Murgh mp3

Ruddy heck, I’m slowly dragging myself into the C21st. I bought myself an external hard disc (320 Gb) back in December. I’d been meaning to get one for a while, but the issue was forced when I got a new PC at work and had to give the old one back. Unfortunately, I had about 20 Gb of downloaded music and stuff on it that I needed to remove before it went, so I got the HD to do the job. Very handy it is too.

Also, I have belatedly donned my trunks and dived into the sea of mp3 fun. I bought myself a Sony NW-E003 1 Gb (flash memory) player just before Christmas. One of these things:

It was just over £50. Again, it’s something I’ve been meaning to buy for ages. It’s dead fab! It’s only got 1 Gb in storage capacity, but it suits me just fine. I wasn’t too bothered about having the means of accessing a thousand songs at any time; I’ve got a load of podcasts, internet radio broadcasts and old John Peel shows on mp3 and I never seem to get around to listening to them through my PC, so I bought this player so I can listen when I’m cycling. I bought some better headphones than the cheapo ones that came with it, and bingo! Brilliant fun. I’m wading through the backlog. I cycle to work listening to Peel and it puts a smile on my face. The thing is only 3″ long (matron) so it slips into my pocket very easily. I don’t mind plugging it into my PC every few days and refreshing the shows I have on it, so it’s tip top for me. Perversely, since I started using this I’ve ripped a huge amount of my not inconsiderable CD collection onto my PC at home and I listen to more music this way now. I had a bit of a ripping frenzy over Christmas and it continued well into the new year. The big drawback is that I’m rapidly filling up my hard drive. I’ve got about 30 Gb of ripped music on there now. Yikes. On the plus side, at least it’s all backed up now. K-yip!

Speaking of cycling, I’ve been off to a flyer so far in 2007. It’s been the second best start to a year since records began, second only to that madcap year 1998. I’m averaging 69 miles per week at the moment, having scored centuries in 3 of the 7 weeks gone so far. On the downside, the battery in my cycling computer (or ‘speedo’, if you like) died at the weekend, having been gradually fading away for the last couple of weeks. I’ve ordered a replacement (it takes a similar kind of battery to the ones you put in watches) but in the meantime, if I do any cycling I’ll have to note the route and then retrace my steps later to measure it *rolls eyes*.

I haven’t seen ex-Tomato Michael, Aggie or GB Troy for a while. It’s been 4 weeks now, as the last time I saw them was Saturday 20th January. We went out for a curry that night. I think I mentioned it on here, but last summer we were watching England v Ecuador in the World Cup at the pub, and I happened to mention to the others that I’d put £10 on Italy to win the tournament at 12/1. Aggie asked me if I’d pay for a night out if it won, and I drunkenly agreed. She’d never forgotten about it (grr), so that Saturday was pay day for them. We went to a curry house in town. I’d been there once before, ages ago. It was very nice! I had some kind of house special. Mine was the least hot of the four dishes that were ordered, even though it said “hot” on the menu. Grr. I tried some of the others’ though. Michael got a jalfrezi and struggled with it due to the heat. It was quite a spicy one. Slurp. Urgh, I was SO stuffed. Appalling. I managed to have a pint in the pub afterwards, then I only had room for a vodka and coke. We went home at 12:30. I rolled home, in fact.

So I had to pay the bill. But it was only £80. Not bad at all, £20 each effectively, for:

8 pints of lager
4 poppadoms
4 starters
4 main courses (two with rice, two nan breads)
2 desserts

Gufftastic. I’ll have to go back again sometime.