Darfuria

If you head to this page on my website, you’ll see the image gallery I have set up on my website. I’ll no doubt replace this when I can use Flip Gallery, however, for now it’s pretty damn good.

A colleague at work, owner of flipflops.org, has just released his very own WordPress plugin, Flip-Gallery. It is an easy-to-use image gallery which is configurable through the WordPress dashboard. Version 0.2 is available to the public, and I’m sure he would like as many people as possible to download and test it, to get some feedback and perhaps begin a knowledge base type thing.

Unfortunately I am currently unable to demonstrate the gallery on my blog, as the blog needs to be installed in the root directory of the webspace for it to run. However, in later versions this issue may be delt with, and I am soon changing webhost which means things will be setup differently.

Regardless, check it out and leave some feedback, as open-source development always deserves recognition, and image galleries kick ass.

I was running a little late today (but thankfully made it into town today in time to catch the bus to work), and when I was sitting on the bus at the bottom of the hill, the driver was waiting until he was happy to leave and begin the route (you’d expect him to leave at a timetable-defined time, but we all know they leave when they feel like it). Whilst I was sitting on the bus, looking around at the scenery I’ve seen practically every day I’ve left the house, I saw a woman coming out of her house.

Her front door opens out onto a very small (under 3′) front garden type thing, which leads to the pavement, and then obviously the road is right next to that. She walked down the path towards her car, which was directly opposite her door. Just as she got onto the pavement, she stopped, turned around, walked back and shook the handle violently, to check that she had locked the door. Fair enough, I thought. Better to be safe. So I watched her turn around again and walk back to her car. However, she didn’t make it, and again she walked back to her door, shook the handle violently, understood that the door was locked, and turned around.

Yeah, you guessed it, again she didn’t make it. By this time I just thought she was being weird. Either that or I was suffering really, really bad déjà vu. She walked back to her door again and shook the fucking door handle. I was actually realtively tempted to get off the bus and shout “the door is fucking locked, you daft bitch!”, but alas didn’t due to being so bloody tired. So, once she’d decided that the door was definitely locked, she turned around to her car. I watched her and thought “you can’t do it!”, but she did! She walked back again. I had to look away, feeling really annoyed, actually. However, I found that I couldn’t not watch this perfect display of idiosyncratic imbecility.

She turned around again, and actually made it to the car this time, but I kid you not, she did this another three times (that’s a total of seven times), before she actually managed to get into her car and pull away. I think the driver of the bus must have been watching with a feeling of both complete awe and desperation, because as soon as she pulled away, he started the engine and did so too.

I was so bewildered by that event that I had to close my eyes for a minute. I knew exactly where I was anyway. I literally do know the bus route by road name, with my eyes closed.

I opened my eyes about 5 minutes later and noticed a woman I recognised get on the bus. I don’t know her - I just often see her on my way home. She sat on the seat infront of me and began flicking her hair somewhat profusely. She then proceeded to lean forwards and sit back again, which I do if I’m sitting against my hair and it’s pulling. However, the way she was doing it was quite rhythmical, almost like an anatomical drum beat. Annoyingly I could feel it everytime she sat back again, because buses were designed by some vertically challenged bastard who was bitter about everyone else being taller than him, so he thought he’d punish us by giving us no fucking leg room, and to top it off, her constant posture changing was out of time with the music I was listening to - and there’s really nothing worse than things that have a beat being out of time with eachother.

I was glad to arrive in town and be away with all of the bizarre obsession that was occuring.

On a completely different note, someone at work pointed out a rather amusing definition on the jargon buster page of one of our partner’s websites:

I’ve always enjoyed reading forums and posting on them. I feel that they’re a good way of getting to know lots of information, and meeting lots of new people. They’re an escape from instant messaging without escaping from communication. I’m a member of a fair few forums, and have left many behind me, however, one of the ones I visit regularly is the unofficial forum for the World of Warcraft server I play on.

This forum is used by a lot of the players on this server to generally discuss and share a range of things. People often use the boards to say their goodbyes if they are leaving the game, as a lot of friends are made in online games, and you find that you become part of a big community. However, one of the things that is popular with World of Warcraft is the buying and selling of accounts on Ebay.

Recently a post was made on these forums explaining that one of the server’s popular players was killed in a car accident. The player’s brother made the post, this is what it said:

Hello

For those of you who knew Magebloom or one of his alts I’m afraid to say that he wont be playing his character again as he was killed in a car accident at 12:15 this afternoon. I (his brother) will be on his account from time to time as he asked me to in the ambulance before he passed away.

Gavin
(Adam’s brother)

if this is in the wrong section please move it, thank you

Now, note the key parts of that forum post: “killed in a car accident” and “before he passed away”.

Obviously people replied to this post with kind messages, “RIP”, “Condolences”, etc. However, the same person posted this 2 days later:

Just to update you, we are going to the hosptal shortly to turn off the life support system Adam is plugged into and his funeral is set for Friday at midday. Thank you once again for your continued support and words of comfort during this time.

Gavin

If you remember the key points in the last post, this post suggests that Adam is still alive. Then, a little over 2 hours later, this:

We turned off the machine but it seems as though his body has taken back control of his vital systems, the doctors say he is in a deep but stabel coma and are going to run tests this afternoon to check for brain activity or brain death. *fingers crossed*

Gavin

Now, unfortunately any replies to this topic where the poster is pointing out the obvious suspicion are being deleted by moderators. I’m not a horrible person, really, but this does smell quite strongly of bullshit, and generally quite a dramatic way to say goodbye to people you’ve played with on the same server, just to sell your account on Ebay, or something.

Currently, as the forum thread is, no link to an official BBC or similar news post has been posted.

You will conform and comply, for we, Microsoft, are your God, and you are the ants of the hill of technology. We hold the magnifying glass, the sceptre of all that is right in the computing industry, and you, the crawling minions, will obey by our rules, or suffer.

First the smoking ban. Then the new tax legislation scare. Then the photography license. Now Microsoft are trying to destroy all that’s good.

This has actually annoyed me. Really annoyed me, in fact. I have Vista installed on my laptop, and it’s pretty much a pile of crap, which means if I ever want to build a new computer, or build one for someone else, I have to buy Vista, or hope I can get my hands on a copy of XP. I wouldn’t recommend Vista to anyone. It’s slow, cluttered and broken. It’ll need at least one service pack to fix it.

It’s not even a money thing; Vista Home Premium, the version most people would go for, is atleast £20 cheaper than XP Professional. We’re just being forced to use something which is awful. There are fucking hundreds of reasons not to use Vista, and XP is actually a pretty decent operating system.

I’m going to be buying 4 or 5 copies of XP Professional just in case I need them, before the beginning of next year. This is bull shit.

Note, post title in reference to “all your base are belong to us”.