This site appears to use a fairly simple layout doesn’t it? Thats because it does. Its basically one column, and its got a little grey sidebar floated over there.

So why is it proving to be such a [string of expletives] to get it to work properly in Internet Explorer 6? Huh? Its because there’s a little grey sidebar floated over there.

Incredibly, it works better in the veritable old IE5.5 than it does in its big brother.

Apart from the fact that Internet Explorer is incredibly insecure and prone to being hacked, its layout engine (the bit that draws stuff on the screen) is fundamentally flawed. Start floating things around the screen and it gets all confused and things begin to go horribly horribly wrong.

Why is it still like this? Mainly because it laid stagnant for several years (when it had no real competition), and then when Microsoft did get around to working on it again, they’ve been too busy patching up all of the enourmous security holes to worry about how it carries out its primary function: drawing pages on the screen. I’m not bitter.

Ever so sorry. I need to have one of these rants about it every once in a while. You know, my life would be a lot easier if you lot would use Firefox or another decent browser. Get to it right away or I’ll set the h@xx0r5 on your system.

Update: I made it work!!!

It meant completely rethinking the site layout, but I made it work in IE. I had to use absolute positioning and lose the spangly footer in the end. Bah humbug.

So, we’re at work talking about what albums we might buy at lunchtime…

• Owen: The Killers? Who?
• Me: They’re ace, you’d like them.
• Baggus: They’re the best British band to come out of America.
• Me: They’re American!?

Well apparently they are. I guess I just thought that their music sounded British. I’m rather liking the album Hot Fuss though. The two acts aren’t really comparable, but as pop-rock albums go, its right up there with Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American. Lots of really catchy stuff, groovy basslines and huge guitar riffs.

I really have to stop saying this, but Rock Right On!

One of the best spam/scam messages that I’ve seen in quite some time – luckily Thunderbird’s spam filter missed it or I might never have seen it…

Dear Sir

We are Attorneys and Executor of the estate of Late Sir. Dennis Thatcher, I wish to notify you that late Sir. Dennis Thatcher, made you a beneficiary to his will. He left the sum of Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Pounds Sterling (350,000 BPS) to you in the codicil and last testament to his will. This may sound strange and unbelievable to you, but it is real and true. Being a widely traveled man, he must have been in contact with you in the past or simply you were nominated to him by one of his numerous Friends abroad that wished you good.

Mmm hmmm? Thats why you sent it from a free webmail account in Germany is it? Thought so.

I’ve just come across One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately (Hat-tip: sidesh0w).

Now apart from the fact that I’m a bit of a hoarder, meaning I probably wouldn’t chuck any CD’s out in the first place, I’m in agreement with most of that list. While there’s a few I really wouldn’t chuck due to their blatant aceness (31 and 95 come to mind), most of the albums on the list are prime for removal/sale/burning.

Or would be, if I owned them. Especially Oasis.

I was in HMV ealier, to see if they had a copy of the new Evil Nine album yet. They didn’t, but the new Mylo album DestroyRock&Roll was going cheap. So I bought it. Its rather good on first listen. But hark, whats that I hear?

Can it be? It bloody well can. Track 5 (called In My Arms) samples Boy Meets Girl‘s eponymous classic Waiting for a Star to Fall!

Sorry, did I say “eponymous classic”? I meant complete stinker. I seem to remember buying the single when I was little. I also seem to remember ritually destroying it a bit later in life. I downloaded it to see just how bad it was – and I wasn’t too surprised to find that it was a good deal worse than I remembered. Though on browsing the web I was surprised to find that they also penned a couple of hits for Whitney Houston, including “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” (another unmitigated stinker).

And yet that little sample (“In my arms baby, yeah”) repeated over a housey beat seems to work quite nicely. This worries me a bit. Am I going to look back at my CD collection in another ten years time and find that its full of complete stinkers? Will I regard DestroyRock&Roll to be on a par with the very band it samples? Or will it have the cult appeal of something like the KLF’s The White Room perhaps?

Not that it matters right now, because I’m enjoying bouncing around the room to “Drop the Pressure” and “Paris Four Hundred“, two of the stand-out tracks on the album. How loud to you reckon it’ll go before the neighbours complain?