xboxes and tents...

The xbox has returned from it's trip to Germany for repair! :)
Seems a little louder when I fire it up, maybe I had just forgotten quite how noisy they are.
Included in the box was a card for a month free live membership, which I'm taking as an apology for the hassle/replace the (nearly full) month I was without my 360 for.

So now I'm starting on DeadSpace that I was given for Christmas, scary stuff!

xbox update

My status on xbox.com has changed...apparently my machine is on it's way home. At least I hope it's my machine rather than a refurbished one.

So now it's a matter of watching the UPS tracking system closely. I do wonder if it will actually find me again, the label the M$ website produced from my address was a bit off, hopefully UPS man will be able to figure it out. It's got my phone number on it anyway.....

Xbox progress..

UPS tracking says it arrived with M$ at ~3am today.
The M$ support pages still shows waiting for it to arrive.

Just the support page to watch now I guess. Any bets on how long the repair will take?

xbox with shippers

Continuing the xbox story... yesterday I got my labels for shipping. Tried to use UPS website to arrange collection from office but seems I needed a UPS account to do that.

Alternative? Drop it at a UPS depot.
So, check for most accessible one for me... Sheffield. No sign of any opening hours on the website so figured I'd just have to go and see if they're still open when I get there.

Straight to UPS from work, get there around 5ish after driving round the houses a bit. They're hidden at the back of an industrial estate.

They were open. :D

Now I'm tracking it online, apparently UPS expect to get it there by tomorrow. Then it's wait and see how long it;ll take for one to be sent back. Hopefully my own repaired one but reading around online it seems there is a good chance it may be someone else's "refurbished" machine :( Not very happy about that, I took good care of mine it's pristine!

xbox support

Yesterday morning there was no sign of my labels arriving (in email) for me to return my xbox to MS for repair. So I sent an email to their support team.

Yesterday evening I get a reply asking me to cancel my return request and raise a new one. So that's 3 working days so far since machine broke and it hasn't even left my desk yet :(

XBox died :(

Finally been hit with the red ring of death on my shiny Elite 360 :((

Try to raise a request with M$ to get a repair, that was 'fun'! First, need to register the console using the serial number on the back of it, all recognised successfully and warranty has expired. Still covered for the RRoD 'till August 2010, so that's good.

Start the process of raising a repair request, took numerous attempts to get the system to accept my address. Gave up in the end and tried work address, similar issues there. I can only hope when my machine goes away it comes back ok!

Next I have to confirm details/read terms etc. Problem here is that the M$ page is rendered in an unreadable way on FireFox (on Linux). Come on M$, I know you think everyone should use your browser but is it really beyond your capabilities to check sites with some other mainstream browsers for your customers (FireFox/Opera/Chrome at least)?

Fortunately my nearest and dearest has yet to be seduced by Linux and insists on sticking to 'doze so I have access to an IE machine.

Start the process again... including faffing with addresses that can't be recognised so get rejected.

A 5 minute, raise a repair request, job turned into an hour of faffing about with M$ websites :(

Anyhoo, request got raised in the end. That was Saturday (maybe Friday) 12th December. Now I have to wait for further instructions on how to send it to M$ apparently.

Checked my ticket this morning, still shows as pending processing. So they are yet to send out a label/courier info. Have my doubts this will be sorted before Christmas now.

Back to Karate

Finally got round to getting to the Shotokan Karate club in Sheffield (http://www.shimeijurasan.com/) that started a year or 2 back!

For a couple of years I haven't been training at all, before that I was practising for maybe 2 years, nice to get back to it.

Quite a formal class compared to the last club I was at, but it didn't feel like it was forced. Some clubs the formal bowing etc all feels a bit artificial.

So it's a "watch this space" to see if I manage to stick at it when term time Judo gets back to full swing.

Power plate?

At the gym last night doing my thing and as ever people seem to be queueing up to use the Powerplate machine (something like: http://uk.powerplate.com/en/).

This is the latest fad in gym equipment it seems.... sit on a machine that vibrates a lot. That's it. Or so it seems.

All around the machine are posters about how it improves, strength, fitness, weighloss, circulation and well, everything really. Seems to me more like one of the electronic belt things that promise to give you a flat stomach in a week or something equally ridiculous.

Now on this machine people are contorting themselves into all sorts of amusing positions, doing situps on the machine, even sitting on the florr with the back to the machine seems to be a workout apparently.

I think the manufacturers of gym equipment just get together every now and then to plot how they can make the most unlikely piece of gym equipment they can and how they can make gym users look as daft as possible!

Weight loss progress, back down to 96Kg. One of guys in Judo club who was well over 100Kg when he started with us is now down to 91Kg, in the same time I've lost maybe 4 Kg.... need to work harder at the weight loss!

EBay increases fees again...

Ok, so not directly. I received an email from EvilBay yesterday as an occasional seller informing me about changes to the way they allow listings to be put up.

Essentially, any media items like DVDs, CDs, computer games etc are to be forced to be sold with free postage. Clearly this is a good thing for buyers you'd think, right? Perhaps.

No doubt sellers will increase their starting price to include postage, which is of course against EBay policy, but given you can currently expect to lose 10% of the final sale in fees (insertion/final value/paypal) sellers can't be expected to then lose the postage costs too.

I suppose it makes pricing more transparent for buyers, but if people are so stupid as to not factor in postage that's their loss IMO!

So if I were to list a CD, I would have listed at a start price of 99p. Now I will start them at £1.75 or £1.99 to cover postage costs.

How does this impact me? Insertion fees go up as (last time I looked) there is a fee for inserting an item into EBay listings based on starting price. EBay had marketed the 99p starting price to sellers previously by ensuring insertion fees for items under £1 had lower insertion fees than items over £1.

So now EBay will be taking a higher insertion fee from sellers who have to start the auctions at a higher price to cover postage. The final sale price will be higher (including postage remember) so the final value fees EBay charge for an item will be higher as fee now charged on postage.
Of course Paypal is pushed as the best payment method (look for paypal disputes online and you'll find examples of why the 'buyer protection' isn't worth squat), so a seller that accepts Paypal has to accept paying Paypal fees.

Including postage in auction price means higher Paypal fees.

All in all this change only seems to help EBay grab more cash from sellers. As an individual I think it's time to find alternative marketplace for your stuff. EBay don't want your business it seems, impression I get is EBay want to become somewhere for traders to sell.

If you like the auction model, try places like ebid.co.uk instead. They also have a wanted section for people to advertise what they want and others to offer them stuff.

Anyhoo... enough of my fleecebay rantings. In other news, the weightloss seems to swing back and forth in progress terms. Only last week my scales told me I was nearly 98Kg again :( This morning the scales told me 93Kg. 5 Kg in a week? I think not!

Weight loss and cars

Yeah I know, cars + weight loss shouldn't really appear in the same blog post. On this occasion they're not related, honest!

Finally got the remote control stalk by the steering wheel to work. Took a lot of fighting and a fair bit of cursing at it but when I figured out what I was missing it all sloted into place nicely. So in the hope of saving someone else the pain I added a quick guide for fitting the Autoleads PC99-x26 adaptor in a 206 on my website.

The weight continues to come off. Still very slowly though, weighed in at 97Kg this morning. Most of the last week I had been under that, so while it is slow progress, it is progress. :)

Glastonbury festival/Pendulum

No, I wasn't there. Watching now on BBC TV, looks like a blinding set! Lots of people jumping about, pushing + shoving in the crowd as expected, people in the crowd with flares, great fun!

One thing did grab my attention in watching some of these performances at the Glastonbury Festival is the number of young kids on shoulders at the stages, hope they enjoy it.

Though I have just seen a young lad of maybe 5 looking veryt tired on someones shoulders. AI've nothing against him being at Glastonbury, but maybe the crowd at a band like Pendulum may not be best place for a toddler?

Does that mean I'm getting old?!

Bloomin hayfever

I used to be really healthy. Never got ill, fit etc.

Now, I'm a lardy out of shape lump (too much time in from of PC!) who gets colds and more recently, hayfever.

Last 3 or 4 years I have been getting a bit of sniffles every spring, nothing too bad, a (n allergy) tablet in the morning if I wake up feeling snivelly would sort it out.

That changed this year. Yesterday I was suffering with a continually running nose and bouts of sneezing even though I had taken a hay fever tablet that morning. Looks like it's here to stay.

Today is a bit better, still got sniffles but nowhere near as bad as yesterday. Maybe because yesterday was hot/sunny and today...isn't!

I wonder if the docs would indulge me and give me an allergy text to be sure it is hay fever and not just a cold?

In other news.... competed in a Judo competition at the weekend and took silver, another medal for the collection.

Weighed myself this morning: 96.2Kg. No doubt that will be up again by tomorrow morning but it was nice to see today. Maybe I'll drag my bloated carcass to the gym later to reinforce the weight loss!

Progress might be slow, but it's progress

Last few days I've been reliably weighing in at a touch under 98Kg in the mornings. So weight is starting to come off now I've taken out a 3 month gym membership for the summer to try and get fit ready for the British Masters Judo competition in October.

3 or 4 exercise sessions a week should help, where gym sessions are around 1 and a half - 2 hours long. According to my heart rate monitor gadget I burn between 1000 and 1500Kcal each session at the gym.

Who knows, I might even make under 90Kgs for the masters.... or not!

In other news, finally got my new(!) car to the garage for a service. Needless to say they found plenty of other work they recommend getting done. My £130 service turned into a £300 bill.

Still need to spend £130 on repairs to a "CV joint". No idea, but he found it after taking car for a drive and discovering the knocking noise on full lock to turn. I had noticed that knocking before, so at least I know what it is now. Also need a new tyre or two before the MOT is due in the autumn. Legal now but will probably need replacing by then.

Can you guess where my August bonus will be spent this year? :( On the plus side, my benefits package is being reviewed at work meaning my bonus amount goes up this year so it should cover all this work :) Just hope the credit card can withstand the hammering until I can pay for it all!

MP expenses

MPs have been taking liberties with their expense claims. It's not good of course, but what I don't understand is why it is all over the news for the last week like it's something new.

Surely we all knew already MPs are not the most trustworthy bunch, arranging agreements to further their political careers over and above what is right for their constituents. It's only a small step to assume they would be inflating their expenses a bit, much like I anticipate a lot of top execs get higher expenses paid out than they have actually spent in the first place.

Is there really nothing else of significance going on in the world?

Car performance

With my old car I was keeping track of MPG everytime I filled up, largely so I could see where all the money was going and it helped me see when something was wrong with car (MPG drops = need to top up oil/inflate tyres etc).

With the new car I'm experimenting with how I drive to get maximum fuel efficiency while still getting home at a reasonable time. The first tank I got 39MPG, the last tank was closer to 45MPG so a big improvement.

Change probably a combination of getting to know the car a bit better now and my experiments in driving style.

Now if only I can get to (and maintain!) 45+ MPG. Unlikely I suspect as last week was quiet on the road so I could go at the speed I wanted (half term?). Today was much busier with stop/start driving on M1. :(

Change of car

My poor little Ka has had enough of the 70 mile round trip commute and given up. :(
Not strictly true, but paying out £600 to get it through the MOT when after the work it wouldn't be worth more than £1000, I thought it time to change.

I now have a 1.4 206 GLX. Does the job.
Bit more comfortable than the Ka for longer journeys but I do miss the go-kart handling of the Ka. The 206 also has a few little extras that are nice to have, AC, alarm, remote locking etc.

Slightly annoyed at the finance that has been arranged. I was careful to ask at the garage about all the costs, 5% interest seemed good. £150 'admin' fee makes up for low interest rate. So £500 in costs over the £1750 loan amount.

Got my documents through yesterday, seems my grand total payable is now £3262! Seems the admin fees they added are more like £320.

Bit of a jump from £2250 we worked out at the garage, so I have to phone today and try get something changed/find out if I can clear it off in one go (probably with a regular bank loan).

Otherwise I'm fairly happy with the car, trying to get the required adaptors/cables to fit my shiny stereo in place of the factory fit one. Doesn't sound to brilliant right now, maybe new speakers would help too?!

Monday weigh in...

Figure a weekly weight in should suffice to keep track of progress on the weight loss thing. Mondays, being the start of the week, is a good a day as any.

So todays weight: 99Kg.

Which is a kilo or two down from last week. Considering how I felt hungry several times last week I would have been rather upset if no weight had gone!

Now I can only hope that as my body gets accustomed to less food going in it will whinge about being hungry less, but I doubt it. As with everything else, time will tell.

Losing weight/getting fit (again)

Having moved to another office in Leeds, I can't get out at lunch to go to the gym/play badminton etc any more because of the parking arrangements. So in the last year I've noticed I've been getting steadily less fit and more overweight.

This isn't helping my general happiness and even less my Judo, so it's time to try and get rid of a bit of surplus lardiness. Last time I got down to around 95Kg I think, I'm now back at 100Kg (~16 stone).

If I can set a target of a couple of a Kg a month, then even if I have a bad month I should get down to mid/low 90s by the end of the year and hopefully feel (and look!) a whole lot better.

How successful I will be at this I don't know. I would like to join a gym, but at this time of year they'll be rammed. I better get back to the running (plodding) :(

Even better would be if I could get out of the office at lunchtime, but AFAIK there are no gyms near enough to the office to get to and have a workout in lunch hour without taking the car.

Helen has been following a commercial weight loss programme with some real success last year, so she's persuaded me to try it for a bit and see how I get on. Only a couple of days in and it's really driving home how much I have been eating.

Hopefully I will get used to the much reduced portions! :(