Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old?

I've deliberately avoided watching this show for a while, knowing it would be drivel from the title. But. My wife finds it amusing to watch idiots be idiots, and sat me down to watch an episode with her on the weekend. I made it almost 5 minutes into the show before I had to change the channel in rage. It took me almost 15 minutes to calm down enough to see what I was watching.

Why? As if it's not enough that the format itself is tedious and infantile, and that the contestants seem to be hand-picked for their ability to make a mountain out of a shitpile, they also let incorrect answers through as correct!

5 + 3 x 0 = ?

5. Not a moment's hesitation on my part. The contestant gets 15. Not really surprising; she's a 30-something hairdresser, and has a receptionist to count the takings each day. The child gets 0. An understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, right? Wrong!

"You should have trusted the 10-year-old" Noel simpers. "She's right."

WHAT. THE. FUCK?!

And the maths education of children across the nation takes a hit as they gleefully inform their teachers over the subsequent years that all the fundamental rules of arithmetic are subordinate to the magic phrase, "Anything multiplied by zero is zero."

*click*

Am I smarter than a 10 year old? Apparently. And definitely Noel Edmond. And his adult producers too. And so are you!

What I Learned on our Trip to Amsterdam

• My mind is clearly too enamoured of this reality to allow me to play in any other, to the point of anchoring me to my body with intense bouts of nausea every time I try to leave.
• Cyclists can be a real nuisance when they have complete right of way over all other traffic, even pedestrians.
• Market forces making a cup of coffee more expensive than a marijuana joint - completely understandable, and yet still bemusing.
• Buying vodka is a matter of asking for stock to be retrieved from a secret stash; this gives drinking spirits in Amsterdam the illicit thrill that harder drugs lack.
• A gorgeous hotel room can make all the difference.
• I gained an even greater respect and appreciation for the non-smoking laws in the UK after breathing in cigarette exhaust almost everywhere we went.

I had a lovely time, but I see no reason to ever go back. Maybe Brian Aldiss had it right when he had his elderly archaeologist Daniel Potts remark in Super-State, "Travel does not broaden anyone's mind. It merely confirms one's prejudices." I would like to believe otherwise, but then I look up at my list and wonder.

Not quite a nightmare, but...

I just woke up from a dream in which I was learning to deep-throat thick, long cock! The physical sensation of getting just so far and then having to wait for the muscles in the throat and jaw to relax to allow the final push was startlingly real. I'm a little afraid of going back to sleep now.

The truly strange thing is that I woke up with a rather sore throat and jaw, which of course begs the question; did my sore throat provide the impetus for the dream, in the same manner as the ringing of an alarm clock can be transmuted into the tolling of a bell or a fire klaxon, or did the dream itself give rise to a conscious psychosomatic response? I'm leaning towards the latter, if only because as I'm coming fully awake, the pain is receding.

I love odd experiences like this, truth be told; not the cock-sucking, per se, but clear reminders that our perception of reality is far more fluid than we like to believe. It's both exciting and a little scary, but mostly fascinating.

*stops rambling now*

Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd

Something to fend off the post-Xmas blues:



Released in the UK January 8th...

Fireworks display at Alexandra Palace

Guy Fawkes' seems to have fully made the transition to Fireworks Night. There was no Guy, there was no Bonfire - ending the Bonfire Night incarnation of the event - but what fireworks! The display ran for over 20 minutes, easily 10 longer than the distant flares over Battersea Park, visible from our superb elevated position on the south side of Allie Pallie. Although still images can never fully carry the impact of the shocking bursts of light and thuds of sonic booms that make huge fireworks displays such a delight, I'll try to share a little of the wonder with you anyway:

click through for larger images, m'kay?

That's the second night this weekend I've had sore cheeks from grinning too long, after the James Thierree wonderland Friday night:



*satisfied sigh*

Milk the system!

Any company foolish enough to offer silly sums of money for the ostensibly impossible is ripe for a little exploitation. That this particular scheme seems to benefit someone in need is almost secondary. Almost. Take a look for yourself...

P.S. If you do decide to lend your support, it's dead simple to add the download link to your homepage list, so that you don't have to remember to do it every day. It'll kick in every time you load your browser!

compliments of egadfly:
And if you don't know about multiple home pages:

For Firefox: Lifehacker: How To Set Up Multiple Home Pages In Firefox

For Internet Explorer: why use it? Well, if you insist: IE7 Multiple Home Pages

Flickr Toys

Ah, the fun to be had at BigHugeLabs:









The original version of that last picture almost didn't make it into my Flickr album at all, but the frame saves it.

Surreal Estate

Full marks to Foxtons for ingenuity in advertising.