I don’t mean to sound callous, but I am, so that’s how it comes out*

I’ve just received an email forward asking me to look out for a missing kid called Reachelle Marie Smith. As with 99% of these things, the email’s a load of nonsense: while it is indeed based on a real case, the girl didn’t go missing from Woking (as claimed; another version says it happened in Australia); she went missing from North Dakota. She isn’t three; if she’s still alive – which, quite frankly, is really bloody unlikely – she’ll be seven. Etc etc etc.

This Washington Post story might be useful if you’ve received the version of the mail telling you to look out for Leigh Cowen who “may be en route to Kansas”. He’s not en route to Kansas any more, and hasn’t been since 2006.

Leigh Cowen, 22, was found Tuesday inside a van on a gravel road at the Upper Souris National Wildlife Refuge, authorities said. Cowen appeared to have killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning.

If you really, really must forward every tear-jerking email demanding people check their sheds for missing kids (and here’s a hint: you really, really shouldn’t), at least forward the right bloody information.

* When I’m in a bad mood I tend to channel Bill Hicks.

More covers

The Huffington Post details the best-selling magazine covers of 2009. This is one of them.

Isn’t that brilliant?

As you might expect, most of the other covers were about Michael Jackson. There’s also a slideshow of the worst-selling covers. Surprisingly Rolling Stone’s Shakira cover is one of them.

How to design a book cover

This is great: six hours of work in a two-minute clip.

More here:

Over 6 hours of my onscreen compositing, retouching, color correction, type obsessing, all condensed down to a slim sexy one minute 55 seconds of cover design. Trust me, no one wants to watch it in real-time…and even then I left out the not-as-riveting-onscreen stages of my cover design process, such as reading the manuscript, sifting through Alexia photoshoot outtakes, background photo research, etc. And since this is a series look that has already been established for Soulless and Changeless, there weren’t the usual batches and rounds of versions of different designs that happen with standalone or first-in-a-new-series covers. That would be a weeklong video!

M&S: what do you think they’d give you if you found a finger?

If you’ve ever thought, “Hmm, I wonder what I’d get from Marks & Spencer if I found a large blue elastic band inside one of their gourmet meatballs?” the answer is “some free food, plus a letter of apology and a fifteen-quid M&S gift card”.

Babybird: the English Eels, sort of

It’s not hard to find common ground between Babybird and Eels. Both are ostensibly bands, but in reality they’re solo efforts that may or may not involve other musicians. They both tend to use the same recurring musical motifs (or, if you’re not a fan, both keep releasing the same bloody song). They both tend to depth-charge their chances of commercial success (one of Eels’ most beautiful songs is called It’s a Motherfucker, while Babybird’s comeback single starts with the line “I will kill you, said the five year old” and moves on to talk about feral kids and kiddie-fiddling). And if they’re known in the outside world at all, they’re known for the One Big Hit – Novocaine for the Soul in Eels’ case, and You’re Gorgeous in Babybird’s case.

Where they differ is in personality. Despite the horrific things E from Eels sometimes sings about, there’s always an aw-shucks, self-deprecating humour behind it all. There’s humour in Babybird too, but it’s much darker, much bleaker. Eels’ humour is survivor’s humour, gallows humour. Babybird’s is a maniacal cackle, the sort of noise the mad scientist makes before pressing the big red button that unleashes the killer monkeys. Or something.

Actually, they differ in another way too: quality control. I love Babybird, but of the 4 billion albums he’s recorded and released I reckon there are four really amazing albums in there.

I’m thinking about all of this because Babybird’s got a new album out, Ex-Maniac. If you don’t like Babybird you’ll bloody hate it, but if you ever liked the band there’s a lot to like here. Unless, that is, you’re a fan of You’re Gorgeous – a fan in the “it was our wedding song” sense, because it does seem that a lot of people bought it for the title alone and didn’t listen to the rather horrible words. Ex-Maniac’s happiest title is “Bastard”.

Ex-Maniac is very Babybird, both in good ways and in bad ways. The bad: it’s patchy, and when it’s bad it’s self-indulgent and pretty tuneless. The good: there’s some great stuff here. Like Them nails the paranoia and anger of (some people’s experience of) fatherhood, while the Failed Suicide Club is heartbreaking in the same way so many Eels songs are heartbreaking. Drug Time is both funny and sad, and Unloveable – with long-time fan Johnny Depp playing guitar – is almost funky. Apparently Depp largely paid for it too, although while Ex-Maniac was recorded in LA – the same place Eels hail from – the sunshine clearly hasn’t cheered Babybird’s Stephen Jones up at all.

I hate reviews that say “If you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you’ll like” but… if you like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you’ll like.

Here’s a link to a live version (or at least, live pictures stuck on the studio audio) of the cheery single Like Them. I’m going to the Glasgow gig on March 18th. Do say hello if you’re there too. I’ll be the overweight bloke blubbing to If You’ll Be Mine. Or more likely, one of the overweight blokes blubbing etc etc etc.

Bad Science (Centre)

One of the things you find yourself doing as a parent is looking for new and exciting ways to be ripped off by visitor attractions. We’d originally planned to go to Edinburgh Zoo, a prime example of the genre (£14 per adult) but a too-early start put paid to that plan. So we went to Glasgow Science Centre instead.

When you visit attractions out of season, you expect the odd thing to be shut. In the case of the GSC that means the cafe, and the observation tower, and most of the main floor (they’re doing it up to put some sort of adventure playground in there). But you don’t expect rude ticket clerks, broken exhibits and a general air of not giving a shit.

For example, there are three wall-mounted exhibits that look like plasma balls, where the idea is that you touch the surface and all the sparks move. Two of the three were broken. There’s a camera system that shows how you’d look if you were a different race. The camera isn’t angled properly and the monitor’s gone wrong, so the first inch of the display isn’t visible. Various fan-powered exhibits’ fans weren’t working. And so on. The decor is tatty, the windows filthy, and the exhibit that summed it up for me was the tunnel that you can clap and/or shout into to get an echo. It was full of litter. Old litter, by the looks of it.

Yours for £7.25 per adult!

A smarter blogger than me would use this post as an analogy for the way in which society no longer values science, or something. I’ll just say that the GSC wants to inspire the next generation of scientists, but I fear it’s only going to inspire them to blow up tourist attractions.

How iPad books might look [video]

Penguin’s been showing off some iPad-related ideas, and I think it’s fair to say they’re amazing – particularly the kids’ books.

And this is why everybody loves Valve

Valve, makers of Left 4 Dead, Half-Life and various other gamer favourites, is bringing its steam platform to the Mac – and to make people aware of it, it’s been sending teaser images to a bunch of websites. The images include a parody of Apple’s famous 1984 ad, a parody of the Mac versus PC ads, and my favourite: a parody of an iconic Mac ad. This one was sent to Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

The copywriting’s superb (click the image for a bigger version), especially if you’re familiar with the advert they’re parodying.

Meanwhile, there’s also an Easter Egg hunt going on for PC gamers that suggests either Portal 2, a new Half-Life episode or both, and the reaction I’ve seen on various games sites is absolute delight.

Unintended consequences: why Windows’ new browser choice screen will only help Chrome

Me at Techradar:

What we’ve got, then, isn’t a case of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted: it’s a case of locking the stable door after the horse has evolved opposable thumbs, learnt to drive cars and driven through the stable in a Challenger tank. It’s far too late for Netscape and Microsoft’s browser share will never recapture its near-total control of the internet.

It’s not going to make much difference to the minority browsers, either.

Bioshock 2 made me blub

My first impression of Bioshock 2 wasn’t great. Turns out my first impression was completely wrong. I ended up agreeing with this chap [spoiler alert].

This game had a profoundly moving effect on me. The ending – my ending, the one that reflected my values – resonated deeply. As the father of a 2-year-old daughter, my journey through Rapture touched on my fears and aspirations for her in ways I never expected from a game. That experience lingers, and I’m grateful for it.