The Dangers Of Smoking

Man killed in cigarette accident
"A hospital patient being treated with a flammable gel for a skin condition has died after being engulfed in flames as he lit a cigarette."

Blimey, wouldn't that have been a scary thing to see?! Just imagine nipping out through the fire exit for a short-cut to the car park and seeing this bloke up in flames? Just goes to show there's more than one reason for having hospitals as no smoking areas...

MaFt

Almost Easter

It's almost Easter and I've clearly given up regular blogging for lent!! I'll get back into it just as soon as I've devoured my weight in Cadbury's Creme Eggs.

Soon enough the easter bunny will be laying his eggs all over so kids can remember that Jesus died on a cross in order to take away their sin... or something... Just where did the bunny come from?! There's no obvious link between death on a cross and a cute furry bunny that, strangely for a mammal, lays eggs. Eggs made of chocolate. And they say religion is hard to believe? Look at what secular society has made easter into - now that's hard to believe! Chocolate-egg-laying rabbits? Get real!

Maybe the colour of the chocolate is supposed to remind us of the colour of the wood used in the crucifix? No, can't be that cos we get white chocolate eggs now... Oops, can't call them white can we - the PC brigade wil be onto us, erm... cocoa-deficient chocolate eggs. I heard once that the egg is a symbol of new life and thus is used to remind us that with Jesus taking our sin away we are given new life. OK, that makes a bit of sense but when was the last time you saw a baby rabbit grow out of a chocolate egg? And it still doesn't explain what the rabbit is for.

Thinking a bit deeper now, there's that lovely phrase "shagging like rabbits" - maybe that's the link between new life and rabbits? All that shagging must surely bring forth numerous offspring as I'm yet to see the Durex Bunny squaring up to the Duracell Bunny I can only assume that there is not viable form of rabbit contraception freely available to les lapins as the french would say.

So, there you have it - that's where the easter bunny comes from (no pun intended). He brings forth new life to remind us that Jesus did something for us and helped to invent chocolate.

MaFt

PS - see how easy it is to get side-tracked with secular commercialism and forget the real reason behind Easter? I challenge you to get to church over Easter and seek out for yourself what it's all about!

Projects Projects Projects!

Ey up, I'm back! Not that I've been anywhere, just having a break from blogging. I've been busy finishing off the Punk Worship site and doing some work on another site I've been asked to do. Various parts of my car now function: i got a new speaker which was a bugger to find seeing as Ford decided to make their own shape speaker so standard ones won't fit unless you spend about £15 on convertors for them... Thank the Maker for eBay! I also have a fully functioning heater too - apparently a common fault in Fiesta's. Mr-DM (not Danger Mouse) bought me some wiper blades cos he was sick of mine squeeking (cheeky sod, but thanks mate!) and, finally, I stuck some Red Ex into my fuel-tank to stop the thing from juddering and generally being crap when it's cold.

So, onto my next projects! I spent a while trying to find a holder for my mp3 player (Creative Zen Xtra [I upgraded it to a 60GB drive though]) that I can use in the car. PDA holders are no good as they cover the buttons on the side of the player... Seems I would have to dig deeper; I found some nifty things by Brodit that looked great and would have done the job. However, the total cost would have been well over £50. I then found this thing:

Which sells at a slightly lower £20 but would need another £15-20 of attachments in order for it to hold the Zen Xtra. I still think £40 is a bit much for something to hold an mp3 player. So, instead, I've decided to make my own holder based on this thing that fits in the side of my Ford stereo but which will be better (cos I made it) and a LOT cheaper! Mr-S has said I can use the engineering workshop on my dinner hours to get it done! Should be fun, if it doesn't work I can always spend some money.

I'll post some designs later on. That's all for now, I'm off to catch up with other people's blogs!

MaFt

Small Update

Just to let you know I've not forgotten about you all! Expect a rise in the frequency of posts regarding the punk worship night as it gets nearer. I'm currently getting the ball rolling with regards to publicity etc and also starting to work on a better version of the website other than one that just shows up a random flyer...

In other news, my emial server has been taken off the blacklist at SpamCop so I can email people who use SpamCop now! Excellent :D

See you around,

MaFt

Me Again

Just a short update to let you know I'm still around! For those who knew what was happening you'll be pleased to know that my Dad has had a succesful operation to remove cancer from his colon. He's now stuck in hospital for a couple of weeks to recover - he's well chuffed that he didn't need a colostomy bag though!

Also, I've just found out that my email server is blacklisted by SpamCop so I can't email Gruff at Christian Punks cos it gets rejected. I've had a response about it from my host (the wonderful BlackFoot Hosting) who have said it was due to another user on the same server being a bit naughty. Thankfully I've not got some sneaky virus that sends out millions of emails without me knowing! What do people get out of sending spam?!

Laters

MaFt

PS - we got permission to do the punk-worship event! It'll be happening on Saturday 13th May - flyer below:

Clinical Trials And Tribulations

From Drug Company TeGenero's website:

"TGN1412 is a promising novel approach to addressing the medical need in ... inflammatory diseases, which require long-term therapy without severe side effects."

I think they may have found one side-effect though... quite severe too!

My thoughts go out to those involved - and remember kids, there's no such thing as easy money! Shoetree, you have been warned!

MaFt

Oh Yeah, One More Thing...

If you feel generous you can vote for Mini-MaFt in the Happy Tots competition either by calling 09011511165 or texting "BRTOTS 1165" (without the quote marks) to 88010.

Calls and texts cost 50p and you'ev got until Friday 17th. Cheers :D

MaFt

Break

I'm taking a break from blogging for another week or so. Very tired and got loats of other things that I need to get done!

See ya soon

MaFt

Weetabix - The Strongest Soaker-Upperer

Mini-MaFt has taken to having two Weetabix for supper and one for breakfast. This is actually more difficult than one would think. First of all there's the obvious question of do you mash it up then add the milk, or add the milk and then mash it up?

Logic tells you that a smaller surface area should contact more milk in less time so you should mash up the Weetabix before adding the milk. However, the effort and time needed to mash up a dry Weetabix is far greater than that required to squidge up a milk-soaked Weetabix as shown in the graph below. So, maybe it's better to pour the milk first...


A very scientific graph

This brings us on to the second problem: just how much milk? you pour what you think is the desired amount of milk then mash up the Weetabix. But, by the time you've toddled along to Mini-MaFt the Weetabix is as dry as a really dry thing so you add more. Still, it's too dry. Pre-empting further milk-soaking you add more than you plan to but this time the Weetabix is fully saturated and will hold no more milk. Then all you get is a load of milk with some bits of Weetabix mixed into it... The Weetabix/milk mixture is at the ideal ratio for a tenth of a nanosecond and if you miss that then you've no chance... Thankfully Mini-MaFt will eat it anyway!

Some alternate uses for Weetabix include, but are not limited to: ladies sanitary towels, nappy life-extenders (stick a Weetabix in there and the nappy will soak even more up), a cheaper alternative to Pig Mats for chemical spills, an edible ink-blotter, an oven cleaner (have you felt how abrasive they are? just don't get it wet). Feel free to add more of your own suggestions.

MaFt

When Head Turns To Mush

I've just spent the last few days revamping my geek site (www.GarminPOI.co.uk) and updating the POI list. After fighting with html, php, cgi, inline frames, png files with alpha channels, javascript to make the aforementioned png files work in Internet Explorer and a bit of troubleshooting involving the mailing list script my head now feels like mush.

Just thought I'd share that with you and wish you a happy weekend in the cold. Hopefully you'll be warmr than I am in my car at the moment due to my heater not working :( Still, it's the weekend so I can nick Mrs-MaFt's car!

MaFt

Long Time!

Just realised today that I've been doing this blog for over a year! The first post was February 16th 2005. Such a long time ago! I talked about Jenga and builders at Leeds Uni. Beat that for excitement!

I also just realised that yesterday was pancake day. Tosser... or rather I'm not a tosser - so maybe forgetting it worked to my advantage!

Lots to do so I'm off!

See ya

MaFt

Dammit

Don't you just hate it when you were about to say something great, wonderful and world-changing and then forget what it was? Kind of like when you rush upstairs 3 steps at a time to get... oh... what did I rush upstairs for? Usually to solve the latter I can go back downstairs and carry in with what I was doing before I'd rushed upstairs and after a while it'll come back to me; I can then walk carefully up all 13 steps (don't ask why we have 13, I know most only have 12 but our house is cleary special) nice and slowly in case my memory gets left behind again. Problem solved, nice and simple. However, I can't even try that approach this time cos I can't even remember what I was doing when I thought of this wonderful thing to write about!



I'm sure I must be losing my mind... I found these marbles on eBay Australia, I wonder if they'll work as a replacement?

MaFt

This Old Chestnut

Am I a man or a monkey? Was I made like this or did i evolve from nothing? I believe I was created and that mankind is seperate from the animal kingdom. You may say that I am a creationist, however, I simply believe what the Bible tells me.

Two articles have caught my eye today, the first being in The Register and titled 'Creationists Want Your Children'. Basically the Royal Society are getting fed up of the fact that more and more people are denouncing evolution and believing in either biblical creation (i.e. Genesis 1, God created the earth in 6 days and had a break on the 7th) or intelligent design (a mostly American idea that essentially takes the religion out of creation in order to get it taught in American schools - legally nothing to do with religion can have any say in anything to do with the state ['separation of church and state']). If evolution is such a fool-proof theory, as the Royal Society claims it is, then why get in a little hissy fit over something so 'pointless' as creation or intelligent design? Or is it more along the lines that they've realised this 'theory' of evolution isn't all it cracked up to be and people want a bit more explanation. Such as, how did the first organisms actually come into existance from nothing? OK, so, with creationism there is an obvious element of faith that God created everything, from scratch, but the biblicl account also mentions a global flood - something that has been mentioned throughout many cultures even those that do not acknowledge the Bible. Little facts like this help to show the accuracy of the biblical record. So "creationism requires faith therefore it's not real science" - I've been told that before. However, belief in evolution requires even more faith: faith that the first organisms mytically appeared with no explanation, faith that the right kinds of genetic defects actually were beneficial to the organism and not harmful, faith that those mutations could actually be passed to the next generation... I actually think it's easier to believe that everything was created* as opposed to just randomly appearing by chance. Maybe that's the easy way out, but it makes sense to me.

* actually, more like every type was created - I'm not discounting the fact that species change over time - they just don't change into another species...

The second was on the BBC news site claiming that churches should back evolution. Ha! As if! I really can't see the church turning round and saying "actually, the bible is all wrong, evolution really did happen and Jesus was a monkey in a blue sash and a beard". Not likely. Apparently intelligent design is a threat to 'real scientific teaching' - well, I'm sorry but real scientific teaching should involve teaching all possible theories not just saying 'our theory is right, yours is wrong'; especially when the so-called 'theories' can't actually be proved (time travel hasn't been invented yet).

Like I said before, do the evolutionists see creation as a more powerful 'threat' to their precious little group than they initially thought? Seems to me like they're beginning to realise that we don't always take their word for it. When I was at uni many lecturers would often come out with unprovable and, frankly random, sayings like 'this of course proves evolution' when talking about the massively complex blood clotting factors - to me though it just proved that the whole lot was designed and created, I mean could all the inbetween states actually function correctly as a working system if it evolved gradually? Probably not...

Well, that was quite a long post for me! If you want to know more then take a look at Answers In Genesis or, for the biochemically minded, get a read of Michael Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box"

See ya

MaFt

The Smoking Ban

Seeing as no one has asked for my opinions on this matter I thought I'd share them with you anyway. If you've been living under a rock or in a tree for the last few days (or don't live in the UK) then you should have heard that the government have passed a bil stating you can't smoke in enclosed public places (unles you're an MP cos the Houses of Parliament are classed as a Royal Palace so are not covered by the ban). The definition of an enclosed public space is pretty wishy-washy and will need some work but other than that it's fairly straight forward: It will be illegal to smoke in a pub, club, restaraunt, hire-car, company car, bus, taxi, ice rink, bus shelter, portaloo etc etc etc.

Initially I thought 'huzzah' cos people will be healthier as they'll all obviously stop smoking and join the gym and Britain will be a lot less smelly. However, thinking a bit more about it, are the people that smoke really going to stop just cos they're more limited in where they can smoke? MaFt thinks not! Why? Cos it's an addiction that's hard to break; especially if you don't want to in the first place.

I think it'll lead to worse health for most smokers in the UK. Instead of going t'local and spending a tenner on 4 pints and having a few fags they're more likely to nip t'co-op and spend a tenner on 12 cans (about 10 pints) and drink themselves to a stupour in the comfort of their own home. You may say "well MaFt, that's their own health they're ruining so nothing has changed" but I say what about smokers with kids? If they're in the house more often smoking more for fear of persecution and/or prosecution hwo will that affect the health of the children and others in the house? It can't be better for them... surely?

Still, it's probably too late to change and remember kids, the government knows best.

MaFt

Animations

If you like random, weird or surreal animations then have a look at Bli's animations (http://www.blimation.com/htm/animation.htm) - particularly the Bystanders ones.

Check it out, innit!

MaFt

Here It Is (Brace Yourself, It's A Big Bugger!)

Here's my tooth. Or rather my ex-tooth as it is no longer providing any tooth-like functions. However, it does look nice sitting by my computer monitir...



MaFt

The Tooth, The Whole Tooth And Nothing But The Tooth

Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! The numbing was standard to begin with (2 big needles intoo the gum) but then he said "this one will hurt" - not "this MIGHT hurt" but "WILL hurt"... I'd like to be able to show my manliness and high pain threshold, but it hurt like buggery when he stuck that needle into the roof of my mouth!

Ten minutes later I was back in his chair, shaking like a small child surrounded by bears, tigers and closet monsters, and then the fun began. My tooth wouldn't budge. Stubborn little thing it was, so he had to pull out the next set of pliers. I swear they were about seven inches long ('all the better to sever you with, my dear' and then he told the assistant (the big burly manly one, not the attractive slim one) to grab my head while he twists. So, I had this big brute of a lady grabbing my head, and a skinny, sarcastic little dentist with some seven inch pliers shoved in the back of my mouth trying to yank a tooth out. Eventually it came out and I then had to bite down on some cotton wool* to soak up the blood for twenty minutes.

* This was the worst part to be honest! I have this weird fear of cotton wool... it's weird, but it squeeks! Eugh, horrible stuff!!

I'm so hungry it's unbelievable! I sucked on a Milky Bar last night and had a bit of bread but if I put any effort into chewing then it makes my hole bleed. Today I'm going to eat soup and bread :) I'll try post a picture of the offending tooth tonight - I tried emailing one from my phone but it's not working for some reason...

MaFt

This Week I'll Post More! (and have less teeth)

Well, I'm going to blame the lack of posts last week on the fact that it's been a crap week. I'm not usually one for getting all personal on the blog, hence the lack of posts rather than the abundance of 'oh I feel so low' and 'everything is crap, help me' posts :)

So, with any luck this week is going to be much better! I have decided! And, to celebrate what a wonderful week this is going to be, I am getting my wisdom tooth yanked out this afternoon... Maybe this week will start tomorrow!

Well, back to the tooth. Around May last year I was driving up Thornton Road and while my tongue was roaming around my mouth (as it does) it suddenly came across a big lump of enamel... It also realised that there was a big lump of enamel/tooth missing from my wisdom tooth, right at the very back. Nothing hurt, which I was eternally grateful for, and on my next visit to the dentist he said that as it's not causing me any problems that he would leave it there. Fine by me; Makes things cheaper!

Jump forward to the next dentist visit in November and he says "ooh, look at that, I'll have to remove that ASAP!". I reminded him of his previous comment and all I got back was "yeah, my patients have a habit of reminding me what I said...". So, this afternoon I have to say goodbye to my wise old wisdom tooth. No more will I have a strange tooth for my tongue to probe and play with; and no more will i have to try and get bits of chicken out of the hole.

I might keep it and put it on a keyring - well, the hole's already there!

MaFt

An Open Letter To The Atari's

Dear The Atari's,

What happened? You used to be great! One of my big influences in fact. "Blue Skies..." was such an amazing album, as was "End Is Forever" and "So Long, Astoria". Great, passionate, energetic punk rock. There was the occasional slower, indie-like song that I could cope with. In fact, they were often the highlight of the album - something different to break it up. But, a whole album of that crap?! Sorry guys but you've gone down in my estimation. Enjoy your fame with the NME...

MaFt

Hurty

My back hurts. I could hardly bend over to get my shoes on this morning. Please leave sympathy in the form of a comment :)

MaFt

3 O'clock, 2 Posts, 1 Day, 0 Monkeys...

A post I made back in December about Landmark Communications has been quite useful to some people it would seem. 14 people have left comments about it and I guess quite a lot have read it but not commented. I know at least one who has. Mr-D from work (who provides me with lifts most days) emailed me to tell me he had been getting calls from the same number at the same time every day for a week so he googled it and got to my site! How cool is that? I never thought I'd be providing a public service when I started this blog!

Glad to have been of service :)

MaFt

PS - in January there were 650 people found this site by searching for "01554754901 " - that's 46.4% of my traffic!

Open Office 2.0

I've started using Open Office 2.0 as a free alternative to Microsoft Office. It's open source, free and actually very very good! It's similar in most ways to MS Office but some of the more advanced options like styles and conditional formatting are different but easy to get the hang of. I used OO before on version 1 and found it pretty unusable but version 2 has improved massivley!

So there, check it out and try a new piece of software for once! While we're talking about open source why not try Mozilla Firefox (web browser) and Mozilla Thunderbird (email client) too - links to both on the left!

See ya

MaFt

War! Huh! What Is It Good For?

Well, I feel I may be slated for this post but it's not going to stop me.

Yesterday it was announced that the 100th Brit has been killed in Iraq since we invaded in 2003 - 31 year old Corporal Gordon Alexander Pritchard. Why is it such a surprise? He was a soldier in the army during a time of war - people are going to get killed. We can't win all the time. He chose to join the army seeing as, thankfully, we no longer have forced subscription so he must have known what to expect. In my opinion it's pretty selfish to join the army without considering the effect on your family and friends should anything untoward happen to you in service. It's also pretty naïve to assume that "nothing will happen to me 'cos I'm British". You join the army to fight, not to sit around drinking and getting paid. Because of that you should expect to fight if you're in the army - why else would they spend hundreds of thousands of pounds training all the soldiers up?

This is not to say that I don't feel sorry for the families of all those who were killed, but before we start mouthing off at the government for sending troops out or asking why he was there at that particular time let's just stop and think for one moment: The soldiers were there because they wanted to be there; they wanted to join the army; they should expect to go to war at some point; they should know that war is not a game - the weapons are real, the blood is real and the pain caused to familes is real too.

Take care

MaFt

Kick Axe Weekend

Wow, what a weekend! First up, Friday night Mr-JC arrived at ours and we went for a take away curry from The Village in Thornton and watched a couple of films at ours ('Chasing Amy' and 'Orange County'). A few beers were involved too. We also did that obligatory 'staying up until 2.15am for no real reason' thing too...

Saturday morning Mrs-MaFt went shopping for girly stuff so me, Mr-JC and Mini-MaFt went to Bradford to look at boys stuff. Mainly CD's and guitars! Mr-JC bought a dead nice Ibanez hollow-body electric guitar and I sold £130 worth of CD's that I no longer listen to. Ever!

Saturday dinner DTN and Scru' arrived from the north(ish)-west and we headed down to Burger King for a healthy lunch. It was a cold day but really sunny and the sky was clear so we headed up to Ogden Waters for a walk around there. The picture below is from May 2002 but as you can imagine it looked pretty similar on Saturday (just a bit colder though - funnily enough temperature doesn't come across well in a photo...)


Ogden Waters

Saturday tea-time we all headed down to The Village in Thornton for another curry - this time in their seated restaraunt. Again, it was very nice! Brother-N picked us all up and we headed to The Cockpit in Leeds for the gig. And what a gig it was! On the door you had to show ID to get a wrist-band in order to get served at the bar - Scru' the 25 year old didn't have any ID so couldn't drink... well, couldn't get served at the bar (that didn't stop him drinking - naughty us!). For a change, the merchandise was sensibly priced - I got an MxPx t-shirt for a tenner.

First band were I Am The Avalance (featuring ex-singer from The Movielife) - they were pretty good but nothing too special. The Matches were very entertaining but quiet vocals spoilt it a bit - still the songs were good and they had great stage-presence too.

The first of the co-headliners was The Starting Line. These seemed to get the kids really excited but I failed to see why. The songs were nothing spectacular and of the three that stood out for me I couldn't tell you anything about them twenty minutes after... Ah well... Soon after came MxPx - the reason we went to the gig in the first place. They played a great set with songs from every album and had their 2nd guitarist, Ian, playing so the newer songs sounded fuller with both rhythm and lead guitars. The pit was mental to say the least! Pity about the muppet who took it upon himself to elbow anyone who went near him... If you're at the front of a 500-strong crowd you've got to expect a bit of pushing... Still, I got a few elbows to his back after he nearly winded me in the 3rd song! The strangest part of the night was drinking Grolsch. Not that that's strange in itself but when it comes in plastic bottles it's a bit weird. Mr-JC picked up his first bottle and stared at it for 5 minutes to make sure there was something in it cos it felt so light! The bar staff must have been wondering what his problem was... Got some dead-good photo's of most of the bands so I'll try post some in the next few days.

So, anyway, we got home and had a bit of food then went to bed. Yesterday was a big group trip down to church trying not to fall asleep during the sermon (don't you just hate it when they have one point to make but they take 40 minutes to make it?!). Later in the afternoon everyone went home and I began de-stickering my 2 guitars. Cheap deoderant is great for removing the sticky bits - just don't use anti-perspirant cos you get a few extra white-bits!

Today, on my dinner, I headed up to the Northern Drum Centre to part-exchange my guitars for my new toy: an Ibanez GAX75 in Pewter Grey. Mmmm, nice :)


My New Axe

So, a fun-filled weekend was had by all! Back to work you lot!

MaFt

Small Is Beautiful

One thing I like about seeing small bands is you never know what you're going to get. They never feel obliged to play a 'greatest hits' set; usually because they don't have a greatest hit! I can go and see Broadways Not Ready twice in a week and hear a totally different set each time. This also extends to bands that have never really had any songs in the charts, such as Rancid and NOFX - as popular as they are, they don't have to bow down to popularity and play their number one hits at every gig.

Don't get me wrong, Green Day are a great band and equally great live but recently it just seems like you've seen it all before. You know exactly what's going to be played and in what order before you've even got there. Still, it's a good show - and it IS just that: a choreographed-to-perfection show.

There are also bands in the middle, with some limited success, such as The Offspring and Therapy? - both of whom always seem to vary their setlist but throw in a couple of obvious 'hits' - but not for the entire set. I'd love to see Green Day again but to have them throw in a few surprises like 'Aramtage Shanks' or 'Scattered' instead of just the songs released as singles.

NOFX and Rancid have massively varied setlists from night to night and tour to tour - both big bands but lacking the 'we need to keep the kids happy by playing only the songs the radio played' thoughts. Reports from the current MxPx UK tour are looking good - some nights they've just taken requests and torn up the setlist! Again, with no real hits, they're more free to do it that way.

It does make me wonder though: does the record label have a say in what songs get played live? And, if so, does it really affect their sales that much? Surely they'd get more sales with some more obscure songs played live as this would make people want to go out and find more songs from the band by buying the albums instead of just the singles promoted by Radio 1...

Just a thought.

MaFt

Time For A Review

Today I got sent a Garmin nüvi 300 to review on behalf of Pocket GPS World. Mrs-MaFt phoned me up demanding to know what I'd been spending money on as City Link have just dropped off a parcel! Thankfully the company (Easy Devices), who have provided the unit, included a letter stating that it's for review and to have it sent back in 30 days - good job really, cos I'd have been shot if they'd have included an invoice for £500!!

So, now I have an excuse to drive around aimlessly! However, I'm not going to have time for a few more days... I need to clear the attic cos Mr-F is coming up tomorrow night for a bit of an acoustic jamming session then on Friday Mr-JC is coming up followed closely by DTN and Scru' on Saturday. Saturday night Brother-N, myself and the rest of the visitors are all off to see MxPx which should be very good! I've not been this excited for ages! I think Brother-N is getting fed up of my constant wittering though... Hey ho, such is life!

In other news everyone in my office has installed Google Earth which is dead good fun - if I find anything interesting I'll post some pics and some .kmz files.

Ta-Ra for now!

MaFt

Liar Liar Pants on Fire

I'm currently sat up in the attic with a beer, listening to the wonderful Derby band, '3 Storeys High' (who I saw last weekend) and writing thankyou notes from Mini-MaFt. Childhood is full of lies! Especially when it's to do with Christmas... First up, as parents, we have to lie about the existance of a bearded bloke who wears red and eats mincepies; then, secondly, we write letters (and emails) as though our kids have done them themselves... Surely that's forgery? The way things are going I'm sure in 20 years time Mini-MaFt will have me in court suing me for forging his signature on various letters etc. What if he didn't actually like the Thomas hat and scarf that was bought for him that we wrote to Mrs-B to say thankyou on his behalf for? What if he's actually deeply scarred and unable to live life as a normal 20 year old because of our forgery? How will we ever live with ourselves? Pretty easy actually, delete the Word document, format the hard drive, in fact, scrap the whole computer! If it saves me being sued in 20 years time then it can only be a good thing...

MaFt

Warts And All

Today I had my portrait done; "Warts and all" as the saying goes. I feel it captures my inner beauty whilst not diminishing my rugged manliness... or something. I particularly like how the artist even included the fact that I had my MxPx t-shirt on at the time of drawing.

So, without further a-do, here is the debut piece from Neice-K:



Enjoy!

MaFt

The Final Chapter

Basicallly he's going to film me whilst i'm raising money for charity. What i've got to do is dress up in some sort of costume (at this current moment in time i don't know what) and teach a year 7 class, and he's going to film me and keep it as a bribe. After just speaking to Mr-JC it sounds as though you're not going to bother helping me. I do hope that you change your mind.

Tee hee, he got the hint that I wasn't bothered!! Some kids eh?

MaFt

The Saga Continues

"What can I say it must be Mr-JC's teaching! Hope this is better!
As I explained in my last e-mail Mr-JC is trying to pull a rotten stunt on me, and I'm trying to get my own back on him.
If you have any embarrassing photos of him please could you send them to me, I've already found two on your site but there not that embarrassing.
By the way cool site, and I hope you can help me!!!"

My reply (again, BCC'd to Mr-JC):

"Hello again! My, you are persistant! However, I have found the following to be slightly untrue: 'As I explained in my last e-mail Mr-JC is trying to pull a rotten stunt on me' - you see, you didn't really explain what rotten stunt he was trying to pull, did you? Once I have a bit more information then I can fully decide whether to devote any time to this project. Glad you like the site though!"

MaFt

A Break

Well, i got the thumbs up from mr-jc on how i handled his student. i just thought it was the natural thing to do, if young jam-face wants to embarrass someone then he should be able to take embarrassment himself. i wonder if he's been reading this blog... anyway, i'm off home now, finally got chance to use this overtime i've built up. see ya, and have a good long weekend like me. MaFt

That'll Learn 'Im

A mate of mine, Mr-JC (not the Jesus one), works at a school in Lincoln. He's head of IT or something to do with computers anyway! He's probably having me on and he's really the bloke that goes around blowing the dust out of all the fans, but anyway I digress. The other week I got an email from Mr-JC along the lines of:

"Ey up MaFt, I love you so much and needed to remind you again of my undy..." [SNIP]

...sorry, wrong email...

"Ey up MaFt, just thought I'd warn you that if you get an email from one of my students to ignore it. I gave them your URL as an example of good web-design," [dunno which site he's looking at though] "and then realised there was stuff about me on it... whoops, I am a fool! See ya at MxPx in a couple of weeks. Love n kisses, Mr-JC"

So, time whittled on and today I got that email:

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 15:21:02
From: "JAMMY-MAN, BADGER" [xxxx@xxxx.lincs.sch.uk]
To: Mail@maft.co.uk
Subject: Mr-JC

Am a pupil of Mr-JC's, and he's trying to pull a rotten stunt on me. i just wondered if you had any imbarassing photoes which i could have in order to get my own back?
If Yes please reply to xxxx@xxxx.lincs.sch.uk
Thanx!!!

This was my reply, which I BCC'd Mr-JC into as well so he knew what was going on. I may be able to have some fun with this one ;)

Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 16:02:35
From: MaFt
To: "JAM-BOY, FISHBREATH" [xxxx@xxxx.lincs.sch.uk]
Bcc: Mr-JC
Subject: Re: Mr-JC

I'm not doing anything until you learn how to spell.

In the mean-time check out the amazing punk-worship tracks at
http://maft.co.uk/media.htm

Cheers

MaFt

Is it wrong to lull a youngling into false hope? Ooh, the moral dilemma's I face every day... I'll keep you updated :D

MaFt

Shoot The Parrot

Various papers are telling the story of an unlucky lass from the Leeds area who's parrot grassed up to her boyfriend about her other boyfriend... Apparently the parrot staring mimicking the girl by saying 'Hello Gary' and then, later, 'I love you Gary'. However, boyfriend 1's name wasn't Gary and confronted her about it.

You'd think that by now most people know that parrots can copy what you say. I mean, there's been plenty of documentaries about pirates and their talking parrots ('Treasure Island', 'Pirates of the Caribbean', 'Hook'; to name but a few) - all of which have been on TV/DVD/VHS at some point. All it takes is a bit of research...

Did you know that ornithophobia is the fear of birds (and, I presume, parrots)? I've always been scared of birds - something that can bleed for a week and still batter you with a tea-towel is something to be afraid of in my eyes. My favourite phobia though has to be arachibutyrophobia. Make ya wonder, doesn't it?


A Parrot

MaFt

Pointless Fact

I've only shaved twice so far this year... MaFt

Plan B

Well after waiting 15 minutes for a cup that's supposed to be every 10 minutes or less the one that finally came drove straight past... this weekend better not be like the rest of the week has been... MaFt

Bullets!

Seriously fed up with the forced overtime at work at the moment. i've resorted to listening to metal! ya can't beat a bit of 'bullet for my valentine' to help vent your anger! maybe there'll be some 'demon hunter' on the way home too, who knows?! right, my bus is almost here now! see ya, MaFt

Figures

Just been scouring through my site stats cos my bandwidth is being obliterated recently... Not 100% sure what's killing it yet but it's nice to see that 257 people have been directed to my site after searching for '01554754901' - those bastards at Landmark Communications seem to be pissing a lot of people off... Great way to run a company eh?

Anyway, nothing else really to report... Work has been crap the last few days...
See ya

MaFt

"Everything's Chaaaaaanging (When I Turn Around...)

...all out of my control, I'm a robot"

Name the song and you can have 4p.

I was supposed to be going on a training course tomorrow entitled 'Coping With Change' however, yesterday my boss told me I had been moved to todays course. Unfortunately I'd not had the training and didn't know how to react and cope with the change.

Today I found out that I should have gone through a period of shock followed by denial. I should then have moved onto anger and then depression before getting to a stage of bargaining and, finally, acceptance. Three hours for that? How much do these management consultant people get paid? They didn't even bring any nuts, grapes or orange juice to help us get through the morning... (I'm currently in the 'angry' stage)

MaFt

Digital Revolution

Tired of paying £5.50 exc VAT for our Telewest TV we decided to get rid and go for Freeview instead. Damn, Telewest were pushy when I was trying to cancel! First I was offered it half price for 6 months then free for 6 months. I was honest with the lady on the phone, I said after those 6 months I'd forget to cancel it so 'no' but thanks for the offer.

Anyway, it was a cinch to set up but there was a weak signal on a few channels. So, I bought a signla booster which seemed to solve things. However, I can't get Mux-D (mostly radio channels but a few others too). I spent all last night re-positioning the aerial and the only way I could get these channels was to llse all the ITV and Channel 4 channels... I can live without the radio channels :)

Now my next project is to look into getting a proper roof aerial fitted! That'll be fun!

MaFt

Get Out My Space!

Apologies for no update today, I've been trying to get my head around MySpace - it is possibly the most user-unfriendly site I've ever met... I much prefer Purevolume which seems to keep getting better.

Why do companies / organisations / people etc make great things (such as MySpace) but really skimp on the important user-friendly parts? Such as why do Creative make such great MP3 players but such terrible software to go with it? Why did Garmin make the wonderful Street Pilot i3 but provide next to no instructions? Why did Tom make MySpace with such an awful user-interface? Why does your nose itch as soon as your hands are full?

Some things we'll never know...

But in the mean time take a look at both my MySpace and my Purevolume pages and add me as a friend if you want to!

http://www.purevolume.com/maft
http://www.myspace.com/maftmaft

MaFt

Belated Christmas List

Just thought I'd take this opportunity to share with you what good things I received for Christmas. In no particular order (and no capitals cos I'm lazy):

cocktail encyclopedia, cocktail making kit, homer socks & deoderant, book: why the toast always lands butter side down, book: does anything eat wasps?, book: sudoku, homer sope-on-a-rope, leather wallet, homer marshmallows, wire-detector, £10, £10 virgin voucher, 4 budweisers and a pint glass, selection box, tube of white buttons, asbach brandy, milk chocolate droste pastilles, tin of celebrations, lynx deoderant & shower gel, homer mug & cookies, socks: i'm only scary cos i'm hairy, socks: beer monster, socks: best daddy in the world, socks: little britain - andy, socks: little britain - lou, boxers: star wars - yoda, boxers: star wars - darth vader, guitar cufflinks, star wars episode 3 dvd, marshmallow pizza, tube of haribo starmix, tube of haribo kids mix, talking darth vader mug, 1/2 a microwave (mrs-maft got the other half), mexican cheese / pizza toast.

I think that covers everything! For once I actually needed all the socks I got.

See ya, for a more interesting post, later

MaFt

Thanks!

Oh yeah, forgot to say thanks to the nice people who broke into our neighbours car and 3 others last night. very kind of you! MaFt

Newness

Happy new year you lot! hope your head feels better than mine... managed to get free drinks for the night at the local so mini-MaFt went partying with his nanna and granddad. thing is, he slept all night for them but always wakes us up at 5am... little bugger! see ya. MaFt

New Songs!

Happy CHristmas n all that! Hope you had a good 'un. Hadsome timethis morning to get some new songs sorted - head on over to the main site to hear a new punk worship song and a cover of Cheap Trick's 'Surrender'.

Enjoy!

MaFt

Break time

Seeing as it's christmas i thought i'd have a break from blogging! i may pop in a couple of times but we're gonna be pretty busy! so, have a good un and i'll catch up int' new year! MaFt

There Are Only 26 Letters In The Alphabet

Galileo, Europe's Sat Nav, Satellite Launched

There are going to be 30 satellites used in the Galileo System. They decided to call them Galileo-A, Galileo-B etc - does anyone else see the problem with this?!

MaFt

Inventions

Here's a list of things I plan to invent in order to winthe coveted, and somewhat imaginary, 'Things That Should Never Have Been Invented Due To Obvious Design Flaws And Occasional Bad Understanding Of The Laws Of Physics' award:

• The Solar Powered Torch: An amazing feat to produce perpetual light. Although the laws of physics say it is impossible, it could still work - simply charge it up with some natural sunlight and the zero-resistance of all the components (made of previously invented 'super-mega conductors') will illuminate the zero-resistance bulb. Once lit, a carefully arranged set of super-shiny mirrors will guide the light beam back to the solar panel to keep the torch charged. This means that not only do you no longer require batteries, but you will never run out of light again!
• The Underwater Ironing Board: Ever been so short for time that you couldn't decide between doing the ironing or going swimming? Well, now you can do both. Many local swimming pools have already signed-up to get one or more installed permanently to the floor of their pool. An ingenious and patented 'Bubble' (water-proof pouch) means that the garment you are ironing will stay dry. MaFt Enterprises accepts no responsibility for garments damaged by water & chlorine whilst transferring them through the pool into the pouch.
• The Ultimate Spam-Guard: A very easy one this, it blocks every incoming email.You can send emails but never receive them. Great for offending people without any comeback. Guaranteed to stop 100% of spam.

There maybe more tomorrow!

MaFt The Inventor

That Was Quick!

Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 15:52:00 -0000 [15:52:00 GMT]
From: Landmark Info United Kingdom
To: Matthew Morley
Subject: Re: STOP FREAKIN' PHONING ME

Dear Mr Morley,

We have removed mobile number 07********* from our automatic dialer as requested.

Regards, Landmark customer services

Landmark Communications

Having got pissed off with receiving 5 calls in the last week from Landmark Communications (01554754901, 16-18 Cowell Street, Llanelli, [the operator didn't know the post code]) I decided to send them this email:

*****
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 15:45:29 +0000 [15:45:29 GMT]
From: MaFt United Kingdom
To: info@landmarkmobile.co.uk
Subject: STOP FREAKIN' PHONING ME

i am sick of being phoned by your company. i do not want another mobile phone contract. if i did i would go somewhere that a) i have heard of, and b) that
didn't keep bloody phoning me while i'm at work!

you have been reported to the TPS even though you claim "it doesn't matter
because we use random numbers" - however it is still an nuisance and unwanted call.

my number is 07*********. if i get another call from you then you can expect to
receive a lot of insults and possibly some expletives. you have been warned.

Matthew Morley

--
http://maft.co.uk

*****

I wonder if I'll get a response?

MaFt

PS - this isn't why I was annoyed yesterday!

Arse Cakes

Massive, pissing great arse cakes. That's how I feel today, how about you?



MaFt

Today I Will Be Mostly...

...drinking beer :D

9am - start work
9am - meeting
10.30am - kill time
11am meet for wine & mince pies and the results of the photo competition
12noon - taxi'd to the Bossa Nova in Shipley
1pm - Christmas meal
3pm - Pubs
6pm - break off for 2 hours for the dress rehearsal of Church Christmas Production
8pm - Pubs
1am - Stagger home...

Enjoy your day, I know I will!

MaFt

My First Legal Music Download / Purchase

WooHoo! I just downloaded my first piece of legally purchased digital music! I got Vanilla Pod's 'Surrounded By Idiots' from this site. £7.99 for the full album in mp3 format ready to burn to a legal CD :). Seems like a good idea to me, I've always been put off in the past from legal downloads cos most sites usually have just chart music for download and not much of the stuff I'm into. So yeah, oretty chuffed with it now :D

Ta-Ra

MaFt

This Will Probably Be Random

OK, so I lied the other day when I said there'd be a big post to make up for a shortage this week! Well, today I really am going to make up for it! Ya see, I'm just going to type completely random thoughts for a while. To avoid thinking too much I'm not going to check over it so apologies in advance for any glaring spelling mistakes...

I really don't have anything to write about that I can think of, nothing of interest at least. So, here goes, switch off normal thoughts and let the babbling begin:

I found today a new site for legal downloads of decent music. So instead of having to filter through a load of dance and R&B to get to some half-decent radio-friendly rock/punk/ska/metal I can now get the proper stuff from Punk Metal Downloads - there's lots of great UK bands on their too, stuff like Captain Everything, Vanilla Pod, Capdown, The Maple State, The Filaments etc. All good stuff! If only it'll let me buy the Vanilla Pod album I wanted... For some reason it won't let me add money to the account I opened with SecureAccount.net. Damn technology, making me get excited for nothing. Imagin a shop doing that - getting to the till, you give them your card, they swipe it etc etc then they say "Sorry, you can't have it now - computer says 'no'". Thinking about it, that happened once...

It was at Sainsbury's in Lancaster, it was near the end of term so the student loan and overdrafts were almost empty. However, I knew I had about £20 in my account so I made sure I only spent about £10. Got to the till and they put the card through and the 'Till Operator' just sat there. I had a sense of impending doom and asked him what was happening. He replied along the lines of "it's just taking a while to go through, try not to worry". He then pressed the button to call the manager so I asked him what was wrong. He sat there, blank, as though we'd known each other for years and I'd just shat on him completely out of the blue...

The manager came along and the 'Till Operator' explained to the manager in some kind of gibberish code ("Code 50 to the fire sir, ten-hut") - the manager then turned to me and explained that "there's not enough money in your account for this purchase". "Bollocks" I thought, it's not even a tenner! At this point I was a bit (well, very) embarrassed as the queue of adult shoppers was building up mocking this poor, scruffy student for not having enough to buy £9.64 of groceries... Thankfully my mate, Scru', was there to bail me out and he paid it for me. He's from Knutsford, they're posh there and so had more money in his account. Either that or he didn't buy as many CD's as me...

So, anyway, after the whole embarrasing thing I went outside to the cash amchine to check my balance - I had £9.43... You'd have thought the bank would have let me go 21p over my overdraft wouldn't you?! Robbing sods...

Well, that'll do for now! See, It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be actually!

See ya

MaFt

This Isn't Goodbye, This Is I Can't Stand You

Mark and Travis (ex-Blink 182)'s new band, +44, have a song on their site at http://www.plusfortyfour.com - sounds pretty good. A bit like a blink b-side, but it should be good! Just a short advert today, nothing else. I promise there'll bea wonderful post tomorrow though.

MaFt

The Old Ones Are The Funny Ones!

Just been to guildford to see me grandma so she could see mini-MaFt. while we were in the care home brother-a sent a text to dad saying 'say hello to grandma'. dad passed on the message and she looked at me and pointed, then asked my dad 'well, who's that then?'. bless her! we took a few photo's too and some of the old biddies started saying how there must be a storm coming because of all the lightning! just to wind them up mrs-MaFt carried on taking photo's with the flash on... old people make me laugh! MaFt

Spam Up!

I see that Spam has been ressurected again but I feel that Monty Python had a better advertising plan than just saying 'Spam Up' - repetition of the word 'Spam' was much more effective!

So, anyway, I changed the settings on my email server to automatically delete my spam emails. Previously I received the email with a big list of reasons why Spam Assassin had labelled it as spam. You get to give it a numerical value that it marks as spam - i.e. if you have it set at 4.5 then it needs to receive 4.5 points to be labelled as spam. As most crap emails that I got were over 6 pointsi decided to set it to 6.1 and to automatically delete the annoying emails. It's great! I now only get on average 2 or 3 spam emails per week as opposed to 10-15 per day.

No more will I be plagued with offers to cure my impotence with cialis or viagra, to pay off my entire debt with no need to send any money, to get cheap pharma goods from china, to see butt-naked ladies doing unnatural things with dogs... There is one downside though, the various dead ministers/kings/pharoahs/jugglers of Africa will not be able to get in touch with me to let me know I've inherited their life-savings and that only I can help by providing them with a UK bank account. I think I can live with that though.

MaFt

Return Of The MaFti

OK, so I'm back at work now so no more mobile-blogging! Damn, that was a nightmare typing all that in predictive text...

So, what have a ya missed? Quite a few things actually! Mini-MaFt deciding he didn't want to sleep anymore and completely knackering me and Mrs-MaFt out every night. I've also been doing boring other things that just won't be of any interest to this blog; things such as: tidying, putting up Christmas decorations (no tree yet though), sorting through boxes of junk, learning the words for Uncle Yule (for the church Christmas presentation), trying to source a zimmer-frame for Uncle Yule, listening to radio-friendly pop-rock bands, eating Lemsip (it's one of those things I wouldn't recommend) and trying to author DVD's from a years worth of camcorder footage!

Speaking of Christmas trees, I wonder what the first purveyors of finest Christmas trees did for a living while their initial stock was growing? I'm guessing there would have had to have been at least 20 or 30 years until they had something even slightly saleable?

Right, I'm off to do some work for a bit!

MaFt

Carpets (again)

We got a new carpet fitted today in the lounge. we seemed to have picked a decent company this time as well! that's all for home improvements for now though! i might have a bit of time for sorting out holiday videos and burning DVD's from them. being a dad's dead tiring, does anyone want to borrow mini-MaFt for a week or three? you could use him to get money from ex-boyfriends by saying he's their son. all i ask is for a cut of 40% but if the taxman catches up it's nothing to do with me, and you could face a prison sentence for both fraud and child theft. like i say, it would all be your idea, and remember i can easily delete this blog entry... MaFt

Sleepless nights again...

Mobile blog again! mrs-MaFt ok but tired and in pain. mini-MaFt has a chest infection that the doctors don't seem to give a crap about! he can't breathe when he lays down which makes for great fun at night... surely they should give him an inhaler or nebuliser or something... poor little mite. ah well, see ya round. i'll have a lot of blog reading to do when i get back to work! MaFt

Mobile-Tastic!

I'm trying the email from a mobile blog entry today! sat in hospital waiting for mrs MaFt to get operated on. bored and hungry! currently writing christmas cards, how organised is that? it's not me who's organised though... not much else to say, let's hope i can remember the secret email to get this added to the blog. ooh, just looked out the window and it's snowing! the weather man was only 3 days late... see ya! MaFt

Ivy Saves The Day

I am going to hate Christmas when Mini-MaFt grows up! Sis-In-Law-H's daughter (Neice-S2 [Neice-S1 is Brother-T's daughter]) wanted a Barbie Pegasus Styling Horse Head Thing for Christmas, so Uncle-MaFt was called in to search t'internet to find one.

You'd think it'd be pretty easy. So did I - loads of shops sold them, but hardly any had them in stock... The best place to buy was from eBay where the average price ended up about £45 plus a fortune for postage, or Amazon who wanted £45 via a 3rd party seller. Argos had them for £19.99 and a fiver postage but none in stock for home delivery. So, I started checking stock levels at the local Argos stores. None. I spread myself further afield and found one in Keighley. So I reserved it and Mrs-MaFt, with the aid of Ivy the SatNav and some wonderful POI's she got to Keighley to pick the last one up from their store.

How much hassle? Far too much! When Mini-MaFt is bigger he can have a satsuma in a stocking and a Beano Annual. If he's lucky he can have a torch too.

MaFt

Illness

Yesterday I had a bout of squirty-bum. I was shivering and aching and it sucked big-time! Today I'm a bit better, but still have some squirty-bum. However, unlike last time I only took one imodium tablet and not three.

The League of Gent's was very good - the 2nd half was definately better than the 1st though. The first half was essentially a load of short sketches loosely tied together as being 'auditions' whereas the 2nd half was a simple piss-take of every pantomime ever written and/or performed. Highly recommended if there are any tickets left!

That's all for now.

MaFt

The Geeky Cats Are Behind You!

I've just bought a domain name for my geek site: garminpoi.co.uk using the money I got from Google Adsense. There's some change as well so I might get some sweets too and tell my dad it cost more than it really did. Do kids still do that these days?

We decided to keep the cats (for now). So Barnze: thanks for the offer, but I won't need your shotgun now.

Off to see The League Of Gentlemen Are Behind You tonight at George's Hall in Bradford. It should be good, apparently it's a pantomime. Well, knowing their characters I'm sure they won't be short of any dames. Why does most UK comedy revolve around blokes in dresses? Little Britain, Monty Python, The League of Gentlemen, Eddie Izzard...

Anyway, I have work to do, contrary to Brother-A's beliefs, I do actually do more than blogging here ;)

MaFt

Cats? Anyone?

We've come to the decision, and a bloody hard one too, that we're going to get rid of Kia and Tinkle. It's no good with Mini-MaFt cos they're not getting the attention they want (obviously Mini-MaFt takes up nearly all our time!) and they end up wrecking the couch and carpets etc etc. It'd be better for them in another house where they'll get attention. So, if you're around the Bradford area and want a couple of cats then drop me a line and we'll get it sorted.

I'll be sad to see them go, but times they are-a-changing.n

Here they are:

Kia	Tinkle

MaFt

PS - No sarcastic comments Barnze!

My Life Behind Bars

Thanks to User Bars and Rate My Pizza.

MaFt

Diet Coke

I stumbled across this: Ultra Ultra Rare Soda Can

It's an empty can of Diet Coke but it's still sealed. Wow... erm... great..?! I sent him an email asking about it:

"Hi, you say the can is fully submergible but the photo's clearly show it floating. Can you provide more infomation please? I really want to buy this piece of absolute tat."

I didn't use that last part...

His reply this morning was: "Sorry for the misunderstanding. What I mean't by submergible is that it can go under water and no water will be able to go in because the can is fully sealed. By using the word submergible, I was trying to emphasis the fact that it is sealed completely."

Now, my understanding of the word submergible is 'capable of being immersed in water or functioning while submerged'. By using the word submergible, the seller was trying to emphasise the fact that it is fully sealed - well, why not say it's fully sealed? If it was open it would still be submergible...

Needless to say, the seller is American!

MaFt

Fixed It!

Smart, I have my Device Manager back again now! Using a nifty tool called RegMon that shows everything happening in the registry. I opened up device manager and saw lots of entries in 'HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet\PCI' there were lots of clearly corrupt entries along the lines of $%&'()+,-./0123 repeated over and over and over. I just deleted these, and the ones in ControlSet001 and ControlSet003 and it'sback!

Fantastic! My PC is back to normal (ish).

MaFt

JUMP!

World Jump Day/

Don't forget now, they'll even send you an email reminder the day before ;)

MaFt

Photo's, Wedding, Movies, Broken Computers

My computer is being dumb - I have an empty Device Manager! It was dumber before but DTN recommended I try Registry Mechanic which fixed lots of the minor annoyances that had built up over time. In fact, it fixed 824 registry anomolies / errors! However, it didn't return my Device Manager. Not a major thing until I want to update som drivers - but I have a few more tricks up my sleeve from searching various forums.

Brother-A, who's getting married tomorrow (after the whole Mexico curfuffle they managed to get an emergency license usually given out to people with a terminal illness who want to make sure their finances are safe with a feisty young blond who 'really loves him for who he is, not for his money'...). Anyway, the point being that Brother-A asked me / I offered to make a DVD of photo's from the wedding and the service to show during the evening's partay. I seem to have been rather naive in thinking there'd be 10 or 20 photo's when in fact there are 251... I quick change of plan and I found that Google's Picasa will make photo's into a fancy, faded in and out etc, avi file that I can use to make a DVD. Best of all, it's free!

So, busy night tonight, busy day tomorrow (I also learnt last night that there's a rehearsal for the church christmas production [in which I've been asked to play an American country bumpkin called 'Uncle Yule'] in the morning...). I might get a rest on Sunday (doubt it though, Mrs-MaFt will have something planned!)

See ya

MaFt

Quiz Time

PC Driving Test

I got 30 out of 30 - I rule :)

Post a comment to let me know how rubbish you are and how good I am ;)

MaFt

Talk To The Car 'Cos The Hand Ain't Listening

I walked the 4.5 miles to work this morning. I couldn't blag a lift from my usual source cos he was starting earlier and I didn't want to pay £2 to get to work. So I walked. It took just over an hour which i didn't think was too bad!

On the way down I saw a new billboard poster for the new Ford Fiesta - my initial thought was that it looks like the old Vauxhall Corsa. Then I read a bit of the smaller print that said 'The New Voice-Controlled Fiesta'. Voice-controlled eh? Fantastic! I wonder how voice controlled it is. Is it just 'wipers on', 'wipers off', 'heater on' etc or have they gone the whole hog and got voice-controlled steering?

Imagine: 'turn left' and the car goes left; 'shit, the lights were red' and the car suddenly stops and reverses back a bit... All you'd need is sat-nav: 'in point one miles enter roundabout and take 3rd exit' - the car would do the rest and you'd get to sit back and relax.

The only problem I can see that there might be is in a car without sat-nav and husband and wife are arguing: 'turn left!', 'no! turn right!' and the car splits in two down the middle...

MaFt

Attack Of The Killer Ducks

At Ribby Hall (can't be bothered making a link, read yesterdays post!) our cottage was on the edge of a small lake / large pond. As you would expect, there were a lot of ducks around; fat ducks, i mean, really fat ducks. I don't think I saw any of them flying. I don't think any of them could.

They were a bit scary too. If you opened the door they assumed you would be feeding them (as if they needed it) and charged quackily towards the door. In fact, in order to get the fat quackers charging at you you merely had to flick the latch on the doors and they'd come running.

I filmed this happening, and if I get time to sort it out I'll post it on here in the next few days. For fat ducks, they can't half move quickly!

MaFt

Back Once Again (With The Renegade Masters, Beedum Bah-Hum Flibby Dib Tastic)

Does any one know the actual words of the song referenced in the title? Does anyone know which song I'm on about?!

Anyway, we've been away (again) on a Mini-MaFt free weekend at Ribby Hall. Right nice it was, but it was cold wet and windy for most of it - although we expected that anyway! Shame the fireworks on Blackpool Beach got cancelled cos of the wind. We're hoping to go again next summer and stay in one of the log cabins...

Not really been up to much else except for starting to move things up to the attic and doing a bit of singing/recording for another punk worship song. I'llpost a link whenI'm happy with the final mix!

That's all for now, got loads of washing to sort through - might even do some ironing as well.

MaFt

Carpet Fitters

Bloody carpet fitters are useless. In fact, any company to whom you pay money for them to come at an agreed time period are bloody useless. "We'll be there in the morning" - it's a big enough window - why not stick to it?!

Imagine the other way round:

Company: You promised to pay for the job when we'd finished.
MaFt: Yes.
C: Well, why haven't you paid?
M: I'll pay after you've finished it.
C: We've finished it, where's our money?
M: I'll pay when I'm ready to pay. I never said it would be as soon as you'd finished it.
C: But you promised!
M: I didn't, I just gave you a period when I should be able to pay. I'm not able to give you an exact time. It's not company policy...

It wouldn't wash, would it?!

MaFt

Minge

See Minge Here



I've been dying for something like this to happen with the Blogger word verification thing for comments... Shame that google won the race!

MaFt

Breaking The Clocks

I never realised how many things we owned that had clocks in them. yesterday we spent ages finding all the things that needed the clocks changing on them - I wish more things would change automatically!

Here's a rough list of what we had to change:
3 x wall clock (2 x bedroom, lounge)
4 x watch (2 x digital, 2 x analogue)
2 x digital camera
1 x digital camcorder
1 x oven
1 x microwave
2 x vcr (for some reason they didn't change on their own this time)
1 x car clock
1 x mp3 player

The only things that changed on their own were the Telewest Digital box and the computer!

Also, everything seems to break at the same time too... our hoover blew up the other day, the microwave is on it's way out, there's a hole in the back of the fridge (but at least the light still works) and my monitor has started flickering and wobbling!

Great!

MaFt

Back Safe

Been away for a week with family - getting called Aunt Maff by Neice-P! Family back from Mexico, shaken up but alive. Will post more later.

MaFt

Update On The Hurricane Wilma Thing...

Got a text today from Brother-A. It'd have been quite funny but given the circumstances I feel pretty damn sorry for them all.

"had no signal for a few days. But ok. Very grim.living hell actually. Left cinema, staying in piss filled car park 4 now All ok but nobody knows whats going on."

We were pissed that our vacuum cleanerjust blew up, but I guess that message kinda reminds me that things could be worse...

MaFt

PS - cheers for your concern guys (Barnze & Bli - must be a 'B' thing)

Panicing A Bit

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9710472/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4362076.stm#

Brother-A, Future-Sis-In-Law-S, Mum, Dad and S's parents are all in Mexico at the moment for the wedding. Last we heard they had been evacuated to Cancun, then again to a cinema and given a pillow and a blanket...

This sucks, it was supposed to be a happy time and I'm guessing the wedding on the island of Cozumel won't be happening on Monday...

MaFt

Yahoo!

I am officially a First Aider and officially tired. See ya soon!



MaFt

Difficulties

Evenin' all! Not blogged for a few days for a couple of reasons - we've started decorating the attic for proper now (and I'm tellin' ya, it's bloody hard painting with a small child. Their hair gets matted with paint for onething...) and I'm on a First Aid At Work course with old St. John so no interwebnet during the day :(

Anyway, got to get back to decorating but thought I should let ya know I aint dead!

MaFt

Since When Has A Geek Been So Popular?

My geek site has had 993 visits in the last 11 days! Wow, I'm impressed! I've also earned 74cents from Google AdSense since yesterday! That's where the money is, forget making the lives of diabetics easier...

MaFt

More Good News

Exubera has been approved for use in the EU - more info here: Nektar Press Release.

Steve-The-Builder has finished his part of the work, all that remains now is to patch in all the bits he missed (why can't professionals ever get it right?) and decorate away! It's just finding time to do it that's the problem...

Might post something more interesting later!

MaFt

Cats

Just followed a link on Barnze's blog to this forum thread by him: This Is Nottingham Forums

Made me laugh!! I mean, how can anyone not see the funny side of his posts? Even me, a cat lover (well, not really lover, usually cat luster - ya see they don't cry so much when they realise they've been used...) found some of them hilarious! Especially the Dyson one!

Check them out, and check out his cat-hating site too.

MaFt

128

This is my 128th post to this blog accoring to the Blogger Dashboard. Wow, 128 generally pointless articles ranging from badgers and cat murders to building design and fences. What a fascinating world I live in. Just a shame no one else is on the same planet...

Steve-The-Builder has nearly finished "The Great Attic Conversion" - which is nice, cos it means we'll be able to resume normality again and maybe live in a dust-free house. I bet it's done wonders to our lungs!

Mrs-L dropped her sprog the other day (congrats by the way, just in case you ever read this!) - they named him Mini-Mr&Mrs-L - it's a bit of a mouthful but it helps with anonymity ;) I was thinking on the way home yesterday (I do lots of random thinking when I'm on my bike) that if Mini-MaFt had been a girl it would have been a nightmare! Imagine having to write Mini-Mrs-MaFt every time?! That'd be four extra keystrokes every time (s)he was mentioned. It'd give me a high score in the non-existant National Alliteration Championships though. I'd have had aching hands by now, especially after 128 posts.

See ya!

Maxi-MaFt

Badgers

Badger Cull Must Be Considered

Kill the badgers? Why? All the one that I've seen has been dead anyway... What a waste of money, who cares if a cow has TB? It's gonna get cut up and eaten anyway.

For once, I'm on the side of the environmentalists - I don't think we should kill (let's face it, 'cull' is just a nice word for 'kill') the badgers. First of all they look ace and second of all I'd like to see at least one living one...

MaFt

Why Won't Anything Work Proper?!

Very tired, rather busy too! So short entry today!

So, here’s what I’ve been up to:

• Painting stair-well before new steps get put in (Steve-The-Builder has almost finished now)
• Seeing Brother-A and Future-Sister-in-Law-S off with a meal at the Connection last night (they’re off to Mexico to get married)
• Being woken up lots at night with a whingy Mini-MaFt who has decided he doesn’t want to sleep much (both me and Mrs-MaFt are knackered)
• Trying to sort out problems with the mailing list on the i3 site I did last week (note to self: don’t even bother trying to learn PHP – let the professionals do it and just steal their code!)
• Trying to get Outlook to book a room for a meeting at work (everyone else can do it, just not me…)

Anyway, that’s it for now! Will post more when I’m more awake and no so p**sed off!

MaFt

Dammit

I left my lunch at home... I'm hungry... I'm not looking forward to toast from the staff kitchen... I need more than that...

LIFE IS SO UNFAIR!

MaFt

PS - how's my melodramatical skills?

I've Been A Geek

I’ve been a bit of a geek… On the Pocket GPS World forums I’m seen as a bit of a guru in terms of the Garmin i3 SatNav we got the other month. Mainly because I like to mess with stuff and figured out how to get the speed camera database and loads of other POI’s (points of interest) onto it. So, fed up of being asked lots of questions about it (but rather pleased to be thanked so many times) I decided to set up one of those really geeky ‘How To’ web pages at http://maft.co.uk/i3 – it looks really crap at the moment but it didn’t take long to knock up. I intend making it a bit more of a mini-site with a few separate sections rather than just a single page, but it got twenty nine visits in the first three hours which isn’t bad! I’ve also had two emails already from people asking to be told when I upload a new file.

Groovy! Oh, to be popular!

MaFt

Christmas Badgers

It's the last day of September today. Can't believe how fast the year has gone so far... Mini-MaFt is almost four months old, I've been in this job, and by far my favourite, for over five months and it'll soon be Christmas!

It's Christmas now according to the few high street stores that have started their Christmas displays - and I'm sure there'll be more of them soon too. However, I'm not going to waste a whole post talking about how early shops get their Christmas stuff out cos no doubt if you click on the 'Next Blog' button there'll be a plethora of such posts. So I'm gonna be different and talk about Badgers.

Badgers are cute anaimals that live in the wild in Britain - they tend to hide away and only come out to be hunted. In my whole 25 years of life I've only seen one badger; it was dead on the side of the road somewhere in Kent.

There are three types of badger as high-lighted below:

1: Solid Badgers

Solid badgers tend to live in forests in houses that they call 'sets'

2: Liquid Badgers

Liquid Badgers are much more healthy - you don't get the fur stuck in your teeth and they make you feel all nice and friendly after a few

3: Gas Badgers
Gas Badgers are quite excitable and it's hard to find a photo of them in their natural state. They live near mushrooms and can be seen in action on this web site

Have a good weekend!

MaFt

Sandwiches? Everyone Likes Sandwiches

Barnze: Here's a bit of trumpet-punk for ya: Five Iron Frenzy - "At Least I'm Not Like All Those Other Old Guys"

So, last night after Steve-The-Builder had left we snuck/snook/sneeked (what the hell is the past tense of the verb 'to sneek'?) anyway, we went up to the attic with the aid of Steve-The-Builders ladder which he had mistakenly left behind. Thankfully, he wasn't growing weed in our attic, or any other illicit substances either. However, there were the bodies of three children that have been missing since 1944. They're not in a good state, as you'd probably expect. We assumed he was going to hide them behind the plasterboard so no one would ever find them but then they suddenly lifted their heads up, stared at us (we could see down their eyes into the darkest depths of hell itself) then disappeared with a puff. I have no idea why Steve-The-Builder also kept a puff in our attic - I presume to blow the dust away when he's cutting up bodies, ahem... i mean boards. So, it turned out to be a wonderful trick of the light through the new Velux window. If only Scooby and Scrappy had been around, they'd have twigged soon enough.

MaFt

The preceding post contained scenes of mild peril and should not have been read by small children. It may have contained some untruths too. Maybe.

Five Iron Frenzy

Even though they split up ages ago, Five Iron Frenzy are currently my favourite band. I've been listening to them on my mp3 player non-stop for the last 3 days now... Check them out if you like a bit of perky ska-punk, along with the singers new band: Roper

MaFt

HERE ME NOW!

Hello. Nothing really to report other than I left Thunderbird sending a big email this morning and forgot to close it (Norton takes ages scanning outgoing emails with big attachments so I had to leave it for a while). No big problem really, just means I can't check my email online cos whenever there's a new one it'll get downloaded straight away! Doh!

Last night I went for a curry after work with Leon (aka Tyke from Barnsley), Dave (aka DTN from Lancaster) and Thea (from Holland). It was very nice, and cool to meet Thea (never seen her before, she was staying with Tyke for the week) and good to catch up with Tyke who I've not seen since going to see Bowling For Soup last year! After curry we then went back to our for a bit to play with the cats before they went to a gig in Manchester.

So there, that's it! Boring eh?! Hopefully there'll be more news on the attic upgrade but Steve-The-Builder took the ladder down and we can't get up to see. Hope he's not growing weed or carrying out any other illegal hobbies while we can't check up on him...

Happy Birthdays to Mr-A and Dad - 27 and 59 respectively.

MaFt

i First, u Last

iFirstAid

This is quite a cool idea - you can download mp3 files from St John Ambulance to use on your mp3 player that tell you how to administer various types of first aid.

Nice idea in theory, but if I was lying damaged in the road and some random person came along to help me I'd expect them to have a bit more knowledge than "Oh, I downloaded my first aid skills from the internet". I can just see them listening to the instructions while carrying out the first aid - rather than actually learning it beforehand. I'm doing a St John Ambulance first aid course in October so I might just tell them I'll download the instructions and have four days off work instead...

Put my life in the hands of some iPod fashion victim? I'd rather eat a tomato...

MaFt

PS - I don't like tomatoes

Mmmm, Pie!

This is suitable material for an episode of 'Weebl and Bob' - all about pi(e)

Clicky here

MaFt

Just Wondering...

My brother, Mr-A, told me recently that he feels obliged to read my blog cos he has Thunderbird set up to use the rss feed and it pops up everytime I post.

So, this is basically just an open question: do you still feel obliged to read? Even after posting the 'super hero' photo?

MaFt

(Worm) Holes

We have a bloody great big hole in our landing wall. Our perfectly good landing wall. A hole... This is now the point of no return in "The Great Attic Conversion". Apologies for the naff quality of the photo but I still haven't turned my PC on yet so I emailed this from my phone:


The Hole

A great thing about Blogger is that you can, if you so desire, set the date and time of the post to whatever you want. Useful for when you're doing a 'learning a new thing everyday' blog and you forgot to post one day... ;) So, just to make you aware I have now got my hands on a time machine and am writing this from the future. The future isn't actually orange - it's pretty much the same but you've all aged more than me. However, to avoid drawing attention to myself I've decided to set Blogger to use 'Old Time' dates (that's what we call 'The Past' here - we're so crazy in future world) so no one will ever know.

Take care back there in Old Time.

MaFt (the capital 'F' is for Future)

Gone Phishing

Dunno why but I decided to follow up on one of those "Your PayPal account needs updating" spoof's. They certainly look the part. Just write any old bollocks in the sign in page and you get asked to input the following:

"Update Your Paypal Account:
Enter Your Information

Your Address Information - Begin building your profile by entering your name and address as you have it listed for your credit card or bank account.

First Name:
Last Name:

Address 1:
Address 2:
(optional)
City:
State:
ZIP Code: (5 or 9 digits)
Country:

Home Telephone:

Work Telephone:
(optional)

Credit Card - Update your credit card for your security

Name on Credit Card:
Card Type :
Number on Credit Crad:
Expiration Date:
Card Verification Number:
PIN: (Why is your PIN required?)
Bank Routing Number:
Bank Account Number:
Mother's Maiden Name:
Social Security Number: "

Why would anyone fill this out? I mean, there must be some people that do else the spoofers wouldn't carry on!

The bit that made me laugh most was when you click the "Why is your pin required" link it gives you this:

"Why is your PIN required?

From December 10th 2004 PayPal requires your Personal Identification Number. This is the latest security measure against: identity theft, credit card fraud and unauthorized account access. PayPal will verify it with your bank records for your own protection.

If you provide a wrong PIN your account will be suspended for unauthorized account access. Due our latest security improvements PayPal became a global leader in online payments."

How cheeky are these people...?

MaFt

Windows

No, I'm not on a mission from Microsoft, but just telling my dear readers that we now have a window in the attic. However, Steve-The-Builder has removed the loft ladder so I couldn't get up to see what else he did yesterday... I'd also post some photo's of the work so far but my computer is turned off ready for when he starts knocking walls down and has to switch off the electrics.

I hate turning my computer off! It freaks me out every time! I don't know why though, I think I just got used to it being on all the time and panic that it won't start up again later on... If I had wood I'd touch it (that sounds a bit rude) in the hope that it will assist in restoring power to my PC. Question for you: where does the phrase 'touch wood' come from? I could google it but can't be bothered - today I want the moon on a stick.

Take care

MaFt

Sleeptastic

At half past 18pm in the evening last night I went to lie down for half an hour with Mini-MaFt. Next thing I knew Mrs-MaFt was waking me up and saying "It's quarter-to-ten", "really?", "Yes".

My first thought was "I have never been this late for work..." and then it slowly dawned on me that it was 9:45pm not am and I was still fully clothed! Bizarre. Still, At least I caught up on a bit of sleep!

MaFt