Category: Personal

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Holiday in Australia – 2006

A run down of what we did in summer 2006. Photos here.

July 2006

25 Leave Heathrow to Brisbane via Singapore
27 Arrive Brisbane, Mount Coot-tha, ants in phone
28 Mount Nebo, Mount Glorious for lunch, Queensland Raceway (Ipswitch), The Gap shopping, travel to Rainbow Sands via Gimpia
29 Car hire – Rainbow Beach, Ferry – Inskip Point, Lake Boomanjin, Lake Birrabeen (the best), Lake McKenzie, Eurong Second Valley
30 Maheno wreck, Lake Allom, Boomerang Lake, beach drive to ferry, beach drive around Inskip Point to Rainbow Beach
31 Glass House Mountains, Australia Zoo,

August 2006

1 Mount Glorious for lunch, Brisbane centre by bus, Sun Corp Piazza, Plough Inn, San Marco (dinner)
2 Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Surfer’s Paradise, lunch – burger, Ben Elton at Queensland Performing Arts Centre
3 Fly to Sydney, land at 13:45, cab to Hotel Stellar, dinner at Circular Quay
4 Blue Mountains: Govett’s Leap, Scenic World, Three Sisters, Pie at bakehouse (Leura), Table Top View, Olympic village and stadium,ferry to Circular Quay, dinner in the Subway on Oxford St
5 Sydney SkyTower, Oz Trek, Pasta lunch at Grinders Coffee, The Hanging of Jean Lee at the Sydney Opera House
6 Ferry from Circular Quay to Rose Bay, seaplane flight to Cottage Point, Lunch at cottage point Fritata, quai. Beef, venison. Poached pears, creme brulee. Flight over harbour to Rose Bay. Ferry back
7 Drink at pub, WW won $34. Sydney Harbour Bridge climb, train from Circular Quay to museum stop (moving seats)
8 Fly to Ayres Rock land at 12:40. Sounds of silence dinner
9 Bus to Uluru, walked around ¾ of Uluru, Mount Conner in 4×4
10 Fly to Melbourne arrive 14:30. Casino and dinner by the river
11 Lunch at PMs. Tram into town and see Essenden Bombers play Aussie Rules at the MCG
12 Great Ocean Road. Bell’s Beach, Erskine Falls, Teddy’s Lookout, Grey’s Road Koalas, Lunch at Apollo Bay, Helicopter flight over the 12 Apostles, London Bridge, Loch Ard Grove
13 Breakfast at Velvet Bar, motorbike racing at Phillip Island circuit. The Nobbies, Penguin Parade
14 Watched Munich and V for Vendetta
15 Ramsey Street, Lunch at Hillsville, Green Point Chandon Vineyard
16 Lunch at Tall Ships Cafe, Tram into town, observation deck Rialto Tower
17 Arthur’s Seat, Cape Schanck, leave Melbourne fly to Heathrow via Hong Kong
18 Arrive Heathrow 14:00

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Glosssary

A glossary of terms used within this website.

ww – wonderful wife
#1 – son number one
#2 – son number two
GT5 – Gran Turismo 5 for the PS3
PS3 – Sony Playstation, third version. A delight.
MGS – Maidstone Grammar School

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Shrooms

Check out these mushrooms! Saw them in the park or rec as people down here call them. Dog in picture for size reference although I could have photoshopped it. BTW it’s my policy never to mess around with pictures apart from cropping and rotating. It should be right from the start!

20111127-091634.jpg

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Blogtime

I’m so busy at the moment I just don’t have time to write anything for the blog. I am aware that this post is now a logical contradiction but I’ll keep writing.
Work is busy and having two kids means there’s no time for anything at home. Although I wouldn’t have it any other way.
In the mean time have a look at a web page with some Wackos. Only a few, mind. Given the billions of humans on the Earth the wacko total is probably quite high.
Gallery of Wackos

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Mobile Phones

I have owned a number of mobile phones and most of them were rubbish. Going to give you a rundown of them from the earliest.
Phone number 1 – sometime in 1999 or so:
Brick
The Ericsson A1018

The order of the next few phones is not remembered easily. But here goes:
O2 X1

The next was:
A200

then:
Nokia 3210

And then the nifty fold-out keyboard:

Nokia 6280 Nokia 6230

Then we get to the first smart phone:

Nokia N70

Then the brilliant and pretty usable N95, it was the last Nokia I owned that worked well:

Nokia N95

Then the big memory but pretty useless N97:

Nokia N97

Finally, a phone that works. The iPhone 4. Until then the iPhone specification was pretty rubbish. It took a lot of soul searching to convince myself that selling out to the walled garden of Apple was worth it. However, I have to say that the iPhone is brilliant. It works!

iPhone 4

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Talk Talk Part 3

This will probably come as a bit of a surprise but I have been really impressed with Talk Talk. I know that they have most complaints out of the media providers bt I haven’t had any issues.
Download speeds in the evening used to be crippling. It just wasn’t worth trying to download any large files and almost not worth browsing the internet. However, since moving to Talk Talk our evening download speeds have really improved. What I do not know is whether that is down to Talk Talk or some other changes that have been made with the infrastructure in our area. The thing is I can’t be bothered to see which it is.
Now I’m looking forward to downloading iOS5 this evening and getting my iPhone up to date.

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Death of the PS3

So it happened again. My re-conditioned 60Gb PS3 from Sony has died. We were watching Wall-E on blu-ray and we got about 2 minutes into the film when:
Pvvvvvvvvvvvvv
The Ps3 turned off and the red light just flashed. The unit is still under warranty and so will be replaced with another re-conditioned 60Gb model, which is good because that is a classic model.
WW agreed I can suggested that I buy a brand new PS3 as well. So Amazon had a great deal on a 320Gb version bundled with a game and blu-ray movie. So until it arrives I am in limbo.
I managed to get the GT5 game save file copied when I tried turning on the PS3 to check it was FUBAR.
Updates later.

Tues 3 Oct
New 320Gb PS3 arrived with Resistance 3 and a blu-ray film. Plugged in and now vertical next to AV amp. Looks very nice. I have noticed though that the disc grabbing motor is much noisier than the old version, the disc reader motor makes a bit of noise and the buttons are real buttons rather than touch sensitive. However, the fan noise is much quieter and so much preferable.
Firmware update completed and GT5 save file copied after a bit of hassle. I’d been saving game files on a SD card because the 60Gb has lots of lovely memory card slots. Had to transfer the files to a USB memory stick using my PC before I could get them onto the new PS3.

Weds 4 Oct
Installed lots of the extra GT5 files onto the PS3 to reduce load times. That took about 40 minutes. Planing to install every game I’ve bought from the store over next few weeks as I now have the space for them. Also looking forward to DLC for GT5 by end of October.
PS3 stand arrived so I don’t have to worry about it falling over. It’s much thinner than the old version and so less stable. Now have a few more USB ports and some snazzy blue LED lights if I want to impress WW.
Old reconditioned 60Gb now taken and on its way to console heaven. Just waiting for the return of the next one.

Fri 7 Oct
New old PS3 delivered. Sony have kindly replaced my recondition PS3 with another (although it was within warranty). I have not yet checked it works as I need to be free of children to do it. New PS3 is wired in so this 60Gb will have to wait until half term.

Tues 11 Oct
GT5 version 2 download released and so very excited. Just waiting for DLC.

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Cars

We tried searching for films suitable for a sensitive 2 year old and all the interwebs came up with were:

  • Winnie The Pooh
  • Cars

    • So we bought Cars from eBay.
    It’s brilliant. The sons love it and have watched it about 10 times in the last week.
    As expected from Pixar this film is really well written and directed. The artwork is fantastic and the detail is awesome.
    I said to wonderful wife that I thought the cars suspension moves the wrong way when they go around corners. She replied

    that’s your issue with a film with talking cars?

    Fair enough. Although I guess they could have cool active suspension so the side of the car on the inside of the corner is lower rather than higher than expected. Essentially a car rolls to the outside of the corner not the inside, hey you could have cool lever linkage also!
    Anyway, great film and sons obsessed with racing cars! Brilliant.

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    Tesco are rubbish

    I had to take a toy back to Tesco as I had found it 20% cheaper at Argos and Tesco say you can just change your mind and return an item. So I checked the T&Cs at the back of the catalogue and took the required items back to Tesco Grove Green.

    • The product with original packaging
    • The order confirmation email

    from the catalogue

    My wife had ordered the toy and paid using her card but she was out that day but the catalogue and email said the card wasn’t necessary.

    I go to Tesco and hand back the toy and show the email.

    Do you have the card used to pay for the toy?

    No, was my reply. The instructions in the catalogue say you don’t have to bring it back with you.

    It will say somewhere in the email that you need to bring the card. You always need the payment card when you return items.

    After looking through the email, I suggest that the person serving me have a look as it says exactly the same as the catalogue: just bring the product and the email confirmation. Could I possibly have the returned money as a giftcard?

    yes, but only this once and as a goodwill gesture.

    My problem with this is that if the return instructions had said I needed the payment card then I would have taken it. Why was I made to feel like an idiot when I was following instructions from Tesco.
    The person serving me refused after that point to look at me. I was trying to point out that perhaps she could talk to someone senior about the fact that the emails and catalogue are wrong. I tried to say this in as helpful manner as possible but obviously failed.

    Tesco: you have messed up.

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