Build a f*cking time machine and use it to see just how wrong you are. Idiots

There are a few certainties when it comes to the internet: first post trolls, Godwin’s Law, people’s inexplicable need to drop vowels for no reason* and Rule 34, for example. Rule 34 actually had me checking to see if anyone had registered sneezingteensluts.com earlier this week. Somewhat surprisingly, it’s still available.

Another item that crops up every so often on forums is the nostalgia thread. You know the one:

“OMG!!!1! Why don’t you ever see white dog poo anymore???!??!!”

“Yeah and whatever happened to that pink sawdust they used to put on sick?”

“Lolz!!!!! Yeah and whatever happened to Creamola Foam??? It was great!”

“ROFL yeah it was ace! They should totally bring back Creamola Foam!!!!!”

I can’t really express just how much I hate these threads. If you’ve ever participated in one of these threads, and in particular demanded the return of Creamola Foam, I hate you. I’m half tempted to come round to your house and make you drink your own piss that I’ve put through your beloved Soda Stream machine. Then I’m going to smash up your Jamie and his Magic Torch DVD and stab you with it, until you admit that Dangermouse was a far superior kids TV program.

Rant over

* Just type the full fucking words. It makes for a more fulfilling interweb experience.

Union Street. Friday night. With kittens.

I saw this in the B3ta newsletter today:

I figured it was just like walking home at the end of a night out in Aberdeen but much much cuter

iPlayer: First Impressions

Last week I got invited to be part of the beta for the BBC’s new iPlayer service. In a nutshell, it lets you catch up with the last 7 days of BBC TV via your PC. It’s currently using Windows DRM and Internet Explorer, which makes a native Mac (and Linux) version out of the question at present. This decision has not been without some controversy, but I’m going to concentrate on the application itself, which I’ve been running through Parallels.

“Posh Spice is a slapper”

You know that bit in South Park where they’re all going to school saying that it’s going to be the longest day of school ever and 2 seconds later it cuts to the next scene where school has just finished and they’re all pissed off about how long the day was? That’s more or less how the close season has felt.

“Posh Spice is a slapper, she is a f*cking tart, and when she’s shagging Beckham, she thinks of Michael Hart! MICHAEL HART! MICHAEL HART!”

COME ON YOU REDS!!!

Wikipedia is edited by morons

If you know me, chances are you know about how much Wikipedia pisses me off sometimes. Great concept, crap in practice. Like communism but without the power struggles and conspiracies. Oh wait. My main concern though is that the “anyone can edit” approach that Wikipedia takes causes the information contained within its pages to lose a lot of credibility. Why oh why oh why oh why can’t they vet who is allowed to add and modify different categories of articles? What do I, with no training or qualifications in Scots Law, know about Jamieson v HMA, a case in which I had no involvement (and that I had never even heard of until I looked for cases of note on the Scots Law page on Wikipedia)? “Absolutely nothing” is the answer, yet I could edit the page to my heart’s content and any incorrect statements I made would be available for consumption by Joe Public until someone who knows better came along to fix the changes. I would say that that approach is seriously flawed.

Of course, having someone correct the misinformation that is contained in various articles depends on someone with knowledge of the subject matter actually finding the mistakes in the first place. A case in point: back in February, some friends and I had gone off on a 3 day tangent about grebes. More specifically, about the sound that a grebe makes when it runs, which we determined (for no apparent reason) to be a high-pitched “whoop whoop whoop” sound.

Fast forward a couple of days and I was busy making edits to the Grebe entry on Wikipedia. I also killed off Bruno Brookes, but that’s a story for another time. At lunchtime today, I decided to check if my change was still there. Lo and behold, it was. Not only that, but there had been a staggering 31 edits between my update and the current version, none of which have noticed that I posted some made up crap:

I mean, these edits have included updates to the genus and species name and still everyone thinks that the grebe sounds like a police siren when it runs. Wikipedia is crap because it’s edited by morons. Fact.

HMS Pinochet

I’m pretty certain that Aaron Sorkin has some sort of obsession with Gilbert and Sullivan.  First there was an episode of The West Wing which had several of the cast members singing “For He is an Englishman” from HMS Pinafore.  Then, watching Studio 60 on More4 last night they go and do a parody on “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” from Pirates of Penzance (“We hope that you don’t mind that our producer was caught doing blow.” – a reference to Sorkin himself maybe?).

Ok so this post was a bit pointless but I really wanted to use the slightly tasteless title.  It was shamelessly stolen from an episode of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, so blame Humph and co…

Lunch time booze

Crikey. It all started off like a regular lunch time. I wandered round to my usual lunching establishment to peruse the menu on offer. Got myself a rather tasty tapas salad (with eggs, some fancy cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and chicken & chorizo skewers – yum) and was chatting to the French girl who runs the place:

Her: “Are you driving today?”

Me: “No…” (I decided that telling her that I can’t actually drive anyway might make me look like a tool.)

Her: “Ok good – I want you to try some of my boozy fruit salad, on the house.”

Me: “Erm… how boozy is ‘boozy’?”

Her: “Oh it’s just some cider and a few other things. Let me know what you think.”

Me (inner monologue): “Is she trying to get me drunk?”

Now I’m not entirely sure what the “other things” were, but bloody hell it had a kick to it. If you talk to me this afternoon and I’m going at double speed you’ll know why. Hopefully the garlic-stuffed olives will hide the smell of the alcohol…