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!