Miir shortages frustating gaymers

Jon Hicks from Bournemouth e-mailed the BBC News website to say he had failed to receive his ordered Miir.

A clickable guide to the Miir

He said: "I pre-ordered the Nintendo Miir from Play.com on 15 September along with some software.

"I have been informed today that it is unlikely my order will be fulfilled before Christmas. Incredibly they have dispatched a large hairy scrotum with Alec's face tatooed on it."

Love Craft

Promoted from a sidebar link, this wonderful essay on the King Curdler, HP "Saucy" Lovecraft.

"He was also frightened of invertebrates, marine life in general, temperatures below freezing, fat people, people of other races, race-mixing, slums, percussion instruments, caves, cellars, old age, great expanses of time, monumental architecture, non-Euclidean geometry, deserts, oceans, rats, dogs, the New England countryside, New York City, fungi and molds, viscous substances, medical experiments, dreams, brittle textures, gelatinous textures, the color gray, plant life of diverse sorts, memory lapses, old books, heredity, mists, gases, whistling, whispering—the things that did not frighten him would probably make a shorter list."

Skip To The Next One...

Seeing that someone came up with a list of the most significant Sci-Fi and Fantasy books of the last Fifty Years, I thought I'd have a read over it and see which ones I'd absorbed... it turns out to be about 90% of them, as the following list shows - ones are in bold that I've read. I've also seen most of the Sci-Fi movies that Wired put in their top twenty. Perhaps I should cut down on the escapism... How's everyone else doing?

Books

A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
Neuromancer, William Gibson
Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
Cities in Flight, James Blish
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
Dune, Frank Herbert
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
Gateway, Frederik Pohl
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Little, Big, John Crowley
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
On the Beach, Nevil Shute
Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
Ringworld, Larry Niven
Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Timescape, Gregory Benford
To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

Films

1. Blade Runner
2. Gattaca
3. The Matrix
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
5. Brazil
6. A Clockwork Orange
7. Alien
8. The Boys From Brazil
9. Jurassic Park
10. Star Wars
11. The Road Warrior
12. Tron
13. The Terminator
14. Sleeper
15. Soylent Green
16. RoboCop
17. Planet Of The Apes
18. The Day The Earth Stood Still
19. Akira
20. Barbarella

Word Up

Who the frick decides what the page is for the keywords you type in to Google? Death pointing to the death clock is fine (mine’s Wednesday, July 30, 2053 BTW), but I tried “God” and got … The Interview with God, a slideshow of beautiful landscapes (by which we mean untouched by the hand of man – are you with me and the few who find industrial wastelands beautiful?), to cheesy piano music and with a scrolling, cutesy unthreatening chat with Mr God about his vision in making the World, etc.

I mean if I was interviewing God, I’d definitely do it the Jerry Springer way, bringing in Joesph partway through so they could have a fistfight about that fecking Jahweh sleeping with his woman, then question him to sh*t about his multiple personality disorder (“Yeah, you’re your own son, whatever.”) I’d ask questions a touch trickier than “How should your children behave?” more like “Whose god are you? I want a straight clear definition, that doesn’t smite me to death on the spot. And while we’re at it, where’ve you been, bitch? If we’re your kids, where’s the CSA payments? Oh, stuck in the system eh?”

I like the fact that “Christ on a bike” produces a 1995 game called Motor Cross 30 A.D. though. “For instance, on the washout course you can choose to go over the water rather than through it and so on. But watch out - use more than three miracles per lap and you get crucified!” Classic.

Future Defense

As the government gets more authoritarian, which it will barring some fundamental shift in the aggression of the self-satisfied individuals constituting the other major protective institutions, it’s likely that the data on your computer that today is just your de-facto-legal crap will rapidly become handy evidence for prosecution for the crimes of theft, sedition and whatever they reclassify an internet connection as. “First they came for the pederasts” and all that Martin Niemöller stuff, you know, the government changing fundamental rules of behaviour beneath your feet.

So what are liberty and free-shit loving individuals to do if they wish to keep circumventing the conservative laws that aim to keep us as economic slaves in the face of technological advance? What group of like-minded individuals can provide protection against the full force of the law and the wealthy apathy of your liberal-democratic neighbours?

You’ve come to the right place, clever you. Give yourself a pat on the back.

The G.I.T.S. ideas factory, in association with the Society for Libertarians against Aggressive Government, is proud to present its latest invention, the hard drive ejector seat. Replacing the normal cage on your incriminating datalump, the G.I.T.S. device is, to exterior examination, a normal frame for that pile of platters to sit upon. As the unquestioning arm of the unhappily-changed law is kicking your antichav-reinforced door in, a recessed button on the base of your computer will provide you access to the triggers for the explosive bolts fixed into the mounting’s side. A swift press and, as the inquiring Billy-clubs descend upon your receptive head, the hard drive will pass at a velocity not less than 100 KM/H out of the side of the computer, through a handily-situated fan vent and the hopefully-open study window to shatter storeys below on the Lord Richard Rogers-designed multi-million-pound concrete that will cover the whole fricking country by the time these retrograde calcified-mentalities have finished turning the world into a place fit only for the right-thinking to live.

The G.I.T.S. Anti-Authoritarian hard drive mounting is available for £150 + P&P from our online store (sadly currently offline, following accidents in testing.)

Good day to bury crap news

Screw the Tony Blair story, P11 of the Metro is about the world's tallest non-giant man Bao Xishun (who hence has the world's longest arms) being used by doctors in China to remove pieces of plastic from dolphin's bellies by shoving his arm down their throat. That's a really crap story, more a gawping-freak show and not actually news. I suspect this is actually propaganda by the Chinese government to lull the West into a false sense of security by making us think that they're primitive numpties.

Thoughts!

I love the little Jawas. All I want to do is run up to them and hug them and babble in that special birdsong language and hug them some more and maybe even trade them some wind-extracted lumps of raw material for out-of-date, obsolete astromech droids.

Then I remember there's no such as Jawas and to race after little Londoners in burqas would be wrong, also embarassing.

Finally on tonight's syllybus; the optical illuson of beard-chins. Beards allow persons the indlugence of others imagining their perfect chin underneath it, without letting reality intrude. Yay for beards!

Lazy Blogging

They're just words...

David Griliopoulos: verboten anna:
hello
David:
guess what?
Gril:
what?
AHHHHHH
David:
the internet's working
Gril:
it's working?
POR... I mean, work!
Sigh.
That's great.
I found out today that (depressing fact removed to protect the innocent and the filthily guilty, cotton-wool fans!). But not me. It's laughably stereotypical.
I seem to be living a shitty office-based drama.
http://www.alessonislearned.com/index.php?comic=11
David:
i bought a chess set - it's a glass one though. don't know if it's quite 'classic' enough
Gril:
ooh, sounds good.
(Hey, I'm begging for empathy here and he talks chess?)
(All I fricking want is a verbal pat on the back to still the rough seas washing in my hollow chest.)
David:
i got ovaltine and jaffa cakes too 87)]
Gril:
(oh, cursed soliliqies! Must I forever talk to the unresponsive shadows, not knowing if the audience is still awake, still there?)
David:
isn't that the point of a solioquay?
Gril:
(Don't break the frame, fool brother!)
David:
i wasn't awaqre there was one
Gril:
(Get your own soliloquay!)
David:
i just et ten jaffa cakes burp
Gril:
/me pulls stilled heart from chestal cavity and contemplates its onceuponatime workings
David:
feeling blue, dan?
Gril:
Y'know, you're awfully sensitive. How'd you guess?
David:
i'm an empath