It’s been the second-hottest January on record and the worst of the darkness is already over, so I’d better post this before winter is just a memory.
Links Be Here
Idiot Toys is a disturbingly funny tech review site. The battery fixation, the Sony and Mac hatred, the English disdain for all things non-English, the male disdain for all thing holders non-male, and specifically this. [Via Charlie Stross.]
Science and Religion
“Claire’s picking us up after the end of Mass.”
“When’s the end of Mass?”
“Around 11.30.”
“Mass is going to end at 11.30? The entire universe will dissolve! Everything will explode in a ball of energy divided by the speed of light squared!”
The Great Contender
We had a Lovefilm DVD of On the Waterfront knocking around the flat for a week; I’d put it on our list because in all these years I’d never seen it. I wasn’t in the mood for an old movie, though, so almost sent it back unwatched, but figured I should try a few minutes to see if it was worth it.
Thanks, But No Thanks
Price: £55.82. You Save: £22,923.18 (99%)
Read More · 23 January 2007 · · Music
Here Be Links
For the iPod owner who has everything.
Toonhound, a great resource for lovers of British comics. Mine were Krazy, Cheeky Weekly (brilliant), Starlord, Tornado, and of course 2000 A.D. Then I turned thirteen.
FedEx refuses shipment of made-up stuff. As everyday outrages go, this is pretty outrageous.
The Farley Mowat as a pirate ship in Hobart. I can just about work out which dock it’s tied up to. [Squints at hints of Eastern Shore on the edges.] Follow-up story.
Possibly the best “how things work” television series ever, The Secret Life of Machines (as seen on Britain’s Channel 4 and Australia’s SBS), is available in its entirety on Google video—and for those with qualms about copyright, this distribution is sanctioned by creator Tim Hunkin himself. Hunkin’s personal site has a wealth of information about the series, including some updates on the state of the various technologies featured. There’s also his Rudiments of Wisdom Encyclopaedia, which I missed first time round (living in Australia, where his Observer cartoons had never appeared). Tim and Rex were a favourite in our household, so it’s great to be watching these again. Check Wikipedia for the episode listing so that you can watch all eighteen in the right order. [Via Ben Werdmuller.]
Captive Audience
Hmm, kicking off a new year with an entry about being ill really wasn’t the best plan. All my subsequent ideas for posts have revolved around illness: severity of, duration of, memories of, patheticness during. But when you’ve finally recovered from six days during which you didn’t even leave the flat once, and a further six spent getting back to normal, the last thing you want to do is relive it all in writing. It’s not even like you have a backlog of stuff written during the break, because all you’ve been capable of is reading. And listening to music. And watching DVDs.
Read More · 17 January 2007 · · Books
Fever Dream
Ordinarily I would kick off a new year’s new design with a post a bit more polished than this one, but I’ve spent the last four days in the grip of a viral poltergeist running around my body kicking over the furniture and cranking all the heaters up, and the delirious ravings of a fevered mind really belong in a national newspaper rather than a respectable venue like this. Even when I put in some effort these posts are never much more than placeholders before the serious timewasting begins, so I may as well just get the baby snail up and be done with it. (Baby snail from the blackberry crop, by the way.) Sorry I had to switch off all the December comments to make way for this. If you didn’t have the chance before, feel free to use this entry’s comments to berate me for my lack of taste in those end-of-year lists.
