A jetty at the end of Shoreham Harbour. Not sure if there were herons or cormorants sitting on top of those poles.

Sound 101 – Bad Vibes. Rate which sound is the worst.

A couple of non-spoiler scenes from The Wire on YouTube. Scene one featuring McNulty and Bunk contains some entertaining usage of the F word (as well nude images). Scene two features the character Omar Little, a man who’s occupation is stealing from drug dealers. Two of the funnier scenes in the series.

Charlie Brooker hates Macs, from The Guardian.

More YouTube! See this brilliant wedding reception dance where everyone acts out the Micheal Jackson video of Thriller. And see the funny highlights from this weeks My Name Is Earl featuring Catalina and Randy.

Sing In The Shower music generator.

From Fiachra Gibbons on the making of Last Resort, a film set in Margate:
“You have to feel sorry for Margate. There it is, stuck out like an untended boil on the backside of Kent, disowned by its solidly respectable neighbours, Ramsgate and Broadstairs, whose facades seem pulled in a permanent rictus of displeasure and embarrassment at its coarse proletarian pleasures. All through the 1980s, London councils dumped the mad and the bad – their undeserving poor – into the empty bucket-and-spade guesthouses along its broad bay. Even they didn’t stay.”

You’ve got to hand it to Channel 4, another Celebrity Big Brother makes the front page news, is mentioned in an early day motion in the Houses of Parliament and has effigies of the shows producers burnt in a province of India. Looks like the only winners will be Channel 4 themselves and me (who put £5 on Shilpa to win at 5-to-1 last week, Ladbrokes link to your right if you still fancy a flutter).

If you listened to the media you’d think that Jade Goody, Jo O’Meara and Danielle Lloyd were going to set fire to a few mosques when they’re released. Personally I think they’re just a collection of three uneducated ‘celebrities’ who, through their lack of cultural understanding, have joined forces and have started to pick on somebody they don’t like. If there was an attractive Polish film star I’m sure those three would be acting the same. The laugh is on them as on a show like this you can see their careers slipping away in front of your eyes while they remain blissfully unaware, stirring their cauldron. Not that I’ve actually watched any of this as I’ve only seen around 10 minutes of the show (honest), and then just to catch the lovely Cleo Rocos who I probably had my first ever crush on.

The media saturation is so overwhelming yet the voices you hear are generally 90% loud and reactionary. The lack of clarity of thought is the only thing I’m worried about lurking behind the doors of British houses, not a dark underbelly of racism. Now I even turn off the radio if they’re discussing the matter. Same for BBC online news. Read Germaine Greer’s refreshing take on the ‘controversy’. I wonder what would happen if the 22,000 people who complained got off their arses and actually did something about racism in their area? Now that should make the news.

A little bird tells me the next eviction vote is between Jade Goody and Shilpa Shetty. Is this a ballot on racism in the UK? If the furore can last till the end of the series I think I’ll win my bet on Shilpa but people are gonna get bored of the news story very soon. I only hoping Shilpa can win this series before the enevitable backlash of balanced thought prevails and the cover of Heat Magazine with Jade saying “I’m not a racist, it was just the way the show was edited,” appears.

Enough of that rubbish. Here’s when Brighton’s West Pier burnt down, speeded up.

Goats on trees.

Every Extra Extend. Brilliant music shoot-em-up by the Japanese maker of Rez.

Video of Market Street in San Francisco filmed in 1905, before the big quake.

Newsreel video of the Hindenburg blowing up.

Vidmeter. Shows you a list of the most watched videos on the net.

No, I didn’t go to see Fat Boy Slim yesterday. There’s some good pictures at The Argus though. Including this famous Brighton face I haven’t seen in ages:

The webstats for KingOfMyCastle during December really skyrocketed. This site had over 80,000 hits and nearly 6,000 unique visitors.

The BBC’s John Simpson looks ahead to World news events in 2007.

I finished watching The Wire Season 1 too and it’s so good I’ve ordered the second box set. Probably the best drama I’ve seen in a very long time. If you skip to the 2:20 in this YouTube video Charlie Brooker gives his opinion of it:

Yes, not much has been happening online over Christmas to report about. I’ve just been playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) on my Wii and watching the first season of The Wire which is shaping up to be the best cop show of all time, even after watching just 5 episodes.

Ibiza Sonica – Nice (for a Flash site). Check out the 1 hour eclectic mix by Charles Webster by going to Downloads, then hovering over the record box.

Stumble Video – This is the closest thing to turning YouTube into a viable TV station. Just watch the videos it shows and rate them. Stumble will then start to learn your likes and dislikes. I hope this works on my Wii!

And if you really want to keep a video you see on YouTube then just visit the Video Downloader 2.0 site. This will store the video on your hard drive. You can then put it on your phone if you like.

Whats looking like being the biggest nerd debate of 2006/7, the Wii vs the PS3. Read about the designer’s perspective over at GamaSutra.

Here’s a 9 minute interview and clips of Daddy Freddy on Record Breakers and Blue Peter. I remember him vividly but I can’t find too many others out there who remember him.

Listen to The Guardian’s political cartoonist Steve Bell as he takes a tour around his home town, Brighton.

My plan to arrive fashionably late at GameStation to avoid any queing failed as there was quite a big queue in front of me when I arrived there.

So back home for 40 minutes then a quick cycle back and I walked straight to the front. A minute later and the doors would have been locked.

So far I’m loving the console. It took about 4 minutes to set up and start playing. And only a couple of minutes to get online with it. The Wiimote wand is very responsive and ten pin bowling as real fun. More news later.

Christopher Scally is a Hove artist producing some fine fresh paintings. He has a new site to showcase his work called Rock Shake Ape. Please check out his wonderful illustrations on his new blog/online gallery.

Another friend with a new website is Tim Stannard. He now lives in Madrid and is an expert in La Primera, the top Spanish football league. He has been a football pundit for Spanish television and now writes on his own website La Liga Loca.

Today I checked out the Nintendo Wii Roadshow happening down at Churchill Square shopping centre. The installation looked great consisting of four demonstration sections each running different games. I’ve laid down a deposit for one of these the moment the release date was announced, being a new Nintendo convert, but this was my first look at the console in action.

My first impressions? Not good. I was told about the demo but the knowledgeable staff at GameStation on Western Road. They knew all the titles that would be available on the launch date and mentioned the possibility of a midnight opening – that would be my first ever. Ha! What a nerd. But spending 15 minutes with the Wii team took the wind out of my sails a little.

It wasn’t due to the hardware. This looked great and the remote control looked responsive, if a little difficult to master. The games on display looked fine, if not as detailed as it’s Xbox 360 rival, and all the passer-by players seemed to be having fun. Unfortunately a group of kids seemed to be hogging the controls so there was no go for me. I may try again tomorrow morning.

What was really disappointing was the staff running the setup. The first member I talked didn’t know the name of the game they were demonstrating, a kid standing next to me had to tell me. Another member of staff couldn’t tell me if the game they were demonstrating, Wii Sports, came bundled with the console, cue another kid telling me it does. One of the team was asleep! Ha! It did look like they were all out on the lash the night before. The other demonstrator seemed to be enjoying his Nintendo DS so much he just sat on the sofa playing it for the 10 minutes I was there. Now I know why sales teams have commission incentives.

All this means that passers by who could have been tempted to buy one for Christmas have probably decided not to. Without having a go with the controllers the Wii looked as standard as one of those 50-games-on-a-joystick you plug into your TV. And the staff, well the ones who were awake anyway, wouldn’t have been able to answer their questions anyway. But still I can’t wait till December the 8th. Just like Cartman in this clip from South Park.

Oh well. I didn’t win the award yesterday for Brighton & Hove’s best personal website or blog. Instead it went to Adactio. Which is a well coded and regularly updated website. Well done!

One thing I did notice was the number of extremely good looking websites being made in Brighton & Hove. There really is some first class design out there, so I’m glad my fledgling web design business has some really good graphic designers I can call upon if needed.

I also have tons of ideas for this site’s redesign. If I can just get the header image I’m after right I could get started on this puppy within a week or two. Keep you eyes peeled!