Well, as expected the item was delayed. With an estimated postal time of 2 working days maximum, after 5 working days I was starting to worry a little, and went on the Royal Mail website to track my parcel. Here’s what I was told:

“Recorded Signed For™ items are only tracked after the item has been delivered. Depending on whether the item was sent first or second class, this may be a few days after posting. Please try again later.

Information on your item is not yet available online.”

So, I can only track a parcel once it’s arrived?! “Hm, I wonder where it could be? Oh wait, it’s right here on my lap!” - that’s ridiculous! What is the point in this service, seriously? Unless your a seller, wanting to know whether the parcel has arrived yet, the system is worthless. And face it, if you’re a seller, you get paid before you send the item, who cares if it’s arrived?

Something needs to be done about that, in my opinion. 

The singer, who died May 14th 1998 was famous for his role in the Rat Pack, his solo music career, numerous film roles and general attitude towards life. He was an American icon for many years, although appreciated worldwide. Sinatra was also frequently linked to the mafia, and it’s often thought that his career was partially funded and aided by organized crime.

The auction seems legitimate, and apparently full legal ownership documents are available as proof, although no copy is available on the auction. The car is reputed as “the last car he ever drove” and was apparently owned by him for around six years. The car was given to Mr. Sinatra on Valentine’s Day 1985, by his wife Barbara (formally Barbara Marx, widowed to one of the Marx brothers)

The car seems in good condition, but has not been registered and is not immediately drive-able, although it could of course be registered upon purchase. There’s alot more information and history on the auction itself, and I’m sure a quick Google would provide a lot of information.

Auction: [eBay UK (£) | eBay US ($)]

It seems Nintendo greatly under estimated the success of thier product, possibly after the failure of the Gamecube, which came to a miserable death under the fearsome reign of the legendary Playstation 2. But in contrast, the Wii has become a huge success, and shops can’t satisfy the floods of customers with their low stock levels, Nintendo, what have you done?!

The Wii is unique. The Wii will be huge. Already it’s cheaper than the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3, and there’s stacks of quirky games available for it. Nintendo could revisit the status they enjoyed back in the day, with the unforgettable NES and SNES systems, should they wake up and meet the customer’s demands! Face it, the Xbox 360 is older now, and asides from HD graphics it’s no different to the original Xbox, really. The Playstation 3 is trying far too hard to incorporate the latest technology, and as a result only people willing to sell their car will get their hands on it.

Basically unless you want to spend alot on the latest game console the Wii is the best choice. When the Wii 2 arrives and the Playstation 3 has dropped in price we may see some competition, and Wii will win again, having assessed the competitor. Xbox 360 is behind the times, Playstation 3 is ahead of the times and Wii is just perfect. Buy it.

So it’s great for the kids, it’s great for the adults, it’s generally great, everybody wants one! That’s where the problem lies. It seems Nintendo under estimated the popularity of the Wii in the UK, and nearly every shop is sold out.

Not brilliant timing. Top of your child’s treasured Christmas list is that Wii he/she has been chattering about for months, and now there are none left, and no time to import from America, where Wiis roam free in their millions. It looks like the few tears shed this year at Christmas won’t be of merriment and joy, and that’s when it hits you, what have you done!?

Never fear! eBay is here! You can grab a Wii that someone bought by mistake, or an unwanted gift, please your child and maybe get it at a bargain price, right? Wrong. Painfully wrong. For you see, the popularity and general need for a Wii this Christmas has got people lining up for the toilet in masses, all in need of that Wii they’ve been waiting for. And these people each place a bid, which knocks up the price. So it looks like you could be paying a wild £400 for a Wii off eBay this Christmas, £20 more than double the RRP.

Unlucky, shoppers, it looks like your going to have to displease your financial advisor or your child this Christmas, good luck on making the choice.

Wii on eBay: [UK (£) | US ($)]

Anyway, what you’re about to see is 15,000 christmas lights, and four giant inflatables, all outside Alek Komarnitsky’s house in USA. Oh, and you can control them from anywhere in the world.

That’s right, all day, every day from Thanksgiving 2006 to January 1st 2007, Alek’s webcams will be showing his workstation, the front of his house and the lawn, which together home the mass of lights and inflatables. And between 1700 and 2200 MST (GMT -7) every day, the buttons alongside the cameras work and you can play with the controls and watch your handiwork take it’s toll all the way over in America. PLUS, there’s a laptop in the work area (Cam 3) which shows any message people type from around the world!

Oh, and it’s all free, although it is recommended that you donate to the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, as his children unfortunately suffer from Celiac Disease, which is an incurable intolerance of gluten, which is in barley, oats, wheat, etc.

Please, visit the site and play with the lights and messages in the Christmas spirit, but think of those less fortunate and donate to the charity, it really is for a good cause and it’s only fair considering poor Alek is raising awareness using his own hard earned cash.

Link: http://www.komar.org/cgi-bin/christmas_webcam

Based on Ubuntu Edgy Eft 6.10, Ubuntu SE isn’t currently a Ubuntu flavor/distribution, so much as a series of themes and changes made to Ubuntu to give it that Satanism vibe.
It’s certainly interesting, and alot more appealing than the pansy Ubuntu Christian Edition, but do you really need to worship the dark lord from your workstation? And how many satanists are actually out there? You’d be suprised. The story gained around 1,000 diggs, a whole 500 more than my List of Feisty Fawn specifications!

Anyway, if your satanist or not, Ubuntu SE is worth a browse purely for the magnificent artwork. And should you choose to return from the firey pits of hell, it can be easily uninstalled.

Let me know what you think!

Links: [evil edgy | installation | about | screenshots]

Ok, maybe it’s not the official site, nor is it Microsoft owned, but it’s the one I’ll be showing to people!:D

Click here to purchase an iPod.

Wordpress 2.0.5 was released roughly 44 days ago to the general public, back when this blog was on a free host. At the time, this blog didn’t matter all that much to me and it was merely a place for ramblings, so I decided not to upgrade. However, as the blog has acquired it’s own hosting and domain, I thought it was only polite to keep the software up to date.

Here’s a brief log of the changes as released by Wordpress dev. Mark Jaquith:
is_feed() status is preserved when handling 404s #3019 [4227]
manually entering pages greater than the number of pages for a given post now shows the highest numbered page #3039 [4228]
improved security in wp-db-backup plugin [4226]
user description is no longer HTML-entity converted going into the database #3069 [4230]
fix for rel=”nofollow nofollow” repetition #2995 [4233]
plugins are sorted by plugin name, instead of filename #2412 [4323] [4324]
multi-line options in /wp-admin/options.php are preserved #2456 [4331]
the authors dropdown is now sorted by display_name #2370 [4365]
the_meta() properly ignores keys that start with an underscore #2478 [4368]
post meta keys and data are escaped properly on the post screen [4376]
users are prevented from entering strings that will be interpreted as serialized data when coming out of the database #2591 [4384] [4395]
make_clickable() no longer adds links within links #3228 [4385] [4387]
error suppression #2331 [4341], #2745 [4328], #1999 [4315], #2759 [4287], #3179 [4280]
i18n fixes #3109 [4239]

As you can see, it’s mainly security/bugfix, and virtually nothing will affect you, the end-user, but thought it’s only fair to let you know what’s being changed here!

- Matt

The posters are tasteful, and are great for making a boring wall look a little more interesting, as well as informing any readers of the Ubuntu operating system and it’s purpose.

The Highway Of Freedom is now open for Everyone. The posters are available by default in batches of 10 for just $25, but you can contact Jenda if you need a smaller/larger amount. Currently there are 400 posters available, but profits made may go to creating more if they’re a big success.

Click here, for more information, a larger image or to purchase your poster(s).

Salani kahle!
- Matt

Long time since my last post, so I thought I’d post up a couple of desktop screenshots.

My wallpaper now varies randomly throughout the day, (thanks to DoctorMO) so I’ve just included a few of my favorite wallpapers in the screenshots.

Currently Listening To: Pink Floyd - The Wall (Mother)