Apr 07 2007

Lost In Translation

Category: Kazakhstan,PersonalChrisM @ 12:28 am

Following on from this post, I finally got around to watching the end the film ‘Lost In Translation’. It was quite good, and I’m glad I watched it, even if it was 12 months and two (now three) days ago that I watched the first half. (I put in on my phone for when we were waiting around in airports on our initial journey to Kazakhstan last year.)
Couple of things that struck me, whilst watching it…

1) The husband of the main female star is played by the mildly psycho stalker in Friends.
2) The ‘Lip My Stockings’ scene was very funny.
3) You don’t seem to find SoftPak cigarettes here in Kazakhstan. Mind you they weren’t wildly popular back in Britain…
4) I appear to have forgotten the definition of the word ‘couple’

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Apr 07 2007

Kitten Videos

Category: Dasha&Kittens,VideosChrisM @ 12:05 am

I lost some videos whilst attempting to fix this week’s blog problems, so have these instead…

First we have the kittens just a little while after they were born, last year. They’re snoozing/feeding, and one has a little difficulty in finding a decent posture…

One of them playing in their box, before they started to venture a little further..

Oh, go on then, have another one…

Next we have the same mum – Dasha, but with her kittens from 2003

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Apr 06 2007

Snow Mobile Pictures + Video

Category: Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,Pictures,VideosChrisM @ 9:15 pm

Took a bit longer than expected to put them up, but here are 3 videos from when we went on a snow mobile, click the link after the videos to see the pictures…




Continue reading “Snow Mobile Pictures + Video”

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Apr 06 2007

One Year And A Day In Kazakhstan

Category: Kazakhstan,PersonalChrisM @ 11:55 am

Irina is on her way back from Moscow as I type, and there is a huge pile of washing up to be done, but I just wanted to make a quick post to let people know I’ve now been over here 12 (and a bit) months.
Do I want to return to the UK? No, for now, I’m happy to carry on living here, and seeing what happens. There have been times I’ve felt differently, when the different way things are done over here has got to me, or just general home-sickness has pervaded, but Ira spent around 8 years with me in Britain, so I’m more than happy to keep on ‘trying out’ Kazakhstan. We agreed at the beginning we’d see how we both felt after two years, so come back in another 12 months time, and ask me then…

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Mar 18 2007

Jospeh Biden transmits a warning…

Category: In The Media,KazakhstanChrisM @ 9:05 pm

and confirms he still has his own teeth ;>

Check here for further details.
The photo does remind me a little of Howard Dean’s now infamous sound byte at a rally – “Woooo-Ha”

As Nathan mentions in his article, I don’t really see Jospeh’s letter as achieving much, other than to possibly try and publicise his own standpoint in this matter.
Who knows, maybe I’ve simply turned too cynical in my stay in this country, maybe the letter will be read, acted upon, and then the 2nd Battalion of Pre-Baconites will be primed and ready to fly?Flying Pig

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Mar 08 2007

Congratulations To Women Across The World…

Category: Kazakhstan,PicturesChrisM @ 1:21 pm

(Today is International Women’s Day)

International Women's Day

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Mar 08 2007

Couple of Quick News Items…

Category: In The Media,Kazakhstan,PersonalChrisM @ 1:13 pm

Intel ‘accidentally’ lost e-mails relating to their court case with AMD – More details here. Article has been removed, so link also removed.

Borat-ese enters Hollywood lingo at #1 ! High Five! It’s Sexy Time!

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Mar 01 2007

ADSL arrived and We, The Undersigned Petition

Category: In The Media,Internet Connections,Kazakhstan,PersonalChrisM @ 2:13 am

Found a link to a UK Government beta web site that held a petition on the price of Windows Vista, compared to USA prices.
This next caught my eye – …..petition the Prime Minister to Recognize Borat As The Leader Of Kazakhstan (!)
This petition should be of interest to AlexC.
This petition will be of interest to John as it concerns proposed legislation on taking photos in a public place.
Here we have a petition that publicly funded (UK) software should be released under a free licence, so the whole nation may reap benefits.
This one came as news to me

Fingerprinting is being introduced in thousands of UK Primary Schools as part of a subsidised library package called Junior Librarian that they have purchased, encouraged by central government. New schools are joining the scheme at the rate of around 20 a week. To date, more than 3500 schools and nurseries (manufacturer’s official figure, given to the Daily Mirror) have fingerprinted and photographed 3/4 million children, ranging in age from 3 to 11; impressionable, trusting and naive. Involved companies have given premier partners with access to their SQL database AND a commercial arrangement for the reselling or endorsement or their products.
This is always done without explicit parental consent, and even in some cases, without parental knowledge.
Schools strongly resist sending parents the opt-in consent slips that are used for just about everything else. Some parents only find out AFTERWARDS

Finally, we have a petition for Seb & any other schmokers out there…

Oh yes, and we finally have ADSL installed at home. I’m going to have to use the internet LESS than I did on dial up, as we only get 700 megabytes per month (up AND download :< ), but it means I can do my work in the daytime, so I'm really chuffed that it has arrived.

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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?

Continue reading “Went To A Concert Saturday Night”

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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.
Continue reading “Recent Plugin Additions, Chimps Go Hunting And Kazakh Crap Items For Sale”

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