Just like Sister Ray says
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In the kitchen at the place where I work there a couple of drawers full of disposable plastic cutlery - a couple of packets of forks, a couple of packets of knives, and about a drawer and a half of what looks like something on the order of five digits worth of teaspoons. I (and, of course, other people - I don't have a special separate supply of cutlery as a part of some kind of Howard Hughes style hygiene obsession or anything) use the knives for sandwich preparation. Recently we were dismayed to learn that our combined bread consumption had completely exhausted the supply of knives.
As I dug through the mounds of little white teaspoons trying in vain to uncover another packet of knives I thought to myself, "isn't this ironic".
The following trailer was playing before Pirates of the Caribbean when I went to see it next week.
[Fade in from black to... a suspiciously chimp-like figure addressing the colonies from the Oval Office.]
That voiceover guy with the really deep voice they always use: An unelected President...
[Wipe to a scene of US troops mowing down arab-looking people with their M16s.]
TVGWTRDVTAU: An illegal war...
[Cut back to oval office.]
TVGWTRDVTAU: Now, one man stands alone against a United States gone mad...
[Chimp boy looks up, as if startled by something.
[Suddenly, a huge green fist smashes through the wall behind his head.]
New voice: HULK SMASH BUSH!
You wouldn't like me when I'm disenfranchised.
I was fortunate enough recently to miss a programme (shown on Sky One) called TV Years: 1996. From the trailers (and there were a lot of them, this being a fairly prime-time show on one of the most-watched satellite channels) I gather that this was a retrospective on the major televisual events of that long lost era, the mid-nineties. Featured were such major events as the formation of the Spice Girls and the beginning of the celebrity DIY show.
Andy Warhol once said that in the future, everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. What he didn't add was that those 15 minutes will last forever, endlessly recycled by people whose idea of entertainment is manufactured nostalgia for meaningless events that were never interesting in the first place, events so utterly inconsequential that after only half a decade people have already forgotten about them to the extent that it becomes possible for programme-makers to actually produce a retrospective for them in the expectation (no doubt correct) that there is actually an audience for such things.
I eagerly await next year's blockbusting TV Years: 2001, in which we look back on such highlights of 2001 as looking back on the highlights of 1996.
Kat often informs me that I am going to hell, usually for reasons having to do with my having been a practising atheist (I'm good at it now). Naturally, I have always dismissed such claims as the product of a diseased mind and/or religion. However, I recently experienced an event which made me question this conclusion.
I was browsing some sites devoted to popular Homer Simpson-inspired Jesus imitator Jebus. Now, as the Christian Bible will tell you, their God is a jealous god, so any uncanny activity associated with my liking for Jebus could easily be attributed to his actions. Imagine my surprise, then, when I clicked on a Jebus-related link and, instead of loading the page as I expected, my computer decided instead to turn itself off.
Not to go to the windows blue-screen-of-death, not to reset itself, but to actually physically turn itself off.
Save me, Jebus.
I was pleased today (07/05/01) to discover that the UK government has set in motion a response to the threat posed by Iraq's Long Term Strategy.
According to a report on the BBC, the Food Commission, whose job it is to complain about food (as far as I can tell) has been... well, complaining that certain foods have been being irradiated without people being told. Including, apparently, prawns, which as everyone knows should never be irradiated.
My congratulations to the UK government on their solution to the Iraqi threat. We'll be (at the very most) five years behind Iraq's first wave. A prompt and ingenious response, which will make the world safe for democracy. Or at least for tea, jam, and the British way.
The scene: a supermarket cafe in Leicester
Me: Two sausages, two slices of bacon, and two eggs please.
Supermarket employee serves sausages and bacon.
SE: Was that egg and chips?
Me: Just egg, no chips.
SE serves egg and chips
For centuries, Jesus has been applauded by many people, Christian and otherwise, for his moral teachings. The essence of these is found in Matthew, Chapter 7, Verse 12 - Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them (although this did not, of course, originate with Christ, being found in Leviticus and in the texts of many other religions). This is generally known as the Golden Rule, and is held up to be the epitome of a good moral code.
However, is it really that good? Consider what it means for Christians. If I were a Christian, I would want people to be concerned that I was following the teachings of Jesus, and avoiding sin. If it seemed like I wasn't, I'd want them to, say, come round to my house and tell me about Jesus, to try and save my immortal soul. Sound good? Then obviously you've never been awakened by Jehovah's Witnesses. We begin to see the problem with the Golden Rule.
Now consider what the Golden Rule means for masochists. If I were a masochist, I would want people to inflict pain on me. Therefore, the Golden Rule would mean that I should be going around inflicting pain on people. Surely, that doesn't seem right?
So it seems that Jesus cannot be relied on to provide us with a guideline for our morality. Is there anyone we can turn to instead? I believe there is: Ted "Theodore" Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq., the lead characters from the 1989 film, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. As anyone who has seen this cinematic masterpiece will know, these heroic time travellers have their own moral rule, which I feel is in every respect better than the Golden Rule. They recommend that we Be excellent to each other.
Now, it has been suggested to me that a masochist would still feel that inflicting pain on others would be "being excellent" to them, but is this really the case? Another complaint was that it was a little vague. I feel that this very vagueness is its strength: by not specifying exactly how to be "excellent" to people, it leaves us open to doing so in a way that is desirable to all concerned.
So the next time you find yourself in a moral dilemma, unsure what to do, don't ask yourself what Jesus would do; instead, ask What would Bill & Ted do?
And party on, dudes.
In our flat we have a phone with a built-in digital answering machine. This comes with a prerecorded, synthesised sounding female voice for a message, which we could no doubt change if we really wanted to. When someone calls and I can't be bothered to answer the phone (it's always for my flatmate, because I tell everyone my mobile number instead) I get to hear this message over the speaker, which frankly isn't very interesting.
What is interesting, however, is what happens when the caller hangs up. When this happens, the phone announces "Thank you for calling". Let me repeat that: after the caller has hung up, the phone thanks them for calling. Perhaps it's a failing in your humble author's imagination, gentle reader, but I can think of no conceivable use for this feature.
On BBC News 24, there's a newsreader who looks very much like Giles. He read out a news story involving not-so-allegedly paranoid schizophrenic dictator Robert Mugabe, who was quoted as saying that he would only consider resigning after his white opponents had been "thoroughly beaten".
A more charitable person than I might conclude he was talking about election results.
Once more, I find myself writing about inanimate objects; this time, there's a moron presence too. Funny how things tie together.
The other day, I visited my local branch of foul tasting but convenient fast food chain McDonalds™. The people in front of me in the queue were just being served, and the fast food drone behind the counter was apologising for messing up their order. They'd ordered the food to take away, but she'd given them it sit in.
You might think this is a perfectly reasonable mistake, and not worthy of much attention. Ordinarily, you'd be right; however, the reason behind this mistake is quite stunning.
From listening to the explanation proffered, it appears that when taking the order, she had asked whether it was to sit in or take away, and had then pressed the wrong button on her keyboard. When she got round to distributing the "food" (I use the term advisedly), she had read the description of the order from the display that displays such things, thought "hmm, I thought it was take away", and then proceeded to ignore her own memory and blindly obey the display!
There's something deeply wrong with a society where a company that cultivates that level of unthinkingness in its staff now has more revenue than some third world countries (I'm making that statistic up, but I'm quite sure it's true).
This has turned out less funny and more despairing than I'd intended. Perhaps it's the pathetic nature of the event; perhaps it's the fact that I've spent 12 hours today playing the Illuminati card game. Perhaps I should add a lightbulb joke to make this section funnier?
I've recently been messing about with cascading style sheets, to make my pages look... well, hopefully better, but certainly different (on supportive browsers). One of the things involved in this process is adding a <STYLE> tag to the head of the document. The first time I did this, I forgot to close it with the corresponding </STYLE> tag. The result, as some of you may be able to predict, was that I saw a completely blank page. Hence the titular pun.
The Gulf War has always been something of a puzzle for right thinking people. Why, despite warnings from what was clearly a massively superior military force, did Iraq maintain its presence in Kuwait? Why not just retreat, and save themselves from taking huge casualties?
Now, I can reveal the answer. Well, an answer. But I'm pretty sure it's right.
I recently had occasion to be discussing the use of depleted uranium shells with Pix and Dr. Brian Gillatt. In the course of this discussion, I mentioned a statistic about how much depleted uranium had been fired by the US (and friends) in various different theaters. I can't remember the exact figures, but I'll be well within an order of magnitude of them if I say they were:
Serbia: 3 tonnes
Kosovo: 6 tonnes
The Gulf: 300 tonnes
As I said this, inspiration struck. I had penetrated the secrets of Saddam Hussein's military strategy. Far from the Iraqi defeat by the US (and friends) being a setback, it was part of a long term bid for world domination. Saddam knew that, should he invade Kuwait, the US (and friends) would attack with all of their state of the art military technology, including their depleted uranium shells, and that his country would therefore be covered with radioactive dust in the aftermath of such a conflict. Now, ask yourself this: what is the most common result of exposure to radioactive dust?
That's right - superheroes.
If I'm right (and let's face it, the evidence is pretty compelling) then in about 15 years from now, the first generation of Iraqi superheroes will be unleashed. The US (and friends) will be crippled overnight, and Iraq will emerge as the new superpower. Don't say I didn't warn you.
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the packaging for most consumer goods is either created by morons, or aimed at morons, or quite possibly both.
Take, for example, this injunction, printed on the side of a packet of those otherwise excellent sorbitol sweetened caffeine tablets, Pro Plus®:
Do not use after the expiry date shown on the base of the pack.
Can the manufacturers of this product (one PP Products of Welwyn Garden City, Herts.) really imagine that this is in anyway an informative thing to print? Are there people out there reading these words of wisdom and thinking to themselves, "Oh, so that's what the expiry date means"?
Another example of moron related packaging comes from a book my flatmate recently acquired (he didn't buy it, and hasn't read it; both wise decisions). This book is Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought (ISBN 1-900944-97-9, UK retail price £4.99), by famed and (allegedly) paranoid schizophrenic pulp science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. Leaving aside any potential moronness that may be contained inside this work (although for more on the... less than entirely non-moronical nature of Scientology®, please see this page on Google), there is a hilariously moronical blurb on the back of the book. It reads:
Think for yourself
Learn for yourself
Buy and read this book
This reminds me of nothing so much as the scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian where the crowd all say "Yes, we're all individuals!"
I recently watched the somewhat ridiculous yet nonetheless entertaining Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster End of Days, also starring Gabriel Byrne. Portions of this film (the Christian mythology, ancient manuscripts, priests with secret knowledge, cool fire effects) reminded me of Stigmata, which also starred Gabriel Byrne. Also, at one point in End of Days, a priest character says something which is a very close paraphrase of the line "the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist" from The Usual Suspects, which of course also stars Gabriel Byrne.
Coincidence? Yes. I don't really have a point here.
I am fortunate enough to own a Plush Cthulhu (green), as (briefly) manufactured by Chaosium - in, I have to say, a moment of sheer genius. Aside from being generally fantastic, Plush Cthulhu is always a big hit with the ladies - which is to say, no woman can resist cooing over Plush Cthulhu and going "Oh, isn't he cute!"
Anyway, I have taken to carrying Plush Cthulhu with me to many social occasions, at least in part because of his aforementioned talent. At one such social occasion recently, I rashly threw Plush Cthulhu backwards over my shoulder, where he landed in a portion of chips covered with, of all things, tomato sauce, which was being eaten by some damn colonial (who compounded this act of culinary barbarity by referring to it as "tomato ketchup"). This had the unfortunate consequence of causing Plush Cthulhu to become covered in tomato sauce. Which is, as all right thinking people will agree, a rather unpleasant substance to be covered in.
When, a couple of days later, I discovered I had in fact been competent enough to carry Plush Cthulhu home with me, I was faced with the problem of what to do to get rid of the (now encrusted) tomato sauce. I decided, in the interests of going to the least effort possible, to throw Plush Cthulhu in the washing machine with some clothes, despite the fact that I had no idea whether Plush Cthulhu was machine washable. Spurred by some vague memory of correct machine washing procedure (no doubt encoded in my X chromosome, as I have no idea what actual function it might serve), I put Plush Cthulhu inside a t-shirt before turning on the washing machine.
Some time later, after the washing machine had finished washing, I returned, to tumble dry some of the washing, and hang the rest (including Plush Cthulhu, who I was unwilling to risk in the tumble dryer) up. To my everlasting surprise, I discovered that Plush Cthulhu, who (on account of his stuffed nature) I had expected to be the wettest thing in the wash, was in fact completely dry, except for the label stuck to his arse (which, incidentally, contained a rather nice couplet, and a pronunciation guide to Plush Cthulhu's name, but no washing instructions).
Like any good skeptic, I decided to investigate this unnatural state of affairs. All of the unpleasant tomato sauce coating had been washed off (and Plush Cthulhu now smells of fabric softener), so I could rule out any kind of waterproof t-shirt anomaly. I suspected, therefore, that the dryness might be an artifact of the plush coating of Plush Cthulhu, and that his stuffing might contain a large quantity of water, so I gave Plush Cthulhu a squeeze to see how much water I could extract. None. He was, all reason to the contrary, completely dry.
Indeed does Plush Cthulhu move in mysterious ways.
Inanimate objects have started talking to me. The first time I noticed this was when a roll of tinfoil instructed me to go to my local Spar and buy another of its kind. It was quite rude about it, too, but that was nothing compared with the sign I walked past on my way to Central Station. It informed me (and I quote):
CHANGED PRIORITIES AHEAD
I was amazed to think that this simple bit of aluminium (or whatever) had sufficient insight into my life that it could predict that my priorities would be changing in the near future.
Strangely, it was right.
Before you go listening to any old inanimate object that talks to you, though, I'd like to warn you that they may not always be as smart as that sign. For example, an airline seat recently informed me:
FASTEN SEATBELT WHILE SEATED
On the face of it, this is good advice, but it falls apart on deeper analysis. Anyone who attempts to fasten their seatbelt while standing up is, quite clearly, too stupid to read the seat anyway, so obviously what the seat meant to say was:
WHILE SEATED, FASTEN SEATBELT
So be careful about following the advice of inanimate objects, as they may be mistaken just as easily as you or I. After all, they're only human.
It has emerged recently that GM Doug has a number of long freakish mutant hairs growing from his back. It's tragic that someone so young (he's only 22, you know) should have to suffer such a deformity.
More disturbingly, another member of GUGS (who shall remain nameless to prevent his everlasting shame) has a long freakish mutant hair (which he trims on a regular basis) growing from his eyebrow!
What a freak.
At a recent party, the intellectual cream of GUGS managed, for what is probably the first time ever, to come to several actual conclusions! Unfortunately, the only one I can remember is that Brian Souter is a cunt.
If anyone who was there can remember any of the others, please let me know, and I'll put them here.
Update: I have been reminded of another of the conclusions we drew. It was something about how we would have to ask the Pope if Superman has a soul, so we could find out if Superman could kick God's ass by punching faster than light, and thus back through time to the moment of creation. Being reminded of this did stir up memories of the conversation, although it seemed to make a lot more sense at the time.
Update 2: The reason why bus schedules are often works of fiction is that, while bus company employees are on the whole intelligent and sensible people, bus company owners such as Brian "Cunt" Souter rule over them like the blind idiot god Azathoth, preventing them from exercising this intelligence lest they lose their jobs.
Dedicated to G.M. Doug, its instigator and biggest fan
http://www.houseofsin.net/
Gavin M. Doig
Do You Believe That?