Roughly 1 year later...

This time last year (think it was January) I posted this:

http://andrewdrisc.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/hi-im-andrew-and-im-underachiever.html

Which has been described to me as a very frank and honest post about myself, it was even mentioned in my work appraisal! Well as much as January is the time for planning, December should be the time for reflecting, I've just read that post back and... Hmmm a mixed bag of results at best.

Let's start with positives! Oh yes fitness. Decent effort PB's at 10k and half marathon and big PB's too. Had a big stall the last 6 weeks or so with a broken arm but come March 3rd I'm confident I'll be capable of a sub 2 hour half marathon in Llanelli. Not bad for a fat asthmatic! Still plenty to do though, still fat but not as fat (my work pass photos were beginning to look like before/after shots). I was actually going to the gym today but mother Driscoll is coming down shopping and so I'm meeting her for lunch instead! Dedication!

On a personal level, good stuff. Child #2 (Dylan) successfully birthed and growing. I was actually fully aware of his existence at the point of the other post, but it was early pregnancy and we hadn't said anything to pretty much anyone, so me announcing it to the 24 (actual number) of people who read the last post would have been silly! I still have 2 houses etc and home like is still good (hi Cerys!), Gracie is doing well in school and dotes on the baby. No complaints there.

Ambition wise, not so great. My 'chance' to try out a senior role and then apply for it was a truly epic epic fail. Crashed and burned in style and what felt like my last chance to progress failed. I tried to join another department, bang in another fail, I tried to join another company... Hat trick! There's still a possibility going forward, but by now its pretty obvious where then problem really lays.

Am doing some courses though, maybe I'll learn something.

Don't get me wrong I don't hate my job and I work with some good people. Generally people who've been there less time than me and have passed me by though. There's even patterns in fractals (Google or listen too Mandelbrot set, Benoit has sadly left us though... Mandelbrot's in heaven..).

Writing wise, including this I've posted 40 times on here. That's not too bad. Some with decent number of views too!

As I said previously, all I can do is try and on times I've crashed and burned and on some things I've done quite well. Oh well power on!

The blogger app (still on the nexus 7, tis lush) just asked me to tag my location... Northern Europe was the best it could do... Don't think this pad has GPS but well done for trying! If you ever wonder where I am in the mornings, its easy there's only ever 2 possibilities, either on manor way while a stagecoach driver looks confused at traffic or on the A470 while some stagecoach driver looks confused at traffic. After Christmas I'm switching to train. I'll take overcrowding ahead of taking 2 hours to get to work.

EDIT: Sorry Nexus, you do have GPS. Should never have doubted you!

Amazon reviews

From time to time, and on a massive total of 32 occasions, I have written reviews for a website some of you may have heard of... amazon.co.uk. I do it for the same reason I write this, none in particular, but it's a nice diversion every now and again and with a bit of luck, the stuff I write does occasionally help somebody decide whether something is worth buying. The whole process is quite basic, but the weird part of it is their rating system.

Well not so much the system itself, but maybe some of the users.

Amazon works on a 'Was this helpful? yes/no' type scenario. But I get the impression a minority, but a vocal minority, of users read this is 'Do you agree? Yes/No', and as a result I do sometimes feel reviews are marked as unhelpful for not giving a popular item 5 stars. Also there's also some cases where people review an item, then mark the other reviews of the same item down, to hopefully push theirs up to the featured review. The Internet is a reasonably twisted place for self promotion.

However most reviews don't get any votes at all, I've only ever received 52 votes over my 32 reviews (40-12, 77% helpful, which is quite shit).

I honestly think this isn't the best way of running a rating system, especially if you're going to run some kind of league table off it to introduce competition. Why have a no button at all? Yes or ignore would be fine and remove the possibility of bitching. Or maybe require some kind of reason or feedback to go along with a negative vote? If people have to back it up...

But hey I'm sure the amazon dudes know what they're doing.

Well this morning I went up 100 or so places to crack the top 10,000 reviewers for the 2nd time (someone marked a review down straight away last time, so I dropped again) at 9,955th. This means nothing of course and I'll probably drop straight back out tomorrow, but for now I have a picture visible and everything. If anyone's interested here's a link to my 'public profile' but I'd imagine after making it this far, you're sick of my attempted wit and typos already:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pdp/profile/A3SIES8A01NZAN?ie=UTF8&ref_=ya__56

Off topic, well kind of... kindle is amazon, there was just a guy getting off the train, reading his kindle intensely, but the screen saver was on, I could see it from here. It was the picture of John Steinbeck.  Some people are weird.

Hi, I'm Andrew and I'm an underachiever

On a personal level, my life is pretty sweet, I have good friends, the kind of friends you can rely on, I have a lovely wife who I love dearly, I have Gracie who's a story on her own, I have family, I own a couple of houses (1 of which I live in obviously). Things are good! However, there's always been one level on which I frustrate myself royally, achievements.

Now I know everything above is an achievement, and some of them big ones, I'm talking about the little personal stuff. Not quite a bucket list, I'm not that old or (as far as I'm aware) in any immediate danger of kicking said bucket.

Back in school days I had a bit of ambition, but never followed it through, up until the age of 16, I wanted to write, I had a pretty good imagination, decent attention to detail, could put points across and was borderline creative, I thought I could write things people would be interested in. I wanted to be a journalist. Come 16 and A-Level options time I convinced myself I wasn't good enough for this and went down the safe, 'I'm a geek and I'm good with numbers and computers option' (which I am) took maths/sciencey A-levels and lacked enthusiasm for 2 years. (Apart from stats modules in Maths, I seemed to be reasonably good at them naturally and enjoyed them much, looking at my job now of course...)

This lack of enthusiasm carried through so I never actually wanted to go to university, but I did for a while as that was my next prescribed step, I did ok, but circumstances went against me and I dropped. I don't regret going, some of the people there were top quality and I made some good friends, I just wish I'd been there out of desire not duty.

Work wise, I always have been ambitious, I've always tried to push myself, try and get to a more senior level, but I must have been successful in around 10% of the internal interviews I've gone for. I've got a chance to try out a senior role now, I'm giving it my best but I still feel I'm the underdog long term, but we'll see. At times I've wallowed and as a result maybe missed chances, there are times I've felt frustrated, I'm not exactly known for my unshakable self confidence and at times I can be slow to recover from losing out. This is the year for moving on up I feel, I just have to make sure it happens.

It's not so much even about the money, yes I'd love a job which paid me royally, no more stressing about money, can have all the shiny things in the world, woo-hoo, nice, but not essential. Primarily I want to enjoy my job, have a feeling of responsibility. I'm not saying I don't enjoy what I have now, but I want... more. Exactly what I've been finding in my temp role. Worst thing could be if I do my 2 months then fail long term. Previously I assumed I'd enjoy such a role, but now I actually know that I do, back to before may be worse. Oh and reasonable money is a necessity I have a family and mortgage remember, I'm sure charity work would be rewarding, but I can't see it buying food!

The writing things hangs round too, and I've written stuff before, some I've posted on here, more I haven't, most I've never finished after convincing myself (probably accurately) that what I'm writing is shite, maybe it was a good idea to start but I killed it... I stuck the one short story on amazon, but it didn't sell (I didn't exactly push it either) it was horribly bad value for money anyway, but I thought the content was tolerable. But there must be an idea in there somewhere otherwise why would I have the continuing ambition to try. Self delusion? Distinct possibility, but seeing/reading some of the stuff on the kindle store, well let's just say there's hope for everyone.

I even have been writing reviews for amazon of late, just to see how people react to stuff I think. I'm ranked just inside the top 17,000 reviewers, so not exactly a write off, but not good by any stretch. But I'll climb over time, maybe.

I've always had ambitions to be fitter, I'm never going to be an athlete, I knew from the age of 10 and missing an open goal with a header for St Illtyds Primary team I was never going to be a footballer, or an athlete of any kind. But that's no reason to sit on my arse and be a fatty now is it. I've been thin, I've been 19+ stone and if I had to choose between the two... I'd choose neither, but more towards the smaller. I really like going to the gym, and I get a sense of relaxation from running, always have, my body however disagrees and breaks regularly, slowing progress to the point where it's an effort to get going again, like now. But I will be back gym count on it, and soon (Llanelli Half coming up in March!). Plus I'm getting quite fat again, well more fat than usual!

Well fuck all this wallowing in self pity, in 16 days I'm 30 and this year I'm going to do something about some of it. That's what new years resolutions are after all. Maybe not it all, and maybe I'll bomb at what I try, but as long as I do try, I can't do any more.

Oh and I'll also try writing here regularly again, it was doing OK and I neglected it, plus that writing thing I was on about...

Collapse into Now, Mrs Browns Boys and pointless HD

Collapse into Now... what a stupid name for an album. No doubt it's clever on a level that I don't get, but to
be, it sounds a bit stupid. But a stupid name does not a bad album make.

Of what I heard prior to the release of new the REM album I wasn't overly excited, but they are my favourite band by a distance ,so I clicked buy on iTunes (no CD sniff sniff) and got ready. I had an approx 45 min car journey out of Cardiff back home so it seemed destiny.

It began, with discoverer, which I'd heard before and didn't overly like. Nothing really changed there, I still don't really like it, maybe it's a grower. But it gets better, much better! By the 3rd song, Uberlin it's going well, the acoustic guitar on this riff is excellent, Oh My Heart lacks a little in the chorus but nips along nice and generally the same can be said for the whole album. There's allot of repeated simple chorus' but.. it's REM. That Someone is You and Blue are outstanding.

Thinking about it a few of the songs have... expressive titles, but they hold together well enough.

I'd heartily recommend the album to anyone, it's not their best, it's maybe not as good as accelerate, but good. Though I am a little biased.

I also quite fancy Elbows album, also out today, but funds say no I'm afraid. If anyone from the band reads this (what??) and wants to send me a copy I'd happily take it! Oh and 2 tickets for the CIA gig would be cool. But this is a blog not a review centre, so other things:

On an unrelated topic, I just saw Mrs Browns Boys on BBC HD on my sisters recommendation. Well I can say, 100% honestly, what a piece of shit. That's among the worst programs I've had the misfortune to sit through in a while, and I've seen Dancing on Ice.

Some Irish bloke dressed as an old woman, reeling off predictable one liners and witty responses to a cast of stereotypes. I felt like it'd feel dated on Dave. I watched it in HD as mentioned above, but it's one of the vast majority of programs that gains absolutely nothing from the upgrade. It feels quite heavily that HD is quite gimmicky at the moment, yes the potential is there and I may as well use it, but I can't say it's 'redefining television' or any of that kind of crap that PR people spout to make themselves sound more interesting.

No doubt programs will adapt and grow into new technology, but at the moment I don't feel I'm gaining an awful lot by watching Richard Hammond grin and present awfully on total wipeout in HD.