Mathew Browne

If you are a serial procrastinator, you might find these links will keep you busy for a while! Hidden in each picture there are movies or musicians/bands. Your goal is to work out which, via the cryptic images arranged within. They range from the obvious (a ring = The Ring; a few eagles = The Eagles) to the cryptic (a pair of dice, each showing 1 = Snake Eyes; a melon wearing shades = Blind Melon).

Spot the 74 bands, from Virgin Music.
http://tinypic.com/hs5gtd.jpg

Spot 100 movies, from Lovefilm.
http://www.lovefilm.com/images/desktop/1280×1024.jpg

Spot another 100 movies, from LoveFilm.
http://www.lovefilm.com/lovefilm/images/desktop/v2/1280×1024.jpg

Find 50 scary movies, from M&Ms [requires Flash].
http://us.mms.com/us/dark/dark_game.jsp

“The Picture of Everything” - this is the ultimate. A talented chap (who presumably has a lot of time on his hands) has produced a single image which has so many film stars, bands, cartoon characters and other pop culture icons that it would take me hours to find them and list them. Thankfully Howard Hallis does the hard work for us on his website.
http://www.thepictureofeverything.com/ The original site. (Be warned, Howard gets a lot of traffic so his site is often slow to load; it’s worth the wait.)
http://www.animepodcast.org/Everything.jpg (This is a mirror of part of the original image)

If you know of any others, please leave me a comment and tell me about it.

And the only reason I’m here at all is a shameless plug for THIS

I recently read an excellent Digg front page article referencing this website, an online repository of hundreds of documentaries viewable online via Google video. Through this site I rediscovered a fascinating documentary called Ghosts on the Underground, a special shown on Halloween 2006 in the UK, on Channel 5 if my memory serves me correctly. I only caught the last half hour of this show so I was pleased to find a place to watch the rest of the documentary online. As with 99.9% of paranormal documentaries, only anecdotal evidence is presented. However, I’m a sucker for ghost stories (even though they scare me), so perhaps you’ll find this interesting, but don’t have nightmares folks!

Good question.

This is a place for me to post random “off-topic” articles pertaining to my interests outside of the world of web development. As I’m a professional web designer, being a geek is part of the job description, so expect to see plenty of posts about video games, professional wrestling, TV, music, computers… anything except “on-topic” posts about web design, search engine optimisation (SEO), and the state of the web generally.

Whether I have the time to post all this material is another matter entirely.

And who are you exactly?
I’m Mathew Browne, a freelance web designer from the United Kingdom. MB Web Design is my business, www.mbwebdesign.co.uk is my domain name, this is my site. What you’re reading now, however, is my personal blog. Nothing to do with web design, nothing to do with search engines and nothing to do with HTML. In fact, this blog really is just a big self-indulgence.

What are all these adverts on this blog?
[If you did actually ask yourself this question, then clearly I finally got round to adding the adverts.] There should be adverts to third parties featured on this blog, provided via Google AdSense. This is the only area of the site where you may expect to see external advertising. As this blog serves no business purpose - it is solely a place to post “off topic” links, articles, photos and random thoughts that others might appreciate - I thought I’d try to fund this blog by other means. Without veering too much into “on topic” territory, blog advertising is a contentious issue - this will be an interesting exercise in online advertising if nothing else. (Now please click on the pretty adverts.)

And now for the tough questions:

Sonic or Mario?
Sonic. I never owned a Nintendo as a kid, so for pure nostalgia, Sonic wins it. Mario 64, however, is the greatest game I’ve ever played.

Ryu or Ken?
Ken. His Dragon Punch has flames.

Coke or Pepsi?
Can I have Mountain Dew instead?

Axl or Slash?
Tough call. Slash, because he still puts out records.

Tea or Coffee?
Nothing, nothing beats a cup of tea. (I hate to play up to British stereotype but it truly is the finest drink.)

Blur or Oasis?
1996 says hello. I didn’t care then and I care even less now.

Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 or Playstation 3?
It’s the Wii for me. Despite the silly name. I’d really like one for my birthday. (Louise, this is aimed at you.)