Open letter to Cineworld management.

Messrs Wiener, Alvarez, Stefka and Jones et cie,

I appreciate that you are running a business and that, first and foremost, the goal of any business is to make money. As much money as possible, in fact, in order to satisfy investors and remain competitive. So you don't want cinema-goers bringing in their own food when attending your cinemas when there's a far more profitable source of snacks in the complex. Possibly not the greatest fiscal logic, given the cost/benefit ratio between assuming that, denied of their own food, the customers will buy yours at, let's face it, insanely inflated prices, and the loss of previously loyal UGC Unlimited members who are a steady source of subscription funds and resistant to unpleasant changes in policy. Nonetheless, it's your call, and it's a policy already in place at your non-UGC cinemas and in many other cinema groups. I have to assume that you've done the math and I've come up on the short-straw side of the equation. Fair enough.

It's the disturbingly unprofessional manner in which this policy has been implemented that has me wondering just how much longer your business is likely to remain profitable. Losing customers in a customer-driven industry is categorically not good for the bottom line.

Customers like my wife and I, who were stopped at a cordon after we had obtained our tickets, and asked to open our bags. When we asked why, the usher pointed at a notice that had been raised inside the cordon, attesting to your new 'no food' policy, and repeated the request. Since neither of us were carrying supermarket packets, we simply said we had no food with us, but the usher refused to let us through until we had allowed him to inspect the contacts of our packets - clothes and shoes - and confirm that we were not lying to him. I don't need to tell you that this complete disavowal of our honesty was not appreciated.

Or like the gentleman who was being held up just in front of us. The unfortunate ticket-holder was as unaware of your change in policy as we were and, unlike us, had brought food with him. The ushers would not let him through - in accordance with the policy. Is it also policy, then, to suggest that he leave the parcel outside the complex, on the sidewalk, and fetch it when the movie is over, if it's still there, with no offer to store the package in the manager's office or behind the counter? Is it part of operating procedure to deny him a refund when he, understandably, decides not to chance it? The usher seemed to think so, and so another lost client.

All of this could so easily have been avoided with a little consideration for your customers. Sending out a form letter to existing UGC Unlimited members, notifying them of the impending change, would have been polite. A suitable note on your web site for the affected cinemas would have been picked up by many visitors planning their weekend's viewing. Setting up the notice in the foyer in a clearly visible location, and drawing attention to it and the change in policy when tickets are bought, that would have been prudent. Oh, and a grace period after implementation where ushers are granted discretion to allow customers unfamiliar with the change entry to the cinema or, at the very least, a refund if they so choose, that would have been the mark of a business that has its eye on a primary goal; keeping its clientele.

The fact that none of this occurred, and that the Unlimited scheme is still not being offered in existing Cineworld theatres, bodes for the future of the membership system and leaves me feeling bereft. I love that cinema and I love the ease and convenience of cinema membership, and it looks like corporate lust for short-term profits over sustainable income is going to spoil it.

Yours in mourning

P.S. Being told by your customer services that the reason for the 'no food' policy was the overwhelming number of complaints from customers about other cinema-goers bringing in food just adds to the insult. Why not claim that the reason you charge for tickets is that people complained about being let in for free? It's no less ridiculous, I assure you.

Wax on, wax off

A couple of weeks ago, my sister - who temps as a PA - was asked by her current employer, KPMG, to sit a series of in-house tests that assess her competence in her field for consideration as a permanent member of their staff. Lynette, who has been working as a PA at management level for years, breezed through the tests, only to be told she had failed them dismally and would be unlikely to be taken on should she apply.

Today she, along with everyone else in her team, gets this:

The CMS team are pleased to announce that the temp of the month award for January goes to Lynette Knight in London.
'Lynette came to me on very short notice and with no KPMG experience, to look after a Partner and his team. She is professional to the core, friendly, diplomatic while resilient, and copes well under pressure. She settles into any environment straight away and just gets on with the job no matter what the tasks. She is extremely pro-active, diligent and very personable. I have moved Lynette from pillar to post (always on short or no notice) to cover roles when people have been sick for odd days or longer periods she demonstrates a very high level of professionalism and forethought whatever role I place her in. She is willing to do any job no matter how large or small and has even cancelled a personal appointment to remain in the office to assist us when the pressure was on for end of day deadlines. More recently she has assisted me with settling in another temporary member of staff and showing her the ropes!. A valued lady, and a pleasure to have on my team'.

WTF?!

She's been unable to control her giggling all afternoon. I'd probably be less amused.

Very Happy Meal

A voucher for a free Happy Meal with my quarterpounder and fries today netted me (read: Zara) this pink Hello Kitty pencil case that looks remarkably like an emergency dildo. You know what I mean; an object that, in a pinch, will do as a convenient replacement for the real thing. Sheer boredom during class (read: lectures) has been known to raise libidos by orders of magnitude, and there isn't a fridge or grocer's to hand for a cucumber or mutantly large carrot . It seems that McD's (or Hello Kitty manufacturers, a more disturbing thought intrudes) is enhancing their customer service ethos by catering to these urges. I say, a salutary effort, if so. Bring on the vibrating Sonic the Hedgehog 'back massagers' and Pokémon pleasure pussies! Sex education for the nation, at a pound ninety-nine!

The Ant & The Grasshopper Fable

Because it's topical, and I know someone reading this will enjoy it, another roaming email pinned down here for general consumption:

Classic version
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

The end.

British version
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home in Hampstead with a table laden with food. The British are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

The Liberal Party, the Respect Party, the Transvestites With Starving Babies Party, the Single Lesbian One Eyed Mothers Party and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. The BBC, interrupting a Rastafarian cultural festival special from Grimsby with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome."

Ken Livingstone laments in an interview with Panorama that the ant has got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share". In response, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant's taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers. Without enough money to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by Camden Council. The ant moves to France, and starts a successful AgriBiz company [funded by the EU] (although within weeks, his business is threatened with Compulsory purchase by the state unless he marries a French ant).

The BBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food, though Spring is still months away, while the government House he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, Diane Abbot is appointed to head a commission of enquiry That will cost £10,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, The Guardian blames it on the obvious failure of the Government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana-growing operation and terrorize the community.

The end?

And today's winner is... Google Video

After having heard very little about Google Video since its launch, suddenly today I am referred to two hosted shorts in a row. Alive in Joburg is a squidrillion times better than the last one, though. It's funny, and clever, and poignant, and witty, and insightful, and... oh, just go watch it, but have some tissues handy. Don't say I didn't warn you!

via the Scrivener

Lyric call

I need you to grind like you're working for tips

Nasty Girl - Notorious B-I-G feat. Diddy, Nelly, Jagged Edge & Avery Storm

Is this the owner of the house?

A little while back, I lifted some advice about handling telesales calls (amongst other things) from an email doing the rounds and, just recently in the press, the telesales counter script was discussed as another deterrent. Another potentially effective method of dealing with these time-jackers just occurred to me; coolly asking the caller to hold while you tranfer their call to a premium-rate line. I guarantee at least a stunned silence from the caller, if not splutter and confusion, as you press a random number on your pad and then return to say that the transfer is complete and they have your complete, undivided and, most importantly, remunerated attention for as long as they're happy to pay the premium rate.

*click*

I'm looking forward to testing it.

Poke the geek, why don'tcha?

If you have to descend to sterotypes and cliches to get a laugh, I suppose you could do worse than Fear of Girls.

It has a couple of funny moments, and I will admit to giggling almost uncontrollably at one point (God knows she's sterile - master retort), but once it had run through the credits and the distraction had ended, I realised just how insidious it is. What, it's not enough that role-players have this stigma, but now we have to laugh about it as well? It would hurt more if we role-players gave a damn what the rest of the world thinks, but since we get to shape our own reality anyway...

And I know that I'll get comments about how it's an intentional parody, or witty self-mockery, or some such other justification, so I'll say it now. Bollocks! It's poking the geek, just with a more technologically-advanced stick. Our ignorant forebears did it for generations for fun, and ignorant hicks everywhere still do.

Not cool. Funny as hell, but still not cool.

This is what a morning of reading The Ranting Gentlemen has done to me. Instant vehemence and bile. Thanks, guys.

Very short story

I had nothing better to do on my journey home this evening, so decided to try and write a story that I could SMS to people, if the urge struck i.e. a tale in less than 160 characters. I'm still working on that but, in the interim, here's one I wrote that just fits into a concatenation of 5 messages:

I met a demon on my train yesterday.

“Make a wish,” it whispered. “Any human trait will be yours in abundance.”
“Why do you offer this?“ I asked. It shrugged and told a tale of mischief and punishment, and then repeated the offer. “Any one thing, in full measure.”
“The price?” I queried.
“It is a gift,” the thing demurred, then added, softly, “if the wish is selfless.”
I pondered this, then made to disembark as the next station arrived.
“Wait!” called the creature. “Do you not want your heart’s desire?”
I answered sadly, “And there’s the trap. You know that I would not ask for that which I do not want, and I dare not ask for that which I do.”
And as the doors closed, I heard the being screech in fury as it flared and burned to ash.

There is no demon on my train today.

(later) I worked out that, to write a 160-character story, allowing for an average of 4 characters per word, you would have to tell you tale in 30 words or so, with a little leeway for punctuation. It seemed impossible, but a little online inspiration led to this:

Petals fall where once was sand, where once we toiled and now we stand, in shade.

Only 81 characters, without serious effort! And a full story, as far as I can tell. Progression, characterisation, human interest; all there, if a little roughly sketched. Now I'm determined to produce something a damn site smoother, using my whole allowance. Watch this space.

Hey, bigot! Leave them kids alone!

Pink pounds

Wonder if I'll get a raise if I come out?

Injuries (K)nights

Thursday night showed me up as a bit of an asshole.

I'd suffered delays getting home from work that evening, only to be turfed off the tube one stop shy of my home station, which was closed for some reason. While waiting for a bus to take me the last short distance, a helpful station attendant disclosed that there had been a stabbing in the vicinity of Upney station, hence the break in service. None too fussed, I hopped on the next 62 that came along, and settled down for the last short haul, only to leap up like a startled springbok when the bus sailed past Upney Lane, its normal route. I stormed down the stairs to confront the driver, who blithely admitted that he knew the road was closed to traffic, and hadn't thought to let the passengers know. Having disembarked at the junction lights, I marched down Upney Lane, in far less than the best of tempers.

Now, Upney Lane crosses the Underground and C2C lines at Upney Station by means of a small humpback bridge. There is no other way across within a 30 minute walk. So you can imagine my reaction when I reached the roadblock and was told that I could not be escorted across but had to go around. When I indignantly pointed out the size of the detour, and the length of time involved, I could see a flicker of irritation pass across the officer's face.

"Sir, " he replied curtly, "somebody's been stabbed. We have more important things to worry about."

Of course, he was absolutely right, not that it registered immediately. My dudgeon has risen way too high to allow that thought in easily. I swept off parallel to the tracks, intending to cut through the park to get to the next bridge, only to turn and head directly back the way I came as the park entrance was blocked with construction equipment. With detours and bus waits, I only got home after 10.

The time spent walking from blockade to bus stop and waiting in the cold cooled my ire, and gave me time to reflect. The station staff were clearly aware of the situation at Upney, and had not thought to advise travellers of the change in routes, which would have given those of us heading in that direction the chance to avoid additional delay. The police may have thought it superfluous to station an officer at the head of Upney Lane to divert pedestrians, and the officer who fielded my frustrated attempts to short-cut through the scene was probably as irritable as I was. None of that excuses my complete lack of compassion for the victim. I should have been horrified, and instead I was merely vexed. That makes me a bit of an asshole, a surprising and unpleasant discovery.

Not as much of an asshole as others, though.

Zara and I were invited to a Burns' Night celebration on Saturday evening. It was to have been a thronging, whisky-soaked event, replete with haggis, neeps and tatties. As it transpired, a good evening was had by all - all five of us, two of whom are currently teetotal! For a variety of reasons - some excellent (food poisoning and short-notice relocation) and some less so - only 3 of the 12 guests arrived. We managed to have a great time anyway. Magnificent kudos goes to Kevin for his tasty haggis, the surprisingly good turnips, 8 different single malts, the lyrical renditions of the Selkirk Grace and To a Haggis, and his overall good humour in spite of the dearth of drinking guests, and to Rachel for catering for the haggisphobes. I'm already looking forward to next year's event - we shall make it an even better one, and this time we'll be drinking!

So true

Superb Saturday

I'm not the most exciting person in the world. Or even the UK. Or London Barking 28 Meadow Road, for that matter. So a day of museum and movies, while not high on the list of adrenalin fixes, really floats my simple grey boat. I got to wander around the British Museum, visiting both the Americas and the Mesopotamian and Nile regions, and then swept myself away to the wide prairies of Wyoming and the streets of Kyoto, in Brokeback Mountain and Memoirs of a Geisha. I learnt that Bastet had a sister called Sakhmet, with the head of a lioness, who visited destruction on mankind at Re's request, that Inuit clothing had enlarged hoods to carry their offspring in, and broadened shoulders to assist in feeding said offspring (although I still don't know how), that it doesn't matter how fast or slow you go as long as you like the direction you're moving in, and that even the smallest kindness is a candle in the night of a hopeless life. If a day is wasted if no memory is made, I reckon I'm insured against at least a week of amnesia.

Shutterbug bite

The exit for Upney tube station is situated - as many of the eastmost stations on the District line are - on a bridge over the track, elevating it above the rest of the very flat alluvial plains north of the Thames on which the cheap worker housing was originally built. This gives a lovely vantage point for the occasional sights worth seeing, mostly fireworks and pollution-enhanced sunsets.

Tonight, as I was leaving the station, it gave me a clear view across the rooftops to a brilliant shaft of light stabbing down towards the park hidden behind the terraced houses from what I can only assume was a helicopter, as I could hear the syncopated percussion of blades but couldn't see the machine itself, it being well past sunset and all. I stood there for at least 5 minutes watching the spotlight, transfixed by the sight of the apparent pillar of unsupported luminescence dancing in the dark, before it occurred to me to snatch a picture of it with my mobile. All too quickly I discovered the abyss between a cameraphone and the real thing. All I could see in the display was the regular flash of a single pixel picking up the tail light on the chopper.

There was this moment of singular beauty, and it's relegated to the obscurity of my memory. I think I understood just then, just for a moment, the kind of mindset that drives photographers. What's more, sensitised by the event, the journey home became a series of still frames as my brain framed further shots. It wore off pretty quickly, but Ash, Stv, is this where you live? If so, how do you get anything else done? Why aren't you paralysed by the possibilities?

The male libido as a common sense filter

We were talking in the office today about that bit in Jersey Girl where Liv Tyler comes to Ben Affleck's house to apologise about harrassing him in the video store, and to ask him to do the porn questionnaire anyway. I said that it would creep me out if some store attendant abused their access to my address to effectively stalk me like that, but the other guys in the office said if a pretty woman tracked them to their house like that, they would be quite flattered. So, am I the freak, or are they?

6 columns of fame

Looks like some long-overdue recognition has finally made the papers. Page 31 of today's Evening Standard bears witness to a force of nature:

Cute slang

Beer coat

The invisible but comfortably warm coat worn when walking home after a night of drinking

Clerks 2?

Can it be? Apparently. The trailer threatens a 1:1 rehash of the first movie, so probably not a classic sequel, but certainly a typical one.

Multiple blogasm block

A small confession: I'm a multiple blogger. That's right, I have more than one blog, and I'm not embarrassed by it at all. It's convenient, prudent and friend-friendly. And twice the work of maintaining a single journal. So I've been looking for publishing software that allows me to create a single post and, at a press of a button, post it to both blogs simultaneously. You'd think all the major blogware would allow it, but apparently not. I'm not used to being unable to find something I'm looking for on the interweb, but this has me stumped. The best I've found is w.blogger, and it requires that I save a post before sending to each blog as a separate action, not my idea of efficient publishing at all. Maybe I'm just ahead of the curve. Again. Then again, maybe I'm just not looking hard enough.

Scaperesolution

At a time of year traditionally associated with turkey stew in the freezer, nude pine trees in the compost heap and half-baked, frenzied attempts carefully planned approaches at a new start, the pressure to subject yourself to a resolution of one sort or another is almost overwhelming.

My coping mechanism involves setting a seemingly reasonable target, and then finding myself unable to meet it because of all the other things I've set in motion that are definitely not in any way resolutions at all, I swear to the gods, even if they look like it from a 3^rd party perspective, it's all lies I tells ya. This year, I resolved to blog at least once a day, dooming it to failure from the start, and in that failure, I've succeeded.

What kept me from meeting this ill-fated obligation? Well, aside from the unforeseen New Year Cold 2006, and numerous hours force-feeding Zara's fledgling maths skills, we've had the alcohol drought - self-imposed, as a solidarity gesture for Zara's newest diet experiment - and learning to Lindy Hop. A mad remark on New Year's Eve has led to swing lessons. Well, will lead to swing lessons, as soon as 1^st semester exams are over. Xmas Gut 2005 seems to require some attempt at exercise, and dancing is as good a way as any, and better than most. Besides, who never wanted to wear a short skirt and ankle socks and be flung around like a cheerleader's baton? oh?! only the girls get that? Damn! Ahem!

As for an achievable blog resolution, expect to see far more inanity than hitherto. I'm tired of being sensible and edutaining in my blogs. 2006 will be the year of the prancing Greg. With a 1000 Nellies!

2005 according to Google

Zeitgeist 2005 is up.

Silly similes

• Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master
• His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer
• The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't
• McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup
• Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze
• Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the centre
• Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever
• He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree
• The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease
• Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left York at 6:36 p.m. travelling at 55 mph, the other from Peterborough at 4:19p.m. at a speed of 35 mph
• The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full stop after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can
• John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met
• The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play
• The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon
• Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut
• Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do
• The plan was simple, like my mate Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work
• The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for while
• "Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a student on 31p-a-pint night
• He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a landmine or something
• Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter"
• She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up
• The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost
• The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free cashpoint
• The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium
• It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools
• He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing
• She was as easy as the Daily Star crossword
• She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature British beef
• She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs
• Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened
• It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall

Private smiles

I don't normally do this, figuring that people read the news they're interested in and don't need unwanted stories thrust in their unwilling faces, but this article in the Guardian news feed is too wonderful not to share, particularly the extremely cynical punchline. I guess I found it interesting because I'm a smiler too.

When

I see the hate that sweeps across a mob's cruel face
Or hear an angry shout from someone scared.
When one man kills another's dreams.
Another's wife.
Another's child.
And knows the pain he's caused is justified.
The monkey grimace pasted on the lips of confused children weakened
by the lack of understanding strikes me down
And I weep.

I weep
torrents of pain,
buckets of anguish,
a deluge of "Why?" and "God?" and "Please!"

It's said that
Weeping makes the smiling sweeter.
I say it's a steep price to pay.

Plug

The Pandora project is working incredibly well. Try Toxic Radio, for my blend of nu- and speed metal, or Spineshank Radio for Zara's heavy headbanger mix. Or make your own. It's a hoot!

My slutty weekend

I managed to get my hands on a very high spec laptop this weekend (just for the weekend, mind you) and have been opening my hard drive and playing with any recent game that took my fancy but I've never been able to pull run.

My orgy included

Doom 3

My first and most enthusiastic download. I couldn't quite run it at top spec, but close enough to just about shed my skin when hell breaks loose in the first chapter. I had to stop playing it; it was just creeping me out way too effectively (although never quite as badly as AvP did). I can see why it got such good press. It's nicely atmospheric and the controls handle beautifully. Not a game I'd buy - since it's too scary to play - but one I'd recommend.

Need for Speed Most Wanted

I've never been that keen on the Need for Speed series, which seems to hover somewhere between the purist driving games like Gran Tourismo and the cheeky, ultra-arcade ones like Breakout Burnout, even. Most Wanted seems to move the franchise towards the Burnout end of the scale, and it's instantly more fun to play as a result. Your car never takes damage; in fact, the physics model in general is a joke. The scenarios, however, are a combination of blistering racing and tongue-in-cheek irreverence. I wouldn't buy this one either, but I would definitely hold on to the demo, just for those 5 minutes to kill between Civ4 and bed.

The Indigo Prophecy

This is such a wonderful idea, I had to play it again, and again, and again, and again. And so on. It's a really simple concept; take the bog-standard adventure game and turn it into a multi-pathed cinematic experience. It seems to beg to be done badly. The demo blows that misconception right into next year. You get to dictate the actions of a young man who comes out of a trance in a men's washroom in a diner with a bleeding body on the floor in front of him and blood over his hands and arms. And a cop in the diner just outside the door. It's addictive to try all the different scenarios, see what could have happened if you forget to wash the blood from your hands before leaving, or had brazenly walked up to the police officer and told him you'd killed someone. And it's not predictable, in that neither of those examples gets you caught, but staying behind to move the body into a stall to hide it and mop up the blood might. The interface is novel as well, with possible actions requiring different combinations of mouse movement or key strokes, and the camera control is marvellously apt, giving you right-click switching between different preset camera points, for that movie-set feel. Clever split-screening heightens tension at moments when you're still frantically scrambling to complete a task and you can see someone approaching or calling in backup. Finally, in a nod to Call of Cthulhu's sanity levelling, your character has a mood meter, which starts in the demo at 'depressed' and can be raised or lowered by your actions. The demo didn't show what happens when you top or bottom out, but I'm looking forward to finding out. I'm so going to own this, even if I can't play it until I get a decent PC!

Lego Star Wars

When I first heard of this, and saw the reviews, I instantly downloaded it and tried to play it on my work PC figuring that, being Lego, it wouldn't be too high spec. Wrong! Now I've been able to play it, although I can see why it would be addictive for Star Wars fans, I'm not one of them, and quickly got tired of the novelty of seeing Anakin killed and falling into hundreds of Lego pieces.

Psychonauts

A platformer for PC, you say? With witty visual references and Daliesque landscapes? Cool dialogue and sparkling characters? I agree. I'll definitely be bargain box hunting for this one come the new year.

Serious Sam 2

Lots of Big Fucking Gun silliness. Forgettable. I almost did!

Definition of redundancy

The Treadmill Bike

Morning giggle

Two cows are standing in a field, when one says to the other, "So, this mad cow disease got you worried at all?"
"Why should it?" snorts the other cow. "I'm a duck!"

In a similar vein, a guy standing at a bus shelter is reading a newspaper, and turns to the fellow next to him, indicating the lead article.
"I'm a little concerned about this Asian bird flu," says the reader.
"Not me, mate," comes the reply.
"Oh? Why not?"
"Well, I'm a bloke, ain't I?"

I still want one of those

I mentioned the Voodoo knife block before but it hadn't arrived in the UK for purchase at the time. Now it's here and, although still deeply sexy, way too expensive. *sigh*

Also too expensive is the Projector Keyboard. I'm dying to give it a spin, though.

Greg.
Direct Mail Sucker.

Linky goodness

NSFW; some erotica, some just plain nasty. Midnight browsing, don'tcha know

John Santerineross

gothy sexiness. I'm particularly fond of Porcelain Child, Three Lifetimes Spread (look at the clever inkblot in the back), The Ritual of Nails (it's enough to make you shudder), Conjuration of the Mystery, and the Seal of the Seven. Although the composition leaves me cold, Fruit of the Secret God's face is arresting.

Matt Lombard

You might recognise him as the artist on the CD cover art for Nymphetamine (Cradle of Filth). The Archive galleries are what caught my eye, particularly The Other Heaven in the Row 1, Column 2 gallery. It's my angel taste fiding expression again I guess

Alessandro Bavari

The Sodom and Gomorrah images in Gallery 1 are captivating enough, but there's also this video. Powerfully reminiscent of one of my favourite music videos, and no surprise it's scored by Einsturzende Neubauten once you've seen the imagery.

Return of the Great White Nerd

Men change when their partners are away. It's true! I think we simply revert to type. The Don Juans of yore go out and sleaze up to the dumb young things, old jocks crash out on the sofa with a six pack of Coors and the rugby, and the earnest not-so-young-anymore professionals - well, they never have much of a life outside the office.

I go geek.

Sometimes it's the slightly more socially acceptable side of geekery. I wander around on of London's museums for a while, or chill out at the cinema (all day - that's what makes it geeky).

And sometimes, like this weekend, I go deep geek. With a side of domestic.

My itinerary for the past 48 hours:

• Stay late at work on Friday playing Civilisation IV (which is very good, as you're about to discover). Just make the last tube out of London to get home around 1.30
• Stay up another 2 hours reading a sci-fi novel
• Wake up at 11, get up at 12, clean the house for 4 hours
• Play Civ4 again, with brief pauses to heat a lasagne ready meal and press Record on the VCR to snaffle Heavenly Creatures (my favourite Peter Jackson movie) for posterity
• Go to bed this morning around 11am - yup, I pulled an all-nighter on Civ. First time since university
• Wake up at 3.30 this afternoon, get up at 4 and clean the house some more (it was really messy, okay?). Scratch another 2 hours
• Prepare some books for BookCrossing with the new plates¹ and stamp I bought specifically for the purpose
• And then blog about it all!

I'm not proud of this admission, but not particularly embarrassed either. It just struck me how deeply geeky it all was.

¹pretty, isn't it?

Pre-emptive strike

I've been nagging Zara about her needs/wants/craves for Christmas, and she's realised that others might be turning their thoughts giftwards about now. So, there's a wishlist.

Films to look forward to

I've tarried a while in the Apple foyer, and now I'm excited about

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

18^th November. Easily my favourite of the books

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

8^th December. The first of the Chronicles of Narnia. If it does well, Disney will be making all the others. Here's hoping...

Memoirs of a Geisha

13^th January. Only because I read and enjoyed the book

Zathura

3^rd February. I should be embarrassed, I know, but somehow I'm not

Aeon Flux

17^th February. Based on the animated series

Slither

31^st March. Creature feature a la Eight Legged Freaks. I'm already keen for this one!

Ice Age 2

14^th April

Mirrormask

No UK release date yet that I can find, but it's already come out in the US and it showed at the London Film Festival last week (if only I'd known that before now!)

Generation chasm

It's difficult to share an epiphany. The burst of insight that flashes through your thoughts just stalls when you try to capture it in the plodding medium of print. Perhaps all you need is the core revelation:

We have no more to fear from AI than from our biological offspring

Then again, perhaps you need an explanation.

Imagine you create an agent and set it free inside a small, carefully regulated environment, governed by rules that constrain and mould its behaviour. Over time, as the agent's sophistication increases, you enlarge and complicate the environment and modify the rules to allow greater freedom and self-determination. Then suddenly, the agent reaches a threshhold and begins transgressing your rules and determining its own behaviour. In short order, it surpasses your ability to maintain control and strikes out on its own, eventually replacing you.

That description is equally valid whether applied to a human child or a notional software agent complex enough to be called an AI. Why, then, would we (most of us, anyway) be quite comfortable with the child's usurpation of our place but fear that of an AI? Both have their progeniture in us, are shaped by our influence and inevitably become something quite different to us.

We should welcome them both. Or fear them equally.

Manga me

Manga you?

Get your geek on

Worldwide Dungeons and Dragons Day November 5

Inappropriately, I'll be attending a murder mystery dinner on Saturday that has nothing to do with D&D and will not fill the Wizards of the Coast coffers in any way, but I'm sure I can find the time to roll a D20 or two as a token gesture.

No more code mining

Having tried BlogRolling, and finding it way too annoying to use, I've taken on the task of transferring my favourite URLs to a database and linking it to the necessary code to display on my blogs. And it works! It's a deep change rather than a cosmetic one, so you won't notice a difference to my sidebar, but it means no more digging through lines of HTML to add or amend a link. I've even managed to get it to produce multiple varieties of output for different layouts. Go me!

I had a dream

In my dream, books weren't shackled to shelves by jealous owners, their pages rarely seeing light. Instead, they roamed free, disseminating their contents amongst readers everywhere, treating the world as their library and all in it as their readers.

I called my dream 'readcycling', and began to create a site to promote the idea and record the movements of member books.

I did not know that the idea had already found a receptive mind and borne fruit as early as 2001.

I got a call from a very excited Zara on Saturday. She, of course, knew about my plans and called me immediately when she found a novel with a panel on the inside front cover proclaiming it a 'roaming book' and exhorting the discoverer to log the find on BookCrossing.

As satisfying as it was to be told that the books had already been freed, and to see how well BookCrossing is doing it, it was also deflating. I'd had a novel idea that excited me and looked to be an interesting challenge. Now it's back to the mundane warp and weft of life until the next mind seed germinates.

Good advice is worth sharing

Some techniques for turning petty irritations into vengeful satisfactions:

Telemarketing calls

Three little words that work: "Hold on please..." Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt. Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task.

Machine calls

Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end ? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a sales person to call back and get someone at home. What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. (untested)

Junk mail

When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 24p postage "IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 29p before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in their postage-paid return envelopes. For example; send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 24p. The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it - twice! Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again.

I'm not normally in the habit of spamming my own blog with this sort of meme, but these happen to be three things that make my brain curdle, and I quite like the responses advocated. I'm not particularly fussed whether they cause a paradigm shift in marketing or not; I just want petty revenge!

Chalk one up for the animals

Prison for spin wash cat killer

Darn skippy!

The daddy of protection rackets

We're tuned to Heartfm in the office today, so I had the privilege of hearing our government pursue their extortion policies with an unusually ham-handed approach. An information advert encouraging payment of fines issued the warning, "If you do not pay your fine, a civilian officer, or even the police, will come knocking, and you won't like what happens next." I thought statements like that were the sole domain of Mafia maulers and similar neighbourhood nasties. It seems the effectiveness of loaded threats is a lesson learned from the biggest racketeers of them all - Government. The only difference, until now, has been the prudence with which the g-men have followed their brief but, in a world gone mad¹, the kid gloves have been lost in the stampede. Not even the elderly are immune, as the recent spate of pensioners imprisoned for dissent over their extortionate council taxes will show, so heavens help the rest of us.

¹and a thousand elephants

Admin note

Sorry to do this, but I've been plagued with bot spam in my comments, and the only way to prevent it in Blogger is to have word verification on the comments. It's an unwieldy solution, I know, but the only one I have available to me.

What would Jesus draw?

So, it's been discovered that mischievous engineers have been etching their own additions on microchips. Hardly surprising, though, considering the de facto assumption of easter eggs and back doors in almost every piece of software floating around out there. Graffiti does seem to be a hardwired human response. It makes me wonder what we're going to find scrawled on our DNA once we can resolve it in sufficient detail. After all, if we were made in a god's image *cough* chances are the same impulses will have been at work during creation. My money's on "Evolution negates warranty." What's your bet?

If you go down to the woods today

These teddy bear spies manage to be simultaneously creepy and perverse. Somehow I still find myself wanting one. Ah, yes, that would be the 'perverse' kicking in.

Next stop: Tai-Pei

I had the most disorientating experience this morning. As I arrived at Bayswater station, and was climbing the stairs to the exit hall, the tannoy come on with a general announcement. Not too unusual, you might think, except that the announcement was in Chinese or Japanese! It stopped me in my tracks as a cold shiver went through me. I actually felt the hairs on my arms fluff out as my brain insisted that I accidently disembarked in Kyoto. The short circuit only cut out when another announcement followed, this time in Spanish, and my common sense kicked in just enough to rationalise the presence of a foreign language¹ on MY station. Weird moment, though.

¹heavy foreign presence on Queensway due to plethora of youth hostels in the area

Kitty goodness

(snaffled from Kitty, for the amusement and merriment of all)

The End of the Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe's Cat

Hallmarks of Felinity

How do you spell "political correctness"?

Everyone has to cross the river

The River IQ game is a nice implementation of a fiendish logic puzzle. As the text is in Japanese, here are the rules:

1. Everyone has to cross the river
2. Only 2 people are allowed on the raft at any one time
3. Only the Mother, Father and Policeman know how to operate the raft
4. The Father can not stay with any of the Daughters without their Mother's presence (damn dysfunctional Japanese families)
5. The Mother can not stay with any of the Sons without their Father's presence
6. The Thief (striped shirt) can not stay with any family member if the Policeman is not there

Seems simple, I know, but you'll find it's more complex than appears at first.

Mechanics of the game:

• Click on the big blue circle bottom right to start the game
• Click on the people to move them on and off the raft
• Click on either red-topped pole to move the raft to the opposite side of the river

It is soluble, I promise! Let me know how many steps there are in your solution if you attempt it, please, as we're keen to see if there is a more efficient (or even just any other) solution than ours.

Too tight, darling?

Anyone in the BDSM community interested in this? The possibilities!

Rare quiz entry

Now this test gave an interesting result:

Your natural talent is interpersonal relations and dealing with people. You communicate well and are able to bring disparate groups together. Your calming presence helps everything go more smoothly. People crave your praise and complements.

What makes it so interesting is that it's the closest match to my personality out of the choices available.

Same thing happened with this test:

Structured and organized, you have a knack for thinking clearly. You are very logical - and you don't let your thoughts get polluted with emotions. And while your thoughts are pretty serious, they're anything from boring. It's minds like yours that have built the great cities of the world!

Now, obviously, all the results are complimentary, so I'd have been flattered regardless of which image I'd chosen, but it does make me ponder when my favourite image in each test elicits the best match to the way I see myself. I'd be intrigued to know if anyone else has the same experience...

Distractions

My blogging has been horribly sparse of late. I blame BlogLines. Having so much information delivered for my convenient consumption wreaks havoc on my free time. Oh, and FreeCycle. Mmm, free goo.

But I do have another reason. I have been playing with a new pet project, Readcycle. It's in its utter infancy at the moment, but I hope to rear it to at least toddler status this weekend, and seed my first handful of books in the new week. Advice and assistance eagerly welcome.

Quote of the Day

I find it fucking sad that a cartoon squirrel has more sympathy for the humans beings affected here than the actual people reporting it!
Foamy, Neurotically Yours, Hurricane Katrina Special Report

no No NO!

I've been pretty blasé about the slow erosion of our civil liberties in the UK over the last few months. When I heard that the government had granted itself the right to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely without charging them with anything concrete (dreadfully inconvenient to have your charges successfully contested, don't you know), I was a little disturbed, but shrugged it off as paranoia. After the transport network attack on 7^th July just past, the right to search individuals without warrant or probable suspicion was granted to the Metropolitan Police operating on the network. I read this as a short-lived attempt at heightened visibility to avert accusations of indifference, and kept moving. Except when being stopped to have my bags searched, of course.

And now an innocent suggestion by ACPOS comes to my attention. Its appeal to the common-sense notion of justice - the same common-sense that dictates the removal of dissidents from the country irrespective of their right to free speech - makes it likely that it'll slip under the radar of the civil rights groups and result in a toehold on the plinth of totalitarianism - establishment of guilt without trial. It's a lovely notion that, if Simon Harris had been on the offenders list (assuming he is, in fact, responsible for Rory Blackhall's death), he would, by some miracle of temporal displacement, have been apprehended before he was due in court and therefore before Rory was killed, but it's pure fantasy.

Whether Simon Harris is guilty of any of these charges or not, putting in motion events that can reasonably only take place after guilt is established beyond doubt would have made no difference in this instance and would be unlikely to make a difference in any conceivable instance. What it would be, however, is a clear transgression of one of the central tenets of the modern justice system - that one is innocent until one is proven guilty. Charging someone with a crime is not enough.

Quod erat demonstrandum

The Metro (a free daily circulation available in UK metro centres, hence the name) has been running a series of letters and responses on the GCSE grades (achieved by end-of-secondary students), culminating - for me - in this wonderful submission today:

Am I Illiterate and Inumerate because of my A grades, in maths and english? Stop slagging off people who have worked hard at getting their results and support those who will, wether you like it or not be the future of this country? (sic)

Mwaaaahahahahaha!

Vibrators go interactive

I recently tripped across this internet rabbit (NWS!) while innocently browsing, and made a sweaty mental note for future gifting. Now, someone's gone one better and done exactly what we were discussing last weekend. The best thing is, we can all play. Orgasms for everyone!

PS. It's effectively Nokia-locked, proving Nokia's superiority (to me) once again.

DIY blues

I was raised in an androcentric culture that espoused quiet competence in all matters DIY, at least among the (ruling) male gender. Imagine the stress and anxiety this causes in those of us, like me, who are born with 5 thumbs on each hand and the practical sense of a suicidal lemming. A constant sense of disappointment in my profound lack of manual ability has conditioned my dislike to a Pavlovian degree; the mere mention of a picture to be mounted or a crack to be plastered over is enough to engender a cold sweat, weak knees and blurry vision as the terror rises.

Needless to say, repairs around the house tend to get postponed until we can absolutely endure no longer and, even then, I don't so much tackle them as approach them obliquely and try to take them by surprise (mine, not theirs). In a sneak DIY blitz yesterday, I

• spent an hour in B&Q gathering equipment,
• mounted Zara's sword on its display pedestal,
• mounted the display pedetsal on our living room wall,
• replaced the broken bracket for Zara's cupboard rail and replaced the rail,
• prepared the curtain rail socket in our living room with a cunning admixture of rawl plug and No More Nails for remounting of the rail,
• and attempted to disassemble the toilet seat to replace the fittings, which have rusted badly (so badly, in fact, that I stripped the threads trying to unscrew them - will need to replace the entire seat now)

I feel I have fulfilled my 'manliness' quota for another 6 months, giving me time to quell the shaking before my next episode.

Retort

I do so love Nemi.

How stunning is this?

Cthulhy

Just got back from seeing the Chihuly installation at Kew Gardens and, as the title of this post suggests, the resemblance to various Shoggoths and Mi-Go was unmistakable to those of us of an eldritch bent. There was a tangible sense of alien infestation in the Temperate House, heightened by the deepening dusk and somber weather (not to mention the glasses of wine and a dearth of promised canapés). Green maggots, yellow lilies and multicoloured orbs from space were tucked in amongst fern fronds and palms. Large orange tentacular masses hung ominously over entrances and archways, and I'm sure I even spotted a Triffid or two in their early developmental stages.

Most everyone else seemed to see pretty glass flowers. Fools!

More eerie animation

Whilst on the topic, I'd like to proudly present:

Salad Fingers

Christ Kitsch

Home of Lock n' Load Jesus, Trick Tracts and Fuzzy Dayglo Velvet Jesus. Turn or Burn!

Danger: Humour

Wonder Showzen has come to MTV.UK, in a very late night slot, but you can find some of the choicer segments here, if you've missed the surreality of it all so far. Just don't be tripping when you view.

While on the subject of new animateds, Drawn Together is worth a peek as well. Take every Big Brother show you've ever avoided watching, bend reality 90° to the fnurl, and then add a dash of lime, and you'd still not be close to the madness of their antics.

Mood music

If you're horny, that is. Now I know why Zara loves her iPod so.

Know this

Understand me.

Dalek Llama?

The Dalek Song, in the noble tradition of the Llama and Sawyer songs. So says the subscript, anyway.

Mobile madness

excerpt from the Returns Reduction Handbook provided as standard issue to Carphone Warehouse staff during training

...

Upgrades

• Occasionally, a mark¹ will go temporarily insane and suffer the delusion that another carrier can offer a better rate. The mark will call to request that their con² be cancelled.
  • UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you do this simply on request.
  • Obtain details of the illusionary better offer, and point out that Carphone Warehouse has a con that is almost as good. Never match the offer; it's not necessary. The effort of switching to a service provider³ is worth at least 25% of the difference in cost.
  • Offer newer, shinier bait⁴ than the mark is imagining (at a higher con rate, of course. It is newer and shinier). Our cons are designed to recoup the cost of any bait included with the con.
  • If neither of these tactics obtains immediate acquiescence, remind the mark of the many irritations concomitant with switching carrier; change of number, down time between cons, endless paperwork. Then refer back to the points above.
• Less common still is the mark who, having been presented the hook⁵, continues to entertain the delusion that there is a better offer, and calls back to cancel.
  • First call: Ask whether the mark has swallowed the bait⁶.
    • If so, refuse to acknowledge any possibility of cancellation. Insist that swallowing the bait constitutes automatic, incontrovertible acceptance of the con, irrespective of who signed for the delivery. Should the mark ask to speak to someone else, inform them that there is no-one else available at present and that they will need to call back.
    • If not, inform the mark that, until they have swallowed the bait, the hook will not be in place, and you will be unable to start processing a cancellation order. When they call back having swallowed the bait, refer to the point above.
  • Second call: If the mark is undeterred, they will be calling back to dispute the first call.
    • Sweetly agree with the mark that, of course, they are entitled to change their mind and have the hook removed. It is company policy.
    • Express confusion and regret that any employee of Carphone Warehouse would have indicated otherwise.
    • Alert the mark to their sole responsibility for ensuring that the bait is returned to Carphone Warehouse in order to remove the hook. Any cost incurred so doing is completely the mark's concern.
    • UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES are you to volunteer the following information: Should the mark ask about returning the bait to a branch of Carphone Warehouse, you may grudgingly concede that such a thing has been known to occur.
    • Make it very clear that cancellation of the con has to be requested in writing. Should the mark query this, given that the hook was cast on verbal instruction alone, you should cite Ol' Reliable⁷
• The truly determined mark will not balk at this latest requirement and will return the bait by mail or, in some exceedingly rare instances, even present the bait in person at a Carphone Warhouse branch:
  • Returns by mail...
    ...
  • Returns in person:
    • First visit: After listening attentively to the mark and ascertaining the reason for the return as being a change of mind, tap randomly on the keyboard for a few minutes, and then inform the mark that the hook is not showing as having been cast on the system yet but a request to have it removed has been placed. Request that the mark return to any branch later in the day or on a following day to return the bait and receive a receipt
    • Second visit: If a mark arrives at a branch with bait and insists that the above has already occurred, tap randomly on the keyboard for a few minutes AND pretend to make a 15 minute call to some nebulous 'Authorisation Centre'. Then inform the mark that the returns procedures have changed since they last attempted to return the bait (no matter how recently they claim to have tried) and that an email needs to be sent from the branch to the Authorisation Centre. The hook can only be removed on receipt of an authorisation email in reponse. The mark has to be present for the entire process. No estimated duration need be supplied.
    • Third visit: If a mark arrives at a branch with bait and recounts both events above, repeat exactly the Second Visit scenario, but allow the mark to leave while the emails are being exchanged if they leave the bait at the branch. Reassure them that it will be completed by the end of that day and that they will receive a call once the bait has been logged as returned and the hook has been removed.
    • Fourth visit: If a mark arrives at a branch without bait, and recounts the visits above, check if the mark can identify the staff member who took receipt of the bait
      1. If not, ask for their receipt for the phone. As they will not have one yet, pursuant to Visit 3 above, you can insist that the mark still has their bait and the hook remains in place.
      2. If so, claim that the person responsible for processing authorisation on returned bait has been in a meeting all day and has been unable to process any such cancellations. Assure the mark that it will be done, and that they will receive a call once the bait has been logged as returned and the hook has been removed.
    • Fifth visit: If the mark makes it back for a fifth try, let it go.

...

Now apply these rules to my attempt at undoing Zara's contract upgrade, including a free Samsung D500, and you have an account of my free time since last Thursday.

Glossary of Terms
¹mark: customer
²con: contract
³service provider: fictional, gross misnomer when used to refer to mobile call carriers
⁴bait: mobile phone
⁵hook: upgrade
⁶swallowed the bait: by extension, accepting/receiving/signing for a mobile phone
⁷Ol' Reliable: "I don't know why. It's just procedure."


Disclaimer: This entry is intended as a parody. I have no proof that there is an Advanced Returns Reduction Handbook or that the instructions above are part of Carphone Warehouse staff training. It sure as hell seems that way, though, doesn't it?

You call that scary?!

This is just too perfect not to share:



Thereby proving that John Kovalic could easily be British, with that wry humour

Techo bunny alert

Never thought I'd hear a dance track I'd actually like. Then I heard Poor Leno by Röyksopp, at their Glastonbury performance. Now I'm eating my words.

Stoked!

There are times, though they are rare, that I really love my job. I've just finished the reconciliation of 3 bank accounts against 4 sets of ledgers over 2 months including some tricky cross-posting and numerous errors on the part of our bankers. To the penny. The adrenalin is pumping. The music does help (Hard industrial and EBM, compliments of Biodustrial.com).

I'm fine too

Useful things, these bulletin boards. I am not exploded, burned, shrapnelled, smoked or trampled. I am at work. Don't know how I'm going to get home, mind you, but with the estimated death toll at 20 at the moment, I'm not going to complain (loudly).

Star War 3: Backstroke of the West

(snaffled from technomom)

What happens when DVD pirates are infected by the Babelfish meme¹.

¹BabelFish meme

Take the first verse, or the chorus, of a song in English (or some other base language), plug it into the Babel Fish translation engine, and translate it back to English (or your base language) via one or more other languages. Then post it for people to guess the song

e.g. Hotel California via Greek and French

with an obscure fresh air of deserted trunk roads to my hot odor trj' has colitas which increases above via the air above in front of at the distance evle' I da a light of lampyrj' smatos my head became heavy, and my sight became obscure me was necessary that it stops because the night there was held with the door heard the bell of sending and I thought of with this one it could be sky or this one it could be the hell then it lit above a candle and it opened the road to me it was there voices under corridor I thought I heard them I say

London 2012

It's official. We've been burdened with the circus.

To be fair, I don't have a specific problem with the Olympic Games. It's having them on my doorstep that's annoying me. More accurately, paying to endure the inconvenience. It's been postulated that each household in London can expect to pay an additional £20 in local taxes each year for the next 10 years to raise the necessary funds. Only £20, you might say, but in truth it's another £20 on top of an already crippling level of taxation¹. What's more, as with every 'interim' measure of this nature, it's hardly likely that the bureaucrats in charge in a decade's time are going to reduce the taxes by £20 again because the term has come to an end, is it? Also, local taxes are increased each year as a function of the average rate of inflation. I'd place very high odds against some functionary excluding the £20 surtax from their calculations when they come to winding the press a little tighter at each year's budget review.

So here's to the £234.63² the 2012 Olympics will cost me personally, and the cost heritage in perpetuity to every London resident. Hip hip...

¹ 22% Pay As You Earn, 11% National Insurance, for a whopping third of your income going to the government if you don't earn more than £30000p.a., that is. Oh, and let's not forget local taxes of at least £1200p.a. Weee!
² estimating average inflation at 3.5%p.a.

Cinema picnic

In order for you to fully understand the importance of this little tale, some back story first. In my childhood in South Africa, cinemas were fiercely protective of their right to fleece their customers by charging them extortionate prices for essential movie-viewing snacks. Patrons were forbidden to carry any food or drink into the cinema, and I remember many a time when we'd decide to watch a film after having been shopping, and having to have our bags locked away in the manager's office before being handed our ticket stubs and escorted into the Ster Kinekor premises. As a result, there was a piercing illicit thrill to smuggling cheaply-bought munchies in with us whenever possible, concommitant with the risk of being ushered out without refund should we be caught.

The British, I'm increasingly reminded, are more relaxed about such things. You wish to have a glass of wine in the park with your friends? No problem, just don't cause a disturbance. You want to cool off by jumping into this public fountain? Okay, make it quick, as long as you don't offend anyone. So, when a friend and I decided to watch Kung Fu Hustle last night immediately after work, I thought I'd pick up a decent dinner-sized, picnic-style meal for us to enjoy while we were entertained by the zany goings-on on-screen. Some rolls and a selection of cold meats, a bag of tortilla crisps, some marked-down custard tarts and a 4-pack of Heineken seemed a reasonable spread, and I arrived at the theatre, left a seat between us as a table, and laid out our meal. Glenn's growing amazement as I unpacked was ample evidence that he had not truly understood what I meant by 'dinner snacks' and has not yet come to terms with the less oppresive London culture.

Neither have I, it must be said. Not fully, anyway. That old rebellious thrill is still there, the perfect condiment to our dinner-in-the-dark.

Client service

or, Why We Hate Stupid Calls

Ring!

Me: Hi, you're through to Accounts. You're speaking to Greg. How may I help you?

Her: Can I speak to Greg, please?

Me: (sigh) Speaking. How may I help you?

Her: I don't understand this amount on our account. Can you explain it to me please?

Me: Please hold one moment while I bring up your account... Okay. I can see 3 outstanding amounts on your account. Which amount are you calling about?

Her: Well, call me stupid, but I don't understand any of this.

The temptation to take her up on her offer is almost overwhelming but I bite down on my tongue hard enough to leave bruises before taking a deep breath and continuing

Me: Let's make sure we're looking at the same figures. The statement you're holding, does it show a total outstanding of Z?

Her: Yes.

Me: Great. And there are 3 items showing on the statement, totalling Z?

Her: Yes.

Me: Looking at these items, I'm guessing that your confusion stems from the balance due on the first item, as the other two are recent and straightforward, so...

Her: Slow down! Not so fast. So, you're looking at the first item?

Me: (teeth clenched) Yes. An amount of Y.

Her: Um. Okay. With you now.

Me: We originally invoiced you for an amount of X but we only received payment for part of the invoice, so the amount of Y remains to be paid.

Her: I don't understand why the invoice was underpaid.

She said in the aggrieved tone of someone expecting me to tell her why her company paid us less than we billed them. *slaps head*

Me: We did query the short payment at the time, and were told that the balance would be settled, but no subsequent payment has been sent. I sent you a copy of the original invoice, showing the amount of X billed, as well as a copy of your payment advice to us, showing the amount you paid and the reference to our invoice number, so that you'd have everything you need to conclude the transaction on your end and settle the balance of Y on the invoice.

Her: Yes, I saw all that but, call me stupid, but I didn't understand any of it.

Please stop asking. I won't be able to hold it back forever!

Me: I hope it's clearer now.

Her: Um. So we should have paid you X, and we've paid Y instead?

Me: (Aaaaarg!) No, there is an amount of Y still to be paid. If you deduct the amount you paid us, which is on the payment advice I've included for you, from the amount X we billed you, which is on the copy invoice I've included for you, you will arrive at the balance Y showing on the account statement I sent you.

Her: I'll have to look at this and call you back.

Because I only put in half my brain before I left home this morning and I'll need my other brain cell to grasp X - (less than X) is not zero

And people wonder why "Customer Services" is an oxymoron.

2000 words

Hubris, n.

Destiny Engineering

Work insanity + social life = no posts

It's been a crazy 3 weeks, and I don't really have the time even now to put any kind of comprehensive detail down, but if I don't do at least a bare minimum now, I'm going to start forgetting how to blog!

A weekend spent driving a total of 450miles over 16 hours to visit Kitty and her Wolfie in Bradford (near Leeds) taking in Blackpool as well kicks off the fun. A tennis-obsessed 2 weeks later, and I miss the finals of Wimbledon in another weekend of fun and frolic, with a pit-stop at the cinema en route to catch War of the Worlds (which was quite good) and Batman Begins (which was also quite good).

Capped it all off with a truly amazing time yesterday. BBQ and Black Russians and bad Kitties. Mmmmmmm.

Digest

to be fleshed out when work insanity ceases

• Some 're-structuring' of our company during a staff shortage has led to 12- and 14-hour days by yours truly in an effort to stay on top of the work. 60 hours last week, 21 hours so far this week with 3 days still to survive. Hence the digest format.
• My 30^th has passed, with little fanfair and much fun. Had a small cheese-and-wine do at home on Saturday evening to test 3 white zinfandels - the Blossom Hill beat the Ernst & J.Gallo and Sainsbury's El-Cheapo hands-down. Went to the Download Ozzfest on Sunday to see one of my favourite bands - Mudvayne - and miss the other one - System of a Down - due to a severe hayfever attack brought on by the dusty conditions and high winds. Still had fun!
• Managed to do 9hrs at work yesterday in spite of having had 3 hours sleep getting home from the festival at 4am. I rock!
• Zara took me out to dinner last night to make up for the lost hours on my birthday. She rocks!
• Spray-on mud for urban 4x4s, Metro 14 June. *shakes head in belief*
• Rigoletto will be relayed live to a big screen in Covent Garden Piazza on Tuesday June 21. Sounds like a hoot, and it's on the solstice, so a good night to stay out late. Anyone else?

And now I really need to set out for home...

So tired

This is a ridiculous time to still be at work. One night was bad enough, but two in a row is pretty horrible, and it's beginning to look like tomorrow will be a repeat occurrence.

A conscience can be a terrible thing.

London through fresh eyes

I keep forgetting how much I love randomly rambling through a city. While showing my newly arrived sister around London, I took a short cut from Picadilly Circus to Oxford Circus, and was rewarded by tripping across Playlounge, which stocks the most wonderfully bizarre and dark toys. In spite of a slightly annoyed Lynette tugging at my sleeves to leave, I stayed long enough to buy a set of figures from Tim Burton's The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy: And Other Stories for Zara, who loved the book. I simply must wander the streets more often, when treasures like this are just begging to be discovered.

Extract

'I feel I should thank you, ' said Oats, when they reached the spiral staircase.
'For helping you across the mountains, you mean?'
'The world is... different.' Oats' gaze went out across the haze, and the forests, and the purple mountains. 'Everywhere I look I see something holy.'
For the first time since he'd met her he saw Granny Weatherwax smile properly. Normally her mouth went up at the corners just before something unpleasant was going to happen to someone who deserved it, but this time she appeared to be pleased with what she'd heard.
'That's a start, then, ' she said.
Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

Resonance. Exchange 'beautiful' for 'holy', and you have my basic mindset in a nutshell.

My Eurovision 2005 highlights

Forget the winners - Greece - as you probably already have done. Forget all but a few - notably the energetic Zdob [shi] Zdub from Moldava, who got my vote - of the 24 other finalists. Forget even Terry Wogan, whose normally achingly sarcastic voiceovers seemed to lack something of their customary bite, except for the truly memorable Ant and Shriek epithet he coined for the Ukrainian presenters and his genuine concern for the Granny drummer. The most memorable aspects of my first Eurovision were all about the intermission show and the technology!

When the body artist began his routine while Europe waited for the votes to be tallied, my initial response was, "Oh, god, interpretive dance." I was about to put the break to good use and hop up to pluck my eyebrows or something when he lifted himself into a handstand from splits and then folded himself over into something resembling an angular Viking rune while still on his hands. My jaw hit the floor and held me in place for the rest of the routine, long enough for it to lock open and my tongue to dry out against my bottom lip. He was paragonal! See! I needed to invent a wholly fictitious word to describe the awesome feats of strength and balance on display. Extreme handstands, countoured body spins on a single hand, even the simple handless stand from splits that he enacted effortlessly and that - I know, I've tried - takes immense power and control. Throughout, he made it seem bonelessly graceful and puppet-simple, one of those moments that turns kids into gymnasts and dancers. "I want to be just like that man, mommy."

For once, Google has let me down, or I've just not tripped across the right search string. I was too stunned to take note of his name during the show, and so this artist has been reduced to a mere third person pronoun, and I'd like to fix that.

Two things struck me about the infrastructure behind the show. Firstly, that wondrous raised-glass stage, underlit by hundreds of glowing rods, presented a real conundrum during the first performance (Nox, from Hungary). The men were doing this fantastically hypnotic dance, reminiscent to Anglophiles of the Lord of the Dance shows, and seemed to be doing it between raised lightrods. Only when they clearly passed over the staves did my brain finally parse the image and, for the rest of the show, this phenomenon kept stealing my attention from the admittedly lacklustre artists. Good stage. The other appealing spectacle was the live scoreboard they used to keep track of the cumulative points. All that exciting swapping of places and scrabbling for the top was riveting.

The only comment I have about the contest itself boils down to a simple observation. The War never ended. The battleground has merely been moved. With partisan bloc voting rife (as, we are informed by the lackadaisical Terry, it always is), the entrants from Greece, the United Kingdom and Israel - virtually indistinguishable - received wildly different scores, with nothing more than their geographical location and political status to set them apart. More fool I for thinking it was about fostering burgeoning talent. Then again, as the winner's song effectively becomes the theme tune to Europe for the next year, I suppose In my empty life you'll be the only reason is more apposite than Burn all your troubles say goodbye to yesterday or I am spiraling down with you. I suppose it depends on whether you're Barroso, Blair or Chirac. [/political]

Other random spewings:

• Vanilla Ninja (Switzerland). How apt. Pretty 80's soft rock in white.
• No Name (Serbia & Montenegro). Reminds me of the group in Soul Music trying to be musicians, eventually known as And Supporting Bandes so they could get on the playlist
• Feminnem (Bosnia & Herzegovina). Bucks Fizz Lesbianism (thanks to kitty for the quote)
• Natalia Podolskaya (Russia). I don't know why it is that producers have gone for their female artists showing just about, but not, all of their lovely breasts, but I do hope it continues. Can't remember the song, though!
• Luminata & Sistem (Romania). Deserve a special mention for their fascinating use of props.

If only!

Why has no-one told me that Terry Gilliam was trying for a film version of Good Omens, starring Johnny Depp, no less? A quick Google shows that the planning for the movie dates back to late 1999, but got shelved in 2002. Now it looks like it may very well go ahead after all. I'll paste my forefingers together if crossing them long enough will make it so.

Cosplay, queues and cake

This weekend marks the first time I spent longer in the queue for an event than in the event itself. And had more fun in the queue! Attending the MCM show at Excel seemed like a brilliant idea when it was raised just last Thursday. A friend of a friend was a show artist, the entry was only £6 each and it was round the corner from home. Opening was slated for 11pm so, with the kind of cool logic that, in hindsight, is fundamentally flawed, we determined that arriving after midday would have us missing the long lines of slavering fanfolk and walking straight in. Hah! As we walked into the main hall of the centre, a tinny Tannoy voice apologised for waits of up to 2 hours for Hall 3. We laughed, and pitied the poor visitors waiting to get into Hall 3, and did so all the more when we realised that Hall 3 was our destination.

Vodka smoothies and a pair of interesting signature hunters in the queue with us made the time fly remarkably pleasantly. As did the large number of people asking Zara for pictures of her outfit. Having heard there was a cosplay event in the programme, Zara had decided to dress up, not strictly for the event, you understand. Large numbers of less astute visitors were sure she was the winning entrant and wanted photos to memorialise the encounter. It only took one quick glance from a real cosplayer to puncture Zara's bubble, however. "You dress like that all the time, don't you. It's too generic to be cosplay." Watch this space for more news about Zara's future outfits, though. She's been bitten by a new bug i.e. she has a new reason to shop.

A brief wander through the expo, and we were on our way to the truly pleasant part of the day. The late afternoon consisted of (un)comfy cushions, padded arches and gorgeous cake with naked men and women in various degrees of discomfort and arousal around us. This is the delightful basement of Coffee Cake and Kink, an inspired idea well-executed and wonderfully run by the friendliest staff EVAH^tm! Going back there, oh yes we are. The birthday party started off a little slow and relaxed, which was nice, and then kicked into high gear when we reached Auberge, our restaurant for dinner. I think they must have been extremely happy to be rid of us by the time we left. We were just the teensiest bit noisy. Hey, we were having fun!

So, an excellent Saturday, on an excellent friend's birthday. It's, like, fate, man.

Advertising

A colleague raised an interesting question regarding a radio ad we both heard and, by extension, all advertising. He felt that the tone of the ad (his interpretation of the tone, that is) was not in keeping with its content and that, if it were changed to agree with his take on the content, it would have a broader appeal and garner more listeners. It must be pointed out that the ad was for something in which he has no interest at all, but he felt that the changes he proposed might make him more likely to pass the information on to others who might be interested.

I was a little perplexed. I am interested in the topic covered by the ad, and had a totally different take on the tone used to convey the content. Where he found dissonance between the two, I found them to be perfectly suited and consider myself among the target audience of the ad, being interested in the topic and having chosen the station because of its specific music genre. I pointed out that, since he didn't have the same take on the ad as me, he probably wasn't targeted by the ad and it would be senseless to change it to appeal to him, thereby possibly gaining a 2^nd hand audience by sacrificing the primary target group.

I was accused of being unable to be objective about the ad because of my interest in the topic, a statement which I can't, in all fairness, reject. If I am biased, how will I know how much that bias informs my opinion? So I put it to you; if an ad doesn't appeal to a member of its audience, should it be changed to include that person in its target group, or can it be assumed that the ad has already been tailored to its target audience and that the unwitting exposee who doesn't like it is irrelevant to the purpose of the ad? My stance should be clear.

For specific context (should it really be necessary), I refer you to the ad in question: the BlueCrashKit radio promo on Catnip Radio

The (main)stream widens

I was delighted to see yaoi featured in today's Metro. Definitely a putative sign of an increasingly tolerant inquisitive zeitgeist. Next step: yiff.

My metier is running

Big up to the Scrivener for pointing me this way. Someone's taken the scribbly nastiness out of stripping and I've not been able to stop:

• World's Funniest Joke (popular in kindergarten and football crowds)
• Organ Grinder (just when you were sure of your supply/demand cycle)
• Robot Heaven (guess it's about to find out!)
• Figure of Speech (which one, exactly?)
• more to come as inspiration strikes

There's a lot of real rubbish, if you're going to browse through other attempts, but a few gems are to be found among the rubble too.

Wants to live forever?

Apparently, according to Dr Aubrey de Grey, scientists are within a generation of an immortality breakthrough. Great news, if he's to be believed. That's not the funny bit though. It's people's response to the prospect that had me in hysterics while reading the Metro this morning.

If you start making changes there, where do you stop? Why not add new things like wings and completely change humans?

This reported in a tone of disgust and outrage. Taken out of context, however, it seems to me a fabulous idea. Let's tailor humans to live underwater. Or in space. Certainly, wings and immortality would be the least of the changes I'd like to see take place.

People don't mind growing old.

Um. Which people are these? The most people hope to achieve is a kind of wise acceptance of their mortality by the time their end becomes an incipient possibility. Give people the chance to live as long as they want, though, and they'd all be vying for the chance to be the first bicentegenarian triple-jump champions. Or the desired equivalent in 200 years.

My personal favourite was this offering from the University of Belfast:

people with high IQ results from 1937 were much more likely to be alive 60 years later than people with low ones.

No, really? And being equipped to deal with the consequences of a 2^nd World War, the concomitant technological explosion and the various vagaries of modern capitalist economics requires a 60-year study to be deemed beneficial to longevity?

Scientists! Gotta love 'em. Bless.

Thought for the day

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanging; it is the skin of living thought and changes from day to day as does the air around us.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

What a very clever man.

Wanna filk?

No, I'm not being rude (well, maybe a little rudeness, if you insist). I tripped across this on another journal, and I don't understand, given the circles I travel in, how it is I haven't come across it before. It's fantastic! We do this for laughs, and here there's an entire community of people with their own collective term for what we're doing! Weeeee!

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hurl!

People have secrets. This site has left me totally wrung out. Be warned.

The shame

Barking is a BNP stronghold.

There. I said it. It's true. In the final count, Barking has the highest proportion of votes for this practically neo-Nazi party of any constituency in the UK. In fact, they came very close to being the 2nd party after Labour in the count, losing it to the Tories by around 100 votes. Eeep!

It does make one stop and think. What the hell am I doing here? I belong in one of the constituencies that swung LibDemwards, goddamnit! That's it. I'm moving to Richmond like all my friends.

Seriously, it's quite a bizarre result, if I simply look around at my neighbours. The old fussbudget across the way has been voting Tory since her parents were born. My terrace neighbour is an Indian primary teacher. My street neighbours are a household of Nigerian immigrants. Who the hell is voting for British Nationalism here?

Dreams are not real

I tripped across a comment while browsing, and it reminded me of a current pet peeve.

I don't know if you've seen the recent spate of ad's from Honda? Their slogan (Yume No Chikara) translates to something like "Making Dreams Happen", which is all very well, but the ads themselves go on to say, "What's the point of a dream if you can't make it happen?" Grrrrrr! What a stupid thing to say!

Web comic

New goodness, especially for cat people. Go look and, for heaven's sake, make sure you've got your giggle-girdle on.

Mind dump

Life the last few weeks has been a strange mixture of frenetic and withdrawn. There's the usual Spring fever of increased physicality (squash, skating, etc) and sudden thunderous depressions of apathy and disinterest. I missed most of the May bank holiday weekend through a debilitating malaise of unknown origin and nature, but managed a grassy knoll comeback on the Monday to compensate. Although I haven't managed to finish a Wednesday night Londonskate yet, due to Winter Atrophy, I'm increasing my endurance each week, and can see completion on the not-too-distant horizon.

Tomorrow's the general election and, for the first time, I get to vote. So I'm voting. The same arguments apply to an abstention now as did during my Uni days, but now it seems churlish to throw away the opportunity to "play my part". I wonder if the politicians saying that realise they're asking their constituents to amuse themselves with the process, rather than "work their part", but I doubt it, somehow.

Extract

And there were others, not as vivid, but they all had the same unshakable belief that they were doomed. And she had it, too. A terrible hard-bitten pessimism, an absolute gloom. She never foresaw a future in which she was included.
A psychiatrist he met over the years confessed one night at a private moment that he wrestled with the impulse to commit suicide each day. He got up every morning and it was a task as certain as shaving and going to the office: he must not kill himself.
Scott Turow, The Burden of Proof

That last sentence, it was a task as certain as shaving...he must not kill himself, is desperately poignant. It's a place I - and I'm sure most of us - have been, and describes the dread routine of despair better than I have ever read, or heard.

Hi. My name is Greg, and I wrestle with the impulse to commit suicide each day.

*wry grin*