Monday, 26 January 2009

Nearest and dearest are further east and west

Inspired by the Extreme Dreams TV programme with flesh-eating bug contracted adventurer, Ben Fogle our Peru plan went into action as we decided to look for a worthy challenge before April. I've got to say though, however interesting the challenges are on that Fogle show (usually 6:30pm BBC2), they don't half string out the content with their every 5 minute summary of what's just happened followed by a preview of what's coming up for 5 minutes. The end result is about 10 minutes per episode and 20 minutes repeated highlights and countless reminders of why, where and who.

Ok, rant over and we're going to Snowdon for our anniversary in March. It's about 4 times smaller than the heights we'll be encountering but if we can survive a couple of peak visits we'll feel a little more confident about it all. Found this place to stay to rest our weary hoofs called Penmachno Hall.

Getting a catsitter is proving a little tricky and feel we've asked our saintly neighbour too many times with the past weekend a trip to see Kerry's sister, niece and nan in Plymouth (bowling and pizza was a joy as well as entertaining 7 year old Morgan with my dancing Egyptian mummy impressions). Kev and Karol have booked their Brighton holiday over Easter so that's some kitty sitting time down but before tonight the Snowdon trip was doubtful.

Rest in peace Nan
Some very sad news received last night. I hadn't really been expecting it as I thought she had at least a few years but at 98 my nan passed away over the weekend. She had a fall over Christmas breaking her ankle and things got worse after that moving from hospital to a nursing home and losing her independence. I felt I had a special connection with her sharing the very same birthday. Funeral has been arranged for 12th February so a trip back to Norfolk is planned.

Cat relief
Best mates Em and James have said they'll look after the cat for our Snowdon trip. Good luck to them as they try and find some jobs after their return from Oz and NZ as it sounds tough out there with some agencies no longer accepting CVs.

Stanton Da Scratch
With memories of VirtualVinyl causing me a headache when setting up at mates parties, this new piece of kit looks like my prays have been answered. The Stanton Da Scratch is a small USB unit with a touch sensitive circular pad which you can emulate cueing and scratching. It can also replace the need for a mixer. This YouTube video gives you an idea of what you can do with it.

Having committed to VirtualVinyl/VirtualDJ, I was worried that this wouldn't be compatible with non-Stanton software. Checked out the Stanton website's knowledge base and after some lengthy set up it does! Looks like my shopping list has got longer.

Thursday, 22 January 2009

Daft Punk and Obama

Monday, 19 January 2009

January sails away

Half the month has just slipped away and I think most of it is deciding which HD television to buy! And here it is, the Sony Bravia 40" LCD KDL-40Z4500 which has a 200hz refresh, the first of its kind. I'm using Delicious to tag all the shopping websites and monitoring their downward price - have a look at my Delicious feed on the right. Since I started looking, some retailers have reduced the prices from an average of £1500 to £1300 in the space on a 3 weeks.

January is supposed to be a quiet month to conserve the cash but we've braved the big freeze for a few treats along the way. To celebrate Sarah's last day of her old feet (before her feet operation that is) we went treated ourselves to the best tapas in Hove at Latino. It was an opposite experience the evening after trudging round Ikea with only meatballs and their chocolate biscuits a result.

Downloaded the highly addictive GTi Club+ on the PS3. This was a favourite of mine in the arcades where you race a hatchback classic around what looks like Monte Carlo. Such a shame they couldn't include a split-screen two player but there is the online function and you can customise the cars. I can see many wasted hours on that.

The highlight of the weekend just gone was Pom's leaving party. Most of the usual suspects were there and I was the official photographer by request. Didn't get a chance to dj but wasn't too bothered. It was alot more 'garage-y', thankfully the old classic stuff before it turned to trip. Flickr is your place to visit to see it colour.

Otherwise, there's the looming thought of having to train for the Peru trip with a 4 day hike to Machu Picchu and finding a cat sitter. Sasha's an old man and doesn't like traveling anywhere so we need volunteers to visit or stay at our house.

Yesterday was to remember the anniversary of someone special - to Mum.

Monday, 5 January 2009

2009 starts here

New Year's Eve 2008/09 turned out to be one of the best in ages being hosted by Paul and Sarah. Paul, Kev, Mark and myself took up spinning duties and the party went on well after we'd left about 8am.

Kerry was keen to do some DJing so she chose a handful of her favourite tunes and I taught her how to use the Numark VirtualVinyl. I've used it infrequently since the Bonfire party and this time, connecting it to the Technics decks, it takes ages for the software and drivers to recognise them. Anyway, Kerry did a great job on the night and I think she can appreciate the frustration and concentration it demands.

New Year's Day was reduced to 30 minutes of daylight and camping out on the sofa.

The last day before returning to work was a promise to Sarah to go ice skating at the Brighton Dome. I was a little nervous about how many times I would be falling over but after a few circuits we were both dodging others around the very small and crowded rink.

Looking forward to the following in 2009