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February 28, 2006

Bloggin' Outloud

You just have to read this site. It is a fantastic mix of humour and puns (I know some people don't think puns are humour). There are also articles with a Christian bias and links to more sites that you can poke a stick at.

http://blogginoutloud.blogspot.com

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 PM

Speed

He had always loved fast cars. Taking advantage of the empty roads one morning, he acclerated down a wide-open stretch. Unfortunately, a young police officer was waiting at the other end, and he was flagged down. He greeted the officer with a cheery "Good morning."

"And a good morning to you, Wing Commander," replied the officer. "Having trouble taking off?"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

Intel iMac vs Safari

Safari seems to have some terrible problems on the Intel iMac. It keeps crashing when ever you do something related to tabs...

Sound familiar? There are two options here, one is to use Firefox and the other is to remove the software that is causing the problem...

And the problem is not Safari :-)

Try removing Flip4Mac (the WMV replacement software), you can read about the problem here and there are removal instructions here.

Given that Flip4Mac has both a quicktime component and a web component, you may be able to just remove the web part - I haven't tested that.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (3)

February 27, 2006

His Side of the Story

[Found at holtieshouse...]

The wife came home early to find her husband making love to a beautiful, sexy young woman. "You unfaithful, disrespectful jerk! What the hell are you doing? How dare you do this to me the faithful wife, the mother of your children! I'm leaving this house and I want a divorce!"
The husband replied, "Wait! Wait a minute! Before you leave, at least listen to what happened."
"It'll be the last thing I will hear from you so make it fast, you cheating creep."
"While driving home this young lady asked for a ride. I saw her so defenseless that I went ahead and allowed her into my car. I noticed she was very thin, not well dressed and dirty. She mentioned she had not eaten for three days.
"Out of compassion, I brought her home and warmed up the enchiladas I made for you last night that you wouldn't eat because you're afraid you'll gain more weight. When I served them to her the poor young thing, practically inhaled them.
"Since she was dirty I asked her if she'd like to bathe. While she was showering, I noticed her clothes were worn-out and full of holes so I threw them away. Since she needed clothes, I gave her the pair of jeans that you no longer wear because they're too tight on you. I also gave her the blouse that I gave you on our anniversary and you don't wear because I don't have good taste. I gave her the pullover that my sister gave you for Christmas that you won't wear just to bother my sister and I also gave her the boots that you bought at the expensive boutique that you never wore again after you saw your co-worker wearing the same pair.
"After she dressed, I walked the young woman to the door where she turned around and with tears of gratitude streaming down her cheeks, she asked me, "Sir, do you have anything else your wife doesn't use?"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Here Scripts

Q: I was reading some documentation which kept talking about a "here doc" - what is it and how can you use it?

A: Lots and lots of Unix commands have the ability to take input from their standard input. What you can do in a shell script (or a perl program) is to make use of this "standard input" feature by using a "
here doc".

This is done by redirecting the standard input of the command you are calling and the trick is knowing how to stop and revert to "normal" behaviour.

Here is an example:

# shell script stuff
someunixcommand <<!!
this input
is given
to someunixcommand
!!
# shell script continues from here...

In this case the "here doc" ends with !! but you can in fact use any characters instead as long as they will not occur inside the text of the "here doc". Also note that the ending character(s) must appear at the start of a line by themselves (so don't allow your editor to auto-indent that line).

The alternative would have been to put those lines in an external file and call it like this:

# shell script stuff
someunixcommand < externalfile
# shell script continues from here...

The downside is that you now have an extra file to manage and it may become separated or out of sync with the main program.

So next time you need to feed something to an external program, try a heredoc instead :-)

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 26, 2006

Mistletoe

[Found at Read My Lips...]

It was the beginning of December. The trip had gone reasonably well, and he was ready to fly back. The airport on the other hand had turned a tacky red and green with loudspeakers blaring annoying elevator renditions of cherished Christmas carols. Being someone who took Christmas very seriously, and being slightly tired, he was not in a particularly good mood.
Going to check in his luggage, he saw hanging mistletoe.
Not real mistletoe, but very cheap plastic with red paint on some of the rounder parts and green paint on some of the flatter and "pointier" parts, that could be taken for mistletoe only in a very Picasso sort of way.
With a considerable degree of irritation and nowhere else to vent it, he said to the lady attendant, "Even if I were not married, I would not want to kiss you under such a ghastly mockery of mistletoe."
"Sir, look more closely at where the mistletoe is." --- (pause)
"OK, I see that it's above the luggage scale, which is the place you'd have to step forward for a kiss."
"That's not why it's there." --- (pause)
"OK, I give up. Why is it there?"
She replied sweetly, "It's there so you can kiss your luggage goodbye."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Intel iMac Keyboard Problems

It seems that about 1 time in 3, the intel iMac seems to have trouble waking up. The mouse works but the keyboard (into which the mouse is plugged) does not work. You see the password box on the screen but when you type nothing happens.

The quick and easy solution is to remember that this is *not* a Sun server - just unplug and replug the keyboard. Problem goes away.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (3)

February 25, 2006

Dental Plate Replacement

[Found over at Bloggin' Outloud...]

A man went to his dentist because his mouth felt funny. The dentist examined him and said, "That new upper plate I put in for you six months ago is eroding. What have you been eating?"
The man replied, "All I can think of is that about four months ago my wife made some asparagus and put some stuff on it that was delicious. Hollandaise sauce. I loved it so much I now put it on everything - meat, toast, fish, vegetables, everything."
"Well," said the dentist, "that's probably the problem. Hollandaise sauce is made with lots of lemon juice, which is highly corrosive. It's eaten away your upper plate. I'll make you a new plate, and this time I'll use chrome."
"Why chrome?" asked the patient. To which the dentist replied, "It's simple. Everyone knows that there's no plate like chrome for the hollandaise!"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (4)

Mac Browser Problems

Recently an FOAF (Friend of a Friend) asked about problems they were having with a particular type of blogsite. From the description it looked like something was corrupted or not loading and so I sent some instructions for fixing it and I suddenly twigged that maybe I should record the process here for other people to save them having to ask :-)

Firstly, the problem could be a simple browser cache problem so start by clearing those and restarting your browser. For Firefox, the command is Tools -> Clear Private Data (i.e. go to the Tools menu and select the Clear Private Data option). For Safari, the command is Safari -> Empty Cache.

If that, combined with a restart of the browser does not solve the problem, then it is time to bring in the big guns. There are a number of tools but I personally like Onyx. Start the program and click on the cleaning icon. You should see four sections with tick boxes - some will be selected and some will be blank. In addition to any that are turned on by default, make sure that you turn on (check) the following items:


Now press execute.
... time passes ...
When it finishes you will need to reboot your Mac.

If that doesn't work, send my some screenshots :-)

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (1)

February 24, 2006

The latest iPod...

A special thanks to a cousin who forwarded this image via email...

2006-02-13--Scottish_iPod.gif

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

Powerbook Screens

Q: My keyboard has made marks on the screen of my old PowerBook, how can I stop this happening on my MacBook pro?

A: I'm glad you asked. I have had no experience with any products but the Mac Geek Gab discussed this in October last year and they specifically mentioned RadTech protectors. They seem to have all manner of sizes and colours so check them out...

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 23, 2006

Chocolate Rules

[Found at Tan Lucy Pez...]

If you've got melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.

Clearly, chocolate is a vegetable. Chocolate is derived from cacao beans. A bean is a vegetable. Wait! There's more! Sugar is derived from either sugar cane or sugar beets. Both are plants, which places them in the vegetable category. QED: chocolate is a vegetable.

Chocolate-covered raisins, -cherries, -orange slices and -strawberries all count as fruit. Eat as many as you want. Fruits are an important part of the Food Pyramid.

Hot tip: Eat a chocolate bar before each meal. It'll take the edge off your appetite and you'll eat less. I've tested this. It's true.

If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.

Money talks. Chocolate sings.

Chocolate has many preservatives. Preservatives make you look younger. Therefore, chocolate is therapeutic.

Put "eat chocolate" at the top of your list of things to do today. That way, at least you'll get one thing done.

A nice box of chocolates can provide your total daily intake of calories in one place. Isn't that handy?

If you can't eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can't eat all your chocolate, what's wrong with you?

I would like to add my own rules and observations to the above "rules."

Chocolate eaten while standing over the kitchen sink, doesn't count as calories.

Chocolate eaten between midnight at 4 AM has no calories.

Flowers wilt, jewelry tarnishes, and candles burn out ...BUT CHOCOLATE DOESN'T HANG AROUND LONG ENOUGH TO GET OLD. Still, a general rule of thumb is that most any food cannot be kept longer than the average life span of a hamster. (Keep a hamster in your refrigerator to gauge this.)

When in doubt, and it's chocolate, go ahead and eat it.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Daylight Saving Changes (AU/Mac)

There was an earlier tip about the Daylight Saving Changes for Solaris - what about Macs?

Fortunately, the solution is clearly described at MacOS X Hints:

Because of the Commonwealth Games (like the Olympics, but only for Commonwealth countries) being held in Melbourne in March of this year, all of the states in Australia that have Daylight Savings (or Summer Time as we call it down under) have changed their rules for this year only -- the switch back to normal time has been moved back one week from normal.
I have submitted a bug report to Apple (#4410596), but thought I would pass on my own fix to anyone to use, as this change will affect any iCal appointments you might schedule in advance of that week. Also of course during that week your system clock will be an hour out! The files that need to be updated are in the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory, and are in a common format that almost all unix boxes use these days.
The central source of this information is this website. From there, you can download the latest version of the data files (145KB download).

Check the article for the rest of the details...

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 22, 2006

Cowboy boots

[Found over at Old Horsetail Snake...]

Sam always wanted a pair of gen-u-ine cowboy boots. Seeing some on sale, he plunks down his cash and goes on home. On arrival, he asks his wife, "Notice anything different, Bessie?"

Bessie looks him over. "Nope, not a thing."

Sam says, "C'mon, take a good look." Again, Bessie sees nothing new.

Sam storms into the bedroom, undresses, and walks back into the room completely naked, except for the boots. He yells, "Now see anything different?!!"

Bessie looks him over and says, "Sam, what's different? It's hanging down today. It was hanging down yesterday. It'll be hanging down again tomorrow."

Furious, Sam screams, "And do you know why it's hanging down, Bessie? IT'S HANGING DOWN BECAUSE IT'S LOOKING AT MY NEW COWBOY BOOTS!!"

Bessie replies, sadly, "Shoulda bought a hat, Sam. Shoulda bought a hat."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

Unix Job Ads

Recently a certain Unix vendor suggested that their particular brand of proprietary Unix was better than other brands because "there are more people in the market who know XXX". How can you test such a claim? Well he suggested looking at job ads. So I did. The three largest on-line ad sites (in Australia) are (as far as I know) Seek, CareerOne and MyCareer.

A quick search reveals (numbers indicate total across all three sites):

Unix Brand# of jobs
Tru6410
AIX103
HP137
Solaris251
Linux374
Unix (All)900

Note that 25 jobs had no subcategory (i.e. were Unix but not one of the versions I was checking for). These may have been BSD, MacOS X, QNX or similar. The key point was that the vendor's scheme for making his brand look good has backfired. The vendor is in first half of the table :-)

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 21, 2006

Laying Down the Law

[Found at holtieshouse...]

A couple were married and, following the wedding, the husband laid down some rules.
"I'll be home when I want, if I want, and at what time I want," he insisted.
"And, I don't expect any hassle from you. Also, I expect a decent meal to be on the table every evening, unless I tell you otherwise. I'll go hunting, fishing, boozing, and card-playing with my buddies whenever I want. Those are my rules," he said. "Any comments?"
His new bride replied, "No, that's fine with me. But, just understand that there'll be sex here at seven o'clock every night... whether you're here or not."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

MS Office and HTML Documents (MacOS)

I wrote a perl script that produced a HTML file (.html). It opens in Firefox with a double-click. It would probably open in Safari except that Safari doesn't work properly (on the Intel iMac with tabs). It does not open in Microsoft Word, even when you select 'All Readable Documents'. This is because Microsoft (in their infinite lack of wisdom) have decreed that html documents have to have the extension .htm (as opposed to using the perfectly sensible built-in methods for determining file types).

Work Around: Rename the file with a .htm extension. It will still open in Firefox but can also be opened in Word.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 20, 2006

Reminiscing...

[Found in the comments at Read My Lips... (the comment was by Lyn)]

"A couple were reminiscing on their 20th anniversary. 'Do you remember why we had to get married?' the husband asked. 'Yes, my daddy said you had to marry me or he'd put you in jail.' 'Yep,' said the husband, 'And I was just thinking that I'd be free right now.'"

Posted by Peskie at 06:00 PM | Comments (3)

Extreme Blood Pressure...

[Via email from the very funny (but currently MIA) CynicalCyn...]

A woman goes to the doctor for her yearly physical. The nurse starts with certain basic items. "How much do you weigh?" she asks.

"120," the woman says. The nurse puts her on the scale. It turns out her weight is 150.

The nurse asks, "Your height?"

"5 feet, 8 inches," she says. The nurse checks and sees that she measures only 5 feet, 5 inches.

She then takes her blood pressure and tells the woman it is very high.

"Of course it's high!" she screams. "When I came in here, I was tall and slender, and now I'm short and fat!"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Apple switching to 'Windblows'

I have been asked by several people about the Apple switching to Windows (story from Slashdot). The whole thing was a rumour started by media shill Dvorak. Basically Dvorak has been ranting for years that Apple should have been using Intel processors. Now that they are, he is going all out to claim that Apple will abandon MacOS and become a bit player in the highly competitive box swap that substitutes for a PC marketplace.

As one of the comments at slashdot noted:

Dvorak has a reality distortion field too, but he's got it on backwards, so it only distorts reality for him, obviously.

Effectively, Dvorak depends on controversy to get paid. The more outrageous the claim, the more reasonable people try to correct him and the happier he becomes. Think 'National Enquirer' of computer news. If you enjoy reading about computer equivalent of flying saucers kidnapping Diana so that she can marry Elvis then go ahead and read Dvorak. Otherwise ignore him.

[Ed: Note that I did not provide a link to Dvorak in the article - no sense inflating his ego. Instead, you can get there via the slashdot article.]

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (1)

February 19, 2006

Duh?

On the third day, Jesus rose, shoved open the door of his tomb, and walked again on earth.

As he was leaving, a passer-by pointed at the door Jesus had left open.

"What's the matter with you?" he said. "Born in a barn?"

Posted by Peskie at 06:00 PM

Dentist vs Psychiatrist

[Found at Read My Lips...]
"A man walks into a dentist's surgery and says, 'Excuse me, can you help me. I think I'm a moth.'
Dentist: 'You don't need a dentist. You need a psychiatrist.'
Man: 'Yes, I know.'
Dentist: 'So why did you come in here?'
Man: 'The light was on...'"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

IMac Bundled Software

The new Intel iMac came with the usual iLife suite and a evaluation copy of iWork. Naturally in a corporate environment, we use Office - installed (but slow under Rosetta - 30 seconds to launch) so I figure that I can "transfer" the iLife to my powerbook - after all it is not going to be used on the iMac.

Guess what? The Intel iMac software bundle refuses to install on a non-Intel machine....

Should I break out Pacifist or just buy another iLife license?

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 18, 2006

Brakes

Jill's car was unreliable and she called John for a ride every time it broke down. One day John got yet another one of those calls.

"What happened this time?" he asked.

"My brakes went out," Jill said. "Can you come to get me?"

"Where are you?" John asked.

"I'm in the drugstore," Jill responded.

"And where's the car?" John asked.

Jill replied, "It's in here with me."

Posted by Peskie at 06:00 PM | Comments (1)

Fearless

The Cohens were shown into the dentist's office, where Mr. Cohen made it clear he was in a big hurry.

"No fancy stuff, Doctor," he ordered. "No gas or needles or any of that stuff. Just pull the tooth and get it over with."

"I wish more of my patients were as stoic as you," said the dentist admiringly. "Now, which tooth is it?"

Mr. Cohen turned to his wife...

"Show him your tooth, Honey."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

CPAN Archives

As part of getting the new iMac up to scratch, I need to recompile chunks of the CPAN modules I have installed on my powerbook. After an hour, I was getting very frustrated with nothing building but ...

... the problem was not the iMac - instead the problem was that the Australian CPAN mirror had not been updated since December 5.

So, the tip of the day is to check the CPAN dates before trying to rebuild your modules...

If your CPAN server is out of date, try editing the urllist (o conf urllist).

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 17, 2006

Teaching What?

[Found at Old Horsetail Snake...]

2006-02-06-Reading_Arithitic.jpg

I just hope this guy is a concerned parent and not one of the teachers...

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Intel iMac Unix Software

Y'all know that I am a Unix geek at heart. The first few things I install on a new computer would have to be fink (or darwinports) and CPAN (to install Perl modules).

Guess what.

Fink is not yet available for the Intel iMac.

OK, lets try darwinports - nope. Darwinports will work but requires access to the rsync server - what chance is there of convincing your employer to open port 873....

How about we grab the nightly cvs bundle and fiddle a bit :-) That sort of works but is somewhat painful. Now I need to get wget built because perl -MCPAN -e shell can't configure itself using ftp...

If Unix software matters to you, wait for fink to be available or for darwinports to develop a more sensible way of handling updates.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 16, 2006

Blog Status

I have finally caught up with the blog updates (at long last). In particular, the categories have been simplified:

The blog no longer accepts trackbacks. Even with spam filters I was getting about 100 spambacks every single day. I still send trackbacks but I ignore incoming...

Any questions, please send them to Peskie or Ozguru at good old gmail dot com.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 PM

Gotcha

A golf pro dragged himself into the clubhouse looking as though he'd just escaped a tornado.

"What's wrong?" a woman asked.

"I just lost a game to Houlihan," the pro said.

"What? But Houlihan's the worst player I've ever seen. How could he have beaten you?"

"He tricked me," the pro said. "On the first tee, he asked for a handicap. I told him he could have 30, 40, 50 strokes - any handicap he wanted. He said, 'Just give me two gotchas.'"

"What's a gotcha?" asked the woman.

"That's what I wanted to know," the pro said. "Houlihan said,'You'll see.' Then, as I was teeing off, just as I had my club poised, he screamed out 'Gotcha!'"

"I can guess what happened," the woman said.

"Sure," the pro said. "The scream threw me off, and I missed the ball completely."

"Understandable," the woman said. "But still, that's only one swing. How did he win the game?"

The pro answered, "You try swinging at a golf ball all day while waiting for that second 'gotcha!'"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

Intel iMac Performance

I can describe this in one phrase: it sucks.
Big time.

The marketing waffle about 2-4 times faster is an absolute crock.

How do I know? Well me employer has supplied me with a beautiful 20" iMac CoreDuo with 2Gb of memory. The first thing I did was copy some data off my antiquated PowerBook G4. It took forever. In fact it was sooooooo slooooow that I gave up, copied the data to an external firewire drive and then plugged that into the iMac so that I could keep working on the PowerBook.

The copy to the drive was quick (thanks to SuperDuper) but the copy onto the iMac over firewire was abysmal. The key problem was not the *time* but the side effects. Two folders copied in parallel effectively stopped the finder from updating anything anymore. Files downloaded via firefox were completely invisible to the finder. Changes made in finder windows just didn't happen (although you could see the changes in a terminal window with ls). Basically, it looks like the Finder suspended all graphical updates until after the 45 minute copy had finished - not a very promising start.

Over the next few days, I will include more information as it comes to hand but right now I would suggest hanging onto your G5s and waiting until some of the performance issues have been addressed.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 15, 2006

Police Exam

A police recruit was asked during the exam, "What would you do if you had to arrest your mother-in-law?"

He said, "Call for backup."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

Loaded Hearse vs Transit Lanes

[Found at Urban Legends Reference Pages...]

In the US, a transit lane (one for two or more people per vehicle) are (apparently) called "diamond lanes". A article at Snopes, discusses these and answers the critical question:

And no, lone hearse drivers transporting clients to their final rests cannot use the diamond lane.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (1)

February 14, 2006

Love is...

Love isn't only blind, it's also deaf, dumb, and stupid.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Concatenated Articles in MT

If you ever notice that some of your articles have been concatenated on the main page, it is worth checking for an unbalanced tag.

Generally speaking, MT will catch an unbalanced *opening* tag but it may miss a *closing* tag.

I recently had a problem with a post which had a single <em> but two </em> tags.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 13, 2006

Early Valentine

A guy walks into a post office one day to see a middle-aged, balding man standing at the counter methodically placing "Love" stamps on bright pink envelopes with hearts all over them. He then takes out a perfume bottle and starts spraying scent all over them.

His curiosity getting the better of him, he goes up to the balding man and asks him what he is doing. The man says "I'm sending out 1,000 Valentine cards signed, 'Guess who?'"

"But why?"

"I'm a divorce lawyer"

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Daylight Saving Changes (AU/Solaris)

I have had to chase up the various ways of resolving the changes to daylight saving for this year (due to the Commonwealth Games).

The solution for Solaris comes from The Good, the Blog & the Ugly:

The beginning and end of Daylight Savings in Australia is controlled by state goverment regulation, which means it can be changed at relatively short notice (except in Queensland, where it can not be changed, as the extra daylight will fade curtains and confuse dairy cows).

Question: Has or will Sun release Solaris patches to take account of changes to daylight savings due to happen for the Commonwealth Games in 2006?
Answer: There is an RFE (Request For Enhancement) for this, but we have not yet developed & released patches. If you are a customer and want to be notified when the patches are released, please log a call to this effect. You can reference BugID 6282969 to identify the issue.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 12, 2006

Symbols of Christmas

[Found at Read My Lips...]

Three businessmen were riding together on Christmas Eve on their way home from a Christmas party when their car hit a patch of ice, skidded off the road and hit a tree. All three died and found themselves standing outside the Pearly Gates. Saint Peter looked them up and down, shaking his head from side to side. "You three are about as sorry a lot as I have seen lately. I fear you are at the wrong place, but since it is Christmastime, I'll allow you in on one condition." "What is that?" one of them asked.
"You must reach into your pocket and show me an item with a connection with Christmas."
One of the quickly reached into his pocket and produced a lighter, which he lit and held it above his head. "This symbolizes a Christmas candle." Saint Peter nodded his head and opened the gate to allow the man to enter.
Following his friend's example, the second man reached into his pocket and produced a ring of keys, which he shook allowing the keys to jingle. "This symbolizes Christmas bells." Again Saint Peter nodded his head and opened the gate.
The third man reached into his pocket and produced a pair of women's panties which he head out for Saint Peter's examination.
"What Christmas significance can they have?" Saint Peter asked. "They are paisley in print, and of purple and gold color."
"They're Carol's."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

February 11, 2006

Newspaper

SAN FRANCISCO MAN BECOMES FIRST AMERICAN TO GRASP SIGNIFICANCE OF SARCASM
Chuck Fullmer, 38, yesterday became the first American to get to grips with the concept of sarcasm. "It was weird" Fullmer said. "I was in London and like, talking to this guy and it was raining and he pulled a face and said, "Great weather eh?" and I thought - "Wait a minute, no way is it great weather". Fullmer then realised that the other man's 'mistake' was in fact deliberate. Fullmer, who is 39 next month and married with two children, aged 8 and 3, plans to use sarcasm himself in future. "I'm, like, using it all the time" he said. "Last weekend I was grilling steaks and I burned them and I said "Hey, great weather."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

February 10, 2006

For Sale

For Sale by Owner:

Complete Set of Encyclopedia Britannica

Excellent condition, but no longer needed;
Wife knows everything.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

February 09, 2006

Bar Jokes

[Found at Old Horsetail Snake: Good Thing I Got Buddies...]

A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Okay, I'll serve you. Just don't start anything."
Two peanuts walk into a bar. One was a salted.
A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says, "A beer, please, and one for the road."
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 08, 2006

Offensive Cartoons

I found this cartoon at Mark Steyn Nails It and wondered if I should post it. Then the ever-knowledgeable Gray Monk pointed me to the Mohammed Image Archive in a comment on this post:

Interestingly, the whole fuss is a bit of a nonsense, because it is only in recent years that the "ban" on images of Mohammed has really been enforced. Check this site to see a small portion of the images - mostly from the Muslim world itself - that are available. As you will see, many have been defaced, but most of the defacing is of recent date!

My stance is that an image can be offensive but an offensive image does not lead to bombing of embassies and boycott of national products. Also in this particular case, the saying "pot calling the kettle black" would be particularly apt. This was neatly captured in the Mark Stein cartoon below (click the image to see the full cartoon)...
2006-02-08--Offensive_Small.gif

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

February 07, 2006

Oysters

The bride-to-be and her best friend were discussing the former's impending wedding.

"If you want an unforgettable wedding night," her friend said, "get him to eat a dozen oysters after the ceremony."

A week after, the new bride thanked her friend but said plaintively, "Only eight of the oysters worked."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)

February 06, 2006

What is British?

[Found at The Gray Monk...]

Probably the most difficult thing of all to do, is to define what is meant by "Britishness". Certainly many have tried, but I think this response to a newspapers request for readers thoughts on the subject is absolutely priceless - particularly given the contributers own nationality! This was sent to me by my eldest daughter ......
One of the British national daily newspapers is asking readers "what it means to be British?"
Some of the emails are hilarious but this is one from a chap in Switzerland...
Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, and then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV. And the most British thing of all? Being suspicious of anything foreign.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

Universal Apps vs Old Apps

[Found at TMO Quick Tip - Finding the Universal Binary Apps On Your Mac...]

TMO's reviews editor, John F. Braun, pointed out an easy way to check all of your applications at once: System Profiler. This application can inventory all of the applications on your Mac, and tell you if they are Universal Binary or not. Here's how:
Choose About This Mac from the Apple menu, and then click the More Info... button to launch System Profiler. Select Applications from the Contents column on the left to build a catalog of every application on your Mac. Once System Profiler locates all of your applications, click Kind to group all of the PowerPC applications together, and all of the Universal Binary applications together. Depending on the speed of your Mac and how many applications you have installed, the search may take several minutes.

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 05, 2006

Zen Sarcasm

[Send via email - thanks KB.]

  1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.
  2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.
  3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it.
  4. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
  5. Always remember that you're unique Just like everyone else.
  6. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
  7. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
  8. Before! you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
  9. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
  10. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
  11. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
  12. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
  13. Some days you're the bug; some days you're the windshield.
  14. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
  15. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.
  16. A closed mouth ! gathers no foot.
  17. Duct tape is like 'The Force'. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
  18. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.
  19. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving.
  20. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
  21. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
  22. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
  23. Shoveling coal for seven days makes one weak.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

February 04, 2006

Living Will?

[From Cynical Cyn....]

A man and his wife were sitting in the living room and he said to her,

"Just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

His wife got up, unplugged the TV and threw out all of his beer.

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

February 03, 2006

Native Necklace

[Found at Read My Lips...]

A lady tourist noticed the necklace worn by a local Native American.
"What is it made of?" she asked.
"Alligator's teeth," the Native American replied.
"I suppose," she said patronizingly, "that they mean as much to you as pearls do to us."
"Oh no, we would never think that way," he objected. "After all, anyone can open an oyster."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM

Europa Universalis Cheat

Q: There are plenty of cheat sites for Europa Universalis for the PC but what about the Mac?

A: Well personally I wrote a perl program to edit the save files but I guess you mean interactive cheats. There is a list of PC cheats here. On the Mac, you can use most of these by:


Note that the shadow window (from control-F12) will not vanish until you move the mouse.

Useful cheat codes include:

That last code does not appear on most of the cheat sites but it is probably the most important. Remember that converting provinces makes them less likely to revolt...

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM

February 02, 2006

The Old Cow

[Found at Read My Lips...]

Hillary Clinton and her driver were cruising along a country road one evening when an old cow loomed in front of the car. The driver tried to avoid it but couldn't - the old cow was killed.
Hillary told her driver to go up to the farmhouse and explain to the owners what happened. She stayed in the car making phone calls to lobbyists.
About an hour later, the driver staggered back to the car with his clothes in disarray. He was holding a half empty bottle of expensive wine in one hand, an expensive Cuban cigar in the other and was smiling happily, smeared with lipstick.
"What happened?" asked Hillary.
"Well," the driver replied, "the farmer gave me the cigar, his wife gave me the wine, and their beautiful twin daughters made mad passionate love to me."
"My God, what did you tell them?" asked Hillary.
The driver replied: "I said, I'm Hillary Clinton's driver, and I just killed the old cow."

Posted by Peskie at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

Converting Yojimbo bookmarks

Yojimbo is a new information management tool from Bare Bones Software. I downloaded the demo and played around with it. One of the preferences allows you to choose to store URLs as bookmarks or web-archives. As I usually use bookmarks, I left it at that setting and dragged a few bookmarks in. Then I decided I wanted to change my mind and use a web-archive for a particular bookmark. Probably a contextual menu... Nope. Hmmmm. After fiddling around, I discovered a quick way to do it...

Go to the URL entry, click on 'Copy URL'. Press F8 and make sure web-archive is selected. Type in a subject and press enter. Easy as....

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM | Comments (2)

February 01, 2006

Quietness

A man went to the police station wishing to speak with the burglar who had broken into his house the night before.

"You'll get your chance in court," said the desk sergeant.

"No, no, no!" said the man. "I want to know how he got into the house without waking my wife. I've been trying to do that for years!"

Posted by Peskie at 07:00 AM

King George?

Over at Old Horsetail Snake: Athletes in (In)Action, there is a "quiz" which includes (among other things), this question:

8. Six kings of England have been called George, the last one being George the Sixth. Name the previous five.

I have seen this question many times and it has always bothered me. Something in the cesspool of trivia that substitutes for a brain was nagging that there was something wrong with this question. I don't mean the obvious bit about 'king of England' - I know that should read 'Great Britain' or 'United Kingdom' depending on the era. What bothers me is the "George"...

So I checked. Guess what. There were six English kings who used the title "King George" (I through VI) but they were not all called George :-)

In fact, they were called (in order): Georg (note Germanic spelling), George, George, George, George and Albert.

So, next time someone asks that question, you know the real answer :-)

Posted by Ozguru at 06:00 AM