have you missed me?
i’ve been off in the land of tech and implementing other people’s blogs and fixing my own grown-up one. and i have neglected my 4 and a half readers here at bad mathematics. loyalty doesn’t exist in the fast moving world of blogs. one day you’re in and the next, you’re out (in the immortal words of heidi klum)! so what’s been happening in the world of the bad mathematicians? summer is over and the gloom of the economic crisis has hit the band pretty hard. not least because we are unable to afford our favorite rehearsal brand of whisky. an essential component of a good old knees-up. but all is not lost… a cheap alternative, while very uncool, helps ease the pain of being unable (and unwilling) to fork out 18 euros for the bog standard brand we have grown to associate with the band. on the bright side, we are getting together every week and are recording our jam sessions. we are also planning on having some “come down to the studio and act all enthusiastic in the background” sessions. check back soon for details…
twitter twaddle
do any of you use twitter?
if you are asking ‘what the hell is twitter?” then you probably don’t use it, although those of us who do could ask ourselves the same question.
basically, it is a social networking system that allows you to send and read people’s “tweets” which are text messages of up to 140 characters. in a nutshell, it’s your facebook status without all the other paraphernalia.
over 100 million people use it, mostly for very dull and pointless purposes. but there are some people (very, very few) who are able to be genuinely amusing in 140 characters. perhaps the most famous is stephen fry (mentioned in the previous post). the woman who claims to be his wife and mother of his 5 or 6 children, mrs stephen fry, is perhaps even funnier (she also has a blog). another bastion of british comedy, john cleese is still alive and twatting like a loon. the fucking queen is amusing but not amused. and god has a sense of humour, believe it or not. shit my dad says is worth joining twitter for but one of my absolute favorites has to be the funniest dog on the planet, bLoOMeRrOoNeY. she’s the only person (or animal) who merits using capital letters on this blog.
and there’s the dilemna. you cannot enjoy the pearls of nonsense on twitter unless you actually join and most people really don’t want to bother with any more internet crap. but if you do want to broaden your horizons beyond facebook, twitter can be fun and has also broken news before some of the major news channels. tweeple knew about the earthquake in haiti long before the msm picked it up and when the icelandic volcano trapped travellers all over europe, twitter was invaluable for hooking up and sharing rides to get home.
so if you need more entertainment but have the attention span of a gnat, join us and lots of other silly people on twitter. and don’t blame me if you get addicted. i’m sure there’s an online therapy group for tweetaholism and twitterhea.
happy tweeting…
put this in your pipe
it’s hard enough to get people to come to your blog and read your ramblings on a regular basis (thank you dear six (!) readers), let alone to get them to explore your sidebar. now, before you get all hot under the collar, i’m talking about that column on the left hand side of the page that has lots of links in it. because i have no witty nonsense i feel like writing today, i thought i’d hand it over to fellow bloggers to tickle your funny bone. under “funnies” (imaginative title right?) you’ll find blogs that make me laugh. i was going to say “perhaps you will too” but in some ways i hope you don’t because that would make you as silly as me. ah well, here goes…
cake wrecks
if you like cakes and you hate bad spelling, you’ll love this blog. everything from creepy dolls to chocolate penises. there seems to be no end of amusement to be had from people’s sweet disasters.
funny not slutty
if you want to know how to “how to vajazzle your vajayjay” or why “skinny women should shut up about their weight“, go and read these funny women.
how not to act old
another woman after my own heart. a huge lists of don’ts for the mature reader. things like “don’t take pictures of your freaking flowers“, don’t admit you’re befuddled by twitter, tiVo, texting — most of technology” and “stop covering up your underwear“. i giggle a lot at this stuff. probably means i’m old.
A lingering fear of mine was confirmed last night: My dog might be slightly retarded.
another female blogger! i’m beginning to see a bias in this list. this site is not only witty but has brilliant cartoons drawn by the writer herself. check out “dog“, 7 games you can play with a brick” and “this is why i’ll never be an adult“. love it.
metrodad
aha! the first man on the list! his blog is more amusing observations on life as a dad rather than outright giggles but well worth a read.
Maybe kids do really mature faster these days but whenever I think about this story, I recall being 5 years old and having a crush on my neighbor Brina. Maybe I was just a socially retarded dork back then because the only way I expressed my feelings for her were by pulling her pigtails and pushing her in the mud!
shit my kids ruined
it’s exactly as the title suggests. from fun with tampons to dodgy eyebrow “art”, this blog has me rolling my eyes every time i visit. i just wish i’d taken pictures of the crackers in the vcr (yes, i’m that old!).
oatmeal
how to describe oatmeal? i just find it funny. especially the titles. there are lots of list/top ten type articles including “6 reasons to ride a polar bear to work“, “8 ways to tell if your loved ones plan to eat you” and “10 reasons to avoid talking on the phone“. and the cartoons are great too.
the onion
if you don’t know the onion, you really should. it’s hilarious. brilliantly made news satire that will make you wet yourself. especially if you’re old mature like me.
the problem with young people today is…
i’m seeing another pattern developing in this list! this one is a good old series of rants and moans by crabby old fart. his bio reads:
This is me. Name’s Don.
I don’t care much for young people and I’m not too sure how I feel about you.
Thanks for visiting.
some of my favourite titles are:
- they eat like pigs
- they drink sissy drinks
- they dance like idiots
- they all have disorders
- they pee too much
- they mumble all the time
- they’re too tall
the complete list is in the right sidebar. just go and click on the links…
that should be enough nonsense to keep you going for the day. compiling this list has made me realise that i must do some more searching for a bit of brit blog humour. anyone got any links?
see you tomorrow…
wobbly bits
i’ve often wished that there was a language plugin for humans. imagine being instantly fluent in spanish, mandarin or navajo. i’d also like a delete button for stupid things that come out of my mouth. and a restart button for those days when i wake up feeling crap. and the ability to chuck out the old useless files in my sluggish brain and make space for new ones.
and while we’re at it, let’s add real life photoshop to the wishlist. having a bad hair day? no problem. photoshop! had an overindulgent night before? whoopee. photoshop! bad lighting showing up your wrinkles? abracadabra. photoshop! put on a few pounds over christmas? forget diets. photoshop!
we’d all have the ability to look flawless. all the time. sadly, at the moment, the boffins have been unable to invent these applications for us so we will have to amuse ourselves some other way. oh, i know! let’s look at “before” and “after” pictures of celebrities and laugh at their wobbly bits.
keira knightley grows boobs and cameron diaz gets symmetrical ones. kelly clarkson loses weight, serena williams loses a mole and tyra banks loses her moustache. kim kardashian’s cellulite disappears, eva longoria gets see-through clothing and britney spears head moves. justin timberlake de-shines and de-creases, naomi watts changes skin and heidi klum misplaces an ankle bone.
go on. click the link. it’ll make you feel better…
messing about so you don’t have to
i would like to set the record straight on one thing. i haven’t actually forgotten that this is a band blog. i am just choosing to ignore the fact and use this space for my own scribblings. because, let’s face it, most music blogs are boring and band blogs are positively coma-inducing. i am not personally interested in reading about the latest exploits of bon jovi or whether britney spears will ever tour again (i’ve really got the claws out for britney, don’t you think? check out psychoblues @7 minutes 30 seconds into the song on the bm player)
anyway, continuing my pointless nonsense here and also having nothing to do with music or the band, i was searching top ten lists of all sorts of odd things (like you do) and came across one called top 10 codes you aren’t meant to know. they are mostly things like police codes and hospital emergency stuff but one caught my eye and made me giggle.
In computer support, a variety of codes can be used when referring to a customer. One of these codes has become fairly well known on the internet: PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair) but there are a variety of others that are lesser known. One of these is used when reporting a fault which has been fixed: “The fault was a PICNIC” (problem in chair – not in computer), or “ID 10 T Error” – ID 10 T is, of course, IDIOT. Let us hope that you never see this noted down on your file when a serviceman is fixing your computer.
and when your computer technician writes “my new bff” on your report, it does not mean you are going to be buddies for life. it stands for “big fat fail”.
you have been warned…
bold
thank you franco, for today’s word: bold
many things sprang to mind when i saw this word. being an intellectual, my first thought was (of course) washing powder. my mum has always extolled the virtues of a good detergent, usually meaning expensive and smelling of mountain flowers or some such nonsense. i am more of the school of thinking that desires clothes that smell as if they have been hung out on a mountain on a blustery day. remember that smell ? i think it’s called fresh air.
my second thought was “oooh, i can do lots of fun things with fonts” like
this is bold
this is boldthis is bold
and so is this
but that’s just silly.
bold was also the name of:
- an american thoroughbred racehorse that is best remembered for winning the 1951 preakness stakes in a long shot victory and for being struck by lightning at the age of four while pastured at his upperville, virginia farm (1948-1952)
- a late 1980s youth crew hardcore band from upstate new york,, which along with bands like youth of today and side by side were a part of the youth crew, and an influence in the late 80’s straight edge hardcore scene. the band progressed to a more rock-oriented sound in its later years.
- a fictional character from the animated children’s television series “the animals of farthing wood” based on the books of the same name by author colin dann. bold is a fox
don’t say you never learn anything useful here on the blog.
then i realised that my readers are much more discerning than the average bloke or blokette and would want to read an intelligent insight into the word as described in the dictionary:
1 a : fearless before danger b : showing or requiring a fearless daring spirit
well, what a load of old bollocks that characteristic is for a human being. why on earth would we want to ignore the natural “fight or flight” instinct and do stupid things like jump out of aeroplanes or bungee jump? the proper reaction would be to cower in a corner until the person who was persuading you to do it had either gone away or done something really bold and was killed in the process. it’s a totally overrated “virtue”, not to be confused with being brave or courageous.
brave people can be scared pooless but go ahead and do things. like going on stage. crazy scary but you’re not going to die doing it unless there’s some lethally faulty wiring, you have taken a little too much of your secret stash or someone throws a cash and carry sized tin of tomatoes at you. normally, the worse that can happen is you get booed off stage. humiliating, yes. will make you feel like you want to curl up and die, yes. but you are not in mortal danger.
i’m sure all you bold parachutists and bungee jumpers will be screaming at your monitors right now and giving me all kinds of reasons why it’s ok to jump out of an aeroplane with a piece of material strapped to your back or leap off bridges with your legs tied to a bit of elastic. you’ll be seriously explaining the safety precautions and the extremely low risk of being killed. but i will remain steadfast in my opinion that doing such activities is against human nature and insane.
i am very happy to be somewhat brave and not remotely bold.
not to mention, alive.
sex and drugs…
i only wrote that title to get your attention !
our next gig is coming up very fast. remember wednesday at after dark ? we have pretty much finalised the playlist but reserve the right to be totally indecisive and change it at any time. it’s going to be a much longer gig than some of our recent ones, so we are all working hard to get in shape (like you believe that?). we were so exhausted yesterday at rehearsals that somebody said should we play some more or go to bed ? the deafening answer was “go to bed”. and so we did. what pros we are.
anyway, you know us. it’ll all be alright on the night… see you on wednesday.
rehearsals tonight
we’re rehearsing tonight for the first time in a while. we are losing our studio/rehearsal space/little room in a while… which is really sad… considering our band was made, and matured and grew and had a great deal of fun in that place. but if we are going to go on, we need to find another place, another way and it might be better. who knows. i know i will miss our old home. but i look forward to making a new one.
if you have any ideas please let us know. we are on the lookout…
