Room 101, I’ve got it… 25, September 2007
Posted by babychaos in General Wittering, Grumpy Old Bag, Life and living, Light Fluff, whinging, winging.Tags: technology
2 comments
Yep, I’ve worked it out, it happened to me before when I was editing a site about bus timetables (yes, I used to do that kind of thing for a living, what’s more scary though, the fact I did or the fact I enjoyed it?). It was using a content management system not so different from WordPress and I kept finding I’d do half an hour’s work, save it, all would be fine and then three minutes later the whole thing would disappear. As I was working in raw code for the most part, this was exceptionally annoying the first time. After that I made sure I saved text files of everything, clutters up the hard drive but it’s well worth it.
Different servers refresh at different rates, so my version of the internet is the version on my ISP’s servers. As far as I understand it, this can cause me problems if my ISP only refreshes its content say, every 20 minutes and WordPress refreshes it’s servers more often.
So, for example, the long comment I wrote to Mrs M yesterday, in reply to hers on my article about baby making whinging, though it showed on my site as live, has completely disappeared. Presumably because I was, technically, writing it on a version of my site which didn’t exist by that time, since WordPress had already refreshed itself and my server hadn’t. So, when my server refreshed it updated with the most recent version, that on WordPress rather than it’s own and hey presto, all my work is lost.
The only way around it? Change my ISP to one which refreshes the same speed it’s previous owners did (no thanks) or save everything as text files and keep saying it until finally, the next day, I find it’s stuck.
I think I will report this one to WordPress, just in case there’s anything they can do or any work around they can point me to, I will also report it to skinflint Virgin Media whose tardy refreshing is causing the problem.
So conflicting server refresh rates, another object for Room 101, I think.
PS if this is a load of old bollocks and there’s something I can actually do – apart from convincing a corporate behemoth to change it’s policy on something, I mean – please enlighten me/let me know.
Some of the fastest vehicles on the road… 19, August 2007
Posted by babychaos in Adult Content, General Wittering, Life and living, Light Fluff, Play, whinging, winging.Tags: Cars, driving, Shocking!, technology
6 comments
As we all know there is a great deal of hype about who can produce the fastest road car, how quickly it goes from 0-60, etc. So the fastest road car at the moment is the Bugatti Veron… or is it still the Maclaren F1? No matter, both go at over 200 miles an hour but what use is one of these beasts on the actual road? Well… not much… not with speed limits, speed cameras and granny driving her Honda Civic round to her kid’s for lunch…
Having done a 100 mile round trip for a christening, today, mostly down the M25, I can confirm that the four fastest cars on the road today are actually as follows…
A hired car or even better, a hired VAN
So what if you left the oil cap off at the last services and are doing the whole journey at 9,000 revs, it’s not yours and with any luck it won’t break completely until after you’ve given it back and are long gone.
A white van
When you are in the fast lane, doing 90 you don’t expect one of these to come up behind you and sit so close on your bumper you begin to wonder if the guy is trying to trap a credit card he’s accidentally dropped out of his window against it. You should.
Anything with an italicised number plate.
Also a top contender for the highest amount of money spent on a car for the smallest increase in value, this one. Yes it’s metallic purple it has an enormous spoiler and a full body kit but don’t be fooled, it’s not a Sierra Cosworth. That’s a standard 1.1 litre Ford Diesel engine in there. It will have taken at least 20 miles to get from a standing start to the speed, just short of escape velocity, which it’s doing now. It’s driven by a lad in a baseball cap who believes that the speed and volume of the drum n bass he plays directly affects the quickness of his car. Don’t forget there’s a strong possibility that he has customised more than the body, the stereo system and the exhaust, chances are those bright red brake callipers are his work, too. Get out of the way, the only thing stopping this car is going to be the back of yours.
Any Volkswagen except the Beetle.
Yep if you drive with the aggression of German foreign policy in the late 1930s you are almost certain to have gone for a German car; a beamer or an Audi for example. However, if you are an absolute, raving, barking lunatic and drive with levels of aggression that makes the way the Taliban treat their women folk look cuddly, your choice of car will undoubtedly be a VW. Just as “the car in front of you is a toyota” the car behind you – the one tailgating you at so closely, even at well over the speed limit, that you are beginning to wonder if the guy is going to actually park it inside your boot or whether it got hooked onto your bumper somehow at the last set of traffic lights – is a Volkswagen.
If you have ever thought about having the word “nutter” tattoed on your forehead but worry that it might be a little distracting at job interviews and adversely affect your career then not to worry. You can still send out the same message, just buy a VW Golf… or a Bora. It’s a little more expensive but no less eloquent.
Unfortunate Web Addresses 25, May 2007
Posted by babychaos in General Wittering, Humour, Life and living, Light Fluff, Play.Tags: barking, crap jokes, funny product names, jokes, oops, Small Scale Disasters, technology
11 comments
Take two simple, seemingly innocuous words, run them together to make a web address and you get something a little more scary. Ah! The nuances of language! Enjoy…
1. Who Represents – where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity.
Their Web site is www.whorepresents.com
2. Experts Exchange – a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at
3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at
4. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at
5. There’s the Italian Power Generator company
6. And don’t forget the Mole Station Native Nursery in New South Wales,
7. If you’re looking for IP computer software, there’s always
8. The Methodist Church (in Cumming, GA) Web site is
9. And the designers at Speed of Art await you at their wacky Web, site
www.speedofart.com – is that a bubble in your trousers or are you pleased to see me!
10. Thank you Brian, www.wankerscorner.com – only hilarious if you’re British but there we go. I love the bit which says.
“Stop by our online gift store a pick up your official WANKERWEAR today!”
I certainly will, I’ve always wanted to be a tosser! 
Aaargh! I’m turning into my parents! 5, May 2007
Posted by babychaos in Adult Content, Grumpy Old Bag, Life and living, whinging, winging, writing.Tags: technology
7 comments
I’ve really done it now. I’ve morphed into both parents… and very possibly one of my grandfathers, to boot. You see, I’ve complained to the BBC… about spelling! Oh no, I must be cracking up. This is what writing for a living does to you! No wonder I want to be an artist.
I just get so fed up with people in business spelling everything like organise or optimise or standardise with z’s and people spelling enquiries with an i. For the last three months or so, the BBC news, the best and most impartial in the world, has started spelling Enquiries wrong as standard. Why does this irritate me so much? I find myself ranting at the screen like a grumpy old gimmer (or my Dad).
“We’re sodding British for god’s sake!” I shout. “It’s OUR language, which WE invented and YOU’RE the BBC! It’s your bloody job to spell it right.”
Bastards!
And then I remember my dad shouting at the screen as yet another newscaster enunciated “frontier” or “privacy” wrong!
They don’t even listen to their own experts! Here’s one advising Serbians learning English who have asked him the difference between “enquire” and “inquire”… on the BBC’s own website.
“There is a very simple answer here – there is no difference in meaning. The spelling with ‘e’ is British, the spelling with ‘i’ is North American. The same goes for the nouns, ‘inquiry’ and ‘enquiry’.”
He goes on to say.
“There are, of course, other differences in spelling between American and British English. The most common ones are words that end with ‘our’ in British English and are spelled ‘or’ in American English – labour (labor), honour (honor), and so on.
“Another common difference is words that end in ‘re’ in British English and are spelled with ‘er’ in American English- theatre, centre.
And finally, words that end with – ‘ize’ in American English and are often spelled with – ‘ise’ in British English – sympathise, criticise, and so on.”
It’s all Bill Gates’ fault. Scientists all use Word and scientists can’t spell at the best of times and using a programme which comes with another country’s spelling dictionary as default doesn’t help them. Even if you’re savvy enough to install the English, English dictionary, Microsoft Word’s grip on the mother tongue is laughable – drawing, as it apparently does, on British English from about the time of the Battle of Trafalgar, possibly earlier.
Worse, because the programme is ubiquitous, people think it must be right and believe they’ve been spelling their own language wrong all their lives. Give me strength!
Did you know they invented a computer to crack the Enigma code during the war but they all signed the Official Secrets Act so nobody was allowed to talk about it until 70 years afterwards? The Government didn’t want anyone to know because a lot of countries still used Enigma and it wanted to be able to have a beaky at their top secret communications.
Well… I reckon this is Bill Gates’ revenge on the British Government, on behalf of the US government and world science, for forcing everyone to spend a lot of time and effort reinventing something pretty much from scratch in the 1950s and 60s which, in a crude form, was already there.
Makes you wonder how much technology would be available today if it wasn’t deemed to give the governments of the countries in which it was invented a military advantage, doesn’t it?
Microsoft Word and Dodgy spelling. It’s like the whole world is morphing into America without the good bits… AAAAARGH! It’s so frustrating.
New Mouse Launched 17, January 2007
Posted by babychaos in General Wittering, Humour, Light Fluff.Tags: household, technology
5 comments
After years of research, scientists have discovered that Women do not like the standard mouse given away with PC’s. Scientists found that there is not a physical reason for their aversion – it is more of a psychological problem.
Some women reported that their mouse ‘just didn’t feel right’ in their hands.
Based on the research, a new mouse has been designed especially for women. Field tests on this new design are now complete and the feedback has been almost 100% positive:
Julie from Hounslow:
“It feels so much better. More comfortable, more like I have always imagined it’s supposed to.”
Susan from Chelmsford:
“I think mice were originally designed just for men, but this new type is definitely made for women. It fits right in with my lifestyle”
Hillary from Kent:
“I never really understood using a mouse, it seemed so technological and difficult. This one makes computing so much more user-friendly. I took to it like a duck to water, every woman should have one.”
