A (very) basic “photo” guide to using Calibre with your Kindle

As the title says this is a very basic “photo” (in actuality screenshot) guide to using Calibre (a free eBook management program) with your Kindle. It briefly covers how to add books to the program, how to convert them to the best format for the Kindle and then how to get them onto the Kindle. As per uisual click on the images below for larger versions. Continue reading…

Michaels Month of Meticulously Mandated Mastication – Taking a break

To anyone who has been reading this series of posts regularly I apologise for the lapse in updates over the last two or three weeks. Its mainly due to the fact that the mealplan has suffered some serious setbacks over that same period of time and as I’m planning to take a break from any attempt at healthy eating over christmas I think this may be a good time to take a break. I’m planning to restart my diet (and these posts) on January 4th 2011. Hopefully I’ll get the two missing updates finished in the interim.

(Planned) December Viewing – Anime Edition

While I was banging through the shows at the beginning of the month my re-subscription to World of Warcraft half way through November more or less fucked my viewing plans (and all other plans I had). So I didnt mange to get through a lot of the stuff from the last entry. God I wish I could say it was because I was busy with Nanowrimo as opposed to World of Warcraft, but thats a topic for a different entry. Considering Cataclysm is out in less than forty eight hours I imagine this month will be even worse. Still some kind of plan is better than none at all. Continue reading…

Michaels Month of Meticulously Mandated Mastication – Sixth Bite

Well week two is off to an inauspicious start with last night’s chinese. But we’ll see how it goes. Weekends are always something of a diet minefield due to work. As I mentioned before, it throws off my meal schedule entirely. This weekend was a weird mix of up and down. In some ways it was better than last weekend (mainly due to lack of a hangover and better prepared lunch’s), in other ways worse (fell afoul of a few free and awesome muffins in work and twenty cent sandwiches in Tesco’s). Continue reading…

Michaels Month of Meticulously Mandated Mastication – Fourth Bite

Today’s the last day of the first week of my eating plan, so Im going to cut the planned update short and just cover one day. Today’s food, as seems to be the norm, was not without its problems. But overall things turned out quite well. I’m also not suffering any noticeable cravings, though now that I thought about cravings I’d love a few slices of white bread. But I’d prefer to be slimmer more so I must persevere. Once you start cooking its weird how into it you get, I spent a good two hours last night looking up various recipes and thinking about what I would include in the next two week block. Which should conclude just before christams, I’m not going to bother with healthy eating for christmas or new years eve weekend. Hopefully I can stick to it for the week in-between, but if not Im not going to be too heartbroken. After all, this is a martathon, not a sprint. Continue reading…

Michaels Month of Meticulously Mandated Mastication – Third Bite

While I was largely successful with sticking to my meal plan for the last two days I did learn two things. The first thing is that a meal plan, while useful, is more use as a list to choose from than a strict list to follow. The second is that things can go oh so terribly, terribly wrong. To see just how long just run your eyes over my dirty word nuggets (you should be ashamed of yourself!). Continue reading…

Michaels Month of Meticulously Mandated Mastication – Second Bite

With my ingredients purchased (and mental loins girded) I was all ready to start my new diet come Wednesday. Unfortunately my previously profligate food purchasing had left me with a small stockpile of food which varied from mildly to grossly unhealthy. Now I could have thrown that food out, but that seemed rather wasteful and so instead I decided to push the start of my diet forward one day and finish them off. Thursday dawned bright, fresh and cold – well I’m assuming it did, because I didn’t get up till lunchtime. Continue reading…

Michaels Month of Meticulously Mandated Mastication – First Bite

In an effort to physically prepare myself for the post-apocalyptic conditions that the austerity budget will bring (and certainly not because I’m sick of being morbidly obese) I have decided to go on a diet. Well actually I decided four months ago, but this week I actually started. I’ve tried various diets in the pass and have enjoyed some success (the most successful of which was the Atkins, lost about six stone, but it just doesn’t feel right). However no matter how well the diet goes at first after a few months I inevitably fall back to my bad old ways. Which is pretty disastrous when your existence is as sedentary as mine. After giving the problem some, admittedly less than in-depth, examination I concluded that the big problem with eating healthy was the time and effort involved. It’s much easier to open a pack of crisps or give domino a shout than it is to throw together a salad or grill some fish. So the two watchwords for my diet plan were Speed and Convenience. Continue reading…