I've been listening a lot to
Kiss 100 on-line recently (for reasons too complex to go into here it's about the only radio sation I like that I can get thru the firewall at work). Anyway they've been giving some heavy airplay to the gorgeous
Estelle - a major British talent (in more ways than one) - and I highly recommend a visit to
her site which is done with some funky flash and it has some great sounds to listen too - watch out especially for her current track '
Free', and the last single '
1980'.
PS. Un-intentionally this is my second week in a row with a musical link on a Friday - this might become a mini-theme since I enjoy a good sing-a-long and a dance around the flat to wind down after another long week at work. Although I am kind of lazy and these plans have a habit of not coming through so don't hold your breath.
My cable modem service is provided by
NTL here in the UK. Their product is great, a nice 750K service, but as soon as the service goes wrong the customer service is a nightmare - years on hold, rude phone operators, and very little understanding of what an internet connection is, let alone of any problem you might be having. Don't get me wrong they have great technical staff, it just takes a million phone calls, and lots of patience, to talk to one of them.
Anyway, that's the background, which is why I had to laugh long and hard at this story about the hacking of their phone message service to make it much more appropriate:
"Hello. You are through to NTL customer services. We don't give a f**k about you. We are never here. We just will f**k you about, basically, and we are not going to handle any of your complaints. Just f**k off and leave us alone. Get a life."
On second thoughts perhaps it wasn't a hack, and just a refreshingly honest approach to marketing.
Pre-empting the Christmas season just a little bit, those
nice people, that brought you
Kozo The Hippo, now bring you
The Snowman. A tale of what happens when aliens' first encounter with Earth creatures goes a bit wrong. Is this a close encounter of the forth kind?
Supposedly a parody of
The Crimson Room,
The Pink Room certainly lives up to it's name, but I'm not sure if I'm just being thick, or if part of the parody is that you can't do much in the game, but I didn't get very far with this before I decided I had better things to do with my day. Perhaps some of you
point'n'click freaks out there can shed some light on the matter. Rantings in the
comments as per usual. For reference I got the Furikake and the Key before I quit out.
PS. I don't know if it was intentional, but rumour has it that the next game in the Crimson, Viridian, Blue series is actually The Pink Room, or maybe The Pink Prison. If you have any info on this drop the gossip in the comments as well.
Update: I've actually gotten around to coming back and finshing this one now and my advice is to not bother. It's very unsatisfying as a game, and not very funny as a parody. We'll just have to wait for the Pink Prison to come out.
This one just for
The Infamous Jules, combining, as it does, her love of drinking and her passion for txting. A
new service in the UK lets you locate the nearest pub to you (as featured in the good pub guide - no rubbish) simply by txting 'GOODPUB' to 85130. What could be better? Well, txt 'NEXT' to the same number within 2 hours and you'll find the next nearest pub - it's a moby pub-crawl in the making.
Jules - diaries out, we have to schedule a 'field test' asap.
This list rang so true for me, that for most of them I said to myself "but surely
everyone does that". But on second reading perhaps they are uniquely British, tell me though - packaged sandwiches - surely you get those elsewhere? This one is troubling me - how do you survive without them? Anyway, take a view into the British psyche with: You Know You're From Britain When...
-
You believe that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are all good nights for drinking. Sunday day is also entirely reasonable.
-
You're always a half an hour late to work ... no-one notices or cares.
-
Coming to work with a hangover is entirely accepted and indeed expected at least once a week.
-
You don't think twice about tipping your hairdresser
-
You finish every sentence with 'Cheers' or 'Yeah'.
-
You are on to your 6th umbrella and your second overcoat... this year
-
You've bought a disposable baby BBQ from Tesco.
-
You don't think twice about buying a packaged sandwich.
-
A sunny lunchtime means searching for a patch of grass and stripping off practically down to your underwear
-
You've accepted queuing as a way of life.
-
You believe that every American is a fatass addicted to hamburgers and hot dogs
PS. To all my American friends I know the last one's not true
really.
[Thanks to thomkat].
Final musical link for this Friday night,
La Declaración Del Bizco will make you salsa while you surf (down the South American way). If this is an example of the
Colombian Internet industry I want to see (er...hear) more of it. Beautiful. Now I'm off to dance around my flat...
In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight...well maybe not with this
Hippo's singing to keep him awake. I challenge you: a). To still feel bad after watching this no matter how cr*ppy your week has been. b). Not to sing along (it's impossible). Altogether now: Awhim-away, awhim-away, awhim-away, awhoooooooooooo....oooooo.....
Additional: For more Hippotastic Friday fun raid the archives and see Kozo and his thong song. Altogether now: Thong, thong, thong, thong, thong!
Blue Las-alert, kids! With the money saved in the grocery store on double coupon day Blue Laser could make a machine to make it snow on the beach and destroy beach volley ball forever.
Cheat Commandos will be right back after these messages...
As a
point'n'click addict you've escaped from rooms (of varying colours), a house (or two), now it's back to school with you, to
escape from detention.
Organise your team of errant school kids to escape first the detention room, and then the school without waking the principal, and avoiding the slavering jaws of the caretaker's dog. A nice little point and click game for a Sunday.The whole team thing is a kind of cool feature - only certain members of the team can do certain tasks, and I'm always a sucker for pixel graphics.
Good luck with your escape! Help, blood, sweat, tears, and bragging in the comments as usual [via ajkul].
It was dark, very dark, but then you expect that in a buried coffin, don't you?
Thanks to everyone who has sent me a link to this dark slice of point'n'clickery (there have actually been loads of you), perhaps you can post help for folks like me who still haven't found time to play in the comments. What can I say? I've been busy alright?
