Singularity

Hard hitting

2009-06-29T16:46:00.002+01:00

That's a very good description of an interaction between a car driven by someone unobservant and a cyclist. It's also a description I saw attached to this infomercial that has been produced to encourage New York drivers to pay more attention to cyclists, rather like the THINK BIKE! campaign here in the UK.

I don't think this is quite as shocking as the current "It's 30 for a reason" series of adverts we have here, which include dead children (not real ones, of course, but played by actors), however it does make one point very well: cyclists don't have the protection of a metal box equipped with safety gear. I do sometimes wonder if some drivers subconsciously extend the sense of security offered to them by their high-tech carriage to other road users.

Oh lord. What will they think of next.

2009-06-15T18:57:00.004+01:00

I don't go on MySpace very often. It might surprise you to know I even have an account. I can't for the life of me think why I do. Primarily, I think, it's because there's a Truck Bar MySpace page, Alibarbarella (the bastard offspring of Pygar and Barbarella, norly) has an account, and it's where all the hip bands hang out. Or something.

One of the (many) reasons for this is the amount of advertising. MySpace makes Facebook look positively conservative and even considerate in its approach to the commercials that splatter you merely for having the indecency to log in. I'm not sure if this is a problem common to all social networking sites — I have a paid account on LJ and have never been anywhere near Bebo — however MySpace does seem to be a prime example of commercial carpet-bombing.

My purpose for today's visit? I was trying to find out what Ben Astrop is up to these days, and had tracked him to a new band, which has a MySpace page, and so I thought I'd better log in and attempt to add him or whatever it's called, just in case. The advert that greeted me today was particularly lolworthy, and so I screencapped it for your amusement:

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. What next? A singles bar for aliens? Speed-dating for ghouls? Swing parties for goblins?

Sam reviews...

2009-06-07T13:07:00.009+01:00

The Day the Earth Stood Still.

First off, I know I'm late on this. Frankly I didn't want to go to the cinema to see Keanu "Woah" Reeves reprise his Johnny Mnemonic performance — which I could tell he was doing by the simple fact he was going to be wearing a suit — and thus have to pay for the privilege. Nor was I going to buy the DVD, as I already own a copy of Johnny Mnemonic. Somewhere. So I had to wait until it came out on pay-per-view.

Bite me.

If you don't know the plot by now, then you've been living under a rock in a swamp. Alien comes to Earth and says that unless mankind changes its destructive ways then powers immeasurably superior to ours will wipe the species from the face of the planet. Faced with complete destruction and massively superior technology, someone has to change his mind about humanity's right to live. It has been many, many years since I last saw the original, so I'm not position to make anal comparisons between the two and watched it as a film for its own sake. Up to a point.

We started off up a mountain somewhere in 1928. In this scene KR played a bearded mountaineer who finds a strange glowing sphere in the ice, and proceeds to poke at it with his ice axe. I mean, really. If you found a strange glowing sphere encased in ice would you poke at it with your ice axe?

Yeah. I probably would too.

"Oooh! He's going to get abducted! How exciting!" I exclaimed, already thinking this is a much more satisfying explanation for a human alien than them growing one.

But no. Bright flash of light then beardy is waking up slightly puzzled and the sphere is gone. Not a lipless cow to be seen anywhere, either.

Skip to the present day and we meet our heroine. Hollywood has banned action girls from the movies, for some reason. This leaves most girls with the fate-worse-than-death of being a soppy screamer who faints at the sight of a beetle. Here we have avoided this by making her a biologist specialising in the sorts of bacteria that get off on making scientists say "WTF is that doing growing THERE?" Her personal drama, because we can't be without personal drama, is provided by being the widow of a man who died serving in the army, leaving her with the care of his son by his previous wife, who doesn't like her very much and wants nothing more than his daddy to come back. Yada yada.

The action begins by having a bunch of feds turn up at her door while she's trying to persuade the kid to get off WoW and come eat dinner while he reminds her, in that precious way movie children have, that she's not his mother.

It's all very Crichton, and here was where my niggles started blowing up into full irritation. I detest the idea that any government in this day and age doesn't have a contingency plan in place for something like this, as ridiculous as it seems. In The Andromeda Strain, which had exactly the same multi-disciplinary mobilisation, the scientists were at least aware that they might be called upon. They were thus prepared to get straight to work and were much more effective and efficient, rather than spending valuable minutes — and minutes were valuable in this film — faffing around stressed because they didn't know what was happening.

I started becoming genuinely uncomfortable when they went to meet the sphere in Central Park. I'd really like to think that we wouldn't, as a species, turn up to greet our first verified alien visitor with howitzers, tanks, snipers and rocket launchers, but upon reflection I suspect that we probably would. And yeah, we probably would shoot him as well. That many nervous people with guns, accidents are bound to happen.

After that the whole thing just derailed and it became downright silly. The giant robot was the best thing in the film, and I'm going to ignore the painful way they shoehorned an acronym in there to explain his name. The alien arrived in a spacesuit made of placenta, which fell off and allowed KR to reprise his Matrix adult foetus role, after which he did his emotionless cool act, making him look like an escapee from Equilibrium. That was fine in context. We are talking about a portrayal of inevitability and implacability, after all.

The major premise of the film is summarised in the scene where the kid asks Klaatu whether they should run or fight and Klaatu responds "Neither... There is nothing you can do."

I didn't think enough was made of this. I can tell they tried, but other than some feeble attempts to destroy the giant robot, they didn't do anything that really hammered home just how powerless people were. That's the part that should have been really scary. Here we are currently facing potential environmental disaster and we still can do something about it, if we get our act together. We are, as the Professor (John Cleese) said in the film, "standing on the precipice". Right now we can still step back. I wanted to be shown how abjectly hopeless it will make us as a species feel when there is nothing we can do about it any more. When it's too late.

Unleashing a self-replicating mass of matter-eating artificial locusts just didn't do it for me. Wasn't exactly environmentally friendly, either.

As it is, the film went something like this:

Jacob: Ure not mai mom. I hates U!
Dr Helen Benson: Put your computer DOWN and eat your dinner, FFS.
American Military: Dr Helen Benson U must cum with us and leev horribl child behind cos we say so and we has motorsickles with flashy lites.
Dr Helen Benson: Oh. OK.
American Military: Now U help us meets visitor from owter space.
Dr Helen Benson: Kewl.
American Military: Noes!!!!11!! Ebul alien cum to eats us! Shoot it! Now! Kwicks!
Giant robot: DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY. LOL.
Klaatu: FFS. I'm not even out of my spacesuit yet. Quit it, Gort. Just... Give me a minute. FFS. We're off to a great start already. Way to go making me think you guys have the potential to be nice.
Dr Helen Benson: Medic!
American Military: U R ebul alien cums to eat us. We am be interrugating U nows.
Klaatu: I think not. FFS. I just want to speak to the UN. What is it with you people?
American Military: Aieeee! He has used speshul ebul alien powahs to eats our branes thru the wiring!
Klaatu: I got the box. Damn straight. Now to get me to the UN. Aha! Here I have found what appears to be a transport hub. My word. How vicious and violent this race is. The sooner we've got rid of them the better. Oh. I appear to be bleeding and unwell.
Dr Helen Benson (answering phone): Yes? You have found the alien cough I mean my patient? I'll be right there.
Klaatu:Your race is vicious and violent and destructive and must die. I am here to kill you all so that the bunny rabbits and the polar bears can live in peace. You must act as my chauffeur because, although I am excellent, I do not possess a driving licence.
Dr Helen Benson: Oh. OK. But we're really not that bad. I shall introduce you to my professor, who is also excellent, and has a Nobel prize for being excellent, and he will show you how wrong you are by being excellent.
Professor: See my excellent maths! Listen to excellent Bach through my most excellent sound system.
Klaatu: Your math is promising and Bach is indeed most excellent.
Jacob: U is nasteh ebul alien and ai call army on U Bcoz that's what Dad wud do and Dad was like JEBUS.
Klaatu: FFS. I thought we were getting somewhere. No, that's it. You're all going to die.
Giant robot (turning into artifical locust plague): DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY. LOL.
Dr Helen Benson: Noes! I has been kidnapped from the alien by the military in an ironic subversion of the alien abduction experience. No rly.
Jacob: I am be all alone in woods and am scared. Can U help me ebul alien who isn't so ebul eny moar?
Klaatu: Kids, eh?
American Military: We gots nuthin. U try, Dr Helen Benson. Heer is Ur fone.
Jacob: I kno! We can meet at Dad's grave and alien can bring him back to life with his alien powah, just like Jebus!
Klaatu: Look, kid. He's not just dead, he's worm food. He has been recycled, FFS.
Jacob: Waaaaah!
Dr Helen Benson: Oh, poor baby! Here I shall hug you and make you feel better.
Jacob: Mom! I luvs you!
Klaatu: It would appear I was mistaken about the nature of humanity. If this child can hug the woman who cares for him, then perhaps their world leaders will not blow the living shit out of each other with nukes and will cap carbon emissions to stop polar ice melt. I must stop my giant robot locust plague, all because this child embraced this woman.
Rest of world: Yay! Say it. Say it! SAY IT! WTF? He didn't say it! Even Bruce Campbell said it in Army Of Darkness! We spent the last 100 minutes waiting for him to say it and all we get is a lousy EMP? FFS. The only real consequence is that we'll need to reboot everything and our watches have stopped. What's that supposed to teach us? Hey, Klaatu! You SUCK.

Still. Could have been worse. It was better than Sunshine. It didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty nail.

Doo doo doo doo doo

2009-05-31T13:43:00.000+01:00

I'm sure they've got it all wrong

2009-05-30T17:45:00.002+01:00

I gave up smoking a few weeks ago.

I know, I know. Right now you are motorboating like a stunned goldfish. "Say WHAT? But you're one of these triathlon nutcases! You refuse to eat additives! You won't even mix protein and carbohydrate, FFS! How could someone as obsessed with what you put into your body as you are possibly SMOKE?!"

I'm not going to justify my vices. They're vices.

Put it this way: I like to exercise discretion over what toxins I allow to enter my body. I believe that everyone has the right and capacity to choose whether or not to poison themselves. I'm not going to turn into one of the evangelical anti-smoking types who won't even permit a whiff of tar and nicotine to pass her sensitive nostrils. I still drink, after all. I support the legalisation of drugs. On the other hand, I reserve the right to get narked about having to breathe the pollution pumped out by motor vehicles and find it somewhat redundant to ban smoking in train stations when you still have to breathe the PM10s pumped out by the diesel locomotives. Even when I was a smoker I wouldn't inflict my smoke on someone who didn't smoke (if we had non-smokers round for a visit I'd go outside for my fag). Your body is your temple, and you get to decide what sort of temple that is. Mine is architecturally sound, demanding in upkeep, very well maintained and rather grubby.

I quit by the simple method of not buying baccy any more. I am a firm believer in the effectiveness of zero resource provision. If you want to stop eating so many crisps or bacon butties, don't buy crisps and bacon. It's not hard. It's much easier not to hand over your money than it is to pull out your wallet. I confess I'd probably have had a harder time if baccy was available at the checkout the way sweeties and magazines are, but it's not. You have to go to the kiosk and ask someone for it. That's takes effort.

I strongly feel that giving up anything is much easier if you make it less effort not to have it. If it's made a "big deal", something that you do as a New Year's resolution, or have anniversaries that you celebrate, it's a hurdle to overcome or, worse, still part of your life. Giving up smoking isn't something to celebrate simply because celebration turns it into a massive thing and we find massive things harder to do than little things. Giving up should be made as little a thing as possible.

I'm not saying that it is a little thing, not for everyone. I have certain advantages that I'm not going to discuss in detail, but suffice to say I have a non-addictive personality. I realise that for a lot of people giving up smoking is a big deal, and very hard, and I'm not here to belittle their achievements. What I'm suggesting is that, from a psychological point of view, turning it into a big deal in the first place is counter-productive. It should be made as small as possible, so that it seems easier. Small portions are easier to swallow than big ones, after all.

Telly adverts tell us that we need willpower plus substitute chemicals. The commercials for some nicotine replacement products are frankly terrifying. The thought of having to deal with hallucinations of giant cigarettes and little old ladies bearing offensive frozen chickens would put me right off the idea of giving up. I stick a patch on my arm and I'm assaulted by giant imaginary fags in the middle of the night? Fuck that. I'd rather keep my sanity.

Everywhere they look smokers are told that giving up is so hard that they need the support of the NHS and drugs and a variety of other things, and "requires willpower" is in the fine print at the bottom of the page.

I really think this is completely arse about tit. I don't think it even requires that much willpower. What it requires is that you stop spending money on this particular toxin. What it requires is that you don't walk up to the kiosk and ask the faintly disapproving man behind the counter to provide you with 25g of Cutter's Choice and a packet of silver Rizlas before handing over an ailing cephalopod (six quid) and hoping for change.

The television campaigns make out like you need to make an effort. I quit by not making an effort any more.

Part of me wonders why the Government is making quitting into such a big deal that people need to go to support groups and take "therapeutic nicotine". They are being told that they are embarking on something really difficult. Telling someone that what they are doing is really hard is not the way to encourage positive thinking. Positive thinking is the most valuable tool in success at anything.

I'm not making a big deal out of it. I can't even remember when exactly I stopped. That, I think, is the best way to tackle this. I'm not putting money in the pockets of the replacement nicotine manufacturers, whose adverts, I would remind the honourable reader, are not there to aid your health but to earn them profit. I'm not obsessing over it. I've got through the grumpy stage by treating it as PMT and am currently working out how to deal with not having an appetite suppressant any more because I don't want to put on weight. Other than that, it's no biggie, and that'll be the thing that keeps me off the fags.

It was never that big a deal in the first place. And who goes to any effort over something that's no big deal?

Humiliation

2009-05-08T20:07:00.006+01:00

I went for my first ever spin class last night. Keiser cycling, it's called. I figured I'd be fine: I ride fixed, FFS. Not only that but I ride fixed on the turbo, when I can't be arsed going out. It's just an exercise bike, right?

Wrong.

I went because I had a swim lesson with my coach Zoe (whose website is still broken) immediately after the class, and she was taking the class, so I figured what the hell. Turned up, having ridden there (fixed, natch) at a sprint because I was running late, found a few people already sitting on the machines pushing the pedals round. None of them gave the outward appearance of being super-fit. One guy looked about 65. They asked if I'd done it before. No, I told them.

"You've picked the wrong class then," they chortled. "This is the hard one!"

That's just great.

It took some fiddling to get the bike set-up acceptable (not right, just acceptable), which was watched with some amusement by the two guys either side of me (the old guy and a guy who looked about 50). I tried explaining that I am used to riding real bikes. They asked if I race. I mentioned triathlon, muttering a bit.

I really shouldn't have done. They made a big deal about this. All of a sudden I was supposed to breeze through this airily, like a dandelion clock on a sunny summer's day.

The warm-up was fairly hard. Halfway through the session I'd drunk nearly all my water and it had sweated out into a nasty puddle on the floor underneath me. The gents flanking me were merrily having a conversation over my labouring back, neither of them having so much as broken a sweat, while Zoe yelled at us to go faster and faster in bigger and bigger gears.

"Up two! Minimum 16! 110 - 120! Three... two... one... go!"

The man on my right was singing along to the music.

He was singing along.

It was just sickening.

The pair of them kept offering me a tissue to wipe off the sweat, and would lean over to peer at the electronic display on my cycle every now and again. If I wasn't up to speed or had failed to select a high enough gear they would mercilessly point this out, as if I were cheating or something. The old bloke, having ascertained that I was wearing an HRM, occasionally asked in a conversational manner how my heart rate was doing.

Come the end my ladybits were rubbed raw from the dodgy saddle and I felt the same way I imagine a Fremen would if he tried to run 10k over dunes in a stillsuit at a 20 minute pace. Climbing into the pool with my core tempature through the roof felt like plunging into the Weddell Sea. Half of me was worrying about leopard seals.

Hmm. I wonder if there are any places left for Monday's class. The one that's on just before the running club Zoe thinks I should attend.

She's a sadistic minx when she knows you can take it.

I just like Deadpool, okay?

2009-05-02T17:16:00.002+01:00

It has come to my attention that one of the secret endings (that roll after the credits) indicates that Deadpool's fate might not have been quite so final.

If anyone gets to see that one, please let me know. I'm going to cling to the idea that Weapon XI wasn't really Wade. It was a different actor, after all.

I liked the suggestion that one of the endings should have been Deadpool leaning in close to camera and telling the audience "Time to go home now." That would have been awesome, and made up for the disappointment of his depiction in the rest of the film.

Sam reviews

2009-05-02T12:56:00.011+01:00

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I'm warning you now, there will be spoilers. Just one or two. The problem is that I can't think of any way to tell you what I really feel without revealing a couple of things that would otherwise come as a complete surprise, especially to the fellow Marvel fans out there. What I'm hoping is that all the fans who are as sad as I am will already have seen it and everyone else won't give a crap.

However, here's your chance to look away. Look away now if spoilers concern you.

I've been looking forward to this ever since I heard it was being made, which is probably not the best way to approach a film. Marvel's track record with movie adaptations is fairly hit and miss. The first two X-Men movies were great; the third one was a great big wobbly pile of shite. Iron Man rocked; Spider-Man was emo even before Venom got in on the act. There are two Hulks. Fans disagree which of them was better (me, I go with Edward Norton, in case that makes a difference to you). The less said about Ghost Rider the better, but then the Fantastic Four films were actually not too bad at all.

I've seen them all. Mostly opening night, at the cinema. The sight of the Marvel flicker-flack on the big screen puts a grin on my face that would make an orang-utan proud.

I'm not just a Marvel fan girl. I'm a Wolverine fan girl. So for this movie I didn't even wait for opening night. I went to the special preview advance showing before the official opening, dragging Frood along with me. I take no blame for Rev Will's attendance. He said he wanted to come. That's him on the right.

The opening section appeared, initially, to have been lifted from the Origin story arc by Bill Jemas. So far so good. But then, um. WHAT? Say WHAT? Since when was Sabretooth Logan's brother? Chris Claremont originally intended Sabretooth to be his father, and the source of the long-term enmity the simple fact that Victor didn't think Logan measured up to the standard he'd set. Canon has since made it clear that Creed isn't Logan's father, but he sure as hell ain't his brother.

Then follows a quick timelapse special of the two boys fighting through various wars (invariably for the Americans, despite Logan fighting for the Canadian army, but whatever, this is Hollywood). I already knew Liev Schreiber had been given the Sabretooth role, despite being about as non-Sabretooth as you can get. The only way they could have cast someone less like Sabretooth would have been to ask Will Smith to do it. Having said that, Schreiber wasn't as bad as I expected him to be, but I still think they should have gone to the WWE for their casting.

I found Creed's continual use of "Jimmy" to refer to Logan intensely irritating and totally out of character for both of them. Just, you know, as a by the by.

We come to Vietnam and Creed's bestiality has been fed by decades of fighting, and yet Logan is still the noble warrior. When Creed attempts to rape a Vietnamese woman his officer tells him to stop. A fight ensues, in which Logan initially tries to protect the woman and then ends up protecting his brother. This theme arises again and again throughout the film: the notion of brotherly loyalty between Wolverine and Sabretooth. I found it totally unbelievable. Sabretooth is the character who takes great delight in the annual Wolverine birthday bash. By which I mean he bashes Wolverine on his birthday. That was the whole Silver Fox thing and... I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Full Metal Jacket this is not. Watchmen this is not. Where the Comedian shoots a pregnant woman in the head and walks away, here our two brothers find themselves in front of a firing squad for assaulting an officer. I wasn't aware they did that in Vietnam. But still. Whatever.

Apparently it tickled.

They are then recruited by our old friend Stryker, although Brian Cox had the sense to turn down this one. He's still in military rather than religious guise, so I can't complain about continuity there. They join an elite group of soldiers, all of whom are mutants, for some purpose that isn't made clear, although by the end it's obvious that this was the start of the Weapon X project.

Yay! Deadpool!

There are three characters in the Marvel universe I follow with any degree of consistency. Wolverine, X23 and Deadpool. The merc with the mouth is simply one of Marvel's finest creations, and it's all thanks to Fabian.

I have no idea who the rest of them are. I don't care. Deadpool! Squee!

There follows an infiltration exercise designed primarily to show off the various powers of these mutants to the audience, and towards the end of this short sequence Ryan Reynolds shows a glimmer of promise. I begin to think that yes, yes, he really could do it. I mean, he's not horribly mutilated with a face that looks like the inside of a tin of dog food and a voice that sounds like Demi Moore on gravel, and there's no sign of him recognising the fourth wall, never mind breaking it, but this is pre-Weapon X, right? There's still time.

But that's it. That's your lot. Not even two minutes of a chance to shine. Then our boy Logan takes exception to a bit of violence and walks away to find a new life in the Canadian rockies as a lumberjack with a beautiful schoolteacher girlfriend (who isn't called Silver Fox). Next thing we know his old squad is dead, and the implication is that Sabretooth is doing it.

What? But I thought... Deadpool? Deadpool? Noes!!!!11!11! He can't die! Wake up, Deadpool, please wake up!

He does. Eventually. But you'll wish he hadn't. It's just too painful.

Anyway. Then follows a standard Marvel bit of manipulation to get Wolverine back into the Weapon X programme involving murder of loved ones and revenge and all the usual stuff to bring out the animal in him. Yada yada. I'm not going to bother describing it all in detail because it's all rather predictable. He gets his adamantium — I was disappointed that they toned it down from the stark brutality of Barry Windsor-Smith — and escapes before they can wipe his memory, leaving a trail of bodies as he seeks revenge on his brother.

The plot seems to have taken a pick-n-mix selection from the various story arcs. The Weapon X programme is sort of classic, but mostly Ultimate. In this one the familiar characters from the X-Men films are kids, as they are in the Ultimate series, being used as the basis for experimentation... Sorry. My brain veered dangerously close to what they did to Deadpool and I had to stop and take a few deep breaths or else I'd have been reduced to a quivering heap on the floor, screaming to the heavens "WHY? FOR THE LOVE OF THE LITTLE BABY JEBUS, WHY???!!"

The Blob, usually nothing more than the butt of jokes and someone too foul to generate sympathy, was really nicely done in this film, and for me was one of the high points. Kevin Durand did a very good job with him. I think, basically, that's one of the reasons this film was so disappointing. The actors all did a remarkable job with the material they were given (apart from Danny Huston as Stryker, who appeared to believe he was working in a straight to TV flick, or was asleep). But the plot was full of holes and inconsistencies; the characters were forced into actions that were simply not like them for anyone at all familiar with canon; the dialogue was at times trite, melodramatic and downright cheesy (that Wolverine and Moon thing was almost enough to make me gag); the fight scenes were often shot unsympathetically and there was just far too much CGI. Especially that bit at the end when Professor Xavier in a Dale Winton tan turned up in Airwolf. The power effects seem to have been taken straight out of Ultimate Alliance ("XXXOO overhead spin kick!"), although that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as it worked very well for Gambit and both Frood and I were move-spotting throughout.

I could see where they had levered in bits to "please the fans" but you can't just take something out of a story arc and drop it into a context that is held together by the araldite and cable-ties of retcon and expect it to work. You can take ideas, principles, tropes or themes and use those, but not plot points. It was obvious and necessary to focus on Wolverine's battle to be human rather than animal, because that's the character's main conflict throughout his various incarnations. It's fine, even better, to deal with the memory loss in a completely different way because the Weapon X programme isn't being played out the way it does in the comics. It's not fine to dump the future complement of the X-Men into cells and then randomly make the White Queen Logan's girlfriend's sister. Pulling plot points straight from the comics and juxtaposing them with major retcons is jarring and unsettling for those of us who know the comics. It's one of the reasons why the third X-Men film fell down (Morrison did the Logan/Jean death scene far better in New X-Men). The other reason was the wasting of one of the best characters of the entire franchise. And Wolverine makes both those mistakes.

It's a pity, and I have to wonder who's to blame. The writers? The director? I can't help but feel you could take the same acting complement, give them the production crew of X2 or Iron Man and you'd have an absolutely stonking movie in which the merc with the mouth would remain the merc with the mouth and I'd have been a very happy girl.

As it is this may not even end up as part of my DVD collection, and the only other Marvel films I don't own are the ones in the Spider-man series.

Lest you think that my negative reaction is the disappointment of a superfan whose favourite character has been brutally sodomised by the writing crew, I can report that neither of my companions thought it any better and they quite happily tell me I'm a sad Marvel geek.

Let's hope they manage to do a better job with Avengers, eh?

What he said

2009-04-10T16:08:00.001+01:00

I bought the game thinking it was going to be a 2-player co-op. Frood would get Spidey and I'd get Wolverine.

Fat chance.

QOTD

2009-04-10T12:31:00.003+01:00

Back in the 1950s, Britain's tiny Saunders-Roe company was building the rocket-powered SR.53 fighter. Designer Maurice Brennan, according to some of my old Flight colleagues, used to defend the concept against missile fanatics by remarking that "the guidance system weighs 200 pounds and drinks gin."

That's from an article in the Register on UAVs, quoting Bill Sweetman.

Think I'll get some Easter Hodilay Gin for me and Frood. Top ho! Although he'd probably prefer rum.

Rambling around triathlon

2009-04-08T18:40:00.002+01:00

Got back from my lunchtime run today, pulled off my socks and discovered my right foot was covered in blood inside my sock.

Arse.

Apparently I missed a bit when trimming my nails and there was a little pointy edge that dug into the next toe along and put a big hole in it. Thankfully something of a similar, but lesser nature happened a couple of weeks ago, so I was aware that the pinpoint pain in my toe when running meant it was happening again and the sight of blood didn't fill me with panic and horror. Not that the sight of blood usually does. Not when it's mine, anyway.

There was an article in Runner's World last year, I think, about how to trim your toenails. At the time I thought it verging on the side of obsessive-compulsive. Not any more. Wish I hadn't thrown that issue in the recycling.

In other news, I'm racing at Cuper in the East Fife Triathlon on Sunday, and I've entered Bishopriggs (closed road circuit, woohoo!) and Peebles. I've heard so much about how good the Borders series is from other ladies when hanging out by the pool waiting for our heat to start in other races that I thought I'd try one. Maybe I'll be sufficiently in shape to do Selkirk next year.

In other other news, I was watching the new series about Wonky Willie's chocolate last night, and they did a sports test to see how cacao worked as an energy drink. Reduces perceived effort and promotes fat burning rather than carb. Wow. I'm sold, and I don't normally like chocolate. The stuff that's sold in the UK as chocolate is too sweet, and dark chocolate has too much tannin taste in it.

Although, having said that, I just bought a small bar of his 70% Peruvian, which I was convinced would be too bitter for me, and it's really rather scrummy.

Why go shopping?

2009-04-05T16:56:00.001+01:00

Sometimes it's a wonder, in these days of Wiggle and other internet sports shops, that actual, physical shops manage to stay afloat. When you can buy sports kit so much cheaper online, why go to a shop with overheads?

I'll tell you for why.

A couple of years ago I went to RunAndBecome in Edinburgh and bought my first pair of trail shoes. The staff were great. They spent a long time making sure I had the right shoes for my purpose, my feet and my gait. The shoes were the Asics Gel Trabucos, and I've been very pleased with them. They've done sterling service both in training and competition.

Finally, however, they wore out, as shoes are wont to do. I knew they were on their way out, and then I had a dream in which I got back from a particularly tough run and discovered the soles were completely smooth. My feet had been hurting of late so I figured this was my subconscious telling me to bloody get out there and replace them.

A copy of Runner's World had arrived with a catalogue from an online retailer offering the Trabucos at half retail price, and money is kind of tight at the moment so I was sorely tempted. However, I like to support shops because of the service they offer, so off I went to RunAndBecome and told them I needed to replace my Trabucos. Size 39. I was expecting to be in and out in a flash.

But when I tried them on in the shop they DIDN'T BLOODY FIT. Asics, in their infinite wisdom, had decided to change the last for the 2009 model and they were now too tight. Several pairs of different and not quite right shoes later the lovely shop lady found a pair of 2008 Trabucos on offer, and they happened to be in my size, and also were made with the same last as the 2007 model. Hooray!

That, boys and girls, is why one should not buy such an important piece of kit as running shoes online, no matter how sure you are that you know exactly what you want. As for you folks who take advantage of shops by going in to try them on and then going away to order them cheaply online: boo sucks to you. That's just taking advantage, that is. It's practically theft. You are using their services and not supporting the shop. Keep that up and there won't be a shop, and then you'll be reduced to ordering unsatisfactory kit online and having to send it back.

I don't really mind that the new ones are bright yellow. Even though it tastes teh nasteh. I'll just not look at them.

Tranent triathlon race report

2009-03-29T13:48:00.001+01:00

As readers of my LJ will know, I was not especially looking forward to Tranent this year. It wasn't because of anything like lack of motivation: it was, probably, a combination of season's first race nerves and the weather. Oh yes. The weather.

After a short spell of sunny days and mild breezes, Scotland had decided it had seen its shadow and hopped back into some severely wintry conditions. As of Friday, the weather forecast looked like this:

I had a rough time with injuries last year, including a broken tooth that needed surgical extraction, a stress fracture in my right foot that cancelled the tail end of my racing season, and a nasty head injury that put a severe dent in the start of my winter training. The psychological effect of all this was twofold and paradoxical: I was both dead keen to get stuck into this year and also suffering from a degree of trepidation over my fitness. The thought of having to race in conditions like that, when I was unsure of how fit I was for it, was almost enough to make me decide to DNS on the Friday.

On the other hand, my Mum kindly bought me some private swim coaching for my Christmas, with Zoe (who can be found at the David Lloyd in Newhaven, as her website appears to be fubarred), and I'd just posted a PB for the 750 in training, beating my previous best by more than a minute; and I had been working pretty hard on my running. I wanted to race. Friday night prep came as second nature so I was confident I wouldn't simply fall on my arse in T1. I've done this often enough now that I should be satisfied my base fitness should take me through a sprint distance triathlon — maybe not in a decent time, but I'd get through it.

The first one of the season, in those conditions, is always a matter more of survival than putting in a good time. I do triathlon as an excuse for drinking beer, not to get myself in the ranks of the elite.

When the alarm went off at 06:30 on the Saturday the sun was shining and it didn't look too windy, so there was really no reason not to go for it. Apart, that is, from being snug and cosy in bed and not having had much sleep.

I was still half asleep when we left, bike in the back and my stuff in its box. Arrived in Tranent about 45 minutes after registration opened and grabbed the last parking space next to the Loch Centre. It was cold. There was the usual crowd, generic triathlete faces fettling with expensive-looking bikes, plus a few familiar faces from the last couple of years. I'm almost used to being recognised now. I suspect the black eye is a dead giveaway (my triathlon race licence is the only piece of ID I own where I've got my preferred eye in the photo).

Heat 2, starting at 10:40. It's the one thing that I always find a bit of a bummer with competing. You have to get there early to secure a parking space, and then there is invariably a period of a good couple of hours at least of sitting around twiddling your thumbs waiting for things to get going. If you're in the later heats you can watch the slow coaches before getting going, but in the early heats you don't get to watch the faster people race because they're done by the time you get back and you're getting prepped while the few people slower than you are swimming.

The one thing I have never been able to train for is the pre-race toilet requirement. I swear, if you ever want to weigh yourself and get the lowest possible figure, do it just before getting in the pool at a race. There will be nothing inside your digestive system to add to the overall mass. I wonder if organisers have to advise the facilities to supply even more toilet paper.

I was hanging with a few ladies I recognised from previous years. We were a little confused by the number of men in the female changing room: most of them were watching the swim but one was busy slapping himself with embrocation and making use of our loos. We considered that this was, if not plain rude, at least a little ungentlemanly, given that there was a perfectly good male changing room. A minor distraction from fretting about how cold it was going to be.

(At the end he was back, and with the sort of assertive curiosity for which I am infamous, I simply asked him outright why he was using the female changing room rather than the male. He claimed he hadn't realised it was the female changing room. Even though it was full of females. Hmm. With a rubbish excuse like that I suspect ulterior motives.)

Then it was our turn.

Ordinarily people underestimate their swim times when entering while I overestimate mine by about 10 seconds. This is partially because I don't want the ignominy of being the last one in the pool and missing the cut-off. Partially it's because I like overtaking everyone because then I get around 500m of free water and I'm the first one out, givng me a psychological boost. I'd put down 15'15 on the entrance form, which was about right at the time I entered. Having beaten that by a minute in training I thought I was onto a winner.

As it happened my heat was fairly closely matched. I was overtaken by one chap who was going really well, and then I was into the epileptic tadpole kick of the chap in the yellow hat, who had a very poor grip of pool etiquette. In heat-based triathlon, if you want to overtake you tap the ankle of the person in front of you and he is supposed to wait at the end of the length. This chap didn't seem to understand that. I had to pull up short a couple of times, reduced to swearing in breaststroke. When he did finally stop, a couple of lengths later, he set off at the same time as me rather than letting me get going again, and spent half a length smacking my feet and tangling around my ankles.

The second time he failed to pull up at the end of the length I grabbed both of his ankles and yanked. Not impressed.

With the frustration and several bursts of intense sprinting, plus being unable to get into a rhythm, I found myself flagging towards the end, and it was a relief when the orange kickboard was waved at me and I knew I only had two more lengths to go. Tired enough to use the steps rather than bouncing out of the pool I staggered down the steps towards the cold outside.

Dear gods it was cold. T1 was slow as I had socks and gloves and a jacket to put on against the chill, but at least I didn't get lost coming out of transition like I did last year. It was a slow start, feeling the effects of a choppy swim, and I was glad of having other people on the road ahead. In 2008 I was out first and saw no one for the whole of the bike leg, which makes racing difficult.

At first I felt warm enough that I could have done without my jacket, and was pleasantly surprised by how strong I was on the ascents. While other people were up out of the saddle and slowing right down on the hills I didn't have to get up once, and only had to avail myself of my bottom gears a couple of times. That's a winter of fixie riding in Edinburgh, for you.

Then we turned a corner and had a vicious crosswind combined with a series of long, steep descents. I got a seriously bad speed wobble in Dalkeith last year, which terrified me. There is something about feeling your bike going out of control underneath you at around 40mph and realising that you're only wearing a small amount of lycra and a plastic hat. I had hoped that getting the bike serviced, and the rear cones adjusted, would give me the confidence to descend this year but it didn't. People I'd sailed past on the climbs shot past me on the descents. I couldn't let the bike have its head on that rough surface. I couldn't convince myself it would stay stable.

I overtook a couple of the people who'd gone past on the next set of climbs, and then it was into the headwind. I was glad of my jacket. My legs became so cold my skin felt like it was on fire, and there was no power there. My muscles had gone into cryogenic hibernation. I also discovered that putting my Smart gels into the pocket of my jacket rather than my tri suit was a mistake, because I couldn't get at the zip to retrieve them. I like having a quick boost just before hitting T2 as it gives me a bit of extra energy for the run.

T2 was slow, again, because I was cold and stiff from the ride and couldn't get my running shoes on. The run was my usual plod, although this year, at least, I had no doubt that I could make it all the way round the course without having to slow down. The run, for me, is always a battle to keep going rather than giving in to the feeling I need to slow down to walk for a few yards. Tranent is a good run: I prefer cold conditions for running, and the marshals are absolutely awesome. They'd been out there since 8am, chalking happy, motivational messages and silly pictures all over the pavement, as well as the more practical arrows and directions.

Towards the end I even started trying to put a bit more speed into it.

You can find the table of provisional results here in Excel format. They're cumulative — my run did not take me 1:29!

Good: I did the swim in 14'16 (based on my own timekeeping — the chip times include T1), which is a new PB and means I need to revise this season's swim goal. I beat last year's overall time by two and a half minutes and was faster in every single section, albeit not by much. The conditions were a lot worse, though.

Bad: Last in category. Ouch. I know you should really run your own race and not worry about everyone else, but my relative performance was pretty poor. I'm still getting severely spanked on the run. My bike leg this year was not as competitive within class as it should have been, and I know that's partly because of my crappy descending but also because I just didn't push hard enough. Overall I didn't push hard enough except in the swim: I need to get out of this mental rut of merely surviving the run and start trying to go faster.

Still, today I feel pretty fit, when I would have expected to feel like death. Might even get the turbo out later. Must be doing something right in training.

Hats off to the marshals and to the Edinburgh University Triathlon Club. Once again they organised a great race, with an excellent team, and their volunteers probably felt the cold even more than the competitors did. After all, they had to stand out there cheering folks on and giving directions from start to finish, not just for one heat, and they didn't have the benefit of physical exertion to keep them warm. I think that's what makes Tranent enjoyable despite the ferocious conditions: the people running it are just super. Thanks, guys!

Only one photo this year: here's me, 10 minutes after finishing, having retreated indoors, blue with the cold and my special "What do you mean I'm still alive?" face.

East Fife in two weeks. Cupar was cold last year, but I can't imagine it'll be as cold as Tranent. After that, who knows? I haven't entered any more yet, but I'll have to make a decision soon. If anyone has any favourite May events, I'm open to recommendations.

Don't say Dalkeith. Not with that crazy zig-zag swim and that long descent with the manhole cover in exactly the wrong place.

Life with Frood

2009-03-25T23:02:00.001Z

"You're a lesser spotted, frangible geek."

OH REALLY.

Sam reviews...

2009-03-23T13:37:00.007Z

Astonishing X-Men.

I am, as has been said many, many, many times before, a sad Marvel fan girl (which reminds me to get my comics box out so I can check which series featured that Glaswegian whale mutant). I can forgive Marvel many, many, many things. I own Ghostrider on DVD, FFS. I am that sad.

However, I still find the preponderance of the Most Common Superpower somewhat vexing. It's not because I'm a feminist (as I said a couple of posts ago). It's because I'm a realist. I will happily suspend disbelief when it comes to Cyclops shooting optical lasers from his eyes or (just about) Logan staying alive trapped in a glacier by eating bits of his own leg because his healing factor made them grow back.

Well... OK. Yes, I have issues with that latter example. Mostly revolving around amino acids. Like I said: I'm a realist. What this means is that I will accept a particular twist on reality. I will accept that Emma Frost can turn to diamond, or Kitty Pryde can phase through walls. I will accept that Logan has adamantium bonded to his skeleton and Jean Gray is pretty much the definition of will not fucking die, but there are some things I can't accept.

You cannot be an action superhero with 36FF breasts in that outfit.

Every time I read something by, say, Liefield I want to send the artist a link to Boobydoo. That's beyond fanservice. That's just... It's just stupid.

Here's for why this makes me want to throw a book at the wall and weep.

I'm 170cm and 63kg (that's 5'7 and ~140lbs for you imperialists). My chest size is 32DD. I compete in triathlon and participate in long-distance cycling. Half my annual sports budget goes on bras. I would not be able to jog twenty metres without the sort of support offered by the Sportjock Super Sportbra. It would be agony. How Emma Frost, who seems to have a chest size of around 40GG, manages to walk without falling over, never mind fight in outfits that are apparently no more than a couple of pieces of foil wrapped around a ribbon, is utterly beyond me.

Also: figures. I hate to break this to you boys, but while Seven of Nine's assets are formidable, and all her own work, they are somewhat enhanced by very careful costuming involving seamless internal corsetry. You can't have strength without muscle. You can't have muscle and still look like a stick with a couple of peas (or, even worse, watermelons) glued on the front. One of the most unconvincing action heroes of all time was Leeloo from The Fifth Element, but she got away with it by the Power of Cool.

Trust me on this one. If you had a genuine action superhero girl, she would look more like Tessa Sanderson than Sarah Michelle Geller. I'm probably about 10kg (20lbs) heavier than the stated of weight of most women taller than me in movies (anyone remember Vicki Vale claiming to be 108?) but I'm no lard-ass.

The sort of ridiculously low body fat that makes muscles stand out to be counted also results in no boobs. A passing glance at the ranks of female bodybuilders would tell you that. Look at Brigitte Nielson in Red Sonja, back when she looked like she might be able to fight, even though Sandahl Bergman should still have kicked her scrawny ass clear to the other side of Valhalla. Ultra endurance athletes, those skinny whippets who can run for miles and miles and miles: they're all bone and sinew.

Basically, while I can cope with the leap of faith it takes to accept The Human Torch can fly and Jubilee can generate bursts of fireworks, I can't cope with the inherent unrealism of the way people are depicted.

Which is why I would like to place Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men up on the pedestal next to Grant Morrison's New X-Men. I'm not a massive fan of Whedon. I think that he has suffered from the common affliction of successful writers: he has become self-indulgent. However, I'll give him this: his particular penchant for strong women means that the girls of this series are relatively realistic. Even Emma Frost looks like she might be wearing a push-up bra under there and if she took it off she'd be able to see her own toes. An important ability in an action hero, I'd have thought. John Cassaday, the artist, obviously also deserves a great deal of credit. His semi-realistic style is remarkably effective and sets off Whedon's realistic dialogue.

Hisako: "Can I help"
Logan: "Are you a beer?"

There are still one or two frames where my inner bra-expert cringed a little, but overall this series is a rare thing: a comic book I can read without having my suspension of disbelief come crashing around my ears in a tangle of missing underwiring and absent corsetry.

Oh yeah. The plot's not all that bad, either.

Truth in television?

2009-03-20T16:26:00.002Z

You know, while I'm at it, the whole concept of "reality TV" is a lie. It's an outright fabrication. It implies some sort of connection with reality, and there is no such thing. We already have a word for real life shown on TV: it's called the documentary.

Every single one of these so-called reality TV shows is scripted and the participants manipulated for the purposes of entertainment; if such crass, unintelligent melodrama can even be described as entertainment. These programmes are no more than the tabloid newspapers of television: soap opera dressed up as having some form of social commentary, when they are about as far from social commentary as Belgium is from Bolivia. The only information we can derive from such codswallop is the sad state of what passes for mass entertainment these days. They teach us nothing about ourselves as a social species apart from the willingness of the populous to see other people put in ridiculous situations designed to provoke emotional stress with the footage edited to highlight the conflict arising from the way the programme makers have constructed the shows to bring out the worst in people.

I wouldn't call for a ban on reality TV, but it should be called something else. Utter trash would get my vote.

It's statistically nonsensical

2009-03-20T15:11:00.005Z

There are many labels people use to describe themselves that I don't, and while some people might feel justified in accusing me of refusing to take a stand in order to have an easy life, the simple fact is that I detest defining myself by anything so rigid as a label.

I'm not monogamous: I'm picky. I'm not a triathlete: I happen to do triathlon. I'm not an environmentalist: I understand that this is a closed system and think that Malthus might have had a point.

My sexuality is no one's business but mine and those with whom I'm intimate, thankyouverymuch.

So I don't consider myself a feminist. Whether someone has tits or a dick is not top of my list of defining characteristics. Intelligence, wit, humour, tolerance, education — even diction — are all much higher on my list of factors to consider when it comes to deciding whether I like someone or not and wish to spend more time in his company (and that's the grammatically correct third person neutral, not a Freudian slip); and I don't make blanket decisions about whether women can do a job just as well as men can, never mind better.

There will always be some women who can do any given job better than most men. There will always be some men who can do any given job better than most women. You try telling a female Chinese powerlifter that girls are always weaker than men. Then run away.

True, there are biological differences that mean in some fields of endeavour women will almost always fail to beat a man in straight competition given an equal degree of training and similar degrees of natural talent. 100m sprint, for instance. Deadlift. Equally there are some things women are physically better able to do than men. Ultra endurance, for example, favours the female physiology over the male.

My point is, basically, that given the distribution of talent, skill and ability in the population, I think it's ludicrous to make generalisations such as "women are just as good as men, if not better". I would prefer the statement "any individual woman selected at random from a standard distribution of population has an equal chance of showing ability to perform a given task as any individual man selected at random from the same standard distribution of population, unless said task involves physical biological processes found predominantly in one of the sexes."

Problem is, that doesn't really trip off the tongue. What it means is that I believe, all things being equal, you're just as likely to find a girl who can do a great job as you are a bloke. Not more or less likely: just as likely. The crucial difference between this and the feminist message I have seen most often stated is the probability factor. Because women have an equal likelihood to men of being crap at something, as well.

All this preamble brings me to last night's going-to-bed-after-this-cup-of-tea-is-there-anything-on-telly-for-five-minutes?

When Women Rule The World takes ten men and eight women and dumps them on a desert island where the girls have to wear ludicrous costumes and the men have to do what they are told.

In this new series Steve Jones presents the ultimate gender experiment. Ten men and eight women on an island with only one law - women rule, men obey. Find out how the men cope with being the weaker sex, how the women deal with holding all the power and how both sexes cope with the backstabbing, bitching and infighting which runs riot.
With a �30,000 prize up for grabs, the men have a lot to lose if they stand up to the women. And with one man sacrificed to the sea at the end of every show, there's even more to lose. In a village rocked by everything from strikes to arguments to all-out physical violence, anything can happen. Both the men and the women have to learn a lot about themselves in the process, because in this show it's all about the journey.
So who will win the �30,000? Can the women keep control? Can the men accept the women's rule? And can women really rule the world? Find out, in When Women Rule The World...

It's fucking insulting to both sides.

Let's just look at the use of the word "experiment". For it to be an experiment there has to be a hypothesis and a null hypothesis. From the description of the programme their hypothesis is that women are just as capable of being in charge as men, which means their null hypothesis, the one that describes the accepted status quo and must be disproven, is that women are incapable of being in charge of men.

Fuck that.

It's not helped by their selection of contestants. Some of the guys might get off on the idea but at least one or two are being egged on into displaying macho chauvinism and stereotypical alpha-male behaviour (right down to one of them describing himself as an alpha male!). The girls range from some bitchy, petulant, whiny-ass "queen" to a holistic therapist Newage type who does nothing but praise, describes herself as "soft" and gets upset when she has to choose which of the men she doesn't want to stay any more.

This isn't a social experiment about gender roles. It's a half-assed Amazonian fantasy re-enactment, but the girls they've picked would make Amazons ashamed to call themselves women. They have no leadership skills, no management skills, no diplomacy skills and, lacking all of those, no capacity to beat the crap out of the blokes. They have been dumped there as a putative kratocracy: they are anything but.

Given the right skill set, talent and teamwork, a group of women is just as capable of despotism as any group of men. But these women do not have the skills or talent and they definitely do not have the teamwork. What they have is the ability to look good in a bikini.

This is not a social experiment: it's telly. And that means the only qualifications they sought were that the girls were gorgeous and the males wanted the cash. The men didn't even have to be particularly attractive: merely avaricious.

I can't work out whether I'm insulted more by the premise of the show or by the fact that they are calling it an experiment. I think it's the latter. If they didn't call it a social experiment but were truthful about what it is — car crash TV — then I could shrug and let them get on with it. If they want to be crass and insulting about sexual stereotyping because their producers have run out of good ideas, then fine. But they called it an experiment. Which would imply that everyone knows women are the weaker sex.

What, have we slipped back in time to the Victorian era?

Oh, and you'll note that there's no mention of a prize for the girls. So what do they get out of it? Are they supposed to be satisfied with a nice beach holiday and being bitchy to a bunch of men?

I'd like to see a programme something like this, but I'd like to see one in which a group of competent, confident, strong women who work together and know what they are doing was put in charge of a group of misogynistic males. Hypothesis: exposure to women who show strength and capability will have a positive effect in removing stereotypical sexual prejudices. Null hypothesis: too much shite TV has indoctrinated some sections of the population beyond all help and we should probably just shoot them and the makers of said TV.

Even I have my limits

2009-03-20T13:35:00.003Z

CACI International is a US-based defence contractor. From August 2003 until the early autumn of 2005 it was contracted to provide "interrogation services" for the US Army at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. While CACI staff were employed as interrogators at Abu Ghraib, prisoners were humiliated and tortured there by US military police. Photographs of the abuse shocked the world and led to the conviction of a number of low-ranking US soldiers by courts martial.

CACI denies any responsibility for the abuse that was photographed and denies some other allegations of abuse. But it is trying to block lawsuits brought against it by former Abu Ghraib prisoners by claiming "official immunity".

CACI staff interrogated people held without charge or trial at Abu Ghraib. Prisoners they questioned were deprived of human rights guaranteed in international norms. The "rules of engagement" at Abu Ghraib permitted sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and intimidation by dogs.

The next Scottish census will be run by CACI Ltd. CACI Ltd has been given an �18.5 million contract for key information technology work and other services for the 2011 Scottish Census. CACI Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of CACI International. That means that all the money it makes belongs to CACI International. But CACI International remains beyond the reach of Scottish and British law.

A REHEARSAL for the census will be held on 29 March 2009 in the west of Edinburgh and in Lewis and Harris. Participation in the rehearsal is optional.

The Scottish Government says it "understands the views" of people who have written to it about the contract. It says it has set up a new "contract structure" to "distance" CACI from personal data collected by the census. But it refuses to cancel the contract.

I personally find it unacceptable that Scottish taxpayers are being asked to support a company that has been involved in human rights abuses and, more importantly in my mind, is trying to use its status as a military contractor to shirk accountability. However you feel about the necessity of ignoring human rights for the greater good, and that's a point of view I can understand even if I don't necessarily agree with it, if such actions are required and needed then the perpetrator should have the balls to stand up and defend his actions rather than hiding behind some label of "official immunity" like a spunkless coward.

It isn't too late for the Scottish Government to cancel the contract.

If you feel similarly about this issue, here is what you could do:

1. Sign the online petition
2. REFUSE to take any part in the census rehearsal being held on 29 March 2009

You can read all about it here, although I've mostly copied and pasted from that webpage.

Frood says I'm a geek!

2009-03-06T21:41:00.008Z

"I want to get my comics box out this weekend..."

"And build your wheel."

"Oh, but I can't!"

"Need spokes?"

"I'll probably have to order them. I'll need to dismantle that wheel [pointing to the wheel sitting in the wheel jig on the living room floor] and take the hub and the new rim to a shop and ask them to measure it up and calculate my spoke length because I don't have the kit to do it myself. My mate Graham in London is rebuilding his front wheel on Open Pro as well, and his is an On-One hub, but his bike isn't as old as mine. Mine is the last of the 135 mil rear drop-outs... What? WHAT?"

"LAST OF THE ONE THREE FIVE DROP OUTS. Snerk."

"Well, it is! They changed to 120 after that... Mroof!"

"What?"

"You're being mean."

"You were geeking at me."

"I'm not a geek!"

And while I'm moaning about him to you, he comes through and says: "Well you did say last of the 351 [that's 135, by the way] like 'Last of the V8 interceptors.'"

His point?

That's what I call customer service

2009-03-06T17:38:00.003Z

My triathlon/physical training friends are divided into two sorts of people: those who use Polar and those who use Suunto. There are other fitness freaks out there using Timex but we don't talk about them. Weirdoes.

I can't remember why I went for Suunto, although possibly it was yet another instance of Munky and I converging on kit choice. I think he already had one, although his has an orange strap that is teh nasteh. Blech.

Or maybe it was that you can get much more functionality out of a Suunto than a Polar costing the same.

Anyway. My HRM is my biochip buddy. Along with the memory belt, which is the mutt's nuts, it keeps track of my training and tells me when my heart is beating as fast as a hamster's (that's another of my superpowers: heartrate of hamster. I'm a fast beater) and has this nifty little widget called training effect, giving you a numerical value of the hardness of a particular session. I need this because I have a tendency to overtrain.

Although it would be much more helpful if I actually paid attention to it.

Recently I noticed that the day after a pool session the inside of the watch face was covered in condensation. Bah. It am be leaking!

This morning it stopped working because the battery had shorted, so I toddled off to the Suunto website and filled out a service request.

Blimey. After putting in my serial number and choosing the problem from the list, I was supplied with a bunch of paperwork to print off and a phone number for DHL. They'll come to my work on Tuesday, pick up my WRISTTOP COMPUTER (can't call it a watch, apparently, or they won't carry it), take it to Finland where the biochip buddy elves will get to work on it, then bring it back to me 7 days later.

I'm amazed by how simple it all is.

I don't know what Polar's customer service is like, but Suunto's rocks.

Run, sackperson, run!

2009-03-04T18:05:00.003Z

At the weekend I acquired my favourite tracks from LBP and stuck them on my "Happy Bum" playlist on my MP3 player. This week I started running to that instead of Podrunner (sorry Steve).

Only problem is that, no matter which particular track I'm listening to I get a constant stream in my head that looks something like this:

I can't keep grinning when I'm running, dammit. It makes it hard to breathe and my teeth are getting cold!

I'm the sort of person who needs one of these

2009-03-03T17:18:00.002Z

Random item found in the shop that I just had to have:

AWSUM

2009-03-01T16:13:00.004Z

Ah, the power of twitter.

A friend recently advised me to protect my updates so that they don't appear to the public. But then I wouldn't have discovered LittleBigPlanetoid and thus how to export photos. I mean, it's not like they announced the ability or anything.

But now, oh now I can export photos from LitleBigPlanet and this awesome piece of news is going to cause the creation of hundreds of avatars and inspire much more use of the photo feature. It has also cheered me up immensely, as I was a bit disheartened by the loss of Shackleton's cycle computer yesterday (fortunately I know he'd recently completed his 6000th mile, so when I replace it I just add Saturday's ride to the mileage and adjust the odometer to match).

Now. Photos!

I can see a LBP montage desktop wallpaper coming on.

Awwwww.

2009-02-28T20:21:00.002Z

It's so sweet.

After being ridden to North Berwick in just under two hours (we were hardly gurning it!) our bikes huddle together while we head to the pub opposite for noms.

Can't remember the name of the place. Very friendly, but all I can say about the food is that it is edible. If you're really hungry.

Don't know why the kiddies were pointing. Maybe they'd never seen fixed gears before.

Batteries

2009-02-25T18:56:00.002Z

Anyone got any recommendations for a good place to buy 2032s? I get through shedloads of them, largely as a result of Fingal's OS1.0 chewing through the bastard things like they're going out of fashion. It's great having a computer that makes me feel like my bike talks to me, but it's power hungry. I also have a plethora of backup photons that need three of the damn things each, and they are all currently too dim to be useful.

If it's possible to get rechargeable ones, that would be the icing on the battery-powered cake, that would.