Stuff and nonsense
People with cancer “more likely to be pissed off” than people without cancer
Although that’s not entirely how it’s been reported:
Positive thinkers ‘avoid cancer’
Women who have a positive outlook may decrease their chances of developing breast cancer, say Israeli researchers.
…But the researchers admitted that women were questioned after their diagnosis, which might significantly change their outlook on life.”
Bin Laden
My local council has implemented a new rubbish collection policy (and apparently, an exciting new range of CONTAMINATED! stickers for anybody who accidentally leaves a can in a bin, or the wrong kind of plastic in the recycle box). The main part of the policy: from now on, if your bin lid isn’t completely closed they won’t empty your bin.
Then what?
Seriously, I don’t get it. If they don’t take your bin, you’ll have even more rubbish the following week. What are you supposed to do, other than maybe take your rubbish to the local council offices and leave it in reception? Set it on fire? Throw it at a tramp?
“Do not let ladies prefer dildo to you!”
Yep, it’s spam time again. This time the text is colour-coded, with the first letter of each line forming the acronym “MEGADIK”. No, really.
M - men always would like, that at them all was more, than at others
E - enlarge your manhood today and reap all the benefits
G - guys get jealous now when they see me in the bathroom
A - and now make a real step to this - buy our means for increase of the member
D - do not let ladies prefer dildo to you!
I - if the man speaks you, that to him all the same with what at him the size of the member - he dissembles
K - know her from the sexual side how is she inside exactly.
I know I’m far too old to be amused by this, but…
Product packaging LIES!
This is brilliant. The reality is slightly different from the product shot…
[Via Fark]
Kissing Kurt
As a parent, you hope that your children will like some of the things you like - so it’s nice to see Baby Bigmouth’s love of music, and her fascination with books (for now she’s fascinated by them as objects. Nine months is a bit young for reading, heh). But yesterday she excelled herself: she pointed at the bookcase, climbed on the sofa to reach it, pulled out a Kurt Vonnegut book and sat back down with it. She then pointed at the picture of Vonnegut on the cover, turned to me and made her “what’s that?” face.
“That’s Kurt Vonnegut,” I said. “He was one of daddy’s favourite writers.”
Baby Bigmouth made her “oh!” face.
She looked at the photo for a moment, pulled the book towards her and gave Vonnegut a kiss.
Awww, I thought. She’s going to be a reader!
Baby Bigmouth beamed, and then punched me in the face.
Oh no! She’s going to be a critic!
One of these tags is not like the others
Amazon would like you to tag products. This screenshot is from the Xbox 360 HDMI cable.
Lop till you drop
As a technology journalist, I’m often asked the same old question: “I need to prune a tree. Should I do it myself, or call in a tree surgeon?” To which the answer is: tree surgeon! Tree surgeon! In the name of all that is good and pure in this world, don’t do it yourself!
Unfortunately, to get a tree surgeon you need to have something very special. Money.
So here’s my handy guide to doing it yourself.
Before you start, make sure you have the following:
- A sturdy ladder.
- A telescopic lopper (ideally one with a saw attachment). Don’t buy an own-brand cheapie, because it will break as soon as you wave it near a twig. Wilkinson Sword is your friend.
- Savlon, bandages and elastoplasts.
- More time than you could possibly imagine.
- A crippling fear of heights.
Got all that? Then let’s go lopping! First of all, let’s see what we’re dealing with.
Hmm, this could take a while. Here’s what you do.
- Rest the ladder against the base of the tree.
- Climb up the ladder.
- Realise you’re only one-tenth of the way up the tree.
- Climb up inside the tree. Warning: the tree will fight back, and you’ll lose most of your skin.
- Extend the telescopic lopper to its maximum length and wave it ineffectually at the branches.
- Get the lopper stuck between several branches.
- Fall out of the tree.
- Climb back inside the tree.
- Place the jaws of the lopper around a suitably annoying branch and pull the cord.
- Watch as the head of the lopper falls off and narrowly misses your face.
- Get ready to storm off to Homebase in “this lopper is shit!” fury.
- Read the instructions and realise you forgot to put a really important bolt - the “stops the head of the lopper falling off” bolt, as it’s known - into the lopper.
- Call yourself a twat.
- Put the really important bolt into the lopper.
- Climb back up inside the tree.
- Realise that the branches you need to cut are still too far away.
- Climb further up inside the tree, losing yet more skin.
- Climb to the very top of the tree.
- Look down.
- Realise you’re up very high.
- Very high.
- Very, very high.
- Panic.
- Panic some more.
- Weep.
- Panic.
- Climb back down and hack things randomly with the saw attachment.
After approximately six weeks, you should end up with three things: a garden that’s disappeared under several tons of branches, arms like the world’s shakiest junkie, and a tree that looks like this:
Tune in next week as I discover the best ways to fall off a shed roof!
Odds and sods
Once again I’m buried under deadline mountain, so here’s some odds and sods that don’t justify full posts in their own right:
- Jeremy Clarkson’s “cocks” theory - that is, the cocks who used to buy BMWs and drive like arseholes have generally moved to Audis - seems to be true. SG08 LRA in his spanking new A4 3.0 TDI damn near killed the Bigmouth Family at the weekend.
- Still on the Top Gear tip, the TG magazine editor’s letter this month talks about how, when it comes to driving, Britain is a nation of utter bastards - red light jumping, tailgating, box junction blocking, if-I-pretend-I-don’t-see-you-it’s-okay bastards. He’s not wrong.
- A forthcoming issue of Esquire will apparently use e-ink to make its cover flash for 90 days. We must keep this technology away from Zoo, Nuts and the celeb titles.
- The new Batman movie is showing at IMAX cinemas - which could be cool, because parts of it were actually shot in IMAX. In Glasgow, it’s on at the Glasgow Science Centre from Thursday, I think.
- Dragon’s Den. Is the cameraman drunk? Is it possible for Peter Jones to be any less likeable? Is it really necessary to put down people in the way Theo Whassisface put down the ASDA worker with big ideas? Is Hamfatter the worst band name of all time, or what?
- Builders. For fuck’s sake, it’s bad enough that you’re pissing off the neighbours by building a giant castle on the back of your house, but do the builders really need to start at 7.30am and work Sunday mornings too?
- Sick spam. We’ve had weird spam, aggressive spam and now, sick spam - today’s crop includes “Baby Torn From Mother’s Womb”. I know the spammers are just lifting and/or embellishing news stories, but do they *really* think that’s going to make people think “yeah! Gotta get me some V1AGRA!”?
- When you find yourself providing tech support on an electric whisk, and being glad of the work, does it suggest that your career isn’t quite as starry as you might have hoped? Don’t answer that one.
Are they by any chance related?
It’s more apparent when you see Chung on the telly. Honest.
More fun with lifestyle product photography
By crikey, Idiot Toys has hit the motherlode. Behold the majesty of the Vuzix head-mounted display thingummabob!