Botchandango.com

London

Got back yesterday from a two day sight seeing trip around London. It's not something I have ever done before as I rarely go to London and then usually only to visit a particular person or place. On the first day we walked around Westminster and Piccadilly Circus stopping for lunch at Mitsukoshi. In the evening we stayed at the Copthorne Tara in Kensington. It seemed like we had found a really good deal on the Internet (londontown.com) for our rooms, paying £79 per night rather than the advertised £250+, However, although the facilities and service were good (it is supposed to be a four star hotel after all), the rooms were pretty basic and had a stale tobacco smell which you don't normally associate with 'non-smoking' rooms. I wouldn't like to have paid any more than we did for those rooms. On a positive note though the hotel subscribes to JSTV (Japan Satellite Television) so we could spend the evening relaxing to selected NHK programs.

Yesterday we took a sight seeing bus tour (The Big Bus Company) and rode the bus around almost it's entire circuit. It was a good way to see a lot in one day although very cold to be sitting upstairs on an open topped bus.

Here's a few snaps of JSTV in our hotel room

Kitano (Beat) Takeshi dressed as Dr Ochanomizu (Dr Elefun in English translation) from the anime series Astroboy. This was a special program originally broadcast in Japan in September and involved some kind of competition between two teams of engineers from Osaka and Tokyo. At times it seemed like a cross between Scrapheap challenge and The great egg race (strangely there is a similarity between Dr Ochanomizu and Professor Heinz Wolff).
NHK News, bad news tends to be the same in any language although it is always interesting to see the different ways the same story is reported in various countries.

メリークリスマス！！

Merry Christmas. Now that my cold is on the wane, I will try hard to get as merry as possible. Tonight I will introduce my mother in law to the delights of Gin and Tonic, I can also make a start on the vast stockpile of goodies that have gone uneaten while I have been feeling under the weather. Tis the season for over indulgence afterall.

I cant wait to open Chi-chans presents in the morning!! Just a few more years and I'll be able to buy him all of those things I cant quite get away with buying for myself any more ;)

Missed it

Because I've been off sick from work I missed an opportunity to see a PSP in real life. %^&**&!!

A colleauge bought one of the first batch released in Japan from ebay (at a pretty inflated price) and it arrived this week. I have just spent the morning in the office listening to everyone say how great it was, how amazing the quality of the video playback was and how much they want one too. In fact several people are actively bidding on ebay as I type this.

Anyway, he and his PSP were at a different site today so I'll have to wait until after Christmas to get my close up look.

Atchoo!

I'm suffering pretty badly with what is either a severe cold, flu or green monkey disease. Can't go to work... and don't feel like doing anything (not a very fun combination). It's a pity as my wife's mother and grandmother are staying with us for Christmas and I should be trying to make their stay as enjoyable as possible.

Still... Botchandango's patent miracle cure (comes with no medical guarantee of any sort whatsoever mix alcohol and over the counter medicines at your own risk!!)...

The juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 tsps clear honey
2 soluble asprin
At least 1 good measure of Teachers (add more to taste)

As the asprin can only be repeated every 4 hours... replace with additional Teachers for any additional 'doses' during the intervening periods.

I'm also following this with a chaser of unbranded expectorant/decongestant syrup every six hours. I bought it today as it was very cheap, bright red and seemed to contain a dose of decongestant four times stronger than all the usual big branded 'max strength' cold and flu cures out there. 

Oh, and I also have a 'cold plaster', flown in all the way from Japan, stuck to my forehead. A large white sticky backed plaster that is well... pretty cold thanks to some odd blue goo on it. Looking at the packet it came in it is designed more for children with fevers than adults.... but I always seem to regress to childhood at the slightest sign of a sniffle.(queue floods of sympathy and a chorus of "there, there's").

5-SB

Yet another example of real life becomming strangely like something out of a William Gibson novel. Smart Drugs. I read this story today after seeing a post on slashdot, the first thing that came to mind was the drug 5-SB and the character Laney from the 'bridge' trilogy. After being subjected as an adolescent to this drug in clinical tests carried out in an orphanage Laney becomes in later life a superb quantatative analyst but also a homicidal stalker.

Protection Racket?

You wouldn't expect to buy a house and then be charged extra for having locks on the doors or windows....

A cynic might say that by charging extra to resolve the security vulnerabilities it's flagship product contains, M$ would have little reason to eradicate such problems in the first place and perhaps actually have an incentive to make sure that a few such issues are always included in their product so that they can get some extra bucks by offering protection in the future.

Here's the story on CNN

You can just imagine BillyG the local glazier walking into a grocery story carrying a brick, admiring the quality of the plate glass window out front but warning the shop keeper that 'the kids' in the neighborhood are quite troublesome. Of course, he can keep 'the kids' away and ensure the window stays intact for a small consideration to cover his time and trouble.

Ouch!

We took Chi-chan for his first shots today... one in each leg. The right leg got the shot for Meningitis C while the left leg got a combination shot to immunise against Polio, HiB, Diptheria, Tetanus and Whooping cough. The whole process took a matter of seconds as there were two nurses, one for each leg. They counted to three and simultaneously jabbed the needles in. Jab is about the best word to describe the action used... it kind of made me think of the adrenaline shot scene in Pulp Fiction.

If having to prepare ourselves for the idea of taking him to the doctors for injections wasnt bad enough, we now will spend the next five or six days dealing with a baby that can become "fretful and feverish" as a result of the jabs. We also have to watch out for very high temperatures and convulsions.... great! as if I'm not anxious enough about him already.

Oompa Loompa

Oompa loompa doompety doo
I've got a perfect puzzle for you
Oompa loompa doompety dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me

Here's a fun film to look forward to.... Tim Burton's Charlie and the chocolate factory. The original is a real Christmas holiday classic for me and I always enjoy watching it (typically half cut and stuffed full of turkish delight and mince pies). This new version just might be even better, it's just a shame it's coming out next summer and not in time for Christmas.

Lots of photographs

I have uploaded a whole lot of photos to flickr over the last two days from various trips to Japan. There are still a few more CD's for me to go through and load up and even more tagging and grouping of the photos for me to do once they are up but there's plenty there to look through if the mood takes you. All of the photos are set with public access so no account is required to view them.

An apple a day

Typical! I'm at a loss sometimes for anything that seems worth blogging about.... then today when I arrived at my office, there on my desk was an amusing advertisement sent to every staff member through the internal post that just screamed 'Blog Me'. Unfortunately, four words in small print at the bottom of it scuppered that idea, 'for internal distribution only'.  Oh well... it was good and prompted several discussions among the gadget set about the pros and cons of atrac3 vs mp3, the latest line of MP3 players and whether any of them would really turn out to be an 'iPod killer'.  This mornings desk drop is just the latest in a series of emails and posters of the past few days which must be aimed at getting everyone in the company  on side,on message and fully in line behind the wider public marketing campaign that will be starting soon. Usually I consider this type of internal marketing as Spam and junk mail wondering why we go to such great lengths to keep that kind of stuff out of our mailboxes only to have it sent by colleauges in other departments. In this instance though as it was concerning something that interested me I'll leave that pet hate alone.