This sprite’s not so refreshing after an all-nighter and it likes to feel the wind in it’s hair.

But less of the little green fella. Don’t know why but it’s taken me some time to actually get round to using CSS sprites for the background images here on Toxic Web, after all I think the first article I saw about them was on “A List Apart” and that is just over 6 years old. Added to that I’ve used them elsewhere, mainly for such things as menu lists with a rollover effect, but in a smaller individual basis.

In fact even on this site, with the rollover effect for the submit button on the comments form (below). Pretty much every image to do with the site’s layout is a background image so I decided to go the whole hog and create one huge image, which turned out not as workable so I ended up with two sprites.

I tried a couple of the Sprite generators but they didn’t exactly work out for me, the SpriteMe bookmarklet looked like a good one – there are more in this Smashing Magazine article – but in Firefox it produced a strange box that covered the working are making it partially unusable.

So it was down to a bit of DIY, importing the images into a big transparent background image, marking all the coordinates and making sure that there’s no overlapping when rendered on the page.

First one an image for all the borders (in the main content area), boxes (red & orange over there on the right) and all the little icons (again over there on the right next to ever list menu oh and down below and the date on the left), it came out at 150px high and 15,000px long but was only 21kb and replaced 37 individual images that in total were about 5kb more. The second image was for the navigation menu tabs at the top, one the left and at the bottom, this weighed in at 6kb replacing 16 images totally 10kb.

But it wasn’t the size of the images that I was bothered about, this day and age of broadband what difference does 9kb make? Bugger all.

It was partly just to do it and see about getting 53 images down to just 2 and thus reducing the number of HTTP-Requests by at least 50.

Using this post as a test subject (mainly because it is just text, no videos or images), Firebug shows that before the sprite there was 133 HTTP-Requests, after it was down to 78. The total download time was reduced by about 33%.

Then I looked at the site a Linux Mint live disc and of course even though it’s Firefox, it’s not the same as in Windows. Great, top nav is miles above where it should be. Hmmm positioned absolutely, obviously not measuring the same from the bottom of the containing div. Positioning it from the top gets it to work but of course the search box on the right drops down below where it should be.

And all this started when I was thinking about CSS3ing the whole site after changing back from Flock to Firefox when the latter moved to v3.6 – more on that later – and viewing a number of examples that would negate the use of images all together with nice border radii, alpha transparencies, glossy style boxes which of course won’t work in the most used browser.

Bloody interweb, can’t live with it, can’t hit it over the back of the head with a shovel and bury it under the patio…

Click here to view the embedded video.

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After John Terry’s wife, Toni Poole Terry, found out about his affair with ex-Chelsea team mate Wayne Bridge’s girlfriend Vanessa Perroncel, she allegedly went mental…

…and this is the only ad those in his management team that were hawking Terry’s services around in that email last years could manage to get him after the ruckus.

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

A day and a half to go and who wants to go outside?

What with that couple of inches of snow bringing the country to a standstill, as a bunch of motorists get white road fever. I know it’s snowing and icy out there, I’ll just stick my foot right down on the accelerator that should do it. Over half the US is covered in snow, have they shut up shop and christ a lot of the drivers I’ve witness over there can’t even deal with a drop of rain.

Of course all the roads stay icy because gritting them well that would be just too easy wouldn’t it. Ah but in these financially restricted times council’s have to get their priorities right, stock piling the salt cost money don’t ya know. So on the one hand they could send the gritters round all the roads, make sure there’s no excuse for this country to come to a grinding halt. But then there would be less money to spend on some nice jolly for certain high up officials’ trips to the towns they’re twinned with in Spain, Portugal, South of France and other nice, warm sunnier spots.

Ah but we’ve used up 15% of gritting stocks, right so what about the other 85%, saving that for a special occasion the summer perhaps. Now I know the Met Office in all their wisdom have fudged all their data and come to the conclusion that next year will be the warmest on record, so we should expect a bit of a chilly one but is it really going to be that bad we’ll need to the roads salted in June and July?

But back to the topic at hand… you don’t have to worry, no trip to the probably still crowded shops to buy some over priced piece of cardboard with some sentimental claptrap, or completely inappropriate picture or message on it because Tesco Value Cards are back…

Yup after the lawyers got involved earlier on this year and had James take the site down someone has come in and rescued fun. So click the image above to visit the site and download your Tesco Value Christmas Card.

Oh and Bah Humbug!

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

Be told by someone on teh interweb what to do and follow the herd like good little sheep.

So some poor little dweeb who “won” some “talent show” on telly was denied his one shot at “glory” because some people are actually the remotest bit interested in what is top of the charts at Chrimbo.

Fight the power, indeed.

Ah no this was a fight against the industry and more importantly Simon Cowell. Now yes I agree that this man should have his carbon emission privileges withdrawn but this was just pathetic. Oh we’ll fight for the completely irrelevant number one spot. So if there’s competition then the Cowell supporters would have to raise their game. Now I don’t know as I haven’t seen any total figures but it would suggest that more people would have to buy the Z-Factor single than normal to get that “coveted” spot. Which of course would put more money into Cowell’s already over stuffed pockets. Nice going.

Ah it’s for charidee, ain’t it. You could have give to the charity, cut out the industry business man taking his cut. Hmmm so you only give to charity if you get something back. Yes, well.

But what would an interweb campaign be to the sheep without celeb endorsements. As we know with the likes of… what comes after Z Factor the British public don’t bother unless someone who is classed as a “celebrity” tells them.

And where do celebs push the buttons that make the sheep obey the orders, why Twitter of course. And there was plenty of them at it but did they really think of the consequences as it could result in their removal from the Luvvie Club.

Yes amongst all the twitterings of buying real honest music, they forgot RATM weren’t that honest about certain things. I seem to remember hearing that the IRA sympathies weren’t there on the albums released in the UK now were they, discretion the better part of valour, what’s the point of having the courage of your convictions if it might mean that you could sell less units. Potential punters less likely to fork out for pictures of people who would like to kill them. After all this is a business, not just for the likes of Cowell.

But IRA sympathies, that could cause problems for the Luvvie Club members, their Lord High Poobah might have something to say about aligning with such a group. Yes Mr Stephen Fry, the Great Leader, Overseer of all Luvviesdom, the last word on what the people of Britain can and cannot do and say. After all when the face of the BBC, writes to the Grauniad then appears on Channel 4 to complain about the Tories joining up with a bunch of loonies in Europe that he claims are anti-Semitic – now yes I realise the full irony of that statement – what can he make of his chums backing IRA supporters.

Yes those Jewish friendly folks from Ireland, the ones that gave a hand to Nazi Germany during the war, helped put on full military honours Nazi funerals and even after the atrocities of a number of Nazi death camps became full knowledge sent a letter of condolence on hearing of the passing of Adolf. They also loved the gays as well, I believe. Stephen should love them.

To think if it was in the years gone by, when you actually had to go out into a shop and buy a physical item for a song to chart then all the sheep would have been crowded into a nice big mass at the right time of year to be a “legitimate target” for a certain group’s Chrimbo bombing campaign.

Maybe they could be marked out for special treatment, I know, a uniform, nothing says individuality and rebelling against the man like a uniform. How about a Che t-shirt.

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

Apropos of nothing, I figure I might as well post up a couple of pics of the sunset I took a bit back…

…rest can be seen on flickr

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

Forget the Curse of Donnie, Curse of the Republicans, this is the big one and when Mariano got Victorino to ground the ball to Cano and the Yankees players almost made it onto the pitch from the dugout before the ball found it’s way to Teixeira’s mitt at first, it was the end of a long wait.

It was a curse that started some time ago, in the dim and distant past before mortals could get their hands on teh interweb, back when we only knew of The Babe and Joltin’ Joe. Back when the BBC ruled sport in Britain and Dickie Davies – he never did finish painting that ceiling – sat there on a Saturday afternoon in an ITV studio knowing most of the viewing public were watching Grandstand as he introduced World Of Sport’s latest bizarre offering between the racing and the wrestling.

I’m pretty sure we witnessed Bucky Dent hitting a homer of some significance, back when I remember a wiry, mustachioed man in pinstripes with a 1 on his back going mental at an ump, kicking dirt at him, after a batter was called out when either the official or the batter or both were looking up at the passing BA 747 flying overhead in an advert for said airline.

Something caught my attention, then my family from New York came over for a visit, I saw that famous logo in other places and that was it. But there wasn’t much baseball round here, my first trip to a playing nation meant my first bat and first ball. That first ball also helped my allegiance as it contained the book pictured on the right, Catfish was wearing the right uniform and that ubiquitous logo was right there on his cap.

Downtown in the city we lived in there was an amazing sweet shop, but I’ve never been the one for gorging on candy I was more interested in little packets of cards and the first packet I got contained one card that just sealed it. How could Goosge Gossage not have me hooked into a life as a Yankee fan?

A trip to the baseball nation followed, I could now get my own Yankees cap, jacket, jersey, the mitt didn’t quite work out right but the Nolan Ryan job was the right price. Just couldn’t see a game as it was the wrong time of year. Still it was going to be a good time to be a Yankee fan Donnie had arrived. But no the Toxic Curse had kicked in the very moment I clamped my allegiance to the most successful and famous team in the sport. A glory hunter they said in the late 90s, ah yes the 1980s was just non stop glory. It’s hard to remember throughout it which was the most glorious moment, was it watching Bobby Meacham commit his last two errors as a Yankee player? Or was it watching Rickey, Donnie, Winfield, Randolph amass a whole hit between the four of them. Hell I didn’t even get to see that wiry little guy from the ad all those years earlier, he’d been sacked a few weeks earlier for the fifth and final time and Sweet Lou didn’t throw a fit. Or was it all those playoffs they didn’t reach?

There certainly wasn’t much glory when British TV decided, on the back of the NFL success, to give the game a go. Now what would be the worst year of that decade for baseball to be shown on telly with respect to a Yankees fan. Oh yes it would be ‘86 now wouldn’t it, the Curse was working overtime that year. Your execution, would you prefer the GAS chamber or the electric chair? Red Sox or Mets, thank you very much Channel 4.

Back to the States, I know lets head over to Uncle Tech’s to see England in the World Cup, thank you very much Graham Taylor. Oh well I’ll get to see the Yankees, thanks to the updates from my uncle I knew they were doing well. Top of the AL East, best record in the AL, second best in the majors. Bernie was burning, Paulie was hitting, Donnie had hopes. So what happens? The strike, baseball ends the middle of August, the Curse strikes with a vengeance.

At this point the Curse decides to play a cruel trick 1996 comes round, Pettitte, Jeter, Tino it was all here, it ended with #23. But better news was to come Channel 5 started broadcasting and decided to fill the wee small hours with various off the wall shows, including live MLB, just at the right time the beginning of a dynasty. Then the Curse pointed something out, you can’t get 5 round here, the signal isn’t strong enough. 1998, ‘99 and 2000 passed with only teh interweb reports to follow. A couple more World Series appearances followed, but no wins, 2003 was the first thing I blogged about, testing various blogging packages. Damn fish.

Then finally a digibox, C5 is available, A-Rod is at the hot corner, all is well with the world. They’re on the TV every Sunday and Wednesday it seemed. Happy, happy, joy, joy. 101 games won, A-Rod spanks the Twins, the Sux are getting a lesson and then the Curse plays it’s cruelest trick yet. Game 4, it’s a Sunday, it’s the only game in town, live on 5. Live up to a point, that point being 6 o’clock, when they just cut off because some kiddies show has to be put out. You stay up all that time and it’s a mad rush to the PC to find out what happened, though I wish I hadn’t.

Game 7, Wednesday, so again on C5, didn’t really need to stay to the end the moment Ortiz hit the bleachers in the 1st, it just had that feeling written all over it. One curse had ended because The Curse was more powerful.

The following four years saw things go from bad to worse, the Sux winning another to the Yanks not making the playoffs last season. And then rumours started that changes in broadcasting rules meant C5 could get away with not using the live baseball to fulfill certain broadcasting requirements, it was to be binned by the channel.

Season ‘09 started again with hope, a new stadium a new hope, hope that big spending brings. It also started with revelations, injuries and results that dented hope. I decided to test the Curse, I wouldn’t blog as much about the games, just the odd thing here and there, Swisher pitching, milestones for Mo and Jeter, the anniversary of the Iron Horse’s last game and retirement. All I had was interweb reports, highlight videos and blogs for what was going off out there. Funnily it seemed to have a positive effect on my fantasy team, one brief moment I was top of that C5 league, then August hit and I turned from Matsui to Cano in this World Series.

So 103 wins was reached, playoff bound, it had to happen I couldn’t watch it. Twins dispatched with ease, then the dreaded Angels, how many times had they destroyed the Yanks when I could view games? But no they’d bottled up ever mistake and error they could have made in those past games just for this series. I only viewed a bit of the games online, I was testing the Curse, it was working the Yanks were in the Series.

But I could test it no more, I couldn’t resist. I tuned into game 1, Cliff Lee worked the Curse to the full. Phills were up, I left early the Yanks lost. Even with this I couldn’t stop myself I had to watch games 2,3 and 4 each time the Yanks were ahead when I stopped viewing and each time they won, was the Curse working a pattern here? It did it again in game 5, Yanks losing, I’m off Yanks lose.

But game 6, I was going to stick this one out, it was going to end the Curse and at about 4:50 am, fittingly with Mariano on the mound, the Curse died a death. #27.

Apologies for this rambling mess of a post but, like CC, Pettitte and Aj, I’m on short rest so while there may be touches of CC and Andy in there it’s more likely to be an AJ game 5 ramble.

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

After looking up all those pages to link to in my post about the new Gibson signature Jimi Hendrix Strat, they’ve all gone and disappeared.

Looks like they didn’t take all the criticism that flew their way, at a rate of knots, all that well and have decided discretion is the better part of valour and binned all the pages mentioning their little project with the official rights holders to Hendrix’s name and image.

We’re sorry! The page you’re looking for can’t be found.
Please use the above search, or contact us at: **Gibson email address**.

Error Code: 404 - Gibson website

Wonder if many have contacted the email address to ask.

Well it didn’t look good on either’s part, had the whiff of money being a major factor in choosing Gibson to make a Strat, the guitar Hendrix is most associated, producing an item Jimi had no real link to in any way other than the shape was roughly similar. Now you could say that Jimi didn’t actually play Jim Dunlop pedals who run a line of signature effects that haven’t come in for much slagging off. But they are in the main reasonably accurate remakes of the original Arbiter/Mayer pedals Jimi used to form his sound.

So who knows maybe these “signature” models will rear their ugly head sometime in the future, I wonder what would happen if the rights holders were to now approach Fender to produce a model, Gibson could give them some advice. If so may I suggest not only the reverse headstock and reverse angle bridge position pickup – pickup polepieces should be upside down as well – but also go the whole hog and put in a left handed trem, well it was good enough for Stevie Ray then…

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

Neko Case was back at the Ò'ran Mór in Glasgow on Monday night with her band, nearly three years since the last visit, illness prevented me getting down to the London show earlier in the year.

They (Neko Case: vocals, tenor guitar, 7 string acoustic – Paul Rigby: guitar – Tom V. Ray: bass double & electric – Kelly Hogan: vocals – Barry Mirochnick: drums – Jon Rauhouse: pedal steel, guitar, banjo) put on another great show in the old church’s basement, from the classics, “Favorite”, “Deep Red Bells”, to tracks from her current, excellent, album “Middle Cyclone” all top notch stuff.

Actually remembered to use my camera before it was time for them to pack up all their gear, can view some dark blurry pics like that on the right either at Jon’s site or on flickr.

Also got a couple of videos from the sound check, here’s Jon and part of Paul…

Click here to view the embedded video.

…the rest of Mr. Rigby’s is again either at Jon’s site or on YouTube.

There’s still a number of dates to go on the tour in England, one in Scotland tonight and one in Amsterdam so if you want to hear some damn fine music check if there’s somewhere near you now, tickets are a very reasonably price and enjoy… can’t guarantee the same price I paid, little pass with AAA meant it was a little cheaper than usual.

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

Adolf isn’t a happy bunny…

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

..Volume 1…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Only addendum would be don’t play that awful Manc monkey dirge, it might be piss easy but just pick a better track to play

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

If you didn’t manage to make the Newport Festival – Festival at 50 – over the weekend then you’ll have missed Neko Case with me good mate Jon Rauhouse on the Fort Stage.

Well no problem you can download (or stream – though don’t know why you’d do that when you can have it for keeps) the whole set free and legit at NPR.

Set list:

Set list:

1. “Things That Scare Me”
2. “Sparrow”
3. “People Got a Lotta Nerve”
4. “Fever”
5. “Animal”
6. “Teenage Feeling”
7. “Hold On, Hold On”
8. “Middle Cyclone”
9. “Pharaohs”
10. “Tigers”
11. “Wish I Was the Moon”
12. “Polar Nettles”
13. “Red Tide”
14. “Don’t Forget Me”
15. “This Tornado Loves You”
16. “Vengeance”
17. (Band Intros)
18. Encore: “Train From KC”

Download it now at NPR.

You can also check out a few more free Neko gigs at NPR:

Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club on April 9th, 2009

From Nov. 16, 2007, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

From 2006 at Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

I can’t say that I actually drink many fizzy soft drinks but if I do have a soda I do tend to go for the clear stuff, in other words Sprite or 7Up.

Now I may have to rethink that…

Click here to view the embedded video.

The so called “banned” German advert for Sprite. Isn’t that how Zima tastes?

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

Click here to view the embedded video.

I even paid his legal fees when he molested my nephew…

Jockeys at tomorrow’s race meetings will wear black armbands out of respect for Michael Jackson, who successfully rode more three yr olds than anyone in living memory.

McDonald’s are bringing out the Michael Jackson tribute burger. 50 year old meat between two 7 year old buns.

What’s the difference between Michael Jackson and Alex Ferguson? Fergie WILL be playing Giggs in August.

When Farrah Fawcett arrived in Heaven, God was such a big fan he decided to grant her one wish. She asked that all the children in the world could be safe. So God killed Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson actually died of food poisoning. He ate some 12 year old nuts. …Er or was it a five-year old wiener?

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

Toxic Web already number one on Google for the illiterate searching for “micheal jackson daed body movie clips”.

Now folks is he really dead? Think about it, he’s broke and death was the greatest career move for Elvis, he hasn’t stopped shifting shit since that day he struggled to shift his final shit.

So was that Wacko you say announcing those concerts at the 02, could have been anyone I mean it doesn’t require the greatest plastic surgeon in the world to make a face like that now does it. So fake the death, all those pathetic screaming fans won’t return the tickets but keep them for souvenirs so there’s the money from that and just watch those albums fly off the shelf, it should be enough for any future run ins with parents.

And that’s who you have to feel sorry for, the parents, where are they going to get their out of court settlements, after pimping out the kids, now?

But lets all grab our crotch and squeal to the Church of Michael Jackson…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ah but Sikipedia is down so just reduced to comments on Twitter…

“RIP Mike, your music will be missed…I never felt threatened, I only have daughters.” – Ethan Suplee

“#FollowAFiddlerFriday Oh bugger, he’s snuffed it.” – HarryHotstuff

“In light of his death, all of Michael Jacksons upcoming dates have been cancelled. They were James (aged 9) and Thomas (aged 11).” – HarryHotstuff

And from David Schneider, who was part of the “Friday Night Armistice” video above – “Wrestling with taste this morning, but if I were Farrah Fawcett I’d be on the phone to my bloody agent!”

Speaking of which, what do you remember the acting or the poster?

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads

We’re now in the fizzy pop league…

Click here to view the embedded video.

I doubt the makers of the excellent Downfall movie had all these parodies in mind when they started the project

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Learn to play CLASSIC guitar leads