Pictogram of the Year

I declare the winner of the Pictogram of the Year award to be Dell, for these morbid creations that came on the plastic bag accompanying a new computer keyboard. Here they are in all their baby-suffocating glory:

You just know that the person who drew these actually garnered some enjoyment from it, particularly the top one. I mean the pictogram guy almost looks like he's asphyxiating himself for pleasure. Normally I'd feign disgust at this kind of thing but I'm in too good of a mood for that. 'Well done' to whoever created these evil things.

Some videos...

Well it seems my lack of inspiration in writing post titles has extended to the actual posts themselves. I've been thinking of something to write about for several days and haven't come up with anything yet. In the meantime, if you're into videogames you might enjoy these videos by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw:

LINK!

And if you can't even be arsed to navigate a few weblinks here's an example:



Enjoy. Hopefully I'll have some material of my own to stick up in a couple of days.

[Insert another bakery-related title here]

It turns out that Mr. Kipling, popular fictional cake-making man, doesn't just make exceedingly good cakes but also tells exceedingly good lies as well. Look at this blurb for his Mini Battenburgs:

'It was while playing chequers that the idea came to me to create a Battenberg. “A square sponge will never work”, my opponent said to me. Undeterred, I added some apricot jam and wrapped in an almond flavoured paste and sugar dusted coating to finish. The rest, as they say, is history.'

Basically Mr. Kipling attempts to gain credit for the creation of the Battenburg, conveniently switching a 'the' for an 'a' in the first sentence to avoid a lawsuit, hoping that the idiot masses, desperately in need a cakey fix, with overlook this minor point. The deceitful swine.

If Mr. Kipling is willing to stoop to this level, what next? Will we be seeing this on the back of a box of these in the future?:

'One day I baked a batch of my delicious iced fancies but suddenly realised that I didn't have a name for them. I asked one of my many friends for advice. "Why don't you name them after a country?" he said. This seemed like a good idea, but none of the names seemed to fit. 'German Fancies' or 'Russian Fancies' didn't seem to fit the bill. Then I was stuck by a sudden inspiration. If I were to found a country called 'France' I would be able to call them 'French Fancies'. So I did. The rest, as they say, is history.'

The guy has no morality whatsoever, although that isn't surprising, what with him not existing and all.

One last thing. Trawling the Mr. Kipling website, I found this comment about his Choc Chip Cake Bars: "I always find that with 5 in a pack there's never quite enough to last the week". I've found that out as well. Seeing as we're all apparently aware of this shortcoming, Mr. Kipling, why not put more in the fucking pack! You fictional bastard.

Mars, lights, blah blah blah...

I honestly can't think of titles for these posts anymore. It's destroying me (though not literally - that would just be bizarre).

Anyway, that's besides the point. The point resides within this link here: click and watch.

I'd almost forgotten about this advert and suddenly it was on TV and I remembered it. I'm sorry that's not exactly the best story of all time, but if you're looking for that sort of thing you'd probably be better off with a copy of War and Peace rather than some random blog post (so actually I'm not sorry at all - it's your own fault). Anyway, I'm rambling.

I honestly don't understand what the point of this advert is. Does it make you want to buy a Mars bar? All it does to me is vaguely suggest that eating a Mars bar will cause you to activate light sources and small electrical appliances everywhere you go. And that's hardly going to get you a place in the cast of Heroes is it? In fact it'd be fucking annoying. You'd never be able to sleep at night because all your bedroom lights would turn on, and during the day people would start having a go at you in the street for turning on all the streetlights in the middle of the day, thus wasting valuable resources. Probably the only way you'd be able to manage your carbon footprint would be to spontaneously metamorphosise into a tree.

All that for the sake of one bloody Mars bar? It's just not worth it.

Evil Jonathan

If you cast your minds back to this post, you'll remember that I suspect astrologer Jonathan Cainer of having an evil plan to take over the Earth. Well apparently Cainer is taking his plan to the next level.

A week ago Jonathan stated in his 'Thought for the Day' that "next week, I will have a special announcement to make about a momentous change in the celestial situation". Apparently it was the calm before the storm and "we might consider it the grand finale before the new and gentle dawning of a different era". An era where you reign supreme over the entire world Cainer, you evil star-gazing freak? He continues: "Soon, whether we choose it or not, we will find that change comes into all our lives. That’s something to embrace, not fear". Speak for yourself Jonathan, I'm terrified - because you're going to enslave me!

A few days later I came across this disturbing letter:

Hi Jonathan,
My friend, who is very spiritual, constantly refers to the great change which is going to happen later this month when the Earth moves into the fourth dimension. I have not had a coherent explanation of what that really means. Do you have any insights you can share?
Freddie

They say we will enter the fifth dimension in 2012. I suppose it makes sense to visit the fourth first. At that rate, we'll be ready for the sixth in about 2017. Whether any of us will notice that these vital changes have occurred, though... is a moot point.

You'll have realised by now that, of course, these 'vital changes' post-2012 are moot points because by this time Cainer will have us all under his evil thrall and we'll be too docile to care. Perhaps the vital changes in 2012 and 2017 will involve some sort of ethnic cleansing - it takes time to build death-camps after all.

At the moment Cainer is in the Middle East, visiting historic sites whilst researching his book on "a powerful ancient prophecy". Does this ancient prophecy mention anything about a well-known astrologer gaining dominion o'er the Earth, perhaps?

I'm worried. I don't know exactly how Jonathan intends to take over our minds. But he's going to do it, and he's going to do it soon. Lock your doors - otherwise... um... he might come into your house at night and rummage around your cutlery draws... perhaps.

[Insert bakery-related title here]

In a fit of absent-mindedness I managed to miss a connecting train yesterday, leaving myself stranded in Worksop for an hour. I ending up walking into the town to get some food. Two things occurred:
1) I realised what a horrible place Worksop was and resolved never to go there again.
2) I took my custom to a Greggs bakery.

Now you wouldn't imagine everyday bakery to be the most exciting of professions. The bakery people put together some stuff, put said stuff in an oven, take said stuff out of oven and then hand it over to people in exchange for money. There might be some occasional excitement, a broken oven perhaps, or a mild burn to the hand, but otherwise you'd imagine the whole process to be a bit boring. Well you'd be wrong.

Apparently Greggs have tried to sex up the traditional bakery. The bakers dash to and fro behind the counter, barking orders at each other. The people at the counter scream at the customers, perhaps trying to raise their voices above the noise of imaginary gunfire and explosions. A women desperately shrieks "two minutes to cornish pasty!" as if this were some kind of absurd bakery-based version of 24, and said cornish pasty were about to appear in the sky above the town and raze it to the ground. It's quite stressful if all you want is a sandwich.

Oh, I almost forgot, something else happened yesterday: I was on the train, reading a magazine, when a guy on the other side of the carriage answered his phone. "Oh, I'm having such a shit day," he said to the other person, "the dog literally ate all my money." I wanted to hear more but unfortunately we'd reached a station and he got off.

Additionally I came upon this video the other day:
YouTube link

At the time it was the most incredible thing I'd seen all day, although I should point out that on this particular day I never left the house, and thus my opportunity for sighting incredible things was somewhat reduced.

Everyone Knows A Twat Like Mickey

As you might have guessed, there's quite a lot of TV adverts I don't like. Here's another one. It's for Head and Shoulders. This is why I don't like it:

1) I don't know a bloke like Mickey. You just lied to me Mr. Advert-man.
2) All of Mickey's 'looks' look the same.
3) All of Mickey's 'looks' look a bit shit.
4) Mickey generally strikes me as being a bit of a cunt, quite an achievement since I only know him through a 30-second TV advert.

Try harder H&S, you bastards.