Form Over Content
I’ve been fine tuning the site instead of posting. I changed the template again because I got bored of the last one in less than a week which is never a good sign. (It wasn’t colourful enough). And amongst other fairly unimportant developments, I fiddled around so that you now can tune in from your mobile phone, Blackberry or other handheld status symbol, and read about how I haven’t been posting anything so that you can actually read this fact on the way to work. Or the pub. Or custody.
Anyway, I’ve maxed out on this sort of fucking around and it so it should be back to business as usual now. Plus, I also want to get on with my latest pet project. Here’s the three-point plan:
1. Download world wide web.
2. Correct spelling mistakes.
3. Re-upload.
Sep 5, 2005 at 22:14 Filed Under: Blog Comment
Cat Spam
As you’ve probably come to realise, spam is something of a pet hate of mine. Well, it’s a pet hate in the same way that I imagine being struck by lightning could be considered quite annoying. It isn’t without it moments though. Recently I have been receiving the same email, eight times a day, in Russian. Needless to say, I have been diligently ignoring them all. Until I noticed one from a Mr. Puncture D. Jealous…
Well, fight fire with fire I say…
Dear Puncture,
Thanck you for your very nice email you sent to me i readed it twice and see that it is advertising the CATS. I am very interestet in buying these from you i already have a cat off the internet an itz a good one . UNFORTUNITALY I cant read in that Russian but itiz OK because i only want the feline.
Pleas find all my bank detail here.
SEND CAT NOW
hurry up
goodbye
Eggleg, Shicago (the windy city)
Aug 29, 2005 at 21:59 Filed Under: Blog Comment
The New Style
Well, here it is… my fancy new site. Brand new furniture and a lick of paint.
I’ve basically built the whole site from scratch, and like all of these things, it took slightly longer than I anticipated*. There were a few unforeseen glitches here and there but on the whole I’m pretty happy with everything. Even the things that look the same have changed- the code is now all valid XHTML (as opposed to virtual spaghetti), the text is all encoded in UTF-8 (instead of ISO-8859-1) and the engine is running on pure PHP. In short, what this means is that everything is much more better…
I’ve got my own CAPTCHA system and a few other measures set up to keep all the idiots intent on polluting the internet at bay, the webcam is now live 24 hours a day, and there’s a pint of milk in the bottom corner. It is a veritable cavalcade of new ‘features’.
I am however, still tweaking a few things here and there, so if anything looks or acts weird let me know.
To Do List
Get links to downloads working
Test trackback
Make sure comments and CAPTCHAs are working correctly
Transfer mailing list
Set up posting from my phone
Lots of fiddly stuff like get Links page in alphabetical order
Oh, and I almost forgot- the arcade. I was planning to retire it actually, but I’ve already had two emails asking about it. Hmm… we’ll see.
* Although, unlike traditional workmen, I didn’t sit around drinking tea and reading the Daily Record for weeks before trying to charge you double the quoted price.
Aug 26, 2005 at 14:58 Filed Under: Blog Comment
Dun na nGall
I got back from Ireland last night after a week of fishing, swimming in the sea and Scrabble. We were in a small place called Portnoo in County Donegal where the weather was great; staying in a house that was a stone’s throw from the sea.
I had only ever been fishing once or twice before, without success. But before we left I went to the Angling Centre and kitted myself out with a rod, a reel and a selection of psychedelic lures. I was all geared up for standing on a rock and staring aimlessly into the sea for hours.
When we arrived, Nick invested in a tide-table from the local shop which turned out to be our clock for the majority of the holiday (much to Trish, Lotte and Katie’s annoyance). You see, apparently the best time to catch fish is at high tide. Which seems reasonable. Except when high tide is at four o’clock in the morning. There was only one thing for it… get up and fish. And so, despite having travelled since six am, we got a couple of hours sleep and woke up at half-past three the next morning to go and harvest the sea.
The good thing about high tide is that it occurs twice a day which means that it is never more than twelve hours until you next get to stand about on a rock trying not to fall into the sea. Oh, how we fished. The other thing about high tide is that the timing changes every day. So a half-past three start becomes twenty past four and then five am, and so on. Eventually, the sun was getting up before we were.
It was like a re-acquaintance with nature. Well actually, it was more like a blind date with nature. I don’t know why fishing is quite so compelling, but it is. I was standing in the most precarious places I could find, my Adidas gripping the barnacles that were gripping the rocks- sometimes it was dark, windy and/or wet. The sea made it pretty clear that if you fucked with it, it would just drown you. Yet somehow, it was the best way to kill a couple of hours. Whereas the best way to kill fish, I have discovered, is to simply smash their heads on a rock. I did this countless times. In the end I caught fourteen fish- four mackerel and ten pollack.
The rest of the time was spent swimming in the sea, walking around in the middle of nowhere in the sun and watching Charlie performing stunts of varying quality (including running away from ‘a bull’); with a few games of Scrabble and some drinking thrown in for good measure.
I could go on and on what Nick looks like climbing out of the sea naked at seven am, who Triviaman And Booter are, and stuff like that… but I’m not going to. I’m not even going to post any photos yet. The reason is that I’m still in the process of rebuilding the whole site here and adding more stuff makes this more complex and annoying than it already is. I’m almost finished though, so this should be the last post before the switch. I’m not going to post anything for a few days (so no change there then) and by the time you tune in towards the end of the week, everything should be shiny and new. And then I’ll post about seeing a man buying a machete.
Aug 9, 2005 at 23:56 Filed Under: Blog Comment
Important Safety Information
I dawned on me sometime earlier this week that I had managed to miscalculate my birthday. As it turns out, it isn’t this weekend, it is actually next weekend. And so I have an extra week of being 29. It’s on Saturday, but I think I’ll do my birthday drinking the night before at the Transmission party.
Anyway, that’s nothing to do with why I haven’t posted this week. The reason for that is that I am rebuilding my entire website and getting Burning Salad ready for the switch is difficult enough without adding to the situation by posting about Churminator having food poisoning or Trish waking me up screaming, ‘The cat’s brought in two mice and he’s bitten one of their faces off. It’s brains are on the floor’. I was hung-over- so were mine.
I also received two safety notices from Apple and Microsoft within days of each other. It seems that their legendary rivalry now extends to who can blow up the most customers…
Jul 24, 2005 at 19:52 Filed Under: Blog Comment
Harry Potter Kiss My Arse
The new Harry Potter novel was released 3 minutes ago. If you have managed to get your hands on a copy please feel free to piss off and read it, and don’t come back. I hate Harry Potter. Everyone is always going on about how bloody great it is… give me a fucking break. I haven’t read any of the books or seen any of the films and I am never, ever going to. The closest I have ever come is right now when J.K. Rowling is live on TV as I write this, reading from her latest asinine creation. And I am not listening- it’s on in the background so I can gather my ire to write this post.
I don’t have anything against the whole fantasy schtick. Quite the opposite. I sometimes wonder that if it weren’t for Mad Dog 20/20, cheap hashish and girls I might still be losing sleep over X-Men storylines*. In short- I’ve been there, done that, got the limited edition t-shirt and queued up to get it signed. I can safely come out of the closet because, over the last few years, the pop culture police have calculated that geek = cool. Whatever.
The whole Harry Potter hysteria just completely bends my head out of shape. That’s what it is people- hysteria. You’re hysterical. It’s third rate tat wrapped up in a marketing ploy and hawked to idiots by marketing execs. Pure snake oil. And no, I haven’t read it. And yes, I still know what I’m talking about. When I go to the grave without ever having read a single line or watched a single frame and I will have died happy.
Gregor Wright vs Harry Potter
1. It’s really great because it’s a children’s book that adults can really appreciate.
ALL good “children’s stuff” should be like that. Go and watch The Simpsons or read Akira.
2. But the stories are really engaging and surprisingly complex.
So what. (See above). I’d rather be locked in a room, spiked with PCP and have The Famous Five narrated backwards through a megaphone by an angry dalek than read so much as the preface.
3. Harry is a good role model for children.
Really. Remind them of that when they their main interest in magic is magic mushrooms.
4. But it’s really great that children are so excited about a series of books rather than a Playstation game.
No it’s not. Get them to play Final Fantasy VII.
4. Well, it’s good for kids’ literacy.
So is Alphabetti Spaghetti and a good thesaurus.
To add insult to injury, a recent Harry Potter factoid I was recently subjected to, informed me that his birthday is on the 31st of July. That’s the day after mine. (Yes I’m going to be thirty next week). Well, if I went to Hogwarts I would have studied the dark arts with the sole intention of corrupting the wee shite…
… But I didn’t, so I’m just going to go down to Borders tomorrow and tear out the last page of every copy of Harry Potter And The Crock Of Shit.
*The irony of staying in on a Friday night and writing about this on the web is not lost.
Jul 16, 2005 at 0:03 Filed Under: Blog Comment
Orange
Like most people, one of my favourite pastimes is phoning call centres and waiting in call queues. It’s a great way to meet exciting new people and listen to music. Phoning up Orange to add credit to my phone is a real treat. It’s really quick and easy to do…
*450
Orange Robot Recording: Hello, you’re through to Orange. To top-up press 1…
*1
ORR: To top-up using a credit or debit card press 1…
*1
ORR: If you are topping-up the phone you are using, press 1…
*1
ORR: Now enter your four-digit id code followed by the hash key…
*XXXX #
ORR: Please hold…
ORR: Enter the last four digits of your nominated card followed by the hash key…
*XXXX #
ORR: Due to increased card security regulations, I’ll have to ask for some additional security information. Please enter the last three digits on the signature strip of your nominated card followed by the hash key…
* XXX
ORR: Thanks. I’m showing XXX. If that’s correct, press 1.
*1
ORR: Great! Now please enter just the numbers in the postcode of your card billing address followed by the hash key…
*XXX
ORR: Thanks, I’ve got XXX. If I’ve got that right press 1…
*1
ORR: We’re nearly done…
ORR: If you have any numbers in your billing address other than the post code, press 1…
*1
ORR: Great! Now enter just those numbers followed by the hash key…
*XXX #
ORR: Okay, other than the postcode I’m showing XXX as the number in your billing address. If I’ve got that right, press 1…
*1
ORR: How much would you like to top up? For five pounds press 1, for ten pounds press 2…
*2
ORR: I’m showing ten pounds. If this is correct, press 1…
*1
ORR: Great! I’m now going to whisper the script of James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster Titanic in its entirety. When I’ve finished press 1…
***
…*1
ORR: I’m sorry. I’m unable to process your request at the moment. Goodbye.
Jul 13, 2005 at 2:05 Filed Under: Blog Comment
Law And Order
[I've edited this post because it went on and on in too much boring detail].
I’ve just gotten back home after having been ‘detained’ by the police. Basically what happened was…
I was on my way back home from my studio and I heard there was some kind of protest happening and since it was on my way home I decided to see what was going on.
In a nutshell, there were cops blocking the crossroads on three sides (and inexplicably blocking the majority of protesters out). The ‘protest’ consisted of a small bunch of hippies dancing about and hitting a drum somewhat arrthymically. There must have been about five cops for every hippie. And then they wheeled in a bunch of mounted cops.
The atmosphere was getting uncool so I decided to… well, just turn round and take an alternative route home. When suddenly, a whole bunch of other cops who were probably from down south (they had a different uniform) appeared from nowhere and blocked the road off at the back, managing to cause some micro-violence in the process by manhandling anyone who happened to be in the way.
So by now the whole situation was rubbish, unless you were a hippie intent on smashing the system by drinking cider. (This I am not). And anyway… blah blah blah. None of the cops would accept that me and small group of people had been unwittingly trapped and refused to let us out. In fact, most of them refused to even be civil. (‘But officer I am a law abiding citizen, at this exact moment in time’).
And then the aggro cops at the back (ie. one metre behind me) moved forward in a sort of quite-fast-moving-wall-of-cops way. So I got totally bulldozed onto the bridge over the Clyde with all the hippies. They had blocked it at both ends and they kept us there for about an hour. The whole time I just kept thinking, Right if everything kicks off and it’s all hippies and cops and horses fighting I’m going to take my chances and jump in the river. But I didn’t have to in the end. After getting a fair amount of attitude from various officers of the law, I eventually found one cop who bordered on being reasonable. He seemed to realise that not everyone who doesn’t wear a suit is into hanging around on bridges trying to get arrested. And they let us go about our business.
Now, it has to be said, I’m not anti-cop* per se. In fact, my karate sensei is a police (and a very good one, I expect). But those cats really need to cool their boots because there wasn’t the slightest hint of impending violence until they started throwing their weight around.
*I’m more anti-hippie, as it happens.
Jul 8, 2005 at 19:37 Filed Under: Blog Comment
Bad News
What a strange few days. First the whole G8 build-up, with a mixture of partying and tension, then yesterday London goes wild after beating the odds to get the 2012 Olympics… and now today, a terrorist attack.
It reminded me of how long things have been relatively stable in Britain. I remember watching the news when I was growing up, when it wasn’t uncommon for the IRA to extend their bombing campaign to London. Britain basically had a terrorist guerilla war on it’s doorstep long before the ‘War On Terror’ was announced.
The world is a harsh and messed up place as it is, without idiots who think that the best way to point this out is to murder ordinary people. It’s disgusting.
I hope that everyone who tunes into Burning Salad from London town is safe and well.