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My moblog | ||
 December 26 large Canadian 2005 Music Always grateful to Pro for his end-of-year review. |  December 26 large Flow For Christmas I received a pair of Flow AMP-5 bindings for my snowboard. This is me prepping for the real snow. |  December 26 large Surprise Present Nazar sent us a surprise present from California - some delicious olive oil. Thank you. |
 December 22 large Oh Yes At the 11th hour, my London Marathon place is secured, thanks to the running club. :-D |  December 21 large Samurai 2 Last weekend I successfully completed the Times Samurai Sudoku ... and promptly forgot to send in the solution for entry to the prize draw. Doh! |  December 21 large City Chambers Edinburgh City Chambers looking very cool indeed. |
 December 13 large Treemendous Version 3.0 is now in operation. Next year I'll leaf out the tree gags; not sure what I'll branch out to, though... |  December 13 large Tree 2005 This year's tree, fresh from the yard. For reference next year: over 6 feet, £28.50. Buy a taller tree! |  December 13 large Samurai Sudoku Saturday's completed challenge ... but with errors. I blame the Times. |
 December 13 large IT Fuel Red Bull for the IT profession. Thanks, Rich. |  December 13 large Edinburgh Christmas My parents were over on Saturday, so we took a walk around the market and a ride on the wheel. The market was cool, but the wheel was a rip-off. £2.50 for just over one continuous rotation. Grrr. |  December 3 large |
 December 2 large Slim Podcasting The SlimDevices community is legendary. Latest version of the software handles podcast feed browsing and then streaming. SO cool. |  November 20 large Free WiFi Baroque on Broughton Street in Edinburgh offers free wireless access. For once, I had nothing to do with it. |  November 8 large Dinner A Frenchman, a Scotsman, an American and an Englishman went for dinner at an Italian restaurant. No joke! David Mery, me, Russ Beattie and Jim Hughes. |
 November 8 large MoMo Rafe & Jim, with Dan Applequist in the background. |  November 8 large Boxes World of boxes at Tate Modern. |  November 7 large MobileMonday London The first meeting - packed out. |
 November 6 large Museum At Night Last night Jams had a job at the Museum of Scotland. Looks pretty cool, eh? Jams knows his lighting! |  October 29 large View From... ... Chateauneuf du Pape. |  October 29 large Orange In Orange |
 October 29 large Poolside Relaxation Central. |  October 24 large Cigars And Alcohol In The Pool Ian & Jams relaxing in the pool. |  October 24 large Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Hazel! |
 October 24 large Patent Jams patented y-splitter delivers Russian Shandies without requiring a glass! |  October 24 large Provence En route for a week of fun in Provence. |  October 18 large Hello Manolo Here they are: one pair of incredible Manolo Blahnik's. This picture does not do them justice at all, plus they need a beautiful girl to be wearing them for the full effect. :-D |
 October 18 large Hazel and the Magic Shooz After visits to Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik, Hazel finally found a beautiful pair of shoes. When we went for dinner last night, she waltzed off without me, saying she had everything she needed now... |  October 18 large SatC Yesterday Hazel and I went on a Sex and the City bus tour. It was a very cool way to not only see so many of the locations, but also to see parts of New York we wouldn't have had time to otherwise. We're sitting on Carrie's front stoop here. :-D |  October 18 large Knicks On Sunday we saw the New York Knicks getting beaten by one point, by the Dallas Mavericks. Even though it was a pre-season game, the atmosphere was electric at the end. |
 October 18 large Empire State Building |  October 15 large Hot By The Hudson We made all our flights on time (just!). Today the rain has stopped, and we've wandered around in glorious sunshine. I'm enjoying a sample of beers before Hazel decimates the holiday budget at Jimmy Choo. Stand by New York! |  October 12 large Mighty Muesli I picked up a tub of Mighty Muesli at Herbie (deli) the other day, after reading a short article about it in the shop. I was wary about quite how worthy it appeared, and how tasteless it might be, but after two large bowls I can confirm it is truly excellent, despite the hefty pricetag (the tub was £5.25). More information on www.mightymuesli.com . |
 October 12 large Salmon Teryaki Hazel cooked up a storm with this salmon teryaki. Yum yum yum. |  September 27 large London Marathon 2006 Entry My entry for the 2006 London Marathon is now in the mail. It happens just two days before I turn 30, so fingers crossed my entry makes it through the ballot and I've got a few days in London. Training has resumed apace, and the cross-country season begins a week on Sunday. Muddy fun ahead! |  September 23 large Named Crisps As Rich said, Burts Crisps tell you who made them, as well as which field the potatoes came from. |
 September 19 large Rallying For Christmas, Hazel gave me a present to go driving at Knockhill, the only racing circuit in Scotland. Naturally, I couldn't go alone, so we both went at the weekend. It was excellent fun, just not long enough. Each driver was assessed, and a prize given for the best driver. No prizes for guessing who took the trophy (and it wasn't me)... |  September 13 large Scrubs Series 2 My most wonderful girlfriend bought me Scrubs series 1 on DVD for my birthday. My addiction was mildly lessening after days of compulsive viewing, and then series 2 came out ... and the same day that same lovely girlfriend bought it for me. That ROCKS! |  September 13 large Microwave Meals In general I do my best to minimise the amount of cash I spend in supermarkets, preferring smaller, local shops, but tonight Viv & I took a trip to the 24hour Tesco. Microwave meals are long gone, it seems, with meal solutions taking their place. |
 September 5 large Sonicare After the crisps & ginger beer, something healthier. My dentist advised me to go electric in the toothbrushing department. This bad boy, the Philips Sonicare Elite 7800 Professional, not only does normal electric toothbrush things, it also does some sonic-style cleaning to keep my teeth healthy. Word! |  September 2 large Bundaberg Ginger Beer Better known for rum, this bottle caught my eye at lunchtime. |  September 2 large Firecracker Lobster That's probably a good name for a band -- something electronic. They were interesting crisps. The UK seems to have a proliferation of crazy flavours and crisp makers. Is it the same elsewhere? |
 August 21 large PipeFest Good turnout for the mass gathering. Nice weather too. |  August 19 large Famous Jamie Theakston & Daniel Kitson in the secret special festival bar. |  August 17 large Balagan Final picture. |
 August 17 large Balagan |  August 17 large Balagan Last night Hazel & I saw Balagan at Assembly @ St. George's. It was BRILLIANT! Music, gymnastics, humour, singing, acrobatics plus an incrcdible changing backdrop made for a great show. This is a must-see. |  August 15 large Laidback Gaming Playing old-school Asteroid at the EIEF. |
 August 11 large Versus Four player game craziness on the big screen at the EIEF. |  August 11 large EIEF At the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival. It's way cool! |  August 10 large Complain Complain Ken complaining about a lack of site updates, when he should have been fixing the network! |
 August 1 large Sunny Clyde Sunday was a lovely sunny day in Glasgow. This is looking down the Clyde, towards the Science Centre, on the site of the Garden Festival. |  July 31 large Vintage Port This 1963 bottle of Graham vintage port wine was a very nice present to my dad. This afternoon we decanted it, and tonight we thoroughly enjoyed drinking it. The debris (it requires a much more substantial word then sediment) left in the bottle was incredible. Look carefully at the picture. |  July 30 large Online Poker After watching Poker on TV, my dad and brother decided to try their luck online. They're winning so far! |
 July 30 large Babies-o-rama Although Josh is not yet 6 months old, his magnetic personality draws other kids in. |  July 26 large Josh Is Christened |  July 26 large Difficult Su Doku My first and second difficult rated Su Doku, complete. |
 July 26 large Wonka No golden ticket for me. Must try again! |  July 17 large Rat Race 2005 Hanging out at the finishing line of the 2005 Rat Race in Edinburgh. Next year... |  July 17 large Tesco Self Checkout No more need for checkout staff at Tesco. Worked pretty well. |
 July 17 large eBay Gets Religion One of the many borrowed variants of the eBay logo & styling. |  July 17 large Calton Hill |  July 17 large Happy 30th Rich A quality night out for Rich's 30th birthday. Congratulations, dude! |
 July 15 large Going, Going Time to leave. :-( |  July 15 large Last Day Gorgeous sunshine for Thursday, our last full day on holiday. |  July 13 large Montalcino The real place to go for fine wine! I *love* this picture of Hazel on the tower wall. After a brief visit to Pienza (sp) we stopped here before flipping, once again, to the east coast. Tonight we're about Pineto, north of Pescara, beside the beach and keeping our fingers crossed for sunshine on our last full day. |
 July 13 large Tuesday We took it very easy, apart from a big walk in the hills. |  July 11 large Croatia, Croatia... Despite the reason for being in Italy was to get to Croatia, we've decided to remain in the boot. I'd have turned a four-day visit into a speed tour of the country, when what we both want to do is totally relax. To that end, we traversed the country once more and are again in Tuscany, staying at La Crocetta in San Casciano dei Bagni (www.agriturismolacrocetta.it). We were attracted by the promise of delicious food made by one of the owners, and were VERY happy with dinner last night. Right now we're lying in lhe garden, pondering a wander into San Casciano for a lunchtime beer. :-D |  July 11 large San Marino On Sunday we visited San Marino. My impression of the republic before we visited was of an upmarket, pretty place with some interesting history, thus we made the two hour journey through *torrential* rain. In reality, the San Marino we found was full of the worst kind of tourist trash: shop after shop of cheap perfume, watches, fake bags & clothes, not to mention swords, knives & guns (really). The people we met did nothing to improve our impression. They seemed bored and really fed-up. The town was pretty, but we left quickly. |
 July 10 large Firenze The rooftops of Florence from the top of the Duomo. We've now moved to a micro-location called Campegna in Marches to form a plan of action. |  July 9 large Friday Night... ... is music night, in Pizza la Repubblica. |  July 8 large Food Yesterday we ate at an excellent restaurant called Coquinarius in central Florence. Highly recommended. |
 July 7 large Project Gotham Last year I lost a few days racing around here on my X-box. Now I've shortened my life by a few years by driving along here for real. ;-) |  July 7 large Siena We took a few hours in Siena before driving to Florence (Firenze). Luckily we decided to give ourselves 2.5hrs to do what should have been a one hour trip. We got to Florence without issue, but then spent almost two hours trying to navigate the streets, even with expert direction from Hazel. Having put the Punto through the tightest of gaps (we had to fold the wing mirrors in), my driving skills are much improved. Just as well no-one will ever know about our excursion through the pedestrianised city centre and discussion with six unimpressed carabineri. ;-) |  July 7 large Goodbye Chianti We left Chianti for Siena & Florence yesterday, with a nice bottle that used to live in these barrels. |
 July 7 large princes street closed not sure why but obviously things are a little tense given the situation in London. (richlloyd) | .jpg) July 7 large Rush hour 50,000 people head home after the concert. (richlloyd) |  July 6 large Live8 Edinburgh The last of the Live8 concerts as it happens. Thanks to Duncan for the stadium photos. (richlloyd) |
 July 6 large Half an hour to go at Live8 |  July 6 large Greve We had a lazy day on Tuesday, with a wander around town, lunch, lazing by the pool and then dinner. There was a small (rock|pop) concert in the square during dinner. |  July 4 large Chianti We've moved north and west to Greve in Chianti, staying on a vineyard here: fattoriaviticcio.com. The last piece of advice I was given before leaving the office was: no matter how fast you drive in Italy, there will always be someone going faster. Despite 'making good progress' on the autostrada today, an Audi appeared behind me like our car was stationary! |
 July 4 large Beautiful Girl, Beautiful Architecture From Montepulciano. |  July 4 large Montepulciano A glass of MontepuIciano in Montepulciano, at the cool Sax Wine Bar. | .jpg) July 4 large G8 protests get a little more heated Some groups clash with police in Edinburgh. (richlloyd) |
 July 3 large Macerata Today after a traditional breakfast we headed to Macerata, a typical central Italian town. We wandered about, lay in the gardens and generally soaked up the experience. Tonight we ate pizza, drank beer and watched local 5-a-side football in San Severino. All good! |  July 2 large Saturday Italy Classic architecture, warm 10pm weather and football in the middle of town. Add superb company, a quality dinner (juno999.it) and drinks for EUR 42 and everything's looking good! Being on holiday rocks. |  July 1 large Wine Rack The wine rack at the Radisson Stansted hotel. There was a lady on wires dancing up and down to select each bottle. |
 July 1 large Boarding Up Shops on the march routes in Edinburgh board up ahead of the weekend. |  June 28 large Anti-G8 The first anti-G8 poster I've seen in town. |  June 27 large Nags Tonight I met my parents at Musselburgh Racecourse for the evening meet. Mostly I was giving my money to the turf accountants, but my rents were slightly luckier. Back to work it is, then. |
 June 26 large View From Jams & Deek's view of the timber being hoisted into the kitchen. Genius knot-work by Rich! |  June 26 large Loading Up Jams roped Rich, Deek & I into helping him shift some wood for his new kitchen. Loading the truck was EASY, compared to the unload and carry of 15 sheets of MDF weighing 35kg each up three flights of Edinburgh tenament stairs. The things you do for friends. ;-) |  June 26 large Pavement Information A veritable overload of information by Edinburgh Council saying they are regenerating the main road I live close to. Why does it need regenerated? Could it be due to stupid council-imposed parking restrictions??? In reality all they're doing is fixing the pavement. And putting up big signs. I'd love to know how much the jargon-laiden metal cost... |
 June 24 large Goodbye Old Phone My mum upgraded her phone today. Her trusty Nokia 402(?) has lasted about 6 years. |  June 24 large Martin Wishart We had a mighty lunch at Martin Wishart in Leith today. Fine dining to the max. This was the superb cheeseboard. |  June 19 large ATC The very cool-looking new air traffic control tower at Edinburgh Airport. |
 June 19 large R.E.M. On Stage At Balloch 2 |  June 19 large R.E.M. On Stage At Balloch |  June 18 large Balloch A lot of people ... and a stage. |
 June 11 large Barry Cryer and Colin Sell Quality comedy. |  June 8 large R.E.M. Tickets Are Here I'll be off to Balloch. Amusingly, my parents will see them before me after winning tickets to the Glasgow Green gig. |  June 7 large Podcast Listening My first podcast listen (tartanpodcast.co.uk). |
 June 7 large Come Dance As I was walking along Princes Street tonight, I heard a band, and saw people dancing. Open air ceilidh (Scottish) dancing! It was a perfect night for it, too -- almost balmy. Sometimes Edinburgh just totally rocks. |  June 5 large Calm Down! Jack tells Bob to cool his jets. |  June 1 large Bud Pail under the urinal. Nothing more to be said. |
 June 1 large Underberg Just wrong. |  June 1 large A380 OK, so you *really* have to look hard, but there IS an Airbus A380 just over the buildings. Looks different ... and distinctive. |  June 1 large Hamburg 2 Expensive shops! |
 June 1 large Hamburg 1 |  June 1 large Photo Shoot Schwarzkopf photo shoot @ 25 hours hotel. It seriously was that cool. |  June 1 large Oxygen The girls looking uber chic after buying their peppermint oxygen in the 25 hours hotel. |
 May 29 large Dietmar and Birte Married! |  May 29 large Sunny Wedding Dietmar & Birte's wedding in Eutin yesterday. All the ladies looked stunning and the kilted gents looked sharp. Everyone survived their hangovers, no-one got shot, the speeches were excellent and the dancing top-notch. It's been an epic weekend with an incredible group of friends. |  May 27 large Beer In The Afternoon In the sunshine. It would be wrong not to. |
 May 27 large Married Dietmar & Birte are married! |  May 26 large Irresponsible It would NOT be wise to go for many many drinks with the couple-to-be on the night before. Would it? |  May 26 large Das Choons Coming out on old skool vinyyyyyl. |
 May 26 large Eutin We're ALL in Eutin, near Hamburg, for Dietmar & Birte's wedding. Metres of beer all round. |  May 26 large Office Move Time to tidy out! |  May 22 large No Cheques For many years I've felt that cheques (or checks, if you're American and can't spell ;-), suck. It's good to see them being put in their place! Electronic all the way. :-D |
 May 22 large Cable If you're going to neaten up loose cables, be sure to cut the right one, not the expensive TV aerial. Basics. D'oh! |  May 18 large Millionaire I'm a millionaire ... unfortunately only in Turkey, and in their old currency. In the real world this isn't enough for a round. Back to work it is, then. | May 18 large I'm A Millionaire Unfortunately only in Turkey. In the real world this isn't enough for a round. Back to work it is, then. |
 May 18 large Currencies New & Old Euros, French Francs & Deutsche Marks. |  May 14 large Blog Meet A great get-together at the Jolly Judge. Thanks for the beer, Ali. |  May 14 large Favourite Buildings I love this old tram terminus & power building in Stockbridge. |
 May 7 large Groove Armada I'm practically on stage with them! |  May 6 large Election Coverage As expected, Tony keeps the keys to Downing Street. |  May 6 large Peter Snow No election night is complete without crazy stats and ridiculous images from Mr Snow. |
 May 6 large Polling Station After voting. Alarmingly, my voting card did not arrive in the post, yet without showing any ID I was able to vote. |  May 6 large Monday Kalpna Delicious thali at the Kalpna. Just not big enough! |  April 28 large Tesco.com Delivers... ... knocks a huge communal bin over, then drives off. If your Edinburgh-area delivery van has a registration starting W483 and sports a broken rear offside brakelight, ask the driver if they would mind being a little more careful when executing 3 point turns and significantly more thoughtful if they do manage to do something stupid. Having Tesco on the side of the van makes it kind-of easy to work out whodunnit. :-| |
 April 27 large Cherry Blossom It's that time of year, and the tree is looking incredible. |  April 22 large Chewits Return How old-skool are these??? |  April 20 large Beer I'm trying to get back off the wagon. ;-) In case you ever wondered what five pounds worth of beer looks like, this is it: one pint of Nastro Azzuro in Ricks. |
 April 20 large Eye See London We went on the London Eye yesterday. Definitely a very recommended thing to do. |  April 19 large Marathon Medal |  April 18 large London Marathon: Complete Yesterday's marathon was incredible, and something that will stay with me forever. My time was about 4hrs 26mins which was slower than I'd wanted in my secret plan (sub-4hrs was the goal), but the weather was too much for me. Not rain & cold, but too much sun! My shoulders, neck & head are all bright red and I had sunstroke last night. Back on track today, though. HUGE thanks to my brother, my parents, Al & Ann for turning out to cheer me on, and special thanks to Hazel for looking after me last night, too. Time for sightseeing now. |
 April 15 large Home Check-In British Airways lets me check-in up to 24hours ahead of take-off AND I can print my own boarding card. Word! |  April 9 large Shower! Now that's what I call a shower. In the BA lounge in Heathrow. Miracles do happen. ;-) |  April 6 large NBA I'm *finally* at an NBA game: Warriors vs ROCKETS! OH YES!!! |
 April 5 large Reasons To Live In California Sitting outside at lunchtime in this environment is very very nice indeed. |  April 5 large Mobile Monday Here's a pic of everyone with a cameraphone taking a pic of everyone else with a cameraphone. There's a whole flickr world of them. I'll post that link as a comment. |  April 5 large MobileMonday Bluetooth central! |
 April 4 large Wet SF Finally there's a weekend day I'm not running, working or doing laundry, so I head to the city ... and the heavens open. Luckily, there's a quality wine bar close by! |  April 3 large Diego And Russ Yesterday I met up with Diego and Russ for a barbecue and general Saturday hanging out. After one visit to Krispy Kreme and a tour of the Googleplex, we headed over to Fry's and can't have spent any less than an hour and a half wandering around. |  April 3 large Russ Dances Russ caught trying out the Dance Dance Revolution in Fry's. |
 April 3 large Krispy Kreme Mmmm! |  March 29 large How Many Types Of Milk Are There? Last night I went to the market to get some milk. After just over two hours trying to decipher the labels on the shelves, I gave up and bought some flavoured water instead. |  March 29 large Californian Rain Where has the nice weather I'm used to gone? Rain, rain, rain... |
 March 25 large Wheels 2 This time I've got a Pontiac Grand Am V6. Lucky I didn't request a large car, eh? ;-) |  March 24 large New Soundz One swift trip to Tower Rekkids and I've got a bagful of new tunes, mostly from groups I've never heard before. Nice. |  March 23 large AMP Part 2 OK, I survived ... just. This picture doesn't quite get the radioactive colour of the drink, but I certainly do feel much more awake. I'm fairly sure I could get addicted to this stuff, so probably best it's not available in the UK. |
 March 23 large Mountain Dew AMP As if Mountain Dew wasn't hardcore enough, there is now AMP, an energy drink (ampenergy.com for more information). I'm about to try some right now, so if you see my head exploding... |  March 23 large Feet Up Travelling in full feet-up mode to San Francisco. I'm here until 1st April, so if you're in the area let me know. |  March 22 large Frankfurt Last night was Frankfurt, London now then San Francisco this afternoon. |
 March 20 large Kilt Roller If you've got a kilt, this is the way to carry it - rolled up. Works a treat and not folded in half. |  March 20 large One-Shot Cornflakes Whoever dreamt these up deserves a promotion. Cornflakes, milk, sugar & spoon all in one handy package. Ideal at any time! |  March 20 large Michelle & Gareth Wedding A fantastic day in Paisley for Michelle & Gareth's wedding. |
 March 18 large Marathon Registration So, I'm number 24485! Woohoo! |  March 13 large So Next Season Pete modelling next season's look. |  March 13 large Poker Styles Serious money at stake. |
 March 12 large Poker & Cocktails The fun continues! |  March 12 large And Home... One swift visit to Tesco later... |  March 12 large More Drinks Hazel & James made me go for another beer ... or two. |
 March 12 large Orocco Pier Lunch with friends. |  March 10 large Lovely Sunset It's a gorgeous sunset in Edinburgh tonight. Hello light evenings too! |  March 9 large Niji, Part 2 Niji doesn't seem to have a site I can point you to, so here's the flyer I was given on Saturday. Lunch is going to happen in the next week or so; let me know if you fancy joining me. The restaurant is at 64 Thistle Street smack-bang in the middle of Edinburgh. If you're planning to go for dinner, call ahead, or else you may be waiting for some time. There is only one chef! :-D |
 March 8 large Manhattan My one-night-a-week-of-drinking has been going well, but I've been missing a beer with the boys. After a few in Teuchters on William Street, Rich and I made it to Oloroso where we were tempted to these. |  March 8 large Hmmm What exactly are Pret indicating with this picture on their bags? |  March 5 large Niji Japanese food in Edinburgh is either tasteless, expensive or both. Niji is the *complete* opposite, with authentic, tasty and well-priced food (the same people as ran Tampopo along the street). HIGHLY recommended! |
 February 13 large St. Andrews Too windy to fly the kite on St. Andrews beach. |  February 12 large St. Andrews Hazel has whisked me away to the lovely St. Andrews Bay Hotel for the weekend. This is the view from our bed(room). Just had a mighty five + toast course breakfast, so time for a walk! |  February 6 large Confluence + Geocache At 57N 4W. |
 February 6 large Snow Nice weather for a confluence & geocache effort. |  February 2 large Building Inside A Building The old Post Office building at the end of Princes Street has been rennovated internally, but the exterior retained. Now there is essentially a whole building wrapped inside the old building shell. Looks cool. |  February 2 large Siblings Allan and Viv at the fusball table, taking is seriously serious. |
 February 2 large Dynamic Earth Looked so good, I had to take a picture. |  February 2 large Stylised /The Enrico Miralles-styles Saint Andrews cross in the ceiling of the entrance of the parliament. |  February 2 large Hammer Beam Roof More from the chamber of the parliament, inspired by the dining room(?) in the castle. |
 February 2 large Parliament People These are the people of Scotland, watching their MSPs. |  February 2 large Parliament Chamber Looks nice! |  February 1 large Beautiful Day Nice to be on holiday, and seeing blue sky! |
 January 31 large Swiss Chocolate If you're going to eat chocolate, it's a good plan to make it Swiss. These fine morsels were a present from Zurich, and I am *all* about Confiserie Sprungli now! |  January 31 large Christmas Tree Deconstructed We've been BUSY! It's all gone now, though. |  January 25 large ERI Visit Continuing the series of visiting controversial new Edinburgh buildings, I had call to go to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary this afternoon. Totally nothing major - just a small slice on my finger by a broken glass, but was advised to have it checked for any lurking splinters. All clear! |
 January 25 large Scottish Parliament Building 1 The Girl & I finally took the tour. Full report later. | January 25 large New Royal Infirmary Continuing the series of visiting controversial new Edinburgh buildings, I had call to visit the Royal Infirmary this afternoon. Totally nothing major - just a small slice on my finger from a broken glass I was washing, but I was advised to have it checked for any lurking splinters. All clear, thankfully. | January 24 large Scottish Parliament Building 1 The Girl and I went for a tour of the new parliament building today. It certainly looked good. Full report to come! |
 January 23 large Scottish Parliament Building 2 |  January 18 large Snowy Day We've got a bit of snow on the ground here today. Can you spot the castle? |  January 16 large Fedora Core 3 I'm finally moving away from Fedora Core 1 to Core 3. My home machine, lofi, isn't the fastest, so it literally has taken all afternoon to upgrade. My withdrawl has been significant. How do people survive with no permanent Internet connection and only standard TV & radio??? |
 January 14 large Happy Pongal! Pongal is an Indian harvest festival (primarily south Indian/Tamil, I think), which runs for three days from the 14th of January. As with almost all Indian festivals, there is food associated with the festival, and this one is also called Pongal. This photo doesn't do it justice, but the sticky, sweet rice is tasty, not disimilar to rice pudding (with cardamon) here in the UK. |  January 11 large London Marathon Entry Thanks to my coach at the running club I'm in, my entry to the London Marathon is now being processed. Our club was allocated four spots, and I got very lucky and snagged one. My goal is to complete in five hours or thereabouts. Here's hoping that everyone else who's going for it makes it too -- running with my brother and several friends would be a lot of fun. Last night was my first visit to the gym in a while, to kick off my preparation ... and it feels like there is a lot of prep to do. My coolrunning.com training plan is at my side! |  January 6 large No Bread Tonight I popped in to my local supermarket for some salad, bread -- you know, normal kinds of things. The shelves were *bare*. There was absolutely NO salad, and only a few loaves of bread left. What's going on??? |
 January 5 large A Printer Has Never Looked So Good Mahyad's new Canon Pixma iP8500 looks stunning, and produces some incredible output. Something of a far cry from those old beige boxes that litter the landscape. |  January 2 large Diego We caught up with Diego, a fellow Mobitopian, in the Gravity bar @ Guinness brewery. |  January 2 large Mighty G Enjoying a pint of black gold at the brewery. |
 January 2 large Nice Day In Dublin The sun is out for our final day. Off to visit the Guinness Brewery and meet Diego. :-D |  January 2 large Drink! This shop had ALL the drinks! |  January 2 large Happy New Year Happy New Year to you all! The Girl and I are celebrating in Dublin. We spent last night in Cafe en Seine. Today we've wandered around, bought some luggage (long story for another time...!) and had dinner in a Spanish restaurant. Now we're off for some proper Dublin action in Temple Bar. |