graham.reeds/ » Leisure

5 Screaming Marys…

graham.reeds — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 01:18:45 +0000

…and no-one liked them (at £4 quid each)!

Disney vs Disney

graham.reeds — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 22:43:05 +0000

I have been to EuroDisney aka DisneyLand Resort Paris. I have now been to DisneyWorld aka DisneyLand Resort Florida so can compare the two.

EuroDisney is smaller than DisneyWorld.
EuroDisney rides are more extreme than DisneyWorld.
EuroDisney queues are quicker than DisneyWorld.
EuroDisney seems more expensive.
DisneyWorld staff are way more friendlier.
DisneyWorld has more varied rides.

Apart from the oppressive Florida summer heat (92°F/33°C with 85% humidity) you could of been on Main Street in EuroDisney: Every other shop was merchandise and if it wasn’t merchandise it was food. Still dollars but Euros instead of USD.

Please Amazon…

graham.reeds — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 22:33:52 +0000

…stop using HDNL. I have finished reading a book. I then decide to order some more from Amazon. Since Jeff Bezos has direct access to my bank account I pay for next day delivery service (aka Prime). So it was on early Friday morning (think 00:00) I decided to order not 1 or 2 books, but 7 (voracious). Amazon said, that, by ordering these books they would be with me on the 16th, which is a Saturday. That would mean they would turn up at an empty workplace (making it hard for me to collect them from the depot) or I could have them delivered to my house. So it was my house I picked. These were duly dispatched on the Friday (think 15:00) and would be with me on the 16th, delivered by the HDNL. I haven’t had good experience with HDNL. In the past they have failed to deliver stuff to my house and sent it back. Said they had sent it back but had delivered it to my neighbours house when I was actually at the depot being told that it had been returned and even refused to give it to my wife because the card didn’t have a name on it and the bill she took was her mobile and was in her name, not mine (lets ignore the address is the same and shall we?). The craziest was when HDNL made 3 seperate deliveries to our work place with 3 seperate vans to deliver 3 copies of Windows 7 on the launch day.

Anyway, I work in Manchester. Therefore I will not be in during the week. And unable to collect my books. So I have nothing to read and HDNL will probably send them back before next week end like they have done in the past and the first I will know about it is the credit note I will receive.

Please Amazon, stop using HDNL or give us the option.

America

graham.reeds — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 23:14:48 +0000

Two things about America I never got used to: toilets and taxes.

Taking the former first, to me a toilet filled nearly to the brim is blocked. In America (or Florida at least) the toilets are full to the brim by default and then flushing drains the water away (in a nice whirlpool effect) at which point it refills. Seeing a full toilet is disconcerting. Also I wonder what sort of evaporation occurs: The room I was staying in listed the temperature as 75° F on the wall (which is 23 in UK money and felt a lot less). Surely that body of water with that much surface area must loose quite a bit?

The latter is to do with taxes. Take when I was moving into a new ‘apartment’ (self catering). I ask how much per night. The lady says ’49 dollars’. I say I would like 3 nights and hand over $150 in travellers cheques. She looks at me like I am mad and asks where the rest of it is. Apparently it is $49 plus taxes. And this is not an isolated incident. This happened a lot of times (even for a bottle of water). Why can’t you tell me what the cost is including taxes? I have to pay that amount anyway, and not being from around those parts I haven’t got the foggiest what the tax rate is and therefore have no idea what the final amount would be.

Finally the joke used to be that as soon as an American found out you were British they would immediately say Monty Python and ask if you knew the Queen. Now they mention Monty Python, Will & Kate and finally Jeremy Clarkson. Jeremy Clarkson?! As one of my American friends said: It’s a weird cultural niche that man has carved out for himself.

Shuttle Launch

graham.reeds — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 22:56:37 +0000

Back at work now after spending a week in America (should of been two but for work) for the final launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. An amazing experience and such a shame that due to a mixture of mismanagement and meddling it will never be seen again.

(And my apologies for not updating for such a long time.)

Formula One

graham.reeds — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 13:16:23 +0000

I thought briefly about getting up to watch the F1 but decided that I would record it and watch it a more humane hour. So at 9.30 I got up, made a strong cup of coffee and sat down to watch the F1. Then, thanks to a delayed start the beeb decided to switch channels late in the race. My Sky+ box isn’t intelligent enough to detect this so I missed the end of the race. Never fear – that’s what the BBC iPlayer is for – making the unmissable unmissable. So at the end of the recording I fire up my PC, head over to the iPlayer site and guess what. They have Part1 available and the Forum – the extra hour that analyses the race and gets interviews with the drivers around the paddock – but not Part2. And they didn’t tack it to the end of Part 1 because I checked.

They’ve had 4 hours so far to get part 2 online and even less to get the forum uploaded – yet they managed that. Where is part 2?

Update 15:14: Part 2 is now online but not available to download – and my Sky broadband is appalling at streaming video.

Christmas come early?

graham.reeds — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:19:09 +0000

Bizarrely, Christmas Mince Pies are for sale in Sainsbury’s. Best before end 11 Nov.

Crowd source pavements

graham.reeds — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:05:57 +0000

Just looking at where Google would have me walk to get to a local dry cleaners. It’s literally across the bridge an turn right and that isn’t taking into account turning off early and heading across the park. Surely some enterprising Googler could add a feature where pavements and cycle paths could be manually added and voted on for reliability?

Employ me and I would do it for you!

24 Heures du Teesside

graham.reeds — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:58:00 +0000

This weekend was the running of the British 24hrs at Teesside Autodrome. For those of you who followed the first 6 hours on Twitter (until my charge ran out) then you know we were way down the rankings at the start of the race. Our break came in the early hours of the morning when I did a couple of 1.5 hr stints and managed to push us above the surrounding competition and to the next level. The final results still haven’t been published on the Teesside Karting website but by my calculations we ended up 50th overall and I managed to set my best lap time of 1.21.508 during my 6am stint. It’s a pity that the overall laps of everyone isn’t recorded.

The past few days have been agony for me. First I was hit by a wave of tiredness (I had very little sleep – mainly a few minutes dozing) then the following day the aches and pains kicked in followed by another wave of tiredness (spent most of the Monday asleep). Yesterday started off painfully but by the end of the day (and several Ibuprofen/Paracetamol later) I wasn’t feeling too bad. Today just my floating ribs hurt.

I would really like to take part in the full championship and have a competitive kart, but the hire karts aren’t too shoddy since some of the teams were putting in sub 1.20 lap times. I guess to get below the 1.21 mark I need to lose a few kilos around my middle and improve my overall fitness.

Suit update #2

graham.reeds — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:38:52 +0000

As you may have guessed from my previous post I have sent my race suit back: I wouldn’t be truly happy until I had something that fitted correctly, even if it cost me (and them) extra in the long run.