CocoaBlog

Colourful :o)

2006-06-14T22:35:00.000Z

This is a really cool advert

It also features Jos? Gonz?lez whose music I am liking very much at the moment.

That's it then.

2006-06-06T21:42:00.000Z

I have just finished my finals. What a very strange feeling. I'm exhausted. Euphoria will no doubt set in soon though :o)

01:02:03 04/05/06

2006-05-04T00:01:00.000Z

That will be the time when I click "publish post". Just had to blog it.
The Perfect Time

Edit: ok, so the Blogger clock was slightly different to mine (I was using time.euro.apple.com). It's also set to GMT- there doesn't seem to be a BST setting... but it was that time, honest :o)

Teddy Rocks

2006-05-03T23:55:00.001Z

Photo by CocoaBeans.

Lastnight I went to see Teddy Thompson at the Cambridge Junction. He was fabulous and I will be buying both of his albums.

The highlight came at the end: for his second encore, Teddy came out on his own (minus the excellent guitarists and drummer), and was trying to get the volume right on his guitar. He gave up, sat on the edge of the stage and gave us a totally mic-free number, tapping his foot and everything :o) Everyone crowded up to the stage so that we could hear him properly.

Just what I needed in the middle of finals revision.

I am an internet addict...

2006-04-30T18:21:00.000Z

The college network was down from yesterday morning until this afternoon and I was beside myself.

This made me realise just how much I depend on my little window-on-the-world. It worries me slightly but not too much- I think it's natural to want to embrace something that expands our horizons so much.

Needless to say, I'm very relieved that it's back.

Hmm

2006-04-26T14:06:00.000Z

I don't seem to have posted for a very long time...
Obviously I'm not quite in the habit of blogging everything I do yet. Things I'm currently doing include:

- Revising for my finals which start in 5 weeks
- Trying to live more greenly
- Worrying about the amount of time left until my finals

...so maybe in 6 weeks time, once my exams are over, I'll become more dedicated to this blogging lark. Or maybe it will prove another useful way to procrastinate...

Furthr flickr love

2006-02-21T16:45:00.000Z

They also give you very endearing messages when the site goes a bit wobbly- earlier today flickr had the hiccups :o)

I think I remember it having a massage a while back too...

Flickr love

2006-02-20T17:17:00.000Z

Flickr is so fabulous. I've just been getting into some its features, namely tags. I've also reduced the privacy setting on some of my non-people photos so I can be more a part of the wider flickr community :o)

You can tell I've been working hard today....

Imprezzed

2006-02-20T14:26:00.000Z

Mr Beans and I had our belated valentine's meal at Prezzo in Cambridge lastnight. We had booked, but when we arrived no suitable tables were available. Slightly disgruntled, we took up the manager's suggestion and had a drink at the bar, where the sofa was very comfy.

Once we were seated, our meal was served promptly by friendly staff. It was elegantly presented and extremely tasty (most notably the wonderful cheesecake). The decor was also very pleasant.

When the bill arrived, we noticed that we had not been charged for our initial drinks. Assuming an administrative error, we alerted our very apologetic waitress. She returned to inform us that the manager had meant the drinks to be on-the-house, by way of an apology for our wait.

I was impressed. We hadn't had to wait for long, and in fact it allowed me to take my time over the menu (on the very comfy sofa).

The company I enjoyed wasn't too bad either :o)

Smoking Ban

2006-02-20T13:20:00.000Z

I'm really chuffed about the imminent ban on smoking in all enclosed public spaces (yes, it's slightly old news now, but I haven't quite got used to blogging things straight away).

What wonderful news. If people wish to smoke, that's their decision to make. However, I don't think it's up to them whether the rest of us get to breathe clean air. If a few people light up in a pub, others must choose whether to breathe in their smoke or go outside for some fresh air. At least customers can make this decision: the bar staff have no escape until the end of their shift.

On top of the dangers of passive smoking, there is also the inconvenience of having clothes and hair which reek of smoke. This is inevitable after spending an evening in a smoke-filled environment. I expect the smoke does a lot of damage to paintwork as well.

Ireland imposed a similar ban in March 2004. I visited Dublin the following summer and found that evenings out were greatly improved: my eyes didn't sting, I could see across the room and when I got home I still smelt agreeable (hopefully).

Tennis w00tness

2006-02-09T23:08:00.000Z

At the end of last year, I entered into the public ballot for tickets to the Wimbledon Championships. I've now had a letter telling me that I've been allocated two tickets for centre court on the second day :o)

I love Wimbledon- it's a unique place, steeped in tradition and Englishness, with a fantastic atmosphere. Either I've been very lucky with the ballot, or there's generally a high success rate: 3 years ago, a friend and I both entered and she was allocated two tickets which got us onto number one court. I've also been twice more in recent years, both times queueing for several hours to buy a ground ticket.

I've never had much fun playing tennis: I find myself getting very frustrated, because it seems to take a lot of skill just to get the ball over the net. This means that you can't begin playing strategically until you've reached a relatively high standard. This is, of course, in contrast to another racket sport which I hold very dear... but I'll save that for another post ;o)

It's partly because I'm in awe of the players' skill that I enjoy watching high-standard tennis so much. I also think that the scoring system is a stroke of genius. Before I understood the rules, I couldn't see its appeal as a spectator sport. I suppose this is bound to be the case; I find cricket a whole lot less dull now my Dad has explained it to me :o)

So, on Tuesday 27th June I shall be taking my Mum to SW19 and I can't wait. I'll just have to get through my finals first... and hope that it doesn't rain...

Orisinal

2006-02-04T12:21:00.000Z

I came across this very cute site years ago, and I still think it's really cool.

It's basically a little online flash games site (plus a few extra bits), but the graphics are so gorgeous and it generally has a real quality feel to it. The only thing that used to annoy me was the lack of pause-ability, but lastnight I realised that if the window/tab becomes inactive, the game appears to automatically freeze. So that's good.

I was up until about 2 this morning playing floats. Oops.

WOW

2006-01-27T00:28:00.000Z

Blogger seemed to be down for a little while just now.... I don't think it was me.....

Anyway, while I waited for it to come back, I remembered hearing that Google Earth is now available for the mac. It's really quite rare for my jaw to genuinely drop: this thing is phenomenal. My iBook seems to cope with it pretty well too.

Two of my three homes aren't even covered in high res yet, but this did little to curb my amazement; apparently they're adding images all the time.

Here goes....

2006-01-26T22:22:00.000Z

Well, I've got a blog. Been pondering it for a while, and since it's free I decided to stop pondering and... start recording my ponderings :o)

I was impressed by the look of Blogger and immediately attracted by the fact that it has to do with the wonderful Google people. I might have been deterred by the unavailability of my preferred user name, along with several others I subsequently tried. Despite this inconvenience, the apparent popularity of the place was encouraging.

So, welcome to my blog.