Sep 07 2010

Shiny Seb

Category: Friends,Pictures,Videos — ChrisM @ 8:14 pm

In case you haven’t browsed the Celt Photographic site recently, check out John’s latest posts when you get a moment (August and September would be a good start).

Anyway, if you check the recent entries, you can see the transformation of Seb from a bruised, battered and cut mountain biker, to a lizard man! All still images are copyright Celt Photographic, please make contact via the previous links if you wish to use any pictures etc. etc.

Seb has also just posted up a video that the artist who painted him has uploaded, and I’ve also included another from her collection.

Any ladies interested in Seb should send me their details, along with a photo, so I can vet them first!

Still Smiling Seb

All Muscle Or All Bruise

Lizard Face

All Over Lizard

(Small last minute correction, the smaller image of Seb was apparently taken by John’s friend Nick, I’m hoping he won’t mind me using a low-res copy on this site.)

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Jul 27 2010

Opening Presents With Nick

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 2:22 am

Still in Evehsam at Dad’s place (the same evening (12th March 2010) as the duck feeding video), Nick came over to say hello. He had a job interview in Cheltenham, so we decided to all converge at Dad’s at the same time. Roz couldn’t make it as she was very close to giving birth to Anna’s cousin at the time. Nick bought up all the Christmas and Birthday presents that we hadn’t been able to receive whilst in Kazakhstan, and Anna seemed to enjoy another paper ripping ceremony :). I look forward to using mine in earnest when Winter once more hits Astana, and Anna still plays with hers regularly. The Big Hungry Caterpillar is also a big hit with Anna, and I’m very glad Nick and Roz got it, as it seems to be a “proper” childrens’ book to me 🙂 The hand puppets and toys also get played with often, and Anna seemed to lose interest in the wrapping paper and sellotape very quickly…
Obviously since the clip was taken, we now know that the baby was a beautiful boy (Jack), but Nick and Roz didn’t know that at the time. PS Nick, it has been a good 15 years or so since I studied French, but I’m pretty sure they have male and female endings to words, and it is German that has neutral as well? ;-P The last of the three clips shows me trying on all my Christmas presents at the same time. It wasn’t cold in the house 🙂

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Jul 27 2010

Feeding The Ducks At The River In Evesham

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 2:13 am

Copying the activities from a week before, here we are in Evesham (I’m reliabily informed by Wikipedia that some locals refer to their hometown as Asum??) feeding the ducks once more. The river Avon winds it’s way through a lot of Britain, and you can get to the area shown in the video by walking through the old Abbey grounds.
There are some tables near there, so if we ever visit Britain in the summer, we could probably take a picnic down there, and really give the ducks something to quack about with the breadcrumbs 🙂 However, the 12th of March isn’t really sun bathing season, so we fed the ducks and moved on.
BTW, I didn’t plan on putting Anna’s dummy in a pile of bird seed, the idea was for Anna to take a handful to feed the ducks, however Irina had just asked her to hand the dummy over, and when Anna saw a palm in front of her, just followed the request (ignoring the Mamma part).
Obviously we cleaned up the dummy at home before returning it into general circulation. Anna normally only has the dummy in as she falls asleep, but we take it when there will be long trips in the pushchair, as it works well as a temporary pacifier. Which is why the Americans call it that I suppose?
Also, I was hovering around Anna as 1) She was very close to the river bank and 2) I vividly remember a goose snapping at my fingers as a child and so, along with bees & wasps, I am convinced that they’ll attack Anna if I’m not there to protect her 🙂 Though Anna should probably know that once she is capable of running well, and flapping her arms in the air like Daddy does when he sees something black and yellow buzzing around, she might be best to assume I’ll stop pretending that I’m anything other than a big girl when it comes to bees and wasps. I’ll jump in front of a raging bull/speeding car/other dangerous thing I can’t think of right now, but once Anna learns to run, and wants to run away from bees/wasps, she may find her Dad joining her 🙂

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Jul 26 2010

Arriving In Evesham

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 10:48 pm

The 11th of March saw us visiting my Dad over in Evesham, and later some friends in Cheltenham. Apparently Anna had already had enough of being held that day, and she seemed to want to thoroughly investigate her Grandad’s house – she was barely a couple of months old when last there, so we can’t blame her for her curiosity. Anyway, we have about four videos left of Anna in Britain I think, and about fourteen more photo posts left to publish. I’ll try and complete another four or five pic/vid posts today.

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Jul 21 2010

Skynet Has Your Car…

Category: Videos — ChrisM @ 12:37 am

Try as I might, I could get some flash videos/slideshows to embed properly on this site. Mainly because I was being naughty and just viewing the source code of the site they are hosted on, rather than simply pointing you in their direction

Ok, scratch the above paragraph. Someone has kindly uploaded the video to YouTube, though if you want to read more about it, or possibly see the video with higher quality, head on over to here.

Some people were complaining about the cost of maintenance for this setup, however in cities where space is at a premium, and too many buildings are landmarks/protected by law, I can see where this could be very useful. I doubt the charges are going to be any worse than Central London short stay car parks, anyway 🙂

Oh, and thanks to Stephen Fry for the original heads up on this system.

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Jul 21 2010

Fit For A King

Category: Videos — ChrisM @ 12:11 am

Before I forget (or it gets relegated to an ever increasing group of bookmarks titled “to write about”), here is a video I came across of my old hometown, Cheltenham. It focuses entirely on some of the Regency era architecture to be found in the Spa town, but it was interesting trying to work out where some of the shots were taken, and the music seemed very suitable.
If you want to see what parts of ‘nam look like, click play below, and then head on over to Cheltonia, for a brilliant series of posts on walks you can take in the area. I’m not aware of knowing the author at all, but found his video and blog when searching twitter for mentions of Cheltenham, and thought you might like it?

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Jul 09 2010

Feeding The Ducks At A Lake

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 6:38 pm

Mum and John currently were spending a lot of time at a camping site, as it is a lot closer to Mum’s work, and the scenery was beautiful. Before they took the caravan there, they wanted to check a few sites in the locality, so John, Irina, Anna and I went to check out different locations, and at one of them there was a big lake with ducks and geese. The video was shot on the 4th of March. Since then they’ve had cows invade the area, as local chavs were breaking down fences so they could ride their mopeds and other hair dryer impersonating two-wheeled transport around the lake.

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Jun 21 2010

Welsh Outfit

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 8:09 pm

The 2nd Of March, one day after Saint David’s Day (Dydd Gwyl Dewi Sant in Welsh) was when this video clip was taken. Anna is dressed in traditional Welsh costume. Mum is dressed in a traditional dressing gown 🙂 Hmm, listening to the video again, Irina says it was actually St David’s day when the video was shot, so maybe it was just the camera being set to Astana time (+6 GMT) that has thrown me off?

Yep, confirmed looking at the dates and times embedded in the pictures from two different cameras, and the date and time from the original videos (MPGs), these were shot on the 1st of March.

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Jun 21 2010

Dedication

Category: In The Media,Pictures,Videos — ChrisM @ 5:43 pm

There will be quite a few more pictures from 9gag coming soon, I’ve got a lot bookmarked for future reference, but for now, check out the picture and related video from Meanwhile, In Japan.

Meanwhile, In Japan

As you’ll see in the comments section over there, someone helpfully posted the music video that this still shot was taken from, see below.

I was impressed that the bouffant (I think it is a little beyond a quiff) of the main guy in the video and seen in the picture seemed to survive walking around outside. I wonder how many cans of hair spray he gets through though? I need to remember to add 9gag to the LOL page here soon.

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Jun 12 2010

QBP Videos

Category: Friends,Kazakhstan,Videos — ChrisM @ 2:41 am

So, as I mentioned in a tweet, Irina and I were invited to the Queen’s Birthday Party (organised by the British Embassy) on the 10th of June at the Radisson Hotel here in Astana. This was the first QBP since the new ambassador here in Kazakhstan took over.

A short summary would be no speeches (apparently the correct tradition for celebrating HRH’s birthday), a good local band that played a wide variety of covers, free good food (fish and chips in cones again, as well as a buffet (curries, beef kebabs, potato wedges 🙂 ) and free drink. I’ll leave the details of my mishap on the way home until another day.

The following videos were supposed to be uploaded on the night, but I was too drunk TBH. They were then supposed to be transferred via Qik, but once again the program got very tempremental. So, I reverted to YouTube.

I’ve not yet had a chance to actually watch all the videos, but I wanted to post these up tonight, as I’m away from the PC tomorrow for half the day, then giving a lesson and running an English Talking club in the afternoon and evening, then hopefully off to watch the England vs. USA football match during the night.
So it was now or at some random point in the future for embedding these clips.

Oh, and Irina took some proper photos with a real camera, so I’ll try ad post those up soon as well.

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