Olympic Gesture

I am currently watching the closing ceremony for the Olympics. The president of the IOC has made a gesture with his hand: thumb and fore finger made into a circle, the remaining fingers straight up and together. This sent a cheer through the crowd, but according to the HSBC advert, the Brazilian athletes and audience should be quite offended by this. If anything happens to Mr. President in the next few days, you'll know who and why.

This weeks tidbits from the wider world

Typo

Microsoft has learned the hard way that global domination requires a touch of cultural sensitiviy. Last week, a senior executive admitted that a series of politically incorrect gaffes in its software had cost the company millions of dollars in lost sales......A Spanish version of [Microsoft's] XP operating system destined for Latin-American markets gave users the option of selecting their gender from the options "not specified", "male" or "bitch". The error was blamed on a mistranslation.

Winnie The Pooh complex
"We noticed a bear sleeping on the common lawn and wondered what was going on until we discovered that there were a lot of beer cans lying around" Lisa Broxson, a worker at the Baker Lake Resort near Seattle, on a bear that passes out after drinking 36 cans of local brew.


Monster odds
Finding intelligent life on Saturn's moon Titan by 2010: 10,000/1

Building a useful fusion powerstation (tommak style) by 2010: 100/1

Finding the Higgs boson (aka the God particle, the thing which gives particles mass) by 2010: 6/1

Spotting a gravity wave (wobbles in space-time caused by big things, eg blackholes, colliding or imploding) by 2010: 500/1

Building a useful fusion powerstation (laser style) by 2010: 100/1

Understanding the origin of Cosmic rays (high energy particles from outer space) by 2010: 4/1

And here's some more odds for you:

Finding Elvis alive 100/1
Finding the Loch Ness monster 66/1

Shows how much faith bookies have.

from New Scientist Magazine 28 August

Out there.....

I have just purchased a coat of eBay that according to the description will make me look like Dirty Den off Eastenders. Since I don't watch such depressing drivel I will live in blissful ignorance, but aslong as he keeps his receding hair line and short hair I don't think I'll be getting people coming up to me in the streets saying "Y' tha' man off tha telle aint ya?", something nobody wants. To get this coat I first had to deal with my sisters superiority complex over everything eBay, me being the eBay virgin and her being the eBay...well, anyway, after that was over came the Battle Of The Chequebook. I don't usually have much money on me incase slightly more enthusiastic "Y' tha' man off tha telle aint ya?" people come up to me in the street and get carried away, and because I usually spend it whenever I come into contact with it, so I couldn't pay my mum when I wanted her to write out the cheque, and being the honest guy I am, pay her when money was shortly to find it's way to me, an idea wasted on some. So a ball point pen, forged signature and five minutes later, came the Battle Of The Postage Stamp, a battle much like the previous skirmish. So a pencil, a sketch Da Vinci would have been jealous of and five minutes later I was out into the night and down the road to the post box. I haven't seen the night from that side of the glass in almost a year, and I tell you, I was flippin' scared. I was wearing a Welsh rugby top, jeans, sandles, this isn't a bad area but I would still preffered at least one of those garments to be made of Kevlar. It's in situations like that, that you find out how creative your brain actually is: if you have a nice strole down the road, you have no imagination; if you avoid a couple of bushes and shadier areas, you have alittle imagination; if you see seventeen people jump out of bushes, stare out of windows and generally acting violently towards you, congratulations you're an artist with problems, or like me just got the problems. If a car pipped its horn my head would have exploded. Before the next time I win an eBay bid I am going to watch a few dozen Bruce Lee movies and take notes.

Stay safe.

Nitey nite.

The Best Business Lesson

Business Lesson

According to the Radio Times I am....

I am spontaneous, an ideas person, a heart and an introvert, which makes me an IDEALIST.

Idealists are committed, faithful, empathic. They are interested in developing a vision for the future, using their deep personal values as a compass. Although quietly spoken, they can be inspirational and are passionate about any causes to which they have commited. They enjoy working with people who share similar values.

Careers: psychiatrist, architect, writer, editor, artist, entertainer.


I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

He he I thought of this

Q. What do you call a terminator downsized to pest control?

A. An ex-terminator

Sorry

If we believed everything in the movies......

Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people -- whether they are employed or not.

At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.

Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don't worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.

Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.

It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts: your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.

When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.

If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22.

Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.

Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their arch enemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gases, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which
will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.

All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets that reach the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.

All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.

It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.

Once applied, lipstick will never rub off even while scuba diving.

You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.

Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German or Russian officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German or Russian accent will do.

The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.

A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating, but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.

If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.

Word processors never display a cursor on screen but will always say: Enter Password Now.

Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.

All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.

A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.

If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you meet will know all the steps.

Police departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.

When they are alone, all foreign military officers prefer to speak to each other in English.


from
Office Attachments - The best of the web circulated by you

H-h-holy hell

Well AS and A level results came out today. I got my results, C C and E in maths, physics and further maths respectively. I thought it wasn't bad, I wasn't expecting anything anyway. Quickly changed my coursework (spell check wanted to replace that with corkscrews) with a teacher and spent a nice day with my mates having lunch at pizza hut. Came home and it was pointed out to me that these grades won't get me into any decent university. Cue immediate depression and shitting oneself.

I hadn't got any idea how A Levels work, or how hard it would be to repair any damage. I finally found the site below which wasn't particularly comforting but it explained how stuff works. So if you are in the same position as me I urge you to at least look at the link.

How AS and A2 levels work

What any more information? Do it yourself you lazy buggers.

Nitey nite.

Bye bye Anadin

From www.comedy-zone.net/triviazone/

'Here's one to remember.
A female orgasm is a powerfull painkiller (because of the release of endorfines), so headaches are in fact a bad excuse not to have sex.'

Schadenfreude

I always need this word but can never remember it

Fail

How about that? I know bugger all about the game, take the tutor exam on a whim and only get one question wrong. I don't know whether to be proud or disapointed

.....

Well well. While you lot were out partying last night, I was having an amazing time. I saw a firework display from about 10 miles away, and a shooting star. Who's jealous eh? Eh eh? Me.

How sexy are you?

How attractive are you? The answer could depend partly on your name.

Linguist Amy Perfors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology placed photos that included prominent names on the "Hot or Not?" website, which allows viewers to rank strangers' photos. Each photo was posted at different times with different names. She found that men labelled with names including "front vowels" -sounds produced in the front of the mouth such as the "aaa" in Matt- were rated as more attractive than photos labelled with "back vowels" names, such as the "aw" sound in Paul. The opposite was true for women, she told the Cognitive Science Society meeting in Chicago last week.

While most linguists think there is no inherent relationship between the sound of a word and its meaning, there is some evidence to the contrary, says Perfors. Front vowels are often perceived as "smaller" than back vowels. It may seem counterintuitive, but other studies show that men with slightly feminine features are considered more desirible. "Maybe women are subconsciously looking for more sensitive or gentle men," says Perfors. But if you're thinking of changing your name, don't go too far -men with women's names were rated least attractive of all.

--from New Scientist magazine 14 August 2004

You think the government is in on this?

'How landfills work' and 'Shop or compare prices'

Gift Shops

What's the bloody point of having gift shops at tourist attractions. I'm not talking about attractions like theme parks, but places like national trust sites. I recently got back from Scotland and in one shop I saw a calendar for PARIS!!! What is a calendar for Paris doing for sale in Scotland? In the shops in Stratford there are bits and pieces of tat for sale with LONDON (complete with beefeater and union jack) plastered all over them. If you want a souvenir to take home with the name of that place on it, at least have the common decency to go there to get it.

Farewell old friend

After 66 weeks (I know this precisly because it tells me on the build page) of loyal service, the site formally named as www.doodles.tk has been offically mothballed, ie it'll only be updated once in a green moon.

It is still possible to get to that site using its maiden URL http://randomdoodles.4t.com but if you're going for the quizzes you might aswell go straight to www.quizilla.com.

The forseeable future of the doodles.tk domain is going to be this blog which should be updated with junk more frequently than its predicessor.


Nitey nite.

I prey to thee oh mighty Zeroica

O, I prey to thee oh mighty Zeroica,
Oh mighty god of Zero traffic,
Oh your power is unlimited,
You watch over Greek building sites,
As well as global websites,
You keep your eye on all my pages,
Stalling website gauges*,
O I PREY TO THEE OH MIGHTY ZEROICA.

*modern translation: counter

A Canadian Odyssey

The Story
In early 2003 a band of young adventurers set forth for the North American continent, arriving finaly in Canada. What proceeded was a week of misery for the author, having only bruises and these few pictures from the hasty retreat to prove to the scrutinizing home crowd that the journey had happened.


This shows the kind of temperatures our brave adventures endured
The ice was at least an inch thick on branches, and snow that had fallen on top of bushes was frozen so much it could take authors weight.


Specialist equipment required
Our brave heros were kitted out in specialist protective equipment for the journey. Problem was they were designed to be used a couple of hundred miles further south.


The hotel
Thirty of us slept in this for the week. We came back better friends.


The view
This was the view from our hotel. The trickling water woke us up in the morning, but fortunately they turned it off at night for us.


One fatality
This is an action shot of Jimmy being swept off. According to witnesses he was brushing his teeth after breakfast at the hotel, when a freak gust of wind pushed him into the water. Jimmy is behind the mist along with the rest of the fountain, and can just be made out half way down.


Dan
Quickly into our journey we encountered the natives. This fellow is called Dan and he accompanied us through out our exploration.


Transportation
This was our mode of transport for the week. Thirty of us had to be carried: some rode on the carriage; some on the horses themselves. The rest were dragged along on ropes behind the carriage (unluckily for them we didn't allow the horses to stop for toilet breaks). Our faithful steeds were Pippa and Phil.


I hope my short account of our Canadian Odyssey is of use to you. And remember, dispite looks, Canadians are people too.

Let's hope they don't find out about fishing....

Found on a trivia page for the Shawshank Redemption:

'The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals monitored the filming of scenes involving Brooks' crow. During the scene where he fed it a maggot, the ASPCA objected on the grounds that it was cruel to the maggot, and required that they use a maggot that had died from natural causes. One was found, and the scene was filmed.'

Scary Formula

A new formula has be written to find out how scary a film is for Sky so they know what the scariest movies to show should be. It goes like this:


(es+u+cs+t) squared +s+ (tl+f)/2 + (a+dr+fs)/n + sin x - 1.

Where:
es = escalating music
u = the unknown
cs = chase scenes
t = sense of being trapped
s = shock
tl = true life
f = fantasy
a = character is alone
dr = in the dark
fs = film setting
n = number of people
sin = blood and guts
1 = stereotypes


This is all very impressive, with lots of symbols and letters and a cheeky lil 'sin' in there to put it right up there with the big boys. But I have a few problems with this, firstly the letters. How can you put a numerical value on say 'in the dark' or 'character is alone', by this could you say that the film The Exocist has a 'film setting' value of 7? Or having a 'unknown' value of 19, or maybe the value of that variable is meant to be unknown. And how on earth can 1 = stereotypes? Could we get a 'hiding behind sofa' variable please?

Assuming that you can find values for all of these, then what? You've got a number yes, but what does that tell you? "OH MY GOD IT'S FIVE!!!!" que screaming and running away from calculator. I think not.