Recently the Stella Awards announced the 2004 winners. The Stella Awards are given to frivolous and ridiculous lawsuits and are inspired by Stella Liebeck who successfully sued McDonald's for $2.9 million after spilling a cup of their coffee over herself in 1992 whilst a passenger in her grandson's car...


5th Place (Tied)
Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury of
her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running
inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably
surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving toddler was Ms.
Robertson's son.

5th Place (Tied)
19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses
when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman
apparently did not notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when
he was trying to steal the hubcaps.

5th Place (Tied)
Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had
just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the
garage door to go up since the automatic door opener was malfunctioning.
He could not re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and
garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation and Mr.
Dickson found himself locked in the garage for 8 days. He subsisted on a
case of Pepsi he found and a large bag of dry dog food. He sued the
homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental
anguish. The Jury agreed to the tune of $500,000.

4th Place
Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded $14,500 and medical
expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's
Beagle dog. The Beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced yard. The
award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog might have been a
little provoked at the time as Mr. Williams, who had climbed over the
fence into the yard, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.

3rd Place
A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster,
Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on a soft drink and broke her
coccyx(tailbone). The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson had
thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier, during an argument.

2nd Place
Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a Night Club in a
neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and
knocked out two of her front teeth. This occurred whilst Ms. Walton was
trying to sneak in the window of the Ladies Room to avoid paying the
$3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses

1st Place
This year's runaway winner was Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma. Mr. Grazinski purchased a brand new Winnebago Motor home.
On his trip home from an OU football game, having driven onto the freeway, he
set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the driver's seat to go
into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly the RV
left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for
not advising him in the owner's manual that he could not actually do this.
The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new Winnebago Motor home. The
company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit just in
case there were any other complete morons buying their recreational
vehicles.


However for one reason or another, the list you have just spent minutes of your life reading is a complete fake; probably because it is much more interesting than the real thing. Which is why I printed it.

Clicky click here for the genuine, and more boring, awards.

Today is Free Mojtaba and Arash Day - two bloggers imprisoned in Iran who ran blogs.

Committee to Protect Bloggers

Bloggers Without Borders

Bloggers Bill Of Rights

This is what I love about the internet. In a recent post I remarked on a spam email I received hailing a character called Gouranga. So I decided to do some research. And of course within minutes I discovered the inevitable: somebody else had already done the research for me.

Now being a thorough sort I would never trust the research of someone else and present it as fact until I have properly verified all the necessary. However I am also extremely lazy and need only to achieve standards that I set for myself.

The marvelous Urban Dictionary's results can be witnessed thusly. The most popular being Rob's explanation:

A word that appears on motorway bridges in north west UK. It's only purpose to annoy drivers who are left with a nagging curiosity for the rest of their day until the next day when it ceases to become important ever again.

The word, it is revealed, perhaps originated from Hare Krishna and instructs one to be happy and travel in peace. It can be now seen somewhere within the marvelously enjoyable Grand Theft Auto games (where in its most recent incarnation you may decide to gamble some of your money on a horse called Gentleman's Relish).

However forget all this. Let Joe from Germany sort it out once and for all. Good man that.

Never give out your password or credit card number in an instant message conversation.

Prophet says:
evening

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
alright

Prophet says:
hows things

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
not bad: at workl doing some online courses.

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
what you up to then?

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
surfing the net?

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
can you write my next blog entry?

Prophet says:
that would be creative right ? .. sorry i only do technical ..

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
got any word documents I can publish?

Prophet says:
i can install linux on you laptop if you like ?

Prophet says:
LOL

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
I don't have a laptop. But thanks.

Prophet says:
writers block huh ?

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
uh-huh

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
ooh, online courses for Cool Edit.

Prophet says:
i'm building a PVR !

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
and that is?

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Personal

Prophet says:
a personal video recorder

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Videeo

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Recorder?

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
see?

Prophet says:
clever

Prophet says:
you stuff a tv card into your pc and it records all your favourite programs whenever there on

Prophet says:
you dont even need to know when there on, just what the program is called

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
not bad.

Prophet says:
oh, it gets better

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
If you ever came into the building I'm sitting in now you'd probably come in your pants.

Prophet says:
it will also play your mp3s ... show your photos .. and play every arcade game ever written from pong to outrun

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
that'll be a computer then.

Prophet says:
that will be a home media centre

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Clever things those. very useful.

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
I've got a computer.

Prophet says:
a set top computer

Prophet says:
LOL

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
How does this differ from a computer then?

Prophet says:
yeah ? .. how many operating systems are you running ?

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
No cooling fan?

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
I'm at work. Fuck knows.

Prophet says:
the computer is that big white noisey thing on your desk .. this is a sexy little black (or brushed aluminium) box that sits under your tv .. makes no noise .. and records all your favourite programs while your out .. then when you do have time to watch tv .. there's always gonna be something on for you to watch ..

Prophet says:
plus you can pause live tv .. rewind the action .. skip the adverts ...

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
I know the garb. But.... pause live TV. I feel a misnomer hitting me repeatedly round the head.

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
This is technology used in the braodcast industry for years now making it into peoples homes...

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Once I do the BBCs technology vision course I'll be an expert at this shit.

Prophet says:
yeah ... once upon a time there was a little company called tivo .. they had a really great little product .. 5 years ahead of its time ...

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Well, I'll have heard about it.

Prophet says:
but then then sky bought it up and canned its ass cause they felt it threatend their interests

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
aye, but they stand most to gain from it.

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
and its arse, not ass.

Prophet says:
5 years on and every home in america has one and every home in england is still using vhs !

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Not me baby, I watch all my programmes off the transmission server three days BEFORE it goes to air!

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Now that's technology!

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
I'll stick to my PS2 for my home entertainment.

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Where's my blog entry then?

Prophet says:
if you have and xbox you can turn that into a pvr !

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
yeah but no decent titles to play on it

Prophet says:
blog ... it would only be me raving on about big companys shit canning good ideas ...

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
go on then...

Prophet says:
... microsoft fucking the world over ...

Prophet says:
.. why america is so much better than england ...

Prophet says:
... why its ass and not arse ...

Prophet says:
Can I not just cut and paste this conversation?

Prophet says:
probably

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Marvelous. Two inernet related activities for the time of one.

Prophet says:
so anyways ..

Prophet says:
the most usefull thing you can do with a PC is put the HD's into caddies

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Go on...

Prophet says:
setting aside the fact that they last 10 times longer cause the live in little air cooled boxes ..

Prophet says:
BTW ..

Prophet says:
if you ever want to see a modded PC ...

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
How interesting...

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
yes?

Prophet says:
i currently have my power supply hanging out the back of the box .. and a aluminium vent porting the CPU heat exhaust via a vortex cooler straight out of the back , where the PSU used to be

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
Fascinating.

Prophet says:
thus the inside of the box is cool and all the heat goes straight out the back

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
LIke all that hot air coming out of your ARSE yes?

Prophet says:
the nvidia FX 5900 is super cooled with heatpipe supersincs .. the HD's as i said are independantly cooled with there own internal fans in the caddies ..

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
I'd love to stay and chat.

Prophet says:
AND I'M HAVING TO SHOUT OVER THE NOISE OF ALL THE BLOODY FANS I'VE GOT IN THIS THING ...

Obi Wan Yacobi says:
But I've got to go and eat my own flesh.

Prophet says:
sorry

Prophet says:
eat ...

Prophet says:
i new there was something i keep forgetting to do this week

Prize for the greatest SPAM email I have received recently goes to Neateye.

No attachments, just this short message:

Call out Gouranga be happy!!!
Gouranga Gouranga Gouranga ....
That which brings the highest happiness!!

Of course the sender (whose email I am wisely holding from you) could be someone I know with an odd new Gouranga themed email address.

Who knows, or indeed dares, to dream...


I turned to email Junkbox after deciding to turn away from yet another chart orientated television title starting "The 50 Greatest..."

Who votes for these things? Of course everyone knows that the general public is very stupid indeed and when acting en mass is the very embodiment of hell on earth. This weekend saw a run down of the greatest music videos of all time, which wasn't really as it was voted for by the public. And hence a not terrible but far far far from special Robbie Williams offering (something about rocking DJs) made number four.

This wouldn't be so bad if the pundits that are wheeled out to provide commentary weren't so simperingly positive. Presumably not wanting to undermine their own show and/or discourage people associated with the clips to refuse to appear the producers of this programme asked their guests or editors to make sure each video was "bigged up" (as they might have undoubtedly said). Much better television would have been provided had we been able to see an interview with someone saying it how it really was.

"This video is an average piece of work that gained notoriety because parts of it were banned - although nothing about it could be said to be outrageous or cutting edge and no boundaries whatsoever were pushed back. This piece of shit shouldn't even have been mentioned here."

I'd liked to have seen a few more Michel Gondry efforts. He is the director who recently crossed into the feature film world with the excellent Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Some of his videos include the choreographed masterpiece of Daft Punk's Around The World, the White Stripes Fell In Love With The Girl the beautiful one take genius of Massive Attack's Protection and a wonderful palindromic spilt screen video with a Japanese band called Cibo Matto with their track Sugar Water. These are genuinely amazing videos and huge technical achievements.

Robbie Williams taking his clothes off is not my idea of music video nirvana.

But I shouldn't care - it is just another chart rundown I don't take any notice of.

After change happens it can be quite difficult to maintain previous habits. And so it is with this blog. New job, new abode, and I'm finding it difficult to find time to write entries for this page. Plus I have to admit there has been something of a mental block recently.

Now I know that no-one's interested in a daily account of my life. "Today the tube journey took ten minutes longer as there was a passenger alarm set off on the train in front of us." Snore.

Actually that wouldn't be true as today I was chauffeured into work in the back of a Mercedes. Very nice I know, oh yes. But anyway it's not a very interesting thing to read, and so I'm forever attempting to create new and novel new pieces - mixed of course with pointless philosophising like this.

And so the entries can become a little short.