Holland Holiday
Posted by: Sonya on: September 12, 2009
- In: cool| culture| pretty| wildlife
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Hey, it’s September now, Autumn 
, and it’s been more than a month since my fabulous holiday in the Netherlands! 
A week camping in beautiful Dutch forests with all my favourite friends, daily excursions to the locals towns and cities like Leersum, Tiel, Utrecht and of course an obligatory day in Amsterdam doing nothing naughty whatsoever!
Here are some pretty photos:
Hairy Japanese Bastards!
Posted by: Sonya on: August 10, 2009
- In: cool| cute| wildlife
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I don’t know what’s been special about this year, it’s been a nicer summer than we’ve had in recent years, but still not especially warm, but bunnies seem to be absolutely everywhere in Newcastle at the moment. Almost every day now I see bunnies in the green areas on my way to and from work, and one day a few weeks ago I counted nine throughout the day. I feel like I’ve become a professional bunny spotter!
The Escapist
Posted by: Sonya on: July 15, 2009
- In: charlotte| cool| culture
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We’ve just finished watching The Escapist and I can’t stop thinking about it – don’t you just love it when a movie does that to you!? 
I wouldn’t have thought this would be my kind of film, and I wouldn’t have watched it if it had been my pick tonight, but Charlotte fancied the look of it and it was on special offer through FilmFlex. It’s a prison escape drama thing-a-my-bob, sort of like a UK version of The Shawshank Redemption but, if you ask me, much more intelligent and thought provoking and I wouldn’t characterise The Escapist as a ‘feel-good’ movie. Charlotte, in the end, wasn’t too impressed with it, and I did have my doubts throughout the first act of the film, but it’s kind of told in reverse and the more it went on the more it came together in to something surprisingly wonderful with an ending that was both happy and sad, and extremely rewarding.
Check out the trailer on YouTube below, or rent it now on FilmFlex if you have Virgin – it’s cheap for the next three days.
Parrots
Posted by: Sonya on: July 7, 2009
- In: blog| wildlife
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You may recall that a few weeks ago, while travelling back from Blackpool, that I twitted (?) from Kirby Stephen to say that I had just seen a couple of parrots flying about in the wild. I got the impression that certain people, who shall remain nameless, didn’t quite believe me! Well, I mentioned the parrots at work yesterday and Mark found this via a quick Google – http://archive.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/2002/04/09/139498.html . So there! 
Victory Is Mine!
Posted by: Sonya on: July 5, 2009
- In: games| nerdy
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Hueng! My nemesis! I have defeated you at last! Bwah-Haa-Haa-Haa-Haa-Haa-Haa!!!
…In With The New
Posted by: Sonya on: June 22, 2009
The day has finally come. I’ve been putting it off for at least a month now, but I have, finally, just switched off my old blog and set the domain – attackhamster.co.uk – to redirect here. I’ve been putting off for so long because I’m actually quite sad about it, the old site was the entire result of my own hard graft and I was very proud of my work. For posterity’s sake, and for anyone reading this who didn’t see the old site, I have attached a screen grab to this post.
Unfortunately it was the ever increasing complexity of the old site that spurred the change. I was writing it completely by hand in raw XHTML and CSS and updating was a chore, especially once I decided to do more complex things with the photos, and that was putting me off posting as much as I would like. I had been thinking about switching to a CMS for some time and then I found out about WordPress through work and as I began to play around with it I started to really like it and how it works. So, about six weeks ago, I started to quietly set up my new home here and export the content from attackhamster – and now it’s ready.
Why the change of name? Well, it was spurred by the fact that some rotten, miserable little sod has already registered attackhamster on WordPress. I was able to get ‘theattackhamster’ but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with that so I started to think about alternatives and new names. I have been using attackhamster for a very long time after all, it’s time for a change.
Err… that said of course, I have no intention whatsoever of giving up my domain. Aside from the fact that I have an associated email package – and there are more people with @attackhamster email address than you would think – I fully reserve the right to completely change my mind in X number of months / years, as my fancy takes me.
Blackpool Hols
Posted by: Sonya on: June 22, 2009
- In: blackpool| cute| pretty| wildlife
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I’ve been to Blackpool again, ostensibly for an appointment with my Dentist but of course we made a nice wee holiday of it. If you look close in the first photo you can just about see the Tower. It was taken on Cleveleys beach along with the photo of the sunset. On the Sunday we were down we went to the Zoo and the big fluffy things in the third photos are Capybara – the largest Guniea Pigs in the world. I did not know that.
Mobile Directories
Posted by: Sonya on: June 21, 2009
- In: links| privacy
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Just a quickie; if you haven’t heard there is a new directory for mobile phone numbers coming onstream now, a gross invasion of privacy to some, a useful tool to others – but I don’t know who. I’m very definitely in the former camp and so is everyone else I know. If you want your number removed, go here – http://www.118800.co.uk/removeme/remove-me.html
ZOMG! A PowerBook 150! System 7 – FTW!!!
Posted by: Sonya on: June 1, 2009
Some days you go to work and you never know what’s going to land on your desk, like this little beauty did for me a couple of days ago. Can you believe they were going to scrap it?!
For the un-nerdy, what you are looking at here is a mint condition Apple PowerBook 150 manufactured in 1994. Even more amazing is that it’s in perfect condition and working order, apart from the flat battery which I think we can forgive.
Highlights of this little gem include a 640×480 LCD monitor with two colours – black and white! A whopping 8mb of memory, a 3.5 inch floppy disc drive, a MASSIVE 120MB HARD DRIVE (sorry, it’s just a tad on the loud side, either it was a few years yet before people figured out how to make a quiet hard drive, or else it’s just fifteen years old…), and of course a massive chunky keyboard and trackball (I don’t think you kids will ever have seen a trackball, will you?). It runs System 7.1.1 and software highlights include ClarisWorks 2.1, Microsoft Word 5.1, HyperCard and AppleTalk.
Things I didn’t know, but which I have learned from this computer:
- Function keys weren’t invented until some time after 1994;
- Neither had the little light somewhere on the computer to tell you when Caps Lock was on;
- The extremely close resemblance of Word 5.1. to Word 2004 is a little disturbing – why exactly do we buy ‘new’ versions of the same crap year after year?
I am desperately trying to find a use for this computer, I absolutely will not allow it to be scrapped. Unfortunately, with no way to connect it to the internet and only a floppy drive, getting anything on or off it is quite difficult. About the best I’ve been able to come up with so far is just to take it to StarBucks and IT meetings to look utterly nerdtastic and absolutely freakin’ fabulous!
Hancock Museum
Posted by: Sonya on: May 25, 2009
- In: culture| cute| wildlife
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We went to the newly re-opened Hancock Museum today, it’s very good and very full. We were in there for about two hours but still didn’t get to see everything on the first floor before we were kicked out at closing time. Most importantly they have a dinosaur making it an A* museum.
Nevertheless, everything in the museum was trumped by the little baby bunny we saw grazing in the grassy bit outside the Civic Centre.
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Myself and Charlotte, my love.
I'm 28, Scottish, but live in Newcastle, and I work in public sector ICT.
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