Casper Gasper's Web Site

Last Revised: Tuesday 15th August, 2006.
New Features: New chinese page.
A couple of new book reviews that I'd been sitting on for a while.
Included my Public Key. Don't think anyone really wants to send me an encrypted message, but you never know...

Can't believe I've been unemployed now for 5 months. Been interviewed for ten different positions and still no offers! I'm not sure what's going wrong, but my favourite piece of feedback so far has been "they couldn't put their finger on what it was about you they didn't like". I wouldn't mind, but I'm really not being terribly fussy; I'm applying for virtually anything! By the looks of things I'll have to do some office temping until something turns up. On the positive side, my economy drive has resulted in rediscovering the joys of frozen foods.

Just returned from backpacking round China! Everyone keeps asking me if it was a "trip of a lifetime", I suppose in some senses it was. Managed to see virtually everything I intended to, and covered a fair bit of ground. Highlights would include The Great Wall, which really is quite magnificient, and the army of terracotta warriors. Shanghai was fantastic too, but I think what I gained the most satisfaction from was speaking Chinese. Even though I still have a long way to go to reach fluency, I could make myself understood, which was pretty cool.

Lost my camera on the last day of the trip, so absolutely no photos to bore people with :-(

Top priority right now is finding a job. Shouldn't be too hard, I'm hoping...

Peep Show is back on telly for a third series. Glad to see it's starting to pick up the following it always deserved. Quite the most cutting, vicious and disturbing comedy I've seen for quite a while.

Just come back from my travels. Taiwan is a little off the beaten track, but I had a fabulous time. Food was great, weather wasn't too hot and generally didn't do much except eat, sleep and play with my nephews.

Only mild disappointment was that my Chinese wasn't really good enough. I expected difficulty in speaking, but most of the time I couldn't even understand what was being said to me. Nevertheless, it's certainly renewed my interest in the language, and reminded me how much more I need to learn.

I've uploaded some of my photos to flickr, so you can take a look. Unfortunately I can't add any more for a while, as I've maxxed out my upload limit.

Flying to Taiwan in a couple of days! All very exciting, as I've never been before. Hopefully my mandarin will improve a lot, and it will be great to see my brother, sister-in-law and nephews again.

Moved to Denmark Hill, everything's going fine here! Sister, brother and new nephews all doing well.

Saw Revenge of the Sith which was just as fabulous as I thought it was going to be. Truly one of the greatest stories ever told. I loved it so much I brought one of those super-expensive light-sabers, which is the new love of my life. Well worth the £90 it cost!

Older news

Lots of changes... Firstly, I have another little nephew! Xavier was born on 13th December, my birthday.

Passed exam 1 of 3 for my MCDBA certification; more work needed for that.
My Chinese language course starts in a couple of weeks -- I'm looking forward to it, but I'm sure it'll be a lot of work.

Have to go house-hunting again. The landlord is selling, so I've got to start looking for somewhere else to live now.

Busy studying for my MCDBA now. I've got to take 4 exams in total, let's see how I do!
I have a new nephew! Sonny was born last week.

Bought an IBM Thinkpad for myself. As much as I love my PowerBook, I really want an opportunity to use Linux properly, and a laptop is just so much more conveinient that a desktop machine. It's not a spectacularly impressive machine (512MB RAM, 1.3GHz Celeron M, 40GB HD), but it's working OK.

Besides the new PC, I've been entertaining myself with the Star Wars boxed set which is fantastic! Every bit as good as I remembered.

Just returned from a (job-related) visit to Edinburgh. It was actually my first trip to Scotland and I was shocked to discover that they really do drink Irn-Bru up there! I thought it was just a stereotype.

Found out recently that my sister's pregnant for the first time! She's doing great so far, by all accounts having a very easy time of it all. My brother Chris, his wife Charlie and their son Ciaran are coming over in August, so much to prepare for.

Been asked to setup a linux server in my new job -- slowly the penguins are taking over!

May you live in interesting times, as the curse goes.

Well, lots has changed. New job in Edgware is going great -- I'm working with a really nice bunch of people, and there's tons of interesting stuff to do. This office is a lot louder and busier than my last place, but it's also friendlier.

Alas, the houseshare didn't work out at all well. There was one housemate I took an instant dislike to and within a week I knew I had to move out. I can bitch for hours, but I shall just say if you're looking in the Finchley area, avoid a Scottish guy called Donald like the plague.

My new pad is a share with two girls who seem very nice -- obviously early days yet though. I'm hoping to get broadband setup soon which will be brilliant. Finally I'll be able to properly use linux on the desktop.