Two things happened today which put a bit of a dampener on my morning:

1) The Comics.com website is still down. I like to get my daily fix of the Pearls Before Swine comic but the site has been down for a couple of days with no explanation.

2) Terry Wogan has announced that he is stepping down from the Radio 2 Breakfast Show at the end of the year. I don't get chance to listen to the programme very often but I get the weekly podcast which has most of the readers letters and funny stories. The worst part of the news is that Chris Evans will be taking over. I make no secret of that fact that I don't like Chris Evans. He is someone who appears to be his own biggest fan. The phrase If he was made of chocolate he'd eat himself sums him up well.

I have been looking through some of the old Dilbert comic strips and found this one:

This is one of my favourite Dilbert comics. I remembered seeing it first time around. It summed how I felt at my workplace at the time. I wouldn't have been surprised if they had a LifeSuck 3000 hidden somewhere on site.

The original cartoon can be found at Dilbert.com.

I spotted this on the BBC News site. From the page:

When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed. Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated".

I was searching for some information about the Cray Y-MP computer. The article I found was a PDF scan of an old paper. The OCR seems to have got slightly confused. I didn't realise there was a Crap 2 computer or a Gay Y-MP.

We were watching the BBC Breakfast News this morning and there was a story about Tesco opening a supermarket in the USA. We had the subtitles on because it wasn't easy to hear the reporter over the crunch of cereal.

The story was about Tesco trying to break into the American market by offering a range of affordable and healthy foods. We saw a customer carrying a punnet of fruit. The subtitles referred to the Man with the neck tureens. I suppose they'd be handy for carrying soup around...

We were watching An Inconvenient Truth on DVD. Today's Dilbert cartoon seemed remarkable appropriate:

www.dilbert.com

According to NewsBiscuit, Tony Blair decided that Parliament should move to Aberystwyth.

Quoth the article:

Tony Blair's final act as Prime Minister was billed as a huge boost for the regions today, when he announced that the government of the United Kingdom, would henceforth be re-located in the Welsh coastal town of Aberystwyth.

The current Christmas stamps have created a bit of controversy because they don't have any religious content at all. A slightly greater concern to children throughout the land is depicted on the 1st class stamp (pictured left). Santa knows if you've been naughty or nice, and if you've been naughty he'll poo down your chimney.

Today be Talk like a Pirate day. To avoid looking like the scurvy-filled landlubber you obviously are, ye must watch this video.

We had an email sent round the office in work, describing the disk structure and file archiving procedure. It included instructions for archiving files and also told us who was responsible for 'restoring files from anchovies'. I hope that was a typing error and they haven't invented some fish based storage system.

When I was publicity officer for one of the university societies in Aberystwyth, everything had to be bilingual and we had to get all emails and publicity materials translated into welsh. I was warned not to use any machine translators on the Internet. This is a good reason why you shouldn't:

Cyclists have been baffled by a new road sign which warns: "Your bladder disease has returned."
The sign - in Welsh - was meant to tell them to dismount at roadworks. But council chiefs made an error using an online translator and confused the words 'cyclists' and 'cystitis'. Amended signs are now being put up as soon as possible in Penarth, near Cardiff.
Welsh speaking cyclist Matt Lloyd, 27, said: "I thought someone was having a laugh. I've never even had a bladder disease."

I read this in the Metro newspaper on the train this morning but the story was also covered on the BBC News website, where they have a picture of the sign as well.

Tim Burton has to be one of the more original filmmakers working today. I can't think of anyone else who has produced such a varied output of both live action and animated films. The Corpse Bride is a very good film, although I was surprised to see John Prescott have a role as the prospective Father-in-Law.

John Prescott	Finis Everglot

Today is also Garfield's birthday. He's a bit younger than me (he was 'born' in 1978).

Seen in Asda, their version of Love Hearts but for the modern generation:
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We saw this when we were in Ellesmere Port visiting my parents. We didn't have a camera handy so had to wait until my Dad could take a photo and send it to me: