I’m still a bit behind with uploading photos, cause of the move to the new apartment, but we now have a proper internet connection. Yay!

This photo was taken at night; I had forgotten to take a photo for this week and on the last day I sneaked outside to make some late-minute shots. It’s not really one of my favourites, but it does fit with the theme.

But this photo below I took one day before the 52 Themes “Natural World” week began. I was meaning to go back to the spot and take the photo again, so that it would be valid for 52 Themes, but I’ve been so busy I just couldn’t find the time. Still I love how it turned out: the detail of the green moss and the colours!

Regular readers around here should know how much I love (attempting) to solve puzzles. Alternate reality games and other stuff like that I mainly love to do, because of the fun of solving those type of puzzles. I still have to blog about a puzzle quest my brother set up for me as a Christmas present (the photos I made of the “puzzle” didn’t come out right, so that’s why there’s a delay in this post), but suffice to say I’m completely addicted to them.

Anyhow, another fun game (not sure if I should call it a ‘game’, but I can’t think of a better word) that fits with my addiction is MacHeist. The main idea behind MacHeist is the sale of the MacHeist bundle, a collection of Mac shareware applications (for only $49). What I love about it though is in the weeks leading up to that sale, there are the MacHeist missions, filled with puzzles, a great storyline and free Mac apps. 

The real missions haven’t started yet, but there’s a nanoMission available already. The first part of this has a link to a lockbox and has the following description:

All you need to solve this puzzle is in the picture. The puzzles after this one are pretty easy too, but trust when the real MacHeist starts it will get more complicated.

Check it out at MacHeist.com and solve the next puzzle!

Week 2: Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free.

I’m running way behind with these 52 Movies blog posts. I have been keeping up with watching a movie every week, I just haven’t found the time to blog about them too (plus the internet connection here is still sucky; fingers crossed it’ll be solved tomorrow). Hopefully I’ll manage to write the reviews for Week 2, 3 and 4 this week, and then next week I’ll do Week 5 and Week 6.

The movie for week 2 was The Shawshank Redemption, currently ranked as the number 1 film on IMDB. I’ve been meaning to watch it for at least the past 10 years, but every time it appeared on TV something managed to get in the way of watching it. Exams, delayed trains, or just plain forgetting what time it was on. It was a movie I knew I had to watch from start to finish, so I really didn’t want to jump in after missing half an hour. Frankly, I have been quite successful in avoiding seeing or hearing anything about this movie and not being spoiled at all (a rare feat considering the amount of movie blogs I read; I think I know at least the endings to half of the 52 Movies we’ve chosen).

The Shawshank Redemption tells the tale of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a man who is convicted and sentenced to life in jail for the murder of his wife and her lover. He’s sent to Shawshank Prison, where he learns how to deal with prison life.

So what did I think of The Shawshank Redemption? To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed by it. I mean, I can see and understand why it would be ranked so high; it’s a movie with not a lot of faults, and the type of movie almost no one can not like. That being said though, I don’t see it as “THE best movie ever” and that’s what this list of 250 Movies should represent, right? Especially the number one.  

It is a good movie though and for those of you who haven’t seen, it definitely is a movie you should see. It’s full of hope and the lengths that we can go to when we have hope in ourselves, in our futures, and in others. The acting is superb; both TIm Robbins and Morgan Freeman are great in their roles. Personally though I just didn’t find it deserving of that number one spot. 

Next week: Psycho

Sorry for the quietness around here. Last Saturday, after waiting for a long 5 days of a reference check that in the end wasn’t even completely used, we got to move to our new apartment. Yay!

This new place is much larger than our previous flat. We’ve got our own kitchen and bathroom, and a nice big sitting room with two long leather couches. Finally no more annoying housemates and ugly furniture; we can do anything what we want with this place. For the past three days we’ve been cleaning, organizing and re-arranging everything here. It’s almost done, it still needs a couple of finishing touches, like bookshelves (very important!) and a new mattress for the bed (the one that came with the house is horrible).

The thing though we’re missing the most? Internet.

It’s going to take at least two weeks until we got a proper connection, and I was dreading those upcoming two weeks. Yesterday though we got a pay-as-you-go mobile broadband USB stick from 3, and it’s working great. It was about £97 for a “free” stick plus 12GB data allowance (which has to be used within a year). Once you’ve finished the 12GB, you get the normal pay-as-you-go tariffs: £10 for 1GB, £15 for 3GB and £25 for 7GB (which then has to be used within a month). Pretty good deal, right?

Yesterday the stick was working terribly; almost no speed and a very flaky line. I almost was considering bringing it back to the store and demanding my money back. Today it’s been working great though, so I’m guessing the snow must have interfered a lot with it yesterday. Even if we hadn’t moved house I would have been tempted to get this. Now I can get some work done from a cafe or when I’m on the road.

Anyhow, I’m going to try and blog some more the next couple of days, but I’m not sure how much I’ll be online even with this broadband stick. I haven’t tried uploading any photos so far, so I’ll have to see how it all goes.

So how about a house warming party in two weeks time?