Gods balls Father

God’s balls, Father
…
oh, sod, I said GOD’S BALLS, FATHER.
Humph… sntft. What is it? What’s seized your piss-addled brain the night?
Oh, did I wake you? Apolo-
You did and deliberately, you inadequate pancreatic wretchery. For what craggled notions am I dragged from me som…sombre… somnabulances?
Oh, just… well, blast and blood, I was trying to decipher these here notes I’d left myself. Sweet nothings on a train ticket’s back, but they were important to me last night.
Grrmmm. Balls. Let’s have a gander.
Well, I think the scrawlings about the Cerulean giants, with hairs of flame, that might be about Brian Blessed. I remember him distinctly, ringed with marigolds.
Brian Blessed’s so short of arse he’s asked Pavarroti for a loan, closer to Lautrec than Finn MacCool. Can you not read your own hand?
I fear I may have been under several influences, hence the suppurative hieroglyphics and the pleasant drooling marks. My arm’s sodden too. You’ve known my talk since my early days – perhaps your gimlet will have more luck?
Well, there’s something there. An inkling – long ago, in a land resounding with silence, you -
Cut to the chase.
You were pissed on expensive cider, you were at the Green Man Festival, you only enjoyed the silent movies and the Bengali breakfasts.
Balls. Is that it?
Nah. Nah. You wanted driving lessons, a new hard drive, some presents, and to write a story about an engraver writing down a text no-one can read for the benefit of future generations. Pretenious twat.
Oh. Well, drunk or not, I had ambition then. Perhaps I should drink more.
If it would cease such prattling, what’s the harm? You also scrabbled here about renovated pubs and your love of fine chips. Definitely in your cups and no worse.
Ah, yes, I’ve found new bumps on my head. Must have crackled my pate somewhere as well.
Says nothing of that here. Though I remember the soft caps you used to wear against such eventualities… There’s a gap for drool…I think you must have rested your head here, as there’s a guard’s validatory stamp on your cheek and then there’s babble about us people never looking up any more, missing the moon and the crenellations of dead architectures appreciated only by pigeons. And something about why you’ve got John Cale’s 4’33 on yon leccy music device and, yes…! you talk of clumsiness. You were terrified that the swinging’s of the virgin pendolino would upset your excessive pizzle in the train’s toilet bowl, so you tried to flush quickly and stuck your arm under the tap.
Dampness explained, wonderful. My hangover’s cutting in, out with my final words if you please.
Wined in the Parisian Café Carmen by Nazis and whores, you won a five hour game of poker, for naught, and drowned your sorrows in rural beer festivals (Elton and Wincle) galore.
Hence the head.
So the noggin, yes.
I’ve heard enough. Budge up, I’m going to bed too.

Feck me, Bezoars worked!

"Modern examinations of the properties of bezoars by Gustaf Arrhenius and Andrew A. Benson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have shown that they could, when immersed in an arsenic-laced solution, remove the poison. The toxic compounds in arsenic are arsenate and arsenite. Each is acted upon differently, but effectively, by bezoar stones. Arsenate is removed by being exchanged for phosphate in the mineral brushite, a crystalline structure found in the stones. Arsenite is found to bond to sulfur compounds in the protein of degraded hair, which is a key component in bezoars."

Bezoars (gall stones/pearls formed in the alimentary tracts of ruminants) being the alchymist's favoured tool against poisons, I'm surprised to find evidence they actually work!

There's Something Floral Here

websiteasgraphs
Originally uploaded by Hot Grill.

I really like the images produced by this little gizmo - www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/

In case you can't be arsed following the link, it turns websites into geometric representations, in a most charming manner.

Here’s the legend, if you care.

blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
grey: all other tags

1929 Passport Photo

1929 Passport Photo
Originally uploaded by Dimitri Griliopoulos.

This is my grandad, back in the Greece of 1929. He was born in 1907 I believe, so he's four years younger than me here. I could make comments about ageing, decay, etc, but there's no point - anyone with a half-a-brain can extrapolate from my appearance and his the sort of comments I'd make.

Flickr Photo Download: Lego Star Wars II - naked Stormtrooper

I've forgotten how to say Lebanon. It reminds me too much of some Elvish word; Lebanen, I suspect. I keep getting into impassioned arguments about the bastardliness of the situation over there, and then am unable to pronounce the word. Anyway, I think the Israeli's had no choice but to bomb civilians, just like Bush had no choice but to assault Afghanistan and Iraq. If terrorists are based in a civilian location and the choice is between your people and theirs, you bomb them. Simple enough. That's the logic of the Death Star being used against Alderaan – those who harbour men of violence will suffer violence themselves. If you accept Bush and Olmert's position, you back Darth Vader, simply put. I'm firmly on Grand Moff Tarkin's side anyway.

Let's pause for a moment of thought and a picture of a naked Stormtrooper.



What's more scary is that Israeli soldiers are now saving their sperm so if they die their families or others can have children from them anyway. I believe that in the traditional hassidic family household, it can be seen as a blessing for a person to study all their lives and if a man is inclined that way, the family will often cope with it and support his (traditionally enormous) family. Hence these communities can live in great poverty because the men produce nothing and do nothing, beyond study. If the men didn't exist, they'd be more useful.

Perhaps the Israelis will go further and start saving ova as well, so there are are millions of useless potential human beings just sitting in these tanks, waiting to be born. And perhaps the government will take the final step, and cut out the parenting process all together, just breeding test tube kids by the hundred, so the people are free to indulge in more economically productive activities - the necessary artificial wombs are on the way. I can see the mentality of a warlike people surrounded on all sides by enemies in creating what is in effect a Clone Army - or rather an army of orphans - merely because it's more efficient in terms of manpower. Israel is one of the most extremist nations on the earth, committed to an exclusionary racial religion, pure capitalism and pure representative democracy; if anywhere could accept my nightmare, Israel could.

Anyway, what am I doing? I was in Cornwall, barbecuing on the beach and running into waves a couple of weekends ago. Me and Alec almost got drowned as we neglected to pay attention to the undercurrent and were forced to try and walk along the sea bed to get back in. Very fun. I need to go to the sea more often, thalatta, thalatta, or whatever it was the ancient Greeks would shout as they ran to the shore There's something deeply spiritual about having your semi-nekked body battered to shit by twenty-foot high waves.

And the magazine. It's been chocka with work this month, more games than we've ever had before but I think it's (so far) gone fairly well. I managed to write a ton myself and commission loads more out, so I feel fulfilled for a bit – I often feel like a spare wheel on magazines because my job is so limited and it seriously feels like, if I had to, I could do the whole thing myself – yet looking at this month's flatplan, I've written 28 pages and commissioned 29 pages (57 all told then) of the 116 editorial pages – and a lot that's left is filler our forumites complain regularly about. I could have done more, but I wouldn't have wanted to.

And life outside the office? I've reverted a little to my staid ways, not taking advantage as well as I should of what London has to offer – I even missed the whole Ealing festival, that was right on my doorstep. My penurious financial situation isn't helping – most of my wage is paid out at the beginning of a month to bills and savings, so I'm skint by the day after payday. I'm still seeing Jill and I think it's going well-ish – though I fear she reinforces my tendency to lie around the house all day, rather than the more outward-going person I would rather be. It's odd how you can have aspirations about yourself in the full knowledge you will never be motivated enough to achieve them. Sad, even. Perhaps I should clone myself and make him have fun...

The Amazing Screw-On Head

President Abraham Lincoln: "It disappeared from the Museum of Ancient Evil Texts, along with their foremost expert on untranslateable texts."
The Amazing Screw-On Head "Professor Fruen?!?"
"He was abducted by two old women and a monkey."
"It sounds like the work of Emperor Zombie."
"It sounds like you're right."

Absolutely awesome animated Mike Mignola (Hellboy) series coming to the Sci-Fi channel.

Dave Gilbert ? The Shivah

Dave Gilbert: The Shivah


Glorious little rabinical mini-game I've been looking at. Will have to give it a go and report back. I'm also playing Kudos at the moment, a life-simulator by the maker of the excellent election/re-election sim Democracy where you start off as a 20 year-old and have to achieve success by your thirties. Though it keeps crashing on my machine, I like its elegance of design (you never really leave the main screen) and ease of communication (mostly everything you want to know is one click away). Once the glitches are ironed out, it'll be worth a pop.