One of the most useful devices I have in my study is my trusty Fellowes cross-cut shredder.
Sadly it’s not quite so hardcore that it handles CD-ROMs or credit cards but here’s a video to show you how to cut up your credit cards so that they cannot be used to glean any personal data from it.
My friend Iain has applied for what is being dubbed “The Best Job in the World“: The Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.
Not sure how it can be, to be honest, given that the best job in the world is to be working within the Web Team at the University of St Andrews!
Anyway, that dispute aside, potential applicants are asked to upload a video, photograph and video of themselves (no longer than 60 seconds) to the website.
Here’s Iain’s … erm, offering. Check it out, it’s a work of genius!
Or you can check it out within the context of The Best Job in the World website.
Another new Metallica song — their first single — from their forthcoming album Death Magnetic: The Day That Never Comes.
To me it sounds like a combination of songs from Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, … And Justice For All, and Load/ReLoad.
I’m really looking forward to the album’s release …
In the UK there’s been a long-time medical TV series called Casualty; the YouTube video above shows you the opening titles from Series 15 (2000-2001).
The show is filmed in Bristol, but is set in the fictitious town of Holby — around which have sprung up two other series Holby City (set in the same hospital as Casualty, but on the wards rather than in A&E) and HolbyBlue, about the Holby police.
Anyway, with the non-UK readers catered for … I’ve often thought that it would be really cool to have an episode or two of Casualty each series directed by a guest director.
What would an episode directed by Quentin Tarantino look like? Or Ridley Scott? Or Tim Burton? Or how about Woody Allen?
Q. Who would your director of choice be and why?
I’d really like to see a Quentin Tarantino episode, I have to be honest. I’m just intrigued to know how he would handle it. I imagine there would be quite a lot of implied violence, mixed with the most intricate detail and trivial conversations. You can imagine, for example, an in-depth and heated conversation between two paramedics about the best glue to use for DIY tasks at home while attending a really gruesome train wreck.
The other episode I’d really like to see is the quiet episode, the near-miss episode, the episode where everyone sits around in the A&E department not knowing what to do with themselves because it’s so quiet.
That’s one of the great things about Casualty: you always know that something awful is going to happen.
I didn’t say I wrote Casualty! But you get the idea. Well … in my episode:
That’s my idea. If you’re a writer for popular BBC TV show Casualty, please feel free to use any of those ideas … on the conditions that:
I’ll waive my consultancy fee and EVERYTHINGâ„¢.
Spotted on the Metal Hammer website:
Metallica played a track that will appear on ‘Death Magnetic’ at their Ozzfest debut on Saturday night in Dallas, Texas in its entirity, the first all-new material from the band in half a decade.
The track that Metallica have played is called ‘Cyanide’…
Sounds good — I’m looking forward to hearing the whole album when it’s released next month, on Friday 12 September.
There’s a better quality recording here (with no video), seemingly recorded from the sound-desk.
So … it would appear that the new Apple iPhone 3G was launched today. (That’s obviously not a photo of the new Apple iPhone 3G above, or even the old one. That’s my O2 Xda Orbit running Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.)
I didn’t know that until today. Until I started reading folks’ posts (called tweets) on my Twitter stream, and watching videos on Qik.
It would appear that the Worldwide Apple Cultâ„¢ managed to keep that news well and truly hidden from me. Well done!
Documentally … well, documented the day fabulously well. From getting up to arriving at the Apple store in Milton Keynes, standing in line, being served, going to the Apple store loo (!), and at one point even had one of the Apple assistants holding the camera while he unwrapped the Apple iPhone packaging — the man’s a genius!
Okay, I’ll qualify that last sentence. He’s not a genius simply for unwrapping a box. That could have been done by a simpleton.
No, there was an inclusiveness in that Apple adventure today in his Qik videos, that reflected something of the excitement and camera-derie (sic) of the day.
I watched a couple of other videos on Qik today, of folks standing in other queues, outside other Apple stores, in other towns and … well, they were probably about as embarrassing to watch as they were to make: no-one wanted to speak with the poor fella with the camera.
This is my favourite Qik post — cutting to the chase — this is the moment that the boxed Apple iPhone 3G became Christian’s. I love the cheer! The Apple Cultâ„¢ as one.
So, what’s all the fuss about? The new Apple iPhone 3G has:
Wow! Cool! I can see you’re already impressed.
My Microsoft Windows 6 powered O2 Xda Orbit mobile phone has had three of those facilities for … well, since I bought it in April 2007, and I don’t want the fourth: Push email. I’m happy to synchronize it with Microsoft Outlook 2003.
My colleague Kevin came into work today with — can you guess?
That’s right, it was a new Apple iPhone 3G. Oh, sorry, did I not tell you? Apparently the new model was launched today.
He got the last one in St Andrews. Of course, when I say “the last one” I also mean the eighth one in St Andrews.
He wasn’t even intending on getting one. He just happened to pass The Carphone Warehouse on Market Street and decided to join the small queue that was already forming.
A few minutes later the manager emerged from the store and said,
Good morning potential customers of St Andrews in Fife. Thank you for your patience. I can announce to you, the consuming public of this Royal and Ancient Burgh, that we have a grand total of eight new Apple iPhone 3Gs.
So if I may, I shall ask the first eight customers who have formed this orderly and polite queue outside the shop window of my shop to kindly step inside and off with the rest of you, to your daily routines.
My best wishes to you should you quest further afield in search of this technological wonder which, if you ask me, has three out of four of the built-in functions of the O2 Xda Orbit a telephone that came onto the market over one earth calendar year ago.
And that was it. Those eight lucky fellas got their hands on a shiny new Apple iPhone 3G.
Well, seven of them did. The guy at the front of the queue, who’d been there since 5:00 am and who had been thoughtful enough to bring with him a wicker chair unfortunately hadn’t been thoughtful enough to bring with him his wallet!
I think the official and international response to that is: D’oh!
This coverage of the launch, which happe… what do you mean the launch of what?! This coverage of the launch of a new kind of chocolate washing powder in New York City was brought to my attention by the splendid Sizemore:
And for those of you who like to read rude words on the internet, like ‘bum’ and ’squelch’, there is always Maddox’s review.
This was brought to my attention by a visiting consultant today. And I thought I spent too much time on the internet!
The paragraph that made me laugh the most was:
[The iPhone is] not three devices in one any more than my laptop is you morons. Using Jobs’ loose definition of what constitutes a separate device, technically my laptop can be considered 8 devices in one:
- A clock
- A calculator
- An “Internet communications device”
- A phone (I can make voice calls with my modem)
- A pornographic media storage device
- A video player
- A word processor
- And an “iPod” (see below)
Aha! Let’s go for a stroll!