Family and Pals

So this year after Christmas my whole family went over to Spain to meet up with my brother, his wife, their daughter and dog for New Years. We stayed at this villa just outside of a small town called Pals in north Spain. I don't wanna bore you with loads of details so here are some of my highlights.
It was really good to have the whole family together, because it is quite rare as us four brothers have all grown up and have our own lives now. It was especially good to see my niece Miriam as she was born in May last year and this was only the second time I had seen her.

Me, Andy, Paul and Zoe went skiing on one of the days which was really good. I have only ever skied once before and that was on a dry slope. It was so much better on snow and I can't wait to go again some time. It was Zoes first ever time and by the end of it she was flying down the slope!

Spent a good few hours over the week in the hot tub while over looking the views.

The medieval town of Pals was all decorated like an old Roman town for a few nights which made a really interesting stroll around with my dad on one of the evenings.

On New Years Eve setting off fireworks out of a champagne bottle off of the terrace, with some mixed results!

On New Years Day we exchanged our presents to and from Andy, Sian & Miriam, they bought us a meal at the place that we are getting married at which will be really nice. In the evening we went down to the beach and released some flying lanterns, which quickly brought in a crowd watching as they floated into the sky.

And one night my niece and nephew put together a quiz, with the help of Sian, for the rest of the family to answer their favourite things. The first question came from Megan, my 9 year old niece, asking what her favourite colour was. Everyone was confident this was a guaranteed point as she has everything in pink, but we were all completely stunned when she said it was actually magenta!

I have uploaded most of the pictures of the holiday and they can be found here.

Thanks to my family for making it an entertaining week away and hopefully we get to do something similar soon.

Gadget of the Decade

I have just watched the latest episode of The Gadget Show and it was the Gadget of the Decade special.

It was weird to see how far technology has actually come in the last ten years, in 2000 people were only just starting to use digital cameras, internet was still mainly dial up with no YouTube, MySpace or Facebook and nobody had even heard of an iPod!
What I liked the most about the show was that I completely agreed with every winner, which is quite rare for an awards show.

The 'Best Mobile Gadget' went to the iPhone, 'Best Photography Gadget' went to Photoshop, 'Best Music Gadget' went to the iPod and 'Best Entertainment Gadget' went to the Nintendo Wii. So obviously the reason I agreed so much with the results is because I am very biased as I have owned and loved all of the winners.

And finally I definitely agree with the final 'Best Gadget of the Decade' award going to the iPhone, it is by far my most used gadget of the decade, even 18 months on from when I first bought it I am still amazed by it.

What is your favourite gadget from the last decade?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex

Because everyone was going crazy about the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 coming out on the Xbox 360 and PS3 yesterday I completely forgot that a game I had been waiting for had been released the same day.

It's an old game for most of you non Wii owners but I have been waiting for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reflex to be released for a while now. It is the same game as the old Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, except it has been ported onto the Wii and been given a new name.

Until now the only time I got to play on this game is round my parents house on my brothers Xbox for a few minutes, but since this evening I can play it on my good old Nintendo Wii.

The graphics are actually pretty impressive considering the power of the console compared to the others and pretty much all of the online features have been kept in. They have actually added a new feature where a second player which can use another Wii Remote and help you in the missions, which is pretty cool.

Now all I need to do is get better at playing it so I can stop dying so much online!

Apple Pumpkin

I'm going to a Halloween party tomorrow and we all have to bring a pumpkin to light up the garden, which should look pretty cool.

So I have just carved my pumpkin and obviously I chose an Apple theme.

The front is a slight variation on the Finder icon on Macs to make it look more traditional and on the back is a glowing Apple logo. Instead of just carving the Apple out I have just taken the skin off so that it gives off a glow like on the back of MacBooks.It is probably the geekiest and best pumpkin I have ever carved!

Update

I'm getting bad at keeping my blog up to date and there is only one thing to blame... Twitter.

I have been updating this blog and documenting my life since Jan 2006 and it would be a shame for it to be neglected and slowly die. Because it is so much easier to just type up a short sentence and maybe a picture about what I am doing, Twitter is much more convenient but it lacks any depth, so I want to try to start updating my blog more often again like I used to, starting from... now.

So this week me and Zoe went away to Cornwall. It was really nice weather every day which was lucky as it has been getting alot colder and wetter recently. The journey down was not that fun as it was supposed to take just over 4 hours and it actually took 6 and a half hours!
The various coves and beaches along the coast are really nice down there and I often felt like I wasn't in England. The picture above is of Mullion Cove where we sat for a few hours watching the sea while eating a picnic. It was really nice so I wanted to capture it but it didn't all fit in the shot and I didn't take my video camera. So instead I took about 15 pictures panning around me and then when I got home joined them all together to create this panoramic view.

We went to quite a few little places and had a nice relaxing week away and I also tried some basic rock balancing on a few of the beaches, I will try and get the pictures up on Flickr soon.

I'm just waiting for my new Apple Crumble video to export as I type this, so that should be up soon.

Brilliant Coach Trip Clip

Ok so I admit it, I have a guilty pleasure and it's Coach Trip. For anyone who hasn't ever seen this it's a sort of gameshow where there are about 4 or 5 couples on a coach trip around Europe and they vote each other off each day, the prize being that the longer you stay the longer your holiday is!

For some reason I love this program and I rarely find others who share my passion for the show. I think what I love about it is that it isn't that good, I know that sounds ridiculous but that's what makes it brilliant.

Anyway I was watching it yesterday when this happened at the end when they have to vote another couple off. The man in the black shirt is like a mix of Russell Brand and Will from the Inbetweeners when he argues.

When I was watching this I was laughing so much, am I the only person who finds this funny, let me know in the comments.



Then to top it off in the 'coming next' bit the deaf comment is priceless, get this man on more TV now!

Jaida Video

Last year me and Zoë babysat our friends little girl Jaida and as a surprise I filmed her eating dinner and going to bed etc. Then gave her the DVD as a present and she liked it so much she asked us to do it again this year to capture her a year older.

So here is this years video.



I was thinking this would be a cool businesses idea, Zoë babysitting while I film and then they buy the DVD of their child to keep as a memory. But obviosuly the surprise element would be lost as the parents would have to know I was filming their children!