powerlympics

so i took the afternoon off work to go see the powerlympics. i got tickets to cycling because it's a great sport.

they have a time trial over 1000m where people off differing levels of handicap can compete and there is a time adjustment to make it fair. c1 get the most time, c3 have no time change and c2 is somewhere in between. the scientist in me wondered how they work it out, but it was far too confusing to see a pattern.

i also have conflicting feelings of sorrow for the athletes because of their disabilities combined with immense awe at their courage and convictions. there were some very impressive athletes!

here are some cool pictures. a silver medallist brit, a gold medallist brit, and a shot of the crowd. finishing with my favourite pic of the day, where i messed around with the shutter speed and followed some cyclists to get them pretty steady in the picture, but the background a blur.

a day in the life of...

...an introvert.

i wake up. silence. not even a single thought in my head. no fears, no hopes, no highs and no lows. if i was able to have a thought I would think that this fleeting moment is bliss.
all too soon i can hear noise. some big, some small. i like the sound of trains in the distance. it lets me know that everything is ok. and it reminds me of her.
back to noise and i realise that it will be like this for the rest of the day. machines, people, nature, constant. some i get to ignore, and to some i have to respond.
sometimes i get caught up in what i'm doing and nothing will affect me. those moments are rare - usually i'm be putting in effort just to function.

having a job and being essentially surrounded for 10-12 hours per day makes things harder. by the time that's over i don't want to talk to anyone. anyone gets offended by this because they think i'm being rude. i'm just trying to clear my mind, be able to relax and improve myself.

i think i'd like to go away somewhere for 6-12 months and just live alone. somewhere empty and quiet. the fields of mongolia perhaps. if only i knew how to get food from somewhere other than a supermarket.

and then, the end of the day, and as i start to drift off to sleep, sounds are amplified, some real, some in my head. i try to forget i'll have to do this all tomorrow and instead attempt to focus on the good things i aim to do.
every day i hope it will be easier for me than yesterday, but i don't even know what i can try to achieve that.
i know i'll always be able to cope; i want to do more than just cope.

the best comment of the olympics

i saw daley get bronze celebrate like he'd won, except what really struck me was the chinese guy who got second crying with his silver. this picture i saw today sums those moments up

but what i heard today about the Korean lady who won the gold in archery was amazing. She apologised to her country for winning by shooting an 8. "In Korea, we do not shoot 8s" she said. amazing.

live poker!

i did a poker in real life, and it was just as unexciting as i remember.

about 20 people turned up, and only top 3 paid with winner getting 58% it seemed rather top heavy. i don't have many interesting hands to report. i folded aqo from the sb against an utg open which may have been a bit tight. didn't want to call or 3bet but in hindsight probably should have 3bet.

ended up doing a deal with 4 left. i have no idea how to calculate icm but when i got home i checked online and it seemed pretty close except for the guy in second getting a bit screwed. i'd pointed this out to him whilst making the deal but he wasn't at all bothered. it had got a bit crapshooty with stacks of 30-70k and big blind being 3k, but there was probably decent play for one more level. maybe next time i should suggest one more level and then a chop. also that might tighten them up so i could steal more! (though i may be giving them more credit than i should)

in other news, i have decided just this second to resurrect "Friday blog resurrections".
For those of you that have forgotten, this is where i tell people who probably don't read my blog to resume blogging because i enjoyed their thoughts on a page.

so rubbish, alexandra and kevin, it's your time to shine.

i'm off to eat some pancakes and maybe enjoy some sunshine.

the money mess relationship

i couldn't think of a catchier name. sorry. but here's what happened:

i went to halfords to buy some wind screen wipers for my car. i returned home to fit them myself, didn't really know what i was doing but how hard can it be? well, as i was clipping on the first wiper it broke. i may have been doing it completely wrong but it was hard to tell.
so i took out the second wiper, and managed to attach it fine, if a bit slowly. i went back to halfords hoping for an exchange since the clip in the middle was broken. here's what it went mental.
lady at the cash register, who we'll call "mental of the day" or menday for short, told me to get another member of staff. i found one, lets call her jonny, who just went and asked someone else, who we'll call cool dude who i think knew everything about every car currently in existence and how to fix anything using all that they sell in the shop. or dude for short.
so jonny lady, after directing me to dude, who was busy, comes back with an entire replacement part. cool. menday, then wants to put it through the till, i assume for stock or something. she tells me off, saying they're only gonna do it once. i said, it's not my fault it was broken, and if this new one is broken i think you have to replace it too. she didn't reply because jonnylady then tells her to not put it through the till. that comment then set off mendal who went apeshit with jonny.
a one minute argument in front of me was followed by a one minute argument in an aisle far away but in my line of sight. she then comes back, takes my card, and then just runs off somewhere else in store. with my card. how very odd.
over 5 minutes later she comes back, and gives me my card back. i don't think she did anything on the till with it.
she also gives me a replacement clip. i say i don't need it, i already have a replacement blade. she doesn't get this after 5 times of me telling her and showing her that the blade i have is now fine so i just leave with my new blade and replacement clip.

this story has a happy ending* as i carefully remove the existing blade to see how to fit the second new one, which passes by without incident.

the end

as i went home with my extra clip, i realised that i would save it somewhere should i ever need it.

I will NEVER EVER need it.

i know however, that i will save it. and i realised i could probably throw away loads of stuff i 'might' need which is taking up lots of space. on the off chance i need something i've thrown away i could probably buy it off ebay for less than £20.
and that's when i realised there is an interesting relationship between hoarding things and money. hoarding things saves money, but is it worth it?


also, does anyone know what the point of collar straighteners are? (ie can i throw them and the spare ones away!?)


*i'm assuming she won't try to commit any fraud with my card having spent 5 minutes in the back of the shop cloning it.

human vs google

how do you know who to trust when faced with human info against results from google?

i guess you usually go for source, but what if both sources are reputable?

here is my dilemma. a welsh person told me some hilarious words in welsh however, google translate doesn't quite agree. but i think computer translators aren't yet up to scratch so i'm going with human winner in this battle. you'll be pleased about this because you'll now find out these two hilarious words in the welsh language. i will spell them phonetically, partly because i don't know how to spell in welsh.

1) jellyfish, in welsh, is called a:
piss god wibbly wobbly
(i think pysgod is correctly spelled welsh for fish, but i prefer my spelling)

2) microwave, in welsh, is called a:
poppity ping

anyway, that's enough learning for one day.

cheerio.

benjamin franklin

being not american, my first exposure to benjamin franklin was i think in day of the tentacle. (i just checked the internet to see if i could buy it for a couple of quid but it seems the going rate for the cd is about £20!)
anyway, as far as i was concerned, all he ever did was capture lightning. with a kite. so a doc brown style character. it turns out, however, that he did a lot more.
i been reading his autobiography (only the abridged one so far) and i think i am going to write down one thing each morning that i will do that day, and then do it. this will be in addition to my daily goals written here, which i have just updated.

i dont have much else to say. i seem to have accumulated a lot of useless stuff in recent years so am going to try to throw some of it away. i hope that in this process i may find a copy of day of the tentacle. that would be like finding money, only better, because it would be like finding money, going to the shop, buying something amazing, from the comfort of not moving.

going to do this while watching the cycling. some of the women look quite hot, but that may just be down to them wearing cool helmets. i don't want to google them in case i am disappointed.