a lot of stuff and nonsense from eclectech

Hysterical new site online today from Phorm, a corporation behaving like a small child in a playground calling people names. The people they're calling names include the Open Rights Group, Alexander “The Angry Activist” Hanff and, well, have a look yourself here... phoolish anti-anti-Phorm site.

I don't have time to have the full rant I'd like to have here, but how a company that gathered information about individuals' web activity without getting their permission can call those complaining about it 'privacy pirates' is incomprehensible to me.

There was some research done recently* which showed that you could identify a large number of people from their surfing habits and searches; you don't need their IP address or other standard personally identifiable information, you just need to know that the web sites were visited and searches were performed by one individual. Think about what you search for and where you go online... do they give hints about who you are? I'll put my hand up here and say I Google my own name (both real and online pseudonymns) and look for information about local events and shops and a ton of other stuff that could tell you alot about me. Tie that together with a Facebook or similar profile and you're away...

Anyhow, more reasoned pieces will appear elsewhere I'm sure but in the meantime have some related links...

EC starts legal action over Phorm
Home Office 'colluded with Phorm'
Phorm: Does its stroppy campaign site signal the beginning of the end?
Phorm chief labels critics 'serial agitators'
What the Open Rights Group have to say about Phorm.

* reference will follow when I can find the thing, sorry!**

** Found it. De-anonymizing Social Networks. There's a news report about it at the BBC too.

Labels: disgruntled, news links, open rights group

... featuring Mushroom the Marmot here, but as it's running a little late I thought I'd spend 10 minutes clearing the rest of my bookmarks out. It's a little bit of a "I'm back online" frenzy from my point of view.

First up, I do rather like the atheist adverts being run on London buses, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." A worthy message and a nice change. I also found this photo great. Well, that's not quite right, I can't bear the hatred shown in the demos, but the protest placard is wonderful. Hooray for that.

I've had a big moan in the past about the quality of comments on YouTube. This Firefox plugin was obviously made for me. Fantastic.

This is definitely the best BBC headline in a long time... Military penguin becomes a 'Sir'. Frankly all a bit nuts, but still a great headline. A slightly sadder headline involves my first penguin love. Berke Breathed has said goodbye to Opus. Again. This time for good it seems. It's a bit of an odd one for me. I've not kept up with the recent Opus cartoons, to me he belongs to the eighties when, along with Calvin and Hobbes, he was my cartoon favourite but I've always intended to catch up. There's something sad about knowing he's gone for good. On the plus side Mr Breathed is about to delve further into kids books, and as a new parent this makes me quite happy. I can't express how much I'm looking forward to reading "A wish for wings that work" to the techling this Christmas.

More books... I strongly recommend Ben Goldacre's Bad Science. I've always enjoyed the blog, but I 've just finished the book and it's tops. Well written, entertaining and informative. A great defense against the horror of "well I read in the newspaper that..." He also mentions me. I was quite chuffed about that. Unfortunately it was because that awful poo woman threatened to sue me, but he called me funny too. Rah!

Finally, Scaryduck has rewritten Romeo and Juliet in txt speak.

Jlt: Rmo Rmo WTF art thou Rmo?
Rmo: Here 4 am I art LOL
Jlt: Oh, you is so lush

Read it!

Back tomorrow with Mushroom the musical marmot in action.

Labels: blether, neat links, news links, penguin joy, poo woman

I'm making a new animation about the UK government's frenzy to put every bit of information they can get their hands on in a database before leaving it scattered around the country, so it seems like a good point to clear out my bookmarks on this topic.

First up, can I just point out how irritated I am that just as we put together a spoof site (assuming that a site the government spent 70-odd grand on would be around for a while) the original site gets pulled. Apparently the community has now finished. Pfft!

So, now a few examples of why I don't trust them with my data...

UK gov't loses 4 million citizens' personal info
‘Fakeproof’ e-passport is cloned in minutes
Firm 'broke rules' over data loss
Personnel records stolen from MoD
Probe into data left in car park
Malicious gossip could cost you your job
The verdict is out on DNA profiles

However, despite all the data losses and incompetence apparently people 'can't wait for ID cards'*. Yes dear, of course. Let's hope that fingerprints aren't replied on too much, because it looks like Jacqui's are about to become public. Arf!

Finally, US elections and all that. Splendid. Have a dancing Obama to represent my cautious optimism.

* Update: I rather like the Daily Mash's take on this.

Labels: disgruntled, news links, NO2ID, open rights group

I discovered today that I'm the #1 Google hit for foolish and misguided plans. This pleases me, particularly as it's referring to my animation about Charles Clarke and his foolish and misguided plans rather than plans of my own devising.

I've been stumbling across a few reports related to this particular brand of Government IT related foolishness, so now seems a good time to clear those bookmarks out into a blog post.

You might remember* my moaning about the e-voting going on in the May elections - the Open Rights Group
produced an interesting report following their involvement in reviewing the process, and there's currently a Newsnight special about the particular cock-up involved in the Scottish elections. Not at all happy about what seems to have happened up here. Very poor show.

Given my current status as mum-to-be I've also been watching with concern at the government IT ID plans for kids. Senior social workers are warning of the dangers of the in-progress children's database, and the admission that "information about the children of celebrities and politicians is likely to be excluded from the system" fills me with particular fury. If it's not secure enough for them, it's not secure enough for me. I think it's time to contact some MPs and find out if they'll be asking for the details of their offspring to be excluded. I'm also in the rather odd position of hoping my kid ends up in a school without too many funds to fling about, as I really wouldn't be happy at the biometric information some schools are storing. School computer systems are not, I fear, secure enough to be using this kind of information. More about all this available at the ARCH blog.

Oh, and the DNA database our politicians and police are so proud of, they reckon it contains a good half a million errors. And 'they' aren't a campaigning group, or some numpty blogger having a whinge, it's the Government. Oh my.

And finally... spEak You're bRanes! A terrifying record of some BBC News 'Have Your Say' comments. I'm quite a fan of some of the terminally bewildered ones.

* although I suspect not, it's worrying enough that I remember my moans.

Labels: disgruntled, news links, open rights group

... but apparently a bishop in the church of England is claiming that our "moral degradation" is causing the current floods across the UK.

"One diocesan bishop has even claimed that laws that have undermined marriage, including the introduction of pro-gay legislation, have provoked God to act by sending the storms that have left thousands of people homeless."

Oh my.

Floods are judgement on society, say bishops.

In cheerier news they've discovered that there used to be giant tropical penguins roaming the planet. How ace is that? I wasn't sure about the illustration on the BBC article though, so I've made my own.

There's also a giant sized tropical desktop wallpaper version.

In unrelated news I've been getting some of my animation up at YouTube, a bit of an experiment to see how it goes, but it does give people an easy way to embed my pieces in their blogs. It will only be certain pieces that go up, but you can check them out if it's of interest.

Labels: disgruntled, flash animation, news links

... but I decided to focus on the one on his way out with my new animation, My Way (the Blair version).

I expect this is my last animation featuring Blair. As you can imagine I'm welling up.

The really disturbing thing for me at the moment is that I'm not sure what I want the result of the current elections to be and I suspect I'll be making the final call about who to vote for in the voting booth.

Possibly holding my head in my hands and sobbing quietly to myself.

This year our voting papers are rather reminiscent of the Life of Brian and the Judean People's Front / People's Front of Judea silliness. We have two socialist parties (bickering publicly in their leaflets), two Christian parties (one of which delivered a very offensive leaflet) and two nationalist parties.

On the plus side at least I can still vote the proper way and head over to a local polling booth and make my cross on a bit of paper. Very unsure about electronic voting, and the fact that everyone I know with knowledge about how such things work refuses to use them makes me think I have a point.

E-voting as secure as an insecure thing
Doubts raised over e-count system
Vote early, vote often
Government cancelled e-vote schemes amid security fears
Hacking the online ballot box

Some other news stories that have been of interest recently...
US war on terror is a war on tourists, too
No medals for UK Government over London Olympics security
Kid wrongly imprisoned for bomb threat - error due to Daylight Savings Time

And before I head away I realised I missed Blogging Against Disablism Day 2007 this year so time to pop over to the Goldfish and catch up.

Labels: disgruntled, flash animation, news links

Kurt Vonnegut

A great writer, artist, satirist, and humanist.

It's sad that he's gone, but good that he left so much behind.

Boing Boing : Remembering Kurt Vonnegut
BBC Obituary
Guardian Special Report
New York Times article
Wikiquotes

'And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, "Kurt is up in heaven now." That's my favorite joke.'

Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Labels: blether, news links

There is an inclination to think that people who go on about the dangers of ID cards and biometrics and Big Brother and the value of privacy are, well, paranoid nutters. I know people find it odd that I'm so sceptical given my love of computers and t'internet. Here's a few links that might help to explain why...

How to clone a biometric passport while it's still in the bag

Pensioners receive secret details

Woman gets 75,000 bank statements

Go-ahead for Net voting as ministers ignore watchdog

The blatant incompetence of our government to reliably manage data makes me think the proposed website to 'shame' absent parents is an accident waiting to happen. Imagine being the person they incorrectly list.

I was amused by the attempt by McDonalds to redefine McJob. Fighting a losing battle I think, as is the person who attempted to launch a petition to "stop school for people who dnt want o go". Heh.

And finally, boo to Flickr for stopping my old account working. Boooo I say.

I don't use it much but liked being able to track photos of a couple of contacts and I've just discovered that in order to log in I now have to register with Yahoo. I don't have (and don't really want) a Yahoo account.

My annoyance at having to sign up for something I've been signed up to for years was topped off with a set of fabulously recursive links. The page where I'm instructed to sign in with Yahoo has a massive WHY? link. As a curious person I clicked on it and found links to help files and a place to 'speak up' if I had a comment about the change. Both took me back to the sign in page. Arf! It seems I'm too late to do anything other than comply. Well, that or leave the account to slowly whither away of course, pining for the old days of the net.......

Oh dear, I'm such a moaning minnie at times. Have a nice serene picture of a pretty sunset and birds to compensate.

* I have nothing to add to this statement really. It's just the most bizarre thing that's happened to me since my last post and I didn't have a title.

Labels: disgruntled, news links

Oh. They are. Unfortunately despite my best animated efforts and the fine songsmithing of Mr JonnyB it looks like the government is poised to close thousands of them. Bah! Bad government!

Save the Post Office, that's what I say! I don't care if nobody listens*.

JonnyB is currently up for the best UK blog at the weblog awards. As suspicious as I am of any award where they encourage you to vote every day I encourage you to vote for him here.

I'm off to scribble some pictures so have an 'and finally' link... a 1938 fire alarm that conveniently traps the person using it. Splendid.

* Not true, obviously.

Labels: disgruntled, flash animation, neat links, news links, post office

There is a current frenzy of activity around fingerprinting. School kids having to give prints to take a book out of the library or sign in, consumers having to give prints to hire a car, police carrying mobile devices to check prints remotely...

It's a shame they're so easy to fool isn't it?

Beau Bo D’Or provides his usual high standard of commentary on the issue. As an aside it's good to see Beau Bo D'Or's images being published by both the Guardian and Channel 4 in regular spots. Top notch.

So, fingerprinting frenzy. Police trying to target criminals before they're criminals. Evidence that the new secure passports are easily cracked. Reports from the information commissioner that we're adopting uncomfortably high levels of surveillance... surely it can't really be that bad. I mean, the people in authority who have access to this data won't abuse it will they? People given power must be responsible, level headed and able to keep things in perspective?

Bah. Sometimes I just want to run away to the hills and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. Then I remember that it's only a wee bit of the world that drives me crazy, and that I should stop being so overly dramatic.

The annual reports from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada are a fine example of someone talking sense on these issues, and contain a nice response to the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" brigade.

The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.

Quite right.

There's some upbeat news on the release the music front too. A "well placed Government source" has told the BBC that the Gowers report won't be supporting an extension to the copyright term of musical recordings. Although, as the BPI kindly point out, the Government can ignore this report, and that of the Institute for Public Policy Research that came to the same conclusion, but frankly that would just be wrong. And silly.

Neil McCormack, a music journalist quoted in the BBC article commented

"You can make a record in 1955 and have been getting royalties .... Suddenly they're gone."

Suddenly!

So, someone records a song in 1955. The law states that they can receive income from it for 50 years before the recording enters the public domain. They get income from it for 50 years. Income stops after 50 years*. Apologies if this seems harsh but surely that's only "suddenly" a problem if they're an idiot?

Fran Nevrkla, chief executive of rights societies the PPL and the VPL, is quoted in a Guardian article as saying

"I sincerely hope this government ... will not duck this critical issue by conveniently hiding behind academics and other 'thinkers'"

Oh my! I love that. Pesky thinkers eh?

Thinkers are obviously trouble though. For example someone with an obvious tendency towards thought pointed out that Fran, in his role at the PPL** earned £487,000 last year, over 0.6% of all performance income in the UK. Not bad eh? The FT has a great column about the impact of the proposed extension; breaking the deal and on a related note Suw Charman of ORG has started an e-petition up at the number 10 petition site to request the right to private copy. Worth putting your name to if you want to be able to turn your music CDs into MP3s without breaking the law. I'm interested to see how the petition site goes, and pleased with the number of people signing up to scrap ID cards anyhow.

Oh dear. I've rambled on far too long. Have a look at this superb collection of souvenir photos while I disappear and stop reading articles about things that make me explode.

* As an aside, if they composed the song they retain those rights for life plus 70 years; the 50 years is for recordings.

** a music industry organisation collecting performance royalties in the UK

Labels: disgruntled, neat links, news links, NO2ID, open rights group

I had a couple of late nights last week getting our latest Greenpeace animation finished; it deals with bottom trawling and needs action now as there are currently talks on sustainable fisheries at the United Nations. Greenpeace are calling for a moratorium on bottom trawling (dragging) along with a massive number of scientists.

Quite right too.

The result of my "oh-my-the-deadline-is-close" speed animating* is Blame Canada, a spoof cartoon with a cheap bottom gag, flappy dancing and some mild cursing, bleeped for your convenience.

Good to see this one being covered in the mainstream news**, lets hope lots of people take action. You can embed the animation into your own web site if you'd like to help spread the word (code here).

There are too many wonderful creatures in the sea to risk losing them.

* And the fine illustrations and soundtrack produced by DogHorse and Booglie of course. And the initial script ideas by Greenpeace. As the animator I have to do my bit last so I always feel the deadlines loom most for me but obviously it's a team effort!

** Update: Oooh, it's been shown on MTV LIVE as well. Splendid.

Labels: flash animation, news links

The Open Right Group have just launched a new campaign aimed at preventing the extension of copyright terms on music recordings.

In the UK there is a 50 years period where a sound recording is protected and after that it becomes part of the public domain - part of our common cultural heritage which anyone may use or exploit.

That's not so bad is it? How many other people get paid so long for a single piece of work? Most of us are paid for the time we spend on something, not every time it's used. 50 years seems like a fairly good deal to me, but for the Cliff Richards of this world it's not enough.

Ah yes.

Cliff.

A cynic could suggest that donating his Barbados villa year after year for the Blair's holiday has paid off. Cliff had his first hit in 1958 so in a couple of years its time is up. Unless the law is changed someone could sample it or mash it into something new or, perish the thought, I could take it and make an animation for it.

As well as stopping work entering the public domain the proposed legal changes could mean that over 40 years worth of music currently in the public domain will be returned to the organisations owning the rights.

The release the music website has more information and a petition you can sign or you can always contact your MP to talk to them directly about it.

In the interests of honesty I'll admit I have my own interests here. I like making musical animations and locking the music away restricts what I can do. I'm lucky as I have friends who makes great music and let me play with it, but I have been trawling some public domain archives recently and making use here and there, and I'd rather this wasn't taken away.

That said, I promise that even if this change is rejected and Cliff's songs start becoming public domain over the next few years I won't animate them.

I do have my standards.

Labels: dance, news links, open rights group

I have been thinking about manners, and good taste, and bad taste and where the limits of expression should be. This is, in part, because I've been reading Jane Austen and manners are such a critical part of her world. It is, in part, because I spend time at b3ta and it's flung up numerous issues of good taste in terms of the book they've released and the pulling of an image challenge after Virgin got offended.

Trust me, comparisons between the world of Jane Austen and the world of b3ta are not to be taken lightly.

Some thoughts...
1. I still love Jane Austen, and am apparently more sympathetic towards her heroines now than when I was an angry teen.
2. I'm sorry, b3ta is great but jokes that are sick for the sake of being sick just don't do it for me. It seems rather dull.
3. Surely Virgin can't be that stupid? They've had more publicity as a result of pulling the challenge than they would have got from leaving it up, and they've even given prizes out. I am suspicious.
4. I found it strangely annoying to have a place I post described as one where "design types let off steam and post offensive animations and pictures". Change "offensive" for "funny" and I'm happier. Being funny often leads to being considered offensive in someones eyes, but it's not offensiveness for the sake of it. See 2.
5. There should be no limits to expression. Freedom of speech has to mean freedom to offend. If the thought is there in somebody's head we may as well hear it; better that than it be shoved underground. If I say one person can be silenced I acknowledge than one day it could be me. And I like making noise too much.
6. I can still find things to be offensive twaddle and say that. That's part of the point.
7. The name Jeffrey is, for me, forever associated with Rainbow*.
8. I have had a drop of wine, it's Friday, and life isn't so bad.
9. I'd like everyone reading this to have a good weekend.

I forgot the links as I was writing so have them here.
News about b3ta and Virgin. The Inquirer | The Register | The Guardian | VNUnet
The works of Jane Austen
Someone else with doubts about the bad taste thing

*This isn't a comment on b3ta or Jane Austen. Just something that popped into my head whilst catching up on Jonny's blog this evening.

Labels: blether, dance, news links

I wish I had some exciting story to connect the title, but I'm afraid it's 4 separate things.

1. Fish! Famous fish in fact, discussing the benefits of marine reserves in an animation we made for Greenpeace; it's Pulp Fishin!

2. Post offices! I was interested to see that a 4 million name petition has been handed in to Downing Street in a call to save rural post offices. The vigilant amongst you will be aware I have been involved in a related campaign with the fine Norfolk blogger JonnyB; I am wondering if I should send a DVD with our campaign offering as musical and bunny orientated backup to the petition.

Save our post offices!

As an aside I am pleased to see the BBC article contains a favoured proverb, "fine words butter no parsnips". It's not used enough these days.

3. Despotic Powers. I mentioned this briefly in my last post but, well, it's a big one. Interesting video up at Crooks and Liars on the day habeus corpous died. People should be shouting in the streets about this, but they probably don't want to as they can be locked up without trial at the whim of their president.

4. Russian hands! A recent email exchange led to the team at Russian FHM sending me photos of their hands and faces to make into, well, photos of faces on hands. They sent me a copy of the piece to show me how they used the creatures. While I'm waiting for a translation any suggestions for what they're saying?
Needless to say you can find more Russian handpeople on my site.

Labels: disgruntled, flash animation, news links, post office

Too busy to do anything at the moment, which makes no sense at all.

I get to a point where I have so much to do I don't know where to start, and I skirt round the edges doing lots but achieving nothing. Not good for my state of mind.

Anyhow, I was away and now I'm back. If I'm lucky my brain will catch up with me shortly.

To avoid this being a thoroughly self indulgent post about why I've not posted anything (good grief, I'm at the top of a terribly slippy slope here) have a few links of interest.

Rather depressing news from the states (via Miss Prism).

Outstandingly cheeky news from the UK, where the Government plans to exclude details of celebrities' children from a new national child database. They're confident about its security then? Heh.

A few new photos from my whistlestop tour of London. Not much time for photos as I was there for a work meeting but I managed to catch steely eyed stares given to me by the household cavalry, a pigeon and an enormous number of CCTV cameras. They're getting a bit intrusive aren't they? Unpleasant things.

And now I must away; back when I've stopped going round in circles.

Labels: blether, dance, disgruntled, news links, photos

It's time to share a few links again. First up, the Annoying Stuff
ID card fears as staff hack into Home Office database
Oz 'pseudo-ID card' database racked by identity fraud claims
It's not always good to share
UK biometric passports hacked
IBM researcher slams UK ID card scheme
Arabic T-shirt sparks airport row

The Good Stuff albeit with an annoying cause
Parliament protesters fight ban
Lots of write ups and photos from the protesters online; some good starting points at:-
Rachel from North London - nice summary of the protests
Mark Thomas
Bloggerheads
Interview with Mark Thomas and Brian Coleman in Parliament Square.
Splendid point from Mark Thomas about how Coleman, protesting about the protesters, is the only one there breaking the law as he hadn't got permission from the police.

As an aside I'm thoroughly bemused by his attack on the protestors as people who 'couldn't get enough votes to be an MP'. I had no idea that the only way you could express a political opinion was to be an MP. Silly me, thinking that MPs are there to represent our political opinions.

The 'and finally' headline
ICE arrests 15 aliens in Roswell working for U.S. military contractor

Edit: Blimey. Two posts in one day. That's a rarity, even when they're at either end as these are.

Labels: blether, disgruntled, news links, NO2ID

A couple of weeks back I promised a frisky tortoise so here he is. Rumour has it that later on he did actually manage to mount the lady tortoise the correct way round; he was 100 odd years old so I suppose he's not doing bad really.
Tortoise of Lurve

And whilst I'm here (and as I have another mad week ahead and am unlikely to get much online playtime) I recommend having a wee peek over at indexed, I particularly liked this one.

I'm restraining myself from ranting about this. I saw a couple from the plane being interviewed saying something along the lines of "Rightly or wrongly the atmosphere changed when they got on board".

I think you'll find that's wrongly. Yes. Definitely.

Och well. Enjoy the tortoise of lurve. I hope to reappear before the week ends with the next part of my Baked Beats animation but I might be being overly optimistic.

Labels: blether, neat links, news links, video

... is that sometimes you get to see the most gorgeous sunrises.

Another photo of orange gorgeousness.

In amusing news the MPAA might have tried to scare the wrong person into coughing up a couple of thousand dollars for an alleged download of a film. Most people can't afford to go against organisations like the MPAA and RIAA; but they haven't accused a millionnaire of downloading a film he already owned on DVD before. This could well be one to watch.

In confusing news a photo caption on the front page of a recent copy of Computing really surprised me.

"Suffolk believes thick PCs raise security issues for government"

Blimey! I thought. Not only calling the police a threat to national security, but calling them thick too! To be honest Computing suddenly reached new levels of interest for me until I realised I'd read it wrong.

Different meaning of PC. Different meaning of thick. Bah!

Labels: blether, news links, photos

Greenpeace are protesting the use of illegal timber in the refurbishment of Admiralty Arch. The Government has told Greenpeace that the timber being used in Admiralty Arch is legal and it has the paperwork to prove it. Unfortunately they can't provide it to Greenpeace because their fax machine is broken. Heh.

Good vertigo inducing photo from the activists on their moblog.

In other news I really must finish my ORG related animation soon. Along with the BPI trying to get UK ISPs to cut-off their customers without going through the courts ABC are trying to stop you being able to fast forward through adverts. Really. These organisations are getting far too big for their own boots, we must do something about it.

I suspect it needs more than an animation but you've got to play to your strengths.

Edit: Does anyone else find that as soon as they've hit the Publish button they notice a typo, missing word or other mistake in their post? I swear it happens to me every time. I don't seem to do it on my web site, just on my blog. Why am I so careless here?
*corrects yet another typo*

Labels: blether, dance, news links, open rights group

I realise that this doesn't sound like a great achievement but it happens maybe twice a year and is such a pleasing sight. Ahhhh. Lovely.

Moving swiftly on from my rather pathetic indication of achievement it's time for some links as my bookmark folder needs emptying.

Following my whinge about banks and security the other day I was interested to see that Shell has suspended chip-and-pin payments after more than £1m was siphoned out of customers' accounts. So that's reassuring, particularly as "Shell's chip-and-pin solution is fully accredited and complies with all relevant industry standards."

There's been movement on the Guantanamo Bay issue as well, as the Supreme Court has ruled that "the military tribunals at Guantanamo violated both US military law and the Geneva Conventions." Well, quite. As an aside I rather liked this edit of George Bush singing 'Sunday, Bloody Sunday', if you've not seen it.

In other news, whilst I find non-disabled people parking in disabled spaces inconsiderate beyond belief I thought painting the disabled bay after the person had parked there a trifle unfair.

And finally, every now and then I have a trawl through the messages being sent through my Pants Messengers and I was embarrassed at how much this made me giggle. Shockingly bad joke. On a related note, if the person who keeps trying to link to a pr0n site through my pants squirrel is reading this - it doesn't work. Give it up. They don't parse HTML links, they're not about to start and they're not going to be shown on the random message page. Thank you.

Oh, the cute kitty above is available in desktop wallpaper size if you like.

Labels: blether, desktop wallpaper, disgruntled, flash toy, neat links, news links