Updates

The cold I caught on the 2nd of January, and therefore threw off by the 23rd (three weeks later) unfortunately came roaring back. I don't know why this is - it has broken both the "two colds a year" and "three weeks only" rules. My best guess is that it's a second strain, which took advantage of the relative weakness caused by the first cold to slip in. If this is right, I should be back to full fitness by the 13th of this month.

Unfortunately, progress with the diet seems to have slowed to a crawl, possibly as a consequence of the cold, or perhaps simply because it becomes increasingly difficult to progress as one nears the goal. As of this morning, there are eighteen pounds to go. This takes me past my mini-goal at fourteen and a half stone, and puts me within striking distance of my mini-goal at 200 pounds. Perhaps more important: I weighed fourteen and a half stone when I left university ten years ago and, barring one brief spell in 2005, I haven't been under that threshold since. If the current rate continues (doubtful), I should hit my target weight some time in May.

A week ago on Friday, I decided to try to stop biting my nails, this being the last of my bad habits. Unfortunately, this has proven to be a very difficult one to break, not least since most of the time I'm not even aware that I'm doing it. Apparently, it takes six weeks to break a habit. I managed eight days.

The goal of reading 52 books in the year remains on target. At the moment, I'm just over a third of the way through "Diamonds are Forever".

The band continues to progress. We're now at a point where we're consistently playing our competition tunes better than we did at any point last year. There's still of lot of work required, but at this stage I think the biggest problem the band is going to face is one of confidence when we get onto the competition field. This is probably the point where something goes horribly wrong...

My Star Wars campaign got off to a great start at the weekend. More on this later.

Saw "Yes Man" in the cinema yesterday. Annoyingly, we arrived ten minutes late, and they started the film a mere eight minutes late. Seriously, if they're not going to be consistent in their lateness, how are we to plan our days? Anyway, it is a good film, although not Jim Carrey's best ("Dumb & Dumber" holds that position, and most likely always will. I'm also partial to "Liar Liar", "Bruce Almighty" and, of course, "The Mask"). There may be more on this later, also.

I have been watching "Stargate: Atlantis" a great deal recently, having borrowed the DVDs from a friend. It is a good show, although I can't help but worry that they're exhausted every possible storyline in the Stargate universe.

The last few episodes of "Battlestar Galactica" have been fantastic, and I'm definately enjoying "24" this year (although I don't like the president they've got this year). "Lost" is back, but is a horribly muddled mess - but with 30 episodes to go, I've reached a point where I'm going to see it through to the end.

And I think that's just about everything.