Jul 21 2010

Fit For A King

Category: Videos — ChrisM @ 12:11 am

Before I forget (or it gets relegated to an ever increasing group of bookmarks titled “to write about”), here is a video I came across of my old hometown, Cheltenham. It focuses entirely on some of the Regency era architecture to be found in the Spa town, but it was interesting trying to work out where some of the shots were taken, and the music seemed very suitable.
If you want to see what parts of ‘nam look like, click play below, and then head on over to Cheltonia, for a brilliant series of posts on walks you can take in the area. I’m not aware of knowing the author at all, but found his video and blog when searching twitter for mentions of Cheltenham, and thought you might like it?

Jul 21 2010

Skype Scams Secure Subscribers?

Category: Interesting — ChrisM @ 12:01 am

It is that time of the month again when I get around to checking what people were searching for when they arrived at my blog via Google, Bing et al. For some reason, I have seen a resurgence in the number of visitors interested in Skype based scams. Although I’ve not posted about my favourite Nigerians in months and months, those posts seem to be getting attention again, like a bald man singing the virtues of a hair loss cure! Green tea and asthma (as in one combined search term) has also driven more traffic this way, along with the inevitable onboard sound driver issues I experienced, skinny dipping and tubes (NO idea which post that arrives at, will need to check), KFC in Kazakhstan, an old plugin for executing PHP code within widgets or posts, a WM PDA application for reading e-books (AlReader), and finally – funny double barrelled names, which this month has already bought almost 300 people to this site!

"Monastery" sausages and proper stein of beer at Pivavarov, no idea on spelling of either - http://twitpic.com/26523p
Sausages. Double Portion. (No Starter). (0)

Crayfish and Caesar Salad at Pivavarov. Not mine, obviously. With DanD, John, Inessa and Ira http://twitpic.com/264wh3
Crayfish, Salad & DanD At Pivavarov (0)

I'm at Pivavarov (Astana). http://4sq.com/aukaNG Hmm, I was going to embed a Google Maps thing here, but foursqaure have disabled some Google features, and I'm too lazy to go and view the source code. For now, it looks as though if you see a 4sq.com link, you'll need to visit it yourself to see more information on the venue I've just checked into, sorry. (5)

We have Dana and Alan over, pizza on the way, then over to a friend to lock down PCs' apps.Huge net bill.Turns out he wasn't on unlimited! (2)

I just unlocked the "Newbie" badge on @foursquare! http://4sq.com/b0hAoh (0)

On way home from world cup final. not nearly drunk enough. http://twitpic.com/24hxan
Astana Park On The Way Home (0)

At La Riviere again. Watching World Cup Final with friends here in Astana - http://twitpic.com/24g5nc location - http://is.gd/do7G7

At La Riviere Watching Cup Final


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"RT @jeremylimb: When my girlfriend came home she didn't even NOTICE that I'd tidied up the iTunes album artwork. Typical. (0)

Some of these //may// just remind me of the days before I met Irina ;) . The Best Of Bachelor Frog http://bit.ly/acdE3I (0)

Jul 09 2010

AlmaTV Analogue Frequencies

Category: Kazakhstan — ChrisM @ 11:54 pm

I fully realise that this post will attract (if at all) somewhat of a niche audience, however if this information had been available previously, I would have saved a lot of time, and not got quite so bored and frustrated with various technical hitches.

Anyway, the following information will be of use if…
You subscribe to AlmaTV’s cable package
You are in Astana (I’m assuming other cities may have different frequencies in use?)
You want to watch their channels via a TV capture card on your PC (to pause live TV, record programs, timeshift etc.)
Your TV card’s program(s) autoscan feature either fails to pick up some channels, or simply refuses to work at all.

If you meet the conditions above, the frequencies and (approximate) channels names below should help you tune in. Don’t forget that if you are watching the analogue broadcasts of channels, you won’t be able to switch languages – there is only one audio stream, unless of course you have a Digital Cable TV card amd can therefore pick up the digital broadcasts (mine covers analogue aerial, DVB-S, DVB-S2 and DVB-T, but digital cable didn’t get included.)

If you are scanning for channels and find that less than 69 or so appear, you may want to tell your TV card software program that you are in Australia, and scan for cable channels. At least in a couple of applications, this made it check the frequencies with smaller gaps between each potential station location. You may then end up with problems hearing or locking onto the sound. Most likely this is a problem with variant of PAL used on cable channels with Alma TV and whatever they use in Australia. If you’re lucky, you can set Australia to pick up all the channels, and then maybe edit each channel afterwards with to use PAL I/G/M/whatever they are using here.

The frequencies are all in Hz, and I’ve written the channel names in Latin characters, rather than Cyrillic as this blog still won’t display non-Latin alphabets. Where feasible I have included what the channel name looks like on the screen by representing Cyrillic letters with Latin ones. Please don’t cringe too much Oleg, if you’re reading this :)

If you are entering these frequencies into your programs manually, you may find you need to fine tune them a little, and don’t forget if the TV program accepts frequencies in KHz to knock three zeros off the end of each figure, if MHz is required, just move the decimal places three steps further left. So 109250000 Hz is 109250 Khz or 109.25 MHz.

83250000 to 85250000 Asil Arna (somewhere between the two figures, different programs locked onto different areas)
109250000 Khabar
119250000 El Arna
151250000 Hit TV
165250000 Rahat (Paxat, though logo shows (CTB (STV)) bad quality signal
175250000 Channel 31 (Logo looks like 3U)
191250000 Astana
199250000 Channel 7
215250000 KTK
231250000 Muzzine (Can’t seem to find this one on digital cable)
238250000 1 Eurasia
247250000 NTV (HTB)
253250000 Ren TV (PEH TV)
271250000 RTR Planet (PTP – Russia is show in logo)
287250000 NTK (HTK)
295250000 RTR Planet (PTP – Russia is show in logo) – better quality maybe
303250000 RBK
319250000 TV-3 (TB3)
327250000 TV 1000
335250000 TV-1000 Russian Cinema (Pycckoe Kino)
343250000 Our Cinema (NTV Hawe Kino)
351250000 Home (?) Cinema (Dom Kino)
359250000 TV-ts (TVCI u)
367250000 Mnogo TV
399250000 India TV
503250000 Comedy (Komydiya)
511250000 Feniks+ Cinema (Kino)
527250000 TV-1000 Action
543250000 AXN Sci Fi Ru
559250000 Fox Life
567250000 National Geographic
583250000 Animal Planet
591250000 Discovery Channel
599250000 Discovery Science
607250000 Viasat Explorer
615250000 Viasat History
623250000 Eurosport-2
639250000 Eurosport-1
647250000 Sport 1
655250000 Sport 2
663250000 Alma TV Info
671250000 Drive
679250000 Boxing Channel
687250000 Jetix
695250000 Cartoon Network
703250000 Nickelodeon
711250000 Universal Channel Russia
719250000 TellyNana
727250000 Muzika Channel 1
735250000 Muz TV (My3 TB)
743250000 Mezzo
751250000 MTV Russia
759250000 TDK
767250000 Mir
775250000 Nostalgia
783250000 Hunting & Fishing
791250000 Summer House (Gardening etc.)
799250000 Health TV
807250000 Cooking TV
815250000 World Fashion
823250000 TNV (THB)
831250000 Spas
839250000 KZ. Sport1
847250000 Comedy TV
855250000 Euronews

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Jul 09 2010

From One To Many Via E?

Category: Interesting,Personal — ChrisM @ 6:41 pm

I found the following video over at College Humor, where it was presented as a case of one person dancing like a loon, who slowly drew in other dancers to the same spot until there was a sizeable crowd grooving to the beat. Whether this was really the case (perhaps some of them were on little white tablets, but not out to buy diet pills if you get my drift), or perhaps a new group came on the stage, performing at the festival, and a sizeable portion of the audience that were sat down re-positioned themselves to get a better look at the performers, and obviously wanted to dance to their favourite tunes as well?

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Jul 09 2010

Feeding The Ducks At A Lake

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 6:38 pm

Mum and John currently were spending a lot of time at a camping site, as it is a lot closer to Mum’s work, and the scenery was beautiful. Before they took the caravan there, they wanted to check a few sites in the locality, so John, Irina, Anna and I went to check out different locations, and at one of them there was a big lake with ducks and geese. The video was shot on the 4th of March. Since then they’ve had cows invade the area, as local chavs were breaking down fences so they could ride their mopeds and other hair dryer impersonating two-wheeled transport around the lake.

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Jul 09 2010

That Hub Looks A Bit Cleaner Than Yesterday?

Category: Aware Or Conspiracy Nut...,In The Media,Interesting — ChrisM @ 6:33 pm

Whether it is atv, desk fan or wall clock, the gadgets you could buy from catalogues in the previous decades to spy on people were all pretty big. New Scientist has an article informing us that not only have the devices got smaller, but also that they are more high tech now. One similarity is that the objects used to hide the circuitry are still items that can easily be swapped in a home or office without people normally noticing. Fans, wall clocks and TVs are normally quite easy to swap, as there aren’t that many popular models that will be found in most homes/offices. The same applies really for USB coffee cup warmers, USB hubs or even keyboards. I’m currently trying to resist the urge to see if my combined hub and cup warmer is sealed or screwed shut :)

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Jul 09 2010

Three Bed Detached House For Sale – Gloucester

Category: Friends,Personal — ChrisM @ 12:47 am

I need to catch up with a few posts that I’ve been trying to get around to writing for a while. The first is about a house a friend back in Britain is selling. If you are looking for a three bedroom detached house in Gloucester, then you might want to carry on reading.

3 Bed Detached House For Sale, Gloucester

The kitchen was refitted just under two years ago, you can park a car directly in front of the house on a small drive, with two sheds in the back garden. As you may have guessed, I’m not an estate agent, so to get a better idea, you should probably head directly to their site – click to discover more about the three bedroom detached house for sale in Gloucester.

Back Garden Of Three Bedroom Detach House For Sale In Gloucester, Glos

Other things I should probably already have mentioned : Gas central heating, uPVC double glazing, and the shops really are very local.


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(I’m not receiving any sort of recompense for this post btw, but if you buy the house after seeing this blog post, please let her know I sent you, I’m hoping a bottle of vodka would await my return to the UK ;) )

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Jul 08 2010

Astana Park Being Disassembled

Category: Anna's Videos,Interesting,Personal,Videos — ChrisM @ 10:30 pm

These two videos were actually recorded yesterday, but rather than stream them live, I recorded them without using Qik at all. (This was I can double the resolution used). However I forgot to then upload them, hence the 24 hour delay in getting them on the blog.

Irina, Anna and I went for a walk through Astana park, to take a look at all the equipment before it was disassembled. The castle walls, yurts, stone carvings (painted expanded polystyrene) and Kazakh warrior statues were put up for Astana Day/the President’s birthday, and are being removed. There were quite a few workmen wandering around without shirts, and from all the heavy lifting, it looked like they did ab workouts all day long. Sorry for the women (and few men) reading this post, but I don’t think we actually see any/many of these workers on video.

I hadn’t realised how windy it would sound through the phone’s microphone at the entrance to the park, sorry.

Small break in recording as I needed to use the phone for other things…

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Inside Khan Shatyr, Astana. Little bit meh so far. Not totally ready to be open TBH. Will post details later. http://twitpic.com/23gx6f
Inside Khan Shatyr (0)

Inside Khan Shatyr, Astana, Kazakhstan (#qik) http://qik.ly/BqDI3
(0)

Jul 08 2010

Celt Caption Competition – Chocolate Chance!

Category: Anna's Photos,Interesting,Personal — ChrisM @ 6:14 pm

I just wanted to write something quickly letting people know about a post over at Celt Photographic (JohnK’s site). It has the picture below this text, and a request to provide a good caption for it. See here.

Chris And Anna Relaxing At Home

So far we have

“…and the world’s a better place when you’re upside down…sweet about me” ,

“Australian Baby rearing therapy is questioned” ,

and the current favourite, “Despite vigorous shaking the jelly bean dispenser appeared to be empty”!

I’ve added “Father very carefully & securely holds his daughter upside down, as she really enjoys seeing the world from that perspective, and at no point was any shaking involved whatsoever” more as an explanation for concerned readers (one hand holding Anna by the shoulders), rather than a specific entry to the competition.

Ts&Cs
The bar of chocolate needs to be picked up in Wales by the winner.
No quick weight loss tips are included in the prize.
The judge’s decision is final.
If I get around to upgrading CeltPhotographic to WordPress 3.0 and the site goes down, you may need to resubmit your caption.
No idea when the closing date is :)

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Jul 06 2010

Happy Day Of Astana

Category: In The Media,Kazakhstan,Pictures — ChrisM @ 1:48 pm

I have previously been calling it Astana Day, but local official online sources seem to refer to it as the Day of Astana. Anyway, it is also our beloved President’s birthday today. He is seventy, which is still very young, and in his honour the Khan Shatyr was officially opened today apparently. Nursultan Nazarbayev (who is legally not insultable by anyone living in this glorious nation) was rumoured to have been pondering resigning today, but I have yet to hear about any speech confirming this. Since the Leader of the Nation law was passed, some people thought he would take this momentous occasion to pass on the baton to another great, perfect and non-corrupt leader.
Anyway, check out the BBC article here for some more details on Khan Shatyr, though I have a few queries regarding the “facts” in that story…
Astana celebrates 13 years of being capital perhaps, but the city was around, in different (smaller) forms for a little bit longer than that :) The phrasing just makes it sound as though nothing existed here for decades, and suddenly over night it came into existence.
Khan Shatyr is the city’s tallest structure? Could be right, but 150 metres doesn’t seem all that tall compared to some structures here. This could just be my mistake though.
“from 30C in the summer to -30C in the winter.” – An argument I’ve had over at Wikipedia before. Summer is regularly above 30C, occasionally hitting 40. Winter definitely sees an occasional dip below -30.

Here is an earlier photo of the Khan Shatyr tent like structure, whilst it was still being slowly constructed, to ensure it was ready for the birthday of this nation’s wonderful leader.

Khan Shatyr

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Jul 06 2010

Better Than Expected

Category: Eating Out,Friends,Interesting,Personal,Videos — ChrisM @ 1:58 am

OK, so to clarify the tweets, twitpics and Qik videos from Sunday night, here is what happened… Irina’s friend from work had recommended a summer “café” in Astana park, near the river. (See below for the approximate location thanks to Google Maps.) Originally I had intended to check it out whilst watching a World Cup match or two, but friends and friends of friends already had their heart set on a different venue. So when it came to Independence Day (4th of July), we asked Walton and Assel if they would like to try out La Rivière. We arrived to find that it was less a café (which some would assume meant it was not as expensive as some restaurants), but decided to try it out anyway.
We knew there was the possibility of some live musical entertainment from Irina’s friend’s description, and we weren’t disappointed. When I saw the female singer (see previous posts for the male), my first impression was that she looked very good (she likely doesn’t spend her evenings looking for pronexin reviews), and I therefore assumed that her vocal talents might not be as impressive. Although a few songs seemed to be outside of her comfort zone, the recordings below don’t really do her justice for the most part…


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The lady singer preparing for her show at Rivière.

Here we have her version of You’ll See by Madonna, as well as a quick glimpse of a hookah/hubbly bubbly/water pipe that we had (water melon and grape was the flavour tobacco we chose I think.)

This time she is singing “Sweet About Me”, and another quick shot of the hookah

This was a cover of the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

Penultimately we have Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop The Music”

And finally, she sang “Its A Wonderful Life” (Black I think? A group that has a colour as their name at least.)

The food was quite expensive, and there was apparently only a choice of two beers. However the cheeseburger (I know, I’m a classy guy ;) ) was tasty, and the local Line Brew was relatively cheap and appeared to have alcohol in it :) The samsas that were supposed to be a starter didn’t arrive until after the main course, but were OK. The service was great (especially by local standards), though if your company has given you a discount card for La Rivière, be aware that there has apparently been a management change, so these cards are no longer accepted. The water pipe was nice (we didn’t splash out on the extra money required to have a pineapple used as the charcoal bowl), and when the charcoals had died out, they didn’t try and charge us for more, so we were able to finish off the tobacco. The big screen (well projector and screen) looks like it could be good for the next World Cup match we go out to watch, though we may need to reserve a table in advance. Overall, I’d recommend this place if your budget isn’t tight, or if you only plan to have a couple of drinks and want to chill out outdoors, with the possibility of live entertainment.

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Jul 06 2010

Dozing Or Discovering?

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 1:13 am
Sleeping Or Seeking? You Decide...

Sleeping Or Seeking? You Decide...

Before I carry on with the videos from our Fourth of July (American Independence Day) meal with Walton and Assel, here we have a picture from just over four months ago – March the 2nd was when the photo was taken. I can’t quite tell whether Anna fell asleep during her meal, after a hard morning’s work, or simply dropped her cheese and was trying to relocate it. Hopefully Irina can come along and clarify things? Anyway, I noticed I had one Anna photo post, and one Anna video left in my drafts area for some reason. I’ll try and crack on with the rest of the UK based ones soon. We haven’t been taking as many here in Astana, so it shouldn’t take as long to catch up with them.

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Jul 06 2010

Beard Back?

Category: Interesting,Personal — ChrisM @ 12:48 am

The Saturday that has just passed saw me looking after Anna in the daytime. Irina was at work, because they had today (Monday) off. This was because Tuesday is a holiday. Slightly confusing, but basically rather than have people at work for one day, then off for a couple, then back, they made people work one extra day last week (Saturday), and then “gave” them Monday off. Anyway, this meant I was unable to go and teach English over at Interhouse. Up until now, I’ve been trying to turn up reasonably smart (new-ish t-shirt (or proper shirt before it got too hot), cropped hair and clean shaven). However, I’m now playing with the idea of re-growing the eternally existence-swapping beard. So if you see me around with fuzz, I’m not putting off looking for the best acne medications, though dry skin is a problem in this heat and lack of humidity, I’m just seeing if the facial hair gets to a reasonable length before my next lesson!

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