Me and the girlfriend were talking about how air fresheners seem to be the most innovative sector of all fast moving consumer goods. As you do.

Everytime we see a new advert for air fresheners we groan, wondering what they have done now to make me want a new air freshener.

In recent years we have seen:

• motioned trigger air fresheners
• power point plugin air fresheners
• dual scent air fresheners
• air fresheners disguised as pebbles
• air fresheners disguised as candles
• air fresheners for toilets

Anyway, I was wondering where the air freshener industry was going to take us next. Here’s my best guess at the future of air de-odourisation solutions.

Aromatherapy Air Fresheners
These will pump our peppy citrus smells in the morning and calming lavender scents in the evening

Fan Driven Smell Dispersal
A squirt of scent only permeates so far into the home. What we need is a squirt, then a huge gust of air to waft the smell into all the nooks and crannies.

Home Selling Air Fresheners
They say that when you are showing potential homebuyers around a home you should bake a loaf of bread at the same time. It makes the house seem more homely. Why not let a air freshener make your house smell like a freshly baked loaf.

Personal Air Fresheners
This would be a pendant you wear that contains a motion sensor. Every time you stop still - it releases a puff of pleasant scent. Great if you’re visiting public toilets.

Air Fresheners Disguised as Flowers
Flowers are meant to smell nice aren’t they? These definitely will as they are filled with lab produced chemicals.

Film & TV Licensed Air Fresheners
If you are watching a film like avatar at home on your HD TV - you want it to be as immersive as possible. Why not get an Avatar air freshener that for 3 hours pumps out the smell of Pandora’s forests.

Remember Scents
Smells are often linked very closely with memories because the olfactory bulb in the brain has intimate access to the amygdala, which processes emotion, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for associative learning.

Why don’t companies release scents of the 80s (brut & bubblegum) or scents of the 90s (sweat and mdma)?

These would take us back to a simpler time when we didn’t have to worry so much about what our house fucking smelt like.

At work recently we were recently asked for naming suggestions for the blog. Here’s mine.

Search Box
The entry into the search World

Search Monkey General’s Amazing Tales
You’ve got to read it to believe it.

Canine Fatty Lumps
Or any other random search term (apart from dogging in Bridgeport)

No Results Found
Not something on our search – because we’ll return any old shit

iRelevance
Relevance is the key to search.

Query Deary!
Going after the pink searches

Al Go-rhythm
A blog under a witty pseudonym

Crush Google
A blog that outlines our ultimate goal

Telescope
We search the Sky

Stop and Search
Because you look suspicious

Crazy Search Science & Stats
Nice alliteration and it says what it does on the tin

SearchLight
Casting light on searches

Vanity Search
A vanity search is when you search for your own name.

3 Searches
There are 3 types of search. Navigational, Informational and Transactional (pr0n fits into all 3)

10 QPS
10 queries per second is what we do at peak times (maybe).

We wanted to use the excellent integrated labels with Magento.

We worked out that we needed to:
Copy Abstract.php from app\code\core\Mage\Sales\Model\Order\Pdf to  app\code\local\Mage\Sales\Model\Order\Pdf

Add the following to around line 233

/* Print shipping address for postage label */
$this->_setFontBold($page);
$this->y = 170;
foreach ($shippingAddress as $label){
if ($label!==”) {
$page->drawText(strip_tags(ltrim($label)), 70, $this->y, ‘UTF-8′);
$this->y -=10;
}
}

This printed the shipping address fine. However we noticed that it was printing out the customer’s phone number on the label too.

To remove this you have to go to app\code\core\Mage\Customer\etc\config.xml [make a backup first] and remove the references to a telephone number from within the <pdf translate=”title” module=”customer”> block.

Simon

Taken me age to figure out how to remove the Tax column from the magento PDF invoice.

I’ve made all my changes in a local version of the Magento core code as described here.

The two files you need to edit are:

1. To remove headers: /app/code/local/Mage/Sales/Model/Order/Pdf/Invoice.php
2. To rmove the tax from each individual line item /app/code/local/Mage/Sales/Model/Order/Pdf/Items/Invoice/Default.php

Hope that helps

Simon

Out cat is in Take A Bleeding Break!

Here’s a scan [PDF]

I don’t know who started the craze of leaving tributes at the scenes of death - or creating themed wreaths (usually of names or pints of beer) to attach to the side of horse drawn hearses - but no matter - they can stop now because they have all been out done.

Friends and family of an Uxbridge man have paid tribute to him by spelling out his name in empty cans of Stella. To top it off, his girlfriend has had the date of his death tattooed on her back.

Check out the story in the Uxbridge Gazette.

http://www.staringintospace.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/uxbridge-gas-death-stella-can-tribute.pdf

You fuckers better do this for me when my time is up.

Simon

The only good thing to come out of celebrity deaths is the jokes.

Here’s a roundup of the jokes about Michael Jacksons death that I have had so far:

1. Q. What’s the difference between Michael Jackson and Alex Ferguson?
   
   A. Ferguson will be playing Giggs in August.
2. Word is they are going to melt down Michael Jackson’s plastic surgery down to make childrens toys – so they can play with him for a change.
3. Reports of Michael Jackson dieing in hospital of a heart attack are un-true
   
   He was found in the children’s ward having a stroke.
4. It’s also reported that Michael Jackson had his heart attack after hearing that Boys 2 Men were a band and not a home delivery service
5. Michael Jackson actually died of food poisoning - he was eating 12 year old nuts.
6. Given that Michael Jackson was recently reported to be suffering from skin cancer, the coroner is not sure yet if the real cause of death should be blamed on the sunshine…..or the Moonlight, the good times or the boogie, but at this time he suspects it was the boogie.
7. Farah Fawcet arrived in heaven and god granted his new Angel one wish. She wished for all Gods children to be safe… So he killed Michael Jackson
8. Hospital staff doesn’t know what to do with Michael Jackson’s body as plastic recycle day is not until next Tuesday

The weirdest thing in my loft has to be an Alesis HR-16 drum machine. I bought it in the 90s from a geezer in Loot. It still works although the internal battery is knackered so it won’t save any loops.

The gated snares on it are sooo 80s/90s and I reckon they’ll be in fashion very shortly.

I’m gonna hang onto it, along with my Roland D5 until someone offers me a grand for them.

The only other weird thing in my loft is a wasps nest that looks a bit like Jon Bon Jovi

I am writing this in a fucking pub! I can’t believe it. I think I am creative while drunk - so may stay here for a few. Logged onto The Cloud with the trusty Acer Aspire One - Brown or shit book as a colleague calls it with no problems at all.

You do have to register, but it’s opt in to receive marketing messages from trusted partners, so that’s okay.

Obviously a bit dangerous putting free internet in a pub. A bit like giving a pissed bloke a mobile phone with only his ex-girlfriend or great aunt’s number programmed into it. But hey ho. I think it’s magic.

I think the patrons of the Wetherspoons in Ickenham think it is some kind of magic too as they’re all looking at me.

Simon

It’s taken a while for me to post about the last ever show of Spring Awakening in the UK. I’d like to say that my emotions were too raw to contemplate writing about the end of such a fine and under-rated show - but I can’t though as I have just been lazy.

What I did do though, which show’s a bit of a commitment for the cause was smuggle in the old mini video camera into the last ever show and film both the finale song Song of Purple Summer and the encore song Totally Fucked.

I really can’t believe the feedback I’ve had from these videos - just look at the number of views, ratings and comments. I know it was naughty to do, but fuck it, it was worth it.

Purple Summer

Totally Fucked Encore

The show was absolutely amazing. Having seen it was a privalige. It’s like making a really funny, talented friend one day and then someone telling you they only have a month to live. You’re sad, but then you cherish the moments you have.

In the last month of Spring Awakening’s life I saw it three times - once from stage seats. I enjoyed every performance.

I tweeted with CMW at Spring Awakening and they said that some of the set was going to Korea, I think for a show there. I’m glad Spring Awakening is still going somewhere and I hope to go and see it somewhere else in the World (Korea/Japan/USA) soon.

It won’t be the same though.

Simon