Minimal

Mosh, by Eminem [GNN]
The story behind the video and a Quicktime movie of the finished product (link courtesy of Chris McEvoy).

I wonder whether it’ll have any more impact than the Rock the Vote campaign. I wonder whether anyone’ll even air the thing. Even if no-one does, at least it’s online.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas [GameSpot]
Yep, it’s been released and it should be popping through my letterbox shortly. This sounds ominous:

In short, Rockstar has done it again. San Andreas definitely lives up to the Grand Theft Auto name. In fact, it’s arguably the best game in the series.

I guess I’ll see you all in a few months, then. :)

No, I’ve not been on holiday — I’ve just not had anything short and sweet to blog about lately. Last night, however, some <insert expletive here> appears to have stolen my near-side wing mirror. Yes, stolen. Not smashed. Not kicked off. They’ve just stolen it. Actually, I’m quite impressed at the clean job they’ve managed, but it’s still gonna cost me £130.

On a brighter note, I will be on holiday next month. I’m heading off to Syria to visit a mate working in Damascus and we’ll also be taking in Lebanon and Jordan. Not bad, eh? Though I normally shy away from taking a camera on holiday (unless I’ve got the car with me!), I might just have to capture this one. :)

And Fridays are so much better when you’ve got a whole raft of new explodingdog.com pictures to browse. These ones were done on paper rather than a Wacom tablet (or whatever it is he normally uses). Beautiful.

Humblest apologies to interested parties, but the proposed karting sesh fell flat on its face. We just couldn’t get enough people together to make it worthwhile. Maybe my peer group’s getting too old and it’s time I grew up?

Yeah, right.

Eurocrats leave Wales off EU map [BBC News]
I love it when people talk about computer errors. Cos, like, computers make errors all the time, don’t they? They’re so stupid. Rhodri Morgan, the Welsh First Minister, clearly shares my point of view:

A bureaucratic blunder has left Wales off a map of Europe on the cover of a prestigious EU reference book.

[...]

A line was drawn from Chester to the Severn Estuary, roughly along the English border, but to the west there is nothing until the Irish coast.

Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan laughed it off, describing it as a “computer-generated image that has clearly gone wrong.”

I look forward to the day when computers wake up, smell the coffee and start just following the processing instructions we write for them. They’re just too damned big for their boots.

SpaceShipOne wins the X-Prize [Wired News]
It doesn’t take much to make me giddy when it comes to adventures in space, but this quote from the head of the X-Prize foundation pushes all the right buttons:

“Today we make history,” Diamandis said after the ship was back on the runway. “Today the winners are the people of the Earth. Today we go to the stars.”

Woohooo!!! Ok, so maybe you and I aren’t really going today. And maybe we’re not quite reaching the stars yet. But hey, I’m still giddy with excitement. This is as good as anything that’s happened in my lifetime. :)

P.S. I guess I’d better qualify that last statement. This is the best thing that’s happened in space exploration in my lifetime. After all, things like the revolutions in Eastern Europe were pretty important too. The hairs on the back of my neck still stand up whenever I hear “Winds of Change” by the Scorpions.