just to let you know

David Woodings Photography

When David first approached me and asked if I could do the design for his website David Woodings Photography, I was more than delighted.

David is a talented and gifted young photographer who gives wedding and portrait photography some contemporary new dashes of esprit. If you are looking to hire a photographer who is not too much into-your-face, but remains in the background without you even noticing, go and check out his online gallery.

Michael Knight's car KITT for sale

no more "Guy, I need you !" - K.I.T.T., Michael Knight's super-intelligent, self-driving and emotionally stable car is up for sale on Ebay. Will David Hasselhoff (aka "The Hoff") be tempted ?

linkable Waltons special

Jerry Goldsmith, the composer of the Waltons tune died today, aged 75. Therefore I thought a little "Waltons rememberance" linkable section would be in order.

When I was just a little lad, I loved the Waltons and hardly missed an episode. I specifically remember the one where the family installed their first refrigerator in the kitchen or even the episode where John-Boy witnessed the crash of the Hindenburg zeppelin as a journalist.

The Waltons was a moving series and must have made such an impression on people. Unsurprisingly, there are a few websites covering everything about and beyond the 221 episodes mighty american TV series.

Warner Video offer the Waltons on DVD now and there are some other places for Waltons images, for example.

Could there be a more perfect tune for a family programme as The Waltons? I think not. Most recently, the tune was also used as a running gag in the BBC's comedy series 'The Smoking Room', where several chacters tried to remember the exact melody from The Waltons.

What made The Waltons so successful and special? Let me summarise it with a quote from Robert L Stevenson I heard the other day: The Waltons were all about something that makes a better life - "Something to do, someone to love and something to hope for".

Good night, John-Boy !

linkable

• The International Herald Tribune comments on the state of financial affairs in the German county of Saxony and Dresden in particular.
• While the NYT hails untucked shirts as the "New Pennants of Rebellion", blogger Howard Sherman contributes his amusing 2p to it. Tucked shirt = Rebellion ? Have I missed something ?
• Leith in Ediburgh now has it's own community blog - TheLeither.net

Depeche Mode reflections

Greg.org's latest Depeche Mode reflections stirred up something that always seemed to be at the back of my mind. "A lovely song, but something is just not quite right here.". Almost 2 decades down the line and equipped with better knowledge of english, I finally know now what is was all about.

linkable

• Interesting comparison of the first Kodak cameras of around 100 years ago to the cameraphones of today. History repeats itself !
• WiredNews on the Odeon cinema re-design incident the other day - also with some interesting comments from Jeffrey Zeldman.
• Report from a former british soldier about his years of national service during the post WW2 years in Germany.

linkable

• Butter to the fish - Michael Moore provides facts about F9/11 claims on his website.
• photos of Jason Kottke's recent heli trip over Manhattan.

Google Adverts on blogs

...really annoy me. What's wrong with putting in normal "endorsed sites" links into the side bar?

just the two of us...

It's just me and Milly this weekend. Sal is away to visit her parents and is not to be found anywhere near the "Kilt Equator" until Sunday.

What might be a fright to some Dads is pure pleasure to me - well at least up to now! Milly and I had a fab day today. We had a bit of a lie-in (8:15am) and after the usual milk, greek yoghurt and toast Milly had another kip. We then had a stroll down into Stockbridge and spend a bit of time at the new little Jazz coffee place (I forgot the name). It's a tiny little place, run by an American who plays some good jazzy tunes and serves wicked cheese cake. Milly was full of beans and enjoyed having her dad all to herself. I hope tomorrow will be as good as today.

This is the second weekend I'm spending on my own with Milly and I must say that these "Daddy weekends" always are a real eye-opener to me. It makes me realise again how hard (but rewarding) the job of a full-time parent is. All of these full-time mums and dads deserve more financial recognition, I think.

e-Apartheid at Odeon cinemas

What strange times we live in. There is a hobby web designer who decided to revamp the Odeon Cinema's website through his own webspace by calling the URLs on the original site. He was simply fed up with the inaccessibility and convoluted way the existing site had been developed. At first Odeon didn't seem to mind, but later the designer received a harsh letter from Odeon's awyers telling him to remove the accessible site.

Some companies don't seem to understand and it's quite poignant, I think, that the BBC commentator speaks of e-Apartheid.

security risk iPod ?

Finally the MOD and other organisations realise how dangerous iPods can be.

Ahem, excuse me: doesn't this apply to ANY of these small external USB and Firewire media sticks etc ? It always surprises me how these issues are suddenly "discovered" by the media. This topic has been around since yesteryear.

linkable

• Interesting report on Wired about bloggers suffering from burnout.
• British NHS decided: Germans flown in to cover for GPs. Interestingly, there are 2,350 German doctors currently registered with the General Medical Council.
• old dogs - new tricks and all that... I found this really helpful when battling with MS IEs duplicate characters characters problem problem.

music reminiscence

Today was a special day. Today, we purchased our first music online on Apple's beautiful iTMS.

Just one track to start with. Just 0.79p changed hands. Simple really.

And now I'm contemplating my next move: "Keane" or maybe a selection of tracks, picked carefully from the Top 100 Downloads list ? Or would that be too mainstream?

But suddenly - it must have happened somewhere in between these virtual MP3 shelves - the past hit me and threw me into an orbit around my HiFi system. And I've stayed there since.

Some time back, I used to sit down, listen to newly purchased music and browse the CD booklet, admire or reject the artwork, read the lyrics and the silly "Thank You's" some bands put in.

Gone, away and forgotten is all this in this new shiny 128kbps-polished world. It's just me in front of a bit of software looking at the "artwork" provided with the download. I can write it to a CD but it still doesn;t replace the booklet.

Sure, there is the price and the convenience, but so far my memories seem to win this battle of warm music reminiscence vs. cool downloads.

linkable

• Who needs the iTunes Music Store, eh? They Might Be Giants offer their latest tracks as mp3 for $0.99 directly on their website.

Michael Moore weblog

The director of "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" is now publishing a web log. So far, 2 entries are shown. Trackbacks, comments or even an RSS feed would be appreciated, me thinks.

linkable

• Too much of a good thing: The future of BBC online is under fire after the so-called Graf review. Following year long complaints by the British Internet Publishers Association (BIPA), BBC online is accused of accused of providing too much entertainment content and therefore stifling competition as a publicly owned and run company. Governors of the BBC volleyed back a Future of the BBC" document with suggestions from the BBC top management how to reform the public broadcaster. For german readers, there is also a worthwhile article about this on Spiegel.de.
• Fahrenheit 9/11 already circulated in P2P networks - much to Michael Moore's delight.

greek surprise

According to the sport media last night's Greek success in Euro 2004 caused a major upset. I can't really confirm this and would rather call it a "greek surprise".

Recent successes of greek and turkish teams (semis of last World Cup) don't really upset me and to be honest it surpises me that we haven't seen evidence of their fottball abilities any earlier. During my years as an active club footballer in Germany, I saw many very talented greek and turkish players. I also think that the large greek and turkish communities in germany enabled these nations to replicate good football education in their home countries.

So well done to the greek - I always knew you had it in you (and that's where I put my money before the tournament !).

linkable

• Turning dirt into gold - Glastonbury mud sells on Ebay.
• let's go and save some trees: Sony introduces the LIBRIe eBook. Link to the review on Excite.
• Marginal Revolution reports on tragic events in Nigeria - children die of Polio despite vaccines being available, because local clerics create their own spin around the vaccines that originate frm the US. They claim it's a plan to make the population infertile.
• The german police tapped 400% more telecomms wires of foreigners residing in Germany.
• Ad blocking TV box developer wins court ruling against TV channels.

This is Entry 100 !

Even though I'd rather declare myself as an atheist, let me shout out a frantic "Hallelujah" to all of you. Hard to believe, but it's true: I managed to run the weblog for 100 posts and my interest and fascination running it is growing each day.

Honestly, I would have never thought I would make it this far and I should really thank all commenters (well, the genuine ones... those I don't have to remove on a regular basis) and readers. Keep them coming.

Considering I started the blog on the 5th of Feb this year, I posted an average of about 5 entries a week on here - and mostimportantly I can live with that figure. After all, I am a father, husband and someone with a life.

The next big goal now is the "1000 posts" mark. Yieepieeee.