Black Dog Blog

Archive for October, 2007

Lifemetercomics' recent Sonic the Hedgehog artwork competition, which I adore because it's the real games — yes, thank you Gwaed, the original ones and not the newer anime junk. (All titles after S3&K do not exist mmkay! Even Flickies' Island was pushing the bounds of acceptability. ;)

(And here's the announcement of the winners.)

Lion has pumpkin!

Why oh why has lion got pumpkin?

Call for national pet blood bank, which incidentally is a great idea that has been around for a while.

"Pets should be considered a luxury item," said Mr Brockman [a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Royal Veterinary College, London].

WTF. What would he classify children as? And what's the difference?

Men cut peat in nude for charity

Town bans plastic bags 'forever'

Frog killer fungus 'breakthrough'

Red squirrels 'face deadly virus'

Oh, very noble, Zak.

Delight at pine marten discovery – face it, pine martens are composed of neat delight already. No, really, I've seen the chromatographs.

Snakes kidnapped! The poor snakes!

NI comic defends McCann remarks

Tiny spider 'digitally dissected'

Pyramid, King Tut, yo.

Obese cat. I think he will find this 'zomg top slimmer!' contest about as motivational as I would.

Ex-prisoner buys his former cell

Finally, for random amusement, and since it's Hallowe'en: what have Last.fm listeners tagged "worst song ever"? Zero wins bonus if you spot my choices.

Have fun Hallowe'en/Samhain/Candytides all. Oh, and…

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IAWTC, and +10 for spelling "discreet" correctly.

("Discrete" is a word too, but its meaning is different. When people confuse the two I get sad. And by sad I mean voluble.)

Autism stereotypes 'are damaging'. Zomg, aren't we all secretly mathematical geniuses? HOLLYWOOD LIED — LIED TO ME?!?

Of course we aren't all maths or computer geniuses. We're generally disposed to be logic-minded, and sometimes things think more like us than people do, but there's still a huge continuum.

Ming the clam is 'oldest animal'

[audio] Medical romance novels are unrealistic. Apologies to all you Columbine Romance readers, naming no names, kitten.

Hollywood and trash fiction lied to us? Whom can we trust?!?!?

I wish I didn't have to keep dreaming about my biological father.

However, that wasn't what made me actually cry in the dream, and also made me cry upon waking. And also has me up before 07:00 blogging so I can stop thinking about it.

No, that was the song that came on the radio in his car.

The song was about golden retrievers. It was about missing them. It was country.

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Bugger, I can never remember to listen to things when they go out – but do listen to the first episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency before it's overwritten next Weds.

I shall try to take my own advice. I wonder if we recorded Heroes last night…

I feel very web 0.5 and am giving serious consideration to breaking down, if I could only get that little bit lower.

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I shot up last night and felt appropriately ill and disgusted this morning.¹ How irritating, and now I'll have to fast a couple of days, right when I've got wushu practice this evening. The brown didn't even achieve what it was supposed to, or perhaps it did, but not for long. The stupid things we do when we're too cold to think straight.

We have no heating or hot water at home. It's October. Yes, granted, anyone'd be feeling that. For the others, however, it's merely a question of being a bit chilly; occasionally a mini electric heater is required, but generally put on a fleece and that covers it. Slen wanders round in a t-shirt.

Whereas I'm freezing. My hands are numb. My feet are unfeeling blocks of ice. My joints creak, my digits burn. This morning I was whimpering with the cold. I want to cry. When I left for work it was in the midst of up to four layers of clothing in places, and two pairs of gloves.

My feet are fine during the daytime; my very nice walking boots (black leatherrrr \m/) have that covered. But my fingers are cold. For stupid reasons I can't go round rubbing my hands together, and blowing on them isn't satisfactory.

I haven't been warm, properly warmed through, in all the few weeks I can remember. Occasionally been hot enough to sweat, but that merely makes me feel sick, not contentedly warm.

I'm ill. Something's got to be badly wrong. My tremor is already bad enough that when I'm stressed, it can sometimes take thirty seconds and two hands to get a key into a door. Earlier today it was that bad when I was not stressed, and in front of colleagues, when generally I can minimise how much my various symptoms show up in front of strangers.

I've given in, decided I'll have to brave the strange looks and put my woolly fingerless gloves on. I'm wearin' gloves in the middle of the office. Yep. It feels, not so much like a fashion faux pas (though one of the fictitious voices in my head does call them my hobo gloves, to my amusement), but like an admission of weakness.

Can't get through at home. I've been desperately trying to reach them all morning to find out about what further blood tests the doctor needs. I'm going to begin panicking soon.

Still fucking pissed off about the badgers.

¹ I refer, of course, to eating chocolate and not injecting heroin. I may be a dumbfuck, but never ever that much of one.

Science chief urges baby cull

The UK government's chief scientist has advised ministers that babies should be killed to prevent the spread of TB among cattle.

Sir Derek Heath said: "Together with five well-respected experts, I have assessed the ISG report and other research relating to babies and TB in cattle.

"It is clear that babies are a continuing source of infection for cattle and could account for 40% of cattle breakdowns in some areas.

"Cattle controls remain essential but I consider that, in certain circumstances and under strict conditions, baby removal can reduce the overall incidence of TB in cattle."

Farmer Peter Gunblade from Berttie Bassett, Wiltshire, said farmers had exhausted all the advised preventative measures, including putting feed troughs higher and trying to keep babies out of buildings.

"All those things we have done to no avail because the one aspect no one has been prepared to look at is the link between cattle and babies," he said.

"The problem we are up against is everyone has the image of lovely, cuddly babies sucking their thumbs, but cows are also entitled to lives."

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JK Rowling outs Dumbledore as gay

We here at work suspect this may have been a joke the audience fell for. It doesn't bother me either way, though. His sexuality's a non-issue to me.

I certainly don't think she should necessarily have made it explicit in the books, as Peter Stuck-Record Tatchell suggests. It wasn't relevant. She didn't say Minerva McGonnagall was straight (or not) either. And yes, Sirius/Remus fans, I don't think she's ever said Lupin wasn't bisexual.

Either way, the Stonewall quote is beyond parody. "It shows that there's no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster."

(If I see one comment anywhere insinuating any kind of equation of homosexuality with paedophilia, I'm going to flame a bitch so hard their ancestors will be shouting Aguamente.)

Heavy metal star turns classical

(Another good man lost to the light side…)

Optimism has no bearing on cancer. In your face, quacks!

Though, as the article makes clear, depression can of course have an effect on long-term recovery.

However, don't let that spoil your interest in this story, which is cool too.

[video] Japan stages Robot Olympics

(Not "cyborg", fools.)

WOOOOOHOOOOOO!

(Rooting for the Brit? What on earth made you think I would be doing that?)

Rare first edition of The Importance of Being Earnest given to charity shop – in a handbag.

EA wants 'open gaming platform'

Creating life in the laboratory

The commentary today mainly concerns the various BBC shakeups, so skip that with impunity. Bring on the elephashion gurus and Astérix anniversaires!

ROFLMHHAO. +10 points for houses vandalised by mystical woogies or the electromagnetic spectrum!

("Literally" refracted light, did it?)

Elephants sense 'danger' clothes

Turn off e-mail and do some work

I couldn't do my job without email. Hardly anyone does work face-to-face in my little neck of the woods, and all things I need for my job (scripts, photos…) are sent as attachments. I like it this way, of course.

Six jailed over illegal dog fight

My personal theory is that the Nintendo Wii was named after someone's typo of "wiki".

What are the Knights Templar up to now?

As usual, things far less exciting than in the stories. I'm not good at reading between lines, but I don't think I saw any mention of orgies in there.

BBC cutbacks – the skinny.

Superficially, I really dislike the whole "Creative Future" thing. It feels about on par with "Ministry of Peace" for accuracy.

I'm with the idea of scrapping the introduction of yet more local services. That's another visceral reaction coming from the same place that causes me to rank global news stories higher up our news pages than national.

I think we are veering too far in the direction of giving people what they want instead of what they need (and might find they quite enjoy). Inform, educate, entertain – we need to be doing more of the first two, by stealth if necessary, because nobody else is guaranteed to, whereas anyone can show videos of grannies falling over or celebrities failing to cook/dance/be funny. Your auntie isn't always your best, coolest friend, but she still has a purpose.

Then again, if I was in charge, we would already be running my little brainchildren, advert-length snippets explaining things like the Highway Code and how to use an apostrophe correctly. These would easily replace one of the about five or six self-promotion slots you seem to get in between prime-time programmes, particularly on Three.

Honestly, those things are verging on being as annoying as adverts. Idents are fine, even if I suspect too much money is being spent on persuading hippos to swim in circles. But internal plugging is still advertising and should be done with a sane limit. Don't get me ranting about the way they squash credits to one side and talk over them in order to insert yet more plugs…

Oh, and because BBC.com users "unequivocally" believed advertising would reduce their trust in the BBC brand (The Guardian), naturally the BBC's global website is to carry ads.

Bear in mind that no method of determining where someone is browsing from is completely accurate. People in the UK, people who pay the licence fee, will see adverts – never mind when the same people go on holiday.

I'm prone to feeling like a geek-lite and generally a bit of a fraud in my junior web-assistanty job, so a former colleague, now elsewhere in the department, saying "I don't think you'll go – you're too valuable to the team" was nice.

Astérix – interview with Uderzo.

'World's smallest radio' unveiled

The WEP wireless security system is 'broken'. This is known. I've heard from a few security geeks who all say the same thing: use WPA, WPA-2 if possible, and when something better comes along, use that.

Chester's (cool, Roman-era) walls are falling to bits onoes!

If so, change your password quick smart.

My webhost gets an extra plug for having an idea about security.

Grngh. I'm so cold I'm having to drink hot chocolate, which is as bad an idea as injecting myself with sugar and aspartame, and I know it's not the fault of the malfunctioning air conditioning today. The vents are gently belching warmish air instead of the cold blast they're occasionally prone to. It's not them this time. It's just me.

Curse you, October! Curse you, meatcathedral! I really think I'm coming down with something nasty and long-term. Still sleeping under two duvets, still often too cold to get to sleep for ages. Tremor's getting worse, attendant word-finding difficulties. I'm officially worried.

Going to have to put gloves on. The constant low-level buzz in my fingers is threatening to impact on my typing. I like my fingerless leather gloves. They're nice, and fit me despite my distinctly unmanly dainty hands. It's a bloody joke having to wear them inside a centrally-heated building though. Ah well, I'll look badass.

Current sound: More announcements in the background. Sounds like big increases in bureaucracy to me.

edit: KITTEN (at least someone's warm, albeit smelling of petrol)

BBC announcements made. I don't yet have much clue what they mean, but one thing that stuck in my mind was that factual output is to be reduced by more (11%) than the average (10%). If the Strictly Come Dancings are winning at the expense of the Planet Earths, I'll cry.

Mark Thompson has a tendency to name-drop and say things like "I was in India last week…"

I haven't time to collate coverage, and nothing intelligent to add. If you're interested, check BBC News for the headlines — but, since I believe any corporation is unable to report impartially on itself, use other sources too. AP, Reuters and so on should have up-to-date coverage.

Current music: Chronix Aggressive channel – what I think is Korn's Freak on a Leash (edit: Ooh ooh now it's Powerman 5000 When Worlds Collide best evil overlord song ever! <3)

Dogs are being used as weapons and status symbols.

Stretching does not cut soreness and nobody ever claimed it did, so there's a waste of time. (It's done to get muscles geed up so they're less likely to get injured.)

Ow, ow, my sodding hip. Stupid hip. Stupid wushu. Stupid ouches. Stupid, stupid dyspraxia. Anyway! Moving on.

How to run your car on chip oil. (Who cooks that many chips?)

Oh. Everyone, apparently. Nevertheless, it's deemed unhelpful to blame inviduals for obesity.

If they plonked a huge tax on fatty foods, perhaps that would end the conflict of interest with cigarettes — namely that it would be disastrous for the government if everyone quit, because of all the tax revenue. (It'd be good for the NHS, but we wouldn't see the full benefit for a generation, and anything that slow is no good for polls, so…)

The answer? Alchemy! Mushroom alchemy! Yum.

Can the world stop genocide?

Burma's still acting like an ass, against all common sense, because now it's in the public eye all the invasion-happy regime change monkeys are going to be eyeing the polls. Erm, I mean, wanting to help those poor monks and political dissidents.

The military rulers say they're already moving towards democracy and their citizen-disappearing antics aren't hurting any of us, so why are we being mean to them? To which I say, duh, because Buddhist monks shouting in the streets made fantastic telly and now we've all stayed for the savage beatings.

Gene-block birth control 'on way'. I suppose we'll hear from the contraception=abortion=murder crew. Preventing fertilisation is the only thing that's likely to satisfy that lot, since even methods that prevent implantation seem to be disliked by some.

It's a good time to work in India. Unless you're a Dalit, I guess.

Thompson delivers BBC budget plan

What's the mood inside the BBC? Most people quoted in the internal newspaper are worried about the cutting of staff, sell-offs, "senior management talk[ing] in dubious accountancy speak", "the chaotic guilt thrash of the higher echelons" and "haemorrhaging of morale". People are angry with senior management. Most BBC staff wouldn't dream of misleading the public and don't like the implication that they would, but with further tourniquetting of budgets right after another huge round of money-saving, there is enormous pressure to cut corners and that's only going to get worse.

(Amalgamated views of my co-workers as I see them, not the official view of my employer.)

edit: Another view.

Lucas begins Star Wars TV series, because I know some of my readership cares.

DNA kits issued to firefighters to — I'm not making this up — stop people gobbing at them.

A "shocking" production of A Midsummer Night's Dream wasn't suitable for 12-13-year-olds, some fogeys or other say, after a donkey-man ran around with a phallic vegetable. I'll leave you to make your own 'front bottom' jokes.

Illegal skin creams sold in city — more on the cosmetic skin-lightening topic. Weirdweirdweird.

Time capsules put in York's walls

WTF is "conspiring to possess money for terrorist purposes"? Plotting to hold a fundraiser and bake sale for the International Revolutionary Jihad for the Liberation of the Islamic Republic of Great Britain? Saying "one day I'll get rich and then I'll blow up some public transport for God"?

UK looks to make Antarctica claim

Weighing the validity of US efforts for Middle East peace. Doesn't mention Christian Zionism. I mentioned Armageddon once, but I think I got away with i—

YES YES OH GRACE YES.

My views are my own, not those of any organisation that may or may not be employing me.