Billy likes it too and he decided to rip the DVD / CD ROM out the other day. It’s beyond repair because the ribbon cable got snapped in two. Where the drive was is now a huge hole. I guess it adds ventilation. When you have kids you quickly learn that things will get broken, so this isn’t a big deal. He did a pretty decent job actually – you can take a look up close if you want.

Link – flickr.com

After a few sweeps I found a really cheap quote with “Marks and Spencer Car Insurance”, which is just Budget Car Insurance under a different name. I signed up because they were way cheaper than my renewal price.

Then I had the accident. I found out that the insurers didn’t give me a courtesy car and wouldn’t pick me up after the accident either. Rubbish. I decided to change when renewal was up. I did, and this time I went direct with Direct Line. No kick-backs are paid to the comparison site and you get a better deal. It ended up being a very good deal – about 100 quid less than I was paying.

Now this year the renewal quote has come through again. This time Direct Line want 460 quid for my Audi A4 SLine. It’s a good price, but I wanted to check, so I’ve just been back on the comparison sites and yet again no-one is coming close. What’s worse is what happens if you look down the other end of the scale – some insurers are offering insane prices. How do they get away with charging nearly 2 grand?!

Paul Mckenna (y’know, the hypnotist) tells you have to have a good ‘ole Tommy Tank..

http://www.b3ta.com/links/Masturbation_with_Paul_Mckenna (Slightly NSFW, needs sound)
Celebs photoshopped to have short legs. Weirdly pleasing..

http://snurl.com/goshortie

Religious extremists attempt an anti-gay demo in San Francisco but they’re hidden from sight by the descending crowd of pranksters, eager to try out their own home-made gag signs.

http://snurl.com/godhatesflags

Computer graphics expert renders his entire online resume in MS Paint.

http://www.squicky.org/
The talking sex-bot. An inventor unveils $7,000 interactive sex doll. Great huh? But why does it look like a drunk Catherine Tate? “Look at my face, is my face bovvered? Face? Bovvered?”

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/01/sex.robot/index.html

Some live video cast goes oh-so-badly wrong. This one had me crying with laughter..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et_MmlTxMXA (needs sound)

A dog that smiles. Oh sweet lord. Wind forward to about 40 seconds…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=991ugfaioiQ

Helping social networking addicts..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JmYYTEasus (needs sound)

Now, this “sticky gas pedal syndrome” (as US readers would say) could explain the few accidents I’ve had in Lexus cars over the past few years. Regular readers may remember how I broke the first one back in 2005 and then the second one in 2008. Should I blame Mr Toyoda for my accidents? Well no. I’ll tell you why.

Sticky accelerator pedals have been a known problem in Lexus and Toyota cars for some time. Ask any Lexus IS200 owner and they’ll tell you about the pedal sticking to the carpet, especially when there’s a bit of moisture in the air or it’s cold. Have a look here, here or here for evidence from Lexus owners forums going back years for various models. The horror stories coming out of the US are fairly confusing and very sad. Some people have crashed and suffered injuries. I can’t understand why they didn’t try the steps I had to take when my pedal constantly used to stick..

a) Stick it in neutral (I’m guessing you should be able to do this in an automatic too, but I’ve never driven one in anger)
b) Use your foot to pop the pedal back up again.
c) Turn the engine off if all else fails. Sure, you’ll have no power assisted steering and your brakes will be heavy as feck, but it’ll slow it down.

Toyota make good cars. Don’t be put off by this recall. End of!

Fail… epic fail… This poor bank worker will no doubt have quite a bit of grief after looking at semi-naked images on his PC while a colleague does a live TV link up. You can see the actual interview below. Check the monitor next to the guys

I think the designers were having a laugh. If you tilt your head to the left it looks like this…

(scroll down…)

(Thanks Paul O’Brien)

Link – b3ta.com (Bad Horsey)

Link – BBC News

“Hey, let’s take the car down by the canal”

“Yeah, good plan. Then we’ll drive off the bank and onto the ice”

“Brilliant idea!!!”

Wait.. what was that?

The two men managed to escape, but the Peugeot 406 is still sunk under the ice. I personally love the quote from local Police…

“While it goes without saying that the vast majority of people have the good sense not to take their vehicles on to frozen waterways, this incident serves as an example of the type of stupidity that the emergency services occasionally have to deal with.”

Indeed. Like I always say, there’s a lot of really daft people out there.

Link – BBC News

Secondly. How come people can’t get to work but they can get to the out-of-town supermarkets to stock up on food?