I don't do fashion...

For the obvious reasons...

A) I'm a bloke.
B) I have more sense.
C) Trends are only followed by those who cannot think for themselves.

Posh Spice however, does. And apparently she's caused a whole lot of hoo-hah with her latest fashion statement of heel-less boots. (cue all the oohing and ahhing of the womenfolk who read this blog)

The question I would like an answer to is "Will these shoes, if worn for any significant amount of time, cause back problems or other ill effects." Not because I care about Posh and her health you understand, but because I wish to see her suffer the same amount of agony and distress that she subjected us all to with her "singing."

I for one hope that wearing these shoes makes her spine twist like Chubby Checker with Parkinsons disease and curve like a baseball thrown by John Lee Richmond. Should this be the case I'll be happy knowing that the rake thin, irritating, talentless, waste of flesh and organs, cunt is getting all that she deserves.

Mahalo.

As the music begins...

I begin typing frantically, trying desperately to keep up with the pace. My typing is never fast enough for my thoughts and I make more mistakes than George W Bush did during his entire presidency. But this is not a problem, I can spell check and erase my errors, he cannot.

The idea is to type in stream of conciousness as the music plays, in order to break the bonds of thought and intent, thereby opening my inner-self to the page before me. Fuck knows if it works or not. I will have to wait until the end of the album playing and read it back. You will not have the experience of the music playing along and will have to take my word for it that I'm listening to Neon-Neon at the time of writing this.

I don't last long before I have to stop and read back through the previous paragraphs in case it scans like utter shite on a level never known to man before. I think it's all good so I let it go and get back into the flow. The tune has changed but the music is still in the same pop/electro groove and getting my head back into it is relatively easy. Though I am still unsure if it's making sense or not...

Today I awoke early for me. At just after 1pm my eyes open from a dream where I'm mowing down ex bosses with an articulated lorry whilst they play bowls. I laugh at the shit my subconscious still doles out to these swine on a regular basis, and hope they do not attempt to sue me for having dreams that may portray them and their precious bowling club in a negative light.

I swing my legs out of bed and kick aside the accumulated garbage at my bedside that has grown to a level where even I begin to wonder if I am inherently lazy, too deep with the dope to care or just a fucking slob. The thought "You must clean this house." passes through my mind, I silence it with a moan of "Fuck that, there are a limited amount of days left in your life, why clean today when you can merely kick a path from your bedroom to the bathroom and deal with all that shit later."

I shower, smoking a cigarette whilst doing so because my lungs demand that they are not allowed to breathe without highly poisonous carcinogens being drawn into them, taking care not to get the cigarette wet. A damp cigarette will not relight and I cannot walk from the bathroom to the living room, where my lighter is, without picking up all manner of detritus on my wet feet.

As the water runs down my body I revel in the warmth and keep my eyes open to watch the drops of water cascade off my head and hit the cold, white bath below me. Where will those drips end their journey? I ponder. Where will I end my journey? Is the energy I am made of indestructible, as the first law of thermodynamics suggests, and will I go onto another life after this one, or is this indeed my one and only chance. I let the thought twist and turn in my mind but eventually my concentration slips and the thought morphs into something all-together different.

I switch the shower off and am shocked with the difference in temperature between the water of the shower and the air in my bathroom. Perhaps the time is upon me again when I close all my windows and lock down for the coming winter. If the air in my house is anything to go by this winter is going to be a chillier than Hillary Clinton when Billy-boy nudges her during the night and asks "Tonight baby? How about it? Huh? Lets play President and Intern..."

I dry myself off and head for the living room where my clothes await me. The shape of my legs is still visible in the legs of my jeans and I slip them onto myself, revelling in the familiarity of clothes grown into over time. I rummage in the pile of clean clothing on my sofa and choose the T-shirt of the day. The Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK is emblazoned across the front and the words Boredom and Nowhere are written on it and the thought passes that it is appropriate for my life at this moment in time.

I am indeed stuck in a rut of boredom and am slowly going nowhere fast. One day this will pass and I will take the next step, just not today. I have other fish to fry. I have the rent to pay and need to get to the post office before it closes.

I finish dressing and get my shit together for the day ahead. My ipod is fully charged and today I will be shutting out the external world through the medium of sound. People will be ignored wholesale and the only interpersonal relations I will be engaging in will be absolutely necessary ones. The only words I shall speak are the ones where I will be stared at as though I am retarded if I do not let the person in front of me know what it is I am seeking from them.

"Coffee" is the first word I utter and it is brought to me at the table of the cafe opposite the post office. I drink from the mug in front of me and spill some onto my newspaper. The second word I utter is "Fuck." as the coffee spills onto Charlie Brooker's column in the Guardian.

The coffee monkey brings napkins to dry the table and my newspaper and I thank her in polish. She seems somewhat perplexed to hear a Scottish person thank her in her mother tongue and she smiles as she replies in kind. Perhaps I have lifted her spirits and have readjusted her mind in regards to this awful, grey and drab country she is resident in. Perhaps not. I cannot be arsed with the niceties of life today and do not want to tell her to go take a running fuck at a rolling do-nut so I smile instead and get back to reading my newspaper.

The newspaper is scanned as I drink the remainder of my coffee and the wider world invades my mind. The stock market is in free-fall and I laugh inwardly at the thought that any day now stockbrokers around the world may begin throwing themselves from windows because they can no longer afford the maserati in the driveway in the three car garage at their country house. Welcome to the real world wankers. Behold the great leveller. Witness the world laid bare. Practice this phrase... "Big issue, big issue, big issue."

The waitress brings me my breakfast and I stare at it with wonder. How many calories am I pumping into my body with this grease soaked bacon, eggs and blackpudding? I have no idea but chances are they are not low. There is little thought for my cholesterol levels. I need food and am not the type to eat like a rabbit.

The food is eaten as the music plays in my ears and the world outside passes by the window on its way to wherever. What these people are doing wandering the streets at 3pm on a Monday is beyond me. Not all of them have the day off and not all of them could be unemployed so where the hell are they headed? I have no idea so I concentrate on the music instead.

I leave money on the table for my breakfast and leave the cafe. A tip for the waitress is left as I know these people rely on tips to supplement their income. I have been this person before and may do one day in the future so I see this as karma. A small tip from a stranger may not be the difference between able to pay the rent but it is a brick in the building block of life.

After wandering along the road to the bus stop, braced against the wind and the cold that howls along Gorgie Road, I stand waiting for six minutes for the bus to arrive. The people at the bus stop are paper cut outs and make no impression on me. Apart from one small child who has a bright blue jumper on with the name of her nursery across the front. She is smiling at me and I smile back. The innocence in her eyes is clear as a bell and I pray to the Grand Whazoo that she keeps the joy that is apparent on her face for as long as possible and doesn't drop into the shitty reality of life these days.

This child knows nothing of wars, famine and stock market crashes. Her day is filled with play and friendly faces. Her hands are covered in several different colours of paint and I see a finger painting being held in the hand of her mother. Blobs of colour cover the childs canvas and I see a reflection of the child before me in the finger painting.

The mother of the child pulls her close and gives me a sneer that makes it clear she does not want me to smile at her child. I ask "Something wrong?" and am answered with another scowl and a grumble that sounds distinctly like "Freak."

I keep my smile on my face, so as not to project my anger at a level where the child knows what I am saying, and tell the mother to "Fuck off." She responds by pulling her child closer and I wonder if she sees all people as some kind of predator hell bent on the corruption of her child. I walk away and ponder more upon the futility of trying to be nice to people when the inherent perception is one of fear and mistrust.

Later, as I sit in my house at 4am, I stick another album on and begin typing.

Which is where we came in. And where you find me now...


Mahalo.

...

The months and the days I can handle, thanks to the high THC levels in my body, it's the seconds that drag.

You've probably experienced my life at some point in yours. Boredom is a constant companion and procrastination is your pal. But you, being a productive member of society, overcame the fear and faced your demons head on in a challenge. Or perhaps you didn't and did what I did. You hid. Swept the covers over your head and slept. For hours. In a haze of hash smoke, a delirium of diazepam, a coma of codine, a nest of needles; it's all the same really when you get right down to it...

They call us the wasters. The ones who cannot handle the cold hard truth of reality. We see the wars and the famine and the suffering and the injustice of your civilisation and a part of us shuts down. The part that is willing to accept these things as a part of life. And why? Because we know it to be wrong. Fundamentally incorrect, unacceptable to us on a level that you have never touched for a second.

"But it can't be changed;" We are told. "That's life;" They say, hiding behind the veil of fear of those that rule. And we, the few, look on and wonder if They have any idea that they are spouting the same shit spouted by their parents used to to justify the continuation of the Empire.

Ah, the Emipre. The enslaver of millions that is controlled by the few...

Do yourself a favour and squeegee your third eye by imbibing a large dose of psilocybin; See through the bullshit and force these soulless swine to make a difference. Stop the fighting and the bickering.

Life is too short.
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God damn my body...

Some people treat their body like a temple. I see mine as more of a funfair.

Having just gotten over a chest infection, that I suspect may have actually been pneumonia, I now have a pulled muscle in my chest causing me some pain whenever I breathe or cough... I breathe as a matter of course; I smoke too much and have asthma, so I cough quite frequently...

At least I'm hoping it's only a pulled muscle. There is the deep seated paranoid fear in my head that it's a coronary building up to the point where my heart explodes out of me like a stinger missile, or lung cancer. But that's just paranoia. I hope.

I'd go to the doctor but after the debacle of yesterday, when I called to try to get an appointment sometime before hell freezes over, this will not happen in the immediate future so I'll suffer the stabbing pains and wait for either my chest to get better or for the upcoming stroke to strike and hurl me violently into the big sleep.

But these are the things that keep us on our toes. Or our backs.

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Now playing: The Clash - London's Burning

For those of you who can't be arsed...

Getting a blog and spending a few hours getting it to look how you want it to, and doing all the associated shit that goes with it, there is a site that takes pretty much all of this, scrunches it into a ball, and throws it into the bin. Posterous is a miniblogging site that allows you to easily post whatever you fancy; MP3's, documents and even video in the form of links and files, to a page dedicated to you.

Posterous automatically embeds players for the following sites: YouTube, Google Video, Hulu, Omnisio, MixWit, Justin.TV, Fliggo, Vimeo, motionbox, TED Talks, Viddler, Dailymotion, Blip.tv, Revver, TeacherTube, GodTube, seesmic, and Brightcove as well as allowing you to post on other sites like Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, Movable Type, Livejournal and Xanga.

Founded by Garry Tan and his "college buddy" (Is this a euphemism? Answers on a postcard to the usual address) Sachin Agarwal, after they got sick of having to log into so many websites to blog something...

"It was kind of crazy. Log into Flickr, upload a picture, get an embed code, log into Blogger/Wordpress, paste the embed code, then finally after all those steps you have a blog post. We looked at email and just saw it was something nobody really used or cared about. So it all just sort of clicked." - Garry Tan.

When you think about it, the man has a point. Email is something that millions of people use each and everyday but not everyone is gung ho about getting a blog and putting the hours in to keep it fresh. Posterous takes all the hard work out of the hands of the user and allows them to post quickly and easily.

Garry and Sachin also plan on working on more ways to use email to connect people to the net simply and easily. Plans are in the pipeline for Posteous's staff to engage in non-profit work to help small charities set up a website that enables them to make themselves, and their mission, more widely known.

At the moment Posterous is a simple looking site when you first fire onto it but Garry assures me that the highest priority at the moment is themes and easy customising of your Posterous. I for one will hold him to it. Why not whip yourself over to posterous and grab yourself an easy updateable site.

Join the revolution, it's full of stars. Garry and Sachin may be two of them.

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Now playing: ZZ Top - Jesus Just Left Chicago

When I was a child...

Whenever I asked for something that was extravagant, or just plain ridiculous, my mother used to say to me "Where do you think you are? Daddy's yacht?"

"Mum," I'd say, (Mostly because I didn't know my mother well enough to call her Phyllis) "Can we have ice cream and jelly for supper?"
"Where do you think you are? Daddy's yacht?" She'd reply.

For hours, and often days, after hearing my mother utter these words I would ponder why my dad hadn't told me that he had a yacht or where it was berthed. Another question I pondered on was, how did my dad pay for his yacht on only the salary of an electrician?

The worst thing was that in his younger years my dad was in the navy and I gave serious consideration to the idea that when you left the navy they gave you a boat. The higher up the chain of command you were the bigger the boat you got. Admirals got large flagships, Captains got smaller destroyer type boats and electricians got a nice little yacht. It seemed the most sensible way that my dad had managed to get his, oft mentioned, yacht.

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Now playing: Elbow - Starlings

How to use Pazera Video Converter...

Ok so you have a nice shiny Ipod and want to put movies onto it. Here's how...

First, get over to www.download.com and download a copy of Pazera Video to Ipod Converter.

Start Pazera Video to Ipod Converter. You'll get a box like this...

Next you need to add the movie files from wherever you have them on your hard-disk. To do this click the Add Files button in the top right of the program.

A box will appear showing you links to the folders on your computer.

Find the file you want to convert and select it.

Pazera Video to Ipod Converter will add the file to the list of files to be converted.

The next step is to tell Pazera Video to Ipod Converter what type of file you want it to be converted to. To do this click the drop down box with profile written on it at the left hand side.

In the drop down box click the settings that you wish to use (Go for the Mov - Ipod/Iphone - Best Q - MPEG4 - 1500kbps - AAC 160kbps - 640x480 option.) and select it.

Click the button that has <-Load written on it.

The Video Converter will load the settings needed.

Make sure you have the output directory pointing to the directory you want to save your converted file in otherwise Pazera is set to save the file in the original directory by clicking the Browse... Button

Find where you want to save the file and select it. As you can see above I have selected the directory G:\Ipod Videos.

Done all that? You should now have a screen that looks a bit like this.

Finally check that the program knows all the information it needs to do the job you want it to. In the image below I have highlighted the things you have to do in order for the program to complete as desired.

Check that the File/s have been added.
Check that you have the right directory to save the converted file in.
Check that the profile settings are correct.

Done all that? Good. Now all there is for you to do is for you to click the Convert button which is located to the right of the Add File button you used to add the video you want to convert.

A screen like the one below will pop up and your video will be converted.

...Note... This is not an instantaneous thing so have some patience and wait until the program tells you it is finished. You'll notice a small bit of text, just below the black part of the screen with the video information that says Done, when it is.

To finish just hit the close button and shut the program down. And that, as they say, is that. You have now converted a movie file to a file that can be uploaded to your Itunes library.

Enjoy.

*Software used in this demo...

Pazera Video to Ipod Converter.

Play by FoxSaver®

JK Rowling is Scottish...

So you'd think she would be more sensible with money and not go doing something stupid like giving a million pounds to the labour party, a party who I personally wouldn't trust with a kids piggy bank. This is exactly the reason women shouldn't be given money. They'll only go and spend it on silly things like shoes, posters of Richard Gere and tampons. Instead of squandering it on other bleeding twats.

*I would like to point out that this post is meant in a joking manner. I do not want to get hate mail from a bunch of hairy arsed lesbian feminists or bearded ladies.

Cool video...

Vote Obama '08 posters...

Read all about this story here.

Read all about it here.

He's a big fucker this boy. Tall but not broad. The worst kind...

Wiry muscles are always under greater strain when stretched over so long a frame. If he kicks off he'll thrash wildly like a demonic flaying machine been designed by a medieval torturers assistant in an attempt to impress the boss.

He's also Irish... This always means the extra added bonus of street fighting techniques only the scummyist people learn. And learn fast... There is no mercy for the weak in the concrete jungle of the inner cities and the kid who doesn't figure out that the main point in a street fight is to make sure you whack the bastard attacking you into the ground before he does the same to you doesn't get to grow up and have kids.

He's been drinking heavily all day, chasing Guinness down his throat with whisky and water. The sure sign of a hardened drinker. Guinness on it's own is bad enough in the wrong hands but those who drink double whiskies to keep it company are often skittish, volatile and unpredictable from one second to the next.

He is talking to me. Or attempting to anyway.

The words are slurred but the eyes are sharp. He's drunk but edgy. There is a strange brown sludge covering the hand he is offering me in a gesture of friendliness. I consider the possibility that it is his own faecal matter and decide the consequences of not shaking his hand may well be him taking umbrage and lashing out at me. I shake his hand and quickly empty one of the drip trays into the sink so I have an excuse to wash my hands as soon as possible and hope he doesn't think I am washing my hand because I shook his hand and think it's dirty in some way. The outcome of this could also be him taking umbrage and lashing out but it's fine and he continues his slurred speech.

An old trick used by barmen the world over is listening without actually listening. I practise the discipline, and believe me there are wise, bald monks in temples who cannot do it, for the next hour. He finally succumbs to the inevitable: The bar closing; and sinks the remainder of his pint. his hand is offered again but tbis time he has decided I am worthy of a friendly hug. I give him a hug hard enough to show him I am on his side, but won't be pushed, and he nods his head and gives me a look to show he knows the score...

We are kindred spirits. Brothers in arms. Fellow soldiers in the War between Us and Them.

"Politics is the art of controlling your environment" Hunter S Thompson.

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Now playing: Oasis - Cigarettes & Alcohol

"Stop already with the Firefox shit will ya!"

I hear you yell at me from the comfort of your home and quite frankly all I have to say in reply is... Try living my life and having something worth writing about at the end of the day... This is the reason I'm doing another shambolic attempt at tech reviewing and informing you all of the latest shit i have plugged into FireFox 3.

First up is a really nice little FireFox media player plugin called Foxytunes. Foxytunes is an addon that enables you to control your media player from inside FireFox. Compatible with WinAmp, iTunes, Yahoo Music Engine, Pandora, foobar2000, Windows Media Player, Xbox Media Center, Musicmatch, Quintessential, J. River, jetAudio, XMPlay, MediaMonkey, Media Player Classic, Sonique, wxMusik, Real Player, XMMS, Noatun, Juk, Amarok, Music Player Daemon, Rhythmbox and many others Foxytunes is a useful little addon if you like to listen to music while you surf the web.

Another small addon I have just installed, and am loving it, is Twittytunes. Twittytunes is a nice little addon made by the same builders responsible for Foxytunes and allows you to post the title of whatever song you are currently listening to onto your Twitter feed.

---

*Update* Twittytunes also appears to work with the blogger post editor and allows you to show whatever song you are listening to onto your blog as a signature. Like so...

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Now playing: Happy Mondays - Step On
via FoxyTunes

Ain't that cool and skeezy?

Every once in while...

A person is born who is destined to be the leader in their chosen field. Ross Noble is one of those people.

Ross is an English comedian who deals solely in the world of unreality. His delivery, of stream of conciousness material, is possibly the finest example of this art. Watch the videos below and laugh as Ross plies his trade in a way that makes most comedians wish they had his talent. (The total runtime for these videos is quite long so if you do intend on watching them set aside a good hour, or possibly two, and watch them one after the other.)

Enjoy...

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 1

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 2

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 3

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 4

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 5

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 6.

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 7

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 8.

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 9

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 10

Ross Noble - Unrealtime - Part 11.

As the arrows of truth...

Smack into the hide of the injured, and hopefully dying republican elephant beast, news has emerged from a local of Wassila that Senator Palin isn't all that she seems.

Read all about it here.

Or you can read about John McCain's lack of openness when it comes to his medical records and the associated shitstorm brewing here.

The realisation gained by reading all about these stories throw a shadow over the McCain/Palin ticket. Palin is a power hungry freak who loves guns (and, possibly, by extension missiles and other ways of killing) who cannot help but spend spend spend, without a thought about how to pay for anything and John McCain is a good hard fart away from joining the choir invisible.

Question...

How nice is this cop?

The people of Goon City...

Wish that you would pop along for a visit.

I'd much rather hear a major dropping to a minor...

Than a major dropping bombs. So here's a small list of songs that sing of hope sung by musicians with a conscience.

Imagine - john Lennon.

The Internationale - Billy Bragg.

Midnight Oil - Beds are Burning.

Ian Brown - Illegal attacks (feat Sinead O'connor)

Country Joe McDonald - "Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die"

Enjoy.

Read all about it.

Banksy, take note... This is guerilla art...

On Monday morning I was splonging around on The List when I noticed an ad informing me that the film Man on Wire was showing at the Edinburgh Filmhouse. Having seen a trailer for the film previous to the eye hurtingly shit Babylon AD, and noticing that Man on Wire was only showing for the next two days, I decided that I should haul my arse out of bed and go and see it on the big screen where the sense of scale would be better far than watching it in a few weeks time when the DVD is released. I was not dissapointed.

This film should be seen on as large a screen as possible (IMAX would be ideal) as the risk that the star of the film, a Frenchman named Philippe Petit, took in doing this stunt are pounded into your mind by the images on the screen. Imagine standing on the edge of a pair of buildings, that at the time were the worlds tallest at 415m, now try to imagine stepping onto a 3/4" thick wire and walking from one tower to the other.

This movie is not only a tribute to the man who walked the walk instead of just talking the talk but to the World Trade Centre building itself. Memories of that day were certainly not far from the front of my mind as I waited for the movie to begin and I'm sure I wasn't the only one in the auditorium that felt the same. The Timing was appropriate. The film, more so.

For the last seven years the images in my head I associated with the words World Trade Centre were ones of aircraft crashes, falling men, deadly debris and crushing concrete. Now though, thanks in part to this film I can think of the World Trade Centres and think of something positive and life affirming.

Images ©2008 Jean-Louis Blondeau/Polaris Images.

Breaking news... Exclusive to this site.

According to a rumour, VP Candidate Sarah Palin is to announce that she was responsible for the invention of the Apple Mac.

Sources known only to the writer of this blog have said that Sen. Palin is set to announce it in an attempt to contain the negative public opinion following the claim by Douglas Holtz-Eakin (McCain’s senior policy adviser) that John McCain invented the Blackberry.

In a phone call from my top source it was claimed that "Senator Palin has a whole file of irrefutable, stone wall, cut and dried evidence that Steve Wozniac stole the idea from Sarah Palin whilst she was on a holiday to California sometime late in 1979. I tell you man, this is gonna blow Obama and his friend Joe Biden out of the water. Things are going to be messy." before the call was cut short by the, unconfirmed as yet, forcible abduction of my source. Sounds of a struggle were clearly heard before the telephone went dead.

Stay tuned for more.

Wise words on a cold day...

“We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.”
Hunter S. Thompson.

These words ring with the Truth like a claxxon bell when you look at the outgoing president and the candidates for the republican party in the upcoming election. John McCain is a warmongering hawk and Sarah Palin is a rootin' tootin' gun-lovin-anti-abortion hockey mom who is only there in an attempt to steal the votes of middle american mothers who would otherwise vote for Barack Obama, who is the best candidate since John F Kennedy stepped up to the plate and hit a home run clear out of the park.

McCain hasn't got his feet under the table of the presidents desk yet but already he is making noises that are sending fear into the hearts and minds of people in every country that doesn't have it's mouth wrapped around the pecker of the president. Shit, you get the impression that even the countries that do have an "agreement" with America wouldn't be safe if John McCain gets to drive the big red, white and blue juggernaught that is the United States. All I can say is, look out France...

As another day begins John McCain's campaign takes a beating as it is revealed that his TV advertising campaign is taking the truth and running it through with a skewer in an underhand effort to make Barack Obama look like a charleton. Is there no level to which John McCain will not stoop in order to get his hands on the prize. Probably not.

It beggers belief...

I'm sat in my house and it's just approaching 2am. The TV is on and BBC news is squawking away in the corner. The news is showing a pre-recorded (can you record something after it has happened? No. Pre-recorded is a stupid term, get rid of it.) episode of  ABC World News With Charles Gibson as it usually does at this time. I'm reading a book and chain smoking cigarettes when my interest is caught by Charles Gibson saying "And now a story which demonstrates the power of prayer."

Instantly my eyes drop from the book and dart towards the TV. "What the fuck?" I say as the story of a woman who had a tumour in her heart is told. The story goes like this... The woman has pains in her chest and drops like a stone in her bathroom. She suffers stroke after stroke, caused by the tumour breaking up in her heart and causing blood clots in her brain. Three days later she is found in a coma by a maintenance man.

The woman's mother then explains that she began offering up prayers to God after doctors said she should sign a "Do not resuscitate" form after explaining to her that if her daughter ever woke from the coma she would be so severely paralysed that she would have no quality of life whatsoever. In the doctors opinion her daughter would be a "Vegetable."

So what did Momma do? That's right, Momma "prayed to God" and enlisted the help of several prayer groups to do the same. Several prayer groups joined her vigil and lo and behold, the daughter makes a full recovery. there is joy and happiness all around. (There may have been a celebratory cake as well but I'm only surmising.)

Now, I don't want to sound insensitive to the plight of the woman and her daughter who must have felt pain and anguish that I cannot comprehend but how does this story "Demonstrate the power of prayer."

The short answer to that question is this... It doesn't. Who is to say that prayer made any difference to this woman? Charles Gibson and the ABC network can't offer any proof that prayer made the slightest bit of difference to this woman. So, I ask you, why the fuck is it reported as though prayer is the answer to all your wishes.

Basically, because the christian coalition is running the show.

There are millions around the world who offer up prayers every day to: End poverty, cure disease, ease suffering, help humanity and yet these problems are still very much prevalent in society. Where is God then? Out to lunch? Or just plain non-existent? You decide. Just don't take the word of Charles Gibson and the ABC news network as gospel.

The great gig in the sky...

Has one more member to add to the line up...

Richard Wright, one of the founding members of Pink Floyd died today after a short battle with cancer. He was 65.

Addons and themes and scripts, oh my. We're not in Kansas any more...

Ok, so lately I've been posting nothing of interest, unless you're keen on finding out how to make your browsing experience more individual. This may change at some point but right now I'm hooked on it so you'll just have to put up with it until I am distracted by something else and move on.

The latest addon I've stumbled across on my travels through the interstitial webulator is Scribefire. A handy blog related program that sits quietly in FireFox and allows you to blog about the page you are currently reading/looking at/jerking off to (delete as necessary) with little or no hassle. Scribefire sits patiently at the bottom of Firefox and does nothing until you click it into action and up it jumps like a soldier desperate to please his commanding officer.

I'll be playing around with Scribefire later on tonight and will update this post as I go. I'll highlight the pro's and cons of this neat looking little program, so far I have only had ten minutes of playing with it and won't be able to post much more as I have to go to work now.

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And here we are a few hours later and I've arrived back at home after doing my shift at the pub (Which has it's very own Bebo page right here if you feel like having a whole pub as one of your friends) and I'm playing around with scrIbefire. The only problem I have noticed is the non existant spell checker. Other than that Scribefire is a great tool for all your blogging needs. Formatting a post is as easy if not easier than blogger itself and there are plenty of extra things to keep you amused.

All in all Scribefire is a worthwhile addon to firefox.

The other day I was raving on...

About the cool and skeezy addons that you can get for FireFox these days thanks to all the wonderful coders out there who see something they like, but think it could be improved, and rewrite it as they would like it to be. It's because of this relentless tinkering that people are able to customize their computer/browser to a level that makes it truly individual without needing to know how it is done.

Take Speeddial for example. This little addon enables you to have all your favorite websites on a tab in FireFox so you don't need to bother with all the hassle of clicking your bookmarks open and remembering where the link is. With a little bit of tweaking (downloading images that you wish to associate with your favorites) you're able to create a really neat looking startpage that suits your needs. Thanks to the easy to use controls, how easy it is to customize and it's use-ability Speeddial is going to be a favorite of mine for a long time. Download it and give it a try, you won't be disappointed. Here's my speeddial page.

Another recent addon to my Firefox is Foxclocks. Which does exactly what it says on the tin. It puts clocks for different timezones on the status bar at the bottom of FireFox. (You can see my Foxclocks on the bottom left of my browser.) Foxclocks is a lot more trick than it initially sounds when you realise that Foxclocks helps you keep an eye on the time, locally and around the world, by putting clocks in your statusbar and comes with other features such a Google Earth location finder built into it.

"That's all well and good Ross, but don't all these addons clutter up the right-click menu?" I hear you ask. And you'd be right to question me on that. But this is where Menu Editor comes into play. Menu Editor is an addon that gives you full control over what is shown on your right-click menu and all your other menus such as the File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools and the Help menu. And now you don't have all those unnecessary links kicking about in your menus.

The next thing to make my browsing more engaging is Better Gmail 2. Better Gmail 2 works with the new version of Googlemail, if you're using the classic version you need Better Gmail 1 instead, and vastly improves the functionality of Gmail. Google Ad's are removed and the skin function, there are four at the moment until someone designs more, makes Gmail look light years better.

The final addon I have installed is Customize Google. This is an addon that makes Google's search pages as good as they should be. You want links to other search engines on Google? You got it. You want to make Google stream search results so you have one page of results instead of the usual amount? You've got it. You want the same for images? You've got it. You want to prevent cookies from being sent to Google analytics and anonymize the Google cookie UID? You got it and a lot more.

Enjoy these addons if you choose to grab any of them and remember to recommend them to your friends. If you have any. I don't, I'm too busy playing with FireFox addons.

Mahalo.

Yesterday...

All my troubles seemed so far away, now it looks as though they're here to stay...

Sorry, I got sidelined there for a second... God knows why... Anyhoo, here we are again with the latest news from the wonderful world of me. Life is good, work is good and I am able to breath again after having spent the last couple of weeks coughing my lungs up after developing a chest infection that would bring down lesser mortals. (As one of the chosen few Children of the Grand Whazoo [may he giggle for all eternity] I am more than the sum of my parts and am immune to such trifling things such as pnuemonia.)

Today I spent most of the day in bed after playing around with all the lovely little FireFox addons I was raving about earlier in this blog until 5:45am. As such the day has mostly been taken up with sleep and work. But now I'm home after a good shift and am loose upon the web again.

I did manage to catch a small portion of the Mercury Prize last nigh though and have grabbed a copy of the winning album to listen to to see if I want to buy it and will let you all know what I think of it at some point. Fair enough, the judges of the Mercury prize will no doubt have reviewed it already but they don't have the same eyes as I do when it comes to music I may spend money on. If it sucks however I will delete it, save my money for something more worthwhile and curse the judges for having the musical taste of idiots.

If the last line of this little ditty doesn't make you laugh...

Then you may be clinically dead.

She Loves You - Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.

So, there you are...

With a nice shiny Ipod and very little music to drop onto it. So what do you do? You give it to your friend and they drop a load of their music onto your Ipod until you can build up a half decent library of your own.

And that's when the problem starts. You've build up your own library of tunes and movies but there are some tunes of your friends that you have discovered are in your taste and want to keep them. Itunes won't allow you to rip from an ipod to your library and you are now faced with downloading the tunes from wherever you downloaded your own songs from (Everyone say Piratebay) and there goes some more of your precious time.

But worry no longer folks because there is a nice little program called Idump that takes care of this problem and enables you to rip from an Ipod to your PC with ease. Grab it now, before apple finds out and shits all over it.

With less than Eight hours to go...

Until the end of the planet as we know it...

(Thanks to those crazy boffins at C.E.R.N and their very expensive and quite dangerous (if you believe certain kooky science types quoted on CNN and other major news-agencies) Large Hadron Collider which is to be switched on later today 100 meters below Geneva, Switzerland.)

...I sat down in front of my laptop with the intention of writing something intelligent, insightful and interesting about the faults and foibles of the human race in the hope that if scientific progress makes the planet go Boink my final words of wisdom could somehow sway The Grand Whazoo into giving the human race another go at life and what did I spend an hour and a half doing? I played with some of the FireFox 3 add ons.

First on the list was a neat little bit of technical wizardry called Foxsaver which allows you to have a screen saver type slide show of your pictures (or a stream of pictures from the web) right smack bang in the middle of your FireFox window. If you're anything like me and have a nice big folder of your favorite images sat in your drive then this little add on is a must have.

Next up was a nice little toolbar button add on that enables the full range of buttons for FireFox and allows you to pack all your vital things into your toolbar. I personally plumped for the Gmail button, Yahoo mail sign-in button, Wikipedia homepage button, FireFox Add-on button and a couple of others such as print preview button, clipmarks button, delicious tag button and the restart FireFox button. Because of these handy buttons my browser is now a lot cleaner looking as you can see from the screenshot below and is far more functional and easy on the eye.

I'd highly recommend whipping yourself over to the Mozilla add ons web page and grabbing both of these funky little add ons. As far as I'm concerned they're more than good enough to distract you from the end of the world.

Babylon AD - A review...

Shite. With a capital S.

If you have an hour and a half of your life to spare this week, or any other week for that matter, I would highly recommend that you do not spend it watching this movie. Starring Vin Diesel (The non-thinking mans Arnold Schwarzenegger) Babylon AD is so awful if I were given the choice of watching it again or sticking hot needles into my eyes I'd plum for the latter option safe in the knowledge that it would be the more productive way to spend my time.

For the last two weeks...

I have, as is usual at about this time of the year, been coughing my lungs up due to a chest infection. As such I have been laid in my bed (I'd much prefer getting laid in my bed, believe me) every minute of the day in an attempt to shake it off.

As such my life has been somewhat dull and uninteresting so I have had nothing to report to you all here. However, because of this I have had a lot of time to read and have piled my way through half a dozen or so books, watched several movies and spent at least six hours a day watching coverage of the Republican and Democratic conventions.

Now lets get one thing clear here, I am in no way up to speed on the ins and outs of the American political system (Despite the fact I've read Alexis De Toqueville's "Democracy in America" and at least a dozen other books on how it works over the pond) and make no claims to be some kind of genius when it comes to politics, but in my opinion it looks like America may well be headed towards electing its first African American president in Barrack Obama.

When Barrack Obama (and his wife Michelle) spoke at the Democratic convention I couldn't help but feel I was watching history in the making. (I feel I should make it clear that I ignored the choreographed "spontaneous" applause, overly exited brouhaha from the crowd and concentrated instead on the rhetoric.)

Barrack Obama is a master of the spoken word and delivered his speech with grace and a gravitas that has been much missed in politics in America over the last Eight (8) years under Bush and his ShrubCo cronies. And the same can be said for his wife Michelle who will have, without a doubt, swayed more than her fair share of voters towards voting for her husband.

John "Can't reach the top shelf" McCain however looked like a man who knows he is facing defeat on a grand scale and is merely making the right noises and saying the right things to limit the damage to the party before skulking back into the hole from which he crawled. (That was a cheap joke... I'm sure John McCain has ways of reaching the top shelf.)

I'm looking forward to the head to head argybargy of the next couple of months where the candidates face off against one another in the television debates as I think there could be some moments where the mask drops and the man beneath is revealed.