devolute.net

DHS favourite; the colour-coded terror alert system is an easy target for parody. This Wired article pretty much hits the nail on the head (yes, Wired again. Sorry). Statistically, a rather more severe threat than terrorism to your average American is ‘Accidental poisoning’. I’d suggest that steps are taken to make those toilet duck bottles look a little less alluring before citizens rights are trod upon any further. Also at a rather more elevated level is death by the flu. Coincidentally this is exactly how I feel it’s going to end at the moment *sneezes*.

Whilst I’m letting others take a stab at my pet hates for me, I think MySpace’s ‘victory’ in winning 1st place in PC World 25 Worst Websites list is a great achievement for News Corp. Spam, spyware, paedo-sensationalism, the perpetual “THNX FOR TEH ADD”, poor accessiblity standards compliance and the sort of wit not seen since ‘Noels House Party’ stopped brodcasting, means that MySpace pretty much sums all that is bad about the internet in one domain.

The BBC has really come up top trumps with the comedy recently. They’ve shown a few shows from a good range of clever, imaginative writers. We’ve had the poignant, relevant ‘Time Trumpet‘, the hateful (yet terribly accurate) ‘Charlie Brookers Screen Wipe‘ and now a new sketch show: ‘That Mitchell And Webb Look‘. It’s nice to see a BBC sketch show that doesn’t rely on a small number repetitive catch-phrases *cough*littlebritain*cough*. Mitchell and Web, of course, are probably best known for ‘Peep Show‘ which not only won a host of awards, but which I’m certain a few of my friends live their lives by. Their new show has a pretty wide range of characters, which is great because I was expecting just a load of variations on Mark and Jez (from Peepshow). Fortunately I was wrong. Highlights for me include a couple of rather insecure SS Officers (“If there’s one thing we’ve learnt in the last 1000 miles of retreat, it’s that Russian agriculture is in dire need of mechanisation”) a medical drama that is a little short on real-life medical research and a gameshow that althought rather Countdown-esque, somehow just reminds me of the ridiculousness inherent in ‘Deal or No Deal’.

They’ve done a sketch show format before (‘The Mitchell and Webb Situation’) but this is much more refined. Watch it; BBC 2, Thusday, 9.30pm. Unless you’re offshore of course, but that’s what the internet is for, isn’t it? Now if only they’d get rid of that bloody canned laughter…

Not claiming this is it, by the way, it’s just I’m always open to suggestions. I felt like sharing this humorous yet painfully accurate Wired article with you. Read it. They’ve got some good points. I used to read Boing Boing but gave up when it felt that every second post was about subway maps. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Harry Becks London subway map is a fine piece of iconic work, but a chap can only take so many ‘subway mash-ups’. I quit Metafilter as well after all those links provided by each and every article proved to be far too time consuming before my finals.

I like Banksy. Okay, sometimes it feels like everything he does is “a pathetic cry for help” but it’s a consistently funny pathetic cry for help. His latest stunt? Replacing copies of Paris Hilton’s new album with a doctored copy. 500 copies apparently, spread across the UK. The changes are a little less than subtle but he’s left the original barcode on so they can still be purchased. The music has been replaced by a basic beat and some choice Paris Hilton ‘catchphrases’. The cd cover and inlay are all doctored and include Paris with a dogs head and some choice wording, my favourites being “Every CD you buy puts me even further out of your league” (qft!) and “Why am I famous? What have I done? What am I for?” Poor Paris. She is taking rather a bit of flak recently. I wonder why that is? Jealousy over her fortune? Her well-photoshopped good looks? Musically I’ve heard worse pop-music but maybe she just personifies all that people hate about the current state of celebrity? Hey, I guess this means Jennifer Lopez can continue unchecked now then.

Picture shown is not the Banksy job, I should warn you that his is a little NSFW. More details in the Indie and thanks to Flickr user Sharl for this wonderful set where you can see Banksy’s alterations in the flesh (as it were).

A pal showed me this video which was for meant for internal Microsoft UK employees featuring Ricky Gervais in his role as David Brent (from the Office, obviously). This being the internet of course, it didn’t stay internal. I see Gervais as a somewhat modern-day Alf Garnet, but he can still be pretty damn funny in his ‘worst boss in the world’ guise. I post this mainly for the probable delight of regular reader Rami, who is not only an ardent Gervais fan but also seems familiar with the world of ‘management speak‘ and societys attitudes towards… well, geeks.

In other news; I changed hosts. Despite some teething problems, especially on pages which co-inhabit this domain, everythings good and the page should be a lot faster than my old one. This is not only due to me applying greater intelligence in remaking the site, but also because this site resides in the rather swish London docklands. Bravo!