Day 23 - write a review of a hotel

As you may or may not know, I recently returned from a short break on the beautiful island of Rhodes.

Ok, I stayed in Faliraki, but the hotel was really top-notch.

I have never been on an all-inclusive holiday before, but since it was my little sisters wedding I had no choice in the matter....Sun Palace Hotel, Faliraki Road Rhodes...was absolutely fantastic, all you could possibly eat (from all four corners of the world); all you could possibly drink (although the red wine was served from the fridge it was still acceptable since it would have been 20 odd degrees which is hardly room temperature); a great pool; loads of things to do; and lots of friendly, attentive staff.

Anyway, I digress, I have been working all over Europe for over a decade now and most weeks have stayed in a hotel, up until now I have read most reviews of hotels I was due to stay at with a large pinch of salt:

"Hotel fantastic, but it was really let down by not having an International Tiddly-Winks arena next door"!!!

or...

"Hated everything about this hotel: worst possible room, heating on full blast, shower stone cold, bed lumpy, wallpaper was disgusting, bar always closed, food tasted of cardboard....would highly recommend staying"!

So, day 23, I thought I'd write a review of the hotel in Rhodes to see how hard it is...here goes... 

Utterly fantastic hotel...would highly recommend!

Having never been on an all-inclusive holiday before, I was happily surprised to discover how fantastic this hotel is run!

From the minute you arrive (with a welcoming glass of champagne while you check-in) the staff are really friendly and attentive.

The rooms are clean, modern, and comfortable, although slightly on the small side - but that hardly matters since the only time I spent in the room was to get changed for dinner or go to sleep at the end of a fantastic day sat by the pool; or in the bar; or joining in with the many organised activities.

The choice of food is over-whelming...really!

The bar is well stocked (with many international brands).

The pool is great.

The other guest's were also pretty good too!

Special mention must go to the manager who did his very best to make sure my trip back home was so easy....many many thanks!

All in all I would highly recommend this hotel for families with kids upto around 12 years of age.

There, I did it, the hotel was really good, so I'm afraid it may appear as if I am the manager writing it...but who cares, someone like me will probably read it with the same pinch of salt as I would.

As proof of the writing the review, I have posted this to tripadvisor and hotels (with whom I made the booking), and now have to wait upto 72 hours to get it published...once it is I'll update the links here.

Day 22 - go on holiday

everyone needs a holiday now and again...even if you live in the south of france and everyday is one loooong holiday, its still nice to get away and forget all about the sunshine; forget all about the pool; forget all about the games of boules; forget all about good wine; forget all about good food...

...infact, forget all about everything that you've spent decades perfecting in your own little world and then you can go and pick holes in everything that someone else has decided is the perfect holiday!

That said, I have just got back from the beautiful island of Rhodes, and it was pretttty, pretttty good if I say so myself.

It was my little sisters wedding and she had decided on Falaraki...which wasn't the easiest of places to get to from the south of France (it appeared that only the English and Germans fly direct, although I found out while I was there that Belgium and some of the Nordic countries also do it).

It was the Sun Palace Hotel. I've worked in lots of different places in the world and stayed in lots of different hotels in the world, but this one was the most difficult hotel I've come across to book (at least when booking something a little different, like only 3 nights!), it appears that people only ever go to Rhodes for a week at a time (dictated presumably by the travel companies)!

What was most difficult though was getting there. Either fly north for a direct flight back to the south or take a very long and convoluted route half-way across Europe.

In the end I opted for:
1. flight from Nice to Rome;

"lunchtime, and when in Rome..."

2. flight from Rome to Athens;

"its a long wait in the airport!"

3. flight from Athens to Rhodes.

"it was getting dark at this point"

Total Time (door to door) = 13 hours.
Total Flying Time = 3 hours!

Total time sat in goddamn awful airports = 10 hours!!!


"finally arrived...only 13 hours later!"

Still it was worth every second to be at the wedding...and to be on a little holiday to boot.

Only thing left was do the exact opposite all over again....

Day 21 - send a tweet when someone breaks a tripwire!

I know its been almost 2 weeks (14 days missed), but I went on holiday...no guesses as to what tomorrows blog is going to be...

...however for now, watch this in action! very, very cool



you can get full details over here.

Day 15 - do a multi-lingual crossword...

...kind of!



This is the crossword from the May edition of The Connexion, an english paper here in France.



I have started doing the crossword to help extend my knowledge of french words (most of which I have to look up in the dictionary) and I have to say its extremely satisfying when the final word goes in.







I am assuming they wont mind me putting the crossword here! If nobody objects I will post the answers on day 45, if they do object, then I wont....but feel free to ask for hints (I have only got 10 answers so far, but I am hoping to have filled it in before Junes edition comes out!).



Good Luck

Day 20 - make a cocktail

...of course, you should drink in moderation like I do!

but if you have a load of old bottles of weird and wonderful alcohol then drop them into this site and let it tell you which cocktails you can make from them...cool...and more than a little bit dangerous!

If you only have one bottle of alcohol left then it might be better to use this one instead. all you have to do is search by ingredient to find lots and lots of ways to get really really drunk, really really quickly!

I'm already there!

Day 19 - Adopt an endangered animal

According to the World Wildlife Fund the top 5 animals to adopt are

• 1. Tiger
• 2. Panda
• 3. Polar Bear
• 4. Trio of Cubs
• 5. Emperor Penguin

Personally I am going to adopt a Polar Bear

Polar bears populate the annual arctic sea ice in northern Canada, Greenland, Norway, and Russia. Between late April and mid-July, polar bears hunt ringed and bearded seals on the sea ice. With adult males weighing up to 1,430 pounds and growing as much as nine feet in length, they are the world’s largest terrestrial carnivores. As a result of climate change, sea ice is melting earlier and forming later each year, leaving polar bears less time to hunt. As their ice habitat shrinks, skinnier and hungrier bears face a grave challenge to their survival.

world’s largest terrestrial carnivores!!! - get in!

Day 18 - learn a dancemove

and there really is only ONE dance move at the moment...SHUFFLIN!

Here are LMFAO showing you how to do the shuffle...



...and here is my version of the robot dance...try not to laugh too hard at my pathetic excuse for dancing...


(many thanks to the little girl on youtube who taught me how to do it)


...and here is the original...BOOOOOOOM!!!!!!


I am going to try and nail the shuffle next week sometime and maybe make another stupid video.

get dancing!

Day 17 - get one over MS

yes, you heard me, screw them!

Last week I tried to download Escalation (the latest map pack for Call of Duty) on my Xbox.

"Oh no you don't!" screamed my xbox..."you now live in France, but your account is in the UK!" - some sort of crazy region restriction was stopping me!

What a load of utter tosh! I was fuming! I paid for the UK subscription whilst in the UK, I bought the game in the UK, I had spent the points on the bloody thing, but it wasn't letting me have it!

Me and my mate then spent hours trawling the internet to find a solution, to no avail.

We tried everything! But that expansion pack wasn't going to download to my xbox unless I took a flight back to the UK (with xbox as hand luggage) found a wireless access point, logged on, downloaded it whilst there, then took a flight back home! b****x to that!!!!

This guy looked like he had the answer...

So I followed the advice and tried securitykiss but still had problems logging onto xbox live once I'd got the thing working (which wasn't as easy as the guy suggests).

However, I was pretty sure I could share a VPN connection because this guy sounded convincing (and didn't look like he was just trying to make some money).

So I found a mate of mine who lived in the UK (and who had a fixed IP address - not an easy find I agree!) and we set about trying to pull the wool over Big Brothers eyes!

after a few hours of fiddling with some settings 'Network Connection', I finally manged to download what I had paid for a week ago...and...it works!!!!

Hallelujah!!!


Take that MS!!!; or Treyarch!!!; or Activision!!!; or whoever else was stopping me from playing my game!!!

If you want anymore info feel free to email or comment.

Day 16 - cook a really good curry

Everyone should be able to cook something, in my case its a pork-chop-sandwich.
hmm...pork...
hmm...chop...
hmm...sandwich!

delicious!

however, I think curry should  be the staple food of the world, so wanted to try and cook my own (from scratch!), instead of buying it from the take-away/restaurant/shop!

this next video is great, an Indian, in what must be somewhere in America, doing a podcast on how to make chicken curry...I could watch these guys all day...infact, yesterday I did...and they make a pretty tasty curry...I tried it last night and it was pretty pretty good...although I put a lot more garlic in (well, I am in France!) and a shed load more chilli.




this person (it doesn't say if its male or female) has been developing the receipe found here for 10 years in their "quest to make the ultimate curry", thats some quest!!!...I might try this next week.

Day 14 - grow your own vegetables

seriously, what can be more rewarding than growing your own veg...and feeding the family with them.

the site thats really serious about all this has to be the RHS! They are keen as mustard (which, of course, you should be growing by now, today though you should be planting the tomatoes and beetroot).

They have all sorts of resources available, a few years ago they had a planner for a metre square bed which when organised as they told you would provide a family of 4 with fresh vegetables all year round! wow!!!! This year they have the Great RHS Veg Challenge, you can enter here.

The have a really good planner as well...so you cant go wrong.

Have a look, and get planting!

Day 13 - build the kids a treehouse

Just after we had moved into the old house in Chester (UK)...the wife took the kids away on a short holiday while I stayed at home to work.

While they were away, I built them a treehouse to surprise them when they got home...and boy, were they surprised. I bought metre upon metre of pre-treated wood; hundreds of bolts and screws; a new drill; a huge 10 inch drill bit; and a bright blue plastic slide.

 

 

If I say so myself, it stood the test of time (it was another 5 years before we moved out and the kids played on it daily)...the only trouble is they now want another one building here, in the south of France!

This should give you an idea of how much hard work to expect:

I've got much bigger plans for my next one, this internet is a dangerous thing for giving people ideas!!!

 

or maybe I will knock this little number up over a long weekend

  

 

To the batcave, Batman!

Day 12 - create a timelapse recording of the day/night...

if there is anything cooler than watching the clouds roll overhead in one of those 'natural world' documentaries then I haven't seen it!

Try it yourself, how hard can it be?!?

1. Get a camcorder (with a timelapse function, otherwise this is going to be a lot harder!)
2. Set the timelapse to 15 seconds
3. Chose a decent position for the camera (one where you get a decent view, a bit of the garden, lots of sky, maybe a bit of roof, maybe place it behind a dirty window pane!!)
4. Press 'record'
5. Wait 24 hours
6. Press stop
7. Watch the day and night unfold in all its majesty and wonder

I tried it last night...really wished I'd cleaned the windows first...can't see a goddamn thing once the sun comes out!!!


Classic! 18 hours of my life I'll never get back!!!

ignore this bit, im merely adding this code so technorati verify its me 7B3E26NKJW4N

Day 11 - hack your kinect

I dont care if I'm not supposed to, it looks like fantastic fun, really really cool, and maybe a little bit educational!!!

you can even join some sort of community: open-kinect!

Now I'm as sceptical as the most sceptical person on earth, but if you take these videos at face value (why would anyone bother to spoof the whole thing - now, that would be a waste of time!) then....WOW!!!

This guy is controlling google earth on a projector using his hands - can you imagine the look on your mates faces when you turned the projector on and zoomed in on their house by waving at the wall!!!



and this guy too...


Kinect Earth from Matt Fargo on Vimeo.

and then this guy has 'taught' his computer to recognise a variety of objects:



"I see a giraffe"
"I see a toy"
"I see a cow"

I would love to see the look on the guys face if the computer suddenly said...

"I see dead people"

...or...

"look out behind you!"

Day 10 - redesign the whole house (without leaving the computer)

This website is a lot of fun (and pretty useful as well i guess).

Here is my 'loft apartment' bedroom...onto the living room next...

• OSWALD SOFA from Conran Shop, $4,600
• PTOLOMEO ROTATING BOOKCASE from Conran Shop, $3,795
• ALOE 70 X 70CM DIA. from Forever Trees, £129.70
• Como Round Rugs: 1599 Red from Rugs Express, $104.99
• Bisley® 5-Drawer Cabinet from The Container store, $99
• triton throw pillow from Wallcandy Arts, $70
• Outdoor Patio Red Floral Reversible Square Decorative Pillow - Set Of from Target, $59.99
• Sideboard in White with square legs from Content by Conran
• Station Three Drawer Unit from Heal's
• "Citiscape Cream" Triple Wardrobe - Cream / Wenge from MFI
• Typhoon Lamp-GV060 from OKA
• PIRÅL from IKEA
• Allure (large) by Ritter from The Fine Art Company
• Clip bed, 2003 from Twentytwentyone

The sofa is a snip at just over 4 and a half thousand dollars!!!

Day 9 - become an astronaut

Like most little boys I wanted to become an astronaut when I grew up...mainly so I could fly the Millennium Falcon with Chewie.

That dream still lingers somewhere in the back of my warped mind, so imagine my delight when I found that Virgin Galactic were inviting applications for Pilot-Astronauts!!!

Unfortunately it also appears I was a little late (6 days late to be fair) in sending the application off, but you can still register you interest for future Pilot-Astronaut positions up until 30th June.

I not sure, but I'm pretty certain I wont make the grade:

• I'm not a US citizen!
• I haven't graduated from a recognized test pilot school! Hell, I didn't even go to an unrecognized one!
• I only have 2,999 hours flying experience (and thats as a passenger, and mainly whilst drunk!)
• I have no operational experience of an aerospace aviation project or business!
• I couldn't ably communicate my aviation knowledge and safety related information - because I don't have any!
• I prefer golf to playing in a team!
• I do, however, hold a degree...maybe they will make an exception, fingers crossed!!!

Day 8 - map your online life...

...but don't be surprised if its a little scary!

I started by making a list of all the different online tools/applications/websites and then weighting them according to usage and lastly linking them together where they interacted with each other. I didn't add real people, but trust me, I do occasionally say the odd word to members of the human race.

Here is the first draft...theres a lot more work to go into it yet, I'm pretty sure the links need work and the weighting needs more analysis...sites like that daytum wsebsite mentioned in a previous post would be ideal for this (assuming you'd been recording everytime you went on Facebook from the minute you started going on facebook, that is!) because I'm not sure you can easily measure facebook 'time' or even count the number of 'comments' made, or 'likes' liked, or photos uploaded whilst extremely drunk which you really will regret in the morning and that you will be deeply ashamed of for the rest of the time you have on this earth!

I've got to say I'm a little concerned! It looks like a vipers nest!! I'm not even sure I know what Tumblr is for?!?

I've got to organise these, maybe trim them down somewhat...but I would be more than interested to know what other people are using...

Day 7 - create an IPOD/IPHONE/IPAD app...

...go on, how hard can it be!

i just need to think of a killer idea that hasnt been done yet...after all there are only probably a umpteen million that already exist coving everything from buying and selling shares to 1,500 different ways to play "rock, paper, scissors"!.

If I ever do think of a killer idea, then i may well try this company...



although the "note to the royal couple" looks a little disturbing (i hope they dont ever read this! and i dont mean William and Kate!!)

Day 6 - learn a card trick

Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to know at least one decent card trick!

Full-stop! No arguments!

Many years ago I read a book, I think it was some sort of thriller but I can't remember the name...anyway, a part of the story in said unknown book was about a guy tricking another guy (probably in a bar) with the use a simple "heads-or-tails" trick.

From what I can remember - and I've been drunk a few thousand times since reading it - he had several different coloured coins in his pocket, 5 red and 7 yellow.

He would pull a coin from his pocket (unknown to the other guy) and if it was yellow he would call 'Heads' and if he was right the guy gave hime $1, if he was wrong the guy would receive $1.

If it was a red coin, he would call 'Tails' and if he was right the guy would owe him $1, otherwise he would give the guy $2!

For the life of me I could not work out why this trick always succeeded in making the guy more money than he gave away...but several nights at the bar of the local pub proved the 'trick' was a winner.

It's just a shame I have forgotten the exact details, because I would have made a pot full of cash by now!

Anyway, I digress, onto todays project...I have been practising the simple card trick as demonstrated in the video below, by CardTrickCentral. I used to know a few good card tricks and it's been great getting back into the swing of things.


The beauty of this trick is its simplicity, but can I work out how its done? No, not yet, but then I've not been to the bar yet!

As I said earlier, everyone, and I mean everyone must know at least one decent card trick!

Full-Stop! Get practising!

Day 5 - start your own film production (or join someone elses)

I'll be honest, I've been rewriting the same goddamn chapter in my novel for about 10 years now...what I put down one week, I completely scrap the week after.

Now, it looks like the people at wreck-a-movie have done some good work in the past...


...and come up with the great concept of collaborative film-making...3d artists; actors; prop/set building; composers....and you guessed it, Writers!

So, I am going to give it a go...I have just registered and am trawling through the active 'Tasks'...wish me luck!!!

Day 4 - Record it

wow, this is definately getting easier and at the same time, a hell of a lot harder!

I've decided to expand the experiment to post 100 different "things to do", you may have already noticed that each day so far (ok, I know theres only 3, bear with me) have been posts regarding little 'project-ette' type things.

so, here is day 4s...

record your life

I read about the creator of this site quite some time ago...I originally found him from kottke.org (fantastic blog!) where he had created a visual record of his fathers life (infographics are king!) and it really blew me away!

So, I've started recording little mundane things on this great website which allows you to record anything and everything which you display in little barcharts or piecharts or weird wavey line type graphs - totally cool and also pretty meaningless to anyone but oneself...if you try one thing today...try this!!!

if you're remotely interested, you can find my first stab at recording stuff (in numbers) here...my life in numbers, well, my alcohol consumption at least!