Month: October 2008

How it was back in 2001

Some weeks ago, as part of their 10th anniversary celebration, Google presented Google Circa 2001 (yes, I know, I am doing very old news right now – Slashdot, CyberNet News). Google Circa 2001 is basically the way Google was in 2001, including the web index of those times. What’s the big deal? Well, for those of us who were on the web from back then, it provides for a way to see how things were different.

For example, back in 2001 I was better known as “Leonid Mamtchenkov“, not “Leonid Mamchenkov”. That was due to another spelling in my Russian passport. Also, my web site looked pretty different from what it is now. But it was already a blog, even if in the simplest form. Surprisingly even, I found a few posts that were not migrated to the current archives, or got lost somehow after a few CMS and back-end script changes. I’ll restore them for historical purposes later on.

Oh, sweet memories …

Medrano Circus in Limassol

Maxim and I went to the see the show of the famous Medrano Circus on Sunday. It was supposedely the last day of their tour, but gladly they decided to delay their departure and will be staying until Wednesday, October 29th.

Continue reading Medrano Circus in Limassol

Banking paradox

Yesterday I discovered one of those banking paradoxes. If you have a check and you want to get the money the same day, but I don’t want to turn the whole amount into cash, then you still shouldn’t go for “deposit check” operation. The thing is that depositing the check to an account takes two to three days, because check needs to be cleared. However, you can cash the check and then deposit cash to the account. Both of these operations are imeediate.

Puzzled.

Kudos to Amazon

I’ve been ordering stuff from Amazon.co.uk rather frequently. I never had any problems with any of the products or deliveries. Until my last order. For some reason it just didn’t come. And because it was a DataPost delivery, it couldn’t have been tracked either.

So, when all the dates for estimated delivery passed, I emailed back to Amazon asking them if they have any information about that order. They told me that they haven’t, but if the order won’t arrive in the next few days (they gave me a specific date), then I should just let them know and they would resend it free of charge.

The date they mentioned came and went but the order still wasn’t here. So I waited for another couple of days and asked Amazon again. They emailed me back and said that they will place a replacement order within the same day. A few minutes later they confirmed that the replacement order has been placed, and just wanted to know if I still want all of the items, since one of the DVDs that I had on the list changed status from “In Stock” to “Usually ships within the next 4-6 business days”. I said that I don’t mind about more delay and would rather just get all of the things that I ordered.

And that was it. Two weeks later the re-placement order came in. And now let me state the obvious: I am a really satisfied happy customer. My respects and thanks go to Amazon for handling the situation the best way they could.

P.S.: A few days after the replacement order arrived, the original order came too. Very much delayed, but it came through as well. Because I am a greedy bastard, and because those DVDs are just so good, and because Christmas is almost upon us, I won’t be sending one of this orders back. I’ll keep both of them. But I will for sure order more, a lot more from Amazon. Thank you, and an early Merry Chrismas.

Tropic Thunder

I just came back from the movies where I enjoyed an action comedy “Tropic Thunder“. To be honest, initially I didn’t want to see this movie. Silly poster, one of my most unfavourite actors and directos Ben Stiller, and a few other minor factors were all pointing to towards “You can safely ignore this movie” sign. But then I’ve heard a few good reviews and changed my mind.

Gladly, the film turned out to be pretty good. I think that make-up artists, good cast, and participation of one of the Cohen brothers in the screenplay writing saved this flick. Ben Stiller wasn’t as bad as he usually is. Jack Black was pretty good. Especially in that short little scene where he was tied up to the tree. Tom Cruise was a surprise – both acting-wise and make-up-wise. Robert Downey Jr. was really good. He was as good as his make-up. Extra make-up point goes for the Japanese-like looking gangster, shooting automatic weapon in the purple haze. That was aesthetically refreshing.

There is plenty of good action in this film, with gun fights, explosions, helicopters, and so on and so forth. As for the humor – it’s an interesting mix, between the low-level silly Ben Stiller kind of jokes and smart parody and satire Cohen-brothers style. Done really well.

Overall, 7 out of 10 for good entertainment.