WTF! WTF! WTFFF!

Thai school offers transsexual toilet to unintentionally-humorous self-described MtF pupils

10%–20% transgenderism among boys is quite amazing.

No mention of FtMs, of course, as freaking usual.

No time to think? Add moar pick-your-own fruit and Gorillaz.

The robot that loves to be hugged (ignore the "twoo wuv" stupidity, they're cool beasts.)

I'm gonna get Charly one of these.

Caecilians in India! Super-smart professor went to look for them in the non-monsoon season and didn't find any. Then the rain started, and guess what?

Man speaks of priest child abuse

Hacker loses extradition appeal

A row led to changes in the opening titles of Dad's Army. Despite my practically indesctructible sense of what's funny, and hatred of censorship, I think they made the right call. This programme wasn't about troops and atrocities. It was a comedy about old men bumbling. Anyway, the arrows are freaking iconic.

Why can't people with dyslexia do multiple choice?

Zimbabwe introduces new currency. Because that will really work.

It's a ripoff, anyway. It's not a cool new currency; they're just crossing zeroes (ten of them!!) off the old one. I was hoping for something in glittery space-plastic and called the Brickybach Pound or Niffsquishle Dollar.

Seriously, printing and circulating new paper money seems supremely pointless with the rate at which it's devaluing. It's keeping a few people at the mint in work, that's all.

Lords rule that bowing to Saudi bullying over a fraud probe was a good idea.

Six humans and a dog were rescued from the water after their boat capsized off the Dorset coast. Slight misprint in the headline there.

Rise in dog cruelty convictions. <3 the Animal Welfare Act.

I want the poor things. I want all of them. I will train them to be my Runt's Revenge Army and put little green blinky HUD visors on them and give them lasers, and then ear-mutilators, tail-mutilators and animal-torturers of all stripes may tremble, they may tremble.

There was a programme about police dogs on tv. I watched it last night. It's not nice to have to send your Alsatian into situations against armed perps. On the other hand, the sniffer spaniels were a complete delight. They have such fun and when they find something they get their tennis ball and it's all so exciting and they're so waggly. It was dreadful, really. I had to complain loudly.

Steven Moffat promises new Doctor Who monsters

Thank goodness. If there had been one more "we bring the Daleks back AGAIN! But this time they're, um, BIGGER!" storyline... Russell T's run, what with all the playing on the nostalgia and a lack of innovation, especially in the third season (why not more creatures like that tree lady at the beginning of the Ninth Doctor's time?), was, sorry for my choice of word, camp.

Bees join hunt for serial killers. Geographic profiling?! Wow, science!

You know what this really means, of course. Bees were Jack the Ripper!!

I like writing the alt text for our photo galleries. Most people who visit won't even see it.

Although I can't imagine why someone blind would visit an In Pictures section, it pleases me to know that if they come to ours, they'll get their money's worth—at least from all the galleries I build.

Apart from tweaking the levels on some of the photos, this is easily the part of the job that takes the most time.

(At times like this my lack of knowledge of architecture shows rather severely.)

Youngsters gathering at dog camp

Rare seahorses born at aquarium. I want some.

Trust seeks shark spotters (vid)

'Snacking' warning to dog owners

Pet ban on 'neglectful' dog owner

Dog saved from conservatory roof. Best.

Roman dog skeleton is 'donated'

If I'm honest, all the non-animal-related news has been boring as heck. Oh, there was something in the Metro this morning about sewage on your cereal (second story is old, added for background info), which was childishly amusing. I don't see the fuss, providing the obvious increased infection risk* is dealt with with careful pre-treatment, which seems to be the case.

* Humans can catch what other humans have more easily than they can catch what other animals have, although note that a lot of really nice epidemic diseases came from livestock originally.

I like these a lot.

They're apparently on display in Liverpool at the dot-art Gallery.

I Saw-Whet You Did There 800×550px, ~100KB

Because, uh, I wanted to, and I decided my last attempt at one of these sucked. A bit over three and a half hours, tablet, several photorefs of course.

My hand hurts now, so the branch and tail have has suffered from the infamous Smudge Tool. (One of the reasons, along with Ctrl+Z and a hand as steady as a blancmange with PTSD, that I won't use traditional media.) And yes, it could be better, but there comes a point where if I stare and pat at it any more I'm scared I'll ruin it worser.

Northern Saw-Whet Owl, Aegolius acadicus.

Edit: It was pointed out to me that the tail looked a bit rubbish, so I updated it so it isn't as blurry.

A NZ judge makes a lass a ward of court so she can change her name from Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

Other names from the article, which were allowed: Violence; Number 16 Bus Shelter; Midnight Chardonnay; Benson and Hedges (twins)

Names that were not allowed: Yeah Detroit; Stallion; Twisty Poi; Keenan Got Lucy; Sex Fruit; Fat Boy; Cinderella Beauty Blossom; Fish and Chips (twins)

Apparently when my brother was born, I wanted him to be called Gentledot Bluebell. However, I was four¹. What's these people's excuse?

(I'm betting Number 16 Bus Shelter is one of these "where it was conceived" names. I googled Talula etc, wondering if it was a cruise ship. It doesn't seem so.)

edit: This is making the rounds at work. (Newspaper article, contains bad language.)

¹ Four, and still managed to come up with something classier than Midnight Chardonnay.

Protester attempts to glue himself to Gordon Brown.

How awful! Glued to Brown! Can you imagine anything more ghastly?

Terror police detain disabled boy

Abandoned dog in 'skeletal state' (distressing picture)

Father killed trying to save family member

Jail threat for hare coursing duo

Lesbos locals lose lesbian appeal

'Allah meat' astounds Nigerians

When the writings were discovered there were some Islamic scholars who come and eat here and they all commented that it was a sign to show that Islam is the only true religion for mankind O RLY?

MySpace signs up to OpenID scheme

Here come the drums (vid)

Tortoise theft 'heartbreak' (aud) Poor shieldytoads.

Spot the magic trick!

World's first sand hotel (article/vid)

Also, this. (vid) Kookaburra and baby effalunt!

Headline of the day!

Bed tester's bottom 'worth £1m'

Which of your body parts would you insure for the highest sum? Nona Dolorosa News Trawls wants to know your family-friendly answers!

Stranded ducks are escorted home

BBC One unveils new Merlin drama. Looks crap. I'm going to watch it.

School warning to pupils who turn up 'orange' from fake tan.

Lots of stuff about MS in the news today. Here's a quiz.

A guide to faking American accents...

...and failing to do so. Funfunfun.

For the record: native northern English, lived here all my life, can't tell Liverpool from Brummie from Newcastle from Mancunian, never mind South African from Aussie or Swedish from Lapp or Canadian from American or even Russian from Spanish, for that matter. (Also seem to have a positive prejudice towards northern central/eastern European accents and English received pronunciation. No, I've no idea why in the former case.)

Lighthouse 'bagging' (visiting) proves popular. This is useful for a little project I've got in the works.

An undisclosed number of German Shepherds [is] being trained to jump out of airplanes at 25,000 feet. How.... useful.

Stabbed policeman and dog return

The knifeman is charged with two counts of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm (emphasis mine). Suck on that, evildoer! No stabbing doggies!

Big lobster proves popular catch (article/vid)

I don't remember if I linked this back in June... adorable. (vid)

Lab animal numbers continue upward trend. >:(

Tall ships arrive for sail parade (vid)

I've been covering this for a couple of days last week and yesterday on the Liverpool '08 site. Lots and lots of tall ship films.

Time-lapse film of Earth's moon (vid) which is awesome because it's from 31 MILLION miles away, dude.

Does anyone here like PARROTS? (vid)

I've just been presented with a card and a doughnut party by my coworkers. D'aww, you guys, you'll make me blush.

I saw a puppydog on the way to work and it came over and I got to pat its head and say hello.

That important declaration out of the way, here's the news:

Xamm, an abducted trainee police officer, is recovered safely.

Here's the story when she was abducted.

BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. </red-masthead> But I'm not joking.

Dog rescues woman from kangaroo

Mosque hopes for guide dog rule

A Nottinghamshire man has won a legal battle to get his dog back after the Magistrates' Court ruled that Zeke was not a pit bull terrier.

"Pit bull" is a bit of a catch-all term, which makes this muddier. American Pit Bull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terriers and Staffordshire Bull Terriers are the main breeds generally classed as pit bulls in the context of banning specific breeds and cross-breeds. In the media "pit bull" can mean bulldogs, boxers, virtually anything.

Rental accommodation typically disallows pets, causing dogs to be abandoned.

Over the weekend I wrote a story that may possibly have dogs in it. (There are severe spoilers in the comments.)

Quick picture, with backstory; probably not as funny if you weren't there. (This character has an eggsaggerated hatred of chickens.)

I haven't had any more gift piccies since the marker sketch I've already showed some of you. :(

Weft, who is the requested subject of the pictures, feels unloved and (therefore) extremely relieved. He's been clinging to Suitov all week, begging him to protect him from the "pervert furries". He now believes this has worked.

Deadline is midnight on Saturday night is actually midnight NEXT Saturday night. I totally misremembered and thought it was one week, not two. So there's still lots of time! Yay! Traumatised monk!

edit2, 22/07: I've had three new pics since. They're fantastic and thoroughly amusing.

(Written for work's newsletter.)

Frequently Barked Questions

18 July 2008

Thus far I've no sightings of hounds to report,
nor ominous howls in the night.
No shoes have gone missing, no threatening notes,
no relatives perished from fright.
I'll not move to Dartmoor; I'm not keen on bogs.
A city pooch still, after all—
and I keep my address, for my housemates have baulked
at restyling it "Baskerville Hall".

Eeeeeee, my album arrived! The Hound of the Baskervilles by Clive Nolan and Oliver Wakeman. I'm listening to it for the first time and enjoying it, even though I don't normally like songs with talking over them.

Coincidentally, I was watching a Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes that I'd recorded off the telly. This had me shouting at the television. People were talking in the Diogenes Club! It wasn't too impressive in other ways, and anyway the PVR cut off the last few minutes, as is its wont. Huh.

Really liking this progressive rock. Also, I want a dog. I could pretend that attempting to inherit a mysterious curse just so I could have a doggie had nothing to do with recent naming events, but this would be stretching the truth to whining point.

Slen's just arrived and told me Clive Nolan did the keyboard solo on DragonForce's Disciples of Babylon. Very nice!

edit for coolness: Slen's just pointed this out. Guitars: Arjen Lucassen.

Could've sworn I posted this last night at about 01:30. Distinctly remember selecting categories and typing the summary. *blinks* Oh well, I took an opportunity to give it a sneaky update this morning.

For guess whoooo! ~100KB jpg, tablet, 4 hours.

Still don't know if I will be killed for this.

Cut for large-ish graphics. Snog, I am instructed to beg you not to let Sebastian see these.

read more...

I've been getting spam with fake headlines as the subject line.

"Tom Cruise dead in plane crash", "Facebook hacked into, millions of accounts stolen", "Clinton found hanged in hotel room".

Very clever! But when I check them and find out that yes, of course they're pen0r and ph4rma-spam, which was obvious especially because they come from random people's names (what's wrong with spoofing some news agency instead of a fake person?), they get spam-filtered and trashed same as all the other crap I get sent. So apart from wasting a fraction of a second more of my time and teasing my cruelty lobe a little, well done, you achieved nothing.

Looking through our audio archive at work I found this RealAudio discussion of conversion and proselytism, mainly touching on Christianity and Islam. Nice sideline asking whether anyone has the monopoly on absolute truth.

The American continbutor is unbelievable... as is the Muslim they interview halfway through (on tape, not the contributor on the panel). Listen to them both squirm when they're asked the 'difficult' questions.

And the dreadful thing is that I know the American lady is nowhere near the worst America's mouth-frothing Bible-regurgitating sector has to offer. Nowhere near. *shudder*

It's quite a good programme, Beyond Belief. Huge archive of great material. Pyramids, celibacy, superstition, Celtic Christianity, witchcraft and more.