Perfect Shower Addition

It's a Friday afternoon post, so please forgive me if you're offended (but they're not real!!!). These are really for Glenn and George, in fact, Glenn may have designed them for all I know.

Basically dispensers for you shampoo or soap - you fill them up, stick them on the wall, and squeeze away. Refills are obviously unlimited, but your water bill might go up.

Purchase here if you're really interested.

Audi R8 Out in the Wild

The new Audi R8, set to be released early next year if all (or any) of the rumours are true. It's looking good, although I'll hold off on the final decision of whether or not I like it until we get the specs, and someone has made sure it drives like a sports car, and not like an Audi of the last 10 years (RS4 excluded of course).

Winding Road » Archive » Caught! Audi’s R8 Black Forest Bomber

Zune is this big?

I've deliberately not mentioned anything about Zune, the supposed new Microsoft way to upstage the iPod (again). Not that I don't think it might be great or anything (although if it blue screens, a lot of people might not be too happy), it's just that no-one really knows anything about it for definite yet, and until they do, it seems a little pointless to get all worked up. You see, Microsoft (to me anyway) just isn't Apple - anytime there's a hint of a new computer or gadget coming from Mr Jobs I get excited, and frantically search through my bank account looking for little pieces of change that might add up to enough to wander down the store. When was the last time I did that for a Microsoft thing?

Actually, thinking about it, I did get pretty excited about the XBox and the 360, and the same team or leader (can't remember which) is apparently involved in some way, shape or form. But I think the root of the problem has always been (up until now anyway), their stuff just isn't pretty enough. I love my XBoxes (has someone invented a different word for the plural), but they're not the prettiest things in the world. The 360 is nicer than the original, but nothing really special, and that's even when you hide the huge power adaptor away in some cool place so you can't see it (hearing it is another matter - this thing is the loudest accessory that sits close to any tv by a mile, even the TiVo). Compare this to the beauty of my metal stalked movable screen Mac, or my iPod, or how pretty OS X looks no matter what they do with XP (or Vista for that matter). Maybe I'm just a superficial kinda person, but the Macs do have a knack of backing up the good looks with some substance (hence the world domination of the iPod I guess).

Poll: Do you ever read this site?

Trying something new these days, just to see. Found dpolls which seems like it's pretty cool (and a way of again me not writing any code whatsoever), and thought I'd try it to see if anyone actually reads this site. It's been a while since I've got any comments, I never make any money off the ads, so I know no-one clicks on those (or buys things from Amazon), so I'm never quite sure that the pages are being read by anything other than Googles (and a few others) crawlers.

So, if you're reading this (and haven't nodded off reading the paragraph above), please click below to take part in the survey!

Hasslehoff Not Drunk

Yeah, whatever - those "strong antibiotics" make you look and act really drunk, right? It wasn't the drink or the painkillers?

The original report was from The Sun though, so you're never quite sure if it's real or not. If I was a betting man, I'd put money on the intoxication theory.

What was a little more disturbing was the fact that he "cut himself shaving", which resulted in 4 sliced tendons and an artery spouting blood everywhere. No call me dumb, but I never realized I could hit 4 tendons and an artery while shaving my face - and if you could, you'd have to be going at it a couple of times at least, right? So, was this a disguised suicide attempt, or arguably even worse, does he shave his legs (badly)???

CNN.com - Publicist: Hasselhoff was sick, not drunk - Jul 27, 2006

Car for Sale

Special request from the wife - one of her friends at work is packing up to move to England (always a popular choice) and so is selling her car.

Link is here - it's a 99 Mercury Cougar V6 with 112k miles on the clock.

Landis gives positive drugs test

Just breaking news - the American winner of the Tour de France, Floyd Landis, failed his drug test. I'm sure we'll be hearing about this a lot more in the next few hours/days......

SI.com - More Sports - 2006 Tour de France - Tour de France winner Landis gives positive drugs test - Thursday July 27, 2006 10:27AM

Fiat 500 - Cute or Sexy

Top Gear apparently thinks it's sexy, having recently crowned it the sexiest car in the world in the latest magazine edition (which I don't have yet - I really should renew my subscriptions to that and Evo).

So I wonder if the pick below makes it the sexiest woman with the sexiest car, and therefore the sexiest picture? Answers on a postcard...



Top Gear crowns Fiat 500 as Sexiest Car in the World - Autoblog

Newcastle's Recurring Summer Story

Yes, it's the old "Dyer comeback will be like a new signing" story, once again rehashed by The Chronicle. I'd be slightly less cynical if I hadn't heard this for the last couple of summers, all with the same outcome - Dyer comes back, breaks down, comes back again and is then screwed for the season.

I really do hope that he can come back - at the very least, he can perform the role of temporary striker up front with Shola. And if he does get back to full fitness, and has a decent run in the side, it might even be like a new signing ;-)

icNewcastle - Dyer: Light at end of tunnel

More Wedding Photos

Nixta, finally back from an extended holiday / vacation, late Honeymoon type deal swanning around Europe, has uploaded his pix of the wedding here. (one day I might make it onto his special little Chum(ette)s list if I'm really really lucky)

As usual, there's some pretty special ones of Al Brown's dancing, Tonks is caught on the phone, and Ash poses at every opportunity. You have been warned.

New Google Video Feature

Handy, not exactly life changing - you can now link to a Google Video at some point during the video itself, rather than forcing people to watch the whole thing. Pretty handy if you ask me, but I'm way too lazy today to give a real life example. I'm focused and incentivized to get my real work done...

» New Google Video feature: mid-video linking | Googling Google | ZDNet.com

McDonald's leaving Chipolte

Following a highly successful IPO (which I forgot about and missed the boat, despite knowing it was a guaranteed money maker...), Chipolte is going to be freeing itself from the reins of Maccie D's.

Looks like McDonalds wants to take advantage of the high price, and some complicated share swap sort of thing to get appreciation tax free (don't ask me, just read the article), and concentrate on it's burgers. Personally, I like Big Macs and my steak burrito with black beans, corn salsa, cheese and sour cream, but if I had to live on one for the rest of my life, Chipolte would win hands down (maybe as I spent the first hald of my life living on burgers??).

McDonald's sets plan for Chipotle stake | Business News | Reuters.com

Perfect Police Patrol Car

How's that for a bit of alliteration. Courtesy of the ever observant Mr Stone, here's Austrias latest addition to their patrol fleet. If ever there was an excuse to become a cop, this has to be it. Not sure how many speeders it could fit in the back though, unless this is considered the first part of their pennance.

Austrian Patrol Car

Programmers Cheat Sheets

I know, I know - another techie post, but this one is actually pretty handy if you ever write a single line of code (I think I managed 2 lines last year, and am struggling to meet that same high standard this year).

So this link has lots and lots of reference sheets for various languages etc - everything from Perl to Python to HTML to Java to CSS. Have at it boys and girls.

CHEATSHEETS & REFERENCE

New Motorola Phone

It seems Motorola has been busy in the last few days - they announced quite a few new phones, but in reality, it appears to me that most of them are just upgrades to the ever popular (and almost purchased by me) RAZR.

The one that I like a little more is this one - the MOTOFONE. It's not really got much in the way of features (so no chance I'll be buying it) as it's targetted for the cheaper end of the market, but still is nice and slim.

Hyundai Sonata Hits 147!?

According to the radar detector in Scottsdale it can. They claim a guy in an unmodified (and rented from Avis for that matter) Hyundai was clocked doing speeds up to 147 mph - pretty interesting considering it has a factory fitted limiter on it to keep it below 137 mph. They're still going ahead with the prosecution, but I'm hoping this guy manages to get off- if it registered speeds that high, it was obviously broke, so who is to say that it was just broke a little? He said he was late for work, but there's late for work, and doing nearly 150 to get there in time. No-one this side of a sports star has a job that good, do they?

Accused 147 mph speeder gets day in court | EastValleyTribune.com

Marketing in the new world

So it seems that viral marketing is taking on new and interesting forms - not only do we have film and tv shows (as well as lots and lots of artists) with their own MySpace login, YouTube and others getting the latest pop video releases (I sound so old when I say "Pop Video" but how else do you say it? Music Video is sooo MTV).

Latest onto the bandwagon (technically no doubt not the latest, as this has been around for a few weeks now, so someone else will have done something noteworthy that I've not managed to find yet), is HP - they set up a fakish blog before the World Cup with some of the coolest footie (or should that be finger) skills, from people obviously at the top of their Subbutteo (sp?) game.

You can check out one of the links here - the others are all at www.fingerskilz.tv for you to look at, as well as the HP confession that they put this out there as a marketing do-dah.

On a related note, I must say I've enjoyed the Jay-Z ads being shown over here recently, but the chances of my next home computer being HP instead of a nice shiny new Mac are slim to non-existent....

Porsche Updates

Not that I'm obsessed or anything (and any Porsche purchase is dependent on either winning the lottery, which is apparently up to some ridiculous amount again, or someone buying the company for many many millions of dollars, again, nothing to count on), but Prosche sort of almost nearly told someone sometime that they've got a DSG transmission on the way. This is the dual clutch speed shifting device similar to what's currently found in the Golf GTi and a couple of Audi's these days. Specifically designed for ridiculously fast and smooth changes, and with the ability to handle prodigious amounts of power, it sounds perfect if you're into that sort of thing. Personally, I'm a bit of a manual man myself, despite living in the land of the auto for the last (almost) 9 years.

In other news, Porsche also have created a mini site specifically for the new Targa models they announced recently. You can apparently get it here..

There's also a sexy new 911 GT3 RSR racing machine here - it's puretty


7-Speed DSG for Porsche? - Autoblog

Heidi's Big Party

P1000560
Originally uploaded by nstone73.

So after a mad panic to get everything ready in time (all my fault - I hadn't budgeted in enough time to blow up all the balloons after getting lazy/exhausted on Friday night), the party went off without a hitch. Thanks to Sheri and Brian showing up early to help out, we scraped through the deadline just in time.

Plenty of people showed up, and quite a few people who we hadn't seen in too long a time. Jannelle was in town (unfortunately for a funeral, but it was great to see her), Fowler came with the kids in tow, Ray and Sunanda arrived with 1.75 childred (Allen, and one about to pop next month...) and a few hundred others too (slight exaggeration, but good job we had extra tables and chairs shipped in). Only one unwanted visitor (how you can't get a car or truck out of your driveway because someone is parked over the road is beyond me) showed up, so it all turned out great.

Due to the heavy demands of grilling 16 cows and pigs, I didn't manage to pick up the camera once, so the photos here are all courtesy of Neilio, fresh from him engagement and T&T holiday/vacation.

Somehow the keg got drained pretty early on (I'm sure the last one had more in it), and Phil was accosted by the Australians on the bouncy castle, resulting in what he will tell you was a life threatening incident, but in reality was just a pretty decent 6 inch gash in his leg. We'll try and get some photos of that soon, although the action is captured in the photos.

The wife had a blast, which was the most important thing, and even had a special cocktail made for her by the girls. Unfortunately, all of the tasting that took place to get the taste just right resulted in one casualty, who had to make a speedy exit....

License Plate Magic

One of the cars taking part in this years Bullrun (another Cannonball Run/Gumball Rally type deal that one day I promise to enter) has attached some pretty nice technology to keep from giving away it's license plate to any interested parties as it flies around the country and some slightly illegal speed.

I'm sort of interested in all of this stuff every now and again. I have my Valentine One installed (and a very nice direct wire install it is, thanks to the wife hijacking the car for my birthday and getting the boys at CarToys to do some nice things to it). I also went and checked out the laser jammers they have, but it appears they're illegal in only 2 states, and one of them is Colorado. I need to do some more checking into this before I buy, coz the last thing I would need is a ticket when I'm not even speeding, but lasers do seem like they're becoming a little more common around these parts.

Anyway, here's the vid with a demo of the license (number) plate disappearing act...

Bush's German back rub

After his comments to Tony Blair earlier in the week (or was that last week - time flies when you're having fun), we now have him giving an impromptu back rub to the German Chancellor (is this the same lady which a newspaper took unflattering photos of before the world cup?) Looks like she really enjoyed it, don't you think? ;-)



CNN.com - Bush's German back rub magnified on Web - Jul 21, 2006

Birthday Party Weekend

Once a year, I get to officially spoil the wife. I'm a very lucky boy, so this years party will be a big one. Hopefully, you've had an invite already. If you haven't, and you actually know us, and we like you, you're welcome to come along - party kicks off at 4 at our house, kids are welcome, and there should be plenty food and drink for everyone.

See you there.

Duff set to make Newcastle switch

So the BBC are saying that Newcastles signing of Duff is all sorted out, subject to a medical. If this is the case, it's great news, and definitely worth the wait we've had for any signings this summer.

It's slightly ironic that Duff was actually a Sounness target before he got his big money move to Chelsea. I wonder if this means the writing is on the wall for Luque, or if we're really building a squad of top quality players.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Duff used to occasionaly play down the middle for Blackburn, but not sure if that's where Roeder plans to use him (at least in the short term). I'm still hoping for a striker or two to come through the doors before the real start of the season, especially with Shola's hip problem still seeming to bother him.

Anyway, good job on this signing - nice to see we can still attract some quality players.

BBC SPORT | Football | My Club | Newcastle United | Duff set to make Newcastle switch

TV Clips Online

I sort of mentioned this site the other day, but given the rise of YouTube removing a lot of the TV uploads, I thought this site might deserve it's own post. Veoh is pretty similar from the looks of it to YouTube, but they care little about the copyright issues of posting TV programs online, and the site is made up pretty much entirely (from what I can briefly tell) of TV clips.

It also looks like you can download the clips directly as well, although I haven't tried that one yet. Here's a clip of Stewie drunk on Family Guy.

Fish and Flush

I noticed it had been a while since I had any dodgy toilet references up here, so to remedy that, I bring you todays special - the Fish'n'Flush.

By splitting up the resevoir tank, this ingenious design allows you to have a fish tank in your bog. There is even some lighting in there, which should aid in the midnight rush after 8 pints.

One other handy benefit will be when the fish die, you won't have to transport them very far before sending them to the drain in the sky.

And you can actually buy this for $450 here.

New Zealand Dilemna

This made front page news on the BBC website. Apparently the New Zealand cops are so overpaid, and the cost of living so expensive in Auckland, that one of the cops there went out at night to work as a prostitute.

That's an interesting choice of work by anyone's standards - I thought people just went and worked at McDonalds or Burger King or something if they needed some extra cash. I guess this probably pays better though.

It's not as bad as it first sounds though - apparently New Zealand made prostituion legal a couple of years ago. Still, the people reviewing the case decided that it probably wasn't the best situation to be in given her day job. She did keep her day job, but only when she agreed to give up the (lady of the) night job.

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | NZ policewoman works as call girl

How much for date with Jessica Biel? $30K - Jul 20, 2006

It ain't cheap, that's for sure, even though she apparently is a "cheap date".

Jessica comes from Boulder, so this story has been kicking around the local press for a week or so, as soon as Molly's parents got in touch with Jessica's parents (mothers are always the ones who are really in control ;-).

No word on who the lucky/broke guy is yet - he asked for annonymity, but given everyone knows the date she's in town, I'm sure there'll be a couple of snaps surface on August 18th. I'm just hoping it wasn't anyone I know (even though the money is going to a good cause) - Mr Wallace, it wasn't you, was it????

CNN.com - How much for date with Jessica Biel? $30K - Jul 20, 2006

Look at the size of his memory card

P1000312
Originally uploaded by nstone73.

Or something like that. Mr Stone comes back from Trinidad and Tobago with a fiance (Congrats guys - I love it when a prediction comes off), and 6 million photographs.

Now if I can just keep the wife from bursting into tears of joy and excitement every hour or so (and we know it's going to be worse when you show up for the party on Saturday)...

Neil's Flickr Photos Here

The Internet is not a Dump Truck

Much reviewed elsewhere throughout the complete series of tubes known as the "internet", Senator Ted Stevens comments recently on what the "internet" was makes an appearance on The Daily Show. Clip is below (I hope - never used veoh before)

UK Motorshow Pics

Pistonheads are kindly putting up pics here of the new and interesting cars at the UK Motorshow, which I guess is going on right now. Lots to see, but the new Noble M15 was th one that got my attention. They've finally started making cars that look good as well as be ridiculously fast...

I see dead people

Nearly but not quite. The kid from The Sixth Sense crashed his car last night, but is still alive. No word on his condition yet.

CNN.com - Haley Joel Osment in car crash - Jul 20, 2006

Garage door remote triggers man's erection

Definitely the funniest story I've read in a while. Just don't get any remote control inserts from Turkey is all I can say....

Garage door remote triggers man's erection | The Register

Keep the sales guys away!

Given there's not a no-call list you can get in for the random double glazing salesman turning up at your door to interrupt your peaceful dinner/xbox session/nap etc, you need some alternative solutions.

This one comes courtesy of the Fright Catalog, and although probably not scary enough to keep the more commited salesperson away, it could form the basis of your strategy...

iWatch

Not even close to being real - I think it was a design study or something. However, it's pretty cool, and they could count me as a buyer if it ever came out.

coroflot.com - portfolio for Peter Burns

iowahawk: Miss Hoosegow 2006

I know for a fact that nothing much happens in Iowa (sorry Shannon, but it's true), so some guy has decided to trawl through the pictures of recently arrested young women, and compile a best of list. Not only that, but there's now voting on which one should win the online "beauty" pageant. Vote if you wish, but just remember, they get extra points for each $100 of bail the magistrate sets for their release, so it might be worth doing your research first.

iowahawk: Miss Hoosegow 2006

Newcastle United Back to Usual

The season started early again, with an Intertoto Cup game (the pre-qualifier for the UEFA Cup). We wouldn't be in this if we had managed a higher league placing last year, but given how bad we did until we got rid of Sounness, I guess we should be happy to have qualified for this one. Anyone involved in the World Cup got a couple of weeks off after their team got knocked out, so everyone is back yet.

Anyway, we managed a poor 1-1 draw with some team from Norway, and this was the home leg for us. Puts us in a tough spot for the next game as they have their away goal, but as we haven't even played any pre-season games this year yet, I'm hoping the first full competitive game gets the team another step closer to being fit.

One good thing to come out of the game was a decent goal for Albert Luque. He had a shocking time last season following a big money move from Spain - looked pretty decent in pre-season, then managed to tear his hamstring which kept him out of the team for a long time. He never fully recovered, his confidence suffered, and then he got more and more unhappy as the season wore on. It was semi-expected he might head back to Spain this summer, but it looks like he's around to stay. I'm hoping he does well, as we've got no recognized strikers (apart from a still not quite fit Shoela). I'm also hoping Freddie stumps up some cash for the manger, as our squad is pretty thin this year, and we need some reinforcements up front at the least (and a defender or two wouldn't go amiss). He should have a bit of money kicking around now that Shearer has left (although having to pay off all the managers every couple of years has probably cost a fortune).

Chainsaws are scary

But this one really freaks me out - it uses a V8 engine, which makes it a little difficult to carry, but has more than enough power for even the biggest logs. Just don't slip when you're using it!

Aaaarrggghhhh - don't you hate it when the code they give you to embed the video just doesn't work (hence my love for YouTube coz that seems pretty consistent).

You're going to have to do the leg work and click here for the vid.

Italian scientists exhume body of castrato

I'm not sure which part of this news story freaked me out more - the fact that they're exhuming someone just for the sake of doing some research, or the fact that the research is into an old custom of neuturing (cutting off their private bits if you're not sure what that means) boys when they're young to make sure they can still sing in a high pitched voice when they get older.

Italian scientists exhume body of castrato - Yahoo! News

Pete Coors Faces DUI Charge

Oh how I chuckled - the chairman of Coors Brewing Company got done for DUI on his way home from a wedding. How he managed to keep it this quiet for so long, I don't know.

TheDenverChannel.com - News - Pete Coors Faces DUI Charge

CONFIRMED - Alfa returns to U.S.

Happy Days - it looks liek Alfa will be coming back to the US, so I may have another car (or cars) to add to the list of things I want in my garage.

CONFIRMED - Alfa returns to U.S. at end of 2009 with three-model lineup - Autoblog

MySpace hits the top

The march of MySpace continues onward at a relentless pace. It has now topped the monthly list of top visited website in the US, overtaking the normal winner, Yahoo.

I think I did once sign up for MySpace, but then never really did anything with it - I think I thought I was too old for it or something.

Which brings me to my point - I was reading an article in Wired last night while flying home, and they brought up an interesting question - given users sometimes rapidly disappear from a particular site (in particular the social sites, such as the Friendster craze dying down pretty quickly after everyone realized there was more/better alternatives out there), if MySpace becomes so popular that all of a sudden a new demographic starts to set up profiles and use it every day (think parents, teachers, random older and less cool people), will the current bulk of users (the younger, hipper, faster moving demographic) feel compelled to find somewhere new to strut their stuff?

Answers on a postcard to....

CNN.com - Report: MySpace top single U.S. Web site - Jul 12, 2006

Cingular Shows HBO

Cingular announced it would provide content from HBO on it's cell phones, which sort of interested me given I have both a Cingular phone, and HBO at home. It appears that there's an Entourage specialy made (or possibly just cut?) mini series, and they're also going to push out full episodes of this, as well as Sex and the City and a few others.

All very exciting I thought, given my company kindly pays for the unlimited data plan. Turns out that this isn't enough - you need to sign up for the medial plan (15 bucks) and then also for a specific HBO content option (another 5). Maybe I'm just being tight in my old age, but 20 bucks to watch streaming tv on my phone (which obviously won't work when you're most likely to watch it - on a plane). I'm going to stick with my PSP and movies and tv on the memory stick for now (King Kong saved my sanity in Atlanta airport last night).

Cingular announces HBO viewing

What? No Posts?

Apologies for the lack of posts - a combination of lots of work, a little travelling (which also involved a fuel leak and a long time in Atlanta airport) and the unusual event of a weekend full of rain in Denver that was a bit on the depressing side has meant I've got a couple of excuses for being lazy.

Hopefully normal posting should resume shortly....

And congratus to Lance and Steph for joining the recent engagement gang (what's the odds on Neil and Lauren making an announcement when they get back from T&T???)

Winning Weekend

Well, it seemed like a winning weekend - Italy defeated France for the World Cup (on penalties), and Tito Ortiz beat Ken Shamrock in the UFC fight we watched on Saturday as well.

The World Cup was actually a decent game, but the fight was a little unfulfilling. Although Tito won really quickly, there was a definite feeling that the ref stopped it a little on the early side. Although Shamrock took 4 or 5 clean blows to the head from Tito's elbow, there wasn't any blood and Shamrock was still moving around, trying to get out. Guess it might set up another rematch, but we'll have to wait and see on that one.

BBC SPORT | Football | World Cup 2006 | Italy win World Cup on penalties

He's talented!

If you're going to practice this, please do it in the privacy of your own home

Bike Wreck

If the guys hair hadn't been so crazy, I might have thought this was Mr Bland.

If you need to remain annonymous

These glasses are for you. Possible uses for Flange and his photo taking exploits, or maybe Al's wedding dancing?

No doubt come in very handy for the upcoming Tonks Bachelor (Stag/Bucks) Party - it's going to be a big one. Which reminds me - congratulations mate, you're a lucky boy.

PistolWimp - Little Michael Jackson

Jason sends me some very scary things sometimes...

PistolWimp - Little Michael Jackson

Trip Back to England

P1010534.JPG
Originally uploaded by Aaron in Denver.

So we managed to get a few days back in Newcastle on the tail end of the trip, primarily to introduce ourselves to the beatiful Miss Ella Lucy Patterson. As you can see, it seemed like she liked us, so we were pleased.

Also managed to fit a night on the town with (Big) Neil, and now that my youngest brother is free from the slavery of a psycho girlfriend, he let us tag along for his Friday night out as well. Unfortunately, I'm getting way too old to hang with the young kids these days, so a quick pint in Sam Jax was all I could handle before we retired to The Hotspur for a little more conversation (I feel a song coming on...). Met up with Neil's mates Barry (a former Denver visitor), and Craig (I think that's what he's called, but like he said himself, no-one ever understands a word he says).

Saturday we won't talk about too much, but needless to say it was a tough day, and I'll be surprised if Christiano Ronaldo ever makes another appearance in the Premier League again. I hope not anyway. If you must relive the moment, here's the clip where Shearer tells the world what really happens in training.

Sunday we managed to get everyone co-ordinated (almost anyway) to hit Sunday Lunch at Shire House Farm - such is life these days, there appeared to be more kids than adults (and that was even after counting me in the adult section). We had a visit from the complete Armstrong Family (minus a Mr Jones, who had stayed in London for the weekend), the Walkers (who are to finally make it out to Denver in a couple of months), and Bezza boy turned up without wife or kids (long story, but it involves moving house and Isobel not being in the best of health at the minute).

And then, before you know it, we were back on the plane to Denver - time at home never seems long enough to see everyone you want and need to, so apologies to those I didn't get a chance to call in on. At least we know we'll be back in November for a little longer, so there's hope yet....

Pics from the weekend are here (although we didn't take the camera out on the Friday night for health and safety reasons, or possibly just that we forgot....)

Ravello (our new favorite place in the world)

Ravello town square
Originally uploaded by ebatty.

And more specifically, these seats in the town square, where we spent the majority of our time. (Thanks for the pic Pete!)

Life in Ravello was different to anything I've experienced in the hectic last few (or 20) years of my life - everyone seeming to be relaxed and friendly, nothing too urgent going on, and enjoying life to the full. It was definitely easy to get into the pace of life here, and just sit and people watch for hours in the cafe.

We did venture out and about, including a 1000 step and 3 mile trip to Amalfi on foot (I know, pretty unbelievable for me, it was almost like exercise). We also managed to fit in a trip to Pompeii (sp?), a quick tour of the coastline, and an afternoon in Positano as well. All the pics are here if you want to check them out.

All in all I think this was personally the best holiday I've had in years and years, and definitely the most relaxing. If you ever get a chance to visit this little town, I'd definitely recommend it.

Just to leave you with a taste of life there, the following is a video of some of the stuff that went on pretty much every day.

Phil and Katie's Wedding

Phil and KT Strut their married stuff
Originally uploaded by Aaron in Denver.

So the reason we ended up in Italy just a couple of weeks after Greece was not (completely) through a total lack of planning, but to attend the fantastic wedding of Mr and Mrs O'Penn.

Set in the picturesque town of Ravello, on the Amalfi coast, with a ceremony overlooking the coastline, friends and family from around the globe turned up for a great event.

Food was great, JB lost a wedding ring in the new world record time of less than an hour but redeemed himself with an outstanding speech, and the disco allowed us all to reminisce how much we miss the dancing skills of a certain Al Brown, now that he's no longer in Denver.

It looks like plenty of people took photo's - mine are here, Pete's are here, and Monica has set up a group on Shutterfly or something here...

UPDATE - got some more pci links - Flangio's (although only 2 is a pretty poor performance, travelling or not), Mr David Davis, and Mario the wedding planner. Tonks swears his are coming soon......

UPDATE 2 - Tonks delivers (partially, but a better effort than Flange) - photos here

Looks like we came back too early

Italy just beat the Germans in overtime, and the country is going crazy. Maybe we should have stayed a couple of extra weeks! I'm sure there'll be a huge party for the next few hours/days.

I'm hoping the final ends up being France v Italy - I can't stand to see Ronaldo and Portugal go all of the way after what went on on Saturday, so as much as I still hold a bit of a grudge against the French for previous work indiscretions in grinding a former company down in quite spectacular fashion (and of course all the invasions, lack of spirit in the two World War's etc etc), I'm compelled to at least semi support them tomorrow. Obviously I'm cheering for Italy on Sunday - I knew I should have picked up my Totti team top while I was there...

Back (so lots to catch up on)

OK - back in Denver after a couple of weeks galavanting around Europe. Got loads of stuff to post, so starting up in some sort of semi-order (of course, it might all go horribly wrong).

So, before we left for Italy, we managed to see Meaghan hit the stage (it's dance recital season apparently), so first view is below, second is here. I know I'm biased, but I thought it was great!