Sack Of Jam Productions

The mysteries of life in three paragraphs

2011-07-10T16:42:00.000-07:00

Life is a strange rollercoaster but every so often you stumble upon something that is more than a little bit concerning.
On one of my many trails through wikipedia I found myself on the disposal of human remains article. After skim reading most of it, I noticed one of the editing boxes in the Methods of clandestine disposal section. It read(s):

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (December 2008)

On a side-note I have a new hero to add to my ever growing list, I may post it some day soon, anyway I present you Wan Hu.

Duke Nukem Forever

2011-01-21T15:48:00.000-08:00

I am fairly excited about this game, it looks like my kind of stupidity, and I can't wait. I managed to get hold of a access code for concept art and a demo (which will be released soon), so I'll try to do a review of it when I can. If anyone wants the concept art feel free to email and I'll send it to you.
Also check out this list. This game is either going to the pinnacle of modern gaming or a huge disappointment.

Travels through Wikipedia

2011-01-17T17:41:00.000-08:00

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia, I decided to take a trip and find out what Wikipedia can teach me. I used the random page button to start "my journey".
My first page was on Hiram T. Smith who is described as the only true casualty of the Aroostook War, with 37 other deaths being attributed to natural causes. There is no official death given however wikipedia lists six different theories.
The next logical step is to find out about the Aroostook War, which Wikipedia kindly informs me is sometimes nicknamed "The Pork and Beans War". The war was between the newly formed USA and Britain and its interests in what is now Canada. It was essentially a border dispute, which called in William I from the Netherlands to arbitrate. Despite the fact that no fighting actually occurred the US congress appropriated $10 million and fifty thousand men should any foreign army enter US territory.
William I of the Netherlands seemed the most interesting link on offer so I duly took it. He was forced into exile when Napoleonic forces invaded in 1795. He returned in 1799 with a joint UK/ Russian army to liberate the Netherlands. However he was forced to leave after a new treaty was signed. He was given some territories in Germany but was forced to leave there after Napoleon once again invaded. In 1913 he finally managed to return and ruled the Netherlands during the Belgian Uprising and several constitutional changes. He abdicated in 1840. He was the 648th Knight of the Order of the Garter and the 876th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
The most interesting sounding was The Order of the Golden Fleece (although I'm sure the Belgian Uprising has its charms but you know... Belgium). This is a Spanish Order set up by Duke Phillip III of Burgandy in 1430 to celebrate his marriage to some bird in Portugal (Isabella of Aviz, I know Wikipedia doesn't say that I'm paraphrasing). In case you were wondering if this is all pomp, Wikipedia handily quotes Guillaume Machaut as saying:

"Not for amusement nor for recreation,
But for the purpose that praise shall be given to God,
In the very first place,
And to the good, glory and high renown."

So yeah... Apparent controversy involving the Order include awarding it to Napoleon and when Isabella II of Spain was challenged as to her right to issue it (her being a queen not a king and all). The current leader is the King of Spain (Juan Carlos I) and our dear old Elizabeth II is also a member.
Now here I had a dilemma should I pick Napoleon as he is cropping up a fair bit? Should I pick the Portuguese bird? So I clicked on both Napoleons was far too long to bother reading (it being 2:22, exactly as I looked, and all), while Isabella of Aviz turned out to be not that much of a bird. I thus took a third option and descended into Greek Mythology... (Guillaume Machaut was also on the cards.)
The Golden Fleece is figured in the tale of Jason and the Argonauts and is retrieved from its sanctuary by Jason to take the throne from Pelias. The fleece is supposed to originate from a golden haired winged ram, which was the offspring of the Gods; Poseidon and Themisto. The Ram saved two children (of Gods) Phrixus and Helle from being sacrificed and carried them over the water to safety. Helle unfortunately fell and drowned. Phrixus sacrificed the ram to Poseidon and hung the Golden Fleece on an oak in a sacred grove guarded by a Dragon (as you do). Seventeen different interpretations of what it symbolises are listed by Wikipedia.
My next choice could now take me down difficult roads. The word that sprung out at me was nymph and although I can write and publish whatever I want, when I set up the blog I didn't click "Yes" to adult content. Now I could go change this but I would prefer our blog remained roughly PG 13 despite our frequent usage of more colourful aspects of the English language (kids know these words already). So I instead elected to pick Dragon, cool huh.
Dragons can be divided into two categories according to Wikipedia; Chinese (and other Asian) and European Dragons both of which have very different looks and origins. In Europe it is interesting to note that Dragons are often seen living in caves and lairs despite the fact they are winged... confusing? Wikipedia says this denotes association with an earth element.
Chinese dragons are usually considered benevolent and can change into human form! Wait what? Shit that makes Dragons much scarier, no wonder they had to make them (mostly) benevolent. Their origin in our cultures is often attributed to fossilized remains of Dinosaurs and the like. Creationists however maintain that these dinosaurs are actually dinosaurs that died out sometime after the last ice age.
Obviously a chance to amuse myself with crackpot creationist views is not an opportunity I will pass up lightly.
Creationist Perspectives on Dinosaurs redirects me to Young Earth creationism. Yay! To start I had to quote this wonderful snippet from the Attitudes towards Science section:

"Young Earth creationism is normally characterized as opposing evolution, though it also opposes many claims and theories in the fields of physics and chemistry (especially absolute dating methods), geology, astronomy, cosmology, molecular biology, genomics, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, climatology, dendrochronology and any other fields of science that have developed theories or made claims incompatible with the Young Earth version of world history."

Good going guys! Creationists clearly are a force to be reckoned with as there was a decline in the popularity of this theory (actually strike that "way of thinking" fits better as there is no evidence that is scientifically credible to back them up). This movement if you're unfamiliar with it actually believes the world started roughly 5-10 thousand years ago. You know ignoring such things as everything in this article and anything before then. They didn't exist there was nothing. This "theory" is based on the literal translation of the bible, in particular Genesis and the creating of the earth in seven days.
Some other fun theories for you to try and guess how someone can actually believe this (in no order of favourites):
1. Before the fall of man, no animals were carnivores and none of them died.
2. Many believe Dinosaurs, marine reptiles and other prehistoric life were killed in the deluge (clever word for Noah's flood (you know when all merciful God kills everyone and everything on the planet because he's insecure). Some even believe that some Dinosaurs survived and can still be found today.
3. The deluge actually occurred... How do you think the Grand Canyon was formed?
4. No evolution. Period. Wait if there were only two people in the beginning how did races come about? Oh shi...
5. Noah actually lived to be 900!

Scary figure now

"As of 2008 a Gallup poll indicated that 36% of US adults agreed with the statement "human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process.", 14% believed that "Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process." and 44% of US adults agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.""

And unfortunately on that soul crushing, losing faith in humanity point, it is 3:15am and I refuse to write/read much more. I would like to apologise for a lack of updates. We are shit and Sam has just started uni. so he is drunk and I'm a third year so I drink to hide the stress and work.
I do have plans for this blog, including regular updates and an expansion of our universe, but... it's on the backburner probably unfortunately till the end of this academic year. Dissertation, Field trips and exams get in the way of my implementing said plans.

Peace out. Jack.

Edit: When I mentioned the wrong path featuring nymphs I went back and tested an alternate route and ended up at masturbation via hypersexuality and clitoridectomies. Told you it was a wise choice (well I didn't but I am now).
Also although I actually spell checked this post and reread it (for a change) I probably missed something so sorry about that. Also our tags now include; 1 am, 2 am and 3am! Not too shabby.

P.S. Sam if you're reading you're last blog post was "Monday, 23 November 2009" I just checked. Stop nagging me to update the blog when you never do! I've done the last eight.

2012

2010-03-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

Oh shit so only two years left.... The theory that 2012 is going to be a bad year has been bandied about notably by the film 2012 (surprisingly).
The theory that a series of cataclysmic events will occur in 2012 is largely centred around the Mayan calender which supposedly ends on that date. Although according to the highly reliable source wikipedia this is not true.
Interestingly Web bot also predicts the end to be 2012.
The latest fear however should be that the LHC doesn't begin full power runs until "the end of 2011" so its not looking good for humanity.
Enjoy life while it lasts. Peace Out. Jack

Just a quick note..

2010-03-16T12:40:00.000-07:00

I know, I know - I'm sorry. It has been forever.

But, I'm a very busy man. Right now, for some stupid college assignment, I have to write a 5000 word story. All I'm doing is writing a novel based on the 'Hellsing' manga, because it requires a minimum of effort.

Anyway, just a quick interesting picture I found on a blog. For decades people have been adding a quote-unquote 'Hitler' moustache to any picture of anyone, to make them look like Hitler. And now, it seems, that take away the 'tache, and Hitler could be...well, anyone. IT COULD BE YOU...

Jack's little world

2010-03-14T19:12:00.000-07:00

So what has been happening recently in the world of Jack? Mostly coursework related things unfortunately. I've recently drawn a labelled fossil fish (Dastilbe sp.), am in the process of designing a museum exhibit and preparing some fossils for examination under the SEM. I have also started researching for my dissertation; An examination of the palaeoecology of the Red Nodule Beds at Jordan's Cliff in Dorset (near Weymouth).Hence my lack of updates.
On Saturday I went to the Isle of Wight on a fossil finding trip. I found some bivalves (yay) and more interestingly some Lepidotes sp. scales and some Hybodus sp. fin spines.
Non- course related stuff involves watching 24: series 1 which I've never seen but am currently addicted to. On a side note Jack Bauer is the man.
As per-usual in my random updates I'll link some things that I've found recently on the interwebs that I've found of interest.
Firstly the Ignite week London talks my favourite 3 that I recommend are "How the BBC wants to break your television" by Cory Doctrow, also "British Sea Forts" and "Mob (a near-science future)".
I'd also like to share Pterosaur.net which Mark Witton, a post-doctorate demonstrator at my university works on (sorry for the name-dropping), check out his flickr he is a very talented Palaeo-artist.
That's all folks. Jack

P.S. May add more links later if I get the time I think I have more stuff but I need to reorganise my bookmarks

Godwin's Law

2010-02-21T06:05:00.000-08:00

If you needed yet another reason why not to vote Tory this was posted on a Tory blog earlier this morning.
He justifies it by saying

"The left will no doubt go apoplectic with rage, but they should calm down and remember the hideous political art of the 1980s featuring Margaret Thatcher. This is mild by comparison."

A bit tit for tat really on something that happened 20 years ago now.
The artist Louis Sidolo has this to say about the piece:

"The first piece is called 'Reign of Error' . It is a play on words from the recent book which described Gordon Brown’s leadership at No10 as a ‘Reign Of Terror’. In this piece, he is ‘morphed’ into an image of Hitler! Of course it is provocative, but if you think about it, there are strong similarities: Both started out as chancellors, both bullied their way to the top and seized power without being democratically elected, both tried to rig the electoral process, both prone to flying into uncontrollable rages and both caused huge economic damage to our country etc..."

Only one tried to conquer the world and committed genocide, now I'm no advocate of the war in Afghanistan but I don't think that counts.

Peace out

Edit: After more left-wing websites such as My David Cameron the Tory's responded with My Labour Posters this helpful blog post explains why Tories aren't funny.

Zombie Apocalypse

2010-02-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

In keeping with the rise in the UK Terror level to severe. I would like to raise the level of the new Sack of Jam zombie threat level to "Substantial". My evidence is this...

"Today, after recently having had surgery, I learnt that some extra tissue was needed to cover up the hole in the roof of my mouth. Where did they get this tissue? From a dead person. I now have the flesh of a dead person in my mouth, which by the way is now infected. FML"

From the website FML. Our government seems to be woefully unprepared as on their website "what to do in an emergency" they don't seem to have any mention of zombie apocalypse/zombie attacks.

Watch out. Jack

Things to do while bored

2010-01-22T06:14:00.000-08:00

I did this a while ago so I thought I'd post it on this blog.

Traverse the room you're in as a robot
[Time wasted: Anything from 3-30 minutes]
Try to walk around like a robot, occasionally pick up items and say "scanning" etc.
Work on it until you've perfected it.

Work on your mind power
[Time wasted:2-5 minutes]
Try being a jedi, stare at objects and try to move them. Alternatively think up your own I personally would like to be able to turn objects into beer.

Practice your Hammer dancing
[Time wasted: 4-40 minutes(any more and you may go insane)]
What excuse have you not to?

Flip a coin (x) times
[Time wasted:dependent on how many times you aim to flip it set a number before you start (500?)]
See which side wins

Try wearing your entire wardrobe
[Time wasted: A good half hour-hour]
Failing that try making fancy dress (superman is an easy start). Or wear your clothes in an unconventional way e.g. upside down.
b
[Time wasted:Half an hour (longer if you don't have stamps/are a long way from a postbox)}
Choose from celebrities, companies/newspapers etc. Politicians work well to. Write incoherant and confusing arguments or in a roundabout way.
Alternatively draw a plan of something you think Gordon Brown should do, making it as incomprehensible as possible.

Pretend you're in an action film
[Time wasted: 10-30 minutes]
Youtube/download a theme tune from a film (e.g. Mission Impossible), then play it at full volume while you run, jump, crawl, sneak and shoot your way round the house.

Design a lost kitten poster for an inanimate object
[Time wasted: 10-15 minutes]
Ever wondered where that pen went? Can't find a matching sock? Make a wanted poster for it, google image search the product.
If you're really bored get some blue-tac and stick them up around the place.

Watch TV on mute
[Time wasted: 5-10 minutes]
Make up your own dialogue. For an added challenge try to make it funny without descending into sex/penis jokes.

Design Paper Airplanes
[Time wased: 10-20 minutes]
Recreate the Battle of Britain.

Create a Time capsule
[Time wasted: 20 minutes]
Find a empty jar and fill it with interesting objects then bury it. Ideas for things include coins, photos, food labels, price tags, newspaper cuttings, magazine cuttings etc.

Don't press the red button
[Time wasted: 2 minutes]
http://www.85qm.de/up/BigRedButton.swf Don't press it

Try and make your own radio show/movie only starring yourself
[Time wasted: Potentially hours]
Script, record and edit your own movie/ radio show and then post it online or save it never to show to anyone ever. For a movie think of cunning ways to play more than one person without making it obvious.

Create a list of ideas you have/have done of things to do while bored
[Time wasted: considerable amounts]
Post it on facebook to help solve other people's boredom.

P.S. Three updates in a week, go me! Anything to avoid coursework and revision. Sam has gone AWOL, I may ring him tonight and bully him into posting something. Lazy fuck.

Some things I'm into at the moment

2010-01-19T19:44:00.000-08:00

First a new band I like Japanese Voyeurs, check them out if you get the chance. Also music related I recently talked to Kira who's fairly talented and thought I'd give her a mention.
Recently I've had a lot of work on with many a coursework deadline, if it wasn't for my sudden lapse into insomnia I probably wouldn't post on the blog at all.
I spent the last hour or so reading "The Bridge to Terabithia" after watching the film. The book is for lack of a better word beautiful, dealing with adult themes such as death and the afterlife for a book aimed at 10+. The book also makes the list of books most censored in the U.S.A.
which is a recommendation in it's own right.
This year I decided my new year's resolution was going to be to read a new book every week. I may at some point create a list somewhere on this site of books I've read and possibly some kind of rating system if I can be arsed.

On a side note anyone reading this blog is probably aware of the recent earthquake in Haiti. Any money donated will be of great use to the various charities trying to help people in one of the poorest countries cope with a disaster on this scale. Click here to donate to the DEC.
Recently stories have emerged that a cruise liner firm still docks in Northern Haiti (about 100 miles from the capital) and they have been criticized for doing so. My perspective however is that they'd be criticized if they changed the venue. They are donating all proceeds from the stop to disaster relief and are delivering some supplies.
Anyway that's all for now folks! Peace out. Jack

Confession

2010-01-16T19:16:00.000-08:00

What I sometimes enjoy doing in my spare time is using the sack of jam team email to irritatingly bombard various groups trying to get responses. The KKK dealt with this either by ignoring me or sending standard "see info here" emails.
I recently discovered this website http://crossonthemoon.com/ which I thought, hey they look like a fun target for my long winded, arguments.
Now as I'm sure I've probably implied I don't believe in God, I can't believe that a deity who is supposedly benevolent and has created such a beautiful world would a) create mankind and b) allow suffering etc. I therefore thought I should defend other races and quote the Outer Space Treaty at them (look it up its real). What I got however was a rather sweet reply explaining their rationale behind it and assuring me that they have no problem with other faiths doing similar (curses).
However I'm still going to criticize them, I have no problem with their aim (so to speak) but I do have a problem with them being a charity and requesting donations. There are much worthier causes in the world, take the recent Haiti earthquake and the appeal surrounding that. I think a charity should provide some benefit to all mankind/ earth not just a select few (despite it being the world's most popular religion).
I have similar problems with animal welfare charities, there is no denying they are doing a vital service but unfortunately I hold the plight of my fellow human beings to that of animals. I know as the cleverest and most destructive species on the planet we have a responsibility to protect the fellow inhabitants of our planet but that's entering dangerous territory and this is all I can be bothered ranting at half three in the morning.
Peace out Jack

Scream? You bloody bet I did.

2009-11-23T15:02:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's been a while. I can't even remember how this typonomnotron works. Despite the fact that I seem to have nothing but free time on my hands, I haven't written a post in oh-so long.

Here is my inspiration for this post - I had an extremely weird dream last night. I explained it to a couple of my friends at college today - both just shifted uneasily and tried not to look me in the eyes.

Now, a while ago I had (technically still have) another blog for which I used to write up and post my weird dreams, and today a friend asked to see it (probably to collect evidence for my inevitable sectioning), and I became inspired to write the dream I had last night, to the best of my ability. So, here it goes...

The following takes place somewhere between 0200-0400 hrs on the 23rd November 2009.

Ah. A nice refreshing beer from the fridge. I get it, and sit down on my armchair in front of my TV (in a fictional living room), and turn it on with the remote. It flickers slightly.

Let me add at this point - I've only ever seen the opening of the movie Scream, up until the point where Drew Barrymore dies. I stare at the TV - 'Scream,' the titles say. I don't.

I'm watching a girl, not unlike but not the same person as Drew Barrymore - a young blonde girl, about 19, babysitting a 6 year old girl. The phone, ominously, doesn't ring.

Instead, a man (I find out later that it's a man) bursts through the front door whilst the girl is making a sandwich. Now, I don't know if the guy just really wants a sandwich, but whatever he wants he's wearing the Scream costume - mask, robe, scythe (?). He flails the scythe wildly at the girl, the 6 year old runs and hides. Ok, so it turns out that the almost Drew Barrymore is a mage. She wields (apparently [and hopefully] coming from nowhere) a mage's staff - similar to those on the 'Oblivion' computer game. She fires lightning into the man's mask.

His mask disappears, to reveal the man is a fairly gormless teen, but a gormless teen who appears to be wearing an entire human skull (evidently of someone who had a slightly bigger head than himself), obscuring his face.

Switch.

I'm not watching the TV anymore, I'm IN the TV. I'm the killer, swinging my scythe wildly as I take multiple lightning-strikes to the chest.

Switch.

The camera (and therefore my vision) is no longer inside the killer's head - but in one of the ceiling corners. I'm looking down, with a 3/4 angle on the action. The 6 year old, now also wielding a mage's staff runs in and begins attacking the killer. He is still waving his scythe in front of him as his vision seems to be being impared with agony. She's slightly too close.

A single distorted guitar sounds.

Slow motion.

The scythe floats through the air in a beautiful arc, and neatly decapitates the 6 year old. Normal motion is resumed.

Switch.

My vision is now inside the girl's head, and I am now controlling her. I turn and run. I fall at one point and get cut on my leg. I carry on running. I make it upstairs to a window, I open the window which is barely big enough to fit through. I do - the killer frantically clawing at my feet to stop me from leaving (I guess he really wants a sandwich). I make it out of the window.

Then I remember - it was a second story window. I began falling, but luckily, my staff doubles as a magic broomstick. I clamber on't whilst falling, and start flying away. I'd made it.

No, no I hadn't.

The killer, not happy with carrying just a scythe, had a gun too. A revolver. As I flew away from the house, I heard a bang. I felt the cold metal of the bullet enter my back, and move it's way forward. It became difficult to breathe. I started falling like a wounded bird - my vision fading all the while.

The floor rises up to meet me.

I wake with a start, and check my phone - it's 3.48am. I put my phone down and go back to sleep - deciding never to watch Scream again.

Peace.

Long time no see and delusions of a tired mind

2009-10-24T17:06:00.000-07:00

So yeah me and Sam suck, neither of us have updated this blog in an age, sorry folks. The real reason for this post is that as usual I'm awake at some ridiculous time in the morning and can't sleep and my mind started running through some things I've been thinking about recently. The conclusion I somehow arrived at on this haphazard roller coaster ride through my subconscious is a quote I'd like to coin in case I ever become famous: "The notion of an afterlife is the closest mankind can ever come to conquering death".
I somehow got to this after watching this video...

Sidenote: if you're suffering from depression or feeling insignificant I'd advise you not too watch that video. However it truly boggles the mind on how small and insignificant we truly are. I mean this random 1 O'clock in the morning rant is just a speck in a huge pool of information on earth alone and our planet, sun and galaxy all pale into significance in the broad scheme of things (see picture).
Anyway I don't quite know why I'm writing this just felt like it really... anyway here's a bunny rabbit... peace out.
(\_/)
(O.o)
(> <)

Michael Jackson

2009-07-08T09:37:00.000-07:00

What kind of blog would we be if we ignored "the King of Pop's" death? After the memorial being last night, I thought I'd do a post to acknowledge his life.
He first came to fame performing with the Jackson 5 (still the only band in history who's first 4 singles reached number 1), one of them being my favourite ABC.
Michael Jackson went on to perform some of the best music ever recorded and also i might add some of the best music videos incorporating his spectacular dance style. As well as the fantastic Sega Genesis game Moonwalker.
His life however was sensationalised by tabloid stories and celebrity gossip about his change in skin colour, personal life, and the accusations of child molestation (which based on the fact that Michael was abused as a child I find hard to believe). Although I can't condone everything he did (drug abuse and dangling his child over the balcony) I think he deserved better treatment than he got.

Anyway that's all really just thought I should do a post, and I'll leave you with a quote of Michael's I like and my favourite Michael Jackson video (partly as it contains zombies). Peace Out.

Why not just tell people I'm an alien from Mars. Tell them I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight. They'll believe anything you say, because you're a reporter. But if I, Michael Jackson, were to say, "I'm an alien from Mars and I eat live chickens and do a voodoo dance at midnight," people would say, "Oh, man, that Michael Jackson is nuts. He's cracked up. You can't believe a damn word that comes out of his mouth."
—Michael Jackson

Edit: I've just noticed that we entirely missed our birthday which was last month on June 5th so the Sack of Jam blog is officially a year old.

The Wrestler Review

2009-05-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the second post in a row which is a review, and this one is slightly more behind than the other (in terms of when the film came out) however, yesterday, I went to York student cinema to see an amazing film: The Wrestler. Again, possible spoiler warning..

So, for those of you who aren't aware, The Wrestler is a film by Darren Aronofsky, which stars Mickey Rourke in the lead role (one which he was nominated for an academy award for), and tells the story of Randy 'The Ram' Robinson, an ageing professional wrestler who reached his media peak 20 years previous. Throughout the film he deals with the pains of many things: living in poverty, having a heart attack, being reuinited with an estranged daughter, falling in love with a stripper, retiring, then unretiring etc etc. You know, the average life of a wrestler (I think?)

Let me first say, Rourke puts an absolutely amazing performance in, and it's a shame he was up against such fierce competition for the Oscar for best actor, because in most other scenarios I believe he would have won it easily. Another merit with the film is that the film-makers avoided the melodrama that usually would go with a film like this; sure it has a lot of pretty depressing things happen, but it's portrayed in a way which makes it all believable and not crowded with scenes which would bore an audience who went to see it because it had the word 'wrestle' in it..

..Which is what originally what (sort of) put me off wanting to see the film. I was expecting a typical blockbuster which was extremely formulaic and the difference being this one contained wrestling. However, upon seeing the film I was pleasantly surprised and, one is sorry to hastily use such terms as 'emotional rollercoaster', however it sums up the film more than 'typical blockbuster'.

I've realised that this 'review' hasn't really made a lot of sense, so, I've decided to do what a lot of lazy reviewers resort to, A POINTS BASED SCORING SYSTEM.

8 out of 10.

There, that was easy wasn't it? In fact, I could have just written the title, then that, and it would have saved me and you a whole lot of effort.

I do apologise for the 'quality' of this review, or lack thereof, but it's extremely difficult to write a positive review compared to writing a negative review, which is probably why bad reviews carry so much more gravitas in promoting a film. AH WELL.

So, if you want to know a full low-down on the film and it's merits and failings:

GO AND WATCH IT.

Peace.

Sam.

Angels and Demons review

2009-05-28T12:04:00.000-07:00

So, as promised, a short review of the current release: Angels & Demons. P.S. Possible spoiler warning..

Most will be aware, Angels & Demons was written by Dan Brown, the author of 'The Da Vinci Code' (which I am actually currently reading, yet haven't seen the film...yet). The film is directed by Ron Howard (formerly an actor in 'Happy Days', directed the Da Vinci Code film as well as others such as Frost/Nixon yadda yadda yadda) and I think it would be fair to messr Brown that the film should really be called 'Ron Howard's Angels & Demons', because a surprising amount of it is different. Yes, as you may realise, I have some quarrels with the film (they're not going to be getting any 'blockbuster of the year' quotes to put on their DVD case from me...).

The first quarrel is the characters. Not the characters themselves, but Ron Howard's portrayal of said characters. Ok, not even Ron Howard's portrayal of them really...anyway. So the first problem is that they miss out one of the main characters entirely, a character who is a CERN scientist and a driving force of the book, helping Robert Langdon (in the film Tom Hanks) and Vittoria Vetra on their quest to solving the clues. In the book he is described as a chubby scientist in a wheelchair (I'm paraphrasing here...), and always reminded me of Richard Griffiths' character in The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (for those of you who got it, I salute you. [Meaning I couldn't find a picture]). Anyway, so he was missing.

Next was the relationship between the two 'main' characters (they were main in the book), Langdon and Vetra. In the book their time together is much more expansive, and their relationship builds and builds until it finally explodes (for those of you not used to double entendre, let me just say this: 'Wink wink'). However, in the film, they have very little screen time together, and thus the film-makers decided that having them get together would be completely pointless; as the audience don't have time to see the relationship develop, it should not be included.

Ok this one's a minor one, but if you ask me, Vetra's main motivation throughout the book is because it's her FATHER who is killed. However, in the film he is merely a co-worker. Maybe a close one but who knows, it's unimportant.

The last character which I'm going to whinge about is the Carmalengo, kind of the pope's second in command. In the book he is Italian, and the pope is his father (not through conventional methods), and his motivation is pretty clear. However, in the film he is Irish, for some reason (not that I have anything against the Irish, in fact they make up part of my blood, however, in the book HE'S AN ITALIAN. Anyway..) and played by Ewan McGregor. Now the film-makers have stated in an interview that it made more sense given his back-story yadda yadda yadda, but it is clear that what happened is they wanted Ewan McGregor, who, it is very evident, is not Italian. However, one thing they failed to realise is he's not Irish either, and can't do a very good Irish accent. So the whole farce would have been made much easier (not to mention much more loyal to the book) to just have hired an Italian actor. BUT NO.

Anyway, another thing which bugged me about the film may be unfair to criticise, as it can't really be avoided that much, but it's still very, very annoying. So, it takes much longer to read a book than it does to watch a film, that much is obvious, and because of the nature of the story, the characters have to solve clues to get them to the next point in the narrative. Right. However, in a film, this has to happen much quicker, so I found myself in the cinema every five minutes saying really loudly 'Well THAT'S HANDY' whenever something totally obvious happened. For example, in part of the film they are looking for a tomb (of one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for some reason?) and at this point, for probably the first time in the movie, Robert Langdon doesn't know the answer, and neither does Vittoria Vetra. Oh no! Whatever will they do!? Oh hey, there's a tour guide, I WONDER IF SHE KNOWS THE ANSWER. Oh wow, she does, THAT WAS HANDY.

See what I mean?

So anyway, in general, I clearly have some issues with this film, and, having quite recently read the book, I was disappointed in how good it could have been, yet at how good it wasn't. It wasn't a 'bad' film, it just failed to grip me, and making a big blockbuster which is less gripping than the book sort of defeats the object for me. Somebody asked me, when I told them my views; 'Well, how would YOU have done it better?'

And the simple answer is I wouldn't have done it at all, I would have left it as a book.

Maybe someone somewhere will listen to me.

Peace.

Sam.

P.S. I have nothing against book adaptations in general, for example I LOVE JURASSIC PARK. The book is better though.

P.P.S I like the way my first sentence said this would be a 'short' review.

My first post at the new address!

2009-05-28T05:34:00.000-07:00

Ok I thought I'd start as I mean to go on, and post! So we've moved to a new address, so that's exciting. I'm currently off for 3 months and Jack will be shortly, and that's also exciting.

That's about it.

Ok well I thought I'd post, but I really don't have time for a topic-based post, as I am currently meant to be out in the relative-for-the-UK sun, weeding the path. Joy of joys. Plus, I'm going to be in York from tomorrow until Tuesday, so the chances of postage is minimal. From me anyway.

Anyway, if I get chance today I'll post a quick review of the Angels & Demons film which I watched at the weekend, and if I don't get chance, I'm sure noone will miss it.

Anyway, Peace.

P.s. Thanks Jack for sorting out the move.

Do not adjust your tv sets!

2009-05-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

Ok so it's a new site and a new start and a new beginning. I've moved all our previous posts onto this new site and am in the process of updating everything that needs updating it may take a few days for me to add an rss, hit counter, global map and the like, but after tomorrow I've finished my first year of uni!
Sam has promised an update from us a week and if you've read my twitter which i updated about 5 mins ago I aim to update that every day at least for a couple of weeks and then eventually settle into a steadier more long term pattern! Well that's all from me i need to finish updating stuff before logging out for the night, final exam tomorrow! Peace out.

We're not dead. We're getting better. (Ok, we're not fooling anyone).

2009-05-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

So it looks like Sack of Jam has been well and truly liquidated. But it hasn't, honest. We've still got hundreds of free sacks of jam to give away, in various flavours*. So why the lack of updates? Well, since you asked... We're lazy. Not just that; we're completely starved of ideas. So, I now present, Sack of Jam deux! It's way more exciting, containing many more updates (i.e. at least one a month), and apart from that, is exactly the same as the old one.

So, look forward to more updates, and more of the same.

* Disclaimer: Free sacks of jam do not contain jam, or sacks; but may contain nuts.

Me? Update? Jack will be surprised.

2009-04-05T08:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's been an extreme while, and I apologise for the lack of updates. The reason is, I've been extremely busy with College work, and completely dried of ideas. I still am. Jack's always been the one to carefully construct his posts, with actual research, emailing people and reading stories that other people of written, whereas I just start writing my posts and hope they reach some kind of conclusion. Anyway, I really can't think of anything to write, so I'll just post one of my dreams from my other blog. Complete laziness yes, but at least it's an update..

P.s I have decided I shall post a list. I don't know what of but list-based posts seem to be what I'm best at.

P.P.S A while ago I wrote this short post about wanting to write a wild west story. In fact I've turned it into my film studies coursework. The plot's pretty generic, but that's the point of the coursework, to show genre. I'll post more info about it soon.

So, the dream. Copy and pasted straight from my other blog.

'Fiddling on the Roof'

'Ok, so here’s a quickie from the other day. Quite disturbing to experience, and in truth the only reason that it was a short dream was because I forced myself to wake up before it turned bad.

So, well this is a bit hazy in my memory. We (me and an Asian middle aged woman, yes fully clothed, in a suit actually, she seemed to be some kind of legal person, but just what I have no idea) were walking in the grounds of a large mansion, we had obviously just exited from the building and were talking about the events that had happened inside.

‘So do you think we’ll get the permit then?’ I asked, although I had no idea what the permit was for. I remember looking to my left as I was walking along the gravel path, and looking at some carefully sculpted hedges, representing cherubs firing arrows with hearts for arrowheads. You know the kind; you see them on crappy Valentines Day cards. Anyway, I digress.

So we (the woman and I) entered her car, her driving and me in the back in the seat behind the driver. She turned and gave me a reassuring smile, reassuring what exactly I’m not sure, probably something to do with the afore-mentioned ‘permit.’

So I put on my seatbelt (I want to be safe, even if it is a dream), and we set off. As we start to drive along the long, gravelly driveway, suddenly things get very nightmare-ish. My vision darkens. The sky blackens. Day turns to night. Sunshine turns to rain.

Suddenly the car speeds up and the driver woman disappears, and before I know it I can see from the point of view of the car (like you can in some driving games etc…). I drive forwards and try to get out of the driveway of the mansion (now resembling a haunted house).

As I sped forwards, suddenly I felt a breeze against my face, as if I had been thrown out of the front of the car (going faster than the car, obviously, otherwise I’d have been hit/gone behind the car). Then I realised I was back as the human version of me, and I flew through the air and landed face first in the gravel. My cheek scraped along the gravel and I could feel it bleeding.

I could feel a presence behind me. So without looking back I got up and started to run towards the gate of the mansion that lead to a dense forest (ah, clichés. I have a really good cliché at the end actually; and I woke up, and it was all a dream…not to ruin it or anything). So as I was running to the gate, an idea struck me: ‘I know, why I don’t fly out?’ So, with a lot of concentration, I started to hover, but a feeling of dread crept over me. I wasn’t controlling where I was going. I felt like I was out of control, and was worried where it was whatever it was that was controlling me would take me. I had started heading back to the house.

I was flying up the side of the house now, with large windows up the whole height of the building. My vision was extremely blackened at this point, as I was trying my best to wake myself up right now. In each window there was a different figure staring at me.

In one there was the girl from the exorcist grinning demonically at me, in another were the two ghost girls from The Shining, and the last window before I reached being level with the roof was the body of the Asian woman from the start of the dream, hanging from a rafter, smiling, and staring at me (it was one of the soul chilling-est things I’ve ever seen, even in my dreams).

At this point I was panicking. ‘I’ve got to wake up!’ I kept thinking. I was looking up at the roof, flying up. Something was up there, I could feel it. Whatever it was would be the worst thing I’ve ever seen, I’m sure of it, so I rose up to nearly the height of the building, I was ready to scream like I’ve never screamed before, and as I reached roof level, so close…I woke up. Phew.

Notes

It’s really difficult to create the atmosphere I felt, because obviously I have nothing to compare it to, so the dream on paper seems a lot less effective than in real life.'

Sorry about the laziness, peace.

links and stuff

2009-03-05T18:36:00.000-08:00

So I was in the process of doing a article regarding Britain's disregard for civil rights in favour of anti- terrorism laws (yes another one of my rants (To be fair at least we have free speech... to a degree)).
However I feel this has been made slightly redundant by this article.

Yay, more links, 'cos we all love links. The first is a interesting article about the white house Arabic translator. Well I found it interesting.
The second is about "Proposition 8", the law in California that banned gay marriage.

I also found this "great" article on the KKK website about the filth on TV, well I found it funny.
Here's a fun extract:

Those in the racialist movement should continually strive to monitor their home's television viewing. America's future lies in our children and it is our responsibility as parents or future parents to safeguard our children's mind before ideas of abortion, homosexuality, racemixing, globalism, or euthanasia take root.

Otherwise known as brainwashing, also you may want to read their article aimed at young people (I guess I fall into that category) and I thought I'd provide an extract:

Of course, once you do get to college there are no Caucasian Student Unions or European Culture Clubs and don't even think about starting one just because there are tons of them for Blacks, Asians, or what ever. If you were daring enough to try, you would be called all kinds of horrible names. Why, you would wonder. You just wanted to have a club like everybody else. Welcome to the world of hypocrisy and illogical thought.

No welcome to the world of the white majority, to para-phrase Barack Obama in his book "Dreams from my father" (at least I think it was him, I couldn't find the original quote, sorry).

Blacks have to integrate into the White culture, the white's don't integrate into the blacks as they are not the minority.

Basically the white population doesn't need societies that promote white culture as there is less influence on their culture, whereas the black community needs to affirm it's values.
Here's another article from the KKK website this time about "Jewish slave owners" Interestingly it doesn't provide a source (curious that) and apart from other right-wing websites the only other mention to it I could find is in this book, which isn't very clear but it seems to show that although the Jewish population did own slaves it wasn't greater than that of the wasp population.
Also the BNP (known for their political correctness) have a section on their website entitled "Liars, Buggers and Thieves", with the obligatory extract (from the Labour Party):

Labour MP (Rhonda Valley) Chris Bryant poses in his pants on the Internet to advertise himself for casual gay sex encounters. Describes himself as “Horny as buggery” and says, “I’d love a good long fuck”.

Because we all care about his sex life, really?
A quick google search later and I found this from the BBC website, and wikipedia. Finally this from his website (his biography I must admit does not allude to the fact he's openly gay, but then again why should it?):

...Chris was re-elected as an MP (with an increased majority) in 2005...

Obviously the people of Rhondda don't seem to mind that he's gay, considering he had a greater majority after the "scandal".
It's interesting to note that none of the political parties mentioned have articles of a similar nature, how very confusing. Maybe that's why the BNP is considered a joke party?

edit: Woah, wait a sec just noticed this in the "How to get involved section" on the KKK website:

Klanswomen or Klansmen who must remain totally private with their Klan association may opt to become a volunteer in one of the two major political parties. By reaching positions of influence Klansmen and Klanswomen can help pave the way for future Knights' Party candidates by helping to change ballet access laws and making the present political system more "user friendly" for third parties.

. Isn't that illegal? Or at the very least morally wrong?

Edit2: After further investigation of the KKK website (I mean knight's party website obviously) it has to be said it's poorly built at best, even our humble website maintains a better standard than theirs. Scroll to the bottom third or so of the main page and all the pictures and text overlap, and on many of their articles, the page hasn't formatted properly meaning the text is outside the text window.

P.s. They never emailed me back when I emailed them ages ago, I wonder why?

2009-02-21T03:30:00.000-08:00

As me and Sam post inconsistently (at best), I thought it's time for yet another update and this time include some proper stuff in it. Like real content and shizzle (sorry been playing GTA: San Andreas recently).
Recently I found this article about the state of the British transport system, which up until now I thought it was a joke yeah it's not great but it's not too bad either is it?
That was before I started using it for long journeys like say my trip back to Bradford from Portsmouth. I have so far made 2 return trips (so 4 journeys in all) and during this time I have experienced 8 train cancellations. Another point the article mentions is the fact that rail fares are sky-rocketing, some might say this is because of the recession etc. However if this is the case, how is it that I paid for a return ferry crossing to Caen for tomorrow (yes it is random (I bought it last night), no I wasn't drunk) for £20, when a single train trip to London is £27 (at off- peak).

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you to read our disclaimer before being offended by anything you read on our blog and that a recent update to the disclaimer has occured:

"We also regret to inform you that our agreements to actively post and update either this disclaimer or the Sack of Jam blog may be false and are therefore not legally binding contracts. Inconvenience caused by our lack of content (wait, what?) are not the responsibility of the management."

Edit: Right I've found several things that I've been meaning to post all of which are news articles. The first one (contains some very graphic images so viewers have been warned) shows pictures from the recent incursion by Israel into Gaza.
The second two are both from the Guardian website. the first is an article about liberty in Britain and the second is an article about David Attenborough getting hate mail from creationists.

This is an automated message. I have in fact disappeared off the face of the Earth.

2009-02-10T13:00:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a while. I've been back online for a while, and what's funny is I actually did more posts when I was OFFLINE. Makes sense to me. I'm doing this now because I'm supposed to be writing an essay, and I'm being actively distracted. So this is a short post to confirm that I'm still alive. Just.

Anyway, for those who haven't heard what Christian Bale's being shouting (in a ridiculous fake American accent..seriously it's worse than Joss Stone [Ok maybe not]), click here.

After you've watched that, watch this hilarious remix. (You can get the free MP3 of the remix here).

Will post soon, promise..

Peace. Sam.

Edit: Must point out, on all those links there's bad language! You've been warned!

Yet another random post

2009-02-09T17:22:00.000-08:00

So Kaka, the Brazilian Footballer, was offered £500,000 a week to play for Man. City, with a potential four year contract. This would give him £104 million by the end of his contract.
The question is what would someone do with this money? Here are some of my ideas (some are stolen ideas though)

First buy a fuck off house... obviously necessary (olympic swimming pool needed).

Fill olympic swimming pool with ball pit balls.

Buy a fuck tonne of Lego and fill several rooms with said Lego... Lego city, Lego star Wars... the list goes on.

Buy cool cars from films and tv... all the batmobiles, KITT, Delorean (kitted out like in the films), Speed Racer's Mach 5 and several others I struggle to remember at 2 in the morning.

Massive scalextric track and massive model railway.

Hire Jeremy Irons to narrate your life, Morgan Freeman to read stuff to you, and Samuel L. Jackson to answer your calls etc.

Buy Bradford City's Stadium (Valley Parade) and let the club use it for free (fucking rent) It'd also be good for a kick about mid-week and the Director's boxes look comfortable enough for a flat.

Enough Branston Pickle to last a millenium.

Flying Lessons and a cool jet.

Genetic Research labs and a lot of fossilised mosquitoes.

I'll add more as I think of them.

Great Story

2009-01-28T19:14:00.000-08:00

Interesting story I just found on the BBC website.

A flat apparently untouched since before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has been discovered in the German city of Leipzig, German media report.
An architect who renovates buildings in eastern Germany unlocked the door last week and was shocked to find himself in a veritable East German time warp.
It appears the inhabitant of the humble flat fled in a hurry and shrivelled bread rolls still lay in a string bag.
Grocery brands from the Socialist state filled the kitchen.
"When we opened the door we felt like Howard Carter when he found the grave of Tutankhamun," Mark Aretz told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
"Everything was a mess but it was like a historic treasure trove, a portal into an age long gone."
A wall calendar showed August 1988 and an empty bottle of Vita Cola, Marella margarine, Juwel cigarettes and a bottle of Kristall vodka were in the kitchen.
Plastic crockery and aluminium cutlery completed the picture of a bygone state.
The only foreign product to be found was a West German bottle of deodorant.
A zinc bath stood upright against a wardrobe. There was no toilet in the flat - the occupant had to use a communal one on the landing.
According to Mr Aretz, documents and letters in the flat suggest the occupant was a man aged 24 who was in trouble with the East German authorities, and who left in a hurry some time before the Wall came down in November 1989.

2009-01-28T11:52:00.000-08:00

So yeah two weeks have been and gone since the last post, what's happpened since? well the world is now a better place (except maybe gaza), the uk economy is shitter than ever and yeah.
I've finished semester 1 at uni, sam's doing something at college (he's got internet so expect an update!).
We've had some fun and scary spam the first is an obvious hoax. The second one we've had from 3 different banks (none of them mine).

Norton Anti-Virus are gearing up for this virus!
apparently it is for real!!
Get this E-mail message sent around to your contacts ASAP.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS!
You should be alert during the next few days. Do not open any message
with an attachment entitled 'POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK,' regardless of who sent
it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which 'burns' the
whole hard disc C of your computer. This virus will be received from someone
who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list. This is the reason
why you need to send this e-mail to all your contacts It is better to receive
this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.
If you receive a mail called' POSTCARD,' even though sent to you by a
friend, do not open it! Shut down your computer immediately..

This is the worst virus announced by CNN. It has been classified by
Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. This virus was discovered by
McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This
virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital
information is kept.
COPY THIS E-MAIL, AND SEND IT TO YOUR FRIENDS. REMEMBER: IF YOU SEND IT
TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US

and this is the second one

Dear Customer,

During our regularly scheduled account maintenance and verification procedures, we have detected a slight error in your billing information.

This might be due to either of the following reasons:
-A recent update in our billing server ( Due to a slight problem )
-A recent change in your personal information ( i.e. Registration Number ).
-Inability to accurately verify your selected option of payment due to an internal error within our processors.

Please update and verify your information to stay 100% protected by clicking the link below:

Sign In to Online Banking

If your account information is not updated within 48 hours then your ability to access your account will become restricted.
Thank you

I copied that from the abbey national email and it has a link at the bottom that leads you to Lloyds TSB security information page. So that's a bit of a give away.

Sporadic random thought post

2009-01-13T18:25:00.000-08:00

Red Faction is a bit like the miners' strikes during thatchers era only set in space and with firearms

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T05:23:00.000-08:00

God...This is horrible. Still no internet. Luckily, I'm on my Girlfriend's PC now, so I have limited time.

Well, It's New Year's eve, and I hope everyone had a good 2008, I certainly did; A year that pretty much turned my life around (for the better). 2009 will hopefully be better still, and maybe, just maybe, I'll get internet before 2010 (it's not looking likely).

So, since I last posted, very little has happened. I went for a curry and then drinking with Jack, went home for a couple of hours, then got picked up by my Girlfriend and brought to her house. It has been a good holiday all told, my Sister and her fiancé have been up, I've seen people who I don't see as often as I should (Jack for one) and I've just generally had a good time, as I hope everyone else has.

Anyway, sorry, again, for the lack of imagination in the post, but I've just woken up and I'm still reeling in the fact that I have (however limited) access to the internet.

Peace, and Happy New Year.

Inspired by xkcd part II and other developments

2008-12-29T05:09:00.000-08:00

So after the post I did a few days ago I visited xkcd today and found this comic.
So I thought I'd redo some google trends I did when I first found it and post them here... Oh yeah Sam fails at the internet just so you all know and I don't think the hit counter is broken but I'll keep an eye on it

The first one I did can be found here.

So yeah Wii is the most console according to google trends.
Next superheroes =. Spiderman has had the greatest volume of hits overall but Batman is the most popular at time of posting. Confusingly aquaman hardly has any hits. i may do more at a later date but that's all for now.

Loneliness an Offlineliness.

2008-12-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

Jesus Christ. I've been offline for 2 weeks. Feels like about a year. I can't stay on for long, I'm using one of them 'pay-as-you-go' internet dongle things, so don't have much time. Hope everyone who reads this blog has had a good christmas, and has a good new year if I don't get chance to post before then. Nothing very interesting has happened apart from the presents and the food and the family. I got a massive amp for my guitar, something that I'm sure my parents will regret buying me once I've had chance to turn it up, and also some new headphones and the best present (by far) has to be my Spongebob Flying V Ukelele. Now I have to learn it, whether I want to or not. (It's a good job I do). So I'm seeing Jack tomorrow and going out for some Great British Indian food, so no doubt we'll come up with some completely random, bat-shit insane ideas that Jack can post, as well as showing off that he still has his 'la-de-da' internet. And if you're reading this, you must have it too. So fuck you. Anyway, I'm afraid that's it for this extremely unexciting post, I just wanted you all to know that I'm still alive, yet, as always, wanted by the police and thousands of screaming women. Peace.

Oh, Happy New Year. I hope 2009 is going to be better than '08. Especially for film releases (apart from The Dark Knight, Wanted and maybe a couple of others (DEFINITELY NOT Mamma Mia, there were no good releases. This, I am officially declaring is the worst year for films since I was born). Anyway, in the words of System of a Down; My cock is much bigger than yours. Happy holidays everyone.

P.s. I think the Hit Counter's broken again.

Inspired by xkcd

2008-12-25T19:31:00.000-08:00

Inspired by this xkcd "blag" post, I decided to make my own list of phrases (at time of publishing) that don't display results on google search 9and I just discovered google isn't a word in my online spell checker (neither is online).
So here's the list:

"extreme deep sea chess" (I'm inventing this sport, I thought of it first)
"penis extrapolation graph"
"plot penis size against intelligence" (that would be an interesting genetics test)
"my girlfriend watches too much star wars"
"my boyfriend watches too much star wars" (apparently there is no such thing as too much star wars)
"i like the moonpig advert"

"i plan to create a raptor army"
"i plan to create a zombie army"
"i plan to create a robot army"
"i plan to create a ninja army" (people have lame world domination plans)

Results that I didn't expect hits from:

"automatic condom fitter" ("mechanical condom fitter" brings up no results though)
"not enough spam mail" (that should be attached to our email)
"fat kids are popular" (cruel but...)
"conlon is god" (I fucking knew it)
"your mum jokes are funny"
"acne is sexy" (OH DEAR GOD.....)
"clever youtube comment"
"toast conspiracies" (I knew it wasn't just me)

Just Sack Of Jam:

"naked disco post office"
"will smith and his robot camel"

A little project i'm considering

2008-12-20T17:22:00.000-08:00

So yeah... maybe look out for that. Basically for this blog I email far-right groups e.g. the KKK, terror-free oil, BNP and see if I can get replies from them for this blog...

Edit: Meant to also mention sam has no internet at the moment so he apologises for his lack of posts.

Edit2: Another thing i'm considering is this.
For our foreign readers the British government is slowly seemingly gaining more and more power with the idea of forced ID cards, an attempt to store everyones phone calls, emails and texts on a database etc. It seems as though a big brother situation is starting to occur.

Naked Disco Post Office and Confusion

2008-12-20T16:12:00.000-08:00

So basically when I said we'd reached 400 hits I was forgetting that the hit counter was stuck at 730, so that may mean since I fixed it we've got that many more hits or it may just be something else entirely, I can't be sure.
Anyway the main topic of this is the Naked Disco Post Office, which was a random thing that I thought of the other day... while at uni and since my friend has been doing random youtube vids and spouting bullshit, I wanted to make a note of my bullshit before he could, so I get credit.
Basically what it entails is a post office (obviously) and then instead of standing around bored queueing to post stuff, there's a disco going on with strobe lights and everything, and basically everyone is nude... Doesn't seem to make much sense as i type it but... it makes sense in my mind.
I've thought up a theme song and everything which one day I may post... probably not though.

Spam, scams and 400

2008-12-17T16:13:00.000-08:00

So we've reached over 400 unique user hits, (well 401 as I write this) which for us, seems like a good total.
Anyway we got a good bit of spam today.

I have a new email address!
You can now email me at: mercydavid45@yahoo.com

- Dearest,I am writing this mail to you with tears and sorrow from my heart.My name is Miss. Mercy David Steven, accountancy student in the university, my late father David Stevens was a farmer in the country and he was shot dead in an incident east of the capital, Harare. My father was killed during an incident involving a group of farmers who responded to a radio distress call from a neighbor in the Virginia Macheke district. My late father and another farmer were chased and shot at before taking refuge in a local police station and i was left alone with the twins my mother delivered before her death.The protesters came also to our house and destroyed everything, but i escaped with the twins and the briefcase that my father entrusted to me before his death, i went to my grand mother and stayed for while because of my studies, but life was very hard for me, it came to a point that students went into prostitution to pay for school fees and to feed.You can read from the news inhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/715001.stm,When i opened the briefcase and found out the documents that my late father have deposited some mount of money which i am the next of kin in a bank in Burkina Faso, I traveled there to withdraw the money for a better life for me and for my twins brothers, when i get there i found out that my late father instructed the bank that i will withdraw the money when i am married, or with a trustee that will stand on my behalf.Actually in search of an honest and reliable person who will help me to withdra w the money and invest it i have chosen to contact you after my prayers and i believe you will not try to cheat me but rather take me as your own people. Though you may wonder why I am so soon giving in to you without seeing you, well I will say that my heart still tells that you could be true to me. Briefly,I will like to disclose much to you if you will help me to relocate to your country with the substance that i inherited from my parent. The amount of $14.4Million which i will like to invest in your country into any lucrative business venture which you are to advise and execute seeing that i have no business experience for now.However, I shall forward you with the necessary documents on confirmation of your acceptance to assist me for the transfer and investment of the fund.As you will help me in an investment, and i will like to complete my studies, as i was in my first year in the university, when the crisis started.It is my intention to compensate you with 20% of the total money for your services and the balance shall be my investment capital. This is the reason why I decided to contact you. Please all communications should be through this email address only for confidential purposes.As soon as I receive your positive response showing your interest I will put things into action immediately. In the light of the above, I shall appreciate an urgent message indicating your ability and willingness to handle this transaction sincerely. Awaiting your urgent and positive response. Please do keep this only to your self please i beg you not to disclose it till i come over , once the fund has been transfered.I will send you my picture in my next mail.With due respect, I am pleading that you help me, i am giving all this detailed information with every transparency believing that you will have a clear picture of the base of help i need from you. I hope to hear from you soon, May truth and love be the guiding word in my refuge in you dear helper.Yours Sincerely,Mercy.

So naturally I emailed back, Sack Of Jam Productions are always open to business proposals and I'm just waiting for a response, (we get a photo of the person). Now I know the email asks us to keep quiet, but if you read the sack of jam disclaimer (which you should) then you know we post emails we deem fit.
However I've just noticed a better scam of my little sister's, there's a note attached to her purse outside her door that says "Please give 1p or else you can't come in".

2008-12-15T13:48:00.000-08:00

Small update the hit counter is now fixed

Discalimer (yeah we have one bitches read it)

2008-12-14T16:07:00.000-08:00

Yeah so I've been editing our disclaimer and you should all check it out it's on the left, see it? That little box with "disclaimer" as the label at the top? Well read it, and every time you check the site re-read it as I edit it often.
Yes it is extensive but there are a lot of aspects to cover.

So yeah...

2008-12-14T15:34:00.000-08:00

So... I kind of lied about updating when I got back, I completely forgot (see my last post). So Sam beat me to it... So now I'm back in sunny Bradford what's been happening? Not a lot really I went to watch Bradford City lose 2-1 to Brentford, that was fun... That's pretty much it, I haven't seen Sam in about 4 months due to me being at uni,My course at University (Palaeobiology and Evolution) is good fun though.
Yes, once again the hit counter is broken, stuck at 370 for no apparent reason I've already jiggered with the code and haven't managed to fix it so yet again I may have to start with another hit-counter... unless I can fix it.
So what's happened since we've been off-air as it were? Sterling is now worthless, The KKK are really fucked off at the US election (I emailed them, but they never replied), a man who lives in Bradford killed two people in a crash while drunk and "in throes of a sex act".
If you're feeling bored you can check out my youtube favourites (and if anyone asks yes I am 19 and from Syria). That'll be about it for now also check out a Phd student's (from my course, who is for my covering tutor) artwork it's ace. Recently he got to name a Pterosaur "Lacusovagus magnificens".

Also just noticed this, it's the site stats for our site from the world map thing (in the left hand column (now on the right), click on it). it shows the hits we get from each country (fucking insane). There's 40 countries and 1 which says Europe but only has 6 hits confusing.

United Kingdom (GB) 261
United States (US) 61
Sweden (SE) 11
Germany (DE) 11
Norway (NO) 9
Canada (CA) 9
Malaysia (MY) 7
Europe (EU) 6
Australia (AU) 6
Czech Republic (CZ) 5
Netherlands (NL) 4
Poland (PL) 3
Iceland (IS) 3
France (FR) 3
Denmark (DK) 3
Philippines (PH) 3
Belgium (BE) 3
Brazil (BR) 2
Austria (AT) 2
Singapore (SG) 2
Ireland (IE) 2
Romania (RO) 1
Lithuania (LT) 1
Russian Federation (RU) 1
Slovenia (SI) 1
Italy (IT) 1
Honduras (HN) 1
Dominican Republic (DO) 1
India (IN) 1
Nigeria (NG) 1
Argentina (AR) 1
Peru (PE) 1
Saudi Arabia (SA) 1
China (CN) 1
Portugal (PT) 1
Spain (ES) 1
Turkey (TR) 1
Algeria (DZ) 1
Japan (JP) 1
Israel (IL) 1
Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR) 1
Serbia (RS) 1

Edit: just noticed a link I'd labelled to be posted on the blog and I never did "What Bush and Batman have in common"
Also here's a fun thing for you boys and girls to do search "finding chuck norris" on google and hit i'm feeling lucky.

The comback of Sackofjam. And Will Smith and his Robot Camel (In Space)

2008-12-09T10:47:00.000-08:00

Wow it's been a long time. I have no excuse really, EXCEPT the hit counter's broken again, so I just assumed nobody was visiting the site, and therefore had no reason to post. It's probably the case but I thought I'd post this in case Jack checks to see if i've updated in the same way I always check to see if he has.

Anyway, I wanted to document this idea so a) it doesn't get stolen and b) if it does get stolen then I may get partial credit.

So, we were in film studies today (I do film studies by the way) and the teacher gave us a task. We're doing all about the relationships of producers and audiences, as well as how a film is made from pitching an idea to being written then shot etc. So she told us to come up with a typical 'Blockbuster' film. A high concept (i.e. 'Simple and basic' type of film. Just look at anything with Arnie in it) film. So, me and two other guys (Ok they just sat there looking perplexed but still it was a group effort) came up with this idea. So, in case any film producers are reading this, forward all requests to make this film as well as all fees etc to; Sam, sackofjamproductions@hotmail.co.uk

I fully expect a response people.

So here's the idea, we had to come up with a story, and consider actors for the roles. We had to pick something with actors who would sell the film, as well as merchandising possibilities and an easily marketable film. So here goes.

Right, so, Will Smith right, you know the guy, he's a bounty hunter. In space. And he has this robotic camel. I know, I know what you're saying; 'this film has been made a million times' but bare with me. So his camel is pretty sick, and needs an operation (but being a robot it's a robot operation). But Will Smith is a bit of a 'down-on-his-luck' bounty hunter, and can't afford it. He has a pretty beaten up ship and all. So, he decides to go after these infamous space pirates. They have a bounty on them which will cover the cost of the operation. But, obviously, noone can catch them.

Now the main space pirate is played by Samuel L Jackson (at some point in the movie he and Will Smith have a 'black off' involving bass guitars and basketball). And his right-hand-man is played by Robert Downey Junior, a suave wise-cracking racist (we did consider Mel Gibson for this role). (Note we do not actually believe this things about Downey Jr, but we like him, and we chose him after a long conversation that I will not bore you with) (P.S. We do believe them about Mel Gibson. I'm only joking, he's not suave at all...).

So yeh, Smith goes after them, but then he gets his wife/sister kidnapped. I say 'wife/sister' because we decided that either; throughout the film you think it's his wife but actually find out it's his sister at the end, OR you think it's his sister but turns out to be his wife. Now we didn't think of this next bit in class, but I thought that maybe it could be his wife but he makes believe it's his sister because this beautiful girl is helping him and she is obviously attracted to him and he doesn't want to disappoint her, but is disappointed at the end when she finds out (or...orgy?). Anyway, I DID think of this, until I realised that's exactly what Salma Hayek's character does in Wild Wild West (which coincidentally also has Smith in it) with her father who turns out to be her husband. Dang it.

However, when I was explaining to someone this story, I realised his wife/sister didn't need to get captured (but we're keeping it in damnit) because he already had a motive to get the pirates, which was his money. Anyway I think it would be better because Robert Downey Junior can fall in love with her, even though she's coloured and he's a racist, and she'll change his attitude and he can mutiny against Samuel L.

See this film will be FULL of morals.

Anyway, that's as far as we've got. I mean the ending will probably be pretty obvious, but maybe....NOT?!?!?!?!?

Tune in next week to find out.

Peace.

P.S. I'm copywriting the term 'Black off'.

Long time... no see

2008-10-16T03:56:00.000-07:00

So what's happened since we last posted? I'm now in Portsmouth at university, Sam has gone into hiding or protective custody as I haven't managed to get in touch with him, and he hasn't done any blog posts, so I thought I'd do one quickly... Ah crap I have a lecture in 20 mins. Ok I'll do a longer post when I get back... Peace out.

Gee whiz mister you're doing a lot of updates

2008-09-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I explained how our update system works in a different post, we aim to do one a week each and if we feel the urge to post something we do... So that's the reason for the frankly obsessive number of posts I'm doing at the moment. 1 is not enough!
So today's topic is really just a update of a previous topic, " music that may (Sack of Jam accepts no liability for it not doing so) save your life".
I was looking back through old posts and found this one I did and some of the videos have been removed and I added a few more I thought of later in other posts so I thought I'd compile them and add more.

Awww here goes....

Eye of the tiger-Survivor -Useful if you ever need to have a montage and train up your "skillz" quickly.

Gay Bar-Electric Six -Find your own reason I got none other than put it on your phone and drown out shitty chav music with it... always funny.

Minnie the Moocher-Cab Calloway -See the video really useful for sneaking past people like in the Blues Brothers and parodied by Family Guy.

Snakes On A Plane-Cobra Starship -This song plays at the end of the Snakes on a Plane film (one of the greatest films of all time (regardless of what Sam, Movie critics and anyone else says (they're lying to stop you watching the greatest film of all time (trust me)))), I think this song raises an important issue and you should listen to it while on long haul flights (particularly if you're flying from Hawaii to LA) as it'll keep you on your guard. (Yes that is a straight copy and paste from my last post (Hey sam did it with his dream I feel I have the same right to).

Can't touch this-Mc Hammer -useful if you're playing tig or in a sword fight. it's sure to annoy your opponent and distract them. -See also the Family Guy Version.

Never Gonna Give You Up-Rick Astley. Giving you the ability to Rickroll at will. Do it on public transport, sporting events, lectures, work, lessons and any othe appropriate time. Again check out the Family Guy version.

Kill Bill theme tune inspired by this xkcd comic.

Bitter Sweet symphony- The Verve -good if you want to be an arsehole (see the video).

Benny Hill theme -not only does it make everything around you more funny while listening to it (scientifically proven) but as can be seen from the video alien attacks are more manageable and a lot less scary with this music in the background.

Puberty love-Ronny Desmond -The song used in Mars attacks to destroy the aliens, and in attack of the killer tomatoes,see this video.

Run to the Hills-Iron Maiden -Useful in a flood, tsunami or other such catastrophe when running to the hills may be useful.

Ghostbusters theme -May be enough to scare off some kind of ghost trying to kill you.

500 miles-The Proclaimers -Useful if public transportation fails or you want to walk 500 miles. (listening to this song on repeat while walking 500 miles may cause internal haemorrhaging).

What is love?-Haddaway -I can't actually can't think of a situation that this isn't useful.

Mission Impossible theme -If you have to dodge lasers or absail or anything like that this is the song you need.
Which Side are you on?-Dropkick Murphys -Useful if you've got a picket line.

That's all for now

LHC webcam

2008-09-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

Live feed I've managed to embed from the Hadron Collider under the Swiss/French Border.
type="application/x-shockwave-flash">

Edit: Ok so the flash player broke for some reason so here's the link to the website with the webcam on http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Even Matt Damon knows it's true

2008-09-11T05:29:00.000-07:00

Even Matt Damon criticizes Sarah Palin. Matt Damon! (cue Team America reference)

Also check out the video of her first speech, I took the liberty of making a transcript of the first 2 and a half minutes and it's amazing how much people cheer despite her not doing anything,

thank you, thank you thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much, thank you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you so much,

mr chairman, delegates and fellow citizens, I would be honoured to accept your nomination for vice president of the united states,

thank you, thank you, thank you,

British political conventions are nothing like this, it's ridiculous like watching the state of the union address, they say a line then everyone claps for 5 minutes then they say another line. Even if it's complete and utter bullshit what they say. Not many people cheer after her "Hockey Mom" joke though so...

To compare here is a video of a different idiot speaking at a conference this time in Britain.

Note: Palin averages a "thank you" once every 7 seconds.

Political ranting time... sigh

2008-09-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

Basically I'm awake and not tired at 2 in the morning so I thought I'd do an update to stop Sam continuously asking me if I'm going to do a post.
Ok so for the last week or so I've managed to remain calm about Sarah Palin, John McSame's running mate (and probably the next vice-president or maybe president if McSame dies).
John Mcsame annoys me enough but Sarah Palin, has sort of tipped the boat into absolute hatred of the republican nomination.
The problems I have with Palin are numerous. Number One on my list is her attitude to abortion (pro-life (I hate that phrase it makes it sound like you're against life if you're pro-choice)). She is even against abortion in rape cases, which is very insensitive towards the victim in these cases and also could impactly deeply on the child once it is born. Also in cases of incest she is against this regardless of how this may affect the child. "Halcro recalls one debate in October 2006 in which, after repeated questions about her opposition to abortion even in cases of rape or incest, she looked at the moderator with exasperation and asked if they were going to talk about anything besides abortion. It was detracting from her new message: cleaning up the capitol." i. As she says the only method of contraception is abstinence ii. Which is a really really stupid idea... so you teach abstinence then kids who's hormones overcame them don't know to use a condom, I know that sounds unlikely but it's possible. Maybe this is the case with her 17 year old daughter, Bristol, who is 5 months pregnant? Now the use of this as political leverage would be very insensitive by any opposition and her privacy should be respected, the thing that worries me however was Sarah Palin's response to this, brushing it off by saying she's going to have the baby and marry the father. Now to be fair i don't know all the details so this may be a fair thing to say, but her off-handness as though this explains everything away scares me.
She is also a devout Evangelist as may be seen by the fact she wants creationism taught alongside evolution in schools.
Quick rant about teaching creationism- Creationists frequently argue that it should be taught alongside the theory of evolution so that "the children can make their own minds up". Bullshit. In actuality it is so they can try and force creationism onto impressionable kids, who can't fully understand the theory of evolution yet. I have no problem with creationism being taught in say R.E. or Sunday School etc. but not in a science lesson. The evidence used to support creationism is flaws in the theory of evolution due to lack of evidence in the "oh so complete" fossil record, but then they casually overlook the lack of evidence to support any of their theories.
Ok back to Sarah Palin, there were reports also that she tried to ban books in the library of the city in which she was mayor, however when researching this rant I found no evidence to support it and lots of reports de-bunking it so I'm not going to hold that against her (unless it turns out to be true).
She is also a gun fanatic with a lifelong membership to the NRA and believes that the Second Amendment should be upheld, despite the fact it's outdated and is bollocks. The British aren't going to invade any more and to be honest I doubt a US militia formed from the general public would be any use what-so-ever in the event of an invasion of US territory. What people in the US don't realise is that having guns is directly proportionate to the number of people killed by guns. The argument that if only criminals have guns people won't be able to defend themselves has as much value as human faeces, the next bit will be in Caps just to reiterate the point... IF GUNS ARE EASY TO OBTAIN, IT IS EASIER FOR CRIMINALS TO GET THEM. How this isn't obvious escapes me. For example when was the last school shooting in Britain? 1996 in Dunblane iii), before handguns became illegal in the UK. When was the last one in America? Last month, August 21st so 3 weeks ago in actuality iv) . Statistics point away from guns being useful.
My last point as I need to get to sleep soon is the fact that she is inexperienced (despite her arguments that Obama is as well) and that I have been to more countries than she has with her visiting a grand total of 4 outside of her own country. With increased globalisation and foreign interests she doesn't seem like a great choice for vice-president of the world's most powerful and influential country.
Also "her speech" that wowed the republican party was written for her and she spent a week in a hotel practising with George Bush's script writers to hone it so she could impress at that convention.

i. http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html

ii. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/sblow/stories/DN-blow_07met.ART.Central.Edition1.26971e3.html

iii.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre

iv.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_High_School_(Knoxville,_Tennessee)#2008_school_shooting

Anyway that's all for now, I've been very busy sorting out Uni crap and that's the reason for these short and sporadic posts so sorry about that.

Because Copy And Pasting Is Easy..

2008-09-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

Nobody move, I have an idea...

Well, since the dawn of time (Around May 2007) I started writing a blog, mainly for boredom reasons, but now this blog's getting more traffic, I've decided to post some of the posts on here. It only got 11 posts but it's a good filler whilst I think of something original to write. Anyway, the purpose of my other blog was to post my weird dreams. A while ago Jack told me, after getting bored of my rambling stories, to keep a dream diary, then through natural progression I decided to post them on a blog. I have been told to get them analyzed but I'm worried about the following visit from the men in white coats. So I'm going to post the dreams on here, they're a little extensive, but fun to write. Happy reading..

So this is a dream I had on the 31st of March 2007, and it kind of creeped me out a bit. It was not just the amount of blood, and the extensive use of the colour red that did it, it was more the feelings that I felt whilst I was dreaming it. So here it is. Well here is what I can remember of it…

So I’ll set the scene. This is going to be difficult. Right…

The atmosphere is very…atmospheric. The entire interior of this building is made of metal. Red, rusted metal. Smoke fills the room like a fat person fills a pair of jogging shorts. It is difficult to see because of the lack of light and the amount of smoke (appearing, apparently, from nowhere, as nobody in the room is smoking). The room is extremely claustrophobic, and there is (or at least there is an impression that there is) many people. In the middle of the room there is a square counter (sort of like a bar, but without any taps, and square…so nothing like a bar, more like a counter). The entire ‘counter’ is caged off with more of the red, rusted steel that seemed to plague the place in the same way that Reality TV plagues cable.
There were people inside the cage (this started out as maybe two or three people, but they mysteriously disappeared, leaving just one person). The person left inside the cage was an attractive girl, about my age. It might have been someone I know but I’m not too sure, all I can remember about her was she was blonde, fair skinned and attractive.
She was working inside the cage, taking pieces of paper from the ruffians that had cultivated in the room and stamping them. I could not tell what was on the paper, nor what was on the stamp. It must have been important as a lot of shady characters seemed to want these non-descript pieces of paper stamped (with a non-descript stamp).
I looked around. The people in here were stereo-typical biker types; Big, strong and hairy. Although (and I’m trying to work out why) across the cage from me, in a queue, was Jar Jar Binks (For those of you who don’t know who this is, he is a strange creature from the newest Star Wars films. The kind of thing that could easily turn dreams into nightmares).

So now the scene is set (at last), so this is what happened…

One of the massive biker-types (although this one was massively more massive that the rest of them) walked up to the counter next to me, and began talking to the girl behind the counter (which I had just been talking to about something I can’t remember, I don’t think it’s important though) there was something odd about the way he talked to her, something very…odd. Then I realized he was talking to her in a foreign language. Neither of us (‘us’ being the girl and me) could understand a word of what he was saying, but I could tell the language was either French or Italian. It didn’t seem to matter what he was saying, however, because as soon as the girl took the piece of paper off of him and stamped it, he began to walk away. I said to the girl “Was he French or Italian do you think?”
“I’m not sure” she replied, so I shouted after the man; “Au Revoir!”
He stopped and he turned, but not to me, to the girl behind the counter. He spake through the cage to her, in an extremely recognizable French accent.
“Do I look like I’m French? Do I look like I drink wine and wear bells in my hair?” (That didn’t make much sense, plus, he hardly had any hair). Then he turned to me.
“Oh crap” I thought, but didn’t have time to say it as he picked me up and threw me against the wall. He grabbed me again before I had time to get up and took me towards the bathroom. He kicked the door of the bathroom down and threw me inside. I got up and started to think of a plan. I was walking away from him with my back to him (slightly too nonchalantly considering the circumstances). I thought “Ok, maybe I’ve got a trick up my sleeve.” I looked up my sleeve. I didn’t have any tricks, but I did have a watch. (Just in case you’re interested, the watch showed twenty to five [I believe]). I thought of a plan, but it involved some preparation. “Ok” I started “Let’s make it fair. We each have one minute to get ready and then…” I was cut off mid-sentence by him grabbing my shoulders from behind and lifting me up and throwing me into the wall.
“I want a fair fight!” I screamed.
“Tough luck” he said, (by this point, his French accent has mysteriously disappeared). Then, suddenly, something happened that I didn’t expect to happen; He held me by the scruff of the neck, a clear few feet off of the floor, lifted his arm back to hit me, and I kicked him in the shin with what seemed like very little force, but for some reason he spiralled through the air and smashed into the opposite wall. He was barely conscious, laying on the floor, hardly moving. The blow had obviously hit him hard.
I went over to him and right-hooked him in the face. Although, as with the kick, I didn’t seem to be put any effort into hitting him, he went flying again, this time knocking down about three cubicle walls.
As he was getting up I jumped up and smashed his head between my foot and the wall. (This felt bad. I felt extremely angry, more than I can ever remember being). Blood was streaming down his face and his eyes were like two bulging globes of blood. I could not see any pupils, iri, or anything else in his eye sockets except for deep, blood red. It filled me with fear that I’d hurt him, but also with anger that he was still alive.
He started to move. By now he was face down on the floor trying to crawl towards something to haul himself up with. I could tell he was nearly dead.
“Ready to give up yet?” I laughed.
“Bastard” he said, well, tried to say, but I got the picture. I picked him up by his head and swung for him. He went through a large window which was on the bottom wall of the bathroom. I walked over to the window and I realized that I was in a large industrial zone, in what seemed to be an abandoned skyscraper (well it had the feeling of being abandoned, but obviously it wasn’t, I was in it). Everything around me had a blood red iron look to it, and the sky was red and polluted. It felt like a very bleak (and probably a ‘not so far from the truth’) vision into the future.

Now I need to fast forward 20 minutes (according to my watch anyway) and there were a few more people with me in the bathroom (Hello, sailor. No not like that). Now though, you wouldn’t have been able to tell it was ever a bathroom, as it had been demolished completely, (mostly from my fight, but the rest seemed to be taken apart by the people who were in the bathroom with me now). There were two people standing side by side, one was the large man I had recently thrown out of a window, only now he was wearing dark, circular glasses (presumably to cover up the balls of blood that once were eyes), and the other was a shorter, completely bald guy, about thirty-ish, staring straight ahead. The large man spoke; “Where did you learn to fist fight that well?”
“I don’t know” I lied, looking at my hand. I was expecting to see bruised knuckles after hitting that guy so hard, but my hands were completely unscathed. For some reason this thought entered my head: “Maybe I should tell them that I’m part robot. Never mind, I’ll let them figure it out for themselves.” I continued out loud; “Oh just one thing, I can turn into a bat.”
“What? Yeah right.” The fat man laughed.
“Look, I’ll show you.” I began to run forwards and leapt up into the air, and I felt my body changing. My vision became blurred and suddenly I could see everything as if looking through a red filter. I flew around a bit and circled the bathroom. Then my vision became filled with more and more red until all I could see was red. Followed by black. Then I woke up.

Notes
Ok, just a couple of things to add…
There are certain words in the story which may seem made up. There are two that I can remember; ‘Spake’ and ‘Iri’. Now let me explain, just in case you don’t get it. Spake is another word for ‘spoke’ (i.e. the past version of ‘to speak’) and I decided to use it just because it sounds better (in my opinion). The other word; Iri, is the plural of the word ‘Iris’ (the coloured bit of your eye), and I made use of my amazing pluralisation rules to come up with this word.
One other thing is that, due to my fantastically unique grasp and usage of the English language, some sentences or features of the story may seem to make no sense whatsoever, but, if you’re me, it all makes sense. So any ‘mistakes’ you may see within the story are completely on purpose and not a mistake of my writing at all, but your reading.

If you managed to read it all, well done, and stay tuned.

Sam.

Three-Fucking-Hundred! And Shameless Self-Promoting.

2008-09-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

Well according to our sight meter we've had 300 Unique Users (goes by IP adresses, not hits) since the 25th of June (since the current counter started, before that there was another 120 or so), which has fucking blown my mind as both Jack and I expected about 10 people to see this blog, so, for everyone who looked at this blog, whether you read anything or not, I have this to say to the magic 300 of you; FOR SPARTA!

Right ok to the real point we now have 300 people which is enough to take on the zealot Xerxes; so don your skimpiest armour, raise your shields and let us dine in hell!

Ok maybe not, anyway, if you accidentally stumbled upon us (by maybe typing 'i want a free sack of jam' into google, and even then we're the second one down), then encourage friends, family, pets, house-hold items or even your sworn enemies (who you want to expose to shittiness).

We need exposure! But not like the exposure I used to give, I got arrested for that.

The Illusionist Review

2008-08-31T08:33:00.000-07:00

Well, for the first time in what seems like ever, I sat down and watched a film last night. Now I watch a lot of films, but rarely do I sit down and watch a film for the purpose of watching a film. The film that my relatives meant to pick up was The Prestige (awesome film, I reccomend it, it even has David Fucking Bowie!), but instead, by accident, they picked up a film (not dissimilar) called The Illusionist. Now despite my Mum thinking it was a DVD of magic tricks (She also thought The Pianist was a music DVD...Joke), we watched it anyway. Anyway, if you're wondering, spoilers ahead. Don't say I didn't warn you. You only have yourself to blame now.. Anyway, I have to say it's a weird film to judge. It's reeeeeeally boring and predictable, a lower class boy falls in love with a high class girl and obviously society doesn't like it so takes the girl away to find a respectable man blah blah blah blah blah. BUT, the thing that makes this film different from the rest of it's type is, when they're grown up and he's made more of a name for himself, she turns up again, in the arms of another man who she's been promised to but not married to and certainly doesn't love as she still has feelings for the main character.. Oh, wait, that's EXACTLY the same as every film of this type. But...but...but...They eventually live happily ever after...shit. It's like the writer (who's last name is 'Burger' which just made me hungry and therefore in a bad mood) found a dusty old book of bad clichés and decided to use all the ones to do with relationships. Ok, so what happens is, Edward Norton (the bad guy from the new Italian Job, and the main character in the new Hulk film) is a low class boy, falls in love with a high class girl, they get separated, he becomes a magician, and they meet again when she volunteers at one of his magic shows. Ok, pretty predictable. The womany person (Jessica Biel, erm, no idea what she's in) is promised to a prince (/woman beater who's murdered a woman before) who's set to overthrow (sneakily) the throne of some far away place that I can't remember. Biel tells her man she's leaving him for Norton, whereupon he gets very angry and 'kills' her (note the inverted commas). Anyway, through the film it's Norton's job to persuade the chief of police (the best performance in the film) that the prince murdered her. And so the film goes on and it's as boring and predictable as weetabix, but then the end really makes the film and you realise it's not weetabix at all but a 7-eyed laser-beam firing mutant guinea-pig. Ok, it's not THAT cool, but it is good, and if you are to watch it (i'm not sure if i recommend it or if I'm against it..) then bare with it until the end. Well I got bored halfway through writing this as you can probably tell so I just basically described the plot, and if you don't like it, watch it, and make your own fucking minds up.

Lazy bastards.

Sam.

Driving Lesson

2008-08-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

So today I had my second ever driving lesson. Woo... Anyway so I'm practising clutch control on a hill (which is really hard, when you're new) and my instructors like saying concentrate on the clutch and the accelerator but watch the road. So something out to the right catches my eye, and there's a load of Peahen's strolling around. So I'm struggling to stop the car rolling back down the hill, stall or just generally explode and avoiding traffic, while trying to concentrate on the fucking clutch, so some bastard (god I'm looking at you) decides it'd be a great idea to release a load of peahens onto the road... great thanks.
Anyway that's it really just wanted to vent my frustration.

All I Have To Do Is Dream...

2008-08-29T05:05:00.000-07:00

Well, since my other blog has gone in to liquidation (not literally, but I've not updated it in years) I've decided to post this here. I've always had rather...eccentric dreams, and I enjoy writing, so sometimes I merge the two and write my dreams in great detail. Let me explain a few things about my dreams; I can control them, or certain aspects of them, so more concious thoughts and solutions to problems can creep in, which is always handy when escaping zombies. I can feel in my dreams, this sounds weird, and it is, I can feel (or at least it feels to me that I am feeling) pretty much everything, but toned down. So pain, pleasure (not that kind of dream), hot, cold, pretty much everything that I can when I'm awake (but with the added bonus of 'pleasure' [buh dum tish]). And lastly, I die in my dreams a lot, I thought this was weird, and again it probably is, but there's not much I can do because no matter how much I control my dream, it seems near impossible to avoid my death even if I know it's coming.

Right, to the dream. The central characters are three prison inmates, and me, also a prison inmate, but for this dream I look exactly like Roger Daltrey (from The Who) did in the film 'Tommy.' Great start. So, being prison inmates, we're exactly where prison inmates hang out, in prison. Obviously. So me and these three other guys (let's call them Tom, Dick and Harry...) have come up with a genius escape plan. There's a pipe floating randomly about 100 feet above the prison, hanging unsupported from the sky. We decide to weld together (from what I don't know) a 100 feet pipe (like a ladder wouldn't be easier) to connect to the other pipe, and we'd crawl up our pipe and join the other, whereupon we would press a button that would self destruct the pipe so there's no chance of being followed. Brilliant idea, no possible flaws..

So we've built the pipe, and, stupidly, we decide the best time to escape would be during a fire drill, when all the other inmates, and guards, are outside all at the same time. Brilliant. So, we manage to somehow get the parts of this pipe out in to the yard, weld it together, and connect it to the top pipe before anyone's any the wiser. As soon as we start to climb it however the guards wise-up and began shooting at us (took their time). So we get to the top of our pipe, bullets rattling off it, and as I go to push the self-destruct button it falls apart like it was built in some terrible 'comedy' film. So we're in the main pipe now and there's an usher type person. He says that the pipe is used to escape so often that it's his job to provide a change of clothes to people, a shave and a haircut if they want it, so they don't go in public looking like the people they did in prison. We get the works but I keep my oh-so-nice flowing Roger Daltrey locks, and we stroll to the end of the pipe and get out the other end, coming out by a freeway.

Now, as we've just escaped prison, we're a bit paranoid of the police, so every car that we see, we automatically assume it's probably a police car. Now on a freeway this is a problem. So, as it took us half an hour to cross the freeway, we decided to get a car. 'Let's hijack one' said Tom. 'No wait..I have a plan. Dick, pretend to collapse.'
'Why?'
'You'll see..'

So, he did what he was told, and we carried him to a car showroom full of the most expensive cars in the world. 'Help!' I screamed at the owner, 'He's just collapsed, an ambulance won't get here in time, we need a car!'
'I don't know...you look like escaped convicts or something...only joking!' He beamed. We laughed. Nervously. 'What car do you want?' He asked.
'Something fast...to get to the hospital quickly?' He bought it, he gave us, for a measly 20 euro deposit, the keys to a brand new red dodge viper, with white stripes painted along the bonnet. 'Thanks.' We said, and thought. So we took off down the roads, driving in a style similar to that of the film Speed Racer (of which I've seen limited bits of), almost mowing down about 50 people and one enormous lady eating an ice-cream. We drove a little too wrecklessly for people who spent half an hour crossing a road in case the police spotted us. Luckily, we weren't spotted, despite constant speeding, bumps into other people and their vehicles. We decided, when the car was smoking and almost written off, but still working, to slow it down and drive to a club. We got to the club, and there was a man stood outside with a guitar. Being a Guitar player (that's me not Roger Daltrey) I decided to go talk to him. He was with the manager of the club having an argument, I'm not sure what about, and as I walked up to him the weirdest thing happened...

I woke up.

Fin.

P.S. I apologise for the B-movie ending '...And I woke up, and it was all a dream.'

P.P.S. Please feel free to comment with your thoughts, or if you want to section me, I've been waiting for the men in white coats for many years now..

P.P.P.S (?). I will post about Leeds fest shortly, but this was needed when it was fresh in my mind.

P.P.P.P.S. I can't be bothered proof reading, so any mistakes are with your reading, and NOT my writing. Thanks.

Sam.

Leeds Fest. aftermath

2008-08-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

So we're now both back from Leeds festival and it has to be said that it was one of the best experiences ever.
Slipknot cancelled unfortunately (but then a advertising plane flew round advertising tickets for their tour).
This is the list of bands that I saw:-

Metallica- best band I saw at Leeds Fest. The stage performance was brilliant with great pyrotechnics.
Tenacious D- had a fantastic stage performance and performed well. Both the metal and the devil were portrayed.
Dropkick Murphys- This was fun to watch and a good performance.
Plain White T's- watched this act due to reschduling of dropkicks, since they were put on at the time that the dropkicks were supposed to perform they were given a poor reception.
Rage Against The Machine- Fantastic performance, second best act I saw. The mosh pit was ace and they actually had to stop the performance to get people to move back to give more space.
The Fratellis- Gave a good fun performance which i enjoyed watching
The Enemy- Were ok, wouldn't buy any of their albums and saw them as there were no other bands on at that time that I'd prefer seeing.
Lethal Bizzle- didn't see much of his performance and I don't like that style of music, mostly went to see him so I could say I have seen him.
Less Than Jake- Fun to watch and a good band, unfortunately I only got the first 4 songs from their set as I had to leave early to watch Rage.
The Killers- Disappointing performance, which was not up to par with what you'd expect from them, with a slow opening song which really held the tempo for the rest of the set.
Flogging Molly- A ace performance that I thoroughly enjoyed and had an insane mosh pit
Bloc Party- didn't like them that much, but there was a good atmosphere in the crowd.
Editors- Fairly good (yeah I'm beginning to get bored of this, 'cos I only (generally) went to see bands I liked so yeah.)
Get Cape, Wear Cape Fly- Surprisingly good, I haven't heard any of their work before and only watched them as there was nothing else one
We Are Scientists
Subways
Automatic
My top 5 were:-
1.Metallica
2.Rage Against The Machine
3.Tenacious D
4.Flogging Molly
5.Dropkick Murphys

I also saw Henry Rollins and Stephen lynch at the alternative tent. Who were both ace. Check out the vid at the bottom of this post that I recorded of Stephen Lynch and I have another one to upload.

Also Sam if you're reading this you just lost the game, so fuck you

Festival This Weekend

2008-08-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

So...Off to Leeds Fest tomorrow. Can't wait. Just getting final stuff ready, packing etc. We've got a lot to take, food, clothes, a tent, sleeping stuff, alcohol, first aid kit, and various other bits and bobs that very nearly included the kitchen sink. But then we realised we have to carry this stuff on a coach with us so...we thought just the bathroom sink would suffice. Anyway, we're both looking forward to it I think, the bands I'm most looking forward to seeing this weekend are; Metallica and Tenacious D are awesome on the first day (Slipknot were, but they cancelled due to one of them having a broken ankle. There's nine of them! Replace! Or sit down!) Rage Against the Machine, Queens of the Stone Age, the Fratellis, Serj Tankian and Biffy Clyro on Saturday, and the Killers, the Raconteurs and Seasick Steve on Sunday. Anyway that's it for now, one of us (probably Jack...although to be fair I've been doing well recently) will post giving our thoughts on the weekend, this is both of our first festivals camping, so hopefully it will go off without a hitch and with plenty of beer.

Sam.

Mummy 3 review

2008-08-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

So here's my review for The Mummy 3 and I did it in video form.

Notes for the podcast, I forgot where I got all the pictures and stuff from so I apologise for that, I'm not gaining any profit from their use. If I have used one of your images email me and I'll happily update with your information.
XKCD is one of the sources check it out at www.xkcd.com

HACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACK

2008-08-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

So this post has been saved in the drafts folder for so long that I decided to hack it and finish it with the use of my own extensive knowledge of Anime. NOTE: The serious bits are by Jack.

So I'm quite a large anime fan so I thought I'd do a list (yes another list) of anime films and series. (Note all links lead to the wikipedia articles, which may contain spoilers).
Series:-
Trigun- This was the first anime I ever saw and this probably influenced my liking of it (as it's my favourite), however it is still a very good series. This film is a Space Western, set in the future on a desert world, (this probably could link into Sam's earlier post).
Cowboy Bebop- Yet another Space Western anime. This series is mainly focused around the adventures of a group of bounty hunters, this series is set on a number of different worlds. Cowboy bebop also has a fantastic soundtrack featuring a wide range of genre. Cowboy Bebop also has a film, however it links into the series, and is not a standalone. Therefore I won't be posting it in the list of films.
Neon Genesis Evangelion- Although i have not yet seen this anime, it's reputation is formidable, with it being the most highly acclaimed anime. Like Cowboy Bebop, the series finishes with two films, which retell the last two episodes of the series, and therefore will not be included in films. One of my friends however watched this series and said it was incredibly depressing if you really get into the series.

HACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACKHACK

POKEMON!!! - The best Anime ever made, and, besides the Japanese, the best thing to come out of Japan. It really was the ultimate recipe for a TV show; bad writing + annoying animals that can only say their own names (for the most part) + really annoying main characters + hundreds of really annoying supporting actors + intelligence insulting 'plots' = Awesomeness! I'm only talking about the original show with only 151 Pokemon, you know, when it wasn't ridiculous.

Digimon - Basically a crappy rip off of Pokemon (Pokemon=Pocket monsters, Digimon=Digital Monsters), the same idea, but the main difference was that they could evolve and devolve whenever the situation calls for it (Take that Darwin you bastard!).

Yu-Gi-Oh - Battling with cards. Only invented it seems to make money off of the sales of battle-cards (of which I had many). Unlike Pokemon cards these could actually be used and understood and the purveyors of which didn't just stand in the playground throwning the little clear pebbles at each other.

Cardcaptors - I actually liked this one. About a school-girl who went round...catching cards? Battling demons and turning them into cards? I can't remember, but she was definitely a school-girl.

Dragonball Z - Don't ask me, I never watched it.

Anyway, that's hopefully got Jack all flustered, maybe he'll finish the actual post? By the way Jack no counter-hacking.

Sam.

Twice in one week! (Nearly). Jack will be surprised.

2008-08-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't posted as promised because I've been at my Girlfriend's house from Wednesday morning, and I'll be here until tonight, but at the moment she's busy with University stuff (something that I won't have to deal with for at least another two years). I've been here for so long because it was her driving theory test on Wednesday, A-Level results on Thursday, and then...Well I just like being here. Anyway, this is the story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down, so I'd like to take a minute just sit right there, I'll tell you how I...Finally ordered my Guitar.

Well, it's really pissed me off trying to get this Guitar. It's taken me four attempts (some more full than others) to finally get hold of it. So as I stated in my last post, I wanted to get an Epiphone Les Paul Custom, but getting one (which I haven't yet) has turned out to be more of an ordeal than I could be bothered with. The first time I tried to get one, I went on a website where I bought my last Guitar (this one will be my fourth, no that's not enough!) last year, because I could get a 5% discount. So I called the number they told me to call and they were sorry but they no longer sold Epiphone Guitars (despite advertising around 20), and I'd miss the last one in stock (the one I wanted) by less than a week. Oh Joy. So this pissed me off, as you can imagine. Luckily, with the help of a few people, I managed, the next day, to find one for the same price, from another website. This time, it claimed it was in stock, took my card details, and (probably, I didn't have time to check) debited my account. Yay, I thought, it's actually in stock! So the next day my mobile rang, and I don't usually answer a call unless I know who it is, but this time I did. 'Hi, is this Sam? Yeh we're sorry but we don't sell Epiphones any more, we do have one in stock, it's not the same but we can do you a deal on it' 'I'll drop you an email when I've had a look' I said. So I had a look and what was there was a Guitar I wouldn't even remotely want, a colour that would only look good to Stevie Wonder and a price tag that was more was worth. I cancelled my order and definitely did not drop them an email.

So, by now, I'm beginning to get more than a little annoyed. The next attempt was from yet another online instrument store, but this time I decided to email them to make sure they had one, and, as I'd had trouble getting one, could I reserve one whilst I make sure the other website has returned my money (as I only had just enough for the Guitar and some straplocks). This Guitar was the same price as the others, around £340. They emailed me back and said they had one left, and I couldn't reserve one without paying a deposit of half it's worth. So I thought I may as well just order it as the money'll be back in my account. So I go back on the website (this was the day after I'd sent the email, and just after I'd got the reply), and the cheeky twats had put the price up. Not just a little bit, but by about £30. Now I don't know (or think) that it's company policy to put the price up when they've only got one left, but they must have got my email and decided that I was definitely going to buy it because I was having difficulty finding one, so thought they could scam me out of another £30. If I'd have had the money I'd have no doubt not bought it anyway, under principal. Because what they did, ladies and gentlmen, is called being total wankers.

More pissed off now. So next idea, this was my mum's; Check eBay. She said I shouldn't buy a used one (as I'd said I definitely didn't want to), but people do sell new stuff on there. I managed to find one which was about £100 cheaper than I was going to pay, completely untouched and therefore unscathed, still under warranty, AND the person lived in Windsor, just around the corner from my sister. This meant that my sister could go and have a look at it, check it was ok, buy it and keep it until this weekend, when my parents are going down to see her, and pick it up. So I emailed the guy who was selling it, saying that I don't live in Windsor, but my sister does, so could I pay in cash (easier than paypal believe it or not), and he had a return/refund time of about a week, but I wouldn't be able to play it for about two weeks, so could he increase the time to about two-three weeks. It was very polite and I did my best not to sound desperate and deep in the hope that I could get it. If he said no to these things (which I could've understood) I would have probably gotten it anyway, his user reviews seemed good and ligit, and it was a damn sight cheaper than I was going to pay anyway. So I checked my email and hadn't got a reply the next day (the day it was due to run out on eBay). That afternoon, I got a text from my mum saying that she and my dad had looked online (maybe with the intention of ordering it), saying that it had been sold. Now as I hadn't heard from the guy (and not checked the item every minute) I had no idea.

Argh. Someone really doesn't want me to have a bleeding Guitar. The only ones I could find now were too expensive or used. And I don't trust used Guitars (and wasn't really trusting eBay, anything could've been wrong with it and there'd be no way of telling). So, my hopes had been dashed once again. Then, finally, light at the end of the tunnel. My dad emailed me a link to a few sites, one claimed it was in stock, as cheap as the rest, completely new, under warranty, exactly the one I wanted for exactly the amount of money I wanted to spend. Is this one a happy ending? Well I'll have to wait to find out. I've been on the site a few times in the days after (I ordered it on Friday, it's now Monday) and they STILL advertise the Guitar as in stock (it goes by the end of the last day), I've got an email saying they've recieved the order, I HAVEN'T got a call saying they're out of stock, don't sell them, or just plain ignorant eBay users, and I'm genuinely looking forward to waking up one morning to the delivery of my new guitar. I hope it happens. I really do.

Well, that's all for now, I will post pictures, reviews, maybe some sound clips of me playing it (if I find out how to get them on the blog) when I get my Guitar, but probably not this weekend as Jack and I are at Leeds Festival (line up here) so it's going to be a pretty hectic, and rocking, weekend. Hopefully, I'll be Guitarified by the end of the week. But at this rate, I won't be by the end of my life.

Sam.

Random update

2008-08-13T14:52:00.000-07:00

So we got yet another fun spam email today from "SIR GEORGE HARRIS" from the UK lottery, (I know Britain's a class based society... but really does that impress anyone really?).
"Contact Mr. James Keegan for the claim of ($2,000,000.00. ) USD which youhave won in FREELOTTO.Provide your.Full

Names.Home Address,Age,Occupation,Tel,Country

Send to :mrjameskeegan.2222@googlemail.com
SIR GEORGE HARRIS.
Promotions Manager."

I'll get right on that then, combined with the large amounts of money we're getting from Ghanains investing in a "stable" economy Sack of Jam productions is in the money. With all this money we might have enough money to set up our own email scams. I am about to email back all of our potential investors, to talk about future business deals. This is the reply I sent to our Ghanain investors:

"Sack Of Jam Productions would be delighted to accept your investment deal. We however are unsure of your business motives and what plans you have for the future with Sack of Jam Productions. We would like to know how much of the company you wish to purchase with your investment. Also what experience you have in New Media, Gene Technology, Advertising or Theme Park Management that could benefit our company in the near future.
We would like to Thank You for your interest and look forward to your correspondence in the future."

Yay free money, regarding the SIR GEORGE HARRIS email, I went and did some research and outside of website proclaiming it spam and a scam the only mention of a SIR GEORGE HARRIS wasn't caps- locked and turned out to be some imperialistic wanker who fought for the British Army in the American War of Independence and did something in India.
On the BBC website I noticed this which is slightly disconcerting for the largest news gathering organisation in the world.
Anyway that's all for now my next post may be me describing my exciting time at the Bradford City Vs Huddersfield Town match.
Once again our email is sackofjamproductions@hotmail.co.uk if you want to send us spam please go ahead or email us if you want us to forward you the spam we recieve. (surprisingly there have been no takers for this yet)

Hello Boys! I'm Back!!

2008-08-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

Fine, fine. I'm getting to it. It may have been over a month since my last post, but I believe I have completely viable and understandable reasons for not updating. Here's my extensive list;

1. I'm lazy.

That's it. Ok granted I HAVE genuinely been busy, I've rarely had a moment not doing something more important than this. I've been spending as much time as possible at my girlfriends, I've had two birthday parties, my actual birthday, my sister's been home from Windsor frequently, I've been spending more time with my girlfriend, and my presents, trying to get my new laptop to work. (oh yeh, F1R57 P057 from my laptop [That's first post to any none-L3373R5]). But apart from that, yeh I'm just really lazy.

Now something happened after my birthday that surprised me. I was sat in my room as usual, with my new laptop trying to get the internet to work. My dad comes in and says to me, why, since I got a fair bit of money for my birthday, don't I spend it on something worth-while. Something that will help remember my 18th, as it's a special birthday, and something that people that gave me money can come round and see what their money bought, rather than me doing my usual money-disappearing-trick (not half as cool as the pencil disappearing trick) and buying thousands of DVD's I still haven't watched from last year's birthday money.

So I'm getting an Epiphone Les Paul Custom, Black, with Gold hardware. Will take pics and post them when I get it.

Anyway I'm literally falling asleep so I will post tomorrow or Jack'll have my head. Which means I won't get my guitar. See you soon.

P.s. Gratz to anyone who got the Independance Day reference in the title.

Currently taking bets

2008-08-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

Roll up, roll up, come and place bets on the next time Sam will update the blog... Good odds and all bets taken(subject to availability), the smart man's money is on sometime in the next week as I'm going to start nagging him to update as I'm the only one that's updated in about a month now... (the last 8 posts being done by me.

The Dark Knight review

2008-08-05T05:14:00.000-07:00

So I've just noticed that a couple of posts back we passed number 50 on our blog, which is a bit of a milestone, considering I was expecting to only do 10 and then get bored (that's dedication for you). I didn't add anything more to the post yesterday as I was going to do it that evening but I sort of had a crash (due to several early mornings and late nights) and I couldn't be bothered.
I managed to upload the vidcast and the podcast is ready for uploading once I find somewhere to upload it. the end of the video for some reason is missing so I aim to upload the rest at some point in the near future.

WARNING THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS (but if you haven't seen the film stop reading and go see it already)

While I was in Norway I went to see The Dark Knight (and I'm going to see it again tomorrow with Sam, it's that good). If you didn't see the last one it really doesn't matter you should go and see this one. Now right of the bat (if you'll excuse the pun, which I only noticed as I was proof-reading (yes I proof read!!)) when Heath Ledger died, I really couldn't have cared less, I mean it's sad 'cos he was so young, but I thought the media hype was ridiculous, it was one guy people are dying all over the world get some sense of perspective (what really annoyed me though were people who were crying over Heath Ledger dying (his family and close friends excluded) seemingly not giving a shit about the disasters in Burma and China only a couple of months later). However this film completely changed my attitude towards his death, my god his acting skills were fantastic. I'm disappointed there won't be a sequel with him in it (seems selfish but there you go (and as previously mentioned I was sad at his death but not overly bothered)).
The film itself was visually stunning with amazing wide city shots, and the fight choreography and stunts were also very good.
Although overshadowed by Heath Ledger's performance (maybe his death adds that extra creepiness to the character which makes it so profound?)Aaron Eckhart gave a good performance as Harvey Dent and later as Two Face. Although I believe that he's dead some people (Sam included) believe that he may not be dead and may be lined up for a sequel, but who knows (there was a funeral for him so...).
Gary Oldman gave his usual solid performance (not as good as his portrayal of Zorg in the Fifth Element mind) and Morgan Freeman gave his usual performance including a speech about morals (surprise surprise). Maggie Gyllenhaal also gave an above average performance (although I don't think I've seen any of her other films (I know she played a submissive in the film Secretary but that's it)), and she was much better than Katie Holmes (in my opinion).
Now the Joker was such an ace character, the pencil magic trick for example, you laugh and then you suddenly realise just what happened and you get creeped out by it, which is the way I think the Joker should be portrayed.
I also like the nods to the earlier batman films and the comics by including several different Joker scar stories and Bale asking Freeman to design a costume so he can move his neck.
However there are some downsides to this film, Bale's Batman voice is for lack of a better word crap, I know he needs to disguise his voice, but instead he sounds like he's just got a sore throat. It's surprising that the other character's weren't offering him strepsils.
However the biggest point about this movie that I can criticize I noticed looking back several days later... In part of the film Batman justifies the tracking of people's personal data (through telecommunications) to catch terrorists. This is an uncomfortable comparison to current politics and the war on terror. I know in the end the data was wiped, but that just lends to the idea that it's ok as it's not a permanent strategy.
But these two aside this movie was absolutely fantastic and you should definately go and see it.
I meant to post this yesterday but unfortunately Blogger had one of it's scheduled outages (which I hadn't noticed) so I couldn't post it. Today I went to see Batman for a second time (with Sam)and we saw it at the Imax and the wide shots were just amazing, everyone should go see it at a Imax cinema if possible.

I return....

2008-08-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

So I'm back, from holiday... wooo go me... and I'm just catching up with news, webcomics, podcasts etc. I intend to post something a little more substantial later but until then you'll just have to wait so... ha.
I just found this an article on the bbc website (cba posting the link as it's on my other computer) it's about the Dark Night (which is an ace film that you should all go see) apparently 12a was too weak a certificate and it should be a 15 according to more than 80 people who complained to the BBFC. Serioursly? The BBC website also notes that 4.7 million tickets have been sold for it to date. Fucking arseholes, the film depicts the kind of violence all 11-14 year olds love. fact. Basically parents and other retards should research what the film is like before going to see it. One of the MPs who's been complaining (to score political points of angry parents) said he wouldn't take his 11 year old daughter to see it. Well fucking don't then you immense *insert obscenity* (I couldn't think of one strong enough... or a combination that was fitting for that matter).

Anyway I'll post more later and maybe the podcast as well as it's finished I just need to upload and also maybe a vidcast which I did on the ferry to and back from Norway.

hmm...

2008-07-23T06:21:00.000-07:00

So yeah I'm still in Norway (surprise, surprise) and am finding it awesome although the prices are a joke with everything being two to three times more expensive than in the UK, it's actually ridiculous. For example yesterday I looked at the prices in a McDonalds and it was about £7 for a regular meal!!
Today I went to Bergen's natural and cultural museums which had a very Victorian feel with hundreds of stuffed animals littering the place. they had everything from whales and Sharks to Lions and Giraffes. It was crazy... I'll upload the video of the blue whale skeleton to our youtube channel which I'll link in a future post.
Speaking of youtube I checked the links for the vids I embedded in sunday's post and one of the videos has been removed when I checked the reason why I discovered that it was removed due to a copyright claim by the "British Pornographic Industry LTD.", which is confusing as it's not pornographic... I'm going to embed the Buffalaxed version into this post at the bottom for you all.

Edit: I wonder if putting pornographic and other such words in this post and the tags will increase our traffic?
Edit 2: Hang on not only is that video not pornographic it's also not British, what the hell?

Edit 3: So last night I watched the film talk radio and I would like to recommend it to everyone, the writing and style are fantastic and the end monologue is fantastic. I'm going to post it but it doesn't spoil the film much, but if you don't want it spoiled at all read no further.

Still here? right here goes...

"You do not make perfect sense to me. As you name? I am a hypocrite; I ask for sincerity and I lie. I denounce the system as I embrace it. I want money and power and prestige. I want ratings and success, and I don't give a damn about you or the world. That's the truth. For this I could say I'm sorry, but I won't. Why should I? I mean who the hell are you anyway…you audience? You're on me every night like a pack of wolves cause you can't stand facing what you are and what you've made. Yes, the world is a terrible place, yes, cancer and garbage disposals will get you. Yes, a war is coming, yes, the world is shot to hell and you're all goners. Everything is screwed up and you like it that way, don't you? You're fascinated by the gory details. You're mesmerized by your own fear. You revel in floods, car accidents, unstoppable diseases. You're happiest when others are in pain. That's where I come in, isn't it? I'm here to lead you by the hands through the dark forest of your own hated and anger and humiliation. I'm providing a public service. You're so scared. You're like a little child under the covers. You're afraid of the boogie man, but you can't live without him. Your fear, your own lives have become your entertainment. Next month, millions of people are going to be listening to this show, and you have nothing to talk about! Marvelous technology is at your disposal, but instead of reaching up to new heights we're going to see how far down we can go; how deep into the muck we can immerse ourselves. What do you want to talk about, hum? Baseball scores, your pet, orgasms? You're pathetic. I despise each and every one of you. You have nothing, absolutely nothing! No brains, no power, no future, no hope, no god! The only thing you believe in is me. What are you if you don't have me? I'm not afraid, you see. I come in here every night. I make my case; I make my point. I say what I believe in. I tell you what you are, I have to. I have no choice! You frighten me. I come in here every night and I tear into you. I abuse you, I insult you, and you just keep coming back for more! What's wrong with you? Why do you keep calling? I don't want to hear anymore. Stop talking- - GO AWAY! Bunch of yellow bellied, spineless, bigoted, quivering, drunken, insomniatic, paranoid, disgusting, perverted, voyeuristic obscene little phone callers! That's what you are! Well to hell with you! I don't need your fear and stupidity, don't you get it? It's wasted on you, pearls before swine."

Posting from Norway

2008-07-22T12:08:00.000-07:00

So I decided to start typing this on the boat in my cabin. It is awesome as I have my own cabin, which is fairly large for one person and it has a bed and a couch, which is cool. (I'll post pics as well). I've just been playing on Oblivion, while listening to Extralife Radio. The North Sea turns out to be fairly rough, despite the fact it's a calm day, the boat is still rocking a fair bit, the capain said in his announcement that the waves were only 2-3 metres, which is reassuring. The ferry journey is 25 hours long and we've been underway for about 2 and a half hours. As I have a fair bit of time to kill I thought I'd prepare some posts, and I may edit the podcast that me and Sam did a couple of weeks ago. The only thing is I don't have any internet access so i can't research anything I say so some of it may be bollocks, but ah well.

Several hours later... so yeah still here and not at all sea-sick, I've explored the boat and done a bit of video watching on my laptop. I've just been doing a bit of videoing around the boat, mainly in my cabin and out on deck but... yeah. The main problem is that there are still people hanging around on the boat including crew members, who've given my random meanderings some suspicious stares, so I can't really wander as much as I'd like giving you all talks on it. I'll upload the video to youtube as soon as I get a chance to... which should be when I get to the hotel, but I'm not sure. At the moment Windows moviemaker is publishing the short film I made... which is pretty crap mostly due to my lack of skill, the noise pollution and the fact that the ship is rocking (in a literal sense not musically rocking). As I mention in the video most of my family is feeling seasick. Strangely it had a similar feel of weightlessness, like that when you're on a plane.

The next day... still on the boat... so yeah,we're currently stopped in Stavanger our first stop so we're just waiting to set off again. I was out on deck not long ago and there were lots of jellyfish in the sea but no sightings of whales, seals or sharks as of yet, or dolphins for that matter, ah well.
So now I'm in my hotel and using the hotel's internet access to update the blog, I notice Sam hasn't done so yet, lazy bugger.... ah well c'est le vie.
Annoyingly because I'm logging in with a Norwegian IP address, blogger asked me to login in, in Norwegian.

Update, holiday and links

2008-07-20T06:53:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow I'm going on holiday to Norway for 2 weeks, so I may not be able to update, (one of the hotels supposedly has internet access, so I will try to update from there, but no guarantees), a large part of this holiday involves staying in a lodge, which I doubt will have internet access.
Today I was looking on the BBC, and I noticed this article, it says that Zimbabwe is to release a ZW$100 billion note (ZW$100,000,000,000.00 (I had to google 100 billion to work out how many digits it had (this wikipedia link is useful for that, in case you ever need it))), due to the inflation (which has passed 2,200,000%). The only problem with this note which is released tomorrow is that due to the high price of goods in Zimbabwe, this note can't buy a loaf of bread and according to CNN this could buy you 4 oranges (at least you'll get some Vitamin C in your diet). I decided to work out how much that was in sterling and it turns out it's only £2.67. (according to this website). I am tempted to try and get hold of one as they're so cheap, and one day in the future they may be worth something similar to the pre WW1 "Eine Billion Mark" German bank notes.
Recently on youtube I have been looking at Indian music videos and clips from films etc. as they remind me a lot of the old B-movies.

Also check out Buffalax's videos as they're awesome, what he does is listen to them and subtitle what he thinks the lyrics sound like in English. the next video I'm going to embed is the Indian version of Michael Jackson's thriller.

Also check out Tunak Tunak Tun and Indian Superman.
Yeah so that's pretty much it for now as I need to go start packing as I haven't started yet, ah well.

Viagra, USDM and Ghanaian Investment

2008-07-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

So I decided today that me and Sam have been trying to hard with the blog and have ended up with a quantity over quality approach, with many of our posts being short and rushed, so from henceforth (although i haven't consulted Sam about this yet) we shall update when we feel like and have the aim to do 1 each per week, rather than 1 a day.
before I get to my review of "The Forbidden Kingdom", I'd like to share this gem of an email, that we was sent to the sack of jam email (sackofjamproductions@hotmail.co.uk)...
"Your Kind Attention Cary Bryant,
Having consulted with my colleagues and based on the information gathered from your country’s chamber of commerce And Industry, I have the privilege to request for your assistance to transfer the sum of $7.3 (Seven million, Three hundred thousand United States dollars) into your accounts. The above sum resulted from an over-invoiced contract, executed commissioned and paid for about five years (5) ago by a foreign contractor (Glenja Ltd of Greece). This action was however intentional and since then the fund has been in a suspense account in one of the leading Banks in Accra Ghana.
We are now ready to transfer the fund overseas and that is where you come in. It is important to inform you that as civil servants, we are forbidden to operate foreign accounts; that is why we are soliciting your assistance. The total sum will be shared 50 / 50.
The transfer is risk free on both sides. And there is no risk of exposure or failure. Should you wish to assist in this, kindly email me through my private email address: emailpriva@gmail.com

Waiting for your immediate response,

MR:WISE SIKA.
"I'm still undecided on whether or not to take them up on this offer, it looks fairly legit. If anyone wishes to spam us further feel free (that's the main reason why I posted our email), I haven't had a Ghanaian email spam before, despite the fact its supposedly common. I've also somehow managed to avoid all offers of viagra, which I feel is quite an achievement.
If anyone's lacking spam in their email, feel free to drop us a line and we'll forward any we get onto you.
Wow i like this spam email I've just noticed in our spam folder, it offers to provide investment to the fantastically profitable (non-profit (as of yet)) Sack of Jam productions, nice one... "Dear Friend,
I am a financial consultant based in Burkina Faso. I have a client (a widow) she has( USDM$15,000,000) with a private equity investment trust company in Europe for safe keeping only. She wishes to invest in a stable economy.
Her interest is in companies with potentials for rapid growth in long terms. My client is interested in placing part of her fund in your company, if your country's bylaws allows foreign investment.
You can contact me for more details via my e-mail address and infor you what to do next.
Best Regards. Wassalam
Mr. KABORE USMAN
TEL CALL ME 00226 70 72 61 38"Sack of Jam Productions needs that financial backing to kick start our gene technology experiments. I'm still trying to work out what currency "USDM" is, it's worrying that a legitimate financial advisor doesn't realise that it's "USD" for US dollars, ah well easy mistake. If we add up all the money we're promised me and Sam stand to make £12,415,608.91 each (not including tax deductions). The thing that amazes me the most is that I didn't realise Ghana had that kind of money lying around, I mean, it's got a GDP per capita of only $3141.
Anyway as it's getting late and I'm getting tired, I can't be bothered doing the movie review tonight, if you desperately want one before I write one (probably tomorrow) check out the video embedded at the bottom of this post.

Kung Fu Panda and Oblivion review

2008-07-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

So here's the update I promised, Sam's in the Lake District at the moment so i can't annoy him to do any updates so therefore I'm going to do today's and maybe tomorrow's as well.
earlier this week I went to see Kung Fu Panda (see picture at the top of this post). Although the film is more aimed at kids, i enjoyed this film a lot with a star- studded cast (including Jack Black, Lucy Liu, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie and Jackie Chan) I had high expectations of the film. I am pleased to say that it did live up to these expectations. The film had a good story and was well written, the comedy worked well, and the characters fitted well into the plot and balanced it out well. My favourite bits to the film however were the Chinese artwork used in the opening to the film and during the credits. For those who haven't seen the film here's the link to the opening sequence(note it doesn't contain any spoilers it only contains the first couple of minutes). I went to see this film with my little brother (11) and sister (6) who both enjoyed it as well, so if you have a younger sibling or such that you can use as an excuse why not go see Kung Fu Panda?
The main reason why me and Sam haven't updated the blog in a while is Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This is a fantastic game, which I would recommend to everyone. The game has an in depth plot, set in a huge world which blows away even games like grand Theft Auto. The graphics and physics are truly, truly spectacular. There is also a large range of quests including rescue and escort missions, assassination, information gathering, however most involve item collection.
this game is however an RPG, meaning it requires a large time commitment, hence why me and Sam haven't updated in a while. Another factor that makes this game excel is the ease in which it can be modded, to add more quests, classes etc.
Despite all this i would still recommend Morrowind, as the game of choice. The game is better balanced with an almost equal area size, admittedly the graphics are worse, but the storyline to the main quest is much more deep and riveting (not that Oblivion's isn't).
that's it for now I will probably update again tomorrow, however it may be a fair bit briefer than this post, then again it may not. Our drafts are littered with my partially completed essays, at the moment so if I feel like it I may complete one of them and post that.

So we missed a few

2008-07-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

So me and Sam have gotten lazy and missed quite a few posts. We did do a podcast but I've been too lazy to edit it and since I recently got Oblivion, I have spent a fair bit of time playing that.... I shall post something in greater depth this weekend.

We're actually going to try Podcasting. This could fail so well.

2008-07-05T15:49:00.000-07:00

Bored and tired. Tired and bored. I just wanted to update to tell anyone who may listen that me and Jack are collaborating in my bedroom tomorrow (Not like that. Well...No probably not) and trying our hand at podcasting. We have made a lot of progress with it so far. As in we have a title. Which may help. So yeh expect it to be up in a couple of days but a) No promises b) Our podcasting equipment consists of a microphone which cost me exactly One English Pound. and c) Our opinions are entirely are own and what we steal from other people. So hate mail should be addressed to them. Peace out.

New laptop

2008-07-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

So today i finally got my new laptop, so basically today has been spent installing programs on it, and trying not to get too annoyed at Windows Vista, although there are some fun tools and toys on there it's just so much less convenient than XP was.
Doing simple tasks that were just a couple of clicks on XP are now much more difficult to do which is a pain to say the least. I am considering adding another partition and having it dual boot so I can have Ubuntu and Vista.
The side bar feature is a fun toy and as my laptop can overclock it has a TURBO button, which is obviously fun.
As I picked high performance over mobility, the battery life is at best just over two hours, that is if I mute it, turn the brightness down, turn wifi off, set it onto power saving mode losing some of the performance. So most of the time I have had to use it plugged in. it is currently installing a file so it's on the high performance setting and the TURBO button is pressed.
Hmmm.... that is all I can think of now, if I find any more gripes with the system I will surely post them.
wait already thought of one the constant need for it to request whether or not I want to install files and run files is somewhat tedious, I know from a security stand point, this is useful but otherwise it's a bit of a pain.

p.s. I've already encountered the blue screen of death, apparently Vista doesn't like me unexpectedly, deciding to play Halo 2.

I didn't miss an update, ha!

2008-07-03T15:57:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd write a quick post to say I didn't miss an update. Just been out to the pub where a jam session was taking place and it was good except they slaughtered Hendrix, Clapton, Santana, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Deep Purple, amongst others . I mean it wasn't that bad, I could've gone up myself had someone let me borrow their guitar but I'm too shy and nervous and even though people say I'm good at guitar, I'm really not that good. I'm getting better ("you're not fooling anyone"). Anyway that's it I have nothing to declare but wanted to maintain that I updated, albeit 3 minutes before tomorrow. Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-That's all folks.

Illness, business and awesomeness

2008-07-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's Sam again, remember me? Thought not, I don't think I've posted in...maybe over a week, a week yesterday I think was the last time I wrote something for the blog. Which is pretty bad.

My excuses; Not last Sunday the Sunday before, my internet went down on my pc. I was tidying my room extremely thoroughly and I unplugged my PC and when I plugged it in again the internet refused to work. So for the couple of days after that I used my mum's laptop a lot, using it for the usual stuff and posting on the blog. Then I remembered that, because of the heat, having a laptop on your lap for an extended period of time can reduce your sperm count. Now I haven't counted the little fellas, but I didn't want to take any chances. So it was Monday night the last time I wrote anything, as I had my girlfriend stopping at my house Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. So I could hardly sneak off to post on the blog when entertaining guests, especially my girlfriend as it's rude. So then I had Friday. By this time I'd started to feel ill so went to bed early, and as my posting (and Jacks) is primarily done at night, a post didn't get written. Then Saturday morning I felt like crap, and then I was at my girlfriends until Monday night. Saturday was her leavers' prom at school, which was jolly good because everyone was dressed up (including me), and then Sunday I went to see Eric Clapton perform in Leeds.

I'll branch off to talk about this. It was awesome. I'll start with the support band. These were Robert Randolph and the Family Band. They were so good. They really were, especially their homage to the late, great Bo Diddley. The lead guitar, for all but one of their songs, wasn't played on a conventional guitar, but with a Pedal Steel Guitar. This was something a bit different but I thought it worked well. Truth be told I was worried when they ventured on stage as they were dressed as rap artists, I mean seriously baseball caps and bandanas, I thought 'Oh Dear.' But then they started to play, and everyone realised they weren't rappers, but a damn fine blues band. They were a five-piece band of the usual; Bassist, rhythm guitar, drums, keyboard and lead guitar, but they were certainly amazing. If you've never heard any of their songs; Check them here. Their wiki here. And one of their songs here. (It's really good).

Anyway on to Clapton. He was really really....for want of a better word; Good. I was expecting it to be awesome, I mean he's number 3 on my list of Top Ten Guitarists, and my favourite living guitarist. But it really was phenominal. I was expecting perfection, but it way outshined my expectations. It wasn't that he was badly recieved, but he didn't get massive cheers from the audience until he sat down with an acoustic. He played this song, and you can see why it was well recieved. He then moved back to the electric and bluesed us out some more. The last four songs were truly phenominal. He played three of my four favourite songs of his, (missing out Sunshine of Your Love) but I can forgive that. He played Wonderful Tonight (awesome), Layla (also awesome), Cocaine (also also awesome). Then Robert Randolph came back on with his slidey lap guitar thingy and they did an amazing version of the Muddy Waters song 'Got My Mojo Working,' one of my favourite blues tracks of all time ever (I didn't think the original could get better, but this was certainly close to being). I really have nothing bad to say about the gig, apart from the fact that there was another guitarist with him (most of the time playing slide) but they kept switching who was playing lead, Clapton played all of the big bluesy solos obviously, but there was too much of the other guy and not enough him. It was better when they got to the last few as Clapton was doing most of the work and it was just a lot better for it. It was definitely worth, a million times over, the three and a half hour wait from when the gates opened to when the gig started (we got very close to the front). Oh AND it was worth the hour it took to get out of the car park.

Anyway yeh so that was my weekend taken up, then it was monday when I was still ill and still at my girlfriends, then it was yesterday and I was STILL ill and trying to sleep it off during the day, and then it was today, when I went to see Wanted (more on that later) and had my girlfriend over again (we still don't spend enough time together) and now I'm posting. I feel a little bad for leaving Jack to it the last while but he missed two updates so I don't feel that bad.

Well I made up for being away with a mammoth post, in my mind anyway. Also, seeing Clapton and talking more about Leeds Festival with Jack has really put me in a gig mood, so will be sorting going to more later. In the words of Adam West; Farewell..for a minute.

Bit of everything

2008-07-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

So I have loads of posts planned or in the works at the moment, the ones that I have started writing are ones on Heroes, Space and associated technology, anime and one on travel. I also have thoughts about one on Malcolm X and John McCain. Anyway I'm not going to be able to do two posts today so... yeah, ah well.
Our hit counters are doing rather well we've had over 60 unique hits in the last 4 days and our world map shows hits from 4 different continents and 13 different countries, which comes as a fair shock to me and Sam if we're honest, as Sam has previously stated we were only expecting us two and a couple of friends ever to look at this blog.
Recently me and Sam have been planning for Leeds fest which should be good fun.
Today I started reading Malcolm X's autobiography and although I've only just finished reading the foreword (which is still over 80 pages) I am really enjoying it. I studied Malcolm X as part of my history course and then watched the film (directed by Spike Lee) as part of my "revision", which is a really good film and I would advise you all to go watch it. According to the books introduction this was one of Obama's favourite books as he was growing up.
So yeah that's all for now, Sam's probably going to post tomorrow and I may post tomorrow as well not sure yet though.

Rants, News, Excuses and more

2008-06-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

So I missed two updates, oops. I have no excuses other than lack of interest, I didn't feel like updating on either of these two days, so I didn't, simple as really. I was kind of hoping Sam would suddenly show up and update it for me but he didn't so no updates occurred (although on Saturday I did mess about with the sites html code a bit but not so's you'd notice), I did check the blog several times, but didn't post anything so... yeah. I aim to maybe post two tomorrow (notice the word MAYBE) to make up for it.
So a few things happened in the time between the last update and now... Spain won the Euro, I became nocturnal (see my blog), Mugabe pulled off a surprise win in the Zimbabwean presidential election (ok so here I was going to put a Joke about Gordon Brown taking tips on how to win an election but I felt it might have been a bit distasteful so I removed it, and left this comment explaining in it's place).
The latest episode of Doctor Who came out which was fairly good.
The new James Bond trailer also came out, now I am a huge fan of the James Bond series, having read all of Iain Fleming's James Bond books and seeing all the films (except the original Casino Royale with Woody Allen and Peter Sellers). However Casino Royale wasn't what I wanted from a James Bond film, now I admit it was a good film, but the whole premise of the film was crap, I mean really this being Bond at the beginning of his career yet M is different, Q is different are we expected to overlook this blatant continuity error? Now I admit Die Another Day wasn't the best James Bond film (that's obviously reserved for Goldeneye) but it still had all the hallmarks of a bond film with gadgets and car chases and what not. Daniel Craig as good an actor as he is doesn't fulfil the roll of James Bond for a start he's blond.
Meh that's about all for now, I will definitely update tomorrow.

Err... Stuff happened and I blogged it... the end?

2008-06-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

So once again I'm leaving today's post late but that suits me fine, nothing like a bit of pressure to get the mind working.
As I don't have a topic for today's blog post I'm once again going to wing it.
Today I went into Leeds to do some shopping, which I felt went rather well, I bought Croc 1 for the PS1, and the best N64 game known to man, Goldeneye, although so far I've only completed the first level, I failed the second for killing too many civilian scientists, (too be fair to me though they did keep on running in front of me in a manner similar to this xkcd comic).
I also visited a Chinese supermarket and bought me some Ramen and Fortune Cookies, which it has to be said aren't very motivational (which I thought they would be, you know to encourage you to buy them again). Over two thirds of the cookies I've had are depressing, which worries me somewhat, however luckily I'm not superstitious. Here is a sample "When people tell you that you have a great personality, they're really thinking, "DAMN! You're so ugly!", so that's reassuring and "If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of mortgage payments."
Ah well, also today I bought Pulp Fiction, which I've been meaning to obtain for quite a long time now, since there was a sale on in both HMV and Virgin, I managed to obtain it for £10, unfortunately that was the last of my money meaning I couldn't buy either the special edition Batman (starring Adam West (admittedly I already have it but it was £3 and has a cool box cover)) and the box set of a fistful of dollars, for a few dollars more and the good the bad and the ugly, which is a shame.
I've just noticed that the digg button has for some reason disappeared which is a pain, so I intend to fix that before bed, also it should be noted that a new unique user hit counter has been added to the bottom of the blog (in case you feel like scrolling all that distance down to check it out), I largely added it due to Sam's complaining in the shoutbox about it.
Right I need to go now as I've nearly reached the deadline for today so let's just call it quits.
Reassuringly my last Fortune cookie told me that "Fortune favours the brave" so maybe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, however one of my other cookies said "Don't miss the beautiful colours of the rainbow looking for the pot of gold." How profound.

Edit: The site meter is now in the right hand column underneath the map.

Edit 2: When I say "right" I really mean "left".

Damn you Sod

2008-06-26T15:21:00.000-07:00

So yesterday all hit counters on our blog seemed to break and so I added a new different one, which has also had the good grace to break, so I intend to remove that once I finish this post. Once again I looked at my clock and realised that I had under 40 mins to post something so I'm going to conjure a post out of nothing. In regards to Sam's comments in the shoutbox about me not emboldening my posts, I did, I double checked and everything, I remember doing so... If blogger decides not to embolden my posts even though I told it to I cannot be held responsible.
We embolden our posts partly to aid the visually impaired, but mainly because Sam made the mistake of emboldening his first posts and that standard has now been set. For any visually impaired readers (?) this site may be useful it translates text into words and for those not visually impaired making it say penis repeatedly and also to say clichéd lines out of films is acceptable, (Note: If you increase the speed to +1 and don't put commas in between the words you can make it sound like the record stuck on the word penis).
In regards to my post a while ago on the subject of music that may save your life I thought of yet another song to add to that list Eye of the Tiger (and yes that is a very homoerotic video, (also look out for the close up of the Dropkick Murphys sticker on the guitar)), say you needed a quick workout or even a montage (although you could use the Team America montage song).
Another song that may be useful is Gay Bar by Electric Six, although I have yet to find a situation that it would be appropriate for (that's not stopped me having it on every media device I regularly carry around, just on the off chance(If I was gay I may have had the opportunity by now)).
So yeah as I now have 1 minute until midnight I'll post this now (although I think it uses the time that I started the post at).

Also in 10 days between the 15th and 25th (The time we had our hit counters) we had 122 unique hits, with 440 hits just so you all know. Right now to embolden this post before I post.

Incredible Hulk

2008-06-25T15:04:00.000-07:00

So since I said I'd attempt to update everyday and I just looked at my clock and realised I had under an hour left to do so (although I could cheat and change the time), I thought I'd quickly cobble together my review of the Incredible Hulk.
So first lets get the fact that the Hulk (2003) sucked ass, it was a terrible, terrible movie.
The Incredible Hulk was by comparison a far better film, the action which was abysmal in Ang Lee's Hulk was better and the film was more fast paced with less dialogue.
Although the CGI is not as good as some other films, it was still pretty good and didn't look out of place within the film.
The fight scenes with the Hulk were good and stayed true to it's comic book origins. Also many references and cameo-appearances occur including Stan Lee, Lou Ferrigno and a pair or purple shorts.
However despite all these pluses the film still had a predictable storyline, and the unintentional humour provided by William Hurt (Fritzl? (see disclaimer for the Fritzl post)) did distract from the movie (all be it in a funny way), although for some reason no one else seems to have noticed this.
The acting in the film also wasn't bad, with Liv Tyler and Ed Norton giving fairly good performances. However I didn't really believe Tim Roth's character, he just looked too weedy to be the tough guy he's supposed to be.
So yeah that is my brief review, I intend to do a post tomorrow and I in fact started it but got distracted by the football (Germany Vs Turkey), and couldn't be bothered finishing it tonight so that's my plan for tomorrow, hopefully.

Note: Yes I did have to use the picture again.

Who dares wins. Or fails.

2008-06-24T03:00:00.000-07:00

I set myself a challenge. My Girlfriend had gone on holiday so I was stuck with nothing (and noone) to do. So I decided to learn All 43 US presidents in order in which they served their term. I did it, it didn't take me long, with the aide of these two songs;
The Presidents by Jonathan Coulton
Washy Ad Jeffy, Also by Jonathan Coulton
Also this picture, drawn for the song.
Right it only really took me two nights of research and listening to the songs, so here's my next challenge;
This might take a bit longer.
Anyway will keep you posted with my progress (if any). Thanks.

Not long now

2008-06-24T01:44:00.000-07:00

So Sam has set a post to update later today, so I thought I'd just do a brief post. I found these two counters randomly and thought I'd post them.

Oh yeah we passed 100 users so... great success, and that'll be all for now I may post something tonight but it'll probably be tomorrow before I post again.

And it's Goodnight from him..

2008-06-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

This is me signing off. Probably until Friday, maybe for the whole week. Who knows? Well, I do. So I apologise but I leave you in the slightly-less-capable-than-mine-but-still-pretty-capable-well-kind-of hands of my good friend Jack. (P.s. I was joking about that all site maintenence has been done by Jack and he was the one to make verbal the Fritzl thing, the best post on our blog). Anyway I'm going to be with my Girlfriend now until Thursday night, so PC time (especially since my PC is down at the moment) will be limited if not nulled, then this weekend I'm busy because it's my Girlfriend's leavers prom on saturday then I'm going to see Eric Clapton on Sunday. Roll on this week!
Anyway just wanted to describe my absence and apologise for Jack's failure. Joke. I hope.

Josef Fritzl? (Incredible Hulk review)

2008-06-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

So today me and Sam went to see the Incredible Hulk and were discussing who William Hurt reminded us of, when we suddenly realised who it was.... No one else seems to have got this though, it made the Incredible Hulk a very funny film to watch, a review is to come....

Disclaimer and note: Sack of Jam productions would like to point out that it does not condone the actions of Josef Fritzl (seriously who would, he's insane). We would also like to point out that we are in no way insinuating that William Hurt or his character share any personality or life choices with Josef Fritzl, we are merely pointing out similarities in appearance (So please don't send any lawyers, we have a fear of them). Plus, there are no other pictures of Mr Hurt that see him looking like Fritzl, just in this one movie.

We're practically memes

2008-06-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

Damn technology. I've been cleaning my room today, like a total overhaul, every single nook and cranny has been cleaned today. I think Jack's been doing the same thing with his room, judging by the lack of contact I've had from him. Probably fell into a black hole, caused by the mass of the massive pile of socks on his floor. I actually found a portal to a weird snowy country in the back of my wardrobe. Anyway.

I've been watching the hit counter and unique user counter (basically, a hit counter goes up every time the page is viewed or refreshed, so if i, by myself, refreshed 50 times we'd get 50 hits, but the unique user counter only goes up for each seperate IP address that views the page) skyrocket in the last few days. From like 50 to almost 100 in a day (it took a while to get here) and I know that's the tiniest number ever, but for us, who didn't expect more than 2 people (including me and Jack) to visit.

We're rather proud. So thank you. If you do happen to come across us give us a chance and a read and reccomend us, digg us, or just tatoo our URL on your forehead. Whichever is more convenient.

So thanks, should've saved this until 100 unique users but I needed a topic and that happened to be one in my head. Anyway, seeing as though Jack is currently MIA or possible KIA, maybe DUI, except he doesn't drive (so just UI) I thought I'd post. We do need more traffic but to be honest we're happy with what we've got. For now.

A note to Jack (I don't actually think he reads my posts anyway, I always read his) I'll be erm 'busy' Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday, and maybe the weekend, but I'll cover a few days with timed posts which I'll write tonight and tomorrow, but after that it's up to him. So any fail is his fault honest. Thanks again.

Why was the Wild West awesome is a question I get asked a lot honestly

2008-06-21T03:00:00.000-07:00

I'm like Doc Brown from the Back to the Future series. If I were to choose one time period to live in, it'd definitely be the Old West. Reasons a-plenty, but what are they? Here are a few. (Notes: a. This is NOT a list. b. I do not condone violence, murder, alcoholism, prostitution, or cowboy hats [that last one was a lie]);

1.The Costume. Possibly the best part about the Wild West. Don a cowboy hat, poncho and spurs and you're awesome no matter who you are.

2. Guns. It seems nobody in the Wild West was without one, exactly the same as America today in fact. But who could blame them? Everyone had a gun (Six-shooters, best guns ever) and used them for everything, opening bottles of whiskey, shooting people, you get the idea..

3. Whiskey. Obviously, the choice drink for every man in the wild west. I love whiskey anyway, but in the Wild West they had stuff that could eat through the glass. Then the table. Then the Earth. Where the smooth stuff is only called smooth because you're likely to get your eyesight back at some point.

4. Whores. Loose women (not the crappy TV show). I'm not saying I have the need for them, I'm happily in a relationship, but I can't say it's one of the negatives of the Wild West. For everyone else obviously not me. (Sorry Sarah..)

5. Films. Countless amazing films have been made about the Old West, here are just some; The Man With No Name Trilogy (Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good the Bad and the Ugly), Wild Wild West, Blazing Saddles, Unforgiven, Back to the Future Part III, Pale Rider (So basically every Clint Eastwood western and everything by Sergio Leone).

6. Bounty Hunting. Great way to make money I'd say. What better than to run around shooting people for cash? Also known as the 'US Army' tactic of making money.

7. Duels. The real way of settling an argument. Replaced in modern days by the 'Thumb War'. Not as extreme but about as fun and point-filled. Showdown at high noon would be my ultimate way to die (obviously I'd rather win, but if I had to die and had a choice how..)

8. Outlaws. Let's look at this way; No forensics, no massive police force, you could get away with anything. Apart from Bounty Hunters you're safe. Get a big gang and get big money. Outlaws (with the exception of Mad Dog Tannen from Back to the Future III), especially those in Sergio Leone films, have a certain kind of charm. Even Clint Eastwood in these films, the hero (well Anti-hero) is a killer, but he's the good guy.

9. The Pony Express. What better ways are there to send a letter than by horse-back? There are none. I love the idea of a guy carrying your letter as he rides through all weathers to deliver your letter efficiently.

10. Gold. The time of the great gold rush was a great time, who wouldn't want to be part of that? Ah, to be rich and competitive.

A Fistful of Fingers (That's not my title).

2008-06-20T05:24:00.000-07:00

I have decided I want to write a story set in the Wild West. I was watching 'For a Few Dollars More' and 'Back to the Future Part III' (Two of my favourite films) yesterday, then compiled a list of why the Wild West was awesome (Which will be posted tomorrow) and I'd already had plans to make a film when in Egypt (Sadly, laziness took over) but anyway I want to write a story. It'll probably be crap. It won't be anything special, or too long, more like a short story, but I just want something to do whilst I don't have anything to do. Anyway will keep you posted with progression, and ideas I have characters etc. Like I said it probably won't be very good but still I want to do it. We'll see what happens..

Updates, blog "improvements" and other generic stuff

2008-06-20T03:20:00.000-07:00

So despite the fact I've finished my exams and are more or less free, I still haven't updated the blog as frequently as I probably should. I have a series of excuses lined up, but truthfully I've been busy, despite having two bin bags full of school work to throw away there is still a fair bit left lying on my floor (I never realised I did so much). My aim to exercise more and lose some weight has started well as i played nearly three hours of football yesterday and walked several miles. I'm also going to play some more football later today. My aim to improve my language skills is also starting today, yay!
However on top of all this, I have updated the blog a fair bit, I changed the template from 2 column to 3, added hit counters and the world map hit counter, licensed our blog with creative commons, added RSS and a newsletter. You can now also bookmark/fav us with del.icio.us and technorati and I intend to add digg in the near future, and probably stumbleupon as well.
I added Twitter as well, (Sam seems suspicious of it as he never seems to add anything despite my requests). Oh yeah I added a search box as well.
Later on today (this evening) I may add a shoutbox, so you can all hurl abuse at us or whatever, I may also add a music player like device (so we have the potential to rickroll you all if we ever feel like doing so).
I may post something more substantial later tonight but there are no guarantees so I thought I'd update now.
Tomorrow me and Sam are going to see the incredible hulk and we'll probably post a review of some kind, anyway that's all for now.
By the way I mentioned this on my blog, but I don't think that I mentioned it here if you haven't seen Speed Racer yet, proceed to your local cinema immediately and do so.

Why the Music Industry Sucks Balls for Money

2008-06-19T03:00:00.000-07:00

Why so many lists? I'm sure you're asking. Because they're easy and fun. And debate-inducing. Ok my last post was my Top 10 cover songs ever, now let's just do a quick run-down of the worst. Again, the format is 'Song title - Cover Artist/Original Artist'. The video links will be to the original, superior songs, NOT the crappy covers. It really angers and depresses me that the younger people of today, I'm talking about my g-g-g-generation, for the most part will only ever know the modern and terrible versions of these songs. It really gets on my nerves. As I said in my last list, I don't really like covers unless they are made 200% better by the new artist. Other than that, if it aint broke, why fix it. Or in these cases, destroy it. Anway, here are some major failures in my eyes and hopefully everyone else with eyes. Or rather ears;

1. My Generation - Hillary Duff/The Who. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. One word that sums up this cover. It's really, really terrible. It completely misses the point. I can't stress this enough. One very poignant example of this is the unforgettable line from the original 'I hope I die before I get old' to which Her Crapness sings 'I hope I don't die before I get old.' Well done Disney. You've officially raped Rock and Roll.

2. Wonderful Tonight - Michael Buble/Eric Clapton. I love this song. I love Eric Clapton. I HATE THIS COVER. Enough said. I remember the first time I accidentally listened to it. I was browsing through my girlfriends MP3 player, and I saw the words 'Wonderful Tonight' and thought 'Oh great, she actually has a respectable song on here, apart from the Space Jam theme tune and Can't Touch This' (it's ok she agrees...I think) So I listened to it. It just made me want to go to Canadia (an actual place) and kill Michael Bubbles.

3. Wind Cries Mary - Jamie Cullum/Jimi Hendrix. What? Where does a little jazz penist (somone who actively plays the piano) get off trying to cover a Hendrix song without a guitar? Or at all? Well he fails that's all I can say.

4. Singing in the Rain - Jamie Cullum/Gene Kelly. Another timeless tune ripped apart by this 4ft talentless hobgoblin. 'Nuff said.

5. Fell in Love With a Girl - Joss Stone/White stripes. This annoying lounge version of a great song, oh-so-cleverly renamed 'Fell in Love with a Boy' just shows how White Stripes beat everyone. ESPECIALLY Joss Stone. Warning- The video on the link is awesome. You have been warned.

6. Sunshine of Your Love - Anyone-Who's-Not-Cream-Or-Hendrix/Cream. It can't be replicated. The only person who got away with it was Hendrix, because it's Hendrix. Here's a link to his version. I love this song. A rock staple, as it's been described many times before. Not a rubbish song designed to be sung by every man and his dog.

7. Light My Fire - Will Young/The Doors. Where's the massive keyboard solo? WHERE'S JIM MORRISON?!? Nowhere. You read right, in this version, there are neither of those. Enough to fail by any count, but he takes it to a whole new level.

8. The Long and Winding Road - Will Young and G-G-Gareth Gates/The Beatles. If there was ever a speech impediment karaoke competition, these guys would surely win. Another great song ruined by complete and total (insert profanity here, because I'm way too nice to). The Beatles come close to beating everyone ever, never mind these two lisping/stuttering failures.

9. Uptown Girl - Westlife/Billy Joel. Now let me set the record straight; I don't really like the original. But compared to Westlifes version, it's my favourite song ever. It's terrible! Now not liking the original in the first place doesn't give them much of a change you might think, but look at it this way, if I don't like the original, it gives an artist more of a chance to make me like it by improving on it. Do they do this? Do they balls.

10. Walk This Way - Sugababes vs Girls Aloud/Run DMC feat. Aerosmith. Ok, this is technically a cover of a cover really, but I prefer Run DMCs version rather than the original Aerosmith version. There, that's my blasphemy out of the way. Anyway, this version is terrible. Awful awful awful. Plus the All Saints did a cover of it which sucked as well. LEAVE THIS SONG ALONE.

This one goes all the way to 11

2008-06-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

I was reading a magazine I get regularly (a guitar magazine, I read it just for the articles, honestly), and they had a list of 'top 30 cover songs,' but in my opinion, they left some major ones out. They also had some of the worst which I may decide to add. Rules; I was going to say one song per artist, but I needed to rectify that to make my list complete. Can be live OR studio recording, the latter is preferred. Note; the format will go: 'Song name - Cover artist/Orignal artist.' I don't usually like covers that much, but here are 11 that i do (it was supposed to be 10). OK, here we go;

1. Johnny B Goode - Jimi Hendrix/Chuck Berry. This had to be included as it almost made me literally cry when i heard it. It was just so amazing. There's nothing better.

2. All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix/Bob Dylan. Jimi takes first and second spot on this list, but I couldn't say which artist I prefer between him and Dylan, i mean they're different. But it's easy to say when basing on this song alone. Better than the original? By miles.

3. Hey Joe - Jimi Hendrix/Billy Roberts. Who's the other guy? Warning, the video contains so much awesome it's dangerous, a guy playing a solo with his teeth?!?!?! Better than the original? There's a reason noone's heard of the other guy..

4. Respect - Aretha Franklin/Otis Redding. Not a lot of people know this was originally an Otis Redding song, because Aretha took it and made it her own. Better than the original? Definitely.

5. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Rolling Stones/Otis Redding. Again, few people are aware that this was an Otis Redding song, because the Rolling Stones bettered it. Now I have nothing against Otis Redding, hell I think (know) he's awesome, but this is better than his version. So; Better than the original? Fraid so.

6. Death Letter - White Stripes/Son House. Not Jolene. Me and Jack are currently arguing at the moment about which is better. For me it's definitely this, a blues band going back to their roots and playing some really early, yet still amazing, blues. Better than the original? Wayyyyy better.

7. Cocaine - Eric Clapton/JJ Cale. If you want to hang out you've got to take it out, Cocaine. She don't lie she don't lie she don't lie, Cocaine. Amazing guitar riff and slightly-less-than-politically-correct lyrics make for a great song. Better than the original? Yes, there's not that much in them though.

8. Hurt - Johnny Cash/Nine Inch Nails. Hey Johnny, how do you make yourself so sombre and emotional to make everybody cry like that? You read right, it's not the other way round, Cash DID cover NIN, really made it his own. Better than the original? Hells yeah.

9. Voodoo Child - Stevie Ray Vaughn/Jimi Hendrix. In my eyes there are only two people who could've done this song justice, Stevie, and Jimi. Also Vaughns cover of Stevie Wonders 'Superstition' is rather breathtaking. I'm not really one for cover songs, which is why this list is so difficult, but this is amazing. Better than the original? Sorry Jimi.

10. Helter Skelter - U2/The Beatles. Based on a live performance, this song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles is well and truly stolen back. Better than the original? Yes, yes it is.

11. Live and Let Die - Guns and Roses/Wings. Slash or Paul McCartney? Erm, lemme think...This had to be included in the list whether I went over 10 or not. Better than the original? You bet your top hat.

Another List, Top 10 Songs. FTW.

2008-06-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, i'm sorry. It has been up to me to update for the last few days and I was lazy. Ah well. Right, decided to do my top ten songs. Or, ten of my favourite songs. Rules: Limited to one song per artist, and has to be judged on studio recordings NOT live interpretations, that's for another list. And after the help of Jack, no covers. OK, This is difficult..

1. The End - The Doors. WTF? In my original list I forgot to add this in. How could I leave my favourite song of all time out of my Top 10 favourite song list?!? Idiot. P.S This video is amazing, it's the best performance I've seen of it, and just a warning, drops the F-bomb.

2. Freebird - Lynyrd Skynyrd. The song I want to play at my funeral. Amazing. Before the edit this was number one. It's that close.

3. Johnny B Goode - Chuck Berry. Ok this is an oldie. Well it's an oldie where I come from. The one in the vid is from Back to the Future, not the original, but best vid I could find.

4. House of the Rising Sun - Animals. No doubt now destroyed due to rising damp.

5. Pride and Joy - Stevie Ray Vaughn. Couldn't decide between this or Texas Flood, for the live recording I think Texas Flood would win, but for studio recording it has to be this. His version of Hendrix's Voodoo Child is amazing live, which brings me on to..

6. Voodoo Child - Jimi Hendrix. Aaaaaaah, really can't decide this or Purple Haze. God, his version of Johnny B Goode, I almost cried when I heard it, it's bloody fantastic. A marvel of music.

7. Mr Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan. Had to get him in there, but it was a difficult choice. It's either this or Like a Rolling Stone.

8. Bat out of Hell - Meatloaf. Motorbike sounds and Meatloaf, is there anything sweeter? The video, that's what.

9. Layla - Derek & the Dominos. Three words that resonate throughout musical history; Clapton is God.

10. Green Onions - Booker T and the MGs. What else would you need; the best soul song ever with Steve Cropper on guitar and Donald Dunn on Bass. Nothing, that's what. A four piece band sounding as big as an orchestra.

I wish I could have included all the songs and artists that I love, but we'd be here all day and all of the night (damn another great song). Anyway, as a reminder to myself, I want to, in the future, do Top 10 Covers, Top 10 Live songs, as well as films, books, albums, etc. Bye for now.

Music that may save your life

2008-06-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

Before I start on the subject I intend to write about in this post, I thought I'd give a bit of an update. Both me and Sam have been fairly occupied recently, however this is all going to change as of Wednesday as that is my last exam. However I have several things I need to do for the rest of that week (most involving an alcoholic beverage of some description (Guinness)) so therefore I should start updating the blog more often by Monday next week. Me and Sam have several projects lined up, most of which involve trying out new kings of media so expect photographs, videos and audio over the summer, we may also do a dew odd podcasts if we can sort out the appropriate technology (as a microphone from Poundland just doesn't cut it).
I have several projects of my own which also needed to be worked on (most of which don't involve the blog), these include finally getting the chance to organise and sort my bedroom (tidy up in other words), exercise, clothes shopping, cinema and other general social life stuff and also attempt to learn a new language or improve on one I know a bit of. I am need to learn to drive, buy a laptop and I have a holiday to Norway coming up in July so all of these things need attending to.

Anyway enough of that on to the main topic: music that may save your life.
Recently I was messing around with my PSP and sorting out what music I had on it, when I thought of the idea of having a specific folder full of songs that may one day come in handy and I thought I'd share them with you lot, also it was a fun thing to research as it meant watching lots of youtube videos and looking at webcomics as well as listening to music I like so here's the list:-

- Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway. In the Blues Brothers film there is a scene where Elwood and Jake sneak past the police to the tune of Minnie the Moocher, this was then parodied by Family Guy in the Star Wars episode.

- Snakes on a Plane (Bring It) by Cobra Starship. This song plays at the end of the Snakes on a Plane film (one of the greatest films of all time (regardless of what Sam, Movie critics and anyone else says (they're lying to stop you watching the greatest film of all time (trust me)))), I think this song raises an important issue and you should listen to it while on long haul flights (particularly if you're flying from Hawaii to LA) as it'll keep you on your guard.

- Katamari Damacy theme tune. The inspiration for this coming from an xkcd comic. I don't know how this may save your life in all honesty but it's too cool to leave off the list.

- Can't touch this by Mc Hammer. The inspiration for this came not only from the genius of this song but also from the family guy episode where Peter Griffin sings "Can't touch me"

- Never gonna give you up by Rick Astley (warning video contains a rickroll). Rickrolling is a victimless crime much like playing the game (which you just lost). It also may come in handy one day so having a portable version is always good (having a portable video is even better).
P.S. Excessive rickrolling may lead to being rickrolled in your sleep (my worst dream ever (although it's provided some comedy in retrospect))

- Kill Bill theme tune. The inspiration for this once again came from a xkcd comic.

- Benny Hill theme tune, the reason for putting this in the list is in the video linked to the song. It's just a generally funny song to listen to and can make most situations more entertaining (not funerals however that is in fact frowned upon).

- Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme tune. This another internet meme and an all round funny song.

- Don't stop me now. If you haven't seen Shaun of the Dead, you should stop reading this blog and go watch and then come back and thank me in the comments.

This is all I managed to add however i do have some ideas of what else to add, however I don't as of yet have these songs

-Mars Attacks music. In the film they defeat the aliens by playing this song which causes their head to explode, or something to that effect. The idea also came in part from "How it should have ended".

- Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden which may be useful in a flood or something

-Theme tune from the Bourne series, the idea from this came from a random internet forum ages ago where a guy said he put this music on his Ipod and then walked around a city and pretended he was Jason Bourne. If you've seen the films you may think this sounds cool, it may also raise your awareness of your surroundings.

-Ghostbusters theme, does this really need explaining?

That's all really if I come up with anymore I'll stick them on in an edit or new post check out xkcd and How It Should Have Ended.

Edit:
- Theme from Mission Impossible
- What is Love? -Haddaway, awesome dico and party song and good to listen to in ANY situation.
-I would walk 500 miles -Proclaimers, good if public transport is broken or other means of transportation (or if you actually have to walk 500 miles)

Nothing to declare

2008-06-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

I've been MIA for the last couple of days so not posted, luckily Jack came to the rescue but there's no sign of him today so I'll quickly and lazily post a video mix of Hamlet. Those who know Hamlet'll love it. Who guessed about the Lion King?!?

Sorry about the laziness, hey, I have a life too.

National Security

2008-06-12T05:19:00.000-07:00

So Yesterday in Britain, the detention period for suspected terrorists to be held without charge was extended to 42 days, by the house of commons. This was billed as a vital part of maintaining security in Britain as several other arrests, came close to passing the previous 28 day limit, while security services were gathering evidence (1). MI5 (Britain's home defence agency) said however they had not requested the extension (2), however they said they wouldn't argue against it (3). This prompts the question where the need for an extension comes from, and whether or not this is merely and attempt for political points scoring.
However despite the apparent need for more and better security, there are probably several better ways to achieve this without jeopardising the British people's personal liberties and freedoms (although the House of Lord may yet veto this).
For a start we could help protect the people who are putting their ass on the line defending our country. There have been many reports that Britain's army is not properly equipped for modern combat and don't have the required protective vests and weaponry needed for them to be able to carry out their job safely (relative) (4). Also we have faulty Chinook helicopters (5) and Submarines (6).
Also perhaps if we didn't engage in random wars, such as Afghanistan and Iraq we wouldn't have as many enemies seeking to kill us? Now I know Saddam was cruel dictator, and I think the world is a better place without him, but does our government have to lie to us about it, as well as ignoring huge anti- war protests.
I in no way condone terrorism but there is a lot of hypocrisy with the "War on Terror" and the search for "Weapons of Mass Destruction", the main one being the most dangerous weapon this planet currently has are nuclear weapons, yet the governments seem keen we overlook this point. I'd also like to point out that the US is still the only country to have used this weapon in a combat situation.
Also it was not so long ago that we supported groups such as the Taliban to help us fight the communists (another point NATO governments don't want us to look at).
The last point I'd like to make is that if our national security needs improving, it MAY help if we DON'T leave SECRET DOCUMENTS on THE TRAIN (7).

Emergency Party Button

2008-06-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

This is something I found a while ago and it's the coolest thing I've seen in a while, and I intend to make one sometime, maybe, probably never as I'll never get around to it but ah well. It's be cool to have one and I can see the uses, however it'd be cool if you had a hidden system, so when you pressed the button, cupboards open and strobe lights and stuff appear. The one in this video is also distinctly lacking of a bubble machine.
Anyway that's all for today really, (click on the title for a link to the website to see how it was made).

Edit: I agree with the choice of music however.

Dear Mum and Dad, Need more souls, off to Georgia - Lucifer x

2008-06-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I just can't get this song out of my head;

I don't like this version of the song particularly, if you want to hear the best version (sans the cool video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDm_ZHyYTrg

There. My job done. Spread the word of the devil.

Conspiracy theory?

2008-06-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

Just found these two news articles on the BBC website and thought they seemed a little fishy (if you'll excuse the pun and the fact they're mammals not fish)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7443559.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7443626.stm

A bit of a dialogue

2008-06-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

Jack: Yo just thought I'd update you all with a bit of what's going on behind the scenes at Sack of Jam productions, well basically me and Sam are still thinking of directions for this blog and where we're going to go with this project, over the holidays we should have more free time as me being in the middle of an exam period seriously limits my ability to do anything really.
At the moment I am in the process of doing a essay on space technology and likely developments for the future, I may do a genetic engineering one in the near future and also I fancy a rant about Boris Johnson and his mayorship.
Me and Sam are also thinking about doing various projects over the summer which we probably will post on here, not fully sure on the details yet but we'll be sure to keep you posted on any developments.

Sam: Plans? Projects? Directions?? Erm, yeah, if none of this happens, blame Jack for the false hope. I do want to do things though, it's just the effort, and as we're probably considered very lazy individuals, it makes it all the more difficult. I should explain a bit about who we are really.

Jack is ginger. I don't hold it against him, because it's partially not his fault, and if he weren't ginger, I'd only class him as 'slightly' better a friend. I'm joking. Not about him being ginger, cos he is. Anyway he's in the middle of his A-levels at the moment. I am not. Either ginger nor doing my A-levels, I was drop-kicked from school (half dropped out half kicked out) and went through an amazingly despondent time but now I'm back on my feet, accepted into college (where I start in September) and I'm genuinely looking forward to it. I also write for a newspaper website, writing reviews of CDs, DVDs, films..whatever takes my fancy really. I play guitar, am an avid film watcher and music listener, so that takes up a lot of my spare time. Anyway, couldn't think of anything to talk about but myself as usual so...will get on with a meaningful post some time between now and next forever.

Jack: Both me and Sam are going to Leeds festival so we'll post some pictures and stuff probably maybe a review or two, although we may be too drunk to remember parts but meh that's life and Sam will be 18 by then, so go him.
I have several aims for the summer the main one being lose some weight as I'm starting to catch up on Sam (not that either of us are obese) as I haven't had chance to exercise due to the nights I used to play football clashing with college.
We could get a bit of a dialogue going here so i'm going to offer Sam a chance to add a little more detail if he so desires so to quote Adam West from Batman "Good bye for a minute"

Sam: Nothing to add, so to quote the Two Ronnies; It's goodnight from me...

Jack: and it's goodnight from him

Would you like fries with that?

2008-06-08T14:47:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. Me and Jack agreed to an 'at least one post a day' policy, I know it seems very little but at the moment Jack has exams etc, and also his posts are usually planned and thought out, and I have been otherwise occupied all day, so haven't really thought about it. But anyway it's after 10 now and there's no sign of Jack (probably be revising or sleeping) so I have taken it upon myself to do todays post.

Note: The posts will most likely get more frequent the more free time we have, and as it's summer coming up...

I don't really want to do an 'all about my day' post, because nobody really cares, so I won't. I have come up with a topic that I'll get researching but tonight I'll do the lazy thing and post another short story. Well in this case a poem. A while ago a friend of a friend of mine entered into an informal poetry competition, but was 'no good' at anything creative so I was asked to help (by help I wrote the poem). I was only given the title 'The duck and the swan' and that was it, there were no other rules. So I decided to write something light-hearted but something people could relate to, and something that's happened to me more than once because of certain 'cows'. So, in the words of Coolio; Awwwwwww here it goes!

There was once two best friends, a duck and a swan,
They lounged in the pool, till the sunlight was gone.
Nothing could split them, or so they thought,
Until one day, the day that they fought.

They came across an unfriendly cow,
A cow most evil, that caused them to row.
He was so evil, well, because,
He was the evilest cow, that there ever was.

See this cow, being evil and all,
Would spin the birds lies, and tales that were tall.
He told the duck ‘look the swan, well you see,
‘He doesn’t like you, that’s what he told me.’

Well the duck didn’t take this awfully well,
And he said ‘a pox on the swan, may he burn in hell!’
The swan didn’t see what he had done,
So he asked the cow, but the cow wanted fun.

He said to the swan, ‘thing is, well look’
‘There’s someone who hates you’ ‘who?’ ‘It’s the duck,’
‘Why would the duck hate me? We’re best friends!’
‘I don’t know, but you must kill him, to make your amends.’

The swan, being confused by all of this strife,
Went up to the barn, and fetched him a knife.
He went down to the pond, where swam his friend,
In one mighty swing, his friend’s life would end.

‘Forget it’ said the swan ‘I’ll talk to my mate,
‘I can’t let a cow decide his last fate’
‘Hey duck’ he said, with a tear in his eye,
‘Why do you hate me?’ then began to cry.

‘I do not hate you’ the duck told the swan,
‘I was told by the cow, you had moved on!’
‘No duck, I haven’t, you’re my best friend,
‘Now let’s get that cow, and fry his rear end!’

So with a duck and a swan, and a large carving knife,
Went up to the field, to end the cow’s life.
‘Hey cow!’ they shouted, ‘why did you lie?’
‘I’m evil’ said the cow ‘that is why’

‘What did we do, to make you so mad?’
‘I’m all alone’ said the cow ‘and it makes me sad’
‘No wonder you’re alone’ said the duck and the swan,
‘You lie all the time, all your friends are gone!’

‘It’s true! Cried the cow, ‘how evil am I!’
‘I deserve nothing, well except to die’
‘We agree’ said the swan, and so did the duck,
‘You’re an evil sadistic lonely little f**k’

‘Oh’ said the cow, ‘well I didn’t really mean…’
‘Spare us you’re words’ and the knife, it did gleam.
‘NO!’ Screamed the cow, ‘I don’t want to die!’
‘Well that will teach you, it is not good to lie.

The duck and the swan united again,
knew that their friendship was never in vain,
They had beaten the cow, that liar, that sinner,
And the duck and the swan, had burgers for dinner.

FIN

The original version didn't have the last verse, I just wrote it now, but I can't decide whether it's better without. Anyway, hope you enjoyed.

Light bulbs are evil.

2008-06-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

It seems we've established something. Jack's posts are sometimes going to be more intellectual things; thought out, planned essays with points, morals, warnings...whatever. And my posts are going to be rambly, about nothing, and generally for the good of no-one. Which, though, is better. Well it really depends on the target audience. If people want to look for a blog that's smart, cogent, planned and fully researched, then this is the place. However if people want a blog that's random, mostly incoherent and incomprehensible, completely unrelated to anything of any interest, then I'm sure we won't disappoint them either.

I was going to post a short story but I fancy a bit of a ramble instead. However, being a peaceful, well mannered, completely uncynical not to mention unsarcastic young gentlemen, I can't think of anything to rant about.

So here's a short story;

It's very short, but there is a reason. I was in school a while back and my friend said 'I bet you can't write a story, less than 200 words..about light bulbs'

You're on.

This was it, the final battle. Alas, the terrorising reign of the light bulbs would come to an end. At 0800 hours on July 5^th 2008, all light bulbs would be destroyed once and for all. It was currently 0750 hours, just 10 minutes to go. Winston was readying himself with a baseball bat, ready to free himself and his family of the tyranny that is light bulbs. 0759. One minute left. He put on his goggles and raised his bat. The alarm sounded. He took a deep breath and swung. The light bulb resisted, and shot argon in his face. They were fighting back! There was only one thing to do. Take his own life so the light bulbs didn’t have the pleasure. He started beating himself to death with his baseball bat. He was bleeding on the floor, dying.
The last thing he saw was his wife entering the room, seeing his almost lifeless body, and defeating the light bulb once and for all. She flipped the light switch off.

I didn't think it was bad given 5 minutes and a really random topic.

Oh yeh? Let's see you do better.

Malthusian Dilemma

2008-06-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

This topic is written with citations e.g. (1) etc. this corresponds to the references at the bottom of the blog post.
Thomas Malthus was a political economist who lived during the 18th and 19th Century, (1) he predicted a time in the world's future history that population would outstrip the resources available to support the world's population. When this happened a series of checks would occur including, butnot limited to war, famine and drought as well as Disease, as a means of preventing any further population growth.
Many people over the years have subscribed to Malthus' view including Darwin who claimed that "The Origin of Species" was simply "an application of the doctrines of Malthus in an area without the complicating factor of human intelligence", which shows the importance of this theory.
The concern is that we have reached this point with a current world population of roughly 6.6 billion (July 2007 figure) (2) This is a major concern as the population growth of recent years has been huge due mainly to increased medicinal technology and better lifestyles as well as a greater life expectancy. To show the huge increase in population in population growth (using Wikipedia figures, however other figures I've seen correspond to this) at the turn of the 20th century, the world had a population of roughly 1.65 billion, by 1971/2 (3) the figure had reached 4 billion and by 2000 the world population exceeded 6 billion.
As a result of this the world's resources have been severely stretched and the poverty and malnutrition in areas of the world are a resultant factor of this. It also highlights the unequal distribution of wealth (4), but I am not going to go into detail on this (see the reference for more information).
This has led to a huge rise in prices of oil and food, although food prices are in part affected by oil prices due to globalisation. Oil prices are currently riding at $134.50 per barrel (5), whereas food prices have increased by as much as 15% for bread, 11% for milk and 18% for eggs (6).
However despite the shortage of resources available, the main reason for this rise in value is largely down to an increased demand for these resources. Both China and India have large populations with a combined total of over 2 billion, both are also developing countries with a population gaining increasing affluence. This increased prosperity has led to an increased amount of disposable income causing them to compete with developed countries for resources such as oil and food.
There are several ways we could deal with this problem, the first would be to throw away our consumer lifestyle, many people in Britain and particularly the US could easily cut back on the amount we consume. Most developed countries populations could probably survive off a half of their present consumption.
Speculation is also having an impact as in the time I am writing this oil prices have spiked to $139 from the 4 or so hours I put the previous figure.
This is a prime example of Malthus with the potential of rioting and wars, which are occuring in some places as a result of this crisis. At this continued rate of consumption and price increases, there is every possibility of a major economic crash, probably more severe than than the Wall St. Crash of 1929. The way the US recovered from that crisis was through the selling of arms and munitions and military in the arms race preceding the World War II, which doesn't bode well for the future of our world.
On a brighter note if a Avian Influenza pandemic, similar to the one that was predicted to occur several years ago occurs, the war may be averted as world collaboration would be needed to contend with the problem.
As usual the undeveloped world once again suffers due to politics outside of their control. Another major step in countering this problem is the abandonment of cash crops such as tobacco, as well as Biofuels do not help since they use valuable land and food stuffs that may be rapidly needed in the coming years.

References: I have taken every possible error to remove any inaccuracies of data, however I have limited time and energy, so no guarantees (see Witness to the defence box (on the right)).

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malthus
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/malthus_thomas.shtml

2. http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/popclockworld.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Population_figures
The US census bureau claims that the 6.6 billion figure is correct as of this year, however many other sources listed that as the 2007 estimate so I used that.

3. http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop (the only verification for the wikipedia figures I could easily find)

4. http://geography.about.com/od/obtainpopulationdata
/a/worldvillage.htm

5. http://www.oil-price.net/
http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/

6. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6909469.stm

This essay is shorter than I intended due to factors outside my control I may complete it at a later date, however I have no more time or energy to do so at the moment. I hope you find this informative.

There're Zombies on this here Train!!!

2008-06-05T14:52:00.000-07:00

Right, after the watching the extremely terrible Snakes on a Plane (Oh god Jack's gonna kill me for saying that) I decided to take a slightly more plausible situation and write a script. I got as far as a few lines-to-include, a rough plot and a couple of people to act in it. It's basically a movie of (intentional) cheese and clichés.

Now is the winter of our discontent. I mean now is the time to move this forward. The title of the film is 'Zombies on a Train' and is basically about a Professor of Undead Sciences on his way to give a conference about the danger of an undead revolution (which obviously no-one believes in, he's one of them scientists no-one believes until it happens, then they all go crawling to when the apocalypse is nigh). He is a charming extrovert who wears glasses so the audience knows he's a professor.

So what happens is he's getting on a train, to get on his way to the conference, with his attractive secretary/love interest who seems to be only there to carry a folder, for no apparent reason. Then there's a cool change-of-focus shot, where the focus changes from the professor getting on the train, to further down the train, where an obvious zombie is getting on the train (Plot device).

Ok then, the rest of the film, I've already decided on an ending, (usual clichés) with an amazingly cool line*, then an explosion. Roll Credits. Applause. Encore.

Now this is yet to be written, cast, thought about, but it WILL get done. I would appreciate any thoughts, ideas, clichés to include, anything.

Thanks.

Note: * The amazingly cool line is 'This train terminates here' followed by an explosion. Anyone who uses public transport should find this funny. If you don't, your fault not mine.

Click here for your free Sack of Jam!!

2008-06-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

Let me take this opportunity to explain Sack of Jam Productions. It is mine and Jacks business. (Patent pending)

It came when we were making a Lego movie (we've deduced some time around 2003) and we were discussing what to call the production company, and he, trying to say Jack and Sam, accidentally said 'Sack of Jam.' It kind of stuck. Here are Sack of Jam's subsidiary companies;

Sack of Jam Film Productions (Films)
Sack of Jam Records (Recording business)
Sack of Jam Talent Agency (the Hollywood..Talent Agency ["Leo"])
Sack of Jam Fish Gutting Agency
Sack of Jam Sack Distributor
Sack of Jam Jam Distributor (All jam distributed and measured and made in sacks)

As you can tell I'm bored.

Comment now and receive your free sack of jam courtesy of Sack of Jam Jam distributor!

Note: None are legitimate businesses (yet) and all offers made are not actual offers (welcome to the world of internet business).

We may or may not be in negotiations about a new, better Lego film. The last one was lost due to a computer crash, but trust me, a blockbuster if ever I saw one.

The point of this post was because I'm bored and want to make sure Jack has a lot of work to catch up on when he sees how many more posts that I have.

Top 10 (+) Guitarists

2008-06-05T12:41:00.000-07:00

Well now that he's gone I've decided to compile lists. It's a tradition that dated back to... Well the origin of shopping (Darwin's sequel to 'Origin of Species'..or not.)

Ok my first list deals with my top 10 guitarists, this one's easy;

1. Stevie Ray Vaughn
2. Jimi Hendrix
3. Eric Clapton (Going to see him this month)
4. Steve Cropper (STAX house guitarist, played on my favourite blues track 'Green onions' by Booker T and the MG's, also a member of the Blues Brothers Band)
5. Jack White of White Stripes/Raconteurs fame. Will be seeing him at Leeds Fest.
6. Chuck Berry
7. Jimmy Page
8. Pete Townshend (I once read a quote about him [guitarist of the Who] that stated that 'Pete Townshend looks like everyone looks when they look in the back of a spoon)
9. Tommy Iommi (Black Sabbath)
10. Seasick Steve (His guitar only has 3 strings, but he's amazing)

Others that could be included in this list could be John Frusciante (RHCP), Richie Blackmore (Deep Purple) Daron Malakian (System of a Down) Herman Li (Jet Li's son and guitarist of Dragonforce) Eddie Van Halen (of Van Halen, duh) Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, Duane Allman (Allman Brothers Band) John Lee Hooker, BB King...The list goes on and on and on (You get the idea).

So really it was a list of 10 of my favourite guitarists. The top 6 or so are pretty much set in stone though. Honest.

Here's a bit of Stevie;

Not to be outdone

2008-06-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

Sam has now posted two comments on the blog and as I like to think I'm less lazy than him I thought I'd make a second post. To be fair though I am revising as I have exams that he doesn't so...
Maybe this just shows what a competitive person I am? But then again maybe that's human nature? Hmm...
Anyway here's a couple more links I thought I'd post the first is http://www.plasma2002.com/epb/ this shows an emergency party button some guy made for his house and I have to say it's potentially the coolest thing ever and he has good choice in music
The next two links go together http://www.90scartoons.co.uk/ and http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/ these sites are great for finding info on all those awesome cartoons of the 80s and 90s including He-man and Street Sharks.
This blog post is surprisingly hard to write as I can't think of a subject as my mind is full of geography as that is what I've been revising. I could tell you about Indonesian transmigration schemes however they aren't that interesting.
I'll probably add a edit to this later and add more things but that is all for now.

Now watch Sam add another couple of posts while i'm gone

Yay for dinosaurs! Mark II

2008-06-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

Right. I may have a slight obsession with dinosaurs. As many, many people know. However, it's not unjustified. After watching Jurassic Park as a child I have been majorly obsessed with them. All through my childhood I wanted to be a paleontologist, (I'll never forgive Jack for chasing my dream, but then again I also wanted to be an astronomer, a survival expert and a scuba diving instructor, not to mention pirate, soldier, beer taster and Martian hunter.. so it's not as if i left anyone with much choice). I am fascinated by the subject, and they are a constant topic for a conversation, as well as constant inspiration for drawings and doodles.

I was excited recently as I heard dinosaurs technically aren't extinct, because, as they evolved into birds (which I knew already) but because of a new rule to do with evolution, any ascendant (guessing that's the right term, opposite of descendant) of a creature that lives today technically isn't extinct. FTW.

Anyway I do have an extensive knowledge of dinosaurs, for example, did you know that dinosaurs, technically, aren't extinct? Oh, you did? Well ain't you sharp?

Anyway whilst on this topic I may as well say I went to see 'Dinosaurs 3D' at the imax the other week, and i was disappointed. I paid the same amount that I would have paid for a normal 100 minute movie, but it was only 45 minutes long, and didn't teach me anything I didn't know already. In fact in some cases it told me things that I'd learnt the opposite of, from more reliable sources, and also tried to pass off certain beliefs as fact, such as the dinosaurs DEFINITELY died because of a large meteor blast.

Thank you for that priceless definitely new piece of information that is conclusively what happened because you were there. Obviously.

Note: Dinosaurs FTW.

No Doctor Seuss, Sam I am.

2008-06-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take this opportunity to introduce myself. Sam I am. I do not like green eggs and ham. I have been doing research in to cheese (cheesearch) for many years now, and I believe I have perfected it. My research has taken many forms; eating cheese, seeing cheese in a shop or in a home environment, grating cheese then eating it, ordering it at a restaurant.

I shall demonstrate my theory of Doctor Seuss' claim about green eggs and ham; I always wondered whether it was green eggs and green ham, or just regular ham with green eggs. When expressed as a mathematical equation, these two completely different statements would look like this; "Green Eggs and Regular Ham: Ham + Green(eggs). [I swapped the order round to avoid confusion]. Green eggs and green ham: Green(eggs + ham)."

Now, which is it? I can hear you ask. Well there is a few pieces of evidence. The cover of the book shows Green Ham as well as Green Eggs. However, the eggs are actually white but with green yolks. But this is an artists rendition and therefore unreliable as evidence. The next point is that it is widely believed (by at least 3 other people, [market research ftw]) that Dr Seuss meant 'Green Eggs and Regular Ham.' Which implies that he DOES in fact like Green Ham, otherwise he's passed up the perfect opportunity to make it clear of his aversion to the substance. Or, not. It could be either, but since the good Doctors death, we're unlikely to find out. Nor care.

Note: He's not Sam, Sam I am. (Identity fraud is a big problem).