Paris RWC Final - 20/10/07

Again, aside from the result, a thoroughly good time. We checked out the Catacombs of Paris, which if you haven't been is a must. Really really crazy walking through underground tunnels with the bones of millions (6 to be exact) of people lining the walls in cynical patterns. Supposedly there are 300km of these tunnels under Paris!

Other than that, shopping was done, rugby was watched and baguettes were bought. Paris is always good.

Athens & Santorini - 15/10/07

Athens and Santorini. Have been wanting to go to Greece for a while now after hearing many good things so Gabe and I devoted the week in between the rugby world cup semi finals and final to a bit of sun and relaxation.

One whirlwind day in Athens was spent climbing foolish mountains to view scaffold clad history and then some unbelievably fine dining at Spondi, which, Gordon Ramsey's Pétrus, actually found hard to beat.

A fully berthed 9 hour ferry trip to Santorini then took up most of the next day with us arriving in time for some incredible sunset action. The views from Santorini's caldera are nothing short of stunning but due to our unparalleled fatness we couldn't really tell you much about anything outside our hotel. Tan, book and lounger me over.

All Blacks in Cardiff - 05/10/07

Yeah well. Doesn't bear too much mention. The unbelievable result here not only dashed the hopes of a nation....again......but also cut short our world cup trip that we had been planning since February.

As a minor consolation the Aussies crashed out just as unceremoniously as us but for first prize, I randomly managed to bump into Fitzy.....definitely the highlight.

All Blacks in Edinburgh - 23/09/07

The first of our planned world cup games. We thrashed Scotland 40 - 0 in a handling error ridden game but it was fun nonetheless. Have never seen one place so overrun with Kiwi's in my life. Oh and can we change our flag?

Zoom In Photography Course - 06/09/07

I've just finished a 4 week photography course (3 hours, once per week) and as such have uploaded the results. Some of the photos, whilst they aren't the best compositional shots, do demonstrate some interesting aspects of photography such as the effects of perspective and colour filters on monochrome images.

My favs are without a doubt the Thames Festival fireworks shots.....some great annoying tripod action to get those. Sorry punters!

Speed Updating

Ok so here goes. Now that I've got my entire photo library up to date and where it should be, there's pretty much a years (although meagre) worth of photos and good times for you to check out.

27/08/07 Notting Hill Carnival - As per usual, the most free festival fun you can have in London.

08/06/07 Berlin - Yock was over again for more of his scientology bothering so Aidan and I met up with him in Berlin for the weekend. Cue crazy nightclub / bar / hostel / hippie commune / impromtue documentary accommodation and general spreading of democracy. Don't worry if that doesn't make much sense to you either......I'm still trying to figure it all out too.

30/03/07 New Zealand - Christie and I took a month off and spent 3 weeks in NZ and 1 in Aussie. Of the many highlights, hiring a campervan and driving from Auckland to Wellington was one.......me playing a starring role as Bridesman at Ruthie's wedding was definitely another.

03/03/07 Wales - Just before our big trip to NZ we took off to Wales for the weekend. Cheap hire cars are a great great thing.

05/01/07 Amsterdam - Still not sure about this place although the Heineken museum is a must.

21/12/06 Toronto, Niagara Falls & New York - I'm sure we're still paying off this trip even now. A magnificent week in Toronto for Christmas followed by a train through Niagara Falls and New Years Eve in Times Square. Yeah.....NYE in Times Square....don't go for the fireworks......I've had bigger displays in my back garden. Go for the sheep like pens they herd you into, go for the 8 blocks back view you are going to get if you turn up 6 hours before midnight and go for the no alchohol, no toilet breaks, standing in the freezing cold fun of it. Go so you can say you have been. So rubbish it was hilariously good.

Feedback

So to give some feedback on the GX100 and Aperture. The new camera is fantastic, I enrolled in a camera techniques course to give me an understanding of the manual controls of the camera and found it incredibly worthwhile. The camera itself I would wholly recommend. It's lens is quite wide to begin with but with the addition of the wide angle lens attachment (16mm!) it enables some amazingly creative shots.

Aperture, Apple's pro photo workflow application (think glistening insane octane iPhoto), is nothing sort of a workhorse. It's features are very geared towards photographers who take hundreds of photos for each project and need a streamlined way of narrowing them down to then adjust and apply keywords. Considering I took just on 1000 photos over the 4 weeks of my photography course it's made my life just a little easier.

New Camera Action and Aperture

You may have noticed that I almost ceased taking photos in 2007. I've been putting this down to my camera boring me to tears but never fear, exciting times ahead. I've purchased a new Ricoh Caplio GX100 which among other things is going to attempt to restore my interest in snappies.

As part of that, I have migrated my entire library from iPhoto to Aperture. A few glitches along the way but Aperture is definitely better suited to me. Quite a bit more powerful and scalable.

Smoke Free UK!

Holy Fuck. It has finally arrived. Pubs and Bars are back on the menu....a most sincere single finger to all of those who have kept me out of them for many past years.

Fuck off outside into the cold and kill yourselves with your cancerous crutches.