Wiii Races

If you've never played on a Wii, you should really try and have a go - they're a lot of fun....

Christmas In England

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Originally uploaded by Aaron in Denver.

It was a bit of a weird one this year - made it back safely to Denver last night, but spent the last four or five days in bed before the flight with what I guess was flu or something equally debilitating. So, that kinda put a damper on proceedings, and meant the plans for the last half of the week (basically everything after Christmas Day) were blown to bits. So, sorry Bez, Rach, Nev and everyone else who we were meant to meet up with and didn't get a chance to.

But, we did get lots of cuddles and smiles from Ella, and I got a full sized Chocolate Football! What more could you ask for 8-)

Photos are up on Flickr from stuff we did manage to do, including the masterful turkey that Heidi and Claire cooked to perfection.

God Save the Queen

Or something like that - in possibly the most shocking news in a long time, The Queen now has her own YouTube channel. Old Christmas speeches and random clips from the archives abound - I haven't found the shot of her launching crying about Britney or launching Pepsi bottles with a couple of Mentos in there yet, but I'm sure they're there if you keep digging.

Just coz I'm feeling kinda nostalgic and patriotic, here's the link to the 1957 broadcast - the first ever TV broadcasted one (for the non-UK readers, we get a 10 minute address from the Queen every year on Christmas Day - it used to be compulsory watching when I was younger, but mainly coz it was followed by the latest James Bond film on BBC ;-)

What I want to know now is why The Queen has disabled embedding of the videos? Are they that desperate for the ad share revenue from Google? I thought she was loaded as it is?

Merry Christmas Everyone

No promises this is my last post before the big day, but it just might be, so here's the best ever Christmas song to keep you going. Hope it's a great one for you all!

Back Home

So we survived the flight home with no drama (for a change), and now merrily making my way through the usual list of food (Gregg's pasties today, steak pie yesterday, curry when we got off the plane). Of course, it's raining outside, and despite the weather being about 20 degrees colder in Denver, it feels much worse here, so I've been wrapped up warm since I got off the plane.

It turns out the UK actually has a freedom of information act these days (although I'm sure they've got some pretty good exemptions in there), and so The Times has compiled this list of 59 things we wouldn't know if it wasn't in place. I particularly like the fact that Thatcher was planning to send dolphins to look for the Loch Ness monster....

iBoob

The perfect Christmas gift?

Skyline GT-R Initial Tests - 0-60 in 3.3. secs!!

Inside Line gets the star prize for getting a full featured review out on the web - and it appears that the GT-R is going to be faster than anyone had hoped.

For the second time in a week, I'm seriously tempted to go down to the Nissan garage and put down a deposit....

Santa Kidnapped?

The Dark Side of the Force making a claim over Christmas?

New Doors?

And I always thought the Lambo door mod was cool.

Porsche 928 - The Nightmare Version

When I was growing up, the 928 was high on my wish list of cars. It stayed on there for a very long time, in part coz despite it being so old by the time it finally ceased production it still looked pretty modern, and in part due to it being available for purchase second hand at a price I could almost grasp affording (think 5000 pounds or so). Now, of course, I would never have been able to afford the insurance, or the petrol (gas), and if anything ever went wrong, it would completely bankrupt me for the rest of my life. So, I didn't buy one, although one of the guys who used to go surfing did get one and ran it successfully for about 18 months before the expensive repairs kicked in.

Anyway, this is all leading up to this following video, in which someone has completely massacred one of my childhood dreams. I've asked myself why a few times, and apart from the obvious "I need a fast truck" I'm at a loss for words - I thought that's why they had the high performance Dodge and Ford trucks (if you ever see someone trying to drive one of these 500 hp things in the snow in Denver, give them a wide berth - it's funny to watch, but not when you're in the lane next to them). And Porsche apparently helped him get approval to take it on the road...

Ike Turner Dead

I think Perez summed it up best...

Holly Turns 5

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Originally uploaded by Aaron in Denver.

And had all of her friends over to celebrate with her. Apparently, High School Musical is big these days, so Heidi came up with the piano like cake with built in jewelry, and a couple of musical notes, and Holly's friends provided the singing, dancing, and dirty feet for a foot spa.

It looked to me like everyone was having a blast, but apparently I'm old now, so it was tough for me to work out ;-)

Ricky Lost

Good performance, but ultimately was a little too careless coming in, and with Mayweather's accuracy, he got picked off. The first knockout punch was a bit of a classic, and knocked him off balance so much that he went head first into the corner post. After that it was all over.

We managed to get through the snow storm and back from Heidi's work's party in time to watch it semi-live (sorry Neil for the late txt reply - had switched the phone off just in case someone sent me the result). It was probably one of the more exciting boxing matches I've seen in a while, but I have a feeling that was only coz I actually cared about the result. And the referee was obviously favoring Mayweather (elbows anyone?) but ultimately it didn't really make much difference.

Anyway, you did us proud Ricky. Sorry you didn't win.

Formula One Stops Engine Development

In the most ridiculous news I've ever heard of a "sport", Formula 1 today announced that they're banning engine development for 10 (yes ten) years. I was so in shock, I actually looked at my little calendar on the computer to make sure that I hadn't fell into a deep sleep and woke up on April 1st.

Now, if there was a sport such as running, where someone told me I didn't have to train for 10 years and I could still compete (and be competitive) that sounds great to me. But cars? You've got to be kidding. 10 years is a long time, and given that some manufacturers use Formula 1 to test out new technology that gets fed back into their road cars further down the line - does this mean there's be no more engine improvements in passenger cars in 5 or 10 years time. And what happens if you're the team who didn't quite get the best engine sorted out before the deadline, and you're guaranteed to spend the next 10 years slightly worse off than the rest of the teams - wouldn't you just throw in the towel before you wasted any more money?

I may be slightly over-reacting here, but it's a bit ridiculous - I think F1 has got so far up it's own backside that it's forgot what makes a good racing series.

Our Christmas Party

Another corker of a night. George, you really should have come along....

The Big Fight

It's been a while since I got excited about a boxing match - the last few years have been mainly spent watching the UFC variety of fighting. However, we did have a blast going to see Ricky in his first fight in Vegas earlier in the year, and since then we've watched a couple of decent Calzaghe fights.

But now Ricky has the biggest fight of his career, against Floyd Mayweather - the guy with the biggest mouth in boxing (maybe) but with the skills to back it up. It's going to be a good one - two very different styles of fighter, but both unbeaten so far in their professional career. If Ricky wins this one, it'll make him a superstar over here, especially if he wins it in style. It's being hyped up on both sides of the Atlantic, with the BBC seemingly updating their pre-fight pages every few hours.

My brother pinged me this afternoon to say he was watching the weigh-in, and through the wonders of the internet, I was able to watch it stream live from the HBO site at the same time. Ricky looks in great shape, and I'm hoping Mayweather is getting a little lazy now that he's got so many championships.

But, it looks like we're probably not going to see it live - we did debate going down there for it, but then things conspired against us (going back home, skint, too many trips to Vegas already etc etc). It turned out ok though, as Heidi's new company has their Christmas gig tomorrow night, so chances are we'll be there. Some friends are debating getting the fight though so we may call in on the way home. Either way, I'm more excited for a boxing match than I have been for a very long time. Come on Ricky!!

Natalie Portman Raps

Two reasons for this post (apart from to keep all those Star Wars geeks happy - it's kinda funny, especially as I've never seen her do stuff like this, and to see what happens with my new Hulu beta testing thing when I embed a clip from their site (although I'm a big Apple fan, this site so far has me all excited)

Ferrari Out-Brakes BMW

So not long after BMW leaks the news they're working with Brembo for their brakes in the future, Ferrari comes out and trumps everyone (now that never happens, does it...) and announces their whole line for 2008 on will come with brakes of the ceramic variety.

Given they're a good few grand (an $8k option on a Porsche I think), it's not a cheap add-on - the question I have is you sat on the rumored 4 year waiting list, and had just taken delivery of your 2007 F430, would it make you pissed off? I didn't think so ;-)

New Cars and Reviews

Reading car reviews takes up a reasonable amount of my spare reading time (and having just got through the yearly highlight known as Evo's Car of the Year article, I'm into even more at the minute). It's amazing what a review can do to the desirability of a car, although there are some reviews you tend to ignore if the fancy takes you (reading an Edmunds review on a 911 for examples, where they ream the car for a small trunk....).

Anyway, the STi has apparently arrived, or at least been reviewed, and it's kind of a mixed bag - it's not really any better than the old one, apart from it's quieter (which isn't really what most STi drivers want in their little boxer enginer), and it's now more expensive.

And then there's Jeremy's review of the new R8, which confirmed that if I ever make it into semi-rich land, I'm going to have a hard time deciding between that and a GT3 (or the RS version..).

Spice Girls Pic

So I was trying to work out why the number of visitors to this site spiked so dramatically this morning (think from 10 or 15 a day to over 400 already). After a bit of digging, it turns out that if you have safesearch turned on moderate, and are looking for images of the Spice Girls, I somehow end up at number 2 in the list with the pic above. So, no idea how all the google magic works, but today it's working good (for me).