The Furnace

Just like the guy in the following video, I've been peeling my bananas all wrong. Now watch the video and see how it should be done:

Every year, nearly half a million babies are infected with HIV, and 330,000 children die of AIDS. The international HIV and AIDS charity AVERT wants to see this change. This World AIDS Day, the Stop AIDS in Children campaign will be asking for the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) to be made a top priority across the globe.

To find out more about the campaign, and to discover how you can help, please watch the video below and then visit the Stop AIDS in Children campaign page (http://www.avert.org/stop-aids-children.php).

Also, if you'd like to show your support of World AIDS Day on your blog, website or social network profile, then be sure to add a 'Red Ribbon' badge on it, like the one you can see at the top-right of this blog.

For weeks now, people have been buying and wearing 'Red Ribbon' badges as a way of showing their support for 'World Aids Day', which takes place every 1st of December. Proceeds from the purchase of these 'Red Ribbon' badges play a large part in helping numerous Aids Charities and victims affected by this terrible disease around the world.

The 'Red Ribbon' badge, like the one shown in the image on the left (courtesy of cj592), is normally worn on the lapel of a jacket or elsewhere on other items of clothing and can be purchased from many high-street stores. Have you got yours yet?

Show your virtual support for World Aids Day

The thing is, though, the badges mentioned above are great for showing your support in the real world - when you're out and about doing your thing - but how do you go about showing your support when you spend a great deal of your time in the virtual world... like me, and the many others like me, who do?

After a little bit of thought about this I decided to design my very own 'Red Ribbon' badge, only this would be one that I could add to the side-bar of my blogs - like the one you can see on the top-right of this blog - to show that I support this very worthy cause.

If you also support 'World Aids Day' and you'd like to add a 'Red Ribbon' badge to your own blogs, websites or social networks, then I am giving you my permission to use the ones I have created below and I also provide the HTML code that you'll need to do so.

Adding a Red Ribbon badge to your blog or website

Below you will see that I have designed the 'Red Ribbon' blog badge for you in three different flavours - you have the choice of a black background, white background or transparent background - which one you use is entirely up to you. However, here is my suggestion for which one to use, based on the colours used on your own blog, website or social network:

• Black Background - This one looks best when placed on any white or light-coloured area of your site.
• White Background - This one looks best when placed on any black or dark-coloured area of your site.
• Transparent Background - This one looks good when placed on any area of your site, no matter what colour it is.

Once you have decided on which of the 'Red Ribbon' badge below that you would like to use, simply copy and paste the HTML code beneath it into the area of your site where you'd like it to appear.

Blog.co.uk users: Go to your blog's 'Design Wizard' and add the 'HTML/Java Script' widget to your blog's side-bar. Copy & paste the 'Red Ribbon' code below into that widget and then save and close the 'Design Wizard'. Viola... your 'Red Ribbon' badge now appears on your blog.

<p><div align="center"><a href="http://thefurnace.blog.co.uk/2008/11/30/Show%20your%20support%20for%20%27World%20Aids%20Day%27%20by%20adding%20a%20%27Red%20Ribbon%27%20badge%20to%20your%20blog"><img src="http://data5.blog.de/media/495/3030495_e2531d1340_m.png" /></a></div><p>

<p><div align="center"><a href="http://thefurnace.blog.co.uk/2008/11/30/Show%20your%20support%20for%20%27World%20Aids%20Day%27%20by%20adding%20a%20%27Red%20Ribbon%27%20badge%20to%20your%20blog"><img src="http://data5.blog.de/media/496/3030496_dbd2bd84c2_m.png" /></a></div><p>

<p><div align="center"><a href="http://thefurnace.blog.co.uk/2008/11/30/Show%20your%20support%20for%20%27World%20Aids%20Day%27%20by%20adding%20a%20%27Red%20Ribbon%27%20badge%20to%20your%20blog"><img src="http://data5.blog.de/media/497/3030497_8cee12d177_m.png" /></a></div><p>

Help to spread the word about World Aids Day

Once you have added your 'Red Ribbon' badge to your site, please tell everyone you know who might also be interested in getting one where you got it, by sending them here via a link to this blog post. Or simply tell them to click on your 'Red Ribbon' badge, which (providing you've added the code correctly) should link back here anyway.

If you need any help adding the 'Red Ribbon' badge to your own blog, website or social network, then please make your request in a comment below or send me a message via my profile page.

Exploring 20 square miles of African savannah and jungle is never an easy task. But when you’re up against an army of highly trained mercenaries, the danger becomes unimaginable.

Welcome to the world of Far Cry 2 .

It’s been over four years since the release of the first Far Cry , and Far Cry 2 has almost nothing in common with it beyond being a first-person shooter with excellent graphics and advanced artificial intelligence. It’s by a different developer, and you now play one of eight different mercenary characters out to catch an arms dealer nicknamed “The Jackal.”

The sci-fi enemies have also been jettisoned in favour of a much more realistic game where survival skills are just as important as a good aim. The rules of engagement--either by stealth or all guns blazing--are entirely up to you.

Key Features

• Virtual safari: The game features 20 square miles of terrain for you to travel, filled with realistic fauna and flora and fully destructible trees and buildings.
• Fiery realism: With an all-new graphics engine created just for the game, fire moves and propagates exactly as in real-life, with vegetation breaking and snapping realistically.
• The coming storm: A dynamic weather system changes to reflect your mood, with the sky turning dark and stormy during bad times.
• Jungle survival: Highly realistic weapons degrade with use, bullets need to be dug out of your body, and vehicles break down if pushed beyond their limits.
• Buying friends: Meet and co-operate with fellow mercenaries as you pit different factions against one another in a war-torn African state.

I'm so glad this was released in time for Christmas, because now my better-half can't use the excuse that she didn't have a clue what to buy me. No more socks and pants this year...

Here is a very clever way of using art/design to highlight the the problem of dog-poo on the streets and raise people's awareness of it, while putting a smile on their faces at the same time...

Sprinkle Brigade

(Best viewed in full-screen mode)