by taoski on June 30, 2006
I witnessed a crime last night.
At 4am I was awoken from my drink induced slumber by my youngest Son, who was complaining sleepily about something I now can’t remember. What ever it was, by the time I got to his bedroom he was pretty much back to sleep anyway.
I went back to bed and listened to the Milkman rev his little battery operated car up our road for a few minutes before I fell back to sleep. 15 minutes later I heard a loud scraping sound from outside and jumped up and looked out of the window. A hoddie wearing teenage chav was attacking the back of an estate car across the road with a chisel or something and was making a lot of noise. By the time my alcohol riddled brain realised what was happening and that I had to obscure myself behind the curtains, bang on the window, shout and scare him off….. he ran away. I thought he had made too much noise, had got the willies and ran off.
But then he came back, at speed, with a brick in his hand which he promptly dropped through the back window of the car, smahing the glass completely, setting off the alarm which lasted for about 30 seconds! and legged it off with what looked like two laptops. I did’nt have time to shout. My heart was beating hard in my stomach from those Jack Daniels chasers and the spaghetti bake I ate when I got home. The whole thing seemed totally unreal.
A few of the neighbours, hearing the crash popped their heads out their windows to see what was going on. By the time I had opened my window and looked out, the robber was well gone. One of the neighbours insinuated that there was more than one of them anyway. Others waiting at the street corner as backup.
I chatted to the owners of the car this morning after breakfast as they arrived to find smashed glass everywhere and their equipment missing. I sat on my sofa reading a school book with my Son and watched him out of the corner of my eye saying “fuck! fuck!” as he paced around the car. I could’nt hear him, but I got the gist of what he was saying. I feel sorry for them but they did leave them “on show”. I have offered to give a description of the kid and a statement if they need me to.
Every young baseball cap wearing teenager I saw this morning was a potential suspect. Two young window cleaners who were making their way down the road looked suspicious, as did a kid waiting, smoking, outside his mates front door before they went to school. They all seemed to eye me suspiciously as I tried to see if it was one of them I saw last night.
Yob culture is alive and well - right on my doorstep!
The only ironic thing about this whole sad story is that the car was parked under a lamp post, which was lit - although it’s pretty light at 4am anyway. On the lamp post is a police Neighbourhood Watch sign that reads “DO NOT LEAVE VALUABLES IN YOUR CAR”.
by taoski on June 28, 2006
It’s my birthday this Sunday.
What shall i ask for? One of these?
Or one of these?
Or shall i just get some more games for my Xbox 360?
by taoski on June 28, 2006
I just read a little article over at BlogLines whom I use to read my RSS feeds online. They are asking for Freedback - and no, thats not a spelling mistake - about their Bloglines product.
Freedback is a term used to establish communication between the user and the website provider. Think of it like giving someone constructive criticism.
My Freedback to Bloglines would be this:
- The site is fast, neat and easy to use.
- I rely on it to do my job (research etc).
- It has become an integrated part of my surfing experience.
- At the moment I don’t think I would change anything! Maybe just a different color scheme chooser or something…
Bloglines will track this post and collect my Freedback (hopefully) and maybe things will change if enough people report an issue with the same thing or request the same feature.
On the same note - you can leave me Freedback too. Just leave a comment or write a post and mention Taoski or Megatao. I will pick it up through my Bloglines feeds!
by taoski on June 27, 2006
So the old dog has gone a left blighty for a new future complete with apartment, new job and new baby.
I am of course speaking of my dear friend Captain Beefy and his (no doubt soon to be “i’m not having a child out of wedlock” wife) Mrs Buzzard. They have left the nest and built (rented) new digs in Canada - never to be seen again.
But that does’nt stop Beefy popping up on my GMail talk facility and telling me that he needs a crap! To quote:
I suppose this is what the internet has come to. We rambled on a bit and then he had to dash…
It’s nice to know he is still “there”. Somewhere across the Internet cosmos, smoking a fag, nearly crapping himself.
It’s what the internet is made for!
by taoski on June 26, 2006
It appears, according to AppleDefects.com, that Apple have changed their advertisement wordings to remove the term “lap”. This seems to be a move to discourage people from using laptops on their.. er.. lap..tops after serious heat build up issues were discovered. The new MacBook Pro was clocked at a smouldering 142 degrees farenheit!
Before:
After:
My (work owned) IBM Thinkpad T23 does get quite hot if I use it on my lap at home - but not hot enough to burn my legs!
Scary stuff! But at least it will keep me warm when I am surfing AmpLand naked!
by taoski on June 14, 2006
I have found a new online playmate. And this time i’m not talking about one of those cyber-bints over at ShockRooms.com. This new girl shares my love for the internet, computers and music. She also knows exactly what to play me next to keep me sweet! She’s really cool.
Another great thing is that she is very promiscuous and will go with anybody! head over to the Pandora website and type in your favorite band or track and she will search out and play other similar sounding tracks. Remember to sign up for continuing maximum pleasure, as she tends not to “put out” after a while if you don’t.
A very clever, sexy little minx of an application she is indeed. And like any good web-whore she is great at sneaking under your works firewall as she runs completely in Macromedia Flash and for an added bonus, she also burps out tracks in high quality too! A perfect distraction while tossing it off in the office.
by taoski on June 9, 2006
For a .com domain name.
I have come across some cool sites though for finding, generating or searching on new or expired domain names.
ExpiredDomains.com
This site allows you to search on domain names that were once registered but are now available.
I found the following names from there:
- taohq.com
- taoisms.com
- taotemple.com
- toptao.com
Nameboy
This site allows you to put in 2 key words and it searches on variations on that name. You can opt to include hyphens in the name or allow rhyming. It also puts in various “key phrases” like “bank” or “hip” too so you can see other options. However, this site did show taoski.com as available even though I know it is not. From there I found that the following names are available:
- taoskiblog.com
- taoskiwizard.com
- megatao.com
- intelitao.com
Domain Name Generator
This site generates 5 random domain names for you and does a WHOIS lookup to see if they are already taken too. This is really for when you have reached the end of your possible searches and only a domain like suugrap.com will do. Pretty crap really - but i’m sure if I click that button enough some good names will come up.
See. titdom.com, tosaing.com and asstran.com amoungst other vaguely sexual names are available.
MakeWords
Similar to Domain Name Generator, but it allows you to generate 30 names per page. The names also make more sense. Runtywish.com is available according to them. I wonder what kind of site that could be? Makewords also allows you to make names that begin with, contain or end with a letter, name or word. Pretty cool!
I still don’t know what to choose though. Bwah!
[edit] just found this “web 2.0 domain name generator” too.
by taoski on June 2, 2006
I promised myself a long time ago that I would quit Blogger and get my own domain name, install Wordpress and start doing my own stuff.
I did half of that, well - sorta. I did quit Blogger and I have moved to using Wordpress but I am still hogging on somone elses domain and don’t have any creative control over my template here.
http://www.taoski.com had already been taken, http://www.photao.com has been taken too, so I have been looking around at other possible domain names. I decided that I did’nt want to go for http://www.taoskiblog.com as I don’t want to be limited to just a “blog” type domain name. I also wanted to get myself a “cool” and “web 2.0″ sounding name such as Flickr or Labelr or something like that.
The only thing I have come up with a the moment is http://www.spangl.com. “Spangle”. Not too sure on it though. I think the idea came from the obscure title of one of Nick’s postings.
But I have been thinking.
Are domain names so important now? Most of the sites I come across are through links on http://del.icio.us or through other peoples blogs and Google. I can’t think of that many occasions where I have given links to people by word of mouth. So would it really matter if my domain was http://www.taoskis-wonderful-blog.com or http://www.tao-was-ere-again.com?
by taoski on June 2, 2006
Those iPod luvvies over at iLounge have released their new “Free iPod Book” featuring all things iPod, iTunes, iAccessories and iOtherStuff.
I downloaded the iPod buyers guide from them back in 2004bi (before iPod) and it was really good. This one looks even better!
by taoski on June 1, 2006
On my weekly sabatical to Birmingham yesterday I dragged my colleague to the Apple store at the Bullring to check out the new Macbook. I did look for them at my local John Lewis at the weekend but they were no-where to be found.
I was impressed by them too. Small, light, neat, smart, fast, clever and great at oral sex too!
But after looking at the 20 inch iMacs and also after reading that my matey WhiteBoyBob has just bought one (and not managed to break it), I am wondering if one of those might be a better purchase. I have also been reading some benchmarks on gaming with the 20 inch iMac using XP and Boot Camp. They do seem impressive too. I think I will have to install XP via Boot Camp as the kids use some games on XP still and the wife will probably get all confused over OSX and will not be able to work her Home Accounts Spreadsheet properly without ringing me all the time.
I do use my laptop at home a little. Not lots though - just a little. Sometimes after a hard days internet surfing work I don’t want to be huddled over another PC in the corner of the room. Sitting on the sofa, slowly cooking my legs with the laptop on wifi is quite nice really. I have done more of my “Blogger Template Overhaul” series using the laptop than anything else. My desktop PC setup at home is not perfect for spending lots of time at the screen. Stuck in the corner next to the dinner table, it is quite restrictive to use and the desk it sits on gets piled with paper, toys, mobile phones and recently, my Xbox360, controllers and headset as I now play that via my LCD monitor.
But the 20 inch iMacs are nice and they are faster and have a bigger hard disk too! I do quite a bit of photoshop stuff so maybe that would be a better purchase? But the laptops are nice and “free” and I can take it on holiday and stuff too. Oh… crap…. more decisions.
Well, it's not a giant lizard slaying robot and its not a new religion.