Turn away now if you are a vegetarian otherwise this Australian TV ad promoting red meat might just might raise a smile…

Just spent a few days getting some “Winter rays” on the Island of Fuerteventura where it seems to be around 25 degrees even in December and a litre of the local brandy is 7€ a litre…

Anyhoo, the choice of TV in out apartment is a tad limited, the obligatory BBC World, CNN, CNBC and the obligatory  dollop of German, Dutch and Italian channels. Thankfully my Geek travel bag includes an iPod video-out lead and phono-to-scart lead meaning the dearest and I have been overdosing in 2 episodes of Midsomer Murders each eve courtesy of the iPod Touch and an iTunes-enabled netbook I’ve been feeding it with every day.

My point is that any video  iPod is a superb portable video player you can easily hook up to hotel TV Scart or comp video in socket  in most countries enabling you to watch what you consider to watch premium pre-recorded content you’ve already amassed. In my case premium means all of the Star Trek series, Columbo, The Outer Limits and lots of (mostly B-rated) Sci-fi movies grabbed from Channel 5 and late night BBC using eye TV on the Mac though Hauppauge kit for Windows boxes would do the same job.

Although the official 4th/5th Gen Apple video-out lead is circa £30 you can buy a Hong Kong knock off for under a fiver on eBay and a phono-to-Scart adapter for a couple of quid.

(Sent from apartment 237, Player Park Club, Fuerteventura using the hotel’s wiFi which only works by the pool and 3G is very hit’n'miss..)

P.S - interesting to note that Google ads has spotted I’m blogging from a Spanish speaking IP address and placing Spanish ads at times.. clever eh..

You may have read the news bulletin three years ago about the poor chap who died so his car couldn’t be recovered by the AA because his membership had lapsed.. errr as a result of his death!

Well, my daughter had a friend call on her today whose car developed a fuel leak rendering it unsafe, so she called the AA as being a Brit commuting between France and the UK she had taken out an AA  ‘European’ Policy.

Alas she was told the AA couldn’t rescue her because her AA ‘European’ policy didn’t cover her for the UK!  The car is now stuck outside, leaking fuel and in the meantime she had to to take a train back to Brighton.

The AA, the ‘fourth‘ emergency service?

(CLICK FOR FULL SIZE VERSION)

Spotted this the other day on the States of Jersey Government online web site.  The site advises that even if your mobile phone battery is flat you can still call the emergency services!

Worse still I was chatting to a member of one of the local blue light services the other day who assured me that your mobile phone could be tracked to it’s current location even if it was turned off (and not just the last cell site it looged in to.)

I find it alarming that such ‘pillars‘ of society could be responsible for absurd urban myths like these…

A fun post for a change.  My eldeset daughter Emily, a budding film maker amongst other things managed to persuade a local Supermarket to let her shoot a short movie there overnight, the Tango with Asda trollies!

It’s her entry for Sadler’s Well Global Dance Competition, well worth clicking the YouTube full screen and HQ buttons…

I’m a tad surprised that none of rss news feeds I subscribe to have picked up on this story yet:

a local Gym owner here in the South checked his Facebook account only to greeted by an advert from a personal injury claims company inviting him to sue his own company!

An example of targeted advertising that went wrong, presumably the ad server had picked up on the name of the Gym from his facebook profile, put two and two together and came up with five.

BBC South Today video story here...

I have to admit I’m a bit of a techno junkie when it comes to short video presentations about the how world is evolving and the stats that go with it such as the did you know series.  I don’t do much A/V support these days but when I do I find this sort of stuff really useful for filling in the pauses when people are getting seated before a presentation etc.

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

2. You haven’t played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 10 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.

4. You email the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don’t have email addresses.

6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your mobile phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

7. Leaving the house without your mobile phone, which you didn’t have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

8. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your cup of tea.

10. You are too busy to notice there was no number 9 on this list.

11. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn’t a number 9 on this list.

Here’s a fun little app for anyone interested in the marine world – the RNLI have a free desktop pager you can download to receive alerts when lifeboats around the UK are launched.  Versions for Mac OS X,Windows XP & Vista available,  registration is free.