theLaconic

A bit of catching up

Ok so I've (a) been busy or (b) been a little apathetic or (c) a little of both and I haven't really posted anything on here for a while (yesterday's post obviously not included). So here is a small blast of what I've been up to.

The new hair, is no hair

It had to go. It was getting a little thin up front. So I am back to the short, short hair.

Stormy NYC

stormclouds - click to see it bigger.

I can remember what the weather was like this time last year: pretty nice with these excellent thunderstorms that would roll through the city and scare me half to death. Now we have hardly had any real storms yet but I did get caught out on Saturday when I was walking back from Simon and Sandy's engagement drinks.

The light was amazing reflecting off the Hudson river as these low thunderclouds rolled over head. Luckily Simon had his camera and took a photo, which I have tweaked with photoshop (but not that much).

Montclair and Blaze

Last weekend I took what became a one day vacation to New Jersey to visit my friends Brian and Catherine and their new puppy Blaze.

blaze the puppy.

The weather was quite nice and we sat out the back of their house drinking beer and chewing the fat until some more of their friends arrived with their two Boston Terriers. Which was a lot of fun throwing various dog toys around the garden for over what must be four hours, well it was enough to make my arm sore for the next couple of days.

All in all it was an excellent day out of Manhattan and I definitely felt a lot more relaxed when I got back that evening.

blaze and olive.

I really like Montclair, its only 12 miles away from New York (click on the link and zoom out), and only takes 25 minutes on the bus (on a weekend - double it for a work day).

It's only when I leave this concrete and steel jungle that I call home that I realise that I really miss the open spaces that smaller towns. I could quite easily see myself moving to a small town such as this if I stay here for a while...

OneShow 2005

Last week I went to the One Show awards. We had two bits of work as finalists but the competition was stiff and unfortunately we only got 'merits' for our IBM US Open work. Still can't complain I didn't have any finalists last year or even any work that was entered.

The actual award show was held at the same place as our Christmas party: Lincon Jazz Cennter which overlooks the corner of Central Park (you can kind of make out the traffic behind the presenter who's name I've forgotten already). All in all it was enjoyable evening and I had a pretty good hangover the next day, which was to be expected as we drank from 6pm to past midnight at an open bar.

Neil's birthday

It was Neil's birthday yesterday and although me denies it he is getting old and can no longer be classed as a young 'un.

He held a small party in his apartment on Saturday which ended up in the most dodgy club yet experienced in New York, according to him although I have to take his word for it because I had bailed quite a bit earlier. That happens when you are old as me.

If he reads this he could explain in greater detail in the comments section, that's if his old arthritic fingers and dodgy eyesight hold out.

Deadliest catch

I am hooked on this TV show on the Discovery Channel; Deadliest Catch. Click on the link and watch the trailer if you haven't seen it, hopefully one of the british channels will pick it up soon.

Deadliest Catch is about Alaskan crab fishermen who have the most dangerous job in the world. It kind of makes me feel like I have an easy job and all the usual job worries are really nothing compared to their's.

Geeking out

the apple store - the queue was huge.

I have something to admit, last friday I geeked out. Now I know I could normally be considered fairly geeky but this has a set a new high (or low).

I went down to the apple store in SoHo for the new release of an operating system for Apple computers, OS 10.4 aka 'Tiger'. Now I have my limits so I didn't queue up or anything like that, for one thing I have limits to my geekiness and second I had to work.

So I am now using Tiger at home and I am loving it, and I hate to say it out loud but I haven't found anything buggy yet...

Hitchhikers shock

Now this was quite a shock, the hitchhikers film didn't totally suck.

Now I have been a big fan of Douglas Adam's writing since the first time I read hitchhikers over eighteen years ago and I have been dreading this film since I Adams untimely death (he was writing the screenplay).

The film was actually good fun and true to the spirit of the books. Okay there is a slight love story which adds a little too much 'hollywood', but overall it felt right. If you haven't seen it yet and were worried about the book vs film thing just go and see it, I'm glad I did.