mkjones

I’m on episode 10 of ‘Studio 60′ the amazingly well put together Aaron Sorkin West Wing follow-up.

I love the show, its entertaining and funny with an excellent cast. This however was deemed not good enough for the US media and after a bumpy ride and ‘mixed’ reviews the show was cancelled after only one series.

Many rumors circled for months regarding the cancellation of the show, and as of June 26, 2007, the official show website listed “What Kind Of Day Has It Been?” as the series finale.

From Wikipedia

I have not been this gutted since FireFly was unceremoniously bumped from our screens. Sadly, unlike FireFly I can’t see a ‘Studio 60: The Movie’ any time soon.

Thank you Laura Milligan (whoever you are) for this amazing list:

1. FreeFoto: FreeFoto.com claims to be “the largest collection of free photographs on the Internet.” They’re available for offline projects as well, as long as you’re not using them to make a profit.
2. KAVEWALL: Look for images and textures in unique categories like tattoo, smoke, and food.
3. Digital Dreamer: Free, royalty-free stock images can be found here.
4. Free Photos Bank: This features a handful of the newest photos in their directory, so check back often.
5. Free Digital Photos: Find gorgeous, easy-to-download photographs in categories like animals, celebrations, home & garden, and lots more.
6. PD Photo: Browse through the categories and subcategories in this site’s database, most of which depict the urban and rural landscapes of the United States.
7. Visipix: Search over a million photographs and fine art pieces.
8. Cepolina: On cepolina, you can choose to save photos in up to five different formats.
9. DexHaus: A wide array of beautiful images are found on this well-organized site.
10. FreeStockImages.net: Chances are you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for on this terrific site.
11. TurboPhoto: TurboPhoto has 10 categories keep the high res photos easy to find.
12. Yotophoto: An immensely popular site, Yotophoto is worth checking out.
13. Stockvault: Search by photo subject or by the newest and most popular photos on Stockvault.
14. Dreamstime: While most of the photos on this site cost a fee (some as low as $0.26/image), Dreamstime provides a few free stock photos.
15. Open Stock Photography: This site offers over one million images for you to download and use however you want.

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I had a scary ammount of Spam in my Gmail account a few moments ago:

Somehow, the departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea (and probably the entire English League) has effected me greatly.

This morning as I played through the Telegraph’s Sports ‘7-page Special’ I welled up with emotion a number of times. The memories of the ‘Special One’s’ 3 year tenure in the top flight of English football anchors huge significance for me as a football fan for a number of reasons.

Jose with Frank Lampard and John Terry
lifting the Premiere League Title in 2005

You see, 5 years ago, I couldn’t imagine being as engrossed with the beautiful game as I am now.

Sure, I ‘liked’ football. But my quasi-obsession was purely with the English National side.

Back then in fact, I found the Premiership (AKA Premiere League) and the rest of the English leagues a tired boring and pointless endeavour. As for European football, please, why should I care about Arsenal going to the Nu Camp??

I just didn’t get it.

I also looked down upon the of the ‘big 2′ English teams of that era; Manchester Utd and Arsenal. The fact that every season, year upon year they eventually would quite easily walk away with the title further deaden my interest in football and the Premier League.

But, slowly and inevitably my views began to change. (Keep reading)

I feel shocked and saddened today as I find out that the special one has existed Chelsea.

He leaves with an unbelievable record which I very much doubt his successor will emulate.

I can’t really say much more on the matter as I am on a Sharepoint course during the first Coffee break of the day.

Link Dump:

• Goodbye Jose Mourinho: manager leaves Chelsea after Roman Abramovich row
• Mourinho makes shock Chelsea exit
• Official Chelsea Statement

I was WRONG

I take it all back…

Festivals and Animals

In the summer of 2003 I was asked by someone at the v2003 music festival the inevitable question of:

“So who is your favourite band?”

I answered, quite unreservedly “Athlete“.

It was, for me, a very confusing answer. You see, my musical line has for many years began and ended with Ben Folds Five, yet, sadly, they had split and although Ben Folds still carries the torch he is no longer part of a musical group.

I pondered on the answer to the question all of the festival weekend and thankfully my answer was backed up when the band performed a flawless set in the summer sunshine.

For a long while after this I lauded the band as an musical gem. Selling them to all of my friends and anyone else who would listen.

Their first album “Vehicles and Animals” was a triumph. I loved every song and played it half to death. Its the perfect feel-good exciting album, with more to boot. Intelligent, well crafted and excellently produced.

Never Meet your Heroes (or Athletes)

Sadly, cracks appeared in my Athlete love affair a couple of years later when 2 things happened:

1, they released a new critically acclaimed, but somewhat watered down and IMO bellow par 2nd album (Tourist).

2, I met and interviewed the band before a gig in Sheffield.

The first issue is clear. I did not and still do not like the ‘Tourist’ album. I have particular distaste for ‘Wires’ the bands first real big hit single. Its boring, bland and for me sells a false representation of the band. Instead of the vibrant, exciting Athlete I had fallen for ‘Wires’ shows them off as a bland sub-par-indie-rock mess.

Meeting the band should have been a truly wonderful experience for me, but I couldn’t suck up the fact that they had given me a DOA 2nd album.

Killer Question

Among the many questions (most of which were designed to cut through the clear tension the band gave off) I asked something along the lines of:

Your first album is a triumph. Excellent from start to end! For ME its the perfect album. So, why does the new album feel so drab and uninspiring?

The band were stunned to silence. The manager, who had sat in on the interview appeared open mouthed as he sat behind his laptop. (Keep reading)

Two must-win games without Rooney, Lampard, Hargreaves, Beckham and Neville have given England an excellent insight into how team play and passion is far more important than individual skill and ego.

The on pitch partnerships of Cole and Cole, Richards and Wright-Phillips, Barry and Gerrard and most important of all Heskey and Owen have proved to be a decisive in the recent results.

McLucky

Some may call McLarren lucky. If the aforementioned 5 players were fully fit he would most certainly have left Heskey in the wilderness and allowed Rooney to partner Owen at the front.

The middle of the field would have been even more of an upheaval with Wright-Phillips and Barry almost probably losing out to Lampard and Beckham.

Both of these choices would of course layout an excellent England team blueprint. But as previous games have proved the so called ’starting’ team has major compatibility problems which go far beyond the much touted Lampard-Gerrard fiasco.

(Keep reading)

Rejoice! There is a new PayPal logo:

I ask you. What was wrong with the old one?:

Now, I love re-designers and re-branding exercises. But this seems like a pointless waste of what was probably a lot of money.

VGChartz recently announced that the Wii has indeed got close to the sales figures of the Xbox 360 with sales just shy of 11m units.

It has of course reached this figure in just over half the time the 360 took, which any way you look at it is an amazing feat.

But I have a problem with this. And so should every gamer.

You see, the Wii is not a next-generation console.

I would even go as far to say that the Wii is not a ‘games console’ as we have come to know and expect.

The Nintendo Wii is something different. Something uncategorised. Impressive and innovative but hard to place.

For this reason, it should not be subjected to the same hyperbole as the PS3 and the 360 and should not in any way shape or form be listed on the same sales charts.

Wiith or wiithout you

So what to do with the Wii?

I know many people who would never shell out on a games machine like the 360 or the PS3 or even the PS2 who are buying Wiis.

People like my step brother who is the kind of uber-casual-gamer type which failed to explore more than 1% of the available games library of the PS2 he used to own. Yet he has lapped up the Wii upon arrival because of its snazzy ad campaigns and annoying TV spots.

Why are so many people buying the Wii?

Why? Because its different, its a novelty and also because its incredibly cheap! (Keep reading)

I miss the old Burger King Logo:

In 1994, Burger King modernized its first logo by using a smoother font with rounded edges. By 1999, the company again updated the logo that is a stylized version of the “bun halves” logo. The new logo featuring a blue swirl gives the Burger King logo a circular appearance making it look more contemporary. Read more..