In the summer, one of the main reasons that temperatures of 40 degrees Centigrade and higher are bearable, compared to occasional low 30s in Britain, is the humidity – in Britain, the amount of water in the air is always higher. This means your body is less able to give off heat, in the form of sweat. If you are in Kazakhstan, as the humidity is lower, when you sweat, the water can evaporate a lot quicker, so you can cool down quicker.
This is great, EXCEPT, the lack of humidity can play havoc with your carefully styled hair (more of a problem for me then my wife LOL) and also with your skin. So whilst in Britain, many people use de-humidifiers in their homes & offices, this country could actually use a bunch of humidifiers. Air conditioning is great in reducing the temperature in a room, but also tends to lead to low humidity.
Some people tend to see a whole house humidifier as the only proper solution, but this does tend to cause issues, such as less control over individual room environments, and also uses more energy; due to the way whole house humidifiers work in conjunction with central heating systems, any room with central heating vents will also be humidified. Not a problem in a small apartment, but in a large house, where a third of the rooms may not be in common usage, you’re still paying the electricity bill to ‘treat them’.
Ira passed a link onto me, with details for the many possibilities concerning how to lace your shoes…
All of the images are taken from this page. I’ve directly linked to the pictures themselves, as some people just seem to skip non-English sites, even if the main content is visual not textual.
[edit]
I did a little more research, there is a fuller list of the laces at another Russian forum – here.
And with less pretty pictures, but in English, and full instructions on how to tie each type, there is this site on shoelaces.
Since seeing this on a French music channel, I can’t get the tune out of my head!
I challenge you to listen to it (for the male readers out there, maybe listen to the video with the monitor turned off – you may find the visual aspect to be too distracting to appreciate the audio side of it ;> ) without becoming hooked.
According to YouTube’s comments for this video (obviously close to an Encylopedia Brittanica reference LMAO), the singer (Natasja) is half Sudanese, half Danish, and is the first non-Jamaican to win the Irie FM Big Break Contest (in 2006)
I’ve also heard the Alex Gaudino version (more popular in UK dance scene apparently) , which samples a lot of the same bits as this track does, and whilst his video is equally distracting to anyone who admires the female form, I personally prefer the approach taken by Natasja.
Once more, this post ISN’T sponsored, I just liked the tune.
So, watch the video, and let me know what you think…
Assel went on a business trip to Britain, and asked if there was anything I’d like bought back from Britain.
I think they only asked for a laugh, anyone who knows my choice of desserts over in Kazakhstan knows I have a penchant for Angel Delight. So, for my birthday, Assel kindly got me 20 packets – 10 strawberry and 10 butterscotch. We were at a restaurant at the time, so I had to wait until we got back to theirs afterwards, before I could sample one.
Delicious.
OK, it is not definite yet, but it appears that www.ChrisMerriman.com may have achieved a higher Google PageRank :>
I need to wait for all of Google’s data centres to finish this much-awaited update, and then see how things are, but it looks like I may have gone from a PR of 2 to a PR of 4 :>
You’ll now see a little more variety in the book reviews, but I wanted to write out all those that I’d read in one go, to try and ensure some sort of continuity with the reviews.
There are a few more collections to come, but they are much smaller.
The final book in the Chalion series, this one strongly reminds me of the ‘A Song Ice and Fire’ series of books. (Their reviews will be published here in the future.)
This story revolves around an accused woman, and the man charged with transporting her, as a prisoner, towards her punishment.
This novel focuses on a character from the previous book (The Curse of Chalion), Ista, and her journey, in both the physical and meta-physical sense.
Ista was previously portrayed as a tortured soul, on, or over, the edge of insanity. However, without wanting to spoil the storyline too much, we now know her to be released from the grips of her tormentor – one of the five gods who exist in this fantasy.
