But did YouTube ever leave? Enjoy just over ten minutes of rambling by your favourite host, Nix McRetro! Don’t worry, the hair isn’t a permanent solution. Although it is artsy, isn’t it? Am I that hip? Sir, no sir!

Quite a few things have happened since the last proper update. For one, I’ve managed to lose about 36 kg since January, which is an extraordinary change over seven or eight months. I started somewhere around 115 kg and was down to approximately 79.4 kg when I recorded this video. I’m rather pleased with that result!

I’d been making changes to what I was eating and how much activity I was getting, and I also kept track of the numbers along the way. I’ve got a set of Withings scales that estimate things like body-fat percentage, although I wouldn’t put too much faith in every individual reading. They’re rather more useful for watching the general trend than treating every number as gospel.

At this point I’d lost roughly 31% of my starting body weight, which still seems like an astonishing amount when I think about it. I was wondering where I wanted things to settle down rather than simply carrying on indefinitely. It’s been a very personal project, and a fairly substantial change from how things were at the beginning of the year.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same level of enthusiasm had been carrying over into my studies. I’d signed up for an online programming course, and the material was beginning to drive me up the wall. The first week made sense, and then the lessons seemed to leap forward without explaining half the things I needed to know. Wonderful!

It’s not that I dislike programming. I just prefer knowing what I’m supposed to be learning before somebody expects me to understand it! I’d also been thinking about studying biomedical science in 2017, which sounded considerably more interesting than fighting with course material that seemed determined to leave me behind.

Of course, there are only so many hours in a day, and I’ve got an entire room full of retro hardware demanding attention. The Sega Mega Drive 2 VRAM experiments have been particularly entertaining, especially the idea of crossing address lines and seeing what sort of graphical nonsense appears on the screen.

Then there’s the Sega TeraDrive, which seems destined to remain an ongoing project for as long as I keep finding things wrong with it. The Dreamcast development kit is sitting somewhere behind me as well, waiting for another opportunity to consume an entire afternoon.

I’ve also been dealing with the little McRetro shop and some equipment I’ve been trying to sell. I’m quite happy helping people with their machines, but I never really dreamed of spending all my time packing boxes and running a shop. I’d much rather be tinkering with electronics than wondering where the next parcel is supposed to go.

So there you go. A new hairstyle, a rather substantial personal update, some frustration with study and an impressive collection of unfinished hardware projects. Pretty much everything you’d expect from ten minutes of me talking to a camera!

I’ve missed you guys, and there are plenty more videos and repairs to come. As I said at the time, I’m now roughly two-thirds the man I used to be. Meat Loaf did say two out of three ain’t bad, although I’m fairly certain he was using that as a fraction!

Anyway, I’d better get back to it. There are computers to repair, things to study and probably another collection of electronic components waiting to catch fire. I really do need a haircut though!