And a tip of the hat to Big Tony for this.. Once I'd stopped shooting coffee out my nose..

Posted by Bill Buchan At 09:59:31 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Birthday Bookmark :              

Nothing sums up British Chrismas Cooking like Brussel Sprouts. Of course, I hate em, so this is particularly funny: Attack of the Sprouts

Ta, Pants

Posted by Bill Buchan At 12:53:48 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Chrismas Dinner Brussel Sprouts Bookmark :              

As usual, the Onion is there!:
Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard

(and a big tip-o-the-hat to Matt)

Posted by Bill Buchan At 12:19:51 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category mac macworld Bookmark :              

And in fact the HADSL server is running it already!

Posted by Bill Buchan At 10:19:14 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Lotus Notes Lotus Domino 8.5 Bookmark :              

Interesting day tomorrow with Macworld on: Wonder what the big shout will be ? And Ed's there too.

Me, I'm hoping for a new Macbook Pro 17", faster iMacs and iPhone sync capabilities with Notes. What you wishing for ?

Posted by Bill Buchan At 21:24:18 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category 8.5 release Macworld Bookmark :              

With I suspect no irony whatsoever, this is the 'Welcome' page for travellers to the USA so that they can fill in their confidential traveller information:

This might sound like a rather silly question, but does the USA actually want people to visit ? I really get the impression that the DHS does not.

This somewhat contradicts the plaque at the Statue of Liberty:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Posted by Bill Buchan At 09:55:07 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category None Bookmark :              

PG tips released two hilarious and fairly British TV ads over the Christmas period. The first is the Monkey attempting the Queens speech (here) and the second is Johnny Vegas and Monkey doing the infamous 'Morecombe and Wise' 'making breakfast' sketch (which you can get here). Fantastic.

Mumble mutter wish mutter IBM mutter clue-stick mutter mutter advertised mumble mutter mutter Lotus Notes and didnt use mutter mutter idiots mutter mumble.

Posted by Bill Buchan At 13:01:35 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category PG Tips Bookmark :              

Just a quick "Happy new Year" for 2009, from the Isle of Skye.

Posted by Bill Buchan At 19:37:36 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category HNY Bookmark :              

I laughed and laughed and laughed. Seriously. Who in their right mind would trust a Microsoft device.

Posted by Bill Buchan At 17:46:59 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Zune Bookmark :              

21 Dumbest Business decisions of 2008. . I guess the politicans didnt want anyone stealing their glory from the top spots.

Is Ballmer going to continue wrecking Microsoft ? If so - its an open goal for IBM, Apple and the open source movements. Is this the year that Office finally gets the boot for something free ?

Posted by Bill Buchan At 15:58:12 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category None Bookmark :              

I decided to head up to the Isle of Skye a couple of days early, to spend time with my dad. As we're down to only one car (and to be quite honest, we only really need one car) I thought I'd try and take public transport up to Skye. Traditionally, its been a painful 5-6 hour drive across the whole of Scotland, over hill and glen. Very pretty, but quite tiring. This time, as I've a shedload of work to catch up on, I thought I'd take the train. It is supposed to be the most beautiful run in Scotland, between Kyle and Inverness.

There are two alternatives - a 6am start or a 2.30pm start. The later train also had the apparent benefit of short connection times in Aberdeen, Inverness, and Kyle, so I plumped for that. This might yet turn out to be a mistake - the incoming train to Aberdeen was a few minutes late, as was the next stage. The train to Kyle is now 20 minutes late, which might rather destroy my previous 10 minute connection.

Hint number one: Go for 30 minute connections and you have a far higher chance of it all working.

I even got power on the Aberdeen to Inverness section, which mean that I *had* to finally reconcile my bank and invoice ledgers. Done. And here on the train to Kyle, as its made of the same bits I came from Aberdeen on, I also have a first class seat and power. No internet, but hey, you can have everyhing. Bear in mind on the Inverness to Kyle section, there are 'on demand' staion halts. And precious little mobile phone coverage. 3G ? That was back in Aberdeen, some 120 miles behind us. Welcome to the Highlands. Offline and replication rules here.

Strangely enough, this train departs from Inverness, goes north to Dingwall and splits into two. One part heads further north to Wick - right at the tip of Scotland and home to the Dounrae reactor, and my bit heads to the westmost part - Kyle of Lochalsh. And this train in its current form is too long for most of the platforms - so you'd better have been paying attention to the conductors earlier..

So how pretty is the route ? We head through Plockton - the filming location for Hamish Macbeth (where Robert 'Begsbie' Carlyle breaks typecasting and DOESNT play a psychopathic killer). And seriously pretty. On the way back, I get it in daylight. Righ now, all I can see is perhaps the prettiest pitch dark view in the world. But hey.

And what of the 'Pains' in the title ? The last part of this 8 hour journey is by Bus. Now, the busses to Skye used to be ran by Skye-ways. Even Porsche drivers had difficulty keeping up with Skyeways busses, such was their drivers' skills. Woe betide the poor car with one of those clamped to its bumper. Nowadays, its owned by Stagecoach, and so it takes an hour between Kyle of Lochalsh, where the bridge is, and Portree. Something any self-respecting Skyeways driver (and perhaps Lewis Hamilton) might do in 40 minutes.

We shall see..

Meanwhile, the joys of a working power supply, a soft seat, a beer, the Police on the iPod and the ramblings of Raving Robert McNeil on the Hootsman. Bliss.

Update: The train heating didnt work for two hours, so I was glad to unfold myself from my frozen seat, and warmed myself outside. Four of us shared a taxi to Portree last night and I landed in the Isles hotel, listening to the world famous Ardmore Celidh Band (Andy and my Father) playing till midnight - in the audience three girls from Queens - and copy editors too - enjoying themselves. Small world.

And so this afternoon I surface, suffering from 'Skye Head'..

Posted by Bill Buchan At 18:13:47 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Public Transport Scotland Bookmark :              

It was the twisted ceilidh in the Marykirk Hall last night in aid of the Marykirk Raft Race. And what a night it was! Derek, Ewan, Neil and the rest of the lads did an excellent job in organising the event, setting up the hall, getting tables and chairs, cooking stovies, setting up games and blowing up the 8 adult sized space hoppers that were to be used. I rolled up at 7.15pm or so and was told that two separate Discos' had bailed and all we had to play music on was an 8 track.

I'm not kidding. An 8 track. With three boxes of cassettes. Scary thing is, that some of the stuff on the cassettes were very popular.. Now, I'm no spring chicken, but I've never used an 8 track before. Most folk under the age of 30 had never *seen* one before. There was no 'play' button.. So we trucked on with that till the Squid turned up with her boom-box, and a stack of CD's.

Now this hall is large, and I guess between 80-100 folks turned up, all ages, all sizes, and all states of fancy dress. Speaking of which, the winner of the female fancy dress was the Angel, the male was 'The Gingerbread Man' (Not kidding - a full sized adult gingerbread man [from Shrek] suit). And the winner of the kids was Ewans little girl, dressed as a fairy.

Because there really wasnt a working PA system, I ended up doing most of the shouting, organising the space hopper races, and helping out with the raffle draw. I think because of the volume of prizes donated (thanks everyone!), everyone went home with something. Some folks went home with stuff they'd donated.

Around 1am, we started clearing the hall, and Derek/Ewan announced that we'd raised over £500 for the raft race. So congratulations, and thanks to everyone for helping, partipating, and making it sucha good time. Shall we do it again next year ?

And remember - the Race Night at the pub in January.

Posted by Bill Buchan At 15:06:18 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Marykirk Raft Race Marykirk Celidh Bookmark :              

And many thanks to Alan Lepofsky, noted nice guy and Bostonian, for the tip. Coool video!

So why cool ? Human relations are still important. The Net allows us (at last) to disregard geography, but face to face, or beer to beer contact is still required.. ESPN, Saturday night, Lotusphere, right?

Posted by Bill Buchan At 18:35:27 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Video Bookmark :              

Go get World of Goo. No Seriously. Do it now.

SWMBO - a card carrying luddite - she hates technology so much she could be in IBM marketing - actually was able to download, install and play World of Goo on her Mac. And loves it. Like I cant get her hands off the keyboard. Think: Lemmings, crossed with Da Blob. Cheap (20 bucks cheap), two man development team, and a fantastic game. You stone-age PC folks can play it too.

Posted by Bill Buchan At 17:57:34 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Games World of Goo Mac Wii Bookmark :              

Merry Christmas everyone! Sorry I didnt mention it yesterday, but I was too busy setting up a new MS project application to track how I'd cook Christmas Lunch. Lunch. Lunch isnt an expansive enough word to describe the two starters, fifteen veg and four meat main course, and choice-of-seven puddings I'd managed to cook up (SWMBO only helping out in the last five minutes because she wanted cauliflower and cheese. Cauliflowers look like a bleached human brain, and the cheese sauce is normally used to glue space-shuttle tiles back on, so I'd refused to learn how to make it).

Phew. Some five hours in the kitchen, four loads through the dishwasher (and its a *big* dishwasher. Does *yours* have four seats and power steering?), and finally its over. My diabetic coma disappeared as soon as Wallace and Gromits new feature came on. Was it good ? Yes it was *fantastic*. See it. And afterwards, we watched the tail end of the Top Gear repeat, where the three stooges drive cars with 'Man Love Rules OK', 'Nascar Sucks' and 'Country and Western is Rubbish' written on the side. And get stoned in Alabana. Not in a nice way stoned.

So here am I, hiding at the other end of the house on the pretence of finding a minature screwdriver so I can put batteries into my remote controlled 'Yellow Submarine'. Ace. So why am I hiding ?

SWMBO, her mother and the sprog (sans Veggie boy - he's not made an appearance at the house in a while, so I'm going to scoff the bottle of booze I bought him - son, you gotta collect in person, savvy?) are all on the sofa. Watching Mama Mia. Yes I bought it for SWMBO, but only on the strict instructions that I had to be in a another continent when she watched it. Sigh. Women. Fickle beasts.

I mean, Abba. I dont dislike them. And I've seen some hideous movies and musicals in my time. Christ, I saw Cats three times (do I get a medal?). But. Mama Mia. No wonder she let me watch a bit of Top Gear.

Lets make a serious point here: A husband isnt just for Christmas Lunch. A husband is for Life.

Posted by Bill Buchan At 22:43:06 Location Marykirk | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)    | Category Christmas Mama Mia Bookmark :