Ok, I’m going a bit crazy. Trying to follow the Election on BBC, b3ta, Twitter and Wikinews IRC all at the same time, and still feeling bad for missing C4′s alternative coverage – Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr? That’s an awesome lineup.
Anyway, with all that I’m dead tired, and there’s only been 3 seats declared as I write this. I need a slow down before heading to bed, and remembered that I haven’t updated this blog in far too long.
And I do actually have news: I *finally* got a job offer, and though I’m really looking forward to starting, I need to move (up to the Lake District!) and there is loads to sort out in a short time. So the whole day has been rather hectic, especially as my Cantab email has decided to stop working at the most inopportune moment.
So, yeah. That’s an update of sorts. Now I am going to try and get some sleep.
And now, an unordered list of tidbits from the past week or so.
- Went to see 1984 at the Royal Exchange Theatre, which was truly excellent. A great adaptation with stunning performances, in a remarkable space. Have resolved to visit the theatre more often.
- Gorillaz’ (Gorillaz’s? Gorillazes?) new album is very weird, as would be expected. Not sure I like it as much as the first two, but perhaps it will grow on me
- Popped into Manchester MoSI (Museum of Science and Industry), seems to be very much under construction at the moment. All the cool space stuff I remember from my childhood has vanished, replaced by surprisingly amateurish promotional materials for the Chinese space programme.
Exhibit displacement has also resulted in a lone ZX Spectrum with “Horace Goes Skiing” appearing in the Power Hall, amidst the hulking steam engines. Very surreal.
- The intro/outro of “Eight Days a Week” is utterly brutal in Beatles Rock Band.
- WittyLama has some amazing news, he is now “volunteer Wikipedian in Residence” for the British Museum! Read all about it on his blog
- This is a lovely variation on Breakout in Flash. Takes a little while to pick up, but is spectacular once it does.
Conspiracy theories? On the Internet? Who’da thunk it?
But this time it’s different. These theories cut deep. They challenge our firmest beliefs, one of the very foundation stones of our society.
Ladies and gentleman, Andrew W.K. *may* not be “real”
http://www.metafilter.com/87905/Its-Time-To-Party
https://twitter.com/AndrewWK
*fnord*
I think I may have found the finest example of a Youtube comment thread. On the video for ever controversial comic Frankie Boyle’s Most Offensive Jokes (of course, a hilarious video in itself) the following exchange takes place:
MrHeadingley (-9)
Please somebody write something on here which pertains to English. I am skimming Frankie’s videos and am yet to find an intelligent statement from anyone, or from Frankie himself. Frankie Boyle is full of comments for other people: straightforward insults that were funny for about 7 people back in 1976. He laughs at his own jokes and looks painfully nervous; he tries to dominate everything and repeats almost every joke night after night in his stand up. Val Doonican was more entertaining.
truemansparks (+1)
Dear Mr headingley the impression i get from your comments makes me think that you are nothing more than a vile turd chewing pile of putrid lizard excrement with the mental capacity of a slow worm on pot,so shut the fuck up you disgusting necrophiliac baboon felcher!p.s how dare you drag Val Doonnican into this his live shows were fucking blistering !!
MrHeadingley (0)
truemansparks,
Only one ‘n’ in the middle of Doonican
It helps that the middle comment was the first I saw, which made the sudden leap from foul-mouthed invective to a passionate defence of Val Doonican all the more entertaining. And MrHeadingley’s comeback is exquisite.
Cool, CSS3 has a built in drop shadow feature for text! I had no idea.
Look, fanciness!
Thanks to Wikipedia I’ve learnt that Quavers, Monster Munch, Smith’s and Wotsits are ALL owned by Walkers. Which is owned by American company Frito-Lay, who also own Doritos. And they in turn are owned by the giant PepsiCo. That’s kind of depressing, apart from Golden Wonder and McCoys they seem to own every British potato/corn snack food.
Also PepsiCo own Tropicana (which I knew about), Copella (which I didn’t) and Quaker Oats (which I would have had down as brand least likely to be owned by giant multinational corporation)
> inventory
You have:
an unfinished computing report
> bake cake
The smell of baking fills the kitchen.
> inventory
You have:
a still unfinished computing report
a delicious cake
OK, so the blog-a-day experiment was a miserable failure. The good news is, it’s because I’ve been keeping busy in real life. Lots of fun, and some secret plans – which I’m sure I’ll be posting about soon. Anyway I went to a talk by Roger Penrose today, and am quite proud of the fact I survived three quarters of an hour before getting totally lost. His new theory is quite cool, if a little confusing, maybe I’ll find time to write about that (or what I understood it to be) It’s scary – I got there 20 minutes early and the lecture theatre was almost full. And this is a BIG lecture theatre, given that it seats all the Part IA Phys NatScis for Maths lectures. Apparently they had to turn away 200-300 people.
Also, Screenwipe is back. Huzzah!