Terrible joke of the day

>This man is working on the buses and collecting tickets. He rings the bell for the driver to drive off when there’s a woman still getting on the bus. The driver drives off, the woman falls from the bus and is killed.

At the trial the man is sent down for murder and seeing as it’s Texas he’s sent to the electric chair. On the day of his execution he’s sat in the chair and the executioner grants him a final wish.

“Well” says the man, “is that your packed lunch over there?”

“Yes” answers the executioner.

“Can I have that green banana?” the man asks.

The executioner gives the man his green banana and waits until he’s eaten it. When the man’s finished, the executioner flips the switch sending hundreds of thousands of volts through the man. When the smoke clears the man is still alive. The executioner can’t believe it.

“Can I go?” the man asks.

“I suppose so” says the executioner, “that’s never happened before.”

The man leaves and eventually gets his job back on the buses selling tickets. Again he rings the bell for the driver to go when people are still getting on. A man falls under the wheels and is killed. The man is sent down for murder again and sent to the electric chair. The executioner is determined to do it right this time so rigs the chair up to the electric supply for the whole of Texas. The man is again sat in the chair.

“What is your final wish?” asks the executioner.

“Can I have that green banana in your packed lunch?” says the condemned man.

The executioner sighs and reluctantly gives up his banana. The man eats the banana all up and the executioner flips the switch. Millions of volts course through the chair blacking out Texas. When the smoke clears the man is still there smiling in the chair. The executioner can’t believe it and lets the man go.

Well, would you believe, the man gets his job back on the buses. Once again he rings the bell whilst passengers are still getting on, this time killing three of them. He is sent to the electric chair again.

The executioner rigs up all the electricity in America to the chair, determined to get his man this time. The man sits down in the chair smiling.

“What’s your final wish?” asks the executioner.

“Well” says the man, “Can I have that green banana out of your packed lunch?”

The executioner hands over his banana and the man eats it all, skin included. The executioner then pulls the handle and a zillion million trillion volts go through the chair. When the smoke rises the man is still sat there alive without even a burn mark.

“I give up” says the executioner, “I don’t understand. How you can still be alive after all that?” He stroked his chin. “It’s something to do with that green banana isn’t it?” he asked.

“Nahh” said the man,”……………. I’m just a really bad conductor.”

Making the most of it.

>Some of you may be aware that Ms. Mac is in training for something. She will reveal the details in the fullness of time so I won’t blab now. As part of this, she has been swimming practically everyday. So since I am off work this week, I have joined her at the pool on Sunday and Monday.


We’ve been putting in the laps and so far, we swum 1.1km on Sunday and 1.6km yesterday. Bloody hell, I don’t remember the last time that I swam that far – probably never.

We’re off to the pool again today and then again tomorrow and…

Geeks and the World Cup 2006

>Just been on a site watching the Spain – Tunisia game using ASCII code in a terminal window. It is obviously ridiculous but still one of the coolest things on the internet today. It uses Telnet to “stream” the data to your computer.

Check it out here. It will take you a while to work out what it is all about, but when the “video” zooms in closer to the action, it is actually possible to see the game adequately.

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Follow the instructions on the HOW-TO link which is on the lower left-hand side of the page and everything should become as clear as crystal.

ps. It works in Windows and OS X too – it’s not confined to Linux geeketry! Instructions at the HOW-TO link.

Ok People, Turn Up Your Volume – Announcement

>As many of you are aware, there is a special little lady celebrating her 23(+13) birthday today.

I am sure you will join me in wishing her a happy birthday. Presently, she is in bed reading trash mags and drinking tea. More exciting festivities to follow later.

Happy Birthday Beautiful.
Love you xxxxx

How awesome are…

>
…The Chemical Brothers?!?!? I have rocked out to them on my iPod all the way from the bus stop this morning. My ears hurt now and I will probably be deaf even earlier than anticipated, but you’re only middle-aged once! *isn’t actually middle-aged*

Check them out at their official site. They are well worth the listen.

BTW, for any aficionados, is the sample on Surface to Air from The Modern Age by The Strokes?

>Further evidence that I need my head read…

>Remember the great news about the Xbox mod chip that I installed myself after our trip to France? Well that little bad boy is still running like a treat and everyone is happy with the ongoing performance of the machine.

Since I am either soft in the head or soft in the heart, I asked Ewan if he wanted a mod chip for his Gamecube. How hard could it be? He readily agreed (what else would he have said?) and I set about the task of finding out the optimum chip to buy which involves a heap of internet research and then the outlay of cash money to secure the goods. Did I tell you I bloody love shopping on the internet? Give me a credit card and a computer and I’ll have the bailiffs ’round in 72 hours to start recuperating the accumulated debts!!

Eventually we settled on the Viper GC Extreme. Easy enough to install I suppose, if you aren’t too bothered putting a soldering iron to a printed circuit board with no recourse when you fuck it up!

Here are some of the instructions…


The total instructions are limited to three pages like that with pics and very little text. The adage about a picture and some words did not apply in this case. What do you do when yours doesn’t look like the picture Miss?

The upshot is that the machine functions perfectly snd now reads games burnt onto normal size DVDs thanks to the mod chip and a new cover / case-modification (which also had to be purchased) and Ewan has expanded his game library to record levels. Oh and I took another step down the parallel paths of blindness and baldness due to the combination of very close work and stress. I don’t know why I volunteer for this sort of thing.

Stay tuned for the story of how I pulled Patrick’s PS2 apart to install his modchip…it ain’t gonna be pretty. I won’t be able to blog it until the psychiatric counselling is finished, but here is a sneak preview.

Opening Up A Can of Worms

>Hello, is this thing on?

>If there is any body out there still dropping in occasionally, I would like to apologise about the distinct lack of contact! No excuses, just an apology.

I’ve been up to all sorts lately. Mostly related to work. But there have also been flashes of excitement too. For example, I have been spending a lot of time playing with PCs and continuing to learn as much as possible about Linux – driving the lovely Ms. Mac out of her mind.

If you’re interested, you could look into the distribution I prefer, available at Ubuntu. It is in an upgrade cycle at the moment and there is a new version to be released at the beginning of June. The best thing about it is that it allows you to download a Live CD which you boot from and it makes no changes to your existing system whilst still giving full functionality to test the features of Ubuntu. When you take it out of the CD drive and reboot, your system is back to normal.

I also attended the Swiss Blog Awards in Biel last night. An interesting evening, whereby a very good friend of the Chateau Mac crew, the delightful Heather, had her blog, dontmentiontheskiing.com nominated as one of the best blogs being written in Switzerland. We all thought that there wouldn’t be much chance that a British woman blogging in English in Switzerland would win.

Imagine the surprise of all involved when she was announced the winner of the Best Blog in Switzerland!!!! I want to congratulate her and urge both of you to head over and give her your best. A very deserving winner who was exceptionally charming in her acceptance. The funniest part was when they gave her the opportunity to write an on-the-spot post right there on the stage and she couldn’t remember password. Really funny shit, man!

Big hello to Matthias too! We have known him through his blogs and also his winning of the Elf Shorts (where the fuck are those bad boys???) for some time now, but last night was the first time we had met in person. Enjoyed a nice meal in a pizzeria with him, the victor and her husband and had a lot of laughs. All in all, a good night tat the awards, which turned out better than I expected.

Not much else to report – will be continuing toplay with the computers, take delivery of a broken PC and see if I can’t fix it and then try some more Linux shenanigans. We’ll see…I might even blog more????

>Is it that obvious?

>Today I was in the Low Yat market in downtown Kuala Lumpur saving big dollars on PC parts and mobile accessories. More on this story later…

Prior to that, I was in Bukit Bintang Plaza checking out some “original release” DVD box sets of The Sopranos. Imagine my surprise when I saw a copy of Season 4 and Season 5, which I just happen to need for my collection. I turned to ask Mr. Man what the price for these would be, obviously reckoning that it would be cheaper than the grief from Ms. Mac when I hogged t’internet “legally purchasing” them. I turned back and the next thing I know, I’m being shoved out of the store, the roller shutter support is frantically being put into place and then without so much as a by-your-leave, the roller shutter was slammed down. It happened all over the market and there were scores of presumably Malaysian Chinese strolling around with their hands in their pockets, whistling nonchalantly…what a scream.

I didn’t even have time to flash my MPAA Identity Card – they rumbled me in seconds. Must formulate a clever discguise for next time…

>Rockin’ My Box

>
During the whirlwind tour of France last weekend, I discovered that my charming (though slightly shy) host had a modified Xbox that offered many new features that Micro$oft couldn’t or wouldn’t implement. Naturally, I wanted my Xbox to have all these too and had to purchase the necessary hardware mod chip and new 200 GB hard drive for the modification. Then I had to source the tools such as soldering iron, Torx screwdrivers and on and on.

To be honest the prospect of disassembling the Xbox and the very thought of applying a heated soldering iron to its delicate motherboard filled me with dread. The wealth of info on the internet was perfectly adequate and I had not one problem. The mod chip worked as soon as I reapplied the power, and all the (probably?) boring techie details were accomplished with the minimum of fuss.

Needless to say, the modifications have proved to be a hit and I can barely get near the thing. I’m glad because a large part of the fun for me is in doing the task and achieving the result. I recommend this to anyone whose Xbox warrantyhas expired – you’ve got nothing to lose.

If you do it, I also recommend that you use the Team Avalaunch dashboard cos it rocks too.