The next time I complain about Kazakh drivers not stopping for you on zebra crossings, or the way cars are driven when a pedestrian is on the road for some reason, remind me to look at this video from India…
Apr 26 2008
Arm Wrestling With A Twist
This is an arm wrestling arcade machine. The idea is simple, and definitely existed in English fair grounds for a long time. Put your money in the slot, and then try to impress your friends (or potential girlfriend 😉 ) by beating the machine.
Unfortunately, this particular model had to be withdrawn, following three separate incidents where people had their arms BROKEN! The manufacturers response was basically ‘Ha! Pansies!’. Not the best approach to public relations, but there you go. Reminds me of an incident in the park across the road from here, a summer or two ago. A ride broke whilst some children were on it, with a few small injuries. The owner’s response? To eventually offer those who were on the ride free tickets for future visits!
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Apr 19 2008
Megaline Problems?
ChrisK came over this week, and when I had to edit some settings on my PC, I was reminded that I had not yet posted on a potential solution to people having problems with their Megaline ADSL connection here in Kazakhstan.
Basically, I ended up wiping my DNS server settings that day, and when I checked the internet later, I found a lot of web sites were timing out.
If you find yourself in the same situation, try changing your DNS servers to those belonging to OpenDNS. The primary Domain Name Server is 208.67.222.222 , with the secondary being 208.67.220.220 . Once I had reverted my DNS server settings, I found the previously misbehaving sites were all ok again. Hope it helps 🙂
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Apr 17 2008
Not Present And Correct?
Something that is still missing from Kazakhstan (or at least Astana, I’ve not been to Almaty for a few years) is the identiclone high street effect you see in the West. Although the exact franchises vary, over in Europe you can often find McDonalds, Starbucks and KFCs. Whether their absence in this city is a good or bad thing depends on whether you care about an area’s cultural history, or are drunk at 1am and want a bite to eat. At least that is how I find my opinion differs 😉
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Apr 15 2008
Here Comes Spring?
OK, so it is 15th April, and quite a few weeks ago, all the snow and ice had already melted in this town. By last week, temperatures had recently just hit the low 20s (centigrade). Then today the weather turned on us – it is currently snowing quite heavily again, enough to settle on the ground.
Hopefully the weather will improve by Saturday afternoon, as I don’t want our flights out of the country to be delayed at all, in case we miss our connecting flights from Germany…
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Apr 15 2008
Avoid Napoli Pizzeria in Astana
OK, their pizzas were so delicious, we gave them three tries, but sadly, problems persisted.
Positive points? They deliver, which is quite unusual here in Astana. The pizzas are delicious
Negative points? The soft drinks have a markup of 400%! You either need an iron stomach, or some Imodium handy later that evening/the next day 🙁 Like I said, the first time I put it down to a random stomach bug, the second time I thought maybe I had had a lot to drink that evening or something, but when the 3rd time of trying their Pizza resulted in similar issues, with no alcohol that day, it was time to sadly cross them off our list.
The name on the receipt is Napoli, but the name on the pizza box, and possibly their trading name is something a little different. If Irina can remember, I’ll update this post later, but it was still very similar, with ‘Nap’ at the beginning.
[edit]
Apparently Imodium is more often spelt Immodium. Anyway, I came across Alex Frankel’s Ode To Imodium here
Oh, Imodium,
Constipator of my colon,
Immobilizer of my bowel;
You make it possible
For me to leave
The house and take
A long walk in the
Countryside, without
Having to remember
To pack
Toilet roll
And a small trowel.
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Apr 11 2008
Something For Any Kazakh Bosses Visiting
Just came across a post on 101 Common Sense Rules for business managers. Whilst people may argue that different parts of the world have different cultures, and that businesses therefore differ in their approach to managing, I think quite a few of the points raised in the article could really help improve some companies over here.
I’m going to stop now, as otherwise this will turn into another bitter sounding post spelling out all the issues you hear about over here, but take a look, and let me know what you think.
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Mar 13 2008
Let Me In
Check out the Up Late post for the last animation I posted from the same artist. This one involves the same cat trying to get in through a door.
I’m definitely not showing these clips to our kittens. hmmm, when are they kittens no longer, but cats? Ours are 18 months old now. Anyway, we have already had to start putting tin foil on top of a door that Karra uses to leap frog onto a kitchen unit top. She gets stuck up there, and other than the obvious worry of her getting hurt, there are also a lot of crystal wine and shot glasses on the same unit.
Mar 01 2008
IT and Cats
This week I started giving computing lessons to a colleague of Walton. She came round with her laptop, and we are going through basic skills, as well as how to save time by learning various shortcuts. One hour of pure IT can be a bit much for the non-geeks out there, but luckily Karra and Muska (our kittens) were on hand to provide occasional distractions. Some of the cat products in our flat have seen better days – one of the toy mice had its ear ripped off whilst my pupil was here!
We also got out the squeaky mouse that sits on the end of an elasticated fishing rod-type affair. Karra tends to watch it jumping around, almost as though she is analysing the patterns of its movements, then pounces when she thinks she has the best chance of holding on to the grey squeaky furry thing 🙂 Muska on the other hand will carry out all sorts of aerial acrobatics in her quest to trap the prey.
Once I had changed the batteries in their other favourite toy, we had a little laser show going on. I picked it up last September, as a replacement for the little laser pen we had previously been using. This version has two lasers, some mirrors and a couple of motors, to create pretty geometric patterns on the floor, and normally grabs the kittens’ attention. Hmmm, how old are kittens once they become cats?
Anyway, we need to find some new toys for them sometime, so I’ll keep my eye out in the local shops and online, to see what can be found.
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Feb 27 2008
WordPress In Kazakh !
I meant to post about this a while back, but as you may have already guessed from the title, the WordPress software that this blog is based on is now available in the Kazakh language. Whilst it is likely that 99.9%§ of people who will be installing WordPress on a server are already able to speak Russian, and therefore use that pre-existing version, the fact that the option is now there for those that want a Kazakh interface, is definitely a good thing. Check out the semi-official news release here.
§ – Did you know that 64.7% of statistics are made up?
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