You know those fancy vidoes that film real stuff and make it all look like models...
http://vimeo.com/48128825#
as an example... could you film some models doing stuff and make it look real using some sort of equally clever camera technique?
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
I was drinking wine and watching match of the day when i remembered this blog.
I am now an itinerant painter decorator.
I intend to sell bbq food. Proper smoked, slow cooked Southern US bbq food. Pulled pork, beef brisket and ribs and stuff.
I like Berbatov.
Rodallega has stupid hair. Not as stupid as Gervhino's though.
Unexpected bonfires are fun.
In Finland they have a supermarket called "S Market". In Finish S is pronounced ass. I enjoyed talking about the ass market.
And it’s Aston Villa,
Aston Villa FC,
we’re by far the greatest team,
the world has ever seen.
I am now an itinerant painter decorator.
I intend to sell bbq food. Proper smoked, slow cooked Southern US bbq food. Pulled pork, beef brisket and ribs and stuff.
I like Berbatov.
Rodallega has stupid hair. Not as stupid as Gervhino's though.
Unexpected bonfires are fun.
In Finland they have a supermarket called "S Market". In Finish S is pronounced ass. I enjoyed talking about the ass market.
And it’s Aston Villa,
Aston Villa FC,
we’re by far the greatest team,
the world has ever seen.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Budapest
Budapest is a great city. We got in on Saturday night and after a quick shower and change went out for the evening. Budapest seems to be a place where people stay out all night, grab a bit of breakfast in the morning and then heading off to bed. So we headed out for dinner and a few beers before heading to a night club with a beach area on the Danube. Sadly the pissing rain meant the outdoor area was closed, but inside was good enough. We ended up leaving there about 6 before heading back to the flat for a few hours sleep.
We woke up late and not feeling on top of the world. Budapest is famous for its baths and spas and our plan was to head to the Széchenyi Spa, the most famous of the Budapestian spas, to relax and try and shift the hangover. The baths were perfect for that. They have a load of different different pools ranging from icy cold to hot, some with special minerally water (at least i hope they were special minerally pools - they smelt a lot like urine), and mostly with normal water. Throw in steam rooms and saunas, a few pools with a circulating current built in and a sort of mini lazy river in one of the outdoor pools and the impressive neo-baroque buildings and you have the best baths i have ever been to. Admittedly that is in a list of 1, but i find it hard to believe there are many better baths around the world.
After that we walked around the city for a bit before grabbing a bite to eat. The rest of our evening was fairly sedate. We had a few glasses of wine and sat around talking. When we got back to the flat we were treated to a show from the lady in the flat opposite. She had a very nice shape to her and apparently did her laundry in the nude on a Sunday night with the lights on and the curtains open. She spent a long time jiggling around, bending over to carefully hang up each item of clothing. And at one point put on a pair of pants, but instead of lifting her feet up to get in to the pants, she bent over from the waist with her legs straight and back to the window and slowly pulled them up. They clearly were not what she wanted though, as she immediately took them off, again avoiding any leg bending to remove the pants. It was quite the eyeful. She was either very naive, very confident with her body(which she had every right to be) or (and the way she put on and took off the pants seems to point to this) enjoyed the idea of men watching her whilst she wandered around naked. And if that was what she wanted, we were happy to help out...
Monday was a day of touristy wandering around the beautiful old city, before heading to the airport to catch a flight back in the afternoon.
Budapest is a great city. We got in on Saturday night and after a quick shower and change went out for the evening. Budapest seems to be a place where people stay out all night, grab a bit of breakfast in the morning and then heading off to bed. So we headed out for dinner and a few beers before heading to a night club with a beach area on the Danube. Sadly the pissing rain meant the outdoor area was closed, but inside was good enough. We ended up leaving there about 6 before heading back to the flat for a few hours sleep.
We woke up late and not feeling on top of the world. Budapest is famous for its baths and spas and our plan was to head to the Széchenyi Spa, the most famous of the Budapestian spas, to relax and try and shift the hangover. The baths were perfect for that. They have a load of different different pools ranging from icy cold to hot, some with special minerally water (at least i hope they were special minerally pools - they smelt a lot like urine), and mostly with normal water. Throw in steam rooms and saunas, a few pools with a circulating current built in and a sort of mini lazy river in one of the outdoor pools and the impressive neo-baroque buildings and you have the best baths i have ever been to. Admittedly that is in a list of 1, but i find it hard to believe there are many better baths around the world.
After that we walked around the city for a bit before grabbing a bite to eat. The rest of our evening was fairly sedate. We had a few glasses of wine and sat around talking. When we got back to the flat we were treated to a show from the lady in the flat opposite. She had a very nice shape to her and apparently did her laundry in the nude on a Sunday night with the lights on and the curtains open. She spent a long time jiggling around, bending over to carefully hang up each item of clothing. And at one point put on a pair of pants, but instead of lifting her feet up to get in to the pants, she bent over from the waist with her legs straight and back to the window and slowly pulled them up. They clearly were not what she wanted though, as she immediately took them off, again avoiding any leg bending to remove the pants. It was quite the eyeful. She was either very naive, very confident with her body(which she had every right to be) or (and the way she put on and took off the pants seems to point to this) enjoyed the idea of men watching her whilst she wandered around naked. And if that was what she wanted, we were happy to help out...
Monday was a day of touristy wandering around the beautiful old city, before heading to the airport to catch a flight back in the afternoon.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Budapest trip
I did find my passport in the end. I had to tidy my entire room to find it and after searching the obvious places like on the floor under piles of clothes, under the bed, or under piles of post, i moved on to less likely places - in shoes, inside clothes and finally moved on to sifting through the couple of bags of rubbish waiting to be thrown out. Where, of course, I found it in the middle of a newspaper - the obvious place for me to have put it??? It was quite the relief to find it after all the increasingly worried searching and finding it in such a stupid place amused me too.
So my trip to Budapest could go ahead. I was going to Budapest for a weekend away with friends. One of the friends and I decided we would try and get there in an interesting way than flying and so we came up with hitch hiking from Brussels to Budapest and then fly back on the Monday. We gave ourselves 3 days to do it and the plan was to try and get to Munich the first night, Vienna the second and then ideally getting a ride on a boat (hopefully stowing away - how could stowing away not end in excitement? But most likely chipping in a few Euros to the crew of a boat or something.) on the Danube to Budapest. Before we left all sounded pretty doable with a lot of potential for adventure on the way.
We caught the Eurostar over to Brussels on Tuesday night and had an enjoyable evening there. A little too enjoyable though, meaning we set off more hungover and later than planned on Wednesday morning. We had looked up some hitching advice on the web before we set off (Hitchwiki is a useful site, which, somehow, we didn't find before we went.) but had no advice for best places to hitch out of Brussels. The Eurostar ticket allows you to travel anywhere in Belgium after Brussels so we decided to head to the Belgian border to a smaller town where finding the right road out of town would probably be easier. We decided on Liege. We arrived in town and went to the tourist information office at the station to see if we could get a map and advice on the best road for getting out of town. The bored looking woman gave us a map and suggested we walked across town to near the entrance to a motorway going Northeast. It would involve walking along by the river and according to the map, Liege is the premier tourist destination in Wallonia. It all sounded pretty pleasant. But if that is the best city in Wallonia, then Wallonia must be fucking shit. It is an ugly, concrete city. The river front is one eyesore after another. The only nice old building we saw was abandoned and graffiti covered and about to be turned in to a carpark, if i understood the sign on it correctly.
We got to our recommended hitching point and stuck the thumbs out. Almost immediately a guy pulled over, but it turned out it was just to tell us we shouldn't try hitching there, we should try back over the other side of town by the station. It had been about a half an hour walk across town and it was already getting on so we waited for him to go and then carried on hitching where we were. It took a while, but eventually Vincent, a business man heading back to his office, pulled over and said he would give us a lift to the next service station on the motorway, where it should be easier to get a lift. It wasn't. We stood for about an hour getting nothing so started asking the truckers if we could get a lift with them. Apparently, they are only allowed 2 people in the cab so we would have had to split up if we wanted to go with truck drivers. So back to thumb out at the services. Finally a car pulled over. It was a couple of Liege University students heading back to Luxembourg, where they lived. It wasn't really the right way but it was at least South and nobody else had been stopping so we got in. Gilles and Duarte were cool guys and spoke good English so we were able to have a decent conversation. They very kindly dropped us at the HI youth hostel in Luxembourg before heading on home. Luxembourg city is great. I knew nothing about it and was very pleasantly surprised. Set amongst steep sided hills with good looking old buildings at the top and bottom and rivers winding through the town it is a very good looking place. We went out for a few beers and looked up places to hitch out of town before an early night.
The next day was equally unsuccessful in terms of hitching. The recommended spot in town didn't have anywhere for the cars to stop so we took the other advice on hitchwiki and caught a train to the Luxembourg German border and walked over the border to a German motorway services. Where we stuck the thumbs out and had little luck again. One guy pulled over but he was only going to a town not to much further East and we wanted to go further if possible so turned him down. Next, Kirsten, a very attractive young woman driving on her own pulled over. Our German wasn't very good so we started with "Parlez-vous Francais?" She said no so we followed with "Do you speak English?" Again she didn't. "Sprechen sie Deutsche?" Which she did, what with it being Germany and all. And after realising how stupid our question was we had to sheepishly reply "Oh, we don't really." A combination of our bad German and her, much better than she first admitted, English allowed us to find out she wasn't even going as far as the guy before but we were unlikely ever to be offered a lift by somebody so attractive again so we got in. After an all too brief journey she dropped us in a small town, where we found it impossible to hitch out of. So we caught a bus to the town the guy who offered us a lift earlier was going to. Again no hitching joy so we caught a train to Saarbrucken. Which did have an autobahn going through it but the on ramps were poorly situated for hitching and again got no lifts. So by this point it was Thursday evening. We were supposed to be meeting our friends in Budapest on Friday and we were still on the border between Germany and France. It wasn't looking good so we started looking in to trains, planes and buses, but they were all pretty expensive or already booked up so we needed a great days hitching the next day if we had any chance of spending some time in Budapest. One piece of advice we found on the internet was just to go up to people as they were filling up with petrol and ask them for a lift then so we planned to head out to a autobahn services early the next day and see how that worked.
We got out to the services by about 9 the next morning and were initially unsuccessful. The services were right by the border and not many cars were stopping. It took about 2 hours but we did get a lift with Mark, another business man returning home from business in Paris, who drove us very quickly down the autobahn in his fancy German car to the next services near Homborg, where we had been informed it would be much easier to get a lift. And indeed it was. There were a lot more cars pulling in. We were taking it in turns to ask the cars as they pulled in for lifts and it is definitely the best way to do it. They get to see you are not weird and there was quite a lot of "we would help but..." Some were just "No" straight away, but the majority were pleasant about it. We also picked up the German (and French - autostop) word for hitch hiking. I am not sure of the spelling but it is basically tramping. (Wir trampen nach Budapest - if you are ever in Germany hitch hiking to Budapest.) This was the start of our hattrick of hitches where we asked 3 people in a row and got 3 lifts. I approached a guy (who I hope was a used car salesman. He certainly looked like one) as he started filling up and he spoke no English and after i said we were hitchhiking he pointed in the car and i noticed it was full of people so no room for us anyway. I went back to stand with my friend. But as the guy came out after paying for his petrol he came over and motioned for us to follow him. He opened the boot of his estate car and pointed in to the boot, which had 4 tyres in it for some reason. We bundled in to the boot and had a cramped ride over to near Mannheim.
My friend got us our next lift from Bavarian mountain man Markus, who was returning from a course in Bonn to his mountain home. He had a load of junk in the back of his car we had to move before we got in, which included one of those Bavarian hats that have the feathers in and used shooting targets from his hunting practice. It was a shame he wasn't wearing Lederhosen, but when the car started up and the CD player started up he was listening to German accordian based oompahpah music, which was very pleasing. He didn't really seem to know where he was going and at one point when he had to choose between 2 different autobahns he asked me to get his map out. I did and while merging with traffic he leaned over to have a look, taking his eyes off the traffic and driving oblviously quickly towards the back of the breaking car in front. Fortunately my friend in the back noticed and was quick witted enough to warn Markus in German. "Acthung Markus! Actung!" got his attention and we narrowly avoided an accident. He drove us a good distance and dropped us at another services past Stuttgart.
That was 2 people asked and 2 lifts in a row, so we were going to be a little selective about who we asked for our hattrick hitch. And almost as if heaven sent, what looked like a priest pulled in to fill up. He's a man of God so he surely can't say no was our thinking. Father Josef turned out to be a Benedictine Monk with very little English, but he agreed to take us nearly to Munich. He also turned out to be the most agressive driver i have ever been in a car with. It was pissing down with rain at this point yet he insisted on tailgating the car in front until they pulled over. He did have 2 crosses in the car and clearly had God on his side so we felt safe. Unfortunately because of the language barrier we didn't find out much about his monkly duties but did find out he was allowed to climb to the top of Ulm cathedral, which normal people weren't.
We were trying to stick to the really big rest stops but Father Josef dropped us off one stop too early unfortunately, but it was still pretty busy. We saw the only other hitch hikers we met on our travels here. It was 2 women, 1 of whom was very attractive and wearing short shorts and a tight top. They were using the thumb out method of hitching and almost every car going by was stopping and offering them lifts. Much more successful than our attempts. So if you are hitching in the future my advice would be - try and be an attractive woman rather than a slightly dishevelled man and you will get a lot more lifts. We were still asking people and got a lift with Andreas to the next big services along. He turned out to be a jet powered remote controlled plane salesman. They cost at least 15000 Euros each. We asked him what sort of people buy them and he said they are toys for the stupidly rich.
By this point we were at a services to the south west of Munich and wanted to get in to Munich and out again going South East towards Austria. We were getting offers of lifts in to Munich and up through to the North of Munich but not the direction we wanted. My friend went up to one guy as he was getting out of his car and getting ready to fill up. They had a bit of a chat while he filled up and then as they finished talking he looked down and looked annoyed. He then spent the next 20 minutes walking around on the phone and it wasn't until the towtruck came to tow his car away that we realised he had been distracted while filling up and put diesel in instead of petrol. Very embarrassing but not so bad as by the time we realised, we had decided to head in to Munich and catch a train to Salzburg and were just about to get in to Martin's (a watch salesman from Holland working in Munich.) car who drove us to the train station in Munich.
As we were trying to buy our tickets to Salzburg a Mongolian lawyer, whose name escapes me at the moment, came up and had a group ticket to Salzburg, which she kindly invited us in on meaning our journey was pretty cheap. We got in to Salzburg at about midnight and went straight to bed. 520 km hitched and some interesting people picking us up. It was a good day!
We were hoping to arrive in Budapest by Saturday night and that the good hitching form would continue in Austria. We headed out early again and got to a gas station near the entrance to the autobahn by about 9.30. Apparently gas stations in Austria also double as pubs and the one in the gas station we stopped at was impressively busy for 9.30 on a Saturday morning. One of us was asking the patrons for lifts while the other stood with a sign trying to catch a lift from the passing traffic. The Germans were a lovely friendly lot but the Austrians were a bunch of bastards and we didn't even get a sniff of a lift. We admitted defeat after a couple of hours of fruitless attempts and ended up catching the train to Budapest and getting there early Saturday evening...
I did find my passport in the end. I had to tidy my entire room to find it and after searching the obvious places like on the floor under piles of clothes, under the bed, or under piles of post, i moved on to less likely places - in shoes, inside clothes and finally moved on to sifting through the couple of bags of rubbish waiting to be thrown out. Where, of course, I found it in the middle of a newspaper - the obvious place for me to have put it??? It was quite the relief to find it after all the increasingly worried searching and finding it in such a stupid place amused me too.
So my trip to Budapest could go ahead. I was going to Budapest for a weekend away with friends. One of the friends and I decided we would try and get there in an interesting way than flying and so we came up with hitch hiking from Brussels to Budapest and then fly back on the Monday. We gave ourselves 3 days to do it and the plan was to try and get to Munich the first night, Vienna the second and then ideally getting a ride on a boat (hopefully stowing away - how could stowing away not end in excitement? But most likely chipping in a few Euros to the crew of a boat or something.) on the Danube to Budapest. Before we left all sounded pretty doable with a lot of potential for adventure on the way.
We caught the Eurostar over to Brussels on Tuesday night and had an enjoyable evening there. A little too enjoyable though, meaning we set off more hungover and later than planned on Wednesday morning. We had looked up some hitching advice on the web before we set off (Hitchwiki is a useful site, which, somehow, we didn't find before we went.) but had no advice for best places to hitch out of Brussels. The Eurostar ticket allows you to travel anywhere in Belgium after Brussels so we decided to head to the Belgian border to a smaller town where finding the right road out of town would probably be easier. We decided on Liege. We arrived in town and went to the tourist information office at the station to see if we could get a map and advice on the best road for getting out of town. The bored looking woman gave us a map and suggested we walked across town to near the entrance to a motorway going Northeast. It would involve walking along by the river and according to the map, Liege is the premier tourist destination in Wallonia. It all sounded pretty pleasant. But if that is the best city in Wallonia, then Wallonia must be fucking shit. It is an ugly, concrete city. The river front is one eyesore after another. The only nice old building we saw was abandoned and graffiti covered and about to be turned in to a carpark, if i understood the sign on it correctly.
We got to our recommended hitching point and stuck the thumbs out. Almost immediately a guy pulled over, but it turned out it was just to tell us we shouldn't try hitching there, we should try back over the other side of town by the station. It had been about a half an hour walk across town and it was already getting on so we waited for him to go and then carried on hitching where we were. It took a while, but eventually Vincent, a business man heading back to his office, pulled over and said he would give us a lift to the next service station on the motorway, where it should be easier to get a lift. It wasn't. We stood for about an hour getting nothing so started asking the truckers if we could get a lift with them. Apparently, they are only allowed 2 people in the cab so we would have had to split up if we wanted to go with truck drivers. So back to thumb out at the services. Finally a car pulled over. It was a couple of Liege University students heading back to Luxembourg, where they lived. It wasn't really the right way but it was at least South and nobody else had been stopping so we got in. Gilles and Duarte were cool guys and spoke good English so we were able to have a decent conversation. They very kindly dropped us at the HI youth hostel in Luxembourg before heading on home. Luxembourg city is great. I knew nothing about it and was very pleasantly surprised. Set amongst steep sided hills with good looking old buildings at the top and bottom and rivers winding through the town it is a very good looking place. We went out for a few beers and looked up places to hitch out of town before an early night.
The next day was equally unsuccessful in terms of hitching. The recommended spot in town didn't have anywhere for the cars to stop so we took the other advice on hitchwiki and caught a train to the Luxembourg German border and walked over the border to a German motorway services. Where we stuck the thumbs out and had little luck again. One guy pulled over but he was only going to a town not to much further East and we wanted to go further if possible so turned him down. Next, Kirsten, a very attractive young woman driving on her own pulled over. Our German wasn't very good so we started with "Parlez-vous Francais?" She said no so we followed with "Do you speak English?" Again she didn't. "Sprechen sie Deutsche?" Which she did, what with it being Germany and all. And after realising how stupid our question was we had to sheepishly reply "Oh, we don't really." A combination of our bad German and her, much better than she first admitted, English allowed us to find out she wasn't even going as far as the guy before but we were unlikely ever to be offered a lift by somebody so attractive again so we got in. After an all too brief journey she dropped us in a small town, where we found it impossible to hitch out of. So we caught a bus to the town the guy who offered us a lift earlier was going to. Again no hitching joy so we caught a train to Saarbrucken. Which did have an autobahn going through it but the on ramps were poorly situated for hitching and again got no lifts. So by this point it was Thursday evening. We were supposed to be meeting our friends in Budapest on Friday and we were still on the border between Germany and France. It wasn't looking good so we started looking in to trains, planes and buses, but they were all pretty expensive or already booked up so we needed a great days hitching the next day if we had any chance of spending some time in Budapest. One piece of advice we found on the internet was just to go up to people as they were filling up with petrol and ask them for a lift then so we planned to head out to a autobahn services early the next day and see how that worked.
We got out to the services by about 9 the next morning and were initially unsuccessful. The services were right by the border and not many cars were stopping. It took about 2 hours but we did get a lift with Mark, another business man returning home from business in Paris, who drove us very quickly down the autobahn in his fancy German car to the next services near Homborg, where we had been informed it would be much easier to get a lift. And indeed it was. There were a lot more cars pulling in. We were taking it in turns to ask the cars as they pulled in for lifts and it is definitely the best way to do it. They get to see you are not weird and there was quite a lot of "we would help but..." Some were just "No" straight away, but the majority were pleasant about it. We also picked up the German (and French - autostop) word for hitch hiking. I am not sure of the spelling but it is basically tramping. (Wir trampen nach Budapest - if you are ever in Germany hitch hiking to Budapest.) This was the start of our hattrick of hitches where we asked 3 people in a row and got 3 lifts. I approached a guy (who I hope was a used car salesman. He certainly looked like one) as he started filling up and he spoke no English and after i said we were hitchhiking he pointed in the car and i noticed it was full of people so no room for us anyway. I went back to stand with my friend. But as the guy came out after paying for his petrol he came over and motioned for us to follow him. He opened the boot of his estate car and pointed in to the boot, which had 4 tyres in it for some reason. We bundled in to the boot and had a cramped ride over to near Mannheim.
My friend got us our next lift from Bavarian mountain man Markus, who was returning from a course in Bonn to his mountain home. He had a load of junk in the back of his car we had to move before we got in, which included one of those Bavarian hats that have the feathers in and used shooting targets from his hunting practice. It was a shame he wasn't wearing Lederhosen, but when the car started up and the CD player started up he was listening to German accordian based oompahpah music, which was very pleasing. He didn't really seem to know where he was going and at one point when he had to choose between 2 different autobahns he asked me to get his map out. I did and while merging with traffic he leaned over to have a look, taking his eyes off the traffic and driving oblviously quickly towards the back of the breaking car in front. Fortunately my friend in the back noticed and was quick witted enough to warn Markus in German. "Acthung Markus! Actung!" got his attention and we narrowly avoided an accident. He drove us a good distance and dropped us at another services past Stuttgart.
That was 2 people asked and 2 lifts in a row, so we were going to be a little selective about who we asked for our hattrick hitch. And almost as if heaven sent, what looked like a priest pulled in to fill up. He's a man of God so he surely can't say no was our thinking. Father Josef turned out to be a Benedictine Monk with very little English, but he agreed to take us nearly to Munich. He also turned out to be the most agressive driver i have ever been in a car with. It was pissing down with rain at this point yet he insisted on tailgating the car in front until they pulled over. He did have 2 crosses in the car and clearly had God on his side so we felt safe. Unfortunately because of the language barrier we didn't find out much about his monkly duties but did find out he was allowed to climb to the top of Ulm cathedral, which normal people weren't.
We were trying to stick to the really big rest stops but Father Josef dropped us off one stop too early unfortunately, but it was still pretty busy. We saw the only other hitch hikers we met on our travels here. It was 2 women, 1 of whom was very attractive and wearing short shorts and a tight top. They were using the thumb out method of hitching and almost every car going by was stopping and offering them lifts. Much more successful than our attempts. So if you are hitching in the future my advice would be - try and be an attractive woman rather than a slightly dishevelled man and you will get a lot more lifts. We were still asking people and got a lift with Andreas to the next big services along. He turned out to be a jet powered remote controlled plane salesman. They cost at least 15000 Euros each. We asked him what sort of people buy them and he said they are toys for the stupidly rich.
By this point we were at a services to the south west of Munich and wanted to get in to Munich and out again going South East towards Austria. We were getting offers of lifts in to Munich and up through to the North of Munich but not the direction we wanted. My friend went up to one guy as he was getting out of his car and getting ready to fill up. They had a bit of a chat while he filled up and then as they finished talking he looked down and looked annoyed. He then spent the next 20 minutes walking around on the phone and it wasn't until the towtruck came to tow his car away that we realised he had been distracted while filling up and put diesel in instead of petrol. Very embarrassing but not so bad as by the time we realised, we had decided to head in to Munich and catch a train to Salzburg and were just about to get in to Martin's (a watch salesman from Holland working in Munich.) car who drove us to the train station in Munich.
As we were trying to buy our tickets to Salzburg a Mongolian lawyer, whose name escapes me at the moment, came up and had a group ticket to Salzburg, which she kindly invited us in on meaning our journey was pretty cheap. We got in to Salzburg at about midnight and went straight to bed. 520 km hitched and some interesting people picking us up. It was a good day!
We were hoping to arrive in Budapest by Saturday night and that the good hitching form would continue in Austria. We headed out early again and got to a gas station near the entrance to the autobahn by about 9.30. Apparently gas stations in Austria also double as pubs and the one in the gas station we stopped at was impressively busy for 9.30 on a Saturday morning. One of us was asking the patrons for lifts while the other stood with a sign trying to catch a lift from the passing traffic. The Germans were a lovely friendly lot but the Austrians were a bunch of bastards and we didn't even get a sniff of a lift. We admitted defeat after a couple of hours of fruitless attempts and ended up catching the train to Budapest and getting there early Saturday evening...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Olympic fun
I am enjoying the Olympics so far. The 4 x 100m relay won by the Americans yesterday was the most exciting swimming race i have ever seen. What a come back on the final leg by Jason Lezak! And Rebecca Adlington winning the 400m freestyle was also very exciting. Thanks to digital telly and the internet you can watch almost anything. I have been watching some of the more obscure sports - I found archery strangely compelling to watch for a sport where the competitors spend most of their time stationary. Wind surfing was very disappointing though.
I also caught a bit of Judo before work this morning and I wasn't very impressed. From my point of view, it seemed to be two men grappling a bit, falling on the floor and then starting all over again, with points very occasionally being given randomly to either competitor. I am sure if you have a knowledge of Judo it becomes a lot more watchable but i won't be heading to any Judo meets in the near future...
I am enjoying the Olympics so far. The 4 x 100m relay won by the Americans yesterday was the most exciting swimming race i have ever seen. What a come back on the final leg by Jason Lezak! And Rebecca Adlington winning the 400m freestyle was also very exciting. Thanks to digital telly and the internet you can watch almost anything. I have been watching some of the more obscure sports - I found archery strangely compelling to watch for a sport where the competitors spend most of their time stationary. Wind surfing was very disappointing though.
I also caught a bit of Judo before work this morning and I wasn't very impressed. From my point of view, it seemed to be two men grappling a bit, falling on the floor and then starting all over again, with points very occasionally being given randomly to either competitor. I am sure if you have a knowledge of Judo it becomes a lot more watchable but i won't be heading to any Judo meets in the near future...
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Shower Scene
I was tidying my room last night trying to find my passport, which, rather than putting it somewhere safe and sensible, I think i threw on my floor in my bedroom. I have yet to find the passport, which is somewhat worrying as i am supposed to be off to Budapest next week, but did stumble across the journal i tried to keep on my road trip around the US i did after University. It was a welcome distraction from tidying so i read a little of my time in New York. One moment i had entirely forgotten made me smile when i read about it.
I was staying in a hostel in Chelsea and the shower i was using only had hot water available making it unbearably hot to stand underneath. Rather than trying to find another shower, which is what i think i would do now, i tried to make the best of the situation and showered by catching the scalding water in cupped hands and then throwing it on myself. Impressively half assed improvisation I thought. I don't remember the incident but I can't have cleaned myself very well washing like that. Why didn't i just wash my hair in a sink or something?
I was tidying my room last night trying to find my passport, which, rather than putting it somewhere safe and sensible, I think i threw on my floor in my bedroom. I have yet to find the passport, which is somewhat worrying as i am supposed to be off to Budapest next week, but did stumble across the journal i tried to keep on my road trip around the US i did after University. It was a welcome distraction from tidying so i read a little of my time in New York. One moment i had entirely forgotten made me smile when i read about it.
I was staying in a hostel in Chelsea and the shower i was using only had hot water available making it unbearably hot to stand underneath. Rather than trying to find another shower, which is what i think i would do now, i tried to make the best of the situation and showered by catching the scalding water in cupped hands and then throwing it on myself. Impressively half assed improvisation I thought. I don't remember the incident but I can't have cleaned myself very well washing like that. Why didn't i just wash my hair in a sink or something?
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Useful Japanese Phrases for Visting Japan
My Dad is off to Japan in the next few days and for some reason the Japanese phrases provided in the guide books are pretty rubbish. So I wrote him out a list, which will hopefully be useful to him. And possibly to others so I will put it up here too...
Hai (hi) - Yes
Iie (ee yeh) - No
Ohayogozaimasu (oh hi oh go zye mass) - Good morning
Konnichiwa (con knee chee wah) - good day
Konbanwa (con ban wah) - good evening
Oyasuminasai (oh yah sue min ah sigh)- good night (going to bed)
Sayonara (sigh oh na rah) - good bye (formal)
Dewa Mata (day wah mah tah) - good bye (less formal)
Watashi wa Walter Rawley desu (wah tash ee wah ….. dess) - I am Walter Rawley
Yoyaku shite imasu (yo yar coo sheetay immass) - I have a reservation
Hajimemashite (hah jim eh mash tey) - how do you do
Dozo yoroshiku (doze oh yoro sheek ooh)- please to meet you
Summimasen (sue mee mass en) - excuse me
Gomennasai (go men ah sigh) - sorry
Gomennasai, wakarimasen (wah carry mass en) - sorry, I don’t understand
Mo ichido itte kudosai (mo ichi doe it tay cooed oh sigh) - speak more slowly please
Eigo ga wakarimaska? (eh go gah wa carry mass ka) - Do you understand English?
Eigo ga hanashimaska? (eh go gah han ash ee mass ka) - Do you speak English?
Daijob deska? (die jorb/jobe dess kah) - is it ok?
Daijob desu (die jorb/jobe dess kah) - it is ok
domo arigato gozaimasu (dome oh) - Thank you very kindly
arigato gozaimasu (go zai mass) - thanks a lot
arigato (a ree gah toe) - thanks
O genki deska? (oh genkee dess kah) - How are you doing?
Hai, genki desu (hi genkee dess) - Yes I am well
_ _ _ _ wa doko desuka? (wah doko dess ka) - Where is the _ _ _ _
eki (eck ee) - Train Station
Toire (toy reh) - toilet
Yubinkyoku (you bink yock oo) - Post Office
Depato (depart oh) - Department store
Takushi - taxi
…… o kudasai (oh cooed ah sigh - can I have ….. please
When you are in a train station and you want to go to Hiroshima, for example, just show your JR pass to the JR ticket sellers and say
Hiroshima o kudasai - Hiroshima please
Kore wa ikura deska? (kore wah ick oorah dess kah) - How much is this?
ashita (ash tah) - tomorrow
Kino (kee no) - yesterday
Kyo (kee yo) - today
Food
Kore wa (ko reh wah) - This
oishii desu (oh ee shee dess) - is delicious
oishii deshita (oh ee shee desh ta) - was delicious
(you don’t necessarily need the kore wa though)
When walking in to a shop or restaurant, all the staff will often shout “irasshaimase” which translates to welcome or come in and apparently requires no response although a “konnichiwa” type hello always seemed to go down well.
Numbers
Ichi - 1
Ni - 2
San - 3
Yon - 4
Go - 5
Roku - 6
Nana - 7
Hachi - 8
Kyu - 9
Ju - 10
Numbers for ordering food
hitotsu - 1
futatsu - 2
mittsu - 3
yottsu - 4
itsutsu - 5
muttsu - 6
nanatsu - 7
yattsu - 8
kokonotsu - 9
to - 10
Kampai! - Cheers!
Ordering food
Ringo futatsu o kudasai - 2 apples please
Hoto kohi mittsu o kudasai - 3 hot coffees please
Beeru - beer
Jusu - juice
Hotto kohi - hot coffee need to ask for hot otherwise you get cold
Cha - tea
Okonomiyaki - meat and vegetable pancake
Pan - bread
Sandoicchi - sandwich
Sarada - salad
Sukiyaki - meat and veg in a sweetened soy sauce
Yakisoba - chow mein style dish
Yakitori - chicken pieces skewered and barbequed. Choose carefully though if you don't like gristle, fat or skin because some of them are just bits of those on a stick.
My Dad is off to Japan in the next few days and for some reason the Japanese phrases provided in the guide books are pretty rubbish. So I wrote him out a list, which will hopefully be useful to him. And possibly to others so I will put it up here too...
Hai (hi) - Yes
Iie (ee yeh) - No
Ohayogozaimasu (oh hi oh go zye mass) - Good morning
Konnichiwa (con knee chee wah) - good day
Konbanwa (con ban wah) - good evening
Oyasuminasai (oh yah sue min ah sigh)- good night (going to bed)
Sayonara (sigh oh na rah) - good bye (formal)
Dewa Mata (day wah mah tah) - good bye (less formal)
Watashi wa Walter Rawley desu (wah tash ee wah ….. dess) - I am Walter Rawley
Yoyaku shite imasu (yo yar coo sheetay immass) - I have a reservation
Hajimemashite (hah jim eh mash tey) - how do you do
Dozo yoroshiku (doze oh yoro sheek ooh)- please to meet you
Summimasen (sue mee mass en) - excuse me
Gomennasai (go men ah sigh) - sorry
Gomennasai, wakarimasen (wah carry mass en) - sorry, I don’t understand
Mo ichido itte kudosai (mo ichi doe it tay cooed oh sigh) - speak more slowly please
Eigo ga wakarimaska? (eh go gah wa carry mass ka) - Do you understand English?
Eigo ga hanashimaska? (eh go gah han ash ee mass ka) - Do you speak English?
Daijob deska? (die jorb/jobe dess kah) - is it ok?
Daijob desu (die jorb/jobe dess kah) - it is ok
domo arigato gozaimasu (dome oh) - Thank you very kindly
arigato gozaimasu (go zai mass) - thanks a lot
arigato (a ree gah toe) - thanks
O genki deska? (oh genkee dess kah) - How are you doing?
Hai, genki desu (hi genkee dess) - Yes I am well
_ _ _ _ wa doko desuka? (wah doko dess ka) - Where is the _ _ _ _
eki (eck ee) - Train Station
Toire (toy reh) - toilet
Yubinkyoku (you bink yock oo) - Post Office
Depato (depart oh) - Department store
Takushi - taxi
…… o kudasai (oh cooed ah sigh - can I have ….. please
When you are in a train station and you want to go to Hiroshima, for example, just show your JR pass to the JR ticket sellers and say
Hiroshima o kudasai - Hiroshima please
Kore wa ikura deska? (kore wah ick oorah dess kah) - How much is this?
ashita (ash tah) - tomorrow
Kino (kee no) - yesterday
Kyo (kee yo) - today
Food
Kore wa (ko reh wah) - This
oishii desu (oh ee shee dess) - is delicious
oishii deshita (oh ee shee desh ta) - was delicious
(you don’t necessarily need the kore wa though)
When walking in to a shop or restaurant, all the staff will often shout “irasshaimase” which translates to welcome or come in and apparently requires no response although a “konnichiwa” type hello always seemed to go down well.
Numbers
Ichi - 1
Ni - 2
San - 3
Yon - 4
Go - 5
Roku - 6
Nana - 7
Hachi - 8
Kyu - 9
Ju - 10
Numbers for ordering food
hitotsu - 1
futatsu - 2
mittsu - 3
yottsu - 4
itsutsu - 5
muttsu - 6
nanatsu - 7
yattsu - 8
kokonotsu - 9
to - 10
Kampai! - Cheers!
Ordering food
Ringo futatsu o kudasai - 2 apples please
Hoto kohi mittsu o kudasai - 3 hot coffees please
Beeru - beer
Jusu - juice
Hotto kohi - hot coffee need to ask for hot otherwise you get cold
Cha - tea
Okonomiyaki - meat and vegetable pancake
Pan - bread
Sandoicchi - sandwich
Sarada - salad
Sukiyaki - meat and veg in a sweetened soy sauce
Yakisoba - chow mein style dish
Yakitori - chicken pieces skewered and barbequed. Choose carefully though if you don't like gristle, fat or skin because some of them are just bits of those on a stick.
IT
My flat mate works for an IT consultancy company. They have just started a cricket team and i went along to their practice last night, which was a lot of fun. While we were in the pub afterwards, talk turned to work, as it invariably does when colleagues are drinking together and their IT department was mentioned.
I hadn't thought about it before, but imagine how geeky the IT department for an IT firm must be...
My flat mate works for an IT consultancy company. They have just started a cricket team and i went along to their practice last night, which was a lot of fun. While we were in the pub afterwards, talk turned to work, as it invariably does when colleagues are drinking together and their IT department was mentioned.
I hadn't thought about it before, but imagine how geeky the IT department for an IT firm must be...
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
The Quo
I went to watch Surrey play cricket yesterday. It was a lovely, sunny day and perfect for an afternoon of cricket watching and beer. While we were watching we noticed a woman sitting a couple of rows in front of us and her tattoos. One was a rose, another was the name Alec in a heart, but my favourite was her Status Quo tattoo on her left bicep. I like the idea that anyone could like the Quo enough to get their name permanently and prominently tattooed on to their arm.
Although I would prefer it if the reason for the tattoo was that she liked things to remain the same...
I went to watch Surrey play cricket yesterday. It was a lovely, sunny day and perfect for an afternoon of cricket watching and beer. While we were watching we noticed a woman sitting a couple of rows in front of us and her tattoos. One was a rose, another was the name Alec in a heart, but my favourite was her Status Quo tattoo on her left bicep. I like the idea that anyone could like the Quo enough to get their name permanently and prominently tattooed on to their arm.
Although I would prefer it if the reason for the tattoo was that she liked things to remain the same...
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Hot Town
The weather has been great for the last couple of days and so to make the most of it i went to a pub with a nice beer garden for a few drinks after work. I was meeting a couple of friends there and went straight from work to the pub. My friends stayed later in work than planned so I got to sit around and wait for an hour and a half for them to turn up. Which was fine as i am enjoying the book i am reading (Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson) very much at the moment. It was very busy in the beer garden and so, in order to keep my table while i went inside to get another drink, i left my book, my bag and some of a pint on the table. It was not enough though and i came back outside to find a woman sitting at the table. She was cool about it being my table, but her and her friend/special lady friend wanted to stay until my friends turned up. One of them was high on something and they were both pretty pissed and it all resulted in a fairly unusual conversation as we discussed their lesbian rape film idea they were hoping to film. We also touched on the subject of why men like the idea of lesbianism and one of them tried to suggest men like lesbians because they like the idea that two women are going to be closer emotionally because they are more similar than a man and a woman. I told her i was fairly sure it wasn't that...
That killed the time until my friends arrived, at which point they left the table. After a couple of beers we then went to meet my friend's slightly crazy but entertaining Uncle for a quick drink in another pub and finally headed home for sushi.
Sunshine, a good amount of strangeness, a few beers and some nice food. It was a good evening.
The weather has been great for the last couple of days and so to make the most of it i went to a pub with a nice beer garden for a few drinks after work. I was meeting a couple of friends there and went straight from work to the pub. My friends stayed later in work than planned so I got to sit around and wait for an hour and a half for them to turn up. Which was fine as i am enjoying the book i am reading (Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson) very much at the moment. It was very busy in the beer garden and so, in order to keep my table while i went inside to get another drink, i left my book, my bag and some of a pint on the table. It was not enough though and i came back outside to find a woman sitting at the table. She was cool about it being my table, but her and her friend/special lady friend wanted to stay until my friends turned up. One of them was high on something and they were both pretty pissed and it all resulted in a fairly unusual conversation as we discussed their lesbian rape film idea they were hoping to film. We also touched on the subject of why men like the idea of lesbianism and one of them tried to suggest men like lesbians because they like the idea that two women are going to be closer emotionally because they are more similar than a man and a woman. I told her i was fairly sure it wasn't that...
That killed the time until my friends arrived, at which point they left the table. After a couple of beers we then went to meet my friend's slightly crazy but entertaining Uncle for a quick drink in another pub and finally headed home for sushi.
Sunshine, a good amount of strangeness, a few beers and some nice food. It was a good evening.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Alan Sugar
I was watching the BBC news this morning before heading out to work. There were doing a piece on the rising knife crime among young people. They had Alan Sugar (entrepreneur and star of the tv hit The Apprentice.) on to give his opinion on the subject. Before he started he said how annoyed he got when people who didn't know anything about a subject harped on about it. He then proceeded to harp on about a subject he new nothing about. And then plug his show that is on the telly later tonight.
Interviewing someone, ideally a celebrity, who knows nothing about a subject seems a particularly popular way to do the news at the moment. Perhaps Alan was making that very point with his opening statement. And then again, perhaps not...
I was watching the BBC news this morning before heading out to work. There were doing a piece on the rising knife crime among young people. They had Alan Sugar (entrepreneur and star of the tv hit The Apprentice.) on to give his opinion on the subject. Before he started he said how annoyed he got when people who didn't know anything about a subject harped on about it. He then proceeded to harp on about a subject he new nothing about. And then plug his show that is on the telly later tonight.
Interviewing someone, ideally a celebrity, who knows nothing about a subject seems a particularly popular way to do the news at the moment. Perhaps Alan was making that very point with his opening statement. And then again, perhaps not...
Friday, April 25, 2008
breezy
As I walked to the station this morning I nodded my usual greetings to the couple of people i see most mornings. As I continued my walk I noticed it was a lot breezier than normal around my willy. I looked down and noticed that not only were my flies undone but there was flesh visible through the zip. I need to dress myself better before leaving the house.
As I walked to the station this morning I nodded my usual greetings to the couple of people i see most mornings. As I continued my walk I noticed it was a lot breezier than normal around my willy. I looked down and noticed that not only were my flies undone but there was flesh visible through the zip. I need to dress myself better before leaving the house.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Last Action Hero?
As I was watching the second half of The Chronicles of Riddick last night (which somehow gets 6.3/10 on imdb.com despite being utterly rubbish. Commando is only worth a 6 according to the imdb community - fairly conclusive proof that people are idiots.), I was wondering what happened to good old fashioned musclebound action movie heroes? Back in the 80's you had Sly and Arnie leading the way with a string of enjoyable movies. Even the shit action stars (Dolph and Jean Claude) were entertaining. Who is there nowadays? The Rock, Jason Statham or Vin Diesel are all i can think of. Which is certainly not the most impressive of lists. The fact that Stallone is still able to make action movies despite being ancient is an indication of how poor the current crop is.
I want more 80s style action movies.
As I was watching the second half of The Chronicles of Riddick last night (which somehow gets 6.3/10 on imdb.com despite being utterly rubbish. Commando is only worth a 6 according to the imdb community - fairly conclusive proof that people are idiots.), I was wondering what happened to good old fashioned musclebound action movie heroes? Back in the 80's you had Sly and Arnie leading the way with a string of enjoyable movies. Even the shit action stars (Dolph and Jean Claude) were entertaining. Who is there nowadays? The Rock, Jason Statham or Vin Diesel are all i can think of. Which is certainly not the most impressive of lists. The fact that Stallone is still able to make action movies despite being ancient is an indication of how poor the current crop is.
I want more 80s style action movies.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
testicle game
A few weeks back a friend and i came up with a very enjoyable new game and it is called the testicle game.
In order to play the game, all you need are two people with testicles and a reasonably hard ball - a cricket ball or hockey ball will do nicely. (You will also need to be able to trust your opponent if there are no spectators.) You and your opponent then stand 5 or 6 feet apart facing each other. One person starts holding the ball (you can decide who starts using whatever system you prefer), while the other person closes their eyes, puts their hands behind their back and pushes their crotch forward. The person with the ball then takes as long as they like to gently lob the ball at their opponent's testicles. The contestants take it in turns throwing the ball until someone catches one flush in the balls and drops. The last one standing is the winner.
It is a simple and very enjoyable game. As you stand there with your eyes closed waiting to possibly get hit in the testicles, not knowing when it is coming, the scared anticipation is something special. I would advise you to try it at least once just for that. If the ball hits anywhere other than in the testicles it doesn't hurt at all. The real joy comes in the direct hit which will invariably drop a man. Everybody enjoys seeing a man get hit in the groin with a ball (making it an enjoyable spectator sport as well) but seeing a ball you have thrown arcing perfectly in to your opponents pods and then watching them crumple to the ground cradling their crotch is both highly amusing and satisfying.
Get involved and give it a go...
A few weeks back a friend and i came up with a very enjoyable new game and it is called the testicle game.
In order to play the game, all you need are two people with testicles and a reasonably hard ball - a cricket ball or hockey ball will do nicely. (You will also need to be able to trust your opponent if there are no spectators.) You and your opponent then stand 5 or 6 feet apart facing each other. One person starts holding the ball (you can decide who starts using whatever system you prefer), while the other person closes their eyes, puts their hands behind their back and pushes their crotch forward. The person with the ball then takes as long as they like to gently lob the ball at their opponent's testicles. The contestants take it in turns throwing the ball until someone catches one flush in the balls and drops. The last one standing is the winner.
It is a simple and very enjoyable game. As you stand there with your eyes closed waiting to possibly get hit in the testicles, not knowing when it is coming, the scared anticipation is something special. I would advise you to try it at least once just for that. If the ball hits anywhere other than in the testicles it doesn't hurt at all. The real joy comes in the direct hit which will invariably drop a man. Everybody enjoys seeing a man get hit in the groin with a ball (making it an enjoyable spectator sport as well) but seeing a ball you have thrown arcing perfectly in to your opponents pods and then watching them crumple to the ground cradling their crotch is both highly amusing and satisfying.
Get involved and give it a go...
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