Who is Mike Davies - brought to you by the Yum Yum girl

Firstly let me begin by clearing up a few things, yes my name is Paula Davies no I am not related to Mike in any sense or form. Now I have got that out of the way I will start by giving a brief description of him, I am trying to get hold of some baby photos so watch this space

Path through life

Mike's mum and dad live in South Africa where as Mike lives in England.

Mike decided to become a web developer after failing to be ....

• Superman - failed when he tried to fly by jumping of a jungle gym (climbing frame) and falling, breaking his arm in the process (the cape didn't help either).
• BMX rider - until he realised that brakes do not work in mid air, another broken arm
• Detective - failed when he constantly lost his books and other items
• Magician - he discovered that he was brilliant at making his books disappear, but unfortunately he still never did manage to find them again.
• Accountant - Until he discovered that the calculator had better fun and more personality than he did
• Chewbacca - always been a dream of Mike's but he's never had the hair for it (but has the language skills)

Facts and Stories

Believe it or not Mike does have other interests other than the web. He likes to play chess and participates in a Crawley pool team called the Cue Jumpers. In fact I was quite disappointed not to see these mentioned on Mike's website

Faviourite James bond movie: Thunderball

Its quite amusing to watch Mike try to have breakfast, he usually has cereal, toast and jam. After purchasing his breakfast Mike will make his way to the table and sit down, only after looking at his food for a least five minutes will Mike realise that he does not have knife to put the jam on his toast. So off he goes to get the knife. After he has munched his toast he will then realise after pouring the cereal out and pouring the milk, that he has forgotten his spoon. I have witnessed Mike do this at least 2 time a week.

Sometimes, its just a bowl of cereal, and even then he battles to understand that a knife and fork probably isn't the best tool of choice.

Mike also likes to play with his food before devouring it, Submarines is his faviourite game and he pushes the sausages around icebergs of ketchup. I have once or twice nearly made Mike choke by saying "nooo don't eat me" just as he is about to devour his submarine sausage.

Mike and Cooking

Mike being in a bit of a hurry one day (the day before @media 2005) decided to have a pizza for lunch. Mike set the oven to the right gas mark, and grabbed a frozen pizza from the freezer, straight onto an oven tray and into the oven. 12 minutes later Mike walks back to the oven to check how his pizza is doing. To his surprise it is still frozen - with a weird smell, he then places it back in the oven and shuts the oven door, checks that the the oven was set to the right gas mark but then realises that he has forgotten to light the gas.

Mike then presses the ignition switch - cringe. The oven door blows open and a fire ball leaps out across the kitchen. Needless to say it took Mike 6 months before he could use the oven again and he learnt a valuble lesson - If you fill an oven with gas and then use the ignition switch you can get the same special effect as the dragon from reign of fire.

@media 2005

My reason for pointing out that Mike and I are not related in any way was to avoid a recurrence of what happened at @media 2005.

Joe Clark after being introduced to Mike and I harmlessly asked Mike if we were married. Mike froze, turned white and then almost shouted out at the top of his voice, "No... no... no... ". I honestly thought he was going to pass out! Any way after studying the look on Joe's face, I explained that we were (and are) only work colleagues and nothing more.

Oh, and something i should mention, Mike does not worship Joe Clark but he does worship the ground he walks on.

Mike knows that if he can't see the world then the world can't see him - snigger

Mannequin Antics

As one of my colleagues pointed out I forgot to tell you all about Mike mannequin incident.

It all happened one day while Mike was happily driving along the motorway in South Africa on the way home from work when some thing caught his eye in the distance. Mike, being Mike, did not take any notice at first until the truck pulled alongside him. Being a safe driver Mike glanced at his blind spot and what he saw took his breath away.

It was a truck towing a Fiat Uno but what Mike could not take his eyes off was what was sticking out of the sun roof of the towed car. It was a completely naked female mannequin, Mike could not take his eyes off her as the only thing she was wearing was a piece of tinsel, like a scarf, around her neck. Mike was so transfixed he did not notice a banner riveted to the side of the truck tore loose. To this day all Mike can remember is the mannequin and then the sudden crash as the sign came loose and hit Mikes little Golf. I suppose this really does highlight the fact that you should always keep your eyes on the road.

Web Stuff

Mike first got a look at the internet in 1995 and started out by learning how to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol), Usenet, gopher and IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and the rest well is history.

Mike uses the name "Isofarro" when blogs and takes part in discussions on the web. As to where this name came from it is a closly guarded secret and I can't tell you. Mike, yes I do know what it stands for but I'm afraid they will close my site down if I reveal it.

Mike actively takes part in discussions on accessify forum and is considered by many a good source of information all though at times his discussions can get rather heated.

Mike and SiteMorse - The love affair

Mike and SiteMorse sitting in a tree, having a lovers tiff, tee hee hee. Secretly they love each other. If you read the comments carefully this is all too apparent

If fact during a tiff when Mike sulks over them and ignores them, SiteMorse just have to grab what little attention span he has by commenting indirectly via accessifyforum.

Mike of course loves SiteMorse, lavishing excruciating detail over every inexactitude. Much like Shakespeare who said "If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head." Mike's passion for SiteMorse, regardless of their flaws, is boundless. Like two spring-born deer eyeing each other. *puke*

Perfection

Mike is nothing but passionate about his work, this was demonstrated to me after I broke his "perfect code". I would just like to highlight I was not trying to break it, it just broke while I was on the page. Mike got quite cross with him self and swore a lot over the hour it took him to investigate.

I think I over stepped the mark a bit when I wound him up about it, his response was to pull his jersey over his head, when I pointed out that I was actually filming him with my new phone he swore at me. Yes I do still have the footage and when I find out how to provide it so it is accessible I will post it here unless Mike can come up with a decent bribe.

Mike can get a little colourful and abrupt at times we he is emailing responses to people and I have to quite frequently de-Mike the content. Let me explain de-Mike means looking throught the content and may be changing it just a little for example

Look you F*@*ing idiot you're not testing it right.

Would be changed to:

I think you are using the wrong test data, Can you please confirm which test case you are performing? Best regards, Mike

Starwars

Yes like so many of us Mike is a complete starwars fan and tries frequently - and suceeds - to get starwars quotes into his code.

Mike has had several theories about Starwars including the idea that Jar Jar Binks is actually Darth Vader and is indeed Lukes father - but sadly has not managed to convince anyone else of this fact, never mind Mike keep trying!