*insert witty tagline here*
I’ve decided I don’t use enough of the emoticons that are available to me. So here’s a complete list!
Maybe i’ll add some more in the future, but first to use these ones a bit more!
T-minus 1 day until the big move!
After looking over metroblogging.com I’ve decided to try and find bloggers living in Birmingham so that the city can have it’s own section on the metblogging site.
I figure this will be a good way to learn more about the city while sharing my own personal experiences as Hanne and I explore.
So, if you live in Birmingham, England (or the surrounding area) then drop me a line… or better yet, register your interest on the MetBlog site!
Yes, this is just a rip-off of Hesams (and Jacques) latest venture, but I can’t help it if the man is full of great ideas! Besides… they say imitation is the highest form of flattery.
woohoo! Bob woke up this morning to find that Bulldog has activated his 2Mb DSL connection! So broadband is back… at least until Hanne and I move to Birmingham later this week.
Her parents are driving over from Norway (c/o a ferry, of course) on Friday to bring over the rest of her stuff. Hopefully we’ll be collecting the keys to the new apartment on Thursday! Unfortunately I won’t have too much time to get settled in as I start work next Monday. Ah well.
Ferdinand has launched a new blog! Update your bookmarks today!
Hesam has started writing for Houston Metblog.. cool idea! Once I get settled in Birmingham, if I can find more people that blog, it would be good to get a local edition started to learn more about the city.
The other day I succumbed to impulse-buying and went out and got myself an X-Box. I blame this on Ben who introduced me to Burnout 3 (which is only available on X-Box/PS2). What a great way to pass the time until next week!
And in closing:
ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring BANANAPHONE!
ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Birmingham is, for lack of better words, flabbergastingly brilliant!!
Oh yeah… ok, let me rewind a bit here.
So i’m searching for a job for months and months without any luck when all of a sudden not one but TWO great jobs are offered to me within days of each other! The first offer was from a company called Perceptive Informatics, based in Birmingham, to work as a graduate trainee programmer. Their main product, Impact, is part of a suite of software used to assist with clinical trial management in the biopharmaceutical industry. Recently they’ve started porting the software to a Web-based version, which I think is what one of my main duties will be. The second offer came from a company in Bristol called Nomensa which deals with Website design and usability analysis, among other things. They’re a slightly smaller company, but they sounded like they knew what they were doing and the staff all sounded very enthusiastic about their jobs.
In the end I accepted the Perceptive offer, because although they were both great jobs this one sounded a little better for me as a graduate… plus they paid a bit more and Birmingham is a bigger place so it will probably have more jobs for Hanne to choose from when she starts looking.
After a relaxing weekend in Wales with my grandparents (plus dog, though minus Tom, who is out in the far east with my parentals) we (Hanne and I) came up to Birmingham to look at some apartments in the city centre. Wow! The cost of living is obviously quite a bit less than I’m used to down in Bath because for about the same as you’d pay for a average size apartment in Bath you can get a great two bedroom place, fully furnished, with all mod-cons, right in the heart of the city! After looking at a couple of apartments Hanne and I decided to explore the area a little bit, much to her delight, as we soon discovered this place is a shoppers paradise. There’s something for everyone here! Tonight we’re going to check out the local Odeon cinema and finally get around to seeing Dodgeball, which is supposedly hilarious.
Et voila: like scrotum, there it is in a nutshell… hehe. Hopefully Hanne and I will be moving into a place next week (well, we don’t have much choice as I start work on the 27th), so i’ll update again once things settle down a bit!
Today I finally switched from crappy old BT (well, O2, as it’s now known) and joined Orange! I’m now getting more minutes (though a few less texts) for less, and I got a free phone too (mwahahaha, I stole your baby, Jacques ). I was tempted to go the whole hog and get the P900, but figured that for £200 it’s probably not worth it, especially since the P910 will be out soon enough, at which point the P900 will probably drop in price a bit.
The reason for this switch is that I was getting tired of not getting any connection from O2 in most of Bath, and most of my friends on Orange seem to get along just fine. Knowing my luck I’ll now find a job somewhere where O2 dominates over Orange. To sweeten the deal Orange also gave a friend £25 for referring me, and gave me £50 for being referred! Also, if I give them an old handset within a week I’ll get a further £50. Hanne has an old Nokia that she’s been using for ages (which she got for free), so I can give her my T610 and give Orange the Nokia…. what a beautiful world it is.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! BT finally got their arses into gear and connected Bob’s phone line! All the engineer had to do was put a few wires together… he was here for literally less than 2 minutes and it was done. Why we had to wait three weeks for this to be done is a mystery. No doubt Bob will post an angry, angry message in his blog in the near future.
So… first of all an update on the tale of woe involving the washing machine from hell: the builders FINALLY finished redoing the kitchen and Arash’s room the other day! They re-boarded all the floors and put back the carpets and vinyl. Fast forward 36 hours and Dave is in the kitchen when he notices that the floor is even more damp than normal (which is quite damp even at the best of times). Upon investigating the cause of this he notices that water is dripping through the ceiling, from Arash’s room! But after searching his room Arash can see no trace of any water in there. So they call up the landlord again who calls the builders who have to clear out and rip up Arash’s room for the 2nd time in two weeks. It turns out that just as they were putting the final nails in Arash’s floor they accidentally put one through a water pipe just below the floor! Fast forward again another day, and the workers have fixed the new problem and put everything back, so they decide to turn the water back on. What the landlord failed to tell them was that while all this was going on downstairs he had been looking at the washing machine upstairs, and had taken it off the pipe to get a better look. Ergo, when the plumbers turned the water back on the pipe proceeded to flood the nice new kitchen upstairs AGAIN! Luckily, being new, the vinyl was pretty solid and, from the looks of things, it didn’t allow the water to penetrate through to the wood. At this point in time I’d just like to point out how happy I am that I got out of that house when I did. I’m sure it’s going to implode in the not-too-distant future.
My job prospects are starting to look a lot better! There might be some big news to report in the very near future, but I’ll keep it quiet for the time being until things are more definite.
My parents recently found out that they’re being moved to Indonesia… Borneo, to be precise, on the Indonesian side. They’re leaving Shanghai, having been there for less than 12 months, near the end of this month. Sounds like another exciting adventure for them. Hopefully they’ll be there for at least a few months to give us some time to come and visit! My uncle is travelling out to China for a holiday… uhm… today, actually! He’s had this booked for some time, and it turns out that he’s coming back on the same day that my parents are leaving. Hopefully he’ll still have time to visit all the amazing sites when he’s not stuck helping them pack.
We’ve recently started getting back into the habit of going to the Pub quiz at one of the nearby pubs every Sunday evening! Bob, Amit, Hanne, and I (with a bit of help from Jim) managed to come in the top 5 two weeks ago, and even managed to win the half time prize by correctly guessing (well, being the closest to correct) the height of some random chimney of some ancient factory! Unfortunately our luck was not to last and this week Ben, Bob, Hanne and I came dead last… shameful!
And lastly but by no means least importantly, Wendesday this week (September 8th) marks the two-year anniversary of when Hanne and I first met each other. Awww… how time flies when you’re having fun! However, we didn’t really start “going out” until a few months later. Yay