Life Without Toast - Sibling Rivalry

So me and Nikki are together two years now (anniversary last night, 29th March). Two years since our first proper 'date' (we met before that but then we had a row, and it's a long story, but here we are, two years later!). I can't believe it's been so long, it's really flown by, but then time flies when you're having fun, doesn't it?

We've been around! Had a lot of fun. We've bought a house and we're moving into it next month (fingers crosed, builders permitting!), and I'm looking forward to seeing where we go on the next stage of our adventure. I'm loving it so far.

I love you Nikki! HUGE MWAH. :-)

Posted by Matt at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

You Are 32 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

(via Babs, my lil' sis')

Posted by Matt at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Surprise! It wasn't just a one-off post at all, I really am going to try to find one funny/strange/interesting thing in the tide of spam that I recieve each day, and I'm going to post every week I can be bothered to post one.

This week's dubious award goes to 'Hardy Ted' who, just before trying to sell me some 'SPUR-M' (Improves Orgasm! 500% More Volume! Sweeter Tasting Sperm! WHAT?!) pills from a very spurious supplier, recounted a fascinating story about 'The Variety'...

"...the senior remaining member of the Variety's management. By ten o'clock the ticket queue had swollen to such a size that the police came to hear of it and rapidly sent some detachments of horse and foot to reduce the queue to order. Unfortunately the mere existence of a mile-long queue was enough to cause a minor riot in spite of all the police could do. Inside the Variety things were as confused as they were outside. The telephone had been ringing since early morning-- ringing in Likhodeyev's office, in Rimsky's office, in the accounts department, in the box-office and in Varenukha's office. At first Vassily Stepanovich had attempted to answer, the cashier had tried to cope, the commissionaires had mumbled something into the telephone when it rang, but soon they stopped answering altogether because there was simply no answer to give the people asking where Likhodeyev, Rimsky and Varenukha were. They had been able to put them off the scent for a while by saying that Likhodeyev was in his flat, but this only produced more angry calls later, declaring that they had hjmtm g momu ljm oi m lrm pmhmrmsmjjkkilhj jjojjju j qfl j p jkjl i j l tlflolql i ljljl tl mj rlpl il tmomsirmfmq mn hjmtmklglhm umslt ij lsmo lu ls mflfjlju jhjsjo fnjjjmj j mt h jhkhi iu h nhflg imi ughijioijiui qmlipiki l p guqu ltrtsq..."

Isn't it weird the way they start off quite interesting, then degenerate into total babble, then say 'Hey! Buy our Mickey-Pills!'? I'm going to do a paper on the actual origins of Spam, as I think some are created entirely by machines...

But I probably won't bother.

Posted by Matt at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I meant to post this ages ago, it's actually the first of two lip-synch vids that I made towards the end of last year, the second of which was my first post on this here blog of mine. I was reminded by Annie's recent post about Google Idol, and also inspired to 'audition' it for the next competition. I hope I'm not being a bit conceited, but I think I kick the ass of most of the entries on Google Idol, except maybe the Two Chinese Guys. Wish me luck everybody!

You may need to turn up your brightness a little. It looks fine on my laptop at home but on my CRT-monitored work computer, I can't see a f***in' thing.

ps: Tenacious D ROCK ASS!!!

Posted by Matt at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's amazing the results you can get while experimenting late at night a camera. Most recently I've been messing with the 'negative' effect on my K750i.

There's a few more of these, follow the links on the pictures to see them. It's been a while since I experimented with photos, I'll be doing more soon, and I'll also be uploading a load more older ones that I really should've already done, so stay tuned. See also pics tagged 'experimental' on my Flickr Photos for an idea of what's to come.

Posted by Matt at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I was up last night at about 2am. I was in work until about 1am, and met Andy in the pub where I had one bottle of Heineken and gave him and Nikki (his girlfriend Nikki, not my girlfriend Nikki, I'll explain another time) a lift home. "Oliver's Army" by Elvis Costello was on the radio in the car as we pulled up to the house, and as we went inside, Andy turned the radio on the hear the end of the song. We left the radio on (Today FM plays some good music in the wee small hours) and had another beer or two. Then we heard a very eye-opening advert (on the radio, which was still on).

It started with what sounded like a very real person telling a very real story about how someone he knew had killed himself and his girlfriend (the speaker's sister, from what I gathered) in a drink-driving accident. The tagline at the end of the ad was Ray D'Arcy saying:

"Don't be a fuckin' eejit, don't drink and drive"

-Not the kinda thing I can remember hearing before in an anti-drink-driving campaign, and something that kinda made me think a bit more about the fact that I'd just had a bottle of beer (probably not over the limit of 80 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood, but still) and driven home. I think it was basically the use of the "fuckin'" in the tagline, instead of the usual "(please) don't drink and drive". It's part of a campaign directed at people my age, who would be up at that time of the night, and who probably would have done what I had just done, and wouldn't be averse to using that kind of language, and would probably take the message in the right way rather than finding it offensive.

Made me think to myself, "don't be a fuckin' eeejit dude". Which means it's the first ad of it's type to really make me do that.

Posted by Matt at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Via Google Personalised Homepage:

I'm terrified at the prospect of us going to "Elmo", and really wish we could get back to "Oscar".

Posted by Matt at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As you can guess from the title, I've decided to keep with this thing I've been doing with the opening spam mails and all that. I use Gmail as my primary (non-work) mail address, so any mails that make it even so far as my spam box have been thoroughly sniffed at by Google's rabid spam-hounds, so I think I'm pretty safe in opening them, much as Seamus might fear the consequences.

This week's award goes to "Demetrius Burgess" who tried to sell me a fake Rolex but left this beautiful passage (almost invisible, in white text) at the bottom of the mail:

"The eyes were wide-awake, everywhere at once. byzantium successor terrier bullet nose collegial roundhead constellate cornelia hickman bury marina mercilessly excavate radar hack virulent berth kudo ravenous aptitude varitype olga dionysus luge webster aid clothe imposture bivariate tutorial doleful slew boat wigging arroyo avarice cease dialysis courteous interruptible bed gallop sled redshank expend il student knurl carcinogenic cloddish befogging forsook operant abel d's piddle pub prurient gland alumna bergman capacity credo typhus norton connecticut The pain!

I held it all the time you were gone, Annie, but I can't hold it much longer, and I don't want to wet myself again. Annie's boot-heels rattled staccato down the hallwav. Only a little. At the same time another voice was screaming: I'll be good, Annie! And the only emotion this thought engendered was tired relief. Half the story existed, full-blown, in his mind, and the rest was rapidly falling into place. "Now Paul went on: "I guess he told me to keep my eye on my wallet so many times that it's stuck inside for good. flight pseudo lorelei teeth howe coarsen scandal wormy herbert nascent triable egocentric belvedere buck spoonful commendatory ding quadrant electroencephalography victual evil opus..."

Ok, so it doesn't make any sense, but it's still pretty poetic, in a not-quite-poetry kinda way.

The pain!

Posted by Matt at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Photoblogging...

It was snowing as I left the house this morning. Pity it's still not sticking. Bloody cold out too, unsurprisingly.

Posted by Matt at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

More statistical nonsense.

According to this article, 4 out of 10 people think it's acceptable to talk on their mobile phone while they are on the toilet. I myself am horrendously embarrased if my mobile even rings when I'm on the toilet (in a public toilet, not at home, obviously). If I know you, and I ever ring you, and you are on the toilet when you see my name come up on the screen of your (ringing) mobile, please don't answer. Press 'silent' or 'busy'. I'll leave a message/ring you back later.

In other news, 54% of Germans still are available on their mobile phones while in flagrante delicto. Ahem. Err...?

Posted by Matt at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (20) | TrackBacks (0)

To: Head of Advertising, Sky Tv
Re: "New Year, New Documentaries"

Dear Sir/Madam,

Last night I was watching 'The Simpsons' at 8.12pm on Sky One, and during the advertisement break there was an advert for National Geographic Channel. The tagline of the advert was 'New Year, New Documentaries".

It is now the 14th of March. I mean seriously, for fuck sake.

Regards,

Matthew Verso
Regular Sky One Viewer

Posted by Matt at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You know spam, yeah? Those silly emails you get every day advertising everything from cheap Viagra and Rolexes to eternal salvation to the latest breakthrough in sex-organ size enhancement? You know sometimes (not often, but sometimes) you open them, because the subject line sometimes sounds remotely funny and/or interesting? No? Well I do. Sometimes.

So here's what I got in my spambox yesterday:

Unknown sender. No Subject. That's not a very good effort is it? I mean who's going to open that?

(ok maybe I would, just to get the screengrab, but you know what I mean...)

Posted by Matt at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

For anyone with even a passing interest in technology and the web, anyone who's ever wondered exactly what 'Web 2.0' means, and almost every blogger worth their blog, the 'eTech' conference in San Diego last week was choc-full of great news, developments and gadgets that I found fascinating and educational all at once, even if I only read about them (much as I would've loved to be there). Click the picture here for a gazillion (ok about 60 or so) links to articles all about what exactly the web and apps like RSS, Atom, Ajax, blogs, and pretty much any online application you can think of, and a few more besides (like Google, eBay, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, the usual suspects) are thinking up to make your web-based experiance all the more interesting, user-friendly and downright cool in the next year or so.

(nb: Web 1.0='readable' web, Web 2.0='writable' web. Easy eh?)

Posted by Matt at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry if it's all a bit meme-y here recently, blame Gordon for being a bad blogging influence if you want. Anyhoo, here we go again...

1. A track from your early childhood
"Robert De Niro's Waiting" By Bananarama. Bugger off.

2. A track that you associate with your first love
Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes - "(I've Had) the Time of My Life". It was the 80's. Dirty Dancing was cool.

3. A track that reminds you of a holiday trip
"Holiday" By the Happy Mondays, camping trip, '03, West Cork.

4. A track that you like but wouldn?t want to be associated with in public
See # 2.

5. A track that accompanied you when you were lovesick
"Just The Two Of Us" By Bill Withers. Lovely song. "We can make it if we try, just the two of us..."

6. A track that you have probably listened to most often
Jeepers. I dunno. Summat by Bob Marley. Probably "Exodus".

7. A track that is your favourite instrumental
"McBrides" by Moving Hearts. Most of you will never have heard/heard of this, it's amazing.

8. A track that represents one of your favourite bands
"Fools Gold" by the Stone Roses. The 9.53 version that goes on forever, unlike the Stone Roses.

9. A track which represents yourself best
"City Hall" by Tenacious D. Coz (I'm sitting 20 floors below sea level. In a bunker...) I don't like politicians, as a rule. We should all rise up and beat the bastards. Just listen to the song and you'll know what I mean.

10. A track that reminds you of a special occasion (which one?)
Really stumped on this one. Generally it's the people that remind me of a special occasion, so let's just say err... "High And Dry", by Radiohead, coz the last time I saw them play it live, it was special.

11. A track that you can relax to
"Sarah" by Thin Lizzy/Phil Lynott. Very nice.

12. A track that stands for a really good time in your life
Right now is a really, really good time in my life, probably the best, so like, "When The Sun Goes Down" by Arctic Monkeys I s'pose.

13. A track that is currently your favourite
"When The Sun Goes Down" by Arctic Monkeys. :-)

14. A track that you?d dedicate to your best friend
"Friendship" by Tenacious D. To my very excellent mate and dear cousin, Andy.

15. A track that you think nobody but you likes
"Build It Up, Tear It Down" by Slimboy Fat Fatboy Slim

16. A track that you like especially for its lyrics
"War" by Bob Marley. Because every word is the truth: "Until the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanantly discredited and abandoned: WAR"

17. A track that you like that?s neither English nor German
"Mamo Bajo" by Kanda Bongo Man from the Congo. I have it on tape from years ago and it makes me dance uncontrollably.

18. A track that lets you release tension best
"I Am The Resurrection" by The Stone Roses. It's John Squire's guitar you see, and the chorus. It's something I can shout and play air guitar to.

19. A track that you want to be played on your funeral
As in the previous meme, "Don't Stop Me Now", by Queen.

20. A track that you?d nominate for the ?best of all times? category
"The End" by The Doors.

Hopefully that'll be the last meme for a while, but you never know, I might run out of stuff to blog and have to meme something. I apologise in advance.

Posted by Matt at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Check this out, it's the coolest bike spoke decoration in the history of bike spoke decorations. If I had a bike, and a few days, and a shitpile of LED's and a bit more soldering skill than I do now, I'd totally be doing this.

(Via Kotaku and Make Blog)

Posted by Matt at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Pick eight significant songs to take to your desert island, but you only have two days to come up with them, said Gordon. He didn't tag me, he didn't tag anybody, because he 'can't be arsed'.

Right (deep breath...), here we go:

1. I Am The Resurrection by The Stone Roses
We might as well start at number one, in order of amazingness. Let me put it this way, the super-brilliant twangly guitar bit near the end is my ringtone. I put it on every time there's a party, and I want people to start shouting and flailing immediately. It's #1.

2. Tomorrow Never Knows by The Beatles
Absolutely one of my favourite songs ever. I originally heard it at a Beatles tribute show, before I was actually into the Beatles, and it was so far ahead of it's time, I was sure it wasn't the Beatles. I thought it some modern remix of a song I'd never heard, but no, it was recorded by the Fab Four in nineteen frickin' sixty-six!

3. Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
Seriously, how can this not be on everyone's list? Embarrased as I am to admitting having ever watched 'The Word' in the 90's, but it was on that (absolutely terrible) show that I first saw Nirvana. They played 'Smella Like Teen Spirit', and needless to say, it was the talk of the schoolyard on Monday. Bacause I was like fourteen or something.

4. Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2
On the Under a Blood Red Sky album, Bono says 'this is not a rebel song', but I think at it's heart it really is. It's a song about a terrible thing that happened and the feelings of helplessness felt by a nation, and the feeling of betrayal and (unfounded) hatred against an army in a place they probably should not have been. It makes me feel very Irish when I hear it, and not necessarily in a political or patriotic way.

5. Don't Stop Me Now by Queen
"I'm a rocket ship on my way to Mars, On a collision course, I am a satellite, I'm out of control, I'm a sex machine, ready to reload, Like an atom bomb about to oh oh oh oh oh explode...!" Not to be morbid and/or inviting disaster, but I want this playing at my funeral. Say no more.

6. I Want You (She's So Heavy) by The Beatles
I really love the guitar in this, it's so... heavy. The lyrics don't really add up to much ("I want you, I want you so bad it's driving me mad"/"she's so heavy" is basically it), but the heavy crunchy guitars and the sparse lyrical variety add up to a very complete whole. Really something you only start to appreciate after the 20th listen or so.

7. Ain't No Sunshine by Bill Withers
To anyone else who likes/loves this song, I don't really need to explain why this is one of 'The 8'. To everyone else: Have you ever been in love? Ever missed the object of your affections? This is what it's all about (well, it could mean something else entirely, but that's what it means to me).

8. Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield
I'll just quote from the last verse:
" Just move on up, and keep on wishing, Remember your dreams are your only schemes, So keep on pushing. Take nothing less,-not even second best, And do not obey -you must have your say, You can past the test...

Move on up!"

And that's my 8. I'm not tagging anybody either. Except maybe Dan.

Posted by Matt at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Photoblogging...

Recycling is all well and good, but you need to actually do it.

Posted by Matt at 7:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I read this article (via BoingBoing) which stated that their survey said a surprising 12% of men and 7% of women work in the nude when they 'telecommute', or work from home. Now, I have worked from home on a rare occasion or two, and I have either worn a dressing gown/slippers combo, or sweatpants and t-shirt (aka 'sweats'), which 39% of respondants admitted to wearing while working.

Other stats included:

44% of women shower on work-at-home days, as opposed to 30% of men (the filthy scumbags).

21% admitted to taking an afternoon nap (not a 'power sleep'?).

45% listen to music and 28% watch tv (music ok imho, tv bad).

18% of men and 38% of women found their attention 'claimed by chores' (hmmm... what does this say about... err... I'll stop there).

All fascinating statistics, but I'd like, if I may, to come back to the working in the nude one. Has anyone of the approximately 10 readers of this blog ever worked in the nude when telecommuting? I don't think I'd feel comfortable taking a work call from someone I didn't know or possibly even sending an important email while my schlong was hanging out for all to see (all as in 'nobody', but you get what I mean). Am I weird for feeling uncomfortable about working in the buff?

(note: I have no qualms about blogging in the nip)

Posted by Matt at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Sign outside the car park at work. Can anyone guess what it means? The prize for the correct guess is... Err... I'll think of one later.

Posted by Matt at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I borrowed this book from Andy one night when I couldn't find anything to read I hadn't already read. I didn't have high expectations, having not heard of the author or the book itself before. I was pleasantly surprised. Anthony Bourdain, as an 11-year old child on holiday in France, discovered that food could 'be important. It could be an event. It had secrets'. He and his older brother were left in the car one day while his parents went to dinner, and this sparked a desire to eat food meant 'only for grown-ups'. He started eating brains, cheeses that smell like old boots, and towards the end of that summer, tried his first raw oyster, and experience he remembers better than 'losing my virginity or smoking my first joint', it was his defining moment, when he stopped being a boy.

Following his schooldays, and a period living in New England where he cut his teeth as a dishwasher in a seafood restaurant in Provincetown, Cape Cod, he commenced his education with the CIA (The Culinary Institute of America, the other CIA), where he learned what it really meant to be a chef.

The author has an almost dangerous passion for food. He is known for eating anything which is edible, from lambs testicles to whole snakes, bile, guts and all. But it's the way he describes the food he eats and prepares that makes this book special. The smells, tastes and sensations encountered when consuming food of the highest order are almost like a drug, something truly mind-altering. I am a vegetarian, but when he describes rare steaks, lambs liver, sweet breads and other 'pieces of dead animal' in such a romantic, seductive way, my mouth starts watering for bloody, stinking food that can blow my head off with a single bite. Basically, you should really have a good meal before you read the book, otherwise your mouth will be watering most of the way through it.

Posted by Matt at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

In an email conversation with Adrian yesterday, the subject of a recently-missing favicon on Dan's blog came up (it was missing due to being transferred to another server and conversion into php, etc, etc). I was a bit peeved, because favicons are truly wonderous little pictures, and are an essential part of my interweb browsing experience.

You see, I use Firefox, and I use it well. I have about 30 or so extensions installed, giving me everything from weather updates to extra buttons on websites to speedy downloads of every file on a page in 3 or so clicks to getting rid of the ads on Google to opening a tab in Firefox which contains, get this, Internet Explorer. My interface is very customised to make browsing a pleasure and never a chore, so I can have several sites visible at once, and every site I visit regularly available with one click. I use the bookmarks toolbar as pictured here, with only the favicon visible for each particular website. To do this, simply save your favourites in your bookmarks toolbar folder, in your bookmarks. Right click on your main menubar and make sure your bookmarks toolbar is displayed. Right-click on any bookmark and you will get a 'bookmark menu' - click on 'properties'. Delete all the text in the 'name' field, and click 'ok'. Ok? Easy eh?

Posted by Matt at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I like the Ricky Gervais Podcast. I think it's hilarious. Steve Merchant is an admirable co-host, and Karl Pilkington has now become an internet phenomenon all of his own creation. So when I got an email yesterday saying that 'the first in a new run of at least 4 shows is available right now!', I was happy. I looked forward to more Monkey News, more entries from 'Karl's Diary', and lots more observations and comedy musings from the point of view of the ineffable Ricky Gervais.

But then I clicked through from the mail I recieved from rickygervais.com to Audible.com, I got a horrible surprise. For 4 episodes of the Podcast, which up until now has been completely gratis, they wanted nearly seven flipping euros, or nearly two euros each. Now, if it was something I thought I'd listen to over and over, I probably wouldn't have a problem with that. But The RGS is not like that. I listened to all 12 episodes from Guardian Unlimited (for free), and thought them funny, but funny in a 'yeah-that-was-funny-but-not-a-second-time' kinda way. Three dudes sitting around a microphone and prattling on, occasionally interrupted by hyena-like laughter, while very funny the first time, isn't something you can listen to over again and again. Well I can't anyway.

Posted by Matt at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)