The long, cold nuclear winter

Well, it's that time of year again. Carollers carolling, stockings laid out in anticipation of a good filling, and good will to all men. Pah! None of that for me, thank you very much! In fact, I won't be wishing a single person a merry Christmas this year, for one very good reason: I'll be far too busy staring at my phone. I've got one of these fancy iPhones, you see, and one of the things I can do with it (besides writing blogs) is play Pokemon.

For anyone unaware... actually there's no need here, it's bloody Pokemon. It makes Christianity look like Arab Strap. And it's... actually still really good. Not just for its age. Not even because of the nostalgia attached to that series, it's just a good game. I'm enjoying it, anyway, although maybe it's just the disgustingly cheerful 8-bit soundtrack coupled with the fact that playing a game from the mid-90s is so dull, man, so uncool, get with the times... oh it's on your phone?! Then suddenly is the coolest thing since whatever the last coolest thing was. I dunno, probably those wheel-shoes for me... still bitter they didn't do those in my size. Bastards.

I think the reason that this idea is so popular is actually really simple: you can be an indie twat, without being an indie twat. It's beautiful, so hip, yet so uncool. So mainstream, yet still quite counter-culture. Fuck you society, I'm gonna play games you haven't even thought about for years... on my new Apple phone. Yeah, that's right! That'll show 'em, those City tossers...

The truth is, everyone wants to be a little bit quirky, everyone wants people to pay attention to them, but they also want acceptance. When shit hits the fan, they want to be able to fall in line with the git next to them, and cry in fear.

I have a friend who goes out of her way to wear odd clothes and do odd things. Revels in it, she does. The second anything's 'popular', she despises it. Case in point, she hates Skyrim (having not played it), yet adores the less well-known Fallout: New Vegas (which, by the way, she also hasn't played). Despite me pointing out to her that it's basically the same game, she'll cover her ears and scream until I shut up regardless. Because Skyrim is popular.

Well I have this to say to anyone who thinks the same.

1) You're an idiot. Fallout: NW and Skyrim are both amazing.

2) Fall back in line. It's where you belong.

Because it's scary out there on your own, isn't it? With no-one to back you up, shivering in the cold? Well get used to it. In about 30 years time, after the bombs have fallen, it's just going to be you, a board with a nail in, and your anti-radiation tablets. Maybe what you learnt playing Fallout will help you. I doubt it.

Business as usual - HMV

Call it a sabbatical.

So these HMV ads. The ones advertising the DVDs, the Alan Carr one first, then the Lee Evans one, then, oh haha, wasn't Peter Kay funny 4 years ago I remember him? Have we all seen them? Good.
Then you'll probably agree that, given the choice between being given those DVDs for Christmas, and having them slowly shoved inside your aperture, you, like any sane and rational person, would probably choose the anal torture. Right? Good. Anyone who buys one of those DVDs for me from now on forfeits the right to be called a loved one. I'd probably, upon unwrapping it, punch them square in the mouth. Maybe that's just me... oh it's not? Brilliant! I can rest easy.

Anyway, this advert came on, and I was foaming at the mouth and breathing fire, as per, when my friend pointing something out to me.

Shit needs selling.

And it's obvious when you think about it, isn't it? The reason you never see anything you want on an advert, is because if you wanted it they wouldn't need to advertise it. They don't advertise things that sell, 'cos guess what? They're already selling! Instead, they advertise all the unpopular shit. Maybe that's why adverts are so distasteful to me: staring for 5 minutes at a load of stuff that I don't want to buy isn't exactly my idea of a good time. And, it might just be me, but these adverts seem to be breeding. More and more of them, filling my valuable viewing space with "content".

An example: I was watching Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror yesterday (excellent, watch it), and, it could just have been the pace of the show, I wasn't sure, but it felt like there was an advert break every 5 minutes. Barely anything had happened before a man popped up to tell me how buying Nintendo games saved his family from a love-free Christmas. When did this happen? Was there a memo?

Maybe I've just been watching stuff online for too long, but I can't help feeling like TV has changed recently, and not at all for the better. More adverts means less time in which to put beautiful shows like Black Mirror, which, if anything, say exactly what I want to about adverts, but far more eloquently and succinctly. Still, at least someone is getting the point out there,
'cos god knows I won't advertise this shit...

Noetic Silence

So, thanks to this girl I know bugging me about it all week, I finally got round to reading my copy of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, something that you'll either never do, or did about a year ago. Because I'm useless at doing anything to a deadline, even something that's meant to be relaxing. And, having read in the front of this book that a field mentioned in it, noetic sciences, was real, I thought I'd write about that today. What I didn't realise was this: it's impossible to find any information on this field. I wonder why that could be...
Right, let's start at the beginning. In the book, this field is a kind of blend of science and mysticism, combining the focus and observation of physics with the cool effects of magic. The character who's involved in it mentions that, following the events of 9/11, researchers found that all these random number generators where no longer generating truly randomly. Or something. To be honest I skim-read that bit... anyway, it's about how the mind can change the world around us.
So, when I got home I Googled it. There's no Wikipedia page on "noetic sciences", just a few on associations of noetic theorists, and one on noetic theory. According to that page, the theorists hold that "there exists an additional purposefulness... found in cosmological principles of consciousness." So far, so illegible. Wikipedia, what was I thinking. Here we go, a group called NASI, that looks important... so I go to their Wiki page, to try to find a domain address and, just whilst scrolling, notice that it's in the Religion portal.
Now I'm worried.
And I find their domain (www.noeticadvancedstudies.us, if you're interested). And I see their logo. It's a blend of superimposed octograms above what looks like a wormhole. It looks a bit culty, but hey, I've not read anything yet, who am I to judge?
Oh, yeah. Before I forget, the Director of Noetic Sciences at this Institute is currently writing a book called, "Orbiting the Moons of Pluto: Complex Solutions to the Maxwell, Einstein, Schrodinger and Dirac Equations." (yeah, he misspelt Schroedinger in his book title...)
Anyway, this page is basically empty... it's upsettingly empty. Maybe I missed something.
Also, one of the fellows is publishing everything under a pseudonym. It's odd...
And none of these results are anything like Dan Brown's book, or even like actual results. There are some failed "remote viewing" experiments, and some complex-looking maths (although I'm not gonna spend £80 to check their figures... if you want, send me the money), but nothing actually advancing physics or the sciences in a significant way. Maybe I'm being dismissive. Obviously this is just my opinion.
But maybe Wikipedia had a point, about the Religion thing?

A musical joke

An A, a C, and an E walk into a bar.

The barman says, "Sorry, I'd lose my license if I served A Minor."

[Citation needed] of the day

From the Wikipedia page on "Shaggy dog story":

The calculations usually become more difficult as the journey progresses, for example, "At its eighth stop, 25 people get off and 37 get on". At the end of the bus journey the other person is finally asked something unrelated to the calculations, such as "Now, what is the color of the bus driver's socks?", making the entire puzzle meaningless and a humorous[citation needed] waste of the other person's time.

Cloth-eating terrorists

So you regular readers/anyone who's spoken to me around Autumn/anyone who'll listen, will know about me and moths. I don't like moths. I hate them, in fact. I mean, look at them: obviously evil. Doesn't even need saying, agreed? Good.
And usually around this time of the year, I start closing my windows at 6, keep lights off in my bedroom, and check the bathroom before I go to bed, and that keeps all but the little ones out of my hair. Means I don't need to worry about the big buggers, at least, as long as some idiot doesn't open a window or something, and ruin all my hard work. The only rational response in that situation is to punch them, right in the mouth.
But. But but but. Thanks to the recent hot weather, something has happened. Thousands, nay millions (maybe), of moths from the Mediterranean and Spain have upped and left their lovely warm homes that are far away from me, and moved. To Dorset. Easily within flying reach for a tenacious moth. And I know what you're thinking, "Oh it's just a little moth, who's worried about that?"
Time for some stats, idiot:

Death's Head Hawkmoths, one of the species that are now in the UK, can have a wingspan of 13 cm.
And it has a skull on it's back. Seriously, a skull. You seen Silence of the Lambs? It's that one. Anything a serial killer loves, I hate. Just the way it works.

So now I'm double-checking my windows every night. Although I'm not too upset; I've been getting complacent. The fact is, my neuroses give me something to do. They stop me being bored. Like writing this blog: keeps me busy, and both would interest a psychiatrist.

So those moths are another thing to be scared of. Like terrorists to me, they are. Flappy, cloth-eating terrorists.

On Facebook

So, about 2 weeks ago (but not exactly, or I wouldn't be writing this), I took it upon myself to do something about how much stress, anxiety, and general apathy Facebook was causing me with it's damn buzzy little messages and it's bloody cluttered... anyway, I deleted it. And since I did that, people have been bugging and bugging me to set up a new one. So I decided tonight, since I cracked this cipher for the Southampton Uni CC 2011, to set my Facebook back up and post the solution. Except. Except.

It's worse! How is it worse? The reactivation process took about 5 minutes, or, 5 minutes longer than necessary, and the second I got on it started popping up little messages and opening sidebars and... how can anyone enjoy that? It's so stressful. Pop-ups flying at you like bullets, it's ridiculous. And cluttered. And no longer cool. So I'm staying away, and you can bug me all you want. That experience was traumatic, and I'm not coming back.

For those who read this (a suspicious number of Russians and no-one else) who still want to contact me, I have an email address which I check, I have a phone, and some of you see me on a day-to-day basis. I don't need Facebook. I don't do anything that's that important that I need to know before tomorrow, do I?

I knew you'd agree.