Mid-Holidays news update

If I want to sum up my holidays I’d say that I spent a third of it playing Nintendo Wii with ‘JJ’ (Santa Christmas gift), one third eating or sleeping and another third doing various other things like watching DVD movies. I know that the Wii is probably not the coolest technology any more, since it was released more than 5 years ago, but:

1. It’s a much appreciated gift from lovely friends
2. It’s really fun competing against your boyfriend at Mario Kart (even if you do lose most of the times)!
3. There are some really enjoyable games you can play with friends at wii, although I can’t see myself dancing at Abba songs anytime soon…

The food we cooked on Sunday was simply superb. We had 3.5 kilos of slow cooked pork, grilled vegetables, two types of potatoes, quails with rice and a chocolate yule for desert! Needless to say that we didn’t manage to finish everything. There was even no point at serving the cheese platter we had also bought for the occasion. We had pork the day after and the day after that (in different variations)! I don’t think I can have pork in the foreseeable future. I’m not going to feel bad about the amounts of food consumed though.

What else we tried that day was having champagne with breakfast right after opening our Christmas presents! As an idea it didn’t sound bad, however it backfired. It gave to both of us headaches during the afternoon. JJ managed to sleep it off but I wasn’t that lucky.

What else happened last week? Oh yeah, my company’s Christmas party. That experience was… let’s say interesting. The other members of my intimate team didn’t go but I felt I had to, being the newbie of the company. I wanted to practice my social skills, have small talk with the managers etc. The place they had booked was a function room in a bar in central London. The music was very loud, mostly disco or pop and there were visual effects as well! Some food was served in bowls like fish balls, gnocchi and small pieces of turkey! I was interested to see what the food would be, because the invitation mentioned ‘bowl food’ and I had no idea what that was. Probably that’s a posh word to say ‘type of finger food’. There were unlimited amounts of beer and wine as well!

So, it didn’t take long since people got drunk and started behaving like fools on the dance floor. After a couple (or more) drinks I joined the fun and moved to the rhythm on the dance floor as well. However the situation got a bit out of hand, that is why I said that the experience was interesting. For example it was a bit weird watching a sixty five year old director jumping up and down screaming the ‘I’m the only girl in the world’ theme or another manager informing us what the ‘single ladies’ want to do, etc! Don’t get me wrong, in one hand I was very happy that they were enjoying themselves so much, but on the other it felt a bit embarrassing. Overall, the party was fun and I laughed a lot. I’m not sure if I’m going next year though unless I make sure that people I know well join me.

Other than that, on a very different subject, my Nokia N8 broke down last week. I have to admit that I wasn’t generally ecstatic about it, but it served its purpose. I believe that the N8’s hardware was really good, fashioning a very good camera, memory, screen and speed. Its operation system is a mess though and the latest promised UI upgrade was yet again delayed for some months. Nokia is now more concerned about attracting new customers with their Windows phone than releasing a previously promised upgrade.

Anyway, I was sitting at my desk with my elbows on it, when I dropped the phone I was holding. The distance was small and I had dropped it in the past again but I think that angle of the collision broke the screen. I’ve now sent it to service to see if it can be fixed, but I’m not very optimistic. The screen was functioning in a way that I could stop the alarm I had previously set, but it still remained completely black! That can’t be a good sign. That Nokia was the first smartphone I had and I was used to the extra functions. I fear I might need to replace it, although I am not going for an iphone. I was thinking of a cheaper Samsung Galaxy Ace till I can renew my contract next July. I’ve read that it is a decent phone. Do you know / own it?