News Roundup

Still considering whether to dip my toe into journalism. In the meantime, here's what I've seen going on in and around the webz.

Some little 11-year-old spoiled brat shot and killed his dad's pregnant girlfriend with a gun designed especially for children. What. The. Fuck? No prizes for guessing which country.

PM Gordie Broon has been caught with his troosers in a conflagration, when he claimed that he only found out this week about Fat Cat Freddie's humungous pension. M'lud, may I present in evidence The Daily Telegraph from October 14th, 2008? "Sir Fred Goodwin blah blah blah reportedly stands to benefit from a pension worth more than £500,000 on leaving the group." Perhaps Gordie was reading that article with his blind eye?

It looks like we shan't be saying "Farewell to the Torrents"¹ anytime soon. Liars for the RIAA had the temerity to question the credentials of an expert witness in the Pirate Bay trial, aaaarrrrr, Professor Roger Wallis, PhD, from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, when he testified that artists who market their own material over the intertubes (e.g. Esmeé Denters) were making the very concept of copyright a thing of the past. Read about it in Wired. I like the bit about the flowers.

Ryanair has decided to start charging customers a pound to spend a penny on their planes. Remind me next time I fly Ryanair to wear a kilt. I plan to make a sit-down protest ².

The spoilsport brigade are up in arms again, this time over the return of the circus elephant. This animal has already been driven to extinction once, during the 20th century, by fuddy-duddy do-gooders, and it has taken a decade of DNA cloning, genetic modification and that to bring it back to life. Returning it to its natural habitat in the centre ring of a big-top circus has been a painstakingly slow business, involving beating the fuckers with sticks and chairs, electric cattle prods and in extreme cases shooting them for their own good.
Basically, they're like wild elephants without the jungle.
WildJust a bit miffed
Yep. No difference.

Twitter ye not. I'm on Twitter. WTF that is. I dunno, techno-something or other. It's a bit like blogging, except there's a limi

¹ © Robert Burns.

² Read Misssy's blog from "So my brother".

Slow News Day In Scotchland

Embra tram passengers reacted with fury today after yet another delay hit the council's plans to mend over 200,000 miles of track in and around the city.

"I'm furious," moaned passenger Jock McTavish, 94, of Niddrie. "I've been sitting here in this tram, patiently waiting to get home for 53 years now and I'm pretty sure my tea will be burnt to a crisp. The driver won't tell us a thing, but that's probably because he's afraid to speak up in case he loses his job."

When approached by reporters, the driver, Mr Angus Bogle, deceased, refused to answer any questions on the grounds of having died of old age 15 years earlier.

It is believed the contractors, Mr T Gypsy & Co, are asking for an extra £100,000,000,000 to cover the cost of spreading low-grade tarmac on the roads and fly-tipping the waste into the nearest garden.

TIE were unavailable for comment. The next tram is due to leave Princes St in 10 minutes. Honest.

Hold The Front Page!

There is a brand new online news service, tailored to the British audience but also available to foreign Johnnies. It is informative. It is funny. It is wildly inaccurate. It is NewsARSE.

That is all.

St Jade of Bermondsey

Idea for a Viz-style cartoon strip to be published shortly after the highly publicised death of reality tv sleb Jade Goody Tweed. Or possibly before. Meh.

On arriving in Purgatory, Jade is told by St Peter that they can't decide whether she should be sent to Heaven or Hell. On the one hand, she's a well-known racialist, having insulted Shilpa Shetty on Sleb Big Brother, but on the other, her televised battle for survival has raised wareness [sic] of the need for young women to get themselves screened for cervical cancer.

Eventually St Peter makes up his mind and clips a pair of wings onto Jade's back, telling her that even though she's not from East Angular, he's decided to make her an angel and allow her to sit up with the baby Jesus and that. But he warns her to watch her language or she'll be evicted from Heaven.

Up she flies through the Pearly Gates and lands between St Diana and Mother Theresa. Baby Jesus is there with a halo and beard. Yeah. After sitting playing harps, chatting and such, they feel a bit peckish, so they pick up a menu and phone the Heavenly takeaway. St Diana orders the roast unicorn, Mother Theresa only wants chick pea soup (which arrives with real baby chicks swimming in it) and Jade settles on the Passenger Pigeon and chips.

Just then, Jade spots Mahatma Ghandi fasting in the corner and asks, "Who ordered the Indian?"

At this point, her wings abruptly fall off and she plummets through the clouds and down into Hell. Landing with a splash, she finds herself waist deep in lava, flanked by Saddam Hussein and Margaret Thatcher ¹, whilst demons prod her with burning pitchforks. Glumly, she starts picking at a plate of food before her.

Reader's voice: What are you eating now, Jade?

Jade: Rats' cocks.

¹ Still alive at time of writing, but I can wish, can't I?

Computer Terms Illustrated #22

It seems that even the simplest terms sometimes need a thorough explanation, sigh.

Hover your pointy thing over any image for more info.

Right-Click

Cut

Paste

Hour glass(sp?)

Variable

Constant

Save

Run

Play

Cyberspace

Account(sp?)

There Is So Much To Tell You

Was it just me or did my blog disappear for a bit when my stat counter hit 40,000? Hey, my stat counter just hit 40,000! Yay!

Apparently what's-his-name has been compared to a dead monkey and the Merkan people are up in arms about it. Hello? Anyone remember Dubya "monkeyface" Bush? Monkeyface. That still kills me. Ask Tired Dad if you don't get it.

Do you think anyone will notice if Darling Alistair updates his blog? Hmmm, better not diss the boss. I, for one, welcome our new political paymasters.

Something in the Grauniad online about the King Kong Defence. I would have thought the only defence KK would need was a giant fly swatter.
See Golden Shpleem for more Lego scenarios.

Slapheads are wondering why Geordies (people from Newcastle) don't wear coats in cold weather. Answer: They don't want to look soft compared to Aberdonians, who don't even bother with a t-shirt until the mercury has frozen in the thermometer.

So the French ran into one of our submarines with one of theirs. The official excuse is that "they can't see each other in the water", but I prefer to think that our cloaking technology works and their anti-cloaking technology doesn't.

Kids are so ignorant these days, it's almost as if they're being fed misinformation deliberately. Case in point:
GS#2: "Grandad, who said 'religion is the opium of the people'?"
Me: "Groucho Marx."
Honestly, I thought everyone knew that. All that knowledge right there at their fingertips, sigh.

Favourite Niece phoned earlier to say that her Sunday afternoon at work had been interrupted by her boss turning up and telling everyone in the office all about his recent trip to Tie Land, whoop de fucking doo.
Me: Is that like Tie Rack or World of Ties? I mean, I like ties but an entire store given over to them does seem a bit excessive.
FN: No, Tie Land the country.
Me: You're shitting me, right? A whole country given over to tie production?
FN: Bang cock.
Me: Tits and - oh, you mean Thailand!
FN: Yes, silly.
Me: So did he bring back any ties?
FN: Just the one he married.

I ♣ seals.
PETA is running a campaign to save the sea kittens. That's fish, to you and me. Mmmm, tasty kittens. Well, not for me, obviously, I prefer baby sheep with mint sauce.

Toot toot!

I'm Not A Racist But...

I just can't stand the French.

Now I'm not sure whether it's because they're an arrogant bunch of cheese-eating, wine-guzzling, garlic-munching surrender-monkeys...



...or because they nuked Muroroa Atoll in breach of local and international laws...



Perhaps it's because they sank the Rainbow Warrior, murdered a Greenpeace crew member and thought they could get away with it.



No, mainly I think it's because they like to eat snails, frogs and horses.



Nothing to do with today's 6 Nations rugby result, no sirree!

One Man's Poison

Picture the scene: a penthouse flat in the classier part of the city. Fashionable wall hangings adorn the, er, walls. Paisley-patterned cushions and pastel-coloured bean bags are strewn across the floor with gay abandon. A gaggle of twenty-somethings are lolling around, chattering away and swigging expensive lager and fine wine like they're going out of fashion.

One of the sweet young things yawns, stretches and, like a practitioner of legerdemain, produces a large glass cylinder from thin air. Taking a large bottle of spring water, she slowly and carefully fills the device.

"Contributions!" calls our host. Various members of the assembled company start rifling through their pockets and handbags before presenting an assortment of red, green, yellow and black lumps of certain sweet-smelling substances for his inspection. Carefully selecting a little bit of this¹, a little bit of that², he politely thanks his guests and, in an arcane ceremony, briefly passes the materials over a cigarette-lighter before crumbling the soft goodness into the bowl attached to the side of the cylinder. The remaining substances are rewrapped in cling film and returned to their respective glass jars, tins and makeup cases before those too disappear whence they came.

Meanwhile, one young lady is sitting open-mouthed, staring in mounting horror at the scene of untold debauchery unfolding before her. Just as the bong is about to be lit, she leaps to her feet and exclaims: "I'm not staying in this OPIUM DEN for another minute!" She hurriedly picks up her coat and storms out, slamming the door behind her, never to be seen again.

A deathly silence descends on the room as the bong is passed from one debauchee to the next. Finally the host exhales with the observation: "Silly cow, the opium den's next door."

Well, that's how I remember heard it.

¹ Green Moroccan
² Afghani black

Winter Wood

So we finally got some snow this week and I was quick enough to get out there with the, er, camera phone, sorry, and get these snaps just a few minutes' walk from Embra's city centre. Enjoy.

Technoranti

Updated: Welcome, BOSSY's readers!

It's this blog's second birthday, yay!!!

My loyal readers reader has suggested that in accordance with the rules for two-year-olds, I should throw a tantrum, so here goes...

I took a look at this Technorati thing after hearing that Jenny the Bloggess is in the top 2,500 and it says this blog is right up there in the top five.Million. Sigh.

But apparently by "claiming my blog" I can get access to lots of cool¹ Technorati gadgets that'll help me improve my rating. No problem...

<clicky> Register with Technorati.

<clicky> Confirm you're the owner.

<clicky> Claim that blog!

Oh.

It seems that my blog has been "flagged", WTF that means...

<clicky> blah blah Sploggers? blah blah...DOs and DON'Ts blah blah

• Do not republish content from other sites without adding your original commentary or reaction.

Hells, I live to add my own commentary or reaction!


• Do not tag exessively [sic] ...over-use of tags in your posts...blah blah blah

btw, have you noticed my new tag cloud? Over on the right and down a bit...yep...stop. There. I had to tweak it a bit to show just the tags that occur seven times or more in my blog, otherwise the tag cloud would be bigger than the page. That's not excessive...is it?


• Do not publish posts with nonsense text.

*cough*


• Do not be overly repetitive.

Which is why I've given up my Friday Chart. That and boredom.


• Do not use links that take the reader to completely different content than what is expected.

Would I do that? Oh, you mean the Stab-O-Mizer video tutorial? Sorry 'bout that.


• Do not promote ... objectionable content.

What, and lose most of my blogroll and half one of my readers? Fook off.

But just to add insult to injury, when I went to claim my other blog² it turns out that that one has a higher rating than this one.

Just a few million higher, admittedly, but still. That stings. Especially since I haven't posted anything there in months.

I'd post something over there right now, but now I'd be worried that I might pull down its blog ranking, sigh.

No, wait. Is 4,978,471 better bigger than 1? Hey, I'm a GREAT blogger! Yay me! Maybe I will do that nude photoshoot after all!


Brrr!

¹ But are they as cool as my patented Stab-O-Mizer??? Hells no!

² You do know I have another blog, right? Well, I say mine. Actually, it has lots of authors. Most of them can even do joined-up writing. I just forget it's there administer it. Wanna join in?

For Your Brains Only

You may have heard that this year sees the launch of a new Jane Austen book, co-written with Seth Grahame-Smith, titled Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

I've never heard of anything so ridiculous in my entire life. But I'm willing to give it a try. Um...

The Lion, The Witch and The Zombies
A Tale of Two Zombies
Kidnapped (by Zombies)
Lady Chatterley's Zombie
The Lost World of Zombies
The Prince and the Zombie
The First Zombies In The Moon
Twenty Thousand Zombies Under The Sea
The Return of the King of the Zombies
To Kill A Zombie (Remove the Head or Destroy the Brain)
Of Mice And Zombies
Tarzan of the Zombies
Snow White and the Seven Zombies
Gone With the Zombies
The Zombies of Wrath
101 Zombies
Ice Station Zombie
Zombies Are Forever
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Zombie


Join us...

Computer Terms Illustrated #21

Screenshot

Upload

Mobile

Hash Value

Clone

Linux (sp?)

Denial of Service

Del.icio.us

A Dell (sp?)

QuickTime

Apparently...

Eating the evidence isn't always the best way to avoid prosecution for shoplifting. Especially if your haul includes a mobile phone.

Motormouth Jeremy Clarkson has accused PM Gordon Brown of being a one-eyed Scottish idiot. As an idiot, I feel insulted.

If you accidentally send an email to everyone in your 177,000-strong organisation, it takes quite a while to clear 26,000 out-of-office replies.

A blogoversary is supposed to be a special occasion. Any suggestions for how I should mark my second one next week?

Random News

Salt.

We're all out of it, apparently. I blame the burglars. They must have sneaked in through an open window when we were off to that burglary summit with Jacqui Smith yesterday. Now what the feck are we supposed to put on our fish and chips?

There is no shoe.

President-baiting seems to be the new fashion, with shoes flying thick and fast when they're around. Unless you happen to be reading Chinese newspapers, which oddly failed to mention when their own premier was shooed off (me so funny) mid-speech at Cambridge University.

If you can't blind them with science...

Scienticians have developed a technique to make Gummi Bears out of cancer cells. And make them glow in the dark. Cool. Chocolate-flavoured semen can only be days away.

A question of sport.

If you're watching your favourite game, would you rather it was interrupted by porn or adverts? Personally, I couldn't care less, unless it's something really important, like ITV's coverage of the O.J. Verdict.

Beavers returning to Scotchland.

They're cute, they're furry, they're wet and they smell of fish. What's not to love? Also, some wild animals that were hunted to extinction four hundred years ago have been reintroduced to Scotch habitats. I can't wait to get my binoculars out and go for a bit of beaver spotting at the shower block of Embra University's female halls of residence.

Restraining order permitting.

Toot toot!

I'm Just Being Honest

So. Yet another award. (Yes, GiGGLe, I know I still haven't posted up yours. Be patient, and feed that baby FFS!) This one's from Taffeta Welsh Girl and it comes with strings attached. I have to tell you ten honest things about myself and then pass it on to some other bloggers who will be totally delighted to follow suit. *cough*

1. I worked in a stationery shop (John Menzies) as a "summer" job just after leaving school, to make some money to get the hell out of Scotchland for a sunny summer holiday for a change. If a customer asked whether we had any product x, I'd never bother to check, I'd just tell them to try our competitor round the corner. They must have loved me at Waterstones.Summer in Embra


2. I actually quite like Simon Cowell. Louis Walsh? Not so much.


3. One time at school I heard this really funny joke ¹, so I told it to one of my school friends. He said it was a great joke, but he didn't personally find it all that funny since his dad had died of cancer. He should have explained that to me before I told him the joke.


4. I spent many a happy schoolday afternoon perfecting my artistic skills by repeatedly drawing Snoopy atop his kennel, when I should have been studying Physics. Physics is the only subject where I scored an 'A'. Go figure.
   Yep. Still crap.


5. I am so tech-savvy. Mrs F bought me a new mobile phone as a late Xmas present just over a year ago and I like to use it as an FM radio. I found the volume control last Saturday. I wonder if it can get Radio 1?


6. Despite living in the UK, I visited New York years before ever setting eyes on London. Both times I was just passing through - NYC on my way to Raleigh, NC in 1976 for that long, hot summer holiday and London on my way to Seacon '79 in Brighton. My overriding memory of both cities? Dirty.


7. I didn't cry at M's funeral (five years ago this week). At first I thought perhaps it was because I was being the strong one for Mrs F, but maybe my brain just doesn't work that way.


8. You know how there are people who think they're the life and soul of the party, and there are those who really are? I prefer the second type.


9. Although bad grammar makes me [sic], I still like to misspell some words deliberately. Probly something to do with being a Scotchman from Embra.


10. I've never literally pissed myself laughing, or rolled on the floor laughing, but this really did make me laugh out loud.
    

Hmmm. Whose day can I ruin?
Mr H, I've Been Mugged, Lesley? Over to you.

¹ An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotchman were fighting in the First World War. Sick of trench life, they were desperate to return home. All three were due for a medical check-up and were waiting outside the medical officer's quarters.
The Englishman entered. A few minutes later he came out and shouted, "Yes!, I'm going home, I've got BB".
The Scotchman thought for a while and then said, "Don't tell me, Bad Back".
The Englishman nodded.
Next, the Scotchman entered and returned after a few seconds, screaming, "FF, FF, I've got FF!".
The Englishman smiled at him and said, "That must be Flat Feet. You're going home as well ".
Then came the Irishman's turn. He reappeared a few minutes later shouting, "Yes, Yes, Yes, I've got TC !, I'm going home".
The Scotchman and the Englishman both gave him a puzzled look.
"What's TC?", asked the Scotchman.
The Irishman replied, "Terminal Cancer, isn't it great?".