Centre Parcs

My last rant aside I really am having a lovely time here at Centre Parcs...

Plenty of stuff for me to actually enjoy as the week progresses - climbing, quad biking, feeding birds of prey, Ten Pin Bowling Ball shooting with a fuckoff sawed shotgun... the list is endless :)

Ten Pin Bowling

I fucking hate Ten Pin Bowling, I'd rather take a cheese grater to my nutsack than play it... there is simply no user satisfaction from it. The goddam ball, regardless of what you try to do with it goes off on it's own, and when you do get the damned thing to go where it wants the sodding pins it hits just seem to fall over in a random order!!

Fucking Ten Pin Bowling, FUCK OFF!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone in the web 2.0isphere :)

I've spent the past few days practically bedridden from a nasty stomach bug but I'm sufficiently well enough to get down with the festivities now, so come on Champagne w00t!!!

The movie imdustry is running out of bad guys?

This article explains that movie studios choices for nationalities portrayed as the bad guys are becoming somewhat thin on the ground...

Well us English have been bad guys in movies for as long as I can remember and there's never been a national outcry about it, we simply don't give a shit.

Some of these countries need to put their toys back in their prams and man up, it's fiction ffs!

FIFA - Tossers

Apparently FIFA are tightening their rules for the World Cup host bidding process...

Sounds great but ultimately it will still involve cash back handers, gold watches and the odd blow job...

FIFA executives - bunch of crusty old suites who only recognise the smell of money.

Taming an Ocelot

After a considerable amount of time exploring in my new Minecraft world (whilst taking a break from all the mining and building I've been doing over the past few days) I came across an Ocelot. According to the game bumf you have to get them to come to you (no sudden moves or they run off) and you need to have raw fish equipped. So I make a fishing rod and catch 5 raw fish then I go off looking for it… sod's law of course, the sodding thing had disappeared!

I go off looking for it but it's not around so I continue my exploring+mining wood+killing monsters and then, hey pretso! The Ocelot reappears, cue several minutes of chasing it and feeding it 5 raw fish before it was finally tamed, video of the final 30 seconds of me taming it below…




I now have a cat for my farm… all farms need one!

Minecraft Underwater Habitat

I've now started on my underwater habitat, it's going to take a while to finish as I've selected a rather large area to build it in, however I have started in earnest!

The first two sections have now been created, the following video (shown below) shows the method I used to 'drain out' the water ;)

Basically I built a rectangular area of glass that isolated the water blocks off from the rest of the ocean in my Minecraft world, I then placed wooden blocks in the isolated area and then burnt them off. This meant that I could go off and do something else whilst they were burning, rather than having to mine them away to create the air space inside (which would have taken a while)… it creates quite a pleasing building with all the glass blocks as walls.

Holiday Checklist

Today's checklist:

1. Get up early - CHECK
2. Have a healthy breakfast - CHECK
3. Go get my hair cut - CHECK
4. Go to the gym - CHECK
5. Avoid a long fall resulting in a fiery death in Minecraft - DAMN!

Minecraft

As I am on holiday at the moment I've been using the time wisely - mining like a motherfucker in Minecraft! I got it for £3.59 for my XBox One, probably discounted because I own the XBox 360 version.

So I start a new world and do pretty much what everyone does, start feverishly mining downwards to collect enough resources to build a shelter for the night. Once that was done, continue to feverishly mine looking for diamonds and whilst looking for diamonds collect any other resource I come across (iron ore, coal, gold, redstone etc.)

After a day's worth of mining and building, I'd established a safe haven, several sky walkways (for getting around at night safely) and a farm full of wheat, pumpkins, melons and trees.

With all the self sustaining shit sorted I then hit the bedrock and started mining out, with the intention of collecting an assload of cobblestone and finding as many diamonds as possible, the reason for this? Get a diamond pickaxe so I could go get some obsidian.

With enough Obsidian secured I then built a gate to the nether... now, the nether is not a place to be scoffed at, I've been burnt there many times, so I like to think I was very careful when I entered it. Unfortunately I never expected the system to plop the damned gate right on the edge of a very high fortress wall with a pit of lava at the base of it!

Whaaaa! Plop! Crackle, pop, crackle, dead!!

I sat there and stared at the screen wonder whether or not Mojang purposely coded in something like that? They must have, probably thought it was a right laugh as they sat in their comfy seats drinking Mountain Dew, shouting "Dude! That sucks but let's totally do it man!"

Of course I lost everything I had on me at the time, including a newly minted diamond pickaxe, a load of iron ingots and tons of wood (and every Mincrafter knows how tedious it is to collect wood).

Rather than throw my controller at the wall (which I've done before), I steeled myself to getting back everything I lost, half a day's worth of mining and I was even better off… fuck you Mojang.

Since then I've secured the obsidian gate on the nether side with a veritable fortress of cobblestone, for two reasons: one, so I don't keep falling into the pit of lava every time I go through it and two, to prevent ghasts from blowing me off said wall! As cobblestone is impervious to ghast fireballs it was a no brainer, I've now got a 'beachhead' for me to start from when I go looking for nether resources.

I am now off to do some caving, I need coal, lots of it, I need a shitload of glass as I'm now constructing my glass fortress in some very deep water! I will post how I produce it via XBox Live's Upload feature.

Um, Wow?

Wow that last post made no sense to me whatsoever, I guess alcohol does that and I don't remember much from that night… I proper football club reunion!

No posts since then, but then I've been off on holiday, three weeks of no thinking!

Crabbie's vWTF2.02

It truly is amazing how alcohol affects us, one minute we're collectively urinating against the best our local pub has to offer (toilet-wise), next, we hate it all?!
Are we going because we h... aaaah crap, just realised, sat here and lost my beers, ffs

Crabbie's v2.01

...aaand now add a Baileys's onto that :p

Crabbie's v2.0

I've now improved on my previous consumption...

w00t Christmas!

Crabbie's

Ah Crabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer - elixier of the gods ;)

Google Schmoogle

I often think Google's famed 'search algorithms' are complete and utter bollocks.

Why do I say this? Well, over the years I've worked my ass off SEO-ing various websites I've created and I've found little evidence that the optimisations I've done made any difference. I've extensively read Google's 'how-to's' and lurked many forums getting advice from gurus, I've kept up with the ever-changing 'techniques' required for SEO due to Google changing said 'algorithms', with little to no success.

Personally I think it's a bit of code that simply says: "Randomise the results for the non-paying peons and whoever pays the most, put them on the first page of the sponsored links", probably written on a piece of bog roll and stored in Google's massive vault, where they keep all their gold… looked after by a Goblin legion.

Organic listings? My arse…

And Google Analytics? These days you need to degree in rocket science to understand it all, there's way too much information and you have to wade through it all to get to the pertinent stuff. In fact, the only useful logistic is the sessions visit timeline at the top which is what you see first when Analytics loads (which only interests me when I see spikes in visits), so I bet most people never bother with the rest, I know I don't, not these days… I used to but I didn't like the nodding off from sheer boredom it caused.

I mean, people scan webpages, they never read them, they simply scan through it all until they get the info they need then they move on and everyone does this, so the Analytics data always shows a high short time drop off but Google wants you to think that you need to put more content in to keep the reader hooked. Well I'm sorry Google but unless it contains porn, they'll never be hooked.

I sometimes wonder if Analytics wasn't created by humans but some biomechanical spawn of Google's mass of datacentres.

But above all, it's all about the wonga, pay them enough money and you'll always be on top.

The New Star Wars Films

Phil Jupitus said in a recent interview that he cannot watch the new trailer that has come out for Star Wars Episode VI and I think what he said is spot on.

Although, personally I'll be going to the cinema to watch it, that lightsaber is intriguing me...

Snow and the UK

Here in the United Kingdom we love to moan about the weather, it's a well known fact and we make no pains to hide it. We find nothing better than a good gossip about how shit it is outside…

So when our tabloids publish their first panic stricken articles of the Winter about snow being on it's way the entire country goes into meltdown. BBC News 24 dedicates almost an entire evening of coverage on how much grit local councils have stashed and our train network actually starts it's delays to services early before any 'wrong kinds of snow' has fallen!

So I'm wrapping up with several layers and steeling myself for the inevitable deluge of complaints, delays and general all round fails that will come...

Microsoft You Fail!

We recently updated our core IT infrastructure to SBS 2011, got new PC's and the latest versions of Office in order to leverage the best out of it's features.

A few months into using it, I decide it might be cool for us to put a calendar in the Exchange 2010 Public Folders for holiday requests, that way, everyone can see who's got what days off via Outlook. Rather than having to shuffle over to look at a small wall calendar in our sales office where they are all penned in in 'old school' style.

So I get it set up, put a few holiday dates in and set them for 4-day reminders.

Then what do I find out? A calendar in public folders doesn't support reminders, how fucking lame is that?! I mean, part of the feature of calendars in Outlook is reminders, it means that people get fucking reminded about important dates coming up and saves them having to move back and forth between their messages and calendar tabs.

But Microsoft, in their wisdom (and fuck knows which highly-paid peon decided this, probably over a gay latte in their solid gold seating and tables cafe in their fucking 'campus' in Seattle) must have thought that it's much better to not have that feature for absolutely no practical reason whatsoever.

A global reminder to tell them all that key personnel are off a few days in advance saves a lot of headaches, it's not too much to ask is it?

I mean, why not put the feature in and make it configurable to turn it off? That covers organisations that have several million mailboxes and IT don't want their system getting clogged with reminders hitting that many mailboxes.

Fucking Microsoft.

Wasps' New Home

I can see my seat from here!

Went to the Ricoh Arena to attend an open day Wasps Rugby Club had laid on to promote them becoming it's owners.

It was a dantastic day, free entry, parking, tea, coffee and food, a tour of the arena's facilities plus we got a chance to walk pitchside to see where we wanted to sit as we're geting half season tickets :)

I have to say Wasps did a cracking job welcoming us all and looking after us, everything was perfectly done, even the food they served was a sample of what they'll be serving on matchdays.

There was a talk by the CEO to explain why Wasps have done it and a few words from Coventry City Council's chief about their relationship with Wasps going forward.

I think it's important to state here that despite all this Coventry City Football Club will be okay aswell, they haven't been 'steamrollered' by this deal and will continue to play their games at the Ricoh as normal, despite what the 'naysayers' are going on about... I asked the CEO myself and got assurances from him that that was the case (and I'm not even a Sky Blues fan but I always like to see that Midland clubs are doing alright).

I look forward to seeing the result of what I think is one of the most astute bits of business I ever seen in the world of sport.

Go Wasps!

Freelancer - Orginal Intro

One of my most favourite games of all time ;P

The Plunge Pool

I go to a gym and I have to admit that this year my attendance hasn't been exemplary, in fact it's been downright poor.

So after a couple of health-related issues recently I decided that rather than go whinging to a GP about them I'd bloody well hit them head-on with a well orchestrated gym-related exercise plan. After all, being as though I've been a member of this particular gym for more than 12 years it's about time I applied all the experience and knowledge I've gained from going there for so long.

After three successive nights of going (what I called the initial 'shock and awe' sessions to wake up my body, which I won't do again and will pad out the visits as the weeks go by) on the third night I decided to make use of the gym's superb water facilities, which I haven't used for a long, long time.

So I finish my routine in the gym area (all cardio, the core stuff comes later), change and head down to the hydropool area and the Sauna as I thought I deserved it.

Now, at my gym, after a Sauna there's three things you can do:

1. Wimp out and hit the showers
2. Go to the open shower area and get doused from a bucket of cold water by tugging on a rope (I am not joking, my gym really has that option!); or
3. Head outside and jump into the Plunge Pool

I opted for 3… it's the only logical choice in my opinion

Now, jumping into a Plunge Pool in December in the UK is not something to be sniffed at, you come out of the Sauna sweating like a pig and whilst that is a tad uncomfortable it's not absolutely necessary to plunge headlong into near freezing water for relief. Perhaps there's scientific benefits written somewhere, I don't know… but certainly it's not for your mental health.

When you approach it (after manning-up and not flinching when the cold air hits you as you step outside) simply take a couple of steps and jump, don't think and definitely don't use the ladder. Once you jump, there's a delicious moment of finality, completeness and a perfect sense of "WTFBBQ" as you hover for a microsecond before gravity pulls your sweat-stained body down into those freezing depths, there's nothing, absolutely nothing you can do at this stage and never is there a more perfect moment for you to wish you were Superman!

As you go under, your whole life flashes before you, your balls go up into your throat and every nerve and fibre BOSDs and collectively screams "BLOODY HELL!" As you surface you get a double whammy from the cold air hitting your head. You then come to your senses and suddenly realise that you're standing in 6ft of near freezing water when what you SHOULD be doing is downing mulled wine in a nice warm pub. From the moment you jump to this point the whole experience lasts roughly 3 seconds… it feels like a lifetime.

But the shower back up in the changing rooms afterwards is sooo damned good ;P

The Plunge Pool I use is nowhere near as inviting as this one!

A Collective Sense of 'Elsewhere'

Is it me or is humanity slowly losing it's collective sense of situational awareness?

When walking, I lose count of the amount times I have to sidestep or literally swerve round people whilst on my daily commute to work. They always seem to not be totally there, as if they're seeing a world in another dimension, turning their head slowly around with a glassy thousand yard stare then seeing me at the last minute but not doing anything about it… and those are just the people who aren't glued to their smartphones!

When I'm out and about and walking, I walk, I don't meander from side-to-side, I observe what I need to see in order for me to get to where I want to go… and THEN I whip out my smarphone/Kindle. I say that because nowadays it's an accepted way of life (and I have a healthy appetite for good literature that my Kindle more than adequately satisfies) but at least I do it standing or sitting where I am not an annoyance or a danger to myself or anyone else.

It doesn't take much to look both ways before stepping out to look at the bus you're about to catch, or to read bus/train times, or to think ahead and get your train ticket out ready BEFORE you get to the ticket barriers. I mean, when crossing the road you don't just amble carelessly forward with your eyes fixed straight ahead do you?

Some people simply don't care, they're so enclosed in their little virtual biosphere of social media that they couldn't give a fuck about manners in a public place.

I blame Failbook (I can't bring myself to call it it's proper name). Mark Zuckerberg, you may be a computer whiz but I blame you for the continuing dumbing-down of humanity and I cite Failbook as evidence of this.

Failbook pros and cons:

For Failbook:

1. It allows families separated by country borders to more easily keep in touch such as grandparents being able to see baby photos etc.
2. It helps businesses promote their abilities and products more easily.

Against Failbook

1. It makes people lazy - why go out and meet up when you can sit at home on your arse and chat via your mobile device or computer, this is one of the reasons why pubs across the length and breadth of Britain are closing in record numbers.
2. Reduces intelligence - I cite an example where, in America, someone called 911 when the Failbook servers went down, sure they would not do this normally?!
3. It's breaks up friendships and relationships - however I have to highlight no. 2 above, if you're stupid enough to put stuff on your wall that causes problems with your friends and/or significant other then it's your fault but if Failbook wasn't around then maybe you'd keep it to yourself? Although, again, I cite an incident recently, I was out with a friend in the pub and he put a comment on another of our friend's wall supposedly from me (my name was mentioned) it was a negative comment which I told him to remove but he just waved it aside claiming "he'll just delete it anyway"… so, here I am wondering if he's got a problem with me over something I never wrote, all because of Failbook and I'm not even a member!
4. Bombards you with pointless advertising forcing you to spend money on products you don't need. Ultimately this is what Failbook aims to do - make money from targeted advertising, feeding shareholders rich enough to be able to afford a swimming pool in their third house, they don't care about the ills it causes, provided the ad revenue keeps piling in...
5. Spreads malware and social engineering scams.
6. Oh there's probably a dozen others I could think of but they'd probably merge in similarity with the list above...

My point is Failbook seems to bring out the worst in us and leave it there for all to see, back in the old days we socialised in a pub so at least you had a chance for redemption through alcoholic induced forgetfulness the next day! These days, in  a pub, you look around and most people are head-down looking at their smart phone, seemingly having a conversation to someone miles away, yet their friends are RIGHT THERE next to them!

I'm not saying we lived in a perfect utopian society before the advent of Web 2.0 and social media, to be honest I think the dumbing-down started when e-mail hit the masses but I think Failbook contributes A LOT to the problem, people need to wake up and look around more.

So there I shall be, walking to the train station doing a Lionel Messi style dance through crowds of Failbook sheep wondering if humanity is heading towards the dystopian futures portrayed in either Wall.E or Idiocracy films.

Asteroids could wipe out humanity

Asteroids could wipe out humanity unless more effort is made to track and destroy them, a leading body of scientists and astronauts has warned.


Not whilst Bruce Willis is around they won't...

Mashed Lyrics

Whenever I listen to the following songs, I always mash-up the lyrics...

Cindi Lauper - I Drove All Night

I drove all night to get to you
Is that alright
I drove all night
Crapped in your room
Woke you from your sleep
To make love to you
Is that alright
I drove all night

Jefferson Starship - We Built This City

Marconi plays the Mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember
We built this city, we built this city on sausage rolls
We built this city, we built this city on sausage rolls
Built this city, we built this city on sausage rolls

Don Henley - The Boys Of Summer

I can see you-
Your brown skin shinin' in the sun
You got that hair slicked back and those Grey Farahs on, baby
I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone

I'd like to thank an old work colleague of mine for the above, when we worked together all those years ago he'd sing them as he heard them, hence the mashed lyrics, and they've been stuck in my head ever since ;)

Mental Block

Damn… haven't posted much this week.

I've had a mental block since the weekend though as I spent much of it hungover. It used to be that I could go on a three day bender and only need a day to recover, now I need three days to recover from one night!

With middle age comes aches, pains, weariness and a constant need to pee...

Grumpy Middle Age

I actually yelled "Fuck off…!" at the TV this morning.

When I turned it on it showed the channel I was watching when I last turned it off and Glee was on. I don't normally watch it but left it on whilst I was preparing my breakfast, then they all started singing…

Suffice it to say I changed over to BBC News 24...

Definitely a grumpy middle-aged moment.

Alien: Isolation

Help!

I'm hiding in a locker and am stuck there 'cos that damned Alien won't go away…

Dying for piss too.

Great Pub Christmas Tree

The pub that I've just been in has an awesome proper Christmas tree, it's that tall I think the the fairy on top was having nosebleeds!

I debated to myself whether or not it was artificial but cold hard logic cut through my alcoholic haze to make me realise it was real.

At the Internet's Edge

As I started this Blog only recently I like to think that, due to the sheer size of the web and all the billions of other blogs, websites etc out there, mine's been pushed to the very edge of the Internet.

Check out the view from my Blog's window - the Internet's edge, as seen through the web's eyes ;)

Peaky Blinders

I've just started watching the TV series 'Peaky Blinders'

There's a lot of screaming and shouting in it. I wonder if it was like that in the 1920's?

Some of the brummie accents are a bit crap but mostly it's pretty good.

And so ends my extensive review.

What drags us back, makes us stronger...

I look after the IT at the place I work at, and I've just spent the best part of an hour setting up a phone and extension number for a new employee. The reason for this is because we have a phone system that rang out the extinction of the dinosaurs…

First there was no dial tone, then an incorrect dial tone, then, when there WAS a dial tone the phone itself wouldn't ring properly, I replaced every cable from the phone itself up to the wall socket with no success, tried different extension sockets in the rack cabinet and eventually took the phone, cables and all to a different part of the building and tried them on a different wall socket with a different extension and hey presto, the damned thing rang properly! Then I had to take it all back through to where the phone is supposed to be and retry, fortunately it worked… I say fortunately because I was about to get medieval on the whole setup, which would've quite possibly had bad implications on my future employment.

However despite all that, I still felt a sense of achievement that I did all that legwork to get it working, kind of like an 'old school' feeling, where you really have to work hard to get a small task done. So, despite all the advanced technology surrounding me that makes my working life a little easier, it took an old archaic phone system to bring me back down to earth and that makes me stronger and more confident to take on other tasks I get hit with.

Of course these days people want stuff done in 5 minutes and don't understand when you explain why it can't be done that fast. I'm not saying I prefer to work slowly, I can work fast and multitask like most people but sometimes it's worth taking your time, sitting quietly and thinking about a job before getting on with it, saves a load of headaches afterwards… especially in the creative industry I work in.

Now I sit and wait for our newest work colleague to come to me and state that his phone isn't working and he needs it fixed straightaway...

Sausage Dogs

Aren't Sausage Dogs awesome…

I mean, when evolution dealt out it's cosmic cards it clearly gave the Daschund a Joker Card! I'm not knocking them, I love them, they are long and funny looking and I'm sure their owners give them loads of pleasure but I simply can't walk past someone taking one for a walk without suppressing a need to burst out laughing.

I mean, why? What are they all about? Why are they so long and stretched? I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation evolution-wise but I think otherwise - I think there's something purely unscientific, comical and purely daft that explains why they are so long and sausage-shaped.

To all Sausage Dog owners, I salute you ;P

Photography 101 - Macro Mode

Macro mode on SLR cameras really show the wonders of nature up close, all you need (apart from the camera itself) is a steady hand, good lighting and something interesting to photograph.

If you're confident with spot focal point features your camera has, try to use that instead of auto focus, it gives you greater control of the picture's composition, it enables you to 'tune out' the background enough for the eye to be drawn to the object you're actually trying to photograph.

It's really cool, I love, it, in fact I think I spend more time using macro mode than going for landscapes, action shots etc...

We're getting too old for this shit...

The other day my brother and I went to the cinema to see Interstellar, before the film started the trailer for "The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies" came on and my brother turned to me and stated that he really needs to see the second film before we go and see that one. I agreed and said that I've got it on DVD so he can watch it anytime he wants.

As he was coming round to mine this Saturday to drink a couple of hundred beers and watch England v Samoa I suggested we watch it after the game as I needed to refresher on the storyline myself, he agreed.

So the game finishes (crap performance from England, despite the win) I put the DVD on, and five minutes into the film he says "I've definitely seen this before?", "I remember that scene…"

Then it suddenly dawned on us, we looked at each other with drunken realisation that we went to the cinema last year to see it! Yet, somehow, despite all the clues in the days since we'd seen the third film trailer, neither of us remembered. It truly was a most glorious example of collective senility I've ever been witness to. (Well, so far…)

Thank You Adobe

This post is dedicated to Adobe decision to go all cloudy with the Creative Suit.

Now, before you read this, I'd just like to say that I am in no way affiliated with Adobe, this isn't some sort of sponsored blog that Adobe have paid me to post. I am a gods-to-honest Adobe software user who has had his share of the joys and pains (mostly pains) of using their software, I'm not afraid to slag them off if I need to and, trust me, I've plenty of examples to prove that. I just feel that Adobe deserves my thanks this time...

I've used Adobe's apps since they first came out, back in those heady days at college using Illustrator 88 and Pagemaker 1.0 (not an Adobe app) to do our typed headlines, printing them out on a laser printer then tracing over  the printout to produce line drawing comp layouts (we were too lazy to use the grant enlarger and a Letraset catalogue, pissed our lecturers off massively!)

I've used every version of Illustrator and Photoshop since then and I've had my ups and downs with them, mostly with Illustrator, Photoshop has never really been that glitchy. During that time the one thing that pissed me off the most was being stuck with a glitch until Adobe got around to bring out a major update and then it was a case of completely removing the previous version, cleaning files and folders then installing the new version. I've spent most of my time using Adobe CS3 (I could never persuade the management at work to upgrade as it was so expensive) and was continuously jealous of ex work colleagues who cooed about how awesome CS4, CS5, CS6 was with their new features.

It soon became impractical for me to use CS3 thanks to a combination Adobe making it awkward to easily back save files and customers being too lazy/forgetful to do it when they sent us artwork to be printed, I guess I should thank Adobe for that, so I got a new Mac and we moved to Adobe Creative Cloud.

With Adobe Creative Cloud, I don't have that uninstall/reinstall pain anymore, all I do is login my Adobe ID, download the CC app, then, through the CC app download and install what I need and best of all, update each app on the fly… and Adobe DO regularly roll out updates, WAY more than when CS was sold on disk. Plus you get to keep the previous version to run alongside the new version in case you experience glitches that stop you being productive.

Now, you would argue that with more recent versions of CS Adobe made patch updates available via the Adobe Downloader and I agree that was useful but that was nowhere near as good as the new Adobe CC app for managing updates, plus Adobe didn't roll out as many for CS5 & CS6.

Managing a team is great too, just login as admin, create a user send them an invite and they need to do is follow the simple instructions in the e-mail to download the CC app and get what they need.

No more uninstalling, cleaning, installing, cursing, uninstalling, restarting, cleaning, installing… rinse repeat then silently curse the Adobe team with collective gonorrhoea.

So for those users sticking to their guns with Adobe CS6, you're missing out, take the plunge, go CC and never look back, plus I think you still get a discount for the first year if you own a legal copy.

Easily update your apps

NHS to tackle Ebola in Africa

That's great news, our NHS has some of the best trained medical professionals in the world, the people over there will really benefit from their expertise.

However it should be noted that, as someone who has experienced the admin pain of dealing with the NHS for my treatment, if they are accompanied by any of those red-tape wielding, middle-management fucktards that are responsible for screwing up the NHS then those Ebola sufferers can probably expect a year's wait to be treated.

Let's hope not.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!

Kasabian fell foul of technology on Wednesday night – when they accidentally called their London fans “c**ts”.

Well boys, that's retribution for taking the piss out of other bands ;)

WoT pwnage! ;P

I regularly play World of Tanks, it's a great game as it cannot be played doing the usual kid-like fly off firing at the hip and grind out the KKs style. It's a tactical shooter that makes you think about the tank you're using, it's loadout, and, during each game, where you go and how you use the landscape to your advantage.

As an example I cite the picture below, it was when I was in a Matilda which is a British Medium class tier IV tank. I took out four enemies before I succumbed, probably my best purple patch I've had since playing World of Tanks. I must say I've probably played more games as the sole survivor in a Matilda than I have in other tanks (my KDR in a Churchill IV is awful), I've even had players on my team comment via audio stuff like "how the fuck is that Matila surviving so many hits!". I was tempted to respond with "It's all about the landscape and angles of deflection dear boy." but didn't 'cos I'd have probably been called a fag.

Don't mess with a Matilda!

Moody Skies

I love moody skies, there's a certain majesty to them, a foreboding of what's to come… it's something we humans accept, deep down at the DNA level, that a moody looking sky makes us likewise moody and down, or a blue sky with the sun shining down makes us happy.

I took this with my smartphone, then, as the foreboding feeling came over me, headed off back to the hotel bar.

[INSERT GOD LIKE VOICE HERE]

Who? What? When? Where?

Just been to the cinema to see Interstellar and, boy that film is deep... very enjoyable but so, so deep.

It's blown a fuse in my brain, every time I close my eyes I see the words "Please wait..." in white against a black background.

I think I'll go for a lie down.

Do not fail me Tesco...

I have to go to Tesco tonight to do my bi-monthly grocery shop… they're
in the process of changing everything around so it takes longer for me to find what I need, very annoying.

Last time I went they didn't have any buns, they better have buns this time.

Tesco, you have been warned.

I Gets to Print the Dark Knight Sir!

One of the few perks of my job, printing really cool imagery ;p This one is going on the side of a Smart Car although I'm not sure whether or not Bruce Wayne would want to be seen blasting around Gotham in a tricked out Smart Car...

I'm Batman! In Colour!

Photography 101 - Water Vole

A while ago I bought a new camera for a project I was working on for the New College Oxford, it needed to be an SLR with a lot of resolution. Actually the reason was twofold - to do that project and to start amateur wildlife photography.

I settled on a Sony SLT-A37, basically because it came top when I filtered 'by resolution' online, I admit I didn't spend a lot of time reading reams of tech specs, it was 15mpx and had detachable lenses, that's all I wanted.

Anyway the New College job went really well and I got a really good camera which I've used extensively since then. This pic is the first of many I've taken with this camera to be included in this blog.

I snapped this little fella whilst holidaying in Norfolk, it was nonchalantly chomping on a reed stalk and seemed completely oblivious to the humans standing nearby peering at it.

I used a telephoto lens and left the automatic shoot settings rather than faff about with the manual stuff, this was a fluid situation and there was no telling whether or not it would decide to bugger off, leaving me photoless 'cos I thought I'd be arty and get the perfect shot.

One thing I've discovered about wildlife photography: you can't set the scene, you have to do the best with what nature throws at you - right place at the right time!

Cameron gets out his heaviest roller...

The prime minister has just got his heaviest roller out to prepare for not one but two huge political matches (quote from the BBC News website article) …

Personally Mr Cameron, based on what you've got coming up, I think you should equip yourself with one of these:

I love you Shailene Woodley

You are a beautiful, super talented, diverse (or dare I say, 'divergent' :p ), well grounded actress.

I'd give my right bollock to go out on a date with you... but let's face it, that's not going to happen. Minus one nut or otherwise... ah well, one can only dream and enjoy your films, a rare treat for us lowly 9to5er peons.

Keep up the good work and, in advance, I say "fair play" to the lucky git that captures your heart...

Ed Miliband for PM - I thnk not

Everytime I see Ed Miliband talk on TV I can't help but compare him to William Pitt the Elder from Blackadder...

England 28 31 South Africa

Darn it... and I'm hungover to boot

England, if you could just pull your finger out and get at.least.one.win from the next two fucking games that would be awesome.

Thankyouplease

Rosetta Eclipsed by Kim's Arse

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Rosetta Team on their remarkable achievement this week, it was truly a major scientific endeavour that I hope will help humanity's ongoing understanding of our origins in this universe.

I was a little disappointed to see people take to social media criticising the choice of shirt one of the scientists was wearing as sexist. Whilst I do not condone sexism in any way shape or form, it's sad to see that they seemed to think fashion statements are more important than the science involved.

Whilst all this was going on a veritable digital tidal-wave of publicity of that airhead Kim Kardashian and her arse flooded the interwebs, which got way more column inches I'll bet.

Posty Post!

My first post to this blog via a mobile device w00t :)

And here's my next comment: trousers

First Past the Post

Hello web, this is my first post, although not my first post ever mind you, just the first one for this blog, I've been around the (web)block a bit, mostly lurked here and there in various forums (like most people) but never really contributed anything.

There are millions or perhaps even billions of individuals out there in digispace producing great content to keep those of us that like a cup of tea whilst reading our Kindle/iPad/'Droid device in bed on a Saturday morning regularly enthralled. I'd like to think that I can provide a small contribution to what has become the big brain bucket of humanity!

So this blog will be my diary of thoughts, observations, design ideas, photography, gaming progress etc etc. most of it probably a bit boring but perhaps a few tidbits will reach a dizzy enough height to enthral readers that stumble across it.