This Never Happened To The Other Fella

Just when you think the world could not get any weirder, someone always comes along and proves you wrong.  Today's weirdness comes to us courtesy of Bombay Sapphire, famous for making that lovely gin in the blue bottle.

Not content with just making gin, the company has decided to branch out into the lifestyles market with Infusion.  That's right folks, we're talking about gin-scented fragrances, shower gels, lotions, and candles.  I'm not sure who the market for this stuff is, but if you ever wanted to get fired for suspicion of drinking on the job or force the recovering alcoholic in the next cubicle to relapse, then this is the stuff for you.

Today's title category: Bond, James Bond.  Value: 1 point.

On The Other Side Of The Screen It All Looks So Easy

Do you like video games?  Consider yourself good at them?  Well then, time to test your mettle.  Yes, it's another one of those 'recognise the video game from a small picture' quizzes, only this one is slightly different.  In this case you have to recognise the video game from one letter of the cabinet logo.

I managed a 17 out of 26, I think that qualifies me for the rank of 'pasty white geek who needs to get out more'.

Today's title = 1 point

Update:  I managed 18 before I gave up.  I've since found the answers, so if anyone wants them they should let me know.

Pyle!

17. God may not contradict any of my orders.
31.  Not allowed to let sock puppets take responsibility for any of my actions.
32. Not allowed to let sock puppets take command of my post.

The fact that someone actually managed to get these is a testament to human ingenuity, or a warning against building your home under high voltage powerlines.  Either way, it's definitely worth it to read the 213 things Skippy is no longer allowed to do in the U.S. Army.

Today's title is 2 points, and I won't take the Simpsons or Full Metal Jacket as an answer.

It Dices, Slices, Never Stops

Well, it definitely took me long enough, but I finally did it.  In other words, buy buy buy!

Difficulty: Tom Waits. Value: 2 points

Things That Go 'Bump' In The Night

This is a little story that takes place early this morning.  I had just settled down in my bed, having put down my book and turned off my light around 2:30, and was in the process of slowly drifting off to sleep when I was awoken by a loud "bang".

I bolted straight up out of bed, and glanced at the clock — 3:00AM.  Stumbling across my my bedroom, I flipped on the light and looked to see if anything seemed amiss.  Everything seemed normal, so I went and asked Scott if he had heard anything, but he had headphones in and hadn't heard a thing. 

Well, maybe I imagined it.  So I went back into my room and was just about to turn off the lights again when I noticed blue stuff all over the wall behind my desk.  It rubbed off easy enough, and had no particular smell.  How very odd.  That's when I glanced down at my desk, and there, sitting next to my keyboard, was the culprit.  A Duracell 9-volt battery that had been sitting on my desk for the past couple of weeks had spontaneously exploded, blowing the back off it half off and spraying something all over the place.  I have no idea why it did that, but it certainly was unexpected.

No points today, I couldn't think of any decent explosion quotes.

Fruit Flies Like A Banana

I forgot about this thing, and then Linda got an iMac.  All of a sudden I had a mission:  get my uptime script working on MacOS X.

Well, after a little bit of tinkering and figuring out some unique Darwin file names (i.e. vm_stat instead of vmstat), I am pleased to announce that Chaos-Control 0.2alpha (yes, it's still alpha) now includes semi-confirmed support for Darwin alongside the previous Linux and Solaris support.  Not that anybody uses it besides me, but I still felt like announcing that.

Today's title: Difficulty: Marx Brothers.  Value: One point.

Willy, Willy, Harry, Steve

I get bored while running my thesis experiments.  In fact, there's another random entry that may or may not get posted detailing the types of things I do to keep myself amused for two hours at a time.  But this entry is about something I discovered while fiddling with my spare change during one experiment.

To put it simply, did you realise that the 2003 coins have a new portrait of the queen on them?  I know this is now old news, being 2004 and all, but I didn't know that, and, to put it simply, I don't like the new portrait.  Now, I'd never consider myself a monarchist (although I will admit to having a minor fascination with British history, which means the history of the royal family), but, when it came to portraits on currency, I didn't mind the one they introduced in 1992.   Besides, it would have made more sense to me to replace the portrait in 2002, the year of her golden jubilee, than it did to replace it last year.

Since I have no say on what ends up on our money, so I really shouldn't complain.  However, I do have one final thought: is it just me, or do the portraits seem to be getting sterner over the years?  Compare the two linked above to the original portrait and the one used throughout the 70s and 80s.

Today's title is worth 1 point if you can tell me its significance, 1 point if you can complete it, and 2 points if you can point out who's missing from  it.

For All Your Pounding Needs!

I'm busy for the next week or so with my thesis experiment, so I'm pillaging an everything2 entry I wrote in order to prevent anybody from blanking my page for a little while.  That means that today you're going to get a history lesson, and not just any old history lesson, a Canadian history lesson.  So gather round, folks, and I'll tell you the story of the MacAdam shovel.

Our story begins in October of 1911, when Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister of Canada, Sir Robert Laird Borden (whose portrait currently graces the $100 bill), appointed Sir Samuel Hughes as Minister of Militia and Defence.  A veteran of the Boer War, Hughes was hated by the average solider, who blamed him for the poor state of their equipment.  There was some truth to this, in that Hughes, an ardent nationalist, prefered to choose Canadian products over superior foreign ones.  The most infamous of these decisions saw the selection of the Ross rifle, which had been deemed unsuitable for military use by the US Army, the British War Office, and the North-West Mounted Police, over the more reliable British-made Lee-Ensfield MkIII.  However, perhaps his most baffling decision, and certainly the most obvious example of the favouritism which he was sometimes accussed of, was the MacAdam shovel.

The MacAdam shovel was invented by Hughes, who based it off of a pre-WWI Swiss design, and patented under the name of his personal secretary, although military correspondence of the time sometimes refers to it as a 'Hughes shovel'.  Designed to serve as an entrenching tool, the shovel had an alternate use thanks to an egg-shaped hole in the steel blade.  This hole was designed to allow soliders to sight their rifle, whilst simultaneously providing protection from enemy fire.  Of course, this hole made the shovel virtually useless for digging, and the blade is rumoured to have provided little protection from gunfire — the metal reportedly being too weak to stop a bullet.

As if these flaws weren't enough, the shovel's handle was made out of iron, with the total weight of over five pounds making the shovel too heavy for any practical use.  But, despite all this, Hughes still had confidence in his invention and ordered over twenty thousand of the devices for military use.  It is unlikely that any of these ever saw actual combat action, and most are believed to have been melted down for scrap.  All that remains, or at least all I can find, of this ill-fated tool are some references in military correspondence and photos of Hughes proudly holding his invention.

Sources: Department of National Defence, National Archives, everything2

Today's title is worth one point.  Go nuts.

All We Have To Do Is Go Down To The Pound And Get A New Jazzman

I occasionally get sent / come across these kinds of links, so I thought I'd post it.

Sotheby's auction house has apparently acquired the Forbes Collection, which contains the world's second largest collection of Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs.  The total of nine eggs in a single collection is only surpassed by the Kremlin, whose collection consists of ten eggs.  Along with the size, the collection also contains several historically significant eggs, such as the Hen Egg (the first Imperial Egg), the Renaissance Egg (the last commissioned by Czar Alexander III), the Rosebud Egg (the first commissioned by Czar Nicholas II), and the Order of St. George Egg (the only Imperial Egg to leave Russia in the possesion of its original recipient).

Although they're definitely out of my price range, with the lowest being valued at between 3 and 4 million and the most expensicve being placed at between 18 and 24 million, they're still nice to look at.  Perhaps in order to please those of us who could never even dream of affording this sort of thing, Sotheby's has been nice enough to provide images of all the eggs.  Inaddtion, there's also a page giving details about each of the individual eggs and the location of all the known imperial eggs.

For sheer craftsmanship, I'm partial to the Rosebud and Orange Tree eggs.  However, for the sake of the sheer elegance of its simplicity, the Hen Egg would be my purchase choice if I actually had enough money to afford this sort of thing.

Today's quote comes to us courtesy of the Simpsons.  Therefore, telling me its origin is not going to give you the point.  Instead, I want you totell me how the title links to what I've been talking about.  Doing so will give you one point.

You Want More Money, Of Course I Don't Mind

Memo to everyone who's ever said I have a computer problem:  At least I've never buried one six feet underground.

Of course, I do happen to own the exact same model Macintosh as that.  Now, if only I had a yard…

Today's title is obscure for anyone not into late 70s / early 80s British music, more specifically mod revival.  3 points for whoever gets it.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

It's an oldie, and though I don't quite agree with their findings, I suppose it counts as a sortof goodie.  Anyways, the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service (whoever the hell they are) published a report back in September that analysed six common sleeping positions and linked them to common personality types.

Rather than plagarise the entire results, I'll provide a link to the BBC article, and mention that I tend to be a "freefall" and occassionally a "foetus".

Today's title is hopefully fairly obvious, so only one point.

It Varies From Person to Person

— From News.com.au

Where's Charlton Heston when you need him?

On another note, I'm initiating the "Entry title trivia challenge".  Correctly guess the origin of the headline and I'll add it to your score, which will be displayed in the left column.  Today's entry title is worth one point.

I'm Movin' On Up Now

One posters placed in the Psych. building at approx. 11AM, January 5th.
Nine posters placed around the CS / Engineering buildings at approx. 11:30AM, January 5th.
Two posters placed in the Kineseology building / gym around 1:00PM, January 5th.
Total responses as of midnight, January 5th: One.

One advert placed in the email student newsletter, sent out at 11:15AM, January 6th.
One advert placed in the email newsletter for faculty and staff, aka the stroplegram, sent out at 12:50PM, January 6th.
Total number of responses as of 3:30PM, January 6th: Twenty-five.
Number of participants we have money to pay: Twenty-four.
Verdict: Ladies and gentlemen, let the waiting list begin!

I have to say that the response to this has been beyond my wildest dreams.  I was expecting a few responses to trickle in every couple of days, and that's what I was told was likely.  Twenty-four responses within the course of slightly more than four hours of the first email going out wasn't even considered a possibility.  Of course, seeing as there's always someone who doesn't show, this extra pool to recruit from is probably going to be a good thing.

Update (5:30PM):  Total number of responses is currently sitting at 33.  Not bad, not bad at all.

Boats Against the Current, Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past

It's Gatsby!

Update:  Here's some more: 1 2 3 4

And All The Rain Falls Down, Amen

Well, that wasn't quite the promised 8AM until midnight outage, now was it?  But, despite a variety of problems, I'm back.

I finally finished moving in yesterday.  I ran out of boxes whilst moving, so I ended up having to load Dmitrii's car for multiple trips.  But, it's done, and I'm no longer living in this damp hell hole, having moved all my stuff into here.  Othello seems to be enjoying the move, it's not quite as cold here, he gets more light, and a complete gravel change in his tank.  He's also got himself a companion now.  Of course, the only reason I have that is because it ate one of Jeff's shrimp, so who wants to place bets on which creature eats the other first?

Moving on, the fact that I actually have these pictures can only mean one thing: I finally caved and bought a digital camera.  Mmmmm…  Camera…  That's not all I spent money on though, I also got myself a wireless switch and card on special, so there's relatively few wires leaving this room.  Extra mmmmm…  Wireless…

Finally, this is one of the most amusing gimmicks I've ever seen in a book.  No idea on whether it's any good or not, but the shape was just screaming "Buy me!"  And with that, I'm out of here to visit the GPA killer, also known as the living room, which is the home of 5 video game consoles.  *geek overload*