This week, for a change, has been filled mainly with revision. This has left extremely little time for other exciting adventures and as such, I have very little of those adventures to share with you.
I have learnt that people tend to get tetchy when products try to kill them - it's a bad idea, for example, to make a homicidal door. I have also studied a proof that curiosity did in fact NOT kill the cat. This is, allegedly, because Jack (the man who owns the cat, named Tuna) happens to own a dog, Rover. This makes Jack an animal lover and therefore would NOT kill a cat. After extensive proof and tree traversal we get the answer. Curiosity did NOT kill the cat. Certainly not a cat named Tuna, owned by animal loving Jack.
Well that settles it then.
I have further discovered that Unicorns are certainly horned and magical, however it is impossible (without further investigation) to determine whether or not they are mythical. We also don't know if it is a mammal or immortal. This is a shame.
Learning all this has come at a cost. As I said, I've had little spare time and as such haven't been able to take to the water as much as I should. Training for the Great North Swim [Massive thank you to anyone who has donated, by the way. Very much appreciated.] has taken a hit - and I've only got 6 days left. 4 of these will be clogged up with revision. Fingers crossed. So, before I get back to staring at a text book trying to absorb the wonderments contained within; It has come to my attention that the fixtures for next season have been released. In a press release, we're told "Steve Kean's side start life in the npower Championship with a tricky away trip to Ipswich Town". Fixtures can be found here. Championship does have more of a ring to it than Premier League. Kind of.
"I have a tortoise in the garden, if you can believe that."
I went to see Coldplay last night (09/06/2012) and it was rather spectacular. Interesting decision playing "99 Problems" before they came on, followed by what I'm told was the "Back to the Future" theme - worked surprisingly well though. They also kindly provided the crowd with wristbands which lit up as part of the show - pretty genius idea really as it looked rather amazing. I took a few photos and a couple of videos, which you can see here.
It took about two hours to get there (via a quick trip to McDonald's for some sustenance) and only a mere two hours to travel the first 8 miles (followed by another quick trip to the same McDonald's for some more sustenance), with the rest of the journey taking a further 2 hours. Despite the 6 hour journey time, it was certainly worth it.
As exams are now in full swing, I haven't had much chance to do anything of particular interest for the rest of the week (although you could argue Coldplay more than made up for it), however I did receive this rather prestigious award earlier in the week, which now takes pride of place on my wall, just next to the certificate for catching all 150 original Pokémon. A spectacular array of awards I've built up so far.
Almost the highlight of the week
If you don't want to know the F1 results, then I've kindly hidden them, but if you already know them or don't mind having them spoilt you can always
I managed to keep at least an eye on the Formula 1 earlier today whilst tackling revision and what an interesting race it was. Literally would never have guessed the results, ever. Disappointed Fernando couldn't hold his position but massive well done to Hamilton, Grosjean, Perez and their respective teams. Mercedes let themselves down somewhat by managing to make a DRS that fails in the open position - the complete opposite of what should happen - which was rather unfortunate for Schumacher.
Within the news/reams of stories I've seen this week, I feel this one to be the most interesting. It's a toothbrush. And a water fountain. Sign me up.
It is now 2 weeks before I take part in the Great North Swim and can announce that my wetsuit has now arrived and even fits. I say 'fits'. It's like playing with a Chinese Finger Trap trying to get it on and off and is not the most flattering piece of kit I own. I digress. I would like to quickly add that, for those who don't know, I am indeed taking part in the swim to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care and you can donate here and they are extremely appreciated.
Ok, so granted I'm not actually in France, per se; but I finally completed my little Channel Challenge. Just. It was a gruelling last 4 miles (all in one day), but it's over. This, shall be the last pretty picture relating to my Channel Swim and as such I shall make it larger than usual - if only to entertain myself.
Channel Complete - 31/05/2012
Just under 19 hours, 22 sessions and an average of 79 lengths (~2km) per session. As I logged the final stretch on swimming.org I felt a certain sense of joy. [On a side note - entering the last swim into the spreadsheet I'd crudely put together to work out the averages etc. left me with '#VALUE!' as it vainly attempted to divide by 0 - not so rewarding]. As previously mentioned, my next challenge is the 1 mile Great North Swim which I shall be raising money for Marie Curie Cancer Care [currently, their site appears to be down and the last few weeks of nigh on solid ASP.net development tells me that their problem is of the ASP variety] and those of you who feel like you wish to donate/sponsor can do so on Just Giving; and, as always, it is very much appreciated.
Moving on from the topic of swimming and onto the pearls of wisdom and fun facts I've picked up over the past week.
I don't know how many people have actually seen this, but I thought I'd share it with you as it's a relatively powerful image.
It's part of the marketing for the Olympics (or more specifically, Paralympics) from Canada. There's also a video too... (There's a short article here for anyone who's interested).
They're also running with the tagline "Super Athlete" on their site, which I think is also rather powerful.
I'm not too sure on the exact time, but the Windows 8 Release Preview has recently been announced and it looks Ok. It's basically a cross between Windows 7 and Windows Phone [which is like a cross between Windows Mobile and the XBox dashboard]. Essentially it's Windows-ception. [For anyone who hasn't seen Inception - this may make less sense than it already does]. I'm banking on the actual usability and features of it being a lot better than they are in my mind. I did download the preview for Windows 8 quite a while ago - but it errored every time I tried to install it, so I've yet to see it first-hand.
And sticking with the technology theme... Has anyone seen the Google Glasses concept video? Or even heard about it? I would recommend seeing it so much that I've taken the liberty to stick it right under your nose.
Well it's getting to the point where the post is becoming more of a book than a blog post, so I guess I'll leave it there for now - I might consider slightly smaller, more directed posts in the future - but for now we can leave it as a 'my week in a post'.
"I wouldn't say anything is impossible. I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and put the work and time into it"
In keeping with tradition, a brief update on the channel swim. I've only managed 4 sessions in the past week, however this still leaves me on track for a mile a day to finish. The only real reason for doing any of this was, of course, just for the sheer fun of it. After hearing the suggestion of it (I can't take all the credit for the idea - after all, it's not like it hasn't been done in one go before!), I thought it would be a good challenge to motivate me to actually do something; and it has been. It is of course by no means over yet so perhaps a little premature for celebration, but a little optimism can't hurt.
Progress as of 23/05/2012
As much as I intended to find some great wisdom to impart on any readers, I am taking a slightly different note in this post. This is where the title starts to become even more relevant. I have decided that I will be taking part in the Great North Swim, an outdoor swim in Windermere, Cumbria. I will be swimming a mile on the 24th June in the great outdoors. This is very different to casually swimming in a heated, sheltered pool and shall hopefully be a great step up and a suitable next challenge. I will also be taking part in the event to raise money for Marie Curie. If you do feel as though you wish to donate to this cause, please do head over to the Just Giving page I've set up.
So I waited just over a week for something to inspire me to write my next post. The inspiration didn't arrive - and if it did; I missed it. Not to worry.
As will most likely be the case for any posts I am compelled to write in the month of May, I'll start with the familiar pretty picture of the channel swimming progress. Due to coursework and other such goings on, I missed out on two days of swimming - which means I've 'lost' 2 miles. In a bid to catch up, I powered my way through 3.7km today (Thursday) and will need to pull off a similar stint tomorrow (Friday). As a direct result of this, I'm rather exhausted and this is quickly becoming my usual blogging mode (and indeed my day-to-day mode). For anyone interested, 3.7km is roughly 10% of the total distance of the channel.
Progress as of 17/05/2012
In the spirit of the previous lack of comments regarding the relegation, I stumbled across this and thought I'd share it. There's also a video knocking around, which if you haven't already seen - you're probably not going to; so I'll not bother finding the link. No further comment, your honour.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the Premier League, City were cutting it rather fine in their efforts to lift the trophy (not the actual lifting, but in the match). That brief minute or two when United thought they'd won, before City clinched the 'last minute' winner, was rather tense. But did they 'buy the league'? No. No they did not. Also, England squad, this.
Over in the world of Formula One, I believe that Maldonado did a rather impressive job of winning the Spanish GP - however the team let themselves down a couple of hours later when they managed to set fire to the garage. I bet Maldonado is 'fuming' at such a display. Awful. Anyway, it's looking to be a promising season as, so far, a different driver (and team) has won each race.
Hopefully the next week or so will be filled with inspiration and wisdom and I can impart that upon you.
Oh yes I almost forgot. I woke up last night and thought I saw the ghost of Gloria Gaynor standing at the foot of my bed. At first I was afraid... then I was petrified.
"You stay classy planet Earth."
Ben
With regards to the mass of links - I didn't really want to fill up the page with images and this way you get a chance to do a bit of further reading, as it were.
Well, after trawling through every setting on here (and having the account for at least 5 years), I've finally taken it upon myself to actually write something. Granted, I spent more time fiddling with the custom 404 error ("Page not Found" for the muggles) than I have on possibly anything, ever; but procrastination aside - here I am.
Indeed, I would like to begin with an intelligent, thought provoking post. But I'm tired. Very tired. Instead, I thought I might as well update you on life, the universe and everything. 42. If you don't believe me, Google it. It's old news.
So just over a week ago I decided that I'd try and swim the channel (which I am informed by the good folks at swimming.org is 22 miles) over the course of the month. There are a good few days where I'll be unable to make it to the water so I'm aiming for about a mile per session - about an hour on a good day. For those who don't already know, for those who care and for those who can't use Google - a mile is about 64 lengths in a 25m pool. Here's a pretty representation of my progress thus far.
Progress as of 08/05/2012
Well I appear to have run out of things to put, currently. I would comment on the relegation of Blackburn Rovers, but I have nothing to add. I would point you in the direction of this, which sums up the courage and bottle our manager has. Probably.
I do intend to carry on posting at least semi-regularly (whatever that means).
"The journey will be dangerous. Take one of these."
Always remember to never be definite about anything. Probably.
Take care, see you around, cheers.
Ben.
Also, I sometimes moonlight as a bird and partake in tweeting. Follow @oddbod92
