IMDB provide a list of the worst 100 films of all time, as rated by their visitors. I particularly enjoyed the fact that four of the Police Academy movies made it into the list. In other words, Police Acadamy films are responsible for 4% of the Worst 100 Films Ever. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody.
Author: Dan Q
Something In The Water
[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]
People keep getting together. Kate and Leu, Tom and Liz (now with a journal!), and now: Sian and Andy. Must be something in the water. The latter pair (and the one I most recently heard about) is the most unexpected, and the middle one the most blatant. Sian and Andy???
Well, best of luck to them anyway: a long-distance relationship isn’t necessarily easy, but I’m sure that Sian knows that by now anyway.
I’ve challenged Paul to find the link between Tonari no Totoro, which we’ll be watching next Troma Night, and Troma. There is a link, and it’s a lot less complicated than he’s looking for. He has until Saturday before I tell him anyway.
I tried to send an e-mail to a load of people the other day, telling them about something I’ll later tell to one other person. Unfortunately I accidentally emailed the other person at the same time (was thinking about them … [the rest of this post, and one comment, are lost]
Troma Night
[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]
Ran out of food, ran out of alcohol: a disgrace from a planning perspective.
On the other hand; we watched…
- “Nymphoid Barbarian In Dinosaur Hell”, in which a girl (who wasn’t really Nymphoid or Barbaric – perhaps she’d be better named “Anorexic Hairdresser”) tries to rescue her boyfriend (apparently) from a nasty man with a bigger pointy stick, in the aftermath of a nuclear war. There weren’t many dinosaurs, either. But those that appeared were done quite well with stop-motion camerawork. Better than “Rabid Grannies”. Argueabley better than “Alien Blood”, but still rather disappointing. And only one shot in which you can see her nipples.
After this, Liz and her new boyfriend Tom left. Just like Probably Bob, the last boyfriend she brought to Troma Night did, also before the end. It’ll never last.
- “Beavis And Butt-Head Do America” – surprisingly funny; some hilarious immature humour. And it had Ruth – a guest star for tonight’s Troma Night – in stiches, which I think says a lot about her sense of humour.
- “Cannibal! The Musical!” Director’s Commentary. At long last, a night at which everybody present had already … [the rest of this post has been lost]
Justification Of What You All Already Thought About My Sanity, And About Orange’s Competence
As I promised a few days ago, I called Orange today to complain that I hadn’t ever received the two messages for which I’ve had the cost refunded. The first couple of people said that there was nothing that they could do, but a lot of harassment and a few calls later, and I persuaded them to send me the latter of the two messages, which is apparently a Christmas greeting.
A few minutes later, my phone beeped to let me know that a new message had been received. A new multimedia message. The body of which was as follows:
You
have received a Multimedia Message, which your handset unfortunately
cannot support. Please refer to the accompanying text message and follow
the instructions to view the message from the web.
WTF???
Did I miss something here?
- Orange send me a message to apologise for having charged me for receiving some messages from them, and give me a refund, even though I never received said messages. Can’t find any mention of them on my bill, either.
- I complain at length to Orange that I never received the messages that I wasn’t billed for (I don’t mention that I don’t seem to have paid – they might take the refund back out of my next bill or something), and they promise to re-send it.
- The message arrives on my multi-media phone – the phone that they know I have and apparently already sent this message to, once, but it’s in a format that my phone can’t understand.
- There is no accompanying text message.
Shall I ring them up and complain again?
The Software Engineers Behind My Alarm Clock
[this post was lost during a server failure on Sunday 11th July 2004; it was partially recovered on 21st March 2012]
They must die.
My alarm clock has an interesting featurette. The design is, on the hole, like many similar mains-powered radio alarm clocks. It has a button for “Time Set”, and one for “Alarm Set”, and buttons for “Hour” and “Minute”, respectively. To set the time, you hold down the “Time Set” button – which is deliberately small and well-concealed to make sure you don’t press it by accident – and use the “Hour” and “Minute” buttons. To set the alarm, you hold down the “Alarm Set” button and use the “Hour” and “Minute” buttons.
Anyway; the featurette I mentioned is that if you are setting the alarm, say, and you release the “Alarm Set” button before you release the “Hour” or “Minute” buttons, the clock immediately adds an hour or a minute to it’s time, respectively.
So, when I – tired and using only one hand and the least effort I could manage – set my alarm last night, I didn’t even notice that I’d managed to put forward the time on the clock face by two hours. When my alarm woke me this morning at what I thought was 8:15am (but was actually 6:15am), I was completely exhausted. So I reset the alarm to 8:45 (actually 6:45) and … [the rest of this post is lost]
Orange Gives Me 80p For No Apparent Reason
Today, Orange sent me a text message apologising for charging me for two picture messages earlier this year, and have apparently credited me 80p as a gesture of compensation. The Register reports that this has happened to others, too, but I can’t help but feel that Orange’s mistake is even larger than they thought it was – I never received these picture messages in the first place!
I’m tempted to call them and complain that I didn’t ever receive the two picture messages for which I’m having my money refunded, but as I’m not even sure that I was charged for them, either (can’t see it on my bill), I’ll probably lose me free 80p if I do. Decisions, decisions.
In other news, comment-heavy discussion on the difference between Christianity and Islam on Alec’s LiveJournal [link updated to use Web Archive, which still holds a copy]. Take a look.
AbNib & Str8Up!
Oh yeh; and, in case you hadn’t noticed – AbNib is down. And it’s not my fault! The server fucked up something rotten, but seems to be okay now. And whoever posted a comment to one of my entries the other day and had it not-appear; sorry: same issue.
I’ll try to get AbNib up again on Wednesday – my backup is at the office, and that’s when I’m next at work.
Went out to Str8Up! (Aber’s LGB Society’s event) at Bar Retro last night. Great night out with silly cocktails and dancing and general merriment. And I’d forgotten quite how horny it is to watch two guys – or two girls – getting it on. Fun in the sun.
And in other news, Tonari no Totoro, which I ordered from Japan on DVD last week, hasn’t arrived yet. It’s a great film. I hope it arrives in time for Troma Night on Saturday.
Next stop: Mecca, for lunch!
Parcel Of Goodies
Woo and indeed hoo. Just when I was about to wander down to Richley’s and take advantage of their sale on jeans (having had a nasty shredding-related accident with one-too-many of my existing pairs of trousers a couple of weeks back), my Auntie Anne sends me a parcel of goodies, including several pairs of trousers (including one with a million pockets, or thereabouts).
I think I’ve put on weight since the last time she sent me any clothes. [measures waist size]. Yup; I’m two inches fatter than this time last year. Well; there’s an incentive to lose it again.
In other news; I’ve almost completed an exciting little project that will provide some amusement to those of you who attend Chez Geek Night (BTW: it’s on Tuesday this week, so we don’t end up in a fight with the Irish Band again). No; it’s not a computer game version (although I’m hoping that the author will allow me to write one, one day)… but I think you’ll like it, anyway. Details tonight or tomorrow.
Yay! No more lectures today!
A Most Unlikely Couple
It turns out that two people I know have become a couple, in what is perhaps the most unlikely relationship I could ever imagine. I’ll not say who they are, here, but it’s quite funny.
Claire: X and Y are toghether now.
Dan: X? And Y?
Claire: Yeh. That’s what I thought.
Bryn: Hang on… X [surname]…
Claire: Yup.
Bryn: And Y [surname]…
Claire: Yup.
Dan: Well; it sounds to me like a match made in… Disneyland.
Warning: Extreme Geek Humour
Sat in Burger King…
Bryn: So many nice things come in .deb packages…
Dan: Yeh. Except for some nice things which still come in nasty RPM-shaped packages.
Bryn: I’m not even sure I have an RPM package manager installed.
Dan: I’m sure you can ‘apt-get’ one.
Oh; how we laughed.
Can I Press Your Button?
In the news this week, a device that allows women to have an orgasm at the touch of a button, perhaps even by remote control… but the inventor is having difficulty finding volunteers for a trial.
I’m not sure which part of that sentence is wierdest.
First Part Of My Dissertation
Gave a presentation about my dissertation today in a poster session which is worth 0.825% of my mark for this year. Seems insignificant, but they say that it all adds up. In any case, it went very well; people seemed interested in the technical side of my ideas and nobody bothered to ask any questions that I couldn’t answer, so that was fab.
Bryn and Claire have spent the evening so far playing Mirror Mode on Mario Kart: Double Dash. I’ve been configuring Apache to cope with a funky new SSL certificate, which would have been a lot easier if Bryn hadn’t misled me into thinking that a command had a different name to that which it actually had when I asked him for assistance. Wally.
And now we’re off to Chez Geek night! Woo. And, indeed, hoo.
Happy Wednesday, everybody!
I Am The Mario Kart God
I’ve just beaten Mario Kart: Double Dash‘s “All Cups Cup” (the cup you gain access to having already beaten all the other cups – including the Special Cup – at the maximum engine power) at 150cc! Which makes me a happy bunny, ‘cos now it’s unlocked all the tracks… backwards! Another excuse to waste lots of time.
In other news, AbNib now has a really annoying banner ad that I can slap onto pretty much anywhere I can post to. Like here, for example:
[image removed]
I promise I’ll try to refrain from doing that again.
I have lectures in the morning. Better put the rubbish out and go to bed. Goodnight;
Being Charlie Kaufman
Just watched Adaptation with Claire and Paul. Absolutely fantastic – a post-modern marvel. Put simply, it’s an adaptation of a book entitled The Orchid Thief – a true story about the author, Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), meeting John Laroche (Chris Cooper), a horticultural specialist who collects endangered orchids, set to the backdrop of Charlie Kaufman, the film’s writer (Nicholas Cage), trying in vain to write a screenplay version of the book, The Orchid Thief. The film spans four billion years, with particular emphasis on the last 17, and, despite the best intentions of the in-film screenwriter, manages to include guns, drugs, and a car chase… and not so many flowers.
I’d never thought that Charlie Kaufman could ever produce anything quite so mind-boggling as Being John Malkovich, but he really has. My mind boggles still. Watch it. And invite me along. <wink>
Artificial Intelligence For Dummies
I’ve just written an artificial intelligence gamebot, designed to pseudointelligently play simple board games which involve a finite upper number of moves and a board of tokens – for example: Connect Four, Noughts & Crosses, Go!, or Othello. It uses the (appropriately-written) rules of the game in order to pre-anticipate a vast number of moves, and select the ‘best’ ones based on the likelihood of them winning. It’s not terribly powerful, but I’d never written such a widely-scoped A.I. before, and I fancied the challenge.
I let it out for it’s first run this afternoon, and started a game of Connect Four with it. Here are the results:
I took the first turn, and put one of my pieces into the first column of the grid.
The gamebot took the second turn, picked up an enormous handful of pieces, and put six of them into the grid (two in the first column and four in the next four adjacent columns). These four-in-a-row, of course, won it the game.
Perhaps I need to define ‘cheating’ for it. Hmm… back to the drawing board…