Mat Bowles

Via Boing Boing:
( Stop saying like, like )(from Neatorama, another At Flickr)

Suffice to say, I agree. I don't mind occasional use, especially as a pause for, like, thought. But some people scatter the word (and/or "you know") throughout sentences, with no real need or pause.

The poster campaign is a spoof BTW, but it's still cool.

Also:
( Gmail ad targetting )

An email notification from a comment on an f-locked post. Not relevent, so I've removed all identifiers, but look at the targetted ads there. There's no direct mention of Douglas, nor of Hitchhikers, merely character names. There are some smart cookies out there paying for their keywords. Wonder which ones triggered it; Zaphod is the most obvious...

Phone's playing up a bit, annoyingly, seems to not want to tell me about text messages. Ah well, it still rings, and I've switched it off and recharged it, that usually helps.

Firstly, jackthomas specifically and a number of others that like writing anyway will definately want to check out Tim Worstall's explanation of the new site he's set up alongside devils_kitchen and others; Nightcap Syndication. Write a review, publish it there, it gets syndicated and you might actually get paid. The Camera review competition looks interesting. mapp, are you directly involved?

Something to definately sign up for once hell-at-work is over with. Anyway, via cargoweasel, Project Gutenberg: Theives Cant & Slang. For any lover of history, language, daftness. Oh, and those RPGers who just need that authentic edge...

It's gone into busy mode at work. The inspection seems to have gone ok, but the combined heat and general busyness means I'm coming home exhasted. Which means I'm just switching on a form of entertainment. My curent choice is Medieval Total War. I'm about to smite the last remaining faction, and then half of Europe rebels against me. Can't say I blame them, the tax rates may have been a little high...

Right, memo to self and also a request. If I mention to someone again that I've reinstalled Windows, can someone remind me to also install the drivers for the extra hardware that came with the thing? d'oh! The reason no games were running (not that this actually bothered me) was because I hadn't installed anything since I rebooted a few months back.

The things you discover when bored. This does mean that, well, Medieval Total War and Warcraft III are now working on this box. Which means that, well, I've got something to do in the evenings when I'm knackered after work.

I have a new landlord. I think it's the bloke I met while he was looking around the place, but I'm not sure. I left the office early today (I'm owed the time anyway), to meet him. Except he's coming around tomorrow. Can't leave early two days in a row. d'oh!

This bloody cold is getting to me now. I'm perfectly coherent, it's not affecting my concentration, I can work fine. Except the sore throat and coughing if I talk for any length of time. What do I spend half my day doing at this time of year? That's right, I talk. Lots. Bugger. Three times I answered the phone today and started coughing during the first sentence. Good job my host families actually like me...

Am in the middle of an apathy attack. Can't be arsed to do much. Ah well.

Via tyrell this in the Guardian:

The Snakes On A Plane phenomenon ( revolves around the internet )

the producers, feeling ... that Snakes On A Plane was touch daft, were considering changing the title to the much more dignified, but much less amusing, Pacific Air Flight 121.( Samuel L Jackson likes the title )

"I got on the set one day and heard they changed it,( ... )

and I said, 'What are you doing here? It's not Gone With The Wind. It's not On The Waterfront. It's Snakes On A Plane." ( ... )

Snakes On A Plane had become one of those self-perpetuating internet phenomena - also known as memes - whereby the exponential communications possibilities ( ... )

insert a line of Samuel L Jackson dialogue cribbed from a satirical online trailer created by a clearly underemployed fan: "I want these ( m*th*r f*ck*ng )

snakes off this ( m*th*r f*ck*ng )

plane!"

It's going to be so bad it's good? Or worse, just bad? Can Samuel L Jackson's persona rescue the cheesiest idea for a movie ever? Meh, I probably won't bother.

Told the boss I wanted to make this my last summer in my current job today. I'd be happy to stay with the company (if they pay me some more), but not in my current role; while I enjoy it, the exhaustion is getting to me and, if we include the time I did it as a summer job, this'll be my 5th summer in the same department. Sure, I'm in charge now, and things seem to be going well, but it's taken it out of me. So, effectively, I'll definately be changing something in my life. Deputy is pregnant (that's why she was off ill), and the new seasonal guy is good, and due to finish just before her maternity starts, with any luck we can keep him on, so a nice transition can happen.

Still exhausted, still recovering from that bloody cold; lots of other people have had it, it's taken them ages to shift it as well. Als, stupidly volunteered to help with the arrivals tomorrow. Stupid.

Lee says he's selling the place and has a buyer. Suspect it's the guy I met, not sure, but no chance he'll deal with her downstairs quickly, so I'll keep track of the problems here. Private my-eyes-only for now.

Since she moved in, she's been regularly loud and annoying. Discussions with her, and via Anne and Lee, have been fruitless. She seems to acknowledge the problem, then gets drunk, and is both incapable and frankly obnoxious when she's not sober.

Regular late night music, mostly crappy chart/dance stuff. Plus, she shouts. Badly. A few weeks back, a neighbour from across the street came out and shouted at her, but it's not getting very far.

It's getting worse with the summer, she's keeping her window open, sitting in it, music blaring and shouting to anyone that walks passed. I know I'm naturally a quiet person, but she's excessively loud, even by my standards. Maybe the new landlord will be of use. I don't hold my breath.

OK. Did anyone else know that shakalooloo has existed for over a month now, and he's updating regularly?

Laurence! You're supposed to click the "add friend" thing, go forth and comment, let people know you're here, etc. In the meantime, everyone that knows him should go say hello. That's at least 1/4 of my f-list by all accounts.

For the benefits of the loon; click on the person icon next to a username, it takes you to their profile page, at the top is , once you've done that enough, then your 'friends' page becomes the most important bit. It also means you can read old protected entries on journals.

Still, that's one more off that little list of people to force to sign up for this thing.

Yes, still off work. Didn't sleep last night, finally dosed off at about 8am, to get a phonecall from work at 9.40am. Boss needed to know some answers. Next time I know I'm not going in in the early hours, I'll ring leave a message on the answerphone.

The world's flags given letter grades - genius. Incredibly funny and so so true.

Also, BritBlog Roundup - once more, with added mapp goodness; wasn't going to, but the Phishing thing just needed a bit of promotion; any news on that yet Mark? From there, I find rhodri, who wrote one of the more amusing articles in the Indy recently, and that post gives a more lighthearted breakdown of the picture. Some of the comments on that thread are surreal, but this one (the nominated one) is even better. Taking the piss out of Innocent has to be done, even if we do love their overpriced products — I sometimes do copyrighting for work, and the question thing is deliberate; "do you?" is more effective at atention grabbing than "do this", although I insist on it being a more suggestion thing: "Spare room? Host students for..." (I forget the rest).

Have I mentioned I hate being ill? Yesterday, when I woke up I felt a little groggy, by the time I'd done the ablutions I knew I was coming down with summat. Nothing serious, just a head cold, but I fell all gummed up and Lemsip isn't helping :-(

Ah well. Oh; LJ client users — do any of them allow for a better editing of filter groups option than the web interface? It's a pain figuring out that interface and getting it right, want to sort my view filters and my post filters out to be a little more sane...

Via thalinoviel I discover the amusement that is Teacher Blogging! Blog Standard Comp is here and I especially liked Water Torture.

On the subject of Goths generally, clicked on a commenter at innerbrat's and found this post on a class presentation on Goth Subculture.
Another attempt to define what it is. Not sure I'll ever see one I actually think sums it all up. Amorphous, indefinable, all in the eye of the beholder?

Meh. /introspective elitism...

Firstly, azurelunatic brings the funny. Next, alexlucard polls it good. demiurgent brings a sense of perspective.

The vast majority of folks who pay for Paid do it for A) convenience (say, for the Livejournal.com e-mail address) or B) because they want to support Livejournal. A smaller subsection want the extra userpics. Six Apart apparently believes that they can get as much money in advertising revenues to make up for people deciding they don't want to do the public television model of support.

At the end of the day, I use LJ to keep in touch with my friends, 90% of whom are now on here or syndicated. I'll be staying. I don't, actually, mind ads that much (I use them to pay bills on my sites, right?), I just dislike the way they've, effectively, broken a promise.

Although, they are doing it in a fairly cool way, and even when logged out and looking for them, it's not MySpace. For the record, I now cannot load most myspace profiles, my dial up simply gives up. That is one really badly put together site, but hey, Murdoch is paying for the bandwidth.

Given that it's Thursday, I really should have gotten around to doing my "I had a great weekend" post like wot I meant to on Tuesday. Suffice to say, I had a great weekend. Two people I'm close to had birthdays, and seeing either of them always cheers me up. Also, free chocolate.

Tomorrow, I go to draich_goch's to play Kingmaker and sleep, then first thing he's taking us toa coach meeting point; we're off to London for Salute.

Today, I cooked myself a decent breakfast (which was prompted by me forgetting to turn off the damned alarm clock), did some stuff online, made some decent sandwiches (with healthy salad type fillings, quorn slices (and cheese, no point in sandiches without cheese) and drove to Exeter.

The drive took longer than expected. Traffic didn't move, at all, for half an hour at the bottom of Telegraph Hill. Someone had managed to flip their car (big time), didn't see what had happened as the clear up was finished but the tailback was huge.

At GameSoc, played a game of Attack! with mapp, dainul, Beef and Vaughan, who I hadn't met before. I love attack, but the steep learning curve for the mechanics means it takes too long to set up the first game, which meant we ran out of time. mapp won, but we finished early, and he was very vulnerable at the end of that turn. Still, enough players both capable of playing and interested means that when we do get around to setting up the big double board all day game there will be people interested.

After that, played Tongiaki with granjero, Laurence and others, then played the silly duck game with Duncan. It's a very silly duck game. I love it.

Got home, came online, had a connection time out problem with most of the sites I wanted to read, and have finally got them loaded.

Oh.


Which Doctor Who are you?
this quiz was made by Auntie Krizu(:>)
At least I'm not Baker again. May have to go visit parents next weekend, sister has now moved in with them as the bungalow she's bought hasn't been vacated yet, and Easter + Mum's birthday, about time I managed to be a 'son', I've been such an all round flake recently. Other people have birthdays due as well, busy weekend methinks.