ummm

i'm bored of this blog, in case you hadn't noticed.

Why the Internet rules part 17

The light bulb in my cooker hood went *pop* on Friday. "Bugger", I thought. Because they're never normal bulbs - they always seem to have been made by some extraterrestrail race who have never heard of bayonet fittings or any normal wattage level. Well, I was mostly right. After popping the hood off, I discovered it was a screw-fit bulb and, yes, the little git had blown (as attested by the sad, lonely filament swinging excitedly in its vaccuum breeze (Ooo, a paradoxical statement), uncoupled as it was from the shackles that had held it all this time). Now, I know damn well that Old Mr Sainsbury's doesn't have this sort of thing in his array of household goods so I decided to hop online. Some vague searching turned up a plethora of bizarre bulbs for bizarre electrical goods. "This is taking too long and I have CSI to watch", I thought to myself. So I examined said bulb for revealing markings. Lo! The extraterrestrial bulb makers had left "Philips" and "40W", "230V - 240V" on it (obviously feeling undecided about that last point. Maybe they'd got bored of the bulb game by then and left it to us to decide). So, I chucked that into google. Unsurprisingly, a gazillion hits returned for every bulb under the (terrestrial or otherwise) sun. So I threw "cooker hood bulb" into eBay.co.uk and hey presto! A bulb for the princely sum of £1.85. The little fella arrived today and I merrily screwed it into its housing and flicked the switch. To nothing. Arse. No extractor fan either though. Hmmmm. So I ferreted around for a while, flicking switches, looking vacantly at mains boxes, to no avail. So, back to the WWW. And a search for 'hygena "cooker hood" no power' turned up the answer in no time. Some investigation with a torch and mirror turned up a plug socket on the top of the cabinets; a new fuse fixed the problem. See, it might be full of porn, death, religious fanatacism, how to build bombs and worse, but so's the world. At least the WWW gave me an answer. I've yet to get any from the daft inhabitants of this silly rock we live on.

New music: Spoon

Official website | Allmusic.com review | Buy "Girls can tell" on Amazon

Not a new band, but new to me. And first listening has proven very enjoyable. Good mix of indie rock (they say punk too but it's more of a Pixies punk as opposed to Sex Pistols, thankfully).
"Lines in the suit" is a great track - they seem to excel at creating strong hooks but delivering them in a non-corporate rock way. Lyrics are sound, with grass roots style such as this from the aforementioned track:

The human resources clerk,
Has two cigarettes and back to work,
She eats right but hurts,
And she says it could have been good by now,
It could have been more than a wage yeah,
How come she feels so washed up,
At such a tender age now,
It could have been much easier

Reminds me of Ted Hughes' poetry actually - none of your Hollywood glam or LA drug-addled nonsense, just the day-to-day from a bunch of boys from Texas.

Verdict: if you like anything rock at all - Arctic Monkeys, Stereophonics, Foo fighters etc then give this a whirl. It's refreshingly different.

Have this album too taday, but yet to listen to it. Review to follow...

No, seriously. Who needs horror novels?

Countess Elizabeth Bathory Nadasdy - killer of 2000 young women.

Who needs horror novels?

Plundered body parts implanted in thousands

Amazing urban gymnastics

These videos just keep getting better and better Seems urban gymnastics has a name now too: Parkour. (Wikipedia entry for Parkour)

Amateur lightsaber duel

Geeky as hell, but the effects that these amateurs have pulled off are really impressive.

Poem: Eve's indigo wash

Been a while since I've written one (have a few on the go) but this is one I started in New York in November '05. Probably unfinished, as I tend to revisit them endlessly. Eve's Indigo Wash Eve's indigo wash has long departed, The fearful sun's retreat long past, His incandescent children dispel fear 'Gainst the eve's shadows: donned threatening garb, To grow deeper, conceal clandestine sin. Burning cold winds flay my skin; Trees lurch splayed fingers, Crystalline fronds shatter views of homes within. Perception kaleidoscopes, vision distorts, But I know there's ice in the wood-shed.

Mofro returning to London - June 1st!

Just bagged 2 tickets to go and see these guys again. They're playing the Jazz Cafe in Camden - a great venue. Last time I was there was to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (site, allmusic.com review, Amazon link) and it was an amazing gig. Can't wait for this!

Movie review: Man on the Moon

Man on the Moon, starring Jim Carrey. Meh. That about sums it up. Having never been aware of Andy Kaufman (obscure comic from the US in times past) it's difficult for me to give two hoots about the bugger. So, I'm left with a weird, somewhat directionless biographical movie. I ploughed my way through it (falling asleep at the end) but I did feel like I'd wasted my Saturday night somewhat. Never mind. Verdict: Don't watch unless you're a Kaufman fan.

Tarantino poised to release nasty new film - March 24th

I love a good nasty flick, although haven't seen one in a while. This one looks like it could be tasty. Click the image above to view the trailer. UPDATE: The synopsis below (from the official site) doesn't bode well - typically good-looking, stereotypical American college students (I *hate* that phrase, mainly because it seems to permeate everything in modern entertainment), go travelling, take up a stupid offer to visit a farmhouse scary house remote forest haunted house hostel full of gorgeous, desperate women (dammit - that's always happening to me - it gets annoying after a while) and they get themselves...um....they...oh Christ I don't care. It's just a bloody reason to introduce a building where people are nasty.

Make plans and terrorise people

Skobee.com is a site that allows you to make plans with people - incorporating maps, collaberative time suggestions, lists of multiple friends to invite etc etc (ad nauseum). It's a nice little idea, but would drive me nuts (as most people who know me would attest) as I hate plans. Not that I'm driven by some crazed need for spontaneity or anything, just that I'm genetically predisposed to be late for absolutely everything (thanks mum :) ) so when I invite people to something I am never annoyed if they cancel at the last minute or arrive ages late.

Beautiful Flash site

For Volvo C70. I wish my clients would approved budgets for this level of work. Really, really nice. http://www.volvocars.co.uk/feel

To anyone who can make FireFox extensions

Well, I could if I could be arsed to learn but I can't. Anyway, I've joined the digi-social revolution and have stopped using my browser to store my bookmarks because it's just plain fucking stupid. What's the point of the WWW, all it's connectivity, instantaneity and plethora of other '..eities', if the minute you go to another PC you lose everything (hence the reason for Google's G:Drive, which they're not doing. Honest). So, I'm now del.icio.us. It's a wonderful thing - tagged links online for me anytime I want them, plus the collective bookmarks of millions of other users in those subjects. Great stuff. But, FireFox has spoiled me with its keyword-access to bookmarks. For instance, rather than type in http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/personal/internet-banking to access my online bank, or open my bookmarks, scroll and find the entry, I simply type "bank" into Firefox and off it goes. By right-clicking the bookmark when I made it in Firefox, selecting "properties" and entering the "bank" keyword I've made the process as user-friendly as I want. But I've moved them all to del.icio.us now. So I need an extension that allows me to type a word I have set into the address bar which will fire off to del.icio.us and get the bookmark i have assigned to it.

Downfall

Finally got around to watching Downfall after blogging its rental a while back. The verdict? Very, very good. Brilliantly acted - not one character let it down. The film serves many functions: as a warning to learn from the past, as a reminder that the Nazis were human, not unique monsters, and were jus as fallable as all of us. It's an important distinction - to assume that they were 'mad' or fanatical is dangerous and dismisses the ordinary nature of many of the party's followers. Granted, Hitler himself can easily be described as radical, but the 100s of 1000s who followed him provided the power and believed they were working for a just cause. As this echoes the chasm we're looking into at the moment with Eastern vs Western idealism, it strikes a powerful chord. It was difficult to avoid dismissing it as just another war movie. On a couple of occasions my mind began to wander until I forced myself to realise that this actually happened. That's when the chilling reality hits home. It was also incredible to see just how desperate and blind Hitler became. Backed into a corner (Berlin), a man with that much guile and political history knew they were doomed, but was able to use his sway to keep his high-ranking generals alongside him until the bitter end. I highly recommend the movie - you won't be disappointed.

Scary ass clown

Amazing horror mask of Pennywise from IT.

From this great collection.

Reminds me of the photo I took in Vegas of a giant fiberglass clown they have on a building:

X-men 3 official trailer released

Watch it here:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/tls/trailer/large.html

Looks pretty damn good to me.

Man recites pi to its 22514th digit

Bloody hell. I can barely remember what I did last week. Clearly my seizures as a kid didn't give me any special powers. X-ray vision could be handy - and fun if you want to look at naked people :) BUt no. Bugger all. Bah.
Daniel Tammet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Incredible gameplay video of Spore by Will Wright

This is a long video (35 minutes) but shows off the most ambitious game I've ever seen, and it looks incredible. Check it out:

Red rain falls in India for 2 months

And may contain alien organisms. Sounds like a crock of shit, but hey! It's different so I blogged it :)
The Observer | World | Red rain could prove that aliens have landed

Made a Wordpress blog

Here: http://ukleon.wordpress.com/ I've have been really impressed with the ease of its use but, alas, I shall be staying with Blogger (this one) for now as:

• I can't add Object or Embed tags to posts to insert video or music clips. WP just removes them
• I can't edit the template at all. I have to pay for that or host the blog myself on a server (paying for rental and bandwidth). So, it looks like Blogger is still the best choice for free blogging.

If anyone knows I'm wrong on the above points, let me know…

Pointless lists

Been reading www.blogjam.com and find it pretty funny. A post on there about lists (well, hating them when they're not supported by decent content around them) has prompted me to do some.

But I'm doing 5 things, not 4. I know. You're impressed aren't you? :) I have shamelessly stolen his topics though.

Five weird jobs you have had:
Checkout assistant at Co-op
Landscape gardener
Kitchen porter
Silver-service waiter
Sales advisor at The Body Shop :)

Five movies you could watch over and over:
The Thing
Seven
The Untouchables
Requiem for a dream
Garden state

Five places you’ve lived:
Poole, Dorset
Colliers Wood, London
King's Cross, London
Finsbury Park, London
Clapham North, London

Five television shows you love to watch:
CSI: Las Vegas
Curb your enthusiasm
Family Guy
Spooks
(um... can't think of a fifth. Don't really like TV. Sorry.)

Five places you’ve been on vacation:
Las Vegas
Gran Canaria
New York
Vancouver
Florida

Five of your favourite foods:
Carpaccio
Tiramisu
Roast dinners
Chili Con Carni
Apples

Five places you’d rather be right now:
In bed with a woman
New York
In a pub
In a really good resaturant
Somewhere hot

Five sites I visit daily:
digg.com
linkfilter.net
allmusic.com
google.com
bbc.co.uk

Injury miscellany

Where the hell do these little injuries on my hands keep coming from? I'm starting to think there's some bloody little imp that's taking nicks out of my fingers at night. Bastard.

Real life Simpsons intro

:)

Roundabout scratching

Very clever use of video:

This video is insane genius

The weirdest and best video I've seen in a while. Reminds me of David Firth's work.

20 meter electric spark

Being that I'm intimately acquainted with the power of electricity (I got connected to the UK mains for about 1 min, killing most of the nerves in my right index finger by melting it to a pile of goo :) ), I love this video. Don't mess with leccy. It will kick your ass. VideoSift - The Best of Google Video and YouTube

Corpse Clothing - tshirts

stumbled on this site selling some outrageous tshirts. hehehe :) (I especially like this one as I *hate* Busted (and all other boy bands to be honest) but also because I had to unfortunate experience of meeting this bland bunch of prepubescent arse-monkeys when I worked for Mouseschwitz Disney. Oh, I was actually looking for Black Keys t-shirts by the way.

Mofro hits mySpace

Mofro have added their page to mySpace. Go check it out to hear more samples of this great band.

Upcoming movies: Downfall and Waking Life

Looking forward to these 2: Downfall Waking Life Brief reviews will follow...

Movie: Skeleton Key

Watched this a few nights ago. It's rubbish. Don't bother with it. #message ends

monochrom's massive Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling

Thumb war. Genius. Has recently been resurrected in my social circle after a few drinks. I'm rubbish though. Small hands like a carnie, y'see? Keep getting beaten by girls which is frankly embarrassing. monochrom's massive Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling