I have let my blogging side down recently, but have a week off this week so will try and catch up in between hopefully winning loads of dosh and catching some rays.

Creepy!

Pic credit: WSJ

This is 42 year-old Anthony Toft. He has re-created a Pan Am first class cabin in his garage.

He’s gone to a great amount of detail, right down to the original Pan Am nut packets and sealed headphones, and has flown all over the place getting parts to create that authentic Pan Am experience. Pan Am was the first airline to fly internationally from the US, and also the first to fly the Boeing 747, so it kinda became glamorous for a lot of Americans.

It is a bit sad to note that Anthony is single. However, you can read more about it at the Wall Street Journal along with more pics. (Via Gizmodo)

I’d been waiting to see 500 Days of Summer for a couple of months before it eventually came out, after I saw a trailer for it online. So a couple of weeks ago (sorry!) I headed off to see it.

I was a bit disappointed when I came out. And a bit sad. It’s not that it isn’t a good film – it’s imaginative and nicely shot, and the story is strong, but it was just a bit depressing. I guess I kind of saw a lot of myself in the male character in the film, (the party sequence was in particular mortifyingly familiar), and I kind of think the same way as him. The film ends up by almost demonstrating that thinking like this is not worthwhile.

So it was kinda sad. I don’t think I’ll be buying it on DVD. That’s not to say you won’t like it though!

PS. I TOTALLY fancied Zoeey Deschanel in it.

Amazon announced today that their e-reader type device, the Kindle, is available in the UK. There’s been a lot of fuss about it over in the US, and for some it’s become a much loved gadget. It can hold up to 1,500 books, and download new material over a free mobile connection.

Well, it’s kind of available in the UK. At the moment you have to buy it from Amazon.com, who will ship it to you in the UK. When you add on taxes and import duty, you’ll end up paying around £200 for it.  There’s also no Kindle material store on Amazon.co.uk at the moment, so you’ll have to buy your ebooks from Amazon.com.

It ships to the UK with a US plug and a USB cable for charging, and the experimental web browser and blog reader won’t apparently work in the UK either.

All in all, it seems like a bit of a very weird shopping experience for Kindle users in the UK. Not something you’d expect from Amazon. I love reading books, but don’t quite see the point in splashing out so much money on what is basically an electronic replacement for books. It’s kind of too specific. I think I’ll wait and see if Apple brings out their tablet next year as are the rumours – hopefully it’ll be more of a netbook than just a book reader.

I’ve always wanted to go surfing, so when I was in Australia I was determined to give it a shot and have a lesson. So I scooted across to Manly Surf School, for a two hour beginners lesson. Jill decided she didn’t want to participate, and no-one else turned up to begin with so I managed to get a private lesson.

The instructor warned me that because there’s usually about 10 people in a two hour lesson, and I was on my own, I would probably only last about just over an hour as I’d be more tired.

First off, the weather was the worst we’d had so far in Australia – cold and wet, but once I got in the wetsuit, to be honest I couldn’t feel it. The water didn’t even seem that cold. If you’ve been snowboarding, you know the hardest thing is constantly having to get up when you’ve fallen over. Well with surfing, I found the hardest thing to be constantly having to push up off the board. It was absolutely exhausting.

To cut a long story short, I did manage to stand up a couple of times, and lasted about an hour and fifty minutes before making it all the way in to the sand standing up, and deciding I’d go out on a relatively successful go.

I wasn’t prepared for the aching limbs I had for the next week, but I really enjoyed it, am glad I did it, and may look to do it again, as Northern Ireland has some great surf up on the north coast.

Ok I’ve been tardy with the posts again. I just have a couple of Sydney related posts and then it’ll be back to normal, even though I’ve been back like a month!

One restaurant I was really keen to go to when I was in Sydney was Bill’s. Bill Granger’s done a couple of TV shows which have been on in the UK (although I haven’t seen any of them) but I bought one of his cookery books a while ago and have bought every one he’s done since. The food is simple, fresh and great tasting.

Anyway, his cafes / restaurants are famous for their scrambled eggs, so Jill and I visited his cafe in Darlinghurst for breakfast a couple of times. The eggs were truly amazing. In fact the whole breakfast was amazing, but be prepared to queue – we had to wait about 25 minutes on morning.

Bill’s is at 433 Liverpool Street in Darlinghurst, but he also has outlets in Surry Hills and Woollahara. Hopefully I’ll be back soon to enjoy those creamy scrambled eggs again!

…. but I do kinda like this.

Dustin Curtis (who has an amazingly designed blog) and his friend Alaska Miller (no relation) are about to undertake a 30 day trip to visit every destination jetBlue serve (thanks to an All You Can Jet pass jetBlue put on sale recently).

They’re going to strike up conversations with fellow travellers and see if they can get an understanding of the average jetBlue flyer, and presumably uncover some interesting stories along the way. You can find out more at the 30dayflight website.