Post of the Century

Can you believe it, this is my 100th post?! And how did I use it? Well like the majority of the rest I have squandered the oppportunity to have my opinion heard and to make a difference. Instead prefering to prattle on about bugger all. So let us raise a glass in celebration of very little, presented in a well rendered Arial font! Hell what did you expect it's the final of Celebrity Big Brother tonight.

Hurrah for England, etc and here is to another 100 posts.

Plastic arms are a girls best friend

Got a load of old plastic dolls you wanna slaughter? Why not follow Margaux Lange and make some adorable jewellery with them.



They also have a bracelet made from bums... I shit you not.

Photo booth joy joy

Some ideas are just 'like, sooo cool'. This is one such idea. A club in San Francisco, has a photo booth that posts its pictures to this flickr account. Frankly it's a work of genius. Now you can look at completely pissed people without actually having to be in the club with them.

Portsmouth, we have a problem...

This story was posted on Engadget. What I find most intererting is how the probability of this happening has quite obviously been compared to the chances of winning the lottery with just the one ticket. Is this now regarded as the de-facto measure of not very fucking likely?


UK STB sends out SOS

A digital settop box in the UK recently pulled off a feat that is said to
have odds of "far more than 14 million-to-one" when it somehow broadcast
an SOS distress signal on the very channel that the Royal Airforce uses for
emergencies at sea. A Moray-based helicopter spent two hours searching the
Portsmouth Harbour area for the supposed "distressed vessel" before
ground-based techs at telecom regulator Ofcom were able to trace the signal
to a malfunctioning Freeview box located on dry land. Thankfully for the owner of the box, it sent out a mayday as opposed to broadcasting the international signal for "step up, yo," in which case he/she may have ended up suffering the full wrath of the British war machine.

Apple luv Intel

Apple finally announced it's first Intel based computers are to be shipped next month and the above are the specmarks for the new 'MacBook' (is that like a Scottish Powerbook?). Nice.

E is the magic letter these days

Slashdot are carrying this story on the new Sony e-Book reader. Now I like the idea of e-books but they do lack some of the convenience of a paper back. The major one being cost. If I leave a £4.99 book on a train I am mostly just upset that I can't read it until I get another copy and then I will have to relocate my position. But if I leave £400 of e-book on a train I probably won't give a stuff about the books! Although if it carries 80 books will my insurance reimburse me for those too? Or will the ebook library let me have another download for free? The same is true of DRM linked music too - you might get the insurance to pay out for a new music player, but what about the music that was on it? Does iTunes music store remember what you bought and give you the right to download it again? I don't think so. The whole thing relies on the fact that you have made adequate backups. But how does the average home user backup gigabytes of data?

In the UK there has been a movement to openly share good paperbacks by leaving them on trains and in other public places, perhaps with a few comments in on what you thought about the book (I think it may have been a BBC idea.) This is great idea and gets people exposed to books they wouldn't have normally read. Could there be a an equivalent electronic version of this? I doubt it because electronic data is infinitely copyable and this whole move to electronic forms of books and music is driven by antisharing and cost reduction.

Any 'regular' readers will have noticed that this article lacks many of the authors usual linguistic tools (sarcasm, swearing, idiocy etc). Sorry about that. Normal service will be resumed soon. You wanker. See I told you.

Vicious circles & Passive Squares

Celebrity big Brother blah, blah blaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Hang on I thought this programme was to include C-e-l-e-b-r-i-t-i-e-s (whatever one is)? So who have we got? Michael Barrymore, George Galloway and Mrs Dennis Waterman. Who else? Fuck knows. Ohh apart from 'Pete you spin me right round baby right round Burns' For the rest there isn't actually small enough quanta by which to measure their celebrity status. Micro-biologists deal with larger dimensions. Not that this separates them from the sea of other nano-celebrities. Perhaps what Channel 4 actually means is that they will have just as much celebrity 'status' as every other loser on TV the second they walk in the door so who cares if you have never heard of them before.

I usually find BB annoying but compulsive. However, after watching the opening show it was clear that many of the contestants 'personalities' would be measurably improved if their DNA were spliced with that of a bush. Thus, like the 'News of the World' journalist, selflessly reporting on the seeding massage parlor offering extras, I made my excuses and left.

The one were 'The Doctor' thinks he is Captain Kirk

In theory, I love Dr. Who. In theory Communism is a great idea. Unfortunately, despite the change of actor, Dr. Who still isn't living up to its' potential. Don't get me wrong I like David Tennant, he's a good actor. And I like his Doctor. He's irreverent, witty, wistful, strong etc. But that's the problem. I've only seen 60 minutes of him (and most of that he was asleep). So why do I like him? I can't know him in this time so it can only be becasue he is living off of the back of previous incarnations. And also because they desperately want you to like The Doctor, instantly. As your mate. Someone you might join down the pub and then go back to his with a take out Jalfrazi to play the latest football game on the XBox. Which just isn't the relationship you should have with The Doctor. In my mind you should grow to like The Doctor despite him, over a period of time. Not in a is-the-doctor-allowed-out-to-play-football-missus kind of way but more like that teacher everyone thought was pretty cool. You know the one, even the 'ard kids said "Yeah, I guess he's alright, for a teacher".

The big mistake they are making though is letting compost based man-twat Russell T. Davies write any of the stories. "The Christmas Invasion". This will be an episode where aliens attempt to invade us at Christmas, I'm guessing. And it will be shown on Christmas Day. Genius. This is so sloppy I'm surprised the entire cast didn't have to wear bibs through most of the scenes. I have a mental image of RTD which is very much like Matt Lucas's Barabra Cartland-esque character Dame Sally Markham but dressed more like John McCririck on his summer hols. Sat eating pugwash flavoured truffles, reeling off 28 word outline treatments before telling his PA to just tag episode 9 of Star Trek on the end. You know, where they encounter a being of 'pure energy' (a coloured cloud) the like of which Spook had never seen before (did he not see the show the week before last? Alright it was mainly red that week but still, how much of a disguise can a being of pure energy muster?). After a brief display of power, Kirk and Co.* manage to back the super intelligent electric cumulus into a logical corner using some superficial thought paradox where the only option left is for it to manifest itself in human form and resolve the issue via the debating medium that is a good fist-fight with Kirk. The final outcome being that the Enterprise is saved with the neuro-altostratus declaring that "perhaps humans are more interesting that it had realised". Ring any bells? Alright the BBC got all 'edgy' and had the alien ship destroyed. But The Doctor. In a Paga? What the fuck?

What can we expect next season? Will the opening shot be one of Rose taken roughly from behind over the control panel of the Tardis whilst The Doctor downs a bottle of Peroni before giving a cheeky 'alright lads' wink to camera? I fear that with the way things are going it is an odds on certainty that the next person to play him will be Robbie Williams. With his mum as his assistant (he loves her you know) as well as the ubiquitous Jonathan Wilkes (he's his best mate and from Stoke too) the Tardis would quickly be filled with a bevy of busty blonde tarts with regular appearances from Ant and Dec, Tom Jones and several overpaid celebrity psycho-analysts (because it's tough being a rich popstar you know). Bring back K9, at least the cunt might trip up over him.

Pip, pip.

*much like 70 's dance troupe Legs and Co. but more hard-core

The Christmas Special

So Christmas is receding into the national psyche and all we have now are memories. Ahhh but what memories eh!? Yeah, actually what are they? I bet a lot of our collective memory relates to what we watched on the TV over Christmas. Every year I'm left with the feeling that Christmas TV ain't what is used to be. Which is a feeling I encourage because it's correct. It ain't what it used to be. Or if it is, it is exactly what it used to be because it's a bloody repeat of a 'Two Ronnies' or a 'Morecambe & Wise' Christmas Special from 1982 (I still fucking love it though). Either that or it's another fregging '50 best...' or '100 greatest...' list show. What is our obsession with ranking classic snippets of TV and ask nano-celebrities their valueless opinion of stuff like Fingerbobs or Bagpuss. All of whom never fail to have remarkably good memories of exactly the scenes they are showing taken from an episode first aired when said celeb was just 3 months old. And it's always the one where the mice find and 'fix' the chocolate biscuit making factory except Professor Yaffle works out that, despite the little mice shoving flour and cocoa beans in, it's actually the same biscuit going in the top and coming out the bottom. The cheeky little buggers.

Taking control of your wife

Homeopathetic

You'd actually be wrong in thinking that these people are on something. They are not, they think they are, but that's because the don't read bad science enough. The daft jizz-monkeys.

An elephant and a mouse were talking together. The elephant said to the mouse: "Why am I so big and strong and heavy and you are so tiny, weak and puny and grey?" The mouse said: "Well, I've been ill haven't I."*

*It's the way I tell'em

Still got love for da High Street

We currently appear to be awash with 'business analysts' on our TV's at the moment. All of whom are attempting to allay our fears that big, fat, greedy, corporate bullyboys our friendly high street retailer is able to fiscally urinate obscene quantities of cash-piss over their sponging shareholders still making an honest yet meager profit despite our selfish, miserly and generally penurious attitude thanks to our near mental national obsession with buying stuff. Why am I to care that the likes of 'retail entrepreneur' Philip Green will now have to wipe their public school boy jizz from prostitute harems using twenty pound notes instead of fifties because the British buying public have selfishly opted to buy their mistresses M&S bras and not BHS knickers?

Apparently, the turn over in the high street is indicative of the state of the economy, yet this is never explained in the news. Is it the only metric we have to predict if we are likely to face a recession? Sounds a little weak. Like trying to predict the coming of a tsunami by canvassing stocks of Scottish Bream and Pike on their footwear preferences using a questionaire written in an ancient fish script understood solely by a few Yellow Perch elders.

This link to the Dictionary of English Slang bears absolutely no relation to the above except possibly to enlighten some as to the meaning of the word jizz.

Element particulier

Pornography is, on the whole, frowned upon in the workplace. My own employer seriously restricts the flow of what is to most, the essential lifeblood of the internet. Such sanctions are less welcome at this time of year, when I think they are getting a fucking good deal with me just turning up (frankly, I need at least a week to warm me chair before I even think about getting back into a work groove). The least they can do is allow me to intersperse my day with regular visits to some flesh peddling website whose portfolio of images would be as interesting to gynecologists, veterans and greengrocers alike.

What's a guy to do? Well here's a little something that might just help - proper softcore rubbish. It has all the hallmarks of a real porn site, but with none of the ...ermm.. porn. Great for scaring the secretarial staff into thinking you are some kind of freakish sex pest who can't get through the day without a regular montage of vegetable inserted snatch and stuff without actually having to be one.

Alternatively you could just go here. You pays your money...

Chestnuts Roasting etc.

If you are anything like me (and I bet you are you handsome devil you) then your a bit of a geek, and thus always prefers the 'techy' solution to a problem. Stuff the problem, a geek just wants the tech, especially if it's pocket sized, silver, has a small menu screen and good battery life. Like foil to a magpie, as long as it sparkles, glistens and delights your inner geek is gonna want it, whatever the fuck it actually does. And there's the rub. Because let's admit it guys (and this is solely Y-chromosome issue I assure you), gadgets are often just not that good. Yes, yes, yes before you start throwing your iPods at me (frankly I'd rather you posted them) I know there are some fabulous gadgets out there. However, for every iPod there's a hundred 'Oakley Thumps' - sunglasses and mp3 player together at last, 'cause your never gonna want music in poor light conditions are you now?!

As a geek I'm often looking for an over tech'd solution to a largely nonexistent problem. Take for example the task of keeping track of peoples contact details. To my wife the answer is simple. You buy one of those little books with the letters down the side and write the names, addresses and telephone numbers of everyone you know on the appropriate page. You put it near the telephone and updated it by crossing out the old details whenever people move or get a new phone. No, doesn't really do it for me either. Instead, I'd rather spend around 500 quid on various PDA's, pocket computers and mobile phones with address books that synchronise (partially) with just about every one of the 167 different Windows, Linux, OSX, Solaris, Spectrum, MSX, BBC Model B and Vic 20 (with 16K RAM pack) address book applications I've installed, loved, crashed, deleted and replaced in the past 20 years. Still, at least I could always read mine in the dark.

Occasionally though, you do get a really well designed, fit for purpose piece of technology. Take for example the donation website JustGiving. This site allows anyone to set up a sponsorship page free of charge. Great if, for instance, you want to hurl yourself out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft wearing little more than a backpack which, according to the person who gave it to you contains a parachute. The benefits are obvious to everyone. You no longer have to wander around the office carrying an old brown envelope filled with £18.87 in loose change and I find it so much easier to ignore things sent in emails. Brilliant! I also felt the same way about the Amazon wish-list. Fabulous idea. I'm much more likely to get things I actually want and the person buying no longer has to agonise about what to get me. Even better I can remain oblivious to what my Christmas bounty will contain until the big day, if I so choose. What could go wrong? Nothing, right? Not unless you too happen to share your name with someone who, as well as having an Amazon wish list, also loves to read about Hungarian waistcoat designs of the 17th Century whilst listening to Daniel O'Donnell singing the hits of ABBA before settling down to watch series 1 and 2 of 'Howards Way'. Thank Christ for eBay.