Monthly Archive for: ‘November, 2004’

In another worrying signal that my mental health might be failing me, my initial thought when I saw this glorified cubicle:

http://www.poetictech.com/aura/index.html

(via Eric Harrison’s blog) was “ooh, ooh, can I get one for Christmas?”.  It looks kinda like something that an evil computer programmer would use in a James Bond movie.  Sat in one of these, I would feel justified letting out an evil cackle as a rogue SQL statement F5′d in the wrong instance of Query Analyzer brings the business to its knees…

…and the world wide web can never have enough kitten pictures, that’s for sure.  Monkey stories and kitten pictures make the world go round, frankly.

Lots of pictures of Jellypop Perky Jean and Hepcat Man are at http://www.writeupnorth.co.uk. 

Here’s a good monkey story (and heaven knows, you can never have enough good monkey stories):

 Highway to be cleared of monkey raiders [BBC]

What I particularly like is the sentence "According to the latest count, some 2,035 monkeys reside along the Kalka-Simla highway".  Who counted them?  How, exactly?  Can you imagine counting monkeys for a living?  "1, 2, 3, hey don’t move, 4, 5, shit have I counted you already?  Stop running around…"

"What do you do for a living?"  "I count monkeys."  Fantastic.

Update [2004-12-07]: Hey, my questions are answered – a news article from the BBC explaining how to count orang-utans:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4072571.stm

…you find yourself absent-mindedly searching Google for “bed”, then realising with surprise that this doesn’t have the desired affect!

night night.

One of Jocelyn’s friends, Andrew, is spending a year in Tehran, Iran.  He’s started the obligatory blog, which is proving to be extremely witty and erudite as well as providing an interesting insight into a country about which most of us westerners know very little.  Highly recommended reading:

http://andrewgrimshaw.blogspot.com/

Update [2004-11-16] – an atom feed for Andrew’s blog is now available at http://andrewgrimshaw.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Update [2008-09-14] – alas, the above links now appear to be dead

Woohoo!  I just passed MS exam 70-320 with a score of 936, and am now a Microsoft Certified Application Developer!

Anybody want to buy a study guide?! http://s1.amazon.co.uk/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y05Y4183667Y4859874

One of the side-effects of Jocelyn being in the States for a while is that I get to see the mail first, which is a novelty.  J has subscriptions to several magazines, and as I’ve been picking them up over the last two months, I’ve become aware that they invariably have headlines containing numbers.  It can’t just be a coincidence.  Here, look:

Marie Claire:

• 71 best beauty buys
  
• Sex – 6 hot new tips for you
  
• Fashion & Beauty – 720 new ideas
  
• 457 New looks + 101 Ideas bonus
  
• 148 Sexy, simple ideas for hair, makeup, skin
  
• Shopping solutions from $5
  
• 1790 Free giveaways for you!
  
• 7 Sneaky reasons you’re still stressed

Real:

• Pursuit of the Perfect 10
  
• Raped at 14, Prostitute at 19, Revenge at 40
  
• 238 Style Secrets

Oprah:

• 20 Surprising ways you could be putting on the pounds
  
• 10 women doctors tell you how to take care of yourself
  
• 14 really good answers to sex questions you’ll be glad somebody else asked

Glamour:

• The 20 best sex ideas in the world
  
• 50 health secrets, for women only
  
• 6 mystery moods guys get into – and how to decode them
  
• Two young women have cancer.  Only one will live
  
• 1,000 men & women rate everything you can do, try or say in bed
  
• 314 upgrades, secrets and rules to dress by
  
• 10 signs it’s time to change your hair
  
• The 14 things that’ll never go out of style

Why is this?  What’s the deal with these seemingly random numbers?  Why do the magazines feel the need to audit their content to such an exact way?  Would potential readers be more suspicious if there were only 300 secrets and rules to dress by, instead of the not-round-and-therefore-more-believable 314?

I mentioned all this to J on the phone tonight.  She basically told me that if I was this curious and wanted to read her magazines, I could go ahead and do so.  Humph.  Well, maybe a more detailed study is called for, purely in the name of scientific research, and I think this copy of Glamour with Renee Zellweger on the cover could be a good place to start…

Update [2004-11-11]: Heh, the new edition of Real just arrived and there isn’t a single number-related headline on the cover!