My blog has moved and MegaTao.com is now set up (sorta).

Please change your bookmarks and links.

Website: http://megatao.com
RSS Feed: http://megatao.com/?feed=rss2
Comments RSS Feed: http://megatao.com/?feed=comments-rss2

I have come across some cool sites though for finding, generating or searching on new or expired domain names.

ExpiredDomains.com
This site allows you to search on domain names that were once registered but are now available.
I found the following names from there:

• taohq.com
• taoisms.com
• taotemple.com
• toptao.com

Nameboy
This site allows you to put in 2 key words and it searches on variations on that name.  You can opt to include hyphens in the name or allow rhyming.  It also puts in various “key phrases” like “bank” or “hip” too so you can see other options.  However, this site did show taoski.com as available even though I know it is not. From there I found that the following names are available:

• taoskiblog.com
• taoskiwizard.com
• megatao.com
• intelitao.com

Domain Name Generator
This site generates 5 random domain names for you and does a WHOIS lookup to see if they are already taken too.  This is really for when you have reached the end of your possible searches and only a domain like suugrap.com will do.  Pretty crap really – but i’m sure if I click that button enough some good names will come up.

See.  titdom.com, tosaing.com and asstran.com amoungst other vaguely sexual names are available.

MakeWords
Similar to Domain Name Generator, but it allows you to generate 30 names per page.  The names also make more sense.  Runtywish.com is available according to them.  I wonder what kind of site that could be?  Makewords also allows you to make names that begin with, contain or end with a letter, name or word.  Pretty cool!

I still don’t know what to choose though.  Bwah!

[edit] just found this “web 2.0 domain name generator” too.

I did half of that, well – sorta.  I did quit Blogger and I have moved to using WordPress but I am still hogging on somone elses domain and don’t have any creative control over my template here.

http://www.taoski.com had already been taken, http://www.photao.com has been taken too, so I have been looking around at other possible domain names.  I decided that I did’nt want to go for http://www.taoskiblog.com as I don’t want to be limited to just a “blog” type domain name.  I also wanted to get myself a “cool” and “web 2.0″ sounding name such as Flickr or Labelr or something like that.

The only thing I have come up with a the moment is http://www.spangl.com.  “Spangle”.  Not too sure on it though.  I think the idea came from the obscure title of one of Nick’s postings.

But I have been thinking.

Are domain names so important now?  Most of the sites I come across are through links on http://del.icio.us or through other peoples blogs and Google.  I can’t think of that many occasions where I have given links to people by word of mouth.  So would it really matter if my domain was http://www.taoskis-wonderful-blog.com or http://www.tao-was-ere-again.com?

I downloaded the iPod buyers guide from them back in 2004bi (before iPod) and it was really good.  This one looks even better!

I was impressed by them too.  Small, light, neat, smart, fast, clever and great at oral sex too!

But after looking at the 20 inch iMacs and also after reading that my matey WhiteBoyBob has just bought one (and not managed to break it), I am wondering if one of those might be a better purchase.  I have also been reading some benchmarks on gaming with the 20 inch iMac using XP and Boot Camp.  They do seem impressive too.  I think I will have to install XP via Boot Camp as the kids use some games on XP still and the wife will probably get all confused over OSX and will not be able to work her Home Accounts Spreadsheet properly without ringing me all the time.

I do use my laptop at home a little.  Not lots though – just a little.  Sometimes after a hard days internet surfing work I don’t want to be huddled over another PC in the corner of the room.  Sitting on the sofa, slowly cooking my legs with the laptop on wifi is quite nice really.  I have done more of my “Blogger Template Overhaul” series using the laptop than anything else.  My desktop PC setup at home is not perfect for spending lots of time at the screen.  Stuck in the corner next to the dinner table, it is quite restrictive to use and the desk it sits on gets piled with paper, toys, mobile phones and recently, my Xbox360, controllers and headset as I now play that via my LCD monitor.

But the 20 inch iMacs are nice and they are faster and have a bigger hard disk too!  I do quite a bit of photoshop stuff so maybe that would be a better purchase?  But the laptops are nice and “free” and I can take it on holiday and stuff too.  Oh… crap…. more decisions.

Almost makes me want to stop writing my Blogger Template Overhaul series….

Via ProBlogger

He learnt about how God made the earth and the clouds and the air and the land and the animals and the snickers bars.  And he also found out that Adam and Eve were the first people on the earth – and that's where we all came from.

In a way, it is probably easier for children to grasp that God made the world and people and plants rather than trying to explain evolution to them.  I have told him in the past that we were apes a long time ago and about "The Big Bang" but he still asks questions like "so you were a monkey then?" or "Were we monkeys when we were little?".  He also fails to grasp the Big Bang theory, but asks the right questions such as "what was there before?" or "where did the bang come from?".

How can you explain something like the Big Bang theory to children?
Fucked if I know!

That's how i'm feeling at the moment.

I rang my boss and told him I would be accepting the offer of early voluntary redundancy that I received last week.
I signed the letter and sent it in the post too. So the jobs almost done.

They now have to agree "financial concurrence" and if that goes ahead, my last day of service to this company will be either this friday – or next week sometime. Well… maybe. Depends on how long they take to pull the paperwork and red tape out of their arses.

So. I shall soon be unemployable unemployed and will be seeking work.

Any bins need emptying anywhere?
Any plates need washing up?

I know you are supposed to do something that scares you everyday (according to the adverts).

But I am scared.

Oh go on then….
You should'nt have….

I have been meaning to write this for a while.
Coronation Street, Eastenders and Sky+ helped me achieve this goal! 

• Stay off the internet at work
• Read more of my book
• Ride my bike to work each day
• Drink more water than coffee

And if you think I broke resolution number 1 already, you are wrong.  I posted this using BlogJet – a locally installed blogging client.

It’s cool – check it out!

And who ever invented Skype needs to be shaken by the hand. A piece of software that allows the two kids to attack each other with karate punches and toy guns across the globe?

It's what the internet was invented for!

In my opinion, Sony are going to wipe the Xbox360 and Nintendo Wii off the floor with their new console but probably only based on the established user base they already have. Also, Sony and the Playstation have always seemed to appeal to younger gamers more than the Xbox so they will immediately have the upcoming generation to rely on buying their console.

They have also stolen copied used the same motion detection techniques that Nintendo are planning to include in their new Wii console which leaves Microsoft as the only “next gen” console maker not to have this capability – yet.  Microsoft are due to launch details of their external USB HD DVD player at the E3 conference too though – whoppee!… not.

The “Sony Hub” will take on the might of XBox live too but contrary to early information, it will not all be free and will probably follow the same pricing structure of free access to somethings, but pay-to-play access to multiplayer gaming.

The real kick in the nuts for this console is going to be the price which has been announced at the conference too.  The console will be launched worldwide in early November and will come in 2 flavours, one with a 20gb hard disk and one with a 60gb hard disk.  Pricing will be set at $499 and $599.  Expect that to translate to £499 and £599 here in the UK.

Would you want to pay nearly £600 for a console?  And as we have found out with the Xbox360, the games are’nt cheap either with some of the recent flagship titles like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter retailling for nearly £50!  How much are the Blu-Ray based games going to be on the new PS3?  £70?  Reports on the capabilities of the PS3 versus the Xbox360 are also revealing that they will be more similar than first revealed and it may become difficult to tell the consoles graphics apart.

Sony will win.  I have no doubt about that.  But if Microsoft drop their console price then things may be different come christmas 2006.  And if Microsoft can realease Halo3 at the same time, things will get really nasty and all sorts of name calling and hair pulling will ensue.

He has just recently ordered his machine for £2606.66!
Someone even donated over $1k to enable him to achieve his goal.  Pretty amazing really!

But i'm not greedy.  Just a Mac Mini would do me fine.  Or one of the original iMac's…

Anyone got one kicking around that they don't need?

My Sister-in-laws Staffordshire Bull Terrier called "DJ".

Although Staffs have quite a bad press (probably because they look like a pit bull) he is a lovelly little dog and is really good with the children, really friendly and no trouble at all.

We quite missed him after we dropped him off on Sunday night, so I humped the wife's leg for a while and then pooed on the kitchen floor.

And then all was back to normal again!

The most interesting thing for me is that he was looking for evidence of UFOs and Extra-Terrestrial technology and claims he found evidence of it too!

I got one picture out of the folder, and bearing in mind this is a 56k dial-up, so a very slow internet connection, in dial-up days, using the remote control programme I turned the colour down to 4bit colour and the screen resolution really, really low, and even then the picture was still juddering as it came onto the screen.

It was above the Earth’s hemisphere. It kind of looked like a satellite. It was cigar-shaped and had geodesic domes above, below, to the left, the right and both ends of it, and although it was a low-resolution picture it was very close up.

This thing was hanging in space, the earth’s hemisphere visible below it, and no rivets, no seams, none of the stuff associated with normal man-made manufacturing.

I know this is all pure Sci-Fi and most people will dismiss reports like this but it is interesting all the same.

It reminds me of a short story I was going to write about a kid who had some terminal disease.  He was big into UFOs and Aliens and made a public appeal through the media for someone from NASA or the government to disclose to him if aliens did exist before he died.  Obviously the NASA or government people could lie or tell the truth – and that would have been one of the hooks of the story.

Good luck Mr Hacker!  You are facing the rest of your life in a prison cell…. for trying to find the truth.
Visit the Free Gary McKinnon site too.  Quite an interesting read.

Thank god there's people out there who can help those affected by this blight on the arse of M$ Software…

Edit: I used these instructions to get round the problem. And here is an activation crack program. Never tried it though.  The file currently has a .TXT extension.  Download and rename to .EXE and all should be ok.

The wife was watching Disparate Whorebags and I was playing my first 5 or 6 games of FIFA RTWC on XBox live, sat at my PC monitor.

In all apart from one of the games did anyone talk, until I played a very chatty American who ended up beating me on penalties, or “shoot out” as he called it.  Actually, someone else did pipe up to appologise for scoring in a flukey way.  On the whole I lost every game I played – but it was still fun!

On a game that I was winning 3-1 my opponent quit the game just after I had scored the third goal with a cheeky Michael Owen chip shot past a defender and over the goalie as he rushed out to hack me down.

He could have at least pretended he needed a poo or something!
I left him a bad feedback anyway…..

Just wow.

I received my Joytech VGA Cable for my 360 yesterday and after suffering the planned outage of XBOX Live and the intense double episode start of the new series of LOST, I was ready to play.

Now, my AOC branded LCD monitor is not a recent piece of hardware.  In fact i’m sure that I have seen it pictured on the bayeux tapestry, just next to the knight listening to that £250 Rio MP3 player with 64mb of memory I used to own.

I was concerned that with a low response time, my attempts at FIFA RTWC would just turn to a mushy blur instead of a sharp, Hi Def graphics experience.

I had to cycle via Maplin on the way home from work to obtain a £4.99 VGA Gender Bender as the monitor connection on the Joytech cable is male and my AOC display does not allow me to remove the cable from it at the back.  See, I told you it was old!

I plugged in the VGA cable from the 360, into the gender bender and then into my monitor and booted the 360.  I was pleasantly suprised to see the 360 logo spinning onto my display in lush 640×480.  After getting into the dashboard and setting the display to 1280×1024 I was nearly wetting my pants in anticipation as I loaded a game.  The quality is amazing!  As an old-hat PC gamer, I was half expecting the game to slow down as the 360 tried to pump out the higher res graphics but it was just the same – but better.

After XBox LIVE came back online at midnight I got online using Internet Connection Sharing on my PC and got beaten 2-0 by someone playing as Argentina on FIFA RTWC.  Still, it was nearly half past one in the morning and I was only testing it….

Honest!

"love you… pressy…"

Since moving over I feel all "grown up" and serious about blogging.  Joining Geeklimit has made this feeling more real and it feels great to be doing some proper technical blogging stuff, like.

As usual I have been obsessed with watching my stats and wordpress gives you a few builtin tools to track your visitors, popular posts and how people came to the site.

My traffic is slowly building and since taking this capture has rocketed after an influx of visits from Geeklimit.

Overall, I am very impressed with WordPress and would recommend it to anyone!  There is a wealth of free templates available (although we cannot change them here on wordpress.com). 

Therefore, my "technical posts" will go there – and the rest of my mindless drivel will go here!

There seems to be lots of sites that cover viewing the photos on the iPod screen and with the new 5th Gen iPods you also get groovy transitions between each photo. However, they never go into a real detail about the TV display, the speed the images load onto the TV screen or the output quality.

It's actually not research for me. Although I would love to have a video playing/picture displaying iPod to replace my 4th Gen one, it's for my Father. A keen photographer, he recently purchased a Sandisk Digital TV Player to display his digital snaps and scans on the TV. He was less than impressed though as the time it took to display each picture was like going back to downloading porn pics over a 9600bps dial up connection – slow and frustrating. So he took the device back to the retailler within a few days of purchase.

We were then talking about iPods as someone he knows is getting a 30gb 5G model for her leaving present at work and I suggested he get one for displaying his photos on the TV as I knew they had that functionality. He could also get the iPod Camera Connector to upload photos from his camera when on holiday.

But I cannot really find much information about it. Can anyone help? Do you have a 5th Gen iPod and have first hand experience of displaying the photos on a TV?

So, by the end of the weekend I should be up and running on the 360 via my PC monitor!
This means that while the wife will be watching Eastenders, I will be killing some poor teenager on Halo 2 or winning another match on FIFA RTWC…

Well.. maybe. 

Here is a list I have made of the main players broken down by application type. If you have any more to contribute – leave me a comment.

Calendar:
http://calendar.google.com
http://30boxes.com

Word Processing:
http://www.writely.com
http://www.ajaxwrite.com
http://www.zohowriter.com
http://writeboard.com

Spreadsheet:
http://www.irows.com
http://numsum.com
http://www.editgrid.com
http://www.numbler.com

Presentation Software:
http://www.thumbstacks.com

PDF Making:
http://www.pdfonline.com/index.htm
http://www.expresspdf.com
http://www.rss2pdf.com

Drawing/Photo Editing Software:
http://pixoh.com/
http://www.flickr.com
http://www.pxn8.com/

Flowcharting Software:
http://gliffy.com/

Project Management Software:
http://www.basecamphq.com/

Complete Office Suite:
http://www.goffice.com

Clipboard:
http://cl1p.net/

Bookmarks:
http://www.del.icio.us.com
http://www.spurl.net/

To counter this, a Google Calendar Notifier extension has been created for Firefox which shows you your up-coming appointments in the status bar. You also get cute little pop-ups too!

Great for the absent minded people of this world, like me.

Shame.

But as Yamipod is so cute and I don't buy from iTunes – there is nothing stopping me using Yamipod as the manager for my iPod.

DamoB blogged about Anapod Explorer as an alternative to using iTunes, but as you have to install it onto a PC to use it – it's not quite what I wanted.

I saw this listed over at Play.com a few months ago and expected it to be a larger LCD monitor designed to fit with the 360 – but it turns out that it's only a "flap screen".  I suppose it means you could play games in the car though.  Go wardriving for a WiFi connection or get yourself a mobile wireless setup and you could play against your mates on Live too!

The most impressive feature is that the application does not need to be installed and can be run from the iPod when it is plugged into the PC and operating in disk mode.

Yamipod allows you to copy music files to and from the iPod, edit, export or create playlists, rate songs, change the ID3 tag details and many more things too.  The application is also available for Mac, x86 and Linux too.

Does anything get any better?
Well… it could do, as after editing and uploading songs and playlists to the iPod using Yamipod at work – as soon as you get home and sync with iTunes – it all gets overwritten with the local iTunes database stored on your PC….

Then again – I have not "fully" tested this "unfortunate feature" yet, so I will report back.
I'm off to find some people on our corporate network who have iTunes installed to leach some tracks for the bike ride home!

IGN: Feature: Xbox 360 On PC Monitor Action

This might be my only option to get some serious gaming done with my 360 as the wife usually hogs the TV set until 11pm each night.  Plus, an LCD monitor which is better quality than the one I currently have would not be too far, financially, out of my reach.

I would be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone that has been using their 360 through a PC monitor – LCD or CRT.

taoski's Xbox – 04/26/06

taoski is the best. He treats me right. I treat him right. It is a good thing we have going here. Gamer score stands at 390. Not too shabby! That is a gain of 300 points over last time! He played FIFA 06 RTFWC gaining 1 achievement, and after that, called it a day.

And the slightly less impressive

taoski's Xbox – 04/23/06

Time sure doesn't fly when taoski blows you off for a day and doesn't game.

This site allows you to register your XBox Live Gamertag and it then creates an RSS feed of your gaming exploits! Quite clever – but most of all, just a bit of fun.

ps. The 300 points were from qualifying for the World Cup with England! 

Here are four of the shots I took whilst on my holidays in New York recently.
They have all been "shopped" a bit – but not too much.

When you see my results, just remember that I was running a specific case. My hardware probably isn’t close to what you are running and I doubt you would be downloading such a large amount of data as I was, or at least from such an active torrent. However, in my case uTorrent seems like the definite choice for a simple BitTorrent client. uTorrent does everything you could ask from a BitTorrent client and it does it without breaking a sweat. Azureus still has its place in this world, besides being compatible with nearly every operating system, Azureus also supports plug-ins and has an extensive Wiki that can answer nearly any question you have. Either way, no matter which client you choose, I am sure you will be satisfied as both clients make it very easy to enjoy the benefits of BitTorrent and open up this large world of networks to the common user.

During the testing, the author observed Azureus taking up 80% of the CPU and 160MB of memory.  uTorrent however was only utilizing 9mb of memory and up to 30% of the CPU.

In the article he describes the recent milestones of the technology and outlines the future needs in regards to software client integration and usability.

In my opinion, Bittorrent has probably hit its peak.  Over 50% of all internet traffic is Bittorrent based.  The only thing that is holding back the further use of the technology is “ease of use”.

For the lay-man or basic computer user, obtaining the correct software, torrent files and working out which file has the best seeds and peers ratio is not really making the process easy for people to understand and use.  Bittorrent clients such as uTorrent do go a long way to make things easier for people to use the technology – but I envisage something alot easier.

If a user could sign into a website and select a torrent from a list to download and then have the website download the torrent file for them into a folder held on that website – then that would make life alot easier.  The user could sign off the site and still have the torrent downloading for them.  People could be forced to share the files back to a preset ratio and also, locally held completed copies of the torrents could be made available immediately to the user and then seeded back too.

If anyone has ever used the Easynews website to download from Newsgroup servers – then you will have the basic idea of what I mean.

This facility would make the interface to the Bittorrent network accessible, faster and less open to file leechers.  Of course this is just an idea of mine and the resources to run such a service would be huge but would bring benefit to basic users.

Just this morning I have been able to:

• Import all of my posts and comments from Blogger
• Set up my sidebar using a drag-and-drop widget editor.
• Add a page that Blogger users get directed to with my popular posts listed.

So far, I am more than impressed.

In the (near) future I will be moving this to my own webspace, so the URL will change again.
Wordpress has many, many templates available but here at WordPress.com you cannot edit the template code (at the moment).

I have decided to switch my blog from Blogger to WordPress pending the purchase of some webspace.

At the moment, Blogger is having real issues with publishing and is sticking at 0%.
All the other Blogger users over at the Blogger Support Group are reporting the same thing too.

I have been planning to get rid of Blogger for some time now as they seem to have alot of publishing issues. I still have my "Bling Your Blog" series underway in Writely which focuses on customising a Blogger template so I might still publish that here.  When Blogger sorts themselves out, I will also import all my posts to here and make a new template that auto-redirects to this site.

Fancy that! A Blogger "how to" posted on a WordPress blog!

So…

• Say hello or ask me a question.
• Tell me you hate it or that you love it.
• What would you like more of?
• Should I buy www.taoskiblog.com and move there and dump Blogger all together?

Some of you may have seen that picture on here recently.

Sorry for the confusion. This blog is NOT closed and will continue to operate normally under my usual mis-management.

And no, Robert… it's not a Butterfly! It's a hacked image I did on Illustrator, of an XBox360 controller. Tsk.

Friday:
Went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park with the wife and kids. We went with Mr and Mrs Swimpig and their daughter too. A very nice day out all in all and ended off with some late night card playing and Jack Daniels drinking fun. As usual, Mr Swimpig won.

Saturday:
It was the mother-in-laws birthday, so we were over at her house for dinner. The kids got to play easter egg hunting in the garden, so we have again got a cupboard full of chocolate eggs, chocolate bars and assorted chocolate bunny shaped sweets. And all that after we just threw away the eggs that never got eaten from over two years ago!

Sunday:
Had a lazy day around the house and then went for a dog walk with friends through the local fields. Very nice.

Monday:
Went to my first ever football match to watch the MK Dons beat Hartlepool 2-1 at the Milton Keynes National Hockey Stadium. My eldest son took part in a Football In The Community scheme where the MK Dons came to his school to teach them football skills. As part of a fund raising Penalty Shoot-out competition, we got a free pass for one adult and one child. I then bought two more tickets so that the wife and my other son could come too.

It was quite exciting being in the crowd and we only just won after trickling a shot off the post about 4 minutes before the final whistle. As you may know, I am a seasoned FIFA player on my XBox, so it was nice to see the real thing for a change. There was only a few times when I got confused and thought I would watch the replay of the goal again… only to find I was pressing the head of the bloke sitting in front of me instead of the start button…

Hartlepool were certainly the best side and at times The Dons were quite comical, falling over the ball and passing straight to the other team. Some decisions did not go their way though after Hartlepool scored by barging the goalie down after he had grabbed the ball and vollying the shot in.

I did enjoy it though and might go to the next, and last, home game later this month.
Anyone else up for that?

Report: BBC SPORT | Football | League One | MK Dons 2-1 Hartlepool

Tuesday:
Back to work on the push bike. Microsoft Patch issues ahoy! Great…

Technorati Tags: mk dons, easter, football, hartlepool, walk, eggs, chocolate, jack daniels, cards, dog

Shame it still does not appear to be bolted into Gmail though…

OS:
Windows XP Media Center editon with Office 2003.
Installed this version of Windows so I could stream video to my Xbox 360.

Virus/Spyware:
I have ditched the Symantec AntiVirus 10 and the Giant Anti Spyware (now known as Microsoft Defender) and am using ZoneAlarm Security Suite. Since having this installed I have had nothing unusual turn up on the PC, only cookies. Even with Symantec and Giant installed before, if I ran a scan it always found something, but ZoneAlarm seems excellent! Plus with the ZoneAlarm firewall built in you can't go wrong.

Browser:
Firefox, firefox, firefox!!! Get it! This is a no-brainer really. Since using this my spyware infections have literally dropped off the planet. I have also installed the FasterFox extension which makes it even faster! I also have the Web Developer Toolbar installed into Firefox which makes checking and testing CSS changes in my blog all the easier. It also makes me into a god when helping people over at the Blogger Help Group.

Torrent Sites:

• Demonoid
• Mininova
• ISOHunt

I still use torrents frequently and they are the three sites that I use most often.
I have started using uTorrent to download torrent files as I found that the webs most popular torrent client, Azureus was big, bloated, built from Java and made my router hang all the time (despite its numerous awards) . uTorrent is small, runs from a folder with no installation needed and is fast! I have also found that on my 2mb ADSL line, if I limit my upload to 18kbps on each torrent, the download speed goes up like a rocket (seeds pending out course). I am thinking of doing a basic "uTorrent users guide" soon – so watch this space.

P2P Apps:
None.
Yep – thats right – none!
I have given up on using these. The last time I was bothering, Warez was still my favorite but now that the torrents have really picked up and downloading stuff does not seem so important any more, I have stopped using it.

Bookmarks:
Some new bookmarks that I go to each day are the Del.icio.us popular links, my Bloglines subscriptions and the Digg.com homepage. There is always something new and amazing on there to look at over lunch. I have started using Del.icio.us more to store my bookmarks now. With Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature, they are available immediately regardless of if I am at home or work.

Recap:
Away Goal:
ZoneAlarm, uTorrent, Del.icio.us, Digg, Torrents

Own Goal:
Symantec, Giant Antispyware, P2P apps, Azureus

Technorati Tags: a-list, symantec, zonelabs, zonealarm, spyware, virus, microsoft, defender, bittorrent, utorrent, azureus, firefox, media center, fasterfox, delicious, bloglines, digg
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us |

Basically, a bloke in the US wants people to donate money to him to get an iMac worth over $2000!

Now thats a cool idea.

Shame my version of the same thing, that I started back in Janurary 2005 did'nt get any attention from anyone!

The US may be the most powerful country in the world, but it's also graced with the loudest and laziest people. A message to my fellow "would be switcher"…

GET A FUCKING JOB YOU LAZY GIT!
Flipping burgers for minimum wage makes more sense!

Maybe I should revive my idea and start a rival blog to see who wins first? Nah.. too lazy.

Technorati Tags: apple, mac, imac, switcher, paypal, donate, blog
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us |

I am still with AOL who I went with after moving house and having to cancel my BT Internet account. Instead of just moving the service from one house to another, they insist that you cancel your account and then re-apply at the new house! Even though the previous owner of my new property was also with BT Internet!

Also, at the time, AOL were (pretty much) the only provider with no download limits, which BT were just bringing into force. My "downloading" action is no way near as bad as it used to be though. Nildram offer up-to 8mb broadband with a 50gb per month download limit. I think it should be enough for what I need I suppose.

Although, my mate has a ratio on torrent site where his upload is over 1 Terrabyte! His download amount is something pretty scary too! Might see what ISP he is with. Can't remember off hand although I set it up for him.

So. Any experience with Nildram , let me know. Or can you recommend a good ISP that won't release the dogs on me if I decide to download more that 1mb a month?

Technorati Tags: AOL, internet, ISP, nildram, broadband, BT, BT Internet
Add to: Technorati Digg del.icio.us

We also all put in real bets at the local betting office. Just a few pounds here and there.

Luckily, after my horse Numbersixvalverde won, I netted the ?20 family sweepstake and my wife won ?24 from her ?2 bet at 11/1 odds.

Sweet.

Now, what shall I spend my ?20 on? Any ideas?

Technorati Tags: grand national, horse racing, horses, numbersixvalverde, betting

EDIT: Just went and got FIFA06 for my 360 from the Birmingham branch of CEX. Only ?28 second hand!

The thing is tiny and the quality is pretty good – although I have doubts as to wether the signal is in stereoscopic sound or not. When I shuffle to some Beatles tracks, that should tell me. There is also some background hum and hiss from interferance which gets worse when its raining. The signal is better when plugged into my nipple. Well… what I mean is – when it's in my shirt pocket and my metal endo-skeleton is acting as a signal conductor. It also makes me look quite "star trek" when changing tracks – but makes me look all "cheap porn nipple caressing" when increasing the volume!

Generally the product is very good and I am impressed with it. I was even more suprised to find that ipod ubersite, iLounge gave it an A marking and said that it was even better that the iTrip, which was the device I had been planning to get. I decided to get the Airplay as I was also purchasing an XBox360 Play-n-charge kit from the same shop and it seemed to be the best option at the time.

The Airplay's frequency can be manually changed in .2 increments between 88 and 109FM so you can quite easily override everyone who is listening to Radio1 on the way to work with some techno from the likes of the Plump DJs. I was even able to broadcast "Dare" by Gorillaz from downstairs in my home, over the top of my sons radio whilst he was listening to Classic FM (100.3FM) at bedtime. Having Shaun Ryder in your dreams is not good for a six year old's mind.

My advice: get it!
Oh.. hold on.. it's illegal in the UK. Sorry Officer…

And yes, DriverChris, you can have that "POS" Belkin back next time I see you.

Technorati Tags: ipod, airplay, fm, apple, nipple, star trek

The site contains a series of "5 minute productivity tips". I expected it to be full of "teamworking, networking and corporate bitch making" skills but I found the Searching with Firefox Keywords tip and was plesantly suprised!

I thought I used most of the nice Firefox stuff like Live Bookmarks and the "Open In Tabs" stuff – but this is cool.

When searching at a site (such as Google) you can right-click the box you put the search text into and then click "Add a keyword for this search". You will then be prompted to put in a bookmark for the page and a keyword too. Put in the keyword "g" for Google for example.

Once it has been saved, you can then type "g taoski" into the Firefox address bar and it will immediately search Google for Taoski.

You can also add keywords to any bookmark you have stored so you could just type g and press Enter to take you direct to Google too!

So now, I can quickly search through that HomeMadePornTorrents site I have access to.

Technorati Tags: firefox, bookmark, google, taoski, word, spellcheck, tabs

Everyone knows (well – you should by now) that Apple recently made the switch to Intel chips in their hardware. There have been plenty of people out there that have searched for and managed to get Windows XP running on the "MacTel" boxes – although quite a bit of messing was needed to get it working.

Today, Apple have released the beta of Boot Camp which allows you to install XP for it to co-exist with your OS-X installation!

Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows.⁽¹⁾ Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don't have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them.

Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it'll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.

W00t! This is going to cause quite a few ripples in the computing world!
I don't expect it would take too long for someone to get a mac just to run XP (or Vista) but then switch to OS-X because "it works!". Smart move Mr Jobs. I salute you!

There's probably not much that I could do on XP that I could'nt do on OS-X too.
Awww.. I wanna new PC.

I'm sure that if I qualified as a car mechanic I would take my car to the local repair shop each time it needed a bulb changing or petrol putting in.

I dispair…..

The Grass armchair is self assembled, each pack contains 14 corrugated cardboard frames and 100g pack of grass seeds. You will need about 240 litres of soil, to fill in the frame. First find the right spot, because once the armchair has grown you won't be able to move it!! You can put up to 20cm of gravel with in the frame then the soil. Spread the seeds evenly using only 4/5 of the bag of seeds. Press them in and water slightly so that the soil is humid. Water the armchair everyday. If it rains cover the armchair until grass has grown, to avoid the chair becoming waterlogged. After 10 days the grass starts to grow. If the grass has not grown evenly use the rest of the seeds to even it out. Once the grass has reached 10cm, cut it to 3cm, and keep it to this height. Now you can sit back and relax!

Purves and Purves

Just saw this mentioned over at Gizmodo and thought it was cool!

And how much for some bits of oddly shaped cardboard and a packet of grass seeds? ?65 – thats how much. I'm off to the skip at the back of the local supermarket to get mine started.

I cycled to work again through the icy cold wind this morning and even managed to make it out at lunchtime for a quick ride too.

Well… a ride up to Subway for a foot-long Veggie Max sub! W00t!

I have noticed after just two days of cycling, that when I get to work, although I feel all sweaty and my lungs are insanely burning in a sea of my own mucus, I feel so much more awake and ready to do stuff!

It's cool.

The wife's out at her Salsa class tonight, so I get to spend a little more quality time with my Xbox, PC and 360 – before I sell them all!! HA ha ha ha…. (evil laugh).

Swimpig promises to make an appearance too at some point. Maybe he wants his arab strap back?

Now that I have been paid and the overdraft is slightly smaller after maxing it in New York, it's time to think about subscribing for a years worth of XBOX Live and getting a new game for my 360.

However – what game to get is one question… But – "do I want to" is the most important one!

Now don't get me wrong. I love my 360 (like a bruvver! burp) but hardly ever play on it. At present my "gaming time" is spent either fitting in a quick game of Fifa 2006 on my old Xbox after the wife has gone to bed or snatching a few games of the same title on my Gameboy Advance SP (while I crap). The 360 sits redundant beneath my TV.

The most I have used it for recently is to stream our New York photos to from my Media Centre PC.

• Maybe it was a rash decision to buy it?
• Maybe I should have got a PSP like I was thinking?
• Maybe I'm just having a "downer" on it at the moment?

Who knows. I certainly don't. But a PSP from eBay with a few games and a memory stick would not set me back too much. And I'm sure someone would have my 360 off me to counter act the spend.

Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox 360, sony, sony psp, psp, fifa, fifa 2006, gba, gameboy, new york

I attempted to convert it to DVD using DVD Santa and got an "Unsupported video stream" error. Roxio 8 also decides to give me a cryptic "unspecified error" plus a load of hex to go with it! Fecking computers!

So, it appears that the format of the file is one of those odd DivX ones that refuses to convert without a lot of hassle. I also downloaded DivXtoDVD too (after reading a few good things about it) and after converting and burning which took about 2 hours, the quality of the DVD is jumpy and the audio is about 3 seconds ahead of the video!

Good job i've still got my old, modded XBox to watch it on over the network.

On a side note, I have decided to post at least once per day this month in an attempt to kick start my blogging again. I failed yesterday though already! I was discussing a possible "april fools day" post with Swimpig over breakfast yesterday but nothing came of it.

Technorati Tags: divx, dvdsanta, divxtodvd, tron, dvd, convert, blog, roxio, xbox,

So, rather than respond in the comments, here are the answers:

Question from GVM:

You seem to be a blogger expert, even a very friendly one, would it be a problem to ask you the following ?
- how do you adjust the size of the letters in the side bar, esp. the text in the About Me profile ?
- where can one find the "search this site" button ?

To change this, you need to find the following line in your CSS code at the top of your template:

#profile-container { }

And change it to the following to make the font the same size as the main post body text:

#profile-container {font-size:90%;}

Make sure you do a full blog republish and if you don't see the changes immediately, press CTRL+F5 to force a full refresh of your page.

The "search this site" button is actually built into the Blogger NavBar you see at the top of the blog. It just called "Search this blog" instead. The only problem with this is that it does not always pick up searches for new posts immediately. I had some posts that were over 3 weeks old that did'nt appear when I searched, but eventually they were indexed and it worked ok.

You can always try Google Sitesearch too.

Question from Tarun:

Different background for different posts intersting.tell me how to do it.

Well. That sounded more of a curt instruction really Tarun! But here's the answer.

To do this, you will need to use some Javascript code which sequentially adds 1 to a variable or takes it away for each post and then assigns a CSS property to the post depending on the value.

and First, you need to add the following lines to the CSS style area of your template. This is usually at the top of the template code, and will be enclosed between the </style> and </style> tags.

div.post-even { background-color : #F5F5F5; padding: 5px 15px; }
div.post-odd { padding: 5px 15px; }

Then, on the line just before the <Blogger> tag, I inserted some Javascript to zero the variable we would use.

<script type="text/javascript">var evenodd = 0</script>

And on the line just after the <Blogger> tag, I inserted some more Javascript that determines if the variable "evenodd" is 0 or 1 and applies the relevant CSS DIV to the post.

<script type="text/javascript">if(evenodd == 0) {document.write('<div class="post-even">');var evenodd = 1;} else if(evenodd == 1) {document.write('<div class="post-odd">');var evenodd = 0;}</script>

And that's it!

I actually made mine a little more complex by adding a gradient image to the bottom of the post in the CSS bit:

div.post-even {background-color : #F5F5F5;
padding: 5px 15px;
background: #F5F5F5 url(http://static.flickr.com/39/81719143_e19cdc7865_o.jpg) bottom left no-repeat;}

Hope this has been some help to you both. I am in the first stages of a new "project" that will encompass many similar requests – so watch this space.

We have been together for over 10 years!
During that time, my Airwalk and I have been through many changes, challenges and events:

• Worn on many skateboarding days.
• Learned to drive in them.
• Cycled to work in them.
• Ran three miles in them, three times a week.
• Worn on my Honeymoon.
• Worn at the birth of both of my children.
• Worn when I taught my Newphews to Skateboard.
• Worn on holiday in St Lucia, Dublin, France, USA.
• Worn to the top of the Empire State Building.
• Worn into the deepest, darkest caves in Cheddar Gorge.

I will miss them as all I have to wear now are my bright white NIKE running shoes.

Farewell my friends… we were good together.

As promised in my earlier New York report, here is the details of where we went, what we saw and what we thought.

Empire State Building
This was totally excellent! If you walked left out of our Hotel to the corner of the block, you could see the Empire off to your right. It was really close! Right next to a Starbucks too! We went first thing in the morning on Tuesday after a bacon/egg/cheese/bagel/coffee combo deli breakfast. As it was so early, we pretty much went straight in and straight to the top for a clear view as far as the eye can see! I have some great pictures and will post them to my Flickr when I get a chance to re-install Photoshop to my PC and "tart them up". It's an amazing building too – art deco to the max!

Grand Central Terminal
This was also a cool place to "hang out" and "people watch". It was only about 15 minutes walk from out Hotel too. The main terminal was totally breathtaking and almost like a cathedral. We took photos of "the clock" for our kids after they saw Melman the Giraffe smash his head into it on the cartoon, Madagascar. We had lunch in the food court downstairs on the same day and went back for breakfast there too the next day for another sesame seed bagel/cheese/bacon coffee combo thing. Totally delicious! Nice to see people going about their normal day to day business too. Saw some snooty business men getting their shoes shined as they totally ignored the person doing the work!

Financial District/Wall Street
We took the Metro from Grand Central to Wall Street to check out the Stock Exchange which we thought we might be able to get into to see the action from the public viewing gallery. Of course, it was closed after 911 – but our guide book we had borrowed was over 6 years old!! We got to see some "financial types" getting filmed outside the stock exchange and then photographed by the press, guarded by some butch SWAT types with automatic machine guns! One of the them was a kid called "Zack", or so his gold plated name badge told me. He was obviously with his parents and had a look of "made for life" all over his smug little weasel face. We asked a security guard who they were, but he just gave us indifference. "Jus' some more rich people".

Liberty Island
From Wall Street we walked through Battery Park to the ferry to take us to Liberty Island to see the Statue Of Liberty. The security to get onto the ferry was more invasive that it was for us to get onto the aircraft and into the country in the first place! I had to remove my belt and shoes to get through the scanners and x-ray machines. The statue is pretty cool close up and it was a real nice day too. From then on, the week got hotter. We had got tickets to go inside the statue, but after queuing for ages behind another 30 people, we then found that the people a few feet in front of us were told that they would be waiting an hour to get in. As my legs and lower back were killing me from walking so far, we decided to head for the "Tat shop" and head back to the mainland. We got some nice photos there of the brown smog hanging over the city too.

Ground Zero
We walked from Battery Park up to Ground Zero to see "the hole". It was quite odd really. To think that there were 2 massively tall buildings in such a small area is amazing. And to think that they had been destroyed without causing much (or any) damage to nearby buildings was also amazing (read "conspiracy"). The whole area seemed very quiet too. There were lots of billboards up showing designs for what was to replace the buildings. Not sure which one is going up though. At the moment, the hole is just full of what appears to be air conditioning ducts!

Soho/Greenwich Village
We walked uptown from Ground Zero to Soho and Greenwich Village, bits of which reminded us of Camden Market and Covent Garden. We took a much needed respite in a coffee shop with a giant slab of carrot cake and a seat in the window so we could see what was going on. The wife shopped, I yawned and ached and we made our way back up towards our Hotel. We rested for an hour and watch crap US TV and then headed out to a buzzing steakhouse where the smallest steak was 6 inches diameter and 8 inches deep! I had a massive burger and fries which was my first real big American portion. Great food and a great atmosphere!

Macys/Saks/Bloomingdales
The first day (night in UK time) we got there, we dumped our suitcases, looked for something to complain to the hotel staff about in the room (found nothing though!) and headed out for a walk and some food. We stumbled upon Macys a few blocks away and the wife settled into what would become the main theme of the week. Shopping. Macys was ok, but not quite what I expected. I was lead to believe that it would be like Harrods (to which I have never been) but it only sold clothes!
Bloomingdales was the same, but Saks (of 5th Ave) was a real classy joint! The decor in there was really nice and on one floor, we turned the corner to see Roberta Flack doing a PA for the store. So we got to see her tho! And she was very good.

Tiffanys
Breakfast not included! We went to Tiffanys twice. Once to look. Once to buy. I was under the impression that it was going to be very posh and when I saw the security guard on the door, I expected to be turned away as I had holes in my shoes (more on that in my next posting). The shop was cool and the staff were pleasant too. Obviously used to tourists cruising in to take a look at their wares. We went back on Thursday and I bought my wife a bracelet for her birthday we had been looking at for a while (at the cheap fakes on eBay).

Central Park
We walked from our hotel, all the way down Broadway, looking for a toyshop that was mentioned in the guide book we had, which don't forget, was 6 years out of date. Needless to say, by the time we hit 97th street, we decided it was not there any more. We got to see a hotel we nearly booked into and were glad we did not! We cut through east across into Central Park and rested a while. Well… I rested a while with my sore legs and back. We then proceeded to circumnavigate the Jackie Kennedy Onasis resovoir, against the wishes of the signposts and sour looks from the joggers who were nearly bumping into us. We tried to get into the Guggenheim but it was closed on Thursdays. Damn guide book again! We carried on down and ate pasta for lunch in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum. We tried to blag our way into the main exhibits for free, but got caught. We then stopped at the Woolman Ice Rink and Central Park Zoo, for more Madagascar related photos, on the way back "downtown".

New York Central Library
This place was cool. Very very nice inside and full of people with their Apple Notebooks studying. I wanted to be one of them! The main reading room was amazing and was very nice. We went back again on Friday for a free piss and a sit down to kill time before our flight (as we had run out of cash too!). We got to watch some breakdancing street performers outside. I'd give anything to be able to windmill….

Times Square
Flashy. Very flashy. Avoid if you have photo-sensitive epilepsy! My mate Ghone, said before I went that Piccadilly Circus was much better. What a twit! It was very impressive. We also got to wave at the kids back in the UK via the Times Square Earthcam Webcam! Toys-R-Us was disappointing as were most of the shops there. We ate in the Hard Rock Cafe there as we couldn't be bothered to walk anywhere. We were seated in the Madonna and Velvet Revolver area, close to James Brown's suit and some of Elton John's too.

Well…

there's my quick recap. I have missed so much, but you probably never read it all anyway!
It makes me want to go back there again! Buy me an Apple Powerbook, a large Mocha, sit me in a New York Deli and I will be a happy man!

I guess I am just slogging through a period of "Blogger Apathy" or "Blog-d-pression".
Other stuff has been happening at home too such as ill children keeping me up half the night and the wife's 40th birthday (say happy birthday to her everyone!). I have also found the love of Hexic on the 360. Puzzling fun!

Mainly I have been hanging out at the Blogger Help Group and have posted over 1000 messages in the last month, assisting people with chaging their Blogger template and other general help. The people who frequent there usually need help doing basic HTML stuff like adding images to their header or sidebar etc – so I have something planned (in my head) to help them. The Blogger staff do not go there as far as we know – so maybe i'll get a "Blogger MVP" soon or something….

Anyway… I will do New York "Part 2" soon.

I promise…

The hotel was in a great location (East 30th Street) for walking to most of the stuff we wanted to see. My legs and lower back were killing me by the end of the week as we had walked so far! I am only usually used to walking from my house to the car and from the car to the office desk. Not really – but not far off the truth!

New York is a really amazing place! Although the residents are a total ethnic/social mix, the roads are filled with cheeky honking yellow taxi's and the density of the buildings, businesses and shops is so intense, it all just "works"!

It's quite funny to see people skateboarding to work or rollerblading down the street backwards during the rush hour. Not funny as in "har har, look at that twat" but funny as in that it's just accepted and seems normal! Even to me, who had only been there a few days. I read before I went that New York has a "can do" attitude and you realise what that means when you see the people just going about their business, but in their own unique way, with no hassle or prejudice from anyone!

New York is definitely the iPod capital of the world. I counted more "white phones" per block than anywhere I have been before. People also seem ok about getting out their "technology" in public, be it iPods, CellPhones, Laptops or PDAs. I always feel quite reserved and nervous about using my laptop on a train for example but I lost count of the number of people using their Apple Powerbooks in coffee shops whist listening to their iPods or sitting outside in public parks using the free Google wifi to MSN video chat. I even saw what I thought was a tramp who was checking the bins for rubbish only then to pull out his Hipster phone/pda and sit down to do some typing! Weird! The whole atmosphere was great and we felt safe and welcomed where ever we went.

I was going to do a big write up here on each day we were there, but it would take too long. In the next part of my report I will highlight the highlights and dish the dirt on the tourist attractions.

Hopefully not to get this bird's eye view!

Then again… anything for some more brownie points at work!

If I get a chance to post whilst wolfing down a giant pretzel, skinny mocha latte and eggs over easy, I will.

See ya in a week!

It was'nt quite as I predicted the Apple iPod "Boombox" would be like.

But it's not too bad. Quite minimalistic and low tech, but for ?249, I would want it to make my cups of tea for me too!

"iPod Hi-Fi Teasmade" anyone?

EDIT: Someone's already got their hands on one and has posted shots of it being "un-boxed" on their Flickr page. It looks really big!

Technorati Tags: ipod, apple, hi-fi, boombox, steve jobs

When you have four hours to kill in a shopping center, you get to see what the "real" inhabitants of the locallity are like.

Overbiting slobs who got pregnant at 15 to the local "future mental care order" kid with the wet grin, no school exam passes and slight bum fluff moustache.

I was only glad that my iPod and tin foil hat was there to shield my brain from the "mongoloid transmitter" cunningly hidden in the area of Floor 4 of the multi-story car park.

Then again, it could have been my lack of sleep, anxiety and the sudden influx of "Grande Mocha's" that skewed my view of things there.

My 10 year passport expired in October last year!

FUCK!

I called the helpline I have an appointment for the ?96.50 "1 day fast-track service" at Peterborough Passport office next week. I have to be there at 0830 and then kill 4 hours waiting for them to make the passport for me.

And the local Post Office's passport photo machine is "out of order" too, so I have got to go to the main shopping center later to get them done!

Last time I used the passport, to go to St Lucia, 10 years ago, I had to do the same then too!

What a twat!

No, no, no!
This was not why blogging was invented!
Gah!

ps. Turn your sound off… crap MIDI file alert!

Darth Vader Soundboard
Monty Python and the Holy Grail Soundboard
Borat Soundboard
Bender Soundboard

All via DevilDucky

Does anyone have any advice for me before I travel?

• Places to see?
• Places to eat?
• Muggers to avoid?
• Presents to buy my kids?

Technorati Tags: new york, NYC, america, holiday, vacation, presents

I'm goin' killing!

“Darling, this is the pig I have sex with when you have a headache.”

His girlfriend who is lying in bed replies: “I think you’ll find that’s a sheep, you idiot.”

Bruce says: “I think you’ll find I wasn’t talking to you.

Thanks to the esteemed Captain Beefheart for this!
The first laugh i’ve had all day!

After all, my old Xbox (which is still sitting quite comfortably next to my 360 under the TV) was mainly used as a Media Centre, so I did'nt want to give up that functionality when I upgraded.

I attempted to get this working the other day but failed miserably. The 360 would not see the XPMCE machine on the network at all! I did some further reading yesterday over at the XboxScene forums and ran through all the updates from the M$ WindowsUpdate site last night. I thought I had the latest version installed already – but apparently not.

An interesting side note is that once you have gone to the M$ WindowsUpdate site and it's Validation Check thing reports that your copy of XP is dodgy, you can go to Tools > Internet Options > Programs > Manage Add-ons and set the Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool to "disabled" and it works after that! How fucked up is that? Well… fucked up in a good way.

I did'nt get a chance to test it further until this morning after the kids and wife had left for school – and after a little tinkering with the ZoneAlarm firewall (ie disabling the fecker) the PC reported that a new Xbox360 was detected and I was prompted to download another extra bit of software and enter a validation key that the 360 had given me.

AND THEN IT WORKED!!!!!

I nearly pissed my pants with joy! So many people have had issues with getting the two connected. I don't believe in god – but he was on my side today!

I had already converted a DivX video to the WMV format that the 360 likes using the Videora Xbox360 Converter and it worked a treat! The only problem is that the file literally doubled in size to just over 1.6gb! There is a way of converting movies from DivX to WMV on the fly, detailled over here but it looks a little complicated really.

Update: Just found out about this application too which was written by the original Xbox Media Centre programmers. And he's from Milton Keynes too!

Technorati Tags: XP, XP media centre edition, mce, xbox, xbox 360, videora, stream, zonealarm, genuine advantage, WMV, DIVX

I have been using GMail for nearly a year and a half now and am still very impressed with it.

But what's missing from GMail?

1. The ability to use a GMail calendar would be excellent.
As my wife will attest, my memory for personal stuff is total crap! I can remember an IP Address of an old obscure decomissioned NT3.51 server at work, but I am not sure when my Mother and Father's birthdays are! Or even how old they are!

If I could create a Calendar in GMail and (have my Wife) update it, share it with others, tag or categorise the entries then that would be cool. There are rumors that a Google Calendar is somewhere on their (immense) roadmap – but for now I will have to rely on someone else to organise my life for me.

I have recently found out about the 30Boxes calendar which looks nice. Would be great if it was in my GMail account though. It is still in Beta and does not get properly "born" until the 3rd of Feb.

2. Online storage.
I already use my GMail account to store useful information that I need access to on a fairly regular basis. I compose a message, enter the information and then save the message as a draft. The information is then easily searchable and available to be copied or forwarded on to others if need be.

I use drafts to keep a copy of:

• Phone numbers
• Addresses
• Passwords
• Interesting sites i've found (that are "NSFW") ;-p
• Blog HTML code that go AWOL when posting to Blogger
• My Blogger template HTML code

It might be nice to be able to handle this information in a better way. Maybe an "Online Documents" or "Notepad" section would be useful. I came across Writely, the excellent Web2.0 based Word Processor which would be a good addition to GMail. You can even make posts to your blog from there too!

I also use the Draft facility to move documents from one PC to another. For example, it's quicker for me to upload a file to a draft to take from home to work (to print on the expensive color laser) than to get my USB2 Hard Disk out of my bag each time.

3. Color tagged messages.
Gmail allows you to create "labels" for messages, which can also be usefull for tagging messages you need to find easily. This can be done by clicking the label on the sidebar which automatically shows the messages tagged as such. You can also "star" messages to make them stand out too. A little "gay" though methinks!

What I want is to be able to tag messages with colors. It's not really for anything amazing – it would just be nice to be able to do so.

4. Incorprate Google Reader.
I currently use Bloglines to manage and read my RSS subscriptions, but I am sure Google Reader would get more interest from me if I could view the RSS feeds properly within my GMail.

I know that GMail has recently added that little "Web Clips" thing along the top – but for the RSS hungry types like me, it's totally useless and just gets in the way.

All Google need to do is improve the interface of the Google Reader and allow it to be displayed inside the GMail window somehow and all will be well. At the moment, the nice scrolling interface on the Google Reader just takes up too much space and I can't easily see the feeds I want to get to. Bloglines have got it right in my opinion. Quick and simple.

5. Online Favorites.
I have just started using Del.icio.us to store my online favorites and findings but if i could drop those into GMail too that would be cool. Import my Firefox bookmarks or IE favorites and off I would go! I could then subscribe to them in firefox as a "live bookmark" and have them all updated and available where ever I went.

I realise that Using Del.icio.us you can do all this (and more) and it looks very powerful. The Import function is offline at the moment though so I will have to test that later.

6. Interface.
The GMail interface is good, fast and responsive on all the machines that I use it on. This is where services like Hotmail have gone down in my opinion – too much clutter and fancy crap on the screen just makes it too slow to use. Keeping it simple keeps me sweet!

To incorporate all the extra features I have mentioned above, Google could add some sort of tabbed interface along the top or bottom of the GMail screen. Not too much to ask though is it?

I'm sure all this is pontificating is falling on deaf ears though…

Hello? Is there anybody in there?

Technorati Tags: gmail, googlemail, google, webmail, 30boxes, calendar, bloglines, del.icio.us, writely, hotmail, firefox, live bookmarks

All mixed down into categories too!

Thankyou Web of Knowledge

John Kiel Patterson was unavailable to comment. Presumably because all he could hear when we rang to talk to him was the "Brain Morse Code Bleep-Trance Remix" brought on by his adverse Tinitus.

I have decided to sue Apple too.

For somehow smuggling "SugarBabes" and "Beyonce" into my iTunes and therefore into my iPod and therefore into my brain where they go round and round and round until I can't sleep, I can't work and I can't stand NO MORE!

Gits!

I'm still total crap – but am getting better.

I actually finished 2 races rather than getting timed out and my powerslides are getting more… er… "powerier" too. I am slowly working out how to use the handbrake button at last. I'm sure most players don't use the break at all in favour of the handbrake, as I hardly ever see any red lights as they approach a corner.

Playing on XBox Live is quite funny though, listening to the jovial banter in the lobby area which then turns to "you mutha-fucka! Piss off and practice you twat!" in a variety of languages as the cars pile up at the first corner. People seem to forget it's a game and get very, very intense about it.

I also played a few "Team Slayer" and "Rumble Armory" games on Halo2. I started off good on the RA games I played, coming 2nd or 3rd but on the TS games I was always on the losing team. Or rather, the losing team always had me on their side. The people playing on Halo2 seem to be alot friendlier and I got invited to a Party Game by someone too.

Great fun . But a shame it does'nt update my GamerCard to say i've been playing Halo2 though… never mind.

Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox live, xbox 360, halo2, halo, PGR3, Project Gotham Racing, powerslide

Anyway – here goes…

Four Jobs I've had:

• Washing up/dirt removal operative
• Shelf stacker/Supermarket technician
• Archaeology Site Technician/mud scraper
• iT-mumbo-jumbo-fix-er-upper/tea drinker

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:

• The Empire Strikes Back
• Carry On Doctor
• Revenge Of The Sith
• Madagascar (not through choice! The kids love it)

Four Places I have Lived:

• London – E17
• Milton Keynes – MFK
• Does "The Internet" count?
• The list endeth here…

Four TV Shows I Would Love to Watch:

• LOST
• Any computer gaming show on Bravo
• Never Mind The Buzzcocks
• Black Adder

Four Places I have been on Vacation:

• St Lucia
• Gran Canaria
• France
• Dublin

Four Websites You Visit Daily:

• BlogLines
• BBC News
• Gmail
• Google

Four of My Favorite Foods:

• Peanut Butter
• Cheese Twists (the dry biscuit type)
• Almond Danish
• Egg and Tomato sandwiches

Four Places I would Rather Be:

• I concur with my "tagee", mmChronic. Bed – with my wife – would be the best option..
• Or playing my 360 comes very close too..

Four Albums I Cannot Live Without:

• Early Oasis
• Stone Roses, Stone Roses
• Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
• Pungent Effulgent – Ozric Tentacles

Four People to Tag:

• Not gonna tag no-one – if you feel like replying… do so.
• Its a free country after all..

In order to do this effectively I would have to limit the size of the inital view of the latest posting to a few lines and then introduce a "Read More" item at the bottom for people to load the full thing up.

I did a search for Blogger Hacks and found this posting by Nerdier than thou! on how to create such a thing.

The only issue I can see with this is that you have to insert some CSS code into your post to get it to work correctly – which I don't want to do. I just want to make a posting and have the first portion of it displayed automatically.

So… Off to JavaScript land I went and came up with something that actually works!

Here's the code bit i stuck in my template:

<mainorarchivepage>

<script type="text/javascript">

var str_length=400;

str = '<$BlogItemBody$>';
last_dot = str.indexOf('.',str_length);
document.write(str.substring(0,last_dot + 1));
</script>

<br><a href="<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>">Read more!</a>
</mainorarchivepage>

<itempage>
<$BlogItemBody$>
</itempage>

The blog post is written into the variable str and then the post is scanned for the next full stop after the number of characters specified in the str_length variable. To show more content, increase the value of str_length.

The post is then re-written using the document.write command as far as that full stop character to allow for proper sentences to be displayed rather than being cut off in mid flow.

The JavaScript is between the <mainorarchivepage> tags to allow it to be shown on the front page.

A normal <$BlogItemBody$> tag is shown between the <itempage> tags to allow it to be displayed in full when you click the "Read More!" link.

This is still a Work In Progress – so please don't take it as gospel – but I think it works ok. Not sure how it will work with pictures though.

Rather than messing with CSS code, I was thinking of putting some keywords into the text such as !start! and !end! to signify the start and end of the posting you want to be displayed before the "Read More!" link. That should be pretty easy for JavaScript to sense and strip them out, and alot easier than going into the HTML code when posting.

I unpacked the console when I got home, connected it to the net, signed into XboxLIVE and took out my free 1 month gold trial account.

The plan was to show the kids the awesome power of the new console before they went to bed (as they seemed more excited than I was). This "great unveiling" did not take place though as it clashed with the start of Eastenders and I was forced to send them to bed "empty eyed".

During the next four hours of TV that my wife watches on a Thursday night (Eastenders, 10 Years Younger, Celebrity Big Brother and ER) I dipped in and out of LIVE during the ad-breaks to download demos of FIFA 2006 RTWC, Fight Night 3, Fully Loaded, NBA Live and Quake 4. Plus a few videos, Live Arcade games and stuff like that. I am really impressed with the content on there that is free. More to come I expect – and hopefully more gamercard pictures too that I don't have to pay for!

Come 11pm, the wife went to bed and I settled down with a fresh cuppa, poised to beat hell out of a computer generated assailant on Fight Night 3. And wow! The graphics were amazing! So realistic and crisp and clean. Forget buying a HDTV! The image was perfect! The gameplay is a little sluggish – but seeing the ripples on the guys face when you upper-cut him to the canvas is excellent. Jolly good fisty-cuff fun!

I then moved onto play Fully Loaded which is a racing game with guns, missiles and other assorted weapons. The console version of the old Car Wars game I used to play years ago. Again, the graphics impressed but the game play was limited (although this is a demo). Race and fire, jump, crash etc. Very good fun and probably best played on LIVE against some real opponents I would expect. Die muthafunker!

Third down was Quake 4 which initially looked very "PC Graphics" during the intro sequence. When the real game started though I was impressed and reminded of Doom4. Looks very very good. I wonder if this was a straight port from the PC version with not much tweaking? I was expecting a first person shooter deathmatch though – maybe that was on one of the other menu options.

FIFA 2006 RTWC is just fucking amazing. As you may have read in my previous posts I have recently got really into playing FIFA 2006 on my (old) Xbox and usually play every day. So when I saw how detailled the graphics, character modelling and environment was… well… I just kept on saying "oh my god! – there is grass! They rendered grass!!". This is definitely my next purchase and have already been investigating the prices on eBay in readiness for my Valentines present. I was totally blown away by this title. The demo is only one half though – Brazil vs France. And the annoying thing is that you have to re-load the whole demo to play again! Grrr! Tossers!

I then played Project Gotham 3 – buying a white Skyline as my first car and completing a few races and goals. I also played one online game but got my ass well and truly kicked! I am well gonna have to "up my game" on this title. Definitely one to put some time into. As with the other games, the graphics are so smooth and detailled. Very very good. Something that I have been waiting for since I used to play REVS on my BBC Micro back in the 80s.

So, to sum up – the console is everything that I was expecting and a whole load more. I am totally blown away by the graphics and do not regret buying one at all now! No anti-climax! WOW! It must be a first for me. Before I used one I was slightly sceptical about the wireless controller and had a feeling that I would play with the cable attached – but now… no way! Its a really nice controller. The only thing missing was the IR Remote which they have now excluded from the Premium pack. Well. I am not too fussed about that really. Unless the DivX streaming from my PC to the 360 can be sorted properly – the old Xbox will be the media player for now.
The fan in the console is quite noisy though and when you are playing from a DVD rather than the hard disk – it's even worse! Then again, it was 1am and the house was deathly quiet.

Whats next? Dead Or Alive 3, more FIFA, getting XP Media Center Edition onto my PC and getting back into online gaming. I have also got a disk with the Beta of Final Fantasy 8 to load on (better take a USB keyboard home too as I hear the registration stuff is immense) and a copy of the Xbox360 retailler demo disk with playable levels of King Kong and Call Of Duty 2 on. Oh – and I also have my retail copy of Halo2 to play too. Deathmatch fun – here we come.

Here's my gamercard.. come say hello!

Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox live, xbox 360, taoski, fifa, fight night, pgr, project gotham, revs, carwars, quake 4, w00t!

I would install Apache and WordPress locally, following the instructions over here and publish a work intranet blog thing to help us feed out information to the members of our (small) section.

I have recently been fiddling with this setup on my machine at home and if you are lucky, you might even find my test WordPress blog lurking over at http://taoski.blogdns.com – but only if my firewall lets you in, the Apache stuff is running and the kids are not playing Backyardigans games on the web.

It works pretty well – especially for testing out WordPress – which is way, way, way more advanced than Blogger and looks pretty cool. I still intend to migrate to WordPress and my own domain at some point – but as you can guess from my previous post, cash and my spare time might be a little tight!

Anyway. I get the site set up at work and its all working but Apache just keeps on crashing!

Crashing when I attempt to upload a file during a post, crashing when I try to post a test comment and crashing when I move the mouse too fast after drinking too much coffee.

I'm on the late shift tonight – so I might have time to play with it a little more.

Ahhh… the joys of a technical job… Don't you just love it?
It used to be all "exciting", "innovative" and "rewarding" but now it's just "boring", "samey" and "mundane".

I wish I had used my A-Level art and A-Level Graphics Design for something rather than just creating a pile of quickly deteriorating artwork under my bed or making the odd kiddies party invitation on MS Publisher.

A nice design job like DriverChris does would be nice….

09:50: Turn up to work with expensive "Michael Caine" glasses, expensive sharp suit and expensive coffee in hand.
10:30: Start "design" work after reading The Guardian and sending emails to your "pretend mates" on your Blackberry.
12:00: Off to the Wine Bar for lunch with "Fifi and Charles" from "The agency".
13:30: Back to work to sketch out that idea that came to you as you "piss-chased" some chewing gum round the urinal in the wine bar.
13:40: Get distracted for a while by minimising the windows on your Mac to "the dock" and back again. You forget the idea you had. Time to have a power-nap.
14:30: Play with your Mac a bit more and read some websites about design and Audi cars.
15:00: Team meeting in the office. See who's got the brightest pink shirt and discuss the future of "frameless fixed-width inline CSS templates" for your customer portfolio.
15:50: Return to the desk and fiddle with Illustrator/Photoshop/Quark until the boss goes home.
17:00: Off home on the tube with your iPod, another expensive coffee and copy of Stuff magazine.
18:00: Get home to your lonely flat. Cry in your Findus "sad and lonely microwave meal for one". Go bed early after watching Trinnie and Susannah, getting tipsy on sparking white wine and being all confused over your sexual preferences….

Is the grass greener? Who knows?

I won't. I am doomed to be stuck at this desk whilst a telephone headset burns a ridge into my skull, I fix the same faults I resolved 4 years ago and the world passes me by.

EDIT: Just found this alternative program for running Apache and MySql locally to run WordPress: WampServer

Technorati Tags: apache, wordpress, xampp, blogger, intranet, work, design, ipod, audi, art

A Premium bundle with Project Gotham Racing too. Looks like my online gaming will be taking off again!

But as usual, in total Taoski fashion – "Anti-climax… here we come". I was almost on the verge of telling the bloke to not bother getting me one after all – but it's too late now.

I will have to seek out a version of Windows XP Media Centre too then I suppose!

Technorati Tags: xbox 360, microsoft, xbox, anti climax, project gotham, halo, windows media centre

Plus, hello to my two new readers, Wendy and Darren who popped round tonight for drinks and nibbles. We did'nt mention the wife swapping stuff yet… break em' in gently!

ps.. i'm joking!

Shrinkydinks? Still going strong!
A huge list of albums to download.
Some nice wallpapers here
e-books (site in russian)
PayPal Sucks! – apparently!
ZCult FM – a comic scans torrent site!

I turned up and was ushered into a room to see an ewok sitting at a desk, pretending to be a doctor. I had seen him once before when I was admitted the night I discovered I might have a heart condition and at the time, my wife and I both thought "Ewok!".

It turns out that I was in fact turning up for a consultation with the doctor to examine the results of the 24 hour tape monitor I wore and the results of the Echo Scan too. But I had not had the scan yet….. ah! Problem.

He called the Cardiology section and checked. Yes, they should have booked me an appointment and I should have had the scan by now – but they fucked up and forgot. There is a 5 month waiting list for the scan – so I can expect to go for this sometime in May and a return visit to see my furry Ewok friend in mid-July.

Piss.

The results of the tape monitor were good and show no cause for concern – at all, so I should be "encouraged" by this and I am safe to start going to the Gym again.

He also told me that I need to be having daily, dirty sex as part of my rehabilitation. So wifey, if you are reading this…..

Technorati Tags: heart, cardiology, echo scan, doctor, star wars, ewok, gym

Must resist….

Must be strong….

Hold on…. got no money!
Decision made for me!

Technorati Tags: apple, imac, intel, steve jobs, got no fucking money

Not that Blogger is crap or slow or full of spam blogs and is generally seen to be the AOL of the Blogging world or anything. Blogger has served me well over the years but I want more control over my blog, how it looks, functions and is accessible.

I am going to buy a domain name, some webspace and host a WordPress blog there.
I will also amalgamate this blog, my Photao Photoblog and Music Club blogs into one giant tri-headed beast.

WordPress will also allow me to create sub-blogs for subjects – so I could have a personal blog, a tech blog and a blog about my pet rock, Mr Stone Knee Boy (joke! – honest). I kind of have a picture in my head of how it will all pan out and work – but we shall see. Webspace and a platform like WordPress will allow me to customise the site to my needs.

The Newlinks boys made the switch away from Blogger quite a while ago and are still going strong on their nice Drupal based platform. Drupal is also possibly "in the running" for providing the front end for my new site. This is even more customisable than WordPress but may be too much for what I need. I have got a website to design for Flights-Physiques.co.uk and wish I had got him to purchase a business hosting service so I could install Drupal or WordPress. At least then he could update the news section of the site himself!

Taoski.co.uk is available as a domain name and I can use WordPress to import all my Blogger posts and comments – so watch this space suckers!

Related links: WordPress for beginners, WordPress Themes, Working with WordPress.

Technorati Tags: blogger, wordpress, blog, drupal, newlinks, pet rock, hosting, site, photao, music club

In fact – I have little opinion about very little – and what I do have an opinion about, I usually keep to myself.

Last night during my usual 9pm Sunday night shower, I was listening to "The Sunday Surgery" on Radio1. An Agony Aunt style program where listeners can call in with problems and the smug doctor and presenter can advise them on where they went wrong.

As part of this format, they have a section where the listeners can call in to give their opinion and advice on someone elses problem. This time, the person who needed the information was a 17 year old girl who was deciding if she should have an abortion or not, as her 21 year old boyfriend said he would "stick by her" and "do good for the baby n' nat". She had not told anyone else about this though…

This is wrong on so many levels.

• The fact that Radio1 should entertain a public airing of such a contravertial issue.
• The fact that Radio1 chose it to be a "free for all" allowing the public to call in to help.
• The fact that the girl actually came on the air and talked about the problem to millions of people – but she could'nt tell her parents.

Poo to Radio1 for allowing this to go ahead. I never heard the ending, or any of the comments that "the public" gave – but I can imagine what they were like.

I'm glad i'm a Radio4 man. They have much better programs.

Technorati Tags: radio1, abortion, agony aunt, chav, pregnant, doctor, advice

Apart from one section…

"That charpering omi is a dish! Troll over and vada his basket for me!"

Polari is the name used to describe British gay slang from the 50's and 60's when the subject or practice of being homosexual was rather frowned upon. In an effort to keep the movement underground, a secret language was developed and used by the gay community so you could converse in public about the size of "that bloke at the bar's todger" without getting arrested, beaten up or both.

Polari, or pallare, is also used to refer to the internal slang languages used by other groups such as sailors, gypsies, circus folk and vagrants. So possibly "can you spare 10p for a cuppa tea guv" could have some other sinister hidden message the public have not yet grasped.

Kenneth Williams, a popular gay actor and comedian in the 60's (now deceased) has been partially blamed for destroying the now seldom used language by using it frequently as part of a comedy radio show, Round The Horne. The show was listened to by millions of the British public and such mass exposure to the terms ensured that no-one was safe using them any longer. Also, the eventual acceptance of the homosexual communities ensured that Polari was no longer needed – as that bloke at the bar now knew his enemy and could beat you up even if you weren't talking about his todger anyway!

A list of common words, meanings and a brief history of Polari can be found here.

And just for the record. I am not an omi-palone, a meese or a riah shusher! I was just intrigued by this stuff I had never heard of before!

Technorati Tags: polari, pallare, language, slang, gay, homosexual, kenneth williams, round the horne, OED, BBC

I have "dabbled" with Podcasts in the past and have a few subscriptions in my iTunes which I usually delete after a few weeks of not listening to some nasal american whining on about how great his Mac is or some half drunk english guys who are supposedly funny.

In my opinion, 99.9% of Podcasts are all total crap. It might be the latest "big thing" but I read enough useless WOBBs (Waste Of Bandwith Blogs) – I don't want to hear them talk in my head too!

SwimPig had downloaded the previously unheard of to me, Ricky Gervais podcast and when I went to the Podcasts page in iTunes, I found that it had overtaken the Best of Chris Moyles Podcast (which I already had subscribed to and deleted) as the most popular.

I have downloaded all 5 episodes to my iPod and have just been pissing myself in the toilet (pun intended) , trying not to laugh out loud. And that is only 9 minutes into the first one! It is very good – and well worth the download.

At last! A good and funny Podcast! Until I get mine done of course!

Technorati Tags: ipod, podcast, ricky gervais, chris moyles, itunes, toilet, laughing, humour

But why? When I put FIFA 2006 into my XBox for the first time and selected my local team as my favorite, it offered me the chance to play against the World Classic VII. They totally whipped my ass! Damn you Cantona! At least I got two of them sent off injured.

"Thats it… hobble away old man!… fat has-been!"

I have played the FIFA series on PS2, PC, GBA and Xbox for years and have really enjoyed getting beaten all the time. I am really crap at it – I admit! If and when I get onto XBox live and play someone – they are gonna kill me. Unless it's some spotty schoolkid who's shins I can hack away until I get the game abandoned through too many red cards against me.

The latest version for Xbox, FIFA 2006, is visually amazing, fluid, realistic, fast and fun. So i can get beaten in real graphical class! Definitely a must have game!

On a side note, I have actually bought my first real retail game for my Xbox!

Halo 2 from Play.com for a tenner!. Hard to pass up really. Especially if I get the 360 and can play it online too!

Technorati Tags: xbox, fifa, fifa 2006, football, soccer, xbox live, MK Dons

The only problem was that they were only willing to sell them for ?460, bundled with 4 (crap) games. What a load of fucking tosh they are! Trying to squeeze even more money out of me so they can sell more games! Thats an extra ?190!

Since my matey Swimpig has got himself a PSP for xmas and I have put in a good few minutes on it – I am pretty impressed with it. I am now in a quandry over getting a PSP – or getting a 360. Maybe I could get a PSP and then a 360 in the summer but I am not sure. The thought process behind getting a PSP means that I could play FIFA when the missus is watching her soap opera stuff.

It might be worth me holding out for a non-retail PSP with some nice old-school firmware so I can load homebrew apps and emulators on it. I can then sell my GBA-SP to part-fund the venture.

The problem is – I really want BOTH of these items – but feel that if/when I get one of them I expect I will feel terribly unfulfilled. I'm not sure what it is about me and these kind of things. I obsess about them until I get them and then…. nothing. A real anti-climax. I have been the same with my iPod. I do use it – but not as often as I thought.

It's a good job I have'nt got much money – otherwise my house would be (more) full of crap!

Technorati Tags: PSP, xbox360, xbox 360, microsoft, sony, playstation, game

Ever get the feeling you spend too much time farting with little CSS niceties in your template when you should be sleeping? 2 hours to make the comment background to alternate between grey and dark grey! Wahoo. I get the feeling it was not worth it now. Then again – I did it myself!

But not to the retarded customers at the local supermarket who were all wheeled and bussed in and had special "day out visits from the institution" just to piss me off and get in my way as I tried to gather some basic supplies yesterday.

I am normally quite deft at avoiding other "obstacles" when I am crusing the aisles but they just wanted to die! 10 points for a crusty, 15 for demented, dirty slob parented children and 30 bonus points for bashing the shins of the employee who decided to drag out a cage of stock right in front of me! He deserved it.

I'm sure it was'nt all that bad. It may have had something to do with the fact that I have been off work all week with another throat infection. In my last post about… the last infection… I used a photo of someones tonsils I found off the net – but those ones above…are really mine! Come to papa!

I have also spent the time I was not hallucanating from the effects of a 4-a-day dose of 250mg of Penacillin, making cardboard christmas hats for when we go and spend a few nights at the in-laws over the xmas weekend. Apparently it is a family tradition they have (strangely left out of the ten christmas's I have spent with them) to wear ellaborate hats at the christmas dinner table.

We (i) appear to have ended up making 11 hats for the people in attendance this year and I present the current state of play, modelled by some annoyed children (click em' to Big Em' Up in Flickr):

In order from left to right:

1. Sister In Laws Hat.
She has recently got herself a Moto RAZR V2 phone and is generally one of those people whose phone and mouth never stops, so i modelled one for her! My wife and I did the eyes and mouth together.

2. Ethan's Hat (my youngest).
He is mad on trains and Thomas The Tank Engine so I modelled him Thomas running on the tracks across his head. Thats him too BTW.

3. Father In Laws Hat.
He owns his own video production company and is also the editor/cameraman. I tried to make this look like a camera. There is a fish jumping on the other side as his area of expertise is in filming and making the best and most popular fishing videos in the UK (and world!!). That hot model is me BTW.

4. Corin's Hat (my eldest).
This is finished apart from the spray paint, but is supposed to be Darth Vader. Possibly the most difficult hat to make so far. And when he came down in the morning and saw it, he complained that he wanted a Father Christmas hat instead. Thanks mate… love you too…

5. My Wife's Hat.
She is renown for stealing all the gravy at the dinner table. This started off as a hat for Corin but began to look too much like a weird blow-up-doll – so we changed it to my wifes instead.

6. Lily's Hat (my niece).
Supposed to be a sort of Cleopatra type hat. What you can't see is the glittery hair at the back but the snake was all modelled by me out of cardboard!

7. Joe's Hat (my nephew)
This is supposed to be a "chiselled jawed pretty boy" hat as he is an image conscious teenager. It reminds me of a gladiators mask or something though.

8. Mother In Laws Hat.
Obsessed with cleaning and cleanliness, this hat features her rubber gloves and cleaning materials. She made it actually – but we finished it off for her.

9. Luke's Hat (my nephew).
He is currently at Bath University studying "commerical music" so we thought a hat with Symbals, a bass drum (he is a Grade 8 level drummer) a mic, and a guitar amp would be appropriate.

10. My Hat.
What else? An iPod hat! It sits on my head in it's own "dock" and features real (cast off) headphones glued in. Its yet to be sprayed but will end up gold. I will also stick on an iPod screen too so it looks authentic (and even more geeky). I did toy with the idea of being able to remove it from the dock too and carry it around… but that was just silly!

Just one more to go… and I think I might have to make a harmonica! Fecking hell! Don't think I will be doing this again next year!

Merry Xmas to all. I'm off to bed to watch the drugs do their work on the 70s light show cinema scape that is the inside of my eyelids! Wahoo!

If there are other regular readers of this Blog who have an XBox Live gamertag, let me know and I will add you to my list.

Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox360, microsoft, xbox live, live, gamertag, gamer tag

Apparently, a new verison of Apple's flagship iPod product is now headed for that dusty shelf in your living room, bedroom or study in the shape of a wireless enabled hard disk'ed up "Boombox". There is already a raft of other (expensive) speaker systems for the iPod so it seems common sense that Apple would provide their own system too. If it wireless connects and syncs to my iTunes too then that would be cool.

A basic iPod docking speaker system would be too "low tech" for Apple to make, so expect it to have lots more bells and whistles. No doubt it will be some kind of iPod docking device that allows you to connect to iTunes, and the iTunes Radio stations too over your wifi connection. Add the ability to sync the tunes on your pod' to the internal hard disk too for when your battery is dead and that will probably be something near to the final product.

The device may be announced at the Mac Expo early next year.

Technorati Tags: apple, ipod, boombox, wireless, itunes, radio

• 8 End-User Troubleshooting Tips
• Top 10 System Administrator Truths

I would also like to thank Bill Gates for making this all possible and keeping my salary rolling in.

Technorati Tags: windows 95, windows 98, windows 2000, windows xp, microsoft, support, admin, sysadmin, slashdot

• Motomail Free MP3 ringtones
• Motomail Uploaded Ringtones List

Technorati Tags: mp3, ringtones, ringtone, bluetooth, crazy frog

Here is a link to the eBay auction, complete with a full description of the XBox probably copied from the Official Microsoft Site – but with the added quip:

This auction is not for a Xbox 360 game system, but instead a picture of one. I hope you enjoy this high-quality item. The 360 is the hottest thing on the market.

I bet PayPal are working through their lunch break to sort this one out. If they can stop laughing that is.

And what does the purchaser have to say on this matter when leaving feedback?

Lying theif, stay away from this ebay member !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jesus. He can't even spell either!

After reading the tutorial over at Jonsguides for getting any USB Bluetooth Adapter to work with XP using the Widcomm software, I went in search of the required files that had been deleted (as requested by Widcomm) and found them!

All done via this search string on the mighty Tyoogle.

I have'nt tried this yet, but will tonight.
Enjoy!

Update: Installed the drivers and patches to my laptop. Followed the complete instructions here as Jon's is missing a bit. Tested, works brilliantly! Now, off to find a copy of Crazy Frog.mp3!

Head – bashing – desk – not – working!

Anyway, I digress.

For those people who have a "non-pukka" version of XP that fails the usual Windows Update verification thingies… heres a program that contains all of the latest updates and fixes all together. It also contains extras like the new XP Royale Theme that I blogged about earlier and the latest Google Toolbar. There is also a "lite" version that only contains the main fixes though.

The full download weighs in at over 100mb – so definitely not for those luddite modem people.

Get it over at the Autopatcher site.

There is also a hacked DLL doing the rounds that you have to patch your PC with in safe mode that will allow the verification tests to pass – but I have not tested it.

Update: Tested the DLL crack – works a treat! Happy Xmas!

He plays it on some dodgy "no-name, no-brand" 28 inch widescreen TV, so the game was not running at it's HDTV best (or anywhere near it) but I have to say, I was impressed.

Driving games are not really my forte but this game just looks so good! The detail in the cars, buildings and surroundings is so realistic and flows perfectly with no pop-up at all. I get the impression that this is a game where you could easily get lost in the "realism" of it all. As I was racing "downtown" in New York, a portion of the track takes you onto a bridge which just looked real as it whizzed past me! I was really really impressed.

Mum….
I know what I want for christmas….

I also tried to break it by pressing the Xbox button on the wireless controller when the game was loading a new track but it quite happily showed me part of the dashboard where I could see what my (Trev's) mates were up to on XBox Live and I could change my music prefs.
We tried to get the 360 hooked up to some MP3s on his PC using the Media Connect software but this did not seem to work. The PC could see the 360, but not the other way round. Odd. But I have seen some posts over at XBox-Scene where other people have had this issue too.

We then fired up Halo2 which looked crisper and more detailed than ever. The backwards compatibility worked a treat! Come on Halo3, bring it on!

Whilst trying to navigate the immense dimensions of our new local ADSA Walmart store I came across the small Xbox360 demo booth where a spotty faced employee was trying to get rid of an error on screen that said "no signal".

I went and looked at the toys with the kids and returned a little later to find the console working and a man playing FIFA2006 who had ditched his wheelchair bound mother to get at the new hardware. She sat with her back to him, cuddling her lap-blanket looking folornly at the nearby counter of cheap DVD Players, whilst her son pitted his skills of England against Germany.

As predicted, the game looked freakin amazing! The players facial textures and the detail on the clothing rippling in the wind was really cool. As the camera zoomed out to the usual view of the field during play it did not look quite as impressive. But as the bloke guided Paul Scholes to make a poorly judged tackle from behind (not that he would do that in real life…..) the cut scene was really well rendered!

My matey Dodgy Trev has managed to get an Xbox and I am off to play Project Gotham 3 at lunchtime tomorrow – so expect me to give an update after I return – unless I am too busy ringing round trying to find out where I can buy one!

In preparation for the event, I am summarising the stories since the US launch a few weeks ago so you can all be "well informed" and "make the right choice" before buying.

Fact#1:
There have been issues with the 360 crashing which appear to be maily due to the external AC power adapter overheating. The fix for this is to put it on top of a cardboard box! "No recalls!" shouted Micro$oft, "Par for the course!" said a M$ support person, "Pants!" we say!

Fact#2:
You can install the Windows Media Connect application from Micro$oft to stream "multimedia" from your XP machine to the 360. However, this only covers Music and Photos. If you have Windows XP Media Centre Edition installed, you will be able to use the video and PVR functions from the 360 – but at the moment there is (absolutely) no way to stream or play Divx/Xvid files on the 360. This looks interesting though – a little hacking to run XP MCE apps via the 360. Or maybe using VLC to stream any content through a web interface is the way forward.

Fact#3:
The Free60 project is already up and running to attempt to get Linux running on the Xbox360. They have found out lots of information about the internal hardware and its hacking restrictions that have been imposed. A clever chap called "The Hypervisor" is guarding the (bill) gates and seems to have butt-fucked any chance of a modded 360 (so far). So don't wait for a modded version people! See this article at Engadget for a run down on the internal structure of the 360. Still, nothing is impossible – but I have yet to see a 360 ISO file turn up on "the torrents".

Fact#4:
The DVD player functionality has already been panned. It plays "backup DVDs" ok but also has quite bad "artifacts" and "smearing" on screen, even from retail DVDs. Stick with the ?40 "Happy Shopper Matsui DVD Player" from Tesco methinks.

Fact#5:
Xbox 360 does allow you to plug in USB devices to access files such as music and photos. It will not allow you to play videos from that device though. You can connect your iPod and play music from it whilst playing a game, but you cannot rip music from the iPod (or any other USB device) to the 360's hard disk. This still has to be done by putting in your CD and ripping the tracks to the XBox hard disk in WMA format. Also, some MP3 devices are having issues being recognised by the 360, but this is mainly due to the fact that they are not *proper* USB Mass Storage Devices and may use their own internal disk format.

Taoski's Parting Comment:
"Whilst the 360 may appear to be the best thing since sliced bread, for me, the fact that there are *issues* connecting it to a PC to stream movies to it is a big no-no. I currently use my (modded) Xbox primarily as a media player using the excellent XBox Media Center application. Without that functionality in the new device – I will be scuppered."

"It does appear that it will be a long time before a modded version of the console comes out but I have been away from online gaming for many years and feel the need to get a *real console* that plays *real games* so I can play against *real people*. Plus I should be teaching my kids the real value of things now they are getting older. Nothing comes for free – and if its worth having, then its worth working for."

"I have yet to see a 360 in action pre-release day despite a trawl of my local gaming stores at the weekend. No doubt I will see Project Gotham playing and then obsess about getting one like I do with most other things. But for now I will stick with my current Xbox which does all I want it to and whilst the graphics on games like Burnout Revenge still amaze me – thats enough for me."

Taoski says "RELAX" (and wait until next year to get a cheaper bundle).

Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox360, microsoft, uk

I bought this book for my kids a few years ago and when I read it to them, certain of the pictures give me a real feeling of euphoria from when I was young. There is one part where the elephant takes a bun from the bakers shop and the image of his trunk reaching through the door is very emotive for me. It's not the story, just the pictures.

I have recently obtained a copy of a DVD called "Rollin Through The Decades" which charts the history of skateboarding in the UK. The added bonus is that it is edited by my friend Ben, who I have talked about in the Music Club Blog several times. The main focus of the documentary is around the South Bank in London where skateboarding has been welcomed, revilled, accepted and then outlawed many times over the years.

Around the time I used to skate (circa 1987-1993), there was a skateboarding magazine called R.A.D. (Read And Destroy) which I used to buy every month. On Rollin Through The Decades, the magazine's creator, Tim Leighton Boyce talked about the creation of the mag and quite a few skaters pontificated over the content and style.

Just seeing the covers of the magazine brought back similar feelings to those I described earlier. I can still remember the pictures and articles too, each one as emotive as the last.

Then, over at the Too Old To Skate blog, I found a link to a new online archive of the R.A.D. magazine, setup by none other than the creator himself!

I hope he features the issue where they came to Milton Keynes. I was there when the photographer was taking shots – but i never got into any of them (as I was too crap probably) but there were lots of my friends in them.

Oh happy days!

Not expecting too much, I installed the app – and it makes a hell of a difference! Not only does it increase the volume, it also expands the aural fidelity audio frequency curve graphology rating too!

Ouch, ears… bleeding!

Well worth an install!

Technorati Tags: ipod, volume hack, apple, ears, bleeding

I watched most of it last night in the Taoski's Torrent Sofa Cinema and I was impressed! It certainly is the best HP film to date – and I have'nt even got to the good bit yet at the end of "The Maze"…

Mad Eye is done very well actually and does the character justice.

So… sorry… I appologise.

Technorati Tags: harry potter, goblet of fire, mad eye moody, HP

Trapped in a high salary, crap boring job that is the same every hour, day, week, year. Too scared to leave, too frightened to speak up in case of the dreaded "sideways career move" to another part of the company.

At one point we, "the team", were the best of the best. We were looked upon in great esteem and revered in the highest eschelons of the corporate infrastructure. We were like gods, paving the golden road ahead in the world of remote PC fixes, "the best of the best". Our names were engraved upon the wooden toilet seats of our directors and fanfares were sounded when our names were spoken in meetings.

I was their DemiGod. The bringer of light, chief fighter against evil and the writer of the holy and sacred batchfiles. Life was good. Work was a laugh, EVERY DAY! and it was real good fun.

"The light at the end of the tunnel just turned out to be the screen of another broken PC……."

How did it all turn into this rat-shit?

It's nice n yummy.

Technorati Tags: xp, theme, royale. eye candy

Yep. I got the Man Flu again – but this time I also get to have 100% extra free Throat Infection too! Yipee!.. ow!

I started to feel all tingly and achy on Friday last week and went downhill fast. Slept for 21 hours on Saturday and then had to endure the dreamlike comical toytown nightmare reality that was taking my wife to work on Sunday and then looking after the kids for six hours. Its amazing how much notice kids take of you when you are shouting soundlessly at them from the dizzy void of another dimension. The highlight of Sunday was taking my kids for a spin on the merry-go-round at the new Christmas display at my local shopping centre. It was just like the ending of 2001 – but with more hurting. It might have all been a dream… I'm just not sure!

I got prescribed Penicillin (Phenoxymeythylpenicillin potassium) by my local surgery on Monday and have been on a steady dose since. Much crashing on the sofa was also prescribed and some DVDs had to be watched.

I braved a return to work yesterday, against others wishes and better sound judgement, thinking I would be able to function but just found that my computer screen had turned into a milky puddle of rippling colour and that my hands kept on disappearing. When I was trying to talk to Mr Noxious about a remote install of Access 2000 he was attempting to an NT4 workstation with a .147 IP address I had to struggle to keep my sanity as he veered off the subject at random to talk about "tubes" and "hair folicles". Not what I needed at all.

Again today I feel like my head is being squashed into the corner of the sofa by a big bean bag full of tiny ringing alarm clocks. My spacial awareness has gone completely off the radar and things look and feel a lot smaller or larger than they could be. Even as I sit and type this on my spongy keyboard, I feel the room spinning around me under my chair (which thankfully is on wheels) and my feet feel like the floor is pitching up and down under them, like they are on the pedal of an old sewing machine.

Must be time for some food I think. Nothing too crunchy though.

Technorati Tags: cold, flu, infection, penicillin, dream, void, headache

On a similar and related theme, heres some links for an iTunes hack to Download music videos from the iTunes. This has recently been blocked by Apple (after the announcement of the iPod that does video) so check the links on the Latest URLs page. Right click the link on the Latest URLs page and paste it into the box on the front page. This will give you a .MOV URL which you can copy out to do with, what you desire.

Also keep an eye on the UNEASYSilence version (which is currently offline) as it worked better

Also from the UNEASYSilence site are the instructions for How to download high res album art from iTunes and How to download movie trailers from iTunes.

Technorati Tags: iPod, iPod Nano, Nano, iTunes, Apple, Hack, video, album art, ITMS

This is not what I expected Mad Eye Moody to look like!

In my minds eye he was a lot more "grotesque" than this. He was more kind of like Robert Deniro's version of Frankenstein's monster. And what the hell is that? A strap on eye? Get a grip!

I might have to go back and check The Goblet Of Fire for the first description of Moody – but this just destroys him for me. Nearly as bad as casting Keanu Reeves as John Constantine for the poor film version of the Hellblazer comics….

Casting directors….. "Stupefy!"

Technorati Tags: harry potter, the goblet of fire, mad eye moody, tgof, constantine, keanu reeves, Brendan Gleeson

Not just being environmentally friendly and quiet, the train also runs at a respectable 130kph and according to travellers on the maiden voyage, ran on time.

I'm not sure what Rev Awdry would have to say about this – but i don't expect a DVD version of "Thomas and the shitty smelling train" will be landing on my sons lap at christmas time.

Technorati Tags: thomas the tank engine, biogas, train, cow, environment

As detailled over at the XBOX Forums already, stock for some major retail stores in the US like WalMart will only be able to sell between 10-50 units on a first come first serve basis with only one purchase per person. The dedicated gamer outlets like Electonics Boutique may only receive 16 units per store which will piss off the 60 odd people who have already pre-ordered – over 30 of which were promised a console.

Some other stores worldwide have also been told that they must sell out on the launch date and that they must sell at least two games per console.

The spin on this is possibly two fold.

• Has Microsoft had issues making the consoles in time for the launch date? If so then the low stock estimates could be valid.
• However, predicting a sell out on launch date, creating a high demand for the "must have" next gen console could also work in their favour, creating a shopping frenzy. Hell, they are already on eBay for over ?300!

What ever the reason, if I don't get one on December the 25th… i will stamp my feet and cry.

Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox 360, microsoft, walmart, electronics boutique, christmas, presents

Mr Postman delivered my GBA Flash Cart this morning before 9am! Hows that for eBay service! Ordered yesterday afternoon – delivered today!

I unboxed my new toy and slapped it into the USB port on my XP box and installed the drivers, briefly read the instructions (ignored most of it) and launched the program from the included CD to upload some **ahem** backups of my games I already own.

ERROR: NOT ENOUGH ROOM

The Cart stated that it had 256mb free… but only 256MB RAM – not ROM…. Hmm…
I tried to format the card using the same program – but it just crashed every time.
Thoughts of negative eBay feedback entered my mind as I re-read the instructions.

I went off to the manufacturers website and began to download the latest version of the upload client and was a small part way through downloading it over my 2Meg ADSL line at 3.2kb a second when I found a slightly older version on another site. Downloaded that – unRARed it and tested… it worked!!!

I was able to pick my ROM images and load them into the application ready for uploading.
So why did’nt Mr eBay supply the latest version of the client too? He did supply his own CD with the drivers on, but they were obviously the old version!

So I now have …er… some ROMs on the cart. And for the record.. it works – perfectly!
It boots to a loader screen (with wallpaper you can change) and you arrow up and down the list of games and press the A Button to load them.

I don’t know why I did’nt get one years ago!

Now, i’m off for another “pretend poo” to play.
And tonight, I will be mostly searching the internet for ROMs and Emulators.

Technorati Tags: nintendo, gameboy advance, gameboy, gba, flash, EFA, emulator, ROM, eBay, USB

They have an automatic spam killing feature on there that moves the offending messages direct to the Trash folder and then deletes them after a month on a rolling process. At the moment, the count of the last 31 days worth of spam is 1373 emails! Not to mention the ones that slip past the filters to be captured by my Thunderbird spam filters.

That's about 44 pieces of crap per day! Or 16,500 per year!

Then again, the email address has been used on newsgroups and a various array of other "dodgy" sites over the years – so 44 per day is probably not that bad! The actual amount of proper emails I get to that address is minimal – i might as well delete it really.

On a side note… here is my first ever newsgroup posting from over 10 years ago. Thanks Google! Oh – and sorry Terry. I know your boss wasn't pleased…

Technorati Tags: spam, email, bt, btinternet, trash, ebay, paypal, newsgroups, usenet, google

Review coming up soon!

Technorati Tags: GBA, nintendo, flash, emulators, roms, ebay

Years after finding an original Gameboy Advance on the train a few days after they have been released in the shops, my love affair with portable gaming has not ceased.

I upgraded the old unit for a nice new spanky Gameboy Advance SP when that came out and we have spent many a happy hour together.

The problem is, I only have 3 games!

• Tekken Advance
• Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
• Advance Wars

I have recently won 29 fights on "Survival Mode" on the "Hard" setting of Tekken Advance, so I think I might have done it to death. I have also completed Tony Hawk with nearly all the characters (much to the delight of my fellow train commuters). Advance Wars is a different matter. I have not even completed the basic training games! Why? Because it takes too long!

I only like to play games that are not too deep and do not take too long. Ones that I can pick up and play for 5 mins at a time. Something I can play whilst on the toilet without running the risk of getting arse-sores.

Has anyone got a suggestion for a new Gameboy Advance game that fits this criteria?
Or has anyone got any good experiences to share regarding the GBA Flash Memory Carts?
Or does anyone want to do swapsies with my copy of Advance Wars?

Technorati Tags: gba, gameboy, gameboy advance, nintendo, tekken, advance wars, tony hawk, console, xbox

I went straight back to work and hid the device under my shirt. Looking like I was "packing heat" I spent the rest of the day feeling a little odd for having sticky pads all over me – but only had one slight odd heartbeat type symptom at around 12:39 which I noted in the little diary they gave me.

I went and stayed at SwimPig's house, had a few beers and a real coffee at 9pm (which will be noted in the diary too). He took some excellent long exposure shots of me, in my monitor gear, in the garden with a torch. You have to keep your eye on his site. One of the shots may appear soon. Also, my sleep was affected as I normally sleep on my side – so the wife was kept awake by me snoring like a cattle grid.

I will be taking the monitor back tomorrow and will expect to hear the results (if any) sometime soon i suppose.

Technorati Tags: ECG, heart, monitor, ipod, murmur

As a reformed smoker of over 5 years standing I now feel qualified to speak on this matter with some authority.  The UK government has started legislation for a partial smoking ban in UK pubs.

I am not PRO a total ban on smoking in public places – as I will not be able to get my “by proxy” fix of the sweet smell of Old Virginia rolling tobacco wafting over my pint of Guinness whilst I chat.

Smoking is nice.  I loved it and I probably would still love it now.

Call me selfish… but I don’t care!

Technorati Tags : smoking, ban, smoking, uk, patricia, hewitt, guinness, pub

Made from two layers, you can either customize on top of the "blue blob" or remove it totally for your own "free form" enjoyment. I was starting to think of a new design and made this template to help me. Hope others can benefit from using this too!

Grab the template here
Get the Kubrick for Blogger template here

Technorati Tags: kubrick, template, blogger, kubrickr, photoshop, lost, header

They spent 8 wonderful days together, playing games, shopping and pooing.

He spent time in the bath, played with his Ninja Throwing Stars I bought him after we gambled 9p a time on the slot game and he also had a nice day out wearing his hat we purchased from the fat shop keeper.

His favorite treat was Cupcakes (just like Uber!).

We will miss him… but he has already been replaced by TIFF, a new female creature!
I'm glad we've got two bathrooms!

Technorati Tags : tamagotchi, egg, creature, cupcakes, ninja

It will never replace spending hours on a tedious multi layered Photoshop/illustrator image (only to find it looks crap at the proper size) but it could be a good way of finding a starting image though.

Not sure why the site will not pull out my Photao tagged images though. Odd.

I still would (eat my own arm for) like a version of the Tao of Mac kubrick slideshow header which is done in Macromedia Flash and pulls random images from Flickr. It just gushes class! Just need some (reliable) webspace i guess.

Found via the Great Flickr Tools collection.

Technorati Tags: flickr, kubrick, template, header, blogger, photao

How to find and add media to your iTunes library with del.icio.us – using RSS feeds. Works with MP3, PDF etc..

Subscribe to free del.icio.us videos in iTunes – using keywords like "funny" or "boobies".

Both via the excellent Lifehacker site.

Not tried it yet – but it does look "interesting"!

Technorati Tags: itunes, ipod, apple, ITMS, RSS, del.icio.us, lifehacker, video, mp3, media

In this modern age, ?21,000 equates to aproximately 30,434 purchases from the iTunes Music Store (based on 69p per track). The Audiophile with their ?44,000 gets a whopping 63,768 purchases from the same store.

With the average size of an MP3 being about 6mb, the iPods for the next generation of tune-heads would need a storage capacity of 200GB (to fit aprox 30,000 songs) and 400GB (to fit aprox 64,000 songs) to enable you to carry your entire lifes music purchases in your pocket.

In realistic terms, we are not too far off these possible capacities.
Come on Apple, sort it out! There's a market hole waiting to be filled!

Just don't make it too heavy! By the time I have purchased (torrented) all my music – i might be a little frail.

Technorati Tags: apple, ipod, storage, music, itunes, ITMS

In the UK, Google's use of the GMail name has been the subject of dispute as another company has already claimed its right to use the GMail name.

So it appears that (for once) Google have given in and will be changing the addresses for the UK users of its service from @Gmail.com to @googlemail.com sometime soon.

Shame really. Its not got the same ring to it.

I still have 100 invites left to give out for GMail… sorry… Googlemail. So if you want one, let me know.

Technorati Tags: gmail, googlemail, google, email, webmail

I have decided to get to grips with Adobe Illustrator CS2 as I do like the look of vector art. I think it will take some getting used to though. Compared to Photoshop I struggled to get it to do what i wanted and had to export back as a JPG to finish it off. The final image?s detail was totally lost when i converted it across? it looked excellent in Illustrator but crappy and pixelated in Photoshop. More practice needed i think ? if anyone has any tips on this then let me know.

The new Illustrator CS2 version has a great ?Live Trace? feature where you can pull in line drawings you have scanned and it converts them to editable paths. The great thing is that this also works with photos. The eye on the left (which is mine) and the skateboarder (which is not me ? as I am much better!) were both processed using this method ? and i think it looks pretty cool!

I kind of had a thought the other night that I would start trying some illustrations. I would set myself a goal of learning the Adobe Illustrator application, doing some illustrations and selling them ? or having them used/published somewhere within one year. Possibly a tall order seeing as I work on PCs all day and the thought of having to chain myself to the PC all the time when I am at home makes me cringe. At least Illustrator makes it easy to work with imported graphics ? so I could also spend time drawing and making art to scan in to use. Is this a silly idea?

If anyone has some good sites with Illustrator tutorials on then let me know please!

Technorati Tags: adobe, illustrator, adobe illustrator, vector, illustration, logo, live trace, tutorials

iPod Erotica via Surtin.com

Technorati Tags:
ipod, erotica, iporn, apple

And yes… it does do video!

The new iPod which appears to have replaced the standard large capacity colour screen iPod device sports a 2.5 inch (320*240 pixel) screen capable of 30 fps video playback using Apples Quicktime format. Apple has obviously learnt from the success of the iPod Nano and have made the device thinner – and also available in what I like to call "gravestone black". In a 30GB and 60GB capacity the device can playback 2 or 4 hours of video respectively before the battery goes "all Betamax" on you.

Also launched at the same time (apart from the new thinner technophiles physical porno iMac) was the new version of iTunes (version 6) which now adds video purchase, sync and playback capability. At present there are only music videos available to download as well as the classic Pixar short animations. Each of these is set at ?1.89 each – which ain't too pricey. I dragged one of my WMV files to the application but it refused to do anything with it. It did take one of "my friends" MPG files though and added it to the Video section – but be careful when you ask for playback with MSN Messenger's set to show the currently playing song information against your name!

Steve Jobs also announced that in the future there will be episodes of Lost available to purchase and download and (to appease the Wife who haunts all of our tech purchases) Desparate Housewives. And as the new iPod comes with a video out capability you can then plug the device into your TV so the whole family can enjoy your new iPorn Podcasts.

So Apple now have a device that plays music, shows photos, stores data, stores organiser information, plays audiobooks and now plays videos!

What's next?

I am increasingly impressed with the Apple iTunes Music Store and the range of stuff available. If I was'nt such an "Internet Pirate" then I would definitely buy from there. I, for one, welcome the Apple overlords and their new products.

Now… where can I get the money to get one?

Technorati Tags:
ipod video, ipod, itunes, apple, imac, lost, desparate housewives, pixar, ITMS, Quicktime

I am feeling better and a lot more rational about my "condition" now and the panicky feelings have totally gone away. I am still left with a feeling of pressure on my chest – like I cannot take a full lung full of air even though I can – and the odd griping pain here and there – but generally alot better.

I was beginning to think that the pain I am now feeling is more skeletal or muscular so I made an appointment with the local Chiropractor and went to see him this morning. He immediately spotted that I was "all tense" and set about attacking me with his pressure hammer adjustment tool and also gave me a good back massage (my first that didn't end in a blow job and an emptying of the wallet!). I will be going back to him again next week for more of the same. As a practicing Chiropractor and sports injury clinic, I thought he would have seen it all – but he was quite impressed with the poor knotted state of the muscles down the right hand side of my spine.

They're totally seized up mate!

So more shoulder muscles excersises and relaxing on the cards for the rest of the week for me.
More playing train tracks with my son, chilling to "Party Mix" on iTunes, hammering the torrents and watching crap TV. It's tough being ill.

Lets rewind a little.

Thursday was just another crappy slow day at work, but I began to have feelings of pressure on my chest also accompanied by the odd irregular heartbeat – which I have had before in the past (usually due to too much Coffee). This abated though and in the evening I felt fine.

Friday morning was again no issue. At around 10 am at work I started to feel unwell again with increased pressure across my chest and I was a little short of breath. I did not feel very unwell and it did not stop me from doing my work as usual. I didn't feel faint or anything – just felt like I had a child lying on my chest preventing me from breathing correctly.

By the end of the day it still had not gone and I was getting a little concerned and decided to see the local emergency doctor after work who checked me over. He thought that it could be stress related but he also thought he could hear a heart murmur through his stethoscope and tried to hook me up to their ECG machine (the machine that goes "ping") for a scan – which didn't work – at all. So he ordered me to go directly to the Clinical Decisions Unit (CDU) at the local hospital to be checked over. I had to call my wife from home as I was not even allowed to walk back to get her to drive me. I still felt ok too at this point – my heart rate was elevated but I felt ok – probably just scared. My poor wifey went into panic mode and had to call my parents over to feed the kids as she was in mid evening meal cook.

We went to the CDU and booked in at about 1830. I was checked over by a nurse an hour later with the ECG machine and blood tests but all appeared normal. I was still feeling ok too. Hours later the other doctors checked me over and agreed that they could hear a Apex Heart Murmur which could be a blood flow murmur but they were not sure. I was then checked again by another more senior doctor who checked me for other stuff (Marfanoid Features??) but agreed that my heart was exhibiting these murmur symptoms. My blood test was fine though and there were no other obvious signs (sweaty, swollen ankles, double vision).

So I was admitted overnight and was left by the wife at around midnight who had already been home to get my clothes. Meanwhile, one of the nurses was taking lots of blood for some cultures to check for infections which would take about 3 days to grow. I managed to get to sleep after 1am and was woken at 7am for breakfast and more nursy TLC. I was seen by a senior doctor a little after 9am who listened to my chest again and thought that it was a only a flow murmur and I was told I would most likely have to attend as an outpatient for a Echo scan on my heart. I went for a chest X-Ray at about 1030am which showed nothing obvious either and was left to sit on my bed, watching elderly patients nearby slowly dying and waiting for a decision to be made by the Cardiologist who I was told would be round to see me today.

I had my delicious hospital lunch (cardboard sandwiches) and dinner (soggy pasta and salty mash potatoes followed by over sweetened apple pie and magma crust custard). Nothing happened until about 10pm when the senior doctors and the Cardiologist did their rounds and they took 5 mins to discharge me. I have been told to avoid caffeine and spicy food until they know what it is exactly. I phoned my Dad and after I pretended I had to stay in for a month he came to get me at about 11pm.

However, when I got home and went to bed I started to have real bad pressure on my chest again and began to hyperventilate and feel very faint. My heart rate felt normal (to me) though so I rode it out with some yoga breathing moves provided by my wife and some "head between the legs and deep breathing" action. After a bit of water and chocolate (just in case it was due to low blood sugar) I managed to get back in bed and after 30 mins or so I slept until morning.

Was this a possible panic/anxiety attack?

I feel ok now but I do still have a feeling of pressure/discomfort on my chest and feel slightly out of breath at times. Maybe when the blood cultures are grown they will discover some sort of infection – who knows. I will have to go back to the docs some time next week to hand in my letter of discharge but also to inform him of the "Panic Attack" situation last night. I will also be making an appointment with a local osteopath for a skeletal check up as the pain I am feeling in my chest does feel as if its actually on my breastbone and surrounding area. The osteopath in question has done wonders for my whole family in the past – so I am expecting great things. Maybe being hunched over a keyboard for 8 hours a day has finally done something to me!

Needless to say I shall be "self certing" myself off work for as long as possible. Enough time to chill as much as I can and time to see the doctors and the osteopath. It could be related to stress I suppose although I don't feel I have anything to be stressed about. Work is easy and my home life is very good.

I will be going back to see the Cardiologist in around 10 weeks for the Echo Scan so until then – and when the results come in a few weeks after – I will not know for sure if there is something wrong with my heart. But at the moment it all points to nothing serious.

Sure makes better reading than Pamela Anderson's blog though!

Oh. And Pete uses a Mac by the way.  Why does’nt that surprise me?

Technorati Tags: the who, pete townshend, blogger, novella, novel, pamela anderson, handshandy, celebrity

Although Uber iGod Steve Jobs recently said that they were not planning a video version of the popular iPod range as "no-one had got it quite right yet" – this does not mean that they will not do so. As with any Apple product, the security has been kept tight as ever but with other product enhancements, like a new range of the popular iMac Mini and possibly a new range of "Professional Mac Workstations" in the offing, the announcement could be not what we are expecting (or predicting).

I for one did not expect them to announce the iPod Nano. That was a total surprise. Read from that event that Apple still have the upper hand on this and could announce something totally new that we have not expected.

People have already found links within the newest versions of the iTunes software that appear to link to some sort of downloadable movie content – the same as they did when they found that iTunes also contained code for exporting to the new ROKR iTunes mobile phone before Apple and Mr Moto (officially) announced the device.

Engadget have already posted a possible sneaky shot of the Video iPod. It kind of looks how I would expect it to look if there was such a device. But Steve Jobs has got to have something clever up his sleeve to make this work.

Seeing how the majority of portable video players out there support various formats, including the BitTorrent's friend, "DivX", would I pay £xxx for a device that only allowed me to download content to the player via iTunes and in a format decided by Apple? Hell no. I don't do that with the music on iTunes at the moment. It takes what i feed it (and loves it)!

Or will they be releasing a new version of iTunes at the same time that will convert my DivX, Avi and Mpeg files to their copyrighted locked down Quicktime format? Only time will tell. The dudes over at Engadget have already reported that someone has found information in iTunes regarding the Microsoft WMV format – which can also be copy protected.

When, not if, the device is launched, stand by to subscribe to iPorn and iVidcasting too by the way…

Technorati Tags: ipod, apple, video ipod, steve jobs, itunes, music, video

I remember showing the game to my neighbour who was (is?) a chief marshall at Silverstone racetrack. He was blown away by the realistic graphics and car handling. I can still feel the beads of sweat dripping down from my armpits as i just hung onto first place whilst he stood behind me, egging me on.

I have recently been playing the new Burnout: Revenge game on my XBOX which is amazing too. I can't see how it can get much better than this!

But… I have just watched a new trailer of the new Project Gotham 3 game due out for the XBOX360 at the beginning of December – and i felt those beads of sweat all over again. I'm getting excited now! I was being good and telling myself that I will not get a 360 when it comes out – but I think I have just changed my own mind again!

Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox360, project gotham racing, microsoft, revs, bbc, bbc micro, PGR3, PGR

It was another of those times when i could have spent lots of money on pointless transforming robot and Star Wars toys. However, my time (and money) could have been better spent over at the World Beard and Moustache Championships in Berlin which were held this Saturday.

I have yet to get the whole results through from the Beard Team USA Blog, but I am already looking forward to the next event which is to be held in London in 2007! Better get grooming chaps!

Technorati Tags: beard, moustache, collectormania, batman, buck rogers, star wars, milton keynes, daisy duke, dukes of hazzard

Technorati Tags: cooking, head, scales, dead, photoshop

Over at my photoblog – Photao – I have managed to get the new template half finished and implement what Photoblog type users of Blogger have been searching for since the dawn of Photoblogs. A template that has a large single photo displayed – but also has thumbnails of previous images to be used as navigation to previous images. This is easy to do if you want to edit your template every time and manually insert the image source code – but as Blogger sometimes has horrendous publishing issues – this is not acceptible. To accomplish this I began by changing the text in the title field of each posting to the same http:// address as the image source.

I then set blogger to only show one posting at a time.

Within my template code, i removed the list of recent items completely (and the entire sidebar) as this only shows as many postings as you have told blogger to display on the screen (ie One). To create the section that shows the thumbnail images, I headed over to Feeddigest and set up an RSS feed of the Photao blog for free. Make sure you have the RSS feed turned on though! I then modified the feeds HTML template within FeedDigest to include an IMG SRC tag around the title field text – which then creates a link to the image itself rather than just displaying the text:

Feeddigest then allows you to copy some code into your blog which displays the feed. In this case it is just a feed of the last 15 postings made into images from the same blog! The free version of FeedDigest is restricted to the last 15 items. Here is the code I am using at the moment to get the feed into the footer area of the Photao blog:

This means that when I post a new image, I can make a standard posting through the Blogger interface, add in the image and text (if required) and as long as I put the URL of the image into the title field, the RSS feed will be updated correctly and (most importantly) automatically. And as I store all my images at the excellent Flickr, I can use the URL of the smaller size versions of the image which are created for you in the title field which makes loading times quicker. The only problem (a very minor one) is that you will also have to remove the posts title field from your Blogger template. So if you want to give your images smart and fancy names, you will have to enter it as standard text above or below the image.

The template is far from finished though – so watch out for more whizz-bang design changes soon! EDIT: Just found out that I got mentioned over on the FeedDigest website too!

Technorati Tags: photoblog, feeddigest, blogger, RSS, template, photao

Here’s a few plot points for the mentally impaired:

• White policeman executes man on death row.
• White policemans son kills himself.
• Convicts fat son gets killed in a hit and run.
• Three deaths before 1 hour is up.
• White policeman gets jiggy with convicts wife.
• Convicts wife buys White policeman a white cowboy hat.
• White policeman ditches frail racist father at a home to die.
• Convicts wife moves in with White Policeman.
• Convicts wife finds out White Policeman fried her hubbys brain.
• They eat Chocolate Ice Cream.
• The end.

And she won an oscar for that? At least she had the decency to show her breasticles!
Great direction, great photography, good atmosphere……Crap film.

• Design my mates website for him over at flights-physiques.co.uk.
• Do some artwork – quite fancy doing a collage actually.
• Do the ironing.
• Play Burnout Revenge on my XBOX after kicking the wife off the TV.
• Do some homework sheets for the kids on the PC.
• Design how I want my garden to be.
• Do the paperwork / filing etc.

My parents who have both been artists and art teachers in their time (and who still paint) have been giving her lots of encouragement – not that she needs it. Last night I got out my portfolio containing my artwork from my GCSE, A Level and Foundation Year art courses i did at school/college so that they could all see what level I was at.

Some of the work I do remember, alot I do not (we’ll blame Reefer Madness on that one). What I was quite pleasantly suprised to find is that some of it is actually quite good.

My art tutor at college (deceased) was a cantankerous surly man who made it perfectly clear that his real ambition in teaching was to get to the pub at lunchtime. He was quite rude to me about my work and I remember him making several of the female students cry over their work being too “twee”. I quite liked his brash manner though and we did get on ok – until he called me a “Cunt” and said that I would be “laughed out the door” of Manchester University as I did’nt have lots of oil paintings to show them at my interview. That was back in 1990. 15 years later and i’m into computers. I hardly even write with a pen any longer – let alone draw!

I now feel under pressure to perform! Whilst I was not brilliant at life drawings or oil painting I did have a flair for abstract designs and compositions. I was much happier listening to some Hawkwind and doing odd surface textures and patterns than doing a full blown portrait of a naked man, out to get some extra cash in the evenings. Maybe I will try to do something again… I do feel scared though. Scared that it will all be crap and that I will have lost the ability completely.

I will take some photos or scans of some of my work in the next few weeks and will upload them when I get time. My dad thinks some of them are brilliant – but he would say that, would’nt he.

Note: Picture is by R B Kitaj who’s narrative painting style I emulated during my college years.

2. Avoided a horse who had thrown its rider.
Only to be attacked by her dogs and ignored by her after I ran back to check she was ok

3. Ate too much Shepards Pie.
MMmmmm… my favorite. Totally veggie too – but found that it had mushrooms in though! :puke:

4. Listened to “Zen for Beginners” on my iPod.
“To have a beginners mind is to have an empty mind….” WTF?
“The mind and the body are not two or one, or two together. They are two AND one…” WTF? “Concentrate on your breathing… become the swinging door…” WTF?

5. Got a cold :sniff:
Kids back at school = three of us have now got a cold. Great!

“The book is better than the film”

Not being a *proper* book reader, I cannot really uphold this statement. The last time I read a *real* book was during the first year of a sleepy slumber, commuting to Birmigham. The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings in case you were wondering. As the years progressed I started to listen to audiobooks on the train and did all the Harry Potter books. I have also recently read the new Harry Potter book in PDF format which I got from.. er.. somewhere.

I recently taped Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban and watched it last night with (the current) Mrs Taoski. I was obviously expecting too much – as it was total shite.
The acting was bad and the characters were totally wooden. It really was nothing like the book.
As per usual with these types of films, they were referring to things that you would have only known if you had read the books. They did this in LOtR too – but made up for the omissions with the Extended Editions. I had to end up explaining bits of the plot as Mrs Taoski was unaware that the black dog really was Sirius Black.

Crap, crap, crap, crap CRAP!
Lets hope the next film is better.

5 Musics in your iPod:
(the last 5 tracks on shuffle mode)

1. Let It Crawl – Societys Bag (Funk Drops 2)
2. Fade Away – Oasis (The Masterplan)
3. Radharc – Dead Can Dance (Aion)
4. Sonofanuthamutha – The Herbaliser (Take London)
5. Eight Line Poem – David Bowie (Hunky Dory)

Don’t worry if you have’nt got an iPod, you can still play along!
Go to the nearest cupboard you can fit your head in and then hide your face in shame for not having one of the nicest little devices on the planet! “Who’s a naughty boy….. tut tut tut…”.

I feel obliged to cast my Meme-rod at Bigfootcookie, Lewis Moten, WBB, driverchris and Beefheart (MIA). Sorry.
EDIT: Dr Nickles can play too

• Thick sliced crusty white bread (fresh)
• Peanut butter (Crunchy)
• Raisins
• A light dribble of honey
• Cheese and Onion Crisps (chips for the yanks)

And a big mug of sugary English Breakfast tea to wash it all down with.
You can’t beat a Subway, but this comes close.

Glad Nick tagged me with this meme as I could’nt really think of anything to blog about at the moment. I have just taken a little (well earned) break from work (with iPod assistance) to bring you my Septets of Stuffs:

7 Things I Plan To Do Before I Die:
1. Write a childrens story (future colaborative blog – watch this space)
2. Travel a bit more
3. Not work so hard
4. Stop using a computer all day every day!
5. Spend more time doing things I want to do
6. Paint/draw/chill
7. Consumate the marriage to my second wife…

7 Things I Can Do:
1. Play the guitar.. Pink Floyd/Oasis anyone?
2. Play the Digeridoo.. anyone?
3. Juggle
4. Fix computers (and then some)
5. Survive on 4 hours sleep a night
6. Watch endless UK soaps and not get addicted
7. Fear death

7 Things I Can’t Do:
1. Fix cars
2. Cut in (painting walls)
3. Those little sliding puzzle things..
4. Last longer than 30 seconds
5. Understand why people fancy Kiera Knightly!
6. Paperwork
7. Care less about anything

7 Things That Attract Me To The Opposite Sex:
1. Bottoms
2. Asses
3. Behinds
4. Women in shirts n ties..?
5. Arses
6. Butts
7. Baby got back!

7 Things That I Say Most Often:
1. Have you seen that new iPod?
2. It’s on the torrents…for free!
3. Chanks (a mumbled mix of cheers and thanks)
4. Love you
5. Smell Ya Laterz
6. How comes i never got invited to the pub – again?
7. w00t!

7 Celebrity Crushes:
1. I refuse to do Celebs
2. cos’ they are all just
3. odd looking, skinny, stupid
4. airbrushed fakes who are so up
5. their own arses they all
6. look like their own shit anyway!
7. Jude Law

Brad “Shaven Simian” Pitt rippled muscle and hammed it up in his “dumb but deep” role as Achillies who did nothing but fight and sleep with women. I really cannot see what women see in Brad. Not that I am “gods gift” or anything…. but that man is ugly and stupid!

The only thing more wooden than Pitts acting was the fabled “Horse Of Troy” which was impressively built from parts of sea faring vessels, broken down and re-assembled in a perfect horse shape. Quite how unskilled soldiers managed to assemble such an impresive device miles from home on a beach though, we will never know. The Wooden Rabbit from Monty Python was much better!

Simpering oily fop, Orlando Bloom completed the poor cast with his gibbering wimps impression of a young Prince who stole the wife of his adversary only to bring upon himself an army of a thousand ships. What she saw in a wet, fish-like person like him we shall only guess. Lets hope they make a film of The Silamarillion soon…

Taoski rating: Toss

Brought up as a vegetarian, I was never exposed to any meats other than the “Three B’s”: Bacon, Burgers and Bangers. At home I seemed to exist solely on Baked Beans on toast or other odd combinations of salad, cheese and dried fruit all mashed together in Pitta bread (which I still enjoy – as does my six year old!). We had our main food groups sorted. We were a happy, well nourished and content, wholemeal bread family.

However, apart from other neurosies too many to mention here, this lead me to develop my theory about the food I had never tried. It goes something like this:

“I have never eaten dog shit… but I know I would’nt like it!”

It makes perfect sense to me. I have never eaten Chicken or Lamb but I know I would not like it if i did. Not just because we used to keep Chickens in the back garden when I was young or anything like that – I just know I would’nt like the taste!

I am better than I used to be. My wife also insists that when we met and I was living on my own I was fuelled on Peanut Butter sandwiches. This is not true, as I was mostly fuelled on overtime pay, sexual urges, cheap beer and cigarettes.

I suppose the moral of this posting is this: If you do have a child who is a fussy eater, unless you want to bind them to a chair and force food down them there is’nt a great deal you can do. Just be calm, patient, understanding and it’ll all come good in the end. They ain’t gonna let themselves starve.

Then again, there was that story about the child who just ate Rice Krispies four times a day for seven years – and lived! What were his parents thinking?

A Bum is a homeless person who does not work and does not travel.

A Tramp is a homeless person who does not work but does travel.

A Hobo is a homeless person who does work and does travel.

Just thought i would clear that one up for you all.

The new iPod Nano is the replacement for the Ipod Mini and comes in the usual flavours of 2 and 4gb. With a color screen and physical dimensions that resemble some sort of a scifi nano chip thing it looks amazing!

They also announced a new iTunes mobile phone in association with Motorola. It can only hold 100 songs at a time (1GB) but I expect this is too little too late for them in the mobile market.

What amazes me most is that there have been no internet leaks about the iPod Nano at all when there are usually plenty of sites crawling up Apples butt to get the latest information!

Me Want one!
And i bet BigFootCookie does too!

EDIT: iTunes version 5 is out too! Must do a clean up on my music folders before i download it!
EDIT2: Looks like every fecker is getting iTunes5… i’m on a 2 meg line and am getting 11kb a sec! What the freaks that all about?

However, a common mistake regarding use of such language is that the monicker applied to these annoying terms, “TLA” is in fact not an Acronym for “Three Letter Acronym”.

It is in fact an Initialism.

An Acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of a name and must be pronouncable as a word. An example of this would be FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition) and another widely used in my line of work – PEBSAD (Problem Exists Between Seat And Desk).

Others like RTFM (Read The Fucking Manual) or STFO (Switch The Fucker Off) are correctly known as Initialisms, which are abbreivations consisting of the initials of a name or phrase.

Today in Australia a “landmark case ruling” was served against Sharman Networks saying that their software was facilitating the use and distribution of illegal and copyrighted information on the internet. They have two months to ammend their software to not allow copyrighted information to be transmitted or face further heavy legal fines.

Potentially this means that the ruling will be brought to other countries and used as precendent to ensure that the Kazaa network is either shut down or as I expect, will be turned to some Pay to P2P type service.

I bet Apple and iTunes are shitting themselves!

Besides the fact that a whole host of P2P networks and applications come and go in a matter of months I am not sure that the MPAA and RIAA are concentrating their efforts in the right places. Serving a court action against an application provider that takes up less than 10% of the P2P network traffic in Australia does seem to be a little misguided – but for the court to also allow them to “change their business model” also seems a little odd too.

I suggest that they file a lawsuit against Microsoft who allow you to choose if you want to rip CDs using their “Windows Media Player” software either using or not using DRM encryption. Only the foolish numpty PC users would check this option! Surely this also facilitates the swapping of copyrighted information. Or sue the maker of the first mass-market “tape to tape” stereo system – that makes more sense! Maybe the inventor of ADSL should also be banged to rights as he/she also allows the copyrighted information to be sent and received quicker.

As the sticker on the back of my iPod said when i opened the box: “Don’t steal music”.

“Duh! What the fuck did I buy one for then?”

The new single, Dare, featuring Mr Potatohead (Potatobody?) Shaun Ryder is very good and the music video is also cool. Even my Steps loving Son likes it too. It also gives comic artist Jamie Hewlett something to do after 2000AD and Tank Girl died a death.

Although not all the Gorillaz tracks are good I have repspect for Mr Albarn for not succumbimg to “sticking with the old formula” and churning out more Blur tracks that have clearly lost their 90s feel.

Not at all like Oasis do…..

I have already had my grubby geek paws on one of these devices which was imported from Nippon. I have to say that they are very sexy and are definitely worth the money (aprox £200). It could easily replace my iPod and GBA in one foul swoop.

The only problem is…

1. Should I save up for a new mountain bike seeing as I do the cycle commute thing now? £300 quid should do it. Mine is starting to creak a little.
2. Should I start saving for the XBOX360 which is not far off either? Thats only going to be around £300 too!
3. Should I get a new Windows Mobile smartphone? I miss my SPV.
4. Should I get a PSP and ditch the GBA seeing as the PSP can emulate the GBA and I can get the games for free off the webbernet thing?

Choices, choices…

Shame I have’nt got the money to do any of them!

Type in the artist name and see if you get what you are after!

Update 1: This is a cool one i just found via that site.

I’ve not got a problem with that – it’s quite cute really.

It’s just they are listening to Steps!

Make sure you keep visiting as, like Mr SwimPig, I will be posting a new pic every day!

“Just think.. when you are sitting there at work, this is all still here. Just as quiet and peaceful.”

How i wish i was there now instead of stuck here slowly going blind in front of this keyboard.

I wish I could “bunk off” work and go there for the day. I would also hope that it was raining too as i prefer the rain to hot weather.

I could be sitting in a tent near the lake with rain “pit-a-patting” on the flysheet, reading or drawing, and just chilling out. The euphoric smell of freshly wetted grass and mud mingled with the smoky crackle of my campfire dying in the shower drifts through into the tent.

My iPod would be there for the times when music suited the mood and I could turn my mobile phone to silent, or just accidently drop it in the lake whist taking the Derwentwater motorboat across to the other side on another long walk back to the campsite, shooting some black and white photos on the way. A freshly whittled walking stick would also be needed as i sneer at tourists and pretend to be a local.

I would have a flask of coffee, a miniature of Jack Daniels, a freshly baked loaf of wholemeal granary bread with a jar of Peanut Butter to fill my tummy at lunchtime and a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes to compliment my columbian coffee breaks.

And at 5pm I could go home to my family – as if nothing had ever happened….

See.. i don’t want for much, do i?
Where would you go on the day you bunked off work?

Technorati Tag Explosion: lake district, holiday, work, keswick, derwentwater, tent, coffee, lucky strike, ipod, jack daniels, bunk, photo