some photos for youz

I've uploaded some photos to the gallery linked on the left. Both times that I tried to get in to the Citadel and Pius' theatre it was closed. Aparently the dead sea is only about half an hour's drive from here, so I might just mission it out straight after work tomorrow (Saturday).

The Jordan ones are under Europe -> Jordan

Oh yeah, and for you guys around at one of the the curry nights when I came back to Wellington in April, I've uploaded those too. For those of you not there, well they're also available for your voyeuristic pleasure. I've also whacked up some mugs of me and Mike doing some chopper flying up at Kapiti.

They're under New Zealand -> Return to NZ April, 2005.

Kia toa.

Allah akbar

I feel like I'm cheating you all with mere bullet points, but it seems convenient to summarise the business down to easily potable sentences. I'll do my best to embellish...

Living in London was an interesting experience. I wouldn't be chomping at the bit to go back there, but then I knew that before I had arrived. I don't want to overload you with the negatives, so I'll stick with the cream on top. I did the repatriation to a hostel costing a fraction of the price. It was called the Globetrotter Inn out in the west of London. It was a pretty rocking place with a bar that stayed open late, a 24hr gym and an absolute shitload of Aussies. A sprinkling of South Africans, Canadians and a few yanks were also staying there. When I mean staying, I mean 7 months - since it had opened. When people say you end your OE at London, they mean it.

The Sunday just been, I spent about 14 hours doing travel-type business. For some unknown reason, I had to get a flight to Jordon to Vienna, then back to Frankfurt, then down to Amman. At least there was a business seat in there somewhere.

Jordan's been pretty good so far. Pretty much the only impression I had of Jordon was a whole heapload of austere desert with ad hoc settlements of tents with dudes smoking Hublybubbly. Jordon has a liberal dosing of green-ness and it's surprisingly modern. The driving is pretty crazy, but cool nonetheless. The pedestrians act like they're made of the same gold the Dutch bikeriders are made of :) There's a Mecca mall here, and it's about four floors of pretty much the same stuff you find at regular western malls - including nice girls.

One thing that I especially liked about my arrival was the greeting at the front of my hotel by a big machine gun of some description. That and the metal detector at the front was also choice. The hotel is really palatial and it's pretty reasonable to stay here, at 75 euro a night, including the free use of the gym and two pools. Not like the extortionists at the Radisson in London. 169 pounds a night and 8 pounds for the priviledge of using their weener gym.... anyhorse, I digress.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is a holiday, but I'll be doing a half day. The weekend starts on Friday....I hope to get some photos for you loyal readers uploaded tomorrow or the next day.

Salam.

Check out Triki's new beats

I am a few decades late with this one, but J.J. Cale is one of the few artists that I've bought the album and have been listening to non stop since the minute I downloaded it from iTunes. J.J. Cale is where Eric Clapton got his inspiration, nay his sheet music for many of his songs. Cocaine? J.J. did it first. It's pretty laid back business. Cool stuff.

Just bought some Underworld as well. That's also some pretty mean stuff. I always start listening to stuff years after the music goes through its bell curve of popularity. The exception to this was Tool. I remember I was the first dude at school with a tape of Tool at least a year before everyone else started listening to them. Their concert in Auckland was my first concert I went to - quite surprising I got permission to leave the Fort Knox of boarding school on a Thursday night to bus up.

Johnny Cash has also been getting some otolith time. The lyrics aren't sold on me, but then neither are almost 100% of the songs I listen. Most of the lyrics I can't hear, but it's the singer's voice and the melody that captivates me. The exception of this is 2D2F by Erland Oye and it doesn't take much Google empowerment to figure out why.

More on ye old horizon is a new Royksopp album that will be released in June - hanging out big time. I'm also hanging out for a music festival in Denmark on 30th-3rd July - 180 euro. The lineup is incredible and just getting wet thinking about it. More details to come.

Still in London and was supposed to head to Jordan tomorrow, but things fell to bits at the last minute. It sounds like I'll be down there later next week. This weekend should be some carnage in London seeing if it really lives up to its reputation of the night life capital of Europe.

An aside for those of you with nothing better to do today and that's to notice how many subject pronouns (personal and impersonal) are missing from lots of emails and blogs these days. _ expect they're getting to the stage they're going to become largely redudant since you can implicitly obtain the pronoun from the context.

Sometimes can't always miss it out, but will see if can pull through without any subject pronouns.

An erudite dumb dumb post

I've had to make a mad dash for the airport - I've only just arrived with three hours to spare. One thing that is systemic of the Hellberg clan is its aversion to being prompt, especially in airports. Hopefully living in Germany for a few months has taught me a thing or two about being "punklich" and I can kick the "fashionably late" gene.

Anyhow, what brings me to the airport is a mission to London that I'm making tonight. I've got to take care of some such racy tasks like the tax department and banks; should be a hoot. I do have some work to do also, but it's pretty low key.

Anyhow, what bought me to Sweden were the worldwide rumours of beautiful women, and a city that is supposed to match Paris for its metropolitan X factor. The list has checks against all of the above (and can I check the box labelled "Other" too?) - great nightlife, fantastic shopping, friendly natives and gorgeous women. After finishing with a customer project in Oslo last weekend I had to find something stimulating to do and Norway wasn't really up to snuff, so I headed to Gothenburg for the night and the train the next day to Stockholm.

Speaking of snuff, I'll take a little diversion to explain this curious trait that I've only seen in Scandanavia. For reasons known only to Google/wikipedia, a hundred years or so ago Sweden invented little pouches of nicotine/tobacco crud. These fingernail sized bags are placed under the upper lip and release, through its permeable membranes, a good dose of the same cruft you find in cigarettes. Its proponents say that it doesn't give you lung cancer and is more sociable. True enough, but under more scrutiny, they do admit that it does give you cancer in other places anyway.

Anyhow, on Monday, I later found out that there was a RIPE meeting (European network hooligans) in Stockholm, which I was thinking about travelling to a while ago. So at least could legitimize my Stockholm sojourn. I met up with Hannes Viertel (from Juniper) and we toured the local bars at night after the conferences; good times.

I bought myself an iPod shuffle for about 160 euro (1400 Swedish Kronor) and love the thing. I'm undecided whether it'll premanently replace my 15 GB clunker, but I can sense the force is strong in this one.

Stockholm is about 800 years old and has plenty of old stuff to wander around and look at. One noteworthy one is a huge three-masted boat, which on its maiden voyage didn't even manage to get out of the harbour. Instead it capsized a couple of times and sunk, to remain on the harbour seabed for over three hundred years before it was raised up and installed as a museum. Doh!

I'm not sure where I'll be after next week - maybe in Ireland or Dubai, but where my destination ends up to be is as predictable as the weather.

Tired, must sleep

A quick post before I retire for the morning.

The sun has been up for a couple of hours already and it's time to go to bed. Update later today hopefully, but just a quicky. Been in Stockholm for a week and went to all night rave last night. woooo