“Lift me up out of this illusion, Lord. Heal my perception, so that I may know only reality.” – Bill Hicks
Ten years on.
What’s up Doc?
Astronomers have discovered a star that’s made from diamond. The 10 billion trillion trillion carat beast has been found in Centarus and makes the Star of Africa, the world’s biggest diamond, look like something from Elizabeth Duke in comparison.
I wonder if this is why the great Centauri Republic were so rich?
Computers would be great if it weren’t for users
B3ta have just run a question session for their radio show about Stupid user stories and, if true, there are some howlers there. My favourite:
” not a personal client…
But a relative of friend of mine ran a computer company in the DOS & windows 3.1 days. one afternoon a customer who had bought a computer, phoned in. the conversation went as follows:
techy: How can i help?
woman: My computer won’t work!
techy: can you be more specific please?
woman: i don’t know whats wrong, it’s being weird and it won’t do what i want!
techy: are there any messages on the screen saying what the problem might be?
woman: well, it says my himen has been broken or something.the phone was subsequently slammed down, and the techy burst into fits of laughter, he barely managed to relay the story to his co-workers, at which point they all burst out laughing too.
moments later the phone rang, they manage to gain composure and answer. the same woman was on the phone ‘hello? i think we got disconnected, can you help me with my broken himen please?she was helped in the end, but i could never look at himem errors in the same light again.”
Some people just can’t be helped.
[via Blog.org]
Scrobbling
Looks like AudioScrobbler is back up and accepting submissions. The software is a plugin for your media player which sends details of what you’ve listened to to a central server. By looking at the website, not only can you get statistics on your own listening habits, you can see who has similar tastes to yours and get hooked up with new bands. My own page is here so you can see my bizarre tastes.
Symphony: Even for Monkey Shaggers
Tom Baker has to be one of the biggest loons ever to act on British television:
One tortured soul I know who suffers from amazingly premature ejaculation — I mean so premature that he hasn’t got any children after eleven years of marriage — was told by the priest that it was probably a blessing in disguise. What a piece of advice to give to a poor sod who comes off at the sound of his wife’s car in the drive.
Badger Baiting
It looks like someone noticed the badger shouting at the last Broken Family Band gig.
Of course my drunken heckling hasn’t reached the standards of Ferg, who questioned the existence of God at The Comedy Cupboard.
[Listening to: Punk Rock Girl – The Dead Milkmen – Death Rides a Pale Cow (2:36)]
The Red Pill or the Blue Pill Neo?
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed The Matrix Revolutions, mostly because I wasn’t expecting anything other than Special Effect porn, but a lot of people were very disappointed. This parody of the script is quite funny and sums up most people’s annoyances with the many plot holes.Am I the only person who thought it was Return of the Jedi without any annoying Ewoks?
In other developments, it seems that a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) is being planned for 2004. The Matrix Online is apparantly set entirely in the Matrix just after the events in The Matrix Revolutions. It could be interesting to see what plot developments happen vicariously but I’ll certainly not be subscribing.
[via The Motley Fool]
Strange moments in Pub Toilets #1
You’re standing at the urinal minding your own business while doing your business when you hear someone say, “Mmm wooo.” At the further urinal away a dead ringer for the lead singer from Hot Chocolate has just made strange noises. Ever feel like life is one big rabbit hole?
[Listening to: Annie Waits – Ben Folds – Rockin’ the Suburbs (4:17)]
Spiders
This article from the BBC has left me feeling pretty queasy. Apparently some researchers at the University of Washington have designed a virtual reality simulation in order to plunge arachnophobes into a world filled with spiders.
While flooding techniques have been shown to be effective, if someone made me reach out to touch a virtual tarantula and then touched my hand with a fake one I know it would take years before I’d leave whatever mental institution I’d have been sectioned to. I’ll stay afraid, thank you very much.
Frank Black and Elbow
Owing to my rapidly deteriorating memory I’m going to compress both the promised gig reviews (Elbow and Frank Black and the Catholics) into one. This is partly because I need to get them out before the memories become another figment of my imagination and partly because I can’t remember enough to pad out two entries.
Elbow were really very good. I was expecting big things since I’d already heard they played a storming gig in Sheffield and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed. The fact that I hadn’t heard any of their songs before didn’t matter as I was carried away by the whole performance.The band were very good natured and joked along with the crowd and I left the Junction a very happy bunny.
Frank Black was also very good. I’d only ever heard one Pixies album before (Bossanova) and though I liked it, I’m well aware that solo artists can be nothing like the band they’d come from. I was glad to be proved wrong. They played an absolutely stonking set, including several songs from Bossanova, and I yet again got carried away forgetting where I was. The set ended with some solo stuff that was a little bit rock and a little bit country and it sounded smashing. We left the Junction in high spirits and were amazed to see Frank Black himself cycling around the car park on a little shopper bike. C & T were well oiled and decided to shout at him in very strange ways. Thankfully the taxi came soon after and I got to escape before any serious damage was done.
[Listening to: The Light Before We Land – The Delgados – (5:30)]