I’ll just go and check my email on my iPhone, play a little Burnout on the PS3 and then settle down to watch a movie in high definition. It’s a hard life…

bookmark_borderA few days of misc

OK, a conscious decision to not think about this blog has meant a fair amount of stuff is getting ‘done’. But I won’t bore you with the minutiae of the past few days as it mainly consisted of shuffling stuff about (mainly into loft), a fair amount of tidying up, a large amount of throwing crap out, and a growing pile of stuff to be “put in car to take to charity shop”. You know how it is.

Aside from that a few things have floated to the top of the pool of things “to be considered”, whilst others have merely skimmed the surface leaving only minor ripples in … yeah, enough of that..

Some thoughts from the past few days:

  1. I am really REALLY beginning to miss running, starting physio on knee next week, and dieting has started (ish). Hoping to lose weight, tone up, and whatnot before I start pounding the pavement again. Considering not running until next year to give me a chance to improve other areas first. Thoughts?
  2. Hard drive enclosures – I have two large hard drives sitting dormant in my old PC. Whilst looking for enclosures I spotted some ‘media capable’ ones with various outputs and gubbins. Anyone got something like this? Is it worth it? I’m thinking: download TV episode in HD, copy to media enclosure, watch on HD TV. Yay or nay?
  3. Bluetooth mouse – I am still loving the MacBook (alas I can’t make it my main machine) but have never enjoyed using a trackpad. So I’m in the market for a bluetooth mouse. A quick Google found me the Logitech V270 which looks OK but, of course, I’d love to hear your suggestions. No cables please (duh), and I need two buttons!
  4. Leopard – new version of the Apple operating system out on 26th of this month. £80 from Amazon.
  5. Speaking of paying, after downloading In Rainbows for £0.00, I’ve since been back to offer the princely sum of £7.43. I think that’s fair.
  6. Ohh yeah, I’m now, as of Wednesday, 34. Birthdays are becoming increasingly pointless, I think my 35th may be the last I acknowledge (more on this later).
  7. Cape Apple and Mango juice is delicious. Alas the packaging is cack and it’s impossible to pour it without “glugging” and splashing juice all over the place. Me does not like wiping up in the morning (wait, that sounds worse than it is…).
  8. Linux – old PC lying dormant (see point 1), so maybe a chance to play with.. Ubuntu? No idea where to start though, pointers welcomed.
  9. This weekend will continue the decluttering and should see me finally finished with ripping all my CDs to MP3 and most of them will be stashed in the loft. That means I’ll have 6 Benno CD towers (from IKEA) which I would like to find a use for… creative suggestions welcomed.

Normal service will be resumed at some point, although I do have another blog you know, and I am still twittering away like an idiot.

bookmark_borderSwitching Vista?

I love apples. Crunchy, sweet and delicious.

I love Apples too. Whilst not crunchy or sweet they certainly, usually, look delicious and to all extents and purposes I’m certain that, if I were to buy an Apple Mac computer, it would do everything I need it to do and it may even be easier to do certain things.

I have considered, like others, switching to the “Apple camp”. I’ve been impressed by iTunes and the iPods, and with firsthand experience of an iBook or two, but there is so much more to the decision than that. Apple thinks there are ten reasons you should switch but I’m not convinced.

Continue reading “Switching Vista?”