Nov

30

wine makes you healthy and coupons make you happy

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 4 Comments

Starting today, Threshers in the UK is having an unadvertised sale. It’s a viral campaign and you need a coupon to get the swanky 40% off discount. This comes at a perfect time— I’ve just read yet another article on the benefits of consuming red wine and feel it’s my responsibility to a healthy lifestyle to go buy some more of the tasty beverage! Now if I can just find a way to eat ice cream instead of working out…

Here’s a quote from the article, found at Medical News Today:

Procyanidins, compounds commonly found in red wine, are good for your blood vessels and are probably one of the factors contributing towards the long life spans of the people from the southwest of France and Sardinia, say researchers from the William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary, University of London.
[…]
The researchers also found that the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Nebbelio grapes made the wines with the highest levels of procyanidins.

If medical science and a thirst to quench have you hankering for the coupon, click here to download the pdf. It’ll look like this:
Threshercoupon

Sweet. And thanks to that last bit in the quote, I know what to focus on at the shop! Huzzah!
(May I also suggest purchasing some Stormhoek wine as well. They tend to sponsor geek events and that’s very cool.)

Happy (and healthy) imbibing!

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Nov

29

Part one of the Madeira photos

Filed Under photos, tout le fromage | 2 Comments

reIMG_1245.jpg
I’ve been going through several gigs of photos taken on our Madeira adventure and have so far put twenty shots up on flickr. There will be more uploaded over the next few days.
I’ll post when there are more for you to enjoy. :) My flickr account.
Skip to the Madeira photos.

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Nov

28

Didn’t expect to see -that- in the kitchen utensils!

Filed Under irregular, tout le fromage | 10 Comments

I was just doing an Amazon search for kitchen stuff (nothing in particular, just browsing) when I saw this tucked into the list: (click image for an enlarged view)

Corkscrewredefined

If you didn’t spot it, it’s the big, blue dildo in the middle row. Looks like the keyword filtering for Amazon puts any old ‘corkscrew’ into the “Bar & Wine Tools” section! Oh my! Tee hee hee…

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Nov

28

Back from Madeira

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 2 Comments

Wow— Madeira is spectacular! My skin is a slightly darker shade of pale and my body is desperately trying to readjust to the chilly English climate. In the week away, I nearly forgot about all of the technological trappings of my daily life here and was really surprised to see how bright my monitors are, how many gadgets are plugged in and sucking up electricity, and how much ’stuff’ typically surrounds me. I’m not saying I was completely free of techy goodness whilst in Madeira, but when you have just an iPod and a digital camera to remind you of the life you’ve temporarily broken free of, well, it’s easy to forget just how much whirring, humming, spinning, charging, uploading, downloading, and time-consuming modern life can be.

This has been my favourite holiday since the childhood adventures at Myrtle Beach in the 1970s with my parents. There was no stress from the moment we set our bags in the room overlooking the Atlantic to the time we paid for the long-stay parking at Gatwick. Relaxed to the max— just what a vacation should be.

I’ll have the photos up soon. I took plenty of the Madeiran landscape and you’ll see it varies wildly from volcanic shorelines, to jungle-like mountains, to dry and barren mountaintops where the tops of clouds replace the solid horizon. It is a lovely and magical island; I hope you enjoy the photos. I’ll put the relevant links in a new post within a day or two.

Comments are open again* and I can’t rave enough about the Wordpress plugin we used to temporarily shut them all off. It may sound ridiculous, but not having a shedload of spam to wade through upon return has been such a relief and further reduced the stressful thoughts of home whilst we were abroad. To use the plugin, go download it here. Thank you to the developer(s)— you rock.

I guess the Stealth Disco I posted about made it to the front page of Digg.com briefly! Wow! Thanks everyone and if you’ve seen the video and are visiting me because of it, welcome!

That’s all for now. I’ve got to unpack, make some lunch, and get back to my whirring, humming, spinning, charging, uploading, downloading, and time-consuming modern life. ;)
Update: *Thanks for catching the registration thing, Geneva. I forgot that I’d ticked that setting before finding that cool plugin to manage my comments. Comments are now fully open again.

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Nov

19

before I go (on holiday) - enjoy silliness

Filed Under me so g33ky, regular, tout le fromage | 2 Comments

Just wanted to post a link to the Stealth Disco that happened at PodcastCon UK yesterday:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=4683445155355212510
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVbGj6pO3NE

Yes, I’m shaking my booty for millions on Google and YouTube. Eek! It was soooo fun though, and met with huge laughs and claps as the closing segment of the conference. The footage was from my little Sony camera and stellar on-the-fly editing at a back table was done by Pete. Well done Team Stealth Disco!

20×2 was a success! I did really well despite a certain level of nervousness. I haven’t done public speaking for a couple of years now, but though rusty, I remembered how to ride the metaphorical bicycle. (Technically, isn’t it a simile? ‘Like riding a bicycle…’)
I’ll be sure to get a link to the ones who want it after I have access to the footage.

It’s getting late and I still have suitcases to pack before we head out, so I’m switching off comment ability and will see you all again in a week.

smooches~
jEN

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Nov

17

full of awesome awesomeness

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 2 Comments

I finished the presentation for 20×2 at just past 3 PM today. I’ve been toying with the video export features in iMovie and I have got to say hot damn! H.264 Quicktime compression is rockin’. I had tried other export settings and even the 1.25 gig .avi file I created looked like poo. I thank the ever awesome Pete for his guidance through the export jungle.

House is tidy, a guest is on his way from Birmingham, and I’ve begun the holiday packing. If it weren’t for the ice-cold rain, this day would be overflowing with awesome awesomeness. As it stands, it is pretty full though. :D
Must rehearse and consume pizza.
Yum.

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Nov

17

the last of the craziness before we can rest

Filed Under regular, tout le fromage | 2 Comments

So yesterday I went down into town to get away from the desk, the presentation preparation, and to get some supplies for the upcoming holiday. I haven’t been pressuring myself too much on the presentation and I believe that’s part of the reason it’s coming together. I’ll have it done today.

PodcastCon UK is this Saturday. Podcasters and enthusiasts from all over the world will be in London and if you want to go, there’s still a few tickets left (online only — not available at the door). See the site for details. I’ll see you in London!

20×2 is on Sunday but you’ve heard me go on about that already. It’s going to be a blast. Space is limited, so get there early. See the site for details. Again, I’ll see you in London!

Holiday is rapidly approaching. Travel-size toiletries are mostly packed and a list of other things to take has been drafted. Laundry done. Groceries depleted. Plants are in survival mode — which is where I starve them for water most of the year through forgetfulness (a more pleasant word than neglect) and count on them to make a gulp of water last a week. They’re tough.

I’ll have the blog comments shut off soon (for the holiday) since I’ve got better things to do whilst in Madeira than to pay for a connection to clear out spam and approve a few legit comments. You’ll have to save those lovin’ sentiments for my return. ;)
It’ll be lovely when this weekend is over and we can unwind for a week. Neil’s been working really hard with Podshow and sleep (when obtained) has been all over the place. Since Podshow HQ is in San Francisco, the London team often starts work here with the rest of the UK, then again after the US team is in the office. This makes for really long days and it’s not uncommon for him to be on calls to San Francisco towards and beyond midnight. These timezone things are getting ironed out a little now that the official BT Podshow launch has happened, but we really need a break to recharge our human batteries. Add into this hectic work schedule PodcastCon UK (which Neil has had a minimum of involvement with this year), my freelance, and the 20×2 bit I’m doing— phwew! Busy stuff. My writing time has suffered terribly over the last month so I’ll certainly be taking a notebook with me (haven’t decided whether to take the old laptop or not) and I expect to come back with enough for a travel piece at the very least.

Time for me to get back to my current tasks. I’d love to drift into more holiday thoughts, but there are things to be done first and the sooner those are done, the sooner I can relax with my daydreams of distant shores. :)
smooches~
jEN

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Nov

16

of light and dark

Filed Under creative stuff, tout le fromage | 4 Comments

I wish I could punch a hole in the sky today
free up some sun
if not for any other reason than
to keep the lights off
in the flat
blast out the grey walls
closer than they should be
in dusty hues that
communicate more heavy feelings
than butter yellow and periwinkle
should know.
It’s not their fault
the sky
has a cape drawn
up over the sun
shrouding
smothering
and we can barely breathe
in darkened rooms
without huddling around
artificial light
like moths
just to live.

Impromptu blog poetry. (c) Jennifer Dixon 16 November 2006

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