Ciao (or something like that)

Heading to Italy for the wedding of Mr Penn and KT, so posts will be either very limited or non existent over the next couple of weeks. If you're really lucky, I might find a way to get some pics up, but don't hold your breath....

Strangest Story of the World Cup so far

There's always a few stories kicking about when something this big happens, but when FIFA forces thousands of Dutch supporters to watch a game in their underpants, you know it's a special one.

Apparently a rival brewer to Budweiser (Budweiser being the company that stumped up the cash to be an official sponsor) had a promotion earlier in the year offering cheap trousers in bright orange with a lions tale coming out of the back, and big pockets to hold beer in (I never said the Dutch were normal..). They also display the logo of Bavaria, a rival beer maker in Holland apparently (although I can't for the life of me think of which beer they make). So up steps FIFA, protecting the rights of the paying sponsor, to insist that the Dutch fans take off their trousers in order to get into the game. Rumours started that they were also confiscating Nike gear worn by fans (Adidas is another sponsor), but given that they'd also have to take away half of the strips the players wore, this was a little too far out, even for FIFA.

So boys and girls - be careful what you wear to the footie matches out there.

Guardian Unlimited Football | World Cup 2006 | The new World Cup rule: take off your trousers, they're offending our sponsor

My Next Car

I love it when a plan comes together.....

craigslist - It arrives in Newcastle

For the people back home, you'll be pleased (well, eventually you will be) to know that Craigslist has arrived. The link is to the Newcastle one (and no George, unfortunately it hasn't been expanded to include Aberdeen just yet).

Obviously, it's new, so not many postings, but hopefully it will take off pretty quickly like it has over here, and before you know it, no-one will ever need to pay for those Chronicle classified ads again.

craigslist: newcastle, UK classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

It's a Cruel World

Especially for teddy bears.....




USB Teddy Bear With Removable Head - Gizmodo

Lucky Birthday Boy

So I got home from Atlanta on Friday night, pretty tired, but happy to be home. The wife picked me up from the airport as she had the car all week, and we started to leave. There was some dance music on the radio, so I asked if she had found a new channel in Denver (this happened a couple of years ago, where there was a pretty good dance station showed up on a random channel for 6 months, before being replaced suddenly and without warning with a Mexican channel - that was a scary wake up call one morning). Heidi smiled knowingly, and so we carried on down the road. All of a sudden, the familiar voice of one Pete Tong came over the airwaves, announcing the big club nights for the weekend, and it all clicked. My wife had somehow found a way for me to get BBC Radio 1 out here in Denver, on my car stereo!!! I don't think I've been that happy on a Friday night in a long long time. I bopped the whole way home. Turns out Sirius now broadcasts Radio 1 on a few hour time delay (so the shows play at a similar time), and as my birthday present, the car had been dropped off at Car Toys for a day while I was out of town for a professional install. It's actually pretty sweet - I need to take some pictures, but basically, the head unit has been slotted into where the ashtray should be (no smoking in the new car of course), and surrounded with leather to match the rest of the interior. It looks great, and the added benefit is that now I can listen to Chris Moyles breakfast show on the way to work. Only thing I have to work out now is how to make my commute a little longer, as the 10 minutes I currently get to listen to it just isn't cutting it.

So, Birthday Pressie part 2 (I got the new England away top in time for the first game last weekend as well) was complete. Needless to say, I was speechless when I got home and found pressie number 3 waiting for me..... But I'm busy - you'll have to wait for the next update!

Bush Blooper (no 16734950)

I think there's video on this on CNN (and I'm sure you can find the Comedy Central presentation on YouTube somewhere), but Bush starts giving friendly crap to the news reporters. He gets to the guy in shades and dishes it out about the fact he won't take them off - turns out he has a degenerative eye disease and needs them to prevent him going blind quicker.

Another classic in what is increasingly becoming the longest list in history (maybe, that could be a slight over-exageration) .

CNN.com - Bush apologizes to vision-impaired reporter - Jun 14, 2006

Specially for the wife

Now this looks kind a cute, until you see the photo from this link.... Now that's cute.

Entertainment Weekly Top Ten Car Chases

I've no idea why they would put in Charlie's Angels here - surely there was another one that they could have found to put in 9 (and the fact they think it's better than the chase scene in Terminator 2????). Only one film on this list I haven't seen (and I can bet you can guess which one - answers on a postcard to....)

Just as a note for everyone back home - Road Warrior is actually Mad Max II - had a different release name over here (but still the speeded up chases)

EW - Car Chase Top 10

Techie Post (it doesn't happen often)

Almost work type post - tips for learning a new language (Mr Wallace you know you're going to have to give up that Magik sometime....)

Now if the guy can just work on his English sentence construction.....

Smart Programmer - Programming , Productivity Improvement Tips, Tricks: 15 Exercises for Learning a new Programming Language

TechEBlog » Top 10 Coolest Travel Gadgets

So some of these gadgets don't actually exist yet, but the solar powered briefcase was a bit of a favorite.

TechEBlog » Top 10 Coolest Travel Gadgets

Saturday Fun

This guy is freaky.......

Mass Panic on a Friday Night

So I get home on Friday night, and some of the guys in the street come running down to tell me that the footie won't be on TV tomorrow morning!!! Of course, mass panic ensued, and I've just spent the last half an hour searching the program guides on TiVo and Comcast to try and get some sort of confirmation that the game was on. Of course, neither of them showed the game being broadcast, so it meant booting up the computer in a blind panic.

Luckily for me, I found the local channel had posted a well hidden confirmation that their earlier news reports were in fact wrong, and the game is going out live, on the normal channel and HD. I can relax now - guess I should be going to bed soon coz it starts at 7am. We just have to win now.

And if anyone fancies coming over for the Argentinian game at 1pm, feel free - one of the guys in the street used to live there, and has an Argentinian wife, so I've invited him down to give him a little gentle abuse when the Ivory Coast get a surprise win....

TheDenverChannel.com - Sports - Denver's 7 Will Air England-Paraguay Soccer Match

How to view the football worldcup online

Looks a little on the techie side for me, but I might end up trying it out. Let me know if you try it and it works.

How to view the football worldcup online » gHacks tech news

Some people make big money from Adsense

So there's a site called Plenty of Fish (which incidently I had never heard of) - apparently it's a free dating site, a bit like Match.com or something I guess (maybe the Craigslist for getting a girlfriend - are you listening George? ;-)

Anyway, it turns out this is run by one person (and a big hosting bill......) and he gets all his money from Google Adsense revenue. He posted a pic in the link below of his latest check from those guys - apparently 2 months of traffic netted him almost a cool million (not sure if this is US or Canada dollars, but with the exchange rate being nearly 1 for 1 these days anyway, I doubt it matters much). That's a pretty nice way to make your millions. Now I just need to work out how to drive a lot more people to this site (maybe more posts and little something that's interesting every now and again might work, but don't hold your breath too long - the blue colo(u)r doesn't suit you).

The Paradigm Shift » Blog Archive » Small Companies & Google Adsense is the future

What's your ball made of?

So some enterprising chaps have decided to release footballs made out of stuff from each country in the World Cup. Englands (shown here) is made of tabloids, the USA has one made of denim, and Sweden's is all IKEA catalogues.

You can see the full list here.

The Gatso Fightback

Speed Camera destruction site - all the pics are here..

World Cup Starts

And I'm frustrated - what looks like a great game (based purely on the text at Sporting Life and the BBC) is going unwatched, as I'm at work and don't have a TV handy.

Which brings me to the main point of this post - there's two (that I know of) ways to get the games streaming over the net to watch live. The BBC are doing it, and so are ESPN. However, two different problems present themselves - the BBC is limiting access to UK ip addresses only, and ESPN is even worse - it's on a special site and is limited it to certain ISP's in the US, and both Time Warner (work) and Comcast (home) are not on the list.

Aaarrrggghhhhhh!!! I need to just take the next few weeks off and lock myself in front of the TV...

Well, Princess actually. We had the pleasure of seeing Holly's first stage performance of what is sure to be a long and illustrious career. Numerous moves and a natural talent for finding the right rythm, something her Uncle has no chance of matching, no matter how much practice he does in front of the mirror.

I've also added the first video below and two more are here and here.

Top 25 Search Phrases at the CIA

It turns out the CIA website keeps track of what search phrases are entered into it's site, and publishes this every month. It makes for interesting reading, especially the bit where people are still searching for evidence of the JFK conspiracy theory.

CIA FOIA - Top 25 Search Phrases

Nerdy Stuff

A couple of nerdy products to make up for my shambolic recent posting history (it could get a lot worse while I'm trying to fit in the time to watch 3 footie games a day for the next few weeks as well!).

First up is the Yoda backpack - not sure if you can actually get much in there, but at least you can look a little like Luke when you're doing it.

Next is the farm animal shaped BBQ - particularly relevant given the heat wave we're having here in Denver at the minute. I'm not sure how I'd feel grilling part of a cow inside a cow though, but hey, it's not real, right?

And finally, my personal favourite, that Apple Air shoes - apparently employees in the 90's got these, so a pretty limited supply. Maybe I need to check on eBay to see if there's any kicking about to buy...

Rooney gets World Cup green light

Just a quick note of hope and support for the boys in Germany. Rooney's going to be fit enough to play some part in the tournament, which is great, so the whole nation is hopeful (England that is - not many people here in the US know or care about the World Cup).

So come on boys - I'll be cheering for you all the way.

BBC SPORT | Football | World Cup 2006 | Teams | England | Rooney gets World Cup green light

Damien is born

It's from the Mirror, so you're never totally sure it's true, but apparently born in the 6th hour of the 6th day of the 6th month in 2006, the horror film fanatic called her son Damien. Even if he's not the devil, he's going to have a great time in school now - bet he thanks his Mam for that one later...

Mirror.co.uk - News - BORN AT 6AM ON 06/06/06, HIS MUM WAS INDUCED FOR 6 DAYS, HE WEIGHS 6LBS 6OZ AND HE'S CALLED.. DAMIEN

Superman Returns

And it prompts the boys (or should they be men now that they got bought out by Dell?) to issue some special versions of their fancy computers. I think I like the laptop, which is a little worrying, as I've been a Mac only admirer for a while now - maybe I just like shiny things...

Annual Birthday Party

P1010136.JPG
Originally uploaded by Aaron in Denver.

At Fado's of course (why break with tradition) and a fun night seemed to be had by all. I even managed to get away with only having to do one car bomb (thanks Neil!)

Rest of the photos are here

Top Gear Goodness

This person should be shot.....

Although having said that, there was a guy spotted at Home Depot on Monday loading a motorized lawn mower onto the lovely leather front seats of his M3 - it must have been an emergency ;-)

Fantasy-Castles

This one is especially for my fantastic wife, who one day has plans to live in a castle somewhere nice and pretty (and of course, I'll be tagging along with her).

This site lists castles for sale around the world - we'll be checking it out on a regular basis no doubt, to make sure we don't miss out on any bargains that may pop up.

Wists, top web picks from valerie for Fantasy-Castles. Wists, social shopping scrapbook, wishlist