Life Without Toast - Sibling Rivalry

Photoblogging...

A little creation of mine, heated whisked milk and brown sugar mixed with an equal amount of freshly brewed espresso. Darn tootin'!

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Via the ever meme-tacular Annie, comes this.

Go to Wikipedia. Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death.

13th of May
Events
1888 - With the passage of the Lei Áurea ("Golden Law"), Brazil abolishes slavery.
1950 - First All-time Formula One Grand Prix. It is held at Silverstone Circuit, England (how cool is that?!).
2005 - The final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise airs in the United States, bringing to a close an 18-year uninterrupted television franchise, Enterprise being one of two series created by Gene Roddenberry ending on the same day (the other being Andromeda).

Births
1939 - Harvey Keitel, American actor.
1977 - Samantha Morton, English actress. (on the exact same day as me!)

I've chosen not to do a death, as I'm (like Annie) all about the positive vibes, man. So instead I'll draw you to the fascinating fact that the Ancient Romans used to celebrate the Feast of the Lemures, when they performed rites to exorcise the malevolent and fearful ghosts of the dead from their homes, by offering them beans.

I'm not sure if offering a tin of Heinz would get rid of any malevolent spirits these days.

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So today I learned how to lift a box. Or 'Manual Handling Of Loads' as it is known amongst health & safety jargonists. How to lift things properly. Now, I've been working as a stage hand and lighting technician and sound technician for ooh, about fourteen years now, and I kinda know all there is to know about lifting all sorts of stage production-related 'gear' (lights, speakers, flight cases, mixing desks, I could go on...), but I was pretty sure there must be something I don't know, which is why I was doing the course. And then the tutor very spent all morning teaching us how to lift an empty cardboard box. Using a 'wide palmer grip', and a trolley. And then he gave us all certificates.

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WHOA THERE!

I just idly checked out Google Idol, after remembering I half-heartedly entered into their latest competition, and discovered to my delight that I had gotten into the semi-final of their 'rock' category, being beaten by the excellent Reaper Videos version of 'You Give Love A Bad Name' by Bon Jovi by a margin of 579 votes to 473! Why didn't anyone tell me this?! Did anyone vote for me (and Andy! He was there too!)? I'm amazed that 473 people voted for something we did when very drunk at about 3 or 4 in the morning, totally on a whim. That's amazing!

If anyone followed the link from Google Video to this here blog, thanks a million for voting for me, and I already have an idea for the next competition, news soon(ish)!

Wow. I'm still pretty stunned. I mean four hundred and seventy-three people who we don't even know voted for us! That's a little bit scary actually. :-)

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Has everyone seen this? If you've ever seen any of the new Saturday Night Live sketches featuring the writing and acting talents of Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone and Andy Samberg (aka the Lonely Island team), like "Lazy Sunday", or the most recent (and recently del.icio.us-ed by me) "Laser Cats", and wondered where how those dudes got a contract with NBC, here's how. Running time is 19m39s.

Exploding high-five everyone!

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(Yawn...)

After a shortened 'long' weekend (shortened as in it was just like a normal, non-holiday weekend) last weekend, and a pretty busy week last week (busy as in there were four different shows in, we are short-staffed, and the biggest show this year getting in yesterday), I was working all weekend, Friday until late, and all day Saturday and yesterday, and now I'm going to be working every evening this week. I'm stifling multiple yawns and fighting my body's inner urges ('faaaall asleeep Matthew... Just lie down and shut your eyes... it will feel SOOOO gooood... mmmm... zzzz...'), but I am safe in the knowledge that on Wednesday I have one serious motherfucker of a lie-in coming to me. Unfortunately, I just read on Wikipedia that "you cannot 'store' sleep by sleeping more on the weekends in preparation for the normal work week", so therefore, but that reasoning, there's no point in having a lie-in. But I don't care, I'm going to have one anyway, because it doesn't say you shouldn't have a lie-in. I usually require at least seven hours sleep in order to function properly the following day, I haven't had seven hours sleep since about, ooh... March?

Incedentally, has anyone ever heard of someone falling asleep on top of a ladder like this one? No? Okay, maybe it didn't actually happen then. It was probably a dream.

UPDATE (in answer to comments): Yes, I did manage to sleep in to a respectable 10.45 (thanks ladies, for the non-ringing-or-texting!), then sat in bed reading a magazine until about 11.30. A successful lie-in I would say. Off to work in 5 minutes. Later dudes!

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Photoblogging...

Four Queens beats two Aces, every time. Heads up. All in. I had the Aces. Bummer.

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Ages ago, while watching something on Rocketboom or reading something on BoingBoing (or somewhere else, I can't remember), I ended up on the Boxxet (box-set) site, and signed up for an invitation. Then the other day, I got a mail from You Mon Tsang (founder of Boxxet) saying my account had been activated, etc, so I went along and had a wee look.

Boxxet appears to be a fancy-schmancy aggeregator of sorts, but then there's a little bit more. As it's in beta, there isn't a lot of content, but it seems you can create a boxxet with just about any content you desire, and the aggregator will fill it up with news stories, blog posts, pictures and other related content. The aggregator seems to be kind-of 'clever' and in my first boxxet there was a link to Google's very first search page, which I had never seen before, and some other stuff including a 'Chuck Norris Facts'-style blog post, but about Jack Bauer, which I found hilarious ("When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer fucking hates lemonade"), if slightly derivative.

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Via Nat, only different:

For non gamers, see Grue and Pwned in the Wiki of Pedia.

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Hmmm.

I've spent several minutes (or perhaps at least an hour) in the past few weeks thinking of something entertaining to blog. Something interesting, or at least something I find interesting. I just came to the realisation that it's not about that, this thing called blogging. It's about... 'whatever'. Whatever I want. Whatever happened, or will happen, or something I saw or did or thought or experienced, anything at all. I am, after all, pretty new to this whole thing, and thought I've been doing pretty well on the content front, but seeing as I only started doing this to see what it's like, I've found that it's like... I dunno.

So I'm going to share a couple of observations and things that happened recently.

Last Saturday, after a night spent playing poker, I got a phone call while still in bed, from my little sister Sarah (aka 'Babs', regular commenter on this here site) saying she'd locked herself out of her room in her house, and was greatly in need of some 'big brother' (no, not that Big Brother) -style help. So I got out of bed, discovered to my horror that not a drop of hot water could be squeezed out of the shower, put on clothes, hat, and shades, got into my car, and drove like you can only drive with a bit of a hangover on you (that's very slowly, and very inconspicuously) over to her place (20 mins drive).

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Actually, that should read SpamS of the week, because there are two this week that I found intriguing, confusing, and weird, and I couldn't decide which one was err... 'best'. So if anyone cares, pick one from these two:

"Donn Barry" sent this:
"You may think you can fool me, or trick me; I know I look slow and stupid. Sports Illustrated The Sims please.
There had been no trouble between them since the blowup over the typewriter paper. When he took it out, the swelling seemed to have gone down a little. "he asked. Then it went cold. "Pomeroy was hitchhiking. "he tried to scream, but only got out Annie you before his head flew off and rolled to the wall. He looked around quickly, chin down on his breastbone, eyes crafty and frightened. in 1856..."

"Alejandra Isaac" sent:
"Help me! Madonna Sony The one shallow drawer spilled out.
Psychotics can cope in the world ? after a fashion ? and sometimes, as I think you well know, they get away with some very nasty shit. Because if you want me to, I'll go. of course! "Did I say I wasn't going to start? homeenglish. t be long, either, although it may seem longer to you than it really is ? when it hurts a little less. He blinked, lowering his head and staring stupidly out into the summer he had never expected he would see. Matrix..."

I really can't decide between these. Maybe you, my loyal readers, can help?

Posted by Matt at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

SO, unlike most of the civilized (read: Christian) world, I'm working on a bank holiday. And I'm feeling very lazy. So instead of some photos or a meme or something really interesting, here's a load of unrelated links to all sorts of crap that I found to be funny and/or interesting.

First up, an Easter Egg, for the weekend that was in it. Google have revealed that their search technology is entirely powered by PC's, or Pigeon Clusters, "One of the most promising projects in development involves harnessing millions of pigeons worldwide to work on complex scientific challenges", they say. I'll be very interested to see where this pigeon-based computing technology goes in the future.

For those of you who use Firefox (you do use Firefox, don't you?!?!), and haven't seen this before, try typing about:mozilla in the address bar.

Next up, it's Google in Klingon, and also l33t-speak. How fun its that? And also very geeky. Actually it's definitely more nerdy than geeky.

For those of you who think manhole covers are boring things that should only be used to cover manholes, the Japanese are out to prove you wrong. I'd hang some of those on my wall, I tells ya.

And to finish, here's Google Video's Top 100 Videos. If you can spare an hour and twenty or so, you really, really should go and watch 911 Loose Change 2nd Edition, #4 in the top 100, and possibly the best documentary you'll ever see on the internet. Or you could just watch "Webcams Girls Go Wild" (I'm looking at you, Adrian Sevitz). But whatever you do, don't watch this guy getting his hands chopped off by a helicopter.

Later dudes!

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Photoblogging...

Guess who got knocked out first? :-(

UPDATE (1:57am):Won the second game with some power plays (getting 3 aces twice, and a full house) at heads up while very short-stacked, came second in the third game. Net profit: ?40. Not bad, considering how much poker I haven't played before, and how much homemade italian grappa was consumed.

Posted by Matt at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apologies for the lateness of this post (seeing as I came back from Wales on Sunday night).

Well, an excellent weekend was what was had in beautiful Snowdonia. I was there last summer, but only really passed through quickly, on the way to the English Midlands. We got the HSS from Dun Laoghaire (which was handy, as in 5 minutes away) on Friday morning and got to the caravan park (via a nice drive on the A4086, a really good drive, and at least two wrong turns that may or may not have been due to map-reading errors by my trusty navigator) at about half past four, just in time for several pints and dinner in the country club, followed by an early night (relatively anyway) in anticipation of a dayincluding 'a fair bit of walking'.

After a breakfast of pastries and coffee which had been cunningly purchased in Bangor on the way to our wheeled weekend abode, we debated joining the others for a hike up Snowdon. After looking at the torrential hail, rain, sleet and snow that looked pretty imminent, and our poor choice of non-waterproof clothing and footwear, and thinking of a 5-hour hike up a mountain and back, we decided (wisely) against it. So we went on a drive to Betws-y-Coed and a bit of a shop for appropriate clothing for future hillwalking adventures, some lunch, and to find a smaller walk to go on. We found a nice lake up in the mountains (I can't remember the name) and had a wee (2 hour or so) walk in the sunshine that broke as soon as we got out of the car, took some lovely photies, and then headed back to the caravan to chill for a bit. Dinner on Saturday was to be a gigantic pot of Bolognaise, made by Kabbage, (fiancé of Ciara, who's 30th birthday was the real reason for being in Wales, as I mentioned previously) up in a shack in the middle of nowhere, followed by several games of pool and copious drinking back at the park.

On Sunday we had to be checked out of our caravans at 10am, so we all (about 28 of us) headed out to get breakfast in a roadside café that Ciara had found would probably have space for all of us. After a few goodbyes and a look around the outdoor clothing shop that was attached to the café (every other business in Snowdonia is an outdoor clothing shop, you'll find), Nikki, Deirdre, Claire and myself (the Irish contingent) parted company with the rest of the gang and headed back to Betws (and yet another outdoor shop or three), and on to Electric Mountain. This was an excellent detour, a pumped storage power station deep underneath a mountain, that looked more like something out of the last half hour of a James Bond movie than anything I've ever seen. To say I was a bit pissed off when our guide said we had to leave our cameras and phones in lockers at the start of the tour would be a colossal understatement. The main cavern of the station is hundreds of metres underground (about a ten-minute bus journey down a huge tunnel in a bus), and is over 125 metres long, and I really expected a bald supervillain to pop out of somewhere and snicker maniacally at his creation. Visit Electric Mountain, it's cool.

From there we headed to Bangor (where it seems absolutely nothing happens on a Sunday) for some lunch, and on to Holyhead for the 6.30pm ferry back to the Pale. An excellent weekend I'm sure you'll agree!

Posted by Matt at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

I Belong in Amsterdam

A little old fashioned, a little modern - you're the best of both worlds. And so is Amsterdam. Whether you want to be a squatter graffiti artist or a great novelist, Amsterdam has all that you want in Europe (in one small city).

Result! I couldn't think of a better answer from this thingy really (however that highlights the accuracy of these things, meaning I might really be 32...).

Via Winds and Blogthings.

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My ever-resourceful little sister has uncovered the Wikipedia definition of the very 'Dublinese' word Scanger. I recommend you all follow that link down to Wikipedia and learn yourselves some proper Irish slang. The discussion page is especially good, I've found, the arguments for and against the inclusion of the article in Wikipedia are actually longer and more detailed than the actual article itself! Controversy breeds the best arguments.

(the closest UK equivalent to 'scanger' is 'chav', but they are definitely two different genuses of the same species species of the same genus)

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And here we go again... Thanks to QE for this one.

What time did you get up this morning?
About 9. Had to check out of a caravan park by 10 this morning, to go for breakfast in a roadside café, somewhere in Wales.

Diamonds or Pearls?
Diamonds

So myself and herself are off to Wales for the Weekend, for herself's friend Ciara's 30th Birthday party. Ciara lives in (err...) Manchester (?) and there's a few people from Ireland going, so she's meeting us all half way, somewhere in Wales.

As part of my packing and preparations today, I decided it's high time I bought myself a new toothbrush, as my old one is getting a bit old (and covered in dry toothpastey crud). Tesco were doing a special on the Oral B Pulsar, ?3 off at ?4.99, so I decided to give it a go. It's got "vibrating micropulse bristles™," which "pulse to lift up plaque and stimulate gums", so I just had to show it to Andy (and prattle on about it for about fifteen minutes). And it got us thinking.

What with the Gillette M3 Power™ and upcoming Fusion™ products, and now this new vibrating toothbrush, what's next?

"Vibrating facecloths?" I pondered, "Vibrating loofahs?"

Andy pondered also, "Hair brushes!" and then came the clincher, "Vibrating BOG ROLL!"

How we laughed.

nb: Yes, I am aware that Oral B is owned by Gillette

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Photoblogging...

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This week it's all about the orgasm, with a mail from 'Medina Howard'. Or so I would've believed, but then, once again, I highlighted the big blank space at the bottom of the mail and revealed the true, spy-novel-like nature of the spam:

"'As almighty God's my witness,' said Nikanor Ivanovich, ' I never touched any and I never even suspected that it was foreign money. God will punish me for my sin,' Nikanor Ivanovich went on feelingly, unbuttoning his shirt, buttoning it up again and crossing himself. ' I took the money--I admit that--but it was Soviet money. I even signed a receipt for it. Our secretary Prolezhnov is just as bad--frankly we're all thieves in our house committee. . . . But I never took any foreign money.' On being told to stop playing the fool and to tell them how the dollars found their way into his ventilation shaft, Nikanor Ivanovich fell on his knees and rocked backwards and forwards with his mouth wide open as though he were trying to swallow the wooden parquet blocks. 'I'll do anything you like,' he groaned, ' that'll make you believe I didn't take the stuff. That Koroviev's nothing less than a devil!' Everyone's patience has its limit; voices were raised behind the desk and Nikanor Ivanovich was told that it was time he stopped talking gibberish. Suddenly the room was filled with a savage roar from Nikanor Ivanovich qut ktn utu ut jtnuopgtl ujtft fuqskugup u ou fu lqkuu uh ui nnsh pgq kp p plqiplptqhnnp tpmpppkpgtfprquq r unphqoqsqlqr"

Funny the way that it mentions something about someone being told to stop talking gibberish, and then almost immediately starts talking gibberish.

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Comment by Jimmy McGee on Setanta Sports Boxing last night:

"He was flabbergasted.
-He plays for Arsenal, doesn't he? Flabbergast?"

Genius.

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Damn you Annie, I saw this and then I just had to do it myself. It's a bit of a weird one I must admit, listing my ten favourite films but excluding any I think might be one of the ten best ever made. Hmmm... Here we go so:

1) The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across The 8th Dimension
Anyone else seen this? It's fucking brilliant. Starring Peter 'Robocop' Weller as Buckaroo Banzai, brain surgeon, test Pilot, rock star and international crime-fighter, and also starring John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd and more, made in 1984 for approximately twenty pence and featuring evil Red Lectroids from Planet 10, It's a laugh-a-minute sci-fi 'Z' movie that I really love, not least for it's sample-friendly quotes ("Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife. Doomed is your soul and damned is your life").

2) The Day The Earth Stood Still
Forget the numerous alleged religious references (Mr. Carpenter anyone?) and instead have a good look at the far-ahead-of-their-time special effects and the beautiful art direction, not to mention the message contained within the economically-told story, which is basically "come on, humanity, grow the fuck up, for crying out loud"

3) Evil Dead II
Apart from being the 34th funniest comedy film of all time, it's also a superlative horror/schlock/splatter romp that hits every mark it aims for. Starring Bruce Campbell (BEST...ACTOR...EVER...) and directed by the ridiculously talented Sam Raimi (of recent Spider Man I & II fame), the "GIMME BACK MY HAND!" scene is worth whatever admission price you may or may not have paid alone (oh, and I choose this one over the original Evil Dead movie on the basis that it kicks it's ass).

4) Back To The Future
Do I really have to explain myself on this one? When this came out in 1985, I was eight, and it was the coolest thing in the history of the world. Every boy my age wanted a DeLorean, and to travel through time, and to have a crazy old 'Doc' as a friend, and to skate like Marty McFly.

5) Finding Nemo
I don't actually think I need to explain this one either! Pixar really have set the bar unattainably high with their last few films, but I still really (just by a tiny amount) think this is their best work, even though it's also possibly their most kiddywinkle-friendly outing. I really, really, really can't wait to see Cars, from what I've heard, despite some poor early reports, it's just as good as Finding Nemo and the Incredibles. WOO-HOO!!!

6) Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1
I caught this completely by accident late one night on TG4, the Irish-language TV station. It's not in Irish, but German, and it takes the complete piss out of every sci-fi or fantasy film you can think of, from The Phantom Menace to The original Star Trek, from Back to the Future to a Knight's Tale and beyond, all in the highest camp German accents you can imagine, and with a gay Mr. Spock. Brilliant. Real Shame you can't gt it on DVD with subtitles (as my German ain't the best) yet.

7) The Rocky Horror Picture Show
I actually started loving this while working on the Rocky Horror Show for a month about 9 or so years ago. From "Over At The Frankenstein Place" to "Super Heroes" (which used to send a shiver up my spine, believe it or not), the songs are all superb (if also superbly 'lame') and the humour has it's tongue so far in it's cheek that it's like, touching it's ear or something. To quote: "Yes, it really is the greatest cult-film of all-time".

8) Clerks
"Hello. What? No I don't work today, I'm playing hockey at two.". So you think, Danté, so you think. In fact, you'll be working all day, during which you'll make a sign using boot polish, people will throw cigarettes at you, you'll knock a coffin over at a wake, you will play hockey (on the roof of the Quick-Stop), you'll talk about Star Wars a lot with your friend Randall, and your ex-girlfriend will fuck a dead man in the toilet, thinking it's you. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, and I really hope Mr. Smith doesn't fuck it up completely with Clerks II.

9) Team America - World Police
When I saw the South Park movie, I thought Messers Stone and Parker had finally shown their true genius, but I also thought it would be their finest (two) hour(s). I was wrong. With Team America, they have not only rekinded the memories ot the Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet et al, told every actor in the world that they're a wanker, and constructed some of the finest puppet-based action sequences ever comitted to celluloid, they've also made me nearly poop myself laughing, and made Kim Jong Il cry (if he's seen it). Respect, Matt and Trey.

10) Brazil
Terry Gilliams 1985 opus is number ten on this list, but I've saved the best until last. This fantastical tale of the heroic dreams of a bureaucrat in the ministry of information in a distopian future society sees Gilliam at his visual and creative peak, full of completely insane characterisations, scenes and situations. The cameos by Robert De Niro and Bob Hoskins stand out as significant and throw-away at the same time, Jonathan Pryce's central character of Sam Lowry is inneffectual and essential simultaneously, and the film is full of such paradoxical situations. It's crammed full of visual detail, from the propoganda signs present everywhere ("Mind that parcel. Eagle eyes can save a life" / "Trust in Haste - Regret at Leisure"), to Bob Hoskin's hat with the stupidly oversized peak (which emphasizes the ridiculousness of his character's occupation), to the "MOI" (Ministry of Information) logo seen on everything from cups to goldfish bowls in Kurtzmann's office. The Final scene in which Michael Palin's character Jack, best friend of Sam, is revealed as the torturer who is to extract information from Sam, is brilliantly executed as both touchingly affectionate and brutally sinister.

So that's my ten, like them or lump them. Comments very welcome on this one, and I'm not tagging anyone.

Posted by Matt at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (1)