Lee's Space

How could I forget these other two pieces of news...

Firstly, Sam cooked a rather excellent Salmon en Croute for Sunday dinner. It was a bit of an experiment, and although I was uncertain as to how the currant/lemon/clove filling would taste, it all turned out to be very yummy! We didn't even have enough room for the posh Gü puddings we had bought - and I imagine they have long since been eaten by somebody ;)

Secondly, I finally purchased a pair of Bose QuietComfort 2 headphones at Heathrow Dixons (I decided the 3's just didn't cut the mustard). I am terribly impressed with them, but I knew I would be. Excellent for drowning out all those annoying people on the plane and bus :)

Any readers I still might have may have noticed that I haven't made a blog entry for a loooooonnnnng time - aside from the half-hearted rant about Spurs. This is partly due to me still being away with work on this long-term engagement in Geneva (so my weekend free-time is precious), partly due to the fact that I am still toying with the idea of a switch in blog provider, and partly because I haven't had much to say.

So, here is a general update of noteworthy news...

A couple of weekends ago, the whole family went out to Zurich to surprise my Nan for her 95th birthday. It was a truly excellent weekend, made all the better because it had been absolutely yonks since the last time the boys (me, Andrew, Simon and Dad) had all gone out drinking togther. And, of course, Nani absolutely loved the whole thing - which was the prime objective.

I must say, switching from French on Thursday night to Swiss-German on Friday, and back to French on Sunday night was challenging to say the least!

Other notables included the seemingly endless supply of No. 33 Buses to Hegibachplatz (that place must be kicking!), the disgusting cocktail "Manhattan" (how was I supposed to know that Canadian Club was whisky?!), and Maria Grimm - the Marriott receptionist who certainly didn't live up to her name.

Then, two weekends ago, Sam's Mum and sister came over to stay for the weekend. It was really cool and I think everyone had a great time. The girls got to do loads of shopping in "proper" shops, and we hit the town on both Friday and Saturday nights. Kirsty even found herself a new friend ;)

Last weekend was superb, too. I plucked up the courage to go to the gym for the very first time in my life, and thoroughly enjoyed it. We had our induction and then went for a bit of a workout on the bikes followed by a swim, sauna and jacuzzi. Although the level of exertion was minimal, it really did make me feel motivated to go on a regular basis. So maybe that beer belly will soon be a thing of the past?! Hmmm...

And then to top it all off... I made sushi!!! Sam had bought me a special sushi kit including the sticky rice, seaweed sheets and rolling mat. It is most definitely not as easy as it looks, but after making the initial mistake of rolling the rolling mat into my sushi roll, I kinda got the hang of it.

I have included a picture below. I know they look a bit wonky but for a first attempt I am quite proud of my creations :) I will definitely be trying this again.

Not only are those constantly-moving adverts that fly around at the bottom of Windows Live Messenger very, very annoying, they also eat CPU cycles. The Sky ad was particularly heavyweight, as I discovered when merely covering it up with another window. Immediately my CPU load dropped from around 30% to under 10%. Now I know my machine is old and tired, but the last thing I need is Messenger advertising sucking much-needed CPU.

So, a few Googles later I come across A-Patch. This is a great little utility that (as far as I can tell) edits the Messenger executable directly to tweak its behavior. It has a huge range of options, but I stuck with just the 'remove advertising' option and it worked an absolute treat! Of course, you use this utility at your own risk, and I'm not providing a link here (how dare I post a link to a utility that hacks one of the products of my blog provider), but I'm sure if you want to, you can do the relevant Google search for it :)

Having now stayed at 5 different hotels in Geneva over the past couple of months, I feel I can give quite a comprehensive Hotel Guide for the city. So here goes. Please note that the star rating I have given the 5 hotels is merely a ranking of the best (5-star) to the worst (1-star) in the set, and is not necessarily an indication of my absolute ratings for the establishments.
____
Accor Suitehotel Geneva *****

Easily the best of the bunch, this hotel is conveniently situated between the city center and my customer. The rooms are minimalist but contemporary, with in-room microwave and fridge. The Swiss Bistro and Bar serves a traditional if somewhat limited menu, and Swisscom wireless internet is available throughout. Be careful not to book a room at the Accor Etap next door, as I am told this is very 'basic'.

Positives: Stylish rooms, friendly staff, wireless internet throughout
Negatives: The wireless internet isn't free
____
Express by Holiday Inn Geneva Airport ****

My current hotel. The Holiday Inn Express brand can be somewhat variable in quality, but this one is perfectly okay. There are no on-site dining facilities, but they have a bar which also provides free wireless intenet access. The whole hotel looks clean and brand new.

Positives: Free wireless internet in the bar, clean and modern rooms
Negatives: You have to go exploring for food options
____
InterContinental Geneva ***

I have already blogged about this hotel at length, so the only thing I will add is: if you're in a posh hotel that really doesn't live up to expectations, understand that there are worse hotels out there...

Positives: Priority Club points
Negatives: £7 beer
____
Best Western Hotel Century Geneva **

This "four-star" hotel owes its name to the fact that at the turn of the Century it was considered one of the Best. Well, that's my interpretation anyway. And if my assumption is correct, then I don't think they've done any modernisation since the turn of said century. The bar/restaurant was awful, the room was small, and I was woken up by the front desk at 4.40am telling me to turn my telly down - which would have been fine if my telly had been on and I hadn't been asleep in bed for 4 hours.

Positives: Free 2-minute adult movie preview (if you can ignore the text all over the screen)
Negatives: The bar, the unscheduled wake-up call
____
Accor Residence Studio *

I really don't want to write much about this hotel, it brings back too many memories. Suffice to say it was located in the heart of the red light district (the cheap end by the looks of things), had slam-shut lift and front doors (which did so, throughout the night) and the tiny room sported the world's most unergonomic sink.

Negatives: The front door
Positives: The front door, which lets you out of the place

Due to my increasing annoyance at other people in my vicinity making noises (talking, laughing, listening to music, breathing etc), I am looking at purchasing some noise-cancelling headphones. Being a bit of a nerd, it simply has to be a pair of Bose QuietComforts.

Now, Bose have just released the QC3s which are smaller, lighter and essentially much sexier than the QC2s. This all seems well and good, but a little bit of research has thrown up two potential drawbacks:

• They are "on-ear" headphones rather than "over-ear" headphones. I wonder whether that makes their noise-cancelling qualities less impressive?

• They use a proprietary rechargeable battery. This does have some pros, but the cons (the need for yet another charger, the need for the battery to be in use - even for non-noise-cancelling use, and cost of replacement) seem to outweight them.

So, has anyone got any experiences of the QC3s, especially in comparison to the QC2s? Your comments appreciated...

Warning: This post contains expletive content

I've been away from home for 2 weeks with work. I'm heading back out on there on Monday. But this weekend was all about the first game of the season. A fresh beginning to build upon the success of last season. This weekend had long been marked in my diary. The core of the squad still in place, and a couple of new signings to boot - what could go wrong?

Of course,  Bolton away was a tricky opening fixture. A point would be acceptable, three possible. Whatever happened, I knew the boys would give it their all, off the back of a great pre-season run.

Even as I type this, my desire to is draining from my fingers.

What an absolute fucking disgrace. There was not one silver lining to the cloud that was Spurs' opening day performance. Robinson, who had a dodgy World Cup, continued this theme. Berbatov was anonymous and harmless in equal measure. Davenport seemed to prove that he couldn't step up to the big stage. Lennon didn't show any of the spunk we had expected. Jenas was a nobody. And Ekotto?

Too early to start worrying? Hell no! The opening game is a statement of intent, and with some demonstration of intent I would have swallowed a 2-0 defeat against an ever-tricky Bolton. But that intent just didn't surface.

Tonight I wish I didn't follow football, let alone Spurs.

Just a few phone pictures from my weekend in Zurich. They include my Servelat and beer brunch, me and my Mum at Street Party 2006, and an example of the utterly excellent tram system.

Hmmm, I am struggling to allow anonymous comments on my Space. Anyone know how you do this? The help says there should be a setting in the Permissions options, but I cannot see it!

I don't want to restrict commentators to those with a Live (MSN) ID. Another black mark against Live Spaces that fuels my almost imminent switch to another blog provider. Grrrrrrrr!