Zees eez reediculous!

Vat eez wiz dee reediculous accent Steve?

Why was this NEVER at cinemas?

Afternoon

Fuck you zero

Isn't it weird that we write £2.50 and not £2.5? That extra zero isn't really telling us anything is it? If it was £2.55, then that third significant figure is really important, because without it we'd be rounding it to £2.6 like on the continent, and you could really end up out of pocket*. But in all honesty, can anyone give me a really good reason to keep it? It applies to all money ending in zero. £4.30 - don't need that zero! £6.60 - useless. It even applies to other currencies: $29.00 - there's two there that we don't need.

I'm just saying, you know, we don't need it. If we change it now, it might not be too late...


* - actually I'm well aware that over a lifetime on average everyone would end up with roughly the right amount, some slightly more, some slightly less, but overall about right. I'm sure someone has done a thesis on it somewhere...

Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Pshoooowww!!!

There's more on youtube but this one tickled me too: 80s games recreated using food (embedding disabled by request):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovvk7T8QUIU

About 18 motherflippin' months too late!

Genius!

The worst thing about the fuel crisis

Has anyone noticed when driving along that everyone is doing 5-10mph below the speed limit? What's that about? Just because fuel is a little more expensive, I'm positive that the benefits of dropping your speed down so much and causing yourself to be late everywhere will have no bearings on how much you spend. Maybe you'll be able to buy an extra Mars bar a month or something. It's fricking annoying guys! Sort it out!

Come on... erm... Spain?

I'm sure a post about Euro 2008 isn't the most original way to kick start a rusty blog, but I'm going to plod on anyway. I'm really getting into it right now as I always am with these big tournaments, but there's one thing that is grinding me down. Can people please stop with "It's criminal that England aren't there. It's bollocks. We're the best team". It's a shame for us (and us only) that none of the home nations are represented, but the fact is we never got the points on the board to warrant booking a place in the finals, places that have been taken up by teams who got there by merit. My only defence for such comments is that there are two host nations, one of which would never ever have qualified, and so one place was taken away from potential qualifiers.

For some reason we all think it's our given right to win these tournaments. When we get to the quarter finals and play abysmal football for an hour then concede a goal, it's always the ref who's done us over, or the pitch, or the ball, or our injuries. It's often overlooked that if we played flowing football and scored more we'd win the games and there wouldn't be an issue.

I think I'm actually going to enjoy this one a bit more than usual as I know from the outset that England can't win it, rather than getting up false hope that they might do it only for the dream to be shattered further down the line. I can fully enjoy the three weeks of sport and soak up the varied standards of football that will be on display, and more importantly journey to victory in the McDonalds's Fantasy Football. My team name, quite originally, is F.C. Hamburglars (I thought that was quite good) and I reckon this is my best and safest route towards getting a HDTV. Just hope Ronaldo's tournament picks up pace soon!

Porn for Girls by Girls

An extremely dodgy porn site. It's no good at all. Thanks to Graham Linehan's blog for that one!

Pro Evo lag video

It's just hilarious.

Radiohead

Well, I've just spent £140 on Radiohead in 2 days - that's the Discbox and two gig tickets. That's about half a week's wages, pre-tax. Which makes me sad. I mean, it's a bloody massive amount. Teenagers would never be able to afford this. Who are they aiming their music at? £50 for a gig ticket is ludicrous. I know they effectively gave their album away for free, but to say they'll be doing the gigs on quite a large scale means that they're just raking it in. It's a day at a festival for Christ's sake! Here's hoping the full line up is a good one.

By the way, I just noticed the tickets are now on sale on ebay for a lot more than face value. Thieving fuckwits.

More ebay shenanigans

Item: Gamecube Memory Card.
Feedback: Mind-boggling service from the steadfast ebaymeister that is GAZZA*T. Brill.

I enjoyed that one.

By the way, I've finished my second degree. Yey! Now I can fulfil my ultimate dream of being a postman.

Tremendous

You may be aware of the feedback system involved in the many marketplace-based shops. but For every transaction in which you partake, you are encouraged to offer feedback on your experience with the relevant user. Alas, this has evolved into something like "Smooth transaction! Thanks! A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++", which has the literal translation of "Cheers, but I can't be bothered going into the details" (the irrelevantly long trail of plus signs relates to the character limit, and just shows that someone has held the button down until it doesn't go any further).

Well, having had a lot of time to think about things recently, I've decided to start a new project. Or sub-project, I should stress, for I would hate to think that you see this as something that would take over my life. Basically, I'm going to turn this thing on its head. It's going to be like a mini-revolution! Or something. Every time I offer feedback from now on, I'm proposing to describe the transaction in the most convoluted ways possible, and I will remain positive despite the now soulless nature that is commonplace of what used to be a novel idea. I mean, it's a neverending worldwide carboot sale that you don't even have to leave your house to attend. How can we take that for granted?

I have to confess this isn't something I just came up with. In fact, it goes back to April 2005 when, inebriated, I stated of a particular transaction: "Payment received within six minutes of bid ending. The world's best ebayer?" It's kind of snowballed from there I guess, ranging from the simple ("Truly amazing.") to the ridiculous ("Awesome ebayer! I got a free CD for nowt! What a legend". This probably caused the poor girl a host of problems when further transactions were greeted with "Where the chuff is my free gift?" - or whatever youths say these days). My pick of the bunch is "There is no possible way that this payment could have been any quicker. Amazing!" although a special mention must be made for "I will definitely be using this supremely tremendous marketplace dealer again. Top dog."

I hope to continue this trend in future transactions, not least because it begs me to commit to even more activity on my marketplaces of choice than ever before. I will also take this moment to encourage everyone (possibly singular) reading to do the same, and tell their friends to do the same. Hopefully you'll get as addicted to this as I have and turn the online marketplaces back into the warm and personal places they could and should be.

Last Man Standing

If, like myself, you've been addicted to Last Man Standing for the last few weeks, then you'll understand how frustrating the final episode turned out to be.

The show follows six men - three from both Britain and America - as they visit the most remote areas of the world to compete in tribal games and competition. Each week (not consecutive weeks I must add - it was filmed over a year) the last man standing wins a point. After eight weeks, the person with the most points wins.

Competitions included Zulu wrestling, Mongolian wrestling, Trobriand cricket and Mexican endurance running. Whilst you may think that American muscle-man Brad (above, far right) would ace the lot of them based on his physical power, when faced with something like the final challenge, Sepik canoe racing (like normal canoeing except you have to stand up), the top heavy demeanor scuppered his chances.

The overall winner was Jason, an American BMX champion and tree surgeon. The title was decided through a vote right at the end after a three-way tie between him, best-Brit Rajko and Brad.

The frustration came from the way they decided the winner. Instead of having a face off following the tie, which would have been in keeping with the spirit of the competition, they decided to have a secret vote. Jason wasn't too bad, but it's just that out of the three he deserved the title of Last Man Standing least. He could perform well, but was too cockey and consistently used dirty tactics to ensure victory, including breaking two of Rajko's ribs in the Nagaland kickboxing event. He was a great athlete, but my vote would have been for Brad who had the added battle of being away from his pregant wife and child.

This doesn't take too much off the show overall though. Not only were they under extreme pressure to perform every week to impress the villagers, they had to let themselves be absorbed into every aspect of local life, including slaughtering animals, performing rituals, summoning spirits and eating insects. This truly was reality TV at its best - a late slot on BBC3 ensured no limelight or fame for any of the athletes, and the trials relied on skill, determination and ability to adapt to the task in almost no time at all. It takes a specific type of person to do what these guys have done, and I think a metaphorical taking off of the digital hat is in order. Well done sirs.

Keychains in Diguise!!!

Well, isn't this little gimmick wonderful? The original 1st generation Bumblebee toy, in the form of a key ring. Obviously it's shrunk a little but the most important thing is that it transforms into a VW Beetle, just like the old days. Sure, the new film design looks cool, but when it comes to transformable action figures there's only one way to go and that's old skool.

I think the biggest crime is a line called "Poseable Robot Replicas", which basically means a line of Transformers toys that don't actually transform. What's that about?

On the other end of the scale, some people in London have been reported to spend upwards of 2 hours transforming the deluxe range of Optimus Primes. Madness, but at they're true to their roots!

Dig!

I know I've posted already today but this is probably the best thing ever. Strictly for fans of Dig Dug, the original theatrical trailer. Genius. Does anyone know where I can get the theme music for this from? I'd love it as a ringtone.

Waiting for my Olbermann

Hope this works. Pretty powerful stuff.

More Japanese Drama

It's like something from the movies, but the toilet mystery gripping the Japanese public is far from make believe. Up and down the country's male public WCs, anonymous envelopes have been found with a moderate 10,000 Yen hidden inside, marked simply "remuneration". The twist comes with the fact that the writing has become progressively weaker as the total of 4m Yen (and counting) has been found over the recent months, suggesting that the (presumably) male gifter is suffering from some kind of fatal illness.

The story itself is a nice reminder that good can be done in the world, even in the face of the capitalisation of just about everything. It goes in stark contrast to the local government in Ripley who decided it would only be fair and good to charge people £50 for the use of sandbags in the desperate time just before the floods. Similarly, wellies were going for up to £80 at Glastonbury festival, in line with the appalling weather. Rather than just put their necks out and offer help to those in need, the current state of the world dictates that money be made at every possible oppurtunity. Maybe I'm old fashioned or naive, and will find myself poor in years to come, but I can at least give myself some self respect and feel content that I haven't conned anyone by pinning them into a corner until they pay up. Perhaps the mystery gifter in Japan is feeling guilty for a life lived in such a way, and is repenting by giving something back to the world. Perhaps not. I'd like to just accept that he is making a lot of people slightly happier on a day to day basis, and reaffirming everyone's faith in the human race.

Reading a rambling blog: 10 Gamerpoints.

If anyone has a 360, then they will for sure know what an Achievement is. Basically, if you set about completing a game, the further you get the more achievements you unlock, in the form of points which are added to the gamerscore, which complements your Gamertag. The idea is that the higher your gamerscore, the more games you have completed (and therefore the better at computer games you are). It's sort of a bragging thing, although for the most part you don't actually know anyone else on XBOX LIVE, so it's all pretty pointless. The other issue is that the richer you are, the more games you can buy and therefore the more potential you have to heighten your gamerscore.

The catch is that for some reason, they are very very addictive. Just last week I played through the truly awful FIFA World Cup 2006, tackling the impossibly difficult and frustrating Challenge Mode, for the sole reason that I knew it would unlock a huge amount of gamerpoints. I didn't enjoy playing, but just kept going for the points.

There's a huge debate as to whether or not they are a good thing. On the one side it ensures increased playability of a title, by tempting you to go a little bit further to unlock in-game items and that little droplet noise that comes with it. On the other hand, people start speeding through games just to get to the end and reap the rewards.

Recently, games have started making the rewards extremely difficult to acquire, meaning that if you are hunting the points you really struggle with a game, but if you're just going through having fun they come naturally sooner or later. Two great examples of this are Viva Pinata and Forza Motorsport 2, which in my opinion are the two strongest titles on the platform so far. Both have very small point rewards for each task, but most of them come naturally to playing the game through. Conversely, a recent review of Fantastic Four 2 accused it of offering easy achievements to boost sales by counteracting the poor quality of the game itself.

It's a very pointless issue, and one that doesn't really deserve much thought at all, but I do think Microsoft have defined their console by coming up with this as a gimmick. It ensures people keep going back for more and moving swiftly onto the next title once one is finished.

For me, I'll just let this minor addiction set in. There are worse things than being addicted to games. Just as long as I don't give up doing other things because they don't offer Achievements.

Japanese Drama

I've been watching this Japanese series called Liar Game, which was pointed out to me by a colleague of mine. I've only got a couple of episodes in but it's developing into something really weird and awesome. I don't really want to give a plot run down, but if you have a spare 30 mins check it out. It's well worth it.