A bit of this and a bit of that

We’re spending a weekend in London to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary. The plan is to have dinner, go to the theatre and spend the night in London while the in-laws look after Arthur. We haven’t really booked anything yet, but are planning to either watch Wicked or Les Miserables. Trying to find a good deal on tickets is rather hard though, and I really don’t have much time to look around.

Should be a smooth journey as I’m only taking hand luggage. The airlines have been getting silly with baggage recently. Apparently you get charges extra to take sports equipment like golf bags on board now. The one thing I’m really waiting for it to be able to get Internet on planes. With satellite internet services being so ubiquitous around the world it’s quite surprising they haven’t cracked that one yet. The question is, how much would they charge for the privilege?

Don’t you just love websites that can offer you a service wherever you are in the world? I was looking through Advantage car rentals which at first seemed to be a US based business, but noticed that they also offer car rentals anywhere in the world. I thought that was pretty cool. They use local rental companies to provide local service, but they take all the details for you and payment up front, then arrange your rental.

And the good news doesn’t just end there. They’re currently running a promotion giving a 50% discount on all Luxury and Convertible car rentals. So, if you’re looking for a rental, why not get a classy ride and a great price.

Check them out.

So last week I posted how I had lost an entire stone on my diet in under 2 months. And to celebrate, we went out this weekend and ended up at a Chinese buffet in Ramsey. Needless to say, I can’t actually show I’ve lost an entire stone today, but I don’t even think I’ve finished digesting last night’s dinner. I’m not actually on any diet pills, just sheer-minded determination, calorie counting and going to the gym, so this is a bit os a setback, but I’m sure I’ll be back on the wagon in a couple of days.

No celebrations next time!

I’ve been wondering for some time whether we should stick a TV in the bedroom. Today’s LCD screens are compact enough for it not to require too much space, but I’m not sure I’d like us to be the sort of couple who spends the whole evening in bed watching TV. Fitting one in won’t be too much of a problem, just get a Peerless bracket, attach it to the wall and attach the TV to that. Thing is, we probably don’t need a large TV as the room isn’t all that big, maybe a 20″ would be the right size.

What about all you readers? Do you have a TV in your bedroom? Do you think it’s a positive thing or a negative one?

My diet seems to be going pretty well and while checking my stats this morning, I’ve realised that I’ve dropped a whole stone (14oz). Here’s what my stats looks like:

I’m quite pleased actually, partly because I’m really losing weight, and partly because this diet is really sustainable. It’s been really impressive how I’m losing a tiny bit of weight every day, compared to the fluctuations I’ve had in previous weeks.

At the end of this month, I’ll have my official weighing again, so I’ll post the results here. It’s actually quite funny watching people take off as many things as possible, shoes, pens, even clip on earrings, when they come to get weighed. It’s nice to know I’m making such progress. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep it up till I drop to being just Overweight.

I came across this picture of a gantry crane (or a Material Handling System as it’s more correctly called) while surfing the web and I was marveling at just how huge this thing was. It can lift up to 150 tons and move it in any direction. You don’t realise how big it actually is until you see the size of the people in the picture.

It’s by a company called ShuttleLift, a specialist in the field of material handling.

I might have posted before that we’re getting some work done at our other house in Viola by Birchwood Building and Construction. Work has been going on for some time now, but Phase 1 is over and work has started on the main house. There’s lots to be done, renewing electrics and gas works amongst other things, there’s a sconce that needs moving and lots of other internal work. Hopefully it won’t take too long, but you never know with this sort of thing.

So, I’m back from our little holiday in the UK and Italy and back on the diet. I was expecting to have gained more weight, but I only put on 1kg and I seem to have lost that over the last few days. Getting back on the diet has proved to be more challenging though, as I seem to be craving food more and motivation has taken a bit of a hit. I do have a checkup my term life insurance coming up soon, so I’ll try and drop another couple of pounds before that. My premium is usually a bit higher because of my weight, and I doubt if I can drop it enough to make a difference, but it will be nice to try

Don’t you just love online games? I came across this racing game today where you can race different pieces of stationary against each other. Well, actually you control the stationary and need to beat a race car. They’re called SLOBs, Strange Little Office Beings, and here’s where you can race them around a track:

Office Depot Slob’s Racing

Check it out!

Walked into a PCWorld store yesterday and looked around at some new TVs. There are some nice models out there though it’s interesting to see what a big variation in quality and prices you can still find. I quite liked some of the LG models so maybe that’s what we’ll upgrade to eventually. Not sure I liked the REALLY big ones though, they images seems really splodgy. I think a 42″ will be perfect for our house, but we’ll have to upgrade all our other equipments. Don’t think I’ve got anything in the house that uses HDMI at the moment.