Rock me to sleep with a shotgun

It's Friday, and you know what that means!! ...well, actually, no, you don't... But anyway, let's pretend you (and I) do.

I've not listened to "Throwing Copper" for a long long time, but I'd suggest you get a copy and have yourself a little rock-out! (<- That link is for mp3 download at Amazon)

our love is like water pinned down and abused for being strange...

So, it's Friday as I mentioned, and I want to touch on a couple of news stories from this week...

  • BP Destroys the planet
  • Man goes wild with gun, Kills 12
  • I finally get a haircut

So yes, BP have "only gone and done it" and when I say IT I mean fill a decent bit of ocean with some nasty oil... It's been said, as every man and dog and dog's dog are writting / blogging / tweeting about it that "we're all to blame" -- I guess if we wear clothes, eat hot food, drive cars (obviously) or use computers, which you're all guilty of as I don't go to press with my blogs, and even then power to make the paper / ink... so, we're all in this together... Can we do anything to help the situation? I amused myself with the suggestion that we should all stop using oil, but well.. that was a little short sighted I guess... So, what else can you do? err... follow in the footsteps of these highflyers?

Former Dallas star Victoria Principal has made a large donation to assist in clean-up efforts after the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The star has pledged $200,000 to help charities Oceana and the Natural Resources Defense Council deal with the aftermath of the disaster. Other stars currently involved in the clean-up are Kevin Costner, who is testing a water-separation machine designed by his brother, and James Cameron, who is donating the use of his underwater submersibles. Stephen Baldwin will film a documentary about the disaster.

What do you mean you don't have a spare 200 grand...

So, BP are killing people with oil, and some nutter named Derrick is killing other people, 12 of them, with a shotty... Not nice, Derrick! Let's look at this for a minute... There's a few angles here, firstly, what makes a seemingly normal bloke "lose it" and get a gun and go out shooting? So much speculation in the press, I want to add to that and suggest that Derrick was actually not human... no, not really.. seriously though, you've got to hit such a low point mentally to point a gun at someone, another person, and pull that trigger... Or, you've got to be so very angry at people. There doesn't appear to be a connection between "everyone" that he capped, and now there's talk of him having 60k popped into his bank account... Whilst I think that he's a detached, confused, sad person for doing what he did - I do feel a little sorry for him, but obviously I'm feeling a lot more sorry for those who were shot, killed, left without significant others / family and friends - Derrick, not cool. Now, angle number two... How the hell did the police take as long as they did to get someone in there and "sort him out" --> you can speculate on how they might have done that... Sniper, Ram, drugs, missile, Chuck Norris - etc etc... 5:30am the carnage kicked off with Bird being spotted by a woman named Iris... "everything looked normal" Clearly not, Iris... Then, let's jump forward a bit... 10:35am (He's already shot two people, His twin brother and another bloke, Kev) and he's off to shoot Darren.. So, a shotgun, I've fired many in my brief 35 years on this messy, oil coated ball, and they're not quiet!! So, his first kill was in Lamplugh which is very tiny, but the people of Lamplugh (I assume) have ears?! at that hour of the morning, a shotty going off is going to create suspicion, no? So... aside with the bollocks, Police? What were you doing? You didn't have a chopper handy, fine... Borrow one!! A sniper? Flamin heck, it took me about an hour to drive from Keswick to Nth Wales the other day - Hello, SAS? Yes, we need to borrow a sniper please... Look, I'm not saying they didn't do all they could to stop the oil leak, wait.. to stop the shootings, but to take until 1pm to find the guy's car and then him, dead at his own hand in the woods... serious questions need to be asked on three important points...

1. For it to take let's say 8 hours for you to stop (you didn't) a man with a shotgun and an axe to grind, there needs to be a specific and defined response set in stone, as opposed to Cumbria not knowing what to do... 2. I'd hazard to guess that even if a cop with a gun had made it to within spitting distance of Mr. Brid, he or she would be more worried about the community backlash of a cop shooting someone, then actually being shot him or herself by Mr. Bird

3. Community? Does nobody own a gun / pitchfork / tractor / slingshot / crossbow? -- Oh, wait, that's right... You get locked up in this country for trying to save other people's lives by way of popping a cap in the ass of a crazed, gun toting madman...

Makes me a little angry, I don't know all the facts - let's let it go...

Oh yeah, my last point... I had a haircut, so I no longer look like some sort of wildman from the counties..

BP's Black Gold Strangle Hold

Inspired by the blog of someone else, I've decided to take a bit more interest in what BP are doing to the planet with their "little spill" and whilst I understand it's quite difficult to just swim down and stick a cap on its leaky protrusion, as it's more than 1 Mile under water, I wonder if there's more they could have done? What would the Stig do? Let's look at the current oil spill, it's pretty darn big.. infact, let's imagine you've spilled the chip oil in your kitchen and it just kept flowing until your country looked like this... (check yours out here)

So that's out the end of the bay, up to Shep, across into the Alpine National Park and out as far as Hamilton! (Look out South Australia, here we come!) I popped across onto the BP website and this is the latest statement...

Update on Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill - 02 June. BP today announced that it supports the U.S. government's decision to proceed with the construction of six sections of the Louisiana barrier islands proposal. The company will fund the estimated $360 million it will cost to construct the six sections.

360 Million dollars!! What would you do with that?

So, what can we do to help? Raise awareness? Stop filling up at BP? Burn our cars and dress in grass skirts?

(all images from flickr are cc and link to their respective owners)

Comments please...

iPhone, iPad, iNeedaCoffee!

Much interweb chatter about the whole "Steve Jobs gave Adobe the bird" "Flash is heavy and slow" ...blah blah blah! Well, Let's take a look at how NOT having flash on your iPod / iPhone / iPad is going to screw your life. iPod from Apple without Flash from Adobe

So, when I say FLASH you say VIDEO when I say FLASH... oh, you get it, yeah... So, flash and video hold hands and skip, that means that you can't watch.. well, YouTube are letting you watch their stuff, and many other commercial video sites are jumping on the wagon as well... So, what video can't you watch? That's right - PORN! don't deny it, you sneak a little bit of the Swedish goodness in from time to time... "everyone" does it... you're just cut that you can't go straight to redtube and... oh, wait, you can... (blushing now) how ruuuude!... So, there you go, you can watch video...

What else? Games? Suck it up game boy, do some work!! Plus, there's a gazillion games you CAN play - let me introduce you to the App Store!

world-without-flash-on-the-ipad

This image came from Cult of Mac and I'm not sure if it is theirs or Adobes, if it is, sorry

OK, so you've got games, porn.. oh, err.. I mean video... you can view pictures, you can listen to music, you can tell the time, check the weather... learn about first aid, check the footy scores, tweet, read the news, call your mum... What's missing? What can't you do on the iPhone / iPad / iPod without flash?

That's right - You can't view FLASH WEB SITES... Well, maybe it's time for some smart cooky to build "an app for that" ...something that, when you go to a flash website, it springs out onto the website, grabs all the flash in its teeth, munches it into html5 on the fly and spits it back onto your poxy little screen in all its ex-flash glory... there's not a flamin' APP FOR THAT yet... (Dave? Get busy)

Apple Fanboy Rejoice?

I managed to end up on the Telegraph website watching, literally, train crash videos... Somehow a related video came up that was a HTC Desire v iPhone 3Gs "Speed Test" Where the presenters place the devices side by side and click a link - whichever loads first wins...The opening line is "Now, one of the key selling points of the HTC Desire is the speed of its processor" ....Errr, and that, once the browser is running, effects the page load time how? Network / GPU / so many factors... They close the piece with the guy saying "Apple fanboys you can rejoice...blah blah" ...Well, I just wanted to share this as the least conclusive bit of tripe I've ever watched #FAIL

***VIDEO REMOVED DUE TO BLOODY ANNOYING AUTO START***

ONE TWO THREE - iPAD!

So, most of you will know, from my tweetness yesterday, that I have become a father again!! Father to a sweet little iPad... That's right, that sweet looking device that everyone in England wants, but doesn't have... YET ipad winner 123rf.com

Don't fret! There is still time for you, dear reader, to win your own damn iPad!!

If you head over to 123rf.com and follow the instructions, you're in with a shot!! Who are 123rf.com? 123RF.com is your one-stop royalty-free photo library offering stunning, practical stock photos at the most affordable price! (they said it themselves!)

So THANK YOU www.123rf.com THANK YOU VERY MUCH!