We were in Germany for the weekend as there was a party on :-) It was a fancy-dress party with "Carnival in Rio" as the theme. I went as that statue of Jesus on top of the hill ;-) We came back yesterday and flew through Vienna, where we got to have a look around (The only flights I could get for miles were through there). Its lovely there, I now know what my parents were talking about... if you haven't been there then make a point of going :-) I've got some pictures which I'll post in the Photos section in a couple of days :-)

It was Anna's birthday the other day. We were too sick to do anything about it however, this virus that we have is kinda screwing everything at the moment. I've been out of work for a week, and spent most of that time asleep :-( Anna's not much better either :-( Looks like we're getting over it though, should be ok by the end of the weekend

Amex called. They couldn't get tickets :-( They tried several different places (ones I hadn't tried already) and there just aren't any available. I wonder if I could have gotten some if I'd had their black card?

Sometime early last year American Express cut off my corporate card because I didn't pay the thing on time. The bastards. I didn't mind that much to be honest, I never found them helpful or useful. Their call centre staff (whom I only had to talk to when I hadn't done my expenses on time) were usually snide and annoying, and they pissed me off lots. I used my own credit card from then on. Fast forward to December... Virgin Atlantic sent out a mailing to their gold card members (thats me!) proclaiming "Guaranteed Approval" to the Amex Platinum Card. I read through it, saw that it was Amex, and that the card was going to cost £200 a year, and promptly started to crumple it up for the bin. Then something caught my eye... 25000 frequent flyer miles if you applied for (and were accepted) the card. I simply HAD to do that... twenty five thousand miles wasn't to be scoffed at :-) So, I sent the application away, and forgot about it. You can imagine how surprised I was when The Card arrived in the post a few weeks later! Initially I wasn't that impressed with the card... it was simply a debit card with a high annual rate and some pretty good travel insurance. It also had a certain mystique... the kind that only comes with a card which is usually only given to those earning more than £100,000 a year. There are other benefits too... they have a service called Concierge, where they do things like source flowers & chocolates & travel and tickets etc. So I decided to put them to the test... and see if they could get tickets for me to see Dido on Thursday. They said they'd call me back and let me know how it goes. I have to say though, the treatment the platinum people give you is very very different from the treatment the green card people dish out ;-) Love it :-)

Its been a while, I've been busy, and I've been having such fun with my new PC that I've not really had the chance to update this. Lets get this out of the way first... it is the fastest I've ever seen a PC move, in my life. Before (and my previous system was no slouch), my particular setup in FlightSim 2000 took about 4 or 5 minutes to load. I had the visual details set fairly low, and a lot of additional things loading. This machine has the same add-ins, but has the visual details set to maximum, and it loads in about 25 seconds. Its fucking amazing :-) Anyway, the last while has been hectic... I've been to Washington for about a week since the last entry, had to do stuff. I've been working with Microsoft's new operating system "Windows XP" quite a bit recently, and if you get a chance to use it, do. It rocks. Microsoft finally got some serious work done on the interface; got a whole department together to design how Windows should look and be used. The end result is devestating.
Anna's finished her course (and got her HND nicely!) and is now studying a correspondance course in the History of Art. She's enjoying that I think, and seems to really like the subject, so its more like a hobby than a course :-) Going away now, want to veg and watch the movie.