Another New Logo

cooksterweb-logo
Originally uploaded by Taoski.

Just spent the past 45 minutes making this new logo for my feeble brained colleague who runs the Cooksterweb blog.

I really enjoy taking (royalty free and non-copyrighted) images and combining it into a new logo. My Photoshop skills are getting much better now!

If you want a new logo then let me know. Get em' while they are free - before i start asking for PayPal donations!

New Template Design (again)

I have finished finalising my new blog design based on the popular Kubrick template but with my own header image to replace the boring blue banner. Comments? I like it better than my recent black template... If anyone wants a header logo designed. i'll give it a go!

You would'nt let it....

Whats your biggest fib? After reading BigFootCookies discovery about the blogger known as Mr Underhill going MIA due to his life of lies catching up with him I thought I would post one of my little lies I once used that came back to bite me. I once took a training course in the installation and configuration of SQL Server 2000. As part of these Microsoft courses (and most other training courses probably) the presenter starts with "Hi, i'm Mr Blah blah.." and then proceeds to get the attendees to say who they are, where they work and their expectations for the course. They also get you to give "an interesting fact about yourself" which is always the killer question first thing on a Monday morning when you are surrounded by technical strangers. Now I always feel bad about answering this question.. mainly due to the fact that I think I am boring and that really I don't do anything other than muck about with PCs all the time and have no real life or hobbies. This may be true - so this time I decided to make something up. "My name is Taoski, I work for Super Global Mega Corp and my expectations for this course are to learn as much as possible (and retain the information) to assist my feeble brained colleagues in supporting SQL Server." "My interesting fact is..... I am just about to sign a record deal to make electronic dance music!" The stunned silence that blanketed the room was proof enough to me that I had nailed the lid shut on anyone elses "factoid". "Really? That's so cool" said the presenter and he continued round the room and I basked in my newfound status. The week long course went ok and the people sitting near me would often ask me about the music, what software and hardware I used to make it with and what my "band name" would be called and I was always able to give some coherant answers and make them sound plausable too! "I use an old Korg synth MIDI'ed up to Cubase and an AKAI sampler" i told them to nods of approval. As the days rolled by, they found out that my first track was going to be on a compilation CD and my band name was just going to be "Taoski", I got paid £500 for the track with some royalties in the pipeline too. The lies just came too easily... until a few months later when I attended another course and found one of the same people was there too. He asked about the CD and I told him it did get published recently but only in a small number. I was then shamed into trying to find it on the Internet as he looked on with interest. Needless to say, "the label must have gone under" or the "CD has been pulled due to sample copyright issues" as i could not find it anywhere! I did feel a little silly at that point but I think I managed to cover my tracks fairly well. I should have just told them about when I played Didgeridoo on stage at Glastonbury Festival in front of a crowd of thousands. That really is true and alot more impressive and mysterious!

Recipe for weekend fun

Spicy Nose Surprise:

1. Take 2 cans of Stella "Wife Beater" lager and consume at 6pm. 2. Proceed to local curry house and despense 1 bottle of Cobra Beer (large) whilst waiting for food to arrive. 3. Eat Vegetable Biryani and Nan Bread. 4. Soak stomach contents with the other bottle of Cobra Beer (large). 5. Go home, drink 2 glasses (not bottles) of Jack Daniels and Lemonade (large). 6. Go to bed at 2am. 7. Toss, turn, feel rough, stay awake for most of the night due to stomach churning, puke twice and get spicy vegetable rice stuck up the back of your nose, get no more sleep until 0715am. 8. Allow little children to enter your bedroom and jump freely on your stomach at 0730am just after you got back to sleep. 9. Rise at 1100am feeling shellshocked and purged of vomit. Avoid eating all day (just in case). 10. Never again. So.. i'm a wuss. I just cannot drink like I used to - must be my age.

Qvestionz...?

Here are the instructions:

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying "Interview me." "Blow me" or "Eat me" are not acceptable substitutes. 2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person's will be different. I'll post the questions in the comments section of this post. 3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. 4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post. 5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Here are the answers to the questions that Captain Beefheart posed to me earlier today. 1: If you had to give up sex, meat or a testicle, which would you rather lose? I do eat meat - but only occasionally and only the B-grade meats (burgers, bangers n bacon) but i always choose vegeburgers over meaty burgers any day. So meat is my answer. Sex and balls go hand in hand (excuse the pun) so thats a no-brainer! 2: If you could choose between a bigger penis, a bigger house or a bigger brain, which would you choose? Definitely a bigger house - with no mortgage please! Now i'm married, I don't have to worry about the size of "Little Taoski" any more. What you see is what you get luv - it's too late now! 3: If you had to kill a celebrity live on TV in order to save the life of someone really, really nice, who would it be and how would you do it? I would have to execute Kevin McCloud, the presenter of Channel4's Grand Designs. Although I do love the program I detest the cut of the mans phrasing and "management bullshit" style of speaking, complete with over-used gesticulation, metaphor and intonation. He would definitely have to be pushed into the freshly dug footings on a building site and then covered in a grey cement death shroud. 4: If you could choose a super power (as in flight or invisibility, not the USA or Red China), what would it be? I would have to have "The Force" as popularised in the space-opera Star Wars 1-6. I would use this power to determine which toilet stall had just been used by the person washing his hands as I enter the bathrooms at work. Its a 1 in 3 chance, but i always choose the one with the sweet sickly smell of a freshly dropped nut-log complete with a pubic hair adorned seat. I also had the idea of using The Force to "defragment" the space left around the cars in my road so I was able to park! 5: If you had to be stuck in a lift with food, water and a waste pipe for a week, which person - living or dead - would you choose to have with you? (If they are dead now, they would actually be alive in the lift. We won't put you in there with a corpse) A week is a long time to suffer the indignaty of being stuck in a lift (elevator for you US readers). Maybe someone like the Dali Lama or another spiritual teacher would be best. He could teach me the path to enlightenment whilst we both pushed our poop down the waste tube.

The floor swallowed me up

I raced home on my bike, through tearing winds and quickly departed back up the hill with my folder of documents, duplicate keys and two cars to part exchange in convoy. I did all the paper work with the salesman, signed over the old cars to a rusty grave at the local auctioneers, updated the V50 documents and dealt with all the formalities. The i's were dotted and the t's were crossed. They had my old cars now and I was sorry to see them go but i no longer had insurance to drive them after today anyway. The deal was done. I could see my new car sitting not 20 meters away, waiting for me, calling me... I went to pay the outstanding £3.5k balance on my debit card... DECLINED "oh... oh shit... oh crapping shit!" I started to feel a little light headed. "Try a lower amount, say... £2k, just in case there is a limit on the transaction amount - you know... for fraud or something...?" DECLINED "shitty crap crap shit crap!" A quick call to the lady at the bank told me all i needed to know. Although they tell you that the money is in your bank account - you can't have it! No no no! How silly of me! Of course! How could i have been so stupid! "WHAT THE **** ARE YOU PLAYING AT?" "we cannot release the funds... not until the cheque for £3.5k clears that you put in last week." DOH... I left feeling empty, sucked dry of any excitement and pumped full of the pain of embarassment. The salesmen cowboys ran my red face out of town and herded my two cars away to be branded, slaughtered and sold. They jeered at me from behind their advertisement window paintings as i left putting the final knives of pain in my back as i trod the lonely road home. But i will be back. "And this time... i'm gonna bring my money!" In the words of Hugh Grant... "Bugger!, bugger bugger bugger bugger!" Technorati Tags: Hugh Grant, car, money, salesman, V50, part exchange, bugger

Tag-o-tastic

So there is was, trawling the Interweb for information on using Javascript Arrays to cobble together a web version of Lewies cool Technorati Tagger program - when i find someone has already beaten me to it. Respect. And if you don't know about blogging and the use (and abuse) of Tags.. Check here Technorati Tags: technorati, tags, ICE, lewis moten, tagger, javascript, array

all i want for christmas

I have just read through two of the articles posted by WinSuperSite's Paul Thurrott about the impending XBOX360. I know i am biased (as i already own an XBOX) but the device does sound very good and what the Microsoft man, Jeff Henshaw, puts across is a device that will appeal not just to gamers, but to the whole family. This is mainly due to its "Media Centre" mentality with the ability to access your "Friends List" regardless of if you are playing games or watching streaming video across your network. Think of it as like having MSN Messenger on your TV! Of course Sony will blow it away with the PS3 when that arrives a year later as they already have such a large userbase all across the world. But for now Microsoft might have captured the flag from the other team. Its almost as if all the extra mods and applications I primarily use on my modded XBOX will be built in to this next model! I might even buy an un-modded one for a change. Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox 360, microsoft, console, gaming, playstation, winsupersite

Whats in a name - PART 2

Making the post about nicknames reminded me of when I was trawling the Internet for good and unusual baby names. I came across some excellent tongan, teutonic, , maori and icelandic names at the Kabalarian homepage which also allows you to check the meaning of your first name. Here's mine:

Although the name Tao creates an interest in the deeper aspects of life, we emphasize that it causes an emotional intensity that is hard to control. This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, and success, as well as cause health weaknesses in the heart, lungs, bronchial area, and nervous system.

Your first name of Tao has given you a clever, deep mind and the talent to excel in highly inspirational lines of endeavour as a dramatist, musician, writer, or artist. You can be lifted by beauty in all forms and you are at the most creative when inspired. Your expressive, affectionate nature responds very quickly through your feelings, but you must guard against being possessive and jealous. You feel and sense much that you do not fully understand and cannot express. Your delight in mystery could draw you into occult studies or religions. The first paragraph is a little odd (he says as he steadies his shaking hands to light another cigarette) but the second is quite close. My wife's reading on her name does say that she could suffer from a "restriction in her throat" - so they have obviously heard her sing before! Technorati Tags: surname, baby names, kabalarians, tao

Gulp...

Holy cow! I just bought a new car! Technorati Tags: car, citroen, picasso, debt

What's in a name?

I bumped into someone the other day who i have not seen for a few years who called me by the nickname I used to have at school, Toad. Not for any other reason than it being a play on my name, Tao. Other nicknames i have had over the years are: Tay Schencksy Taoski Shandy Tazza One friend that was so "out of it" all the time could only manage to splutter at me was T' as he rolled his next spliff. On the flipside to this affectionate naming it was also common for me to have "Gayo" shouted at me across the playground and the now infamous (with me at least) "Tayo, tayyyooo, Tao come and me wanna go home" song chanted at me several times a week. In fact, this still happens - but it is now championed by the feeble brained office workers i have to endure on a daily basis. I expect that people reading this will probably have had worse nicknames - so i think i got away with it fairly well. Technorati Tags: nicknames, names, toad, tao, shandy

Business As Usual

I don't really want to dwell on the London Bombings any more than I have to (as it has been covered well over at WhiteBoyBob's blog) but I am glad to see things returning to normal today in the capital. Being a small island means that we all know someone who works or lives in London and i expect we have all in some way have been personally affected by this. The majority of transport services are operational, most people are returning to work and life goes on. Stiff upper lip n' all that. That's what i feel most proud about - our resilience to such an attack. Whilst watching the news reports yesterday morning I am pretty sure that people were having a go at the police for not letting them past the cordoned off areas into their offices. Twits. Wish i have a job i liked that much! I was also amazed at how the majority of the casualties and people interviewed after the attacks were not british! I bet we find that many people of different nationalities have been killed. After the 9/11 incident i was left shocked and amazed and can remember feeling really shaky standing waiting for my train home that night. Not through fear of it happening to me - just total shock. Today i just feel strong and resolved that this will not bring the UK down - we are better than that. Obviously it is not anywhere near the scale of the 9/11 attacks - so i am not making direct comparisons, but it is a biggie for us. The Police and the other Emergency Services did their jobs perfectly after well rehearsed planning for such an event. Well done to them. What is really going to piss me off is the inevitable criticism of the police, government and the lack of security on the bus and train networks in London. This is pointless and a waste of time. Fingers have already been pointed at the hotels for charging £250 for an £80 room which is just ridiculous. Some people will always try to make money from this kind of thing - they are just plain sicko's. Technorati Tags: london, bombings, explosions, terror attack, bus

Didgeridooda

For someone like myself who has played a Didgeridoo on-stage at Glastonbury to thousands of people, it is nice to hear that some decent research has lead to the finding that the knack to playing is all to do with the opening and closing of the glottis, the part of your larynx that contains the vocal chords. The practice also (not mentioned in the article) relies on the use of Circular Breathing, practiced by trumpeters and operators of other mouth instruments. -Insert blow job joke here- Technorati Tags: didgeridoo, rolf harris, glastonbury, glottis, larynx, australia, blow job, trumpet, circular breathing

Like the ace of spades

So, i work hard all day at the PC only to come home and spend another 3 hours tweaking my Blogger template and learning CSS code by the seat of my pants. I am not totally happy with the end result. I can see that the picture behind the post title is really going to annoy me after a few days. The picture in the header was taken by me from my back garden on manual mode, fidling with the ISO and F stops to get a dark image. It worked out ok - no ammendment in Photoshop apart from cropping it. Comments / feedback please... And check out my template test blog at taotest now and then - expect it to get all "iPodded up" sometime soon. Technorati Tags: blogger, template, css, html

Fox in Socks in a USB Box

Whizz bang! I thought i saw this somewhere before during my dark and distant web surfing past. Portable Firefox Runs from a USB drive/folder on your hard drive etc. Perfect for those places where you are not allowed to install the full version! :wink: Technorati Tags: firefox, portable firefox, usb

Trip Stats

Here are my bike stats from today using my new Cat Eye bike computer that my parents got me for my birthday on Saturday. Time: 19.00 mins Distance: 4.58 miles Average Speed: 14.4 mph Max Speed: 26.3 mph Total distance so far: 6.6 miles Let this stand as the milestone for me to surpass... I then realised after i got to work that i had not set the exact wheel size on the little computer thing - so its all rubbish! But near enough for me. 19 minutes is pretty good i thought. I was'nt really pushing it either and it was also windy which, as every cyclist knows, is the devils breath! Technorati Tags: bike, bike computer, stats, mileage, cat eye, devils breath

iPod Cake

I am not one to overreact, but my birthday was totally excellent! We had a BBQ over at my Parents-in-law's house and around 30 people were there to help me celebrate. The kids ran riot all afternoon in the garden and the adults ran riot through piles of beer, wine, vege and meaty food. Too much food was made but my wife and her mother and father did me proud and gathered up a real feast for everyone. Thanks! For my pressies, i got a Gatecrasher CD, an iSkin, a box of Caffreys, a photo frame, a pair of jeans, 2 shirts, a bike computer, a cycle helmet and 2 of my butterfly photos printed and framed. The 2 framed pictures are totally wicked! The pictures look good on the PC screen but in print the color and detail is amazing. I will definitely get some more printed in the near future. Also, a big thanks to my 2nd wife, Mrs Swimpig, who made me the iPod cake you see in the photo above. An orange and almond cake! Yummy. Payment in kind available when ever you want it love! My wife also made some of her Ginger cake too which went down a storm. Shame I only got one slice of it though... It was also great to see all the kids playing together too. Mr and Mrs WhiteBoyBob brought along their daughter who i have not seen for about 4 years and also their new little bundle of joy, who is really cute. It was all just perfect! Kids playing, men drinking, women in the kitchen..... no.. whoops! Sorry! And to end the night i watched in total awe as Pink Floyd took the stage at Live8 after 24 years and were totally excellent! All those years apart have not changed the way they sound at all. Brilliant! I hope they reform again! A class act!

Technorati Tags: iPod, birthday, cake, bbq, presents, butterfly, pink floyd, live8

The Final Countdown

Tomorrow I will be 34. I don't really feel 34 which I guess is a good thing. Although it doesn't stop me from my blood running cold in the middle of the night when the reality of my mortality sinks in. That's a real adrenaline kick at 4am I can tell ya! I hope that feeling passes. You hear old folks (anyone older than 40) saying "I feel the same today as I did when I was eighteen" and I think I can now see that it is probably true - not some medicine induced false memory. Although it's a little odd to think that i was skateboarding around my city before alot of the kids I see doing the same now, were born! Gnaahh.. youth of today.... etc. My 33.99 years have been good ones so far and I have managed to get a super wife who gave me two super kids and can also hold down a stress free well paid job for which I am constantly commended! I am still on talking terms with all of my family and have no debts at all (apart from the mortgage). I didn't try too hard at school, didn't work at getting a good career and didn't cause my parents too much grief. However, I did annoy the police a few times and make a few drunken mistakes with girls - but who doesn't! At the moment, life is good. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Tags: birthday, 34, death, mortality, wife

We Power Blogger

Scary huh!