Modern Toss!

Excellent news! Was just having a little shufti on play.com, that purveyor of fine entertainment-based goods, and noticed that Modern Toss has been released on DVD! Hoorah! For those amongst you that are perilously uneducated in this particular dark corner of comedy genius, Modern Toss is a series of books in a sort of semi-comic style, in that each page usually has a separate little story and it's often only one or two boxes/scenes long. It's bordering on inappropriately offensive, but not in a crude or political/racial way, I think it's probably just that it's designed more for people in my generation, who generally find this sort of thing funnier and don't mind swearing as much. It was adapted into a TV series which mixed cartoon and actual film, sometimes in the same scene and it worked really well. Some of the characters had me cackling like a crazy, cat-throwing old bint. This is the only snippet I can find online in picture form which is actually clearly visible and able to be saved as an image:

It's not the best I've seen but still made me giggle. There are some pretty good videos on youtube actually come to think of it, but I'm not sure how to upload them here... search for modern toss and watch the customer services ones.

I've been promised the DVD and maybe the next book for christmas so how very thrilling! Wheee!

w00t - The Wordy Winner

According to Yahoo! news, one of the leading US dictionary publishers has named the word "w00t" word of the year. Why is the word "w00t" even in the dictionary??? Internet and SMS shortcuts and slang are not standard English, not really. And gamers and other people that use them colloquially generally know that and that's fine. But why do people act surprised when textspeak or whatever you want to call it slips into children's schoolwork? They've been surrounded by it as they grew up and use it in everyday language so of course there might be some confusion and it's expected that kids should learn the difference and when it's appropriate to use slang. If these kinds of words are actually being published in the dictionary, how the hell can we expect them not to crop up in homework and essays by younger students? It's ridiculous.

It is interesting how language evolves though. Maybe this is just the next step in our evolution, but it seems more like a degradation of one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Typical americanisation of British culture. Keep yer hands off!

Scott Adams - He Knows the Score

Re: God

Religion makes me angry. I was browsing some random groups on facebook and ended up somehow on a load of religion-themed ones, and they're mostly just a place for people to argue, bitch, piss and moan, swear, abuse and generally fling insults at each other because they have different beliefs. Muslims attacking atheists, christians attacking muslims, jews attacking christians... no wait, just everybody attacking everybody else!
Personally I'm an atheist and very firm in my belief, or lack thereof. I'm a science geek thoroughly convinced by evidence for evolution etc, and to me, believing in a god is no different to believing in fairies or witches or monsters or santa. Most of the western scientific community would probably agree, because as scientists we are trained to think critically and question what we are told. Much, if not all, religion relies on blind obedience and the unquestioning nature of people raised into a certain culture from birth.
If religion must exist, it should be a personal thing. The individual should consider all points of view before making a personal decision about what to believe and how to live their life. And keep it that way, as opposed to standing in the highstreet with a megaphone spouting bullcrap at the top of their voices to the dismay of the surrounding general public. I don't have a problem with religion at all as long as it's not been forced on other people, as long as it doesn't cause abuse, violence and hatred. As long as it's presented as opinion not fact, and isn't taught as fact in schools. As long as politics and law aren't based on it. The only religion I can think of that hasn't repeatedly through history caused pain and suffering and brainwashed billions of individuals is buddhism. Maybe I'm just unaware of problems caused by buddhism, but from what little knowledge I DO have, it's a peaceful religion that focuses more on self-enlightenment than destroying opposing belief systems. Why can't they all be like that?
Religion costs lives and starts wars. It teaches disrespect towards not only non-believers, but also what you might call "alternate" ways of life eg homosexuality. Some still promote sexist views and refuse simple freedoms to women. As a female, bisexual atheist, I wouldn't stand a chance at living the life I want to in, say, a predominantly muslim country.

In Britain, there's now a massive hoo-har over political correctness, blatantly a synonym for "ridiculously inappropriate tiptoe-ing around ethnic minorities". It actually has got to the point where the majority cultures are starting to be squashed in case they offend Asian and Middle Eastern religions. For example, there was talk recently about reducing christmas holidays in schools or something similar (I'm not sure of the details because I don't remember, but it was along those lines) so that non-christians wouldn't be offended. I'm not chrisitan, and I'm not offended. I don't get offended when people in this country celebrate Eid or Hannukah either. Why should anyone care? Tolerance is important.
Ironically, this post probably comes across as a massively intolerant rant. Not true. I resepct other people's beliefs even if I don't agree with them, as long as they are just that: private beliefs, as previously discussed. But I refuse to respect any views that promote discrimination on the basis of belief, colour, gender, sexuality etc. That really is intolerable and so it should be.

Hmm, so I'm hoping this hasn't come across as intolerant but it definately gets labelled as a rant. This is a topic I feel very strongly about so there'll probably be a fair bit more ranting to come at some point. For now I think I'm done so... I'm out.

Through the Metaphorical Keyhole

Things I have in my room, which sum up a lot of my personality:

The usual furnishings. My TV and DVD player are perfectly positioned to watch from the sweet sweet comfort of Bed. My desk is too full of crap to actually be useful. My chair was stolen from a skip in Leeds city centre when Mecca Bingo were being refurnished. It was on the top of a pile of nice clean chairs though, so I don't know why they bothered throwing them out. Waste.

I have an excellent quality hifi which can hold 5 CDs. This suits me cos I'm too lazy to get up to change discs. Most of my CDs are dance compilations - trance or funky house.

A midi keyboard. But I'm not very good.

Posters of... Captain Jack Sparrow, Stewie Griffin, Homer J Simpson, Gorillaz, The Bunny Suicides, Ross Noble, Retarded George Bush quotes, Futurama.

Postcards from holidays in various parts of Spain.

A collection of badges which are stuck to the wall. Including such classics as "Vince Noir ate my cat", "Chuck Norris can divide by zero" and Dr Zoidberg's face.

A picture of a cow eating some snails.

A Jesus figurine, complete with posable arms and "gliding action".

An extensive collection of take-away menus.

A fantabulous selection of british comedy genius in DVD form. (Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey, Dara O'Briain, Father Ted, Black Books, Ross Noble etc.)

A battery operated, walking cuddly pig.

A drawer full of stripy, checked, patterned or otherwise mildly interesting socks. Actually there are a few drawers.

Some neuroscience textbooks which cost far too much money to say they rarely get used and often live on the floor under several layers of Stuff.

Piles of dirty washing, and piles of clean washing. This sometimes leads to confusion.

Printouts of Dilbert comic strips stuck on the walls.

Every Harry Potter book, all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and The Hitchhiker's Guide.

Birthday shananigans

Last night was my best friend and housemate's 21st birthday, so obviously the drinking was excessive and today I'm feeling pretty rough and I thought I'd take it easy and write some crap on here. What is it about the post-alcohol mindset that makes dossing online so attractive? Anyway. The party was pretty good, did a few silly things but never mind. The only problem is the photographic evidence that at least one of our friends probably has... Hmph.



Today has been slooow and sleepy. I've had a lot of trouble sleeping at normal times recently and I had less than 10 hours kip in 3 days, and not all in one go. So I stayed in bed all day today drifting in and out of consciousness and as a result of this I'm very confused about what happened today. Housemates have been in and out of my room and I've recieved and replied to text messages but I don't remember the exact details of any of this stuff and some of it I dunno if I dreamt it or if it was real. Feel quite guilty too, was supposed to go to my parent's house for a couple of days as it's my dad's bday tomorrow but I couldn't drag myself out of bed, had to cancel. Hopefully he won't mind if I make sure to get there early enough tomorrow. Unfortunately it's now about 5am and I can't sleep, so the chances of me getting up early are low.

So, the other day, during the early hours of the morning when there's no chance of sleeping but not much to do either, I watched some anime on youtube to entertain myself. Saw the first couple of episodes of Romeo x Juliet and it was actually really good, much better than expected. Turns out it's only very loosely based on the original play so it's a bit more interesting plotwise and a lot more anime styley. Shame because it was never released on DVD and I've only been able to find the first 2 episodes online - unless you can read spanish subs or speak japanese. Which would be awesome by the way, maybe one day I'll attempt to learn japanese.
If anyone knows where I can get hold of the rest of the series with english subs please share the wealth via ye olde comment box or something.

Howdy Doody

Hello all, welcome to my truly fantastic blog site. Well, I say truly fantastic - it's more along the lines of dry and mundane ramblings really. Or it will be as I'm new to the site and this is my first post. So to get the pleasantries and introductions out of the way... My name's Sarah, I'm a third year student at Leeds uni and as such have a lot of free time on my hands to write a pointless blog. Technically I should spend most of that time working but obviously I don't. I decided to start this for 2 reasons: firstly, I often have either a big rant or some random babblings stored up in my head with noone to vent them on and it'd be nice to write them down somewhere socially acceptable rather than, say, my facebook profile. Secondly, after an arduous period of intense coursework related all-nighters, I've actually become officially nocturnal and can't get back into a normal sleeping pattern. There's nothing to do and noone to talk to tonight and I can't sleep so I'm BORED.

I'm sat in the kitchen of my shared student hovel and everyone else is asleep. The weather's shit so the wind keeps blowing our bins around outside the kitchen window and it's freaking me out a bit... we don't exactly live in the swishest of areas and neighbourly spirit pretty much consists of bashing my car in if I park in a place someone else feels territorial about... and it really sounds like there's someone out there! Plus the wind is rubbing in the fact that noone locked the iron security gate tonight by banging it against the door... and I'm too pansy to open the front door to lock it. Oh well, if anyone kicks the door in I'll hide in the fridge or something.

So moving on from my mild paranoia for now. I don't really know what I'm going to do with this blog as of yet so can't really tell you what to expect. Probably just un-themed, random thoughts, whatever I feel like at the time. Haha not sure who I'm writing this to as I doubt anyone will actually bother to read it. Never mind. But if a real live actual human person IS reading this then I would like to say thank you for listening, (haha followed shortly by why? Why are you reading my blog?) and I hope you don't find it too mindnumbingly dull!

Laters.