Today is my Mum’s Dad’s (we call him Gramps) birthday, so this is just a short post to congratulate him on this special day, and to wish him as comfortable a time as possible as he recuperates following a hospital visit. Irina and I managed to see him when we visited Britain over New Year, and while I think of it, another big hello to everyone back in the UK, both those we did manage to see, and those who we unfortunately did not meet with. We also have another three birthdays coming up next week with friends both in Britain and also here in Kazakhstan, but more details on that later…
Jan 03 2008
All Is Well
Please excuse the lack of posting… We arrived fine, had Christmas, mum and John got married, the in-laws went back to Kazakhstan, and we’ve just had New Year.
Tomorrow we head to Dads, and see some friends around Cheltenham, moving onto Matt & Ira G’s place, finally returning mum’s car to Clydach, then trapsing down to Heathrow.
Will try and post more info later, depending on internet connection availability and my soberness…
Dec 22 2007
Arrrrgh, No Time…
Scratch the original plans, here are the links I mentioned, not enough time left after having got everything ready for our trip to actually create proper posts. Now the DVD burner is fubared, and I wanted to burn another 3 discs of MP3s for driving to. Hey ho.
Kyrgyzstan elections not fair either – see this article and this one for more details. For those not familiar with the country, no that isn’t where we live (we’re in KAZAKHstan), however international monitors similarly do not think that the elections were free, fair and transparent there either…
Discounting apparently rife in stores – BBC article – Actually I’d call it pretty piss poor ‘professional’ journalism. They trot out the same rubbish each year, closely followed by an article in January saying how shoppers actually spent a lot more than expected. I especially loved the headline – attention grabbing, discounts sound significant, then followed in the main body of the text that this year’s reductions average at 36% off, not 35% ! Yep, 1% difference…
Wives Tales or Valid Medical Info? – Article here. If you don’t drink 8 glasses of water per day, you will use less than 10% of your brain, meaning you won’t be able to read in the dark, turkey will make you drowsy and your hair will continue to grow after death, no matter whether you shaved it or not. Or something like that 🙂 I have heard before that the ban on mobile phone usage within hospitals is rubbish, espcially when you consider the power of the transmitters they need to use for their own internal walkie-talkies etc.
Eco-friendly consoles requested – BBC article – I know that some PC component manufacturers are already trying, but apparently the big three gaming giants (Sony, Nintendo & Microsoft) are being pressured to lower the amount of toxic chemicals used to produce their consoles, amongst other things.
Take care when you google – info here – My thanks to Irina for noticing this report, and also on the shoddy workmanship of the journalist once again. The article reads in parts as though they did no investigation, and simply read from Google’s press release, with contradictions in places. Anyway, bad people had been setting up sites to try and hack unprotected PCs, and were trying to drive traffic by optimizing for popular keywords.
Dynamic advert placement within PDF files – article – the title says it all here…
Info on Amazon’s ‘Kindle” – here and here – Amazon’s e-book reader, an attempt by another company to crack the market. Once again, the aims have been praised, the actual product is not so popular in some circles.
Terry Pratchett has Alzheimers – check here – A long time favourite author of mine, Mr Pratchett has revealed he has the condition, though is doing OK so far. Whilst I selfishly hope he will be able to continue to write such well crafter novels, I do hope that if/when the time comes that the balance between personal well being and writing output tips the wrong way, his fans will let him retire with grace.
One for Alex – here – Poorly kangaroo goes for a swim, and gets snapped up by a shark! (As you may have guessed, based in Australia)
W00t – BBC article – Like ‘all your base are belong to us ‘ from a few years back, but certainly a lot snappier, w00t appears to have started its life in the gaming world, and is used as an exclamation, normally positive.
Not an article, but Wikileaks may interest you. Has a small section for Kazakhstan. Not going to discuss that sort of thing right now, no time.
Excuse me whilst I don’t cry – boo-hoo – with any luck the BNP will eventually go the same way as the old National Front did. I just hope any splinter groups don’t survive, and aren’t too radical whilst they are around. Don’t have much time for racist, lying, Lowest Common Denominator politics and politicians, as you may have guessed.
Misbehaving pupils shocked into towing the line – article here – I can never imagine Mr Owen having given this sort of punishment in his lessons…
Right thats it, I’m off to bed, and won’t be posting for a couple of days probably. Hope all who read this do so in good health…
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Dec 19 2007
Ira’s London Pictures
I was originally going to post a selection of the photos Irina took whilst in Britain, but realised her work colleagues might not appreciate having their faces plastered all over this site. Anyway, her hotel room was apparently quite nice, and you can also see the newest addition to our flat back here in Astana – another cat, though this one doesn’t seem to require feeding 😉
We have yet to think of a name that we both agree on, so any suggestions would be welcomed. (The maid actually placed the toy on the bed in the hotel room, after making the bed, which was a nice touch 🙂 )
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Dec 19 2007
Pet Sitter Found
As you know, Ira and I will be travelling to Britain this Saturday, and as her parents are coming as well, we can’t very well ask them to come and feed the kittens whilst we are away. A solution has been found in the shape of Mira, Ira’s colleague from work. She will come and spend some time in our flat§, seeing what independent life is like whilst not at work very much, and obviously making sure the kittens are fed, watered, and that the litter tray doesn’t over flow 🙂
Anyway, I dug out her picture from a couple of months back
Or at least I am hope that’s the right picture, I very helpfully forgot to include any useful information in the folder name, other than the date. In case you are interested, the object in her right hand is a little laser toy I picked up on my last trip home, mainly to entertain or distract the kittens when we need them to behave well.
Anyway, huge thanks to her for making sure we can sleep well, knowing that Muska and Karra are going to be looked after 🙂
§ – I am trying to force myself to use the UK English word, rather than ‘apartment’, as I already find myself sometimes unable to recall which nation’s vocab I am using…
Dec 19 2007
Irina Is Home Again :) :) :)
OK, she actually got back on Monday, but we have been busy today sorting a new PC for her mum. Anyway, her trip to London seemed to go well, and in just 3.5 days, we will all be heading back to Heathrow again. Whilst she was away, I met up with David, his wife, and another Chris. David and Chris work for a western company here in Astana, and should be here for a while. Anyway, more on that later on. It is really good to have Ira back in my arms again 🙂
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Dec 12 2007
Vista Locks Outs Dropped
On to a slightly more serious matter now, as Microsoft have announced they will dropping their much-loathed kill switch, that locks out users should their Windows Vista installation be found to be pirated. Whilst the theory held water, and you can see why it was implemented, too many users complaining about being locked out of their legally paid for install caused a lot of mad press for Microsoft.
Windows will still need to be activated (unless your OEM system has a BIOS recognised by m/soft, and so bypasses this stage), but Microsoft have promised that no further complete lock outs will occur. Some users, who have flashed their motherboard’s BIOS to fool Vista into believing all is OK, are not overly concerned.
Dec 12 2007
Irina Leaving In 4 Hours
Ira will be driven to Astana airport, where she will fly to London, via Austria, for a meeting KMG has. The kittens have enough food in the cupboard, there is juice and water, the bills have been paid, and I’ve promised to not set fire to anything. Fingers crossed, all will be well 😉
Seriously, although my dearly beloved will be away, I have enough work to do, to keep me occupied, and I’ll be meeting up with David and another Chris this Friday, as David has arrived in Astana. (I say that, but the last I heard, his flight from Almaty was delayed. On a positive note, it turns out Almaty airport has free wi-fi available, so at least I know for the future that I can distract myself next time we fly through there.)
I hope Ira has a safe journey, a not too stressful time in London, a safe return, and that I manage to keep the flat in some semblance of tidiness…
Dec 10 2007
Irina’s work have blocked their employees from accessing Facebook, so if any friends of ours feel they are being ignored by her, please don’t be offended; by the time she has finished work and got home, there is not always a lot of enthusiasm for anything that requires human<>keyboard interaction.
I, on the other hand, have a very understanding boss, who can see the need for occasional non-profit based activities to balance out my day 😉 (For new readers, I should probably point out that I am my boss, and as such tend not to discipline my self a great deal…)
Anyway, here is a little Facebook badge I have created, not much going on with it right now, but a nice little summary, and you can flip through some of the photos I’ve uploaded to my profile, or just click straight through to the profile itself, should you prefer.
Thinking about it, my profile’s security settings may allow you to only see a limited version, so if you want to see it all, send me a Facebook poke, with a note explaining you found me via my blog, and I’ll gladly oblige.
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