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When we were in the States, Michael introduced me to a game that he’d got for the Wii – The World of Goo.  I didn’t play it all that much when I was there, but the other week I realised that I still had a heap of Wii points (i.e. paid for credit) sitting there from when we installed the web browser on the Wii*, and they were just enough for me to download a copy.

I’ve had fun playing it so far, but what’s been surprising is that a couple of  weekends ago, Bec sat for over an hour and a half playing it. That’s pretty unusual for her, so it must be pretty good!

It is a pretty cool game.  More of a mental challenge than anything. Hits the right balance of addiction and frustration.

It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux as well as the Wii.  Worth a look if you’re bored!

* A side note here.  On any other platform web browsers are being given away left right and centre, but you have to pay for one for the Wii? Hmmmm. Sucks!

… 3, sorry make that 4, Jalapeño plants poking their heads up to say hello!

Hold the press! Late breaking news!: A second Cherry Bomb has just broken the surface…

I got home from work today and caught a glimpse of the blog entry called ‘First signs of life’… Well I’m really talking about the pic Mike posted with it.

My first thoughts were that a goldfish had died, and Mike had buried it and given it a headstone.  Then I remembered we’ve never even had a goldfish over here!

I remember some at home and when they died and needed to be flushed or buried my older brothers used to say ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust, may this goldfish not rust‘.

I hope Mike has more luck with the  chilli plants!

I made the mandatory daily inspection this morning, and lo and behold, there was the first sign of life!

It appears to be one of the Cherry Bombs, if I’m reading my scribbled planting notes up the right way! I really should make another (slightly neater) copy of the notes in case I get some water or something on the first one, or just tidy it away and forget where I’ve put it…

Anyway, one up after about 8 days at least shows it’s not too cold for germination to commence in the lounge, and that they didn’t dry out too much while we were away over the weekend (more on that a bit later).  Hopefully many more will come join the party soon. I’m sure you’ll hear how it goes. Regularly.

Normal blog service resuming!

Well, dear readers, I think you might be in for a small flurry of activity on the blog this weekend, assuming we don’t get distracted by other things. Which is always likely.

But I may as well start with the easy one. Yes, it’s been just over 3 weeks now since the last cigarette, and I still can’t really believe how easy it’s been to stop. And I still have no desire, perceived need, or craving to have another one.

Every now and then when I go somewhere for the first time since I stopped where I would normally have had a smoke, such as walking between 2 unusual tube stations this morning, I still have to remind my brain/body that it’s not going to have a smoke. It’s a bit odd. I wouldn’t call it any sort of craving. It’s more like something in my brain/body going ” why aren’t we having a smoke now? We normally would?!” and getting a bit confused temporarily, but it soon sorts itself out.

The only remaining real impact seems to still be yet a higher level of sensitivity to caffeine. I noticed age ago when I “stepped down” to very low nicotine cigarettes that I had to limit my caffeine intake or deal with the shakes etc., but stopping has meant that I’ve noticed I’ve had to limit the coffee intake even more. I wonder if that goes away or not? I guess we’ll find out a bit later. Or a lot later.

Being around other smokers, or having to walk through clouds of smoke when walking down to the tube, doesn’t bother me at all either. It doesn’t make me want a cigarette at all, but possibly just as usefully it doesn’t make me want to go lecture those still smoking. I’m sure at least some of them will make up their minds to quit when they decide to. Years of other people telling me to stop didn’t seem to make any difference to me, so why would it make any difference to them. I don’t even feel superior to them. It’s more just kind of a low level of pity that they’ve yet to manage to stop.

So hopefully weekly or monthly updates can stop now. If there’s any new major impact you’ll hear about it, and I’ll let you know if I slip up, but I honestly think that’s pretty unlikely. After doing all this hard work, why throw it away?

And as pointed out by the book, and as I point out to other smokers at work that offer me one of their cigarettes as they seem sure that I really must want one, that “last cigarette” could maybe end up costing me another £46,000… That buys quite a few trees!