Wikipedia: Written By Morons Like You ™

Posted on November 9, 2006 by blogmywiki

Finally someone has come up with a solution to the chief problem with Wikipedia – namely, that anyone, any stupid moronic fool (like you, like me) can edit stuff. And hence, just as people cannot resist scratching windows on public transport or spraying tags on walls, people vandalise Wikipedia articles. Just for the hell of it.

The answer is simple. Vandalise the chicken article. And the chicken article alone.

Not a bad idea. I just skim-read (well, this is Wikipedia – I wouldn’t want to actually pay too much attention) the chicken article, and I’d say that far from knowing enough about chickens, we actually Know Too Much.

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I am the Prince of Wales! I am the Prince of Wales!

Posted on November 3, 2006 by blogmywiki

Am totally hooked on ‘The Decision’ by a band called The Young Knives. Can’t get its pleasingly bonkers riff and lyrics out of my head.

I wore the blue with the green
I wore the blue with the green
I mixed the matt with the sheen,
It’s not the way to be seen
That decision was mine,
that decision was mine

I’ve grown to hate all the music on my iPod (familiarity breeds contempt) and this song has got me happily bopping down the Strand for the first time in… months. Check out the wonderful video on their web site. Bliss.

(If, like me, you’re having touble playing all of the Decision video on that site, try their MySpace page instead. And if you’re wondering what they sound like, I’m going to hazard a guess at “The Small Faces meet XTC”).

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Game on!

Posted on October 30, 2006 by blogmywiki


game on!

Originally uploaded by gilesbooth.

We went to the Game On exhibition at the London Science Museum this weekend.
It was pretty good – a bit busy on a half term Saturday, though!

Pictured are Daisy and William playing Tweenies on a PS1 (though William, 4, also amazed everyone with his skill at original sit-down vector-graphic Star Wars – but he’s had lots of practice at home on MacMAME!)

We were told we had an hour and 15 minutes in the exhibition, and we left after that time but no-one chased us out. Most people were good-natured and didn’t hog the games, but there were a few hard-core nutters who must have decided they were going to spend all their time playing one game. My friend asked someone if he could pop on a driving game just so his young daughter could have a go, crash the car, would be no longer than 5 minutes, and he was told to take a hike!

Couple of the games had stopped working, some were just pretty impenetrable. Enjoyed classing Space Invaders and Asteroid, but sadly didn’t spot Battlezone which is my personal favourite.

But then that’s why we have MAME…

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Great un-taken photographs – No.2 in an occasional series

Posted on October 25, 2006 by blogmywiki
  • On the train this morning. Tanned, clean-cut young businessman (looked a bit like Alan Hansen/Captain Scarlet), wearing expensive-looking suit and watch, reading a thriller. Slogan on back:
    JACK REACHER. MEN WANT TO BE HIM. WOMEN WANT TO BE WITH HIM.
  • Sign on the side of the road in Cornwall:
    EDEN IS FULL.
    Abandon hope all ye who may not enter here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Colour me wheezy

Posted on October 24, 2006 by blogmywiki

garish tabletsI’m the lucky winner of asthma, and a chest infection has pushed it to a slightly scary place. So I’m currently on a short course of antibiotics and steroid tablets.

I made the serious error of reading the information leaflets for contents and side-effects. Just reading the possible side effects of prednisolone alone is enough to make you feel ill, even if you weren’t before: puffy swollen face, trouble sleeping, sore throat, pains, bruising, abdominal pain, headache, water retention, signs of diabetes…

But what really bothers me is that both these drugs contain artificial food colourings – my steroid tablets contain Ponceau 4R and Sunset Yellow which, in a nice irony, can cause asthma, the very thing I’m being given them to treat! The amoxicillin meanwhile is a technicolor cocktail of Sunset Yellow, Carmoisine, Brilliant Blue (brilliant!), Quinoline Yellow and Titanium Dioxide…

Why are they so garishly and artificially coloured? It’s not as if I had any choice and would have shunned dull-looking capsules for something funky.

Ah, they come for the amoxicillin, but they stay for the Methyl Parahydroxybenzoate (E218)!

Posted in asthma, medicine | 5 Comments