Roma

Arriving in Italy. It took us about 15 mins to have a cuppacino and a conversation with a random person to realize how how *ace* it is to be back in Italy.

The day started early. The alarm clock rang a 3am in Bury, Manchester. The cab to the airport was arriving at 4am, so it was action stations to get ready and run downstairs to prepare coffee and some breakfast. I thought to myself "no point letting those crumpets and Lancashire cheese going to waste" ... so that's exactly what we made.

We flew out of Manchester, broke the low clouds and watched a spectacular sun rise. Heading South we flew over the English Channel - looking back onto the limestone cliffs of Southern England and fwd to the Northern shores of France. Over France we flew, over the Alps checking out the valley town and the alpine villages way up in the mountains. Next up was Italy - flying down the West side into Rome.

It's all to easy. Europe is interconnected and convenient. We get off the plane, enjoy coffee, talk to the waitress then it's downstairs to the train which took us into Rome central. I enjoyed some Euro moments on the train ... a dutch lady a bunch of girls had got on the wrong train. I gave her my train map and tried to help. The Italian kid accross from me forgot to validate his ticket, so he loaned our pen and scibbled down the boarding time. Down the aisle came the ticket dude, we laughed and the pending frustration coming ... the ticket dude took my ticket, then his and gave him the meanest scowl (lol) .. we all laughed.

We arrived at the station, picked up a map from the super friendly information staff then walked in the rain to our hotel. M picked a great one. A B&B which isn't too far from the station. It's on the 5th floor of one of those grand buildings with a common stairway. There's this turn of the century elevator that the old folk who live in the building graciously use. The stairways have great old lamps. The B+B itself is very nice, super comfy with an awesome room, high ceilings, tiled bath room complete with a space-pod shower.

Dropping our bags off we went for lunch, tasty pizza's and some red wine - just delicious.

It had been a long day so we Siesta'd then heading out for a walk about Rome. We walked all over, checked out the Trevi fountain, fab buildings before settling in for a delighful outside dinner complete with fab Chianti. I ended up ordering a ravioli dinner, which turned out to have meat in it (meat is overated). The waiters gladly switched it out, explaining "How would you know? Your not Italian. No problemo". Nice dudes, had some laughs with them ... at the end they gave us a complimentary cermonial drink ... called "happiness" . A shot of peppermint schnapps vodka, sambuca which is lit on fire, slammed on the table, thrown back then you inhale the vapours. All jolly stuff.

Afterwards we roamed back checking the various marvels that are seemingly on every corner.

It's been a day 'connecting' with people. That's one of the best parts of travelling .. rolling into a town, meeting local people and having laughs with them. We've spotted some of our fave places to from last visit including a restaurant that introduced us to the Southern Italian "5 hour slow food movement". We're going to go back there in a week when we return.

One thing that has struck me on this visit is how much Rome is a local-yocal place. Once you get past the grandeur you spot the locals living, running there businesses and generally going about ther lifes.

Tommorow we take the train & boat to Amalfi....

It's good to be back, hello!

The flight back was fine. A bit bumpy here in the usual places - leaving the Rockies for the Plains, passing over and leaving Greenland from the ocean. Some nice sights en route ... Greenland - always startling to see, and always cool to see a remote single light in the wilderness .. North Atlantic - icebergs in the sea ... England - the patchwork of fields from the plane.

Getting on the plane I spotted a 'scally' nutjob who looked like trouble. He sat a few seats behind us and started having big laughs with his new found mate on the plane. It was all fun and games untill it went quiet and the air staff came over to discuss an 'incident' where 'he threatened a passenger' and 'we'd like to resolve this, as we don't want to take it to the next level' ... with defensive responses like 'only a joke', 'taking the mickey mate, you know'. Fortunately it got resolved, he passed out and we didn't have to land in Toronto or some remote place amongst the Canadian Shield.

The flight went quick. 8 hours or so later and we was walking around Manchester Airport. It's quite amazing to be in Vancouver then back home in 8 hours. My brother picked us up and fortunately remembered where the car was. lol Rather than taking the motorway into the hills we took the 'scenic' route through the city centre.

It's lovely and sunny here. We took a great walk up the old train lines yesterday, over the old bridge to a nice pub where we had lunch with my parents. Fall is coming a little late here, so there's still a bunch of flowers around ... and the leaves are just turning. With the late afternoon light the countryside looked beautiful. Took a bunch of pictures.

Mobile Computing Is Kool

We're currently at the airport, sat in airport lounge enjoying our traditional 'start of the holiday' pint. There's some free high--speed internet available in YVR (Vancouver) Airport.

Well that's it, time to leave the super-geekness behind for a while and get bvack to enjoying the glorious sunny day. The skies are clear so we should get some epic views of the mountains.

England Here We Come ...

Tommorow night we fly to England and start our vacation...We'll be posting movies and stories from our trip, so check back in.

Got A Laptop

We finally made the move and bought a laptop. We mused over buying a macbook or a PC. Macbooks certainly rule, but the specs don't come cheap .. I need a PC for work ... sure, you can run Windows on macs these day ... in the end econmics won and we are now the owners of laptop with some sweet hardware. It'll be great for trip.

54-40


Our neighbor Oz is a rockstar. He was back on-stage with 54-40 last night at the Commodore Ballroom and invited us along to watch the show and illustrate why he's got those gold records hanging on his wall. It's a family affair with his brother being the singer.


The place was packed. Everyone was letting it rip. Around 11pm they took to the stage and belted out their set. The audience loved them. We've never seen them before, and *really* enjoyed the show - they're a great band.


It was fab to see Oz up there and here him do some keyboard solos. The audience loved his stuff.. Here he is playing piano.



Afterwards we went back-stage and had drinks with the band - which was nice :)




Here's the final song, with an army of female fans dancing. Oz closes the song playing harmonica



I guess it's been 20 years the band has been together so the Commodore was laying on and letting the champagne and beer roll. A late night out, with us all rolling back into East-Van around 4:30am. Good times for sure.

Geek Session


That has to be the best title to a 'show'. lol. ACM/Sigraph presented "Dynamic & Destructable Environments' by Alun something something from Relic (one of Vancouvers game development companies). Cheap at $10, held in the swanky Van City Theatre.

I coaxed Dubmaster C down selling him on 'you'll really like it', 'you'll get some great insight into what I do' - which all came true. After a slow start the technical artist got his groove on and it got quite interesting. He showcased a bunch of technology ... told a few of those funny (lol) development stories and showed off their game 'Company Of Heroes' ... All good stuff. It looked great - especially the cinematics. That being said, we bailed half way through because it was going on a bit and besides I wanted to go home :)

Back To Amalfi


Well it was so good the first time we couldn't resist going back. We figured - hang around on the rainy streets of Manchester or head over to Italy. We'll that's the easy part. Where to go in Italy? Somewhere new? Mostly yes, but we really need a good break and it was sooo good the first time we thought ... let's do it, we know it'll be great .. guaranteed. Besides, theres lots more to explore in the area .. Positano for one.

M did the research and found some cheap flights out of Manchester to Rome. We'll stay in Rome for a night then catch the train down to Salerno, then hop the boat onto to Amalfi. Last time we stayed in Amalfi we lucked out because the tourist information hooked us up with a local family who have a sweet place and rent out a private room -complete- with a terrace overlooking the ocean, sweeping mountain views off the rear. We had their info but they don't speak much English so M phoned the tourist information and asked them to sort it out, which they did! The family remembered us well, I knew leaving chocolates and wine was a good idea! We got a good rate and we look fwd to seeing them again. The dude is a ceramic artist and has made lots of artwork in his place - nice fellow and warm. His wife is great and spends lots of time with the grand-children. None of them speak English, we don't speak Italian - we get along fine. I have this great video somewhere of the guy talking to M about his artwork. It's great. We made friends with a girl who owns a cafe with her mother. Nice folks and it'll be nice to see them also.


Anyways, we'll spend sometime there before heading back to Rome for another night. The place in Rome has free wi-fi so I'll be able to post our adventures - which'll be kool.

We're really looking fwd to the adventure and experiencing the Amalfi Coast one more time. Here's to evening glasses of wine on the terrace overlooking the ocean. Suits me sir.

Nick Lowe


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After an evening of firefighting, and touch and go ... I joined my mate Gazza from Wembley, England for a night of music at Richards On Richard. Gazza's brothers mate was doing the sound for Nick Low, so he got us on the guest list.

The last time I heard Nick Lowe was about 30 years ago on Top Of The Pops, and was a fan.30 years later it was fab to see the man. He played an acoustic set that was really great. Now Gazza has conections to Elvis Costello who's building a house here in Vancouver .. so we we're hoping he'd come on down and play with Nick. No show.

I had one of those great music fan moments last night. Whilst waiting for Gazza to come back from backstage, I was talking with this dude with a big wooly hat on holding all Nick Lowe's CD's. We had a lively discussion about his love of Nick's music, how the last time he saw him he gave them some CD's, then onto some ACDC conspiricy stories. LOL. fantastic. Nice guy.

Afterwards we headed over to the Nelson St Tavern and egged one another on until wee hours and had far too much fun for a school night. Oh well. Good times.

The Green & Pleasant Land ...

The countdown has commenced, the clock is ticking and mission control says "all systems are go!".. for our annual visit to the homeland. So friends in England - we're looking fwd to seeing you. Northern folk - expect a call soon. Southern folk - we're going to straddle the North/South divide and are planning on heading down to London ... emails going out to you all after this post. Maybe, just maybe - we might even make it back to beloved Cornwall. I've been dreaming of walking around those Tor's and old maritime harbors for a while now .. so it'd be great if that happens. We'll see.

2 Years Of Blogging

Kormacurry blog is 2 years old.

October 2005 <--> October 2007.

Thanks for reading.

Naomi Klein


The other night we checked out the Naomi Klein at the Vancouver Writers Festival. Naomi is famous for the ground breaking globalisation book - No Logo and now the new hot selling and talked about book on disaster capitalism - The Shock Doctrine. A fascinating night, with stories about promoting the book and a lively Q&A at the end. She's got it going on - quite the person. Sharp, intelligent and a heavy researcher.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving


One month shy of the US thanksgiving holiday, Canada is celebrating it's day. Happy Thanksgiving - thanks for everything. Spent the evening downtown with M and Dubmaster C. We ate a celebratory Singaporean dinner - I had the spicy tofu, which I might add was delicious. M & DC shared a bunch of dishes - one of every animal from the farmyard or Noah's Arc ... I think.

Checked out the bookstore, eyeballed a bunch of books I want. Came up with the idea that a bunch of us should share magazine subscriptions ... cheaper, less wasteful (win, win)... initial suggestions are The Walrus (ace Canadian current affairs magazine), The Economist, Spin & Utne Reader. Afterwards we headed down to the beach for stroll, then off for a Guinness night-cap at the boathouse where Steven Siegal was hanging out.

Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks again.

First Snows

Riding the sky train home, watching the skies clearing over the mountains - I couldn't believe my eyes - snow on the tallest peaks. Fantastic. Walking through the park I stood and marvelled at the dumping in the evening sun. I just checked out the Whistler Cam's and they got a *major* dumping. Boarding season is just around the bend. Powderhound Session's 2007-2008 to commence.

We Meet In The Middle...


.. Or so to speak. I have a bunch of great friends at work where we meet up and create video games half way between Europe & Asia. Taking a step back it's quite amazing how many people I interact with from around the planet everyday - my office has quite the international squad.

There's an interesting story here about a gaggle of disparate people from around the globe all converging in Vancouver to make video-games - and as I type ... I think I'm too tired to tell it.

I took these photos on Friday night, hanging around the office waiting for M to roll into town.

Chocolate & Bubbly
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Last week we headed down to our old neighbourhood, to celebrate the marriage of Chicago Style & Ms Basque. What a wonderful time it was too. Lots and lots of people showed up for lots and lots of cheer. Swiss Toni would have loved it ... fine wines, champagne and Belgium chocolates everywhere. Good to see ... Striker, DJ Wavy Gravy, Sicilian Style .. there.


They've got a lovely place on Queen Anne -a fantastic Northwestern Craftsman . Noice.