Funny old game

This afternoon I will be Irish and proud of it. This rare occurrence happens only 5 days a year when it's Ireland versus England, Wales, Scotland, France and Italy. Rugby, the Six Nations, fantastic. They say sport should have no political boundaries and while that is just a pipe dream there are sports and occasions that can unify divided countries. There will be thousands of fans streaming across the border from Norn Iron today to support Ireland in a way that politically would be impossible.

Football doesn't have this effect. During Norn Iron's glory years 1980-1986 containing 2 World Cup Finals and 2 British Championships there was little or no support from fans in the Republic of Ireland. Likewise when Jack Charlton took Ireland to 2 World Cup Finals there wasn't the same level of support from fans in Norn Iron. That's just the way it is, but Rugby, that's different. Players from the 4 provinces are united as a team which this year are better than we've seen since the might of Willie John McBride, Mike Gibson and Fergus Slattery dominated the Lions tours.

It will be a tough match and to be honest I think Ireland will struggle to win the Championship as Wales have already done the business against both the English and the French. Ireland's remaining games are today at home to England, home to France and finally away to Wales. If we can beat England and France then we're set for a fantastic finale. Come on Ireland!

Category:

• Sport
• Rugby
• Ireland
• Northern+Ireland

Bonnie Update 4

Bonnie had another trip to the vets on Friday and unfortunately the news wasn't good. It looks like his tail cannot be saved. Very disappointing. He's booked in for the operation on Monday morning and we should get him home in the afternoon (minus the tail).

His leg has healed brilliantly and the injury to his tail is probably holding back his recovery. He walks without a limp and is getting very frustrated and not being allowed out. Once the operation is complete and started to heal he'll be back to his old self.

Category:

• Personal
• Pets

Every little helps

With some Birthday money burning a hole in my wallet, last weeks announcement on the new pricing and refresh of the iPod range couldn't have come at a better time. I had planned to buy the 512Mb Shuffle but the reduction of the 4Gb iPod mini to £139 caught my eye, along with the much improved battery life and the personalised laser engraving. Still too expensive so off I went to see what discount I could get from the Apple Education Store. The price quoted was now £128.08, still too expensive. Next I tried a website which list discount codes for various online stores. Result, a code for a discount of £8.00, which when added to my order brought the total down to £118.62 including VAT and free delivery, nice. So I've ordered a second generation, silver 4Gb iPod mini with personal engraving.

Flushed with the success of getting over £20 in discount the next target was the weekly shopping. The same website listed some e-voucher codes for Tesco the best of which gave £15 off a grocery shop of over £50, no problem. As they say, "Every little helps". Quite.

Category:

• Apple
• iPod
• Gadget

Essential Albums 2

A not unexpected joyful side effect of ripping my entire CD collection has been the rediscovery of some immense music. Case in point was the ripping of Talk Talk's masterpiece, Spirit of Eden. I fell in love with this album from the moment of the first listen back in 1988. I'll not attempt to write a review of it just buy it.

It really needs the best Hi-Fi components you can throw at it, and a peaceful, quiet period set aside to enjoy. You will not be disappointed.

Essential Albums 1

Category:

• Music

The Apprentice Week 2

Another week of The Apprentice, another disastrous showing for the team that is a slow motion car accident, the women. They really are a complete bunch of back stabbing, whining, clueless, witches. One of the boys commented on how much make-up they wore while another came back almost immediately with the fact that they needed to. Hmmm, sexism in the workplace? A bit, yes. Completely true, yes. I expect there will be howls of outrage from business women about their portrayal but the fact is none of the women are showing the slightest sense of business acumen right down to the basics of dress sense. If you want to be taken seriously in business then it's dark business suits and white blouses. Nothing else will do. Some of the women looked like a complete dog's dinner. Sort it out.

Once again the task completely overwhelmed the girls. They had 2 days to create an idea for a new toy, prototype it and then make the sales pitch to professional toy designers. They were abysmal. Making a fundamental error they came up with 2 ideas and couldn't decide between them so doubled the workload and halved the manpower by developing both in parallel and then decided on their favourite 20 minutes before the vital presentation. It turns out the team leader chose her favourite one of the two possibilities over the vote of the team. Not surprisingly she got the sack.

Sir Alan Sugar is so obviously worried by their performances this far that he has decided to mix the teams for next weeks task. Once again the trailer for the show showed the head witch, Saria, causing trouble and tory boy Matthew (who will get a slap before he's sacked) being the complete chinless wonder I nailed him to be within the first 2 minutes of last week's opener. Tune in next Wednesday 9pm BBC2.

Category:

• TV

Apple Sauce?

Fancy a Mac mini? Want a little bit of extra discount? Go on you know you do. Apple offer a 6.25% discount for those in or involved in Higher Education. Apparently they don't check the status of this involvement and if they did (and you can't prove your claim) they'd just cancel your order. Get the basic Mac mini for £319 delivered a saving of £20 and similar savings for those essential upgrades. Walk, don't run to the Apple Education Store.

Category:

• Apple

Bonnie Update 3

The improvement in Bonnie's condition has been dramatic in the past couple of days. The vet is a lot happier about the condition of his tail and is unlikely to have to do anything to it. Still looks a bit of a mess but he is happily twitching and cleaning it.

His leg has healed brilliantly so much so he now walks without any noticeable limp and has started to jump up on to things (still pretty weak though so we need to be careful). He keeps throwing glances at the cat flap in the back door but it will be a couple more weeks before we let him venture outside.

The picture is actually of Bonnie's brother, Clyde (blue collar), but we didn't want him feeling left out so here he is.

Category:

• Personal
• Pets

Come On!

Category:

• Sport
• Football
• Rangers

Long and Winding Road

I've just started the immense task of ripping every CD in my and Lesley's collection, comprising 200 or so discs. I'm using Apple's iTunes to do the ripping to 192kbps MP3 but would have preferred to use Microsoft's MediaPlayer 10 to rip to the WMA file format but I'm planning on purchasing an Apple 512Mb Shuffle in the near future which doesn't support MediaPlayer or the WMA format.

Long term plan is to have a computer dedicated to delivering music to any part of the house that requests it via something like the gorgeous units from Roku, woof. Multiroom hi-fi has long been a dream of mine and the technology is now beginning to make this an affordable reality.

First CD to be ripped? Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, naturally. According to the sticker on the case (I once catalogued all my music purchases in this way) it was the first CD I ever bought and the date was 23rd May 1987.

Category:

• Apple
• iTunes
• MP3

Missing the point

The stupidity of people sometimes beggars belief. The hunting set are up in arms about their "tradition" being taken away from them. They drone on and on about their rights, their way of life, the jobs that will be lost the animals that will have to be destroyed etc. They seem to think it's those Labour government oiks who are picking on them. It's not, the vast majority of the people in this country are appalled by hunting and want to see it banned. If foxes are a problem then send a couple of trained game keepers out to shoot them, but their arguments always contradict each other. "Ah", they say "we only kill a fox 1 out of 3 meets". Then your pest control is extremely inefficient and should be modernised, twats.

Tradition and livelihood is no protection, ask the miners and the shipbuilders and the steel men and the automotive workers and so on (but you cant, 'cause they've all gone). Entire towns were destroyed by the bitch thatcher and her insane desire to turn Britain into a sandwich making and shoe-shine business paradise. For once the will of the people has been implemented and the Government, the Police and the Courts must stand strong against those who will turn this into a crusade. How long before fascist tory howard declares he will overturn the ban on hunting if elected?

Category:

• Personal
• Politics

The Apprentice Week 1

Already loving the BBC version of the American hit show, The Apprentice. The difference between the glitzy, young, fit, attractive contestants of Donald Trump's programme and the rag bag collection of Sir Alan Sugar's British show is startling. It looks like Sugar's Corporate HQ is in a Butcher's freezer.

Anyway, great opening first hour, I already hate all of them. They're the typical bunch of useless wankers who've never created anything in their lives, all talk and no actual work. The women are a particularly nasty bunch. They've got such massive chips on their shoulders that they're almost certain to fail regularly.

The task this week was to buy £500 worth of flowers and see who could make the biggest profit selling on the streets of London. The men won by a mile. The women did a lot of talking and havering about ribbons while the guys bought the flowers and got out there selling. One "expert" saleswoman slashed her prices to sell at a loss after only 2 hours! Stupid cow, how she never got fired is beyond me. As Sugar put it "I could sell £10 notes for £9 all day long, no trouble at all". Quite.

The person I most hate? The 6'9" tory boy (Matthew) who sold exactly nothing, "this is my Manor" he declared, twat. Tune in next Wednesday 9pm BBC2.

Category:

• TV

Life Begins

So, whether you're a "glass half full" or "glass half empty" type, either way you look at it I'm half dead.

Of course 40 is the new 30 if you believe the experts but what do they know? My 30th Birthday was an occasion still talked about in revered, hushed whispers by those who were there and are still alive to remember. I cant begin to comprehend how much drink we all had but it was worth it. By comparison, my 40th was just like any other day apart from the uncontrollable sobbing (which normally abates by mid-morning but lasted all day in this case). To be honest I was never really into Birthdays and the double whammy of the big 4 0 with the continued concern for Bonnie really put the whole thing to bed.

Lesley got me a rather spiffing Web-Cam which tracks you around the room with as much evil intent as is possible from a piece of electronics. My Mum sent over a DVD containing old "Cine" film from my younger days. Lesley almost (she may actually have) pissed herself at the sight of me as a toddler and then progressing through my grey socks and "Jesus" sandals phase (decade?). It was the 70s is all I can say in mitigation. Well worth seeing and I'm sure everyone who crosses our door for the next 10 years will get to see it. One comment of note from Lesley was "you are actually big boned then" when faced with moving images of my chubby face/arse at no more than 18 months old. Where did it all go wrong?

Category:

• Personal

Bonnie Update 2

Bonnie has been back and forth to the vets for the past couple of weeks. His broken leg seems to be healing well and will hopefully be allowed a bit more freedom around the house by next week.

His tail however is causing concern and there is now a possibility that he may lose it. This is very disappointing as it has become obvious that the problem has escalated because the vet failed to identify the injury when he was originally brought in. Considering he was at the vets for 6 days before and after his operation I can only feel anger at the vet for missing this. I am not concerned about the cost of any further operation (though I will challenge any invoice that they may try to bill me for) but the stress and pain Bonnie will have to suffer due to the vets negligence. Strong words, but I am very angry about this.

Hopefully the tail will recover and the operation will not be necessary so until we know either way, fingers crossed.

Category:

• Personal
• Pets

Happy Birthday to me

I am 40! I'll write more when I've stopped crying. The picture? That's twilight that is, as in "The Twilight Years" which I've just entered.

Category:

• Personal

ME Awareness Week

According to a BBC mini site it is ME Awareness Week between 9-15 May. Nope, I haven't a clue what it means either, maybe you're supposed to buy a Mac mini for someone you know who suffers from ME and surprise them with it just to see their little face light up, eh? Bet ya that would help ease the pain. Just a suggestion. I wonder if they're planning a special "ME" storyline in Eastenders... "Hello Princess, I've got M.E., me." BAFTA or what?

The site has some interesting facts like 1 in 250 people in the UK will suffer from ME (and I thought I was special). Worth a look to get an idea of the illness.

Category:

• Health
• ME
• CFS
• Research

Bonnie Update

Bonnie has been back at the vets today as Lesley noticed his tail was swollen and filled with blood. We've kept him in his large cage as per the advice of the vet and only take him out to clean his cage and give him a quick cuddle.

We had noticed that he had a swollen lip and appeared to be losing his hair there but we thought it was probably because of all the licking and cleaning he was doing. The vet is at a loss to explain what has caused this latest problem. He mentioned it could be an allergic reaction to the medication Bonnie received after his operation, or a skin problem or a small wound in his tail which went unnoticed which has flared up due to Bonnie licking it. All very worrying. He got a dose of antibiotics and the vet will have a further look when Bonnie's back to have the stitches removed from his leg on Friday afternoon.

Bonnie seems happy enough in himself but the frustration of being confined to the cage is beginning to show. Hopefully he'll be allowed a bit more freedom after Friday. All this worry is taking it's toll on me and Lesley with Lesley in a particularly bad mood most of the time. Things, I hope, can only get better.

Category:

• Personal
• Pets

Health Update 33

As if by magic the hospital called today and said they have arranged an appointment for me to see a liver specialist on the 12th March (a Saturday!??!). I suppose I should be grateful that they've finally got around to seeing me considering that will be 8 months from the date my Doctor first referred me to the specialist. Fingers crossed I live that long.

Category:

• Health
• Liver
• Blood

Google Adsense

Just added Google's Adsense program to this site as a little experiment to see how it all works. Don't be alarmed, I haven't sold out (yet). There are various ways of generating cash from websites and as I have a good idea for a commercial site I thought I'd try a few of them out. The thing I like about Google's Adsense is that;

1. They're text adverts. I hate all that flashing banner nonsense.
2. Context sensitivity. The advert shown should be relevant to the subject matter of the page or site.
3. Geographically aware. Someone from a US .com domain should be shown adverts relating to the US market.

So this is just to get the hang of how things work, how much control I have over the style and display and how the traffic reporting is handled. "But where are they?" I hear you cry. Well, I also hate adverts on the front page of a site so you will only see them if you click on the link to make a comment.

Category:

• Google
• Adsense

What the...?

Reports suggest that the average increase in Council Tax in Scotland will be twice that of inflation with Angus, where I live, topping the table (apart from the tory boy's Perth & Kinross) for the size of the increase. The final scores on the doors will be announced by Thursday.

How can a rural area like Angus justify such a huge increase? Admittedly Angus has one of the lower Council Tax rates in Scotland but this smacks of keeping up with the "McJones" rather than real expenditure needs. I blame... wait for it... the bitch thatcher. Just wait till the political scum come greasing round my way for some votes in the coming elections.

Category:

• Politics

Exeem Update

I've been using Exeem, the new Peer-to-Peer torrent program for a couple of weeks now. Generally the experience has been good. There are a few obvious bugs to be ironed out but the various functions of torrent listing, searching and transfers seem to work well. As originally reported it does install some adware, Cydoor, but I've not had any problems with it so far.

Category:

• Exeem

The Future

Finally got around to subscribing to Bloglines after months of meaning to but never quite doing it. Well known as a great way of searching, subscribing, publishing and sharing news feeds, blogs, and rich Web content. Bloglines will automatically notify you of new content on your favourite sites and generate a list for you to read that content without having to trawl through your bookmarked blogs and newsfeeds.

I'm currently designing a new web template from scratch which I hope to roll out on a number of existing and new projects in the near future. The basic template layout can bee seen here and a development blog relating to the design process can be found here (not much to be seen as I've broken the CSS). Demon's server seems very slow at the moment (it didn't used to be like this) so give it a few seconds before giving up. The template is nothing much to look at, at the moment, but the graphics have been designed to make changing the palette very easy. It's a traditional header/footer/2 column/ layout. Built from the ground up with fully layered and sliced photoshop file to aid customisation. At the moment there are no blog tags but I'll add those soon before starting the CSS of the blog content. The template as it stands is fully CSS but I've used a couple of tables to locate content (life's too short to try for tableless CSS). The template will be for a couple of "commercial" blogs I'm planning to start along with general web sites. The design philosophy I've gone for is clean and simple.

Category:

• Blog
• Template

Health Update 32

Haven't done one of these for about, what, 4 months. Considering this is what the thrust of the blog was supposed to be about that's pretty bad. So without further ado.

I've definitely been improving these past few months. I no longer need to sleep all weekend just to make it through the working week. I rarely fall asleep on the sofa at all now and feel much better for it. In bed much later or at least going to sleep much later by as much as an hour and since Christmas getting up an hour earlier each day through the week.

Still have the odd bad day though. Last week was particularly bad due to the stress of worrying about Bonnie. Stress is clearly identified as a complete no no for anyone with my condition. You must take action, drastic action if need be, to remove as much of the stress from your life as possible.

As I've been seeing improvement in my general condition I haven't pushed for the NHS to finally do some investigating. You might remember I was referred to a Liver Specialist about 8 months ago. Despite a letter saying I was on a 6 month waiting list (which is now much longer) nothing has been heard from the elusive Dr Dick. I think it is referred to as the Post Code lottery but I blame the bitch thatcher (but you already knew that).

In recent days I've added another supplement to my Multi Vitamins and Evening Primrose Oil. Cod Liver oil capsules to help ease the joint stiffness associated with M.E. Don't get me started on the cost of these capsules, daylight robbery.

Weight? Don't ask. Regular updates (at least every 3 months:-) to follow.

Category:

• Health
• ME
• CFS
• Liver
• Weight

8 Lives left

It's been a week but it's only now I can bring myself to write about what happened last Sunday morning. That's a picture of Bonnie, one half of the double act (both boys) that is "Bonnie and Clyde", in happier times. Look at his little face.

Lesley knew straight away in the morning that something was wrong as only one, not the usual two, cheery faces came to greet her when she got up. Bonnie lay on the sofa and hardly raised his head. There was a little blood on the sofa but no obvious sign of anything wrong. A few pitiful miaows and those big eyes looking up at us imploring that we help him will live with us for ever. Our little soldier was hurt, and hurt bad.

An emergency call to the vet and a trip to the surgery confirmed the worst. He'd been hit by a car. Thankfully he was able to get back home but the injury was bad. A broken rear leg in a very nasty area near a joint. The vet said they would X-Ray him on Monday and decide there and then whether to pin the break or amputate. So we had to leave him before we would hear what the vet was able to do the next day.

On Monday the X-Ray confirmed the seriousness of the break but they were confident they would be able to save the leg by operating and inserting a pin. As he's a young cat the signs are good that he will fully recover but he may suffer from arthritis in his later life. He'll also face another operation in a couple of years to remove the pin. He had to stay at the vets all week and was only allowed home on Friday afternoon. Both myself and Lesley have been absolutely miserable all week worrying about him. Clyde also, was not his usual self as he missed his brother after being separated for the first time in their lives.

Bonnie is confined to a large cage/box as he's not allowed any exercise until the pin has had a chance to set and the wound begins to heal. Another appointment next Friday to remove the stitches and hopefully he'll be allowed a bit more freedom (but it may be 6 weeks before he's allowed out as normal). The vets and nurses were all brilliant and cared for him 24 hours a day and kept us up to date with his condition and progress.

We both say that it could have been so much worse but there has been floods of tears shed all week worrying about him. Thankfully he managed to get home, imagine the distress if he never made it back, it doesn't bear thinking about. Anyway, I'll keep the blog up to date with his progress during the next few weeks.

Category:

• Personal
• Pets

How to Write

Great article by Stephen King (Yes, that Stephen King) which should be invaluable for most blog writers. Titled "Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully: in Ten Minutes" King gives some simple advice on how to be a successful writer. I don't think I've ever actually read any of King's books but I know he's extremely good at what he does so it should be worth 10 minutes of your time.

Category:

• Book

Got a web site?

Then you should read The Biggest Web Design Mistakes of 2004. Yes, it's all glaringly obvious but needs to be read by anyone who creates or even visits a web site. Top stuff. Luckily I don't need to follow any of that advice as I was born with a natural gift for clear design thinking and perfect writing style. No, really.

Category:

• Web
• Design

One to watch

I've been an avid reader of Gizmodo, the gadget weblog, since day one. Now it has another sister site, lifehacker, added to Nick Denton's ever increasing micro-publishing empire. Here's the blurb.

Lifehacker makes getting things done easy and fun. Delving deep into the technoweb, Lifehacker brings back simple and totally life-altering tips and tricks for managing your information and time. Editor Gina Trapani, coder and computer expert, saucily deciphers the latest in personal productivity technology and reveals the million ways hardware and software can improve our busy lives. At this wild moment in the development of human-oriented technology, Lifehacker is your own personal early adopter, here to guide you through the onslaught of the new. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved: Lifehacker can help.

Category:

• Blog