subscribable!

Also included in the upgrade is the option to subscribe to Black Diamond - so if you've got an RSS Reader (I'm using NewsFire at home and Bandit at work) you can drag the 'Subscribe' link at the bottom of the page into it - easy!

tagged!

I've made some changes to the blog today. The main thing that you'll notice is the introduction of labels or tags - every post I write will be tagged with a different term - eg if it's about a holiday, music etc. This means that you'll be able to click the links to the left of the posts to go to the whichever set of posts you're interested in. Unfortunately there's no cool 'tag cloud' at the moment (where the words get larger depending on how many posts you've got). And I've only gone back to December with the tagging too. These changes have come about now that Blogger is part of Google, and is now (finally) out of beta.

colossal!

Speaking of Timaru, I've been intrigued by the capture of a colossal squid near Antarctica that has been landed in Timaru. It's being stored down at the wharf and will be transferred to Te Papa at some stage - but may not be put on display as it will be quite smelly!

collective!

I discovered WikiMapia today - people have taken the maps from Google Earth and overlaid them with comments and placenames - so you can actually figure out where everywhere is. It's very addictive!

But there's no tagging for our very own Area 51, Timaru...

friendly!

The aforementioned video blog about Hot Fuzz - look who turns up in this episode!

funky!

Simon found this brilliant Muppets clip on YouTube - love it!

yarp!

Absolutely adored Hot Fuzz which we saw at the movies on Saturday night. It was made by the team behind 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Spaced'. Lots of fun cultural references and catch phrases I'm sure will be entering the language now... Megan found this great list of cultural references on Wikipedia, and I also loved the video blog available here - check out episode 8 for a very special guest!

Also went to see 'The Science of Sleep', the new Michel Gondry film. It was quite charming, but a bit silly.

vitriolic!

I was amused to see that Brian May has his own blog now, entitled Brian's Soapbox (http://www.brianmay.com/brian/brianssb/brianssb.html). Quite a lot of stuff seems to make him angry - the press, The Sky At Night being under threat, hedgehogs in Uist being culled (yes, really!). But it's quite amusing to read his musings, and to see that he's keeping up with technology. He's finishing off the PhD he was working on when Queen took off and seems to be quite involved with different Astronomy projects.

free!

New obsession is Freecyle - it's a group of local networks for people who want to give away, or get given, stuff for free! It's great! You have to join up (I've joined the Hackney Group) via Yahoo! Groups, then you post stuff you want, or stuff you want to get rid of, on a daily bulletin. I've just given my old knackered stereo away to some chap (bought new speakers for my iPod and that's all I need now). Then I'm going to keep a look out for a sofa, or maybe a blender too. Who knows! It's all very thrilling. Good community recycling projects!

negative!

Can't say I agree with Charlie Brooker in his anti-Mac rant , but he is highly amusing! And I love the new Mitchell and Webb 'I'm a Mac' ads.

Tercentenarious!

This is my 300th blog posting! I'd just like to thank my parents, my readers from the start of the blog, Blogger for giving me a free blog and Flickr and YouTube for hosting my media. It's been beautiful.

Site of the day

We've been highly amused by Sue Townshend's habit of answering the phone "What fresh hell is this?", and wondered where the phrase comes from. Apparently it comes from Dorothy Parker, who first exclaimed it when she was interrupted from working by the telephone, and then used it whenever she answered the phone.

It's also the name of the superb What Fresh Hell is This? blog - amusing quips and sayings.

prejudiced!

The BBC is consulting on its on-demand service at the moment where we'll be able to download programmes from its website (Channel 4 recently launched theirs). However, they are not planning to make this available to Macs!! C4OD doesn't allow Macs to use the service either.

Have had my say in the consultation - (Question 5 especially).