See if your brain is as old as your body.

Since the game is in Japanese, read the following English instructions:

1. Touch ’start’
2. Wait for 3, 2, 1.
3. Memorize the number’s position on the screen, then click the circle
from the SMALLEST number to the BIGGEST number.
4. At the end of game, the computer will tell you the age of your brain.

Now, after you’ve struggled with that for a while to get your score somewhere close to your own age, check out these guys..

Skipping around the TV channels the other night I came across “Polish Radio London 24″. I wasn’t specifically looking to ‘watch’ a radio station, as I think it’s an odd thing to do, never mind the extra energy consumption used in running it through the TV (carbon footprint, rising energy costs and all that). Anyway, I gave it at least 10 minutes as I was intrigued by the description - “A compilation of the best rock tunes to come out of Poland in the last twenty years”.

I questioned whether a station could fill 24 hours with famous Polish rock tunes from the last 20 years, but then they probably follow the same formula as many other niche channels, repeating the programming on a rolling basis. (I’m sure the Polish Rock Music +1 channel will follow soon just in case you miss anything). Sadly, the music wasn’t Polish or even rock - just a mix of Euro trash house - so I switched over.

Back in 2005 the BBC asked “Do we need any more digital TV channels?” Personally I think I’m missing “UKTV Food, excluding celebrities pretending to be chefs, or anything with Ainsley Harriot, Anthony Worrell Thompson or Gary Rhodes 24 +1” channel.

What would your TV channel be?

Wow, after complaining so much about blogging, this is my third post in a row. I’m becoming even more nerdy. Ah well.

I thought I’d bring up the subject of good typography practice, particularly in headlines. Too often now we seen overly long headlines and worse still all in capital letters.

It’s much easier to read a short headline in lowercase or even sentence case than it is ALL IN CAPITALS.

Did you know the brain registers lower case type much quicker than it does capitals? Did you know that the letters don’t even have to be in the same order?

As long as the first and last characters are correct your brain can still quickly decipher the text.

Here’s a good example:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

You shouldn’t create headlines all in capitals, and worse still, whole paragraphs in capitals; it just registers on the brain as rectangles and makes it that much more difficult to read.

Here’s an interesting little game/test. Apparently this is was devised to test job applicants in Japan. It seems to be a variation on the old Chicken, Fox and bag of grain puzzle.

You have to get the people from one side of the river to the other using the raft. Only the Mum, Dad and Policeman can operate the raft. The Dad cannot be left alone with any of the girls. The Mum cannot be left alone with any of the boys. The thief can be left alone or has to be in the presence of the policeman, but cannot be left alone with anyone else.

To start just click the image above, then the big round button.

I’ve been after getting some chickens for ages. My original ‘green’ and ethical intention was to make my own chicken coop from recycled wooden pallets and to get some ex-battery hens. After weeks of deliberation and attempting to design a coop in Cinema 4D, I realised that I was deluding myself with my carpentry skills, plus the lady from the battery hen rescue place said there were no birds available until August.

So, this weekend I bought a chicken coop and bought two lovely new Bantam hens.

After the easy to assemble flat pack coop has built it was a fairly simple matter to clip the chickens wings (totally painless, just trimming some feathers) and let them explore their new home.

The chickens love scratching around under the conifers at the back of the garden. Infact, I had to lop off quite a few lower branches as we just couldn’t see the chickens as they spend almost all their time under the trees, eating bugs and worms.

One of the chickens used the nesting box and layed our first egg.

Not a massive egg as the chickens are still ‘pullets’ (under one year old), but as they grow older the eggs will get larger. Felix had this one fried with some chips.

We’ve not really named the chickens yet, although the name ‘nugget’ is a favourite for one of them. Other possible names are ‘dipper’ ‘gravy’ and ‘chicken in a basket’. If I get another three ex-battery hens I’ll probably call those ‘Kay’, ‘Eff’ & ‘Cee’. The coop is large enough for about 8. They don’t need that much room inside and they like to huddle close together on the perches.

The BBC reported tonight that Mozilla are attempting to break a record for the most downloads over a 24 hour period when Firefox 3 goes on general release today (17th June). Intending to download FF3, I did the honourable thing and followed the link from the BBC News article to the spreadfirefox.com website only to be greeted by a Drupal developer’s nightmare. An ‘Unable to connect to database server’ error.

It looks like the Marketing ploy for drawing attention to the Firefox site has been a little bit too much for the poor web server to cope with causing a database crash. This proves even some of the big guys (who have probably planned this for months) suffer technical glitches sometimes.

I just hope that they get this back up and running soon because it’s not the best advert for Firefox or Drupal and I’m still quite eager to have a bash with FF3.

I spotted this ‘grass roots’ marketing effort whilst walking around Chester, the morning after a very enjoyable Visit Chester and Cheshire tourism awards. It made me smile but did little to entice me in. Nothing to do with the charm of the pub but everything to do with my still thumping head.

Is it just me or are we being plagued by pidgeons? I even tried eating one the blighters last night in an attempt to do my bit to cull their kind. They’re everywhere (or at least evidence of their being everywhere!). I went for a run this morning and nearly came a cropper under their low flying exploits. Does anyone else fear that we are being taken over? I might be looking over my shoulder, but it’s not the credit crunch I’m losing sleep over, it’s the cooing grey army!

Back to the food variety though - it was really nice. And I was surprised. It was a set menu (at abode in Manchester), so I had no choice - I would never have actively chosen pidgeon, but I’m glad I did. Not that I’ll be trying it again too soon, or abode for that matter. Abode is a new hotel/restaurant on Piccadilly opposite the Malmaison. It’s a stange area full of new, modern, expensive buildings alongside the old, run-down, decrepid buildings - not for me.

And as for the pidgeons, I hope they go back to trafalgar square, where they belong.

Armed with remote controls and nunchucks, it’s time to commence the battle of the Wii. Girls are rocking the bowling alley with 4 dazzling strikes in a row, with the smelly boys gaining a cheeky second wind (hee hee!) and (only just) taking the winners medal…

Training camp now begins for tomorrow’s boxing round (cue the Rocky training anthem).

As an alumnus of Manchester University it’s heart warming to read that students’ fees are being spent on researching the secrets behind the perfect sandwich. This article from the M.E.N explains that professors at Manchester’s premier academic institution have discovered that the natural bubbles in white bread are crucial to the success of a sandwich.

Personally I’m fond of ham and cheese on a spongy roll but following this news I’ll be sure to never try making a butty with unleavened bread.