meish dot org: life, unfolding

Attention TV commissioning Editors (especially those from BBC3/Channel five/Sky three/ITV3): the summer’s on its way, and before you know it, it’ll be sunny and warm and that means that commissioning new and interesting programming for the autumn season is just going to get in the way of long liquid lunches and hanging around with your sleeves rolled up in Soho Square.

But fear not! I have the answer to your problem, in the form of this handy mix’n'match show title generator.

Using literally minutes of brainpower, combined with a lifetime of passive couch-potato activity, I’ve distilled the essence of winning programming which has proved so successful in the past (if the broadcast schedules are anything to go by), and turned it into a simple formula:

Proper Noun (Possessive) + Superlative + Plural Noun

Simply hit the link below and – hey presto – highly derivative televisual concepts a-go-go! Your show title will appear in the box beneath. Simply copy, paste, find some “edgy” music for the titles, get a voice-over from Ross Kemp and you’re sorted.

 

Try again if you’re not satisfied. Or, maybe try commissioning something good, for a change?

It’s not for letting people know you’ve popped out for lunch, or are in a meeting. No. It’s for reliving David Bowie in frightwig and tights, as evidenced by this little interlude this morning. No conversation required – you don’t need to talk and you can get on with other things quite happily. Just let your status do the talking.

Because it’s all about status.

anna’s new status message – you remind me of the babe
Meg’s new status message – what babe?
anna’s new status message – the babe with the power
Meg’s new status message – what power?
anna’s new status message – the power of voodoo
Meg’s new status message – whodo?
anna’s new status message – you do!
Meg’s new status message – I do what?
anna’s new status message – remind me of the baiib!
Meg’s new status message – what babe?
anna’s new status message – the babe with the power
Meg’s new status message – what power?
anna’s new status message – the power of voodoo!
Meg’s new status message – whoodoo?
anna’s new status message – you do
Meg’s new status message – I do wha?
anna’s new status message – remind me of the babe
Meg’s new status message – WHAT babe? Dammit!
anna’s new status message – the babe with the power – seriously, this could go on all day
Meg’s new status message – But why does a babe need power? I don’t understand. What is it, glow in the dark?
anna’s new status message – not that kind of power
Meg’s new status message – Then what kind of power? Is this some esoteric inner-resilience and moral fortitude thing?
anna’s new status message – No! It is the power of ‘voodoo’!
Meg’s new status message – What is this voo doo you speak of? And whoo doo?
anna’s new status message – voo·doo (vÅ«’dÅ«) pronunciation. A religion practiced chiefly in Caribbean countries, especially Haiti, syncretized from Roman Catholic ritual elements and the animism and magic of slaves from West Africa, in which a supreme God rules a large pantheon of local and tutelary deities. Oh, and You Do.

Hoping we don’t see a Grease revival on Twitter anytime soon.

During the course of the last few months, I’ve dealt with and got to know a lot of people from all over the world. Of these, a handful have outrrrrrageously strong accents.

There’s a woman from Spain who espiks ass eef see ees a nestra een a espagetti westerrrn, an’ ees difficul forr joo can’ theeenk off ahnytheeen else.

There’s a man from Germany who hass ze ixact eckzunt zat a perzon frum charmany vood haff in a bad moovi.

There’s a woman from New Zealand who puppuz huh cunvusayshun wuth thuh sungle vuwul thut charucturizuz thut puhtucyuluh way uf speekung.

There’s another woman, from France, ‘ooze voys ‘as zuh mel-odd-yus kaliteh of ‘er ‘omm cowntri in ever-y leetl wohd.

There’s a man from South Africa whu tillz ivrywan thet huz ecksent esn’t thit strong, rilly, uzzit.

There’s also a woman from Australia with quoite the maost trooli umaaayzing ‘dn udderli faahntaaastic grayt bigg raaond vaawls.

The thing is, I’m convinced they’re all making it up. They don’t really talk like that: they’re putting it on, for comic effect. Their accents are just too perfectly characteristic – I’m sure that actually, they’re from (respectively) Dagenham, Slough, Kettering, Cheltenham, Margate and Ruislip.

It must be true.

Me, though, I’m actually from Azerbaijan, though you’d never guess it to hear me speak. It’s taken me years to get this whole well-spoken English thing down pat. It’s involved years of careful study and observation, and nights of listening to recordings of native speakers – newsreaders, actors, minor royals – and repeating, parrot-fashion, what they say.

Actually, saying that, and seriously for a moment, I’m constantly getting asked (by cab drivers, hairdressers etc) if I’m Australian – even by Australians. I’ve never even been to Australia. I don’t think I sound Australian. Do I?

You can hear a snippet of me speaking here, on an interview about the jailing of an Egyptian blogger which I recorded a few weeks ago for the World Service. Judge for yourself.

. . . is still a git.

However, I’ve been tickled recently by some of the randomly generated names which have been apparently sending me unbeatable offers via email recently:

• Irinushka Cooper
• Microorganism P. Alarmin
• Cosmo McDrew
• Ernesto Memeolite
• Rubdown V. Theorist
• Palliates Altiplano
• Ceremonials O. Foreknowledge
• Pedro O’Shaugnessy
• Deana Fontenonte
• Antigone Triathlon
• Vinnie Debussy
• Crystal Slightly
• Gwendolyn K. Dwarf

Years ago, I had a webcam on this site, which was trained on me during various hours of the day – ah, such heady days of being young(ish), innocent(ish) and not minding sharing your bad hair days with the world.

Anyway, I recently re-discovered a little animation I made with a series of cam images taken while I was on the phone on hold to a call centre somewhere. Thought I’d post it here again.

The crappy resolution was the result (I assume) of trying to compress the file so that it downloaded quickly on 56.6kbps. Of course, these days it’d have been a bloat-tastic youtube clip, and bugger the download experience.

My, how times have changed.

*NB, it’s just possible that I might have been hamming it up for the camera. A bit.

You know, I can think of few things more guaranteed to send people into panic attacks than walking down the street with this thing strapped to you. [bigger]

Having said that, if you’re batty about bats, it might be right up your alley.

Spotted this new Dunk Mug product – apparently one of the hot items (no pun intended) for Christmas this year.

Is it just me, or are there some major flaws in the product design?

For example, it seems to work beautifully for large, round flat biscuits as illustrated, but it’d be rubbish for any biscuit NOT fitting that description. So, digestives, great. But custard creams? Garibaldi? Nice biscuits? Shortbread fingers? Notsomuch.

Also, anything involving chocolate would surely suffer the proximity of hot beverage, wouldn’t it? And the last thing you want is melted Fingers. Plus, no drinking with your left hand, unless you want a lapful of crumbs.

Have I thought about this too much?

As Simon writes about on his Agile In Action blog, the dev team here have now got little magnetic South-Park-esque avatars of each developer which can be used as placeholders on the big planning boards.

And today I, as the product owner, got one, too.

The slightly worrying thing is that it’s uncannily accurate. Don’t you think?

Update: Removed embedded video because it caused the page to slow to a crawl. Sorry!

Lego Brick Kiss-Chase on Vimeo.

Remember the chasing game you used to play as kids, where the girls would run after the boys (or vice versa) and try to kiss them? Well, apparently it’s popular with lego bricks, too.

I simply couldn’t resist asking this barista to model the little reminders stuck to the cashdesk.

In other news, I’m going to be at a Web 2.0 workshop/conference thing all day today, despite having gallons of unspeakableness lodged behind my face.

Oh, did I mention that the Be My Anti Valentine (VD) cards are back? Going well, too – several thousand cards sent this week alone…