Stuff

The latest on the move:
Not sure whether we can do the trip up North- funds and other stuff are making things tricky. We had planned to head up on Thursday. May not happen after all…
Atticus is staying with his grandparents who are reluctant to let him go. Which frankly beggars belief. Sally & I installed a “Doggy Door” in the garage so he now has free range with Martin’s tools and HAM radio.

The latest on consumption of media:
First off- Serenity is the best Sci-Fi film evah. I’m fixin’ to do a fully-fledged review. But in the meantime, see it.
Am nearing the end of Pratchett’s latest paperback- Going Postal, and is something of a return to form for him. Thoroughly enjoyable.

The latest on boring tech stuff (seriously, skip this):
I was more than happy to get my PDA working again and even had a 1GB SD card full of episodes of QI on it which I’d started to watch. I was starting to remember my American dictionary two-letter Scrabble word s better too. Anyroad, the screen suddenly went blank, the controls sluggish, next thing I knew it was powering off and refusing to come back to life. It’s going back to Texas today hopefully for a replacement and not another sub-par repair. If it happens again I’m going to angle for a new Treo.

Sally’s laptop- the saga continues. First off, it wasn’t connecting to the interweb and wouldn’t let me reinstall ME to fix it. Its internal floppy and CD-ROM don’t work, but i have an external CD-ROM so I managed to install XP on it. Then I partitioned off another section to install ME back on it, planning to remove the XP part later.., it rebooted with the (blank) ME partition in DOS, and now i can’t do nowt ‘cos it can’t use the USB CDROM nor the internal, nor the floppy. It’s now in pieces on the table and I’m going to take it to Downey Computer Repairs to see if they can fish the (impossible to find) hard drive out of it then give me a 44-40 pin adapter to install ME on it with my desktop. It’s frustrating stuff.

Sorry ’bout all that. Still aiming to get round to emails but there’s tons to do (and more webdesignery in the offing- I’m learning about Online Shopping Carts…) and until our plans coalesce there’s nowt much to say. Hang on in there, and in the absence of postings on this blog, have a gander’s at James Shaw’s blog which is extremely well written when it’s not about sport, which is, however you dress it, sport.

Also, coming soon to these pages: Anecdotes. I don’t have nearly enough anecdotes and need to work on some. It’s not enough to travel the world and come back with pretty photos and a blanket description of yer travels. So I’m going to work on some tales. This is partially inspired by Adam and Joe’s XFM radio show and the incredible oral history tradition that runs through the Cambell family.

We’re back! Sleep deprived by Continental but well cared for by Sally & Martin. Shall slowly get around to answering emails- thanks everyone. Atticus is grand, he’s off the fried eggs and back onto dog biscuits, but still has his Kirkland Premium Ham late suppers. The “buns” seem to be thriving. The garden looks grand and my Zire 72’s back from the repair shop and I’ve just reinstalled Scrabble. Life is good.

Sad to learn, however, that Stu and Anne’s hamster, Paulie (2003-2005) from Poole, passed away. He was the one that started the whole pet-owning thing round our way, opening Sita’s eyes to the joys of having non-humans around the house. Adieu, then Mr. Paulie, you had a lot of personality for one tiny rodent.

Off to Kilcar tomorrow- Exeter -> Belfast and on to County Donegal. Back Sundayish. Flippin’ marvelous to see Bert, Anne, Stu and friends at the weekend in London. Met media types, danced to DJ Bert, had pasties, kebabs and sunday roasts and finally got something back from the Salvation Army. Cheers everyone. For Kilcar photos from 3 yrs ago, or was it 2… click here Blogging may resume properly in MEJICO…

here you go, a lot of photos from b & a off to london manana

So many photos of lovely weddings, geneva, provence, and other stuff and so little time to shove them up on the interweb. luckily the first in that list has been covered by the ever able Flash so have a look at here beautifully crafted page of (little sis) Beth and Ali’s wedding.

and y and z are back to front… Lovelz couple of dazs in geneva, tanzaàs quite the hostess… beth and aliàs wedding rocked in everz waz… off to the south of france todaz, la ciutat and another place. might update soonish… photos etc shall probablz be up bz the end of next week. cheersz,
gwzn

Just hope the taxi is too

We’re busy packing up stuff for tomorrow’s epic journey but not too busy to scan in this leaflet from Prague’s Museum of Communism. They’re a little down on it to be honest… Anyroad, if you look at the location of the place at the bottom, it’s ‘upstairs from McDonalds, Next to the Casino’. We made it to the casino, but we weren’t up for the McGhoulash Happy Meal.

Also, it’s yer last chance to order fancy American exports before we leave- nylons, chocolate and chewing gum anyone? A militarily enforced democracy? Creationist high school biology textbooks? Comment away your order below

While I’m obviously thinking of the people affected by this latest full contact natural confrontation, especially the 10,000 poor and immobile who are holed up in an American football stadium with no A/C, I can’t help worrying about the possibility of flight cancellations. We’re leaving on Wednesday morning from LAX then on to Newark and eventually Bristol, UK on Thursday. Friday’s the day of me little sister and Ali’s wedding/commitment/knees-up and I will be gutted if we don’t make it.

Continental Airlines were bad enough last time in perfect travelling conditions (miserable flight staff, inept announcers, no free booze, same movies shown in both directions, National Express-quality food, crappy overhead TVs, cretinous security folk…) so Jebus knows what it’ll be like this time around. At least they don’t use the verb ‘to deplane’ like some airlines, but you do hear about there being a lot of ‘weather’. Ah well, as long as they get us to the church stately home in the Quantock Hills of Somerset on time I’ll be happy.

Can’t compare it to yesterday’s screening of Serenity in London (great review from Londonist here). but the 40 year old virgin and Rilo Kiley & John Cale gig were not bad at all. Sita reckoned that 40-yr-old was the best film of the Summer yet, she might be right, i laughed a lot for a (sober) matinee… still, roll on Serenity.
It hit 96 degrees in Downey yesterday hence all these trips to the air-conditioned cinema, shall be v. glad to see clouds come Thursday.
A few photos from yesterday here…

or google talked or yahoo messengered… I’m loving this internet telephony malarky. Victims so far include:
Mum & Dad, Meg & Matt, Jesse, Roberta, Flash and Atticus
Download Skype now and give us a bell: www.skype.com
Me user name’s gwynfisher, natch…

Lessons learnt today:
Unless you’re a huge Terry Gilliam fan, give Brothers Grimm a wide, wide berth.
Fish and chips is one of the best menu items in Maggie’s Pub, L.A.
We’re off to see a Rilo Kiley gig tomorrow. Yay.
Wall Mart’s saving grace is its air conditioning.

Great weekend at Pahrump and Las Vegas, Nevada, for more pix, click away. Aunt Minnie’s house seems desert proof enough and I’ve found a strain of slot machines that I can lose money on very slowly. Sita’s more into the roulette, which means ‘I will bankrupt you’ in French.

Finally got round to booking the car hire for Geneva and beyond, watch out for a speeding Seat Ibiza confused as to which side of the autoroute to drive on in early Sept…

And last, and by most means, least, Atticus’s web debut on GwynUnlimited is here. He also got seamlessly pasted into our wedding photo here. Vive la revisionisme historique!

UPDATE- And this week’s fantastic Onion headline from the future (2056): Democratic Middle Eastern Union votes to declare war on U.S.
MECCA—The 14 democratic member nations of the Middle Eastern Union unanimously voted to declare war on the U.S. Monday, calling the North American country a “dangerous rogue state that must be contained.”
A bientot, gwyn

{{popup DIY_Weekly.jpg DIY_Weekly 600×800}}Like this one here (Click me)

Today I drove Sally & Martin’s automatic car round the block, my first time ever successfully driving a non “stickshift” car. I don’t know what I’d been apprehensive about all this time. Now if the need arises to drive down the Chilean Andes from El Transito to Vallenar in an automatic in pitch darkness down a one lane unpaved road with sheer drops and wild animals on either side, Sita won’t have to be the one who takes over the wheel from her narcoleptic uncle.

The electric bug zapper I ordered (1 buck off of Ebay) for Sally & Martin arrived yesterday. Imagine a high voltage badmington raquet and you won’t be far off. On contact with the mesh you hear a loud crack and the bug falls out of the air, moribund, clutching its little insect heart with a look that says “Why?”…”How?”. V. Satisfying.

Started our journey through the Sopranos Season 5 last night. Even Sally’s into it. Seems a bit slower paced than previous series, but none the worse for it.

Off intersurfing to investigate prices for car rental in Geneva next, the DSL’s gone to dial-up speed today for no apparent reason so it may be a long process.

After a hard days painting again, it was nice to see Kev’s photos from Ashton Court. The two photos linked here and here show a game I vaguely remember participating in (instigating?) that involved head butting each other at waist height. I’m sure I won, but it’s all a little hazy. I love festivals, me. Round two at Beth’n’Ali’s, Stu?

…go marching in. Read my first film review in 7 months or so HERE