Scam City version 7.0

We’re nosey neighbours... We see things going on through the office window and make up stories about what’s going on. Don’t get me wrong, it’s just between us, we don’t spread idle gossip to other neighbours.

Like, as an example, the neighbour directly across the road, she has a female visitor everyday, so we think a little lesbian lovin' is going on there... And today was the coup de gras.

She had a visit from the Cobb County Police!

Now, as we were peeping through the blinds at various points of the house, we were hoping for something more to happen... But it passed without incident. What a let down.

Strangely it was the highlight of my day.

It finally happened... The version of Adobe® Photoshop® CS I was using had the old “serial-expires-on-February-1st” trick happen to me... So after a month of using a trial version and the older “changing-the-clock-back-to-January” trick I thought “it’s been a month, more or less, I’m pretty sure the mad genius' out there have cracked this problem by now...”

And I found they have, hallelujah!

If you have the same problem as me, download the crack from keygen.us and you should be sorted if you follow the instructions given.

(via Funny Logic)

Thankfully Michael Hanscom was pretty understanding about yesterday’s incident, so I’m back to this old look while I figure things out...

Plus it snowed today! Can you believe it?

I’m a hypocrite... Last month I had a post called “All Rights Reserved” about me jumping on the Tequilamockingbird vs. Bryan Lamb righteous cause of copyright infringement... Only for me to do something far more heinous than copying someone’s words.

What’s that you ask?

How about a design? And yeah, I got busted for it... So now I’ve sent Michael a rather apologetic e-mail and crossing my fingers he doesn’t decide to take matters any further, I’ve also left this place as barren as I could at short notice as another kind of way of saying “sorry”.

So if you read any comments saying how low and despicable I am, now you know.

Feel free to lambaste me and distance yourself from me if you wish. I’m not denying what I did. And I am sorry for what it’s worth...

We finally managed a bit of a family reunion without the hissing and growling from Linus. Thought it took some real persuasion...

Aren’t they cute?


Meanwhile, it’s Grey Tuesday so get the DJ Danger Mouse remix of Jay-Z’s “Black Album” while you still can... Why? Well, it’s remixed with The Beatles' “White Album to create the EMI un-friendly ”Grey Album" that was quickly blocked a week or so back. Highly enjoyable protests are always the best.

OK, spoke too soon... Linus was soon on the offensive while Sally just lay there and took it.

We got a new member of our motley crew of the damned extended family today in the shape of Linus' real, real brother... Which we’ve christened “Sally” just to confuse the two of them, seeing as Linus is a girl and Sally a boy. And he’s just an adorable little kitten, the runt of the litter no less. Linus is a little ball of fluff, and Sally is like half her size.

He arrived just over an hour ago, so the rest of the cats are not quite sure how to treat him... Linus is all hissy, Pigpen doesn’t really care and Snoopy cares even less than Pigpen.

Anyways, here he is...

As you know, I recently upgraded to Mozilla Firefox 0.8 and today I finally got round to going to the extensions page after it was down for the best part of 10 days and installed the RSS Reader Panel. This is a handy tool as it (in theory) prevents me going to all the blogs I read to see if their updated...

As I said, it’s in theory, because most of the blogs I read don’t have RSS feeds to draw from which is kinda disappointing. So this is a call to my blogging readers... Get your RSS feed on, if you use blogger it’s so easy to start... It’s handy for people who read lots of blogs on a daily basis as it gives you the blog in bite sized bits and you can quickly see if it’s been updated so you can quickly jump to the post you want to read.

Here’s how mine looks like:


More info on my feeds is here.

Ever since the song “Hey Ya” by Andre 3000 of Outkast came out, everyone is shaking their Polaroid pictures. I have always been told that you should not shake a Polaroid picture, but I’m having a hard time convincing those around me that this is true. What is the answer?

Polaroid say “NO, just lay it down flat OK!”

OK then... But “lay it on a flat surface like a Polaroid picture” doesn’t sound nearly as cool does it?

Now.... You thought this was gonna be a post about that infamously lazy ass band who call themselves Guns N' Roses and their lawsuit didn’t you?

Jeesus readers, give me a bit more credit than that... I’m here to bring you stories that will warm your heart and broaden your horizons while informing you of the latest going’s on in the world as we know it.

So with that said, I’m taking it all back by presenting to you... Back to their near enough original line up! Some said it would NEVER happen! The baddest band in the land! The Ayatollah’s of Rock and Rollah! GUNS N' ROSES!!!!!...

*Insert sounds of record scratching here*

Woah man... Their, like, kids! It’s like a bad trip... Talk about sending a cold shiver down my spine. But the most disturbing part is in the bio section, the Lil' Steven Adler is sporting a freakin' phat blunt! Wassupwitdat??

A funny fact about Pepsi’s iTunes Giveaway. There is a way you can ALWAYS* win

“Hi, I’m Greg, and I currently reside in Atlanta, Georgia and in my spare time I like to defraud leading cola retailers.”

Hey, Atlanta is prime Coca-Cola land, I’m doing my bit for the cause *upraised fist*

* = Not always proven to win, I’ll do some research at the nearest Publix and get back to you, any codes I find in said Publix will be added to a notepad so I can cash them in as soon as I get home... Brings new meaning to “No Purchase Necessary”.

Wales 4 - 0 Scotland

Another dismal performance by Scotland, after the “dizzy” heights of beating Holland 1-0 in November it’s back to the same miserable performances. I listened to the first 20 or so minutes of today’s game before turning off in relative disgust. They’ve now conceded 10 goals in 2 games without reply.

So much for progress... They’ve also dropped down two positions in the FIFA Rankings to 53rd. Now teams like Iran, Iraq, Mali, Jordan, Honduras and Algeria are above them... That’s kinda pitiful.

A bonus of living over here is I got to see most of the Holland versus USA match on ESPN2. A good battle between the 4th (Holland) and 11th (USA) ranked teams in the world. Both also sporting hideous Nike kits, all of which are pretty damn ugly again. I thought they’d have learned their lesson after the ugly kits they gave their teams in the 2002 World Cup, but no...

This time via the new(ish) look Copydesk...

A number of BBC staff placed this advert in the Daily Telegraph and much kudos to them... There is also a nice link to Scary Duck’s blog that tells it like it is...

There is nothing in the world, however, like a vengeful Blairite, and Hutton has left the BBC on a knife-edge just two years before charter renewal. The licence fee? Editorial independence? The right to take risks and ask difficult questions? All these, say here today, and dare I say it, gone tomorrow, culture minister Tessa Jowell are beyond discussion - but how many both within and outside the corporation actually believe her? After all, the Kelly affair left both Chairman Gavyn Davies and DG Dyke sacrificed to the government like pawns in a one-sided game of chess.

Governments are sprawling Jekyll and Hyde organisations. They come to power on a tide of promises and goodwill, but eventually the power hungry Hyde surfaces with his broken promises, trampling on those who get in their way. Underneath the officially airbrushed smile is a sharp-toothed monster, spinning for all it’s worth, and is never, ever wrong.

So, who do you trust? A BBC that makes mistakes every now and then, or a rabid print media in the hands of a few millionaire businessmen that can lie and distort on their front pages and never have to take a word back; whilst spoon-feed stories by political spin-doctors?

For 116 quid a year you get eight TV channels, five national radio networks, separate networks for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with their own language services. Local radio. The world’s best web site. Your taxes buy the world’s most listened to radio station. I know who I trust, and I’m proud to work for them.

So. Not. Worthy!

Anyways, I’ll leave you with a few images that caught my eye on SuperHeroHype, it’s another Batman cartoon series and too cool NOT to share.

Interesting tidbit found via The Benblog.

The UK Government may want to dismantle the BBC after the fallout from the Hutton Report about the death of Dr. David Kelly. This can only end in tears before bedtime for everyone concerned...

A new scholarship created for whitey only.

A student group at Roger Williams University is offering a new scholarship for which only white students are eligible, a move they say is designed to protest affirmative action.

The application for the $250 award requires an essay on “why you are proud of your white heritage” and a recent picture to “confirm whiteness.”

“Evidence of bleaching will disqualify applicants,” says the application, issued by the university’s College Republicans.

Jason Mattera, 20, who is president of the College Republicans, said the group is parodying minority scholarships.

So am I the only one who doesn’t see the funny side?

I should really stop blogging on a Sunday as there isn’t much to say. It’s been raining like nothing else most of the morning and the three cats are having 12 rounds of throwdown at the bottom of my bed. We’re also back to a 4 people, 6 animal household. Not that having Ben and Lauren here was bad, it was quite good, I just don’t think I could live under those conditions for any significant stretch of time. I’ve lived with 4 other people before and even that was strained at times...

So many are still wondering why I chose to live in Atlanta, so seeing as I’ve got time on my hands (and really nothing better to do) I’ll tell you a little story.

Flashback to 1997

97’s the number, another summer *get down*, sound of the funky drummer...

It was a mediocre year, I was still in college and I recently discovered this fabulous new tool called the internet, “they have the internet on computers now?”, and one of the few things I liked to do in my early days was head on over to the Channel 4 NBA forum. Channel 4 had been showing the NBA in the UK for a year or so now and in the forum was a few funny characters and what fun we’d have trying to wage war with the NFL forum and the Under The Moon forum. Time moved on and after the 97/98 season Channel 4 lost the rights to show NBA and the forum was closed, the league also went into a prolonged lockout taking out just over half of the season.

But alas, a new forum had sprung up and a few core members from Channel 4 had found their way over and for about 3 years we called it home.

Fast forward to 2000

Channel 4 had begun showing WWF programming on terrestrial TV, and a few of us started talking about it on the NBA forum, so much so it caused the owner to make us a special WWF forum and nothing but good times lay ahead as this forum grew and grew and grew over time, as well as moving to and from various free message board providers until March of 2002 when one of the members decided to put one of those YaBB message boards on a server of his and finally we had (and still have) a stable home...

But what’s all this got to do with me being in Atlanta you ask? Well, one of the posters in the Channel 4 forum moved over to the NBA forum and was there for the beginning of the WWF forum and finally hosted the permenent home of the WWF forum is also the same guy who used to live in Croyden but now lives in Atlanta... Am I making any sense here? I guess not cause I’ve pretty much confused myself.

Basically, if I hadn’t went to that Channel 4 NBA forum in the summer of 97, I most likely wouldn’t be sitting here typing this, as the people I live with also host this place. It’s funny how one little action can affect you in many ways, but that’s another “what if??” question for another day.

Now you kinda, sorta know how I ended up in Atlanta... Happy now?

The new Mozilla browser release has been, well, released... Say hello to Mozilla Firefox 0.8 and so far looks a bit better than the old Firebird 0.7 release, but what’s with the name change? Will Thunerbird 0.6 become Thundercats?

I can only hope...

In completely unrelated news, we visited North and South Carolina yesterday, which was a long day, a long long day... But hey, it’s 2 new states on the list. I’m also hoping to add Oregon to that soon as I’m playing with the idea of visiting Tiffany for her birthday in a couple of weeks time.

Following on from Tennessee, we thought we’d add another state to our list and seeing as Alabama is the closest one (apart from Tennessee) we headed over there.

That was our first mistake. Though I’m sure Alabama is a nice state, we managed to find our way to the scariest, most rundown shanty town I’ve ever seen... It was straight out of Deliverance and yes I know Deliverance is set in Georgia, but let’s not get petty here. Erika was driving and for some god unknown reason, she kept driving deeper and deeper into this ruin of a town who’s name I forget... And trust me, I’ve looked on plenty of maps and it doesn’t even show up! It’s a Scooby-Doo ghost town!

So yeah, that was my brief run in with Alabama, my 11th US state after Maine, Florida, New York, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Massechusetts, New Jersey, Georgia, Tennessee... Later on this week I hope to add North and South Carolina to the list making it 13 states in 10 years, most in the last 5.

Though, one funny moment came out of the trip. We stopped by a river for a break and to stretch the legs, and beside the river was a little dock of sorts, so Erika goes walking towards the end and what do we see lurking under the dock?

An Alligator!

Well, it looked like an Alligator at first, so we’re screaming at Erika to come back on to land and she’s having none of it, which was funny cause the “Alligator” was just a bit of wood. But I swear, for a few seconds we were sure it was an Alligator. Scary but funny in the end...

Yesterday we took a trip up north to Tennessee and Chattanooga to be a bit more precise... And it was a pretty cool day.

We stated out at about 10am and eventually arrived at the first destination somewhere between 12pm and 1pm, the place was Ruby Falls at Lookout Mountain, which is a 145' underground waterfall deep inside Lookout Mountain, not for the claustrophobic amongst you as the cave trail gets pretty tight at times.

Ruby Falls:

After the Falls we headed through what we called “the scary part of town” to Downtown Chattanooga, which really isn’t much to write home about, to the Tennessee Aquarium, which houses the largest freshwater aquarium in the world and walking round it, it was pretty easy to believe...

Tennessee Aquarium:

And finally after the Aquarium we headed to The Chattanooga Choo-Choo (c'mon, you knew we were going to) but unfortunately my camera had long since died of power by then, so hopefully I can steal pictures off other people... After the trip back in time we went to Rock City, but unfortunately it was closed, much to our annoyance.

And here’s a few obligatory panorama’s, firstly the actual Ruby Falls and Chattanooga its self.

I also found out the third round of BlogMadness was open (and now closed) and I got beat by 7 votes to 11. Thank you to everyone who voted for me in these 3 rounds and taking me 2 rounds further than I expected to go, it’s been fun.

It’s a gorgeously sunny day outside, so what do I do? Well, breakfast on the back deck is a must... Normally I wouldn’t go outside as it’s only 30°F (but feels like 25°F) which translates to about -1°C in my terms.

Yet in the sun it’s not too bad, quite pleasant really... So with the new laptop Erika bought (and gave to me to use) I’m sitting outside (the joys of wireless internet y'all) but it’s a bit too bright to see the screen... So back inside I go to finish this off.

No plans for this Sunny Sunday, everyone else is slowly waking up so I’ll see what’s going on...

Yes! The Pixies are getting back together!

After 11 years of “will they, won’t they”, The Pixies are havin' a reunion and hitting the road.

They’re talking, they’re rehearsing, and they’re going to perform together for the first time in more than a decade. The Pixies, acclaimed as the most influential pioneer of the late '80s alt/rock movement, and who effectively blazed the path for groups like Nirvana, Radiohead and Pearl Jam to rise to superstardom, have officially confirmed their much-anticipated reunion. The original line-up - Frank Black/vocals, guitar; Joey Santiago/guitar; Kim Deal/bass; and David Lovering/drums - are already holed up in a Southern California rehearsal space working together for the first time since they disbanded in 1993.

I can’t wait...

Hey, bloggers! Ever wish you had a permanent copy of your journal, laid out and bound like a regular book? Well, now you’ve got your chance... A new company called Blogbinders which does exactly that. Blogbinders is one of a growing number of new “print on demand” publishers here in the US, basically they hold an electronic version of your book at their offices, then print one copy at a time whenever you need one. It’s a great deal for self-publishers who often don’t need that many copies of our books but sometimes need them at a moment’s notice.

Even better, you don’t even need to collect up your journal entries to put in an order, just tell them the beginning and end dates of what’s to be included in the book, and their automated software will actually go to your site, pull the relevant text, and format it all into a trade-paperback book for you, color cover and perfect-binding and all.

NOTE: So far only blogs at Livejournal.com work with this software, they’re hard at work right now, though, to update the software to accept any journal powered by Blogger or Movable Type.

Much like other print-on-demand companies, once you’ve put in an order the electronic version of your book sits at their company’s hard drive, and they send you a link you can put at your own site, so that anytime one of your readers wants to they can just click on the link and order a copy themselves. They also have their own online store where you can choose to have your book promoted and sold through them.

The per-book price is a little expensive, so I don’t recommend it for people who are going to do full print runs of their journal i.e. more than 100 copies, if you’re just some regular blogger, though, and have always wanted to own a couple of copies of your journal in paper form, for posterity’s sake or to give out to friends and relatives, I highly recommend you check them out. Plus, it never hurts to give your readers a chance to buy your journal in a more permanent form; believe me, you can sometimes be pleasantly surprised by how many of your online readers will actually shell out a few bucks to own something like that.

Why didn’t someone think of this before? We have have an unclaimed day at the end of February every four years, this year no less... So why not petition to make it a fun day... A Pizza Party U.S.A. day! Sure it’s not a real day, but neither is February the 29th if you think about it.

And it’s such a great idea... SUCH a great idea. In fact I’ll go as far as saying “Best. Idea. Ever.”

Look at the facts...

Everybody gets the day off. No, I mean everybody. I don’t want to see any poor saps working at Denny’s or Wal-Mart during Pizza Party U.S.A. – we’ll pass legislation making it illegal to wear a nametag on Leap Day. The only people allowed to work will be the mail carriers charged with delivering the pizzas to neighborhoods around the nation (and each will receive a copy of the Shins' “Chutes Too Narrow” for their trouble).

Then, at noon on Feb. 29, citizens from around the nation will travel to their local community centers, present photo I.D. (to prove they chipped in), and receive in return:

– Three slices of pizza

– A 16-ounce soda. And no diet soda, either – this is a pizza party, people!

– $2 in quarters for the video games

Community centers that don’t already have video games will be required to install Berzerk, Mappy, and the cool version of Discs of Tron where you actually get to climb into the cabinet.

What’s NOT to love about it? A day off and 3 slices of pizza... And a national database will list your likes and dislikes in terms of toppings so you’ll always get the slice you want!

So go forth, sign the petition, I already have...

I’ll have Ham & Pineapple on my pizza please, no Mushrooms...

I’m tempted to join in the 2004 May 1st Reboot “competition” but seeing as I’ve just redesigned this place it doesn’t seem worthwhile. Also shutting down a blog for the month of April doesn’t do much good... Except drive away readers, regardless of whatever cause the web design community thinks the reboot is worth doing for... I dunno. If I hadn’t done this on Monday I would be tempted, but I’ll most likely pass.

Besides, the “Reboob” parody is still fresh in my mind...


(big thanks to Tim Schavitz for keeping some old, old shit alive)
Anyways, we have visitors well, ummmmm, visiting I guess, this week... And it finally hit home that this is well, ummmmm, my home... It all came from a conversation (of sorts) with the waiter at the restaurant we were eating at, it went something along the lines of:

Waiter: “Ahhh, you’re not from here, are you all visiting?”
Friend: “Ohhhh no, us two (points to her partner) are but these lot (points to us four) live here...”

Which got me thinking “shit yeah, I LIVE here...”, which is something I hadn’t really thought about, believe it or not. I figured I was just here, end of story but yeah I live here and now it seems really cool, well to me anyway. Especially when I’m MSN-ing people back home and they’re asking how I’m settling and how life is and all that stuff, well except last night when Scott pointed out From Autumn To Ashes are rolling into Glasgow at the end of February... That kind of pissed me off as it’s a band I’ve been wanting to see for ages, but I can say with a certain smugness that they’re playing The Tabernacle in Atlana a week or so before the Glasgow show, which pissed him off as much as his news pissed me off before I found out my news which pissed him off etc. etc. etc.

Now to stick it in even further I’ve got to get a ticket for the Atlanta show and figure out how to get to and from The Tabernacle... And produce photographic evidence to piss him off even more.

Much planning and plotting is required here...

This little tidbit comes courtesy of Tractorgirl... And it’s both whimsical and disturbing at the same time.

US father names son “Version 2.0”

Yep, you read that right...

A proud US father and self-confessed engineering “geek” has named his son after a computer software term.

Jon Blake Cusack, from Holland, Michigan, told local newspapers the US practice of adding “Junior” or “II” after a boy’s name was too common.

So, when his son was born last week, he decided on the name Jon Blake Cusack 2.0, as if he were a software upgrade.

It’s different... I’ll give him that, but the best bit is

He is already planning for his son’s future.

“If he has a child, he could name it 3.0,” he said.

“The first [1.0] would have major revisions, then we have 2.0 and 3.0.”

Yes... I can see that happening.

Inspired by the recent post on R80o I’m kinda undecided as to whether Renée Zellweger is, in fact, hot or not...

Yes, this is what takes up a small piece of my day, which actresses are hot.... Or not...

Those who are are as follows (in my opinion) Kirsten Dunst and Kate Winslet. But Renée Zellweger kinds jumps inbetween the category depending which movie she is in... Let me demonstrate


As you can see... On one hand we have “Bridget Jones Renée” with a full figure and on the other hand we have “Down With Love/Cold Mountain Renée” who looks like she’d break in a strong breeze. It’s really hard to decide which catergory to keep her in... Personally I think she was pretty damn hot in Empire Records and Jerry Maguire but again, this is only my opinion, feel free to shoot me down if you so wish...

Of course, if I was Jack White I’d choose Meg over Renée any day of the week, but I’m not it that position to do so, much to my chargrin.

You like?

I though I’d lost this new look, but luckily a few files were still on my server so for the last 12 hours I went through everything with the virtual equivalent of a fine tooth comb and cleaned it all up and finally finished what I started some 2 weeks ago.

I think it’s much nicer, but then anything is much nicer than the old b2 default template, so it makes this place my own at last.

Before you ask, yes, it looks a bit unaligned in Internet Explorer, but it looks great in Mozilla Firebird and seeing as that’s the browser I use mostly, get used to it. If I can find a way to realign in IE I will, but until then it’s just cosmetic differences.

Never, ever underestimate the power of begging as I storm into the last 8 of the BlogMadness tournament, which is about 2 rounds further than I thought I would get, so thank you all, thank you, thank you... Well at least I didn’t burst into tears Sally Field “you really love me” style (that’s reserved incase I win).

So it’s February 2nd, that can only mean one thing!

IT’S GROUNDHOG DAY!!! Rise and shine, campers, and don’t forget your booties 'cause it’s cooooold out there today. Punxsutawney Phil, The Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary saw his shadow though, cursing us to a further 6 weeks of winter, but if winter is anything like the weather we had this weekend, bring it on.

It’s also the day after the Super Bowl


Can the Patriots only win Super Bowls with the last kick of the game? Unfortunatley I wasn’t feeling so well and ended up missing the second half due to me sleeping soundly in bed, which kinda sucked. I think the excitement of seeing Janet Jackson’s boob at half time was too much for me... The only bad thing about the Bowl was CBS' HDTV feed sucked ass, jumping all over the place and cutting out sound here and there at random.

But YAY! GO PATS!

Super Bowl Sunday to be more precise...

It’s been a nice sunny, relaxing weekend so far... We sat out on the back deck playing Uno for about 4 hours before retiring to the garage to shoot some pool.


If only all days was as nice as this. So seeing as I have NOTHING to blog about, here’s a panorama of the neighbourhood on a sunny Sunday morning.