You're not the real Hell's Satans!!

Wow, a whole new case of the FBI getting an idea on how to combat crime from the Simpsons.

The Mongols bike gang are being prosecuted under intellectual property laws. Basically, the FBI are trying to say that the Mongols are illegally copying their logo. Now, it's worth noting that the Mongols are a pretty savage bunch and have a long history of clashing heads (and knives, and baseball bats and skulls) with the Hell's Angels...

I love this idea - it's like trying to arrest a tiger for being all stripey.

Bedevilled By Charlatans & Lunatics

What a superb quote. This is from an article on the beeb about a wodge of files on UFO encounters that have been made available through the national archives.

A bunch of these files are available covering UFO encounters from the latter half of the 20th century. You can check it out here, if you're interested in reading about blurry lights in the skies, funny looking men with mister spock ears, a woman from sirius and anal probes.

I was kidding about the anal probes by the way. Oh, and the quote is from Dr David Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University. He's a UFO expert, and has never been anally probed. Probably.

Catching up with me

So I've gone through a patch again where I've been not really updating the blog. My home PC is on it's last legs, so I've not really been doing much in the way of internetting. The good news is that I'm in the process of ordering a new home PC, so that should be sorted very soon.

In other news, I am proud to announce that I shall in less than two weeks have outlived Bruce Lee.

For those of you that don't know, Bruce Lee was (while he was alive of course) the hardest man on the face of the Earth. Bruce Lee could punch you so hard that your grandfather's nose would bleed. Bruce Lee could kick you so hard, that your children's skull's would deform from the impact. Bruce Lee was the ultimate kung fu motherfucker. There is no way in the world that I could take Bruce Lee in a fight.

Fortunately, Bruce Lee's corpse retains little of this kung fu badassery. Bruce Lee's zombie corpse is a short spindly little bastard, and I can easily roundhouse kick his head off.

It's the fall that'll kill ya.

Arrivederci Paul Newman, you blue eyed badass you.

It's a sad thing when the idols you inherited from your parents start dropping like flies. I mean, John Wayne was dead long before I cared, and John Denver (aside from a rather haunting version of Mr Bojangles) never really made an impact on me; but Paul Newman was the fucking man.

I remember my old man insisting that I watch Butch & Sundance with him. I remember bitching that it was in black and white, and so old I didn't want to watch it, and I remember how great a time I had watching that movie.

Paul Newman was so cool he could even make a film like Slapshot awesome.

Looking for work - one professor, slightly wacky.

So, after last week when Doctor Michael Reiss suggested that schools should teach creationism, the Royal Society (who he worked for as Director of Education) have issued a statement...

"Professor Reiss and the Royal Society have agreed that, in the best interests of the Society, he will step down immediately as Director of Education a part time post he held on secondment”.

When run through the WhatTheyReallyMeanOtron, this translates to

"Get that crazy fucker out of here! Creationism in schools? He's gone all mental".

Joe 1 v Evian drinkers 0

This is the news that I am in a better state than all those bottled water swigging mooks out there, and all because I drink cups of tea. Yes that's right. Cups of tea. Milk and 2, first thing in the morning. I can think of at least one chalet owner who should be made to read this page after complaining about my tea drinking habits last year!

You have to admit though, flogging bottled water is a pretty good con. After all, two thirds of the damn planet is water. Though it can be taken too far.

Take for example Coca-Cola. Now while I do love to mention how they desperately try to not mention that their orange drink Fanta was invented by the Nazis, I'm almost tempted to say that calling their branded tapwater (no really, it was just tap water) Dasani "bottled spunk" was an even bigger gaff.

What kind of drunk are you?

Department of health research has split drinkers into nine groups according to their behaviours...

...though I think I've found a tenth group that they've forgotten - the I LIKE A PINT. IT'S A LOVELY FUCKING DRINK. STOP BEING SUCH A BUNCH OF WHINY COCKS.

Sheesh. I get that there are alcoholics out there, but they're alcoholics, not 'drinkers'. I had a pint last night when I got home from work, I didn't fall asleep in my clothes hammered out of my skull, I didn't end up puking up in an alleyway and I didn't wake up this morning with a hangover. I'm a type ten 'drinker' - someone who is completely able to have a pint without being a dribbling fucking moron about it. Quite plainly, it's a type of person the department of health have never come across.

Twats.

Holy common sense!

If you've done any reading of my random twitterings, then you'll know I don't like to pass up the opportunity to call the Catholic church a bunch of homophobic mysogenists with a member of the hitler youth at the head of the table, but today I'm going to do something a bit different. I'm going to say, that the Vatican have pleasantly surprised me today.

This all comes from Professor Michael Reiss of the Royal Society who suggested that maybe we should talk about creationism in schools; apparently in a 'this is what some people who are 100% wrong believe' - I'm not that certain he's right on this one, but the Royal Society have clarified his remarks and he now seems a lot less crazy.

Anyway...where this becomes interesting is that the article references the Vatican's stance on creationism. Admittedly, I'd not really looked into it, and it appears that on this at least, our friends in Rome are remarkably level headed. Now if only they'd sort out their attitude to condoms.

I didn't want to jinx this...

But it does appear that the world hasn't been sucked into a black hole. Which is a good thing.

I would also like to tell everyone that I am now able to watch e4 again as Big Brother has finished. I swear, the day Big Brother dies, I will find Davina McCall and dance around her singing "time for you to find a proper job" while waving a flag with "victory for television that isn't morally bankrupt"on it.

You cannot underestimate how much I hate that damn show.

I almost wish this wasn't a sack of crap

Personally, I'd love to have one of these.

He'd sit lovely on the shelf next to my teddy bear dressed as General Pinochet and my radio controlled Tianemen Square tank with the optional blood soaked fleeing students attachment.

Still, seeing as I've mentioned this, I can also encourage you to buy a wooly penis.

Green Cross Code in China

So let's have a chat about Fang Zheng. Back in 1989, he lost his legs in a traffic accident. Since then, he's won gold medals in Chinese national competitions. So with the Olympics coming up fast you'd image that Fang would be in training?

Nope.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of Fang's traffic accident, he's been disqualified from the Olympics. Apparently, when a tank runs you over in the middle of Tiananmen Square then you lose the right to compete in the Olympics.

But hey, I'm sure Sharron Davis will say that just because China crushed some poor fella's legs with a tank and then banned him from competing in the Olympics it doesn't mean that British atheletes shouldn't endorse China & their games by competing.

Greasing the wheels...

So I know I've been hard on oil companies in the past. I've called them unscrupulous evil fucks, and you know what - perhaps I've been wrong all along.

Exxon have released their profit details for the second quarter of 2008. Now, the cynical among you will bemoan the fact that they're a bunch of price gouging, money grubbing wankers. But if you look at the numbers, they've only made a profit of $1485.55 a second.

Huh?

Yeah that's right. Between April & June, Exxon were making $1485.55 every second. That's a total profit of $11.68 billion in profit. Just to be clear about this, Exxon could have made given away eleven billion dollars, and still made a profit of more than six hundred million dollars.

In three months, they made enough cash that they could give every person on the face of the Earth 2 dollars. Now, maybe it's just me...but a company that's making that much profit (and let's remember, we're not talking about turnover, we're talking about clear profit) should perhaps look at reinvesting their cash...so I shall now endevour to offer them some purchasing options.

1. They could buy NASA. Their annual budget's 16 billion, which means that Exxon could easily have their own space shuttles up and running with less than half a year's profits. Who knows, maybe they'll have some better names for space shuttles than NASA will (they can't do much worse than the UK's space agency, who wanted to name their next venus probe Yappy Dog Three).

2. They can buy Hollywood for the year. According to Forbes, the leading men & women of Hollywood netted 731 million bucks this year. So Exxon could easily afford to buy the biggest ensemble movie ever. They could make a movie of Dallas, with Will Smith as Bobby Ewing and directed by Steven Speilberg.

3. You could play Monopoly for real. Thames Water was recently sold for 7 billion, and I'm pretty sure that with the state of Network Rail, you'd be able to pick up Fenchurch street for about 12 quid. Though building a bunch of identical red hotels may have some problems getting past the planning phase in Kensington.

Or you know...you could give 2 bucks to everyone on the damn planet.

Bunnyhop this motherfucker!

So since my car went and exploded, I've had to bike into work. No big deal, it's good exercise and it's a nice ride, though at four miles either way it does take half an hour each way.

So, imagine my surprise when I came across this story. I'd come across a few people who didn't like cyclists, but I have to say that I'm glad I don't have to bike into work in New York.

My life is a 1960s screwball comedy and I am Jack Lemmon.

So my journey into work today went like this...

I start the car and do a three point turn. The car stalls. I'm not too bothered, the engine's cold and I'm not paying much attention so it was probably my fault. I restart the car and start to head off to work. After about a mile it cuts out again; I bump start it into life but it's making some worrying noises so I decide to turn back and bike in. Before I can turn round, the car dies with some big clanking sounds coming from the engine. As luck would have it, it dies at a six lane crossroads. So now I'm stranded at the side of the road about a mile and a half from home and about two and a half miles from work. I can't leave the car and go on as it's on double yellows next to a major junction.

I call the AA for a tow and get told it'll be 45 minutes. That's no problem says I, as it's the end of July and a lovely day. It starts to rain. Mister AA arrives and confirms that the car's as dead as I think it is. I'd been planning to get rid of it so I'm not massively annoyed, and I ask for a tow home so I can get my bike and get into work. The rain is now pissing it down.

I quickly sort my stuff out and start pedalling in. The rain is now heavy enough that I'm dodging puddles because they look deeper than the mariana trench. I'm about 2 miles into my journey (so around half way for those that haven't been paying attention) and notice that my front wheel's a flat. Arse. I struggle through the torrential rain to the nearest garage, scrounge up 50p from the bottom of my rucksack and attempt to use the air compressor to sort out the car.

No such luck! New air compressors are designed so that they can't be used with bike valves to stop anyone accidentally overinflating their tyre and emancipating their spleen in the resultant highly unlikely explosion. Of course, while these new valves won't put any air in your tyre, they do open the valve so that any air you had left is gone by the time you realise what's happening. So now my front tyre is completely flat.

At this point, the very friendly garage attendant tells me that he has a footpump. That I can buy for the bargain price of six pounds. MOTHERFUCKERRRRR. So here I am at work. I now have a fully inflated front tyre and a brand new footpump with me to go with the one that's sat in the boot of my car. Oh, and six hours later, my feet still aren't completely dry.

Hot Fuzz

Well this is a surprise. Apparently a member of the channel tunnel police has been transferred for misuse of powers granted under the terrorism act. Well this is a surprise isn't it.

Apparently, giving the police the power to detain anyone they want without evidence is being abused. What a shocker!

What I find really surprising is this. The detective constable in question has been transferred. Not - fired, suspended, reprimanded, told not to do it again, fined, demoted, or even made to buy cake for the rest of the police station. Transferred. After her wonderful display of racism, no doubt she's been transferred to Cheshire.

Free French Canada!

This is mainly about the fact that French Canadians are complaining that Paul McCartney is going to be playing at Quebec's 400th birthday party. They're up in arms because Britain was at war with the French and invaded what was then New France (and is now Canada) in 1760.

MORE THAN THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

This isn't the first example of French Canadians being a bit mental. KFC is KFC everywhere, except in Quebec, where it's PFK (Poulet Frit Kentucky). In France, it's KFC. This brings to mind those swarms of Americans who have an uncle who once got punched out of a bar in Cork and so are quite obviously as Irish as anything and walk around dressed all in green on Saint Patrick's day and wax lyrical about the old country.

I find it perplexing that the most Patriotic Europeans appear to be from North America. Zoot Alours!

Best and worst covers. Ever.

So, the gitter uber nerds at Total Guitar magazine have come up with the five best and worst covers ever.

The best don't really have any surprises, but here they are...

5. Feeling Good - Muse
4. The Man Who Sold The World - Nirvana
3. Live And Let Die - Guns N Roses
2. Twist And Shout - The Beatles
1. All Along The Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix

The worst of course, is where all the excitement is...

In at number five is Mike Flowers Pop with his cover of Wonderwall.
Number four is Will Young's own take on Light My Fire by The Doors.
Westlife stand proud at number three for their cover of funk rocker's Extreme's ballad More Than Words.
Girls Aloud are at number two with their cheerful slaughter of the classic Walk This Way (I saw this on telly the other day, and I actually threw up a small Mexican orphan boy I was so appalled).
and at number one?
This.

I fucking hate Celine Dion.

Normal service resumed?

If there is such a thing.

Between snowboarding and work I've been rather hectic of late, and so there have been no updates to this blog (despite Barn basically begging me to get off my arse and updaterate).

In the end, I've been shamed into action because Eoin looks to be sorting his shitty blog out; and there's no way I can let that gangly irish git upstage me.

I'm back motherfuckers!

You should stock up on pine cones.

According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pack of squirrels have attacked and killed a large dog in the park in the centre of Lazo - a town in the far east of Russia. Witnesses have said that the big stray dog was nosing around trees and barking at a gang of squirrels hiding in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended and attacked.

"They literally gutted the dog," local journalist Anastasia Trubitsina told the newspaper.

A (rather mysterious) Lazo man who called himself Mikhalich said there had been "no pine cones at all" in the local forests this year.

"The little beasts are agitated because they have nothing to eat," he added.

So there you go. Stock up on pine cones - they may save your life, because once those fuckers have eaten all the dogs, they'll be coming for you.

Good morning Norway

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything, but I've been away snowboarding (more on that later).

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say good morning to the people of Longyearbyen in the Spitsbergen region of Norway. Longyearbyen is the most northerly town in the world, and today is their first day of sunshine since October.

I'll leave the last words to local resident Mary Ann Dahle - "It feels good when the light starts to come back, the darkness can be very depressing."