Weight Loss Update

Last week 227lb

This week 225lb

2lb weight loss is better than none at all like last week but I amm certainly stuggling to make my 215lb target before my next vacation (in two weeks).

Three Lions on My Shirt

Today the greatest sporting event in the world starts and will last just over 4 weeks. The soccer World Cup finals after 4 years of qualifying we are down to the last 32 countries and yes England are there. Ok we only have ever won it once (1966) but the country is gripped with football fever.

Cars, houses are flying the George Cross (Englands flag) in anticipation of the coming victory.

The 32 countries are initially split into 8 groups of 4 with the top two from each qualifying for the knock out stage.

Today's matches are from Group "A" with Host nation Germany versus Costa Rica and Poland versus Equador (I reckon Germany and Poland should qualify from this section).

England start tommorrow in group "B"against Paraguay with Sweden and Trinadad making up the group.
(My tip England and Sweden but I wouldn't write off Paraguay).

The other groups (my tips in bold) are :-
C - Argentina, Ivory Coast, Holland & Serbia (tough group this)
D - Mexico, Iran, Angola & Portugal.
E - Italy , Ghana, USA & Czech Republic (2nd place too close to call but I hope USA can do it as they have a Leeds player Eddie Lewis in their squad, sorry I mean I love my American blogging friends).
F - Brazil, Croatia, Australia & Japan (but don't count the Aussies out if Viduka and Kewell perform).
G - France, Switzerland, South Korea & Togo.
H - Spain, Ukraine, Tunisia & Saudi Arabia (don't rule out a shock here though).

Come on England you can do it.

In the top 100 again

Ive just seen the latest National Ranking lists and I have managed to make the top 100 players in England in the Veterans age group (over 40). I am ranked at number 98. This is quite good as it will get me selected for Yorkshire 2nd team in the county championships next season. I should be ranked at No1 in the team which means I will get the tougher matches which I want (I love a challenge). This is the first time I've made the top 100 for 4 years.

National Ranking Lists

This coming weekend I am playing a major Grand prix tournament at Doncaster Dome (about 20 mile from my house). There will be players from all over the country competing and it will be really tough. I'm hoping to get some good results to try lift my ranking even higher.

I will be playing in 4 events Mens Singles, Veterans, and also Bands 2 & 3. The banded event is where you compete against players of similar ranking (these are really open events with everyone having a genuine chance), there are 6 bands altogether with the top players in band one and so on. I am a band three player and I can also play in band two as you are allowed to enter one level above.

I am unsure how I will do because I probably haven't trained enough lately but I played quite well in our club tournament last weekend so you never know.

Doncaster Draw

Global Warming - A World Problem

One of my blogging friends Regina has just put an article on her blog about the new Al Gore documentry "An Inconvenient Truth" which tackles the issue of Global warming.

Although It is normally not my policy to comment on political issues I believe this to be so important it is worth my comments (this is a world issue). On Regina's blog I said that I believe Europe to be ahead of the US with its policy's but I accept we still have a long way to go. I also mentioned that the US gets stick in the British press for their policy's.

www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1153530,00.html

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/2004/369/index.html?id=pp6.htm

Back to the documentry Regina highlights the case of the drowning Polar Bear due to the receeding Ice Cap, she also mentions more violent storms like Katrina, these are real issues.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1938132,00.html

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/12/la.htm

We all have a duty to reduce our use of fossil fuels or be prepared for a different world. It is up to our governments to take the lead and help make it cheaper to use alternatives.

Ok if anyone is on board with me on this lets have suggestions what we can do ?
Here are some to start :-
1. Buy a smaller car that does more miles per gallon (I've done this but the decision was more to do with cost of running a big car).
2. Walk or Bike short journeys.
3. Turn off Electrical appliances when not required.
4. Share lifts to work (how many cars do you see with one person in).
5. Use Public transport (depends if you have a good system where you live).
6. Use enviromentally friendly washing powders and detergents.
7. Share your shower (I'm looking for volunteers).
8.

Boston Questions

Following the recent opinions of my blog readers in which Boston was voted the best city to visit I have been checking it out. I have some questions :-

When I search for Hotels the website gives me 4 areas to choose hotels, what is your opinion of these areas ?
1. Back Bay
2. Logan Airport
3. QuincyMarket-Financial District-Waterfront.
4. Theatre District-Downtown Crossing

The best hotel deal in each area I can find is :-
1. (Back bay) John Hancock Hotel & Conference Centre or Hotel 140 (both slightly more expensive than I would like).
2. (Airport) Embassy Suites - apparently close to train station and not a problem getting into town. Can get a decent deal here.
3. (Quincy) Harborside Inn of Boston (more expensive than I really want)
4. (Theatre) Milner Hotel - much cheaper than anything else, is it a dump or bad area ?
Other hotels in this area are far too expensive.

Can you give any opinions on these hotels ?

Does the train system operate 24 hours ?

Why hasn't the weight dropped off ?

10 days ago my weight was 227lbs

Since then I have not been out drinking alcohol.
I have walked to work most days (2.5mile each way).
I have been careful what I eat (porridge at breakfast, only 3 pieces of fruit during the day, proper meal after work with no dessert) .
I have played a Table Tennis tournament (11 * 5 set matches) ok had 2 beers after this but I was knackered.
I have played a round of golf (ok had two beers to be socialable afterwards).
Did a 2 hour Table Tennis training session with a good player (hard work).

Now I expected my weight to have dropped but it has not moved still 227lbs (I have now only 3 weeks to make my target of 215lbs before my vacation).

I am p****d off.

New Software for Boys

Last night I published a Post for Girls but now it is time for the boys to have a laugh.

Girlfriend 1.0Important user notes:
Last year a friend of mine upgraded GirlFriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and found that it's a memory hog leaving very little system resources for other applications. He is only now noticing that Wife 1.0 also is spawning Child-Processes which are further consuming valuable resources. No mention of this particular phenomena was included in the product brochure or the documentation, though other users have informed him that this is to be expected due to the nature of the application.
Not only that, Wife 1.0 installs itself such that it is always launched at system initialization where it can monitor all other system activity. He's finding that some applications such as PokerNight 10.3, BeerBash 2.5, and PubNight 7.0 are no longer able to run in the system at all, crashing the system when selected (even though they always worked fine before). At installation, Wife 1.0 provides no option as to the installation of undesired Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw 55.8 and BrotherInLaw Beta release. Also, system performance seems to diminish with each passing day.
The features he'd like to see in the upcoming Wife 2.0 include:
- A "Don't remind me again" button
-Minimize button
- An install shield feature that allows Wife 2.0 to be installed with the option to uninstall at any time without the loss of cache and other system resources.
- An option to run the network driver in promiscuous mode which would allow the systems hardware probe feature to be much more useful.
I myself decided to avoid all of the headaches associated with Wife 1.0 by sticking with Girlfriend 2.0. Even here, however, I found many problems. Apparently you cannot install Girlfriend 2.0 on top of Girlfriend 1.0. You must uninstall Girlfriend 1.0 first. Other users say this is a long standing bug which I should have been aware of. Apparently the versions of Girlfriend have conflicts over shared use of the I/O port. You think they would have fixed such a stupid bug by now. To make matters worse, the uninstall program for Girlfriend 1.0 doesn't work very well leaving undesirable traces of the application in the system. Another thing that sucks -- all versions of Girlfriend continually pop-up little annoying messages about the advantages of upgrading to Wife 1.0
BUG WARNING
Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient resources.
BUG WORK-AROUNDS To avoid the above bug, try installing Mistress 1.1 on a different system and never run any file transfer applications such as LapLink 6.0. Also, beware of similar shareware applications that have been known to carry viruses that may affect Wife 1.0. Another solution would be to run Mistress 1.0 via a UseNet provider under an anonymous name. Here again, beware of the viruses which can accidentally be downloaded from the UseNet.

New Software for Girls

I found this on a website and I think some of my lady readers may find it amusing.
Husband 1.0
Important user notes:
There are alot of pressures to upgrade from Boyfriend 6.0 to Husband 1.0. However before doing so make sure you understand the implications of this change...
For one, system activity will be severely limited and you will be compelled to instigate rigorous daily routines in space management, garbage disposal and disc cleaning often with an accompanying increase in system administration. This program can also be a drain on many resources and demand constant attention. You will encounter an increased amount of interrupts and error messages, while the program often cancels processes without warning, very often crashing the system. In addition, Husband 1.0 often refuses to respond to your commands and frequently appears to be running processes which you have not authorised. If this happens a lot, do not respond to any interactive requests from the program and severely limit demand for extra bytes.
Every evening there will be a huge surge in demand for megabytes and if not satisfied, the process will become unresponsive and has been known on occasion to damage hardware.
Every so often you will be promised a new release of the program, but unfortunately, upon loading this new release, it is generally found to be almost identical to the old one, with very few feature changes and most of the same old annoying bugs which you were undoubtedly promised would not be there in the new release. Put up with it or discontinue use entirely. Husband 1.0 is a flawed program; many of the bugs are so deeply encoded that, even if they can be located, they are inpossible to eradicate and have to be tolerated.
Husband 1.0 will frequently make use of low level language and may not understand higher level commands so you must be prepared to use basic functions when required. Often a few robust algorithms in handshaking mode will produce a good response.
After a while, Husband 1.0 has a tendency to take up more space than originally allocated, often spreading in size and slowing down correspondingly. If this happens, be very careful as there is increased risk of complete system failure. Around this time, Husband 1.0 will also tend to lose bits from the top of the stack, although these will often multiply and be found lower down the stack.
Another problem with this program is that Husband 1.0 can also spawn unknown child processes, which can sometimes inadvertently appear, make huge demands on the program and force unwanted interaction with old versions of 1.nightstand.
Sometimes, Husband 1.0 will end a process prematurely, before you have the required result. This generally results in spawned processes scattered over your system which must be located and removed. More often than not, however, Husband 1.0 will appear to take an inordinately long time to complete a relatively simple process. While waiting for tedious processes to complete you may find it useful to distract yourself by perusing manuals for alternative programs, Stud 2.0 or Lover 6.9
On completion of a process, Husband 1.0 will often inadvertently apply the sleep command, or suspend system activity with a Ctrl ZZ. There is nothing you can do in this case, but leave the program and try again later.
Ultimately, as the program becomes older, it will become more difficult to produce hardcopy, and you will find that most of you work ends up on floppies. In addition, you will be needing software support more often than you'd like. If and when this happens, try to find a copy of Toyboy 1.1. Make sure you have used Ctrl ZZ on Husband 1.0 before loading Toyboy 1.1 and, of course, check for viruses before using any new program. Toyboy 1.1 should come with new hardware which can be plugged into any of your ports.

North American Cities to Visit - The result

This is the result of the bloggers advice on which cities I should visit (New York, Chicago, Memphis, Nashville & St Louis were excluded from this as I have already visited them cities).

1. Boston - 19 points
2. Washington - 12
3. Seattle - 11
4. Philadelphia - 10
5. Atlanta - 9
6. Denver - 8
7. Vancouver - 6
8= Toronto - 5
Fort worth - 5
Portland - 5

Other suggestions were - Victoria (4pts), Kansas City, Orlando, San Francisco, Key west (3pts),
Cape Cod, Montreal, Sante Fe, Whistler (2pts) & Savanah, Ottawa (1pt).

I will consider (and read up) all these suggestions and certainly be visiting many of them. I was surprised some of the cities that are excluded that I have been considering in the past (New Orleans, Austin, L.A., Vegas, etc.).

Thanks to everyone that made suggestions, I appreciate it. Also welcome to all new bloggers that posted comments.

To answer questions,

Dcnats,
Your correct about considering Mexico and I will in future, I just have planned US & Canada over the next couple of years. There is also a lot of South America I want to see in future years.

Sonrisa,
I have visited Chicago in summer I was in the city last year during the "Taste of Chicago". I was also there in October, December & April so I have seen all the seasons (Hot & Cold). I will be back on my way home from St Louis on July 2nd for 8 nights, I love your City.

Rachel,
Don't know about the Staffordshire Potteries (wrong side of the hills) but I will ask around.

My life's happenings (boring at present)

There is a lot happening at work at present with a number of redundancy's. It looks like my job will change with me getting another department to manage. I can't blog too much about this at present but I've an awful feeling my life is going to get very stressfull.

Good news from work is we have just had a £1,000 bonus (about £700 after tax).

Monday last week my team clutched defeat out of the jaws of victory in the cup. I would hate to critisise anyone individually but Lofty you bottled it.

Last Thursday ten of us from work went out for a meal and a few beers in York it was a good night but quite tame with no real scandal to report. I also called the bluff of another girl (she reads this blog) who has been giving me stick for giving someone else a foot massage at a previous outing ("V" you chickend out).

This weekend I played Table Tennis in one of our clubs tournaments (came 4th). I was quite happy with my performance as I have not played since before my vacation and I have a big National Grand Prix event coming up in a couple of weeks.

Tomorrow I will be playing Golf after work in one of our society competitions, this will be my first outing of the year so I will probably come last. Its also bound to rain.

I've volunteered to set the quiz questions at the Selby T.T.A. presentation evening a week on Thursday, don't know why it just seemed a good idea at the time.

My Mp3 player as thrown a wobbler but its still under warranty so its back to the shop next weekend.

Good news is the pound is strong against the dollar at present so I should have more spending money for my vacation.

Thats about my life at present (boring)

Bloggers advice - Best North American Cities to Visit

As most people who read my blog know one thing I like doing is visiting various Cities on my vacations. I am currently concentrating on North America and I am looking for genuine opinions.

So Blogging friends this is what I want to do :-

I want your advice on which North American Cities you think I would enjoy visiting. Please pick your top five choices (with comments if you wish) and rank them in order of preference (USA or Canada). I will give five points to each top choice, four for 2nd, Three for 3rd etc. I will then add the points up and create a ranking list of places to visit.

For info - I have already visited Chicago, New York, Memphis & Nashville. I have also a visit to St Louis planned in June.
I am looking for Cities I have not visited.
I am looking for places that are friendly (important when travelling solo).
I enjoy a good live music scene.
During the day time I enjoy exploring the city on foot.

I will be looking to visit the top choice(s) over the next year or so (next visit probably September).

Take this Fun Quiz

Fun quiz
Here is a fun one that I got from Jenny's blog.
Just copy and paste it with your answers into a comment to share!

I will post my answers that I entered on Jenny's blog in a comment as well.

1. Name:
2. Date of birth:
3. Where you live:
4. What makes you happy:
5. Currently listening/the last thing you listened to:
6. Do you read my blog?:
7. If yes, what makes it especially good or bad?:
8. An interesting fact about you:
9. Are you in love/do you have a crush at the moment?:
10. Favourite place to spend time:
11. Favourite lyric:
12. The best time of the year:

RECOMMEND
1. A film:
2. A book:
3. A band, a song, or album:

PLUS
1. One thing you like about me:
2. Two things you like about yourself:
3. Look at my friends-list and tell what you like about one of our mutual friends:
4. Put this in your journal/blogger so that I can tell you what I like about you.

Lost 2 and gained 100 pounds this week

This is this weeks Wednesday weigh in results.

Last week - 129lbs (correction 229lbs)

This week - 127lbs (sorry 227lbs) not enough lost but at least the right direction

Target by 24th June = 215lbs


I did gain some pounds this week when I won £100 on a local Soccer Clubs annual raffle. This will pay for a couple of good nights out on my next vacation.

Music Years - Great Live Acts I've seen - The Jam

The Jam

I saw "The Jam" back in about 1980 at Bridlington Spa and they were awesome. The three members Paul Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckner who were school boy friends from Woking, Surrey.

They formed the group as teenagers in 1973 having their first chart hit "In the City " in 1977. They went on to have numerous chart hits including 4 number one's "Going Underground", "Start", "A town called Malice" and "Beat Surrender".

One of my personal favorite songs other than these is "The Bitterest Pill"

They also had a string of succesfull albums with my personal favorite been "Setting Sons" (check it out).

When the group split up in 1983 main songwriter Weller went on to form another succesfull group "The Style Council" with keyboard player Mick Talbot from "The Merton Parkas". Weller followed this up with a solo career and is still going strong today, I am still a fan and have got most of his albums.

Weller pictured above was recently given the services to music honour at the Brit awards.

What Live Group from years ago influenced you ?