Filed under: Lifestyle
It’s funny how a thick chocolate milkshake by the name of Frijj, can just brighten up your day. I’ve had a crappy day of accounting-related stuff. Being in charge of all the IT here means that I also have to keep track of all the amounts spent on things and totals for the budget and whatnot. It’s Not Fun. I’ve been asked to give a full listing of everything we’ve bought in the last year, really, and all the bits and pieces attached to that. The result is lots of pages with really fine print on them, and numbers correlating to things that I don’t really want to know about.
And then Frijj came along and brightened up my day. It’s chocolaty goodness just pours from the top of it, and it’s thick, fresh, fill-me-up buttercup taste is just like a sunny blue sky on a Saturday morning. Hmmm. I think it’s good for me too, so I should drink more of it, more often. More. Mooooooore.
I would say that the most dissappointing thing today is going to be finishing the milkshake. From then on, the day will go all down hill. Luckily, I’m the only one in the IT room for the afternoon, which means that if I keep my head down real low, no one will notice that I’m here, and I can pot through the day without having to leave my desk.
Chances.
In other news, I’m off to London for the upcoming weekend. Training down there on Saturday morning and coming back on Monday morning before work. Adam Francis is coming to London for a few days so I’m off to visit Muppet et al. Should be a goodie…
Filed under: Travel
Paris paris paris. We had such an amazing time over the weekend in Paris. Got back at 2am on Tuesday morning, and tucked ourselves into bed for a couple hours before having to get up for work again. I was lucky, because I was just going in to my usual work… Jen on the other hand, had to wake up early early, and start studying for the final round interview that she had with VisitScotland.com.
Rewind 5 days.
The manky foot. Jen has had a manky foot for a while. She’s blogged about it I think, but it’s worth mentioning again. It played a huge role in our trip to France because a day before we left, she was taken to hospital by her co-workers because they were so frightened of it, and couldn’t look at it’s mankyness any longer without having it diagnosed. It became septic. This made the manky foot all the more mankier, because it now meant that she had to go on to anti-biotics to correct it. Not only this, but she also had to have a big black marker pen line around the perimeter of it, to ensure that it grows no further. The mankiness that grows. Well, it didn’t… luckily. Though so many hours were spent in Paris laughing at how manky the foot in fact was, as well as paying careful attention to the spreading, or lack there of. She was supposed to be in a wheelchair, so the Scottish medical team said, but she wasn’t… and she also walked the Champs on many occasions, as well as climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower… so bygones medical team. She was incredibly brave about it all, and although we laughed about it, it was quite serious, and we took many precautions whilst walking around on it, including many a well-deserved stop along the beautiful Parisian rivers. She was a champion. Jenbug 1, manky foot 0.
So we left at the crack of dawn, paid our £5 taxi fair to the station at 3:20am, caught our two-and-a-half-hour £20 return bus from Edinburgh to Prestwick (near Glasgow) and shoved our baggage aboard the departing, £65 return, Paris flight. We made it. Were safe and sound in our Paris hotel by 11am, only to be told that they had messed up the booking and that they would be covering costs for us to stay next door, and that we can “wash our hands now, and then come back later when the room is ready, okay?”. Strange egyptian looking lady. We came to hate her in a way.
So what do you do when you have some time to kill in Paris… well, you eat. You eat and you eat some more. We ate. We ate Lasagne and a big margarita pizza. We laughed at the consistently crappy service that we got, and the way that they treat the English… chjupachjupapajujupa.
Thats the way French people talk 
Troddled on back to the hotel and got into our room to have a nice afternoon siesta, before heading off to our first site, the Arc de Triomph. Which was rad. It also rained. Little did we know that these were two themes that would keep coming up throughout our trip. It rained pretty much the whole time we were there except for the last day, and when we went up the Eiffel Tower. All the way up to the top… the top top. Basically the top of the world. And the worlds biggest queues. Lots of the world. Lots of queues. But we waited none-the-less and we spent our time on the top of the world, and we danced like crazy people, and we pointed at signs, and almost got blown off of the top of the world. We were winning.
Lazy days cruising on the Seine, wet trips up to La Sacre Cur, dodgy lunches from dodgy Paris restaurants, cheap accomodation and smelly drunk people on the underground. What a weekend!
Filed under: Ducklight Travels
Ducklight Travels Episode 2 is now available for watching. You can check it out at our hosting space on Vimeo (link below).
If you’re on a slower connection and the video stops and starts a lot, then just hit pause on it, come back to it a while later, and hit play again. It should play out fine once it’s buffered the entire video.
Leave us some comments or feedback on the Vimeo site!
Thanks for watching!
Filed under: Lifestyle
The start of the week is always the toughest. It’s even worse this week because of the fact that we’re both looking forward to our trip to Paris this weekend. Aah, why doesn’t Friday get here already? One thing that we’re both really looking forward to, is tomorrow night. We’re going to Glasgow for the Willy Mason concert. It’s going to be awesome… we just have to catch the first train from Waverly station, get there as soon as possible… Takes about an hour on the train from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Catch a taxi to the venue and get blown away by Willy Mason’s tunes. Still haven’t figured out how we’re going to get home afterwards… We’re hoping there will still be trains running after the concert, but who knows. Bah, at worst we have to catch a long expensive taxi… or sleep at the train station.
It’s good to keep things uncertain. Makes for exciting times.
Filed under: Lifestyle
It’s coming to the end of the week again, and the outlook is bleak in terms of weather forecasts here in Edinburgh. In fact, across the entire UK region really. Rain and wind… wind and rain… can’t complain. I can’t complain because it’s expected when you come to Scotland, let alone the UK. It’s pretty much known for it here… it’s the image that you always had in your mind before you came up here. It’s not the image that you discovered, however. Up until now, it’s been amazing weather… The exact opposite of what you would think Scotland’s weather was like. It’s honestly sunny a lot here, and crystal clear days are the rule rather than the exception. Nevertheless… May hits, and everything changes. It used to occur as you got into April, but thats global warming for you… shifting of all the seasons… early buds in the wrong months… warm nights in the wrong climate…
An American president ensuring that global warming talks are addressed, but don’t take up too much time in the next G8 summit. *sigh*
Anyways. It’s Friday, and the weekend is sporting a new pair of shoes and a smile. Red pepper humus, naarn bread and crackers.
Filed under: Travel
It is the end of day one at the new job. The new job hasn’t really started yet, cause today consisted on introductory lectures, and looking at their websites and publications on the net. I will have to be careful about mentioning the name, cause their google ranking is not very high whereas ours is breathtaking (google kyle and jen Edinburgh…see?) so I would not want my web criticisms coming up as the first thing about the company. That is what is known as bad business practice, certainly for them (if it gets me hired as a web strategist, then I suppose it is what is known as good business practice for me…).
I am also excited because on Thursday I am going to be the Voice of Authority in a meeting on SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SMM (Social Media Marketing). Those of you who know me might be surprised that I am going to be the voice of authority, but basically this is because there is this guy trying to pitch viral online marketing strategy to us (frankly not a bad thing, considering previous ‘obscure URL, unsearchable and unlinked site’ rants) and I am the only one in the company who can say the words, let alone spell them. Except for the IT guy maybe. But in fairness, after 2 and a half years of dating a geek in a geek network of geeks, I think I can hold my own against the IT guy. Bwahahaha. Bwahahahaha. Just don’t ask me to do a mail merge.
Conclusion: Day one, good.
Paris! Nope, Amsterdam didn’t work out… ticket prices went up another £30, totalling £130 return, and we started to worry about spending just that on flights, let alone what it’s going to cost to be there for a few days. So, with a little more investigation, we have selected 2 nights in Paris, rather. Not a bad selection, if I do say so myself. City of Love, some might say. We getting the flights for £60 return, and staying in a hotel for the 2 nights, for just £70 all inclusive, for both of us, like 1km from the Arc de Triomphe. It’s all good… flights are booked, and it’s all set. Will book the hotel later on today, and then the weekend away is set.
I’ve been to Paris before, with H, a couple years back, and it was good fun. It’s a really cool city if you are only there for a few days. More than that and you start to curse the parisians and their lame ass ways. Anyways, it’s all good. We have an exciting holiday away in Paris.
The next month is going to be riddled with travel… ooooh… Glasgow on 22nd May, Paris 26 – 28 May, Pisa 16 June, Florence 16 – 17 June, Rome 18 June.
Aah, the life of a traveller.
People turn orange here. As soon as summer gets close, people start becoming orange. It’s a strange phenomenon, probably easily explained by the ridiculous amounts of self-tan that gets used, and the uber dodgy sun beds that people start lying on… but a phenomenon all the same. Jen and I discuss it at great lengths sometimes… I myself am about 2 orange people away from pointing at them and calling them oranges. Lets cut the crap and call a spade a spade… an orange an orange… orange people, freaky people.
Starting work at 10am has it’s advantages and disadvantages… For starters, if you only *start* work at 10am, then it means you’ll only wake up like an hour before that to get ready… what does this do, you ask? well, it writes off a completely useful morning. A morning that you could spend updating the blog, doing some editing, washing things. Instead, you just sleep. Which is great, don’t get me wrong… The problems are escalated by the fact that I only finish work at 6pm. Which means the following for our hero: Getting home by like 6:45 on most occasions, if I leave work as the clock strikes 6… starting to make dinner etc… by the time you’ve made dinner, eaten, it’s already getting towards 9:30. By 10pm everyone else in the house is moving off to bed because of how early they’ve got to get up the next morning… this leaves Kyle in the dark… eager for attention… chasing his tail… supposed to be geeking.
It’s not all that bad though… and Jen’s been really good about staying up with me on most nights. If I go to bed anytime before like 12, I battle to sleep all the way through the morning, and the result is disastrous. Also, my intentions are always to do some editing or blog for a bit, or just geek around the unternet as soon as it gets later on, but by then I’m too tired, but not in a sleepy way, to do anything like it. You just need that crappy E4 channel, and a pillow to cushion your hairstyle. Repeats. Scrubs. The OC.
We’re planning a possible trip to Amsterdam for the upcoming long weekend. Should be quite a blast… just waiting to hear from Louise if it will all be okay for accommodation and whatnot. £100 return flight for 3 nights in Amsterdam is nothing to sneeze at… it’s a steal.
Anyways… it’s round about the time that I have to start preparing for work now, so I’m off. Keep the cool sunshine and eat lots of oranges. Or is that orangi?
As the weekend came to a close, Jen and I finally got some time to sit down and watch the new Survivor episode that came out last Thursday, as well as get hold of the new Amazing Race episode that was released last night. An afternoon watching some reality TV was just what the hairy coos ordered.
We’re both at home because it’s a bank holiday over here in the UK today. It’s celebrating workers day, but a couple days later because they always make the bank holidays land on Mondays to get a nice long weekend. As it turns out, it’s a damn good idea. Long weekends are always great, and they’re so much more worthwhile than a Wednesday or Thursday off. It makes going away also easier. We didn’t quite plan anything for this long weekend though, prices get crazy as you get closer to the holiday, as well as the fact that people in the UK go crazy mad around long weekends. Everyone goes to Spain. Or Kazakstan. Who cares anyways.
It all turned out okay though… Good thing we didn’t go away, because on Wednesday we got a text from Louise saying that Rob was on his way to Edinburgh, from Amsterdam, for the weekend, to stay with us. Following on from that, we learnt that Isje and Jack were also having another Aussie couple over from London for the weekend. Following on still, we found out that Neil’s (Jen’s brother-in-law, Angie’s husband, my near family) parents were going to be in Fife (just down the road from Edinburgh) and wanted to come through for lunch with us. And even further still… I got a call from Troy (friend that I used to go to high school with) who told me he was in Edinburgh just for the weekend. Everything merged into one colossal weekend. Craziness followed. Dips were bought. Fry-ups were conquered. Lasagne was devoired. Drinking became idle time. Taxi’s.
Fuzziness.
Ended up being quite a mad large weekend… lots of time out in pubs. Lots of crazy trips in taxi’s, large and small. Good times, happy times. Don’t think it’s going to be effective to try and explain everything that we did throughout the weekend, but I’ll try summarise it into a couple words attached to each day/evening.
Friday night: chips,dips,crackers,humous,blow-up mattress,beers,wine.
Saturday: bacon,assembly,pub lunch,beer,wine,cider.
Saturday night: afternoon naps,cramped underground club,house moosk,cider,wine,Jekyll&Hyde,kicked out,rain,hailing taxis.
Sunday: fry-up,food,chilled out,tv,movies,big plates of lasagne.
Sunday Night: haunted tours of Mary Kings close,drunken phone calls,filling station,ciders,whisky,drunk saffers,walking,liabilities,grass market,irish pub,crazy music,people falling asleep on their feet,abandoning drunken saffers,Frankensteins,drinks,mad dance moves almost killing a man,lights on,kicked out,hailing taxi’s,chocolate cake,lasagne.
Monday: Late morning,lasagne,baked potatoes,trip to the beach,farewell to the visitors,lasagne,survivor,arrested development,amazing race,dinner.
So the trip to the beach was pretty awesome, though it’s not the kind of beach that you can either swim or flap in. It’s cold. The weather is generally windy and crappy whenever you’re there, and you leave with some dirty grainy stuff stuck to your shoes. I think they call it sand here.
Otherwise, Jen’s hopefully starting a more permanent position at the company that she’s been temping at this week. Work at Django is going really well. The last few weeks have been crazy… though that goes without saying now I guess. It can only get more and more crazy the further we get into production. I’ve been warned by all the more experienced animators and compositors that it only gets worse, and that what we’re experiencing now is pretty chilled out. Which reminds me, don’t ever think that Telkom are the only telecoms in the world that deserve to be shot and killed. BT over here do the exact same things as they do. Make promises they don’t stick to. Lie to you about dates they’ll have things installed by. Never call you back. Generally run a monopoly that screws businesses over big time because of their reliance on them. Keh Keh Keh BT.
Heres to a chilled out evening. Heres to Edinburgh.
PS. Check out the new pics on Flickr.
Filed under: Travel
Ok, so I am temporarily lending a hand at a company that shall remain nameless. The reason that the company shall remain nameless will soon become clear. However, it is a cautionary tale about government organisations, public money and failure to deliver. It is also a passionate exploration of drugs, sex, infidelity and proudly South African porn. Just kidding, it’s only about websites.
Ok, so I am temping at this company. Officially I am doing data updating or something, but actually I am a website efficiency expert, gained cheaply. Basically, their website is a mess, and they want me to fix it. I can’t. You don’t have to be an efficiency expert like myself to realise that I can’t, and I will tell you why:
1. They don’t have any more money. Like, none. The reason for this is because they have already paid somewhere in the region of £30 000- £60 000 for this website (figures range depending on who you talk to). Now, I might not know a lot of things about a lot of things, but one thing I know is if your website is a pre-packaged template from X-cart, costing £39.99, and the person you hired to build your website has limited html knowledge, no knowledge of other necessary languages like PHP, and has taken your £60 000 to make a website that doesn’t actually work, this is an example of inefficiency.
2. They are not able to ask the man why they paid him enough money to kill a goat, but they still have no website. This is because he prevaricates so much that interactions with him slow one’s heartbeat, if not the time/space continuum itself.
3. They are government funded and have no desire to change, or, in the great South African term, suck it up. They have a website that doesn’t work, they have no money to fix it, so they have hired me to get more suppliers to populate the site so that it doesn’t seem so sparse.
Let’s go through that process again: You have many many thousands of pound to build a website. Instead of hiring a developer, you hire someone with no knowledge of the languages needed to build a website. Allow this decision to stew for five months. Add a pinch of the fact that you aspire to be an e-commerce site, and you are not e-commerce enabled. Neither are any of your suppliers. Allow situation to stew for a further five months. Simmer. Do not link your site to any other sites, also give it an obsure unsearchable URL. Wonder why said site is not performing. Hire temp to get more (non—e-commerce enabled) suppliers to fix problem.
Serve.
Ah…you have to love the public sector.
