Mathew Browne

I’ve really let myself go this summer. First of all, I had a cousin stay with me for a while. All well and good except my treadmill and weights bench are in my spare room and were being used as makeshift clothes horses.

Then I went to Florida for a week. The all-you-can-eat buffets, huge portions and ridiculously cheap prices were too much temptation. I ate like a pig every single day. Though given that I was walking around the theme parks all day I’m reasonably confident that the excess was walked off.

Finally, several weeks staying with my parents back in Wales. As I’ve blogged about before, my mother loves cooking as much as I like eating. Couple that with several weeks of relative inactivity and you have a recipe for a fatty.

Does anyone know of a decent fitness/exercise/health/nutrition/whatever blog where I can pick up some good fitness and diet tips?

I’m at work and thoroughly exhausted. My New Years Resolutions have burnt out. The exercise thing hasn’t gone well, mainly because of the amount of work I’ve had - so at least one resolution has gone to plan.

The dwindling frequency of my posts makes me wonder if I should post them to one central location and just duplicate them here. Myspace is awful, Facebook less so but still not good nonetheless, but most of my non-geektastic friends would rather read my messages there. Their lack of feed support does not help my decision.

I’m not looking forward to the Wales-England rugby game I’m going to see in 3 weeks - Wales have been abysmally poor and England… well, they’re a one-man team. A good one-man team though, and so far playing better than we are. The cunts.

Escaped unscathed the other side of a work-related drama, in which I figured I was either going to get myself sacked or hand in my notice before a cooler head prevailed. It’s a long and probably uninteresting story that I won’t bore you with. Office politics, people sticking their oars in, too many cooks spoiling the broth, and many other cliched proverbs spring to mind.

Watched the entire third series (or ’season’, if you insist on being a Yank about it) of The 4400 in one day-long sitting last weekend, and it was great. I highly recommend it.

I also loved the Mike Judge film Idiocracy, which paints a pretty grim portrait of what society will be like in 500 years: Benefit-leeching council house dwellers breeding irresponsibly create a dumbed-down society such that a guy with an IQ of 100 is the suddenly world’s smartest man, the President of the USA carries an machine gun and has a harem, the top rated TV show is called “Ow, my balls!” in which the star just gets kicked in the nuts for half an hour, one can buy 6000-calorie burgers from a family establishment called Assfuckers, and no-one drinks water anymore, just soft drinks (and the soft drinks manufacturer employs over 50% of the American population). Watch it, laugh a little, then die a little inside knowing it could happen. Never mind climate change, address the human stupidity issue first and everything else will fall into place.

What with work-work and freelance-work book-ending my waking hours for the past few weeks it’s only as it winds down I’m finding myself with some free time to post here. I’ve made myself a tidy little sum, however I have no tangible evidence of that, thanks to a hefty council tax bill, renewing my travel card, and an impulse purchase.

I got a new Pentax ist DL2 digital SLR camera the other day. It is the proverbial dogs bollocks. Brand new art-wank photo galleries coming soon…

My effort to shift some of my paunch has withered into nothing, again. It’s just too hot lately to exercise! Comfortable and bellied beats knackered and toned.

I had a work experience kid start this week. Less said the better. On his second day he got me into trouble by arriving early, then going to find my boss (interrupting a big meeting) and asking if he’d log him in. Which made me look like a total schmuck.

I am going home to Wales for all of 30 hours this weekend. The Joe Calzaghe fight I’d booked to see was put off (but the rest of the card wasn’t). I managed to cancel the tickets but my seats on the coach there and back were non-refundable. So I figured I’d go home anyway, seeing as I’d paid for them…

I was in Tesco this lunchtime and observed the 2 minute silence there. Not the most tasteful location but there you go. I could have gone to Russell Square or Tavistock Square (as both are about 5 minutes from my office) but I’m knackered and look a right state, so didn’t want to be an unwitting extra for a live Sky News/BBC/ITN/CNN broadcast…

Actual quote overheard:

Person A: Why kill innocent people? They should bring back the death penalty.
Person B: For who?
Person A: The bombers
Person B: The bombers died
Person A: How?
Person B: They were suicide bombers [long pause] that means they blew themselves up too…
Person A: Ohhhhhh riiiiiight.

For those of you who watch Big Brother, there is an unintentionally hilarious photo of Nikki (a few moments prior to entering the house) doing the rounds at the moment.