but your love alone won't save the world

Despite appearing to commit the heinous sin of wearing skirt-over-trousers, in the Maniac Street Preachers song Your Love Alone Is Not Enough Nina Persson reminds us that her swedish-scented voice can on occasion rent holes in bloody carcass of my heart, like a succubus on heat. She ain't half bad looking either.

The incurably heart-broken should also look out for her singing The Bluest Eyes In Texas, off the Boys Don't Cry soundtrack.

I got no time for private consultation

I seem to have collected several hundred links to articles of momentary interest during my travails upon the silicon paths, always meaning to tag them onto the end of my blog entries; but since my blog entries have been a little light recently, I guess I'll have to salt a few random ones here instead:

The USB Missile launcher - now, I've got one of these. It's fun for 5 minutes or so, but desperately needs the following:

• A camera. For aiming, and possibly recording your hits. If you want to go real crazy, a mini-camera in the head of the foam missile.
  
• A wireless controller. Because a.) the usb cable only reaches so far, and b.) it would be so much easier to ambush people if you could hide them randomly round the office.
• A better power supply (it takes 3 AA batteries and they last no time at all).
• Actual explosive tips.
• The ability to control more than one at once.
  

Besides all that, I now desperately need to find one of these. Unfortunately it's ridiculously expensive at the only place I can find it for sale, ThinkGeek.

Beating Guns into Guitars - Well, I suppose it's better than beating guitars over the heads of guitarists ... no, wait, it's not.

Conspiracy theorists must face the truth of Mars hill - Let me put it this way. How many faces have you sculpted hills out of in the hope of attracting aliens? No, while drunk doesn't count.

LEDs could start replacing lightbulbs soon

quadtec: A new way to tell digital time - personally, I'm not sold on the concept, but golly, don't it look snazzy?

Lack of sleep may impact upon moral judgement - not to mention making me cranky as hell.

Sex workers report high job satisfaction - dammit, is nothing sacred? But at least the survey does prove that a BA doesn't doom you solely to a job in McDonalds.

Torture and '24' - because it hurts us less than the real thing?

Religious video game leaves spyware behind - Seriously, why am I not surprised?

Laws for sale! Astroturfing and citizen apathy on the rise

For God's Sake, By Paul Krugman - Well, when I finally get to hell, at least I'll be in good company.

Sudanese goat wife pops her hooves - Words fail me, much.

Makes me happy
Attempts to introduce Intelligent Design in Europe spark backlash

Makes my angry
Banks demand a look inside customer PCs in fraud cases

Makes me angry, and Satan happy
Copyright coalition: Piracy more serious than burglary, fraud, bank robbery

"You meet saints every where. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society." - Kurt Vonnegut

"I love to go down to the schoolyard and watch all the little children jump up and down and run around yelling and screaming...They don't know I'm only using blanks." - Emo Philips

... and what else could I go out on, but Headless teddy wins weirdest USB drive.

in Jersey everything's legal, as long as you don't get caught

Well it's official: if Seth Green liked Transformers, it must be good. I'm off to see it Sunday, with a spring in my step and a small child in my tummy.

... obviously I'm kidding. I couldn't fit a whole small child in my tummy.

I'll put the rest in the fridge for later.


... I'm no expert obviously, but doesn't Optimus Prime look kinda young in that poster? Weird.

cut out of the sun

It's official - after watching the latest Doctor Who episode (Blink - episode 10 of series 3 *cough* utorrent *cough*), there is a new Hottest-Girl-In-Teh-World, finally dethroning The-Mysterious-Redhead-At-Teh-Bus-stop. Her name is Carey Mulligan, playing Sally Sparrow, and here's some more photos from the BBC's Doctor Who site:


The fan-boy and fan-girl discussion has already started here. Also, Blink was hands-frinking-down the best episode this season. Stone angels aren't quite as scary as 6 year-olds in gas masks, but they come pretty damn close.

In other news, Candians have green blood (would I make this shit up?). And get in line for the new Steampunk monitor and keyboard - for the totally incurable.

Addendum: It strikes me that those pictures make Ms Mulligan look kinda younger than real life - she is in fact 22, and so I am not quite the dirty old man you bastards all think I am.

Addendum the second: I should probably stop being so surprised about how crap the political discourse is in this country, but this whole "banning junk food in our schools" furore gets my goat (you might ask how many goats I have, considering how often it gets got. And the answer is: one. But it gets quite a workout, let me tell you). For those who consider it bureacratic, nanny state, anti-freedom-of-choice-commie-satanism ... well, I guess you'll be supporting my proposal to sell pornography, cigarettes and solvents in school tuckshops. After all, if they aren't buying it in school, they can just go out to the dairy down the street.

There's also a whole screed in here somewhere about the Muliaga/Mercury energy snafu, but Mutopia condenses pretty much my feelings on the matter, so bugger off and read him instead, you dirty oiks.

with magic soaking my spine

On the subject of our "Christian Heritage". Well, heck it's true. We're fricking soaked in unconscious christianity in this country, like most of the Western World that we receive the majority of our cultural influences from. How many of us, everyday, invoke the christian deities accidentally when we make an exclaimation - "My God!", "Jesus Christ!", "Sweet Zombie Jesus!", etc.

What is less clear is why this heritage should be deemed important, or indeed what we are obliged to do about it. Conceivably this could get quite complicated, since, to be entirely true to our heritage we would have to acknowledge all of our heritages - Judaism for a start, since Christianity is at least 50% jewish. We would need a bit of Mesopotamian heritage in there too, since the Jews probably stole their flood myth from there (not to mention our way of telling time - thank you Sumerians for the 12 month year and 60 minute hour). Add on top of these we also overlay our Greek, Roman and English heritage (English heritage further splitting into the thousands of different groups that at one point or another invaded the English, or who the English invaded and then stole their words in an effort to make English the hardest damn language to learn) ... you'll see where his might get a little confusing.

Then comes to problem of how we go about reflecting our combined heritage. Christianity seems pretty easy, we just retain the prayer opening in Parliament, although we might want to insert something in there about how we deplore all those dirty heathens that seem to be infesting the place these days (yes Catholics, we mean you. Bloody papists). But how do we adequately reflect our Roman heritage? Conquer most of Western Europe, build some roads, and cap it all off by having a bunch of orgies? Tempting, I know. But there are also some darker periods in our history - cannibalism anyone? I don't just mean among Maori - go back far enough and I suspect everyone's ancestors have partaken of a slice of juicy long-pig. But let's look on the bright side - at least we would finally be able to put to rest that age-old question that has stumped philosophers far, far wiser than I: to wit, do we taste like chicken, or pork?


Hands up who's surprised?
Movie piracy claims more fiction than fact Well I, for one, am shocked.