>Check out the hottest new site on the internet*:

www.craigmcloughlin.com

*It’s not that good really so don’t be too disappointed

>I’m on the world’s longest business trip here in Canada.

Thankfully, I have a good colleague and friend to pass the time with. Here you can see him making our vehicle driveable tonight after we finished work.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, this morning I had to dig the car out of the car park or we would have been late. Apparently, they don’t do snowploughs the way we’re used to them in the Village of the Damned.

We’ve had a fun two weeks but I’ll be very glad to get home from my (hopefully) last trip of the year.*

*This year I have flown over 130’000 miles and there are still two flights, worth about 15’000 miles, to be added.

>Seen on the Frau’s blog.

The Soundtrack of my Life!
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc.)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool …

Opening Credits – Express Yourself – Madonna

Waking Up – Something to Talk About – Badly Drawn Boy (Normally true)

First Day at School – Little by Little – Oasis

Falling in Love – Wild Wild Life – Talking Heads (It really is.)

Fight Song – Choir Girl – Cold Chisel

Breaking Up – This is your Life – Dust Brothers and Tyler Durden (No Way!!!)

School Ball – It Began in Afrika – Chemical Brothers

Life is Good – Fixing My Brain – Brad Sucks (Awesome Song)

Mental Breakdown – Khe Sanh – Cold Chisel (This should be swapped with the one above)

Driving – Child in the Tree -The Young Gods (Same band as Ms. Mac’s driving song – spooky)

Getting Back Together – True Love Way – Kings of Leon

Wedding – Surface to Air – Chemical Brothers

Paying the Dues – Merry Go Round – Cold Chisel

The Night Before the War – Shipyards of New Zealand – Midnight Oil

Final Battle – Pace It – Magic Dirt

Moment of Triumph – Star Guitar – Chemical Brothers

Death Scene – Ceremony – New Order (this is perfect – it must be playing at my death scene)

Funeral Song – Burning Down the House – Talking Heads (I fucking will be too!)

End Credits – Time to Take Out the Trash – Brad Sucks

In conclusion: Go on, you do this bit!

>A Doctor finally tells the truth in this interview:

Q: I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?

A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that’s it… Don’t waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that’s like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?

A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

Q: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?

A: No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?

A: Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?

A: Can’t think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain…Good!

Q : Aren’t fried foods bad for you?

A: YOU’RE NOT LISTENING!!! .. Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they’re permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

Q: Is chocolate bad for me?

A: Are you crazy? HELLO . Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It’s the best feel-good food around!

Q: Is swimming good for your figure?

A: If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

>Ms. Mac just took this test and challenged others to do the same. I don’t think I did too badly, since I got 25/25 in the test.

Better check for yourself if you’re smarter than me.*

*Obviously, this will be impossible since I got 25/25, but you can dream.

>I had 5-8 minutes to kill so I did a Nerd Test to really build up some self esteem.

Seems that I am not as much of a geek as I would have thought. I think that the Linux PCs and the graphical calculator which uses RPN for the input helped to up my score.

Try it for yourself and let me know how you get on.

>
It seems like Mr. Winter has decided that he’s not finished with us yet. This was taken from the door to the balcony 30 minutes ago. There was no way I was going out there! I hate frozen rain – it hurts when it falls on you.

In other news, Scotland are being absolutely pasted by Italy in the Six Nations: 21 – Nil after 10 minutes!!! Glad I didn’t buy a ticket for Murrayfield for this game.

>Overheard from one crazy-haired viewer:
“If Aisleyne beats Glynn there is something seriously wrong with the British public and I’m never watching Big Brother again!!!”

One can but dream…

–Updated Later–

Aisleyne was evicted third. Now time to endure the vomit-inducing love parade for Pete. *Yawns*

>I have been toying with a new Linux distribution tonight and I have to say, it has blown my mind!

How could this be Mr. Mac? I thought you were devoted to Ubuntu and thought that it was the best thing since sliced bread?

Yes that’s true but tonight I inserted yet another Live CD into my PC and booted into PCLinuxOS. What a great distribution. With the entire operating system running from one little old CD ROM, I have a completely capable PC running as stable as any Linux distro I’ve tried (and believe me, I’ve tried a lot of ‘em!).

Full network functionality including browsing all the other PCs on our home network, video and sound playback (no DVD playback without installing the appropriate library – it tells you how when you install it.), full internet capability, an office suite and it even detected the printer and scanner on the first go.

Here is a screenshot for you to see what it looks like.

It is bloody great!!! Although, in the screen shot, you can’t actually see that I was watching a video streamed from Patrick’s PC onto mine.

Give it a try and see for yourself. Make sure that you get the one optimised for your graphics card too. There is a version for Nvidia cards, ATI cards and also a plain-jane version that will work with all cards. With the optimised versions, you’ll get 3D acceleration out of the box which is rare with Linux. Especially if you have an ATI video card.

Mr. Mac Ease of Use / Wow Factor rating: 10 / 10

ps. This post including the screenshot was made entirely with the PCLinuxOS running on my PC – not bad huh?

> I know it is pathetic to post crappy jokes in lieu of serious and earnest blogging. ButI’m gonna do it anyway…

There is a factory in Northern Minnesota that makes the Tickle Me Elmo toys. The toy laughs when you tickle it under the arm. Here is a true story:

Lena was hired at the factory and she reported for her 1st day promptly at 8:00 a.m. The following day, at 8:45, there was a knock at the personnel manager’s door. The foreman from the assembly line threw open the door and began to rant about his new employee, Lena. He complained that she was incredibly slow and that the entire production line was behind schedule and backing up!

The personnel manager decided he should see this for himself, so the two men marched down to the factory floor. When they got there, the line was so backed up, there were Tickle Me Elmos all over the factory floor and they were really beginning to pile up at the end of the line stood Lena, surrounded by mountains of Tickle Me Elmos.

She had a roll of plush red fabric and a huge bag of small marbles. The two men watched in amazement as she cut a little piece of fabric, wrapped it around two marbles and began carefully to sew the little package between Elmo’s legs.

The personnel manager stared for a few seconds, saw what was happening, and burst into laughter. After several minutes of hysterics, he pulled himself together and approached Lena. “I’m sorry,” he said to her. Barely able to keep a straight face, he said, “I think you misunderstood the instructions given you yesterday. Your job is to give each Elmo two test tickles …”