02.28.07
Posted in General at 13:02 pm by Guy
This is a very intersting read, not only if you’re a map freak like me. I don’t think there’s ever been much doubt as to the Russian’s spy capabilities, but it turns out that their capabilities include clandestine cartography as well. Check out this story on Envirocheck which describes how the Russian’s secretly mapped large parts of the planet for military purposes, including:
This impressive mapping operation formed part of the most comprehensive global survey every attempted, with the Russian military creating detailed, accurate maps of practically every country in the world. The maps reveal the exact location and purpose of every structure of possible military importance including the width of roads, the height of bridges, the depth of rivers, train and bus stations and prisons
You can check out the maps for free during Feb and March if you are interested, and I also have the original paper written by John Davies if anyone would like it.
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02.27.07
Posted in General at 22:43 pm by Guy
I have long been annoyed by the English media. I find the reporting biased (you can argue all you like about whether any journalism isn’t biased but that’s not the point)and sensationalist.
Example in the press yesterday: Mike Hussey, stand-in captain of the Australian cricket side for 3 games, spoke in a press conference yesterday and named 4 sides as the most likely to pose a threat to Australia’s defence of the cricket world cup. I first read the story on the BBC website and the headline appears objective enough ‘Four threats to Aussies - Hussey’. The summary equally objective:
Mike Hussey believes South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and New Zealand will pose the biggest threat to Australia at the forthcoming World Cup.
Overall, a rather non-juicy story. And quite frankly, so what. Who cares Mike Hussey thinks ‘South Africa are a very, very well drilled unit’, ‘Sri Lanka, I think, are going to be very dangerous’, ‘Pakistan on their day are dangerous’, and ‘Kiwis have been playing some consistent one-day cricket as well’. In fact, he hasn’t even said that any are ‘favourites’ as such.
But wait. Holy sh1t, he didn’t say England are one of the favourites!!! Don’t worry, turn over to skysports and the headline for the same story reads: ‘Hussey: England not a threat’ Huh? Am I missing something? He didn’t say anything of the sort!! So because Sky are all bitter and twisted that Mike Hussey mentioned 4 teams other than Aus who might be a threat at the world cup and didn’t include poor precious England, the headline is made to appear inflammatory. Why? Cos the story is a little boring to the English nation without it.
I notice that sky have since got Michael Vaughn to come out to calm the nation by confirming that England ARE contenders. Well done Sky, and thanks Michael, at least I can sleep in this safe knowledge tonight. Sky, get over yourself. England ARE contenders by virtue of the fact that they are entered - duh - (as are 15 other teams including Scotland and Ireland incidentally) and if Eng ARE a genuine threat, then let them prove it.
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02.24.07
Posted in General at 18:12 pm by Guy
Yes, your eyes do not deceive you, the tickets for the world cvup cricket have arrived!!! WOOHOO! One of the final pieces in the puzzle, as the ‘tor’ looms large on the horizon. Flights bookes, trip fully paid for, and ticekts to the actual cricket in hand. Bring on the sun, sand, rum and cricket. mmmmmmmmm, I can taste the atmosphere……. and it is good!
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02.22.07
Posted in General at 22:54 pm by Guy
Beth-Anne and Aiden managed to scoop free tickets to a pre-release screening of Magicians this evening in Wimbledon. For the record, Magicians stars Robert Webb and David Mitchell from some Channel 4 program Peep Show. I am not going to claim that I know the show or either character so we’ll leave it there. After queueing for too long (any queueing is too much for me), we were shepherded into a huddle with the ‘youngsters’, and after 15 minutes told that the movie was over booked and we weren’t getting in. However, before I even contemplated getting stroppy, we were promptly offered the option of watching any movie we wanted that evening, or to take home vouchers to tune of £15 - schweet! So, for kicking around the Odeon for a few minutes, we were given tickets for any show, any time because we couldn’t watch a free movie. Nice.
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02.18.07
Posted in General at 16:36 pm by Guy
Can I suggest very briefly that it is not a good idea to drink snakebite out of 2litre jugs, nor is it a good idea to drink beer, snakebite, Jameson’s, Grants, Jack Daniels, Stroh rum and galliano in one evening.
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Posted in General at 16:22 pm by Guy
We ended Sarah’s folks trip to the UK with a return to Brick Lane. We are all big fans of a bit of spice, and after a thoroughly enjoyable trip to ‘The Lane’ during Sue and Barry’s last trip, we thought it would be a suitable finale. Once again, the food was fantastic. I’m convinced that just about all the restaurants along Brick Lane all share the same kitchen, and it doesn’t matter which restaurant you try, they’ll all great.
Following dinner the evening took a rather odd twist Read the rest of this entry »
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02.12.07
Posted in General at 15:33 pm by Guy
Sarah and returned home last night on the train from an awesome weekend in Dorset. Its weird how, by planning and by chance, you end up seeing certain parts of hte country several times before visiting others. Strangely enough, Sarah and I have been down to the Sussex and Hampshire coast, including the New Forest, etc several times, but never ventured further west to Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall. Sarah’s folks are out here visiting at the moment, and I took the weekend off to join the ‘Kitchings’ on a self catering weekend. Sarah found this AWESOME place near Weymouth, a 4 star self catering place which sleeps 6 and was historically a Millers cottage - you know where I’m going with this…. so the site obviously used to be a mill, complete with 1000 year old mill and barn. The River Wey (of Weymouth, not Weybridge in Surrey) passes through the site, no longer through the mill wheel, but rather through the original overflow sluices. The owners of the main house on site have converted teh original cottage superbly, and rather expensively although this is not reflected in the cost of hire. We spend the weekend walking and exploring Weymouth and the south coast.
For fear of one of you booking the place out when I want to return, I’m not going to reveal online where we stayed, but if you are ever down near Weymouth or are thinking of spending time in that area, let me know and I can point you in the right direction. Weymouth itself is not worth going out of your way to see, just another tacky English seeside town, but the surrounding coutryside and coastline is spectacular. Dorchester nearby is another town steeped in history as one of the original early day settlements which litter the area, and which is also home to Thomas Hardy.
We should organise a mtb trip to Dorset for sure.
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Posted in General at 15:12 pm by Guy
What is the deal with spammers? Does spamming actually work? There are very effective spam catchers avaialble nowadays for email and internet so a lot of spam no longer actually reaches our inboxes and blogsites. Having said that, when I clean out my spam filters and occasionaly check out my spam folder to check its not catching me mates, I find it mind blowing how much spam there still is. Question: When spammers send out millions of emails to unsuspecting inbox’s, do people actually read spam, click on links and ultimately reply or even buy stuff being advertised? Surely not?! But, if the answer is ‘no’ then there would be no market and there would be no point in spamming people. So, there must be stupid people out there, millions of them, that actually take notice of spam, click on links, visit websites, and buy stuff. Its incredible. Idiots. I think they call it ‘natural selection’.
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02.05.07
Posted in General at 12:24 pm by Guy
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have lift off! After months of planning, clandestine operation, deliberation, negotiation and discussion, Water Environment Limited officially started trading on Thursday 1st February. So all of you that deperately need Flood Risk Assessments carried out, please feel free to contact me and I will consider offering you a minor discount 
These truely are exciting times, and I am really looking forward to the coming months (the raking in of cash, not the working on weekends bit) as we establish, and then grow the empire.
www.waterenvironment.co.uk
NO comments regarding the mugshots please. Any such messages will be treated as spam and prompted deleted from the site!
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Posted in General at 12:14 pm by Guy
Most of you will probably have noticed the missing tool bar down the right hand side of the front page… its mysteriously dropped to the base of the page for some time now, not by my doing. Anyway, so if you’re looking for it, then its down there at the bottom. I haven’t had time, aka I can’t work out what the &^%$ is going on, so it will have to stay down there a little longer until someone helps me….. help.
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