Now That's What I Call Pondering!; vol 76

I hate when I've got all these ideas, thoughts and concepts swirling around in my head, but its so difficult to try and link them into any sort of coherent thread. It doesn't really make for the best of blog entries to just list a couple of random things that I've been thinking about...

First off, to give you an idea of the sort of boredom I must have been suffering with to realise this, but within my lifetime we're going to see the 2000^th anniversary of the death of one of the most influential people in literally the history of the entire earth. I wonder if there's anything planned for it?

It's been a busy week it seems for everyone around me, just... not me myself. I suppose I went out, and that should be a good thing, but its mainly just been very dull that so much of my time is spent resting and recovering instead of actually doing anything.

Another little piece of beautiful chaos that amused me – the other day, my brother and mum went down to visit my gran, where they returned with 3 packs of “spicy mexican chilli” flavour crisps. Because (of course), one of my gran's friends had bought the multipack, but didn't like that flavour, so it makes perfect sense to give them to her to pass onto her grandchildren “who like that sort of thing”. I love the sort of logic behind that for something so trivial, that something so utterly meaningless as the packet of crisps I'll have for/with my lunch tomorrow has a nice little origin story behind it, it's own little tale to tell of how it came to gain its place in the world.

Unfortunately the car exploded on the way home, so oh dear I won't be able to go out in it this week! What a shame that is. Somehow, I'll cope.

A-level results were this week, and more people have got As and A*s than ever before! This of course is an indication of the exams being dumbed down, therefore providing conclusive proof that because they scored higher than ever, today's teenagers are even stupider than ever before. Flawless logic.

Do you think if I keep a tab for the web page of a computer part that I want open long enough, one of the admins of the site will take pity on me and decide to send me it? “If he's this keen on it, he really deserves it for being such a generally top bloke. I'll just fetch his shipping address...”

Apparently we're now up to Now That's What I Call Music volume 76. Way to make me feel old – back in my day, I had Now 35, on TAPE. Not only am I 41 volumes out, I'm also two generations of playback medium. Three if you include minidisc, but... really, who would?

The other day I was channel surfing, and, after I'd spent an hour on the Military History Channel (watching The Atomic Ghost Fleet of Bikini Atoll, which was both entertaining and educational), I ended up catching the video to a Ke$ha song that I'd never heard before, called Take it Off. I was about to say 'her new song', but to be honest, it could be a year and a half old and this was just the first time I'd heard of it, I'm not really in a position to know either way. I was temporarily surprised to find that it had a catchy beat but wasn't annoying, and that in the video she was dressed in a very classy outfit with understated, attractive hair and makeup. Ah, maybe she's branching out?... Or not. Since by the end of the song she had, naturally, devolved into screechy ear-splitting nonsensical lyrics, had torn most of her clothes, and was now 'artistically' covered in powder paint and glitter as she mimed cutting herself. I'm sure there's a moral of this story somewhere about expectations, but seeing as its after 1am and I was struggling to make myself coherent anyway I think I'll just call it a night.

Beautiful chaos, logical pokémaths

David's Latias deals x amount of damage, using a move with 70 power. When it's finished its training, it will possess a move of 90 power, and have 50% higher base attack. How much more damage will an attack from this creature do?

Also, it's 2 o'clock in the morning, you're too tired to remember how to do percentages and you're on IM to your ex girlfriend, who doesn't realise that the maths problem you've just bewildered her with is Pokémon related and may attempt to stab you when she figures this fact out.

(The answer is “almost twice as much”, by the way. I finally figured it out at 3am after lying asleep for a while going over it in my head. I also remembered how to divide by fractions. She was not impressed to be informed of any of these points.)

We've got an extra brother around the house now, so 50% added chaos to be spread! In between the catch up on all the quality TV he missed in his 8 months away (that won't take long) and the Ally McBeal boxset marathon, that is. Apparently when he was at work in Vienna, he expressed a keen interest in the branded toasters that the hotel used, that burned the hotel logo onto the bread while they cooked them. In a wonderfully thoughtful gesture, as a leaving present, his co-workers managed to hook him up with one! Unfortunately, he had already packed his bags, so he had to attempt to take his brand new toaster with him on his hand luggage instead. It's interesting to note that the airport security at Vienna International had never seen a toaster show up on the scanner before, and by all accounts amused both him and them as they attempted to work out if any part of it was capable of being used as a weapon before allowing it onto the plane. And of course, since this was a European electrical appliance, it has a continental-style plug, meaning he had to grab an adaptor specifically for use on this one, sole toaster, that brands the corporate logo of his ex-employer onto his toast. It's nice to know that my capacity for creating beautiful chaos out of everyday life runs in the family!

In other news that will no doubt draw sarcastic comments as to my mentioning her AGAIN, apparently the infinitely wise and talented miss Ke$ha has been on record to say that the reason her songs are so shockingly slutty is because she's making a feminist point. You see, if a man said those things then they'd be seen as perfectly acceptable, so by drawing attention to the double standards imposed on men and women she's really just holding a mirror up to society.

I like this argument, a lot. If I ever say or do anything that annoys or upsets anyone, then I'm doing it to prove a point about how bad it is! Don't blame me, blame society for the unfair values that it attributes to doing that, whatever it might be. Flawless logic.