Biggest prawn in the world.

And the shrimp wasn't small either. Doesn't quite work but amuses me anyway.

Plus cool traffic light coffee.

Fish for lunch

Crab and sea bass for lunch on the beach.
Yum!

Isn't Portugal lovely

Some photos from Portugal. Altura to be precise.

30 mins late

Bloody trains. Half are cancelled, the ones that aren't don't stop where I need. Bloody trains. The Olympics are going to be fun.

Great weather for cricket

Bloody freezing watching the cricket at Lords yesterday. Middlesex v's Essex. It was the summer solstice too. Not much of a summer really, good job we're off to 38 degree Portugal tomorrow.

3 days left

3 days left of work till the week long break in Portugal. 9 days off with both weekends.

What have I got left to do before then?

-Meeting about why one data set doesn't match another
-Use test of a Business Objects / SQL db project
-Team night out
Buy someone a leaving present
-20/20 cricket at Lords
-Team lunch at Bodeon's Tower Bridge
-Give blood

I think that's about it

New laptop

My super fancy kick ass laptop has been giving me grief for the last month or so.  It's been getting extremely hot occasionally just decides to switch itself off.  Highly annoying and would turn out to be quite an expensive problem as I wasn't planning on forking out another grand on a new laptop for another year.

Before deciding to get a new laptop I thought it best to see if I could do anything to help it.  I flipped it over and inspected the bottom and found the problem.  Dust had blocked up many of the tiny holes on a wire mesh protecting the fan.  Ha!

I took the back off and gave it a quick wipe, turned it back on and loaded up the core temp programme i'd installed and instantly the temperature had dropped 10+ degrees C.  Brilliant.  I'm going to give it a proper clean tonight but hopefully that'll be the end of the troubles.

Imagine how fast Football Manager will run now.

My Kryptonite

Many of you see me as some kind of superhero, but like many superheroes I too have my Kryptonite.

Stickers

I can’t stand them. I really can’t stand them. I was chatting to the graduate next to me at work and the subject of phobias came up, she’s not a massive fan of spiders. I mentioned I wasn’t a massive fan of stickers and she laughed.

Luckily there’s a cure.

http://www.peterfieldhypnotherapy.co.uk/fear-of-stickers-afraid-of-labels-stickers-phobia.html

Truffle shuffle

Chunk does a ruffle shuffle in the latest Family Guy episode.

"Ah, come on"

I also watched the last few Touch

Not bad either
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821681/

Although not enough Jack Bauer water boarding for my liking though.

Biscuit likes ham too

Food of gods

When I go shopping on my own I get to eat what I want. Mmm ham...

Cake bake

April's farm yard cake for Sam

Perseverance

I've persevered with Grimm and am glad of it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1830617/

Rather than just random episodes it's now putting a few bits together of the overarching plot.  Much better.  It's also getting a bit grimmer.

Who should drive?

I'm off to my brother's in a minute for his son's 2nd birthday party. The question in the Clark household is who drives back? Or more precisely who gets to have a drink?

Points to consider
For (me not driving)
-I'm driving there
-I drove back from Corby last Sunday
-I always have to drive
-I'm missing the Welland Valley Beer Festival

Against (me having to drive)
-April doesn't have to be sober when visiting my family

I think I win 4-1

Leaving present

Any idea what to get a Japanese collegue who's leaving the UK to go back to our head office in Japan?

I imagine we'll get over £100.

I think something quinisentially English.  He's already got a fancy umbrella.

Trial of official blogger app

Let's see if this is better than blogger droid, the current app I use for mobile blogging.
Here's a photo of my view of England's 1-1 draw with France on Monday.

7 days left

7 working days left till we fly to Portugal. Can't wait. I don't even know where exactly we're going.

Wine tasting

At the Australian High Commission tomorrow. We went last year but I think we were far too polite. We needed to get more for our money. This year i'm just going to do laps of the hall, perhaps with disguises when going back to each stall.

Things I would like

http://forbiddenplanet.com/40991-aliens-colonial-marine-m41a-pulse-rifle-replica/

http://forbiddenplanet.com/87000-star-wars-bottle-opener-death-star/
http://forbiddenplanet.com/85828-star-wars-chopsticks-luke-skywalker-episode-vi/

What do you call a cat with no arms?

Biscuit

Saturday afternoon

Visiting my parents before seeing the dweebs.

He, he, he

New phone's first post

Testing, testing, 1-2, 1-2.

Seems to work

How nice

Saw two deer on the train into work. They were drinking some water by the lakes.

New phone tomorrow

I managed to negotiate a fair but off Vodafone's initial quoted price. Only £100 after selling my current phone for a 12 month contract. After that, i'll be moving to April's recommended Giff Gaff which is far cheaper. £10 per month for all I need.

Well, there you go

Finished the 5th Song of Fire and Ice book (Game of Thrones). Good books and great series. I hope he's got an idea as to how to finish them.

Now to pick a book from my mountain of books in my waiting list.

Good film

IMDb: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Saw this with April yesterday. Very good, go and see it if you can. Very nice and very funny.

SC rating: 82 / 100 (1 vote)

AC rating: 8 / 10 (1 vote)

April's gig