I’ve just discovered the CIA World Factbook. It’s full of useful information, like the following, about Antarctica-
Land use:
arable land: 0%
permanent crops: 0%
other: 100% (ice 98%, barren rock 2%) (1998 est.)
Irrigated land:
0 sq km (1998 est.)
(And yes, as suggested in Spooks last night, the title is the comparative size of our great land.)
I’m trying to follow the Tour de France from work on a dedicated site, but there is also a blog dedicated to the event
My man Howie Dean is profiled in today’s Guardian.
Just finished the first draft of Union Jack on the laptop whilst watching Six Feet Under. Now I just have to transfer it into Open Office and sort out the formatting. Then I should find some readers to test it on. Damian’s already volunteered to be the non comics reader so I can check that I haven’t put any geek only bits in there. Now I need a comics fan to give it a look over and make sure I’m doing something that’s at least a little original.
Of course, even before I’d finished this draft I was thinking of ways to rejig it. Not least because the requirements at Epic have been clarified some more and I should really be looking at pitching a three part story rather than the six parter I thought they wanted. It’s not a big deal, I can turn the story into a bunch of three issue arcs, each one introducing a new team member and expanding upon the underlying threat. All of which, of course, lead up to the creation of a new super team and their ongoing adventures.
I want a Nobody Knows I’m A Lesbian T-shirt, as available at Afflecks. (Actually, it’s not really a secret. I’ve always, and I hope no-one’s offended when I say this, but…. I’ve always been attracted to women. I mean, I must be a lesbian, right?)
Little Hedonist got one of these T-shirts and she had a hell of a night.
Everyone walking by is laughing. Or smiling. Or chuckling. Or talking. Or pointing. Some people do double-takes and/or accidentally trip down the street. It feels good to make people happy and amuse them. But at least they don’t know that I’m a lesbian. NOBODY KNOWS I’M A LESBIAN.
Today I perfromed my weekly ritual of clicking on the link to John O’s site to see if he’s set up his log. I was shocked to discover that there have been changes and even an inital post.
my god. I have become addicted to broadband. Its two in the afternoon, I haven’t left the house aside from a quick trip to SAinsburys for some milk and lunch stuffs. Star Trek is on the TV and for the past three hours I have been rating the Guardian’s top British blogs.
Dear me.
Friday was going to be incompetence watch day, I might as well make it a regular thing, then I went and nominated myself for the list. I set the virus checker running before going to work. When I got home it had a message up saying ‘This file is infected, do you want to delete it?’ I figured Kaspersky knew best and clicked OK. Then I went “Oh shit! That was Outlook.pst, not Archive.pst. I’ve just deleted my email.” And set off on a vain attempt to rescue my communications. Ho hum.
Southern Electric are still massively incompetent. I received yet another disconnection letter this week, after having spent over half an hour last week talking to one of their help desk people and, I thought, sorting the confusion over the house move out. It seems the guy boiled a long and involved search through the records to ‘The customer will call back with bank and Direct Debit instructions.’ ???!!???
Housing Benefit still haven’t been in touch. Any money I ever get out of them can be considered a miracle and a bonus.
There is at least one moderately competent person in the Job Centre- hobbled by the incompetents who update the information on their system. He sent me a signing off form and I actually received it this time. Mind you, I still haven’t seen the money, so there’s scope for future slagging off.
Yours sincerely,
Irate of Longsight
According to this article in the Washington Post, AOL is due to release its own blogging software for its members. Can you imagine some of talk? Oh the humanity. Better yet, AOL found its members don’t understand what “blog” means, so they have instead decided to call their programme “AOL Journals”. Here’s a snippet:
AOL this month began showing demos of its tools for creating Web logs, or blogs, to veteran bloggers. AOL has dubbed its service “AOL Journals” because its surveys showed that members found the word “blogs” confusing, said Rick Robinson, AOL’s vice president for community products.
One interesting thing, AOL Journalistas will be able to pay extra for the priviledge of blogging by phone. Call me a cynic, but doesn’t that just make it a bit too boring?
This is note the blogger I used to. Something must be wrong….
I managed to retrieve the old pst (Outlook) file, but it has been corrupted beyond hope, so I’m stuck with the email I got today and nothing else.
I’ve lost all my email addresses and everything that arrived before earlier today. Mail me if you need to remind me of something or want to tell me of your address.
Due to over eager application of the virus checker, I’ve managed to delete all my e-mail, ever. And my contacts list.
I’m trying to rescue the file, but I may have to start anew.
Eeeep.
As expected, the American remake of Coupling is awful. American readers- save yourselves the pain and treat yourselves to the original. You can get Series 1 and Series 2 on DVD.
via Ben Hammersley
The ancient Turkish sport of olive oil wrestling. This year’s championship used two tons of the slippy stuff.
“It’s a tough sport. It’s 40�C outside. Everything is slick and after a while, it’s hard to move,” said Tuna, who won last year’s championship after the winner tested positive for doping.
One things I’ve learnt about Ian since I moved in is that he REALLY likes potatoes. SO for no other reason here are some facts about potatoes.
The Pixies might do a reunion tour!
Okay, it’s only might, but I can hope.
via Die Puny Humans
How the WMD 404 page got to the top of Google’s rankings.
Bits of the new blogger interface are screwed up. I just lost a long post about my journey in (major accident on the M56 = gridlock in South Manchester and an extra hour on my journey) and work (I still don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing, but I’m certain it’s not meant to be button monkey on the photocopier like I was yesterday).
Bugger.
There are only a couple of MPs blogging in the UK, but at least they know to not be too poe faced about it.
Tom Watson MP
Richard Allan MP
Well, I had been planning to cycle in today, to the extent that I spent all of yesterday saying I categorically wasn’t going to, just to confuse the weather gods. But considering how hard it was to just wake up this morning, I don’t think I can be bothered with the exercise.