Well Cat fans, disaster has struck. I stacked it pretty badly whilst off piste yesterday and hurt my shoulder. Co-incidentally a friend of mine hurt his head, so the two of us got rides on snow mobiles with Ski Patrol to the mountain clinic. He got stitches, and I got 5 x-rays. Sadly, the Doctor (and radiologist at the local hospital) weren't sure I haven't fractured my shoulder blade. The good news is that it's probably just sprained (so I've got a sling).

All in all, the experience was actually pretty good. Ski Patrol were excellent, very friendly, relaxed etc. The clinic was also excellent, and as an extra bonus was stocked with a couple of absolute beauties. The whole thing cost about $300, so not quite the life-changing medical bills the US is fabled for.

I'll give it a few days and see how I go. I might be back on the slopes (taking it easy, of course) in a few days.

You lucky readers get all the best linkage... A couple of years ago we linked I gave my cat an enema, and now we bring you... (drum roll) How to give your cat a pill and 2 ways to wash a cat.

All the furry goodness you could ever want!

From January 30th, all new PCs will come pre-installed with Windows Vista. There are several good reasons not to use it.

If that article's a bit long and technical for you, read on...

Happy ChristmasHappy Christmas, Cat fans.

I'm a bit 'bah humbug' about the whole thing, but now I have a niece and nephew to play with, things might be different...

The BBC have been talking about the future of the Package Holiday. For me, it's simple: they need to evolve. We consumers don't need package holidays any more, because we can book our own flights, transfers and accommodation. We get what we want without the ditsy rep. who makes things more difficult than they need to be.

I'd *love* to go on a package holiday where I show up at the airport, someone takes my bags and checks them in for me. I then wander through the airport, get on the plane, arrive at the other end, and then simply leave the airport and get on a bus (or whatever) before being dropped off at my accommodation. Someone does all the baggage reclaim, deals with lost luggage, carries it all and then drops it off where I'm staying.

On the way home, I'd like to be picked up from my accommodation (with someone picking up my luggage), and then transported as quickly as possible to my home (or home airport). I don't want to have to check in, I don't want to have to do baggage reclaim, and I don't want to wait around in the airport any longer than absolutely necessary.

All this takes a lot of organising. It's not going to be easy to arrange check-in procedures that mean the passenger doesn't have to queue up at some stupid desk in some poxy airport. Even scheduling all the transfers so that no one's waiting around at hell-hole airports at 2am or whatever is going to be very hard.

Very hard: Stuff the average consumer can't do, no matter how clever the Internet gets. It's here that the Package Holiday can become a contender once again.

I don't fly much any more, but once upon a time, this could have been pretty handy. Seat Guru is a site where you can select your airline, and the sort of plane you're going on. It tells you which seats are the best, and what services are on board. Nice. (via /usr/bin/girl)

Last night I became an uncle again. Congratulations once again to my sister and her husband for a baby girl (name TBA). Happy birthday, and welcome to this little old world!

I'm looking forward to meeting her (hopefully I won't be quite so scared this time!).

After an aborted trip to Bristol this weekend, I've done some good old fashioned internet trawling. Via GCB, try The Online Pregnacy Tester and test your multitasking skills with Double Jeu.

Oh, and you may have noticed I've changed the look of Coofer Cat too ;-)

Via SMS from Naz T:

Today is International Disadvantaged People's Day. Please send an encouraging message to a retarded friend, just as I've done. I don't care if you lick windows, interfere with farm animals, or occasionally shit yourself... You hang in there sunshine, you're fucking special...

I've just finished moving the last of the content from GreyMatter and TikiWiki over to Drupal. I'll be changing the design of the whole site to celebrate soon. Of course, Drupal's been in use here for quite a while, but some of the articles I wrote back in 2003 seem to be getting a lot of attention recently, so I wanted to make sure I didn't break them!