Feb 28 2007

Went To A Concert Saturday Night

Category: Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,PicturesChrisM @ 3:07 am

Ira and I went with Walton and his wife to a concert on Saturday night. (See below for a scan of the ticket).
I’m glad we went, and most of it was quite good.

It started off with a group that use a violin, electric guitar and a kazakh instrument whose name escapes me right now. (Bit like a two-stringed guitar). They played music that matched the composition of the band – western classical intertwined with Kazakh melodies and riffs. Unfortunately, the fact they were miming to pre-recorded music was quite obvious, and the majority of the other bands/singers did the same.

Whilst this was going on, they had a ballet troop/troup(?)/troupe(?) performing in from of them (the Exclusive Ballet mentioned on the ticket I think.) Most of the performances went well, although a few looked relatively un-coordinated compared to the high standard of others.

Compared to my normal gigs/clubs in the UK, I felt relatively cultured, and enjoyed pretty much all of it, apart from some bloke in a suit crooning along; no facts to base my opinion on, but he looked and sounded like he was the son of someone important, who decided that a career in music was his calling. Who am I to argue? We also had a KVN like sketch or five, and I understood a couple of jokes, which is an improvement over when I last saw on one on TV.

Anyway, after the concert ended we all headed to a taxi, but got diverted by the prospect of a quick drink, which then turned into a meal at the local Tex/Argentinean/Italian restaurant.
When done, we all went home and I had a nice lie-in the next day. Sadly Ira (who had already worked Saturday at her office) then had to head back to work a while on Sunday. Who knows who reads this blog, so I shan’t complain about the amount of work/attendance her company require. Her boss is great, and who could ever fault Kazakhstan office work?

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Feb 24 2007

Recent Plugin Additions, Chimps Go Hunting And Kazakh Crap Items For Sale

Category: In The Media,Kazakhstan,Personal,WordPressChrisM @ 1:44 am

Recently added to this blog, plugin and widget wise, is

Do Follow – Allow commenters own sites to get the juice they deserve :>
PostPost – A way of automatically adding content (in my case adverts) after your posts. (Also has a lot of other options available)
WordPress Related Links – I’m still not 100% on whether to keep this one or not. It adds links to related sites at the end of my posts. Will have to monitor sometime, and check it isn’t just earning someone else a lot of money from my drivel :>
Google Sitemaps – I’ve had this installed since the first day this blog existed, but never got round to using it for some reason. As I had to re-create all my article web sites, and so re-submit their site maps, I decided to give this plug in a go.
Cloudy – Finally, a plugin & widget that does what I need, without having to remember to edit some PHP next time I wipe a file accidentally. The word cloud you can now see on the right, in the second column, is the result.
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Feb 23 2007

Men’s Day And Con playing a set

Category: Friends,Personal,PicturesChrisM @ 11:41 pm

Congratulations to men all over the world, as today (23rd February) is Men’s Day. Not sure how far across the world this event is recognised, but hope you are having a good day.
Originally it was dedicated to defenders of the motherland (Army, Navy etc.), but it is now generally accepted for all men. In Kazakhstan, the President has decreed that it should be celebrated later in the year, but old habits die hard.

Con (Seb’s brother) will be playing a set at Detonate this evening, Also on the bill is AndyC.

Detonate 8th Birthday Con AndyC

Check here and here for more details.

Good luck to him, may his tracks not skip, and the crowd feel the groove.


Feb 23 2007

Last Night Out With Tom

Category: Eating Out,Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,PicturesChrisM @ 4:07 am

We went out on Wednesday to an Uzbek restaurant, near KMG (where Ira works).
Unfortunately, Walton was ill, so couldn’t make it :< Click the link below to see the pictures
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Feb 23 2007

Last Saturday Night With Tom

Category: Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,PicturesChrisM @ 3:45 am

An evening with Tom, a sad moment, and yet a happy time.
For our last Saturday with him, we were honoured with (finally) being invited round to his flat for a meal.
You can read more about it here, but to keep you going, here are some pictures of the evening.
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Feb 23 2007

Kilowatt PSUs !!!

Category: In The Media,PersonalChrisM @ 2:50 am

That means, if you were to use the power supply to its maximum output, you’d be using as much electricity as sixteen standard (60w) light bulbs.
Obviously, even with a powerful PC (quad core CPU, quad SLI grafx, fast memory, all OCed, a few hard drives and DVD burners, lights/cathodes and enough fans to keep it all cool) you’ll not actually quite need that much power… yet.
Better to have capacity to spare than to suffer your PC crashing, or in a worst case scenario, have a cheap PSU die and send a nasty spike to kill your m/board…

Anyway, for a proper review of the Tagan 1100 Watt Power Supply, check out here, also includes a little info on the upcoming 2Kw PSUs!

I’ve been updating the pages on all my article sites this evening, so whilst waiting for them to finish uploading, I had some spare time to write these last three posts, in case anyone thinks they are a little off the norm.

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Feb 23 2007

Interesting summary of the Estonia War Memorial saga

Category: KazakhstanChrisM @ 2:38 am

I read this around a week ago, but forgot to link to the excellent article.
If you’ve not caught any of this on the news (or only heard a 30 second segment on it), please do click the link, read through and then leave a comment at his site, if you feel like giving some thought on the matter.

Estonia: Battle by Bronze Proxy
Why is it that a WW II-monument repeatedly sparks bilateral crises between Estonia and Russia? This question has, in recent days, gained new relevance after strong Russian reactions against the Estonian parliament’s decision to remove the so called Bronze Soldier (Pronkssõdur) soviet war monument from central Tallinn. The reason is simple: The Bronze Soldier has become a proxy for the conflict between Estonian and Russian interests in Estonia before the 4 March parliamentary elections.

To read the rest, please click here

BTW, all of the above is Vilhelm’s text not mine, I’m just hoping to whet your appetite enough to make you check his blog out, if you haven’t already done so.
Also, I’ve checked out the details of Vilhelm’s Creative Commons License here, and think it means I’m OK to quote his work, as long as I state it is his, and where to get the full text from, sure someone will correct me if not…
Finally, I know this doesn’t really belong under the category of Kazakhstan, but it isn’t really Personal, nor am I too likely to be posting about Estonia again.

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Feb 23 2007

For People Who Play At Work…

Category: Personal,PicturesChrisM @ 2:14 am

USB Stealth Switch

When you click the Stealth Switch with your foot it instantly and completely hides any PC application or software window you have chosen. So you can do what you want on your PC at work or home and never get caught. James Bond eat your heart out! This really makes your PC…For Your Eyes Only. The USB Stealth Switch is the The Worlds First Computer Cloaking Device!

From what I can see, a pretty flawless concept, my one concern is that you would need to have admin rights on your PC to install the associated software. (My assumption, they don’t mention it on the page, I just can’t see how something that could hide everything so well could be achieved otherwise.)
So… if you either have full rights on your work PC, or are friendly with your Tech Support, give it a go.

PS The link above isn’t an affiliate link or anything, I just noticed it whilst looking for Christmas gifts, last December, and thought it might be of use.
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Feb 18 2007

Paris Hilton On Her Knees…

Category: Personal,PicturesChrisM @ 9:23 pm

Screwing by the pool
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Feb 18 2007

Astana Weather in Wikipedia

Category: Kazakhstan,WeatherChrisM @ 3:00 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astana - check out the climate section in the Wiki for Astana

Is it just me, or do the average temperatures for Astana in the summer seem completely unrealistic?

I’ve left a comment in the discussion section ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Astana#Climate ) for Astana’s entry in Wikipedia, or have I misunderstood the figures?

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