My girlfriend is wonky and I mean that in the nicest way. I don’t mean that one of her arms is bigger than the other, or that her left eye is slightly disproportionate to the right one. I’m referring to the fact that every time I let her borrow my computer she leaves it in the most bizarre of states.
Being quite anal about my computer being straight and nice-looking (like all those pictures I see on Lifehacker), I’ve found myself in a situation where I have OCD-like symptoms about keeping the computer and keyboard straight, with my iPhone kept neatly on charge next to it, and Apple Remote neatly placed on the iMac’s stand (horizontal and perfectly aligned to the edge, of course). That’s not mentioning the software, where I have to keep my Safari window a certain distance from the menu bar and dock at all time, for example.
For some reason, though, my girlfriend has other ideas. I let her borrow my computer for the day and come back finding the keyboard at the weirdest of angles, iPhone cable hanging freely off the edge of the desk, and all my beautifully arranged application windows scattered carelessly over six “Spaces” (virtual desktops) with no regard for their position on the screen; I found my Mail.app window minimized on Space 4 once, positioned halfway off the edge of the screen – it opens by default on Space 2 and can’t be moved unless done so deliberately.
What have I done to deserve this? What did I do in my past life? Did I murder children? Was I the guy who murdered Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand, starting World War One? Was I the person at ITV who commissioned the new series of X Factor *shudder*?
I know I’m not the best boyfriend. I know that checking my iPhone behind your back when I hug you isn’t romantic. I know that reading Gizmodo can wait until you’ve gone home… But I’m a geek! You knew that the moment you took me on! As I’m someone who frequently refers to themselves as a ‘WebMaster‘, how can you not understand that the computer is my domain!? That the internet is my Empire!?
If I turned up at your house and started to move one of the windows, you’d be pretty annoyed, wouldn’t you? And I know full well that I don’t turn up at your house and repaper your walls with a pixellated picture of Hello Kitty that I found on Google Image Search. So why do you do it to my computer!? WHY!? For all us alpha-geeks out there, I send this message to women who make out lives a burden; stop messing up my computer! Gah! It’s time us nerds took back our space from the clutches of the females and ditch the benefits of a relationship for that of a tidy workspace. Together, we can unite!

Finally —after a full-on year—, I’ve released a new short! Hooray! Only a short one, but it’s something, isn’t it? Anyway, if you haven’t seen the big “NEW SHORT” banner on every single page (other than this one), here you go. Enjoy!

After the recent death of Michael Jackson (and the numerous celebrities that decided to follow), I started thinking about internet celebrities; celebrities the news doesn’t care about, but some people do. Normal people aren’t featured in the news every time they die, but internet celebrities aren’t normal people. They’re half celebrities, and only half the world cares about them. But unless they have friends or family that know about what they get up to online, however, none of their fans are going to know they’ve passed away, are they?

For example, what happens if the people close to them don’t know their passwords to their Twitter, Facebook, Youtube or other social networks to alert their followers, friends or subscribers? And what happens if they don’t get the right one. There’s no point uploading a video to Youtube or posting a Tweet saying they’ve passed on if none of their fans know about their account on that site. For example, what if their relatives think they still use Myspace when they moved over to Facebook a year and a half ago? They may alert Myspace, but no-one would know since they all use Facebook now. Even worse, what happens if they don’t even think to tell the internet? What if they don’t even know they go online and have all these fans and so on? The internet may never actually know that one of it’s icons, celebrities or heroes has passed away.

Now I’m no internet celebrity, but I know there are a few people online who would be interested to know that I’ve died. That’s why I’m going to prepare myself by leaving instructions in my will so that the unlucky relative or friend left responsible for filling out my wishes can get it absolutely perfect; I don’t want a single aspect missed out. Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Forums, Blogs. Not a single one left uncovered.

But I want to do something different. With this internet orientated age, I want people to remember me and visit my sites long after I’m gone. In fact, I’ve already decided that I’m going to have my URL put on my Gravestone so people can see it and visit my site. I may even have my email address put on there with an auto-reply set up to tell people how I’m doing. Something along the lines of:

“Thanks for contacting me, but I am dead. Yep. Dead. The ground’s a little chilly, but I’m slowly getting used to it. It’s like a holiday that never ends, I guess. Anyway, all is well. Saw Granny the other day. She’s good. We had a chat about the family. Anyway, talk later… Must get back to decomposing (it’s certainly a welcome change!)”

I think I may also link my coffin with Twitter. People are integrating all sorts with it these days. Toilets, houses, seats, lights, fridges, beer kegs and so on. I think a Twitter-Coffin may be the next logical step. I’d update people with random, disturbing comments about how I’m feeling (such as “Got an itch on my leg but not enough room to reach and scratch it in here” and “A family of woodlice has decided to make home in my kidney. I can feel them wriggling. Ugh.”). My hopefully grieving family can then follow me and see what I’m doing. It would be a right bundle of laughs… except I’d be dead. But point remains.

That’s all a little too boring for me, though. I want the first Social Funeral. Basically, my death would be internet-minded from start to end. If I die on camera, I’d have the video uploaded to Youtube, followed by a “My Last Memories” video, made with footage from the hospital, preferably uploaded with some lovey-dovey iMovie theme that has generic music over the top (like an iPhoto slideshow). This would inevitably then lead to a “My Funeral” video, which would take best bits from the funeral (and after-party) and compress them into a 3 minute highlights video. Best bits from speeches, lots of shots of my sobbing family (from multiple angles to really drive home), a couple of shots of people’s reactions and so on. Not to mention the drunken moments from the after party that those involved will want to forget, but will be treasured for eternity in the inter-cloud somewhere.

There would also be a live Twitter stream, written from my perspective in the coffin. I would make comments like “Oh no. Dan from work is speaking… Never really knew the guy. Quite boring. Why did he wear a yellow tie to my fricken funeral?” and “I hope Gran’s incontinence doesn’t cause problems for her during her speech… It’s happened before!“, rendering me the narrator of my own funeral.

Eventually, these Social Funerals would end up spawning memes along the lines of “ONOES MY FUNERAL IS A MEME” that consists of a ‘motivational poster’ image with a picture of the deceased and a LOLCATZ-style caption simply stating “LOLZ I R DED NOW“, including the person’s name and life-span underneath. I think it could really catch on. That said, I would just be happy if my death was turned into a T-Shirt of some kind. Whether it be my last words or how I died… I’m not sure yet. But that would keep me happy.

Well it happened; The King of Pop is dead… Now he can meet up with Elvis (“King of Rock N Roll”), Henry VIII (“King of England”) and Jesus (“King of the Jews”) for a drink down at the pub in heaven. A kingly pub for kingly kings. They’ll probably chortle about the kingly things they did when they were once alive. The only thing is, when they die, they stop being kings… so I guess they’re all ex-kings now. But regardless, they were once kings so it would still be a rather royal occasion.

Back to the point, though, Michael Jackson is indeed dead. It’s been news for the past few days. Honestly, I was surprised. Not because I’m personally effected by his death, but because I wasn’t expecting it. It’s the same sort of surprise you’d have if Obama, Bill Gates or Britney Spears died. Of course it’s terrible, but these people have always been fictional to an extent, so when something normal happens to them (like dying from a heart attack), you feel sort of strange. It’s as if someone just announced that Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin just died, and everyone is suddenly taking it very seriously.

Despite a large number of people (most of whom seem to be jumping on a bandwagon), I’m indifferent about the news. I always have been indifferent on Michael Jackson. I’m not saddened. I’m not relieved. If anything, it’s just given me a chance to play “Which Colour Is Michael Jackson in the Next Video?”, a family game where participants guess which colour Michael Jackson is in the upcoming video and place bets. It’s entertaining and passes the time. In fact, I can probably see it being made into a “Buzz“-style PlayStation game in the inevitable future, or one of those crappy “Guess the Theme Tune” style DVD games where you’re played an endless onslaught of theme tunes, such as James Bond and Doctor Who, and have to guess them. You mark my words… Coming to a toy store near you this summer.

It all started earlier. I was walking through town (very boring, but hey, listening to music makes it a tad more bearable) when suddenly my music was interrupted by the familiar SMS Chime, which is also used when iTunes finishes ripping  CD or an application finishes installing on my iMac (not that you needed to know that). Anyway, I pulled out my iPhone and looked at the screen, half-expecting it to be a message from my girlfriend telling me about the fun time she’s having away from me (Ok, I jest… I’m just a little bit jealous that she’s away and I’m stuck here in normal, old, ordinary life).

Anyway, I looked at my phone and, to my surprise, it was a message from the NHS. Grrr… Who gave the NHS my number? After the twelve messages they left on my answering machine WHILST I WAS VISITING MY FAMILY, I thought it was about time we took a break. But alas, it was one of those typical “Work, not fun” messages informing me that I had an appointment with a Endopodite- No, wait, that’s the name of the “internal or principal branch of the locomotive appendages of Crustacea” (basically a crab’s leg… See, I am clever really). It was an appointment with something beginning with an E, though. This struck me as odd, because I had not previously booked an appointment with an appendage -let alone the appendage of a crab- and as far as I was aware, my blood test the other month said that I was completely healthy (as far as the things it tested me for went). Then I noticed a cunning, yet predictable plot twist.

The said appointment was an appointment at Derby County Hospital. What!? I don’t live in Derby! So I automatically passed it off as a wrong number… until I was telling someone about my mysterious message via Text and my phone tried to auto-correct “given” to “HIV“… H I V … How often do I use that in a sentence? How often does the phrase “HIV” crop up in conversation?! Honestly! I swear my phone is telling me something. It’s bad enough that I’ve been receiving Viagra emails in it’s Mail client, let alone all this! It seems tha the phone is slowly taking duty upon itself to tell me I’m in need of medical help… possibly to do with my genitalia? I don’t know, but it’s quite scary. I know my phone knows quite a lot about me – possibly more than my own mother (watch the video to get the reference) – but how much does it know? I guess time will tell. Until then, I’m going to go and eat Pickled Eggs. Why? Because they give me wind, which I often find useful. Om nom nom nom… *wind*… nom nom nom…