Friday, 9 May 2008
Sunday, 16 March 2008
Wikipedia traffic rankings
Wikipedia's article traffic statistics and rankings are endlessly entertaining.
Most viewed articles from February 1 to February 23, 2008:
Most depressingly of all:
Most viewed articles from February 1 to February 23, 2008:
7 Barack_Obama-
9 John_McCain
43 Penis
77 Hillary_Clinton
69 Adolf_Hitler-
70 Britney_Spears
113 Kim_Kardashian-
114 Oral_sex
188 Zac_Efron-
189 Knight_Rider
190 Bipolar_disorder
244 Jesus-
245 Emo
250 Naruto_Uzumaki-
251 Clitoris
259 Arnold_SchwarzeneggerI miss James Cameron.
260 Mardi_Gras
261 Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
262 Ejaculation
Most depressingly of all:
170 List_of_major_Naruto_characters
171 Earth
Thursday, 14 February 2008
The dark side of Neighbours
Recently the BBC decided to replace the delightfully awful long-running Australian soap Neighbours with 'Out of the Blue', which it calls 'an ambitious project that we think will break new ground'.
While this completely misses the appeal of Neighbours - where someone yelling 'RACK OFF' is extreme drama, this isn't what's troubling me.
Five bought the series and have been running an ad, in which members of the cast run joyfully through the street while a weirdly composited kangaroo bounces around, because it's in Australia and you can't run anywhere without a kangaroo joining you.
Someone kicks a ball, which rockets into space leaving a trail of rose buds. It ends with all the families in the middle of the street shouting and jumping and hugging in ecstasy while the kangaroo looks on.
It's nothing less than gloriously surreal but there's a huge implication here. The reason they're all so enraptured isn't some wonderful new drug, it the phrase they're exclaiming: 'We're moving to five'.
That's right, all the characters in Neighbours are officially aware that they're fictional.
Imagine knowing your every decision and action is being controlled by the god-like writers, imagine the knowledge that any of you could die at anytime for drama. You can only marry who they decide you'll marry, you can only say what they write. You sit in the cafe knowing that it has to burn down at least once every few years and all you can do is smile and eat pie.
I'm never going to able to watch Neighbours in the same way again.
While this completely misses the appeal of Neighbours - where someone yelling 'RACK OFF' is extreme drama, this isn't what's troubling me.
Five bought the series and have been running an ad, in which members of the cast run joyfully through the street while a weirdly composited kangaroo bounces around, because it's in Australia and you can't run anywhere without a kangaroo joining you.
Someone kicks a ball, which rockets into space leaving a trail of rose buds. It ends with all the families in the middle of the street shouting and jumping and hugging in ecstasy while the kangaroo looks on.
It's nothing less than gloriously surreal but there's a huge implication here. The reason they're all so enraptured isn't some wonderful new drug, it the phrase they're exclaiming: 'We're moving to five'.
That's right, all the characters in Neighbours are officially aware that they're fictional.
Imagine knowing your every decision and action is being controlled by the god-like writers, imagine the knowledge that any of you could die at anytime for drama. You can only marry who they decide you'll marry, you can only say what they write. You sit in the cafe knowing that it has to burn down at least once every few years and all you can do is smile and eat pie.
I'm never going to able to watch Neighbours in the same way again.
Thursday, 31 January 2008
I want to beat Brett Ratner to death with a shovel.
I just heard that Mark Romanek might be replaced as director of The Wolf Man by Brett Ratner.
It would be enough if Ratner just farted out music videos for creatively retarded 'artists' like Jessica Simpson, Mariah Carey and a man dumb enough to insist everyone call him 'P Diddy' but somehow smart enough to not get run over every time he crosses the road.
Brett Ratner didn't stop there, he had to inflict movies on us. Worse still, he didn't make terrible movies we could ignore - he took good things and made them mediocre.
Jackie Chan - the Buster Keaton of martial arts, sharing screen time with Chris Tucker and not kicking him to death - FOR THREE MOVIES. As if that wasn't enough, Brett Ratner made Chris Tucker the highest paid actor in Hollywood.
Hannibal Lector - an iconic character festers in a lifeless adaptation that was previously made into an intense, disturbing thriller by Michael Mann.
X-Men - Bryan Singer built his two films to lead clearly into a third.
Brett Ratner delivered an entirely forgettable, uninspired X-Men film with lines referencing youtube videos instead of wit, replacing socio-political relevance and comment with throw-away cardboard cutout characters lacking motivation or purpose.
He is the cheap hack who is hired to exploit profitable stars or properties and he deserves a shovel to the face.
It would be enough if Ratner just farted out music videos for creatively retarded 'artists' like Jessica Simpson, Mariah Carey and a man dumb enough to insist everyone call him 'P Diddy' but somehow smart enough to not get run over every time he crosses the road.
Brett Ratner didn't stop there, he had to inflict movies on us. Worse still, he didn't make terrible movies we could ignore - he took good things and made them mediocre.
Jackie Chan - the Buster Keaton of martial arts, sharing screen time with Chris Tucker and not kicking him to death - FOR THREE MOVIES. As if that wasn't enough, Brett Ratner made Chris Tucker the highest paid actor in Hollywood.
Hannibal Lector - an iconic character festers in a lifeless adaptation that was previously made into an intense, disturbing thriller by Michael Mann.
X-Men - Bryan Singer built his two films to lead clearly into a third.
Brett Ratner delivered an entirely forgettable, uninspired X-Men film with lines referencing youtube videos instead of wit, replacing socio-political relevance and comment with throw-away cardboard cutout characters lacking motivation or purpose.
He is the cheap hack who is hired to exploit profitable stars or properties and he deserves a shovel to the face.
Tuesday, 15 January 2008
Red vs Blue
Forget the Middle East, Global Warming, the Large Hadron Collider set to fire in May and Christian fundamentalists in Washington hovering over the button - Sonic and Mario at the Olympics is bugging me.
Sonic is a super-sonic running hedgehog, his entire thing is that he runs improbably fast, especially for a hedgehog. Mario is a plumber. This is the Olympics. Is Sonic being polite on the 100m dash? Is Mario on steroids?
Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen Mario plumb. Over 200 appearances and the closest I've seen is him spraying water over graffiti. Surely spraying water is everything a plumber is sworn against?
Mario is living a lie, maybe that's what he's running from.
Sonic is a super-sonic running hedgehog, his entire thing is that he runs improbably fast, especially for a hedgehog. Mario is a plumber. This is the Olympics. Is Sonic being polite on the 100m dash? Is Mario on steroids?Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen Mario plumb. Over 200 appearances and the closest I've seen is him spraying water over graffiti. Surely spraying water is everything a plumber is sworn against?
Mario is living a lie, maybe that's what he's running from.
Friday, 5 October 2007
What's in the box? What's-in-the-box? WHAT'S-IN-THE-BOX?
Hmm. I got a replacement for my wireless mouse/keyboard set, from my friendly neighborhood pc retailer, after it crapped out mid-Bioshock.
Only there's another box. An extra box. An unopened box of mystery. Different name, same address.
I'm thinking a severed head.
Only there's another box. An extra box. An unopened box of mystery. Different name, same address.
I'm thinking a severed head.
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