Five things I learned at Cocklick's stag do.
1. Paintball is exhausting, and on occasion fairly painful. It would be ludicrous to attempt to compare it to real combat, but it's worth noting that even hiding behind a flimsy wooden pallet whilst hearing the unending thud of incoming fire and wiping the paint of near misses from your visor is discomforting enough for every loud noise you hear for the next two days to set off flashbacks. I have Post Paintball Stress Disorder. My fellows were flinching when I pointed my replica flintlock in their faces, for fear they would end up like Jamie (see below).
2. If you ever find yourself short of bright red paint, bear in mind that you can generate some by combining orange paint with the blood from a gushing head wound, as Jamie has discovered. On the other hand, Jamie also somehow managed to get shot in the testicles without noticing, so all things considered he probably didn't do too badly.
3. I can dress up as a pirate and wave around a plastic sword and pistol and the Durham locals will still take the piss out of how I speak.
4. Pause has now reached such a level of gaming genius that the only way to combat him is to try to help him and allow your own incompetence to drag him down.
5. I can no longer say that for all its flaws, Durham is not a place where you will encounter gun battles between vehicles.
Monday, 31 August 2009
Friday, 28 August 2009
Confectionary Corner: The Story Breaks
Months after this blog's expose of filth-filled sweet wrappers, the Daily Mail finally gets wind of the story.
Note that these hideous PERVERSIONS of God's SWEET CANDY originated in GERMANY, which should suprise NO-ONE because the GERMANS are PERVERTS. The most DESPICABLE wrapper is cleary the cherry flavour, in which not only is a THREESOME displayed involving COJOINED TWINS, but the foremost cherry is getting all the fun whilst the one behind is relegated to TOE-SUCKING duty.
Ooh. Writing like I'm a Daily Mail "journalist" is fun! Though looking back it does look a little like an attempt to literally transcribe Jeremy Paxman's speech patterns...
Note that these hideous PERVERSIONS of God's SWEET CANDY originated in GERMANY, which should suprise NO-ONE because the GERMANS are PERVERTS. The most DESPICABLE wrapper is cleary the cherry flavour, in which not only is a THREESOME displayed involving COJOINED TWINS, but the foremost cherry is getting all the fun whilst the one behind is relegated to TOE-SUCKING duty.
Ooh. Writing like I'm a Daily Mail "journalist" is fun! Though looking back it does look a little like an attempt to literally transcribe Jeremy Paxman's speech patterns...
Maybe They Just Mean Less Viagra
Continuing our irregular look at whether the Republican party can possibly pull itself back from it's current levels of mendacity/evil/insanity (if it should ever decide it wants to try, and if it ever stops actually seeming to work), I offer this question:
This is from the "2009 Future of American Health Survey" from the RNC. Not O'Reilly, or Beck, or talk radio, or one of the deluded fools protesting outside political events with a swastika sign in one hand and an automatic weapon in the other. The RNC itself. Democrats no longer want to kill your baby or your grandmother by denying them medical care, they want to kill you, if they find out you're a Republican.
But then the above is pretty much the least of the symptoms of how crazy the Right has gotten. Angry, armed mobs gathering outside political events and sending people inside to disrupt them. Senator Inhofe claiming the country is "approaching revolution"; other members of Congress listening to those who stand up at their events and label themselves "proud right-wing terrorists" or threaten to "take a gun to Washington" to deal with "little Hitler" Obama (Obama's death threats are already 400% what Bush's were, BTW), statements to which the politicians respond to with mild disagreement at best and outright egging on at worst (apparently "right-wing terrorist"="great American" to Congressman Herger).
In fact, the "Little Hitler" clip is illustrative of the larger problem, what I believe we'll call McCain's Fallacy. Senator Grassley [1] listens to a man telling the audience that the only thing stopping him going to Washington with his gun to sort out Obama is lack of a mob to do it with, and realises things have gone too far. His objection may be to the suggestion Obama is "like Hitler" as oppose to, you know, heading to the capital with an armed mob to sort him out, but he knows a line has been crossed, and he makes a quick effort to walk it back.
Having done so, though, he then goes back into spinning the sort of radioactive BS that got everyone so worked up in the process. Grassley, just like McCain during the campaign, knows you can't let people threaten death on their political opponents, but also thinks that as long as you object to the idea (in however a milquetoast fashion) when directly presented with it, you're OK deliberately fanning the flames of such insanity the other 99.99% of the time. And let's be clear on this point, you can disagree with the specifics of the healthcare plan without it meaning you're just operating out of ignorance and a head full of lies (I mean, from what I can tell it's a far from perfect piece of legislation, and it's only liable to get worse). Hell, you can not want healthcare reform at all and that still be the case [2]. But to be so scared of the very idea of healthcare reform that you form angry, armed mobs and/or threaten to start assasinating people would have to mean that you're either seriously disturbed, or you're view of the current bill is massively, ludicrously skewed, which means you've been lied to.
Knowing all that, Grassley is lying to his constituents, as part of an overarching strategy. They know these lies are going to inflame outrage and threats of violence, and they actively encourage the former and refuse to comment on the latter unless presented with it directly, as though their responsibility for what they know they have created only goes so far as their dealings with it on a one to one basis. This does not absolve them of guilt. This is exactly why I got so wound up by the idiots who claimed McCain was a man of honour because he took time out of calling Obama a secret homosexual Muslim terrorist militant to tell people not to threaten to have Obama killed. Yeah, real classy.
Of course, as ugly as McCain's campaign got (and it got really fucking ugly), things seem to be a good deal worse right now. It's difficult to write about what's going on without resorting to hyperbole, but all of this smells of an unprecedented and incredibly dangerous dynamic.
[1] Who is both a poisonous dissembler and one of the Gang of Six who will determine the fate of healthcare, as they allegedly attempt to hammer out a bipartisan compromise over healthcare. Of course, this will be compromise which Grassley has already stated he won't vote for, or indeed read (Inhofe's said the same thing, apparently the bill is a bit too long to make it worth knowing exactly how Americans might benefit from a "Yay" vote).
[2] Though as always, anyone who does think that needs to start each speech or article with "Despite there being 47 million uninsured people in this country and 18 000 yearly deaths because of that, I think we shouldn't try to change anything because...". Healthcare reform would help a shit load of people, and no-one gets to object to reform without admitting the cost of things remaining as they are. Let us not forget reason 1 on the Why Most Conservatives Are Wretched list: they want to pursue paths that will make life difficult for an awful lot of people, and rather than justify why that sacrifice is necessary, they pretend it doesn't exist.
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Evaluations
I'd manage to totally forget the abolition of maths coursework, but I feel no remorse whatsoever at its passing; it was a monumentally hideous and stressful task to corral children into getting it done in even the most cack-handed fashion, and the possibility of plagiarism made the whole thing pretty pointless (this is accentuated by how much I hated maths coursework as a child, though since I most definitely fall into the "cram at last minute" crowd, I guess that just makes me a stereotypical male). If you're going to make teachers (and those pupils who actually do give a damn about their progress) go blind with stress for a couple of fortnights a year, you should at least be sure you're getting something out of it.
The most interesting thing here (for me at least) is the suggestion that boys and girls should be assessed differently (for the sake of argument, we'll have to ignore the plagiarism aspect for now, since "should girls be examined in a way that makes it easier to cheat?" might throw off the debate otherwise). Off the top of my head, it would take some time to adjust to the new system, causing a dip in marks for a while, and I don't think it would do much for relieving teacher stress. There may be some philosophical/ethical issue to this as well, though I haven't yet come up with anything specific. I think the biggest problem, though, would be entirely practical. Coursework can only cover so many topics (one fortnight of geometry and another on data analysis, in the case of my teaching experience), so absent far more tasks, girls would still be required to sit a final test, simply with a lower weighting attached to it. The immediate question then becomes: what are all the lads doing during those four weeks? Are they doing the same task but for no credit? Are we doubling the number of maths teachers (or, more sneakily, swapping kids around to double the ability range of each class, which would bring its own problems)?
Or is the plan to modularise this stuff? Can a pupil choose the weight of their own exams, given the results of the coursework (again, assuming we could eliminate the cheating issue)? Since we already have modular courses in place, in which one can resit indefinitely until you run out of money or will (or have to get a job), I'm not sure it would be too much of a stretch. This would help avoid having to run parallel classes (though the temptation for students to blow off coursework because "they'll do it on the night" could well be pretty strong), and allow children to choose an assessment method that suited them personally, rather than attempting to make gender-specific changes across the board.
It's an interesting idea, at least.
While we're on the subject of interesting, I note that English results have had a wobble. I await the upcoming flood of people confidently stating that this is obvious proof that English exams are getting harder. I mean, that's the only possible conclusion, right?
The most interesting thing here (for me at least) is the suggestion that boys and girls should be assessed differently (for the sake of argument, we'll have to ignore the plagiarism aspect for now, since "should girls be examined in a way that makes it easier to cheat?" might throw off the debate otherwise). Off the top of my head, it would take some time to adjust to the new system, causing a dip in marks for a while, and I don't think it would do much for relieving teacher stress. There may be some philosophical/ethical issue to this as well, though I haven't yet come up with anything specific. I think the biggest problem, though, would be entirely practical. Coursework can only cover so many topics (one fortnight of geometry and another on data analysis, in the case of my teaching experience), so absent far more tasks, girls would still be required to sit a final test, simply with a lower weighting attached to it. The immediate question then becomes: what are all the lads doing during those four weeks? Are they doing the same task but for no credit? Are we doubling the number of maths teachers (or, more sneakily, swapping kids around to double the ability range of each class, which would bring its own problems)?
Or is the plan to modularise this stuff? Can a pupil choose the weight of their own exams, given the results of the coursework (again, assuming we could eliminate the cheating issue)? Since we already have modular courses in place, in which one can resit indefinitely until you run out of money or will (or have to get a job), I'm not sure it would be too much of a stretch. This would help avoid having to run parallel classes (though the temptation for students to blow off coursework because "they'll do it on the night" could well be pretty strong), and allow children to choose an assessment method that suited them personally, rather than attempting to make gender-specific changes across the board.
It's an interesting idea, at least.
While we're on the subject of interesting, I note that English results have had a wobble. I await the upcoming flood of people confidently stating that this is obvious proof that English exams are getting harder. I mean, that's the only possible conclusion, right?
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Lifetime Piling Up (Again)
Apologies for the slow-down around here, this can be attributed to being three days into a three week period in which I must perform best man duties both at the stag do and the wedding itself, travel to Munich (a process made harder by the refusal of the airline to get their act together to the point I can buy tickets), and write and give a presentation for the Big Bosses down in London, despite the computer program essential for said presentation still not doing what it's supposed to.
Normal service will be resumed after the 14th at the latest, and hopefully much sooner.
Normal service will be resumed after the 14th at the latest, and hopefully much sooner.
Tuesday, 25 August 2009
Shake #18
Today's shake: Mint Viscount
Taste: 7
Texture: 5
Synergy: 8
Scorn: 2
Total Score: 7
General Comments: Much like the After Eight shake before it, the Mint Viscount shake is essentially just mint chocolate chip ice-cream. The Viscount shake is a fair bit mintier and less chocolaty, and also lacks the little parcels of mint cream that made the After Eight shake so interesting, but aside from that, the two are very similar.
Taste: 7
Texture: 5
Synergy: 8
Scorn: 2
Total Score: 7
General Comments: Much like the After Eight shake before it, the Mint Viscount shake is essentially just mint chocolate chip ice-cream. The Viscount shake is a fair bit mintier and less chocolaty, and also lacks the little parcels of mint cream that made the After Eight shake so interesting, but aside from that, the two are very similar.
Monday, 24 August 2009
I Sort Of Stole This From MGK
Late evening in ITV headquarters. The meeting room is awash with cans of Red Bull and cold cartons of Chinese food.
Big Boss: Gentlemen, this is infuriating. How difficult can it possibly be to develop a new zeitgeist-capturing water-cooler game show?
Minion #1: Don’t blame us, boss.
Minion #2: Yeah. We’re up against Anne Robinson, and she burned her soul to get her show.
Minion #3: Plus, that third cocaine break was probably a mistake.
Big Boss: NO EXCUSES! The last bunch of minions whined and moaned just like you little bitches, but damn it if they didn’t eventually come up with What Katie Did Next.
Minion #1: If they were so awesome, how come they’re not around here anymore?
Big Boss: They asked too many questions about the minions that came before them.
Minion #2: Gulp.
Minion #3: Recursive threats are the scariest threats.
Big Boss: Focus, minions! What do people want in a game show?
Minion #1: Awesome prizes?
Minion #2: Sexy hosts?
Minion #3: Absurdly easy tasks made to look difficult?
Big Boss: Yes, and?
Minion #1: Um… an absurd gimmick?
Big Boss: Excellent, Minion #1! You shall be eaten last!
Minion #1: What?
Big Boss: Nothing. Continue the brainstorming, my minions. Think outside the box.
Minion #2: What if we think inside the box?
Big Boss: Don’t make me order new minions.
Minion #2: No! Wait! Let’s bring back The Crystal Maze! Put a bunch of presumably partially lobotomised people inside boxes disguised as historical locations, and force them to perform obscenely simple tasks in order to humiliate them on national television.
Big Boss: I do like humiliation.
Minion #3: We’ll never get Richard O’Brien back, though.
Big Boss: Fuck else is he doing?
Minion #3: It’s like a pride thing, or something.
Minion #1: What about Ed Tudor Pole?
Big Boss: Your status as “last to be eaten” is hereby rescinded.
Minion #1: What?
Big Boss: Nothing. Can’t we just find some other freak?
Minion #2: Philip Schofield?
Big Boss: Is he bald?
Minion #2: He’s grey-haired.
Big Boss: Is that freaky enough, though?
Minion #3: We could put it about that he was sleeping with Gordon the Gopher.
Big Boss: I like it, Minion #3!
Minion #3: But, we wanted a sexy host, didn't we?
Big Boss: Let's have a sexy lady demonstrate how the games work.
Minion #1: As well as allowing practice goes?
Big Boss: Gotta get the sexay in there somehow.
Minion #2: Isn't that pretty gratuitous, even for us?
Big Boss: We'll stick her in a mask.
Minion #2: ...Yeah, that's a lot better.
Minion #1: What if we can’t get the rights?
Big Boss: We plagiarise! We are thinking outside the box!
Minion #1: The box represents copyright law, now, does it?
Big Boss: It does for those who wish to remain uneaten.
Minion #1: What?
Minion #2: Let’s just throw out all the dead wood. Like the different zones. Don’t need them. Or all the running between rooms. Bollocks to that. All you need are the pathetically retarded tasks that idiots will somehow make a hash of.
Big Boss: Get rid of the links, you say?
Minion #3: Like The Krypton Factor?
Minion #2: Fuck off! The Krypton Factor actually was hard. No-one wants to watch that in the 21st Century! It’s got to be childish party games that the dregs of society find impossible to grasp. Counting squares, maybe, or successfully dropping a ball inside a bin! Plus, we don’t need less links, we need *more* links! Only let’s include a bare minimum of choice-making in there as well, so we can pass that shit off as tension. If we’re going to rip off the Crystal Maze, we may as well do a number on …Millionaire as well.
Big Boss: You’re talking lifelines?
Minion #2: Yes! You could have a lifeline that gives you a free go at a game that looks to hard. Or a lifeline that makes a task even more grotesquely simplistic, to the point where monkeys could complete it with two minutes of trial and error!
Minion #1: And if they somehow still fail to walk in a straight line with their eyes closed, they get kicked off the show.
Minion #2: I dunno. Best give them a couple of extra chances, so they don’t. Say, nine?
Minion #3: Nine? We’re going to have to *really* search out some idiots for this one.
Minion #2: I doubt it’s going to be much of a problem.
Big Boss: So, let’s review. A grey-haired freak in a studio taking far too long to offer basic choices to contestants in-between wretchedly simple games, demonstrated by a woman in a mask, that are played again and again until the hapless fools beg for them to be made easier still. Have I missed anything?
Minion #1: Er… bullet time?
Big Boss: Bullet time? The Matrix was ten fucking years ago.
Minion #1: The Matrix didn’t use it to humiliate people in slow-motion.
Big Boss: ...Fine. Right, I think we’re done.
Minion #3: Wait! We still don’t have an actual set for all the games to take place in!
Pause
Big Boss: Eh, fuck it. Let’s just stick ‘em in a big transparent box. Done.
Big Boss: Gentlemen, this is infuriating. How difficult can it possibly be to develop a new zeitgeist-capturing water-cooler game show?
Minion #1: Don’t blame us, boss.
Minion #2: Yeah. We’re up against Anne Robinson, and she burned her soul to get her show.
Minion #3: Plus, that third cocaine break was probably a mistake.
Big Boss: NO EXCUSES! The last bunch of minions whined and moaned just like you little bitches, but damn it if they didn’t eventually come up with What Katie Did Next.
Minion #1: If they were so awesome, how come they’re not around here anymore?
Big Boss: They asked too many questions about the minions that came before them.
Minion #2: Gulp.
Minion #3: Recursive threats are the scariest threats.
Big Boss: Focus, minions! What do people want in a game show?
Minion #1: Awesome prizes?
Minion #2: Sexy hosts?
Minion #3: Absurdly easy tasks made to look difficult?
Big Boss: Yes, and?
Minion #1: Um… an absurd gimmick?
Big Boss: Excellent, Minion #1! You shall be eaten last!
Minion #1: What?
Big Boss: Nothing. Continue the brainstorming, my minions. Think outside the box.
Minion #2: What if we think inside the box?
Big Boss: Don’t make me order new minions.
Minion #2: No! Wait! Let’s bring back The Crystal Maze! Put a bunch of presumably partially lobotomised people inside boxes disguised as historical locations, and force them to perform obscenely simple tasks in order to humiliate them on national television.
Big Boss: I do like humiliation.
Minion #3: We’ll never get Richard O’Brien back, though.
Big Boss: Fuck else is he doing?
Minion #3: It’s like a pride thing, or something.
Minion #1: What about Ed Tudor Pole?
Big Boss: Your status as “last to be eaten” is hereby rescinded.
Minion #1: What?
Big Boss: Nothing. Can’t we just find some other freak?
Minion #2: Philip Schofield?
Big Boss: Is he bald?
Minion #2: He’s grey-haired.
Big Boss: Is that freaky enough, though?
Minion #3: We could put it about that he was sleeping with Gordon the Gopher.
Big Boss: I like it, Minion #3!
Minion #3: But, we wanted a sexy host, didn't we?
Big Boss: Let's have a sexy lady demonstrate how the games work.
Minion #1: As well as allowing practice goes?
Big Boss: Gotta get the sexay in there somehow.
Minion #2: Isn't that pretty gratuitous, even for us?
Big Boss: We'll stick her in a mask.
Minion #2: ...Yeah, that's a lot better.
Minion #1: What if we can’t get the rights?
Big Boss: We plagiarise! We are thinking outside the box!
Minion #1: The box represents copyright law, now, does it?
Big Boss: It does for those who wish to remain uneaten.
Minion #1: What?
Minion #2: Let’s just throw out all the dead wood. Like the different zones. Don’t need them. Or all the running between rooms. Bollocks to that. All you need are the pathetically retarded tasks that idiots will somehow make a hash of.
Big Boss: Get rid of the links, you say?
Minion #3: Like The Krypton Factor?
Minion #2: Fuck off! The Krypton Factor actually was hard. No-one wants to watch that in the 21st Century! It’s got to be childish party games that the dregs of society find impossible to grasp. Counting squares, maybe, or successfully dropping a ball inside a bin! Plus, we don’t need less links, we need *more* links! Only let’s include a bare minimum of choice-making in there as well, so we can pass that shit off as tension. If we’re going to rip off the Crystal Maze, we may as well do a number on …Millionaire as well.
Big Boss: You’re talking lifelines?
Minion #2: Yes! You could have a lifeline that gives you a free go at a game that looks to hard. Or a lifeline that makes a task even more grotesquely simplistic, to the point where monkeys could complete it with two minutes of trial and error!
Minion #1: And if they somehow still fail to walk in a straight line with their eyes closed, they get kicked off the show.
Minion #2: I dunno. Best give them a couple of extra chances, so they don’t. Say, nine?
Minion #3: Nine? We’re going to have to *really* search out some idiots for this one.
Minion #2: I doubt it’s going to be much of a problem.
Big Boss: So, let’s review. A grey-haired freak in a studio taking far too long to offer basic choices to contestants in-between wretchedly simple games, demonstrated by a woman in a mask, that are played again and again until the hapless fools beg for them to be made easier still. Have I missed anything?
Minion #1: Er… bullet time?
Big Boss: Bullet time? The Matrix was ten fucking years ago.
Minion #1: The Matrix didn’t use it to humiliate people in slow-motion.
Big Boss: ...Fine. Right, I think we’re done.
Minion #3: Wait! We still don’t have an actual set for all the games to take place in!
Pause
Big Boss: Eh, fuck it. Let’s just stick ‘em in a big transparent box. Done.
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