Monday, December 20, 2004
Farewell to Blighty
It turns out that being unemployed means you have complete freedom to go out partying every night, get completely smashed at any time of day for the merest hint of a reason, and squander any remaining sober minutes playing GTA:SA. It also turns out that such physical and mental degeneracy makes it almost impossible to blog. Hence there were no updates at all this weekend.
Not entirely sadly, I am leaving for South Africa this afternoon. I shall be spending five weeks doing practically almost nothing. As is customary I have hand-selected a guest blogger to keep the updates rolling. Exceptionally, given the length of my absence, I have granted him permission to select his own guest-guest-blogger should the task become too tiresome.
Hopefully, if he can overcome his morbid fear of HTML he might open his innings this afternoon, thus he needs an urgent introduction. He is Charlie Beez, the leader of the legendary Mantle of Beez, DJ, producer, broadcast journalist, and now with a new string to his bow. He's has just returned from a european tour as percussionist with gWem, the most feted heros of the franco-german "micromusic" scene.
I'm quite sure he will do an admirable job, and I really ought already to have done my packing, so just a few links:Strangely SFW (though perhaps not if you step back from the screen): Deep Throat in ASCII. (suggested by Jonky Cat) Alain de Botton claimed in the Sunday Times last week: " I now wear the same Gap black trousers and blue shirts and the same grey Benetton jumper every day." Strangely I saw him out and about on Sunday wearing ordinary blue jeans. While I appreciate that even philosophers have a public persona to cultivate, it seems a foolish lie. Unless of course he was in disguise from the hordes of philosopher groupies. I always think communism is on the slide, but then I read this: Octopus Cannon Protest disrupts opening of McDonald's in communist French town. Thriller in LEGO™ Star Wars Holiday Special available on (bootleg) DVD. (get it now, since suprnova seems to have gone supernova.) George Bush: Person of the Year 2004, for "reshaping the rules of politics". How about for reshaping the rules of the Geneva Convention? Way to go Time Magazine. See ASIMO run. I'm fricking suspicious that he's never actually airborne, but you can peruse the video to your own satisfaction.
It turns out that being unemployed means you have complete freedom to go out partying every night, get completely smashed at any time of day for the merest hint of a reason, and squander any remaining sober minutes playing GTA:SA. It also turns out that such physical and mental degeneracy makes it almost impossible to blog. Hence there were no updates at all this weekend.
Not entirely sadly, I am leaving for South Africa this afternoon. I shall be spending five weeks doing practically almost nothing. As is customary I have hand-selected a guest blogger to keep the updates rolling. Exceptionally, given the length of my absence, I have granted him permission to select his own guest-guest-blogger should the task become too tiresome.
Hopefully, if he can overcome his morbid fear of HTML he might open his innings this afternoon, thus he needs an urgent introduction. He is Charlie Beez, the leader of the legendary Mantle of Beez, DJ, producer, broadcast journalist, and now with a new string to his bow. He's has just returned from a european tour as percussionist with gWem, the most feted heros of the franco-german "micromusic" scene.
I'm quite sure he will do an admirable job, and I really ought already to have done my packing, so just a few links:
Friday, December 17, 2004
I can hardly think of anything unfairer than finishing employment on a Thursday, and being forced to appear in the staff christmas revue on the very next day. But as my (Northern) mother likes to say, in her bleaker more nihilistic moments: "Life's not fair." I'm due on stage in a matter of minutes, so there's only time for one brief fantastic link suggested by Turlough: Newsfighter II. It's a Streetfighter x Newsnight megamix, and frankly it's the flash game of the year. Inspired.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Today is my last day of paid employment for at least six weeks. I was expecting to either feel anxious, or perhaps jubilant, but I don't. Somehow it just feels like any other work day.Shock! Horror! ODB took OD. So high he swallowed the whole baggie. Incredible. 12 million bees murdered in Las Vegas bee apocalypse. Really sad, but there probably was no way of getting them back into their 480 smashed hives. Some people like to blog their poems for public scrutiny. Others apparently post them at online poetry workshops, for vicious dissection. My particular favourite is just chock full of hilarity: "...sixth or seventh time today..." "...your sneakers hug the sand..."(this at a Prom) "...you seem powerfully non-existent...." Such great stuff. The Guardian Bad Science Awards are out to day. I was pleased to see recognition for my charlatan neighbour Dr Ali. Logophiles should dig into the Word Exchange, a sort of Urban Dictionary for grown-ups. I finally got admitted to 43 Things. It's a cross between Blogger and Friendster. You blog about your plans/ambitions/life goals, and then get connected to people who share those goals. If you'd like to join too, email me and I'll invite you. Death By Brighton, not as good as "Death To Brighton", but still an entertaining list of 50 curious local deaths. More drunk person Jenga. How Lindsay Lohan spent Thanksgiving. A public Ofoto gallery. Prisoner's Inventions: a gallery of jailhouse Blue Peter-esque creativity. (Except the sex doll, obvs.)(via) Custom Teddy Bears made by bears! (The fat, hairy, gay kind.) Snoop-speak is clearly about a decade out of fashion, but the official Shizzolator still offers excellent English to Snoop translation services. One man, 2100 orange and brown Nike shoeboxes. Corgishoe, a true sneaker freak.(via)
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Some internet knave downloaded this image from my server, 15,000 times. If you'd like to own up, I calculate that you owe me $11, thief.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
How are people using their popular first-name domain names?
Rather excitingly www.rufus.com has recently expired, leaving it open to a virtual landgrab. I have dreamed of owning that domain for almost a decade. It prompted me to do a little (rather superficial) research into other first-name domain names, using the list of popular baby names:
Rather excitingly www.rufus.com has recently expired, leaving it open to a virtual landgrab. I have dreamed of owning that domain for almost a decade. It prompted me to do a little (rather superficial) research into other first-name domain names, using the list of popular baby names:
www.jacob.com: cryptically owned by John Jacob since 1995.
www.joshua.com: a real blog, belonging to one Joshua Wachs.
www.matthew.com: a really dull parked page.
www.michael.com: even worse, an inactive page.
www.andrew.com: a dull Georgia IT company.
Trawling down the list, things don't get much better:
www.robert.com: a family of Halal butchers.
www.nicholas.com: another generic parked page.
www.james.com: a firm of web consultants.
www.charles.com: more software developers.
www.justin.com: another custom parked page.
How did the vast majority of these potentially iconic pages come to be practically contentless? Presumably they were once owned by keen early adopting nerds, so how did they get grabbed by faceless companies? Is it more appropriate to buy a .net or a .org as an individual? And more importantly what can I do to secure www.rufus.com?
Monday, December 13, 2004
My Pickups: Mid-November to Mid-December Edition
On Niketalk sneakerologists are constantly posting their "pickups", (meaning their sneaker acquisitions) desperately looking for affirmation and reassurance from like-minded fools. I don't need your praise, I'm confident in my choices:
Nike Air Safari,
Nike x Mita Airforce 1,
Nike x Kicks Hawaii "Aloha" Dunk Lo,
Nike x Supreme Dunk Hi SB,
Nike Mayfly,
Nike Tweed Dunk Lo SB,
Nike Air Woven (3rd Edition Dark Charcoal / Ivory)
I guess that's too many sneakers for one month, but in my defence, had good reasons for buying all of them, and crucially I have worn them all.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Just when I thought the whole of British indie was disappearing under a tide of art school haircuts and preppy guitar, I've discovered Piney Gir. She played the Grand Deliquents Xmas Party, a sozzled festive affair, which I myself attended only to see Alice and the Enemies. However young Ms Gir really cast a spell over the audience. Dressed in a 50s green velvet xmas dress she played hilarious Yamaha keyboards, and sang rather intensely. Quirky, inspired, and totally unplaceable in any genre. There's a large selection of MP3s on her website to explore.
Saturday, December 11, 2004
Overheard at Harrod's:
"I bet they got some really posh knickers here an' all."
"I bet they got some really posh knickers here an' all."
Friday, December 10, 2004
Richard Branson landed in Sydney yesterday to promote the new Virgin route to Australia. In true "Arthur Fortune" style, he arrived wearing board shorts, carrying a surfboard. This rather got my hackles up, since typically airlines charge extortionate rates for carrying surfboards. The Virgin website is rather vague about the costs involved, so I went to the trouble of ringing them, to see how much Sir Richard would have been charged for his promotional surfboard.
The delightfully suprising answer, is that there are no automatic excess charges for surfboards under 109 inches. If your luggage in total weighs in at over 20kg, you get charged a rather reasonable £29 per kg, but there are no specific costs for normal short boards. Unless you are some kind of retro surf freak, with a mania for monster guns, you can ride for free.
Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
The Beastie boys played Wembley Arena tonight, and frankly there were adverse circumstances. The sound is dire, so bad you can hardly catch most of the lyrics. This disaster is exacerbated by being stuck more than 100 metres from the stage, and it being almost impossible to dance in the seats.
Talib Kweli was the support act, and despite some vocal acrobatics he failed to conquer the crowd. However the Beastie Boys came armed with a variety of tricks to liven the stadium atmosphere.
They kicked off with live footage of Mixmaster Mike, apparently asleep on the tour bus, being woken in time for his opening number, and then running through the backstage area onto a giant DJ booth. He played an incredible intro with three separate cameras focused on the decks, beaming his dextrous feats onto the jumbotron.
The Boys themselves had two costume changes: kicking off with matching green Adidas tracksuits; later transforming to blue lounge suits for an instrumental segment; and finishing in the trademark look of jeans, sneakers and orange tees.
The most impressive innovation was a sweep of digital cameras across the front of the stage, which were used to produce on-the-fly bullet-time effects in time to the music.
They rocked a lot of the classics, including material from all the albums. The highlights were an encore of Intergalactic performed from a small island within the crowd, and a final blasting, excoriating Sabotage.
I give the venue 0/10, and the stage show 9/10 for effort, but ended up rather underwhelmed by the combined effect. Stadium rock/rap sucks.
Monday, December 06, 2004
10 things I ate in Japan that I never ate before.
1. Kobe Beef.
2. Green Tea Frappucino.
3. Fried locusts.
4. Raw beef heart.
5. Coca-Cola C2.
6. Fugu. (Just the skin, not the poison part.)
7. Wasabi icecream.
8. Shabu shabu.
9. Eel spine crackers.
10. Fermented natto beans.
And 5 foods I missed out on for various reasons.
1. Yakitori horse.
2. Bee larvae.
3. Freshness Burger.
4. Minke whale steaks.
5. Octopus sashimi, so fresh its suckers still stick to the roof of your mouth.
1. Kobe Beef.
2. Green Tea Frappucino.
3. Fried locusts.
4. Raw beef heart.
5. Coca-Cola C2.
6. Fugu. (Just the skin, not the poison part.)
7. Wasabi icecream.
8. Shabu shabu.
9. Eel spine crackers.
10. Fermented natto beans.
And 5 foods I missed out on for various reasons.
1. Yakitori horse.
2. Bee larvae.
3. Freshness Burger.
4. Minke whale steaks.
5. Octopus sashimi, so fresh its suckers still stick to the roof of your mouth.
Bathing Apes
I miscalculated and ended up with over 500 photos from Japan. It's been a horrible nightmare trying to organise them through iPhoto and flickr. Anyway, after much eyestrain and heartache, I can present my first photoset: snow monkeys.
The monkeys live about an hour outside Nagano, in a place called Hell Valley. It has snow four months of the year, so the monkeys have taken to bathing in hot springs to keep warm. In order to encourage them, so-called Japanese "scientists", actually feed grain to the monkeys while they bathe. This doesn't really distract from the wonderousness of the scene though. The monkeys are amazingly tame, they wander among the tourists blithely. Just like a genuine Japanese onsen, the water is slightly too hot for them. They constantly hop in and out, and seem to dry off in seconds.
You aren't allowed to actually bathe in the main monkey pool. However we stayed 500m down the valley, and the human onsen there was invaded by monkeys each night. During the day we could sit in our onsen, and watch the monkeys in theirs. I really rate this as one of my all time best "animal experiences", up there with surfing with dolphins in Cape Town, and going night diving in Little Cayman.
I miscalculated and ended up with over 500 photos from Japan. It's been a horrible nightmare trying to organise them through iPhoto and flickr. Anyway, after much eyestrain and heartache, I can present my first photoset: snow monkeys.
The monkeys live about an hour outside Nagano, in a place called Hell Valley. It has snow four months of the year, so the monkeys have taken to bathing in hot springs to keep warm. In order to encourage them, so-called Japanese "scientists", actually feed grain to the monkeys while they bathe. This doesn't really distract from the wonderousness of the scene though. The monkeys are amazingly tame, they wander among the tourists blithely. Just like a genuine Japanese onsen, the water is slightly too hot for them. They constantly hop in and out, and seem to dry off in seconds.
You aren't allowed to actually bathe in the main monkey pool. However we stayed 500m down the valley, and the human onsen there was invaded by monkeys each night. During the day we could sit in our onsen, and watch the monkeys in theirs. I really rate this as one of my all time best "animal experiences", up there with surfing with dolphins in Cape Town, and going night diving in Little Cayman.
Dr. Stanley Ho has been the most successful casino operator in Asia for more than 30 years. In China, he is called Wong Tai Sin - the god who fulfills peoples wishes. His dramatic rise to fortune is charted in popular movies and books. He has been honored by the British Monarchy and His Holiness Pope John Paul II. He has survived a pirate attack and numerous threats on his life. He is a highly skilled ballroom dancer and collector of limousines.Other details from his amazing life:
Dr. Ho now owns the world's largest jetfoil fleet. His properties include the Macau Tower, one of the ten most magnificent sightseeing and telecommunications towers in the world. Dr. Ho is respected in Asia as a man of extraordinary power, talent and philanthropy. He never misses a day without a half-hour swim, and excels at hunting, tennis and performing. He often serves as an advisor to major political figures around the world. Every Lunar New Year's Eve, he opens the first game at the Casino Lisboa, wishing prosperity to the people of Macau.
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Guess who's back?
C'est moi, returned from my travels. I'd like to say a huge thank you to Waxy for holding the fort these past two weeks while I idled round the orient. I hope it was a worthwhile experiment for him, and just maybe he might like to start his own blog.
I'm still horribly jetlagged, and I've got over 300 photos to upload, so I won't start on the Japan reminiscence just yet. I do however have two weeks worth of link-o-memes to catch up with, so without further ado:The Visible Barbie Project, a doll autopsy that recalls that other internet classic, Secrets of the Magic 8-Ball. Don't go getting your street slang from the NYT, try Streetstyle, a gallery of unflawsable, iight, ghetto outfits, with incredible hilarious user comments: Tokyo has this weird vermin, bigger than a mouse, but smaller that a conventional gaijin rat. They could probably do with hiring Stephen Petren, the Clint Eastwood of amateur exterminators. I like to say a huge "f*ck y'all" to Blogger, who firstly don't have the word "blog" in their spellcheck dictionary, and secondly only use Japanese text when you log in from Japan. Morons. From Is Google God?: No Free Lunch the anti-drug rep site have organised a pen amnesty, whereas Band Aid Dilemma have organised their own amnesty of a more amusing sort for unloved Band Aid singles. Ant Arena and Fly The Copter, neat flash games from South Coast Diaries. Oddly there are two famous people called Nicholas van Hoogstraten. One is a millionaire, murderer and, slum lord, whom you might like to punch; the other writes campy musical comedies for the screen. Excellent Lego timeline. After seeing geoducks at the Tsukiji fish market, I rowed with the GF about what they are called. She said geoduck was only Pokemon No. 100, while I knew all along, that a geoduck is the correct name for this incredible 150 year old, 39 inch, rather phallic bivalve. From a rubbish Observer article about the gawker stable, two awful puns: "New kids on the blog", and worse still, "Just for clicks." Miss Penitenciaria SP, the beauty contest for Sao Paulo's hottest current female convicts. Cluster ballooning rules. But you probably already knew that, having seen the link everywhere already. The Gulf You Are Looking For Does Not Exist. An amusing little googlewhack. Crash Test Dummies Olympics, more flash procrastinatory fodder. I can't commend Twinkler enough as a source of never-ending inspiration. Here's my list of plans for the future, garnered from other people's aspirations.(Though I might scratch Cuthbert in favour of Jessica Simpson dressed as Daisy Duke) Wrath, yet another (brief) flash diversion. Clear your diaries for the 16th: gWem are headlining La Microparty. Who ever needed an excuse to go to Paris? And finally (at last): Mischa Barton and Falkor (from Neverending Story), an uncanny likeness.
C'est moi, returned from my travels. I'd like to say a huge thank you to Waxy for holding the fort these past two weeks while I idled round the orient. I hope it was a worthwhile experiment for him, and just maybe he might like to start his own blog.
I'm still horribly jetlagged, and I've got over 300 photos to upload, so I won't start on the Japan reminiscence just yet. I do however have two weeks worth of link-o-memes to catch up with, so without further ado:
"Christ almighty kid! I feel like your momma after she gets home from the local watering hole smelling like Jim Beam and Lester the Busdriver's Drakkar Noir. I mean its cool if I play along with this and slur like your momma stumbling down the hall with you standing there, "Hey bwoy you smoke all my methols bwoy? I'm finna beat yo a** bwoy." On artistic merit alone and really putting me in your own personal world, I give it a 10."
"In the past three years, Google has gone from processing 100 million searches per day to over 200 million searches per day. And get this: only one-third come from inside the U.S."Americans, you sometimes suck. (Though incidentally Google clearly is God.)
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Japan (Part 4)
I had two very different bathing experiences today:
8am Hell Valley, Nagano-ku: Hot springs onsen with Snow Monkeys.
4pm Shinjuku, Tokyo: 45th floor pool at the Park Hyatt.
My fingers are still wrinkly.
Congratulations to Oscar Rink and his new parents (and excellent uncle). Normal service due to resume on Sunday.
I had two very different bathing experiences today:
8am Hell Valley, Nagano-ku: Hot springs onsen with Snow Monkeys.
4pm Shinjuku, Tokyo: 45th floor pool at the Park Hyatt.
My fingers are still wrinkly.
Congratulations to Oscar Rink and his new parents (and excellent uncle). Normal service due to resume on Sunday.
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