Instinctively tried to catch an iron as it toppled off the ironing board. Caught it. When the pain kicked in I dropped it on my foot. Leapt backwards into a wall cracking my head.

But even worse than all that was the first time I sat on the loo after an open hemorrhoidectomy. Almost passed out with that.

Another crew request submitted.

At the moment am a little underwhelmed with the online part. It just seemed full of folk wanting to randomly drive me off the road, try to land their helicopter on me and shoot me. Hopefully missions and stuff are more teamy/friendly.

Woo hoo!, I got to the end of the story yesterday! (Is it a spoiler, or just a teaser, to reveal that I chose to follow a different path at the end?)

Still loads to do, obviously. Found a few more jumps (but so failed to clear any of them). Started finding scraps (thank you anonymouse and I_Ache). Bought the docks and started collecting the radioactive waste (it is taking a tediously long time, but it gives good money).

News on GTA Online…
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/123946-gta-online-detailed-by-rockstar-games-ahead-of-1-october-roll-out

Possibly showing my age, but I certainly wasn’t expecting there to be any extra ‘in-game’ costs playing online (there aren’t any, I hasten to add! Seems Rockstar did the press release to counter stories that there were.)

Not found any spaceship parts.
Not found any of the bail-jumpers Trevor is to find.
Not found any bits of the letter.
Not found the Veyron nor any keepable boats, helicopters or planes (escaped the airport with a plane as Trevor and parked it in the hanger next to where he kept the helicopter. But it disappeared, and now the helicopter has disappeared too).
Only found three stunt jumps.

I went for stealth too with the mid-price hacker, that gave enough time to grab everything.

Has anyone replayed the heist a second time, and if you do do you get another $4 mil to share out?

Relaxing after a busy day thefting and assassinating, I was browsing the GTA internet and trying to “friend” the barbers (as allegedly that gives you more hair/beard options). I failed to find them but did find http://www.pandmcycles.com where you can browse the full range of bikes.

The description of the Whippet is best – “this road bike will let people know you are serious about a sport made obsolete by combustion engines years ago. Get serious about working out by spending a lot of money on gear right now.”

I read it as Thunderbirds.

They’ve only gone and called the road bike the Whippet!
http://www.rockstargames.com/V/lsbc/fitness-and-relaxation

Did you? I’ve just got an email saying it’s £100 off this weekend.

(I haven’t got/tried one so can’t answer your actual question.)

I can probably only justify one – the commuter. It replaced the car, it saves train fares, it was the bike that got me back into cycling and it still keeps me smiling. And in the past I used it for what I now use the hardtail and the road bike for before I got them.

But then it’s no stretch of the conscience to justify a spare, back-up bike. Probably the MTB as they’re different enough.

Having had five bikes and now down to these three (sold the singlecross and snapped the winter road bike), I don’t think I could get rid of any more. I have a real hankering for another cyclocrosser, but I’d really have to sell the road bike to properly justify it.

So was the lying, cheating scumbucket publicly outed, hung by his earlobes, and subsequently appeared on Oprah/Lorraine to admit he cheated but blamed it on his competitive nature?

Or did he explain how it was a genuine mistake? Or that some protester had protestingly turned a direction sign to point the other way, that a few competitors had got misdirected before the problem was noticed, and they were all officially allowed the shortcut?

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/weekly-photo-challenge-8713-14713-hand-painted-signs

Must be around 12 years of a 3-and-a-half mile commute.

One me/pedestrian collision – pelican crossing, green traffic light, teenage girl chatting to pals, didn’t even look around before stepping off the pavement. I learned to not trust peds at all.
One whoops dismount – it wasn’t icy, but it had been raining. Sharp right turn at a junction, front wheel washes out, bike and I carry on sliding, crossing a lane and a half, without so much as a graze. I learned to take that corner much slower in the wet as it seems to be peculiarly non-adhesive. Even witnessed another cyclist do exactly the same thing at the same corner.
One me/pedestrian near-miss – I overtook a bus that was stationary. Just about to get level with drivers cab when I spot a granny crossing the road in front of it. My emergency stop somersaulted me over the handlebars, landing at the granny’s feet, dislocating my shoulder. Bus driver commended me on the acrobatic avoiding tactic. I learned to pass buses much slower.
One me/car collision – two lane road, left hand lane a bus/bike lane. Car passed me then pulled into left-hand lane to undertake queue in right-hand lane. But then changed his mind. So stopped, indicating to try to get back into the right-hand lane. I hadn’t slowed down as expected them to carry on, realised too late and rear-ended them. That wasn’t bad at all, it was one of those little Renault people carriers, soft and bouncy. The subsequent landing on the ground was much worse. Driver was almost in tears with apologising and SMIDSYing.
And only one me/car shouty incident – same road as the me/car colision, me in the bike lane, car (non-taxi) comes up behind me undertaking the queue. I’m a safe distance from kerb. At the next lights loudly tells me to move further over so he can get past.

I think that’s not too bad over the years.

It does seem to be a rather common illness, thinking such a thing. You can even do it as a race… http://worldcyclerace.com/

Oh jolly good, a wee group Strava rant. One of my workmates joined Strava and so are having ourselves a little friendly competition with our running. Where I was going long, they went faster over 1k and 1 mile. Riiight, I say to myself, I’m havin’ them! Went out and busted my lungs for a mile. Job done. Except although Strava says I went a mile, and ran at a pace faster than them, it’s not counting it as my fastest mile in my profile where we compare each others bests. Eh? Do I need to run a mile and then a wee bit more for it to count as being a mile? Even though it said that’s you run a mile? Silly.

Other than that, I’m quite happy with the way it encourages me to think about being more competitive.

Backinireland – yes, my sister stays about 50k west of Tours. But even better, the route passes the front garden of one of her friends so we’ll be sat there in deckchairs all day watching on the TV awaiting the caravans arrival.

I’ll be there. My sister nicely moved over there a few years ago and this year the route passes so close to them (towards the end of stage 12) it would have been rude not to time a visit to coincide.

I keep a pen and pad beside the bed to help switch off the night-time work-related thoughts and get to sleep. If I write down what I’ve been thinking, then it lets my brain stop thinking about what it’s thinking, and I can get to sleep.

Back in February, out on the road bike, just riding along, next thing I know I am lying on my back on the ground, looking up at the sky and a circle of faces looking down on me. Before I could more I get told Do Not Move, the ambulance is on its way.

Turned out the fork had snapped. Also snapped my right thumb, presumably on the brake hood. Also got concussion, a black eye, and several swellings, skinnings and bruises.

To this day I still don’t have any recollection of the accident itself.

I’m sure I’d read of a Huawei launched earlier this year with a 5-or-so inch screen. And their other models have had good reviews for being budget phones.

I really enjoyed Shada, the Douglas Adams/Gareth Roberts Doctor Who book. Next on the pile is The Bourne Identity. I’ve read a few of the Eric van Lustbader Bourne books but never any of the proper Ludlum originals.

After that, I can’t really avoid it any longer, I’m going to have to read A Song of Ice and Fire again. I’ve been putting it off and putting it off. It’s now been long enough that I have forgotten most of everything and can’t join in the arguments about the telly series.

Congratulations! That is brilliant news.

I’ll just go and buy one of those Jaffa Cakes to celebrate.

I had mentioned in the broken bikes thread about how mine snapped, snapping me in the process. That was my right thumb. Got the cast off yesterday so feeling much, much better now! Even though the thumb and wrist are not really wanting to move much at all yet.

The off-setting not-so-good news is while at the hospital I also had another doc poke and prod me because I now have another hernia to be fixed.

And I have put on an amount of weight over the last six weeks of idleness.

And I have a sniffly cold.

And I have an underactive thyroid, but that doesn’t count for anything.

So, yeah, overall I’m really not too bad, thanks.

The skip-salvage back-up road bike is utterly knacked. The last time out it painfully snapped both itself and me. So when I get use of my hand back it’ll be stripped of anything useful and taken back to that skip.

The other bikes haven’t been been used for six weeks so may have developed new issues in the meantime, but on last use the commuter was still in that carefully-balanced point of being just usable to look unattractive to scrotes, the mtb just needs the rear mech properly re-indexed, and the other road bike just needs the front mech properly re-indexed (gears annoy me).

Yup, I broke:
– my fork
– my thumb when it caught on the brake lever on the way otb (was on a road bike)
– and the Garmin watch when it hit the ground (won’t be Straving for a while anyway).

Plenty other bumps, bruises, cuts, scrapes, scratches and grazes. Even got concussion and a black eye. But those were the only parts broken.

Is this Friday?
O M G.
Last Sunday morning.
On road bike.
Just Riding Along…
Where am I?
Accident and emergency.
Serious head knock.
Snapped thumb plastercast.
Concussion-induced vomiting.
Admitted for observation.
I’m fine, now.
Learning to write.
Lefty’s are wierdo’s.

-ve Last year my work hours had been cut to 2-and-a-half days a week, which I just cannot afford to live on. Each month I spend between two and four hundred quid more than I’m bringing in. This year started off by being told this will not be changing.
+ve But at least I am still there! Others aren’t. Some income is still better than none.
-ve Not getting anywhere with job interviews.
+ve But have started new (new enough to be still exciting) retraining Open Yooni course.
-ve Have ruptured myself another hernia.
+ve Touch wood, I am controlling the depression and tension.
-ve Have not quite managed to quit smoking yet.
+ve But have quit seven or eight times already this year!
-ve Have had two punctures in the last two outings on the bike. One leading to a disturbing discovery that I had neither spare tube nor puncture repair kit. The resultant seven-mile bike ride home on the flat has utterly destroyed the tyre.
+ve But, despite the weather, have already managed to do more cycling this year than I did over the whole last six months of last year.
-ve Discovered I am SOOOO not bike-fit.
+ve But have rediscovered the joy of it, despite the very wheezy ups and very mincey downs.
+ve And met an old friend in the street. Had quick catch-up chat, and on parting got a very pleasantly surprising, larynx-rattling, eye-popping kiss farewell with a hope for a future.

So there has been ups and downs. But that’s life, isn’t it. You’ve just got to ride them.

I started off doing spawningly good, even led for a few weeks too thanks to Tevez and Torres up front.

Reality has returned over these last few weeks/months, dropping further down each gameweek. But now played my wildcard to bring in RVP so that may at least slow the descent.

Can’t offer any solutions I’m afraid, as also have 2nd gen I only use for music, and quick checks of emails and internet (home screen is mostly shortcuts to STW, Facebook, Twitter, BBC news and weather, and train journeycheck websites) rather than apps.

Many, many levels of dullness. Including some interesting sounding dull things.

Left school not knowing what to do so went to college to do an HNC Computing. Finished that not knowing what I wanted to do so went to university to do a Computer Aided Engineering degree. After graduating went for a job as a Computer Aided Engineer, which put me right off the idea (shown desk where I’d be working – a 6-foot square windowless cupboard with a big, fat, beardy bloke). Hmmm. Riiight. Now what.

Luckily landed a job helping folk apply for EU R&D funding. The thinking being that the techie background would help understand what the projects were hoping to achieve. Over the years drifted over to be a consultant on the intricacies of EU public procurement legislation. Also learned how to write websites and do ISO quality things.

Now job is primarily a researcher/data analyst, but still sidelining in website stuff and quality stuff and IT stuff when needs arise. And now I’m starting a bookkeeping course. Because, you know, that’s exciting sounding too.

Not necessarily a “focus” for the year, but from that other thread up there I’d like to see if I can stop just plodding along and get my 5k and 10k times lower (let’s say much nearer 20 mins and 45 mins respectively from their current 25 and 55 mins).

Yes points:
Own more than two bikes (one being an On-One)
Had previously owned a singlespeed and still miss it
The commutahackbike is 1×8.
Oh, and if memory serves, I’m also almost nearly exactly the average age.

No points:
No Audi/Skoda/bike van/kit car (don’t own a car)
No Orange 5 (never owned or even used a FS, 29er or 650b. In fact never owned a bike that cost more than £400 NEW (and newest bike is 3 years old))
No sex
Hence no kids, slings or pushchairs
No dog
No beard but also no expensive razor
No posh watch
Don’t drink coffee
Don’t own a woodburner
Don’t swap tyres unless they’re worn through
And I don’t work in IT.

So more no’s than yes’s, but I do still feel at home here.

Nope, can’t beat that. It’s only been 12 and a bit years for me.

A ZX Spectrum loading a game. That’ll sort the youngs from the olds.

Normal desktop (is it still a desktop if it sits under the desk?) computer paraphernalia and a spare laptop.
LOTS of thoroughly important bits of paper strewn around in flimsily organised chaos.
Lots of pens (I keep losing them), two staplers, two paperpunches, several envelopes, two flash drives, empty CD cases, earphones, Post-It’s, two stressballs, calculator, tripod, ruler, a plastic Morph, towel, deoderant, box of screwdrivers, two boxes of business cards, umpteen keys that we don’t know what they’re for but can’t throw out in case we find out, zip-ties, incomplete set of playing cards, a bell from a Lindt chocolate Easter bunny, a birthday card, and a small rubber tree plant.
Cold cup of tea, bottle of water, half a box of cookies, and a pear.

Back when I was a lad (in the Tom Baker Doctor Who days) I thought I had the TARDIS sussed. In fact, I thought it was rather simple, if you accept a couple of little things.

If you accept the idea of infinite parallel universes, all overlapping as they do. And in between all these universes is the Void. Now, as we know, the Void contains neither space nor time. So all the TARDIS had to do is move into the Void (which of course is instant as no distance is involved), and from there you can then travel to any other place in any universe at any point in time. All done instantly and without actually needing to travel any distance. A simple “dimension jump” machine doing away with all the awkward physics of travelling faster than the speed of light, never mind also factoring in time travel.

So I was really rather upset when the David Tennant Doctor Who then didn’t know the technology of a void ship when they had one in the Daleks v’s Cybermen episodes. Meant I’d had it wrong all those years. Have to presume it’s some sort of wormhole thingumy.

Had it done for phimosis reasons. In and out hospital in a day. A couple of uncomfortable nights when I woke in pain a few times a night (for me, doing mental arithmetic like multiplying 79 and 362 gave enough distraction to ease the unwanted swelling and stitch stretching within a minute or two). It took slightly over a week before I was fine wearing anything below the waist. One day I couldn’t stand anything rubbing, the next it was fine. Luckily I was able to work from home during this time. After that, no more pains.

Another interesting issue was peeing. I would pee in the pan, up the wall and down my leg all at the same time. That took a while to settle down.

Sorry, can’t offer any advice. I mis-read the title as “greasing up a work colleague”. Could’ve helped with that.