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.

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.

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.

It’s a little strange for me, since normally I look like I’m homeless or on the way to see a band in some dive or another, but I quite like the idea of not being poor and not looking like it every now and then, and a custom credit card would probably help me with that. I’m not talking something ostentatious and 80’s and certainly not something like a photo of my parents or something like that, just maybe something a little dark and abstract like one of my Photoshop pieces, I haven’t really decided. In fact, I haven’t really decided on whether or not I’m going to do it, but if I do, it’s going to be something understated but still posy enough to make the investment worthwhile.

All in all, credit card design wasn’t something I’d really considered before I caught that sight of myself in the window, but it’s certainly an interesting idea and I might do it. If nothing else, my wallet’s not looking very distinctive these days.

See, there are loads of ways to handle a breakup: there’s pining for the girl, there’s getting drunk all the time and walking through town at 3am with a bunch of people you don’t know (but who all have really cool hair) and singing ‘The Passenger’ at the top of your voice, there’s fighting her new beau, there’s sleeping with her friends, there’s loads of things. When it came to my friends’ situation though, we decided that we had to get a little meaner than that.

Their place was quite expensive and he doesn’t have the greatest job in the world, and she left in a hurry, leaving a load of her stuff behind. Do you sell everything of hers in a situation like that before she comes back? No, but there’s nothing wrong with making her think that, or, more accurately, think the place was burgled. The day before she came back to the old flat to pick her stuff up, we hired some storage in Ipswich (it’s a flippin’ huge room) and loaded everything into it.

When I say everything, I mean everything. Every. Single. Thing in that flat went into the van (it took three trips) and went into storage in Ipswich. The look on her face when she turned up was priceless; probably as good as my friends’ was when she dumped him for his mate.

The ultimate plan isn’t certain – maybe we’ll take it out of storage; Ipswich has plenty of places we could sell her stuff – or maybe we’ll just gradually post it back to her. The possibilities are endless.

Ultimately, nothing was resolved by this, but it made him feel better and in a situation like this, that’s the most important thing.

Family Members; One of the first option is to name your future child as the same as you or your partner or sometimes yours or your partners parents.  This option that used to be one of the baby names preference, now it is decreasing in the recent decades.

Famous People;  another common option is to pick up baby names from one of the famous characters of your favourite movie, TV series or program, or any celebrity that take the attention of the parents.

Historic Names; Sometimes people just prefer to go through history in search of epic and biblical names that could reflect the personality and character of their future son.

Weird Baby Names; In special cases, parents decide to go for the most weird and unusual baby names ever heard. I am talking about baby names taken from brands, expressions and all sort of strange terms that sometimes appear on magazines or TV.

If you are thinking about different baby names just have in mind how your future son will feel when he grows. Don’t let you go by fashion or trendy names of the moment, just have in mind that when your son will be a grownup, many things that were cool and interesting at that moment they will not be anymore.

But it has to be admitted that some toys develop these skills more rapidly – special awareness can be improved by giving your child a square-peg round-hole style toy, for example. Books can of course help develop reading skills – one of the most important skills of all. Equally, mathematics skills essential for being fully equipped for the future adult life – and there are plenty of electronic devices that can help with this.

But the truth is, any kind of stimulation will help a child learn the educational and social skills they need to progress.

Champagne got a name for itself because of its association with French royalty. Ever since then people have associated the drink with wealth – and so Champagne remains one of the most expensive drinks you can buy. Another reason why it so expensive is that it is generally only made in the Champagne region of France.

But how does it get all fizzy? Surely they couldn’t have carbonated wine way back in the reign of Louis XIV? Right? Wrong! They could! How? They used a process of secondary fermentation that I’m not too familiar with. Anyway, the important point is that they did it, a few hundred years before Mr. Coca J. Cola did it.

So there we are – northern France ain’t so bad after all. Du Pan, Du Vin and of course some unnamed brand of cheese.

Champagne is great, but if you want to combine getting smashed with healthiness – then you would be better advised to go for the red version. Good red wine can help scour your cheese-lined arteries. But if you don’t have any handy, just use Champagne instead.