Adam’s Cerebral Spillage

I think what I’ve done here is tantamount to blog neglect, I feel like I’ve abused my little corner of the Web by not using it. Naughty Adam! There’s not really a large amount to tell since the last time I etched my ramblings here, but I’ll try my best to remember it.

Training is back on track now, after having been a real part-timer for longer than I care to think about thanks to one thing or another. Injury after injury slowed me down, and then I managed to catch an absolute stinker of a cold which knocked me on my ass for a week or so. But I’m back now, and after the first few lessons which really made me realise how unfit I’d become, I’m feeling a bit more like it now.

Things are moving along at full speed with our house now. The mortgage is all sorted and sat in an account waiting to be spent, and I’ve put all my finances in order - something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. No more logging in to online banking once a month on pay-day for me, at least that’s the theory. We got our plans from the architect too, and it’s looking good. The house is going to look amazing once it’s all done, I just get the feeling it’s going to take a good few months of stress and work to get it that way.

This past Friday I headed out to the local Rock Night, feeling the need for a good time. It was the birthday of one of my friends from the old night I used to go to, and there were loads of familiar faces, plus a good turn-out from the club. Rumour had it that an Iron Maiden tribute act were going to be on, but they weren’t and instead we were treated to a local band who were excellent. We had an awesome night with much dancing, lots of shouting along to the music and perhaps just a couple of drinks ;).

I’ve started putting a little more time into actually playing some games as well, and I’m glad I have. First up I finally finished Fahrenheit (which is a brilliant adventure, highly recommended), and now I’ve started on some others and I’m really enjoying it again. I have shelves full of games which deserve some attention, I’m hoping the winter months provide me with the opportunity to dig them out and give them a go. Saturday night was ideal, I set myself up in my favourite way and had just the best relaxing evening. For me, the best way to relax properly is to turn all those pesky bright lights out and just light a few tea lights, then get set up on the sofa in the tidy (I can’t relax properly if there’s a mess) living room with a cold beer and some great TV nonsense. I’m not much of a one for TV usually, but for some reason I find those American detective-type series great entertainment. I’m particularly taken with Numb3rs at the moment.

It’s blowing a gale outside my window today, the rain’s coming down and I’ve started noticing that we’re finishing training after sunset which can mean only one thing - summer’s over. Not that there was much of a summer to begin with really, it’s been the worst summer in recent memory. May was ok, but over the actual summer months we’ve had nothing but grey skies and rain. Bring on Autumn I say, at least it’s actually supposed to be like this! As it’s now September I can start to get excited about these great last months of the year. I know most people prefer the summer but I can’t wait for everything to turn orange, and to have to get wrapped up warm to go out. I get a particularly nice feeling from having to put on a coat, scarf and hat to walk the dog. Speaking of whom, soon we’ll be able to take him to the beach again. Over the summer months you’re not allowed to take dogs on the majority of the beaches down here, and I’m getting bored walking the same paths around the woods every evening, so the sooner we can get down there and start splashing about with the pooch, the better.

…I’ve already started plotting my pumpkins for this year too

Technorati Tags: autumn, numb3rs, rock night, training

I spent the first three days back at work at a training course 250 miles from home. It meant coming into work for an hour on Monday morning before picking up a very nice 2.0l turbo diesel Focus to travel up in. Last time I went I was under the impression I’d get mileage allowance from work so I took my own poor little car up, but it turns out there’s no mileage paid out of Cornwall…. This time I made sure I got things right and took a bigger hire car up, something more akin to cruising up. It only had 100 miles on the clock when I picked it up and was a joy to drive, although in all honesty I could have done with not having to drive home straight after the course ended last evening, but it’s not all bad. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been abroad this year, but it feels like Summer’s over, or dying at the very least, and I’m starting to feel very Autumnal already. Some people who know me well know how much I love Autumn, it’s my very favourite time of year. Why it is, I can’t really sum up in a sentence or two, so I’ll save it for another post sometime, but part of it is the fantastic colour of the light in the mornings and evenings. Last night as I was coming down through Dorset and Devon and heading back into the West, I noticed how the colour has started changing already and it was glorious. Rolling over hills with great music playing, windows open and chasing the Sun westward was just awesome, I enjoyed it so much. So much so it’s spurred me on to dig out my favourite ‘Octoberish’ albums and stick them on my ipod in readiness.

I’m just starting to get into the swing of things again now being back at work, it’s been quite weird re-adjusting after not being there for the best part of three weeks. I’ve also missed training twice so I’m really looking forward to getting back in the Dojang and working up a sweat. On the subject of the Dojang/Academy, we’ve had some awesome news - our Change Of Use planning application has gone through at the District Council! After some less-than-friendly opposition to our application from our new neighbour (who has a spat ongoing with our landlord and was being awkward out of spite), being told that there’s no way it’d go through and after a *long* application process and a lot of work behind the scenes, it’s finally ours! In Sung Kwan Martial Arts has its own academy building, a place to officially call our own and use. Now that the last lingering hint of doubt has been removed we can set about finishing the building off, the first step of which is to go along this evening and tear the ‘To Let’ sign off the front. How much tearing I’ll be doing with a dodgy shoulder is another matter entirely, it’s going to be satisfying regardless.

Technorati Tags: academy, autumn, dojang, twilight

I forgot how much I still love this track. If you hate it, tough, it’s awesome!

Bomfunk MCs - Freestyler

Technorati Tags: bomfunk mcs, freestyler

Regular readers (if they’re out there) will have to excuse today’s post, it’s sadly much geekier than usual and more informative than anything. I use my 360 to stream video files to my TV over my wireless network and since the big dashboard update last Autumn it’s been possible to stream avi files encoded in divx or xvid formats. Recently I’ve had a problem though where some videos would play audio but no picture, just a black screen, and sometimes it would be impossible to get response from the controller. So here’s a fix for that problem - which it seems only occurs over a VGA connection - in the hope that google finds and indexes it and it helps other people in the same situation.

1. Connect your Xbox 360 to the TV with Component cables instead of the VGA lead.
2. Go to the Settings blade on the dashboard, then to Console Settings and then Video Settings.
3. Choose a different resolution to the currently selected one. e.g. if you’re currently using 720p, change it to 480p or 1080i.
4. The console will change the resolution and ask you if you want to keep the changes. Once you say yes to this it will try to do a 50Hz test, and ask you if it displayed correctly. It will display correctly, but you need to choose NO at this point.
5. Save the settings, turn the console off and reconnect it with the VGA lead.
6. Your videos should now play back with picture and sound.

It seems the problem is isolated to PAL machines running over VGA, and it doesn’t seem to like displaying the video at 50Hz. By telling the console that the 50Hz test failed it forces it to use 60Hz instead, which works perfectly. So far this has solved all of my own problems and means I no longer have to re-encode with a different codec, or convert and burn DVDs. I hope it helps someone out there!

Technorati Tags: 50Hz, audio only, avi, no picture, vga, xbox 360, xvid

Tostadas has symbolism for two reasons for me now. Firstly it’s the only word of Spanish my friend picked up on holiday (it was written on packets of food he ate), and secondly it describes the state of us all on our return to England - ‘Toasted’.

After dropping the dog off with my parents on the afternoon of the day we left (which I’ll admit was pretty sad) everyone started to swing into holiday mode straight away. We made the short journey up to Newquay airport and after a little queuing to check our bags in, we were on our way. I was seriously impressed with how quick it is to get stuff done there, we checked our bags in literally thirty-five minutes before the plane took off. I hate waiting at airports so it was a welcome relief. The flight out was beautiful, really smooth and very fast (we landed half an hour ahead of schedule). The pilot told us the route we’d be taking so I knew to look out for the French coast, then the Pyrenees, and finally Valencia sprawling below us. Once we landed we found a bar open in Alicante airport and made up base there as we waited for four others who were on (delayed) flights from London. The trip to the villa was largely uneventful - save for one wrong turn and a bit of frustration - but it was definitely worth the wait.

The Swimming Pool at the villa.

That swimming pool was the glorious site that awaited us on our arrival (minus the inflatables, we added those later) at three in the morning. After claiming bedrooms - where we totally scored with an air-con room - the only natural thing to do was get into some shorts and into the pool. It was as warm as bath water and we stayed in until about 5.30; absolute bliss.

We couldn’t have wished for a better villa, it was so beautiful and so much nicer and bigger than I had imagined. I’ll add a couple more photos in this post but my facebookery friends can see them all there. I won’t bore you all with the complete itinerary of what happened on each and every day, but mostly they involved a pattern of drinking an obscene amount of local beer/gin/wine/sangria and going out in the evening for food and more drink, and those days were generally followed up by a pool day, full of lounging and splashing.

Bombs Away!

On the way to the villa we had to literally drive through the middle of a golf course, so one day two friends and I decided to go and treat ourselves to a round. After walking down to the course (a mile of two in midday sun - not the cleverest idea) we could not find the clubhouse, which sounds ridiculous and really was. We stumbled onto the course and walked up some of the most plush fairways I’ve ever seen, scaring wild parrots in the process, until we found it. Unfortunately for us they wanted €60 for a round, €10 for club hire and €25 for buggy hire (not to mention the fact that none of us had handicap certificates which they also wanted). The equivalent of £80 for a round of golf is a bit silly, so we headed back after stumbling on an enormous plaza which we’d somehow missed for the whole time we were there.

Villamartin Plaza at night.

I was amazed at how many Indian restaurants there are out there, I was expecting there to be more ‘British’ pubs, but with the exception of a few Irish bars I was very wrong. The first night we went out to eat we tried an Indian just because it was next door to the bar we were in, and much to my surprise the food was incredible! I’m a stickler when it comes to food, and whenever I have an Indian meal I always go for Chicken Madras, and this was the best I’ve ever tasted.  The last evening was really lovely, we all got our smart(ish) togs on and went back to the Plaza to choose a restaurant. We settled on one of the prettier ones, and again I’m very glad we did. It’s no understatement to say it was the best meal I’ve ever had, the food was incredible.

I love this photo.

But for now it’s back to normality, and the miserable grey weather of Cornwall. It was easily the best holiday I’ve ever had, and I can’t wait to do it again. Plans are already afoot for a Winter excursion somewhere. Good food, good weather, good friends - good times.

Technorati Tags: holiday, Plaza, Pool, Spain, Villamartin

That’s right, as of tomorrow it’s a week of solemnity and quiet for the blog (which, let’s face it, isn’t winning any awards for being updated at the moment), and a week of rest, relaxation and fun in sunny Spain for me. I think everything’s sorted out, at least I hope it is. My mental checklist for the really important stuff has been like this for the last week:

• Passport
• Currency
• Travel Insurance
• Car hire

All of which I can happily say are covered, complete and present. Now all that remains is the small stuff like packing(!). There’s also a whole heap of other bits and pieces to remember I have stashed away somewhere just behind my consciousness which includes:

• Frisbee (very important!)
• International roaming for phone
• Phone
• Phone charger
• iPod
• Books
• Copious amounts of sunscreen
• Hat
• Sunglasses
• Camera

Some of that would probably be covered in most peoples’ idea of packing, but my idea of packing is usually much more simple and non-descript. The great news to me is that one of the friends I’m going with has secured three inflatables for the pool - a ring, shark and crocodile! We fly at 7.30 in the evening which is great as it gives me the rest of the day to pack whatever I forget to pack tonight. Tonight’s going to be busy enough as it is I think, there’s TSD, then some packing and then straight out to a local Rock night with my training friends. I’ve not had a decent Rock night in ages now and it’ll be a great way to start my two weeks off.

In other randomness, I managed to break the Bass pedal for Rock Band last night. During a particularly heated rendition of Train Kept Rollin’ by Aerosmith my foot was thumping away and the next thing I knew there was no pedal under it. It snapped clean just above the hinge at the base of the pedal. Being the enterprising sort of chap I am though, and armed with a roll of duct tape, I was able to get it working again. It’s not ideal, but I called EA last night expecting an hour on hold, miles of red tape and an agonising wait for a replacement and the hassle of sending the broken one back. Boy was I in for a surprise! The phone was answered within 30 seconds, they took my address details and told me that a replacement would be with me within a week, and that I don’t need to return the old one… you could have knocked me down with a feather - kudos EA for some awesome customer service there. Luckily the pedal broke after the mission I gave myself that evening, to tame the beast that is Vasoline by Stone Temple Pilots on Hard. That song has taunted me with its lack of high-score and lack of being completed for a few weeks now, so I was determined to break it. When you fail a song in Rock Band it tells you how far through you got, and thanks to the off-beat bass drumming in that song it’s always been a pretty low number in the past. Nevertheless I was determined last night to up that percentage little-by-little, just as I remember doing the first time I beat Bark At The Moon on Guitar Hero. Still the game mocked me, showing my feeble progress with each and every failure - 29%, 32%, 32%, 32%, 35%, 32% - you get the picture. Then, as if being suddenly injected with some kind of rhythm serum, I was no longer feeble and the pain-in-the-ass chorus section all fell into line and Wham! (no, not that Wham), I completed the song on the very next attempt. The feeling of success and achievement when you crack a song like that is enormous. Ok, so I’m a further two cities into my Hard career now and completely stuck again for the time being, but still, my bass drumming was to Vasoline as the horn was to the walls of Jericho - down it came!

The next time this gets updated I should be golden brown, thoroughly chilled out and ready to get stuck back into stuff. So with that in mind I expect I’ll see you here in a week, sun-burned, knackered and ready for another holiday ;).

Technorati Tags: broken bass pedal, holiday, Rock Band, Spain, Vasoline

If you were to listen to the likes of Steven Hawking, or even Albert Einstein, they’d tell you the one certain way to slow time is to travel at near-to light speed. I however, offer an alternative theory, friends - waiting to go on holiday.

I’m off to Spain this coming weekend, and up until now time has just raced away from me. But now, with just one working week left, time seems to have slowed to a crawl. Early on Saturday evening a minibus will be pootling its way around west Cornwall gathering the suspects for our first ‘friends’ holiday, after a scant ten years of talking about it (and even now there’s still two who won’t be there). From there we make the short run up the road to Newquay airport, which is essentially a shed in a field, and then a direct flight to Espana! Naturally I’ve not even done half the things I need to, so that’s my week sorted out for me. I still need all sorts, including a couple of good hats, sandals, currency, a small vat of sunscreen (I burn very easily and managed to do just that yesterday at my parents’ barbecue) and various other bits and pieces.

Somehow everything seems to have come at once yet again, I was thinking ‘Hmm, I need to spend quite a lot to get my Euros’ and then remembered that I need to renew my road tax too. Oh, and my car needs an MOT. It usually doesn’t cost me much, but I can’t help but think it might need some work done this year. I do hope not.

My friend came around on Saturday afternoon for the first time in ages, which was a great treat. He’s been extra-busy for months now renovating his house with his other half, and we managed to have some quality rot time. Rot night was something we as a group of friends used to organise every fortnight or so, which gave us a chance to crash at someone’s house for the evening and just play games or watch the kind of films our girls would never sit through, but it’s not happened for ages. Saturday’s impromptu rot was a classic, we just sat down and played Smash Bros for about four hours I think. That evening more people gathered at our place and we all headed out for the evening. We went to the meadery (think ‘Medieval eating house’) which was awesome, I hadn’t been for years. A few libations and plenty of scampi later we headed into town for a for more drinks and a lot of Pool and Table Football. A thoroughly enjoyable day!

Sunday’s training was good fun for the most part. I’m back up to nearly completely uninjured now, so I’m training for the full two hours each time I go, and the second hour last night was the adults-only fight squad training. The traditional class went well, even if I did manage to muck up part of pyung ahn oh dan, and it was good to go through ho sin sool and il soo sik dae ryun with the 10th gups before their first grading next week. It’s unfortunate that I won’t be there to watch them and wish them well, but I know they’ll do me proud. The sparring for the second hour was really odd. When we do the adults-only training the contact levels tend to come up a bit and with it being continuous, but never with (much) animosity. In my second fight I took a kick down below which put me down for a minute or so, but luckily it was more frank than beans so I was able to finish. When I said it was odd before, I meant from a scoring point of view. Every fight I had I came off the mats believing I’d lost, where in actual fact that was only true of my first fight. I have no idea why, but either way I managed to clock up some points before my penultimate fight against my brother. I’m still not sure what I did, but during a hook punch I threw, something very strange and very, very painful happened to my arm. I tried to carry on just using my legs but it was so painful I had to stop, and had to concede my final match too. I’m not sure why but I don’t seem to be able to go to training without coming home with an injury at the moment. I wouldn’t mind so much if it was someone hurting me instead of me doing it all the time! :).

Never mind, a week of reading, supping cold beers by the pool and relaxation should help me mend up nicely. I’m not looking forward to that first lesson back though ;).

Technorati Tags: holiday, meadery, Smash Bros Brawl, Spain, sparring

It’s time for a little catch-up on general goings-on and suchlike. Think of this post as padding for my blog bra.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, my beard is nearly back in service. It was nice for a change to have a clean-shaven face, I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d run a razor over my chin, but I think I definitely prefer a bit of face-fuzz. I’ve also been told by some of the girls at training that I look ‘wrong’ without a beard, that helped sway my decision. It’s at the stage now where it feels a bit like Action Man’s head.

Speaking of training, it’s great to be back full-time now. I’m slowly getting my fitness back, my knee feels almost 100% fixed (although a short run last night left it aching) and my arm pulls seem to be just about mended too. I went along to kickboxking after the traditional class on Wednesday, and apart from the warm-up where I felt like I was going to pass out at one point, it was great. I was so pleased to be putting spin-hook kicks out at head height with reasonable control and power, and laying into the pads with power on roundhouse drills has never been as satisfying. I’ve started learning Bassai properly now (it’s the same as your Bassai Dai karate folks) and it’s great to be drumming a new form in again. Despite a small hiccup with a new neighbour and his petty squabbles with our landlord, the new academy building is going great too. It feels more like home every day and the floor is *awesome* to spar on ^^.

Due to either the weather or having other things on, I haven’t had a barbecue in weeks and weeks now, and if the weather’s looking better tomorrow I hope to redress the balance. An afternoon in the garden with a slowly burning pit of charcoal, supping a chilled cider and reading my book (which I really, really need to crack on with properly).

I’m loving music again lately too. I mean, I always love music, but I’m particularly into it again at the moment. I treated myself to the new In Flames album last weekend, which I wasn’t intending to do, but the shop had the special edition with bonus DVD for 1p cheaper than the regular version - what was I supposed to do!? It’s really rather excellent, and that’s been sharing playtime with (yet another) best of ’80s album, inspired by last weekend’s antics. When I’m not as poor as a church mouse with a double mortgage and a hefty gas bill, I’m going to invest in some new audio stuff for home.

Ooh and how could I forget, just a week to go then I’m jetting off to sunnier climes. My friends and I are invading Spain and I intend to be relaxation personified. I’m going book shopping during the week and intend to get through as much as I can, when I’m not acting like a 10 year-old at the nearby water park that is!!!!

Technorati Tags: beard, holiday, In Flames, Spain, tang soo do, training

After a great Friday (more on that another time, once I get pictures) I was wondering how the rest of the weekend would turn out, but I needn’t have worried, I had an awesome time. Last week I got invited to a fund-raising party, a 1980s themed one at that, and I’ve been excessively excited ever since. Saturday night was the night of the party, and having spent the entire week previous gathering and scouring shops for the bits and pieces I needed for my costume, I couldn’t wait to get glammed up and get going.

I got to my friend’s house in the early evening, knowing that the party was due to end at midnight and wanting to have enough time to get changed and get ready. We had a bit of a laugh and I changed into my costume which consisted of knee-length black leather(ish) boot tops, black trousers with a couple of belts at various angles, a flouncy, frilly black shirt, a black tricorn hat and some silk scarves hung from the waist. Oh, and the obligatory flintlock pistol. I was pretty pleased with it so far, but the true topping off came with the make-up. My friend (Roller Disco Queen or RDQ from hereon in) graciously accepted the task of applying my war paint, as I have zero experience in wearing any (shocking, I know). While RDQ had her hair crimped in a manner befitting the decade of the evening, she contended with my face. “Don’t try to not blink” was the advice I was given while having what felt like my eyeball drawn on, and I think it actually worked. Not because I didn’t try to not blink, but because just trying to figure out what that meant left me confused and too distracted to flinch and squirm. I’ll admit that hearing other people saying “That’s not enough eye make-up, more silver” terrified me a bit, I had visions of finding a really bad transvestite looking back at me from the mirror. I should have had a lot more faith though, once I was decorated it was just perfect! One of the reasons for it looking so good was that earlier in the day I had made the ultimate sacrifice and shaved my beard off! For the first time in around 7 or 8 years I have a naked chin and it feels weird!

(despite how the photo looks, I wasn’t actually terrified)

I’ve wanted to dress up as Adam Ant for a long, long time. Why, I don’t really know, I’ve never really been grabbed by any other character or star in the past, not to the same extent. Although the costume wasn’t 100% perfect - I couldn’t find a good military-style doublet and didn’t get around to trimming my tricorn with gold brocade - I’m still really pleased with how it turned out. RDQ was looking suitably garish with every single colour represented, and I’m pretty sure there were even a couple of new ones! We set off into Falmouth, no-one really knowing where we were actually going but having ‘a rough idea’. This was the part of the evening I was most nervous about if any, as I knew at 7.30 in the evening the town would still be very busy. However, as my character for the evening would’ve been the first to say, ‘ridicule is nothing to be scared of’, and I’m sure at the very least the sight of ’80s throwbacks meandering and roller-skating through the streets was something a bit different from the norm. After negotiating a very steep hill (which was precariously close to the harbourfront) without even a semblance of style or grace, we found the place!

We were just about the first people there, much to the delight of the hostess. The party was thrown as a bit of a fundraiser and a thank-you for people who helped when her daughter needed treatment from the local childrens’ cancer service. All are well now thankfully, and slowly the small bar started to fill up. The costumes ranged from the very easy, little effort attempts, mostly involving lots of denim, braces and legwarmers to the more elaborate. Crockett and Tubbs from Miami Vice turned up and were hard to move from the dance floor, but I think it’s fair to say that the car steed driven ridden by the Dandy Highwayman brought the people who most threw themselves into the spirit of the evening the most (and almost certainly spent the most on their costumes). There was a second Adam Ant there, but in fairness he had turned up as ‘Prince Charming’ Adam Ant as opposed to my ‘Stand And Deliver’ incarnation.

Much to my amazement RDQ only went over once, but I was in no place to laugh, not after my own moment of stupidity earlier. The small bar the party was in had no snacks of any kind, so we were sent over to the main bar. As if negotiating a pub full of ‘normal’ people dressed like that isn’t bad enough, as I came out someone shouted ‘Cheers Adam!’ in my direction, so I stopped and stared. As I was looking I was thinking ‘I don’t know this person, how does he know me? Maybe it’s just someone I haven’t seen for ages…. No, I really don’t know him… Maybe I’ve been staring at him for too long now….‘. It wasn’t until I got back in the other bar that I shamefully realised he didn’t know my name after all, as I remembered who I was dressed as…

Oh dear.

Nevertheless, a good time was had by all. Sadly it finished at 12, and the DJ was frankly rubbish (honestly, who turns up to play an ’80s night with no Adam Ant, no Billie Jean and a lot of other noticeable absentees), but those were the only downers. We chatted, sang and danced like demons, partying like it was the mid-eighties. Great Days.

Technorati Tags: 80s, adam ant, Falmouth, party

It’s great to be back at Tang Soo Do, I’ve spent so long out that everything feels fresh and new. I’ve had to basically re-learn my latest il soo sik dae ryun and ho sin sool, but I think they’ve stuck this time. What’s not so great is that I’ve managed to hurt myself (yet) again. Not too badly this time, for those of you about to roll your eyes in disbelief, but enough to annoy me. About a week ago I finished a session with a sore arm which I assumed was just a little tweak/hyper-extension done during some punching drills, but in the past when I’ve done the same it’s usually better a day or so later. That wasn’t the case this time.

I went back for the next session and it wasn’t long before I was in lots of pain with it. The pain I mean, for those who know, is that throbbing ache which leaves you without an ounce of strength. It got to where I couldn’t pull my sock on or zip up my training bag, which I found funny more than anything else (in a sadly pathetic kinda way). Naturally I did what any idiot addict enthusiastic student in my situation would do - train on regardless. On we went to ho sin sool where my partner had to apply a particularly nasty arm lock which hurt it even more. After that we worked on some potential demo stuff, including a backflip escape from two attackers (useless, but good demo fodder). As one of the ‘bigger guys’ I was put into a group of three which included a bigger guy than me (yeah, I know!), which was going really well. After a couple of practises I managed to go straight over onto my feet which felt pretty sweet, but then it was the turn of the bigger guy. On one of the attempts where he didn’t get all the way over and stalled at the top, my partner and I were left suspending him mid-flight. I was securing him using my good arm, which promptly gave way and pulled…..

Great, two arm pulls/tears/whatevers. Of course I took some time off and rested it before going back to training…. *ahem* or maybe I didn’t and went straight back training again. I’ve had three days since my last training session now, so I’m hoping I’m a little better healed for tonight. It was also great to get back into fight squad training, I had missed padding up and laying into my friends.

Outside of the dojang, it’s still just rain, rain, rain at the moment. Rubbish. There’s a nice bright light at the end of the tunnel that is this week though, on Saturday I’ve been invited to an fund-raising ’80s party! Anyone who knows me knows that I love the 1980s and mostly everything to do with the decade, the music, the laughable fashions, the films - just the whole package. So this weekend I’m trundling off to party like it’s 1985, and naturally doing the whole thing in costume. But who? What? Why none other than my single favourite ’80s artist and namesake Adam Ant!

I’ll be donning the highwayman garb, and of course painting my face and I CANNOT WAIT! All that remains is to make sure I have the final bits and pieces, adorn my tricorn with some gold brocade and brush up on the steps to ‘Prince Charming’.

(who am I kidding, I know the steps perfectly ;))

Technorati Tags: 80s, adam ant, muscle pull, tang soo do, training