Nixta Sinks

I'm pretty sure I'm not misreading stuff here, but you can upgrade to Adobe CS3 Design Premium (SRP $1,799.00) for a relative steal:

  $ 899.00 (CS2 Standard)
+ $ 599.00 (CS3 Design Premium Upgrade from CS2 Standard)
  $1498.00

Or $301.00 less than buying CS3 new.

Or you could buy CS2 Premium at $1,199 and upgrade from that to CS3 Premium @ $440 for the grand total of $1639.00. But why would you do that when you can get it for $1498?

Unusual for fastidious marketing departments to get things that wrong. Perhaps it's to help retailers clear their stocks. Of course, you can always search the web to buy CS2 even cheaper.

Labels: Adobe, CS3, Deals

Slovenia rebranded (thanks, Brand New)

I've given up on England. Outside London it's a shithole full of spewing fighting louts and in London they either stab you or shoot you. So, I will now officially call Slovenia my homeland, until England fixes itself up when I'll go back to 50-50. If Slovenia goes to pot, I'll be homelandless.

I was utterly unaware that Slovenia had rebranded. Seems that I need to get over there more often. Certainly though, the old logo was a piece of shit that had nothing to do with Slovenia. Some splotches of colour representing pretty flowers (there is a lot of unique flora there, but the logo don't say that).

Neither am I yet quite sure about this new one. Frankly, the whole thing's a bit too fucking gay. Big chunky logos, "Feel Love", Linden leaves and hearts. Should be a British Gas logo. They may as well just have a heart-shaped bulge in the front of a pair of rainbow-coloured spandex Speedos perched atop a mountain - it'd have the same effect. Hippies and ravers, again, weaving their lazy technicolour dreamdump on humanity in an effort to bring peace and love to everyone. It's shameless. It'll just encourage more wanky tourists, which is the last thing Slovenia wants or needs. Nice tourists, yes. Wanky puking stag-parties, no.

Slovenia has a history of being totally fucking gay in translation. Almost every tourist board pamphlet is translated in the kind of sickening gushing poetry that you'd expect if you were to get a small girl to write it in exchange for a candyfloss pony, only it's written by bulking mountain men and translated by tractor drivers. Rainbows of joy floating down the soft valley sides to settle on the calm inviting waters of the shimmering diamond lake below, like a small girl's eyes the moment before she cries for her mother, reflecting the gift of God's lovitude on the simple folk so blessed to live under his wing. God, I can't even parody it effectively. Imagine that, but with much more candy-floss and LSD.

Still, Brand New is a pretty good site.

[ Disclaimer: "gay" has been used here in the derogatory sense. Nixta.com and its affiliates have no homophobic tendencies. There's nothing wrong with the good gay - men holding hands (women that naturally look like men don't count and should never hold hands), the rough-and-tumble, wrestling, great dress sense, fabulous parties and cocktails, rampant rogering and trouser-sharing disco-dancing, remembering birthdays, splendid smooth muscular bodies on calendars, that kind of thing, but if I see another parade of fat pale hairy men in thongs I'll projectile puke them straight back to Germany, or if they also have beer to whichever frat party they escaped from ]

Labels: Rant, Slovenia

"Here's a secret - pick up something and tell the attendant you're not sure you'll like it. They'll write on the label, and - guess what! - when you get to the checkout, they'll give it to you for free!"

Ah, old people!

A well-researched piece in the Guardian about the Whole Foods ethos and their impending store in Kensington (which I have my doubts about).

"Wal-Mart started to stock organic foods - though most are hidden away in a weirdo's corner"

In New York, there was no single choice for decent or indeed organic food until Whole Foods turned up a year ago. Before that, the best choice was either one of the markets (Union Square has a good one, maybe the only accessible one) or FreshDirect.com, which introduced a remarkably successful model, but one that does rely on a very densely packed population with good roads. Even London's population-spread is really too thin and its road network too poor to support it (individual Waitrose stores do delivery and team up with the hugely ineffectual Ocado for more dispersed delivery (yes, you do deliver to my postcode, you freaks), but all at inconvenient times and intervals and not a touch on Freshdirect). Now we have many Whole Foods stores, and a the very crowded Trader Joe's (thankfully, since it has sucked the crowds of hippies out of Whole Foods). The old supermarkets here are having to clean up their act rapidly, which is a good thing - they were stale and dirty, as was their stock. Kind of an old-people's home for food.

It's not too late for Whole Foods to try to reverse the increased dependency on the centralised distribution, and the Guardian article implies it's trying to, but even considering the current state of affairs, it's better than most supermarkets in this country for quality of food. Say what you want, before Whole Foods, even Sainsbury's beat most US supermarkets and I'd argue that Whole Foods will find stiffer competition in the already organic-savvy UK.

Whole Foods has the capital to make the Kensington store survive, but again we come back to the transportation issue, and it will surely be extraordinarily difficult to stock with reasonably local foods and keep people coming in the long-term. It will give the other supermarkets a kick in the arse though, and that's never a bad thing.

Can't you? Oh yes you can!

For once, I'm not referring to Rufus.

In my last post, which followed on directly from the video of the wanking dog (yes wanking, not walking - all dogs can walk, dear readers, unless they're Hobo Vietnam Veteran dogs on carts with wheels, or just plain fat, lazy or dead), I raised the topic of the Berkshire Hunt. I linked to a page dedicated to the topic of the hunt, and I cannot stress enough the importance of following that link and reading up on the subject. What I did not do, was link to the whole site, but rather just to the etymology.

Visit the entire site. A whole dissertation on the topic. The introduction begins ominously with "Very little has been written about the word 'c*nt'". You'll notice almost immediately that this site alone more than redresses the balance firmly in the favour of America's oh-most-ever-so-favourite word. On that note, who the fuck "tells tales" unless they're at school and telling on Timmy for chipping their plastic ruler? Come on, Wikitards. Grow up.

Telling tales... Really...

Carry on.

Labels: Dissertation, NSFW

When one has spent time in the British public school system, there are a great many things that the mind consigns to the mystery heap just to protect the developing adolescent from future breakdowns. But there are many others that get swept aside with them, and unnecessarily so.

As an example, I'm frequently chastised by my wonderful wife for regaling our friends with tales of knee-rides (I had done well in an art project), nose-tweaks (I had done badly in an art project), gently slapped wrists with rulers (whispering to Alistair Clarke some translated verbal test instructions from French to English, so that he knew where to write his name), and the incident of the grabbing of Andrew Westcott's buttocks in a French lesson describing body parts.

Those incidents were doubtless more sinister than I realised at the time (but see The History Boys for a largely capable if precariously imbalanced walk along the tightrope between adolescent curiosity and pederasty). As a naïve pre-pubescent, my school-sanctioned exposure to sex was primarily two sets of sides I was assigned by the generous and foppish prefects: "Young's Slits", and "Skin Friction". The former fomented my interest in physics, the latter destroyed my interest in the RAF. I believe I achieved short-lived and mild acclaim for being allocated those perennial subjects. Investigating "The elastic properties of a ping-pong ball" at the age of 12 merely taught me about the seedier side of cabaret entertainment in Paris and Bangkok (my research also informed me that it was similarly possible to smoke a cigarette without using one's hands, or mouth). It seems that I was a favoured scribe for many prefects although I never became one myself (I planned on working my way from the inside - it didn't work). My familiarity with the bricks at nose-level just to the right of the prefects' room doorway was second-to-none.

As I was saying, as a public schoolboy you learn a great deal of useful information from your peers and your elders, much of which you deliberately or accidentally forget, and I find that I am frequently but haphazardly reminded of such things when I least expect it. Such remembrances typically combine the soothing calm of nostalgia with the excitement of elicit and furtive detective work in the school's library of French literature, 70s biology books and questionable etymological dictionaries.

Today's entry in "Things I Knew At School":

That "Berk" derives from the rhyming slang of "Berkshire Hunt" for "C*nt". (via OED - or read this detailed etymology [both links prob NSFW])

Labels: berk, etymology, TIKAS

Talented

Best not to put this up on the projector in the presentation room without first vetting it (possibly NSFW). I'm not one for pet videos, but this one insults none of my sensibilities.

(via tomsk)

Labels: dog, NSFW

Never do what Max von Sydow does, or says

Spurred on by my only comment of late (why has Haloscan stopped sending me e-mail notifications of comments?), I feel I ought to point out that the day of judgement may indeed be near, if the wisdom of Aaron Bueller is to be received.

Bear's Blood

I haven't quite given up drinking (although I did for a few weeks). However, as far as alcohol sales worldwide are concerned, I may as well have done. No longer will I keep Pol Roger in business. Stolichnaya will have to find another outlet for their rapidly increasing Orange flavour reserves. Baileys had to deal with the sudden drop in demand about 10 years ago, so they should find themselves with a distinct advantage now. Bear's Blood, it is safe to say, will continue to sell to the many Slovenians still in Slovenia.

Hell, I've even got over my highly principled boycott of bottled water (which as a confirmed commie I've always insisted is every government's responsibility to deliver for free) and am now keeping Perrier afloat with my ill-gotten gains. My advice. Buy stock in cranberry farms and soda-water producers.

My one major concern was that I would drink like a mad eastern-european teenager the moment I touched a drop again (I am reminded of Henry Sellers being shot by the police with a tranquiliser dart), but to my tremendous relief that hasn't happened. Far from it, I'm not really able to even finish a drink on most occasions.

Next, I will stop picking fights with unconscious hobos.

By 2043, I will be an utterly reformed character. I expect to be sainted, just like my trousers.

Labels: drink, Max von Sydow

TFS and I spent some time a while back considering the cast'n'blast. In short, the lazy man's way to hunt (be it domesticated caged bunnies in the woods, or a Bridge & Tunnel slapper in midtown). We considered it an original invention. A truly new concept that would sell like hot-cakes, if only murder were legalised.

"Original" Cast'n'blast concept

Now I see that I was wrong. So wrong.

A King Ashurbanipal of Assyria, eager to cotton on to the whole Gilgamesh Hero Status thing of the time, had himself protrayed as a lion slayer. Unfortunately for him he was a lazy coward of a bastard son-of-a-bitch and much preferred flaying people already tied up by others, in the dark, with his face pixellated.

A series of friezes depicting him as a ruthless and efficient killer of lions (both male and female) was commissioned to cement him in his people's minds as an icon. A comic-book hero like Judge Dredd or Bluto.

Man in lion costume, circa 645 BC

As an early P.R. exercise, it was a little too honest. The lions look doped up , and as the image above clearly shows, at least some were men dressed in comedy lion costumes rented from the circus.

But then comes the genius part. These ancient historical records show that the man invented the Cast'n'blast, years before it was reinvented by TSF and myself. The frieze depicts a caged lion being released by a servant directly into Ashurbanipal's waiting arrowshot. Click here for the full story...

Ashurbanipal never registered the patent!

Plebs were certainly easily impressed back then, I've got to say. These days, a cast'n'blast wouldn't paint anyone a hero (unless it was a paint gun full of superhero colours - blue, red, white and yellow tends to work).

Labels: Ashurbanipal, Cast'n'blast

• Ladyparts


• Ladyjunk


• One at a time


• Assorted Frommage (pronounced from-idge)


• And a two-part message for each side: Front, Back

Thanks to DMC for "Ladyjunk".

Seriously, they (a well-known knickerhawker) were considering "friend..." on the front and "with benefits" on the back. Great way to reduce teenage pregnancy, pantymongers - encourage butt-fucking! Aaaah, America... In a similar vein, I was going to suggest "chain" on the front "ball" on the back. Of course, the old "wife" and "girlfriend" is too well known and would have to be marketed with a chest wig and a bowl for keys.

Labels: DMC, junk, panties

Meads

A friend recently pointed out that it is so easy to be negative about people and actions, and how very few people take the time to be positive and comment on the good things in life. That's a point I've long known to be true even though in this case he was talking about Tony Blair and his government which, it has to be said, I'm perhaps a little tired of.

But I don't want to get into a political hooha about Labour this and John Major that (remember why New Labour worked all those years back?). No, I want to talk about why I love the BBC. I normally rant and rave about the general ineptitude with which I find myself surrounded. I'm no ruthlessly efficient German myself, and tend to fuck up pretty much anything I touch, but only when I'm doing it for free.

With the endless debate going on about rising license fees and Blue Peter shenanigans, people forget that the BBC has some of the best produced, most intellectually stimulating, and downright dedicated productions in the world. Television and radio (I won't go into the web-bite principles and concomitant grauniad editing of the otherwise excellent news.bbc.co.uk). Shows that highlight the stagnation in which most channels find themselves when they haven't got the balls to imagine what could be achieved and merely cynically produce to set rules or carefully market-researched target audiences (I'm thinking MTV's Real World, Big Brother, Pop Idol).

I have been looking for some time to see again a pair of stunningly original and humourous documentaries on architecture by Jonathan Meades. One on architecture under the Nazis, and one on architecture under Stalin. Doubtless, Meades infuses his discussion on art and architecture under these deliberating and debilitating regimes with undisguised contempt for them, but it's no bad thing and serves two purposes: 1) to augment and drive the discussion on the architecture itself, and 2) to remind us that we've become too soft and liberal and politically correct in our stance on the murderous years under Hitler and Stalin to the point where it's almost OK to blithely shrug off the way they manipulated and destroyed the world. Jean Renoir made the comment that "In 1914 the Nazis had not spoilt, yet, the spirit of the world" (incidentally, I highly recommend that you watch The Grand Illusion) and it's now taken for granted that war is a personal hatred to be taken to degrading and insulting extremes. Patriotism shadowing all morals and politics. A Geneva Convention to provide lip-service guidance to the businesses and managers of war. Hippies: shut up, I'm not advocating war.

Well, it's available for torrent download at demonoid.com, but since it's been up for more than a week, it's only available to registered demonoid members (anyone got an invite for me?). Otherwise, there is a torrent, but everyone's stuck at 99%.

So, in desperation, I wrote an e-mail to an address I found of someone at the BBC. Perhaps I have become cynical in a world where YouTube is told to remove clips of the Daily Show which serve no purpose than to promote the channel and the show (it's not like The Daily Show is ever repeated), but I was surprised to learn two days later that not only was there a person on the other end of the internet, but that they were quite happy to send me a DVD of Joe Building and the best they had, a PAL VHS, of Jerry Building, should I confirm that I wanted them only for personal use.

I was flabbergasted. Could it be? I of course eagerly and gratefully accepted.

So I wrote another e-mail, this time to the Radio 3 show Words & Music, asking about a poem that dear mater had heard on March 11th at 11:45pm on their show. I cheekily asked for a CD copy of the show if possible, or else some information on where I might find the poem in print (I could tell it was likely Transfigured Night by Richard Dehmel, from the very useful programme details posted online, though I was a day too late getting round to seeing if I could record the show, for shame). The same day, I received a very polite reply that although for contractual reasons they could not provide me with a CD of the show as they were hoping to schedule another broadcast later this year, that they could include the text of the poem, which they did (it was translated in-house by the BBC, hence I couldn't find it anywhere).

This has more than restored my faith in the BBC, in people who work for large allegedly faceless organisations, and in the ability to write polite letters. If there's one thing that America has taught me, it is that you never get anything if you don't ask. If there's one thing England has taught me, it's how to ask for things.

Labels: BBC, Dehmel, Meades

MovinFlicks.com purports to offer downloads of current movies. Er... Really? Yes and no. One movie I tried seemed to play OK and then allow me to save it, others don't, and the quality of the first movie was excellent whereas others are not so hot.

But I have a couple of questions.

• Where do these movies come from?


• Who is watching?

Surely this is too good to be true. I mean, direct download of high quality copies of current theater releases? As a technological testbed, it shows it can be done, but is this merely an MPAA ruse to get people's IP addresses?

I'll stick with the NetFlix doolally.