The other night, Alex, Ira and I went out for meal in a restaurant near the river. It was a lot busier than the last couple of times we had been there, and a few patrons seemed to have problems remaining perpendicular to the ground. Anyway, about half way through our meal, I swore I heard someone speaking in English, but I couldn’t make out the specific words. Searching around for the likely culprit, we noticed a table without any Kazakh looking people, and I kept an ear out for any words that wafted our way.
Eventually, I gave up being subtle, and just asked someone from their table if they were indeed English, when they passed us. Turns out it was an office outing, and indeed there were some English speakers there. If he ever happens to read this, I should probably apologise for the grilling we gave him on his life over here, it was just quite unusual to come across a fellow Brit 🙂
Jul 07 2007
Familiar Voices In A Strange Land
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Jul 03 2007
Oleg Is Back In Astana :)
He has been away in Moscow studying for almost a year now, so it is really good to have him back around, if only for a couple of weeks. We (Ira, myself, AlexC and Oleg himself), all went out for a meal this evening. We headed over to where Irina works (KMG), as she was called in on her day off (quel surprise), and once we were all together, headed to the Uzbek restaurant near there. It turns out they now have a outdoor section, shared with the Samovar restaurant (Russian food) next door, which was based on the roof. For once, the food was tasty and hot, the service was incredibly good by Kazakh standards, with smiles and a few English phrases thrown in by the waitress. Hopefully have a few pictures to follow soon 🙂 .
Jul 02 2007
If You Need Inspiration – Bodge
Or how to go about defeating website spam with SpamAssassin…
StarGazer, the guy behind my favourite plugin (WP Headline Animator), has had an idea on how to minimize blog or other web site spam using the e-mail spam protection system ‘Spam Assassin’.
The principle behind using spamassassin for webpages is quite simple, so don’t be put off by the code example he gives in the post if you are not a coder yourself. I’m not, I just tend to bodge things together until they do something interesting…
For any cynics out there, this post is not sponsored or anything, I just liked his approach to the problem of spam, and the idea of using an e-mail system to check comment spam by passing comments through to SpamAssassin in the guise of an e-mail message.
Jun 21 2007
Cat + Window = Heart Attack
The title pretty much says it all. A little background before the photo though, the temperature over here is now steadily rising. Today it was around 32 or 33 degrees (centigrade 😉 ) outside, and tomorrow’s forecast is for 38.
As we still do not have an air conditioning system here, the only option really is to have the windows and balcony doors open in the evening and over-night, when it is cooler, and then keep them shut in the daytime, to try and preserve the cooler air in the flat.
The main problem with this is our kittens. I can not help but imagine them trying to chase a fly right out the window, and as we live on the 4th floor (3rd to UK readers), that would not be at all healthy for the cats.
We can open the doors on the alternate hinges, so they open at the top, rather than the side, but this does not allow as much air in. So, we have recently had ‘supervised’ sessions with the kittens, where we sit on the balcony and try to ensure the cats do not do anything silly. Irina seems a lot more comfortable with this than me, I keep getting so nervous that my palms sweat. Ira does raise a good point though, if we do not have a stool near the window, the cats are liable to try and jump up on the narrow internal window ledge, which would not be good.
Anyway, enough of the talking, here is a photo from this evening, with Karra watching the traffic go by…
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Jun 20 2007
Gas Pipe Disruption – Though Not Where You Think
Police take action over attempts to disrupt the construction of a gas pipeline.
Just another day in Iraq? Not a very surprising head line to read perhaps?
Well, this is not regarding terrorists/freedom fighters in Iraq. No, this concerns my home countries – England and Wales!
Around 30 people have been protesting about the construction of a pipeline between Pembrokeshire and Gloucestershire (the county Cheltenham is in, where we lived prior to Astana), and the A40 (that eventually leads onto London) has been closed around Brecon, as the authorities attempt to evict the protesters.
Grab more info at the BBC article on their web site.
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Jun 20 2007
Ira Has A New Hair Colour
Last week I meant to post a picture of Ira’s new hair colour. She went to the Salon after work finished, had a cut and then the colouring process finished.
Ten past eleven, she got home! Yep, almost four hours it took to apply the colour and a styling. I just hoped they offer tea and biscuits there…
As a side note, apologies for the lack of book reviews recently, I need to remember which book was which in the series I started a while back, and I also need to start those posts I promise within the neglected categories in this blog.
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Jun 19 2007
Hot Fuzz
Just watched the movie here at home. Fricking brilliant is my two word review of it…
Slightly longer version as follows…
For anyone who has not come across Simon Pegg before, he came to national attention after starring in Spaced, a series that captured the ‘scene’ in Britain pretty well. My favourite moment was a bloke who had partied a little too hard for too long. Whilst waiting to cross a road, the bleep-bleep-bleep alarm for pedestrians becomes a dance track in his head, and he starts dancing to it.
Not too difficult to reach that state if you have not slept for a couple of days, and you can’t remember where you were an hour ago, other than a good party 😉
Anyway, Sean of the Dead was the last film I saw that featured Simon Pegg, which was a sort of spoof of the many zombie films in existence, whilst not being too farcical. Hot Fuzz followed the same formula, and had many quality English actors in it. The idea is that a hot shot ace London copper is sent to a South Gloucestershire village, as his stats are making all his colleagues look very bad. Not too surprisingly, all is not as it seems, and Nick Angel (Pegg’s character) starts to join the pieces of the puzzle together.
Ira seemed to like the film as well, and we don’t always enjoy the same sort of film to the same degree, so I think Hot Fuzz has a wide appeal…
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Jun 18 2007
New Blog And A PS Video
Whilst browsing through the PayPerPost forums, someone linked to their blog (Call Me When You Get There), which caught my attention, as this is the sort of thing Ira often says to anyway leaving our flat when it is dark outside.
Anyway, whilst browsing through her recent posts, I came across this video –
Basically it demonstrates just how much can be done with Photoshop, when the original model is not quite what you wish to present. Many thanks to Jackie for finding it.
Jun 13 2007
Congratulations….
On the new arrival to Anthony and Lisa. Baby Amelia was born in Bridgend hospital, and we (Ira, in-laws, friends etc.) would all like to pass on our congrats to the three of them. And of course to John, who is now an even grander dad 🙂
[edit]
Shortly after posting, I received an e-mail from John (Anthony’s Dad), with a little more info and some pictures…
Amelia weighed in at 4lb 10oz, but is doing well.
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Jun 13 2007
Picnic In The Park
We recently went to a restaurant in the park near us (named, with some unique inspiration, Astana Park) with Walton and Assel. The place is based around the theme of a famous Russian film set in the desert, hopefully Ira will be able to inform me of its name in the morning.
Ira and I had not been there before, so we didn’t know what to expect. The food was good, the vodka must have been OK, as I forgot I took the following picture 🙂
When Alex gets over here in a week and a half, I’m hoping we can return the restaurant again. The service was a little slow, and it was yet another example of a place in Kazakhstan where ‘starters’ and ‘main courses’ arrive in a random pattern, but the waitress was pleasant in her attitude, when Ira and I went back there last week.
By the way, the post title is a reference to an annual event back in Cheltenham, where people went to Pitville park, with a picnic, and listened to some bands play…
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