February 2006 Archives

[Moozik: New Order - Ultraviolence]

I think the new iPod Hi-Fi will probably get a lot of attention. After all, it has Apple branding so how could it not? What I'm interested in though is what does it offer me that the Bose SoundDock hasn't done for a while now?

I bought my SoundDock last summer and I'm still impressed by the sound quality. We use it almost every weekend when we're outside working or relaxing with a few brews by the BBQ. Sound quality? Check[0]. Charges the iPod? Check. Has a remote control? Check. Costs $50 less than the iPod Hi-Fi? Check. Remind me why the iPod Hi-Fi is groundbreaking?

[0] Granted it's not a patch on our 901s, but still sounds very good.

[Moozik: The Smiths - Pretty Girls Make Graves]

Bushie, you're doing a heckuva job. Ahem. Well maybe not but at least you've got public support right?

(CBS) The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush's approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high.

Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush-backed deal giving a Dubai-owned company operational control over six major U.S. ports. Seven in 10 Americans, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they're opposed to the agreement.

Bush Ratings At All-Time Low

Still, it's not all bad surely, Cheney's approval ratings must have rebounded after mistaking his friend for a bird right? Well, not so much.

Still, the incident appears to have made the public's already negative view of Cheney a more so. Just 18 percent said they had a favorable view of the vice president, down from 23 percent in January.

Ouch.

Which begs the obvious question, what exactly are those people that make up the 34% of Bush approvers seeing and hearing that they like so much? I just can't comprehend it.

[Moozik: The Specials - Too Much Too Young]

Yawn, so it's rather late on a Saturday night and you're grumbling because the website you're providing (ahem) technical support on for your better half, won't display under cgiwrap. Take a deep breath and stop swearing. No, cgiwrap is not a piece of shite. Take a peek at your .htaccess and make sure your RewriteEngine is not only on but your RewriteRule isn't missing anything.

Sigh. There's 20 minutes of my life I'm never getting back.

[Moozik: The Verve - Come On]

So it would seem that upcoming episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show podcast will no longer be a free download.

The Ricky Gervais Show, one of the most popular podcasts on Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, is moving to a paid-only format to be sold by audio book specialist Audible.

Audible plans to announce on Tuesday that it will start selling episodes of Gervais' show beginning with a new "season two" collection of episodes, which will begin next week. Audible will charge $1.95 per episode or $6.95 for the season, which will include at least four episodes by the creator and star of British television's "The Office." Audible's exclusive deal also runs for a "season three," which will start in the fall.

Audilble nabs popular podcast

I can thoroughly understand why they are doing it. In one of the earlier episodes they joked about how much money they could have made if only they'd charged a fee to download each podcast. So from a business perspective, it makes a lot of sense.

On the other hand, I'm sure people are not going to like it. A bait and switch, in general, doesn't usually win you a lot of friends. Put your hand up if you'd prefer to pay for something that you can currently get for free. Yeah, thought so. In fact it will be rather interesting to see how many fans will turn away and not bother with the show anymore. Adam is one...

Now I've listened for the last 12 weeks and enjoyed the programme, going back each week, but I won't be forking out, even 95p, for further editions. Advertising support I can appreciate, but it's not so good that I'd actually pay for what effectively are just ramblings. While they may do some preperation for the show, I don't feel I'd be paying for skilled performers giving us material that I'd otherwise not get.

Ricky Gervais

Yes they are just ramblings. But they're funny ramblings nonetheless. Of course, having said that, I must admit that after my initial enthusiasm, the last couple of episodes have been a bit, well, meh. Still funny but, I dunno, not quite as good as earlier in the season.

So anyway, am I going to cough up the cash? I'm not sure. I like the show and perhaps the last two episodes are not symptomatic of future shows but do I pay to find out? $7 for a season won't break the bank even if they're only promising 'at least four episodes'.

So at what point does debating $7 to subscribe to a podcast make me sound like a tightfisted miser? Too late you say?

[Moozik: The Human League - Seconds]

Because I live in a cave, I only just discovered the crack-like addictiveness that is the iPod Music Quiz game. It's a 'name that tune' type game based on the songs on your iPod. It plays a portion of a random song and you have to identify it from a list of 5 songs. A song drops off the list every few seconds and the faster you choose the right song, the more points you get.

So how did I do? Well, I just listened to 10 songs, got 10/10 and scored 6960 points. I've no idea if that's good or just a little bit crap :-)

[Moozik: The Sisters Of Mercy - Body Electric]

If there was ever a blog post that sounds like it came out of my own head, it's Kasia's take on website design.

I believe I'm a pretty good programmer. I can do Java, perl, C.. and so on. You know, all the basics. Heck, I can even write semi-decent HTML and JavaScript, but make me do css and well, er, design things? Forget it.

I cannot do a decent web site design to save my life.. so why bother? I've given up on trying to have an original-design. Everyone else just copies everybody, so why not.

Downsides: Lack of originality, no feeling of accomplishment, diminished sense of self-wroth.
Upsides: Less work, site doesn't look like ass.

Canned styles win.

Anything look different?

My goodness, that's me in a nutshell.

While I write quite decent Perl code for a living on Solaris boxen, I cannot draw a straight line with a ruler. I'm not an artist, I'm not a graphic designer and quite frankly, I suck at anything related to visual design. Now, don't get me wrong, I know a nice looking site when I see it, but coming up with the design in the first place? Yeah, good luck with that.

[Moozik: Blur - For Tomorrow]

I must admit, I was really quite looking forward to tonight's The Daily Show to see their take on Cheney mistaking a 78 year old man for a bird, and shooting him in the face. I wasn't disappointed.

Best opening segment EVAR. Laugh? I almost wet my pants.

Update: Rob Corddry with the money quote from tonight's show.

Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face.

[Moozik: Pop Will Eat Itself - Bulletproof]

I'm not really sure why the Olympics (be it the summer games or the winter games) turn me into a complete raving TV addicted lunatic. Even the stupid events have me hooked. Yesterday my dogs were bumping their heads on my knees and licking my hands (code for please take me for a walk) and I found myself saying "yes I'll take you for a walk in a few minutes; I just want to see if this bloke wins the Luge".

The bloody Luge. I couldn't care less about the Luge in the four year span between each games. But now, it appears to be vitally important that I know who wins. Oh, and add speed skating, downhill skiing, and snowboarding to that list too.

[Moozik: Adam And The Ants - Jolly Roger]

There's nothing like having a reliable mail service, and the Royal Mail would appear to be *nothing* like a reliable mail service (emphasis mine).

The Royal Mail has been fined £11.7m for allowing millions of letters and parcels to be lost or stolen because of poor supervision of agency staff. The penalty comes close to costing it £1 for every one of 14.6m items that never reached their destination over a 10-month period. It will cut the company's operating profit by 2% this year.

Royal Mail fined £11.7m for losing millions of letters and parcels

[Moozik: Soft Cell - Frustration]

So last week I mentioned that the house down the street still had their Christmas lights on. You know, which is a bit odd considering it's February. Anyway, about 10 minutes ago we got back home from visiting some friends and happened to drive past the house in question.

The Christmas lights are *still* on. The house, front garden, back garden, and trees are all covered with lights.

So, obviously, we came to the following possible conclusions:

(a) Their lights are on timers and they never leave the house after dark.
(b) They had a family emergency and the house is empty.
(c) They're on a 2 month world cruise and the house is empty.
(d) They've been kidnapped.
(e) They've been abducted by aliens.
(f) They're lying in pools of their own blood.

Me? I'm going with the alien abduction theory.

[Moozik: Alien Sex Fiend - Ain't Got Time To Bleed]

It appears that the Ricky Gervais podcast is rather popular. It's late and way past my bedtime but I just got around to downloading & listening to a few old episodes. Bloody funny.

I realize I'm rather late to the whole Ricky podcast extravaganza and the majority of Gervais fans have already listened to every episode, but if you're one of the 7 people on the planet who haven't listened to his show - download it now.

Karl Pilkington's diary of his holiday in Gran Canaria is hilarious.

[Moozik: The Smiths - Meat Is Murder]

It would appear Kraftwerk have been nominated for a Grammy.

(Blinks, rubs eyes)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Complete list of nominees in 108 categories announced Thursday for the 48th annual Grammy Awards, to be presented Feb. 8 in Los Angeles:

...

13. Electronic/Dance Album: "Push the Button," The Chemical Brothers; "Human After All," Daft Punk; "Palookaville," Fatboy Slim; "Minimum-Maximum," Kraftwerk; "LCD Soundsystem," LCD Soundsystem.

Complete list of Grammy Award nominations

Minimum-Maximum is a double live album from their 2004 world tour. Even though I own all their original studio albums, I find myself playing this one more than anything else because it's really their greatest hits[0] played live.

[0] Notable exceptions include Europe Endless and Showroom Dummies. Two of my faves and I'm a little disappointed they didn't play those.

[Moozik: Depeche Mode - Stripped]

So the Stones were the Superbowl half time entertainment today. I'm wondering if Keith Richards could look any more bored if he possibly tried. Ron Wood was not exactly the epitome of enthusiasm either.

Yawnsville.

The game itself was not much better. At least the Budweiser adverts were amusing.

[Moozik: The Mission - Stay With Me]

So I had the bright idea that I would run around the block tonight. Back in the day[0], I used to run a lot. Everyday in fact. Then I moved to a new continent and since I've been in the US of A, I have done precisely no exercise whatsoever. The 35 (give or take) pounds I've put on in the past 8 years are all the proof you need of that. I'm not entirely sure what triggered my newly found enthusiasm for losing weight[1] and exercising. Time (and the scales) will tell how well it goes.

Oh, and a quick note to the bloke down the street. It's February mate, you can turn off (and take down) your outside Christmas lights.

[0] The day, for this example anyway, is before I turned 24 :-)

[1] The irony of the fact that on they day I decide to lose weight we get McDonalds for supper is not lost on me :-)