One of those Emails Several People Send You. (Bill Gates, versus General Motors)

It never happened, of course, it's a fabrication, thoroughly analysed and debunked by Snopes, here.

By the way, if ever you hear a story that sounds a bit bizarre, and you're not sure whether to believe it, Snopes is the place to check it out. Also, it's a place for wasting an idle hour or two reading bizarre stories, both true and imagined.

"At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon." In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part):

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single "This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation" warning light. I love the next one!!!

7. The airbag system would ask "Are you sure?" before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You'd have to press the "Start" button to turn the engine off. "

Shock Horror! Gmail not supported by Google Browser!

Okay. Stop panicking. It is really.
But my gmail just stubbed its toe on some lump in the internet and crashed. This is what it said:

"We have detected a problem,
We're sorry. It seems there is a problem. Please try using Google Mail with a supported browser. If you are encountering this error while using a supported browser, we suggest alerting your Internet Service Provider (ISP) that a proxy is failing to accept cookies on HTTP redirects."

So I click on Google's link..

"Does Google Mail support my browser?
Google Mail is accessible at http://mail.google.com/ wherever you have access to the Internet via a PC, Linux, or Macintosh (Mac) computer with one of the following fully supported browsers:

* IE 5.5+ (download: Windows)
* Netscape 7.1+ (download: Windows Mac Linux)
* Mozilla 1.4+ (download: Windows Mac Linux)
* Firefox 0.8+ (download: Windows Mac Linux)
* Safari 1.3+ (download: Mac)

If you access Google Mail with a browser different from those listed above, you will be automatically directed to the basic HTML view of Google Mail. Basic HTML view works with the following browsers, as well as many others:

* IE 4.0+
* Netscape 4.07+
* Opera 6.03+

Regardless of your browser type, you must have cookies enabled to use Google Mail. If your browser supports it, please also enable JavaScript. "

So no Google Chrome Browser then?

Time to update the page, guys.
By the way... Have you noticed it's not possible to send an email to google to tell them if any of their system is misbehaving? That's because google already knows what you are thinking.

Google's New Browser

Blogging today using, as I have been for some time, Blogger in Draft... 
This is, I think, a better, more wordprocessor-like, more able version of Blogger, and simplifies my posting.... It's also how I get a comments box to appear at the foot of the post.... neat features!
More from Google however, I'm composing this in Google's new Beta test web-browser, Google Chrome.
Do i like it? not sure yet.
It's clean and uncluttered, it imports bookmarks, passwords and settings from Firefox or Internet Explorer, I assume it does the same for Safari. Too early to decide whether I'll ditch firefox 3 for this, I suspect not..... but as I learn more features and how to use them , i get more confident.. It works, It's easy to use, free of excess buttonry, do i really need all those widgets in firefox?

So that's Blogger in draft covered, Google Chrome, and now Picasa.
I use Picasa to manage all the pics on my computer, It does all I need, creates web albums, emails pictures, hosts all my blog images, edits images...., Imports from scanner, phone, memory cards, cameras.
It's the best I've tried, and best of all it's FREE!
Now they've released Picasa 3 beta. I'm trying it, will report in a while.
I'd post something, but I'm so tired. Might go have a hot relaxing bath and return refreshed, or I might fall asleep and snore inzzzzzzzzzztead.

A Subaltern's Love Song by John Betjeman

Joan Hunter Dunn, back row far right.

Miss J.Hunter Dunn, Miss J.Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surry twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

Post Deleted.

Some of you who have subscribed by feed, may have noticed I put up a post and then deleted it.
Why did I do that?
Because it was about politics. And a person. And I thought better of it. I'll leave politics to the political bloggers.

Did I get any negative comments about it?
No
Only from me, in my head. It was not a good post, it was not something that I should have written, and I didn't like it.
My inner self policeman glowered at me, and said "You know how to behave better than that, stay out of criticising other people, stay out of things you know nothing about."

If I offended anyone else, I'm sorry for that too.

Boob Job

Sorry, I stole this off another blog, and I can't remember where.
Or I'd credit it like a good blog-pirate should.
If I remember, I'll link it

One-String Willy

Brought to my attention by Bifurcated Rivets, is the genre, new to me, of the playing of single-stringed guitars.

Here's One-String Willy:

Further Developments on the Subject of the Thripp-Curmudgeonly Orgasmatron

See HERE for background on the original post.
"Richard X. Thripp said... Ha ha, looks like a powerful weapon."

Richard!

Thank god!
I had lost all hope of finding you.... It's a long shot, I know, but I'm hoping you know the whereabouts of your great-grandfather's secret journals.
They were, it is rumoured, so secret, he used to blindfold himself whilst writing in them... and would not tell himself where they were hidden. It is rumoured that back in the early days, he designed a counter-surge device, but never found a purpose for it.
That purpose, of course, did not then exist, as in those days he had yet to collaborate with the late Sir Randolph Curmudgeonly on the early prototype Orgasmatron.
We have a problem.
A serious problem.
The new orgasmatron is a modern device, built to be a close facsimile of their mark VI,( the one which was destroyed in a fit of jealousy by Grand-Duke Sigismund, after Duchess Cecilie giggled non-stop for a whole month, following her visit to the laboratory).
Unfortunately, we have had substitute some materials, I think the substitution is at the um... nub.. of the problem.
Surges! uncontrollable surges in the vaccilator coils of the main reciprocal thrimbobulator.
-Cecilie may have taken a month to regain her composure, but some of our test subjects may never come down... One shouts "YES, YES, YES, YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!" continuously, another just smiles and hums all the time.
I think it is all due to the ridged turbulants on the thrum capacitors having been made of baekelite, when the original papers stated "unicorn ivory" as the material. It being now illegal to trade in even ancient unicorn parts, I just can't find the tiny amount I would need, no matter how far afield I search...
I need to see if old Thripp ever tried any other materials, and if so, whether any currently available to me might give a safe result.
Failing that, I need, desperately, his most powerful surge-damper. Like... yesterday.
Please.