People are asking why I don't update more frequently, in answer to this question, I present: a boring update:
The other day I moved from the smallest bedroom in my house into the biggest bedroom in my house. The big bedroom was previously occupied by Joann Massanaoud, the anally-retentive Parisian with the annoyingly foppish laugh, but now he's moved out (I think I broke his will), and his master bedroom was left vacant.
This probably happened a couple of weeks ago, but I've been reluctant to move in because the door was closed. Now, I hadn't seen Joann for days by this point, but, like Schroedinger, I couldn't be certain that Joann wasn't still in his room without collapsing the quantum probabilities and opening that door - and even though it was really unlikely, I didn't really fancy the odd chance of storming into my housemate's room with all my stuff to find that he's just been sitting on his bed silently and in the dark for the past fortnight. That would have been awkward.
But yeah, I finally moved in yesteryesterday, and its so spacious! I actually have space to traverse. In the small room, I was literally only able to open the door open a crack and then leap onto my bed. On the other hand, all that empty space means that it does get a lot colder, and I haven't been able to pick up any reception for any of the Fours on my TV yet...
Speaking of TV. I was watching 'The Passion' on the Beeb on sunday, and James Nesbitt makes a really good Roman. The character of King Herod was made to be really sympathetic and Jesus was basically just a weirdo - which is a good angle I feel.
Speaking of Jesus, I saw this thing about Jesus within Islam. Basically, Muslims quite highly revere Jesus, acknowledging him as one of their most important prophets, however, they deny that he was God, and that he died in order to absolve all Mankind of sin. Muslims like to say to Christians that they believe in Jesus too, and that they have so much in common and they should be bestest friends... which seems silly to me, because by denying the divinity and the sacrifice of Jesus, they're denying the most important aspects of Christianity. It'd be like gatecrashing an Amnesty International meeting and saying, "Oh yeah! I believe in Human Rights too! Ah yeah, Human Rights, they're great, I love 'em to bits. Except um, I don't believe that the right to not be enslaved or murdered can be included as a Human Right..."
I'm not saying that religions shouldn't be the bestest of friends, (well, I might be, as an antitheist, the principle of divide and conquer comes to mind...), but it seems there are some things about your faith that you should maybe keep quiet if you want to win friends.
Hmm... I don't think this update is sufficiently boring... Errr... Ooh. Last night's Deep Space Nine was really good. It involved time travel and there was a dilemma. Seriously, I think DS9, (as lame-o Trekkies abbreviate it), is the ideal science fiction series, as opposed to the other Star Treks where there'll be a problem for one episode, but then the ship will just fly away from it forever as the credits role, DS9 is set on a space station, a stationary space station, so when there's a problem, it'll still be there next week. As such the series is incredibly non-episodic, instead preferring huge intricate intertwining story arcs that spread across several seasons. Its a joy to watch.
In academic news, I, um... I haven't done any of my essays for this term. I seriously have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me. I mean, I know that nobody enjoys writing essays, but I seem to have a proper psychological block. It sometimes gets to the point where I'll be looking at an empty word document and find myself literally wanting to do anything else. Like, if you asked me whether I'd rather work on an essay for an hour, or be kicked in the bollucks for an hour, I would really have to think about it.
That's not to say I'm not interested. The essay questions I picked are all pretty interesting, and I reckon I could probably produce some quite detailed blog entries on their topics, or talk at length about them... But I just literally can't bring myself to start typing out these essays. Maybe its some kind of psychological crusade of self-destructiveness... I do have a tendency for those.
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Monday, 10 March 2008
A GameCube for the GameSquare
A certain someone tells me that there three things that one needs to take interest in in order to be a real man:
So then I started to drift away. I later got a Nintendo 64, but I never really got completely into it, I only really had three or four games for it...
UNTILL NOW! The other day I bought a GameCube. My friend Chris was visiting Lancaster, and he dragged me into GameStation, (what is it with gamers and KangarooCasing?), he looked around, I worked out stupid ways of saying 'video games', ('fiddero james' was my favourite). On the way out, I say the GameCube in the front window. It was a special edition including a copy of Pokémon Colloseum, and it only cost £24. I frantically tried to think of a reason why I wasn't immediately buying it, but failed, so I went in and bought it up.
The Pokémon franchise is the sole exception to my distaste for video games. I got really into it when it was big and new, (the games, not the cards, trading cards are stupid), and I never fell out of love with it. One of those three or four games I had for my N64 was Pokémon Stadium. But Pokémon alone wasn't enough to keep up-to-date with video gaming. I only ever owned an old fashioned monochrome GameBoy, so when the games stopped being compatible with that I stopped playing them. I downloaded Emulators of the new games and played those for a bit, but you couldn't trade with Emulators, or do any of the other things that needed link cables. BUT NOW! I have my £24 GameCube. So welcome back to Obsessionville, Tom!
Also, I just happened to buy this in the middle of essay-writing season... its almost as if I did that on purpose...
- The Sportball: Uncheck. Its pointless, noone ever makes any witty quips, and it just goes on forever, (figuratively, and literally). The Sportball is lame and I hate it.
- Automocars: Uncheck. In my opinion, driving is a very antisocial activity. People go around in their huge metal phallic symbols excreting tonnes of poisonous gases into the poor defenceless atmosphere. Also, some cars make loud noises. People whose cars make loud noises should be punched in the head untill they stop moving.
- And thirdly, Videro Games: Uncheck... but not as unchecked as everything else... More than the other two things, I can just about see the point of video games, (except games about playing sportball or driving automocars, those are lame), but its still not something I'm really interested in. Maybe its cos I'm not very good at them, but then maybe I'm not very good at them cos I don't play them very often? Also, they're quite expensive... like, a well-stocked video game collection is a several thousand pound investment, accumalatively. And I don't really see that its worth it...
So then I started to drift away. I later got a Nintendo 64, but I never really got completely into it, I only really had three or four games for it...
UNTILL NOW! The other day I bought a GameCube. My friend Chris was visiting Lancaster, and he dragged me into GameStation, (what is it with gamers and KangarooCasing?), he looked around, I worked out stupid ways of saying 'video games', ('fiddero james' was my favourite). On the way out, I say the GameCube in the front window. It was a special edition including a copy of Pokémon Colloseum, and it only cost £24. I frantically tried to think of a reason why I wasn't immediately buying it, but failed, so I went in and bought it up.
The Pokémon franchise is the sole exception to my distaste for video games. I got really into it when it was big and new, (the games, not the cards, trading cards are stupid), and I never fell out of love with it. One of those three or four games I had for my N64 was Pokémon Stadium. But Pokémon alone wasn't enough to keep up-to-date with video gaming. I only ever owned an old fashioned monochrome GameBoy, so when the games stopped being compatible with that I stopped playing them. I downloaded Emulators of the new games and played those for a bit, but you couldn't trade with Emulators, or do any of the other things that needed link cables. BUT NOW! I have my £24 GameCube. So welcome back to Obsessionville, Tom!
Also, I just happened to buy this in the middle of essay-writing season... its almost as if I did that on purpose...
Friday, 7 March 2008
Doomsay
Hey, you know how food prices keep going up? That's pretty lame. Do you know why that happens? Because food is harder to grow these days. 'Cos of Global Warming.
Most of the nations that produced an agricultural surplus 20 years ago, (i.e. produced more tonnage of food that they themselves ate), now... um... don't. In Asia, for instance, China and India were once renown for their rice exports, now, in the entire region, only Thailand produces enough rice to be able to safely flog on the world markets without risking famine within its own borders.
The same goes for all other staple crops in the world. Millenia of selective breeding has made the plants we eat very specified. The problem with biological specification is that it leaves you very open to extinction, especially when your specific environment begins to whither away. Well, maybe thats a bit alarmist, there are countless breeds of staple crops - if a farmer notices his current crop isn't taking too well, he can order in a load of seeds for a different breed that will handle better... But this can only go so far, agricultural difficulties are steadily accumulating.
And hey, that word, 'steadily'... yeah... don't get used to it. Right now Climate Change is steady, but it won't stay that way. There are a certain number of 'tipping points' in the global system, that, once reached, cause huge chain reactions. For instance, the temperature in Antarctica only has to raise by a few more degrees to drastically increase the amount of meltwater dripping off the Antarctic Mountains, this water seeps down through the ice and accumulates between the snow and the land... essentially lubricating the entire ice sheet. Eventually, several million tonnes of ice will simply slip off the land that holds them, and result in a large increase in sea level.
This itself will cause a new chain reaction, a higher sea means higher winds, and higher winds means warmer weather at higher heights, warm weather at high heights, especially in the polar regions, will lubricate more ice sheets and fuck us up even more. So don't expect anything moderate. Ice Sheet Collapse will either not happen, or happen to an insane degree... and the former is not very likely.
So what do people do? They say, 'Uh-oh! We need to do something!', but, because they themselves are not very well informed, and, more importantly, because there is a huge multi-million pound industry dependent on misinforming them, the completely well-meaning urge to 'do something' ends up causing more harm than good.
Case in point: biofuels. Now, there are essentially two issues at stake in much what is jumbled under the 'Green' umbrella. The first is the maintaining of resources, making sure we don't run out of anything crucial, the second is protecting the macro-environment, minimising the output of greenhouse gases, etc... sometimes, these two issues interlap: for instance, recycling certain metals assures that new mines need not be opened, and preserves mineral resources for future generations, whilst simultaneously saving energy, as metal recycling often only requires a simple process of remelting and remoulding, as opposed to a process of heavy-mining, smelting, schmelting, zibbilimelting and all those other clever, yet very carbon-intensive processes, that metalmongers have devised over the centuries: metal recyling preserves resources and saves energy. However, this interlapping is far from common. Biofuels are often believed to be good for the environment: they are not. The chemical reaction taking place within a tank of biofuel is identical to the chemical reaction taking place within a tank of diesel... the benefit of biofuel is that it does not require the burrowing into of oil deposits, its impact on the atmosphere is negligible if not nonexistant.
Furthermore, the production of biofuels relies on huge areas of arable land... we're starting to see this today, in communities where people are starving, farmers chose to rip out their stable crops in order to produce the cash crops needed to made the biofuels. El Jefe himself, Fidel Castro, is a staunch proponent of this view: he says that Western insistance that Developing World farmers turn their attentions to the growing of plants to fill our cars' engines rather than the growing of plants to fill the bellies of the world's poorest people amounts to a campaign of Imperialist genocide... He may have a point.
So, good intentions + oppurtunistic capitalists = a plethora of supposedly 'Green' schemes to free you of your cash without necessarily assisting our species' ability to survive in the slightest.
And that's why environmentalism won't work. Because the principle actors involved in stopping Climate Change have no interest in stopping Climate Change. They have an interest in selling peace-of-mind to people by assuring them that they themselves are helping; supposedly, one would assume, the best way to convince an individual that they are helping would be to actually make them help... but this doesn't take into account how easily tricked human beings are. So people go about recycling their used paper, despite the fact that a) paper biodegrades completely in landfills, b) paper recycling is a mechanical industry, complete with all the conveyer belts and furnaces and all that carbon-burning shebang and c) tree farming is one of the only industries in the world that actually produces more oxygen than CO2.
My personal opinion is that instead of trying to prevent Global Warming, we should prepare for it. Forbid unsensible building on flood planes and deconstruct/dyke up anything under 30ft elevation above sea level, invest more money into greenhouse and hydroponic farming, and other methods that don't rely on the external environment. Because these are concrete aims. If we hire private companies to do these, there are simple and intuitive ways to make sure that they do actually do them, in contrast to the claims that we are given these days, ("We've built an off-shore wind farm that will help the environment!" - Will it? Can you prove it? - "Absolutely not!").
However, opinions like these are considered defeatist amongst mainstream environmentalists... so, yeah, that's why we're fucked.
Most of the nations that produced an agricultural surplus 20 years ago, (i.e. produced more tonnage of food that they themselves ate), now... um... don't. In Asia, for instance, China and India were once renown for their rice exports, now, in the entire region, only Thailand produces enough rice to be able to safely flog on the world markets without risking famine within its own borders.
The same goes for all other staple crops in the world. Millenia of selective breeding has made the plants we eat very specified. The problem with biological specification is that it leaves you very open to extinction, especially when your specific environment begins to whither away. Well, maybe thats a bit alarmist, there are countless breeds of staple crops - if a farmer notices his current crop isn't taking too well, he can order in a load of seeds for a different breed that will handle better... But this can only go so far, agricultural difficulties are steadily accumulating.
And hey, that word, 'steadily'... yeah... don't get used to it. Right now Climate Change is steady, but it won't stay that way. There are a certain number of 'tipping points' in the global system, that, once reached, cause huge chain reactions. For instance, the temperature in Antarctica only has to raise by a few more degrees to drastically increase the amount of meltwater dripping off the Antarctic Mountains, this water seeps down through the ice and accumulates between the snow and the land... essentially lubricating the entire ice sheet. Eventually, several million tonnes of ice will simply slip off the land that holds them, and result in a large increase in sea level.
This itself will cause a new chain reaction, a higher sea means higher winds, and higher winds means warmer weather at higher heights, warm weather at high heights, especially in the polar regions, will lubricate more ice sheets and fuck us up even more. So don't expect anything moderate. Ice Sheet Collapse will either not happen, or happen to an insane degree... and the former is not very likely.
So what do people do? They say, 'Uh-oh! We need to do something!', but, because they themselves are not very well informed, and, more importantly, because there is a huge multi-million pound industry dependent on misinforming them, the completely well-meaning urge to 'do something' ends up causing more harm than good.
Case in point: biofuels. Now, there are essentially two issues at stake in much what is jumbled under the 'Green' umbrella. The first is the maintaining of resources, making sure we don't run out of anything crucial, the second is protecting the macro-environment, minimising the output of greenhouse gases, etc... sometimes, these two issues interlap: for instance, recycling certain metals assures that new mines need not be opened, and preserves mineral resources for future generations, whilst simultaneously saving energy, as metal recycling often only requires a simple process of remelting and remoulding, as opposed to a process of heavy-mining, smelting, schmelting, zibbilimelting and all those other clever, yet very carbon-intensive processes, that metalmongers have devised over the centuries: metal recyling preserves resources and saves energy. However, this interlapping is far from common. Biofuels are often believed to be good for the environment: they are not. The chemical reaction taking place within a tank of biofuel is identical to the chemical reaction taking place within a tank of diesel... the benefit of biofuel is that it does not require the burrowing into of oil deposits, its impact on the atmosphere is negligible if not nonexistant.
Furthermore, the production of biofuels relies on huge areas of arable land... we're starting to see this today, in communities where people are starving, farmers chose to rip out their stable crops in order to produce the cash crops needed to made the biofuels. El Jefe himself, Fidel Castro, is a staunch proponent of this view: he says that Western insistance that Developing World farmers turn their attentions to the growing of plants to fill our cars' engines rather than the growing of plants to fill the bellies of the world's poorest people amounts to a campaign of Imperialist genocide... He may have a point.
So, good intentions + oppurtunistic capitalists = a plethora of supposedly 'Green' schemes to free you of your cash without necessarily assisting our species' ability to survive in the slightest.
And that's why environmentalism won't work. Because the principle actors involved in stopping Climate Change have no interest in stopping Climate Change. They have an interest in selling peace-of-mind to people by assuring them that they themselves are helping; supposedly, one would assume, the best way to convince an individual that they are helping would be to actually make them help... but this doesn't take into account how easily tricked human beings are. So people go about recycling their used paper, despite the fact that a) paper biodegrades completely in landfills, b) paper recycling is a mechanical industry, complete with all the conveyer belts and furnaces and all that carbon-burning shebang and c) tree farming is one of the only industries in the world that actually produces more oxygen than CO2.
My personal opinion is that instead of trying to prevent Global Warming, we should prepare for it. Forbid unsensible building on flood planes and deconstruct/dyke up anything under 30ft elevation above sea level, invest more money into greenhouse and hydroponic farming, and other methods that don't rely on the external environment. Because these are concrete aims. If we hire private companies to do these, there are simple and intuitive ways to make sure that they do actually do them, in contrast to the claims that we are given these days, ("We've built an off-shore wind farm that will help the environment!" - Will it? Can you prove it? - "Absolutely not!").
However, opinions like these are considered defeatist amongst mainstream environmentalists... so, yeah, that's why we're fucked.
Monday, 25 February 2008
I'm Bill Murray, You're Everybody Else...
Why hello there my little Slights-of-Hand.
Yesteryesterday I went to Manchester. It was a pretty impulsive thing to do. I like doing impulsive things. Indeed, I often feel like I have a duty to do impulsive things when I consider all the people in the world who are stuck with loads of committments and responsibilities and all that lame stuff, surely if I have the ability shake off all my plans and head over to Manchester with little over an hours notice, then I should. Otherwise I'd be like one of those flightless birds, being envied for my possession of wings yet never actually bringing myself to use them.
So off I popped, over to Manchester. I was the honoured guest of a certain Mr Luke McLeod, (whom I had very recently deleted as a friend from Facebook on account of I couldn't remember the last time I spoke/saw/remembered him - which made me feel a peculiarly 21st Century style of guilt). We went to see films, (me, Luke and his other honoured guestette, and loyal commentee of this blog, Sarah), the first film we went to watch was Be Kind Rewind, directed by the super-fun Michel Gondry, and starring the coolly-stagenamed Mos Def and the overrated Jack Black. This was a really good film, especially the scenes showing them reenacting classic films, ('what's this turning thing? huh? what? how is that supposed to be Men in Black? oh-OH! I see... that's clever!). The film was smile-enducing, yet not schmultzy, which equals a win in my books! The viewing was somewhat ruined however by the gaggle of dump-faced shitscapaders right behind us who would just not shut the fuck up - they eventually got thrown out but not before we missed what were probably some very important plot points.
The second film we saw was Jumper, now, I know I have a tendency to be quite lenient in my reviews of things, but Jumper was absolutely terrible and I have no reservations in stressing that point. Firstly, the origins of the powers were never really explained, which they should have been - that's one of the essential rules of the Superhero genre - all it says is that there have been Jumpers around since the Middle Ages, (as you would expect, it was pretty cold back then and people wanted to keep themselves warm! A word of advice, if you see this film, take the piss everytime someone uses the word 'jumper'), and that every since they emerged they had been hunted by rapid Papists... seeing as the Jumpers only weakness, as it happens, is huge amounts of electricity, I do wonder how 14th Century monks managed to kill any of them...
Ultimately, the film suffers from Captain Scarlet-syndrome, i.e. the inability to convince you that any of the characters are actually in any kind of palpable danger. Scarlet was completely industructible, and no matter how many times an episode would cliffhang with someone would point a gun at him, everyone but the most moronic of idiots would know that he would be perfectly fine by next week - the same with this film, the Jumpers always see the Paladins, (that's what the baddies are called... I know, its stupid...), coming, and its always cockiness on their part that stops them from disappearing at the first sign of danger.
Which led to another problem. You want the heroes dead. They're all a bunch of annoying twats, swanning around having all the fun in the world... they're not even antiheroic, they're just annoying. It almost makes me wish that Hollywood's recent vogue for casting Catholics as sinister murderous conspirators were true... as far as I see it, the Papacy is clearly the lesser of two evils here.
So, went back to Luke's flat, watched Ricky Gervais' new stand-up, (its not very good), and I went to sleep on an erotically hard floor. The next day I went to go take the train back home. Alas, my platform at the station was closed, so I had to go ask the Mancunians how to get home - unfortunately, all Mancunians are rude little tosspots and told me in their snarly little nasal voices to go get on the wrong rail replacement bus. So then I was stuck at the Airport, where another gobshite told me to wait for another half hour for another bus.
Anyway, I eventually got onto my train and decided to put my Open Return to good use: by stopping off at every station of interest. So yesterday I had a quick wander-round both Bolton and Chorely, ('Comin' In Your Ears', it alarmed me to learn, is actually the town of Chorley's unofficial motto).
Bolton was alright. There was a gay bar right by the train station, but it was shut. Further into the town they had a working replica of the first steam-driven machine ever run in Bolton, I stopped to look at it for a bit and read the plaques. While I was doing so, a group of 14ish-year old girls accumulated around me and their leader asked me, "Why are you looking at that wheel?"
I replied, (and this is a reply I'm actually quite proud of), "Because I've never seen it before."
The girls then went on to request shaggings. It was at that point when I politely made my exit.
Chorely was also alright. Its actually quite beorgeois, especially by Northern standards. I found a bar that was completely empty - not just slightly empty, but completely empty.
If I had to chose where was best, (which I do), I guess I probably would pick Bolton...
Yesteryesterday I went to Manchester. It was a pretty impulsive thing to do. I like doing impulsive things. Indeed, I often feel like I have a duty to do impulsive things when I consider all the people in the world who are stuck with loads of committments and responsibilities and all that lame stuff, surely if I have the ability shake off all my plans and head over to Manchester with little over an hours notice, then I should. Otherwise I'd be like one of those flightless birds, being envied for my possession of wings yet never actually bringing myself to use them.
So off I popped, over to Manchester. I was the honoured guest of a certain Mr Luke McLeod, (whom I had very recently deleted as a friend from Facebook on account of I couldn't remember the last time I spoke/saw/remembered him - which made me feel a peculiarly 21st Century style of guilt). We went to see films, (me, Luke and his other honoured guestette, and loyal commentee of this blog, Sarah), the first film we went to watch was Be Kind Rewind, directed by the super-fun Michel Gondry, and starring the coolly-stagenamed Mos Def and the overrated Jack Black. This was a really good film, especially the scenes showing them reenacting classic films, ('what's this turning thing? huh? what? how is that supposed to be Men in Black? oh-OH! I see... that's clever!). The film was smile-enducing, yet not schmultzy, which equals a win in my books! The viewing was somewhat ruined however by the gaggle of dump-faced shitscapaders right behind us who would just not shut the fuck up - they eventually got thrown out but not before we missed what were probably some very important plot points.
The second film we saw was Jumper, now, I know I have a tendency to be quite lenient in my reviews of things, but Jumper was absolutely terrible and I have no reservations in stressing that point. Firstly, the origins of the powers were never really explained, which they should have been - that's one of the essential rules of the Superhero genre - all it says is that there have been Jumpers around since the Middle Ages, (as you would expect, it was pretty cold back then and people wanted to keep themselves warm! A word of advice, if you see this film, take the piss everytime someone uses the word 'jumper'), and that every since they emerged they had been hunted by rapid Papists... seeing as the Jumpers only weakness, as it happens, is huge amounts of electricity, I do wonder how 14th Century monks managed to kill any of them...
Ultimately, the film suffers from Captain Scarlet-syndrome, i.e. the inability to convince you that any of the characters are actually in any kind of palpable danger. Scarlet was completely industructible, and no matter how many times an episode would cliffhang with someone would point a gun at him, everyone but the most moronic of idiots would know that he would be perfectly fine by next week - the same with this film, the Jumpers always see the Paladins, (that's what the baddies are called... I know, its stupid...), coming, and its always cockiness on their part that stops them from disappearing at the first sign of danger.
Which led to another problem. You want the heroes dead. They're all a bunch of annoying twats, swanning around having all the fun in the world... they're not even antiheroic, they're just annoying. It almost makes me wish that Hollywood's recent vogue for casting Catholics as sinister murderous conspirators were true... as far as I see it, the Papacy is clearly the lesser of two evils here.
So, went back to Luke's flat, watched Ricky Gervais' new stand-up, (its not very good), and I went to sleep on an erotically hard floor. The next day I went to go take the train back home. Alas, my platform at the station was closed, so I had to go ask the Mancunians how to get home - unfortunately, all Mancunians are rude little tosspots and told me in their snarly little nasal voices to go get on the wrong rail replacement bus. So then I was stuck at the Airport, where another gobshite told me to wait for another half hour for another bus.
Anyway, I eventually got onto my train and decided to put my Open Return to good use: by stopping off at every station of interest. So yesterday I had a quick wander-round both Bolton and Chorely, ('Comin' In Your Ears', it alarmed me to learn, is actually the town of Chorley's unofficial motto).
Bolton was alright. There was a gay bar right by the train station, but it was shut. Further into the town they had a working replica of the first steam-driven machine ever run in Bolton, I stopped to look at it for a bit and read the plaques. While I was doing so, a group of 14ish-year old girls accumulated around me and their leader asked me, "Why are you looking at that wheel?"
I replied, (and this is a reply I'm actually quite proud of), "Because I've never seen it before."
The girls then went on to request shaggings. It was at that point when I politely made my exit.
Chorely was also alright. Its actually quite beorgeois, especially by Northern standards. I found a bar that was completely empty - not just slightly empty, but completely empty.
If I had to chose where was best, (which I do), I guess I probably would pick Bolton...
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
A Man What's Bin A Beenman...
The other day I was thinking about what to do with myself if I actually do manage to graduate from this hellhole.
I'm thinking of taking a job as a binman. Down in That London. The 'being in That London'-bit is due to several factors: 1) that's where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office lives, and if I want to get a job from them, it would help if I lived within pestering distance, 2) fun people live there, and after three years of perpetual loneliness, I figure it'd be fun to have a social life again and 3) That London is cool.
'Shut up Tom', I hear you all saying, 'we may be idiots, but we can at least understand why you'd want to live in That London, (why do you keep calling it that?), but you better give us a rational reason why you want to be a binman, or we'll send you to Bedlam!'
Well. Um. Err. Binmanry, I feel, would be a very rewarding vocation to vocate upon whilst waiting to get my better, dream job. I would imagine rubbish collection would be a very humble job, and honestly, I feel the human race could do with a bit more humbleness, so I'll lead by example! Secondly, I think I'd be alright at it: so far in my working life I've fumbled around in offices and worked behind a bar, both of these, if I'm being objective, were things I was shit at, so I think it'd be nice to do a job that I may actually have a chance of being alright at, and where I don't have to pretend to be nice to douchefaced customers or twatty employers.
But, the main reason is that I would really like to able to say at some point a decade down the line that I, Tom Deery, used to be a binman. It'd really boost my proletarian street-cred and make younger people feel uncomfortable around me. Both deserve yays.
I'm thinking of taking a job as a binman. Down in That London. The 'being in That London'-bit is due to several factors: 1) that's where the Foreign and Commonwealth Office lives, and if I want to get a job from them, it would help if I lived within pestering distance, 2) fun people live there, and after three years of perpetual loneliness, I figure it'd be fun to have a social life again and 3) That London is cool.
'Shut up Tom', I hear you all saying, 'we may be idiots, but we can at least understand why you'd want to live in That London, (why do you keep calling it that?), but you better give us a rational reason why you want to be a binman, or we'll send you to Bedlam!'
Well. Um. Err. Binmanry, I feel, would be a very rewarding vocation to vocate upon whilst waiting to get my better, dream job. I would imagine rubbish collection would be a very humble job, and honestly, I feel the human race could do with a bit more humbleness, so I'll lead by example! Secondly, I think I'd be alright at it: so far in my working life I've fumbled around in offices and worked behind a bar, both of these, if I'm being objective, were things I was shit at, so I think it'd be nice to do a job that I may actually have a chance of being alright at, and where I don't have to pretend to be nice to douchefaced customers or twatty employers.
But, the main reason is that I would really like to able to say at some point a decade down the line that I, Tom Deery, used to be a binman. It'd really boost my proletarian street-cred and make younger people feel uncomfortable around me. Both deserve yays.
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Fairwell yon Blobs, we hardly knew ye...
BBC3 did a bit of a relaunch last night. Seeing as I have no life, this was a relatively big deal for me.
One thing that was on was a thing called 'Phoo Action', I'm going to talk about it for a bit: Phoo Action is like what a cop drama would be like if Noel Fielding scribbled all over it with crayons. Its set in 2012, (officially the most futuristic sounding year since 1996), and it follows the mutant-fighting 'sploits of Terry Phoo and Whitey Action (see, there names are the show's title, as the genre would demand). It was... alright, I guess. The BBC kind of has a problem where it seems completely unable to assign a coherent tone to its dramas, case in point, Torchwood. Phoo Action looks and feels like it belongs on CBBC, the main bad guys are a bunch of mutants and, while I'm sure their design looked good on paper, in real life they really only look acceptable to the eyes of children.
However, the female lead frequently wears very small pants, and sits with her legs wide open - the show is basically worth watching just for that. That, and pretty colours and what may turn out to be a decent double act, (hopefully).
Another thing that was on was 'Lily Allen and Friends'. This was as pleasantly surprising as the 'Charlotte Church Show' when that was first aired, and will probably get old just as fast. The twist with the show is that its content is in-part decided by Lily Allen's MySpace friends, which is 'interesting', if by 'interesting' I mean, 'I fucking hate young people'.
And this concludes the portion of the blog where I talk about Telly.
Tonight I'm going to go see the Subhumans. It will probably be the oldschooliest punk show I have ever attended. Yippee.
In other news. My laptop is still broke, and will continue to be broke for a long while and, when it finally does undergo the transition from broke back to not-broke, it will probably end up costing me around £200. Stupid technology...
One thing that was on was a thing called 'Phoo Action', I'm going to talk about it for a bit: Phoo Action is like what a cop drama would be like if Noel Fielding scribbled all over it with crayons. Its set in 2012, (officially the most futuristic sounding year since 1996), and it follows the mutant-fighting 'sploits of Terry Phoo and Whitey Action (see, there names are the show's title, as the genre would demand). It was... alright, I guess. The BBC kind of has a problem where it seems completely unable to assign a coherent tone to its dramas, case in point, Torchwood. Phoo Action looks and feels like it belongs on CBBC, the main bad guys are a bunch of mutants and, while I'm sure their design looked good on paper, in real life they really only look acceptable to the eyes of children.
However, the female lead frequently wears very small pants, and sits with her legs wide open - the show is basically worth watching just for that. That, and pretty colours and what may turn out to be a decent double act, (hopefully).
Another thing that was on was 'Lily Allen and Friends'. This was as pleasantly surprising as the 'Charlotte Church Show' when that was first aired, and will probably get old just as fast. The twist with the show is that its content is in-part decided by Lily Allen's MySpace friends, which is 'interesting', if by 'interesting' I mean, 'I fucking hate young people'.
And this concludes the portion of the blog where I talk about Telly.
Tonight I'm going to go see the Subhumans. It will probably be the oldschooliest punk show I have ever attended. Yippee.
In other news. My laptop is still broke, and will continue to be broke for a long while and, when it finally does undergo the transition from broke back to not-broke, it will probably end up costing me around £200. Stupid technology...
Saturday, 2 February 2008
"All the time the ladies be asking me: 'Tom D, what's one of your favourite things on the web?', and I say, 'Ladies! Ladies...'"
I love the Wikipedia Reference Desk service.
Its completely brilliant.
Basically, for those not in The Know, the Reference Desk is a big ol' wiki page, where passers-by can ask a question, and wait for Wikipedia's most knowledgable contributors to turn up and spill their brains over their query.
The Reference Desk is split into 8(-ish?) subsections: the Language Desk, (probably the single best free translation service on the entire interwebs, while far from instantaneous, it will always translate exactly what you want it to); the Computers and Shit Desk, for computers and shit; the... um, I don't know, the Pie Desk... for like... questions about pie; about a handful of others, and, my favourite, the Humanities Desk.
The Humanities Desk is there for questions relating to Art, History, Politics and et cetera, so already its piqued my interests. Its a great place to learn. Its home to the kind of people who manage to appear charasmatic via a textual medium, (I don't know how that's done... probably witchcraft...), and who are thus quite entertaining when they start typin' on about 18th Century Scotland, or the kinky exploits of Mao Zedong.
In addition, seeing as its a wiki page, its completely editable. So often, if I'm feeling in a brain-boxxy mood, I'll edit it. Help out some 14-year old Californian on their obvious questions, its pretty rewarding. But mostly, I like submitting replies that are slightly obtuse and sardonic - not unhelpful mind!, with some skill, it is possible to be obtuse without being unhelpful.
So yes. That's why I love the Wikipedia Reference Desk. In other news, the title is a HomestarRunner.com reference.
Its completely brilliant.
Basically, for those not in The Know, the Reference Desk is a big ol' wiki page, where passers-by can ask a question, and wait for Wikipedia's most knowledgable contributors to turn up and spill their brains over their query.
The Reference Desk is split into 8(-ish?) subsections: the Language Desk, (probably the single best free translation service on the entire interwebs, while far from instantaneous, it will always translate exactly what you want it to); the Computers and Shit Desk, for computers and shit; the... um, I don't know, the Pie Desk... for like... questions about pie; about a handful of others, and, my favourite, the Humanities Desk.
The Humanities Desk is there for questions relating to Art, History, Politics and et cetera, so already its piqued my interests. Its a great place to learn. Its home to the kind of people who manage to appear charasmatic via a textual medium, (I don't know how that's done... probably witchcraft...), and who are thus quite entertaining when they start typin' on about 18th Century Scotland, or the kinky exploits of Mao Zedong.
In addition, seeing as its a wiki page, its completely editable. So often, if I'm feeling in a brain-boxxy mood, I'll edit it. Help out some 14-year old Californian on their obvious questions, its pretty rewarding. But mostly, I like submitting replies that are slightly obtuse and sardonic - not unhelpful mind!, with some skill, it is possible to be obtuse without being unhelpful.
So yes. That's why I love the Wikipedia Reference Desk. In other news, the title is a HomestarRunner.com reference.
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