Another blood donation, another excuse to raid the free snacks! I’ve just returned from donating blood, so I thought I’d give everyone another little update on my weight loss progress. And perhaps eat a ridiculous amount of junk food while I’m at it.

First up, the hair! Or lack thereof. I’ve shaved my head, which has two distinct advantages: I save money on shampoo, and I get to wear this rather magnificent hat. What more could you possibly want? Hopefully it’ll have grown back a bit before summer!

The scales are now showing 71.6 kg, with an estimated body-fat percentage somewhere around 16 to 16.5%. Not bad considering where I started earlier in the year! I’m still aiming for 70 kg, although once I get there I’ll have to work out how much to increase my food intake so I can maintain my weight rather than continue losing it.

But enough about that. Let’s get onto the important business of eating things!

The only thing better than food is free food after donating blood. We’ve got pretzels, Mentos, a KitKat and an enormous cookie from the Byron Bay Cookie Company. Magnificent! I’ve been rather restrictive with my diet over the past few months, so this is a very welcome opportunity to enjoy some junk food for a change.

I’ve also got a new couch, which is proving quite useful for sitting here eating everything I brought home. Nothing like making yourself comfortable when you’ve got important work to do!

The donation itself went reasonably well. Last time I managed to start bleeding from my donor arm afterwards, probably because I was using it to open things without really thinking about it. I’ve been trying to avoid doing anything silly with the arm this time, although I keep forgetting which one I’ve used!

Of course, being me, I also got distracted by the blood collection equipment. I was so busy looking at the machine and wondering how everything worked that I forgot to keep squeezing the thing they’d given me. Naturally, the machine started complaining about the blood flow.

Apparently you’re meant to cooperate with the equipment. Who knew?

This might be my last blood donation for a little while, too. I’m preparing to start Roaccutane, or isotretinoin, which means having to take a break from donating blood. I think I’m up to my seventh or eighth donation now, so it’ll be a shame to interrupt the routine.

One particularly nice thing is that the blood service has started sending out text messages telling donors where their blood has gone. It’s rather satisfying knowing that something you’ve donated has actually been used somewhere useful. I’ve been trying to encourage other people to donate as well, even if not everybody is able to do it.

In other news, I’ve been clearing out some of the excess computers and consoles from my collection. One of my Sega TeraDrives has gone to RetroSwin, while the Amstrad Mega PC has moved on to DeChief from ASSEMblergames.com. Slowly but surely, I’m getting the collection down to something a little more manageable.

The grand plan is to get everything else arranged neatly inside a bookcase. I’ve even rearranged the room to make space for the couch. Whether all the computers will actually fit where I want them is another question entirely!

I’ve also got something like 258 GB of video footage waiting to be edited. Yes, really. And here I am making another video instead of working through the old ones. If I actually get around to processing them, the next video might well be something I filmed a few months ago.

Oh well. At least I’ve got a new couch to sit on while I think about it. Anyway, that’s another blood donation completed and another little weight update out of the way. Now, where did I put the rest of those sweets?