What I've been up to in January

Where have I been over the last month? Well, Christmas I went back home and got full blown Flu, so I spent from boxing day until the end of my holiday lying in bed, alternately sleeping and coughing. Other than that it was a nice Christmas.

January has been busy.

First day back at work was a bad one for car drivers. Black ice on the turn-in to work meant at least five people slid into the curb and up the pavement. Fortunately for me, I was going slow enough that I had time to steer into it, avoiding any damage. Not so for Marc, who bent his wishbone and damaged the wheel.

Myself, Mike T, Lucy, and Kath have started an impromptu cook-off. The first leg was at Mike’s where he cooked us Pialla and we watched Amelie (both excellent), second leg was at Kath’s and involved “Christmas Curry” (it has custard in it) and banoffee pie. Kath had kindly provided colouring books, pens, and play-doh. Excellent fun! There have been a couple of nights of “Japanese Madness” at Mike’s, where myself, Mike and Laurie have watched odd Japanese films and ate take-away; Great fun, so far we’ve seen G.I. Samurai (insane and non-sensical in all manner of ways), Kung-fu Hustle (brilliantly entertaining), and Zatoichi (about a blind Samurai who kicks everyone’s ass).

I’ve been to see Heather a couple of times. Our plans were mostly scuppered first time around, the times at the ice-skating rink at Deeside had changed and it wasn’t on when we got there, and it started raining when we went for a walk. In the end we just chatted a lot and watched Batman: The Dark Knight. Which was a good film, but not as great as I’d hoped. On the other hand, yes, Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker really is that good. Every time he was on screen I was mesmerised. Last weekend faired better - we managed to get in to the Ice Skating, and it was brilliant fun! I’ve never been before, so you can imagine how all-over-the-place I was. Absolutely brilliant time though, with a lot of laughing, and only three falls smiley icon: smile

I’ve bought a new printer, a Canon SEPLHY 760, which is excellent. It prints really fast, the quality is great, and it works out at 22p per photo. Top stuff. I got this as my Epson 890 is very slow, and because it uses ink the nozzles dry up with half a cartridge still available and you have to throw them away. The SELPHY doesn’t use liquid ink, so it doesn’t have that problem. smiley icon: smile

Kath and Mike surprised me last Friday by turning up on my doorstep after I finished work! Great to see them, it’s rare anyone comes to mine - I usually go see other people over in Bangor. We had a nice night, a few coffee’s and a beer, then off to Weatherspoons for lunch.

Mike and myself went for a walk up Snowdon one Saturday. Started off with a breakfast fry-up at Pete’s Eat’s in Llanberris (I highly recommend it), before wandering up the mountain. It was really pretty, especially once we passed the snow-line. You may find it odd, but we also attempted to figure out if a day’s supply of chickens, as consumed globally, would fill the valley. We also chatted about various Anime. That’s the way we roll.

Joel got the job and is now working at View, which is hella-cool. Joel, you may remember, worked with me back at Karova before he went freelance. Why have I not linked to View? Because the website is about 5yrs old and about to get replaced with something far better.

There are photo’s of a fair bit of that stuff attached to this post. I’ve also started a “photo a day” project, and those will be attached to a separate post in a few days.