Author: 6000

Birdhouse In Your Soul

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I know. You’re singing it already, aren’t you?

I’m your only friend,
I’m not your only friend
But I’m a little glowing friend,
But really I’m not actually your friend,
But I am.

Flashback to 1990 and John Flansburgh and John Linnell’s retro 1960’s robot-inspired brand of alternative indie rock. This was the hit from their album Flood which I had – and probably still do have somewhere – on cassette.

More recently, I was amazed to see their name on the credits for the “Hot Dog” theme to The Mickey Mouse Funhouse: a series I used to watch with alarming regularity. But this was their biggest hit – their only hit, really – before they moved into kids’ music and won a Grammy.
But who could blame them for making up wonderful nonsense for children when their stuff for adults contained such wonderful nonsense as:

So the room must listen to me,
Filibuster vigilantly.
My name is blue canary,
One note: spell L-I-T-E.

The whole of Flood was rather experimental – 43 minutes of weirdness over 18 songs – but suddenly, I’m anxious to revisit it.

Earlier than planned

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A bit of a post of ephemera today, which I was going to do this evening, but which I have had to move forward as we are fully expecting to be loadshod later.

All of which brings me neatly to this lovely interactive loadshedding map for Cape Town (link courtesy of @RichardAtUCT), which tells you when you can expect to be in darkness this winter as Eskom once again fails to supply us with the requisite amount of electricity.
Remember, you can also see the full DIY version here – which actually works better if you are wanting to calculate by area, rather than time.
I can’t help but think that integrating the World Cup calendar in there would help as well: for example, I’m going to miss most of the Spain v Chile game this evening, should the switch be flicked.

Talking of the World Cup (“seamless segue” can like to be my middle name), after their defeat to the Ivory Coast in Recife earlier this week, Japanese fans gave the stadium a thorough spring clean. Yes, really.

We’re all fed up with linkbait headlines like the one on that Japan fans story:

Japan Fans Did What No Other Soccer Fans Would After Their World Cup Team Lost

Rather than:

Japanese Fans Clean Stadium After Their Team Lose At World Cup

And now, some enterprising soul (it’s @jakebeckman) has come up with @savedyouaclick, which helpfully and literally saves you a click to find out what the tantalising morsel at the end of the linkbait is:

Just like that.

Finally, never use the Main Road to get anywhere in Cape Town. It might be shorter in distance, but it will certainly be longer in time. I have no decent data or scientific evidence to back this up, but I do have a book to sell.
Well, no, I don’t, but if I did, that might lead me to cut a few corners on the “good science” side of things.

And now, I must disappear, before the electricity does. See you on the other side…

Sad Footballers

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A little short on time (and, if I’m absolutely honest, inclination) today, so here’s a link to something new and promising.

As part of their excellent World Cup coverage (their daily podcasts are the bomb) The Guardian has launched a tumblr entitled SAD FOOTBALLERS. Now, I know what you’re thinking:

What could that possibly contain images of?

Right?

Well, it contains images of the faces of sad footballers who are sad because they are losing/have lost a World Cup game. It’s all started off a bit Iberian Peninsular, for obvious (5pain, Fourtugal) reasons.

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For every winner in Brazil, there will also be a loser. And while we’re watching the former celebrating victory live and in HD, we can, at our leisure, pop onto sadfootballers.tumblr.com and see what the other half were up to. And if it’s just downturned mouths at the moment, wait til we get to the business end of the competition: expect heartbreak.

The World Cup is killing me

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These late nights are killing me. Actually, it’s the early mornings in hellish conjunction with the late nights that are killing me.

2010’s games seemed to be at a much more acceptable hour, almost as if they were designed to be comfortable for our time zone. Weird.

Right now, I’m wondering whether I can afford a couple of extra hours to watch Ghana play the USA.
It sounds like quite an attractive idea at the moment, but that might not be the case at 6am tomorrow.

UPDATE: And why this fuss? Because death by World Cup exhaustion is a thing.

Flood Fun

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Once the near Biblical weather of last night had subsided, I was taken for a ride, literally, by my boy.

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Many of the paths around Tokai Forest were similarly waterlogged, and we spent a couple of hours riding through them and getting thoroughly wet.

It was a good way to spend a Father’s Day afternoon, but the hot shower afterwards was much needed.