All New Zima

Not that a new alchopop should be big news, but 2 things here - first is the picture, which I thought was great, and is a definite indication that brewers try and target the younger generation with these schweet drinks, and second, consumer tests apparently revealed a desire to drop the alcohol content down a notch. Like I believe that - there hasn't been one drink (well, maybe Ivo's uncle's dodgy moonshine that we consume at the annual works Christmas party) where I've thought "I wish that had a little less alcohol in it.

Honda Type R - It's on it's way (possibly)

Not until 2010, but apparently confirmed by one of the Japanese Honda engineers (who have been sworn to a lifelong devotion to truth). Not much details yet, apart from "more than 220 bhp" and only in the 4 door shape the current SI model comes in. More pics here.

Chocolate and Pizza?

Or even a phone and pizza? Why would anyone put these things together?

Impreza WRX STi Spec C Type RA-R

Two reasons for this post - possibly the last STi variant before the new model comes out (and only 300 available for sale in Japan), and the complete ridiculousness of the guys accent as he attempts to speak in ze engleesh. The sound of the engine as he blasts down the road is worth it though.

Audi S5 - Coming Soon (officially)

Despite owning it's direct competitor, this thing is gorgeous. All the details here coz I can't be bothered to type. If this has the 60/40 rear bias torque split and the M3 doesn't look as good as the current/old model, BMW could have a little fight on it's hands. Oh, and did I say this thing is gorgeous?

Jesus had a son?

It seems like the Da Vonci code again, or maybe just James Cameron just pissed he's not getting another Oscar this year. Anyway, he's produced a documentary about the supposed burial site of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and their son. This would put a bit of a whole in the big resurection premise that Christianity is primarily based on.

No opinions from me until I see the documentary for myself.

Techie Furniture

If you ever fancied having pieces of keyboard as furniture, here's your chance. No idea how much they cost though, but probably a little more than the average key

TechArt Porsche GTStreet

Ok - 630 bhp, 604 lb-ft torque, 0-62 in 3.2 secs and a reputed top speed of around 214 mph. Do I need to continue?

Fiat Grande Punto Abarth

Not exactly a snappy name, but I guess when you've got this much heritage, it's tough to try and fit it all in.


I almost got excited when I saw it (can you tell I crave the hot hatches given we can't get many out here), until I read the specs, and a 1.4 litre turbo engine pushing out 150 bhp just isn't going to cut it for me.

Anyway, more pics etc here.

Apple TV Delayed

Despite my order status still saying it's shipping on Wednesday, Apple announced tonight that they're delaying shipment for a couple of weeks. Trying to look on the bright side, I guess this increases the chances that I'll be at home when it finally comes.

Apple TV hits snag, delayed til mid-March - Feb. 26, 2007

Family

Girls Ice Skating

Any excuse to post about nieces, so here's a couple of videos of them ice skating over Presidents Weekend. If they keep this up, they might end up being the first female players for the Av's (but I'm personally hoping they choose a different career).

Holly First



And here's Meaghan

Flickr Does a Billion Photos a Day!

So Flickr had a bit of an error yesterday, serving up the wrong photos some of the time. The guys over at Flickr were pretty honest about the issue, and what they were doing to fix it, and posted it all on their blog (link is below if you care to take a look). What was probably more interesting was the fact that they mentioned that on heavy traffic days, they serve up over 1 billion photos a day. That works out to over 11,500 photos a second - how cool is that.

While we're on the Flickr subject (can you tell I think this site is great, even if I did have to migrate to using my Yahoo ID...) they also allow you to search for photos based on the type of camera that took them. This is great if you're looking at a couple of different cameras you're interested in buying, to at least see if there's a big difference in the quality they produce. The other thing you can use it for is to tell how popular certain brands are over time (nothing detailed, just graphs over a year giving you a rough idea). I wonder if Yahoo is selling this info to the manufacturers in a more detailed format? Maybe this is why the price is still pretty reasonable for the service, especially as we don't get served up with loads of ads.

FlickrBlog

Jim Carey in a horror/suspense film?

Is anyone else having a hard time imagining Jim Carey playing it straight in a film? I know I am....

Bellamy Back to his "teambuilding" ways

I wasn't going to mention this, but then it even made the news over here, so guess it was a bigger deal than I thought. Or maybe after having supported a team he played for, you become impervious to his charms, and basically block it all out.

Anyway, for those that haven't heard, the Liverpool squad are away for one of those winter shindigs to the Algarve, where they get some sunshine, train a few times, and get allowed out for the usual "we want to be in the Sunday papers, so we're all going to get wasted" night out. Luckily, Liverpool had a number of willing volunteers for the last task, and so starts the night of drama. Apart from the usual Robbie Fowler gets wasted with his mates, and the police have to be called to calm things down, the main attraction was a certain round of golf Mr Bellamy decided to play. Apparently upset at the piss taking of his karoake performance (or something similarly life threatening), he decided to play a quick round, substituting the use of a ball for his teammate - John Arne Riise's legs.

The Liverpool PR men are now in full damage control mode, with talk of fines for club rules being broken (I presume meaning that you're not really supposed to beat up your teammates, rather than an improper use of equipment golfing fine). There's also talk of Bellamy being out in the summer, which is hardly surprising, given he hasn't exactly set the Liverpool team on fire with his goalscoring exploits, even without the latest incident. At least he didn't get arrested I guess.....

Birthday Present Suggestion

I always get grief (mostly deserved) for being very difficult to buy presents for (although despite the difficulty, can I just say everyone has been doing a great job 8-). Anyway, to avoid all the grief in the summer, here's my first suggestion for my birthday. How's that for advance planning.

Please, please, please

Be true, but only if they put in a track with right turns as well as left.

Strangest News Story from Last Week

I know Britney shaving her head, Ryan O'Neill trying to kill his sun, and Bush thinking that somehow there were 30 days in February were all pretty good, but the winner goes to the police in Phoenix, who put a school in lockdown after one of the kids spotted Batman in the playground!

Police Watch YouTube Too

It appears that the police in the UK are tracking YouTube, and catching the guys who seem to find enjoyment in 100 mph blasts down the motorway while filming (who can imagine). Actually, reading into it, this guy wasn't very smart, as he ended up filming from the front of his house, making it a little easier to track him down. Story here from PistonHeads (who incidentally I think got bought last week).

Specially for Gareth

Combining lego and his new Treo, what more could he want?

Dog goes back to Mexcio

Reports over the weekend are saying that Dog the Bounty Hunter (Mr Chapman to his lawyer) is going to end up being extradited back to Mexico to face the kidnapping counts that came up last year.

Bounty Hunting is illegal in Mexico, so the fact that he got that guy back into the US Justice system who was charged with 86 counts of rape doesn't mean squat down there. I'm just hoping that the US Consulate down there has sorted out some sort of deal for him, otherwise he could be heading back for 4 or 5 years in prison.

Man sues IBM over firing, says he's an Internet addict

It'll be interesting to see how this case plays out in court, given the accused has listed off a large number of reasons why he shouldn't be fired - Vietnam being the main one. Two things that stuck out to me was the fact that if he had of remembered to actually log off his computer (or password protect his screensaver even) none of this would have happened, and his "they were worse than me and they only got transferred" claim about a couple doing it on a desk in the office.

Man sues IBM over firing, says he's an Internet addict - CNN.com

Britney Shaved Her Head!

I hope she did this coz she fancied a change, and not because she's cracking up or anything.

Personally, I think it looks pretty good, but I have a feeling the long hair loving American public and press isn't going to be as generous.

CNN has the story, along with a supposed tale of her stylist saying she tried to stop her.

Google KML Search

Techie work type article, so stop now if you're not really interested.

Google's web crawler is now indexing kml files (the type that Google Earth uses) as it comes across them on the web. This means that you can now post these up on web servers, and they'll get added to the index, and they will be searchable in Google through regular searches.

If you want to give it a try, type in "filetype:kmz Denver" into your google search, and you'll get a list (and of course, the file will only work if happen to have the free Google Earth installed on your box) of Denver referenced files.

Ok, work posts over - lunch is here!

Google KML Search: What Does it Mean for Geospatial Professionals? - Articles

Felicity Gets Married

So the only reason I posted this was coz when I first came over here, the only channel I ever watched was the WB. It wasn't the only channel we got, but I think coz it had the baseball on there, and it was the only sport I tended to watch in the summer, I got lazy and used to the programs on the same channel.

So, Felicity used to be a big part of my life (how's that for a confession), although for the life of me I can't really remember much about it. Anyway, the star, Keri Russell got married this weekend (or maybe yesterday). She used to be my favorite girl on TV, but I've moved on now. Seems she has too....

Oh yeah, and Kenny Chesney isn't gay. Yeah, right, whatever.

Best Pictures Ever?

Different to the last post, but just as amazing. Here's the rest of them.

Best iPod Photo ever

You'll have to click through to view, as it's slightly not safe for work. And baby, I only did this coz she's a VS model, so thought you'd appreciate it as much as the boys.

Best iPod Photo Ever

The Brits Winners

The Brit's is sort of the UK equivalent of the Grammies I guess, without so many crap categories, and a bit more voting from the public to decide who actually wins. I'm not sure exactly why they would want to hold it on Valentines Day, but there you go. Now I just need to work out who Amy Winehouse and Orson are, and whether they're actually any good - where's Neil when you need him...

(And in case you haven't heard, The Fratellis are bloody great)

Anyway, the list of winners are....

* British Male Solo Artist James Morrison
* British Female Solo Artist Amy Winehouse
* British Group Arctic Monkeys
* MasterCard British Album Arctic Monkeys
"Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not"
* British Single Take That "Patience"
* British Breakthrough Act Fratellis
* British Live Act Muse
* International Male Solo Artist Justin Timberlake
* International Female Solo Artist Nelly Furtado
* International Group The Killers
* International Album Killers "Sam's Town"
* International Breakthrough Act Orson
* Outstanding Contribution to Music Oasis

HP Secrets - An Insider Reveals All (well some)

It's finally confirmed as true - printers sometimes have a little counter inside, so they just stop working after a certain number of prints (very similar to me recently with regard to scraping snow off the driveway - there's only so many times you can do that before you just give in)

These and other juicy details if you follow the link.

14 Hewlett-Packard Company Secrets From A Former Employee - Consumerist

The Police Money Machine begins to roll

So I'm a big fan, and have been since I was a little kid. When you come from Newcastle, there's not many people that make it big, especially when you start life as a teacher (no offense to any teachers out there), so Sting was a big deal in our parts. That and the fact that his brother owned a bar down in Whitley Bay that served us before we were legal age.

Given all this, I'm pretty keen to get some decent tickets for the concert in Denver (although playing Pepsi Center instead of Red Rocks nearly had me storming off in a childish stomp), so took a look at the fan club to see if I could get some pre-sale tickets. You can, but as the title of this post suggests, it'll cost you. 100 bucks to be precise, and with that you get the option on 4 pre-sale tickets. So now I'm in a dilemna over what to do - go ahead and get ripped off, even before the excessive Ticketsheister fees kick on, or take the risk and wait for the general release. Someone needs to help me.....

The Police - Signup

Eastenders Star Hits Hollywood

Michelle Ryan, who played Zoe Slater in Eastenders has just been announced as the new Bionic Woman.

I think the Guardian put it best when they said "rape, incest, attempted suicide, prostitution, a fake pregnancy and even attempted murder, makes being rebuilt with bionic ear, legs and right arm sound positively pedestrian." I forgot how depressing Eastenders was/is since they stopped showing it on BBC America a couple of years ago. Never did understand that decision - it got me through many a hangover in my earlier years out here.

Anyway, a couple of more details over at TV Squad.

Floam - it's the way of the future

So this could be the first time in many many years that I'm actually in touch with what's going on with the yoof of today.

We were lucky enough to be treated to dinner at the Thompsons last week, and I was introduced to Floam. It was actually pretty cool, and I spent the next 20 minutes playing with a pencil (no, not my own, and get your mind out of the gutter Wallace - I wasn't the one who came back after the weekend with a sore arse) covered in the stuff.

It turns out that they're promoting the stuff with head shots of Letterman and Paul Shaffer - I never realized you could do stuff like this with it. I might just have to head down to Toys'R'Us or someplace and get some of my own to work with. This could be the beginning of a new car design, you just never know.

Boots Sells Viagra!

Starting tomorrow, you can apparently buy Viagra over the counter at Boots. I dread to think the effects on the nightlife in Newcastle - it could get scary(ier) out there....

Rocky Mountain News - Denver and Colorado's reliable source for breaking news, sports and entertainment: Other Business

Best Lego Set Ever!

3 Feet long, and available to buy from the lego site, this has got to be the best set ever. It's the ultimate collectors Millenium Falcon (like you couldn't tell), and for only 500 bucks, it could be yours. For that price you even get 5 mini figures, who sit in the cockpit and guide this baby around the universe.

LEGO Store - Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon™

2008 Subaru STi

A car very close to my heart (the last one was stolen almost a year ago now, and still no sign of it).

This is a pic of what is reported to be the new shape for 2008 - it looks like the official unveiling is going to be next month (maybe?) at the New York Motor Show. More details of what it might involve are here, courtesty of Jalopnik.

There's also speculation the WRX may be no more, but somehow I can't really see this happening, given it was the car that lead the way long before the STi ever appeared. Guess we'll find out at some point.

The Cold is coming back

And just when I was getting used to not having to warm the car up for 20 minutes before I left for work every morning. At least the snow forecasts aren't too big, and we're not upstate New York (11 feet in the last week - that's just ridiculous), so guess I shouldn't really be complaining too much.

24/7 Weather - Your Source For Colorado Weather

Card Squad retiring

It's gone - the only poker blog I read with any sort of regularity. Guess the big company that took over Weblogs decided it wasn't getting enough readers or something. Oh well, looks like the writers each went off to do something else, but where do I get my non playing poker fix now? Ideas anyone?

Final post, Card Squad retiring - Card Squad

Audi A7

So this thing isn't even confirmed yet, and so likely doesn't exist, but someone made a pretty good job of trying to work out what it looked like.

If you ask me, it looks pretty good, although since when did Mr Bangle jump across the road from BM to Audi?

Lotus Esprit Spy Shots

It's still early yet (2010 release date apparently), but the signs are promising.....

More pics and details here (and I'm sure they're not going to offer the camo paint as an option).

Will it "corner like it's on rails?". We'll have to wait a little longer to find that out, but given it's a Lotus, I'm betting the answer will be in the positive.

Nissan GTR Here Already?

Apparently so, and in New Mexico of all places - that's just down the road!

The disguise was pretty limited, and it's obviously not quite production ready yet, but the signs are good. I'm just waiting on the price and initial reviews to see whether or not it'll get added to the list for cars to own when I'm loaded.....

UPDATE: Someone got a video of it here....

Golf R32 Coming to the US (part 2)

So finally VW have confirmed that the R32 Golf is coming across here in it's latest form. The last one was the subject of an almost purchase by me (but defaulted to the STi), and from what I can tell from Ebay, they're holding up their value remarkably well.

The reviews from the UK on this one haven't been so kind (save your money and get the GTi was what Evo said), but 4 wheel drive is a compelling reason to consider any car here in Denver, especially after the last couple of months we've had. However, I'm sure the last one had a little bit of flareage going on down the side, and from what I can see on this one, it's nowhere to be found. The other thing that might be an issue is you can't get this in manual (stick shift) - the only option is DSG (dual clutch, paddle shift, playstation stylee). It's apparently a great gearbox, but the choice would be nice - I guess the 250bhp in a little pocket rocket will have to do all the persuading for you.

Anyway, coz there's only 5000 coming, VW have opened up a site to register if you're interested.

House Stuff

Nope, not another update on the never ending bathroom remodelling (although we now have plumbing, electrics and a couple of pieces of wall hanging). Just some cool coat hangers.

These joystick coat hangers definitely bring back the memories of old Atari games at a friends house (we had the Binatone Pong game, but then nothing until I scrimped and saved for a ZX81). I somehow doubt they'll go with our current decor choices, but maybe I can sneak them into the office....

Techie Panties

I'm not sure if there's many girls in the world who would appreciate these, and the boys who think these are cool are likely to no have girlfriends, so they might have a limited target audience. Still, it made me smile, although I'm sure they could have got some better styles and colo(u)rs....

Product page if u want some.

Full English Breakfast - Great! But on your head?

For some reason, this guy got a full english breakfast tatooed on his head. The guy's obviously a little on the strange side, with a "it's just something different which has never been done before comment", but the classic comment was

"My mum is really unhappy about it and threatened to throw me out but I don't think she'll go through with it."

BBC NEWS | Wales | North West Wales | Man gets breakfast tattoo on head

Cable TV - it's a scary world

When you look at basic cable ratings (the channels you get for almost free when you agree to devote a huge chunk of money to Comcast or DirctTV or whoever), you find out some interesting things. One, kids watch a lot of TV, which is sort of expected. The other (and probably most shocking) is that WWF (or WWE now, after a brief and largely unsuccessful battle against the group that saves pandas around the world) Wrestling is still alive and kicking, and even more shocking, popular. It came out at number one in last weeks Nielson reports (which I personally think are ridiculously inaccurate, but then I'm a TiVo lover and subsequently biased). What confuses me about the reports from last week though, is how Monday Night Raw came in both 1st and 3rd? Check out the report yourself in the link below.

Nielsen basic cable ratings for the week ending February 4 - TV Squad

Hoohaa in US over Monologues play

Apparently, the word vagina is too offensive in Florida to be used as the plays title. I'm currently cowering in the corner waiting for the cops to show up and complain about my use of it on this post. The scary thing in all this is that the woman complained only when her neice asked her what it meant - I would hope that if she could read, they had at least told her what her different parts of the body were called....

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Hoohaa in US over Monologues play

Yahoo Pipes

I cna never quite decide whether I like Google stuff or Yahoo stuff better - Google for search, yes, but then Yahoo has Flickr (which I love), and they let me create my own homepage with random bits and pieces on it (and the add to Yahoo buttons that spring up on various different sites).

Anyway, Yahoo have released something new - Pipes (not Popes - that would be a little controversial) - the official explanation of what it is is:

Pipes is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Using Pipes, you can create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant.

So basically a news reader with bells and whistles to merge and filter and only ever see the things you're really interested in. I haven't tried it, but the early reports are that it's pretty cool - you can also see some examples of what people have used it for, so check it out when you get a chance.

Arsenal and the Rapids?

Stan Kroenke looks like he's feeling a little left out after the recent purchases of UK footie clubs by American sports owners, so he's joining in the fun.

Anna Nicole Smith Dead!

I'm slightly speechless, although given everyone else who seems to die around her, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

CNN story here, BBC story here.

What's the odds on TrimSpa doing huge press damage control now - I bet they're hoping it was just the usual overdose, rather than something connected to their product.....

Wikepedia does(n't) always work

After the almost shocking display last night, when San Marino almost managed their first win ever against Ireland, someone kindly went in a modified the Wikepedia entry for the Irish Football Association.

Ella Hits 1 - Has a big party

Any excuse to put up pics of our neice. Today is her first birthday, and it looks like she's having a blast. Unfortunately, she's our only neice who lives "back home" so it'll be a little while before we get to see each other. All her birthday party pics are here if you want to see them.

3 weeks of councelling, and he's straight? Yeah, right, whatever....

Local news today is covering the story of the disgraced minister Haggard - apparently, after only 3 weeks of councelling, he's now completely straight! Somehow I find this hard to believe - if he was strictly straight in the first place, what was he doing with a male prostitute? I'm sure it's easier to find female ones - it's not like you go out looking for one and come back with the other, then decide it's too far a trip back to get the one you really wanted. And 3 weeks of councelling turning you straight? Sure, that's believable.

What I don't really understand is the point to this whole story? First off, he cheated on his wife, which technically is the big deal in this whole situation. Whether it was with a man or woman, and whether he's gay or straight is pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. At least in my opinion anyway. He basically preached to everyone about how they should live their life, and then didn't practise what he preached. Maybe small town America needs to hear that he's been "cured" of his gayness (somehow, Saved springs to mind - great film by the way if you haven't seen it - seeing Mandy Moore throwing her bible at her supposed wayward friend while trying to kidnap and convert her was a classic "I am FILLED with Christ's love! You are just jealous of my success in the Lord.")

Mini Desk - You know you want one

At first I thought that this was amazing, and then it occured to me that they must have killed an original mini, just to make a desk, and it made me sad.

Still, if it was a natural and/or humane death, I want one. No idea where it would fit though - maybe a new office in the garage?

Anyway, if you want to put your order in, here's the mini shopping link. I couldn't find a price, which normally means way too expensive - you have been warned.

Friendly Fire, War Budgets and a changed man?

Random summary of a couple of things making the news this week (I've been trying to stay away from war commentary, as it's not like I have the perfect answer to solve all the issues, although I do wish we'd never gone in in the first place).

The inquest into the friendly fire death of a UK serviceman is hitting the front page back home. There's been an on again, off again release of the cockpit transcript of the American fighter pilots who had attacked the friendly convoy. Apparently, the US haven't released the information (allegedly), but somehow it turned up at The Sun here. They even posted the full video, but to be honest, the transcript was emotional enough for me, so I haven't watched it. Given the world can now see the video, I'm not sure why the Pentagon is insisting that it hasn't been released (even the most famous of YouTubers wouldn't be able to fake something like this). Maybe it was a secret release? If it was, they need to do a whole lot better with that secret thing...

The other big news earlier in the week (I guess that makes it yesterday maybe?) was the Bush budget he released for approval. Given he needs $2.9 trillion, there's a lot of speculation that without a load of changes, it'll never pass through the necessary approvals to become reality, especially as he's basically announcing cutting back on everything except military, so he can increase the military spending for the next few years. Oh yeah, and make the current tax cuts permanent.

And one more semi-war related story before I shut up on the subject - the CIA think that one of the guys that got sentenced to death for bombing a US embassy in the 80's is now in the Iraq government (which apparently somehow makes him immune from prosecution??? how does that work?).

Thursday Roundup

Coz I'm likely to be stuck in an airport tomorrow afternoon/evening, I thought I better get this one in a little early.

First up is the new spy shots of next years 911 - very subtle changes, so if you can tell me what they are, you win a gold star. Hopefully the engines are getting direct injection, but that's yet to be confirmed. More details here

Take a look at Mashable, the blog that concentrates on social networks.

Super Tonio hits the headlines, having been born a the grand old weight of 14 and a half pounds. His mother obviously deserves a medal, either for bravery, or Strongwoman of the Year, after carrying him around for all that time. News report is here, and the pic over there is showing jsut how he compares to a "normal" baby.

Big news in the car world was the news that the fancy handbag makers Louis Vuitton splashed out on Aston Martin. I'm still in shock at this one - I think it almost breaks my heart, but maybe I'm just getting emotional at the end of a (very) long week.

It's good to see that sense finally prevaled back home, although it took a little too long to get there.

And finally, Blidgets is the new made up word. I need to make up one of these (words), get famous, get on Digg, get 1000 million hits and retire from my Adsense dollars. It's never going to happen though, so I've given up trying to think of one.

Letterman Hits 25

Well, not 25 as in years of age, as in years on TV talk shows. And to celebrate, The New York Daily News (which I don't think I've ever heard of come to think of it) produced a Top 10 Shows list. I'm not sure Britney should have made the list, but I guess it wasn't my list, so who am I to complain.