Gary Larson Fans Rejoice!

According to this article on the BBC, a one-legged chicken in Wales has been diagnosed with depression.



The rest of the article is worth a read just to see how far some people will go to look after their pets.

I'm On The Register

And funnily enough, not the Sex Offenders Register, but The Register.

Yep that Silas, on the picture showing what Windows Live Messenger looks like on a Nokia, is me! Go Bill! And also slightly belated congratulations to him on the birth of his third child, Zachary.

How Dull Is This Woman?

Quote of the week on the Firebox mail I've just received, regarding the "Dippy Egg Set":

"Bought this for my husband about two months ago. I think he has had eggs every day since."

Or indeed, how dull is her husband? You might want to check his cholesterol level love. And if someone you're married to buys you the "Dippy Egg Set" you might want to consider a divorce.

The good news is, if you're as old as me, there's a USB Cassette Deck now available for all those tapes from the 80s and 90s! Yay!!!!

Adverts Yet Again

You know the current advert for the AA? It's the one with the woman who picks her son, Tom, up from school and then proceeds to tell him about how she managed to switch her car insurance "online". Well, seeing as she gets home in less than 30 seconds, wouldn't it be better if she let the little fucker walk? And if she didn't go on such a crappy school run every day, I'm sure her insurance would be less as well.

The other one that's bothering me at the moment is the one for Andrex. Listen carefully to the female voice over that comes in about three-quarters of the way through.

I'll wait.

Heard it? She says it's ever-lasting, and it's blatantly not. I think I might send Kimberley Clark World Wide a pair of soiled boxer shorts and ask them to explain themselves. Or a shit-stained puppy. Whichever fits better in the post.

Happy 25th Birthday To CDs

On this day in 1982 the first Compact Disc was pressed, apparently Abba, fact fans.

And despite what Judith Hann told me on "Tomorrow's World", they aren't scratch resistant, and they don't play if you put jam on them. But they didn't need turning over halfway through, which led to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" being so successful on CD that EMI had to open an entire pressing plant just to keep up with demand for it. I really am fact-tastic today.

CDs really came to the fore in the UK with Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms" (which I never bought, although I do own the 10" single of "Money For Nothing" that's worth much more, so it's not all bad news). The first CD I bought was the "Eve's Volcano" single by Julian Cope. As the albums were relatively expensive (pretty much the same price they are now, but 20 odd years ago you could buy a house for £20k, so £9.99 was a LOT of money) I didn't actually buy one for yonks.

And I've tried to remember what the first album was I bought, but I'm afraid I have no idea. Suggestions of what it might have been to the comments section below.

When Online Advertising Goes Wrong

From MCN online:

We Are Top Of The League

I know there's only been one game (so far) and that it won't last, but I'm pleased to say that Newcastle are top of the FA Premiership! W00t!

I'm only mentioning it as I was in Newcastle this weekend & was surprised by just how much it's changed up there (not saying that's either a good or bad thing) and them being top of the league is just one example of things being a bit different.

Another was sitting outside a restaurant (Scalini's on Osbourne Road) having a meal and not being in the least bit chilly, despite it being about 8pm.

The main surprise, however, was just how insane the housing market has gone up there. £250k for a three bed FLAT! £300k for a three bed house! It's like London prices (in some cases higher) but weirdly there's still plenty of places to build in and around Newcastle, so I've no idea how these prices are going to be sustainable.

The Land Of Milk & Honey

For some reason that phrase came to me at the weekend, and I know it's from the Bible (Exodus 3: 8), but I've only just thought about it.

If it really was a land of milk & honey, wouldn't there just be a lot of cows everywhere and a lot of people getting stung by bees? And cows stink. And bees are quite annoying with their buzzing. So the whole idea of being in a land of milk & honey isn't as appealing as it's supposed to be, is it?

Cook Yourself Thin

Tragically not a show about basting yourself in your own fat while sat in a large oven.

No, much, much worse. First of all a perfectly fine looking woman is shown with the title of "Size 16". Then some funky looking female chefs, again with their dress sizes. Although to be honest, you know how TV is supposed to add 20lbs to you? Well, the victim who was supposed to be a size 16 (these are all UK sizes btw) looked a perfectly fine size 14 at most. Three of the chefs looked at least one size more than their title said, and one of them (who is either really short, or all the others are REALLY tall) is apparently a size 10. But if she was, it wasn't in a good way.

And I'd like to point out, if the show hadn't shown the sizes, they wouldn't have even entered my head. But no. That's the way the show sets itself, so that's where I'm going to start. I couldn't care less what dress size someone is, if they're happy and not going to die from being over or underweight, then I'm not going to be the one telling them to lose/gain weight. So yeah, opening credits horror show.

Then the cooking started. The victim loves her full Sunday roast. So the funky chefs have to re-create it, but with fewer calories. So instead of roasting big potatoes with the skins off, roast new potatoes with the skin on. Fair tip, I'll let that one pass.

Instead of some fairly reasonable looking carrots and peas, some oven roasted squash and onions. Okay, don't really see the point and you have used olive oil where the original used only water, but fine you crack on. Yorkshire Pudding? Oh, you seem to have ignored that completely. Right, continue and show me how you deal with the Beef. Ah, of course, you've cooked chicken instead. And thrown away the skin.

Call me old fashioned, but that's cheating. Of course there's going to be MUCH lower calories in something that doesn't have Yorkshire Pudding or Beef! You bastards! This exact sort of thing continued throughout the show.

Carbonara too high in calories? Think this show will help? Nope, they'll make an entirely different sauce for pasta and count what the calorie content of that is instead. Eating too many chocolates? Make a big bowl of truffle mix, stick it all in your fridge after you've rolled it into balls and covered it in cocoa powder, but only eat two a day. Right, not forgetting to assume that the person has self control over food and doesn't eat them all at once, feel terrible and make themselves throw up in shame, obviously.

But the tips don't stop/start there, oh dear me no. Having apple crumble? Have you considered having less crumble and more apple? Well, get this, if you do, you'll eat less calories! Similarly, and this is a suggestion of my own, if I just maybe don't pile the food on my plate and stop eating so quickly, then I'll actually eat less which similarly reduces my calorie intake. But there was more from the funky chefs!

"I'm going to use Fructose rather than sugar", "Oh, why's that?", "Well it's sweeter than sugar so you'll use less of it". Oh good. That'll be the same fructose that has been linked to increased likelihood of weight gain, is it? The same stuff that causes "the liver (to go) bananas and stop everything else to metabolize the fructose" according to the Miami School of Medicine? I'll stick to sugar if that's okay with you, funky chefs.

Oh, and possibly, as you mentioned in very small text and in a very quiet voice, I might just do a bit more exercise as your victim was instructed to do.

Funnily enough the victim was revealed to have lost two whole dress sizes by the end of the (I care not how many) weeks. And she still looked pretty much the same as she had at the start of the show, ie perfectly fine. Wankers.

Geeky Warning

As recently revealed at the Black Hat hacker conference in Las Vegas, if you use public wifi to access your email and social networking sites, then your login information is at risk of being grabbed from the cookies sent back from the sites you're logging into.

So basically, unless you REALLY have to, don't use wifi hotspots for anything that involves you having to login. And if you have to, change your login details from somewhere secure as soon as possible afterwards.

Let's be safe out there.

Gene For Left-Handedness Found

Again from the BBC (I do look at other sites) a story about how researchers think they've found the gene that determines whether you're left handed or not.

Handily, in true scare-mongering style, the second paragraph mentions that being left-handed can raise the likelihood developing psychotic mental illness such as schizophrenia. Not until the thirteenth paragraph do we get the quote "There are many factors which make individuals more likely to develop schizophrenia and the vast majority of left-handers will never develop a problem."

The article also mentions that being left-handed has also been linked to a greater risk of some diseases, and to having an accident. Well, the main reason for accidents is that pretty much everything is designed for right-handers. Ever tried using scissors that were designed for use in the opposite hand? Lethal.

Or, on a rather more common level, you go to the barrier to get on the tube, ticket in left hand, put it through the ticket slot and walk into the still closed barrier while the person to your left goes through a very open barrier that you've just opened for them.

Sadly the shop that used to sell left-handed stuff in London has closed, but the website sells everything they used to and more besides!

The Right To Protest

Interesting (well you can be the judge of that) article on the BBC about a planned protest at Heathrow Airport over the next couple of weeks.

The spokesman for BAA, who own the airport said "We are only injuncting those who wish to act unlawfully... There is nothing to stop anyone from coming to the airport if they wish to act lawfully."

Which is a truly marvellous idea! Why don't they take an injunction out on the entire country and if anyone who is planning to do unlawful things happens to turn up, they can be arrested. Probably by the Psychic Police. Because planning to do something unlawful and actually *doing* something unlawful are two quite different things.

I've planned many times on exactly how I'd shoot George W Bush in the head. I've mused long and hard on exactly what type of weapon would be the most amusing (finally decided on the trebuchet) and where would be best to fire from (Canada). But I'm not going to do it (well, not yet) so I'm fairly sure I can't be arrested for it. Mainly because we don't appear to live in "Minority Report" just yet.

Anyway, the most entertaining part (for me anyway, I'm sure you'll be bored long before getting down that far) of the article about the airport protest is the response of the Liberal Democrat Transport Secretary, Susan Kramer MP, who said "Protest is a basic British right." A right which seemed to be taken away from us slightly when Parliament (of which she is a member) voted to stop protests from taking place within a mile of Westminster.