TenDollarMan

We can't stop here...

2008-01-26T14:16:00.000Z

Velvet Acid Christ. The track is apparently called: "Fun with drugs."

Aggies

2007-09-11T20:50:00.000Z

I never understood this until now. I didn't used to think much of America. It was just another big country somewhere. Then I started listening to ZZTop, and went to New York and saw that horrible hole and then I drove through New Hampshire.

Live Free Or Die! I understand that. Ned Kelly understood that. Lord Denning understood that, in his own very British way.

Then I started to realize that the best thing in the world is to be an American.

And there's only one thing better than being an American. That's being a Texan:

Today they join the rank and file of an endless legion of Texas Aggie bandsmen whose dignified footsteps echoing brass and thunderous cadences have filled this landmark stadium for decades past. May each senior know that because of their spirit of unity, dignity, self discipline and enduring pride that they each were good enough and proud enough and tough enough to be called the Noble Men of Kyle.

And now forming at the north end of Kyle Field, the nationally famous Fightin' Texas Aggie Band...

These guys used to choose the best fighter amongst them to be drum major. That shit makes me weep with joy. It really does.

In other news I just took delivery of the most perfect geek porn. It is a solar powered bluetooth GPS receiver. It was ferried to me from Hong Kong in what appears to be two metric days. It had six airmail stickers on it, one on each face of the package (more stickers, more speed). A trinket of such exquisite precision, and ultimately useless. I never get lost.

2007-09-10T15:28:00.001Z

I see that dtb04 has made a proposal and that, incredibly, this has been accepted.

This is good news and long overdue. It does of course have the unfortunate side effect of taking one hot Czech girl out of the potential pool of available girls on a final and confirmed basis. This is not good news. But we can live in hope of some weird polygamist cult getting hold of them.

We must ban all chemicals of any kind immediately, with retrospective effect

2007-08-31T13:37:00.000Z

This is a quote from an article in the NY Times:

... Iraqi phosgene, a volatile, highly poisonous chemical made of carbon monoxide and chlorine...

Chemistry is one of the most holy disciplines that a man can follow. It is rigorous and unforgiving. There is only one answer, but infinite paths lead you there. Charlatans are immediately obvious. The truth is all that matters. The truth cannot be diluted or disguised. Chemistry is chemistry.

And so - phosgene is phosgene. It is nothing else, and nothing else but phosgene is phosgene. There is not, as with beer, a variety of phosgene. There is no such fucking thing as Iraqi phosgene. Phosgene does not care about such artificial constructs as Iraq. It is a stable molecule. I dunno exactly how stable, but I'd guess that its stable enough that a molecule somewhere will have outlasted Gilgamesh and fucking Saddam Hussein.

Carbonyl Chloride is its real name. It is useful in industry in making plastics. It will kill humans, however. In fact it will kill 50% of a population of humans at a concentration of 800 parts per million. You get it in your eyes, it does nothing. Much like the goggles. You get it on your skin, it does nothing. Breath it in, you're fucked. If your lung capacity is 5L, then inhaling 4 mL at a time as a gas (about the amount of smoke that fills just the filter part of a cigarette) will kill you stone dead 50% of the time and if it doesn't the next breath will. Of pulmonary edema. I'm a chemist, not a doctor, but I think pulmonary edema sucks. Blood comes out your lungs till you die, or something.

The common name comes from the fact that it was first synthesized by exposing a mixture of carbon monoxide (what comes out of your car exhaust) and chlorine (green gas you get from fucking with pool chemicals) to sunlight (light that comes from the sun). It is not hard to make. It is so easy to make that an Iraqi could do it. An American could do it. Even a journalist working at the New York Times could do it.

"made of carbon monoxide and chlorine"! Makes it sound like fucking Lego. Put them in a bowl and mix them. Bah. It's not like baking fucking cookies. You need to break bonds and move electrons. Its easy to do but it isn't simple. Its art.

Anyway, I don't know why the fuss. You're allowed to have up to 500 pounds of the shit if you want. What they found in NY was the size of a coke can. You don't even have to tell anybody in post 9/11 NY that you've released any amount up to 10 pounds. And its not like it was smuggled in by tearists. Fucking weapons inspectors put it there 11 years ago. Dickheads. Phosgene eats metal, unless its gold or platinum and other rare and fabulous substances.

Chemistry has a similar power over the muggle mind to The Law. Some malign force that comes into your life and fucks your shit up and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it cause its The Law. You're in more danger from dickheads than you are from chemicals or The Law. Stay away from dickheads.

I will always walk alone

2007-08-26T11:50:00.000Z

Liverpool is full of scousers. Scousers all suck, and thieve shit for no reason. They are thieving cunts.

I went to Liverpool yesterday. Ostensibly in order to attend Creamfields in the VIP lounge. But in fact it was to be taught a series of bitter lessons.

The trip started badly. Macgastro the tardy retard kept us well behind schedule and so we encountered a mind boggling traffic jam. We stopped at some services for nicotine and caffeine, and saw a girl wearing a pair of micro hot pants and a hot pink fishnet body stocking and fuckall else. Face like a prolapsed anus. We got back on the motorway just in time to watch a helicopter land on the road to collect the broken corpse of a motor cycle enthusiast who we'd seen earlier on a very tasty Harley.

We played frisbee in the breakdown lane while he breathed his last.

When we got to the gig the Reid-O-Matic 4000 demanded that we engage in rigmarole and faff and circumnavigate the entire fucking festival from the obscurity of the service roads surrounding the VIP lounge. We almost made it through a tent flap, but had to stop when we were blocked by the back of the DJ and a view over his shoulder of a thousand gurning fucking scousers. I got a brief feeling of what its like to be master of a zombie horde.

We saw a drug deal going down as a bloke was dragged out of the crowd, brane clearly fried. The irrevocable damage was so great that the astonished scouse first aider laughed as the guy fell pole axed onto his face, lay still for a bit, then tried to stand, only to fall right back over on his arse and crack his head on a pole holding the tent up. That cracked the first aider right up. A while later Macgastro and I watched a girl collapse and endure a proper grand mal. Her whole body rictus pulled her knees wide apart and up to her chest while the rest of her became cornholio. A horrible mixture of snatch and twitch.

This finally got the better of Macgastro and me. We fled to the relative sanity of the VIP lounge. We sat there amongst hideously corpulent 50 somethings slowly and slickly stroking each other, and drank vodka and pomegranate juice. Even this was a grim reminder of the ghost of senescence to come. We were bitter, delusional and proper mellow.

The Reid-O-Matic 4000 lost his mind entirely, confessed to horrible crimes against the soul, ran off with a Huddersfield lass with a vast supply of coke and wasn't seen for hours. He came back sore, infected and bereft of all his technology and refused to speak any further about his ordeal.

I took a photo of a girl. It is reproduced below, raw from my phone. Make of that what you will. I say I was haunted by Satan himself last night.

I mean look at it. An elfin girl with Devil eyes. And look to the right. An ectoplasm with large nose and one nostril. Thick fleshy lips. An elongated head, surely a sign of malignant evil and bestial intelligence. A single ominous eye is visible, the other is in shadow. Small horns where the ears ought to be.

Others of you simply see a hot chick throwing a typical raver pose upon sight of a camera phone.

After the Reid-O-Matic's brutal rape, around 4am, we all tried to find solace in a giant blue tent with some brilliant Finns who mixed without headphones. Mental.

On the way in some scouser cunt robbed the hat off my head. I was well beyond caring. I was haunted by Satan, and a theiving scouser cunt held no fright for me. Have the fucking hat, you prick. About an hour later I needed to piss, and tried to leave by the same route I'd taken in. I was confronted by a trio of thieving scouser cunts.

"ya reet thar, pal? Where's yar oi day?! Ye ghaern't com out without yar oi day!" Threatening jabs in the sternum from the woman, with her stumpy, thick fore-finger. Rubbish fake nails. Too square. French polish, as in furniture wax.

Apparently I was supposed to produce my wallet for inspection. When it became apparent that either I didn't speak scouse, or was otherwise not going to be immediately compliant, a fourth scouser about 6' 3" grabbed me from behind and twisted my wrist up behind my back. He was a big bastard, but not very strong. As I casually pushed him back his other hand was trying to grab the glasses off my face.

We danced a bit more, then fled. Sunrise accompanied by Death in Vegas seemed right: Aisha, I'm a murderer. I played frisbee while a man died. I was offended by a dying woman's pulsations, amused by a deranged drug fiend, persecuted by Beelzebub, robbed and violated by scouser cunts. Poisonned by a thousand cigarettes, bad chewing gum and liters of fucking Smirnoff fucking Ice, scoured by caustic arse-crack sweat.

I haven't slept yet. I read too much H. P. Lovecraft to fall for that shit. I'm gonna smoke a monster blunt now and watch porn until Cthulhu comes or fatigue takes me. It's the only thing left in my power to scrub the grim memories of the past 24 hours.

2007-07-08T23:13:00.000Z

The trains known as national rail,
Are piss weak, dire, shitty and pale,
They're always so late,
Chiltern's lamentable state
'S made me ride home on a big fucken snail.

METALLICA rocks beyond Wembley and earth,
Metal's solution's muscle and mirth,
El diablo is cool,
Graduated from school,
Threatens coach drivers with unholy girth:

'Take me home forthwith to that place
Where I'm known by my horns and my face
Or I'll fuck you in half
My cock's gonna barf
Its all spiky like a big fucken mace.'

As transport, this mollusc's no good,
Like a toy horse that's made out of wood.
But its faster than trains
Electrically running on mains
And everything else that's south of Sherwood.

High wycombe's announcer's a cunt,
His delivery's stupid and blunt,
We're here in the rain
Wishing him endless pain
And hoping the next train's gotta shunt.
------------------

2007-07-01T21:47:00.001Z

In the words of saint Matthew, Christ, what a fucking week. New PM, the windies learned and forgot how to play cricket, Britain's largest indie record shop goes broke, there's terror in London and Glasgow, and Simon Le Bon sings at a gig for princess Diana.
I celebrated this weirdness with a cigar at a rebel pub with some sweet pretty acid house country gospel music. If I want consciousness expansion I go to my local tabernacle and I *sing*.
Friday was cocktails till dawn in Leeds. Yesterday was rum and expensive steak.
I've got a few days to hook up with an old ex-pat mate of mine I haven't seen in half a decade before the METALLICA

\m/ 0.o \m/

gig on Sunday at Wembley. Last time I saw this degenerate bastard we got so bombed he thought I'd drowned in his swimming pool. Fuckers never heard of short range free diving. I was looking for cracks in the structure. Testing. Resting underwater. An innocent submarine snooze.
Wonder if he's still sporting dreadlocks...
Bah... I can't get past the reverend D-Wayne Love's third step...

Eclipse

2007-06-20T12:57:00.000Z

Red

2007-06-11T16:15:00.001Z

2007-06-08T20:04:00.001Z

I see that of 18000 odd votes cast, 93% of people think Hilton should
go to jail.

Suck it you dumb mouth breathing slut-tard. Don't ever tell a judge
"its not right!" unless you're a fucking appeal judge.

This whole farce is the only kind of reality TV I could ever enjoy.

2007-06-08T14:14:00.000Z

Went and saw Spiderman 3 the other night...

... anyone else think that emo-parker was t3h w!n?

MUSE!!!!

2007-06-07T13:30:00.000Z

I see that Erin Daye has failed in her attempt at a world record. I see that forest officials (wtf is a forest official?) in Gujarat are trapping leopards with mobile phones equipped with the sounds of cows "mooing" as a ring tone. Cops in Washington DC are using segways (pursued crims will be confounding them by using stairs). England are collapsing. Rooks in Devon have learnt to fumigate themselves to kill parasites by using discarded cigarette butts. Hitchcock was right, dammit.

My Muse tickets have arrived. I have a procession of applicants and supplicants queued begging to be allowed a moment to caress the hologram. I have arrayed them according to hotness and will make an arbitrary decision in due course. This is the gig MCR will be supporting. I'm so gonna wear eyeliner. And a fishnet shirt. Mmmm...

Fucking pseudoephedrine hydrochloride has given me a savage and uncontrollable nosebleed, greatly endangering my pristine Charles Tyrwhitt 140 weave two fold (although freshly oxygenated bloodstains on this quality of cotton are a proper aphrodisiac). Gonna have to stop snorting it. My doctor wanted to give me a pseudoephedrine suppository to save my septum. To paraphrase Renton, for all the good it'll do me I might as well shove it up my arse. I chose the fucking big television and sold the script for a can of the Old Purple Tin.

Speaking of blood, blood orange juice is the best juice in the world.

FUCKING nosebleed!

2007-05-30T11:22:00.001Z

I understand that there are some statistics about concerning the Premiership.

The Premiership is a soccer competition, so it doesn't excite me in the same way as, say rugby or cricket. Or stabbing pins into my own testicles. But statistics on pretty much anything excite me. Must be the OCD. I remember when I was at university studying mathematics it would trouble me to the extent that I couldn't sleep if I was not able to correctly achieve row-echelon form. Apparently Sheffield United has one of the five worst goal-keepers. Unsurprising really.

I've moved house. I'll shortly start updating my other blog in relation to same. This new place has some genuine potential. There are 4 blokes living in the same flat. When I was moving in over the weekend I discovered two large non compos mentis South Africans attempting or simulating some sort of depraved sexual intercourse in the hallway. Apparently Jagermeister was the cause. Fucking South Africans. We shall see what happens. I think that by now the amount of share house living I've endured has inured me to nearly anything. All this just as Endemol starts up another genocide of the mind. And what's with that fucking kidney show in Holland? Endemol is something which has fallen out of the Bachman Books.

Flintoff is broken. Wilkinson is about to break. A woman in New Zealand who required an electic oxygen machine to continue living died after the power company cut the supply because of an unpaid debt. Not sure who is to blame there, really. A local authority in London is installing lighting which will save £20k pa in bills. At a cost of £29m. And a bomb squad have been called in to render safe a sex toy being delivered by the Royal Mail. Oh, and I see that Russia has already tested an ICBM that can penetrate the proposed missile defence shield. I want no part in this. We need to go back to the old days when this shit was sorted out with sharp sticks. My hoplite is bigger than yours sorta thing.

2007-05-29T18:39:00.000Z

www.roughrunnings.co.uk

Some malignant fools have decided to drive to Casablanca. Good luck. Fools.
------------------

Orcinus Orca

2007-04-14T18:38:00.000Z

Today I hit a golf ball 320 yards with a three wood.

One of these, but an older model:

"Big ball!" was the call. Eight over par. With a blinding hangover that caused me to vomit violently this morning. Drinking is therefore good for improving your golf.

Off to see Tiesto on the 20th. That'll be good. Very very good indeed.

2006-12-29T21:40:00.000Z

Look at this picture. You see the two batsmen that scored the winning 300 or so runs carrying a bowler. Why? Well... The bastard has 999 international wickets. He is the first to get 700 test wickets. Oh, and he got a 5 for 39. In front of his home crowd. Plus a handy 40 odd with the bat. And that other guy? Only Glenn fuckng McGrath, the only challenger for the most ever test ducks ever. Ever. Christ. The only way to beat Australia involves the unorthodox employment of snipers and weaponry prohibited by the Geneva convention. Anf that dude in the background? Brett Lee, an assassin. Fastest bowler in the world never to be found guilty of steroid abuse.

In other news, I conquered a mountain in Bulgaria, a country in which it is aparently impossible to out-drink your wallet. I've been on the J&B all fucking day and still have the same approximate amount in my pocket. That is; 100,000 roubles, zloty, leva, shekels, lira or whatever the fuck it is that passes for shells and shiny pebbles in this fucking warzone of a country. There's enough snow to break my neck and I have also discovered a powerful desire to own a Lada.

Tomorrow morning I must organise a transfer to Sophia. I am tempted to send my travelling companions on a goose chase, and go myself in abject style by stretch humvee.

've been sucking down the J&B all arvo, and I've spent approximately 12 pence sterling. There are people here that will pay for the vitamins in your piss in cold hard cash, and willing to take it warm. And the worst perversion of all is the presence of Endemol: Deal or no Deal? Big Brother? I only wish I could type the words in cryllic...

OMG...

2006-09-15T14:02:00.000Z

From El Reg:-

Witchdoctor orders Serb to have sex with hedgehog

A Serbian man who went to a witchdoctor in search of a cure for
premature ejaculation rather foolishly took the shaman's advice, viz:
have sex with a hedgehog.

You know the rest: Zoran Nikolovic, 35, from Belgrade, ended up in the
hospital with severe lacerations to his wedding tackle, according to
Ananova. A hospital spokesman said: "The animal was apparently unhurt
and the patient came off much worse from the encounter. We have
managed to repair the damage to his penis."

We contacted a member of the International Association of Witchdoctors
this morning for a comment. He told us: "This demonstrates the dangers
in consulting unlicenced witchdoctors. We advise anyone with
ejaculatory disfunction to consult our list of approved
practitioners."

On the matter of premature ejaculation, he added: "Mix one teaspoon of
powdered ocelot spleen with Red Bull under a full moon. Drink one hour
before attempting penetration while sitting in a pentacle formed by
toad skulls. Then, when you're on the job, think about the
mother-in-law and filling in tax returns."

The New Merc

2006-09-14T10:47:00.000Z

I think I will name her...

... Slye-Hicks MX-100.

Man marries goat...

2006-09-12T14:06:00.000Z

I mean seriously. How is this possible in 2006?

Sudan man forced to 'marry' goat

A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal.

The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.

They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.

"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said.

Mr Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat.

"When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up".

Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case.

"They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper.

2006-08-07T18:51:00.000Z

I suspect that some of you people have determined that I have dropped off the face of the planet. I have not.

What has occurred is that I have been wandering about the face of the planet having adventures and shit. Like Caine from Kung Fu.

I've just bought a Mercedes 190E. A purpley maroon thing with AMG kit and fuck off wheels. Am currently watching an old episode of Top Gear in which the exact same wagon is touted as a classic and magnificent thing. The G-Rover is being put to rest. Which is like shooting a favourite dog.

The new car and I have already bonded. I was fucking with the radiator cap and burned the bejeezus out of my hand. The scars have just finished healing. The ancient romans used to have the same ritual every time they bought a new Mercedes. They'd sacrifice a slave or some shit on the block. This is absolutely true. To guarantee the gods will look favourably upon it.

As a result he car agrees to be burnt, to be chained up, and to be killed by an iron weapon.

I have not named her yet.

Funniest thread I ever did read

2006-04-24T16:43:00.000Z

Read this.

2006-04-18T12:22:00.000Z

Today is an auspicious day in sport. Huddersfield have a chance to climb a division in a home game tonight at Galpharm Stadium (they fucked that same chance over the weekend by conceding an absolute dolly). It is also the day that Jason Gillespie scores his maiden century, against Bangladesh. What he was doing batting so high up the order escapes me. He must have been a night watchman. In any case, he will resume tomorrow on 102, under the headline: "Gillespie ton puts Australia in a strong position."

I have accepted employment at a pub just down the road from home. Yesterday was my first shift. Last time I pulled a beer professionally was the day Diana died in a car crash. Yesterday was the last day of the long weekend. There were ten thousand screaming yuppies in a heaving writhing mass, each asking for exotica and needlessly complex beverages. What the fuck, exactly, is a bloke supposed to make of a request for: "A pint of ordinary and a St Clemens?"

And then there is the wine. For fuck's sake. We stock both kinds, which is already complicated enough. There is also a thing called "Rose" apparently, which is a sort of viticultural hermaphrodite... Neither one nor the other... But within the realms of the white and the red there are further sub-divisions, each with ludicrous names like shiraz and cabernet and merlot. Then within these varieties there are representatives from each continent. Some of these fuckers are more than a fiver for a glass.

So in any normal pub on any normal day, I'd have been fine. But with one person missing from our shift and a horde of yuppies howling for goat's cheese tarts and Pinot Grigio, with no table numbers and all paying by Amex (wtf?!?) it rapidly became a farce. I was looking in the fridge for merlot, and getting the corkscrew out for bottles which perversely had screw caps. In the end I fled the bar and became the glassie until the bullshit died down. I have to go back today, and my favourite shoes are encrusted with dog shit.

Oh, and I see that Mark Ecko has tagged Air Force One. He's a multimillionaire, so it was more like advertising.

And the resht, [hic] as they shay ish shitstory

2006-04-10T13:37:00.000Z

I have the pleasure to report for my esteemed readership another dose of alcohol fuelled senseless debauchery.

Imagine the scene. It is either late, or very early. The G-Rover, looking every inch the heavily modded and customised land shark that it is, comes thundering lazily around a corner, bumping and rolling across the apron of a late night convenience selling fuel at 95.9. A transport police Vauxhall surrenders.

The G-Rover skids slightly as it settles perfectly into a disabled park. The door opens and a shambling figure falls out onto the concrete, accompanied by an apocalypse of metal. The song is Gasoline by Audioslave. Lights up and down the street go on as the panicked residents twitch their curtains.

The headlights fade to black as the machine spins down. I get out of the driver's seat. MacGastro is already placing his order:

"My good man, I require a packet of highly peppered biltong, a packet of cool original Doritos and some ready salted Walkers. And 20 Camels. Most important that you provide me the tobacco. And I shall pay with this VISA card, if that is convenient. Oh - and 200 rolls of your finest toilet paper."

It is a scene from Clerks.

The reason for this debacle is unimportant. But it started with a large can of spinach.

I am once again at that remarkable level of poverty where each meal has become an exercise in accounting. Is rice and red beans too extravagant?

I found a very large can of spinach at the back of a cupboard, with a can of new potatoes. And a lemon. They'd reached that space in a share house unoccupied by the real estate of the mind. They were now reasonably fair game. The original purchaser had either forgotten them or abandoned them.

So I made poor man's saag aloo. About 8 little spuds and half a kilo of mulch. The fried lemon seeds tasted like pine nuts. Breakfast of champignons. (Actually I had that once, and was fucked for a week. They found me naked in Brighton.)

Later that afternoon my guts was making noises like MacGastro's snoring. I decided to take an experimental shit. This is not because I had never taken a shit before, or that I was peer reviewing someone else's methods. It was because of this:

MacGastro has just installed it in the dunny.

Now I am a great fan of RSS readers. This seemed like an amusing pun, and I was initially content with the installation.

However the explosion of bright green shit was a surprise. One with which I was not content. I swear to god when I was finished I tried my very best to wipe my arse. With a story about French rioters. Printed on two miniscule sheets. I ended up with what appeared to be one of Tiger Wood's divots on a square doily in my hand. There were partially digested leaves hanging from Ping and Pong.

I was in distress. I was apparently a rudimentary ruminant. I mean, eating grass is ok, believe me, I've got nothing against it. Vegans rule. But for Christ's sake, the consequences are unbelievably dire. It takes courage to live a life like that.

I started spamming the spool button. News stories fed out as fast as the little inkjet could print them. War looms with Iran - Hersh. Kenya MP's in plane crash - Reuters. Australia struggle in Bangladesh - BBC. But the paper wouldn't come fast enough for the clean up operation. Shit (if that's what you can call it) was spreading everywhere as I dabbed at my arse politely 2 sheets at a time.

Then the diabolical horror: Paper Jam.

I was able to get a corner of a sheet out from under the print head. But toilet paper lacks the mechanical strength of good honest heterosexual 90 gsm A4. I tore a thin strip out before the machine was hopelessly jammed. I tried to open the back of the box, but succeeded only in spreading a substance high in iron over the catch, making it too slick to use. The small cupboard where the spare rolls are kept was too far to reach from the relative safety of the dunny. I looked at the god awful mess I'd created and decided to risk hopping over to it with trow down. I couldn't risk the Calvins. Seriously - for the price I'd paid for them I could eat four bean mix and long-grain for a fucking week.

Old mother Hubbard.

FuckShitsufferingFuck.

The downstairs dunny - the last resort of a desperate man. So I shuffled, bare arsed (but for a dark green veneer) to the top of the steps. I could feel shit oozing ominously and my guts growled unpleasantly as I staggered, crouched over like Quasimodo's sewer dwelling cousin about to pounce and shit someone to death, clutching desperately to my belt. Can you fucking imagine seeing that from behind?

Have you ever tried, in such a circumstance, negotiating a flight of Edwardian stairs? Bullshit, of course you haven't. It is never necessary to descend a flight of Edwardian fucking stairs with your kecks round you ankles and your cack from back to sack. It simply doesn't happen. I will tell you that holding your waistband at ankle level forces your centre of gravity further forward than the casual observer might imagine.

I made it halfway down before I tripped and fell. In that insane and vertiginous moment I couldn't release my jeans. Somehow it was too important - "Mustn't leave green handprints". As the world receded into a black tunnel I noticed that someone had tracked mud halfway up the stairs and, according to the back of my upside down hackey-sack; "NNC - MP no eerga ot liaf setiihS"

MacGastro revived me with a beer: "Having a bit of tummy trouble, mate?"

2006-04-02T19:15:00.000Z

Fuck posh boat races. Tell you what... Buy the special import QOTSA. Listen to the last track, wherein the very Rev Billy F Gibbons recites the scripture describing Precious and Grace on a guitar called "Pearly Gates". If you can't get your hands on it, then fucking pirate the bastard. It is worth it.

That whole album of ZZ's should be covered. Master of Sparks is capable of some hardcore renditioning. Tres Hombres is one album I own of which I cannot think of a single improvement.

Bah. Jesus just left Chicago. Oh, and I've heard that Songs for the Deaf rocks to a new level also.

QOTSA is way better than any of that Emo shite. Blah Autumn's blah Paradise blah blah whatever, sounds like a porn website...

=D

Boat Race 2006

2006-04-02T18:20:00.000Z

This is the pub we were at for the Boat Race.

I wanted Oxford to win. For no particular reason except perhaps they were 6 wins behind Cambridge overall.

We watched the reserves race, which Cambridge won comfortably. An ill omen.

Watching the flotilla, we saw there was a disturbing boat in amongst the usual official craft. It was black and everyone on board was wearing black and carrying huge guns and grenades and all kinds of crazy equipment not necessarily compatible with rescue and life preservation.

Other than an episode of some sergeant in a special training group somewhere saying: "Fellas, how do you feel about chasing the Boat Race?", I can see no reason for the State to parade it's power before the plebs. Seriously, Osama does not give a fuck about the Boat Race, nor does Al Quaida know about it, nor is the population concentrated sufficiently to allow for appropriate bombX0R. Therefore leave us the fuck alone with your crazy anti-fucking-christ-knows-what boat-of-d00m.

When the main event came paddling sedately around the bend the same power boat was there, this time stuffed with more firearms and explosives than any diligent suicide bomber. I listened as a father explained to his daughter, sat on his shoulders, that the black boat was actually the good guys, not the bad guys.

I belted him across the back of the head and told her that the guys in the skinny boat with the dark blue were the good guys. I said her father was a no good recidivist related to the light blue boat and that the black boat was trying to kill us all, just as soon as they had eaten they guys in dark blue, raped her father and burned her pony.

Too much Pimms will do that to a bloke - allow him to go berserk like that. The surprising thing was that he cried more than she did.

Anyway the fags in dark blue beat the fags in light blue. Apparently they succeeded only due to the help of a Frenchman.

I would rather have spent the day in bed, vigorously masturbating with fine grain carborundum paper.

Oh, well.

There's always next year.

2006-03-31T15:57:00.000Z

I write another blog, and in it I posited the idea of Pooh bear going apeshit. This has been pointed out to be an unoriginal thought. But over at penny-arcade, like days later, they put up a cartoon wherein Pooh bear has gone psycho with a samurai sword.

Clearly the only explanation is that they are plagiarising mothers-fuck.

In other news, I see that praying for people can be harmful to them.

And what about this for a coincidence: A dude saves the life of a kid. The kid has the same name as his son, and an almost identical birthdate, the day only being different by having the digits reversed. Years later the son get an awesome job, and the saved kid goes on to a life of crime. The son's employer do a record check, and the saved kid's record comes back (because of the desire of human beings to always find something where they look), despite the different date of birth. And it is only because of the TenDollarMan and his dedication to pursuing the truth that the son's not living on the streets. I'm like Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris and the A-Team all rolled up together, me.

The nature of Monkey was Irrepressible!!!

2006-03-17T13:37:00.001Z

The above photo is a golden mnemonic for many of GenX. I just watched episode 10 and recalled seeing the same episode what must be 20 years ago now. I laughed as Monkey stole the immortality pill and replaced it with a neatly rolled ball of monkey snot. Still makes me laugh today.

I decided to google Jun Fukuda, the Japanese director. I have good tidings to report. Fukuda's work is rightly revered. And there is a remake which is currently showing in Japan. This sort of thing always makes me nervous. I thought they were going to fuck Dr Who by making him a Geordie ruffian. The choice of director was even more worrying: this guy had only done Queer as Folk and some other poof drama.

The remake of Monkey is being done by a bloke called Suzuki. So the heritage is right. Apparently a third of the entire nation of Japan is obsessed by the story, so the remake is probably sound as a pound. But I'm not sure about a few things. Firstly the whole attitude of the show was distilled in the the title phrase as a lightning bolt hit the stone egg. I still shout it today in my best bad Japanese accent. Marvellous non sequitur. They've apparently axed a lot of the back story, including that bit. And the cloud, I liked it. But they've changed that too. Like a snowboard now, apparently.

But I do like the new name: Adventures of the Super Monkey.

She's my cherry pie...

2006-03-14T14:58:00.000Z

This warrants a closer investigation... Oh dear, I'm so goddamned funny I make me cry.

I blame google...

2006-03-13T13:37:00.000Z

So, I jack in, ready to do some hardcore nerding, and I see that google has a banner up. It mentions Percival Lowell and in the tradition of google maps allows one to look around Mars. I see that you can look up the wrecks of old space ships and so I fuck around looking up things that you can't find on Mars. Then I typed in "life" (thinking of a yell.com entry for life with a fax number and everything...) and up comes a marker for Tithonian Lake.

Tithonus was Eos' fella. She tried to do him a favour, but fucked it up and that meant that he had eternal life, but not eternal youth. Apparently he turned into a grasshopper.

One of the only bits of original poetry about him was written by Sappho the Lesbian. Of her it is said: "What else was the love of the Lesbian woman except Socrates' art of love? For they seem to me to have practiced love each in their own way, she that of women, he that of men. For they say that both loved many and were captivated by all things beautiful. What Alcibiades and Charmides and Phaedrus were to him, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to the Lesbian. "

All this talk of The Lesbian lead to an altogether different search on google. And then the Landlady came round and saw me in the midst of my researches. And then it went all "Mrs Robinson" weird. But hey... I got a month off my rent, so its not all bad.

Imagine knowing Sappho these days. I think it would be awesome at parties:

"So, TenDollarMan, who's this?"

"This? This is The Lesbian."

"Ah..."

Got spooge...?

2006-03-06T13:37:00.000Z

I have always been conscious of the importance of spooge. Particularly in respect of windows. I look after my spooge... Do you?

More Mac Bashing...

2006-03-05T13:37:00.000Z

2006-03-03T13:06:00.000Z

Dear God. Golf in space?

Today a lightbulb blew up in my bedroom. I pulled the glass bit out of the metal bit. Then I had to get the metal bit out with my fingernails. There is some truly carcinogenic shit inside a lightbulb. I had no idea.

I am the greatest Mariner

2006-03-02T13:37:00.000Z

Heading back to the Habitat this afternoon from a visit to Kingston-town, I got off the train and walking over the over-pass, I passed a couple of tasty blondes. I was busily checking them out when we heard desperate cry for help:

[desperately] "Help!!!"

I turned around.

It was an ancient woman and she stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

"That last train's doors are opened wide,
And I perceive hot twins;
These chicks are met, the feast is set:
May'st see their pretty skin."

She holds him with her skinny hand,
"There goes my hip," quoth she.
"Hold off! unhand me, greybeard loon!"
Eftsoons her hand dropt she.

She holds him with her glittering eye -
The commuterist stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The old crone hath his will.

"The hip was break'd, my bowels cleared,
Slowly will I drop
Down the stair, onto the rail,
Below the station top.

So I helped the poor old duck down to the platform and when I got back up the girls had gone. Bah. Fucking Samaritan bastardry.

Meals in the new Habitat are a communal affair. There has been a very agreeable and as yet unspoken co-operation in matters culinary as to the variegated responsibilities of our little triumvirate. Tonight was D's turn to feed the house.

D is currently occupied by a fascination of that famous student of Freud, a certain Carl Gustav Jung. Her collection of his works and image has taken over a room of the Habitat which houses our collection of wine, scotch (I like my scotch like I like my women - 15 years old and called "Johnny"), chartreuse and absinthe (and the curious George Formby Grill, still in its' box. In exactly the same way as a 19th century music box, when you open it and put meat in it, it plays that inimitable classic: "When I'm cleaning windows". Fucking thing is completely unusable).

I'm not really sure what function this room has any more. It is part library, part shrine and part smoking room. The disturbing thing is that Jung's eyes never leave you. There are three portraits on the walls, and his visage stares blearily from the covers of various treatises and biographies. I can imagine that it is actually dangerous for the mentally infirm to spend too long in there. A further intensifier of the meal was an earnest argument between MacGastro and I about who was the better fighter in the Congo. I preferred Ali for the deliberate and deliciously masochistic Rope-a-Dope tactic. He the mos' scientific. He done han'cuffed lightnin'.

Our collective unconsciousness was served dinner in here by D. It was, in the tradition of Blue Peter, one she'd prepared earlier: a rumball each, the size of my head, and gloopiliy delicious.

After the rumball in the Jung Hall, it was time for the washing up. Yes, dear reader, that was a horrible and contrived pun and I apologise... None of the foregoing is true at all. You've just wasted your time if you think this exercise was for any other purpose. I drink too much.

Why Macs Suck...

2006-02-28T13:37:00.000Z

Dinner tonight was...

2006-02-22T13:37:00.000Z

mmmm... brains...

2006-02-21T22:54:00.000Z

"... and Iran should mind it's own business."

"Ambassador, thank you."

That was the US ambassador to Iraq speaking on Newsnight tonight.

I also discovered that there is a talking raven called Thor confined in the Tower of London.

And which country do you think has done better in the winter olympics: Finland, Britain or Australia?

The Half Boonie

2006-02-17T13:37:00.000Z

I may have mentioned recently that when I got off the plane in Singapore, I was under threat from The Fear. It is a strange bloody country. This from Wikipedia:

Singapore is a republic with a Westminster system of a unicameral parliamentary government, with the bulk of the executive powers resting in the hands of a cabinet of ministers led by a prime minister. The office of the president was, historically, a ceremonial one as head of state, but the Constitution was amended in 1991 to create the position of a popularly elected president and also to grant the president veto powers in a few key decisions such as the use of the national reserves and the appointment of key judiciary positions.

Nowt strange about it really, except that unicameral nonsense - don't trust it, me... And they have possibly the highest per capita rate of execution on this blue globe and they cane you for stuff, and they don't like bloggers. Or public drunkenness...

A few days before I staggered out into the airport I was drinking in Newtown. SamC hands me, by way of farewell, a ticket.

"Buy the ride, take the ticket."

"I need this, right?"

I took the ticket. And promptly forgot about it.

David Clarence Boon was born in Tasmania in 1960. He became the world's best batsmen of all time. This is because he came to the crease in Adelaide in 1988, still pissed, and spewed on it. He went on to make 122 and win man of the match.

For the 2005/06 one day season VB offered talking Boonie dolls to its drinkers, synchronised in some mysterious way with the playing of international cricket. The effigy would instruct the drinkers that the game was imminent, and suggested that a cold VB would be an appropriate accompanyment.

This night in Newtown involved a discussion, started by a Boony doll, of Boonies legendary exploit on a plane in 1989, in which he drank 52 cans. It was decided that my imminent plane journey would provide the perfect opportunity to go half the distance. 26 beers. The Half Boonie.

Its like the centurion. 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes. 26 beers on a plane that stops in Singapore, in about 28 hours. Either one is an astonishing achievement. That's 3 litres of beer in an hour and a half, for the century or nearly 10 litres a day for the Half Boonie. Or a staggering 19.5L for the Full Boonie.

The Centurion is a sprint: 1.8 litres per hour. It is deadly. That quantity of b33r can kill at that speed.

The Half Boonie is like a marathon: only 348 mL an hour, but you gotta go for more than a day. But the Full Boonie is like a sprint again: 696 mL/hr. There are very few people that are capable of such rapid and sustained alcohol abuse.

I decided to do it. I'd have a crack at the Half Boonie.

I found myself in the airport on the appointed day and decided to buy a beer. I opened my wallet and the ticket presented itself ominously. That is; like of or pertaining to an omen. And Lo! I discovered a single use invitation to the QANTAS lounge.

The QANTAS lounge is a wonderful place, where food and alcohol is free, and there are telephones and faxes and shit that you can use, hell, you can just take the fucking things if you want to. I did, and I profited from it.

I found an open bottle of Chivas Regal and assaulted it.

"TenDollarMan hits a magnificent drive over long on for six."

I had two glasses of beer (they are slightly bigger than middies)

"TenDollarMan square cuts for two."

I got on the plane and ordered a VB.

"TenDollarMan takes a cheeky single, keeping the strike."

Somewhere over Queensland I got into double figures, but got into trouble. I was sitting between two big fat bastards and the drinking itself was physically difficult, but the pissing! The pissing was a fucking nightmare. I had to stand about jumping from foot to foot trying not to piss on the floor as a horde of fuckwits all decided to go to the dunny at the same time. Those of us on serious business were inconvenienced at the convenience. And I was starting to get drunk.

It was hopeless. After a good start, the flying waitresses were becoming belligerent and failed to answer their summons. I managed about another 4 beers just before we got into Singapore and so I think I was around the 13-14 mark there. Three hours to wait for the refuelling and what-not, so I decided to go look for cheap technology and find a bar. But it was 3am local time and not a fucking thing was open. I found an Irish pub about 3 kilometres from our gate (that airport is big), and had three more beers. I began to get The Fear. I was pissed in Singapore and completely alone, apart from a small brown shocked bartender of indeterminate gender about four and a half feet tall, who did not appear to have any command of the English language. "Little b33r Hobbit," I thought, as I paid up and left.

I was alone and very unsteady (and somewhat urinary) in one end of an enormous building patrolled by small brown maniacs with machine-guns and grimaces who would arrest me and flog me without hesitation. I tried to run back to the plane, and only just made it. As I staggered back to check-in I laughed to myself at the sight of a bloke in T-shirt and shorts sleeping across three seats with a sign on the floor which read: "Please wake me at 5:30am local time."

Did I? Did I, fuck!

I was nailed, but on track to achieve the Half Boonie with the score at about 17ish at the 'Pore. I was on the plane, not asleep on a bench. And I'd been moved to an aisle seat, and between me and the window were two girls, both called Julie. I was going to pwn this, no question.

I commenced to chatting with my two colleagues. For colleagues is what they turned out to be.

"You guys ever hear of a bloke *hic* called David Clarence Boon?"

Somewhere over the Himalayas I downed what could be argued to be the 26th drink. The checker was completed over Afghanistan, of all places. The Julies with glee, vigor and delight had taken the task on and had decided that as I had a head start, they would attempt between them, to got the Half Boon.

Row 43, starboard side, had become a focal point for some hilaritah and mile-high-jinks. Our infectious consumption had engaged the interest of some fellow travellers. The flying waitresses (a brace of faggots had replaced the previous two I had been dealing with, one of which was lovely and called Julie) rolled their eyes at us when it became apparent that we weren't a trio of self medicating pteromerhanophobiacs, but rather three robustly heterosexual cricket fans.

After some considerable effort, the girls posted a combined total of 28, and yours truly managed well over 26, probably 35.

I am, your most faithful servant,

The TenDollarMan,
LLB BSc Grad Dip HB

There's a whale, there's a whale, there's a whalefish he cried...

2006-01-26T16:04:00.000Z

Here is the actual BBC article relating to that very sad story about the London Whale:

I must admit that I was somewhat fucked when I got off the plane the other day. I sat down next to this chick in a pub in London Bridge and asked "What's new?"

"Well," she says, "there's a whale in the Thames."

I'd been drinking since Singapore and my body clock said it was 54 o'clock, so this answer did not surprise me. These sort of responses are expected. I find that whenever I overindulge in anything more toxic than ether, the going gets weird. The world in general gets drunker than me and does things like put whales in rivers. All very Adamsian. Wonder if anyone spotted the petunias...

Anyway Catherine my darling, I hope the mucus membranes are healing nicely. The scratch marks have almost completely cleared now, as has your cheque. Thankyou, a pleasure.

Developers...

2006-01-14T04:14:00.000Z

Look at the Wacky Americans...

2006-01-14T03:49:00.000Z

A brief discourse on the relationships between high explosives and psychedelic drugs...

2006-01-06T13:37:00.000Z

Some time ago, around the turn of the last century, a scientist called Alfred invented something. Alfred was one of the best in his area, and his surname to this day is recognised by the whole entire world.

Today I burnt that invention on a bed of sawdust marinated in diesel. Here is a stick of AN60. Bang in a tube.

You see, Mr Nobel's invention was dynamite, and that was really just using diatomaceous earth as a matrix to absorb, of all things, a vasodilator used to treat heart conditions. Which was of course nitro-fucken-glycerine, or 1,2,3-Tri-nitro-oxy-propane as we chemists are prone to call it in moments of weakness.

Deflagration of AN60 is necessary after a while, otherwise it detonates. This shit is safer than Swedish blasting oil, but still pretty scary. You can't buy it any more, but if you want to make it, check out Uncle Fester... My old chemistry professor's nickname was Unlce Fester... I wonder...

It is worth noting that Fester is a part of a tradition that includes other great minds...

Some time ago, around the turn of the last century, a scientist called Alfred discovered something. Alfred was one of the best in his area, and his surname to this day is recognised by a very small segment of the world. They celebrate "bicycle day" on 19th April. He discovered LSD and his 100th birthday is on Wednesday. I just know how he's gonna celebrate, and it does not include cake and candles (his description of that experiment reduced me to hysterics):

4/19/43 16:20: 0.5 cc of 1/2 promil aqueous solution of diethylamide tartrate orally = 0.25 mg tartrate. Taken diluted with about 10 cc water. Tasteless.
17:00: Beginning dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortions, symptoms of paralysis, desire to laugh.
Supplement of 4/21: Home by bicycle. From 18:00- ca.20:00 most severe crisis. (See special report.)

More here.

To celebrate his birthday there is a party in Basel. You can buy tickets at www.lsd.info. I shit you not. I am unable to confirm or deny that they are impregnated with anything...

Dr Hofmann and Fester belong to a group of shamans which also includes a bloke called Dr Shulgin. These guys all started out as deadly serious scientists who in one way or another were seduced by their craft. And what a strange craft it is:

One elephant given 0.297 g of LSD died after a few minutes... The weight of this animal was determined to be 5,000 kg, which corresponds to a lethal dose [LD50] of 0.06 mg/kg

Shulgin is the ultimate romantic. He started out making these drugs with his DEA license, and took every one of them. He wrote PiHKAL. Then if he liked them, he'd give 'em to his missus. They went on adventures to Mexico looking for cactus. Like the fucking Indiana Jones of drugs.

Shulgin is a member of the Bohemian Club (imagine Eyes Wide Shut, and here), which apparently counts a certain G H W Bush as a member. Shulgin is the godfather of that other drug, MDMA. With friends like that, and the stone cold fact that half the shit he's eaten wasn't illegal because he's only just invented it, he's got a good life. So good he's written the Shulgin Rating Scale for drugs. He even invented a drug that did nothing except shift the pitch of sounds down. How totally mad-scientist cool.

He reckons that designer drugs are an unstoppable exponential force:

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were only two psychedelic compounds known to Western science: cannabis and mescaline. A little over 50 years later -- with LSD, psilocybin, psilocin, TMA, several compounds based on DMT and various other isomers -- the number was up to almost 20. By 2000, there were well over 200. So you see, the growth is exponential.

Others came along, like Dr Timothy Leary, godfather of Winona Ryder and Uma Thurman (he met her mum thru Salvador Dali). This guy took so much LSD he is still publishing books 8 years after he died. He also said: "Turn on, tune in, drop out," which is something I can completely understand, having spent the day burning high explosives in the rain and drinking beer.

There was Aldous. An author, but part of a scientific family. Taught George Orwell French at Eton, apparently (his wife, Eileen, was taught by J R R Tolkein). Of course, Dr Gonzo. Nuff said. Philip K Dick, William Burroughs, all of the Beatles, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, and on and on and on...

Welcome to the year of Aspergers, Tesla, Rembrandt, Mozart and the dog...

2006-01-01T13:37:00.000Z

Listen to Alabama 3. They are an 8 piece outfit from Brixton. Natch.

New Year, hey... I'm good at new years. I've been doing it now for a while. In the old days I'd drink beer with my dad and watch the American football on the ABC.

Then there was a brief period where I'd dissolve myself in a mixture of base chemicals and slosh around in a dream. I'd heard of these mythical old party animals; old, large and fearsome, who were so cool, and so jaded that they could party like fuck, expressionlessly, without the need for this same irresponsible behavior - they had developed a new way (based on quantum rather than chemical techniques). All they needed was cheap sunglasses, regardless of the time or conditions (You see, without the Truth of the Eyes, the Happyfolk were blind).

Now I have become party-Rhino the Everlasting. These are my glasses:

This amused the shit out of me. This link is for a real business in Warilla. Just near Shellharbour. It is a business that is concerned with the delivery of fresh produce, as I understand it. They have a white van, which is de rigeur in this trade. Look at this:

It is the side of the van. Wow. Now look what happens when the sliding door is opened to enable access to the fresh succulent produce within:

Now of course, that shit is way better than ordinary fucking vegetables. That is the sort of fresh, juicy produce that the robotic box-making party-Rhino 5000 is after. Oh yes. And it is available to me 7-days a week simply by ringing 4295 1409. Kids, you have to keep your eyes and ears open at all times for this sort of subversive advertising. I do, and the world amuses me as a reward.

So what were you up to new years eve? I'd decided to brave a houseparty in Hurstville. Why there haven't been race riots there is beyond me. Perhaps because there aren't enough of any one kind of race there to compile the requisite critical mass and slaughter the rest. On a side note, I hear that some English are enjoying some undeserved Schadenfreude at our Cronulla embarrassment. STFU: Bradford. Birmingham. Brixton.

I was also wondering how to juggle the houseparty with a particularly interesting invite to a society do involving poached salmon and a pair of pure-bred Burmese. Or some fucken thing - I hate cats. I've been trying to surreptitiously kill this aggravating pair of arseholes for years now. They are getting old now and are starting to slow down.

I decided to do both as I rummaged through the bathroom in search of ameliorating emollients. I had seriously scorched myself on t3h b34ch, and was in great pain. I have always judged any sort of skin cream to be the very worst sort of snake-oil bullshit. The thing is, skin is mostly dead and in actual fact the only way to make it better is to drink 2 litres of water a day. All this other crap is just a good way for the cosmetic companies to mercilessly rape your wallet. But the pain was too much I thought that even if I knew I was awash with snake-oil bullshit, there might be a skerrick of placebo effect on my reptile brain, and I might gain some small relief. I also necked 2 grams of panadeine and some pseudoephedrine for t3h buzz.

It was during this intimate moment to myself that I received a communication from my attorney: "Wanna got to FBS?" Perfuctory as always. "What the fuck is this TLA: FBS?" I thought. Fetal Bovine Serum, the new post-emo band? No. Here is a hint. A big hint:

He'd secured all we needed for an anniversarial bender. Yea, even to the extent of the beach at Bondi.

You can count on my attorney to come through with The Goods. This is why I tolerate his dangerously disordered mental state. He is a man on the edge. He's got no clue where he's going, but he's going there very fast.

Anyway, some English may be thinking to themselves, "Oh, yeah, well we may have our own race problems, but its just those blacks and the Muslim Asians, it's not the real English. We're golden. God's own children."

Well. This is what the fat man has to say on the issue. Ten spoons of spinach, you bastards.

We arranged to meet at the Grand Central Bar and make the exchange as I was en route between parties. I tell you, it chilled the very soul of the Monkey to look upon that ticket. The promise of post-prandial Fun. So after my salmon and some tasty ice cream I walked through Kings Cross to the station.

It is something I think about en route to a gig. It was good to start off flying solo, as it gave me my own tempo (I hate waiting for people, like when the Code Pimp decides he has to re-iron his shirt or buff his nails or some shit) and time to think. Attendees at a thing like this are like the old gladiators. By and large they are the elite partying race. My ticket was a second release bought the day after my birthday, and I'm a fucking Libra. This shit may looks effortless and spontaneous, but someone sober and reliable out there has to be trusted to actually organise things. Christ only knows how the Attorney got the tickets. I have calculated that these tickets were more valuable than gold.

I noticed something else about the gladiators. You can't see them usually, they blend in by being rare. But the closer you get to the nodes of public transport to a gig like this, the more chance you have of spotting one. They are all beautiful. I saw, and immediately started stalking, a babe with legs I could happily die licking (from the dancing, I suspect). She had two blonde plaits, a la 5th grade, and the tiny tartan school uniform as well. But there was something deadly and pornographic about her. She was also flying solo and was therefore immune to the dangers offered in the Cross. I knew for absolute certain she was going to see our man Norman at Bondi. I felt like calling for some Mitchell's delivery...

There is also an aspect of belonging to a tribe. You can talk to any other gladiator as though they were an old friend. This does not mean that you can talk to anyone at all behind the fence at Bondi at 11:30pm on the last day of the year. No, there are impostors. They sneak in with the humans all the time. You can tell them. They wear the wrong sort of clothes, which are the right sort of clothes. The sort of gear you'd expect to wear at a thing like this. Funny T-shirts, the same trainers as [insert famous icon], that sort of thing. They also bring chupa chups. That shit is no good. You need a soft packet of cigarettes and no lighter. You need nothing else, not even clothes. Everything you bring has the potential not to exist after the Fun begins. If you do it right you become pure energy, and when coalescing time comes, you might forget something, and end up polluting the ether with your commercial litter. You will know them by their deeds. They are what they repeatedly do. Excellence is habitual.

I followed our naughty schoolgirl to the gates, arriving together about 45 mins before the great man was due to address us. We strode unimpeded through all the different check points and diverged into the crowd. As we did so I noticed a crashing sound, like that of three blokes jumping two sets of cyclone mesh fencing, and turned to see three sprinting half naked men applauded into the same seething, roaring shouting mass. I don't know how many were there, but it was more than 2000... Some people say 15,000 some say 20,000. Alls I know is that for a moment I was a sperm cell again.

I found the degenerate and his milkbar droogies. We fought into the G-spot of the crowd. I understand that there was to be an extra second concatenated onto last year. When the big phatt countdown started, marking the extinction of '05 and the commencement of the beats, I half expected a sort of reverse Fibonacci: ... 3, 2, 1, 1, which would have been highly appropriate, considering the highly acidic conditions prevailing in the pit.

One thing I noticed about the set (not the numbers, the beats), was the preponderance of mash ups. I've mentioned these before. They are a distillation of the original art of the DJ. Beatmatching at a stoic 128 bpm across two turntables while somehow managing to keep the pitch. Very simple, but difficult to pull off. It is exactly like performing improv haiku. I heard the bass line from some Gorillaz, the ubiquitous genius underpinning 7-nation army, even some Eric Clapton song... I think Derek and the Dominos era. Talk about plunder. He even advertised my favourite nerd website with the Arctic Monkeys.

The rest of the night was maniacal grinning grinding and shaking, Palookavision, and casual flirtation.

Post coital glum on the bus into town in search of b33r and burgers, then home to the hottest day ever in the known universe. 3k trudge from the station home with the worst chafe imaginable. Skin burning again under the remains of my shirt. Sleep impossible. 44 fucking degrees at my house today. I trod on my fucking scrotum searching for b33r. You ever seen a man trip himself up by stepping on his own ball-sack? You ever see that shit? The look of surprise and terror? I saw it just before my head hit the fucking flatscreen TV. When I woke up I looked down to see a big pink leather love heart lying flat on the floor between my knees with what looked like a couple of rissoles in it. Christ it was hot.

Oh Yeah, now this strip is funny...

2005-12-30T13:37:00.000Z

Crap... I've fallen in love with a cartoon character...

2005-12-29T13:37:00.000Z

I am going for a swim; I may be some time...

2005-12-28T13:37:00.000Z

Happy Christmas everyone. Wild Oats won the Sydney to Hobart in record time. There are other signs that it is Christmas. There is cricket being played at the MCG. And of course if you venture into town late at night, the streets run with alcohol, vomit and seminal fluids.

I crashed the Christmas party of my old employer. It was a partially approved crashing, one does not go into a room full of drunk lawyers unless it has been scoped out by someone. I had my old lawyer-tamer of a PA do it for me.

After most of the lightweight dead weight had gone home to bed, the core that was left commenced to drinking, not like at a party, but like it was a competition where second place carried dark and dire consequences. At 4am my attorney and I cabbed it to a place he knew. A brand new unit, just completed, spitting distance from the water. He assured me that there was a quantity of beautiful femininity there.

I had been given a hat earlier. Here it is:

I was feeling exactly like Lemmy. Not having shaved I was looking like his corpulent twin as well. I felt exactly like indulging in a quantity of beautiful femininity. But all we got when we arrived was his girlfriend. Not even I'm that impolite. (Actually that is exactly what is wrong with society today. This shit didn't bother the ancient Greeks.)

So we put together some flatpack furniture without the instructions, watched the sun come up and talked shit. One thing my attorney can be depended on is to have a variety of alcohol in his fridge.

I'd noticed that it was still about 27 degrees at dawn. We decided that we needed to swim, that this was essential for our continued personal happiness. Much in the same way that a pack of Wrigley's Big Red is to a day-glo raver.

Not exactly having the conventional swimming attire, I stripped off and took the Caz's sarong. We staggered barefoot through town, met a bloke called Michael who runs an ace little fish and chip shop (I was down there the other day eating some colossal piece of endangered piscatory), and did some laps. After this we took our travelers for a walk over the rocks to the next beach north.

Whereupon my useless fucking attorney swam in the glorious warm clear ocean for about 5 fucking minutes and then promptly fell asleep on a nearby rock, like some manner of seafaring lizard.

I'm made of sterner stuff. I decided to find out how far out I could swim without losing my hat. I swam around for fucking hours. It gets like this for me on a binge. Something in the brane is compelled to do these ridiculous things. In vino veritas. This must be what I am really like.

Anyway I get back to shore (my need of the sarong was undisguised; naked you might say) and am confronted by my comatose attorney. There it is. Victory. I am the last man standing. I raise my Iron Fists, salute the Ace of Spades, contemplate my attorney on the rock with his dreams of Caz (Love me Like a Reptile, baby), conclude that he simply has No Class, and that I would rather be Deaf Forever than be such a lightweight. Then I realised that the Chase is Better than the Catch, and that all this behavior of mine is Over the Top, probably even Overkill, and so I laid me down to sleep.

[fuck - I've just noticed Jaques lbw to Nell for 28. Bastard]

I am woken by an insistent stentorian shouting. Somebody asks: "Are you the TenDollarMan?"

"Yeah", I say, wiping sand out of my eyes, straightening my hat.

What followed was amazing. Like something out of a Douglas Adams book. That part where the immortal dude goes around and insults, personally, all the living beings in the universe, in alphabetical order: "You fucking degenerate bastard! You don't know how much fucking trouble you've caused, you cunt!" etc, in a similar fashion for quite some time. The figure started capering madly in the sand, shouting and frothing at the mouth and generally behaving in a manner unbefitting a sober member of society, but entirely consistent with someone who has suffered a strange accident involving an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands.

"Fucken Wowbagger!", I thought to myself, looking at the sun, high in the sky.

My attorney remained totally inert during this assault, only waking up after being kicked square in the guts. "Respect," I thought, "Maybe he's not a pussy after all."

It transpires that there had been some frenzied activity unnoticed by either of us involving several dozen people wearing a certain distinctive yellow and red uniform. And speed boats and helicopters and so on.

"Ain't My Crime." I thought.

Boundaries of logic and possibility notwithstanding

2005-12-27T13:37:00.000Z

R Stevens is a genius. Filename for hint.

Oh Yes...

2005-12-25T13:37:00.000Z

...And why did the comp eng get Xmas confused with Halloween? Cause OCT31 is DEC25. Oh dear. Well, there's 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who get it, and those who, sadly, do not...

2005-12-14T23:50:00.001Z

Back in Oz, and I'd forgotten what a fucking awsome place it is. I've been to a fair few countries:

South Africa
Lesotho
Swaziland
Mozambique
Thailand
Australia
Fiji
NZ
Poland
France
Belgium
England
Wales
Melbourne

and none of them compare to Oz. It's fucking paradise. And some people don't like it. I understand that Cronulla is burning, and that SMSs are being circulated urging race based violence. In the immortal words of the deputy PM: "if you don't like Oz, fuck off."

I love a bit of violence and destruction, you all know that. Any opportunity for me to ferment dischord and I'm giggling like a school girl. Mischief is good. And those French riots were awesome. I hope something similar happens here.

I've come back to my house to do a spot of catching up before I head out into the heat. OMFG, the fucking sun. I'm gonna drink b33r today and lie down on yellow sand in front of the Pacific fucking Ocean. In the immortal words of Dick Dale in his version of the excellent Ramones track:

"They sin and I’ll sin they fly and I’ll fly
We're out there having fun in the warm New South Wales sun"

Fuck, yeah. Hahahahahahahaaaaa..... Oh I'm sorry, G'day to all my friends back home in old Blighty. Where it smells of mushrooms and farts, instead of eucalyptus and suncream.

I've got five more weeks of this sort of attitude before I must skulk back to the UK.

Space Cadets

2005-12-09T12:11:00.000Z

"Space is like Chessington World of Adventures times ten thousand"

"What", as they say in the classics, "the fuck?"

BBC Headline

2005-12-09T11:42:00.000Z

Saw this on t'interweb:

Defiant Kibaki swears in cabinet

Apparently he said: "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me."

And refused to work on Maggie's farm no more.

Fuck Diversity

2005-12-09T10:59:00.000Z

I have had it. Today is my last day here at the HQ. And I am surrounded by the type of public servants that I thought were the comical constructs of the likes of A. P. Herbert, or found within "Yes, Minister".

But they are real. And aggravating beyond reason. One cannot use phrases like "nitty gritty" for fear of insulting ex-slaves, or their descendants.

You can't "brainstorm" for fear of inducing a apoplexy in epileptics. One "board-blasts" instead.

Anyway, in the time honoured tradition of Christmas parties (shit - sorry, non-denominational holiday season celebrations), I got pissed and let rip over the turkey dinner with my own version of diversity:

"Fuck diversity!". This gets you attention at public sector Xmas parties. I regaled the revellers with the indefatigable logic that if everyone was a renaissance man like me, then we wouldn't need political correctness or human rights. So what we need instead is for all public sector employees to shout "Fuck Diversity!" three times a day, and whenever they feel themselves being overtaken by the ungovernable urge to respect someone's human rights.

I'm like a messiah, me: they've had T-shirts made.

Tell you what tho... The whole of HQ is in cacophony. The Chief is losing it. He's actually drawn his service revolver for the first time in 43 years.

2005-12-02T09:29:00.000Z

There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.

2005-11-30T17:42:00.000Z

This story reminds me of another absolutely true matter I dealt with recently...

A man in a pub is invited into the carpark by another man, who has taken offence to something said, in order that they settle the dispute vi et armis. The actual details of which are totally without consequence, having occurred within a pub and under the effects of alcohol.

Man1: "Before we commence to fisticuffs, I a required by law to inform you that I am expert in the martial art known as "karate", to such a standard that I have been awarded the highest mark of proficiency therein, to wit, a black belt."

Man2: "I don't give a shit, you scoundrel, prepare yourself."

Man1: "I shit you not, you are about to receive the beating of you life. But to be fair, let me go now and find a lump of wood, and break that lum of wood in my hands, and you after seeing this will surely want fuckall to do with me thereafter."

Man2: "Yah, yah, whatever. Faggot." Which statement turns out later to be presciently ironical.

Man1 retires to obtain a lump of wood. Returns with large lump of wood.

Man1: "I return. Approach closely to observe my remarkable demonstration."

Whereupon Man1 strikes Man2 about the cranium repeatedly with said lump of wood.

2005-11-25T15:26:00.000Z

Captain Haddock is cool.

2005-11-22T10:22:00.000Z

American Edit. A lot like American Idiot, but made better with the introduction of Dr Who. Free MP3's. Go get 'em...

haha... another one...

2005-11-21T15:57:00.000Z

>>We're talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage

They're just getting ready to run Windows Vista when it comes out.

Random line from /.

2005-11-21T15:54:00.000Z

I'd sooner touch the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, than touch one of these here Google Skynet Singularity Machines

Top 20 Geek books

2005-11-21T11:31:00.000Z

This is ripped straight from the grauniad. What makes me laugh is that in the last week I have talked about or read everything in the top 10. Except number 1, which I saw on DVD last week. There is a surprising amount of Dick in this list. I didn't know that Dick was so popular with geeks. Looks like geeks like a lot of Dick. Apparently Huxley liked a bit of Dick. And LSD. He was dying of cancer and asked for a tab. After he took it, C. S. Lewis died and then someone shot JFK, then he died himself. Strong stuff, LSD.

I propose to buy this list on Amazon.

1. The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- Douglas Adams 85% (102)
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four -- George Orwell 79% (92)
3. Brave New World -- Aldous Huxley 69% (77)
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? -- Philip Dick 64% (67)
5. Neuromancer -- William Gibson 59% (66)
6. Dune -- Frank Herbert 53% (54)
7. I, Robot -- Isaac Asimov 52% (54)
8. Foundation -- Isaac Asimov 47% (47)
9. The Colour of Magic -- Terry Pratchett 46% (46)
10. Microserfs -- Douglas Coupland 43% (44)
11. Snow Crash -- Neal Stephenson 37% (37)
12. Watchmen -- Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons 38% (37)
13. Cryptonomicon -- Neal Stephenson 36% (36)
14. Consider Phlebas -- Iain M Banks 34% (35)
15. Stranger in a Strange Land -- Robert Heinlein 33% (33)
16. The Man in the High Castle -- Philip K Dick 34% (32)
17. American Gods -- Neil Gaiman 31% (29)
18. The Diamond Age -- Neal Stephenson 27% (27)
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy -- Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson 23% (21)
20. Trouble with Lichen - John Wyndham 21% (19)

One night in London

2005-11-20T13:37:00.000Z

The senior management of the SamC fanclub convened for food. We did it last night at the drunken monkey, at which place I recommend the smoked crispy chicken and the spicy spring rolls.

After the usual and assorted debacle, which is required to make a good night memorable, I found myself outside a nightclub talking to an angel about Lemmy. This angel was fiercely bearded and very large. He wore a leather vest with some lovely embroidery. His name was Prim. He'd been backstage to have a yarn with his mate Lemmy. I asked: "Did they play Ace of Spades?" They did play Ace of Spades. I aksed: "Did they play Iron Horse?"

They fucken played it.

Prim reckons that an angel called Tramp wrote that song. Wasted forever, on speed bikes and booze, Yeah Tramp and the brothers, all born to lose.

Wish I'd been hanging with the Angels last night.

2005-11-18T10:11:00.000Z

Who wants to go SCUBA diving in the Red Sea with me early Jan next year? Staying here (and here). I suspect that it is still standing. SCUBA in the Red Sea is completely safe, and no-one gets lost at all.

After that I'm off to Chamonix with MacGastro. We travel by mini and substance abuse.

Goddamn Slashdot is funny...

2005-11-17T13:26:00.000Z

This made me rofl my salad all over my keyboard. That really IS salad cream officer...

Thats it, I quit everything

(Score:5, Funny)

by Snamh Da Ean (916391) on Thursday November 17, @05:57AM (#14050870 )

This is the last straw - I quite drinkng tea and coffee because caffeine is bad for health, quite smoking because nicotine is bad, quite drinking soft drinks because sugar and all that stuff that makes the drink fizzy is bad for you, and now freaking decaff has been sliently killing me. From now on, all bets are off, I'm just going to smoke crack and to hell with the consequences.

From a post on deadly decaf coffee

Lorem Ipsum

2005-11-16T16:27:00.000Z

But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?

Now, what the fuck is this doing on the whitehouse page?

I think there's a virus about...

2005-11-16T16:02:00.000Z

Anyone know what this means? I found it on t3h w3b. Found it in the White House site. Found it everywhere. t3h 1337 H4X0Rs did it.

Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?

2005-11-15T09:40:00.000Z

I think I'm in love with Newsnight's economics editor... I also collect jokes about animals or inanimate objects going into bars...

2005-11-14T18:34:00.000Z

Dear God! NOOOO!!!!!

2005-11-14T13:59:00.000Z

Good god. Someone has patented a gravity wave propelled space ship. That is all we need.

Remind me to tell you the story I heard the other day about a flying sheep...

OK, this is crazy...

2005-11-10T13:46:00.000Z

... I can't get my head around this. I've been told since 1987 that playing computer games is bad, and that I wouldn't amount to a tin of fish if that is all I did, and that continued exposure to radiation off the monitor would damage my balls and everything.

Now I discover that it was all lies. You can make it big playing computer games.

Double Randomnity

2005-11-08T17:53:00.000Z

I see that France is now as dangerous as parts of Iraq. I see that the spokesman for the Azerbaijani President is that excellent author responsible for the foundation series and the three laws of robotics*. I see that pirates can be defeated with "a loud bang". Arrr. I can report that while tea made with pure wild fennel seeds tastes excellent, it looks disturbingly like piss.

I see that in the list of the top 10 software bugs of all time there has been human fatality. I note with interest that bird shit that could reasonably be suspected of being infected with H5N1 is fed to fish in Vietnam, which in turn are fished and eaten. I understand that Milla Jovovic, possibly the most beautiful object in the entire universe, is to play a sex slave in a new movie.

And I appreciate that sometimes when your number is up, it is up. Your doom can be inevitable. And it is always possible to escape jail, if you have a twin.

* Department of Foreign Relations Mr. Azer Gasimov, Head Tel: 439-97-50

Quick, before Stan sees it...

2005-11-01T10:51:00.000Z

... I saw this on El Reg.

*giggle*

2005-10-27T19:19:00.000Z

I'm off to the Cotswolds. Apparently there is some fresh beaver there...

Happy Birthday...

2005-10-27T13:19:00.000Z

... Pippa!

I knew it!

2005-10-27T10:18:00.000Z

I've always known this to be true. Awesome. Proof mathematical. Everyone knows about three legged tables. They are always stable. Four legs need a twist. This rotation about an axis necessarily involves a subtle adjustment of plane. For five legged tables I predict that there is also a similar trick, but involving a symmetrical twist in two dimensions, rather than one planar adjustment. I predict that one of those dimensions must be time.

Two legged tables require the complete removal of one dimension to achieve stability. Or both legs.

2005-10-22T17:55:00.000Z

H5N1...?�You just sank my battleship! You cunt.

2005-10-22T16:39:00.000Z

Bird flew... No shit...

2005-10-20T10:49:00.000Z

how cool is the news?

Hurricane, Quake, Pandemic. Famine anyone?

2005-10-19T15:36:00.000Z

I'd like to thank Candi and Mandi the Sexy Bunny Twins for the birthday present (a big box of fellatio and amphetamines). Much appreciated. And I promise you girls that cheque is good. For another two days at least.

Rock and Roll. A completely necessary component of a bloke's life. And women, equally are essential, unless of course you are an Iron Hoof, in which case you are an evil degenerate and your soul is forfeit.

So the combination of women and rock then? How awesome is that? Courtney Love excluded, natch.

The alpha and omega of rock and roll are probably AC/DC and either ZZTop, or the Zepp. In any case whichever you chose they form a triumvirate of cool which has compiled many an aria to the goddesses of rock.

To wit:

Whole lotta Rosie - AC/DC
Squealer - AC/DC
Cover you in Oil - AC/DC
Almost any song by the other two.

Acca Dacca have also penned some total genius, to rival the wit of Billies Gibbons and Ham:

Crabsody in Blue

Well they moved on down
And they crawled around
Walking sideways
Sideway walking
Give me the blues

And you start to scratch
When they start to hatch
Walking sideways
Sideway walking
Give me the blues

But when they start to bite
Then it's time you set alight
For an appointment
Before you start to scream
That's when you apply the cream
Blues ointment

Well the doctor said
"We got to make 'em dead"
Walking sideways
Sideway walking
Give me the blues

And when you start to scream
That's when you apply the cream
Blues ointment
And when they start to itch
You go out and you take thu bitch
For an appointment

Well you rub it on
And you rub it in
Stops them walking
Sideway walking
Gives them the blues

Sideway walking
Sideway walking
They got the blues

You give them the blues
They got the blues
You give them the blues

(Interestingly, the lyrics page from where the above was stolen had some of those funky google ads. For hydrocortisone. Har har!)

Search Terms to get here...

2005-10-15T20:29:00.000Z

Num	Perc.	Search Term
2	22.22%	hold my hat will you good fellow
1	11.11%	tendollarman
1	11.11%	she don't like pavlov's dog
1	11.11%	the best song in the world song
1	11.11%	thehun
1	11.11%	cartoon eyes with dollar signs
1	11.11%	the best song in the world
1	11.11%	space shuttle re-entry pictures
9	100.00%

Hmmm...

2005-10-15T13:37:00.000Z

Tomorrow's trivia night at Vox is gonna have 5 questions on cheese. This is exceptional.

I intend to pwn t3h quiz. I am studying stinking bishop at the moment.

Dear God...

2005-10-14T11:15:00.000Z

Click to enlarge...

Bird flu found in Turkey...

2005-10-13T13:37:00.000Z

... no shit.

In other news the ceiling in the kitchen has fallen in. This does not make me happy. Last week when I got home the DVD player had died. That didn't make me happy. The week before that I discovered a glacier in my fridge. Had to empty it and defrost the fucker. That wasn't real nice either - all manner of manky filth in there I barely remember buying.

I think I may burn the habitat down.

2005-10-08T13:37:00.000Z

Here are three things which prove that the world is a strange place

This guy.
This guy. Him 'air di bomb!
These fuckers. Largest b33r pyramid, made in Australia. Out of VB cans, natch.

In other news, the world is about to become a strange place. This dude has learned how to grow diamonds. Buy shares in Apollo Diamond. (I read about this character nearly 2 years ago. I think some yarpie is gonna try and murder him.) The reason the world is gonna get strange is that these man made diamonds will be able to improve computer power a lot.

Ray Kurzweil wrote an article in New Scientist recently predicting that soon (ie in the next 20 years or so) a computer will be made with the power of a human brane. We're at about rat stage now. And about 10 years later there will be a computer available for about US$1000 that has more capacity than all human branes. 2 of them and you've got more computer power than all human branes that have ever existed. The Singularity is Near would make a great birthday present for someone... check out the quote by Bill Gates. Then again, all this talk about reverse engineering the brane to make super-intelligence sounds like he wraps his head in tin-foil at night. We shall see.

Anyway, I'll be at the London Academy of Sex. I'm a professor there. Yes, I am.

And then there's this. Typical of this fair green isle, I'd have thought. To ban the word "Rabbit". Good god.

Bah. MacGastro rang me today to tell me he's bought one of these. Fucker.

Chavs wear hoodies. Beware the Uber-chav:

Bah. Fucker's prolly already engraved my car.

2005-10-07T13:37:00.000Z

The IT-filth have firewalled me in at work, so I can't get any webby goodness. Which consequently means that I have blog constipation. And haven't been able to respond to any of the threats or insults landing in my gmail inbox.

Firstly let me deal with Pip. You are an 3vil wench. I remember when I was your age. There was this new thing call a mobile phone. You carried around the battery for it in a briefcase. And then when I was about 20 they invented t' tinternet. You had a thing called a modem for that and it was good for about 2k/s. And I had to live in a pothole in the motorway. And eat gravel. And by the time I was your age I'd been stung by far more interesting predators than a silly Spanish jellyfish.

Now. To the ancestral Boof. When I was fifteen I used to drink that Banrock Station red. In those days they impregnated the cardboard box containing the silver bag with flame retardant. It was good to chew on for it's psychadelic effect. I see now from your recent posts that it may not have been necessary to to suck that foul mixture after all and that I could have satisfied myself with Myrtle.

Please keep on posting tho. It is important for many reasons. If you took a meta-perspective of the blogosphere and regarded it as, say, a chemical reaction, then your blog becomes an important reagent engaged in the production of some as yet ineffable meta-substance. If voices like yours are drowned out by the fucktards who believe ghost stories, then the reaction spoils and the Meta-Chem degrades, humanity suffers as a whole and when the Matrix becomes real and the Meta-Chem is used to seed the SimCore their bullshit will be simulated too. You must fight the good fight, or we will need to send robot warriors back in time. (As for that "sacred sex" bullshit, I'm sad to say that looks like it comes from an Australian, who I thought, as a race, were generally below that sort of thing. By the way, you see Bushy reckons "God made me do it". I'm scared. What if god tells him to kill the infidel?)

I see that hurricane Stan has flounced his way across Mezco, leaving 250,000 homeless. The wind was heard to say: "OH MY GOD! Just look at those curtains! What were you thinking! And that wallpaper! OH!"

In other news, MacGastro scored a plum job breaking computer programs. I won't tell you what he's earning, save to say that it is an extravagant amount. It is such a magnificent sum of money that he could conceivably sub-contract out his actual real job to two 3rd year comp sci students with 1:1 grades, pay them each a good salary and still have enough money to dress like the pimp he is and ski 6 months of the year in Europe. Needless to say I have quit my job here and am searching for one with even more magnanimous remunification. Gotta stay ahead of the Jonses, don't you know...

Speaking of pimps... Has anyone out there heard from the CodePimp? Fucker's prolly descended into suburban domestic obscurity forever.

I have resuscitated the shiny thing. My technomological brilliance knows no bounds. I am the Dr Frankenstein of Electronica. The intricate, recondite methods of hacking computers hasn't changed one bit since the days before Pip was a pretty little zygote. I once made a LAN by rewiring a printer port on a old 486 so that I could deathmatch my brother in Doom. You had to take out the twist between two pins to change it from a printer to a null modem.

In other news, Pete Jackson is making another movie about a ring. And Korea is starting to suffer the same problems as Huddersfield a year ago.

My attorney has gone native. Last time I heard from him he was sounding a little crazy. Now hes gone totally Kurtz. Actually I think its more serious than that. He's more than a symbol of deep-rooted 19th century homosexuality. I think he's gone all Walter E. Kurtz. (And just how fucking good would that movie have been with Keitel in the lead instead of Sheen?) The fucker was in China heading towards Tibet, claiming to have Base Camp as his destination. I shit you not. He has lost it. I mourn the loss of my attorney. Opium does terrible things to a man.

Furthermore, this is now the baddest song in the world:

She likes wearin' lipstick, she likes French cuisine
but she won't let me use my passion unless it's in a limousine.

She got me under pressure,
she got me under pressure.

She likes the art museum, she don't like Pavlov's dog.
She fun at the mind museum, she likes it in a London fog.
She don't like other women, she likes whips and chains.
She likes cocaine and flippin' out with great Danes.
She's about all I can handle, it's too much for my brain.

It's got me under pressure,
It's got me under pressure.

I'm gonna give her a message,
here's what I'm gonna say:
"It's all over."
She might get out a nightstick
and hurt me real real bad
by the roadside in the desert.

It's got me under pressure,
It's got me under pressure.

2005-10-05T08:20:00.000Z

Mwaaahahahahaha!!! Hurricane STAN!?!?!?

In other news, hurricane Stan has killed 463 people who were wearing really ugly clothes. Curiously none of the dead were cute boys...

Rocket Racing League

2005-10-04T11:53:00.000Z

Oh Yeah. Now we gettin' silly.

Seriously... The Rocket Racing League. Sounds like a cartoon made by Hanna Barbera in 1972. This is gonna be phucken w00t. It'll make Schumacher's lot look a bit gh3i.

Heh... that reminds me... I was drinkin' at the Camel on Friday. Shoe was teaching me how to swear in yorkish. f00kin' coont. Heh. Love gratuitous expletion.

Oh yeah, and just in relation to rocketry... Anyone remember this obscure traffic report? I remember thinking at the time it was a bit weird, because I didn't know of any reason to be transporting that much H2O2. 'Specially cause it does tend to go bang. It was apparently for this guy... Cool. So we can take jet packs to watch the jet races.

2005-10-02T14:37:00.000Z

Something very special happens in October. Three things, all within 2 days of each other: I turn 31; The Master of the Rolls signs me on; And Billy's bookgets published. This is auspicious. You see, in this country when a bloke turns 31 you give him a gift. And what better gift for a the TenDollarMan than this book? Maybe a pair of cheap sunglasses, I suppose...

Who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame first: U2 or ZZTop?

Anyway, I digress...

2005-09-23T13:37:00.000Z

Fucking shit-fire bastard-cunt.

I have destroyed my shiny thing. I have amputated its brane. It is vegetal now. Still very pretty, but a whole lot less useful.

And did I fill in the warranty card? Did I fuck.

Oh well, it's my first tech based tragedy, and I've re-compiled my kernel in linux while playing x-quake.

In other news the leggy PA has turned into a soccer hooligan. She told me some bullshit story about going to see Leeds Untied play QPR away the other day. She got kicked off the train in Retford on account of being really, really hammered, with no chance of getting another train till the morning. And then the story gets weird. She rang a Russian. Named Igor, natch. Iggy sends down a car to get her filled with other Russians. I mean for fucks sake. Too much vodka, babe. Stick to the white.

What scares me is that the degenerate gave my fucking address to the police. Jeebus. I should chain her to a stake in the back yard and throw stones at her for that:

"Never..."

*whack*

"... ever ..."

*splat-thud*

"... talk to cops!"

*crunch*

In other news, sadly Rita is falling in strength. I love a good catastrophe, me. I was hoping to see some proper devastation. Prolly only rip off a few rooves now and gently irritate a few landscape gardeners. I did see that some old people got barbequed on a bus. Thats no good. They'd have been fine at home.

I have purchased a ticket for an aeroplane. Don't got time to take no fast train. Three grand to get back to the land of Oz. I'd rather have the funky red shoes, m'self...

I am really pissed off that my shiny toy is broke. Am going to blame someone else for that, I think. It was Cocky's fault: "Try formatting it, Oz. That's sure to work..." Fucker.

I have been using Exeem today, just out of curiosity really. Nothing specific to download, so I searched for the new Pixies CD, but it wasn't available (dunno why, I've got nothing to listen to it on! Damn!) So to the pr0n then, obviously. Just chose the first file with the most seeds and forgot about it. Let it slurp for a bit to check the download speed. Exeem is very good at it's job, imho. But the pr0n, OMG. Burn your eyes out filth. I cannot begin to descrbe the depravity. Just utterly unbelievably wrong. Never in all my life, except that one time in that club in King's Cross, have I ever seen anything like it. The worst thing is I now have an abiding curiosity about these people. Where are they? When do they do these things to each other? How did they know the donkey would like doing that? Why did they start? Why do they tape these crimes against humanity? Is that much equine ejaculate really safe to consume? It's like someone distilled TheHun down to one mpg to save time. I feel dirty.

In other news, some maniac has invented a plamsa gun. That is way cool. Additionally there are plans afoot for robots to patrol the DMZ. w00t. Not long before we are all enslaved by evil machine overlords. I shall begin developing my psychic mind powers now, for when the revolution comes.

2005-09-14T11:56:00.000Z

The above picture is incredible. It is a photo of a star blowing up. The star blew up when the universe was about 900 000 000. There are pieces of rock in my back yard older than that. There is a school of thought that posits the laws of physics may very well have been different at that time, and the speed of light could have been different.

It's got a red shift of 6.3 When you consider this:

6.3 is really quite a lot. They reckon its 12,500 million light years away. That's a fucking long, long way.

It is also, curiously, the same place that I wish the England cricket team was.

2005-09-13T15:24:00.000Z

The thing about the Ashes is this: If you don't win, you run the risk of losing. To the English.

God.

Is anything worse?

What aggravates me more than losing is this: The fuckers gloat (which is fair enough after 18 years) but don't appear to know:

That each team bats twice. And, curiously, fields twice. Yes, and they also bowl twice too, but that's part of fielding twice. Yup, and when one team is bowling the other team sends two blokes out there to bat. Yeah, that's what I meant by "batting" ... They do that twice. Yup. Twice. Each. Unless they don't need to. Yeah, when a captain declares...

Who Bradman was, or for that matter The Doctor.

That the trophy involved is fucking tiny, cheap, and literally a joke. It is not big and gold, nor does it require three men to lift it.

The Ashes are played to prove the point that English cricket is dead, and that statistically this is being borne out with 311 matches played in total, 126 won by Australia, 97 by England, 88 draws, 0 ties.

That the last game was in fact a draw, the final in a series of 5 matches. The batsmen were offered the light after 4 balls, and took it. The number of idiotic questions I had to answer about this in the pub last night was incredible. Yes, you see there Langer has it in his back pocket. That shiny thing hanging out, yeah - that's the light. You retard.

That the bowler with the best economy of the series was in fact Ponting (whose sole wicket was Vaughan), and the English bowler with the worst economy of the series was Vaughan. Unless you count Collingwood, who only played one game because he was so shit.

All right, maybe that last one was a bit obscure. But my point is that these English clowns can't claim gloating rights until they at least comprehend the fucking game they are gloating about. It's a fair point. You cannot invest energy into the derision of your enemy that you haven't generated through study of the game and observation of each actual contest. Otherwise you're just a prat.

You see gloating about cricket is very much like the game itself. You can start off fencing with obscura like that one there about Ponting's bowling. It's a little bit down leg side, I admit. But then you bring out a stat like 126 vs 97, and I'm afraid that's middle and leg, halfway up.

Or 729 for 6 declared, Bradman scores 254 and 1. That's a good one too. Or England 45 all out in Sydney in January 1887 (admittedly Oz did lose that test by 4 runs, but come on, 45 all out! There's never been a lower score between the sides).

And what the fuck has any of this got to do with Johnny Fucking Wilkinson!!?! Don't even get me started - that team got smashed in NZ by the Maori 15, and raped by everyone else. Yes, there are 15 men on the field. Yes, 8 in the scrum. No - three for a field goal, two for a conversion. If it bounces before it goes into touch the lineout is where it goes out, otherwise it's where the kicker was standing, unless he was in his own 22, in which case it's where it went out. Did you know Matty Burke scored more with the boot with better accuracy than Wilkinson? Wilko's a fucking hypochondriac anyway. oooh ooh, my appendix ooh. Wanker.

In other news, I'm in England. Having a great time, locals are really friendly. Prozac is really cheap here.

I like bunny rabbits.

Pietersen

2005-09-12T15:08:00.000Z

This bastard is getting really frustrating...

Did I not say: "They rely on Pietersen. He is their only hope. A South
African..."

At the time of writing it is still doable. But Pietersen is really
starting to score heavily...

38 wickets so far for Warnie. He can win it for us...

The Ashes

2005-09-12T11:25:00.000Z

I say old chap. 5th wicket down. Nervewracking, what?

Vaughan is shitting himself. And after Flintoff's departure, the applause given to Hoggard for blocking Warnie's last ball was incledible.

I wonder if we will see any sportsmanship today? If England are still at the crease with a solid lead, will they declare to give the Aussies a chance to win? Or will they grind out a draw?

Excitement plus plus.

Best headline pun ever

2005-09-08T16:56:00.000Z

"Hookes treated bouncer with 'disdain', court told"

Oh yes.

Googlewhack

2005-09-08T15:54:00.000Z

baggygreeb

lol was looking for cricket.

2005-09-08T14:31:00.000Z

just thought I'd idly dial up New Orleans on the old Google Earth.

found this:

Underwater Intervention International Conference
philverney
14th -16th Feb Underwater Intervention International Conference, New Orleans, LA http://www.underwaterintervention.com/

Ok you fuckers...

2005-09-07T13:37:00.000Z

... I have suffered a significant retardation of my mental faculties. This is due wholly and solely to MacGastro, the repugnant motherfucker.

It is he who forced me to drink all the Hennessey, your honour. It was he who lit and forced me, forced me to smoke the romeo and juliet depicted below.

So, that and other distractions are why the quality of my posts is so unusually poor, the frequency so low.

I apologise.

I have, however, conspired with MacGastro to write a book. These sort of grandiose arrangements always happen when we drink. We once planned to write a computer game that would be the best in the world. Combining CounterStrike, HomeWorld, SimCity and I think tetris or Mine$weeper, or something. As a result of a similar lunatic conspiracy, I have obtained from the Canadian Hippie the rights to contribute to a certain blog. MacGastro is sourcing cheap paper.

Now one of my readers may be particularly unhappy about being apparently used as the muse for this other blog. Let me say this straight away, up front. The other blog is a work of fiction. I, along with ZenDecks and MacGastro, intend to publish it and make fuckloads of money. You are not the person depicted therein. You are however used as a crude "seed". The events in that fictional blog grow from the reality of our life in the Habitat. They are a horrible mutation of reality. They do not represent fact. There is no desire to represent you in a way which is defamatory or hurtful. Just the motive of a fat prophet.

This other blog is somewhat notorious on the Internet. In the three days I've been tracking it, the readership has already exceeded the total hits on this blog after three years. So it's a proper project this time. Christ only knows that there is the potential for the three of us to be sitting around smoking something somewhere laughing our arses off, before we head off to the bank to count our cache.

2005-09-05T19:02:00.000Z

what is with these inflammable French? And why does Abu Zarqawi offer congratulation to Osama for Katrina? Afghan and Cuban aid?

2005-09-02T17:31:00.000Z

that bomber in Italy... Went to join an al fresco cell... Oh dear.

Another numbers game...

2005-09-02T10:13:00.000Z

1000 killed by bad weather in the US.

1000 killed by a game of follow the leader in Iraq.

2005-08-31T19:58:00.000Z

Brogden is an irretrievable fuckwit. He should be forced to finish the job. His death should be televised.

Su Doku Killer

2005-08-31T13:51:00.000Z

Fucking Su Doku.

}:o(

2005-08-31T10:01:00.000Z

I defy you to read this article and not think the word "Lemmings".

Go check out pipyoulike's blog for a link to the game.

And as for you Boofy... we've had this bloody discussion before. Transcendental doesn't really have a meaning. But its a word that gives flavour to a description. And I like to think of it as vaguely onomatopoeic. Sounds like those little Buddhist chimes.