A New Car

Woohoo. My new car arrived yesterday. A shiny red Focus. As it was delivered home I've had to wait until now to actually see it in daylight! Oooooh... pretty...

I'm a bit scared...

...by this rather precarious pile of washing up that Kazza has done.

It's a bit like Jenga. Often in the morning, I'll come downstairs and need a mug or a bowl from the bottom of the pile. So I'm subjected to a rather complicated process whereby each item must be removed in exactly the right oder, without disturbing the delicate balance of the structure! It's a good way to get started in the morning - kinda like doing a bit of Brain Training!

Microwave Jug Handle Detector Circuit

I'm absolutely convinced that our microwave is equipped with a handle detector. Whenever I put a jug,mug or other receptacle with a handle into the microwave, without fail at the end of the programme, it ends up with the handle pointing towards the back of the microwave, meaning I have to grope around at the back to get it out. EVERY TIME!

I've tried fooling it. Putting the handle in at the back or the side in an effort to affect the final handle position, but to no avail. It always points directly backward.

I've even tried experimenting with it, to make sure that the phenomoenon is not just a random one. I've put a jug in, handle forward for exactly a minute. At the end of the programme the handle points backwards. I've put a jug in, handle backward, with the same result.

How the hell is this happening??? I think it might be eating away at my sanity. Someone help, please!

A funny thing happened in the supermarket...

I had a minor incident in the supermarket today. I had to pop in there on my way to Stead's house to grab some bits and pieces for lunch.

As I was walking down the (rather busy) bread aisle, searching for some tasty baps I felt movement in my jeans. A strange shifting, if you like. I knew I hadn't soiled myself, and I was pretty sure that I hadn't passed a ferret farm on my way to Tesco.

The offending object began to work it's way down my left leg. I looked around. There were several people in the aisle with me, so I couldn't exactly whip my trews off to see what it was. I had to shake my leg and work it down, until it was near my shoe. Then I crouched as if to do my shoe laces up (not very convincing to anyone paying attention as I was wearing slip-ons) and snuck the item out of my trouser leg.

It was a sock.

Sorry. That was a bit of an anti climax, wasn't it. It seems that when I got undressed last night and carelessly tossed my clothes on the floor, one of my socks found its way into my jeans and then, when I pulled 'em on this morning I failed to check 'em for stowaway socks. Odd thing is though, I'd been up and about for a couple of hours before the sock made it's presence felt.

Anyway... sorry to have wasted your time!

There's no such thing as too much Mr T

This won't be controversial at all!

Nope. Not even slightly.

Hollywood takes action hero Jesus to India

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Hollywood is to fill in the Bible's "missing years" with a story about Jesus as a wandering mystic who travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the iniquities of the country's caste system.
Film producers have delved deep into revisionist scholarship to piece together what they say was Jesus's life between the ages of 13 and 30, a period untouched by the recognised gospels.

The result is the Aquarian Gospel, a $20m movie, which portrays Jesus as a holy man and teacher inspired by a myriad of eastern religions in India. The Aquarian Gospel takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity's eastern roots and is in its 53rd reprint.
[...]
The film, which is due for release in 2009, sets out to be a fantasy action adventure account of Jesus's life with the three wise men as his mentors. Although the producers say the film will feature a "young and beautiful" princess, it is not clear whether Jesus is to have a love interest.

---

Yeah. Action hero Jesus. 'And yea, I say unto you, Yippie Kai Ay oh, lovers of the mother!'

For $20m, it ain't exactly gonna be a big deal...

My favourite quote of the day!

"On the advice of an astrologer and others, he decided to marry a bitch to get cured. Then we arranged Selvakumar's marriage with a bitch."

heh heh heh...

Strangely, in context it's even odder...

Man 'marries' dog to beat curse

---

An Indian man has "married" a female dog, hoping the move will help atone for stoning two other dogs to death.
P Selvakumar, 33, said he had been cursed since the killings, suffering paralysis and a loss of hearing.

The wedding took place at a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu state. The "bride" wore an orange sari with a flower garland and was fed a bun to celebrate.

Superstitious people in rural India sometimes organise weddings to animals in the hope of warding off curses.

'Tried every cure'

Crowds cheered the newly-weds at the end of the ceremony in Sivaganga district, about 50km (30 miles) east of the city of Madurai.

The "bride", who is called Selvi, was led to the temple in Manamudurai wearing a sari before vows were exchanged in a traditional Hindu ceremony.

A relative of the groom who attended the wedding said he hoped Mr Selvakumar would now be cured.

"Fifteen years back Selvakumar was physically fit. But, once he attacked a pair of dogs and thereafter Kumar could not move his limbs freely," the relative, Ramu, told the BBC.

"He tried every cure for his ailment but could not be rid of his disability.

"On the advice of an astrologer and others, he decided to marry a bitch to get cured. Then we arranged Selvakumar's marriage with a bitch."

---

What's wrong with people?

I'm just...stunned.

I picked up an audioboook copy of Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything a few weeks ago from Waterstones for £18. Having listened to it, I stuck it on eBay. Yesterday evening, the bidding on it went up to £35. This is despite putting in the description 'This cost almost £20 new'. I was expecting about a tenner. Now I've almost doubled my money.

Checked my listings this morning to see how they'd ended. Bryson didn't go up any more, however the Mario Party 8 which was at £20 last time I looked had shot up to £30. That's... um... a fiver more than they could have got it from an Amazon seller and about £2 more than amazon are selling it new.

It wasn't that long ago that I flogged the PC version of the first Halo game for abut £18 on eBay. I'd paid less than a tenner for it on Amazon a few months beforehand.

I'm obviously on a roll. I'm gonna try flogging some of my old socks... or maybe some bread crusts...

A word of advice...

Don't use the teaspoon that you used to stir the extra thick instant gravy to later stir your tea. It tends to make the tea a bit chickeny.

Traffic

And I thought the Friday night traffic out of Bristol was bad... try India...



I also came across this which is pretty damn scary:

Is it wrong...

...That I really really want one of these?

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This handheld mobile phone jammer is designed for provide ultimate solution in any area where cellular communications usually cause nuisance, crafted with advanced high-frequency signal microcomputer controlling technology, it is an instrument built to cut-off mobile phone from receiving and transmitting the mobile phones signals to the base station. Prevent unwanted surveillance, monitor, or leaking news, it is capable to help you block alway all these no matter in a conference room, business headquarter, a moving vehicle, or anywhere in the world.

---

I just read this article. Afew of the guys mentioned in it now qualify as my heroes. I have to say, though - I would only use it for mischief! Heh heh heh...

Monkeysphere

This article is a bit bit on the long side, but I thought the concept was interesting enough to share the first bit of it. It's worth following the link just to look at the monkey pictures!

Why You Don't Care About 99% of Humanity

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"One death is a tragedy. One million deaths is a statistic."
-Sportacus

What do monkeys have to do with war, oppression, crime, racism and even e-mail spam? You'll see that all of the random ass-headed cruelty of the world will suddenly make perfect sense once we go Inside the Monkeysphere.

"What the Hell is the Monkeysphere?"

First, picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if that helps you. We'll call him Slappy.



Imagine you have Slappy as a pet. Imagine a personality for him. Maybe you and he have little pirate monkey adventures and maybe even join up to fight crime. Think how sad you'd be if Slappy died.

Now, imagine you get four more monkeys. We'll call them Tito, Bubbles, Marcel and ShitTosser. Imagine personalities for each of them now. Maybe one is aggressive, one is affectionate, one is quiet, the other just throws shit all the time. But they're all your personal monkey friends.

Now imagine a hundred monkeys.

Not so easy now, is it? So how many monkeys would you have to own before you couldn't remember their names? At what point, in your mind, do your beloved pets become just a faceless sea of monkey? Even though each one is every bit the monkey Slappy was, there's a certain point where you will no longer really care if one of them dies.

So how many monkeys would it take before you stopped caring?

That's not a rhetorical question. We actually know the number.

"So this whole thing is your crusade against monkey overpopulation? I'll have my monkey castrated this very day!"
Uh, no. It'll become clear in a moment.

You see, monkey experts performed a monkey study a while back, and discovered that the size of the monkey's monkey brain determined the size of the monkey groups the monkeys formed. The bigger the brain, the bigger the little societies they built.

They cut up so many monkey brains, in fact, that they found they could actually take a brain they had never seen before and from it they could accurately predict what size tribes that species of creature formed.

Most monkeys operate in troupes of 50 or so. But somebody slipped them a slightly larger brain and they estimated the ideal group or society for this particular animal was about 150.

That brain, of course, was human. Probably from a homeless man they snatched off the streets.


"So that's the big news? That humans are God's big-budget sequel to the monkey? Who didn't know that?"
It goes much, much deeper than that. Let's try an example.

Famous news talking guy Tim Russert tells a charming story about his father, in his book Big Russ and Me (the title referring to his on-and-off romance with actor Russell Crowe). Russert's dad used to take half an hour to carefully box up any broken glass before taking it to the trash. Why? Because "The trash guy might cut his hands."

That this was such an unusual thing to do illustrates my monkey point. None of us spend much time worrying about the garbage man's welfare even though he performs a crucial role in not forcing us to live in a cave carved from a mountain of our own filth. We don't usually consider his safety or comfort at all and if we do, it's not in the same way we would worry over our best friend or wife or girlfriend or even our dog.

People toss half-full bottles of drain cleaner right into the barrel, without a second thought of what would happen if the trash man got it splattered into his eyes. Why? Because the trash guy exists outside the Monkeysphere.


"There's that word again..."
The Monkeysphere is the group of people who each of us, using our monkeyish brains, are able to conceptualize as people. If the monkey scientists are monkey right, it's physically impossible for this to be a number much larger than 150.

Most of us do not have room in our Monkeysphere for our friendly neighborhood sanitation worker. So, we don't think of him as a person. We think of him as The Thing That Makes The Trash Go Away.

And even if you happen to know and like your particular garbage man, at one point or another we all have limits to our sphere of monkey concern. It's the way our brains are built. We each have a certain circle of people who we think of as people, usually our own friends and family and neighbors, and then maybe some classmates or coworkers or church or suicide cult.

Those who exist outside that core group of a few dozen people are not people to us. They're sort of one-dimensional bit characters.

Remember the first time, as a kid, you met one of your school teachers outside the classroom? Maybe you saw old Miss Puckerson at Taco Bell eating refried beans through a straw, or saw your principal walking out of a dildo shop. Do you remember that surreal feeling you had when you saw these people actually had lives outside the classroom?

I mean, they're not people. They're teachers.

"So? What difference does all this make?"
Oh, not much. It's just the one single reason society doesn't work.

It's like this: which would upset you more, your best friend dying, or a dozen kids across town getting killed because their bus collided with a truck hauling killer bees? Which would hit you harder, your Mom dying, or seeing on the news that 15,000 people died in an earthquake in Iran?

They're all humans and they are all equally dead. But the closer to our Monkeysphere they are, the more it means to us. Just as your death won't mean anything to the Chinese or, for that matter, hardly anyone else more than 100 feet or so from where you're sitting right now.


"Why should I feel bad for them? I don't even know those people!"

Exactly. This is so ingrained that to even suggest you should feel their deaths as deeply as that of your best friend sounds a little ridiculous. We are hard-wired to have a drastic double standard for the people inside our Monkeysphere versus the 99.999% of the world's population who are on the outside.

---

My Clown Shoes Rant

What is it with clown shoes?

My work shoes have finally kicked the bucket - they're falling apart insiode and so reluctantly, I had to go shoe shopping this evening after work.

It seems that the shoe shop moguls have conspired to require me to purchase enormously long pointy shoes. Every shoe shop I went into had these... clown shoes. That's the only way I can describe them. Long pointy shoes. So long in fact that the size nine shoe pictured on the left is an inch and a half longer than my own size eleven shoe on the right.

I mean, how do you walk up stairs with these things? Your toes will never get close enough to the step to afford you any purchase. I'd be forever tripping over them (more so than I do anyway, I mean)! It's madness, I tell you.

I had to search high and low for ages before I found any sensible ones.

Are long pointy shoes okay? Or are they just silly? And why are there so many of them?

Julie, The Dinner Lady

We have a dinner lady in our canteen named Julie. She's rubbish. She's also a very friendly lady who tries to be very helpful, but that doesn't change the fact that she's rubbish at being a dinner lady.

By way of an example... I encountered her 3 times yesterday - once to buy my morning cuppa, once for my lunch and once for an afternoon cuppa.

She got the morning cuppa right.

Lunch was interesting... during her efforts to locate the mislaid leek and stilton sauce for my turkey escalope, mash and vegetables (it wasn't as nice as it sounds - it's a staff canteen, remember), she entirely forgot to give me the vegetables. So when I got my dinner downstairs and opened the styrofoam carton, I found turkey, mash and sauce, but no vegetables.

Then came the ultimate travesty. I popped up to the canteen just before it closed for my customary afternoon cuppa and, rather then ordinary tea, she gave me Earl Grey. I don't mind Earl Grey too much as long as it has no milk in it, but when you're expecting ordinary PG tips with a splash of milk, an Earl Grey with a splash of milk is a pretty horrible surprise.

She was mortified when I mentioned the Earl Grey incident to her. I briefly considered mentioning my lack of veggies to her, but decided that her heart probably couldn't take it!

On the other hand, she does give me larger portions than anyone else and always saves me an apple!

My Bloody Phone!

I have decided that my mobile phone (that's cellphone to you colonials) is rubbish!It's supposed to be well cool. It's a Sony Ericsson P990. I used to have the P800 and then upgraded to the P900 - both excellent phones, despite the number of times I dropped 'em, sat on 'em and generally abused 'em. I only upgraded to the P990 cos I'd managed to horribly scratch the touchscreen and cracked the casing on my P900 quite badly!

I love the touchscreen which recognises my handwriting (Apple's iPhone ain't nuffink revolutionary!), I love that they stuck a full querty keyboard on it just in case I get bored with the handwriting recognition. I love the fact that I can browse the net and post on the bored board or facebook or check my e-mails. I love the little bit of software on it that lets me quickly check the cctv cameras on the motorway before I go home in the evening to ensure that there's no delays. I love the 2.3 megapixel camera on it and the huge storage capacity.

But...

Not only does the clock on it lose about 10 minutes a week, it arbitrarily decides to disable the alarm clock function, randomly answers itself with no external intervention, frequently drops calls half way through - not that it makes much difference cos the sound quality on is rubbish anyway, switches on it's bluetooth function all by itself and connects itself to the handsfree earpiece I keep in the car - unless I'm actually in the car, in which case it refuses to connect to it at all; and takes about 3 weeks to do anything I ask it to. Just opening a text message to read is painful. The so-called 3G internet connection is slower than dialup on a bad day!

So basically, I'm fed up with it. It appears to be made of pants. Not fine Egyptian cotton pants, but nasty polyester pants from Primark. Problem is, I'm only about 6 months into an 18 month contract (when did they start doing that, anyway - it always used to be 12 months... grr) so I have no free/subsidised upgrade options.

What do I do. Should I grit my teeth and put up with the phone's rubbishness? Should I bite the bullet and fork out for a new one? Or should I just stop complaining?

Grim

Oh dear god.
The following story is anecdotal. It allegedly happened to someone on the third floor, who told a friend of one of my colleagues. If it's true, most of the other grimness that you've read about is positively tame by comparison.
I suggest that if you are eating, or intending to eat any time soon, or you are simply of a delicate disposition, then you read no further.
This friend of a friend of a colleague was walking to the bus stop about 20 yards from the main entrance to our building. This stretch of pavement is quite public and is well trodden.
Waiting at the bus stop was a woman accompanied by around six children... one of which was taking a dump on the pavement!
To make matters worse than they already were (and you have to admit, it was already pretty bad) the mother, rather than scolding the child or at the very least, taking the child into the bushes to do it's dirty business, was chivvying the child along saying 'Haven't you finished yet? The bus will be here in a minute'.
Needless to say, the friend of a friend of a colleague took the wise decision not to wait for the bus at that stop, or, indeed to catch the same bus as this family from hell.
Now, it all sounds just a little far fetched, but on my way into the office this morning I pass that bus stop and I do recall having to side step what I thought was a dog turd...
What the hell is wrong with people? I mean, there's a public loo a few hundred yards down the street - was that too far to go? I'm sorry Stead. Your crossbow just won't do this time. We need to nuke Bedminster. Right now (actually, give me about 10 minutes to get out of the target zone)!

The Jammie Dodger Bored Board Ain't on top no more! Oh noes....

Uh oh. The Jammie Dodger Bored Board (the message board that I run for bored people - think of it as a support group) has dropped from it's prime spot at the top of a google search for 'JDBB' to half way down the third page! Argh! Whatever will I do? Well, according to a couple of web pages I found on the subject one of the best ways to keep a web page well represented on Google is to link to it and mention it by name on a few blogs.

I have a blog. This is it. And this is me mentioning the Jammie Dodger Bored Board (aka the JDBB by name. And here's a link. And another one just to be thorough.

You may now go about your normal business!

Bristol Balloon Fiesta

The weekend just gone played host to the Bristol Balloon Fiesta, which I attended for the first time. And I used my new video camera to record the proceeding. And here, courtesy of youtube is the finished product (in 2 parts!).

This footage is mainly of the evening mass liftoff which took place at Ashton Court at around 7pm; however the shots over Clifton Suspension Bridge and any really long shots you see were taken of the morning liftoff at about 7am on the same day from the area around Clifton Observatory and Clifton Village.



And this is the night glow!

Beware the Killer Badgers

British blamed for Basra badgers

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British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra.
Word spread among the populace that UK troops had introduced strange man-eating, bear-like beasts into the area to sow panic
But several of the creatures, caught and killed by local farmers, have been identified by experts as honey badgers.

The rumours spread because the animals had appeared near the British base at Basra airport.

UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.

"We have been told these are indigenous nocturnal carnivores that don't attack humans unless cornered."

The director of Basra's veterinary hospital, Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, has inspected several of the animals' corpses.

He told the AFP news agency: "These appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They are known locally as Al-Girta.

"Talk that this animal was brought by the British forces is incorrect and unscientific."

Dr Ghazi Yaqub Azzam, deputy dean of Basra's veterinary college, speculated that the badgers were being driven towards the city because of flooding in marshland north of Basra.

But the assurances did little to convince some members of the public.

One housewife, Suad Hassan, 30, claimed she had been attacked by one of the badgers as she slept.

"My husband hurried to shoot it but it was as swift as a deer," she said. "It is the size of a dog but his head is like a monkey," she told AFP.

---

Heh heh heh... "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."

Actually, I much prefer the calm measued reporting of the incident from the Australian Daily telegraph:

Giant badgers terrorise Iraqi port city

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THE Iraqi port city of Basra, already prey to a nasty turf war between rival militia factions, has now been gripped by a scary rumour giant badgers are stalking the streets by night, eating humans.

The animals were allegedly released into the area by British forces.

Local farmers have caught and killed several of the beasts, but this has done nothing to dispel the rumour.

Iraqi scientists have attempted to calm things down. However, the story has spread like wildfire in the streets of the city and the villages round about.

Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, director of Basra's veterinary hospital, has inspected the corpses of several badgers and tries to reassure Iraqis that the animals are not a new post-war arrival in the region.

These animals appeared before the fall of the regime in 1986. They are known as Al-Ghirayri and locally as Al-Girta, he told AFP. Talk that this animal was brought by the British forces is incorrect and unscientific.

Not everybody is convinced.

I believe this animal appeared following a raid to the region by the British forces, said Ali Mohsen, a farmer in his 40s from Karmat Ali, near the air base used by the multinational force.

As we are close to the airport, they probably released this animal into the area.

[...]

British army spokesman Major David Gell said the animals were thought to be a kind of honey badger melivora capensis which can be fierce but are not usually dangerous to humans unless provoked.

They are native to the region but rare in Iraq. They're nocturnal carnivores with a fearsome reputation, but they don't stalk humans and carry them back to their lair, he said.

Both the scientists and the soldiers agree that the badger ought not to be a danger to humans, but so far they have failed to reassure the populace.

[...]

Sattar Jabbar, a 50-year-old local farmer from Abu Sakhar north of Basra, believes the badger can tackle even large prey.

I saw it three days ago at night attacking animals. It even ate a cow. It tore the cow up piece by piece. I tried to shoot it with my gun but it ran away into the orchards. I missed it, he said.

---

All together now... badger badger badger...

Inane Babble

Just to make up for the general quietness on here recently, here is some of my trademarked inane babble for you to enjoy:

[babble]

There's a new girl in my office. She's quite petite and a redhead. Not bad looking. Today, however she's wearing a jumper that makes her look like a bumble bee. And she has a habit of showing bum cleavage which, contrary to expactations, isn't very nice. So there's a whole bumblebee bum cleavage thing going on there. I wonder what she'll dress as tomorrow.

I'm also enjoying the view outside my window at the moment. It's been a pretty deary miserable day and has been raining on and off, and it's amusing me to watch the poor, poor smokers who now have to huddle under the one tree in the car park while they smoe their fags. They all look really miserable.

Also, my right hand has been twitching all day. My little finger and my thumb keep going in unison and I don't know why. Also my index finger keeps going off and I find myself accidentally clicking stuff with the mouse. It's quite comical. And I have a tiny bit of pins and needles in the fingers of both hands. Am I going to die?

[/babble]

18th Century France smells really bad!

Last night, Dr Karen and I watched Perfume: the story of a murderer on DVD.

It's a pretty odd movie about a guy who has a super duper sense of smell - kinda like a super power. It's set in 18th century france, which smelled really bad, so he hasn't got a lot going for him! Anyway, he decides to become a perfumier and then decides that he has to make the perfect scent, which he can only go by...er... distilling the scent of various hot french chicks. By killing them, obviously.

They guy playing the lead, Ben Whishaw, who I've never heard of, was very good in his part - not very eloquent, but sniffs really well and has some pretty good body language going on.

Dustin Hoffman plays a professional italian perfumier who hires Sniffer Boy, but since the rest of the cast is English, puts on a decidedly ropey english accent. It doesn't detract from the movie though - he just comes off as a bit odd, which is perfectly in keeping with pretty much everything else in the film.

Alan Rickman turns up half way through the film and lends his...er... Alan Rickmanness to the proceedings. He's always cool. Oh and John Hurt adds his dulcet tones to the mix as a narrator.

It's not actually a gory film, although the first few minutes have some yucky close ups of some rather unpleasant bits and pieces, depicting the nasty grimness of the slums in which the main character is born. After that, it's not so bad. There are several boobies in it and the end is totally unexpected and rather naked. More naked than you could possibly imagine!

I really enjoyed it and I think Dr K did too. Another great movie that ignores Hollywood conventions and goes off and does it's own thing! Watch it if you get a chance.

The P.O.O.F. Strikes Back!

So the response to my email to the Poncey Overpriced Organic Food Shop came back this morning. That was a nice quick turnaround. And it's from a co-founder, apparently.

Thank you for your interest in the c-change trust climate change banner in the Fresh and Wild store in Bristol.
I am sorry that you experienced some distress by what you read. If i may first directly respond to your concerns about our facts.

Climate change is now widely accepted across the scientific community as a reality.
The most up to date and solid scientific evidence for climate change presented by the IPCC may be viewed here : http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Far from being a false slogan, this IPCC report is accepted by almost every government in the world as solid fact.
From the world's largest corporations to the smallest business in every country, people are organising to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions on the basis of this evidence.
Many now realise that If we do not reduce our emissions of CO2 the Earth's temperature will increase to dangerous levels in the future.

Everybody produces some CO2 so we are all responsible in some small way, yet we can all do something really simple to reduce those emissions.
We must stress that this is certainly not a matter for feeling any guilt, the banners simply remind us that we are being required to act.

Fresh and Wild has supported the c-change trust in an important in-store awareness campaign concerning the carbon emissions behind food miles.
This campaign is not aimed at selling products but simply to allow valued customers to make a more informed consumer choice.

I hope this answers your question.
With kind regards

[...], Co-founder

If after reviewing the facts yourself perhaps you would like to offset your carbon emissions online? If so then please visit our website at www.thec-changetrust.org

It's nice that they interpreted my irrational need to wind up a faceless corporation as 'distress'.

So basically its the usual wishy washy claptrap that gets rolled out by climate change activists with it reference to the infamous and contentious IPCC report and bold claims about carbon dioxide and so-on. I'm still not seeing anything that [i]actually proves[/i] the influence of Man on the climate. In fact the report that he asks me to look at states:

The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since the Third Assessment Report (TAR), leading to very high confidence7 that the globally averaged net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming...

"A very high confidence" is in a whole different league to "it has been conclusively proven". Which makes the statement

Far from being a false slogan...

a little bit moot.

Next up: ddvmor gets narky about the use of the word 'Man' in the statement 'It has been proven that Man is the cause of global warming'. Sounds a bit sexist to me. Is the shop discriminating against me? Do women not create greenhouse gasses? I know... women who wear stiletto heels make smaller footprints, so...

Ho hum. That's my fun for the week. :) I'm going to go and offset my carbon emissions online now. I bet they want my credit card number...

FBI vs The Zombie Hordes

The title of this article on the BBC Website showed lots of promise:

---

FBI tries to fight zombie hordes

---

The sad reality, however was less interesting:

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The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals.

The initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the use of hijacked home computers, or zombies, as launch platforms for hi-tech crimes.

The FBI has found networks of zombie computers being used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites.

The agency said the zombies or bots were "a growing threat to national security".

---

It would have been much better if it had read something like this:

---

The FBI is contacting more than one million people who's friends and relatives have turned into flesh eating zombies.

The initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the hideous plans of the flesh eating zombies to munch their way through the world's population.

The FBI has found networks of rotting zombies being used to spread zombieism by chomping passers by.

The agency said the zombies "a growing threat to national security".

---

Evil Organisations

So, one of the forums that I visit regularly recently had a Sky TV bashing thread and this got me to thinking.

It seems to me that as an organisation grows to a certain size, it acquires hate and revulsion. I'm not sure if it's a head count thing, a profits thing or a success thing. Sky gets it, Starbucks gets it, Tesco gets it, Lloyds TSB gets it and George Lucas, Michael Bay and Russell T Davies get it. I'm pretty sure that we're automatically programmed to hate success.

Remember the episode of South Park where the kids had to write a speech about Starbucks, which was taking over the local coffee shop? It was also the one with Tweek and the Underpants Gnomes, I think!

They came to the conclusion that it was right an proper that Starbucks was as big as it was because they did good coffee and had a good business model.

I think Sky have a pretty good model - they give their customers what they want and, more importantly they give their shareholders what they want. Everything they do is geared toward good business for them rather than what Virgin Media's customers want. I'm OK with it. I don't currently have Sky and it doesn't bother me (although I do have to get a mate to record Boston Legal for me!).

A quick search on google will show that the general opinion that is voiced about Tesco is that they are evil and bad, simply because they've expanded into a huge organisation. This guy states that this is because they made a billion pounds worth of profit the year before last.
My own dad pronounces that Banks such as Lloyds TSB are evil bloodsucking leeches because they posted 4 billion pounds profit off the backs of the hard working masses.

Joe Internet (Joe Public's computer literate cousin) seem to revile George Lucas these days because of the vast amount of money he makes off the Star Wars movies. Okay, his lastest movies weren't top notch, but apparently he only made them to squeeze a couple more billion dollars out of the franchise.

Well guess what, guys. The one thing that all these guys have in common is that they (or the people working for them) are very, very good at business. And the people who will suffer as a result of that are the ones who aren't very good at doing business.

Just sayin', is all...

Dazza And The Poncey Overpriced Organic Food Shop

Haven't posted for a while, so I'll share this anecdote:

I went into 'Fresh & Wild' on my way home from work yesterday evening. Not, as the name suggests some sort of strip joint, but a poncey, overpriced organic food shop.

My rational for going into a poncey overpriced organic food shop was that it's next door to another shop I had to visit and I couldn't be bothered to stop off at a supermarket on the way home.

So while I was in the poncey overpriced organic food shop, I noticed a large banner handing from the ceiling which read 'It has been proven that Man is the cause of global warming'.

Well, I said to myself, if it's on a banner hanging from the ceiling of a poncey overpriced organic food shop, it must be true.

Pff.

Anywhoo, I took this up with the slightly foreign girl behind the counter when I went to pay. The conversation went something like this.

JDK: Afternoon.
Girl: Hello. Do you need a carrier bag?
JDK: Yes, please.

The girl didn't look impressed. The sign behind the till suggested that I was supposed to save the planet by bringing my own.

Girl: Here.
JDK: Thanks. Can I ask you about that banner over there.
Girl: Which one?
JDK: The one that says 'It has been proven that Man is the cause of global warming'
Girl: What about it?
JDK: Well, it's not true, is it?
Girl: Of course it is.
JDK: Far from it actually. And I'm pretty sure that the presence of the sign is libellous.
Girl: What?

I'm pretty sure that this was the point that I lost her.

JDK: As one of the 'Men' to which it refers, I can confirm that I have not been convicted in court of causing global warming. Therefore the sign is libellous. It's untrue.
You should probably take it down - or at least amend it to 'Its possible that Man may be a partial contributary factor to global warming'.
Girl: That's £14.26, please.
JDK: Is this bag biodegradeable?
Girl: No.

I can't be certain as I was facing the other way at the time, but I'm pretty sure she made an attempt on my life as I left the poncey overpriced organic food shop.

Anyway, just for giggles, I decided to send the attached e-mail to their corporate HQ, which I tracked down to... well, somewhere in the States:

Dear sir/madam.

Whilst in your Bristol store yesterday evening, I noticed a large banner hanging from the ceiling which read 'It has been proven that Man is the cause of global warming'.

Now, I am unaware of any such proof existing and am of the understanding that this issue is in contention and has been for some years.

I would be grateful if you could provide a copy of said proof so that I can satisfy myself that the statement is true and not simply an alarmist and false slogan designed to sell your products - a prectice that is, I believe, illegal in this country. Indeed, as one of the 'Men' mentioned in this statement, I would consider this statement to be libellous and defamatory to my character.

You would not, after all, erect a banner declaring that an innocent man is a murderer or paedophile. I will, upon receipt of said evidence, consider my legal options.

I look forward to hearing from you in the very near future.

If they're sensible, they will ignore me and I'll probably go away, however I hopenthey send me a lovely defensive e-mail in return!

Incidentally, from the Poncey Overpriced Organic Food Shop, I purchased poncey overpriced organic sausages, poncey overpriced organic rice cakes, a jar of poncey overpriced organic bolognese sauce, a bottle of poncey overpriced organic red wine, a bottle of poncey overpriced organic apple and ginger juice, a packet of poncey overpriced organic seeds and beans, 2 pints of poncey overpriced organic skimmed milk, 2 pints of poncey overpriced organic semi skimmed milk and... er... that's it, I think. It would have come to about £7 or £8 in Tesco, I reckon.

And, as someone pointed out to me, if one uses an acronym to describe the Poncey Overpriced Organic Food shop, it would seem that I've been buying stuff in a P.O.O.F. Shop.

Another Philip K Dick Movie

Now, last night I finally got around to watching 'A Scanner Darkly' - a movie based on a Philip K Dick novel with Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Junior that was done in a cartoony style. Overall it was quite good, although I don't think I'd go out of my way to watch it again. It seemed to meander around for the majority of the film with not much in the way of plot driving it forward - the only thing that saved it from the off button was the rather excellent banter between the three lead characters - particularly Downey, who was superb - although he mumbled a lot! Then it picked up with the last quarter with a couple of twists.

I'm not sure what the benefit of the cartoon style was. It would have been just as good a movie if they'd filmed it in a traditional style. At first I assumed that they'd done it to keep costs down - you can get away with ropey lighting, dodgy sets and even crappier acting if you're cartoonizing them. This theory only stood up if the cartooning process was some sort of cheap automated one, though.

Turns out they hand-drew each frame on top of the filmed frame and it took about 50 people 18 months to complete. So overall the costs would have been about the same. So the only reason for the style was to...er... make it look a bit different from other movies and maybe draw in a few curious punters to a movie that probably wouldn't attract that many viewers. I don't think it added anything, although it was kinda pretty.

UK COINAGE

I've had a growing pile of small denomination coins on my desk for quite some time now. There's about a pound in coppers and a bunch of 5p's. Not quite enough to retire on, but enough to buy a cup of tea from the canteen in an emergency!

This pile has taken many forms. At one point is was a pound-high tower of coppery glory. This proved unstable, however and kept falling down every time I opened or closed my drawers or if someone walked past, or beathed a bit heavily.So the pile underwent a transformation and became two perfect squares of coppers - one of pennies and the other of 2p's. The 5p's stayed where they were. Then they were merged into a pretty hexagonal(ish) pattern. It was all lovely and very artistic.

This morning, a colleague wandered over to my desk. It was very early, so there weren't many people around. As we discussed important stuff (and things), she started to rearrange the coins on my desk. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but a very interesting pattern began to take shape, and it suddenly became very, very important that we complete it. We had to scavenge a few more coins from colleagues, but eventually we managed it. And it's truly glorious!

Here it is in it fabulous gloriousness! Click on the image for a bigger version!

Movies Wot I Saw

So me 'n Dr Karen and Stead went to see Spiderman 3 on Friday. What a disappointment. After setting the bar so high on the previous two movies, you'd think that having the same team on board for the third installment would have ensured a similarly fantastic movie. Not the case apparently. Instead we were treated to a rubbish plot, one or two admittedly spectacular fight scenes, too many bad guys and way to much whining from Mary Jane Watson about how Peter Parker doesn't understand her and how do you think that makes her feeeeeel? And an unnatural preoccupation with wanting to talk about their relationship. It was quite watchable, but should have been 50 times better!

On the other hand, I saw Children of Men last night - a British movie which was about Clive Owen running around in flip-flops trying to save a pregnant foreign girl from some very bad people. This presented a very scary vision of the future in which everybody (except the pregnant foreign girl) is infertile and the British goverment has decided to deport all of the foriegners (including the pregnant foreign girl). Except that by 'deport' they seem to mean 'chuck 'em in a nasty commune in Bexhill'. Lots of exciting drama and one really amazing set piece near the end that's a fantastic technical acheivement as well as being very very cool.

Once you've seen it, CoM will go down in your memory as 'That Movie With Clive Owen In Flip-Flops'. Although at one point, he loses one of them, so for a bit it's 'That Movie With Clive Owen In A Flip-Flop'. It also sports one of the slowest car chases I've ever seen! Weeeeeeeeeee!

This is not a post about loo roll!

I caught Dr Karen reading a thread about the number of sheets of loo roll that one uses after doing a Number Two on another forum last night. She suggested that it was just the sort of whacky and distasteful subject that I might start a thread about.

I would just like to clarify that I do not intend to start such a thread and I certainly do not intend to share with the general interweb populace that my average Number Twos loo roll usage is about 9 sheets.

Thank you.

Sir Patrick Moore

I think you'll all agree that Sir Patrick is very cool. Far cooler than he has any right to be, given that he's older than Yoda and bigger than a double decker bus!

So when he goes on record with such statements as: "The trouble is the BBC now is run by women and it shows soap operas, cooking, quizzes, kitchen-sink plays." or "I used to watch Doctor Who and Star Trek, but they went PC - making women commanders, that kind of thing. I stopped watching." or saying that he would "rather be dead in a ditch" than appear on Celebrity Big Brother; one cannot help but sit up and take notice!

Whether or not I agree with his views, he is now officially one of my heroes for his stand against political correctness! Yay!

And TV is mostly pants nowadays. So he has a point there!

The comments for this story are pretty entertaining as well. I quote for your amusement:

"i belive patrick more is being sexiest..."

"Hear, Hear, Sir Patrick. Two channels that's what we need. I look forward to watching programmes on Broadcasting By Clarkson!"

"Patrick Moore and Boris Johnson should run the country!"

Profound Mental Retardation

It seems that the vast majority of the people working in my building suffer from profound mental retardation (or idiocy, if you prefer).

We have recently had card operated revolving security doors installed and the sheer amount of confusion they have caused, buggers* belief. It is a very simple operation. One places one’s ID card against the sensor embedded in the side of the door which engages the door mechanism. One then simply has to step into the door space and push gently on the door in front of one which will then move around to the appropriate position automatically without any undue effort on one’s part. One walks in a straight line. It’s a bit slow, but one cannot have everything.

The aforementioned belief buggery becomes relevant when one observes the sheer number of people who step into the door space and then, for no readily discernable reason, turn to the left and attempt to push the revolving door in the opposite direction. When it doesn’t go anywhere, they try to push harder. This usually results in the mechanism shutting down for a few moments as it resets itself.

Further belief buggery occurs when four successive people, having watched the person in front cock it up, then proceed to cock it up in exactly the same way. These are not morons that have been swept in off the street, they are supposedly professional people who work in one of the UK’s largest financial institutions and have careers and everything! These people could be looking after your money!

Be afraid. Be very afraid…





*This is an intentional spelling mistake. To bugger belief is far more painful than beggaring it! It is, to be specific, a pain in the arse.

My Wii And Other Animals*

So... I am one of the growing number of people who are the proud owners of a Nintendo Wii. It's an early birthday present. It wasn't supposed to be an early birthday present, but events conspired to make it so.

Dr Karen has been promising me a Wii for my birthday since before Christmas. It's almost as if she likes me and wants to buy me the object of my heart's desire or something. Whereas with girls, they lust after diamonds and other small, shiny objects, I lust after new toys. DVD recorders with hard disks and built in freeview or the latest 'P' series smartphone from Sony Ericsson are my idea of Nirvana (actually the only good to come of Nirvana was Dave Grohl, but that's another story).

We went to the local shopping mall, which boasts a Dixons, Virgin, Game, Comet, Currys and Toys R Us, making the reasonable assumption that we'd be able to get, or at leat pre-order on in at least one of those stores. On the basis that it had been out for 3 months at that point, we didn't anticipate any enormous problems laying our grungy little hands on one**. Alas, I was so wrong!

The man in Toys R Us spread his hands expansively and said 'We haven't got any. Don't know when they're coming in.' which struck me a pretty ropey way to run a business. Still, I thought to myself, this doesn't present an enormous problem. We still have umpteen other shops to try. How naive, I was. Foolish boy.

The knuckle-dragger in Virgin (who probably was one on account of his sheer gormlessness) didn't seem to understand my question, whereas the solution that the spotty teenager (sporting a 'Manager' badge) in Game came up with was 'You could try phoning us each day after 11 o'clock to see if any came in our delivery'. Even John Lewis, who normally provide a sterling service could only look at me apologetically and say 'Sorry, Sir. We have no Wiis and we don't know when we'll be getting any.'

Now, this state of affairs seems absolutely crazy to me. A product that's been on general release for 3 months and not only does no-one have it in stock, but they don't know when the next batch will be coming in. Or even how many will be in that batch.

Fortunately for my sanity, we came a cross a very enthusiastic chap in Comet who, not only made sense , but was in a position to give us an assurance that I would have a Wii in time for my birthday, two and a bit weeks hence. 'The reason,' he told us knowledgably, 'for the lack of Wii's in the shops,' he added to provide a bit of context, 'is that Nintendo want them to be sold out wherever you go. This gives the impression that it's a highly sought after product and that you, the seeker of the product are the only one who doesn't have one, thus increasing your desire for one. So they only send us as many as we have firm orders for. It's about a two week wait.'
So we ordered one, expecting it to be available for store pickup on or around the 14th March.

Then my world was rocked. A week and a day earlier than it should have been. I received a phone call from Comet on the 6th and had a very odd conversation with a nice lady there:

'Hello. This is just a courtesy call to see how you're getting on with your new Wii.'
'Er... That would be the one I haven't got yet?'
'You... haven't got it?'
'No. I'm waiting for you guys to phone me to tell me it's in for collection. I only ordered it at the weekend.'
'Oh. Well. I have good news for you then...'

Just a few short hours later, I was in Comet collecting my Wii. A very small part of me (about the size of a pea, since you ask) wonders if the Wii that I got had actually been originally allocated to someone else but when presented with an unexpected response of the phone, the girl from comet got flustered, told me it was in, then realised how pissy I'd be likely to get if I then turned up and they didn't have one for me. A considerably larger part of me (about me-sized... me minus the small pea-sized part) doesn't care.

So I've been playing Wii Sports (badly) and Zelda (also badly) and Call of Duty (incredibly badly) ever since. And what a glorious time I've been having. I don't think I can add anything to the enthusaistic reviews of the Wii that can be found littering the internet. Go and read them if you must. Even better - go and buy one and try it for yourself!

I suppose, given the title of this post that I should mention some animals. My mum, who is rapidly approaching her 60th birthday, desperately wants a toroise. No one knows why. She just does. So we're gonna buy her one (or possibly two). That's it really...




* Sorry, Gerald. I couldn't help it.
** see what I did there with the Nirvana connection and the hands? See? See? I'm such a wag!

Starship Titanic Fix

I recently purchased Starship Titanic for the PC and came across something of a problem. In Windows XP, the video parts of it did not play back. Instead there was just a black area on the screen which was, frankly, unhelpful. Anyway, after a bit of seaching we came across this chap's blog which contained a fix for it. Basically, one of the Service Pack 2 Dlls stops the game playing back it's avi files. the fix is to download the Service pack 1 iccvid.dll and put it in your Starship Titanic directory - the one with ST.EXE in it. And wonder of wonders, the game runs fine! You can download the file from Lofland's Blog, or I've hosted a copy of it here, just in case.

Three cheers for Lofland! Hip Hip...

Numbness

So this morning I was roused from the cosy depths of my bed by the postman rapping on the door. Struggling downstairs (fortunately remembering to put on my dressing hown as I did so, I opened the door to be presented with a small package and a request for a signature.

The postman handed me a form and a pen. Which I promptly dropped. I had, you see, been sleeping on my arm and it was completely and utterly numb from the elbow down. I had exactly no control over my fingers and therefore couldn't grip a bloody thing.

So, bending down to try and pick up the form and the pen, we quickly established that feeling had not returned to my arm and the poor postman not only had to pick up the stuff for me, but then had to wait while I gave my arm a good shake until the feeling returned and I was able to scrawl my name on the form.

It would have been embarrasing, only I was half asleep.

Sportsmanship

Not a football post... honest.Our french friends have impressed us once again with their handling of a tense situation!

Ryan Giggs' late winner for Manchester United almost sparked a walk-out from
angry Lille players at the climax of a controversial Champions League clash.
Giggs curled in a quick free-kick after 83 minutes while Lille were still
assembling their defensive wall. Lille players, furious that an earlier header
by Peter Odemwingie had been ruled out, walked off the pitch as the last 16
first leg clash boiled over. They eventually returned, and United held on for a
crucial victory.

That's right. The french team said "If you don't let us win, then you can't play with our ball!"This was the same match where this happened:

But the main talking point of a drab first 45 minutes were the worrying scenes
involving United's supporters, with too many appearing to be packed in lower
tier of the away section. Dozens of United supporters were concerned, and French
police appeared to respond to a genuine security problem by firing off tear gas.

They'd obviously run out of white flags...

Girls in swimsuits are dumber then girls in jumpers...

Apparently.In this otherwise serious article about the 'sexualisation' of girls in the media, I came across this paragraph:

School performance can also suffer. In one experiment cited, college-aged women
were asked to try on and evaluate either a swim suit or a sweater. While they
waited for 10 minutes while wearing the garment, they completed a math test."The
results revealed that young women in swimsuits performed significantly worse ...
than those wearing sweaters."

Who came up with a genius idea like that?"I'd like to apply for a government grant to sit in a big room with a bunch of 18 year old girls in bikinis. Eh? Why? Oh, er because I want to see their... er, see if they perform differently in a mental acuity test to er... girls in jumpers. Yes. That's it."

A moment's silence, please, for Dr Adler, who died last week. Who the hell is that, I hear you ask. Well, I'll tell you. He was the (co) inventor of the TV Remote and..er some other TV stuff!

Best known as the "Father of the TV Remote Control," Dr. Robert Adler is
responsible for a large number of significant scientific contributions to the
electronics industry, including landmark inventions in the field of consumer
products and in sophisticated specialized communications equipment. He holds
more than 180 patents......Dr. Adler developed Zenith's Space Command®
ultrasonic remote control for TV sets, the first practical wireless TV remote,
which Zenith introduced in 1956......Among Dr. Adler's earlier work is the
gated-beam tube which... greatly simplified the sound system in television
receivers, markedly improving reception by screening out certain types of sound
interference while lowering the cost of the sound channel...a synchronizing
circuit which permitted demonstrably greater stability in fringe areas of
television reception....The electron beam parametric amplifier, developed in
1958 by Dr. Adler jointly with Dr. Glen Wade...used by radio astronomers in the
U.S. as well as abroad, and by the U.S. Air Force for long-range missile
detection...instrumental in the 1966 public demonstration...of an experimental
television display using ultrasonic deflection and modulation of a laser beam to
produce a wall-size TV picture without a cathode ray tube...

He was a busy boy, eh? And he had about a zillion awards, too.

The Movie Review To End All Movie Reviews

Heh heh heh. Now I reckon '300' is gonna be the best movie of the year and now, having read this review of it, I just wanna see it even more. This is the coolest review I've ever seen of a movie. It tells you everything you need to know!

I just saw a movie that’ll give your eyes boners, make your balls scream and
make you poop DVD copies of THE TRANSPORTER. It’s called 300. I don’t know what
the title has to do with the movie, but they could’ve called it KITTENS MAKING
CANDLES and it’d still rule.It’s about these 300 Greek dudes who stomp the
sugar-coated shit out of like a million other dudes. I have a feeling that a lot
of high school sports coaches are going to show this film to their teams before
they play. Also, gay dudes and divorced women are going to use screen captures
for computer wallpaper.The movie takes place about a million years ago, and it’s
sort of like a prequel to SIN CITY. Except way less guns and cars but twice as
much skull splitting. If you watch this movie and go into a Taco Bell, and say
to the cashier, “I need some extra sauce packets” guess what? You’re getting
twenty sauce packets because your face will punch him in the brain.I can’t spoil
the plot because THANK GOD THERE ISN’T ONE. Just ass kicking that kicks ass
that, while said ass is getting kicked, is kicking yet more ass that’s hitting
someone’s balls with a hammer made of ice but the ice is frozen whiskey.TWO COOL
THINGS ABOUT THE MOVIE AND ONE THING I DIDN’T LIKE:COOL THING ONE:HEAVY METAL
DURING BATTLE SCENESWho gives a shit if the music isn’t historically correct?
LORD OF THE RINGS could’ve used some Journey. This movie has that chu-CHUNG kind
of metal that you hear in your head when your shift supervisor at Wetzel’s
Pretzel is telling you that you’ll have to stay for clean up and you wish you
had a sock filled with quarters in your hand.COOL THING TWO:FOES, MINI-BOSSES
AND A BIG BOSSBasically, the Greek dudes are fighting these Persian dudes, but
the director, who must have a dick made of three machine guns, does it all like
a video game. The Greeks fight every death metal video from the last ten years.
There’s wave after wave of giants, freaks, ninjas, mutants, wizards, and a
hunchback who looks like he’s got Rosie O’Donnell on his back. Would I have been
happy if Dom DeLuise from HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART I had shown up? Maybe, but
this movie more than makes up for that glaring oversight.NOT SO GOOD THING:DUDE
NUDITY (“DUDE-ITY”)These are Greek times, when there were a lot of naked women
around. And there are some naked women in this film, but almost every naked
woman scene has a muscular dude giving the screen an ass picnic. Dude-ity is
something directors put in their movies so people will think they’re serious, I
guess, and not just throwing in naked hotties. Any directors reading this – IT’S
OKAY TO JUST THROW IN NAKED HOTTIES. Can’t someone make a movie about naked
Amazons and call it PAUSE BUTTON?My final analysis is 300 the most ass-ruling
movie I’ve seen this year, and will probably be the King of 2007 unless someone
makes a movie where a pair of sentient boobs fights a werewolf.

I get the impression that he liked it a bit.And, yes. He should probably re-read his first couple of paragraphs...

Ladies, come smell my armpits!

Because apparently, it's gonna turn you on!

WASHINGTON - For women, apparently there’s nothing like the smell of a man’s
sweat.Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley said women who
sniffed a chemical found in male sweat experienced elevated levels of an
important hormone, along with higher sexual arousal, faster heart rate and other
effects.They said the study, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience,
represents the first direct evidence that people secrete a scent that influences
the hormones of the opposite sex.The study focused on androstadienone,
considered a male chemical signal. Previous research had established that a
whiff of it affected women’s mood, sexual and physiological arousal and brain
activation. Its impact on hormones was less clear.A derivative of testosterone,
it is found in male sweat as well as in saliva and semen. It smells somewhat
musky.“It really tells us that a lot of things can be triggered by smelling
sweat,” Claire Wyart, who led the study, said in an interview Wednesday.The
researchers measured levels of the hormone cortisol in the saliva of 48 female
undergraduates at Berkeley, average age of about 21, after the women took 20
sniffs from a jar of androstadienone. Cortisol is secreted by the body to help
maintain proper arousal and sense of well-being, respond to stress and other
functions.Cortisol levels in the women who smelled androstadienone shot up
within roughly 15 minutes and stayed elevated for up to an hour. Consistent with
previous research, the women also reported improved mood, higher sexual arousal,
and had increased blood pressure, heart rate and breathing.

The first meal...

Whilst in the supermarket last night, I found myself having a conversation about the first meal I ever cooked for a girlfriend. I concluded that this would have been beans and burgers on toast when I was about 16 or 17 (about '92). Now we're not talking about beans and beefburgers... we're talking about the tins of beans and burgers you get from Tesco and heat in the microwave. Mmmm. Didn't burn the toast, either! I bet she was really impressed.

No more red...

I was just browsing the Royal Mail website (as you do) and came across the following copyright statement at the bottom of this page:

Royal Mail, the Royal Mail Cruciform, the colour red and SmartStamp are all
registered trademarks of Royal Mail Group plc.The colour red is
copyrighted?

Sleepwalking, anyone?

I am reliably informed that during the night I climbed out of bed, stood at the foot of it and announced that I was concerned about the 'things' at the end of the bed.

On being told that it really wasn't a problem (apparently I took some convincing), I returned to bed and fell asleep immediately.I have no memory of this incident, so choose to believe that it never happened.

Move along. there's nothing to see here... except the 'things' at the end of the bed. I'm quite worried about them!

All new levels of grimness...

So, I thought we had problems in my old office with the phantom sh1tter who would alternately leave giant logs or pebbledashing unflushed in the gents. Well, after 2 grim incidents in the last week at this new office, those problems kinda pale in comparison. If you are eating your lunch, or just have a generally delicate disposition please do not read on!

Grim incident #1
On entering a cubicle in the gents loos, I was confronted with the sight of a large screwed up wad of toilet paper on the toilet seat. With sh1t on! So... having wiped his @rse, Mr Grim Sh1tter chucked his toilet paper in the general direction of the loo, missed and then went ahed and flushed anyway. I'm sorry, there's no way it was accidental. It was ON THE LOO SEAT! Just below the flush handle!Pretty nasty, huh. Well, grim incident #2 is arguably worse.

Grim incident #2
We have these special bins for our used plastic cups dotted around the office. They have a hole in the centre for any excess liqued and a series of holes around the outside in which you drop the empty cups.One of my colleagues just came back from the coffee machine looking rather... unsettled. It seems that someone felt a little poorly and used a plastic cup to catch his or her vomit. Not a dumb idea, you might think. The dumbness (Stead, your crossbow is almost certainly required here!) comes when our resident Chunder Monkey decides that the best way to deal with his or her little cup of sick is to pour it into (and around) the centre section of the cup bin and drop the cup itself into the cup holes.

I'm not coming in today...

Now, this might be a totally unjustified rant, so please just let me know If I should just shut up.

My boss didn't come into work yesterday. The reason that he didn't come into work can be boiled down to a very simple reason: He didn't want to drive a Nissan Micra.

The story goes something like this: The Boss was driving along in his shiny, shiny Merc when he was rearended by a bus. Nothing too serious - in fact the only damage was cosmetic. So about a week later, a man from the garage was due to pick up his car to have bent bits straightened and broken bits mended. In exchange for his slighly mangled Merc, he was to receive a courtesy car for a couple of days.

The problem with this arrangement was that when the courtesy car arrived... it was a Nissan Micra.

"I'm not driving a Nissan Micra," said the Boss.

"I'm sorry sir, that's all we've got," said the Man From The Garage.

"Well I'm not driving it," said the Boss. "Take it away!"

And they did. Which left the Boss with no courtesy car with which to drive to work. So what all this boils down to is that my Boss is too much of a Mecedes snob to drive a little japanese car for day.The question I put to you, the jury, for your consideration is this: Was he right to skive on this basis?And also... would you drive a Nissan Micra?

Tea

Now, I'm not actually going to rant about tea in this post, despite the title. Tea gives me no problem at all. In fact i love tea. It's an unreasonable level of love (and possibly entirely inappropriate) given that I am a man and tea is a hot beverage, but the truth of it is that if I could have it's babies, I would.
So we've established that I like tea.
So anyway. I was watching the news the other morning and there was an article on it about tea. Apparently if you add milk to it, it loses some of it's health benefits. I'm not going to rant about that either, cos I don't care. What I am going to rant about is Peppermint Tea. And Camomile Tea. And Fragrant Dandelion and Grass Clippings Tea.
Let me explain to everyone how tea is made. You take a tea plant. You cut its leaves off and you pour hot water on them You now have tea. Doing the same with nettles does not make tea. It makes some sort of nettle drink. Tea is called tea because it's made from tea. That's it's defining quality. That's what makes it different from cola or orange squash.
So could all these people who ponce around the office with their Rasberry Tea and their Daffodil and Floor Sweepings Tea please refrain from calling it something it's not. Otherwise we may as well start calling all our other drinks 'tea;. I'm off to the pub for a few teas and maybe a coupla tea chasers. I'd like a glass of merlot tea with my dinner.
And why stop with drinks? If we're in the business of calling non-tea stuff tea, lets just call EVERYTHING 'tea'. Gotta make a tea call. I'm on the Tea. On my way to tea. Lovely tea we're having. The Tea in Iraq is a worry. Did you watch tea on the tea tonight? Gotta take a tea.
Ok, I'm finished now.

And I thought I had too much time on my hands...

It's just too much! My brain cannot comprehend the sweet awesomeness of it! I can only hope that when they'd finished with it, they didn't eat it... That's diabetes waiting to happen.

What's going on?

So this guy has just paid £18 for my old copy of Halo, when he could have got it for £8 on Amazon. Am I missing summat here?
Ho hum. I must plan what to spend my newfound riches on. Excuse me...