Rediscovering my ipod

I have finally put some music back on my i-phone after I accidentally wiped it during my windows 7 upgrade. I feel like I have rediscovered music after about 4 months without it. I was listening to pod casts when I had no music however I much prefer listening to a tune than listening to people talking.
I have a what some people might term a dubious taste in music - though I like to think of it as eclectic. (I once purchased a gomez CD and a b*witched CD in the same transaction.) Once I've got my earphones in I like to pretend I am in a film and the tunes I am listening to are the soundtrack. When I discover a song I like I listen to it over and over again. This applies to new tracks and ones that I perhaps just haven't heard in a while. I don't know why I do this. I also like to be able to sing along. When I first met husb I remember telling him that music was about participation for me not just about listening. I still think that and I find it really hard to not sign along when I'm on the train.

Skinny Jeans

I am so pleased that I've been able to buy skinny jeans. OK they may not technically be skinny if you are a jeans afficionado but as far as I am concerned they are. I've been wearing boot cut jeans for years so straight leg (and a size smaller) feel wierd and fab at the same time.
They are still too long though - but I think straight legs are easier to shorten than boot cut so that's another advantage.
I hope I can sustain my weightloss so I can go on enjoying the skinny jeans sensation.

Packing

We're hopefully going to be moving house in the next few weeks and we've been getting stuff together ready for packing up. We've filled a few of boxes with stuff from our living room. It's amazed me how much stuff we have - it's ridiculous really. I blame the march of technology. We've got loads of games for the PS2. The PS2 has been in a bag in the corner for at least 18 months if not longer so none of these games have been used since then. We use the Wii but never the PS2.
We have 100s of CDs yet we don't actually own a cd player. OK so we can play them via the computer or the dvd player but we got rid of our CD players last year in a space saving effort. While I was sorting out the desk I found 3 i-pod leads as I've upgraded at least twice and all sorts of chargers for long abandoned bits of technology.
I think a bit of de-cluttering and freecycling or carbooting or even e-baying is in order at some stage soon.

Haiti

The people of Haiti are in my thoughts. I've donated some money to www.dec.org.uk. I hope they can get the aid to the people that need it quickly.

Friday Night

I'm in on a Friday night in January. For the first time in ages I got home before 7pm and turned on the TV. I thought that January was when the TV channels started showing their ratings winning "shows of the year". Turns out I was wrong.

After watching the end of the BBC News and the beginning of The One Show (I turned over as soon as they announced some sort of local hero award about 30 seconds in) I found on ITV2 last week's Dancing on Ice. It was the last 25 mins and the Simpsons was coming on at 7.30 so I thought I'd watch it to see what was happening. I didn't see anything that made me think I'll watch it "live" this week - though I did think Heather Mills skating with her prosthetic leg was quite an achievement. Anyway then the Simpsons - which was as ever brilliant.

Next up was part 2 of Kevin McCloud:Slumming it on Channel 4. This was a really interesting and thought provoking programme about the slums in Mumbai. All credit to Kevin for going there and experiencing it. It was the sort of programme that really makes you appreciate your comfortable lifestyle. So that took me to 9pm.

You'd think that I would be able to find a good prime time show at this time -but no. From 9pm till 11pm instead of settling down to a proper TV drama or string of comedy shows I have channel hopped between the major (and not so major) TV channels barely finding anything to watch.

I am not a Big Brother fan. I watched in the early days but went off it about 5 years ago. Plus now I'm on Twitter I don't actually need to watch it as a lot of the people I follow tweet about it. I dropped in on Popstar to Operastar - which was OK - more in keeping with they type of reality show I do like (i.e. Strictly Come Dancing) however I'm not sure the title is accurate. Former Popstar to Operastar may be more appropriate. I must say though that the show is lent creditability by the mentors Katherine Jenkins and Ronaldo Villazon who are excellent singers, however, I can't see myself tuning in week after week as none of the "popstars" really did it for me and the one off Busted (or McFly) is gonna win because all his fans will vote for him (if audience reaction is anything to go by).

I even watched a bit of "How London Was Built" on the History Channel - mainly because it had been filmed close to where I used to work and I am a London geek. But that's not really that's not really what I want to be watching on a Friday night.

So we turned to Apple TV and husb played some random 80s tracks before at 11pm BBC 2 came up trumps with "...sings the Beatles". Really ace and entertaining and interesting to see how in the 60s and 70s a lot of the singers of the day had their own shows. In 40 years time there won't be anything like this for contemporary bands because our channels are putting our wall to wall reality instead of proper entertainment. I can't imagine "...sings McFly" can you? (well actually i don't even want to imagine that)

Uploading

Since I came back from the Christmas Holidays I've been trying without success to upload the pictures that I took in Wales to my Flickr account. I've been getting slightly irritated so I thought I'd try and upload to blogger and it's uploaded the first pic really quickly. Now I'm even more perplexed. Anyway this pic is of a "stream" through the sand just outside the harbour in Burry Port. I liked the way it looked like the delta of a river.

My Year 2009

It is traditional as a new year begins to look back at what happened in the old year. All the papers do it, most of the TV channels do it in one form or another so I thought I would too.

There are two things that will define 2009 for me.

The first is that I left my job at a company I'd worked at for 9 years. I resigned on the 6th January but my notice period meant I didn't leave until the end of February and started at my new job in early March. It was certainly a culture shock. Being the new girl who no one knew after being known and knowing everyone so well at the old place was the hardest thing I had to deal with.

The second thing is Twitter. I joined in March or April and I have loved every minute of it. Husb thinks I'm addicted but I wouldn't say that. I just like it. A lot. It has mostly made me smile and has increased my knowledge in lots of areas. And it gave me the confidence to start this Blog. So it's gotta be good.

I decided at the start of last year to try and embrace my creative side (such as it is) and this Blog was part of it. I've also taken up photography. The best present I got for Christmas in 2008 was my DSLR camera. I have used it over 2009 and you can see my pics on flickr. I have a lot to learn and am no where near to using the camera or photoshop to their full potential but I am enjoying it and loving being able to share my pictures. I've even managed to give a few to friends and family as presents.

I finally discovered The West Wing and The Wire and watched all the boxed sets of both of these series. The Wire was well written and I really liked it but I liked The West Wing a little bit more. Not that I am any more familiar with Washington politics than I am with the Baltimore Street but I think I just got the West Wing more. I know neither of these are 2009 new but at the start of the year they were all I watched.

As for "real" telly I loved Gavin and Stacey and Miranda and got in to FlashForward -(though got annoyed by the fact that it has stopped mid season). Mad Men continued to be excellent but I was v slack with Lost and still have the entire of season 5 to watch on my V+ box before season 6 starts in Feb.

I enjoyed watching Wales and the Lions in Rugby and the Ashes Series back in the summer.
Due to excessive DVD watching my reading was not very prolific. I have however really enjoyed the first 2 books of the Millennium Trilogy by Steig Larsson and also the first 2 books of the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Mayer. I also really liked Victoria Coren's memoir of poker. But I've already blogged about that.

I went on holiday to France for a week as we were trying to save leave for a house purchase (which as yet hasn't happened) and have had a fab 2 weeks break over Christmas and New Year. I'm now at the end of that and it's back to work tomorrow.

So that was 2009 - here's to 2010.

New Year

I don't usually decide to make any New Year resolutions as I know I am rubbish at sticking to them. This year however I am determined to stick to something. There are a couple of obvious things I need to do- loose weight, exercise more, drink less. These are however made difficult by husb being Scottish and making new years day a day of feasting and drinking so any resolutions I have in that arena will have to wait until at least 2nd Jan and realistically until I'm back at work on the 4th Jan. So I've decided that my resolution that I can start on today is blog related. I am resolving to update it more often and I am going to start using the labels etc properly. It will be difficult for me to think of things to say but I am going to try and post once a week as a bare minimum. I don't know how I'll get on with this but we shall see. Happy New Year!