Happy new year everyone

Another year gone, kinda surprised I've not posted for a fortnight. One excuse is that I was away for Xmas ...

Rumours of travel problems over here have been fairly exaggerated, although I wouldn't have been saying that had I travelled a day before I did. I went up to my parents place for a few days over Xmas, travelling up on the Thursday and coming back on the Monday. I think I got away with it, as the roads were clear with minimal hold ups. If I'd gone the day before, I'd have run into the aftermath of heavy snowfall that morning which would have got me stuck within an hour's driving.

So much for the snow ... On the roads at least. On the way up, it was cold enough that the washer jets on the car weren't working which got to be a problem after about an hour's driving ... Which gets me off the motorway and into Birmingham services. It was like a different world - going from a clear motorway to what can only be described as a disaster area was quite jarring. Queues to get into the car park suggested what was ahead, snow was still in all the parking bays, the access routes hadn't been gritted and people were just looping through the car park to go elsewhere. That's what I did, although I did jump out to scrub the windscreen so I could see.

I think I benefitted :-) I stopped at the next services (where the car park had been cleared) and got caught by the Starbucks ... One pizza (small one) sized giant cookie and a massive hot chocolate later and I'm ready to hit the road again.

Felt strange driving listening to cd's again. I've gotten used to iPodFM over the past few years, where I just set the little box to shuffle and let it go. I'd forgotten the whole management of cd's thing and quickly remembered that they should be put somewhere they can't slide. Oh yes - even before getting to the motorway, I'd had a cd frisbie incident. I'd gone to cd's because I was listening out for traffic info which I can't get via iPodFM.

Traffic was slow, going there and coming back but I still did the 180 mile trip in under 4 hours each way. Which ain't bad. I'm ok with slow traffic, I just switch into a "cruise" mindset which is much less stressful than the alternate which would have me eagle eyed for the passing opportunities. On most roads, those chances aren't there and in a long line of traffic just lead to shuffling the order a bit with no time gained.

(I still hate slow people but I've learned the futility of looking for gaps that won't gain you anything except high risk)

Xmas was a little different this year, not much present buying going on around me this year. Which isn't as terrible as it sounds, because I also avoided all the "what do they really want ?" rushing around the shops when everyone else is doing the same thing. And if there's one thing that unsettles me more than Slow People it's Too Many People. I like being around people but if my awareness level is being hopped up by there being too many around to do a threat evaluation (pickpockets & the like) then it'll be wearing.

We had a smaller Crazie Gathering this year, which was effectively a housewarming for the Bionic Dwarf. Cosy, relaxed evening with pizza and 3 good movies. 1 of those was mine (Alice in Wonderland), 1 of which will be bought soon (How to Train Your Dragon) and 1 which I won't buy but enjoyed anyway (Son of Rambow)

Not done much shopping over the break, although I'll hopefully hit the shops some time next week to find any of those interesting bargains. Already got a couple on the list like a third Kasabian album and How To Train Your Dragon but I'll have an open mind for more like Up In The Air, which got watched today. I'll only buy films that I've already checked out and a movie channel sub is a decent way of trying before buying. There's hits and misses, like Up In The Air is a hit while Megafault was a waste of 90 minutes.

I had been thinking of upgrading my desktop PC over the holiday but have shelved that because prices haven't budged lately. My sister did the upgrading thing instead :-) Her laptop's in for repairs and because of the delay, a netbook appeared. Pre-buy misgivings were that the netbook wouldn't get used after the proper laptop came back but I have a feeling that the laptop will be the one gathering dust.

Other stuff - back to work at either the end of this week or the 10th. iTunes library has had the playcount zeroed so I get a fresh listen to everything in it. Snow was here and has all gone, melted away by persistent drizzle (I prefer the brightness of light reflected off snow and ice). Gaming is seeing heavy Warcraft and Settlers IV activity with none of the Steam offers proving sufficiently tempting. The offers are good but the games are not.

2010 was an interesting year, with me plowing head first into a different job in the same project. It saw me go back on the cricket field (the shoulder is mostly back to normal). I had a few upgrades appear with the toys collection but still noone to share them with.

2010 wasn't bad but I'm hoping for better from 2011 :-)