Productive Weekend

What's this? Two posts in only a few days? This is SPARTA!... wait, no, This is Madness :)

So, only a brief update today really, but Sunday was quite productive so I figured that I'd post it while I'm on a roll.

So, Sunday was also a clothes shopping day, but for non-costume related things. All I really did was have a wander through KMart to see what I could find, but I came up with a pretty good haul (and just about everything was on sale!!)
Items I ended up with:

• A couple of pairs of pants that aren't either jeans or 'good' pants
• A couple of button up shirts (seriously, why the lack of button up short sleeved shirts? There was one style, in a bunch of colours, surely I can't be the only person who wears these things in Winter?)
• A pair of Pyjamas (first time I've owned those in what, twenty years?)
• One black business shirt that may find use at Continuum, depending on what else I find
• A new jacket that is.. halfway between my current blue blazer and a rain jacket. 
• A new woolen, button up jacket that should do me proud the next time I end up somewhere so cold I think I'm going to get frostbitten (*cough*MtWellington*cough*)

Not a bad haul methinks, and like I said, basically all on sale. Also! One piece of awesome news, now that my gut has receded enough to not need extra space, I'm down to a men's small (well except for the woolen jacket, that's a medium). This is fantastic! My gut no longer dictates my shirt size! Woohoo!

I'm also down to an 87 in pants, and this should hopefully shrink further through the next year.

Only downside of the weekend shopping trip was my failure to find any Victorian style shirts (ie the ones with the ruffled cuffs etc) which I need for a plan for Continuum, but oh well, can search elsewhere there.

Also plan to hit Target this week sometime, since I hope they'll have more casual shirts.

I also managed to throw together a bracer for use at SCA tonight (only a rough one, need to get some leather to finish it off, and get some more craft glue... I.. erm.. lets just say that I found my craft glue upside down in my craft pile.. with the lid having worked its way off. In good news, I've managed to de-glue everything now.

Oh yes, speaking of SCA stuff. At last Monthly Bash I was.. well, 'given' I guess a spare Demi gauntlet since my current one wasn't really safe enough (and by 'given', I mean it was an old rusty one and by the time I was de-armored the guy who had loaned it to me had already left, apparently not wanting/remembering it). Now this Demi was *covered* in rust, no metal visible, one big lump of rust.

Some elbow grease and a good soaking in CLR Clear and it's now back to metal and quite shiny again! The bucket of CLR looked like a bucket of mud by the end.

In cooking adventures, I decided to have another go at Pie last night, combining the last two recipes I've mentioned on here into a Shepherd's pie but with mashed cauliflower rather than potato. 

It.. didn't come out too bad. I got the blind baking thing perfect this time (yay for picking up baking paper), but I think there was still too much liquid in the meat mixture when I put it in, since it didn't hold together. The mash is different, but I think it still works.

Just means that rather than something that looks like a slice of pie, I end up with a mound of mince & mashed cauliflower on my plate, with some pastry bits hidden under it. 

Oh, yes, speaking of food. When coming back from my shopping trip I had my first chocolate bar in around a fortnight (mmm, peppermint Aero), and today at lunch I had my first cake (vanilla slice) in about the same amount of time.

Sweet things really are that much sweeter when you don't have them all the time.

Not much been happening today, being a work day and all. I headed out on my lunchbreak and picked up some string for re-lacing my Demi (and forgot craft glue ><) and stopped by a new Goth shop that Laura spotted (that's basically next to the place I got the string from). Alas they didn't have Victorian style male shirts in there either, the very helpful sales girl showed me the least-feminine girl's Victorian shirt that they had there, but alas it was too small. 

On the other hand, if anyone's looking for Gothic stuff in the city (especially either shoes or women's clothes) , it's worth taking a look, lots of stuff and really nice staff. Ground floor at Australia on Collins, first store on the left from the Lt Collins st entrance. Discover something or something (me bad at names? That's unpossible!).

And I think that's about it. SCA fighting training tonight which is always fun (even when you end up with a suspected fractured arm). 

Talk to you next time!

Productive Week!

Hello once again everyone :)
First up, my apologies for these updates being more sporadic than I had planned, I've had a few nights recently when I've been late home and just too busy to post, and a couple of nights that haven't gone so well and I really haven't felt up to posting anything.

So! Lets see, what's been going on recently...

Well, first up this week turned out to be Cauliflower week. Mostly at least. Monday I think I just ended up with noddles since that was all I could make quickly enough to fill my stomach after SCA Fighting training (plus I kinda had an empty pantry).

Tuesday I had a go at SCA Rapier fighting as well. It's.. interesting. Very different to Heavy, and a whole lot of old Kung Fu reflexes started kicking in, since we spent a lot of time concentrating on footwork and specific stances/ways of moving. I think I'll keep going (after uni exams at least, they're on brief hiatus while people go through SwotVac), and hope that my old reflexes help more than hinder me.
Oh, and also, very different muscle group usage in the arms. I can fight for several hours at Heavy without my sword arm being sore, but ten minutes into Rapier and it felt like it was going to drop off. Who came up with this "You must hold your sword up, unbraced and pointed at the enemy at all times" thing anyway??

Where was I? Oh yes, Cauliflower
I was sent this recipe by a friend from work, and decided to give it a try Wednesday (Kudos to Rachel!)
Also, please note that I haven't added any embellishments to this, this is exactly how she sent it to me...

____________________________________________________________________________________________
"Mash & Grab"
Serves 4

Ingredients

8 chicken sausages

8 fresh sage leaves

spray oil

one large cauliflower

2 cloves garlic

salt and pepper

1 red onion

1/2 tbsp marg/butter

1 beef stock cube

1/2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 tbsp plain flour

175ml water

small handful blueberries

1 tbsp herb and garlic cream cheese

Method

-30 mins

preheat oven to 200'C. spray a roasting pan with non-stick oil, sprinkle the sage leaves over it and place the sausages on top. bung it in the oven to bake for 10 mins

-20 mins

wash the cauliflower, remove the outer leaves and cut it into 3cm chunks

peel the garlic and put it and the cauliflower in a large pot, cover with water and add a pinch of salt. boil for 15 mins or until soft

remember the sausages? turn them over to bake for another 10 minutes until they turn a nice shade of brown. give them a prod at the end and make sure your fork comes out hot.

-17 minutes

now, onto the onion gravy. finely slice the onion and fry in marg over a medium heat. sprinkle with salt and crumble in the stock cube, stir until light brown.

add the brown sugar (1/2 tbsp) and balsamic (1tsp) and stir for another two minutes

remove and set aside 1/3 of the onions then add the flour (1/2 tbsp) to the rest and stir for a minute to coat the onions

slowly whisk in the water (175ml) until you get a gravy consistency, then mash the onion with a fork

Add the blueberries and crush them using the fork

add the remaining onions and keep it all warm until you're ready to serve

-5 minutes

one the cauliflower is soft, drain it in a seive. use a small bowl on top to force out as much excess water as you can, then put it back in the pot, add the cream cheese and some salt and pepper.

an electric hand mixer is the best gadget to pummel the cauliflower to that mashed potato consistency, but one of those medieval hand mashers works well too

Dollop the cauliflower mash on a plate with a theatrical flick of the ladle, top with two sausages per person and drown them in your guilt free gravy.

Garnish with a sage leaf and tuck in.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Honestly I didn't think all that much of it. The sausages were really nice, and the mash actually wasn't half bad, but the gravy didn't really suit it for me. Turns out that while I like onion flavoring, and onion pieces in my bolognese, I don't like fried onion much.
Still, well worth trying out, and chicken sausage and salad sandwiches make for a great lunch :)

Thursday I was out with friends and there was takeaway had, and Friday was just plain ole sausages, veggies and gravy (don't worry, Cauliflower was in that one :) ). Tonight is likely to be chicken and chips (don't worry, home made), so no Cauliflower there either, but I do plan to try a Shepherd's Pie tomorrow night using the mashed cauliflower rather than potato. Will see how it goes :D

Moving on from food, one new thing done during the week: Thursday lunchtime I went to one of the massage places attached to the vic market. Might not sound like much, but while I'm fine getting up on stage and talking in front of a few hundred people, I'm horrible at things involving making appointments and going to new places on my own. I even feel embarrassed calling restaurants to make bookings. So yes, this was actually a reasonably big deal for me (Kudos to Laura for both the idea and the recommendation of place to go to).
So swallowing my fear I went along to Sabai Thai at the market, and it was definitely an enjoyable experience. I had a half hour massage that was back, back of legs, arms, shoulders and head, and while Laura had warned me it'd hurt... yeah, it hurt. Most especially on the backs of my calves and the sides of my neck, and my back gave a couple of almighty cracks as well. I walked out having traded a pile of knots for a pile of bruises, a trade I think was well worth it.
I also made a booking for somewhere else, but that's not for a few weeks so you'll need to wait to hear about that one.

Friday lunchtime (I seem to be doing a lot of things in my lunchbreaks recently) I went along to the Vic Market in search of boots for my Continuum costume (Kudos to Lauren for both coming along, and scouting the place for me so we didn't have to scour the whole market). For those not in Melbourne, Friday was the day we had the massive downpour of rain, netting up to a month's rainfall in a day, with up to 100km/h winds. Dear lord am I glad the markets are undercover :D
Net result, boots have been acquired (Thanks for the offer Nicolai, but I won't need to borrow yours :) ), they fit, are actually quite comfortable, and while they are *loud* (oh gods the clicking!) should fit the costume quite well. Hespa however has warned me that if I think the boots echo on concrete, wait till I get to the Maskabolo ball that I'm making the costume for, and listen to them on the dance floor (Note to self, learn to tapdance)

Today has been remarkably productive.
I had my haircut (sorry mum, no fringe and no 'short top back and sides'), then headed up to Savers (big Op Shop) for costume bits. I've now got what should be a perfectly viable pair of white pants, and a blue dress that I'll be able to modify into Nemo's coat/jacket/tunic thing (must figure out a way to hide the back zip).
After that I scoured... seven I think different fabric stores (and ran into Rachel and her friend Mindy) before finally finding something that.. while it's not what is used on the costume in the movie, should be at least thematically appropriate.
Other than that, hair dye has been acquired to finally remove the pink from my hair (I think two months is long enough for the Leukemia Foundation), fingers crossed I manage to actually get my whole head!!
I've also done a couple of loads of washing (the second of which should just about be ready to be taken out of the clothes dryer now...) and picked up food (and Cider!) for dinner tonight.
Tomorrow's plan is to pick up some non-costume related pants and shirts that fit me properly. Hopefully that goes well!

LARPing, Costume and Misc

Hey all!
Been a few days since the last update, so lets see if I can catch things up a bit.

Went along to a LARP for Serenity today (as in the Firefly series). Been playing in a fortnightly tabletop game and then today was a big freeform with people from all the crews, most people dressed up in costume in some way.
It was quite a bit of fun. We blew up a firing range with a load of explosive paintballs :D
My first time doing something like that, but I enjoyed myself. I'm playing a fashion-ignorant, absent minded Engineer was interesting to costume for. I ended up with workboots, work pants, a Hawaiian shirt and a leather jacket, with a couple of Nerf guns and a whole pile of tools in my pockets.

Hrm, speaking of LARP, had a load of fun at Swordcraft on Friday. For those unaware, Swordcraft is basically "A hundred people on an oval, dressed in all kinds of costumes, forming various different "Warbands", wailing on each other with fiberglass & foam swords".
It's quite silly, and quite fun. Damned good exercise too!
I normally just grab a sword and shield and fight like that, but decided to borrow a quarterstaff, drag my old blue robe out of the wardrobe (leftover from playing Cutwell back in our production of Mort) and go as a "Monk".
I spent half the night sprinting away from a group from the Bandits Warband (typically while they screamed either "He's got loot" or "Run Monk Run"), and the other half sneaking up behind people and clobbering them. Huge piles of fun, definitely going to be something to go with for a while I think.
Really need to get myself some leather armor to wear under the robe, though that could take a while to get hold of.

Lets see, what else...
Oh yes, on the costume front. For the Continuum convention's costume ball I plan to go as "Captain Nemo". Costume something like this from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie.

Now, certain bits (like the beard) will be ignored, but basically I'll need to assemble:

• Black knee high boots
• Turban (Maybe, not really required)
• Knee length blue jacket/tunic
• Patterned white fabric to sew/glue onto it
• Appropriate style white pants
• Fancy belt (or black belt with fancy buckle, and use the same fabric as the jacket addition)
• Bandoleer
• Sword (You can't see it in the shot, but he uses a scimitar)

All in all it shouldn't be too tricky I don't think:

• The jacket/tunic will be a scrounge ebay/op shops, or find a pattern to make. Actually, a blue robe or dress should be easily adapted. Just cut to knee length and slit the skirt portion front & back. Assuming I can find one in appropriate fabric.
• Belt buckle should be findable from the Vic Market (no doubt a belt will be easy there as well)
• Patterned fabric like that should just require some fabric shop scrounging
• Bandolier... thick belt re purposed for over the shoulder should work
• Sword, I can hopefully bribe Laura to borrow hers (once it arrives)
• The pants.. probably again ebay/op shops
• Knee high boots.. that could be the tricky one. Any ideas (other than the aforementioned ebay/op shops), since I hardly want to spend huge amounts on them.

Now, that's just what's required to match the picture there. In the original books it's very much steampunk themed, so I was thinking of some other additions to it, but I'm not sure what's required (if anything really). Something to think about there (unless anyone else has some ideas?)

Deadline: 9th June (three weeks... crap...)

Moving on the SCA stuff, I do have one other small but rather important project there. I need to make a 'favor' for someone to carry into battle. Basically someone bearing your favor means that they fight for you, they carry your honor, and you trust them to represent you.
Most commonly in the SCA at the moment this is a small piece of cloth worn attached to your belt. I need to go with something Scottish themed, but unsure what exactly. It also really needs to be personalised, and have a crazy notion that this may require me to learn how to embroider (which is a terrifying thought).

Deadline for this one would be September, but earlier is good.

On the more structured and regular front, I'm thinking I need to come up with a daily checklist for myself, to make sure that I'm doing some things regularly to get into a good habit.
Thus far I'm thinking:

• At least 20 situps
• Clean out/retidy one shelf or other similar unit in my house
• Some form of cardio exercise (even if it's just riding to work or the supermarket)
• Write one Affirmation (for the App we're making)

I'm sure there should be more things going on that list, but I can't think of anything just yet. Any ideas?

Previous Business:

• The old bits of useless clothing etc that I had to dispose of have been chucked.
• One of the shirts that I can't really wear but are still good has been taken. Anyone want a Blue, Cream or Black shirt? They're listed as Medium, but very loose
• Old microwave has been disposed of

Still haven't managed my "Do something different and weird/unusual" for this Month yet. Nothing's really come up. Anyone have any ideas? Doesn't have to be complex or spectacular, just.. something new, weird or a bit unusual.

Anyway, I think that's about it for this entry. Tune in in the next couple of days for this week's Vegetable Challenge. I'm thinking carrot...

I win at Pie!!

So, my first home cooked meal of Cabbage week.

In the typical "Me" sense I decided hey, lets try making a Pie! I've never made one before!
I started out with this recipe http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/20980/family+mince+pie  and then... added a few extra touches.

My Recipe, such as it was, ended up being:

One moderate sized white onion
One moderate sized carrot
Couple of teaspoons of Garlic paste
Teaspoon or so of mixed herbs
Half a teaspoon or so of BBQ seasoning
Err.. some random amount of Ginger
Three sheets of pastry
Kilo of mince
Four-ish cups of cabbage
An egg
Large splash of Mint sauce
Large splash of apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup red wine
1/2 litre of beef stock
Around 60g of gravy mix

Step 1: Preheat oven to 190
Step 2: Grease pie dish, line with pastry (took a bit more than one sheet to properly cover it
Step 3: Put a layer of foil over the pastry, and cover with rice (Note: Baking paper would have been better, but I didn't have any. Also, I only put enough down to weigh down the bottom, not the sides. Oops)
Step 4: Bake for 15 minutes
Step 5: Dice onion & carrot, brown in wok
Step 6: Add mince and brown
Step 7: Add spices, wine, garlic, mix & start simmering/reducing
Step 8: Dissolve the gravy mix in boiling water, add that and the stock to the mince mix
Step 8.5: If (like mine did) the pre-baking reduced the pastry enough that half the sides were open, add more pastry to rectify this.
Step 9: Simmer and reduce until it's nice and thick, add to the pie dish
Step 10: Add top to the pie. Prick and then glaze with the egg
Step 11: Bake for half hour

And man, it was taaaaaaaaaasty!!
I ended up with too much pie mix (probably only needed 800g of mince), so I have extra filling in the fridge at the moment.

Here's a picture!!

Back from Tassie

Ok! So, sorry about the multi day delay between postings there everyone. I've been off in Tasmania catching up with friends, and didn't have computer access.

So! A couple of other projects and ideas have come up with I was over there, just little things but hey, 'little things that make up life' and all that.

First up, myself and another friend have decided that we want to learn to use our cameras properly, rather than just using presets and auto-modes. This will be coming sometime after June 12th due to that friend's prior engagements.
I'm also checking for firmware updates for my camera as I type, since it seems that what my manual says and what appears on my camera are two different things. I currently can't change the apeture, shutter speed, or any of that, the method the manual says should work, doesn't. Fingers crossed an update is all that's needed.

Also, I have three costumes that I need to prepare for in the next couple of months.

• One I need to do by this Sunday. Thankfully that one shouldn't require much more than some goggles, a Nerf gun and a jacket, anything else is gravy.
• The Second one needs to be done by June 9th for the Continuum Sci Fi/Fantasy convention. I'm thinking a variation of Captain Nemo from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (yes I know, terrible film). I'll do a breakdown on what I need for that one at a later point, likely after this weekend's one is done.
• The Third one is for a party in July. I won't say what the plan is since the person who is hosting reads this and I want it to be a surprise, but I dare say it's going to either end up very easy or very fiddly. (Sorry Lauren, I'm not crossdressing this year).

Other than that, at the moment I'm just getting ready for going back to work tomorrow and trying to get all those little things I've missed the last few days done. For starters, once I finish writing this I'm going to sign up to help with a few panels at Continuum. Never done it before but hey, I know full well that I can talk, and I don't get stage fright :)

Hrm. Also need to choose a vegetable for this week's "Dinners Theme". I'm thinking I might go Cabbage. Nice and simple start. Wonder if I can try making a cabbage & mince pie or something....

Anyways, more coherent update to come soon!

Housecleaning!

Two posts in just a few minutes? My my, anyone would think I was nearly serious about this!

I've done some starting organisation for at least getting my home tidied and a bit organised. By which I mean gone completely through my drawers and wardrobe, so far I've:

• Put everything in it's proper place (rather than having a couple of baskets of clean clothes and a dirty pile)
• Paired all my socks (and chucked out a whole bunch of odd and worn out ones)
• Tried on everything I've got to see what still fits and what doesn't.
   - All my 'don't quite fit, too small' items have been folded and put on a shelf that doesn't get used much. Hopefully once I've lost some weight they'll fit again
   - I've found that almost all of my button up shirts are, really, too big. Either just a little bit loose, or very loose. They've now been sorted in my wardrobe by size, and I need to buy myself some new shirts that fit properly so I can rotate in to properly fitting stuff.

Still to do:

 - Throw out the few bits of things that both don't fit and aren't really in condition to do anything else with

 - Give away a bunch of my shirts that are too big for me [Have found someone who may be interested in at least a couple]

 - Do something with my suit. It's also too big for me now, need to sell or give away

  - I'm not going to replace this just yet, since I don't want to get one now and not need it until I've lost more weight

 - Buy new shirts (probably some non-jeans pants and a decent looking jumper too)

I've also resolved that I'm going to go through my cupboards and shelves, both tidying and ditching anything that really has no reason to be kept. Plan is to go through one shelf or cupboard per day from here on in (well, except the four days I'll be in Tasmania with friends, unless someone can teach me how to teleport in the next 24 hours).

To do:

 - Go through one shelf or cupboard each day until whole house is checked, tidied and organised

 - Get rid of busted Microwave (Died two days ago)

 - Get rid of worn out clothes dryer (motor can barely spin its own weight, let alone clothes as well. Will see if Dad wants to take it apart for parts or something)

Day One: Benchmarking

Some of the things on my 'to do' list require knowing where I am now exactly in order to be able to get somewhere, so it's time to record some Benchmarks of where I am now with things:

Health & Fitness

• Weight: 81.5kg
   - Goal: 70kg
• Girth: 40"
   - Goal: 36"
• Situps*: 19 (yes, I couldn't manage #20)
   - Goal: 50
• Riding Distance: Unknown, but somewhere over 10kms
   - Goal: 30+kms
• Running Distance: Unknown, but not much
   - Goal: 5kms (Couch to 5K Program)
• Eating Habits:
   - Need to increase my Fruit & Veg intake by quite a bit. Going to kick off a new eating plan when I get back from Tasmania next week

Creative

• iPhone/Android App: Currently have one with a bunch of friends partway between planning and Alpha stages.
   - Needs a whole bunch of one-liners written up
   - Needs art done (This will be done by someone else)
   - Needs programming tidied up and tailored (This will be done by someone else)
   - Need to organise a team meeting to see where everyone is up to. Hopefully this weekend
• Writing: Going to leave this one on the back burner for the moment to relook at later on. May well do this for NANO this year

Big & Scary

• Career:
   - Goal: Intellectually stimulating job that still pays well
   - Current to dos:  A friend of mine runs a Recruitment agency. Must polish up my resume and send it to her
• Place to live:
   - Goal: Have my own place rather than renting, in a spot that is near work and appreciates in value so that if I decide I want to pack up and head overseas, I can sell it and cover my debts.
   - This one is also getting to sit on the back burner for a while. This will be looked at after Career is more organised I think

Intellectual

• A couple of friends have sent me links to places offering online training courses. I should take a look and see if anything tickles my fancy. Something to help out for the Creative category I think.

Ok, I think that's a reasonable benchmark post to kick off. As I think of things I'll keep adding back here for easy reference.
Also, if anyone can think of anything I've missed or has any suggestions, please comment!

To Do List

Ok, this will be the post I'll be editing with my current "To Do" list. This will be for specific projects like cleaning up my house, rather than overarching things like fitness.

• Completely clear-out, sort and reorganise ALL the stuff in my house.
• Do one drawer/cupboard/shelf per day until complete
• Give away the stuff too big for me
• Throw away the stuff that's no longer wanted
• Get rid of busted microwave
• Get rid of worn out clothes dryer
• Do something with my now too large Suit
• Buy new shirts/jacket/pants
• Find a longcoat that looks good on me
• Spanners costume (Due 20/05)
• Need tools
• Need jacket
• Need Nerf gun
• Need goggles
• Need metal bracers
• "Nemo" costume (Due 09/06)
• Black knee high boots
• Turban (Maybe, not really required)
• Knee length blue jacket/tunic
• Patterned white fabric to sew/glue onto it
• Appropriate style white pants
• Fancy belt (or black belt with fancy buckle, and use the same fabric as the jacket addition)
• Bandoleer
• Sword (You can't see it in the shot, but he uses a scimitar)
• Mystery Costume (Due 14/07)
• Learn to use Camera better
• Get Camera's 'change shutter speed' etc bits working
• Learn what all the terminology and abbreviations actually mean
• Speak with camera-buddy about what we want to achieve etc
• Learn when to use specific modes etc in what situation
• iPhone/Android App
• Need to write a pile of one-liners
• Need to organise a meeting with everyone to see where we're at
• General Creative
• Work out if I want to do an Adventure Book, Novel or P&P RPG Rulebook
• Do more general writing to get back into the groove of things
• Make a Favor for the SCA (Due September)
• Get New Job
• Get New place to live
• Come up with daily to-do list

Chapter One - A New Beginning

So. First post of my new Blog, I guess that means I tell you what this is all about?

Two nights ago my best friend gave us both a challenge - Spend the next year sorting out who we are, what direction we each want our lives to take, do all of those 'maybe should do sometime' things, and generally work on making ourselves *better*.
I know that I've spent the last few years coasting through life, and I need to start revving the engine and moving off. I don't know what my destination is, but I figure just moving forward is a good idea.
Yesterday, she also posted a link to this on Twitter, and I got to thinking "Hey.. that's kinda cool."

So, being the social-media conditioned IT Techie that I am, I decided to Blog my attempt at building a better Me over the next twelve months. I'm still a little uncertain about all the exact specifics, but I figure that knowing people are reading this will keep a bit of pressure on to not fall back to 'coasting' mode, and people can always post new and interesting ideas they think would help out!

The big things that I full well know I have to improve, learn or start doing are (in no particular order):

• Get into better shape & lose more weight. Don't get me wrong, I'm no stranger to exercise, but I've still got the ole 'spare tyre' that comes with a desk job and I want to finally get rid of the damned thing. With that in mind I want to:
   - Complete the "Couch to 5k" program. This.. may need to wait until winter is over (Obligitory "Winter is Coming" reference) so that I don't freeze.
   - Be able to do 50 situps/crunches in a row (starting soft here, I should be able to do more but lets revisit that later on)
   - Be able to ride 30+ks without conking out. (I may already be able to do this, I haven't tested. If I can do more than that, I want to double the distance)
• Get a game/app up and available. Myself and a few friends have come up with a few different app ideas for iPhone/Android, but we've never managed to actually get anything off the ground. I want that to change, I want at least one thing up so I can go "there, I did it"
• On a similar vein, Writing. I'm one of those people who gets tonnes of ideas, and can fill out an entire world in their head with very little issue. When it comes to actually putting it down on paper (or computer) on the other hand, I'm horrendous.
  I have ideas that could work for a 'Choose your own Adventure' style book, or a novel, or a P&P RPG. I want to write up at least one of those in the next year.
• Career. This is always a thorny one. The place I'm at at the moment just... isn't intellectually stimulating. Don't get me wrong, it's a good place to work and it pays well, but anyone who has done Tech support knows how mind-numbing it can become. I want to get into a position where I'm designing and/or running systems (or parts thereof), rather than troubleshooting them.
• Place to live. Again, the place I am isn't *bad*, but it's small and rented. I'd like somewhere I can invite people around and they're not squashed in like sardines.
• Stop living in fear. I love my parents deeply, but they brought me up with the whole "Always be mindful of what society thinks of you, never rock the boat, never go outside the norm, always think about your actions" thing. As such I have a habit of second guessing just about everything that I do, and frequently not doing it because I become paralysed by the possible ways it could go bad. No more. I'd rather live with the consequences than the regrets. As such I want to do at least one new/unusual/weird/bizarre thing each month (ideally more often, but lets start small), be it trying a new sport, making an idiot of myself at Karaoke, dancing on the street in a chicken suit, whatever (incidentally, ideas on this one would be much appreciated :) )
• Health. I'm not unhealthy, but I need to eat more fruit & veg. As such I'm going to pick a new vegetable each week and cook all my dinners at least with that vegetable included (like a really slow Iron Chef). I'll post pictures and recipes :)

So there it is. The purpose of this blog, and how I want to turn my life around. This blog will be my proof, window to the world, and hopefully you readers will be my encouragement and sometime guides.
Deadline for A New Me is 7th May 2013. 363 days to go.