Gleeful Gecko » Pettiness

Jeremy Clarkson’s New Crusade

Brett — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 23:14:07 +0000

Jeremy Clarkson’s (who?) newest crusade isn’t against ugly women in shop’s or American’s, it is against board games like Monopoly, Risk or Scrabble. Apparently having met the bottom of the barrel for topics he has decided to keep digging. You have to admire his determination.

The Truth

Brett — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:05:42 +0000

From Buffalobeast.com found via Boing Boing

The Big Three, We Don't Have to Compete.

Household Spirits

Brett — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:04:47 +0000

Like most homes we have several minor spirits we venerate. The most famous of them is Sockulus, the sock god. He shows his anger when you do not venerate him enough by taking away one sock in a pair. I have a small temple of solo socks near where I do the laundry and sometimes he is pleased by this and returns a wandering sock.

My wife just asked me for a philips head screwdriver. This made me laugh as our house is under a dire curse from Slotulus, the philips head spirit and we can keep no philips heads in our house. I used to have a full tool kit, with a good selection of philips heads. They are all gone now. Over the years I have twice bought sets of just philips head screwdrivers. They are all gone now as well. I am not sure how to appease Slotulus, but this is a tough curse to live under. Tonight when the moon is high I am going to cut the heart from a regular head screw driver in the yard and see if I can placate Slotulus, but until I do I will just laugh when my wife asks if we have any philips heads.

I Am A Bad, Bad Man

Brett — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:42:12 +0000

I know now that I am a bad bad man. Curses to Radley Balko for pointing out this video, Can Yakety Sax make anything funny? I laughed.

I am horrible, I watched it again and still laughed. What has Benny Hill done to my soul!

Those Wacky English, Americans and Canadians.

Brett — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:31:45 +0000

This still tastes like liquid yak barf. Just a reminder.

Those wacky English just keep getting better and better, thank god we American’s never stoop to this sort of nonsense. Those English though, always good for a chuckle, while we American’s keep it real. Well, I guess there are always those nice Canadians.

The Undecided Voter Is Getting Tired Of The Snark

Brett — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 22:55:09 +0000

Art by LuMaxArt on Flickr

I am an honest undecided voter in this presidential election. This baffles my friends on both sides of the divide who can’t believe I don’t see what they are seeing so clearly, but honestly I can still see myself voting for either of the major candidates. That said, I am getting tired. I am getting tired of snark from both sides. Snark isn’t going to get me to vote for a candidate, how I think they will do as the president will. I automatically discount anything a partisan of a candidate says that is negative about the other candidate, but I am willing to listen when someone says something positive that I should know about what their candidate is saying (or better yet, something positive they are actually doing).

Since the conventions I have not heard a single thing from either side that is positive about their message, I have only heard snark about their opponents and I am getting tired of it. The cynic in me wonders if it isn’t deliberate, in order to suppress moderate voters from turning out to vote at all. I hope this isn’t true. Anyhow, for those of you who are partisans of one of the candidates, here is my tip, tell me some reason to vote for your candidate that isn’t based on snark or fear of the other guy. I am sorry you are angry that I don’t see it as you do, try talking to me calmly and rationally about what is positive about your candidate, not what I should be afraid of from the other guy. I can learn and there is still time.

Targetted Spam

Brett — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:37:10 +0000

Like most people who get email I get spam. Google handles the mail on my main account they do a great job of filtering but every now and then they get too aggressive and I have to bail some piece of mail out of their spam jail so I check the spam jail once a day or so. Today I had a piece of spam with the title “Grumpy Gopher Disrupts Museum Touurs” which I didn’t click, but did think was pretty well targeted to get me to click. I doubt it was intentional, but hey enough chimps at typewriters and you get Showgirls and all that.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Brett — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:27:02 +0000

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Not in my back yard!

Return of Today In Historys

Brett — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:41:28 +0000

Roots of Ankor by Shapeshift at Flickr, Click Through for Original

As many of you know, I post up whatever interests me or whatever I think might be of interest to my friends. This is how I blog and always has been. However, I have drastically reduced my reading of news feeds as I noticed they were distracting me from my job hunting and this has led to a major drop in stories of bear attacks or insane UK news stories. I have decided to try to keep up an active post rate by putting up some history, which is always my first love. I know the tone of the blog has changed over the years, but I hope this won’t drive anyone off. I promise to post up Bear attacks or Cheese Rolling news stories when I do come across them and I will continue to bore with my music notes and the like, but I don’t want the site to dry up and there are still tons of interesting historical bits I can talk about. Anyway, back to the want ads.

If it is Wednesday it must be Emo Music video day.

Brett — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:28:36 +0000

Yes, I am aware that neither of these is actually ‘emo‘ Mr. Internetknowitall. These are two great depressing songs that I am in love with today. Both are beautiful and haunting and great to listen to when you think life has you in its bulls eye to dump on. Gah. What a week.

The first is Anna Ternheim‘s To Be Gone, probably my favorite song of the moment even when I am not feeling down. Great sound and haunting lyrics, who hasn’t been there?

The second is Findlay Brown‘s brilliant Losing the Will to Survive (Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve Reanimation). Again, nice voice and great lyrics.

With Great Pain

Brett — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:23:55 +0000

With great pain I acknowledge the Yankees are no longer in the basement of the American League East, the Baltimore Orioles have taken their place. It was nice while it lasted.

News You Can Use

Brett — Thu, 15 May 2008 11:31:28 +0000

I have been sometimes lectured that we in the United States don’t pay attention to the hard news and that is why we are so uninformed on the world sometimes. In interest of equal time with our UK brethren I present the most popular news story on the BBC this morning.

We American’s can’t compete on the serious news side with the BBC.

Some Site Work Going On

Brett — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:30:01 +0000

I am doing some work on the design of this website so if you see anything broken or miss something let me know. I will be reworking the site’s theme, adding support for Gravatars and generally poking about for the next couple of days.

To Those Who Come Here Searching For

Brett — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 22:19:53 +0000

To those who come here searching for “the rise & fall of ruby woo” torrents. You can sample most of the music on the album at their website and mySpace page. I understand wanting to listen to an artist before you buy and support that, but if you are just looking to steal their music I ask you to reconsider.

The Puppini Sisters are an act on the edge, if they don’t start to make money they quit. They aren’t some big corporate act, they need the money from your purchase so rather than torrent them, please go to Amazon or one of the other DRM free sites and buy the album so that they stay around. I have been poor and may well be again, but stealing doesn’t help you when you are poor. Help the little acts survive and prosper or your radio will be filled with Madonna and other packaged corporate bands forever.

Hold The Bastard Accountable

Brett — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 19:52:08 +0000

Ok, I do have some sympathy for the descendants of Admiral Byng, but not much really. They have put a petition to Parliment to ‘restore his honor’, but not pardon him. They say

It has been a long time … but if we were moved by the families of World War One, which was a long time ago too, we might be moved on this occasion.

The difference is that Byng’s story is one of the few times someone other than some poor private or sailor was held accountable. The guys in World War One that got pardoned were the poor bloody mud-sloggers, not the Generals or Admirals. Normally Admirals and Generals look out for each other, you don’t see them get shot much, or even really take any hit for their screw ups. I say hold the bastard accountable. How many common troops died for Byng’s half effort? He paid for it, let it stand. Sorry Southill, I have more sympathy for the Scottish witch then I do for Byng. Look forward, don’t try to fix the past.