Meme

Wiktionary defines a "meme" as being

Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity.

And memes are really something. Unless you're a common web goer, then you won't know what a good meme is. Basically it can be anything from a quiz, to an image macro, to something that you can say. As long as it fulfills the above definition, it's a meme. And memes are EVEYWHERE! From LiveJournal to your average forum.

An example of a meme, let's see, is the Drawing Personality Test; common with the more artistic folks on LiveJournal. Par example:

You tend to pursue many different activities simultaneously. When misfortune does happen, it doesn't actually dishearten you all that much.
You have a peaceful mind, viewing the world with calm and serenity. To you, life is not about struggle and strife but about existence and co-existence.
You like following the rules and being objective. You are precise and meticulous, and like to evaluate decisions before making them.
You have a sunny, cheerful disposition.

An image, in this case the interactive part of the test, then some made up thing supposedly derived from that image. This is what most memes are made of. Interaction and result. The result is the only reason you interact, and to interact you must pass through webpages of adverts. Thus memes equal money.

Awesome win.

The Power of Caffeine

Half an hour ago I was saying goodnight. My eyes dreary as I prepared to rest for the night. Then I drank some Coca Cola. Not much; a simple 330ml aluminium can of caramel, water and E numbers. Now I feel strangely alive. I could probably type out a whole essay about how amazing this is. But I'm a bit too hyper to do that right now.

But what I will say is that now I feel dirty. Coke is like fire. A worst enemy and best friend. I've been trying to stay off the stuff, and doing quite well at it. You can quite easily guess what my favourite drink is when 6 litres of apple juice have disappeared from the pantry in just 5 days. And to be frankly honest the taste of the sweet stuff (Coke) physically sickens me. I can actually feel my teeth melting away as I type. A thick layer of plaque always appears after the first gulp. I can feel it... digging away at my toothy pegs.

That's a bad thing, as my dental health is actually very good considering how little I visit a dentist. I only have a problem with this one tooth that's growing so fast that the ones around it can't do so as much.

Returning to the topic at hand; Coca Cola isn't all that tasty. The sugar-y taste of it all makes my stomach turn and - for me at least - it always seems overly bitter. Another common side effect is that I also seem to sweat a lot more, without any particular reason.

This is where my hippy side is going to take centre stage, so can readers of a nervous disposition please stand back. The Coca Cola Company, like all other major corporations (Mobil Exxon, Microsoft and the rest) are all big capitalist pigs. And their cheap products have poisoned my morals. Now I have to go and be cleansed in a pool of virgin tears or something. And that'll take some time to set up. DAMN YOU CAPITALISM!!!

We should try and reincarnate Lenin or something and crush the capitalist biache.

Shock horror! Google goes wrong!

Yet another contradictory blog post

Earlier today search engine giant magnate corporation with nice teeth Google did something that no one on earth expected to happen. They screwed up. SHOCK HORROR! IT'S A SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE WHEN THE CENTRE OF ALL INFORMATION GOES WRONG!

If you haven't heard - that's people who don't read The Register - Google's Personalised Homepage service, found here. Went and did a runner, per se. A currently unknown number of users either had their pages reverted back by many months or had them wiped altogether. I use Google Homepage. And I was, quite happily, not affected.

But that's not what this blog entry is about is it! It's about how a slip up by one company can blow the world to smithereens. The web has (almost, just wait) gone crazy over how the company that just became the most powerful company in the world has gone and lost what must be a few servers of data. Data that just vanished into thin air! Gone! Poof! Zero! Zilch! Complete zippo!

Amazingly none of the tabloid news sites have declared it an "OUTRAGE" yet. In fact not many sites have shown it up at all. Nearly all discussion regarding the problem has been on blogs and discussion boards.

Google have told people affected to not do anything, as that won't help the situation. So if you are affected: Don't do anything. If you're affected in the sense that your brain is currently in "OMFG THIS IS WRONG!!!1111" mode then please put a bucket over your head and jump into a river, you're not helping.

Political Rhetoric

You know it is all lies

We all know that George "Dubya" Bush - 43th president of the United States - is a god awful idiot. Hell, it's a one armed battle. EVERYONE knows that! There's not even a point in arguing anymore! Let's take a look at what the blogosphere has to say about America's Dumbest Presidents:

Well, currently going quite popular on a number of blogs is this link to The Daily Background, which shows the big gun in 15 of his most embarrassing situations. Want a sample? Go on then!

He reminds me of chavs. He struggles to string simple English together, they even released a book of mistakes when speaking his own language. That, combined with the fact he's also got a "one fingered victory salute" and a history of drinking problems, and you're looking at the perfect ASBO material! Just imagine the Commander-In-Chief with this bunch of scum.

"The best thing about my family is my wife. She is a great first lady. I know that sounds not very objective, but that's how I feel. And she's also patient. Putting up with me requires a lot of patience."

~ George W. Bush, Tipp City, Ohio, April 19, 2007

Okay, so he has enough sense to recognize he's an idiot. That's a plus point at least. However he still hasn't noticed that when an idiot is the current president it would probably be best to leave office at some point. Preferably now.

Now, at the top of the page there's a YouTube video. One of the many from the UK docu-drama Death of a President - the first broadcast TV show to show the death of a president still in office. Now that is brave. Sure this is the UK; it's not likely that the CIA or FBI are going to be busting down our doors anytime soon. But the point stands. Britain hates Bush. In turn, Britain hates Blair for supporting Bush. And this burden has only slightly been lifted by Blair's brilliant acting ability, as shown on national television earlier this year (and that is the real Tony Blair to any of you who don't know/are too stupid to realise.)

How much does Britain hate Bush? Check out this edition of the Daily Mirror from the day after he was re-elected back in 2004:

And this one from Private Eye:

I trailed off a bit there with ranting about how utterly pointless "number 43" is (Bush once called himself that). Anyway - put simply - he really outta be killed. 1 in 4 Iraqis knew someone who has since been killed by the invading forces. Saddam Hussein was executed for killing 150 Sunni Muslims. At the time of writing this 13,684 American Troops have been killed (from official statistics) and 68,141 Iraqi civilians (from unofficial records, the U.S. Army stopped counting when they ran out of fingers). That's 81,825 people George W. Bush has killed. And Saddam got executed for 150.... Now I'm not one for the death sentence, but I'll make an exception for Dubya.

It's What I Go To School For

Screen Wipe

If you're under 16 and a citizen of ye olde United Kingdumb, then you should be back in the school house known as "oh my freaking god it's hell" by now. Yes, the holidays are over! And if you're in the GCSE years then it's mere weeks until those all important exams will be plaguing your mind - stopping you sleeping - killing your very soul like each day did, only quicker.

Your entire future rests on the next few weeks. One slip up, one incorrect answer and your entire prospects will be thrown into the flames of life's furnace in front of your own freaking eyes! Each day will becoming a day living in doubt and pain, writhing in your own failure! It will tear you apart... limb from limb.

SO GET REVISING YOU DUMBWADS!

28 Weeks Later

The Revenge of the Rage

The sequel to the "Ooh! Wasn't that good!" movie, 28 Days Later, quietly was announced sometime ago I can't remember! Not directed by Mister Danny Boyle, but Spanish man Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, it tells the story of how, in 2003 (set 28 weeks after the original film, surprisingly) the American forces move into the UK, take control of London and aim to repopulate the place. Whilst wiping out the rest of the rage-ridden scum. (Rage is the name of the infection, just so you know.)

The place is in turmoil. The youngest kid in Britain is a poultry 12 years, and god bless if there's more than a million folks left. They manage to fit them all into one building... ONE FREAKING BUILDING!!!

Of course, like everything else, it's only a matter of time until the Americans make a complete hash of everything. Their health-checks miss out one woman who's got the bleedin' infection. (And you pay for that health system to!) She goes bonkers, people go crazy and the U.S. Army react the only way they've been trained to do. They kill everyone.

And so us Brits are left yet again, fending for ourselves while out American "allies" try and execute us using their fancy-schmancy weapons technology. And think about it, this is 2003! Aren't they supposed to be like, killing innocent Iraqis? Why are they killing innocent Brits too?!

Frankly I can't wait! :D

Happy Zombie Jesus Day!

Mummy, why is my messiah eating my brains?

Zombie Jesus Day! The one day of the year when the Christians around this godforsaken planet celebrate the death ad resurrection of one man, one man called Jesus H. Christ!

Even people who don't read Bible passages for a living should know the story of how Mr Christ was brutally murdered, only to have risen - drooling and with arm slightly loose - out of his caven tomb and promptly ate the brains of his murderers. What? You think Judas committed suicide? He made a flipping fortune! Why would he?! No, he was actually revenged by Jesus, followed by the occasional Roman guard. It took a bit longer to get to evil overlord Pontius Pilate. But he managed to do it after a good many years.

From there it all fades into obscurity. But many myths say that every Zombie Jesus day, he mysteriously appears and eats the brains of unsuspecting victims. These deaths are usually thrown off by police as incidents involving chainsaws or witch craft. But they are true... and he's coming for you...

And so I leave you with what has to be the best Bible verse ever, Matthew 7:3.
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

Climbing Olympus

Bigger! But better?

phpBB3 "Olympus" promises to be the best thing to hit the forum scene since... well, phpBB2. With a refreshed layout, new admin system and a whole host of new features, it's enough to make any community administrator to piss themselves in anticipation.

However all is not as it seems. Unless you've taken the beta versions to take a look for yourself then you're bound to have already been won over by the new charms. But look closer. The code is new. The file structure is new. Everything has been completely rebuilt from the ground up. "Good!" you may be thinking, "They've been working hard!" True. But think about it. Backwards compatibility: gone. All the mods and themes for phpBB2 will just not work. And that means that there's gonna be a whole lot of waiting until phpBB3 can start to compete against it predecessor.

It's this reason that makes phpBB3 a pain to use. And even though mods and themes for "Olympus" already exist, they're not cheap. The whole point of BB's open source-ness is so that it's FREE. Yet people are taking advantage and cashing in on the hype.

God I can't wait for this thing to come out of beta, then maybe we can FINALLY get some good stuff for this.

Thou Shalt Always Kill

Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip

They're name is utter nonsense, but Messrs Dan le Sac and Scroobius Pip have created what has to be one of my favourite songs so far this year (after Raffi's "Bananaphone" and the "Imperial March" from Star Wars). A simple rap that defies everything that pop culture teaches you to be right then squashes it in your face just for a quick laugh.

Think along the lines of Lazyboy's Underwear Goes Inside the Pants. A simple thought-provoking video that challenges one's perceptions on the modern world. Truly inspirational in a music scene dominated by stick-thin white chicks shaking their booty to the sound of some middle-aged black guy from the ghetto.

What a world eh!

This is why the internet exists

Superdickery.com

This has to be my numero uno site for thes first week of April. Superdickery.com is a comics website like no other. Where else will you find Dr. Seuss trying to "wipe that sneer off" a Japanese guy's face? Superman killing person after person after person? A black guy depicted as a monkey, being called "Steamboat" by Captain Marvel? And the 1000-a-month weddings of Lois Lane? And Jimmy Olsen went evil how many times?

The unnamed site administrator has a lot to say about comics and just how amazingly perverse, racist and downright wrong they can be. And he does as such, giving every single one of the thousands indexed a humerous review of things you may have not even noticed otherwise.

And did you know that Donald Duck once killed Goofy?

Welcome!

About Myself

Well instead of that dead repetitive sidebar thingy that would be on the right over there, here's a quick overview. I am Shaun Hargreaves, junior web designer, master of (X)HTML and CSS, learner of Javascript and PHP, graphic designer and furry.

I started blogging in mid-2006, and it was quite fun. But eventually it died off. Now it's come back in storm! And what better way then to provide info to the web going community? We live in a Web 2.0 world, where just about anyone with a computer and internet connection can leave their mark on the web. And these people are constantly searching for better ways to do things.

Blogging is, after a peak lasting only 2 years, already in massive decline. It's becoming a lost art, but now I plan to keep it alive. It's an integral part of internet history. And so it should be preserved for the future.

It's also a great way to practice journalism!

And so, enjoy the coming weeks, months and maybe years in which I will document my life, my work, my loves and loves lost. This has been Shaun Hargreaves. Thank you.