Pimpin’ Myself out

I’ve started up a fictional character blog (see link in sidebar somewhere, also here: www.diaryofaguardianangel.com) as an exercise in getting practice in writing.

 

I thought all two of the people who regularly read my blog (hi guys!) may like to check it out. 

by observation, a Poem by jason818_253.33

Actually, it’s less of a deliberate poem as far as I can see, and more feedback on a website. I think it looks like poetry.

by observation
(by jason818_253.33)

Things that it is:
It is brown # 73553D
banner relistate
it is something
a Forum
videos, with information

Things that it is not:
it is not a bumble bee
it is not an ice cream
it is not a chain letter

Im not sure:
a library
a blog
scrole down

(original context)

Dammit!

I hate it when spam looks so much more exciting than it actually is.

For a second I thought I could earn large jetpacks using eBay. (That would be awesome beyond words.) When instead it’s just regular old large paychecks.

One of these days I’m going to move into my delusional world permanently because it’s much more fun there.

The trickery of Language

Well, I’m supposed to be working at the moment, but I’m between projects. I have been reading up the training notes, in case anyone at work reads this. (Or, indeed knows of its existance) But I’ve also purchased some chocolate cookies from the shop.

I know I’m safe in admitting this, because the only person who would tell me off for this sort of behaviour is the one who lives with me, and hence is exactly the person who will never read this.

Anyway, the point of the post, said cookies have a nice big star-shaped exclamation on the front of the box (you know the sort, the kind of thing which reads "New and Improved" – don’t even get me started on that phrase.) which reads "with 37% chocolate chips." This leaves two main questions in my head, for a chocolate chip cookie, what are the other 63% of the chips made of? Or are the chips all made of 37% chocolate? In which case what else are the chips made of?

All in all, quite alarming.

New Tags for the Web

This is pretty much a re-print of a post I made on channel9, but I thought it was funny, and no-one there seemed to notice so I’ve brought it to your attention.

Seeing as I got into a bit of a disagreement with the third most famous geek ever at the moment, I decided that XHTML needs a few extra tags put in for those of us not quite skilled enough with our mother tongues to make all meaning clear.

 

• The "Tongue in Cheek" tag, for people who take everything too seriously, you could label your text as being not serious. Thus allowing the browser to display warnings or format the text to make it clear that the content isn’t serious. (Perhaps by using circles to dot is instead of a dot.)
• The Sarcasm tag, for when the vast all-encompassing intellect of your readers misses a really subtle and incredibly nuanced use of language which indicates sarcasm.
• The Camp Tone Of Voice tag, especially useful when bitching about people’s fashion sense.
• The Teenage Girl’s Stream Of Consciousness tag. Because like I want to say something, but this guy’s all "you’re really stupid" and I’m all like "shut up" and they don’t listen to me because they’re all bitches and whenever that simone says anything I feel like "shut up bitch" and I want to strangle her but it makes me discracted and my spelling all goes wonky and the teahers are all like "you’re suptid cos you can’t spell" and I’m all like "shut up" and they never listen anyway and it’s all soooooo unfair. (Especially useful for MySpace methinks.)

I think it’s pretty explanatory, someone get onto the w3c!

Successful Forum Posting

Aside from spending more time on Channel9 than is healthy, I’ve only been involved with a few Internet forums. In my time posting, (and frequently killing threads dead.) I’ve come up with a simple rule for getting replies to a thread.

The key is to not present a balanced argument, this may seem obvious to some, but it comes hard to me. You want to start a debate, if you present a balanced point of view you leave respondents with little to say. So the single rule for successfully posting on a forum is to be as one-sided as you dare be. Be careful though to be rational in your criticism – ranting and raving like a lunatic isn’t going to get you any replies. (Unless you’re criticising Microsoft or Dubya Bush, where you can be as rabid as you like and you’ll still get responses – although you may not be taken seriously.)

If you don’t believe me, you can experiment for yourselves – start a thread with a post along the lines of: "X product sucks." or "Y Politician is an idiot." and you’ll notice that you’ll get a healthy number of replies.

Numerology

In roman numerals what is:

I – I =

I was wondering this as I went to get my chocolate. The reasoning went “Isn’t chocolate a wonderful invention – but it’s probably not the best invention. No, I think the best invention ever has to be cooked food, then it’s probably written language, and then the printing press – I wonder where the number 0 fits in with that list.” Now I know that the Arabs invented the number 0, so I was wondering how the Romans would cope with the above sum.

Not very well appears to be the answer – no wonder they were confused by the “all Greeks are liars” <ahem> “paradox” (which sucks as a paradox, because it’s clear he’s lying.) How on earth did they ever manage to conquer the known world if they could be confused by 1 – 1?

Inspiring?

I need the loo.

 

But that’s not going to keep me away – oh no. Nothing so simple. What’s going to prevent me from posting is the fact that I’ve got nothing to say. Well, it would – but now I’ve found a subject.

 

Inspiration:

 

What exactly is it?

Where does it come from?

How can you be "more inspired"?

 

And the answer to all of the above – no idea.

 

I’ve always been good at giving flesh to an idea. Which I’m guessing is where inspiration comes in. I believe that we all have roughly the same number of ideas a day – the people who are better at picking up inspiration are the ones that flesh out their flimsy ideas enough so that they don’t dismiss them. Everyone else just dismisses their ideas, and wonders why their friends are all so creative.

 

So how can you be more inspired? Try this simple brain exercise – take the following ideas and try to flesh them out enough so that you actually give them a chance to be examined properly:

 

• Ranking blogs
• Inspiration generator
• Goat Jackets
• Toilet entertainment
• Overflow bladders.

Ok, I’m stopping now – it’s hard to come up with ideas like this because – according to my theory everyone has these sorts of ideas at the same rate, and secondly I really need the loo.

 

Let me know how you get on.

Who stands to gain?

This is the big question you need to ask yourself.

 

And I was asking it this morning. Except I couldn’t remember what I was asking about. Which is a shame because it was a good question. Oh, it’s just come to me.

 

Who stands to gain from Crime?

 

Is it the criminals? Not much crime pays so well that the same skills couldn’t be applied to getting a job – so I’m guessing that a criminal, given the chance, could earn the same money in an easier job. I don’t think it’s the criminals.

 

I could be cynical and say it’s the government. Because they get to terrify us into staying at home, so we can’t get together to organise anything, and then we’ll vote for them because they’ll promise to fight crime.

 

But I’m guessing it’s the porn industry – without crime people would hang around on street corners and meet other people and develop healthy and happy relationships. Which would obviously be bad for the porn industry – so they’re subsidising crime to keep the levels up. Hell, they’re probably shipping porno DVDs to security guards and policemen the world over to ensure they’re distracted and ineffective.

 

Yeah – I could blame a lot on the porn industry.