Sunday, February 27, 2005

Like it's big brother the iPod Apple decided that white was definitely right when it came to the iPod Shuffle. The people behind Shuffle-art.com obviously disagree. They're in the process of creating a series of front and back stickers that you can use to individualize your iPod Shuffle with.

Posted by Antz at 10:11 AM | Permalink | | |

Friday, February 25, 2005

Once upon a time Aaron Bennett worked for a large Anglo-French ISP (think Kiss facepaint). One day he found that he and hundreds of his co-workers were being made redundant; being replaced by probably equally qualified but much much cheaper staff in India.

Suddenly having a fair amount of time on his hands he decided to launch his own version of an ISP portal. You can find it at www.wankadoo.co.uk.

Posted by Antz at 8:05 PM | Permalink | | |

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

I came across the fantastic 10x10 project today while killing some time on the internet. 10x10 was created by Jonathan Harris and is a matrix of 100 images with related news stories from the last hour, day, month or year.

Posted by Antz at 8:20 PM | Permalink | | |

Monday, February 21, 2005

A month ago I posted about some work related issue that I wasn't able to talk about for contractal reasons. Well the deadline has now passed adnd I can tell the world my deep dark secret. After four years as the General Manager for a business that I founded and built from scratch I'm walking away with nothing but unemployment to look forward to. I must be mad.

Posted by Antz at 9:32 PM | Permalink | | |

Friday, February 18, 2005

I like to think that when it comes to the net I know what I'm doing. I know how to use my credit card safely online; I'm rarely tricked into opening spam and I've managed to avoid infecting my PC with a virus. But, it seems that I've managed to get myself ripped on EBay.

Like any self-respecting bargain hunter EBay is well and truly at the top of my Favourites list. I've bought loads of stuff on 'the Bay' and probably sold off just as much. I know that the pair of jeans I bought a few months ago where probably more dodgy than Diesel but at £20 who can complain; plus they're lasting better than the genuine pair I bought in the real world anyway.

Recently I bought a fake fur throw to use on the sofa during the cold winter evenings; sorry, I bought a 'luxury faux fur throw'. The photo looked good and the seller had a feedback rating of over 200 so I happily bid, bid and then bid again. I was victorious and the 'luxury' throw was mine. I had already started dreaming of the warm evenings under my throw.

A few weeks later a black bin bag arrived from the seller containing my throw. The seller described it as a specially developed mailing bag, however I know a bin bag when I see one and this, without doubt, was indeed one.

I pulled out my 'luxury' throw and discovered that what I had ended up with was a couple of metres of the kind of fur you can buy at the market stall for £4 a metre. There was no lining, the edges weren't tidied up, and it was so thin you could almost see through it. In no way were this throw and the word 'luxury' ever to appear in he same sentence.

Of course if I had had a proper look at the seller's feedback I would have realised that as well as the 200 positive rates there were many many neutral and negative ones; all complaining about bin bags and poor quality goods. I've emailed the seller twice and they haven't replied. I'll give it a few more days and then report them to EBay.

Anyone want a bin bag and a couple of metres of fake fur? It's luxury?

Posted by Antz at 7:54 PM | Permalink | | |

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

After six years as OUTintheUK the UK gay profile site that I and pretty much all of my friends frequent has decided to get the marketing people in and reinvent itself. In a couple of months OUT will vanish and become Up and Doing. Obviously they should have spent a bit more cash and found good marketing people.

According to the site they wanted to come up with a name that was less 'gay' and less explicit, which is fine. Only trouble is that the new name sounds so generic that you wouldn't know it was a gay site at all. Great way to get new members.

Posted by Antz at 11:27 PM | Permalink | | |

I was looking for something completely different when I bumped into this story about a family who had a custom designed Vimto system installed so that they could have the fruit-based beverage on-tap 247.

Posted by Antz at 3:30 PM | Permalink | | |

Monday, February 14, 2005

If you're in Paris one of the first places you're gonna head to is The Louvre; especially if you're a bit of an art lover. The first thing that strikes you is how huge the place is; it pretty much goes on for as far as the eye can see. Sitting there in the heart of the central courtyard is the glass pyramid that acts as a combination of modern art and the entrance and having made it through the security point you're suddenly in this huge modern subterranean world that is the Louvre's heart. From there you have France's national art treasures within your grasp.

It's really only possible to do a small part of the art within a day as the gallery is like a giant IKEA store full of art treasures. Obviously you could do the 'landmarks' in about an hour. First stop Mona Lisa, second stop Venus De Milo, third stop the gift shop. We spent several hours 'doing' Italian painting, Egyptian and Greek Relics, as well as the recently restored Apollo Gallery but couldn't face any more of the gallery's miles of walkways after that and so called it a day. Maybe they could consider installing golf buggies or a mini railway running throughout the corridors

It's all very well putting all your art into one size of a football stadium gallery but it makes it a truly daunting task. London's approach, with five or six collections across a similar number of buildings, is a much better way of dealing with a nation's art.

Posted by Antz at 7:34 PM | Permalink | | |

Sunday, February 13, 2005

It looks like my boyfriend has been lying to me. Not just little white lies but full-on life changing lies. Am I sad? No. The reason is that he's been lying to me about our romantic weekend away together.

As it's valentine's day on Monday we felt rather than have a second rate meal together at a local restaurant this year we'd make a weekend of it and head down to London for a 'damn the expense' weekend doing exactly what we wanted. David decided to organise the weekend as a surprise for me and had arranged for a weekend at a quality hotel, a meal which we'd remember for years to come and also a trip out to see a play in the West End (probably Acorn Antiques - The Musical). The trouble is that he lied about the whole thing.

I'd rushed down to the 'Smoke' to meet David from work in Vauxhall on Friday afternoon and started what I thought would be a five minute train trip to get to our 'surprise' hotel (my money was on the Savoy BTW). As we walked down to the lower level of Waterloo Station David reached in to one of his many bags and handed me my passport; which I was slightly confused about. I know that London cabs don't like going over the river but I didn't think they'd introduced passport control.

There wasn't going to be a posh London hotel, no first rate meal in a London eatery and no Julie Walters in a West End play. Instead we were off to Paris for the weekend first class on the Eurostar. Shame about Acorn Antiques though.

Posted by Antz at 9:49 PM | Permalink | | |

Thursday, February 10, 2005

I came across this on Josh Rubin's Cool Hunting site the other day and the pictures amazed me so much that I had to post about it. Artists Christo and Jeanne Claude are in the throws of creating some 7500 wood and steel gates which will stand over 23 miles of footpaths in New York's Central Park's walkways during late February; each having a free hanging saffron coloured fabric panel suspended from it which will blow in the Manhattan breeze.

Posted by Antz at 10:59 PM | Permalink | | |

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Sometimes the real world gets in the way of online activities; which
explains the recent gap in postings. Don't worry though, things are
pretty much back to normal and the posts are on their way.

Posted by Antz at 11:20 AM | Permalink | | |

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Sometimes you see something on TV and you just think "Wow". It's not normally an advert that makes you rewind and watch it again but the new advert for the VW Golf GTi did just that. In fact I rewound it several times. It truly has to be one of the most amazing ads of all time. Remarkable.

Posted by Antz at 11:09 PM | Permalink | | |

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