Thursday 30 August 2007

Internet final-chee

Finally got the internet yesterday. It was meant to be ready when we moved in, but when the person organising it called up Tiscali to check the progress a couple of days before we moved in, Tiscali didn't have any record of it so they had to start again. After that there were a lot more delays, which Tiscali said were due to BT not releasing the line.

So while we didn't have the internet I just sorted photos, went on walks and took more photos, started learning Japanese, played on Shenmue, unpacked and helped Jon & Ben unpack, and beed bored. Since we got the internet yesterday I have mainly been doing work stuff. Before yesterday I had to use dial-up to connect in. Luckily I wasn't given any urgent big jobs while we only had dial-up.

When I checked the internet yesterday I also found out that Nikon has announced the long awaited D3, D300 and big telephotos with VR. Also Canon announced the long awaited 1Ds MkIII and the D40. I guess it's kind of good that I missed the announcements since I probably would have wasted more time on the internet reading about them than I did yesterday.

I still have about 1,000,000 hotmail messages to check and also haven't checked Deviantart yet. I did get up to date on Andy Rouse's Blog, Moose Peterson's blog, DPReview News, and Luminous Landscape though.

Monday 6 August 2007

Brighton not London

Was going to go to London today, but the sky is all overcast. I checked weather.co.uk and the BBC website, and they both say cloudy with sunny spells in London. I checked some London webcams though and it looks the same as it is here.

Ate breakfast, went on the pinternet for a bit, then watched the Simpsons Movie with Jine.

Did packing & intermittent going on the pinternet for the rest of the day.

Food
Breakfast: Strawberry crisp; cup o' tea.
Morning snack: Hob nob cream biscuit; nice biscuit; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Peppered ham sandwich; cheddar cheese sandwich; mint club; banana; satsuma; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Flavoured rice; chicken; chicken nuggets. Lilt to drink. Pudding was apple crumble with ice cream. Coffee.
Supper: Cold chocolate milk.

Sunday
Went to Brighton on Sunday to take some photos before we move. A gay bloke got really annoyed at me because he thought I was taking a photo of him (I was actually taking a photo of a church), then later a girl asked if I could take a photo of her & her friend on the beach and email it to her. The beach (and Brighton in general) was totally busy, which I thought was a bit wierd since it was a Sunday.

I wanted to try and take a photo of the West Pier at sunset from the Palace Pier, but the security guard said you weren't allowed to take tripods onto the Palace Pier. I asked him why and he said it was private property so they can say what they want. Luck-slush I had already been on the Palace Pier earlier with my tripod and taken some panos without anyone saying anything.

So for the sunset, I had to walk further along the beach towards the West Pier. I did get some sunset photos, but unfortunately the Sun set behind some buildings, rather than over the sea like I wanted it to. Pobasquish I would have needed to take the photos earlier in the year to get that.

After that I went back to the train station, but the trains to Bedford don't seem to stop at Hassocks, so I had to wait another hour until the next train to Victoria (I must have just missed the 9pm one). So I went to Budgens and bought some Lilt, then went to the train station car park and drank some of the Lilt. Then about 9.45pm I went to get on the train, but it was already full so I had to stand near the doors. By the time it left at 10pm loads more people had got on and it was totally packed. I got off at Hassocks then had to walk home.

Food
Breakfast: Strawberry Jam toast; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Battered fish portion with vinegar & black pepper; potatoes; peas. For pudding I had a gooseberry yoghurt. Coffee.

Saturday 4 August 2007

Stooef

Yesterday I did some work work in the morning and helping Ben packing. In the afternoon we went to the Wildfowl & Wetlands Centre in Arundel. At ISO 100, 200/s shutter speed and f/5-f/5.6 with SB800 on full power at 50mm with the Flash Extender, a lot of pictures were still too dark. I didn't try any with the 70-300 & 2xTC & flash, but without the flash the images were really blurry in P mode. I think really I need to try using ISO 400 and also get a more powerful flash.

Today we went to Highdown gardens in Worthing, which were free to get into, which was good. The gardens were quite nice, but nowhere near as gokos as gardens you have to pay to get into. In the afternoon I sorted out change of addresses with as many companies as I could, & helped Ben do some more packing.

After Dinner I helped Ben do some packing, planned a trip to London for me & jine on Monday and tidied/packed some more stuff in my room.

Food
Breakfast: Strawberry Jam Toast Sandwich; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Chicken slices, mayo, and sweet & crisp salad sandwich; cheddar cheese with sweet & crisp salad sandwich; swiss roll; breakaway; satsuma.
Dinner: Pepperoni & onion pizza; cheese & tomato pizza; salad. For pudding we had posh chocolate cake and I also had a satsuma. Coffee.

Thursday 2 August 2007

Seaford head

Got up about 8am, had a shower etc. and went to Seaford head at 9am with Joan Yumpt Cheese and dad. Did a nice walk along the cliff tops there then came back home and had lunch.

After lunch I checked and read my million emails. Then we ate dinner, I did some washing up and then went on the pinternet. I helped Jon and ben do a bit more packing, then I started sorting out my photos into folders. When that's done I'll do a backup and go to bed.

Food
Breakfast: Strawberry crisp; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Cheddar cheese with sweet and crisp salad sandwich; breaded ham sandwich; iced lemon madeira cake; banana; cup o' tea.
Dinner: Spag Bol. Chocoate cereal cake for puffing. Coffee.

Wednesday 1 August 2007

Portsmouth

Yesterday I went on a walk with dad, there was a part with loads of ferns and a path cut through them, but then the path suddenly stopped so we just had to battle our way through them until we got to the woods at the bottom. I got green stains on my t-shirt from them and also some spikes from brambles got stuck in my trousers which was annoying. It was a good walk though.

Today me and jine went to Portsmouth. Dad gave me some tourist guide/map things but I forgot to take them. Luck-sluch dad gave us a lift to the station, the train left hassocks at 11.04am. Some of the places on the way there the train stops at had skill names I made jokes about:

Where are fish born? Fishbourne!
Where are nuts born? Nutbourne!
What do chavs call a place where there are lots of war medals? Warblington!

In Portsmouth when we got there we looked around the historic dockyard for a place that sold reasonably priced food. We couldn't find any, but did some a couple of big old ships and a more modern navy ship. After that we followed some sign posts towards the town. There were loads of anchors everywhere. When we got to the town we went in Gregs but it was too expensive. So we carried on walking until we found a tesco and then bought some food from there.

Then we walked back to a nice park we had walked through on the way into the town and ate lunch on on a bench under the shade of a tree. There was a little girl there who had a backpack the same as Dora the explorer's backback - how ultimate is that?

After lunch we followed the signs to the old town and the sea. I don't think we saw any of the old town but we found a big patch of grass with lots of people sunbathing and at the other end was a massive war memorial. Then over the other side from that which was the sea, which had come totally far in and loads of people were sunbathing on a small bit of beach.

We walked along the seafront to go back to the train station, but there weren't any sign posts so it was totally hard to find and we got lost in gunwharf quay. Eventually we did find the station, but we were 2 minutes late for the 5.04pm train so we had to wait another hour for the 6.04pm train. We just sat down near the waterfront and I ate some crisps, then we walked round some buildings, went back to the spinica tower to see how much it cost (£6) and came back to the station.

Also, on the way back from the beach we saw that there were 10 minute ferries to the Isle of wight. There weren't any prices anywhere, but it was like £15 or sumat for a ferry plus ice skating deal so it's pobasquish about a tenner, which is nae too badkos.

Food
Breakfast: Strawberry crisp; cup o' tea.
Lunch: Chicken, bacon and lettuce sandwich; Sweet Thai Chilli Walkers sensations crisps; Custard filled doughnut; Tropical fruit juice.
Evening snack: Thai Chilli Walkers sensations crisps; Custard filled doughnut; Lemon Fanta.