O' Yee Of Good Faith

Greetings,

Well its all over the news by now, but those fake Apple 'Stores' in China are being closed down as we speak. Oddly, they are being closed because some of them do not have a license to operate, and not because they are infringing on any rights of the principal company.

Is this a case of 'creative license' gone too far in terms of mimicking an Apple store, or is really more of "imitation is the best form Of flattery"?

Kudos to the original blogger that brought this to light, but I'm pretty sure this was already known by the locals though no one really bothered to act on it.

Strangely so, Apple has also been mum on this. As long as they are selling genuine products maybe?

*shrug* Welcome to the new world order.

Dav out

Greetings,

Canada Day is celebrated on 1st July, the official independence day of Canada. The day commemorates the founding of the Canadian federal government by the British North America Act of 1 July, 1867.

That's for the rest of us who didn't know that it was Canada's birthday last week.



CDN Edit:
Rumor has it some other obscure country in that region will shortly be having its own annual celebration of itself. Have not been able to find anymore information about this. Stands to reason though.

Dav out

Greetings,

Have you ever taken time off to think about how rough your local coffee Barista has it?

He (or she) has to put up with line after line of pompous, pretentious coffee and tea guzzling drones, each with a unique but not almost on the menu order. I've always wondered how they cost and calculate revenue for a normal Chai latte when someone comes up to the counter and asks for half half cream with two pumps of Chai, one shot of expresso and a twist of lemon.

Is that even tea anymore?

But I digress!

A recent study has shown that sex and coffee may 'trigger a stroke'.

. . . . . . . .

I'll let that sink in for a while.



Your local Barista's life has just become a little more darker and colder now after seeing that in the BBC news. Of course, blowing your nose might even do you in, but lets not worry about that shall we? ;)


Dav out


Ja ja jaded
You got yo mama's style
But you're yesterday's child to me
So jaded
You think that's where it's at but is that where it's supposed to be

Greetings,

I had an extended weekend due to a string of holidays, and exhausting my game library (I finished KillZone 2!), I thought I'd try watching some news on either CNN or BBC. What with all the stuff going on in Egypt and the rest of the world, I was a little worried that I was becoming a hermit. Or that something you find under an upturned rotting log.

I digress.

So I switch on to CNN and I see this:

• Kate Middleton's Royal-Blue Dress Sold Out
• Blue Dresses - Kate Middleton's style
• Stylish blue dress picked by Kate
• Kate's Fashion Sense - Blue is the new Black!
• Issa London dress the princess-to-be
• Issa London cuts Kate Middleton a figure
• Issa London's blue dress sold out thanks to Kate Middleton
• Blue dress by Issa London - Sold out royally
• Royal dress sold out
• Egypt's Mubarak refuses to quit protestors

Guess we know where our priorities lie.

Dav out

Greetings,

I'm browsing my BBC news feed and I come across a few RSS feeds that instantly made me want to read the news articles.

Instantly!

Actress Lindsay Lohan jailed for probation violation
US actress and model Lindsay Lohan has been sentenced to 90 days in prison for violating her probation in a 2007 drug case.
Link to news here

Oh come ON. You know what got my attention in that bit of news? US actress and model. Model! I never knew she modeled. Maybe for the "Build your own meth lab" adverts I guess.

'Big budget' porn film shot in London hospital
A "big budget" pornographic film was shot in a London hospital when it hired out one of its wards to a film company.
Link to news here

Now, THAT sir, is a hospital I will gladly visit.

Who says the news has to be dry?

Dav out

Greetings,

I checked out PUR Water a while back, and boy was I sure impressed by that bit of technology.

Calle has now shown me another amazing product that does the same thing, and is designed in Sweden!

Called SOLVATTEN (that's Sun Water if I got it right), it uses the sun to make water clean to drink.

A bit from the site:

What is SOLVATTEN?
SOLVATTEN makes unsafe water drinkable by using solar energy. The portable 10 liter container is a patented and scientifically approved Swedish invention. Put SOLVATTEN in a sunny place, give it 3-4 hours and the water will be drinkable! An indicator will show when it is safe to drink.

I like the concept, though the 3 - 4 hours is a bit long to wait. However, you don't need to keep buying stuff to add to your water, and that is a huge bonus.

Viva Sweden!

More info here

Dav out

Greetings,

Recently Dell (the company, not the guy) sent the sales team some Mooncakes, and I managed to get my hands on one. It was blue.

Who in his right mind would not want a mooncake that's blue in colour?



















It was filled with (I think) cheese with a blueberry inner layer and a dash of Amaretto liqueur. Suffice to say, it was deli-yummy-cious.

Dav out

Greetings,

We recently visited a new place called Quattro that boasted the cheapest beer's in town (and a great view honestly) and it was a lot of fun. We, as in people from work.

The concept was pretty cool, and I'd guess its something of the norm in other European restaurants, where there's a bar / waiting area for you to have a couple of drinks before moving into the actual restaurant for dinner and then off to the club for some music.

The area that we visited was 'Spring', since as the name suggests, there are 4 restaurant / pubs in one area, named after each season (Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter). I was looking forward to stepping into the Winter restaurant pub, but did not have the chance.

One neat (OK, gimmick!) feature was the rain corridor, which would simulate 'rain' every hour. They even had umbrellas on each side of the corridor for people to walk in and out of the summer shower.

View along the bar and the outside, it faces the city scape.


Pretty much the same shot, deal with it.


A shot of the pillar and ceiling. Note the design.


Zoomed in tight on the Chinese calligraphy used, Jason says it means 'Spring'.


A blurred shot of the rain corridor and some poor shmuck getting caught in the rain. (sorry blame the beer)


I also noticed that the building had super huge lift doors. These are the kind you see in Resident Evil, or even Doom (or Return to Castle Wolfenstein)


Seriously, look at them doors!


What are they trying to move? You could fit a whole car through that!

http://www.clubquattro.com/mainpage.html

All in all, a good time to be had, cheap beer (see promotion link here), not too bad finger food, good people.

Enjoy!

Dav out

Greetings,

I missed the 'Post' button on the last rant on Airports, but with the amazing prowess of the interweb, I'm able to call attention back to it.

Airports, how I hate thee

I spent, in total, 2 hours looking for a power point in the airport. Two, effing, hours.

Number of power points found: 5
Number of working power points: 0
Number of weird power point locations: 5

I had to squat next to a bathroom entrance, a fast food dumpster area, and in a long walk way, with people rolling over my feet with their trolley / pull bags.

Giving up, I walked 15 minutes to the food court, only to find a BAJILION power points littered around the area. No, really, that many. Plugging into a power point, my hot mocha in hand, I try to browse available Wi-Fi points, and there aren't any. So its either, you have power, or you have the internet, but not both.

Who designs these places? Whom. Whoooooo?

Sad day for the interweb road warrior.

Dav out

Greetings,

What do you do when you fire up your BBC RSS and you see that as a headline?

" 'Too late' to contain swine flu "

I'll tell you what to do. Log on to Twitter and go "zomgs we all dai soon k thx". I'm seeing that happen as we speak! Yes, the H1N1 (its what WHO wants us to call it!) flu is an issue but I think we need to look at it as a medical issue and not panic.

Panic =


Either that, or sign up for a new job.
Say hello to our new masters:



Dav out

Greetings,

It seems to me that Christmas just snuck in and suprised me this time around.

If I've missed out on wishing anyone an amazing and wonderful Christmas, well, yeah, sorry, my bad.



Have a great Christmas guys, be safe

Dav out.

Greetings,

I upload quite a few photos to the interwebs, and sometimes, I find the same photo being posted into forums and other sites. Sure, I get a kick out of it, seeing my photos being discussed and stuff. But sometimes, you just want people to know where that photo came from.

Code to prevent someone from copying your images off a website just wont work. Disable right click? God, please.

Two words, 'Black widow'. Don't ask, don't tell. Or something cryptic like that.

So in line with the topic, I've started to use a sweet free software called Picture Shark that helps you watermark your images with a stamp or logo. And its free.

Enjoy a picture of some geo-rock (and my hand) with a watermark here.



Dav out

Greetings,

The Day the Earth Stood Still . . .it would suck to be a sundial salesman. Having one half the Earth in daylight for half the year while the other side in darkness and then it would be reversed for the second part of the year would take a huge chunk out of sales!

Back to the movie.
I caught The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) over the weekend, and I must admit, I enjoyed it. Of course, I am biased towards Sci-Fi of any kind, and Keanu Reeves, of course.

I am ashamed to say I've watched the original movie that was made sometime in the 50's, and there's something to say about a movie made way back then.

I wont compare if they've captured the essence of the old version with the 2008 movie, but there's enough there to get a good idea of what's going on. The intro where we see how Keanu Reeves' character has his DNA stolen might be confusing to take in but that's just me nitpicking.

Speaking of nits and picking, I would have rather seen a kick-ass poster like the one way back when, instead of what they've put up for the current movie.

Compare the bland 'new' poster:



To the alien-grabbed-my-woman-like-king-kong-did poster for the original movie:


Some IMDB linkages here:
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

Dav out

Greetings,

I love using Google Analytics to keep tabs on what's going on with the blog. Once the realm of hardcore network people / webadmins, this site now allows anyone who owns a website to track and gather info on visitors.

Recently looking at the results, I noticed a spike in page views:




Looking at the pageviews closer, I notice something odd, as there's a huge jump in views for a page that I've posted a while back. Its common for the latest few posts on a blog to get higher page views, but this post was from way back in 2007.



Someone, or something (guessing Google here) has started to link back to the original Photo Blog post and if you do a quick search using the phrase "worlds largest carrot" you'll see the same results. Apparently its showing up as # 1 on Google Image search and something like #4 or so on Google Search.

Here's a shot of the image that seems to be the search result of a few searches.



So remember, worlds largest carrot - or is it?

Dav out

Greetings,

Using dark powers and spells (read: medication and throat gargle chemicals), I managed to beat the vile sore throat (oh its still there, its foul cold fingers clenched around the insides of my throat - but it will soon be gone).

Onwards to the Oktoberfest!

First off, as usual, they had an offer of 1 bottle of Warsteiner beer at RM1 (2 RM0.50 coins). What was not expected however, was the time change from the usual start of 5pm to 7pm. Yes, I am sorry for making the people that came with me wait around the mall for 7pm. My bad.

This year, only 1000 bottles were put on offer for the RM1 redemption, but in another twist, the happy hour timeslot started at 5pm to 7pm. So if someone was there earlier, they could just sit right on down and start drinking. I didn't. I'm cheap.


A shot of the area at 5pm. Notice that there are quite a few people around already, most of them wondering where the hell were the RM1 beers.




See the guys looking at the tent? There are crates of beer behind there.




Ok so here is a shot of the redemption area, before anyone else got in line. I was in the pre-line, to the redemption area actual line. Sort of a line before a line. Its an Asian thing.




I'm in line, and there's no one behind me. Here's a view of the whole boulevard that ends with a stage. Last year, there was an actual German band, playing some folk music and traditional musical instruments. Someone forgot to invite them, so I had to put up with some local rock band.




Here's the same shot, 10 minutes later.




So we finally get in line, and you see another shot here, now closer to the redemption tent and the icy cold beers. German beers!




Here I have my ticket (Number 0022!) and my 2 RM0.50 coins. Its not a clear shot, but hey, I've been in line for almost 40 minutes.




BEER! Here's a shot of the beer I've waited in line for. This will be the ONLY photo of the beer from here on. Why? I'm busy getting in line for another beer.




After 2 beers, we hit the sausages and meat on the grill. As usual, each plate is priced at RM15 (steep) but damn do they taste good. Each plate comes with a helping of mash potatoes and sauerkraut.

Also a nice addition was French mustard and something that looked like honey mustard. Tasted like wasabi though.




Here's a shot from the 'Beer Hall' if you may. By now, I've had a few beers and meat. I'm a happy man.




All in all, I felt that there were a few shortcomings this year around.

There were too few chairs and tables when compared to the past 3 years I've attended the Oktoberfest, and too few RM1 beers. Oh, and the music, got to have the German music guys.


Dav out.

Greetings,

Well I posted the link to Google's Chrome main page, but it was taken offline last night so there was no way I could download and test it till this morning.

Running Firefox with 3 active tabs and Chrome with the same 3 active tabs, it seems that Google Chrome compares better when it comes to memory / resource usage.



However, I do have a number of active add-on's / plug-in's on my Firefox, and that could be one reason why the resource usage is at the current level. Note also that Firefox has grown from its previous version to the current 3.x version, and as anyone in the industry will know, as you grow, you add more features and functionality and this adds up to code length. Google Chrome, is new, and fresh, and light. I've not test driven it fully, and I intend to over the few weeks.

Dav out