BBC Top Gear - (SOS) Save Our Show
There's been a lot of publicity about Top Gear since it was brought back to our TV screens back in 2002, especially the environmentalists and saddos stating it glorified speed, dangerous driving and promotes irresponsible driving,

This all seems ridiculous, the driving shown on the program mainly takes place on the track when required for speed, yes the presenters also do ridiculous timed races against sky divers, cyclists and even fellow presenters, I've no doubt the driving tha takes place on the public roads is completely legal.

Yes, Richard Hammond had an accident while driving a jet powered car at 300 mph on a private road, but accidents do happen, whether at 25 mph or 700 mph, does this mean we should ban the program he was filming it for. How stupid, secondly all safety checks were in place and nothing was left to chance Jeremy Clarkson has written an article about it here.

While we're at it, lets ban motor racing for the speed the drivers drive at, movies for promoting violence, horror, death etc, house music for drugs, rap music for guns, and don't forget to ban Fifth Gear on Channel 5 and Pulling Power on ITV as they are car shows that sometimes show interesting fast cars, we actually need to ban all cars that can do more than 70 mph, anything that can go above this speed is obviously promoting excess speed.

(Then again, why not just ban Fifth Gear and Pulling Power for being crap Top Gear wannabees anyway, Sorry Quentin and Tiff).

There are 350 million Top Gear viewers worldwide, they don't all want to drive their Mondeos Vectras, and MPVs as fast and stupid as possible, they just enjoy the show, and watching what The tall one, the hamster and the posh one do.

Sign the petition and tell the Anti Top Gear people what you think. Top Gear should be back on 8 October, we'll see.

1 Year of Blogging...... (and Here's an Iron)Happy Birthday to Me... (Blog)
Happy Birthday to Me... (Blog)
Happy Birthday Dear DamianLByrnedotBlogspotdotCom
Happy Birthday to Me (Blog)

A year ago today I started blogging about bugger all, what do I have to show for it, the same - Bugger all , no new gadgets, no flash car, no big TV, nothing new..... (I think I can hear them violins).

I guess I should think myself lucky however as I do have lots of lovely things despite not being new, my lovely car (not new), my our new house (soon/new) , my fiancee (new), my our TV 2 (soon/new), my pisshead friends (new every so often), my forever growing family, my new drink.

Oh and I bought an iron yesterday.

Fit The Best....

I've just been watching Inside Out on BBC, (The East Midlands regional version) and a blast from the past appeared on the screen...
Ted Moult - while racking my brains trying to remember where I knew the name and more recognisably, the voice, it suddenly came to me, Everest Windows. He's the man that said

"Fit the Best, Everest"

What shocked me however, is that he is a Derbian (i.e. from Derby), not only a voice everyone remembers, but a local legend too, he even has an entry at IMDb. I wondered if there is any other famous people born in my wonderful town.

Simon Groom (Blue Peter)
Kevin Lloyd (The Bill)
Terry Lloyd (ITN News Reporter)
Keli Young (Liberty X Singer)
Judith Hann (Tomorrows World Presenter & The sister of my home economics Teacher at School).

Derby - What a place, what history, with all these Derby links, its a wonder we're not overcrowded with tourists. Home of the first Public park in England, home of the one time largest housing estates in Europe, Home of Rolls Royce since 1908, birthplace of the Hot Dog, home of Richard Arkwright, Sir Frank Whittle and The Rams, (Well we can't be 100%)

So Come on Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Nottingham. What have you got.... Apart from more than one football team?

Wikipedia - Natives of Derby, Derby Photos

If It Ain't Broke, Dont Try to Fix it - If It Is Send it Back

Read a great idea over at Lifehacker.
Rather than throw all your old damaged crap out of warranty broken items, why not send it back for a new one. Although I'm sure this is highly unlikely, trying it should only cost a couple of quid,

"Rather than just sending your broken stuff to a landfill, pack it up and ship it back to the manufacturer with a letter asking for a new one. You will be amazed by the results. There are no guarantees with this method, but you definitely won't get a replacement if you throw the product away. This method gets rid of the product just as much as throwing it away does, but it gives a human being at a real company a chance to demonstrate just how much they stand behind their products. You'd be surprised how many will. A squeaky wheel gets oiled. It works, and the trick is all in the letter."

You could try this with your broken ipod nano screens, PDAs, Mobile phones. Slim chance of getting a new ipod from Apple I'm sure.I'm going to have to try this, just to see.

Full Story @ Lifehacker

* Doesnt work with broken hearts,

New Home

Just over 4 weeks to go before we move in together, I have resisted in buying anything for both my house and our house, Im leaving SWMBO to buy the plates, bed linen, towels, cutlery, bathroom stuff. As long as I dont have a pink bedroom I'm not that fussed.


When it comes to the Electrical equipment, that's a different matter, while trying to explain the requirements of the LCD HD TV (37", 3 HDMI inputs (SKY HD, HD DVD Player and PS3), as well as a DVI just in case and 1080p ready). SWMBO gave me the blah blah blah look, Wimmen !!!

As I have already picked the TV that does all of the above, when SWMBO agrees to make the purchase, Ill go and get it and show her how to work it (The TV that is), after all, she is fully SKY+ savvy, HD should be a doddle once we do upgrade, at the moment there aren't that many HD channels to justify the extra £10.00 (10 channels of which 2 are Sky Box Office) and I'm sure SWMBO isn't too bothered about neighbours being in standard def.

Richard Hammond - Wishing you a speedy recovery

Richard 'Hamster' Hammond, The presenter of 2 of my favourite TV shows (Top Gear & Brainiac) was involved in a car crash while filming for Top Gear today.

From BBC News

The presenter is being treated at Leeds General Infirmary
Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond is in a critical condition in hospital after a crash in a jet-powered car while filming for the programme.

The presenter, 36, was taken by air ambulance to Leeds General Infirmary which has a special neurological unit.

A North Yorkshire Ambulance Service spokesman said he was unconscious when they got to the scene and a hospital spokesman described him as "critical".

The BBC confirmed the presenter had been injured during a Top Gear shoot.

Inspector Mike Thompson, of North Yorkshire Police, said officers were dealing with the incident at Elvington airfield, a former RAF base, in North Yorkshire.

He said: "At 5.45pm this evening we received a report via the fire service of a male person trapped in what was described as an overturned jet car which had been driven on the airfield.

"The male occupant has received serious injuries and has been airlifted to hospital at Leeds."

The presenter was born in Birmingham, educated in Yorkshire and lives near Cheltenham.

In addition to presenting Top Gear for the BBC, he also fronted Brainiac on Sky One until recently.

Here's to a speedy recovery

Remembering 9/11

- Sold -

And who said this house selling was hard work.

3 days on the market and my wonderful Bloke palace has been sold, thats the good news

The better news is the house we were desperate to buy is ours (Well "Subject to Contract" anyway).

Its all running scarily smoothly, even the solicitors seem to be working efficiently, I keep thinking there's something I'm obviously doing wrong, so far without a hitch, I did my usual Interweb search to see how to make my life easier when moving house, having a new mortgage, getting house insurance, there are some seriously helpful sites out there to help with the hardest of tasks when moving house

Help I Am Moving gives a guide to moving, printable checklist, moving quotes for removal firms.
I am Moving lets you add your current address, new address and helps with the address changing stuff for utility companies, credit card companies, councils etc, I have only added my details as I haven't got the moving date yet, but so far so good.

The following sites are the ones which have the potential to save a great deal of money, not just when moving house.

Money Supermaket and Money Saving Expert have the ultimate guides in to mortgages, home insurance etc. Personally saving approx. £200 a month on a mortgage and halving my home insurance all in less than an hour.

Officially Olde

Not content with selling up bachelor pad and buying a house with SWMBO, I have have had further reminders that I am getting old. During my Friday night in alone, flicking through my 200 channels of crap Sky. Channel Five were doing a typical "50 worst things nobody really gives a shit about". aka ""

This one was "Now That's Embarrassing: The 80s: Eighties". I confess to watching 2 minutes and then had to watch the rest of it to see just how sad I really was (I remember the eighties you know).

Some Highlights...

Dallas/Dynasty (Watched it)
Shootings, shoulder pads, oil barons balls and the longest dream ever

The Krankies (Didn't watch it)
So right but Oh so wrong, A Man and a boy that was actually a man and his (short) wife...... (Nuff said)

Sam Fox with her song "Touch me" (Bought it)
I bought that on a 7" (For younger people, a 7" is a vinyl record, before the days of Cee Dees), seems to have been remixed

The Wide Awake Club, (Wacaday) (Watched it - all the time)
Malletts Mallett (Its a word association game, musn't pause, mustn't hesitate or you get a bash on the head) (Alcohol version of Malletts Mallet)

Number 2 - The Shellsuit (Had one)
Cheap, bright coloured crap looking crepe paper styled tracksuits. That when accidently set alight !!!! burnt "quite well"Damn - I had one of these, mine was a Nike Michael Jordan Black and White - 80's Chavwear

and Number 1... (remember watching it)
That Weather report from Michael Fish"Phone call woman rang the bbc and said there was a hurricane on the waym if youre watching dont wrry there isnt"followed by the worst hurricanes in 300 years ,winds of over 110mph, flooding. Poor Michael....

Not sure if I missed it, but surely the rubik's cube must be somewhere, (DOWNLOAD)

Therefore...I am bloody old....

The end of an Era

So now, the time is here
the time to sell, with carpets & curtains.
to all, I'll say it clear
I am nervous, that much I'm certain

I've lived here 7 years, I'm selling up
Ill do it my way
Move in, with SWMBO now
Joining "couple" highway
=--------------------------------------=

That's it, Damo is selling his "bachelor pad" to buy up with SWMBO, I say bachelor pad, of the 7 years I've been here, 5 have been with SWMBO, however it was exactly what I wanted;

lads night Saturdays, DVDs, Playstation 2, Fishtank, Surround Sound, Big TV, Lots of kitchen utensils, TV with Sky in every room.... BLISS

So now its all gonna change, it'll more like, Lads night Saturdays, DVDs, Playstation 3, Fishtank, Surround Sound, Big(ger) LCD HDTV, New kitchen utensils, TVs with Sky HD In every room

Women eh, they don't half change you......

Its all down to the Estate Agent and Rightmove to get my house sold, although I thought I would give them a helping hand. For some reason I don't entirely trust estate agents, although I have picked the best of the bunch (hopefully)

Life Wife Laundry

A few Months (Years) ago, I made a promise to SWMBO. I promised I would clear out all the crap and clutter from my house and make the 1 bedroom studio flat into the 3 bedroom semi it actually is, well despite all the visits to various websites (Lifehacker, OrganizedHome, Yell etc) giving advice on life laundry, house clearances and the best way to sort through years and years of clutter, nothing ever got done....

That is, until SWMBO decided to make even more of an honest man of me and decided she wanted to move in together (Cue the Duh Duh Duhs). We She has found a house (unfortunately near to the Monster-in-Law) and wants to buy it, we have put the offer in and done all the calculations to ensure we cant afford it and hopefully should be moving soon.


SWMBO has done in less than 2 weeks, more than I could managed in 6 years, Its a shame I cant show before and after pics, but previously, no-one could get in 2 of my 3 bedrooms, now they are empty. Its all gone,

Advantages - My house is a home and not a storage area full of crap
Disadvantages - I can't actually find anything, nor do I know if I still have the stuff I am looking for.

Moral - Guys, Dont waste time and money looking for those Kim & Aggy style life laundry people or looking at websites advising on how to clear years and years of shite. Simply invest in a Clare. In my opinion "everybody needs a Clare", Ive had 2 (One didnt work but thats a story not for the blogs).

The other advantage - Damo gets "HD Ready" (TV, SKY, PS3, DVD), I just wont tell SWMBO just yet !!!!

By the way - Thanks Clare !!!!!

Testing BlogJet

Irony \I"ron*y\, n.[L. ironia, Gr. ? dissimulation, fr. ? a

   2. A sort of humor, ridicule, or light sarcasm, which adopts a mode of speech the meaning of which is contrary to the literal sense of the words.

———————————————————————

Found on BBC news site

Alan Carr, the anti smoking man who helped millions of people to give up smoking (these people helped him make millions too) is fighting lung cancer. The site goes on to say he quit his 100 a day habigt 23 years

WARNING LINKS NSFW (Not Safe For Work)

BitTorrents - Its all getting nasty

I have been a regular downloader of bittorrents for a couple of years now, Bittorrents are a great way of people to share files using small client (I use Burst), music, movies, games and Pron can all be traded using this method.

I have been reading about "Saz" who used to moderate a number on a few bittorrent sites, mainly Filesoup.

Saz then left filesoup, and decided to set his own adult bittorrent website empornium, with at one point over 1 million members, he needed cash via donations in order to pay for hosting etc.

Then came the problems, Saz had some interest from a company Targetpoint who stumped up a wad of cash, they then decided to take over the whole thing and used all legal loopholes to be able to do this, now empornium is effectively run by Targetpoint who have (alledgedly) adverts over the whole site, not only this, but they have resorted to making new users to pay for sign-ups.

To say this has pissed off the members, admins and moderators is an understatement, the majority of which have left empornium and set up shop at Cheggit

Now a war has broke out between the illegal file sharing websites, never mind the record and film companies.

More Info over at Wikipedia

Congratulations SWMBO

.....................................................................

Just wanted to say Bloody well done to my fiance who graduated (again) today, She is now a fully qualified Midwife with a Degree in Midwifery. Thats twice in 12 months she has graduated (the last one was for her Diploma).

So I Guess it's now SWMBO BSc

TWTMTW

Or for the Acronym un-friendly - That Was The Month That Was

Not blogged for almost 6 weeks, Ive either been so busy Working/Drinking been on Holiday getting Brown(er) or generally not been arsed to blog. So what have I missed then.

• Longman Ian "Ronnie" Barker leaving us - saving us money on crisps/drinks etc
• Taoski Dumping RoyalMail (CSC) for a big redundancy payoff*
• The Cookie Monster dumping Royal Mail (CSC) for a big redundancy payoff*
• Yet another potential PMP Player
• My Wonderful holiday with SWMBO and the Outlaws

* Not Necesseraily true

So it appears the company I used to work for is not a great employer at all, Pay Freezes, Compulsory Redundancies, Takeovers etc. The good old days of working for Royal Mail IT have well and truly gone, as soon as the IT business was sold off, everything changed. Not one to slag off former employers...
I'm, well, not going to say anything. Nothing at all, Nada, zip, zilch. Nuff said, even the old timers like Tao and Cookie are off.
You see - Outsourcing is definately not a bad idea, moving your call centres and helpdesk is even worse, just ask HSBC and Powergen (Hey I used to work for Powergen on the call centre, what a loopback)

More on my holiday and The thong wearing Mother-in-Law next time... keep reading

The PMP Search Continues

Q. Take 1 Archos AV500, add Bluetooth, and ....
A. The iUbi Blue 2500B
Yes I'm still on the hunt for my PMP (Portable Media Player), Even my colleagues are buying them (albeit the Archos AV700)

But this has to be the best yet (I know I say that every time). Specs include

• Video support for MPEG-1, 2, 4, DivX 3.x, DivX 4.x, DivX 5.x, Svid, WMV9, 8, 7, H.264, AVI, OGM, Mov, Real Media, meaning no need for converting my (legally backed up) Movies.
• Audio Support for MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, AC-3, ASF, AAC-LC and G.726
• Wolfsan 3D Sound Enhancement
• 4.3" Widescreen LCD screen (larger than the Archos AV500)
• 8 Hour Video/15 Hour Audio battery life
• Record directly from TV, DVD or Video (and I don't even have a video)
• USB OTG (On The Go) support, ability to download for USB connected devices
• Weight 260g, 1.9cm deep
• Bluetooth

advancedmp3players advise this is availble from 30 June for £249, do I get this or wait for the next-gen players with built-in Freeview TV Tuners

More links

- Amp3 - Stuff - engadget - gizmodo

Is this It (again)
.
Still on the search for the ultimate PMP (Portable Media Player) and I have found this..... with bonus points

It's called the Blufin by a company called Tinnos, Specs as follows

• Windows Mobile 5 Operating System
• 30Gb Hard Drive
• SD Card Slot
• 4.3" Screen
• Multiple Codec Support (WMV, DivX, MP3, WMA) - This is the big one
• USB 2.0
• 2MP Camera

The good thing about this is that it also acts as a PDA, however the bad point is that it states there is no phone built in this may be an error, and if it is an error, Put me down for one

PS3 = £425 - Are Sony taking the piss



UK Prices have just been announce for the Playstation 3.

So thats US$ 500, €425 or £425 - Something does not eqate here.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a Playstation boy through and through and wouldn't even consider defecting, but the massive difference in price will surely get a few people wondering.

With the rumours also surrounding the different versions of PS3, the lesser (cheapest) model lacking Wi-Fi, Memory Card reader and most importantly, a HDMI input, also having a smaller 20Gb Hard drive, which may not be upgradable. Just how much do they plan on ripping us off with charging for the top spec model.

I know the PS3 will have a Blu-Ray player as standard but can this justify the difference in cost to the 360 (top spec model is £280).

I wonder, will we all rush out and buy one....

... Probably

Beat Box .

I've always been fascinated by Human Beatboxx, ever since the good old days of Doug E Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew back in the 80s, to the modern day equivalent Rahzel, I think they are all absolutely amazing.

Then.... I saw this guy (Yuri Lane), who uses a Harmonica while beatboxing check the results for yourself!

Test your IQ
Did my 3 monthly checking of my hotmail emails earlier, among the crap, spam and invitations for free everything, I got a link from my cousin Daniel for an online IQ Test at tickle.com

I got 129 which seems not too bad judging by this site although I missed out te next level by 1 point - Damn

Have a go...