Toms View of the World

In the spirit of “Carbon Offsetting” - there’s a new website where adulterous cheaters can offset their erroneous ways by “supporting” a non-cheater…

http://www.cheatneutral.com/

It’s partly a joke (although as a perpetually single bloke, I’m considering signing up to see if I can be paired with a serial cheater and maybe make some money!) meant to highlight the error of carbon offsetting as a solution to climate change, rather than getting people to stop doing bad things…

… well, actually, I don’t…

But it’s a necessary part of the whole “trying to lose weight” thing I’ve got going on - I’m back counting points for food, and today, for the first time, I got on my bike and rode into work* instead of bringing the car…

Today, I’ve learnt that the route to work is uphill, pretty much all the way (the route profile is shown here, thanks to GMaps Pedometer)… at least that means the run home is downhill pretty much all the way…

I also learnt that my bike’s gears need adjusting before I do that again… gear shifting was not as smooth and easy as it should be, but the adjustments are fairly simple to do.

* - by ride into work, I mean, cycle along the flat bits, and push the bike on the uphill bits…

According to Digitalspy - legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker will be returning the microphone to commentate on the European Grand Prix, this year at the Nüerburgring, for Radio 5 in a few weeks time.

Now all I have to do is remember to turn the sound down on the telly and use the radio for the commentary for that race…

As normal, I opt not to recieve random adverts from companies - in this case, I was somewhat surprised to recieve a spam email from non other than Microsoft, pointing out that I was opted out and offering me the chance to reverse my decision.

As part of a routine data inspection we have noticed you have elected to stop receiving communications from Microsoft.

As Microsoft launches exciting new solutions and initiatives, there’s no better time to register for information that will give your business a critical technological advantage. We invite you to consider receiving communications from us again.

Opting out of recieving emails means that I don’t want to recieve adverts - not even adverts for the opt-in of the service I’ve already opted out of. Needless to say, the email has been tagged as spam.

I have a dilemma. I’ve won several coke muic vouchers for iTunes. and don’t know what to buy. So, in a fit of insanity, and a desire to discover stuff I’ve not heard before. I want you lot to suggest something I might like. My last.fm profile (link in the sidebar) should give some ideas of my tastes.

I’m not bothered about how mainstream it is, but obviously, the track needs to be available from iTunes.

Suggestions in the comments please.

I’ve commented before on the extortionate cost of parking in Cardiff - and the latest round of car park increases are insane - 80p for each 15 minutes - so thats over £3 an hour now.  I think I’ll be doing far more of my shopping at Cribbs Causeway in Bristol, even with the bridge tolls and petrol, 3 hours parking in Cardiff now costs more than going to Bristol’s out-of-town Mall, which has better shops, is undercover, isn’t a total building site.

Cardiff Council - do something about this.  You’re building a modern new shopping centre - but once you’ve finished you’ll have driven all the customers away.

I’ve been looking for this for a while - a list of all the online stores in the UK using Google Checkout…