Internets Dairy

Blown nodes

2009-07-19T10:48:32Z

Did you know crop circles occur in every continent 'except Antarctica'?

internetsdairy @ 2009-07-15T22:31:00

2009-07-15T21:38:28Z

I've cut my finger, and what with the slight downward slant of the cut, now it looks exactly like a sort of eyeless Muppet:

Though I suppose Muppets don't generally drool blood out of their mouths.

Maybe The Count will when he's older.

I wonder what my finger is thinking?

Aw.

internetsdairy @ 2009-07-13T23:14:00

2009-07-13T22:14:40Z

Today, in a meeting, I designed a new type of clam. This concept image is based on my original drawing:

As you can see, it's a Viking clam and I hope it will replace both Vikings and clams by virtue of efficiency. In my original drawing, the Viking clam's mouth contained a to-do list but in the field it would be used for treasure, plunder etc.

The horns are there for decoration as with conventional Vikings.

I am Googling the address of my nearest patent office as I type.

How the other half snack

2009-07-12T19:47:12Z

I guess you might expect a newsagent in Mayfair opposite a Vivienne Westwood boutique to stock genuine French Croustille corn puffs (peanut and emmental flavour), but Spicy Tomato Snaps, too? Plus Golden Wonder, those remnants of crisp heterogeneity, and several kinds of Transform-a-Snack. No Fabergé egg flavour Kettle Chips in sight.

The dark, shattered underbelly of Chris Serle

2009-07-12T10:23:58Z

Only just realised that the Dead Kennedy's 'Trust Your Mechanic' (Spotify) wouldn't have been out of place, lyrically, as an amusing song on That's Life. Well, the third verse, anyway.

Show and Tell: lenticular dinosaur ruler

2009-07-07T21:25:05Z

internetsdairy @ 2009-06-29T00:24:00

2009-06-28T23:25:35Z

I expect I broadly agree with Accord's stance on faith schools, but I find the Crayolapocalypse they envisage occurring in the skies above Westminster alarmist:

And if while they're keen on abolishing discrimination in schools, they're happy to disenfranchise the millions of web users who don't have 3D glasses:

internetsdairy @ 2009-06-27T11:54:00

2009-06-27T10:57:05Z

Christopher Hitchens! You can't write 'as foreshadowed above', you idiot! Foreshadowing's meant to be top secret literary clockwork!

Never mind the crimes of Henry Kissinger, you've ruined the fourth wall.

internetsdairy @ 2009-06-24T20:44:00

2009-06-24T19:46:09Z

I was in the office gents earlier today when I heard, emanating from behind a cubicle door, two mysterious rasping noises in quick succession which were precisely halfway between a fart and the sound of someone blowing their nose. There was no way to tell which it was, short of bursting through the door and causing the wave function to collapse.

I guess it might have been a sousaphone, though a gentleman carrying a sousaphone would be hard pressed to negotiate a cubicle door.

Whatever it was, I hope a tissue was involved.

internetsdairy @ 2009-06-22T22:30:00

2009-06-22T21:44:19Z

On a recent trip overseas, drummygirl kindly got me a distinctive local gift:

Can you guess what it's a plush effigy of? Where had drummygirl been? That's right, she'd been to Paris and got me an anthropomorphic Eiffel Tower.

You can tell it's the Eiffel Tower when you observe it going about its daily business. For example, enjoying a typically French breakfast:

Or enjoying a characteristically Gallic romantic liaison with a plush effigy of a syphilis microbe:

And if you're still not convinced it's the Eiffel Tower, rather than, say, a capital letter 'A', take a look at its crotch:

internetsdairy @ 2009-06-22T22:02:00

2009-06-22T21:06:06Z

Showing the kind trend alacrity you'd expect from someone who's just started watching season three of The West Wing (it's season four where Bartlett runs against the ghost of Mrs Landingham, right?), I now have a Twitter account.

I also have one of those new bikes where the front and back wheels are the same diameter!

internetsdairy @ 2009-06-09T23:49:00

2009-06-09T22:58:04Z

On Springwatch, they have made a sort of earthy wall with holes in it which is supposed to basically be a kingfisher magnet. They had a look at it today and found a load of wasps had made their nest in it. The man said he was 'not disappointed' that it had lured wasps instead of kingfishers but you could tell he was. And if it wasn't for stupid Ofcom he could have pretended they were kingfishers. That would have been fantastic! 'Here we see the tiny male kingfisher, with its distinctive stripes, return to its papery nest and its thousand strong family of chicks, all exactly the same size as he is, singing their distinctive buzzing song... What's that in his beak? Some jam... etc. etc.'

I wonder how many wasps it would take to bring down a kingfisher? I bet Bill Oddie would know.

internetsdairy @ 2009-06-09T23:07:00

2009-06-09T22:09:21Z

Overheard in the lift (the secret express 'ministerial' lift) this morning...

Eager young civil service faststreamer: If someone gives me a policy, I'll get behind it. I just need a policy, any policy... Monkey playgrounds! I don't care. I'll get behind it.

internetsdairy @ 2009-06-08T22:10:00

2009-06-08T21:24:30Z

The other day I ate a Polish yogurt, partly in protest at the BNP who presumably aren't too happy about Eastern European dairy products coming over here, taking up space in our fridges which used to be rightfully occupied by Great British foods like Müller Fruit Corners.

It was flecks-of-chocolate flavour - delicious.

But wait a minute! While I was eating foreign delicacies in a spirit of gastric fraternity, the Polish yogurt pot was trying to keep someone out:

What is that little creature meant to be? He looks like a sort of wizened version of one of those anthropomorphic M&Ms. Why is he so unwelcome?

internetsdairy @ 2009-05-28T22:06:00

2009-05-28T21:07:33Z

Gah! I thought for a minute that Gary Numan had done a cover of 'Autobahn', but it's just an advert for the RAC. Stupid Spotify.

internetsdairy @ 2009-05-25T23:07:00

2009-05-25T22:08:51Z

Here's a tip: when you get a package at work, don't excitedly rip it open saying it's something you ordered off of the internet when it turns out that the thing you ordered off of the internet looks quite a lot like it might be some kind of vacuum pump:

Yes.

It's actually an Aeropress coffee maker, a device which harnesses the ancient power of squeezing to make what is basically espresso in your own home. Unlike other home espresso makers there's no tiresome barista to look after and what's more, it's very easy to clean.

The coffee tastes delicious, though I'm not sure it's making my penis any bigger.

internetsdairy @ 2009-05-21T00:41:00

2009-05-20T23:42:17Z

I asked our big boss if I should commit an upcoming big thing to a planning grid and she said, 'No, it's still all very secret squirrel' and winked.

This must be some new security classification which I am not important enough to know about.

internetsdairy @ 2009-05-19T21:21:00

2009-05-19T20:33:25Z

I'm never going to fill up another notebook if, when I'm in Caffe Nero trying to work, a man with a freaking ventriloquist's dummy comes and sits down opposite me. I don't know if you've ever tried to work in Caffe Nero sitting opposite a man with a freaking ventriloquist's dummy on his lap but it's quite difficult.

Sometimes the man would make the freaking ventriloquist's dummy look at people walking past, sometimes he'd sort of jiggle it up and down in time to the background music, sometimes he'd just stick it face down on the table so he could use both of his hands to take a sip of coffee.

I say 'freaking ventriloquist's dummy', but I didn't see (or hear) the guy doing any ventriloquism, and it wasn't really a proper freaking ventriloquist's dummy. It was pretty shoddily made, and it seemed to have a lot of white paint splashed on the back of its head. It wasn't wearing a top hat or a monocle. In fact it didn't have a body; it was essentially a head on a stick (on which were the eye and mouth controls) with some rags to cover up the operator's hand.

The Caffe Nero staff didn't seem too weirded out by their unusual customer and his friend, so I guess he must be a regular. I bet that freaking ventriloquist's dummy has more stamps on his loyalty card than me.

internetsdairy @ 2009-05-16T11:54:00

2009-05-16T11:10:58Z

The other night I dreamed a useful new vehicle for the emergency services! It is a normal ambulance helicopter BUT sticking out of either side is a pole on the end of each pole is a real police car and on top of each police car (in the middle of the flashing lights) is a helicopter rotor blade! So it is sort of like a triple helicopter and it will help paramedics and the police to get to accident scenes with alacrity.

I tried to draw a blueprint but it was too hard.

But when this triple helicopter is deployed by the emergency services as shall inevitably come to pass I hope it won't lead what happened in my dream. What happened in my dream was that the triple helicopter landed with some noise in a terraced street at night (to attend to a drunk man who was having a lie down) and all the inhabitants, drawn by the noise, rushed out of their houses and crowded excitedly around the triple helicopter, and some of them asked the police if they could have a go in the police car modules of the triple helicopter, and the police - obviously proud of their smart new machine and happy at the attention - said 'OK!' and within two seconds an excited man had stepped on the accelerator in one of the police car modules and the whole triple helicopter drove into some houses at 100mph and there was an explosion which killed hundreds and destroyed a branch of Morrisons.

And the upshot of this was that a couple of weeks later the prices in the nearby Somerfield had risen sharply and I saw rhodri in the Somerfield but he couldn't let on he knew me because he was undercover investigating the high prices for an exposé in The Independent.

So if you do work for the emergency services and are scouring the internet for reports of emergency vehicles revealed in people's dreams with a view to researching, testing and constructing them for deployment in the real world, please feel free to use my design but do be aware of the risks.

internetsdairy @ 2009-05-11T10:26:00

2009-05-11T09:26:54Z

We got survivalist apocalypse shopping from Ocado:

But it only comes up to my knee! I'm pretty sure the stack should come up to at least the neck in order to guarantee survival until after the fallout stops/the ocean subsides/the triffids get bored.

Still, that's definitely enough kitchen roll for a papier-mâché castle, right?

The future!

2009-05-10T19:31:12Z

I just had my first video chat. It was with amuchmoreexotic and he showed me his oven glove.

"Why not?"

2009-05-05T22:02:37Z

Do you ever wonder what happened to the contestants off of Going for Gold?

Wonder no more! (pdf)

The obvious favourite is Egidijus BIKNEVICIUS though Finnish forest machine magnate Einari VIDGRÉN has a cheeky charm that should not be overlooked.

internetsdairy @ 2009-05-03T23:38:00

2009-05-03T22:40:38Z

I think you can find out pretty much everything you need to know about the Express from this photo:

You don't even need to see what lurks beneath the fold.

internetsdairy @ 2009-04-30T22:06:00

2009-04-30T21:14:36Z

A documentary about food science on television just now revealed two amazing products that could have been released in the 70s but weren't.

First, we saw 'the new egg' being brainstormed by marketing men in a meeting room (all with fags on the go) in a 1971 edition of Horizon: it would have some kind of shell and to cook it you would boil it ('I expect') and it would be egg shaped but inside would be 'compact' sausage and tomato or, slightly confusingly, egg and bacon.

Then the man who invented Cup-a-Soup said he'd once gone into the office with the idea of a sort of Battenburg cake, but instead of yellow cake squares there'd be mashed potato, and instead of pink squares there would be meat. He didn't say what would replace the marzipan sheath (I'm guessing a sort of gravy Ice Magic) but he said it would have been 'technically feasible' but it was never developed.

This is one of those times when I realise I am living in the wrong universe.

Grids or lines?

2009-04-29T20:58:46Z

I have filled up a notebook! Which means that when I next buy a new notebook, for the first time ever I'll be buying a new notebook because I genuinely need a new notebook, not because I'm carrying out a displacement activity to avoid writing in a notebook I already own.

Admittedly, I've only written on one side of each page in the notebook, and one of the pages is basically just this...

...on which the only legible word seems to be 'eyes' but still: the notebook is full.

Not only is this the first time I'll be buying a new notebook because I filled up one I already owned, I'm almost certain it must be the first time that anyone in the world ever has ever bought a new notebook because they filled up one they already owned. I'm definitely going to mention this when I buy my new notebook. I'm pretty sure the stationery salesperson will give me a new notebook for free.