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Just a very quick update on TYSIC. I’ve been doing well the past couple of days, I’ve spent some time practicing slowly. I’m still finding it difficult to force myself to actually practice things at a slow speed and ensure they’re perfect, but I think I’m doing better than I was.

I started learning the intro to ‘I bet you look good on the dancefloor’ by the Arctic Monkeys earlier and actually seemed to pick it up pretty quickly. So obviously the work I’ve been doing has somewhat paid off – even if the intro is actually pretty simple! And I’ve started working on my power chords as well which I’ve never really had to use before, but think might be useful.

Oh, and I’ve started an exercise about finding notes on the fretboard. So, in general there’s about a million and one things to do, but I’m getting there!

On his blog, Mark Watson recently started up an idea called the Ten Year Self Improvement Challenge (TYSIC for short). Readers of his blog were asked to submit things which they wanted to accomplish over the next ten years, and it would form some sort of community of people working on it together.

I didn’t post anything up at the time (the official start date was 4th March) but, on reflection, I’ve decided to take up the challenge. Here’s my TYSIC:

I’ve always lacked discipline when learning an instrument. At the piano, I always used to (and still do) learn things up until I can sort of play them… and then stop. I’m finding it the same at the guitar as well: I learn things up until I can “sort of” play them… and then stop. Well, no more. My aim is, over the next ten years, to try and get actually good at playing the guitar. (I say guitar, I didn’t want to be too ambitious and I already play the piano to an extent I’m relatively happy with … I might extend to the piano as well depending on how it goes).

So, from now on, when I practice guitar – and I’m going to try and do at least 10-15 minutes every day – I’m going to be doing the things no-one really likes doing: scales, finger exercises, and generally playing solos really really slowly to make sure that I’ve got them perfectly. We’ll see how it goes, but I started last night and felt better as a result!

I thought as well that it would be better to do this as TYSIC rather than just an aim of mine, because the TYSIC community will hopefully keep reminding me of this!

I’ll update here from time to time with my progress.

A while back I wrote a blog post ‘about’ feminism. Well, sort of, more about the lad’s mag culture and what have you.

Anyway, I’ve just read a very interesting article which deals with a similar theme. The general idea is that our culture seems to believe that feminism has done its work – women have equal rights. In that kind of society sexism can thrive because it’s seen as ‘ironic’ or something like that.

Because women are now “equal” and the battle is over and won, we are now free to embrace things we used to see as sexist, including hypergirliness. In fact, this is supposed to be a relief.

Thank God girls and women can turn their backs on stick-in-the-mud, curdled feminism and now we can jiggle our way into that awesome party. Now that women allegedly have the same sexual freedom as men, they actually prefer to be sex objects because it’s liberating. According to enlightened sexism, women today have a choice between feminism and antifeminism, and they just naturally and happily choose the latter because, well, antifeminism has become cool, even hip.

It’s well worth reading!

So, this weekend it’s the Proclamation Trust Bible Training Weekend. I’d post a link but I’M USING IE6 WHICH DOESN’T HAVE TABBED FRIGGIN BROWSING! *ahem* Apologies, it’s just that using IE6 is such an awful experience it’s actually almost painful.

Aaaaanyway. I thought I would do a bit of “Live Blogging” from the conference. Live Blogging, as defined by me, is blogging when you’re actually at the event, rather than looking back at it afterwards. That’s not the normal definition of live blogging. I don’t care. Talk to the hand…

So. As Wayne from “Wayne’s World” once said, let me bring you up to speed. I had the day off today (as I have the past couple of days). After lunch I headed over to pick up Quinlan, who I was travelling to the weekend with. Unfortunately I was about 25 minutes late (due to roadworks and getting lost, don’t ask), but we eventually headed off in his VW Beetle. Which I was driving. I think he quite likes being chauffered (he is a world-famous architect after all…) and so I drove. It was the first time I’ve driven a Beetle – new or old (this is an 04 model) and it seemed pretty nice. Standard VW really – drove well, steering felt light, decent engine. I did miss my Saab’s 2.0 litre turbocharged engine though – it really eats up the motorway miles and is pretty efficient. You could virtually see the fuel guage move on the VW!

Anyway. We got here at about 17:50, which gave me ten minutes to find my room and get to the first meeting. I managed to get there but stupidly forgot my Bible, notbook, pen, programme etc… looked over someone’s shoulder for most of it. It was OK though! The first session was from Adrian Reynolds on Ezra chapter 1, which was very interesting. Then we had dinner (Beef Chilli, nice, and some sort of chocolate cheesecake, also nice).

And then we had our second session, which was by Christopher Ash on Old Testament Narrative. I really enjoyed it actually, it gave a good taster of what we’re going to be studying this weekend. Won’t go into it now though as, well… if you’ve read this far you’re doing well.

Think that’s about it to be honest. After that I just chatted with some random people and started writing this blog… exciting stuff! To be honest I don’t have much else to say right now, so I’ll say ta-ta for now. We have some free time tomorrow aftenoon so I might update again then.

This started out as a comment on Matthew’s blog post, but I then hit the word limit and decided that it probably worked better as a proper blog post!

So, if you haven’t already, go and read Matthew’s blog post, and then pretend that you’re reading a comment on his blog. (Except that here it’s not in a really tiny font which you need a magnifying glass to see ;)

Gosh, I didn’t realise you were so judgemental – how awful ;) Seriously though, I do the same kind of thing. I think driving brings out the worst in people – when I’m driving I’m irritable, short-tempered, impatient, selfish etc. Don’t really know what it is, but driving definitely has some kind of effect me on other things don’t!

I think it’s something to do with stress levels – driving is actually quite a stressful experience for me. There’s something about always having to be alert and watching out for all the other idiots on the road which raises the stress levels.

Having said all that, to mention a few of your points… there are good reasons for not doing 70mph, mainly petrol consumption. I think the ideal speed for petrol usage is around 56mph. Although I do sit around 70 on the motorway! I do go faster occasionally, mainly when overtaking (if a car is doing slightly less than what I want to do, I will speed up so I don’t hold up the cars behind me).

I also feel the need to defend my choice of car. I own a Saab 9-3 which has a 2.0 litre turbocharged engine, producing about 154bhp. It’s not exactly a monster, petrol-guzzling engine but it’s probably more than I need. The petrol consumption isn’t too bad if you get going – I reckon around 40mpg on the motorway, 30-35 otherwise. (It usually hovers around 35 on the computer thingum).

So why do I drive it then? Well, because it’s a good, reliable car which will hopefully last. Recent problems aside, Saabs are generally known for lasting a long time – apparently the guy who services my car said he services another similar 9-3 which has done over 400,000 miles!

To my mind it was more environmentally sound to buy a car that had already been made (it was second-hand), almost ten years old, but still had plenty of life left in it – even if it wasn’t quite as efficient as a smaller, more modern car. [Apparently building a car accounts for 1/3 of the carbon emissions of its lifetime!] And it is a very comfortable car, well-designed and made, which despite its age is still in very good condition.

Aaaaanyway. I pretty much agree on all the other points – a pet peeve of mine is people who drive inconsiderately. But yes, I am guilty of being judgemental when driving, and that’s not a good thing :(

I was thinking the other day about artists – particularly in music – who were better off together than they were apart. For example, Lennon and McCartney. Both fine songwriters separately, but when put together they really came up with something amazing. In fact, the Beatles as a band seemed to pull together to form something more than the sum of its parts.

I once heard a story that summed it up. Paul McCartney is a relentless optimist, and I think John Lennon was very cynical. In the song “Getting Better” (from Sergeant Pepper), Paul McCartney was singing it through and got to the line “It’s getting better all the time”. John Lennon walked in, having never heard the song before, and sung “Can’t get no worse” in perfect time to it.

It got me wondering whether truly great art comes from a tension – such as the tension between Lennon and McCartney, between optimism and pessimism. As with many things in life, the truth often lies somewhere in between two extremes.

The other example I thought of was The Smiths: the songs were written by Morrissey and Jonny Marr. Neither of them, to my mind, have done anything quite as good since. Certainly I haven’t really liked Morrissey’s albums so much. Why is that? I think part of the reason is, Morrissey on his own would be too depressing – it was the genius of Jonny Marr’s guitar parts that made it listenable and generally great music.

I wondered if anyone had any other thoughts on great partnerships like that?

So, Phil and I have started watching “Glee”, which is a new American comedy. Apparently Alex and Sarah both really like it, and Alex gave us some episodes to watch through (it’s being shown on Channel 4 at the moment I think).

Anyway, as it started out I didn’t think I was going to like it, but it won me over by the end of the first episode (we’ve only watched the first two episodes, including the pilot). At the moment it seems feel-good comedy, but it seems well written and the musical numbers are very well done. I also like the fact that it is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, so when the supposedly amateur high schoolers (who’ve never got anything musically right before) perform a pretty much spot-on version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”, it tips a nod to the audience as if to say, “Yeah, we know, it’s just part of the show… enjoy it”.

That said, it does epitomise some of the things I don’t like about American comedy. Namely, characterisation. I don’t know, it just seems that British comedies tend to make it more subtle – you get a more realistic blend of character traits. For example, in Green Wing, even the unsympathetic characters (such as Joanna Clore, Guy Secretan, Alan Statham) you really feel for sometimes. They still have moments of genuine warmth for them.

American characters tend to be much more… well, I would say more pantomime characters. They just aren’t as complex as real life. I don’t know whether this is a difference in my perception or whether there is something objective going on. But I still have to say I prefer British comedies. Perhaps America is just a different place to Britian, and Glee really is reflecting what’s going on in America.

All I can say is, if Glee is an accurate (or at least, based on facts) depiction of what happens in American schools, I’m glad I didn’t go to school there!

Hah. In “my room” (a/k/a the study) in our house I have a piano, two guitars, and an effects pedal. The piano has the ability to record things, and it also has the ability to pretend to be a bass. The effects pedal has a little drum machine on it. Can you see where this is going? Yep, I’ve just played four instruments simultaneously… sort of. And I did cheat on one – I wasn’t actually playing the drums. But still, it’s fantastic fun. I’ve just spent half an hour rocking out like Led Zeppelin. (Note to self: using the “Jimmy Page” setting on my effects pedal does *not* make me sound like Jimmy Page…)

It does make me think that I would quite like to be in a band though. Sunday@6 is good but it’s only really worship music at the moment. Anyone a bit crap at playing an instrument, like me, who wants to play a few random songs occasionally? ;)

Aaaanyway. Weekend antics. What did we get up to, etc. The usual. 21, shopping, church, relaxing. We watched “Burn After Reading” on Saturday night which is a typical Coen brothers film – a bit weird but quite clever and funny in places. Quite off-beat humour, if you like darker comedies you’d probably like this one.

The other news is, after rambling on about media centres and the like in my last post – and those of you who follow my Twitter feed will know this – we’ve decided to buy a new HDTV. It’s an LG 32″ Full HD model. Apparently, after we bought it the assistant told us it was what he and another one of the assistants had – and they were both really happy with it. Why he didn’t say that before I don’t know, but still, it looks pretty good. It should hopefully be delivered on Friday.

After all that talk about media centres and the like, I finally decided to go with a solid state Blu-Ray player. They had a very good deal on them, and I felt like the rest of our needs (iPlayer etc) for now can be handled by my laptop. So, not a very exciting outcome really, but there’s still scope for change!

Anyway, I think that’s all for now. Last night Matthew came and stayed with us, just for one night, because he had a meeting in Maldon this morning. It was nice to see him, albeit briefly, and he was even able to come and play drums at the Sunday@6 music rehearsal last night. Good fun.

Well, that’s about it for now, I’d better stop rambling again!

Well, I think the time has finally come to replace our aging TV. I’m not entirely sure how old it is, it was my Nan’s old TV before she died, but I’m guessing it’s around 10-15 years old.

Anyway, now seems like the right time to be buying a TV: High-Definition (HD) is becoming common, the analogue signal is going to be turned off in a few years – but, more importantly, apart from that I don’t think there are going to be any massive changes over the next few years.

Couple that with the fact that me and Phil do, in fact, watch a fair few DVDs (we’re not avid film buffs but we usually have a DVD out from LoveFilm), plus the fact that most of the TV we watch is widescreen (we usually watch on Freeview. Doctor Who etc. are now widescreen), I think we have a reasonable case for a new TV.

At this point, you might be thinking “Do you really need to justify it?” Well, yes, yes I do. That is the way I am: I may want a new TV, but I won’t actually be able to buy one until I can reasonably justify it to myself. Especially when we have a working TV, albeit a rather old one.

So… this weekend, I think we might be popping up to the shops to have a look at TVs. (And maybe even come away with one!)

But this leads me onto another issue – HD: we don’t have HD freeview at the moment (and most Freeview isn’t HD anyway, to be fair). Virgin do a V+HD box, but I’m not sure about getting cable. We also don’t have a Blu-Ray player, although our DVD player does do upscaling (it’s one of the HD-DVD ones, before HD-DVD was discontinued).

So I’ve been debating what to do: to buy a new Blu-Ray player, plus maybe a cable and V+HD subscription… OR buy a media centre PC which has a Blu-Ray drive and a TV tuner.

The advantages of a media centre PC are obvious to me: you can upgrade it, the software is easily upgradable, you can stream files from anywhere on your network, etc.

But, given my legendary indecision, I’m not so sure now: given these energy-conscious days, I don’t really want to keep the PC on all the time. I’d want to be able to only turn it on when I wanted it, and have it ready in a short space of time. Also, I want something very small and quiet.

I’ve found a good candidate for that – the ASRock ION. But, you hit the slight snag that they’re not really upgradeable: that kind of takes away one advantage. As for streaming stuff over the network… I have a laptop at the moment which has HDMI output. Streaming stuff isn’t really an issue, I can just carry my laptop down to the TV and plug it in. No probs.

So, in general I’m kind of leaning towards getting a Blu-Ray player and perhaps a V+HD box at some point in the future. But hey, this is my, all opinions subject to change… probably in the next 20 minutes.

Not new mattress troubles (although, for what it’s worth, the new mattress is very comfortable now).

The problem is with the old mattress. We don’t have a big enough car to take it to the rubbish tip – we’ve just had it in the spare room for the past few months. Anyway, we eventually got round to contacting the council, who provide a service where you pay for large items to be taken away. The agreement is that you pay the money, leave it out on the designated day, and then they will collect it. All fair enough and simple.

So, we left it out on Tuesday – by 7AM – and expected them to come and collect it. Except… they didn’t. We called up on Wednesday, and apparently it was “an oversight”. In other words, they forgot. In a normal week that would be inconvenient – they have promised to pick it up next Tuesday: we could have just brought it back in again and left it out next Tuesday. Unfortunately, the snow came down on Wednesday. If the mattress had been collected on Tuesday – when there was no snow – it would have been fine. But by Wednesday afternoon, it was covered in snow. Not much we can do about it.

So we’ve had to leave it out all week. I feel rather bad about leaving it out for the whole week – I think it’s been getting a few funny looks from our neighbours. But not much we can do about it :-(

Hopefully they will be able to come and collect it on Tuesday. OK, so that blog post had very little point, other than to make me feel better. But it worked in that respect, so it’s not all bad news ;)