Losing it

Weight: 219 pounds (15 stone 9 pounds, 99.3 kg)

Exercise: Not that you'd notice

Hmm. Back down today, in another burst of randomness.

More stuff at the weekend, assuming my tuit supply holds out.

Today’s picture is another one from my recent Wearside walk:

On reflection...

A few years ago, I had a bit of a mutter about some excruciating grammar on a Microsoft web page. The site in question was for the XBox Live service. I have a now mostly neglected XBox, though now that Lovefilm’s streaming service runs on the beast, I might be inclined to switch it on more often.

As it happens, it’s the time of year when Microsoft want me to pay for a new subscription, and they sent me a reminder:

Shocking Abuse

Now this is presumably a standard message sent to all users whose subscriptions have expired, and whose registered language is English. Does nobody check these things? Oh, silly question. Given the way that “known issues” in software linger from version to version to version, expecting them to get someone to proof read email messages is quite unreasonable.

[1] Sherlock Holmes reference, inserted because it fit. So there.

Weight: 219 pounds (15 stone 9 pounds, 99.3 kg)

Exercise: Errr, no

Another upward fluctuation thingy today. I blame the weather.

I’ll spare you the usual mutterings about what I didn’t do today, and move right on to the picture of the day. The new Sleeperz Hotel on Westgate Road looks like it’s going to be a useful subject. Not that it’s all that interesting itself, but it does do some nice reflections:

Sleeperz Reflections

Weight: 217.8 pounds (15 stone 7.8 pounds, 98.8 kg)

Exercise: Walked to work, short lunchtime walk

Shock, horror, etc, back down today. I walked to work as the Garmin evidence shows:

Walking to work
Walking for 00:30:53
2.15 mi @ 14:22 min/mi

And I also had a short walk at lunchtime, which I forgot to garminise, but this is where I went:

Another little walk

Click the map to see a bigger version or have a play with the live version at Gmap Pedometer.

The purpose of the walk, other than getting away from a server that was annoying me[1], was to have a wander with the Canon 5D Mk II and a new toy I’ve bought for it. Details of the toy will follow when I’ve played with it a bit more and I’m sure about it, but so far I think it’ll do nicely.[2]

Anyway, here’s one of today’s pictures. It’s part of that always interesting installation, Man With Possible Potential Selves on Grainger Street.

Deep thoughts

[1] Just didn’t want to have its OS installed. Rude server.
[2] Kept vague to keep the regular readers annoyed interested.

Weight: 220 pounds (15 stone 10 pounds, 99.8 kg)

Exercise: Not even slightly

Yes, well, back up today, and that won’t get better tomorrow to any great extent, as despite yesterday’s vague intentions of going for a walk somewhere today, I decided to stay in. For some reason, I felt an urge to watch all of the 1979 BBC adaptation of John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Solidier Spy, and as that consists of seven 50-minute episodes, that was most of the day sorted out. Having listened to an audiobook[1] of it not so long ago, it was interesting to compare it with the source material[2]. Bits were rearranged, making the narrative a bit more linear[3], details were omitted to fit the long novel into a relatively short form, but overall it’s an excellent example of adapting a novel for TV, and still very watchable over 30 years on. Alec Guinness was, of course, superb as George Smiley, and Patrick Stewart’s brief, silent appearance as his opponent Karla is impressive. I haven’t so far seen the 2011 movie version, but it’s on my list of things to get round to. I think I needed to have a reasonably fresh memory of this version first.

Anyway, having diverted today’s[4] report into a sort of review thingy, here’s your picture of the day, which is the lighthouse at Seaburn. It was relocated there from its former home on the south Wear pier, apparently. I had wondered why it was sited where it is…

Seaburn

[1] I got a set of them free last year in a newspaper promotion. Didn’t even need to buy the papers, making them good value. Interestingly, reader Michael Jayston adopted a quite distinctly Guinness-like manner of speaking when reading Smiley’s lines.
[2] Previous viewings either preceded reading the book or were too far after my last reading to make my recollections suspect.
[3] Though not entirely – there’s a lot of flashback, recollection, and the like. Le Carré’s spy novels are gloriously complex.