Sunday Nite Blues...

Sunday night. Last few hours of my 72 hour pass. Lulu gets home in the morning and heads straight for work (good thing she doesn't have to travel too far from airport) so I don't see her until Monday night.

Its true. Absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. I believe too, I can appreciate her more for it.

So what have I done in during my free weekend? I made bread. I gymed. I ate some suspect olives that didn't agree with me. Went to the park to relax. Caught up with Cindy. Did some reiki. Did the ironing. Cleaned the room. Burnt some incense. Killed a nasty spider.

See. When the cat's away, the mice don't always come out to play!

Oh.. and I also blogged.. but i think you gathered that one already :D

It even tastes good!

Our friend Cindy came over today to entertain me while Lulu is away. You see last week we organised a baking-date. Below are the spoils of our wonderful time together:



Bread. Wonderful bread. Onion, garlic and herb makes for wonderful bread. The 4 buns on right didn't last long.. all that kneading makes one hungry!!

She left me!!!

I'm sad...
She's gone...
She left me...

For a woman...

Yes its true... I'm a free man now... for a count of 72...

Lulu works in the airline industry and gets some great perks. One of these is called an ID72 - a free return flight to just about anywhere on the map, the catch? You must be back in your original port of departure within 72 hours.

Her original plan was to go to Montreal, Canada, but that didn't happen as the flight was full. After much nail biting and calling back to the help desk they re-scheduled for Boston, USA. The only cost for the flight is the airport taxes - a whooping $GBP12!!!!

Being a standby flight you get no choice of seats - which means you could get cattle class... or... business class with flat beds, good food, free alcohol, more space...

but....

the catering firm is still in dispute with its workers so they have no food or alcohol on board!!! ARGH!!! They have to buy their own food for the 8+hours of flight time!!! Does that suck? Hell yeah!!!!

Still, $GBP12.00 business class return to Boston is still a deal! Man I'm jealous!

The 72 hour pass.

So how is Denzil planning on spending his 72 hours of Lulu-free bliss?!??

I'll be missing her dearly of course!!!

Other than that I can see myself do some very man-ly things.

Sports. Don't think so.
Down at the local. Definely not.
Gym. Perhaps.
Baking. Yes, most definitely!!!

My last loaf of bread that I made actually was pretty reasonable, and eatable too. So some of that is on the cards - now you know why I was looking at bread recipes on the net earlier :D

Oh yeah.. I have to put the apron on and do some house chores too...

I think I'm a Londoner now...

Before I arrived in London, those that came before me said "many afternoons in the pubs on a pure liquid carb diet". Yes it is true. Much of the London lifestyle is spent down at the local beer glass in hand getting pissed.

No. Before you gaze at wonder at your screen and disbelief that I have become the latest member of Alcoholics Anonymous, NO I have not adopted this habit as my own.

After a nice lunch in Chinatown (conveniently located within minutes of my office at Picadilly Circus), I get back to the office for about 1/2 hour, my boss screams "pack your bags and grab your jackets... we're going to the pub!"

Who am I to question the wisdom of the elders... :D

(Note to self: why did I pause and first want to finish what I was doing!?? Perhaps its true, you can lead a Denzil to London, but you can't put the London in Denzil. Actually scratch that. I wasn't lead here, I chose to come on my own accord)

I Love Bread Baking Websites

I just love bread recipes that say put all the ingredients into your bread machine and turn it on!!!

Kinda defeats the purpose of learning to make bread really doesn't it!!

A few Barcelona pictures.

The photo album has been updated with pictures from Vienna, Hong Kong and Barcelona.

Below are some from our most recent at Barcelona:

Beach made from reclaimed land. There was even a muscle beachsection.		Along the promenade of the beach.
The city of Barcelona, Spain, as viewed from the castle fortress. The fortress was originally a castle, then converted to a fortress for navel defense.		Dude selling donuts whilst singing and dancing with that thing on his head.
Sculpture by the Sea. Okay so it's not the same as the annual Sculpture by the Sea event Bondi Beach, Sydney holds, but this is a permanent piece.		Mussels, Salty prawns & Seafood Paella. Mouth watering. Seafood there was, is, always will be amazing. My favourite were the salty prawns!! *drool*
Roof top terrace at La Pedrera. La Pedrera is an apartment block designed by Barcelona's favourite (though dead) architect, Gaudi. His organic style of design makes Barcelona architecturally unique and breathtaking.		Another of Gaudi's works. The Sagrada Familia. A temple dedicated to the Holy Family. Unfortunately Gaudi died by being knocked over by a tram stepping out of the very building. He himself anticipated that its building would take several generations, much like the building of any cathedral. Its funding is purely by donations - the $EUR8 entry fee is really that... a donation.

Oh its so hard!!!

Life is oh so hard when you've spent 4 days in beautiful, sunny, blue-skyed Barcelona, Spain and you get back to shitty, grey, gloomy London.

Barcelona is a gorgeous city. Remarkable architecture, the most notable pieces by their beloved son Antonio Gaudi. Its tempting to write all about it but I won't go into a full write up of our adventures in Spain - I'll leave that for a later post. I just wanted to announce my great displeasure of having to come back to the overcast skies, the rude fair-skinned locals (Spanish people all have tans!!), people scared of terror attacks, shitty transport systems that shutdown if its too cold, or too hot - just don't mention the rain.

Its a low energy level day today I think....

Its been scientifically proven that sunlight affects peoples moods. This goes a long way to explain the rudeness of people...

I think perhaps I need a reiki treatment... and damn I left my crystals at home too.

The Lure of the Dark Side...

Jonathan and I have had a long standing argument about a (not so) new programming language called Ruby and one available framework it has called Ruby On Rails - RoR.

Myself I have been a Java programmer for a while and I'm at the point where I probably can do anything I want with the language. Java is similar to C in that its in many ways a low level language - meaning you have to work harder to get the same result. Ruby on the otherhand (especially when coupled with RoR) is more of a higher level language and promises to reduce the effort to produce the same result.

Perhaps it was curiosity, perhaps I was fishing for arguements against Ruby/RoR but I have started to read some of the RoR websites... And I'm liking what I'm reading. If it delivers on its promises and reduces the pain of development, surely that is a good thing??!? Then again, my personal trainer at the gym says: "pain is the weakness leaving your body".. Ruby then is for weaklings. Java is for real men!

There are 2 things I actually don't like about Ruby.
1. The syntax. It isn't as readible as Java as it borrows somethings from Perl.
2. You can dynampically add methods to objects. Doesn't anybody else hear the word VIRUS or DANGER when you hear that?

Addicted To New � Blog Archive � Ruby on Rails < First Impressions

Gawd I hope Jonathan doesn't read this entry....

Its good to be Aussie

I copped a lot of crap from my English colleges this morning. Australia is playing English for The Ashes. Australia was loosing. "It's the weather.. its too cold, we're used to a warmer climate! We can't function under these colder conditions. You just wait until we thaw out!" I scream in defiance!

I believe The Green and Gold has thawed. 21 for 5 wickets... According to my English college, this may be the worse Ashes score in history.

The whimpers of pain eminating from the English corner of the office amuses me greatly...