As you may have noticed from the Pictures category on this blog, I often upload resized images taken on our digital camera. It came from Irina’s mum, much like the current DV camcorder we use. The camera we had previous to this one was OK, especially as it took better quality images than the webcam I had originally. However, it ate AA batteries like there was no tomorrow. Our current camera also manages to chomp through the special battery as well, but lasts a lot longer, plus we have a spare fully charged up in the camera case normally.
Jul 23 2007
Balzhan’s Birthday Meal
We (Me, Irina, Balzhan, Ildar (Balzhan’s son), Dr. Natalya, Sveta (Dr. Natalya’s daughter)) all went out Saturday evening to celebrate Balzhan’s birthday, and also because we had not all been out together for a long time. (Sidenote: it was also Sasha’s (Dr. Natalya’s husband – nice man) Birthday… his present was to be allowed the night of from social duties and to go fishing 🙂 )
We decided to go to the barrel restaurant again. I don’t know the real name for the place, but if you are lucky, you can sit outside inside one of their huge barrels. Anyway, I had Mexican steak apparently – meat, tomatoes, Pringles and cheese, along with chips, some coke & apple juice and a little vodka. The food was delicious, and the company was great.
Comments Off on Balzhan’s Birthday Meal
Jul 21 2007
Bayan Is Back :)
Bayan went over to England, or Manchester to be more precise for a few months. She hopes to go over there to earn her Masters degree, and needed to complete a gateway course. Go check the older personal posts for more info and pictures of her.
Anyway, we found out she was back in Astana today, so we all went to Vanquaro (or something that sounds like that. The sign was in English, but the vodka in my bloodstream is preventing me from achieving total recall. Now that was a cool Arnie film… Anyway, I’m drifting off course, apologies) to have a nice meal and for once, Bayan did not drive, so we could all have a few drinks.
A good meal, good company and good lime flavoured vodka.
Oh, and if women order a beer in this country, they almost always receive a straw, to enable them to drink their lager in a lady-like manner…
Here we have Bayan constructing and then devouring a Mexican thingy that the name of escapes me right now…
Finally, we have Ira and Bayan in a shot together…
Comments Off on Bayan Is Back :)
Jul 20 2007
Room Temperatures Of Plus 30!
One thing about living in Kazakhstan is the extreme of temperatures – between Summer at its hottest, and Winter at its coldest, there is around 80 degrees (centigrade) difference! (In case you wondered, around plus 40 to minus 40).
So, right now, an electric blanket is truly the last thing on my mind, in fact we are still hoping to have an air conditioner installed this year.
However, come winter, they would certainly be something worth considering to warm up the bed for Ira before she goes to sleep.
Luckily, there is a site that enables you to not only find the lowest prices for top brand accessories – from electric blankets to mitre saws, from summer dresses to briefcases, but also read reviews on them.
Comments Off on Room Temperatures Of Plus 30!
Jul 19 2007
The Guardian
No, not as in the British news paper famous for it spelling errors, but the film with Kevin Costner. Irina and I have just finished watching it. The film was better than I had expected it to be – I have found anything with Mr Costner in, from the last ten years or so to be unsatisfactory normally. That said, the plot was really quite formulaic. The ending should have been where the same imagery and monologue from the beginning was used, but I am guessing that American test audiences preferred a nice, neat boy-gets-girl ending, so they could all leave the cinema in a positive frame of mind, but there you go, if I just pretend the last few minutes didn’t exist, I would not call it an evening wasted…
Comments Off on The Guardian
Jul 17 2007
Good Company – Bad Food
Serves me right really, I decided to stray from the menu items I knew I liked. I decided to try a sausage (I think it may have been a Georgian type). It was supposed to be a mix of two types of meat, with spices and some garlic. Given the lack of proper British bangers in this country, I thought I would try it out.
The chips, vodka, coke, sauce & Ira’s company were lovely. The sausage was a skin full of flavourless meat, with large chunks of fat mixed in. It required a good smothering of sauce to be finished. However, I now at least know what not to eat at that restaurant next time. They offer turkey sashliq on the menu, however you need to pre-order it, so they can buy the meat, so in the last three or four years, I have never managed to sample it.
Hi ho, Hi Ho its back to blogging I go 🙂
Jul 16 2007
Charlie From Lost…
This time, I don’t think I will need Alex to come along and correct me on character names again 🙂 …
Irina recently noticed recently that ‘Charlie Pace’ (Dominic Monaghan) from Lost played ‘Geoffrey Shawcross’ in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. There is around a 10 year gap between the two roles, but Ira’s eagle eyes spotted the similarity. This afternoon, I noticed an episode of Hetty etc. was on, so I flicked the satellite onto BBC Prime.
Anyway, I have included a couple of screen grabs from both Lost and Hetty Wainthropp Investigates for comparison, click the last two to see a higher resolution version.
Jul 14 2007
How Did You Get Here?
No, not a request for people to leave comments involving various birds & the bees, under the cabbage patch or stork stories…
I have recently been researching (doesn’t that phrase sound so much better than ‘trawling through my boring server logs 🙂 ? ) which terms people have been using when they arrive at my site from various search engines.
Most of them could be easily explained, for example…
Chris Merriman , Christopher Merriman , ???? ??????? & ????????? ??????? are all variants of my name that have appeared on this blog at one time or another. (I must remember to ask Ira to check my Russian spelling on those.)
Due to the way Russian people will attempt to translate my name from the Cyillic alphabet back to the latin original however, Kristofer Meryman is also a possibility. (Unfortunately, my Kazakh ID card is testament to this, so if anyone ever directly compares it to my passport, the christian names do not actually match up!) Also, I occasionally see people arriving here from using SilentlyScreaming or AntiSceptic as search terms, as these are my most often used forum/digg/social bookmarking membership nicknames.
Anyway, Kazakhstan Blog , Kazakh Blog and Astana Blog also were used, as well as Presents For Nick and I still seem to be indexed somewhere with my old blog title ( I Never Could Get The Hang Of Thursdays ), as a few searches still trickle in from variants of that Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy phrase, from search engines I have not come across before.
However, rabbit sreviews , 17 screen blockers and acid ran pictures really have me confused. The last one even more than the rest, as I can’t find any reference to those terms in any of my previous posts!
Oh, and yes, some of the above is a blatent attempt to rank a little better on some search terms, but I hope my readers forgive me, even if they do not find this information of particular interest. If you do find it interesting, first go and take a short nap, and see if you have recovered, if not, you may want to head over to my I Got Lucky page, which lists all the search terms that this site has (at some point in the past, if not currently) been at #1 when searched for through google!
Finally, if you have never left a comment on this blog before, I would be genuinely interested to hear from you, and especially how you found this site in the first place. Thanks…
Jul 13 2007
James Blunt Sold His Sister… On E-Bay
OK, I admit, the title for this post is pretty much link bait, but if it is good enough for the Times, it is good enough for ChrisMerriman.com 🙂
Irina noticed the article, and so I checked out the details. Apparently this story has already done the rounds once, but I did not hear of it when Blunt was promoting his first album.
James (a former British Army officer) explained that following a tragic death, his sister had to get to the Republic of Ireland (Eire) for the funeral. The ferries were not making the crossing at that time of year (the Irish sea can be quite rough in certain seasons), and there was a strike that meant planes were not making the journey either. Mr Blunt posted a plea on e-bay, and someone helped out by letting James’ sister use their helicopter. However, these is a positive ending to this story – the winning bidder is now due to marry Mr Blunt’s sister!
Comments Off on James Blunt Sold His Sister… On E-Bay
Jul 13 2007
Kittens Plus Textured Wallpaper ? Good Idea
The title pretty much says it all….
Despite having a scratching post, a nice scratch board that was originally infused with some cat nip or something similar, Karra and Muska both seem to see wallpaper, especially near corners of walls as something inherently evil that this flat needs to be defended from. We have tried telling them off, and they sensibly avoid the scene of the crime, for a good, well, err, 10 minutes maybe? In one other case, they scratching appears to be incidental to their trying to catch the chain on a light switch, near Ira’s dressing table.
Just in case you think I am exaggerating, please do check the pictures below.
That last photo has been quite heavily photoshopped to try and show where the claws were put to use…
Comments Off on Kittens Plus Textured Wallpaper ? Good Idea
« Previous Page — Next Page »