Happy Solstice! And Happy Father's Day, too.

The longest day again. This is one of those short years. It's still been light-ish when I've finished work at 2245 the last couple of days; here's a photo I took yesterday:



While I'm in my flickr account, here's something I meant to ask you lot about. We saw this recruitment poster in Pizza Hut the other week:



"Pole Holder Required"? I mean, what? Is this pole dancing for very lazy people? A way to keep immigrant customers inside? What?

The Top Gear shenanigans tonight were highly amusing - I watched the whole thing unfold on Twitterfall and giggled a lot. Lots of people thinking they've RUINED the show, dammit, by revealing who The Stig is.

I think I need to watch all of Angel again. Someone asked me for my top five Angel eps today (well, he asked for my top Buffy and top Angel eps, but CLEARLY giving just one is impossible) and I couldn't really separate the episodes in my head, or remember what they were called. Apart from Smile Time. (Top four Buffy eps, in no particular order: Once More With Feeling, Passion, Hush, Band Candy. About half a dozen more vying for the fifth place.)

Shit. Andy Hallett, best known as Lorne ("The Host") in Angel, has died at age 33 from heart disease. I never realised he was that young, actually, it's hard to tell under the make-up.

Here's his introduction in Angel, at the start of the second series:

I have nothing to say except more whining about ears, so have some links instead, so I can shut down some tabs.

• This Much I Know - Steven Pinker in the Guardian. "You wouldn't believe the kind of hate mail I get about my work on irregular verbs."
  
• Article and very long but interesting discussion on Comment Is Free about that registrar whose homophobia has been upheld by the courts
  
• Diana Wynne Jones interview at Publishers' Weekly about House of Many Ways
  
• XKCD does its version of that Discovery Channel advert. Someone made an icon of this, I must find it again.
  
• Neil Gaiman interviews Pterry about 25 years of Discworld
  
• PVP introduces the LolBat!
  
• The internet has a long memory. Metallica mention plans to start using the internet, make DRM-free tracks available and so on. The internet laughs, points and insults.
  
• Inflation's at 3.8%, RPI's at 4.6%, and I'm being offered a 2.5% payrise. Sigh.
  
• Viacom only gets anonymized data from Google about YouTube viewing habits. Hurray.
  
• Companions At The Chalet School - Doctor Who/ Chalet School crossover fic with Barbara, Jo and Sarah Jane. *flailysquee*
  
• The Kangaroo Communique, short story by Haruki Murakami
  
• Kids who use text speak are more literate than those who don't. Ha. Long-ish article by David Crystal on why the hysteria about txt-spk was misplaced.
  
• Why people look fatter on camera. It's to do with monocular vs binocular vision.
  
• Writing Dialogue - why Realism Is Fake.
  
• The Doctor Who Prom is on again. Sunday 27 July at 11.30am, unhelpfully, but you can Listen Again on Radio 3 for up to a week. Last year they televised it too, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did this year.
  
• Joss has written a three-part musical singalong series for the internet. With Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion. First part out now, but the site has crashed. Heh. You can get it from iTunes, or the site should be up again in a few hours, apparently.
  
• Rhys and PC Andy from Torchwood singing at a convention. Heeeee.

Phew.

Edited to change icon - thanks to sovietkiki!

So, new Joss Whedon show with Eliza Dushku. I would get excited, but it's on Fox. They've ordered 7 episodes, so I expect that's all we'll get, and the writer's strike won't help. Whedon fans are ever-realistic, though, so we already have a Save Dollhouse campaign and petition. HA.

I see Prince is being an arse, and has got the lawyers on to his fan sites telling them to take down pictures, lyrics, videos, anything else that's remotely copyright protected. I suppose it's just as well that Prince fans tend to be quite rabid anyway and probably won't stop buying his stuff.

Via matgb, the "Liquorice Allsorts are SRS BZNS" saga is now all together in one place at allsortssrsbzns, and made me giggle a lot. When I was at school, one of my friends wrote to Matlow Swizzel and complained that her 2p Drumstick lolly was all white and no pink flavour, and they sent her back a whole huge box of Swizzel sweeties. Matlow Swizzel > Cadbury Bassett, clearly.

Rolling Stone has an Almost Impossible Rock'N'Roll quiz, which I did remarkably well in - I got 31 points, which makes me a Whiz, apparently - although a lot of the answers I got right were due to knowing how multiple choice questions work.

And I did a "Do You Have An Inclination for BDSM" quiz, which is better than it sounds, really. ( Results, not really NSFW or TMI, I don't think, but feel free to skip )

Season 2 of Heroes is really kicking in now. I'm hoping they've got the first story arc completely written so that the writer's strike won't affect it - fingers crossed! Monday's episode was great again. Loads of cracky theories to discuss with people.

I'm in a good mood today. My Stephen Fry alarm clock woke me up, hee. And there are funny things on teh internet.

You've probably all seen the 30-second Bunny Theatre versions of films, but still, HA! Especially the Rocky Horror one. And click on the bunny at the end for more giggleworthiness.

It's Blog About the Global Zombie Uprising day. You know, blog like your city is being taken over by zombies. I may participate later.

Scottish Firefly fans! Serenity is being shown at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh on Saturday 23rd June at 10.30 am for Can't Stop The Serenity, a global charity event for Equality Now. There'll be dressing up and merchandise, and Browncoats, and Serenity on the big screen again! I really want to go, but I'm working. Wondering if I should try and take the day off. Anyone else going/ want to go?

It is a global event, so other people should check out the Can't Stop The Serenity website. Britain - it's on in Oxford and Dublin this Saturday, at Glastonbury Festival on Sunday (and how cool would that be?!), and London on the 23rd.

I love Who fandom, because there are loads of The Angels Have The Phone Box t-shirts available already. The one in my icon is also available, but I can't find it now. Anyone got the link handy? Otherwise it's in my browser history at home, I'm sure.

Also, sovietkiki, I can't find the "I'm comfortable with morally gray" t-shirt no matter what I search for. Have you still got the link anywhere handy?

I think my brain is broken.

Just popped into milliways_bar for the first time in ages, to find it in the grip of a leftover piece of magic from Once More With Feeling, with Gil Grissom singing I'm Too Sexy to his husband, Jack in the Green. AKA the Green Man, the Celtic god.

*wibbles*

The best April Fool's Day things I've seen so far are this from the BMJ, this from I Want One Of Those (and boy do I want one), and this Doctor Who story from an unexpected source.

And an honourable mention to this story about dragons - no geek would be fooled for a nanosecond, but it IS The Economist, so kudos to them.

This icon - isn't it shiny? - comes via ff_icons. There are sets here and here. Best Icons Ever - I've saved about a dozen.

Bored of being ill, and getting grumpy. Argh...