Blogging
I managed two blog posts this week. One on MPs’ web sites and one on the Daily Mail’s paedophiliac tendencies.
Health
My weight has stuck on a bit of a plateau for the last few weeks. It’s oscillating around a point a couple of pounds heavier than the lightest I’ve reached. Need to do something to break that deadlock. And I know exactly what that something needs to be (start doing more exercise), it’s just hard to galvanise myself.
I’ve done a few long walks this week. On Tuesday, I walked all the way from Westfield to Victoria – about four and a half miles. And I’ve made a change in the tools that I’m using to track my walks. I had been using RunKeeper – but I’ve been getting some really inaccurate trails from it. So I’ve switched to Endomondo and, so far, it’s been far more accurate.
Training & Speaking
Lots coming up in the next few months. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if I’ve taken on too much. The complete list of things I have planned is as follows:
- London Perl Workshop(24th Nov) where involved in four things
- Introduction to OO Perl with Moose – a two hour tutorial
- Twenty Five Years of Perl in Twenty Five (ish) Minutes
- The state of the Perl jobs market II – a panel discussion
- Matt’s PSGI Archive – a lightning talk
- Perl School 3 – 8th Dec. A whole day course on Moose and Perl
- Perl School 4 – 9th Feb. A whole day course on DBIx::Class and Perl
- Floss Perl Courses – 12-15 Feb. Four days of public Perl courses
Films
I saw Beasts of the Southern Wild last weekend. Everyone told me it was wonderful, but I can’t really see what the fuss was about. Yes, the young girl playing the main part was very good. But the film just didn’t do anything for me at all.
Gigs
I’ve been busy in the last two weeks.
Deacon Blue: They were good. But they seem to attract a very strange crowd. The venue was full of middle-aged, overweight, over-emotional people who looked like they didn’t get out much.
Kate Rusby: She’s always incredible. And this show was no exception. It’s astonishing to realise that she was celebrating twenty years in the industry. One of the best shows I’ve seen this year.
Sparks: I’ve been a fan of Sparks since I first heard “This Town Ain’t Big Enough” in 1974. But I’ve never seen them live. But this wasn’t the best way to see them. The tour was called “Two Hands, One Mouth” and I should have realised that it would just be the two Mael brothers without a band. Many of their best songs were stripped of their power when the music is just a piano. The whole performance came over as amateur. This is obviously a minority opinion though, most of the crowd seemed to love them.
The Polyphonic Spree: This was a Halloween concert. They played a lot of the songs from Rocky Horror. But they were rather under-rehearsed and they missed out a couple of my favourite songs. The second half (where they mostly sang their own songs) put them on much firmer ground and they were far better.