We wanted to throw a party for quite a long time, and what can be a better chance to do it than a New Year eve? The perfect cause. And what can be better than a fancy dress party? Said & done!

It was also quite a special celebration, since everyone was from our hometown, back in Latvia and it was such a good fun we can’t remember having anything like this in the last decade. No kidding. Our party people really made an effort to make it a memorable night - from the costumes to the home-made, mostly traditional (yammy!), dishes. And we had whole 2 V’s, both Olegs :)

The rest is a history, quite well documented in still images. Have a sneak-peek:

Special thanks goes to Marita for being a tireless camera-girl :)

A year ago I was buying a domain name for my newly formed Skrinshot LTD. It did not come as a big surprise that skrinshot.com was already taken. So I had no choice, but to register under .co.uk (which wasn’t that bad, since business was registered and operating in UK).

Ac couple of weeks ago I received an email from itdomainnames.net, basically saying ’skrinshot.com is coming available for sale in a few days. If you have interest in acquiring it, please fill up priority notice, and we will contact you when the domain is available.’ Right, that is interesting! So I followed the link in the email.

The first paragraph was saying ‘SKRINSHOT.COM will be listed for sale in the next 24 hours. This domain has been flagged as a premium domain and we expect it to sell quickly. Since you received a priority notice from us, you will be given first chance to acquire this domain.’

Nice, that feels like VIP treatment, and I like it. But also seems too good to be true. A premium domain? I doubt it.

Anyway, I started filling the form and came down to the ‘Your offer’ field. Hmm, my offer… What’s my offer?… OK, 20 bucks. But got an error message - ‘The minimum offer is $97′. Oh, screw you then! I don’t really need it that much (even skrinshot.co.uk is still just a holding page so far). Oh well then, I thought, I’ll stick to .co.uk.

They kept sending me reminder emails, hoping I was going to change my mind, but I was firm. Then a couple of days ago I received an email from another domain name seller, traderdomains.com, and this time ‘it is available for a one-time fee of only $49 USD’ as they ‘were able to secure it’.

Well, that’s definitely a good news! Looks like I saved myself $48, just by waiting a little bit and ignoring the initial price offer. Just like a good haggler. And this time it looked like a fair price to me, which I would be quite happy to pay.

But wait a second! I thought itdomainnames.net had already had that name at their disposal, so how have traderdomains.com managed to ’secure it’? Well that looked suspicious to me. Looked like scam.

And scam it was. I went to the first ‘cheap domains’ website, checked that skrinshot.com was available and bought it for just around $10. And that’s the end of story :) Done. Never just trust emails/internet, check first.

I will be transferring my one page ‘website’ to it’s new address in the next few days. I will also be happily ditching skrinshot.net and skrinshot.info I have bought a year ago and don’t need anymore, since I’ve got .com, the coolest one. Nice.

Last weekend we came down to Brighton with a few of our friends to catch some, probably last sunlight, before it all goes grey and gloomy. It’s pretty much the end of August and this is our… first visit to the seaside this summer. A bit late, yes, but hey, the summer wasn’t that brilliant. Well, it’s the British one.

Luckily it was warm and sunny (as a general rule it was raining or at least it was heavy-clouded on any day Veronika had a day off this summer, poor girl, her skin is still marble-white), so it was nice just to chill-out on the beach and read a book.

The water wasn’t warm though. As a matter of fact, it was freezing cold (that’s why you see me on the picture wrapped in the towel, as you could guess), and not so many ventured into going swimming. But I did. In the end, it would have looked to me as a missed opportunity if I hadn’t dare. Painfully to get in, then requiring intensive body and limbs movements once you are there, but then surprisingly nice and fresh (as long as you keep moving :). Yes, I am the man.

One of those lazy days… We walked around the beach to see the sunset before we jumped into the train back to London.

Product packaging. So often remarkably excessive and ‘not smart’. Waste of money, waste of space and non-recyclable most of the time. Some companies are getting it right nowadays, but still there are many more, which don’t seem to care. Just have a look inside your bin.

No wonder I have respect for the companies that do their best trying to minimize the environmental damage with their products. Or at least do something, since it’s not possible to become green and sustainable overnight, after hundreds of years of not caring about these issues at all. And I appreciate it even more when they do it with a style (and a sense of humor). And look what I found on the side of my yoghurt today:

Isn’t it cute? For me it’s a good example of marrying design and functionality. It’s a small thing, but hey, small things do matter.

The way it’s done actually reminds me of packaging of everyone’s favorite Innocent Smoothies with they cute witty comments on the boxes. By the way, here is the latest one, probably not as cute as ever, but still quite enjoyable.

So yeah, that little feature of youghurt packaging definitely wins me if the range of yoghurts is presented (even if it’s just a smart marketing of an evil corporation, which, and I hope it is not). Besides, the yoghurt itself tastes good.

Oh, in case you are wondering what I have I used the yoghurt for, here is a picture. A bit of a food porn for you. Yummy.

And we are continuing our exploration of the world of stereotypes. Absolutely lovely subject :)

The other day I was going to ask Kai, my co-worker and mate about how healthy food at Ping Pong was (it was after the lunch at some American burger place - I am still shocked at the variety of milk-shakes there, man… it’s just sick):

- Hey Kai, I want to ask you about something you are related to… about Ping Pong.

- What? Why??? Is it because I am Chinese? You think we all play table tennis? You, vodka boy!!

- No, actually not… because your uncle works there…

-Oh…

P.S. Should I blame Simon for making me looking so stupid on that picture? Mmm, probably not.

That morning people in London woke up to realize it wasn’t a typical day in the city. Everything changed. Finally people got  a taste of a proper winter :) Most of them also realized they can’t (or don’t have to) go to work. And apart from those poor people who had to fix the interrupted transportation links in the capital (there was only one fully working tube line with most of others fully suspended and minimum bus services), most of the people just went crazy. Crazy about the snow.

City was on a halt, with streets in town, shops and offices half and almost completely empty, but it was a total bliss outside in the parks and just on the streets. People of all ages were playing snowballs, making snowmen, sledging where possible and taking pictures. The snowball fights were initiated instantly and people were absolutely willing to participate. It was probably like when America got its independence and everyone was happy and everyone was like brother or sister to one another :)

By the end of day London has lost its magic, its white look of the morning hours, but the snowmen craze continued for a few days and you could see those white guys all around, pretty, happy and occasionally ugly,  wearing hats, scarves, holding fans, bags and mobile phones. Apparently, the UK economy lost around £600 million that day, but it’s not always about money, right?

Check few more pictures on flickr (plus see them hi-res).

Finally London got some winter actions. In a form of a show. A lot of snow :) Lots. We haven’t seen anything like that for the last 5 years or so, so you can imagine our excitement, when after a cold, windy and plainly miserable day we looked outside the window just before midnight and saw our street completely white with snow. In 5 minutes we were outside.

The wind was gradually settling down and the later it was the more people we started seeing on the streets. Very enthusiastic ones. They were taking pictures or starting the showball fight. As if it wasn’t after midnight :)

Next thing we saw was a group of youngsters having a proper snow fight in the square, and every passer-by was involved. I was spared cause ‘he’s got a camera’, which I now regret a bit, but it is always a dilemma - you either participate or take pictures. Definitely not fair.

Check few more pictures on flickr (plus you can see them there with better resolution).

Yep, this is exactly what you need to do in the times like these. Shop shop shop as much as you can. To keep the economy alive. The only problem here is… hmmm… you need to actually have money to spend without being afraid of loosing your job and etc. Vicious circle. Yeah, I know. Anyway, let’s stop this boring monologue, for there are much more competent people out there who can talk about the crisis, but rather check the poster below which hangs in a shop window on my way to work. I think it’s brilliant. Love it :)