I've moved!

If you are reading this, then you must have subscribed to my Blogspot site via RSS or email or divine audience or something.. I have now left Blogger for Wordpress and you can find my new blog at http://taoskiblog.wordpress.com. You can also get the new RSS feed at http://taoskiblog.wordpress.com/feed See you there!

Anti Lurker Week

I know there are lots of "lurkers" who read my blog but never leave comments or feedback. Of course you are more than welcome to come, read and go - but the idea behind blogging is about sharing, discussion and feedback. So...

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

Open For business

Some of you may have seen that picture on here recently. Sorry for the confusion. This blog is NOT closed and will continue to operate normally under my usual mis-management. And no, Robert... it's not a Butterfly! It's a hacked image I did on Illustrator, of an XBox360 controller. Tsk.

Easter Weekend

Had a great Easter weekend over the last four days. Friday: Went to the Cotswold Wildlife Park with the wife and kids. We went with Mr and Mrs Swimpig and their daughter too. A very nice day out all in all and ended off with some late night card playing and Jack Daniels drinking fun. As usual, Mr Swimpig won. Saturday: It was the mother-in-laws birthday, so we were over at her house for dinner. The kids got to play easter egg hunting in the garden, so we have again got a cupboard full of chocolate eggs, chocolate bars and assorted chocolate bunny shaped sweets. And all that after we just threw away the eggs that never got eaten from over two years ago! Sunday: Had a lazy day around the house and then went for a dog walk with friends through the local fields. Very nice. Monday: Went to my first ever football match to watch the MK Dons beat Hartlepool 2-1 at the Milton Keynes National Hockey Stadium. My eldest son took part in a Football In The Community scheme where the MK Dons came to his school to teach them football skills. As part of a fund raising Penalty Shoot-out competition, we got a free pass for one adult and one child. I then bought two more tickets so that the wife and my other son could come too. It was quite exciting being in the crowd and we only just won after trickling a shot off the post about 4 minutes before the final whistle. As you may know, I am a seasoned FIFA player on my XBox, so it was nice to see the real thing for a change. There was only a few times when I got confused and thought I would watch the replay of the goal again... only to find I was pressing the head of the bloke sitting in front of me instead of the start button... Hartlepool were certainly the best side and at times The Dons were quite comical, falling over the ball and passing straight to the other team. Some decisions did not go their way though after Hartlepool scored by barging the goalie down after he had grabbed the ball and vollying the shot in. I did enjoy it though and might go to the next, and last, home game later this month. Anyone else up for that? Report: BBC SPORT | Football | League One | MK Dons 2-1 Hartlepool Tuesday: Back to work on the push bike. Microsoft Patch issues ahoy! Great... Technorati Tags: mk dons, easter, football, hartlepool, walk, eggs, chocolate, jack daniels, cards, dog

Google Calendar

As per a wish in my recent gripes about Whats Missing From Gmail, the Google Calendar has now been released! Shame it still does not appear to be bolted into Gmail though...

April 06 A-List

Its about time of the year that I did another A-List. A detail of my favorite software that I am installing/using these days. It's probably not going to be much different from the previous list, but here goes... OS: Windows XP Media Center editon with Office 2003. Installed this version of Windows so I could stream video to my Xbox 360. Virus/Spyware: I have ditched the Symantec AntiVirus 10 and the Giant Anti Spyware (now known as Microsoft Defender) and am using ZoneAlarm Security Suite. Since having this installed I have had nothing unusual turn up on the PC, only cookies. Even with Symantec and Giant installed before, if I ran a scan it always found something, but ZoneAlarm seems excellent! Plus with the ZoneAlarm firewall built in you can't go wrong. Browser: Firefox, firefox, firefox!!! Get it! This is a no-brainer really. Since using this my spyware infections have literally dropped off the planet. I have also installed the FasterFox extension which makes it even faster! I also have the Web Developer Toolbar installed into Firefox which makes checking and testing CSS changes in my blog all the easier. It also makes me into a god when helping people over at the Blogger Help Group. Torrent Sites:

• Demonoid
• Mininova
• ISOHunt

I still use torrents frequently and they are the three sites that I use most often. I have started using uTorrent to download torrent files as I found that the webs most popular torrent client, Azureus was big, bloated, built from Java and made my router hang all the time (despite its numerous awards) . uTorrent is small, runs from a folder with no installation needed and is fast! I have also found that on my 2mb ADSL line, if I limit my upload to 18kbps on each torrent, the download speed goes up like a rocket (seeds pending out course). I am thinking of doing a basic "uTorrent users guide" soon - so watch this space. P2P Apps: None. Yep - thats right - none! I have given up on using these. The last time I was bothering, Warez was still my favorite but now that the torrents have really picked up and downloading stuff does not seem so important any more, I have stopped using it. Bookmarks: Some new bookmarks that I go to each day are the Del.icio.us popular links, my Bloglines subscriptions and the Digg.com homepage. There is always something new and amazing on there to look at over lunch. I have started using Del.icio.us more to store my bookmarks now. With Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature, they are available immediately regardless of if I am at home or work. Recap: Away Goal: ZoneAlarm, uTorrent, Del.icio.us, Digg, Torrents Own Goal: Symantec, Giant Antispyware, P2P apps, Azureus Technorati Tags: a-list, symantec, zonelabs, zonealarm, spyware, virus, microsoft, defender, bittorrent, utorrent, azureus, firefox, media center, fasterfox, delicious, bloglines, digg
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us |

iSwitch

I was just reading my RSS feeds at Bloglines and noticed this one via Gizmodo. Help me become a switcher! Basically, a bloke in the US wants people to donate money to him to get an iMac worth over $2000! Now thats a cool idea. Shame my version of the same thing, that I started back in Janurary 2005 did'nt get any attention from anyone! The US may be the most powerful country in the world, but it's also graced with the loudest and laziest people. A message to my fellow "would be switcher"...

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

Maybe I should revive my idea and start a rival blog to see who wins first? Nah.. too lazy. Technorati Tags: apple, mac, imac, switcher, paypal, donate, blog
Add to: | Technorati | Digg | del.icio.us |

Nildram

Does anyone have any experioence with Nildram as an ISP? I am still with AOL who I went with after moving house and having to cancel my BT Internet account. Instead of just moving the service from one house to another, they insist that you cancel your account and then re-apply at the new house! Even though the previous owner of my new property was also with BT Internet! Also, at the time, AOL were (pretty much) the only provider with no download limits, which BT were just bringing into force. My "downloading" action is no way near as bad as it used to be though. Nildram offer up-to 8mb broadband with a 50gb per month download limit. I think it should be enough for what I need I suppose. Although, my mate has a ratio on torrent site where his upload is over 1 Terrabyte! His download amount is something pretty scary too! Might see what ISP he is with. Can't remember off hand although I set it up for him. So. Any experience with Nildram , let me know. Or can you recommend a good ISP that won't release the dogs on me if I decide to download more that 1mb a month? Technorati Tags: AOL, internet, ISP, nildram, broadband, BT, BT Internet Add to: Technorati Digg del.icio.us

In the bank!

It was another of the annual horse killing events yesterday, otherwise known as the Grand National. We did a family sweepstake and all put a pound in and got 4 horse each, drawn at random from a hat. We also all put in real bets at the local betting office. Just a few pounds here and there. Luckily, after my horse Numbersixvalverde won, I netted the £20 family sweepstake and my wife won £24 from her £2 bet at 11/1 odds. Sweet. Now, what shall I spend my £20 on? Any ideas? Technorati Tags: grand national, horse racing, horses, numbersixvalverde, betting EDIT: Just went and got FIFA06 for my 360 from the Birmingham branch of CEX. Only £28 second hand!

Xtrememac Airplay

When I was in New York, I purchased a XtremeMac Airplay FM transmitter for my iPod and have been using it in my car to and from work each day. The thing is tiny and the quality is pretty good - although I have doubts as to wether the signal is in stereoscopic sound or not. When I shuffle to some Beatles tracks, that should tell me. There is also some background hum and hiss from interferance which gets worse when its raining. The signal is better when plugged into my nipple. Well... what I mean is - when it's in my shirt pocket and my metal endo-skeleton is acting as a signal conductor. It also makes me look quite "star trek" when changing tracks - but makes me look all "cheap porn nipple caressing" when increasing the volume! Generally the product is very good and I am impressed with it. I was even more suprised to find that ipod ubersite, iLounge gave it an A marking and said that it was even better that the iTrip, which was the device I had been planning to get. I decided to get the Airplay as I was also purchasing an XBox360 Play-n-charge kit from the same shop and it seemed to be the best option at the time. The Airplay's frequency can be manually changed in .2 increments between 88 and 109FM so you can quite easily override everyone who is listening to Radio1 on the way to work with some techno from the likes of the Plump DJs. I was even able to broadcast "Dare" by Gorillaz from downstairs in my home, over the top of my sons radio whilst he was listening to Classic FM (100.3FM) at bedtime. Having Shaun Ryder in your dreams is not good for a six year old's mind. My advice: get it! Oh.. hold on.. it's illegal in the UK. Sorry Officer... And yes, DriverChris, you can have that "POS" Belkin back next time I see you. Technorati Tags: ipod, airplay, fm, apple, nipple, star trek

Keyword Searching

Just stumbled upon this site after I was assisting a customer with their word document that had inherited "selective" spellchecking on some parts of the file - but not others. The site contains a series of "5 minute productivity tips". I expected it to be full of "teamworking, networking and corporate bitch making" skills but I found the Searching with Firefox Keywords tip and was plesantly suprised! I thought I used most of the nice Firefox stuff like Live Bookmarks and the "Open In Tabs" stuff - but this is cool. When searching at a site (such as Google) you can right-click the box you put the search text into and then click "Add a keyword for this search". You will then be prompted to put in a bookmark for the page and a keyword too. Put in the keyword "g" for Google for example. Once it has been saved, you can then type "g taoski" into the Firefox address bar and it will immediately search Google for Taoski. You can also add keywords to any bookmark you have stored so you could just type g and press Enter to take you direct to Google too! So now, I can quickly search through that HomeMadePornTorrents site I have access to. Technorati Tags: firefox, bookmark, google, taoski, word, spellcheck, tabs

Boot Camp

Now this is pretty serious stuff. Everyone knows (well - you should by now) that Apple recently made the switch to Intel chips in their hardware. There have been plenty of people out there that have searched for and managed to get Windows XP running on the "MacTel" boxes - although quite a bit of messing was needed to get it working. Today, Apple have released the beta of Boot Camp which allows you to install XP for it to co-exist with your OS-X installation!

Boot Camp lets you install Windows XP without moving your Mac data, though you will need to bring your own copy to the table, as Apple Computer does not sell or support Microsoft Windows.⁽¹⁾ Boot Camp will burn a CD of all the required drivers for Windows so you don't have to scrounge around the Internet looking for them. Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it'll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world. So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes.

W00t! This is going to cause quite a few ripples in the computing world! I don't expect it would take too long for someone to get a mac just to run XP (or Vista) but then switch to OS-X because "it works!". Smart move Mr Jobs. I salute you! There's probably not much that I could do on XP that I could'nt do on OS-X too. Awww.. I wanna new PC.

WTF?

Why is it, that I work on an iT Helpline - but get jobs passed to me to fix that are raised by other members of the iT Helpline regarding silly issues with their PCs? I'm sure that if I qualified as a car mechanic I would take my car to the local repair shop each time it needed a bulb changing or petrol putting in. I dispair.....

Purves Welcome

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

Purves and Purves Just saw this mentioned over at Gizmodo and thought it was cool! And how much for some bits of oddly shaped cardboard and a packet of grass seeds? £65 - thats how much. I'm off to the skip at the back of the local supermarket to get mine started.

Busy busy busy!

Phew! Had a real busy day here at work today. I cycled to work again through the icy cold wind this morning and even managed to make it out at lunchtime for a quick ride too. Well... a ride up to Subway for a foot-long Veggie Max sub! W00t! I have noticed after just two days of cycling, that when I get to work, although I feel all sweaty and my lungs are insanely burning in a sea of my own mucus, I feel so much more awake and ready to do stuff! It's cool. The wife's out at her Salsa class tonight, so I get to spend a little more quality time with my Xbox, PC and 360 - before I sell them all!! HA ha ha ha.... (evil laugh). Swimpig promises to make an appearance too at some point. Maybe he wants his arab strap back?

Three Six oh?

I am quite close to making somewhat of a decision. Now that I have been paid and the overdraft is slightly smaller after maxing it in New York, it's time to think about subscribing for a years worth of XBOX Live and getting a new game for my 360. However - what game to get is one question... But - "do I want to" is the most important one! Now don't get me wrong. I love my 360 (like a bruvver! burp) but hardly ever play on it. At present my "gaming time" is spent either fitting in a quick game of Fifa 2006 on my old Xbox after the wife has gone to bed or snatching a few games of the same title on my Gameboy Advance SP (while I crap). The 360 sits redundant beneath my TV. The most I have used it for recently is to stream our New York photos to from my Media Centre PC.

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

Who knows. I certainly don't. But a PSP from eBay with a few games and a memory stick would not set me back too much. And I'm sure someone would have my 360 off me to counter act the spend. Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox 360, sony, sony psp, psp, fifa, fifa 2006, gba, gameboy, new york

TRON? TR-OFF!

I managed to get a copy of TRON from... er... somewhere and it's a great copy in widescreen too! I attempted to convert it to DVD using DVD Santa and got an "Unsupported video stream" error. Roxio 8 also decides to give me a cryptic "unspecified error" plus a load of hex to go with it! Fecking computers! So, it appears that the format of the file is one of those odd DivX ones that refuses to convert without a lot of hassle. I also downloaded DivXtoDVD too (after reading a few good things about it) and after converting and burning which took about 2 hours, the quality of the DVD is jumpy and the audio is about 3 seconds ahead of the video! Good job i've still got my old, modded XBox to watch it on over the network. On a side note, I have decided to post at least once per day this month in an attempt to kick start my blogging again. I failed yesterday though already! I was discussing a possible "april fools day" post with Swimpig over breakfast yesterday but nothing came of it. Technorati Tags: divx, dvdsanta, divxtodvd, tron, dvd, convert, blog, roxio, xbox,

TRON

This is the story of two worlds and the beings who inhabit them. One of these is our world, the one we can see and feel. The world of the 'Users'. It lies on our side of the video screen. The other, an electronic micro-civilization, lives and breathes just beyond our grasp. This is the world of the 'Programs'. Because we, the Users, have created this new world, part of us lives there, too... ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SCREEN I'm off to find this film this weekend!

Questions, Questions...

I see I have 2 questions in the comments of my previous post from fellow Blogger users regarding template design. So, rather than respond in the comments, here are the answers: Question from GVM:

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

To change this, you need to find the following line in your CSS code at the top of your template: #profile-container { } And change it to the following to make the font the same size as the main post body text: #profile-container {font-size:90%;} Make sure you do a full blog republish and if you don't see the changes immediately, press CTRL+F5 to force a full refresh of your page. The "search this site" button is actually built into the Blogger NavBar you see at the top of the blog. It just called "Search this blog" instead. The only problem with this is that it does not always pick up searches for new posts immediately. I had some posts that were over 3 weeks old that did'nt appear when I searched, but eventually they were indexed and it worked ok. You can always try Google Sitesearch too. Question from Tarun:

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

Well. That sounded more of a curt instruction really Tarun! But here's the answer. To do this, you will need to use some Javascript code which sequentially adds 1 to a variable or takes it away for each post and then assigns a CSS property to the post depending on the value. First, you need to add the following lines to the CSS style area of your template. This is usually at the top of the template code, and will be enclosed between the </style> and </style> tags. div.post-even { background-color : #F5F5F5; padding: 5px 15px; } div.post-odd { padding: 5px 15px; } Then, on the line just before the <Blogger> tag, I inserted some Javascript to zero the variable we would use. <script type="text/javascript">var evenodd = 0</script> And on the line just after the <Blogger> tag, I inserted some more Javascript that determines if the variable "evenodd" is 0 or 1 and applies the relevant CSS DIV to the post. <script type="text/javascript">if(evenodd == 0) {document.write('<div class="post-even">');var evenodd = 1;} else if(evenodd == 1) {document.write('<div class="post-odd">');var evenodd = 0;}</script> And that's it! I actually made mine a little more complex by adding a gradient image to the bottom of the post in the CSS bit: div.post-even {background-color : #F5F5F5; padding: 5px 15px; background: #F5F5F5 url(http://static.flickr.com/39/81719143_e19cdc7865_o.jpg) bottom left no-repeat;} Hope this has been some help to you both. I am in the first stages of a new "project" that will encompass many similar requests - so watch this space.

Airwalk: RIP

Yesterday, I finally laid to rest my pair of Airwalk trainers. We have been together for over 10 years! During that time, my Airwalk and I have been through many changes, challenges and events:

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

I will miss them as all I have to wear now are my bright white NIKE running shoes. Farewell my friends... we were good together.

Neiw Yoirk Repoirt - Part 2

"Hey! I'm walkin' here!" As promised in my earlier New York report, here is the details of where we went, what we saw and what we thought. Empire State Building This was totally excellent! If you walked left out of our Hotel to the corner of the block, you could see the Empire off to your right. It was really close! Right next to a Starbucks too! We went first thing in the morning on Tuesday after a bacon/egg/cheese/bagel/coffee combo deli breakfast. As it was so early, we pretty much went straight in and straight to the top for a clear view as far as the eye can see! I have some great pictures and will post them to my Flickr when I get a chance to re-install Photoshop to my PC and "tart them up". It's an amazing building too - art deco to the max! Grand Central Terminal This was also a cool place to "hang out" and "people watch". It was only about 15 minutes walk from out Hotel too. The main terminal was totally breathtaking and almost like a cathedral. We took photos of "the clock" for our kids after they saw Melman the Giraffe smash his head into it on the cartoon, Madagascar. We had lunch in the food court downstairs on the same day and went back for breakfast there too the next day for another sesame seed bagel/cheese/bacon coffee combo thing. Totally delicious! Nice to see people going about their normal day to day business too. Saw some snooty business men getting their shoes shined as they totally ignored the person doing the work! Financial District/Wall Street We took the Metro from Grand Central to Wall Street to check out the Stock Exchange which we thought we might be able to get into to see the action from the public viewing gallery. Of course, it was closed after 911 - but our guide book we had borrowed was over 6 years old!! We got to see some "financial types" getting filmed outside the stock exchange and then photographed by the press, guarded by some butch SWAT types with automatic machine guns! One of the them was a kid called "Zack", or so his gold plated name badge told me. He was obviously with his parents and had a look of "made for life" all over his smug little weasel face. We asked a security guard who they were, but he just gave us indifference. "Jus' some more rich people". Liberty Island From Wall Street we walked through Battery Park to the ferry to take us to Liberty Island to see the Statue Of Liberty. The security to get onto the ferry was more invasive that it was for us to get onto the aircraft and into the country in the first place! I had to remove my belt and shoes to get through the scanners and x-ray machines. The statue is pretty cool close up and it was a real nice day too. From then on, the week got hotter. We had got tickets to go inside the statue, but after queuing for ages behind another 30 people, we then found that the people a few feet in front of us were told that they would be waiting an hour to get in. As my legs and lower back were killing me from walking so far, we decided to head for the "Tat shop" and head back to the mainland. We got some nice photos there of the brown smog hanging over the city too. Ground Zero We walked from Battery Park up to Ground Zero to see "the hole". It was quite odd really. To think that there were 2 massively tall buildings in such a small area is amazing. And to think that they had been destroyed without causing much (or any) damage to nearby buildings was also amazing (read "conspiracy"). The whole area seemed very quiet too. There were lots of billboards up showing designs for what was to replace the buildings. Not sure which one is going up though. At the moment, the hole is just full of what appears to be air conditioning ducts! Soho/Greenwich Village We walked uptown from Ground Zero to Soho and Greenwich Village, bits of which reminded us of Camden Market and Covent Garden. We took a much needed respite in a coffee shop with a giant slab of carrot cake and a seat in the window so we could see what was going on. The wife shopped, I yawned and ached and we made our way back up towards our Hotel. We rested for an hour and watch crap US TV and then headed out to a buzzing steakhouse where the smallest steak was 6 inches diameter and 8 inches deep! I had a massive burger and fries which was my first real big American portion. Great food and a great atmosphere! Macys/Saks/Bloomingdales The first day (night in UK time) we got there, we dumped our suitcases, looked for something to complain to the hotel staff about in the room (found nothing though!) and headed out for a walk and some food. We stumbled upon Macys a few blocks away and the wife settled into what would become the main theme of the week. Shopping. Macys was ok, but not quite what I expected. I was lead to believe that it would be like Harrods (to which I have never been) but it only sold clothes! Bloomingdales was the same, but Saks (of 5th Ave) was a real classy joint! The decor in there was really nice and on one floor, we turned the corner to see Roberta Flack doing a PA for the store. So we got to see her tho! And she was very good. Tiffanys Breakfast not included! We went to Tiffanys twice. Once to look. Once to buy. I was under the impression that it was going to be very posh and when I saw the security guard on the door, I expected to be turned away as I had holes in my shoes (more on that in my next posting). The shop was cool and the staff were pleasant too. Obviously used to tourists cruising in to take a look at their wares. We went back on Thursday and I bought my wife a bracelet for her birthday we had been looking at for a while (at the cheap fakes on eBay). Central Park We walked from our hotel, all the way down Broadway, looking for a toyshop that was mentioned in the guide book we had, which don't forget, was 6 years out of date. Needless to say, by the time we hit 97th street, we decided it was not there any more. We got to see a hotel we nearly booked into and were glad we did not! We cut through east across into Central Park and rested a while. Well... I rested a while with my sore legs and back. We then proceeded to circumnavigate the Jackie Kennedy Onasis resovoir, against the wishes of the signposts and sour looks from the joggers who were nearly bumping into us. We tried to get into the Guggenheim but it was closed on Thursdays. Damn guide book again! We carried on down and ate pasta for lunch in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum. We tried to blag our way into the main exhibits for free, but got caught. We then stopped at the Woolman Ice Rink and Central Park Zoo, for more Madagascar related photos, on the way back "downtown". New York Central Library This place was cool. Very very nice inside and full of people with their Apple Notebooks studying. I wanted to be one of them! The main reading room was amazing and was very nice. We went back again on Friday for a free piss and a sit down to kill time before our flight (as we had run out of cash too!). We got to watch some breakdancing street performers outside. I'd give anything to be able to windmill.... Times Square Flashy. Very flashy. Avoid if you have photo-sensitive epilepsy! My mate Ghone, said before I went that Piccadilly Circus was much better. What a twit! It was very impressive. We also got to wave at the kids back in the UK via the Times Square Earthcam Webcam! Toys-R-Us was disappointing as were most of the shops there. We ate in the Hard Rock Cafe there as we couldn't be bothered to walk anywhere. We were seated in the Madonna and Velvet Revolver area, close to James Brown's suit and some of Elton John's too. Well... there's my quick recap. I have missed so much, but you probably never read it all anyway! It makes me want to go back there again! Buy me an Apple Powerbook, a large Mocha, sit me in a New York Deli and I will be a happy man!

Apol-ogies

Just a quick post to appologise for not posting recently. There have been some great things to blog about recently but I have not felt up to it - at all! I guess I am just slogging through a period of "Blogger Apathy" or "Blog-d-pression". Other stuff has been happening at home too such as ill children keeping me up half the night and the wife's 40th birthday (say happy birthday to her everyone!). I have also found the love of Hexic on the 360. Puzzling fun! Mainly I have been hanging out at the Blogger Help Group and have posted over 1000 messages in the last month, assisting people with chaging their Blogger template and other general help. The people who frequent there usually need help doing basic HTML stuff like adding images to their header or sidebar etc - so I have something planned (in my head) to help them. The Blogger staff do not go there as far as we know - so maybe i'll get a "Blogger MVP" soon or something.... Anyway... I will do New York "Part 2" soon. I promise...

Neiw Yoirk Repoit Part 1

Well... i have to say that our time in New York was excellent! The hotel was in a great location (East 30th Street) for walking to most of the stuff we wanted to see. My legs and lower back were killing me by the end of the week as we had walked so far! I am only usually used to walking from my house to the car and from the car to the office desk. Not really - but not far off the truth! New York is a really amazing place! Although the residents are a total ethnic/social mix, the roads are filled with cheeky honking yellow taxi's and the density of the buildings, businesses and shops is so intense, it all just "works"! It's quite funny to see people skateboarding to work or rollerblading down the street backwards during the rush hour. Not funny as in "har har, look at that twat" but funny as in that it's just accepted and seems normal! Even to me, who had only been there a few days. I read before I went that New York has a "can do" attitude and you realise what that means when you see the people just going about their business, but in their own unique way, with no hassle or prejudice from anyone! New York is definitely the iPod capital of the world. I counted more "white phones" per block than anywhere I have been before. People also seem ok about getting out their "technology" in public, be it iPods, CellPhones, Laptops or PDAs. I always feel quite reserved and nervous about using my laptop on a train for example but I lost count of the number of people using their Apple Powerbooks in coffee shops whist listening to their iPods or sitting outside in public parks using the free Google wifi to MSN video chat. I even saw what I thought was a tramp who was checking the bins for rubbish only then to pull out his Hipster phone/pda and sit down to do some typing! Weird! The whole atmosphere was great and we felt safe and welcomed where ever we went. I was going to do a big write up here on each day we were there, but it would take too long. In the next part of my report I will highlight the highlights and dish the dirt on the tourist attractions.

How do we reboot this thing?

I'm off to New York early in the morning! Hopefully not to get this bird's eye view! Then again... anything for some more brownie points at work! If I get a chance to post whilst wolfing down a giant pretzel, skinny mocha latte and eggs over easy, I will. See ya in a week!

iPod Hi-fi

Well.. It was'nt quite as I predicted the Apple iPod "Boombox" would be like. But it's not too bad. Quite minimalistic and low tech, but for £249, I would want it to make my cups of tea for me too! "iPod Hi-Fi Teasmade" anyone? EDIT: Someone's already got their hands on one and has posted shots of it being "un-boxed" on their Flickr page. It looks really big! Technorati Tags: ipod, apple, hi-fi, boombox, steve jobs

Escape!

Just time to tell you that I got my new passport and managed to escape "Inbred Mutant City" (Peterborough) without any injury or mental illness. When you have four hours to kill in a shopping center, you get to see what the "real" inhabitants of the locallity are like. Overbiting slobs who got pregnant at 15 to the local "future mental care order" kid with the wet grin, no school exam passes and slight bum fluff moustache. I was only glad that my iPod and tin foil hat was there to shield my brain from the "mongoloid transmitter" cunningly hidden in the area of Floor 4 of the multi-story car park. Then again, it could have been my lack of sleep, anxiety and the sudden influx of "Grande Mocha's" that skewed my view of things there.

Typical me!

I was just preparing things for our New York trip in a weeks time and, as usual, somethings wrong. My 10 year passport expired in October last year! FUCK! I called the helpline I have an appointment for the £96.50 "1 day fast-track service" at Peterborough Passport office next week. I have to be there at 0830 and then kill 4 hours waiting for them to make the passport for me. And the local Post Office's passport photo machine is "out of order" too, so I have got to go to the main shopping center later to get them done! Last time I used the passport, to go to St Lucia, 10 years ago, I had to do the same then too! What a twat!

MC Hammer Blog

MC Hammer Blog No, no, no! This was not why blogging was invented! Gah! ps. Turn your sound off... crap MIDI file alert!

Hello...?

Next time you ring me.... you might get something you don't expect! Darth Vader Soundboard Monty Python and the Holy Grail Soundboard Borat Soundboard Bender Soundboard All via DevilDucky

NYC Tba!

So, in just under one months time, I will have returned from a weeks holiday in New York! Does anyone have any advice for me before I travel?

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

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

Postal

Fuck this shit... I'm goin' killing!

Joke of the day

Bruce walks into his bedroom with a sheep under his arm and says... "Darling, this is the pig I have sex with when you have a headache."

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

Bruce says: "I think you'll find I wasn't talking to you.

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

MCE on XP on 360

After recently getting my Xbox360, I decided to re-format my desktop PC and install a copy of Windows XP Media Centre Edition so that I could start streaming movies to the new console. After all, my old Xbox (which is still sitting quite comfortably next to my 360 under the TV) was mainly used as a Media Centre, so I did'nt want to give up that functionality when I upgraded. I attempted to get this working the other day but failed miserably. The 360 would not see the XPMCE machine on the network at all! I did some further reading yesterday over at the XboxScene forums and ran through all the updates from the M$ WindowsUpdate site last night. I thought I had the latest version installed already - but apparently not. An interesting side note is that once you have gone to the M$ WindowsUpdate site and it's Validation Check thing reports that your copy of XP is dodgy, you can go to Tools > Internet Options > Programs > Manage Add-ons and set the Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool to "disabled" and it works after that! How fucked up is that? Well... fucked up in a good way. I did'nt get a chance to test it further until this morning after the kids and wife had left for school - and after a little tinkering with the ZoneAlarm firewall (ie disabling the fecker) the PC reported that a new Xbox360 was detected and I was prompted to download another extra bit of software and enter a validation key that the 360 had given me. AND THEN IT WORKED!!!!! I nearly pissed my pants with joy! So many people have had issues with getting the two connected. I don't believe in god - but he was on my side today! I had already converted a DivX video to the WMV format that the 360 likes using the Videora Xbox360 Converter and it worked a treat! The only problem is that the file literally doubled in size to just over 1.6gb! There is a way of converting movies from DivX to WMV on the fly, detailled over here but it looks a little complicated really. Update: Just found out about this application too which was written by the original Xbox Media Centre programmers. And he's from Milton Keynes too! Technorati Tags: XP, XP media centre edition, mce, xbox, xbox 360, videora, stream, zonealarm, genuine advantage, WMV, DIVX

What's missing from gMail?

Google's GMail webmail interface has now become my mail application of choice. I have had several (over 10) email addresses over the years with various ISPs and a gaggle of WebMail sites but have now settled for GMail as my primary mail address and mail application. All the others are either full of spam, have closed down or I no longer remember the password. I have been using GMail for nearly a year and a half now and am still very impressed with it. But what's missing from GMail? 1. The ability to use a GMail calendar would be excellent. As my wife will attest, my memory for personal stuff is total crap! I can remember an IP Address of an old obscure decomissioned NT3.51 server at work, but I am not sure when my Mother and Father's birthdays are! Or even how old they are! If I could create a Calendar in GMail and (have my Wife) update it, share it with others, tag or categorise the entries then that would be cool. There are rumors that a Google Calendar is somewhere on their (immense) roadmap - but for now I will have to rely on someone else to organise my life for me. I have recently found out about the 30Boxes calendar which looks nice. Would be great if it was in my GMail account though. It is still in Beta and does not get properly "born" until the 3rd of Feb. 2. Online storage. I already use my GMail account to store useful information that I need access to on a fairly regular basis. I compose a message, enter the information and then save the message as a draft. The information is then easily searchable and available to be copied or forwarded on to others if need be. I use drafts to keep a copy of:

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

It might be nice to be able to handle this information in a better way. Maybe an "Online Documents" or "Notepad" section would be useful. I came across Writely, the excellent Web2.0 based Word Processor which would be a good addition to GMail. You can even make posts to your blog from there too! I also use the Draft facility to move documents from one PC to another. For example, it's quicker for me to upload a file to a draft to take from home to work (to print on the expensive color laser) than to get my USB2 Hard Disk out of my bag each time. 3. Color tagged messages. Gmail allows you to create "labels" for messages, which can also be usefull for tagging messages you need to find easily. This can be done by clicking the label on the sidebar which automatically shows the messages tagged as such. You can also "star" messages to make them stand out too. A little "gay" though methinks! What I want is to be able to tag messages with colors. It's not really for anything amazing - it would just be nice to be able to do so. 4. Incorprate Google Reader. I currently use Bloglines to manage and read my RSS subscriptions, but I am sure Google Reader would get more interest from me if I could view the RSS feeds properly within my GMail. I know that GMail has recently added that little "Web Clips" thing along the top - but for the RSS hungry types like me, it's totally useless and just gets in the way. All Google need to do is improve the interface of the Google Reader and allow it to be displayed inside the GMail window somehow and all will be well. At the moment, the nice scrolling interface on the Google Reader just takes up too much space and I can't easily see the feeds I want to get to. Bloglines have got it right in my opinion. Quick and simple. 5. Online Favorites. I have just started using Del.icio.us to store my online favorites and findings but if i could drop those into GMail too that would be cool. Import my Firefox bookmarks or IE favorites and off I would go! I could then subscribe to them in firefox as a "live bookmark" and have them all updated and available where ever I went. I realise that Using Del.icio.us you can do all this (and more) and it looks very powerful. The Import function is offline at the moment though so I will have to test that later. 6. Interface. The GMail interface is good, fast and responsive on all the machines that I use it on. This is where services like Hotmail have gone down in my opinion - too much clutter and fancy crap on the screen just makes it too slow to use. Keeping it simple keeps me sweet! To incorporate all the extra features I have mentioned above, Google could add some sort of tabbed interface along the top or bottom of the GMail screen. Not too much to ask though is it? I'm sure all this is pontificating is falling on deaf ears though... Hello? Is there anybody in there? Technorati Tags: gmail, googlemail, google, webmail, 30boxes, calendar, bloglines, del.icio.us, writely, hotmail, firefox, live bookmarks

Torrent Sites

Back in the day, this blog used to be all about Torrents and warez and stuff like that - so in honour of my old ways, here's a link to the mostest biggerest list of torrent sites I have ever seen! All mixed down into categories too! Thankyou Web of Knowledge

I'm suing Apple!

As reported in a few places including The Register, a Louisiana man is suing Apple for making the iPod too loud and damaging his hearing. John Kiel Patterson was unavailable to comment. Presumably because all he could hear when we rang to talk to him was the "Brain Morse Code Bleep-Trance Remix" brought on by his adverse Tinitus. I have decided to sue Apple too. For somehow smuggling "SugarBabes" and "Beyonce" into my iTunes and therefore into my iPod and therefore into my brain where they go round and round and round until I can't sleep, I can't work and I can't stand NO MORE! Gits!

Pile Up City

I managed to get in some racing last night on Project Gotham 3. I'm still total crap - but am getting better. I actually finished 2 races rather than getting timed out and my powerslides are getting more... er... "powerier" too. I am slowly working out how to use the handbrake button at last. I'm sure most players don't use the break at all in favour of the handbrake, as I hardly ever see any red lights as they approach a corner. Playing on XBox Live is quite funny though, listening to the jovial banter in the lobby area which then turns to "you mutha-fucka! Piss off and practice you twat!" in a variety of languages as the cars pile up at the first corner. People seem to forget it's a game and get very, very intense about it. I also played a few "Team Slayer" and "Rumble Armory" games on Halo2. I started off good on the RA games I played, coming 2nd or 3rd but on the TS games I was always on the losing team. Or rather, the losing team always had me on their side. The people playing on Halo2 seem to be alot friendlier and I got invited to a Party Game by someone too. Great fun . But a shame it does'nt update my GamerCard to say i've been playing Halo2 though... never mind. Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox live, xbox 360, halo2, halo, PGR3, Project Gotham Racing, powerslide

Tagged

Been tagged by mmChronic over at NewLinks with this meme. Not sure I should be doing these anymore really... are'nt these things for silly girl bloggers who bitch about their friends or Newbie Bloggers? Anyway - here goes... Four Jobs I've had:

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

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over:

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

Four Places I have Lived:

• London - E17
• Milton Keynes - MFK
• Does "The Internet" count?
• The list endeth here...

Four TV Shows I Would Love to Watch:

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

Four Places I have been on Vacation:

• St Lucia
• Gran Canaria
• France
• Dublin

Four Websites You Visit Daily:

• BlogLines
• BBC News
• Gmail
• Google

Four of My Favorite Foods:

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

Four Places I would Rather Be:

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

Four Albums I Cannot Live Without:

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

Four People to Tag:

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

WIP

Just been farting around with my template again over at my TaoTest blog. After seeing the cute and excellent site design over at OrderedList I decided to take mine to a "low tech, single post" level. In order to do this effectively I would have to limit the size of the inital view of the latest posting to a few lines and then introduce a "Read More" item at the bottom for people to load the full thing up. I did a search for Blogger Hacks and found this posting by Nerdier than thou! on how to create such a thing. The only issue I can see with this is that you have to insert some CSS code into your post to get it to work correctly - which I don't want to do. I just want to make a posting and have the first portion of it displayed automatically. So... Off to JavaScript land I went and came up with something that actually works! Here's the code bit i stuck in my template: <mainorarchivepage> <script type="text/javascript"> var str_length=400; str = '<$BlogItemBody$>'; last_dot = str.indexOf('.',str_length); document.write(str.substring(0,last_dot + 1)); </script> <br><a href="<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>">Read more!</a> </mainorarchivepage> <itempage> <$BlogItemBody$> </itempage> The blog post is written into the variable str and then the post is scanned for the next full stop after the number of characters specified in the str_length variable. To show more content, increase the value of str_length. The post is then re-written using the document.write command as far as that full stop character to allow for proper sentences to be displayed rather than being cut off in mid flow. The JavaScript is between the <mainorarchivepage> tags to allow it to be shown on the front page. A normal <$BlogItemBody$> tag is shown between the <itempage> tags to allow it to be displayed in full when you click the "Read More!" link. This is still a Work In Progress - so please don't take it as gospel - but I think it works ok. Not sure how it will work with pictures though. Rather than messing with CSS code, I was thinking of putting some keywords into the text such as !start! and !end! to signify the start and end of the posting you want to be displayed before the "Read More!" link. That should be pretty easy for JavaScript to sense and strip them out, and alot easier than going into the HTML code when posting.

360 Enabled

I have now got my Xbox360 and "w00t!" - what a belter it is. I unpacked the console when I got home, connected it to the net, signed into XboxLIVE and took out my free 1 month gold trial account. The plan was to show the kids the awesome power of the new console before they went to bed (as they seemed more excited than I was). This "great unveiling" did not take place though as it clashed with the start of Eastenders and I was forced to send them to bed "empty eyed". During the next four hours of TV that my wife watches on a Thursday night (Eastenders, 10 Years Younger, Celebrity Big Brother and ER) I dipped in and out of LIVE during the ad-breaks to download demos of FIFA 2006 RTWC, Fight Night 3, Fully Loaded, NBA Live and Quake 4. Plus a few videos, Live Arcade games and stuff like that. I am really impressed with the content on there that is free. More to come I expect - and hopefully more gamercard pictures too that I don't have to pay for! Come 11pm, the wife went to bed and I settled down with a fresh cuppa, poised to beat hell out of a computer generated assailant on Fight Night 3. And wow! The graphics were amazing! So realistic and crisp and clean. Forget buying a HDTV! The image was perfect! The gameplay is a little sluggish - but seeing the ripples on the guys face when you upper-cut him to the canvas is excellent. Jolly good fisty-cuff fun! I then moved onto play Fully Loaded which is a racing game with guns, missiles and other assorted weapons. The console version of the old Car Wars game I used to play years ago. Again, the graphics impressed but the game play was limited (although this is a demo). Race and fire, jump, crash etc. Very good fun and probably best played on LIVE against some real opponents I would expect. Die muthafunker! Third down was Quake 4 which initially looked very "PC Graphics" during the intro sequence. When the real game started though I was impressed and reminded of Doom4. Looks very very good. I wonder if this was a straight port from the PC version with not much tweaking? I was expecting a first person shooter deathmatch though - maybe that was on one of the other menu options. FIFA 2006 RTWC is just fucking amazing. As you may have read in my previous posts I have recently got really into playing FIFA 2006 on my (old) Xbox and usually play every day. So when I saw how detailled the graphics, character modelling and environment was... well... I just kept on saying "oh my god! - there is grass! They rendered grass!!". This is definitely my next purchase and have already been investigating the prices on eBay in readiness for my Valentines present. I was totally blown away by this title. The demo is only one half though - Brazil vs France. And the annoying thing is that you have to re-load the whole demo to play again! Grrr! Tossers! I then played Project Gotham 3 - buying a white Skyline as my first car and completing a few races and goals. I also played one online game but got my ass well and truly kicked! I am well gonna have to "up my game" on this title. Definitely one to put some time into. As with the other games, the graphics are so smooth and detailled. Very very good. Something that I have been waiting for since I used to play REVS on my BBC Micro back in the 80s. So, to sum up - the console is everything that I was expecting and a whole load more. I am totally blown away by the graphics and do not regret buying one at all now! No anti-climax! WOW! It must be a first for me. Before I used one I was slightly sceptical about the wireless controller and had a feeling that I would play with the cable attached - but now... no way! Its a really nice controller. The only thing missing was the IR Remote which they have now excluded from the Premium pack. Well. I am not too fussed about that really. Unless the DivX streaming from my PC to the 360 can be sorted properly - the old Xbox will be the media player for now. The fan in the console is quite noisy though and when you are playing from a DVD rather than the hard disk - it's even worse! Then again, it was 1am and the house was deathly quiet. Whats next? Dead Or Alive 3, more FIFA, getting XP Media Center Edition onto my PC and getting back into online gaming. I have also got a disk with the Beta of Final Fantasy 8 to load on (better take a USB keyboard home too as I hear the registration stuff is immense) and a copy of the Xbox360 retailler demo disk with playable levels of King Kong and Call Of Duty 2 on. Oh - and I also have my retail copy of Halo2 to play too. Deathmatch fun - here we come. Here's my gamercard.. come say hello! Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox live, xbox 360, taoski, fifa, fight night, pgr, project gotham, revs, carwars, quake 4, w00t!

Think again...

I had this great idea. I would install Apache and Wordpress locally, following the instructions over here and publish a work intranet blog thing to help us feed out information to the members of our (small) section. I have recently been fiddling with this setup on my machine at home and if you are lucky, you might even find my test Wordpress blog lurking over at http://taoski.blogdns.com - but only if my firewall lets you in, the Apache stuff is running and the kids are not playing Backyardigans games on the web. It works pretty well - especially for testing out Wordpress - which is way, way, way more advanced than Blogger and looks pretty cool. I still intend to migrate to Wordpress and my own domain at some point - but as you can guess from my previous post, cash and my spare time might be a little tight! Anyway. I get the site set up at work and its all working but Apache just keeps on crashing! Crashing when I attempt to upload a file during a post, crashing when I try to post a test comment and crashing when I move the mouse too fast after drinking too much coffee. I'm on the late shift tonight - so I might have time to play with it a little more. Ahhh... the joys of a technical job... Don't you just love it? It used to be all "exciting", "innovative" and "rewarding" but now it's just "boring", "samey" and "mundane". I wish I had used my A-Level art and A-Level Graphics Design for something rather than just creating a pile of quickly deteriorating artwork under my bed or making the odd kiddies party invitation on MS Publisher. A nice design job like DriverChris does would be nice.... 09:50: Turn up to work with expensive "Michael Caine" glasses, expensive sharp suit and expensive coffee in hand. 10:30: Start "design" work after reading The Guardian and sending emails to your "pretend mates" on your Blackberry. 12:00: Off to the Wine Bar for lunch with "Fifi and Charles" from "The agency". 13:30: Back to work to sketch out that idea that came to you as you "piss-chased" some chewing gum round the urinal in the wine bar. 13:40: Get distracted for a while by minimising the windows on your Mac to "the dock" and back again. You forget the idea you had. Time to have a power-nap. 14:30: Play with your Mac a bit more and read some websites about design and Audi cars. 15:00: Team meeting in the office. See who's got the brightest pink shirt and discuss the future of "frameless fixed-width inline CSS templates" for your customer portfolio. 15:50: Return to the desk and fiddle with Illustrator/Photoshop/Quark until the boss goes home. 17:00: Off home on the tube with your iPod, another expensive coffee and copy of Stuff magazine. 18:00: Get home to your lonely flat. Cry in your Findus "sad and lonely microwave meal for one". Go bed early after watching Trinnie and Susannah, getting tipsy on sparking white wine and being all confused over your sexual preferences.... Is the grass greener? Who knows? I won't. I am doomed to be stuck at this desk whilst a telephone headset burns a ridge into my skull, I fix the same faults I resolved 4 years ago and the world passes me by. EDIT: Just found this alternative program for running Apache and MySql locally to run Wordpress: WampServer Technorati Tags: apache, wordpress, xampp, blogger, intranet, work, design, ipod, audi, art

It's not what you know...

During another severe beating at FIFA2006 this lunchtime I also learnt that my XBox360 would be in my sweaty hands tomorrow. A Premium bundle with Project Gotham Racing too. Looks like my online gaming will be taking off again! But as usual, in total Taoski fashion - "Anti-climax... here we come". I was almost on the verge of telling the bloke to not bother getting me one after all - but it's too late now. I will have to seek out a version of Windows XP Media Centre too then I suppose! Technorati Tags: xbox 360, microsoft, xbox, anti climax, project gotham, halo, windows media centre

Infamy!

Sometimes, I do know what i'm talking about. Plus, hello to my two new readers, Wendy and Darren who popped round tonight for drinks and nibbles. We did'nt mention the wife swapping stuff yet... break em' in gently! ps.. i'm joking!

Shrinky Links

Just a collection of random links from my recent surfing... Shrinkydinks? Still going strong! A huge list of albums to download. Some nice wallpapers here e-books (site in russian) PayPal Sucks! - apparently! ZCult FM - a comic scans torrent site!

Nuff said

Dr Wicket will see you now

I was booked for what I thought would be an appointment for a heart echo scan at the local hospital yesterday. I turned up and was ushered into a room to see an ewok sitting at a desk, pretending to be a doctor. I had seen him once before when I was admitted the night I discovered I might have a heart condition and at the time, my wife and I both thought "Ewok!". It turns out that I was in fact turning up for a consultation with the doctor to examine the results of the 24 hour tape monitor I wore and the results of the Echo Scan too. But I had not had the scan yet..... ah! Problem. He called the Cardiology section and checked. Yes, they should have booked me an appointment and I should have had the scan by now - but they fucked up and forgot. There is a 5 month waiting list for the scan - so I can expect to go for this sometime in May and a return visit to see my furry Ewok friend in mid-July. Piss. The results of the tape monitor were good and show no cause for concern - at all, so I should be "encouraged" by this and I am safe to start going to the Gym again. He also told me that I need to be having daily, dirty sex as part of my rehabilitation. So wifey, if you are reading this..... Technorati Tags: heart, cardiology, echo scan, doctor, star wars, ewok, gym