benadamson.co.uk

11Apr/082

Longest Power Cut Ever

It's a weird thing to have in this day and age but there was a power cut that lasted from just before 1am to about 6am this morning. The highlight of the night was when a moth flew into the candle wax and died, now encased in his solidified waxy grave.

Turning off the light pollution gave a good view of the stars outside though.

Stars, clouds and hills....

Tagged as: power cut, Shetland, stars 2 Comments

11Apr/080

Hay’s Dock Café Restaurant

I had the pleasure of having lunch at the titular restaurant which is situated upstairs within the new museum on Tuesday with the girlfriend. After a bad start of being told to come back because it was packed full inside and with people loitering about outside waiting we decided to run some errands and come back again half an hour later whereupon we were welcomed in with open arms and apologies given by the woman who had turned us away earlier.

She had the locally caught fishcakes, which were of the smoked variety and I had the "sassermaet brunnie" (spicy sausage meat) which all in all was a glorified burger in a ciabatta roll with a sauce of some description and sliced tomatoes upon it. Mine came with salad and coleslaw and hers with a homemade tartar sauce and a superabundance of salad (neither of which she likes heh). We both had the potato wedges as a side (which were really chunky).

Afterwards we both had the bread and butter pudding which was a huge chunk of a thing. Quite an eggy taste and ultimately too sickly to finish but it was excellent nonetheless.

The price for two came to £21 which isn't all too unreasonable for the amount of food.

Julie with her unfinished bread and butter pudding at Hay's Dock Café Restaurant

Julie with her unfinished bread and butter pudding which ultimately proved too much for either of us.

Tagged as: food, restaurant, Shetland No Comments

10Apr/080

Looking for a new phone?

If you're in the market for a new phone that can do everything you want it to do and a hell of a lot more then may I recommend you take look at the HTC Kaiser (Orange: TyTn II O2: XDA Stellar Vodafone: v1615).

400 Mhz Processor
3G (HSDPA/HSUPA)
GPS
3 Megapixel Camera
256MB ROM/128MB RAM
Wifi (b/g) / Bluetooth
112mm (L) x 59mm (W) x 19mm (T)
Windows Mobile 6
QWERTY keyboard

A photo of the HTC TyTN II from Orange

I don't have time to conduct a lengthy review of the phone I'll highlight some pros and cons:

Pros:

Full QWERTY tactile keyboard making typing text messages and e-mails incredibly easy
GPS allows the installation of Tom Tom negating the need to purchase a separate device (you'll need to buy a car holder though - leaving it lying on the dashboard or the passenger seat isn't ideal since the back speaker is muffled. Google maps works with GPS too.
3G allows for fast Internet browsing. Even better when used with Opera Mini bypassing that awful piece of crap that is pocket IE
Reads .pdf files and you can edit Word/Excel documents and view Powerpoint presentations

Cons:

Can be sluggish at times and slow to update the screen (easily seen when changing the view from portrait to landscape by sliding out the keyboard)
Camera doesn't have a flash associated with it so low light images are sub par
Battery life short when using GPS (bigger batteries are available)
Cannot withstand being run over by a small car on a gravel track

Price: Contract £89.99 + (£35pm for 600mins, unlimited texts and free evenings and weekends internet) for 18 months on the Orange network with the Dolphin plan.

Tagged as: HTC, kaiser, phone, TyTN II No Comments

10Apr/080

Cake!

If you're heading out into the back of beyond of Shetland and you're feeling a bit peckish then I reccommend going to the Braewick Café for something to eat. Alas, the girlfriend and I arrived a few minutes after 4pm when they close (something they don't say on their website mind) but were kind enough to still serve hot drinks and cold snacks. Even though I'd have preferred some scampi in a basket, fish and chips or a cheese and bacon melt which were in their menu the victoria sponge they had on display was brilliant. A rich buttercream filling and delicious jam.

Victoria Spongecake