Posts filed under "lifestyle"
I’ll be posting loads of these throughout the coming week.
Ok seriously that was as fun as getting my head kicked in by a bunch of chunky school girls while being stuck on a roller coaster feeling a bit nauseous from the doggy fish salad I had last night…. ok you probably get the point. Just recovering from my beast of a man-flu. Monday afternoon I could feel a small ache in my body that only got worse through out the night and then come Tuesday morning that was it, KO on Khaled. I was out. Couldn’t bloody move. Fever. The works. The fact that I’m writing this right now shows that I am actually well on the way to recovery and can actually think straight and get on a do things. So the moral of the story kids? There’s a nasty bug going on that will render even the toughest of men.
Over 1000 photos , but here is a small slither of what is to come:
It really is not difficult to fall in love with Japan. The country makes it completely easy for you in soo many ways. The organisation is beyond compare, the clean streets and the extremely polite people that provide any service to you. The nature when you get to it is completely breathtaking and the concrete jungles that continue around the coast need to be seen to be believed. The food that has a varied quality to it where you can eat, feel full and yet not so full that you are about to collapse from pain. The trains that run like clockwork to the book stores on every corner. The cheap comic books and the plethora of magazines and newspapers.
The next few posts when I get back will be filled with things about Japan. I will be updating with photos, sketches, maps and commentary about the areas I visited in my extremely brief visit to the land of the rising sun. Until then I got myself another day in Tokyo and a 15 hour flight back to the UK.
So I’m sitting here in Naoto’s house and writing this after experiencing my first week (more or less) in Japan. Seriously i cannot imagine myself staying away from this country. So many things to absorb in such a little time that i could honestly keep writing for a long time. Of course if i did that then i would be at the bloody computer all day and not actually out there exploring things and soaking in everything. Therefore i will try to actually write down as much stuff as possibly can that has made an impression on me and then hopefully elaborate on everything (and include as many pictures as i can) when i get back. These posts i guess will act as placeholders until i get back.
The greatest thing for me is being shown around by ?aoto as there are soo many things that you could not possibly know or understand until you actually lived here or someone told you. The little red triangles that are place on the windows so that the firefighters can see which ones can be used in the event of a fire. I honestly thought it was some weird architectural statement.
Obviously the biggest thing that is easy to notice is just how clean the streets, tube and all public areas actually are. It is completely unreal. No gum stains on the floor, the paint on the roads is as bright as the day they were painted. Not a spec of garbage anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
We went to the Ghibli museum. Unfortunately you’re not allowed to take any photos in the Museum but I have some photos from the roof (which you are allowed to take photos) which is pretty cool. The highlight here for me was the circular strobe light running animation which was beyond incredible. Several rooms where filled with items that where inspired from the movie.
We went to Kamakura with all the temples (the place has got over 64 temples), however easily the best temple we saw was a hidden one that was far away from everything in the city and that was one of the most serene places on earth.
My first Japanese style breakfast was a complete experience. For those that don’t actually know what this entails, it has miso soup, rise, grilled fish, nato, seaweed and various pickles.
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Walked up Mount Fuji. I am completely sun burnt and tired, but by god the views was completely and utterly incredible. It has to be seen to be believed. In fact I’ll be sure to share when I get back because it was definitely worth the trip. We didn’t make it to the top of the mountain, but we got close and it was a mission going down as much as it was going up.
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Tomorrow we are off to Kyoto and Western Japan which is going to be an experience of epic proportions as it also includes my first trip on the Shinkansen (aka the bullet train).
First day of school! Well it’s not really, but today is the first day that the new graduate intake begins at Arup (probably in many other places as well, or maybe that was last week); in any case I can’t help but get that first day of school feeling, alas the difference of course is that once I was the student, now I am the maaaster….of course master of what I still have no idea. There’s a certain freshness in the air about the whole day. Maybe it’s feels that way because it coincides with the autumn finally coming into it’s own (although once again English weather being what it is, we had the absolute best day of the summer on Saturday so there you go really).
Hope everyone has a good day at school today.
So this last week I was in Princeton for my ‘little’ project in Egypt. The highlight of the trip without a doubt however was actually meeting Michael Graves. He was very busy looking at all sort of stones and mural paintings and whatnot for this other project that their office is knee deep into, however he spared some time and we had a bit of chat with him (myself, Steven and Reid) and he signed a monograph for each of us. Incredibly nice guy, very softly spoken and has got this great little smile that shows that he’s seriously enjoying himself.
Going through the monograph and buying stuff from their little design store you get a great feeling of all the different things that they’ve had a chance to influence and design. Notably are of course of all the Alessi products.
My price piece however is an Acme Studios pen (designed by MG) which is not only weighty but is a great little writing tool. The closes thing I can give an approximation to is how the front plates of Zippo lighters are used as a design piece, or statement
One year older, one year wiser. Damn that one went by pretty quickly. I’ve got to say that when I was younger I used to get really pretty depressed about my birthday, nowadays I’ve come to accept the inevitable, so now the plan is to grow old with dignity….so I’ll be working on that last part later on. In any case happy birthday to all the Leo/Virgo cusp people born on the 23rd of August have a great one.
I consider myself a relatively well travelled kind of guy. The thing is though with the exception of America last year and this year my travels have been limited to Europe and the Middle East. The furthest east I’ve ever travelled is probably Syria, if I’m not mistaken. On Friday we booked our tickets to visit Naoto (or Hatori-san) in Japan for the first two weeks of October. To say I’m excited is a small and completely inaccurate understatement. I’ve been interested in Japanese culture since I was about 8 when I first Robotech as a kid on Saturday mornings. This was then further augmented with being a complete electronics GEEK. What you thought I became an Electrical Engineer by chance. Oh no no no, it was more than that. At some point in my life I’ll be sure to write a bit further about it.
Then you start adding the sheer amount of Manga and Anime I consume on a regular basis and you might start seeing the trappings of a bit of a fetish. Naoto has already assured me that we’re definitely going to be visiting the Studio Ghibli museum while we’re there (I think he loves it more than me).
So I’ve started looking at my blog feed reader and it hit me that I don’t really read all of my feeds as much as I skim them to see what new stuff might be happening in the world. The issue is though that I’m finding it harder and harder to find something that I must stop and read. I find that seriously strange. It’s not like I’ve got that much more blogs that I’m reading. I tend to add new blogs to my feed every so selectively.
Sure you have Khoi’s little commentary left and right, you have Paul’s exhaustive hardware reviews of consumer electronics I will never buy nor really care about. Michael’s blog is always an interesting collection of links (mainly movie related ones) from all over the place, Chris’s blog usually throws up some cool videos or interesting youtube snippets that I would never have the energy to look for, Journalista always gives me just about everything I could want in terms of comic book bytes and other assorted goodies (oftentimes more than I can possibly grasp). However one trend I’ve noticed is that the raw bloggers out there have reduced in number.
Oh but Khaled aren’t you part of the 9rules network? I’ve said this before (on another site) but I’ll say it again, 9rules is no longer the place it used to be. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, it’s just decidedly different. When I joined a couple of years ago it had something like 50 blogs in total. That’s 50 people I more or less knew from the forums. Knew and appreciated and liked and worked with and helped out etc. There are hunderds of memebers on there now, and honestly I don’t have the time to go through each one and vet each one.. I guess it was just more manageable in the past, for me at least, as I would add the ENTIRE feed for 9rules. Hell I wouldn’t know where to get it now if I tried. Anyone know where the feed for all the blogs from 9rules can be found? Shouldn’t that be a pretty prominent thing on this site? Shouldn’t you be able to taylor make your own RSS feed of all the various sites that are available to you? Kinda makes sense to me. Don’t know how easy it is to implement but I’m sure the guys are more than capable of doing something like that.
A couple of years ago it was this massive buzzing time, where we as bloggers (all of us, including you) ruled the net. Movies lived and died by our buzz (Snakes on a Plane), TV series got second leases on life (Serenity), well partly because of us.
Somedays I honestly feel like we’re not all that important anymore. Is it because all new fads become old quickly? Have we passed the ‘golden era’ of blogging? Is it that there is far too much noise on the net, and it’s becoming harder and harder to actually seperate the wheat from the chaff? Is blogging relevant nowadays or is it simply part of the general zeitgeist that is accepted and taken for granted?
There is NOTHING I like more during the summer than a cold Greek salad. It’s no wonder I’ll buy all the ingredients on the Monday and make myself one every day at work. However I find it mind boggling that I can’t seem to be able to buy a decent Greek salad in any restaurant that I’ve been to, Greek or otherwise. To spread the love I’m going to give everyone explicit details on how to make the simplest and healthiest dish this side of the Mediterranean.
The ingredients are very simple, for a decent sizes salad (1-2 people) you’ll need the following:
2 or 3 large tomatoes. They have to be the LARGE variety. No cherry tomatoes, no small piddly little tomatoes either. They have to be the big and ripe variety. Pay the extra, get the good stuff. This represents the bulk of the salad so don’t skimp on this ingredient.
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/2 a cucumber. Generally speaking it’s 1 small cucumber, but for some reason I can’t seem to be able to get these over here in UK supermarkets so I tend to use half of the ones available.
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1/4 or a red onion. Don’t get the white ones, go for the red ones. It’s all about the correct flavours and this is pretty important. You can have as many or as little as you like, however I find that if you put more it ends up left at the end.
1/2 a green pepper. You can try and use a sweet yellow or red pepper, but honestly it won’t be the same. The green pepper provides it with that savory taste that you need.
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Oregano. You’ll need lots of this, the dried variety.
Black Kalamata Olives. Yes you could try for another kind of olive. Maybe something in green, or even something stuffed. Rubbish. Get those ideas out of your head. It has to be a black olive. It has to be big and it has to be full of flavour.
Feta cheese. Lots of this stuff.
Olive oil. The more the better. You could make the whole salad swim in the stuff or you could be measured with the amounts. If you’re Greek, you go mental with the olive oil. If you’re a bit more concerned about your waistline, then be slightly more conservative. At least 5 tablespoons I would imagine, although I’ll be honest I never measure, I just pour until I think it’s about right.
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Fresh bread. Yes you heard me. Go to the bakery, go to the supermarket, go to the Deli down the road and get yourself a fresh loaf. It’s got to be a big loaf so you can enjoy soaking in all the olive oil left at the end of the salad. Trust me on this, it’s one of the single best parts of eating this.
Ok so now that we’ve got our ingredients, it’s time to understand the other aspect of what makes it a good Greek salad. It’s all about how you cut the ingredients. I know it sounds slightly strange but it’s true.
Tomatoes - The way to cut these is very simple. Each tomato has to be cut into 12 pieces. The way to do this is to cut the tomato in half. From their each half will be cut into six pieces. You might want to get rid of the central piece that is where it was attached to the vine. I find this piece to be a bit chewy and stringy in texture. Some people don’t seem to mind it, I’m not so keen on this part.
Cucumber - It’s really up to you how you want to eat this, you can either peel the cucumber or you can leave the skin on. I tend to alternate depending on my mood at the time. However the proper way to cut the cucumber is first down the length of the cucumber, so that you’ve got two long halves. From there you start chopping each half so that you’re left with semi-circular wedges about 0.5cm thick.
Pepper - Really there is two ways to cut this, both are acceptable. The first is to cut them as full rings. These should be again about 0.5cm thick. The other option is to cut the pepper down it’s length and then have thin strips of pepper from that half; again cut down their length.
Onion - After you’ve cut the onion in half, cut it in half again. From there you’ll cut thin strips (as in the picture above). Make sure that they’re split from each other (unlike the picture above).
Feta - Again there are two schools of thought about how to present this. Either you have it in a big chunk (or a series of big chunks) or alternatively you crumble the feta cheese (with your fingers) so that it’s all over the salad. I’m again impartial to either fashion, although if it’s a quick job I go for the easier option which is to have big chunks.
Add the olives, sprinkle the oregano, pour the oil, tear off some bread and dig right in.
Summer on a plate.
So you might have noticed a certain lull in activity on the Kode. The main reason is the fact that I’m EXTREMELY busy at work right now. It’s been absolutely insane. The thing is though, it’s pretty standard fare for the summer as most people with kids tend to take their holidays in and around the same time which makes the rest of us crazy ones that are left behind to hold the fort in the meanwhile. The good news is that I’m actually enjoying a lot of the work that I’ve been involved with (not that I haven’t enjoyed my previous work). One of my latest projects is this tiny little project in Egypt. The architects on the project are Michael Graves. We went to see them in Princeton last week and that was actually pretty cool. My first visit back to the states since last year when I went to my brother’s graduation.
I honestly doubt that I’ll be blogging much during August, as I’ve got very little to say and generally soo tired, I can’t even talk. The thing is though that I really miss my website. I miss the interaction with all the crazy cats and dogs on the net. I miss being involved. Hopefully come September I can have more time to remedy this situation.
Last night in Athens, and I’ve started thinking about what I’m leaving behind and what I’ve got to look forward to. I know everything seems soo much more soft and squishy when you’re on holiday and god only knows how much I needed this break. Actually scrap that, all my friends know full well as I’ve been pretty on edge these last few months as it’s been a pretty tough time for me at work.
Originally I was meant to be back on Monday evening, I extended the flight for another 5 days and I’m really glad I did. This trip has been an eye opener in many respects, as I’ve had the chance too look around me and take in the quality of life that people over here take for granted.
Friday night drinking is non-existant.
Binge drinking doesn’t really come into play.
Personnal time feels extended as the coffee shops and bars are open well into the night.
- Food has that colour that I’ve become greatly accustomed to.
Outdoor basketball courts have got that quality sheen on them.
Girls are oh so much prettier.
The weather is so much more consistant and brighter.
In short the quality of life just seems more in tune with what I’ve been brought up to expect. So what is actually missing here? Loads. The issue is that my balance for what I want and expect in life however is still found elsewhere. I guess there will come a time when that balance will fall in the other direction but I guess it’s good to remember the good things. I needed to be reminded of the good things and if anything this trip definitely showed this to me.
Michael Moore was on Wolf Blitzer (he of CNN fame) and he absolutely destroys him. I love this sort of shit, as it’s extremely rare for it to be shown or for there to be a personality that can take it to the media and not have his voice culled in some fashion. He then goes back and breaks down their ‘report’ step by step including links to where he got that information. Kinda reminds me of that other great clip from George Gallaway.
Amazing advert for Epuron, easily one of the smartest adverts I’ve seen in a really long time (via Frederik Samuel’s always excellent blog). As if that wasn’t enough in the comments someone pointed out another excellent advert for the Dove self esteem fund. Excellent viewing all around.
In ancient Athens, the single worst punishment you could impose on anyone was to exile them from the city; they were no longer Athenians. For the past 9 years I haven’t really considered myself an Athenian and more a citizen of the world. I can’t claim to be a complete Londoner. Could I ever truly consider myself as a Saidaewi (he who is from Saida)?
The real issue here is that I’m from all these places and yet I’m a mixture of all these places into one. Each place has had a direct influence on me. The people around me, the situations around me and my environment have all contributed to the person I am today. The added advantage I suppose of being from all these places and from none of them is the plane fact that I had what others that consider themselves from one particular city, country or village…perspective.
Because of my nomadic life, I’ve been able to gain a unique perspective of places and am able to not only appreciate all that is great and beautiful; but also what does not work and what could be enhanced or bettered. I don’t do this because of malicious intent, but rather the complete opposite.
The older I get the more I start believing that I am indeed a citizen of the world rather than confined to one place.
When asked whether he felt more from England or from Scotland, George Galloway responded:
“My flag is red, my country is the future”
Somehow that quote always resonates with me.
Rarely, someone says something to me that really resonates with me completely and changes the way in which I think. It’s not often, but when it is said generally speaking it will have a lasting effect on me for a great long time. One example of this I can give is when I saw Michael Moore in early 2003 when he was living in London and doing a serious of ‘talks’…more like sessions where he talked about whatever was on his mind. We were able to get tickets for his last ever performance. A lot of things stick out in my mind from seeing him live, but one of the things that he harped on about that remains in my mind is loyalty cards. I honestly thought these things where American inventions (as did most of the people in the audience as well), but apparently they are clearly a British thing.
For those wondering what loyalty cards actually are, they’re basically store cards that enable you to accumulate points which later on you can cash in, you get 1 point for every £1 you spend. Every 100 points you get £1 back or something like that. Anyway after his rant (which involved talking about people’s privacy and information theft and other some such) I’ve NEVER carried a loyalty card in my life… I didn’t carry many back then but I did have a couple, all where thrown into the crowd (he was collecting them back then).
Anyway recently Fern was talking about the amount of plastic that we as human beings use in our everyday life, for food packaging. Open your bags after you come from the store, if you’re as bad as I am, almost 90% of the stuff you’ve bought is covered in plastic in one for or another. Water, humous, vegetables, orange juice, etc. She then started talking about how there have been cases where the amount of plastic starts infiltrating your system, tiny particles that eventually make it to your eyes, which are then covered in a thin film of plastic.
Needless to say that sort of freaked me out and it’s stuck in my mind. Unfortunately I’ve got to work extra hard now to find a method to try and change the packaging in which I actually buy things, or consume thing. It’s incredibly hard, I’ve got to say. In my life I have boycotted several things. Coca cola (I used to drink 1 a day, at least), Marks and Spencers, Danone, L’Oreal , Nestle (except for Kit Kats) and a few other things. It was very difficult to do this but I managed and it’s a habit. How the fuck are you supposed to stop using plastic?
The good news I guess is that plastic is being made from things other than petrolum oils and rather using different more organic elements, however I’ve not really found out any more about it and so I sit here looking at my plastic containers thinking of my eye balls. Sometimes ignorance is complete bliss.
I’ve never been anally probed (nor do I ever wish to be) but I doubt it feels quiet as bad as I feel right now. The Smashing Pumpkins are playing at Shepherd’s Bush as I type this. I was outside the venue trying to get tickets. Needless to say we didn’t get any tickets as they which were going for £150 each. Let me say that again, one hundred and fifty pounds each. Fucking touts. Seriously. I don’t have any overtly elaborate ways to describe what I’d like to do to you assholes because I’m pretty angry at the moment. I was there along with another 3 people who knew just how much I love the pumpkins trying to get tickets for me as well, but the tickets were ‘sold out’ in a matter of seconds. So how do these fucking shit-stain leeches on the green puss that comes out of a gangrene wound that’s eaten by a fly that’s about to die because it’s gotten violated by a camel get a hold of so many tickets between them?
And to pour piss and vinager over the wound, Pearl Jam played London Wembley Arena yesterday and I only fucking found out today. I’d have given my left nut to watch Pearl Jam live as I’ve never had the chance (even though a couple of years I was actually thinking about going to a festival just for them). Man that really upset me this afternoon when I found. Genuinely was upset about that. I didn’t think I could get more hurt but today was obviously just one big day of disappointments.
So what next? We’re thinking about going to the Reading Festival. That’s in August, however all the tickets are OBVIOUSLY sold out. Yeah of course. I doubt it would have made ANY difference if I had tried to get tickets on the day that they came out. So I guess Ebay is the only route forward.
This is part of the reason I don’t generally go to live concerts.
It’s a funny thing about how much information your brain can actually hope to take in a single moment, a single day, or a single experience. For me this is made clearest when I go to Fopp. For those in the dark, Fopp is a store in Britain, which I believe (but this could be COMPLETE bollocks as Kevin told me this) started off in the back of this guy’s car in Glasgow selling music and other assorted greatness a reasonable, stable prices, without the stupid .99 bullshit. Yeah like 11.99 will make me think it’s £11 rather than £12 I mean seriously stop insulting my intelligence you asshats. Anyway, Fopp’s opened this massive megastore on Tottenham Court Road. This place is pretty huge. Originally I thought that was great. Bigger is better right? Wrong.
It’s completely overwhelming. I go in there and I’m completely lost in a sea of music and books that I have no hope of trying to whittle down myself. I end up actually buying nothing because I’m completely at a loss as to what seems like a good deal and what I feel I’d get just because it’s at a decent price. Also I don’t want to think about the range of stuff that I don’t get because I don’t actually see it.
Back to the original topic though, I’m glad when I found out that I’m not the only weird person out there that has people in his MSN contacts list. They’ve been sitting there for years and I’ve never once had the inclination to use the function to contact these people. I can’t explain it, they sit there and part of me would like to know what they’re up to but at the same time another part of me feels a certain comfort that they’re there anyway. It does sound strange and maybe a bit anti-social but like I said, your brain can only take on so much information, before it’s on complete overload.
Woke up this morning without much of a plan. Usually my sundays are filled with something to do. Today however I wanted a small break from the constant thought that I’ve engulfed myself into the past 2 weeks. This is all due to my book. I have a new found appreciation for well written stories in whatever form they may come. It’s really hard work getting a 150 page graphic novel written. Am I close to the mark? No way. I’ve gotten 40 pages done. 2 weeks 40 pages. This I might add is the third draft. Oh yeas, I’ve got another 2 drafts one which reached a total of 55 pages written and I just scrapped it there and then. Didn’t think twice although had an unbelievable weekend trying to not call myself a complete and utter failure.
The work however will speak for itself, as the story I’ve got now is a lot tighter. What makes me wonder is that I know for a fact that the story will twist and change and evolve into something much more in the weeks to come. It will be better the more I think about it the more I analyse it. So I’m not too upset about the fact that I didn’t meet my deadline. I always blow deadlines anyway.
My next headache came in the form of my discared website that’s been sitting there doing nothing for a while now. Ive been pretty bad for it the last couple of months, but hopefully that should all change in the coming weeks.
I must say I’m pretty proud of how quickly I was able to whip this site together, hell I only thought about sorting out a blog earlier this morning, a true testament to the greatness that is blogger.
When I woke up this morning I didn’t have a blog. Now I do. It’s going to change a great deal in the days to come as I’ve only started scratching the surface of this thing, but here’s hoping it’s a fun experience.
The freqency with which I handle this is all dependant on a few things. Currently I’ve been writing my story and the cogs have been set in motion that will hopefully get it published later on this year. For those that know me, understand what this means to me, I suppose it’s also clear now why I had to learn web design since this is going to be a predominantly web based promotional effort.
Welcome to the start of my dreams becoming a reality. Welcome to my first year actively trying to get published.