FOX News Rocks!

It's true, I love FOX News. I love it for so many reasons. I don't know if they still do it but you used to be able to get some FOX News stuff over here late at night, certainly the Beeb used to do a thing where they would show ABC for an hour at some point in the early hours.

FOX News is unique though. It's like a cross between a brainless red neck and a Daily Mail reader. Like some kind of unholy union between the worst qualities of each to produce some bile spewing, ill-informed, white supremecist TV channel. A great thing about it though is the fact that all you need is the tiniest element of free will and the ability to read and you are immediately better informed than every single person involved with the channel, and it becomes a comedy channel.

Unfortunately I am in the UK so am not blessed with the benefit of listening to Republican rent boys Bill O'Reilly or Geraldo Riviera. On the plus side they have an awesome website which is an absolute mine of comedy gems. Today I popped across to see if they had reported on the guy who built a '65 Mustang out of empty Budweiser Cans.

I dutifully clicked on World News and then I was about to click on Europe when I noticed something. Here is the menu list you are presented with once you click 'World News':

World HOME
War on Terror

Col. Corner: David Hunt

Col. Corner: Ollie North

Iran

Iraq

.....
other countries/regions in big list
.....

Europe

Princess Diana

Natural Disasters

.
.
.

Princess Diana, apparently, is now a geographic region and/or current world event. Either that or....... Mrs Redneck may have cheated on Mr Daily Mail? FOX News could be involved with a paternity test, but who with?! Well there is only one publication which lives and breathes Diana, a paper that has managed to shoe-horn the name of a long dead woman of priviledge into every single headline and supplement since 1997. That's right! Is FOX News really the Bastard love child of the Daily Express?! All we need is for Geraldo to pick up his old job as a Jerry Springer wannabe and we got ourselves a show!...

Brainiac

It's the Challenge Cup final at Wembley on the 25th August, Saint Helens play Bradford today in the semi final and we have a pretty fair chance of beating them because the Saints rock and Bradford are evil. I have it on good authority that they eat babies - it's true. They aren't as Satanic and wicked as Leeds and nowhere near as underhand and Anti-Christ like as Wigan, but they are still evil.

The problem I have, as always, is that I'm a moron. I have booked tickets to get home that weekend so even if we beat The Bulls I won't be at the final. Last year it was at Twickenham, an armpit of a stadium that they should pay people to populate not the other way around - so I could stand missing a Challenge Cup final there. This is Wembley but I'll be at home - sucks to be me.

More wedding Shenanigans, PokéFaustus, uppance.

Since the predicted clamber of excitement asking for more details of my thrilling adventures I am going to talk first about Nick Brooks, friend and colleague. Hmmm, that sort of sounds like the opening to an obituary.....

I'll start again. Nick is going to marry Cara. This was already a very cool thing, not least because they are doing it at Niagra Falls no less! Also, for reasons best know to himself, Nick asked me to be best man. This is very cool, though I have yet to tell him that I've never successfully been best at anything, even if all that's basically being asked is that I am the best at following my biological fate. I am hoping there is no bear wrestling or running involved.

I'm not entirely sure what it is I am supposed to do beyond getting him drunk, securing a traffic cone and writing a speech that will result in me being banned from all future such engagements. Anyway, the upshot is that in February it looks like I am Canada bound. As such I have decided to kill a flock of birds with a single matrimonial pebble. First I am obviously going to go to Canada, where I plan to spend upwards of a week having a brief mooch around. Then down to the US, stopping in to visit the Maja and some other places along the way. After that I want to fly to Houston to visit an old University friend who lives out there, working for Pi Studios. Then maybe a couple days in Dallas (TBC).

In total, I hope to be in North America for about 3 weeks - hopefully the trip will span over pay day lol!

In other news I noticed Final Fantasy 3 was available for the DS so all the abuse I took for ordering Pokémon was for naught as there was another very good game I could get instead. However, it appears that pre-ordering with GAME is akin to signing your name in blood on a contract made of human skin that is being held by a suspiciously sinister individual with a sanguine complexion and a penchant for throwing his head back and laughing like a Bond Villain. Basically I couldn't cancel, my soul it appears belongs to the Pokémon. Serves me right too, my uppance has clearly come.

PS

Any Best Man advice would be appreciated, most people have the good sense not to invite me to weddings so I really have no idea.........Nick - you weren't meant to read that bit.....

The news in brief......

It's been a while I know! I am going to give a mini-update and let you tell me which you would like to hear about properly first! (If any).

OK so first off - went to La Marché in Italy and had the best most relaxing time with some very more awesomer friends, Emi and Hannah. We were staying with Emi's dad who is a Chiropractor in Communanza. We were right up in the middle of nowhere and no one spoke English which was quite refreshing. I have nothing bad to say except that, on the whole, Italian bread is crap. Now bearing in mind that I spent best part of 5 days there, and the only negative I can think of is the bread, we can conclude I thoroughly enjoyed the holiday and the company I was in. I was, obviously, a source of some wonder and amusement as my skin tone, on the Dulux Colour Chart is 'Frightened Milk'. So, I have some pics on facebook but if you want to hear more about this before anything else vote now! (Including the harrowing tale of how I nearly lost a leg when I received a mortal wound whilst swimming).

OK then I came back to work, I've decided to temporarily put my moving plans on hold - I think I was getting a bit ahead of myself - another 6-12 months here will be good for my career in general and the houses aren't going anywhere in that time.

Big news is that I have ordered the new Pokémon game for my DS, which Hannah ranted and raved at me about - and once she explained it to me she was right to do so. I remember Pedr and me taking the piss quite a lot when it was around as a 'phenomenon', but I had no idea quite how massive and childlike it was really. All I know is that the console games tend to be excellent, so I am willing to buy one. However, that argument falls down when you find out they are sending me a free stylus with a little Pokémon on the top of it. That's right; no one is cooler than me. Hannah was mortified when she found out that her favourite band Mcfly (which is waaaay cooler than Pokémon apparently) will be launching the game. [Edit] I should really highlight this a little more strongly. I am 30 yeasr old and I am buying a Pokémon game. Even my low reserves of shame are struggling to deal with this fact. I am still, however, buying it. If rob can't use this as insult ammo, there is no hope for that boy.[/Edit]

Went to lunch on Sunday with April for a chat and a catch-up. We went to J Sheekey, which apparently is very famous. We intended to stick to the set weekend lunch menu, but we got a bit carried away. If you ant a foody post, let me know and I'll do that first!


Then I went for drinks with Keiron and Natalie who have just moved to Bow - Kieron for the first time living further than 1 mile from the University of Hull, Nat moving from Hertfordshire. Once done there, went off for drinks with Rob and his Hannah (tiny tiny Hannah), then home with a very spinny head!

OK, that's the synopsis of my July, I'm sure I missed stuff out but I'm back now! muahahhahah!

Specifically for Julie Gong

Here is why you need to upgrade to an XBox 360 Julie. It's the only way to be more awesomer.



All you losers with real lives couldn't possibly understand. hehe!

More gallivanting

Off to Italy for 5 days or so tomorrow, up in the mountains of Marché apparently. Looking forwrd to doing absolutely nothing for a few days!

Photos to follow.

Tagged

Well sort of, Olivia didn't play favourites, or she couldn't be bothered thinking of names lol! Anyway.

Tagged

‘The rules are simple. There are 9 questions (3², each of which has 3 answers, to give a total of 27, or 3³. The whole point is that the questions are somewhere between eclectic, banal and downright bizarre, so that you can answer completely truthfully without actually giving much away. Just put down the first three answers that come to mind if you can’t work out the “most appropriate” three.’

Objects Within One Metre Of You

1. My work PCs (yes I have a few, the more you have the more important you are - that's the rule!)

2. Mobile Phone

3. Zune

First Names of People You Sat Next To At School

1. Simon

2. David

3. Phil


TV Programmes You Won’t Watch

1. Big Brother (and all Big Brother Related shows)

2. "Talent" contests

3. Anything with the word 'Celebrity' in the title


Favourite Trivial Pursuit Categories

1. Art & Literature

2. Science and Nature

3. History


Superpowers You’d Like To Have

1. Telkinesis (don't need flight if you have this! - you clearly have not spent the inordinate amount time thinking about this stuff as I have 'Liv! lol)

2. Regeneration

3. Not Getting Fat


Newspapers, Magazines or Periodicals Read Regularly

1. I tend to randomly select a bile rag when I can be bothered to give them my time, just to recharge the Rant Cells.


Songs You Dislike (...oh so many....)

1. Anything by Lilly Allen, especially after what she did to Oh My God.

2. That 'Acceptable In the 80s' song - Calvin Harris is one of the people we should be reserving for conversion into BioFuel.

3. Brimful fo Asha.


Blog Posts of Your Own That You’d Recommend.

1. I'd really give it a miss if I were you

2. Seriously, that's not the name of a good post

3. There really ism nothing to see here.

People you'd like to tag.

1. anyone

2. who wants

3. to join in

Powers of the Throne

Considering the USA is a Republic, their President's powers do seem to bear an awfully strong resemblence to those of our monarchs a couple of hundred years ago. With Dick 'Is it an old man or is it a game bird' Cheney merrily removing the process of Checks and Balances by declaring himself the 4th Branch of Government, the Patriot Act wiping out various pesky sections of the constitution that prove problematic in the War on Free..errrr..Terror.

All I'm saying is, if your president starts walking round in an Ermine trimmed Cloak and a Gold 'n' Diamond hat, start getting worried. That's of course if you don't become a Theocracy under the religious right first.

On the other hand Prudence appears to be improving our slapdash, informal constitution (think of it like the halfway point of a student project, cobbled together research based ont eh original Magna Carta but nothing properly written down yet) by removing powers from the Prime Minister. Now brace yourself, this may come as a shock. I think this is awesome - that's right! I said something good about our governement! The rumour according to the Beeb is that our new PM is going to eliminate his power to declare war without the approval of parliament. Cool eh?

I hope the next US Pres reverses some of the awful damage Dubyah has done. He's pissed on the constitution, destroyed any reputation at all the US had in the International community, wrecked the US economy, treated veterans like dogs and any number of other things. They need someone who actually has the ability to read the job description and who has the spine not to surround himself with sycophants and cronies. I think the people really need to look at this tactic of ALWAYS re-electiing incumbants - whether it be to congress, senate or the Whitehouse - it clearly isn't the most genius of ideas!

Can't go long without a rant...

This story both annoys and amuses me.

Basically they are saying their human rights are infringed because they broke the law. It's your car, if it's not stolen and it is caught speeding you are liable for it unless of course someone else named by you or who comes forward, admits to and can prove they were driving the car. At least that is my understanding.

This man Francis says something like 'I will continue to fight for our freedoms'. Well how about fighting for the hundreds of children who are killed each year because arseholes like you think it's their right to break the speed limit? I got caught speeding and I probably got a harsher penalty than I deserved, first offence and all that but I am not about to whinge that the law preventing me from increasing the risk of harm to others is against my civil liberties!

The easiest way not to get caught by speed cameras is not to speed. The one thing I dread becoming when I get a car again is one of these drivers who thinks the world is out to get him. If I ever start whining about car charges, let me know!

Stronger, faster, better.......

Well it's a couple months on and Sam the Welsh pygmy has had more scans. I only include one on this post because I don't want you all fawning over your screens, which would happen if I included the whole set.

LOOKIT!



As you can see, the baby is already a superior being to any of you great unwashed. You can tell, just look at the poise with which el bambino holds in the amniotic fluid. The superior cranial capacity, the powerful limbs, the keen intellect and power shines through! Master/Mistress of all he/she surveys!

Some of you may think I am not being objective, but that's only because your baby isn't as good as Sam & Niall's.

Stag Weekend Tomfoolery

I'm off to the West Country in an hour or so with Rob and 18 other people to engage in RoboMatt's stag weekend. It all looks good fun.

We are staying here:

Looks like it's beers this evening. Tomorrow we are having Sumo Wrestling and Archery in the grounds followed by paintball in the afternoon. I suspect the teams will be 19 enthusiastic 'friends' Vs RoboMatt.

Then it's off to the bustling metropolis of Tiverton town for beer induced shenannigans! Sunday is a round of golf, lunch and home.

All very civilised but I'm sure we'll get a traffic cone from somewhere - Photos to follow.

Out of the Wilderness.......

I am for the first time in 2 years giving serious consideration to moving job. Despite many things that infuriate me, I really quite like working for my current company. Like any large concern there are politics and various other gripes but as a company they aren't horrible to work for. I'm grown up enough to know that wherever I work these problems or similar ones will rear their ugly heads. My main reasoning is about where I live, I'm getting increasingly frustrated at not being able to buy anywhere because I happen to live in Surrey.

My flatmate is moving in to his own place and I will be renting off him - the rent will be similar to what I could be paying on a mortgage in pretty much any other area of the country except for London. So bitching and whining about my company/staff manager aside I am just looking at my overall goals and one of those is to get my own place. I've seen similar jobs to mine for the same or more money in cheaper areas like Ipswich or Harrogate where I can buy houses for less than small studio flats where I currently live.

So watch this space, I may actually start sending my CV out shortly and changes may be afoot. Though I am aware that I tend to get itchy feet after about 2 years in one place so need to think about it a bit more carefully.......

On a lighter note....

Lots of people I know went to Glastonbury this year and for the first time ever I was actually jealous. I mean, The Who were playing - come on!

Jealousy aside, I now own a tent. I have also never gone to a multi-day festival. I've now decided that I am definitely going to a summer festival next year. This is takign a worrying turn though, as originally I was planning only the Download festival (bit more rock oriented you see?). But now my brain is telling me that there is no reason why I can't do Glastonbury AND Download.

I find myself hoping that Glastonbury has one of it's years where it has a line up that I am only half interested in, though I suspect that this will not be the case!

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

That's right Tony Blair is gone! He's finally stopped talking about it and slung his hook! After weeks of travelling around the world shaking hands with people who don't hate him (hence not travelling around Britain) he is handing in his resignation as a Prime Minister. This is a good career move for Tony, instead of implementing American foreign policy in the middle east whilst ignoring domestic issues, he can just concentrate on doing what he is told by the Whitehouse.

This will be a great weight from his shoulders!

In all seriousness, I despise the man so much because I voted for hime twice - once because I believed in much of what he stood for and the second time because he was the lesser of two evils. In my opinion Tony Blair is the biggest cause for political apathy this country has ever had. He gave so many new hope. After years of Tory mismanagement of public services, illegal arms trades, funding genocidal maniacs and accounting that would make ENRON blush people were genuinely excited at the opportunity to welcome a new premier. Instead he discarded his principles and let us all down. Who can be arsed to vote when you have it thrown back in your face like that?

I know it sounds like I am saying everything he did was crap but I do know that he's done some really good things, but unfortunately that doesn't cut it when put in the balance. He is responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people in East Timor and other countries across the world after reneging on a pre-election commitment not to sell Harriers, Saracens and Saladins to ropey regimes (a cushy deal instituted by the Tories). He's failed to keep Britain's commitments to the Tsunami fund. I could go on, but basically there is too much easily avoided death and failure on his hands for me to praise the good he has done. Sadly, everything that the Tories of the late 80s and early 90s were guilty of, he continued. As time went on he lost his backbone, he traded reform for celebrity and a retirement fund.

I can't bring myself not to vote, so I've been voting liberal democrat. They believe in proportional representaion as their key tennet, and taxing the well off more than poor people. This is awesome to me, the only way we will see real change is if there is a hung parliament and the Lib Dems are invited to form a coalition - the only way they would agree to that is if their partners agreed to electoral reform (you know, so we have a democracy instead of the farce we currently have). Well, that was the case until Menezies Campbell took over the Lib Dems and stated that any coalition would no longer hinge on that one policy of proportional representation. Thanks Menezies - who do I vote for now?

OK, that's my politics for the month - sorry had to be done! ;)

No such things as a free lunch

It's been a funny few weeks, I've sat down to blog a few times about things I found funny and thought would be entertaining but when I come to write it down I change my mind thinking it too whiny instead. My levity has suffered of late I think, with my words sounding more serious than I intend them at times so I've been a little more cautious. Don't worry, it won't last.


This one is a nit of a whiny one though and I make no bones about it! It's a dilemma you see - My staff manager wants to take me to lunch tomorrow but I'm not sure I can sit opposite him for longer than 10 minutes without telling him exactly what I think of him. On the other hand, he is buying. My two great loves of Food and Ranting caught up in an impossible battle. Will sitting next to a lying waste of blood and organs put me off my dinner? Or can I survive the day until he goes away for another 6 months?

Answers on a postcard.

German + Bank Manager = ?

A nightmare clad in pinstripes and bearing complicated over-charging right? Ruthless efficiency regarldess of consequences?

Apparently not, this is a story that even warmed my dessicated and bitter heart!

Rock,Paper, Scissors revisited

As we discussed a few weeks ago, new awesomeness in the field of Rock, Paper, Scissors adding new dimensions to the game has been discovered: http://www.umop.com/images/rps25_outcomes.jpg

However, for those losers among you that pine for the classic old skool version but find the very idea of performing the physical actions required for this high tension, extreme competion vomit inducing, fear not as a solution has been created for you! That's right, no more RSI, no more pesky decision making, no more psych-out strategies ruining your fun! Not with the all new electronic Rock, Paper, Scissors!.

Safari

Apple have launched their web browser for Windows. Now as much as I am cautious of Apple hype I have always heard good things about the browser, I tend to use 2 anyway - usually Firefox and IE7 - one with Sun Java turned on and one without.

Anyway, Safari. So far it's just been frustrating - you download Firefox and IE7 and the just sort of work. If you want Java on, you just go to the tools menu and click a little box. Safari doesn't have a tools menu and the first time I navigated to a screen running Java applets it hung for about 3 minutes. I still have no idea how to get it to run applets so I have gone back to Firefox. You can see where Microsoft have nicked things from Safari with IE7, but that doesn't bother me because it works and if it works I couldn't give a toss who made it. Unfortunately, right now Safari is very much like everything else Apple - it works really well on their hardware, with their OS but just 'kind of' works on anything else. Maybe Apple stuff only woks if your machine is pretty.

Comedy Stuff...

I don't normally do requests but 'Liv asked me to blog about this (I think she is sick of reading about my various plans for people I don't like :p)

As part of my phase 2 'Acknowledging the Existence of London' initiative I have been to a couple of comedy gigs of late. The first went to was Richard Herring's excellently delivered mental breakdown in his Menage a Un standup tour. A lot of the stuff won't be to everyone's taste, he is far from mainstream but he delivers his material so well it is hilarious. Whathe does particularly well in a lot of his stuff is to make a moutnain out of a molehill and vice versa. He thinks nothing of extoling the virtues of marrying Maxine Carr but stretches his displeasure at the French word for potatoe meaning 'Apple of the Earth' to about 20 minutes. I can't do his show justice here because i am not a professional reviewy person, you write things like 'Extoling the virtues of marrying Maxine Carr' and that doesn't sound at all funny, but it is in the context of the show. Just trust me it is very funny.

I also went to the Lyric at Hammersmith last night, barely making the the last train home at the end! the line up was pretty good but i was mainly there to see Richard Herring (compere), Robin Ince, Mitch Benn and Stewart Lee. Even though I had heard a lot of the stuff in his show, RH did a really good job as compere, a family kindly providing material by bringing their 12 year old son to the show and sitting him in the front row. 'You're going to learn some interesting new words today my boy'. Giving the 12 year old a bottle of beer before the interval and saying 'drink this, I'll be funnier in the 2nd half then'.

Robin Ince was pretty good though he was trying some new material I think, and it wasn't suited to a 10 minute slot. I am off to see him in Southampton on Wednesday which i am looking forward to, I'm not at all worried because I have heard some of his stuff on the radio before and he is a very witty man. Mitch Benn was his usual brilliant and loud self, I don't usually like musical comedians but he is without doubt the king of comedy songs. A strong opening with 'I may have to murder James Blunt' and a song about the life cycle of a Boy Band, he was an excellent choice to finish the first half with. Stewart Lee opened the Second half, which I thought was a shame, I think he should have come a bit later. He basically spent 10 minutes breaking down and analysing a comment passed by his mother about a Tom O'Connor joke. It's a lot funnier than it sounds. He was one of my favourite parts of the evening as I've not seen much of his stuff since This Morning with Richard Not Judy (when still partnered with Rich Herring).

There were other comedians there, some less funny than others. I really like A Murray when he isn't doing his Pub Landlord bit but he only doesn't do that when on panel games and the like, his stage show entirely consists of it and I'm finding it a bit tired. It's a shame because he is clearly talented and clever (the Landlord basically parodying the people who are probably his biggest fans) but he's kind of trapped doing this act at the moment. I hope breaks out of it and does some other stuff soon.

Russell Howard was fanatstic, seen him on panel shows etc. but never seen his standup stuff - well worth it, he fit a lot into 10 minutes and the whole house laughed throughout.



So that is my brief synopsis! For the one American who occasionally reads this - I apologise you won't know any of these people but don't worry as I doubt any Brits do either, these aren't really mainstream big name comics.

All in all it was an excellent benefit gig, bumped into someone I met at Richard Herring's gig on Good Friday who helps run the Comedy Bar in Hampshire, it's worth checking out the site and web-stalking her or her partner in crime to your heart's content (the gig on Wednesday is run by comedy bar). Sadly for me, and happily for her I couldn't stay for a drink at the end as I had to go get a train. I've left a lot of stuff out here but the important bits are in as far as I am concerned!

There - you've had a 'What I did' post, back to the unfounded, opinionated ranting.....

Webbyness

I am really really really going to try and get some webby stuff done this weekend I promise! Things have been moving, just in very small steps. I am going to try and get the bulk of my blog CSS out of the way tomorrow so I can concentrate on the awesome and inspired artwork that will adorn the site. I am off up to Hammersmith on Sunday so it's unlikely I will get anything done then, but hopefully by the end of the month we will actually see something!

It won't be anything worth looking at of course........hmmmmmm............maybe I could sell it to Endemol.........