This is NOT an endorsement.

I was just listening to the 30/12 edition of DSC ("Podcasts! You vapid, trend-following fool, Sp3ccylad!" "No..." he replies: "I may write something on the subject tomorrow") and there was a mention of the Huggy Jesus doll. I ventured over and: hey, why spoil the fun? Take a look.

Good grief, that's one ugly toy.

Is it art or is it porn?

Hmm. That's always a tricky question. What do we do? What do we do?

(FX: A Fanfare sounds) Geeks to the rescue!

Let this handy formula included as part of US Patent 6,751,348 sort you out.

Warning. Contains complex maths.

Pushing the envelope, calendar-wise

I'm not a great fan of girlie calendars. Never have been. Not my thing at all. However this particular art form takes a new twist when it falls into the hands of CISA. CISA make coffins, you see.

You can see where this is going, can't you?

Yes, bikini shots and coffins. The two concepts collide in the most spectacular way. Oddly, it didn't immediately strike me as tasteless ("but then what does?" replies my regular reader) . And it's not some one-off abberation like those tiresome Yorkshire Dales jam-and-Jerusalem women faffing about with antirrhinum in their birthday suits. As far as I can tell, CISA's been doing this since at least 2003. Crazy.

Go on, take a peek. And just in case you think this is a windup, here's their product lineup, with coffins and calendars on the same page.

Classy.

It's just an mp3 fest, this holiday period

And the latest is a joy to behold. Shaggy meets The Beatles in a way that complements the both (and I speak this as a previously-admitted Beatles nerd of some 25 years brewing). It's joyous.

I always thought that the content of Shaggy's It Wasn't Me was dodgy at best, mysogynist at worst. Then I heard the joy that was Macca giving a way out to both parties - just as when his song was written, after a dream about his mum - and I just laughed, in the way you do when you know something is right.

So here it is. A rare treasure. Do take advantage. Please. (mp3, 3.5 MB)

The Graphing Calculator Story

This blog entry should start geek alarms off across both hemispheres - and I offer no apologies. When Mac OS 8 came out, it had a mysterious and beautiful application called Graphing Calculator. I used to marvel at the way it could graph and animate relatively complex surfaces in real time. This was, after all, 1994 and the PowerPC-powered Macintoshes were scarily ahead of their time back then - although that had as much to do with the interface at the time: a fact that may provoke alarm at Microsoft considering the continued stasis of Longhorn. Anyway, Graphing Calculator (below, and I took this screenshot this evening, fact fans)
was a bit of a wow.

The Graphing Calculator Story is a lovely story of the stupid randomness of many innovative processes and an illustration of the beauty you can achieve if you FAIL TO GET A MORTGAGE.

Oh, and if you're talented. Heh. Forgot that bit. Bother.

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami

A one-stop shop for information and sources of help/relief.

Bonkers Frankenstein Beatles medley

Mon dieu: this gave me the collywobbles. I sat down with this and tried to identify some of the songs (as some of you will have guessed, I'm a bit of a Beatles nerd), and it moved so fast and in such an oddly complex fashion that my head exploded and I spent the last 15 minutes retrieving bits of skull and grey stuff.

No, that's not true. I'm on the calvados right now. Although there is an element of truth in there that this medley did unsettle me a bit. Shall I stop drinking and get to the point?

OK here it is, hosted at my domain to take some of the pressure off the original hosting domain: and quite mad it is too. (mp3, 4.91 MB - good lord, that's the same file size twice in two days. Does anybody know the present whereabouts of Fox Mulder?)

Have fun. Seriously: I did.

The Bureau of Missing Socks

Looks like this is the government department I've waited for all my life:

"The Bureau of Missing Socks is the first organization solely devoted to solving the question of what happens to missing single socks. It explores all aspects of the phenomena including the occult, conspiracy theories, and extraterrestrial.

We offer support for the matching sock deprived, and, catalog, research, index and document all extant material related to socks since the dawn of the shoe. Our audio visual department is the largest multi media center in Hollywood and several sock themed feature films, television shows, and interactive CDs are in development.

We are entirely funded by your tax dollars expedited by matching cuts in the defense, welfare, and education budgets."

Best. Disclaimer. Ever.

Sorry if this seems like shameless self-promotion but this put such a smile on my face...

What do you mean, I have to wait a year for Christmas?

Because I want an excuse to buy my mate (and witness at my wedding) Jim a pair of Doggles. You know, just in case he wants to re-enact scenes from Easy Rider with his pet chihuahua.

It's more likely than you think. Trust me.

Who says music isn't free?

It damn well is when I write it.

Blue Shimmer (4.91 MB, mp3)

Make your comments kind ones.

Satire on eBay. An occasional series.

Very funny. Very, very funny.

And yes, I nearly did. Just so I could say I did. But no.

Annoying game alert

I do hope you've got a nice long holiday ahead. Oh, and no family, friends or animals that need feeding. Moebius Syndrome is one of those odd games that takes a moment to "get", but once you do it ends up a tad addictive.

All you do is make loops. That's it. Swivel the pieces around, join them up and watch them disappear for points.

Easy? I cackle at your naivete.

Yu-Mex

Well. Some things belong in "you just couldn't make it up" corner. This is one. Let the site itself explain:

"In 1948, the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito (May 7, 1892 - May 4, 1980) broke up with the Soviet leader Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (Dec. 21, 1879 - March 5, 1953) and Yugoslavia was on the brink of war with the Soviet Union. There were tanks on both sides of the border and Tito's regime imprisoned many Soviet sympathizers (real or just suspected). Russian films were suddenly not so popular anymore.

Yugoslav authorities had to look somewhere else for film entertainment. They found a suitable country in Mexico: it was far away, the chances of Mexican tanks appearing on Yugoslav borders were slight and, best of all, in Mexican films they always talked about revolution in the highest terms. How could an average moviegoer know that it was not the Yugoslav revolution?"

Who-hoah! I had NO idea. The site, covering Yu-Mex: Mexican music in fifties Yugoslavia has background information, MP3s and cover art from what must be the greatest cultural conflation prior to some blokes from Dartford getting into the blues. I put that last sentence in after a telephone suggestion from Lord Wells of Wrenthorpe, creator of the (now dormant) oddly wappy Craig Boardman's Boots.

(I discuss these links on the phone first! Had you any idea?)

This is a genuine treasure. Miss it at your peril.

(Not Craig Boardman's Boots. That's shite.)

That'll teach you just to play the drums

So, what do you do with your life if you spent most of the Sgt Pepper's sessions playing cards with Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans?

That's right: record cheesy Christmas messages for NORAD! Obvious, really.

Still: it's a better career plan than anybody else in Rory Storme and the Hurricanes had back in 1962: and it has to be better than Butlin's in Skegness.*

*Beatles nerd alert!

Nostalgia City

Not to be confused with Neuralgia City, which is quite a different thing. Here's a list of 70's and '80s toys that, when I saw the entry for Pocketeers, caused my heart to skip.

They don't make them like that any more - any bets on the first "Anybody remember the iPod" site? It's surely the Rubik's Cube for the new century. Even my postman has one.

Incidentally, when I rounded the corner and saw my postman trudging through gale force winds with iPod earbuds in, I felt oddly envious. You see, I have to take my earbuds out in order to work. He might be cold, wet and treated like a dog by management these days, but he gets to listen to his iPod at work. That's how attached to it I've become. If you'd told me 10 years ago I'd be carrying my entire music collection in my jacket pocket , I have worked up some genuine enthusiasm for the early 21st century...

MEAT Scented Air Fresheners

Please tell me this is a windup.

Banned Aid

By Saturday, Banned Aid will be all over the web. I give it two days before lawyers are all over it with sanctimonious letters on behalf of their obscenely rich clientele. In the meantime, have fun while it's still up.

And to save you the bother of asking, yes: I agree with every sentiment, implied or direct.

freespeling.com (with one l)

Richard Wade wants to change things for the better by liberalising spelling, and to publicise it he's put up a site called freespeling.com (with one l). Some may think it's a good idea, but for me it's like scraping my nails down a blackboard.

What do you think?

Poodle fitness video. No: really...

This has weirded me out a tad. If you have dreams like this, then some analysts would probably say you're getting better.

Why can't I just keep a confessional blog like everybody else?

Priceless photos of other people's petrified poppets

Were you one of those wet, annoying children who would burst into tears at the slightest thing wrong? One of those horrid sprogs that woud get spooked quicker than a bunch of horses realising they're going to a matinée performance of Equus*?

Yeah, me too. Once witheringly described by my eldest sister as a "sensitive" child, I can place myself in this gallery of children scared shitless by Santa only too well. Yet, on the other hand I find it screamingly, stupidly funny. And you know, Sp3ccylad: that's your problem. You lack empathy.

Hmph. Like I care.

*Ooh, get him and his A-level in English Lit...

Welcome to the History of the Universe

What makes a person take on a narrow, limited subject like this?

I can only wonder.

Welcome to "...not that there's anything wrong with that" corner

Ah yes. Here's an old favourite of mine. I was mentioning this to someone at work the other day: saying it was the kind of website that I found myself drawn back to over and over again, and that I found that a tad worrying.

Then, in an unrelated incident, I made the observation to a colleague on Saturday I was "...culturally speaking, a gay man nestling happily inside a straight man's sexuality".

Ledies and gentlemen of the jury, I present as evidence of the dichotomy that is Sp3ccylad: Mandonna!.

Only in San Francisco, eh?

Guardian Life Bad Science Awards 2004 (or the amazing shrinking water molecule)

Oi! Wingnuts! There's more to the Guardian than winding American right wingers up with jokey articles advocating the killing of the President in their TV guide (Abroad at Home passim). Listen up: you might learn something.

The Guardian has a great column in the Thursday supplement called Bad Science that debunks the crap we face on a daily basis from the 21st century's snake oil salesmen.

Rejoice! (© M. Thatcher 1982) They've handed out their awards for 2004.

It's both funny and tragic. There are people out there falling for this crap

Third nipple alert!

And - oh ho! - I bet this one isn't where you think it is.

Actually: where did you think it was?

Read this.

Right. That's you lot told. Next!

Pierced Eyeglasses

What's so wrong with contact lenses? This is making me feel queasy...

Get your signature iPods here

Excellent. I want the Ramones one.

The Beatles Christmas Records

Well, blow me (I can but hope). I only put together a CD of all of these the other day and now here they are on the web. For the uninitiated, here's the skinny: every Christmas, The Fabs would issue a fan club-only record with a specially recorded Christmas greeting. They were rough, off-the-cuff affairs that brimmed with humour and creativity - and (until recently) were moderately difficult to get hold of.

Difficult no more: just click here.

Enjoy. I did.

Happy Agnostica!

You what? Uh? Happy Agnostica? No, hang on: this is good:

"How do you feel about gifts during the holidays? Odds are, not so good. Have you ever asked yourself why? Gift-giving is supposed to bring great joy, and gift-getting shouldn't be such a shabby event either. But somewhere along the way, somewhere between the last-minute rushes to elbow those insane soccer moms all vying for the same vibrating fuzzy doll, or sometime after searching for weeks for the perfect gift for a loved one you now realize you know nothing about, it hit you.

This sucks."

Le Vic strikes again: this time with a corker of a link that has me blogging like a mad thing. It's simple and it works. Go on: who's going to be the first reader of this blog to wish a random stranger Happy Agnostica?

Train Spotting Simulator

Oh yes. This is truly what the web was made for - Train Spotting:

"Microtoss Train Spotting Simulator brings the power and excitement of one of the world's most favorite hobbies to your PC, placing you in the role of a trainspotter with unprecedented realism, exciting real-world challenges, and the tools to recreate almost any trainspotting experience in the world."

It's absolutely true - they've nailed the experience. Utterly authentic.

Pot Calls Kettle Black Shock!

Oh, this is rich. Microsoft are trying to make Brits feel dirty and unethical:

"British consumers have double standards when it comes to ethical purchasing, claims Microsoft."

Pfft.

Humanga Tongue Dog Toy

I didn't learn photoshop just to be outdone by a dog toy.

I feel oddly useless. May as well go to work, I suppose.

A dare for you

Sing this at your office party.

Dimples, wine and price

Some of my colleagues at work are convinced that there's a relationship between the depth of the dimple in the base of a bottle of wine and the price. I've listened to this theory, I've smiled sweetly and I've thought "bullshit".

Pity me. Tomorrow morning I have to go into work. Actually, it gets worse. Tomorrow morning I have to go into work knowing that they are right and I am wrong. OUCH.

B3ta board member and general funny geezer Itchy Squirrel went to Tesco with a depth gauge/pencil combo and a note pad to prove this theory and came up trumps. Very, very funny. The world of drunken maths geeks salutes you.

Warning. May contain formulae.

Ted Hughes Children's Book Comes To Life

Le Vic, one of the regular commenters here (and provider of fine cups of tea to the proletariat), dropped this link in my comments. I've just opened it up and I'm clapping like a child who's just realised she doesn't have to marry a Chuckle Brother after all.

As Frank Sidebottom once said: "if there's one thing I like more than robots, it's more robots." I can only agree.

Dr Colin Mayhew has built a robot. Not just any robot, mind you: this one's colossal, it runs on petrol and can stop a Land Rover. Watch the videos. AMAZING.

When I was little I wanted to be a scientist, and I got to do lots of stuff at school that slowly but surely put me off; the death of a thousand cuts, if you like. This is what I meant, damn you all! I could cry. The waste; the waste.

Yeah: what she said.

Ailee Slater, a student at the University of Oregon, gets all worked up about the grading system and makes tremendous sense:

"Personally, I have come to the conclusion that the University system makes absolutely no sense. Students pay teachers to educate us, yet they are then allowed to tell us how much we're learning. The whole situation seems akin to a boss paying her employee to clean toilets and the employee turning around and telling the employer how much she is or isn't happy with the cleaning job."

When I lived in the Eugene-Springfield area I used to love reading The Daily Emerald. But then I'd read anything that's free, as my wife keeps on telling me. Did that come out way cattier than I wished it to?

Mothers! Kids wearing you out?

Then I have just the product for you. Click this blue text. It's a hyperlink! Technology, eh? Cor blimey.

Oh, I've wanted to say this for some time.

However, Edward Cone has said it for me. You go guy: the floor is yours.

I apologise to those what have gone and done and seen this before, but

It's too good not to plug now again. God, I love this.

Basically, it's a series of languageless animations that are unmistakably francophone: even without the title screen.

Laties and gentlemen, boys and girls, I give you BoYshiT.

Woo-hoo! A knitted WHAT?

Woo-hoo! A knitted womb!

"It's not completely anatomically accurate. I've taken a few liberties with the general shape and scale, as well as leaving out the ligaments connected to the ovaries. And, of course, the human uterus is not normally bubblegum pink."

Damn skippy. I've been present at a C-sction. It's definitely purple.

Arthur Ganson- Sculptures

I once went to a gallery opening by the renowned Swiss kinetic sculptor Jean Tinguely (1991, Basel, about a week after the Happy Mondays played Elland Road). I remember it for three things.

1) Free beer AND chocolate. Woo!
2) A woman playing the tuba, solo, whilst dressed in a ball gown.
3) Tinguely dying about three weeks later.

I always hoped that was just a coincidence, because I could have been doing anything that night, giddy as I was on beer AND chocolate.

Arthur Ganson is a sculptor in a similar vein - and this is a page with videos of some of his sculptures at work. Catch the video of the Knife Throwing Machine. Funny: very funny.

Sorry for the lack of updates....

...I have a new computer. Well, when I say "I have a new computer," I mean the cat has a new computer. I just work it for her amusement. What is it about TFT screens and cats?
There is nothing I can do that keeps her off the desk which is, at the moment, the official British definition of New Computer Chaos - there are installation CDs, boxes, leads, two computers (that ends today, trust me) and some complete cretin of a cat that is treating the whole experience like home cinema.

Yeah, Muffin. It's all for your benefit. Enjoy.

Don't try this at home

Up until now, the only use I'd seen for helium balloons was inhaling the contents and shrieking "bollocks!" at perplexed passers-by.

These people - cluster ballonists - have altogether more ambitious uses.

Quite insane; yet oddly enviable. Reminds me of the end of Le Ballon Rouge.

Roadside America

Hey-hey! A favourite of mine. If you live in the USA or Canada and you don't know about this, then shame on you. If you're planning a trip to either and you don't consult this, then ditto.

Ever wondered where all that really ODD shit by the side of the road is? The stuff that's dying for a photo or that should be in a film? Why all you ever seem to see is the verge of an Interstate highway and YET ANOTHER truck stop? Well, go to Roadside America and answer those questions sharpish. It's almost beautiful. It kept me in thrall for two-and-a-half years, rendering me into a state not unlike that of a child with ADHD and FAR TOO MUCH food colouring every time we went on a road trip.

You should pity my long-suffering wife. Two-and-a-half years of "Ooh! Ooh! I've read about that! Can we stop there?" (Points at something indescribably tacky, like a beach towel of The Last Supper, only far bigger and worse) "Ple-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ease?"

Alan W. Pollack's Notes on ... Series

I am in a geeky mood this morning. Alan W. Pollack is a musicologist of some renown who started to write detailed musicological analyses of The Beatles' music in 1989. He started with a blast at 28 of their songs and then - an Everestesque aim - decided to take on the rest. 11 years later and the job was done.

Dr. Pollack's Notes on ... Series is a brilliant, dense read that rewards a long sit down with a bunch of Beatles tracks and some presence of mind. I've chosen this site rather than their original home because of the presentation, but also for Ger Tillekens' insightful writing that binds the series together.

One of the reasons I love t'interweb so much is because other people have got über-geeky so Joe Public can reap the rewards. On this occasion, it truly is a reward. In book form, I'd happily pay £15-20 for this (that's about a million US dollars now the currency has been trashed). If you listen to music or if you make it, bookmark the Notes on ... Series. You will learn something.

Linky Music Toy

Music is all interrelated; much like people from rural Lincolnshire.

If you're a bit geeky about music like what I is, then you might well see music as a series of interconnected circles with name tags on. Well, if you do (and if that's the case then I recommend checking into the nearest psychiatric assessment unit) then musicplasma will make you feel oddly normal.

It raids the Amazon databases and presents music as an "if you liked this, then..." kind of map that is almost hypnotic to watch. Hard to describe, easier to play with. Go on, then: what are you waiting for? GO!

A little something

And I know a nine-year-old who, I believe, would find this hilarious on a card.
Happy birthday, girl.

Shaking hands - the new threat to our health

I was quite attracted to the notion espoused in this wickedly funny commercial. Then I thought about it and... Maybe there's something to be said for tradtion.

Oh, and a random thought that will mean something to approximately three of my readers (like that's not 75% of them): isn't it nice to see Kirklees Council installing hot tubs outside Civic Centre 1? No doubt some vandal will come along, tip a load of compost in and fill it with bedding plants; but for the moment it's good to see a Local Authority taking employee welfare seriously.

Hurrah for Kirklees Metropolitan Council!

Playlist - Music for digital diversity

An Idea of the Moment - a club where technology enables you to be the DJ.

Tolerance, creativity, adventurousness and sharing. Four reasons why I think this is a fine idea.

The perfect gift

That's if you're into animated origami and you've got eczema.

The Little Flying Bum

Daft, puerile and blogged.

Quit looking at me like that. Yeah: like that.

Chimp! Karate!

Ha ha! Charate! Kimp! Charimpe! Krat! Ka! Kara! Karate Chimp!

Did I get a bit overawed there? Consider it a reference.

Boobies for Peace Advent Calendar

My blogging of the Boobies for Peace Advent Calendar is not an endorsement. I'm just saying it's there. OK?