Special Introductory Offer

If you live in Beckton, Brighton, Kingston-upon-Thames, West Thurrock, Islington (London), Charing Cross (London), Oxford Street (London), Watford, Bournemouth, Bristol, Cambridge, Swansea, Swindon, Birmingham, Cheshire, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Newcastle or Oxford, pop into Borders and pick up a copy of the global issues magazine Bulb and I have it on good authority that at least three people you don't know will love you forever.

Oh, and I guess you may be keeping some people's hard work from having been for nothing, too. Which is always nice.

You Wear A Disguise To Look Like Chicken Guys

I try not to post links because then I would feel like I was doing some almost worthwhile service, but I feel compelled to breach this policy for Subservient Chicken because, although it didn't keep me amused for very long (mainly because unusual things tended to provoke only tenuously related acts rather than just doing nothing, though when it gets it spot on it does so wonderfully), it takes me back to my very early school days and the wonder that was "Podd Can".

At this point, I must apologise to anyone who thought this post might linger for any length of time on chicken-related subjects based on the title, or offer anything vaguely preceptive. It won't. This post is just an excuse for me to bathe in memories of Podd Can (let's face it, I can't talk to people about it), which is much more important. The title only slipped through because Chicken Boo was also brilliant.

Now, if you've followed the link and played around for a little while, you now understand the concept of the Subservient Chicken. Now, replace the living room with a loud green background and the man in the chicken suit with a big red blob (called Podd) with a stupid face that doesn't have the relevant appendages for a chicken suit, and fiddle with the action until it becomes Educational. You now understand the concept of Podd Can.

These are just some of the awesome things about Podd Can:

1. Podd Can is far more interesting than maths lessons.
2. Podd Can prefixed your commands with "Podd Can" even when Podd quite obviously Couldn't.
3. Podd Can jump.
4. Podd Can allowed you to make yourself look clever when you came up with something Podd Can't.
5. Podd Can was easier and more fun than The Crystal Rainforest.
6. Podd Can dance.
7. Podd Can is far more interesting that R.E. lessons.
9. Podd Can count.
10. The internet seems to know surprisingly little about Podd Can when you're convinced it's spelled with only one D.
11. Attempting to convince the internet that it must know something about Podd Can led me to discover that searhing Google for "Pob" will find results including "place of birth" and "post office box".
12. I thought that Podd Can was called Pob Can until just now.
13. Podd Can walk.
14. Podd Can run.
15. Podd Can is far more interesting than English lessons.
16. Podd Can die in a variety of hilarious ways and always comes back.
17. Podd Can was easier and more fun that Around The World In Eighty Days.
18. Podd Can almost certainly do loads of really filthy things that we innocent children never thought to try but amused the developer no end.
19. Podd Can pop.
20. Podd Can was awesome.

How To Make Party Ring Cakes

1. Buy some Party Rings.
2. Remove Party Rings from tray and arrange artfully on side.
3. Leave for a few days.
4. Enjoy.

Day Of The Crow

A jackal is not a kind of raven-like bird. Jackals are, in fact, really rather thoroughly unbirdlike.

A jackal is any of several doglike mammals of the genus Canis of Africa and southern Asia that are mainly foragers feeding on plants, small animals, and occasionally carrion.

This post is not for your benefit. You see, if I can go for however bloody long it's been utterly convinced that a jackal is, in fact, black, feathered and squawky, there's no way to be sure that I won't wake up in the morning having totally forgotten that I was as wrong as I was certain. With a little luck, if that happens, I'll see this at some point.

The real beauty of the internet is its potential for correcting your startling misconceptions without you having to make a fool of yourself in polite company first.

All The Time In The World

I got bored a little while ago.

Five Googlewhacks later, it occurred to me that I could have used the time I wasted on them to revise for my upcoming exams.

This leaves me in a state of uncertainty: on the one hand, I suspect Googlwhacking may be tremendous fun because it seems so hard but is so easy, but on the otherhand I feel it may simply be because Googlewhacking fundamentally isn't whatever important task you really should be doing.

In The Interests Of Completeness

f a r c i c a l / a n o n y m i t i e s
i d i o l e c t a l / p e r e m p t o r y
h o o p l a / t a u t o l o g i s t
g a s t r i c / c r u m h o r n s
f o r s o o t h / o c t a n t s

Happy New Year

That really isn't all. But it's certainly all you're getting.

The Family That Plays Together...

Trivial Pursuit used to feature categories like science, art and literature, and history. It used to be a fine, well-respected boardgame, with fancy little pictures on the squares with frequently unclear meanings.

The DVD edition of Trivial Pursuit features as its categories film, TV, music, sports and games, trends and gossip. It was sold to us without counters, without pieces of pie (or scoring wedges, or whatever the hell you know them as), and without a die. And apparently, the people who put together the DVD did not notice that they had put the flag of the USA in it backwards.

I really didn't know how to dress this post up to make it more ridiculous or more entertaining, so I didn't try. I really don't know what's happened to Trivial Pursuit. They don't even have brown as the colour of one of the categories anymore. Brown is no longer cool enough for Trivial Pursuit. Damn it, you do not have to make Trivial Pursuit cool. Trivial Pursuit will never, never be cool. We love it just the same.

Er, not that I take it too seriously.

Merry Christmas, Everybody

That's really all.

I Sacrifice Goats To Mr Monopoly

A quick count after our game of Scrabble found eleven words classified as "naughty" (such as burn, cruel and whore) and eleven words classified as nice (such as gift, gran and, er, nice).

I declare this a victory for natural balance. Any more boardgame incidents of such natural grace and I may have to start believing in Karma.

The World Is Lovely

It's all change here. Inspired by Just Letters, the name has changed. This is in celebration of two things: firstly, my great triumph in finally spelling out "The World Is Lovely" in spite of the people who kept stealing my letters (see left), and secondly, the loveliness of the world.

We Have Scented Candles

They are scented like wax.

The Coffee Irregularity

When it's five to one and you need to be somewhere at half-past, a cup of coffee can easily take a comortable half an hour to drink.

When it's quarter to five and you're waiting to meet someone at five, a cup of coffee can be sunk in about seven minutes.

Coffee, I can only assume, does this on purpose. The question is: how?

A Caring Umbrella Of Tolerance

Thinking about it, I do, in actual fact, like a smart arse. I can say, quite safely, that there is at least one smart arse who I like on an individual basis and also that, generally speaking, I quite like it when people behave in a smart-arsed fashion. So remember, next time you say that nobody likes a smart arse, that you are, in fact, wrong.

But don't tell the person you're talking to, because you'll just look stupid.

NaNoWriMo: It's Only Words

Fifty thousand, two hundred and sixty of them, to be precise. I am a winner. This means I have won.

And I am knackered.

NaNoWriMo: Beating The Pain Barrier

I was getting worried. Not very worried, you understand, just a little. I seemed to be slowing down, my time was filling up, I was feeling crap, I just didn't have anything to suggest I could reach fifty thousand words other than my raw determination.

Today, I squeezed over three and a half thousand words out of that determination.

That leaves me with only 7616 words to go. That's only about 1270 per day. Even discounting Saturday, when I'll be at Bradley all day, that's only 1523 per day. That's over one full day ahead of schedule. And there's really no reason I can't do this again tomorrow (though I probably won't, that said). It's looking good. Better than good. My determination has something to feed off now.

Hear me roar.

The Best Part Is Always The Certificate

I'll be honest, eager though I was to take part in the Young Leaders' training course (it's a Scouting thing, for those of you out of that particular loop), and as much faith as I had in the people who were running it (even if Trev does support Sunderland), I didn't really expect to enjoy it all that much. I was really in it for, well, the training. But thanks to the structure and content, and to the afforementioned people running it, and most certainly to the rest of the damn silly lot on the course, I had a thoroughly good time. I won't go into it because for me to do so would probably bore various items of clothing off you and that could be embarrassing, particularly if you're reading this at a public terminal somewhere, but I feel that if I will insist on having a pretty much totally self-based corner of the Internet to blabber into it the least I can do is to acknowledge the aceness of people and things that make my world a more enjoyable, and a much more envelopey place.

NaNoWriMo: Whoa-oh, Living On A Prayer

This time I really am halfway.

Woo!

NaNoWriMo: Whoa-oh, We're Halfway There

Today, I passed the halfway mark of fifteen thousand words.

Now, I appreciate that, mathematically speaking, fifteen thousand is not half of fifty thousand. That much cannot be easily denied. But I have found that there is great comfort to be taken in referring to fifteen thousand as halfway, and there is nothing that can be done to prevent me from continuing to do so.

So there.

NaNoWriMo: My Own Worst Enemy

Today's writing was rather hindered by a migraine that put me out of action for most of the afternoon. Still, after throwing up several times and spending a silly amount of time in bed, I was back on my feet and back on my keyboard and have kept my average daily wordcount over two thousand, well on track to finish. Mark one, migraines nil.

Well, the NaNoWriMo front page tells me that, provided everyone has bothered to update their wordcount and, more to the point, telling the truth, twenty-four million, eight-hundred and thirty-eight thousand, three-hundred and forty-two words have so far been written as part of National Novel Writing Month, solely for their own sake.

That's totally bloody crazy.