GromBlog

IP Address Locator
Nice geek tool to bookmark - the IP Address Locator lets you enter an IP address to find its location - Lookup Country Region City etc. A lot of people use it to trace - I use it because I'm nosy.
(If you want a more professional tool then I'd recommend Visualroute).

Bootleg Retro Arcade Games
I never realised quite how prevalent the problem of bootleg arcade games was back in the 80's. You gotta admire the cheek of the makers of 'Hangley Man' - a 99% straight copy of Pac Man.

EvilLyrics - Winamp Lyrics plug-in
Stop embarrassing Mis-heard lyric faux-pas with EvilLyrics, the Winamp lyrics search plug-in. It downloads the lyrics for your songs as your play them. Neat!

Eloquent 404
Edgar Allen Poe would sue over this 404 if he were still alive.

Gum Blondes
Gum Blondes are Jason Kronenwald's idea of art. He has a dedicated team who chew up gum for him. He then sticks the gum to a piece of board and creates images of (fairly retarded-looking) blond girls. Can't see why myself.

Microsoft's Tokyo offices raided
What goes around, comes around - it seems that Microsoft's Tokyo officeshave just been raided. Whilst I can understand this issue over monopolies - I believe I have a right to buy a pc with no operating system installed - I'm more dubious about RealNetworks case against MS regarding the bundling of Media Player in Windows.

The Revels Experiment
Our friends over at Funjunkie have done some outstanding scientific research into a problem that's been worrying me for a long time now - the distribution of Revels in each pack. I think I'm like the rest of the world in hating the coffee ones. So much so that Mrs grom & I play Revel Roulette (although in our version the loser in the one who gets a coffee flavour one). The latest research suggests that quite rightly, coffee accounts for a lower amount whilst Malteser & Orange ones are more prevalent. Good work guys!

Windows XP case mod
We haven't featured any case mods recently so I thought it was time for a new one. The windows xp box mod is fairly self-explanatory - it's a computer inside the retail box for XP. Very neat.

Green is the new white
After the ground breaking news (albeit a couple of years ago) of the incredible green kitten the good old BBC brings you the worlds first green polar bear. They say it's something to do with algae... I just think there's been a nasty cold going round and they can't use tissues (well - they don't have thumbs!)

What are your favourite on-line shops?
I'm aware that I'm asking for trouble if my comments systems is as unreliable as ever but I'm intrigued to know what my readers favourite online shops are - please tell me in the comments below or drop me an email.
Some that I wholeheartedly recommend are
Blankdiscshop for blank DVDs and CD-Rs
aquarterof for sweets (I order about £100 of sweets for my office every month!)
Amazon goes without saying - still the best but I do prefer to use the excellentAmazon Light for speed.
tunes.co.uk for some of my music.
Easynews for downloads (not really a shop but one of the best sites on the web).
Scan for computer component pricing - the Today Only section is a must-view
I used to use Dabs.com, thinkgeek.com and many others like that but they've lost their appeal mostly (all for differing reasons).
I'm sure I'll think of many more but I want to hear from you guys.

MI5 job application - wanna be a spy?
odd snippets from this MI5 job description;
"...able to blend into the background. We are looking for average height, build, appearance etc.
...assessment includes a two hour long drive to evaluate the candidate's current standard of driving
...able to remain alert during long periods of inactivity and then increase their pace appropriately when necessary"
So not your normal job then.

Toy Fair's Top 10 Strangest Products
Ugo's Report from the recent Toy Fair features the Top 10 Strangest Products they found there - my favourite is the 'Real' Shrunken heads which ar a novel twist of the Cabbage Patch Kid idea. The updated pogostick that is the Flybar just looks deadly (literally!).

The penguin bashing gets sillier
The penguin bashing game gets sillier and sillier. After the low-gravity, low-friction version that took about an hour for one penguin to stop and the Steroids version, comes the gory penguin bashing version*
*now with added gore.

Classic Video Game History
We're old farts at pri.me.uk towers and we love old, retro computer games - the older the better. They don't come much older than the staring point of this Classic Video Game History - games played on oscillascopes and without monitors all the way through to the early 1980's arcade games - they're all here in glorious technicolour.

Animals on the Underground
Everyone knows the London Underground map - it's a design classic. About 15 yrs ago Paul Middlewick spotted the shape of an elephant staring at him from the map. Since then he's 'discovered' a few moreAnimals on the Underground and made a site about them.

Today is Grey Tuesday - Take a stand for the Right to Sample
Got this mail yesterday;
Hi,

We noticed you linked to a story about the Grey Album. It seems like copies of the Grey Album are definitely making their way to people who want them, but we thought it was vitally important that we *insist* on sample-based musicians' right to create, and on the public's right to hear the amazing music they make. EMI wasn't just trying to stop DJ DM from selling the album, they sent cease and desist letters to some websites that were making it available for free. EMI acted to stop people from hearing this piece of fun and inventive music, and that's just not right.

So we're organizing an online-protest of sorts--called "Grey Tuesday"--to take a stand and pretend, even if only for 24 hours, that we don't live in a culture where the legal environment ensnares musicians. The idea is that this Tuesday, February 24th, as many sites as possible mirror the Grey Album and/or turn their page "grayscale" (i.e. no color) for the day. We're also calling for people connected to independent radio stations (college, commercial, internet) to get the entire Grey Album played at some point on Tuesday (possibly along with the Beatles and Jay-Z sources).

We've been pretty successful so far with our attempts to provoke debate about sampling and copyright. Check out this article from Wired that we got going: or have a look at our press page. We're pretty confident that, if there's a reasonable level of participation, we can translate this "online event" into some serious coverage in mainstream press that tons of regular people will read.

And what regular people think about sampling and copyright matters, especially when the future of the music industry is almost entirely up for grabs.

So please, check it out: http://greytuesday.org
and email us to join: greytuesday@downhillbattle.org

Please support these guys - I'll be getting me a Home Taping is Killing music T-shirt

Feel da beat
Hear ye, hear ye, drumkits to be installed in all places of work - or at least they will be if the latest research is true

Best eBay item ever.
You might have to be British to fully appreciate this eBay auction for A nice cup of tea. I reckon it's worth $20 of anyone's money - why pay more for cheap liquor when you can have a perfect cup of 'Yorkshire Champagne'. If this up your street then you might want to check out nicecupofteaandasitdown.com - a classic website - now with award-winning goodness.

GW Bush / Chimpanzee comparisons
Does 'Gee-Dubbya' Bush look like a chimpanzee? Surely not!
Whilst we're at it... let's laugh at him some more... and one more time for good measure. (you may have seen these but, hey... this is for those who haven't)