so...

is it christmas?

bloody tradesmen

...say no more.

But I will. A conversation I had with a plumber the other morning:

Me: Hi Jeff, here from xxxx* you called yesterday about coming out to look at the drains. I was hoping we could set a time..?

Him: Yeah, I called the other day but no-one called back.

Me: Umm, yeah, I'm calling you now...

Him: So do you want me to come fix your drains now?

Me: [looking at the time and figuring I can be late for work, hell it's only the public service..] Sure, now would be ok with me.

Him: Look mate, don't call me and expect me to drop everything to come fix your drains.

Me: [confused] Umm, sure, ok - another time th-

Him: [cutting me off] I'll be there in half an hour. [hangs up]

Me: [talking to a dead phone] ..wha?

Hang on, didn't he offer to come right away? Ok so I'm never at my best at comprehension first thing in the morning but that was a little weird...

* yes, I actually live in a can of beer

vom...

The 6 most terrifying foods in the world. Example:

#2 Pacha
What the hell is it?
Of all the dishes, this is the one most likely to be mistaken for a threatening message from the mob. It's a sheep's head. Boiled.

And that's the most palatable of them. Balut makes #1 but for my money casu marzu is the worst.

Jesus H. Poledancing Christ.

If nothing else it'll make you appreciate Aunt Nora's 'special' potato salad this Xmas.

a different perspective

Who cares about the universe when the world looks like this?

perspective

On a similar note check these pics out. I was going to post them myself but Matt Jones has created the definitive post. And I'm too lazy to try to top it.

I'll just say that those pics don't show the largest known star which is about 3 times the size of Antares. As shown in this gif (click through to start):


All credit to whoever made it, I've no idea where I got it from.

this year's best space pics

I love astronomy. There's nothing like the vastness of space to put some perspective on missing your bus in the morning.

Plus it's amazingly beautiful out there. Check these out.

(via the presurfer)

what, no fish daemons?

Ok, so the movie will probably be a pallid interpretation of the glorious books but this is an interesting diversion:



I like how I (her? we?) am sociable and shy...

best reaction vid..

..to the interblagh 'phenomenon' of two girls one cup. No I haven't seen the clip (nor have I ANY desire to do so) but I think some of the (genuine) reaction clips are pretty cool.

This one is the Roots guys watching it. Warning: there is a lot of screaming. And an afro.


Via the Underwire.

documentary:

random cool stuff

Beng sadly monolingual I have no idea what this is all about but the... 'things' (sculptures? ornaments?) are pretty awesome.

This is a brilliant story with amazing pictures. Although I'm not sure about the cuddling the grouper bit. Almost makes me want to run away to sea. Well, actually, it doesn't at all - but I'm glad someone else did it.

Vote for Mister Splashy Pants!

Everone have a lovely weekend, I'm off to get drunk.

PS XKCD explains what went wrong with my week. Lucky I always carry shark repellent...

conan says.. what?

This is hypnotically hilarious:

Arnie explains.

Stolen from linkbunnies and like they say I've no idea why this as funny as it is.

back to the grind

...and the grinding noise appears to be coming from our servers.

After a delightfully drunken weekend away in Aotearoa for the wedding of good friends (spending $300+ on a fantastic suite to sleep in 4 hours, shower a couple of times and vomit occasionally..) I return to sunny Sydney and to a hufuckerous (adjective du jour!) shit-storm at work.

I really should have expected this since people always seem to wait till I get back rather than trying to fix anything themselves. Or even tell anyone else about the problems.

And I've figured out why servers are called servers - not because they provide 'service' or anything so helpful. It's because they serve as convenient scapegoats if anything goes wrong.

"The database is down"
"Sorry, the server is offline"

"I can't upload data"
"Server's refusing connections at the moment"

"Datalinking is working very slowly"
"The server just stepped out for a coffee"

"I just lost 22 marriage files!"
"The server hates you. Sacrifice a chicken. It likes honey-fried with bbq sauce"

also...

Best hating on critters ever:

How many animals have a cardinal sin named after them? Just the sloth: God's most evil creature.

Pilfered from linkbunnies.

not the show

But I'm glad to see ze back again, even if only occasionally:

wong... wong...

In attempt to lighten the mood after yesterday's discovery of the impending apocalypse here's a condensed version of Teh Return of da Jediz by Scaryduck. LOLZ.

Oh, and furry baby animalz to up the cute quotient:


Awwwww!

we are fucked

Not right now but the end will come sooner than you think if this goes on.

When humans were content to slice off the top layer of the food web - the big fish, whales, sharks, etc - we had a chance to pull back & things would (probably) come right. Now that we're determined to rip the base out of the oceanic ecosystem I'm prepared to call it.

Human race R.I.P.

You deserve it.

movin' up

I have a new office: cool.

It's got a view: wonderful.

There's another building close by: not so flash.

It's an apartment block: a little more interesting.

Their balconies face my window: better & better.

Occasionally, on a balcony near my office window, sexy asian girls in hotpants congregate to smoke cigarettes: way-hey - now we're talking!

I'm hanging out for the pillowfights...

dilbert speaks the truth

This was sent to me by my developer - insinuating that I am Pointy-Haired Boss. In truth, however, I'm merely the much reviled middleman passing requests one way and incoherent screams of rage the other...

We of course sent her this reply:

Oh my God, the font. I didn't even think about the font. And what about the colour. Do you think it is the right shade? AND OH MY GOD, I didn't even think about the size of the boxes for visually impaired people! OH and can we have a braille version?

I'm still hiding. She has a cricket bat.

scaryfruit

"Halloween cotumes b2?"
"I'll get the knives b1..."

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

webcomics review

I periodically get bored of life and, rather than indulge in a blaze of semi-automatic gunfire at a Liberal Party* campaign meeting before turning the gun on myself, I turn to teh interblag for solace.

The effect is much the same really, although there's less blood to hose down afterwards.

I recently discovered a couple of comics that have brightened my otherwise dull, meaningless life to a warm glow. I suggest you take a few hours to trawl through the archives of both of these:

Platinum Grit - this has been around since the early 90s?! Man am I slow on the uptake...

The Perry Bible Fellowship - I dig humour of the unexpected. But you probably expected that. Certainly should have expected a bad joke if you know me at all.

Both of these (and others, whose worth I am currently assessing) come recommended by fullyramblomatic.com, authored by the improbably named Yahtzee Croshaw. A better name than his younger brother Craps Croshaw I guess...

In case you missed my plug for his Zero Punctuation game reviews there it is again. Even if you don't play computer games you'll get a giggle.

Go.

Giggle.

I'd say you'd thank me for it but you never do. Ungrateful bastards.

* In Australia Liberal means conservative rightwing dirtbag not, y'know, liberal. Yes, it's Bizarro world down here.

because size matters

And bigger is always better:

HugeURL.

Via Linkbunnies.

need for speed?

This is a fascinating article: real-life canonball run.

I'm not a driver myself and don't get into car-culture or racing etc, but that's a hell of a story.

And the film that inspired his quest here. Nuts, truly crazy-go-nuts...

ahh that's the spot...

The Chaser boys hit the mark again:

'Controversy' here, here and *sigh* here...

I saw this performed a few months ago when I went to see Dead Caesar, a lovely little satirical gem. I seem to remember the version performed then was even filthier - and had everyone in stitches.

books

All regular readers know how much I love books - being the child of librarians and spending most of my time in libraries while growing up will do that.

My love of them extends not just to the written word but to the look and feel of them and, while I'm going through a period of extreme 'meh' with the literary world at the moment, I can't not love the care & attention that is being put into the presentation of books right now.

I speak not of the dross of the usual gaudy & banal sci-fi/fantasy (Harry Potter, come on up..) or 'popular' fiction (popular with who exactly?), but books like McSweeney's hardcovers - beautiful cover, matt finish, a joy to the hand and eye. I'd buy one just to have on my shelf if I could justify it.

Also The Method Actors by Carl Shuker - a paperback but beautiful all the same (yes, I'm biased in favour of hardcovers), and The Eternal Frontier by Tim Flannery.

Another is the hardcover of On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. That book is stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately I've no desire to read it after having read Atonement and was bored, distanced, engrossed, bored, enthralled, moved, and eventually conned and let down by it. And then trying to read Saturday but not getting past the bored stage. Yes he's an awesome writer with great prose but ultimately he doesn't draw me in to his stories.

I recently bought the Absolute Watchmen. Oh. My God. That is an incredible graphic novel (best ever? possibly so..) and a stunning looking package. Rivals my Absolute Sandman Vol 1 for sheer impressive beauty. Oh, and I'm trying desperately to ignore the film version of Watchmen that's in the pipeline - Tom Cruise wants to play Ozymandias FFS...

So, given that I'm not going to just buy a book for the look of it, anyone got any suggestions for a good read?

game platform roundup

Appropriated from The Escapist.

warning: rugby related post

Well, vaguely. The beautiful harmony of the Rugby World Cup and LOLCATZ humour. From The Dropkicks and others:



More here.

somnichthyism?

Dreamed I was a fish last night. Not just any fish either - my subconscious went for the top-shelf: a sailfish. As far as dreamfish go, you can't get much better - and I didn't encounter Ernest Hemingway so it was all good.

Later in the dream I turned into a giant squid.

Analyze that!

awesome new movie

Blogged at 12:50pm on a monday at work. I wish I had minesweeper here.

God I'm bored.

a worthy cause?

Perhaps not. In this rare case I think I'm on the side of the Cherry Blossoms (that has to be the best name for a national rugby team. Well, other than the All Blacks of course...).

Thieved from The Dropkicks and the Alternative Rugby Commentary.

Any bets on how many headlines are going to read "Wales Harpoon Japanese!" after this match?

sleep: perchance to

I'm getting old. I must be - after just one night of sleeplessness I feel like someone has removed my brain with an ice cream scoop and replaced it with damp wool.

I used to be able to survive on very little rest; about 15 years ago I went without sleep for a week to see what it would be like.

Now, just the thought of that fills me with horror. I feel like my blood has been replaced with lead after one night.

I'd give my left nut for some sleep (metaphorical - stay away from me with scissors).

my day,

or at least the karate part of it, was somewhat like this. Although my eyebrows are not as rampant. I hope. You'd tell me, right?

From the stunning series by Martin Klimas featured in The Morning News.

genius

9 Minute Sopranos:

"...Tony bangs a Russian but this one has one leg..."

In response to recent admonishing emails: yes I am aware that this blog has become a linkfest with little personal input. Torrid emotional outpourings to come.

Plus photos of my cat.

violin vs turntable

Awesome battle:

Via Frogstar.
More at Paul Dateh.

best.pick-up.line.ev0r...

That shirt looks good on you, but it would look even better stuffed into the neck of a vodka bottle and flung burning through our office building's window. Let's fucking do it and never look back.

You had me at Molotov cocktail.

sydney police crack down on jaywalkers

quote of the day

"Australians don't have accents, they just pronounce things incorrectly".

Spoken by, naturally, a Brit.

Can't argue with the logic.

sad reality

"You should get an xbox or playstation"

"Yeah, coz I really need to gain 20kgs and never see the 3 remaining friends the internet hasn't made me lose"

"..."

end of the world

An oldie but a goodie. Not for the flash animation averse. Or dial-up dependent.

just another day at the coalface...

homoiconic jedi

No, the title has nothing to do with the George Lucas directed sequel to Brokeback Mountain. It's about this toon from xkcd:


I'm disturbed that I find this funny. It's chilling that I even understand it.

What the hell happened to me? I'm supposed to be a fucking marine biologist not a computer geek!

When did my life go so horribly wrong?

warning: geek humour ahead

If business meetings were conducted like online commenting:


Cheers to Spare Room, quality linkage as always.

In vaguely related news: today I had the first controlled, constructive and pleasant meeting in my 3 years in the public service! w00t!

winter

Still lovely. If rather sodding cold...

home

I love this place.

gone

RIP.



Humans suck.

further hp hating

From the ever wonderful (and possibly Marky) Wondermark.

In other news: I've discovered labels! Fuck me I'm cutting edge.

the hp report

Blah blah wands blah blah muggles blah blah snore...

Got to page 43, realised I'd skipped several pages, couldn't face going back through it again, gave up.

Am now reading this instead. Much better.

jay 'the smasher' sherman?

I love the idea of Jon Lovitz mashing someone's head into a bar, but I just can't quite picture it.

For those who don't know: Jon Lovitz voiced Jay Sherman in The Critic and has appeared as various characters (Artie Ziff mainly) in The Simpsons.

Fave line from The Critic:

Jay: You're old enough to be my mother.
Doris: So? You're fat enough to be my car.

Andy Dick is well named.

rugby racing and beer

From the Alternative Rugby Commentary. Bloody hilarious. Warning: should not be viewed by Australians...



WeeputoCarterCartertoRokocokoRokocokohitsthejetstry. Brilliant! Warning: should not be viewed by the French.

wow!

Beautiful, magical and terrifying:

glumbert.com

Scary wonderful stuff...

god i hate people

From the internal e-news circular:

Supreme Court cuts energy wastage

The Supreme Court is leading the way when it comes to conserving energy by switching off computers at the end of the day.

WTF?

This is leading the way?

I thought this was the bare fucking minimum, something that every person with two brain cells to rub together would be doing anyway?

Oh wow, the Courts are 'leading' with this incredible move. Who knows, perhaps next they'll be turning off lights when they leave or *gasp!* recycling materials in their building.

Don't worry everyone, the planet is being saved!

You judges and lawyers can keep driving your 4 litre Urban Assault Vehicles over from the North Shore each day, getting your shitty coffee in polystyrene cups, buying lunch made from all imported ingredients, relaxing in your climate controlled offices - all guilt free because you're turning off your computers at the end of the day. Well done.

The planet thanks you for your courageous sacrifice.

same old same old

My day has been spent having conversations much like this from The Young Ones:

Mike: Maybe you shouldn't have poured that washing up liquid into it.
Vyv: But the manual said: "Ensure machine is clean and free of dust before use."
Mike: Yeah, but it didn't say: "Ensure machine is full of washing-up liquid."
Vyv: Ah, but it didn't say: "Ensure machine isn't full of washing-up liquid."

I've been emptying a lot of washing-up liquid out of machines.

i have seen the face of evil and this is it...

Someone please stop him - for the good of humanity!

IT stands for "irritating twats"

Why is it that people who work with computers for a living are often the absolute worst when it comes to communicating with the damn things?

I say this fully aware of the irony that I work in IT and very seldom send non-work related email (so those friends who are waiting on email from me and were about to get snarky can consider me well snarked). This is about work. I'm usually sending more than 20 emails a day. Although I reckon only about one in 5 gets read by anyone.

My gripe (today) is that these IT geeks, while having a grasp of Unix or Java of which I could only dimly dream (and makes fetching bespectacled nerdettes swoon (also dimly, in their dreams (those of the nerds, not the imaginary nerdettes (yes, I'll quit with the brackets now)))), seem entirely incapable of grasping the operation of a keyboard and formulation of grammatically correct English.

Proof of which I offer hereforth (or fifth (ok, ok, no more brackets (or stupid jokes))). These are requests for informations sent by a developer today. At least I think they were requests - it was hard to tell given the complete lack of question marks. Or punctuation.

Firstly:

Atempt to transmit the attached file (has been format for display) results in the following eror.
Spec's for childAgeType shows UN as valid.
Could you have look and let me konw why the errors occurring.

*teeth grinding at abuse of apostrophes*

And then:

AM I SUPPOSED TO BE REGISTERED TO GET UPDATES.

Whoa dude, no need to shout...

Followed by:

here a list of changes\rules made
Is there a nother docu that says "both DoB and Age can be left blank if a selection is made from AgeExtra"

At least he got a bit of that right. Hang on, that's me he's quoting...

Finally:

Should not it be the other way around. Every developers testing one be changed and advised of live change 1 week later (Unless extend for bug fixes)

Actually, I haven't responded to that one yet. Because I have no idea what he's getting at.

I give up. Communicating with fish was easier than dealing with this bunch.

dribble

Spent the weekend avoiding vacuuming using the biodiversity defense. This works along the reasoning that since the rainforests are being cut down every effort we make to maintain the diversity of species on earth helps.

Think global, act local.

Not a very good argument really. Just trying to turn my slobbishness into ethics.

Oh, also went to a food & wine festival.

Word of advice for businesses thinking they raise your profile: don't bother. I don't remember a single brand name from the whole day. Too pissed.

Oops. Bad consumer *smack*


Word of the day: sool. Just because.

a poem from all of me...

200mgs of Paliperidone a day
Should keep the voices away,
But to guarantee wardrobe monsters are gone
Use a back-up Risperidone.

LOL CATZ

c jmjrz l33t ftoshp skillz!

kthxbye

worst day ev0r...

sole-less.

...and a broken shoe was the best part of it.

Quite apart from the usual smorgasboard of moronic yapping colleagues and fixing of other people's idiotic screw-ups, today I happened to be working on the FD accounts list and somehow managed to delete half of them.

So if you're a funeral director in NSW and are having difficulty uploading data you know who to blame. Please don't call me.

from java guru to Ponce de Leon wannabe...

My software developer is going here. Leeches, snakes, spiders, virulent diseases, drug-smugglers - living in Sydney has been good training!

He signed on as communications and meterology guy for an expedition to study the crater. There have only ever been two expeditions there and as yet they've not discovered the origins of it. So he's going on a two month trek into the Amazon rainforest to study a mysterious crater. How cool is that?

I totally reckon he's going to be abducted by aliens.

carrots of the pirabean

Against my better judgement I saw Pirates of the Carribean: Oh God Let The World End So I Can Get Out Of This Piece Of Shit Movie tonight.

If you've not seen it: don't.

If you have - the comment has to be made (and probably has been by many): Worst.Case.Of.Crabs.Ev0r!

place holder

Had a guy today who wants to change his name to Captain Danger.

Actually, what I really want to do is talk about Life on Mars and how utterly brilliant that show is but I'm too tired and it'll just have to wait for another day.

G'night all.

But Life on Mars really is fantastic.

Truth.

oh god no..

Make the bad man stop.

Can someone please tell this man to stop shitting over my childhood memories and reducing the legacy of one of the defining films of the past 40 years to a CGI joke?

Oh, and point out that his beard isn't disguising the fact he has no neck. Is that a goiter?

sneeze poem

I was so knackered yesterday that I went to bed at 8:30pm - anyone who knows me will understand how out of character that is! However this meant that I, of course, woke up at 2:30am and was unable to get back to sleep for a few hours. And filled with a burning desire to write a haiku about Top Gear. Here it is:

Middle-aged English lads
Drive fast cars I will never buy
The Stig likes bad music

My excuse? It was 3am - you do better...

i'm not quite right...

Case in point: every time I see this clip from Family Guy I nearly have a hernia laughing.

There's something badly twisted in my psyche. I kinda like it this way.

sad passing

No, not that fat, hate-filled demagogue Falwell.

Lloyd Alexander, superb children's fantasy author, has died.

Author of the brilliant Prydain Chronicles, the gripping Westmark Trilogy and (significant to only me perhaps) The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha, a stand-alone that captured my imagination 25 years ago when I first (and last!) read it. Must try and track down a copy of that...

Reading the Prydain Chronicles at the age of 10 or 12 was entrancing, and spurred me to read The Mabinogion and investigate more into Welsh history and legend. I still have no idea how to pronounce any of the names though.

If you've not read them, and have any interest in fantasy at all, read these books.

dead!

Police are interviewing this person:



UPDATE: Tinky Winky breaks silence.

cheetaaaaaaah!

Up close & personal with the king.

plain english legalese

From a forum I just signed up to:

Forum Terms & Rules

Don't piss us off and everything should be fine.

Simple. Concise. Somewhat threatening.

I think I'm going to like it there.

overheard

From the party next door on the weekend:

Guy #1: What does 'emo' stand for anyway?
Guy #2: Emotional. Apparently.
Guy #1: (outraged) What? When the fuck did 'emotional' become a genre?!

A question that seriously needs answering.

Along with 'Why isn't there a hunting season for emos?'

bundle o' snake

bundle o' snake.

ze

Little more than one month to go. That makes me sad.

But the show still makes me happy.

Life can be so complicated.


Oh yeah, and fuck Valentines Day. Seriously.

snakes and bears

How do I love Bearskinrug? Let me count the ways.

one two three..

lots..

my new job..

...involves deciphering what the hell emails like this mean:

Jeff,
can I call bdm252 from old250 ?

I tried to nslookup on old250 but it doesn't work in bash

Evgeny

WTF?

I mean seriously?

I have no idea what I'm doing.

je suis avunculaire

Welcome to the world Eloise! (named after the song by The Damned? I'm not sure.. but doubt it)

Mother & baby doing fine, father going somewhat nuts with the excitement and adventure of the whole thing.

Well done fishbro & fishS-I-L, the hard bit is over now - just 18-20 years of parenting to go..

Much love to all three of you.

PS I found the perfect gift! :)

griffin again

Claire mentioned to me at Xmas that she hadn't seen any pictures of the insane orange beast for a while. Just to show that he's alive and well and still kinda cute. Occasionally. When anyone has a camera out. The rest of the time he's a psychopathic bastard... Don't be fooled.

work emails..

EF: have you heard Cinema Dub Monks?

FB: I think you just made that up

EF: Not true.
http://www.cinemadubmonks.jp/
http://www.tunes.co.uk/tunes/featured/8837.html

FB: you know I haven't got teh interwebs at work so it could still be an elaborate hoax..

EF: Yes, that's right. It could just be an elaborate hoax.

FB: you've got so much time on your hands after all, who knows what you invent to pass the time...

EF: Most of it is indeed not safe for the easily offended...or confused.

FB: I'm confused.. should I be offended?

EF: Only if you find it easier.

happy new year?

Hang on a sec: no-one asked me if I'd finished with the last one.

Bastards.