My brief trip to Scotchland™ to see Grandma and my Uncle and Aunt went well. They were having a duty-free-for-all sale at Dixons in Gatwick (or Scotland has now become a seperate country), so I picked up the aforementioned DS (silver version with Mario Kart DS - the other choice was a pink one with Petz DS Nintendogs) there so I'd have something to do during the quiet moments. Grandma is reasonably well given her various illnesses (and what appeared to be a bad attack of something turned out to be indigestion from eating the nuts in the Christmas Pudding).

I think I've persuaded her that neither myself nor Dad have any musical ability and her worry over which instrument she should buy either of us is akin to worrying which sort of bicycle the fish in the pond need. However, her belief that everyone in the family is a polymath just lacking in opportunity persists and at one point she suggested my Mum has, against all evidence, a wonderful singing voice...

There was, sadly, no snow up there, the closest being the mist filling the valley in interesting ways. When I got back to London though, I had to drive through a mild snowstorm on the M25 and the snow was actually settling as I arrived back home. It didn't last, though.

I have however collected evidence the human race is doomed.

Have a good one.

...Bloglines “top links” goes... bad.

...is David Furnish now “Lady David Furnish”?

“British pop star Elton John will tie the knot with long-term partner David Furnish on Wednesday, joining hundreds of gay couples in England taking advantage of a new law to formalize their relationships.”

Elton John to tie knot with long-term lover David - Yahoo! News

Start viewing from the bottom up (literally)...

“Devvo is Darren Devonshire, a "chav" from the Doncaster/Hull area. Devvo lets me follow him around and film his life in exchange for cigarettes, alcohol and small change. I suppose the following films are just documentaries about the "chav" scene/problem in Northern England.

The following videos contain offensive language, drug consumption, violence and generally shocking scenes of chav life...and remember; all I do is film him, I am not responsible for what he does.”

Official Devvo Site :: Chavs On Film

On my route home from work the tailback from the Blackwall Tunnel can sometime back up as far as Bromley-by-Bow. Due to a quirk of the road design there, the three-lane A12 splits into two: the left hand land turns off towards Canning Town and West Ham whilst the two other lanes continue on and split into three again after the junction.

The eagle-eyed passing through there will notice that the “barrier” between the lane turning off and the new third lane is just painted on the road. As a result, when the other two lanes are packed, the more enterprising drivers will take the less busy “local traffic” lane and not turn off, gaining a small advantage over those who loyally remain in the two right-hand lanes.

But wait... there's more. The vulture-eyed will have noticed that if you actually take the turn off here, then Gillender Street runs alongside the A12 for a bit before re-joining. Even less people use this than the “third lane shortcut” so you can get a jump on them by heading down that.

Furthermore, Gillender Lane is in fact a two-lane road - but during busy hours one of these lanes is for buses only. After 7pm though, both lanes are open and you can, if you want, skip to the head of Gillender Street past the smallish queue in the non-bus lane.

And so it was, at 7.07pm tonight that I rolled up to the end of Gillender Street having shaved a few minutes off my journey. At this unfortunate point, all us cheeky low-grade scum who've exploited the road design have to re-join the A12 - after first merging the two lanes of Gillender Street into one. For some reason though, the driver to my right and slightly behind is miffed that, although he or she has also skipped past long queues of vehicles, I have apparently skipped past more, including them, and is trying to avoid leaving any gap between themselves and the car in front so I will be blocked from a minor amount of my ill-gotten advantage.

No honour amongst thieves I guess

Perhaps its just me, but not all of those seven criteria would seem to be available “long before it is even made”...

“A scientist in the United States says he has come up with a computer programme that helps predict whether a film will be a hit or a miss at the box office long before it is even made.

[...]

Sharda applied seven criteria to each movie; its rating by censors, competition from other films at the time of release, star value, genre, special effects, whether it is a sequel and the number of theatres it opens in.”

Computer spots a blockbuster from box office flop - Yahoo! News

Apparently, my Internet provider don't work with third parties either, since forwarding on Cogent's reply resulted in an email telling me the problem was with someone else and I should contact them...

b3ta.com board

Regarding the Laaaaaggggg:

Please direct any correspondence to your internet provider. Even if an issue is traced to the Cogent network, we can only work with directly connected networks to achieve resolution, not with third parties.

Oooh... hark at her...

“Guess who's coming for honey? As part of a barrel-full of Winnie the Pooh anniversary events, Disney is working on a new animated series that will replace Christopher Robin with a 6-year-old girl.

[...]

"We got raised eyebrows even in-house at first, but the feeling was these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide," says Nancy Kanter of the Disney Channel.”

USATODAY.com - Disney lets girl into Winnie's world

(via Neil Gaiman, who has his own comment)

“Manchester United crashed out of the Champions League and had the safety net of the UEFA Cup ripped away as well as they went down 2-1 to Benfica.”

ESPNsoccernet.com - UEFA Champions League - Benfica v Man Utd Report

Don't forget to alter your Xbox 360's privacy settings.

“We here at HEXUS became a little anxious when the boss sent me a voice message over Xbox LIVE asking what I was doing viewing pictures through Media Connect instead of playing games on my Xbox 360. I assumed he'd made a lucky guess as he knew I was still playing around with the Xbox 360's media functions, using Media Connect to view stored family photos from my main PC. What I didn't realise was that he could actually see what I was doing as it was being relayed over Xbox LIVE and showing up in my profile!”

HEXUS.gaming : Feature : Xbox 360 LIVE... Privacy? What privacy? : Page - 1/3

I think I've seen some of these examples before, but I don't think there were as many before.

Glenn Feron - The Art of Retouching

My favourite has to be this one, mainly for it's later use on a magazine cover under the tag “the natural beauty of Erykah Badu”: