Chris Kamara: A tribute

Lord of Leisure Posted on by

A couple of weeks ago when I was back home with the folks, sipping on the finest beer known to us from the fridge, a lovely gem of live television when watching Sky Sports News, to explain I’m not one for watching it that often.

After all, watching people do lots of exercise just reminds me how long I have before a massive cardiac arrest kicks in.

But as I was home with the folks, the afternoon was being spent watching Gillette Soccer Saturday, where lots of men watch football on their own TVs and then tell us all about it, far more gripping on occasion than it actually sounds.

Now most of the time, they are crossing from one person to another, telling you all about all the highs and lows of 22 overpaid toss-rags running round after a bloody ball, but every so often, something wonderful happens;

I thought I’d never see it again, but after seeing a recent episode of “You’ve been Watching” by Charlie “oh dear, he starting to adopt my take on personal grooming” Brooker, where it was once again mentioned, I had to see if it was kept alive on YouTube, and sure enough, it was.

Chris Karama, I salute you!

And another quickie: Part 2

Lord of Leisure Posted on by

So much time has passed and so much has happened. Iceland’s volcanic ash grounding planes, the General Election being called, and Sainsbury’s have finally started doing decent jacket potatoes on lunchtime. But first, I actually have gotten round to writing about something I should have done a long time ago, as usual, nothing to do with events of great importance.

Back in the ancient days of 2009, May in fact, there was a certain posting on here about the fact that I was trying Internet Dating for a month and it was due to a few factors, people had suggested it and well I had figured it was cheaper than going out every night, dressing like something from a GAP advert, but looking like something that was the star in 50’s sci-fi horror films.

Well that fell by the wayside along with other things, and then the site I tried before was trying an extended offer, therefore offering another cheap opportunity to reinvestigate and see what the fuss was about and of course, see if indeed it is a place to contact women in a better way, once in which fat clumps like myself has a chance.

Enter Match.com (with scary Scooby Doo music…)

The gateway of the damned.

This is one of the original sites, though it appears there are no end of new sites that have popped up, including one where your friends can stitch you up for show like the pieces of rotten meat we all are. Now you notice that they boost that lots of people now are leaving as couples….oh do they?

So I stuck with this one for the purpose of this, and proceeded to sort out the thing that would sell me to the desperate world.

To say I didn’t spend that much time on the thing would be an understatement. I chose random pictures of me from the blog to use, along with the ye olde Ironing picture from Canary Wharf, as a way of showing, Look at me, look how funny I am, even though you get better laughs from collecting belly button fluff.

That will sell me very well.

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Panorama: A new moan

Lord of Leisure Posted on by

Tonight, for once, I took time out to watch the telly for a change and focused on watching an episode of the famous Panorama on BBC1, a show which looks at various issues occurring in the world today, like Charlie Brooker’s Newswipe programme except far less amusing nor containing any swear words for added effect.

But once more I felt the nerd rage build inside me, even prompting me to enter a blog entry for the first time in a while, for this programme was about the “net police” coming to get you for ripping off material you didn’t pay for,, due to a new digital rights bill moving through parliament right now.

The show mainly focused on the music industry, you know, those lovable rogues that fuel the wages of many mainstream artists and of course brought us the likes of Simon Cowell. Yeah, them lot. Already we’re not on their side.

Because I prefer to comment on such things that actually doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, here was a comment I left with them, of course if it got published on the site, I’d be amazed:

I absolutely laughed at some of the comments being made and also could not believe how much was left out.

For example, the level of profits the music industry is enjoying was something which was not reported on, something that can found with a two second search on Google using music industry profits.

Of course, maybe I’m biased and can just about come up with anything when trying to prove a point, but I feel that this episode of Panorama did not even attempt to scratch the surface of the argument being put forward, nor even question any of the figures being put to them.

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Starcraft 2: The new misery

Lord of Leisure Posted on by

Boo hoo, why have about 2000 people only got invites to a beta test of a computer game that lots of people seem to care about, and I’m not part of it, I went to all the shows, paid thousands of pounds travelling round the world to turn up in a hotel dressed as Frodo, only to then be laughed at because my ears weren’t real enough, oh the torment, the horror, this is not why millions dies in countless wars so we are denied to play against people who fry in sunlight, but can move and build huge armies using the power of their minds instead.

Christ. That was a long winded sentence.

The thing is, I actually never traveled anywhere looking like a reject from Lord of the Rings, nor paid lots of money like others in the world, yet somehow, I was one of the lucky first few who got to play the first round of the Starcraft 2 beta, and the overjoyed look on my gleeful face having got home after a long hard day of sleeping, you could have used as a Christmas card.

And what would a post like this be without some pictures just showing the fact that I have it and you don’t, like the snide little small minded ba****d I am:

Oh look at the tiny picture, showing not a lot, will I include a high res picture as a link, noooo!

Well aside from the fact that I’ve been able to log onto something that others haven’t been able to, mainly due to the fact that they care very little and have other things to do, what could I possibly tell you about this beta experience of the sequel to one of the very best real time strategy games ever created?

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2009 Review of the Year

Lord of Leisure Posted on by

Yes, instead of focusing on the now, which as I type consists of listening to ambulance sirens bellowing out their ever-increasing wails to non existent traffic outside, let’s have a post dedicated to that year which no-one remembers fondly: 2009, the a**hole of the noughties.

(Note: Must find out what this decade is going to be referenced as by those silly radio shows.) And now for a brief news rundown of the year, complete with sarcastic remarks;

  • 2009, it began with a basic message of hope, that old Barracks Omaha was going to make the world a better place and basically he didn’t, though still winning the runner’s up prize, sorry scratch that, the Nobel Peace Prize as a consolation.
  • Joseph Fritzel earned a place on best house makeover of the year for converting a basement into a modern all downstairs prison, complete with imprisoned family member.
  • Britain’s MPs were caught out with one hand on the John Lewis catalogue with the other firmly on our wallets, at which point the story became something of an early Christmas present for all to focus on the robbing g*ts stealing cash while the Cashageddon or recession as others called it, continued unbated for the entire year. MPs try to forget about all this, in order to make fun of each other as election campaigning gets going towards the end of the year.
  • Meanwhile, banks returned to their old ways, further annoying the populace who bailed them out with cash. Protests began in earnest, mainly around the G20, which for all I knew at the time, was another group appearing on the X factor.
  • Iran got more jolly as a result of Twitter, and thus people living there had a new way of telling people that life sucks massive hairy balls there while protesting over everything at most times of the year. One wonders why they couldn’t use the same technology to bugger off from there then?

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    Happy new….err..what day is it?

    Lord of Leisure Posted on by

    Rather bizarre that the first post of 2010 is a whimper, with an outstretched hand trying to combine key presses to form sentences that entertain as well as inform but instead failing like the Banking system and therefore bringing the world to ruin.

    Because my creative brain is still waiting for the engineer to make it’s call-out after being rang two years ago (Damn only paying for 5 Year SLA for a brain repair), thus stopping the usual pants-soiling trash to start the new year, like a list of things that happened that had no real point to it at all, the best thing I can do is say that I’m very tired already, health still terrible in grand scheme of things, and that I will be back the weekend.

    That will be all.

    Television: Thou has forsaken us…

    Lord of Leisure Posted on by

    So to business in the strange bit between Christmas and New Year, and though this may not come as a shock to many people, it has come as a shock to me, having torn myself away from the digital world for a short time to spend away with the folks eating my way through 17 tonnes of food, metal and puppies while having a drip in my arm for the cider.

    British Television is crap.

    And not just even a little bit crap, I mean crap to the point where in a thunderstorm, you fall to your knees and shout “WHY?!?!?!” to the accompanying dramatic orchestral overture signifying that hell has landed on Earth and there are no Big Macs left in McDonalds.

    Let’s examine what was put on Prime-time shall we? Endless repeats of shows older than I am, all demonstrating that TV was better in the 70s, Harry Hill’s TV Fart, where they look at all the TV that’s on and make fun of it with being that funny (and somehow that in itself, funny enough to have won an award or 12), Ant and Dec’s Boxing Day Disaster, where lots of people we care very little for show up and say something while dribbling, at which point all the animals in the audience cry out for more.

    Let’s even remark on the human tragedy that is the All new Mr and Mrs on ITV, with which you are presented with three celebrity couples, all of whom you want to see how long they last with a chainsaw between the eyes. They were all so sickening to see, gushing over each other just to ensure that you know that they have everything wonderful in life and you don’t.

    I want to call them all a bunch of hairless f**kers, though perhaps that’s just me being bitter that people with the intelligence of dried prunes are worshipped these days, and therefore nine times of ten it’s not even worth getting out of bed.

    Oh, and to satisfy those noisy pr*ts that read trash like Heat magazine, we got to witness the most embarrassing facts like to be that the man watches football and the woman goes shopping, or owns lots of one thing. STOP THE PRESSES…I want to get off. We’ll also leave the X factor annoyances to one side as frankly it pretty much shows itself for what a frightening abomination it is.

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    The Lord of Leisure’s 2009 Christmas Message

    Lord of Leisure Posted on by

    You will do everything I say....And so it’s that time of year once more, and that means a festive Ooh Sometimes message to be displayed on the 25th of December to those who are too bored to talk to their families and prefer to hide looking at smut on the internet instead.

    First of all, Merry Christmas to everyone today, hope you got what you wanted or indeed perhaps you just got to spend time with your loved ones, and if not, just remember, EBay allows you to sell both your crap presents and your loved ones on as required.

    By the time you read this, I’m away from it all once more, back in the Midlands with friends and family, more than likely right now I’m on the floor under the influence of yet more questionable substances, all the time laughing at shiny things. Damn, that cheap Tesco bleach is powerful stuff.

    At 7pm or thereabouts we can all neglect each other and watch Doctor Who…Again. Christ, it’s almost like Groundhog day, only once a year. Only this time we get a new Doctor. Well, New Year’s Day we do anyway. More than likely this is just setting it all up, but enough speculation on one of the very few new pieces of programming to grace our screens this year.

    Last year, I wrote about little things like the sales already started before christmas, the ongoing terrorism that is the financial market will make sure that no-one spends for some time to come, and more and more people lose their jobs.

    I also tried to point out that things could be a lot worse, and really that still stands. 2009 was a hell of a hard year in many respects, and trust me that will be covered in a fabulous all star post soon, complete with hurtful remarks and reasons to see if rope on a dangling light is a work of art, and would it look better with your neck in it.

    But for the time being, we’ll all off, we’re all drinking heavily and possibly having naughty with someone you know, or not, we don’t judge here, though if they have a sexy sister with no self-esteem, let me know.

    So to finish off this year’s Christmas message, enjoy the moment, and let’s look forward to eating 70 days worth of leftovers.

    Freeview on the Internet

    Lord of Leisure Posted on by

    And now to dangle keys in front of you in the absence of any real christmas gift, allow me to inform you about a new service which may not last very long due to legal reasons, despite the fact they say everything is fine about that; http://www.tvcatchup.com

    Ah, access to the free soft-core porn from Five via your computer. Merry christmas everyone!

    Most of the freeview channels are now available via this service, with the only adverts from the service (so it remains free I assume) showing up when you change channel, though the picture isn’t clever at times, looking like an old Mega Drive game instead (note you have to have a clue what a Mega Drive is to find that funny.).

    The sign-up process is free and it must be noted that you still need a TV license to view this service as it falls under watching content live. So at the very least this is something else when other people hog the box to watch Doctor Who, while you can watch other things while pretending to work on that nuclear reactor for next year’s science fair or something. At least until Sky get the site shut down for providing a service you should pay for.

    Work-Based Censorship (or how to not get fired for blog-bitching about work)

    Lord of Leisure Posted on by

    Now this is going to appear to be something of a bizarre topic to bring up at this time of year, given the fact that those turkeys aren’t going to eat themselves and Grandma needs throwing on the fire, nevertheless, this evening it was something I felt compelled to write about and given the fact after two days in and out of bed exhausted, finally the time has come to put finger to keyboard once more.

    Something came up at work (oh yes I’m still employed by a real firm you know, well at the time of writing I was anyway) recently and one event that has been at the back of my mind a fair bit, was the fact that we all had to adhere to a new “Blogging policy” which is a new thing to have to consider really when you’re a happy go lucky chap on the internet writing about how many time you went to the toilet in one day or the questionable smells from your armpits.

    There are now for the first time ever, official guidelines I now have to follow, perhaps out of something truly horrible happening like business being lost, or perhaps even people avoiding working for them, for hearing the latest in a long line of spooky stories at the haunted corporate building. Who knows why they materialised, the fact is that they are there.

    You will do everything I say....Then I started wondering more about the whole area of “enforced” censorship as a result of who you work for, and not for the first time either, this subject came up a while ago: How to write a Blog without losing your job… from September 2007 in fact, when a female worker got fired from Nintendo for being thick and I learned about the existence of “Blog Change Agents” working for companies writing to people who write about them negatively to try and change their opinions via one means or another. Maybe it’s time to revisit the subject and see if things have changed and perhaps now find way around the minefield that is blogging freely while under the company rules.

    Well even at the arse end of 2009, not a lot has changed in many ways. People still get jolly upset legally when you mention them with their PR people having a look over first and it appears someone did just that recently as we were all warned recently by various managers to not knock the company you work for to other people outside your family as not only does this reflect badly on the company, but also yourself as a person. Though….surely that’s obvious.

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