2008 Archives

It seems that just about everybody has done their own version of Auld Lang Syne over the years. Here, is probably, the best, rocky version I have ever heard. There's a live version and a studio version; both by Die Toten Hosen. I have also included a version by the BBC Symphony Orchestra along with a Trance and a Techno version.

Other than taking Dad to see the Nurse this morning; to get some stitches removed from his thumb, I've spent vitually all of today baking. I've made 5 trays of Mince Pies, 6 trays of Jam Tarts; both Strawberry and Lemon Curd flavours, and 7 trays of Scones. The last lot of baking that I did went down a treat.

I am now going to have a nice relaxing couple of hours sat in front of the TV.

When Big Ben chimes midnight tonight to mark the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 it will herald the world-famous clock's 150th anniversary. However, there will have been a fair bit of sweating going on in the background. The engineers that look after the famous clock and bell are having to introduce an extra second just before midnight due to the introduction of a leap second by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS).

There have been 23 leap seconds added since they were first introduced in 1972. Peter Whibberley of the National Physical Laboratory - known to his colleagues as "the Time Lord", represents the UK on the IERS. He explains "Ultimately, over many hundreds of years if leap seconds were scrapped, the time of night and day would drift away from the time shown by our clocks," adding "So if nothing was done to bring them back into line, night would be happening at midday as shown by the clocks."

So, feel free to look forward to your extra second of either revellry or sleep tonight.

View a related video.

Discworld novellist Terry Pratchett is to be knighted in the New Year' Honours List. Sir Terry, 60, who has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, said: "I am of course delighted and honoured and, needless to say, flabbergasted."

Olympic cyclist Chris Hoy, who won 3 gold medals in Beijing, and was named BBC Sports Personality of the year for 2008, is also knighted. "To become a knight from riding your bike, it's mad," he said. "But it is, genuinely, just an amazing honour."

Lewis Hamilton becomes an MBE after becoming Formula One's youngest world champion in only his second season and double gold-winning swimmer Rebecca Adlington becomes the youngest ever recipient of an OBE. Finally, Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant becomes a CBE.

This is quite cool.

Imperial Stormtroopers: They're Just Like Us!

WinFlip is a rather cool alternate window-switcher to the standard Windows Alt-Tab.

FastCopy is the Fastest Copy/Delete software on Windows.

Do you think Adobe Reader is too bloated? That Nero is too costly? That Limewire isn't all it should or could be? You may want to visit Lifehacker's guide to alternative software solutions. Just follow the link. Their list of the Most Popular Free Windows Downloads of 2008 may also be of some interest.

A research team from Oxford's Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics working with colleagues in Norway examined the relationship between cognitive performance and the intake of three common foodstuffs that contain flavonoids (chocolate, wine, and tea) in 2,031 older people (aged between 70 and 74).

Participants filled in information about their habitual food intake and underwent a battery of cognitive tests.Those who consumed chocolate, wine, or tea had significantly better mean test scores and lower prevalence of poor cognitive performance than those who did not. The team reported their findings in the Journal of Nutrition.

The researchers caution that more research would be needed to prove that it was flavonoids, rather than some other aspect of the foods studied, that made the difference.The effect was most pronounced for wine.

However, say the researchers, those overdoing it at Christmas should note that while moderate alcohol consumption is associated with better cognitive function and reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia, heavy alcohol intake could be one of many causes of dementia - as well as a host of other health problems.

The List Universe is a site full of top 10 lists covering all manner of subjects. Created by Jamie Frater in July, 2007 the site has grown enormously - mostly due to the brilliant comments that the readers leave. The site is updated daily.

Our usual Saturday rpg session has been cancelled this weekend. We completed Paul's Sabbat Vampire game last weekend and after a brief discussion Colin agreed to run his Valkenburg Foundation Werewolf game in the New Year.

We're still going to get together today and have a DVD-a-thon, where as usual we will take it in turns to select a movie to watch. As is usually the case I'm planning to take one or two along from my own collection.

Off out to Mark's tonight for a few drinks with him and another old friend; Roy. I haven't had a chance to sit down and natter with Roy for the best part of seven years at least. And although I've known Mark for well over 30 years we rarely get a chance to sit down together either. Maybe once or twice a year. I'm taking a bottle of Glenfiddich Special Reserve with me and it's unlikely that any of it will survive the evening.

My nephew got Guitar Hero: World Tour for Xmas and brought it up with him today so that he could play it on my 360. So, for most of this afternoon I have been playing the drums and having loads of fun. It's not very easy, but it's lots of fun.

Here's hoping that you all have a happy and enjoyable festive holiday season. I'm currently sat enjoying one of my own home-made mince pies in the quiet and calm that will be shattered in the next couple of hours by the arrival of the rest of the family.

Norad are once again providing a tracking service for people that would like to know where Santa is. Please visit this site for up-to-the-minute tracking data.

I've just finished watching last night's NFL game. The Chicago Bears came from behind to beat the Green Bay Packers 20-17 in Overtime. For long periods of the game it looked like Aaron Rodgers and the Packers were going to be too strong for the Bears but a fourth quarter fightback and a field-goal attempt that was blocked by Alex Brown forced Overtime. The Bears won the toss, elected to receive and proceeded to move the ball down into field goal range for Robbie Gould to win the game. The Bears need to win next weekend to have any chance of making the playoffs. If they beat the Houston Texans and the Minnesota Vikings lose to the New York Giants they will claim the division. If both the Bears and Vikings win then They can grab a wildcard place if other results go their way. I'm not 100% sure buit I think they need both the Dallas Cowboys and Carolina Panthers to lose.

I'm feeling rather dodgy today. I woke up this morning with a headache and took some paracetamol for it. It didn't seem to do any real good so after I got home from my blood test I decided to have a lie down. I got back up just about an hour ago and went back downstairs. I found the lights in the living room way too bright and instantly ended up in the toilet, vomitting. I have since returned upstairs and am sat with the light off but with the door open so I can get some light from the landing. I have also taken some more paracetamol but to no effect so far.

With only 4 days to go I present you with Alice Cooper's rendition of 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town'. Enjoy!

Manchester United have just clinched the FIFA World Club Championship by beating Ecuador's Liga de Quito 1-0; thanks to a late Wayne Rooney strike. United totally dominated the first half without managing to make a breakthrough. Nemanja Vidic stupidly got himself sent off after throwing an elbow at Bieler whilst both were on the ground just after the start of the second half. The remaining 40 minutes proved a sticky proposition for United but their worries were eased after Rooney slotted home the winner on 73 minutes.

I'm off roleplaying today; as is usual for a Saturday.

Anyway, there are some strange, but interesting buildings around the world and the Unusual Architecture blog is dedicated to collecting together all the most unusual, strange, weird and crazy buildings of the world into a big and easy to use list.

Village of Joy is a website that collates the amazing, interesting, wonderful, weird, odd and funny things about our world. Two pages of interest are the 50 Strange Buildings of the World and 50 Strange Buildings of the World (Part II).

Maps-of-War was created in September 2006 to help people understand current events, as seen on TV and in our newspaper headlines

All of the maps are created using Macromedia Flash 8.0. Many different sources have been referenced for the maps, including National Geographic Atlas of the World, Atlas of World History, DK World History Atlas, Wikipedia and New York Times Publications.

The First Lady of Star Trek, Majel Barrett Roddenberry, wife of late "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, has died at the age of 76. She died at her Bel-Air, Los Angeles home, after battling leukemia.

She is the only actress to appear in all five "Star Trek" series. She most recently provided the voice, once again, of the USS Enterprise computer in the upcoming J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" film.

She is survived by a son, Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry Jr.

I happily managed to get all my Christmas shopping done in one go today; and managed to grab a couple of bargains into the mix. However, that won't be the end of the shopping. I will probably have to do some last minute shopping next week for my Dad. He always leaves things to the last minute.

Valve's Left 4 Dead is set in the immediate aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, At it's basic level it's an all-action, first-person, zombie survival shoot-em-up. The nice feature is that you have 3 companions that are also trying to survive the horror. I've only played the first level so far but it's pretty damned good. One word of advice; for added atmosphere, play it with the lights off. Oh, and it's available for the PC and XBox 360.

Just finished roleplaying but I now need to go and do a wee bit of late night shopping. Whilst I've been doing some errands for Geoff and Chrissy today both Michael and Catherine have been out to get some shopping. However, neither of them got any dog food and Petra has had the last tin that we had in the house. Thankfully, the local(ish) Tesco is 24 hour.

There's a new Terminator: Salvation trailer out. Go visit the Sony or Apple website to view it. The Apple site hasd a few different sizes included full 1080p HD. The film is released in the US on May 22nd 2009 and in the UK on June 5th 2009.

I've recently come across a site full of small, distracting puzzles and quizzes. Please check out Sporcle.com.

Star Wars: A Musical Journey is a new 2 hour stage show planned to launch on April 10th at the O2 in London before going on a European tour.

The show will see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra play a new, rewritten live score as excerpts from the six films are shown on a cinema screen. A statement said thar John Williams has "painstakingly rewritten" the music he wrote for the movies. The show has been put together by Williams and George Lucas' Lucasfilm.

An accompanying exhibition will feature original models, props, costumes and production artwork.

Tickets, costing between £30 and £100, will go on sale on this coming Monday; 15th December 2008.

I watched the Manchester United vs Aalborg European Champions League game last night. United scored within the first 5 minutes and were totally dominant for the vast majority of the first half. With the number of chances United had within the first 10 to 15 minutes it seemed that they were about to hand out a serious drubbing. However, Aalborg equalised about mid-way through the half and then stunned the 74,000 watching in the stadium by taking the lead just before half-time. United got back on level terms within 10 minutes of the restart but, despite continued pressure, failed to add a third. United qualify for the next stage as group winners. The draw will be made next Friday, the 19th.

It was Chrissy's daughter's Christmas Play last night, and she was playing the title role of the Sleepy Shepherd. It was a lot of fun and for five year olds it was a very credible performance. Highlight was undoubtedly the dance routine of the three kings. Like I said, lots of fun.

That little white, or perhaps black/blue/pink, pointing device that is sat on your desk is 40 years old today. Dr Douglas Engelbart, of the Stanford Research Institute in California, first demonstrated using a mouse at the Fall Joint Computer Conference (FJCC) on 9th December 1968.

Whilst the name of Oliver Postgate might not be well known, his creations certainly are. Mr Postgate, who created Ivor The Engine, The Clangers, Noggin The Nog and Bagpuss along with Pingwings, The Pogles and Pogles' Wood, has died at the age of 83. Bagpuss, of which only 13 episodes were ever made, was voted best children's programme ever in a 1998 poll and was voted the best TV animal of all time earlier this year. Apparently, plans are afoot, via a company called Coolbai, for a Bagpuss revival.

The BBC News website is reporting that the journal Nature Genetics has found that the workings of our internal body clock appear to be directly connected to our risk of diabetes.

The research apparently found faults in a key 'clock gene' were linked to blood sugar levels and type II diabetes. Some scientists already believe that our circadian rhythms (body clock) have a role to play in the condition, which affects millions worldwide.

But one expert said more evidence was needed, before a link was proved.

I have recently upgraded MT to the latest version and have also taken the opportunity to finally enable Comment Registration. Previously, you had to have either an existing Movable Type account or else use an OpenID, LiveJournal, Vox or TypeKey account to comment. If you didn't have one of those accounts then you couldn't log in and comment. However, you can now also register here on the blog itself to comment.

Top 20 List of the Best Geek Quotes, Sayings and Phrases

1. Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF. All my base Are belong to you -- someone on SlashDot
2. There is no place like 127.0.0.1
3. Girls are like Internet Domain names, the ones I like are already taken
4. Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning
5. Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid; humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond imagination. -- Albert Einstein
6. There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.
7. If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0
8. 1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
9. I'm not anti-social; I'm just not user friendly
10. I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code
11. My Software never has bugs. It just develops random features.
12. The speed of sound is defined by the distance from door to computer divided by the time interval needed to close the media player and pull up your pants when your mom shouts "OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!
13. The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be.
14. Passwords are like underwear. You shouldn't leave them out where people can see them. You should change them regularly. And you shouldn't loan them out to strangers
15. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue...
16. A Life? Cool! Where can I download one of those?
17. I spent a minute looking at my own code by accident. I was thinking "What the hell is this guy doing?"
18. Concept: On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape button.
19. Alert! User Error. Please replace user and press any key to continue
20. If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. -- Weinberg's Second Law

*If you can read this you're over-educated.

This Christmas sees the first new Wallace & Gromitt TV adventure for a number of years. A Matter Of Loaf And Death sees our duo running a bakery. It's due to be screened by the BBC over Christmas but was aired recently in Australia. I watched it this morning and it's really quite funny. Very reminiscent of the previous short-form animations for Aardman.

I handed Debra's PC back to her last night; installing the last few bits and pieces for her that I couldn't do while it was here. Even though it must be the oldest PC that I've had to reinstall for quite a while it was pretty much trouble-free. And talking of trouble-free; the return of Debra's PC means I don't have a problematic PC to look out. First time in a while. Although, about a month ago Kevin mentioned that his PC was playing up. I still haven't had a chance to have a look at that for him. Every time I arranged to pop up something else cropped up. I will need to reschedule that again.

I think the video pretty much speaks for itself...

I went shopping in Whitehaven this morning; and even though it was still bitterly cold, it was a lot busier than I expected. Anyway, I've spent most of this evening reinstalling Debra's PC. It's not a particularly powerful system and could really do with some more RAM. However, the installation has gone very smoothly and after I copy her documents back on tomorrow she can have it back tomorrow. I'm now gonna go and watch the Carling Cup tie between Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers.

I've been out all day today and it's been cold. I got all the way to Egremont and filled up the car before realising I had left my wallet at home. Luckily, the garage attendant was kind enough to accept my mobile phone as collateral until I returned from popping back home to collect it. I had a small panic when I got home because it wasn't where I normally keep it. I found it eventually. Popped into Whitehaven around lunchtime before returning to Egremont. I've spent the evening at Geoff and Chrissy's. We had a rather nice Ham and Pumpkin Soup for tea.

I having been feeling all that well for the last couple of days. It's nothing I can lay my finger on; just a general feeling of illness. I've had a sore throat since yesterday and a dull headache. I had to virtually drag myself out of bed aty Noon today. I really didn't want to get up but thought I had better do so. Kind of wish I hadn't bothered. So, rather than going roleplaying this evening I am instead going to curl up and have an early night. Michael will have to take Dad and Catherine shopping if they need to go. I am definitely not up to it.

It's been cold all day today; although, with it being November 30th, that's not such a surprise. I spent this afternoon watching the Manchester derby before watching the Chelsea-Arsenal game. I'm now going to try and catch up on some of the American TV that I've slipped behind with. Later, the Chicago Bears visit the Minnesota Vikings in the Sunday Night NFL game. Oh, and apparently, my cousin's PC is starting to play up. Another PC I'll need to look at sometime this coming week. Joy!

I'm off roleplaying in a couple of minutes, so here's a quick link for today. Enjoy!

After spending all day yesterday reinstalling my sister's PC I thought that I was almost done when I posted yesterday's entry. However, AVG's Firewall fell over and wouldn't restart. I spent a further 3 hours trying to sort it last night and a further 2 hours this morning. I tried everything I could think of and read a lot of the AVG forums, with no success, before biting the bullet and wiping the PC to begin again. I've reinstalled everything again today and it's behaving fine. It's in the spare room defragging the drives before I hand it back tomorrow.

I've spent all day today sat in front of my sister's PC, reinstalling it. So far I have reinstalled XP and all of the applications and utilities that she usually uses. If I've missed anything she'll be able to install the extras easily enough herself. I'm currently sat reinstalling games. I'm about 80% done with them and only have 3 or 4 more to go.

I'm about as bored as usual when reinstalling Windows.

I've spent most of today in Egremont; doing very little as it happens. We had a nice pumpkin & beef stew with brown rice for tea before I had to leave. Prior to coming home I had to pop to Whitehaven to drop some milk off for my sister and to pick up her PC, which I am reinstalling for him tomorrow. On the way home I popped into Scoot's to partition the hard drive in his new PC for him and to try and solve the lack of sound problem he was having with DVDs. It would appear that the version of Cyberlink PowerDVD that he got with the new PC doesn't have the Dolby Codec bundled with it. As a result, he was getting no sound on DVDs. I've changed his system setup so that it defaults to using Windows Media Player for now.

There's a new Prince Of Persia game due out this Christmas. It looks good.

I turned 39 today.

However, as Mondrak pointed out I'm only a day older than I was yesterday. Whilst his comments are factually accurate, we tend to consider ourselves as gaining an extra year in age on our birthdays. If somebody had asked me how old I was a couple of weeks ago I would have replied that I was 38, and maybe would've mentioned that I would be 39 in a couple of weeks. But, if somebody had asked me in the summer I would have responded with just the 38 answer, and wouldn't have mentioned that I would be 39 in November unless specifically asked.

However, ask the same question of one of my nephews and they would've said 7½, 9¾ or whatever their actual age was. The extra ½, ¾ or whatever seems to become less important as one gets older.

Also, as a youngster I tended to look forward to my birthday with excitement and whilst I never really received extravagent gifts, I was always fairly happy with what I did receive. As I've gotten older I tend to just look forward to the day as a means of recognising my slow passage into and eventually beyond middle-aged. I still enjoy receiving messages of congratulations, well wishes and birthday cards. However, I am now well past the age at which I expect and look forward to receiving presents. As a family we have all moved away from buying presents for the adult members and instead tend to put a lottery ticket or two into each card. It's not much, but you never know. None of us have ever won anything substantial as a result but there have been a few small wins.

Looking back on the last year of my life I have come to recognise that making stupid decisions result in consequences. I made a stupid decision in October 2007 that cost me my job. I was fired just 3 days before my 38th birthday. Now, here we are, a little over a year later, and I am still lokking to get back into employment. It's not been through a lack of trying. I have made a significant number of applications and have had, what I considered at the time, to be a number of fairly good interviews. I have even had one or two exceptionally good interviews. However, none have resulted in a job offer. The best I managed was to be included in a final shortlist of 3. Looking back, the decision I made at the end of October last year was probably not my finest hour and I suppose if I had to make the decision again I would probably think hard about it. However, after considering everything, the problem is that I would probably still have made the same decision that I did last year.

As I said, older, not wiser!

Monday marks the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of one of the best, cult sci-fi shows of all time; Mystery Science Theater 3000. MST3K ran for 198 epsiodes over 11 seasons and also spawned a movie, based on This Island Earth, in 1996. The premise of the show was that a man and his robot sidekicks are trapped on a satellite in space by an evil scientist and forced to watch a selection of terrible movies. The man and his robots provide a running commentary to the film, making fun of its flaws and wisecracking their way through the film.

The initial run of the show, referred to as Season 0, ran on KTMA-TV Channel 23 Minneapolis from November 24th 1988 to May 28th 1989 after which the show was picked up by Comedy Central and ran for 7 seasons. When Comedy Central dropped the show, MST3K's Internet fan-base staged a write-in campaign to keep the show alive which resulted in the Sci Fi Channel picking up the series, where it ran for another 3 seasons. The final episode aired on Sci-Fi on 8th August 1999.

Unfortunately, problems with movie rights have led to problems releasing the series on DVD. There are some available and there is a list on Wikipedia. However, these are all Region 1, NTSC releases. We can only hope that something good happens in the future and Region 2 PAL releases finally see the light of day.

Mondrak just tagged me on his blog. Anyway, the idea is to write 16 things about yourself, and then tag 10 people afterwards saying why they are tagged; and you can't tag someone who's tagged you.

Here goes:

1. I have more than slight OCD tendancies. My CDs, books and computer games must be in order. It drives me to distraction if they aren't. If I see something out of place I must correct the error.

2. During my school years I once scored 95% on a Physics exam and came top of the year at Home Economics. I used to bake every weekend with my mother whilst growing up.

3. My favourite tipple is Jack Daniels and either Diet Coke or Pepsi Max. In the past it used to be Pineapple Bacardi Breezers and before that it was Rum and Coke. I'm also very partial to particularly good Single Malt Scottish Whiskeys. If I have to drink pints I would prefer Belgian, not UK brewed, Stella Artois, Grolsch or Turborg.

4. Although I don't consider myself a Star Wars fan I have watched all 7 movies with varying degrees of enjoyment, and am currently enjoying the animated Clone Wars series. I much rather prefer Star Trek.

5. Tasha, my dog who died earlier this year, was named after the Star Trek: TNG character Tasha Yar. Amazingly enough, one of my friends, Roy, named his dog Tasha at about the same time. We hadn't discussed it beforehand.

6. I have a very self-effacing, almost shy, personality and dislike meeting new people. However, most of my really good friends I have known for a very long time. Even though I'm still under 40 I have a number of good friends that I have known for more than 20 years and a couple that I have known for over 30.

7. I grew up listening to Queen, Blondie, Bruce Springsteen and Abba. Even though my main tatstes are now much heavier I still love listening to Queen and am in fact listening to Freddie Mercury at the moment.

8. I love trivia and have even appeared on a TV Quiz Show. The show was 15-1. I was awful and got knocked out in the first round.

9. I collect Cows and have over 50 fluffy/soft toys as well as a collection of mugs, little figurines and other paraphenalia.

10. All the PCs I have owned over the years have all been self-built. I have never bought a ready-built system. I currently own 3 full systems and a laptop. My first PC was put together from parts I bought from CCL Computers; a company I still use today.

11. I am the oldest of 5 children. My mom was the youngest of 7. I have 2 younger brothers, Douglas and Jonathan, and 2 younger sisters, Sharon and Catherine. I get on fine with both sisters and Jonathan. The elder of the two brothers I haven't seen or spoken to for a few years. This does not cause me any concern and in fact all our lives are better for the lack of contact.

12. Growing up, I had 2 dreams; neither of which have come true. I wanted to be a professional footballer, but serious injuries to my ankles and knees scuppered that dream. Although, in truth, I probably would never have been good enough. My second dream was to be an astronaut.

13. I'm superstitious and amongst other superstitions, I will not walk under a ladder if I can help it. However, I don't have any hangups about the number 13 and rank it as one of my 3 favourite numbers alongside 3 and 7. In fact, I finally passed my driving test on Friday 13th.

14. I'm an avid sports fan and although I support particular teams I will still watch most sports regardless of the teams or individuals involved. As an example, 3 of the best football games I have ever watched didn't involve my favourite team.

15. Coming from a relatively poor background I've never had huge sums of money and have rarely travelled. In fact, I've only ever been abroad once in my life; a school trip to Germany when I was 14. I would love to visit Egypt, Calgary, Boston, Chicago and New York. However, I doubt I ever will.

16. I've just registered to do a degree with the Open University. I had originally thought of studying towards a BSc in Computing and Telecommunication Technologies but have decided that I'm going to study towards a BSc Open Degree instead. This leaves the choice of courses and modules more in my own hands and means I have more freedom to study areas that interest me more, such as Astronomy and Forensics. Although, I intend to stick to a core of Computing modules.

Tagging:

1. Chrissy. I've become platonically closer to Chrissy over the last six months to a year and would be interested to read what she had to share.

2. Geoff. Chrissy's husband comes across as an enigma at times.

3. WrongMark. Mr Adams tends to be forthright in his views. It'd be interesting to see what he would share.

4. Colin. One of my regular weekend roleplaying buddies must have stories to share.

5. mcphee. The amount of things he has been must be approaching legendary status.

6. PickledPixie. Pixie is a very private individual. I doubt he would share, but it would make interesting reading.

7. Mojo. Another private individual. There's bound to be things we don't know.

8. Kelly. Probably my best friend in the entire world. She's the person I would ask to be my best 'man' if I ever got married.

9. Pewari. Life with 2 small kids isn't all she is about and she is bound to have some interesting facts to share.

10. Wil Wheaton. Wil keeps a blog and growing up in show business must have been interesting. Although, I doubt he reads my blog.

My back spasmed whilst I was in town with Chrissy earlier and I've been in varying degrees of pain ever since. It was blinding agony when it happened to a dull ache when I got back to Chrissy's and got a heat pack on it. It still feels a bit tight now and is also still twinging occasionally.

I took the car in for it's 2nd annual service this morning. Since the service was going to take a couple of hours, they were nice enough to give me a courtesy car. It was a new Vauxhall Corsa and although it was handy I wasn't impressed with it. I can't even put my finger on why I didn't like it.

Anyway, the Lacetti needs to get the spark plugs changed and the rear wiper also needs replacing. They need to order those in and will get back in touch with me. I was also advised to take it along to Kwik-Fit to get a puncture in one of the rear tyres repaired and to get one of the front tyres replaced; due to wear. I got the puncture fixed but unfortunately will have to go back tomorrow to get the front tyre replaced. They had no suitable tyres suitable in stock and are having to get one in from another local Kwik-Fit.

I also got hold of a PC copy of Need For Speed Underover today and was pleased to see that they've ditched the Pro Street style gameplay and gone back to the Underground, Most Wanted and Carbon style of game. I've only played it for about 30 minutes or so and can say that I'm fairly pleased with it so far. I will probably also get hold of the 360 version sometime in the future; although that may be as a used game for about £15-£20.

England, currently ranked 10th equal by FIFA, produced a fine display to beat the country that FIFA ranks as second best in the world.

A goal in the first 25 minutes from Matthew Upson put England in command of the game. However, a mix up between Scott Carson and John Terry just after the hour allowed Patrick Helmes to score and fetch Germany back into the game. England still looked dominant and good chances went begging to Darren Bent and Shaun Wright-Phillips before John Terry popped up in the last 10 minutes to seal the win with a header.

I spent today babysitting Chrissy's kids for her whilst she's in London on business. I picked her son up this morning, and after having lunch in JJ's Cafe in Egremont we watched Ratatouille on DVD before going and picking up Chrissy's daughter. The kids watched Hoodwinked on DVD when we got back to the house whilst I prepared snacks for them. Geoff arrived back home just before 5pm and I left for home just about 5:30pm. The kids were pretty much quiet and no real bother.

There is a new trailer out for next summer's Star Trek movie. You can view the trailer at the official site and also at the Apple site. I must admit I like the look of things from the new trailer; especially the interior shots of the Enterprise.

Reg Varney, who played happy-go-lucky London bus driver Stan Butler in 65 of the 74 episodes of the 1970s sitcom On The Buses died over the weekend. He also starred in the earlier series of The Rag Trade and Beggar My Neighbour as well as appearing in the three On The Buses spin-off movies. He was 92 and is survived by his daughter.

On June 27th 1967 he made the first ever withdrawal from the world's first voucher based cash dispensing machine; at the Enfield Town branch of Barclays Bank

The complete series of On The Buses is available to buy on DVD from Amazon and Play.com amongst other retailers. Although, it would be cheaper to buy the series by the individual seasons. The 3 movies spinoffs are also available to buy as box sets from Amazon and Play.com.

One thing that I forgot to mention last weekend was that Microsoft's Windows operating system turned 25.

Anyway, if you're interested with where Microsoft are headed with Windows 7 there's a first look here. You can get news about the next version of Windows here. There is also a blog on MSDN about the engineering process involved, it's available here. Wikipedia have a page dedicated to Windows 7, available here. Finally, Paul Thurrott has a page dedicated to Windows 7, located here.

Just a link to a pretty good flash version of Tetris.

Been in bed virtually all day with a headache and temperature. I feel considerably better now for the extended period in bed.

I saw the new Bond movie this evening. In my opinion Quantum Of Solace isn't as good as some of the older Bond movies but I feel it stands up as a pretty good film in it's own right.

As with Casino Royale there isn't a plethora of gadgets and the franchise has got back more to the nitty-gritty of fist fights and shoot outs without the need for the gadgets. Some of the stunts were quite breathtaking, whilst others were simply over the top.

You can tell that the producers have noticed the success of the Jason Bourne films and reacted accordingly. That's definitely not a bad thing. Bond, as a result, stands up as an action hero in his own right. I'd probably rate it at 7/10 and feel it's probably every bit as good as Casino Royale.

I recently received an email from my webhost stating that my hosting was due for renewal in a little under 3 weeks time; Sunday 30th November to be precise. Anyway, the last couple of times it came up for renewal I had a look around before deciding whether to renew or transfer to another company. However, this time I have been more than happy with the service that Compila have provided that I haven't bothered looking around. I decided just to renew and it has cost me just under £45 for a further 2 years of hosting. An added bonus of staying with Compila is that they will renew my domain registration for free.

Fifty things you might not know about President-elect, Barack Obama:

• As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine
• Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita
• He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books
• He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.
• He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia
• He can bench press an impressive 200lbs
• He can speak Spanish
• He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck
• He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
• He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol
• He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300
• He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker
• He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)
• He has read every Harry Potter book
• He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were "street urchins"
• He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside
• He is left-handed - the sixth post-war president to be left-handed
• He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life
• He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia
• He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali
• He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes
• He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds
• He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president - he didn't
• He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal
• He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry
• He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date
• He uses an Apple Mac laptop
• He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fiancé, but left when a stripper arrived
• He was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service handlers
• He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name
• He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball
• He was nicknamed "Bear" by his late grandmother
• He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits
• He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father
• He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream
• He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician
• His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)
• His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy
• His favorite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire
• His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso
• His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
• His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea
• His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini
• His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees
• His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars
• His house in Chicago has four fire places
• His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government
• His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili
• His speciality as a cook is chilli
• While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average North American eats more bread than that in one month!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.
8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 240 degrees Celsius! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
12. Most bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:

1. No sale of bread to minors
2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.

Got home from roleplaying about 1:30am this morning and more or less went straight to bed. I was asleep not long after 3am; I remember listening to the 3am news on the radio. Anyway, I woke up a few times this morning but really wasn't feeling great so went back to sleep. It was finally just after 1pm this afternoon when I finally emerged from bed. I really didn't feel like getting up but thought I better had. As a result, I've felt pretty tired all day and am just going to sit and watch a wee bit of wrestling before calling it a night again. It'll definitely be this side of midnight tonight.

Manchester United just lost 2-1 to Arsenal in what has been undoubtably the game of the season so far. To be honest, Arsenal played well and I can't really begrudge them the win. Manchester United also played well but just didn't seem to have the rub of the green when it really mattered. I think the Premier League will go all the way down to the wire again this season.

Something keeps on switching off my Real Time Anti Virus Protection. I'm going to try and run a full McAfee scan to if it picks anything up. If not, I will uninstalling it and installing something like Kaspersky.

Time Warp is a new show that premiered recently on Discovery in ths USA. Working in a similar vein to Discovery's Mythbusters and Sky's Brainiac, the show takes ordinary, mundane occurences as well as extraordinary events and slows them down massively to show what happens in slow motion. Taking advantage of high speed cameras and recording at anything up to 20,000 frames a second, the series has so far examined what happens when Diet Coke and Mentoes are mixed, why you shouldn't pour water onto a hot chip pan, what happens when martial artsists break tiles, and many more.

No doubt it'll turn up on Discovery UK sometime in the future.

Someone came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Someone came knocking
I'm sure-sure-sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right,
But nought there was a-stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl's call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall,
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.

Walter de la Mare (April 25, 1873 - June 22, 1956)

This is the poem that Chrissy's 5 year old daughter recited this morning in her poetry recital and won first place in the under 8 age group.

We stayed put for all this morning's entrants and I must admit that I was very impressed with all the entrants. Other poems that were recited included Ducks Ditty by Kenneth Grahame, Sea Fever by John Masefield and Old Meg by John Keats. There was also a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson but the title has eluded me. It may have been The Wind Blew Shrill And Smart, but I'm not 100% certain.

Queen's "Somebody To Love" is given the Star Trek treatment:

The audio on my PC appears to have gone walkabout permanently. I noticed the problem when I was getting no output from Winamp this morning. After checking a separate set of pc speakers I narrowed it down to the fact that it appears that the onboard audio has died.

I must admit that I'm a bit disappointed; the motherboard in the PC is probably only about a year old. But, I'm not prepared to try and arrange either a repair or replacement motherboard. So, I'll just settle for using a separate card.

Anyway, I powered down the PC and installed a spare sound card that I have. I powered the PC back up and still had no sound, even with the other set of speakers. In fact the software I downloaded for the new card said that there wasn't any compatible sound chip installed. Luckily, I have another spare card.

Once again, I powered down and installed the other card. Windows detected the new card straight away and installed the correct software automatically. Sound goodness again. It's only a standard 2.0 card; albeit it a really decent quality Yamaha card, but I'm not that bothered since I only have 2 speakers connected to the PC anyway.

Tonight was the last week in the current roleplaying session. Next week we all move onto other games. Anyway, after the meeting we were guarding was attacked by a small paramilitary force last week we spent this week dealing with the aftermath of the attack and our egress from the area. Hampered by a heavy dose of paranoia, after one of our party was kicked out of a chopper by one of the guys we were guarding, we ended up playing safe and ignoring instructions given to us by the security forces and left the area by other means. Once we decided that we had got a reasonable distance away one of the mages went astral to find out what was going on and returned with a second mage, a representative of the security forces. We have now surrendered ourselves to them and are just going through a debrief process. At this point I think that getting out of the run alive is the best we could have hoped for.

OVGuide Online Video Guide is exactly what it says it is. A guide to videos available online. Founded in 2006, OVGuide.com is the Internet's most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to online video, including TV shows, movies, user-generated content and video games. OVGuide.com categorizes and organizes more than 1,600 online destinations, offering both short- and long-form videos integrated into an editorialized directory and search engine.

Joost is a way to watch videos - music, TV, movies and more - over the Internet. We could just call it a website ... with videos ... but that's not the whole story. You can search in "traditional" ways - by title or category - or you can find suggestions from other people on Joost. They may be your friends, or they may just be people who have something in common with you - but either way, they can direct you to great things to watch.

Martindale's Reference Desk is a virtual online desktop reference. With links to all sorts of information it's pretty much an almost essential stopping point on the web.

Just some mindless, silly fun today. Visit here.

After spending all day with Chrissy and the kids yesterday I got home just around 8:30pm last night and felt exhausted. Anyway, I was in bed by 10pm and asleep not long afterwards. I was up a couple of times during the night to use the toilet and finally roused this morning at around 10am; a full 12 hours after I went to bed. Apart from a headache this afternoon, nothing unusual there, I have felt better today than I have for quite a while. I'm just having a bite to eat now and will sit down to watch some Halloween related fare.

With it being half-term and Geoff working, Chrissy has asked if I would accompany her and the kids to Muncaster Castle today. It's just down the coast from where we live; about a 30 minute drive or so at the most. I'm taking my camera and will hopefully post a few pictures later this evening or tomorrow.

I've had occasion in the past to open up PCs to troubleshoot problems for various people, obviously including members of my family. Sometimes, it's been a case of a quick clean and ensuring components are properly seated. Thankfully, I've never come across a PC whose internals were absolutely caked in dust.

With Halloween on Friday I thought it would be a perfect time to share this little video.

Just a quick link today: The Free Information Society

I had some blood tests done last Tuesday, along with checking my blood pressure, and went back today to get the results. The Nurse is rather unhappy with my blood sugar levels, the tests show an average of around 8.1 rather than the less than 7.0 that she was hoping for. Rather than up my dosage of Metformin, she has instead given me another 8 weeks to get them down. She also wasn't too happy with my blood pressure readings from last week and decided to check it again. Testing on my left arm brought figures of 170 over 120 and an immediate referral to the Doctor. He checked my other arm, less than 20 minutes later, and got figures of 190 over 114. As a result, he has doubled my Irbesartan dosage and ordered me to visit him again in 3 weeks. He outlined his concerns over the fact that if I don't get my weight, blood sugars and blood pressure down then he feels that I'm only a couple of years away from either a heart attack or a stroke. A sobering declaration, to say the least.

I just have to share this link with you. It's not rude or anything, but isn't particularly kid-safe. Visit and you'll see why. It really made me smirk.

On Tuesday 30th September, the High Court ruled that the treatment that the Gurkhas have been receiving in terms of the right to live in the UK if they retired before 1997 has been unlawful. Please help and try to force the Government to change the law on how it treats Gurkhas. Please sign this petition. More information on the High Court ruling can be found here.

Not a lot of in-production, or even planned, TV or Movie stuff escapes my attention. I like to try and keep up to date with upcoming shows so that I can pick out things that may well interest me. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I discovered that Legend of the Seeker, a series based on Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series of fantasy novels, was not only in production, but actually has a solid premiere date..

In the aftermath of the brutal murder of his father, a mysterious woman, Kahlan Amnell, appears in Richard Cypher's forest sanctuary seeking help...and more. His world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence. In their darkest hour, hunted relentlessly, tormented by treachery and loss, Kahlan calls upon Richard to reach beyond his sword-to invoke within himself something more noble. Neither knows that the rules of battle have just changed...or that their time has run out. This is the beginning. One story. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend. Written by Terry Goodkind

The series premieres on November 1st in the U.S.A. and I will be looking out for it as soon as I can.

I went shopping yesterday and spent £20 more than I had planned. I only actually wanted some dog food for Petra but ended up buying myself a couple of packets of mince, a couple of jars of chilli sauce, a couple of jars of pasta sauce, a couple of jars of potato bake sauce and a fair few other bits and bobs.

I decided that I would make Chilli for tea today. The packet of mince I used was almost twice the size that a single jar calls for so I used both jars of chilli sauce and added a couple of extra onions. Normally, when I make loads of Chilli I'll let it sit in the pan for a couple of days and end up having chilli for 3 or 4 evening meals in a row. However, this time, after taking what I wanted and letting Catherine and Russell also have some, I decided to tub the rest up and when it's cooled down I'll freeze it. It means I don't have to have Chilli for 3 or 4 dyas in a row and can instead just take it out of the freezer and microwave as required.

Oh, it was very nice; although it was rather mild compared to my normal fare. No less enjoyable though!

My sister-in-law, Susan, is pregnant again; with her fourth child. No exact date yet, other than Summer 2009.

Two disputable goals by Dimitar Berbatov and yet another goal from Wayne Rooney gave United a 3-0 victory that saw that remain in control of their Champions League Group. Berbatov definitely looked offside for both of his goals but to be honest United never looked like losing the game. They are joined at the top of the group by Villareal who beat Aalborg 6-3.

With Dad's hospitalisation and subsequent period of recovery I've been doing the shopping for the last couple of months. However, Dad arranged with Michael to actually go and do the shopping himself today. It gave me a chance to get an early bath and catch up on the latest couple of episodes of Dexter.

I sat up and watched Game 6 of the ALCS last night. The Boston Red Sox beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-2 to tie the series at 3-3 and force Game 7 tonight. If they manage to win tonight it'll be the third time in recent years that they will have come back from a deficit to claim the AL title and a World Series berth.

In 2004 they came back from 3-0 down in the ALCS to beat the New York Yankees 4-3 and progress. Last year they came back from 3-1 down to beat the Cleveland Indians 4-3. This year they were down 3-1 against the Rays and have won the last two to tie the series at 3-3 and force Game 7.

I will be sat up watching them again. The game starts just after 1am and is live on NASN. It's also likely that it will be live on Channel 5.

This is the second attempt at writing this post. The first attempt suffered from premature closure when I accidentally hit the power button on the keyboard whilst adjusting the feet. PC started to enter Standby mode before the PC finally froze on the close screen. I'm going to go and change the settings in the Control Panel to ensure it asks what I want to do first.

Anyway, after having a nap early this afternoon I sat down earlier this evening and thoroughly enjoyed the FA Premier League clash between Manchester United vs West Brom which United ended up winning 4-0. After the match ended I continued, and finally completed, the duplicate hunt through my wallpapers and have saved 7½gb of space by eliminating just over 23,000 duplicate images. There are stil just over 9½gb of wallpapers left, along with just over 2¾gb of other pictures.

I've spent a fair portion of today shopping and must admit that most of it was for other people. That being said however, I did buy a few things for myself. Most notably a new recipe book, a rubik's cube for my desk, Hellboy on dvd, some cookies; Tesco Finest Toffee I think, and a Date and Fudge Loaf. I also picked up my new laptop workstation, so that I can use the laptop in bed without having it sat warming up my legs, and my new Boston Red Sox replica Jersey; both of which a friend picked up for me whilst he was in California.

Millvina Dean, 96, is the last remaining survivor of the Titanic and is now having to sell mementoes from the ship to pay her nursing home fees. She was nine weeks old when the liner sank in the North Atlantic in 1912.

The auction in Wiltshire will include a suitcase full of clothes given to her by the people of New York after her rescue, several rare prints of the Titanic - including one of it leaving the White Star dock in Southampton and compensation letters sent to her mother by the Titanic Relief Fund. She hopes to raise £3,000.

Miss Dean moved into a private nursing home in Ashurst, Hampshire, two years ago after breaking her hip, but developed an infection and has been unable to return to her own home.

After watching the baseball until 4am this morning, I didn't get up until almost Noon. After popping round to look at a friend's PC that keeps on disconnecting from the internet; it transpires that he needs to reposition his wireless router, I am now passing the time until this evening's England game by sorting through my wallpapers collections.

I've put all my wallpapers back onto the PC. It's about 17gb in 73,000 files and am currently running through them all checking for duplicates. The system I'm using reckons that there's about 23,000 duplicates and I have so far deleted 3,000 of those, saving just over 2gb. I'm not going to get them all done in one fell swoop but I will endeeavour to get 1,000 or so done each time I sit down at the PC, and can hopefully, get them all done within about a week or so.

Chrissy phoned this afternoon to say that she wasn't feeling too well and would I be willing to pop over and help out. I agreed to do so after finishing a few bits and pieces I had left to do here. After picking her kids up from school we quickly popped into Whitehaven for a wee bit of shopping.

Discussions in the car on the way into Whitehaven ended up deciding what we would all have for tea. Spaghetti and home-made Meatballs. Whilst Chrissy went off to he belly dancing class Geoff, the kids and I tucked into tea and discovered the meatballs were absolutely brilliant. Really nice, very more-ish and very filling. We then sat and had a natter whilst listening to a Nightwish DVD in the background. It was a nice relaxing, stress-free evening.

The latest version of the free open source alternative to Microsoft Office is now officially available. It has been released for Windows, Linux, Solaris and Mac OSX. Visit the Openoffice.org website to grab your own copy.

I've spent all day reinstalling games. So far I've reinstalled Audiosurf, Diablo II & Lords Of Destruction Expansion, GameHouse Collection, Crimson Skies, Neverwinter Nights & Expansions, Neverwinter Nights 2 & Expansion, Quake III Arena & Team Arena, Quake 4, Reflexive Arcade Games Collection, Starcraft & Broodwar Expansion, The Orange Box, Unreal Anthology, Warblade and Warcraft III & Frozen Throne Expansion. I've still got a considerable number of other games to reinstall but Steam took ages to download the old Half Life games again.

Normally, we would be roleplaying today but Scoot is working. So, we're going to watch some DVDs instead. It's a good chance to catch up with Colin and Paul at least. It's been over a month since I last turned up to the Saturday game.

Just as I was about to go to bed last night my PC decided to have a serious hiccup. The Windows XP theme reverted back to the Classic Windows theme and I couldn't get it back to normal because the standard theme had vanished. After rebooting the PC it was still the same and Windows Defender and a few other packages refused to run.

A quick check of HijackThis revealed nothing out of the ordinary. However, System Restore, which was my next port of call, kept on coming up with an error and refusing to load. Even dropping back into Safe Mode didn't help. The only thing left to do was reinstall Windows. I had the PC back up and running within an hour and then spent a couple of extra hours downloading updates and installing software. It was just about 6am when I went to bed and was woken by the ambulance calling to collect Dad just before 9am. He's got an appointment in Carlisle to discuss prosthetics.

Anyway, I'm just finishing up installing the last few bits and pieces that I didn't get around to installing last night. I've taken the opportunity to be very selective about what I've reinstalled and haven't bothered installing software that I haven't used for ages. Even though I keep my Games installations separate I have also decided to wipe the Games partition and will only install games that I'm likely to play; especially with a potential LAN session coming up sometime in the near future.

The PC is a wee bit more streamlined and boots a wee bit quicker than previously. I'm going to get the last few bits of software installed and will then let PerfectDisk loose on it to defrag the drives.

Dad, as mentioned in my previous entry, was having problems with his PC last night. The new gfx card we ordered at the end of August has died. When it was first inserted there were problems with vertical lines across the display. Pushing the front of the card in, when the power was off, with the heel of your hand solved this. It had been pretty much fine since then and we've only had to re-secure the card a couple of times in the intervening period. However, the problem resurfaced yesterday and couldn't be fixed. Unfortunately, I haven't got a spare AGP card so had to pop up to grab my brother's spare. Whilst there we tested Dad's card in his PC with the same display corruption resulting. When I got home last night I filled in an RMA request with eBuyer and after a natter with their tech support line they have arranged to collect the card on Friday and send a replacement. Nice, quick and efficient.

Today has mostly been pretty good. I've spent the whole day at Geoff & Chrissy's. We made Flapjack this morning and Bread Rolls this evening. Between picking the kids up at lunchtime and mid-afternoon we also managed to pick up some more paint for the outside of their house, do some shopping at Tesco and have a really nice Ham Salad in JJ's Cafe in Egremont.

However, I have an intermittent twitch on my left eye for the last week or so and it really irritates. It's not a case of it'll twitch, be fine for a while, and then twitch again. It'll actually twitch for a good 10-15 seconds at a time and will do so anywhere up to a dozen times an hour when it's really bad. Nothing has seemed to help and it leaves my eye feeling very heavy and puffy; although it physically looks fine. It's got to the stage where I am now getting headaches all the time and my right eye will similarly twitch for 5-10 seconds every once in a blue moon.

The eye has just started twitching now and I really need to make an appointment to get it checked. In the interim, I'm feeling exhausted and had intended to have an early night this evening. But, problems with Dad's PC and Kev's 360 scuppered my plans to go to bed when I got home at 9pm.

The American League Championship Series will be an all AL East affair as the Boston Red Sox beat Los Angeles Angels last night to join the Tampa Bay Rays in the best of seven series. The winner will go on to represent the American League in the World Series and face the winner of the National League Championship Series; either the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Philadelphia Phillies.

I'm rooting for the Red Sox and am not too bothered who they end up playing in the World Series.

One of the things that I have been neglecting recently that I should have been doing on a regular basis is the self monitoring of my blood glucose levels. I hadn't realised how long it had been since I had last checked them and was shocked to discover that prior to today, the last time they were checked was August 4th; a full two months ago.

Anyway, back in late July and early August my levels were fluctuating between 6.6 and 7.6 which was a little bit higher than ideal, but not much. This morning's measurement was a 7.0 and is just about bang in the middle of what the levels had been.

Time to knuckle down and see if I can get the readings down by at least another point to 6.0 or even lower. First thing to do is change back to a plain breakfast cereal.

The European Commission has agreed to grant Protected Geographical Indicator (PGI) status to Melton Mowbray Pork Pies. This will mean that only pork pies made in the traditional manner and in and around Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire will be allowed to use the town's name.

It comes after a 10-year-campaign lead by local county councillor Matthew O'Callaghan, chairman of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association. He said: "Friday was the final deadline for the other countries to object to Melton Mowbray getting protected status.

"We heard ... that no objections had been lodged.

"It has been a long campaign and it has inspired others. You now have Cumberland Sausage and Jersey Butter following what we did."

He went on to say: "The Melton Mowbray market is worth £50million a year. That is a lot of pies.

"There are three things that make them distinctive, firstly the meat is grey because we use fresh pork. Secondly, they are bow-shaped rather than straight sided and this goes back to when they were made at home by farmhands rather than professional bakers. Bakers use hoops that make pies circular and straight sided.

"And thirdly, of course, they are made in the Melton Mowbray area."

The decision will now be published by the European Commission in its official journal and will then become law.

An office worker goes insane at work and tears the place a part. Luckily, the only victims are a computer monitor, two guys, a girl, some documents, another monitor, three cubicle partitions, a copy machine, a ton of other stuff, and his job.

It has rained all day today. I don't mean on and off. It's rained, non-stop, all day. We used to have a garden. We now have a pond. Boy, you can't half tell when Autumn has arrived. We are currently entering at least a 15th hour of continual rain and doesn't look like abating anytime soon.

"Bookkeeper" and "bookkeeping" are the only words in the English language with three consecutive double letters.
"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language
"Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis" (a lung disease) is the longest English word according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

According to Genesis 1:20-22, the chicken came before the egg.
All polar bears are left-handed.
Antarctic means opposite the Arctic.

Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
At the nearest point, Russia and America are less than 4 km apart.
Britain's shortest river is the Brun which runs through Burnley in Lancashire.

Butterflies taste with their feet.
Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
China has more English speakers than the United States.

Coca-Cola was originally green.
Cuba has virtually no illiteracy and is the only Latin American country to offer all its citizens free healthcare.
Dashing horses kicking up mud (among other things), splashing the passengers riding behind them, led to the invention of the dashboard, a term which survives today.

Despite a population of over a billion, China has only about 200 family names.
Devon is the only county in Great Britain to have two coasts.
Dominica, Mexico, Zambia, Kiribati, Fiji and Egypt all have birds on their flags.

Donald Duck comics were once banned in Finland because he didn't wear pants.
Dreamt" is the only word in the English language that ends in "mt".
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

During most of the Earth's history, the North and South Poles have been free of ice.
Eighty percent of the world's ice is in Antarctica.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

Emilio Marco Palma was the first person born in Antarctica in 1978.
England is smaller than New England.
Every year, Mexico City sinks about 10 inches.

Great Britain was the first county to issue postage stamps, so theirs are the only stamps in the world not to bear the name of the country of origin. (And the glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher).
Hawaii's Mauna Kea is the largest mountain on Earth: although partially submerged, it is 4,000 feet taller than Mount Everest.
Honey is the only food that cannot spoil.

Humphrey Bogart was related to Princess Diana. They were seventh cousins.
If done perfectly, any Rubik's Cube combination can be solved in 17 turns.
If the Earth was smooth, the ocean would cover the entire surface to a depth of 12,000 feet.

If you keep a Goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.
In 1825, Upper Peru became Bolivia.
In 1845, ice shipped to Tallahassee cost $1 per pound.

In 1892, Italy raised the minimum age for marriage for girls to 12.
In 1956, there was an iceberg in the South Pacific larger than Belgium.
In January and February, the average temperature in the high Arctic is -29 F.

In May 1948, Mt Ruapehu and Mt Ngauruhoe, both in New Zealand, erupted simultaneously.
In downtown Lima, Peru, there is a large brass statue dedicated to Winnie-the-Pooh.
In the Andes, time is often measured by how long it takes to smoke a cigarette.

In the Arctic, the sun sometimes appears to be square.
In the Caribbean, there are oysters that can climb trees.
In the kingdom of Bhutan, all citizens officially become a year older on New Year's Day.

It is impossible to lick your elbow.
It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
It's so hot in the Sahara Desert that rain evaporates before it even hits the sand.

Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as a medicine.
Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world.
Largest man-made lake in the world: Lake Mead.

Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
Little America is located in Antarctica.
Los Angeles and San Francisco become 2.5 inches closer together each year because they are on opposite sides of the San Andreas fault.

Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, was allergic to carrots.
Men can read smaller print than women, but women can hear better.
Minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit equals minus 40 degrees Celsius.

Mongolia is the largest landlocked country.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
More than 75% of all the countries in the world are north of the equator.

More then 25% of the world's forest are in Siberia.
Mozambique has an AK-47 assault rifle on its flag.
Norway contains the largest icefield in Europe.

Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in our solar system. All the moons of the solar system are named after Greek and Roman mythology, except the moons of Uranus which are named after Shakesperean characters.
Only 7% of the population are lefties.
Persia changed its name to Iran in 1935.

Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.
Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed People do.
Robert E. Lee is the only person to date to have graduated from West Point military academy without a single demerit.

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means the capital in the Korean language.
Spiral staircases in medieval castles turn right as they ascend. This was so that (right-handed) knights defending the castle could more easily combat invading foes who were climbing the stairs.

St. Paul, Minnesota was originally called Pigs Eye after a man who ran a saloon there.
Starting with the number one, you would have to count to one thousand to use the letter "A".
The Amazon River enters the Atlantic with so much volume that fresh water exists more than a hundred miles from the mouth of the river.

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.
The South Pole is colder than the North Pole.
The Tropic of Capricorn passes through Australia.

The US purchased Alaska from Russia for approximately 2 cents an acre.
The ammunition belts in WWII aircraft were 27 feet long, reminiscent of the expression "the whole nine yards".
The channel between England and France grows 300mm each year.

The city of Mt. Vernon, Washington, grows more tulips than the entire country of Holland.
The day after October 4, 1582 was October 15, 1582.
The deadliest volcano eruption was that of Krakatau (Indonesia) in 1883.

The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The ghosts in Pac-Man are named Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde.
The human body has 70,000 miles of blood vessels.

The island of Nauru is composed mainly of bird droppings.
The letter "J" does not yet appear anywhere within the periodic table of the elements.
The longest place name still in use is: Taumatawhakatangihangaoauauotameteaturi- Pukakpikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu - a New Zealand hill.

The longest river in Asia is the Yangtze.
The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
The number of births in India each year is greater than the entire population of Australia.

The sentence "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every Letter in the English language.
The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.
The surface speed record on the moon is 10.56 miles per hour. It was set in a lunar rover.

The toothbrush was invented in 1498.
The volume of the Earth's moon is the same volume of the Pacific Ocean.
The wingspan of a Boeing 747 jet is longer than the Wright Brothers' first flight.

When the moon is directly overhead, you weigh slightly less.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men!!
Worldwide, about 40 square miles of land are transformed into desert each day.

Yo-Yos were once used as weapons in the Philippines.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
You expend more calories eating and digesting celery than there are in the celery itself.

Zaire is the world leader in cobalt mining, producing two-thirds of the world's cobalt supply.

Oh, and did you try licking your elbow?

I've spent today catching up with some of the latest episodes of top American TV shows such as Bones Season 4, Criminal Minds Season 4, CSI Miami Season 7, CSI New York Season 5, Eureka Season 3, Fringe Season 1, Heroes Season 3, House Season 5, Knight Rider Season 1, My Name Is Earl Season 4, Prison Break Season 4 and Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 2.

Of the new shows that have launched this Autumn/Fall I would have to say that Fringe has been the highlight so far; although having said that, the only other new show that has caught my attention is Knight Rider. In terms of returning shows, Eureka has been fairly good and Bones has also been pretty good. Prison Break and Terminator have both been strong but the stand out so far is the new season of Heroes. We've already encountered a couple of new faces and there is definitely the promise of good things in store for the rest of the season.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is probably the only returning show that I keep up with that has not yet returned. I'm also looking forward to Dollhouse which should launch early in 2009.

A Day Makes.

I woke up this morning with a continuation of yesterday's monster headache and thought I was in for a day similar to the previous couple.

Anyway, after going through my normal morning routine I headed off to Geoff & Chrissy's just before 11am. After picking up Chrissy's son from school we had lunch in Egremont before getting back to the house and Chrissy started the job of getting the attic ready to accept the plethora of empty boxes that Chrissy wants to keep hold of. Some further medication for my headache seemed to do the trick.

After persuading Chrissy the job would go easier in the evening with Geoff around to offer a third pair of hands we retired downstairs before heading off to collect her daughter from school. I helped entertain the kids whilst Chrissy prepared tea. We all sat down to an excellent tea of Lasagne and Vegetables apart from Chrissy, who had Mash and Beef Stew, due to not being allowed Lasagne. After tea Chrissy went to Tai Chi whilst Geoff, the kids and I headed off to Workington to pick up a monitor. When we were all back at the house we were able to get the boxes back up and the attic and get sorted enough to know what needed to be taken to the local tip.

I think a change of scenery more than anything has done me a world of good and I almost feel up to tackling anything. Although, a pillow attached to a bed is probably what I'm going to attack first!

I'm physically and mentally exhausted.

I had my interview/assessment for HMRC today. I entered the building at 3:15pm and left at 5:55pm. There was a computer test, then an interview and finally a roleplay. I made a couple of mistakes but overall it seemed to go okay. I should find out whether I have reached the next stage; the merit list, in a fortnight or so. Appointments will be made strictly in order based upon the merit list.

Anyway, I am now going to go and unwind a wee bit before settling down to watch tonight's Champions League game between Aalborg and Manchester United.

Today has been one of those days. I feel like I haven't stopped all day; and I haven't gotten anything done. It feels like I've spent the whole day chasing after other people.

The day actually started out okay and I managed to catch up with last night's Bears game. But, after that, it seemed to go downhill. No sooner would I get settled down to watch or do something than I would end up getting dragged away to do something else.

I really didn't feel like going roleplaying tonight but ended up doing so because it got me out of the house for a few hours.

I think I may need to go and see somebody. This is all starting to become a real drag.

I've spent virtually all day today sat upstairs watching TV. I've spent all afternoon watching football on Sky Sports, with the occassional flick over to check the Formula One, and this evening, I've been mainly watching documentaries on the Discovery and History channels. Sky Sports are showing the Chicago Bears live at 1:30am tonight and I'm hoping I can stay awake long enough to watch them.

After recently completing an online application form and subsequently completing an online assessment and data entry test I have been invited to arrange an interiew with HM Revenue & Customs for the position of Contact Centre Adviser in a new local tax office that is opening in the near future.

After checking the available slots I have selected 15:30 this coming Tuesday. Apparently the interview will last for at least 1½ hours and will include some more assessments and roleplay of potential situations.

Hot on the heels of Lego Indiana Jones is Lego Batman. It's going to be another decent hit with 30 levels of gameplay; 15 for the heroes and 15 for the villains.

Dad was released from hospital this afternoon. He seems quite chipper at the moment and is already planning changes downstairs. I'm staying upstairs; well out of the way.

I popped in to see my brother last week and he mentioned that his wife was thinking of buying a laptoip and had looked at some in Currys. Anyway, after I went home I thought about it and telephoned him and asked if she wanted to buy mine and I could then put some extra money towards buying a better one for myself. It would be a bit cheaper than buying a brand new one. She said "Yeah" and asked me to take it up yesterday. That gave me enough time to reformat the drive to remove Ubuntu and reinstall XP and set it up for her.

I ordered my new laptop this morning; a Dell Studio 1535. Rather than paying £500, or rather £450 thanks to their current offer I found an ex-demo on eBay for £300. Should hopefully arrive by the end of the week.

After having a couple of Occupational Therapists visit the house last Friday they arranged for Dad to come home today on a home visit to ascertain how well he is going to be able to cope when released from hospital. The visit seemed to go well and it's now just a matter of time until they decide to release him.

Apparently, their systems indicated that I had been highly active on Facebook lately and viewing pages at a quick enough rate that they suspect I may have been running an automated script; a violation of their Terms of Use and potentially of federal and state laws.

As a result, my account has been disabled. I have confirmed with them that in the future I will not scrape or otherwise attempt to obtain in any manner information from their website except as permitted by their Terms of Use, and that I will immediately delete and not use in any manner any such information I may have previously obtained.

I was definitely not using any form of automated script and have a feeling that problems with Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures may actually be to blame.

This week we were offered a new job in Shadowrun. We are to travel to Ireland and act as external security for an American politician who is seeking to become major of New York and has travelled to Ireland to trace his roots. Unfortunately, we've been unable to bring along anything larger than a Heavy Pistol or a knife. Bwok is feeling decidedly naked without her usual load of weaponary.

There is quite a selection of sport on TV today.

BBC2 viewers can see the final day of the Davis Cup tie between Great Britain and Austria from Wimbledon. GB currently trail 2-1 and need to win both singles matches today to avoid relegation.

British Eurosport are showing Live World Touring Cars on and off all afternoon.

Eurosport 2 are showing Live World Superbikes all afternoon.

Setanta Sports 1 are showing Feryenoord vs Ajax from the Netherlands and will be showing Kilmarnock vs Celtic later on. They will also have Marseille vs Monaco from France this evening.

Setanta Sports 2 are showing both the Junior and Senior All-Ireland finals this afternoon.

NASN will be showing live MLB action, Philadelphia vs Florida this evening.

Channel 5 will have the last ever MLB game played at Yankees Stadium late tonight, early tomorrow.

Sky Sports 1 have West Brom vs Aston Villa and then Chelsea vs Manchester United this afternoon and will follow that up with the closing stages of the Ryder Cup later this evening.

Sky Sports 2 kick off this afternoon with Live Ryder Cup Golf before moving on to show the cricket playoff between Glamorgan and Worcester. They have a live Spanish Football double-header this evening as Racing Santander host Real Madrid before Barcelona are entertained by Sporting Gijon.

Sky Sports 3 have live Davis Cup action between Spain and the USA all afternoon. They finish the day with a triple-header of live NFL action; Cincinatti Bengals @ New York Giants, Jacksonville Jaguars @ Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys @ Green Bay Packers. The first two games will have alternate games simulcast on the interactive service.

Sky Sports Xtra have live Nascar later this evening.

My facebook page has been removed. When I try to login I get the following message:

Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.

I have no idea why my account has been disabled and have sent them an email asking why it has. I will just have to wait and see. In the meantime I can't play Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures.

I finally managed to get pagination figured out. It was the .htaccess file and how it was trying to address the MT plugin directory to dynamically build the paginated pages on the fly. Anyway, you can now browse backwards through the blog without having to use the archives.

I've received a letter from Shepway District Council today concerning the appeal I made after I received a parking ticket. Apparently, although the badge was incorrectly displayed that fact wasn't mentioned in the enforcement officer's letter and they are therefore going to waive the charge this time but have made it clear how the badge should be displayed correctly and that a similar breach would not be overlooked in the future. I have since changed the way I display the badges and shouldn't fall foul of this again.

Whenever we roleplay on a Saturday a wide selection of snacks are usually provided by members of the group. One of the goodies provided is invariably some form of flapjack. In recent weeks we have bemoaned the fact that today's flapjack tends to be a lot softer and chewier than we remember it being when we were growing up. Today, I decided to do something about it. I baked my own and it turned out okay. Not as polished a product as you could buy commercially but a very passable end result. And, it has hardened up quite nicely in the fridge. Not well enough to wreck your teeth, but well enough.

My recipe, which made two very big trays:

1kg Oats
750g Granulated Sugar
750g Margarine
500g Mixed Fruit
9 Desert Spoons Treacle
3 Teaspoons Ground Ginger
2 Teaspoons Salt

You could quite easily replace the Margarine with Butter, the Granulated Sugar with either Soft Brown or even Caster Sugar and the Treacle with Golden Syrup. You could also quite easily either leave the Mixed Fruit out or substitute it with other fruit ingredients. You need to cook in a hot oven; 200 Celsius, 375 Fahrenheit, Gas Mark 5 or 6 for about 22-25 minutes.

Anyway, following my recipe, I mixed the Margarine and Treacle together in a bowl with an electric whisk, then added the Sugar, Ginger and Salt whilst continuing to mix. I then began to fold in the Oats. Finally I split the mixture in half and added the Fruit to one of the halves. I then spread the two mixtures into greased trays and cooked for about 25 minutes at about 210 Celsius. I made sure to score the flapjack as soon as it came out of the oven to ease cutting when cool.

It would probably have been better to use greaseproof paper rather than just greasing the trays. It would have made removing the flapjack from the trays a lot easier than it turned out to be. But, I'm more than happy with myself. It must be at least 20 years since I deliberately set out to bake something from scratch rather than using a pre-mixed package.

The Champions League group stages kicked off this week. Last night, Liverpool came from behind to beat Marseille 2-1 and Chelsea beat Bordeaux 4-0. This evening Celtic drew 0-0 with Aalborg, Arsenal came from behind to draw 1-1 with Dynamo Kiev and Manchester United could only manage a 0-0 draw with Villarreal. For me, the highlight of the evening was the return to action of Cristiano Ronaldo.

1. Thou Shalt Not List Every Movie, TV Show, Band and Book You Have Ever Heard Of In Your Profile

Do you like Radiohead, A Confederacy of Dunces, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off? Do you enjoy watching The Office and Family Guy? Of course you do - everyone likes those things. Why make it a point to express your enthusiasm for things that everyone likes?

2. Thou Shalt Not "Poke" Indiscriminately

Maybe I'm missing something here, but as far as I can tell, "poking" people serves absolutely no purpose other than prompting the person on the other side to "poke" you back, sparking off a potentially infinite spiral of pointlessness that makes everyone involved just a little bit dumber than they were when it started.

3. Thou Shalt Not "Friend" People You Don't Actually Know

What does the word "friend" mean to you? It means different things to different people, but most would agree that a "friend" is someone that you actually know. Ideally someone you've met in real life. I know that's not always going to be the case, but I'm sure we can all agree that if someone is your friend, you should at least KNOW WHO THEY ARE.

4. Thou Shalt Not Use A Wall As A Private Messaging Function

The "Wall" is one of Facebook's most popular features. That being said, there are times when it might be a good idea to move your conversation to a private venue.

5. Thou Shalt Not Join A Billion Groups

If you're a black lesbian with a severe wheat allergy who also happens to be into Philip K. Dick and astrology, then you're in luck: there are tons of groups on Facebook, and there's sure to be at least one of them out there that caters to you. But with so many groups available, you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. You might like chicken noodle soup quite a bit, but do you really need to join the Chicken Noodle Soup Group? Maybe you prefer sponges to forks, but do you really feel so strongly about it that you need to join SPONGES RULE - FORKS DONT!?

6. Thou Shalt Not Use Stupid Apps

There are thousands of apps available on Facebook, and although there are a few worth checking out, about 99.9% of them suck. A reasonably intelligent person should be able to tell the difference. If you can't figure out which is which, maybe Facebook isn't the place for you. Perhaps another social networking site would suit you better?

7. Thou Shalt Not Give "Gifts"

I know this goes with the whole not-using-stupid-apps thing, but "gifts" are so stupid that they deserve their own commandment.

If you want to give me a "gift" of some kind - like a butterfly, a pink striped thong, or an adorable panda - give it to me in real life.

8. Thou Shalt Not Contact People From Your Distant Past While Intoxicated

It's nice to let old friends know what you've been up to, but mixing Facebook with alcohol can be a potentially deadly combination.

9. Thou Shalt Not Update Thy Status Message If Thine Status Hath Not Changed (Or If You Have Nothing Clever To Say)

You have a full-time job, Monday through Friday, 9-5. We have a pretty good idea of what you're doing when you're at work - sitting at your desk, typing stuff, maybe talking on the phone every once in a while. Your weekdays are pretty predictable; your friends could use your routine to set their watches. You're at work. We get it.

10. Thou Shalt Not Act Like You're On MySpace

Welcome to Facebook - you're all grown up now and it's time to start acting like it. What does that mean? It means no more "pimping" out your page, no more "glitter" pictures, and no more crashing peoples' browsers with tons of annoying embedded junk in your profile. Are you okay with that? Does the idea of a social networking site that is actually USABLE appeal to you? Even if it means you can't make your page display blinking purple text on an animated rainbow background with Aqua's "Barbie Girl" playing every time the page loads?

The following arrived in my Inbox this afternoon and I feel it's worth sharing with everybody else.

(1) The three little words: 'Hold On, Please...'

Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.

Then when you eventually hear BT's 'beep-beep-beep' tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset .... You have efficiently completed your task.

These three little words could help eliminate telephone soliciting.

(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end?

This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone
Calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone.

This technique is then used to determine the best time of day for a 'real' salesperson to call back and get someone at home.

What you can do after answering: If you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialled the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer!!!

(3) When you get those 'pre-approved' letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.

Most of these come with postage-prepaid return envelopes, right?

It costs them more than the regular postage 'IF' and when they are returned. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-prepaid return envelopes.

Send an advert for your local chimney sweeper to American Express ... They might need one! Send a pizza coupon to HSBC ... In case their canteen packs up. You get the idea.

If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them back their blank application form ... After all, it is their form!

If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you return.

You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them, and it is their envelope after all ... You are just returning it!!!!

The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the post, but folks..... We need to OVERWHELM them, in order to stop them.

Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it ... Twice!

Let's help keep Royal Mail busy. Since the Royal Mail is saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, let's help them so they will not need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea!

If enough people follow these tips, it will work ---- maybe you'll get very little junk mail anymore.

The mission briefing that we were given last week in Shadowrun was that the run would be wetwork; more precisely, the permanent removal of DocWagon's COO. Most of the party, with the exception of Mover; Chrissy's rigger, were fine with this and have now met up in a safehouse to commence planning. Our fixer has informed us that the hit has to be surgical with minimal collateral damage and also needs to be public. DocWagon are having a shareholder's meeting in a few days time and we are going to hit the meeting. Bwok, my troll, has decidedly unfriendly feelings toward DocWagon and wouldn't mind some collateral damage. However, she will toe the line and make plans to be as surgical as possible.

My next neighbour got himself an already hacked iPhone off eBay a while ago. Recently, he upgraded iTunes to the latest v8 and accidentally updated the firmware and software on his iPhone to a newer, unhacked version. Anyway, he popped over earlier regarding his PC running slow and I helped solve that problem for him. He mentioned about the iPhone and I offered to have a look at it and see if I could roll the upgrade back. Anyway, a quick check gave the impression that I wouldn't be able to roll back the upgrade without unistalling the latest version of iTunes and reinstalling v7.5. Further checking on the web pointed me in the direction of some software that would hack the v2.0.2 firmware. The main problem I've had is with the power button on the iPhone. Rather than switching the iPhone off it has invariably been resetting it. I've ended up spending most of this afternoon at it and finally got it sorted.

I've been fairly scathing of the iPhone but bar for the niggle with the power button I kind of like the look and feel of it. I am not going to replace my N95 with one though!

Obviously, an opportunity too good to miss!

I sat down and finally watched the new Scorpion King and Mummy movies last night.

The Scorpion King 2: Rise Of A Warrior doesn't have an all star cast and features five-time UFC champion Randy Couture as the main villain. I don't think it was as good as the first movie but does hold up fairly well in it's own right. It's not going to set the film world on fire and probably ranks as a mediocre low budget film. I won't say it's on a par with something like Krull, Ladyhawke or Legend but it's an okay fantasy romp.

The Mummy 3: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor on the other hand is an excellent addition to the franchise and feels a lot like the first two movies. However, Jet Li seems a bit miscast as the bad guy. Or maybe I've gotten used to his recent films and feel there's no enough action coming from him. Brendan Fraser and John Hannah, on the other hand, both do fine work reprising their roles. I think it's a shame that they couldn't get Rachel Weisz. Anyway, overall I'd give the film a definite thumbs up.

I watched the pilot episode of JJ Abrams' new show, Fringe, today. I must admit I enjoyed it immensely and found it very reminiscent of The X-Files. It was a good solid start to a new show with a wee bit of a twist thrown in. I will be looking forward to future episodes for definite. I've also recently caught the first episodes of new seasons of Prison Break, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Bones, Dexter and Eureka.

Dad's surgery went quite well apparently. My sisters went up to see him this evening and they've reported that his blood pressure is a bit low and that his pulse is up over 110. He's also receiving blood transfusions; which I would assume is to help bring his volume back up and raise his pressure. No word on anything else and they seemed relatively calm about things, suggesting that there's been no problems.

They decided to hold off on Dad's surgery until this morning. After a consultation with the surgeon last night the plan is apparently to amputate through the knee in an effort to offer as much mobility after the operation as possible. However, the surgeon did mention that it may not be possible to do so and he would only know for sure once in theatre. If amputation through the knee proves to be a non-starter then he will attempt to amputate above the knee whilst remaining as close to the knee as he possibly can.

Dad has had problems with his foot for quite a while now and has been waiting to go into hospital to get it sorted. Well, he was due to have an assessment with a nurse this morning before having a meeting with a surgeon tomorrow. Anyway, as a result of this morning's assessment, they have decided to admit him and operate. I was told that the original plan was to amputate his toes at the very least tomorrow. It now looks more than likely that he will be operated on this evening.

For the first time in about 18 months I get a chance to actually play Shadowrun at the roleplaying club. I have been running either Goblins or Ratkin on the last couple of times that Geoff has offered to run. I had originally offered to run Goblins this session until I discovered Geoff was going to offer Shadowrun. I immediately withdrew my offer to run and signalled my intention to sign up for Shadowrun. Johnny came around last week with game allocations and pleased me by informing me that he had indeed placed me in Geoff's Shadowrun game.

The release of version 4.21 of Movable Type in mid-August slipped by me without notice. However, logging in earlier to update some blogroll links I noticed the announcement in the control panel. A quick visit and download later and the install has gone fine. I have now upgraded from the personal version of MT 4.12 to the professional version of MT 4.21.

About 2 hours ago I received a phone call from one of my closest friends to say that he was splitting up with his wife. To say that I was shocked would be a slight understatement since I'd only seen them last weekend and everything seemed okay. Apparently, Talishia had met another guy at a festival in mid-August and had grown more distant from Alley since returning home. I am not going to be judgemental and will hope to stay friends with her after they split but I cannot help but feel sorry for their two wonderful kids who will, no doubt, be affected by this split.

Saturday would normally find me sat around a table roleplaying but not today. Well, not until a bit later than normal. The reason for the delay is that my hometown club Peterborough United are live on Sky Sports today. They're hosting Bristol Rovers and could really do with getting a win, having lost 3 of their first 4 games this season. I'll be watching the game live before going to the roleplaying game late.

I have spent all day today sorting out Dad's PC. I've had a number of problems along the way but it's finally up and running with all the usual software reinstalled. I've even reinstalled some of the games he tends to play. I took a couple of hours away from it whilst I tool my kid sister shopping and returned home to my bigger sister reporting that she had problems installing games due to the cd/dvd drives vanishing from explorer. After discovering they were also missing from the BIOS, I powered down the pc and ensured that the cables were all well seated. If they continue to vanish I will disconnect one of them and see if that makes any difference.

Dad's PC has once again developed some problems. Most notable of which is the fact that Internet Options have disappeared from the Control Panel and are also not accessible from within IE. I suppose that the fact that IE will not browse or open any web pages or local files is unlikely to be a coincidence. In an effort to get ready for a full blown reinstall tomorrow I have split his C: drive down into 2 partitions and have backed up all the stuff he wants to keep onto the second partition. Before I start the full reinstall tomorrow I am going to wipe the C: drive and reduce it is size to around 60gb. The D: drive which is on a separate drive and will contain all his games I will leave as a single contiguous 157gb partition. Once I have Windows installed and up and running I will transfer his stored files back over onto C: and then resize the E: partition, on the same drive, to take advantage of the remaining space; 95gb or so.

Geoff and Chrissy, both linked in my Blog Buddies, are currently in the middle of a major renovation of their home. They have recently had some rendering work done, a new roof installed, new windows installed also and the next stage will be to paint the outside.

Anyway, the next stage in the process inside the house will getting new insulation fitted in the loft. However, before that can happen the plaster, dust etc from the old roof needs to be tidied up. Chrissy and I made a start this afternoon whilst Geoff was still at work but quickly decided that trying to do it by hand would take forever and would probably kill us. A quick pop into Whitehaven saw us come back equipped with a beefy vacuum cleaner.

After tea was made and enjoyed; a fine tattie pot, followed by cake and whipped cream; with Kirsch for me and Geoff and Tia Maria for Chrissy, it was time to get back up in the loft and crack on with the cleaning up. A good 2½ hours later and I would say we're at least a fifth of the way through the process.

I've got a job interview tomorrow so will be unable to assist but I think Geoff and Chrissy will get a wee bit more done and I have promised to pop over on Friday if it's convenient to help out some more. The house is really starting to come together and Chrissy also has thoughts for installing a spiral staircase and converting the loft space into a couple of further bedrooms, possibly even with an en suite.

The new Max Payne movie is due out in October and the trailer actually looks pretty good. It stars Mark Wahlberg.

Sky have already started showing the new season of Prison Break and I didn't even realise it. Will have to hope they are repeated later in the week or else look to d/l them.

I'm back home after a 6½ hour drive. It was fairly uneventful apart from an idiot in a blue van almost going into the side of me near Maidstone in Kent. The van just came barelling down the sliproad before sweeping across the first lane and attempting to move into the second lane which I was currently occupying. Luckily I had looked over towards the sliproad to see what was in the inside lane and if I needed to move over to make space for anybody having to make way there. I spotted the guy moving into the inside lane and was about to turn back to looking down the main carriageway when I noticed the van continuing to move over and was able to take evasive action by moving into the, luckily empty, fast lane.

After Alley discovered last night that his Shadowrun disc wouldn't boot we spent a good hour or so ensuring that everything else did. No other problems were discovered and Alley is in town on Monday morning anyway so he will get the disc changed then.

We ended up listening to a bit of music before settling down to watch Next. It wasn't all that bad, but the ending left me feeling a bit flat. I enjoyed the film overall though. Anyway, we've spent most of this afternoon having fun on both Burnout Paradise and Flatout: Ultimate Carnage on the 360. Tonight, we're going to watch Smokin' Aces.

Al prepared dinner today since Tali was working today. It was a very enjoyable meal; although he did forget to do stuffing, yorkshire puddings and mashed potatoes. Although the roast potatoes he did do more than made up for it. He also made some extremely nice fruit shortbread this afternoon and has promised to give me a few pieces to take home with me tomorrow.

After having some drinks last night we popped into town relatively early on today.

First stop was Gamestation where I purchased NHL 2K7, NBA 2K8, Shadowrun and Dead Or Alive 4 for the XBox 360. Alastair purchased Shadowrun and Star Trek: Legacy, both for the XBox 360 also. I also popped into Game and purchased Burnout Paradise and Viking: Battle For Asgard also for the XBox 360. We popped into Waterstones but there wasn't anything that really grabbed me. On the way to Asda we passed HMV, where I purchased Planet Of The Apes: Special Edition (all 5 original films), Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End and Rush Hour 3. We had lunch in Asda before returning back to the car to discover I had received a £70 parking ticket for parking in a disabled bay and incorrectly displaying my badge. I've got 14 days to appeal and intend to do so. If that fails I will ensure I pay in enough time to get the 50% reduction to £35 that they have offered.

Just gonna have a relaxing evening tonight; and may watch a movie or something. It'll depend what everybody else wants to do.

I did the entire trip down in one complete stint; just over 6 hours, setting off at 2:45pm and arriving at 9:05pm. When I came down last year I filled up in Maidstone on the way down and near Sanbach on the way back. This year I managed to get all the way to Folkestone without having to fill up; and ended up filling up at the Tesco near Alley's new house. I'll probably just put another £30 or so in somewhere on the M6 on the way home. We have no plans to do anything today other than veg in the house and maybe have a few drinks later on. Will probably either pop into town or perhaps even Canterbury tomorrow to do a wee bit of unnecessary shopping.

Capoeira is a flashy style of fighting based largely on break dancing. Unfortunately for this guy, there's more to winning a fight than what we've been taught by Michael Jackson music videos and West Side Story. Next time he'll focus less on dancing and more on punching.

I'm going to Folkestone for the weekend and will, to all intents and purposes, be unavailable. I will have my mobile and laptop with me, but will only have restricted access to my email; mainly my Google account, and will potentially, only be on IM when I'm using the laptop. However, the laptop has all my bookmarks on it also, thanks to Foxmarks, and as a result I should be able to post a couple of blogs whilst away.

Arsenal cruised into the draw for the group stages of the Champions League with a 6-0 aggregate victory over former England manager, Steve McClaren's Dutch side, FC Twente.

Liverpool had Dirk Kuyt to thank for their qualification. A poor Liverpool had to wait until the 118th minute of tonight's game before Kuyt pounced on a Ryan Babel cross to give them a 1-0 victory on the night, and on aggregate, over Belgian outfit, Standard Liege.

They both join England's two automatic qualifiers, Manchester United and Chelsea, in Thursday's draw. 17 nations are represented in this year's draw, and no 2 clubs from the same nation can be drawn in the same group. By co-efficient Manchester United are actually the 5th ranked club in the tournament, but are seeded number 1 as holders. All 4 English clubs are in Pot 1, along with 2 of Spain's 4 entrants, 1 of Italy's 4 entrants and 1 of France's 3 entrants. Scotland's only surviving entrant, Celtic, are in Pot 3.

The draw will be made at 18:00CET and the teams involved are as follows:

Pot 1:
1 Manchester United FC (ENG, holders)
2 Chelsea FC (ENG)
3 Liverpool FC (ENG)
4 FC Barcelona (ESP)
5 Arsenal FC (ENG)
6 Olympique Lyonnais (FRA)
7 FC Internazionale Milano (ITA)
8 Real Madrid CF (ESP)

Pot 2:
9 FC Bayern München (GER)
10 PSV Eindhoven (NED)
11 Villarreal CF (ESP)
12 AS Roma (ITA)
13 FC Porto (POR)
14 Werder Bremen (GER)
15 Sporting Clube de Portugal (POR)
16 Juventus (ITA)

Pot 3:
17 Olympique de Marseille (FRA)
18 FC Zenit St. Petersburg (RUS)
19 FC Steaua Bucureşti (ROU)
20 Panathinaikos FC (GRE)
21 FC Girondins de Bordeaux (FRA)
22 Celtic FC (SCO)
23 FC Basel 1893 (SUI)
24 Fenerbahçe SK (TUR)

Pot 4:
25 FC Shakhtar Donetsk (UKR)
26 ACF Fiorentina (ITA)
27 Club Atlético de Madrid (ESP)
28 FC Dynamo Kyiv (UKR)
29 CFR 1907 Cluj (ROU)
30 Aalborg BK (DEN)
31 Anorthosis Famagusta FC (CYP)
32 FC BATE Borisov (BLR)

Once upon a time there was a printer who lived in the woods. He was a lonely printer, because nobody knew how to configure him. He hoped and hoped for someone to play with.

One day, the wind passed by the printer's cottage. "Whoosh," said the wind. The printer became excited. Maybe the wind would be his friend!

"Will you be my friend?" the printer asked.

"Whoosh," said the wind.

"What does that mean?" asked the printer.

"Whoosh," said the wind, and with that it was gone.

The printer was confused. He spent the rest of the day thinking and jamming paper (for that is what little printers do when they are confused).

The next day a storm came. The rain came pouring down, darkening the morning sky and destroying the printer's garden. The little printer was upset. "Why are you being so mean to me?" he asked.

"Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter," said the rain.

"Will you be my friend?" the printer asked shyly.

"Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter," said the rain, and then it left and the sun came out.

The printer was sad. He spent the rest of the day inside, sobbing and blinking lights cryptically (for that is what little printers do when they are sad).

Then one day, a little girl stumbled into the printer's clearing in the woods. The printer looked at this curious sight. He didn't know what to think.

The little girl looked up at him. "Will you be my friend?" she asked.

"Yes," said the printer.

"What is your name?" asked the little girl.

"HP 4100TN", replied the printer.

"My name is gnome-cups-manager" said the little girl.

The printer was happy. He spent the rest of the day playing games and printing documents, for that is what little printers do when they are happy.

I am extremely disappointed. They have remade one of the greatest science-fiction movies ever made and all I can think is "Why?"

Although, the trailer does look quite good.

Wizards of the Coast have recently launched a Facebook app called Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures. You can select your character from seven different templates. I chose the Human Cleric. You can visit a shop to buy and sell equipment. You have an inventory that you can use to equip different items and you can equip 2 potions per adventure. It's a neat little way to introduce a whole raft of potential new players to the D&D universe.

If you have a Facebook account you can find it here.

I have just recently discovered this article on Lifehacker that details some of the best free add-ons for Explorer in XP to improve functionality. They include add-ons that enable tabbed browsing, folder breadcrumbs and real thumbnail icons.

Hamad Darwish is a Kuwaiti Radiographer, a photography hobbyist, and an adventure enthusiast. In 2005, Microsoft commissioned Hamad on a photo-shoot to take pictures to be used in the desktop wallpaper collection of Windows Vista. Microsoft selected two photographs for inclusion.

DualScreen Wallpaper is a site that may be of interest if you're one of the increasing number of people that use more than one monitor for your desktop display. The site features images in resolutions of 2560x1024, 1920x1600, 1680x1050, 1440x900 & 1280x800.

Mando Gomez is a Southern California resident who has been making desktops and taking photos for a long time. His website has a collection of images that are suitable for single, dual and multiple monitor displays.

Pixelgirl Presents is an award-winning site featuring Mac OS X, XP and Icontainer iconsets and desktop images as well as offering tutorials, articles and links. Resolutions range from 1024 x 768 upto 1920 x 1200 and they also offer a range of wallpapers suitable for the iPhone.

Social Wallpapering is a site that offer desktop wallpapers at a wide variety of resolutions, including images suitable for widescreen displays and also features images suitable for dual monitors.

deviantART is more than just a desktop wallpaper site. Founded by Scott Jarkoff, Angelo Sotira and Matt Stephens on August 7, 2000, deviantART is an online art community for artists and art lovers that just about everybody on the internet has probably come across or at least heard of.

Cheat Happens is a games cheat site that also features a rather good collection of game wallpapers.

Nintendo Life is one of the newer generation of fanboy and news sites that have popped up in the last few years and has a range of Nintendo related wallpapers in a variety of resolutions.

Graffiti Wallpaper was founded by Emma McCreary, who loves finding beautiful, striking imagery for her desktop and wanted to share the love. There are well over 200 wallpapers in Animal, Flowers & Plants, Landscape and Misc Wallpaper categories.

Mike Swanson is a Technical Evangelist working in Microsoft's Developer and Platform Evangelism organization, deeply involved with both MIX and PDC events. Mike has been creating desktop images since March 21, 2002 while on a Royal Caribbean cruise to Key West, Florida.

Digital Blasphemy feature hi-res original 3d rendered computer desktop wallpapers and links to some of the best computer art sites on the web. There are over 600 images, including Widescreen, Dual-Monitor (dual widescreen available), and Triple-Monitor versions of some wallpapers. iPhone wallpapers, Pocket PC Themes and PSP wallpapers are also available in the Members Gallery.

InterfaceLIFT is a website that includes approximately 1600 stunning wallpapers, windows icons and shapeshifter themes for mac osx.

eWallpapers features images at resolutions of 1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024, 1280 x 960, 1600 x 1200, 1920 x 1440, 1280 x 800 widescreen, 1440 x 900 widescreen, 1680 x 1050 widescreen, 1920 x 1200 widescreen, 2560 x 1600 widescreen, 2560 x 1024 Dual Monitor, 3200 x 1200 Dual Monitor, 1280x720 HDTV 720p, 1920x1080 HDTV 1080p and also at resolutions suitable for iPhone, iPod and PSP.

How well do you know your world?

Take the Traveler IQ Challenge and find out. My best score is 294546, level 9 of 12, World Cities (Very Hard).

I'm quite pleased since I didn't do any Geography past 3rd year of secondary school (aged 14).

When Albert Einstein was making the rounds of the speaker's circuit, he usually found himself eagerly longing to get back to his laboratory work. One night as they were driving to yet another rubber-chicken dinner, Einstein mentioned to his chauffeur, a man who somewhat resembled Einstein in looks & manner, that he was tired of making speeches.

"I have a great idea, boss," his chauffeur said. "I've heard you give this speech so many times. I'll bet I could give it for you."

Einstein laughed loudly and said, "Why not? Let's do it!"

When they arrived at the dinner, Einstein donned the chauffeur's cap and jacket and sat in the back of the room. The chauffeur gave a beautiful rendition of Einstein's speech and even answered a few questions expertly.

Then a supremely pompous professor asked an extremely esoteric question about anti-matter formation, digressing here and there to let everyone in the audience know that he was nobody's fool.

Without missing a beat, the chauffeur fixed the professor with a steely stare and said, "Sir, the answer to that question is so simple that I will let my chauffeur, who is sitting in the back, answer it for me."

I've just watched England grab a thoroughly undeserved 2-2 draw against the Czech Republic at Wembley in their final friendly game before their 2010 World Cup Qualifying campaign starts.

Milan Baros had put the visitors ahead after 21 minutes before Wes Brown equalised just before half-time with his first ever goal for England. A minute into the second half and the Czech Repblic are back ahead thanks to a brilliant curling free-kick from Marek Jankulovski. Joe Cole got England back level with a scrambled equaliser in injury time at the end of the game.

To be honest, England never really looked like winning the game and the Czech Republic can rightly feel disappointed that they didn't leave with a victory. England's only highlights were Wes Brown, who had a really good game, and Joe Cole, who came on after 55 minutes. From watching the game I have to wonder about some England players and their downright refusal to pass the ball. I counted at least half a dozen times when either David Beckham or Gareth Barry were calling for the ball in midfield with nobody near them and they were ignored.

England next play against Andorra in Barcelona on 6th September and should win that game. Andorra aren't a strong nation and England should be able to beat them. However, 4 days later, they play away in Croatia and on tonight's performance they will need to improve dramatically to get anything out of that game.

Expert Village offers over 120,000 professionally produced and researched videos, to answer your everyday questions with answers you can trust.

Topics include Arts & Entertainment, Business, Careers, Cars, Computers, Culture & Society, Education, Electronics, Fashion, Style & Personal Care, Food & Drink, Health, Hobbies, Games & Toys, Holidays & Celebrations, Home & Garden, Internet, Legal, Music, Parenting, Parties & Entertaining, Personal Finance, Pets, Relationships & Family, Sports & Fitness, Travel, Weddings, Bartending Guide, Cooking Guide and Online Guitar Lessons.

I can't remember ever feeling this bored before. And to top it all off I can't be bothered doing anything about it.

I don't feel like reading, or listening to music, or browsing the web, or playing a game, or watching TV, a DVD or even something that I've downloaded. The car is parked in the wrong place outside and I can't be bothered going to move it so the neighbour can park his park. I don't even feel like making something to eat or drink, or even asking somebody to make me something. I don't even particularly feel like just sitting in the armchair and doing sod all. I've even got a load of podcasts to catch up on and cannot be bothered with them.

In fact, I don't even know why I've bothered writing this post. I'm in two minds as to whether to cancel it or not...

I really just cannot be bothered.

A website with well over 200 pieces of unnecessary knowledge.

Did you know that 50% of female polar bears also have a penis. How about the fact that polar bears are left-handed. Or that Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest. And finally, 45% of Americans don't know that the sun is a star.

All this and more from here.

I know that the English Championship and Leagues returned last weekend, along with the Scottish League; but for most, the return of the English FA Carling Barclays Premier League for the 2008/09 season today marks the true start of the new season.

I was disappointed with Peterborough United losing away to Southend in League One last weekend and then going out of the Carling Cup in mid-week by losing to Bristol City. Hopefully, they can get back on track by beating Leyton Orient this afternoon. I'm not going to predict that they'll win the division but I'm hoping they will be there or thereabouts come mid-May.

In the top flight, West Bromich Albion visit Arsenal in the first game of the new season at lunchtime, live on Sky Sports. The rest of the programme kicks off as normal at 3pm. Sunderland host Liverpool this evening in the live game on Setanta Sports. Tomorrow sees Chelsea host Portsmouth followed by Manchester United hosting Newcastle United. Both games are on Sky Sports.

In terms of the season as a whole it would appear that the three newcomers, Hull City, West Brom and Stoke City, along with the likes of Wigan Athletic, Fulham, Bolton Wanderers and Middlesbrough could all find themselves struggling in the bottom half of the table.

At the top of the table you really cannot look beyond the usual suspects of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool fighting it out for the title. Tottenham Hotspur have made some significant moves in the transfer market and could end up forcing their way into the mix also. However, I wouldn't be surprised if Aston Villa, Everton, Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle United and Manchester City all had an effect on the title race. I can't see them breaking into the mix by they could definitely get results to upset the apple cart.

Ultimately, and I'm no expert, I think that Stoke City, Hull City and West Brom will find life in the top division too hard and will end up going back down to the Championship come the end of the season.

At the top of the table I'm predicting Manchester United to win the title again; I couldn't say anything else as a fan really. I think Chelsea will finish 2nd and Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham will fight it out for the two remaining Champions League spots in 3rd and 4th. With the unlucky third of the three finishing 5th and qualifying for the UEFA Cup. The 2 main domestic Cups could end up anywhere but I think they'll both be dominated by the top six or seven clubs in the League. The Johnstone Paints Trophy will hopefully find it's way to London Road; the home of Peterborough United.

In terms of this season's UEFA Cup I think there are too many strong sides in the competition for an English Club to win it. I could see it going to Spain with Sevilla FC, Valencia CF or RC Deportivo La Coruña, to Italy with AC Milan or Napoli, to Portugal with SL Benfica or even to France with Rennes . It could all depend upon the eight teams that end up in the knockout stages of UEFA Cup after finishing third in the Champions League groups. The UEFA Cup Final will be held on Wednesday 20 May 2009 at the Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in Istanbul.

The same four English clubs that qualified for last season's UEFA Champions League have qualified again this season. All four clubs have proven they have the ability to go all the way and will all face tough competition from Europe's elite. Europe's top clubs such as Real Madrid CF, FC Barcelona, FC Internazionale Milano, Juventus, Olympique Lyonnais, FC Bayern München and Sporting Clube de Portugal will all feature prominently. However, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with multiple English participants in the latter stages again and I am once again picking Manchester United to win the trophy. The Champions League Final will be held on Wednesday 27 May 2009 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.

A few freebie game downloads for you.

First up are two games form the same author. Thrust Xtreme; a remake of a classic game of yesteryear and Grid Assault, a PC remake of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. Both are available from here.

Next up is Detritus; a fast-paced shoot-em-up strongly based on the old classic Asteroids. It can be downloaded from here.

The fourth game is called Gunroar; a vertically-scrolling take on Geometry Wars / Robotron. There are also a few other games available from the same author. You can download Gunroar from here.

The final game is Nanozoa. Remember the movies Inner Space and The Fantastic Voyage? In Nanozoa, you pilot a tiny ship through a person's body aiming to kill parasites and microbes. It has a very stylish black and white look and is available to download from here.

Just when we thought we'd seen it all, a clip of the never-produced Buffy: Animated has surfaced! Somewhat of a holy grail for the fans...

There is an online petition to try and get it made.

After enjoying seasons 1 and 2 of Dexter earlier this summer I've been waiting for Showtime to announce the new season. They have finally announced it will launch on September 28th.

When did Monster Munch become so bland?

I remember eating Monster Munch as a child and my face being almost folded double by the strength of the Pickled Onion flavour. Even as an adult the taste has always been very strong whenever I've had them. Anyway, I bought a multipack of them for the rpg game last weekend before remembering the game had been called off. I opened the bag this evening and ate a pack of Pickled Onion flavour. I couldn't believe how bland they were. I've got another 3 packs to try and will hope that they are stronger.

I was randomly browsing the internet and came across this Education Portal, a resource hub for students and working professionals to research career paths, degree programs, and schools within their chosen disciplines. Along with information on free online courses I also found information on how to find free unabridged books on the internet.

A friend was kind enough to pass me some Manchester United memorabilia earlier this year; as thanks for some work that I had done for them. However, I now find myself in the position of needing to raise some cash to fund a trip later this month and have taken the unfortunate decision that the memorabilia may help raise the necessary funds. I would really have liked to keep them but needs must.

If you're a Manchester United fan then please check out what I'm selling on eBay.

This made me giggle!

Manchester United have won the first silverware of the season by beating Portsmouth on penalties in the 100th Community Shield. United have won the Shield a record 13 times and have also shared it 5 times. Ryan Giggs became the first player in history to win the Shield 7 times.

United thoroughly deserved the win and should really have won the game before it went to penalties. Darren Fletcher missed a good chance near the end of the first half and Carlos Tevez was pulled down in the Portsmouth box with less than 15 minutes left; but nothing was given.

Urban Dead is an online game that I've played on and off for the last couple of years. The premise of the game is very simple. Survive or kill the survivors if you're a Zombie. If you play a human and die you become a zombie. Zombies can be revived and returned to life.

DigiGuide is a TV guide for Windows that allows you to search, organise and get reminders for your favourite programmes without ever opening a web browser. I have used it since December 2000 and have only just realised that I have never mentioned it on the blog; mainly because it's one of those things that I take for granted.

You can get a free 30-day trial by clicking here. Subscriptions cost £9.99 a year, which works out at less than 20p per day. Purchasing for more than one year at a time works out even cheaper. And one other point in it's favour is that you are allowed to install it on upto 3 PCs at the same time.

Apparently, DigiGuide will run on Linux using Wine but you'll need to read the support forums for more details. There is no Mac version currently but the developers have stated that they will be working on a Mac version later in the year after v8.4 is finalised for the PC. In the interim Mac users may be interested in their online version.

Although the football tournament has already been going for a couple of days the Olympic Games officially open today and will be most people's first chance to see the 2 stunning venues that have been built specifically for the games:

• The Bird's Nest: Bejing National Stadium, will host the main track and field competitions for the 2008 Summer Olympics, as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. It will hold 91,000 spectators; of which 11,000 are temporary seats, and is designed to emulate the random look of a bird's nest; hence, the nickname.
• The Water Cube: Beijing National Aquatics Center, will host the Swimming, Diving and Synchronized Swimming events It's nicknamed the Water Cube because of it's distinctive looks; having being designed to look like a collection of soap bubbles.

I finally finished reading Taliesin this morning. It's taken me over a year to read it. However, I have only been reading it sporadically; usually a chapter or two at a time, and then leaving it for long periods of time. I ended up going to bed before 1am last night and was awake before 8am this morning. After grabbing some breakfast etc I decided to watch some of the football from the Olympic Games. I also decided that I'd read a couple of chapters and ended up reading the last 12 or so all in one go. Anyway, before I make a start on the next 4 books in the series I'm going to read some Jeremy Clarkson.

I've just discovered a web site offering a 12cm x 12cm x 12xm cube of the Milky Way for sale. The price, including delivery to Europe, equates to just over £435 and if I had the cash I would be sorely tempted. It looks really cool and would be a very nice desk ornament.

You can find it here.

I've just discovered a rather cool new search engine called Searchme. As you type in a search term categories will start to appear beneath the search box. Selecting one of those categories will start displaying images of websites that match your search. It's pretty cool.

About 3½ hours ago I flatly refused to add a feature to the rpg web site because it would involve editing over 150 different files. As soon as I posted the refusal I thought about whether or not there was an easier way of doing it. Anyway, a quick search of the internet and I discovered a way to achieve a similar result by editing less than 30 files. 3 hours later and the feature is implemented.

It's coming!

David Braben has stated recently that the technology is almost complete that will allow him to finally make Elite 4 a reality.

Frontier Developments; Braben's company, are currently working on The Outsider, which is due in 2009 and will look towards a 2010 release for one of the most anticipated games in the history of video games.

The original Elite was released in September 1984. Frontier: Elite II was released in October 1993. Frontier: First Encounters was released over the Easter period of 1995.

Starcraft II was an exciting announcement. Diablo 3 was a big announcement too. But, this? It's...

We didn't end up roleplaying yesterday. We knew that Greg wasn't turning up but John informed Colin at the last minute that he was pulling out of the game for a while. Colin, for whatever reason, decided to have a DVD session instead of the game.

I chose Fargo as the first choice of the day, Scoot then picked Hellboy II, Paul picked A Knight's Tale, Colin chose Fearless Vampire Hunters & I chose Wrong Turn for my secound choice before Scoot selected Das Boot for his. Making a point of ensuring the film was in German rather than dubbed English we settled back for the almost 3½ hours it was going to be.

However, with it getting close to 1am and with all of us flagging we ended up switching the DVD off after just over an hour of the film and called it a day.

Sorry for the dreadful pun.

Anyway, with all the warm weather we've had recently, even when it's been wet, I've cropped my mop. Quite severely. It's down to a uniformed number 8; which means it's about an inch long at most.

I've also shaved off the Van Dyke.

So, short-haired and clean-shaven again.

I had an interview this morning for a Medical Lab Assistant with the Pathology department of the local hospital. I thought the interview went okay and the interviewer mentioned that they were unlikely to make a decision today. However, I've just received a call to say that I didn't get the job; and I have a feeling that my honesty about the circumstances surrounding how I left my previous job may have cost me. In the long run I'd rather be honest than lie to get a job.

The Old Age Pension was introduced by the British government 100 years ago today.

In 1898, the national pensions committee was formed, holding meetings across the country and organising petitions to government with the demand for a universal pension for all men and women over the age of 65. It took 10 years of campaigning by the likes of leading trade unionist Margaret Bondfield, philanthropist Charles Booth and businessman Edward Cadbury.

David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Liberal government, a staunch opponent of the Poor Law was determined to "lift the shadow of the workhouse from the homes of the poor". The Old Age Pensions Act was passed on 1 August 1908 and payments began on 1 January 1909.

The act provided that all men and women over the age of 70 received between one and five shillings a week, paid at the post office. Married couples received seven shillings and six pence. The act was Means Tested and only paid to people that could meet certain standards of character. Anybody that had been found guilty of a crime or were likely to squander the allowance away was disqualified from receiving the pension.

Many Labour and Liberal politicians of the day welcomed the introduction of the pension but some argued that the level of benefits were far too low and that the pensions should be universal and disliked the Means Test aspect. The Conservatives, with a large House of Lords majority, objected and made it clear that they intended to block the pension. A long struggle with the House of Lords followed before the budget for the act was ratified. This lead to the Liberal Government passing the 1911 Parliament Act that restricted the power of the House of Lords to block legislation passed by the House of Commons.

Mark's website has a mailing list attached to it that allows visitors to sign up and receive emails when he posts new articles. However, he's been having some problems with it recently. Another of his friends had tried to sort the problem with no avail and I spent the best part of 4 hours up there last night; and I've failed also. Although, it'll now send out messages fine to the list members but it appears not to be paying any attention at all to incoming messages; regardless of whether it's set up as a single opt-in or double opt-in list. Even trying to troubleshoot by creating a new dummy list has failed. I'm back up there sometime next week to sort out a comments system for him and will have another quick look at the mailing list if he hasn't managed to sort it himself.

ButtonALL is otherwise known as the Internet's Universal Remote This site helps you quickly find what you're looking for with minimal effort.

Dogpile is a metaseach site that uses multiple search engines at the same time to search for a term. The search engines used include Google, Yahoo! Search, Live Search, Ask.com, About, MIVA, LookSmart, and more.

FamilySearch.org is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and aims to encourage people to find their ancestors and preserve their family histories.

Search the National Portrait Gallery to find pictures of particular people (or 'sitters'), pictures by particular artists or particular pictures, by their titles.

I've watched a couple of movies today. First up was the action flick, Wanted, which was a lot of fun to watch and full of unbelievable special effects and stunts. If you do decide to go and watch it be aware that it's not a high-brow thriller but rather an almost comic book-like story. The second film was Adam Sandler's new movie, You Don't Mess With The Zohan, which also stars Rob Schneider and features guest appearances by Mariah Carey and Michael Buffer. It is lots of fun and well worth watching. I would give both movies solid 8/10 ratings.

The last couple of days have been absolute scorchers here. Well, by local standards anyway. The temperature has been in the high 20s and last night I had the floor fan on most of the night whilst lying atop the covers on the bed. It was way too warm to sleep in the bed. Anyway, it's a wee bit cooler today, the low 20s, but looking outside it's only a matter of time before it starts heaving it down. The sky looks dark in all directions.

In fact, just as I'm typing this, the skies have opened. It seems to be rapidly alternating between an absolute deluge and a mild shower.

A small group of friends and I went to see the new Batman film, The Dark Knight, last night.

I wish cinema seat designers would spend a good couple of hours sitting in their seats before unleashing them on the public. Although the seats were nice and wide with plenty of legroom they started to really hurt my back with about an hour or so to go and I ended up spending the last hour fidgeting around every few minutes trying to get comfortable again.

Anyway, the film is just about 2½ hours long and I started feeling that it was dragging on with about 30 minutes or so still to go. It had lulled a wee but but soon got going again. I can honestly say that it's probably one of the most fun films I've seen in quite a while. I'd give it a solid 8½/10 and would probably have given it a 9 but for the extra length. I can see Heath Ledger getting a posthumous Oscar nomination for his portrayal of The Joker.

I won't spoil any of the film for you but I will say that if you are in two minds as to whether or not to go; especially if you feel the film has been over-hyped because of Heath Ledger's death, then I would heartily recommend you go and see it.

Windows Reference is a very useful site full of articles, tips and advice for all Windows users. One of the most recent articles posted is a list of over 20 common problems and solutions for them.

GoComics is a website full of comics, editorial cartoons and comic strips. Strips include Andy Capp, Bob the Squirrel, The Boondocks, Calvin and Hobbes, Dick Tracy, Doonesbury, FoxTrot, Garfield, Gasoline Alley, Heathcliff, The Pink Panther, Tank McNamara, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Winnie the Pooh, Wizard of Id and many, many more.

I was typing up an application letter this morning when I happened to notice the amount of gunk under my keys. After finishing the letter I decided to do something about it.

I unplugged the keyboard, removed all the keys and soaked them in some soapy water whilst giving the rest of the keyboard a good brush with a stiff brush and a good rub with a damp cloth. The keys easily popped out by applying a little bit of pressure underneath them with a flat-headed screwdriver. After cleaning, drying and reinserting all the keys in the correct places it looks a million miles better than it did.

If you're not sure that you can get all the keys back into the right places a couple of suggestions include referring to another keyboard if you have one, refer to the box if you kept it and it has a picture on it, call up a website with a keyboard layout on it before you start; you can either leave it on screen or print it out, and finally, take a picture of the keyboard with a digital camera, or camera phone, before you start.

With the new football season less than a month away the time has come for the papers to start hyping their Fantasy Football games. Over the past few years I've played in the Telegraph Fantasy Football along with a bunch of work colleagues. I received an email this morning about the Guardian Fantasy Football, which is free, and since I'm not working at the moment I've decided to join up. You're given a budget of £100m and have to pick a squad of 15 players. My current first eleven is M Almunia, L King, P Evra, M Skrtel, S Warnock, G Barry, C Ronaldo, R Giggs, D Bentley, R Santa Cruz & D Berbatov. My substitutes are M Schwarzer, S Campbell, A Smertin & J Elmander.

You can sign up here and I have created a league called "Bowch's Blog League" which I have already invited a load of friends to. If I haven't invited you and you would like to participate then drop me an email and I'll give you the password.

Professor Martyn Poliakoff, CBE, of the University of Nottingham presents the Periodic Table of Videos.

A collection of pictures, and a video, that I just had to share:

• Wall-E & Eve
• PC, Mac & Linux v1
• PC, Mac & Linux v2
• Standard TV vs High Definition TV
• Pirate Encylopaedia
• Earth At Night
• Yoda Breakdancing [Video]

My mate Mark is a huge Manchester United fan and something of a stats nerd; which is something I would never have pegged him as when we were younger. Anyway, he has been running a website for about 10 years now and had recently decided it needed sprucing up.

We've sat down a few times together over the last couple of months and had come to a decision to transfer all the content over into Movable Type from Frontpage. However, after I'd transferred about ½ of the content we re-evaluated and came to the decision that Movable Type was really not suitable for the task. After further delving with Frontpage we've came up with a really elegant solution that uses more of Frontpage's core features.

The site did have a sort of uniformed design already; a header, footer, left sidebar and a right sidebar on most of the pages. The rest of the pages just had the header, footer and left sidebar. However, all the pages used inline frames for the header, footer and sidebars.

Mark has spent most of this week playing with Frontpage and has managed to come up with a set of templates that can be assigned to the entire site. The beauty of the system is that Frontpage will update all attached pages if he updates the templates. The test pages he had uploaded looked good but for one or two niggles. I've been up there this evening and have modified the templates to give them a more fluid ability. The newly updated test pages now display great at any resolution of 1024x768 or higher. Previously the right-hand sidebar had expanded to take up all the remaining screen width. Now, the entire page dynamically resizes to take advantage of the extra screen width.

An added advantage is that rather than the updating process taking most of the next month or so we can get it done in only a few nights. I'm due to pop back up to have a look at something else for him next week and fully expect the site to be fully updated to the new template design.

One of the other things we were going to do was add a redirect on his old webspace to point to the new domain. Unfortunately, his old ISP has deleted the old Index pages and won't allow him to upload any files to the space. This has prevented him from installing any sort of redirect. I think the next course of action is to delete the entire site from the old webspace and hope that Google trawls the site again soon, finds no content there, and removes the entries from it's database.

Anyway, the newly relocated site can be found here.

I feel pretty good today. No major headache and no major pain anywhere.

I was feeling rather tired yesterday evening so ended up going to bed just before 9pm. I woke up just after 1am and couldn't get back to sleep. I decided to get up, have a wee snack and watch WWE Raw. By time that finished at 4am I was feeling tired again. I went back to bed and got up just after 10am this morning.

Ankle feels a wee bit sore, my back is feeling a lot better than it has been in a while; just a twinge between the shoulder blades at the moment and I have a wee bit of a headache at the back of my head. All in all, a lot better than I tend to feel.

Like I said; I feel pretty good.

My kid sister was released from hospital today. They've diagnosed IBS with a swollen bowel. She never said if they'd prescribed any medication or if she has any follow up appointments to attend. She's still in a bit of pain but seems to be a lot better than she was on Friday night.

Chelsea are set to smash the world record transfer fee with a £119m bid for AC Milan's Brazilian midfielder Kaka.

When you browse or download from the internet in XP a small portion of your bandwidth is reserved for quality control purposes. In most cases this is a throwback to older systems and is really not required.

This tip removes that reservation and helps speed things up slightly.

Open up the Group Policy Editor (Click on Start->Run type gpedit.msc click ok) and then browse down to the following branch on the left hand side.

Local Computer Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, Network, QoS Packet Scheduler

After you've highlighted 'QoS Packet Scheduler' in the left window you can double click 'Limit Reservable Bandwidth' in the right window.

Click on the Enable radio button and set the figure to '0%'.

Catherine, my kid sister, was admitted to hospital on Friday night suffering from abdominal pains and vomiting. She has been examined and they really aren't sure what's up with her. They've finally managed to stop her vomiting and are keeping her in until Monday at least; when she will get a scan. This is the second time she's been admitted to hospital with abdominal pains over the last couple of years and they weren't sure what the problem was previously either.

I put the new DVD and HDD in my sister's PC last night. After spending an age formatting the drive into 2 partitions I copied over her old Games partition and then deleted it and expanded the Windows partition to take up the newly freed space.

After rebooting I decided to install some proper defragmentation software but kept up coming across a Windows Installer error. Trying other packages I kept on coming up with the same error. I eventually decided to do a full reinstall with a slipstreamed version of XP only for Windows to hang 3 times in a row whilst trying to install the sound drivers. I finally went back to a Vanilla copy of XP and it installed fine. I then reinstalled AV, Firewall, CD/DVD and a variety of other software packages before calling it a night at about 5am.

I've now got a few other bits and pieces to install and then make a start on installing her games.

When you browse a network in XP you may find a considerable delay in viewing shared files. This is because XP searches the remote computer for 'Scheduled Tasks'. To speed up the process you can make a tweak to the registry.

Open up the Registry Editor (Click on Start->Run type regedit click ok) and then browse down to the following branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Under this branch there should be at least two entries. The one you want is:

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

This is the key that searches for 'Scheduled Tasks' on remote systems.

Please feel free to delete this key. You can also export this key for your own piece of mind so that you can re-import it later if you so wish. You should see an instant improvement; no reboot is required.

This tip also works on Windows 2000.

Please take care when making changes to the registry. I take no responsibility if you trash your registry.

Yesterday, I ordered a new hard drive and dvd writer for my sister's PC from CCL. Because my sister wasn't in a hurry for the parts I selected the Economy 5-7 day economy courier service. They were delivered this morning. So, that's another job I need to sort out.

I created an ISO image this morning of a CD for a friend, burnt it and then deleted the ISO. However, it transpired that the CD wouldn't read and I couldn't extract the data back off it.

A quick browse of the internet and I discovered NTFS Undelete, a free and open source solution that allows you to recover deleted files. I downloaded it, ran it and told it I was looking for a deleted *.ISO file and it soon found the file I needed. A couple of clicks later and I had the ISO file back and could burn it again at a lower speed.

OfficeRecovery.com offer a similar free product called Free Undelete, that caters for FAT16 and FAT32 file systems alongside support for NTFS. I haven't tried it but it appears to offer very similar functionality to NTFS Undelete.

GetDataBack for NTFS and FAT, from Runtime Software, is another package that I have successfully used in the past to recover accidentally deleted data. Although, unlike the other two, this is not free software.

I've gotten very little done today. I bumped into Chrissy at RPG last night and she suggested that I pop round and keep her company today. I said that I would give her a ring this morning. Unfortunately, after staying up late last night to watch the Home Run Derby I was still in bed when she phoned me at 10am.

After the normal morning routine I popped over to Chrissy's just as she was showing a guy around the house who was quoting for the insulation. Not long after we had to pop into Egremont to pick up her son and ended up having lunch in a cafe in town. Whilst her son slept most of the afternoon we nattered and caught up. We haven't really had a good chance to sit down and natter for well over a year, and probably closer to two.

Anyway, after she picked up her daughter, she invited me to stay for tea with herself, the kids and her husband. I kept the kids entertained whilst she did most of the prep-work for the meal. We had Moussaka with blanched potatoes, courgette, broccoli and salad. For a first ever attempt at Moussaka it was a very nice meal; so nice in fact that I had a second helping of everything.

It's nice to catch up with friends every now and again; even if you do get to see them on a more or less weekly basis at someting like the roleplaying club. It's refreshing to just sit down one-to-one and just see where the conversation leads.

I feel like crap today. My stomach is killing me, my back is playing up, I have a headache both at the front and rear of my head, my neck feels stiff and my eyes feel sore. Top that with a slight feeling of nausea and if I didn't have to pop to the roleplaying club to hand out a couple of things I would already be lying on/in bed.

Oh, and I've got indigestion.

Youniverse was featured on this week's BBC Click magazine show and is a site that uses photos to build a personality profile. It's quite a fascinating process and seems to work pretty well.

The press has been going nuts over the last couple of days regarding comments attributed to Cristiano Ronaldo likening himeself to s slave. This is not what he said.

What actually happened is that in an earlier interview Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, had previously stated that Ronaldo should be allowed to leave United and likened modern football contracts to slavery.

Ronaldo, hobbling on crutches along a pavement in Portugal, was asked if he agreed with Sepp Blatter's comments that he should be allowed to leave Manchester United and go wherever he wishes. His reply was "Yes, I totally agree with Mr Blatter's comments." There was no mention of Blatter's comments about slavery in the interview that took place.

The British media picked up on Ronaldo's reply, took it out of context, and implied that he felt he was a slave at Manchester United. Another case of the British media distorting the facts to suit their own ends and sell more papers.

As a Manchester United fan I'm annoyed in the extreme at Real Madrid's conduct over the last month or so in publicly courting a player under contract at another club. Roman Calderon, Real's president, can deny trying to cause unrest, but the coverage Marca, a Spanish paper, have had over the matter and the fact that every Real player has been instructed to big up Ronaldo whenever interviewed, suggests more than what Madrid are saying. FIFA's investigation of the matter and subsequent decision that Real have done nothing wrong makes a mockery of the tapping-up situation. It would appear that FIFA are saying "If you want to sign a player but don't want to approach his club, just let the papers know and they'll do the job for you."

Ronaldo is being vilified at the moment but the truth of the matter is that he has always expressed a desire to play for Real Madrid one day. All during his time at United he has said this. United fans may have hoped in the past that the day would be long in the future, if at all, but the reality is starting to appear that it could be very soon.

Carlos Quieroz leaving United to take over as Portuguese national manager doesn't help United in their cause but one can only hope that Ronaldo listens to Sir Alex and realises that the best place for him to develop further as a player is currently still in Manchester.

I'm hoping Ronaldo stays for at least one more year, and would hope that he stays until Fergie retires at least. But, I'm a realist, and if he insists on leaving now then United should agree to let him go and try and get a stupid amount of money out of Madrid. Madrid have previously said that they would pay upto €100million before backtracking and saying they would go as high as €70million. If I were the United hierarchy I would reiterate that Ronaldo is not for sale and even if he were then €100million would be a good, although unsuccessful, initial first bid.

I decided to have an early night last night; especially having had 2 late nights working away either on websites or reinstalling Dad's PC. Anyway, I woke up at about 6am this morning and felt pretty good; although I decided that was too early to get up. Went back to bed and woke up again just after 9am. I've ended up doing very little today a[art from popping to the Job Centre this morning and into town to do a wee bit of shopping this afternoon. No pressures or hassle!

Dad's PC decided not to access the internet at all yesterday afternoon. It would still access all the network shares but Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera all refused to browse the net. It wouldn't even let me update ZoneAlarm or Spybot Search & Destroy. After spending about two hours trying to diagnose the problem and come up with solutions I was still stumped. Nothing I tried seemed to work and some of the options that I wanted to try I couldn't access. I'd run checks with ZoneAlarm, HijackThis and Spybot S&D to no avail..

I finally decided that I would back up the documents, pictures, music files, video files and downloaded items he wanted to keep and reformatted. XP reinstalled a breeze and after installing a few other bits and pieces such as Avira Antivirus and Comodo Firewall I reconnected the network cable and all was good again. Started downloading updates from Windows Update and after a reboot prompted by Windows Update I again ran into problems.

As soon as Windows booted and Explorer opened nothing else would run. No matter what program I tried I would get an "inaccessible or insufficient permissions" type error. I couldn't diagnose that problem without going into Safe Mode and disabling Simple Sharing. In fact it said I didn't even have enough permissions to shut down the PC; I had to use Task Manager for that.

Anyway, in Safe Mode, all the file permissions had been blanked and this appeared to be the reason that nothing would run. After changing all the permissions back to what they should be and re-enabling Simple Sharing I rebooted into XP again, only to have the same problem. A visit back to Safe Mode revealed the permissions had again been wiped. Reset them and left Simple Sharing disabled while rebooting into XP.

The same problem was persisting and checking the permissions in XP revealed that my latest change had taken and everything should be working. A quick check of the m$ knowledgebase, thanks to a link provided by a friend, provided me with instructions on how to use the in-built security editor to reset all permissions back to their default values. Nope, still no luck; even after another reboot.

Deciding that since very little had been installed I would once again reformat and reinstall. After reinstalling, installing AV and Firewall protection and downloading updates from m$ again everything finally seemed to be working. I left the PC defragging the drives and went up to bed just after 3am; a full 11 hours after I had gone downstairs to originally see what the problem was.

Got up this morning and the PC seems to be working okay still. Dad has spent most of today reinstalling his games. What would normally take me about 2-3 hours; depending upon how much extra software I installed, took almost half a day and I didn't install a lot of the stuff that I would normally install for him. Bloody PCs!

After spending most of last night doing some work on a couple of websites that I am involved with, it was after 4:30am when I finally went to bed. Fully intending to stay in bed for as long as I could, I was rudely awakened at about 10am this morning by a couple of fighter jets screaming overhead.

The Lake District is an ideal location for the RAF to practice low-level flying and they normally take place in the valleys further to the east and south. We rarely hear them, except maybe in the distance if they get a bit closer. It must be well over a year since I can last remember any low-level drills taking place this far west of the mountains.

Anyway, I've spent most of my time this morning doing a bit more website work and am now going to take a break and watch some tv.

The current FIFA world rankings can be found at the following locations:

• Men.
• Women.

The Human Calendar is just what the name implies; a calendar. It's kind of a natural progression of The Human Clock, created by the same guy back in 2001. Apparently the idea was first dreamt up back in 2003 but didn't come to full fruition until 2007. You can even get some portable versions of the calendar to add to your own website.

One of the things I've struggled with over the last 15 years or so has been my weight. Ever since I severely injured myself playing football. I tore the cartilage in my left ankle, twisted/pulled the ligaments in my right ankle and hyper-extended my right knee. When I played football regularly my weight never fluctuated much from about 13 stone (182lbs / 82½kg). Depending on how much running I also did it sometimes was even less. In the first couple of years after stopping my weight went up to 15 stone (210lbs / 95½kg), it eventually went up to about 17 stone (238lbs / 108kg). My weight remained pretty steady there until about 7 years ago.

Within a year of starting work at Perkins my weight had ballooned to over 20 stone (280lbs / 127kg) and in the following five years it went up to approximately 24 stones (336lbs / 152½kg). After embarking on a new diet and taking some weight loss medication I got back down to under 20 stone (280lbs / 127kg) within a year. Unfortunately, I have very poor dietary control and really lack the desire to stick to a managed diet plan and am now back above 24 stone (338lbs / 157½kg) again.

Anyway, after doing some reading on the internet I've come across a few sites suggesting a regime of intermittent fasting as a potential solution. The beauty of the plan is that you don't have to strictly manage the kinds or amount of food that you eat. The plan relies on intermittently fasting, much like palaeolithic man did and most wild animals do. The plan calls for a period of fasting followed by a period of eating in a cycle. I'm going to give it a try.

My plan is that I will eat normally today until 6pm. I have already had my breakfast and will eat our main Sunday meal sometime between 4pm and 5pm as usual. I may then have a small snack before 6pm. I will then fast until 6pm tomorrow eveing at which point I will have a normal evening meal and perhaps snack a bit later. On Tuesday I will have my normal breakfast and then eat normally in the afternoon until 6pm at which point I will fast until 6pm Wednesday. I will have a normal evening of eating on Wednesday after 6pm and then have breakfast and normal afternoon eating until 6pm on Thursday at which point I will again fast until 6pm on Friday. Friday 6pm onwards to Sunday 6pm I will eat normally and then repeat the cycle next week.

• Sunday: Breakfast, Lunch, Nothing After 6pm
• Monday: Nothing Until 6pm, Dinner/Supper
• Tuesday: Breakfast, Lunch, Nothing After 6pm
• Wednesday: Nothing Until 6pm, Dinner/Supper
• Thursday: Breakfast, Lunch, Nothing After 6pm
• Friday: Nothing Until 6pm, Dinner/Supper
• Saturday: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner/Supper as Normal

Normally on a Saturday I would be going roleplaying. However, Colin and Scoot are off to a Stag Do tonight so the game isn't on today. They had mentioned last weekend that they wouldn't be about this weekend but I totally forgot. I even went and bought snacks for the game.

Anyway, rather than sitting around and just browsing the web or playing games I've decided I'm going to catch up with one of the myriad of shows that I have fallen behind on. The show I've decided to catch up with is Showtime's Dexter, based on the novels by author Jeff Lindsay. Dexter is a forensic analyst who also happens to be a serial killer, allegedly targeting the truly-deserving.

I've got both Season 1 and 2 on DVD; 24 episodes in total, and if I start now I can get 7 or 8 episodes watched before Doctor Who starts at 6:40pm. I can then get another episode in before the 3rd game of the Boston Red Sox - New York Yankees baseball. I can then make inroads into the rest of Season 1 after the baseball finishes.

Here is a nice collection of wallpapers from Western Washington University Planetarium.

Here is a nice collection of anime wallpapers.

Here is a collection of 'Demotivantional' posters.

Here is a rather large collection of cartoons. There's a few gems amongst them all.

Here is the index page of NASA's Astronomy Picture Of The Day, which has been going strong since June 1995.

One of the worst kept secrets of recent times is that Blizzard were apparently developing a third game in the Diablo franchise. The purchase of the Diablo3.com domain seemed to back that up. And recently they have added a Diablo 3 section to their website.

Coupled with the previous announcement of Starcraft 2 it would appear that things are looking good on the Blizzard front.

I've had a splitting headache all day. I had planned on getting some serious work done on a friend's website today but only managed to get 4 or 5 pages converted before giving up. I've taken some tablets for the headache but to no real avail and ended up going for a lie down about 3pm. I woke up briefly as a thunderstorm rumbled outside with rain pelting down, before falling back asleep. I finally woke back up just before 6pm to discover bright sunshine splitting the curtains and just a slightly damp ground to suggest that any rain had actually fell.

After having some problems with the bank incurring charges for unpaid Direct Debits I cancelled all my direct debits and have been paying my bills via my debit card. Unfortunately, since losing my job I've been struggling to meet bill payments, especially since I've been on hardship payments for the last 3 months, and have not paid my O2 contract bill for those 3 months. It had always been a case of I'll try and keep some money back and make a part payment with the intention of settling the full amount once I had the cash available. However, events have conspired against me time and again and I have been unable to do so.

Anyway, I received a letter the other day from the above company regarding my O2 account and the outstanding Airtime Balance and Remaining Contract Charge. The total amount comes to just about £132 and they wanted payment by 2nd July; today. After getting my benefits payments stopped for the last 3 months or so I am only now back to receiving £121 every other week and cannot meet this full payment. I phoned them earlier today to try and come to some arrangement regarding making a part payment when I next get paid and get the 3rd degree regarding payments I make for lodge, contents insurance, the internet, the normal phone bill and Sky. I was more than willing to make payments every payday to ensure that I resolved this debt as soon as I felt comfortable.

To be honest, I can't really afford to continue making payments for an O2 contract at close to £40 a month when I can just use an old O2 sim-card and top up with credit as infrequently as I like. However, after saying that I couldn't afford to pay the whole amount and that I couldn't afford to just pay the Airtime Balance and get the phone reconnected the woman on the other end of the phone wasn't interested in anything but getting half the payment today and the remainder by next Monday; going so far as to ask if I could get my Dad or other family member to loan me the money to make the payment. She even suggested making a £5 payment today and then paying the remaining amount in full next Monday. Sometimes I wonder what kind of Dream World they live in.

I probably could've made a payment today to cover the Airtime Balance but only if I didn't pay other bills due this week and next; when I don't get paid. However, this would have a knock-on effect for the rest of the month and I would potentially end up in a worse position than I already am. I felt under pressure the entire length of the call and got more and more worked up as she continued to try to get a payment out of me rather than help me come up with any sort of agreement moving forward. I eventually ended the call by telling them to take me to court.

I have since calmed down a little bit and used their online system to make an offer of paying £40 a month. If they don't accept that they can take me to court and see how they will like getting paid £10 every other week for nine months or so rather than 3 payments of £40 or so.

Although, knowing my luck recently, the court would probably end up ordering me to pay the amount in full or go to prison.

Don S. Davis, who played Major General George Hammond on Stargate SG-1, has passed away at the age of 65 years old. He suffered a massive heart attack on Sunday morning, June 29th.

One of my friends, Greg, has decided to give Linux a try on an oldish PC that he has. After seeking some advice, from yours truly, he decided to install Ubuntu. Apparently, he used the Live CD and installed via Windows. Everything was fine until he rebooted and deleted the Windows partition.

The system still booted fine but wouldn't find his CD, DVD or external Hard Drive. The system knew they were there but wouldn't mount them. Unfortunately, with me not being physically there, it proved a bit elusive and time consuming to troubleshoot what device references Ubuntu was using.

After spending a fair while browsing forums on the net we eventually managed to come up with a foolproof method of detecting the device references and it was then a pretty easy case of making a few alterations to a key configuration file.

The strange thing was that the system was detecting his usb pen drive fine but whenever it was rebooted it would detect the external hard drive on any 1 of 4 possible ports. Easiest solution I could come up with was to tell the system to mount all 4 on boot; 3 would fail but the other would be the right one.

It's probably neither an elegant or particularly smart solution but it works.

The Geek Care & Feeding Guide very firmly has it's tongue planted well into it's cheek.

Best Photoshop Tutorials and Tips Sites is a rather cool collection of links to some Photoshop tips and tricks.

Spain have won their first major football title for 44 years by beating Germany 1-0 in the final of Euro 2008. The winning goal was scored after 33 minutes by Liverpool's Fernando Torres and 1-0 doesn't really reflect the dominance that Spain had throughout the game. Germany were very lacklustre and they really cannot complain about the result. In fact, truth be told, it could easily have been 3-0 or more. Early on in the tournament the Netherlands were really the grabbing all the headlines but Spain have also played really well throughout the tournament and more than deserve the title.

Marc and Angel Hack Life is a site on which the authors share their views and thoughts on a broad range of topics pertaining to life, hacks, productivity, aspirations, health, work, tech and general self improvement.

Not everybody will agree with what they write but they do have some useful insights. 50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do is one of the posts that make useful reading.

I'm off roleplaying so click here for 25 top high-tech pranks to pull on your buddies.

I discovered a puncture in the off-side (driver-side) front tyre of the car yesterday evening. I had been thinking on popping into Kwik-Fit to get the tyres checked anyway so took the trip into Whitehaven this morning. meant I could also take my sister shopping at the same time and not have to make two trips. I had thought that the tread was probably getting down on the tyres a bit; they've been on for almost 15 months, and I would probably have to get all 4 tyres replaced. Apparently not; the three un-punctured tyres have tread depths of between 4mm and 5mm. Unfortunately, the tyre with the puncture apparently had some problems with the interior wall and they couldn't just plug it and send me on my way. So, they've only ended up replacing one tyre.

Last night's first semi-final saw Germany beat Turkey 3-2 in a game that Turkey twice pulled back to level pegging. Truth be told, Turkey were much the better side for periods of the game and Germany could have had no complaints if they had lost.

Tonight's second semi-final saw Spain beat Russia 3-0 in what was a free-flowing, attractive game. All 3 goals were scored in the second half and the Russians can really have no complaints about the result.

Sunday night's final between Germany and Spain should be a pretty good game and I'm going to predict that Spain will win a very tight game. It could possibly go to extra time or perhaps even the dreaded penalties.

How many do you reckon you could find in 5 minutes?

Check here.

I found 50 of them.

Every year about a million children in Africa die as a result of Malaria and this campaign aims to significantly reduce this number. You can donate by American Express, Visa or Mastercard and 100% of your donation goes to purchasing anti-malaria nets.

Visit the website.

This is the second version of this entry. The first was a rather cool Star Wars type scroller. However, Lucas has requested that it be taken down due to infringing on their properties.

Anyway, after just over 5 years this is the 500th entry and there have been over 350 comments in total. If the current posting cycle is maintained then entry 1000 will appear sometime in mid-late 2009.

The second semi-final will be between Russia and Spain.

Russia beat Netherlands 3-1 after extra time on Saturday night, in a game that I didn't see. However, Russia apparently were very impressive.

Spain overcame Italy on penalties after a 0-0 draw. I had said that this would either be a very good game or that the Italians would defend and invite the Spanish to try and break them down. It transpired that the Italians played a very defensive game and although both teams had opportunities, 2 hours later and the game went to penalties.

Of the 4 teams I had picked to make the semi-finals only Spain have and on that basis I will pick them to win the second semi-final. I think Germany will probably win the other game, but you just can't write off the Turks.

Well, we watched a total of 8 films yesterday including Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs, DOA, The Sasquatch Gang, Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer, In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Run Fatboy Run, The Incredible Hulk and Superhero Movie.

The unexpected highlight was The Sasquatch Gang, which started out and appeared as if it was going to be a Coming of Age movie in a similar vein to Stand By Me, but turned out to be a really good comedy. Check it out if you can find it.

On the way home I popped into a local shop and managed to pick up True Romance and Mars Attacks for a combined total of £5.

Speaking to Colin last night he doesn't feel up to running his game this weekend and neither do I. So, we've decided not to have a roleplaying session today but rather have one of our infrequent DVD sessions. We'll get together at Colin's around 2pm and will take turns in selecting DVDs to watch until the wee small hours of the morning. A lot of what we watch is cheese but that's half the fun. It's a chance to sit down and have a natter whilst watching a few films. It's a nice change of pace from roleplaying.

The first semi-final of Euro 2008 will pit Germany against Turkey. The game will be played next Wednesday; 25th June 2008.

Germany beat Portugal 3.-2 last night and Turkey beat Croatia on penalties following a 1-1 draw after extra time. I had picked Portugal to win the whole tournament and had picked Croatia to get past Turkey.

Following my lack of success in the first two quarter-finals don't be surprised if Russia beat Netherlands and Italy beat Spain to give me an 0-4 record.

A Canadian court has lifted a 12-year-old girl's grounding, overturning her father's punishment for disobeying his orders to stay off the internet, his lawyer said.

Full story here.

I'm not a parent but I think from reading the article that the father had made reasonable attempts to control the behaviour of an unruly child. It boggles the mind that a court would feel inclined to intervene in such a situation.

The quarter finals of Euro 2008 will feature the following four matches:

Portugal vs Germany
Expect to see a different Portugal side from the one that lost their final group game when the core of the team was rested. Germany didn't have such a luxury after losing to Croatia and had to field a full strength side in their last group game. As long as the Portuguese players don't get dragged into a physical battle with the much bigger German side I can still see Portugal progressing.

Croatia vs Turkey
Croatia surprised a lot of people by beating Germany in their group and are rewarded with a game against Turkey. I haven't been all that impressed with Turkey and I think Croatia will edge a scrappy game.

Netherlands vs Russia
I, like everybody else, have been blown away by the Dutch performances so far. Masterful victories over France and Italy were followed by a relaxed, but still victorious, outing against Romania. I'm not convinced Russia were a better side than Sweden but they managed to get out of the group anyway. I honestly can't see the Russians winning this game and I'm backing the Dutch.

Spain vs Italy
A potential mouth-watering prospect for Sunday night. It really depends if the Italians turn up and play or just sit back defensively and try to snatch a winner, has been their modus operandi in the past. If they sit back I envisage a dour game with the Spanish valiantly trying to break them down. However, if the Italians come out and play a nice, attacking game then I can see this being a very good game. This game could go either way but I think the Spanish will prevail.

Evil Mozza mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he has a load of VHS video tapes that he wanted transferred over onto DVD. Now, there is quite a few DVD/VHS combination units on the market but most don't allow dubbing from one format to another. However, further research would no doubt point out that some of them may offer that ability. This would involve buying another rather clunky unit that would take up valuable space and probably be used sparingly. On top of which a decent quality one could run well over £100.

Anyway, I've found a slightly more elegant solution; totally by accident as it happens. As I was stumbling through the web I came across Blackmagic Design and their USB Video Recorder dongle. A nice, elegant usb solution that uses existing video hardware and records onto PC or Macintosh ready for later storage on CD, DVD or even BluRay with the right burner. The dongle does the encoding legwork so it doesn't take masses of time.

Further delving and I've found a couple of UK resellers that will start selling the product for £59+VAT.when it launches in September. The companies are OneVideo and Holdan Limited. There may well be other USB solutions in a similar vein but I haven't really delved too much further. In fact Camera4Sports carry a similar dongle but I think the encoding is done by the PC rather than the dongle.

A final option which is probably not going to incur much extra cost beyond purchasing some decent length cables is that a fair number of the more recent ATI and nVidia cards have either AVIVO or PureVideo included. A suitably equipped card with video in abilities would make transcoding from VHS a breeze.

For the first time in 22 years the Boston Celtics are the NBA Champions. They beat the Los Angeles Lakers 131-92 to clinch the series by 4 games to 2 and lift the Larry O'Brien Trophy. This marks their 17th championship and marks the ninth time in eleven meetings that they have beaten the Lakers in the NBA Finals. This was the 62nd finals series and Boston and LA between them have won 31 of them.

Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett all clicked at the right time and Rajon Rondo had the kind of game he probably couldn't even have dreamt of. He ended the night with 8 assists, 7 rebounds, 6 steals and 21 points. Allen and Garnett both had 26 points each and Pierce had 17 points. Kendrick Perkins had a rather quiet night; possibly nursing his shoulder injury, but players like Leon Powe, Eddie House, P.J. Brown and James Posey all contributed off the bench.

Firefox 3.0 has been officially launched today. Some of the old add-ons from Firefox 2.0 still don't work with 3.0 so I would recommend that if you have an add-on that you desperately need then check and make sure that it's compatible with 3.0 first.

European users can download Firefox 3.0 from here. The US site still lists 2.0.0.14 as the latest version.

You can check add-ons here.

It's definitely more stable and less of a memory hog than previous versions and I would recommend upgrading to 3.0 to everybody and I would also recommend Firefox over Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera.

Frets on Fire is a freebie PC game very much in the same vein as the Guitar Hero series. The game comes with 3 or 4 songs included and there is a vibrant community out there. It even has a converter with it to allow you to convert Guitar Hero songs to work with it. It's extremely easy to find other songs from a variety of places on the net. Frets on Fire works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Tonight has been a night of shocks in football.

First, Switzerland, already eliminated from Euro 2008, salvaged some pride by beating a below strength Portugal 2-0. In an amazing finish to this evening's other Euro 2008 game Turkey came back from a 2-1 deficit with ten minutes left to shockingly beat Czech Republic 3-2 and progress. An uncharacteristic blunder by Petr Cech in the Czech goal gifted Turkey the equaliser before they got the winner with less than five minutes to play.

In the South American 2010 World Cup Qualifiers Paraguay maintained their spot at the top of the table by beating Brazil 2-0, even after having had a player sent off. In the other qualifier broadcast by Sky this evening Argentina struggled and had to rely on a last gasp equaliser to draw 1-1 at home with Ecuador. Ecuador, who had lost their previous 2 games by a combined ten goals, had taken the lead with just over twenty minutes left and it appeared that they had weathered the storm to end Argentina's 28 game unbeaten home streak in World Cup Qualifiers. However, Argentina equalised with the very last kick of the game.

All the teams at Euro 2008 have now played twice and there have been 1 or 2 shocks so far.

Group A:
Portugal, my original pick, continue to look good, and have already qualified from their group as winners. They play Switzerland tonight with nothing to play for. The other 2 teams in the group; Czech Republic and Turkey also play tonight; at the same time. The winner of that game will go through as runners-up of the group. If they draw, the game will go to penalties to decide who goes through.

Group B:
After drawing their first game against Austria, Croatia went and surprised everybody by beating Germany. They now sit atop this group and if they manage to avoid defeat against Poland tomorrow then they will qualify. If they beat Poland they will qualify as group winners. If Germany beat Austria or even just draw then they will qualify. If Austria win then they will qualify.

Group C;
The Netherlands look unstoppable in what was dubbed 'The Group Of Death'. They followed up their sensational demolition of Italy with an even better thumping of France. They have qualified for the next stage as the winners of their group. France and Italy meet later this week and the loser will definitely be going home. The winner will be hoping that the Netherlands continue in the same form and beat Romania. If Romania win that game then they will go through and both Italy and France will be going home.

Group D:
Spain followed up their emphatic defeat of Russia with a scraped win against Sweden yesterday and have qualified from this group. Russia and Sweden will play each other on Wednesday with the winner advancing to the next stage. A draw favours Sweden. Greece, the defending champions, are rooted to the bottom of this table and have already been eliminated.

I'm sticking with my original pick of Portugal but you cannot discount either the Netherlands or Spain.

This weekend is the sixth annual Download Festival. After much deliberation I finally decided that I really couldn't afford to go; and to be brutally honest, there wasn't really a lot to attract me to it anyway.

Of the bands that had interested me, I've already seen Children Of Bodom, Within Temptation, Apocalyptica, Motörhead, In Flames and Alter Bridge. The only band that I was really desperate to see that I hadn't already seen was Disturbed; and I wasn't forking out close to £200 that I couldn't afford to go and see them. In fact with fuel and spending money it would've been closer to £350.

It's likely Disturbed will tour the UK sometime in the next year or so anyway and I will instead look to pay £20-£30 to go and see them then instead. Hopefully, by that time, I'll be back in full-time employment.

I've found a rather cool piece of freebie software: SUMo.

From the website:

SUMo, which stands for Software Update Monitor. Thanks to SUMo you'll be able to keep your PC up-to-date by using the most recent version of your favorite software! Unlike built-in auto update features, SUMo tells you if updates are available before you need to use your software.

I have recently gotten to the stage where I am subscribed to almost 50 podcasts and I have been skipping episodes just to keep up.

Well, today I have, figuratively, taken a big cleaver to iTunes and trimmed back on the number of podcasts I am subscribed to. I've cut back to a core of 20 tech, gaming and sports related podcasts. I know the Friday Night Comedy podcast and the prattle are none of those genres but I'm maintaining my subscription to them.

Lego Indy is now out for PC, XBox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii & DS.

I've installed the game just this morning and have played the first level. It's as good as expected.

The first round of matches at Euro 2008 concluded today with Sweden beating Greece 2-0. Before the tournament began I had been saying that I was backing Portugal and was pleased with their first game victory. They play the Czech Republic tomorrow and victory would all but guarantee a second round berth.

Other countries that have impressed during the first round of matches are the Netherlands; 3-0 winners over Italy, and Spain, 4-1 winners over Russia. Germany didn't impress in beating Poland 2-0 and Sweden seemed to struggle first half before finally beating defending champions Greece 2-0 this evening. France and Romania failed to impress in their 0-0 draw and Italy were outclassed by the Dutch.

All 16 teams still have 2 games to play in the first round of group games, but, my money would still be on Portugal. However, I think Netherlands and Spain will also be thereabouts; and you really cannot discount Germany and whichever team between Italy and France manage to make it out of their group.

Do you remember The Naked Gun trilogy?

I have experienced something of a strange phenomenom this past couple of days. I seem to have lost most of Saturday evening, pretty much all of yesterday and most of today. But, I think I know the culprit.

GTA IV.

I've gotten very little done as a result of playing GTA IV for most of the weekend. And, the excessive playing wasn't intentional. I was giving myself a couple of hours here and there to get a feel for the game; but, it didn't work. The storyline has dragged me in and I just keep going back to it.

I was looking forward to Euro 2008 this month but I've only watched 1 of the first 6 matches so far.

Project Rockstar is an online music management game that I originally played a number of years ago. It was great fun and I only stopped playing when the game was reset and was offline while some upgrades were implemented. I soon moved onto other things and forgot the game. But I was downstairs on Dad's PC on Friday and noticed it in amongst all my old bookmarks that I had installed on his sytem for him. And hence, the renewal of an old friendship was instigated. Go and check it out.

Airbag goes off while guy is headbanging away to Bohemian Rhapsody.

As I have previously mentioned; on 15th May, I ordered GTA IV for the XBox 360 off eBay after getting some cash refunded by KJC Games. Unfortunately, the game never turned up and I couldn't contact the seller. I raised a non-delivery dispute with eBay which was passed to Paypal. When they couldn't get in touch with the seller they escalated it up to a claim and said that if they didn't receive an answer by 5th June they would find in my favour.

It's now 6th June and I've just received an email from Paypal saying that they had found in my favour, managed to recover the full amount from the seller's account and would credit it to me. I should wait between 2 to 5 days for it to credit. I checked my Paypal account and it had already credited. I've just now ordered another copy of GTA IV from a shop on eBay rather than an individual and it's cost me a total of 51p more than I had previously paid. I've taken out the recorded delivery option this time; although it wasn't offered by the previous seller.

Tonight is the first game of the NBA Finals. The best of seven series will be contested between two of the most successful, and fiercest rivals, in the NBA; the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. I will be rooting for the Celtics. Unfortunately, coverage doesn't start until 1:50am and I have an appointment at 11:20am in the morning so am unlikely to be able to watch the whole game. However, I will be recording it and can watch the rest sometime tomorrow.

It's been another rather close day here and I decided that after the amount of running around, seemingly chasing after nothing, that I have been doing lately I was going to take the opportunity and have a chill out. I've gotten myself eight bottles of Grolsch and will be taking things easy for the rest of the evening and enjoying most of them. I may even watch a movie or perhaps just sit in the fading light and enjoy some loud heavy metal music.

I received a phone call from Colin last night to say that his newly upgraded PC wasn't displaying a picture on his monitor when he took it back upstairs. I talked him through a couple of checks before agreeing to pop in and have a look.

It turns out that once connected to the monitor upstairs it wasn't posting. It wasn't a problem with the monitor because his other PC was working fine on it. After opening it up and noticing that everything seemed to be running okay he mentioned the fact that his mousepad was lit up without the PC switched on. I incorrectly suggested that shouldn't happen and unplugged his mouse and keyboard. The PC then proceeded to boot fine. It transpires that the little green adapter he was using to convert his usb mouse into a ps2 mouse was preventing the system from booting. I plugged the mouse into a normal usb port and the PC is working fine.

It's another little thing I can suggest when people say their PC won't boot.

Oh, and I took the opportunity this morning to open up my PC and turn the hdd led connector the right way round so I have led indication of hdd activity. Unfortunately, the power led connector on my case is 3 pin and is only 2 pin on the motherboard so I still have no visible led indication that the PC is switched on.

Shirley Manson, lead singer of Scottish rockers Garbage is joining the cast of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for season 2. She will play Catherine Weaver, the CEO of a cutting-edge high-tech precursor to SkyNet.

Evil Mozza (Colin to some) recently decided to upgrade his 2nd PC. It was an old Athlon 1400 or thereabouts and he decided to ask me to point him in the right direction. Getting an idea of what he wanted to use it for I decided rather than looking around everywhere I'd just go to one of, in my opinion, the most reliable PC suppliers in the UK; CCL Computers.

He just wants the PC for surfing the internet and transcoding AVIs. He didn't need any top-notch graphics ability and was happy just to use his existing optical drive and hard drives. Rather than faffing around selecting different motherboard, processor and ram I decided to recommend their motherboard bundles. So, not needing a top notch system I pointed him in the direction of their mid-range Intel and AMD bundles, along with a suitable case and system cooling. The AMD bundle came in at just under £190 with the Intel bundle just under £200 He's a bit of an AMD fan and opted for the AMD bundle. He got a WinFast motherboard, an AMD Athlon X2 5200+, 2gb of 667mhz DDR2 memory, a decent tower case with a 500 watt power supply and 3 case fans to go in the case; although he ended up only needing 2 since it came with one pre-installed. The motherboard has fairly standard on-board sound and a GeForce 6150 on-board.

It took less than an hour to put the system together and transfer the drives out of the old case into the new one. Unfortunately, XP kept on blue screening when we tried to boot it. This was probably due to the upgraded hardware. Unfortunately a repair install over the top of the old OS kept on hanging in the middle of installing devices so we ended up wiping the C: partition and doing a fresh install of XP. I also set SP3 off installing before I left. All he has to do now is reinstall the software he wants on it. All his old data is safely included on the 2nd hard drive we installed. He can even put a few of his slightly older games on it if he wants.

I've had Overlord for quite a while for my PC and finally got around to installing and playing it this morning. Suddenly, without realising it, 4 hours had passed. The premise of the game is simple. You are a new evil Overlord and must reclaim the lands and peoples around you. As you progress, you gain minions that do your bidding and your tower gradually gets rebuilt. It's a fun, evil game which has the same sort of feel as the Dungeon Keeper series.

Lots of fun.

I am currently experiencing a rather severe speed issue with my broadband connection. Normally I connect at about 8000kbps Downstream and 448kbps Upstream which works out to an exceptionally good 8mb connection. I'm lucky and live within a couple of hundred yards of the exchange.

Anyway, since Thursday evening I've been experiencing some really awful download speeds; sort of in the realms of old ISDN speeds. After changing numerous router settings, cycling the power on the router and the PC I ended up checking the BT forums. It had been reported that a lot of people were experiencing problems across the network and a problem in one of BT's main network hubs had been identified as a possible cause. I went to bed on Thursday thinking it'll get sorted sooner rather than later.

I got up Friday morning and discovered the problem was still persisting. A check on the forums indicated that the problem most people had been experiencing had been resolved. Obviously, my problem was unrelated. Further changes to router settings and other tests carried out and all to no avail.

Checking the BT Speed Tester website; which I didn't even know existed until yesterday morning, gave me an indication of the problem:

The Performance Tester is now testing Broadband connection. Your configured download throughput speed for this service is 135 k.

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
IP profile for your line is - 135 kbps
DSL connection rate: 448 kbps(UP-STREAM) 7968 kbps(DOWN-STREAM)
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 83 kbps

Digging around a bit I discovered that this figure should usually be about 500 less than your normal Downstream. 135k works out just under 17k/sec and is about 2% of where it should be. 7968k works out at a theoretical maximum of 996k/sec; although in practice I've only rarely seen over 800k/sec a few times.

BT's support site states that the IP Profile is set at the local exchange level and is used to help manage data coming down your line to ensure that it doesn't try to deliver too fast for you to handle. Further reading in the forums also suggested that this was a method that BT employed to cap users that had fallen foul of the Fair Usage Policy (FUP). Although this tended just to be managed during Peak Hours.

I could understand if I had fallen foul of the FUP. I do a fair bit of downloading; mainly TV shows form the US that I hate waiting to watch in the UK. Other people in the house also use the internet and I have an XBox 360 that is also connected to the net.

What I can't understand however is that if I have fallen foul of the FUP then BT never gave any indication that I had and may have just capped my service without informing me first. It seems a bit harsh that if they have capped me then they've done so very severely. I've seen posts on their forums that suggest caps ranging from 750 kbps to just under 2000 kbps but none as low as a permanent 135kbps cap.

I've sent an email to their Tech Support people and will await their response.

If you've ever noticed really slow browsing speeds that bear no correlation to your actual connection speed then you may have problems with your DNS setting. DNS, Dynamic Name Service, is a method by which the address you type into the browser address bar is converted into numbers that help the browser route you to the correct website.

Most ISPs will assign these automatically or give you a couple of sets of numbers to type into your network connection settings or your router.

OpenDNS is a free, independent service, that replicates this service. Where OpenDNS triumphs over a regular ISP's DNS provision is that if your ISP has a problem with it's DNS servers then you can't browse the web. OpenDNS has a network of DNS servers and their system automatically uses the closest working server to you. If they have problems they have multiple DNS servers that just automatically take up the load.

The website has instructions on how to set up various routers. Be sure to print out or make a note of any existing settings before you start so that if things go awry then you can reset the settings back to their originals.

Less than nine months after launching Leopard, Apple have just released a third update for their latest OS. OS X 10.5.3 claims significant improvements to Spotlight searching, wireless connectivity, the Automator, Spaces, and Time Machine, plus a number of other core and standard applications.

By comparison, Windows XP was released in October 2001 and it's only now getting a third major update in the form of SP3. Windows Vista was released in November 2006 and has only recently had SP1 released for it.

It begs the question of was Leopard fully finished when it was released 8 months ago or are Apple really that keen to continually update their products. I would hope the latter.

In his own words, Dad got some bad news and some good news today.

He had a follow-up appointment at the hospital today concerning his toes. Apparently, just removing the affected toes isn't an option. The consultant has informed him that they will need to remove his remaining leg. That's the bad news. The good news is that Dad can decide when to go in and get it done. They're not going to force him into doing it at the first available opportunity.

"Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death, I Shall Fear No Evil. For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing." - At the entrance to the SR-71 base, Kadena, Japan

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"You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3." - Paul F. Crickmore (test pilot)

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The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire. 



"There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky." - From an old carrier sailor.

If the wings are travelling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter -- and therefore, unsafe.

When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash.

Without ammunition, the USAF would be just another expensive flying club.

What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; if ATC screws up ... the pilot dies.

Never trade luck for skill.

Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.

Progress in airline flying: now a flight attendant can get a pilot pregnant.

Airspeed, altitude, and brains. Two are always needed to successfully complete the flight.

A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a row is prevarication.

I remember when sex was safe and flying was dangerous.

Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we never left one up there!

Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag for the purpose of storing dead batteries.

Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it.

"The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you." 


- Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot)
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"A pilot who doesn't have any fear probably isn't flying his plane to its maximum." 


- Jon McBride, astronaut
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"If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible." 


- Bob Hoover (renowned aerobatic and test pilot)
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Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you.


"There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime." 


- Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970

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If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to.

You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal.

As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives, the rescuer sees a bloodied pilot and asks, "What happened?". 


The pilot's reply: "I don't know, I just got here myself!" - Attributed to Ray Crandell (Lockheed test pilot).

I sat down and watched the latest Indiana Jones adventure earlier this evening. Happily, it can be summed up in just one word.

Brilliant!

It's 2 hours of high adventure; very much in the style of the previous 3 movies. I had read some disparaging comments about the movie prior to watching it, but it had also received praise from some critics. Whatever you've heard please ignore the comments and watch it on it's own merits. It really does stand up as a classic matinee-style adventure.

I've heard that although nothing has been discussed a fifth movie would be welcomed by some of the cast and crew. I can honestly say that I hope they do make a fifth movie; as long as it maintains the standard of the series.

The BBC pre-empted Doctor Who last night; ostensibly for the Eurovision Song Contest. But if you actually look at where shows have been airing recently and where they will be airing in the weeks to come that's not exactly true.

Doctor Who has been airing at 7pm during it's current run and looking ahead 3 or 4 weeks it will continue to air at that time. The Eurovision Song Contest didn't start until 8pm last night. Shows that normally run in that time-slot are I'd Do Anything, followed by The National Lottery 100-1 and then Casualty.

If they had dropped Doctor Who and just moved I'd Do Anything into it's slot I could've understood. After all, I'd Do Anything generates good business and ratings for the BBC. However, the rescheduling went even further than that.

What the BBC actually did was they pre-empted The Kids Are Alright from it's pre-Doctor Who slot, also pre-empted Doctor Who, shortened The National Lottery down to just the draws and then finally pre-empted Casualty.

They aired a repeat of The Weakest Link Paranormal Special at 5:50pm and followed that with I'd Do Anything at 6:50pm and then the National Lottery draws leading into the 8pm start for Eurovision.

So, whereas Casualty was pre-empted for Eurovision, Doctor Who was actually pre-empted to make room for a repeat of a quiz show. Now, I'm not totally convinced of the all around merits of Eurovision, but at least that only comes along once a year.

If the special episode of The Weakest Link had been a new Eurovision special I might have seen the reasoning, but a repeat of a paranormal special that had no relevance to the rest of the evening?

The BBC could have easily dropped The Kids Are Alright and Casualty as they did last night anyway and then moved I'd Do Anything into the slot vacated by The Kids Are Alright without dropping Doctor Who at all

With Doctor Who taking a break next year I would've thought the BBC would have been more accommodating of their main cash cow. There was nothing stopping them holding the special over until Doctor Who ends it's run; especially considering the lack of relevance.

Watching Click this morning Kate Russell recommended a site called Planet Scicast.

Planet SciCast started life as an idea from TV kids science producer Jonathan Sanderson, who has worked on programmes like How2 and Big Bang.

Planet Scicast is partnered with NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, ETB, the Engineering and Technology Board, IOP, the Institute Of Physics and Planet Science, a website from NESTA.

Planet Scicast is four things:

1. Some training in schools on how to make mini movies of science demonstrations.
2. A big UK wide competition to get children, young people, teachers, parents, science communicators and science/engineering/technology professionals all making mini movies to send in to Planet SciCast.
3. A web resource of all those movies and the written up activities and experiments, for the use and amusement of all the above.
4. Finally, a discussion about who's job it is to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers with entertaining science related material.

With Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull opening this weekend I thought I'd share some trivia about the previous 3 movies.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark

• Iran and Iraq are both shown on a map, although the area, in the 1930s, was called Persia.
• The map showing the path of Indy's flight includes Thailand, which was called Siam at the time.
• During the fire fight in Marion's Bar, Indy's gun changes from a .38 revolver to a Colt .45, back to a .38, then back once again to a .45.
• Set in 1936, the sub-machine guns used are German MG-44s, which weren't designed until 1944.
• When Indy pushes a stone block out of a wall to escape from the crypt, it bounces as it hits the ground.
• When Marion is tied up in the German tent, her hair is under the gag tied around her mouth, then over it, then under it again.

Temple Of Doom

• The movie opens with a scene in a night club. After the fight is over, and Indy and Willie make their escape, the name of the club is seen as they drive away - Club Obi Wan.
• 'Temple Of Doom' is actually set before 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark'.
• The original dress for Willie in the opening "Anything Goes" scene was destroyed by an elephant in the jungle scene when it ate the back of the dress.
• When they arrive at the plane after the club scene, the man that walks them to the plane is Dan Aykroyd.
• When the lava pit is opening to sacrifice Willie, listen for the same sound as Darth Vader igniting his lightsaber.
• Just like Indiana was named after George Lucas' dog, Willie was named after Steven Spielberg's dog and Short Round was named after screenwriters Bill Hyuck and Gloria Hatz's dog.
• Indy charges after the guards with a sword just before going on the bridge, then has to make a quick retreat when they chase him. Remember Han Solo and the chase of the stormtroopers on board the Death Star? Harrison Ford is one brave man...
• Some of the action scenes in in this film were actually written for 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', but were dropped and incorporated into this one.

The Last Crusade

• Hitler signs his name with the wrong hand when he autographs the diary, and actually spells his own name incorrectly.
• Trying to find his father, Indy goes through his father's mail, revealing a stamp which wouldn't have been issued at that time.
• The airship Indy and his father looks very much like the Hindenburg which exploded the year before. It is not the Hindenburg, but in fact the Graf Zeppelin II, her twin, which was ready for commercial operation in 1938. However, the the dirigible never carried a paying customer and was instead used for reconnaissance of the English border just before the war.
• When young Indy is in the lion's cart, he cracks a whip that cuts him on the top of his chin, hence Indiana's chin scar. But actually Harrison Ford got that scar when he crashed his car while trying to put his seatbelt on.
• River Phoenix, who plays the young Indy, played Harrison Ford's son in the 1986 movie "The Mosquito Coast."
• In the scene in the zeppelin where Indy talks with his father, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery both elected to shoot the scene wearing no trousers because it was so hot and they didn't want to stop every ten seconds to wipe sweat away.
• During the fighting scene on the tank. Indy is punched and hits the periscope while the solders inside watch. One of the solders says to the other "The Americans - they fight like women" in German and then gets hit by the periscope.
• During the scene with Hitler in Berlin, there is one shot where some books to be burnt are shown. If you look closely, you can see that one is "Das Kapital" by Karl Marx.

Celtic were crowned champions of Scotland for the third consecutive season this evening thanks to a 1-0 win away at Dundee United. Rangers, who had started the night level on points but with a 4 worse goal difference, lost 2-0 at Aberdeen. For long periods of the season Rangers had been in pole position but a couple of poor results handed the advantage to Celtic, and they refused to let it slip.

Mozilla released the rc1 version of Firefox 3 last weekend. It's a lot more stable than the Beta versions and is significantly quicker at rendering web pages than Firefox 2 ever was. I've been using it side by side with Firefox 2 on my main PC since Sunday evening and although not all of my existing extensions work, I'm happy enough with it.

It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux from here.

Manchester United have beaten Chelsea 6-5 on penalties after drawing 1-1 after extra time. Cristiano Ronaldo put United ahead after 26 minutes and United could have had 2 more before Frank Lampard levelled the score just before half-time; thanks to a fortuitous double deflection. Chelsea bossed the second half but couldn't make their advantage count. Both teams had chances in extra time and Chelsea's Didier Drogba was sent off for a stupid slap on Nemanja Vidic.

Crisitano Ronaldo had his penalty saved by Petr Cech before John Terry slipped whilst taking his penalty and hit the post. The tie was decided when Edwin Van Der Sar saved Nicolas Anelka's penalty and handed Manchester United their third European Cup. Iin the 50th anniversary year of the Munich Air Disaster there cannot be many better tributes to the Busby Babes.

Tonight is the night. A night of destiny for either Manchester United or Chelsea. Tonight is the Champions League Final. Kick-off is 7:45pm BST; 10:45pm Local Time. The game is being shown live both on Sky Sports and ITV1 in the UK. It'll be carried live globally by a myriad of other channels.

There's no disguising who I'll be rooting for. It's won't be the blues of Chelsea. I'm a die-hard Manchester United fan and I'll be glued to the TV for the entirety of the game. If anybody tries to contact me, they will be ignored. The only way I'm leaving the front of the TV is if the house burns down around me.

The press conferences yesterday gave some indication of the mood of both teams.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was 15 minutes early for his and happily joked with Wes Brown and Rio Ferdinand before proceedings started in earnest. In buoyant mood throughout, he made reference to not letting down the Busby Babes, exuded confidence in his team and ominously predicted that they can get better. He ended proceedings with a beaming smile and his arms spread wide, "I love you all, I've come to spread peace."

By contrast, Chelsea manager Avram Grant was in a glum and dour mood when he arrived for his press conference 15 minutes late. He responded very defensively to a stream of questions regarding his relationship with Chelsea's owner, the support he has received from the club and questions about his future. Whilst Ferguson is fully aware of the huge part he has to play it would appear that Grant feels differently, "I am a very small part of this."

Both teams should have full squads to choose from when the teams are announced prior to kick-off; although a rash challenge by Claude Makelele on Ashley Cole in a training session caused some concern for Chelsea. Cole resumed training after some treatment but moved gingerly and eventually left training early.

A statement released on Chelsea's official website stated "In a challenge with Claude Makelele in front of hundreds of cameras and the world football press, Ashley Cole hurt his right ankle. He was treated, it was tested, then strapped - but after consultation between Grant, club doctor Bryan English and physios Dave Hancock and Thierry Laurent - Cole resumed and took full part in the final training game - only disappearing down the tunnel after the players had listened to Avram's address and been stood-down for a final kickaround."

Come 10pm this evening; or thereabouts, the destiny of this season's Champions League trophy will have been decided. Hopefully, as a Manchester United fan, I will be celebrating by then.

Here's a list of Web sites that render more useful the streams of information generated by Twitter's users. Some you may know about; others are more obscure. But if you're a Twitter user who has yet to explore the world built around Twitter, you owe itself to check these out.

• Hashtags -- Track tags designated by a # in Twitter.
• Loud Twitter -- Post Twitter updates to a blog.
• Politweets -- Tracking political discussion on Twitter.
• Quotably -- Threads Twitter conversations, with varying results.
• Summize -- Yet another Twitter search engine. Also uses topics trending up.
• Terraminds -- Another Twitter search engine.
• Track This -- Track packages using Twitter.
• Tweetburner -- Track links you share on Twitter.
• Tweeterboard -- Find Twitter's most influential users.
• Tweet Scan -- Search Twitter using keywords.
• TweetStats -- Want to know just how addicted you are to Twitter? Graph your usage!
• TweetWire.com -- See links submitted to Twitter organized by category: Election 2008, tech, sports, celebrity.
• Twist -- Graph and compare usage of keywords and topics in Twitter.
• Twistori -- What Twitter users are loving, wishing for, feeling, hating and believing, right now.
• TwitLinks -- Links submitted to Twitter by a select list of tech luminaries.
• TwitPic -- Because a picture is worth more than 140 characters.
• Twitslikeme -- Find other Twitter users who may share your interests.
• TwittEarth -- Live Twitter updates shown on a spinning 3D globe. Very similar to Twittervision 3D.
• TwitterBuzz -- Popular links on Twitter.
• Twitter Census -- Ask a question, use this to tally the results.
• Twitterfeed -- Send an RSS feed to Twitter. Great for alerting friends to blog posts.
• Twitter Guide -- Not a tool, but a nice Twitter explainer and etiquette guide.
• Twitterholic -- Find out who has the most followers, friends or updates.
• Twitter Local -- Find local Twitter users. There's also an Adobe AIR application you can run on your desktop.
• Twitter Quotient -- Rates your Twitter activity.
• TwitterSnooze! -- Temporarily unfollow someone, then re-follow them at an assigned time. WARNING: Saves your Twitter name and password to its servers until it re-follows.
• Twitterverse -- Common terms being used over a given period of time, arranged in tag-cloud fashion.
• Twittervision -- Map Twitter updates on a map or a 3D globe. There's also a Mac OS screen saver.
• Twubble -- Searches friends of your friends to suggest more people to follow.
• @timer - Send this account a message and it will respond with a reminder at the time you specifiy.

As most everybody is already aware Russell T. Davies has already announced that he will not be at the helm of Doctor Who when season five is broadcast in 2010.

BBC Wales have today announced that Steven Moffat will take over the role of Lead Writer and Executive Producer. He will join as Executive Producer on season five by Piers Wenger, who is taking over from Julie Gardner, who is also stepping down.

Season four is currently just past half-way through it's 13-episode run and then Doctor Who will return in 2009 with four specials. Season five is scheduled to be broadcast on BBC One in 2010; planning for which is apparently already under way.

Moffatt previously wrote the episodes The Empty Child, The Girl In The Fireplace, Blink and Silence In The Library; the two-parter that will be broadcast when Doctor Who returns from it's Eurovision enforced break.

It's great news that the BBC have decided to go with somebody that already has a history with the show.

It wasn't my idea but we have a new puppy. She is only 7 weeks old and has been named Petra.

She is every bit as cute as she looks in the picture but I'm just not 100% certain that I'm ready for a new dog so soon after losing Tasha.

Jon Lester threw a no-hitter last night as the Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals 7-0. Lester, who missed the end of the 2006 season after he was diagnosed with a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, threw 130 pitches to complete his first ever MLB complete game. It was the first no-hitter in the majors since Clay Buchholz threw one last September; also for the Red Sox, against the Baltimore Orioles.

I very much doubt that I am the only person that remembers Airwolf with fondness. Anyway, a guy called Steven Stull from Atlanta created a full-size replica. It was originally intended for a museum in Tennessee but has now found it's way into private hands and was recently auctioned for $60,000.

For all you Flickr fans have a look at Tag Galaxy; a rather spiffy new way to browse Flickr.

Miro: A free application that turns your computer into an internet TV video player. You can download it here for Windows, Mac, or Linux.

RadioPaq: RadioPaq is a portal that makes internet radio simpler than ever, with visual, interactive and on-demand services for news, podcasts and global stations.

PaperToys: A website full of paper toys, models, cut-outs, trains, airplanes, paper party gifts, party hats, paper cars, paper motorcycles and cards.

Congratulations to Portsmouth who just beat Cardiff City 1-0 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley. The goal was scored just before half-time by Nwankwo Kanu after a mistake by Cardiff's goalkeeper Peter Enckelman. It wasn't a particularly good or exciting game but all credit to Harry Redknapp's team.

Portsmouth will join Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City in the UEFA Cup next season.

The Premier League season that just ended was the first in the new 3-year tv deal and as a sign of how much extra money has gone to teams this year, Bolton, who finished 16th, received £32m; the same amount that Manchester United received last year as Champions. Derby, who were relegated with the worst record ever in the Premier League, received £29m. A total of £940m was paid out this year; with £815m paid to Premier League clubs, £77.5m going to the Football League and another £47.5m going to charities and other good causes in Britain and abroad.

Over the next two season Reading, Birmingham City and Derby will receive £11.4m in "parachute payments" to ease the burden of relegation.

Television revenue for 2007-08 season (2006-07 in brackets)

1. Manchester United £49.3m (£32m)
2. Chelsea £45.6m (£30.9m)
3. Arsenal £47m (£29m)
4. Liverpool £45.4m (£28.4m)
5. Everton £42.1m (£25.3m)
6. Aston Villa £42.3m (£22m)
7. Blackburn Rovers £40.2m (£22m)
8. Portsmouth £40.4m (£23m)
9. Manchester City £39.7m (£21m)
10. West Ham United £36.8m (£21.1m)
11. Tottenham Hotspur £36m (£27.3m)
12. Newcastle United £39.2m (£21.2m)
13. Middlesbrough £34.2m (£20.5m)
14. Wigan Athletic £33.4m (£18.4m)
15. Sunderland £33.6m (£6.5m*)
16. Bolton Wanderers £32m (£24.6m)
17. Fulham £31.3m (£20.4m)
18. Reading £30.6m (£23.6m)
19. Birmingham City £29.8m (£6.5m*)
20. Derby County £29.1m (n/a)

Total £815,175,812 (£502,533,570)

* denotes parachute payment for clubs promoted from the Coca-Cola Championship.

I originally wasn't going to bother buying myself a copy of GTA IV for a while. This was mainly due to the fact that I can't really afford to at the moment with not working.

Anyway, yesterday I finally got a refund of my account balance from KJC Games. I'd previously played a PBM with them; Quest. I hadn't had any turns processed in a long time and decided to close my account. Although I had just over £43 in the account they reimbursed me just over £32 after taking off the 10% bonus I had received when I put the money in the account and a £5 administration fee. Anyway, PayPal then went and took another £1.30 in fees.

So, since the money was already in my PayPal account I thought "What the heck!" and ordered a copy of GTA IV for the XBox 360 off eBay. Cost me £30.98. Anyway, logged into eBay this morning and discovered I had a new message. Clicking on it, thinking it was a dispatch notification, I discovered it was actually a £5 voucher that eBay had sent me on May 2nd. I though "Great, can use that for a future purchase." Only to discover that it expired on 14th May 2008; yesterday. I could've saved myself £5 by using the voucher and didn't even know I had it. Damn!

TECHNOLOGY:
Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
It changes every hour and is currently set to:

Q. How many televisions do you have in your house?
Four.

Q. How many computers do you have in your house?
Five.

BIOLOGY:
Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
Right-handed.

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
Both of my big toe nails.

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
My Dad; he fell out of his wheelchair.

Q. Have you ever been knocked out?
Not in a fight, no. But, I've been knocked out with anaesthetic.

BULLSHITOLOGY:
Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
As cool an idea as it would be I would imagine I would freak out and try to avoid it as it got closer. So, no, I'd prefer not to know.

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
I wouldn't.

Q. What colour do you think looks best on you?
Black.

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item?
Yes, paper to keep secrets when younger.

DAREOLOGY:
Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for £100?
I've already done that.

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for £200,000?
Maybe the left one.

Q. Would you never blog again for £50,000?
You'd have to take my PC and internet access away and that'd drive me nuts; so, no, I couldn't do that.

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for £250,000?
It'd be scary for the readers; but I'd do it.

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for £1000?
Yeah, why not. As long as there were suitable quantities of water etc available afterwards.

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for £1,000,000?
I'm tempted to say 'No', but the truth is that if the person truly deserved to die then 'Yes'. But, it would have to be proven unequivocally that the person deserved their fate. Maybe a Child Molester or Rapist.

DUMBOLOGY:
Q: What is in your left pocket?
It's empty.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
Never seen it, so I don't know.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
Carpet.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
Stand.

Q: How many pairs of shoes/trainers do you own?
Five, maybe Six.

LASTOLOGY:
Q: Last person who texted you?
My Brother-In-Law, Russell, with a non-PC joke.

Q: Last person who called you?
My Auntie.

Q: Last person you hugged?
My Sister-In-Law. It was her birthday yesterday.

I've found a couple of really cool websites, a mind-blowing Firefox extension and a wee bit of PC nostalgia.

First up is Dungeon & Dragons Adventures; a pretty useful resource for all the D&D geeks out there. It includes Adventures, Articles, Downloads and Forums.

Next up is CyberNet News; which has a host of technology news and productivity tips and is the site where I discovered the most jaw-dropping Firefox extension I think I've ever seen.

Tab Effects is a Firefox extension that takes advantage of Direct X 8 and higher to add a rather awesome transition effect when switching tabs.

The nostalgia is a clone of the Flying Toasters sceensaver that Berkley Systems released as part of the After Dark series on the PC way back in 1989. Anyway, ToasterClone works under Apple OSX and Windows.

Quick Online Tips was featured on BBC Click over the weekend and is quite a useful resource. From their 'About Us' page:

Quick Online Tips is a popular blog regularly publishing Technology news, smart blogging tips, new media, web 2.0 services, useful computer software, advertising and how to make money online.

Go and have a look.

As Pewari mentioned in her podcast the other day we rarely get an extended period of good weather here in the UK. And where I live in Cumbria it's even rarer. The closeness of the local lakes and mountains to the sea tends to result in a lot of rainy weather.

However, having said that, the weather here has been really good since last Monday and looking at the forecast for the coming week it's not going to get significantly worse. There's a few cooler, cloudy days forecast for the week ahead but no rain ahead.

Now that my toes are healed I may take the opportunity one day this week to pop into the hills and take a few photographs. I'm tempted to pop down the coast to the Eskdale valley and take a visit to the Roman Fort up on Hard Knot Pass.

Manchester United won 2-0 at Wigan and Chelsea could only draw 1-1 with Bolton; resulting in Manchester United winning the Premier League by 2 points.

At the foot of the table Fulham survived but Birmingham City and Reading joined Derby County in being relegated.

Roll on the Champions League final in a week and a half.

Today is the final day of the FA Premier League season and the title can still be won and lost.

Manchester United and Chelsea both sit atop the table on 84 points. Manchester United are away at Wigan Athletic and Chelsea are at home against Bolton Wanderers this afternoon.

If Manchester United beat Wigan they will almost certainly be champions. The only way Chelsea can win the title if Manchester United win today is if they beat Bolton by 18 goals more than Manchester United beat Wigan. Possible, but highly improbable.

If Manchester United only draw against Wigan then Chelsea just need to beat Bolton and they'll be champions.

If both Manchester United and Chelsea draw their games then Manchester United will be champions.

If Manchester United lose at Wigan then Chelsea just need to draw against Bolton to become champions.

If both Manchester United and Chelsea lose their games then Manchester United will be champions.

At the foot of the table only Derby County have been relegated so far.

In order to survive, Birmingham City need to win today and hope that both Reading and Fulham lose.

For Reading to survive they need to get a better result than Fulham. If Fulham and Reading both win then Reading need to win by 7 goals more than Fulham win. Not impossible, but considering their positions, highly unlikely.

Fulham have the best chance of the three to survive. If they win, they survive. If they draw then they are safe as long as both Reading and Birmingham don't win. They could still be safe if they lose as long as Birmingham and Reading both lose also. However, if they lose by 7 goals more than Reading then they would be relegated.

There is also the possibilty that Fulham and Reading could both survive. They would both need to win and then it would need Chelsea to absolutely destroy Bolton.

The elder of my sisters mentioned to me that she was thinking of getting a new hard drive for her PC because she kept on getting warnings about her C: drive getting full. I couldn't remember what motherboard she had nor what size or interface her hard drive was. I advised her to download and run Belarc and bring me the results on a usb stick.

From that information I was able to determine what motherboard she had and what hard drive she had, and then suggest suitable upgrade paths. She currently has an 80gb IDE hard drive which is partitioned into 2; 1 for Windows and Applications and 1 for Games. What I've suggested is that she moves all of her Games over onto a new larger SATA drive and repartition the 80gb as just a single partition and use it as her boot drive. She can get a decent Maxtor 320gb SATA drive for less than £40 and a good Samsung 500gb for less than £45. I suggested paying the wee bit extra and getting the Samsung.

She also mentioned getting a DVD Writer; because she only has a DVD-ROM drive and a CD-RW drive. She can get a 20x Samsung DVD-RW for less than £15. Although she will be able to fit the new drive in without taking anything out I think it might be an idea to remove one of them; probably the CD-RW.

She'd also mentioned previously that a lot of her games were failing to run thanks to a Direct 3D error. I took the opportunity to download the latest Catalyst drivers for her; she has an ATI Radeon 9600 Atlantis, and put them on the USB stick. I told her to install them when she got home and give me a ring if she had any problems.

She later phoned to say that the installer had come up with an error whilst trying to install the Catalyst Control Center. It appeared that it thought it had a new version of CCC installed. I told her to just carry on and then reboot. When she rebooted the ATI drivers wouldn't initialise so I told her to go into Add/Remove Programs and remove the CCC in there. I then told her to go into the ATI install folder and just install the new CCC. It installed fine and we thought the problem was licked. However, after another reboot the graphics were still underwhelming so I suggested just reinstalling the whole driver set again over the current installation. After yet another reboot everything looked hunky-dory and her 3D games were working.

As an aside, there's quite a number of people with AGP versions of ATI's graphics cards that are reporting errors whilst trying to start 3D games. AMD, who now own ATI, have a link to a hotfix on their website that resolves the issue. It's available from here. From my past experience with the errors I was getting prior to upgrading to my new motherboard and processor I think the problem is with nForce 2 motherboards.

Scoot ordered some merchandise recently and handed me a copy of the catalogue he used. The company offer a wide variety of music merchandise such as t-shirts, long sleeves, hoodies and jewellery. They can be found here.

FreeApps.co.in is a website that lists a variety of free applications intended for a variety of purposes. I can heartily recommend Pidgin (or it's MacOSX equivalent Adium), Audacity, FileZilla, Firefox, Foxit Reader, Open Office, VLC and µTorrent. I'm actually going to download Scribus; a free DTP package, and see if it's any good.

I'm becoming really disillusioned with the entire job hunting process. It's been almost 6 months since I had my previous employment terminated, and in that time I've probably made close to, if not over, 200 applications and only had 4 interviews; 3 with the local NHS Trust and 1 with the neighbouring borough council. A lot of the applications I've made haven't even been acknowledged by the employer. I'm beginning to wonder if the prospective employers are even looking past the fact that I was fired to see what sort of qualifications and experience I can offer or if they're just looking at the fact I was fired and then dismissing my application out of hand.

However, I will continue to soldier on. I still have a couple of applications out there; including 1 that really excites me.

I think I've just put my back out. My Dad was in the back garden in his wheelchair and ended up slipping backwards down the path and out of it. Luckily, he hasn't injured himself beyond one or two little scrapes but he needed help getting back into his chair. I felt something give as I was helping him back into his chair and now any twisting motion causes pain in the lower left of my back.

You are Spider-Man
You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.
	Spider-Man		80%
	Green Lantern		60%
	Robin		55%
	Catwoman		50%
	Hulk		40%
	Supergirl		32%
	Batman		30%
	Wonder Woman		27%
	Iron Man		25%
	The Flash		20%
	Superman		20%

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

You are Mr. Freeze
You are cold and you think everyone else should be also, literally.
	Mr. Freeze		54%
	Venom		33%
	The Joker		29%
	Dr. Doom		29%
	Dark Phoenix		28%
	Poison Ivy		27%
	Lex Luthor		21%
	Mystique		20%
	Riddler		18%
	Apocalypse		18%
	Green Goblin		16%
	Two-Face		16%
	Kingpin		16%
	Magneto		14%
	Catwoman		14%
	Juggernaut		12%

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

I had an appointment with my podiatrist this morning; and as it turns out, it was my last one. She's happily informed me that the toes are fully healed and I don't need to dress them anymore. The bits of dead skin that are on top of the toe matrices will disappear over time. I'll still have annual check-ups with the diabetic podiatrist but don't need to visit my normal podiatrist unless something crops up. It feels weird just wearing socks with no dressing but I'll get used to it.

Open Doors is another of those seemingly simple flash games that are a lot harder that they first appear. I'm stuck on level 13.

Listropolis is a site that aggregates lists. The lists include such gems as The 10 Most Sexually Unappealing Craigslist Postings, Superior Alternatives to Crappy Windows Software and 9 Outrageously Handy Websites Everyone Should Try.

Blank Is Like Blank is a website of 'Analogies To Live By.' I especially like the 'Using a semicolon is like barbecuing' analogy.

I'm off to cheer Newcastle United on this afternoon and then I'm off roleplaying this evening. Have fun.

One of my friends has just bought a new PC through his catalogue. It's based on an Intel E2180 dual core processor and has 2gb ram, 250gb hard drive, 17" LCD monitor and comes with Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed.

There's no documentation with it beyond the quick set-up guides and there's not even any paperwork relating the the system warranty. It gets better though; the only discs with it are the Foxconn motherboard disc and a copy of Nero Essentials 7. Windows Vista doesn't have a disc with it and would appear to be only available as a recovery partition on the hard drive. I don't know about anybody else but I've always thought providing the OS just as a recovery partition on the hard drive as one of the stupidest innovations ever. I understand that all you actually pay for is the licence as part of the purchase price of the PC but just for a wee bit of penny pinching why not also provide the disc?

I know that if you have a problem with the PC the recovery partition is available without having to hunt for it. But, what happens if there's a catastrophic failure of the hard drive? How would you go about reinstalling Windows if the drive is so badly shagged that even the recovery partition is unusable? Or if the drive is so badly shagged that it needs replacing?

Since, he already has a licence I'm going to hunt around and try and find an untouched copy of Vista to download and burn for him.

Anyway, one of the main reasons he bought the PC was so that he could play Oblivion and he can't. It would appear that the integrated Intel graphics is not powerful enough to run it. But, I've found a little utility called Oldblivion which purports to help get Oblivion running on older unsupported graphics hardware. However, it doesn't support the Shivering Isles expansion. I am going to pop round later, after the football, to try it out for him.

These toilet signs are quite funny.

Compulse is another of those deceptively simple-looking flash games.

I'm not the world's biggest Star Wars fan; in fact you could even say I'm not really a Star Wars fan. I enjoyed the movies for what they were but that's about as far as it goes. Anyway, after watching the GeekBrief this morning there is now one piece of Star Wars merchandise I would love.

The R2D2 DVD Projector is just that; a DVD projector built into the body of a remote control R2 unit. It retails in the USA from NikkoAmerica for $2999. It's available in Europe for €2799; which equates to just about £2199, from ExclusiveStarWars.com.

Cali Lewis mentioned a rather useful website in yesterday's GeekBrief podcast; Down For Everyone Or Just Me? is a website that enables users to check and see if a website is really down or if the problem is actually with their own connection.

Do you have a favourite website that you enjoy visiting but are annoyed that it doesn't have an RSS feed?

This is where Page2RSS comes in. Just give it a URL of a website that doesn't have an RSS feed and it'll supply options to subscribe to an RSS feed that it'll create for you. All the feed entries point back to the Page2RSS page first but it feels like a small price to pay for such a valuable service.

Chelsea will play Manchester United in the Champions League Final in Moscow on Wednesday May 21st.

The first half of tonight's game wasn't particularly inspiring; in fact I fell asleep during it. Liverpool played very poorly in the first half and Chelsea went into half-time with a deserved 1-0 lead thanks to a superb finish by Didier Drogba. The second half saw Liverpool play much better and Chelsea seemed to vanish. An excellent finish from Fernando Torres saw Liverpool equalize on the night and force extra time.

The first half of extra time saw Chelsea have a Michael Essien goal disallowed for offside and then a mistake by Sammi Hyppia which gave Chelsea a penalty that Frank Lampard converted for a 2-1 lead. Another superb strike from Didier Drogba, after good work by Nicolas Anelka and half-time in extra time saw Chelsea leading 3-1 on the night. A trip by Didier Drogba on Sammi Hyppia early in the second half of extra time should have resulted in a penalty for Liverpool but the referee waved away the claims. A late strike by Ryan Babel with less than 5 minutes left pulled it back to 3-2 but Liverpool couldn't find a way to equalize.

I would have preferred to see a Manchester United - Liverpool Champions League Final but beating Chelsea in Moscow will probably feel even better.

For the last 30 minutes I've been a bit of a nervous wreck; hoping and praying that Barcelona wouldn't get an equalizing goal that would take them through to the Champions League Final. Both teams played a lot of the game on the front foot and both sides could have scored a couple of goals.

I've been a bit critical of Paul Scholes in recent weeks; I thought he'd been playing poorly and giving the ball away much more than he should. The goal he scored tonight forgives him of all of that. Rio Ferdinand and Wes Brown were excellent in the centre of defence and Carlos Tevez was tireless all over the front line.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's second semi-final between Chelsea and Liverpool. I'd prefer Liverpool to go through but with an all-English final assured I'm not really going to be too bothered if Chelsea succeed and go through to face Manchester United in Moscow.

My current Ratkin story arc came to a successful conclusion last night. The rats managed to infiltrate the bad guy's haven and after a fairly lengthy battle defeat him and his 4 demon cohorts. This was mainly due to some careful planning beforehand where everybody was assigned tasks by the pack leader. Whilst the rest of the pack concentrated on the 4 demons the pack leader; Fred, a warrior, went toe to toe with the vampire. With both the vampire and Fred close to death Fred put in one last concerted effort; he spent a willpower point to ignore wound penalties, and managed to finally drop the vampire. Everybody received a healthy award in terms of their renown and a substantial XP award.

Even though I really enjoy running Ratkin I now want to concentrate on actually playing something for a while and have warned my players that I may not run Ratkin again this year.

Although Windows XP SP3 is due to be officially released through Windows Update tomorrow it is available for download from Microsoft's website today. I've just downloaded and installed it; took about 15 minutes to downloaded the 300mb or so and it installed in about the same length of time..

I made a point of creating a restore point prior to installation; although SP3 creates a system restore point anyway. Everything went okay with the update and the system rebooted afterwards. It seemed a wee bit quicker to boot back into windows although setting up personalizations for Outlook and Address Book took a while.

So far, the only thing that's complained is Style XP which seems to think it's incompatible with the SP3, although the style/theme I previously set seems to be working okay anyway.

Those awfully nice people at Avanquest and VNU have teamed up to give readers of Computer act!ve magazine a free copy of VCOM Fix-It Utilities 7 Express.

The download is available from here and then you will need to visit here to register with a valid email address.

Computer act!ve also provide a variety of other software downloads which can be perused here.

The newest version of Ubuntu, version 8.04 or Hardy Heron to it's friends, was released this week. Rather than waiting for my new discs to come through the post I decided to use the inbuilt update manager to upgrade. It would be a good test of how Ubuntu handled things.

I set it off at about 6:30pm yesterday evening and it had finished downloading and installing the upgrade by about 4am this morning with only minimal interaction from me; regarding obsolete software that it wanted permission to remove. The reason it probably took so long was that when the laptop is running then the net connection is shared between 3 pcs and the fact that it was in the other room and I only checked it occasionally, so I have no idea how long it had sat waiting for my input on the 2 occasions it needed it.

One reboot later and everything is tickety-boo. Nothing is broken and to be honest I think it boots a wee bit quicker. The next big step software-wise is Windows XP SP3 which is officially released this coming Monday.

The BBC are reporting that Guillermo del Toro; director of Pan's Labyrinth and both Hellboy movies, has been named as the director of the The Hobbit and its proposed sequel.

The films, planned for release in 2010 and 2011, will be prequels to the Lord of the Rings trilogy directed by New Zealand's Peter Jackson. Jackson will produce the films, to be made back-to-back in New Zealand.

According to studio New Line, the first will be an adaptation of The Hobbit, the novel Tolkien published before his Lord of the Rings cycle and the second will be an original story focusing on the 60 years between the book and the beginning of the Rings trilogy.

I went out for a drink last night. I've only just got home. I had fun!

Tricia Helfer, Six/Caprica from the new Battlestar Galactica has landed a role in the second season of Burn Notice. She will play Carla; Michael's handler.

Amy Acker, formerly of Angel, has been added to the cast of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse and will co-star with Eliza Dushku.

Sky's drama department has commissioned Blakes 7 Productions, a subsidiary of Blakes 7 Media to write 2 60 minute scripts for a potential relaunch of the BBC's cult sci-fi classic; Blake's 7. No word on dates or potential cast yet.

Reports are also circulating that both Sarah Chalke and Britney Spears will be be reprising their roles in upcoming episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

Finally, rumours are rife that Gary Dourdan may be leaving CSI; some reports even suggest that he may have been fired, and that Khandi Alexander appears likely to be leaving CSI:Miami.

Okay, not quite, but it did sound like it had; or at least got shot. Actually, it was a CD shattering in one of my drives. I've heard stories of discs shattering in drives before but never came across it either with one of my drives or any of the myriad of friends and family that own pcs.

Anyway, I powered down the PC; took the drive out and then took it apart and emptied out all the bits of cd that were scattered inside and spent a good 15 minutes going over it with a fine brush to ensure there were no remnants left. I've put the drive back together and it's still reading and burning discs okay. Lucky escape methinks.

This blog was officially launched five years ago today.

In those five years I've made over 400 entries and received over 300 comments. Topics I've covered include my job, my health, my relationship with my ex-girlfriend, my roleplaying experiences, my music tastes and the gigs I've attended; including Download festivals, my tv tastes, the movies I've seen, the games I've enjoyed, tech that I've thought worthy of note, websites that I've come across, Manchester United and other sporting topics that interest me.

For about the first year of the blog's life I used zShaped as the backend before moving over to using Movable Type in 2004. I've also changed hosts twice. I originally started with Fasthosts and then moved to Easily before settling in December 2006 with Compila.

The main reasons for going with a dedicated host rather than using an ISPs provided space were:

• If I moved ISP I wouldn't need to worry about having to upload the website and database to somewhere else.
• It was also a case that ISPs didn't provide the sort of php, perl and SQL support that I needed.

From April '03 until April '07 I made 191 entries. This is entry 227 in the year since then and 193 of those have been made since the start of January this year. I never officially announced an intention to blog as regularly as I have in the last 4 months but the fact that I lost my job kind of motivated me and has given me more free time. Sometimes it's been hard to find anything to blog about and I've just ended up posting links to sites that I've discovered and enjoyed. At other times I've had loads of things to talk about at various times of the day and ended up posting 3 or 4 entries in a day.

The next milestone is 500 entries and then in 2 years time; 12th April 2010, it will be the tenth anniversary of the launch of the domain. You never know, I may, by then, be celebrating 1000 entries.

This week is week 7 of the current 8 week session of Ratkin and it should hopefully reach a conclusion this evening. With this only being week 7 of 8 it means that if they run into difficulties there's still next week to get the story arc finished. Either way, next week will hopefully see the party get back to an area of safety and get their exploits acknowledged.

The current story arc has involved a vampire causing no end of problems to Umbral travelers and the group have gained information that leads that to believe that the main bad guy has a hideout on the island of Isla de Vieques, just to the east of Puerto Rico. However, they still need to reach the island and then find his hideout.

Information they've received suggests that he's a 700+ year old sorcerer/infernalist who was originally sentenced to death for witchcraft in the 14th century. They've done some considerable research and his name pops up every now and again. Evidence also suggests that he's a very wealthy and influential figure with places on the boards of various Pentex subsidiaries.

There's been a few deaths along the way and Craig's character is the only character still left in the current party from the original 8-hour session. Although, that session did only have 3 characters. The party has seen some changes over time and is now a party of 6 characters with another 7 characters that are not involved in the final stages of the plot.

Hopefully, they can manage to catch up with and dispose of the bad guy; although, there is still a chance he may escape. There's also the possibility that some or all of the rats could die. I'm hoping not though; because there's a really good group dynamic going on and I want to finish this arc and then move on with them; possibly after a couple of months away from it.

Whatever happens, it should be an interesting evening.

Three times last night Boston came from behind before taking the lead 4-3 with 4:15 left in the third period. Montreal tied it back up 11 seconds later before Boston took their final lead with 2:37 left and finally won 5-4. The series is now tied 3 games apiece after Boston had trailed by 3 games to 1. Game 7 is in Montreal on Monday night.

The Bruins, seeded 8th in the eastern conference, have never won a series after trailing 3-1. Monday night, they get another chance, the 21st in franchise history, to end that streak and knock out the Canadiens, the 1st placed seeds in the east.

Normally on a Monday night I'll record WWE Raw and perhaps, depending on how tired I am, watch the first hour or so. Not this Monday! Instead, I'll be recording Raw and watching and cheering on Phil Kessell, Milan Lucic and the rest of the Bruins.

Strong rumours coming out of Fox suggest that they've renewed Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for a second season. Yay, more Summer Glau!

We have now reached the pinnacle of the movie industry.... Yeah, right, my thoughts exactly.

A hard fought draw for a below par Manchester United has opened up a three point lead for them over Chelsea at the top of the Premier League table. Both teams have 3 games left and they meet next weekend at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge stadium.

For long periods it looked like United were not going to get anything out of the game; especially with Blackburn's Brad Friedel making a string of excellent saves near the end of the match. United felt they should have had a penalty within the last 10 minutes when the ball struck Brett Emerton's elbow but with about 5 minutes left Carlos Tevez headed in from a corner to cancel out Roque Santa Cruz's first half goal.

Even if United lose to Chelsea next weekend they have a vastly superior goal difference and the title would still be in their own hads. They round out the season with games against Wigan Athletic and West Ham United. However, their next game is the Champions League Semi-Final 1st leg vs Barcelona at the Camp Nou on Wednesday evening.

If I ever find out who is responsible for writing the Vundo trojan...

I've recently made a couple of minor tweaks to the blog:

• Category archives now display all the entries in a category rather than just the last 20 entries.
• The links and blogroll navigation on the left now uses a cascading menu rather than displaying a huge, long list.

The merger of Vivendi Games with Activision has gained approval from the EU. Amid claims that it could prove to be anti-competitive the EU has argued that the combined company would still face stiff competition in the marketplace from the likes of EA, Sony & Nintendo amongst others.

Under the terms of the deal, Vivendi would hold a roughly 52 percent majority of the merged company by contributing Vivendi Games, valued at $8.1 billion, including Blizzard Entertainment, and $1.7 billion in cash. Activision would then be renamed Activision Blizzard and continue to operate on the Nasdaq as ATVI. Within five days of the deal closing, Activision Blizzard would launch a $4 billion all-cash tender offer to purchase up to 146.5 million Activision shares at $27.50. Vivendi has agreed to purchase up to $700 million of new shares at the same price.

• Current Activision CEO Robert Kotick will be president and CEO.
• Bruce Hack, current CEO of Vivendi Games, will serve as vice-chairman and chief corporate officer.
• Mike Griffith will be president and CEO of Activision Publishing (including the Sierra Entertainment, Sierra Online and Vivendi Games Mobile divisions in addition to the Activision business).
• Mike Morhaime will continue to serve as president and CEO of Blizzard Entertainment.
• Thomas Tippl, currently CFO of Activision, will become CFO.
• Jean-François Grollemund, currently CFO of Vivendi Games, will be appointed chief accounting officer of the new company.

The new company will be the largest of the third-party games publishers ahead of the likes of EA, Ubisoft and Take Two, with an estimated value of approximately $19 billion.

Back in January 2006 I blogged about wanting a new keyboard; the Optimus Maximus. Well, it's now officially available.

Unfortunately, it's a wee bit out of my price range and I can't see too many everyday PC users buying one. If you had £800 spare would you spend it on a new keyboard for your PC? No? Neither, would I! I think I'll stick with my current Cherry keyboard until I can get around to buying myself a Saitek Eclipse II instead.

£800 for a keyboard; I could build a decent quad-core PC for that...

I've just discovered a rather awesome Battlestar Galactica podcast; the Galactica Watercooler. The podcast has a definite talk-radio feel and includes phone-ins.

I installed Ubuntu on my laptop about a month or so ago and have been dual booting it with XP ever since to see how things worked out. After a month of using Ubuntu I haven't once had to drop into XP on the laptop and am considering the test successful. There's been nothing I've wanted to do on the laptop that I haven't been able to do in Ubuntu and the next step is to upgrade to Hardy Heron, the next version of Ubuntu, when it's released in a couple of weeks.

However, having said all that, I'm still not going to install it on my main PC; for a number of reasons:

• I still have a lot of Windows based applications and games and really don't want to have to mess about with Wine or other software to get them running under Linux.


• If somebody phones, emails or IMs me looking for some PC advice it makes life much easier having XP in front of me so that I can walk them through the problem.


• The desktop is left switched on virtually constantly; it's only ever switched off if there's a need to reboot, so dual booting would be a waste of hard drive space.


• And, the main reason I'm not installing it on my desktop is that I like the way my PC is currently set up and am very comfortable with it. Even with having to reinstall XP once or twice in the last 3 or 4 years I've still ended up using the same sort of settings and the same little utilities I've always used.

However, I can happily say that if you don't like or just don't want to use XP or Vista I can recommend Ubuntu as a very good alternative. Just be aware that although support for Ubuntu is very good, it's nowhere near as widespread or accessible as it is for the Windows platforms, and gaming suffers similarly. There is a vibrant community out there and members are more than happy to help others out.

In summary, Ubuntu is brilliant and I've no intentions of removing it from the laptop. I might even go the whole hog yet and remove XP from it totally. But, I like XP on my desktop and am not going to give it up.

As part of a promotion meant exclusively for readers of VNU, ComputerActive and Personal Computer World, Avira is giving away a free 6-month license for Avira AntiVir Premium.

Visit the Avira Online Shop to register for the key code and then download Avira AntiVir Premium (for Windows 2000, XP, XP 64 Bit, Vista 32 Bit and 64 Bit) from here.

To conicide with the launch of Trackmania United Forvever, Nadeo have just released Trackmania Nations Forever and it's free.

Trackmania Nations Forever features :

• 65 brand new tracks.
• Solo and team based multiplayer modes.
• One complete TrackMania environment: Stadium ''Forever''.
• An in-game track editor to create your own tracks.
• A video studio to realize your own movie.
• A paint shop to customize your vehicles.
• Official ladders for solo and multiplayer.
• Compatible with TrackMania United Forever (profile and multiplayer servers).

Trackmania United Forever, which will retail for £29.99, features :

• 4 single player modes (Race, Platform, Stunt and Puzzle).
• 265 spectacular progressively challenging tracks.
• 7 types of vehicles offering different gameplay and driving experiences.
• 7 TrackMania environments.
• Solo and team based multiplayer modes.
• A spectacular graphics update for the three historic environments.
• Integrated peer-to-peer sharing system to showcase all of your customizations.
• A resource-sharing system to acquire and exchange new tracks, vehicles and skins.
• Manialinks, an in-game Internet browser.
• Earn "Coppers", the virtual currency of TrackMania.
• Official rankings in solo and multiplayer.
• Create your own tracks with the TrackMania editor.
• Create your own vehicles with the TrackMania paint shop.
• Create your own videos with the TrackMania movie studio.

You can pre-order Trackmania United Forever for £24.99 from Amazon, via my associate store, or you can buy it as a digital download for only £19.99 from GamesPlanet. Be warned though; it's 1.5GB.

An article on last night's Gadget Show caught my attention. With the abundance of digital downloads nowadays it's rather a minefield as to whether or not they are covered by your contents insurance. I've never actually bought any digital downloads and would much rather have the physical media in my hand. But, the article got me thinking "What if I did own some?"

I've checked my policy document and I'm still not certain whether I would be covered or not. The policy document doesn't specifically define digital downloads but in the section on General Exclusions it lists 'Date change and computer viruses' and has the following definition: 'Computers include hardware, software, data, electronic data processing equipment and other computing and electronic equipment linked to a computer.' That means that I'm not covered for data loss by date changes or computer viruses. Now, because it says that these exclusions apply to all sections of the policy I would think that it's probably fair to assume that the definitions also apply to the whole policy. If that's the case, then digital downloads; as part of the data, would be covered for loss by theft or accidental damage.

I've just created a Twitter profile for myself. Anybody interested can follow me. Shockingly, 'Bowch' was already taken so I'm signed up as 'BowchUK'. In fact, further delving reveals that the 'Bowch' username is actually me when I signed up for Liberal Democrat updates back in January. Unfortunately, I don't know what email address or password was used and can't seem to recover it. So, I'm 'BowchUK' on Twitter.

Just a quick link for you today:

• Snurfy

My internet connection is currently busted. BT are sending out an engineer tomorrow morning.

I'm off roleplaying today so here's a quick link for you:

• Red Square

See how long you can last.

My record is 17.047 18.016 seconds.

Oh, and this is my 400th entry since starting the blog almost 5 years ago.

Today, I have been mostly troubleshooting PCs.

First off this morning my sister phoned me with some problems so I ended up talking her through installation and running of some Anti-Spyware software. Dad's PC had a similar issue just after lunch and I spent a good hour or so sorting that too.

Scoot phoned mid-afternoon to say he was having problems with his PC. The screen resolution had downgraded to 800x600 and anytime he tried to change it back to 1024x768 it came up with an error. Ended up popping down and finally decided that a reinstall of Windows was in order. He's been running Win98 and had only done 1 reinstall in the last 10 years. Anyway, I had a spare copy of XP which I gave him and installed that for him. Installed a few other bits and pieces and set the hard drives off defragging to help out as much as possible. Couldn't do any software updates for him since he isn't connected to the net.

I got home and my sister asked me to help her out on The Spiderwick Chronicles. I spent a good hour or so trying to help her out and ended up giving up.

I came back upstairs, plugged the laptop's lead in and got a nice white flash from the extension. Quickly unplugged and took the lead downstairs to change fuses. The fuse that I took out happened to still be fine and powered up a CD player. I put a new fuse in anyway and took the lead back upstairs. Moved a couple of plugs about and everything, including the extension that had flashed and my laptop, is still fine.

We've got an unwanted and uninvited visitor; a mouse. I went to get the cereal out of the cupboard this morning to discover one of the cornflakes bags have been split open and one of the boxes of weetabix have been chewed through. We've disposed of anything that even had the slightest chance of contamination and spent the rest of the day going through all the cupboards in the kitchen, emptying them, disinfecting them and ensuring that any possible route of ingress has been blocked. We've also moved any boxes or bags of foodstuffs at risk out of the bottom cupboards and put them up into the higher cupboards, We haven't put any poison or traps down but we may yet end up doing so.

Tonight, Manchester United successfully joined Liverpool and Chelsea in the semi-finals of this season's Champions League. This is the second season in a row that 3 English clubs have made the semi-finals and marks the 4th season in a row that an English side will reach the final.

The 2 semi-final first legs will be held on 22nd and 23rd April with the second legs on 29th and 30th April. First legs are:

• Chelsea vs Liverpool
• Barcelona vs Manchester United

I ordered some blanks dvds over the weekend for myself, my Dad and a friend. I ordered them from BigPockets and they arrived this morning.

Along with the DVDs I also ordered a Bag O' Crap. For £2.99 they sent me a box with 'three crappy items' in it. The only guarantee they made was that the contents would be worth a lot more then a measly £3.

I received a Masterplug Weather Resistant Plug Shelter which isn't on their website, but sells for about £1.30 from SVP, a pair of in-ear earphones which also aren't on their site but probably retail for about £1, a pack of 4 Memorex Energy Super Heavy Duty 'C' Batteries, which they sell for £1.80 and the pièce de résistance; a 240 disc AMPS DJ Style Aluminium Carry Case, which they retail for just over £11. So, £15 of product for £3. I can't complain and am actually quite happy with what I received.

I thought I'd broken iTunes last night.

The Apple Software Updater stated that there was a new version available so I let it download and install it. Part way through the process it came up with an error, during the QuickTime portion, regarding not having enough privileges to install. So, I cancelled the install, got it to retry another 2 times with no luck and then told it to just download and I would do a manual install. Still popped up with the same error.

By this time iTunes was unusable, so, I went to Apple's website and downloaded the full package from there. Still no luck. Next, I decided to try a different route and install QuickTime first and then iTunes. Still no luck. So, I decided to change the default install location and managed to get QuickTime installed. Next, iTunes. Still, no luck, kept on coming up with the error regarding privileges.

I then decided to admit defeat and try to reinstall the old version of iTunes. Still no luck. Right, restore point. Nope, Windows refused to roll back. Further delving and I finally figured out what was going wrong.

I've previously had problems with the PC sharing files properly over the network and had tried all sorts of things to solve it. One of which was to disable Simple File Sharing and use NTFS security settings. Looking at the security settings for different drives and folders I had managed to change some of the settings so that nobody other than the Administrator had rights to certain folders. So, when the installer tried to install it came across the problem that not even the System had rights to write to a directory. Restoring the security settings solved that problem.

I started the iTunes installer for about the 15th time and it installed QuickTime fine but then kept on coming up with an error concerning the iTunes.msi file. Pointing it to the file didn't work. Reading the error closely I realised it was referring to the version of iTunes that I had previously had installed. I pointed the installer at the old iTunes.msi and everything was fine from then on.

As a nice added bonus I've finally got file sharing working correctly all across the network, including Dad's PC and my laptop under Ubuntu. I can even browse the network using my phone.

Moral of the story is that even when you think you know what you're doing, you probably don't!

Since 1991, Regulation (EEC) No 918/83 has limited the maximum value of goods imported into the EU before incurring customs charges at €22 [£17.50]. From 1st December 2008 this limit will rise to €150 [£119.50] as a result of EU Council Directive 2007/74/EC. The text of the proposal can be found here.

We had a power cut this afternoon. The weather has been okay for the last couple of days and it would appear that the local sub station failed rather than the weather being responsible. Big plumes of white smoke and the replacement of the biggest fuse you could imagine later and all is good again. The power was down for about 3 hours or so and thankfully we went out shopping so didn't have to find alternate forms of entertainment in the interim.

Ikaruga, one of the greatest, and hardest shoot-em-up games ever to grace the Nintendo Gamecube is coming to XBox Live Arcade. It's launched worldwide tomorrow, April 9th, and I'm seriously tempted, even though I've already got the Gamecube version and can ill afford it, to go out and buy myself some Microsoft Points so that I can pony up the 800 points to get the full version rather than the demo. I actually loaned the Gamecube version to Evil Mozza a while back and I don't even know if he's played it yet. He was heavily into UT3 at the time. Might have to pop down this evening to grab it back.

After being afflicted by a serious case of wanderlust in the past it would appear that my good friend, Mondrak, has finally settled upon a home on the web. His email address hasn't changed in at least six months; okay, it's more than a year, but people who know him will know how often we used to receive emails saying he'd changed his email address. He's also moved his blog over to WordPress.

There's an updated link on the left if you're interested.

I watched the season 4 premiere of Battlestar Galactica last night. It was a pretty damned good episode and really got the viewer immersed in the narrative right from the start. Now, when you compare it to the season 4 premiere of Doctor Who it's fairly obvious that there must be a considerable disparity between the budgets for both shows. Both are flagship shows for their broadcaster but it's clear that BSG has a much higher budget. And when you consider the BBC's place in the global market, that's a shame.

Dr Who is probably one of the best shows on British TV at the moment but when you compare it to BSG it's really does feel like it's made on the cheap. The BBC really need to inject some extra money into the show; especially considering it's their top cash cow. Don't get me wrong; I love Doctor Who, but BSG just comes across as a slicker, more polished product.

Just one example of the gulf in production values is the bit in 'Partners In Crime' where Donna is hanging from a window cleaner's cradle. It's blatantly obvious that it was green screened; you can tell from the fuzziness around Donna. A lot of effects in Doctor Who feel decidedly cheap and tacky. I know people will argue that Doctor Who has always been like that and it's part of the charm. But, the truth of the matter is that the TV marketplace has moved on from the 70s and 80s and cheap and tacky looks just that. Cheap and tacky. Especially, when compared to some of the more polished product available.

While I can applaud the 4th season of Doctor Who I still feel troubled by the obvious failings in the production values of the show.

Puki is a pretty good flash game. It's nice and simple; and pretty addictive. Controls are mouse and keys. Read the info first.

Nokia's N-Gage site has finally gone live. Currently, only the N81, N82 and N95 are supported. Support for the N73 and N93 is coming soon. However, it only works with the latest version of the N95 firmware so I had to update my firmware first.

Previous experience has taught me that updating the firmware on the N95 blanks the phone's settings, contacts and stored messages. I made sure I backed up the phone first and, after having something to eat, the phone's firmware was updated. I restored my backed up content and installed the N-Gage application onto the phone. There's not that many games available on N-Gage at the moment but it looks promising.

Some of the extra icons that were previously proliferated around the interface have been removed and integrated into other menus with no apparent way of restoring them back to the way they were on the old layout. An annoyance rather than a problem though.

Season 4 of Doctor Who launches on BBC One tonight at 6:20pm. Don't forget!

Season 4 premieres tonight in the USA and on Sky One on Tuesday 15th April. Oh, and Sky Two are showing the two parts of the season 3 finale tonight at midnight. Thay are also re-running the mini-series this Sunday and Monday. Sky One are also airing Razor a couple of times next week and a couple of documentaries also. You'll also be able to find repeats of most of the new stuff they're airing across Sky's three entertainment channels; including the free-to-view Sky Three.

Check out the BSG content on Sci-Fi's website.

The trivia today is some tongue twisters for you:

1. Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.
2. Round the rugged rock, the ragged rascal ran.
3. Which witch wished which wicked wish?
4. Six thick thistle sticks.
5. Greek grapes.

If you've ever spent any time working on web design then you'll understand this link.

I've just bought a new truck; and it was brand new. Cost me $85,500 rather than the full price of $95,000 thanks to the company discount.

I know Pixie has blogged about Trukz before but I thought I'd try and raise it's exposure a little bit; especially since Pixie isn't updating his blog anymore.

From the about page: Trukz (pronounced "Trucks") is a text based trucking simulation game where you create your driver, buy yourself a truck, then earn money by hauling loads to and from various cities around the USA, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and numerous countries in and around Europe. Each city has its own distinct supplies and demands that update throughout the game.

I've been playing since mid-July 2007 and I'm now ranked #460 of 15,307 drivers.

I originally spotted this quick little test on Wil Wheaton's blog and had to share.

One of my mates asked me to sort out some free Anti Virus software for his sister a couple of weeks ago. I finally got around to doing so today. Rather than just sorting out 1 for her I've put together a CD with a few choices for her to pick from:

• A-Squared 3
• AVG Anti Virus Free Edition v7.5
• Avast Home Edition v4.7
• Aviva AntiVir Personal Edition v7.06
• BitDefender Free Edition 10
• ClamWin Antivrus v0.92
• Comodo AntiVirus 2.0 beta
• PC Tools Antivirus 4.0

I've also included 4 choices of Firewalls:

• Agnitum Outpost Firewall Pro
• Comodo Firewall Version 3.0
• Sunbelt Personal Firewall
• ZoneAlarm® Free Firewall

4 online scanners in case she ever runs into something the Anti Virus software can't sort:

• McAfee FreeScan
• Panda Active Scan
• Symantec Security Check
• Trend Micro™ HouseCall

And I've also added:

• Spybot Search & Destroy v1.52

I've also left a note on the CD recommending either AVG or Avast as the AntiVirus I would use if I was going to use a freebie. I've also suggested that any 1 of the 4 Firewalls would be a good free choice. And, finally, I've recommended that she install Spybot.

I really can not be bothered with the world in general today.

My head is pounding, nothing I've taken has worked and I feel like I'm at the bottom of a deep, dark pit. I just want to crawl back into bed and let the world pass me by. I hope my sister's kids are quiet when they turn up later.

Anyway, I'll see you all tomorrow; if I can be bothered!

Studenthacks.org is a site primarily aimed at students but it has some useful bits and pieces for everybody. Especially, if you have a need to do any sort of research on the web. The Research Resources link on the site lists 100 online resources of some use.

Wrestlemania was live on pay-per-view from Orlando, Florida last night. I didn't watch it live but watched it this afternoon; meaning that I could fast forward through all the associated back stories and backstage crap that goes on. Fast forwarding past all the crap saved an hour in viewing time.

Anyway, I fully enjoyed the show. A number of predictable results but also a couple of surprises. Nothing really stood out as being bad but there was at least 2 or 3 matches that I would rate as really good.

I saw this and thought "Holy Cow!"

What can you say? The guy is a legend...

We were supposed to be going to Birmingham this evening to watch Nightwish. Unfortunately, Stuart wasn't able to get tickets when he tried; about a month ago. So, we're not going. We will be roleplaying as usual instead.

Since losing my job in November I've been receiving Jobseeker's Allowance but as of 22nd March 2008 that has been stopped due to a doubt on my claim.

When I originally made the benefit claim one of the questions on the form is why you lost your job. I lost mine through misconduct and said so on the form. I'm not going to go into the details, suffice to say that the company viewed my actions as misconduct.

In the middle of December I received a letter from Carlisle BDC stating that there had been a doubt and they were waiting for a reply from the employer. I spoke to my advisor about it and she informed me that the company had a month to reply. I spoke to her again at the back end of January and she informed me that the doubt seemed to have been resolved in my favour because the company had not responded.

In the middle of February I received a letter back from Carlisle BDC stating that the doubt had been reopened after they had received a reply from the company and that I had a month to reply with my comments. My advisor recommended that I take the full month just in case the decision went against me. I did so and sent my comments back in the middle of March, stating that I had been upfront from the start and was disappointed in the amount of time the company had taken.

Anyway, I've now received a reply from Carlisle BDC stating that they cannot pay me Jobseeker's Allowance from 22nd March 2008 until 13th June 2008. I also won't be awarded National Insurance Contributions for the same period. The letter then goes on to state that they cannot pay Jobseeker's Allowance from 14th June 2008 either. They cannot pay me because my entitlement based on Class 1 National Insurance Contributions has run out. It makes me wonder why I was paying National Insurance Contributions for the last six years.

The letter states that if I'm looking for work and intend to dispute or appeal against the decision I should still provide signed declarations on my ES40. Damn right I intend to dispute/appeal. How am I supposed to live, pay bills, buy food etc? I know I live with my Dad but he's retired now and receiving pension credit and disability living allowance. I can't expect him to pay for me as well. On top of everything else I'm not totally convinced they can legally stop the payments. When I first made the claim, and more recently when the amount went up, I received a letter from the DWP that stated the amount I was receiving was the minimum the government said I needed to live on. Doubtless, there is something in the provisoning of benefits that give the department the right to withhold payment.

I will be going to my local JobCentre Plus office on Monday to lodge an appeal against the decision and to also make a claim for Hardship payments.

The Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack which was released on December 11th 2007 at a cost of 800 Points on XBox Live Marketplace is now available for free. The 3 maps available in the pack are Standoff, Rat's Nest and Foundry. They come in at a combined size of 487mb; which is rather hefty to say the least.

To download the map pack, sign into Xbox LIVE on your Xbox 360 and then go to the Marketplace blade. Select "Game Store," then select "All Games." Scroll down to "Halo 3" and select it. Your final step is to select the "Heroic Map Pack," and then "Confirm Download."

The Byron Review was released this morning. Dr Tanya Byron's report was even handed and it's obvious that she knows what she's talking about.

The Byron Review proposes:

• Introduce a mandatory age-rating system for all games, to be handled by the BBFC
• Ensure that retailers defying the age-rating are punished appropriately
• Make age ratings on the game boxes larger and clearer
• Ensure that in situations where there is a risk of actual harm, restrictions can be adequately enforced
• PEGI will continue to rate 3+ and 7+ titles.

The final decision of any implementation is up to the government and it isn't guaranteed that they will follow the recommendations in the report.

Cybernet, not the late-night ITV video games show, but rather a company based in Irvine Spectrum, California, make a range of space saving PCs. They produce 2 distinct versions; the i-One LCD PC, a PC inside an LCD monitor, I suppose a wee bit similar to how the iMac may have evolved and the Zero-Footprint PC, a PC inside a keyboard; harkening back to the days of the Amiga 1200.

The lowest priced i-One starts at $999 and the lowest priced ZPC starts at $629. Both are fully customisable and are definitely aimed at customers who have limited amounts of space. One of the testimonials on the site is from a company which uses the ZPC in a Class 1 Clean Room. The ZPC has allowed them to replace their previous rack-mounted solution with the much less space consuming ZPC.

Ultimately, as nice an idea as they are I think they've only really got a niche-market. Although, I don't doubt some geeky(ish) home users will like the idea and go out and buy one.

HMV currently have a sale on. I was going to buy myself a copy of The Simpsons Movie for only £4.99 but instead spotted The Omen: Pentology for only £7.99 instead. There were loads of other things I could've also bought but restricted myself to just the one item.

I've just watched the France - England game and can honestly say it was a poor game and England can feel disappointed that they lost the game. England didn't play particularly well and with such a lacklustre display they definitely didn't deserve to win the game, but can feel that they, maybe, deserved a draw. France looked dangerous going forward, but the defence seemed to cope well enough.

David James didn't really have much to do other than pick the ball out of his net after the penalty that won the game for France. The back four was pretty solid throughout other than the momentary lapse that led to the penalty from which France scored. Rio Ferdinand and John Terry were solid again. Ashley Cole is probably the best choice we have at left-back although his distribution is questionable at times. Wes Brown wasn't at all impressive and his distribution was woeful at times. I'm a Manchester United fan but Glen Johnson impressed me more in the brief spell he got. I'm not totally sure that we have a natural successor to Gary Neville yet.

In midfield Owen Hargreaves was solid and dependable; probably our best player. Gareth Barry also had a really good game. Steven Gerrard was pretty decent. David Beckham, winning his 100th cap, spent good periods of the game watching the game go by him and spent a lot of the game underused, but the moments he did get the ball, his distribution was as good as ever. David Bentley came on after an hour in place of Beckham and did well. England, for whatever reason, decided to play a lot on the left side of the pitch in the first half and it was rather compact at times. However, Joe Cole was pretty good out there. Stewart Downing replaced him for the second half and I really have to question his continued selection. The guy can't bring a ball under control, can't pass the ball and definitely can't cross the ball. I doubt very much that he can even run or tackle. I'm not a Chelsea fan but it's patently obvious that Joe Cole is the best left-sided midfield player that England has.

Up front, Wayne Rooney was exposed for much of his time on the pitch. Playing by himself, he tried his best but was often crowded out by the defence. It just felt that the balls in to him were not of sufficient quality and support from midfield was lacking. Michael Owen and Peter Crouch came on for the second half and were both pretty unimpressive.

All in all it was a pretty laboured performance. I think the core of the side is there but we need somebody at right back to replace the absent Gary Neville and we need to stop playing just 1 up front. As good as Wayne Rooney is, he can't work miracles against quality defences on his own. He needs a partner up front, be it Michael Owen, Peter Crouch or even somebody like Jermaine Pennant or Jermaine Defoe.

I've been receiving a rather large amount of spam on a daily basis for at least the last couple of years. It started off with about 150-200 a day but has recently peaked at a regular figure closer to 1000. In fact, once or twice it's been closer to 1500. Anyway, with broadband I never really concerned myself too much about it and let my email client and the filters I had set up within it sort them out. However, it still wasn't sorting them all and I'd still have to trawl through at least 100 a day to make sure there wasn't any genuine emails getting caught.

Anyway, I finally decided to try and sort it out a bit better; with the intention of stopping the spam even getting as far as my inbox. I had a poke about in my domain control panel and thought I'd figured it out. Rather than redirecting all unqualified domain addresses to the main account I told it to filter them first; searching for certain prefixes. Anything that didn't match the prefixes would be bounced. Testing seemed to back me up.

However, thanks to Mondrak, I managed to discover that it was blocking all emails except the ones I had originated from my own PC, either via the email client or via any of the web mail services I have access to. After further tweaking I managed to eventually solve that problem only to run into a different one. The way the filters have been designed means that as well as allowing bowch@ as a valid prefix it would also allow notbowch@ or fakebowch@ or any other prefix ending with bowch@. Setting filter options that would solve this wasn't working. Everytime I set it to read "Does Not Equal" it would change to "Equal" for no apparent reason.

I have ended up setting up extra email accounts and telling the server to forward them to my main account. Any unqualified emails will now get bounced back with a failure message. Valid email addresses now only include bowch (at), blog (at), useful (at), webmaster (at) and yahoogroups (at) with everything else bouncing. I've set them up with relatively low disk quotas and will hopefully not need to change much. I'm going to keep an eye on it over the next couple of weeks and make sure that it forwards okay and isn't eating up valuable space on my domain server.

PortableApps.com is a really useful site that I can highly recommend to anybody that has a need to have a collection of applications handy. It's especially handy if you're going to look at somebody's PC and you want to use software that you're familiar with. The Standard version will run from a 512mb USB stick, their Lite version will run from a 256mb USB stick and the totally stripped down Base version will run off a 1.44mb floppy disk. All 3 versions are easily extendable with other applications available from the same site.

I have recently discovered a rather awesome fan written web comic called The Ten Doctors. If you're a fan of Doctor Who I suggest you go and check it out. The previous link will take you to the archives so you can start reading from Page 1 without spoiling future pages.

Retired Columbia University Professor, Gertrude Neumark Rothschild claims that Sony violated her patents that involved methods of using light emitting diodes to read data off of discs. (The full details are: U.S. Patent No. 4,904,618, "Process for Doping Crystals of Wide Band Gap Semiconductors," and U.S. Patent No. 5,252,499, "Wide Band-Gap Semiconductors Having Low Bipolar Resistivity and Method of Formation")

Rothchild's complaint filed with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) on February 20th claims that some 30 companies, including Sony Corporation, Samsung Group, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., LG Electronics, Pioneer Corporation and others, are violating a patent she owns for light-emitting and laser diodes.

Professor Rothschild has requested that the 30 companies be issued a cease and desist order, preventing them from manufacturing and importing anymore units into the US.

The ITC has agreed to investigate the matter, and it's worth noting that Rothchild has already successfully tested the legislative waters with a lawsuit against Philips, which was settled out of court in February.

I've just watched the second part of Sky's adaptation of The Colour Of Magic and thoroughly enjoyed it. I would class myself as a fan of Pratchett's work; not an absolute fanatic, but somebody with more than a passing familiarity and can honestly say that I'm happy with the job they've done with this adaptation.

Although nothing has been confirmed it's very likely that more adaptations will follow; David Jason has already said he would like to do more. On a related note, Sam Raimi owns the rights for The Wee Free Men and although no further details are available, it's expected to hit cinemas in 2010.

Following on from Sky's hugely successful, Christmas 2006, adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, we were treated to the first half of their adaptation of The Colour Of Magic last night. They've actually adapted The Colour Of Magic and The Light Fantastic into one film. The first part was pretty faithful to the first book with only a few scenes left out for timing and narrative purposes and they have really spent some time getting the Discworld looking and feeling right. My main gripe is that the special effects for the luggage seems amateurish and feels more comedic than it should be. But, even with that, I'm still really looking forward to part 2 tonight.

Chelsea 2-1 Arsenal

Didier Drogba scored twice in the last 20 minutes to cancel out Bacary Sagna's first ever goal for Arsenal; scored on the hour, and give Chelsea 3 vital points near the top of the table.

United are top with 73 points and the result has helped Chelsea leapfrog over Arsenal and maintain the 5 point gap Manchester United had on them at the start of the day. Arsenal are a further point behind in 3rd. Liverpool are still 4th; but 14 points adrift of United. All 4 teams have 7 games remaining. United will feel confident but they still have to entertain Arsenal and visit Blackburn Rovers and Chelsea within their final 7 games.

Manchester United 3 - 0 Liverpool

I've just watched the first game of Sky's double-header and as a Man Utd fan I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a pretty even first 30 minutes until Wes Brown popped up and scored. Then just before half time Fernando Torres was fouled and ended up getting booked for complaining. Javier Mascherano came running across from halfway across the pitch to complain to the referee. After previously been booked for a foul and spending most of the first half harping on at Steve Bennett, the referee, he ended getting himself a second yellow card, and sent off; reducing Liverpool to 10 men. Bennett's reaction did seem a wee bit over the top but given the fallout from Ashley Cole's behaviour in midweek it can be somewhat understandable. Cristiano Ronaldo scored with a header from a corner in the second half and Nani scored a quite sublime goal late on to make it 3-0. Liverpool can probably feel a bit aggrieved at the referee but United really were dominant.

I'm now going to go and watch the 2nd game: Chelsea vs Arsenal.

I've been doing some research on the Middle East during the 12th century for my Saturday game and got sidetracked into the world in general in the 12th century and then England in particular. After reading a few articles, now well off topic, I came across an article about Cumbrian Dialect and realised how much of the local dialect I actually use/have used without realising that it's specifically local. Just a few examples include:

• la'al - meaning little
• yam - meaning home (as garn yam) [I'm going home]
• skit - meaning make fun of
• twat - meaning hit someone
• marra - meaning friend (ahreet, marra) [Hi, Mate]
• hossing - meaning raining heavily (it's hossing it duwn) [Regular occurrence]

And then there's the old sheep counting system:

1. yan
2. tyan
3. tethera
4. methera
5. pimp
6. sethera
7. lethera
8. hovera
9. dovera
10. dick
11. yandick
12. tyandick
13. tetheradick
14. metheradick
15. bumfit
16. yan-bumfit
17. tyan-bumfit
18. tethera-bumfit
19. methera-bumfit
20. giggot

I could always remember 1-4 but that was about it. In fact I always have a tendency to say 'yan' rather than 'one' anyway; even when speaking with non-locals.

Makes you wonder how much other people use local dialect/phrases without realising.

I came across a rather useful website for Vista users earlier today. The Windows Vista User Guide aims to provide a concise, easy to follow guide on how to get started with Windows Vista. The guides are written to help everybody from the inexperienced, absolute beginner to the more advanced user.

I hadn't seen this until Craig showed it to me at Paul's party and thought I would share the dangers with everybody. Beware of the deadliest virus on the planet:

I was watching a podcast earlier concerning the Microsoft Techfest 2008 and the Live Translator site was mentioned. Like many of the other translating sites on the net it'll take inputted text in one of several languages and output a translated version. What really stands out though is the way it translates whole sites. I've got a Firefox plugin that will render a translated version of any site in another tab/window but Live Translator does a side-by-side translation in the same tab/window. Quite cool.

Apparently, rumours coming out of the Sci-Fi Channel in America are hinting at a prequel for Battlestar Galactica. A 2 hour pilot written by Remi Aubuchon and Ronald D Moore, with Jeff Reiner set to direct is due to begin casting shortly. No official details on Caprica are currently available.

Doctor Who: Season 4 is only a matter of a few weeks away. The BBC will begin showing trailers for it starting this Saturday; 22nd March 2008. Usually, they start airing trailers two weeks before the show goes live. If so, that would mean a premiere date of 5th April 2008 for Season 4.

Anyway to get you in the mood, I present the trailers they'll be airing on TV and in the Cinema.

My nephew loaned me Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock for the XBox 360 yesterday. I played it all yesterday evening and completed it on Easy. Unfortunately I couldn't get the Wireless Guitar to connect to the 360 and had to use a normal pad. I've tried one song on Medium and it was definitely harder than playing on Easy. I have a new found respect/envy for people that can play it on Expert.

John Hewer, synonymous with the portrayal of the grandfatherly Captain Birdseye on British television from 1967 until 1998 has died. He was 86.

When Captain Birdseye was temporarily axed in 1971 an obituary was run in the Times; and three years later when the adverts were reinstated the newspaper ran a story reporting that news of his death had been "grossly exaggerated".

The adverts changed little over the years and would always feature the grandfatherly captain calling in a group of children to dine on fish fingers on board a boat.

He was a member of London's Players Theatre, and had also appeared in many musical productions. In the 1950s he starred opposite Julie Andrews in The Boy Friend on Broadway.

He was born on 13th January 1922 in Leyton, London and passed away on 16th March 2008 in Twickenham, London.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, arguably the greatest Science Fiction writer since H.G. Wells, died earlier today in Colombo, Sri Lanka, where he had lived since 1956. He was born on 16th December 1917 and died on 19th March 2008 at the age of 90. He had been suffering from breathing problems recently and had also suffered from post-polio syndrome for the last two decades.

"Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered," Clarke said recently. "I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter. Of all these I would like to be remembered as a writer."

He had also stated that he did not regret having never followed his novels into space, adding that he had arranged to have DNA from strands of his hair sent into orbit. "One day, some super civilization may encounter this relic from the vanished species and I may exist in another time," he said. "Move over, Stephen King."

I've recently installed the latest version of Ubuntu (7.10) on my laptop and I'm dual booting it with Windows XP Professional.

There's no specific reason as to why I've installed a Linux distribution on the laptop other than just as a test platform. I'd gone through a period about 10 years ago where I had given serious thought to installing Linux (SUSE 6.4) on my main desktop but ended up not bothering; the install routine was quite daunting. Anyway, I've used older versions of Ubuntu Live CDs in the past and been most impressed. Just after the New Year I ordered a couple of Ubuntu CDs (x86 and x64 versions) and thought I'd give it a try.

I've been really impressed with the ease with which the Ubuntu installer resized and created partitions and with only the minimum of interaction installed and set itself up. The only info I had to enter was name, username, password and time zone settings. It hasn't grumbled about any of my hardware and even recognised my Wireless card. After entering my WEP key I was up and running on the net in no time. I must admit there's been significantly more updates to download than with a Windows XP SP2 install but it's not been too great of a hardship.

I'd almost go as far as to say that the new version of Ubuntu has brought Linux goodness into the reach of the not so tech-savvy general public. Firefox on Ubuntu, unsurprisingly, looks and feels exactly the same as the Windows version. Evolution, the email client was a breeze to set up. OpenOffice is a free, and pretty good, alternative to MS Office and Pidgin is a nice multi-format IM client in the style of Trillian. There's nothing I've come across so far where I've missed a Windows client or application. About the only downside is the lack of serious game support but Wine can help in that respect.

I'm going to play about with it for at least another month or so and then give some serious thought to adding the x64 version to my main desktop PC.

Although I do have a Facebook account I think this video sums it all up nicely...

Up until yesterday we hadn't had a game on Saturday for almost a month due to the Lord of the Rings marathon, the 24 hour sponsored event and a party. John had been running Vampire nWoD prior to our break to test it ready for running it at the 24 hour and wasn't willing to continue running. Paul wasn't ready to continue his Horse Lords / Horde D&D game because he was still trying to convert to 3rd ed, Colin had offered to run Hunter but had said he really needed a couple of more weeks to prep but could go if necessary. So I offered to run either Werewolf Dark Ages or Vampire Dark Ages. The majority decision was to give Colin some more time and play Vampire Dark Ages.

I haven't run a Vampire game before, let alone Dark Ages, and was really interested in testing a setting I had plans for. I've played plenty of Vampire and Werewolf in the past and do run Ratkin on a regular basis. These are all Storyteller based systems and the mechanics of the system works across them all; albeit with some subtle differences between them.

Anyway, the setting I've placed them all in is the Holy Land in 1195; right between the 3rd and 4th crusades; during the 5 year period of peace accorded to the region by the Treaty of Jaffa. One of the interesting side effects of the setting is that there are significant amounts of holy ground in the area which can affect their abilities, or in some cases their willingness to even enter an area. I'd originally planned for them to be based in Jerusalem and gave them the choice of playing either nominally Christian or Saracen characters and they've chosen Christians. Now, since Jerusalem was under Saracen control in 1195, although individual pilgrims were free to come and go, I've relocated them slightly further north in Tyre.

Colin's playing a Lombardy Nosferatu, Paul is playing a Burgundy Salubri Healer, John's playing a Swedish Gangrel, Scoot's playing a Slav Tzimisce and Ginger Paul is playing a Basque Malkavian. Thankfully, they have all managed, among some rather interesting language choices, to select Latin, which was the main tongue spoken in the period.

There's been a few severely mutilated corpses discovered both on the road south to Jerusalem and the road north to Damascus and after looking at the latest corpse they've had a foray out into the wilderness to see what they could discover. They've done some research and they think, thanks to reports that they've received, that they've figured out a pattern for the attacks and plan to lay an ambush for the next attack.

One of the pieces of advice I was given when I had my toes done was that I should refrain from having a bath whilst they were still healing. The information suggested at least 2 or 3 weeks as a minimum. I've gone 2 months. Now, before you go 'ugh' I've not gone 2 months without any form of bath/shower. I've had regular showers during that period. Although we don't have a shower my sister does and I've been popping round to her house regularly in the last 2 months.

Anyway, I've obviously been paying close attention to the state of my toes whenever I've soaked them and changed the dressing. I had planned to go round to my sister's house yesterday evening but her shower is now broken; apparently the pipe from the unit to the head has come away from the shower itself. I decided that my toes were sufficiently healed and I had a bath instead. It's quite remarkable how you can miss something as simple as a bath. It felt so relaxing just lying there and having a soak; and my toes came out of the process relatively intact. I even took the opportunity to tidy up some of the scabbing when the scabs were suitably soft. Now you can go 'ugh'.

I have reimplemented one of the features that I used to have on the site; namely the Snap Shots™ preview. The way that this was originally set up, prior to the upgrade to MT4, was that you could hover on any link on the site and it would preview the page the link was connected to. Now, since they have upgraded their system, you can selectively alter the way that this works.

I've enabled it on the external links in the main body of the site and disabled it completely in both sidebars and the footer. Additionally, rather than the preview being available on the entire link it is just available on the little icon that appears after the text of the link. Hopefully, this shouldn't distract too much and gives visitors the chance to see what I'm linking to before clicking on the link.

The draw for the Quarter Finals, Semi-Finals and Final of the Champions League have just recently been drawn in Lyon.

Quarter Finals (1st/2nd April 2008 & 8th/9th April 2008)
1. Arsenal vs Liverpool
2. AS Roma vs Manchester United
3. FC Schalke 04 vs FC Barcelona
4. Fernerbache SK vs Chelsea

Semi Finals (22nd/23rd April 2008 & 29th/30th April 2008)
a. Winner 1 (Arsenal/Liverpool) vs Winner 4 (Fernerbache SK/Chelsea)
b. Winner 3 (FC Schalke 04/FC Barcelona) vs Winner 2 (AS Roma/Manchester United)

Final (21st May 2008)
Winner b vs Winner a

Both the quarter finals and semi finals will be played over 2 legs with the final being played at a neutral venue, the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.

First impressions are that if Chelsea get past Fenerbache it would mean that an English club would definitely reach the final with their semi-final opponents either being Arsenal or Liverpool. And if that happens then Manchester United would need to get past both AS Roma, whom they met in the group stages this season, and the winner of the Schalke/Barcelona tie to get to a possible all English final.

I just discovered that there's a new The Lost Boys movie in the pipeline. The Lost Boys 2: The Tribe is slated for a July 2008 release. Even though it has both Corey Feldman and Corey Haim attached the fact that it is going straight to DVD probably tells us all that we need to know.

After looking through the changes announced in this week's budget it would appear that very little will change with my day-to-day, week-on-week spending ability.

Income Tax & National Insurance
Due to the fact that I'm currently not working, the raising of the personal allowance to £5,345, reduction from 22% down to 20% and abolition of the 10% starting band won't affect me. The change in National insurance Contribution rates and thresholds also won't affect me directly. Of course, when I start working again these will become relevant.

Tax Credit & Child Benefit
These changes also don't affect me and to be honest, although there are rises in these, it would appear that they aren't t likely to be of any significant benefit to parents anyway; especially when inflation and rises in the price of commodities such as wheat are taken into consideration. Look for significant rises in the cost of flour and bread as the worldwide wheat shortage starts kicking in.

Winter Fuel Payment
I don't qualify; I'm under 60. But, this will help my Dad somewhat.

Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)
I don't have any ISAs so the increase in the overall annual investment limit and the change from the starting 10% rate on the non savings income to a starting 10% rate on the savings income doesn't affect me.

Alcohol & Tobacco
Although I do drink it isn't particularly often; even when I was in full time employment. I rarely drink pints so the 4p rise in the price of a pint has no bearing. The 55p rise in the price of a bottle of spirits is what is likely to affect me most. I tend to drink Jack Daniels and Coke whilst out and once in a blue moon I'll treat myself to a decent bottle of malt whisky. On the Tobacco side, I don't smoke, so the increases there won't affect me.

Motoring Taxes
The changes in Vehicle Excise Duty won't directly affect me. My Dad is disabled and he is therefore exempt from paying the duty; this is paid directly via his DLA. The freeze on the planned fuel duty increase of 2 pence per litre in April 2008 until October 2008 is quite welcome; although I'm wondering how long companies like Tesco and Morrison can maintain their local prices at about 105p per litre when some forecourts in London are charging up to 130p per litre.

Other Measures
A lot of the other measures announced in the budget lean towards protecting the environment.

The government has called on retailers to encourage the shift away from single-use carrier bags and have announced that if there is not sufficient progress by the end of the year they will look to impose a charge on these bags from early next year.

All new non-domestic buildings to be zero carbon from 2019. This is in addition to the ambition for all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016.

Air Passenger Duty will be replaced with a duty payable per plane rather than per passenger from November 2009.

Finally, the UK is currently working towards a long-term goal of reducing CO2 emissions by at least 60 per cent by 2050. The Climate Change Bill will commit the government to fixed and binding 5-year carbon budgets

I've had an iPod for a month now and it's almost become an extra limb. Prior to winning the iPod I had never bothered with podcasts and got most of my tech news and such by browsing the web. Now, although I do still browse the net a fair bit, the main source of information has become a variety of different podcasts.

I originally started off listening to just 2 or 3 podcasts but am now subscribed to over 20. These include:

• 5 different podcasts from The TWiT Netcast Network
• 3 different podcasts from CNET.com
• 3 different podcasts from GameTrailers.com
• 3 different podcasts from Escape Artists, namely:
  • the sci-fi based Escape Pod
  • the horror based Pseudo Pod
  • the fantasy based Pod Castle; due to launch April 1st
• 2 different podcasts from BBC Radio
• The trailers podcast from ScreenRush
• The video podcast from DL.TV
• The video podcast from Kerrang
• The EPL (English Premier League) podcast from ITN
• The 1Up Radio podcast from 1Up.com
• The audio fiction series The Metamor City Podcast

No sooner do I decide that I'm not going to Download this year; due to a lack of acts that I was interested in, than they announce some acts that are making me reconsider.

Out of the original set of announcements only Mötörhead and Disturbed really interested me. Since then Kid Rock, Apocalyptica, Alter Bridge, Within Temptation and Children Of Bodom have also been announced.

I'm now back in two minds again.

Cali Lewis covered Twitter In Plain English from Common Craft on a recent episode of GeekBrief.TV. I'm not a Twitter user. I get the idea, but it just doesn't interest me. However, their website also includes instruction concerning Blogs, RSS Feeds and the undoubted highlight; Zombies. Go and take a look.

My Dad was released from hospital earlier today. Apparently, it wasn't gangrene in his toe after all, and it's responding well to the antibiotics they've given him. However, he's not totally in the clear. He has really bad circulation in his leg and they are calling him back into hospital next Monday to operate. They're going to use some small balloons to try and open up his veins to improve the circulation.

I had a bit of a late night last night, no drinking involved however; I was actually playing about with my website a wee bit more. I woke up just after 9am this morning with an absolutely pounding headache and decided that rather than get up I would give the headache another couple of hours. Anyway, went back to sleep and roused again at about 11:15am, still with the headache. I once again decided that I'd give the headache a wee bit more time and went back to sleep. I finally woke up just before 1:30pm, still with a headache. I decided that I'd wasted enough of the day and got up. I've taken a couple of tablets and to be honest I feel okay now.

To be honest; I think the title says it all...

I've spent a good couple of hours tweaking a lot of the backend of the blog. A lot of the tweaks just involved updating plugins and are just to help tighten up and streamline the way Movable Type manages itself and will not be visible or noticeable by the site visitors.

The only really visible frontend change is the addition of author and commentator images. I did have a go at trying to get pagination working to allow browsing backwards through the entries but couldn't get it to display past the first page. I'll have another look at it when I have more time and try again. In the interim, the archives pages will have to suffice.

After rumours of Flash coming to the iPhone persisting since July 2007 it would now appear unlikely. According to Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, Flash just won't cut it on the iPhone, or more accurately, the mobile version of Flash won't cut it and the desktop version would run too slowly.

The main problem is that the iPhone's embedded ARM processor is designed to use power far more efficiently than a desktop or laptop processor, cycling down when not needed in order to both conserve power and to limit heat production. Adobe's proprietary software would need to be recompiled and optimized for the ARM architecture, which isn't something Apple could do without Adobe's input.

Another problem is that the iPhone's OS X environment is designed to run from a relatively small disk image stored in NVRAM and Adobe's Flash, which isn't designed with memory conservation in mind, has memory leakage problems and would tend to use up more RAM than the iPhone's other apps are likely to use.

Couple Jobs' comments with Nokia's decision to go with Microsoft Silverlight on their next generation of phones and it leaves you wondering "Where does this leave Adobe's Flash?"

It's Friday. Time for some trivia.

Ice Cream
Flavours of ice cream available in Japan include octopus, ox tongue, cactus, chicken wing and crab. A restaurant in Osaka, Japan, serves whale ice-cream made from the blubber of the minke whale. Soft ice-cream of the type sold in ice-cream vans is given its slithery smoothness by an extract of seaweed. The last meal of Oklahoma Bomber Timothy McVeigh was almost a litre (2 pints) of mint choc-chip ice-cream.

Crisps
Odd crisp flavours available around the world include octopus, seaweed, banana, and sour cream and squid. In Hong Kong, you can buy packets of crispy fried crabs like packets of crisps.

Camels
Bedouin wedding feasts sometimes include a roast camel, stuffed with a sheep, stuffed with chickens, stuffed with fish, stuffed with eggs. Bedouin people cook a camel's hump by burying it underground and lighting a fire over the top of it. When they dig it up and eat it, the top is cooked, but the bottom still mostly raw and bloody. Camels' feet are cooked in a light stock and served with vinaigrette. Only the feet of young camels are considered tasty. Camel feet can also be cooked in camel milk.

Perhaps a bit harsh; but, in this case, true.

About a month or so ago he started to develop some blistering on his foot; more specifically on his big toe. At the time we told him to go and see a Doctor. He ignored us, and it's gradually got worse. Finally, today, he went to see a Doctor.

Too late.

They've told him that it's gangrene. They've taken him into hospital and whilst at first they had said that they were going to put him on antibiotics and see if that helped; it now transpires that they're likely to need to remove his big toe at the very least.

Well, okay, secondhand printer.