Sour Apples

In the last year you cannot have failed to notice somewhere along the line that there has been much ado about the Apple iPhone. This was a long awaited event (at least, if you were one of the sheep-like idiots who slavishly follow everything Apple do or someone stupid enough to want every gadget no matter how good or bad it is) and Apple, as usual, were not exactly modest about it: Steve Jobs (founder and head of Apple) claimed it would "reinvent" the telecommunications sector. This immodest claim was based on the company’s previous success in...

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What a bargain!

I ventured forth into the madness that is the sales today. I don't normally do this unless I really need something and think I might get a few quid off. It's not that I'm tight, it's just that in order to put up with the moronic stampeding of retarded 'bargain hunters' I need to know I'm actually going to get what I need at a decent price. You see, the problem with bargains is that most of those items which people proudly tell you were a total bargain are not bargains at all because they are items that the person most likely didn't need in the...

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Look, I found the software!

The BBC have reported on a new Personal Transport System to be installed at Heathrow terminal 5 (local interest angle: the company that makes it is based in Bristol). But ehat caught my eye was the diagram at the bottom of the article which points out the key parts of the vehicle: The front, the rear and the "software". Yes, they've managed to pinpoint the software, quite accurately too it would seem.Do these pillocks actually copy check the drivel they are putting out any mo...

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I'm still alive

Although after last nights works do and then more boozing at another party afterwards, it's a close run thing. I feel like mildly tepid death.There's been a stack of stuff I've thought about blogging recently but I just haven't gotten around to it. I may do one or two of them in the coming weeks, but I thought I might just share a few audio files that appeared on a blog that I read called Chase Me Ladies, I'm In The Cavalry. These audio clips are recordings of real calls made to the Cambridgeshire police 999 emergency line. The stupidity of these...

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Notes from a small island

No, really, I am on a small island. Hong Kong to be precise. Why, you might be wondering, am I blogging whilst I am on holiday? Well, the thing is, I have managed to get a cold and after tromping around the Jade Market this morning and the IFC Mall this afternoon, I didn't really feel like going out to Lantau to see the Big Buddha or up to see the Ten Thousand Buddhas. Plus it started to rain. Arse. So, I've come back to my friend's apartment where I'm staying to check on my return details, take hot Beechams and vitamin C in the hope that I will...

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Ho ho fuckin' ho

Whilst it is indeed true that Christmas comes but once a year, it seems to come around with depressing speed as time goes by. No, this isn't a diatribe about how time seems to speed up as you get older, but it's nearly as popular a theme about this time of year. Today I went into town to do some holiday shopping (I shall be jetting off to the Orient in a few days time for a much needed break) and I discovered that Bath city council have decided to put up the Christmas decorations already. It's still the middle of October and we have the lights,...

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Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Bad luck France - 34-10 to the Pumas and your second loss to them in the same tournament. You must be so proud. Now maybe that ridiculous looking hair-bear of yours might go and get a proper haircut, the scruffy oik. And maybe you ought to get yourselves sorted because if Argentina to get into the 6 nations then it will make things very interesting and, much as I enjoy seeing you get well and truly rinsed, it would be a shame for what was once a quality team fall apart. And it would make European rugby just that bit dull...

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Dan le Sac and Scroobius Pip strike again

Scroobius Pip is a contemporary poet placing his verse over modern electronic beats provided by Dan le Sac. They're beginning to get a cult following and it's not hard to see why. Pip tends towards quasi-political statement without entering into direct positional discourse whilst commentating on the trends and happenings of modern life. But never mind all that cack - the point is that he's pretty astute has a lot more to say for himself than any other song writer I've heard of late. I've already posted Thou Shalt Always Kill, so here's Letter From...

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Stop Press!

Top Gear is back!!! 8pm Sunday 7th October on BBC2. Woo h...

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My pile's bigger than yours

In yet another flimsy attempt to disguise the fact I haven't been arsed to think of something to write for a while, here's another video. Some people may not know from where the blog got it's name. Well, ace queen is my cursed hand at poker: I can't win with it and I can't win against it. The point is, I'm partial to the odd hand of poker either for fun or for a few quid. Mind you, I have never played a game for more than about 20 quid because I'm canny enough to know that even though I'm not a bad player, there's always a bloody good chance of...

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Poet or plank?

There were a number of things I thought about writing today, all of them rants, because they have come to my attention in the last few days (slow middle lane drivers on the motorway, the endless roadworks to install those utterly useless 'driver information systems' which only serve to tell you that you are in a traffic jam, like you hadn't already noticed, or to distract you with patronising messages and pointless estimates of how long it will take you to drive an arbitrary distance. Quite how we managed before all this technical wizardry is a...

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Please, oh please...

Rapper 50 Cent (or 'Fiddy' as he is know by the dribbling retards that listen to him) has apparently threatened to not release any more solo albums if his next release is beaten in terms of sales by Kanye West's new album which is launched on the same day. Now, I'm no Kanye West fan but his music is pretty inoffensive and melodious and if there is any justice in the world then his record will do better and the odious ex-crack dealer will fuck off for good and never come back.For those who don't know, 50 Cent is a former drug dealer from (I think...

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Mind the bandwagon

Alright, I'll come clean: I'm one of those slightly snobby middle class types who tries to buy organic food wherever possible. This isn't because I'm conviced it's better for you or because it's not doused in chemicals that will make my spuds shrivel up or my hair fall out (or whatever it is they do), I buy it because, to me, it tastes better. Yes, really.As I've mentioned before in a slightly elongated rant about supermarkets, most of the fruit and veg varieties stocked by supermarkets tends to be chosen for their high yields, long shelf life...

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You dope

Unless you are dead (or perhaps American, seeing as a certain L Armstrong esq. has retired from it) you can't have failed to notice that the Tour de France is in full swing. Now, let me say from the outset that I have nothing but the utmost admiration for these chaps because they ride something like 100 or miles per day every day (more or less) for about 3 weeks. Nothing gets in the way: Mountains, weather, spectators - it's just part of the race. But as it seems happens every year, numerous riders have managed to fail dope tests and have been...

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Thrill me

The is quite possibly the coolest thing I have seen in a long time. More than 1500 inmates from the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, Philippines, re-enacting the classic Michael Jackson Thriller video, complete with extremely ugly ladyboy. Man that roc...

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Copywrong

There can be few more odious organisations in the world today than the RIAA. Essentially, their remit sounds like a good one - protect the interests of music artists and their intellectual property. After all, musicians earn their money from entertaining proles like us, so they deserve to be paid for what they do, right? I'd not argue that point, for sure, and I'm happy to pay for my entertainement. Even stuff I download, I only download to see if I like it. If so then I buy the CD as I'm mildly anally retentive and like to have the originals.The...

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Greatest instruments you've never heard of

Buggering hell, I've gone post crazy. And it's another video, but trust me, this one is even better than the last one.Ever heard of a Theremin? Probably not, but then most people haven't. In case you haven't, it's an instrument that was invented in the early 20th century and is played by moving your hands through a shaped electro-magnetic field. By all accounts they're bastard hard to play so that makes this even more astonishing. And yes, the chap who appears to be wafting his hands about over a Corby trouser press with a TV aerial attached is...

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Choon

Blimey, I'd not heard of this chap before but I tell you what, it's a bloody good track an the video is entertaining. And he's dead right - you should never question Stephen F...

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The magical music box

In a fit of guilt I thought I ought to try and be a tad more regular with posts and it occurred to me that apart from appending the odd "Listening to:" tag on the end of posts and a few links I don't talk much about one of the loves of my life, namely music.I'll not pretend I'm a proper muso and can deconstruct songs and find their deep and meaningful roots but I do listen to a lot of music a lot of the time and I play the guitar a bit (and in my youth, the piano and the drums although neither for very long or very well). Even so I'm not one for...

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Rain, cars, work and everything in between

Bit of a gap in postings, for which I apologise, but there have been two very good, inter-connected reasons for that. Firstly, I have just returned from a week's sleeping in a wet, muddy field in France for the 24 Heures Du Mans. However, before I could get away for it, I had to complete a project which had a ridiculous deadline (which wasn't actually met but I managed to get extended somewhat) which was agreed by my boss with no actual consultation of the technical staff who would be doing the job (i.e. me). As a result, I had to spend several...

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I don't want no Scrubs...

Actually I do. I've been a fan of US sitcom Scrubs since I accidentally caught an episode from the first series on cable TV years back, probably not that long after it had started. I remember seeing a trailer for it but not being a medical TV fan (think Casualty and Holby City, two of the most dirge-like and tedious programmes on TV today) I didn't bother to watch it, so I must have caught it on one of these catch up sessions of which channels are now so fond (they have to put less thought and cash in to get more or less the same viewing figures...

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Two posts in a day?

Might have to change the title from 'occasional' to 'almost regular'. This post is actually a replication of a post I have submitted tonight to cable forum because my broadband provider, Virgin Media, have pulled a bit of a fast one by introducing traffic shaping (or throttling or QoS, whatever you want to call it) without actually mentioning to, well, anyone including their own staff it would seem.The original post is here and here are some of the internet resources reporting on the throttling: Cable Forum, IS Preview and Neowin.Hi all New to...

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Whoa! Watch the bandwagon.

You may or may not be aware of some legal nonsense going on in the States whereby the AACS-LA has decided that even putting up a particular 128 bit hexadecimal integer on your website which so happens to be the same as one of their randomly chosen HD-DVD encryption keys is illegal. Their premise? They claim that the DMCA makes it illegal for anyone to reproduce this number without their permission, which they won't give, because it can be used to circumvent the DRM. But there's a good reason for having this number, not least of which is that it's...

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Beaten to it

Well, it would seem that the Reactable as seen in my last post is available for purchase (although I still have no idea how much it is). And who else would you expect to be using one but short Icelandic mentalist Björk, who used one in conjunction with a lot of other expensive goodies during her set at Coachella.Fans of the enigmatic Icelander will be pleased to know that she has a new album out in May this year. Her official site can be found he...

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Music made fun

Now, I like to play the guitar a bit. I played piano and drums when I was a kid and I fancy myself as a bit of a DJ. All of which make me want this multi-user synth very, very much. I'd have to save for a bit though as I reckon it'd be a bit pricey. Perhaps I could sell some interal organs or something?...

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Iffy layout

You will have to excuse me if this page appears a bit odd looking for a bit. As a recent convert to Opera (the browser, not the musical stylings of Wagner, Puccini et al), I realised it was high time I actually got off my arse and fixed the stylesheet for this site so that it actually worked in browsers other than IE. It's almost there but there are one or two little gremlins that need to be ruthlessly hunted down and taken out the back to be beaten to death. Normal service will resume short...

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Alan Johnston

Still no word on the fate of BBC journo Alan Johnston. Help add to the pressure on parties who have influence in the region and sign the petition calling for his release. No hostage in this area has been held for so long or with this little information. Such acts only serve to harm the Palestinian cause, a fact not lost on the vast majority of Palestinians, who have been extremely vocal and pro-active in expressing their displeasure and disgust at this kidnapping. The very least we can do is add to that growing chorus of dismay.By all account Johnston...

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Making your own luck

Is it possible do you think? Making your own luck? In the last few days I think this has happened to me twice. Firstly, for some days I had the strange feeling that a bird was going to launch a turd at me from on high. This hasn't happened to me for years and somehow I felt as if I'd been dodging it for so long it was bound to happen; law of averages maybe. Anyway, for several days I was wary of birds flying overhead, especially pigeons, of which there are plenty round here, and sea gulls when I went for a day trip to the beach on Easter Saturday.I...

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Unbelievable...

Speaks for itself really...

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New game, old issues

this week, I have been mostly playing...Command and Conquer 3 from EA Games. Whilst its a good game, in true EA style after only 5 days of being on general release there have already been three patches one of which is to fix the patch updater. However, this is not the most annoying aspect, oh no. This comes from actually installing the patches because once you do, then it can stuff the odious copy protection system (SecuRom) so that when you try and start the game you get an error message: A required security module could not be activated. This...

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Vanity

A while ago I started to wonder if anyone was reading my blog. Not that I'd have stopped if they weren't, but you can't help getting curious to know if anyone is reading your rants/drivel/philosophical musings so I've been tracking some basic info using Statcounter and to be honest, I'm amazed at the restuls. Now I'm hardly going to win awards for the amount of traffic on the site and I know I have a couple of regular reader who are friends of mine, one of whom is based in Hong Kong, but I have had a truly global readership so far.Granted most...

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Quality programming...

I'm half watching the BBC's Castaway at the moment and there's a new arrival on the island - a cow. It arrived overnight so when one girl went out of the hut early for some reason she was the first to see it in the field. The cow moos at her and she rushes back into the hut with a look of consternation on her face. She wakes a couple of the other inhabitants and tells them: "You know down at the bottom of the hill...there's a horse!".How the fuck can you not know the difference between a cow (which has just mooed at you) and a horse? They are,...

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I know that face...

For a while now it's been bugging me that the girl from the Bradford and Bingley advert looks very familiar. Yesterday I twigged - she's a Spong Monk...

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A net gain

I know - that's a really crap pun, but I got my fishing nets back. The guilty party had, it seems, simply slung them into the garden behind ours but they were near enough behind a shed (ironically enough) so I didn't see them until they were moved. I went round to get them this evening and it turns out the house owner is the same kind soul who, when they spotted the shed being broken into first time round, rang Plod and told them where to catch a tea leaf red-handed. Which they did.However, this chap told me this evening that the police couldn't...

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Why should I put up with this?

I have just come back from a weekend away and after a long but comfortable drive I had had it in mind to write something about cars and such like. Sadly, when I got home I found out that our shed has been broken into for the second time in 3 months. Somehow, I no longer feel like talking about cars.Several things, apart from the obvious, piss me off about this. For a kick off, there are several other sheds in the gardens around mine, all of them just as accessible as mine and probably with more stuff in them so why was mine targeted? Not that...

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