The diary and photos of Chris Beach. I'm into windsurfing, coding, badminton, drawing and composing music using computers and synths.

"Don't pray in my school, and I won't think in your church" unknown


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thursday pm 4th january 2007

facebook.com - a new addiction

The last few days I've been completely absorbed in facebook.com, a social networking website. It's got the features of linkedin, friendsreunited and myspace but wrapped in a beautifully clean and modern interface. There is some particularly nice AJAX-powered functionality like dynamic lookups and image tagging.

Adding friends is easy - the searches return photos for most people, and you can even get facebook to look through your gmail/hotmail/msn addressbooks to automatically work out which of your contacts are already on facebook.

The killer feature is the news feed on the home page, which shows everything of interest that has recently changed in your circle of friends.

Sign up here and let's be facebook friends! smilie face

written by Chris Beach
04/01/07 05:58pm
(3 years, 8 months ago)

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sunday pm 31st december 2006

new year's eve 2006/7

I spent New Year's eve with Jon, Susannah, Cat, Wendy and Dave at a packed house-party in Kennington. The flat was in the top floor of a very posh block and we had views of the Thames from Embankment to Westminster. The fireworks were right in front of us - awesome!

Susannah's photos
Wendy's photos
Cat's photos

written by Chris Beach
02/01/07 11:08pm
(3 years, 8 months ago)

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thursday pm 14th december 2006

work christmas party 2006

Tonight was the firm's Christmas party. The venue was Old Billingsgate Market. Jon, Al, Wayne and I took the river taxi to get there which was fun smilie face

Afterwards I headed to Apt bar with some of the lads

written by Chris Beach
17/12/06 02:58pm
(3 years, 8 months ago)

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sunday pm 10th december 2006

ice skating in canary wharf

Had a lot of fun ice skating tonight with Al, Carole, Jon and Dan in Canary Wharf.

Managed to capture an amusing incident on video. Carole skates up behind Alex to surprise him but he spots her shadow and ducks out the way, which completely throws her. Watch the hands at the end!:

written by Chris Beach
11/12/06 10:59pm
(3 years, 8 months ago)

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saturday am 2nd december 2006

a long weekend in luxury

I stayed with my girlfriend this weekend in the Belton Woods hotel in Grantham. I think it was the best hotel I've ever stayed in. The restaurants, health club and our bedroom were all excellent. There were also some nice little touches - When we checked in we were given a glass of wine whilst the receptionist sorted out the booking. A-la-carte dinner was thrown in on the first night. The changing rooms had machines that dried swimwear in seconds. After a muddy walk in the woods, there was a high-pressure jet cleaner for our shoes (although amusingly, Cat hadn't used the cleaner before stepping into the hotel lobby and so she left a large portion of english countryside on the posh carpet) oops!

We took some quad bikes on Saturday morning to explore the countryside. They're seriously powerful beasts and a lot of fun to ride! I got my bike stuck in a large, muddy hole in the ground, and a supervisor had to pull me out. It was surprisingly difficult. After several failed attempts, he parked his bike in front of mine, and with one hand opening the throttle, and the other hand on my bull bars he dragged me out.

written by Chris Beach
10/12/06 05:14am
(3 years, 8 months ago)

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saturday pm 21st october 2006

speedboat (rib) tour of the thames, london - review and photos

Today my girlfriend and I were whisked from Westminster to Canary Wharf in minutes aboard a speedboat, and then cruised back with a guided tour of all the major sites. It was a lot of fun! Whilst I've travelled the length of the Thames before, it's always been at a snail's pace, and usually stuck in a crowded tube train. This was a breath (a blast, in fact) of fresh air.

From Canary Wharf, the tour took a more leisurely course back westerly along the river and a guide talked us through some history. He was an experienced chap with a lot of interesting stories and anecdotes. Did you know that a single shell from a gun on the HMS Belfast, moored at London Bridge, could target and destroy Crystal Palace? Or that an earlier London Bridge was purchased by a rich Californian for £1M, and carefully shipped over to the USA and assembled - only then did the american realise it wasn't the iconic Tower Bridge he thought it was. The sensitive might find the talk of murderers' heads on poles and Guy Fawkes hanging drawing and quartering a bit much, but kids would love that, I'm sure!

Despite the occasionally grisly commentary, I'd highly recommend the speedboat tour. The best price I could find was here on lastminute.com

written by Chris Beach
10/12/06 04:18am
(3 years, 8 months ago)

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saturday pm 30th september 2006

sushi making

Today my housemates and I whipped up some fishy Japanese treats! Carole and Al sourced some authentic ingredients and the results were great.

So, whilst Itsu is still the place to go for your daily dose of polonium, Cumberland Mills is the new home of sushi! smilie face

written by Chris Beach
10/12/06 04:51am
(3 years, 8 months ago)

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saturday am 16th september 2006

chalk4peace in greenwich

Emerging from the Greenwich foot tunnel, I came upon an amazing scene - the entire concourse around the Cutty Sark was covered in chalk drawings!

It was "International Chalk4Peace Day" and people had left buckets of chalk out for anyone to use. Great! It was like being a kid again smilie face

written by Chris Beach
10/12/06 03:23pm
(3 years, 8 months ago)

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saturday pm 2nd september 2006

conygre reunion '06

An excellent day & night of drinking organised by my uni first year housemate Gaz (cheers buddy)!

written by Chris Beach
11/09/06 10:21pm
(3 years, 11 months ago)

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wednesday pm 12th april 2006

web-based freebie finder

Just found something interesting:

http://absurdlycool.com/ is an aggregator that looks for online offers of free stuff. It filters pyramid schemes, scams etc.

There's t-shirts, cosmetics and even things like USB keys, magazine subscriptions - definitely worth a try!

written by Chris Beach
12/04/06 04:41pm
(4 years, 4 months ago)

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