Mum, Stu, IWMN and Evuna

So today my Mother, Helen, and her partner, Stuart, came to visit. Lacking any other idea I took them to the Lowry Outlet Mall for lunch and a quick spin round the shops, and then over to the Imperial War Museum North. Good job I did as it's jolly good and well recommended. There is an ancilliary exhibition about "Animals at War" which I had been wanting to see for a while. I wasn't dissapointed although the pigeon parachutes did cause for some light entertainment. Not a lot though as it's quite a serious place. (with serious; I'm looking at displays about war, face)

The main exhibition is brilliant with oodles to look at and a historical account of the wars of the 20th century and beyond I suppose. We stood for a while to watch a public education video about how to survive a nuclear fallout produced in the 1970s. One thing's for sure it was a good job it didn't happen. Hooray for diplomats!

Every hour there is also what can only be described as a slide show on steroids. I don't know what you'd call it. About the place there are projectors and loads of big white walls. Hung on the walls is a powerful sound system. The experience is a 360 degree slide show immersing those in the main gallery completely in images of war. And the sound system booms with voices of eye witness accounts and experts and sound effects. All I can say is words don't do it justice and I would recommend it to anyone in the area (and it's free entry).

So later on, when Beccy got back from work, we all went out to dine at Evuna for a tapas meal. It was good, but there was something not quite right about the place... can't put my finger on it. Wolfed it down, we did, and came home for wine etc.

Vector Graphics

So today I have been mostly playing with vector graphics. What are they and why have you just spent all afternoon working them out? Vector graphics are a supremely powerful tool and haven't always been around. You see when you take a photo with a camera it maps each pixel with a colour. This is not so for vector graphics. With vector graphics the whole image is defined as a series of coloured contours, in effect the picture is made up of defined shapes (not lots of dots).

The beauty with vector graphics is they are infinitely scalable. You must have seen someone zoom in to a photo on a computer just to see a series of blocky pixels. Not so in vector graphics, as the image is defined not per pixel, so no matter how much you zoom in or out the picture quality remains the same.

This is not great for photos but check out this picture of a holly sprig I whipped off.

Of course those keen eyed will notice that I've pretty much cheated and replaced the image with a gif and pasted the background colour into the file. So to prove it here's the actual vector graphic.

Not only that it was also a layered image, check it out!

So why all the holly? That should be obvious soon!

A New Sudoku Game Arrives

This is the best solution I can find, sorry.

Sudoku I'm afraid you'll have to follow this link to be referred.

Play this free game now!!

What to do?

Good morning! Yes here is the weekend and I thought that today I'd post something to keep you busy until the England match kicks off: a sudoku game!

If you've never played Sudoku the aim of the game is to use the powers of deduction to place the numbers 1-9 in every row, column and 3x3 box (outlined in bold).

Enjoy!

For those of you who were wondering what had happened to the game, it got lost in cyberspace... will rectify shortly.

Good Afternoon

Yes I hope it is.
Beccy and I went to celebrate modestly last night. We headed to our current favourite bar for tea; Dukes 92. It's a fairly well known bar by the canal near castlefield and in the evenings you can get a really good pizza for a reasonable price. Well recommended.

The we headed to the printworks which is in the centre of Manchester to see Michael Clayton. It was a definite thinker and as Beccy said, it left the audience wondering what was going on for just too long. Apart from that, well worth a looky.

So I'm off to work this afternoon so I'm going to bid you farewell and get on with making my dinner.

Well Done Beccy

Yes! My lovely Beccy is now gainfully employed as of Monday! So we're off out for a Pizza! Congratulations!
Please send your cards and gifts to:

"Congratulations Beccy",

PO Box 1792,

Manchester,

M1 4TD.

(not actual address)

New Words for 2008

- SALAD DODGER.

An excellent phrase for an overweight person.

- SWAMP-DONKEY

A deeply unattractive person.

- TESTICULATING.

Waving your arms around and talking balls.

- BLAMESTORMING.

Sitting round in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

- SEAGULL MANAGER.

A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

- ASSMOSIS.

The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

- CUBE FARM.

An office filled with cubicles.

- PRAIRIE DOGGING.

When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on. (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

- SITCOMs.

Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a "home business".

- PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE.

The fine art of whacking an electronic device to get it to work again.

- ADMINISPHERE.

The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the "adminisphere" are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded "administrivia" - needless paperwork and processes.

- GOING FOR A McPOO.

Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you're just going to the WC. If challenged by a pimply staff member, your declaration to them that you'll buy their food afterwards is known as a McPoo with Lies.

- 404.

Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found" meaning that the requested document could not be located.

- OH - NO SECOND.

That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all').

- JOHNNY-NO-STARS.

A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The 'no-stars' comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wear to show their level of training.

- MILLENNIUM DOMES.

The contents of a Wonderbra, i.e. extremely impressive when viewed from the outside, but there's actually naught in there worth seeing.

- MONKEY BATH.

A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: "Oo! Oo! Oo! Aa! Aa! Aa!".

- MYSTERY BUS.

The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you're in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in.

- BEER JACKET.

The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruise at 3:00am.

- BEER COMPASS.

The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after booze cruise, even though you're too drunk to remember where you live, how you got here, and where you've come from.

- PICASSO BUM.

A woman whose knickers are too small for her, so she looks like she's got 4 buttocks.

Scary Chinese Lightning

So I received this small film and found it quite interesting. Well it's actually technically a gif (graphics interchange format) recorded from a simple digital camera or a webcam or similar. But I ramble on. Here have a wee looky:

So I don't suppose that I have to say how dangerous this is so don't try this at home.
Meanwhile back at the ranch my training is coming on although I'm struggling to get to grips with the TMA as I find that when the airplanes get airboune without warning I find myself rather flumuxed when it gets busy. Still moving on, more tomorrow.

Some Random Jokes

I'm afraid I can't take the credit for these, that belongs to Tommy Cooper:

Two Aerials meet on a roof - fall in love - get married.
The ceremony was rubbish but the Reception was Brilliant.

Man goes to the doc, with a strawberry growing out of his head.
Doc says "I'll give you some cream to put on it."

"Doc, I can't stop singing the green green grass of home."
"That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome."
"Is it common?"
"It's not unusual."

A man takes his Rottweiler to the vet.
"My dog's cross-eyed, is there anything you can do for him?"
"Well," says the vet, "let's have a look at him"
So he picks the dog up and examines his eyes, then checks his teeth.
Finally, he says "I'm going to have to put him down."
"What? Because he's cross-eyed?"
"No, because he's really heavy"

"Doctor, I can't pronounce my Fs, Ts and Hs."
"Well you can't say fairer than that then"

Two elephants walk off a cliff...... Boom boom!

So I went to the dentist.
He said "Say Aaah."
I said "Why?"
He said "My dog's died."

"So I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said "Who's speaking please?"
And a voice said "You are."

So I rang up my local swimming baths.
I said "Is that the local swimming baths?"
He said "It depends where you're calling from."

So I rang up a local building firm,
I said "I want a skip outside my house."
He said "I'm not stopping you."

Apparently, 1 in 5 people in the world are Chinese. And there are 5 people in my family, so it must be one of them.
It's either my mum or my dad.
Or my older brother Colin.
Or my younger brother Ho-Cha-Chu.
But I think it's Colin.

So I was in my car, and I was driving along, and my boss rang up,and he said "You've been promoted." And I swerved.
He rang up a second time and said "You've been promoted again." And I swerved again.
He rang up a third time and said "You're managing director." And I went into a tree.
A policeman came up and said "What happened to you?" And I said "I careered off the road."

Now, most dentists' chairs go up and down, don't they? The one I was in went back and forwards. And the dentist said to me "Mr. Cooper, get out of the filing cabinet."

So I was getting into my car, and this bloke says to me "Can you give me a lift?" I said "Sure, you look great, the world's your oyster, go for it!"

Two cannibals eating a clown.
One says to the other "Does this taste funny to you?"

Police arrested two kids yesterday, one was drinking battery acid, and the other was eating fireworks. They charged one and let the other one off.

"You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today.
They left a little note on the windscreen, it said "Parking Fine."
So that was nice.

A man walked into the doctors.
The doctor said "I haven't seen you in a long time"
The man replied "I know I've been ill"

A man walked into the doctors, he said "I've hurt my arm in several places."
The doctor said "well don't go to those places"

I had a ploughman's lunch the other day.
He wasn't very happy.

I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.

I bought some HP sauce the other day. It's costing me 6p a month for the next 2 years.

Two blondes walk into a building..........you'd think at least one of them would have seen it.

Phone answering machine message - "...If you want to buy marijuana.............press the hash key..."

I went to the butchers the other day and I bet him 50 quid that he couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf.
He said, "No, the steaks are too high."

My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli.
A strong currant pulled him in.

A man came round in hospital after a serious accident.
He shouted, "Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!"
The doctor replied, "I know you can't, I've cut your arms off".

I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a mussel.

Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly.
They lit a fire in the craft, it sank, proving once and for all that you can't have your kayak and heat it.

Our ice cream man was found lying on the floor of his van covered with hundreds and thousands.
Police say that he topped himself.

Two fat blokes in a pub, one says to the other "Your round."
The other one says "So are you, you fat slob!"

Ireland's worst air disaster occurred early this morning when a small two-seater Cessna plane crashed into a cemetery.
Irish search and rescue workers have recovered 1826 bodies so far and expect that number to climb as digging continues into the night.