I'm not even going to try excuse all the radio silence over the last few weeks. Rather, I'm just going to carry on like it never occurred. I'll get into why this is a perpetuating problem with weblogs later on in the post.

Okay. LOTS has happened since we last posted about Stockholm. Things also happened just before we left for Stockholm, but were never really reported on. I will try my best to catch you all up on the current lives of Bug Unit.

First off: We bought a car. We bought a white, 1.0LS, 1998, 3-door hatchback, Vauxhall Corsa (Vauxhall == Opel). His name is Djurgarden (taken from the name of the royal gardens in Stockholm), pronounced (as far as we can tell) d-ger-guard-en. No, I don't know phonetics. Jen uses him every day to drive to work, and we also use him on weekends to do fantastic things. He has a sunroof, tape deck, and a cute smile. We love him. He was one of the best decisions we've made over here. No regrets.

Secondly: We went to Amsterdam last week for 5 nights! We each took 3 days off work, and left on Thursday night and came back on Tuesday evening. Amsterdam was spectacular... the photos are not yet up on Ducklight, but they will be shortly. We stayed with Louise and Rob for the duration, though Rob was only there from the Saturday till the Monday. We had such an awesome time... I could most definitely live there for a few months without even worrying about it, and the dutch are such amazing people; Super friendly, mostly english-speaking, and mostly harmless :-) The days went slowly, we rode on bikes, we drank a ton of Jack Daniels, and both Rob and I went on the highest and fastest ride in the world (no joke, it really is the highest and fastest). The pictures and videos don't do it justice because you don't realize the size of it from below. When you're at the top of it, you're the highest point in Amsterdam, and when it's at full speed, you're pushing 4.5G's. It's insane. It was also the best ride I've ever been on, and whilst I was skeptical before going on it, I wanted to go again after it was finished... well, maybe after a little break. A detailed description of our happenings in Amsterdam will follow in a post once we've uploaded the photos and videos for you to check out. Amsterdam++.

Thirdly: We moved house. This happened on 1st October, coinciding with the arrival of Angie and Neil on their trip around the world (not really around the entire world, but it's more effective when you say it like that). The new house is unbelievable. It's the most comfortable place I've lived in so far, and we only had to move 50m to get there. It smells like vanilla in every room, and the furniture is so sheek it makes you feel like a better person. Jen and I now have the master bedroom as well, so neat en suite bathrooms, queen size beds, and a walk in closet are the current order of the day. Loving it.

Fourthly: I moved studios. We have two studios currently, and 2 weeks previous, all the animators were split across the two making it a logistical nightmare when it comes to centralizing direction and actual physical drawn assets. The solution was to merge all the animators into one studio (the one I used to be in) and then move all the background, special effects and compositing departments to the other studio (these are all the people who work on PC's, whilst the animators all work on paper, of course). With all the people who work on PC's, comes all the network cabling, stacks of servers, and incredibly expensive computers and monitors. All of which was on my plate for organizing this great move. I was given full authority on sorting all the IT side of things out, including completely constructing the new network at the new studio, laying all the cabling, co-ordinating the specialist IT movers to shift the £60,000 worth of equipment, and reconfigure the entire structure once set up on the "other" side. It started on a Friday morning, and ended on Sunday evening late. It was no joke. I have never been so enriched by an experience ever... having it all on my plate, no one to turn to in times of crisis, and a cut-off time of Monday morning, it was the most empowering experience. I gained a whole lot from it, and now that things are settling down over here, I can look back on it and feel content with the job that I have done. Everyone was uber impressed with how fast and efficient the "new" network over here was, after I had free reign on constructing it as I like, from scratch, rather than fixing the old mistakes made by previous people at the "old" studio.

Fifthly: I bought a bicycle. After riding around in Amsterdam on a couple afternoons, I found myself feeling quite content with riding places, and started to really enjoy the freedom and good feeling you get from riding a bike. As soon as we got back I started looking around for bikes, and ended up buying a 23" black mountain bike yesterday afternoon. It goes like the wind, and though I felt like I was going to die and quick death when cycling up the monstrous Edinburgh hills, it felt good once it was over, and I had arrived at work in just under 20 minutes (riding really slowly, and cautiously, because the last time I rode a bike was when I was like, 10 or something). I have already overcome the "hump" of the learning experience of getting riding again, and as I was approaching the end of my journey, I found myself loving the trip to work far more than I ever have on the bus, or on my very own 2x4's (see: legs). One of the major concerns that you need to have in the Scotland, when riding a bike, is a) Theft, and b) Safety (in that order :-/ ). Yes, it's not only in South Africa that theft is a problem (as we are finding out ALL too often over here)... they have the same problems, though it isn't breaking in to houses all that often, car and bike theft is as rife as ever over here, with close to 10% of the bikes on the road being stolen every year. I have one wheel lock so far, but will be purchasing another cable lock at lunch time to ensure that my bike is safe, locked to the bike stand that is just outside our studio doors. A helmet is also advised, for safety, though I am contemplating how dorky it looks to wear a helmet. Though dorkish looks might save your life when a van cuts you off and side pans you into a street pole. I will avoid these situations at all costs, and you'll be happy to know that I ride the back-streets most of the way, and very rarely actually encounter cars passing me by (maybe thats because I am a speed demon, though I'm not totally convinced).

Sixthly (is that even a word): We went to the Damien Rice concert in Glasgow last week. He was incredible. Not at all what you would think the man would look like... he's super Irish, and pretty self-conscious on stage. Never-the-less, his concert was unbelievable, and most definitely worth the money. Damien, you rock my world.

Seventhly (that is most definitely not a word): South Africa won the rugby world cup. Yes, it was our year, and yes, I had been saying from the start that we would win it. Jen said that I was being too confident, and arrogant... I laughed at her.. Said she's crazy.. I totally won. It was incredible... We had a full on South African braai in the afternoon, hijacking a "communal" balcony and smoking out the entire building whilst playing some good old fashioned South African tunes across the park. These types of events become quite unique and cherished, after you spend crazy money in the local South African shop, Indebele: £25 on biltong, £10 on dry wors, and £20 on boerie, not to mention the Castles. Though it is all worth it. After the game, following after the masses of South African music that we pumped in the lounge, we went to the Walkabout near our house and went crazy like pineapples till they closed. The saffers were out in force, representing, shouting "bokke" alot. The Scots were also behind us, saying things like "I support any team that beats the English" and "I'm so glad you beat those bastards". It was a great day for us... though I wished I was in South Africa for it, it was still awesome to go out and see some of the fellow Saffers over here in Edinburgh and just burn the midnight oil... Castles in hand, Shoshaloza being sung.

So those are the big seven things that have happened in the last 3 weeks. As you can tell, there hasn't been much time for anything, let alone blog posts. I feel bad about it, which reminds me to discuss the perpetuation of absent blog posts due to mounting content. With blogging, it's a vicious cycle... if you don't post for a week or two, then you have so much stuff to talk about that you keep trying to allocate a solid hour or two to get it all down into one post. That time never comes around, so you end up not posting for another week. Now the information is overflowing, and you need to post but it would require at LEAST 2 hours to do it, so you find yourself avoiding it like the plague because of how lengthy it will be. And thus the cycle continues... Ideally, you should blog every week, or every few days to ensure that this cycle doesn't get going, though this is often an unachievable goal.

This post took 1 hour to write :-)