The world decoded for stats geeks

Now. This is information I understand. I'm a bit of a stats geek - give me a few hours with Excel and I'm a happy man. So, imagine my JOY (and I mean that most sincerely, folks) when I found  GraphJam, which has all sorts of genuinely useful information all graphically presented for easy consumption.

Now I understand life.

(Graph switched to celebrate the least trendiest part of a certain person's taste) 

Going cuckoo in Cheshire this summer time

I hate the switch to British Summer Time. 

That sounds a bit ungrateful, I suppose - I like the long hours of daylight, leaving work in the daylight, hell, I like the way the day sits within the clock way better. I just don't like the switch - that nasty 23-hour day and putting the clocks forward is a combination I'd rather forget.

So, right now, my thoughts are with Roman Piekarski, who co-owns Cuckooland over at Tabley in Cheshire. It's a museum of cuckoo clocks: and each one has to be advanced an hour. All 600 of them, all £2 million-worth of them. Roman and Max (his brother) will really have their weekend cut out, poor buggers.

Given that my late, much-loved mother-in-law was Bavarian, I'm of the opinion that one cuckoo clock is quite enough.  600 is going too far - but without people going too far, what would I do for this blog?

Oh, and on the subject of going too far: how does the digital cuckoo clock (pictured left) float your boat?

Well it solves the problem I was grumbling about, I suppose.

We're all going to die!

Well: we are according to a couple of blokes in Hawaii...

Asking a Judge to Save the World, and Maybe a Whole Lot More - New York Times: 

"Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth."

Damn Health and Safety types.

How We Entertained Ourselves, Part I

Excuse me if I get all expositional, but my gut feeling tells me that the average age for the readership has dropped to the point where 2001 seems like an age ago. So let me explain a thing or two for the sake of the young 'uns.

As hinted at previously, the internet is more than three years old - and one of the earliest uses of the internet was to get people to do silly things they hadn't considered before, like...

Erotic Origami: 

"Welcome to The Origami Underground! It is the place to find erotic origami on the web. It's all free, and it's all for you! If you also invent your own erotic models and want to share them, send them in for publication. Your anonymity will be protected if you so desire."

AIEEE!

Here's an odd one:

"A Texas man is facing charges for selling liquor without a license after he was found peddling bottles of vodka containing dead baby rattlesnakes."

That is really quite ho---

BACK UP A BIT!

Just hold it there. He was charged for selling liquor without a license. ***sighs***

Extra bite - Texan faces charges over snake vodka

The War On Gophers is not going our way

We can't relax for a second, people. Gophers are not only threatening our way of life, but they are fighting back in ways we cannot comprehend.

Vigilance is a must; as is keeping an eye on lame-brained pest controllers.

Where's Tommy Saxondale when you need him?

*sighs*

Disappearing...

I'm wasting away. I MEAN it. And I don't get it, I really don't.

I realise I didn't eat as much as I should have done in the last few months: but when every day seems like an intolerable pressure for one reason or another, I suppose one has an excuse...

For the last three years or so, I've seen a crash coming: that the lifestyle was, in some way or another completely unsustainable - that pretending to be happy whilst having to keep an eye on the situation just to see what was going wrong next was going to break me.

Anybody who's known me intimately will know one oft-repeated phrase of mine: "energy is a finite resource" - and fighting to stop that energy being drained at an unsustainable rate is a kind of catch-22 situation. If you don't fight, then the energy gets drained. If you do fight, you drain the energy still quicker for the possible payoff that the rate of decline will slow.

And then finally, it all drains away and something snaps. In my case, it finally went (if I'm being truthful with myself) sometime in mid-September. And that was when the trouble really started, because I only resisted snapping in the past because I could see the storm clouds quite clearly. I knew what was coming. Only this time, I couldn't avert it any more.

Acceptance is a fine thing, but people that practice it are rare, and well, I think you can see what's coming here. Everybody hates rejection, but some people hate it more than others.

Any more would be telling tales out of school.

I don't eat much when I'm worried - it comes, I think to wanting to make sure I have enough money: a subconscious fear that I don't know the root of. So it comes as no surprise that I lost 15% of my body mass from September-February. This was noticeable when I was getting dressed the last time I stayed at R's. It wasn't a good day and she was very snappy.

"Those jeans are too big," she said.

"I know," I said in a straightforward way, trying to hide the embarrassment I felt, because I knew what was going on. "I've lost a lot of weight just lately." I didn't elucidate, because, to be honest, I was a bit sick of repetition.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not anorexic: I don't like being this thin in the slightest, and the fact that I have a genetic syndrome that makes putting weight on very, very difficult doesn't help. I don't want to be like this. I actually sit down and make sure I do three meals a day (which on re-reading sounds slightly pathetic), and I can't work out how to put weight on again. I don't want my weight to stabilise at this level, either.

The worries are lifting. I'm stripping my life of dysfunction one level at a time, especially when it's my tolerance of others that facilitates the dysfunction, and I'm concentrating on my life for the first time in nearly 20 years - not acceding to anybody else's desire for me to be part of their life is an odd feeling. I was never afraid of being alone, but when I've been in relationships almost constantly for 20 years, and still retain a deep capacity to love others, that's a kind of hard thing to prove. But alone I am, and happy I am. It's liberating. There's no dogma there. If the right relationship presents itself, I won't say no on principle, but nor am I looking.

"But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest."

- Buddha

So if I'm not worried, and I'm eating OK, why is my BMI stuck at 17.1? I don't like it and any suggestions would be fine, except "go see your healthcare provider," because I'm going anyway.

Back to the silly links soon.

If at first you don't succeed...

Consider, if you will, the case of one Glenn Irvin Sparling, a 65 year old man from Ravenden Springs in Arkansas.

He gets into his car. Drives to the post office. Crashes into it. Goes home. Gets another car. Does it again, in a "rinse and repeat" kind of way.

"Sparling had damaged a post office previously, and the sheriff said Sparling had a history of damaging postal buildings. No one was in the post office when it was hit."

This is as close to genius as I've seen in a very, very long time.

Man accused of driving into post office - Yahoo! News

UPDATE: Good lord, they're all at it!

I was surfing the web for more news on this curious little incident when I found that an 88 year-old woman had done pretty much the same thing in Burbank, CA. 

OK, she'd managed to only use one car, and she didn't have any previous: but there's a pattern emerging and Sp3ccy don't like it one bit.

You'll excuse me if I conduct all my business by email for the next few days; just until this whole "old people ramming post offices" thing blows over.

You have been told.

The perfect juxtaposition

I certainly used to seek out The Family Circus, although I did find it a bit overly cute at times. It could get to hurting my teeth a bit, y'know? 

Then along comes... The Nietzsche Family Circus, with its random juxtaposition of Family Circus comics and captions by... well, Nietzsche. 

It fair puts the shits up me; and (I say this with love and respect) I hope it does the same for you.

UPDATE: this one is particularly beautiful...

Neil Aspinall 1942-2008

Beatles' ally Neil Aspinall dies

The Times: Neil Aspinall: The obituary

Hunter Davies in The Guardian: Beatles fixer and friend takes secrets to the grave

Allan Kozinn in The New York Times: Neil Aspinall. Beatles' Aide, dies at 66

Allan Kozinn in The New York Times: Magical Mystery Tour Ends for Apple Corps Executive

Parmy Olson in Forbes: Aspinall No Longer With The Beatles

The Independent: Neil Aspinall: Beatle's friend and road manager who became the boss of Apple

"Paul is dead" shock!

No - hang on: that was 1969: but the fans are still at it. The looney wing of Beatledom over at Team McCartney reckon Macca's still leaving them secret messages in the ol' glass onion.  

Hasn't he got better things to do? Like, I dunno: weigh his money?

Super-dooper t-shirt designs from those scurrilous people at shotdeadinthehead.com.

Maid in Japan

Scary Japanese product alert! 

I know: these things are like shooting fish in a barrel, but this is a cracker. A PC case in the shape of a French maid's bum region - both bottoms, front and back.

I wish I'd been at the meeting that pitched that product.

The internet: a terrible place

A great Newsweek article from 1995 about how rubbish the internet is. And it isn't all that, to be honest, is it? I mean: it's brought me nothing but trouble...

"Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure."

The Internet? Bah!

Man shot by killer robot

It's not as exciting as the headline implies, or even the picture for that matter; but read on, regardless.

Actually, it's pretty sad.

Crucifixion - bad for your health, apparently

Keeping up here with the Easter theme, I found a story about the Philippine Government putting out a health warning about crucifixion.

No shit.

Too far! Too far!

Speccylad's real-life incarnation, the quiet, mild-mannered guy that abhors all this immature blogging nonsense, quite likes Facebook.

Why? It manages to be both silly and useful at the same time (much like him), it's an easy way to keep tabs on friends, and it helps when trying to remember people's names. For both Sp3cs and his real-life version have a terrible memory for faces and names. 

There's another side to Facebook that both of us like - the sheer tastelessness of it all; which hit a new height today with this.

Yes. Become a fan of Jesus - "Other Public Figure". Just to even things up, I'm going to see if I can also become a fan of the Prophet Mohammed, too. I wonder what the picture will be for him....

Best. Picture. Ever.

What can I say? Really?

Happy Birthday, Cap'n

Why yes. Tis Shaturday, a day that comes but once in six or seven years. So Sp3ccylad, once described in an MSN message as "the bastard son of Jarvis Cocker and Prince"* is proud to present William Shatner and Joe Jackson performing Pulp's "Common People" (as included on his rather spiffy album Has Been).

It's a truly great performance, and hey: it stops me banging on about David "David Bloody Ford" Ford for a few minutes.

*OK, it was me that wrote it, and it was only this afternoon, but hey: you should have seen what I was up to. Go me.

Tears in their coffee

Let's not cry too hard, mind.

Apparently Starbucks' supervisors in California have been swiping tips that should have gone to the baristas' pockets, and they've been caught out in a class action suit.

We're not talking small change either. The robbing scum have been taking the poor bloody footsoldiers for $86 million: which they have been forced to pay back... with interest. Poor babies.

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Starbucks must pay $100m in tips

First Irwin, now they're coming for the rest of us

The wrong picture. Sorry.

Now this is a scary one. OK, that Steve Irwin guy was messing with shit and it was only a matter of time before something got him. However, stingrays leaping out of the water and killing random tourists is a step too far. 

Sp3ccylad says: "Back off, Mother Nature"

Just Go...

If I'm really lucky, both of my readers will remember a blog post from way back in June 2005 when I reported on a gig I went to at The Cornerhouse (aka The Parish). The support act was one David Ford, and I don't mind admitting that night changed my life.

I was going places alone, anything to avoid being at home in what was increasingly at that point a cold, loveless, calculating marriage. It was going to get worse before it got better, but suffice to say it was pretty awful.

Although I didn't say much about it at the time, I later described it as a gig "that had me spellbound and (does this sound odd?) optimistically heartbroken from start to finish." I do remember stuffing my fist in my mouth to stop me sobbing. Yes. It was that intense.

The reason I bring Fordie up is because of justgotohell.net - a kind of David Ford-based mini postsecret, where he invites people to post their confessions. They are, of course, good for the soul. And while you're at it, go there, download the free MP3 and watch the videos.

Welcome to my world.

A piece of paper from York or: I'm back

Hello there. It's been a while, has it not? A lot has happened - I've been up to all sorts of stuff, but the main thing is that the long-running embarrassment that was my marriage is now no more. Weep no tears - at least these days when she pulls an unpredictable stunt no-one points the finger at me...

Still enough of that. I'm back and I'm blogging again. I promise not to be away for so long in the future. 

Went to see The Long Blondes on Tuesday night. The support was a quite engagingly clever old-skool hip-hop act called Kid Acne. I shall say no more than this: I utterly approve of the fact that Kid Acne can make me laugh at the same time as making indie kids look like Old Man Steptoe with gall bladder problems. They don't like it up 'em, those types.

As for the Blondes - time to grow up and move on, people: they're pulling some excellent music out of the hat with their new direction. The old stuff, as engaging as it sounds, is mono-dimensional compared with the new direction they seem to be heading in. "Century" off the new album was a triumph of an opener, and it pissed off the indie kids no end. That gave me an immense amount of pleasure. Heh.

So what is this new direction? There's still the sense that we are working with the bastard offspring of Eno-era Roxy: and live, they seem to understand the demands of that particular influence very well. However, there's other influences in the mix. A bit of Gert Wilden, a bit of Siouxsie and the Banshees... It's engaging, and it made the material off the first album seem lightweight by comparison.

Kate was a revelation. R. is of the opinion that Kate "can't sing", and that the new material showed her limitations off.  Sorry, Red: have to differ on that one. She's in charge of her role in the Blondes - she handled the new songs with aplomb, and she seemed to be really enjoying the interaction with the Fibbers audience. Not that you can be aloof in Fibbers. After all, it's not the biggest of places.

So all in all, a decent night. Entertaining early on as The Ex Who Won't Let Go decided to text R., which caused hilarity all round, and it got more pleasant as the night went on. Spent the following afternoon back in the Hudd watching "Once" on DVD with R., which is a movie that has got me all weepy both times I've watched it. I enjoy her company. Hell, I miss her and I thought I didn't.

So. The Piece Of Paper. I was going through the pockets of my blue velvet jacket, and I found a folded piece of paper. At first I thought somebody liked me - had I scored a phone number? No. It was a rather perplexing shopping list, evidently compiled by a borderline alcoholic. 

I'd watch Ready Steady Cook if it had ingredients like that in it, mind...