Well, the news is out anyway...

...so I suppose I might as well say it: it looks like The Barbelith Underground is to close. I was hoping against hope that Tom Coates, who runs the board, might change his mind. There's been no word, though, so I must assume the worst.

As Rage says, I'm just not digging this.

Bottled water is drug paraphernalia.

And so are glowsticks. And chillout rooms. Look, it's not made up-- it's this bill the US Congress is looking at. Look, it's real: Ravers Against the Machine (washingtonpost.com)

(Appropriated from the bulging pockets of Megarad Technologies - Ultimate in Underground Technology News)

Random Paranoia

The huge leap in traffic over the past couple of days has filled me with mixed emotions. There's a tiny little part of me that is whispering: "Look at all those hits! The editor of Neurotic Gen-Xer Weekly must be in there somewhere. I bet he's reading your weblog right now, yelling to his PA: "We've found our new star columnist! Send round the limo with some posh booze and a big pizza and some Hello Kitty stationary-- whatever it takes! We've got to get her on board!"

The rest of me (which is marginally closer to reality) is picturing spam, death threats, spam, hatemail, more spam than you can shake a stick at, mailbombs, viruses, spam spam spam and spam... and of course dozens-- nay, hundreds!-- of potential employers shaking their heads in sorrow and mumuring: "Do you think this clown's got any idea how big a ninny she looks? Find out the real name of the person behind this freakshow, would you-- we wouldn't want to hire her by mistake. Actually, just have one of our Human Resources people pop round with a gun. It's the kindest thing to do."

Y'see, I'm suddenly and acutely aware that I haven't really aimed for a sense of top-class journalism here, going instead for flash animations and stuff about platypuses, interspersed with moaning about my job. I realize now that, just possibly, trying to get my readers involved in a sordid magickal ritual might not put me in the best light.

So, if the editor of Snide&Resentful Review (incorporating Let's Blame Everyone But Ourselves For Our Problems Digest) happens to be reading this: I can actually do proper writing, you know. Honest.

Gizza job.

First it was Spiderman who'd make you gay just by watching him. Now it appears that watching Sesame Street will make you gay.

"(Washington) A group of powerful conservative Republicans have condemned the introduction of an HIV Muppet on public television, and have issued a veiled threat to public television that it could face spending scrutiny if it goes ahead with the project.... The American Family Association. The AFA says the character is a means for 'homosexual activists to influence young viewers.'"

Oh, FFS. Look, the show is supposed to go out in South Africa, a nation where HIV is rampant beyond words. It's aimed at little kids who've been born infected with the virus, to help them and their peers learn about the condition. It might save lives, for crying out loud.

See, this is why I hate people so much.

Despair, Inc.:Office supplies that tell it like it really is.

(Snatched from the WEF.)

MEMEPOOL ATE MY WEBLOG!

Man oh man. You know how many hits I was getting at the height of my Grauniad weblog fame? Eighty a day. You know how many I've got in the last three and a half hours? A hundred and ninety. Where are they all coming from? Why, from memepool.com. Oh, the cruel price of fame.

Jeeze Louise. The site went down altogether a couple of hours back. At this rate I'm going to have to flog my carbamazipine pills to students just to afford the bandwidth. Y'know, now would be a really good time for that weekly column to drop in my lap....

Actually, I meant to do that. It's the Amazing Button Which Doesn't Actually Do Very Much. There ya go. I hope you're all suitably impressed.

Testing, testing.

By popular demand...

Online Epilepsy : A new spectator sport? Being a transcript of the original "I'm going to have a fit" thread.

I have had approximately four times my usual hit rate today, all of it relating to the fit thing. I'm amazed yet strangely gratified by all the interest, though with hindsight my lack of a webcam to record myself the actual fit was a missed opportunity. Hey, that could be a real moneyspinner--

"EpoCam.com! All grand mal, all the time! Watch'em wriggle, folks!"

Did I mention that I was hoping to score a regular column somewhere? I can't promise a fit every week but I could improvise. Contract something oozy. Arrange to suffer a freak cheesegrater accident. I'm flexible.

Ah.

This would be why the traffic's gone up: Luke aka Rothkoid has linked to the thing I did about chucking an epo. Then it turned up here. Now it seems to be doing the rounds via email.

Umm.... great. Possibly.

Traffic's up again.

Hullo, new people. You know I've got a personal message board, right? Drop by! say hi! Give me all your money so the popups can die!

You've got BRAIN!!!

I am pleased to inform you that you-- yes, YOU!-- are the owner of a brain. You do not have to sign anything, nor do you have to send me a registration fee. You do not have to wait for it to be delivered. It's already yours! In your head! Now!

Your free, all-expenses-paid brain comes equipped with the following features as standard:

* Critical faculties!

Critical faculties allow you to think things about stuff and work stuff out, without waiting to be told by someone or going along with your first kneejerk reaction. Gosh, they're super!

* Language!

Yes-- with brain, the super head-filler, you get Language absolutely free! Language has Words and helps you to express ideas and thoughts and stuff. No longer will you be reduced to calling everything "gay". No longer will you have to content yourself with dull, unimaginative death-threats or hackneyed sexual slurs! Why say "yr sight suks!!!!!" when you could say "Your website is the diseased leakage from an infected rectal fistula and you yourself are quite stunningly pathetic"? Langauge-- it's a bit good!

* Learning abilities!

Brain also comes equipped with a state-of-the-art upgrade facility, Learning™. Imagine-- free brain upgrades, whenever you want! NO waiting! NO big downloads! Just insert information via sensory apparatus and Learning™ will do the rest! AMAZING!

"But Mordant," I hear you cry, "I cannot use my Brain! I did not go to (insert academic institution) and I'm only a (insert random agglomeration of gender/orientation/occupation)! How can I use Brain?"

Mandy the Bearded One (in a box) says: Don't worry! I went to a top academic institution and that never stopped my rise to idiocy.

That's right. You may feel ill-equipped to process certain topics-- yet how many hours have you spent sitting around with your mates and discussing why (insert sports team here) should buy (insert player of said sport here)? Or why (insert soap character here) should break up with (insert another soap character here)? In minute detail! See? You already have the basic tools for discussing and understanding all kinds of things and stuff!

"But Mordant," I hear another cry go up, "I have a Ph. D. in being dead clever from Dead Clever University! Am I not already using Brain?"

Nuh-uh! You may have used Brain for certain specialized applications in the past-- but are you using it right now? Do you find yourself waving your Ph. D. in Dead Cleverness around as a debate crashes around your pathetically untenable position in flames? Then you need to use Brain! Or you'll end up looking like a total prat!

Mandy the Bearded One (in a box) says: Yes-- intelligence doesn't equal wisdom. Anyway, what does it matter when you can't sit down and you aren't allowed on the furniture? ooouch.

So start using super free Brain, TODAY!!!

Mandy the Bearded One (in a box) says: Can I say Chomskyian now? Please?

(No. *thunk.*)

New stuff from rathergood.com

SPOOOOOONGUAAAAAARD! by Joel Veitch.

(Wrenched from the slippery ginger clutches of the B3TA newsletter.)

I have been asked to take issue with Dan's comments on That Weblog compo:

"Mind you, I'm not sure what the fuss is about. Wil Wheaton's going to win. Wil Wheaton always wins.That's what Wil Wheaton is for.

Honestly, sometimes I have to explain everything."

According to Mandy the Bearded One, this is a blatant attempt to overtake the front runner from behind. It is, and I quote, "cheap, obvious and meretricious." Despite the fact that he only said that after I beat him up and made him say it, it remains an insightful comment on the competition. Dan beats Wil, I beat Dan, ergo the only possible candidate for the prize is moi.

Oh, and I think Mandy the Bearded One is trying to convey his independance and neutrality but since he's bound and gagged under my desk, all I can hear is "Mwararar!" Now, if I ever decide to let you out you can get your own weblog, can't you, darling?

Ever get one of those Nigerian scam emails? Ever wondered who's behind it? Ever spared a thought for the poor souls daft enough to get suckered in by said email? Well, wonder no more, for good old Wired has the answers.

(Tea-leaved from the aforementioned memetic life v3)

Random.

I love clicking on random blogs from Blogger's "recently updated" list. Most of them are utterly pants but every so often you find something like memetic life v3. Makes it all worthwhile.

This isn't the worst job I've ever had.

The worst job I've ever had (and there are many contenders; I might mention litter-picking after Party in the Park, I might mention being a files clerk for the National Lottery Charities' Board) was being a machine-minder in a hinge factory. It bit.

I had various duties but mainly I was assigned to operate one or other of the several drilling machines that drilled out and countersunk each leaf of the hinge, ready to be assembled elsewhere in the factory. (The technical term for what I did was "reaming knuckles". No, really.) My job consisted of placing each leaf in turn in the machine, then pressing a button to operate the drilling mechanism, then taking out the leaf and blowing all the grot off it with an air-hose. Becuase the drill-bits would get very hot they and the leaf had to be bathed in a constant stream of coolant fluid, a thin, milky liquid with a greasy mineral odour. Swarf piled up everywhere, corkscrews and flakes of sharp metal.

The permanent staff were given thick long-sleeved overalls but there were not enough spare ones for the temps. That's pretty typical; when it comes to protective gear, temps and casuals generally get stiffed. This happens in plush offices as well as the factory floor-- you wouldn't belive the number of times I've temped in a huge swanky building for a company whose budget seemed to cover logo-adorned carpets and marble surfaces but not an extra chair, so that temp workers were expected to spend eight hours standing up to type. I have permenant nerve damage in my right arm and shoulder from such practices.

As a temp, I had not an overall but a disposable apron made of thin blue plastic. Someone also found me a plastic sack which I could lay across my knees while I worked. These did not suffice to keep the coolant and swarf off me, however; after ten minutes at the machine my clothes would be saturated with coolant, my face and hair splashed with it. The coolant was nasty stuff. It dried out my skin so that it became coarse in texture and it triggered an allergic reaction which made me itch wherever the liquid got on me-- and it got on me everywhere. I was red and itchy from head to toe, all the time. The discomfort used to keep me awake at night. The swarf was also a problem. It got into my clothes, insinuating itself into the fabric. If I pushed back my sleeves without thinking, it would cut and scratch the skin. I looked like a Slipknot fan.

Thick red rubber gloves were supplied freely. The coolant would react with the rubber, making it stiff and brittle. Eventually it would crack, allowing swarf and coolant onto your hands. The stiffness also meant that handling the leaves became tricky. Since there was always somebody overseeing the work, shouting and demanding more speed, I would sometimes have to remove one or both of my gloves in order to keep up with the pace demanded.

Insert the leaf, press the button, remove the leaf, clean it, put it in the tray. Insert the leaf, press the button, remove the leaf. Insert the leaf, press the button, remove the leaf. I got through about four thousand a day, most days. It's easy, when doing this kind of work, to drift off into a trance state. Easy-- but risky. There were all kinds of eventualities demanding the operators attention: steam from an overheating drillbit, countersinking becoming too deep or not deep enough, a change in the din from the machine indicating some sort of problem. Drift off and you can make mistakes, mistakes that might end up costing you the booking. Unsatisfactory work. The employer can turn round and refuse to pay the agency for your labour; the agency will think twice before offering you work again. Even if they don't boot you out for good and all, they aren't obliged to find you work. So. Focus. Insert the leaf, press the button, remove the leaf. No matter how bored you are, no matter how much you might want to let your mind wander, you must stay in the here-and-now. You must insert the leaf, press the button, remove the leaf. Check every tenth one for damage and dodgy countersinking. Insert the leaf, press the button, remove the leaf, all day, four thousand times a day.

Minimum wage, natch.

Gizza job.

Okay, seeing as how I'm getting all this new traffic, including a number of repeat offenders, the time has come for me to start exploiting your collective ass.

I want a weekly column somewhere. You people are going to help me get it. Got it? Good. Now what I want you to do is a simple little magick spell, chaos magickians, for the use of. (If you're not familiar with chaos magick, then Phil Hine's Oven-Ready Chaos is as good a place to start as any; there's also some good stuff on chaosmagic.com.)

You do your spell as follows:

1) Write down your statement of intent-- in this case, MY WILL IS FOR MORDANT TO GET A REGULAR COLUMN.

2) Cross out all the vowels. We don't need no steeeenking vowels. This gives you: MY WLL S FR MRDNT T GT RGLR CLMN

3) Remove all the repeated letters, giving you: MY WL S FR DNT G C.

Now you can either make a mantra, or make a sigil. Or both. Actually, do both. I really want that column.

4a) Mantra: Shove random vowels into the string of letters. It doesn't matter where or how many, just make it into a pronounceable word.

4b) Sigil: Turn all the letters into a ickle pritty picture. How is up to you. Doodle. Have fun. Take away repeated lines, add dots, add squiggles. Use a graphics package, use crayons, use paint, use your own bodily fluids, I don't care. JUST GET ME THAT COLUMN!

Having made our mantra and/or sigil, we now have to charge it. There are various ways of doing this but they all boil down to the same thing: persuading the conscious mind to shut up and sit down so that the id or the unconscious or the temporal lobe or the Higher Self (insert theory of the month here) can get a good look at the sigil and start doing stuff to the fabric of reality. I've seen many techniques suggested and tried out. These include, but are not limited to: holding your breath, jogging, running round in a circle till you fall over, meditating, tagging the sigil in dangerous places, looking at the sigil whilst really, really stoned... actually, there's almost nothing that someone, somewhere, hasn't tried (chaos magickans being, frankly, a bunch of sluts. Mad sluts.) However, the most popular and the easiest technique is to chant the mantra/stare at the sigil at the moment of orgasm.

See? See how easy it is? Go on. You were just looking for pr0n-- I can see your Google referrals. You were going to party with Mrs Palm tonight anyway-- why not lend your sordid, grubby self-abuse to a higher purpose: getting me a job? Go oooon.

Hell, it worked for Grant Morrison.

Ananova - Students do washing-up for free bondage sessions

Lady Sian of Teeside: "Because of their loans they haven't got much money. I just ask them to vacuum or do the washing up before they go."