If you were to ask me why...

I signed up to write a fifty thousand word novel in less than eighteen days I'd tell you it was because I was confident of being able to do so. But honestly I'd be lying out my teeth. I did it because I was looking for something to keep my mind off cigarettes.
I've smoked for the last 20 years and recently gave up the demon weed because I had the horrible experience of seeing someone I care about lying in a hospital bed with pneumonia. She was breathing (if you can call it that) oxygen from a tube stuck up her nose and had a drip in her arm. The colour had gone from her face and there was an underlying look of fear in those pretty brown eyes of hers. So that was it for me. No more cigarettes. No more lighting up, no more inhaling smoke deep into my battle scarred lungs and no more looking cool.

I should prepare for the following days of sitting in front of the computer; I should outline a story; I should think of characters that add depth and give you the reader someone to care for; I should get a whiteboard and some highlighters and do a complicated time-line to help me with the plot; But I've not got the time to do that so, fuck that nonsense. I'm just going get get stuck in.

I mean, surely fifty thousand words can't be that difficult. Shit, Keroauc sat down and wrote “On the Road” in one sitting. Or is that just Urban Legend? Who knows. Wikipedia probably does but I've not got the time to look it up right now. Well, actually I do but if I am to ever finish this gig I must stay away from the time stealing distraction that is the internet.

I love the internet. Love it. Like nothing I've ever loved before. Where else can you find, not only, the accumulated knowledge of the world but also video of stuff like Two Girls One Cup and more porn than one man can reasonably look at in ten lifetimes? Nowhere.

But that's not getting anything approaching a novel done...

So, plot... Should I write a thriller in a Dan Brown vein? At least that way I can write pages and pages of utterly pointless descriptive narrative in order to pad it out and make it look wordy. Or should I write something in the TeenVampire/TeenWizard/TeenMonster genre in the hope that it'll take off like J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and I can get rich and spend buckets of money buying my own island somewhere.

Then again that's gonna take something approaching talent and I'm short on that right now.

I could do with a cigarette right about now. Sure it's not good for me but it helps get the creative juices flowing. Well, that's what I think anyhow. And who are you to tell me different? Huh? Who the fuck do you think you are? God? Ha! Fuck you! I spit in your eye and call you a big girls blouse...

I'm sorry, I've no idea where that came from. Maybe I should stop thinking about cigarettes and start concentrating on characters for this novel. I should have at least one male lead so I'll start with him...

He's a handsome rugged type. He's sporty, well educated and suave. He's of Italian parentage. He's dark haired with what women would call “Smouldering” eyes and good manners. He's probably named Fabio St-John Farthington, has perfect teeth, is tall, tanned and toned like a Grecian God and
he's getting on my nerves already. Fuck him. He's being killed off in the first chapter and I'm going to replace him with someone we normal people can associate with.

Alfie Stark ~ A Butchers apprentice from Chester. He's down to earth, swears in the company of the boys but never says the word “Cunt” in front of women; He goes to the football every Saturday and cheers on his local team but has never joined in on the whole “Football is more important that life” nonsense that many of his friends ascribe to. He's got a squint nose from when it was broken in an accident involving a bacon slicer. (The Bacon slicer subsequently moved away and patched things up with her husband.) He's what his friends would describe as a “Salt of the earth” type. He's a good guy in a world where values are no longer valued, where morals are considered immoral and where holding a door open for the wrong woman can bring accusations of chauvinism. In short, he's pretty well everything to everyone. Except the husband of a former bacon slicer. To him he's a fucking prick and should be strung up like so many pounds of whitepudding.

So, that's my male lead sorted out. Now I need a female lead...

Erin McFadyen ~ She's a projectionist in a local old style cinema. She lives in Chester now but was born in Nottingham and raised in Loughborough. She's travelled about a bit thanks to her dad being in the T.A and longs to go to Thailand for an extended holiday. She's socially awkward and just a little bit of a geek. She's red-haired, nothing spectacular to look at and feels out of place wherever she is. She's a film buff who rates the early work of Hitchcock as his best and thinks Quentin Tarantino is a big chinned fuck. She knows her way around a computer and has more friends online than she'll ever have in real life. She's had one boyfriend and one awkward lesbianistic fumble with a girl from Scunthorpe.

How's that for a female lead? Yeah, I thought so too. Now I need a setting. Looks like it's going to be Chester. Maybe I should look up some interesting points in Chester, for background. All I know about Chester is that it's got a zoo. At least I'm sure that there's a Zoo in Chester. Maybe I dreamed that... Nope... According to a tourist website I just looked up Chester indeed does have a Zoo. Not only that but it has “A wide variety of walking tours” and “Boasts the largest garden zoo in England and is the UK's number one wildlife attraction.” Well, fuck me, who would have thought Chester was so full of such wonderful ways to spend your time...

Maybe I need to rethink the location of my novel. Going by what the website points out as “places of interest” Chester seems to be a bit of a shithole. Perhaps I should make the location somewhere more exotic, somewhere where the sun shines more than one day a year and the populace is less miserable than a chronic depressive at a Morrisey concert.

Lyon ~ France. Home to many attractive people and places to visit. There are twenty museums in Lyon alone. Twenty! Good lord, that's a lot of museums. Chester has one. And it looks like somewhere the dead wouldn't even visit... Lyon also has a river running through it. It looks quite like somewhere I'd like to go for a weekend. It looks clean and the people look like they've read books with complicated words in it. Unlike Chester, which looks to all intents and purposes like no one there has ever read anything that didn't have pictures to help explain what was going on in the story. The people of Lyon have read Jean-Paul Satre, the people of Chester think Jean-Paul Satre designs jeans.

Of course if I move the setting to Lyon then the main characters are going to have to be adapted to fit the location. After all who's going to believe that those two people could in any way be French? The French are suave and sophisticated and those characters would be as out of place as someone with talent being on the X-Factor. I'm sure we'd all agree that's something that's never going to happen.

So, now that the location has changed I should alter the main characters stories to fit. Alfie is now Alfredo. The rest can stay the same. You don't like it? Tough. I'm the one writing this thing. Not you. And quite frankly if I don't keep writing I'm going to run out the door like a world champion sprinter straight to the local shop and buy a pack of cigarettes.

Next I need a basic plot. Should it be a love story? Or an adventure story? Maybe it could be a farce? The French like a good farce. Look at their history for gods sake! It's one catastrophe after another and they always manage to get through it with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders, a “Ce la vie” and the casual lighting of another Gauloise... Christ I hate the French.

France is out and frankly Chester seems too bloody dull to set a story in so I'm going to have to rethink this whole thing and instead do what most writers do. Write about what I know. And therein lies a big problem. I know nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Well, that's not strictly true, I do know some things. They're just not that interesting. Not really.

So, having existed for less than an hour Alfredo and Erin are now consigned to the bin of characters that never were and I'm back to square one. I've not passed go, I've not collected $200 and I'm still 48,394 words short of finishing this thing. Maybe I've overstretched myself on this one. It's basically a long rambling screed that's on par with the worst writing ever committed to paper. Or pixels as the case may be.

Right! First things first, I need a coffee, and a cigarette... Fuck.

Anyway... Back to the writing. Or at least I'm trying to but there's three women having a conversation behind me, my sister and two of her pals, and they're doing the usual “we're-having-a-conversation-so-everyone-should-hear-us” thing and it's putting me off. What's the gig with women? How can they possibly have a conversation with four, five and sometimes six of them involved, all be talking at the same time and yet never lose the place any of them are at? If four guys were to try that their heads would explode like they were starring in a David Kronenburg film.

Then again, blokes can piss standing up. Who'd not like that as a skill?

Just when I thought the perfect job had come along...

From ~ Leona Hynde admin@age-verify.info
To ~ rossalandouglas@gmail.com
Date ~ 19 November 2009 17:32
Subject Re: Reply to your ad: Writers needed, £272 Weekly Wage

Hi there,

Thanks for your interest in our online writing vacancy. As stated, we require people with a good sense of humour to review adult websites on the net. The position we have will be home-based and the wage is £350 per week, rising after 6 months. You will be required to write 12 100-word articles per week.

If you think you have what it takes to be part of a successful writing team, we require a little proof of your abilities and commitment to the job. We would like you to give a detailed 100 word test review of the members area at a new adult site we've personally selected (www.realdrunkgirls.info). You will need to sign up for a free account there to do so (make sure you cancel within 3 days though to avoid being charged)

It's new and we've already reviewed it. When we receive your review, we'll compare your thoughts to ours and it'll give us an insight into the kind of perspective you have. Be creative, there is no set house style.

Please submit this to us within 48 hours if you're still interested.

If not, thanks very much for your time

Janet Smith
Write 4 This Love Media

*************************

From ~ Ross Douglas
To ~ Leona Hynde admin@age-verify.info
Date 19 November 2009 18:20
Subject Re: Reply to your ad: Writers needed, £272 Weekly Wage


Aloha Ho,

I initially applied to this job thinking "What the fuck, you never know if you don't try" and really did think I'd be sent a standard reply saying that the company involved was not interested in hiring my services but would keep my details on file.

Then, imagine my surprise when I received your mail saying you were looking for reviewers for "Adult" websites...

"Jackpot!" I thought, getting paid to look at poon for two hours a day then bashing out 100 words in between bashing a few off of the wrist... Piece of piss for me. I'm a goddamn porn maniac. There's not a porn niche I've not plumbed into at some point in my time and I'm talking some seriously hardcore stuff. I'm not easily shocked and didn't even blink when someone showed me Two Girls One Cup because it's not all that bad really. Give me the hardest of hardcore to review and I'll spank out 100 words in between spanking one out of myself! 

(I have to state that I'm not into kiddy porn and would of course report that sort of filth to my local police department or priest if I thought I could blackmail the swine into giving me some cash...)

And then I read the rest of your mail and saw through the bullshit... You're not actually interested in hiring people to write reviews, you're looking for mug punters who're willing to put their credit card details into your system so you can sting them for membership to your "services". In short, this was nothing but a phishing scam. And that's just made me angry. And here's why...

I'm genuinely looking for work and would hate to think that fuckers like you are praying on people who are seeking employment instead of just making a decent website with quality porn. Trust me, there's fucking billions being made in the porn industry, BILLIONS dude! All you need to do is find some cock hungry whore that's willing to fuck for money on camera and a stunt cockswordsman (I'd like to apply for that gig if this mail doesn't send you over the edge) make a video or two and bung them on a website. Boom! Bob's your mothers brother...

Anyhoo Leona (If that's actually your name) I'll not berate you any longer cos I've got shit to do that doesn't involve telling you where you're going wrong.

Take care and please let me know about the stunt cock gig. I've not fucked anything that wasn't my hand or a watermelon with a hole in it for 9 (nine) years and can guarantee loads that would make Peter North look like a part time wanker.

Mahalo.


Ross Douglas.

And so...

Here we are again. Me sat in front of a computer kicking my brain into gear in order to make some kind of sense of my life and you sat there eating Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia Ice Cream in your underwear... Tuck it in will ya, it's distracting...

So, it's been a while since I wrote anything on here. There's a reason for that but you're not getting to know what it is because there are people who will read it and think I'm depressed or some kind of obsessive and quite honestly I'm not in the mood for that barrel of bullshit.

However; This leaves a gap of a few months in my blog where future biographers will wonder what happened to me in that time (no doubt there will be much confusion in the history department of the Universities of the future and a few wacky theories may arise) and sadly it's just gonna have to be like that.

Because of my lack of wanting to spill my guts I've not really got much to report about how my life has been going in the last few months or so. The more knowledgeable of you will probably know at least a little of what's been occuring in my life so as far as I'm concerned it's all good.

Anyway, I'm still off the demon dope and have been for quite a while now. I'm not keeping a tally of days clean like some kind of recovering addict but it's a good few months anyway. Friends and family have remarked as to how I am a different person (and given that there's a massive difference between a stoner and a straight person I'm not surprised) and I'm making up for lost time with my neices and nephews by visiting them all more often and to be honest it's great.

I'm not one of the "I've done drugs and you should know that there is a horrible price to pay" types though and as far as I'm concerned if you want to do drugs then have at it. So long as you do not steal to pay for your habit of physically hurt anyone fire away my friend.

The most ironic thing inre me getting off of dope is that one day my dad and I were talking about general shit when he said "You wrote better when you were on drugs." How galling is that? To be told by someone who was always against my drug habit telling me it made me better at something I've always wanted to be good at... Go figure huh.

So, that's us up to speed again, I'm glad you decided to keep the faith and stayed with me through thick and thin. You can get even more of me by following me on Twitter by clicking here and you can also get a lot of updates and things I fall across on Facebook by clicking here and I can also be found on Stumbleupon by clicking here.

Moto 2...

There are many reasons to mourn the loss of the 250cc class in next years Moto GP season. Never again will you hear the wonderful sound of a full-on 2-stroke 250cc Grand Prix spec race bike bouncing off the limiter, never again will you smell that wonderful aroma (Which may cause lung damage and other nasty respirartory problems in later life but trust me, it's well worth it) that only a 2-stroke can provide.

Another reason to mourn the loss of the 250 strokers is that in next years "Moto 2" class there will be a single engine manufacturer (Honda Racing Corporation) and a single tyre manufacturer (Dunlop) which means curtains for fans of Aprilia (Who made possibly the finest 250 bike ever, imho, the RS250) and Gilera.

However, there is reason to be cheerful as the single engine manufacturer HRC has built a bike that is a more than adequate replacement. Here's the specs as stated on the official Moto GP site.

Powered by a one-make 600cc 4-stroke engine, producing around 150hp, the Moto2 class will continue the 250cc series' pursuit of developmental excellence with the running of a prototype chassis -free from limitation.

No production bike parts will be permitted for the frame, swing arm, fuel tank, seat or cowling, meaning that these aspects of the machine will be left to the manufacturer and designers. discretion.

However, electronic systems will be more limited than those currently permitted in 250cc, which has seen select factories bringing in traction control in recent years. Moto2 rules will allow for data loggers, ECU and timing transponders supplied by the organiser, with a maximum total cost of the ECU's components set at 650 euros. No other electronic control, nor datalogging systems, will be present on the bikes.

So, with limited money spent more teams will be more competitive and will therefore have an equal chance of winning races. The added advantage of the four stroke is that it runs cleaner than the current 250cc bikes and are easier on the environment. Plus, they sound amazing as this video, featuring former 500cc World Champion, Kevin Schwantz, shows.

Afterwards Kevin spoke about the bike...

"It’s a new project, it needs a little bit of work with settings as far as suspension goes, but as far as how nicely the bike goes and the power it delivers I think it is an amazing package right now. I’m convinced Moto2 is going to be great for the sport. For me it was all just for fun, but the new Moto2 bike should make for some interesting racing. I think whether you are a bigger guy like me, or whether you are smaller like Dani Pedrosa or Marco Melandri, if you are good enough you can make up for your size on a bike like this."

Like the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining.

Keep them on their toes....

Dear Author of www.rossdouglas.co.uk

Hello.

This is Howard from feedmil.com, a new real-time search engine dedicated for fast feed discovery. I am writing to invite you to submit a short informative description about the feed you publish at http://cnut.blogspot.com/atom.xml .

At feedmil, we provide not only feed search but also individual feed pages so that users can conveniently examine more details about a feed before they decide whether or not to subscribe to it.

Description about your feed in your own words will be listed under the section titled "Words from the Author(s)" of your feed page at feedmil, and we believe that it will help your potential subscribers better understand what your feed is mainly about and what kind of feedback you want, possibly increasing the number of subscribers to your feed.

You can send me any content you like to be displayed under "Words from the Author(s)" for your feed by replying to this email, and any kind of additional materials in the form of attachments in the reply email would be welcome as well.

I sincerely thank you for all the great content you publish, which makes the service like ours possible.

Your attention would be highly appreciated.

Thanks.

Best wishes,
Howard
The Feedmil Team

PS: More about feedmil.com

- Service launched: April 22, 2009

- Alexa ranking: 8,154 (as of Aug. 11, 2009)

- Some recent articles reviewing feedmil.com

******************************

Aloha Howard,

How hangs the hammer? Long and lazy I hope. If not, have you tried Viagra? Or indeed one of the many herbal alternatives that are available from most good emails...

I've had a wee look at your site and appreciate what it is that your service wishes to provide but feel it would be poor form of me to send you an authors description at the moment as I am not currently blogging due to a lack of Internet connection. (Yeah, it's a pisser as I have a desperate need to keep myself occupied. Whenever I stop being occupied the voices return and this leads to the headaches, the partial memory loss, the shakes and the occasional bout of waking up naked in a field covered in the blood of innocents.)

As soon as I get back on the net (with a reasonable time for getting up to speed on the news from the tech world, catching up on world events, getting back in the loop in re the genre of porn and kicking utorrent into life to download some music [also to drown out the voices]) I shall of course take you up on your offer and will whack out a few hundred words in an attempt to describe what it is my blog (and indeed I) am all about.

Until then, I remain, (Locked down and sedated for the good of the community and society in general.)

Ross Douglas.

Here's some music...

Rumours of my demise...

Have been greatly exagerated.

Sorry to all three of my readers but my laptop is fucked and I have not had access to the internet for a month or so (which has played havoc on my world) and will be back online soon. I hope.

So, until I get back online in the comfort of my home...

Mahalo all.

Today I learned...

Never order a large of anything in Starbucks. I mistakenly asked for a large, flat, black and was presented with a mug of coffee large enough to bath a baby in. Not that you’d ever bath your baby in a scalding hot cup of coffee that is, you’re sensible enough to know better. Or I think you are. Who knows, there are some people out there who may take delight in doing so. The internet is awash with freaks, loons and maniacs and real life isn’t much different. The only difference between the insane in real life and the insane online is that the ones in real life are easier to spot. The drool on their shirt and the dried semen around their fly gives them away… Or so I’m told. I enjoy the company of people who have excitement as their co-driver in my life but even in my deepest, darkest days I have avoided the obviously stark raving insane. Through sheer self preservation if nothing else.

*******

The sun has been shining today and the winter blues are being banished with spring stimulated smiles as I go about my day. The women in the street have a distinctly Parisian look about them as they replace large unflattering fleeces with summery dresses and sunglasses. The men, well, having never been one for eyeing up the male of the species, I can’t say. Perhaps I should seek out a homosexual to give me opinions on this. Perhaps not… Where would I begin the search? Hanging around in gay bars is not my bag and the only other place I have been informed that gay men hang around is public toilets and the opinions of toilet traders is not what I’m looking for. I need a hip and cool metropolitan male to tap for information not an arsebandit who sucks strangers dicks in the cubicles for kicks.

******

History in the making...

“Whiskey production became an important part of the history of George Washington's business activities at Mount Vernon when he built a successful distillery after he left the presidency.”

And so it may be for the Good Ole Boy George W Bush. After all he used to be fond of the stuff in his younger years and, who knows, perhaps he still hankers for the good old days of drinking with his buddies during his time (way) off base during the Vietnam war while defending Texas from invading hordes of gooks, slant eyes, chinks and slopes.

Even if GW does decide to take up the ancient art of distilling grain into fine liquor (or the even older tradition of making potatoes into rotgut moonshine for drinking on the porch) we, the general public will never find out in our lifetime. Not out of the fact that no-one but his family will know about it... Oh no, but because a thing like that in the newspapers could cause serious political damage to the office of the president.

Imagine the furore that would be caused by the Russians for one. For years America laughed at their country and made thinly veiled remarks about their pisshead president as he staggered his way through speech after speech. "Good Old Boris... Smashed again..." They'd say during UN gatherings, and other summit meetings, with not even the slightest thought to whether the translator would have the savvy not to relate the very same slur to the sloshed supremo.

Now, thankfully, there's no longer a Yeltsin dancing in the Duma and no more Dunce drinking in a darkened oval office. Today, there's an ex KGB operative making sure that no more of the former Soviet Union neighbour states stray from the path and, for once, there is a decent man in charge at the White House.

I wish him all the luck in the world. He's going to need it.

For the joi de vivre,

As a new year approaches...

I always get a little introspective.

This was the reason, I think, that I sat at my desk last night and poured out my state of mind to the old friend that got in touch with me not long ago. (There will be no revelations as to who this old friend/flame was so don't bother asking...) And now, the day after, I'm shitting bricks that she has read more into my words than were intended or implied. Why am I shitting bricks? I hear you ask. Well, mostly because I would like this person to be a part of my life again.

What the hell, here's the thing I wrote...

And now, as the witching hour approacheth, I'm sure you are snuggled up in bed warm and cosy so I think it's only fair that I tell you little bedtime story...

Once upon a time there was a young, not all-together hideous to look at, artistically leaning guy who met a girl who set off sparks in the young (and once again I stress, not all-together hideous to look at) guy's heart. Whenever he was in the company of the girl everything; Time, people and places, seemed to fade into the background like shadows on a pavement when a cloud rolls over.

The relationship they had together developed over time into something more than friends (but without all the squishy bits getting involved) and more and more they fell into the netherworld, where people of this state exist, which is known as "I wish they'd just get a room and get it over with."

But... The gods, who enjoy nothing more than seeing two people struggle to be apart when the magnets are facing the RIGHT way to ensure attraction, decided otherwise and watched as two people who cared deeply for each other tore one another apart.

The people never resorted to physical violence, keeping true to "star crossed" loves tendency to hurt with words and bit by bit a deep chasm was created between the people who needed one another like the air they each breathed.

Time passed and, like icebergs on the open sea, they drifted apart...

And now, may years later they find themselves back in contact and he finds himself wondering what could have been had the gods decided differently and allowed these people to be together, even for a short time.

But he doesn't dwell on that thought for long and instead accepts this woman back into his life for good or bad. He steps forward into the unknown with an open mind and an open heart. Preconceptions are not on his mind, there is no resentment felt and what happened many years ago is forgotten and forgiven.

Most of all he hopes that this is true for her also and that she recognises a chance from the gods to rekindle a very meaningful friendship.

****************************************

I think you'll see why it is I'm shitting bricks, you lot are all intelligent enough to see the subtext that could be read into the above words.

There's also the fact that she hasn't sent a reply. And yes, I know that there are many reasons... She may not have been online, she may not have the time to put together a reply to something as emotionally charged as that, she may be busy getting things ready for New Year, her arms could have fell off and she's having to type with a pencil in her mouth so as to not having to resort to typing by smashing her face onto the keyboard, whatever... It's just playing on my mind.

To finish this post (because I need to jump into the bath and get ready for work) I'd like to categorically state, both to you my readers and her, that nothing more than what was written was intended and that what was stated was true, even if it was a bit deep.

Mahalo and Hau’oli Makahiki Hou to you all.

Good communication and people power = A better world...

Twitter flash mob helps homeless
A meetup planned online becomes a crowd handing out bags full of warm clothes

Gillian Shaw
Vancouver Sun

Monday, December 22, 2008

It started as a two-line message on the Internet and ended up mobilizing a small crowd that roamed Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in the snow Sunday handing out warm clothing to the homeless who live there.

In a snow-covered demonstration of the power of social media, users of the online micro-blogging site Twitter -- some who didn't know each other in real life -- searched in closets for clothes to hand out in the freezing streets.

Yam De La Pena, known on Twitter as @tyamdm, said the idea grew from a tweet -- a Twitter update that is limited to 140 characters -- Saturday night. He and Janice Laing, a Vancouver executive recruiter tweeting as @JaniceLaing started talking about having a tweetup, a real life meeting of people who Twitter. "It started snowing so we decided to stay in and then there was the suggestion we should do a tweetup with a cause," said De La Pena. "Janice came up with the name Vancouver TweetupHeatup and within five minutes all sorts of people started getting involved."

A few people promised to dig out a couple of warm sweaters and meet downtown at Cambie and East Pender but by mid-afternoon Sunday, people were hauling in garbage bags full of warm clothes. "Everyone was going to bring a sweater or two and then they came with a lot of clothes," said De La Pena. "It was awesome. We didn't expect this turnout at all. The power of Twitter and social media is so impressive -- you can reach out to people you don't even know and do amazing things." De La Pena said he expected maybe four or five people would brave the snow-covered streets to come out, bringing a handful of clothes.

Instead, three times that many arrived with bags full of everything from winter coats to brand new socks and hats. Kye Grace, also one of the early organizers (@KyeGrace on Twitter) brought granola bars and chocolate to hand out. The TweetupHeatup met at Cambie and Pender and headed east, stopped every few feet by people looking for warm clothes. Along the way Grace and another Twitter user David Watts (@davidnotary) ran into the Army & Navy store to buy more socks, gloves and hats to meet the demand.

"Here's a coat," said Steve Jagger, a Vancouver tech entrepreneur on Twitter as @sjagger, rooting around in the bottom of a bag to come up with something for a homeless man looking to warm up. "No, take this one instead, it's a better fit and it's cool."

De La Pena said he has already heard from people on Twitter who want to follow up with other Tweetups with a cause. "We hope to be able to give out food next," he said. De La Pena said he also hopes the name VancouverTweetupHeatup on Twitter will inspire people in other cities to follow Vancouver's lead in getting together to help the homeless.

gshaw@vancouversun.com

Read Gillian Shaw's blog at vancouversun.com/digitallife

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Behold the rainbow...

Here's a fun way to waste an hour.

Just pick a few colours and watch the results float into view.

So you have Vista...

And you quite like it, despite the fact that you've read all kinds of shit on the internet that it sucks the sweat off of a dead man's balls, but you wish it was a bit more, well, you.

So what do you do? Do you start trawling the net in a vain attempt to find an uberhacker who is willing to show you the zen art of white hatting so you can customize your computer to look like you want it. (After all, showing off your individuality is one of the joys of computers and t'internet.) Or do you use the following tools and tricks to improve your computing experience.

So you'd like your desktop to look all cool and skeezy but you're not the arty type and don't know one end of photoshop from the other. This is where Deviantart comes into play. Deviantart is so full of wallpapers you will be stuck for choice for what to put into your wallpaper file.

But what if you're the type that would like a really trick desktop? Well here's a handy little page that shows you how, with very little tech knowledge, you can have an even cooler desktop that shows a loop of any movie file. (If you are familiar with movie editing you can also create your own if you want.) Here's one I made from a small loop from the TV show Dr Who.

(If you want a copy of the file click here.)

Next up on the list of handy little tricks you can do with vista is thanks to the Winvistaclub website which has a very nice little program that allows more than 130 different tweaks you can easily apply with only a few mouse clicks. Included in the tweaks are several different personalization tweaks, security tweaks and several more.

The final site for customizing Vista is howtogeek which has a huge list of tweaks and tips for windows Vista, Firefox, Windows XP and also has tweaks for Ubuntu, Linux and Microsoft office.

(Remember to always backup your computer before attempting any tweaks, keep a copy of any files you remove just in case it all goes a bit Pete Tong and set system restore points before any major modding.)

Have fun.