Holidays

Tomorrow me and my girlfriend are leaving for two weeks of holidays. We're going to where it is nice and sunny, we're going away from the horrible cold weather we are having here right now.

We're going here:

and here:

See you in two weeks!

Cold and other random rants

When there is nothing to blog about, there's always the weather to blog about...

Wednesday was still nice, I was playing football outside and enjoying a Indian summer day. Today the sun it still out but it's about 10 degrees colder. And the friggin air con in the office isn't helping either as I'm so cold even a whole bottle of single malt scotch won't warm me up (yes, I have though about it at work).

Anyway, one more week of work and then I'm off for a well deserved two weeks break.

Tomorrow: England vs Springboks. I think the Boks will win it.

I just found out Google does Sketch-Up. Very useful for me at this point in time.

Radiohead - In Rainbows

Yesterday Radiohead came out with a new album called In Rainbows. You might not have seen it in record stores yet. That's because it's not in the usual record stores.

As Radiohead's contract with Parlophone expired after Hail To The Thief, they decided not to sign to a record label and instead distribute their music themselves via the internet. Nothing unusual here so far. The unusual thing is that Radiohead did not price their new album, but they left the price up to the buyers. It says "It's up to you" when you want to pay. It is really up to you.

I paid GBP 5. The rationale being that there are 10 songs on it and on iTunes I normally pay $0.99 per song. So for 10 songs $10 sounds about right. Of course when I pay on iTunes the artist will only get about 20% of the $0.99 whereas Radiohead gets the full $1.00 I'm paying per song but I couldn't be bothered with the whole calculation etc. I'm a big fan of Radiohead and I'm willing to spend that much money on their new album.

Yesterday morning I received an email with the download link. I downloaded it and put it straight on my iTunes and listened to it. Fans of Pablo Honey and The Bends should not be bothered, but I do sense a shift from the electronic stuff they did in Kid A and Amnesiac back towards more instruments.

I won't give the album 5 stars yet, but the way they put the album out is definitely worth 5 stars. It can either be a one-off experiment or it can be the start of a revolution. Hopefully it falls in the latter.

Go ahead, purchase In Rainbows now.

Ajax out of Europe

And last night Ajax was kicked out of Europe for this season by losing to Dinamo Zagreb 2-3 at home. First they lost against Slavia Prague for the Champions League, and now they have lost to Dinamo Zagreb for the UEFA Cup. AAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!

Had Edgar Davids not forgotten his shinpads and not broken his leg, this would not have happened. And had Real Madrid not come with €27m for Wesley Sneijder, this would definitely not have happened.

Oh well, hopefully Ajax will get the double.

LDN

I spent the last week in London, from Monday til Sunday, mainly for a work-related training and a nice weekend with my girlfriend. And when you are in London there is always a lot to blog about.

First thing was my hotel. As it was a work-related training, I booked the hotel via work. I didn't want to be too close to the training site as it was very close to Heathrow and if I stayed there I would not be able to do anything at all during evenings. So I booked a hotel in South Kensington. It says that it's a four-star hotel. When I walked into the lobby, it all looked very nice and swanky. They gave me a key to a single room and when I entered the room it was as small as Harry Potter's room under the stairs. I booked two months in advance for 6 nights and they gave me the smallest room in their hotel! So I complained but they didn't have any other rooms for the night. The next night they moved me to another room with a double bed but again the room was small. And not just small but it was definitely not 4 star standard. Cracks in the wall and ceiling, carpeting from 1973, no mini bar, very small, etc. On Thursday my girlfriend came and we wanted to stay there until Sunday. I managed to ask for another room (3 rooms in 4 nights) but this one was shit as well. Finally we gave up and moved out of that hotel to a real 5 star close to Piccadilly Circus. And when I checked out from that hotel in South Ken, they didn't even ask why I checked out earlier, or how my stay was, or the usual standard questions. Can't believe that they have four stars.

Second is the transport. To go back and forth to the training site I had to take the Piccadilly line. Which is quite nice, I just sit there and play my PSP and I'm at Hatton Cross in 35 minutes. On Tuesday afternoon though there were delays in the Piccadilly line, so it took me an hour to get back to the hotel (I had to switch to the District line). On Wednesday I was meeting up with an old colleague. The plan was to meet in Parsons Green. Me and another colleague took the train in to Ealing Broadway. But there it was announced that there are several delays on the District line. We then jumped on the Central line to Notting Hill thinking that we can get a District line down to Parsons Green. When we got to Notting Hill Gate, the platform for the District line was overflowing with people. Turns out that on that the District line wasn't working in between two stations and Notting Hill Gate was bang in the middle of those two stations. So we went out trying to find a cab, but of course we weren't the only one to look for a cab when there is no tube. We then found a bus that could take us to Fulham Broadway. It should have taken us 20 minutes on the bus but after 50 minutes we started to give up hope. Traffic jams everywhere. Somehow we got to Fulham Broadway, but what could have been a 5/6 pints night ended up being a 3 pint night.

And lastly Oxford Street. I should remind myself over and over again not to go to Oxford Street on the weekends. It's just too crowded!

Also went to see Wicked. A great musical, very entertaining and a very interesting take on the wicked witch of Oz.

It's nice being in London...