OK, so I definitely need to clear some time in the next week or two, and try to catch up with a lot of posts (and photo editing) on this blog. Although my memory of my holiday last September may be a little hazy by now, I’m hoping the pictures will either refresh said memory, or paint a good enough picture to give you, the reader, enough of an idea. After that, we have our trip to Britain over Christmas and New Year, with Mum’s wedding in between. After that we have finally meeting up with Tom the pilot, contact being made with an American Jazz singer hopefully coming to Astana to play some sets locally. Finally, we have the birthday trip to Amsterdam (I may need to link to upcoming forum posts for the Coffeeshop specific info) and Britain again this April and May. I’m hoping that by posting this summary now, it will remind me what is missing, and force me into actually taking the time out to write a few words and crop a few piccies. To friends and family still waiting for those posts, thanks for your patience so far.
Jun 10 2008
BBC Entertainment Working Again
After uploading an update for our Openbox X-800 satellite receiver, I have found the BBC Entertainment channel is once again working. Combined with the BBC Prime (which has been getting worse and worse recently for endlessly repeating the same decades old series), BBC Lifestyle and BBC Knowledge means we once again have a wide variety of UK based programs to watch. BBC CBeebies means if we have any Polish or English speaking children around, we have something other than American cartoons to offer them.
Although the channels appear to be broadcast for the Polish on the Hotbird satellites, the second audio channel is the original English soundtrack, so other than the adverts, there are no translation issues 🙂 I don’t know how long these channels will last, but it is good to see some new channels (other than the ubiquitous Italian TV shopping and Arabic adult phone lines) coming along still, especially after Multivision stopped broadcasting all their movie channels on Hotbird.
If you have an Openbox satellite receiver, in the x800 range, and have your dish pointed at the Hotbird satellites, you may want to download my file which has all the English (and non-English but still of interest) channels predefined in various ‘favourite’ groups. Click here to download the file. If you don’t already have the software, the Alsat Forum has it available in this POBEdit thread. (Also, I’ve gone through and made any channels that are strictly adult in nature locked, so should you have young children who have access to your remote control, you can set the Lock feature to ON and not worry about them seeing anything unsuitable.)
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Jun 10 2008
Caught Up With Shameless
Irina and I have finally finished watching series four and five of the UK TV series Shameless. The drama has been maturing, and the writer doesn’t yet seem to have run too dry with ideas for plots. Whilst some elements have seemed a little out of character, for example Norma has become a lot weaker in terms of self esteem and mental strength. Overall though, we’re really looking forward to series six. To keep us going until then, we have series one of House MD (thanks Oleg), and a bunch of films. One of which is Sicko, Michael Moore’s film on healthcare around the world, especially in America. I did a little research and found out that some people take out policies to cover what their Medicare insurance does not.
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May 27 2008
Red Dwarf
I can’t remember why, but I recently came across some videos on YouTube that purported to be Red Dwarf the Movie trailers. Three turned out to be utter fakes, which seemed a little pointless, and one was actually someone’s home made CGI effort. Anyway, whilst there, I found the American pilots produced, which I had seen the first of some years back. Both pilots have been taken from VHS recordings, so the quality isn’t too good, and sadly the same could easily be said about the pilots – they didn’t seem to transfer the style of humour very well. Anyway, if you happen to be a fellow Dwarf fan, and have not yet seen the American version (which never went further than two pilots), you might want to check them out below…
Red Dwarf – 1st American Pilot Part I
Red Dwarf – 1st American Pilot Part II
Red Dwarf – 1st American Pilot Part III
For whatever reason, the YouTuber who put up these videos did not want the next two to be embedded directly, so you’ll need to visit YouTube to watch them. Just click on the links…
Red Dwarf – 2nd American Pilot Part I
Red Dwarf – 2nd American Pilot Part II
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May 03 2008
Train Horn In A Car?
I have seen these for sale before, as well as MP3s of the isolated sound of the horn, but this video shows what happens when you put said train horns in a car, and drive round scaring people.
Personally, I would love one if I ever drive over here in Kazakhstan, just to make sure other drivers were aware of my presence, but I’m not too sure how well the police would react. In any case, it seems like a better idea than the one an old boss implemented – he managed to import an American police siren, installed it in his Volvo, and used to tear down the fast lane on motorways, using it when people wouldn’t let him pass!
Apr 24 2008
That Really Happened?
This sort of post is perfect for the Aware or Conspiracy Nut category here at ChrisMerriman.com. Each of the following actually occurred, and are well documented. However, if your friend just bought up the topic without any sort of background info, you’d probably write them off as another internet conspiracy nutter. My thanks to Cracked.com for the original post this information is taken from.
Military coup followed by a fascist dictator installed as a president… in America! OK, so this didn’t actually take place, but back in 1933, the big bosses at General Motors, DuPont, Chase Bank and a certain Senator Prescott Bush (now whatever happened to that lineage 😉 ) allegedly were involved in planning this plot, though all those named denied it at the time. They weren’t averse to maintaining links with the Nazi powers in Germany even after America entered Word War II…
State sponsored scheme to keep citizens ignorant of their medical situation, for research purposes. Again, something like this is easily written off as just another flight of fancy from tin-foil hat wearers, but this one occurred in America. The government decided that action need to be taken to combat the spread of Syphilis, and so took unwitting volunteers, mostly illiterate black men, and carried out experiments. Those that already had syphilis were used in further experiments, not informed of their condition, and often put through unnecessary and painful procedures. For a further forty years, the patients were denied access to what had, by that time, become standard treatment regimes.
The Church of Scientology & MK Ultra. You could (and people have) dedicate entire web sites to this group’s beliefs and the (entirely separate) US experiments. Go and google if you’d like to discover what are hiding in volcanoes, and just why some people do wear tin-foil hats.
Apr 19 2008
US Starbucks Employees Slightly Less Screwed Over
Over in America, the tipping system is a little different to Europe. In most Euro establishments, staff are paid enough (not necessarily a lot by any means, but…), however in America, most waiting staff have to rely on customers’ tips to bring home a decent enough amount of money to live on. This confuses some American tourists, who are surprised that tipping is not mandatory, only considered appropriate if the staff & establishment itself actually deserve it. Whether through attentive service, delicious food, or a good atmosphere, if you enjoy your time, you tip. If the food was mediocre at best, the staff seemed very dis-interested, or you were kept waiting an un-necessary amount of time, you don’t tip.
Starbucks previously used to pool all the waiters’ & waitress’ tips (not uncommon), but then split the pot between all staff, including the management level workers, who didn’t actually wait the tables. A judge in San Diego has ruled this practice wrong, and has told Starbucks to pay back to the workers the amount they were short changed, check out this article for more details…
Mar 26 2008
Pets Allowed? Neigh!
At least not all pets are welcome at the Wilcox Memorial hospital over in Hawaii. To be honest, in Britain at least, I’ve not heard of even cats and dogs being allowed on the wards, but one helpful relative decided to cheer up a patient by bring in their favourite horse! This was not some encounter through a ground floor window, no this involved the horse being ‘smuggled’ in (LMAO at that, not really something you can hide up your jumper, is it?), into a lift, and up to the third floor before security noticed and ejected both man and beast. As it turns out, it was not even the right horse!
10/10 for the effort, 2/10 for the brain activity of the relative.
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