Life Without Toast - Sibling Rivalry

So after a weekend of craziness and wonderful times I came into work this morning and found my lovely friend Eleanor in tears, she was in her boyfriends house on Saturday night and about 5 o'clock in the morning she woke up when she heard a loud explosion, she looked out the window and saw this:

Her lovely car had been torched by some dirty little scumbags, this girl saved so hard to buy her car, and she LOVED it, like I mean, totally was in love with her car, she had a special interior and special paint and kept it so clean it was unbelievable and to think that some little shits found it amusing to set it on fire and watch it burn just made me so angry, I still am, the whole thing is melted, as you can see from the pictures, its scary looking I think! What's worse is that yesterday during the day she went out to look at it and it was full of wood so they weren't happy with lighting it once, no, they are going to light it again tonight, to make it worse. Officially the worst Halloween ever!

_{[image posting done by Matt, because he's more brillianter at the HTML-ey stuff than Babs is...]}

Posted by Babs at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBacks (0)

Click the image to try it yourself. Every caffeine-containing drink is there, just about. Interestingly, 70.19 cans of Jolt Cola would also pop my clogs. I used to drink a lot of that stuff, but not any more...

Posted by Matt at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

So like, Yahoo! have decided that creating a personalized "sign-in seal" will prevent you from being phished, scammed and spammed. They might be right, but by leaving users open to create their own personal message to themselves when they sign in has left Yahoo! rife for a bit of piss-taking by smarty-pants people like myself, as seen in the picture below.

Posted by Matt at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

W00t! Firefox v2.0 is released today! The main Mozilla site hasn't updated yet, but via the magic of Lifehacker, I have discovered it can be downloaded from here (Mac version here).

It pretty much rocks, with inline spell-check in all web forms, like the form I'm posting this from (which should be great for Adrian), comment forms, etc. It also has little "X"s on all tabs for closing them (for those who didn't know about the middle-click-trick), better security, and handy "undo close tab" (YAY!) option on the new tab-bar drop-down menu, and a million other things little things I haven't found yet.

The only thing that's a bit of a pisser is that mu del.icio.us extension (or "add-on" as they now appear to be called) hasn't been updated yet. But that's something that will probably be sorted tomorrow if Joshua and co. get their shit together.

Anyhoo, download it. NOW. It's brilliant. And far better than IE 7 which was released last week and is pretty much not anywhere near as good as Firefox version 1, never mind version 2.

Posted by Matt at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Photoblogging...

They know a man from Galilee, apparently. :-)

Posted by Matt at 8:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Spotted in a market in Costa Rica, here's one liquid you might not want to bring onto a plane with you...

Well, definitely not in the US anyway.

_{[via BoingBoing]}

Posted by Matt at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

On Monday evening I was on my way into college after work and I thought, ?hmm, I need coffee? so I was walking up Nassau street and I went to the Coffee and Food Company where I had never been before to get one, and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, there was a middle aged man working there and I would say he possibly owned the place, he was just clearing up after a busy day and looked fairly stressed to the max, I was wrecked and not in the humour for anything never mind 3 hours of college, but this man totally made my evening, he was SO nice, all chats and watching him make the coffee put a smile on my face. I used to work in a coffee shop years ago when I was still in school, and I really put the effort in to make everyone nice coffee and its not often that you will get a good one to take away nowadays, he just looked like he loved doing it, he took his time and was obviously a total perfectionist, even though I was in a hurry I didn?t mind waiting the 5 minutes it took for my coffee, he had a special brush to make sure that there was no grains clogging up the machine, he wiped the steam pipe until it gleamed after he heated the milk (a thing I rarely see done regularly in coffee emporiums) the coffee looked delish and he was just SO nice he even put my one sugar in for me as I was laden down with bags and folders), so now I beg the question, why aren?t there more people like this in the city, why do people work with the public when they so obviously HATE people? It baffles me, it really does, no manners, no smile, no thank you, and I don?t mean in the false ?American ? Have a nice day? way I mean just genuine nice, I always had a smile for my customers, the ones that came in everyday for their coffee before work at 7am, the builders who came in for their full Irish at 9am, the office workers who came in at lunch, and even the people who would come in and annoy me for food or drinks just before closing, maybe I am just picky, but being nice doesn?t cost anything! Anyway, my coffee was lovely and lasted me a good hour before going too cold to drink it was massive and cost ?2 (I think) and I will be going there again this evening for the same thing for defo and so should everyone if they are in the vicinity!!

Posted by Babs at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

So, I had a four day weekend.

On Friday, we went to Turlough (my cousin's cousin)'s exhibition, and we bought a lovely picture of his. Click the linked image here for a closer look, it's really cool.

Nikki's birthday party was on Saturday. I cooked a huge dinner, and Nikki and her friends Laura (who was over from London for the weekend), Claire, Deirdre and Catherine, and myself, enjoyed it very much, along with the piles of wine and beer we had, and the banoffee pie Claire very nicely prepared (it was scrum-diddley!).

On Sunday, I chilled and the girls went for lunch in Dun Laoghaire. Claire, Deirdre and Catherine went home, and Nikki and Laura came home, and we chilled all evening, and watched Spider-Man 2 (again!).

Today, I picked up the picture we bought on Friday, and chilled.

It was a pretty chilled weekend!

Posted by Matt at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Birthday to my beautiful Nikki who has now passed the point of no return, and reached the grand old age of 30!

"Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy biiiiiirthday dear Nikki!
Happy birthday to you!"

Hip-hip, HOORAY!

Apparently (she says) she feels much older and wiser today, but I don't believe a word of it.

We're having a few guests over tomorrow to our lovely pad for a big pile of nosh and booze. Which is nice. I'm cooking, so naturally the food will fricking ROCK ASS.

Posted by Matt at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Right, so I spent a couple of hours tonight (much to Nikki's chagrin) creating some new stuff for the archives page (just in case anyone looks there apart from the DRS's*).

Firstly, I created a list (on the main archive page, just under the 'Recent Posts' section) of the last ten posts from myself, and then the last ten posts from Babs. Go there now, and have a look. See? Nice, isn't it? Not bad, eh?

Secondly, as you can see from the big fat link beside the title of each list, there's now a new archives page for ALL posts by me, and another page listing ALL posts by Babs. Which is also nice, and not bad.

This is mostly for me, to see what I'm capable of in the copy-and-pasting stakes, and creating the odd original bitín of code myself, with this Moveable Type thingy, and this other PHP thingy, and possibly extending the functionality of the LWT a little bit. Mostly for me, I say, but definitely a little bit for Adrian, who's poor head has been fucking WRECKED since he lashed this blog together for me, with constant "how do you do this?" and "can you do this for me?" -type questions. Now, Adrian's a mate, and I hate asking my mate's for TOO much, in anything at all. Ade's been brilliant, but it's really time I started doing some of this shit myself. So I have, and this is what I've done for starters.

_{*Dirty Rotten Spammers}

Posted by Matt at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

So I was on the usual road trip home from work with Trish yesterday when we were talking about soup, now I have been making this spicy tomato soup for about two years and am kind of getting sick of it, and then she said ?why don?t you make carrot soup? so I did, off on my merry way to Tesco and I bought all the lovely ingredients, plus other weekly shop stuff, and I made loads, and loads, and loads of it, Tis deadly so I thought, why not share this delight and maybe teach a few of you (ahem?Matt) how easy it is to cook stuff, even in my very very very 70?s kitchen, (its apple green Formica for those who are interested), so here ya go:

Posted by Babs at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

So. After I made that podcast that everyone's talking about, I decided that it might be a good idea to put in on my actual iPod, to see what it sounded like. So on Saturday (a little late, seeing as the podcast went public on Friday!) I plugged me iPod into me laptop, to do the auld sync-aroo, and something most unexpected happened. Nothing.

Well, I say nothing, but actually what happened was Windows Explorer opened up and showed me stuff that was on my iPod. iTunes didn't even quiver. iTunes didn't recognise my iPod in the slightest. I looked up the help files on the Apple site and it seemed to be a common problem with this new iTunes version 7.0.1. "Open 'my computer>manage'", they said, "and start the iPod service in 'services'". So I did. iTunes saw my iPod. For about a second. Then it was gone again. Rinse, repeat. Same result.

Posted by Matt at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, ladiesngentlemen, here we are.

The result of endless nagging (thanks for all your help Dan), a couple of late nights sat in front of a laptop talking into a mic with my brilliant cousin Andy and wondering if anyone would think any of what we were doing was remorely funny and/or entertaining in the slightest, the with the help of Adrians excellent guide to podcasting with iTunes and Moveable Type, it's finally here.

It's LIFEWITHOUTTOASTCAST time!

Click here to feel the noize (mp3, 61MB), or click that little blue 'play'-type button for your streaming convenience.

If you want to stick it straight into your iTunes/iPod, lash this link into advanced>subscribe to podcast :

www.lifewithouttoast.com/Lifewithouttoastcast.xml (I hope this works Adrian!) (UPDATE: It's working)

Happy listening!

_{[read previous post and heed warnings about level changes, hardware fuck-ups, etc]}

Posted by Matt at 9:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (26) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, myself and Andy were up until about 2.30am this morning getting the podcast finished and produced. I'm totally knackered today, wandering around in a bit of a daze (but not in any way compromising the health or safety of anyone where I work, due to my extreme awesomeness).

Posted by Matt at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Meet ?Flange? my new Doozer, this is his actual name, I am scared by this fact momentarily, what were they thinking? I just don?t know, but isn?t he SO cool, I love him, and he has a tashe, just like Tom Sellick, apart from Sellick?s isn?t ginge, ah well!

Posted by Babs at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

In case you were wondering what the crap is going on, like Pix, Dan, and several hundred others:

(There's no badge saying 'we', but I do mean we, and can someone please remind me to un-pink the blog when it's November... Please? Cheers!)

Posted by Matt at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

^{(...Idly strolling through Tesco...)}

Hmmm... Sandwich, sandwich, sandwich. These are all crap, I'd be better off going to M&S. In fact, fuck this, I think I will...

I think we need Jam. And butter. That schmancy Italian coffee I got in town will only last until the end of this week.

Tesco Value Digestives are really good. They're at least 95% as good as McVitie's, and they're only 37c. THIRTY-SEVEN CENTS! How do they do it?! It's Witchcraft I tell you!

Hang on. This can't be right. Tesco Anti-Virus...?

"Bollocks", I cry.

No, it's really real.

Holy shit! Tesco Office! Like Microsoft Office, only not quite as good, and it's ?30! THIRTY FUCKING EURO!

Hmmm... If I didn't already have MS office on my computer, would I buy this? Probably not. I'd probably download Open Office, despite it's myriad bugs and problems, because it costs exactly nought cents...

Then again, Average Joe probably hasn't got a clue about Open-Source goodness. He'll buy Tesco Office and like it. He'll think it's the best thing since... Well, either Tesco Digestives or MS Office, depending on where he's coming from. Hmmm... It appears Tesco office is just Ability Office with a Tesco sticker on it. And Tesco Anti-Virus is the godawful Panda in sheeps clothing.

So I was totally right with my cry of "Bollocks!" then...

_{(...Goes to M&S for a superior sandwich...)}

Posted by Matt at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

^{WARNING: GEEK ALERT}

if (person = terrorist) {
            punish_severely();
} else {
            exit(-1);
}

_{[stolen from via BoingBoing]}

Posted by Matt at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (0)