helen-louise's journal

What Boris Johnson Did At London Pride:
Real life (from PinkNews).

Photos: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven.

Note also that Boris now has his own unique sexuality. And the Is Fatboy Slim a DJ? song is now available for download - 79p from amazon if you just want the main track, and the proceeds are going to Macmillan.

Fiction. Hilarious, assuming a basic familiarity with the wonders of Boris.

Auto-tune the News
V. disturbing. Apparently some people in the US put news programmes through a Vocoder-like software plugin, so the presenters and politicians sound like they're singing, then sing along, adding extra detail to the song.*brain explodes*

They're reasonably well-subtitled for something where music is essential to understanding. ( Read more... )

Dan and Dan:
This guy makes videos with himself. They aren't subtitled, but should be lip-readable. Also, in the Daily Mail song he holds up headlines to go with the lyrics. ( And again )

xiphias brings us great news of epic geekiness!

Go to http://www.newsweek.com

Click in the browser window, and type in the Super Contra cheat code (for those of you who don't know, it's

UP
UP
DOWN
DOWN
LEFT
RIGHT
LEFT
RIGHT
B
A
ENTER

Well, on Super Contra, it's "start", but a computer doesn't have a "start" button and does have an enter key, so there.)

Something awesomely geeky happens.

Edit: Well, that's no fun! They took it down! Click the cut-tag for what you missed.

( Read more... )

This is a few weeks old now but still funny. While the LibDems were busy talking to Labour and the Conservatives to figure out which Party they'd be able to do a deal with, someone put Nick Clegg up for auction on eBay. From tickthatbox:

Profile
Questions 1
Questions 2

Also, the Nick Clegg action figure. Amazingly nice!

How many of you are now earwormed to death by this userpic? ;)

Just finished that email. That would be, er, 8 hours that I've spent dealing with this issue, which is basically a normal working day. Great. An entire day of possible productivity lost.

Going to try to go to the doctor in the morning, which will be interesting as I haven't gone to bed yet. Need to get some help with the many and varied symptoms of stress that my body is showing, as well as updating him about my current medication status. (I upped my dose of carbamazepine from 400 to 450 mg two weeks ago, and I need advice about what to do next.)

In happier and much more amusing news, here is an absolutely brilliant video! I can't remember who originally linked to it, but I'm pretty sure it's someone who isn't already on all my friends' lists: Video: Stop Sign Designed by Committee. Too true!

This may interest some of you: Film director Kevin Smith is thrown off US plane for being 'too big for seat'. In a series of Tweets, he laid into Southwest Airlines for their poor customer service. I'm going to copy & paste a lot because he is too verbose for 140 characters!

Dear @SouthwestAir - I know I'm fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?

Here's the story, as told today:

Via @mitch_bartlett "if you normally fit well in the seats, why do u normally purchase 2 tickets" SWA tickets are cheap enough to afford it.
Had three seats/whole row for me & Jen. She skipped SF, so I went solo checked in and was given the 2 tix there & return 2 (for that p.m.).
Going out, even with 2 tix, I only sat in one seat, sleeping against window, w/empty seat between me and follow passenger. Coming back would
have been the same, at 7pm. But I got to the airport early enough to try to bump-up my flight to 5:20 - a practice @SouthwestAir does often.
I was told 5:20 flight was packed, but I could go Standby. They sent me to gate. Told lady whole story, and she said there wouldn't be two
seats on that earlier flight. I said I only needed one seat & that I didn't buy an extra seat because I'm fat (which I am), but because I'm
anti-social and didn't want to sit next to someone & possibly have to make convo (in person, I'm very shy). She said she understood. I was
issued the solo ticket. I get on the plane: open seat in the front row. Put my bag away, the sit between two ladies. As I'm about to buckle
my extender-less seatbelt, the woman who issued the ticket to me appeared in the doorway of the plane, came over to me and said the Captain
said I wasn't going to be allowed to sit there because I was a safety risk. I asked for clarification and was given none (also asked "Please
don't do this" but that, too, fell on deaf ears. Ladies on either side said I wasn't a problem. SWA-lady said arm-rests the decider. Arm-
rests come down, and voila! I'm legit! I've passed the stinkin' arm-rest-test. And still, the lady asks me to get up and come with her off
the plane. I get up without a fuss at all, quietly grab my bag, make eye contact with a fellow Fatty who was praying he'd pass, and leave.
You think I wanna fuck around on an airplane? I was right: I fit in that seat. But I can't risk not complying: I'm more afraid of AirFeds.

Here's a cartoon that a fan drew. I think that most of us can probably relate to it. (Even Richard, who is of average height and rather skinny, doesn't have enough room on planes. The problem is with the plane, not with the customer.)

( A bunch of Kevin Smith's Tweets from the plane: )

Dear Other Airlines (including Oceanic, sans Flight 815): I'm in the market for a flight east this Thurs. Which one of you likes fat people?

Look folks: some people seem to think that because I work in the pictures, I should piss away money on private jets or first class flights.
Rest assured: I take LOTS of first class flights. But while I've got some comfortable money, it'd disappear quick if I didn't respect a $.
So for quick, 1hr flights to Vegas or SF from LA, I never minded @SouthwestAir. Never had a problem with them before, either.
But contrary to their claim that I regularly purchase two seats, I wasn't a regular 2-seat buyer until just this week. They SEIZED on that.
In their "apology" blog, they implied (or flat-out wrote) that I regularly purchase 2 seats. Writing that buttresses their lie: 2 Fat 2 Fly.
But, by their own guidelines, I was not, in fact, 2 Fat 2 Fly: the arm rests went down & I could buckle my seat belt w/o an extender. So...?
Hey @SouthwestAir: you bring that same row of seats to the DailyShow, and I'll sit in 'em for all to see on TV.
If I don't fit, I'll donate $10k to charity of your choice. But when I do (& buckle the belt as well)? 1) You admit you lied. 2) Change your
policy, or at least re-train your staff to be a lot more human & a lot less corporate when they pull a poor girl off the plane & shame her.

And there's even more at SMODCAST #106: Go Fuck Yourself, Southwest Airlines. I've got 10 minutes into the broadcast and he's still going on... Apparently it's an hour and a half and features him telling his story "as PRELUDE to real story: the poor girl @SouthwestAir shamed on my flight home."

Does Twitter have an interface for seeing Tweets in chronological order as posted, rather than reverse chronological order? I wonder how people who use Twitter regularly cope with seeing everything backwards. It's driven me nuts in writing this entry!

Today's Questionable Content is absolutely squeesome.

This video is making the news: HP Computers are racist. "Black Desi" and "White Wanda" show what happens when they move in front of a new HP laptop with a face recognition camera. The camera moves to track the light-skinned woman, but does not move for the dark-skinned man - even when he gets close.

Of course, the computers aren't really racist - it's a technology problem to do with lighting and shadows. Kudos for the video makers in pointing out the issue without losing their sense of humour. Still, you have to wonder - do technology companies not think to routinely test out "people recognition" technologies with people of many different appearances? including different ages, races, and the disabled, whose faces may not move in a typical way? If not, why not? If technology doesn't work in the same way for everyone, then it is a sort of racism by omission or lack of thought. Unintentional, but hurtful nonetheless.

Here's an awesome set of photos that I should have posted the day I saw them: Winners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award. Features wolfy!

Also, I should be packing right now because we're off to Berlin tomorrow. Half of the clothes I want to take are still in the wash though. Argh!

Won't be reading much. See you when we get back.

Yesterday we went to see nitoda and met her cat, who has unbelievably long whiskers. As a result, I am now amused by the thought of what humans would look like if we had whiskers as wide as our shoulders. wuzzie is quite whiskery already, but that would indeed be a handlebar moustache in excess of any human currently alive!

Also, I should have posted this link yesterday. It's a collaboration between Liz Enthusiasm of Freezepop and "a local Japanese audio guy" for Loft, a big department store chain over there.

we "collaborated" on the lyrics, which basically meant constructing a loose narrative around a list of halloween characters that they provided us with (as much as i wish i could take credit for "bad smell candle" or "gecko", apparently the japanese ad agency thought they were pretty spooky characters). the result is a masterpiece of engrish.

Halloween All Stars: 2009 Loft Halloween.

I think the song is really catchy :)

Crazy cute Japanese custom vehicles. I kinda want ALL OF THEM. I'm not even sure who the green character is, but I want him!

The side of the Pikachu car is here, in case you were wondering.