Put the Kettle On

It's been a pretty quiet holiday so far, which was of course completely the plan.

The time between the Xmas and Easter breaks always tends to catch up with me and that was before this skin thing took hold. The plan for this week was :

Chill out until frozen
Catch up with recorded stuff
Heal up some more
Try not to eat too many Easter Eggs
Beat a few games (and avoid getting more)
Listen to as much music as possible

I've done well with that last one, according to iTunes I've listened to over 1000 (erm 1004) unique tracks since starting my leave on Thursday 17th. That's 22 albums (so far) and coming up next after a little Doctor Who watching is Gabrielle Aplin's English Rain and then Avril Lavigne's self titled latest album.

While I am a creature of habit, I also have a quirk of memory which means I crave variation. So of the nearly 500 albums in the library, it may be over six months between one listen and the next. Unless I queue them up for listening to in the car. I'll do that with the best albums although lately I've been just letting random tracks play.

That's something - I still need to figure out how to release the 4.5GB of Stuff that's clogging up the phone. It's an iPhone 5 with 16GB, which means it only has 14.5GB for what I want to do with it and that's divided up between apps, music and other things. However ... there's 4.5GB of bad data in there that refuses to shift. I have a couple of options :

See if iOS7 will do the trick - not an option because it would force me to use iTunes 11, which would lose me a feature (iTunes DJ) which is how I arrange what I listen to at home. Not an option.
Factory restore - awkward because the phone got confused between the change from Acer laptop to Macbook Air. The apps don't sync properly via the Macbook. And it didn't work on the old laptop.
Restoring via the phone - I should be able to do this, however there's awkwardness with the apps. I'd need to manually put them back on. Bit of a chore, may have to resort to it.

Too much geekiness ?

I thought so.

More chill out ! But I would like that memory back on the phone.

Recorded stuff ? I've caught up a lot there now. Enough that I've started rewatching things like Space Above And Beyond from about 20 years ago. I first caught that on late night BBC2, it's about a group of future US Marine Corps pilot/commandos who are at the front of a war between humans and a newly discovered enigmatic but vicious alien race. It was compelling viewing 20 years ago. I've also been watching the Die Hard movies too, in advance of watching A Good Day To Die Hard which is recorded on the box.

At the moment, it's Doctor Who. I've managed to get to halfway in the first Matt Smith series. He's definitely the better Doctor of the recent ones. There's a madcap combination of insanity, youth, deadly seriousness and comedy with Matt Smith's doctor.

I've healed up a bit over the week, although sometimes it feels like :

Although substitute phone for damaged bits of me and you'll get the idea. Instead of leaving them be like I should, it's really difficult for me to resist attacking the bad bits and that sets the healing back. I've been doing better with that lately. Some days, it's good enough that I could put the knee pads on which is the end test for whether I'll play cricket. But then it may worsen again.

Actually, the thing that may keep me out of cricket this year (and force an overdue retirement) is probably my hips. I broke the cabin fever today for a wander around Bristol and those hips had me limping at points. It's one of my long standing half healed injuries. When my back got better and I thought I could stretch a bit more pace out of my bowling, I ran in quicker. However ... the extra stress when sending the ball down led to tearing muscles in my groin, which never really healed truely. It's an annoying injury. I can still run at Warp Speed in a straight line with it, however turning is badly affected as is walking. Different muscles and all that.

I actually bought stuff too in town (worth a mention cos my shopping trips tend to just end up looking in windows). Not as much as I could have - I have it in my head to buy a headset. I.e. headphones plus microphone for gaming. Would I use it ? Not in my current gaming profile but I would if I did multiplayer again. But I want a pair anyway. I think I'd have got some too, except ... shops don't seem to want to let you try them on. And considering that a major deal breaker with headphones, keyboards, mice etc is how they interact with touch ...

I ain't buying it if there's a chance it could turn into another Mad Catz Fly 5. All that adjustment looks great but can lead to an uncomfortable handle and what really cripples that stick is a massive deadzone where the self centre springs don't consistently take it back to the middle.

Other stuff ? (The wall of text alarm is pinging ...)

I've learned The Gimp - it's an image manipulation application. I used to use Photoshop Elements but the copy I have is so old .... I thought I'd better try something new. The Gimp takes some getting used to but it let me turn a Judge Dredd badge into something custom. I'd like to show it here but the one I did has a name and the two I was intending to do are on hold, I'll only do those on request and I never got any feedback from the first. I actually kinda think I've been blocked as a groupie stalker, which is a pretty hair trigger response to be honest.

Hey ho. It was an idea to do something nice at the time but if that's not what people want, then it's a sign to redirect the energies towards people who will appreciate the effort.

That kinda sounds nasty doesn't it ? That's not the intention. The original pic was in response to a "Why don't they do cool t-shirts in womens sizes ?" Well, they do. But you might have to put the effort in to make your own coolness pics and to find someone who can put it on a t-shirt for you. (Found one of those in the Galleries Mall today).

So - while I'm not intending to do the 2 Judge badges, I'll happily make you pics if you give me an idea. I'll usually do it for the Warm Fuzzy Feeling of helping someone out combined with the "Hey ! Fun challenge". I enjoy those.

I better close there. Easter Egg count ? Only 2. Tesco was particularly light on inspiration for decent eggs ...