This is the review for October.
No
baking for the month again, although I am (always) trying to eat a bit better (except for all those chocolate croissants) to get down to my goal weight of 70 kilograms...
...hopefully that will help a bit with my
running and injuries. I went to a few Jells Park park runs during the month, with mixed results and even one first place, although usually it was just casual practice for the Melbourne Marathon (half marathon) in late October. Although I set a new best time of 1:23:21 (3:56/km) and 122nd overall in that race I was a bit disappointed how badly my time dropped off in the last three kilometres. To complete the month I think my foot pain is coming back again, so I've had to do a few more gym sessions and less outdoor running to minimise those issues.
I though my
shares may have been a success story for the month after a full week of gains, but they started tracking backwards at the end. I did put another $8000 approximately into one more company, naturally just before the latest dip, but that needs a bit more time to play out of course. I calculated up my dividends and they have returned approximately 1.3% for the half year which isn't bad. If I continue to invest I might need to make a few less risky choices with higher dividends I think.
Just about all of the international
sports leagues are back now. I signed up for an evaluation week of the NFL League Pass but didn't think it was worth getting the whole season - thankfully it was much easier to cancel than the NBA. The NBL is even going too, I went to the first game of the season for Melbourne United vs. Illawarra Hawks (changed from Illawarra to Wollongong and now back again). The seats were way back from the court which was a bit poor, but the game was alright, and it's good that they are slowly getting a few more former NBA players into the league, such as Hakim Warrick for Melbourne.
At
work I was just starting to learn some SSIS development but that seems to have been scrapped due to deadlines being introduced - instead they brought in all hands from other teams to get the job done...that's the intention at least. Otherwise it's been a mix of sometimes being frustrated with people and other times being incredibly busy, but the enjoyable kind rather than just total chaos.
I got a few small tasks knocked off the never ending
to do list:
- Bendigo Holiday
- I didn't have much left over from last year's trip, but came up with a plan
- Possibly stop off in Castlemaine along the way
- December (Christmas) Holiday
- The conclusion - too expensive and very limited accomodation
- Brisbane and/or North Queensland
- Tasmania
- I must just take a couple of days driving out to Western Victoria instead
- XBox One
- Found a good deal and purchased a pack for $500
- 1 terabyte Forza limited edition console with Fallout 4 (in November)
- Justified by earning $300 from my last on-call duty
That's it for the month.
- Books
- It By Stephen King
- Still battling through, up to about 60% and nothing has happened
- Movies
- Circle
- An interesting movie, shot almost entirely in one large room
- People wake up in this room, and are killed one at a time by a group vote
- The ending was a little strange
- 6 out of 10
- Insidious 3
- A pretty pointless prequel with no real purpose
- 4 out of 10
- Mission Impossible Rogue Nation
- Just a standard Mission Impossible
- Too long and didn't have an interesting story
- 4 out of 10
- Music
- Metric - Pagans in Vegas
- I've only listened a couple of times so far, but pretty good
- 7 out of 10
- TV
- Fear The Walking Dead
- Nowhere near as good as The Walking Dead
- Pretty slow given there was only six episodes
- Finally a bit of progress at the end
- 6 out of 10
- Hunted
- A cool concept for a show, people in the UK on the run from technology
- Had to be quite simulated since it didn't have real government or police resources
- The ending was a bit stupid
- 8 out of 10
- Murder In The First
- Had three different story lines all at once that each went nowhere
- 3 out of 10
- Pound Shop Wars
- A documentary series about the pound shops multiplying in the UK
- 5 out of 10
- Under The Dome
- A totally ridiculous story for the season, everyone was brainwashed by aliens
- 1 out of 10
- Video Games
- PlayStation 3
- Gran Turismo 6
- Just had time for a few races and the seasonal events
- XBox One
- Haven't opened the box yet
