Re. bacon @jasonoverturf When we see it 4 sale at Ramstore, we tend2buy all their stock&freeze it. Not an American brand, so not $53 a pack!
Oct 03 2009
Dropping A Vest On The Sidewalk, Whilst Vacationing
Writing that last post reminded me that my use of the English language is slowly becoming slightly Americanized, partially because it means I’ve a greater selection of words to use when trying to beat my old boss Kate at Scrabulous on facebook, but also because what little TV series and films I see over here tend to be American, and a good friend here also hails from that side of the Atlantic. So our flat has slowly become an apartment, this years cancelled holiday to Britain for Christmas almost became labelled a vacation, though I’ve not found myself calling the new tarmac outside our flat a sidewalk, instead of pavement, or calling a waistcoat a tuxedo vest. Most likely as they don’t tend to figure a great deal in my day to day life 🙂
Sep 18 2009
Ridiculous Bill
OK, so this one is a little late in being published. With catching up with the backlog of Anna’s unpublished photos, I didn’t get around to posting links from news stories that I found interesting. So, just in case you missed it, checkout the BBC’s article that gives more information on the case of a man who bought a packet of cigarettes on his credit card. He got home and later checked his balance. He apparently owed 23 QUADrillion dollars (US)! That is 23 followed by another 15 digits. Somewhat obviously this was an error, as that sort of figure dwarfs even the current American national debt total.
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Sep 15 2009
A New Kazakh Experience
We have the honour of being order number 20 for a relatively new start up business over here in Astana, Kazakhstan. Although America and Britain (and by extension, I’d assume the mainland European Continent?) have had supermarket deliveries available for years, this company seems to be the first in this city at least. I’ll not provide a link until we’ve seen the goods arrive (sometime in the next 2 hours) in one piece, with the correct money being charged, but if all goes well, I’m happy to recommend them. I’ve already passed on their details to one friend over here, so I’ll compare experiences to make sure any good/bad points aren’t isolated.
Aug 15 2009
Feeling Itchy Yet Fred?
I received an e-mail that got around my GMail spam filter by keeping the main message within an attached document. Anyway,
‘Fred Driver’, using captfreddriver1@gmail.com as his e-mail address sent the following…
Hey!
Plz view attachment for your message.Cheers
Fred
attached was the following request…
Dear Friend,
I am Capt. Fred Driver, an American Soldier, I am presently attached to a security company here in Iraq, I am assigned with the 1st Armored Division (Basra) here in Iraq. I am writing following an opportunity that will be of immense benefit to both of us.
As you know we are being attacked by insurgents on daily basis coupled with (Improvised explosive device) explosives we encounter almost every day, this has been responsible for the loss of both US & British Soldiers more than combat confrontations.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein, we discovered various amount of funds running into millions of dollars which we returned to the new (Iraqi Government) as you can see on this website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2988455.stmHowever, when the situation became critical and we began to loose soldiers on daily basis and coupled with the recent deployment of United States Soldier out from Iraq, I decided to keep some of these funds we discovered just to help our family in case we didn’t make it out of Iraq alive. The total amount in my custody here is US$12.5million dollars in cash.
PLEASE COULD YOU KINDLY TELL WHAT PERCENTAGE (%) OF THIS MONEY (US$12.5million) YOU WOULD LIKE TO TAKE AFTER THE TRANSFER TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT?
All you have to do is just help me receive these funds in your account for us to share. On receipt of your details, I will properly guide you on the procedure we will adapt to facilitate a smooth transfer of these funds.
Kindly send me an e-mail, signifying your interest including
Your name:
Age:
Telephone/fax numbers for quick communication:
Contact address:
Occupation:
Nationality:
NOTE: This transaction is risk free and the case can be shipped out within 48hrs after we have both agreed to carry out this venture.I urgently hope to get your response as soon as possible.
Regards,Capt. Fred Driver
Deciding to check if s/he had used that alias before in other 419 scams, I came across a couple of instances back in May, thought about making contact and seeing if I could waste some of their time, but got bored very quickly writing a reply. So the following got sent instead…
Fred,
Congratulations on your promotion from Sgt. to Capt., and I am glad you have managed to sort out $6 million dollars already, since May 19th (see here and here).If I had the time right now, I would gladly engage you in a long running e-mail exchange, in the hope that any time of yours that I wasted would be time you couldn’t be successfully conning at least one gullible person out there.
I spent quite a lot of time dealing with 419ers in one of my old jobs back in England – using the deaths of soldiers in Iraq is pretty fricking low, scraping the bottom of the barrel like those scammers who use names of those killed on 9/11.May you get a crab infestation and your arms be too short to scratch, or failing that, at least get a conscience and decide to do honest work for a living.
Yours,
Chris Merriman
http://ChrisMerriman.com
Jul 13 2009
Gros, Cheese, Ham and Pizzas
Well I’ve not found anyone picking up on my theory that Gros stores may be closing down or relocating in Astana, and as I have not yet been subpoenaed over the original post, I’ll assume the powers that be don’t care either 🙂 We popped into one of their rivals last week (Ramstore), and found some imported cheddar (American), mozzarella and what looks to be ham. I say looks to be, as the packaging is Turkish, and says Jambon. I think I remember that from French lessons as being ham, and as the meat product is pink, oval-ish and thinly cut, I’m hoping it to be so. Anyway, combined with the pizza bases also found in Ramstore, we cooked a couple last week, and the general consensus was that they were tastier than the pre-made ones 🙂
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Jun 18 2009
Air, Teeth, Mud, Concrete and Burgers
This evening, so Anna could have some fresh air (and a snooze, as she had been cranky all day – teething?) we walked over to Mega (see previous tweet with picture). On the way there (we still take an extra few minutes to use the proper light controlled pedestrian crossing, compared to the main cross roads next to Mega, where cars don’t have to stop when turning right, even though the little green man is, well, green, for pedestrians) we cut across a little patch of grass to get to the pavement. It had previously been raining, and I suddenly found it very difficult to push Anna along. Looking down, I saw the wheel and lower part of the frame caked in mud. Lesson learned – stick to the concrete where possible. It looks like we may be needing some pressure washers to clear the mud off the frame for the pushchair. Hopefully the Akim here in Astana will consider building a proper pavement (sidewalk for American readers), as the one on our side of the road is actually just a series of (usually) connected concrete covers over large pipes.
Speaking of construction in Astana, NewEurasia.net has an article explaining how Kazakhstan hosting the Asian Winter Olympics has benefited Astana now that the city is co-hosting with Almaty (the old capital city over here). See here for the full run down.
Anyway, despite the use of big puddles, leaves and tissues, the pushchair was still leaving a muddy streak behind it when we arrived at Mega, so Ira ran in to pick up a few essentials from Ramstore, and also a couple of takeaways from Star Burger (I think that was the name) – I had a relatively tasty cheese burger, with no scary rabbit food (lettuce, tomato, gherkins etc), which filled a hole nicely.
On the way back a water tanker (one of the smaller versions, compared to what you might see in Europe) was drifting across lanes, apparently trying to drive through a car, rather than overtake it, luckily they both stopped in time for the zebra crossing, so we arrived back home in one piece, though a little wet, as the clouds broke again for a few minutes.
Jun 18 2009
Watermarking Soon?
I have been meaning to process all the images stored on this server for a while, and watermark them with this site’s name. Why? Because I see from my server logs that quite a few are used across the internet (often in Arabic forums and MySpace pages, for some reason), and if others wish to use these pictures, I’d like to get a free advert out of it as well 🙂
However, a family in America discovered another reason for branding their own photos – a Czech company (that specializes in sales of imported Italian food) had taken their happy family snapshot, and used it in their own promotional materials! See an article on it here.
Anyway, unless and until I get anywhere near hitting my monthly data transfer allowance with my web host, I’ll be happy to just watermark the pictures with ChrisMerriman.com, and not take the drastic last step of replacing the file with an identically named one featuring a goatse. (The idea being that on your own site, you update any references to the new filename of the original image). Don’t go and google that word, unless you have a strong stomach, and aren’t at work/in front of children right now.
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Jun 03 2009
Hey Google, Follow Me Please
A friend here in Astana has created a web site for the Zhuldyz Centre (a centre for child development, based on the Montessori method). Currently, none of the major search engines have indexed the site, despite there being no apparent major issues preventing them from doing so. Knowing very little about the methods involved with this style of education/development, I took a while to read some of the pages, and also checked out Wiki’s entry on the Montessori method.
I would be interested to find out how progressive the methods used at the Zhuldyz centre are, as in whether they adhere to strictly earlier ‘pure’ Montessori, or whether they have followed other practitioners and modified the theories and approaches to take into account reviews and criticism. I could be wrong, but I think the last time I came across this method of teaching was a Newsround report, a good 20-odd years ago. (Newsround is (was?) a children’s news programme on BBC1, in case American readers have no idea what I’m on about.)
Jun 03 2009
Suggestions For Kazakhstan – Part I
This is the first part of a series of posts on things that have occurred to me since moving back here to Astana…
Not all of us chose something like a Bob stroller when it came to the time to choose transportation for our babies, so if Astana’s Akimat (Mayor basically), could see his way to ensuring that the kerb stones and pavements, at least on the major roads, were easily accessible for pushchairs (and wheelchairs when it comes down to it), life would be a lot easier for some people. Currently, pavements (sidewalks (?) I believe for any American readers often have kerbs that are higher than the pavement, dropping down to a road that is lower than the pavement. Assuming the font used on this blog doesn’t mangle my ASCII stick art too badly, this is what you end up with … _|- … an un-necessarily large drop, with a fence like kerb in the middle. If these could be altered to something like _/ , so a slope was involved, then moving around would be less of a problem, and prams would last longer.
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