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December, 2004

  1. Donate AirMiles?

    December 30, 2004 by dafyd

    The SEA-EAT blog has a novel way of aiding the South-Asia relief effort – donate your spare airmiles to charities:

    Feeling a little cash strapped and still want to help? Got airline miles kicking around? You can donate airline mileage to The Red Cross,Oxfam, Unicef and others through links provided below:

    Continental Airlines: Accepts donations for American Red Cross, AmeriCares, Careforce and Healing the Children. They make it really easy, you just log in and donate.

    Delta: Accepts donations for The United Way and CARE. They have an automated telephone system you an call, at 1-800-325-3999. You can also email them at delta.bids@delta-air.com. You need to include your SkyMiles account number, the amount of mileage you wish to donate, and the name of the organization you want to receive your donation.

    Northwest Airlines: You can donate your WorldPerks miles to the Red Cross, AmeriCares, Habitat for Humanity, OxFam and Unicef by contacting Northwest directly at 1-800-327-2881. Minimum donation is 5000 miles.

    United Airlines accepts donations to the Red Cross. To donate, call Mileage Plus Customer Service at 1-800-421-4655.

    Asia Miles will let you contribute your miles to Unicef. Click on the link and download a donation form. Minimum donation 10,000 miles.

    American Airlines allow you to donate AAdvantage miles to provide transportation for children who require medical treatment. You can donate online or call Customer Service at 1-800-421-0600.

    Have a look at the SEA-EAT blog for links and further instructions.

    It’s also a pretty good source of news on the relief effort.

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  2. South-East Asia Tsunami

    December 29, 2004 by dafyd

    Donate to the DEC Tsunami Relief AppealI want to echo what Google wrote on their blog about this truly horrific disaster that has affected millions of people:

    Like so many others around the world, we’re following the devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami that has hit many parts of Asia and India. The only positive outcome of this sort of disaster is that people quickly swing into action. The Internet enables us all to get timely information from blogs like this as well as news sites, and by linking people to donation centers. Here are a few already set up to handle donations for victims throughout the region. Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected.

    I urge everyone to support the tremendously brave people who are travelling to the region to help the rescue effort – especially those volunteers with Medicins Sans Frontieres and Secouristes Sans Frontieres.

    My thoughts are with everyone in any way affected by the tsunami – and I hope you too will do your best to help the rescue effort…]

    UPDATE: The BBC have a very good, very detailed page on how to help

    The Disasters Emergency Committee operates an easy way to donate to several relief charities at the same time.

    At the moment, you may find that a lot of the sites are not working properly – this is because of the phenomenal volumes of traffic that they are receiving – hopefully from people donating. Please do not give up – try again later, or ring the DEC direct on 0870 60 60 900.

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  3. Happy Christmas

    December 25, 2004 by dafyd

    Hope you have a great one … and get everything you asked for!

    The one obvious omission from my list was World Peace… oh well, maybe next year.

    Anyway, after the turkey and pudding, have a go at the Santa Simulator. Tis verily good fun!

    Happy Christmas everybody!

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  4. Googling for Names

    December 22, 2004 by dafyd

    From the GoogleBlog:

    Ten years ago, when you named a new child, you just needed to make sure the moniker was easy to spell and didn’t rhyme with “smelly” or any other schoolyard taunt. But now, you’ve got to consider the search engine effect: is the name easily located via a Google search, or will your kid be confused with a multitude of John Smiths?

    The solution? A unique name for which the only possible search results would be related to your child. But not actually “unique,” since Social Security records tell us that 239 girls named Unique were born in 2002 (scroll down to “popularity of a name”). Imagine a baby boy named “Angus Katzenjammer.” He’d have a wide open field since that search currently doesn’t return any results. Or perhaps a young lass is named “Humid Lipstocking.” With the exception of Google helpfully asking “did you mean Humid Lipsticking,” it would be perfect.

    In reality, you don’t need to be famous or have a weird name to increase the odds of appearing in Google’s search results. Just start a blog or build a website and you should eventually find yourself in our index. In an interesting twist on self promotion, some people have even bought AdWords ads which would result in the display of small text ads next to search results for their name. Yes – it is truly a brave new world.

    I’ve Googled my name from time to time – that’s how I found Bob Soulliere’s blog – he has a son called, believe it or not, Dafyd!

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  5. So exciting!

    December 21, 2004 by dafyd

    Book cover... so farHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (book 6 in the series) will be published in the UK and USA on July 16th 2005…

    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling, the sixth in the bestselling series, has been scheduled for publication on 16th July, 2005 in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, it was announced today by Bloomsbury and Scholastic, her British and American publishers. On her website, www.jkrowling.com, J.K. Rowling announced last night that she had completed the book and delivered the manuscript to her two English language publishers.

    In making the joint announcement, Nigel Newton, Chief Executive of Bloomsbury Publishing in the United Kingdom and Barbara Marcus, President of Scholastic Children’s Books in the United States, said: “We are delighted to announce the publication date. J.K. Rowling has written a brilliant story that will dazzle her fans in a marvellous book that takes the series to yet greater heights. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince delivers all the excitement and wonder of her bestselling Harry Potter novels.”

    In the previous book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the last chapter, titled ‘The Second War Begins,’ started:

    ‘In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned to this country and is once more active.

    “It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord – well, you know who I mean – is alive and among us again,” said Fudge.’

    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince takes up the story of Harry Potter’s sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at this point as Voldemort’s power and followers are increasing day by day, in the midst of this battle of good and evil.

    The author has already said that the Half-Blood Prince is neither Harry nor Voldemort. Intriguingly, the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been brewing in J.K. Rowling’s mind for 13 years.

    Isn’t this exciting? I think so… naturally, it’s available to pre-order from the chez dafyd store – with £7.00 off the publisher’s RRP price of £16.99. I don’t know about a certain bookshop who’s name begins with W – but I shall endevour to find out tomorrow!

    Interestingly, I signed up to be informed by Amazon when HP6 was ready to pre-order… and they haven’t told me yet! It is already 14th in their bestseller charts – and has only been on sale for 12 hours!

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  6. Bush – schizophrenic?

    December 20, 2004 by dafyd

    From Reuters:

    “Now, the temptation is going to be, by well-meaning people such as yourself and others here, as we run up to the issue, to get me to negotiate with myself in public,” Bush told the questioner on Monday. “To say, you know, ‘What’s this mean, Mr. President? What’s that mean?’”

    Negotiate with yourself, George? How do you do that? Good cop, bad cop, all in one?

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  7. That’s No Moon…

    December 19, 2004 by dafyd

    …it’s a space station!

    Saturn's moon Mimas

    I happened across this photo of Saturn’s moon Mimas, which looks surprisingly similar to the Death Star from Star Wars, taken by the probe Cassini. Mimas is 398 km (247 miles) across, and that’s not a superlaser you see, but a giant crater called Herschel, which is a third the size of the moon itself.

    Here’s a picture of the ‘real’ Death Star for you to compare it too…

    Death Star

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  8. Blunkett and co

    December 19, 2004 by dafyd

    An interesting bit in the Sunday Telegraph’s review of the Blunkett biography:

    Pollard tells the hilarious story of Blunkett and other senior ministers arriving at Buckingham Palace to exchange the seals of office. Prescott walked towards the Queen, nodded, kneeled, recited his oath and walked away forgetting to take the seals of office with him ‘and leaving the Queen holding them vacantly’. Straw mangled his oath. Then he had to lead Blunkett up to the dais. Instead of placing him so that he faced the Queen, he positioned the new Home Secretary at 45 degrees to the monarch, facing a statue of George IV, to which he addressed his oath. The Queen looked at her ministers and said, ‘I hope you run the country better than you’ve managed over the last 15 minutes’.

    Tip-of-the-hat to BorisJohnson.com.

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  9. Get shopping

    December 18, 2004 by dafyd

    Only 3 days to go if you want to order anything from the chez dafyd store for Christmas.

    And in a bizarre coincidence, the same is true for Amazon.co.uk. How strange.

    By the way, my post yesterday was wrong – there were in fact only 7 sleeps to Santa – now there are 6!

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  10. 8 more sleeps to go

    December 17, 2004 by dafyd

    To quote Jo and Twiggy:

    8 more sleeps to go
    8 more sleeps to Santa
    8 more sleeps til the big fat fellow comes down your chimney and gives you presents and drinks your beer
    8 more sleeps to Santa.

    And you thought this was a serious blog?!

    Unfortunatly I missed the programme in question (what a pity) but it appears J & T recorded their own version of Band Aid – called Tone Deaf Aid. You can download it from the Trent FM website. I warn you, though – I’ve not heard it yet… chances are it’s crap.

    Category 1 | Tags: | 1 Comment

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