the sanctuary:

I photoshopped teddy bears into The Shining for a pub quiz picture round. Now go and look at them because I like people looking at stuff I did that I am proud of.

On an unrelated note, two people in my life have bad things going on with the backs of their eyes. One may be far worserer than the other. It's a bit of a weird coincidence.
posted at 11:02 PM

Kosher salt! Man, why can't people just say "sea salt" or "rock salt", or whatever it is? I mean, let's not bring Bronze Age culinary guidelines into this.

I'm going to be told that the Torah isn't Bronze Age now. I just know it. Well, I don't care, professor! I'm not in this for book-learnin'!
posted at 7:23 PM

When is gmail (or, as we must probably call it forthwith, googlemail) going public? I've had a gmail account since forever - being a Blogger has its advantages, no doubt. But it's still invite only. I mean, it's not hard to get an invite - hell, throw a brick and you hit two googlemail invites rushing at you - but it does seem an odd strategy. It presents googlemail as something for those in the know, those in the loop. It's also obvious to those inside that it's anything but. You want a googlemail account? Gimme your normal, boring, standard email address and watch the invites rush in.

So the air of exclusivity gives them cachet from outside, but the apparent lack of it inside devalues the scrabble to get the address. They don't need this, googlemail is good enough without cheap lifestyle tricks.

It should be open, like lesser mail services. Like Hotmail, which was my first email account just at the very second it was bought by Microsoft. I felt like I'd established some presence on the internet - without anyone having to bring me in from the cold, I was an adventurer setting out with 2mb of inbox and an address with a number in it. Google is stifling that frontier spirit with its "Others have it, and only they can give it to you".

Or, you know, maybe they don't want spammers getting googlemail accounts. But if just one spammer gets googlemail, it'll replicate like a virus. So why bother? I can't see a single effective argument for keeping it invite-only. And I can't stand typing googlemail.

Anyway, like I say. You want gmail? Ask. For now.
posted at 12:41 AM

I don't know how many of you have been following the wacky japes of Mr Jack Thompson, Attorney at Law. There are so many funderful links I don't know where to start. Well, hell, let's start with his own stuff, the hilariously poor* site stopkill.com (which a quick whois tells me is AVAILABLE TO BUY, so kick that damn squatter out!). And the best links are probably at the bottom of the Wikipedia page, which I don't have to link for you, I'm sure. Currently fighting with Penny Arcade (who are all over the high ground, he's Anakin - they are Obi-Wan), he's also had run-ins with Scott of VG Cats and pretty much anyone who may have once designed, funded, played or even heard of a videogame.

I mean, Sims 2. Fer fuck's sake. If there's a more conservative, family-oriented videogame in the world, I'd like to see it. Yes, they're naked under the blur. So am I. And they have the sex. Again, I think a lot of people do that one, too. But not in so wholesome a manner as the Sims. There's some grinning, a moving blanket and some cuddling. Shocking, I'm sure you'll agree. And as for it being Advance Paedo Simulator - what shite. It's not like you can fuck the kids. You can give them a hearty breakfast and send them off to school, hoping they'll come back with an A+ grade, though. It's a nightmare scenario, I'm sure you'll agree, and one which we need to stop children imitating! Oh, man, I got a bit mixed up with my rhetoric there. Still, eh, so does Jack, so do we all.

Still, credit where due. The batshit crazy bastard sure is entertaining.

* The Google result alone tells you how much effort was put into it, it's symptomatic of his slapdash approach.
posted at 11:41 PM