Monday, 28 July 2008

Ye oldeTower

On Friday night Nicola and I went to a very nice Italian restaurant in Wimbledon. Apart from that it was a quiet night after a long day.

On Saturday we set out to London Bridge to see the Tower of London.
The Tower of London is not so much one tower, more a castle like scene with many towers and courtyards and lookout points, lots of old buildings containing ancient memorabilia. We saw some magnificant suits of armour with detailed full bodyd engravings lined in gold - very impressive. We walked up lots of staircases to see old feasting rooms, priveys and archer defence points. In one tower, there were lots of carvings in the walls from prisoners of olde times. There was even a re-enactment of a battle to watch, and demonstrations of an old catipult and battering ram. All in all, it was a lot of walking in the hot sun, and up lots of stairs... worth it though.
Next time we go out that way, we'll go up the Tower Bridge to see the view from up there, and visit the floating Naval meuseum.. and perhaps pop into the ancient Church that's around there too.

Monday, 21 July 2008

Culture

On Friday Nicola and I went to Cafe Rouge, a French Restaurant in Wimbledon Village, with John and his girlfriend Rachael. The French cuisine was very good. I had pate for starters, some form of chicken casserole for my main and a Crème brûlée for desert. A bottle of wine and a coffee liquor went well with a great meal and great company. After the meal we went to a bar for a drink. I think we were all ready to call it a night before the first drink was finished, and thats what we did. John and Rachael are really good to hang out with I hope to do it again soon!

On Saturday we woke up and pondered what to do. After much thought (enough to while most of the day away) we decided to go to Trafalgar Square. We made our way there via the tubes and walked out to a beautiful scene of history in
concrete . The architecture here was pretty awe-inspiring. After a short walk I noticed that we were on the doorstep of The London National Gallery. Of course we went in! Inside manifested the years of art history and theory I had been raised on as a boy. The art was more impressive and humbling than I imagined. I was reminded of many people and things in those historic rooms. The walls and roof were regal and magnificent. I liked all the greats, but also really enjoyed a lot of artists I hadn't heard of before. we ran out of time before we had seen half of it. I will return to continue my education!!!
I rested on Saturday night and did absolutely nothing.

On Sunday Nicola and I went to the London Comic Convention. It was awesome! So many big pop culture names. We talked to Patrick Stewart and got him to autograph a picture. He signed it "To Mike and Nicola - Patrick Stewart". We also heard him speak in an auditorium as well as Jason Mewes. Nicola got her picture taken with Charlie Weber, and I talked to and shook Claudia Black's hand. They were both cool! Patrick Stewart was awesome! So down to earth!
I bought some new toys - a cool Wolverine figurine of him with his bone claws out, surrounded by a pack of wolves. There was a lot of toys I wanted to get but didn't :(
I saw the guys that draw the cartoon "Cyanide and Happiness". They were so cool! Dressed like the Blues Brothers with wicked accents. They asked what I wanted them to sketch so I said "A pig and an atom bomb?". They sketched it for me and signed it! I'm going to frame it and put it on my wall. Yeah! What a fantastic pop culture filled day.

All in all a well balanced weekend of culture across the scales. I feel enriched because of it.

Friday, 18 July 2008

Here comes the weekend

Its friday afternoon and Ive just finnished work. Sitting here at my desk getting ready for the weekend. I worked a 14 hour day yesterday and am very happy that I get to rest for a couple days... well not work anyway :p

I just bought an Ipod Touch 16G online! Trying to use myt phone as an mp3 player was too much frustration, especially on a busy moving train. I'm going to have too many gadgets to carry soon!
It gets delivered tomorrow, I cant wait. I always look forward to the toys arriving *feels like christmas*
I've been eating a lot of Thai lunches with workmates recently. Thai red curry is my fave.


Oop, looks like Im needed across the office. I'll let you know how the weekend goes!

Tuesday, 15 July 2008

tubes, zoos and shoes

Lately on the tube Ive been reading about local knife crime and the situation in Zimbabwe and listening to audio books. The audio books solve the problem of getting travel sick from reading on the tube... great stuff. Perhaps I should invest in an ipod. My phone isn't designed to be an mp3 player and is annoying to operate as one.

We have a place now by the way. Its conveniently located in Wimbledon and has 3 floors. The top of which is ours. The attic serves as quite a nice room really. A good size and private, noise free and self contained.

Ive been working late every Thursday, doing things that I cant do during work hours. Hopefully my paycheck comes as a nice surprise. Ill be staying in late again this Thursday. Work is ticking along nicely. It looks like I will be getting an underling to come and learn from me for an hour a day, who may eventually move into the IT team. I have to find stuff for him to do, and train him up in anything before letting him touch it.

On the weekend just gone, I went out to the pubs around my work and had drinks with Nicola, Jarrod and Clem. We didn't really get too drunk, but stayed low key on Saturday in preparation for Saturday night. That was quite a good night, met up with a few groups, who all got on well, and had a blast of a night. The club we ended up in was pretty cool, although small. The people there made it fun!
On Sunday, we went to the London Zoo. I always like going to the zoo. It always puts things into perspective and reminds me that theres more to the earth than these concrete jungles we stick to. Favourites were the snakes and frogs, the African hunting dogs and the monkeys. All the walking to, from and at the zoo made me realise I need new shoes.

Sunday, 6 July 2008

aww'right guv

Its been a while since my last post, so hopefully I remember everything.

Works been cool. Lots of day to day work to get through as well as a bunch of cool projects to design and implement. Theres enough brain-testing work to keep things very interesting. I've had more linux experience here than ever before. I like the fact that we're using a lot of technologies in combination with each other. Everyone at work are quite friendly and social, they often have drinks after work and so on. Good company!

Since the day at the Polo, we went and saw the London Aquarium.
It wasn't the best aquarium Ive seen, but it is always good to see cool sea creatures!
There were cool looking jellyfish, lots of the cast of Finding Nemo, turtles, piranha's stingrays and sharks!
The jellyfish were cool to see up close in the water. The stingrays where awesome!! They swam up to the surface to greet anyone who walked up and stuck their wings up out of the water as if to wave. Piranhas are kinda scary looking..they all just 'sit' and wait in the water... placid and calm with deadly patience. The turtles where super cute in their wicked enclosure. Sharks as always held me in awe for quite a while. All in all a good day out.

Since then we went to an event called The Church! Quite an experience.
Its a big building full of people drinking and dancing to rock music. We got there at about 12 mid day and lined up to get in. In the line you could buy beer coupons to turn in at the bar. Once in we got our beers and went to the massive dance floor and hung out for a bit.
In the rafters, there were camera men scanning the crowds like snipers. Every time they saw something interesting or weird looking, the images would appear on the big screens around the place with comments and jokes written in text underneath them.

The music went on for a while until the stage shows began. There were strippers and magicians and comedians.. all with music and dancing filled intervals. Everyone was in a good mood, there were no bad vibes or fights or anything like that.

At about 3pm, it finished up and we poured out onto the street. By 3, it felt like we'd been in a club all night, and coming out into the sunny afternoon was pretty crazy.
We had a kebab in true UK style and moved on to some bars for more drinks. By that stage I was pretty much ready to go home, so we did. Man I had such a headache by the time we got home! But the experience was a blast.

Going to the pub is a culture thing here and I've done it a lot. I will often get lunch or dinner or drinks or any or all of the above!

I've been going out a lot and havent found any time to catch up on games or tv shows yet. Perhaps things will quieten down at some point.