Gaylord

So Ross County, as expected, went down. The only way to start to cheer up the distraught population of the world is to watch this advert for a spectacularly badly-nemed product.

Bush dancing

Like the "special" kid in your class. He's game, I'll give him that...

Hidden underage porn?

Someone from Peru got to my blog by typing "schoolboys, kissing" into Google, and it seems like my comments on the Sigur Ros video have made me the number 4 hit (interestingly, none of the top page of hits appears to be porn-related) for this lascivious term. I wonder what else I can get myself on Google with? Let's start with GARY WILMOT IS THE BEST MUSICIAN EVER. I'll give it a couple of days and check...

EDIT: I'm the only hit for "nelson mandela arctic monkeys".

Holy crap

Some people are saying that Leonil Messi is the new Maradonna, and who am I to argue when he does stuff like this. He runs for the same distance as the famous Maradonna goal against England, beats the same number of players, scores in a similar way, and celebrates a la Maradonna. Breathtaking, and the similarity with the Maradonna goal (one of the greatest ever) is striking.


Of course, the only thing that I'm worried about at the moment is the seemingly inevitable relegation of the mighty Ross County on Saturday. They must overtake Airdre by getting some points or by losing by 3 less goals. The only problem is that Gretna need to win the match to guarantee promotion. Nightmare.

Rules for men

I know that this sort of thing has been done to death, but this one is funnier than most. Every male (and most women) will find themselves nodding at many of these. There are many highlights, including "The girl who replies to the question "What do you want for Christmas?" with "If you loved me, you'd know what I want!" gets an Xbox. End of story".

Star Wars, with hands

Really. This is a strange kind of genius, and I'm not entirely surprised to see that it seems to be Japanese in origin.

Cheese again

I am very lazy, aren't I? I've only finally got round to celebrating national cheese on toast day tonight...

It was delicious, so I thought that I would put a photo of my favorite quick dinner, "posh cheese on toast", onto Flickr. Toast a naan bread, spread with sweet chilli sauce, top with ham, sprinkle on grated gruyere, grill until crispy and enjoy. Yum. Click on the picture to see the full cheesy delight.

Blame game

This blog has compiled a list of how various sources have attributed the blame for last week's shootings in Virginia. It's not surprising that people have rushed to look for reasons for what happened, but it is amazing how "out there" some of the reasons are. They include Bill Clinton, Muslims, Bill Gates, and the dead students who were too cowardly to charge the shooter.

Sometimes people have to learn to bite their lip and keep their opinions to themselves for a bit. Some of the "reasons" will be quite hurtful to many. It's almost like they are fishing for clicks by making provocative statements or inserting hot keywords BRITNEY SPEARS HOT SEX NELSON MANDELA ARCTIC MONKEYS into their blogs.

Chain reaction

Alright dudes. I didn't post this weekend due to a combination of drink and boomshine. This thoroughly addictive game has a deceptively simple premise: set off a chain reaction and blow up the required number of balls. Genius.

Bloogle

Saving the world seems to be awfully cool at the moment. Google could help the planet and appeal to the goths at the same time by switching to a black colour-scheme. This could save $75,000-worth of energy each year by reducing the power needed to display the page on your monitor by 15 watts. It would loom rubbish though, so I don't think Google care that much. Plus the goths are dicks.

EDIT: after Jenny's comment I read the entire thread below the story, and it seems to be a load of bollocks. So stay white and guilt free, google. White power!

Nice and Cheesy

Before I get to the cheese, I was thinking further about Richard McBeef, and realised that it has affected different entities in different ways. McDonalds, for example, will never, ever, be able to risk marketing a "McBeef Burger", a name which they are bound to have considered in the past; MC Beef is also in trouble.

Anyway, Simon revealed that today was national cheese on toast day. I got home fully intending to have some of the delicious savoury goodness, only to discover that I was tragically cheeseless and couldn't be arsed to walk to the shop. I'll have some over the weekend, and will try this delicious sounding cheese and beer on toast from beer for dinner.

And, by the way, isn't the national cheese on toast day website one of the worst in the history of the internets?

Richard McBeef

It goes without saying that the shootings in Virginia were horrible, and it certainly brought cross-Atlantic cultural differences to the fore when US gun lobbyists argued that the tragedy could have been averted if the students had been armed too. Dunblane shocked us into a gun ban here, but I'm not sure that it will happen there.

Some of the writings of the gunman are coming to light, and his play "Richard McBeef" would be funny if it wasn't tinged with "what happened next". The writing is inept and angry, and screams "THIS GUY IS A MENTAL". It's unfortunate that people only see the signs of a disaster after it happens, isn't it?

Gadget review

My Apple TV arrived today. In a word: good. In two words: very good.

Music videos 41

Into the final stretch.

20 Talking Heads: “Once in a Lifetime”
A wonderful song, wonderful video, and a masterclass in geeky-weird dancing. Watching dance-floors when this came out in 1980 must have been eye-opening.


19 Juvenile: “Get Ya Hustle On”
I can't believe that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina seems to have been brushed under the carpet, and that Bush seems to have got away with what would have cost a leader his job anywhere else in the world. There have some been some good "protest" rap songs about the events, and this one is both powerful and good.

Duh Vinci

I know that it's terribly snobby to look down on books such as the Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter, but I couldn't help but laugh at this article in which a literary professor dissects the opening pages of the DVC. The good stuff includes:

"Just count the infelicities here. A voice doesn't speak —a person speaks; a voice is what a person speaks with. "Chillingly close" would be right in your ear, whereas this voice is fifteen feet away behind the thundering gate. The curator (do we really need to be told his profession a third time?) cannot slowly turn his head if he has frozen; freezing (as a voluntary human action) means temporarily ceasing all muscular movements. And crucially, a silhouette does not stare! A silhouette is a shadow. If Saunière can see the man's pale skin, thinning hair, iris color, and red pupils (all at fifteen feet), the man cannot possibly be in silhouette".

I've not read the book, and intelligent people have told me that it is a cracking read, but the dumbness of the film and some of the writing examined in the article tell me otherwise.

For what it's worth, I love the Harry Potter books...

Via Kottke.

I want one of these

Good versus evil table football. The good team has a forward line of Poppins, God, and Gandhi; the evil team includes Hitler, Idi Amin, and Lucifer. Cool.

Swish places

Google maps has introduced a "my maps" feature, where you can make and annotate your own maps, sharing them with the public if you want. Here's a map that I made of some of my important places.

"You don't know the history of psychiatry, I do"

I'd never seen this, and isn't Tom Cruise completely mental? I'm sure this is the exact moment where Hollywood executives started to steer clear of him. Complete madness.

Back, again

What's up, dudes. I'm back again, and Tiscali are about to lose a customer.

What have I learnt in my terrible, awful time away from you? Firstly, that Tiscali are known for being rubbish, and secondly that the top of Everest is not the closest point on the Earth's surface to space.

That honour goes to Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. Because the Earth bulges around the middle (not unlike me), the 20,000ft mountain is actually 1.5 miles closer to space than the 29,000ft Mount Everest. This quirk of our planet's rotation means that the Dead Sea (which everyone knows is the lowest point on Earth's surface) is closer to space than Mount McKinley (the highest point in North America).

It's a mad world.

Tiscali hell

This is 2 weeks running that I've been unable to connect to the internet on a Monday/Tuesday. Tiscali are on their fianl warning.

Music videos 40

Getting there now. Only 10 more posts after this one.

22 The Foo Fighters: “Everlong”
Hmm. This shows that not everything Michel Gondry touches turns to gold.


21 The Pharcyde “Drop”
After that Gondry video, here's one from another titan of music clips, Spike Jonze. There will be more from both of them further up the chart. Anyway, this video is proper good. Have you seen the Coldplay "The Scientist" video? Well it's this one, but not as good. Kind of like The Verve ripping off the Unfinished Sympathy video. This is the archetype filmed-backwards-played-forwards video, and it's perfect. Why did anyone else bother trying?

dan akroyd trading places cameroon picture

Yesterday someone got here via that search term at google.co.uk, which is seriously weird, as I can't find any links to me when I try it. I'm also pretty sure that I have never mentioned Dan Akroyd on here.

EDIT: Actually, a year ago I quoted a preview of Garfield 2 that contained his name. Hi Dan Akroyd fans!

Music video

Not part of the countdown, but here's the really good video for the excellent new Mark Ronson song (a cover of a Smiths song, I believe). A fun concept, nicely executed.

Ronson was also behind this excellent version of Radiohead's Just.

De-RM

So Apple and EMI have announced that the EMI songs sold on iTunes will be available without copy protection starting next month. The right move, and a good business one for Apple as it will allow people to buy tunes and play them on any hardware that can handle AAC.

This was triggered by a Steve Jobs essay a couple of months ago that eloquently argued against DRM, and basically set out Apple's (the dominant player in this market: they have sold 2 and a half billion songs on iTunes so far) stall as being against copy protection on downloaded music. After all, if CDs are not protected, why should downloads be?

And I'm back.

Looks like my lack of internet was Tiscali's fault. Losing the internet is the second worst thing that could happen to me, after losing Sky TV...

Anyway, here's a cool video showing a Goldfish tank that is part of a deep-fat fryer. That's right, part of a deep-fat fryer. They live in water, upon which the oil floats, and the heat keeps them away from the oil and death/cooking. Only in Japan.

Stupid internets

My home internet connection seems to be broken, so I can't tell you about the amazing (and unbelievable, I might add) things that have happened to me in the past few days.