Castles in the Sand

Porthcawl, Monday we started to build a sandcastle, and got somewhat carried away


It began fairly small.


But we added detail and it grew.


J had started his own castle so this was detailed as well.


He was quite pleased when it was getting close to finished.


Then we linked the two castles with a retaining wall and another gateway.


Most of the build team (unfortunately B and S had had to leave before we were done)

We could have carried on for ages, there was much finishing work to be done, but home time beckoned.

Doctor Who Exhibition Cardiff

I must admit to being disapointed, there was plenty to see from the current shows, but nothing from before the "regeneration" of the series.

The whole place was smothered in "Do Not Touch" signs which meant very little up close and personal stuff.

The Vashta Nerada seem to be following us?



But at least we met K9





The gift shop had plenty to tempt us, but even J commented just how expensive it was.

Out on expedition, looking for the "moon ponds"

And I just love this photo of my two explorers

Tropical World, Leeds

Last weekend we took a trip to Tropical World as it was a rainy day and it's always worth a trip.

E had a butterfly land on her hand (we all had them land on us somewhere), J managed to almost completely avoid the camera, and between them and Grandad, we all had a great day out, I even managed to capture a lucky shot of a meerkat (I say lucky as even though I took several, this one was shot blind with the camera held over the glass wall, and it turned out great)


Proud Grandad? I think so.


Not many greenhouses have a waterfall this big in them!


Grandad got distracted by a parrot!


This fish will come up and try to "kiss" you through the glass if you put your face right up close.


Hold your hand out in the butterfly section and they will land on you, we all had at least one land on us, but I only caught E on camera.


J took this close up of the Leeds crest froma plaque near the meerkats


My "Lucky" meerkat picture

The Lilyest Hobo

So funny, a mashup of lily allen and the theme to an old TV program, "the littlest hobo"

Who remembers the program? what? no-one? am I the only old git in the house?

any way, the video



and a link in case youtube embedding fails.

New favourite singer/song writer

By chance I heard a song on the radio (Steve Wrights show on Radio 2) which I liked on the first listen.

However a search of the radio 2 play lists didn't turn it up, Steve had slipped it in and of course I had missed the introduction.

Searching the half heard lyrics on the Internet didn't help but luckily someone on mumszone knew what it was.

Check him out, Henry Priestman on MySpace

His MySpace features two of my favourites, "Don't you love me no more" and "He ain't good enough for you"

You can also go to Henry Priestman .com.

It's really my sort of music, and well worth a listen.

A wonderfully silly

Look at homeopathy, crystal healing and other woo "science"



I think I'd prefer proper doctors myself.

The link, in case embedding fails

Pay attention, the hospital signs are a giggle in themselves.

How to drive a Model T Ford

And people say nothing changes, it seems strange to me how the controls are so different, but they must have made sense to someone.

Not convinced with the safety aspect of taking your foot off a pedal to go faster, but I'm guessing safety wasn't a huge consideration.



link in case the embedded video doesn't work

compressed air cars

Not news to some, but I promised I would stick up links to the manufacturers

A compressed air car, somewhere on the site will be the PSI that the compressed air is stored at, probably in French as the English version of the site is not very consistent

oops, forgot the target text in the link

Mythbusters debunk the moon landing hoax

It's been done more effectively, but mythbusters just make it more fun

this link is to the torrent of the show

Torrent of Mythbusters Moon Landing Special

Opera users will be able to download it straight from their browser, otherwise you will need sme sort of torrent client.

Why is it

if you've upset someone, they wont tell you why?

I knew on thursday I'd upset someone, but it took until today to get an oppurtunity in private to find out why.

I'm still not sure what I've done wrong as I upset a friend of theirs, so I need to talk to that friend to sort things out. I will as I hate upsetting people, and when I know what I've done I will sort it out, apologise etc.

*sigh*

Don't sulk with me, I can take it, tell me!

The Hunt

For Gollum

A "Fan Flick" some 40 minutes long, I've seen the trailer and watched the first part of it. and it seems very good. Made with a budget of just £3000 and a cast of 160

There's an interview with the director on the Beeb here

BBC interview

And you can watch the full movie here

The Hunt for Gollum

Hope you enjoy it

It's the end of the world as we know it

And I feel fine

Server 5 (travian) has finished, my team won, I ended up with them more by good luck than good management I must admit.

The world wonder was impressive, can't believe the number of troops in the end, I grabbed a couple of screen shots.





I find it hard to believe I've been playing this game for almost a year, joined 1/5/08 and it finished yesterday!

Never again! it just gets to much!

unpleasant surprise today

A card arrived, red envelope, white heart on the front, my dad glanced at it and handed it over to me, my initial and surname.

When I looked at it I noticed it was to Mrs P rather than Mr P

My mum had my initial as well, but of course she's been dead 11 years.

Not absolutely sure what to think

silly adictive

sailing game

you can trade raid and do missions

http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/master-of-the-secret-sea/

I prefer the "free game" as opposed to the "story game"

but either way there's something strangley addictive to it, to the point of me having to print the map out and plot all the ports!

It's been found

Not in Temple Newsam as originally suspected

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7975434.stm

The UK's tallest tree

Not a redwood though? curious.

Paranoid agnostics

Do paranoid schizophrenic monomaniacal dyslexic agnostic insomniacs lie awake all night wondering if they ARE the dog that's out to get them?

I've just signed DoSomethingAboutIt.org.uk's petition for a British 'New Deal': calling on our government to supplement the banking bail-out with a stimulus package for other areas of the economy, which will create jobs now and lay the foundations for a greener, fairer society.

We need to send a clear message to politicians, telling them that they cannot spend billions rescuing the richest without investing in the rest of us.

Britain cannot go back to the pre-crisis status quo, with its growing inequalities and its dependence on the financial sector- we have to move forward to a socially and environmentally sustainable future. You can sign the petition by visiting www.dosomethingaboutit.org.uk. But act fast- the petition will close on 2 March.

Thank you!

The BBC and the DEC Gaza appeal

It strikes me that the BBC's refusal to broadcast this appeal has actually done more to raise the countries awareness of it then if they'd agreed to broadcast it in the first place.

Far be it from me to second guess what BBC executives are thinking, but a little part of me would like to think whoever decided to refuse the broadcast knew this would happen!

For those who want it, here's the DEC appeal web site

DEC Gaza Appeal

regardless of who is right and who is wrong, Israel or Hamas, innocent people are suffering.

In my humble opinion, blame can be placed firmly on both sides.

Drips revisited

Back in March last year I posted pictures of a drip of water coming off the porch roof catching the sunlight.

Here's a frozen revisit to to same scene

What to do

When it's cold and dark outside



Tuck up warm on the sofa with a good book!

Carloyn and Paul popped in to visit today

I took the obligatory pics!

Carolyn with M

Paul caught on Camera, a rare moment.

All the children squeezed onto the sofa.

It was a great afternoon, looking forward to them coming back soon, they are only about 50 miles from us, still a fair way to come. The children where pretty excited, chaos reigned of a rather pleasant noisy kind. I always love the sounds of a house full of happy children.

The View

From our bedroom window, over Brynmawr and across to the Coed-cae Mountain.

A little nicer than the view of Marshall Street Motors I lived with for 10 years!

Cold and Frosty New Year

There's been a freezing fog over Brynmawr and the surrounding area, spectacular but far to cold to be out for long!

Outside last night.





Up in the mountains.






It was too misty to see the other side of the gorge, somewhere in that mist is Alisons mum and dads house!



This is just before the roundabout to Brynmawr, The pot hole seems to extend under the roadbed itself, I've been meaning to get a few pics for ages, but when I saw the icicles I just had to stop.



Love this country, it does lend itself to some spectacular views, today though was too misty.

Let me ponder

The meaning of life!

My Children with their new baby Brother

They came for a weekend visit and love their new baby brother














It was a great weekend, shame it was such a short visit, they are coming back though, for new year.

Merry Christmas to anyone reading this

Had a rather nice day, spoilt only by a rather sad experience around 5ish which I will talk about further down.

Surprisingly, Alisons two children were up quite late for a Christmas day, in fact I had to go and shout a big Ho Ho Ho through their bedroom doors to wak them up!

We had a rather excellent Christmas dinner at The Hobby Horse followed by a trip up to see her mum, dad, sister and sisters boyfriend.

Then back here for Doctor Who, which I thought was a fine tale, cybermen, a mysterious 2nd Doctor played by David Morrissey, and Dervla Kirwan being a superb evil nemesis.

I'm now finally able to relax with a beer or two having been chaufer for the day.

The sad news is we had to watch what by all accounts was a good pub, the Rock and Fountain, burn down. I've never been in myself, and now it looks like I won't be able to for quite a while.

I spotted the fire from Alisons mum and dads house, some 700 feet down in the gorge below, and was just deciding it was a proper fire rather than a bonfire when we saw the fire engines turn up. By the time we had to leave the roof was completely gone across the top of the restaraunt part of the building, somehow I imagine they won't be open again any time soon.

It looked like the building was empty, so I am hoping no-one was hurt, I'm sure I will find out fairly soon.

Anyway, Merry Christmas again, and a Happy New Year.

Traffic Noise

It's probably just me, but there is something different about traffic noise in London compared to anywhere else I have been.

Maybe it's simply the constant traffic, but I am not convinced, it just sounds different to traffic noise anywhere else I have been.

Have you found Jesus?

Well? Did you?

We're offline

Thanks to the wonderful behemoth called British Telecom we have not as yet had either our telephone line or broadband connected.

Apparently they fluffed the order and forgot, so we wont be reconnected to the world until the 11th

This is ridiculous, the original transfer was supposed to take 4-5 working days but correcting the error will take them 12 days? this does not make sense.

When I moved house back in 1996 NTL (now Virgin Media) took 3-4 HOURS to transfer my account, Telephone, TV and Broadband the lot.

I do wonder at the complete waste of time British Telecom are, what is there to do that takes them so many days that NTL didn't have to do? I suspect bureaucracy, old fashioned equipment and general "we're the monopoly, and we don't give a shit" attitude.

Down here in Wales there is no alternative, everything has to go down BT wires, oh to be in Leeds with proper fibre optic cable based Virgin Media, cheaper, better quality broadband and far far better customer service.

This post is being written from Alisons mums house where thankfully we have a backup broadband line.

Local History

Is just fascinating to me, it turns out the house next to where Alison lives now used to be a pub, the 3 Swallows if we read the old map correctly.

Where we are moving to is next door to the old synagogue, which looks just like a normal house to me. Turns out the house two doors up used to be another pub (The Heathcote) and rumour has it there is a secret room in the attic from the Chartists days which still has writings on the wall.

Next to and behind that is the old abattoir! which is so co-incidental as my old house in Leeds was also next to an abattoir, albeit a working one rather than one where the stockyard has been built on and the buildings converted into housing.

There is a map of Brynmawr which details all (or maybe only most of) the old pubs, I want to see if the landlord would let me borrow it and scan it, as so many houses that look, to be fair, to be to tiny to be pubs, turn out to be taverns of some sort.

I am intrigued.

And some of the stories that came out tonight I am not even sure I should post!

Got my

New little boy lying here beside me, wide awake, quite happy looking round at the world.

I know he needs a nappy change, that's job no. 2 after this, but he doesn't seem to be discomforted.

He's being breastfed but mum needs sleep so I have an emergency bottle of milk ready for action.

I just have to say

god he's cute :D

New Baby Blues

No, not really, more like new baby technology overload!

I remember I washed babies bottles in the hottest water we could stand, in the early days that meant from the kettle bloody carefully. Now we have a gadget the size of Birmingham on our worktop which does the job for us, takes about 3 weeks!

Well it feel like it when you have a screaming baby wanting milk and you weren't prepared!

Then there's the baby milk warmer, saves time and effort to bring a bottle up to the proper temperature, see above for average timings!

The first time I used it it overcooked everything, maybe I should have read the instructions but for some reason baby felt he shouldn't wait.

I used to leave a bottle in warm water for 5 minutes, I knew how warm it would be from how warm the water was when I started, easier? yes I think so.

What else? what other gadgets can they sell us? you know what I really want? I want a baby timer I can set myself, one that makes sure he's awake during the day and asleep at night! surely modern science can manage that?

Maybe I should resort to the remedy of our grandparents? a drop of whiskey in the final nights feed? (joking, I think)

Still, love him, he's sat next to me in his basket, chuntering away quite happy to himself and looking cuter than I imagined possible.

Love? I knows it!

*Edit (5 mins later)

And the bottles! what an amazing combination of biological reproduction and fluid mechanics! I know I sound like an old fogey but it was only 6 years ago I was bottle feeding my little girl, back then they were easy, bottle, teat and cap, no bloomin polarity reverser and Heisenberg compensators (OK maybe a little exaggeration! poetic license I call it) this bottle has a whole extra bit to stop pressure build up and air coming through on the teat! clever but quite simple, just glad I didn't have to think of a "better bottle"

Matthew George

7lbs 3 oz or 3.25 kilos was born at 11:59pm on the 1st Noveember 2008

My 2nd baby boy, my third child and between me and Alison, our 5th baby

apparently (poor child) he looks like me

Welsh road sign mix up

As reported on the BBC yesterday, and the Gruniad today, council workers need a Welsh translation of an English sign, so emailed the English version to their interpreter for translation. What they got back was an email in Welsh, which they promptly used for the Welsh part of the sign.



The problem being, what they got back was "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated."

This displays such an odd attitude from all concerned, why was it blindly assumed this email ONLY in Welsh said what it was supposed to? certainly when we received work translated into another language we got the relevant English with the other language alongside (or below) for comparison, along with an English note from the interpreter, usually a thank you or general "compliments slip" type acknowledgment.

So do English speaking council staff expect such incivility from Welsh translators as routine? And also why was the "out of office" notice not in both Welsh and English?

Sounds like bloody mindedness on both sides to me.

Welsh sign mix up, full story.

Why Teach Music?

Music is a science.
It is exact, specific; and it demands exact acoustics.
A conductor's full score is a chart, a graph which indicates frequencies, intensities,
volume changes, melody and harmony all at once and with the most exact control of time.

Music is mathematical.
It is rhythmically based on the subdivisions of time into fractions
which must be done instantaneously, not worked out on paper.

Music is a foreign language.
Most of the terms are in Italian, German or French;
and the notation is certainly not English but a highly developed
kind of shorthand that uses symbols to represent ideas.
The semantics of music is the most complete and universal language.

Music is history.
Music usually reflects the environment and times of its creation,
often even the country and/ or racial feeling.

Music is physical education.
It requires fantastic coordination of fingers, hands, arms, lip, cheek and facial muscles,
in addition to extraordinary control of diaphragmatic, back, stomach, and chest muscles,
which respond instantly to the sound the ear hears and the mind interprets.

Music is all these things, but most of all, music is art.
It allows a human being to take all of these dry, technically boring
(but difficult) techniques and use them to create emotion.
That is one thing science cannot duplicate;
humanism, feeling, emotion, call it what you will.

That is why we teach music.
Not because we expect our students to major in music
Not because we expect them to play or sing all their life
Not so they can relax
Not so they can have fun.
But so they will be human
So they will recognize beauty
So they will be sensitive
So they will be closer to an infinite beyond this world
So they will have something to cling to
So they will have more love, more compassion, more gentleness, more good
- - in short, more life.
Of what value will it be to make a prosperous living unless you know how to live?
That is why we teach music.

-author unknown

Found this the other day, and I love it.

Watch based Navigation system

For the man who has everything!

Absolutely brilliant in it's simplicity, I want one!

Sarah Palin is at least safe from witches

As spotted in the Gruniad it seems Sarah Palin has had special blessing from her preacher to protect her from witches and other nasty stuff!

Here's the story from The Gruniad

Odd how Americans really cannot see why we find them so strange isn't it? this woman is going to potentially be vice president of the most powerful nation in the world and she feels it necessary to be protected from WITCHES!

As Joe pointed out she also has a wondeful grasp of geopolitics as well!

Being a daddy again

It's not long now, Halloween is the hospitals date, we think bonfire night.

Amazing to think that at the ripe old age of 43 (I will be that old by then) I am starting again with the nappies and the night feeds.

Sort of scary, but certainly wonderful, and right now I can't wait until the little fella is born!

ripoff? or tribute

Sherly Crows "Run baby Run" vs The Beatles "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JoXkVN6xYs



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne6ZZTfiQAw

Is it just me or did ms. Crow borrow rather heavily from The Beatles?

Absolutely fantastic

Old news for some I'm sure, and I wished I'd posted this here when the news broke.

The Office of Government and Commerce had a new logo designed, this one



Which for some reason they seemed to have stopped using rather sharpish

Maybe because when it was rotated 90 degrees it seemed more fitting for the usual process of .gov business.

Drop down lists for village names in Travian

OK this works with Opera and any web site, but I only use it with Travian

Opera has a feature "copy to note".

Select the text of the name of each village you have, then right click and select "copy to note", do this for all your villages.

Now when you are in the marketplace, or anywhere where you need to type in a village name, click into the village name field, and press the down arrow on your keyboard. Hey presto, all your notes appear as a drop down list, click the village name you require and it is automagically copied into the field.

Of course, if like me over the years of using Opera you have collected other notes by accident or design you may want to delete those to reduce the list.

Open the side panel (press F4), click on notes and you can manage them from there.

I hope some people find this useful, do please come back and comment if you do.

I don't know if Firefox or IE have similar features, if they do, again, please comment and let me know.

drip, drip, drip

I was stood on the back doorstep and noticed a drip that caiught the sun as it formed and fell, "good chance to try my pressie out" I thought.

Here's the results for your delectation and delight :-

Easter Sunday Snow

Well I woke up this morning to scenes of snow, it was a bit of a surprise as we rarely get even semi decent snow here, Leeds seems to be exempt. (click each pic for a bigger version)





Not to be deterred however we still had an Easter egg hunt, first one I've done in snow!







If you're wondering why my DS has his arms like that, he seems to have decided coats should be worn Clint Eastwood poncho style.

Medical Abbreviations

This is quite an old story that popped up on the BBC website while I was browsing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7171453.stm

All about how medical abbreviations are not "standardised" and can cause confusion.

Now some doctors can try to ignore this, but I worked for a company once who where responsible for transferring doctors notes from which ever doctors computer systems they had into a central database, not being a doctor I ignored most of the abbreviations but sometimes I spotted stuff that was so bizarre I had to comment.

There was one case where the doctor used abbreviations that included / and \ and then select characters to encode details of a patients condition that meant fuck all to even his fellow doctors at the same practise. Because this guy assumed he'd live forever and no other doc would need his notes he justified it simply by saying "I know what it means"

My son was overdosed on antibiotics when he was a baby for similar reasons and I'm sure other people may well have experienced the same sort of thing. (he was supposedly unaffected by it, but now he has dyspraxia)

Why do doctors do this? sometimes I know they abbreviated as they had old crappy computer systems that only allowed a certain amount of characters, sometimes it was laziness, and these days I do suspect they don't have the time as some arsehole beancounter is watching and costing their every working minute.

I just hope me and mine never suffer because some doctor thinks his or her clever abbreviation is "so obvious" and another doc makes a serious, possibly fatal decision based on a wrong interpretation of those "quick ntotes"

Counting on Swaledale

Or rather counting in the Swaledale dialect. as used by Jake Thackray in his song Molly Metcalf

yan tan tether mether pip
azer sezer akker conter dick
yanadick tanadick tetheradick metheradick bumfit
yanabum tanabum tetherabum metherabum jiggit

Different dales had different variations, shows just how little people used to travel if even counting could be so different from dale to dale.

I love it, but I keep forgetting more than the first five, it only went up to 20 then they would transfer a pebble from one pocket to another and start again. I don't know what they did once they'd got up to 20 20's.

Plane being blown about in hamburg

Now this was ALL over then news, but I know a few people haven't seen this rather scary footage

watch closley at 43 seconds (ish) where the left wingtip hits the runway, just before the pilot hits the throttles and pulls away.

scary stuff



if the embedded vid doesn't work click here

Apparently he took 15 minutes to circle round and try again, I reckon he was having a swift whiskey for courage.

Stae of healthcare for the dying

I HAVE to rant

As some of you know my dads friend/partner was diagnosed with cancer on the brain in early January, the 4th to be precise

She was given 6 weeks to live if not treated

She was taken into Shefield Hospital for treatment, but they stopped it after two weeks and said she should be sent home to live out her last days in her own home. This was 5 weeks ago.

Two weeks later the hospital they wanted to transfer her to, which had been saying they had no beds, changed their minds and said they wouldn't take her as she could walk!!!! The Doctors in Sheffield hit the roof.

She was moved somewhere else and social services arsed about and finally arranged a meeting last week.

Now they have an assement meeting in 10 days time to decide if they can move her home and look after her.

She'll probably be dead by then, dying in some crappy hospital bed, maybe even dying alone.

The system doesn't work, the whole fucking system, no one cares and she suffers because of it.

Not a happy bunny, not happy at all

My dads here in tears and I can do FUCK all to help.

Where's the care? tied up in stupid red tape and profit lead healthcare, not a damn about the patients as decisions are made by measly beancounting accountants not the doctors and nurses who have done their utmost to make her time comfortable.

It was that BITCH Thatcher that introduced the idea of the NHS having to be profitable, bollocks, you can't make health care profit lead.

And this current Government has done jot all to change it, bloody Blair, more conservative than the tories

Well fucked off

Thanks for listening, and if ANYONE reads this who works for Barnsley Social Services, please contact me immediately.

update on "Contract"

Well I fnished it today, is it worth a read? yes I'd say so.

Very "scatty" writing, intentionally so, and it does make you feel quite involved with the protagonist.

I enjoyed it, but it can be quite graphically violent and touches on aspects of life some may find a little disturbing.

Try it, you may well enjoy it

Contract - Simon Spurrier

Viral Marketing

Well it worked on me

I got someone called Michael Point wanting to be my "friend" on myspace, his avatar showed a gun and the phrase "I kill people for money"

http://www.myspace.com/michaelpoint

I assumed it was some pub band gimmick and accepted the friend request, then went to look at his myspace page only to find it was actually promoting a book.

My wonderful girlfriend bought it for me for Christmas and I started reading it last night, eventually forced myself to put it down at about 2:30am

It's the self told story of a killer, strictly for the money, with a plan. and I can't wait to get back to reading it once the children are in bed tonight.

If you fancy trying it it's available from amazon here

be warned, it's quite graphically violent.

Stupid Tiscali - Really Dumb

Tiscali seem to have a problem with Opera as for two evenings in a row now on this tiscali account I am using Opera has stopped working. IE, Firefox and everything else still works.

I can even fool whatever primitive filter they are using by asking Opera to "pretend" to be another browser, so whatever they are doing is based on the browser identity string.

My guess is someone at tiscali does NOT know what opera is and they are blocking traffic at peak times from anything most users use.

Just shows up what dumb admin they have, I'll be so glad when I'm back on NTL/Virgin Media, at least they seem to have some degree of technical nous.

I suppose the chances of somone from Tiscali seeing this and getting their act together are slim to FA, but if you are from tiscali STOP BLOCKING MY BROWSER YOU IDIOTS

(written in that cheap Opera copy, firefox, under duress)

Using Google to find music

Nothing original here, just an advanced way to search using google for those directories of music that people upload so they can listen to their music wherever they want.

It's cool, but a bit hit and miss, but always worth a try, enter the following search string.

intitle:"index of" (mp3|avi) song.title -html -htm -php -asp -cf -jsp

where of course song.title is the name of the song you want to search for.

The intitle bit looks for directories (or folders) which are open

(mp3|avi) sets which file extensions you want to look for, so you could also search for videos, or any other form of file you want.

Separate the words with . (full stop) instead of spaces as google uses a . as a wild card so will pick up "song title" "song_title" or "song-title" etc.

The list of -html -htm etc. makes sure (or tries to) to not just find file listings.

It works surprisingly well, but does sometimes pick up spam directories that lead you to mp3 sales sites, you often find empty directories where the files have been removed since google indexed them, and I once found the directory had since been protected as the owner had realised what was going on.

Hope this helps

Sites that caught my eye this week

First off, the Müller-Lyer Illusion, How close can you get? I was pretty acurate at first, but now I come to post, I fail, go figure.

And secondly, for those who wish to rip

KeepVid makes it possible for you to download your favourite YouTube videos to keep.

Useful if you find something you think might be removed for some reason or another.

In other news, the divorce is getting messy, better not put too much detail on here in case it could be used against me :(

Away to Wales for a week

Going to visit my Girlfriend in Brynmawr, who hooo

So before I got I just had a couple of geeky/cool (delete as applicable) things to share.

First off, Lord of the Rings as done if the characters were typical role players!

DM of The Rings

Some of the comments about why he wrote each strip are fantastic, having run role playing games in the past, I know how true they are!

Secondly a strangely addictive thing, not a game as such, sort of a web based executive toy.

Falling Sand Game

You can divert the sand, water, salt and oil with walls you can spot plants then water them and watch them grow, you can burn the oil and wax, all fun. The strange yellow bobble that bounces around grows if watered, shrinks if it contacts salt, I usually turn it off and just play at making interesting patterns.

Have fun while I'm away!

here it is then

the fark headline that had me giggling

A raptorial maw with a pharyngeal jaw; that's a moray

linked to this story which isn't anywhere near as funny as the headline above.

right? left? isn't it all the same between friends

OK so I have extolled the virtues of the Opera browser many times, and at great length, before now.

However, there's one feature I have rambled on about which I realised just now I was a bit confused about, why? you say, well let me explain.

Somewhere between leaving the safe haven of my computer screen and reaching the safe haven of the pub, something traumatic happens to my brain while I'm in that big room with the bright light and the high blue ceiling, and left and right get completely muddled up.

Thing is, Opera has Some rather useful features on the right click menu, select some text and you can copy it, search google (or a selection of other browsers) with it, send it to a dictionary web site to get a definition of the word, try to go to it as if it was a web site, etc.

So when I have been extolling this menu I have forgotten that the OTHER handy feature is that you get the same menu up when you double click on some text (this is where the left right confusion enters my brain) so that's "double click" with the LEFT button, where I have been telling people it's the right button (D'OH)

A double click (left button) selects the word under the cursor and highlights it bring up the "RIGHT CLICK MENU" a further click extends the selected text to the whole sentence, and a third click selects the whole paragraph (it stops there)

So I am terribly sorry to anyone who has listened to my pub based rambling and have been trying to double "right" click to do all these wonderful things.

Great Weekend

Well it was, got back from my travels late Thursday after a 400 mile drive dropping Alison off in Wales then picked my children up Friday.

We made rice crispie buns on Saturday, and honey flapjack, which then got distributed to friends and family on Sunday.

I had Sunday and today to myself as I have quizzes to run so they can't sleep over when I'm going out on the evening, and today I have been washing their clothes and pegging out, does it seem sad that even just doing the washing for them seems really satisfying?

I seem to be really settling in to this single dad life, just got to get my finances sorted out and somewhere more permanent to live and I reckon life is going to get rosier.

Just need my girlfriend to be with me and I will be set up for life.

Somebody to Love

My girlfriend posted this on her blog



(link)


and it turns out it's a cover from 1967, here's Jefferson Airplane doing it in 1969!



(link)

This is of course why my "Whose Song is it Anyway" quiz is so popular! obscure covers that stop and make people think. (oh and Rolf Harris)

Well done and thank you to Jon for taking my concept and making it work week in week out by diligently searching for cover songs for me to use.

The F Word

One of the most interesting words in the english language



linky for if the embdedded version doesn't work!

this is very old, so you've probably seen it before, or heard it at least, but it's a classic I found today stumbling around looking for something else. Still well funny though.

Congratulations Alison

My fantastic girlfriend completed the Race For Life in Cwmbran on Sunday in 46 Minutes in the pouring rain.



Here she is looking well pleased and beautiful, if slightly damp.

it's not too late if you want to donate! (cheeky grin)

All donations through the above site go to Cancer Research UK

New web site launched - Way2paye

I am proud to announce the publishing of our newest web site Way2paye

This is a fully featured content management system for a payroll company specialising in payroll for small businesses and for people employing domestic staff or nannies.

It's also required a new feature, the ability for users of the site to register to gain access to extra information on the site, this is a feature that has been in the planning stage for a while, which we brought forward as this client required it.

The design is by the wonderful Daffodil Design which was then wrapped around our content management system to provide a beautiful looking site utilising TempleDene Technology.

Password Security

I spotted this article in PC World magazine which lists the ten most popular passwords. They are

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. link182
10. (your first name)

I would expand this list to include such things as your children's/spouses name, company name and a few other common words I have encountered.

To have a secure password it should be a mix of UPPER and lower case letters and some numbers. To make it REALLY secure use some obscure characters like ^ or # or accented characters such as Ÿ. And make sure it's at least 8 characters or longer. It's easier than you think too make one up, use numbers for letters for instance, so peter becomes p3t3r or bill becomes b1ll, use a car registration plate (no not your current car) or something else you can remember or at least work out.

The reason for this is simple, that top ten list (and I would add several myself to that to make at least a top twenty) is well know to anyone who fancies trying to guess you password. On top of that password breaking software will try one of two methods:-

1. Dictionary Attack
   Where the software literally has a dictionary of words it throws at your password one by one.
2. Brute Force
   Where the software tries combinations of characters sequentially e.g. it tries a b c etc. then aa ab ac until it reaches it's limits.

Now you'd think that second one would guess ANY pasword but it wont, because of the time it takes to process. A simple example would be if it just tried the 26 letters of the alphabet, suppose it takes 1 second to try each combination then after the first pass with a 1 letter password it's taken 26 seconds, to do all the two letter combinations it takes 26 x 26 seconds, or 676 seconds, to do all the three letter combinations it takes 17,576 seconds and so on.

Obviously computers can process far faster than this, but because the time adds up logarithmically this kind of attack limits itself to common letters, numbers and punctuation, and restricts the length of password it can try.

I must admit this is another reason why I think microsoft DON'T GET SECURTIY as when I created a hotmail account a while ago it wouldn't let me use puctuation in my password! so as far as I was concerned the password I created was insecure.

Now you will be asking, huh, well who wants to hack ME, the fact is they don't want to hack YOU, they just pick off the low hanging fruit in the hope it might be worth it. Have you ever sent something private by hotmail? or simply something you wouldn't want making public?

One company I worked at one of the directors thought he was so clever because when I needed his password he said "it's secret" I thought he meant he wouldn't tell me, so began to explain I HAD to know it or I couldn't log in to his computer to fix it, and he stopped me and said "no, it's 'secret' that's my password" the companies financial information, all highly confidential, was secured by an eminently guessable password! Another company used password 5 on the above list for EVERYTHING, again company confidential information was secured with something easily guessable, AND everyone in the office, some 30+ people, knew what it was!

I did point out how insecure this was and I hope they have since taken steps to fix the problem, somehow though, I doubt it.

well well

Looky here

after yesterdays rant about web sites that don't get things right by using "clever tricks" to do what could be done easier and more properly, I found this posted today on the BBC web site.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6653119.stm

What's that phrase about great minds?

Todays rant

Web designers who decide that instead of perfectly good, standard, ways of doing things, they will use some new trick they've discovered.

Perfect examples of this are sites which use javascript instead of links, so if you decide to right click the link to save it somewhere you just get the javascript, or maybe, because they've used odd javascript, the link just doesn't work. WTF is wrong with the good old a href= style links? they work, they work in ANY browser and they do exactly the same as your fancy javascript!

Pages which don;t display in my browser of choice (opera) again because some twonk has decided to use some fancy arsed "modern" way of displaying the pages which he found on some poncy web 2 site, guess what guys, your site fails to display, I go somewhere else, that loses you a sale! tough titty matey.

I could go on, but standards are standards for a REASON and any web developer who can't grasp that should go and takes up origami or knitting, or anything else!

Of course what they also do, on a more serious note, is run the risk of being prosecuted for discrimination against disabled people, but they never teach that at the frontpage school of crappy web design.

Alan Johnston, still held in Gaza

You will have heard the story, BBC reporter Alan Johnston has been kidnapped and is being held by some unknown group in the Gaza strip, all we can do is hope he will be released, and sign this petition asking anyone you can help, anyone with influence, to do all they can to aid his release.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6518185.stm

There's a button on the left of this blog for you to find out more information.

Of course, this is a little specific, there are loads of people kidnapped and held in this way, and they all need our help, but every little helps.

Is this jus a bad day?

I really don't know, tomorrow is the second mediation session, I'm prepared a little for it but I just know my wife is going to refuse shared custody. What then? what do I do, fight it in the courts? or give up and move away, abandon this life here and just quietly vanish.

I see now why men do that, it's not easy, but divorce is so stacked in favour of the woman and so soul destroying. It is never the "easy option" but sometimes it's the one that hurts the least.

Not helped by the fact my DS seems to prefer the lure of the ice cream van in grandmas street than coming to see me at my dads. I know he's only 7 but it feels like rejection.

I knew this wouldn't be easy but I never realised just how hard it is on my heart. I love my children, I don't want to hurt them, and I don't know which option will hurt them the least?

Yorkshire Airlines

Fly the best, Fly Yorkshire Airlines!



Funny than a funny thing!

With a link for if the embeded bit doesn't work

Look who I just added to my MySpace

Martha Jones

Love the way their using the Internet to add details and background to the series.

Anyone found any other cool web sites relevant to this new series yet?

You tube fun! Doctor who trailer

Has it really been a month?

oops

two things then for your delectation and delight today:-

First up, a trailer for Time War a wish list production (I pinched this from Paul Cornell)


you tube link for them as need it
I wish this was a genuine project in the pipeline!


And to follow up, a nice take on Who's on First!


you tube link for them as can't see it embedded (looking at you Jon)

Normal blogging will resume sometime soon, when I'm not so busy!

So True

Saw this in someones signature on mumszone, thought it was to good to not go unshared!

New business news!

I suppose I should have blogged about this before, but now is as good a time as ever, I have just launched my own business.


TempleDene Consultants
Specialising in content managed web sites with a twist, we manage the site for you if you find the easy to use interface daunting, or you simply don't want the hassle of doing it yourself.

This is brilliant

Found this on Paul Cornells blog, and it was funny enough to share with you all

Mr Meredith

Go click on the song Dr Who thing! well worth a play.

I like the other two songs as well, if he's ever touring and in Leeds I am off to go see him!

Blogger upgrade

Well this works well doesn't it

When are the idiots at google going to start making stuff that works in all browser, I have to post this in some crappy out of date piece of shit called internet explorer rather than my nice shiny Opera or I have to use the HTML editor!

Also I now have to check my web mail account with google to see if any comments are posted! I liked having them just arrive in my mail program inbox thank you! to my OWN e-mail address!

HATE this! I was FORCED to upgrade.

I've just about finished my blogging software, only the comments part to do, I know, long time in the pipeline, but I have been busy with more important things! I will be moving myself to there as soon as it's finished! at least I know that works!

Word of the day

Thanks to a slip of the keyboard, a close friend of mine has just invented a new word.

Boased :-
Def : When someone is boastful about something because they are biased.

I liked it, so I thought I'd share.

Happy News

I can't contain myself any longer

after all the unhappiness and shit I have been going through, with the big D word and everything.

I've met someone else!

Someone very special!

I am in love!

Now this may seem very fast and possibly unseemingly fast considering the D word hasn't finalised yet, but I think if you have a chance at something special, a new chance, a new lease of life, you should grab it with both hands and make the most of it.

Some of you know more details I know, but I just wanted THE WHOLE WORLD to know, or at least that small part of it who will read this.

Dealing With Depression

This forum web site offering support and discussion for people who have depression, and further more support and discussion for those people who have friends and family who are suffering. The web site is supported by volunteers and is free to join and participate in.




This new resource is very important to me, please pass it on or link to it where you can.

Climate Change (again)

Want to know if you'll be underwater when the sea rises?

This little site flood.firetree.net will show you.

I'm alright but two companies I used to work for will be underwater, oh dear, what a shame! (snigger)

Remember that mime to "Torn"

I posted it a while back

Well I found a new version, in which Natalie joins David Armand on stage for the later part of it.

God knows how she could sing along with a straight face.

so for your pleasure, delectation and delight, here it is.



Enjoy

P.S. I forgot those embeded things don't work for everyone, so here's a linky to it as well

The Torn Mime

Arrgghhh, laptops

Well OK maybe not laptops, but a certain hardware manufacturer who shall remain nameless at least!

Why is it when Microsoft have a perfectly good screen for selecting screen resolutions this particular company should come along and add a new option on the menu to do it instead, and disable the windows one to a point where it

a. says you have to re-boot to change resolution

b. undoes any changes you make in the STANDARD windows dialog box when it does re-boot!

I fiddled for ages yesterday with two indentical laptops one of which was set up right, and the other which had the wrong resolution, even got down to checking driver version levels before I spotted they had sneaked an extra option on the right click menu.

What the fuck is wrong with using the standard windows interface that everyone knows about? awkward bastards.

/rant

The BIG D word

Well my Divorce is now underway

I am stuck here because of custody issues at the moment, but we're both hoping to get through everything and keep things friendly, or as friendly as we can given the situation.

I am not going to lay blame anywhere, things just haven't worked out.

Who knows what the future may bring however, I am positive about it though.