European AIDS is scarier than British AIDS.

I ain't kidding folks!

British aids isn't scary at all.

French aids scares the shit out of me.

Those of you with a nervous disposition may want to think twice before clicking on that link.

Something for the voyeur in you.

This is a pretty easy one...do a google search for inurl:''ViewerFrame?Mode= Why you ask? Well because it gives you a list of webcams that are available on the internet.

So you can watch a bunch of guys playing tennis, the DJ booth for Love Fm, or even a bakery.

Have a look - there are more to be found, and you never know what you might find.

Know your Bond Villains #32 - Andrei Lugovoi

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present Bond Villain number 32 from our series 'Know your Bond Villains and Recognise Their Villainy'.

This is Andrei Lugovic. Whilst he is a Bond Villain, he also maintains a cunning and disarming charade as an elected politician in the free and democratic country of post cold war Russia.

As you can see from his photo, Andrei's an enigmatic and charming individual, and uses his sexy Russian accent to disarm potential female assassins. When visiting England, Andrei is often found in cool sushi bars and the more affluent areas of London like Knightsbridge.

Whilst Andrei obviously has a small army of faceless thugs to carry out his every villainous whim, he does occasionally like to get involved with the murdering, especially if the murdering involves murdering someone who's talking too much. In these cases, his favourite method is to use a nuclear isotope as a poison, thereby guaranteeing his murderee a slow and painful death.

Andrei's favourite television show is Scrubs, and if he likes to listen to N-sync while he's driving his car over the bodies of the oppressed.

Oh wait - no, this isn't a Bond Villain - this is a real person! Sorry - I got confused. God knows how that happened!

Build a sandcastle dad!

I want to draw attention to the website harrisand.org.

There's no getting away from the fact that some people have way way way too much time on their hands. But the problem is that as much as I want to take the piss out of these have nothing decent to do with their time fucks, what they're building is pretty impressive.

What makes it even more impressive though is the fact that they bring their own sand to the party. There must be beaches nearby that are just rock these days!

What did you learn at university?

I'm betting that if you did animation, you probably learnt more than this fella.

Hugo Chavez - a man beyond his time

Or something like that...

This is the news that Venezuela have decided that they want a timezone all to themselves. Why do they want their own timezone? Well from reading some of the blurb, it seems to be for the sake of the children. Sounds like crap to me.

But that's ok - Chavez has gone on record as saying "I don't care if they call me crazy."

Which is probably a good thing - as for this one - he's going to get called crazy a lot.

Some people will research anything...

Take for example the studys done in regard to women and their bras. Tests done have found that a larger woman would have a boobment of 6.9 centimetres.

Australians (why is it always Aussies with stuff like this?) have come up with an intelligent bra with sensors built in to battle bounce.

The full report is from the Journal of Biomechanics. Though why you'd want to read it is completely beyond me. I mean - do you need to know about the morphological changes in the internal structure of the articular eminence of the temporal bone during growth from deciduous to early mixed detention?

No, I didn't think so.

Welsh women are still stupid

Those of you with long memories will recall that I have previously pointed out that Welsh women weren't exactly at the front of the queue when it cam to handing out brains, and I would like to present to the court exhibit B -

A Welsh woman who was persuaded to swallow 34 bags of cocaine.

How did they manage this do you think? Was she told that it'd improve her complexion? Did they perhaps suggest that bags of cocaine have magical weight loss properties? I have no idea. But I do like the judge.

Why? Because he told David Case that he wasn't smart to come up with this plan on his own. That's right Mr. Case, it's now a matter of court record that you're too dumb to come up with a plan that's as stupid as this one. But look on the bright side - all the inmates at Cardiff prison are lining up to play you at Trival Pursuit for cigarettes.

X Prize 4 - Great Nephew of X Prize

For those of you who don't know, the original I'm talking about X Prize was a ten million dollar prize for the first privately funded craft to travel into space twice within a fortnight. It was won by SpaceShipOne, a 60s sci fi looking craft designed by Burt Rutan.

The whole point of the X Prize is that it's a catalyst to forward human endevour (something I'm in favour of) as a clear illustration of that, the original X Prize was ten million dollars. SpaceShipOne though, cost one hundred million dollars - so an accountant would tell you that it wasn't worth it. Which is because accountants are stupid and have broken minds.

Anyway, the fourth X Prize is being sponsored by Google, and offers up to 30 million dollars to the first private venture to put a robotic vehicle on the moon, drive it around and do some bunny hops. So yesterday, the Google Lunar X Prize had it's first official entrant. OdysseyMoon are a private company created specifically for the purpose of entering the X Prize, and are from the Isle of Man. That's right. The island that gave you cats with no tails and that funny flag with all the legs on it will soon be putting a robot car on the moon.

I can't wait for the next entrants!

So with the storms...

Come the waves...

For those of you who didn't see the photos on the BBC's website about the massive waves that've been turning up on the British coast, here's some proof from Wales. This photo's from Porthcawl - which is about 25 minutes down the road from me.

Where was I when this was taken? In bloody work.

Here's another shot from further down the coast showing just how big and awesome some of the Welsh waves have been since the big swells came in...

I stole the photos from Porthcawlsurf.co.uk and MagicSeaweed.com

I love the NIE!!!!!!

Yes I do.

The NIE is the United States National Intelligence Estimate. This is all about the declassified central findings of a report released this week that says that Iran halted it's nuclear weapons program back in 2003.

Why is this report important? Because up until that report came out, the Whitehouse had been working hard to shape the public's perception that Iran is a dangerously close to having a nuclear bomb and that the best way to protect America is to bomb Iran back into the stone age.

Hmm...well that sounds familiar!

Now before you go out and decry this report as an aberration, let's remember that the IAEA report came back with pretty much the same conclusions, and it's hard to ignore the fact that maybe we don't need a world war three just yet.

You know how bored I am of GWB's warmongery? I'm not even going to make a joke about it. But I am going to tell you that if you watch some of Bill Hick's stuff about Iraq, you could almost forget that he's talking about George Bush Senior and Gulf War version 1.0.

coppery mockery shockery

I should write headlines for a redtop.

Anyway - this is the story about a police force, speed cameras and how difficult it is to catch people who are speeding.

Poor South Yorkshire Police. No sooner is their chief constable Meredydd Hughes banned for speeding than the beeb has the cheek to submit a freedom of information request to find out if any other police cars have been snapped speeding.

Would you like to know howmany photos they found out about?

26. There were twenty six cases where South Yorkshire police officers were caught speeding on duty, failed to admit that they were driving and cases were dropped. A spokesman said that they couldn't identify the drivers.

Hang on a second...I've seen enough of the Bill to know that cars are signed out. Does this mean that the entire reason that these drivers couldn't be identified is because they couldn't recognise the signatures?

Wow. It's a good job Myra Hyndley didn't sign her confession with a leaky fountain pen or they'd never have caught her!

This isn't my rant...

But it's still one I thought worthy of mention...

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) today asks why both the UK Government and Scottish Government are proposing a 50% cut in water quality testing when official figures for 2007, also released today, show a ten-fold increase in official UK coastal bathing sites failing legal minimum standards compared to 2006.

MCS believes that the number of failures will rise still further when unofficial sites are included in its Good Beach Guide 2008, published next May.

Government figures released today on UK bathing water quality for Summer 2007 show that the number of official coastal bathing sites failing legal minimum standards rose from 2 in 2006 to 20 in 2007.

- Thomas Bell, MCS Coastal Pollution Officer

There you go. There's no doubt some more blurb on this at the Marine Conservation Society's webby site if you need more information.

For those of you concerned that I'm going to turn into a hippy - don't worry, I'm just off to watch bambi's mother die on a 72" widescreen telly. That always perks me right up.

Medal of Honour 6: Private contractor

So you may remember that earlier in the year there was a bit of a fuss when some security guards from the American firm Blackwater (which is a pretty awesome name) killed 17 people.

So let's see what some of the news sources around the globe have picked up about this story then. ABC News ran with news that a Blackwater guard said he returned fire at Iraqis dressed as civilians.

Now maybe it's just me, but could an Iraqi dressed as a civilian actually be an Iraqi civilian? Way to go ABC News for running with that piece of Orwellian language.

The Washington Post quoted a US official as saying that at least one Blackwater guard drew a weapon on his colleagues and shouted at him to "stop shooting". Sounds to me like Blackwater need to change their server settings to ban friendly fire!

Iraqi eyewitnesses have said that guards moved into the roundabout stopping the traffic. They then fired on a white sedan that had failed to slow down. According to those accounts, the car burst into flames killing the occupants. One eyewitness said Blackwater operatives had fired a rocket or grenade into the car.

The reports continue, and say Blackwater guards then fired without provocation into the surrounding area as civilians and Iraqi officers tried to flee. They say the officers did not return fire.

So apparently - failing to slow down when some mercenary with a gun starts waving at you is the action of an evil terrorist. I'm pretty certain that's not entirely true. I'm also continually frustrated that we're not calling this as it is - the American government are using mercenaries, and giving them immunity from any crimes they may commit while under contract to the United States. If ever there were a set of circumstances guarenteed to lead to a fucked up situation - this is it. Take a bunch of cold blooded, financially motivated killers. Arm them, and tell them that they won't be held accountable if some brown people turn up dead. Well at least we all know why the population of Mississippi has dropped - they're all on a hunting trip.

The New York Times are quoting 'unnamed US officials' and printing that a premliminary FBI investigation found that at least 14 of the 17 shootings were 'unjustified'.

I don't know why we're worried though. The US State department is on the case. They've got an inspector general - Howard Krongard. He's investigating Blackwater, and their employee's actions and has been doing so for the last 2 months. Thank god for Mr Krongard and his investigation. He's totally excellent at investigating. For example, yesterday he discovered that his brother was part of Blackwater's advisory board. 2 months. 60 days. 1440 hours of investigating and what has Mr Krongard discovered? That his brother's a part of the company that he's investigating.

I have to say, if you ever want to get away with something, ask for Howard Krongard to investigate it. He hasn't got a fucking clue.

American's aren't just litigious

They also have no sense of perspective.

Certainly, the actions of Judge Roy Pearson suggests as much.

When his local dry cleaners lost his trousers, he sued. For $54 million.

My favourite bit - included in the lawsuit was mental anguish. For a lost pair of trousers.

Now he's lost his job, he'll probably want to sue someone for loss of earnings.

Great caesar's ghost!

You know, it wasn't until I started trying to think of a title for this post that I realised that Marvel's side characters don't really have the soundbytery that DC's do. Just thought I'd mention that.

Of course, what I could've titled this was Marvel give you 250 comics for free. Because at the moment, that's exactly what they're doing.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have 248 comics to go.

Some pun about oil

Well it's been a while, but I very nearly just shouted at my computer when I read this.

Exxon are appealing against having to pay the $2.5 billion fine that they received for devastating 1300 miles of Alaskan coastline. Now while that may seem excessive, let's look at some of the facts.

The Valdez spilt 11 million gallons of crude oil. It killed an estimated 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 Otters, 300 seals, 250 bald eagles & 22 killer whales. This was a disaster of epic proportions. Communities have been devastated, whole ecologies have been wiped out and still Exxon say that they don't think that they should be fined.

So is it because that if they pay the fine they'll be bankrupt? No. Exxon's net profit for last year was $39.5 billion. So if they payed their fine, then they'd still have had a profit of $37 billion. Which is more than the GDP of Bulgaria.

So why don't they want to pay the fine? I'll quote Walter Dellinger, Exxon's lead lawyer - "This record punitive award unquestionably raises important issues of constitutional dimension." So apparently paying a fine for putting a drunk in charge of an oil tanker is in fact anti-american.

So it's not that Exxon are a greedy, soulless bunch of fucks who don't want to pay a fine, it's that they're preserving America's freedom.

Nice one. Apparently next week, they're going to protect my freedom even further by organising a sponsored shoot an endangered species week. The board of directors have even bought state of the art machineguns for the occasion, and the CEO is looking forward to testing the integrated grenade launcher functionality on a family of meerkats.

Skip to the end

Warner Brothers TV are going to make an American version of Spaced. Twats.

Now, if you read the Variety article on the news, then you (like me) would probably end up with the impression that Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright are rather on board with the whole thing.

Of course, that isn't quite the truth. If you'd like a more accurate version of what's been going on - you can check out Wright's myspace blog. It makes interesting reading.

So I'll leave you with this point - Americans remaking Spaced - almost as good an idea as trying to rape the pope.

How to tell you are under the yoke of dictatorship - a handy guide.

I figured that what with us living in an uncertain world, this'd be a useful little guide to keep handy so that you can tell when your country becomes a dictatorship...

1. The head of your country has a snazzy title like 'General' 'El Presidente' or 'Grand Vizier'
2. The only newspapers and/or television stations start the day with the national anthem, feature shows on about how awesome your country is, and how terrible everyone else is.
3. Anyone who disagrees with how awesome your country is is either a criminal, an exile, or strangely ends up poisoned by a nuclear isotope.
4. American is either your best friend or your most hated enemy. It's strange, but I don't think I can remember a dictatorship that is indifferent toward America (have a think about it).

So there you go - four quick points to help you work it all out. I figured that it'd be useful seeing as we have a new dictatorship in the offing (the name begins with a P and ends in akistan if you haven't worked it out yet).

Good things come to those who...

Follow a series of clues on the Guinness website apparently!

So there's a new Guinness advert tonight (you can already find it online). Guinness however have decided to get in on the viral marketing buzz and if you go to Guinness.com, you'll find a bunch of puzzles that you have to go through to get to see the advert before everyone else does (which is tonight - so you don't have that long to wait).

This one's been done by the same guy who was behind the Sony Bravia adverts, and you can see the same themes being revisited. I like it though. Certainly better than that fucking Barry Scott.

Actually - this is a point - it's not Barry Scott, it's an actor. His name is Neil Burgess. His other claim to fame is that he was on the Bill as an axe murderer. But at least the crime scene was nice and clean.

I am somewhat loathe to do this...

But I'm going to link to a story from the Telegraph's website. I'm sorry to have to do this, but some things just have to be commented on.

I mean there's no denying that this guy's a bit on the weird side, but I'm not sure he deserved to go to court over it - he was in his hotel room, enjoying some 'private time' by himself and 2 maids used their key to enter. So is this a documented case of schrodinger's crime? You can't tell if he's committing a crime unless you watch him, and because you're watching him he's committing a crime?

On the other hand - how the hell do you have sex with a pavement?

I had an awesome Friday

Just wanted to mention it really. I made a trip down to Gennith for some surfing, and had an absolutely awesome time. I used my wetsuit booties for the first time and had some of the best waves I've ever had in my short surfing experience.

So there.

HBO make with the awesome.

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that HBO have a tendency toward making awesome TV. These are after all the guys behind the Sopranos, Sex in the City & Band of Brothers.

What they're also responsible for is a 12 part series called - "From The Earth To The Moon".

The show focuses on the Apollo missions, on the people involved, on the technical and political challenges they had to face and the setbacks they hit along the way (unsurprisingly, there were quite a few).

The exploration of space holds a strange fascination for me. It always has. For me, there's something about it that just captures and holds my imagination so this show really appeals to me. What makes it even better is that the entire series is currently available on Virgin Media's on demand service.

So if you're reading this Mr Murdoch - From the Earth to the Moon - 500 times better than repeats of Stargate. Even if it doesn't have Macgyver in it.

Buy the guardian...

For this week at least.

Every day this week, the guardian are giving away supplements which feature reprinted articles from the Guardian's history. Today's supplement focuses on political articles between 1821 & 1975.
Without giving too much away, here are a couple of the headlines that caught my eye...

From March 28th, 1829 - Prime Minister fights duel over Catholic remarks.
From September 5th, 1957 - Homosexuality should not be a crime, Wolfenden report says.
From December 17th, 1969 - End of capital punishment - the right decision for society.

There are more - the end of slavery in the colonies, the introduction of voting at 21 for women, the Easter uprising in Dublin and even an the obituary for Karl Marx. All in all, very good reading.

Of course, all this is just the Guardian's way of pimping the fact that they've got a new online archive, but when the content of the pimping's as good as this - I don't really mind getting pimped.

Well that's bummed me out...

Apparently, it's Tony's birthday in Hollyoaks and the fucker's only 30.

So the oldest character in Hollyoaks is 2 years younger than me. Good job I don't watch that shit isn't it.

I'd like to recommend something...

This website to be specific.

But I can't, because it won't bloody load!

Apparently, it's a digital copy of the Da Vinci's Last Supper in super high resolution, so I'm dying to see it. Apparently, The image is 1,600 times stronger than those taken with a typical 10 million pixel digital camera. Apparently, you can see how Da Vinci made the cups slightly transparent and the affect that Milan's airbourne polution has had on the painting.

Still won't bloody load though. Dammit!

The news is that there is no news

Or something like that!

FEMA are the American government agency in charge of emergency relief. As you can imagine, since Katrina happened they've been viewed as a bunch of incompetent idiots appointed through nepotism rather than qualification.

They're now involved in the effort to stop California turning into the largest barbeque in the world, and yesterday they held a press conference. Or did they? What in fact happened is that they gave the world's press 15 minute's notice (thereby guarenteeing no-one'd make it) and used their own staff to masquerade as press and ask questions. There are more details on the Washington Post's website.


Man, I can't help but laugh at this one.

Vroooom vroooom splish splash

Let's catch up with some of my purchasing. I know it's something that'll excite you all...

I have a new car. This one can do something that my previous car couldn't - start in the rain. So I love it! I wish there was something more interesting to say, but really it's just the case that I found a decent car that I can fit a surfboard into without too much fuss, and that was that.

I also have a winter wetsuit. After coming out of the water a couple of weeks ago with blue toes, I figured it was most definitely time to invest in a warmer wetsuit. Thanks to the same seasonal fickleness that affects snowboarding, I picked up an awesome deal on a Salomon suit and tried it out last Sunday. I got to spend 3 hours in the sea in the middle of October, and I wasn't cold once. So it probably works rather well. Now if I can just get good at surfing, it'll all be ok.

There you go. Of course the cynical among you will suggest that this post exists just to give October a bit of a bump in it's numbers.

They're probably right, but I liked the title too much not to post this.

Weekend away

Well actually, it was more of a long weekend seeing as I set off on Thursday.

I adventured all the way over to London to visit some old friends and do some touristy stuff. I drank a load of booze and ate a load of pizza. It was good fun all in all, and nice to meet up with people I hadn't seen for a while. Though rather typically for me, it was all sorted in a rather last minute kind of way, and a couple of people couldn't make it because they didn't get quite enough notice.

So now that I've bored you with that tidbit, I will now entertain you with the touristy fun that I had. I pottered around Covent Garden for a bit, which was exactly the same as ever, but then I went to Tate Modern and looked at a crack in the ground. Alright, so it's actually an installation piece called Shibboleth - anyway. As seems to be the way these days, I find myself more interested in the public's reaction to the art than the art itself, and Shibboleth more than ever draws that out of me. The piece is a huge crack the length of the turbine hall, and so you get people all the way down looking into the crack, peering into it, standing astride it, trying to work out how it's done. So I start to wonder - is the art the work, or the people who encircle it like moths around a lightbulb.

I also went to the National Museum to see the Terracotta army show, but it was sold out of tickets. So I wandered round the souvenir shop's section of minature terrcotta copies on my knees. Probably the same experience.

Yowzah

Not the smallest read this one, but probably worth a look.

If you go here, you can read the story of Alan Johnson's abduction in his own words. No tit and fart jokes for this one I reckon, as what Mr Johnson went through wasn't much of a comedy gem. Still, it's really well written and an addictive read.

So there.

Why more people don't love dinosaurs

You know, I think I've cracked it. It was this story from the beeb that set me off - they've found another new dinosaur in South America. This one's called Futalognkosaurus dukei. Try saying that three times quickly (actually - just try saying it once and I'll be impressed)!

And this is where I think the paele...paleon...dinosaur guys have got it wrong - the names that they come up with for these new dinosaurs aren't that exciting, and in an age where even Godzilla isn't a sure fire hit, you need to be a bit more aggressive in your marketing (Mothra found that one out!).

So, I shall now offer my wisdom to dinosaur guys the world over in naming any dinosaurs that are discovered. The names will be snappy, peppy and all in all, more keeping with what a 21st century dinosaur needs. Hell, I'll even provide some examples!

OLD NAME : Brachiosaurus
NEW NAME : Hugeosaurus

Really, what more of a name do you need? It's huge, it's a saurus... it's Hugeosaurus! I know what you're thinking - there's more than one massive sauropod out there - but there's more than one adjective for big! We can also have bigosaurus, largeosaurus...even woahthatsfuckingmassiveosaurus!

OLD NAME : Anklyosaurus
NEW NAME : Rockosaurus
It's a dinosaur that looks like it's made from rocks - it's a Rockosaurus. This will also go a long way to pepping up old Ankly's image in relation to his more popular cousin - Stegosaurus. Just cause he doesn't have spikes, doesn't mean he's not a badass.

OLD NAME : Oviraptor
NEW NAME : Beakosaurus
What the fuck is this thing? It looks like a cross between a chicken and a velociraptor that hasn't eaten a wandering scientist for weeks! Fuck it, I can only do some much - we'll call it the beakosaurus. What? Not all dinosaurs can have badass names. It should count itself lucky I'm not calling it the freakyfuckingchickenosaurus!

The most expensive photocopy ever

Is being sold by the vatican for 4000 quid! Admittedly, it'd be pretty awesome to have a copy of the order for the knights templar to disband, but I can't help but wonder if it really is 4000 quid of awesome.

Here's the thing that bugs me though - the vatican library has loads of this stuff. Ancient manscripts, edicts from the papacy to monarches, letters from Henry VIIIs letters to Anne Boleyn while he was shagging her on the side. All of which they have no plans to release into the public domain. So they have all this stuff that they have the ability to reproduce and they either don't release it, or they release it in a limited edition at a stupidly high price.

Nice to know that the catholic church have the benefit of humanity at heart isn't it.

Where's the damn photo!

Come on you bastards! I don’t care how you do it - helicopter, jet car, human cannonball – get a camera crew there, and get us some photos of the chickens! What do we pay our license fee for if not this!

Update : There's video! I love you BBC!

Copshock!

Can you believe I nearly missed this!

So here we have video footage of North Wales’ chief constable Richard Brunstrom being tasered.

I must confess that I am reasonably impressed that he was willing to be shocked as a public relations exercise, after all it’s not exactly a pleasant experience, and it’s one that he didn’t have to do. But this does raise an interesting question - Brunstrom has recently called for the current ratings system on drugs to be scrapped and for class A drugs to be legalised. Does this mean that he’s going to be uploading a clip onto youtube of him taking a big hit off a crack pipe? Will he go that bit further and also have a clip of him sucking cock for heroin?

The North Wales Police Blog just got a lot more interesting…

I am such a geek.

There's no sense denying it. I've just watched an episode of Smallville which featured Impulse, Green Arrow, Cyborg & Aquaman. I spent way too much time giggling like a schoolboy over the clever little nods to the comics and the fish jokes made at the expense of Aquaman...

It was good though.

Gordon's Alive!?!!

This isn't even a faked image.

This is from Saatchi, one of the best known and highest charging advertising companies in the UK.

I have to admit that I like it. I mean if Gordon does decide to call an early general election I get to make endless jokes about the lib dem leader's mercy quotient (here is where others would explain that joke to you - I'm not though. If you don't get why that's funny you can look it up on the internet).

I can't help but wonder if this was a bit of a case of friday afternoonitus interferring with an advertising exec's work. So if we continue this train of thought, what other advertising slogans did they come up with at the same time...

"Buy Levis - because you shouldn't walk around with your cock out"

Advertising - yet another career I could have gone into if I'd realised how stupidly easy it was.

Burma - what a bunch of wankers

I wasn't sure whether I wanted to mention the upheaval going on in the Democratic People's Republic of Shoot Your Face Off for Saying That We're Wrong (which I'm pretty sure is what Myanmar translates into) but I think I will. Are you ready?

I'm sure you've all noticed that most of what the Burmese government are doing is pretty shitty, but I think that there are some things that they've done right that they're not getting credit for.

So, here for you now is a list of all the good things that the Burmese have done in the last few years...

Burmese Pythons - which are really big fucking snakes.
Burma Shave - a type of shaving foam.

Nope, I'm sorry people of the Burmese government. When it comes to the great karmic scales, I'm afraid that brushless shaving foam and giant snakes aren't going to make up for the fact that you're a bunch of massive wankers who go around shooting buddist monks.

More catholic craziness

For those of you who don't know, the Catholic church believe that the use of birth control is a sin. Well except for the 'rhythym' method. Which could in all honesty be called the 'blind fucking luck' method.

But one archbishop has decided to up the ante on their idiocy. I'm pretty sure that I don't need to add anything else.

I can't get me head around this one...

Israeli police have arrested a group of neo-nazis. Work that out! I can't. The closest I can come to an explanation is that some people are really really really really fucking stupid.

In other news...oh stuff it. I was going to make a joke about armed robbers who point the guns at themselves but really - Jewish fucking Nazis? How the hell does that work? Do you beat yourself up? Do you go to as many showers as possible? Do you shout at yourself? Fucking morons.

Why I won't ever play WOW

Becuase there are some really scary people out there - and WOW seems to be where they gather. Here's an example. See what I mean?

Fucking nutters.

How to evolve a weapon

Ok - this all revolves around cluster bombs, so first of all - let's review what a cluster bomb is. A cluster bomb is a big rocket stuffed full of 'bomblets'. It explodes in the air, and all these bomblets fall to the ground and explode. If they hit something hard, they explode straight away. If they don't, they wait until something hard (like say - someone's shoe) stands on them, then they explode. If this sounds a little like a mine, then you've probably worked out why there are calls to ban them - it's because they are rather a lot like mines, and since Diana Princess of Parisian Tunnels died, there's been a recognition that mines aren't really that nice of a device.

Right - now that we all know what a cluster bomb is - we can continue with the story. Back in February of this year, the UK said that they were going to work toward a treaty to ban these things. Forty five other nations agreed with them, and off they went to sort out the details. Well, here we are in September, and according to Defence secretary Des Browne & the MOD - Britain has stopped using dumb cluster bombs.

Hang on a second...'Dumb cluster bombs'? Yes! That's right - the British army only uses clever cluster bombs! The British Army is an army of thinking soldiers, and now, the British Army is an army of thinking weapons as well!

So let's review - the British government have decided to ban dumb cluster bombs, which sounds all well and humanitarian until you realise that all Britain's cluster bombs were classified as smart cluster bombs by the MOD about 15 minutes before the ban was announced.

How's that for a classic bit of doublespeak?

Watch television!

Sometimes, having a digital TV is worthwhile...

BBC4 are doing a three point series called Comics Britannia. With narration from Armando Ianucci, it's a look back at the comicbook industry in the UK. You've already missed part one, but part two is on tonight. For me though, it's going to be part three that's the winner - on next week it deals with comics in the UK in the 70s & 80s (when I was growing up) and features an interview with Alan Moore - one of the best writers the genre's ever had, and as mad as a box of frogs. Recently, he's gained notoriety for wanting absolutely nothing to do with the movie versions of several stories that he's written. He also looks like some kind of mad necromancer who in ye olde days of yore would live in a dark shadowy castle just waiting for a dark and stormy night so that the local peasants could pop over with their burning sticks and pitchforks for a cup of tea and some lynching.

Anyhooo....Here's the link to the page about the show - give it a watch.

How to quit smoking, the Joe way.

I really do hope that this isn't going to jinx my progress to this point...but I may have found a way to quit smoking properly.

The key is this - an Xbox360.

Basically, I am working on an incentive basis - As a non-smoker, I've bought an xbox360. The rules are very simple - while I'm not smoking, I'm allowed a 360. If I want to smoke, I have to get rid of the thing. So far, it's been working. I just hope that this method doesn't fall apart in 12 years when I get tired of the 360 and decide to buy a Playstation 7.

Explodey!

So it would seem that Russia have a new fuel air bomb. Not that exciting really - I mean it's only the biggest non-nuclear type of bomb around, and the Americans not only have one, but have used it in Afganistan without too much fuss (though that was against our allies against the Red threat the Mujadeen (sorry - against our hated enemies the godless terrorists the Mujadeen).

But the bbc have a clip of the explosion on their website, and I'm a big fan of huge explosions. So here's the link.

Electrical gubbinery

So it is with great excitement that I can announce that my mobile phone has now been upgraded!

OK; I would agree that a mobile phone upgrade isn't usually that exciting a prospect, but you have to take some things into consideration here. Firstly, I'm on 3. This means that the phones are usually pretty high up on the scale of techgeekasmism, and that they've got all kinds of nifty features. Secondly, three sent me an MMS (a videoclip sms) telling me that my upgrade was due and showing me some nice pictures of telephones.

Well that's a nice lie isn't it. What really happened was this - my phone was starting to switch itself off when I asked it to send an SMS (really fucking annoying), so knowing that my contract's up for renewal I phoned 3 and dipped my toe in the water. What I found was that they were helpful (recommended I downgrade my contract as I wasn't using the minutes they were giving me) and able to discuss technical specs of phones (I have a burgeoning collection of MicroSD cards and wanted a phone I could use 'em on). I was reasonably impressed, as usually when I phone 3 it's a bit of a struggle.

So now I have a new Nokia 6120 Smartphone. It's smaller than my old phone, it's got Nokia's version of GoogleEarth on it, along with MSN, Skype and good email compatibility. But here's cherry on the geekcake - it runs Quake. Not an import, not some made for mobile watered down version - it plays the original Quake. Admittedly, it's a nightmare without a keyboard and mouse, and it drains the battery like a sonovabitch, but it's worth it for the soundeffects.

2 Random things...

1. - There are Labour MP called Bob Blizzard & Andy Slaughter. I would like Gordon Brown to assign them to appropriate positions. I think Andy Slaughter deserves to be appointed Minister for War, and Bob Blizzard should be secretary of state for inclement weather.

2. - Conkers have started falling. I know this because one of them caught the wheels of my skateboard yesterday, and now I have skinned knees. Bloody stings like a bitch.

Need for speed Mars.

Did you know that NASA scientists are driving a remote control buggy around on the surface of Mars? Did you know that they've set up a jump ramp into the 200 feet deep Victoria crater in the hope of doing the first martian backflip? Did you know that they did a frontflip into the shallower Opportunity crater 3 years ago, but that was just a case of tanking it up to the lip and pulling the front brakes as hard as they could - they needed the steeper lip and bigger drop of Victoria to go for the backflip.

This is all in preparation for next year - GW Bush, in an attempt to rescue his reputation as a bit of a fuckwit is going to dress in the Stars & Stripes and ride a rocketcycle to Mars, then do a superman seatgrab over Eagle crater. Honest.

And the quality of tv shoots up

Thanks to big brother ending. I don't think I've ever enjoyed that damn show.

Just to make sure that this isn't an entirely negative post though, I saw this advert on telly last night, and I think it's the best chocolate advert I've ever seen.

Robots in disguise

Well it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I've seen this film, after all - it's Transformers.

There are so many flaws with this film that I could mention - there's the cheesy way that Bumblebee can't speak, there's the naff way that Jazz's death seems to have no effect on anyone, there's the dumbassery of John Turturro's governmental agent...there's an awful lot wrong with this film.

I don't care. It's fucking Transformers for crying out loud. I enjoyed it, and it was wonderfully fun robot carnage.

If I'm honest however, I would have been just as happy with 2 hours of original Optimus Prime & Megatron beating the shit out of each other.

My degree is in colouring in

Alright, now I'm happy to admit that the degree that I did wasn't exactly the most useful degree to gaining employment in the professional world. But I'm starting to get the feeling that some universities are really starting to push the envelope when it comes to creating degrees that are both pointless & bizarre.

The Taxpayers Alliance are bitching about these degrees and are complaining that there are degrees out there that are crap as all hell. Here's their top five -

1. Outdoor adventure with philosophy, at Marjon, the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth
2. Science: fiction and culture, at the University of Glamorgan
3. Equestrian psychology, at the Welsh College of Horticulture in Mold, Flintshire
4. Fashion buying, at Manchester Metropolitan University
5. Golf management, at UHI Millennium Institute, based in Inverness.

I'm a bit nervous that 2 of the top 5 are in Welsh universities, but I have to admit that I am quite tempted by Outdoor adventure with Philosopy. I suppose I could try for the open university equivalent, so I'm going to take a copy of Plato's republic with me next time I go snowboarding.

Getting over the hump

Naming this post was tricky. It could have been...

The camel who wanted more hump?
He got his hump on?
Humphrey the camel?

Or I could have just gone with the descriptive option - Woman fucked to death by a camel.

It's a strange world out there folks.

It's science jim, but not as we know it

Here's one for you - an American court has ordered that six people get paid a million dollars a piece by the state of Iowa. Now, normally I wouldn't mention this as it's a civil court case, it's American (and let's face it - the average American sues more often than most normal people blink) but this case is a bit special.

Back in 1939, these people were in the care of the state and became part of a scientific study by Dr Wendell Johnson. This study was to determine if being shouted at would make kids more likely to develop a speech impediment. So this meant that this kids were berated at every opportunity for six months.

I'll repeat this - to see if treating kids like shit fucked them up, they treated kids like shit. Unsurprisingly, the kids became fucked up. But they didn't stutter. Sheesh. So for all those budding scientists out here - I will provide you with conclusions to the following so that you don't have to perform the studies.

If you kick someone in the balls, it hurts.
If you staple someone's eyes shut, they can't see.
If you glue someone's feet to the floor, they can't move.

I'm all for the advancement of science, but I don't think that researching the bloody obvious is what I'd call legitimate science. Also, the kid who's feet I glued to the floor cried really loud.

Catholaschism wow!

A little bit of religorage for you here folks.

Amnesty International have caused a furor amongst Christian aid groups by ending years of ducking questions about what they think about Abortions. They've come out and said that in cases of rape or incest - they're in favour of allowing women to have abortions.

The Roman Catholic Church doesn't like this statement, and have threatened to withdraw their support for the organisation. Yes, that's right - another instance of the Roman Catholic Church being fucking crazy. I mean, even if you were to ignore the church's recent history of abusing children it seems somewhat out there to me for anyone to be telling a woman who's been raped that she has to keep the byproduct of this brutal attack, and live with it every day of her life. Surely that's just bound to create a psychotic mother and a scarred child? How is that good for anyone?

But I guess this leads neatly into the whole abortion debate. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with the way abortion is treated in the UK, I'll tell you this - it isn't an issue. Unlike America or Ireland or any number of countries you'd care to mention who are for the most part sensible but go a little loopy whenever a bit of womb tampering is mentioned - the UK doesn't care. Abortion is legal, and that's that. No landmark law cases, no politicians using banning abortion as a part of their political campaign.

So I guess at this point I should say that I'm pro-abortion. Not pro-choice - pro-abortion. I love abortion! I just can't get enough. I phone up abortion doctors and encourage them to work longer hours; I hand out condoms with holes in 'em at high schools. Hell, I even go to pre-natal clinics with banners and leaflets about how children ruin your fucking life. In terms of the law - I think we've got it wrong, we shouldn't look at restricting abortions, we should encourage them - women should get a free pair of trainers and a bottle of wine with every abortion done.

Alright, so I don't really - but let's face it - it's as rational a response as expecting a woman who was raped to give birth to the progeny of that rape.

Yes, I know I'm going to hell. Join me there.

A toy from my past has a birthday...

It is 75 years since Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen founded the toy firm Lego. For those of you who enjoy toy trivia, the name for Lego comes from the Danish words "Leg Godt" which translates as "Play Well".

I remember Lego being all kinds of awesome, but I have to be honest, I think it's probably more awesome these days. When I was a kid, you certainly couldn't buy Darth Vader Lego! Hell, I remember being impressed as all hell when they brought out spacemen with visors that fucking moved up and down!

A fishy tale...

So a couple of weeks ago, everyone's favourite red-top for boobs and bullshit the Sun ran a story about how Cornwall was facing destruction at the hands of a terrifying great white shark. They included attack stories, the best places to see them, and facts about the great white.

What a surprise that the whole thing has turned out to be a load of balls. For anyone unfamiliar with the British newspaper industry, it goes something like this - if the newspaper has a red logo (Daily Mirror, Daily Star, The Sun) it's full of tits, celebrity gossip and made up 'news'. If it's Got a black logo and needlessly large headlines (Daily Express, Daily Mail) then it's sensationalised phooey, and if it's got a sensible logo and sensible headlines, then it's that rarest of creatures - an actual newspaper.

Hope that helps everyone sort out truth from total fucking bollocks.

Wow - Smallville doesn't suck!

At the moment at least.

Yes, I've watched it from time to time; and for the most part it's a bit naff really. There are some high spots (like when Bart Allen showed up, or when Evil Lex was in the show) but for the most part it's a bit too much 'Beverley Hills Krypto210' for my liking.

But after saying that, at this point in time, it's worth watching. Why? Because Oliver Queen is in it. Ollie is probably my favourite long running DC hero alongside the Flash, and they way he's evolved over the last few years has only made him more awesome.

Now I realise that some of you won't have clue one who Oliver Queen is, so I shall now tell you that he is - The Green Arrow. There's no denying that when the Green Arrow showed up, he was a bit of a batman clone. He had the Arrowplane, Arrowcar & Arrowcave. But he was like Batman with trick arrows! Prime examples would include the Handcuff arrow, the Smokescreen arrow and the classic Boxing Glove arrow.

These days though, Ollie's moved on and he's a lot cooler than Batman. He's not a dark moody sod, he doesn't spend his life cooped up in a dark and soggy cave, and he's capable of having relationships with people that don't come down to "Fuck you, I'm the Batman." If you're genuinely interested, then I'd advise you to pick up a copy of "Quiver" from your friendly neighbourhood comicstore. I like it.

Facebook versus Nazis.

So the problem with social network sites is that anyone can join. So in response to the relevation that their adverts have appeared next to a bunch of nazis, First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, the AA, Halifax and the Prudential have all pulled their adverts from Facebook.

When asked why, they all came up with statements like "We need to protect the integrity of our brand." or "We need to be concious of our mission statement and vision." or even "We have got to make sure that the places we advertise are consistent with our own values and identity."

Which is all horseshit. Here and now, I will translate these statements for you. Handily, they all mean the same. Ready?

"We don't want to be associated with fucking nazis!"

There you go.

In response, a BNP spokesman said "There's nothing wrong with the BNP."

There are just some statements that really are so laden with Irony potential that I just can't choose which joke to make.

In a related story, the Daily Mail have asked facebook if they can sort it out so that their adverts will only appear next to nazis, as it's in keeping with their long & illustrious history.

Eeeeee voting

For those of you are interested in this kind of stuff...

The state of California have released their study into the practicality & security of E-voting. You can find the report in full here. It's a bit lengthy and nerdy, so I'll give you my personal highlight.

The system was designed by a company called Diebold. At one point, the password for the system was 'diebold'. This is amazing. This is the equivalent of having your bike lock set to 1234. Good thing that they're not protecting anything important behind that password.

Thankfully, it seems that our Electoral Commision's got a bit more of a sensible attitude to the whole thing.

Snake defeats bear!!

Here I go again, making a bunch of bad puns while commentating on an obscure news article.

So this I think provides confirmed evidence that being a rock god makes you one of the toughest creatures on the planet.

Apparently someone at Channel 4 has seen this, and is planning to create a series based around this concept. I look forward to seeing Tony Iommi wrestling with a gorilla, Richie Blackwood facing off against a giant anaconda & Robert Plant going toe to toe with a great white shark.

It's going to be awesome!

Oh look - it's August.

Hopefully this won't curse it for everyone, but it looks like summer's finally arrived. I did notice that while I was away in Cornwall getting a bit rained on, some folk (like the whole of Gloucestershire) got rather a lot more water than they'd have liked.

But now that I'm on nightshifts, and have another 3 very busy weeks at work coming up it seems that the weather has chosen this point in time to sort it's shit out (which is all rather typical).

On the up side, it gives me a chance to catch up on email, be sarcastic on the internet and read some stuff. So it ain't all bad.

I also want to take this moment to do some quick catching up on stuff that I've missed by being away and/or lazy as fuck.

1. We have a new PM. So far, he seems to be an improvement over Blair.
2. 2 American news choppers crashed while covering a highspeed pursuit.
3. Foot & Mouth disease is back, and this time it has a machine gun.

I'd also like to thank my good friend Jon for freaking me the fuck out with his talk about the weeverfish. The way he'd described it, I was expecting some evil bastard of a toothy googly eyed predator - not the maritime equivalent of a wasp.

Surfing level 2 - what I have learnt

So after the incredibly long and vague post about the last 2 weeks, I think I'll take some time to talk about my progress into becoming a surfing legend.

For those of you who've ever tried surfing, you'll know that it's a lot harder than it looks - so despite the fact that I've been working hard, I'm not exactly awesome just yet. I have however reached an important landmark - I'm starting to get 'out back.'

I am however still falling off the board a lot. I've gone over the side, off the back and over the nose of the board more times than I care to count. I'm still loving it though. I also got a real treat a couple of days ago. Just as I was getting out to the line up I saw what looked like a dog's head pop up about 10 feet ahead of me. It looked at me for a bit and then dived into the water and vanished. I've seen seals before (at zoos & stuff), but never this close, and never in the wild. It was a strange and rather beautiful experience as it was a quiet day in the surf, and there weren't many other folk around when this happened - but it was definitely awesome.

Where I have been

So I haven't posted anything on here for about 2 weeks. That's because I have been away for 2 weeks.

I booked the leave in order to go to north Devon, watch the Fat Face Night Air event, and catch up with some of my friends in the world of mountainboarding. The fact that I have a shiny new surfboard, and that north Devon has some very nice surfing beaches wasn't anything to do with it (ok, it had quite a lot to do with it).

When I arrived at the competition venue on the Tuesday afternoon, I found it all strangely deserted, and was told that some people were over at Ivyleaf mountainboard centre. As it was only half an hour away, I jumped back in the car and headed on down. When I got there, I got to meet up with some old friends from 2 mountainboard teams - Trampa & the BFC. All very lovely people. After a couple of days there (which included taking the BFC surfing) I headed to SWMBC to watch the event. Despite the rather dodgy weather the event was a lot of fun, and I got to meet up with a lot of old friends that I hadn't seen for a while (many of whom didn't recognise me now I'm not a ball of stress & rage).

While I was there, one of the people I was going to spend the next week with had the temerity to up and break her forearm rather badly (managing to snap both the radial & pirelli bones) so had to be shipped off to Barnstaple hospital. It made for an interesting few days where we spent mornings surfing, and afternoons visiting Kerry in hospital while she waited patiently for the surgeons to use some meccano to stick her arm back together.

Once she was released, we drove down to Gwithian sands and after depositing Kerry at her sister's we pitched up a tent in a very nice family run campsite. After a week of living in a field with a portaloo and a stoptap being the extent of the facilities, it was very nice to have hot showers, plumbed toilets and electricity readily available. I was also able to continue my surfing adventure, and also managed to get some more mountainboarders to give it a try.

So there you go - 2 weeks, 4 breaks surfed, 8 mountainboarders dragged surfing with me, 2 bones broken, and 12 screws placed in one arm. All in all, a really fun 2 weeks.

Oh - I also tried Pimms for the first time. Apparently this means I am now officially middle class.

Some people have awesome cars

See what I mean? Saw this in Cardiff a couple of weeks ago.

Swans. Thousands of them!

Well ok, not thousands strictly speaking, but loads. There's a lake across from where I'm sat at the moment and a quick count comes in at 31. It's quite a strange sight really - I've seen swans before, but usually there's only a handful of them gliding about as other waterfowl scoot around them. But not here. 31 swans, and no other birds in site. Perhaps it's a convention or something. Maybe they're plotting. It wouldn't surprise me. They can break a man's arm with their wings you know.

Must suck to be that man.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the silver surfer

Here is my review -

If you are going to go and see this movie, spare yourself the trouble. I would suggest slamming your hand in a doorway as a suitable alternative. It's a similar experience, and you can explain your whereabouts to friends and family with less embarassment.

Man it's a piece of shit. The only thing that comes anywhere near to a saving grace is the back and forth between Thing & Torch. Apart from that it sucks. I also can't help but wonder who came up with the idea to have Doctor Doom in this movie as well. He was shit in the first film - putting him in this film doesn't make him less shit. Shittyness isn't like magnetic charges. Two shitty appearances don't cancel each other out - they add together for double the shittyness.

So yeah - don't go and see the Fantastic Four film. Go and see 'Flying Scotsman' instead. It's a film about a hobbit on a bike riding in circles - and just by having that much plot, it's guaranteed to be better than Fantastic Four.

Things about Wales...

Yep - all this activity is a pretty feeble attempt on my part to make amends for my previous quiet spell...but at least I'm not just posting lists of random facts and shitty poetry...

Of course, the fact that Wales is getting it's own encyclopedia means that I practically have to give you this list of potential titbits

Swansea is Britain's wettest city.
Wales produces more energy than it consumes.
Felinfoel Brewery was the first in Europe to can beer.
The highest mountain in the world was named after a Welshman - George Everest.

Well at least I'm not posting shitty poetry.

This is round the corner from me!

Wowzers!

I don't know what's more surprising - that the weed was there, or that someone grassed them up.

Puns are awesome aren't they!

There's been a lull in activity

I mean it's not like the world's gone dead - I've just been a bit slack.

It's not like there isn't news out there that I could comment on. I mean there's been George Bush making kids cry, Starbucks showing that they're not completely oblivious to public opinion, and Louisiana banning cockfighting (though that's not as spectacular as you think - at the start of 2007 it was also legal in New Mexico).

The current series of Doctor Who ended, and I have to be honest - after dedicating 2 entries in this blog to the series, after saying how good it was, and after suggesting you should watch it I feel I should apologise for the final episode as it was fucking naff. I have to say that John Simm showed just how good an actor he is, and Russell Davies showed just how bad a writer he is (I wish I was exaggerating).

The main problem however has been that I've actually been surfing, and I'm pretty damn addicted. After years of falling on tarmac, rocks, gravel and trees; the wipeouts in surfing offer an enjoyable alternative. I'm also finding out that surfing is by far one of the most physically demanding activities I've ever done. But here's the thing that appeals - in the other sports I do - skateboarding, snowboarding, mountainboarding - it's always helpful to have a 'crew' around you. A bunch of other riders to hook up with on a regular basis, and to go out and push each other with. Now while I definitely had that in London, I don't feel that I've had it in Cardiff. Don't get me wrong, there are people in Cardiff who I go riding with, but there's not been that connection that comes with a crew. I don't particularly know why, but it's probably my fault... Surfing feels more of a solitary pastime. It's more about you & the wave, and while I've found it nice to sit out there and chat with other surfers around me, I'm yet to ask anyone their name (or have my name asked) and it's more just about a bit of idle chat while you wait for your wave to show up.

And for those of you who want to know how good I am? I'm fucking awful.

Killdozer 2: Son of Dozer

Well not really, but pretty close.

You have to admire the fact that it took 90 minutes to arrest a guy travelling at 19 miles per hours. Segways travel faster than that. Obviously, the police were busy at their annual 'It's July 13th' Barbeque bash.

I did ask for a comment, but apparently the police were busy at their annual 'It's July 14th' Barbeque bash. What are the odds huh?

Cricket is the new sport of hooligans

Apparently, all the work that's being done to improve the accessibility of cricket to the general public might be a bit too successful. There have been complaints about crowd behaviour, and the general consensus from clubs is that the Twenty20 games are attracting entirely the wrong kind of people. There's talk of professional security and increased police presence.

The MCC have also taken complaints that some people are turning up to watch test matches in casual attire and are drinking their port out of the wrong glass. Whatever next!

The smoking ban is the work of satan

According to this vicar.

Sheesh. I mean let's be honest, I'm not exactly unbiased on this one am I? But even I see this as a bit of a stretch. Though you have to grin when you picture this outraged clergyman asking to be arrested and being told that it isn't a crime, it's an environmental health issue.

So that wouldn't be a breach of civil liberties would it vicar? Hmm. Obviously too busy huffing Myrr to find out what he's getting indignant about.

Sod off! I've been busy!

Yes, I haven't been paying enough attention to the blog of late.

No, I'm not giving up - I've just been rather hectic. So let's do a quick roundup of what's happened.

We have a new prime minister. The conservatives are complaining that he's unelected and that it's not happened for ages. So by ages you mean since JOHN MAJOR?

Parents are complaining about the inclusion of an advert about Madeline McCann in Odeon cinemas. I lost my coat a little while back, so I'm going to be writing to the head of Odeon to ask that my coat gets equal treatment.

Harry Potter film number shitloads is out. The kid who plays Hermione has said she's quitting because internet geeks are creeping her the fuck out. Can't really argue with that one.

Someone tried to blow up Glasgow. I'm not convinced that destroying what is essentially a city of violent thugs and drunks isn't 'progress' rather than 'terrorism'.

I have a new shift pattern. This means that I will be working more nights. Arse.

I've spent last weekend both surfing and snowboarding. Now that's what all weekends should be like. Well, maybe with some sex as well, but pretty cool all in all.

Facebook apparently is the new Myspace. I have to be honest, the lack of shitty emo music at every click is a good thing. As is the fact that reading profiles is 74% less likely to cause epileptic seizures.

Oh please don't change

Though you could also title this "my lack of surfing adventures".

So it's been nearly a month since I bought a wetsuit and declared to those of my friends unfortunate enough to be in shouting range that I was going to take up surfing. My nextdoor neighbour is a superfriendly guy called Al, and he's a very enthusiastic surfer, and very kindly was more than willing to take me along and help me get started. I was all set and ready to go.

Then the weather decided to continue in it's mission to screw with me. The waves since have either been (a) flat (b) blown out or (c) filled with deadly maneating sharks.

Ok, not C.

So I haven't been surfing. Which makes me want to surf all the more. I've been watching webcams, reading surf reports and weather forecasts almost obsessively waiting for something to happen. And now - it looks like it has. The forecast for Sunday looks good. One could even go so far as to say that it looks awesome.

So now I have to pray that it doesn't change, and that the waves arrive as promised. I also have to figure out a way to tell my sister that I would rather go surfing than go to my nephew's 3rd birthday party; which I'm sure will go down like a lead balloon. Sod it, he's only 3. It's not like he's going to remember that I wasn't there, he'll be too busy eating cake and shitting his pants.

Oh look, Henmania's back

Today marks the start of the wimbledon tennis tournament. Which explains why it was absolutely pissing it down as I biked into work today. All the back pages are carrying news of the terrible tragedy that Andy Murray won't be playing because his wrist has fallen off.

So now we have a fortnight of crappy weather to look forward to. Hopefully, it'll bring along some decent surf with it as I am dying to get out into the Bristol channel and spend a few hours dunking myself into the murky waters.

Being sinister

Yep, that's me.

It's an interesting thing being left handed. According to the internet, somewhere between 10 & 15% of the world share this affliction with me, and something happened that sparked me thinking about this, so now I'm going to share those thoughts with you.

Part of the reason why being a leftie can be so frustrating is that your brain is wired a bit differently. This means that some things which are natural for a right handed person are the wrong way round for me. A good example is joined up writing. When I was taught this, I followed all the instructions carefully, and was surprised to find that my writing was backwards. I was even more surprised when I found out that this isn't unusual, and that the teaching material for cursive writing will always mean that a left hander will produce mirror writing.

Eventually of course, I figured out how to write the right way round (what a handist term that is!) , and I was able to become a functioning member of society. Now, if it surprises you that schools teach a method of writing at which some kids are bound to struggle at, then some of what follows may shock you to the very core...

When my father was at school, he wasn't allowed to use his left hand for writing. He was forced by teachers to use his other hand, and had ambidexterity forced upon him. From his recollection, he hated it and tried to sneakily use his left. Seeing as he was raised in the dark ages, the teachers had no hesitation in beating him up for not using the proper hand and he was often clubbed around the face with a morning star flail until he put the crayon back in his right hand.

Historically though, left handers have always been treated poorly. In the middle ages, left handedness was seen as a sign of satanic influence (so was usually enough to get the witch hunter looking at you funny); even the word sinister comes from latin for left (sinistrus).

Then there's the problems with scissors, rulers, mice, guitars, can openers and all kinds of other day to day paraphenalia that just aren't designed with left handers in mind. Until you've spent hours as a child being unable to cut pits of coloured paper neatly for a collage, then you've no idea what true frustration is.

But I'm not pretending that there aren't advantages to being left handed. I can write backwards with surprising ease, and apparently left handed people are more likely to be of a genius level intellect (Gabe will comment on this blog that I'm the exception to prove the rule, but he loves me for my thinking really).

Now, the thing that got me started with all this is down to the root cause of left handedness - that my brain is wired backwards. One continuing problem I have is that according to my brain, clocks should be the other way around. I suppose the best way of thinking of it is that for me, clockwise and anticlockwise should be swapped over. This can sometimes be a problem when I glance at my watch to check the time (no, I don't wear a casio calculator watch). Imagine my excitement a little while back when I realised it was a quarter to two, which meant I only had another hour and a bit to go at work. Now imagine the crushing of my spirit that took place when I realised that I am a backward brained moron and it was only 10.15.

Sometimes being left handed is poo.

My name's Joe, and I'm the fastest blog alive

Or something like that.

For those of you who have no idea what that's a reference to, it's a comicbook character called "The Flash" (it's in italics because it's moving quickly).

The Flash is one of DC's longest running superheroes, and there's been a Flash in some form or another through most of comicbook history. Unlike characters like Spiderman or Batman though, the mantle of the Flash has been passed on to younger characters a few times as the book has gone on.

I won't bore you with all the details (you can find them quite easily on Wikipedia) but I will say that I was a huge fan of Wally West. The writing on the book was good, there was a more lighthearted feel to the book and it was just good old fashioned superheroistic fun.

Then came the reboot. A year ago, Flash got a new title, a new issue number 1, and the mantle was passed on to Bart Allen. I was a bit miffed, but I'm a big boy these days, and I was prepared to give it a chance. Unfortunately, they also changed the writer. They changed from a good writer, to a bad writer. Danny Bilson should have been good. He wrote the Flash TV Series, which though hampered by dodgy special effects and cheesy acting was a fun series to watch. So I wasn't expecting the writing to be bad. But it was. I lasted 4 issues before I couldn't face it any more, and I went into mourning for a character that I'd enjoyed and was now dead to me.

So today comes the good news. Not only is Bilson off the job, but he's being replaced by Mark Waid - a writer who was responsible for one of the best runs on the Flash ever. Not only are they getting rid of the new title, but they're even going back to the old title and continuing the numbering as if the shitty new title never existed. But best of all is this - Wally's coming back. With his corny jokes, his laid back easygoingness that no-one else in the DCU seems to have and with his ability to be a superhero that isn't screaming about angst all the damn time.

And that's a flash fact.

Hiding behind the sofa

Yep, another mention of Doctor Who.

This time though, it's to pimp the episode that was on this evening; "Blink". Fuck me that was scary. No, really!

It's not like I'm a big coward about this kind of stuff, I enjoy horror films, and I'm pretty well desensitised to most of the stuff that's tagged as 'horrifying', 'terrifying' or 'pants-shittingly nasty' (well, apart from films like Bring it on, but we've all got limits).

But I was most definitely surprised by what I saw today. Scary, clever and psychologically jarring. It was also an excellent episode, and I really enjoyed it. So if you get the chance, catch it when it's repeated on BBC16.

I have to admit though, I'm glad that I don't have any young kids, as I guarentee there will be thousands of nippers across the UK shitting themselves tonight.

3 laws safe!

I love robots. Not in a seedy Wanda Maximoff kind of way, but more in a "Robots are awesome" kind of way.

So the news that the American army have decided to use robots on the battlefield has me all a-flutter. What makes it even better is that they're not giving them guns (obviously the men in charge have seen the terminator films).

I love the fact that they've given it a teddybear face to reassure injured troops. I now can't get over the idea that american infantry troops bed down in their barracks cuddling up to their own little teddybears.

So there you go...yay for robots.

The best fun is free fun!

See what I mean?

At the moment the thing I find most disapointing is that there's no video of the incident. Rest assured, if it does appear I will let you all know.

I do feel for the trucker though - I often go for quite a distance without realising there's a cripple hanging on to my radiator grill.

Hot & sexy update - here's an american news channel video clip of the incident (still no footage of the guy in action I'm afraid).

Another week of kookiness

Yeah, I'm on nightshift again. So far this week I've shouted at my brother for no real reason and compared talking to me to trying to argue with a goat.

I really wish these shifts wouldn't turn me into a blithering bellicose bastard, but this is what seems to happen.

In other news, I am making progress on my earlier promise to learn how to surf. I've now bought a wetsuit, and tentatively arranged to go surfing next week. No goats are involved.

New childcare product!

Yes that's right - here at this blog, we are promoting a new childcare product. It's called the encapsulator, and it is in essence a giant sensory deprivation tank with a PS2 in it. The timelock attached to it is programmed to not open for 15 years, and so prevents any paedophile predator getting his hands on your special little prince or princess.

So for those of you who haven't read, the parents of the UK are a bunch of whiny fucks. 43% of parents surveyed by the Children's Society think that their spawn shouldn't be allowed out without adult supervision until they're 14.

You morons.

I remember walking home from junior school. I remember that some of the kids in my class had to get a bus to school. For those of you frantically doing the maths - you start junior school when you're 8. I remember that those who got picked up by their parents every day were looked down upon - we were kids! It was great, we didn't need adults for anything.

How times have changed. Now it seems that it's the kids who are trusted to walk home without adult supervision are very much in the minority.

I think it's sad that we're no longer able to allow kids to go out and play with their friends, and the thing is, I think it's our own fault. We've become so obsessed with the evil paedophiles that we're unable to rationally assess the risks.

Here's a story I remember from my childhood - I was out with a couple of friends, and we were walking along a water mains pipe. I fell off it into a large clump of neetles and got stung and scratched to shit (the pipe was about 5 feet high). I knew I was going to get in trouble for being an idiot, so I tried to sneak into the house without my folks noticing. Well they saw me, they laughed at me for being an idiot, gave me a clip around the ear and coated the cuts and scratches with germoline. There was no amber alert, no tabloid panic and no audience with the pope.

Yes, I do say this without being a parent - but I sincerely hope that when I am, I can help my kids grow up, rather than wrap them in so much cotton wool that they have no idea of the world that's out there. Childhood's supposed to be fun isn't it?

Celebrating an anniversary

2 years ago, on June 4th witnessed the birth of an internet phenomenon - it was the day of the Killdozer.

Marvin Heemeyer was a welder from Granby, Colorado who felt that the local government had screwed him (if you read the wikipedia article, it's not an entirely baseless accusation). Faced with a failed welding company and mounting bills he took inspiration from the A-team's B.A. Baracus, and built himself a killdozer.

Thanks to the marvel of the internet - you can find news footage of the rampage on YouTube. The best bit is the duel with a big yellow construction truck. Enjoy!

Belarus fearful of Polish...poles

I come across the strangest information sometimes...

Polish customs officers on the border with Belarus have reported several cases of drivers being denied entry unless they carried a condom in the emergency first-aid kit.

The story on poland.pl doesn't tell you much else, apart from the fact that Polish drivers also must have condoms to enter Kaliningrad (which sounds like a made up place). It seems to me that those Polish driver have some explaining to do. Are they the 21st century equivalent of vikings? Marauding their way across Eastern Europe and the Balkans with their cocks out?

Why I don't love Lost.

For those of you who live in a world without television, a series called LOST came to the UK a little while ago. The (basic) premise is that it's about a bunch of people who survive a plane crash and end up marooned on a desert island. Here's a youtube link with the first couple of minutes of season 1 for you.

As you can tell from that, this isn't exactly what you'd call run of the mill television. This show is clever, engaging and likes to use cliffhangers of a gargantuan size. So really, this is exactly the kind of show that I should love. I should be harping on about this in much the same way as I have about Battlestar Galactica & Heroes but I'm not - so what happened?

I'll admit that when Lost first arrived on the telly, I was in love. It was snappy, peppy and gave me a warm tingly feeling in my bowels. I used to get together with my housemates, put my feet up and enjoy the show, then laugh at Hilary when she would scream in annoyance at the inevitable cliffhanger at the end of the hour. I really did enjoy the first season, and I was looking forward to the second season (though the fact that nothing was ever resolved was starting to grate).

Then season two started. While I was away snowboarding for a month. I missed the first three episodes of season two, so when I tried to watch the series I was screwed. I didn't know what was going on, who some of the people were and why they weren't following directly on from season one. I felt like I'd come home and found my girlfriend in bed with the milkman - and in a completely rational decision, said fuck it and stopped watching Lost.

Which is probably a shame as I have no idea if the dog is still alive, if Merry the hobbit is still smoking heroin, and if Kate has had a hot threeway with Jack & Sawyer.

So there you go - I loved Lost, but it cheated on me and I threw it out like the evil whore that it was.

Scary Geeks : Doctor Who fans

Ahh Doctor Who. That classic televisual treat from when I was growing up. I have fond memories of being scared out of my fucking wits by the Cybermen & Davros, of finding Tom Baker to be a creepy motherfucker (especially when he was fighting vampires with spaceships!). For those with a short attention span, then yes - there's also a modern version with special effects, sonic screwdrivers and daleks every other episode.

All this is well and good, and I quite enjoy the new series but that's not what this is about - this is about how scary Doctor Who fans can be.

But all these pale compared to the work that this ardent fan has put in. For those of you who are wondering, if you find yourself stuck in a TARDIS and needing to enter some co-ordinates to get home, or to escape Daleks, or if you just want to go and kick Hitler in the balls - here's the format - (space-type-code, time-type-code, space-origiin, reference-point-1, reference-point-2, F (motion vector), unit-code, x, y, z, t, t1 (timestamp)).

Aren't you glad that you know that.

Batman Returns 2 : Bat Harder!

Or something like that. Information about the sequel to Batman Begins has started to leak out. I liked Begins, and found it a refreshing change from the travesty of cinema that was Joel Schumacher's attempts at the Bat-franchise.

I do remember reading an interview once where Schumacer's name came up, and the reason why he keeps getting films to make was explained - he makes his films cheaply, and always finishes on time. That's right - quality isn't important, it's all about making the film under budget and before deadline. Depressing isn't it.

Anyway - here's a picture of Heath Ledger as the Joker. Enjoy being creeped the fuck out.

Blair talks about civil liberty

In the Sunday Times this week, our outgoing leader had his own little column. Judging by what he came up with, I think he's been doing some bonding with his alcoholic son over a crate of tequila.

I have no idea how a man who campaigned so hard on justice and rights of the people can come up with stuff like this (and it's not like it's an isolated incident) and keep a straight face.

So yeah, the short version of this entry is that Blair doesn't think that civil liberties should be protected in the quest for greater security. Boy oh boy - now that we know we're not voting for him, he's coming up with all kinds of wacky shit.

Next week he'll be appearing on celebrity tramp punching with his university cricket bat and a set of brass knuckles.

Reality TV - I used to hate now I love it.

This won't be a popular admission, but today's shaping up that way for me so I'm going to keep going in spite of you.

I don't like Big Brother. I don't like X Factor or American Idol or Celebrities in the Jungle or The Alan Sugar shouting half hour. I don't like any of it. It's purile entertainment that has helped in the creation of the entitlement society that we live in today.

Why has it now become the case that anyone with half a cup of self belief and a parent without the good sense to point out that they're shit thinks that they can become a teen pop starlet? Because thanks to shitty reality television, people think they're entitled to something if they want it.

Here's the kicker folks - if you're working in Greggs, it's probably for a fucking good reason.

Now, after all that - I think I've found some reality television that I might enjoy. For a while, I'd thought that Bad Girls Club might sneak ahead of my previous favourite - Space Cadets but it's flagged quite badly just two episodes into the series so I've had to look elsewhere for my hope. So what is this show that I'm harping on about? It's BIG DONOR. The producers of Big Brother have found some people in need of a new kidney who are willing to compete for it on television.

From what I've been able to find out, the show will be in a kind of Krypton Factor format, with competitors being tested on their ability to put together 3 dimensional geometric shapes, remember bits from a clip, fly an aeroplane and compete in an assault course to prove who deserves that kidney. There are also rumours that the final two competitors will be put into a pit in knee deep water with the kidney in a fridge in the middle and will have to battle it out with knives to see who gets the transplant.

See - now this sounds awesome. Do you want to be on TV that fucking bad? I suggest that you commit suicide by trying to stop a train at a level crossing while wearing a superman suit and screaming 'More powerful than a locomotive!' Trust me - people will be talking about you for years.

It's a giant pig!

Yep. There's not much else to say about this photo. It's a giant pig!

Jamison Stone - the 11 year old boy who killed the pig said "I probably won't ever kill anything else that big."

His proud father has the right idea though, he's created a shitty website dedicated to his son and the really big pig.

Here's my thing though - this kid has a .50 caliber pistol. Someone thought that it was a good idea to give an 11 year old a .50 caliber pistol. I remember when I was 11. I was an idiot! I was impulsive, stupid and didn't consider ramifications before I acted. Is it really a good idea to give serious firepower to children?

Interestingly, I'm yet to find one giant pig who's in favour of letting kids have guns.

Happy 30th birthday!

To Star Wars.

I really struggled as to whether or not to mention this, but in the end I caved.

Though I am with Simon Pegg when it comes to the prequels.

Obscure national holiday #26

I know that you've all been eagerly waiting for the next installment of 'Obscure national holidays' so it gives me great pleasure to announce that tomorrow will be - Towel Day!

This is a tribute to the late, great Douglas Adams (the author of hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy). Now, I loved the H2G2 books as much as anyone, but in all honesty I find the idea of wandering around with a towel all day just a little bit weird.

But then, I tend to find quite a lot of comic geek behaviour rather creepy if I'm honest.

I for one welcome our new ape overlords

I am happy to report that our glorious ape masters have once more struck a blow for the freedom of brother apes everywhere. This time though, there's VIDEO!

P.S. I love monkeys too.

McDonalds - not just an evil corporate giant...

...but they're also completely out of touch with reality.

I had heard about this piece of news a while back and dismissed it as a fucking stupid idea but apparently the PR bods at MaccyDees disagree with me.

For those of you too slack to read the beeb's coverage - this is McDonald's attempt to get the Oxford English Dictionary to change the definition of a McJob. The definition is currently -

Mc·Job –noun: an unstimulating, low-wage job with few benefits, esp. in a service industry.

Now, thanks to changethedefinition.com, McDonalds are hoping to get enough signatures to force the OED to change it around. I sincerely hope that this is as much of a PR disaster for them as the McLibel case was.

If you would like to complain about the idea that McDonalds is using corporate influence against a British institution, then I would direct you to email David Fairhurst, senior vice president of the company and ask him to keep his hands off the English language.

You might also want to get in touch with Clive Betts MP and express your distaste for this piece of arse kissing.

Supergnar Shredalism

Whatever.

So as winter approaches (what? It's right after summer isn't it?) the snowboard industry has started shaking it's tail feather in my direction trying to tempt me with it's sweet sweet candy. Mostly it's stuff like new kit that's available, and as nice as some of it is, it ain't really blogable.

However, Mack Dawg have released the trailer for their new movie 'Picture This'. For those of you who need this explained, snowboard movies are released every year, and feature a bunch of riders being supergnarly and doing megawootangtrickery. The Mack Dawg crew are some of the best in the world, and their films tend to be pretty awesome.

For the AV nerds out there, I'm sure you'll be happy to know it's also being released in HD DVD. For those of you who have a life and don't spend 45 minutes at a dinner party telling people about the active speaker sound funnel that puts out 1.21 gigawatts that you have - it's being released in normal DVD as well.

Oh those wacky wacky Swiss

The Swiss. A nation famous for cuckoo clocks, chocolate and knives with hacksaws on 'em.

Well, I think there's something else that the Swiss should be famous for. Cow wars!

Now before some animal lover starts crying at the inhumanity of this, I will tell you that the cow's horns are all blunted, and the animals aren't forced to fight (apparently some contests are decided by the first cow to wander away disinterested being named loser).

So there you are. The Swiss. A nation so boring, that when asked to invent a bloodsport they came up with cattle battle. Tune in next week to hear all about Camel Wrestling.

There was no chance I wasn't going to comment on this...

For those who are interested, Rotterdam zoo have a new King Kong attraction.

I have nothing really to say, I just thought I'd let you know about it. Truth be told, I've found the photos from the zoo rather disapointing thus far. I'll let you know if some good ones turn up.

UPDATE! - here's a photo of the ape in question.

Hello True Believers...

I just noticed that despite meaning to have done this for about a month, I haven't actually posted anything up here about 'Heroes' yet (this is now going to delay my Spiderman 3 comments yet further, but I'm sure you can cope with that).

Now, this is a show on the Scifi channel about...

...Heroes (what a shocker!)

More specifically, it's about a genesis point for superheroes. As Picard is so fond of saying in those damn x-men movies "An evolutionary leap". So it deals with normal human beings becoming aware that they aren't quite so ordinary after all.

Now, I remember watching the first episode of this show and not really caring. It wasn't like there was some awesome light and I suddenly fell in love with the show in the way that there was when I saw the first episode of Lost (something else I keep meaning to post about on here).

So for a few weeks I went about my life not really caring about Heroes. Watching the adverts for the show but not really giving a crap. Then one day I come home and it's on, and my housemates won't let me turn it over, so I sit down and watch it. Holy guacamole! It appears that the writers for Heroes decided to try something new with their show - make the first episode crap, then make the rest of them awesome.

You may think I'm exaggerating, but it's the truth - the first episode of heroes was uninspiring, but as the series goes on it gets more and more mega. So now we're nearing the end of the first series, and it's supermega. So you should be watching it, or at the very least feeling bad for not watching it.