Well… while waiting for Miami Vice to start, I saw the first trailer for Snakes On A Plane.
I’ve found it’s never a good sign if you can spot a plothole from the trailer. Snakes are cold blooded, and you’re sitting in an airplane, a tube of aluminium with a great deal of control over it’s internal enviroment.
Lower the temperature. De-pressurise the plane and let the cold outside air in. The snakes will all die or become lethargic.
D’uh?
Oh, how could I have been so blind! Of course, it’s so obvious.
I’ve lost you, haven’t I?
Quick intro: Tiggs was the community liason developer for Star Wars Galaxies, an online (MMORPG) that I used to play. She was the person who kept us up to date with the latest changes to the game.
When the hellstorm that was the NGE (New Game Experience) landed, and annoyed all the players, Tiggs had up to that point been saying there were no big changes ahead; a stance that her paymasters at SOE made her stick to, despite her knowledge of the upcoming game revamp.
Tiggs lost the community’s trust because of that.
Afterwards, SOE effectively fired her (transfered to a lower position supporting a different game) – in effect for doing what they told her to do.
It’s EXACTLY what happened to Hal 9000! In 2001, he killed the crew of the USSS Discovery because he was told about the true reason for the Jupiter mission, to examine the Monolith, and instructed not to reveal anything to Dave Bowman or Frank Poole. Since this contradicts with Hal’s basic function; the accurate processing and interpretation of data without distortion or concealment, he became trapped. He became paranoid.
It’s only after seeing 2010 where Hal’s actions are explained that I really understand how hard it must have been for Tiggs not to tell us, the players, what was going on.
Sorry Tiggs.
‘Daisy…daisy…..give me…you…answer..do…….’
You can read Tiggs’ live journal here: http://ladytiggs.livejournal.com/
Oh how I laughed.
My friend from university, Alasdair, has got himself engaged to the lovely Rachel, and to celebrate he had a ceilidh party at the Couting House, above the famous Peartree public house in Edinburgh.
As usual, I turned up horrendously early, before anyone else, in fact. But soon the place was brimming and I’d met up with all my old friends and we were having a great time.
Then the dancing began…
So Alasdair and Rachel got up on the dancefloor, and the band started. And…then they looked a bit lost.
As it turned out, they didn’t know the dances. Nor did anyone else. In actuality, it seems that only about five of us had been schooled in Scotland (where learning Scottish dancing is mandatory and part of gym classes).
Soon the air was punctuated with instructions from the band leader
‘Now take her by the left hand. No, the left hand…. your other left hand…..’
What adds the icing to the irony cake is not that Alasdair was wearing the full kilt and regalia, nor that he hadn’t thought about looking up the dances on the internet. It’s that Alasdair is probably one of the smartest people I know. He’s done three degrees and a PhD and currently works for Cern in Switzerland. The man technically qualifies as a rocket scientist.
Still, a great time was had by all and I know they’ll be very happy together.
I was passing one of the may local shops that pepper the streets near my home when I spotted the open sign in the door. It was one of those ones that suckers onto the glass and rotates round to display the “Open” and “Closed” signs, but it said “We’re Open”
What caught my eye was that it was a Mars World Cup promotional one, when Mars replaced their own logo with “Believe” for support of the England team (a tactic that went down like a lead balloon in Scotland), so reading top to bottom, it read:
We’re open
I chose to believe, because I needed some milk. And hey: it worked!
As I was coming into work today, I nearly got swiped by a police van that went screaming by with it’s sirens blazing. At first, I thought it was a police dog van, it was about the right size, but as it pulled away round the corner I saw on the side of it
Youth
Action
Team
I’ve discovered the definition of life. It’s the time in between dealing with idiots.
One of my friends is considering having a sign along the lines of “# days without having to talk to an idiot.”, similar to # days accident free. Every time someone comes up to ask him a question, he’ll sigh, reach up and roll the counter back to zero.
Personally, I’m considering getting a counter. “Now serving idiot number #” and make people take a ticket and get in line.I cuaght myself hanging art in the bathroom at the weekend. Some nice black and white prints of Sean Connery, Clint Eastwood and Michael Caine.
Isn’t that the fourth sign of getting old? Right after finding hair in your ears…
