Looking at the images that are loaded, they seem to be PNG sprite images. So then I went on a little (short lived) mission on how to recreate the animations myself. Honestly, there are muppet animations you can play with soon.

There is a handy little jQuery plugin called Spritely. This will take a jQuery selector object and manipulate the background image position to generate the animation. Nicely, all you have to do is supply the number of frames and it will do the rest for you.

So I open up a new jsFiddle, fill in my HTML and CSS with the containers and background images I want and then put in this little beauty:

$('div').click(function() {
    var $this = $(this);
    $this.sprite({
        fps: 9,
        no_of_frames: $this.data("num"),
        on_last_frame: function(obj) {
            obj.destroy();
        }
    });
});

Now, what I’ve done here is make it so that every div object will generate a sprite animation on click. This probably isn’t the prettiest way to do it, but I have *only* just discovered Spritely so I’ll look at the docs and improve. If you want to let me know in the comments, that’d be appreciated.

(Also, for the eagle eyed of you, I’m using a data attribute to store the number of frames in the animation. This was painstakingly done by opening the PNG files and counting the muppet heads. I bet I will find Spritely would do it for me after reviewing the documentation).

You’ve waited long enough. Go to the jsFiddle to play with the Muppet animations.

Alternatively, here are links to the sprite images I’ve seen. Haven’t found anything for the blue guy on the left though! If you have, let me know and I’ll add it.

• http://www.google.co.uk/logos/2011/henson11-hp-2oa.png
• http://www.google.co.uk/logos/2011/henson11-hp-3oa.png
• http://www.google.co.uk/logos/2011/henson11-hp-4ga.png
• http://www.google.co.uk/logos/2011/henson11-hp-6ea-lr.png
• http://www.google.co.uk/logos/2011/henson11-hp-6ea-er.png
• http://www.google.co.uk/logos/2011/henson11-hp-6ea.png

I’ve decided that when I have kids, they’re going to know how to use computers and learn how to program (I can wish).

So, I’ve rewritten the story of Little Red Riding Hood. This time it’s in C#. I have no idea why I decided I would do this – by the time I’d realised, it was too late

So if you want to tell your kids a bedtime story whilst edging them into becoming programmers, read on.

// The story of Little Red Riding Hood - as told in C#
var story = new Story()
{
	Name = "Little Red Riding Hood",
	Description = "The story of a girl who meets a wicked wolf on her way to her grandmother's house"
};

// Once upon a time, there was one little girl who was loved by everyone. Her
// grandmother especially loved her and gave her a Red Riding Hood, which suited
// her so well that she would never wear anything else. So she was called 'Little
// Red Riding Hood'
var littleRedRidingHood = population.Where(x =>
								x.Sex == Sex.Female &&
								x.Characteristics.HasFlag(Characteristics.Lovely) &&
								x.AgeGroup == AgeGroup.Child &&
								x.Clothes.Any(y =>
									y.Name == "Riding Hood" &&
									y.Colour == Color.Red
									)
								)
								.OrderBy(x => x.Popularity)
								.First();

// One day, her mother gave her some cake and wine to take to her grandmother as
// she was ill. Little Red Riding Hood put them into her basket, and set off for
// grandmother's house.
var foodForGrandmother = cupboard.Where(x => x is Cake || x is Wine).ToList();

foreach (var foodItem in foodForGrandmother)
{
	cupboard.Remove(foodItem);
}

littleRedRidingHood.Basket.AddRange(foodForGrandmother);

// Her grandmother lived out in the wood and, just as Little Red Riding Hood entered
// the wood, she met a wolf. She was not afraid of him, since she did not know how
// wicked he was.
wood.Occupants.Add(littleRedRidingHood);

var wolf = new Character()
{
	Clothes = Enumerable.Empty<Clothes>(),
	CurrentLocation = wood,
	Home = wood,
	Popularity = 0,
	Characteristics = Characteristics.Wicked,
	Sex = Sex.Male
};

littleRedRidingHood.CurrentLocation = wolf.CurrentLocation;
littleRedRidingHood.Mood ^= Mood.Fear;

// The wolf asked where Little Red Riding Hood was going. She explained that she
// was bringing her grandmother some food, as she was poorly. The wolf asked
// where her grandmother lived.
wolf.Knowledge.Add(grandmother.Home);

// The wolf thought Little Red Riding Hood looked tasty and would be much better
// to eat than the old woman. He knew he must be crafty, to catch both.
wolf.Appetite.Add(grandmother);
wolf.Appetite.Add(littleRedRidingHood);
wolf.Mood |= Mood.Hungry;

// The wolf convinced Little Red Riding Hood to stray from the path and pick flowers
// for her grandmother. Then he ran off to her grandmother's house whilst Little Red
// Riding Hood picked flowers; until she could carry no more.
wolf.CurrentLocation = grandmother.Home;

littleRedRidingHood.Basket.AddRange(
	wood.Items.Where(x => x is Flower).Take(littleRedRidingHood.Basket.MaxSize - littleRedRidingHood.Basket.Count)
	);

// The wolf reached grandmother's house and knocked on the door. 'Who is it?', she asked.
// 'Little Red Riding Hood', replied the wolf. 'She is bringing wine and cake'.
// 'Lift the latch', grandmother said, 'I am too weak to open it'. The wolf opened the
// door and, without saying a word, immediately jumped in and gobbled up grandmother.
wolf.Belly.Add(grandmother);
wood.Occupants.Remove(grandmother);

// The wolf heard Little Red Riding Hood come close, and quickly put on the grandmother's
// clothes and jump into her bed.
wolf.Clothes = grandmother.Clothes;

// Little Red Riding Hood reached her grandmother's house and, seeing the door open, felt
// very uneasy - but entered anyway.
littleRedRidingHood.CurrentLocation = grandmother.Home;
littleRedRidingHood.Mood |= Mood.Nervous;

// 'Oh grandma, what big ears you have', said Little Red Riding Hood
// 'All the better to hear you with, my child', replied the wolf
if (!wolf.Features.Ears.Equals(grandmother.Features.Ears))
{
	littleRedRidingHood.Mood |= Mood.Nervous;
}

// 'But, grandmother, what big eyes you have', she said.
// 'All the better to see you with, my dear'
if (!wolf.Features.Eyes.Equals(grandmother.Features.Eyes))
{
	littleRedRidingHood.Mood |= Mood.Nervous;
}

// 'But, grandmother, what large hands you have!'
// 'All the better to hug you with'
if (!wolf.Features.Hands.Equals(grandmother.Features.Hands))
{
	littleRedRidingHood.Mood |= Mood.Nervous;
}

// 'Oh! grandma, what a terribly big mouth you have'
// 'All the better to eat you with!'
if (!wolf.Features.Mouth.Equals(grandmother.Features.Mouth))
{
	littleRedRidingHood.Mood |= Mood.Fear;
}

// And with that, the wolf jumped out of bed and gobbled up Little
// Red Riding Hood!
wolf.Belly.Add(littleRedRidingHood);
wolf.Appetite.Clear();

// After appeasing his appetite, the wolf lay on the bed, fell
// asleep and began snoring very loudly.
wolf.Mood = Mood.Tired;

// Just then, a huntsman was passing and thought to himself 'How
// the old woman is snoring! I must see if she wants anything.'
var huntsman = new Character()
{
	Characteristics = Characteristics.Strong,
	AgeGroup = AgeGroup.Adult,
	Sex = Sex.Male,
};

huntsman.CurrentLocation = grandmother.Home;

// The huntsman entered the house and saw the wolf sleeping.
// 'You!', exclaimed the huntsman, 'How long I have looked for you
// wicked thing' and raised his gun to shoot the wolf
huntsman.Mood = Mood.Anger;

// The huntsman realised the wolf may have eaten the old woman, and
// put his gun down. Instead, he used some scissors to open the wolf's
// belly. Out sprang Little Red Riding Hood. 'How frightened I have
// been', she told him.
wolf.Belly.Remove(littleRedRidingHood);
littleRedRidingHood.Mood ^= Mood.Fear;
littleRedRidingHood.Mood |= Mood.Happy;

// Out followed her grandmother, but scarcely able to breath.
wolf.Belly.Remove(grandmother);
grandmother.Mood = Mood.Happy | Mood.Tired | Mood.Hungry;

// Little Red Riding Hood ran out into the wood and picked up stones
// to fill the wolf's belly with
var stones = wood.Items.Where(x => x is Stone).Take(wolf.Belly.MaxSize);
wolf.Belly.AddRange(stones);

// When the wolf awoke, he tried to run away but the stones were so heavy
// that he fell at once, and fell dead
wolf.Mood ^= Mood.Tired;
wolf.Mood |= Mood.Shocked;
wood.Occupants.Remove(wolf);
wolf = null;

// The wolf had died, and the three were happy. The grandmother ate the cake
// and drank the wine, and was revived.
huntsman.Mood = Mood.Happy;
littleRedRidingHood.Mood = Mood.Happy;

grandmother.Belly.AddRange(littleRedRidingHood.Basket.Where(x=> x is Cake || x is Wine));
grandmother.Mood = Mood.Happy;

// The huntsman took the skin off the wolf and took it home, and Little Red
// Riding Hood learnt that she should never stray off the path, especially
// when wolves tempt her.
//Assert.IsTrue(wolf.Characteristics.HasFlag(Characteristics.Wicked));

// The End
story.Ending = Ending.Happy;

This actually compiles and runs to a happy ending (with the source of the other classes, of course). If you’re going to read it as a bed time story to your children, it may as well compile.

Since last time:

• I graduated
• I got a job here in York
• I’m still here

So yup – that’s my exciting life. I’ve been playing with .NET 3.5 (and poking my nose into .NET 4 recently) so I’ll probably have a thing or two to say about that.

I’ve moved from Blogger to using WordPress on my own server. Gives me a little bit more flexibility, but I think it might sacrifice a little on the Google search. Ahh well. One annoying thing in the import/export is that it imported the tags as categories. I’ll sort that out – I was probably just using it wrong.

Hopefully the design works alright – though it might be broken in one or two parts. If anything seems horribly broken, then please let me know. I also plan on playing with a CSS style to make it work nicely on the iPhone too.

[Update: In WordPress, there's a Categories to Tags tool. Woo!]

I’ve taken to the habit of saying that Ireland looks a bit like a teddy. I always had an image of a teddy bear but it’s hard to describe to people.

So here it is. After a short bit of drawing in Skitch, this is how I see Ireland

Yummy stuffing

Carrot and parsnip (and a bit of potato)

And the roasties!

Quick frying the steak

Mmmmm…

Everything plated up (4 different type of potatoes… like any meal should have)

Just a little bit of washing up…