Category: Personal

I got some lovely new glasses from Butterworths Lenses.

the BBC have a fabulous article on holding an election night party, including masks of the three party leaders which you can cut out and wear. None of the masks is flattering but they’re well done. there are lots of other election night games to play as well. Even if you’re not going to do it, it’s well worth a look.
Kind of cheers me up, since I know that my vote doesn’t matter. I will vote, but no matter who I vote for, I’ll get the same Labour MP I’ve had for years. The only time I remember hearing about him on the national news was when he started making paper hats in parliament. However, I have recently been checking out the excellent TheyWorkForYou.com where you can look up all sorts of details and statistics on your MP. I’ve signed up for emails every time he speaks.

My policiy is, if you have to tell people to forward on the email, it’s not worth doing, no matter what the content or subject. I will not be preached to like that. Oh, and before you pass anything on, make sure it’s not fake. It’s not hard people! Just type a key phrase or two in google and see what’s out on the web about it! Please – for the love! By the way, http://www.bonsaikitten.com is fake!!!

I’ve been having my usual exciting Saturday evening, and I’ve come across an amazing piece of information courtesy of IMDB. Mr T, before he did the A Team was the voice of Mr Doo Doo the Clown on Sesame Street!!!!! I mean, WOW!

I’ve been playing computer games for years, adn just about the time I swithched over from a Sinclair Spectrum to an IBM PC, my addiction was to a game called Carrier Command. I loved it, and played it for more hours than were healhy (I’ve still not quite forgiven the guy who infected my 5 1/4 inch floppy of it with a virus and made it impossible to play.) A few years ago I was looking around the net for a version of this game to download and play, I read about Hostile Waters.
As a fan, I was very excited, and bought it as soon as it came out. I loved it and have played it through several times It has an amazing storyline and superb graphics. After playing it through recently again, I became curious as to who had voiced the in-game characters. Your crew in this game consist of 10 former soldiers, whose consciousness was sucked into a microchip milliseconds before they died. They can therefore be assigned to any vehicle you like and be re-used if they should die.
After grabbing a screenshot of the credits at the end, I thought I’d post the Info, since Google has no clue who these people are and even the documentation with the game (at least the original stuff which I still have) makes no mention of them. the IMDB links are partial guesswork, going by people with similar names who seem to be the ones:

• Kenzie – Moya O’Shea
• Sinclair, Patton – Steve Brennan
• Ransom, Patton – Eric Myers
• Borden – Kate Ashfield
• Madsen – Rupert Degas
• Elroy – Mel Taylor
• Korolev – Laurel Lefkow
• Lazare – Olivier Desalande

Around Christmas time I get heartily sick of the cheesy christmas songs that are around, and the carols are usually done really badly, so it was with trepidation I followed Boing Boing’s link to Tijuana Christmas MP3s from hell. However they’re not half bad (although amazingly chhesy, in a good way) and put me in mind of another set of Christmas carols I found the other day. I was listening to the Christmas classics channel on Moontaxi, when I heard one of the tracks from Oy to the World These are mostly christmas carols, arranged in “klezmer” style (which I’d never heard of, but instantly recognised.) I’m certainly going to be gettina copy of this! There are some beautiful arrangements among the ones obviously meant more for fun.

I can feel it already – as soon as I saw a link to this this afternoon, I knew the obsession was only beginning. I really want a Transgear DVX-500E – WiFi ready DivX Player. I have loads of videos which I’d love to be able to watch on my TV, and this kind of thing would be ideal for me. I have my wireless connection and my DVD player is getting a bit crotchety in its old age (it’s nearly 5 years old – a Sony which was sold with a multi-region chip in it – how long is it since you’ve had to chip a DVD player to get multiregion??). Plus I might have to get some external storage to store all the videos I have. one step at a time.

Some things I remember learning, some I don’t. I vividly remember being taught how to spread bread on butter. I remember being told what was the proper amount of toilet paper to use (two sheets, one folded over the other) but not by whom. I remember the pride I felt in being able to tie my own shoelaces, no matter that it took me so long to learn (longer than tying a tie, I think). I remember being told that men tore their bread rolls open, rather than cutting them with a knife (thanks Mum)

Which File Extension are You?

Well, I actually don’t own an Ipod, but I keep reading about people who have trouble transferring things between their Ipods and their macs/PCs, or who have battery problems or other issues.
A few months ago, I bought an Iriver H-140. It’s like an Ipod, only better. It’s cheaper, it has a built-in FM Radio, it acts just like a hard drive when plugged into my PC, it uses USB (I don’t have to buy a firewire card) and it will also record!! How good does it get??
The only dark cloud on the horizon was the startup time. When full of all my stuff (40GB) it took a good minute or two between powering on and being ready to play. I put up with this though, since it was so cool in other ways. So the other day I did two things – I deleted a whole lot of audio books (which were composed of lots of smaller files) and updated the firmware. Now, with the new firmware and 10 GB free it starts up within about 10 seconds – perfect!! I get loads of battery life and it’s made things so much easier. After buying my flat I had a whole load of decorating to do, and not having to stop every half-hour to change a CD or tape was tremendous!
I’m a thoroughly happy customer!

Update!
Okay, having now had my hands on an Ipod, I can say that they really do suck! A friend got one for his wife, but had no USB 2, so I had to do the honours. I confess I thought that Ipods couldn’t do USB, so I was wrong on that, but otherwise it was a real pain. With my Iriver, I plugged it in, opened the file expolorer to copy over some songs and I was done. With the Ipod I had to install special software, put in the serial number of the device, and then work out how to copy over music. I copied music over using the windows explorer and nothing happened. I tried using itunes, but the process was so opaque I got nowhere. I tried using Windows media player and got no further. I finally had to reset the ipod, and start again with itunes which, this time, decided to play ball.
I also don’t like the ipod interface. I discovered last year, when I bought an All for one 6 Kameleon that nothing beats physical feedback in a user interface. I prefer having an interface where I can use the item without looking at it, and both devices – the ipod and the kameleon – fail on this count. Also, I know I m ust be really stupid, but I didn’t find the ipod interface intuitive at all. Took ages to work out how to change the volume! I love the feedback I get from the miniature joystick on the Iriver – much more intuitive and easier to use without thought . I would also imagine it’s less prone to mistaken inputs.