My New Phone

I got a new phone a couple of months ago, the Sony Ericsson P990i. Its great I love it, but there are some small problems. The user interface is not consistent in the messaging section, sometimes I cannot delete multiple messages, this is annoying. More serious than this though, the keyboard has stopped working down the far right hand side.. and ironically the web browser crashes every time I go to the Sony Ericsson homepage.

On the flip side as already stated, the phone is cool, and I have done some cool stuff with it, like synching up with a centralised contacts database, and hooking up my encrypted wifi network at home :-)

My last Sony Ericsson phone the V800 was replaced twice with new handsets before it finally just worked.... the theme goes on.

The Guiness Surger

So Rosspo bought me a Guniness surger for my birthday back in April... finally, months later, in between my wine experimentation, I got to try it out on Sunday night...

See the evidence The Surge Experiment.

The pint did actually look exactly as though poured in a pub in Dublin, tasted great, and most importantly, the ultrasonics were geekily impressive :-).

On holiday at the moment, loving it.

I decided to use some of my holiday up and keep Nicky company while she is on her half term. We are not going anywhere, just spending some time together, and getting all the things in order that I am usually too busy to do, paperwork, keeping CV up to date, sorting out a new dedicated server for rossputin.org, so expect updates there over the coming weeks! It just goes to show.. when we are working, we just don't have time even to do every day things.. it kind of takes over our lives! Booo, lets push work down the stairs!!!!

Company of Heroes

Just completed Company of Heroes... and as its rare that I complete a game.. it must have been good! An RTS set in the Second World War, you can lay mines, build sandbag emplacements and shoot the Kraut! Marvellous. I highly recommend it.

Wow, did Oktoberfest on Saturday!

It was amazing... a completely different experience to UK beer festivals.. not better, just different!
The traditions were amazing, great costumes, ceremony. The atmosphere was astonishing before even the first beer was poured. One thing only was lacking, proper beer :-) The Whitebeers were tremendous, just too much goddamn lager! Yuck.

The downside was me chucking my guts up on foul lager, I am a lager girl!!!!

Glad I did it though, thanks to my most esteemed German Compatriot Emanuel, for organising everything, and making sure I got back to my hotel on the publisc transport.

The Beer Festival Run

Well I thought it was about time I picked this subject up again. The beer festival run.. I am aiming for 6 festivals this year, with 2 already attended, Reading and Talin... I hope to squeeze in The Pubecks Banks Arms festival immediately after getting back from holiday.

But yesterday I realised Nicky is out to destroy my plans.. by removing the possibility of me attending my annual visit to the Newbury festival!!! I am horrified!! What to do?

Sniff snif, sad Putin.

Second Thoughts on Keane's new album

OK, maybe I was hasty... just been listening to the album again, and this time, very unexpectedly, another song just started grabbing me, 'Nothing in my Way'. Marvellous, from nowhere, it grabs you, with close to the brilliance of some of the songs on the first album!

My first go at cricket in about 3 years

I went out and chucked a few balls at Rosspo in the nets today, it was great fun, and it seemed my accuracy was not as bad as I feared it might be!

Wonder how the shoulder it going to feel tomorrow.

So, I got Keane's new album yesterday

Just had a chance to listen to it today, and I have to say, despite a couple of good songs on it, it is nowhere near as good as their last one... hope we haven't had the best from them already, they have so much potential!!!

Wow, what a weekend we had!

It was our second anniversary last week, so this weekend, we finally went on a celebration weekend, that we had been planning for a long time. We headed up to Stratford Upon Avon, went in a rowing boat, had tea in some tea rooms, saw the birthplace of Shakespeare, stayed in a posh hotel... and to top it all off, we saw Anthony and Cleopatra at the Swan Theatre, starring Patrick Stewart!!!

It was the funniest, best acted Shakespeare I have ever seen, and while they are doing all the plays, I highly recommend going to see one! I ate rabbit for starters at the hotel, then a fine piece of Scottish ribeye steak.

Today, we followed on with excellent plans, and went to Warwick Castle on the way home. They had a working Trebuchet there!!!

Some pics of the whole weekend...

Our anniversary weekend pics

Mission Impossible 3

We saw Mission Impossible 3 last night, and both thought it was excellent. In my opinion better than the second film, and maybe almost as good as the first for suspense. Could have done with a little more chop-sokky, like Jon Wo's action scenes in the second, to make it almost perfect.

Thought the explosive devices in heads were great!!!

Roman Silchester, just a few miles down the road

Wow, its amazing what you don't know about major historical sites just down the road from you... http://www.flickr.com/photos/rossputin/sets/72157594147710066/... but this place has the best preserved Roman walls in Britain, and an amphitheatre.

The surroundings were beautiful, and there are plenty of great country pubs en-route.

We had a great day out here, and highly recommend it.

My family's new dog is a budding computer scientist

When I was at home a couple of weeks ago, I settled down to do some work on my laptop out in the conservatory.. and a little puppy jumped up on to the couch with me. She immediately became fixated on what I was doing.. following the movement of the cursor and windows around on the screen, and displaying an interest in all my interactions with the computer. This went on for an hour and a half.. and it turns out she is still doing the same thing with my dad, and sister when they are on the computer.

She is such an intelligent little dog, watching everything always curious.

oh the jetlag!

Had an amazing time in New York, walked everywhere, and saw all the sights that we always see in the films. Walked the Brooklyn Bridge, did the Empire State Building, even went to the Opera, which was uncomfortable in the pleb seats.

We just need to invent teleportation now, so I can escape the massive lack of sleep that such a trip means for me!

My Beautiful New Machine, mmmm

OK, its fast, its beautiful, and after my recent experience in working life, its the only thing keeping me sane and happy at the moment!

Enough said, here are some photos!

Well it ws a busy weekend, but fun!

Back down to Bournemouth for the weekend, to celebrate my Grans 80th, and my aunty's birthday... saw my cousings James and Sohpie, and the irrepressible Bella, who is growing up fast.

Nicky and I then had a nice restful day today, and attempted to fit our bike rack, as a test run ready for Centre Parcs on Friday. Not fun, it ws cold, and the damn thing just could have been made better.

Oh well, Chile Con Carne fo dinner tonight, and I reckon I will order some nice wine hee hee!

Time in the modern world

So, these days I find myself with less and less time in which I am supposed to do more and more...
I am not sure how I arrived in this situation...
I now work for 7 European countries, and usually at least two of them want stuff from me (at the same time)... I wonder if my wages should be multiplied accordingly.
Now perhaps I do not manage my time well enough... I don't know...
I am supposed to be writing a technical article, organising a stag do, writing a little webapp to ease the previously mentioned task, working on my game, keeping fit, spending time relaxing with Nicky, the mind boggles at the number of things I am meant to do!

Add to this travel abroad, particularly when the public transport infrastructure lets me down as it did on Thursday, when my train broke down for 2 hours 5 miles from home.... and I am getting pretty tired and stressed... and the fact that I do 15 hours travelling a week minimum, I am still looking for the rewards I hope I am due...

Now I have New York coming up, and Stag Do's etc... wouldn't it be nice to win the lottery?

Think I will add one more point to my New Years Resolution... say no to people more often, unless it is in my best interests, make them wait till I AM READY to help!!!

Those boys at 37Signals are about to do it again

Before I say anything else, go to www.37signals.com...

I have hype on about their products/ideas before... and they are about to do it again... watch carefully for the release of 'Campfire' this week.... you are going to love it!!!!

Good Reading

As part of my New Years Resolution List, one of my objectives was to improve my time management and stress levels...

To this end I decided to do some effective reading... and low and behold it does pay off..

The First book I would like to recommend it 'One Minute Manager', recommended to me by my boss. This book is a gem, you absolutely have to read it... enough said.

The second book is 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People', habit number one 'Be Proactive' has already helped me out on numerous occasions in the last few weeks!!!!

Hahaha

Sick Nicky is getting better again, hurray, I will be able to go out and pay again, sorry I have been a hermit everyone, very busy at work, and staying in with Nick while she was poorly.

Now its time to relax again!!!

On top of that, my body weight is increasing again, nearly back to 13 stone now my appetite has increased again, HAPPY DAYS!!!!

Body Weight

Boo Hoo,

I have lost half a stone since before Christmas, all I did to do that was eat loads of food, and not go to the gym. Depressing, as I wanted to put a stone on... I am not at the lowest for about 4 years at 12.5 stone...

So a new programme is in order, I am going to cram protein, and exercise more, lots of chicken tuna and pasta coming up!!!!

Rage against the machine part 2

So, Wednesday was a bad day for travel into London... and out of!!!!

Paddington underground was shut because of congestion, again, I'm so bored of this problem that our government and transport agencies can not be bothered to solve that I will nt say anymore on the subject!!!!

Then, worse, on the way home, they let me get all the way into the hellish bowels of the earth on the platform at Oxford Circus, before telling me there was a fire hazard... at which point a cretin working for London Underground could provide me with no further information... So I ran from Oxford Circus to Paddington, in order not to miss my train, giving myself blisers all over my feet... now I am a flabby city boy, and need the exercise... but I don't like running for the failings of my own country...

Ross for Emporer, come on!!!!!! I'll sort things out.

New Years Resolutions

1) relax, no more stress, if you expect to get more than one thing out of me at a time, think again, (but that one thing will be done really, really well of course)!
2) Nicky says point one is because I am a man!
3) get fit again... gym, run
4) eat more healthy, (more fruit)
5) drink more water
6) speak better Italian
7) work on my game
8) blog more regularly
9) dream more normal dreams
10) stick to this list

Before I get on to serious things

Another strange work related dream... A friend of mine from work Emanuel, and I were having an argument in my dream on Thursday night on which is better, Little Britain or The Fast Show... The problem was, Emanuel was getting very, animated, violent even, and he was wearing a very big hat made out of pork!!! Confusing... anyway, he later revealed to me how he likes strange hats.....