Excellent – a bakery for men. Loved the mission:

Our objective is simple. We’re men. Men who like cupcakes. Not the frilly pink-frosted sprinkles-and-unicorns kind of cupcakes. We make manly cupcakes. For manly men.

Found thanks to @danrough’s birthday. Happy birthday mate.

Probably the mother of all SatNav errors given that I’m actually heading to Paris, France today.

It’s the first time I’ve used St. Pancras for Eurostar and never have I seen so many people drag so much luggage up stairs with no escalators. Still, I’m sure it’s onwards and upwards from here: Paris being one of my favourite cities.

Talking of France, I’ve been enjoying “Raymond Blanc: Kitchen Secrets” on BBC: I think they’ve managed to pull off a bit of energy and entertainment from what could have been a very dull, forumulaic show. (Coincidentally, I learned how to make those little chocolate cups he did in episode 1 only the other day). So this piece in today’s Observer made me chortle:

“… Does anyone know what Raymond Blanc is saying? Not since Peter Seller’s Inspector Clouseau has there been such an inspired take on the French accent. … Thus secrets they remain. But it’s enough to see him kiss his bunched fingers and exclaim: “Voila!”. Forget his cooking, the man’s a comic genius.”

My friend Carolyn runs a website aimed at corporate female travellers providing connections, social engagements and services whilst on business travel.

When I travel I tend to hibernate in my room, but my wife used to travel a lot back in the day and found the idea of eating/drinking alone in hotel bars intimidating so this would have been great utility then.

A nice idea and it’s been nominated for an innovation award. Vote! And use the site!

I’m a big fan of Fail Blog for genius such as this.

But I was heartened to learn that Succeed Blog has been launched to celebrate all of the nice things in life. Aaaah.

In other heart-warming news, science has discovered what makes wrinkly dogs.

Just hope the milk supplies hold up. Thanks to SwissMiss.

This article on the BBC lists a lot of the upcoming “blockbuster” movies for 2010, the upshot of which appears to be that we’ve run out of stories, although some are maybe intriguing…

• Alice in Wonderland – I’ll be far too scared to see a Tim Burton version of an already weird story.
• Robin Hood – looking forward to the Russell Crowe and Bryan Adams duet.
• A-Team – seriously? Liam Neeson as Hannibal?
• Further sequels for Twilight, Potter, Narnia, Toy Story, Shrek (please don’t make it suck as hard as Shrek 3), Iron Man, Meet the Fockers (meet ‘em again!), Cats  & Dogs, The Bad Lieutenant.
• And FOOTLOOSE and KARATE KID. (“Deary Me How!” as my Grandad would say as the cough kicked in.)

Anyway, the list goes on…

So they might all go really well like the Star Trek “re-imagining” or they might not. (As my boss said: the most alien thing in the Star Trek movie was Leonard Nimoy’s teeth).

At least I’m looking forward to Clash of the Titans, The Road and secretly hope that some of those others work out.

Finally, loved this annihilation of the abomination that was “Transformers 2: Run, Megan, Run”. An excerpt (naught bits removed so be forewarned):

How does the U.S. military help them?
Well, not at all, actually. They just kind of come along with guns and stuff, and act like they're going to help, but the Autobots do all the work.

How is Sam Witwicky dragged back into the fight?
Well, he finds a fragment of the Allspark shard. You know, the Allspark that he spent all last movie being told he shouldn't give to Megatron, but when he gave it to Megatron, it killed Megatron. That one. Anyways, the shard makes the Beef see symbols.

So the Decepticons want the shard? Why?
Uh... to bring Megatron back to life?

What?
That's what they said.

But the Allspark killed Megatron in the first movie.
Yes.

...and now it can also bring him back to life.
It's very powerful, this Allspark.

Uh-huh. So what's their plan to get it?
They send a small R/C car who talks like Joe Pesci in Casino to get it.

Shouldn't they have sent Starscream or somebody?
Look, there's another Allspark shard and get that one anyways, so it doesn't matter.

Well, then why do they give a shit about Sam?
The symbols. In his head. That the shard of the Allspark gave him.

They weren't in the other shard?
Apparently not.

Ah – a new year and a new decade. This time last decade I was fighting to keep our fledgling dotcom alive (failing around 14th February in a spectacular event ever since known as the Valentine’s Day Massacre).

A month off work (if you don’t count looking after a newborn and a toddler as work) went by swiftly as expected but was actually the longest amount of time I’ve had off work ever.

Christmas and New Year were excellent of course and my top presents included:

• A pair of Hunter wellies (Argyll).
• A dunk mug.
• A Star Wars Lego Millenium Falcon. (The smaller one).
• And loads of other stuff.

Delia provided me with this year’s turkey cooking instructions. Last year I cooked a goose and was a bit disappointed (slightly overdone). Delia’s recipe performed perfectly.

It also gave me a lot of time to catch up with my daughter, Evan, and spend a lot of time colouring in, painting, playing with Mr Potato Head and the like. She’s starting to form sentences and make decisions (like asking for Jelly for breakfast) so that makes for a fun time.

Anyway, all of that is a distant blur, so time to get back on with work.

Resolutions for 2010? Well, none. I’m armed with a piece of science about willpower limitations and besides that would suggest that there are things regretted from previous times. And I don’t like regret.

This year there’ll be more blogging on stuff that Microsoft is doing, opinions on stuff that other people think we’re doing that we may or may not be and/or that I may or may not realise that we may or may not be doing, opinions on stuff other people may or may not be doing, and random thoughts on stuff I think we should be doing and we may or in fact may not be doing and I missed out on knowing that for some reason or other. And then the usual round of interesting stuff (to me anyway, and hopefully to you).

Clear as usual? Good.

(There is another motive to this post and that is to test out my new blogging pipeline which I’ll explain in a minute if this works – it’s also why there’s no image – iterate, iterate).

• You get from A to B without any C when you Walk The Walk
• It's delicious but it causes more CO2 than cars so go Easy On The Meat
• Resist the urge to buy the latest and Stick With What You Got
• Turn down the central heating and turn up the Human Heat
• The art of wasting nothing and using up everything: All-Consuming
• Instead of jetting your way around the world, Stay Grounded
• Don't leave it on or even put it on, Plug Out