Oct 19 2006

Alex Is Back

Category: Friends,Personal — ChrisM @ 1:28 am

Helloooooooooooooooooooooo Alex. Really glad to hear from you again. Don’t feel bad about the delay in comms – most UK friends haven’t contacted us in ages, some since we left the UK! Anyway, will mail you when I’ve finished off current batch of work this evening…

Back to stuff other people might find intersting…

I was looking at some random USB gadgets, and found this page, which actually grew from the original, but that page is in Japanese, so check them both out for the fuller picture. A quick summary is that someone decided to crank up the heat generated from their USB coffee cup warmer to the point that it now fries meat!

Next we have some interesting news about a batch of Video iPods that came pre-installed with some delightful code for PC owners. Apple deny any deliberate subterfuge on their part.

Finally, whilst checking out pages to place links on for my clock website, I discovered this little gem. I’ve considered petitioning Irina to get a similar setup in our living room, but gave up quite quickly. I think I’ve been lucky enough to get this nice PC desk…

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Oct 16 2006

Pretty Good Weekend

Category: Dasha&Kittens,Internet Connections,Kazakhstan,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 3:18 am

We took our kitten home, from the in laws, today. Not yet named her, the proposals are Pippa, Socks and a word I’ve forgotten already (Karra?) that means black in Kazakh. Anyone else think of anything? It needs to be easily pronounced by Russian and English tongues, be feminine, and be shortened easily…
The last one was suggested by KZBlog owner’s wife; we met up at the Chelsea (an ‘English’ ‘pub’) again Saturday night. Had a good time, ate a little, drank a little more, and talked a lot, their prices are definitely higher than the average bar, but the selection of food is good for wimpy westerners like me, and I tend to feel a little freer talking about life over here than I would normally…

FINALLY the PC Hardware was all fitted. For the last 5 months, I’ve been waiting (we’ll get the stock next week, next week, next week, oh we had it, but sold it to someone else etc. etc.) for a Graphics Card upgrade (nVidia 7600GT>7900GT) and a replacement 320 Gig Seagate SATA hard drive; for the last week and a half, Ucon (the PC shop in question) has PROMISED to visit our flat and deliver them (to make up for the delays) . Each day, they didn’t turn up, and each day they didn’t bother to call and let us know they couldn’t make it. Sadly, this isn’t exactly unheard of, in respect of customer service levels, here in Kazakhstan. We gave up in the end, and went back to the original plan, so we took the PC to the shop and dropped the printer off to be repaired. They laughed at the amount of programs I have running (what’s the point in a well specced machine if you don’t fully utilize it’s resources), and the lights I had fitted. Had being the operative word, they took it all out, fitted the hardware, then put it all in a bag for me. Also caught the shop assistant trying to copy some of my games. 1) Don’t do it without asking, it is rude 2) Don’t be stupid, simply copying the directory the game is installed into onto their machine will not likely result in a working application, and oh yeah 3) Copyright theft is bad hmmm. Well offered to copy my installation DVDs (only for Public Domain games, obviously…), and they could have it when we came to pick up the repaired printer. Hoping that is enough motivation to see the printer back soon…
I now have just over 850 Gigabytes of storage space, so shan’t be running out anytime soon. Especially not downloading via dial up access to the internet. Irina’s mum had ADSL installed in the last week, so I’m hoping we’ll either get that or WiMax sorted soon….
Continue reading “Pretty Good Weekend”

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Oct 13 2006

Update on the kittens

Category: Dasha&Kittens,Pictures — ChrisM @ 10:33 am

Hopefully getting a litter tray, some more food and other essentials this weekend, so once the kittens are ready, we’ll be taking ours home…

Smiley Sun

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Sep 24 2006

Green Tea And Asthma

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 9:53 pm

Another article ( www.learnaboutasthma.org/7_health_benefits_of_green_tea.php ) on food & drink and how they can assist Asthma sufferers… Apparently theophylline is the key!

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Sep 22 2006

One For The Milk Drinkers Out There

Category: Kazakhstan,Personal — ChrisM @ 12:16 am

You need to be so careful buying milk here in Kazakhstan. If you put it in tea/coffee, or cooking food, it might not be so apparent, but for any drinkers of milk, or breakfast cereal lovers, the milk takes a while to get used to.

I might just be hypersensitive to the smells/tastes (I worked in a dairy for a while), but a lot of milk tastes like it has gone off, the minute you open the carton/bag. (Who the hell thought a bag was a sensible container for milk!) As an example, I went shopping yesterday, and thought I’d try a couple different brands of milk, as the only ‘good’ source of milk was out of stock, again. I got a bag of normal milk, and a carton of UHT (long life), thinking it would be a safe bet. I don’t like the taste of UHT so much, but I thought of the two, at least one would be usable.

So, I got home, and thought about making a milk shake, and tested the ‘normal’ milk. Euuuuuurgh! It tasted like it had been left open in the sun for a few days. Oh well, no loss, threw it down the loo, and went to the UHT – best before date had 4 months to go, and it stated it could be stored at 0 – 30 degrees centigrade, prior to opening. It was worse, far worse – the milk had completely separated into a watery liquid, and some clotted fat floating around.

So, the moral of the story is, ummmm, well not sure – either don’t ever work in a dairy prior to visiting Kazakhstan, or maybe it is try to hold your nose whilst drinking milk over here, or maybe just give it up for a while :>

=-=–=

UPDATE: Irina bought some more milk from a different shop on the way home, same brand, same type, and it tastes fine. Corn flakes, milk shakes and Angel Delights (mum bought some over for us) are now back on the menu :> :>

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Aug 18 2006

A Little Later Than Intended

Category: Kazakh Driving,Kazakhstan,Personal,Pictures — ChrisM @ 3:12 am

OK, as promised, here is some more info, from Mum & John’s perspective.

This is basically a cut’n’paste job from an e-mail they sent to family and friends (with permission I hasten to add ;>)

“”For those of you ancient enough to Radio 4 be familiar with Alistair Cooke’s “Letter from America” this is likely to seem a pale comparison. Certainly less erudite and not as well crafted – but hopefully it will inform and maybe even amuse, though the political comment will be markedly absent!

This is Carol’s second visit to this amazing country and my first. As we flew in at night the lack of any settlements for hundreds of miles prior to landing in Astana was perplexing. It was hard to comprehend such vast tracts of land without population. Then Astana appears on the Kazakh Steppes resembling a modern Emirate city. Disney could not have bettered it! When Carol was here last she arrived through the back door, via the old capital of Almaty, then a twenty three hour train journey across a hot and dusty terrain. She made the trip for her son (Chris) & daughter in law’s (Irina) marriage. Jokingly she had said as she left to Irina’s father that he was to have a new airport built on her return. He did – and a pretty impressive airport to boot! It is so refreshing to see architecture which is not afraid to be adventurous, particularly in the teeth of such extreme weather conditions. Thankfully on this trip it has been kind to Carol & me, between 21°C & 30°C. The temperature can famously vary between -30°C in the winter to +40°C during the short summer months.
Continue reading “A Little Later Than Intended”

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