Oh Internet

A strangely pleasing little factoid that I ran across for the first time today:
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

I had a lovely two-week holiday in Edinburgh and Galashiels, and then:

Fight home delayed by 1 hour.
Train then bus from the airport to home inexplicably slow. Arrive after 1am.
Home to discover kitchen ripped up for refurbishment. Meaning no washing machine for dealing with burgeoning pile of holiday laundry.
Discover that all local laundrettes have opening hours [...]

Comrades! Join us and fight the planetary oppression

Celeb Spotting: Kevin Smith, Charlize Theron (sortof: there was a big crush of people outside of the cinema as we left, we saw some people walking down the red carpet and many photographers elbowing each other out of the way. We mostly ignored it and went into the pub next door. Shortly afterwards two of [...]

This is the most depressing thing I’ve read in years.
Passengers on a flight from Malaga to Manchester refused to allow the plane to take off after hearing two Asian passengers talking in Arabic. Three hours and one thorough security sweep later - during which nothing in any way suspicious was found - the plane took [...]

Celebrity Spotting: Not totally sure about this, but I think I saw Doris Lessing at the book festival site in Charlotte Square. This celeb-spotting business is getting less appealing by the minute.
Show: Bill Bailey - Steampunk
This goes to the top of the list for this year so far. I’ve seen him quite a few times [...]

Mmmmm…. £85 sandwich

One of the many reasons that I’m not rich is that I can never fully grasp just how affluent yet stupid many Londoners are.

Our new killbot overlords want our cars.
I’ve only seen the advert in question a couple of times, but I’m already fully supportive of Weebl’s proposed come-uppance for the Frosties kid.
Running homebrew applications on the Nintendo DS is a right pain in the bum, so I’m drooling over the thought of the new DS-Xtreme. (See? I’m [...]

Celebrity Spotting: Les Dennis and Steve Punt. Disappointing! Does not quite match up to seeing Summer Glau last year.
Show: Chanbara
Taiko drumming plus katanas from the choreographers of Kill Bill. Sadly, it was pretty disappointing. The drumming was good but it took a backseat to all of the jumping and sword-swiping (and unfortunate slapstick interludes.) It [...]

I was planning to use this space for wailing and gnashing teeth over the FUBAR state of the airports in London right now and the fact that I’ll be trying to get onto a plane from Gatwick on Saturday morning, then continue with some snarky predictions about how the whole situation would be handled by [...]

Man Pocky
Originally uploaded by FeralChicken.
At the risk of turning this into “Too-Hot-Here Blog,” the weather has been taunting me today. After a week of lovely overcast 16-18 degC weather, today has been back to tarmac-melting, brain-oozing, sweaty-zombie heat. Luckily I’m now well skilled in the art of spending 40 minutes selecting a pint of milk [...]

According to BoingBoing, these photos are of the cocoons of Swedish butterflies, each filled with writhing larvae, completely encasing trees and anything else unlucky enough to be nearby.

Dora The Explorer merchandise - popular with girls of all ages.

Ah, the crisp, cool taste of global warming:
A brewery in Greenland is producing beer using water melted from the ice cap of the vast Arctic island.
The brewers claim that the water is at least 2,000 years old and free of minerals and pollutants.
he first 66,000 litres of the new dark and pale ales are [...]

Imagine yourself in the position of acting as the insurer for a traveling exhibition of rare and famous teddy bears, including Elvis Presley’s beloved bear “Mabel”. Naturally you’d want to to ensure these were under guard at all times, but security guards are expensive, so you settle for allowing the exhibitors to use a doberman [...]