Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Many thanks to Amy who came and checked out the new chat applet.That's right folks, we now have a mac friendly alternative applet in the chatroom. I'll shortly be adding the appropriate link to the main chatroom introduction page, with no annoying banners at the top of the chat page. Till then, the link below is fully functional and will remain in place.
Steve 8:45 PM [+] (0) comments
Any mac users out there?
I need your assistance. For reasons that elude me, the chatroom applet isn't compatible with apple macs, so I've just set up a quick test page to see if the alternative I've found will work on the mac.
Click Here to try it out.
Steve 6:31 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
Now there's a funky thing.I just found this really cool little script that I've added to the sidebar.
Ever wondered if I'm in the chatroom, but can't be asked to go through all the hassle of waiting for the java to load, logging in and stuff? Yeah? Well you're bloody lazy then.... but just for you, there's now a little message just below the chatroom link to let you know if I'm in chat or not.
I'll be adding that script to various pages on my other sites too.
More tinkering to follow, probably.
Steve 11:34 PM [+] (0) comments
Sorry folks, but we totally whimped out today with the quitting smoking thing.
Truth is, when you're totally on edge and moody, the last thing you need is someone around you who's totally on edge and moody, and cosidering Brigitte's only just moved in, it just seemed like a bad time to both be in such a state of mind. We'll try again when we're both settled and more used to living together.
Labels: quitting smoking
Steve 11:08 PM [+] (0) comments
Craving? What craving? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!
So while stumbling aimlessly around the net, trying not to think about cigarettes, I signed up for some free webspace... like I really need more webspace. How many sites am I up to now? I'm losing track. 4 main and highly visible sites, 2 deliberately low profile sites, and probably quite a few individual pages scattered around where I only have partial control. Bet you can't find them all... hehehe.
Anyway, the question now is, what am I gonna do with this extra 25 meg of webspace I've got?
Labels: quitting smoking
Steve 1:46 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, April 28, 2003
If you should be unfortunate enough to speak to me over the coming days and weeks, be warned, I'm likely to be a moody, edgy and potentially volatile character.Yeah yeah, I know there's those of you who'll say "so what's new?" but this is serious... I'm making a concerted effort to quit smoking, and as if that isn't a dangerous enough prospect, just to crank up the tension a little more, so is Brigitte.
So... it's 11:24 pm, and I haven't had a smoke in 12 hours. Quite an achievement for someone who usually smokes around two an hour. Probably the only reason there's no huge pile of corpses filling the car park is this Nicorette nicotine inhaler thingie. It rather looks like I'm chewing the lid from a biro all day long, but it seems to do the trick.
Labels: quitting smoking
Steve 11:30 PM [+] (0) comments
Has there been something happening this weekend that I don't know about? Web traffic to all of my sites is waaaay down, and it's not through any rejigging of search engine alogorithms. People just aren't surfing.
Most unusual.
In other news.....er... there is no other news.
It's been a wholely uneventful day. So uneventful that I didn't even get out of bed till 3pm, and then spent the rest of the day wondering what to do with myself while the rest of the world obviously had other stuff on it's mind.
Maybe I'll just go look at some porn.
Steve 2:33 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, April 26, 2003
What is it with my cat? He doesn't seem to be into any of the typical cat things. He doesn't catch mice, sit on people's laps, drink milk, or do drugs.Eh?
Yup, that's right. We got him a little fuzzy toy mouse on a string, covered it in catnip and dragged it about in front of him. Instead of going into the expected mouse chasing frenzy, he simply turned his nose up at it, as if to say "I'm not that kind of cat."
Wierd moggy.
Steve 10:02 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, April 25, 2003
After doing assorted domestic stuff in town, and then assorted family related stuff later, I spent a couple of hours setting Brigitte up with both a webcam and a chatroom.Go take a look and/or say hi :-)
Steve 8:59 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, April 24, 2003
This is the first of several forthcoming pictures of the newly decorated flat... something we've proudly named Disco Toilet.It's so utterly hideous and tacky, we absolutely had to get it.
More pics to follow over the coming days, but none that are quite so scary or in such vomit inducingly poor taste ;-)
Steve 9:55 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Today was fun.After moving more bits and pieces over here and making the place look entirely presentable and home-like, we had a couple of visitors.
For a few years I've been an occasional visitor to a chatroom other than my own, and yesterday evening I got speaking to one of the regulars in there. Now I barely know this woman beyond saying hello and swapping the odd silly comment in the chatroom, but it turned out that she was in desperate need of an Amiga motherboard... and I just happened to have one. So this evening, her and her other half drove 1 hour down the motorway and I gave them my spare Amiga. What made it both enjoyable and unusual was that these are the first people I've ever met from an internet chatroom.
Nice people.
Steve 12:08 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, April 21, 2003
I need to write something today, but haven't yet decided what. The whole week's pretty much been filled with getting ready to move Brigitte in, and then actually moving her in. We're still bringing bits over.It's all good... but gets old when you wanna read something different. I'll have a think. More later... probably.
Steve 9:04 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, April 19, 2003
Moving house is SO much easier when you have someone else do all the heavy stuff.Today we began the final phase of moving Brigitte in with me. All her big furniture came over today, while the nik-naks will follow in dribs and drabs over the next few days.
We'd ummed and ahhed about how to get the stuff here for a while. Should we hire a van and do it ourselves in several journeys? Hire a van and rope friends in to help us? Hire a removal company to do the whole job, costing us an arm and a leg? In the end, we opted for a variation on the last option... not a removal company as such, but a couple of guys from a company connected to the company Brigitte works for, and as such, a far cheaper option than it might have been.
Mark and what's-his-name (I never did find out) were absolutely awesome, shifting everying in a methodical and cheerful manner, and not even complaining when they saw the 5 billion steps they had to go down at Brigitte's end and then back up at my end. Meanwhile Brigitte and myself made ourselves useful by making coffee and directing them as to where stuff was coming from and going to (a back-breaking task... hehe).
The whole job took around 3 hours in total, which rather amazed us both, followed by another couple of hours to arrange everything to our liking.
After another trip back to Brigitte's old place to pick up a few small bits that we could really have taken with us on the first trip (but didn't), and then nipping into a MacD's drive though for lunch, I promplty collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep in seconds flat. Not from any real hard work, but because I'd been running on empty since the moment I got up, having only had 3 hours sleep last night.
Waffling all night with good friends in the chatroom is always great fun, but when there's a house move to be taken care of in the morning, I really should know better.
Anyways... once all the bits and pieces are moved in, I'll be posting photos of the place in here. I know most of you won't see how hugely different it all looks, not having seen how it was before, but I know one or two people who simply won't recogninse the place, and I have to say, I really love how it's all turned out.
Best of all though, the woman I love now lives with me :-)
Steve 12:03 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Phew!That took some doing. The kitchen's all sorted, and all I have to do now is take the bed in here to bits, ready to go into storage in the loft, and then grab a quick bath.
I'll do the loft thing tomorrow afternoon, and while I'm up there, I found this stuff at the local Tesco store that kills wasps and destroys their nests, so even if there are any up there still alive, there soon won't be... Muahahahaha!
Steve 11:57 PM [+] (0) comments
Please, someone kick my arse into gear.
Brigitte's moving in tomorrow, and I need to get into the kitchen and clear all the crap out to make room for her stuff. So what am I doing? I'm sat here reading blogs. Doh!
Honestly, everything will be ready in time. No... seriously.
Look... the bath's running, I'm gonna go for a quick dip, and then I'll get right to work... after another coffee.
Y'know, I'm really bad like that. Sensible people (and Brigitte is one of those) have important preparations taken care of well in advance of the required time. I on the other hand am an advocate of the 'only just in time.... just barely' technique. It works, and everything gets done, but it's probably quite distressing for everyone else concerned.
I love you honey... you must be crazy :-)
Steve 3:17 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Finally, the bathroom's finished. A guy came round yesterday and replaced the panels trashed by the last guy, and came back this morning to fit new skirting boards.Time to plug Radio Benway again.
I've been doing a lot of fine tuning over the past month or so, and it's become a very tightly focussed station, and something you really should listen to if your taste in music is remotely on the alternative side.
Yahoo Launchcast have this rating/ranking system that I'm making use of to the absolute max. The more songs/albums/artists that you rate, the higher your Lanchcast ranking... the higher your ranking, the better chance you have of becoming a featured station. So far, I've rated about 4500 items, and need only 500 more to reach the second from top rank of 'Addict', then I'll need to rate another 5000 to reach the top rank of 'Master'.
Being the kinda guy I am, I won't rest untill I've done that. The idea of not having a ranking of Master is quite horrifying to me.
Labels: launchcast, music
Steve 12:49 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
This is the best 404 error page I've ever seenShown to me today by Mr Juggles, I just had to link to it. You need flash to view it. Go take a look.
Steve 11:23 PM [+] (0) comments
A little more on that japanese clone site.
If you're linked to from this blog, you too have been cloned, and I suspect if you follow every link on all of those blogs, they too will have been cloned.
More disturbingly though, if you click on that jibberish text link on the top left of each page, it leads to japanese porno sites.
Not good.
Steve 10:09 AM [+] (0) comments
The Japanese website cloners are at it again. First discovered by Bob a couple of months ago, look at what they've done now
If they're true to form, that site should update the moment I update this blog.
Thing is, I'm not sure of the legalities of what they're doing. Bob was very upset, as these cloned sites get listed on google and wherever, which is a real pain for anyone not wishing to be listed there (and some have good reason for this), but (and I have to check this) if they've cloned my other sites, they're not only in breach of my copyright by storing my mp3 files, art and writing, they may also screw up revenues from some of my advertising. I guess I'd get pretty pissed off about that, except that they're not claiming to be anyone other than me, so I still get all the credit for my works, and it's highly unlikely they could get a high enough search engine position to affect my advertising revenue.
Hmm... I just looked... they haven't altered the advertising codes as such... they've cloned the advertiser... lol.
That's very odd.
So, anyone know anything about these people? Like, how and why are they doing this? I know there are a few archive projects out there, storing exact copies of the web for posterity or whatever, but this thing seems to do it instantly, doesn't store older versions of sites, and even goes so far as to strip out popups codes, while not (as far as I can tell) retaining copies of download files.
I don't see the point.
Steve 9:46 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, April 14, 2003
There was supposed to be a workman coming round today to fix the stuff broken by the last guy who came to fix the bathroom. I say supposed to, as after I got up early (anyone who knows me will know I find it almost impossible to get up early) to be ready for him... no-one showed up. Bollox!If I weren't so lazy, I'd have spent the day finishing sorting this place out, but as it was, as soon as it was obvious no-one was coming, I went back to sleep.
Gonna spend some time in the chatroom tonight, as between watching 24 hour news coverage of the war, and being hooked on the sims, I've shamefully neglected my friends there of late.
Labels: annoyed
Steve 6:45 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, April 13, 2003
Ever noticed how people look different in different towns?Brigitte amd myself are both avid people watchers. Be it body language, clothes, size, faces, whatever.... we observe the people around us wherever we go, and generally take the piss out of them when they're out of earshot.
So yesterday we were in Daventry near Northampton, and while wandering around the supermarket it suddenly dawned on me that everyone in the place looked as if they'd been hit in the face with a shovel. Ugly doesn't begin to describe the people in that town... grotesque is more like it.
Thing is, you expect to see the odd less than pretty person in your day to day travels, but EVERYONE in that place was utterly flat faced, bulging eyed, jug eared, grotesque.
Forget Roswell, New Mexico... aliens have indeed landed, and they live in Daventry, Northamptonshire.
Be afraid... be very afraid.
Steve 4:06 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, April 11, 2003
In case you haven't seen it already www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com is great. That guy should win some kind of a comedy award, if not an oscar.Steve 3:38 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Outside world? What outside world? What war?Some regime's been deposed, you say?
.....er...
I only know one thing right now.... THE SIMS
lalalalalala... come on little man, can't you even go to the toilet without me telling you to?
I can understand how Jodene got so hooked a while back, as I've done nothing but play the thing for 2 days. Built a sim replica of my flat, furnished it as near as possible as my flat, inhabitted it with a couple as near as possible to myself and Brigitte... blah blah blah. You get the picture.
Isn't that odd? Domestic life being mostly pretty mundane and boring, why is it so compelling to replicate it as accurately as possible in a game, with all the same dull domestic chores?
I can't explain it, but I'm hooked.
For anyone who's interested, in sim-land, Brigitte is a webmaster and I'm a bungee-jumping instructor. Very accurate then... hehehe.
Labels: games
Steve 2:21 PM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
Interesting.I'm getting a few search hits from people looking for details about RODS over Baghdad. Seems I'm not the only person who saw them, which is nice to know. If you're one of the people searching for that... my original post is a bit further down from here, though you probably won't learn much apart from the time they were filmed.
Steve 2:35 PM [+] (0) comments
I really should stop blogging about the war. This was never supposed to be a war blog, but the pictures I see every day on the tv are too compelling.
Things over there are getting a bit mental, on both sides, and it's making me mad.
First we see a another example of trigger happy yanks, their tank firing into the hotel containing international reporters. They say they were recieving incoming sniper fire from the area near the hotel. Bullshit! The Iraqis are mostly armed with AK47s, which absolutely do NOT have the range to hit anything from there, and as for an RPG firing from such a position... it's laughable. The tank gunner clearly lacked a decent target and figured 'that building over there looks good... lets see if we can hit it'.
Then down in Basra, we see massed looting, mobbing of aid convoys, and general mayhem. The moment their opressors are removed, they go nuts and trash everything. Fair enough, they need to let off steam, but what're they gonna do when things calm down, they need to go shopping, visit a hospital, do every day stuff..... and oh dear, everything's trashed... by themselves.
It's all nuts.
Yeah, I know, that's what war's like and we should expect nothing different, but irrational, illogical behaviour just makes me wanna hit people. That's not logical is it?
Stop it at once... or at least... bomb the shit out of them properly and stop being so silly.
Labels: war
Steve 2:22 PM [+] (0) comments
Anyone who's been watching the BBC coverage of the war can't help but have noticed the coverage by Rageh Omar from inside Baghdad.
I just did a quick search on google and found this piece he wrote about his career a year or so ago.
It's interesting to be able to see some details about him, and explains an ammount about his particular style of coverage, and possibly how he seems to have achieved a certain freedom of movement not enjoyed by other journalists there.
Labels: war
Steve 12:27 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, April 07, 2003
I could be wrong, but it looks as if blogger IS publishing posts... just that it's taking about 5 mins after hitting publish before the post actually appears on the blog. That rather sucks, but I guess it's better than nothing.Labels: blogging
Steve 7:45 PM [+] (0) comments
more testing
Steve 7:13 PM [+] (0) comments
Blogger's really starting to frustrate me.
After losing control of my template for a month or so, I'm now finding it increasingly difficult to make the thing post anything at all, on top of which archives are no longer being saved to my server. The april archive simply doesn't exist.
Grrr!
I'm testing the w.bloggar blogging software to see if anything improves, though I'm not too hopeful, as the issues appear to be with blogger's servers themselves.
If things stay like this, I may end up looking for an alternative blogging system.
Steve 1:05 PM [+] (0) comments
Testing something
Steve 12:28 PM [+] (0) comments
Do you like comedy shows?
The best comedy show I've seen in ages, which appears on international tv every day, is the Iraqi Information Minister giving his daily status report to reporters regarding the progress of the war.
Is he completelty out of his head, blatantly lying, or simply extremely stupid?
"We are driving them out. We have killed them all. We have destroyed all of their tanks. All of their reports are lies. Blah blah blah"
Hehehehehe. Yeah right.
So what's he going to do when as he's giving a report about how Iraqi troops are destroying allied forces, an M1 tank rolls into view behind him?
Picture the scene. A journalist asks him to explain the presence of the tank behind him and the US troops storming the building....
"It is a lie. We have destroyed their tanks. We have killed all of their troops. Do not believe their lies. Victory is ours. Take your hands off me you imperialist invader... you liar... We are victorious!"
Labels: war
Steve 12:02 PM [+] (0) comments
Decorating in the living room is progressing very nicely.
The paint scheme in there's really cool, and when everything's finished in about 2 weeks, it's all gonna look very special.
Watching tv yesterday, I don't think I've ever said "Holy Shit!!!" quite so often in such a short space of time.
Okay, so I was watching two channels at once... the F1 Grand Prix on the tv and BBC News 24 on webcast, but even so. There's something rather bizarre and chilling about watching car after car pile into the wall at over 100mph and then seeing a tv camera-man fall to the ground with his own blood splattering over the camera lens.
Brigitte didn't know whether she was coming or going, calling out "What?" from the other room every couple of minutes.
Steve 11:48 AM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, April 05, 2003
How unusual.I appear to have a fully functional and almost respectable bathroom.
Over the months (okay... years), the bathroom in this place has been gradually falling to bits. First the pull cord light switch stopped working, then the handle on the toilet cystern broke, then the toilet started leaking from the cystern down-pipe, and then the final straw came last week when the hot tap on the bath refused to turn off.
So on monday I finally phoned the housing agency to get things fixed, they sent people out today, and it's all fixed.... well... almost.
All the things that were wrong are fixed, but they left a few extra bits needing work, having pretty well trashed the bathroom and kitchen fixing stuff. It's a big step in the right direction though.
Steve 12:59 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, April 03, 2003
Much wierdness.I've got the tv on, watching some live footage in cebtral Baghdad, and just saw something quite amazing.
RODS
There's been much debate about whether these are alien or unknown terrestrail life forms. I've seen several tv shows about them, but was always skeptical. I'm in no doubt now though.
If anyone's been recording the tv news, the image intensified shots of central Baghdad shot around 9:50pm gmt has several of them whizzing across the screen, clear as day.
I'm not gonna even speculate as to what they are, or what they're doing there... but they absolutely are there, and someone with a scientific background absolutely should take a look at that footage.
Steve 10:08 PM [+] (0) comments
vicky> hi
vicky> asl?
* @Benway chuckles
@Benway> we try to avoid the asl thing here
vicky> ok
vicky> where u from
@Benway> Im in milton keynes, uk
@Benway> and you?
vicky> u sex
vicky> india
@Benway> as often as possible, but if you mean what sex am I, then male
Hehehehe.
Some people just beg to be wound up. I don't think I need to say anything more about that.
Steve 8:10 PM [+] (0) comments
In my long and not so illustrious 'career' as a musician I've never really been tempted to do cover versions of other people's material (except an abortive attemp at Kylie Minogues 'I Should be So Lucky'). However, at this moment I'm sorely tempted to cover Big Black's Kerosene. If you've never heard of Big Black, let me just say that they were absolutely mental. Ultra powerful drum machine, bass, thrashy feedback guitar and vocals devoid of any emotion beyond blind aggresion. I heard a story that at one of their last gigs, circa '85, they replaced the bass drum sound with a sample of an 88mm howitzer. Can't get much more aggresive than that huh?
So anyway, to do this cover, I'd have to... uh... 'sing'. Gulp. That'd be amusing.
Don't hold your breath and certainly don't expect it to be released on any future CD, but you never know, an mp3 might just appear on this blog for a limited time.
God help you all.
Labels: music
Steve 6:42 PM [+] (0) comments
Whilst bimbling around the web looking for nothing in particular, I stumbled across the Sisters Of Mercy homepage.
This is one of my very fave bands, and I have to admit, I love their website. Why? Not because of any fancy design work, useful news or information, interactivity or any of the usual reasons. As a site in it's own right, it sucks. I love it because it sucks, they know it sucks, and don't give a damn.
Andrew Eldritch (for when I say 'they', I mean 'he') is someone who's overstated level of tongue in cheek arrogance I've always admired, and it truly shines through on this site. Indeed, I'd almost go as far as to say Eldritch is god, except for the fact that I've already taken that post.
Labels: music
Steve 4:45 PM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Woo!Finally, I have control of my template again. For the past couple of weeks blogger hasn't been letting me alter it. To quote a horrible creature, "[arryana]: no control over the universe is... horror to a demigod."
The Benway Radio link's in there now, and I've removed a couple of dead links. More updates to come, as and when I get the time/can be bothered.
Labels: blogging
Steve 2:41 PM [+] (0) comments
Time for a spot of wild speculation on the war.
The allied forces are on their way into Baghdad, and still the Iraqis appear confident. They've already said they have a trap laid for us. Maybe it's just propaganda, maybe not.
Quite a few people expect a chemical attack as our forces get close, but I suspect something even more radical.
They've already shown a willingness to sacrifice their own people, and suicide seems (to them) an honourable tactic to take out an enemy, so....
what if they have a nuke in central Baghdad? It wouldn't surprise me to see them draw our forces right into the centre of the city and then take out everyone, themselves included.
Like I said... wild speculation, so when it doesn't happen, you can laugh at me and call me stupid. Alternatively, I may sit here saying "told you so". Nothing much would surprise me at the moment.
Labels: war
Steve 2:17 PM [+] (0) comments
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