Happy Days

Another gorgeous red sky this morning after the ones last night . Is that a good or a bad thing. I can't say I really care because it's going to be a good day.  If it rains you don't have to water your garden , if the sun shines you just feel better anyway.

Me Then

Me Now

This morning my arms aren't aching as much despite another session on the Wii last night and I'm am feeling a lot better in myself , especially as I can now fit into a T-Shirt my daughter Kirsty bought me many years back , but was unable to wear without looking like Matt Lucas' Last Gay in the Village!






Anyway have a job application to complete , work to do , and need to get myself out the house. I've wasted loads of time this morning because I made the mistake of thinking that transferring photographs from my iPad to my PC via the iCloud Photostream wuld be simple. Yes I could see the photos , I could delete them , I could share them with people , I could make them public but I couldnt actually open them or copy them !! Thank you intuitive Apple . You know on Windows we have this thing called drag and drop. It is simple , intuitive and works.

That's my Apple rant over and for some reason the wonderful Television song Days came into my head!!

NIce Things Come Unexpectedly

Today a friend told me that they really enjoyed reading my blog even though often they were not sure about some of the words I use. That may be really pleased and gave me a warm feeling inside. Sometimes i am not sure what to write about but I always try and put down the good things that happen and that is one of them. I know they will read this and know who they are and really  I need to think of some obscure words to use , but I am no William Shakespeare. Or even William Shagspear

Anyway such wordsmithery is probably beyond my ken or ability , so you will have to put up with the mundanity of my everyday life. Today I applied for a new job , based on the title , then read the job description and realised it was completely the wrong job. A word with a friend and we both searched the jobs list and couldn't find the job I was looking for, well it was there , just the title wasn't exactly what I expected . Anyway tomorrow I will be applying and hopefully will be successful.

Also pleased that I can fit into a Large T Shirt my youngest daughter bought me a few years back . I will take a photograph tomorrow and post it, although I managed to forget to take my drugs tonight , so ended up taking them late so loaded up with my new lower dose of insulin.

So for the music for this post I think the Othello Rap by the Reduced Shakespeare Company would be appropriate .

Month Nine

    Two days into the ninth month and the weather is still very windy. September was originally the seventh month in the ten month roman calendar. September begins on the same day of the week as December every year, because there are 91 days separating September and December, which is a multiple of seven (the number of days in the week). No other month ends on the same day of the week as September in any year. Apparently it's also the sixth moth of the astrological calendar, but you how based in reality that is.

My arms are still hurting from my new non exercise regime , but weight is still coming down at a reasonable rate, The thing is as you weight comes down you start to do more and eat less so it becomes a self fulfilling cycly . I think. I only say this because at other times in my life it hasnt worked , this seems to be working.

 Also the heating has now gone on for this year as it is getting a little nippy. There's still blue skies outside which is good. Just seed some pretty clouds blowing pretty quickly across the blue sky so Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell is a good choice for today.

Windpower , Websites and The Fight with My Left Hand

The winds been blowing all through the night , wasn't sure if it was raining . September has blown in , the ninth month of the year is here for us. Woke up this morning aching all over, that'll teach me to to boxing on the Nintendo Wii !! Love all the stories about the complaints they got when it first came out . It's called exercise !!

Well another interesting week ahead , and I finally have got an appointment with a neurologist to see if I can sort out the potential trapped nerve in my left hand. It was funny when a similar thing happened ten years ago , I thought it was a trapped nerve and it was probably a stroke, this time they though it may have been a stroke , well TIA , and it's probably a trapped nerve , which is good because hopefully they can do something about it and I will be able to use the little finger on my left hand normally again.

Song of the Salesman Page Views Over The Years

Also found out that my website has had 26 million page views according to my hosts , Brinkster.  That' about four times what I thought it was , wish it translated into financial reward, but the website was just set up so I could bluff my way through .NET to get a job when I was made redundant at the turn of the millennium.

Also for the first time in ages going to apply for a new job , in the same company , so if anyone sees this it won't come as any surprise. I actually like what I do and love the people I work with but sometimes it's good to see if you can do something else.

Anyway , I was originally going to post Thomas Dolby's Windpower , but then the wonderful boxing song "No Mercy" by Nils Lofgren came into my head , so that get's my vote this morning.

...but I'm Feeling Good

.. rather physically better than I have for a long, long time. If something is working then you tend to do more of it , even if it may not seem logical or you don't actually know why it's really working. Still I haven't noticed that I've lost any weight but three sets of scales say I have , so I'm going to try and keep doing what I've been doing in the hope that I can get weight down a lot further.

I've made efforts in the past and read articles that diet drinks can actually cause you to put weight on because they mess with your metabolism , but the six teaspoonfuls of sugar in your average full fat Coca Cola can't do you any good either.  The guy at the hospital says if I lose too much weight I'll be pulled from the trial for the fatty liver treatment , but if I'm losing weight I'm not going to stop for the sake of a trial , they can find something else, just hope it's not the tablets that are causing the weight loss.

I think it's something else that is helping me with the weight loss though , which will sound too mental to be true , but I'm going to keep on with it. Anyway basically despite the odd cloud on todays horizon , I feel good and we had victories for Preston , Newcastle and Crystal Palace which also means Sunderland are still without a win in the League so good times are coming ..

Disturbed By Payday Loans Companies

Today is really sunny and has been fine but my walk from The Stateside Diner to the Green Market took me past a few payday loans places. The purported concept of a payday loan is creditable , a short term loan to cope with an unexpected event. The reality is that for people in a reasonable financial situation that can easily be resolved using a credit card , overdraft or similar.

The reality of payday loans company is that their main users are people who cannot go to banks to help them , and often end up having to pay the extortionate rates for a very long time because they end up taking a short term loan to pay off your previous short term loan.

The thing that shocks is how mainstream they have become , with TV advertising, celebrity endorsement (I saw one featuring David Dickinson today) , and sponsoring of football teams such as Newcastle United , Blackpool and Hull. So they are obviously raking in the money with an effectively captive market , standing between their clients and either loan sharks or destitution. That makes them sound good.

I really don't what the answer is, bar ensuring employers pay a living wage and ensuring that essentials such as food, utilities , transport and power are not allowed to hike their prices as and when they deem fit for the benefit of the shareholders. And this is not the fault of the companies , they have to answer to shareholders and their only purpose is to fill shareholders pockets. It is the fault of governments who sell off services in the name of "giving people a chance to share in the profits" when in reality what happens is that the people who can't afford to buy shares (the payday loans companies' captive market) line the pockets of those who can afford to buy shares.

There's something wrong when a county's utilities are owned by a foreign company.

Anyway that's my post over . Sorry it's been a general downer. But at least it's a reason to post the excellent Aloe Blacc song "I Need A Dollar".

Behind The Wall Of Sleep

When I was young I had problems sleeping , which persisted up to getting a job as a computer operator working continental shifts which meant I learnt to sleep anytime anywhere when the opportunity came. Certainly didn't do me any harm . I can sleep on buses , trains anywhere where it's safe to do so. In my life I've never missed a train stop and only missed a bus stop twice so I do have it down to a fine art.

The problem is my body is so well adjusted to the concept is I get  situations like now. Yesterday I had a lot of important stuff on at work , I had a hospital appointment in the morning and needed to provide one small report ideally by ten o' clock , plus some data extracts.

Something woke up , I don't know what , so then my mind started racing and thought if I spend an hour now I can get that report done, then I can have a nap during the day when I am bound to need one. Well report and data extracts got done , went back to bed , got up , went to hospital got back and worked through to just after five  (why does everything become really important at 4:30 on a Friday?) , then eventually got out to meet some friends at The Strawberry at six o'clock.

A good night was had by all severely tempted by Lynn and Julie's bowls ofchilli and chips / curry and chips (you must try if you ever go in there), but I resisted , and came home. By half past nine was shattered so went to bed.

Half past three I woke up. I've had six hours of sleep so it's time to get up my body say. My eyes say different , but thought I may as well write this down. I hope what will happen today is that I will have a lie in or nap or something and by tonight I will be back to normal , in fact I know that's what will happen. Anyway I thought an excellent song for this post was The Smithereens "Behind The Wall Of Sleep" , Black Sabbath do a song of the same name probably based on the HP Lovecraft story.. Maybe I can find that soon .