Sleepypete's Pillow

With the hyperactivity lately, I’ve been going up and coming down at total random lately …

Tonight it’s a case of getting the shopping in (I found a place that recycles carrier bags – hurrah!) and then crashing … Not under the blanket type crashing (would really disrupt my sleep pattern and make me more tired) but I’ve gone for a movie that in no way will need rational thought. I’m feeling so tired that I’m not even jumping at the explosions. (Not long now until Easter and I’ll really need the week off by then)

That reminds me – it’s too long since the Crazie Mob went to the cinema, a fact reinforced by me having a pair of Vue vouchers in my wallet that expire at the end of this month … (Anyone wanna help me use them ?)

So what’s on now – even though my brain feels fried and my body wrung out, I’m still in that restless state of needing to do Something. It think it’s that fried brain still cooking away. That’s a contrast from the hyperactivity – yesterday I had so much energy left over I nearly ran around the block to start conditioning training.

Right – at the moment it’s Battle : Los Angeles. Be careful if you buy this, as there’s a mockbuster called Battle Of Los Angeles which in no way compares to this one starring Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez. It’s an action movie of the highest quality : great visuals and unrelenting action. It’ll keep you glued if you’re a fan of action movies.

Recently I’ve also watched :

2001 Space Odyssey – This is a must see movie and still looks great 44 years after it was made. They got the science right (it’s an Arthur C Clarke!) and what gets put on screen looks as good as what CGI does these days. Trouble is, it also falls into the trap that Arthur C Clarke stories fall into – they’re decent stories but there’s something missing – reader/watcher involvement. Kinda like a lecture where the lecturer doesn’t appear to care if people are listening. The notes and subject may be amazing but his audience is off in the clouds somewhere.

2012 – another of the leave brain with popcorn seller. It’s a decent movie, which I’ll watch a few times more. But it falls into the AI trap of having too many endings. There’s unnecessary bits of story injected that stretch the tale out that little bit more. Decent movie but stretched.

The Day After Tomorrow – another of the awesome visuals. And it’s carried really well by Dennis Quaid. I still enjoy this movie even though I’ve seen it a silly number of times.

RED – this is the comic book derived one with Bruce Willis, John Malcovich, Morgan Freeman and the ever gorgeous Helen Mirren. This is just sheer fun as the watcher is carried along with the Mary-Louise Parker character.

I’ve been watching more but my brain is at that crispy fried state where I can’t remember them …

And there’s a huge amount more in the collection (dvd and bluray) to go !

And tonight’s shopping trip just happened to refill the popcorn supply …

It could well be a couple of Conan movies next (not bought the newest one yet). Love the music from the original Conan.

What to do later – I will definitely be under the shower until the water runs cold (baking my back under the sun would do too but the chances of that are … slim to remote). But I think gaming would be frustrating in my current state of brain.

TBB just shared this one on Facebook which made me laugh :

Especially as it’s the perfect follow up to yesterday’s apocalypse now post 🙂

Oh – I’d need another car if an apocalypse came that wiped out the tech. The Lexus is a great car, after 6 months I’m convinced it was one of the best car decisions I’ve made. But … one whiff of an EMP and all that tech will go byebye.

Now Chloe in my mum & dad’s garage … That’s another matter. Chloe is a Triumph Spitfire Mk3 much like :

(Chloe is a blue one too but hasn’t been out of the garage for many years due to crash damage)

In its day, the Spitfire was a direct competitor to the Spridget (Sprite & Midget were effectively the same car) and was a 2 seater convertible quite similar to today’s MX-5. It’s much more suitable than the Lexus for surviving an apocalypse as the only thing inside with a transistor is the radio (I think it’s a transistor radio!). Not quite so sure about it having the room to carry Apocalypse Supplies though and from what I remember, there’s not much room for an Anti Zombie Shotgun behind the seats.

It was a great little car though, which makes it time for the picture attribution : You could hire one like it here 🙂 – Greatescapes.co.uk. Chloe stays in the garage for now, awaiting its rebuild.

PS Since it appeared on FB, that calendar pic seems to have gone viral …

Been watching a few of these lately … Yesterday it was 2012, today it’s The Day After Tomorrow. I may watch The Core again at some point soon as I find that movie to be huge fun.

Kinda wondering – how would I do if a disaster struck ? I’m thinking of the big ones like asteroid strikes or alien invasion. Hollywood type stuff. Theories say that even if the big asteroid strike was on the other side of the world, there would be an electromagnetic pulse that would disable most of the world’s technology. So for my disaster scenario, I’m going to assume that most of the technology we take for granted would be denied us.

Physically, I think I’d be ok. I’m roughly at an ideal weight (with a little ballast that I could draw on) and while I carry the long term injuries, I’m blessed with a kind of natural fitness that let me do the 26 miles + mountain in a day for Snowdon without any preparation. So while I’d need to work up fitness and conditioning to run any significant distance, I can walk forever.

Hell, I could play a full part in a cricket match tomorrow if there was one going. (And then I’d be solid stiff for the next 3 days while my muscles whinged at me)

Injury wise, while they can slow me down, there’s nothing needing medication. And I can ignore them when I need to. I can go into a kind of survival mode where I keep myself going despite hurting myself. That’s when things happen like Day 1 of a 5 day thing in Brecon Beacons where I slipped on ice and twisted my knee. I was able to keep up with the rest of the people. It was a point of pride for me that I’d carry my own gear instead of inflicting it on the others.

(I think that was lost on the people running the course, same as they didn’t believe I could navigate.)

So I don’t need any special medications to keep going, although I’d have severe trouble without my glasses.

Navigation without tech isn’t an issue – I can read a contour map and translate it into a 3d visual inside my head. I’ll then manipulate that visual into seeing where we are. Same with most things really, I’ll see something mechanical and visualise it in my head. I can then usually figure out how and why it works. Especially if there’s books to work from. One book I have has a person preparing for the end of the world by collecting books on how to do things. If technology goes, there’s no internet to look things up on …

I think I may read Lucifer’s Hammer again some day …

So yeah – I think I’d be able to keep myself going and I think I could figure out how to build things again (given those books). I’d probably be better than I am now, as one of the reasons for my back being stiff is that I don’t use it enough.

That’s not enough though. Surviving the aftermath of an apocalypse needs a bit more than the physical stuff. It needs courage but not enough that you take daft chances. Because without tech or hospitals, you don’t have the backup in case those daft chances end badly. I have a lot of curiosity and that curiosity would bring zombies …

I’d need to be around other people, mainly to give me the motivation but also as a “you’re planning to do what – you’re kidding right ?”. I’m also more footsoldier than leader.

So yeah :
I think I’d handle it physically,
I could hunt the information I’d need to do stuff out of books,
I can figure things out on my own when I have to,
(did most of the maintenance on my Astra & Fiesta)
But I’d need to be around other people.

Because it’s other people that give me the motivation I need to get me doing useful things, instead of just listening to music, watching stuff or gaming. And because I worry about people too, my World View depends on people I care about being happy. So that World View is a little shaky at the moment because two of the people I care deeply about are currently not happy at all …

Yep – with the right people cheering me on, depending on me or just giving me a smile, I feel I can take on the world.

I think the reason for it is that the home repair should always be Easy.

However … like my rusty nuts, someone buggered up the original installation so it couldn't be undone later.

home repairs make me crazy, even if someone else is doing them
the chaos is always there

love the little hug waiter, that's lovely

Finally …

Found a tool that let me budge those rusty nuts … If only ever so slightly. I’ve given up on the loo repair for now, as multiple things are conspiring against the lazy solution :

Rusty nuts
Lack of access

(It only took so long before starting the repair because I knew I’d need to have the heating turned off with the mains water and I didn’t want to freeze).

It’s actually the lack of access that’s the killer, a friend at work lent me a pair of small molegrips that managed to turn one of the rusty nuts about 10 degrees. But that was it because, even though they are tiny teeny molegrips, there’s just not enough room around the nuts to get a tool in.

So I’ll leave it another few days (cos I’m currently sick of the job and am having severe* energy issues right now) for frustration to ease away. Then I’ll look seriously at replacement loos and methods of switching them over. I’m pretty confident I can do that job, although I might need a hand with the lifting. All my strength is in my legs, there’s not much in my arms.
*(had something at start of the week that bit back – either bad milk or a definite “avoid pizza for like – forever”)

Talking of strength … There’s someone out there who is being a total legend at the moment.

Not only is she dealing with an incredibly difficult situation at home and letting no trace of that leak through to work, she’s also caught up in what is akin to a custody battle at work. They’re moving all the teams around soon … with my project being one of the ones which is getting moved. We’d like to keep our best people with us though and this lady definitely counts as The Best. She’s been one of the reasons our project has been so good to work for over the years.

And, as is common in a lot of custody battles, there are people who aren’t playing fair which just makes the situation that much tougher to live through.

I know it’s affecting her but you wouldn’t notice in how she’s keeping going. But she is deserving of all the hugs she can get.

Earlier, I had a look back at the first days of this blog to see how I handled a similar home situation and the answer is : I ran (again). In my case, although initially I reacted ok I was utterly dumbstruck by my partner wanting to move out. I had an idea it was coming, due to a couple of events combined with a growing feeling about it. So when the time came, my reaction was along the lines of “if you love them enough, you have to let them go”. But not fighting it doesn’t make it any easier, I was hurting a lot and really didn’t want to see her again because at a deep level, I felt betrayed. Being hurt makes us do things a saner mind would be horrified at.

Even though I was ready for it, I had trouble adjusting to it and didn’t come to terms with that breakup for a very long time. It helped that I have a bunch of awesome friends (and an understanding boss) who were amazing in having the patience to help me through it. I guess I’m still coming to terms with that break up and I need to properly talk it through with someone I trust utterly. (I’d count candidates on the fingers of 1 hand).

Oh – what did I mean by running from it ? I’d just started playing Warcraft together with some friends at work and basically buried myself in work and that game for the next 6 months until my brain nearly imploded on me. The snapping point came when I felt no longer able to do my part as the Guild Leader due to stuff going on.

The friend who’s struggling at the moment is most definitely one of those who helped me through that time. Just by being around at work and listening when I needed to babble insanely (I can’t actually remember too much of around that time).

And through that listening, she’s definitely earned as much time as she asks of me for listening, talking or even just getting away from the stress with a bit of Sleepy insanity. But I’d do that anyway ! That’s me – help a friend before sorting out my own stuff 🙂

Last thing to post is a picture I’ve used before :

PS It made me grin reading this post where I first started using codenames, with the Snow Queen promptly guessing it straight away as always. It shows how long my project has been great to work for. And there was 5 years before I started the blog too 🙂

Looks like Google are running the Change Bat over blogger …

There’s a couple of positive changes but a few where the instigator needs shooting …

Positive – favicons. I change my normal avatar often and without warning 🙂 Check out the latest (more below). He’s a Pocket Dwagon called System Cwash, which I chose in honour of how well our work IT performed yesterday. That bad. However, the favicon will always be the “Another Monday” ZombieDwagon :

(I may tidy it up a bit more though as favicons are tiny)

That fella will always be my favourite Pocket Dwagon. It’s a shame the Pocket Dwagon hatchery shut down in 2006 but here’s a link to more about them. Sadly, Evil Ex won custody of most of our Pocket Dwagon collection when she left, so I only have a few to choose from for avatars.

Where was I …

Oh. Blog template update : This is going to generate a fair bit of hate as control of the comments template has been taken away from us. To be honest, the new one looks a) horrible and b) isn’t compatible with the IE6 we’re forced to use at work. So when it comes to checking that a new comment isn’t spam, I have to use my mobile.

That’s another change that got my goat – when I got my Android phone, it forced me to change the Google sign in to a Gmail account. That’s not so bad but it’s irritating to have some comments go to Gmail and other comments go to the email address in my profile. (I’d repeat it but that’s how you spawn junkmail).

Happily, a while ago Google enabled cutdown templates for browsing blogs via Mobiles which works pretty well. So I can still check comments (for spam) at work despite the efforts of Google to break stuff. Actually, not so sure why I check for spam as I can’t do anything about it anyway until I get home ! (There’s no way I’m exposing any home passwords to the potential at work for keyloggers, insecure access or data monitoring)

So – I’m not impressed by what Google have been up to, it breaks the first rule of enforcing a change on people : Always ensure your change is complete and correct before unleashing it.

Last change for now : System Crash. Here’s the original :

The prep work for that involved :
Placing System Crash on top of my subwoofer (after dusting it)
Using the plastic base for my last PC as a flat black backing (think greenscreen technique).
Hoping I could remove the t-shirt on the radiator behind.
Standing the little fella on top of a couple of pennies to get the right angle.
And standing my camera on the subwoofer so it would be stable enough for a no flash, long exposure shot. (Next time I’ll use a non-reflective backing)

By the power of Photoshop (Elements), that becomes :

The black backing can be quickly removed by the power of the Magic selector thingy tool. It’s very handy for selecting around the edges of what you want to keep, so you can delete what you want gone. The trick is to get good contrast between image and background, black works well for Pocket Dwagons. I could have tidied up those lines a little more but I was happy enough after 20 minutes fiddling with Photoshop.

But I think I still need a new camera as the other 6 pictures I took were garbage : washed out by flash or blurry due to long exposure.

Felt like there’s a blog post bursting to come out but what to write … what to write …

Found a new artist to get hooked on, courtesy of Craziequeen. Just listen to “I Do Adore” and try not to sing along. You will fail. I’ve had the chorus bouncing around in my head all day, which kinda balanced a horror day otherwise. Someone … decided to implement a change which forced every user on the system to download their full inbox. The network actually survived. But almost no-one had their inbox available and doing things with stuff outside email was incredibly slow due to all the inbox downloading traffic.

I suspect that whoever decided to implement that unnecessary change is currently being skinned by the boss. And there’s a baying mob with pitchforks gathering.

Diet – this is still going ok.

The average weight is still steadily reducing at a sensible and sustainable rate. I’m getting less issues with cramping up which hopefully means I’m getting that mineral balance better. I have problems when I’ve not had enough salt (like everyone) but I also have issues with too much salt.

At school age, after getting home from a day’s cricket I’d typically have :
Coke/Diet Coke in the pub after the game (it’s a diuretic)
Dinner with lots of salt

And I’d usually be lucky to not get cramp so bad I’d tear a leg muscle. I call it the Salt Bomb now … Chippie dinners are bad for it as well. The lesson is to make sure that salt intake is balanced, i.e. drink lots of water to replace sweat or to offset the salt. And coke is bad because it does funny things to that salt/water balance.

Anyway. Diet is getting the calorie intake discipline going better, although I’m not exactly being scientific with it. I’m just sticking with “don’t eat if not hungry”. Can’t remember last time I ate a dinner on a Friday night, as bacon sarnie + late lunch baguette means I don’t need dinner.

Been stiff & sore lately, enough to go “ow” when people aren’t looking … But I still have full power available in the legs. Actually more than full power, as I’m a stone lighter now compared to when I started the diet. And that lower weight means I can start moving quicker and adjust quicker. Because of the way my legs are set up, it takes time for them to start moving but when they do, I can move extremely quickly. And less weight means less reaction time.

I’m not sylph like (never will be) but I’ve dodged out of the way when ever someone’s come running around the corner.

Hmm. That means I’ve missed being run into by pretty ladies. (They seem to be the ones rushing around a lot at work)

I may have to rethink that dodging out the way thing.

Oh – diet stuff. I’ve got to a point where I can play around with what I eat a little more, while keeping within that discipline. So like today, Mini Eggs in the afternoon let me blast through work frustration enough to get stuff done late. But that’s balanced by me not having a teacake for breakfast this morning. And the pizza will be balanced by me resisting cookies for as long as possible tonight.

It’s not so much looking at packets and adding up calories, it’s more keeping to a discipline. Like not knowing how long it is since I had a dessert … It’s been a while.

Still a little sore though. I vaguely remember that getting poked by strong fingers was awesome for relieving stress and tension. With the vaguely showing how long it is since I knew someone willing to do that for me. Last expert I knew was Mad Alyse from uni, who worked wonders with the back injury I picked up at school.

Part of the problem is the ability to apply the extreme pressure …

It's in an awkward place for the grippers I have. I think I need more tools 🙂

Of course, applying extreme pressure to wing nuts often results in it just becoming a nut sans wings. Good luck!