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Daily Life, Random Silliness

The Spotted Egg

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This morning in the yard behind my workplace, I spotted this:

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An egg.
Not just an egg, either.
It was also moving. With little breeze to blow so much as my hair, let alone the weight of an egg, I thought “maybe it has a bird inside!”
There are lots of birds around my workplace, so you never know. Not sure how it got there, in the middle of a Tarmac yard, without breaking, but never mind that. It’s a baby bird, trying to hatch!

I got some cardboard to scoop it up with (and a box that might make an ok temporary nest for it), and picked it up as carefully as I could. It rolled quickly a I was lifting it, and I nearly dropped it. It was also surprisingly light.
It was made of polystyrene.

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But why?
What is the point of a perfect egg of polystyrene? The only things I can come up with is that it’s used to model eggcups, or confuse snakes. What other use could it have?

Travel

Rome – Part 4 (Final part, plus weird photos)

Sunday – the last day.

I haven’t slept that well and woke up with quite a dry/sore throat.
If truth be told, I think it’s been heading my way for days. My ears were popping on the plane and refused to pop back right, for the whole time we’ve been here. Not sure if they’re right or not now.

Also, it’s quite smokey. Lots and lots of smokers. Much worse than UK. Breathing in that passive smoke all day can’t be good for you. I’ve even seen officials at tourist attractions stood right outside smoking away, and people cooking in restaurants/cafe, fag in hand. Disgusting.
According to a quick google search, the Italy smoking ban in 2005 lowered the number of smokers from 26% of the population to 24%. It doesn’t appear to be enforced either, really.

I’m also not feeling too great after attempting to tackle that big gristly steak last night. I must learn to stick to my guns with my ‘no red meat’ policy.
If there’s one thing I’d add to Rome, it’s the words “with seasonal vegetables” to their menus. What’s with this ‘couple of salad leaves’ bullshit? I’m not going to pretend I always hit my 5-a-day on at home, but I do a fuckload better than this on fruit and vegetables usually. It’s a surprise the Italians don’t all have either scurvy/rickets, or wind up massively obese. Continue reading Rome – Part 4 (Final part, plus weird photos) →

Travel

Rome – Part 2

Saturday AM

I’ve just overheard some people in our hotel discussing the tourist tax. This isn’t some sort of political term. Rome has an actual tax on tourists, variable depending on how nice a hotel you’re staying in. There is a sign in the lift of our hotel saying we’ll be charged €2 a day, per person, for being here. I think it goes up to €5 a day per person in the expensive hotels. You pay it when you check out, in cash, which certainly doesn’t sound dodgy. At all. Continue reading Rome – Part 2 →

Travel

Rome – Part 1

Thursday

I’m a nervous flyer, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop being impressed by the distance you can travel in the time it takes to watch a film.
This is the first trip where we’ve organised it ourselves and we’ve not gone through a travel agent.
We bought flight + hotel from British Airways (they were cheaper than Easyjet and better flight times), and are organising our own transport before and after the plane lands.
All went fine.
There were some noisy kids on our flight (some sort of school trip from Canada), but they quietened down once we took off, and clapped when the plane landed. Which is nice isn’t it.
There had been no option to choose food for the flight, so I had assumed no food/drink included. But they came round and gave every passenger a wrap (Duck, or vegetarian available), and your choice of drinks – or multiple drinks. Tea and water for my girlfriend, tea for me. Some people appeared to have non-alcoholic cocktails. All included in the price, seemingly.
Also we got free newspapers. I (from The Independent), The Mail, or the Financial Times. Not bad, really.

So – Rome.
Continue reading Rome – Part 1 →

Daily Life, Random Silliness

No Milk This Morning

I typically get up for work a couple of hours before my girlfriend. This morning, I got up to discover there was only enough milk for a cup of tea each (we would normally both have cereal as well, at our respective breakfast times). So I had my tea and toast for breakfast, and sat down and wrote my girlfriend a short note about all of this. I’ll save you the hassle of trying to read my spider-scrawl handwriting (which is even worse at 5.30am), and type it up for you now. Continue reading No Milk This Morning →

Daily Life, Technology

I’ve bought an E Ink e-reader

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After a lot of thought, I’ve decided to purchase an E Ink e-reader, and done just that.

This is more of a troublesome decision than you might imagine. I didn’t want to spend too much money, although thankfully there’s so few options in this area really (compared to the myriad of tablets available, for example), it’s quite difficult to spend a lot. I narrowed it down to something from Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (The Nook, models of which have just recently become available in the UK) and something from Kobo.

I ruled out the Kobo models almost immediately due to a load of average reviews of the interface, and complaints about the speed of use. It’s apparently the most popular eInk eReader in Canada (but then according to something else I read, apparently you can’t buy Kindles in Canada). It’s about the same price as the rivals, at £59.99 for the base models (either a 5″ “mini” version, or a 6″ version.)

This left the Nook Simple Touch, and the Amazon Kindle. Continue reading I’ve bought an E Ink e-reader →

Daily Life, Gripes, Technology

Phishing/telephone scam

I’ve been on the Internet for long enough to know to ignore phishing emails (Paypal has lost ALL my details? What? Again?!), dodgy links (free s3xx0r in MY area!), and anything that claims to have information on my police record (I don’t have one), but something happened today that I’ve never had before. A phishing phone call. (Not sure that’s even the right term as it didn’t happen electronically. Phroning?) And as the various pennies have only just dropped, I thought I’d write about it. Continue reading Phishing/telephone scam →

Gripes, Technology

Is it just my bad luck, or is Skype a bit rubbish?

I’m just about to give up with it.

I’m going to start doing a regular podcast, and I thought IF anyone ends up listening to it, and IF they want to give some feedback, they could call us on Skype and leave a voicemail, that we could play back during the next podcast. But it’s not to be with Skype. It just doesn’t work for me. Continue reading Is it just my bad luck, or is Skype a bit rubbish? →

Travel

Corfu – Part 9

What a terrifying ride that was. No, no – I’m not talking about the flight here. The taxi to the airport from our apartment.
The driver stopped, opened the window and asked “Demitroula Apartments?”
This is where we had been staying, and from the fact he had a couple already in the car, my girlfriend and I both assumed he was lost, and looking for the place, for these new people who were arriving. Sadly, not. He was picking us up to take us to the airport.
We’d been told to wait in that spot, by our rep, and were expecting a coach, so a taxi was worse.
He got in, phone in hand, and started a call as he was pulling away. It being a manual, this meant he had to take his one remaining hand off the wheel to change gears. Well what could else could he do? Hang up, and concentrate on his driving?
As he took his hands off the wheel and accelerated, the car would vear off to the right. He’d yank it back, and so on. All the way down an already narrow road, with cars parked on one side.
We joined a dual carriageway, on which he got well over the speed limit (I think it’s about 70mph ish, but there were points when he was hitting 100.)
He finished his call, put the phone back in its charger. And relax.
Then he got it out again, made another call. Continue reading Corfu – Part 9 →