Oh, great. What an utter waste of precious resources.

Wow. Virtual schizophrenia in Second Life.

Tax dollars at work

You absolute fucker.

(via Cardhouse)

Ace: mentally unstable toy therapy.

Something I feel compelled to note: I contributed to Defective Yeti's Tricks of the Trade piece, and was actually included. As the "auto mechanic", no less. Fame! No doubt inspired by my devastatingly illuminating contribution, he's now turned it into a website and (predictably) a potential book. More power to him, say I. Please do swing by and contribute; I'd add some more but I think it would probably dangerous to start making comments about jobs I still hold in some form.

Well, y'see, it really does look like shit. I am aware of the slavish devotion to style that informs this, but slavish adulation something that looks like a really cheap, crappy, Taiwanese monitor isn't that cool.

The cognitive dissonance is really quite fascinating, though.

It would appear that in America, Nintendos grow on trees.

Metacritic for the masses

New game: blog review revue! Simply install the Google Toolbar, head to your film of choice on the IMDB, and then right-click > Backward Links to see what the internet has to say about it. Naturally, it's all bloggers because they're the only ones who'd bother hot-linking the IMDB.

No need to thank me, I do this for the greater good.

The Onion isn't keeping up

City officials hope the effort will ensure that the rallies are calm and, at the same time, contribute to the economy.

It's late. I'm tired.

Defective Yeti has got it all worked out. I'd put some very safe money on the Shitload Of Nazis getting to the final, because frankly those bastards will never, ever, fall off the list of Handy Movie Bad Guys. Aliens, now - a spot of makeup and a romantic backstory and you've got something Nora Ephron could be persuaded to get involved with...

Highly original

Saw The Bourne Supremacy last night, unusually going on a whim and on my own. I'm quite fond of the original, so I'm pleased to report that the character and the franchise are still interesting and I can't see any reason why there won't be another film. The director, however, should be signing a contract right now to swear that he won't direct it. The camerawork is a largely unbroken stream of nauseating jump cuts between handheld viewpoints, giving a viewing experience akin to falling down a very long flight of randomly-located mid-European stairs while cars explode around you. This has the further negative consequence that the cast become so excited at the rare event of being in front of a fixed camera, they ham it up something rotten - enabling a noticeably weaker script to shine through.

Handily, I wasn't expecting it to be anything other than some solid spy-film nonsense, so it succeeded on most counts. I just hope they send the director back to making pop videos and get somebody who knows a bit about actual cinema to do the next one. Wow, what an authentically snobby internet remark.

And they make such loyal pets

I can't tell you how delighted I am to discover that there exists a store called Lobsters Online. Suddenly the dotcom boom seems more plausible.

Snakebite

Man. Darwinia is going to be a hit in the random-visuals-to-project-on-the-wall-of-crappy-nightclubs stakes, depend upon it. Introversion should pre-empt this and start chasing painfully hip nightclubs to use it instead.

Learn To Read

Red dead. No revolver involved.

I find repeating this phrase enormously entertaining, to the bemusement of all others. Clearly some sort of long-dormant Dr. Seuss appreciation bubbling to the surface.

Unexploded analogy

Nirvana are like Half-life to me. For years I wondered what the bother was, what all the fuss was about, both being before my time. And whilst I have recently bought Valve's magnum opus, I have now experienced supposedly "The most influential rock band ever". Whilst I daren't agree with that, I can simply say something else: "The /greatest/ rock band ever".

Finally, videogames and music journalism are as one. And so effortlessly, too.

Best RPG ever. Any online game in which the Ghost Of The English Language appears and demands you avenge his death gets my vote.

I was privy to this storm too. Except I wasn't sat there with my keyboard ready, oh no - I was in bed, cursing the hours of the previous day spent dozing and the idiot phone call at 2 am which meant I was lying half-awake with a hideous amount of work to do and then the Apocalypse started and I had to pretty much give up on the idea of sleep entirely. Tuesday wasn't much fun.

I was too scared to go out on the balcony and watch, because there's a metal handrail and I live on a hill, but I did get up and take time out from cursing to watch. It really was very impressive.

Last night's Tim-moves-in-Tim-moves-out-Chrissy-moves-in-Chrissy-moves-out-John-moves-in party (a Flatmate Flux Festival, as I've just randomly termed it) went well, I believe. My memories are uncertain as I managed to fall asleep for a large part of it, although everbody gamely kept me involved in proceedings by throwing things at my face and draping bits of paper on my head. I'm reasonably sure a good time was had by all, with the exception of the woman next door who appears to be possessed of the same humanity deficiency as the woman downstairs. I do hope they don't form an alliance. Plenty of booze left this morning, which should help to sooth the pangs of Chrissy's absence.

Today I went for lunch with Dan, after which we sat on a canal bank and I had my umpteenth revelation that perhaps the Real World may have an edge over being slumped in front of a computer. I have since returned, finished reading the not-terribly-good The Drowned World and have discovered around 35,000 people doing unspeakable things on Bittorrent. I've swiftly resolved the question of whether to join them; my conscience remains untroubled, but it's really dragging down my browsing speed.

Something for the weekend

A nice two days down South. I slipped away for a drink on Saturday night only to finish up describing endless circles of the New Forest searching for a free camping spot, during the course of which I discovered that the ebaymobile is tolerably quick off the mark but appalling at going round corners. I keep forgetting to check if the front offside mudflap is still in place; I caught it and a goodly amount of surrounding floorpan area quite hard on a roundabout in Totton. Still not sure if I should keep the car, although everybody does seem to agree that it's "cool". I'd feel happier if it hadn't developed a worrying tappety noise on the way down from Manchester.

Anyway, the New Forest is, it transpires, totally booked for a radius of five miles in each direction, so we gave up and went to Southampton where I drank beer and played Project Gotham 2 until six in the morning. Sunday brought a bit more PGR2, a spot of Family Guy, and some impromptu cricket using a child's bat, a tennis ball, and an elaborate scoring system built around the fact we were playing in an extremely cluttered living room filled with empty beer cans and sports equipment. I hit three sixes, but had to stop before the neighbours complained.