Telling Whoppers.

I WAS DRIVING ... PAST HUNGRY JACK'S.

I FELT MY HUNGER ... BURN WITHIN.

I PULLED INTO ... THE DRIVE-THROUGH,

AND ORDERED ARGUABLY THE MOST RIDICULOUS MOVIE TIE-IN PRODUCT ...

EVER!

THE ...

DARK WHOPPER!



The burgers might be better, but the advertising's rubbish! Glory, what were they thinking? When it played before The Dark Knight most of the cinema burst out laughing. That can't be a good sign.

But I guess they're laughing now, aren't they? Because I bought one. I guess I just couldn't help myself. I just had to know. Was the burger made from human flesh, perhaps? Or worse, lamb's fry? Was it somehow, slightly, even remotely, in any way, even conceptually, dark?

No.

Course not! Stupid. It was just a bog-standard hamburger with no discernible difference to any other I've eaten before! I had to go and look up what the differences were and discovered, get this, that it had barbeque sauce instead of ketchup, and no ... PICKLES! Oh, the humanity! Oh, the dark depths of my wicked, inky soul! NO PICKLES! Personally I love pickles, but I understand I'm in a micro-minority. Wouldn't it have been more iniquitous to have packed it with nothing but pickles?! Or is that TOO DARK?! Step back from the abyss, young one. Man was not meant to travel that far!

Dark Whopper.

Hmpprrppp.

Underwhelming Achievement in the Field of Excel.

Please Excel. It is the 21st Century. I have 6GB of RAM. I'm pretty confident I can handle 120 cells worth of data.


Please stop asking me this question. I have many more files to copy and paste from before the dawn comes, and your constant questioning is slowing me right down. Set me free, won't you Excel, to brave the wild rapids of memory management myself. Or at least give me the option to turn this question off.

UPDATE
50. It's 50 cells. Try to copy 'n' paste 51 cells of data out of Excel and it waves the big old flag of caution at you! Proceed with your 51 cells of leadlined data at your own risk! The last table of data I updated was around the 200 cell mark! I've been operating at over four times Excel's recommended limit and I didn't know it! I COULD HAVE DIED!!

So, remember: Fifty cells, you're safe. Fifty-one cells, you're on your own, you maniac!

Bath Time.

Olympic action at the Bird's Nest?

Forget that.

All the real Olympic action is going down at the Birdbath!

Stay tuned. Full report on the 2008 Birdbath Olympic Cup coming soon.

Another funny thing happened...

I asked back here if you've ever read a joke and laughed because it’s funny, but at the same time it’s an uncomfortable laugh because you recognise far too much of yourself in the punchline?

Happened again.

I particularly like the rollover sting. Done that before, too. Aah, I do so enjoy Wondermark.

More Awe.

There are few things that I would truly call awesome – the birth of a child, the wonders of nature, God, lasagne – but over the past week I've come across two more I think could make it onto the list.

I'd only just picked myself up off the floor after witnessing Shazam (the iPhone app that identifies almost any song just by "listening" to it), when along stomps Google Maps Street View in its size 12s to bundle me down again.

Street View is astounding, and absolutely unbelievable. Of course there's the usual handful of desperately cool killjoys scoffing and pretending they're unimpressed, but just ignore them because their hearts are cold and shriveled. And, look, let's deal with any murky privacy concerns another day. For now, let's simply marvel with a sense of childlike wonder at the magic being performed before our very eyes.

UPDATE
A legion mechanical eyes head out, up, down and over, recording, charting, cataloguing the streets and byways of this world, so that a million human eyes can scan through the results to find... funny stuff. And then more funny stuff. Well, what else could you possibly use this new technology for? Oh, what we humans are capable of. And oh, what we humans are capable of. :)

UPDATE 2
Um, in fairness I should probably warn you about "Ryan Germick, web specialist at Google," who features in the Street View introduction I've linked to above. Um, proceed with caution.

A Cure For Connex, Part 2.

Honestly, I'm only trying to...


When I saw that Connex were still doggedly coming out in support of cancer, all logic to the contrary, I thought I'd send them a message and ask why? At the very least I thought they'd appreciate getting an email that wasn't a thundering tirade over late and overcrowded trains on their rail network.

Hello. I was wondering if you could explain the reasoning behind the use of 'for' in 'Connex For Cancer Day'? If you take 'for' in its most common sense as meaning "in favour or in support of" then surely you can only read this as a statement in support of cancer?! Even if it's 'Cancer Day' you're in support of, it still sounds a little creepy. Yay for cancer!

I understand the importance of avoiding negative language in a positioning statement, (as with the former Anti-Cancer Council repositioning themselves by lowering the 'anti'), but wouldn't 'Connex Against Cancer Day' make more sense? Or if you had to use a positive preposition, then 'Connex For A Cure Day'?

I'm not meaning to be negative myself as, whatever it might be called, it's an undeniably worthy initiative, but the choice of words did make me pause.

Many thanks for any response you'd care to make.

Regards,
/etc, etc

Anyway, to my great surprise, a week later I received the following thoughtful reply:

We refer to your inquiry of 13 July 2008, regarding the wording of our “Connex for Cancer Day” campaign.

The intention of the campaign slogan is to indicate our support for Cancer Day, a day we have initiated with the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre to raise funds to contribute to the search for a cure for cancers of all kinds.

There is a subtle distinction between “Connex for Cancer” and “Connex for Cancer Day”, but an important one.

This year’s “Connex for Cancer Day” campaign will be our fourth, and so far, with the help of our customers, we have raised more than $160,000 for the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, a premier Australian resource for cancer patients in the provision of integrated treatment, research and education.

While Cancer Day might be perceived to have negative connotations, we believe that having a day to highlight the disease and the people who have suffered from it, their families and those sufferers who have survived, is an empowering initiative. We’ve worked closely with the Peter Mac Communications and Marketing team to ensure we minimise any offence the community may feel.

The “Connex for Cancer Day” campaign name is not intended to offend, however we are aware that for some people cancer still carries a strong stigma, and talk about the disease can be upsetting for sufferers, survivors or those who know a sufferer or survivor or have lost someone to the disease. We believe the positive aims of our campaign outweigh any negative associations people might have with the wording, and the support of our customers on this day would certainly seem to reinforce that.

We appreciate your feedback, and thank you for the opportunity to clarify our intentions when creating the “Connex for Cancer Day” campaign.

Yours sincerely
Sarah Hart
Connex Melbourne

I understand that there's more to dealing with cancer than merely fighting it; it's also about supporting those who suffer under its terrible burden, so fair enough, Connex, you're right. I'm on board. And I'll txt all my friends right away to let them know!

iPromise no more iPuns.

They're really getting tedious, aren't they? Not as bad as FCUK (you're so naughty, French Connection!), which lost its appeal after one or one viewings, but they're still getting annoying. Especially when they're nothing clever; they're just a boring old headline with an 'i' bunged out the front.

So, yeah, no new puns, but I've got an iPhone!

Glory, that took some doing. I won't bore you with the details of my miraculous escape from a web of incompetence, weaselly buck-passing and half a lifetime on hold, suffice to say that I'm not planning to purchase my next phone from Telechoice. And then just when I thought I was out, it called me up and dragged me back in. The day I went to pick up the replacement unit I made doubly sure it was activated and able to make a call, but I didn't try accessing the web over the 3G network. I should have. After a day of thinking I was just unlucky enough to always be in areas of poor reception, I suddenly realised after comparing my phone to a friend's that, no, it actually wasn't working at all. (And yes, 3G was turned on, I checked. Many times).

Another half hour on the phone touring the many and varied departments of an Optus Call Centre led me to a tech who was eventually able to fix the problem by, quote, "manually installing some missing components in our rear-end," unquote! By this stage I was ready to manually install some components in someone's rear-end too, but a 3G icon blinking into life next to five bars of 3G reception soothed the savage beast within and all was good with the world. I harnessed the good energy, blocked out the bad, iPhone packed his bags, got to the airport, and now he's home.

The only negative now is that since losing my old mobile I've been off the grid for so long that people have stopped calling me. I'm back, people. Feel free to call me again.

UPDATE: Just been googlin' around for iPhone screen protectectors. How good is this one? I'll tell you: among its list of Features it's described as being "Military Grade". Awesome.

Rock 'n' Roll Stars.

So, is Noel Gallagher going to follow Radiohead's lead and make the new Oasis album, Dig Out Your Soul, available for free?

"I didn't spend a year in the most expensive studio in England, with the most expensive producer in America, and the most expensive graphic designer in London to then give [the album] away. Fook that." (Manc phonetic adjustment mine)

Aah, so that'd be a no then, Noel?

That's what I love about the Gallaghers. There's no pretense. They speak their minds, they speak their minds clearly, and they're utterly unconcerned with what others might think. They're just exactly who they are, and exactly who they want to be. They're possibly the most authentic and sincere people on the planet. :)

Here's hoping they'll dig out another cracker.