This is actually pretty neat.

The ability to actually 'draw' on a building. I bet Jarre really wishes he came up with this…

Well. Probably not.

Still, seems someone has gone and managed to get XP running on an 7MHz Pentium.

Why?

Fecked if I know. There's pushing the boundaries of what's possible, and then there's utterly wasting your time with crap like this.

Still, it's good to know that if I ever manage to travel back in time to 1995, I can take my copy of XP with me…

More can be read about this lunacy here. 

Why does this make me think of the League of Gentlemen?

Tubbs: "Will Command and Conquer 3 be like Swansea?"

Edward: " Yes Tubbs. Only Bigger!" 

(Honestly, if you've seen Swansea of late, or Cardiff for that matter, you'd know that picture's not far off the mark. Minus the mechanised violence, of course, it's generally more hand-to-hand. And the buildings in the picture are in better nick too. No clown posters evident here tho, thank god)

And then, of course, the fact that most of the released pics look like this;

means I have Tubbs in my head shouting "Lines and Lines and Lines!!"

Command and Conquer meets Royston Vasey…now THAT'd be a mod and a half… 

Still, all looks very spangly and shiny and no doubt by graphics card is weeping at the prospect.

Also no doubt I'll still rather wish I was playing the original on my old 486 than playing this version but there we go. That's prolly got more to do with the high likelihood of being repeatedly and savagely beaten at it by a certain 15 yr old son who has far more time to practise it than I do, than it has to do with whether the game's poop or not. It just hasn't been as fun since you couldn't sandbag in your opponents harvesters…ahhh, halcyon days

Yup, for those aspirational-types who are bored with the delights of Poundland, want something new and are willing to spend that little bit more (well, ok 100% more), there's now 2-pound-land.

Sorry, it's "Only2 - The Original £2 Store™" isn't it? Silly me.

And where's it located? Directly across the street from Poundland of course…

And don't worry, if you have to go to Poundland because you can't afford the sky-high prices at Poundstretcher, Hyper-value or (heaven forbid!) Wilkinsons, they've got a sale on - a 1/2 price sale at that! Bargain!

So, that's the new 2-pound store "Only2", located opposite Poundland, with a half price sale on.

Word fail me. 

Transformers trainers are all well and good but…well, you can't actually wear them, can you?

And they're robots that transform into…1 trainer. Not even a pair(Unless you buy both, and then have a mismatched pair(or buy 2 the same and have either 2 left feet or 2 right feet))…

I'm reminded of Tom Hanks' character in Big asking "Where's the fun in that?" about the transformer that turned into a skyscraper…

Plus, Nike and Hasbro are huge soul-less corporations as it is, the whole thing smacks of 'How can we get the 2 groups of most obsessive groups of collectors in the world to fight against each other to buy the most worthless piece of tat imaginable?"

Short of branding it with star wars logos as well and having a computer game of it made by EA, I don't see how else they could've sold it more…

Naaah, this is more what I'm after…

And look at the soles -

Now that's teh funkeh..every step gets you an extra point, how's that for grinding?

Not even world of warcraft gives you points for just walking (does it? I'm horribly out of touch)

Should these be worn too?

Transformer shoes?

Oh my.

The blurb from the site is thus:

Takara continues to release more innovative and imaginative products with the new Transformers Sports Label series! This new series features 1/2 scale transforming Nike shoes! These licensed items should be somewhere around 6" in length in shoe mode and it looks like they even have real laces connected to the top of the shoe. Convoy and Megatron are also each sporting a miniature pair of Nike Free 7.0 as a finishing touch.

More info here 

Seems as good a time as any fior me to test how this video embedding lark works…

Stumbled across it while rummaging for the video for Rotersand - Exterminate Annihilate Destroy, y'see… 

(edited to correctly have the vid that allows embedding, even if it's the one using early Dr Who footage instead…) 

There's not really much more I need to say, is there? 

Oh, apart from it's a voice changer helmet, that's not obvious from the picture is it?

Still, it's lovely anyway isn't it? 

Imagine the fun you could have with one of those. Imagine if you had a barbeque in the summer and people were only allowed to come if they were wearing either one of those or one of the new Dr Who Cyberman voice changers…wouldn't that be the most surreal bbq ever?

"Barbeque sauce is the right of ALL sentient beings!"

Or, after dropping a burger into the flames, as usually happens at some point, "One shall stand…one shall fall" 

In fact, wonder if I could mod the barbeque currently sat outside to make it look a little more decepticon-y? It's very large, made of metal and has wheels, after all…

Hmmm…

/starts stroking chin 

What is it with support lines thesedays?

Recently, I upgraded my 'net connection, except upgrade really couldn't be further from the truth.

Anyone really want a 'broadband' connection that's actually slower than a bloody dial-up modem? I know damned well I don't.

So, I'm left with little choice but to call our friends at BT support. Which is all fine & dandy except as is the current trend, I'm shuttled down the magic phone lines to a call center in India.

Now, whilst I have nothing against our good friends in other parts of the world, I find it somewhat perplexing that we have to deal with a call center in a completely different geographical location.

Yes, I understand that there's savings to be made, but it's plainly obvious that it's a corporate decision to cut costs, and get the cheapest solution possible. And sod the fact that they're not massively effective.

Anyway, that's deviating from my rant a little.

My beef is thus:-

Why can't large firms set up a support line where the people you speak to actually have a degree of sense, and not just go through a check list of complaints and solutions?

I'm sure that there actually are employees in such places, that get immensely frustrated by the fact that they know damned well how to solve a problem, but are unable to do so right away due to the inflexibility of the support scripts these firms put in place.

Now, speaking as a person who deals with the great unwashed when it comes to IT issues, and is (sometimes) fortunate enough to not be restricted by these guidelines. I really do honestly reckon that if current support line trends are scrapped, and replaced by people who actually know what they're doing. The world would be a damned better place.

Sure, the multi-nationals would have to spend more money, but the upshot of it would be more satisfied customers, and in the long run, cheaper support costs as those issues would be solved a damn sight quicker. 

Look at this. Saw this poster liberally slapped around town the other week.

Surely there's got to be some kind of law prohibiting the placing of disturbing images like this in public where anyone can see it?

Let alone covering half a large city in it?

I mean, really, there's no call for that is there? Look at that face.

Clowns are not right at the best of times, but that? That's just fecking freakish - that's not a smile or a laugh for a start, that's a scream.

A high pitched, insistent, bloodthirsty scream. He doesn't look like he's about to stab you in the gut, he looks like he already has and is now twisting the knife. And then the screaming starts, your face flecked with his spittle as he screams his long constant shriek, his stinking damp breath in your face never seeming to run out, screaming and screaming at you from only inches away, his furious howling just increasing in pitch and volume as the burning pain in your gut gets worse and worse as he plunges the blade into your stomach and chest again and again and again…

Don't get me wrong, I'm not someone who has an irrational fear of clowns, but that guy's not right.

Whoever decided he was a good way to advertise their circus is obviously not thinking too clearly. And the same goes for whoever said it was ok to paste this poster all over town. And also all the shop owners who put the posters up in their shop windows. I think Mr Shrieky-Stab the clown possibly visited them all…

Suffice to say, I shall not be patronising this circus at any foreseeable point in the future.