Compu Global Hyper Meganet

Somedays you've just got to love the Internet...

Yesterday, having finally decided that I needed a laser printer (who doesn't), I finally decided to place my order. Going to PriceRunner (my first stop before buying anything these days - highly recommended, along with KelKoo & Dealtime) to check what the latest prices were, I was happy to find a suitable bundle of technological joy for under £50 - undercutting the likes of Dixons, Currys & PC World by a good £25.

So I zoomed off to the website with the cheapest price and placed my order at 4.40pm. The site said that "if orders were placed by 5pm it would be sent that day". A couple of hours later and I get an e-mail that linked to the CityLink site and my order, where I could happily watch my printer trundle up the country overnight.

Checking on it's progress this morning, I saw that it had arrived in the right city and had been bundled onto a van - ready for delivery today. Funny old thing, I'm 5 words into this blog, when the buzzer goes and there is my shiny new laser printer! A mere 20 hours after I bought it from some unheard of company in London - who are probably on their way to Tijuana now, courtesy of my credit card.

On this sort of note and what really made me laugh the other week. One or two days after I got back from my German trip, I had made myself one of those magnificent breakfasts that can only really be produced in one's own kitchen. Essentially bacon & eggs on bread (sorry folks, I am a canivore, but, generally, only piggies are in the firing line), it actually entailed mushrooms, onions, spring onions, pine nuts, sunflower seeds, tomato, iceburg lettuce, smoked bacon & Pastel Coloured Free Range Eggs from Clarence Court ("supporting rare breeds" says the box) on wholemeal seed & nut bread, all washed down with Tropicana Sanguinello (red oranges). Mmmm, I feel quite hungry now!



It's the type of breakfast that makes you leap out of bed for and then need to return to for an hour, in order to snooze it off.

Anyway, while eating this orgy of breakfast delights, I ended up reading the carton that the free range eggs came from. On the inside, apart from telling me what a wonderful life these hens were having (good), was a link to their website.

Sitting at the computer, as I was, I zoomed off to Clarence Court and, then, immediately clicked on the 'hen-cam'. Low & behold there I sat, munching on my brekky, watching 'my' ecstatic little hens running all over the show in a wonderful outdoor farm (an Alton Towers of the Hen world I thought), like the mad little fowls they are...

Gotta luv the 21st century (well the bits where we're not trying to blow ourselves to smithereens). The Hen-Cam is here.

Although when i just went to it, it wasn't working.

Yes - I did phone them up and told them to expect 1000's of hits, or two at least, and enquired when it'll be back online. They were unaware of the glitch and are looking into it as we speak (got their best rooster on it, I suspect). I did also tell them that "I thought they were doing a great job" and, after hanging up, wondered if this was another early sign of impending senility (phoning up a farm, asking when the hen-cam will be back online).

This all reminds me of a quip I heard once. On the subject of dolphins getting caught in tuna nets (which is bad, naturally), someone said "Yeah, well they're all up in arms for the dolphins, but you don't hear anyone banging on about the tuna's predicament do you!". Good point...

Oh, goodie, I just checked and the hen-cam is back on! Although, it's different to last time when I could see a grassy field with trees, a river and swings (ok, there were no swings). Now it's kinda up close & personal and the picture is somewhat intermittent (last time it was better than Nasa's)!

That was summer...

Sadly, this blog has become another casualty of me being sooo busy at the moment (currently sitting in the same bin as exercise, e-mails & a social life). Full of enthusiasm as I may be, I just don't have the time to write more than a few feeble words...

Discussing feeble things - we had a great summer this year (or 'a great April', as some people may call it). Really, it was lovely, 3 weeks of unadulterated sunshine. Sadly, I spent most of it working, but did manage to spend one whole day in the sun and, then, cheekily informed a client that "in a tense vote between 'doing his important work' or 'sitting on my arse in the sun' - the outside world through... although, it was a close vote!".

Anyway, with dark clouds filling our skies again, I took a slightly interesting picture (remember, I don't get out much) from my work desk of a stormy sunset the other night. Taken at full zoom (200mm), with 1/2 sec time lapse, I was lucky to get anything, but if you click on the picture you'll see a feathered friend (or a tip-duck, depending on your disposition).

Mental note to self: 2A

Dinnae drink & rollerblade:

- decades of ice skating / ice hockey experience £8,000
- conversion to roller blades £200
- Friday night drinks £40
- zooming around flat at 0200 Saturday morning, attempted broken hip in kitchen - PRICELESS!
Right thigh, Tuesday morning - nice!

Who are these people?

Very much against the grain, I decided to go to bed early on Saturday night - missing out on what could have been a good party...

I got up early on Sunday morning with the keen intention of photographing a local event. Living right in the heart of the city, I knew that between 10 & 11am, there were going to be 9,000 people running past my apartment.

It was the annual 10km run - an event I know only too well!

A couple of years ago I ran it 2 days after shifting house - that is after shifting into a new apartment that was up 3 sets of fairly steep stairs (like Dutch steps - if you've ever been to the Netherlands). Anyway, 3 friends were supposed to give me a hand and none of them showed up *grumble* (of course, they all had good excuses)! On the day my Quads were already absolutely fried and it was a horror run.


Last year I did it again and this time there was a mini-heatwave (20 degrees is a mini-heatwave in this part of ol' blighty). Hence, the ol' spleen took another good hammering.

This year I decided 'bugger it' and vigourously fended off all suggestions about doing it with a firm and unrelenting "NO, I'm not doing it this year!"

But, I did decide to photograph the event and as you can tell by the pictures, the weather was atrocious. Really, really, really bad (especially for photography)! I'm starting to think that 10km races & I don't mix.

Nonetheless, I got some interesting pictures (these aren't them). Actually, it was quite hard to get any pictures of the 'elite atheletes'. Between the bad conditions, using a zoom lens and the fact that they were going downhill - bloody quickly, it was hard to get anything of them at all.

As an aside - the eventual winner of the womens race, won the 2005 New York Marathon. Touche!

Cripes, that's a big ship!

Beloved regular readers of this blog will be well aware of my continuing efforts to maim myself recently. Various escapades on inline skates have left little bits of 'Fargonite' smeared all over pavements around the UK. Happily, I can now report that this particular circus act has been taken further afield.

As alluded to in recent posts (if you read German), I had a groovy wee road trip to Germany last week. 5 days in Hamburg, Bremen & Lubeck, to meet up with my brother R for a couple of days (he lives in Austria, although, only for another 48 hours).

Having got safely to Lubeck airport (after having initially departed my flat at 3am on a Saturday morning *ugh*), picked up my hire car, found the city of Hamburg in appalling weather and then navigated to the Hotel, I, finally, had the rest of the day to myself.

After a quick snooze and dinner in the Hotel 'zum Zeppelin' (Graf Ferdinand von Zepplin, Father of the Airships, stayed there when his car broke down outside the Hotel early into the 20th century. They asked him if they could use his name for the Hotel and he said 'Yes'), I caught the U-Bahn into town and set about exploring a bit of the city... with camera in hand.

Naturally, in true Gonzo fashion, I headed immediately to the Reeperbahn to see what all the fuss was about. After a quick assessment of the scene and, not long after arrival, having been 'informed' by a burly, bearded, German biker guy "zat photos vere not to be taken in zis area", I, astutely, decided 'bugger it' and found a bar where I could have a beer.

At this odd wee bar I asked if they had Weiss Beer (a Bavarian beer made from wheat, vice hops. Try it, it'll change your drinking life. I, personally, recommend 'Erdinger') to which, with a disinterested look, the barlady said "No, Becks!". "Oh" I said "have you got anything else. "No, just Becks!". And so it was, they sold Becks and only Becks (reminds me of a 'Mad' comic joke once about a radio station that only played "Led Zepplin's - Stairway to Heaven".

The actual conversation-

Me: "Haben Sie weiss bier?"
Barlady: "Nein. Becks!"
Me: "Ach So, welches anderen bier haben Sie"
Barlady: "Nichts - nur Becks!"
Me: "Hmmm, klar - ein Becks bitte"

So, having finished my yummy Becks, I headed down to the Harbour area to see what was going on. The port was, as it turned out, only 500 metres downhill from where I was, as a crow flies... or as a Beck's bottle rolls... or, in fact, as a Beatle crawls...

I casually wandered down the hill and, as I got closer, I could see an enormous ship looming up, directly in front of me. Now, I don't know a heck of a lot about ships but, by anyones standards, it was a bloody big ship. As I got closer and closer it just rose further into the air and, then, when I was only about 200 metres away from it, I realised that it really was absolutely colossal!

It was about then that I started to notice that I wasn't the only person taking more than a passing interest in this ship. There were lots of people standing about, all taking pictures and when I looked down onto the dock area, I noted that there were big crowds down there as well.

By now, knowing something was truly afoot (or afloat), I furiously got out my camera, changed lenses and starting taking pictures. The damn thing was already on the move and starting to slide from view, behind some buildings. After taking a few hurried pictures, I ran another 800 metres down the road to try and get a less obstructed view.

In this new location, I threw down my daybag and pulled out my camera again. Rapidly assessing the situation, I realised that I needed to get a bit further out onto the busy road in order to get a better angle of the ship. Very quickly checking for traffic to my right, I proceeded to step out. On my last step, at edge of the pavement, I caught the hem of my trousers under my other shoe and as I tried to pull that leg forward, my pants pulled taut and toppled me forwards and over, onto the road.

Before I knew it, *CRASH*, I had fallen knee first and ended up sprawled out on road surface. Now, looking properly Left, I saw that there was traffic coming directly towards me. I was pleased that I had managed to cradle the camera and protect it in the fall but, now, it was time to get off the road. I quickly sprung back up and leapt back off the road.

Safely back on the side of the road, I mentally berated myself for my stupidity! When I had checked the road for traffic, I had looked 'Right', BUT, of course, I was in Germany, Europe, and the traffic there drives on the right! Hence, I actually needed to have looked 'Left' to clear the road.

I had been in such a rush and with that blinding bit of stupidity, I had fallen, completely and ignorantly, into a road full of busy traffic endangering my safety - or the camera's at least. Luckily (he says with 4 still intact limbs), the traffic was slowed up, slightly, by the traffic lights further down the road.

As I somewhat tentatively took some more pictures of this ship, I noticed that my knee was hurting a bit. Subsequently, in a toilet in a hotel bar (where I did find an Erdinger), I pulled up my trousers and looked at my knee and took the picture above (I'm surprised, looking at the pictures on this blog, that I don't get more hits from people into self-harm).

This, of course, all leads to the question: what the hell was the ship anyway?

As it turns out the ship was called 'The Freedom of the Seas' (as can be seen in the quality picture above) and, in fact, is the largest ship in the world (passenger ship anyway - I assume there are bigger Aircraft Carriers?). It was in Hamburg for its last trials (I don't know if it was built there though) and, on that night, it was going out for it's last night sea trial.

The damn thing moves pretty fast (as I discoverd) and, as I subsequently learnt after my wee adventure, during those few minutes that I tried to photograph it - it had moved from its initial berth, a kilometre eastwards to the main Port area, where it executed a 3-point turn and had then, rapidly, buggered off northwest and out into open seas...

And, of the pictures, you may very well ask? Well I must have taken at least 25 snaps and all of them are crap! Being nightime, I was having to use a bit of timelapse photography to try to burn the pictures in and with no tripod to assist me, they are all blurred and crap. The one above is the only slightly usable one I have i.e. for a blog (click on it to see a bigger version) and even that does not do the the ship any justice at all.

2 days later it set forth on its maiden voyage from Hamburg to New York. Since there have been no 'Titanic' type stories in the news since my return, I assume it safely made it...

Hmmm, I wonder if I sent them a letter and a blurry photograph, whether they'd give me a free trip?