neuro.me.uk

The first rule of Lunch Club is you do not talk about Lunch Club

The second rule of Lunch Club is you do not talk about Lunch Club

Third rule: If someone says “nachos!”, orders a garlic bread, or eats with their fingers, the lunch is over

Fourth rule: Only one plate to a person

Fifth rule: One course at a time

Sixth rule: No napkins, no salad forks

Seventh rule: Lunches will go on as long as they have to

And the eighth and final rule: If this your first day at Lunch Club, you have to munch

There are things in life that suck. This list is not of things that suck, it’s of things that are awesome.

• My job; pursuant thereof, San Francisco, and regular trips thereto (next one in December); additionally, the stupidly weak US dollar
• Apple Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard”
• Beechams Flu Plus caplets
• The Crystal Method
• Ubuntu Linux 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon”
• “How I Met Your Mother” (and slapcountdown.com)
• 16Mbps Sky Broadband
• Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Freebird, Freeeebiiiiiiird!)
• 12.x firmware for the Nokia N95
• Tesco vouchers
• Being able to play music fucking loud (cf watching movies similarly); by extension, Maplin’s 3m 3.5mm to Twin Phono jack lead, my Macbook Pro, iTunes and the + button on my Sony HT-DDW880’s remote control
• British Airways
• Starbucks Vanilla Latte
• Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (aka エースコンバット6 解放への戦火)
• Cheerios in ice cold milk
• Die Hard
• Four episodes of Star Trek: Voyager every weekday
• Barq’s Famous Old Tyme Root Beer
• A comfy chair

Awesome.

Well, looks like one of ThinkGeek’s excellent 2003 April Fools — the George Foreman USB iGrill — is still wreaking havoc amongst the gadget blogging community. Not only did Wired’s Gear Factor (cached copy) pick up this from mobilemag.com (cached copy) as though new — Wired, newsflash, it’s over three years old — before deleting the article — Wired, breaking news, Google remembers all — but numerous other gadget sites carried the same thing as though real, including Gadgetspy (cached copy). Someone even tried to digg the story.

Bwahahaha.

Coke Zero is here, and those who know me know I love anything Coca-Cola related. So a few weeks ago, just after it launched here in the UK, I bought a 500ml bottle of Coke Zero to try, along with a bottle of regular Coke, and left them both overnight in the fridge to chill — as you should all do with Coca-Cola.

The next day I tried the Coke Zero … and was bewildered to find it tasted — at least to me — exactly like Diet Coke. Which I hate. With a passion. And this was meant to be Coke, without the sugar, except it tasted like Diet Coke with slightly less gallidium arsenide. And that’s when it dawned on me that there must be some greater purpose to this drink. It couldn’t simply be a new drink to sit alongside Diet Coke if it tasted the same, so what could it be?

Of course, I hadn’t seen any of the new TV ads, nor had I seen press mentions of the drink, clearly showing Coca-Cola are targeting blokes my age with the drink. So what can this mean?

I think I’ve got it. It’s not just a brand to target a diet cola drink at 18-35 year old blokes, it’s a brand to target Diet Coke specifically at 18-35 year old blokes. They’ve realised that, for better or worse, Diet Coke is a girl’s drink. What man in his right mind would order a Bacardi and Diet Coke, for example? It’s interesting to note that Coca-Cola have also launched Coke Zero into the “licensed channel”, which means it can be served in pubs and clubs. “Yeah, a Bacardi and Coke Zero, mate, cheers”: could this be the new cry of diet-enlightened men across the UK?

God help us all.

Pending an evening of the Indiana Jones trilogy and a shitload of drinks with mrben this weekend, I humbly plagiarise and present:

To Prepare

You’ll need the following:

• The Indiana Jones trilogy, preferably on DVD:
  1. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1980)
  2. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
  3. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
• DVD player and big-ass teevee or projector
• Bunch of friends who aren’t surly drunks
• A shitload of alcoholic drinks; beers and wines are preferable to spirits when playing for the whole trilogy, but shots are more fun than sips!
• Around six to eight hours to watch the whole trilogy with munchie/loo breaks inbetween the movies, and a quiet day afterwards to get rid of the mandatory sair heed.

Optional items include fedoras, whips, revolvers, bandages, Nazi scientists and John Williams conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

To Play

Simple: watch Raiders of the Lost Ark, then Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and finally Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Everyone participating must take a drink of their beverage every time one of the Drinking Cues listed below occurs as part of the movie. Feel free to improvise new Cues as the movies progress; if the group agrees on it, take a drink!

For a shorter game with less involuntary regurgitation of your drink(s), just watch one movie — Raiders is the recommendation here. You may also wish to keep someone sober to manage the game, watch for Cues and make sure contestants drink when they’re supposed to; they aren’t eligible to win, but they can join in with soft drinks if they like. Designated drivers are good for this purpose.

As always when drinking: be smart, have some food while drinking to help bulk out the booze, stop when you’re drunk, and do not drive or operate heavy machinery during or after play! Drink plenty of fluids before and after drinking to prevent dehydration and thus a nasty hangover.

To Win

The last person capable of controlling the DVD player by the end of The Last Crusade is the winner.

To Drink

Common Drinking Cues

Take one drink when:

• someone on screen takes a drink
• you hear the Raiders March (the Indiana Jones theme tune)
  • take two drinks if you hear it long enough for it to move up a key; the opening and closing credits don’t count
• a Nazi is killed
  • everyone must also raise a toast and shout “Dead Nazi!”
• someone is knocked off a moving vehicle or horse
  • take two drinks if they’re run over by the same vehicle
• someone jumps onto a moving vehicle or horse
• Indy punches someone
  • take two drinks if he doesn’t knock them out
  • take three drinks if he gets hit right back and falls over
• a bad guy gets impaled, crushed, burned or chopped up
• Indy almost gets impaled, crushed, burned or chopped up
• a bad guy gets shot in the forehead
• Indy gets shot at
  • take two drinks if he actually gets shot
• someone shoots a gun from a plane that’s either on the ground or in flight
• a vehicle crashes
  • take two drinks when the good guys survive
• Indy loses his hat
  • take two drinks when he gets it back
• Indy climbs back from a precipice
• Indy figures out an otherwise hidden passage or escape route
• Indy disguises himself in clothing that’s not his, such as a uniform
  • take two drinks if it’s not a Nazi uniform
• the first time you hear a new accent
• you hear a Wilhelm
• someone speaks in a foreign language without subtitles appearing
• a woman has an argument or yells at Indy
  • take two drinks if they kiss afterwards
• someone says “Heil Hitler”
  • take two drinks if they’re not a Nazi soldier or officer
• something is on fire
  • take two drinks if it’s a torch
• you see a skeleton
  • take two drinks if it’s just a skull
• the first time you see a bad guy wearing round glasses
  • take two drinks if it’s a good guy
• adolescent girls swoon over Indy
• Indy talks about real archaeology
• a wizened old man fills Indy in on some back story or other expositional information
• a religious artifact is on screen; this includes the Sankara Stones
• a sidekick wears a New York Yankees baseball cap
• an actor from another George Lucas production makes an appearance; Harrison Ford doesn’t count
• Pat Roach appears

Take two drinks when:

• you see a red line map travelling montage sequence
• Indy says a swear word
• a good guy turns out to be a bad guy
• a truck is hidden in a market
• someone says Indy’s full name

Raiders of the Lost Ark Drinking Cues

Take one drink when:

• a Nazi swears or mutters angrily under his breath
• the monkey make an amusing noise
• the Nazi’s take possession of the Lost Ark of the Covenant
• Indy knocks over a basket
• Marion squeals “Iiiiiiiiiindyyyyyyyyy”

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Drinking Cues

Take one drink when:

• something grosses Willie out
• something that Willie does makes Short Round laugh
• you hear Hindi chanting
• the Sankara Stones glow

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Drinking Cues

Take one drink when:

• Marcus gets confused
• Henry calls Indy “Junior”
  • take two drinks if he calls Indy “Indiana”
• Henry messes something up
• someone consults Henry’s Grail Diary
  • take two drinks if someone writes in it

From CNN Money: Hardee’s rolls out its new “Monster Thickburger,” which contains two 1/3-pound slabs of Angus beef, four strips of bacon, three slices of cheese and mayonnaise on a buttered sesame seed bun.

Holy Fattening Obesotron, Batman! This sucker gives you 107g of fat (46g of which saturated), 230mg of cholesterol and 2,650mg of salt, all of which are either sizable portions of or are massively over the US FDA’s recommended daily intakes. Americans: can’t live with ‘em, but can let ‘em wipe themselves out through massive intakes of sheer fat.

That aside, why do I suddenly feel an urge to find out how to get one of these in the UK?

As I tend to be doing most weekends, I watched a few movies with some mates on Saturday night. Super Size Me (which UK trailers seemed to be announcing as “I, the Super Sized One”, as opposed to the actual title which says “Yes, please make my order Super Sized”) didn’t impress that much. I expected to be left thinking that burgers were bad, but all I could think of was nipping out to BK and getting a BK Bacon Double XL meal.

Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl deeply unimpressed me, which is a shame as I was looking forward to it. There didn’t seem to be anything new to say in the movie, and for a Kevin Smith movie where dialogue is king and it’s all about things to say, I was disappointed.

Stand out of the weekend tho’ was Lilo and Stich which we managed to catch on Sunday night on the Disney Channel — it was the first time I’ve actually watched Disney in months, and we only noticed that the movie was on while surfing the EPG. The movie is outstanding, mainly because of Stich, the psychopathic yet lovably cute experimental war machine who wanders about blowing stuff up while making wee grozbeast type screechy noises — think Stripe from Gremlins but with an extra pair of arms, bigger mouth and more firepower. Oh, and he’s blue and can play the guitar. Told you it was cool

Not content with attempting to homogenise the planet, the almighty Masterfoods, Inc., aka Mars in the UK, have released a new variant of their Snickers bar. In the UK, we have two – the Snickers, which used to be the Marathon of yore, and Snickers Crunch, a more recent arrival. In the US, the Snickers Crunch is the Snickers Cruncher, and there’s an Almond variant too.

Now also available in the US are two flavours of Snickers Marathon, a new energy bar. “Hang on, Snickers Marathon?” I can hear you cry … well, perhaps not cry out as such, but mutter to yourself as to why Mars got rid of our beloved munchie brands throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Marathon became Snickers, Opal Fruits became Starbursts. They weren’t the only ones to blame: Rowntree’s Mintolas became Nestlé’s Mint Munchies, Jif became Cif, Oil of Ulay became Oil of Olay, Immac became Veet (eh?) … oh and Mars fecked with the Mars bar to make it more like a Milky Way, which itself was changed to become more like the American version — less like our own.

So — the point — Masterfoods are bizarrely reviving a brand in the US that they put to death 14 years ago in the UK. Why? I dunno, I only eat em

[via mini me(ish)]

update 2004-01-11: Oops, forgot about the Visible Mars Project … tsk!

Dunno how, but the Vaio’s battery is down to 17% — I don’t remember it being this low earlier I’m up on the top mezzanine floor in Top Crust, just chowed down on some Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes (breakfast of champions), am still munching on a chicken and stuffing sandwich, and I have some weird yellow pastry/cake thing to eat later. My flight still doesn’t leave for another two and a half hours, my check-in desk doesn’t exist yet, so I’m back to killing time instead of just being unconscious.

This is now officially the Longest Period of Time I’ve Spent in an Airport: we got here at about half past five last night, and I’m now into Hour 14 of 16, soundly trouncing the six or seven hours Ade and I spent in Schiphol three years ago.

One thing I’ve observed while travelling to, and being in Ireland, is the much higher ratio of attractive women to us men. I think it goes something like this …

Incidentally, the yellow cake thing is sort of lemon flavoured.

The Vaio is now complaining about having less than 10% battery left — I think the earlier drain was me plugging in the WiFi card and running Net Stumbler for like 2 minutes at about 1am. I didn’t pick anything up, but I haven’t heard anything about nodes here in the airport — maybe this is something we’ll see soon

5% now, and that’s only after a couple of minutes … time to go!

A fantastic meal made all the more amusing by little faux pas here and there – well, only one to be honest. In the supermarket yesterday, Sabrina asked for help finding her ‘pie crust’ for the pumpkin pie dessert (although all she asked for was ‘pie crust’ without the pumpkin pie caveat). Now, in Scotland, this specifically means “puff pastry” for steak/mince pie, where the meat is served onto the plate, smothered with gravy, has a bit of cooked puff pastry put on top, and is then again smothered with gravy. All I can say is that it tasted interesting with the pumpkin pie, but in a good way

Got back from Joe’s a wee while ago – ended sitting up watching the 100 Sexiest Moments thing on C4. Tosh. But lots of breasts. Rock.