martinlittle.com:thinkThin

Sad news that Alistair Cooke, famous for his Letter from America (a weekly staple of my childhood), has died aged 95. At least he had a good innings.

My Freeview box has been updated, and I'm all set for the TopUp TV launch tomorrow. I simply can't wait to ... stop hearing Richard Brier's voice telling me how great it is going to be. I was very impressed with the 50Hz anti-flicker feature on my P900. Seems to work a treat.

Following on from my post about the OCAD building in Toronto, Pro fired up his camera and took some real live shots for your enjoyment.

To be honest, it still looks a bit overbearing to me, but next time I'm in Toronto and I see it for myself, perhaps my opinion will change. Thanks for the photos, Anthony!

After a good few sessions of running during the week I was determined to get out at the weekend for a longer run. Saturday afternoon was beautiful (13C!), so I took the opportunity and got going.

My rough route was to cut between Braid Hills and Blackford Hill then loop back through Fairmilehead, but I took my left from Braid Road too early and ended up having to run right up Blackford Hill in a failed attempt to get back on track. I ended up in Liberton, running round the reservoir there, getting on to the road I initially wanted, heading back to Braid Road, out to the crossroads just before Fairmilehead and then home. 91 minutes of running and, I'm guessing, 14km or 15km (~9 miles). Not fast at all, but a reasonable distance, expecially given the heat -- it was probably 10C more than I am used to running in.

I'm annoyed I don't know the exact distance though. Looks like it is time to fork out for some GPS running kit. Posibly time to call on a friendly US-based person to help beat the stupid prices I have to pay in this country. USD 160 is a pretty attractive price for a nice piece of kit like that.

Another weekend has disappeared. I managed to be out both nights, but totally kept it sensible. Friday was drinks with Carrick, dwlt and Stella (his wife) at the Guildford Arms.

After that, we headed to Zest, a 'contemporary Indian restaurant' that I had quite fancied visiting for a while. Unfortunately, I was less than thrilled. First off, they had no Kingfisher beer, so I ordered a Stella, which was either very watered down, or was just not Stella. I'm keen to go back and try another pint with some Stella drinking experts. I'm willing to lay a lot of money that they are not serving the genuine article. Secondly, both curries we ordered were much spicier than as described on the menu. Stella's mild curry had quite a kick, and my medium was a few notches up the scale, giving me quite a bead by the end of the meal.

On Saturday evening I met up with Terry who was in town for the Democats International Caucus, and who'd had a hardcore day dealing with the media (think BBC, the Herald, ABC, CNN ...). We did pizza and then caught Dave and Stella at the very cool Hallion, where there were some very ... interesting customers. I think I learned more about politics (and talked more about politics) than I have in a very long time. It was actually fun to steer the conversation away from technology for once!

Terry managed to persuade us that we really want to try a deep fried Mars Bar. It was actually not too bad -- just gooey chocolate in a light batter. We almost had a second...

Thanks to both Carrick and Terry (and dwlt & Stella) for two great nights out! See you both again soon.

I've decided to take a foray into pay TV services. It kicks off on the 31st of March.

My previous boss decided to take some time out from IT a while ago, and started a top quality sausage business (small scale but top notch produce). One of his flavours is sausage of the week on Sausagelinks.

If you live in Edinburgh, I think you can head to Crombies on Broughton Street and pick some up (I'm checking with my friend right now). Otherwise, I'm catching up with him on Tuesday lunchtime, so send me your orders.

Man, summer has really come to town today, and just in time for the weekend and the move of clocks forward for BST. We have a balmy 13C here, and it is beautiful. If this weather keeps up, I may even manage to have a beer outside tonight. The rest of the weekend looks like it may be pretty nice for this time of year too.

The weekend is shaping up nicely. Tonight dwlt and I are going to meet Carrick (nice new blog, dude) who is over from Sweden for a few days. Tomorrow night, dwlt and I are going to meet Terry and Brian, who are in town for the Democrats International Caucus (hello to all you Americans in town for the weekend, and thanks for bringing the weather).

I've got some running scheduled too, after a great/hard night in the Meadows last night and Tuesday. Ah, come to my weekend!

Old look vs new look Wrigleys peppermint gum. I like the new.

Joey reports from Accordion City about a truly hideous building. At first I thought it was a joke, but no, it appears to be real.

Canadian architect, what have you allowed to go on in your city???

Back when I went to meditation classes (a year ago :-O ), one of the teachers was Kelsang Machig. My wonderful friend in Mexico passed me this great story about her.

The mighty Lukester just sent out an email, which neatly covers the whole boarding experience. I'm capturing it here for posterity, and also because it made me smile!

Cheers lads, Nice work Dug, nice work the Kidd. Well done to one and all for the lack of broken bones, the steady calmness, the beer glove, the sunburnt noses, the sandy snow, the carve boards, the freestyle-freeride boards, the freeride-not-freestyle boards, the fast skier, the lost deposit, the dubai Dong, the Ozzie dollars, the roo photos, the Afghan photos, the soundproof curtain, the horsemeat, the Austrian beers, the trendy Golf, the clean Audi, the snowchains, the winter tyres, the big sun, the big farmer, the small pigs, the smell of goats, the taste of goats, the stringey-topped waitress, the Gap diversion, the tipped over truck, the patient girlfriends, the pips of pleasure, the downing of wine, the vomiting, the avoidance of bam-bams, the frog, the hole in the bridge, the silver helmet retards, the high speed collisions, the auto-reply out of office messages, the franz ferdinand to john denver smooth record changes, the fantastic Mr Mohammed, the needlessness of Truth, the scraping walls, the Chinese water drinking competitions, the card tricks, the card games, the chess matches, the too slow lifts, the too fast lifts, the non-geared lifts, the steep drag lifts, the jumps, the snowparks, the slalom, the boys! THE BOYS!

Tonight has not allowed me time to write about my holiday, however, just imagine each picture is a thousand words.

First up, some non-action photos from Serre Chevalier. The other boys are sending me their pics over the next few days, and I'll be posting those as soon as I can.

Secondly, photos from Iain's stag weekend. If anyone reckons they can photoshop them to make them more incriminating for Bryan's best man speech, let me know and I'll pass on the original(s).

Huge congratulations are in order for Neil and Ker -- they're going to have a baby! :-D Due date is the 8th of October. It's wonderful to return to some fantastic news!

After a fantastic time away, I'm now back in town. I'll post more about the whole trip tomorrow, but for now, a HUGE thank you to everyone for such a great holiday. I am very lucky to have such excellent friends!

Now in Lyon, taking in some sights before my flight. This is taken from the Basilique.

Another great boarding day - 20C, blue skies and good snow.

We've all (9) off us made it to our gite. Quality farm-based food ... and smells. Snow has fallen pretty heavily since we got here at 7.30pm, making our drive to the slopes tomorrow challenging. Bring it on!

:-)

I thankfully made it to the airport, despite a bit of a late start. House-sitter is set (thanks Tania!) and I'm as ready as I'm going to be for some snow fun.

At speed!

• get localised travel tips and share your own
• make Atom feeds with no mess
• a really great photo tour of Chernobyl (via Boing Boing)
• Safe For Work porn
• lots of Russians are coming to Scotland. I've meant to post about this previously as I keep hearing their great language all over the place.
• banking dude moves to IT, sees money in handling IT tasks for small businesses and home workers. I'm with him on that!
• linkmeister Erik now shares his thoughts as well as his world-renowned link(b)log

Weekend was pretty quiet -- I did a bunch of things around my house (cleaning, washing, reading) and caught the rugby with my Godson et al. A few quiet beers locally on Saturday night and then computer fixing yesterday ... which turned out to be quite a challenge. Installing on to a laptop with no CD drive which then refused to use the provided drivers to re-enable the network card was not the bext fun, but it was good when it all worked.

My running has been getting back on track lately. I've been out at least every second night, doing between three and four miles. On Wednesday I ran my normal four mile route in 31 minutes. Looking back, the first time I ran it, it took me 40 minutes. Nice to see an improvement! Yesterday I cracked another barrier -- running for over an hour. My route took me down and along beside the canal, although I don't know exactly how far I went. I'm guessing at just less than seven miles in 68 minutes. Today I feel good!

The Scotsman tries compact format.

Apparently you can surf via this phonebox at Haymarket in Edinburgh. We tried to test, but the area is already bathed in WiFi from a hotel, Starbucks & 2 pubs. Pic taken with a 6600.

Kevin Kelly, Internet (& Wired) legend, likes Smartwool socks too. I am in such great company!

Speaking of socks, have you ever had to register your socks online? A few weeks ago I picked up some X-Socks Run Speed One, and they have a two year guarantee. Pretty impressive stuff, given that they are designed to be pounded whilst running. I've registered! ;-)

:-)

I've had the luxury of a day off today. As luck would have it, Allan was in town doing some kind of market research, but also needing Internet access, so he dropped by in the morning. My complaints about the price of electricity and gas increasing led Allan to fire up uswitch, a comparison service, and we entered my last few bills. It turned out that I could save GBP 125 per year if I took both gas and electrical supplies from on supplier, Powergen. The switch was made right there online, with no pain.

After a quick spot of lunch at the Merlin and some other random tasks that had been hanging around for far too long, we headed up to Freeze, and I got a good price on a pair of Northwave Kevin Jones WebXT snowboarding boots and socks, ahead of next month's adventure to Serre Chevalier. No, I am nowhere near being an All-Mountain freestyle destroyer, but I wanted something that was really going to take care of my ankles, and these were the boys!

Not wanting to stop on my retail rampage, I finally managed to find a toaster and kettle I liked, and thus I will be enjoying hot bread in the morning.

Tonight we collected my sister Viv and Allan's girlfriend Fiona for some dinner at Monster Mash and then a few drinks at Doctors. All in all, a very enjoyable way to start the week. Back to work tomorrow, though...

New toaster in action.