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Week 2 Update. Sexy Stats & Boring Pics

118kg.

But, progress! For those of you on Facebook, you’ll know that I took a weight measurement yesterday. I weighed myself just before I hit the weights and as it turns out, I’ve lost 2kg in the last week! – feeling pretty stoked! A friend of mine pointed out – if I keep at this rate, I’ll hit my goal in 12 weeks – which is awesome! And smack on par for sleek geek – lets just hope the rate keeps up – although I’m sure there will be a time when it stagnates or plateaus- so I’m making mental provision for that – but hoping the first 10kgs, at least, drop off quickly.

I got a tape measure!

So in lieu of starting sleek geek, here’s my 1 week before measurements:

Chest : 118cm
Bicep: 38cm (left arm)
Tummy : 122cm
Hips/waist:114.5cm
Thigh :68cm (left leg)
Neck :44cm
Wrist: 20cm
Height:188cm

Week 2 Pics

Moving forward

I’m trying to figure out a workout regime for SleekGeek (ie the next 13 weeks) and hopefully it’ll work as a general regime as well. I would like to move up to exercising twice a day – and get up to consistently hitting 6 days a week. Last week was only 4, so need to push through – I doubt 2 days of cardio in a row is bad – except maybe for shin splints but I’ve had no pain yet.

What else? Rest! I need to get more. Been struggling for a while now – its probably the one lifestyle change that I’ll struggle with most. I really find it hard to get to bed before 12, usually I’m just pottering around, writing blog posts and trying desperately to catch up on some series.. But I suppose – something’s gotta give… But gyming almost everyday makes the evenings really short… so.. need to do something.

Going forward I need to spend some time sorting some admin out so I can figure out my gym schedule – and want to figure out a feeding plan as I find not getting my food sorted before I head to work leaves me arbing around trying to find something without any sugars in it. Plus it ends up being damn expensive and I leave myself open to being forced to compromise and not eat what I’d wanted to, because it’s not available as healthily as if I’d made it.

I think the food to work thing is an overflow from school – I have this aversion to taking lunch with me – and often don’t end up eating it if I do- which is just a pain – and the whole lack of planning puts me in a tough spot – trying to find food that fits within my plan without being forced to compromise is not ideal. Which brings me right back to – I need to get my diet sorted.

And that’s that for now – have at it in the comments if you’d like!

standard 26 Jan

2 Workouts in Week 2

I must say, this CamLite thing feels like it’s going well. Granted it’s only the second week, but I can see progress. There’s still a few kinks, but my body seems to be coping a bit better with the daily torture of changed diets and ALL.THIS.EXERCISE…

Workout 5. Tuesday, 26 Jan. Weights #2

I’ve figured I’ll keep counting my weights workouts. I don’t think it’s necessary to keep a running tally on my runs.

The first weights session I got half-way through, berfore feeling faint and really horrid for the rest of the night. So, with that in mind, I golfed up a banana on my way to gym, to grab some extra energy. Hitting the floor, we started on some body-weight squats, doing 2 sets of 20. After that we were going to do lunges but I cramped on the first one.. ha. so we didn’t.

Then some hamstring exercises where I lay on my back with one leg in the air, one leg bent – and lifted my pelvis.. those things. 3 sets of 12.

After that, I did some calf raises – 2 sets of go-till-you-can’t-anymore which I failed to count.

With legs done, we moved onto arms and chest- starting with 3 sets of go-till-you-can’t, weights 40kg on first, 45kg on second 2 & 3.

Next up was some bench press, and this is the embarrassing part – First set was about 12 reps on about 20kg with bar (~10kg). Then 2 sets about 7 then 4 reps on 40 + bar… so that sucked a bit, but let’s give it some time.

We walked on over to the free weights section, and started with “standing snow angels” 3 sets until I couldn’t do any more on 4kg each arm.

3 sets dumbells until I couldn’t do more (8kg). After the first set, I started feeling a little bit lightheaded. Not badly – just a bit – so, Justin ran off and got a small bar one and then kept saying how wrong it looked for me to be eating a chocolate on the floor. I did feel quite uncomfortable hehe – but I only ate half of it – and it did seem to help up the levels a little. I figure that as I get into it, my body will get used to it.

I finished the session off with some tricep exercises – lean against the bench then lower/raise body a few times… 2 or 3 sets I think of dunno.. – 6 or 7, probably – basically until I couldn’t – I cant remember how much that was – definitely less than 10 each.

Workout 6. Wednesday, 27 Jan. Cardi-o!

Run today – munched half a banana before I got to gym. The run went like this: Ran for 6min – then my lace was untied.. so had to stop for 20- then ran on until 11 min. Then 2min walk. Ran for 4min to 17. Walked for 1min then got confused in my head, and thought I was near the end – so ran for about 30s, sprinted for 30s… Had a very confused 20s fast walk.. Then ended the last 40s on a run… A bit of a fail, but feeling better and actually didn’t feel that trashed afterwards. Feeling that I could have done it better – didn’t actually leave feeling as wasted as I have the last few times – either I’m getting fit – or it was the half-banana… not sure. Maybe both. Will push for 12 or 13 min next… Found watching something on the tv really helps – like a cricket or soccer match..

I also took the distances so I can figure out how far I’ve been running. Seems on 9, I’m doing about 147m to the minute. On 5, around 80m in a minute.

And I ran a total of 2.8km today. Yay!

Looking forward to start road-running but need to get my shoes sorted – hurt the last time I ran. Another thing that’s bloody confusing.. As is water bottles/hydration… I’m not sure what’s best for me with either.. so need to get that sorted.

aside 23 Jan

Non-update.

I was going to do an update with pictures and all that.. but the evening really got away from me :/ I’ll try do one tomorrow after my gym session – it’s earlier than usual – 6:30, which means I’ll have to fly to get to gym on time :/ -why did I say yes, dammit- also means I’ll need to eat around 4. I have a quiz on the Atkins audiobook I’ve been listening to, so mmm I’ll tell you all how that went afterwards In all honesty, I’m simply feeling confused by it all.. let’s hope second time round’s a charm…

standard 22 Jan

Workout 4. Week 1. Cardio

After 2 days rest and a run to Total Sports for new running shoes, I hit the gym this afternoon for a good run. So far, this life-style change has been going o-k. To be honest, I’m struggling a little with my diet – more in that I’m not sure what I should/shouldn’t be eating than eating the wrong things. I’ve 95% cut out sugar. 100% cut out all wheat-based carbs. It’s the good carbs/proteins mix that confuses me.. :/ I think my portions have been a little larger than they should be.

I was planning to get my budget, eating plan and gym schedule worked out this weekend, but it kind of got away from me. dammit. On the plus-side, I’m planning to have everything ready and working well by 1 Feb – for sleekgeek challenge, so I still have some time, at least.

The Run

Ok, so the run – I’m quite chuffed- I managed a bit better today than run #2, and only marginally worse than the first run, at: 11min run/ 2min walk/ 3min run / 2min walk/ 1.5min run/ 30s killzone-sprint. Again on 9 run, 5 walk, 12 sprint. Overall, happy body, although my new shoes chafed a little which isn’t that cool..

Starting Statistics

So, going better! I asked my trainer for my full initial specs, so here they are:

Height: 188cm (I think I’ve grown..)
Age: 32

Date: 17 Jan 2012.
Weight: 120kg
Fat %: 24.7%
Fat kg: 29.6kg
Lean kg: 90.4kg
BMI: 34.0
Water Lt: 66.2
Water %: 55.2%

Cool, so that’s that. Not a particularly pretty picture, but sufficient encouragement to be a better carbons mass than I have been up until now.

Hi-ho, here we go!

aside 21 Jan

Retrospective introspective (or what’s left of my 2011 Goals, Part 1)

It’s been just over a year since I wrote my first new year plans post (strange that.. *cough*) and although there is much I didn’t fulfill, there is actually a lot that came to pass – which has left me pretty stoked. So, in the hopes of this coming somewhat of a tradition (for as long as it proves useful) I plan to kick the asses of a few things this year. But, before I get into the nitty gritty, I thought a bit of a retrospective introspective would be cool and that’s what this post will be all about.

A quick recap.

If I’m going to be able to give a decent recap on 2011, I’m going to need to remind you (and myself somewhat) of all the things I planned to accomplish – so, here goes:

Get a divorce
Get a tattoo
Get out of debt
Blog more
Build out some of my ideas
Lose weight
Read more books (from:I want to read more)

Alright – so quickly – there were a few that I didn’t put on – one of them to get a raise in my income (to a specific amount) – which I got, amazingly – it was quite unplanned, and just happened, so that was pretty awesome. The beginning of 2011 was actually quite tough. My sis got married, and the ex took me to maintenance caught all over the same weekend in March (well Saturday/Monday) and it all seriously freaked me out, added to this was the possibility of losing my job, and working HARD right through Christmas to push out a new web-application for our work also by March (which we did in Snaply.com). – so by the third month, I was a bit (quite a lot) of a wreck.

But then it all started turning around. A little slowly at first, but I got a new job – as mentioned, the divorce proceedings moved along and we managed to come to agreement (should go through in the next month or 2), and well, I managed to achieve at least some of my goals.

Get a divorce

So, the divorce thing I think I’ve covered. It’s been 2 years – 2010 was TOUGH, 2011 I think I came to terms with it, and really was a year of recouping and regrouping. As I said, we’re not officially there -yet- but we’re both happy with our agreement, so it’s really just a matter of signing and submitting and we should be done. phew.

Get a tattoo

I’ve been wanting a new tat for a while now, and although I didn’t really know what, I spent most of last year with it in the back of my head. I had initially wanted Nick Smal to do it for me, but he got too busy – so maybe this year he’ll be able to do me one – but in September, I ended up – thanks to Katy’s recommendation – going to Tyler Murphy from Sins of Style. I didn’t get the Phoenix idea I mentioned – although I’m planing that one for this year as a full sleeve (pretty excited for it) – and will probably get Tyler to do it as well.

For the longest time I’ve wanted ‘Faith Hope and Love’ tattooed on me somewhere. I was actually aiming to get it done as my previous tattoo – but thankfully I didn’t, because the design was shit, and the tat I got (~beloved~ on my chest) didn’t come out that fantastically.

So, when I was trying to figure what to get last year and I’d decided to only get the Phoenix after the divorce is through, I remembered my FHL idea. So I took Tyler a pic of the very cool script on the cover of Maylene and the Sons of Disaster’s second album – “ii”.

The drawing took close on 3 hours – starting with a free-hand maker drawing which he refined until I was happy with the general look and feel and placement.

After that he transferred it to paper, and started drawing out the words, reiterating until I was happy. Then he re-traced that onto my skin and the outline started. Having got there around 2, it was now close to 5pm, so we just had time for the lines, which took probably just over an hour.

The next step was letting it heal, and I went home very proud, but almost not being able to wait for the colouring process – my head spinning with ideas – should I leave it black and white, or super-coloured, with gradients flowing blues, greens, oranges, yellows and red. But I had almost 2 months to wait, the next booking available was only on 10 December. I think the wait was good, as it helped me get the cash together – and settle on a gray-scale gradient for the ‘colouring’.

After waiting around about the Saturday morning I went to finish it all off, I settled down for the long haul as I lay back on the psychologist/tattoo couch and Tyler started doing his thing. It took just over 2 1/2 hours to complete, with a few 2-3 minute breaks thrown in here and there, and quite a few times where I thought (but never said) “please can we rather carry on with this tomorrow, it hurts,” but overall it really wasn’t too bad, and it was so very much worth the pain!

I honestly can’t wait for my next one – and am already dreaming up something to get at this year’s Southern Ink Exposure.. ha! but the next big one will be the sleeve for sure! – And Tyler’s definitely the guy I’m getting to do it – he’s stuff is tight! and he’s damn good at what he does – I’m seriously impressed!

…that’s it so far. I’ll continue with the wins and misses soon! (continued here)

aside 20 Jan

Day 3. Weights day

Image via Wikipedia (contrary to what you might think, this isn't me)

Last night I did my first weights day with Justin (my trainer, for those of you who might think this sounds a little more sexy than you were expecting…)

I’ve been listening to the Atkins audiobook the last few days, and probably a little ill-advised, I went to Spur for a pre-workout protein boost. Ordering a rib-n-wings special (it’s bottomless on Thursdays) – but no basting and no chips or rings (it was a little bland but salty).. I munched through a plate and a bit (probably like 1/8 of the 2nd plate) and finished up around 7, with enough time (i thought) for my food to settle before my 7:30 gym session.

On the floor on time, I met up with Justin and we walked to the weights section where he laid down one of those hard-but-spongy mat things that people always seem to do the most uncomfortable things on. Thankfully I just had to do pushups. Pushups. I suck at pushups. Funnily, he asked me if I had been to the army or done any military service – as he lets them get off without doing pushups. lol. me? in the Army?!?! Funny guy.. But, that just meant I had to do them… I should have lied. I think I made about 10 – or maybe 8 – I wasn’t really counting and Justin says it’s more important to ‘burn out’ than hit a certain number. For the sake of tracking, I kinda wish I had been though. Next time.

Waiting a minute or so, I got on with my second set, a few ‘normal’ – leg straight – ones, then I did about 10 more (maybe 6 or 7) with knees-down, acting as a pivot point. Looks like a mix of these too (full marine position – and half-base ‘probie’ style) is the way forward.

After that, we did some chest pull down things – I did 20 at 40kgs. Justin put it up to 50 for the second set. I struggled to get to 5.. (fail!) sigh

Then we headed to do inverted pushups. – I lay on the ground, feet on a bench with a bar above me, and set myself up so that my body was straight (and off the ground), then pulled myself (well my chin) up to the bar. So, probably managed about 6 or 7 of these too – They’re TOUGH! second set was about 5. Actually, come to think of it, I think I did these before the lateral pulldown thingies.. damn my memories’ foggy..

Next was some free weights, starting with a set of 12ish – then 8-ish shoulder raises (I call them standing angels) at 5kg per arm before we hit the bicep curls. 8kgs per hand and I *think* I got to about 15 or 20 before caving.

Then as we waited for set 2, I started getting dizzy.

Maybe it was the meat and weights, as my tummy and arms played tug-o-war with my veins. Maybe it was a bit of performance anxiety.. who knows. But it was uncomfortable and possibly disastrous, so we called it a day before I puked and fainted on somebody.

I headed for the showers, but wasn’t feeling particularly fantastic so sat on the bench instead. It took me a few take-towel-out-put-it-back times before I realised I wasn’t getting any better and showering would be crap, so I put on my ‘outdoor clothes’, grabbed some OJ from the Kauai (more like ‘tentatively took’) and crawled home – rather groggily and half-eyed.. I really wasn’t feeling stellar.

I parked, stumbled upstairs and lay down for an hour or so then passed out and woke up a little late this morning for work. And that was Weights Day #1. Here’s hoping it gets better from here.

As an aside, I’m a little weirded out about what diet to use.. I think a semi-Atkins is in order. I’m really missing a chocolate or sweet or anything. Even a sugar in my tea would be nice.. but oh well – six pack tummy or bar one? I know who’ll win.

…and that’s all folks, I’m off to watch Underworld!

Second aside- today is a rest day – Lord Justin says I need the break – I’m too fat to run too often without splinting my shinnies, so that’s that.

standard 19 Jan

Operation CamLite. The beginning.

So, I actually have started a post on my goals for this year, but it’s still sitting in drafts.. One of my goals is a rerun from last year; I got to lose me some weight. As I haven’t actually gotten to post the goals post yet and I’ve actually started on Operation CamLite, I figured I’d get this out in the meantime.

I’m on a Fitness Trip. It seems every year, at least for the past few, I’ve decided to get skinny-er. I’ve been hovering about 120-125kg for about 4-5 years I think – which is probably since I first started taking notice.. I managed to drop about 10kg first quarter of 2010, but then, as these things go, I put it all back on again.

If any of you read this blog, you’d know I set a goal of 100kg for last year.. as is probably evident for all of you that know me, that never happened. In many other ways last year was awesome, but I’ll tell you about that later.

Ok, so this year, I decided to do things a little differently (you know what they say about doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome… yeah, that).

Something I read in a finance book about weightloss (yes, I said finance book), was this great little quip: If you want to lose weight, there’s 2 things you got to do: 1. Eat less. 2. Exercise more.

So, with that in mind, I’ve got the following planned:

Get a trainer – Which I’ve done (in Justin Gad), and it’s done a great job of covering both of these. He’s helping sort out my workout (he does a great job of making me hurt..) and then sorting out what I should and shouldn’t eat..
Do #SleekGeekSA (and try my darndest to win it). Check out the SleekGeek facebook group or catch them on twitter @sleekgeeksa – and join up if you wanna! – it looks to be cool!
Get a sixpack for summer.
I want to try run the Signal Hill 10km in June, but shit, that sounds scary right now – so we’ll see..
Keep tabs on how I’m doing via this here blog (with maybe some progress pictures…for the ladies).
Get down to 10-15% body fat (currently I’m at 24.5%), and hovering around 100kgs – depending on muscle gain.

The plan is as follows: I’ll be sorting out my new budget, food plan and gym schedule for the next 4 months (well ’til end April, probably) over the weekend, and then I think I’ll hit the ground running (quite literally) from Monday, full plan in hand and geared to get my SleekGeek on come Feb 1!

Tuesday I had my first meeting with my new trainer, Justin. We started with some initial measurements – which are below and make for a good starting point.

Initial specs:

Weight: 120kg (looks like I lost a few already – yay!),
Body fat %: 24.5%,
Height: 188cm.
(there were a few more, but I forget them now..)

Day 1 Pics.

Workout 1. Tuesday, 17 Jan. Cardio

After the initial chatting, we didn’t have too much time left, so we did my first cardio stint. He pushed me nicely – haven’t run this much in forever.

Here’s what I got done: (For those that know the treadmill speeds: Ran on 9, Walked on 5 and Sprant (sic) on 12.)

Ran for 12 minutes. walk for 2. ran for 3 minutes. walked for 1. ran for 2.5 and a 30s sprint to finish it off. It finished me. damn.

Workout 2. Wednesday, 18 Jan. Cardio.

Second workout: (Treadmill speeds: Ran on 9, Walked on 5 and Sprint on 12.)

So I ran less today. Same time – 20min – but walked a bit more. Ran 6.5min, walked for 1.5. Ran 2, walked 1. Ran 2, walked 2. Ran 2. Walked 1.5. Ran 1. 30s sprint to finish it off.

Was even more tired today though.. :/ but possibly because I hadn’t had anything to eat since 1, and am still tired from yesterday… – but flip I was wasted! Took me a good hour+ to get back to ‘normal’ again, but Jason Bagley told me it’ll get better soon enough.. just need that fitness to kick in..

And, coming up…

Tomorrow I have my first weights training workout with Justin – gonna be fun and probably damn painful.. Cool thing is Justin also does martial arts, so going to be getting into that over the next few weeks too, which I’m quite excited for. I’ve been wanting to mix things up for a while now, so maybe a bit of MA will go down well.

And, that’s about that for now- I hope to keep track of things from here as we go. Any questions, advice or quips about my belly? – leave it in the comments

aside 10 Jan

A new year beckons.

It’s a strange time to be alive. I blame the time. Now. I have been experiencing a strange phenomenon. I seem to fluctuate daily between being amped and excited for what I can achieve this year and being totally lethargic, not really keen or believing that any battle will be won.

It’s a strange feeling, one I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with. It’s not so much that I’m not used to either state of being, as I have a tendency to fluctuate through them, but usually over the course of a month at least. It’s been weird that it’s happening almost a few times daily.

I blame the time. The reason, I’m telling myself, is because we’re at the crux of a new year while still not fully over the last. 2011, it seems, still has a hold on me (illustrated simply by my urge to empower it every time I write the date) , but the effect is proving to be downright frustrating. One of my biggest goals this year is to lose weight. and lots of it. But, this oscillating is effecting that instead, I go from eating well and exercising when I feel enthused, to throwing it all out and eating pizza pushing midnight after already having dinner. And it’s flipping irritating.

I think the frustration goes further- I have a few half-finished posts, all waiting for attention, but none that I’m really getting to. As I get amped, I seem to at least get a bunch of stuff done, but never really complete it- then I hit the not-so-amped stage, and anything topical that I wanted to post loses it’s relevancy.

Anyone have any ideas on how to kick this stupidness in it’s head and bounce into a decent start for the year, please let me know.

How are you guys experiencing they year? Hopefully it’s a little easier than this…

As I said, I have a few quasi-posts lying around – so hopefully I get my stoke up soon enough.. I am super amped for this year, and what it could bring, I just need to exit this 2011 funk.

aside 29 Jan

Be the champion

I have a ritual of sorts. Every 2 weeks-odd I wash my car. Ok, ok – I go down to the local carwash and get someone else to wash it for me. You see, driving 100k’s a day on my round trip to work and back makes for a dirty car and I spent too many Friday afternoons of my youth washing the folk’s Tazz that I’m not about to clean mine, if I can help it. However, due to circumstances I can’t quite remember right now, I haven’t actually got her washed since last year (Edit: Sune pointed out that it’s actually since the 7th Jan, but that makes it over 3 weeks anyway).. so it’s been a while Thus, having some free time, I took the morning and spent the 2 hours it took to get her washed reading and drinking down on some caffeine at Vida (2x double tall Meie de latte’s) which I thoroughly enjoyed.

As you all should know by now, I’ve been reading my Seth Godin book – a free prize inside – and I’m really loving it and with all the reading, I’ve made some good distance through it today. The main topic of the book is ‘the small invention’ – how big R&D is expensive and produces very limited results, but how small inventions are what set companies apart, and how it’s the everyman that can achieve them. By ‘small inventions or innovations’ I mean the little things – some of the examples he uses is the Starbucks , American Airlines (or BAA, and other’s now) frequent flier miles, or the obvious one – the toy in the cerealbox – which is what the title is based off – and how these small little innovations, many of which were conceived by one person who had the wherewithal to make it work and how they’ve become game-changers – these small things in the big picture that set one company apart and ahead of the rest. And then he goes on to say how we all are able to change the game. How we are all able, and almost owe it to ourselves and our bosses to make the small innovations, to think outside the box, to not be the run of the mill, but to learn the skills needed to bring these things to fruition.

It’s been enlightening and inspiring to say the least. He goes on to talk about how selling our idea is more important almost than the idea itself. That the quality of the idea doesn’t indicate whether or not people will buy into it, but that to become good ‘champions’ we need to learn to sell our idea to the people we need to in order to get our ‘free prizes’ to see the light of day.

He gives great tools for enabling one to have the skills to get our small innovations or free prizes made. That we need the fulcrum of persuasion in place to give our ideas the impetus they need to become reality. That fulcrum is a three-pointed triangle made up of

people need to believe that we can champion the project – that we are able to make this work
that what we want to do is actually doable
and finally that it is also worth doing.

As long as these 3 things are in place, our ideas have a great chance of becoming reality. If they aren’t, then we’re practically running into failure.

The book is full of good advice – including the much-said adage – test early and test often (although he uses a different terminology by saying we should thrash at the beginning, not the end of a project).
I’ve just got to section 3, which discusses how to grow good idea – in a nutshell - how to be innovative – which I’m keen to read and can’t wait to have a few more hours to dive into the rest of it.

On Seth, I’ve probably taken a while to listen to what he has to say – considering he is THE GURU on marketing for many marketeers, designers, etc, I really have taken my time – but I believe for me, the timing has been great. He has helped inspire me right when I’ve been looking for it. And his message has been chiming to a lot of the other bits and pieces I’ve been listening to and reading lately.

I’ll leave you with 2 Seth presentations I’ve been listening to lately. Both much worth the time – as he touches on some of the things I’ve mentioned here, as well as delving deeper. The talks below are all newer than the book, and I can see the progression – they’re some great things to let into your brain.

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99% on Vimeo.

and

He has some more TED talks which I still need to see too – check them out here: http://www.ted.com/speakers/seth_godin.html

What do you guys think? You think you’re able to be the change in your company? I leave you with this:

aside 23 Jan

three of a kind

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to blog for the last 6 days straight as every day seems to be beset with distractions. These being a kaleidoscope of sleep, watching series, sleep and watching series, and then on one particular evening (Thursday I’m looking at you) – poker.

The good thing is that I’ve had more time to do cool shtuff (read: play poker – although sleeping is also pretty cool, everyone seems to be doing it these days), which has given me something mildly entertaining to tell you about (no yawning in the back there, please!).

Since last weekend it seems most of the week has been pretty perfunctory from a socialising perspective (as if my talk of series and sleep hasn’t given that away). As alluded to, Thursday evening was the only night I actually got out when I joined the boys for a guys night of take-out, poker, single malt and cigar puffing as their wives were at… wait for it.. book club. I’m not making this shit up, seriously. It was fun though and by some stroke of genius, luck or fluke, I didn’t come stone last – seems I’m finally learning the power of the fold (and I’m a designer – that should be in my blood by now)..

Ok, so here’s what happened – picture it – the last hand of the game (although we only realised that after we played it) and everyone was still in (my bro by the grace of Ian who was bankrolling him). I was dealt a 9 of slmechen and a 7 of booblidoo (I can’t remember, ok) and so folded pre-flop. Somehow, everyone else decided (I obviously didn’t get the memo) that the pre-flop of this particular hand was a great and opportune time to systematically go all-in. And so the dealing began, with 3 separate pots waiting to go to the winner(s), I sat gleefully with my pot unscathed. burn one; deal-three.. then burn; blind.. burn; river – as you can probably tell, this part was a little boring – and finally the cards were shown *dun*dun*dun*… and Ian won with a straight (I may have won if I’d had a 6 instead of the 9, but I didn’t – also I’d folded years ago). And then we called it a night. Best. Final Hand. Ever… Actually come to think of it, best hand would have been if I won after clearing everyone out. So not best hand but sufficiently cool. As we weren’t actually playing for money, my ‘winnings’, which incidentally was less than I started with, was glooped with the rest of Ian’s pot and unceremoniously packed away.

Although the poker was a little faux – which made it simultaneously equal parts less and more fun, the whiskey was smokey, the KFC oily, the Moods – flavoursome (as always) and the company irrefutably cool. All-in-all it was an evening much enjoyed.

I must say it really feels like on the whole it’s been a good week. I spent last weekend chilling with two of my bffs4L (like totally) in The City downing red wine and talking shit, which I’m not going to lie, was pretty fun. It’s kind of like we were our very own Black Books troupe. The only worrying thing is that seeing as Chris is definitely Bernard, it leaves me being either Manny or Fran and seeing as I’m not balding, I could only, logically, be Fran (I’m sorry for where this leaves you, Danielle) *cough*

Speaking of Fran, Tamsin Greig has teamed up with Matt le Blanc (or Joey to those of you old enough to remember Friends) and one of my favourite studios, Showtime – bringers of such awesomeness as Californication, Dexter and Weeds – to create a brand new show called “Episodes“.

Episodes is about a British writing couple who’s successful show gets bought for an American makeover and how things don’t quite go according to plan… Checkout the preview, a snippet from the first episode and an interview with Matt on playing himself.. Its a great meld of uncomfortable “the office-esque” humour and Showtime’s seemingly signature grittiness. It looks like it’ll be a great show!

As I said, exercise. This week I hit 3 gym days in a row.. *YAY ME* …AND I started the 100pushup thing.. I did 8 in my level test *yay me* which puts me in column two. I’m just thankful I did more than 5, because that would have been embarrassing. Next up is to start the program, which I’ll do Monday – can’t remember exactly what Monday’s regiment is, but that’s why I have the app. I think it’s 4 sets of 4, but I’ll see when I get there…

The book reading is going slowly and I haven’t really started anything seriously. My current problem is I don’t know what to read first. Plus, I’ve been instructed to read only one book at a time and it’s damn hard to pick just one. I’m torn between reading my Seth Godin book of design marketing awesomeness (free prize inside), starting 1984 and diving into some great thought-police literature or finishing up Loving your Kids on Purpose, which I’m really eager to do. This whole read-one-’til-done thing really bumps heads with my current 5-books-at-once anthem, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m considering splitting my books into situational reading pieces. So, keeping my design-related tomes for office, commute and lunch-time reading; putting the daddy-books into my pre-bed reading, but then I don’t know where the novels will fit in – porcelain perusal, maybe? Truthfully, I’m thinking some lazy weekend time would be best.

…And that’s the wrap. Remember to always wear sunscreen boys and girls and we’ll chat again in a bit.

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