Sleepypete's Pillow

Not done one of these for a while, partly cos I couldn’t think of a theme … Time for some random thoughts 🙂

Thirteen Random Things 1…. Graeme Hick at 42 is still great fun to watch. Currently got the Glos. vs Worcestershire Twenty20 game on and I’m thoroughly on the old guy’s side. 2…. Pizza has to be my all time favourite food. 3…. From the showing in badminton last night, mebbe I’ve had too many 😉 4…. The tendency to “Less is More” is a very good thing. 5…. Kinda wondering if the fuel protest due tomorrow will interfere with me doing a long drive to mum & dad. 6…. Overcomplicating things tends to spoil it due to the complexity getting in the way. I’m a fan of the Keep It Simple Stupid principle. 7…. You can “save” heaps of cash on special offers but you’re still going to end up lighter in the pocket than if you avoided the offer … 8…. Popcorn is also on that list of favourite foods. 9…. Sometimes pure talent doesn’t get you to the top of your sport … but it definitely helps ! Thinking of Vikram Solanki and Graeme Hick above, who have lots of talent but never cemented their places in the England side. 10.. I definitely play too much Warcraft ! My new main character is now on level 58 after just 6 weeks. 11.. Team stuff is a lot more fun if you enjoy the people around. That goes for work as well as play … Was with a badminton player last night who poached far too much and then blamed his partner for not going for what he left. 12.. MUAHAHA ! Cricket again. New batsman in, bowler brings in the field, ball gets bowled and a few seconds later they’re fetching it from outside the stadium. 13.. I was That Close to wearing a white shirt with my pizza tonight ! That’s always too much of a temptation for fate … Especially if that white shirt just came off the drying rail.

Had a couple of things to acquire for this weekend, so I hit the Mall again tonight. It’s full Summer now and the usual suspects are out on the prowl. There’s a few types there :

The ones who are gorgeous without really thinking about it. They have an unconscious natural grace that shows in everything they do. (Miss L has this)
There’s the jailbait … and that one word probably says it all there !
Cheeseburger Girls. And that’s not because they’ve had too many, it’s because it would do them a favour if you frogmarched them to the local fattyfood store to get them a cheeseburger.
Look At Me Girls. Otherwise known as the “I’m trying really hard to get stared at” people. I’d put young men in muscle shirts in this sterotype as well.

There was a Look At Me Girl at the Mall tonight, probably a lot more that I filtered out but this one was particularly noticeable. She was wearing something that probably would have embarassed an Olympic gymnast, although you definitely wouldn’t have wanted to have been swinging around the asymmetric parallel bars in that. You’d be arrested. Anyway – the Look At Me Girl. You can usually spot them as the ones desperately trying to stand out from the crowd, by any means necessary. And that “trying too hard” thing tends to put me off.

Just in the middle of watching a couple of NCIS episodes and Pauley Perrette who plays Abby Sciuto (imdb link) kinda fits into the unconscious grace category as well as Jailbait. And she’s 39 ! According to IMDB that is. I don’t believe it.

Right – much more talking about the girls at the Mall and I’ll be needing a cold shower. Which will be a good idea anyhow because it’s getting uncomfortable for Brits who complain at mild heat just as easily as they’ll complain at snow 🙂

Did I mention anywhere that I like air conditioning ? I only have it in the car but I wouldn’t acquire a car that doesn’t have it now.

Where’s the title for today’s entry come from ? I have a fairly chaotic, yet ordered, mind that finds it difficult to relax without a fresh neuron firing off pointing me in another direction. Strangely, I find it peaceful sitting in the open in the food court munching something (ok – a KFC!) while watching the people go by. The general murmur of the crowd helps to keep all those chaotic neurons quiet and I can slow down my brain and get a break from thinking/ watching/ listening to several different things at once.

Peace today – Motion tomorrow. Badminton again 🙂

I’m currently managing a session every fortnight, as I have a habit of breaking things by pushing too hard, too early. However, I was very pleased last session as I went straight into putting the new serve in action. And it was a nasty one too – accurate and very repeatable, even from absolutely no practice too. Apart from a bit of mental preparation that is. I have a partially photographic memory, which allows me to replay what I’ve done and attempt to build new ways of doing things by visualising the movements in my head. What I’d love to know is whether the picture in my head matches up to what would be on a video camera 🙂

That’s a little too much rambling from me tonight – here’s to Unconscious Grace and a little bit of peace amongst the chaotic world we live in.

I’ll probably go until the end of the month and then skive for a week 🙂 I’m reasonably fortunate in having fairly free choice in when I grab time off. Although I do try to avoid having time off in hectic periods. Timing it to avoid the rush times helps to keep me going when things do get frantic.

Gives me something to look forward to 🙂

PS Younger and dafter 🙂

will you be getting some time off any time soon?

I’m yearning for a break but it ain’t gonna happen in the near future.

I relate to the weary feeling and Lord knows you’re younger and in better shape than I am

so take heart 🙂

[chuckle] I have these grand ideas of Photoshopping in an overlay of a wolf, leopard, cheetah or other predator type critter …

In a Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing type theme 🙂

“So nuff said there, apart from me being very curious about Carmi’s Thematic Photos that he’s looking to start up. Somehow, I’m not seeing a picture of Yet Another Focus Box as a sexy photo though :-)”

If I can make a Yaris sexy, you can do the same with a Focus 🙂 I’ll post more Yaris photos this week. Anything can be done if you frame it just so.

And the Euro-spec Focus is a pretty neat car. Really. I’d kill to have it here in Canada. Instead, we’re stuck with the same one they’ve been selling since 1999.

Heh heh heh – my last car was one of those called a “Hairdresser’s Car”. I get the feeling if a car is in any way special, then other people will try a bit of gentle mickey taking.

I’m starting to feel a little worn down again. I reckon I’m like a lantern. I can burn bright and hot but when the fuel runs out, I’m in trouble. Think I may need a week off soon to recharge. The tiredness tends to manifest itself in my legs, which have lots of muscle but that muscle can also be tough to get moving if I don’t have the energy to power them.

There’s a few things around here that are showing the effects of wear and tear. The car was one of them and the swapping for a newer, bigger, more powerful (and more CO2 producing, more gas guzzling, more awkward to manoeuvre!) one has dominated my Blog over the past week or so. So nuff said there, apart from me being very curious about Carmi’s Thematic Photos that he’s looking to start up. Somehow, I’m not seeing a picture of Yet Another Focus Box as a sexy photo though 🙂

There’s various things around the house that are suffering from wear and tear. My windows could do with repainting (or replacing for double glazing) because the paint is wearing off. I’m half sure that the wearing paint is due to outside influence, which is another reason why I don’t want TaxDodging NotTooHonest IrishGuy to do them.

Had to replace the graphics card in my PC last night due to wear and tear. Something’s happened to it that means it idles around 75 degrees C and goes up to a scorching 105-110 degrees C when I’m in games. So when I fire up Warcraft, after a few minutes the card gets to temperature and the picture starts flickering as it dials back how fast it’s going. I could live with that but on Wednesday, the problem progressed to the machine going through a shutdown every half hour or so. Kinda distracting 🙂

So I have the older graphics card back in there now, after a bit of the contortionist act. There’s not much room between desk and back of sofa where my PC lives and I didn’t want to bring it all the way out which means more contortions to sort the cables out. So a card swap and apparently problem fixed without spending money – which is always good 🙂

Back to the cricket now and James Anderson is making his case for Man of the Match already 🙂 He carded his highest batting score so far for England earlier and has taken all 5 of the New Zealand wickets to fall so far.

Labels do nothing but divide us as cars 😉

I’ve found out an Awful Truth about my new car … Let’s start by quoting a definition from Urban Dictionary :

	dagenham dustbin
	A British Ford car. Dagenham, in the county of Essex, east of London, is the best known Ford factory in the UK. Indeed it is the supposed powerhouse of the whole culture known (in the UK at least) as “Essex”, a working class culture characterised as having more money than taste. Dagenham dustbins are the cars assumed to be built there there.

Let’s just say Dagenham Dustbin is a derogatory term used to put people down who own Fords.

So how does this relate to my new buggy, outside of it being a Ford ? This is from the Service History book and is how I learned The Awful Truth :

Yes – my new car Is … A Dagenham Dustbin.

Lol – I’m impressed with it so far anyway. I don’t feel as “connected” to it as much as I did with the Puma but so far, everything I’ve asked it to do so far has been accomplished with effortless ease. I’ll have to wait about 10 days until the real handling test comes (the drive up to my mum’s and dad’s) but it’s taken the roundabouts here without noticing them, plus it’s nicely smoothed out all the ruts and bumps in the surface of Avonmouth Bridge that got your teeth shaking in the Puma.