Colin Seymour

SA Given a Pasting By The Poms

Colin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:43:24 +0000

Oh my word, the South Africans have just been given a complete pasting by England in the 2nd One Day International at Trent Bridge. SA were all out for 83 in 23 overs and England replied with 85 for 0 in 14.1 overs. I don’t think I want to watch the highlights tonight; it’ll just be embarrassing.

Red & Yellow

Colin — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:16:13 +0000

I’ve been working through the mountains of photos I took in the 10 days Mum and Sam were over and stumbled upon this one I took at the Eden Project. I literally just cropped it and increased the blacks and this is the result: an accidental “Photo of the Week”.

I think I need to start making an active effort to take photos of other things as this is now my 6th flower picture in my “Photo of the Week” series.

Cape Town Comes in 3rd for Monopoly World Edition

Colin — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:15:42 +0000

Well, the power of the South Africans on the internet has been proven. We’re taking your women, jobs and now board games too.

The big push by various South African bloggers, me included, to get the most beautiful city in the world - Cape Town - onto the World Edition of Monopoly has paid off. Cape Town rocketed from not even being in contention right up to 3rd and that’s where it stayed until the voting was closed.

Well, the official results are out, and Cape Town came in 3rd (click thumbnail on right for full results). Wooohoooo!!!

500 Miles to the Tank

Colin — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 07:20:07 +0000

Check it out folks, over 500 miles to a tank of petrol and with absolutely no motorway driving at all - this is just over 2 weeks worth of to work and back:

Despite what the reading says, the fuel economy is actually about 44.15 mpg (6.39 litres per 100km) as I could only squeeze in 51.86 litres. I suspect all the free wheeling skews the onboard computer a bit.

Just goes to show that if you drive very very carefully - they call it driving like a christian on TopGear - and bung in a fair amount of free-wheeling you can get some pretty impressive fuel consumption.

I don’t think I’ve ever got 500 miles out of a 55 litre tank of petrol before - diesel yes, petrol no. That said, I’ve always driven cars with biggish engines. Thanks to the supercharger and turbo, the Golf GT only needs a little 1.4 litre engine which obviously helps with the fuel economy.

Now to see how many 500+ mile tanks I can get in a row.

Interesting Links for 24 Jul 08 - 19 Aug 08

Colin — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:02:55 +0000

Interesting links for 24 Jul 08 - 19 Aug 08:

Just right for the garden: a mini-cow - Forget getting a dog: get a mini-cow. You'll a secondary income (thanks to 16 pints of drinkable milk a day), a lawn mower, a friend, a pet and finally some awesome steaks in a couple of years time. Think I'll add one of these to my house warming wish list.
Pictured: The horrific moment Olympic weightlifter turns his elbow back to front - Einaaaaaaaaa!!! I bet every Hungarian swear word ever created, and then some new ones, came streaming out of his mouth at the time. The first would have probably been along the lines of “Oh foooook”
Eureka Carpark Melbourne - Now this is a brilliant way to direct drivers round a multi-storey car park.
Man buys $1,000 worth of iPhone pixels by accident - Some people are just so stupid.
NZ judge saves girl from bloody silly name - What on earth were the parents thinking?

Usain Bolt Smashes World 100m Record

Colin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:34:53 +0000

Wow!!!! Usain Bolt is incredible, check that margin of victory, and he wasn’t even trying in the last 10m. Usain Bolt won this race at 90m, cruised across the finish line and still SMASHED his old record to pieces in a new time of 9.69 seconds. Imagine how quick he would have been had he tried right to the end. This man definitely deserves the title of the world’s fastest man. If you’ve not seen it, check it out on the BBC website.

Oh, and did anyone else notice that 6 of the 8 runners were from Caribbean Islands? Must be something in the water

Oh, and whatever you do, don’t waste your time on YouTube looking for this video. Go straight to the BBC site. I tried this morning in an attempt to include the video here and all I could find was one crappy quality video in Italian (Rai Uno) and a million “fan” or spam videos.

Fill Your Silence With Last.fm

Colin — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:06:39 +0000

I’ve had the unfortunate luck of having to work the last two weekends in a row (my own fault), but it hasn’t all been bad as I’ve listened to a lot of great music for free and without any adverts or DJ chat thanks to Last.fm.

I’ve been a last.fm member for quite some time, but haven’t actually used it for much more than installing iScrobbler plugin for iTunes. I think I may have signed up for last.fm with the idea that I’d display my listening habits etc on this site, but as you can see, I’ve not actually done anything more about it.

Anyway. When on shifts, people bring in all sorts of devices including portable DVD players, laptops and portable games consoles like the Nintento DS Lite to keep themselves occupied during the quiet periods. I normally just bring in my iPod and listen to music whilst I work cases or surf the net or code. Unfortunately, this has the side effect in that the iPod battery tends to die long before it’s time to go home, or I get bored of listening to my own music, and this is where Last.fm came in.

Read the rest of Fill Your Silence With Last.fm (273 words)

How to Feel Inferior In One Easy Movement

Colin — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:51:58 +0000

Go to the gym, grind out 3 sets of 6 reps of deadlifts at 120kg and finish feeling amazing and like you’ve accomplished something good in your workout. Then look up at the telly and see the women hoiking weights in excess of 120kg over their heads in the Olympic women’s weightlifting competition.

1% Milk - Is It Really Worth The Effort?

Colin — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:04:34 +0000

Life is already far too complicated with all the choices we can have when we go shopping: Branded or not? Organic or “normal”? Free range or battery? Fresh or frozen? High fat, medium far or low fat?

Well, Sainsburys have complicated matters further in the milk department. We’ll ignore the whole branded/unbranded and organic/normal choices and look at the Sainsburys’ own milk:

Read the rest of 1% Milk - Is It Really Worth The Effort? (165 words)

The Verve and the Nosiest Birds in South Africa

Colin — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:53:33 +0000

I quite like The Verve’s latest single “Love is Noise”, but something has been bothering me about it for a while. Something in the song sounds really familiar, and for the life of me I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. That was until this morning when I heard it on my way to work.

Read the rest of The Verve and the Nosiest Birds in South Africa (67 words)

LoveFilm Have Done It Again: 100 More Films to Find

Colin — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:46:03 +0000

Two years ago LOVEFiLM.com released their first image “hiding” 100 film titles, and they’ve done it again. Here’s the new one for you to start sharing with your friends and spending endless hours debating over.

(click for full size)

So what films can you find?

I’m In the Local Newspaper

Colin — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:04:22 +0000

Woohooo!!! I’m a celeb. I’m in this week’s Maidenhead Advertiser. Unlike all my previous appearances in newspapers, I’ve not done anything special other than just being in the right place at the right time. However I have been caught red handed going for the food:

This was taken at a free “Movies in the Park” event in Maidenhead on Sunday 28 July which Claire and I went to with Becki (she got snapped too), Anu and friends of Becki’s. We got to use one of our wedding presents too: the fantastic “picnic survival kit” from David and Diana.

Sizing Vibram Five Fingers

Colin — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 09:05:18 +0000

From my own experience, searching the web, the comments I’ve received in my previous two posts(Vibram Five Fingers and Vibram Five Fingers: 1 Month Later) and in conversation, sizing the Vibram Five Fingers is quite a concern and challenge. This is understandable as they’re not shoes in the sense we know it and they need to be snug. If they’re too big, you will notice.

Well, here’s my guide to sizing the Vibram Five Finger Classics based on my own experience. Your experience may vary.

Measure your feet in inches (I know, metric makes much more sense, but you’ll understand why in a mo) and the take the largest of the two and round down to the nearest &quart; inch.
Take this figure and locate the appropriate size on the sizing chart on the Vibrams US site here. This is why you need to measure your feet in inches.
Order the size one smaller than the chart recommends. For example, if like me you largest foot came in between 11 inches and 11¼ inches, round down to 11 inches which equates to a size 44 and then order the 43.

I know this sounds odd, but this is what I’ve had to do. The 44’s were way too big.

Hopefully this saves you a bit of time and removes the need to have to send your order back for a smaller pair.

Let me know how you get on with these instructions. All comments will help others who come to buy their own pair of Vibram Five Fingers.

Reverse Parking Saves You Money

Colin — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:53:37 +0000

I heard something interesting today: reversing into a parking space, or onto your drive can save you up to £100 a year in petrol.

Apparently it’s because a cold engine can use up to 4 times as much petrol than a warm engine. So naturally you want to get things warm as quickly as possible without wasting fuel and what better way than en-route to your destination?

It’s not likely to make much difference if you’re just popping into the shops for 5 minutes, but if you’re going to allow the engine to cool down, I can see this being really useful. That said, surely reversing into a spot when you can just drive through is going to use unnecessary petrol as you cover the same small bit of ground two, three, maybe even four times, depending on how good you are at reverse parking.

So here’s a money saving tip: get to work early or park at the far side of the car park so you can drive straight through a parking space so you don’t have to reverse at all. If you have to reverse, keep it to the end of your journey when the engine’s already warm.

Security Tagged Chickens

Colin — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 08:48:54 +0000

You know things must be getting bad when chickens are being security tagged in our local Tescos…

Apparently they’ve taken to security tagging the joints of lamb and beef too.

BBC Beijing Olympics Advert

Colin — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 08:19:09 +0000

Claire saw this advert the other evening and mentioned it to me. I hadn’t seen it. She mentioned it to the people at work, and they hadn’t seen it either. Claire was certain she’d seen it on TV and hadn’t just dreamed it, especially when she could recall so much detail.

Well, hubby and Google to the rescue and I soon found the advert…

Read the rest of BBC Beijing Olympics Advert (84 words)

Winnie The Pooh Needs a Rewrite

Colin — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:37:30 +0000

Thanks to new European law, Winnie the Pooh is going to need a re-write. He’s not allowed to live in the Hundred Acre Wood anymore. Instead he has to live in the 40.4685642 Hectare Wood.

Our Wedding: Why We Chose The New Mill

Colin — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:16:48 +0000

As you will no doubt know from my previous post - Our Wedding: The Big Day - Claire and I got married at The New Mill restaurant and you may be wondering “Why get married at a restaurant?”.

Well, I hope to explain our reasons here.

First off, neither of us is particularly religious, so a church wedding was off the cards from the beginning, especially when you consider they charge just as much as venues and the local council charge for civil services.

We also didn’t want to do the local registry office thing. Wokingham’s registry office is quite a small place and isn’t the most exciting or interesting of places to get married.

So our only choice really was to find a licensed venue. To keep things simple we opted for a single venue for the ceremony, breakfast and evening reception. We did our research, drew up a short list and booked our “viewing” appointments.

Read the rest of Our Wedding: Why We Chose The New Mill (148 words)

Interesting Links for 13 Jun 08 - 15 Jul 08

Colin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:01:31 +0000

Interesting links for 13 Jun 08 - 15 Jul 08:

Crap Idea - The new must have festival essential. No more horrible smelly porta-potties.
Building demolition based on old Japanese game - This is very cool and very clear, and best of all, very neat and tidy. Imagine they demolished buildings like this in the rest of the world.
SA Govt awards R3.6bn in ARV contracts - Now this is a government showing it's serious about HIV/AIDS. No other country in the world has made such a large commitment, and this is on the start of things to come.
Teens use technology to party in strangers’ pools - I guess happy slapping just isn't that much fun anymore.
Du Toit lights up Olympic team - This is impressive. Natalie du Toit has made history by becoming the first athlete to ever be named and compete in BOTH the Olympics and Para-Olympics in the same year.

Our Wedding: The Big Day

Colin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:10:46 +0000

Claire and I have now been married for 11 days, and whilst we don’t have our official photos yet, I thought I’d detail our big day for those that couldn’t attend.

This is actually the first of a series of posts that I’ll post over the next few days as there’s so much to write about and I’d rather give it to you in bite sized chunks than one large mammoth post, though each of the posts may be quite large.

Read the rest of Our Wedding: The Big Day (998 words)

Claire and I are Now Married

Colin — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:57:42 +0000

This is just a quick post to let all those that couldn’t attend out wedding know all went brilliantly well. Everything fell into place and we had a fantastic day with no problems at all.

For those who did attend: thank-you very much for joining us and for your generosity. If you’ve got any pictures you’d like to share, please feel free to email them to Claire or me.

Yesterday Claire and I had a peaceful relaxing “mini-moon” in London and we’re off for a “family-moon” bright and early tomorrow with Mum and Sam.

I’ll write about all the details of the wedding, mini-moon and family-moon once we’re back as it will be a computer-free week for all, and I’m a bit short of time now.

Vibram Five Fingers: 1 Month Later

Colin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:09:28 +0000

Well, it’s nearly a month now since I got my Vibram Five Fingers and I’m happy to say I’m still very impressed with them. More importantly, I’m also still injury free and starting to really notice my feet adapting.

To get a true reflection of the effects of running in the Vibrams, I’ve run exclusively in them. My “normal” running shoes have been relegated to the status of a fashion item (I wear them with shorts when flip-flops aren’t appropriate) and plan to keep it that way.

The first few runs were a little fairy-like as I ooohed and aaaahed each time I encountered a small stone or some particularly course tarmac, but now I hardly notice them. It actually feels like I’ve got a lot more cushioning under my feet than I really do.

Read the rest of Vibram Five Fingers: 1 Month Later (324 words)

One Week To Go

Colin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:00:48 +0000

This time next week, Claire and I would have been happily married for a whole 2 ½ hours (assuming things finish at 14:30 on the dot). I can say pretty much everything is in place now. We’ve got a couple of things to finish off, like place cards and the music, but nothing major. It should hopefully all fall into place on the day.

If you’re coming to the wedding ceremony, be sure to be on time. I’ll be at the venue from 13:00 and the ceremony will start at 14:00 sharp. I’m prepared to turn a blind eye if you surreptitiously slip me a couple reddies when nobody is looking .

Whilst we don’t have much to do, this next week is going to be hectic. It’s all getting so exciting now.

Affirmative Action Comes to Britain

Colin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:36:28 +0000

Who’d have thought South Africa would be trail blazing with it’s affirmative action laws? I certainly didn’t, but given the news today, it looks like the UK will be adopting a page from the South African book in the newly announced “Equalities Bill”.

Whilst most of the bill is designed to rule out discrimination and bring a whole lot of older laws under a single bill, it has a “positive” discrimination clause in it which will “allow firms to discriminate in favour of female and ethnic minority job candidates“.

Surely this is hypocritical, and leaves a nice gap in the law for abuse. You either condone discrimination, or you don’t. This isn’t something that should be conditional. I’m very much of opinion that fair’s fair. If you’re perfect for the job, you should get it, regardless of your race, sex, class or creed.

Ignorance Vs Apathy

Colin — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:52:36 +0000

What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.

Mother Bored

Colin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:25:44 +0000

Got another beaut of a case summary today: “Summary : 2.2667- mother bored dead on arrival”

Casu Marzu: Probably the Most Disgusting Cheese in the World

Colin — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:36:35 +0000

Last night’s F-Word featured probably the most disgusting cheese in the world: the casu marzu.
This is a sheep’s milk cheese from Sardinia, Italy that is effectively a Pecorino Sardo, but taken a stage further in the fermentation/maturation process.

After a couple of weeks of maturation, the top of the cheese is cut open and the cheese is left open for the flies to get at it. Yes, the flies; and this is intentional. Once the flies get in, they lay eggs which then grow and become larvae which eat, digest (and poop) the cheese. This turns the cheese from a hard cheese to a pungent soft cheese with live wiggly worms in it.

Apparently some people eat the cheese with the worms in, and others like to remove them first, but a sure sign that the cheese is good to eat is the worms are still alive.

I’m quite a fan of cheese, but I don’t think I’m brave enough to try this one.

Four Photos Of the Week

Colin — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:45:56 +0000

I took several photos last weekend but I can’t make up my mind which I prefer for my “Photo of the Week” feature (even though it’s more of a photo of the month), so I’ve opted for four this week.

Pearls Before Swine: 12 June

Colin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:37:51 +0000

The simple ones are always the best.

Wall: 1, Yobbo: -1… leg

Colin — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:11:22 +0000

Well that will certainly teach him. I bet he’s not feeling so clever now.