Welcome to Acerbia; population: π
This is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of . Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs; continually reincarnated, debated over by intellectuals and literati at cocktail parties the author can't get invited to, the target of scorn and ire from women everywhere, frequently mistaken for a former member of the Warsaw pact, named after the Italian explorer Giuseppe Acerbi, slowly rewriting the Book of Cataclysm, this is postmodern fiction at its most playful and creative.
I Miss That Cow
I know I said no more posts today, and I know I said no Bloggies posts, but this is too good to pass up.
When Miguel changed hosting way, way back we cooked up a plan to fool people into thinking his new design was totally original, the site was spotted and pointed out to Pirated Sites and there was a major shit-storm including abusive e-mails and comments. Miguel eventually debunked it and the design was changed to the proper one.
Pirated Sites originally claimed that Miguel appeared to be "a victim of kind but unscrupulous friends" (that'd be me), and that my friends is why his tagline was infinitely more suited to winning last year than Wil Wheaton.
These days Miguel is hosting his latest Limmerick competition, and Elise is trashing her husband's car.
Bloggies: The Musical
THIS IS A DISCLAIMER! No other posts today, I wanted to do something musical, so instead I've written out a fairly quick and wildly innaccurate ditty. This is a light-hearted poke at all the fuss that has gone on around the Bloggies. Seriously here folks, I don't know anything about these people other than what's been written online and this isn't the introspective piece of investigation that Eastwest recently ran. If you want anything closer to the facts. I say fairly quick... I had nothing better to do, okay?
Dramatis Personae:
Nikolai Nolan: 20-something web-geek extraordinaire. The DJ Qualls in this little movie
Ed K: A confused man in the Dallas Fort Worth area who lives entirely in silhouette, unlikely to be giving out prizes (so I'm bitter)
Jessica Thinkdink: Married woman with mad designer skillz who oughta be a Digital Diva
Denise: Wife of SixDifferentWays Charles, talks about cats lots
Philo: A San Francisco blogger who won't let a good story lie, owns hotpants
The Blogging Chorus: Onmipresent horde of amateur desktop publishers, they see everything they know everything. Wrong them at your own peril.
Nikolai
Once again this year if I may be so bold
Just as both years prior, I shall hold
Awards of recognition, the public shall be polled
Their traffic shall increase three to tenfold
If only there were some way for me to get this thing bankrolled...
Yes once again this year we shall see
If a variety of online personalities
Have earned the right to be
Presented with their Bloggie
What fun we'll all have... at the Bloggies!
The Blogger Chorus
So pure of intention is this man
Innocent and good-natured, he's no villain
Think of him as you would Charlie Brown
There he goes, good ol' Nikolai Nolan
Be warned your fair view is turning rotten...
Ed K
I can no longer hold my tongue, where's the talent?
Every single blog, the same arrangement
My cat is sick, you get the gist
Read the archives, browse the wishlist
I can't stand going on like this
My writing has gone stale, I do bemoan
Something must be done, to claim a throne
I don't stand up against the rest
How can I be the best of the best
Fixing the Bloggies is in my interests
Once and for all, I'll put my doubts to bed
My popularity shall become widespread
Yes I'm going to win one, I do declare!
And then won't the people stop and stare?
My Lord, good heavens... whatever shall I wear?
The Blogger Chorus
He's hatching a plot, a plan so repugnant
Recant Ed K, recant
You know you shouldn't, you simply can't
Recant Ed K, recant!
So many nominees, so many deserving
Don't sin Ed K, don't sin!
These are the people's choices, don't be so self-serving
Don't sin Ed K, don't sin!
Ed K
We'll cut this list down and flavor to taste
my reaction will not appear two-faced
even if some candidates are misplaced
amongst the DFW's I shall be embraced
The best of Texas shall be showcased!
Tis my duty as villain that I should gloat
Only those I chose worthy shall I promote
My power is infinite, the A-list shall be smote!
I hold these awards by the throat
The obvious solution is to block-vote!
Jessica
Won't it be fun for us to make
Min-Jung Kim, whom we all like
Out to be the world's best dyke
Then we'll all cheer with one big "psyche!"
I'll post a list and check it twice
of all the nominees to be precise
Then make my picks and be concise
And help some friends win, won't that be nice?
The list is up for all to see
There should not be controversy
I'm even up as a nominee
With some luck, they'll vote for me
Ed K
Ha-ha I see the list is up
My recommendations shall hold up
My evil plan shall go without a hiccup
who gives two shits about best in Europe?
Denise
I smell a rat, something ain't right
Too many obscure sites sitting in the limelight
I won't let this go, not without a fight
The showdown is on, it'll be tonight!
They may fight back and give me hell
or use the C word like Michele
am I right to do this? Time will tell
if its only a storm in a nutshell
Philo
What's going on, do my eyes deceive?
I simply cannot bring myself to believe
Of such evil, how does one conceive?
The truth falls upon me to unweave
But right now all I want to do is heave...
Ed K
You've found me out, with my own words!
You lousy bunch of stinking turds
Were all content to run with herds
Even if some choices were undeserved
I hate you all you pathetic nerds
My plans were foiled, this time, this year
Unto the rules I did not adhere
I have been ruined before my peers
and to be safe I shall run from here
and in my place leave words of Shakespeare...
The Blogger Chorus
And so we see the end result
The farce, the lies and the insults
Judges should read the sites and not consult
one another, be an adult
And instead of this poor Greek tragedy
Give us back our fun Bloggies!
It's a monster! Kill it!
I am so incredibly late with this that I'll post it here instead of in Michele's comments where it will just disappear.
My Favorite Simpsons Quote is from The Springfield Files:
Alien: I bring you love
Lenny: Its bringing love! Don't let it get away!
Carl: Break it's legs!
Rank
According to Blogjam I'm the 23rd most popular UK blog despite my incredibly low UK audience.
According to Troubled Diva six months ago, I was joint 16th with Dutchbint.
I like Troubled Diva.
I also like toast. Toast is good.
Horizontal Snow
I heard this morning that London would be at -8 degrees C today due to wind chill. So far we've already had two flash snowstorms.
Can somebody explain to me the concept of horizontal snowfall? I mean where the hell is this stuff landing? Is it shooting out into space at a tangent angle to the surface of the planet or something?
Justifiable Homicide
Client: We can't open the file that you sent us
Us: We zipped it up to compress it so that your virus protection software would allow you to receive it
Client: We can't open it
Us: Just unzip it
Client: What does that mean?
Us: You need to download WinZip, install that and then you can open the file
Client: We're not allowed to download software
Us: Why not?
Client: Our IT department doesn't trust us
Us: We'll courrier a CD over to you
Client: Thanks
Client calls back
Client: We can't open the file
Us: Its a Powerpoint 2000 presentation
Client: We don't have Powerpoint 2000
Us: We'll courrier you a color print-out
Client: Thanks
Client calls back
Client: This isn't the presentation we wanted. We found the old one though, thats what we wanted
9 out of 10 cat-lovers hate Acerbia
Can you believe that 54% of all statistics are pulled out of thin air? I can't believe I've been lied to all this time...
In This West Wing... again
For another year the Presidential address before the joint session of Congress and the nation looms heavily in Deputy Communications Director D Seaborn's mind... with an international crisis looming and a very important guest who has not RSVP'd...
Communications Director Miguel Ziegler has been sat on D's couch as they try and work on the speech
Mig: "So we're going with fear."
D: "Fear and surprise"
Mig: "Those are our two weapons in the fight against terrorism?"
D: "...and ruthless efficiency"
Mig: "Our two weapons in the war against terrorism are fear, surprise and ruthless... our three weapons..."
D: "...and thermonuclear warheads"
Mig: "...our four main weapons... but we'll put down 'nukuler' instead of nuclear, just to fuck with him again, alright?"
Press Secretary Melvania Cregg pokes her head around the door
Mel: "There's been an attack on the London underground! Bodies everywhere, Brits dropping like flies!"
D: "Dear God no!"
Mig: "... any... uh... any Americans amongst the dead?"
Mel: "Nope. One guy from Bumfuck Alabama stubbed his toe escaping the seething dying mass of Limey dregs, but otherwise we're still all a-okay!"
Mig: "Ignore it, we'll talk about the economy instead, where's Philo?"
Mel: "He's working on his swinging"
In the office of Deputy Chief of Staff Philo Lyman, Philo has his back to the door and his assistant Michele Moss waits in the corridor outside, watching as he grasps something between his legs in both hands and bends his knees slightly.
Michele: "I told you already Philo, don't bend at the knees until you're ready to swing!"
Philo: "Its just so hard Michele, come and grab ahold of this and show me how it's done."
Michele saunters into the office and takes the golf club from him and shows him a perfect swing with follow-through.
Michele: "And that my friend, is how you swing, notice I swung both ways?"
Philo: "oo-er!"
Michele: "Shouldn't you be working on the drafts of the address?"
Philo: "Nah, we'll just rewrite the same thing as last year, same promises, same scary threats of evil, un-democratically-elected demagogues with weapons of mass destruction..."
Michele: "Foreign or domestic?"
Philo: "And the best part is that the liberal lefty sissies won't be able to come up with anything to counter us cause we'll be rerunning every piece of footage of Monica Lewinsky on every other channel afterwards"
Chief of Staff Davezilla appears in the doorway connecting his office to Philo's, he is holding a crumpled fax in his hands.
Davezilla: "That bastard Blix has snubbed our invite, we were going to sit him two rows behind Laura Bush. Somebody get Christian Slater in here and send him over to Europeland to assassinate the uppity prick."
Philo: "Maybe he wasn't desperate to be on Laura's bad side."
Michele: "Which side is that?"
Philo: "Her back side."
Furious rewrites take place with plenty of filler material dedicated to healthcare and tax cuts and eventually a finalised draft is printed off, with a few scribbled corrections in the margins, they assemble in the Oval Office and present it to Dubya
Dubya: "Did y'all include that great bit from Independance Day this year? I love that bit, stood on top of a Humvee with all those pilots around him... we're going after those alien bastards this year, right?"
Davezilla: "Sorry sir, we limited ourselves to popular fiction instead of science fiction"
Dubya: "Oh, so the same ol' empty promises, eh? Who did we pick to stay behind this year?"
Davezilla: "Ashcroft"
Dubya: "Smart move my'boy. Those terrorists won't dare attack us now knowing that good ol' Johnny will be in charge if they do."
D: "Better the devil you know, eh?"
Dubya: "And just what the hell do you mean by that you lily-livered snotbag?"
D: "Christ, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!"
I say enjoyed...
Pix e-mailed me this morning asking if I'd be at all interested in going to see Linkin Park or matchbox 20 live in concert... I realise its pretty early morning but somehow my response just seemed to flow out pretty easy:
> Well I've enjoyed a fair few Linkin Park and Matchbox 20 tracks... I say
> enjoyed what I actually meant was that I would rather have live wires
> wound tightly around my scrotal sack while in an airplane before I'm
> pushed out of the hatch by a man with barbed wire gloves on and pecked
> at by vultures during my decent before the guy in the plane throws the
> switch, than listen to a live concert by either of them.
>
> Saying that, some of their videos have been mildly entertaining.
Thank you Mark Llamar
Techno-snob!
As Lutero says, it is almost impossible to talk about technical stuff without people slipping into a vertical coma in front of you.
"blah, blah, blah, and this new functionality... you're drooling on my shoes"
So, in an attempt to liven things up I shall be replacing the word "button" with "boobie", "mouse" with "dildo", and "thumb" with "testicle" in the following story. I shall also try and include as many references to sex and drugs as possible. So pay attention.
I love my home PC, my home PC is like a faithful mistress with lots of tricks up her sleeve, oodles of experience and a familiar comforting embrace. Okay so maybe some of the sheen has worn off and the corners are slightly frayed... and the monitor flashes pink like a psychadelic mushroom trip every now and again, but hey she's all mine.
My PC here in the agency however is like a young tart starting out in the world of prostitution, coked out of her eyeballs, overclocked and uppity. She will regularly reset my options and preferences just to mess me around. There are programs and functions she contains that I have no need for, being an experienced techno-fetishist.
At home both Pix and I have Logitech wireless keyboard and dildo combos (they're great, better than spanking) and over the weekend we established that one of the biggest causes of stress in our lives right now is that the dildo signals conflict at random intervals. We've been going out of our minds like sex-fiend junkies in a locked room full of acid tabs trying to resolve frequency issues and still find time for a healthy sex life.
So taking the problem firmly in hand like a nymphomaniac weight-lifter on steroids and ketamine I arranged to have a Logitech MX500 Optical dildo (it has a wire, life could be better I suppose) sent to my office. It arrived this morning while I was at Micro$oft (who's dildos I avoid like butch dykes with horse-sized strap-ons and ketchup sachets of lube)
This dildo has functions I never even knew I needed before. The testicle boobies work as back and forward browser boobies, the scroll wheel has boobies for cruise control. I mean, cruise control?! Can I get cup holders for this please?
The plastic casing for this is so comfortable... I just have to hope that through continual use I don't wear through the protective rubber coating like a fat accountant in a gimp suit humping his mistresses leg.
By far the best boobie has to be the one on the apex of the dildo, the pinnacle of the dildo, at the very apogee of the technological plastic... turd. Well it looks like a plastic turd, okay, shut the fuck up all you coprophiliacs out there. Anyway, this boobie switches windows. You push it and select another window, it has removed the need to ever visit the taskbar or use the alt-tab keyboard combo.
I can feel my testicles regressing already as I slip back into the protoplasmic soup of devolution...
Wait, for that last sentence I'd like to switch testicles back to thumbs, I'm not entirely happy with how that turned out.
Just Shoot Me
I wonder sometimes why I'm let out in public.
Yesterday one of my work colleagues thought it was amusing to poke her finger into my ribs repeatedly as I tried to conduct a serious conversation face to face with someone. She's fairly petite and was therefore obscured from view to the other person by me. All he saw was me flinching every so often as she jabbed me again and again.
So I figured I'd get my own back today, and as she talked to an assembled crowd of people all waiting for the elevator, I moved to her side and went to poke her in the ribs... as she turned to check the button was lit... and her ribs and breasts were on the same level... and...
In front of a large number of work colleagues and a few clients I poked her in the nipple. My shame currently knows no limits.
Micro$oft
I spent the morning in Micro$oft's swanky Soho European headquarters with a charming young woman.
Which was against all expectation, cause I was expecting her to have an extra head, a black pulsating evil soul on display to all and sundry and a forked tongue.
Her Outlook crashed while she was checking her mail though.
Snaffled
Since I used up all of my creative ideas in one fell swoop yesterday and I haven't worked up the courage to write about last week's hand-job, instead I shall mostly be stealing links from other people's blogs. And most of them are Europeans. And all of them link me.
SQL Slammer attacks could get worse (shamelessly stolen from Crushing Krisis)
Mile of Death gallery, I can remember hearing about this and reading about it but never seeing anything regarding it (shamelessly stolen from Palnatoke)
Irony Plug-ins (1), (2) for your browser which could be especially useful on this site to help identify between irony, sarcasm and honest to God stupidity on my part (shamelessly stolen from MyIrony.com)
Cornille's Small Theory of Relativity in relation to Blogging (taken from Uren.Dagen.Nachten)
Annual Valentine's Limmerick Competition over at Feral Living. My entry this year doesn't suck quite as bad as last year's
Incidentally, the word of the day today is die kømpætitør!, which is a German term of affection usually shouted during an event where there should be one clear winner and some who aren't quite winners.
Pants On Fire
Friday was a tough day for me. I'm not a very good liar and we just let someone go that I worked with for six weeks pretty continuously. After she'd bought me a few drinks she finally asked:
"Was it because I was crap?"
I had a yearning to say yes, she just didn't fit the team dynamic but I said instead that it was because of budget cuts because I wasn't desperate to tell her nobody liked her.
"Cross your heart and hope to die?"
Well fuck me. If I have to cross my heart and hope to die then yes, truth be told you were crap. I had no idea such cunning and wily interrogation techniques were still permitted in the Western world.
The Fridge at War
Narrated by Kirk Douglas
Towards the beginning of the 21st century, the new refrigerator had passed all known requirements for a young couple living together in sin and its presence had become so familiar to them that they tended to be oblivious to the internal politics and bickering which were rife within the system.
An unfortunate misunderstanding led to the door being slammed and one of the bottles of soda being agitated in such a manner as to set off a painstakingly slow carbonated chain-reaction. As the pressure built in the critical door region, upon which all entry to the refrigerator hinged, the dairy shelf sent an envoy to discuss disarmament of the soda with the milk, a long-standing participant in the door political forum and valuable ally to the dairy products.
Many days passed with the ratio of foam to liquid within the soda changing in favor of an inevitable cataclysmic explosion that would ruin and taint all other foods within the refrigerator. The forward thinking and radical suggestions of the cheese envoy were met with guarded unenthusiasm. The negotiations dragged on and the milk soured eventually, tired of being strung along by the cheese.
Unwilling to rely on diplomacy any longer a covert strike team of processed cheese attempted to manually disarm the soda bottle, however they were accidentally exposed when a routine patrol of bottled water stumbled upon their container and open war was declared six hours later.
Within minutes the Brie surrendered.
A long-standing supporter of the door's stringent import/export practices, the cold meat immediately aligned themselves in such a manner as to block all dairy product movements, effectively removing them from the conflict altogether.
The vegetables and condiments, cut off from their dairy product allies waged a terrible war of attrition against the cold meat and the butchery was unimaginable. Entire battalions of carrot sticks bore down on the ham's position and eventually the besieged cheeses were liberated.
Towards the end of the month of January the butter was captured in a daring pincer movement by the 121st Armored Chocolate Division working in conjunction with the 32nd Airborne Mold and brought to trial in the salad drawer. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the ice cube tray their betrayal of all refrigerated foodstuffs stands as testament to the slippery nature of butter.
Disarmament talks calmed down all remaining tensions and the soda was moved to a more secure location.
And in the end the Mulligatawny ruled them all.
Campaign Promises
I'm voting right now rather than waiting until the last minute, that way I can put this business to bed and get back to just writing content. I don't care what Michele says, I'm voting for the person I think deserves to win against *all* others. I've got nothing to say about this mock controversy, I'm not going to petition for votes from people who have never heard of me, vote for whomever you like, Textism is good.
How anyone can take this seriously when a "lifetime achievement award" is being given out to people in their twenties and thirties is beyond me.
However, if I do win Best European, I shall carry on the proud tradition and engage in a petty argument with a national self-respecting dead-tree media organisation to aggrandize my own standing in being taken seriously as a purveyor of Truth, Justice and the British Way.
Orr
The more I read of Catch-22, the more it feels like I was being given the various pieces of a puzzle that eventually came to life and carried on the story only once all the elements had been divulged to me.
At first I felt that Yossarian was enjoying his situation or at least taking a deep-rooted perverse pleasure in the insanity of war surrounding him, but as the final chapters approach I feel more and more pity for the man.
Its fairly rare but sometimes during a book or a movie I can actually feel that I'm going to be sad when it ends. I'll just have to move swiftly on to the next books in my pile: Life of Pi, The Door Into Summer (read it before but need to read it again) and True Tales of American Life.
I had a profoundly satisfying moment in Borders the other night when I realised that almost half of their recommended reads were either books I'd recently read without being prompted or had under my arms ready to purchase. Wait... does that mean I'm just a sheep following the crowd or does it mean I have good taste?
Can I get that to go?
Y'know I hadn't even realised how shit a sandwich it was until I discovered that I'd eaten most of the paper it had been wrapped in with no discernable difference between the textures and tastes.
You mean I have to drink this coffee hot?
Bête Noire #133: You discover that the cup of coffee you poured yourself what felt like only a few minutes ago has left you with a mouthful of cold coffee to dispose of somehow.
Bête Noire #134: People who refuse to believe that coffee and spit is good for their potted desktop plants.
Missing In Action Hero
In this country we have five free channels (I say free, I mean they're available to everyone with a TV providing they've paid their £90/year TV license) and the quality of each diminishes based on complex algorithms that somehow make Channel 4 the best and Channel 5 the worst with BBC1 somewhere inbetween.
Channel 5 started up maybe a decade ago with the promise that every night they would show a "big" movie. A lot of the times though its a Treat Williams or similarly cheap action movie, with the occasional thriller or "classic" horror movie thrown in.
Last night was Last Action Hero. I would consider this film another of those "you what?!" guilty pleasures I have. Along with Judge Dredd... I really love watching Judge Dredd.
Anyway, the one reason for watching Last Action Hero is for Charles Dance, when movie evil incarnate crosses over into the "real" world portrayed in the movie his performance is excellent.
Villains are always much more interesting than straight-laced heroes and even flawed anti-heroes. Snake Plisken is a good character, but can he compare to the evil of Darth Vader who crushes his minions when he's having a bad hair day?
Some people make a living out of being a villain. Take Udo Kier for instance... has he *ever* been anything other than a villain? Jason Isaacs is making a living out of it too, Brad Dourif is just as bad and look, if you *ever* see Leland Orser you just know he's going to die horribly, he's the Bill Paxton cameo death-meister of the 90's whether he's playing a hero or villain.
I just figure that one of the coolest lines ever spoken in an english accent has to be:
"If God was a villain, he would have been me."
What do you mean by "if"?
Perfectionist
This morning as Pix and I walked to work in silence, two guys walked past us, one saying to the other:
"Tu sais, je bosserais jamais le samedi, le samedi, c'est sacré"
which to me seemed perfectly normal, and it took me a second to realise and remember that I wasn't living in France anymore at which point I translated for Pix.
You know, I'll never work on a saturday, saturdays are sacred
That seems strange however, because when I was growing up in Paris wednesday and saturday mornings most kids had to go to school. In return you had wednesday afternoon to do your own thing but so many clubs and sports associations ran afternoon classes on wednesdays that invariably you'd end up staying on at school anyway.
I figured that was that and forgot about the whole thing, but then later I received a phonecall from a friend wanting to know various phrases in French and I slipped into translator mode without a second thought.
And finally this evening watching Jeremy Clarkson (I have to respect anyone who will stand up to Tranny and Slutannah and keeps a fighter jet in his garden) as he drove through the French countryside in a fantastic classic E-type Jag tasting local delicacies and defending the French simply because... well he hates Americans and so do they... but it eventually sank in.
Being raised in France has opened up opportunities for me I would never have had otherwise. It flipped my perspective upside-down and inside-out and brutally taught me that if you learn everything you can about anything you can, then there is nothing you cannot do.
A lot of what is wrong with the education system in the UK is that people's expectations are so low of the students that they invariably unachieve and nobody seems to pay the slightest attention. In France however you are expected to excel at everything in all ways possible. I doubt I ever received a grade card that didn't have some sort of "can do so much better" comment written on it that actually encouraged me to improve.
Dean has the right idea, maybe I'll move back there one day.
Bitterfellas
Wow, fab groovy, Acerbia up for Best European... what does this mean? Does this mean I'm no longer as humorous as I was last year?*
How am I not funny? What, do I no longer amuse you? You mean, let me understand this ... cuz I ... maybe its me, maybe I'm a little fucked up maybe. I'm not funny how, I mean not funny, like I'm a washed-up second-rate sci-fi actor? I no longer amuse you. I don't make you laugh? I'm here to fuckin' bore you? Whattya you mean not funny? Not funny how? How am I not funny?
Maybe this bitter thing isn't quite working for me, sometimes my mouth takes over from my brain and the sarcasm makes it past my teeth before I can stop it, like earlier when a colleague said,
"You learn something new every day"
to which my disengaged brain replied,
Well only if you start each day with the mentality of an infant.
*as the Bulletproof Punk
The Hand Job
I tried firing my boss today, didn't seem to work though, all I got was a polite smile back.
One thing that was made clear in my contract was that I would have duties "beyond those stated as they should arise" and reading Miguel's post reminded me of the latest occasion to arise.
"We need someone who chews their nails for a hand job" went the e-mail. I'm sure by that they meant a job involving a hand and not some sexual act although I wasn't too confident when I mailed back that I tend to chew all merry fuck out of my nails and that my thumb was bleeding on the keyboard as I typed. The shoot is this afternoon and I intend going in with a better attitude than Miguel.
I spent the evening last night watching Battle Royale, rooting for the various students who were invariably killed off. Real edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting stuff and afterwards I sat with a pair of tweezers and finished the job off, this could be the start of a whole new career for me.
So... if you're in the London area and you see a poster of some really raggedy-looking nails, crimson quick exposed to the air, split levels and shredded cuticles... although my fingers are less stumpy than Miguel's... then think of me.
Aright me old mucker?
Tucked between the hi-class boutiques and cosy prim cafe's of the King's Road in Chelsea sits a shoe shop that mocks the well-to-do residents and sneers at their private fortunes with bitter contempt. The name of the shoe store?
R. Soles*
Everything down here is called the "World's End" something-or-other. There's the World's End Inn, the World's End Theatre review, the World's End Gallery and even the World's End Garbage Collection company.
All puts new meaning to one of Pix's favorite sayings: "And then the world fell out of my arse..."
*don't get it? Say it with your best English accent
Gawk, but don't touch
Should I be susprised that none of you Gawkers are leaving any kind of comments? And the only impressions you're making are on the carpet... hey, don't smoke that in here!
Yes Boss
I have a boss who claims he's not my boss and calls me boss... maybe I read the job description wrong.
Bang, bang
How do you combine Victoria Silvstedt (Playmate of the Year 1997), a pillory and a sweating hippo and not get great TV?
I'm a nut for Nevermind the Buzzcocks, and make a point of watching it every chance I get. I guess the bitchyness and mindless trivia appeals to me... which makes me wonder how the hell you can remake the format on VH1 for chrissakes! So I wandered out of the room when it finished and Shooting Stars came on.
I must have been out of the country when it was declared that Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer were funny however, cause try as I might I just can't enjoy their humor, they are not the Morecambe and Wise of the 90's, but anyway...
...imagine my shock upon returning to see Victoria Silvstedt being secured into a perspex pillory box and a sweaty grunting hippo being led into the studio on a leash to be inserted into the box with her.
I would have paid real money to see it bite her. Or at least nibble her a bit.
Self-image
There has been a lot of controversy and scandal about the recent revelation that this month's issue of GQ has been airbrushed and that Kate Winslet's legs have been digitally enhanced to appear thinner.
Some of you may know that I dabble in digital imagery and I've produced a few faked images in my time, but this time I've actually reversed the damage to return the image to its original glory.
Disclaimer: May cause spit-takes. Do not eat before clicking link. Safe for work? Eh, what the hell... why not?
Acerbia, un point
I suppose the worst thing about finding referrers of blogs in foreign languages is that... I have no idea if they're being nasty or nice.
Can anyone at least clue me in to what language these are in?
I'm what you guys call a User
I think I followed a link, then followed a link, then followed a link and suddenly discovered that I was alone in the aisle on the far side of the web and mommy was nowhere to be seen. Metaphorically of course.
So I've spent most of today going through Lightcycle.org and cursing when some of the applets don't work and smiling in bewilderment at some of the ones that do. I installed that Yellowtail doohickey he talks about and brought about a few foaming-mouth fits from my colleagues... better than the monolith interior from 2001.
The Make Your Own Axis generator is superb, Matchboxes is hypnotic and I'm in retro-gamer heaven going through old Metroid comics...
Speaking of lightcycles, have you heard about the Dodge Tomahawk concept bike? I can't imagine what sort of situation would require me to move at 400mph but I figure if you got a bunch of these together at Black Rock, Nevada and stuck electrified sheets of aluminium foil flapping loose on spindles from the rider's asses you could have real life Tron battles!
Or I suppose a cheaper version is to run around your living room with toilet rolls.
Get My War On
It wasn't until the anti-war petition landed in my inbox and my boss said "Well I guess it won't be long until you'll be leaving us David and heading off to the Gulf, nice toast by the way" that it really hit home that if it could happen in 1914 and again in 1939, why not now in 2003? Could I really be drafted into my country's armed services?
Only... I don't want to be in our army. We have crap guns, crap planes, crap kit, we have one aircraft carrier and hardly any destroyers to speak of (well, those that we do have we sail into big fucking honkingly obvious rocks!)
If I'm going to war I want Kevlar vests, I want a rifle that works, and I want an entire tank brigade of Abrams M1A1's right be-fucking-hind me!
I have to feel jealous of my cousin who is only a few weeks older than me, he's currently doing his arctic warfare training as part of a Marine Commando unit. Not that I expect arctic warfare training to be necessary for fighting in the gulf... might come in handy after the nukes obscure the sun for us though...
Thats not a rat, thats a hamster
Me: Did Pix mention the mouse in our kitchen?
Flatmate: "Ew! A mouse?! Are you sure it wasn't a rat?"
Me: Quite sure. Anyway, we were thinking about getting a cat rather than putting down poison.
Flatmate: "Ew! I can't stand cats. Cats, dogs, mice, rats, hamsters..."
Later on in the day when we were alone the subject up once more:
Me: L seemed pretty against mice, you think she was savaged by one as a kid?
Pix: "Sounds to me like she was savaged by an entire petting-zoo..."
Objectionable Character
I just started writing a new script... except my spell-checker disagrees with me on the spelling of the title. I may have to write this out on paper instead to avoid interference from machine-kind.
I bet Darren Aronofsky had this problem way back when nobody knew what Π was... other than us mathematicians of course.
Slipping away...
Ha, just found Fairvue in my referrer logs, maybe I'm as obscure as I claimed I was.
Still, I have the backing of Caesar, so that can't be bad...
How immature
Reading Catch-22 for the first time is screwing up my relationship. For example, a conversation that Pix and I had on our way to work this morning:
Me: I keep looking down your top. Thats a very low-cut top
Pix: Thats okay, you're my boyfriend
Me: I know, but I keep trying to do it covertly. I just come across as immature. Would you say that I'm too immature?
Pix: Nope
Me: So am I only slightly immature?
Pix: I wouldn't say that
Me: So I'm the wrong side of mature?
Pix: Not sure
Me: On a matureness scale of one to ten, with one being immature and ten being very mature, how would I rate?
Pix: Five
Me: So more immature than mature?
Pix: No, equal measures... fine! Five and a half.
Me: So my immaturity cancels out my matureness?! So I don't exist? I'm a nonentity?!!
Pix: Don't be silly. There's no such word as matureness, its maturity
Me: See?! I'm so immature I don't even know how to say maturity properly! (after later research it transpired that maturity and matureness are homonyms so *ptttht* to Pix!)
Haze
Sometimes when I stare through the heat-haze that rises up from the back of my monitor I imagine that I'm sat at a desk in the desert and a mirage is faintly visible on the edge of my vision... a luscious oasis of palmtrees and cerulean fresh-water pools, a warm breeze blowing as the sun beats down, the feel of coarse sand on the soles of my feet as my toes sink beneath the surface with each I take towards that opulent paradise...
...and other times I imagine that the tube inside the monitor will implode and project shards of broken glass into my face putting me out of my misery.
Its that guy, that guy from... that movie...
Last night DeepStar Six was supposedly on the Sci Fi channel, so I sat watching it for a few minutes, as the description given in the on-screen guide made it out to be a fairly decent monster B-movie.
As I watched, a black kid ran around a house trying to escape from two obscenely caricatural characters, one of whom I recognised as the evil Special Forces guy from Under Siege 2. I have this uncanny ability to recognise some of the most obscure actors. It's known as "hey its that guy" syndrome.
Pix however is useless at it. Totally useless.
"Oh look, Dwight Schultz"
Thats not Dwight Schultz, its Matt Frewer. He was Max Headroom and the Trashcan Man in The Stand
"Isn't that Gary Busey?"
No, its Nick Nolte... he was the bum in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, although admittedly they are fairly interchangable in terms of performance. I'd add Gary Cole to that little niche group too...
"Hey, its that guy who played the mayor in Buffy"
No it isn't! It's John Lithgow... no wait... my mistake, its Ronny Cox, he was in Total Recall, Robocop... and Cop Rock, now that was a series that kicked NYPD Blue's ass... (I love Jumptheshark, its so multi-functional)
Lara Flynn Boyle... who seems to be doing a surprisingly good impression of Linda, which can just make watching MIB and MIIB all the more confusing. Which reminds me of a bugbear I've carried with me for over ten years now... the guy who plays the sherrif in Rambo: First Blood is identical to the guy who plays the special ops double-crosser in part two! That should have been Rambo's first clue.
Worse still, the actor who played gun-runner Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights (which glorified the Mujahideen, which is why I'm guessing it has been somewhat glossed over recently) comes back as a CIA agent in Goldeneye! I mean, how can Bond not notice?
"Hrm, didn't I crush you with a statue of Nelson eight years ago? And now you work for the CIA? That's some seriously good witness protection scheme going on"
For those of you who are persnickety like me and still reading thinking "black kid running round a house full of freaks? Thats not DeepStar Six, thats The People Under the Stairs", yes I know it is, and I kept you waiting this long cause otherwise you'd have left a comment telling me how stupid I was. And frankly if you're like me then you deserve a little mental torture now and again.
Thats the stupidest code I ever heard!
Our agency server crashed last night and neither of our IT support guys were within an hour of the place having both gone home early.
"We'll have to reboot remotely" said my boss, who had no clue what that meant but somehow knew it was appropriate for the situation
What that meant however was that I had to call one of the guys and they talked me through the reboot process. Rebooting a server is easy as pie, you power it down and then power it back up again, then reboot all the machines that were connected to it.
Getting into the server room however was the difficult part.
"Go get the key"
Where is the key?
"Its in the top drawer of the cabinet"
Which cabinet?
"The one under the desk with the three monitors on it"
I've got the key, what do I do with it?
"Unlock the cupboard, there's no lightswitch inside but feel around where there would be one and you'll find the passcard."
What do I do next? Do I buy a blue potion from the wizard?
"Hold the passcard against the panel and type in the code."
What's the code?
"1,2,3,4,5,6"
You're shitting me.
psswssswsssspwwwsss
Why do people lower their voices when they want to talk secretly about you? If they just talked blithely at their regular volume then I wouldn't even pay any attention.
Nothing is more suspicious than two people looking at you and talking in hushed voices. Makes me wonder what my hair looks like...
Cyber-Death-Future-Robots banned!
Anyone who has seen The Terminator or more than three episodes of Star Trek is likely to agree with my hardline stance on this subject: We must ban time travel.
If science fiction has served as anything in the past it is a warning on the extremes of the future. Extrapolations of present technologies spun into some novel or short yarn usually ends up in a post-apocalyptic barren wasteland Earth where the mutated Godless survivors battle over the fused nuclear slag that was once a thriving town. And I for one don't much like the taste of three-eyed cat.
Furthermore we ought to have tighter laws policing computers and their expansion. Artificial Intelligence is quite probably a concept that we ourselves don't fully comprehend. According to a book my sister gave me for Christmas, computers would be several steps closer to "awareness" if we'd taught them generalities rather than how to outperform humans at chess.
Time travellers, and self-aware computers. We need to ban them both, right now. UN Sanctions on any country found to be building time machines and cybernetic self-aware automatons.
And weapons of mass destruction of course... unless those weapons are geared towards destroying hordes of rampaging robot killing machines and erratic professor-types with their teenage sidekicks in DeLoreans. Just say no to deathrays and time paradoxes.
You Lucky People
We were brainstorming possible slogans and one of our freelancers came up with:
"If you can't tell that this is a good deal then you're stupid"
I said thanks but no thanks.
Special Friend Visiting
We stood in the ladies toiletries aisle, Pix and I. "I need tampons" she declared.
Hey, no problem, I'm an enlightened 21st-century guy, I can handle that, y'know, I'm not going to freak out about women's... stuff like that...
...
Okay, can we move on, this aisle creeps me out.
If women *ever* take over the world and they have to interrogate the world's leaders for the launch codes and suchlike, there can be no more effective way of getting that information than forcing them to stand in front of the tampons section of the toiletries aisle as other women choose their... uh... sorry... look, I just can't even type about this, okay?
Selfish Bastards
Dagnamit! I can't get onto Fairvue to post my nominations! Did you people all leave it to the last minute to post your nominations?!
Did you? You inconsiderate... uh... nope, I just wanted to check that the page was there... posted my entries weeks ago. Months ago. Years even...
Shit.
By The Numbers
"David, your 11 o'clock meeting is here, he's waiting in reception"
Cool. I went to see and... the bastard had brought two friends.
I grabbed the nearest three people I could find and deputised them into my department. Nobody intimidates me in my own boardroom! Nobody!
The key to any meeting it to have more people on your side than theirs.
Wet Paint
Due to the snow and icy roads (are you paying attention kd?) in London, my bus this morning took a detour along Elizabeth Road in Chelsea. Netsled between two appartment blocks I spied from the top floor of the double-decker a winter-wonderland snow scene back garden, obscured from view from the street by an eight-foot high cream-colored brick wall.
Painted on in bold black letters, with two black arrows aimed at the top of the wall was the message:
"Anti-climb paint"
Surely anyone trying to climb it would find that out for themselves? What if you don't speak English and you were Bolivia's "Man-Who-Climbs-Walls 2002"? Wouldn't barbed-wire work just as well and work in the universal "ouch-hurty-handies" language?
I suspect the message is so that people who climb the wall to break in can't sue in the event that they fall off or some strange legal requirement like that.
Hands On
I chew my nails. In fact I tear them right down to the quick until sometimes they bleed and I can't touch the raw flesh. I have tiny nicks and cuts across the knuckles on my right hand and a round scar just below the third and fourth knuckles that was left there by an ex-girlfriend.
I wear a celtic knot-design ring on my right middle finger. It replaces the one I had to cut off with bolt cutters a few years ago because it had become so tight. The skin under the ring wrinkles up like elbow skin when not taut and smooth, and then there's my watch. It used to be my grandfather's.
A water-resistant Seiko automatic, it stopped ticking soon after he died...
...not because of any freaky phenomenon, its a kinetic watch. He stopped moving, it stopped winding itself up.
Oh the obesity
UK woman discovers she puts weight back on after diets
In other news:
Bear turd found among cluster of trees.
Pope feels vague affinity with fundamental biblical principles.
Water discovered to have moist properties.
Sky described as "purple without the red mixed in".
Final post?
Yesterday I read about the six Algerians arrested in London and their home-Ricin bio-warfare production facility and I wasn't scared.
Earlier in the week I read about the increase in gun crime in the UK this year and I wasn't scared even after learning that the Albanians are leaders in organized crime in my neighborhood.
Since the New Year I've been reading about the hostage-taking guy under siege in his flat and I was even faintly amused by it.
Ten minutes ago two attack helicopters peeled off overhead, circling London in tight formation and I could see police launches on the Thames. BBC news has nothing to say. Right now I'm fucking terrified...
Therein lies the catch...
Don't you just hate it when people paraphrase something they heard on the news and repeat it to you in their own words? Don't you just hate the sheep of the world who follow trends and can't seem to think for themselves?
In my big client meeting on Monday the term "Catch-22" came up and was employed THREE TIMES in the space of an hour about three different items on the agenda. It would seem that it has become a catch-all excuse and is employed even when not applicable.
As the meeting was winding down I just had to ask if anybody could tell me what Catch-22 meant.
A few people rolled their eyes and one guy who probably thought he was doing me a favor said that it was a situation where cause and effect...
combine into a perpetual loop, like a lemniscate, I finished for him. Although I'm pretty sure the guy has no idea what a lemniscate is. Yes, I know what it is, but where does the name come from?
More eyes rolling. The book, obviously.
And I realised that I seemed to be trapped in a vicious circle of ignorance here that could only be broken by READING THE FUCKING BOOK, as none of the other people in the room had done. And yet they freely used the expression without knowing what it originally pertained to.
So I'm reading Catch-22, and already loving it. I can't believe it was once a banned book... although... it does somewhat promote pacifism... (Michele, bring back the Banned Books Project)
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
Behind The Advertising
A well-placed brand manager came to me this morning and said:
"I need to test this line on you" to which I replied that I was in a very stable relationship and he was welcome to try but it'd have to be a pretty dazzling line for it to work.
For reasons of security I've changed the brand names and proposition... y'know just so you don't end up hating me if/when the slogan works on you or you start to feel that you'd rather I'd just come round your house and spit in your eye personally.
IF YOU'RE WITH SQUIRREL-JUGGLERS INC. THEN YOUR SQUIRRELS ARE JUGGLED CHEAPER THAN WITH TOSS-A-SQUIRREL UK
Which... if you think about it, doesn't quite work. If you're with A then doing B is cheaper than with C... by the time you announce who A is better than you've either forgotten who A is, or what B was. You need to set it up as:
To do B, C is not as good as A. Or, A is better than C when doing B. But in the case above, the last thing you think of when you hear it is C's name. The association is all wrong.
So I suggested they change it. They're going to... I can't believe this is how slogans are made. I thought they had teams of linguists working day and night on finding the most conscise way of stating unequivocally that Squirrel-Jugglers Inc. is the only brand you should even think of when it comes to tossing your squirrels around in the air. Copy-writers supervising 50,000 monkeys at 50,000 typewriters. Brand guideline presentations being adhered to. Creative Directors ping in and following basic ruling principles...
...not some twenty-something who wasn't even educated in this country pointing out a flaw that could have led to Toss-A-Squirrel becoming the leading name in arboreal rodent aerial acrobatics.
Further Reading:
Dead Cyborg Squirresl
US Tax-payers Fund Squirrel Sex
Squirrels Attack White House On 9-11 Anniversary +1
Propane Explosion Sends Squirrels Skywards
Summer of Squirrel? Aggressive attack on Benicia, CA resident
You've Got Squirrels!
DV-boy
I have decided to get back to my one true love: making movies.
I'm looking to buy a good entry-level digital video camera for producing some more short films. Does anyone have any suggestions for model make or even just features I should look out for? (you techie geeks you)
How to Make the Perfect Cup of Coffee
I haven't been a coffee drinker in the past, but right nowit is so cold in London that I had to do something to keep myself from taking on a glassine rigid quality otherwise reserved for ice sculptures. I have however discovered the perfect method for making the perfect cup of coffee every time.
For this you'll need:
Your own mug
Instant coffee in a tin
Sugar
A teaspoon
Refrigerated milk
A digital camera
A high-speed web connection
An incredibly expensive prostitute
And the trick is to take digital pictures of your colleague with the high-priced hooker and then blackmail them with the occasional URL of an uploaded picture into making you coffee. If they get it wrong, spit it out and send it back until you end up with the perfect cup every time.
If it please the jury part 2
I've given it some thought and I have to say that I'd like to retract my request for nominations.
For starters, for the bulk of this year Acerbia was a journal site with very few external links. Secondly, if my traffic reports are anything to go by then I've pretty much alienated my entire audience since then and only just starting to build it back up again.
So I'm doing an appeal for people to support someone who truly deserves to win this year. Michele at A Small Victory.
Yes she's a bloodthirsty hawk (and proud of it) and sometimes her views can appear contradictory to those who don't know where the tongue starts and the cheek ends but she honest-to-God deserves some more recognition. Especially since she was passed over last year in favor of Wil Fucking Wheaton (nice cameo in the new Trek by the way Will, that must have taxed your acting abilities to their limits)
So remember, a vote for Gore is worth two in the Bush... uh, no, I mean, Vote for Michele, because she's the best blog out there when it comes to bashing politicians and talking pop-culture in the same hour
Flash Fried Cojones Nigella Lawson stylee
What you'll need:
2x large Cojones, unpeeled
4x cloves of garlic
1x half lemon
1x small onion
1x half tomato
2x tbsp fresh Coriander, chopped
1/2 tbsp sea salt
What I find works best is if you let your girlfriend brush her teeth while you're in the shower. Voila, flash-fried cojones and a perfected body-swerve butt move.
The rest of the ingredients just need three avocados added and you can make a nice Guacamole to soothe your balls in. Thats the Nigella Lawson bit.
Free advice
When going to present an online product to the client, do not wear the free gear your previous employer gave you no matter how cool you think it looks.
There'd be nothing worse than a guy wearing an IBM sweater telling you to buy a Mac to convince you otherwise. I suppose I'm just lucky that the clients are dimmer than painted-over lightbulbs during a power cut.
At night.
In a room full of smoke.
While you're wearing dark glasses.
With your eyes closed.
If it pleases the jury
Has it really been a year since I was up for most humorous weblog 2001 with Bulletproofpunk? Then I lost to Wil Fucking Wheaton. I even won an award for losing to Wil Fucking Wheaton.
My bitterness was further compounded by the sponsor not even bothering to send me my prize... I had easily gotten to the point where I wanted to see Wil eaten by a giant snake (don't spoil it for me if he actually survives)
So. Acerbia. Launched in 2002, European, funny to a degree, has the occasional piece of non-blog content, don't do merchandise, don't do articles about blogging, don't do memes, don't write about cats. I do however have a very select and elite brand of readers, which must make it one of the best kept secrets of 2002.
Go on, forget all the rest of the categories, I'm shooting for best unknown.
One day men will look back and say that I gave birth to the twentieth century
Its nice to know that the Camden Ripper is behind bars... or at least we have our scapegoat. Especially since the butchered remains were found not far from where I live now.
How interesting, all the parallels between this guy and Jack the Ripper... maybe Anthony Hardy was attempting to give birth to the 21st century as Jack did the 20th? I still fail to see how killing prostitues and dumping their body parts in garbage bags acheives this... but hey, there must be some master plan, right?
I can sleep easy tonight, I told my colleagues
"Well yes, but he only targeted women, so you were safe anyway"
"Prostitutes. So you were doubly safe"
That and I wouldn't be seen dead wearing a garbage bag.
Git in mah belly!
I didn't watch the "man eating a dead baby" program last night (for one thing Buffy was on) basically because I didn't know anything about it. Now, the day after I see uproar, furor and indignant articles across the various news sites I read.
Explain this to me though, aren't people delightfully horrified by Fat Bastard talking about eating babies and telling Mini-me to "git in mah belly". Weren't there all sorts of jokes made after the release of Austin Powers 2 to that regard?
Don't think for a second that I'm defending the sick pretentious fuck ("an artist does not give answers"?) just pointing out the duality of the situation.
Futurama
>> Load up entry
>> Begin primary processes
>> Load sound library Gustav Holst: The Planets Suite
>> Play Mars: The Bringer of War
>> Use deep booming voice...
Welcome... to THE FUTURE!
The year is 2003 (said twenty-oh-three), we live in a society of free-thinking enlightened individuals. Famine and disease are all symptoms of an unhappier earlier stage in our species' evolution and we now focus our energies on conquering the barriers of knowledge and science... and making really small mobile phones...
>> Cue Stephen Hawking Robo-Voice
Fitter, happer, more productive...
>> Stephen Hawking voice overload...
Oh sure we still have war. Christ do we still have war. We need it to distract people from the social inequality, the bigotry and racism that still run rampant, the hypocrisy and selfish consumerism... in fact, lets ship some troops out for the 12th anniversary of the Gulf War 1 and hold a big show. We'll call it the USMC Comeback Tour with supporting acts from the Brits, the French, the Germans, and the blessing of the United Nations. It'll be a blast.
>> End rant
Tech support! Tech support!
I should have worn my No, I will not fix your computer T-shirt today I can tell already.
People have been away from their machines for... oo, maybe two weeks now?
Gah! What are these strange devices that populate my otherwise pristine desk? Where is the paper? The abacus? The folders of contact details and product listings? What is this dark television set that stares me in the face quizically and reflects my own moronic expression back at me in a stark obsidian quality. I shall hit it with this large bone I have found at my feet...
This small rotund plastic handheld piece of paraphenalia with buttons and a tail, what shall I do with this? Is it a space-age tampon with cervical control tabs? Do I swallow it and plug it in for a stomach diagnostic? I don't remember this from Star Trek.
And what is this keyboard with no ink reel and paper feed for my typing? Why are the keys arranged in such a strange language? How do I decode such an obtuse dialect with my mere mortal comprehension of the English language?
These wires... where do they go? Do they go to a central vault of knowledge? Do pneumatic capsules full of information shoot back and forth through them like delivery trains? What happens if I.. pull... on... them... oooo, look at the pretty sparks.
The best one so far has been:
"I can't use this Mac, it has no tower. I called IT support but they don't answer" (the person uses an iMac)
I was worried, as a kid, about the day that the computers would rise up and destroy humanity. Looks like humanity is lying down by itself without a fight.
Homework
I have to go back to work tomorrow... and I have this terrible feeling I didn't do my homework and teacher is going to call on me...