Grounded

So, throughout this month and last, I spent a lot of time looking at various gadgets that I had my eye on to purchase for one reason or another. Phones, electronic readers, parts for my computer, all sorts of nice, expensive luxury goods like that. I spent time weighing up these products, looking at reviews, checking alternatives and pricing them in various stores. Then I shortlisted them all on my Amazon wish list. The past few days however, I'm suddenly wondering if I even want any of them.

International Food Night

Went to a workmates apartment for an international food night tonight. Was great craic altogether. Had good food, the people there were great fun. Mostly folks from work I hadn't met yet. It's odd when you realise that half the folks in the room are just as nerdy as you and more so. I guess it comes with working in the industry. I think one of the guys cracking a joke about giving the baby a Cisco router to play with to keep him quiet is what tipped me off. That and the living room with board games, the HTPC and the big gaming computer. When I left the few remaining were settling into the couch to watch Youtube videos.

Overall a good night with fun people, I'll be sure to be at the next one too.

Tracking and Tracing

Recently, I've started keeping track of the traffic coming to the site. Not for any reason in particular, mostly just because Blogger have started offering the feature. It's been interesting to see. I've been most surprised by just how many hits my blog has gotten since they started monitoring it in early July, though I also noticed that close to a quarter of them were coming from a Chrome user in the Netherlands. Yours truly. So clearly while the figures seem high, they're really not.

Lazy Days

I still haven't recovered from Friday. That late night was a shock to the system after I've become accustomed to going to bed and getting up early. One all nighter and three days later I'm still falling asleep at my keyboard.

Bags of Fun

The Hague was fun. Crashed on by boss' living room floor and got a very early train home. It says a lot that I was able to wander aimlessly to a local train station at 7 in the morning, go to a platform and see an intercity train was headed to Haarlem, swipe my card and get on. Public transport here really is fantastic. All you need is a travel card and a bicycle.

Mafia in The Hague

Grand night out. Good food, good drink. The Hague is quite nice and a little intriguing. Some fellow across the bar pulled out an iPad. I barely saw it, but it amazed me. Tablets are the future, I want one.

To The Hague

Tomorrow night is another meeting for the Irish Mafia. Which is what they say here in Irdeto when all the Irish workers get together and head for food and drink. It's a semi-regular thing, most of the Irish workers being managers and directors who spend every other week flying to odd corners of the world makes organising these things difficult I guess. Even tomorrow, one fellow has already pulled out because he suddenly had to fly to Australia.

Distributed

The Android book I've had my eye on was published today, though it's still not available through Amazon. Which isn't an entirely bad thing I guess. While I've worked my way through my small intro book, I'm only getting started on Head First Java, which is a lot bigger and a lot denser. I may be at it a while. When I'm a bit further into it, I guess I might buy the other books I have my eye on, Hello Android and Head First C#. It'll be another while before Head First Python gets a release.

Electronic Ink?

So, ereaders and ebooks. People have been asking me why I would consider some gimmicky electronic alternative than tried and tested paper and ink. Well, actually, that's a lie, nobody's asked me. But I have been thinking about this for a while. Partially due to not having a lot to do with my time but mostly because I like gadgets.

Materialistic

Something I realised today. Lately, I've found myself wanting for lots of things. Books, gadgets, electronics, furniture, bags, and so on. Only today I found myself pricing up e-readers and checking some backpacks online. I've even started maintaining a number of wishlists on Amazon.co.uk.

Dull

Not the weather, the sky blue day today was fantastic. Just in terms of news. I had intended to see Inception yesterday, the new Christopher Nolan film, though I decided against wasting too much money the wrong side of pay day. So I'll probably take a look at it next week.

Stumble

I don't know if you noticed, but yesterday, I missed an update. I didn't even realise until this morning. Probably distracted due to the week of things not being entirely peachy. From my bus card not breaking to my saddle getting stolen, not to mention the curse of the fatal death which struck some of my virtual machines in work.

Thieves!

So, while I've been away, Cian has been using my bike. I told him he could, since he cycles to work every day and he got a puncture in his the night before I left. He hasn't been able to fix the puncture, the hub gears on his citybike makes it a little bit difficult to remove the back wheel.

Deliveries

I finally got my books today. Not seeing them in my mailbox, I emailed the people in charge of post in Irdeto to ask if they'd gotten anything. Sure enough, they had, and asked me to come up and sign for it. Up I went, got my package, and signed for it. Only then did I notice that the package had been marked received by them last Friday. I could have been reading my books all weekend!

Setbacks

Today, my bus card didn't work. I have no idea why. I stepped onto the bus, swiped it and nothing happened. So I swiped it again. Nothing happened. The bus driver was looking at me impatient, so I got off and went to the ticket machines. Swiped the card, card registered, €18.36 credit. Back to the bus, swipe card, nothing happens.

No Celebrations

Spain won the World Cup. Well done to them. Holland did not. I'm going to miss those World Cup Cakes they gave out while Netherlands were playing.

Thunderous

Today I saw Toy Story 3. The ending made me cry like a little girl. The most fun I've had in the movies since Up! Though I've only seen a small handful of films since I saw Up! I saw it in a great cinema out by Amsterdam Arena run by Pathé. Though it was a bit expensive, it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. I did have to sit around for a few hours to wait for the English version. Luckily there was a massive electronics store right outside.

Gadgetry

I like gadgets. For me they're like cool toys. New phones, mp3 players, cameras etc. I love playing with them, exploring functionality, examining the build quality. I especially like gadgets that are useful. It's one of the main reasons I enjoy visiting electronics stores. When I'm there I get a chance to get a look at gadgets I wouldn't otherwise see.

Scrum

This has nothing to do with rugby. I had a crash course in project management today. Specifically the style of project management used here in the office. Scrum, which is not an acronym, is a project management system designed for agile programming and development.

Super Store

So, a few people have told me about this German electronic superstore called Media Markt. It's supposedly a massive multi-level building, with different electronics on every floor. Their slogan is "I'm not stupid." It sounds worth having a poke around, I do like electronic store after all. I think I'll take a bus down to Amsterdam and take a poke about it on Saturday. I'm really not much of a tourist, am I?

Literary

In case you missed it, Netherlands are through to the World Cup Final. I was watching it of course. But even if I wasn't, I couldn't have missed the cheers and the vuvuzelas sounding all over town. There's going to be a lot of celebration here if they can put up a show and beat the German juggernaut. Lets face it, it's going to be Germany in the final with them.

Moving Pictures

I love the cinema. Not as some kind of fan of arthouse exploration or big old buildings, but as an excursion and an event. I've seen a lot of films in cinemas, and one thing I've always found is that the experience is always better. The films are more engrossing and more enjoyable, purely by being bigger. The sensory deprivation provided by settling into an armchair in a large dark room also helps.

Throw Away Your Television

TV is over. At least, for me it is. Every TV show I've followed is now finished. That chunk of my Sunday afternoon I usually spend watching TV shows is now empty. This week I spent a while wondering what to do with it. Then I realised that there's not much news at the weekends, so I went back to programming.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Windmills. If I had to name my favourite energy generating spinning machine, it would have to be a windmill. I can't get enough of them. Though I was able to see plenty of them on the train to Amsterdam this morning. The train even passed reasonably close of a couple. Fantastic machines, big, white, spinning. They're fantastic. Windmills!

Friday Night Heat

It's 26 degrees outside. Humidity is at 56% and I don't have any kind of fan or air conditioner. Not wind to speak of, the air is hot, sticky and not moving. I find this difficult to tolerate. I wonder if I could ever survive a Japanese summer if I can't take this. It's nearly worse here than it was in the office, and we didn't have air conditioning there either.

No Cameras

Went for a video conference today, though it turned into a conference phone call at the last minute. I was a little relieved. The camera kept spinning around and surveying the room while the system was supposedly off. It was a little creepy.