That's How It Happened

Transporting bees turned out to be quite straightforward. All the hive parts fitted snugly into the boot, and the clingfilm partition kept out the odd stray bee. I drove rather gingerly down the M4, and arriving in Berkshire, placed the hive in its new location. Removing the foam in the entrance was spectacular; thousands of bees poured out in the first minutes to survey the new surroundings. I retired to a safe distance for a delicious lunch. Unfortunately that's when disaster struck.
I had been warned that the bees would be especially irate on moving day, but after a boozy lunch I was flushed with Dutch courage. I planned to remove the roof, and stack on layers of stored honey, and a sugar solution feeder. Unfortunately things went seriously astray. I somehow forgot not to wear black, which is the most provocative colour to bees. Added to this in the cold weather the smoke was utterly ineffective in subduing the bees.
As the roof came off, at least 1000 bees descended on me, and began trying to sting me through the protective clothing. There were so many bees on my visor that I couldn't see. Within seconds I could hear buzzing within the veil, and shortly afterwards the insistent vibration of little buzzing wings up my trouser legs, and down my sweater. When I finally escaped and brushed off the adherent bees, I could only find four stings, but as they were administered, it felt like a genuine Halloween nightmare.
The next time you casually pick up a £1.50 pot of honey from the supermarket, do think of the trials the unfortunate beekeeper has had in bringing the honey to you.

Less than three feet or more than three miles.
Beekeepers can't seem to agree on anything. As my cyber-apiarist colleague Turlough pointed out:

"Ask five beekeepers for an opinion, and you'll get six different answers."

However there is an old adage, that when moving a hive, you either have to shift it less than three feet or more than three miles. This is because bees will forage more than a mile and a half from their hive. If moved less than three miles, when released in the new location, they will quickly sight their old flightpaths, and return to the site of the old hive.

Unfortunately for me, having moved back into the familial home, my parents have promptly sold up. Their new residence is just one mile across Islington. After much pleading, the GF's parents in Berkshire have agreed to house the bees over the winter.

Ordinarily bees get transported on the back of flatbed trucks, or inside refridgerated lorries. I however have only a Smart at my disposal. The big move is due tomorrow. To prepare I've broken the hive down into two parts: the brood chamber (containing the queen and all 60,000 bees) and the separate honey "supers", needed for feeding the bees in deepest winter. After exacting measurement, I'm fairly sure all the parts fit in the tiny Smart boot.

I've considered driving down the motorway in my bee-suit, but the thought of a crash was too terrifying. Instead I've used metres of packing tape and clingfilm to seal the Smart into two compartments; one for bees, and one for humans. I still need to secure the hive tonight with luggage straps and foam in the entrance, then load up first thing in the morning. If I survive the drive I will update tomorrow with more news.

Update: Everyone who has seen this has had intimations of impending doom and disaster. I realise there's an element of risk here too, but please stop telling me how worried you all are. It's important to keep a cool head when transporting live bees. The last thing I need is to get all freaked out.

Matt Alvarez is the genius who got me hooked on giant pumpkin growing. He hails from Circleville, home of key Ohio swing voters, and home to the world's biggest pumpkins. He sends news that his optometrist won this year's pumpkinfest with a world record 1353lb monster pumpkin. I shall have to re-double my pumpkin growing efforts next season.

The much heralded Nike x Harris Tweed Terminator Low dropped in London on Wednesday. Only Niketown and Size? got them, but a single person visited on the first day and bought every single pair of size 7 and above. The weird thing is having cornered the UK market, the shoes haven't showed up on eBay yet. If I had £24,000 worth of sneaks to offload, I'd be wanting to do it fast before the imminent US release date.

The Skew Manifesto called for the creation of an entirely new form of dance music to be created before December 5th. It seems that the Skew meme has been a grand success, because the album will be released on the A Scholar And A Physician label. A sample track is available for those who can't wait.

I've been loving hack-a-day, but I don't think they covered this yet: Project Cryo, a mouse case-mod to embed a cryogenically frozen Lego man. It just needs the tiny frozen Lego Han Solo for extra geek-cred.

The Lego robot that plays Mario is pretty sweet, but could it play Grandtheftendo? (both via, like, everywhere). And on that note I must abandon you, for "GTA: San Andreas" is calling me, and may continue to do so for the next 100hrs of gameplay.

How to get 10% off at Amazon without even trying.
I'm pretty sure most people aren't doing this already, so I thought I'd present a little primer for Amazon Associates. The program is designed for web-meisters to earn a small cut for linking to Amazon products. However, you don't need to have a website or follow a link to get the cashback on anything you buy:

Step 1: Sign up here, and receive a small code/username. In my case it's "thatshowithap-21".

Step 2: Start shopping.

Step 3: Check the URL of any item you wish to purchase for this section: "ASIN/...followed by a 10 digit code". Amputate the URL after the 10 digit code, by pasting in your associates username.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/
ASIN/1576871797/qid=1098973233/sr=1-1/
ref=sr_1_10_1/026-5671158-9172427

Becomes:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/
ASIN/1576871797/thatshowithap-21

Step 4: Checkout.

Step 5: Receive rebate on credit card at end of quarter. Smile.

Note: the item numbering system is marginally different for amazon.com as opposed to amazon.co.uk, but the system works just the same way.

If you'd like to practice your new Amazon skills, you can modify these links, or just click through to earn me referral fees on stuff I'd like:

Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists. Full of incredible stuff such as: Big Boi's Top 10 New Orleans Titty Bars, DJ Cash Money's 20 Most Important Scratch Inventions, and 5 Records That Changed Funkmaster Flex's Life.

Where'd You Get Those?: New York City's Sneaker Culture: 1960-1987. Dopeness. A history of old-school sneakers in the five boroughs.

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain Special Re-issue. Pavement's classic album, with tons of unreleased material and b-sides, and boasting a ten-point-zero perfect review from Pitchfork.

Seinfeld on DVD at last (well the first 41 episodes). The US gift set comes with "Monk's Diner" salt and pepper shakers and playing cards too.

Finally something you can't actually buy at Amazon (crazy huh?): Tag The System Trains. Little replica NYC subway carriages for tiny graffiti projects. As a slap in the face for the NYC Subway Centennial, there's an accompanying graffiti show.

Media appearances are like buses...
...you wait ages for one, and then three come along at once. Yesterday turned into an unexpected blitz of publicity. First I appeared on City Hospital. Even my own mother wouldn't have recognised me though (and she certainly didn't, since she neither bothered to watch nor tape it), because I was scrubbed up in face mask and gown assisting at a hysterectomy.
My second bit of buzz was getting linked by the nice people at Fleshbot; who knew so many people were surfing the web for pornography?
The best of all was my appearing in Attitude Magazine. My photo got used, not once but twice (pages 112 and 113), in a review of swanky gay club Too 2 Much. Fortunately Attitude doesn't seem to have any online version, nor do I possess a scanner, so you are spared the pictures. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to appear in such a prestigious gay magazine. I was rather sheepish picking up my copy from Borders, but now I feel like my sexuality can take this challenge in its stride.

Although I like the food in Sweden, much of Stockholm is rather bland. People dress very conservatively, and though "design" is more important than in the UK, it is always highly tasteful. Luckily to shake things up, comes the intriguingly named Swedish DJ, Eric Prydz. He has been ruling the UK chart for three straight weeks. This is possibly related to the excellence of his accompanying music video. Apparently a pastiche of "the worst movie Travolta ever made", "Perfect", it features girls in tiny gymwear doing aerobics. Simple, and yet enjoyable in so many ways. Better still there's a late night only video (Still SFW) (login via bugmenot) featuring extra breast squeezing and bonus floor humping. That should teach me for claiming that Swedes are unadventurous.

As if that's not misogynistic enough, here's the women in waders calendar (mostly SFW). I saw a very similar calendar in Slovenia featuring scantily clad women hauling in giant carp. I'm sure Fleshbot will be onto this new fetish in a flash.

Gluco-boy is a plug-in glucose meter for Gameboy. I can't imagine any recreational abuse potential, but fun for diabetic kids.(belated via)

My council have started something either genius or stupid, they are flyposting flyposters with "cancelled" signs, in order to discourage flyposting. It's like DRM for a pre-internet era. (BTW the Google Print DRM just got completely and utterly busted.)

R.A. The Rugged Man may be the most hirsute hip hop star ever. Incidentally I forgot who the guy is who recorded his whole album over the phone from Ryker's Island. Ring any bells for anyone? I'm too embarrassed to ask Google, Metafilter, or Monkeyfilter.

Vote Gargamel, the US needs a smurf-a-like in the White House.

Now we are One.
Today is the one year anniversary of That's How It Happened. I think it's traditional on these occasions to point out the first ever post, and say how grateful you are to all the readers. Except that I really am. I never expected so many people to drop by. I was as happy in the first month with 77 visitors (mostly all me) as I am this month with 4600+. Barring occasional brilliant guestblogging, this has been mostly a solo production, but I couldn't have done it without loyal, generous, and forgiving readers.

36 Hours In Stockholm
I spent Saturday morning through Sunday night enjoying the rainy Swedish capital. I don't think I've ever spent a whole day in Scandinavia without it raining at least twice. Despite my efforts to appear cosmopolitan, I'm not a great international eater. There are several cuisines I would be happy never to taste again: Moroccan, Mexican, Egyptian, most of Sub-Saharan Africa, and maybe Turkish too. However I do love Swedish food. I think maybe the long winters traditionally left them low on firewood, because they don't cook much of their food. Most stuff is either raw or cured. In 36 hours these are the animals I ate raw, or next to raw:

1. Herrings, assorted.
2. Salmon, cured in dill and salt (gravad lax).
3. Scallops, 100% raw.
4. Roe Deer, a really fantastic bloody steak.
5. Reindeer, a cured ham.
6. Roe, all kinds except the expensive endangered Caspian kind.

Next to Japanese, Swedish might be the least cooked cuisine of all. The only raw native (edible) animals I didn't get to try were crayfish (out of season), and bear (unethical).

I bowled back-to-back games of 181 and 180 today. Amateurish, but still a success by my standards. Perusing this article on the manufacture of bowling pins, I was unsurprised that weight for weight the pin factories make more sawdust than pins. However I was very surprised to learn that the sawdust is not wasted: it gets used to make candy.

Rich Hollywood celebs are having more fun than you and I: How do I rent a camel for a private party in LA?

Turlough provides the incredible details of both mad honey and drunk bees.

For US readers who probably missed it, check the story of Alex Ferguson and the Soup. A mystery player (almost certainly Thierry Henry) assaulted Sir Alex with a can of either pea or tomato soup, as they left the pitch on Sunday. I'm not sure if a trans-atlantic parallel can be drawn. It's something like Ken Griffey Jnr squirting Joe Torre with ketchup in a fit of post-match pique.

This will most probably be the only update this weekend. I shall be overseas, albeit briefly. Service should resume on Monday.

The finest minds in tabloid punnery can only come up with "HARRY POTTY"? If only I had a job as a headline writer:

KEEP YOUR HEIR ON

HARRY'S PARRYS

ROYAL RUMBLE / BATTLE ROYALE

THE PRINCE AND THE POPPER

To be fair I quite enjoyed "HEIR RAGE", "IN THE BLUE-BLOODED CORNER", and "HEIR GOES SPARE" from various other corners of the UK press. The Daily Star frontpage: "KNOW WHAT I MEAN, HARRY?", is however truly an inspired headline. (For US readers the reference is to 80s UK heavyweight boxing champ Frank Bruno, who in post-match interviews (usually but not always with "The voice of boxing" Harry Carpenter) would inarticulately end every sentence with "...know what I mean, Harry?) Any further excellent suggestions welcome via the comments.

More niche blogging: Query Letters is a blog of only horrible movie pitches. Some are of the "so bad they're almost good" variety.

TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY.

The Soup Nazi makes a small comeback: "No food for you!".

And Donnie Darko comes true as an engine falls off a 747 and disappears.

Yesterday was the biggest day ever at That's How, as almost 700 of you poured in, mostly from Kottke, to enjoy this post from Tuesday. Welcome strangers, feel free to look around and dig about in the archives.

Last night's documentary on the Nike x Harris Tweed Terminator Low was brilliant stuff. They showed a lone weaver in a Scottish croft, struggling to meet an order for 20 metres of tweed. On a fateful day in May, Nike approved designs for their new tweed shoe, and he suddenly received an email order from Nike in Beaverton, for 9.5km of tweed. The shoe should be out this week, buy it and secure the future of Harris.

And in a mini-trainer round up: Newson is getting a Zvezdochka exhibit at the Design Museum from Saturday; the daily snkr is a dope french sneaker blog; and sneaker freak (not to be confused with sneaker freaker) is like flickr for sneaker-heads.

A great guide to The Chewbacca Defense as a meme. (via)

The Micro-Claymore is the ingenious winner of the Office Bricolage contest.

Niche blogging is the new eclectic blogging, as Regret the Error devote themselves solely to newspaper mistakes.

Lunar Mouse House is a neat flash game, similar to Moon Lander or Thrust, but played in tunnels. Retro fun.

The eBay auction for unwanted wedding invites, that is so funny, it got its own article in The Guardian:

"The bride's best mate works in a chippy in Colchester, and they always used to go boozing in Stoke with her aunt who I seem to remember had a penchant for DKNY tracksuits, Pineapple Bacardi Breezers and cafe creme."

£1041 seems like a bargain to share such a culturally rich experience with four friends.

// posted by Rufus @ 1:57 pm 0 Comments

five (formerly known as Channel 5), are screening a series of poker tournaments called The Partypoker.com European Open. The format is similar to Late Night Poker. The viewer gets to see all the cards, and commentators speculate on probabilities and strategies. However there are two brilliant twists that make it compelling viewing. Firstly the players are a mix of filthy aggressive British pros (the Devilfish, the Choirboy, etc) and geeky internet tournament champs. This mad combination matches nerd calculation against vicious instinctive battling. Secondly all the players are hooked up to heart rate monitors. The excitement of seeing someone rashly gamble £20k on an outside shot is heightened even more by seeing their heart rate shoot up. Although I've sworn off the internet poker revolution, for those of you of a gambling bent the nice people at Partypoker have a tie-in competition.
However based on this TV format, I do have a suggestion for a new variety of poker that might tempt me back. If every player at the table had to wear a mini pulse-ox monitor, the game would be revolutionised. You could scrutinise your cards, then scrutinise your opponent's pulse and oxygen saturations. It would be like trying to play poker while hooked up to a polygraph. Knowledge of card statistics would become equally as important as keeping your cool. I still don't suppose my game would improve.

Inspired by things that are the new black, and personal techniques which are unstoppable, I bring you:
Non-narcotics which are gateway drugs for other non-narcotics.
Sleep / Being awake, Political socializing / Activism, Me / Dating a black girl, Powerpoint / Stupidity, Peanut butter / Bingeing, Barney / Pokemon, Barbie / Youngster's psychedelic journeys, Small birds / Dogs and cats, Tourism / Taking up residence, Film soundtracks / Classical music, The Legend of Zelda / RPGs, Go-kart / NASCAR, High quality juvenile fare / Powerful adult SF, Bisexuality / Boys, Pork / Politicians, Referral logs / Tracking scripts, A new computer / iTunes music store, iPods / Apple computers, Good Charlotte / The punk scene, MP3s / Network computing, Steven King / Making reading a part of your life, Socialism (and supporting John Kerry) / Communism, Naked people / Adultery, Comics / Literacy, Tongue piercing / Prince Albert rings, The Flaming Lips / The avant-garde, Dungeons and Dragons / Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeons and Dragons / Magic The Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons / The occult, Marigolds / Chickens, Tabasco Sauce / Habanero chiles, Myst / Everquest, Led Zeppelin / The blues, Cutting / Anorexia, Euthanasia / De-tabooisation of the destruction of human life, Fidel Castro / Leftist foreign policy.
All this from one little search. This small bit of madness started by me trying to find out who first said: "Friendster is a gateway drug for blogging." (Unfortunately that was a mis-quote, they said "...to blogging", but I learnt a lot along the way.)

Ebaum's World have had a lot of funny legal issues. (via)

My mother sent me away to university armed with only a single recipe: smoked salmon penne with pink peppercorns. What I really needed was a copy of Cooking To Hook Up. There's his-n-hers quizzes to help identify the type of girl needing foodie seduction. Sadly the GF is definitely a gourmet girl, and the suggested foam menu based on the cooking of Ferran Adria, is certainly beyond my skills.

Is I Love Bees the greatest triumph of viral marketing:

"...one player even braved Florida's Hurricane Ivan to answer a call at a pay phone that was destroyed shortly afterward."

Yeti Sports has been weak of late. However the beta for Episode 7: Snowboarding is out, and appears to have crashed their servers, so presumably it's good.

Moose With 62" Antlers + Powerlines + Alaskan Pragmatism = Internet Gold.

Even evil needs some salad every once in a while. A stormtrooper eating healthy. (via via)

Much fuss has been made among geeks about the appearance of Star Wars Kid in the new Tony Hawk Game. Personally I was more impressed by the cameo of Cut Chemist, who appears deejaying at a pool party for aliens. To save you playing through eight gruelling levels, I have recorded a small video, of the cameo, in which Cut Chemist is visibly scratching and cross-fading for Bam Margera's enjoyment.

Did you hear about the rumors on the internets? (Maybe they are about somebody who forgot Poland.)

Motherload is an old-school 8-bit Martian mining game. You have to make subterranean trips to fetch precious ores, then resell them for cash, fuel, and mining ship upgrades. It looks horrible, it plays clunkily, there's no obvious goals, and yet it stole an hour of my time before I tore myself away. Don't say you weren't warned.

Nixta.com lives on in the form of Nixta Sinks, which seems to bear more than a passing resemblence to this site. Note to self, must design own template.

Vitamin Q, a blog of silly lists (not entirely dissimilar to Schott's) has a book out, based on the blog. Congratulations you lousy sell-outs! Rest assured that That's How will never submit to the intense pressure to sell out. (Well, not unless subject to a six figure bidding war).

If London Were Like Venice, click through for old school (well Victorian actually) photoshopping of canals into London landmarks. (via)

Les Nuits de Monsieur Snoozleberg, couldn't be more french if it tried. It's so totally wilfully euro-goofy, it makes me want to boycott cheese, and eat freedom fries. It is a flash game, in which you try to adjust various objects to help the aforementioned Monsieur Snoozleberg sleepwalk without waking.

Absolutely nutty hack for Robosapien. The author has disemboweled his poor Robosapien to add a spycam and a PC interface for programming new routines. I suspect his Robosapien still sucks, but full marks for ingenuity.

"The chips could be implanted in Alzheimer's patients in case they get lost." Now personal RFID chips have been licensed by the FDA, they've finally started to draw some real heat from civil liberties types. (Though I like the idea of being able to "scan patients like cans at a grocery store.")

I'm declaring now that saying that anything has "jumped the shark", is an indication that in your desperation to stay zeitgeisty you have "jumped the shark". (I mention this only because Gawker has apparently "jumped the shark".)

And in a mini round-up of hip hop happiness: the new Nas track (various formats) collaborating with his father Olu Dara is surely the most progressive rap record this year; and on this side of the Atlantic, Dizzee Rascal has made a pretty damn funny new video (QT) spoofing kids BBC shows of the 50s.

I make it almost a point of principle not to download anything encoded in a Real format. However this POV Hong Kong Base Jump (4.6Mb Real) has really clear live sound. The rushing air, very un-Hollywood, makes it an excellent vicario-thrill.

Schott's Sporting Gaming and Idling Miscellany, is wondrously good. 150 pages packed with stuff you really ought to know: the rules of Mornington Crescent, Elephant Polo, and the Siena Palio; safety tips for Pamplona and the Cresta Run; arcane vocabulary from all manner of odd pasttimes; and lots of excellent quotes. (Available wherever books are sold from Monday)

B3TA type video from Mr and Mrs Wheatley: Cunning Stunt.

And via various sources: the DEA newsletter Microgram Bulletin. It's an online primer for drug runners, full of fascinating detail, even for those of us who aren't into smuggling. Highlights include bogus Viagra containing amphetamines, and bogus amphetamines containing real Viagra.

As a doctor you don't expect to get invited to any events during Fashion Week. But that doesn't mean you don't get a little bit jealous of all the frivolity. Just three weeks after London fashion week had already ended, I finally got invited to a real fashion "do". Last night the Fashion and Textile Museum held an opening party for a new display of 60s, 70s and 80s couture dresses from Jan de Villeneuve's (presumably extensive) wardrobes. The whole soiree was pretty damn frivolous: tiny shots of chocolate vodka served with tiny shots of blood orange juice as a chaser; lots of very dubious outfits worn by lots of very inebriated PR girls; and most incredibly a guest appearance by Larry Hagman. He arrived wearing a wide brimmed hat, looking exactly like an aged J.R.. Disappointingly though he refused to put his hat back on for photos. None-the-less I think he enters my pantheon of iconic celeb-spots.

The Outbreak! IT manager sim is nerdy but fun.

The Roshambot is the world's best player of rock paper scissors. However it probably wouldn't win a game of Extreme Rock Paper Scissors.

Right now Clive Dallas's Blog is perfect. Only one post long, but absolutely perfect: "My name is Dallas, Clive Dallas, I am here to kick ass and tell it like it is."

Sadly the Mail Watch Blog, which previously critiqued the Daily Mail's terror stricken headlines, has rather run out of steam. However today's article on the chimpanzilla hardly needs critiquing:

"Scientists claim they have discovered a new species of giant killer ape which stands 7ft tall and eats lions...KING CONGO"

Of particular amusement for me is the Mail's defiant anti-metric editorial stance.

The Centre For Chihuahua Exploitation. Being a perverse sort of individual, my grandfather used to own a Chihuahua and a St Bernard. One day, eventually, the St Bernard decided to eat the Chihuahua. If this was a children's story the St Bernard would have choked to death and the plucky Chihuahua would have walked away unscathed. Happily life's just not like that.

Google might be destroying their legendary customer goodwill (witness the Unofficial Google Fanclub) with Google Desktop, and its ultra-invasive spying terms of service. Although this comprehensive review point out all kinds of neat features, I'm still not sure I'm happy to let Google scan my mail (Gmail), my web-use (Google Toolbar), and now my hard drive.

"I am a biologist and thus legally obligated to bring you Truth."
Sea otters, clearly challenging honey badgers for world's naughtiest animal. (Read down for a horrifying tale of interspecies rape.)

Thomas Heatherwick (designer who curated this year's Conran Collection) has made an incredible rolling bridge.

Washed up celebrities are always good for a laugh, especially when mocked as deliciously as at The Bubble Burst.

"My Counter-Strike won't work", a long recording of a tech support call gone horribly wrong.

From McSweeney's I chanced upon Moons That Orbit Distant Planets or Female Birth Control Brand Names?. That's too tough for UK readers, unfamiliar with US contraceptives, so I've updated it (using the full depth of my professional knowledge), using only UK contraceptives:

Movie Villains and Villainesses or UK Birth Control Brand Names?

1. Mercilon
2. Mugatu
3. Orbison
4. Femodette
5. Mondego
6. Norimin
7. Marvelon
8. Yasmin
9. Delfen
10.Serleena
11.Qualen
12. Zorin

All names taken from either the worst movie villains of all time, or the British National Formulary. Answers appear in the comments.

My Life Goals In Review
When you catch up with people you haven't seen in a while they always ask: "What have you been up to." Since I've always blogged and then forgotten everything, I can never come up with anything interesting to tell them. However in the past twelve months I have actually reached some of my life goals:

1. Keep bees, and harvest honey.
2. Deliver a baby by Caesarean section unsupervised.
3. Visit the inca temples of Mexico, and Ankor Wat in Cambodia.

Three of my other life goals are progressing towards completion:

1. Collecting all 46 colourways of the Nike Air Woven. Haven't done an exact count, but I'm at almost 30 pairs.
2. Staying the night at the Park Hyatt Tokyo, Lost in Translation style. Assuming I can scrape together enough scrilla, this will actually happen in early December.
3. Take time off from medicine to be a surf-bum. This also is now a certainty, since I'm shortly to become unemployed. Sadly unlike other prominent sabbatical takers, mine isn't funded by any spare dotcom millions. However I shall be spending at least eight glorious weeks doing nothing more productive than catching waves. At least until the start of the new medical "semester" in February.

In order to add meaning and hope into my otherwise drab existence, I've concocted three new goals, of a rather more challenging nature:

1. Bowl a perfect 300 game. I'm now bowling regularly on a Monday night. If anyone reading fancies a little gentle competition, do email me. Like a monkey with a typewriter eventually 12 consecutive strikes are certain to come my way.
2. Complete the Times crossword unaided in the course of 24 hours. This isn't going well. Some days I can't manage a single clue. If I'm not showing much improvement by the end of the year, I'm going to ditch this one in favour of becoming a Scrabble pro.
3. Play pinball against Richard Linklater. I have no idea how to achieve this. I just really feel like discussing life with him over a challenging game of Medieval Madness. I guess I could either write a supplicating letter, or just hang around the pinball parlours of Austin, waiting for him to show up.

I realise that in many ways these goals are not especially ambitious. I'm planning for great success, but only on a very limited stage. However I'm an impressionable sort. Feel free to suggest better life goals via the comments.

Via DJ Waxy, clearly a google-meister, Rufus: the big black sex god.

Raj Persaud, Simon Singh, Victoria Coren, Barney the Boatman, and Patrick Marber, play poker on the radio. Much better than it sounds. (If you are a Mac user, Wiretap does a great job of ripping Real streams.)

I'm voting for our newest addition to the primates, to be called the chimpanzilla, unless it turns out to be brainier than us, in which case "Beneficent Master" will do just fine.

In other really important Winnaporean news: "I'm on top of the world right now, because everyone's going to know that I can shove more than three burgers in my mouth!"

I'm nonchalantly perusing this article about space rubbish, when I get to the bit about the guy who "dropped his glove while on space walk in 1965". That is definitely not the equivalent of popping down the pub on a cold night and accidentally leaving your scarf on the bar. For one thing space is really really cold, and also there's the problem of it being a vacuum.

The "readable" blogosphere gives you the impression that everyone is comfortably well off, literate, and middle class. So this thread about stuff people have done when they are skint, is most gratifying reading. I especially liked the guy who had sex with a punter in exchange for a tray of pasties.

And no sooner did I mention that Pagerank had stopped updating, that they bust my ass back down to a ((n) entirely deserved) 4/10.

// posted by Rufus @ 8:51 am 0 Comments

So you might have noticed there's no entry for Monday. That's because, contrary to what you might expect, I do actually have gainful employment, and some days blogging isn't on the agenda. So slightly after the horse has bolted, I'm slamming the stable door by declaring yesterday to have been a day off.

"Winnaporean", is the term that the GF coined (which somehow never got entered in the neologism fest), to refer to the extreme career oriented motivation of Singaporean high school students. Given their dedication to study, this rad photo (click to enlarge), obviously comes with an accompanying story.

Some cute and fiendish mouse dexterity flash games keep you distracted.

Although I'm not a huge JK Rowling fan, I do have something to thank her for. The hundreds of millions she has earned for Bloomsbury (her UK publisher) have led to lavish book launch parties for other Bloomsbury authors. Last night I escorted the GF and Mr Nixta to the launch for Anthony "Kitchen Confidential" Bourdain's new Les Halles Cookbook. It was held at St John, Bourdain's favourite UK restaurant. The wine bar had been cleared for a dance floor, with a hiphop bootleg DJ installed in the bakery. Young and not-so-young editors and publicists were strutting their stuff rather too freely, while upstairs in the main restaurant the literati and cookerati nibbled at various offcuts and offal. Bourdain was exactly as charming as he seems on TV, only taller, and with a rather camp earring. The night also produced an all-time DOs and DON'Ts classic: some madman dressed in a Guantanamo jump suit, Ken Bigley style. I'd like to play it all cool, like the editors of Vice would, and say that spoofing a hostage on the day after he gets beheaded is a huge fashion DO, but actually I'm unable to overcome my own middle class Daily Mail indignation.

Yeti Stage-Diving has a confusing control method. I managed 17.34m, but I'm unsure if I've really got the hang of it.

See who the Google Family Tree thinks might be related to Jeb Bush.

And this may be old news, but there's been definite confirmation that Cribs is a huge ridiculous fake. It's the most politically charged TV scandal since Quiz Show, (or maybe Rebecca Loos jacking off a pig, one or the other definitely).

Alice (of the Enemies) and Sammi (a Norwegian goliath) played the best and most unusual gig I've attended all year. They featured on the bill for "Secret Meltroom", an acoustic night at the Intrepid Fox, an abysmal goth pub in Soho. Sammi played lilting guitar and sung eerie Scandinavian songs, while Alice harmonised with virtuoso cello. It was beautiful enough to make the fey goth boys with black nail varnish swoon.

Google over mobile browsers is already excellent, but now the US gets the ultraconvenience of Google via SMS.

The best grilled cheese sandwich, in North America. I'll wager that with pedigree like that, it might well be the best grilled cheese sandwich ever.

Because of their two dedicated penguin farms, Penguin Warehouse are the most economical supplier for your penguin pet needs. Plus because of the penguins' large supplies of body fat, they don't require feeding during transport, so shipping costs are low too.

I'm told Happy Tree Friends is some seriously good sh*t, which makes it cool that all the episodes are available for your online viewing pleasure.

Smart (the car company), have made an elegant Lemmings type game worthy of your Friday afternoon attentions.

I never made it to the Pillow Fight Club, but the photos made it seem awesome. Instead I went drinking with 14 professional GPS programmers, who told me I was stupid for thinking that Antimega's blog based live personal GPS tracker was cool.

Budding cryptographers should enjoy The Conet Project, a huge collection of weird espionage radio transmissions dating back to the Cold War.

Practically everyone has told me I blog too much about sneakers. But I feel like you have to blog the things you care about. Excuses over, finally LaMJC get the news on the Zvezdocha. It's designed by Marc Newson, and frankly it looks stupid. It looks like a whiffle ball for your feet. Really after all the hype, I'm disappointed. It's reminiscent of the eCue, but obviously so much worse.

Nick names for poker hands.

The Unfortunate Animal Of The Month Club, please do not buy me a subscription for christmas.

The world's most dangerous (jet powered) shopping cart.

Dick Cheney With Lasers.

Some days, just one link may be enough.

Really r-e-a-l-l-y slow day at work. Some games you might like:

BMX Backflips is a 2-D Matt Hoffman type game. (And coincidentally I had sworn off Tony Hawk but they've added a bullet-time skating mode, for extremely tech tricks in this year's version.)

Ferry Halim is clearly a genius. More good games with original gameplay than I've had hot weblog entries. These Little Pigs asks you to build a leaning tower of pigs. Cute, clever, playable.

Sims 2 doesn't seem to be coming out for Macs any time soon. Luckily Avatar High is like a tiny free school of Sims.

I bowled my worst 3 game total in over five years last night, (a shade over 300, and I was only half-drunk). Playing Flash Bowling in no way compensates for this shame. But it does have rather neat hook control, similar to most golf games.

Weboggle has had a major dictionary overhaul, making it even better for East Atlantic boggle-buffs like me.

The first rule about pillow fight club is....tell everyone about pillow fight club. I've managed to sustain aloof disinterest in flash-mobs until I saw this. Now I'm beginning to see the fun. Take it as read that I will be smuggling a pillow to work with me tomorrow, in order to go and beat assorted strangers about the head in a cloud of feathers.

Screenhead, the newish Gawker offshoot for "mindless entertainment", has a ton of good links. They're so effective they are making non-professional "mindless entertainment" blogging obsolete.

Shop for Chav at Argos.

Keeping great whites in captivity. (Well they have one, quite a small one.)

Why has pagerank stopped updating? Is it because all the google employees are too busy rolling about on giant piles of cash?

Gefilte Fuck, now defunct, but apparently not the world's only jewish hardcore band. (With all the MP3s for download).

Get your cat wasted with chronic catnip.

Exsorbeo, for people who like to play with themselves. (SFW Rockstar viral marketing).

If I'm not pillow fighting tomorrow, I'm going to be out squirrel fishing.

So cool they make me cry with joy: 80s Hasbro WWF figures. (via)

Peabs is back (again), to bovs on all your respective tees.

And as proof that too many people I know are in bands Alice (sans Enemies) and The Cling, are co-incidentally both playing at the Intrepid Fox on Thursday 7th. Unmissable.

User submitted links:

The Wolphin and other animal curiosities.

Thrillcam, isn't terribly thrilling, but I can't figure out where it is. Clues so far: 1. It's hosted at craiglist.org, 2. It's nightime there, but morning here. Perhaps as daylight breaks over the thrillcam all will be revealed.

Nuclear Power Plant Sim (flash), I'm like sure it must be harder than this to cause a meltdown in real life.

Non-user submitted links:

Longbets.org lets you place bets on distant propositions. My favourite bet so far: "By the year 2150, over 50% of schools in the USA or Western Europe will require classes in defending against robot attacks."

Am I Watching The Weather? Or Porno? a diatribe on the deliciousness of various Weather Channel presenters. I don't think this guy is the only one. Everytime I mention Gemma Hadley, I get a few hits from lonely googlers.

The Word Blog Is A Shortened Form Of This: blogging as a Jeopardy category. The shark has been jumped.

Machinima is the proper term for movies acted by videogame characters. I'm sure I'm way behind the meme-curve on this one.

Team America: World Police, is totally shaping up to be my most anticipated movie of next year. (though I'm still buzzed for Riding Giants, and The Life Aquatic.)

My Adventures On The Gay Scene
I never would have guessed that I'd ever review a gay bar in a public forum. But here goes. I suppose you can either assume that I'm incredibly secure in my heterosexuality, or that I'm an entirely closeted bisexual. Anyway twice in recent weeks I've accompanied friends to newly opened gay bars. Shaun & Joe, just off Charing Cross Road serves good cocktails, but otherwise hardy deserves a mention. Too 2 Much on the other hand is utterly fabulous (from a straight perspective obviously.) It occupies the premises that until recently were Raymond's Revue Bar. In a highly ironic interior design twist, nothing much has changed. The walls are still clad in seedy red velvet, there are still poles either side of the seating areas, and as the vampy waitress whispered to us, "the chandelier used to belong to Hitler". It's all super-campy kitsch fun. We were entertained by breakdancers, goth pole dancers, and an assortment of intimidating drag queens. The cocktails were top notch, (with the exception of a "Blue Cheese Martini"); the music was dire euro-house; and the waitresses are really cute and entirely underdressed. In fact it's such an amusing place that it almost risks being reclaimed by straight club-goers. Perhaps trying to prevent the hetero take-over, they've hired a hilarious leather fetish doorman. Too 2 Much thus has my seal of approval. It's the best bar to open in London since Loungelover.

Perhaps because of the hang-over from too many Lemongrass Collinses, I've run out of links today. Despite nigh on a thousand visitors last week, none of you ever seem to want to leave comments. Thus today I'm inviting everyone to submit their favourite links via the comments. Don't mind if it's your own site, or something really trivial. Just curious what you'll all suggest:

The Childhood Goat Trauma Foundation, has been protecting kids from goat-related petting zoo nightmares since 1982. Now though the German Animal Protection Federation has taken a stand, to safeguard goats' wellbeing. The particular goats in question were traumatised licking honey from the naked torso of Miss Kader Loth (Penthouse Pet, NSFW, duh!), for the entertainment of German reality TV viewers. It all sounds far more exciting (and possibly traumatic) than anything going on, on UK TV's The Farm. (Vital portions of this important news update were brought to you via Turlough, the world's best (maybe only) bee blogger.)

After the fiasco that no-one is calling morningwood-gate, the morning wood alarm clock is born. (NSFW in concept, if not in design).

Coke win the IgNobel Prize 2004 "for using advanced technology to convert liquid from the River Thames into Dasani, a transparent form of water, which for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to consumers." Best, obvs.

Brown Cardigan (a dope blog) brings to my attention "Stuck to ODB", a Wu Tang version of Touch The Truck (some say Channel 5s worst reality TV show ever. Yeah really, even worse than Celebrity Enema Camp.)

On average Marcel looks up 4.1 words per day, he's been at it for over 400 days, and he's catalogued the whole lot, for your lexicographic pleasure.

Surfer rides whale, sounds totally dubious.

Funny cute Nike Ad, with schoolgirls "becoming" Serena on the tennis court.

I tell you nothing about my job is good enough for me to recommend that you masquerade as a gynaecologist.

Sex Advice From...Cosplayers, oxymoron alert.

From the pages of jetZILLA Magazine, the $60 jet engine you can makes yourself using two Starbucks mugs, and the plug from a kitchen sink. (via)

Now the incredible Lego robot that solves Rubik's cube, has an equally astonishing companion piece, a working Lego Rubik's cube.

More than you might want to know about furverts. (SFW) (via)

Don't be alarmed by what's going on in the sidebar. I just decided it's time I started moblogging properly. The one year anniversary of the site is coming around soon, and some significant changes are needed to the design. For one thing, why do I have this big stupid infant readable font? I need to shift down a size to something more adult. Also the whole "header" bit is screwy. Ever wonder why there's that funny blue line above the title? Yeah, I wondered that too. So anyway expect some changes round these parts. Meanwhile here are some blogs I like, high on fresh links, low on inane commentary:

Grow A Brain

Extreme Web Surfs

I Like

PCL Linkdump

Oh heck, while I'm here, some more random links:

Wired CD next month to include "Now Get Busy" by the Beastie Boys, which as far as I can see is previously unreleased.

New Scrabble documentary out, Word Wars, and interview with GI Joel (Scrabble Pro) at Gothamist.

56k emulator, how I miss the tweedling tones of my old US Robotics Modem.

What the numbers on your tube ticket mean, all lies, but the funny good kind of lies.

Blogborygmi is a kind of aggregator of medical blogs, about which I could care less, but the title is v clever indeed.

I guess it's a fairly regular occurence that I rhapsodize over some alcoholic delight, however I've never previously had cause to point out a bad drink. However the Honey Nut Caipirovska from The Charlotte Street Hotel gets my award as the foulest mixed drink at the highest price, ever served in London. £9.50 plus service charge, gets you a nauseating concotion of 42 Below, Frangelico, and crushed lime wedges. From the first second it touched my lips I felt queasy and hung-over. Worse, at such an astonishing cost, I felt duty bound to finish it.

Neat video of the "iPod's Dirty Little Secret" guy, illegally cycling at speed, past tailback traffic in the Holland Tunnel.

How Sony cameras lose their virginity, (via, with explanation)

Mount St Helen's watching pays off, as insect overlords emerge from underground sugar caves.

Buy your Bush Pinata now, in time for election night frustration.

Microsoft's utterly creepy sensecam, a personal black box recorder.

Sims-acted shows seem to be uber-hip, with yesterday's launch of a new virtual soap The Strangerhood.

How porcupines make love. (Cautiously?)

ShakyFace: the face shaking phenomenon that's sweeping the internet.

Lynndie-mania reaches new depths of bad taste: Teletubby Lynndie and Porno Lynndie (co-starring Donnie Cumsfeld).