This afternoon, I passed my driving test. This was my second attempt, and I pretty much kicked arse, scoring 2 minor faults (one for undue hesitiation as I pulled out from a roadworks
stop on the way up Penglais Hill, and the second for insufficient use of mirrors at some point while moving out of the roundabout near Morrisons). So there we have it: I’m legally
allowed on the roads.
All of the best drivers pass on their second attempts. Or so my dad tells me. Why yes, he did pass on his second attempt: why do you ask?
I have so many other things I’m overdue to blog about, but that’ll do, for now. Time for a beer.
Lloyd Kaufman’s video introduction for the first film at Troma Night 300 (Friday 16th April 2010), Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV. With thanks to “Travis” at Troma Studios and Matt in the Hat for making this possible.
For those who couldn’t make it to Troma Night 300 on Friday, but don’t want to miss out on the
experience: here’s what you missed (along with lots of links to some videos for you to watch – note that some videos might be considered NSFW):
7:30pm – we had planned to kick off with some Flash Gordon: Space
Soldiers, in the traditional fashion, but we discovered that I’d misplaced my copy and so we instead had a few shorts from around the Internet, including:
8:00pm – in exaggeration of the tradition, everybody present threw a sponge across the room; meanwhile, simultaneously, Paul threw a sponge out of the window of the Commodore Cinema and clear onto
the roof of the nearby shopmobility scheme portacabin.
8:05pm – “Kit, order the pizza!” As was the case in years gone by, Kit – in
attendance by speakerphone – asked “What does everybody want?” and, via Scotland, relayed our order to Hollywood Pizza. Meanwhile, trololololololololololo man sang in the background (a comparatively recent tradition).
8:10pm – Matt in the Hat provided a video, “live by satellite feed”, that he’d
acquired with the help of “Travis” at Troma Studios, to introduce our first film:
We watched The Toxic Avenger IV: Citizen Toxie – one of my personal favourite Troma films
(hell, one of my personal favourite films in general)
9:00pm – The pizza arrives, and as a few of the more-squeamish attendees didn’t want to have to eat their pizza while watching people being dismembered (wusses), we
paused the film and watched a few more Internet shorts, this time of fluffy little cute animals:
10:30pm – Our second film again sees an introduction supplied by Matt in the Hat:
Matt’s video introduction – nobody, not even me, had seen
this video before it was shown at Troma Night, but it had us rolling on the floor with laughter. I’ve had to modify the video for YouTube (imagine that the pint of Guinness isn’t
there), which reduces its impact somewhat, but I hope that putting it online will afford those of you who weren’t there the opportunity to enjoy it almost as much as we did.
The Deadly Bees (MST3K edition) – a Troma Night classic and a particular favourite of Adam’s – he owns several different copies of this film. We have
some technical difficulties towards the end of the film and switch to the original version to finish off, but this doesn’t make the film any less awful.
12:10am – we wrap up with another screening of Matt’s introduction to The Deadly Bees, for those that don’t leave the room fast enough to avoid watching it again (the
cowards): the final frame is left as a freeze-frame on the screen until everybody departs
All-in-all a fantastic Troma Night by anybody’s account: a huge thank you to everybody who made it special by coming along, by taking part remotely, or by sending well-wishes (Kit’s blog post, Liz’s blog post, comments on my announcement).
It was particularly important to me to have a Troma Night like this one, as this is likely to be one of my last Troma Nights in Aberystwyth: as I indicated last year, I plan to leave Aberystwyth during 2010. I’m
currently looking into a possible window of opportunity that would give me the chance to move to Oxford within the next nine weeks, and it’s very unlikely that I’ll be around for
another dozen Troma Nights here. In some ways, Troma Night 300 was – for me – a send-off of the concept of Troma Night in Aberystwyth (although you can be sure that we’ll be kicking off
Troma Night Oxford once Ruth, JTA,
Paul and I are settled there).
In other news, Alec’s LiveJournal account has been mysteriously deleted: did anybody else notice that?
Matt In The Hat‘s video introduction for the second film at Troma Night 300 (Friday 16th April 2010), The Deadly Bess. This version
is necessarily censored to comply with YouTube’s position on penises, but the original video didn’t have this censorship: and nobody at Troma Night knew what was coming until it was
right in their face… Read more about the event…
This Friday’s Troma Night will be Troma Night 300! It’s hard to believe how much time I’ve spent at this, our weekly film night. I wonder how many pizzas, in total, have been eaten? How
many awful films we’ve groaned at?
I’m planning that for this special Troma Night we’ll temporarily revitalise some of the old traditions. I’ve already been in touch with Kit, and he’s happy to phone in the pizza order for us (“Kit, order the pizza!” // <sighs> “What does everybody want?”)
in the traditional style. I’m hoping that Paul will be available to throw a sponge through a window (if he’s working, of
course, we’ll try to arrange for him to fling a sponge around the cinema projection booth while we simultaneously throw a substitute sponge at The Cottage). We’ll aim to start a little
early with a Flash Gordon short, for those who miss watching those before their Troma Night experience, too.
As for those of you who are no longer around, you’re welcome to join in from afar, too. Alec: why don’t
you buy yourself a four-pack of beer and drink exactly three of them? “Strokey” Adam: perhaps you can
arrange for somebody to molest you with unwanted physical contact on Friday evening? Liz: you ought to get
a date for the night, introduce him to all of your friends, and then never see him again. See: traditions are great!
In other news: if you haven’t yet played Lost Pig (And Place Under Ground), you should. It’s a fun,
puzzle-oriented piece of interactive fiction that’s full of charm, with a wonderfully lovable (and not your usual) protagonist. It’s a lightweight bit of adventuring that’ll take most
of you under an hour, so go play! Install Gargoyle (for Windows or Linux) for the
simplest-possible play experience, and have fun!
I sent a letter to Google, today. Click to see it in large-o-vision.
I my letter, I suggest that the search giant should add a feature to their UK search, as they already have to their USA search, that would provide the details of an appropriate emotional
support helpline service to people searching for suicide-related topics (such as “how to commit suicide”, etc.). This would provide minimal disruption to users merely interested in the
topic, but could potentially provide a critical lifeline to somebody in dire need.
I was just on an Easter Egg hunt up in the woods, when pacifist_049 (who was hiding my egg)
gave me the clue that my egg was hidden “near Barking Up The Wrong Tree”, so obviously the best way to find my hidden egg ws to pull out my GPSr and first find this wonderful, devious
little cache. TFTC.
Came up here for a walk and, while on the way, thought I’d check if the cache (which I failed to find after it’s recent muggling) had been replaced. It had! I checked in the “obvious
place”, which I’m guessing is where it used to live, and then a brief search later, found it. TFTC.
This afternoon, like last year, we took the
opportunity to spend Easter Sunday hiding one another’s Easter eggs in the woods and then running around looking for them.
Paul & Rory
For some reason, this year Rory didn’t want me to be responsible for hiding his egg (something to do with his
eventually being found up a tree, last year), so I ended up hiding Adam‘s, instead. I didn’t even put much
effort into it: just propped it on a branch. This turned out to be a bad hiding place because Adam walked right back past it on his way back from hiding JTA‘s egg.
Adam's egg
Paul, meanwhile, hid my egg. He did a pretty good job of it, too, and eventually had to give me a couple of clues. “It’s
near Barking Up The Wrong
Tree,” he said, knowing perfectly well that this was a geocache that I hadn’t yet hunted for. I pulled out my GPSr and found the cache, and then started looking for my egg in the
vicinity.
Adam in a Forest
In a particularly special bit of hiding, Rory managed to hide Matt P‘s egg so well that he himself couldn’t
find it again. Eventually we all had to help hunt for Matt’s lost egg. Rory had helpfully taken a photo of the egg in it’s hiding place, but this photo was ultimately useless because it
depicted nothing more distinctive than “a wood”, which we were unable to see for all of the trees. I suppose that if we were trying to get to a particular spot and then ascertain that
we were in the right place, it would be useful, except for that fact that being in the exact right place would probably have been pretty obvious by the time we were standing on top of
an Easter egg.
Hunting for Matt's egg
Finally, Adam basically “tripped over” the hidden egg, and all was well.
Matt finds his egg!
All in all, it was a fabulous afternoon out, and a great way to work off all the calories of Ruth‘s
most-excellent Easter lunch (and just in time to be able to scoff down cakes and chocolate later in the afternoon).
Ruth, JTA, and Paul near the edge of the woods
In other news:
If you haven’t yet played the Flash game “Gravity Hook“, you should. Be warned, it’s kind-of addictive. Can anybody
beat my top score? (1642 metres)
For those of you following our fun little local geocaching craze, here’s the geocaching.com usernames of some Abnibberswho you might not yet know about:
It may come as a surprise to you that the stuff I write about on my blog – whether about technology, dreams, food, film, games, relationships, or my life in general – isn’t actually
always written off-the-cuff. To the contrary, sometimes a post is edited and re-edited over the course of weeks or months before it finally makes it onto the web. When I wrote late last
year about some of my controversial ideas about the ethics (or lack thereof) associated with telling children about Santa Claus, I’m sure that it looked like it had been inspired by the run-up to Christmas. In actual fact, I’d begun writing it six
months earlier, as summer began, and had routinely visited and revisited it from time to time until I was happy with it, which luckily coincided with the Christmas season.
As an inevitable result of this process, it’s sometimes the case that a blog post is written or partially-written and then waits forever to be finished. These forever-unready,
never-published articles are destined to sit forever in my drafts folder, gathering virtual dust. These aren’t the posts which were completed but left unpublished – the ones where it’s
only upon finishing writing that it became self-evident that this was not for general consumption – no, the posts I’m talking about are those which honestly had a chance but just didn’t
quite make it to completion.
Well, today is their day! I’ve decided to call an amnesty on my incomplete blog posts, at long last giving them a chance to see the light of day. If you’ve heard mention of declaring
inbox bankruptcy, this is a similar concept: I’m
sick of seeing some of these blog articles which will never be ready cluttering up my drafts folder: it’s time to make some space! Let the spring cleaning begin:
After JTA and I’s monster plan for a great April Fools’ joke got rained-off this year (maybe another year), I just
had to go ahead with two smaller April Fools’ gags this year.
The Photocopier Prank (click for full-size)
The Photocopier Prank
A nice simple joke at the expense of the people in the office building I work in (and far less complex than last year’s prank against the same): I found a document online, printed it
out, and stuck it to the photocopiers.
It instructs users that the photocopier has been upgraded with voice controls, so you can just “tell it” to copy, collate, staple etc. and it’ll follow your instructions. The document
goes on to explain that it’s in “learning mode” right now and it might not get everything right while it learns your voice, so be patient and take the time to repeat yourself slowly and
carefully.
I haven’t got eyes on the copier, so I’ve no idea how many – if any – people it caught.
The Abnib Announce/Joke Of The Week Prank
For the last few years, I’ve run two a text-message based mailing lists (I’ve got unlimited texts as part of my mobile contract, so it’s as-good-as free for me to do this). The first,
Abnib Announce, lets people in Aber know about Troma Night, Geek Night, and similar events. The second, Joke of the Week, goes to a far wider audience and shares, every Friday, the best
(by a loose and arguable definition of the word) of the jokes I’ve heard over the previous seven days.
This morning I sent out the following message to both lists:
Abnib Announce/Joke of the Week Update:
Bad news, everyone. My network has been in touch to say that running these regular bulk SMS lists is a violation of their Fair Use agreement, so I can’t run them from my “free texts”
package any more. The good news is they’ve offered an alternative. These lists will now become subscription-based SMS services. This will cost you no more than 15p per message
received, and a maximum of £1 per week (so £2 per week if you’re on both lists). I’m supposed to ask for your permission before subscribing your number, but I know you’ll all agree
anyway. If for some reason you DON’T want to continue receiving Joke of the Week or Abnib Announce at 15p per message, please text me back BEFORE the first message, this afternoon.
Ta!
I’ve had a handful of great responses, so far, including:
Nice try.x
Them: The rotters, what a bargain, keep the jokes coming please sir
Me: Seriously? When I made up those prices this April Fools’ Day I should have put them higher!
Them: Hahaha, got me, first one too. Love to the crew
Halfway through a serious response to this i remembered what day it is…
April fool?
Totally not falling for that, sorry! Happy April Fools
Them: Hey dan. Sorry i cant do that on my phone as my mum Pays my contract
Me: Happy April Fools’!
Them: Hee.very good
Them: I dont want to pay thanks. I have enough problems with arguing with orange over my phone bill at the minute, thanks. Hope you are good.
Me: April Fools’!
Them: Is it april already?! Damn i fell for it again! Nice one :-)
Them: Take me off the lists please! Ill get info from [other subscriber] and jokes from sickipedia
Me: Tell you what: because it’s you I’ll negotiate with your network: you’re on Orange, right? I’ve kidnapped the dog of the CEO of Orange; I’m pretty sure I can get
him to waive the charges in your case.
Them: Is vodaphone, and their ceo only has a parrot and 5 fish.
Me: =op
Them: Im confused, if its 15p per message why is it £2 a week?
Me: NO MORE THAN £2 a week (well, £1 per week per list). So 4 Joke Of The Week messages would be 60p, 8 would be £1, 20 would be £1. Remember that it’s usually a
multipart message spanning 4/5 messages each week. Full terms and conditions apply.
Them: Lol, sounds confusing, being a poor student i’ll have to pass i think, though i’ll miss moaning at your messages ;-)
Me: Really? You’re actually going? And, even more unbelievably, you’re actually falling for this obvious April Fools’ gag?
Me: Gotcha ;-)
Them: Yup and yup lol :-P
Happy April Fools day!
Them: oh arse, i can’t as i don’t pay the phone bill. is it possible for you to put them online?
Me: April Fools’, dummy!
Lol, good one. Did you manage to snare anyone?
Them: Textin back.no joke
Me: Gotcha! April Fools’.
