Irish Webmasters

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find a lot of the advertisements on television rather disturbing these days.

I find all advertisements irritating, but there seems to be a fashion nowadays to treat all adults as if they had the mentality of a five year old.

Cartoons are for children?  Right?  So why do the insist on trying to sell their shite to adults using cartoons?  I am sick of furry little animals and strange characters prancing around silently on my screen.

There is one advertisement that I find particularly disturbing.  I think it’s for some fucking fabric conditioner or other, but they have these nauseating little rag dolls poncing around the screen.  Am I supposed to be impressed? I can tell you here and now that I’m not.  I’m nauseated.

Then there is that revolting nodding fucking dog, Churchill.  Oh, how I would love to ram a ten foot pole wrapped in razor wire up his condescending arse.  That would wipe the fucking smirk off his face.

Another one that I find deeply disturbing is that one with the characters with the long noses.  I don’t know why, but I get the feeling I’m witnessing someone’s nightmare in glorious technicolour.  

Of course none of these advertisements would be possible if the advertising industry didn’t have computers. 

I wish we could go back to the good old pre-computer days, when cartoons had to be hand-drawn

I received a mail yesterday.

That in itself is not noteworthy as I receive a lot of mail.  This one was good news though.

There is an organisation in the UK called FOREST [Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco].  They have been around for quite a while [since 1979 to be precise] and are widely respected and recognised as the voice of the disenfranchised smoker.  The mail I received informed me that FOREST have now opened their first non-UK branch here in Ireland – Forest Éireann.

Personally I think their aims are reasonable.  In some ways I would consider them to be over generous, but be that as it may.

• debunk some of the myths about smoking (especially so-called "passive smoking")
• counteract the “denormalisation” of smoking
• stop the introduction of further restrictions on smoking in public or private spaces
• lobby politicians to amend (not repeal) public smoking bans and relax excessive regulations on outdoor smoking shelters
• highlight the enormous financial contribution made by smokers to the public purse 
• build support among smokers and tolerant non-smokers
• highlight the increasingly intrusive nature of Big Government in the lives of private individuals

To quote John Mallon, Forest Éireann’s spokeman -

The outcome of the smoking ban, now in its sixth year in Ireland, suggests that it has been counter-productive. Smoking rates have increased while one pub a day closes due to the effects of the ban. Meanwhile society is polarised at social occasions due to large numbers of people being forced to go outdoors to smoke.

Our aim is not to overturn smoking bans because we respect the wishes of non-smokers who prefer a smoke free environment. But we would like to see the law amended so that licensees can provide a separate smoking room indoors if there is sufficient demand. We also want the regulations on outdoor smoking shelters relaxed so that people can smoke outside in much greater comfort, and we want politicians in Ireland to stop using tobacco taxation as a form of social engineering.

Tobacco control affects everybody, smoker and non-smoker alike, because it creates a less tolerant society. If like-minded people don’t fight it now a host of other restrictions will surely follow.

I think that is pretty reasonable?  I have signed up to show my support. 

Why don’t you?

Why not show your support by sticking a badge on your side [like what I done]?

Go on. 

Ah, go on, go on, go on.

They're at it again

UK Food Exports, which claims it's an independent guide to to sourcing products from the UK, is spamming me and others again.

They're still using that stupid disclaimer and their phone number goes to a fax machine.

So since I can't contact them directly I think I'll just see if the UK data protection lot have anything to say about them ...

Today thousands of Irish teenagers will be collecting / checking their Leaving Cert results (Ireland's answer to A Levels / Bac / SAT).

Based on the media hype surrounding it you could be easily conned into thinking that the world actually cares.

Reality - they don't.

The Leaving Cert is a bit of paper. You can use the points / score to get a place in a university.

That is all.

In a couple of years time you won't care about it.

The rest of us haven't cared in years. Some of us never cared to begin with.

Putting your LC results on your CV when you're 17 or 18 is fine. Putting them on it when you're in your late 20s with a college degree is pointless. Providing details of ALL your grades is just plain wrong.

Sky have been promoting their Sky Player service for quite some time.
At the moment you can access it on the XBox, though for some odd reason the XBox version doesn't have access to the "premium" content ie. Sky Box Office.

So if, like me, you don't have a phone line setup with your Sky box and you don't run Windows, your options are a bit limited.

You can, however, watch Sky Box Office on your desktop.

Word of warning. To use the Sky Player you will need to have the latest version of Microsoft's Silverlight installed.

For some bizarre reason the player will load fine in Firefox, but trying to watch anything using Firefox will not work. You might have better luck than me, but I ended up switching to Safari. In Firefox it seemed to be stuck permanently "buffering".

So what's the experience like?

To be honest I can't really complain. I'm using a 27" iMac, so once I was in a comfortable chair I was able to enjoy a couple of films without any issues. You can easily view the films in full screen view and the quality on a 27" screen was fine. It wasn't as good as watching on my TV with my full surround sound, but that was my choice (albeit one dictated by circumstance).

Renting films is pretty easy. Once you have an online account with Sky you can signup for their "wallet", which you can add funds to in order to watch films and other paid content.

It is unfortunate that the standalone player software is not available for the Mac as I suspect it might give more options in terms of quality and control. The Silverlight powered stream works fine, but has very little in the way of controls.

All in all it's not an unpleasant way to watch Sky Box Office films legally!

I don’t know if I mentioned before that Herself is a bit under the weather?

Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t.  It’s not important.

Anyhow, she started complaining and coughing a few days ago.  I ignored it, but then the neighbours started complaining that her coughing was keeping their children awake at night when she was working in the garden.  I brought her to the doctor.

Now, Doc is away on holidays and there was some stand-in replacement at the surgery.  This replacement obviously wasn’t very good as she immediately gave Herself some tablets and told her to take things easy.  Take things easy?  For fuck’s sake!  It’s no wonder the replacement doesn’t have her own practice if she is dishing out namby pamby advice like that.

Anyhow, yesterday the coughing was getting on my nerves so for once, I told her she could have a day or two off and have a lie in in her shed.  The potato crop can wait for a day or two.

For those of you who have never visited the Manor, the shed is quite a distance from the house.  It’s in the far corner just behind the nettles.  This presented a problem.  How was I to stay in touch with her?  I could have used my mobile phone, but she has a habit of switching hers off for some reason.  I didn’t feel like shouting so I was in a bit of a quandary.

Then it struck me.

The perfect solution.

Now, I like Skype in my laptop.  It’s a handy little programme and is great for keeping in touch with people.  I installed it on her laptop, and brought it down to her.  That cheered her up because she likes playing on the Interweb.  I showed her how to answer Skype and I left her to it.

Now, if I want to talk to her, all I have to do is Skype her. 

I think I’ll Skype her now.

My mug of tea needs refreshing.

I get a lot of deliveries to the office. A lot of the time it's simply because my name is on a supplier account, so the package arrives. Is checked and gets handed over to one of our staff.

Of course I also get deliveries from Amazon and other places.

Yesterday's delivery was a bit "different"

A white body bag.

The problem now is, what the hell do I do with it?

While some of my staff are annoying at times, I haven't actually killed any of them *yet*. Besides, if I was going to kill any of my staff I'd want quick lime - not a body bag.

So does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do with it?

It seems like a waste letting it gather dust!

Earlier today there was apparently some kind of demonstration outside Batt O' Keeffe's offices in Cork. Of course he wasn't even there ..

Why?

Seemingly USI are upset that the minister didn't drop everything to meet them. Or at least that's what it sounds like based on their rather whingy press release. I love this bit:

Last week Minister O’Keeffe requested the help of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) to combat graduate unemployment. However, despite our request for an urgent meeting, the Minister has so far failed to meet with us.

Yeah - getting meetings with important people is going to happen overnight.

In the "real world" getting a meeting with a business or political leader can take weeks. That doesn't mean that they don't want to meet you or that they're not interested, but they have busy schedules (and no - I'm not an apologist for Fianna Fail or O'Keeffe)

But what really gets me is the entire tone of the USI release

Have all the graduates made an effort to get a job? Of ANY kind?

Or are they just sitting there expecting someone to spoon feed them?

I came across a newspaper article this morning.

The article looks to me like the opening salvo in the latest war.  Now that smokers have been confined to the ghettos, it’s time to move on to the next phase – the ‘obese’.

The article is interesting from quite a few angles.

In it, the author [a Dr Dennis Gottfried MD] is quite open about the fact that the smoking war is based on lies and propaganda. 

There is no question that second-hand smoke can be unpleasant; few non-smokers want to sit in a cloud of tobacco dust or have tobacco smell on their clothing or hair. But is it dangerous to your health? A study of 35,561 spouses of smokers followed for 38 years published in the British Medical Journal in 2003 showed that second-hand smoke is an irritant, but does not cause life-threatening disease.

So there you have it from someone apart from myself.  He admits that second-hand smoke is harmless and goes on to gloat about “the social isolation of smokers”.

The really interesting bit comes in the second half of the article.

“A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in July 2007 clearly shows that each of us is at an added personal health risk of gaining weight if our friends or associates become obese. This fascinating study followed the weight changes over time among residents of Framingham, Mass. It revealed "networks of obesity"; that is, we are all interconnected in regard to weight.

When people with whom we are closely associated gain weight, such as a spouse, sibling, neighbour or friend, we are also at an increased risk of gaining weight. For example, if your friend becomes obese, you have a 177 percent increased risk of becoming obese. If your friend’s brother becomes obese, your risk is still increased. The increased risk goes out to four degrees of separation.”

So there you have it.  The war has only just begun and they are already talking about second-hand obesity. 

Second hand obesity seems to be far deadlier that second-hand smoking.  You can apparently be infected by someone you have never even heard of?  If my friend’s sister’s husband, who lives in Australia is obese, then I run a higher risk of obesity?  Wow!  Potent stuff?  That is truly astounding.  It is so astounding that it could only come from the Anti Lobby who are masters of the distorted truth and falsified statistics.

At the end of the article, we gat a glimpse into the future.

Yes.  Eaters are going to be socially isolated too.  If you want to eat that burger, you are going to have to get the fuck outa here.  Get your lard-arse out into the back yard which is the designated fatty area.

So what’s next?  Third hand obesity?  Are we going to get fat from sitting at a table where a fat person sat?

I can see fun times ahead.

-oOo-

[Hat tip to Frank Davis who pointed me in the right direction]

Nominations for the 2010 Irish Web Awards are now open

NOTE: New shiny web address

This year sees the introduction of some new categories as well:

• Best Mobile App
• Best SME/Small Business Website
• Best Facebook Page
• Best Web Only Publication
• Best Guerilla Social Media Campaign (Zero Budget)

The event is organised by Mulley and headline sponsor is Realex Payments

I decided to do some strimming yesterday.

The old estate is getting a little out of hand and the only way to tame it is a show of brute force.  I do my gardening with slash-hooks, chain saws and strimmers.

My strimmer isn’t one of those pansy ones that plugs in.  No.  It is an honest-to-God power yoke with a two-stroke engine.  I think I may have overdone the oil to petrol mix a tad as it can be quite smoky.  It was a calm day, so when I fired up the strimmer, I disappeared in a cloud of blue smoke which enveloped me for the hour or so I was out there.

For hours after I finished, I could taste the burnt oil.  I realised at that point that not only had I been breathing burning oil for an hour or so, but I must have indulged in a massive dose of carbon monoxide, not to mention a lethal dose of other toxins, poisons and carcinogens.  I would hazard a guess that an hour of that cocktail would be equivalent to smoking around a thousand cigarettes?

So where is the health warning?  Where is ASH when you need ‘em?  Why isn’t the State looking after my health?

“Strimming can cause a painful death”

“Strimming can lower your sperm count”

“Want to quit strimming?  Contact your doctor or pharmacist”

The Nanny State are missing out on a nice little niche market here.  I don’t know how they missed it.

Strimming may not be addictive [unless you are a very strange person], but it is highly contagious.  I have noticed in the past that whenever I start, I am the one to shatter the peace and quiet of the countryside.  By the time I have finished though, there are usually three or four strimmers, chainsaws or other two-strokes running in the neighbourhood.

The thing that concerns me most is that strimming may lead to harder drugs.

Like four-strokes?

I have a terrible urge on me.

It is an urge, nay a hankering and a longing that would rival that of any heroin addict who hasn’t had a fix.

I want to be in France.

The problem though is that I don’t want to go to France; I just want to be there.

I want to be where the air is hot and dry.  I want to be where mooching around in nothing but a pair of shorts is the norm.  I want to spend my days drifting from village to village sampling the coffee, and the evenings supping wine out on the terrace.

The big problem is getting there.

It’s a long way, and it is fucking expensive.

Firstly it means I am hostage to the fortunes of Irish Ferries, who charge through the nose for the privilege of being fleeced in the mobile cash cow they call a ferry.  Then it means at least one night in a hotel on the way down, and a shed load of driving.  Not that I mind the driving – I don’t, but it a long way, and Herself begins to complain.

Then there is the problem of Sandy.

She doesn’t have a passport [yet], so that means leaving her either in a kennels, or at the mercy of my daughter.  I’m sure my daughter doesn’t mind, but I know Sandy would prefer to be living with a couple of old codgers and not with an extremely lively family.  Our Sandy likes the quiet life.

So I’m stuck here with my hankerings.  Cork is a lovely place but the heat isn’t quite the same.  It’s a humid heat, and I like a dry heat.

I wish the urge would go away.

Has anyone got any heroin?

Last night, I chatted to a good friend on Skype.

He is in America and I’m not.  This means there is a bit of a time difference.  While it was evening for him it was early in the morning for me.

In other words….

I was late going to bed.

Had a grand lie in this morning.

Got up.  Pottered around.  Sat down.  Dozed off.

I have just woken.

I wonder what’s for dinner?

This life of retirement is fucking hard work.

Just noticed this morning that adsense is displaying adverts in a very different format:

So it looks like some kind of hybrid between the normal text ads and the link units

This was probably announced somewhere, but I haven't had a chance to go digging and / or keeping up with all the changes in the "wonderful" world  of PPC

Anyone else noticing this?