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..