Rocketstone

I needed an MP3 player, didn’t want to buy an expensive iPod and someone recommended I look at the SanDisk Sansa Fuze. I’m glad I did.

The SanDisk Sansa Fuze with SD card for size comparison

It. Just. Works. The list of great things about it are:

• It plays just about any audio file you wish to copy onto it (MP3, WMA, secure WMA, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC).
• It sounds great and the battery lasts for ages.
• It plays just about any MPEG4 format movie file.
• Has expandable memory with a microSDHC memory card slot.
• FM radio (not used that much to be honest).
• Voice recorder (not used that much either).
• Has EQ settings, including allowing custom settings.
• Photo/image viewer (small screen, so of limited use – use your phone instead).
• Metal back and sides (apparently made of LiquidMetal) with a piano-gloss plastic front.
• Has a good solid weighty feel to it without being heavy.
• It appears as two drives when connected to the PC (internal/external memory) so no iTunes needed.
• It supports Audible books (used these – they’re great).

Rather than bore you with a full review, read the excellent AnythingButIpod.com review which will give you all you need to know.

Want an MP3 player that will last but don’t want to pay a premium price, then this will be money well spent. A simple (not included) jack-to-jack cable lets me plug into separate speakers if I want to.

Enough said. Here’s a photo of the unit with its blue ring of wonder:

The Blue Ring of Wonder!

Via: Medical Billing And Coding

I came across this blog post from Mali Korsten on the perfect recipe for poaching an egg:

Poached eggs have been my nemesis for the extent of my cooking career (I use the term “career” loosely, in the way that one might describe wearing clothes, or any other necessary daily activity). Without one of those special cheat-pans, my eggs just dissolve into a stringy mass of albumin floating in a sea of frothy salt-water, the yolk sitting isolated at the bottom of the pan, long-since detached from its white partner. Yesterday, all that changed.

http://themalikwhey.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/how-to-poach-an-egg/

I tried the recipe this morning and can tell you, it works! Evidence below:

Straight from the pan

Just how I like it

Apart from being able to make great eggs, Mali is also a musician. Her album is here and is well worth a listen: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/malikorsten

Finally, a quote from C S Lewis which mentions a poached egg:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. – Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.

 

After working in Sydney this week I got some free time before my flight in the evening.

Prior to my arrival in Australia, they’d had about two weeks of rain (some quite heavy I believe). When I arrived, the weather took a turn for the better and the sun came out – unfortunately I was working between 8am and 5pm so was not able to enjoy it.

On my last day in Sydney, I had some hours to myself – but the weather has returned to rain, and some of it torrential – there was even a “water tornado” just a few miles away. So with a few hours to spend, I resorted to trudging around the shops with my back pack, looking like a soaked vagrant. Granted, this gave me time to buy gifts for the family, but it wasn’t the day I was looking forward to. I had been hoping to get out and take some photographs of the famous Sydney landmarks.

Thankfully, I’d brought the Canon D10 with me so had no problems using that in the rain:

They’re baaaack!

Now all the UK airports are open airline operators are rushing to get things back to normal, which means the beautifully clear skies of the last six days have been vandalised to:

Communication from Air Chief Marshal Seagull,

This is a great day.

Over many long years we have been struggling against the humans and their aircraft filling our airspace and at last our efforts have paid off. Yesterday, at 1200 hours, the humans admitted defeat and grounded all planes over the United Kingdom.

Long may this continue now that we have, at last, regained our air superiority and are again masters of the sky!

ACM Seagull

When we were having our new kitchen designed we found very few places on the Internet where we could see an oak kitchen with dark worktop and a black sink. So I’ve decided continue reading…

It is said that if the universe is infinite, then there must be an infinite number of universes; each one different from the other. If that’s true, then somewhere there’s a universe where earphones never become tangled when removed from your pocket.

It’s clearly not this universe! continue reading…

I’m looking forward to Avatar, James Cameron‘s latest feature film since Titanic and which débuts on the 17th December.

I’m particularly interested to see how special effects and motion capture have moved on since ‘Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within‘ and Gollum in Lord of the Rings. Will this be the start of a new season in cinema once the new effects become available to other film makers? Who else can afford the costs involved?

I’m also interested to see if the story matches the incredible cinematics. From what I’ve read so far, it’s a tale of adoption, redemption and salvation, mingled with violence and love.

We have had Dyson AirBlade hand dryers installed at work recently.

I had only use an AirBlade once before at the Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station on the Lizard peninsula and was impressed with its effectiveness.

They’re a very noisy hand dryer, but as you tend to only use it for around 10 seconds it’s not too bad. One thing I don’t like about it is that there is nowhere for the water from your hands to go except onto the floor (it falls to the base of the dryer then down either side). After an hour or so, the floor under the dryer has developed a small puddle.

However, they are effective and you always feel like your hands are very clean and dry when you’re finished.