Author Archives:
What Do I Want for Christmas? A Shiny New MINI
That’s right, it’s happened, I’ve thrown in the towel. The time has come and I’ve simply got to get back on the road; no more being an angry pedestrian, I need to take my rage to the roads again and how am I planning to do this? With a shiny new MINI.
What’s turning me from a humble pedestrian into a driver again? A few things, really, mainly the fact that my workplace has moved and buses are about as reliable as a solar-powered torch and also that in the new year I’m planning to move out of my flat to somewhere probably a little further out of town so I can get a larger place for less – clearly I’m going to need a set of wheels, and a stylish MINI seems to be the way forward for me.
I’m not really a fan of driving; I find it an unpleasant, stressful experience for the most part, and I can really do without the added expense of owning, insuring, maintaining and running a vehicle, but after just a few days of taking the bus, I’ve already had enough. It’s always late and I don’t really have the patience to keep waiting for it and then having to be in such proximity with other people for the duration of the journey. If I could do the walk, I would, but a nice little new MINI in black seems like the best option right now. Looking at the purchase and running costs, it’ll probably work out a bit less than the bus does anyway.
Designer Sunglasses – The Ultimate Accessory
I’m not really one of those people that spends a lot of money on clothes – that’s not to say that I don’t buy them when they’re wearing out or that I don’t have a wardrobe, but it’s not what you’d describe as an expensive one. It mostly consists of generic jeans, combats, band t-shirts and things like that. I consider a shirt extravagant if I’ve spent more than £20 on a shirt but one place I don’t believe in cutting corners is on accessories, which is where designer sunglasses can come in.
You see, I’m not someone that will spend a lot of money on clothing, but I still don’t want to look like I’m homeless, so I tend to up the game on my accessories – designer sunglasses, posy watches, nifty piercings and so forth so at least I look like something vaguely resembling someone with a job and some money. Plus, I’m a little photosensitive so it makes sense to actually have some good sunglasses.
It’s amazing how much of a difference some designer sunglasses can make, both to how few headaches I get and also the way that my image has been impacted. I now look like a guy who knows how to spend his money, but does so on the right things.
I suppose this is the difference between me and most people: I go through money like water, but I have the sense to spend it on good examples of what I’m looking for and my designer sunglasses collection is the perfect example of this.
Divorce solicitors in London
This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.
The compensation received will never influence the content, topics or posts made in this blog. All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by a third party ad network. Those advertisements will be identified as paid advertisements.
The owner(s) of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the blog owners. If we claim or appear to be experts on a certain topic or product or service area, we will only endorse products or services that we believe, based on our expertise, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider.
This blog does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest.
Short Term Car Insurance – The Occasional Drivers’ Dream
I’m not someone who drives a lot; I’m not really a big fan of it, largely due to the fact that everyone on the road appears to be an idiot and the amount that it costs. There’s petrol which seems to become more expensive every day, there’s road tax and perhaps worst of all, there’s insurance. This is the reason I ended up selling my car, but sometimes I need to hire one since although I don’t drive much, I do occasionally need a car to visit my parents or for meetings and so on. It’s in cases like these that short term car insurance is the perfect solution.
When you hire a car, you’ve got to have insurance for it, but if I don’t have a car for 350 days of the year, why should I pay for a year’s worth of insurance? This is why short term car insurance is so useful. I can insure a car from anything from a day to a couple of weeks so I can drive myself to visit my parents, or to go to a meeting or even – if I ever take one – on holiday. It’s the ideal choice.
It’s little things like that that make me glad I spend so much time on the internet – if I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t know it existed and consequently would have to take public transport whenever I went anywhere or – worse – would have to pay for a year’s car insurance at a time. I wouldn’t be happy about that.
The Never Ending Quest for More Storage Space
I’m one of those people for whom there’s no such thing as too much storage space. In fact I never seem to have enough; from the ever-climbing pile of comic boxes, to the bookshelves that are always getting a couple of extra bits added on, to the CD wallets which seem to be multiplying and the piles of DVDs and blu rays that just don’t fit into the racks anymore, there’s never enough storage space and I’ve been looking into ways to deal with this.
Since the whole world seems to be becoming more and more geared towards outsourcing, that’s what I’ve decided to do with my storage. Anything that I’ve decided is not essential to my day to day existence has been moved into a nearby self storage unit and everything that I really need is in my increasingly Spartan room.
Where before it was filled with comics that I haven’t read for years, books that I’ll probably never read again and over a thousand CDs that are all ripped onto my PC and a load of other random stuff that I really never needed and should have thrown away when I moved, there’s now only things that I deem necessary in there, like the TV, the comics I’m currently collecting, books I might read again or haven’t read yet and my films and games. Basically, everything I really need is there and everything I don’t need but want to keep is in my storage space just up the road. It seems to be working at the moment and I’m very glad about that.
It’s always nice to have the space you need while not having to get rid of things you still want. Maybe I should just move to a bigger place but having some storage space will do for the time being.
Bulking Up With Whey Protein Powder
When it comes to the gym, I’ve always been something of a hard-gainer. I struggle ridiculously with putting on size and as I get older, it seems to be increasingly difficult to keep any muscle growth on without living on a diet which features chicken, some chicken and maybe a bit of chicken with some brown rice on the side if I’m lucky. This isn’t really what you’d describe as a particularly interesting diet and it’s not really the healthiest either, so I’ve decided that using whey protein powder to supplement a healthy diet is a much better approach.
Not how I want to look
Whey protein powder has one major advantage over eating loads of chicken – it’s not eating loads of chicken. That’s a good thing because there’s only so much chicken you can eat before you start to get epically sick of it and never want to see another chunk of white meat. At least when you’re drinking shakes made from whey protein powder, you can get the protein that you need while still having a balanced diet and the occasional treat. It’s also a great way of actually bulking up because any strength and exercise coach will tell you that what you need straight after a workout is protein.
Proteins are the building blocks of your body and after a workout, your body is most receptive to it. That means that getting some protein straight after a workout will help you get big and strong. This another advantage of whey protein powder – people look at you weirdly if you scoff a chicken breast on the way out of the gym, but no one thinks twice about someone downing a protein shake afterwards.
It’s definitely made my diet a lot more interesting now that I’m back in the gym and am trying to put a bit of size on. I’m not trying to look like Arnie used to, but I definitely think my skinny frame needs some more meat on it, and I’m hoping that this helps.
Storage In Portsmouth – Helping You Grow Up
There are few indisputable facts in the world, but here are a few of them: guys who dress as Santa are creepy, water is wet and men never really grow up. I’ve got a fairly extensive comic collection and spend way more money than I should on gadgetry, films and video games, not to mention that I down a ridiculous amount of energy drinks to get myself through the day (because I’ve been staying up all night playing video games). Essentially, I still live like I’m a student, as did one of my friends. However, he’s just started making out like he’s an adult and all his comics into storage in Portsmouth.
It was the end of an era when he moved away from Colchester and headed up to Portsmouth with his other half for a job; we used to head to the comic shop every week just to see what was out like the dutiful geeks we were, and we used to head to the pub and discuss them at least once a week, or our ideas for our own series, which got more and more outlandish every time, especially as the evenings went on and more beer was quaffed. Unfortunately, however, those days are gone, he’s moved away and his other half’s having a baby, meaning that he’s having to become an adult.
By ‘becoming an adult’, we mean that the room which was full of comic boxes, framed artwork and everything else that he’d accumulated over the years has been cleared out to accommodate a cot and everything else that miniature human needs. Everything has gone into a storage unit in Portsmouth, the room’s a pleasing shade of yellow and our chats don’t revolve around comics anymore – at least they don’t if the missus is within earshot!
I suppose that’s the thing about guys – we’re all big kids at heart, but ultimately, we’ll wear a grown-up mask when we have to and his dropping the collection into storage in Portsmouth is a symptom of that. It doesn’t mean that he won’t ask me what’s happening in the latest Iron Man series or sneak a look at the trade paperbacks every now and then, but he’s at least pretending that he’s grown out of comics for the time being – at least until the new arrival’s old enough to read them.
Not Growing Quickly Enough? That’s What Protein Shakes Are For
I’m not someone who’s known for my patience, so perhaps I have unrealistic expectations of looking like Leonidas a few months after joining a gym and lifting a couple of times a week, but even so, I really feel like I should be getting quicker gains. I reckon it’s got something to do with my stupidly fast metabolism, so I’ve decided to counter that with some protein shakes.
I was in two minds about starting a course of these things – there are always the horror stories that happened to a friend of a friend of a friend, they’re not exactly cheap and there’s always the concern that they just won’t work. Protein shakes have always been something that I was a little wary of, plus I wasn’t quite sure if I was ‘cheating’. I want the results, but I don’t want to get them via nefarious means.
Not quite how I want to look.
The thing was, exercise and healthy eating just wasn’t getting me any gains. I was getting stronger, but no bigger, so I decided that protein shakes were the way to go.
I’ve had nicer tasting drinks, but I do seem to be putting on some muscle by taking these a couple of times a day. All told it seems to be doing the job, so I’ve made worse investments.
Granite Worktops Cause Cookery-Envy
I admit it; I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to cookery. I always want the best, whether it’s the shiniest knives or the latest hi-tech blender, but a recent trip to a friend’s restaurant had the green-eyed monster out in force over the lovely granite worktops they had in the kitchen.
Not my kitchen - yet
In fact, such is my jealousy that I’ve decided that my home kitchen is getting a full remodel in order to accommodate them – that’s right, I’m going plural with these puppies. I’m not sure why, but I know I want to.
Here’s what I’m thinking: my new kitchen will have nothing but the shiniest granite worktops, nothing but the finest cookware and nothing but the sharpest knives. Basically, it’s going to be an awesome shrine to decadence, where I will always want to cook myself something healthy and tasty, I will always do the washing up and the days of running to the chip shop because I can’t be bothered to cook will be a thing of the past. My waistline will thank me but I’m not sure my wallet will.
Barcode Your Baby with Sticky Labels
Kettering hospital have come up with a great new way to improve the safety of newborn babies – barcoding them with sticky labels.
On the face of things, this could be seen as a negative – how many comic and video game villains have a barcode on them, after all – but in the main, it’s most definitely a positive. These barcodes will track lots of necessary bits of information such as the baby’s name, NHS number, date of birth and mother’s name and make this available to the doctor or nurse in seconds after scanning these sticky labels with a barcode reader.
This is cool for three reasons. Firstly, these sticky labels will save a lot of time for doctors and nurses as they will have the information open to them instantly rather than having to flip through charts. Secondly, the information will be displayed on a computer screen. As obvious as this sounds, this is very handy due to one simple reason: handwriting. No matter how neat it seems, most of us simply can’t read one another’s handwriting, especially not when you’re overworked, tired and sporting a fetching headache the way most of our doctors and nurses are. Thirdly, who doesn’t want a baby that looks like Hitman?
Seriously. If I had a baby, I’d want it to look like Agent 47 from Hitman. This is probably why I don’t have any kids, but that’s neither here nor there.
Ultimately, as much as we may be against the “corporate ID” side of things by sticking barcodes our babies, they are just sticky labels at the end of the day and if it means that doctors can get the information they need quicker and more precisely than they would do from someone’s squiggles, I can’t really see anything wrong with that.
