Last weekend I was introduced to the world of gambling. Well, kind of :) A friend of mine invited me to the dog races at Wimbledon, a traditional British entertainment :) So yeah I was betting a bit there. Actually I won twice. Well, ok, the basic mathematic manipulations showed me that in the end my balance was rather negative. Minus 20p, haha. Yeah, you see I stayed sound and sober and did not give in the temptation of getting rich fast :)

What really excited me though was the red Safeguard bus standing lonely in the empty car park near the stadium :) Here it is, after photoshop love poured abundantly on the shot :) Actually… it was Apple’s Aperture…

That was an eventful week :) The next night after seeing a West End musical we had a romantic dinner on a boat gliding along the river Thames. We definitely had some occasion to celebrate ;)

The weather was warm and lovely, the view was eye-pleasing and the food was delicious… what else could you possibly wish for your dinner? :) Also that night my elder brother was celebrating his birthday back in Latvia, so we had a toast to a birthday boy while being on the phone with him:)

Few shots from that dinner are below.

So Rory is leaving in a week time. I am going to miss this guy…

Apparently he was extremely bored today… more than usually :) Here is our IM conversation. Enjoy:)
Rory – how was the burger?
Oleg – heavy for my stomach, as always :) it was good. why you ask? :)
Rory – dunno, just bored. thought it might be an interesting topic for conversation. but its not
Oleg – haha. u bore me now
Rory – i bore me too
Oleg – u can play some boring music to us all
Rory – haha im playing it to myself. got my headphones on
Oleg – play to us, bore us to death!!!!
Rory – what do I play that is boring?
Oleg – i dunno… everything?
Rory – your music doesn’t even have words. And most of it is electronic. Electronic music is for people who have no soul
Oleg – ok, but your music is so old that its for those people who have no teeth…
Rory – haha. but just because it is old, doesn’t make it less good.
Oleg – of course not.
Rory – all the best music has already been made. I don’t think it is possible recreate the excitement of that music
Oleg – but u play old AND crappy one
Rory – hahaha
Oleg – i think i beat you this time
Rory – no chance. I cant convince a soulless person about good music. i feel sorry for you
Oleg – i dont feel anything for u
Rory – thats because you have no soul
Rory – I think we need to play fussball later on
Oleg – u gonna bore me again
Rory – yeah probably…

Last night we went to see the ‘Lord of the Rings’ musical. Being quite a fan of J.R.Tolkien’s trilogy, it would be a shame to miss this adaptation, since it’s the last couple of moths it’s running in London’s West End. Also having 2 top price tickets for the price of one (niiiice) helped :)

I think the show was brilliant. The stage transformation into the Middle-earth was amazing and a very creative use of the moving multi-level platforms on the stage allowed to recreate many different sceneries and landscapes. A bunch of special effects, acrobats, flying elves, 30ft tarantula, orcs, rambling in the audience… no wonder this £25 million production had something to offer :)

And though I must admit the story was a bit rushed (because, as you know, the book is massive but the show is just about 2.5 hours), and though we wished Gandalf had been a less of an extrovert (as for me, Sir Ian McKellen made the perfect wizard), this musical was a real eye-candy :)

See musical’s website for some cool videos from the show, and if you are in London before the July 19, go and see it before it is out of town.

Apparently, not everyone and not everything can fly :) We had a chance to see the proof of it last weekend in Hyde Park. People were jumping, splashing and crushing their home-made… vehicles. Why? Just for fun :) And it was actually a good fun. in spite of the typical London weather – started very hot in the morning and then went to freezing during the day and then back to nice in the evening. Well at least it did not rain :)

There were about 40 teams in total, but I must admit that after the first 30 it was getting duller. Yeah, a bit too many of them :)

See below few of the more or less good shots I managed to make.

You can read a bit more about this stupid event in Wikipedia.

We were just walking downtown after having fun with the Telectroscope and were passing St.Paul’s, when we realized we hadn’t visited it yet, even after living all these years in the capital. So the timing was kind of perfect for us.

434 steps. This is exactly what it takes to get to the Golden gallery at the top of St.Paul’s cathedral. And climbing all those steps wasn’t easy :) But it was definitely worth it. The view of London was very fine, not worse than you can get from the London Eye. So yeah, it was very enjoyable, and walking down is so, so much easier, hehe. Done within a minute :)

P.S. There was no gold in the Golden gallery :( What a sham!

Actually, that huge Victorian times telescope, which can be fond near the Tower Bridge, is quite a lot of fun.  It digs deeps down the earth and comes out on the other side, in New York, next to the Brooklyn Bridge. So, with the white board and a marker you can communicate with New Yorkers in real time. This is a-maz-ing! :)

“Hardly anyone knows that a secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel has finally been completed. An extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope has been installed at both ends which miraculously allows people to see right through the Earth from London to New York
and vice versa.”

Check Telectroscope’s official page to read more and see some cool pictures.

Few more picture can also be found on my flickr.

Even more information about this piece of techlogy (including a picture of the one in New York).
Also, if you are still wondering what steampunk is…

Genre : Electro/Alternative

A sad and beautiful creation from the front-man of Depeche Mode.

Go to Dave’s myspace page or go to his official website

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