Ow... My head!!!

Online adverts waste energy

2008-12-02T17:37:00.002Z

See? I'm not the only one who thinks adverts on the Net waste energy...

Check this article out - they even did a study on it!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/02/green_browsing_study/

Earth: The Power of the Planet

2008-08-31T21:03:00.002Z

Just finished watching a great series about Earth.

It explored how the Earth was created, and all the special conditions that were needed in order for our planet to support life. You can read about it here. Highly recommended and very interesting!

It explored the idea that no matter what has happened to Earth in its long history, it has always managed to recover, and each time it has recovered, a new chapter in evolution has been created. The idea is that the major catastrophies that have happened throughout Earth's history have been the main drivers for evolution.

Anyway, the presenter (scientist Iain Stewart) wrapped up by saying that it's not our planet that needs saving - it's the human race. The Earth will always recover from everything that is thrown at it, man-made or otherwise. It is plainly obviously that the human race will one day become extinct, but the Earth will carry on, and something else will evolve to take our place.

This just re-inforces my previous post - F*ck the Planet! :)

F*ck the Planet

2008-08-31T16:13:00.002Z

I don't get it.

Governments and organisations all over the world are encouraging all of us to use less energy, take less flights, drive less, etc, etc, in order to save the planet. And every day we're encouraged to turn off lights, unplug things when they're not in use - basically to save every little bit of energy possible.

I'm all for "helping our planet". If I can take a train somewhere instead of flying, I do. I turn things off when I'm not using them. I recycle as much as possible. I cycle wherever I can. I'm doing "my bit".

The thing that pisses me off about all this is that whilst we're all made to feel guilty about leaving a light on accidentally, it's perfectly alright for all these advertising companies to install thousands upon thousands of thousands of energy-hungry advertising screens absolutely everywhere there is space to put them. For instance, on the London Underground at the moment, standard advertising boards that line the escalator walls are being replaced with LCD screens. Some escalators are quite long, and there is literally a screen every couple of feet all the way along. Sometimes this equates to about 30 screens on each side. Now, not only are these screens using energy, they're also releasing heat - one of the biggest problems on the Underground, and one which they're spending millions on trying to resolve.

I'm watching the Premier League football at the moment, and all the advertising boards that surround the pitches are now live animated screens, using even more energy. Right now, on my computer, advertisements written in Flash are chewing up CPU power, not only slowing down my computer, but also causing it to use more energy.

My point is, we're all making an effort to do something to help, yet these advertising companies are allowed to go ahead and use as much energy as they like. Why? I mean, I know why - money. If we were really serious about saving energy, we wouldn't be letting these companies produce advertisements in this manner. Is it REALLY necessary to have animated adverts EVERYWHERE??? It just doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

So, until something is done about this blatant waste of energy, why the hell are we bothering to "do our bit"? I'll "only boil as much water as I need" when they remove all those advertising screens from the Underground. I'll "offset my carbon" the next time I fly when they ban these animated advertisements boards from football pitches.

Until then, F*ck the Planet!

Moo

2008-08-26T22:55:00.002Z

Things are a little better at my new job - not so bored now. More angry than anything, but in this line of work that's to be expected. Either way, I'm eating more curry, that's one thing for sure.

About to buy tickets to the Boxing Day Test Match at the MCG this year... Yay!

More to follow. Maybe... Sometime...

Moo.

I am Boredom.

2008-07-29T10:31:00.006Z

See, this is how bored I am at my new job. I'm blogging, and I'm blogging about something that I stumbled across yesterday whilst enduring more boredom.

I was browsing the BBC News website yesterday afternoon, looking for something interesting to read, when I stumbled across an article about a Qantas jet that had to turn around and make an emergency landing after taking off from Adelaide to fly to Melbourne.

All very boring stuff (hence the subject), but I did notice something perculiar about the map of Australia they had included. See if you can spot the perculiararity:

And again if you can't read the writing on the map:

Blog? What's a Blog?

2007-06-05T19:52:00.000Z

Uh, well it seems I've completely neglected my blog, again. I just noticed that the last post was about when it snowed, in February! Well, it's not snowing anymore (It only snowed twice anyway...), and it's definitely not February anymore either.

Too much has happened since that post, with the highlights being:

Getting my Work Permit
Moving office to a pollution-filled Oxford Street
Trip back to Oz around Easter with Renae in tow
Getting back on my bicycle
Getting Sky TV installed...

That's all I can think of for now. I will post more later, when The "F" Word is finished, I promise!

PS - Stu: Help? What else has been going on that is remotely of interest...? Hmmm...

The Man from Snowy London

2007-02-08T10:17:00.000Z

This is the sight that greeted me when I walked out of my front door this morning:

London had about 10cm of snow fall overnight and this morning. It is still snowing a little bit now. Hopefully it keeps it up so we can go and have snowball fights in Regent's Park at lunchtime!

It's great when it snows here because it doesn't happen very often. You actually see people SMILING in the morning instead of scowling, and the kids all run around playing in the snow. I saw a couple of people down my street attempting to pull each other around on a snow sledge. Was quite funny. It should snow more often in London methinks. Looks nicer too because it's all covered in lovely white snowy stuff...!

For such a cold country, it is quite funny how it can't cope with the cold. Actually, it's not that bad, unless you're catching a train. They seem to break down as soon as it gets too cold or too hot. Must say that I'm glad I catch the bus now instead of the tube.

I donned my snowboots this morning too, which was cool. There was no way I was going to risk walking in the deep snow with my work shoes on. That would be an instant arse-plant for sure.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...! :-)

Oz-ward bound!

2007-02-07T17:14:00.000Z

Yep, it's true - I'm heading back to the homeland!

But don't get too excited (coz I know everyone is MEGA-excited!), it's only for a visit. It has been brought on by a few factors.

#1: My Working Holiday Visa expires in April. This means that in order to continue living and working in this wonderful country, I have to get a Work Permit via job sponsorship. The good news is that I have one of these being applied for as I type this. The "bad" news is that I have to fly all the way back to Oz to get Entry Clearance to return to the UK on my Work Permit. Quite a long flight to get a stamp, if you ask me...

#2: I can't work, or stay in the country, until I have some sort of Visa, so I figured it was a good a time as any to make the long journey home for a visit.

#3: I'm a tad homesick. It's been 2 years since I left Melbourne, and for some silly reason, I miss the place! Maybe this little visit will remind me why I left to come here in the first place. Or, maybe it will make me wonder why the hell I'm living in this insane place at all! This still remains to be seen.

Either way, I'll be in the country (not necessarily Melbourne the entire time) from 2nd April until the 20th. Consider this your first and last warning...!

I'll also have my other (better?) half in tow. She's been to Australia before, but she wasn't lucky enough to make it down to the deep south. Should be a good laugh! Please make sure there is some water for us to use when we get there. Ta!

Till then...

The Lost Glove epidemic!

2007-01-21T16:43:00.000Z

Winter brings about some oddities in the UK, but none more so than that of the Lost Gloves. These will generally be seen on the streets of London, on their own, left or right-hand partner having deserted them.

It's a very distressing trend that you can read all about, here.

Happy New Year (and all that...)

2007-01-02T10:30:00.000Z

So it's now 2007, and my first resolution is try and blog a little more. I'm sure like most new years resolutions, it won't last, but this isn't a bad start, considering it's the 2nd Jan and I'm writing a post.

Since my last post, I've been back to another dentist and found out that I didn't have an abscess after all. He did a few sensitivity tests and an x-ray on the teeth that were meant to have the abscess on them and told me that I didn't have one, and that having a root canal would be stupid. Thank God for good dentists! I duly called up the other dentist and told them to stick their root canal. Yay!

As is usual in London in December, way too much partying took place. Numerous Christmas parties were attended, way too much was eaten/drunk, and not much sleep was achieved. I thought my body was up for it, but alas, I was struck down by tonsilitis on the Monday before Christmas. After waiting at the doctor's surgery for 4 hours, I was finally able to get a prescription for medicine I already had at home. The sooner they allow people to prescribe their own medicine, the better!

Christmas was spent at my brother's house in Stratford with the family. We all chipped in to make the dinner - Renae made prawn cocktails, Riss made meatballs-ala-Aunty-Rosa and antipasto and I tried my hand at roast Turkey and veggies. For a first attempt, it was actually quite tasty and was enjoyed by all. Much alcohol was drunk and songs sung on Renae's PlayStation thing. Overall, quite an enjoyable Christmas.

The days between Chistmas and New Year were spent doing random things, such as going to work and the pub, much like the rest of December really. For New Years we decided to try our luck and go to a nightclub in London, called TurnMills. Had been before and was quite surprised at how good it was, and the Chemical Brothers were playing, so it was a risk worth taking. Overall it wasn't too bad. The sound system is amazing and the Chemical Brothers were just as amazing. It wasn't even that crowded, believe it or not. The only bad points were the support DJs and the drink prices. Other than that, was a good New Years Eve outing. New Years Day was spent recovering on the couch...

Back at "work" now. Hoping that January will be a nice quiet month.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year, and good luck for 2007...!

Elephant Man!

2006-11-22T22:56:00.000Z

Yep, this is what happens when you get some weird infected in-grown hair in your nose that gets out of hand!

Felt a little sore in my nose on Sunday but didn't think anything of it, even though I had a bit of a fat lip. Was a bit strange when I woke up on Monday with a slight fever, but thought I'd push on and go to work anyway. My upper lip hurt a bit more than it did the day before. Went and saw the pharmacist and they said wait and see how it goes as these things usually sort themselves out. Barely lasted the rest of the day at work.

When I woke up Tuesday morning, this is what I looked like, so it was off to the hospital as fast as I could!

Waited around for 2 hours to see 2 nurses that sent me home with a prescription for antibiotics. Have been at home the last couple of days in a lot of pain, dosed up on painkillers. Neither of the nurses would tell me what was actually wrong with me - just that I had an infection in my face - so I'm going back tomorrow morning to find out exactly what's going on...

Till then, the Elephant Man lives on!

UPDATE: Went back to A&E, waited 2 hours. Saw GP. Got referral to dental hospital. Called up dental hospital, got told they don't take appointments. Would have to queue up from 6am. Found local private dentist. Went for consultation and x-ray. Prognosis: ABSCESS!

I've finally been knocked down by one of those dreaded abscess things, or as my brother Adrian likes to called them, "Abyss". Looks like I'm for one of those equally dreaded root canal jobs. Can't wait! Stay tuned for that little episode...

I hate this Guy!

2006-11-04T23:03:00.000Z

Thanks to this fool and his foiled attempt to blow up the English Houses of Parliament in 1605, I now have to endure a constant barrage of fireworks going off all around me.

It's Bonfire Night here in London, the night the people of Great Britain celebrate Guy Fawkes's attempt to blow up Parliament, now called the "Gunpowder Plot", by letting off an endless number of fireworks anywhere and everywhere they can. You can read all about it here.

Sounds fun, doesn't it? I think it's only fun if you join in. Might have to try it next year. Sitting here being kept awake by the fireworks ain't much fun at all... Meh! :-)

Smallgeezers

2006-11-03T15:56:00.000Z

You may think they are called "Maltesers", but you are wrong. According to the English folk that I work with, they are called "Smallgeezers".

I find this extremely funny, so thought I might share it with everyone.

And no, I haven't lost the plot.

(Yet).

I've moved!

2006-10-31T11:07:00.000Z

So I'll blog about it as soon as they connect my ADSL at home. Till then...

(For those wondering, I am still alive. It isn't a bot typing this.)

Hot, hot, HOT!

2006-07-27T08:28:00.000Z

Not sure if it's been reported in the World news or in any Australian newspapers, but it is damn HOT over here at the moment, and has been since early July. In fact, it is predicted to be the hottest July recorded in Britain since records began way back in the 1900's.

I wouldn't mind it too much, except that this country, especially London, is ill-equipped to cope with the heat. For starters, not much is air-conditioned, namely the trains and buses, which have been reaching temperatures of around 42 and 50 degrees celcius respectively. This makes for quite an uncomfortable trip as it is, but add the other 7million Londoners all crammed into these small hot spaces, and it starts to become totally unbearable...

The saddest thing is that the most comfortable place at the moment is in the office, which is nicely air-conditioned. My bedroom at home is a cosy 30.2 degrees (I have a temperature gauge on my clock - nerd!) so without any air-con, it has been tempting to bring in a pillow, some toiletries, and camp out here for the night!

It wouldn't be so bad if there was a beach within driving distance, but there isn't, and I don't have a car.

Sometimes you've really got to wonder why the f*** people live in this place....? :-)

A lot has happened...!

2006-07-14T16:38:00.000Z

Indeed, a lot has happened since my last post. This isn't surprising, given that my last post was nearly 2 months ago. Some of the things that have happened are:

Weekend trip to Salisbury
The Isle of Wight Festival
Marissa and Cathy have arrived (and disappeared again)
Mum has arrived (but hasn't disappeared yet...)
Returned to Vieste, and experienced World Cup mayhem with the Italians!

Salisbury was nice (except that it pissed down with rain the entire time), Isle of Wight was amazingly good, Riss and Cath's appearance (and subsequent disappearance) was entertaining, but the topics that stick out for me are Mum's arrival and the trip to Italy...

I don't think Mum knew what she was in for when she decided to come and visit her sons in London. It's been quite an experience for her, considering she hasn't left Australia since arriving there as a little girl, aged 4. She's been coping with it alright with the odd comment about how crap the food is, how dirty it is, how many people there are here, etc - stuff that we're all aware of after living here for a while. I might even dare to say that she has enjoyed some of our little trips out around London, such as our visit to the rose garden in Regent's Park. That was all good, until it came time to venture over to Italy...

Low on cash, I decided to send Mum, Age and Beck ahead of me to explore Rome, before getting them to travel down south to Vieste, where I would meet them for the weekend. Seemed like a grand idea at the time. Unfortunately I forgot how difficult it actually is to get to Vieste, considering where it is located (Gargano Peninsula, southern Italy). It's fine if you're already down there, but getting down there was the interesting part! Apparently the closest city you could fly to was Bari, some 300km south. It wasn't until later that someone told us you could fly to Pescara and get a bus from there. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have listened to my brother and booked flights with Alitalia (whom I have now nick-named "Almerde"), and instead booked my flights with Ryanair. Why you ask?

Simple. Alitalia SUCK SH*T! Firstly, to get to Bari, you need to change in Milan (after trudging all the way to shitty Heathrow). With Ryanair, it was a direct flight from London Stansted (the airport nearer to us). Secondly, the in-flight meal and service was absolute crap. I'd rather go without, like with Ryanair. Thirdly, the delays, and finally, the fact that they lost our luggage. Here's the wrap-up of our trip:

Thursday: Meant to leave Heathrow at 6am to fly to Milan for our connecting flight. Didn't leave until 6:45am, which meant that when we arrived in Milan, we missed our connecting flight. Apparently there was a bus waiting on the tarmac to take us to our connecting flight, but no-one told us that, did they? After getting into the airport and discovering we'd missed our flight, we then had to wait 5 hours for the next flight, after being promised our luggage would be on the plane. Finally arrive in Bari at 5pm (instead of 11:30am), and discover they've lost our luggage. Not only that, but because we arrived so late, there was no way we were going to be able to get to Vieste, so we had to stay in Bari for the night. We reported our luggage missing and were given a reference number scribbled onto a piece of paper because the ancient printer at the airport wasn't working.

Friday: Called the airport - no news on our luggage. Decide to shop in Bari for a bit (awesome shopping!), then make our way to Vieste. This involved a 1-hour Eurostar trip to Foggia, then a 2-hour coach ride to Vieste. Upon arrival, we discover our accomodation hadn't been booked at the place we wanted - instead it was booked 2km down the road away from everyone else. Luckily my family came to the rescue and put us up in their hotel for nothing. Very pleased about that, especially after the saga of the accomodation (story for another time). Ended up getting rather trolleyed on 4 bottles of Rose from the local area.

Saturday: Called the airport - still no news on the luggage. Decide to forget about it and enjoy some beach-side action instead. Got an early night in preparation for our boat trip the next day.

Sunday: Didn't bother calling the airport. Went on a boat cruise to visit various caves along the amazingly beautiful coastline. Was fun on the boat. The insane Italians that were driving it purposely drove it too fast so that everyone on board got wet at various stages during the trip. The scenary was lovely though - shall post pictures on Flickr soon. Returned to Vieste for some AMAZING seafood for lunch. Upon return from lunch, find out that Alitalia has called. They'd found our luggage and had sent it via courier to our hotel. Hoorah! I called them just in case to make sure, and managed to decipher from the guy who couldn't speak a word of English that they had in fact already sent it, even though I asked them to leave it in Bari if they found it. No matter. Now we just hoped that the bags arrived in time, as we were leaving to go back home the next day! Hit the beach again to take our minds off that little issue. Upon return to the hotel, we found our bags had FINALLY arrived...

Sunday night: World Cup fever! After a shower at the hotel, we ran around the Old Town following my brother, trying to find a lamp shop before the final started. We had been told that the game started at 9pm, but as we were wondering around the town, we noticed that people were gearing up to watch as the national anthems were being played - at 7:50pm! Turns out it started at 8, so when we arrived at the shop we were looking for, it was closed. Pretty much ran back to the hotel for dinner (free, otherwise we wouldn't have bothered!) and to watch the final. Watched some of it over dinner, then finished watching it with some older Italians in their cafe across the road. They were all wearing these hats they'd made out of newspaper. Some had even gone to the trouble of painting little Italian flags on them! At full-time when it was still 1-1, one of them got up and burnt his. Was quite funny watching the final with them. During the penalty shootout, the lady who owned the place started sweeping and cleaning up - apparently she couldn't bare to watch!

As soon as the final penalty shot went in, the celebrations began. Almost immediately, people came out of wherever they were watching the final, and started making noise with whatever they had available to them - fireworks, mouths, horns, whatever. One guy had gone to the trouble of extracting car horns and fixing them to a trolley with a car battery so he could wonder around town and make lots of noise! We wondered up to the main piazza, following the hundreds of cars, covered in Italian flags and Italian people. They came into town on whatever they had - cars, tractors, pick-up trucks - it was insane! We stood and watched for about an hour waiting for it to calm down, but it just got louder and more insane. Eventually we decided to try and get a drink - nup. The quiet winebar we had been going to was shut (of course!), so we headed back to the hotel for a few beers. At about 1am, there was a MASSIVE fireworks display down on the main beach, and it was damn LOUD! After that, things calmed down a little. We retired to our quiet room at about 2am for some well-deserved rest. Forza Azzuri! :-)

Monday: Time to leave. Got on the coach back to Foggia at 10am. Our flight was scheduled to leave Bari at 5:10pm, so we thought we'd better get a wiggle on. Were meant to get back into Foggia at about 12:30, but the coach driver decided he had to get out at just about every stop and have a ciggarette, so we just managed to get the 1pm train from Foggia to Bari. Arrived in Bari at 2:30 and decided to get a cab to the airport - we weren't taking any chances! Get to the airport, and low and behold, the flight is delayed until 6:30pm, giving us about an hour to get our connecting flight in Milan at 8:30. Get to Milan at about 7:30, go to our transfer gate, and the 8:30 has been changed to 9:55. Lovely. So we sit around eating crappy over-priced airport food until we finally depart for Heathrow. But not before being mauled to death by mozzies on the transfer bus!

All in all, quite the adventure, and one I won't be repeating in a hurry. Took a few days to recover from all the travelling! Won't be flying with Alitalia EVER again, and if you read this, take heed, and tell everyone you know - Alitalia are rubbish!!!

The End.

Taba

2006-05-08T18:38:00.000Z

I said I'd get around to it eventually, and I have...

The destination was Taba Heights, a small purpose-built resort on the Red Sea, not far from Taba itself. 4 small low-rise resorts have been built, and they are slowly building a township with shops, cafes, bars, etc. Not a place you would go if you want to do much adventuring or experiencing of the culture, but very nice if you want to relax on the beach and do some snorkelling.

We stayed at the Marriot (there was also the Hyatt, Sofitel, and some other crap). All are built low-rise so they don't dominate the landscape or over-shadow the beaches. (The mountains behind them did a good enough job of that!). We were on half-board so we didn't have to worry about breakfast or dinner, and our beach towels were also included! All we had to pay for was lunch and drinks. It was "Egyptian 5-star", so about the equivalent of 3-star everywhere else in the world. Can't really complain though. Rooms were pleasant enough, and when we needed something done, it was done within seconds. The staff weren't the best at understanding English, but they were very friendly. I think there was about 2 female staff in the whole place (being a Muslim country and all). I had also heard bad things about the Egyptian men towards female tourists, but they were also fine. The worst of it was one or two pervy guys who couldn't help but stare at Renae with their jaw to the ground. Who can blame them though??? ;-)

After a briefing we decided on a few activities and side-trips: a quad-wheeler ride into a canyon, a boat trip to some island for snorkelling, and a shopping trip to Dahab. The quad-wheeler ride was awesome. Renae was hesitant at first, but once she got the hang of it, it was difficult to keep up! They showed us how to start them, drive them, and brake, but they left the gear-changing part out and left them in 3rd gear. Half-way we stopped at a Bedouin camp for some Egyptian Coke, then continued on to another camp for some traditional Bedouin tea and bread. They also let us loose on the quads for a bit, so we hammered it to the other camp and back as fast as we could. SO much fun, and so easy to drive! After some tea and bread we headed back, on the way going around a little course they had made up. 2 hours in total, but it felt like 5 minutes. Those quad-wheeler things are just way too much fun.

Tuesday was spent lolling around on the beach, working on our tans. Unfortunately Renae contracted my cold and it hit her the moment she stepped off the plane, so she wasn't feeling the best. Didn't stop us from getting the snorkel and flippers out and exploring the coral reef in front of the hotels. We were given some tips from the "Red Sea Waterworld" guy, and snorkelled a couple of kilometers from the Sofitel to the jetty in front of the Hyatt. Usually you would have to pay to use the jetty, but the guy gave us the "guard avoidence route". It was awesome! The coral "wall" went all the way to the end of the jetty at the Hyatt. Unfortunately we didn't take our underwater camera with us on this trip. Spewing! Was excellent, but by the time we made it to the jetty, Renae was shivering with cold. Serves her right for not having enough body-fat!

Wednesday was the boat trip to the island for snorkelling. The island is situated just off the Sinai coast, and has a little fort on it. Apparently it dates back to Biblical times. I should have paid more attention when they were talking about it, but I just wanted to go snorkelling! We left from Waterworld at about 10am. Pretty cool old boat - you might get an idea of what it looked like from the photos. We were able to loll about and work on our tans while we sailed to the island. Got the spot at about midday, did a bit of snorkelling, had lunch, sunbathed, more snorkelling, then headed back at about 3 o'clock. Was good getting out on the boat and going for a sail, but the snorkelling was nowhere near as good as it was back at the resorts. And it was easier to get to as well - no sailing required...

Thursday was spent on the beach for more sun and games of Battleship. A couple of days earlier we had booked a night that a guy had sold us whilst wondering around on the beach. It was a "Traditional Bedouin" night, where you sat on the floor and they fed us some traditional Bedouin fare, had Shisha pipes, and watched some traditional dancing. Renae called it "Staged Authenticity". We were quite sceptical, but it turned out being quite fun. Renae and I had got a bit tipsy drinking beer waiting for the shuttle bus and arrived rather late. Some people that we met a few days earlier had saved us a spot and we joined then, and quickly ordered more beer and margheritas. Wasn't long before I asked them to get the Shisha pipe going. They only had apple flavour, but it didn't stop me from getting through 3 of them, almost totally on my own! The girls nick-named me "Puff the Magic Dragon". I didn't mind that. I used to love that movie! Once that finished, we continued on to the cheesy "Regatta" bar for some more margheritas and some cheesy music. The cover-band was actually half-decent (that, or I'm getting strange in my old age!) and Renae even convinced me to get up and dance with her for a bit. Unfortunately it changed to Daylight Savings while we were there, so didn't end up getting to bed until 3am. That was the latest night we had the entire week we were away. Was very weird for us...!

The last 2 days were spent buying lamps and lying on the beach. Unfortunately the weather on the last days was a bit overcast - it had been about 30 degrees and sunny for the rest of the time though. Surprisingly, neither of us got sunburnt, and we didn't even come back with very dark tans. We couldn't sit still for long enough!

So there you go. Another little adventure of mine completed. Bit annoyed about the bombings - would have been nice to go to Dahab for some proper shopping. Would be interesting going back there in a few years once they've built it up a bit more. For some cheesy holiday snaps, check out this link.

I swear I'm jinxed!

2006-05-03T21:57:00.000Z

I travel to London - they bomb it. I travel to Egpyt - they bomb it. It seems that everywhere I decide to travel to, they decide to bomb!

I was planning a trip back to Oz at some point this year but I'm not so sure now. They might finally decide to let a bomb off there because I decided to travel there...! Anyhoo, Egypt was great, but I'm too tired to post about it properly right now, so here are some photos to tide you over.

Stay tuned for the full run-down...

Happy (belated) Easter All!

2006-04-19T18:37:00.000Z

Better late than never, right?? SURE!

Not sure why I bother with this anymore to be honest. I doubt anyone reads the f***ing thing anymore anyway. Not that I blame ya's. I hardly ever update it, and when I do, it's some meaningless drivle like this. Ah well, they say it's theraputic.

Easter was rather low-key. Thursday was spent bar-hopping in the freezing cold (thanks to me leaving my jacket at work), thus leading to the catching of a cough, which I carried with me on Saturday to Brixton Academy, to see Carl Cox. Good night, but Coxy wasn't half as good as when I saw him back home. Got well hammered, which turned my cough into a nasty chest and throat infection. Oh joy! Can't complain too much I guess. I haven't been sick since Christmas. Must have something to do with Christian festivals. Interesting...!

Speaking of Christmas, I was going to visit Oz this coming Christmas, but the airfares around that time of year are rediculous. Even return tickets with China Eastern Airlines (some hick airline) were like £900 return. Bollocks to that! Going to look into visiting September/October-ish. Then I'll be able to afford to bring Renae with me too. Look out!!

Summer is fast approaching here, and there are countless festivals to be attended. At the moment, 2 are definite. The Isle of Wight Festival in June, and Get Loaded In The Park in August. The latter of the 2 I attended last year and it was awesome. It definitely did what it said on the tin! The English sure know how to party...

Anyway, I'm off to Egypt on Saturday for some sun, 5-star hotel action, snorkling and lots of relaxing. So stick THAT in ya pipes and smoke it...

Boat Race

2006-04-04T19:37:00.000Z

Last Sunday was the famous "Boat Race" down the Thames River. One of Renae's friends mentioned it a week before, so we decided to check it out. It starts down in Putney and ends in Hammersmith (or something like that), and I had even seen it advertised on TV. Sounded like it was a big event not to be missed, so we decided that we would meet in Putney on the riverside to watch the race. I was expecting it to be some big, highly-competitive race down the Thames, involving lots of different teams from all over the country. Boy was I wrong...

Turns out there is only 2 teams, Oxford and Cambridge, and therefore, only 2 boats. I could not for the life of me figure out why it was such a massive event, until I went down and witnessed the mayhem first hand. And then joined in. It was just like any other University event - lots and lots of drunken lads, tarty girls, empty cans all over the street, etc, etc. What made this even funnier was the all the students. Most of them were stumbling around in their University blazers, trendy sunglasses and smart knitted jumpers, totally off their faces. The actual race only goes for about 15 minutes, then the rest of the time is spent getting twatted.

We didn't even see the race in the end - we left the pub too late. Still, it didn't stop us from getting absolutely plastered with everyone else. One of the guys we were with was about to inherit £9.3million, so he was in a jolly mood, buying countless bottles of champagne. I think we got through about 5 bottles between the 4 of us in the end. Needless to say that Monday at work was quite a struggle...

Read all about the silly race here. I shall post some pics once I manage to extract them from Renae.

It's getting warmer!

2006-03-30T20:33:00.000Z

And lighter!

The dark, cold winter is finally ending...! The temperature at the moment ranges from about 12 to 15 degrees each day, which feels like a heat-wave after months of freezing cold weather. So lovely is it in fact, that I now walk around in my shirt, wondering why people are still wearing their winter jackets. When I first arrived last April, I thought people were mad - walking around in t-shirts and shorts when it was like 18 degrees. Now, I understand. After months of temperatures only getting as high as 5 degrees, 15 is a heatwave! Bring it on!

Daylight savings has also kicked in. This has thrown me a little this week, but it is nice that it stays light until about 8pm. In about 2 months it will be light until 10pm, and then the sun will start to rise at 3am. It's weird as hell, but I guess that's what happens when you're this far north of the Equator...

The "London Hibernation" is ending. Bring it on!!! :-)

Next on the Agenda...

2006-03-20T21:14:00.000Z

...a nice little trip to the Red Sea, at a 5-star resort.

Will also do a few side trips, including one to Cairo perhaps...? Staying at a place called "Taba Heights". Me and Renae decided we needed to get some sun and do nothing for 7 days, so thought this might be the place to do it. Check it out here.

Looks a little on the "touristy" side but who gives a shit when all you want to do is chill out, get some sun, and have a bit of a dip in the sea?

Not me!

Les Arcs

2006-03-16T16:33:00.000Z

Has been a while since my last post, but there hasn't been a whole lot to blog about. Besides, I don't think I've been home long enough to sit down and actually come up with something decent enough to post, until now.

Last weekend I made my first ever trip to a proper ski resort, Les Arcs, in the French Alps. I wasn't sure about this particular trip as it involved jumping on the Eurostar at 6:30pm Friday night, travelling overnight to the resort (arriving at 7am Saturday morning), skiing around the place for a day, then jumping back on the Eurostar at 10pm Saturaday night to be back in London by 10am Sunday morning. Sound insane? Well, of course, we had to make it just that little bit more insane...

During the week, we decided that we would take it easy on the way there so that we weren't too wrecked for the skiing. I should have known from the start that this plan would fail, and from the outset, this was clearly evident. After meeting at a pub at Waterloo before we caught the train, then stopping for another 2 pints in the departure lounge, we piled onto the train and quickly comandeered a small section of one of the carriages. We then proceeded to make several trips to the drinks car, returning with champagne, vodka, beer and red wine. Several trips were made until we totally cleared out the train's supply of alcohol. The last few hours of the trip are rather hazy, but I think we finally got to sleep at about 5am. When I woke up, I was asleep on the floor and completely surrounded by rubbish. When I looked around, I noticed the entire section we were in was covered in rubbish, and the other people that were in the same section as us had moved elsewhere. God knows what happened in there before we all passed out...

Upon arrival, I thought I had lost my mobile phone, so was digging frantically around on the floor in all the rubbish looking for it. Just as I had given up, Paul knocked on the window waving it at me. Turns out someone threw it at him while we were sleeping, so he decided to keep it, not knowing who it belonged to. Thanks Paul! We were all still drunk but decided to soldier on and attempt to make our way up the mountain. This lead to a round-trip of the station, including a slide down a snow-covered embankment, before we arrived at the "funiculaire" which would take us up to Arc 1600.

After finally making it up the mountain, it was then time to get into more appropriate attire, have something to eat, and lock away our bags for the day. Problem was, it was only 8am, and NOTHING was open. We managed to convince the owner of some dodgy bar to let us in and provide us with food. We motioned that we wanted "breakfast", and were served many generous helpings of toasted bread and jam. Yummo! At least we all had a chance to get into our snow clothes which made walking around outside much more pleasant. Shaun had to lie down on a bench for 5 minutes before we left though, as the floor beneath him started spinning.

Next challenge was finding somewhere to store our luggage. Not easy when you can't speak a word of French and lost your phrasebook on the train. Luckily me and Renae talked the people we hired our ski gear off to hold our bags for us, as walking around in ski boots, as I have since learnt, is very difficult indeed! We somehow made our way to the place we had our lesson booked for, met up with our strange French instructor, Roland, and began our 2-hour introduction to the joys of skiing. The only problem was that we forgot to organise a meeting place with the others and left our mobile phones in our bags... Oops!

I have to say, skiing is extremely f*cking hard!! The fact that we were extremely hungover and only on 2 hours sleep probably didn't make it any easier, but it wasn't long before I was falling on my arse, screwing up the "snow plough", and being generally absolutely useless. Renae was much better than me. After about an hour of moving up the hill then sliding back down, I was totally exhausted, so when the instructor suggested we go up the ski lift to the top, I was a little hesistant.

After some persuasion, I found myself on the lift to the top. It actually wasn't that scary, and I found I wasn't as useless as I was at the bottom of the mountain. All of a sudden I could do the snow plough and sort of turn a bit as well. For some reason though, Renae lost it and became as useless as I was. Our poor instructor spent most of his time going between me and Renae helping us up off our arses. I ploughed into a wall of snow at one point and couldn't get out, and Renae got stuck at the top of a crest and couldn't move. By the time we got the bottom, I swear our instructor was ready to kill us. He wouldn't have had to do much though because we were close to dying from exhaustion anyway!

After the lesson, we somehow managed to find somewhere to eat lunch, then found ourselves a nice cosy couch in a hotel foyer and slept for a couple of hours. After that we summoned up the strength and courage to go up ON OUR OWN! It actually didn't take us too long to get back down and I got better and better as we went along, although I did panic every time I build up some speed, and ended up falling into several deep piles of snow that were impossible to get out of. The snow was very deep in some places (several feet?), so getting up was a very interesting exercise indeed.

Light began to fade fast, and we still hadn't managed to find any of our group. Decided to take our gear back and begin the search - it didn't last long. As we went into the shop, Paul emerged from a bar frantically waving his arms at us. Turns out they were in the exact same bar when me and Renae (in our dazed state) looked in there for them at lunchtime. Oops again...

After some drinks and dinner, it was time to get back on the Eurostar and go home. We had planned to make a night of it on the way back, but guess what happened instead? Yes, that's right, SLEEP! We all slept the whole back. Knackered! And it didn't end there. Spent all of Sunday in bed, rose to eat, then went back to bed at 10pm that night. Holiday? I think not!!

So there you have it. My first skiing experience but definitely NOT my last. Pictures of the adventure can be found here. Most of them are of us getting hammered on the trip there because I was bit too scared to get my camera out when we were actually on the ski runs. Still worth a look though I think... :)

Right well that took way too long to write so I'm going to end it here and write another entry tomorrow... Toodles!

And then there was Fraud...

2006-02-20T14:37:00.000Z

Since arriving in London, I had heard countless stories of people being done by fraud, mainly involving their cash or credit cards. What the dirty little sods do is put a card-reader into an ATM, then disquise it in some way so that it can't be recognised. Each time a person puts their card into the machine, the reader gets the details and saves them for later. What is unclear to me is how they then get the PIN. Shaun suggested that they may have had a camera set up in a sneaky spot to steal the PINs. Either way, I knew something wasn't right, but still went ahead and used it.

Today, Renae gave me a call and told me that she had had £500 stolen from her account as soon as she'd used this particular ATM in Wimbledon. Sure enough, when I checked my transactions, there had been £260 worth taken out of various ATMs in places that I had never been to. Shafted!!!!

Called up the Fraud department at HSBC and registered my report. Going to take at least a week to get a new card, and they won't give me any money until the "investigation" is complete. Bastards! Apparently this happens so much over here that you can get special accounts that have "fraud insurance" on them. Might look into that option.

Spoke to a mate about why it's so common over here once. He suggested that the Pound is the most valuable currency in the World, so it's well-worth going through all the effort to steal it. Makes sense really. Why go through all that trouble back in Australia, to steal Australian Dollars? Maybe a Kiwi might think it was worth it... :-)

Ah well, just goes to show, follow your gut instinct. If your gut says, "This ATM looks dodgy", listen to it! Just another "experience" of living in London...

UPDATE: Thanks to Glen McGregor for this article on how the scam operates.

Premier League, Contracts, and Work Permits

2006-02-13T21:59:00.000Z

Has been a while since my last Blog entry, simply because I haven't had a lot to blog about. I could bore you all with how wonderful Renae is, and how much fun we're having together, but I won't. Instead I'll bore you with other stuff...

On Saturday I went to my first Premier League match, Bolton vs. Arsenal, at Highbury (Arsenal's home ground). For those that have NFI what I'm talking about, the Premier League is the biggest League in the UK (maybe even Europe?), and it is VERY difficult to get tickets to the games. Luckily, Shaun knew some guys who were Bolton members, so managed to get us some tickets. What made it even better was that we were sitting with the Bolton fans who are notoriously louder than the girly Arsenal fans. To top it off, I was seated right on the edge between the two sides, so got to hear all the best of the banter that each side had to offer. It was quite an experience - difficult to put into words actually. The atmosphere was electric with all the chants going on. The way it was all co-ordinated was awesome. And when Bolton (who were the underdogs) scored the first goal, it went absolutely off-tap! Unfortunately Arsenal scored in extra time so it ended being a 1-1 draw. Was an amazing experience though. Definitely recommend it, even if you aren't a big football (soccer?) fan.

Last week I was offered another year at British Land. If accepted, this would take me up to April next year, which is when my Visa expires and would have to come home. As it now stands, I have decided to apply for a UK Work Permit, which will allow me stay on here another 5 years, and then apply for Permanent Residency. Not sure if I will get it or not, but it is definitely worth a try. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time and I've barely even scratched the surface exploring Europe yet. Basically, I'm not ready to go back to Australia, so have decided not to! Of course, it could all go tits-up and I'll have to go back, but I'll keep you all posted on how it goes.

Best sign off and get to bed now. Tis Valentine's Day tomorrow and Renae told me I should get my rest...

Till next time...! :-)

Australia Day...?

2006-01-30T18:55:00.000Z

Apparently it was Australia Day last Thursday, so I'm wishing everyone a belated "Happy Australia Day". Why? I have absolutely no idea. I never celebrated it back home, so why I'm expected to celebrate it when I'm on the other side of the world is beyond me. Several people asked me what I did, and were surprised when my response was, "Nothing".

I couldn't think of anything worse than going into a "Walkabout" on a normal day, much less than on Australia Day! Someone told me they were selling Aussie "goodies", such as Caramello Koalas and the such, at an overly-inflated price. When I asked what Aussies beers they had available for the special day, guess what response I got? "Fosters". Sounds like I missed out there... NOT! We had a better range of Aussie beers here at our house on Christmas Day!

In other news, I managed to get my good mate Stuart a job at British Land, doing my old horrible job. "That's nasty!", I hear you exclaim, but the fact of the matter is that he will now be earning 3 times what he was earning at his last job. It's also about 200 times more interesting, and Regent's Park isn't a bad place to be working either! It's funny though. The two of us used to work together back home at Open Windows, and now here we are, on the other side of the world, working together again. Should be a laugh though, that's for sure. Welcome to the dark side Stu! :-)

What else...?

Spent a lovely weekend with my girlfriend Renae, after a corker of a night in Farringdon, at a place called Beduin's. After a bit of a leaving do for a work collegue at our local pub, we headed down to Farringdon with Shaun and Kieren, and partied the night away to some awesome House music till the wee hours of the morning. Probably the most decent House music set I've heard since arriving in London, and a great club to boot! Will definitely be paying that place another visit sometime in the near future... Spent the rest of the weekend in Renae's company, doing some shopping, going out for dinner, having a giggle at some 70's Soul music - typical "couple" type stuff that is truly groan-worthy, but loving every minute of it. Pathetic, isn't it? ;-)

This coming Saturday sees a return to Farringdon for a night out to a club called Turnmills. I'm in for a bit of shock music-wise from what I've heard, but I am keeping an open mind. After all, I have been to "Heaven" for "Trance Nation", and that wasn't too bad. Dare I say it, I actually enjoyed the night. I'm sure it won't be too long now before some of my old Techno mates from back home turn up on my doorstep and drag me back to Melbourne by my ear...!!!

Damn, it's cold!!

2006-01-24T21:06:00.000Z

Alright, so it's not that cold but it's cold enough...

This photo is of my backyard at my house in Stratford in East London, and was taken 2 days after Christmas. Sort of annoying because we were hoping for a White Christmas, but it came 2 days too late! Was still cool that it snowed in London though. It was the first time I had seen snow in my whole life, so it was quite exciting (even though it only lasted about 10 minutes...).

I've gotten used to the whole "London layers" thing. This means wrapping yourself in several layers of clothes to block out the cold. You don't just put on a jacket to go outside. It doesn't work.

You usually need to put on the following to go outside:
* Jumper
* Scarf
* Jacket
* Beanie

That usually doesn't do the trick either. If the wind is blowing, the wind chill is usually about -10 or below, so it blows straight through whatever jeans or trousers you're wearing. Frozen bollocks have become a problem, but there's NO WAY I'm resorting to wearing long-johns!

All that being said, it really isn't as bad as most people make out. Just about every person I've ever spoken to who's lived in London has a whinge about how cold it gets here. I just don't understand it. Sorry, but it's really not that cold...

March 10th sees my first trip to the snow. Going on the "Snow Train", which leaves London Friday night and takes you to the foot of the French Alps overnight, where you go skiing or boarding for the day, then hop back on the train to be back in London by Sunday morning. Should be a hoot! All I need to do now is learn how to Ski or Snowboard! :-)

"Me 'Orse!"

2006-01-19T10:55:00.000Z

Well, not mine exactly, but I hear about him so much that he's starting to feel like mine as well...

Introducing, "Herbie" the Horse, otherwise known as "Me Boy", "Me 'Orse" or "Erbs". This lovely hunk of horse meat belongs to my boss, Sarah.

Ever since I have known Sarah, I have had to endure countless stories about Herbie. Well, I say "endure", but some of them are quite entertaining. For example, I now know that this horse is a bit of a bully, which doesn't surprise me, considering they say that pets usually take after their owners! ;-)

So obsessed is Sarah with her "Boy", that when she bought a horse box (in Australia known as a "horse float"), Sarah had a competition in the office to find a name for it. Of course, I won the competition with the name "Oscar" (which has now been shortened to "Ozzie"), but am yet to receive my prize for winning that particular competition! (Hint hint!). The other confusing aspect is that she refers to both her husband and Herbie as her "Boy", so when she came in one morning ranting about her "Boy" having to go and see his lawyer in Ireland, Shaun and myself were quite confused. We never knew horses needed their own lawyers...?

One day soon I shall meet this legendary 'orse, and I might even have my first ever horse ride! Yay!!!

Gmail...

2006-01-17T20:40:00.000Z

It's time for my 1st rant. This has been bugging me for some time now, so I thought, what better forum to have a whinge about it in!

Since I joined Gmail, I've had nothing but praise for it. Less clutter, easier to use, well-organised, etc, etc. I've also convinced several other people to join up because of how "good" I thought it was. Well, I still think it's good, apart from this one nagging little thing...

I know there has been a lot of stink kicked up lately about e-mail attachments and their associated risks with viruses etc, and we're all aware of the dangers of opening "certain" attachments. (Well, most of us with half a clue that is!). However, Google have taken it upon themselves to decide what types of attachments I am allowed to receive in my Inbox. Recently, a friend of mine tried to send me a ZIP attachment that contained an executable. He got a bounce back saying that the "Attachment type is forbidden". Today I tried to send a ZIP file to a friend, but it wouldn't let me attach it because the ZIP had an executeable in it.

Now, I know it's a free service and all, but shouldn't I be allowed to decide what e-mail attachments I can receive in MY F***ING INBOX?!? I've searched for an option to "allow attachments of type X....", but that option doesn't exist now, does it???

I'm bewildered as to why Mr. Google has decided that we're not intelligent enough to use our own e-mail properly. Why provide a service, then hobble it? Has this gotten under anyone else's skin? Please let me know. Perhaps we can start a "Free My Inbox" campaign? :-)

AJAX

2006-01-17T08:44:00.000Z

Well, I did say that I would be posting "nerdy" stuff on my blog, so here goes.

I've recently started a new project at my work where I have full creative control over the Architecture and Design of the system. As it is going to be an Enterprise application, we've had to think about performance quite a bit. Enter AJAX.

Basically, AJAX improves performance of Web Applications by reducing the number of post-backs to the server on dynamic web forms. It does this by moving a lot of the work that is usually done on the server, to the client. Pretty nifty eh?

As I'm just getting started on this, I can't claim to be an expert, so here's a couple of links to AJAX Frameworks that I'm currently investigating. Oh yeah, I'm talking .NET here, so these links relate to AJAX in the .NET Framework.

Atlas: A control library that provides the AJAX functionality via .NET user controls. Seems to be quite extensive and powerful, but I'm not sure if it's at full release just yet.

AJAX.NET Professional: There is versions of this for the 1.1 and 2.0 .NET Frameworks. Uses a HTTPHandler module to direct the calls to the AJAX.NET libraries.

I'm sure I'll add to this list as time goes on.

Stay tuned!

Doughbear

2006-01-16T22:33:00.000Z

I never made any promises about my posts being interesting, and this one is far from it.

This picture was taken on Friday after a trip to Selfridges on Oxford Street to visit the Krispy Kreme doughnut stand. I had only ever heard about these "legendary" Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and it has taken me 9 months to finally sample their doughnutty goodness. All I can is, WOW! They are the yummiest doughnuts that I have EVER tasted, no doubts. As you can see, they are so nice, even one of Renae's bears couldn't resist the temptation... (Yes, you guessed it, it was very boring at work on Friday...).

Whilst at Selfridges, we also sampled some of the culinary delights of the Square Pie Company. This place has a selection of pies (square of course) that you can get in a box (square) with your choice of mash potato, mushy peas, whole peas and/or gravy (none of which are square). Once again, very yummy. Really gotta love working in Central London, even though it does get rather pricey.

Made my return to the gym today after a week of non-attendance due to illness. All I can say is, OUCH! After only 1 week, I struggled to lift any weights and nearly died after 20mins on the bike. I've since realised that this is how the bastards make money off you. You have to keep going back, constantly! It's like an illness. An addiction. Once again, the bastards are making money off people's addictions!

This is the world we live in I guess...! :-)

Ok, so I finally crumbled...

2006-01-16T09:23:00.000Z

For those of you that know me well, you know that I said I will NEVER get a Blog. So why the sudden change of heart?

Honestly? I have no idea!

I have no idea why I set this up, I have no idea how to use it properly, and I have no idea how often, if ever, I will update it. I figure it is probably easier to update this once or twice a month (or if I decide to drag my butt out of London and travel somewhere!), instead of sending out ludicrously long emails that no-one has the time or patience to read. (I bore myself proof-reading them sometimes!). It might even give me something to do of a night-time instead of hogging bandwidth downloading games I will never play, and movies I will never watch.

So, check back every now and again. You never know. You might be surprised! I might even figure out to link my flickr account to it. I might even use it to blog nerdy stuff, like, development ideas/experiences/etc. Scary stuff...!

How do you sign these things off then?

"Toodles", perhaps?