Shazam! I am a geek.

A few years ago I stumbled across an unknown album in my laptop's music library.  I was searching for an album (I can't actually remember what, perhaps it was Missy Elliot) and found an album by a random lady called Missy Higgins. I assume that one of our visitors dropped it onto my hard drive as they topped up their iPod in anticipation of the next leg of their journey, and as it was a quiet afternoon I turned it on and had a listen.

It was a pretty good album, and after a few plays both Rachel and I were quite happy to listen to more.  When her next album came out, we bought it online through iTunes - I don't actually have a physical copy.  This is what it looks like:

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It's a great album (clicking on the picture should take you to her official website where you can listen to a few of her songs), and her followup EP "More Than This" (yup - A Bryan Ferry cover) was pretty cool too.

Anyway, what was I getting to?  Ah yes - this weekend we were out in Ap Lei Chau getting a few things for his lordship and a few things for his lordship's court jesters (the cats).  As we walked into the pet store, they were playing what we thought was Missy Higgins. I hadn't heard the song, so I did what any ubergeek would do - I fired up a song recognition application on my iPhone and held it next to the speakers for 10 seconds:

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...and 20 seconds later:

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The clever old application (Shazam) identified the song, the artist, the album it came from, and even presented me with a link to buy an electronic version of the song.  So, this morning I downloaded the entire album from iTunes and have been listening to it today - it's a bit lighter and more "poppy" than Missy Higgins, but it's extremely catchy.

And there ends the celebration of how much of a geek I am. (Really, I'm the only person who finds this stuff interesting - I could have started this post with "Dear Diary...")

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Weekend photos

A bit of flash experimentation, hence the colour weirdness in one or two of them... .

Picking a book to read

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Enjoying his new toy (identical to the one that we gave Charlie Robinson on his first birthday)

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A Sunday morning treat - watching the animated BBC version of The Gruffalo

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More Sri Lankan randomness

Sarah on the beach - this was just before we took photos of the Sri Lankan kids jumping in the sunset

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A frog (Sinhalese: "gemba") on the wall of one of the restaurants we went to in Galle

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More elephant bathing action from Pinnewela.  Those two brown lumps at the top are indeed what you think they are.

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Tim and Charlie walking around the villas in Sigiriya

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George during a game of hide and seek in our hotel room in Colombo

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Daddy visit

The little man came down to the grassy area outside my work, so Philip and I popped downstairs for a coffee and to hang with the G monster for a few minutes.  These photos are a bit of a combo effort - Philip (who usually takes photos of weddings) took them on my camera, and I did the computer tweaking at home after work: .

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Happy Birthday Uncle / Godfather Ross!

Can you believe that this photo is 17 years old?!  Happy birthday Ross!  Much love from the Far East, and in particular much dribbly (and slightly grumpy, if we're being honest this morning) love from your godson. .

Pink bowties and waistcoats with yellow smiley face buttons are going to come back in style.  I just know it.

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Tell me if you're sick of the holiday photos

Stark raving mad dude jumping off a structure at the Galle Fort  (we gave him about US$10 to get this photo). He came over and looked at the LCD preview after I took the photo and said "I'm like a bird!"

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George exchanging flowers with Wijey (one of the villa staff in Galle).  The flowers were a gorgeous pink, but I struggled to get the colours right when I was editing this - so I went black and white. I'll try again over the weekend. The photo might look a little soft - it wasn't anything I did to the photo... unfortunately the lens was coated in condensation (the camera had been sitting in an air conditioned room and it was 38 degrees Celsius outside)

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Gorgeous little Penny at Sigiriya

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Rachel and George playing on the beach at Galle

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One of the many curry dinners we had on the trip.  I ate the equivalent of my bodyweight in poppadoms.

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Charlie watches Tim hurling an old coconut husk back into the sea

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The whole team at the beach in Galle (before anyone asks, George was looking away in every photo I took)

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More from Galle and Sigiriya

Kirstie and Robin rehearsing for their House & Garden photoshoot

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Rachel and George in the swimming pool at Vil Uyana (Sigiriya)

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Charlie the Explorer at Vil Uyana in Sigiriya

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Arabella and Paddy in Galle

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George in the yard of the Galle villa

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Sarah with Kala's puppy, Jemma

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A few random photos from the memory card

I have a load of photos, but plucked out a few to upload before bedtime: .

George leaning on a whale bone in the Galle villa yard

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Doing an elephant jigsaw puzzle with Rachel

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Divebombing: Robin (L) and Tim (R)

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Sunset at the Galle Face Hotel

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George with his new favourite toy (bathroom scales from the hotel room in Colombo)

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First photo of our holiday

I certainly didn't expect it to look like this: .

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We were about to board the Singapore to Colombo flight just after midnight, and who should we bump into at the boarding gate? Mr Alex "Chuck Norris is my homeboy" Bellingham, formerly of Hong Kong and currently of Spain.

Alex was en route to some business meetings in Dubai and was about as surprised as we were at the chance encounter (given that the last time we saw him was when we were farewelling him and the family from Hong Kong in 2009).  We had a lovely - but quick - catch up, then boarded for the painfully timed flight (left at 1am Singapore time, arrived in Colombo three and a half hours later at around 2am local time).  Alex put on the eyemask, earplugs and passed out... we tried to settle an overtired little boy who spent much of the flight screaming.  Oops.

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