Joyous July So Far

In what may be the longest blog summary that I have ever done on this outlet the reason it has come late is because with every planned post, something had happened that encouraged me to delay but anyway enough putting off and more writing.

The month began with Tuesday and good news on the sporting front with the news that Liverpool had seigned Lallana which was a good start to the day and was followed by the unveiling of the new Xbox One profiles on the official site so a fair bit of time was spent viewing and checking my own profile into the afternoon.

The evening focused on a trip back to my childhood as I discovered a site that housed downloadable Commodore 64 games and in finding some of my old favourites such as Dual Cassette II, Detective and my all time favourite in Flimbo's Quest made for a very enjoyable night.

Wednesday began with a session on Minecraft and carried out the weekly Weight and Xbox update and to my surprise, I had gained weight despite a lot of exercise in the previous week but just means more has to be done and in the afternoon I continued my writing catch-up.

However in the early evening, I was stunned to read via Twitter the news of Millie-Rose Heaton passing away and came close to tears as even though I had an outsider view, she was a very inspirational young girl who brought the town of Skelmersdale together amazingly during her fight against Neuroblastoma and will live on in the minds of the town forever.

Thursday began with a morning of surveying online which so far this year has earned me nearly £100 and has helped with some much needed purchases with the afternoon seeing some research and analysis ahead of the writing of  my weekly RL preview.

I stopped writing around 7pm to view a truly amazing tribute to Millie-Rose as hoards of balloons were released in memorial to her passing 24 hours before and the most fitting came as videos and images were posted from a huge tribute on the Greenhill in Old Skem which was a great way to honour such a wonderful young girl.

Later in the evening, I took in the Widnes v Castleford match via Sky Sports and had set a new record for views on a single post with my preview as inside an hour, the count reached 300 with my previous record being just 155.

Friday began superbly with the news that my view record had now reached 400 and I made me think that finally I had a wide audience for my posts and inspired me to put even more than the usual 100% that I put into previews. Later on, the catching up focused on Xbox blogging with a split screen for the viewing of the World cup and the match between Wakefield and Leeds.

Saturday began with my excitement keeping me awake so a huge caffeine hit in the morning was needed to prepare me for my longest Wigan away trip for a league game as I travelled down to London with a very relaxing four and a half hour journey.


Despite travelling solo on the coach, I was delighted that on arrival that I met up with Paul Campbell and his daughters Lucy and Megan who are devout Broncos fans but also have a liking of Wigan and are part of the Ancient and Loyal group I am in. The match saw a huge Wigan win but allowed me to see the two sides of the coin on how such a result can be as the anger and disappointment I saw in Paul showed just how passionate he was despite the players awful performance.

A long relaxing and partially drowsy trip home contained the writing of my match report which I should have left until being more awake as on returning home, I was informed by friends on A&L that I looked like I had written it in my sleep so a thorough read through was needed and some corrections followed.

Sunday began with a long lie in after a busy Saturday with some sorting out of my EA account and followed  the viewing of the GB F1 race while following the day's RL games via Twitter and some Xbox blogging with the evening featuring a brief session on Guacamelee.

A new week began with Monday and the weekly magnet and blogging catch-up with the temptation to fulfil one of my goals for the year early and after some research took the jump and bought a ticket to the Liverpool v Dortmund friendly in August on a weekend that became free after Wigan's Challenge Cup exit.

Hopefully, it means that I will see a team of mine win rather than having to sit watching Leeds and Warrington face off for a place in the final. A lucky afternoon saw a random trio of games on the Lotto site resulted in a win of £24 with the evening focusing around the usual Monday TV and a session on FIFA 14 with a friend.

Tuesday saw a continuance of the writing and magnets with a stunning evening game in the World Cup with Germany winning 7-1 against the hosts nation Brazil and some play on Guacamelee into Wednesday which began with strange surprise.

A letter from HMRC arrived which included two tax calculations and a huge potential repayment which after an extensive phone conversation was proved true meaning I would receive a cheque from them for £454 which was a huge boost after a big spending month in June.

The afternoon featured research for the RL preview which has become more in-depth and the night ended with a FIFA14 session with a friend which continued into Thursday and in the morning an early phone call from Jay saw some discussion about the end of the month trip to Bradford.

The collating of my research resulted in the creation of the weekly RL preview followed by an exciting game between Wakefield and Widnes with some FIFA14 ending the night. Friday began with a nice positive as I unlocked the final achievement on FIFA14 meaning it was my 34th completion overall and first ever on a FIFA version.

The afternoon saw the announcement that an agreement had been reached for the sale of Luis Suarez which despite meaning the loss of such a great player was not heartbreaking after his antics had severely dented the club's reputation in recent years.

Super League Friday saw me watch Castleford v Huddersfield while following the other games via Twitter and setting up my RL board for the weekend and from there the weekend began with Saturday. A bumper morning for post saw my tickets for both the Dortmund and Bradford games arrive as well as my lucrative cheque from HMRC.

An afternoon on FIFA14 helping a friend unlock some achievements was followed by a superb game between Catalan and Wigan which was the first Wigan game this year that I hadn't attended due to it being in France and the cost preventing me from going so It was strange to be watching on TV but should be the only one I miss all season hopefully. 

Sunday saw a more relaxed day to the previous few with the completion of the story on Guacamelee and a session on Dead Rising 3 with some blogging in the evening and a superb World Cup final which saw Germany edge a narrow in in extra time.

Another new week meant another Monday and a trip to the Concourse to cash my cheque and have a small browse before an afternoon writing up the Wigan report and the long reinstalling of Forza 5 on the Xbox One and the usual Monday night TV.

The summary comes to an end with yesterday and after a successful reinstalling, a session on Forza 5 followed by a go on Dead Rising 3 and later a session with a friend on Plants v Zombies Garden Warfare with the writing of my RL review of the weekend's action and a really interesting drama on BBC3 called Glasgow Girls.

A really packed fortnight with some really good high points but the continuing failure to find a job that I can fit into is a low point and hopefully will improve by the time of the next post by which I will have return to Wigan attending duties and maybe completed a goal or two.

Six Down Six To Go

Never in my wildest thoughts did I picture that at the halfway point of this year, I would be writing the June summary still without a full-time paid job. Of course, I could have signed on when my ban expired at the start of the month but with the new job seekers conditions where basically you are forced into the job they choose for you with my experience it would be 12 hour shifts packing in a warehouse.

Such a job is not beneath me far from it but after the troubles I have suffered in warehousing, it is a job even if desperate I would never wish to return to as at my lowest point such a job nearly led to my killing myself just an explanation of why despite numerous applications, I am still not in work.

I would say less of the negative but June over recent years has not been the best month for me with a number of relationship problems and last year the latter mixed with what was the beginning of the end for my stay at ASDA.

This year, there have been negatives but on nowhere near as a bad a scale with the key problems being the breakdown of my computer system and the necessary cost for a replacement coupled with the month ending with watching three Wigan losses first hand.

Despite the defeats, it also meant that I was able to gain new experiences with a trip to Wakefield the only away game but at the home games taking part in more Ancient and Loyal meets and gaining some more new friends and improving what was a non-existent social life.

Fitness wise, there was only a few miles walked due to a lot of my trips out being long journeys and there fore with little walking involved but hopefully that will turn around for the rest of the year.

The Xbox achievement chase progressed well by beating the previous two months' hauling of 103 unlocks with a total of 112 including six app based unlocks and also saw the milestones of 5250 achievements, 135,000 TA and 95,000G reached meaning the year's goals of 150,000 TA and 100,000 G.

The completion of a few games on the Xbox 360 meant the unlocking swing over the Xbox One was obviously going to happen and also reaching 33 completed games overall boosts my slim chances of reaching an all-time goal of 50 completions before the end of the year.

On the subject of my goals for 2014, progress is certainly being made on many but he first of the month was renewing my Xbox Live membership for the seventh time since I began playing back in July 2007 followed midway through the month by the goal of setting a new record number of Rugby League attendances which came at the Widnes game which was my 26th of the year beating last years previous best of 25.

Currently, I am on 29 for the year so goals of 100 overall (currently 96) and 100 Wigan games (currently 87) have been added to the new goals list. My goal of doing three years of to-do lists has continued and the last goal of the month was my hopes of writing a total of 1000 blog posts being reached on the 20th with this actual post being number 1026.

The month ahead has hopes of the following...

• Trips to London and Bradford while sadly missing out on the fabled Catalan trip due to cost and home games against Hull and Salford.
•  Some job progress as it is sorely needed after six months unemployed.

No Happy End To June

It is hard to believe 2014 is now into its second half but after the way June ended, maybe the second half will be the better half overall.

This summary begins from Friday 20th which started with a huge change on the A&L group which saw me invited as an admin something which is a big thing for me as it shows people like the way I do things.

The afternoon began with some writing on the World Cup followed by some browsing and the creation of my weekly Super League preview with some World cup and Super League viewing in the evening.

Saturday began badly as in turning on my laptop, I was greeted by a flashing power light and no further action which meant there was a problem so some research later, I noticed a couple of cables were damaged and that the power supply could be the main problem so ordered new parts. I had to use my mum's spare laptop in order to order the parts and to use until such parts arrived.

So the day was taken up doing the above but some World Cup viewing took up the evening as well as some blogging and a session on Watch Dogs on the Xbox One.


Sunday began better than the previous day with a trip to Wigan for the coach up to Yorkshire for the away game at Wakefield meaning another new ground to add to my list but despite a good atmosphere and meting some friends, it was a loss and meant the curse of new grounds had resurfaced since the loss in May to Leeds.

A quiet trip home was followed by the viewing of the F1 Austrian GP which was an interesting watch and the day ended with more play on Watch Dogs.

Monday meant the beginning of a new week and some blogging with the Wigan and Super League reviews followed by some more World Cup coverage and a strange but very intriguing drama on BBC3 called 'Murdered by my Boyfriend' which was even more harrowing because it is based on a true story and shows just how sick some people are out there.

Tuesday saw the arrival of a new power supply but without the other required cables, I was unable to test it out fully so no progress there but I found my old laptop which had overheating problems and got it working in the afternoon. To add insult to a bad week, later on after I had turned it off due to not needing to use, it turned on but the screen and processor had failed so that was the last straw with that one and it had to go.

The evening saw some World Cup coverage and the start of play on a previous Games with Gold download in the shape of Deadlight.

Wednesday began with the arrival of the new cables form my laptop but to my devastation they made no difference so it proved to be a waste which made me glad I only spent £20 overall and had to decide whether to get a new laptop as the one I was using was a borrow and of course not mine so in future would be taken back.

An afternoon of blogging and searching was followed by more progress on Deadlight and into Thursday, I made the decision to get a new computer but set a limit of £250 which I spent on the current ASUS system I am writing this post on. The afternoon saw more blogging and the creation of the weekly Super League preview with the evening featuring a split viewing of the World Cup and the Hull Kr v Huddersfield game which sadly ruined my weekly SL accumulator as I had tipped the home side.

Friday has the best start to a day of the entire week as my new laptop arrived followed shortly after by my ticket and travel for the away game in London. The day was focused around setting up my new system while also installing and transferring the required files from my main HDD which stunned me as I have around 170GB of documents/music/pictures combined which will be sorted out hopefully later next week. 

The afternoon saw a chat session with Microsoft to sort out my MS Office activation problem and was followed with the trip to Wigan for the A&L meet ahead of the derby game against St Helens but despite a good meet-up the game went along the lines of the previous weekend which meant another loss.

A return to the pub after the game was nice and met some new people and the night ended with the trip home which went into Saturday which saw more setting up of my new system and in the morning was followed by the monthly shopping trip to the Concourse but after spending on my new laptop the purchases were few.

The afternoon saw me travel to Orrell to watch the U19's derby but annoyingly the result was similar to the previous night meaning I had watched three Wigan defeats in the space of a week, something that ironically hasn't happened since this time last year so next June, let's hope there is a change.
 
The evening saw further World Cup coverage and the continuing road to completion on Deadlight. which continued into Sunday with only two unlocks left before completion just after 1am and the morning saw the final setting up of my new system and some spreadsheet updating and research on Xbox storage.

The month came to an end with Monday which saw some early morning Twitch viewing followed by the writing up of my Wigan and Super League report and in the afternoon and evening some World Cup coverage and the beginning of Minecraft on the 360.

A mixed ten days overall but in the grand scheme of things, I cannot really complain as what was a bad week for me is nothing compared to the problems that a lot of people are having round the world which is a very sobering thought and a strange way to end this post.