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Well it has been far too long since I cycled, and my bike had fallen into very poor repair. It was about time I did something about it. So a few days ago I oiled it. This was a good start. Things moved that didn’t look very likely. However the brakes and the gears were a little shakey. So I tried to sort them out, but I couldn’t get them to behave as I wanted. Well mainly to do the whole braking and changing gears thing.

So I took the bike along to Cycle King. I would give you a link here, but they don’t appear to believe in websites. Which is actually something I approve of. If you don’t know what you are doing with a website, or you don’t know why you should have one, particularly as a business, there is sometimes a good case to be made for not having one. You could be wasting time that is better spend on promoting yourself in ways you understand. Anyways, they have sorted out my bike, and tonight I got back onto it properly.

I managed twenty minutes, and loved every second. I could have gone for an hour or so, but I didn’t want to worry mrsfb having told her I was off for a quick spin, and in addition it is about 200000000 degrees centigrade here at the moment. Well it was 35c earlier, it may hit 37c tomorrow, which would be the hottest recorded in Britain for a century. So it was somewhat tiring. I have missed it though, I have forgotten how much I enjoy getting the bike offroad, charging along a quiet path. I might even try and get out along the river at some stage this weekend. I am trying to persuade mrsfb to buy one, so we can go and explore together.  Just something different for us both to get into.

So a week or two ago, I lost my Animal Crossing game. Now I’d put a few months into playing this, nutured my town, expanded my house. I was horrified at the possibility I had lost it.

It turned up in the washing machine. And what is more, it worked perfectly. I now believe that DS stands for “does spincycle”.

Quite a successful day on Friday, as well as getting a non-gossip story into Popbitch for the first time in seven years, I also had an audio quote of mine played on the Daily Source Code . Have been listening to that for some time, so it was a good feeling to finally get a little involved.

I have taken the blue pill, and moved on from Blogger to WordPress. I have been mouthing off about it for long enough now. It was time to change. This is a nice theme to make do for the moment. What was quite impressive was that with a bit of preparation and backing up, WordPress did almost all the work of converting all the old posts over for me. I held my breathe all the way through, but it did it all fine.

So, what do you think?

Weird Al’s Myspace, has his own version of a James Blunt classic on there

Right, I am going to get organised. Really. No really I am.

I have actually made a lot of strides in the past year, but I’ve fallen back slightly. So I am going to have a big push to sort out beyond that.

The main thing I am going to do, is to try to use two programs on my computers. Eclipse and Firefox. Essentially, Eclipse should be used for all my programming, Firefox for pretty much everything else. There are a few specific things I need to use on certain computers, eg I have little or no choice but to use Lotus Notes for work email. I will permit myself those where I have to. Where I have the option, it will be either online in Firefox, or done within Eclipse.

I’d like, ideally, to have almost everything else I need under Google. I think I will move over what needs moving as each new service becomes available. For instance, I use Yahoo Calendar for reminders and todo lists. As soon as I can get such things under Google, they will go.

This is all a bit hazy, I may have to think things through and explain more later.

The last in the present series of Doctor Who really seems to have divided fans into two camps, those who thought it was exceptionally sad and moving, and those that thought it was fucking stupid. I actually agree with both sides.

Thought I would do a quick update on what is floating my boat at the moment, have made a push to find some new things to occupy me.

Podcasts

I used to love the Adam and Joe show on Channel 4. A pair of chaps who talk rubbish about things they love. What more do you need to know? It sounds an awful lot like 99% of all podcasts. Well they have been doing it for years and years on the telly, so they are very good at it. This podcast is actually highlights of their XFM show, and is incredibly funny. I would strongly recommend starting with the show where they discuss the astonishing R Kelly HipHopera, Trapped in the Closet.Try it yourself here.

I’ve listened to my first Hospital Records Podcast today, and it is some wonderful Drum and Bass to get you woken properly on a morning.

Books
After enjoying Douglas Copeland’s latest book JPod, it has been down to the grindstone with my geek reading. So I have read Head First HTML & CSS, which is a starter book on writing web pages, but with a very standards-based approach. It is a very good read as a refresher for anyone who has done HTML in the past, but has fallen behind a little. Mine is pretty good, but I had never had any good training on CSS, and it was very helpful to be taught that properly in a current manner. I think the way I would put it is that if you still lay out elements on a page using tables, other than data that should go in a table, you really need to read this book.

I’ve moved onto reading a book about design theories called Domain Driven Design. Very heavy going, but some of the concepts have been very helpful, one of them is a very sensible approach to design called Ubiquitous Language. This is, namely, that in order for you to design a product for a customer, you all have to know and understand the terms you are talking about to a high standard. I suppose the classic explanation of this is an old story about a Brit asking a German to build him something out of bricks, and being very angry when instead of using the small british housebrick, he used the standard large German brieze block. The problem being that both sides had a different idea of what a brick was. These sort of definition issues can crop up a lot in software design, and the theory is that before you get going, you hammer them out. Makes good sense.

TV

Actually slowing down a little on the telly front, not masses around. Have been watching the World Cup and Big Brother, and then Lost, Desperate Housewives and 24. 24 came to what was almost a wonderful conclusion, they tied up the series 5 storyline perfectly, but then totally spoilt it all with the last twist, that basically made the man whom is always saving the planet, Jack Bauer, look like an utter plank.

The main thing I am looking forwards to is a repeat of 80s drama/comedy GBH, which detailed in effect the rise and fall of someone suspiciously like Derek Hatton in Liverpool. It stars Robert Lyndsey, but I had forgotten that it also has a fair bit of Michael Palin in. Cannot wait.

Gaming
It is all about the Nintendo DS these days. I have been mainly playing New Super Mario Bros, which is a wonderful old skool style scrolling platformer. Simple, but effective. Lots of planning and thought and twitch gaming in the sort of style that causes RSI in a good way. Also have Brain Training, which is interesting but slightly shallow, could do with more variations to keep the player coming back. I think it is more a statement of intent from Nintendo that they are really determined to break the age barrier on gaming, and open it up to a far broader audience. They have been very successful with this approach for Brain Training in Japan, and got a lot of mainstream press coverage over here because of it.

I have also played a little Nintendogs and Project Rub, as I picked both up very cheap.

Doing
Few projects at the moment, mainly to do with websites. I think my main is to try for a redesign of this place. I may do that as part of a move to WordPress. I also have a couple of other web projects to get on with, that I will reveal as we go along (wooooooo).