Showstopper

If you've not already done so, start listening to Showstopper on BBC Radio 4, 6.30pm Wednesdays. It's a half an hour show, during which a group of incredibly talented singer/actor/comedians improvise an entire musical, using suggestions from the audience. It sounds bizarre, but it's the most addictively funny thing I've heard in a long time.

You can also hear it on iPlayer.

Weirdest warning ever

OK, so this is a picture of the packet of Tesco cotton buds in our bathroom. There are some warnings on the side, saying that plastic bags can be dangerous, etc. There are also some storage instructions. The first one says "Store in a dry place." Fair enough, I suppose. You don't want damp cotton buds. But look closely at the next one.

It says "Keep away from light."

Yes, "Keep away from light."

Maybe I've missed something here, but I really don't understand why Tesco's cotton buds should be kept in the dark, or what might happen to them should they accidentally be bombarded with photons. Short of adding "Do not feed after midnight," it's hard to see how this could get any stranger.

Congratulations Western Michigan University

You have made my day.

For anyone who hasn't found this site (I got there via Reddit); go to the home page and then press z+v on your keyboard.

Edit 17th Oct: Western Michigan clearly got wise to the number of people accessing their site and removed what I assume was a student joke. If you missed it, pressing z+v changed the central panel to say "Zombies. Classes cancelled. If infected stay home."

Good while it lasted.

ICU baby (shakin' that ass)

Coarse phishing

This is probably the worst phishing email I've ever seen.


It's difficult to pick a favourite aspect of this. Not knowing the bank is called Alliance and Leicester is good, as is Aeicester. I think that I'd probably go for the close proximity of the words "veifry" and "verication".

Lose weight the difficult and tiring way!

I had a look via Google at a couple of sites to try and work out how many calories I’m burning by cycling to and from work (not many, given the pain involved and how tired it makes me feel – but that’s because I’m basically too slow and it gets classed as “leisure” or “gentle” cycling. I will not record my thoughts on this on a public blog) and was struck just how many ads there are on fitness-related websites for quick, almost effortless weight loss. I could probably have spent an instructive couple of hours finding out how to target belly fat or lose 10lbs in a week with herbal supplements. Presumably enough people must sign up to become members or purchase herbal supplements to make these adverts worthwhile, but it did make me wonder about whether I should use my current weight loss as a springboard for an online business empire. The ad could be something snappy like “Lose weight by eating less and exercising more – even when you don’t feel like it”. Then I could sell interested customers my secrets to weight loss success. I still need to work on the details (which I obviously wouldn’t put on here, or else I’d never make any money, duh), but I think it could probably be something like

• Be overweight and dissatisfied with your reflection in the mirror – good selling point this, as most of the people who are interested in weight loss already meet these criteria
• Try to have teenage children around who will regularly point out how fat you are. For customers without teenage children, we could perhaps offer a discounted rental service – “For only 24.99 per hour, a fifteen year old will sit in your lounge and make disparaging comments about your belly”
• Make a decision that health risks, disastrous body image AND snarky comments are too much and you’d rather find an alternative way of suffering
• Get up at least half an hour earlier than you have to (an hour earlier at weekends). Weigh yourself, then exercise. A Wii Fit is good for this, as it will combine weighing you with motivational messages and will even give your Mii a huge gut to really ram the point home. The best exercise, however, is to go out for a run. If possible, start doing this in the winter, so that you can drag yourself out in the dark, as well as having a good chance of rain or freezing temperatures.
• Start walking to places instead of driving, and then take up cycling to work instead of catching the bus. Try to make sure that your route has the lowest point in the middle, so that whichever way you go, you’ll always finish with a hill.
• Drastically change your eating habits. Breakfast should be a bowl of bland cereal with skimmed milk, or possibly plain porridge. Don’t even think about sugar. Evening meal should be less than half of your total calorific input for the day. Apart from that, all you eat is fruit. Lunch and snacks are fruit. Any fruit you like. Apart from bananas. Or dried fruit of any kind.
• Drink lots of water. Then drink more, until you slosh when you walk.
• Set yourself challenging weight loss goals and berate yourself when you don’t achieve them.
• Follow these simple steps (plus our guaranteed extra step, only 59.99) and you too can lose weight frustratingly slowly over a period of several months.

I think that about sums it up. Re-reading this, I realise that I’ve even got a name for my wonderful regime – “An alternative way of suffering”.

Tesco denies prices hit by inflation

Health Secretary recognises the benefits of exercise

Brave noob world

Men and women

Found via Twitpic

How big would you like it?

Well, it amused me...

"That is the war on terror" by Roy Zimmerman

Creme that egg!

OK, I know that it's slightly late for Easter, but it's good to see this kind of ingenuity at any time of year.

Guns N' Roses

The last.fm blog has a post on their efforts to clean up metadata, especially where there are areas of contention - asking, for instance, how many ways there are to spell "Guns N' Roses - Knockin' on heaven's door" (they have a list of the top 100 ways!). They also have a list of the various tags for band name on Guns N' Roses mp3s here: familiar reading for anyone who's ever downloaded music less-than-legally (I'm told), but worth reading down to the bottom of the list!

The Procrastinator's Creed

1. I believe that if anything is worth doing, it would have been done already.
2. I shall never move quickly, except to avoid more work or find excuses.
3. I will never rush into a job without a lifetime of consideration.
4. I shall meet all of my deadlines directly in proportion to the amount of bodily injury I could expect to receive from missing them.
5. I firmly believe that tomorrow holds the possibility for new technologies, astounding discoveries, and a reprieve from my obligations.
6. I truly believe that all deadlines are unreasonable regardless of the amount of time given.
7. I shall never forget that the probability of a miracle, though infinitesmally small, is not exactly zero.
8. If at first I don't succeed, there is always next year.
9. I shall always decide not to decide, unless of course I decide to change my mind.
10. I shall always begin, start, initiate, take the first step, and/or write the first word, when I get around to it.
11. I obey the law of inverse excuses which demands that the greater the task to be done, the more insignificant the work that must be done prior to beginning the greater task.
12. I know that the work cycle is not plan/start/finish, but is wait/plan/plan.
13. I will never put off until tomorrow, what I can forget about forever.
14. I will become a member of the ancient Order of Two-Headed Turtles (the Procrastinator's Society) if they ever get it organized.

Discovered on Wisdomquotes.com

Cheap GPS

From XKCD

Ambivalence

From Google Reader, an ambivalent use of the word "they":

In case you can't read it on the picture above, it says: "Many hospitals across England report having to turn away women in labour last year because they were full".

Happy genes

An article by Reuters reports on a study that finds that half of the traits influencing our happiness are genetically determined. It goes on to say that

"People who are sociable, active, stable, hardworking and conscientious tend to be happier"

Hey, at least I'm stable. Well, fairly stable. Sometimes.

Damn.

The 12 days of training

I'd like to apologise publicly for my singing on this; I'm sorry, I couldn't help joining in.

Eschatology escapology

We were joking in the car last night about the possibility of escapochatology: the study of how to get out of the end of the world. Weirdly, today I followed some random links and found this.