In which I get ready for Dawi to return to The Old World...
With The Old World bringing back two of my white whales from my childhood in the form of Bretonnians and Dwarfs I’ve had a lot of fun projects this year. I wanted to do a slightly different Dwarf scheme than the old green and gold I remember seeing in White Dwarf as a kid and settled on the old Zhufbar livery of white and light blue. It makes for a striking force on the table top and is relatively speedy to paint up as detailed below!
In which I finally start delivering on the promised painting guides...
I have been sat on a fully constructed Battle of Pelennor Fields box for just about a year after purchasing it as a Christmas present to myself at the tail end of 2021. Having signed up to a few "slay the grey" style challenges in the New Year I thought it was time to start with a nice easy paint job.
In which I modify an old family recipe to be vegan friendly...
After successfully turning my hand to vegan Christmas cake I thought it was high time I adapted my old Christmas pudding recipe to be vegan too.
In which I discuss getting the dominant colour from an image quickly...
I have recently made a Discord bot that searches for online versions of board games to help people find games to play remotely. This link will add it to your server.
Discord embeds have a colour bar down the side that can be manually set. I thought it would be cool to have this display the 'average' (i.e. dominant) colour of the board game box and decided to investigate the best way to do it.
In which I plan my holiday tasks…
So it may just be because it is 2020 or perhaps I'm just a bit lazy but I’ve found that I often start holiday breaks with a list of things I’d like to do and by the end of the trip* I’ve not achieved most of them. Whether it’s odd jobs or relaxing activities I wanted to get through I just accidental sit around and don’t do them. This holiday season I decided I needed a to do list and though I’d try out the new Todoist Boards feature.
*Or, let’s be real this year: sitting on the sofa at home.
In which I review the year that was...
It's been a pretty exciting year for me. I've started two podcasts, changed jobs and started reviewing food and drink for Luxury London. Less travel in my new job means that I've been able to spend more of my spare time on my side projects. All in all that's lead to:
And I'm hoping there will be many more in 2018.
As of today all comments on all of my websites* will no longer use Disqus. I will be using the built in Squarespace system. For reason why see: https://notes.ayushsharma.in/2017/09/im-killing-disqus-comments-on-my-blog-heres-why
Tom Out!
I've had a lot of headaches recently with WordPress failing on my blog and was already in the process of moving everything into one place on SquareSpace. With the recent complete failure of my WordPress theme (and several back-end issues) I have decided to initiate the transfer immediately.
As the WordPress import is not perfect some posts will have issues I will be manually fixing in the next few weeks. If there is an issue a quick comment using the new Disqus system will bring it to my attention. Thank you for your patience!
Tom Out!
In which I talk about fitness and the road ahead...
So once again I am unhappy with my level of physical fitness having let it slide a lot with work and other stress getting in the way. I need a new ridiculous goal but first I need to get back to my old fitness levels. I'm back on the old horse having started running everyday again and I've rejoined the gym. Expect a longer post in about 2 weeks time about how things are going.
I'm thinking my next "ridiculous challenge" should either be Tough Mudder or an ultra marathon (~40 miles not one of the 100 mile ones).
Why Tom 3.5? Well my last fitness drive was Tom 3.0. This isn't entirely a new leaf it's just me reminding myself to get back to what I was doing and hopefully take it further.
These are my goals for the next 10 years. I'm going to start posting the one year goals each January instead of having fixed New Year's Resolutions.
This Year:
In 5 Years:
In 10 Years:
So I'm in full thesis writing mode at the moment but that doesn't mean I'm constantly writing. I do procrastinate (though usually with other jobs I need to get done) and this brilliant article explains why that's helpful: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-06/17/jorge-cham-phd
The thesis is currently 122 pages long with 29,206 words and 154,203 characters.
Tom Out!
In which I discuss some blog stats...
Firstly thank you everyone who has come to my little corner of the internet to get me to this point. When I started off a little blog about tea 3 years ago I never expected it to be seen by anyone outside my group of friends. Secondly I actually ticked over 20,000 views about a week back but haven't had the time to write this post until now.
In which I discuss the borishness of data anlaysis, try an interesting new tea and lay out my next Tailor project...
In a break from continuous Thesis writing I have recently been running another imaging experiment. This was, as you could expect, a fairly hectic few weeks with early mornings and late nights. It was, however, much better than the weeks following where I am now stuck with the unenviable task of analysing image after image in ImageJ. Regardless of your research area this is the boring part of a PhD - repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again. Hopefully there is light at the end of the tunnel though and this will be my final experiment - Great Success!
Now all I have to do is finish writing an 80,000 word thesis...
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here's an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,700 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
In which I celebrate...
Look what greeted me today:
Thank you everyone for reading my ramblings, costume ideas, recipes, geeky computer ideas, airsoft tales, reviews and tea posts! Everyone knows that people who read my blog are the best kinds of people!
Thank you all!
Tom Out!
In which I start teasing my Halloween costume...
So here's the deal:
A week 2 round-up...
So here's how week one has gone :)
| Weight | Waist | Arms | Legs | T.I. | KCal | Chest | Neck | Hips | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | 92 kg | 41.75" | 25" | 45.25" | 111.5" | 1,970 | |||
| Week 2 | 90 kg | 41" | 23.75" | 44.5" | 109.25" | 658 | 41.5" | 15.75" | 39" |
| Difference | -2 kg | -0.75" | -0.75" | -0.75" | -2.25" | -1,312 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
Yet another good week :) I had trouble with my right leg last weekend so didn't manage to go running. Hopefully everything will pick up this week :)
Tom Out!
A belated week 1 round-up...
So here's how week one has gone :)
| Weight | Waist | L Arm | R Arm | L Leg | R Leg | Total Inches | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 94 kg | 42" | 12" | 12" | 24" | 23.5" | 113.5" |
| Week 1 | 92 kg | 41.75" | 12.25" | 12.25" | 22.5" | 22.75" | 111.5" |
| Improvement | -2 kg | -0.25" | +0.25" | +0.25" | -1.5" | -0.75" | -2" |
So a good improvement over all :D I'll be talking about the diet tomorrow!
Tom Out!
In which I start a new fitness/health plan...
So I've decided to get fit and lose some weight (again, more on that below). Partly because it is a good idea to do so and also as work towards Project 0 - which I haven't forgotten about, honest!
In which I reassure you that I'm still here...
Apologies all I've been rushed off my feet these past few weeks :/ Normal service will resume next week (with maybe some bonus posts too!).
Tom Out!
In which I look back on a year (ish) of blogging and look ahead to 2013...
Firstly WordPress have provided this nice summary of my year in blogging: http://tinkertailorsoldiersponge.com/2012/annual-report
So this is my first proper year of blogging (I posted a few things before but wasn't really regular at all). It's been a lot of fun and I'm definitely here to stay :) I've managed the majority of my 3,000 odd views this year :)
Let the summarising commence!
I've messed about with Linux and Windows. I upgraded to Windows 8 and enjoyed it (it hasn't pissed me off yet!). I've also spent a fair amount of time learning $latex LaTeX$.
The main event was Project Thor which was a lot of fun and helped keep me in shape.
I didn't do much in the way of Airsoft this year :(
Due to foolishly agreeing to bake a cake for every CAOS rehearsal in order to become Social Secretary I have baked a lot of cakes this year. Also there was the annual Pudding Party!
I've had a placement at AstraZeneca which has been very useful and is still on going. I've also started looking into PostDoc options.
I reviewed a board game based on a TV show you might just have heard of. I also made an advent calendar full of alternative Christmas songs :)
I drank lots of tea and so it was a good year :)
I got featured on http://www.reddit.com/r/tea/ which was awesome! This is thanks to the Great British Tea Test 2012 :)
Having survived the apocalypse let's have a few New Year's Resolutions:
I'll keep tinkering. No particular promises here but expect some more $latex LaTeX$ and Linux stuff along with anything interesting I find out :)
I'm 'contractually obliged' to make cakes until March sometime once a week so expect more cake making. It'll give me an excuse to use my new Mason Cash mixing bowl and silicon utensils :D
I'm expecting to get the following things* to review next year:
*I should go on KickStarter less!
Armed with my trusty new leaf tea, teapot and a new review style I will continue to drink lots of tea!
Tom Out!
