GromBlog

MC Pitman - The exclusive interview
Ok, one more link before I head off - the BBC have an exclusive interview with MC Pitman at the moment. If you haven't heard him yet then I'd recommend his stuff - v.funny.

Go to Funjunkie
I've got the afternoon off so I'm not going to be around for all your lunchtime posts. Don't worry, I wouldn't leave you in the lurch - you can all go over to FunJunkie for their Friday games - feel free to invade their forums too - just don't forget to come back here tomorrow.

Prince Charles 'Rumours'
I'm not often one to spread rumours or gossip. Actually, that's a complete lie - I love salacious gossip. I've had a few people ask me today what the 'rumours' about Prince Charles that have been mentioned on the UK news today are. Well, I'm not prepared to print them since there's going to be a big court case soon but Popbitch have no such qualms. They printed very unsubtle hints in yesterday's newsletter and there is much discussion on their noticeboards about it but suffice to say that I'd consider it beyond the call of duty if I was Prince Charles' valet!

Microsoft 'forgot' to renew hotmail.co.uk
Only this morning I was telling someone at work the story about how Microsoft forgot to renew their Hotmail.com domain name back in 1999 and where saved from a large cost by a kindly user who had the foresight to pay for the domain on Microsoft's behalf.
Bizarrely, as a coincidence, today news reaches me that exactly the same thing has happened to the hotmail.co.uk domain. Will they never learn?

You've been Pegged
The latest silly craze created by people with far too much time on their hands (see also StealthDisco) is Pegging. Which involves sneakily attaching a clothes peg to people without them noticing. I suspect that fads like this will become a lot more common with the proliferation of mobile phones with inbuilt cameras. Which is no bad thing.

Name that Theme Tune
The BBC Cult website has a good little Name the Cult TV show theme tune quiz up at the moment.

Blaine promises to die
David 'look at me' Blaine has announced his next trick - it's to be called the 'Dive of Death' and whilst it doesn't really sound that impressive to me, maybe we can take him to court under the Trade Descriptions Act if he survives.

New radio Hitch-Hiker's Guide
The BBC have just announced that they will definitely be recording the final trilogy of the Hitch-hiker's guide to the Galaxy as a radio show.
This also seems a perfect time to remind people of the existence of the real-life hitch-hiker's guide online - H2G2 - you can find anything you want in there (and if you can't then just add it yourself).

Vimto Cocktails
I've finally found a way to combine two of my favourite things in a successful manner - Vimto cocktails!
I'm off home soon to try out a Vimto Diablo. If you're not from the North of England then you probably won't have heard of Vimto but it's the best cordial ever invented - just stay away from the fizzy carbonated version - it's not a patch on the original.

GTAIII & Vice City Pack for the Xbox
Despite assurances that it was exclusively for the Playstation2, Rockstar games have announced the unthinkable - Grand Theft Auto:Vice City for the XBox. Which is cool by me.

Tenacious D Attempt to Beat Blaine
News has just reached us of (mock) rock band Tenacious D's amazing attempt to out-do the Blainester by going on a hunger strike for 45 days.
'Kyle is going to bring a guitar, and if we need extra nourishment, we will live off the power of each other's rock,' singer Jack Black said.
They lasted one hour.

80's Lyrics quiz
This quiz has been doing the rounds a lot recently - the 80's pop music lyrics quiz. It's not that it's hard, it's just really, really frustrating. And good. And frustrating.

Pelvic Powerlifting
Trojan, the well known US brand of condoms, has launched over here in the UK. To celebrate they've got a new range of adverts to grab your attention. First one up is the Trojan Games - Pelvic Powerlifting video. Funny stuff.

Dodgy fun with Google
I spend a lot of my time working with search systems these days and google is still my search engine of choice (ooh - that'll get me fired if you know where I work!). I do a fair bit of monkeying around and some things really amuse me. For example, try doing a search for allinurl:passwd.txt which will search websites for unprotected textfiles that many forums use to store passwords in. My current favourite is a simple way of getting oodles of server info by bypassing the normal routes and peeking at their network monitoring systems. Big Brother is a brilliant free monitoring system for unix (and Windows/linux) but it's amazing how people don't bother to protect the (extremely sensitive) info you can get from it. Try doing a simple google search like that one and you're only a few steps away from being able to causing some serious damage. (ok, I'll stop being so geeky now!)

Interpreting online dating profile photos
If you've ever used friendster, faceparty or any of the other online dating or meet-a-friend services then you'll be well familiar with the type of photo that people use in their profile - If you're a novice to this then here's a handy guide to interpreting profile photos. Think I fall in the dark, brooding - possible a pirate category.

Simpsons fans grows real 'Tomacco' plant
Rob Baur is a massive Simpsons fan, so much so that he decided to try to recreate the infamous Tomaccoplant by blending a tomato and a tobacco plant together. He actually succeeded and you can see the plant in these two videos. Scientists have tested the plant and actually found nicotine in the leaves of the fruiting tomato plant.

Lego album covers
Almost as good as the Japanese recreations of album covers that I posted last week is this page of Lego recreations.