"LOL"

I may be getting a bit more reactionary in some of my views - like for instance I reckon using a mobile in a car should result in the filth being allowed to crush your motor into a cube *on the spot* - but it tends to be that these views come from decent observations. And one of those is that people CANNOT drive while using a mobile. Nor can they cycle while using one. And let's be honest most people can barely walk while using one (and alarmingly I'm talking about people using it as a frikkin' phone not as a texting device here...)
Hence why I love this cartoon. Thanks to Chris at Gonzovision for sending it on.

Matthew Norman: Sheer Class

Just before I head off for the weekend to Donington Park for the MotoGP (updates across the event on the BatiFan Blog and at BatiFans.com) I just had to post this stunning hatchet job by Matthew Norman in The Independent.
Although the article doesn't actually address the primary questions of the dishonesty of the mission in Afghanistan - and the basic principle that our troops should not be there and be in harm's way in the first place - it *does* do a smashing job at ridiculing the utterly ridiculous George Foulkes. Not hard, I know - small children could probably do a decent job - but Matthew Norman's rage at the (literally) Brown-nosing dreg is pure joy and pure class.
Read the article in full...

Steve Bell on EU President Blair

I must admit to still being close to incandescent with rage at the idea that Blair might be some kind of shoe-in as EU president. I'm certainly outraged at Glenys Kinnock proclaiming him "the UK's choice" (I sure as fuck didn't vote for him... did I miss something?) but on the bright side I'm confident of the IQs of our friends on the continent that they wouldn't possibly stand for it.
Although I would like it if they had a bit of fun by voting for him, got him over there and then ran him straight off to the Hague for trial...

Steve Bell, as usual, gets it spot on.

Darth Vader - Luke's Father AND Whistler's Mother

Get yourself over to Worth1000.com to take a look at their challenge to get people to drop Star Wars characters into famous works of art. Some aren't too great, to put it mildly - but some are truly excellent.

And Tom Lehrer Said Satire Was Dead...

Tom Lehrer famously said that political satire was obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.
No matter, it seems that these things are somehow either circular or simply launch into another realm of absurdity as news confirms that our own very special lying dissembling scumbag of a war-crim / mid-east-peace-envoy Tony Blair looks ever more set to become the first EU president.
You really couldn't make it up.

Another Good Cause

I can't help it; I'm a sucker for good causes - I've promoted ARK (Animal Rescue Kerala) on here before, and now it's time for another.
Whilst the current good cause in my head is raising money to have Andy Coulson's head on a spike at the Tower of London, there is a genuinely useful one that I'd like to point you at; Wiccaweys Rescued Border Collies & Working Dogs Centre - a rescue centre that really needs some funding help right now.
If you can spare a bit or can set up a monthly donation, you'd be doing something extremely useful.

Hopefully we can return to Andy Coulson's head on a spike some other time.... ;-)

"Light Rain" A Film By Neil Horner

This is a short film called "Light Rain" by a lovely and rather talented friend of mine, Neil Horner - entered in the Virgin Media Shorts competition.
Please do go vote if you like it...

Andy Coulson Must Go

My friend Madame Arcati has long waged a campaign against bullying tory cuntwit Andy Coulson.
For yet more reasons for them to get shot off him, see here...

Apple's App Store Is 1 Year Old

Apple's App Store - part of iTunes, and used for buying applications and games for the iPhone and iPod Touch, turns 1 year old, having put over 56,000 apps on its virtual shelves and had over a billion downloads.
They're celebrating with some special download offers on their most popular apps...

The Latest Lie On ID Cards

Are you under the impression that the government's announcement that ID cards will be "voluntary" is the end of it?
If for one moment yesterday's news made you think that you could forget about the discredited scheme, please don't. Not for a second.

Basically it's complete and utter spin and weasel words (no surprises there, then...) and the central plan to enforce the ID database goes on unchanged - and that means forcing everyone to register personal info whenever they need to update "certain documents"... that's things like passports or driving licences, and in the process paying for an ID card whether they want it or not.

Calling it "voluntary" is nothing short of dishonest. If you don't submit the details then you won't be able to drive or leave the country.
You have a few weeks before MPs vote in parliament on this, so if it troubles you (and pretty much anything this government does in this area troubles me a huge amount - they've proved themselves not only utterly incompetent and incapable on data and IT matters, but they've also proved utterly dishonest, deceitful and untrustworthy on pretty much anything to do with our rights and liberties) then you should waste no time in writing to your MP.

Also why not go check out NO2ID and maybe join them or make a donation.

Luke Jackson - "Goodbye London" Video

I'm indebted to British-Canadian singer/songwriter Luke Jackson for dropping me a line about his new video "Goodbye London" which features not only a cracking song about the place where I live, but also a top piece of animation, mixing time lapse and stop-motion of London scenes with drawn characters and graffiti. The result is a belter of a video; charming but unsentimental, and completely evocative of the city.
Do pass it on, and if you want to find out more about Luke and his work, including "Goodbye London" and his new album "...And Then Some" you can do so here...

You can buy "...And Then Some" on iTunes by clicking here...

W4 5TS :: View From The Deckchair

Managed to get away from the desk early this afternoon for a bit of a chill outside. (Though nothing "chilling" about it at all technically...)
Hot, bright and peaceful by the lake.
The tubes will be hell on toast though...

One In The Eye...

Cool - Private Eye have published a "Colemanballs" I sent in, in the current issue - 1239.
It's one of the many clangers from Eurosport stand-in MotoGP commentator Carlton Kirby from the Catalunya GP a couple of weeks back....
"Two Spanish flags for the crowd to see – one of them Japanese… "

He's seriously awful though. I should have just sent them a tape of all 3 races and let them publish the lot.
Thankfully the marvellous Toby Moody and Julian Ryder were back on the case this weekend at Assen - despite it being a bit of a downer for my hero Alvaro Bautista in the 250cc race. I say 'bit of a downer' - it was a real huuuuuuuuuge downer actually.
Still - could have been worse... Carlton Kirby could have been commentating too.

Testing, Testing

Just trying out a blogging app for the iPhone; it's called BlogPress. If it works then this should be a picture of Desmond Lynham apparently drowned in the lake at Chiswick Park.
Seems to be a nice app and may well be useful on travels and on MotoGP trips.
I need to move though, as lots of threatening ducks are closing in...


-- Posted From iPhone

Deadline

Post-its... one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. Stop-motion... sublime in the right hands (Ray Harryhausen, Vision-On, Sledgehammer, Creature Comforts...)
Put them together - in the form of a senior Art & Design School project by Bang-​yao Liu and you have "Deadline", a wonderfully playful and imaginative take on procrastination and pressure.
Triffick :-)

This Is What Transparency Looks Like Apparently

Scumbags who have clearly learned nothing whatsoever...

And there's a whole gallery of black marker pen here to show just how embarrassed and shameless this sorry bunch truly are. And, no it's *nothing* to do with security - and it's an insult to even try that excuse on with the public.

Oh, and snippet of the day so far is almost irony-redefining gem from shadow chancellor George Osborne who claimed £47 of our hard-earned cash to pay for two copies of a DVD of his own speech on 'Value for Taxpayers Money'.
Genius.

Sucky Tattoos

Whilst it's not really okay to laugh at the girl who accidentally got almost 60 stars tattooed over her face (well, it kind of is actually - she looks about 12 and shouldn't be allowed within a mile of a tattooist for at least another 6 years...) - it absolutely *IS* okay to laugh at this sorry shower over at YourTattooSucks.com... my personal favouite being the cat's one-eye in your belly button. Class.

Cats Outsmart Scientists By Pretending To Be Thick

This piece in the Guardian, reporting on a scientific “test” that proudly puffs out that cats are actually not that bright, is of course entirely wrong.

That a cat will not co-operate with an insultingly banal examination of its behaviour is not in the least bit surprising. Quite frankly I’d give them some misleading results and have a good old snigger about it if I was a cat. In fact I'd probably have a crap in their lunchboxes on the way out too, just for good measure.

Cats know perfectly well about all kinds of behaviour - that of live beings and that of inanimate objects - and they certainly understand cause and effect (mine have learned to open doors, find and conceal escape routes out of the garden, all kinds of smart and sophisticated stuff that requires cause and effect to be understood) and my money here would be on them outsmarting the scientists by refusing to do what’s expected of them and royally fucking with a stupid experiment that they rightly feel to be beneath them.

As one commenter wryly (& correctly) points out; “Dogs have owners, cats have staff”.

Anyway it’s as good an excuse as any to post up Eddie Izzard’s “Pavlov’s Cat” routine...

Apple iPhone 3.0 Out Today

All excited. Don't forget that today is the iPhone 3.0 software update - nice review of some top features here at Cult of Mac - and of course for those that have more money than sense (I usually include myself in that bracket, but not this time) then there's the costly upgrades of the iPhone itself also becoming available imminently.
This time though I reckon cost far outweighs worth and will be giving it a miss. Much as I want 32Gb of storage for music and movies, dammit.

iPhone App Download Hyperwall

Hyperwall in WWDC 2009, Live from App Store from Imagebakery on Vimeo.

Yes, it's another utterly unfathomable headline...
Geeky but fun - this is a "hyperwall" (apparently) at this week's Apple Worldwide Developers' Conference (WWDC) showcasing the popularity of iPhone apps, with a selection of around 20,000 of them pulsing and sending out ripples across a matrix of twenty 30" Cinema Displays as they are sold in realtime.
Somewhere in the region of 3,000 apps are downloaded every minute incidentally...

More Music - In Transit

I’ve uploaded another piece of music; again under the “Rain Dogs” monicker.
It’s something that I’d kind of done before - but was never 100% satisfied with... It’s called “in transit” and originally the main groove was done in a patch that was basically something like treated white noise. Also the trumpet sound that I used wasn’t the best (although it was very nice).

Now, using Logic 8 and with the help of the software synths like Smapletank and Absynth, I’ve been able to revisit it - and have pulled apart the groove into a number of separate elements of things like dulled metallic hits and strangely EQ’d toms with an extreme ping-ponging left-right delay on them, and found a great muted jazz trumpet patch to work with (and a nice CP80 piano sound) - and as a result I’ve found it relatively easy to go back and strip down and completely reinvent the arrangement.
It's now totally what I had in my head originally. And that's a good thing.

The last couple of nights I’ve been doing the annoying bit of trying to sort out the detail of the final mixdown and to master it very carefully without losing the vibe/feel of the whole thing in the process.
I think I’ve done it, and if you want to hear the result, you can download “in transit” here...

Enjoy.

Cheap Gag Of The Day

Fnarr Fnarr...
Thanks to Chris