Bran Van 3000 are back
You’ll all know Bran Van 3000 from their song ”’Drinking In LA”’ which was everywhere in 1999/2000 (yes, I know it came out in 1998 but the rest of the world took a while to catch up). Things went very quiet for a long time after they had record company woes with their second album ”’Discosis”’ (which is well worth a listen but do check out their first, better album ”’Glee”’) but I’m happy to announce that they’re back and you can see their first concert in many years at the Montreal Jazz Festival earlier this month in front of 125,000 people (and yes, they did do ”’Drinking in LA”’ and ”’Mama don’t smoke”’). Their new album, ”’Rosé”’, was released at the butt end of last year in the US and features ”’Fatlip”’ amongst other guests.
Driver abuses speed limit and himself
This story almost has it all – sex (with himself), drugs but no rock and roll, if only the newspaper had reported that he was listening to AC/DC on his car stereo and it would have been complete. Still, you can’t have everything and this is guaranteed to be the funniest stories you’ll read today.
Not Always Right
The customer is Not Always Right, as you can see from this blog of customer service quotes.
Tee Feeds
You probably didn’t realise that you need a T-shirt aggregator but, if you’re like me, you do. Tee Feeds is like PopUrls but solely concentrating on feeds from t-shirt blogs. Sweet!
Chatting with a Google Street View Driver
More interesting tidbits of the tech behind ”’Google Street View”’ and some good close up shots of the kit and car in this brief chat with a Google Street View Driver.
Statler and Waldorf’s Youtube Channel
Especially for Kenny – Undisputed Ultimate Heckling Champions of the World, ”’Statler and Waldorf”’ now have their own YouTube Channel. It’s only just launched but I’m hoping for great things – they were made for the ”’interwebs”’
Unbelievable Pictures
”’Li Wei”’ is a Chinese performance artist who does some amazing things for the sake of a good photo often mixing acrobatics, wires, mirrors and other props – check out these Unbelievable Pictures, have a nosy around his site or check out some more examples.
Land of the Free
”’Steve Schofield””s series of photographs entitled Land of the Free manage to be humourous, sympathetic and, to me at least, a touch depressing (at least the Star Trek and Western ones are).
Have a tasty glass of eel
Regular readers/contributors to this site, Dan P and Popcorn do an excellent occasional side-blog where they taste drinks with chunks. I’ve found the perfect next taste test for them – a tasty glass of eel. I’m not sure if there are chunks but I still want to see them drink it.
Using your Browser as a Gender Diviner
I’m very impressd with ”’Mike Nolet””s code to estimate gender by using your browser URL history. It figured that I was 96% likely to be male and only 4% likely to be female based on my (IE) work browser history which is more accurate than even mrs grom would have scored me! Interestingly, I also ran this in ”’Firefox”’ – my more heavily used browser and I scored 21% female and 79% male so it seems I’m all man in the workplace and more undecided outside work – now that’s pretty accurate!
UK Govn attempt to redefine freedom again
Any regular readers will be well aware of my very vocal distaste of the gradual erosion of freedoms, liberties and the ongoing attempts by the UK government to steal my identity. The latest one is the decision to start fingerprinting passengers at British airports whether they are boarding domestic or international flights. I’ve already given up on the idea of ever visiting America again due to my refusal to be treated like a criminal but I currently take about 10 domestic flights a year which will become very awkward when I refuse to be fingerprinted each time (and believe me I will refuse).
Also, The Bridge is Out Ahead …
This is my kind of sign.
(as is this one).
Armor of God PJs
Mom, Dad, Thanks for the Armor of God PJs, by the way, I hate you.
Giles Coren – Approved.
We’re big fans of ”’Giles Coren”’ here – his ”’The Supersizers Go…”’ was one of the best pieces of television this year. He only raises even higher in our estimation upon reading his email rants to fellow critics and editors (I’m guessing he doesn’t have a huge amount of fans amongst ”’subeditors”’!). As the son of ”’Alan Coren”’ and the brother of ”’Victoria Coren”’ you’d expect him to be both witty, eloquent and verbose and these rants fulfill all criteria.
The Brown Corporation
The Brown Corporation sell the sh1tbox – a collapsible cardboard box to poop into at festivals. I’m a little discomforted by the use of the word ‘reusable’ in the literature with it.
Minisearch code
I think I’ve finally sorted out the code that’s been giving me (and Hornswoggler) a few issues in rolling out. So here’s the details;
Now, when anyone makes a post to ”’gromblog”’, they can surround words or phrases with triple single quotes and the minisearch code will render it as bold, clickable text which, when clicked, will pop-up a search box pre-populated with the word/phrase. The default search is for wikipedia but you can change it to google, youtube or imdb (any other suggestions?).
Please, please, test it and send me any feedback. Here are some things to test it on; ”’grom”’, ”’Batman Begins”’, ”’Gogol Bordello”’, ”’pirate”’. Once I know it’s working for everyone then I’ll make it permanent and stick an explanation in the side bar. Also if you’d like the code then please let me know & I’ll ask the awesome Cybercon III (aka Rich) who wrote this for work but was kind enough to let me use it.
*Edit*If the words aren’t showing up as bold text then please try to change the size of your font (right hand bar – A- & A+ buttons) to a larger font. If it still doesn’t show up then let me know – there’s an issue with Arial font less than 10pt not showing bold but all other fonts and sizes seem fine.
Oh and since he’s complained – thanks also to Solomon for his help in breaking fixing it.
After the outage
I thought a video called the website is down was fitting. (NSFW as some naughty words are used and there’s some icons in an interesting shape)
QA Deathmatch
If you can read this post then I’ve fixed my most recent fubar which left the site down overnight. It was entirely my fault for trying to do two different code changes at the same time. Thanks to Dan P and Hornswoggler for pointing out my inadequacies. I will now start to play QA Deathmatch when testing new code.
Pantyhose for Men
No, no, no, no and once more no. Pantyhose for Men is just wrong. If for no other reason than men generally have leg hair which does not work with pantyhose (aka tights for UK readers – I hate the word pantyhose, it sounds almost as wrong as men who wear them!)
Movie Ratings Defined
A very simple guide to Movie Rating Definitions (slightly NSFW hand-drawn image includes a willy).
Minisearch Test Post
Please ”’ignore”’ this ”’test”’ post – I’m just trying out a ”’feature”’ which I’ll explain in more detail once I’ve finished implementing it. ”’Bigfoot”’ ”’Kylie”’ ”’supercow”’
To see what it does (when it’s finished) go here and try clicking on anything that’s bold – you should get a pop-up search window which’ll hopefully stop me having to keep typing out links to wikipedia, youtube, imdb etc.
If you do test it out then please send me feedback to the address on the right hand sidebar.
Watchmen – Trailer is out
I know it’s not out until next March and we’ve had many failed comic to movie translations but any self-respecting comic nerd must be looking forward to the Watchmen movie as much as me and now the first Watchmen Trailer is out and looking very good indeed. Fingers crossed!
Lost tapes of the Original Sound Sculptor
Many of our readers will be aware of how highly I regard the late Delia Derbyshire. She was one of the greats of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, creators of music and sound effects for every classic BBC show. I still treasure my collection of vinyl sound effects albums which taught me how to recreate the sound of having an eye burnt out by a red hot poker (use a cabbage to burn – it apprently sizzles the same way as flesh!). Anyway, the reason for this post is that reader anistropia has let me know that a huge pile of Delia’s recordings have been found in her attic including a ‘dance track’ made 20 yrs prior to anyone else doign the same thing. Go read the article if for no other reason than the inclusion of her all-time classic Dr Who theme.
Where The Hell Is Matt Now?
As long as he keeps making these videos, I’ll keep posting them as I rate watching the Where The Hell Is Matt? videos as one of the most life-affirming things you can do. He’s onto his 3rd video and this time, not only has he got some friends along with him, he’s also not limited to earth. Spot the guy falling flat on his ar5e in Paris, the leather queen in London, the Bollywood dance troupe and the classic Demilitarised Zone in Korea. Remember folks, dancing like an idiot can bring world peace. Why hasn’t Matt Harding been made him a UN ambassador?
Honda – all aboard the Ugly Bus
Is the Honda Compact Step Bus Concept the ugliest vehicle ever? I think so and so does our contributor KD. I can’t see anyone else disagreeing.
Funny USB drive
I’m loving the HACKED! USB pendrive. It looks just like a normal USB lead that someone’s cut off but the frayed cable actually contains the memory (well, it’ll actually be in the plug if you want to be pedantic).
Hot Enough for Ya?
I like my chili but no human can survive 16 million Scoville Units of Pure Capsicum. As one of the reviews states, ““As an authority on this hot sauce stuff.. I ain’t even gonna mess with this. It’s pure chemical capascain, it’ll kill you. Don’t eat a crystal of this, it will burn a hole in your tongue.. This isn’t an additive, and I eat 6am all the time. This stuff is just WRONG.. BUY SOME!!!!! Ask my friend one-eyed joe, who was the victim of someone sneezing while the coke vial of this stuff was open… I know $200 for a milligram of powder seems expensive, but if you ever need to kill someone, you’ll have this on hand…””
Why shorts should be black
Men – you may not want to click this link – it’s strictly for the ladies (and anyone else that way inclined (Mr. Mead)). I was sent a link (honest – it’s not what I was searching for!) about a discussion on Why shorts should be black from a women’s cycling forum. Some people may find it pleasing to the eye – I needed mindbleach.
Grab a bite at 404 Diner
Fancy heading over to this new restaurant I’ve found, it’s called the Translate Server Error!
Best Engrish ever!
Totem Destroyer
Totem Destroyer is a fun little game, kinda like Jenga.
