Human Tetris

Daft. Funny. Japanese game show turns contestants into a human Tetris game...

Acapella Version of Come On Eileen

The clue's in the title:

A Thousand Words...

I love a good photo. 

By that I don't mean when you didn't chop granny's head off in those pics from Majorca. 

No. I mean those fantastic pictures you see in high end newspapers and magazines. The sort of pictures that stay in your memory for a little while longer than you might expect. 

Some of the best images from the likes of Annie Leibovitz, Herb Ritz and Richard Avedon are on display in this great website

It is divided into fashion, sports, journalism etc. Click on the links at the bottom to select a new category.

  

John Smeaton: One Man against Al-Quaeda

Meet John Smeaton, a baggage handler at Glasgow airport and part time superhero. John was responsible for helping subdue or "banjo" (his words) one of the terrorists following the abortive attack on Glasgow Airport.

"Come to Glasgow and we'll set about you"

Basically he kicked the guy in the nuts. Well and truly. Since then, and deservedly so, John has become something of a hero. Al-Quaeda foolishly assumed that the Scots would be a soft target. Clearly Osama has never spent a Saturday night on the piss in Glasgow.



Read more here and here about this latterday Braveheart.

Spanish Property Podcast

Mark Stucklin, he of the Sunday Times & SpanishPropertyInsight.com, writes:

The Spanish property market’s obituary may have been written prematurely, but
much of the news coming from the market is far from reassuring.

Certainly agents on the Costa del Sol have had busier times. For the best part of 10 years prices rose, buyers came and houses sold. Whilst the predicted crash has failed to materialise, times are certainly leaner, with some agents either closing their doors, focusing on rentals, or looking to overseas markets.

Darwin. Natural Selection. Survival of the fittest. The market will find some kind of balance and every other shopfront will not be an estate agents. For a more educated stab at the future of the Spanish market, listen to these three knowledgable gas bags. (Its a Podcast, buy some speakers you pikey).

Microwave Tomfoolery

Remember those 1970's safety films? They were usually about looking both ways crossing the road, not smoking in bed, and not getting into strange Ford Cortinas.

Well maybe there should be one about Microwave oven safety. For example did you know that water can superheat and 'explode' if microwaved under certain conditions?

Well step forward one brave expert who has decided to test various substances in his mum's microwave:

http://www.u-starvin.com/micromaniac/index.html

By the way my favourites are the Xmas lights (yes, really) and the eggs.

Addictive Games Alert

I apologise to your boss/spouse/significant other [delete as appropriate] in advance:

Wii Arcade - tons of addictive and rather cool-looking games here. Not from the Nintendo people, but all good fun. My fave? Bunker. You just kill everything.

Bloxorz - enjoyable, good looking puzzle game.

Crossword with a difference, no clues!

DrawPlay - help your little man get to the flag, by drawing his path with your mouse. It's better than it sounds, honest. And there's a funky soundtrack.

Doing it for the kids

Look at these creative young engineers/vandals.

Britain's Got Wind

Paul Potts - the opera singing mobile phone salesman who won Britain's Got Talent - is now making a splash stateside. But fortunately for them, they won't see his first attempt at impressing the judges:

Social Events and Social Sites

Went to the wedding of a very old chum last weekend and had a great old time. Managed to lose the nice silk tie I bought at Malaga Airport, and instead found myself rushing round the local TK Max for any old nylon nasty.

Also, I still don't own a digital camera, so all the pics I took were on my mobile phone. "Mills, you pikey, buy a proper camera" etc...

Also I think I was one of the few single people there, as the smug marrieds kept pointing me towards anything with a few teeth and a pulse.

Anyhoo, my insecurities and general social faux pas aside, it was a fantastic couple of days. I received a rather nice set of stirling silver collar stiffeners (yes, really!) for being an usher.

Now, I have a phone full of pictures, whats the best way to share them? And flickr sprang to mind. Its great.

Nice suit chunks, so whats flickr then?

Its a photo sharing website, first and foremost. But its also one of those modern web 2.0 type sites where you comment, create groups and the whole social web thingy. But basically the 2 best things I have found is that:

• You can download a widget to your pc which allows you to upload one or more pics at the click of your mouse.


• You have a permanent online repository of all your pics. You can link to them from your blog and/or send the url to anyone you want to share the pics with.
  

All rather clever. I even found some fun flickr based sites such as:

• Flickr tag browser - a funky search app that lets you search all the pics uploaded and suggests related keywords. Try finding those photos of Britney without her knickers on for example.


• flickrvision - a semi voyeuristic worlwide insight into what people are uploading real time.
  

Have fun, but really, I don't want to see any pictures of your cats.

Go on Safari

Hey... I am writing this post using Safari.

What's that then fatty?

Well, Safari is a browser (like Internet Explorer and Firefox) but has only been available to Mac owners. Up until now that is. It is made by the Apple people and they have just made it available for Windows users for the first time.

What piqued my curiosity was their bold claim that Safari renders HTML and javascript way faster than the more popular browsers. "Blazing Performance" their website claims:

The fastest web browser on any platform, Safari loads pages up to 2 times faster
than Internet Explorer 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2.

So, you're saying I can download my naughty websites even faster?

Hmmm, they say that, but I am yet to be convinced. Whilst I like how it makes web pages look, I am not sure that it renders them any faster. Anyway, have a go yourself - it looks quite funky (like most Apple stuff).

http://www.apple.com/safari/

Best Game Ever

Man, this is so addictive

http://www.shockwave.com/content/shuffle/sis/shuffle.swf

Manga Meets Matt Groening

Ever imagined the Simpsons and Futurama as Japanese Manga cartoons? Someone has:



Oddly unsettling isn't it?

Steven Wright

No, not the BBC Radio DJ, with his Sunday Love Longs crap, but the oddly funny American comedian who says things like:

It doesn't matter what temperature the room is -- it's always room temperature.

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?

And my favourite:

Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?

Read his musings over at http://twitter.com/stevenwright

When I'm drunk...

... I like to take photos of other people wearing my glasses - apparently:











I only realised this recently when I noticed all these specky gits on my phone camera.

Its bordering on a fetish really, isn't it? The power of alcohol. Spot which is me?

Batgirl Spotted In Valencia

Apologies, dear reader for my absence of late, but I have been on a mind bending, liver busting fortnight's holiday.

It all began with 2 good friends who came to visit and ended with a 4 day, 16 man stag-athon featuring a particularly unconvincing Batgirl. In rural Spain. The locals were suitably unimpressed.


The real joy was discovering Valencia on the second night (no comedy drag superheroes in tow this night). In between ordering 16 Jack Daniels & cokes, I realised what a cool city this is. Fantastic architecture melding with trendy cafe life, plus some superb places to eat (as well as drink). There was a thumping concert on in the bullring when we arrived, and the following day we shook off our hangovers to go and watch the World Touring Car Championships at the motor racing circuit.


Great Stuff. Anyway Millsbomb is slowly getting back to normal, so expect the usual tat shortly.

Madeleine McCann

Madeleine McCann, as you all must be aware by now, was abducted from Praia Da Luz in Portugal some 10 days ago. She will be 4 years old today.

One avenue that the authorities are investigating is that Maddie may have been taken across the Portuguese border into Spain. There has already been a widespread awareness campaign by groups of expats in various areas of Spain and Gibraltar.

You can help by posting a picture of Maddie in your local shops, bars, restaurants, wherever.

Sky News website has a useful poster for people to download and print off.

Unfortunately at the time of writing this their website appears to be flooded with requests for info, so the link is temporarily unavailable.

Update: The Liverpool Echo has a poster available for printing/emailing here.

If you think you have any information, no matter how insignificant, please call the Portuguese investigation team on +351 218 641 000.

A Mother's Journey

I stumbled across this today, it is the 2007 Pulitzer photography winner. The series of photos are entitled A Mother's Journey. I don't normally post stuff like this, but I just found it utterly compelling.

http://www.sacbee.com/static/newsroom/swf/april07/mother/

Time Lapse

This is quite beautiful, its made by a chap called Ollie Larkin.

Whacky Races

The next time someone complains about the driving in Spain, show them this, its from a busy junction somewhere in India.