In mid July, when I had a 40+ health check and was instructed to be more active as my blood pressure was high, I decided to look at the Couch to 5k App after a few folks I like rated it. It had been something that I was wanting to do, but the health check gave me the boot up the backside to do it.
I’d argue it’s probably the best thing I’ve done for my health. I’m not a runner. Really not a runner. I was crap at PE and crap at running in particular. Cross country was my least favourite activity in my least favourite sport in school. To explain how bad I am at 40 years of age: in my first ever run with the app you run for 7 x 1minute splits, with a 90 second walk in-between. By the end of that run, I couldn’t do the final 1 minute split.
On Tuesday, I did 30 minutes continued running.
Me after my first run/walk
For me 30 minutes is a wee bit short of 5k for me. The run on Tuesday saw me complete week 9 of Couch to 5k, and the course in general. It’s fair to say that I got a bit emotional. It had it’s ups, it had it’s downs. I got sick of Vernon Kay’s 90’s playlist, I questioned Denise Lewis’ concept of time, I cursed my left calf, but I got there in the end.
There are so many highlights to my journey, but here’s a bunch that come to mind.
The bemused look from a neighbour who I ran past on my first run.
The joy I experienced on my 4th run, which was Week 1 run 3 again, as I had COVID and thought I lost my ability. I didn’t.
The run in London where I ran along the South Bank of London on a gorgeous Friday evening.
I think giving I was running along one of my favourite places in the world, this was the first run I really enjoyed.
The first time I overtook somebody in Mile End Park in London. Granted she was 75 and looked knackered but I did it!
My first Week 4 run, which saw me run along Dusseldorf’s riverfront. It was a tough run.
I needed a shipping container to hold me up in Dusseldorf
My first failure, the Week 4 run 2, in Berlin, where I just couldn’t run up a tiny hill and a chihuahua ran in front of me, causing me to stop. I nearly cried.
The run in Berlin. Gorgeous park, but I just couldn’t do it there and then.
Week 5 Run 3, and the joy I experience when I finished it. It’s a step up that one – a full 20 minutes running!
Smashing my phone on a run, meaning I had to run alone with my thoughts. Not good. Turns out I moan a lot when running.
My first Parkrun, where I set a goal to run under 45 minutes by the end of 2024.
First Parkrun. Picked a hilly bastard one.
My second Parkrun two weeks later, where I ran it in 39:39.
Learning about Zone 2 running which has really helped me. A more efficient fat burning style of running, with less effort, who knew!?!?!
And telling a kid I couldn’t get his ball back he hoofed over the school fence, because I was on a good pace (I’m not too proud of this one).
Couch to 5k done!
I’d really like to publicly thank a bunch of people: Aled, Nat, Fern, Shane & Del who pretty much have had to listen to my questions and the strange selfies over the past 3 months (especially my brother Aled, who I messaged when he was at a wedding to ask about strategies for reducing chafing). But also so many other folks who have given me support on Instagram, Threads and Mastodon. Genuinely couldn’t have done it without you.
But mainly, it’s the Couch to 5k. In little over 4 months, I’ve pretty much gone from panting and wheezing to being comfortable running, to being a Garmin and Strava wanker, buying all sorts of clothes from Decathlon, and probably fitter and healthier I’ve ever been in my life. I’d really recommend it to fat folks like myself wanting to get a bit fitter, as if I can do it (and make a new hobby out of it), I’m confident you can too.
So while certain individuals who are the similar age to me are funding medical research to justify their addictions to South American hallucinogenic plants, I’ll just stick to my running, getting up early on a Saturday to do a Parkrun. I feel it’s easier to justify to the parents, talk about publicly, and – whilst Parkrun is a bit of a cult like community at times – it is something I can discuss at parties and people will not think I’m creepy.
Sorry if that’s a bit boring for a white bloke in tech.
I read with interest from Tim Nash’sNewsletter (you should subscribe to it) Cory Doctorow’s “Disenshittify or Die” article (also a talk – hopefully available soon), and it resonated with me with how there is a movement to make things less shit, and how things have become so bad.
I was going to talk about it in my newsletter (again, you should subscribe to it), but thought I’d talk about it here instead. Noticing how crap Twitter has gone, how Threads is barely functional (sorry Threads, I really want to like you, but eh) and how things online have – with a few exceptions – have gotten worse. Chuck in the collective hard on services have for AI* and the desire to disenshittify and retrieve focus for my online habits has become a focus for the year.
Becoming Leaner Online
Rather than rant about how online services have all gotten worse, I’ll share how I’ve become to be more lean online. It’s still a learning process, but here’s a few things I’ve found useful.
First off – I am subscribing to newsletters now! Newsletters are actually wealths of information (or try to be), and I try to subscribe to them. At the same time, I’m unsubscribing from ones that are either spamming their products or affiliates – looking at you Marriot Benvoy who wanted me to join a betting site recently. They seem to be following the b3ta model of newsletters with a lot of useful stuff with the occasional sponsorship. Straight into your inbox.
Secondly, I’ve really enjoyed The Disenshittify Project, which creates and curates lists of projects that are not bloated mess. These are small things that do are simple and do not need to be bloated. Two they have are a password generator and a QR Code Generator. Excellent. They also have suggestions for where to go next. I’d particularly like a JSON Decoder that isn’t ad supported.
Maybe one more to my to-do list?
EDIT: Thirdly as a Brit you have a wondrous version of Amazon that is so much better. Argos! Bezos has his billions and he can’t get folks to deliver to same day? Pish. You can get a couch the same day from Argos. A fucking couch. No knock off products, everything is of reasonable quality, and it isn’t noticeably more expensive.
Where do I see this going? I’m not sure. I would love people who create things to make the internet be supported for their work, as the reason advertising is so prevalent is creators are not being supported. Patreon systems? I don’t know.
I’m not against advertising. A lot of newsletters I do subscribe to have advertising. Or against affiliate marketing. High quality services I’m more likely to support.
But at the same time the AI, bloated tracking mess is – I feel – unsustainable. I’d love to get back to a more simpler web. Where folks own their content, and share with smaller, like minded communities. Hopefully I’m not the only one who believes that.
* It was on the Giant Bomb Podcast that we are about two years into the “AI Revolution” and there is a lot of friction still to it. I’m still not 100% sold on it, though I do use it. But like everything, I don’t want it shoved in my face at every opportunity. I want to choose to find it useful, not be the default.
I’ve been spending the last 2 weeks at the T20 Cricket World Cup.
I saw three matches in this year’s tournament – Namibia vs Oman in Barbados, USA vs Pakistan in Dallas, and South Africa vs Netherlands in New York.
Since getting really into cricket in my mid life crisis, I’d been wanting to watch a match in the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown. It looked good fun: drinking, pools by the ground, people eating mangos and fruit in the stands. Just a chilled vibe that I – a fat pasty white guy – wanted in.
Sure, the game I got in Bridgetown wasn’t the best on paper, but sure enough it was exciting, a couple of chances of a hat trick, and after a cracking final over which saw Oman bowl beautifully, the game went to a Super Over – think of it like a penalty shootout. Eventually Namibia – through David Wiese – got enough runs to win. Bucket list ticked. The game finished past midnight so towards the end I was flagging and ready to head back (not least because I was up at 8am to go for a tour of Barbados), but it was excellent.
So if you’re keeping score, there have been 4 super overs in the Cricket World Cup history.
I’ve seen 2 of them.
The final game – South Africa vs Netherlands – was probably the weakest. Netherlands did okay, but South Africa was too strong. As you read it the Nassau Cricket Stadium is once again a parkland in Long Island. Nothing on New York itself which was a great host with travel and everything being so well organised, but I would have liked to have seen a legacy. Plus my goodness the outfield was slow.
I’m not sure what the legacy post T20 World Cup is for Cricket in the USA is. I feel it may have something there, but for me, I ticked off one item from my list of 50 before I’m 50, and had a cracking holiday. A genuine holiday of a lifetime.
In my birthday post a few months ago (eek!) I mentioned how I struggle to blog when things are going okay. Spoiler alert: things still are, however I feel this place has been neglected.
One of my favourite social platforms at the moment is Mastodon (follow me there) – because I enjoy the nerdy conversations there. From a toot by Jack McConnell I found a blog post by Kev Quirk called “My Computing History“, which details all the system Kev’s had over the years.
Brilliant. I’m nicking it. Here’s my computing history.
~1991: Commodore 64
The first system I owned was this beautiful Commodore 64. This version (the “Playful Intelligence” one) was a fascinating release – it was a re-hash of the ill-fated Commodore 64GS, with the keyboard stuck back on, a cartridge bundled in with 4 games (Fiendish Freddy’s Big Top o’ Fun, Flimbo’s Quest, International Soccer and Klax), and flogged in Tandy for about £65.
I bloody loved this. Although I really wanted a Commodore Amiga 500, I became a huge Commodore 64 gamer (suck it, Spectrum owners). I still have it – the header image is my machine. I still have the cartridge now, as well as 2 of the 3 budget games I got with it (American 3D Pool, Agent X II* and Rollaround) and Decembers’ Zzap! 64 Magazine I also got that year.
I got better and more powerful machines, even for Christmas from my parents, but I grew to love this beautiful machine.
~ 1995: Atari STe 520
My second computer was a hand-me-down from my uncle, which took residence at my grandparents house. The Atari STe 520. Although I craved it mainly for a game I played occasionally – Lemmings – a lot of franchises I love and still love to this day come from this machine. It had Civilization, The Secret of Monkey Island, Championship Manager, Populous, and many more. As you can tell there were a lot more cerebral and slower games – with good reason: a lot of arcade conversions were not great. More known for it’s music, ST Format did champion the computer long past it’s lifespan. Late games that haven’t got their flowers include the excellent Obsession, the “fuck me they’ve done a Doom clone on the ST” Substation and Super STario Land. All three were games I played long after the commercial lifespan of the machine had ended.
Also, fun fact – this was the first machine I dabbled with HTML in. Creating documents and putting them on disk, viewing them using the Crystal Atomic Browser. I wonder how that ended up for me?
~ 1997-1998: Olivetti PCS P/75n Pentium 75 (I think)
My first PC was a bit of a surprise. My grandad – who was probably born a generation or two too early – picked up a PC when the local Radio Rentals was closing and they were selling off stock. A great machine, I spent my mid teenage years playing some fantastic big box MS-DOS games that were a bugger to get loading. Theme Park, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Magic Carpet were all played and loved. All played for hours. Also I had a lot of fun with early Windows 95 games, particularly Shareware compilations became the order of the day, with CDs full of them and played with. Happy times with my grandparents.
It was used as a work machine though, so did used to type up my homework on it as well. It was an absolute timesaver as occasionally we had to repeat our homework, so being able to restore from a saved document rather than rewrite it saved hours. No need to rewrite in my best handwriting** the development of characters in The Mayor of Casterbridge anymore!
~ 1999: AMD (Something or other) with a Voodoo 3 2000 Graphics Card
I remember the graphics card. That’s all. What a beast this was.
Bought locally, this was the first computer at my parents house. A gorgeous machine, with an amazing graphics card, it was pretty much the PC I discovered a lot of later era FPS’ on, with Half Life, Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena being the order of the day on this machine. Sadly it was an AMD machine that’s chips – for whatever reason – didn’t quite work with the motherboard so I had to have a version of Windows 95 that was cloned on it. Odd. Anyway, it kind of worked, but every so often we had to wipe the machine clean and restore it from a CD.
Online for the First Time
This was eventually the first computer I had with the internet. It was expensive at the time (1p/minute, which racked up pretty sharpish), originally I connected with Ezesurf (if you want a rabbit hole, how that company went to the wall is a read), then with Freeserve, it was just about affordable at that point before we got broadband. After having a summer or two in Yahoo! Chat Rooms (which looking back may not have been the best idea as a 16 year old kid), I did discover a couple of interests.
One was programming. I ended up messing around in Blitz Basic and making and releasing a few games. I still occasionally run in to people from that forum. Sadly all but one of the games have been lost to time, as the forum that hosted it is no longer around. Even the game that still works, can’t run on modern PC’s.
With 56k I also discovered the world of serious online gaming, I mentioned Jase a few posts back. This was where he comes onto the scene as part of me getting quite addicted (and quite good) at online Team Fortress Classic. Less action focussed games that were a game called Cosmic Consensus – a family fortunes style game that was great fun, and Acrophobia – which involved created Backronyms. Both games were precursors to what became the Jackbox Party Pack. Bring back Cosmic Consensus I say.
Sadly, something was always wrong with how it was built, as it exploded with a glorious electrical smell some point a few years later.
~ 2002: Pentium P133
A slight bit of a downstep in quality, as I went to Liverpool University to got another hand me down, this time a mid range Pentium P133. Sadly, this was pretty much a work and general browsing of the internet, but thankfully the beauty was being super connected to the internet meaning I was revisiting Doom, Quake and Command & Conquer in multiplayer when I wasn’t out causing mischief on the streets of Liverpool.
I think I did spend the three years upgrading it, so by the end of my time in university it could run Counter Strike very comfortably. Which probably explained the 2:1. I also began my first ever blog (on Blogger, yeah WordPress wasn’t a thing just yet), which at the time I think I may have blogged every day 😬. I can’t have been that interesting?
You will notice this is the first PC with full stats, as in the process of writing this email I found the Novatech order I made to acquire this machine. From reading between the lines I’d have been working for a couple of years at this point, so had a wage, and also noticed that it seemed to have been ordered after I failed my driving test.
It took me two more years to finally pass.
Oddly, I cannot remember much of this PC as I was well into making websites at this point so I imagine some early WordPress development was done on this machine. One game in particular I remember playing quite heavily is Team Fortress 2.
This PC was stored in the shed at my parents until fairly recently, and went in a clear out.
~ 2012: Acer Aspire 5749
I cannot find the email about this, but apparently I bought my first laptop from Tesco. Primarily used for work (this is when I became rather boring), it was the first laptop I used to drag around to places. I believe it was what I used to contribute to WordPress for the first time. Oh my fresh face so excited to be helpful. Where did that person go?
I still have it. It’s covered in stickers and in a draw in my office. But occasionally I use it if I need a Windows XP machine to do something. The last time was to try and Nike Football Scorpion Knockout running – the free game based around that classic Nike advert. It has a CD drive which is unique as no other computers I own do.
2014: Apple Macbook Pro (2.6GHz Dual-core Intel Core i5)
This was a gorgeous machine.
From being a bit vocal supporter of Windows machines, I took the plunge and got a MacBook when being a Windows user became a bit of a barrier for contributing to WordPress (and that’s a statement I expect to be tore apart on podcasts), when all the documentation was written in Mac’s in mind. I loved the power with this machine – was powerful and allowed me to do some heavy duty coding, so much so that I had to rewrite a contract to use it for work.
A great machine, it’s since become a “Zoom Calls in my Lounge” and “Ordering off of Just Eat” laptop. It’s what Steve Jobs would have wanted. I also launched Dwi’n Rhysfrom Frankfurt Airport there, so saw me through my first two years of freelancing.
I also used it for Twitch Streaming as well. That wasn’t so good and begun to struggle.
The most expensive computer I think I bought, but the one that paid for itself many times over.
2020: Apple Macbook Pro (1.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5)
And finally to the machine I type these words on whilst sat in the City Tavern in Chester. A bit of a fluke really. 6 years after working on a Macbook it has been my pretty much my workflow now and I couldn’t imagine working with much else. However I needed to get a bit more power – it was the pandemic, and sure enough people were going online. I was juggling projects and it was taking up so much space on my laptop.
So – cue some good fortune.
My hosting company – 34SP – was celebrating 20 years and as part of it were giving away 20 prizes of increasing perceived value. The top prize was a MacBook Pro.
Which I won.
Truth be told I missed the fact I won (it went into spam) and even when I did win I begun to spun into working class guilt that always manifests itself with good fortune (said working class exists as I got my tax refund today). Three months later when I actually began to use it I discovered it was a great machine. Rarely do I hear a fan go on it. Probably need to clean the screen, mind.
2020: ASUS ROG Strix GA15 G15DH-UK041T Gaming Desktop
I had a solid pandemic really. Which feels wrong to say. I managed with my clients and people coming online and needing web presences to muster two years worth of accounts and a deposit for a house. In October, I moved out of Manchester to Newton-le-Willows to my first home.
With that came a room I could dedicate to an office, as well as room for a proper gaming/streaming rig. I bought this machine, which I use for more high end stuff. Mainly streaming, but also for training videos for clients. I’ve discovered the wonderful world of Steam gaming with this. Many of the games from the “Video Games I Fell in Love With” series in the past 2 years have been on this machine.
Not top of the range, but good enough for what I want to do.
And Next….?
Honestly, where is next? I don’t know. Both machines I own are powerful enough for what I want to do. As such, an upgrade is not on the cards at the moment. But you never know. But by writing this I’m reminded on how much technology is linked with me. As the machines have upgraded, so have I. The memory on the machines have gotten bigger but the memories with the machines have become stronger.
I genuinely didn’t expect to write as much as I have. I hope it’s not too self indulgent!
* Fun fact: There isn’t an Agent X 1, despite the name of the game suggesting there was… ** Which – if you ever received a Christmas Card from me would know – is terrible.
I mentioned this to an offhand comment to Jem a few months ago on my Mastodon account a few months ago in the paradox I have with blogging. In so much that generally I blog a lot better when I’m not in the best place mentally. The worse I am, the better this blog does and the happier I am with my writing. Trust me, I’ve currently 14 Drafts that were written at lower points in my life that are just sat there with emo titles that befit the elder millennial generation that I am a member of that I just didn’t post for one reason or another. That’s one for you hackers.
But really? Now? As I write this sentence on the 5th of February and short of the stress I’m putting myself for my 40th birthday party which would have happened by the time you read this (what happens if there’s a train strike? Or nobody turns up? Or just generally things go wrong? Or there’s 2 or 3 people that don’t get on? Or those people who are coming and don’t really know people there?), things are…you know…okay? The past year has flown by and it’s been largely okay? Unspectacular, but okay.
Travel wise there was not really a huge amount. I saw Berlin (again), Athens (again) – both of it were work related trips: WordCamp Europe for Athens, and Berlin to go a wee bit outside my comfort zone and go to a dev conference (WeAreDevelopers World Congress). Not really talked about that but was fascinating hearing Sir Tim Bernes-Lee speak. I suffered proper imposter syndrome at that conference but met some wonderful folks there. There was more internal travel within the UK. London, Blackpool, Huddersfield & my first ever trip to Cornwall were my biggish trips. I felt like I did a lot, and looking back I did.
The usual geeky haunts of Play Expo, Arcade Club for the Retro Asylum meetup were on the list, however I saw a lot of cricket. 4 times to Old Trafford (including one day for the Ashes, which I made the BBC coverage clapping Zak Crawley’s knock). That was the high standard stuff. Village wise although the summer was a bit poorer I did play a lot more games, so most weekends I was watching a game at the Earlestown Oval, sometimes even playing for Earlestown Cricket Club.
Work wise things have been a bit slow and steady, and only really picked up in the last quarter. Whisper it folks, but so far this year is looking good. The spare time has seen me work on my brand, write some blogs, and a couple of side projects – I stuck a proper shop on Retro Garden which is my basic “let’s get rid of a couple of duplicate games I’ve acquired over the years” along with trying some affiliate income. One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of folks I know are building WooCommerce affiliate stores. I do wonder if that’s a trend.
I also launched All Rumble Stats which is a site dedicated to tracking every Royal Rumble over time. It’s basically been a spreadsheet I’ve kept offline and stuck online.
Yes, I handle that and I am sponsorship secretary for the club as well 🙂.
Twitch Streaming has continued to be sparodic unfortunately. I’ve just struggled to find time to do it with any sort of consistency, but between Liverpool at Eurovision and a random day I met with a few of my streaming palls of Jess, Kittens, Rosie, Boo & Jans. That was a lovely couple of days that I treasured.
Moments I have treasured and will continue to treasure. Being one to try and experience more I’ve started my 50 before I’m 50 list. It’s currently 35 but hope to add more to it.
Overall, I’ve been relatively happy and in a good mood. I took 6 months (late 38-mid 39) for to look after myself, which is well worth doing. 10/10 would recommend. Between that and therapy (which is now down to a fortnightly session), my last year of my 30’s was pretty good, and been a happy time for me.
It just doesn’t make a good blog post. Soz.
And now the yearly comparison!
As you all love it so much. Here’s my updated comparison with you know who.
Rhys (With a Spoon)
Reese Witherspoon
Age
Nearly 40 (Up 1)
Nearly 48 (Up 1)
Oscars (Nominated)
0 – No Change (0 – No Change)
0 – No Change (2 – No Change)
Books Written
1 (No Change)
4 (Up 1)*
Marriages
0 (No Change)
2 (No Change)
Children
0 (No Change)
3 (No Change)
WordPress Plugins Written & On the WordPress Repository
11 (No Change)
0
* I made a mistake, turns out Reese Witherspoon has been a lot more prolific than I’ve thought.
