Archive for March, 2009

Sunny Santiago Stag-Do

No Comment // Written on Mar 24, 2009 // EuroTrip, Livin La Vida London //

mattsstag01

The other weekend was Matt from work’s Stag-do weekend and we headed out to sunny Santiago.

There is only one flight in and one out so I had to be up at the sparrows fart hour of 3:30 Friday morning to get ready, get a cab and then catch the hour long bus out to Stansted airport.
Once there I caught up with Neil, Matt, Paxton, Chris and John and a Weatherspoons breakfast and beers were in order.

The flight was pretty good and once the hatch door opened I could feel that magical heat I haven’t felt in almost a year.  After some negotiations we got a 7 seater bus but with luggage it was really only a 5 seater, so John ended up squashed in the back…top marks.   With that sorted we headed into town for some lunch and to meet up with Rupert. The tapas and beers along with the warmth made for a relaxing afternoon.

However that was all to change when the 7 of us piled into the car and headed out for some paintball action. We meet up with a young girl running the show and then ended up the the wood just outside a nearby village, it was great as it was only the 7 of us playing and asides from the basic safety stuff there were no rules.

497940202_ys8ni-mAfter we had sufficently shot the shit out of each other we jammed back in the car and headed out to Ruperts villa to clean up and unpack.
The place was magnificant in all aspects but it was the shower that did it for me, ‘Best Shower Ever!’

Once cleaned up and a few more beers later in we headed out to a local restaurant for some home-made style local cusine. After a mix of stews, seafood, pork and devine cheesecakes we finished off with a local spirit (much like a scnapps) and then back for more pool at the villa.

Go Karting was first thing Saturday morning after a much needed sleep in. Rupert even snuck in a few quick laps before his wife noticed him missing.   John was kind enough to sit this one out and document the race for us. Neil was unsupprisingly the course leader but Chris and Paxton faught quite a battle for secon place, I clearly had a weight disadvantage but countered that with some thrilling drifting. 

497940293_vfept-m

497940253_iyad4-m

Now Matt on the other hand was playing it very safe (either him just getting his licence or trying to protect his body for the wedding) but this didn’t last, 5mins or so in and a rouge tyre rolls past Neil, we look over and Matt has managed to park his kart on top of a tyre barrier right on the hairpin! He narrowly avoided being staked so we can be happy about that but I think if he just gave it a little more gas he could have launched the kart and created a course shortcut.

All that excitement had built up a hunger (which was surprising after the 7 meal bonanza from Friday) so we (eventually) made our way to the supermarket for more supplies for our big last night feast.

497940310_qy6uf-m

The rest of the day/night went pretty much as expected, plenty of drinking, loads of food, trying the swimming pool but not getting past my toes. After dinner and many more drinks there was some discussion and with some self help from Matt I threw him in the pool at about midnight :)

497940356_a5f8c-m1

Sunday it wax time to leave and with only one flight in and one out it was important we packed up and left early, so it was really great when the GPS/ Matt/Paxton got us lost on the highway and we started heading in the wrong direction! I had resided to spending another day there but some tactical driving from Paxton and a spot of airport running meant we made the flight and were on our way back to the UK.

Congratulations Matt and Nikki! I can’t wait to see the wedding photos.  I look forward to seeing all the guys again sometime, I had a great weekend away.

 

 

_B

What’s New?

No Comment // Written on Mar 14, 2009 // Livin La Vida London, Misc, Work //

Not much really!

Getting excited about moving in a couple of weeks, getting out of London and out to Woking where I work. Got a much better place for a lot cheaper and will be saving almost 3hrs every day in travel…so yeah pretty excited.

I went to ‘The Comedy Store’ last night at Piccadilly Circus, not really for comic relief but it was the same night so I like to think it counted in some way.

Next weekend I am off to Spain for someone from work’s stag do weekend, they are quite more elaborate over this side of the world, generally entire weekends in another country. I can’t remember exactly where in Spain we are going but  it should be a blast.

For those of you that care (or have noticed the messages on the right side side of this screen updating) I am now using Twitter a fair bit for my general updates and will try to keep these blogs a little more topical rather then general ramblings such as this. 
You can follow here or on the actual Twitter site http://twitter.com/urbanseven (you could even get an account and start following).

_B

Xbox Project Finale

1 Comment // Written on Mar 01, 2009 // Tech //

xbmc

To pickup where I left off last weekend, I finished the hardware side of the mod and was halted by the fact that I needed an original Xbox controller do flash the chip. Last Sunday night I was looking on eBay for a new controller and most were around £4-5 but I found another great deal, an Xbox, 2 controllers, 2 games and remote for £11!!

Saturday morning I downloaded the new Xecuter Bios  flashed the modchip. I normally do this over FTP but I don’t have a router/switch here or any control over the internet so the safest bet was to burn the bios to a dvd and flash it that way. Once done the Xbox would accept unsigned code and I would be able to run my backed up games and more importantly the open source project XBMC (Xbox Media Center).

flashing success

Sunday I played around a little more and have nice new ‘Media Stream’ skin for the program which displays all my movies and tv shows nicely. In fact I like it more than my Vista Media Centre I have setup back in Australia.

I think I will mod the new extra Xbox I have now and install a Linux distro on it, perhaps Xubuntu and run myself a test web server =)

090_panelstream-custom

090_tvshows-custom

_B