Alex has been a little in the real world recently, so her blog (Dryad Musings) is a little lacking in recent posts, but perhaps this will spur her on? Anyway, next year, her and her brother are hoping to go on a survival experience, and so when I read about an American survival TV show hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons, I thought of Alex.
It turns out Bear Grylls had not in fact been roughing it every night for his ‘Man vs. Wild’ (‘Born Survivor: Bear Grylls’ in the UK) program, which many people had assumed after watching the show. He had in fact done his bits on camera, then some nights slept the night in a motel or hotel over night. I just hope they never do that sort of thing on Ray Mears’ Bushcraft shows – we catch them on BBC prime over here, quite a good show.
Jul 31 2007
One For Alex
Jul 24 2007
Kazakh Company Wants To Invest
Just caught this report over on the BBC World news channel.
Apparently the American government and GreenPeace (for differring reasons) is not very happy at the prospect of KazAtomProm (the Kazakh Nuclear Company) wanting to buy an 8% stake in an American company, WestingHouse Nuclear.
KazAtomProm is a Kazakh state company that produces Uranium. Anyway, here is the report itself…
On a related subject, I found a video on the BBC website reporting that Kazakhstan has announced plans to build a uranium enrichment facility in conjunction with Russia. Here is the direct video link. If that direct link does not work, or you have a dial up connection to the internet, you could try the following official link instead.
Jul 20 2007
Tom Plus Afghans = Kyrgyzstan!
I have been meaning to write a post on this subject for a while, but did not get around to it until now. Apologies Tom.
Anyway, as long term readers may recall Tom Toomey live here in Astana for a while, and we regularly met up to get drunk and eat too much have deep philosophical discussions whilst very drunk.
He returned to America earlier this year, and carried on blogging whilst there. It was good to be able to keep up to speed with his life. However, he recently went to Afghanistan (that most friendly of places to be if you are American!), for his regular annual trip to pick up some young men. And women. Perhaps I should clarify? Rather than any sort of romantic quest, he takes Afghan teenagers to Kyrgyzstan for a summer camp. Although British readers will probably only have come across the concept of summer camps through films and TV shows, I have been assured that this really does occur, and is not just some Hollywood invention ;).
So, if you would like to read Tom’s posts, head on over to The LifeOf2Me, and do make sure you read the older posts as well; whereas this blog tends to be random thoughts from the top of my head, his is seriously well written, if not deadly serious subject matter 🙂
PS He is a friend, not a business associate, so this post is not sponsored in any way, I would just really like any readers of mine who have not yet come across his blog to do check it out. Just don’t forget to come back here as well. I’m cool with polygamy 🙂
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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…
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Jun 21 2007
Monstrous Mob Mentality
A group of Texans have beaten a man to death after he accidentally hit a child, at low speed, in a car park.
Around 20 people are believed to have taken the law into their own hands when a girl was hit (but not seriously injured), and the passenger got out to check if she was ok.
The incident occurred near the Juneteenth festival, which is held to mark the freeing of American slaves.
Check the BBC Article for more info.
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Jun 21 2007
Vodka Not Equal To Champagne
At least in terms of exclusiveness, according to MEPs (Members of the European Parliament to my American readers). They have judged that spirits made from different ingredients can still be called vodka.
Why the champagne reference? Well here in Kazakhstan, the situation is the same as it was a while ago in Europe – pretty much any fizzy wine can call itself Champagne. However, in Europe at least, the grapes have to come from a certain region, and strict rules apply to the production process before a wine is allowed the pretige of having champagne on the label.
MEPs from the Nordic and Baltic states had asked for the legal definition of vodka to be tightened even further than originally proposed, to only include spirits made from potatoes or grain. The manufacturers will need to note on the label what the drink is made from, if not spuds or wheat, but there will be no minimum font height/percentage.
Vodka producers in Western Europe (Britain, Germany and France mainly) will be very happy that spirits made from grapes, citrus fruits and sugar beets can still be called vodka.
Russia is of course the world’s largest producer of vodka, but if the Nordic definition had been applied, Britain would have been kicked out of second place.
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Jun 17 2007
Another Kazakh-Based Blog
I was checking how this blog was doing in the search engines, for terms such as Kazakhstan Blog , Astana Blog , and of course Chris Merriman, when I came across a site written by an American who lives in Almaty.
She is a Peace Corps volunteer, and has recently found out she is to stay in Kazakhstan a little longer than originally planned. For anyone who has not come across the Peace Corp before, they work in almost 140 countries, trying help out local people with global issues.
Anyway, enough of the intro, check out the Kazakhstani Extravaganza blog for another look at life over here in Kazakhstan.
This post is not sponsored, nor did she ask for the link, I just thought it might be of use to some people. Which reminds me, I need to add this site to the links page – check the menu at the top to get there.
Jun 15 2007
Whatever Happened To…
the characters from Street Fighter II? OK, I have to be honest, and admit I hadn’t really thought about the SNES (I think it was called a Famicom in America?) game for almost a decade now, but I came across “Street Fighters: The Later Years” over at a collegehumour site…
and the memories came flooding back. Mainly of two weeks wasted in an Annecy, France flat, on a foreign exchange program, doing nothing other than playing games, because Fabrice had decided to not entertain his guest.
ahem, not that I’m bitter or anything 😉
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Jun 08 2007
Teacher May NOT Be Going To Jail
Following on from the previous article, I thought I’d post this link to a BBC report on an American teacher who has now got a new trial underway.
The original charge? That she gave cause to a room full of school children to see pornographic images on a computer!
So where is the link between that and the Spy Sweeper product I mentioned earlier? It now looks like the PC in question may have been infected with ad ware, which coudl mean that the no criminal act was carried out – just the normal levels of ignorance so often found with PC users. If the PC had been protected, it is quite likely that the pop up adverts would never have been produced, a class full of children wouldn’t have been asking their parents difficult questions (but Mum, why did she have that banana there?), the PC would have been working more quickly on the internet, and most importantly, the teacher herself wouldn’t now be facing the possibility of 40 years in prison!
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Jun 08 2007
The Dragon Fart T-Shirt Has Arrived
As modelled by Pete.
For anyone who hasn’t yet visited, go and check out Tom’s online shop NOW. You will find a whole range of original t-shirts and other items, all designed by Tom.
TCat Designs is run by Tom Toomey, of The Life of 2ME blog. He is now back in America, having lived here in Astana for a short while. He and Walton are hopefully going to be in Kyrgyzstan this summer, running a camp for children from Afghanistan.
Nope, this isn’t sponsored, Tom is a friend, and no money was exchanged for this post.
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