Firstly a big "Christ is Risen!" to everybody.

In my sickness last week I ended up missing out on the Holy Wednesday and Holy Thursday services, but i did end up going to the Good Friday and Resurrection services.

It may be partly related to the fact that I did miss out on a fair few of the Holy Week services, but I didn't really 'feel' Easter all that much this year. It also might be partly due to the fact that - greatly disappointingly - this year there was barely a scant of English in any of … Read more →

I'm sick. Being sick sucks.

I woke up yesterday feeling fine and went to work. However by about 10am, my nose starting clogging up and running. A sore throat and a light head developed and i ended up going home early. It also meant that I missed the Holy Tuesday service last night, and will probably miss Wednesday tonight as well.

So it looks like i have the flu; this is actually the first sick-day that i've taken in quite a while, the only other one I can remember was just after getting back from our honeymoon.

Anywho, so i'm … Read more →

Still getting over a busy weekend at the moment, but there won't be any let-up soon as tomorrow marks the beginning of the Orthodox (as well as Western this year) Holy Week.

On Saturday night the annual Palm Sunday Fete was held after the the English liturgy, resuming after last year's hiatus. The Liturgy was absolutely packed, in my opinion on par with the amount of pack-age as the Easter resurrection service. As usual with the previous years of the fete, I along with the other usual suspects, were in charge of the jumping castle. As it was remarked many … Read more →

Well the news is spreading, and anyone who's anyone that played video games in the 1990s will realise that the gaming hell from that era is freezing over.

The announcement has been made: Nintendo's Mario and Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog will both be co-starring in the same game, developed by Sega and overseen by Nintendo.

The game, entitled Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games will allow Mario and Sonic along with their pals, to compete against each other at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

If playing Sonic on a Nintendo console would have been unbelievable a decade ago, then the … Read more →

For the past few years I've tread the line between good free software and the 'reputable' non free stuff. For PC security, this is definitely the case. On our desktop PC i've put free stuff, whilst on my laptop i've always had some flavour of Norton Internet Security (NIS), which includes a software firewall, antivirus, and antispyware amongst other things.

In a few weeks the subscription for my NIS 2006 was running out, and despite my best efforts to... ermmm... 'continue' the subscription without actually renewing it, meant that I was fed up with having to pay ~$80 year for … Read more →

I thought it might be time for another rant, you have been forewarned ;).

Throughout my experiences in my very short 'career' as an IT 'professional' it always amazes me that regular people expect you to know everything about every computer, every piece of software, and every piece of hardware, and also how it works.

When I inform family and acquaintances that I don't know anything about *insert free software that they have downloaded from a dodgy Russian website*, or that I haven't seen or used the model of their new router, or that i can't program a complete accounting … Read more →

I have a new mobile phone. Continuing on from the previous entry about getting the thing delivered to me, i'll tell the story of how we got here.

Many will remember my now previous phone, the Samsung D500. For the unaware, here is a short history of my experience with it in blog entries: getting it; it breaking; them not repairing it under the warranty and me writing them a letter; me getting the repaired phone back; and finally, their very late reply to my letter. As you can see, I wasn't really happy with … Read more →

I've had a pretty crap working week. It was generally filled with crapness, but i'll summarise below.

The week started off with pretty major network issues at the office on Monday and Tuesday. They were really only resolved once the whole server system was completely rebooted, which for the unaware is a pretty rare event for any largish business, and of course had to be done outside business hours.

I think i might have caused the problems myself by accidentally creating a loop in the network by accidentally plugging in a patched network cable into another port for about 10 … Read more →

For the first time in a very long time i've had an almost totally relaxed weekend. Mainly a result of our untimely exit of indoor at the semi-finals last week, this weekend was clear of any external commitments.

Other than the washing and cleaning, we've totally relaxed, watched a few movies, and played a bit of Nintendo.

Last night we went to Church, and afterwards, thanks to some fantastic foresight last week, we already had our post-Church dinner worked out and booked. This saved us from the weekly semi-torturous experience of the group deciding where to go to eat.

Before … Read more →

Nothing really noteworthy has happened over the past few days. Work has settled down into the calendar year (I can't believe that it is March already) and we're trudging along.

I did get Sonic and the Secret Rings on Tuesday (two days early), although I frustratingly haven't had that much spare time to get properly into it. It's easily the best looking Wii game out already graphics-wise, but you don't really have an opportunity to take it all in as Sonic is blazing through a level. The music is so bad that it's awesomely good (e.g. 80s style rock), but … Read more →