This really is a teaser trailer for the upcoming Transformers movie.

Oooh, a smell recorder.

Woooo, no more boring days at work for me!!

YouTube cartoon index.

I have been watching Red Dwarf clips today to pass the time. This is one of my faves from back in series 1. The original Holly really was the dogs b***ocks.

And maybe the beer. Well that's my tickets for Summer Sundae bought. Now I just need to find people to come with me so I don't get lonely...

You know, it's one thing to say something and then try really hard to achieve it but fail and another to just not really even bother trying.

Germany likely to set CO2 emission cuts of only 0.6% from 2004-1012

And it lets them say "I told you so".

The news will offer comfort to US climate sceptics who predicted that Europe would talk big on climate change but fail to impose large carbon cuts on its own industries.

Got a dodgy photo of your boss with some wet celery and a flying helmet and need extra cash. Got just the thing for ya.

Seems C4 is now streaming live broadcasts over the interwebnet. I also notice that their FAQ has no mention of needing a TV licence which is probably not surprising as they don't see any of the £4 billion that the BBC get from it...

This is also interesting - Slingmedia. It's a box that allows you to stream stuff from your own TV, digibox or DVR over the interenet to a PC anywhere. How would the TV licencing people control where that goes (assuming the original house was covered)?

Unless every internet connection in the country has a static IP address (which most don't) and the ISP's provide full name and address information to the licencing folks, they'll never be able to police this.

Sorry for further ranting on this, I'm just being pestered again by you know who. Apparently I have three days to buy a licence and I'm on their 'priority list'. Enough letters already, come and sodding visit me.

Kinda like this song and video from Otafuku Rex. Good name too.

I've been listen to this for the last ten minutes and I just can't... seem.. to.... turn... it...... off!

Whatever you do, don't open multiple windows, it may create some sort of rip in the fabric of space/time...

I watched this as a kid but had entirely fogotten about it until this morning - The Mighty Heroes.

A slightly more up to date (and dead cool even tho I don't really know what is going on) animation - Saga of the Code Hunters.

Anyone with kids want to order a Cashel Daddle Saddle?

Want to get pregnant but having trouble? Get inseminated by a clown.

She is very predictable is my mother. I could have scripted the conversation we had last night.

After exchanging normal chit-chat about the weather and what I was going to have for tea, I told her when I was coming to visit. I then casually slipped in who I was bringing.

I'm not sure she could have sounded more shocked if I told her I'd seen Jesus down at Adsa stocking up on bread and fish.

After telling her for the eighty third time that I wasn't joking she finally began to believe me. In an attempt to lighten the mood I cracked a little joke about how we thought we should come down before the baby was born.

Must remember not to do that again without having someone with a defibrillator on standby......

She then asked the question I'd been expecting - "but where will you sleep". Poor innocent mother. Next came the "Whats her name? Where did you meet? How old is she? Does she have child bearing hips?" part of the conversation. We finally finished with a worrying period where she went on about marriage and how happy she was.

This trip is going to be sooo stressfull....

Again swiped from the deadly doppelganger is this free mini album colaroration between Danger Mouse and MF Doom. Any album inspired by Cartoon Network gets a big thumbs up from me.

My favourite track is this one (provided to you in low quality goodness).

"I can only promise you good times, hot women and evil!"

No posting today. It's a Friday and I'm bored and just want to go home. Plus I'm supposed to be planning my annual trip home to see the folks at the beginning of August.

Yup, it's that time I dread again (although it's never as bad as their annual trip to see me!) but this one is a little different as I'm taking Miss C with me.

In case you are wondering then yes, it is the first time they will have met her. That's not really so much of a worry though as you see before they meet her, I actually have to tell them that she exists...

What? I was supposed to have mentioned this to them before? It's only been a year....

Probably even more importantly than that, (you're kinda wondering how hiding the existence of my girlfriend from them for a year is not the biggest revelation now, aren't you?) confessing this to my mother will finally give her proof that her son is not in fact gay. After 31 years of keeping her entirely in the dark about my lovelife and every woman I've ever been involved with, she can rest easy at last. No more awkward conversations for me - nuh huh.

**tries to surpress memories of a little chat involving the line "You do actually like girls - don't you?"**

A little violent maybe but amusing none the less.

The US Government are creating a public service announcement to air on Iraqi TV. Suicide bombing is bad for you m'kaaay....

You watch an advert warning of the dangers of smoking. It puts you off as you don't want to end up with cancer and die. You watch an advert on the dangers of drink driving and it puts you off as you don't want to kill someone or end up with your face mashed against the dashboard. You see an advert about the dangers of suicide bombings and it puts you off as you don't want to kill loads of people or die yourse...

Oh wait, that exactly what you want to do.

An insurance company has canceled the cover on three sisters which they took to cover the cost of bringing up Christ if one of them conceived immaculately.

Silly people. You could easily get some cracking sponsorship deals from pampers or magazine 'exclusive story' payouts if you were the mother of Christ. You'd be rolling in it.

"How can I go about password protecting some data so that only I have access? asks the woman that's just come into the Helpdesk.

Her computer is being upgraded and so her local computer officer has asked her to copy any data she wants from her machine to his for the couple of hours it will take to do the upgrade. He'll put it back when its done. It's a standard practice.

I think for a moment. Password protected zip file? Little clunky for large amounts of data. Removing permissions from a networked folder so only she has access? Not something I would recommend to a novice and probably easy to counter anyway if someone wanted to. Besides, these concerns are something she should be speaking to her computer officer about but she obviously doesn't trust him enough to even discuss it.

I've been in this job long enough to know when it's a waste of my time to spend too long trying to find a complicated answer to a problem which isn't really even a problem. She's already given me the easiest answer anyway.

"I can't think of anything simple" I tell her "but you say you've already backed the data up to CD. In that case I would just recommend making a second copy for security. If you are worried about people viewing your data, holding onto a physical copy is probably the safest option."

"Ok, thanks" she says and starts to leave. A wicked glint enters my eye.

"You are aware that your computer officer - being the administrator of all the machines in your department - already has access to all the data on your machine anyway aren't you?"

"Even remotely" she asks, looking a little worried.

"Oh yeah" I smile back.

She swears to herself and walks out the door much faster than she walked in. I begin to wonder if all she has stored is really her job evaluation and appraisals. I suspect more likely it's the business accounts for her criminal empire or the secret to eternal life....

Been dead mad budy today. Admittedly most of that was trying to fix something that was broken because of me in the first place but still...

Good news for the day, my blatant freebie attempt worked and I should hopefully be getting a copy of Breakup Babe - A Novel soon. Or if not soon at least at some point. I hope.

It starts with a simple toy car. Next thing it's your photocopier.Then a full sized car or lorry. Before you know it the damn things are dancing in the streets or out ice skating. Your not even safe at sea. Being a raving looney doesn't help either.

The human race is doomed I tell you, doomed....

So if you happened to place a peice of bread on the ground one day and someone on exactly the opposite side of the world happened to do the same things at the same time you would in effect me making a giant sandwich. Thats the idea behind If the Earth were a giant sandwich.

Mmmmm, Earth sammich....

So not long until the new Superman movie is out. Can't help feeling I'm going to be a little dissapointed. Be nice when they finally realize that a decent plot is all very well and good in a film like this but what the fans really want mixed in with it is a true superpowered slugfest...

BlogMonkeys music recomendations for today.

The Monks of Sakya Tashi Ling - My Spirit Flies To You. A mix of pop and buddhist chanting. Tis quite catch and a big hit in Spain apparently. Also appears to be a fair bit of clevage action in that video... *ahem*

Ferry Corsten - Whatever (Redd Square Remix. Nice bit of trance music. Blah Blah Blah.

Might have to try this next time I have my camera on me...

Now I may not be religious myself but I have nothing against people believing in whatever the hell they want. That is as long as they don't start pushing those views on other people. Getting fines increased for when TV companies show 'indecent' material (is a brief glimpse of nipple really that offensive to people?) is a good example. Another quite good example here.

Of course you then have situations where certain religions try to hide things that they don't want people to know. Not that I'm saying those things are correct - but it makes you wonder why they want them removed if they have nothing at all to hide in the first place....

Watch the little clip on the right of that last page if you don't know much about Scientology (repeated here if you missed it) and want to learn.

My brother is a pagan and he married a Catholic girl. When they first started going out, her parents threatend to disown her if she kept seeing him. It had nothing to do with what my brother was like as a person, it was simply a religion thing. I do wonder if the world would be a much better place without religion sometimes....

Different...

I actually quite liked haggis. I couldn't eat all of it as (on the advice of someone else) I had also cooked a curry as a backup but still...

Back when this blog started, one of the first links in my blogroll was to Breakup Babe. I don't remember how I came across her blog but somehow in my interwebnet wanderings I did and it held even my goldfish like attention span long enough to make me post a permanant link to it. I followed it for a while, linked to it's shortlived (and anonymous) Sparkly spinoff blog (which I won't link to now as it is still there) and three years later it is one of about three blogs that has not left my sidebar.

I guess I empathized with what she wrote. So I wasn't in a band, didn't have a well paid job (post about that very soon when I get my act together) and didn't go hiking up mountains. I'm not a talented writer, hadn't been dumped and oh yes, am totally the wrong sex but I'd been single a awfully long time and knew about trying to find Miss Right (not that she was trying to find Miss Right as that probably would have tripled her reader base).

And now she has finally had her book published and I am really pleased for her. Kinda feels like I've been there for the whole ride.

Now the astute amongst you will have spotted that I posted about this a couple of weeks back and might be wondering why I was posting again. Well, I'm blatantly trying to get a free copy of her book. I won't deny it. But I've read some good reviews and I genuinely want to read it. If this feeble attempt at a freebie fails I'll actually have to buy it and as my mum can testify (she's wanted me to order her something on the interweb for about 4 months now), that could take a loooong time.....

I was in the supermarket the other day - wandering past the sausage section - and there it was. It sort of called out to me and next thing I knew it was in my basket. I like to try knew things.

So tonight I have a haggis to eat. It's cooking now and smells.... interesting.

Wish me luck.

How IT projects really work.

Bit bored of cats, dogs and goldfish? Fancy a new pet? Try a GenPet.

In case you are wondering what the hell is going on, this might help.

I'm sure most of you remember Screech from Saved by the Bell? Well, he wants you to help him save his house.

Fair play to him I guess - worth a shot. He also does some good things.

The latest 30 second bunny clip - Superman.

If you are tired of cooking chicken in the same old ways, why not try the Reemco Interior Roasts.

I'm not saying a word, the image speaks for itself....

The BBC is listing the top 10 ways to see todays England match and keep your job. Live stream from the BBC website is number 1 but still no mention of needing a TV licence you notice...

Edit - They are actually trying to make people aware of this now, although a bit late in my mind. If a black and white licence costs almost £90 less simply because you are missing out on colours, should a streamed broadcast cost a lot less as the quality is so much lower?

"You will also need a licence if you can watch live broadcasts on your computer."

I can - doesn't mean I want to tho.

Few nice short animations from the Gobelins animation school (at least that what I think it means).

Burning Safari (my fave)

Cocotte Minute

Steam Team from Outer Space

If you're just about to eat, don't watch this.

Things I Don't Remember - Ugly Cassanova

$1 billion of Katrina aid is lost to fraud.

"Among some of the charges the GAO found unnecessary to satisfy legitimate disaster needs were $3,700 on a diamond watch, earrings and ring, a one-week all inclusive holiday in the Dominican Republic, $200 of Dom Perignon champagne, fireworks, $1,000 for a Houston divorce lawyer, and a considerable amount for adult erotica."

Doesn't say if that was all just one person cos if so, they must have had a helluva week or so.

Dare animatic



(swiped from Doppleganger)

Made me chortle.

Designer kid

(link via The Presurfer)

As you may (or may not) be aware, the BBC has recently been streaming live World Cup matches from their website. Whilst not that interested in football I have watched ten minutes or so at work and occasionally put it on at home for twenty minutes - mainly out of boredom and to see what sort of quality you can get.

Then today I read this article.

How many people out there even thought about needing a workplace TV licence when they sneaked a bit of a watch at work? I know I didn't. The BBC make a big fuss announcing this 'great' service but hide the fact that you still need a TV licence in the FAQ.

"It is a free service. You do however need a TV licence."

So, not actually free at all then BBC.

Almost seems to me that they are trying to trap people/companies by making it freely available. I'd be curious to see how this stood up in court seeing as there is no warning when you click a link to say that you need a licence.

Then it dawned on me that I was watching this at home (I'm trusting you - my readers - to not grass me up to the Beeb)! I've been getting laughable warnings about every 3 weeks for the last 6 months about getting a TV licence. They started off with "We see you don't have a licence. You need one". Progressed to "If you don't get a licence we'll send someone round to investigate". Followed by "We have authorized people to come round and investigate" and has now basically devolved into "Our officers will be there soon! No really, they will. Honest. Wooooo!! Are you scared yet?".

I have no TV. I have no tuner card. I didn't care if they came round as I have no way to watch TV.

Or so I thought.

But the sneaky Beeb have now made it so that even I have the ability to watch their programs. I started thinking about the ramifications of that - I would need a TV licence simply because I had a computer and access to the interwebs?

Then I found one of the proposed answers - a PC tax. Well they can f**k right off! What next - a tax for people with eyes as they can use them to watch telly programs!?

I saw this in someones sig whilst looking round some forums today. Maybe it's old but I liked it.

"I still miss my ex, but my aim is improving!"

... do I go to Summer Sundae this year? Couple of bands I'd like to see but are they worth seventy five squid?

I had a look at the music download site Allofmp3.com yesterday for the first time after reading this BBC story. Damn that stuff really is cheap.

It's quite an amusing article actually. Having the record industy warn users of the site that they are breaking the law and then say that it doesn't matter as they won't prosecute them anyway is hardy a deterent. Probably have the opposite affect now that people know they can download stuff from there with no fear of retribution from the high and mighty BPI.

Anyway, what gets me is that this place can offer tracks for about 5p and that is enough to cover all their running costs AND presumably make them a tidy profit at the same time. So why do legit sites cost in the region of 75-99p per track? How can the record industry justify that? Sure they have expenses and have to pay the artist but does that really come to 90p per song?

It's pretty easy now for people to hire a studio for a couple of hours to record a few songs (and some will just sample straight into a computer at home), whip up some snazzy cover art using a digital camera and Photoshop, create CD's and MP3s for distribution - all without the said of a record company. The only thing lacking is a way to get the music heard in the first place so that people will want to buy it and that is only going to get easier as more people listen to podcasts and digital radio stations online.

The music industry really will soon have to adapt or die....

Eight year old develops RSI through over texting.

"She got the phone when she was six and she's constantly on it. I tried to take it off her but she started sneaking it to school."

Or lets see you could have perhaps... stopped paying for her to send all those text message!!!

If like me you are looking forward to the odd BBQ now that it's finally starting to resemble summer weather wise (if only I actually had a garden now...), then you may want to check out this nifty guide to the top 10 coolest BBQs going - plus a few extra for good measure.

How could you not want a BBQ Shack or a BBQ that runs off a V8 engine!?!

On a related not, if you are too skint to buy one of them thar mega BBQs, you could just warm a sauage through using a coke can and some chocolate (intrigued now, aren't you).

You know, I've not had a pay rise in a while either....

Disgruntled IT manager crashes 2000 servers.

After a poor week of blogging last week I'll try and make up for it this week. First up...

I do like trying out new music and Musicovery is a good way to do this. Ignore the fact that it's in another language, it's pretty easy to figure out what's going on. Wonder how long it wil be up before it gets shut down for copyright issues? Play whilst you can kiddies!

It starts with inserting magnets into your body and next thing you'll be moving whole bridges around like a certain super villian...

What Friday would be complete without a bit of The Hoff!

Watch out for the impressive use of a torch for lighting and the Prince Charles impression.

just busy. Sometimes I think I should go on strike like all those (money grabbing) lecturers. I mean they pay me to come in and they expect me to work whilst I'm here as well?! I mean really.....

This is pretty funky - pipe dream.

(link via Danger Betty)

it'll all end in tears.

"A man is planning to shoot himself 20 miles into the air from what might be the world's largest crossbow (24 feet) while sitting on a homemade rocket."

Well I did miss it technically but only by a day. That's pretty good for me when it comes to remembering birthdays.

So three years and 2431 posts later, BlogMonkey is still alive and kicking (although I was of course not BlogMonkey when I first started out. All together now.

Happy Birthday to me
Happy birthday to meee....

I'm the BlogMonkey, bitch!

Yeah, guess what I went to see at the weekend. It was ok but I still felt it needed a little more mutant on mutant action (and I'm not talking about that scene with Wolverine and Jean). Sure there was (for the first time) mass mutant battles but most of that involved people punching (or slicing) each other. I wanted sonic blasts, balls of fire, energy blasts, people turning into big balls of puffy light, earthquakes, people picking up a three tonne chunk of rock and throwing it at some one! You get the idea. Oh well.

For those that haven't seen it yet, don't leave until after the credits. And look out for Stan Lee.

And don't forget, he's the Juggernaut Bitch!

Having been encouraged by a couple of people to take part in this years Blogathon (I will get some nice 'nanas Mr Poons as not only are they full of energy but I don't really fancy eating peices of paper again) I had a look at when it is. The 29th of July I can do but 06:00 PST! That's 14:00 GMT for me! I'm always awake by 8am so it would mean staying awake for a fair bit longer than 24hrs for me.

Hey ho

If (and I'm still trying to decide) I do take part, I did learn my lessons last time.

a) No beer or wine - it makes you sleepy and pront to putting stupid hats on. Ok, maybe one glass..
b) Have a plan - assuming you can just randomly chat about stuff for 24hrs is not a good idea.
c) Get some redbull and proper food.

I do have an interesting idea about my blogging theme tho. Well, I think it is interesting anyway.

Couple of nice little offerings from Robot Chicken

Apocalypse Pony

Terrorism.

Then you have this CGI animation - Elephants Dream. Not entirely sure what's going on but it's quite interesting to watch.

Several new species found in a cave that has been sealed off for millions of years. Who knows what they might find in there next...

The wonders of live TV.

I do like a good sausage now and again. Can't really beat them on a BBQ or as part of a nice english breakfast after a heavy night out. Which is why Sausagefans.com may be a site I keep coming back to. Just a shame it doesn't look to be updated to much...

Aww, nice to see BB finally got her book published. Shows what you can do if you set your mind to it. May have to purchase a copy at some point for a look see....

I did spot this about a week ago but never got round to posting about it. Basic story, a guy buys a laptop on eBay for £375 and (according to him) has to wait months to receive it and then finds it's not the same as the description and doesn't actually work. Guy gets annoyed. Guy finds that the hard drive of the laptop hasn't been wiped and finds lots of juicy personal information, porn and candid voyeur shots. Guy posts said information onto webpage. Wep page becomes popular and now any search (probably from now until forever) for the laptop sellers name on the internet will turn up some rather dodgy stuff about him.

Not going to look good to any potential employers that happen to Google the guy.

Revenge is sweet.

Of course, we only have the supposed victims word to go on that any of this is true. The laptop may have been posted in a timely fashion and not have been broken at all. This could be some sort of weird vendetta against an innocent man who will now forever be branded.

This total lack of evidence was the reason I didn't link to it originally. Of course now that The Register has covered the story and linked to the site, it has received almost a million and a half more hits.

My personal view. The seller had zero feedback whilst the buyer had a reasonable eBay history - I can't see any reason why he would suddenly decide to victimize the guy on the internet. I suspect what he says is true. Plus all those sneaky tube leg shots....