...When the wolves come out of the walls then it's all over. If you want to know what's all over, and who 'they' are, then you should find yourself a copy of Neil Gaiman's "The Wolves in the Walls". It is obviously a childrens story, but as with all Neil's work, and the work of many childrens authors these days, there's plenty for adults too. Unfortunately for you, you're too late to catch the Improbable play of the book. Here are some photos to tease you even more with what you missed. I wish there were some better shots to be honest. Something to show just how amazing and fluid the set designs were; how Dave McKean like they managed to get the whole look and feel. Although you can see how good the wolf puppets look you can't see just how good the puppeteers were, how the whole experience was injected with humour, a perfect counterpoint to the implied horror of having the wolves come out of the wall. The kids in the audience loved it, the adults roared with laughter in all the right places. Definitely the best piece of theatre I have ever seen. According to this page they'll be touring with it again in the Autumn in the UK, and next year taking it to the US. Book a ticket as soon as you can, you'll not be disappointed

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/28/secfocus_june28/ If you're interested int that sort of thing.

This is my first attempt at a Wordpress theme. It is heavily based on the default 1.5 theme (Kubrick) with a few minor changes. These are:

1. The main one is to make it resize with the browser size as I don't tend to like fixed width pages. I would have liked to keep the graduated background image but it seems that with current CSS you can't have resizable background images. I also lost some of the rounded edges due to moving away from images to CSS but I hear that CSS3 may have that option.
2. I also added support for the theme_switcher plugin which, if present and activated, will display a list of available themes for users to select. The selected theme should also be highlighted.
3. If you also install my context_list_pages plugin you'll get what I think is a better listing of your "pages" in the sidebar. If you don't have that plugin activated it will simply use the default listing algorithm.
4. If you change the image /wp-content/themes/darkmuse/images/branding.jpg it will be used in the left of the title bar. If your browser supports CSS2 properly then an image bigger than 200x100 will be resized to that maximum. Smaller images won't be stretched. Although if you're using IE the image will be resized to 200x100 no matter what due to a little "hack" in the CSS. I'm sure you can work out how to do that if you want to. If not, ask.

I'm not convinced that the whole sidebar is to my liking yet so that may change in future versions, or maybe I'll make it customizable through the admin pages. For now though, lets just take baby steps. Download my plugins and themes here. edit: I've also just noticed that I need to add the sidebar into the single post viewing template. Why isn't it there in the default theme?

I decided that if I could make wordpress behave how I wanted it to there would no longer be any reason to try and develop my own web site designs. This is the plan: step1: Write a small plugin to display page listings how I want [see here] step2: Develop a theme that does what I want and is easily customizable step3: Some stuff step 4: Take over the world So there we are then: I'm well on the road to world domination...

On my way into work this morning I was trying to think what I did on Saturday. When I got here John asked whether I'd had a good weekend and I had to admit that I really can't remember Saturday. I think I just dealt with the weeks mail and then made a few cosmetic changes to my web site (still not the best thing in the world - by a long way). Sunday, however, I can remember as I spent all day in the Quality Hotel, Hagley Road, Birmingham playing Magic: the Gathering. I only went along as my friends son and friends have started playing and they know I used to play quite a lot. The whole thing seemed to be a little less nerdy (but not a lot) than I remember from when I used to play back in 1997/8. Opponents were certainly more friendly. Maybe it's me thats changed, maybe it's the other players. There were only 2 or 3 faces that I recognised from back then so I guess a lot of people have left the game too. It does require too much investment in both time and money, with too little to gain, to be a viable long term hobby. I came 18 out of 50 after an apalling start (DLLWWW).

EDIT: the magazine I was looking for is apparently "Classic Puzzles and Brainteasers". The publisher is Jacklin Enterprises UK, PO Box 77, Jarrow, NE32 3YJ. Customer service dept: Phone: 0870 920 1133. You can subscribe by phoning that number, or order back copies from your newsagent or WH Smith (so why isn't it on their web site then?). Games get treated fairly on TV Apparently. I have last nights episode of Child of Our Time recorded as I was out celebrating Debbies birthday. But according to this Guardian blog entry it had a section devoted to the effects video games are having on children. That would certainly make a refreshing change after the supposedly abominable investigations on shows such as Richard and Judy which were incredibly ill-informed and show children playing 18 rated games infornt of their parents. Would they let them watch 18 rated films? Well don't let them play GTA and Manhunt then you idiots. New magazine arrives I'd never heard of Games International until I stumbled on their website while looking for a completely unrelated magazine. I subscribed and issues 17 and 18 duly arrived yesterday. At first glance it looks like a pretty decent board game magazine. The sort that, if I was that way inclined, I might like to write up an article or two for. And the first thing I noticed was an ad for Days of Wonder stating that you could play online (for $1 or €1 a month). The magazine I was looking for was a partworks magazine about traditional puzzles or something. issue 1 came with a tower of hanoi puzzle. Most people think I dreamt the whole thing but i'm sure i saw adverts for it over the festive season. IBM does good (not that I work there any more) IBM are announcing the release of 500 of its patents to the open source community. It will still hold the patents but is letting people use them for free. I am yet to see a full list of what is being "given away" but its a step in the right direction. In stark contrast Bill Gates recently called anyone fighting for copyright reform a communist. Speaking of not working there any more I might as well write up this link since everyone else has jumped on the band wagon. Waterstones fired the guy for comments made on his blog. Now I think it was handled all wrong but what was he thinking, no really. Its not as if there isn't a precedent. That case even spawned a word for it: dooced. More blogs Look. Here is another local blogger, flux. I wonder if he's related to a fellow blogger, Amber, who also used the name fluxxette, but who now seems to have vanished from the Internet.

As part of my Christmas gifts from MC I got a puzzle-a-day desk calendar. So far the puzzles have been too easy. Today, however, came a bit of a challenge. Its the sort of thing that is small enough to get by trial and error but I wondered if there was some logical way that you could come to an answer. I don't much fancy the simultaneous equations method but that would surely work too. I'll paraphrase it here: There are 16 rooms in a 4x4 grid, a spy has placed 3 bugs in 2 of the rooms, 2 bugs in 2 of the rooms and 1 bug in 4 other rooms (8 are empty). The number of bugs in each row, column and the one diagonal are as shown in this image: Answers on a postcard please.

Title says it all really. Go here if you want to vote, or just see what blogs you're missing out on. Best of Blog (BoB) Awards 2004: VOTE!

A mailing list just threw up this link. Its one mans list of overlooked PS1 gems. I have to be honest and say that I haven't played any but Carnage Heart although a few of them were always on my wants list. I assume that like Carnage Heart they are all on the list because they sunded far better than they turned out to be. Still, if you have any of them and would like to donate to a good cause send them in :)

How did this happen? the118show