Looks like August is going to be a crazy busy month. 3 deadlines each either just before or just after the big trip to Vegas with the lads.

A holiday is definately required, and going to Vegas with my best mates from all the way back in high school is something I've been wanting for ages. But also sometime away from normality with C would be amazing. The next holiday we have planned is the wedding which is not till December so I need to come up with something else before then. Even if it's just a nice weekend away somewhere quiet for just the 2 of us.

Down time is important and there's not been enough of that this past year. We need some to get through the next one.

Here is an automated post of the latest bowling scores. 3 Game Weekly Average 4 Week Moving Average

Update: You'll notice that I have fixed the calculations behind the 4 week moving average chart. They were way off and not showing the latest results. All fixed now, as you can see by the way I am rapidly catching up to STS (Seven Ten Split) Onepin! ;)

Here is an automated post of the latest bowling scores.

3 Game Weekly Average

4 Week Moving Average

Big update, depressing for me though. Really need to improve as I only have a month before the company bowling night.

Here are the 3 Game Average and here is the 4 Week Moving Average charts from the last couple of weeks.

Here are the 3 Game Average and here is the 4 Week Moving Average charts from the last couple of weeks.

In the spirit of giving educational gifts that kids don't want, here is fun little quiz for all you Sci-Fi geeks like me.

	I received 72 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Take the Sci-Fi Movie Quiz canon s5 is

Here are the 3 Game Average and here is the 4 Week Moving Average charts from the last couple of weeks.

Onepin is gaining on Rogue's, once thought unassailable, lead. As for myself, I take some pride in the consistency that can be seen in my 4 week moving average chart. Just need to take the next step.

So here it is, the last 7 weeks of rolling scores updated. There's a week each in there for Onepin and I where we didn't go rolling and so were given a 120 average. Looking at them, the most interesting aspect is just how uninteresting they are. We're playing relatively consistently and to a decreasing gap of ability. This is most obvious in my 4 week moving average which has leveled out around the 123-125 region.

Hopefully this week we can all raise our averages a bit :)

3 Game Average

4 Week Moving Average

Rolling

Here are the latest graphs from our weekly rolling sessions.

3 Game Average
4 Week Moving Average

After a great week the week before you can see that some scores dropped off again. Still, I am keeping up with Onepin which is more than could be said a few months ago.

Life

The big news is that a little while back Carly and I got engaged! Something that I know many of you (or most if not all of you) thought would never happen. We had hoped to arrange a small wedding before the end of the year, both of us would like a Christmas wedding, but finding a venue and arranging things while so much else is going on just doesn't seem to be happening. We may well have to wait till next year. Still, gives my best man plenty of time to work out a stag party and write his speech.

One of the other things going on is that we are moving flat, not far. In fact we are moving to a flat about 100 yards from my first London flat. It's somewhere a little smaller, to try to save on rent and other expenses, but most importantly it has central heating and does not have the worlds freakiest neighbours (will tell you all about them another time).

Cats

I had the week off this week, simply because I had plenty of holiday to use before the end of November and it worked well for my current project at work that I take time off around now. Carly has spent most of the week up in Birmingham for a conference. It was lucky that I was around because I came home Tuesday night from rolling to find Dylan in a terrible state. After a quick taxi ride to the 24 hour Veterinary hospital near here (another good reason not to move to far away) I was told that she had a tooth infection which had obviously got so painful for her that she had been chewing on something really hard and cracked the tooth. She was clawing at her mouth when I had got home.

She had to stay in for a couple of nights because she was put under general anesthetic for an operation to remove the tooth. I am happy to report that other than looking a little silly (they shaved her chest and right leg for heart monitor and IV drip) she is home and doing fine.

Geekness

At some point soon I will bring myself to follow up on my overly optimistic post about the (at the time upcoming) WWDC Keynote. I wasn't as let down as most people, I think for once the keynote was perfectly pitched at it's primary audience, developers. Again I enjoyed it from work, a couple of computers following the MacRumoursLive and Engadget coverage while also listening to someone's live UStream audio feed.

One thing I must comment on, the release of Safari for Windows. There are many silly people out there hoping for this to be a lead into more Apple software on Windows, or even people buying into the Steve line about gaining more market share for Safari. It's all a load of crap. There is only one reason Apple released Safari for Windows and that is because they were forced to. By making the iPhone development environment web based apps only they had to release Safari for Windows so people could test their applications. That's it, the only reason.

Speaking of the iPhone, I followed the geekiest launch queue (in Palo Alto) through Kristopher Tate and Zooomr TV's live UStream feed. Looks like much fun was had by all (including an appearance by Steve himself). Cannot wait for the iPhone to be released over here, so long as the rumours about no 3G are not true.

As always here is the rolling update ... late (as always). Promise to do better next time :)

3 Game Average

4 Week Moving Average

Sorry for the delays again, here are the rolling scores with the last two weeks added.

As usual here is the latest rolling chart. I barely managed to keep my 3 game average above 100, throwing a horrible 88 in one game, the lowest score since records began (a whole 7 weeks ago)!

Next week will be a little bit different as it will be She-Ra's birthday so our little rolling trio will expand to a ... well whatever the right work for a group of 6 would be.

Props to Onepin who actually managed to increase his 3 game average by one point to 133, although that seems to me like that difference may lie in within the margin of error ;)

It's been almost 2 months since I last posted, and boy have I been getting flak for that. Fair enough I suppose, I had restarted the blog last Christmas with the intention that I would post regularly and without fail. However life doesn't always move the way you intend it and various things got in the way. But enough of this despondent and utterly useless apology. You don't care about my problems and excuses, you want more content.

Let's start with what I have been up to since we last met.

Rolling ever onwards

Finally the boys and I got our own personal bowling balls, only about 2 years after we said we should. On the day this involved a trip out to Guildford to see Woody, of Woody's Pro Shop. This is the first time I have been out to Guildford since my regular visits, of years past, to a client on the project of whom we dare not speak. The project from Hell took me out there many times (far too many) and so Guildford took on a somewhat desolate tarnish in my mind, which could not be further from the truth. Whilst yes, it is the epitome of out of London life, and reminded me a frightening amount of Stafford, it does seem to be a nice place.

After a pleasant train ride, during which we amused ourselves by having to convince Onepin that he does in fact roll with the same fingers in the ball as everyone else, we navigated our way through Guildford centre out to a leisure complex on the edge of town. Deep, deep down in the basement, technically in what would normally be a storage space in the basement, we found Woody (and who I assume was his wife).

None of us have ever bought a bowling ball before, and unless you have you cannot begin to imagine just how technical a process it is. It took Woody about an hour to measure us all up, using a device that would not be out of place in Darth Vader's gimp room. Everything is taken into account, length of fingers, size of fingers, curve of fingers (in start position and during release) even down to the adjustments for some one's oval thumb.

After an hour and a half of drinking and laughing at people falling over on the ice-rink we returned to pick up our balls(! insert sound that only She-Ra can spell). Having a ball drilled to your exact measurements is a world away from the house balls that you would normally use. I find it hard to believe that we ever managed to play without these. Apparently, so Woody taught us, a correctly drilled ball will naturally grip your thumb when you pick up the ball. You should not be gripping the ball yourself, which is why house balls will cause your hand to ache eventually. Then when you swing the ball, with your thumb at the top, it should naturally slip out, with your fingers following slightly later to give the ball some top spin.

At least that's the theory.

It's such a different way of bowling that in the beginning the new balls are hindering more than helping, but we all feel that we can get more consistency with these, eventually.

Which is a really shame because a couple of weeks before getting the new ball I beat my previous personal best of 165 by rolling a 197, then the following week Onepin broke 200 with a 225. I am now the only one of us never to have past the magical 200. Won't be for a while yet though.

Delayed gratification

It was recently bonus time at work, a time I was looking forward to it having missed out last year because I had not been with the company for long. Very pleased with what I got, obviously a mistake somewhere, even my line manager said so. Right to my face!

This was the time I was waiting for to finally pay off some debts (more on that later) and buy the new iMac I had been wanting for so long. Unfortunately about a week before the bonus was paid the rumours started circling about a complete redesign of the iMac range, probably in time to coincide with the expected June release of OSX - Leopard.

When I bought my iBook some people thought I was quite mad, with the knowledge that Apple would switch Macs to Intel very soon and therefore refresh the whole line. My reasoning at the time was that there was no way to know when the iBook would be refreshed, could have the been the last machine to be done, and I was doing this as an exercise to try out Mac working, not knowing if it would be something I would like. I have never regretted the purchase, but for sometime I have wanted to make that inevitable upgrade. Various other expenses pushed it back, then I chose to wait for my bonus.

Now I guess I will have to wait till June, or whenever, because I really want to come in at the start of a product cycle this time. I want this machine to last for quite a while.

Livin' it up with Mickey and the gang

The debt that I talked about earlier stemmed from a trip to Disneyland Paris (as Euro Disney is now called). We took my girlfriend's niece and nephew, although really it was all about me and the big rides. I did have my doubts about going though. While I have been to Alton Towers and the like many times this was the first time I was going to such a complete experience, a proper theme park. You know, one with an actual theme. I haven't got a clue what the theme of Alton Towers is, anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

But all my fears were laid to rest, it's a wonderful experience that I won't bore you to death with now. But if you are considering it my recommendation is to go.

And the rest

Not too much else to report. Had a massive flood at home. Went to a Kevin Smith Q&A. Lost out big time to Pegleg at poker. Spent a lazy Easter weekend watching TV and films while my girlfriend had to work up North. Surviving my current project at work.

I cannot promise that I will immediately get back to full posting rate, but I don't plan on leaving you in the dark for so long this time.

After a period of having little to do at work things are finally picking up which is good. I was getting very bored. Just a quick post to check in with you all. More tomorrow (technically today, but life gets very complicated if you start thinking that way), looking like it will be a rant on sci-fi ...

Yesterday in the UK it was Holocaust Memorial Day, recognised internationally by the United Nations as International Holocaust Memorial Day. The 27th of January was chosen because it is the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, seen as a powerful symbol of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Today the National Commemoration for Holocaust Memorial Day is being held in Newcastle. Please take the few moments required to pause and think about the meaning of this. You could take that time to watch the following video (produced by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust), which is in two parts.

Thank you all for the messages wishing me a speedy recovery, not that I was near deaths door or anything, but much appreciated. I have mostly spent the last 3 days sleeping, which is what I seem to do whenever I am ill. Perhaps it is just a way of recovering from the fact that I don't sleep much the rest of the time. Who knows.

In between naps I have taken advantage of Sky Box Office and caught up on some films that I missing in the cinema. Yesterday I watched The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift (so should have been called Three Fast, Three Furious), which was crap (although that is my favorite genre of films). Great cameo towards the end, and strange to see the creepy kid from American Gothic all growed up. He's still got that annoying drawl though.

Also yesterday finally saw X-Men 3. Enjoyable, but like all the X-Men films I found it left me expecting more. Not a disappointment, but still not quite what I hoped for. Seems to be the way with all of the superhero films of the past few years. I really enjoyed the new Batman, but looking back still felt there was something that stopped it from being a great superhero film. Even more so with Superman Returns and let's not even start talking about Hellboy!

Yesterday I also caught the latest Transformers trailer, as recommended to me by She-Ra and Biko. Looking very good, and so glad to see that they have got the original voice of Optimus Prime back again, who was also the voice of K.A.R.R. (K.I.T.T.'s evil predecessor, see here) obviously of great excitement to me as according to certain friends I look like Michael Knight's evil twin.

Today was much better film watching, with Inside Man. I love a good heist film and this was a very good one. Despite some very heavy handed comments on race-relations, to be expected from Spike Lee, I really enjoyed it. Well worth a watch if you have not had the chance. It was one of those films that really made me wish I had the DVD so I could see more about it.

One of the other things that I did while I wasn't feeling too well was play Sky's CTU Agent online game. A link to the site and a passcode was displayed at the end of a 24 trailer on Sky One. When you get to the site you enter your name and mobile number and the you are logged into the CTU mainframe. On there is the usual fluff (download the ringtone, look at profiles of the bad guys from previous seasons). Then out of the blue you get a phone call, and a scrambled voice tells you to stay alert, expect orders from Jack and watch your back. Cool. Then come a series of text messages sending you to other sites in the web and codes to get into them, until finally you crack into the Chinese Embassy site where you get to watch the 8 minute preview for Day 6.

Okay, it was all a bit hokey, but it held together well and was a very welcome diversion for someone not feeling very well.

Thanks again for putting up with my absence, especially to those who added to the things to watch post.

If you have spent anytime in pubs in London you will have heard the above. Sitting there quietly enjoying drinks with friends when all of a sudden someone, mostly a guy, will sidled up to the table, being careful not to be spotted by the landlord, and shove a perfectly fanned set of plastic wrapped, photocopy covered crap in your face.

Yesterday, while on my way to poker night I got off the Central Line at Liverpool Street and went above ground. Not the correct stop for a direct route to Archway, but I required lots of change to make cashing out at the end of the night easier (we're not big spenders). As I rose up on the escalator I spotted in front of me not one, but three of these purveyors of illicit unreleased cinema. This is a most unusual sighting as, like the Olsen Twins of late, you rarely see more than one at once.

I knew who they were, or more importantly what they did, because of two things. Firstly having worked in the area, and therefore drank in the area, for many years I recognised one of them. The other give away was their bags of booty, bursting at the seams.

Right then and there I should have launched into a tirade on the wrongness of their royalty stealing ways, but I couldn't. I was far too distracted by their clothes. Do not fear dear reader, I had not come over all Trinny and Susannah. No, it was the fact that they were in a uniform!

All three of them wore the same hats, same jackets and the same Baurer bags full of illegal DVDs. I would not have been surprised to see a company logo stitched into the back of the Jackets, perhaps a skull and cross-bones with "We ripping you off longtime" underneath it.

Maybe they have a union? Could we one day face the Greater London pirate DVD seller strike? Here's hoping.

p.s. I did quite well at poker coming home £13.50 up on the night. All is well that ends well.

Tonight is our monthly poker game round at Pegleg's flat. Undoubtedly I will not do well, but it is one of the few regular get togethers for all the lads. Last night was a friend's birthday, so drinks out in Islington catching up with some people I don't see enough of.

Because of poker night tonight there won't be anymore posts, I just thought I would catch up quickly. As ever if you want something good to read don't forget to checkout the "Latest Good Reads ..." further down the page.

I know that I promised She-Ra a long post on an "us" type geeky subject rather than a "techy" geeky one, but there is some techy work on the site that I really wanted to get out of the way first and it's taking me a little longer than I anticipated to get done. So appologies to him first off.

Saturday night was spent in the company of good friends, eating in a restaurant specialising in Georgian food, celebrating a birthday.

I did spend a lot of yesterday working on Scorched Tortoise but didn't quite get to where I need to be. More work Monday night.

I'm not the type of person who makes New Year resolutions, I've talked about this before, but to be frank I just do not believe they work. They are goal oriented and do nothing for you in the long term. Saying that though, each year I try to find something to focus on for the year, something about myself or my life that I want to change, improve.

Over the past couple of years I've not had a focus. Life has been seemingly going well so I have become a little lazy on this front. But life being life things did change anyway. I left my previous job, an act that was way bigger than even I fully appreciated. I loved that job, even with it's frustrations. My new job is good in many ways, but it's just a job. I don't have a passion for it like I did for the last one.

This job is only the second one I have had since leaving University, which means that I have not had a job that I am not passionate about before. The first year has been interesting in many ways, moving from a small tight-knit company to a large, geographically spread one. Learning new skills, meeting new people has kept me interested. But now I find that one year in it's all become a little regular.

So what am I to do? Many people work in jobs that they are not passionate about. They find their passions elsewhere, they "work to live, not live to work". That's a very sensible way to look at things, getting the work/life balance right. Maybe I'm just not sensible, but I want to be passionate about the work that I do, I enjoyed life that way. So I say again, what am I to do? Both in the immediate future and beyond.

That brings us neatly back to 2007. To be able to decide on a focus for the year, I would need to know what I want to change, where I want to go from here and I just don't have those answers. Yet.

But then perhaps that's the focus I should take. Work out what I want to do and how I'm going to get there. Could be quite a challenge.