last couple of weeks…

yeah yeah, it’s been a while… before i forget this is what we’ve been up to recently:

a couple of weekends ago was the eurogamer games expo in london (and leeds. but we went to the london one obviously). nick, steve, michelle and i grouped up at about 13h00 and headed in. i was expecting more of a trade show with booth babes and free handouts and instead it was more like a showcasing. loads of tvs and monitors with all the latest / soon to be released games and tonnes of people lining up to watch and play. it was fun and i got a left 4 dead 2 tshirt. unfortunately the only size they had was xxl so it’s like a small tent but it is 100% cotton and feels really nice. we then went with nick for a trip to new oxford street to try find a copy or two of borderlands. much walking later we had our copies and we said goodbye to nick and headed to steve & sam’s new place for supper. some good pizza and chatting later we headed home.

next day was spent playing borderlands. it’s a really cool game. basically it’s like a post apocolyptic diablo 2 first person shooter. an fps-rpg with a skill tree and 4 different character (each with their own skills). loads of fun.

the next week was fairly normal. and the weekend following (last weekend) was the weekend of guy fawkes (or bonfire night). that saturday we met up with steve and sam again and headed out to one of the local parks where they were having a fireworks evening. there was a little fairground there with rides and stalls and everything. we got ourselves some roast pork and stuffing in a roll (mm-mm good) and settled in to watch the fireworks. the kiddies show ended with a massive bonfire that is probably the largest controlled fire i have seen in real life. the thing was stories tall. after that had died out the adult fireworks started. adult fireworks meant later timeslot and not naughty pictures in the sky in case you were wondering.
the fireworks were set to music and the display was quite awesome. i don’t know how long it went on for as you kinda lose track of time watching them.
at one point near the start i made a comment about: it doesn’t matter how old you are or where you come from, everyone loves fireworks. of course as soon as i finish saying this a small girl almost bursts into tears and tries to hide behind a nearby van because she’s scared of the load bangs. =/ everyone’s a critic.
on our way out steve decided to try his hand at one of those “shoot the pellet gun and knock down targets for a prize” games. steve is quite the sniper. he didn’t miss a single shot. it also helped that his particular target set had a skew target which meant he could knock 2 silhouettes down with one shot. he won a small bear for sam and we headed on our way. if i ever play paintball or something similar with steve i need to make sure he’s on my side.

michelle found one of our old varsity friends (sed) on facebook. he’s been living in london for 2 years now and michelle managed to contact him and we organised to meet for supper on monday. after forcing my way through ridiculous amounts of crowds (where do all these people come from / go) i managed to meet up and we headed off to find a restraunt. one had been suggested to us but when we found it it looked more like a wine bar that did food on the side so we went with sed’s suggestion and tried an indian place that looked quite nice. when ordering our meals sed forgot what he had decided to order and so went with the waiter’s suggestion. i had a “meat bhuna” which sounded really dodgy (normally they tell you what meat they use) but turned out to be really nice. we chatted quite a bit and eventually left fairly late and headed home. it turns out that if the waiter at an indian restraunt suggest something you should definitely order something else. sed got severe food poisoning. michelle and i were fine and sed chose the restruant (he’d been there plenty of times before apparently) do i don’t feel so bad.

rest of the week went along as usual. i have an annoying cold that just seems to be hanging on for all it’s worth but is slowly fading bit by bit. this weekend is a stay at home and try to recover weekend. especially since it seems to have decided to be uncharicteristically stormy =/
usually it’s just cold, maybe a little rain / drizzle but today seems particularly stormy.

anyway.. that’s been our last few weeks.

last day off… the week’s been good…

so this is our last day off (well… technically friday was our last day off and this is the weekend, but we’ll let that fact slide) and the week has been pretty awesome. here’s a quick rundown:

tuesday was a rest day. we stayed home playing games and watching tv. [wow talk start] i finally got my death knight up to level 80 (the current max) and started gearing up with some crafted stuff.[end wow talk].
we wandered up and down the high street a bit and took some pictures. we should post some sometime. basically a relaxing day.

wednesday was a tourist day. we started the day with a trip to the sherlock holmes museum (more of a themed curio shop really, but pretty fun nonetheless) and then went to madame tussords. if you’re ever planning on going make sure you take a packed lunch for the line. after standing in line for a bit, eventually coing down a corridor and around a corner, we’re greeted with a sign that says “approx 45 minute wait from this sign”
and they were not kidding. in total the attraction is about an hour and a half… that includes 45 minutes of standing in line and 45 minutes of dodging around people and squeezing past people taking pictures of their friends standing with hitler because they’re taking up the walkway to do it. the wax figures are really well done and it would be great to leisurely stroll through and admire everything. unfortunately it is so packed with people that you end up hurried, harried and harrassed. near the end is a nice little section where you sit in a “taxi” (max 2 people) and it rides through a tunnel of british spirit attractions. that was really fun and didn’t have people standing in the way.
we then went to the london eye and took a “flight” in one of their capsules. it’s quite a nice view but again: too many tourists. i think they let too many people into our capsule (the one next to us had far fewer people) and it seeems that no sooner had the doors closed than a family of 7 pulled out some ham and cheese sandwiches made with the most pungent ingredients. i’m not sure if they were merely stupid, maliciously crap or simply couldn’t understand the sign with the sandwich with a line through it. at least the view was nice.
when we had landed we walked down to the aquarium. it’s a great aquarium with a couple of really nice shark tanks and some awesome fish. it’s also quite peacefull in there and if you pause a second most annoying people hurry past and dissapear. the terrapins and the skates that came up to the surface of their open topped tank were my favorite ^^ closely followed by the awesom shark tanks.

thursday was another rest day. more games, tv, and a little bit of grocery shopping.

friday was our last tourist day. we started at the london dungeons and they are awesome. basically you line up for a little bit and they break the line up into small groups. each group goes through a “set” and once they’ve moved out the other end i assume the next group moves in. each “set” generally has an actor who explains something or tells some tale and there’s usually a fright / scare occurence mixed in (someone gets a hand chopped off as the lights go out and everyone is sprayed with a mist of “blood” etc..).
there was a “labyrinth of the lost” which was a giant maze of mirrors. now whenever i’ve seen them on tv i’ve always been skeptical. “yeah yeah,” i’d think, “you can see the mirrors or at least your reflection. i don’t get it. it’s not confusing at all.”
well i was wrong. it is awesome. the lighting was just dim enough and the tiles on the floor and angles of the mirror were just right so that you couldn’t see what was a tunnel and what was a reflection and you really can’t tell if you walking towards a mirror until you’re actually touching it.
there was also a ride in a “ferryboat” down a little “river” which was cute. and (after a good few frights and scares and laughs and sets) finally the whole thing culminated in the gallows. you sit in a chair (kinda like a rollercoaster chair with bar) and you get ratchetted up a fair way at which point you’re sentenced to hang and you drop in freefall as the lights go out. that got my adrenalin going.
if you’re in london i suggest going to the london dungeons. seriously! if you had the money i’d suggest flying out here just so you could go to the dungeons they are that good.
by comparison the london museum was prosaic and while they had some interesting things we soon left to look for spitalfields market.
the market might once have been fantastic but to be honest we found more interesting things in a chocolate shop next to the market than in anything at the actual market. (it was an awesome chocolatiers though. vanillia white milk choc with ginger and popping candy for example). tired from walking we eventually made it back to the tube and went home.

saturday was a quiet day. we saw steve and sam that evening, had pizza at a nice little place down the road and had a drink at a pub/club thing before heading back for cheesecake and coffee at our place. steve and sam always fun to hang out with. a nice relaxing day.

sunday saw us waking up early for [wow talk starts again] a raid with our friends. trial of the crusader 10 man, followed by onnyxia 10 and then vault of archalon 10 (yes.. there were 10 of us). post raid saw a quick headless horseman run (5 man) since the hallow’s end event has now started ^^ [end of wow talk]. this was followed by a short walk to get lunch, lunch and a dvd ^^

all in all we spent way too much money (of course this would be the month that the council tax finally arrives too) but had a lot of fun and saw a lot (and walked a lot). now all that’s left is to do some ironing for work tomorrow… ah well. not much longer until our next leave ~_^

First day off… And it’s a good one…

The weekend was good and relaxing. We played games and watched some tv. We watched a pretty good movie called Outpost.
Basic story is as follows: some mercs get hired to take some guy to a little bunker in the middle of outback, wartorn, unnamed eastern Europe country X. After arriving there’s a firefight and they start digging in while the escortee starts looking around for his “minerals” downstairs. And that’s roughly when all supernatural hell breaks loose. Fun film.

We woke up a little later than usual this morning and headed to the post office to send James his girly magazines that he asked us to get. And I don’t mean girly as in “Jugs” magazine. I mean girly as in pink with frills and cutesy teddybears (and this is after complaining about nick’s pink laptop). Next was a trip down to wimbeldon to visit the dvla to exchange our driving licenses. Other than a bit of waiting everything went smoothly and, barring any troubles, we should have our uk drivers in 2-3 weeks.

With admin done we had lunch and then headed off to the science museum. 3.5 hours later and we had only covered 4 of the 8 floors. There are loads of awesome interactive things there. There’s a display projected onto the wall that just looks like some lines until you walk in front of it and your shadow starts inteacting, splitting the line into a rainbow on contact, or bending lines. It was pretty sweet and it captures mini movie clips that you can email yourself. I’ll try to remember to post one here after I check my mail.

There was a Wallace & grommit exhibition on ideas that was cracking
Michelle has a penny that has been squashed and stamped with an image of grommit that she squished herself in a machine with gears and whatnot. You drop your penny in then turn a big wheel which forces it through the mechanism and drum stamp thing.

We eventaully went home for a bit of a rest before heading out to meet nick. Since it was nick’s birthday we were off to grab dinner and see a movie.

Dinner was had at the Hare and Tortoise. I had miso ramen with yakatori starters. The ramen came in a massive bowl (it’s a kinda noodle soup. This one came with slices of pork and mushroom and egg and seaweed) and was fantastic. Nick and Chelle both had the pork chow mein which was equally as good, as was the eel sushi.

For movie we went to go watch Zombieland in liester square. I suggest you go watch it. It was fan-freaking-tastic. A zombie movie as funny as Shaun of the dead. Slickly put together and full of gags and laughs. From the opening scene ’till the closing credits the movie was excellent (including a cameo from Bill Murray). I strongly urge that you go see it. Seriously. Go! Now! It’s excellent! When it comes out on blu-ray I am buying it
Are you still reading this? Go see the movie already…

Right. I told you it was good. Anyway, we said our goodbyes to Nick and then headed back home. Tomorrow is probably going to be a bit of a rest day since we’ve been walking from 08h00 until 23h00 with only an hour here and a movie and dinner there to sit.

Well time to post this and then sleep
Cya.

How I know I’m integrating into London Life…

1. I have a teeny umbrella that folds up and fits into my handbag. Although I’ve only had to use it a handful of times, it’s still something I’ve felt a need to buy. I can’t say that it has rained here noticeably more often than in Cape Town, it’s just that because we walk everywhere and don’t have a car, we’re more likely to be out in it when it’s raining.
2. I no longer think pork pies are a remarkable novelty that I must buy whenever I see one. I can go several weeks without buying one now.
3. I’ve started turning statements into questions by ending them in yeah? For example: this is the issue you want me to test, yeah?
4. I remember to say pence instead of cents.
5. I’ve stopped asking for coke lite – it’s diet coke, dammit, diet coke.
6. I’ve stopped calling Marks and Spencers ‘Woolworths’. I still think it sometimes, though.
7. I know where my local fish and chip shop is.

On the other hand…

1. I still can’t remember to say trousers. Some shop keepers are probably still confused by me when I ask them to put the pants in the same bag as the jacket – and I’ve bought a suit and no underwear.
2. I still can’t remember that cheers means thanks and not goodbye. People probably think i’m just very grateful to see the back of them.
3. I take unreasonable delight in having pronutro for breakfast at the weekend.
4. I still have no idea why someone would want to drink something called ‘dandelion and burdock’, and I have no urge to try it.
5. I can’t seem to remember that chips are chips, and chips are crisps.

Mondays…

The weekend slipped by far too quickly again…
The movie (surrogates) was quite enjoyable. Good old Bruce Willis got suspended from duty and ended up a bit bloody as one would expect from any movie with him in it
We tried a pork bun from a Chinese stall on our way to the cinema. Damn it was good. Basically a soft bun a little larger than a fist with a juicy pork center. Mm-mm good. There was also a quick stop at forbidden planet comic shop since we were in the area.

We made champions in world of warcraft that morning (finally) and rounded out the day with some left 4 dead before bedtime

This morning I had a neverending training session. It wasn’t directly related to what I’m doing but is one of the major parts of what the company as a whole does. Basically it was pretty boring since they didn’t go into much detail on the actual underlying workings and the guy taking it was kinda like watching Jamie Oliver with stage fright trying to give a company presentation.
I also think that this was more the client facing explanation and the dude presenting was being given practice on internal guinie pigs.
And I have another meeting later today :/

(it’s lunch time now and I’ll be posting this when I get home after work and have access to wifi)

Ah well. At least it makes the day really short I suppose

Bowls and drinks and stuff…

Well we’ve been up to a fair amount recently. There was a social at work on wednesday. We went down to the local park where they have a bowling green (lawn bowls not ten pin) and had drinks and snacks. I didn’t bowl but it was still quite fun.

We’ve been playing a fair amount of world of warcraft recently since brewfest is on at the moment. I’ve finally gotten the loremaster achievement and we are a day away from getting exalted champion status with all the horde factions (not that any of this means anything to the people who don’t play the game).

We went out with Steve and Sam tonight. First pub we tried closed about 20 minutes after we got there (which was shortly after 5). And so we wandered off to find another venue, finally ending up at earl’s court. The pub we ate at was quite nice but the food ended up being pretty average so we went off in search of a better place for dessert. After walking around a bit we went down a side road and found this nice little pub that did a real mean cheesecake. We spent a nice night chatting and hanging out.

Tomorrow we are meeting Nick and hopefully going to watch Surrogates which actually looks like quite an interesting scifi.

We booked a little leave for next month so hopefully we’ll be able to do some touristy type stuff that we haven’t gotten around to yet.

All in all it’s been quite a nice time recently. If you’ve noticed a sudden introduction of correct capitalization in my post it’s because I’m posting this from my iPod touch and it does some very clever auto completion and auto capitalization that I couldn’t be bothered to undo
Since my lack of capitals was born partly out of lazyness I don’t think I’m going to bother trying to figure out how to keep my unique, carefree, uncapitalized style when posting from my iPod so you’ll just have to get use to it ;P

9/11 nonsense

Boy, 9/11 is a much bigger deal here than back home in SA. For a start, my normally-packed bus was deserted on Friday – and it wasn’t just me, others at work noticed the same sort of thing on the tubes. On top of that, the TV has been playing 9/11  documentaries non-stop the last few days, whipping people up into a suitable state. Enough already!  Living in fear because of something that happened eight years ago can only mean that the terrorists got exactly the reaction they were looking for from you - terror.

On a happier note, the British Government apologised to Alan Turing for the way they treated this national hero after the war. You know how it goes: break the Enigma code, save countless lives, get awarded an OBE, have your house burgled by a man you’ve had a private relationship with, report the burglary to police, answer honestly when the police inquire as to your relationship with the man, get nicked for public indecency, suffer chemical castration, commit suicide, rot in the ground for 55 years, get an apology. While Turing himself can’t benefit from the belated sentiment, I hope it brings some comfort to his family.

Quiet weekend – went to see District 9, which was pretty cool. Played some wow. Watched some series on DVD (Stargate SG1, Dollhouse). Bought more paints for Space Hulk. Bought some nice bowls for chinese food and pasta. Christened both over successive evenings with homemade beef in oyster sauce, and gnocchi with chorizo.

Happy days.