Does This Make My Forehead Look Big?

Again, I've angled this more to get rid of my double chin than anything. Could have done with being a bit less tired too, but there you go. You take photos of the face you have ...

Great Reviews of Our Time

OK, so my Joss Whedon fanboyishness doesn't normally extend to wanting to see something just because it stars a cast member of one of his series —I've no interest in Sarah Michelle Gellar's post-Buffy career and the less said about Nick Brandon's output the better— but Slither, which I first noticed because of the involvement of Nathan Fillion, looks like a lot of fun. And it'll be nice to see if there's more to Fillion than "Captain Tightpants". And this review sort of sold it for me:

Slither is an absolute treat. Imagine for a minute that David Cronenberg, in the days before he got boring and respectable, had made a film with a young Joss Whedon. Between them, they might have come up with something very much like Slither.

Free Stuff

Through Fark I just found this page. It list a load of freeware utilities that do more things than you probably thought necessary. Or as it describes itself "Extremely useful free utilities that do specific jobs really well and save time and money." For instance I've just downloaded something called Evil Lyrics that automatically looks up the lyrics for whatever you have playing in WinAmp. I'm not sure how I lived without it it before.

Plant the Pot Plant in the Plant Pot

Moby Games has a nice clear overview of the seemingly unkillable game format known as "Interactive Fiction".

Interactive fiction is not a gaming genre, it is a format. Although “text adventure” is commonly used to describe this type of game, interactive fiction has grown from its Adventure roots to incorporate a variety of game types, and some interactive fiction cannot possibly be described as a game at all. What all interactive fiction shares in common is the use of text to describe characters and objects within a setting, and the use of a parser to interpret text typed by the player, allowing the player to interact with the characters and objects within the setting.

Reasons I Don't Understand America Part 6

From 3 Quarks Daily:

[T]hirteen percent of American firms no longer give their employees any vacation time apart from statutory holidays.

Stating The Obvious

There should be a word for an idea so obvious that you're shocked that you've never thought of it before. I had one of those moments when I was directed to an Economist article entitled "A guide to womenomics" via Altercation. The article essentially says that letting women go to work is a much better thing than you'd probably think, but the interesting bit for me was this bit:

In particular, there is strong evidence that educating girls boosts prosperity. It is probably the single best investment that can be made in the developing world. Not only are better educated women more productive, but they raise healthier, better educated children. There is huge potential to raise income per head in developing countries, where fewer girls go to school than boys. More than two-thirds of the world's illiterate adults are women.

See? I don't know if this has anying baring on the IQ chart here. But would I be really so out of line if I looked at both articles and concluded that Romania, Turkey and Serbia perhaps don't take women's education quite as seriously as Germany, The Netherlands and Poland?

It also throws up this little nugget:

To make men feel even worse, researchers have also concluded that women make better investors than they do. A survey by Digital Look, a British financial website, found that women consistently earn higher returns than men. A survey of American investors by Merrill Lynch examined why women were better at investing. Women were less likely to “churn” their investments; and men tended to commit too much money to single, risky ideas. Overconfidence and overtrading are a recipe for poor investment returns.

I think what it's trying to say is that women tend, by their nature, to be more nurturing. Although the author probably doesn't want to come out and say that quite so directly.

Clutter

A view from my sofa.

I'm not exactly sure who the face that is eerily reflected in the glass in the bottom left belongs to, I'll have to check that out.

I Ride Tandem With The Random

Like TMFTML, I rarely do these meme things, but I tried this one just to get my posting started and, seeing as I spent all of about five minutes on it, I thought I'd post it here. The idea is that you have a list of "pre-selected faux-deep questions" and you get the shuffle on your iPod to answer them for you, though in my case I used WinAmp, I sure hope that isn't heresy, so here goes:

How does the world see you?
Mohammed's Radio - Warren Zevon
"Here comes the village idiot and his face is all a-glow". Figures...

Will I have a happy life?
Summer In The City - Quincy Jones
Good, then, I guess...

What do my friends really think of me?
The Next Movement - The Roots
"Your head is throbbin and I ain't said shit yet", hmmm...

Do people secretly lust after me?
Jesus Throwed Up A Highway For Me - Holy Ghost Sanctified Singers
And the highway was to make it easy for all those who lust after me in secret to get to me, right?

How can I make myself happy?
My Ride's Here - WZ
Given that this song is all about death, I'm a bit creeped out by this one.


What should I do with my life?
Goin' Back To The Bridge - Asie Payton
I'd like to interpret this one as saying I should keep on with the music...

Will I ever have children?
Zip City - Drive-By Truckers
That would be "no", then.


What is some good advice for me?
Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind On Jesus) - Blind Roosevelt Graves and Brother
Waking up in the morning, always a good thing. Also I've recently been working on a song called "Three Quid & Jesus" —I intend to post something about this soon— so maybe I should think a bit more about that.

How will I be remembered?
Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away - Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah
Good enough.


What is my signature dancing song?
Language Of Violence - Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
This is probably truer than I'd like to admit.

What do I think my current theme song is?
Tin Tin Deo - Junior Mance
I have no clue about this what so ever... Downloaded from Soul Sides, I'd guess

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Johnny Strikes Up The Band - Warren Zevon
True enough.

What song will play at my funeral?
Hell No I Aint Happy - Drive-By Truckers
It is now!


What type of women do you like?
Vambo Marble Eye - Alex Harvey
I really don't know how to interpret this at all.

What is my day going to be like?
Man or Animal - Audioslave
Indeed.

Normal Service To Resume

So, I'm back and the normal flow of posting should be reinstated as soon as I can get throught the backlog of all the things I haven't skimmed over in the time I've been away.

I did take a photo or two on my hols, but I'd set some filter on the phone wrong so they all looked a bit too blue. It made this shot a little better, though: