Current Maxima

Posted on May 12, 2012 by admin

This is a progress update of sorts on my lifting. These numbers are about two months out of date.

You can tell by the Squat variations1 that the gym I went to had no rack. They claimed it would cost ~£6000 which is a load of bull. So I decided to move to a better gym. Only thing is, they told me they had a squat rack when in fact it was a smith machine. This is quite disappointing as I wouldn’t have joined had their not been a rack. You’d have thought people who work in gyms know what their equipment is called right? And no this wasn’t the receptionist but a fitness instructor. Continue reading →

  1. I used to have the PT clean and press the weight onto my back but they ran out of juice [↩]
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The Ultimate Random Senseless Crap Note

Posted on April 28, 2012 by admin

The following is a list of flash animations I collected in 2007 and thought were funny/interesting enough to keep. I also added my own commentary to go with them. Astute readers of “Blag of Beetuss” may realise that this is one of the things that was on my to do list. Namely, “HTML-ify note”. The note was in a text format and I wrote a python script 1to make it into valid HTML. Otherwise it would be mine numbingly boring to do it manually in a text editor, even with search and replace. Anyway enough background, enjoy:
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  1. I would have included the code in this post but WordPress kept fucking up [↩]
Posted in humour, programming, python | 2 Comments

Job Adverts

Posted on April 18, 2012 by admin

Job adverts are invariably poorly written. Especially if the writer hasn’t paid to post it. Recruiters chastise job seekers for the slightest spelling mistake but it’s all right for them to type using their buttocks. Of course the power is on their side and in this economic downturn, they could have a two-year old write the ad and still get replies.
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I was looking for a lost image on an old disc, instead I found an ~8 year old review for  WCW Vs. The World for the Sony Playstation. I bought this game in ~1998 for the lofty sum of £40. The review is presented as it was written, but with typos fixed. I wrote the review to submit to GameStation, a videogame retailer, to warn others so that they wouldn’t make the same mistake1. The basic premise of the game is a wrestling beat ‘em up. It has wrestlers from other countries and those outside WCW. Continue reading →

  1. Unsurprisingly, I don’t think this review ever went live on GameStation [↩]
Posted on February 17, 2012 by admin | 1 Comment

This isn’t any cocaine…

Posted on January 30, 2012 by admin

The following is an excerpt from Radio 4′s “The Now Show”:

If you aren’t British you probably don’t understand what all that guffawing was about. Essentially, that particular company (Marks and Spencer) produced a large number of similar stylized adverts. M+S has a reputation for being squeaky clean. I trawled youtube for many minutes but couldn’t find the quintessential advert to best describe the joke. So this parody will have to do instead …

Posted in humour, uk | Leave a comment

2011 in Books

Posted on December 26, 2011 by admin

I’d say this is the most books I’ve read in a year. I hope to surpass or at least equal this amount next year. Overall, this is definitely the most non-fiction I’ve ever read. I don’t tend to buy books because I’ll probably only read them once, so my choices are generally limited to their availability in the library.
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DVD Player Menus

Posted on November 24, 2011 by admin

A bit of an obscure topic but something that makes the user experience a lot worse if done poorly. When I say DVD player menus, I specifically mean the programming interface behind the DVD player. Generally, DVD players have become better as time has gone by, greater capacity, speed, wider compatibility with file formats, ability to connect to external hard drives and so on. However, the menus themselves have deteriorated and become counter-intuitive. Here’s a few examples that specifically relate to the RDR-HXD890 (newer by ~6 years) and RDR-HXD710 (older) models.


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Singapore is a strange place

Posted on November 7, 2011 by admin

I holidayed in Singapore in late 2009. It’s one of the strangest destinations I’ve ever visited and I’ve been to India (if that means anything).

As you’re about to land in Singapore, you’re greeted by quite the sight. For you see, the entirety of Asia’s trade passes through Singapore’s port. If this isn’t the busiest port in the world I don’t know what is. Again not something you see everyday. Take a look at this shitty quality photo I took on the plane1:

This photo doesn't do it justice. It's something you have to see yourself.

So what’s the first thing you realise as you leave the airport? You’re thinking “This isn’t so bad, it’s not as hot as everyone says it is” and then BAM! You’re no longer in the comfort of the airport’s air con. It’s a sweltering ~30°C (and it will be, all day everyday)2. You start sweating as you wait for a taxi and you can see your sweat evaporate on the ground in front of your eyes. If you’re not indoors or in a taxi, you really start feeling the heat. It becomes unbearable.
Continue reading →

  1. Here’s a slightly better picture [↩]
  2. During my week there it rained once, and boy did it rain, a tropical storm. The thunder was so loud it sounded as though it were a large war cannon. [↩]
Posted in self | 2 Comments

AVGN used to be funnier

Posted on October 15, 2011 by admin

There’s been a noticeable decline in the quality of AVGN videos over the past few years. It can’t be that he’s run out of shitty games to review (he says so himself). It’s more to do with what he’s putting into the reviews. In his earlier videos, he’d review the game by pointing out flaws in design or something incredibly strange within the game, the videos were focused on the games (as they should being a review). But now, he tends to clog the videos up with tangential filler. By this I mean overacting scenes. Normally, he’ll dress up as character from the game and playfight some douchebag in another costume. He’ll do these silly subplots that aren’t at all funny. Review the damn game. Perhaps he’s acting on his own ambition of being some sort of thespian. I know he made a lot of shitty movies when he was younger. Just remember James, what made you famous. Stick to the format.

Another thing he should do less of is swearing. Repeating “shit cunt fuck piss” 10 times in a sentence tends to get old after a while and they lose their strength the more you hear them. It’s funnier to use words that sound like curse words but actually aren’t (b3ta’s philosophy, which I agree with).

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Badminton

Posted on September 30, 2011 by admin

There’s a sport for everyone and you’ve just not found it yet, if you think you hate sports. I wasn’t particularly good at sports, or the ones I played in my early school-life anyway. The only one I liked a little was cricket. But cricket had its drawbacks. There were long periods of boredom in the field, the possibility of being hit by a cricket ball and the awkwardness of wearing a cup. There was also rugby where I could run pretty damn fast but I didn’t like the idea of being pummelled by others and getting messy.

It was around this time we started playing badminton in secondary school. I took to the sport straight away with some natural talent. I remember getting to the second best court only to be defeated in the final round. It’s a shame we played this sport so rarely. I played as often as I could at home but the problem with badminton is, it isn’t an outdoor sport. The wind tends to fuck up the game pretty badly. Even a slight breeze can cause problems.
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