If only every gay guy could discover their sexuality this way, the world would be a much more interesting place
"We're gay? Should we light some scented candles?"
Podcasting.Isfullofcrap is the home of the 100 word story - amusing tales you can threaten to read to the kids before bed.
New Scientist however, is a technical podcast with a slightly humourous element.
One of the competitions on New Scientist was to find out how many bones there are in the human hand. I began to wonder how you could discover such a thing.
The result of my pondering was a 100 word story - and an alarming insight into my thoughts.
He walked over to me, slowly.
‘Give me your hand,’ I said. He shied back, avoiding my eyes.
‘Come on! It’ll be fun.’ I said, smiling.
Nervously he held it out.
‘Not that one.’
He held out the left. I took it in mine.
‘You want daddy to win that competition don’t you, all that money?’
‘Please!’ he whispered
‘You can help me count the bones afterwards if you like. We’ll win together.’
I moved his hand towards the workbench
‘Now, be a good boy, and keep still.’
And pinning his wrist to the bench, I reached for the hacksaw.
While surfing through the blogosphere, which isn't as 'extreme winter sports' as it sounds, I came across the blog Words ,Words, Words an aggressive blogger with a serious rant on.
Somewhere among the dog poop and yellow snow was this atheism reaffirming gem.
This series is joining my iTunes playlist. Thank you Jesus.
I’ve recently become an atheist.
Like most major life decisions it was influenced by a book. My commitment to Christianity, my conversion to spiritualism and my brief flirtation with the Enchanted Forest
This conversion was at the hands of Richard Dawkins,
It’s left a hole. For 22 years of my life I’ve believed in a make-believe entity. He/She/It (depending on my varying beliefs) gave me support when there was none, listened to me when I was depressed, and found me a parking space in busy car parks. I need God. He’s the only friend I have left, all the others lost by not keeping in touch. I’m not about to lose one more for such a feeble excuse as not believing in him.
And so I’ve been desperately trying to find proof of the metaphysical. I’ve researched, conducted experiments and watched Most Haunted but there is nothing that is not fallible to logic, Occam’s razor and an IQ greater than 100.
Finally, I held a séance.
There should be at least one ghost in my building. It was built in the 1600’s and used as a workhouse and pottery workshop. I imagine pauper’s ghosts working the treadmills and pottery workers burning to death in the Kilns. But if I told my boyfriend I was planning to hold a séance he would freak out, so there was no chance of getting some mediums round to join me. I would have to do it alone.
I waited till he had gone to bed and closed the door to my room, drawing the curtains and even turning of my PC, an action in my mind similar to human sacrifice.
There were candles on the book shelf, tea lights but I figured that workhouse ghosts wouldn’t be fussed by the quality.
I sat down and breathed deeply. ‘Is there anybody here?’ Nothing, I waited, focusing on the candle flame.
‘Come on, don’t keep me waiting.’ I’m very impatient even with dead people who are by their very nature quite slow. The room was completely still, not a single noise, not a breath of wind. Just silence and calm like the grave. And then I noticed a candle flickering. Its flame was streaming like it was caught in a gale.
‘Is that the best you can do?’
There was a tapping on the wall behind me. I spun around, but there was nothing there. Something knocked against the wall opposite me, then next to me, behind me, by my computer, then next to me again. It was getting closer and louder, and harder, closing in on me.
I stood up screaming, ‘Who are you!’
And at the moment the candle blew out.
I ran to the light switch, flicked it on. Smoke was pouring off the wick clouding the room. I walked over to it waving the smoke away.
It had run out of wax, burnt itself out. The flickering was caused by the changing wax flow and convection currents from the cooling radiator next to it. The cooling walls caused the taps as the plaster settled and contracted. There was nothing that couldn’t be explained. There were no ghosts, no mystery, Most Haunted was faked, and there was no afterlife. Disappointed and lonely, I walked out the room, closing the door behind me.
But I swear, that night as I was falling to sleep, something whispered in my ear ‘Good Night.’
But that could have just been my boyfriend.
I was up to ridiculously late on Wednesday night working on my blog design.
I can't explain why, but it feels good to look at a mass of CSS and XHTML and slowly begin to work out what it's doing. It feels even better to know that none of my knowledge of CSS, XHTML or any useful computer skills came from my Computer Science Degree but rather from Google, W3 and library books.
And thanks to my self taught knowledge I can take a simple, but elegant and highly functional template design and turn it into the train wreck you see in front of you.
I know now how my parents felt raising me.
Last night I stayed up late again talking to my Boyfriend.
It is going to be a very long, very tiring day today...
These are troubled times. The world is at war. fights are breaking out. families dividing on themselves and millions crying in outrage all because of one person. One person who threatens our freedom, threatens our culture, and threatens our way of life.
Yes Jade Goody, the stupid, stupid girl, has caused quite a storm with some angry statements made in the BB house. Trouble is that everyone else has taken her stupidity for racism.
The odd thing is that the people who are against racism and prejudice are still happy to gather in mobs outside her house and throw bricks at her window.
In the prevailing spirit of Racism I present this song from Avenue Q with Animation by Drawn Together.
A while ago, about 17 days, four hours and 13 minutes to be precise, I realised that I'd stopped being young. Or at least being student young.
With out realising, I had grown into an old man over night, happy to go home to my apartment (yes an apartment, not a flat, appearance is everything) and sit in front of the PC or the TV with a glass of water instead of a bottle of beer!
This Blogger, with a ranting, slightly psychotic style I was tempted to steal, seems to sympathise with me. - Just Eat the Cat!
I never get ill, so it’s annoying that I'm ill at the moment.
I'm losing my voice. Now normally that wouldn't be a problem, I could lie in bed, stricken and pale, and write down what I need making my loved ones do my bidding in fear that I may hit them with my stick.
But I've never lost my voice before. My larynx has always served me admirably. But now, that I work in a call centre it’s gone on strike and is demanding workers rights, minimum wage and holidays
Not being able to miss work for a sore throat however, I have to croak down the phone to old ladies in
Perhaps it's time to look for a different job, one where I don't have to talk, engage with anybody or even look happy.
Guess it’s back to the checkouts at Tesco then.
It's Amazing!
About a week ago I thought a Web Blog was primarily a device for wannabe pop stars on MySpace or right wing political pundits trying to break into the Daily Mail.
Imagine my surprise then when I discover that the site I've spent the last three years developing, maintaining and ignoring was basically a blog. And even worse, that I could have designed the whole thing in about 3 minutes if I'd just known about this site back then.
That's three years of my life wasted, bringing the grand total of years wasted up to 20 and a half. The first two and a half years I can't remember but I do seem to recall Milk and Cookies which, to be honest, is about as good as my life gets.
Found this trawling the web. Although not literally trawling of couse, that would require a Fisherman's Smack - like a normal smack but with a bigger bottom.
I think I used to live with this guy!
Sand Storm in Iraq:
And You Thought the storm we had here on Thursday was bad!
Of course, this was probably caused by George Bush
We brought a new set of shelves recently from Argos - flat pack.
Now generally I can handle flat pack kits, even enjoy them, providing they are from Ikea and require no hammering. Hammers scare me, kind of like gym instructors. They are both useful in their own way, but loud, and with the potential to cause me pain.
Ikea's flat pack kits however require no hammering and are idiot friendly. They contain the fewest number of parts possible, are part-assembled in the box, and come with clear diagrammatic instructions. In short, they resemble a 5 piece jigsaw puzzle sold for 2 year olds.
Argos' kits on the other hand, are the equivalent of a 5000 piece puzzle designed for former Krypton factor masters. The instructions were in French, the diagrams smeared and there was more wood than a German blue movie
I'm not sure how much time it took us to assemble it. I needed a shave afterwards, but then I always need a shave being directly descended from a silver back gorilla. I was later told that whilst we were screwing it together an entire species of hippo was discovered and immediately made extinct in a remote district of Africa.
The screws wouldn't screw, the wood wouldn't fit, and the screwdriver wouldn't stay where I put it. There was, of course, a screw missing, (story of my life) but luckily there was a piece of wood missing as well (again, story of my life) so that balanced out.
Finally, after what I assume was decades of toil we screwed the last screw and, in a moment of history par only to building the pyramids, raised it upright.
It was beautiful, the veneer shining on the front, each shelf lining up with the others and one side screwed on upside down.
The whole thing was tilted, the shelves running at an angle to the floor, siding things off and smashing them on the ground below. Art Deco perhaps but not entirely practical. We pulled it apart and pushed it back together the right way, missing two solar eclipses in the process, but the screws had been pushed out of line and the wood chipped; it wasn't the thing of beauty it was meant to be.
And now it stands in our front room, a dream gone wrong; a useful monstrosity - deformed, off-centre and ever so slightly bent.
Story of my life.
I have a habit of buying brand-new, highly desirable (deceivingly cheap) bikes. Other people have a habit of stealing them.
It started when the saddle from my Boyfriend's bike went missing. To be honest that wasn't so tragic a loss. It allowed him to discover an enjoyable form of transport he may not otherwise have known -- walking. However, when his wheels disappeared one by one it got worrying. What kind of thief walks around with a monkey wrench in his pocket?
Then the back wheel was taken from my bike.
Now, my bike is not in the best condition despite attempts to maintain it. I have thrown buckets of oil over it, calibrated the brakes to maximum squeakiness, and pumped the tyres to abdomen hardness. My efforts however have been disappointing. I know now how my parents felt raising me.
But despite this someone stole a part of it
The back wheel is the hardest part to remove, but someone took it in the black of night. Yet they left the front wheel, the saddle and the handlebars.
Why would anyone need a back wheel so badly that they would risk jail and nasty oil stains? Why did they need two wheels and a saddle from my boyfriend's bike but only one wheel from mine?
I have thought it through carefully and have come, logically, to the following conclusion.
An evil scientist is at work. Someone with an all in one bike tool is trying to create the ultimate hybrid-cycle -- a three wheel creation with one in front and two driven wheels behind. It is designed to seat a human rider, hence the saddle, yet the lack of handlebars suggest it is an intelligent bike that can steer itself by varying the speed of the rear wheels individually. However, its own intelligence will alienate it from other bicycles and it will be forced into isolation. Lonely and misunderstood by its peers it will harbour resentment for the one that brought it life and all who mocked it. As the months pass in solitude, rust will corrode its frame and hatred its heart, swelling its repulsiveness until it is feared by all on earth. Its wrath will increase until finally, with no one to love it or tell it no, it will rampage all bicycles, mopeds and cars in the world, shredding the technological age to scrap in its gears. And as a grizzly end, it will turn on its creator and all his kind in an inferno of oil and blood.
To think that my little pushbike, rusty, overused and underloved, should be part of such a detestable thing! It brings a tear to my eye.
But yesterday, I woke up to discover both our bikes, or what was left of them, missing. There was no evidence they had ever existed, as if they were spirited away to another dimension or removed from public record by the FBI. Maybe then things aren't as bad as I thought.
I believe, or I hope, that the great bicycle rapture has come and they have been taken to a better place. With their parts returned, they frolic, rust free, on the heavenly cycle path for eternity,
That, or they've been melted down and sold as scrap metal.
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