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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ironically, we met in the biggest dive of a pub in my town (that’s saying something too), and have been becoming something resembling drinking buddies. The only thing that’s really changed in our friendship since it because apparent that they’re loaded (not that you’d know it to look at them) is that I have a habit of saying ‘your round’ more often rather than being over-generous the way I usually am.

I haven’t been out to any of their villas in Spain yet and all-told, I probably never will, unless I want to take a girlfriend out somewhere for a cheap holiday in a nice shiny villa. They say you learn something new every day and what I’ve learned today from this is truly not to judge a book by its cover or its company. Most of my friends – especially the ones I’ve met in that pub – tend to look like stereotypical metal fans, may not be the cleanest, drink like and have mouths like sewers and usually don’t have the greatest jobs in the world. This person fits the mould too, they just seem to have a good job (one that they won’t disclose) and own a lot of property.

Actually, thinking about it, they might be an undercover secret agent or something. I’m not sure whether that would be the coolest thing ever or a terrifying thought.

The gadget lust is strong with these things, but do I really need it? The LED screen will be nice – it’s always good to be able to see Kate Beckinsale in a sharper picture – but do I want the 3D? I think ‘want’ and ‘need’ are two different things in this case. You see, I’ve been to the cinema to see films in 3D a couple of times lately and haven’t been overly impressed with it. Avatar looked great in a couple of bits (shame about the film), but for the most part, the 3D seemed unnecessary – in fact, it just highlighted the flaws with the technology and do not get me started on Clash of the Titans ‘just throw it in after the film’s done’ approach.

I don’t doubt for a second that 3D TV is the future, but my feeling on it is that the future’s not quite here yet. I might well upgrade the plasma to an LED screen soon though. Those Samsung ones look a bit shiny.

All the time people keep inventing new tech, I will most likely never feel that my setup is complete. That’s probably a little sad.