Smashing time

Amazing story of a visitor to The Fitzwilliam museum who tripped on his shoelace and smashed three priceless Qing vases. from the Cambridge Evening News.

A Supermarket War in Store

So Tesco didnt buy Albertsons (see my previous entry here) which is good news for Tesco shareholders here in the UK. A US based retailer Supervalu did instead as part of a consortium which seems to make a lot of sense to me. Good story here including a glance at the problems Walmart seem to be having keeping top staff.
also Motley fool have a good article here saying that CVS will be the real winner as they are buying 700 of the Albertsons pharmacies thus cementing their role as the USA's largest pharmacist.

Fall of the traditional wedding album?

Neat idea this:-
Entrepreneurial-minded wedding photographers John Andrews and Eric Hegwer have added "iPod Proofs" to their services, featuring custom-engraved his-and-hers video iPods with music, photos and slideshows of your wedding, including all photos they make. (Hence, proofs. A better name, I think, would be iPod Keepsakes.)

Fits in with my idea of establishing a franchise that goes around elders houses, documenting all their prized possesions with a little history of how they acquired them and what they would like to happen to them when they die. (Maybe I should ask Caroline if some of her well heeled customers would be interested!)

Pees on Earth - Gridskipper

Awesome picture (who took it, I wonder?)
Yep, this is pretty much what you expect — a book about pee. Not just peeing anywhere, but peeing all over the place. New York, Miami, Shanghai, and other worldwide locales get the business in photographer Ellen Jong’s Pees on Earth: A Pissin’ Mission.

Another of my heroes dies

The veteran US soul singer Wilson Pickett has died, aged 64, after suffering a heart attack in Virginia.

His management company said that he had been in poor health for the past year.

Born in Alabama, Pickett shot to fame in the 1960s, with hits including In The Midnight Hour and Mustang Sally.

I remember listening to his LP and also Otis Redding when running my scrap electronics business with Harry Collins, here in Cambridge.

Blog Colour

Mia sent me a link to what colour should my blog be

Your Blog Should Be Blue Your blog is a peaceful, calming force in the blogosphere.
You tend to avoid conflict - you're more likely to share than rant.
From your social causes to cute pet photos, your life is a (mostly) open book.

and yes it is already blue . how harmonious is that!

andWriting in 2006 and reasons to blog...

Maybe I should make this my New Years resolution :-

"Write. Then write more. Write till it scares the crap
out of you. If it doesn’t, press on; it will. Write till you get brave
enough to keep writing in spite of how scared you are. In spite of what
anyone thinks, including yourself.

The upside is that you’ll find out who you are. The downside is, well… that you’ll find out who you are."

Thanks to Christoper (Rageboy) Locke. in his interview with David Newberger.

The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint

What an excellent rule for powerpoint presentations:

"I offer you an algorithm: find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That’s you’re optimal font size"

The other 10 rules are great too

Cory gives up his EFF job.

Congratulations to Cory for having the courage to venture to new pasture's and becoming a freelance writer. I really admire the way Cory stood upto the movie guy at a conference here in Cambridge and all the work he has put into EFF.
Will be interesting to chat to him again when we meet up at LIFT in Geneva.