Snowing In Karlsruhe

It's been snowing here all day in Karlsruhe. That's more snow than I've seen in a long time compared to Birmingham. The snow has actually made the weather feel slightly warmer.

Work stuff is still ok, not much to report about that. Ate with Marco last night at an African restaurant which was really nice. Couscous and vegetables, yummy. Not sure what we're doing tonight. Haven't managed to watch any of the DVD's I brought over with me. Haven't slept very well all week in the hotel. Looking forward to my own bed.

Karlsruhe

I'm in Germany this week. Busy busy with work stuff. Working with colleagues on the initial setup of the software project. Quite a nice office environment as you can see:

Not much to report about the trip. The work is going pretty much to plan. The weather has been sunny but bloody cold. The beers have been nice. The team went out to a local brewery on the first night. A nice gesture. We ate Mexican last night and tonight I think Marco is taking me to eat African. Should be interesting.

As always, looking forward to getting back home. Sounds like the kids have been busy with friends and clubs. A week away is about as much as I can stand.

Puter Fixed

The nice man from Siemens-Fujitsu called today with a new motherboard. Hurrah! The puter is alive again.

Been Poorly

Just another cold I suppose but it knocked me about a bit. Came on last Thursday so I went home and sweated it out like a whore in church. The fever passed and I struggled back to work as I had a colleague visiting from Germany. Got most of the usual tasks done over the weekend but basically I was wiped out. Well enough for work Monday and feeling better now. Work is loading my brain quite a bit and learnt yesterday that I'm working in Germany all next week. The project is at a critical stage and I reckon we'll be working some mad long days next week.

Oh well, hence the non-blogging recently. Will try and get back into it. Oh yeah, the main home PC busted last week as well. That's another reason I haven't blogged. Waiting for a Siemens engineer to bring us a new motherboard. Oh well.

Bought a new washing machine last night. Not the most fun way to spend cash it must be said. Went for a Bosch which happened to be reported at the weekend by the Guardian as the best supplier of white goods accoring to Which? reports. Would have liked a Siemens one of course but not worth the extra hundred quid. Hope it gets delivered before I'm away next week.

Lost Without Lost

The two-part final episode of Lost season 1 is over. Superb stuff. The hatch is open. The boy is taken. But what now? Channel 4 say that season 2 is coming in the Spring. When is Spring? I need more detail. I need dates!

Google Earth Out Of Beta

Google Earth rocks my world once more! It's out of beta and the latest download scored me some high-res pictures of my part of Birmingham at last. Superb fun just buzzing around my local area. The data might be a few years old but what the hell. Download it yourself and see if you're on there!

Good Time For The Gogglebox

Nice to see Richard Dawkins on the telly tonight pointing out what a right old load of bollocks religion is. Top man Richard. No new arguments in the programme but good to hear the sane voice of the atheist being broadcast.

Also on telly, more good stuff, a new series called Life On Mars. Nicely done. Cool seventies detail. I think I'll keep watching.

And with the last two episodes of Lost coming on Wednesday, it's quite a good time for the gogglebox.

Probably The Last Weekend Without Overtime (For A While)

My Name Is Earl is fantastic! Caught the first episode on Channel 4 friday night and I'm a fan straight off. The characters are superb, Earl and Randy are classic and I'm undecided at the moment who is my favourite. If you haven't seen it yet then catch up quick people, it's an absolute treat.

Nice to have a good laugh at the end of a strange week. Depressing work news plus lots of intense project activity. I brought the laptop home but never switched it on. It's probably the last weekend I'll be able to do that for a while. Things are getting seriously busy.

Back into the swimming lesson groove on Saturday. Good to catch up with Carol and Dave. In the afternoon myself and Dylan went with Dave and Mitchell to see Kong. The boys enjoyed it. I was kinda bored but I did like the digital recreation of 1920's New York.

Sunday morning, the girls weren't up, me and Dylan went to McD for breakfast. It was really nice, just the two of us tucking into pancakes.

Work Stuff

Simultaneous announcements at our offices today. NEVER good news, and it wasn't. The company is looking to loose people, specifically engineering capacity. They've said that we are safe at Coventry, but it's only the start of a process and what shape we'll be in at the end, who knows? I'm not feeling very positive, but today was so busy working with Wolfhard that I've hardly had time to focus on it. I'm unsettled at the prospect of having to attend an 'interview' next Wednesday in Manchester to discuss my skill-set. Can't shake the feeling that I'm re-applying for my own job. Not nice.

Christmas, The End

The end will be official today as we're taking the tree down. I don't really want it down yet but tomorrow I'm back at work and it seems right to draw a line between. Overall it's been a good holiday. We could have done without the colds but there you go. I didn't get all the creative stuff done that I had planned. In fact, I did nothing creative at all, which is a source of a little regret. But I'll just do something about that, I'm NOT going to stew over it like I have been doing. New years are for resolutions, so I'll simply resolve to be a bit more creative in my free time.

New Years Day

Went back over to Marys to look at their wireless network. Steve had installed AOL software on Beckys PC and now the network don't work. God, I detest AOL! Their software is completely shit! The interface is nasty and the functionality limited. It's an impoverished experience of the wonderful web. Why anyone would want to use it is beyond me. Oh well, rant over, Steve wanted it on, so I simply un-installed, then re-installed the wireless adapter and things came back to life.

The kids stayed to play for a few hours and me and Jacq went into town for a walk around the shops. This was very enjoyable. No kids to worry about for a while. Picked up a few nice things. Some DVD's for the collection, Hitchhikers movie, Complete Ripping Yarns, Fear & Loathing and Filth & The Fury.

Watched Fear & Loathing later with some bottles of wine. Johnny Depp was superb as Hunter. Debauched.

Un-Happy New Year!

Let's be clear about this...

I HATE NEW YEAR!

I tend to feel the sadness of another year passing rather than any pleasure from the new year to come. Consequently, I always have this impression of new year 'celebrations' being completely false. I dislike the pressure to have 'the best night ever'. The idea of being in some place surrounded by 'revellers' horrifies me. MIserable sod I am, I know, but this is how it is for me. I'd rather meditate a while and focus on the new year, NOT listen to bloody fireworks!

Imax

Went to see Polar Express in 3D at the Imax cinema at Millenium Point. We met up with 'the sisters' for the 10:00AM showing to save some cash on the entrance fee. When finally sat down with glasses in place, the 3D effect was very good. The movie looked great but the characters looked a bit odd, faces were too fixed, dead looking. The story itself was pure sentimental toss and really was over the top. I was begging for it to finish. The kids liked it though, so that's the main thing.

Over to Marys afterwards. Rebuilt Beckys PC and setup wireless network. The WEP key took an age to sort out as an incorrect string is not reported back, the adapter just fails to acquire an IP address. Not very helpful.

Crumpet

A good TV night last night. After a few nights of Sky Movies, it was back to the normal channels for an excellent docummentary on Crumpet, pin-ups from the TV and movies of the 60's and 70's. A most enjoyable program crammed full of cleavage. This ticked all the boxes for me. From the Carry On's to the Vampire Lovers, the presenter knew his stuff. All the commentators seemed, like me, to have lusted over these women as boys in the seventies. Madeline Smith was my fave. What a cutie!

Following that program of high art we decended into the action/weird genre for the second to last episode of Lost. Wow, this was a good one. Finally the French woman appears and talks to the whole group and suddenly things swing into action. The boat gets launched and goodbyes are said, preparations are made for the coming attack of 'the others', and the usual 'memory clips' featured a number of the characters in or around the airport prior to the fateful flight filling in little gaps in their stories. Can't wait for the last one, although I'm sure it won't end in any conclusions. I hope they've got season 2 programmed in at Channel 4 soon.

Finally we watched the Comic Strip that we taped from earlier in the evening. It wasn't vintage, but it was good to see that they were still working together. There's no reason why they shouldn't be able to do something brilliant. But this wasn't really it. In saying that, it DID feature a generous ammount of cleavage (which was nice) which returns us back to Crumpet.

And It's Over

Through the Christmas 'peak' so hopefully a bit more time for just 'nothingness' from now on. Jacq and I have drifted through Christmas with lousy head colds. Mine's clearing now but Jacq is still full of it and has had basically no voice all day today.

Christmas Day was fun and the prezzies were fab. I got the Peel biog I asked for plus CD's from Boards Of Canada and Gang Of Four. We visited Jim in hospital at the same time as Mary so there was a whole bunch of us around the bed. Left him about to tuck into his crimbo dinner. I hit the red wine during the food prep for our dinner in an attempt to break though the cold symptoms. The dinner was great I'm sure but I couldn't taste it much. Afterwards I zonked out on the couch. I must stress that this is NOT the norm for me! I awoke to find the washing up done which got me out of a chore.

Boxing Day we had the clan around. We catered for 15 and probably did too much. There was loads left at the end of the 6 hour visit. Jacq thought it wasn't much of a success but I thought it was ok. But of course I couldn't taste anything. Buzz on the PS2 was the hit I knew it would be. I didn't get a game as the guests came first so I was mostly in the kitchen, washing up with my head pounding. Later we played a bit of Burnout Revenge which was another of my prezzies. It's a mighty fine looking game. As I said, it was a 6 hour visit and by the end we were all done for. But again, no early night for us, I spotted the pilot episode for the new Battlestar Galactica and it looked supperb so I stuck with it till 2:00AM. I did TRY to like the Dr Who shown yesterday. The Beebs big one for Christmas. It left me cold. I just like my sci-fi to be american I guess.

Today we had Mike and Liz come over. Prezzies exchanged. Buzz played. Did a copy of the Boosh DVD's for him. Must get around to watching them soon. After their visit we had Paul and Lynette, still on Thailand time as they only got back Christmas Day. Their prezzie for Dyl was a cool helicopter.

So tomorrow should just be us and our own devices. There's batteries to be purchased for toys yet to be played with.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve and we're just watching TV and waiting for the kids to get to sleep so that we can bring down their prezzies and arrange them under the tree. They've left a mince pie out for Santa which I'll have to scoff down with this cup of coffee.

I'm feeling quite rough at the moment. Just cold symptoms, but it's bad timing for the foodie enjoyment to come over the holiday. Didn't get much sleep last night due to the sore throat so I got up at 5:30AM and went shopping for the last batch of groceries. What we don't have now we'll have to do without, but as the family are coming over on Boxing Day I just hope there's some food left for them.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning, bring on Christmas!

Skip The Flash Intro

This made me chuckle in todays Technology Guardian...

"Adobe buys rival Macromedia for $3.4bn. The sale completes in December; it would have been faster if the lawyers had skipped the Flash intro."

Prezzies In The Post

A couple of treats in the post for me today. A recording of Fergus's recent performance at Trinity College Chapel and the latest of Pauls 'Yak' CDs of WIRE rarities. So far I've only listened to a bit of Fergus's CD and really enjoyed the intriguing textures.

Wasted trip to hearing clinic with Dylan this morning, hopefully a more productive appointment will be made in the new year. Managed to get the last of the Christmas food shopping this afternoon and thankfully it wasn't the panic and chaos I was expecting. So let the relaxing begin.

Wrapped

I hate wrapping presents. Don't know why but I get really impatient when wrapping each item. Jacq and the kids went over to Marys this afternoon which gave me the opportunity to wrap Jacqs prezzies. Thankfully they're all done now.

Tidying Up For The Slob-Out

Yesterday was quiet. In most of the day, not doing much. Early start for beers last night with Mike and Paul. Abbotts ale was supped in quantity. The usual 'review of the year' chat was chewed over.

A bit groggy this morning. The 'pub atmosphere' eminating from my clothing turned Jacq over. Pottering around the house doing some chores today. Not quite the 'slobbing-out' I have been predicting but there's plenty of time left for that. Got to get everything prepared for the slobbing session. I can't slob-out in an untidy house!

Harriet had a friend visiting this afternoon. Later, we went over to see Jim in hospital and then on to Merry Hill for some last-minute prezzie shopping. Now this COULD have been utter madness and I WAS expecting the worst, but although busy, it wasn't complete chaos. So, Jacq and the kids went off for a stroll while I picked up the prezzies I needed, mostly for Jacq. I think I'm all done now. Finished.