http://nevstokes.com/blog Random musings of a child progeny Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:12:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en While the rest of the country was busy watching Super Saturday and the British "great haul of China", I joined 167 other scavengers solving cryptic clues, seeking out items and performing tasks all across Edinburgh for the Festival Scavenger Hunt. If you saw people running around the city carrying obscure ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/08/17/seek-and-ye-shall-find/ Edinburgh in August is a fantastic place to be. The Festival is in full swing, the sun doesn't set until after 2100 and the pubs are open for longer. Okay, so the weather does demand that you equip yourself with an umbrella and sunglasses but spirits don't appear to be ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/08/15/now-for-something-completely-different/ Historic 'Blockbuster' Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past Update 19/08/08 I think I may have found who may be responsible for Blockbuster going down the tubes. When your CEO is this out-of-touch this you should start worrying. I'm wondering the same thing as John Gruber: How does ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/08/14/how-quaint/ I managed to hog most of the bandwidth in the office yesterday watching the BBC's online stream of the Olympic opening ceremony at the Bird's Nest and was suitably impressed. I've subscribed to the events schedule and again was blown away by the sheer number of events that are taking ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/08/09/jia-you/ Let me clarify that. It's nice to be thought of, most of the time. It depends on what the thoughts are I guess. For example, if someone is thinking of a way that they could annoy me from afar then I'd rather they thought about somebody else. Case in point: my ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/08/06/its-nice-to-be-thought-about/ It may have escaped your notice but today the Olympic Games kicked off (quite literally, with the women's football) — a whole two days before the opening ceremony on Friday. Even at this late stage China has decided to go back on their pledge on free expression. Not content with ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/08/06/citius-altius-fortius/ On my travels I was always keeping an eye out for complimentary wireless Internet access points as I didn't really feel like paying the exorbitant data fees. It would have cost me £7.50 per megabyte or, to put it another way, £45 to view this picture of Lake Wanaka at ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/08/05/whats-a-hot-spot-not/ I enjoy working with like-minded people: the kind of petty pedant1 that immediately spots the flaws in statements like "only five people died during the construction of the Empire State Building" or spends time debating whether replay television channels should be named +1 or −1. I believe that it's something ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/08/04/its-good-to-be-back/ It's Sunday night and I have the mother of all Monday fears. It'll be my first day back in the office tomorrow after taking three months off. Thanks to keeping this blog updated on my travels, my typing isn't too bad but I think getting my coding back up to ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/27/back-to-normality/ So that's that over and done with. I traveled westwards by train, plane and automobile for over 31,000 miles until I got back to where I started out from a few months ago. I beat Phileas Fogg by a few days. I've eaten subs, grinders and hoagies. I've renewed friendships ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/22/there-and-back-again/ I was quite pleased to leave Japan behind. Don't get me wrong: I quite like it there but, after nigh-on three months of living out of a bag, I was ready to go home. I was also a little fed up with not understanding practically anything that was going on ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/22/tokyo-london-edinburgh/ Now I'm back home I'm going to take a couple of weeks to get used to the idea of actually working again. I can kind of still type thanks to keeping this blog but coding may be something else entirely. I'll be using the time to visit relatives and catch up ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/12/going-dark/ Let me get this straight. Blowing my nose or eating while walking is considered to be extremely rude but apparently you can cough up a huge gob of phlegm and spit without anyone batting an eyelid? Welcome to Japan: land of contradictions. It was supposed to be the rainy season while ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/12/sayonara-nippon/ The new functionality that is included in the version 2.0 software release fixes a couple of the few things that annoyed me with the iPhone. I installed it last night after people with too much time on their hands found the software on Apple's servers thanks to examining a bunch ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/11/iphone-software-20/ Is it really though? Those of you who know me well enough would probably be expecting me to rush out and buy the iPhone 3G as soon as I set foot back on British soil. There's no denying that I'm an Apple fan boy but I'm also not stupid. The ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/11/to-buy-or-not-to-buy-that-is-the-question/ Today I purchased a day ticket for the Tokyo Metro and set off exploring, armed only with my iPhone subway map. I started off in the Sony Building, mainly slobbering over the 70" Bravia (a snip at ¥4 million) and the stunningly slim XEL-1 OLED unit. After that I ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/10/going-underground/ Yesterday I took a trip to Akihabara - the electronics center of Tokyo. Gadgets, toys and flashing lights are everywhere there. It is quieter than usual at the moment after the horrific attack last month and the subsequent attack on a policeman a couple of weeks after. All the same, ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/09/big-in-japan/ I got talking to a fellow traveler from Edinburgh today and was mortified when she got excited about Pokémon being on television. It turns out that she was really into it when she was younger. I guess it's only like Transformers and Star Wars in my formative years. I only realised ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/08/time-passes/ I'm thinking about home more and more as it gets closer and closer to the time to go back to the UK after my round-the-world trip. I guess it's only natural. It's been interesting comparing different cities and cultures and how they do things. I'm wondering what state the tram work ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/07/thinking-of-home/ I don't think that I was quite with it when leaving Melbourne. I was flying at 1550 and had a good nights sleep so I had no real excuses for being a bit dopey. I thought that there happened to be a lot of people called 'Mel' working at the ... http://nevstokes.com/blog/2008/07/06/melbourne-singapore-tokyo/