Back from Spain! The rotten shark was fine.

Yes, I’m back from a weekend trip to Spain for a race my company set up.

Pictures soon, including the Icelandic rotten shark I enjoyed with plenty of brennivin. It was the latest I’ve stayed up in a long time, the most I’ve drunk in a long time, and the strangest collection of characters I’ve been around in a long time. A few Scots, a Finn, a German, a couple of Estonians and several Icelanders.

Yeah…I was pretty rough the next day.

Off to Spain this week

It’s not a holiday unfortunately, it’s for work (model car race), but there will at least be free food and such, plus a prize presentation in the hotel bar at about 1 AM Saturday night! Plenty of opportunity for international incidents, which is not the fun part, but the race (a 12-hour off-road endurance circuit race) should be good to watch.

Now I just have to find my Nintendo DS Lite and something to read for the plane trip!

Another McKinney in the news

And no, it’s not me…

This woman who cloned her dog to get 5 puppies has been fingered as the woman who escaped justice in England after hiring an investigator to track a Mormon missionary, kidnapping him and raping him repeatedly.

She jumped bail in the UK then tracked the same guy down again, jumped bail on that and was then accused of harassing some woman, and jumped bail again!

Great job keeping that family name up in the air! I’m sure the clan doesn’t need this kind of publicity.

My international television debut

I was on the most recent show of RC Racing TV, the last in the current series. This is a monthly show that features only radio-control cars, and I was on there talking about a race series that we’ve organized across Europe. If you want to see me TV-faking tons of interest and talking about my company’s 1/5 scale (30 inch long, 40mph) radio-controlled dune buggy, go to this page, hit ‘play’ on the video bit and let it load up to 9:30 on the video timeline. Like most people, I hate the way my voice sounds on audio, but the bit came off well I think.

This was my first time on international TV.

Pro computer gamers

Check out this professional computer game player competition, where the pro’s play Starcraft to earn loads of money and fame (at least in Asia).

I don’t know anyone who still plays Starcraft, and there’s even Starcraft 2 coming out this year…but I just can’t believe that this stuff is televised in Korea, with audiences and (apparently) mega-stardom for the top players. It’s just crazy!

Quite a bit to do this week…

I’ve got a day and a half of holiday to take for the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and I’ve got to get a few things sorted out, since we’re camping out not far from the Goodwood estate:

• wash out the mini-BBQ grill and get it ready to go
• make sure the el cheapo gas canisters I bought fit the el cheapo gas stove I got a while back
• get all my clothes together and try to balance them between looking good and being trekky-comfy
• hope I can withdraw enough money to cover fuel and food while we’re down there
• test out the ‘miracle ice’ stuff we got over the weekend
• make sure my electric tire pump will fill the double air bed
• test-assemble the tent I’m borrowing
• and finally, pack the car on Thursday before we go!

RIP George

…you shall be missed.

George Carlin died yesterday. Another comic legend has gone to the great gig in the sky. Or to the worms, if you follow George’s line of reasoning

Here’s one of what will probably be many many collections of YouTube clips: a George Carlin ‘obituary’

OMG the American-ness is overwhelming

Of the folks I know that interested in home protection, most just keep a baseball bat or an old golf club next to or under their bed. But if you REALLY want to know how you can keep your double-barrel 12-gauge handy, check this out!

I’m still on the lookout for a wooden baseball bat to have around. It’s just…classic. Since I’m in England I’d be happy with a cricket bat – the scenes in Spinal Tap with their manager smashing up an office are too funny NOT to want to replicate

The new ‘Where the Hell is Matt’ video

You know that guy who went around the world, dancing like a loon while people taped him? He just finished another trip.

Pretty cool video, makes me want to save up a few grand and slouch about the planet for a bit.

In case you missed it, this is the 2006 video.

TEN pounds gained in 2 weeks!

That’s how much weight I put on while visiting the States for just 2 weeks.

Yes, granted, I did suck down as much iced tea, IBC & A&W as possible, plus a bottle or two of Mountain Dew…plus BBQ and Mexican food nearly every day…plus…lots of fried stuff…but I still can’t believe I put on about 4 kilos of weight while I was away.

I’m not (that) ashamed: I weighed myself on my digital scale before we left (we had to weigh our luggage), and I was 98 kilos the night before. Weighed myself a couple of days after we came back, and I was (gasp) 102! Crikey…and to think my weight goal for last year was, like, 90kg? man oh man…

So (and I planned to do this already, before we left) I’ve started cycling in to work, this week I’ll be doing it 4 days, next week either 3 or 4 days. That’s about 32 miles round trip, for 96 or 128 miles a week, about what a serious road cyclist does in training every week. (more serious racers might do a ‘century’, or a hundred miles on a Saturday, but I’m not at that level by a long shot) I just read on a UK cycling forum today about a guy who started cycling to work at the start of April, about the distance I do, and he’s lost half a stone already, probably more than that in fat because he’s built up his leg muscles.

I think this is the only way I can stick to an exercise program – outrageously high petrol prices! By the end of the summer petrol will be at, like £1.60/liter (it’s £1.11 and rising per liter, that’s $8.31 per US gallon!)and I’ll be dropping weight off like there’s no tomorrow (hopefully). Hell, it’s even meant to rain tomorrow or Friday, and I’ll still be cycling in! Costs me £5 a day to drive to work…you betcha!