Forest for the Prem, Fitness Update and Beer!

Well so far so good, got a couple of things to report, one that some may find disappointing but to be honest I still think I've done very well and the circumstances were exceptional.

I had a few drinks the other night, 3 pints to be exact. To be honest i didn't really enjoy them but we decided to go out and celebrate, at this stage I wont go into why, but I'll certainly let folk know at a later date.

The gym is still going well, My body is now starting to get used to the current workload so I'm not feeling the niggles as much. I think I need to raise my game over the next week.

I've also started playing 5 a side with some of my work mates on Wednesdays so all in all I'm doing OK.

Went to see Valkyrie the other night with Tom Cruise and loads of Brit actors, very good film and I highly recommend you watch it, i find most WWII stories incredible and this was certainly an amazing event.

In other news Nottingham Forest won again on tuesday night this puts us 17th in the championship, certainly not out of danger just yet but encouraging signs. Playoffs here we come....I jest of course.

The Wrestler

I went to see The Wrestler staring Mickey Rourke last night, it was good film. Quite moving in parts. I'd certainly recommend watching it. The way it shows how the guys all prepare for their fights is entertaining and the matches themselves looked great.

The film really seemed to capture how battered the central character (Randy) was. Good film.

Went to the gym for a short one today, just to try and burn off the dirty food I eat this weekend. I'll be back in tomorrow too. Hope you all had a great weekend.

Congratulations

I'd just like to give out a big congratulations to my good friends Rich and Sarah who just gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Ellis.

Good health to you all.

Derby V Forest

Well that was interesting, wasn't a bad game of football to be fair. I'd say Derby got the better of the first half and subsequently got a goal. Forest came out guns blazing in the second half and Rob Earnshaw scored an almost Carbon copy of the Derby goal. Paul Smith pulled off some great stops to make the game finish up 1 - 1 so we'll get a replay at the City Ground in Nottingham. Better than losing I guess.

It was all overshadowed by a bad injury to Paul Anderson, who apparently fractured his forearm and dislocated his wrist, looked very rough on the replay! Hope he mends quick, been a great player for us. I also hope we can convince Liverpool to flog him to us permanently.

As an aside to last nights game I cant see how both teams are where they are in the league, both sides looked competent, As much as I hate to say it I don't want Derby to get relegated this season or us for that matter. The local Derby's always make for great games, so here's to both sides finishing the season strongly.

I had my weekend treat during the game last night a nice dirty pizza. I quite fancied a few beers too but yeah I stayed strong again. I won't be going to Galway at the end of the month now either so I will manage the whole of January without a beer.

Should make our trip to Prague in February relatively cheap, one beer and I'll be gone.

Big Game

Tonight's the night Forest play Derby at Pride Park. I'm very confident that we can win this, having a few mates round to watch the game on TV. At the very least I want a replay at the city ground and an entertaining game tonight. I guess we'll soon see.

I recently read Batman Under the Hood parts one and two, very good. They continue on from the Hush plot line so don't read these unless you read Hush. I cant go into too much detail without spoiling the story so I'll just say give em a read if you haven't already.

Hit the gym again last night, proper tired myself out, it was a good work out so all good, I'm also going to be joining in with our newly formed 5 a side football games on a Wednesday night so its whole world of fitness.

Just over a week to go before I can have a beer, I will enjoy that very much, but that said I've only missed the booze on 2 or 3 occasions across the whole month and even then I still had a giggle. I wonder if I could just give it up..........Nah! ;)

Complete Madness!

You have to check this out, an awesome video. What these guys are doing looks amazing. Extreme sport called Wingsuit Base Jumping.

http://vimeo.com/1778399

OK so they may well feature in the Darwin awards one day, I hope not. But lets be honest its quiet likely.

The new F1 season gets under way on the 27th of March, Should be a great season again loved last years. You can check out the race calender here.

http://www.formula1.com/races/

Hoping to get Silverstone tickets this year though I suspect that may be difficult with it being the last ever Silverstone.

Dawson's Creak Unde....sorry Twilight

Went to see the film Twilight yesterday, now I watched the trailer and thought it looked interesting and I'd heard that it was supposed to be a decent film from numerous sources.

I was a little disappointed, I think the main reason was because it isn't what I expected, and yeah I know that's not necessarily fair on the film but it was just like watching an episode of the OC or Dawson's creak with a lot more rain, pale skin and vampires, although i guess the latter go hand in hand.

I was expecting something more along the lines of The Lost Boys, a bit more action perhaps and further development of some of the peripheral characters, that said I didnt know it was based on an existing book until I saw the film so that may explain a few things. Ah well it wasn't rubbish just expected a bit more.

Role Models on the other hand had me proper belly laughing, great film if you fancy something funny.

Went to the gym again yesterday, all still going to plan I had a Chili burger for lunch today so I think I'm going to have to work a little harder in the gym tomorrow.

From the FA Cup to Persia!

Just returned from my second session at the gym this morning that went as planned see the previous "Biceps of Nadal" post.

I had a breakfast that consisted of a glass of Orange Juice, 2 slices of toast and a banana. For lunch I intend to have some meat don't know what yet but some meat.

My muscles are really aching but I feel good for it. Got on the scales this morning and I'm now 17 stone 10 lbs.

On Friday my team Nottingham Forest take on their bitter rivals Derby County. Any Forest or Derby fan will tell you that this is one of the biggest rivalries in football, and it was a massive coincidence that we we're drawn to play each other in the FA Cup.

So this is a big game for both sides. We seem to be in a decent run of form at the minute so I'm confident we can do a job, good luck for Friday lads.

I've been playing the new Prince of Persia over the last few days, and I must admit at first I wasn't convinced and to be honest their are a few design decisions that I'm personally a little dubious of. But once you get past that some of the elements are borderline genius, I love the way you can string together the death defying leaps and bounds. I'm really enjoying the game.

Some of my friends and colleagues have argued that the game can feel like a big quick time event, I just think that they are wrong. :)

That said I'd have preferred it if they shoe horned the sands of time mechanic in there rather than the lady that flies and re-spots you, Sands of time's quick rewind just felt a little more fitting to me.

I do wonder why the lass that can fly, wont just fly me over the gaping chasm and be done with it. But I guess that wouldnt be much fun now would it.

The Stig Outed?

Looks like the identity of The Stig may be out, according to the telegraph he's a Mr Ben Collins. Follow the link for more info!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4286448/Who-is-the-Stig-The-answer.html

Like a shitting dog.

Yup that's what I'm currently shaking like! Just returned from the gym after nearly an hours work out, the new gym looks really smart. I'm very happy to have facilities like this in the same village that I live in.

All they need now are water fountains or containers for the main gym area, I don't like having to jog upstairs to the water fountain.

I have a serious lack of fitness/energy I feel exhausted after a relatively minor work out. I'm sure it will come easier with more time and effort.

Right I'm gonna hit the shower, grab some breakfast then head off up to work. Bye for now.

Progress

As an aside, just cutting beer out of my life (temporarily might I add) has made a massive difference. last week I lost 1/2 a stone, I eat fairly well and even had some treats too. I'm now 18 stone so lets watch this space.

To those that don't know me I'm 6'2" and fairly well built so I'm not as big as the 18 stone makes me sound. :)

Biceps of Nadal!

I figured its time to get to work and get properly prepped for my early morning work out tomorrow. The whole point of my blog originally was to keep track on my fitness and keep myself motivated. Another thing I'd like to do is remain brutally honest with myself and any readers I might have out there. So I thought Id best outline my fitness plans, here goes.

I aim to get up at 6am every day.
I'll get up have a banana or an orange juice and get over to the gym for 6.30.
Once at the gym this is roughly the routine I will initially start to follow.

• Treadmill or bike for 5 minutes to start the warm up.
• Continue warm up on the rower for a further 10 minutes.
• I plan to work up my body through my muscle groups starting with the calves, then the quads, abs (lower and upper, separately) then onto my Chest, shoulder and finishing with my triceps and biceps. I'll do 12 reps per muscle group then quickly move onto the next group.
• Once that cycle has been complete I will rest for 2 minutes then begin the cycle again.

Initially I plan to follow the above routine 3 times a week, once I get myself into the routine and feel a little more confident I intend to research further and look into other muscle groups and hopefully become a little more hardcore. On top of this I hope to get some football and squash in there too, the football being reliant on the weather (told you I'd be honest). :)

I'm really happy with how my year has started. I haven't touched a drop of booze for 18 days now and I'm feeling excited and optimistic about my progression.

This next part the whole hitting the gym will be the hardest part for me. I've not hit the gym consistently for a long long time. I need to keep myself in the right frame of mind and just knuckle down. I can't make excuses for my lack of fitness any more.

Hero

WOW Chesley Sullenberger! Now that was impressive stuff, don't get me wrong I'm no aviation expert but its difficult to not be impressed by that amazing ditch into the Hudson River.

I'm sure he's the toast of NYC right now and rightly so. Watched some footage of the plane being ditched on the BBC site, scary stuff. I have a massive phobia of flying but at the same time stuff like this amazes me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7835497.stm

In other good news Nottingham Forest got another win today they beat Plymouth 2 - 0 at the City Ground. I'm so happy that we're pulling away from the drop zone. It certainly makes my weekend feel much better.

Getting well excited about hitting the gym, my older brother came around and gave me some good advice about working specific muscle groups today so I feel a little more well equipped for Mondays session.

The weekend has landed!

OK so the weekend is here again, this would usually mean that I'm well up for a few beers and quite excited about the weekend. To be honest I 'm not feeling as excited as I usually would and I must admit that I am starting to miss having a few drinks with mates now.

I mean yeah I've been out with the guys and its been good to see them, and yeah you don't need beer to have a good time, but It's kind of like having decaffeinated Coffee or No Sugar Red Bull, its a little bit pointless. Besides there is only so much Diet Coke you can drink. and don't get me started on Kaliber!

One thing I will take from this experience is realising that moderation is key. I don't think I will drink half as much as i used to, Holidays and celebrations aside of course. So I guess some good will come out of it.

My team Nottingham Forest take on Plymouth on Saturday I'm hoping they can maintian their run of form and get another win, this would pull us even further from the drop zone and make me much happier.

I was introduced to a funny video tutorial on Youtube today, if you like playing around in photoshop you should see the funny side, and maybe even if you dont....

http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=You+suck+at+photoshop&search_type=&aq=f

Clever Girl

One of the guys at work found this I had to post it, clip of a young toddler that has memorised lots of game character names. Bless her, bet she'll make a good gamer and you'd hope be pretty smart too.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=skFIwIGw1iI

MAN DOWN, MAN DOWN!

Feeling much better today, still a bit groggy and a have a bit of a cough but apart from that I'm fine. Looks like the cold was passed on to my brother in law though, so I'm sure he's loving that right now (sorry Az).

I'll be on the squash court on Sunday I'm not the best squash player but I really enjoy the sport, it does knacker you out and you know you've had a proper workout after a few games. My good friend Gordon has taught me the basics, I'd like to get up to a similar standard so the games are more interesting for both of us.

I'll tell you something I could have murdered a beer last night, really fancied one. I remained strong, so that's 15 days and counting.

Chop Shop

I watched a program on the discovery channel last night called Chop Shop - London Garage. This program is great. The guys on there had a 1984 Jaguar that was in a right state (see image above!).

They ended up making an awesome looking beast inspired by a Tiger apparently.

I've sky+'d the program now, if you like this kind of thing its definitely worth a look. Here's how the car ended up.

Football Blog

I often read Robbo's blog on the BBC Sport website the latest one has some gems in it with regards the Man United vs Chelsea game at the weekend.

These paragraphs in particular made me chuckle!

The main problem is the Scolari special, the cluttered midfield - five of them, all standing closer together than a bunch of toddlers playing frisbee, so close in fact that you'd think they were lining up for that penalty shoot-out all over again.

Not one of them can go past people - hell, they couldn't trick their way past Ronaldo's Ferrari right now - a fact made even more obvious by the ancient Giggsy. As Harry Redknapp has quite rightly pointed out, there are too many fat backsides sitting on their fat reputations/wallets - and Chelsea are no different.

It's clear-out time at the Bridge: you get more interest from your average savings account than you do from Drogba these days; Hassungotta Kalou and Skiptoo Malouda can go; Deco's a dud; it's tempting to change the vowels in Ballack's name after Sunday; and why exactly were Man U and Chelsea scrapping over John Obi Mikel in the first place I wonder?

You can see the full blog here...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/robborobson/

Aching all over!

Woke up this morning started driving up to work and I'm aching all over. You'd hope this would be from my extensive training I started yesterday. You'd hope that wouldn't you?

Except it seems like a higher power is at work here, not only has the new gym put off its opening until next Monday (How funny is that, all things considered) but I've also come down with a bout of the MAN FLU!

I feel like death warmed up. Aching limbs, headache, sore throat, swollen throat and oh yeah lets not forget the throwing up, joy of joy.

Why not go to another gym I hear you ask, well the whole point in this new gym is that it opens at 6.30 so I can fit in a gym session before my drive up to work, the old gym doesn't open till 7 which believe it or not makes a great difference.

Woo!

Hit the town last night, it was a good friend's birthday. So usually we'd be on a bit of a mission. I'm pleased to report that not a drop of alcohol was consumed by me.

We also went to the new bar in Mansfield called Saints, very nice smart little bar, may well spend more time in there when my self imposed drink ban is over.
http://www.chad.co.uk/leisure/Saints-alive-New-cafe-bar.4767599.jp

Well for those that have been following the blog you probably know I start the gym on Monday, I'm feeling raring to go and very much looking forward to getting started.

Some interesting news regarding the game I've been working on for some time now,
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/32892/GTA-gives-DS-its-first-18-rated-title
Not long now I cant wait for release, exciting times indeed.

Quisiera una bottela de vino blanco

Seriously these earworm CD's are super cool! We listened to part of the 1st Spanish disk on the way up to work today, seems really well put together. I'll be fluent in no time! :)

Another day and still no alcohol, I'm doing pretty well with this, I don't really want a beer either, that said I've just sorted going to Galway with a bunch of friends at the end of Jan so I should fall off the wagon in spectacular style. It should be messy.

Anyone else had enough of this cold weather, point proven it can get cold now gimme some warmer weather please.

One last thing

Before I pack in for the day, we got our dog Dexter (named after the serial killer and not the cartoon) groomed today. He went to the grooming place looking like a scruffy (but I thought very cool) dog. He's come back and he looks.....well, different. For the record the dog in the picture isnt mine but he does now look very much like that.

As my friend Andy put it, he looked funky and cool before now he looks like an old lady owns him! Poor little thing, he'll be fine though I'm sure he'll look ace once his hair grows. Just a matter getting used to his new appearance.

Spanish

I like to think that I can get by with the Spanish language, I can order food, hotels and all the usual touristy type stuff but I'd love to become proficient with the language.

So as you can imagine I was very happy with my Earworm Rapid Spanish Cd's that I received for Christmas.
Tomorrow I'll be listening to this as I drive up to work, my drive takes just over an hour so this should give me plenty of time to take stuff in. Watch this space.

So my eating and drinking habits are much improved, still not touched a drop of alcohol, that's nearly a week now! :)

This would surprise a few people, not quite as much as Derby beating Man United 1 - 0 but still it would surprise some folk.

I was hoping Man U would stuff Derby and soften them up for the FA cup game against Forest, ah well I guess we'll just have to let the football do the talking.

My top games of 2008

I thought I'd list my favourite games of 2008. I've done this in no particular order as I couldn't honestly say that one game is better than another if they have little or no relation to each other. So here is a list of games that grabbed my attention through 2008.

• Fieldrunners (iPhone) - The guys that made this clearly put a lot of love into the game, its so much fun looks great and I cant put it down.

• FIFA 09 (Ps3) - For the first time ever I got FIFA not just before Pro Evo but instead of. Shocker!

• Grand Theft Auto 4 (Xbox 360) - The guys at North and NY did an amazing job on this, I loved playing through it, the characters we're top and the whole plot was very absorbing.

• Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3) - Brilliant game, liked the story, loved the look of the game. Again this is one of those games that you can just tell has had a whole lot of love poured into it.

• Gears Of War 2 (Xbox 360) - Loved both Gears games, for some reason i just got really sucked into both of them, I think it must simply be the fundamental mechanics the cover system, sprinting into a crowd of Locust and chainsaws!

• Wipeout HD (PS3) - the best Wipeout game I've ever played, still going through it but love trying to get all of the gold medals, much fun and looks glorious.

• Patapon (PSP) - Brilliantly original and much fun, killed some time in the sun with this game.

• Call of Duty World At War (PS3) - You cant seem to go far wrong with COD games, yeah we've all played plenty of WW2 games but for me they always deliver, and I'm thoroughly enjoying WAW.

• World Of Warcraft (MAC) - I cant list games that caught my attention without mentioning WOW, 2008 was the first time I sat and played WOW, I got hooked. Still love the game now but try to be a little more careful of the time i spend on it.

• Fallout 3 (PS3) - Not yet played Fallout 3 in its entirety but what I've seen I have very much enjoyed, looking forward to getting my teeth back into it.

• Mirror's Edge - Only just started playing this, I love the novel idea and at times it plays really well, it can be frustrating but I urge you to look past the frustrating sections and give this a blast.

• Mario Kart (Wii) - Such a laugh when playing with friends, if you have a Wii its well worth getting it.

• Spore (MAC) - Only scratched the surface with Spore but so far I like what I see.
  

Omissions

• Fable 2 - I fully intend to get this and give it the attention I hear it deserves.

• Dead Space - The trailers and hype got me intrigued, I loved the movie Event Horizon so anything that comes close to that in game format has got to be worth a look.

• Prince of Persia - The art looks awesome, cant wait to give this a look. Sands of time was an all time favourite of mine.
  

Yawn

Well I'm attempting to get my body used to waking up at silly o clock in the morning. It's not going too well at the minute its fair to say.

The plan is to get used to getting up and hitting the gym at 6.30 am. I'm hoping to get into a nice steady routine. Its just way too cold at the minute. Ah well, the battle continues.

In case you had'nt guessed

I start hitting the gym seriously on Monday 12th! :)

It's alive, It's aliiiiive!

January 5th 2009 the day I started my first ever blog. I've set this blog up mainly to help encourage a healthier lifestyle. I intend to update the blog with my fitness progress and probably have a good chat about other general goings on in my life.

At the very least it will be something I can look back on, hopefully with a smile on my face. But who knows maybe some other folk will enjoy reading.

I must say so far so good, This year I haven't had any alcohol (well you cant count the early hours of New Years Day can you, that would be unfair) and I intend to follow this trend throughout January, and who knows maybe even beyond. For those that know me this is a big step.

Looking forward to a healthier and hopefully prosperous 2009.