Getting Closer

Time seems to be wittling away for the Punk Worship night! It's in 2 weeks on Saturday! It's been through various phases since our initial idea back in June/July of last year and it's getting pretty exciting if I'm honest! I've just had a call that our 6foot by 2foot banner is ready - if you want to see it you'll have to come on the night!

I also found these guys: Sounds of Salvation - a band of 10 who do Ska-Worship down in Reading. Pretty cool actually!
See ya around

MaFt

Time To Be Childish

I found this: Glossary For International Recruits

Apparently it's a glossary for foreign GP's put out by the Doncaster NHS Primary Care Trust. Why am I mentioning it? Well, it has 14 different words for 'penis' including my all-time favourite of 'todger'!

MaFt

Smashing!

My CD collection is spread about the house. There are a hundred or so singles in a box in a cupboard in the attic, there are about 80 CD's in the stand in the lounge and the remaining 400 or so albums are in storage cabinets in the attic. Every so often I grab a handful or CD's from the tower in the lounge and swap them for a handful of CD's from the attic just to mix things up a bit and provide some variation. Generally I need to go up to the attic to find a CD that I want to listen to (at least until I get a network sorted out and a media player connected to said network) seeing as only 15% of my CD's are easily accessible at any one time.

Last night I fancied some music and reached for the CD's in the lounge and grabbed at random - I pulled out The Offspring's 1994 album, 'Smash'. I've not listened to this for ages and had forgotten how good an album it actually is! If you've not heard it then go check it out, you never know, you might enjoy a slice of classic 90's American punk rock. I put it on in the car again this morning - great way to start the day!



MaFt

Teethgrinder

Mini-MaFt, having recently acquired some top teeth, has got into the habit of grinding his teeth. It's one of the few things, along with cotton wool (it squeeks, it's bloody awful!), that succeeds in making me cringe! I've asked a few people at work who said their kids did it for a while but not for long. So, with any luck he'll stop soon!

Until then, I'll just have to entertain myself singing Therapy?'s great 1992 song, Teethgrinder:

This feels good, nothing can stop me
Every nerve pumping hard through me
Every thought rushes at full speed
This false smile grates through babyteeth

(I'm a teethgrinder) Teethgrinder (In my sleep I grind my teeth)
(I'm a teethgrinder) Teethgrinder (In my sleep I grind my teeth)



MaFt

The Peoples Petition

http://www.thepeoplespetition.org.uk

Sign up, help us all benefit from medical research!

From the site:

"Like almost every human being alive today, I benefit from medical research using animals. Apart from this I have no vested interest in research. I'm not a doctor or a researcher. I don't work for a drugs company or own shares in one. I don't even have a scientific background.

I wanted a way to show people who carry out medical research that I value and support their work and that I want to see this important work continue in Britain.

To do this I approached the Coalition for Medical Progress with my idea because they shared my view.

The UK has some of the strictest controls on the use of animals in medical research in the world. You can find out more about these standards here.

If you share my belief in the value of this research then I urge you to add your name to The People's Petition."

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