freaky_science

Thank you and goodnight.

I'm going to be pretty much mostly absent from now until after the 28th or so, so I'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy Christmas, however you may (or may not) be celebrating it. (Happy Holidays to those who don't? I've never known the correct terminology. Happy Eating All The Mince Pies You Fat Bastard Day?)

Either way, hope everyone has an enjoyable holiday and the best of the season to you all.

• 10:16 Is there a Christmas video where everyone looks any MORE uncomfortable than David Bowie and Bing Crosby doing the Little Drummer Boy? #
• 10:49 I hope I'm over this streaming cold in time for the staff piss-up and Christmas. Couldn't get into my car today. Frozen solid. Got the bus. #
• 11:55 I wonder what tag trolls think they're accomplishing, exactly? Probably a lot more work for them than it is for me re-adding from a backup. #
• 16:26 GET OFF MY LAWN! #
• 17:11 We're getting in the Christmas spirit by listening to Dueling Banjos. #
• 17:16 Other offices are stuck with Virgin Radio or Classic FM. We get Johnny Cash, bluegrass, Hank Williams and banjo classics. #
• 00:04 RIP Arnold Stang. Top Cat falls silent. #

00:51 Ever wanted to hear Al Pacino reading The Gruffalo? www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dml0dAJSis

#

00:57 Erm... wait, Beaker flips Michael Caine the bird in Muppet's Christmas Carol? www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvZPm3lqaPs Bad Beaker! #

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Up near the top of the list of "songs that should never be covered" is Fairytale of New York, originally recorded by The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl. However, if anyone's got a right to give it a stab it's Kirsty's longtime friend and collaborator Billy Bragg. And, to be fair, he and Florence and the Machine give it a fair stab, although Billy has the haunted look of someone who's thinking about poor, tragic Kirsty throughout the whole thing.



It's certainly better than this version, which will undoubtedly be the most painful thing I hear this Christmas, unless I somehow get my bollocks trapped in a mangle.

• 10:49 It just occurred to me that I haven't put up a single Christmas decoration this year. Bah, humbug? #
• 10:56 Okay, @kierongillen earned my undying devotion for his bang-on description of Killing In the Name Of - "Come On Eileen for metalheads FFS" #
• 11:17 "Perhaps there's been a robbery." "Speaking of which..." And with that statement my boss put on his coat and left the office. Uhhh...? #
• 11:34 Time to get into the Christmas spirit by dipping into the world's finest walbum varchive for one of Lard's Classic Cuts bit.ly/5Ej5Ei #
• 21:15 S.W.O.R.D. #2 makes it my new favourite comic. A joy from cover to cover. Especially the Death's Head freelance peacekeeping agent gag. #
• 21:19 Surprising, because I wasn't sold at first, but it's quickly become the title I'm looking forward to most each issue now CB&MI13's gone. #

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So, this year's Christmas number one is Rage Against the Machine with Killing in the Name Of. Thanks to a "grass roots" internet campaign to keep Simon Cowell's latest X-Factor act off the top spot.

Now, leaving aside the fact that Cowell and Sony Records are the big winners here, since both songs come from Sony (in fact, I half expect it to be revealed that one of the masterminds behind it is a Sony employee - "Double your sales in one go!"), I've heard this hailed as a victory for "people power".

"People power"? Who did they think were buying the X-Factor single for the last few years? Penguins?

Because, to me, the 19.1 million who tuned in to watch the final episode of this series of X-Factor is people power. The millions who rang up and voted for the winner, people power too. I don't see any real victory here for people power. There's the complaint about manufactured pop, but what was this campaign but manufactured? And what has it changed? The people who bought the single this week will be gone tomorrow.

What this has done is proven how utterly irrelevant the UK singles chart has become. That was pretty much a given already when all the chart shows, including Top of the Pops, cancelled after 42 years, were pulled from the schedules. But it pretty much sums it up when an obscure internet campaign on Facebook can shift enough copies to claim a Christmas number one. Adding to that is the fact that a show that got 19.1 million tuning in doesn't actually bring about enough sales to beat out an obscure internet campaign - people might be happy phoning in to make someone the next big pop star, but they're not actually buying the damn singles to support that - X-Factor is about TV and not music, and while that's a fair point to make, I don't think this campaign's made it as well as they thought. Why? Because to make the charts about the music, not the hype, people should have just been buying the song they liked most, not the one they were told to buy, either by the internet or TV.

Now we've just got stuck with another novelty Christmas number one which will be forgotten next year. And where's the victory there?

• 12:32 I decided I don't want to get out of bed today. And now with the itouch I don't have to. Result! #
• 12:36 I already have scans_daily, games, YouTube, music and email. Now I just have to work out how to get the porn. #
• 20:09 Just finished watching Bridge to Terabithia. An unexpected joy and despite the misleading marketing not Disneyfied fantasy at all. #

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The Triffids are back.

• 09:46 I hadn't though about Aimee Mann in about ten years until I saw a pic yesterday. Now an album's on my iTouch. I'd forgotten how good she is. #
• 09:53 My roast last night was SUPERB. Even though I forgot the cranberries. I wouldn't buy pheasant again, though. Too stringy for my liking. #
• 11:00 Why this fight for the Christmas number one? Oh, we can force one song to top of the charts that no one cares about anymore over another. :o #
• 11:07 Johnny Ball was booed off stage by a group of "liberal atheists" for denying man-made climate change. Even atheists have a religion now. #
• 14:26 "This time of the year people get the good feel factor." I don't think that can be right, surely? #
• 14:29 Brian Singer's signed up for the X-men: First Class movie? www.movieweb.com/news/NEltQplodm3Uoq Huh. #
• 14:33 Also, a New Mutants movie's been pitched? Huh again. Intriguing. #
• 17:39 Ah, it's the 12 Days of Christmas in an Irish stylee by Frank Kelly. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJoXCwkPVi8 How seasonal! #
• 17:48 I wonder how far I can get before wifi stops working. #
• 17:52 Still working... #
• 19:09 The answer was "not very far". #

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• 14:14 Have to say The Thick of It went out on a high this series. David Haig with "Obsessive Repulsive Disorder", Tom Hollander as "The F**ker". #
• 14:25 Dinner tonight: Roast pheasant with bacon, stuffing, cranberry & red wine jus, red cabbage, carrots and potatoes roasted in rice oil & herbs #
• 14:29 Yes, I'll be cooking all that myself. Sounds posh, doesn't it? Never cooked pheasant before. It was quail the other day. Had some bargains. #
• 14:51 We do sometimes get interesting press releases. Like, the world's strongest beer (33%) being launched. The name? Tactical Nuclear Penguin. #
• 15:13 Despite being really busy, we just managed a 10 minute recap of Brian Blessed's TV career, starting with Z-Cars. Now humming the themetune. #
• 15:16 It's going to be stuck in my head all day now. Of course, it's actually based on traditional Liverpudlian folk song Johnny Todd. Trivia! #
• 16:17 "What does 'Bad File Format (#69)' mean?" "... That it's fucked?" #
• 17:00 So, apparently the female equivalent of phallic is "yonic". The things you learn observing comic book writers and then hitting Google. #

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Good morning campers

Another proper update today. Hoorah!

I enjoyed my weekend away. I've been meaning to post my pics from The Eden Project, but I got distracted by THE SHINY that is my new iTouch. When we were ordering a new laptop for the business, my boss suggested I just order it and pay out of my wages over the next couple of months to spread the cost and I couldn't resist. I consider it a Christmas present to myself. Of course, I'm now also considering getting a Wii, but that'll have to wait.

I'm now addicted to the air hockey app. Save me!

I'll probably post pics from my weekend away with commentary tonight. The short version: The Eden Project was superb, I fell asleep in the pub and snored and I can't ice skate. It still hurts. Nevermind, I didn't need that arm anyway. Probably.

Work is... busy. We have three deadlines in January, so trying to get as much possible done towards two of them before Christmas. Not likely to help much, but we're trying. While I was away, I spotted a copy of our publication being read in the pub we were staying at, which is nice to see. Usually I don't have any contact with our readership - the magazines are sent out and that's all I know. Our readers aren't the most responsive bunch. So it's nice to know that the magazines don't simply vanish into thin air.

Anyway, I have to be off now. I've PDFed this advert about a dozen times and keep spotting things wrong each time. I need to concentrate.

Also, what the heck happened to Cary Elwes' career? He needs to be in more stuff.



For that matter, whatever happened to Mel Brooks? This scene being "merely a blip on an otherwise uninterrupted downward trajectory."

• 12:36 What are they trying to say in the poster for Did You Hear About the Morgans? bit.ly/8afDiV #
• 12:36 Hugh Grant appears to be riding Sarah Jessica Parker through a field full of hay. Are they saying she looks like a horse? Not subtle, guys. #
• 12:42 Mind you, if she and Michael Bay ever started dating, I think there'd be a future Kentucky Derby winner in the making. And not a jockey. #
• 12:44 Yes, I am shallow, cruel and probably misogynistic as well. But I have cool hats. So, that's okay then. #
• 16:55 Action hero Sherlock Holmes is out this week and the trailer for Robin Hood makes it look like LOTR. Are any adaptations straight anymore? #
• 17:02 I find the most recognizable Robin Hood of the last 50 years was in Men in Tights. "Unlike some others, I can speak with an English accent." #
• 17:04 "Let's get out of this ladies clothing and get into our tights!" #
• 17:12 They gave Matt Fraction Thor now, too? How does a writer with such limited talent get all the high profile jobs? And an Eisner? Boggling. #
• 17:13 You might have noticed I'm crotchety today. #
• 19:35 Marvel announces GIRL COMICS: bit.ly/6AkgXB Despite the suggestion that women are some kind of obscure minority, some great creators. #
• 23:09 It's a horrible thing to admit, but every time I read about the Indian Mutiny I can sympathize with those who blew mutineers from cannons. #
• 23:13 When I read about the massacres at Cawnpore or Meerut or Jhansi I'm enraged. I can understand revenge, but not those pointless atrocities. #

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• 15:09 OMG they do Worms for the iTouch. #
• 15:17 What exactly is a fanlisting, anyway? #
• 16:31 So, has anyone been to see that movie with the blue, bargain-basement Thundercats in it yet? #
• 18:53 Shiny new iTouch is shiny. #
• 21:04 Trying to update from my itouch. You can use them in the bath, right? #
• 21:05 What's the worst that can happen? #
• 23:43 HHGTTG Daleks? Potentially cool, but seriously in need of a Peter Jones or even Stephen Fry: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OCtALC4nJI #
• 23:46 For those who haven't seen it, better voice work here: The Dark Knight is Confused - www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbgLapRAloQ #
• 00:27 I find it strangely ironic that Marvel's sending me emails about how to get my hands on 7000 digital comics. #

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• 20:36 Okay, whoever said iceskating was just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other is a damn dirty liar. As my wrist will attest. #
• 20:40 In other news, The Eden Project is, indeed, awesome. But all the staff should have been dressed in white jumpsuits. #
• 00:23 Huh. I'm in quite a lot of pain. #

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• 10:06 iTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouchiTouch! #
• 10:59 Watched Torn Curtain. Not Hitchock's finest hour. Not sure I bought Paul Newman as a nuclear scientist. But more so than Denise Richards. #
• 18:53 My iTouch failed to arrive. I wanted it for my weekend away. Sigh. :( #
• 23:50 I'm disappearing for a couple of days now. Do not be concerned. I haven't been TOSed from existence, I'm just going to The Eden Project. #

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