BBC tells Microsoft to “get to fuck” (I’m paraphrasing here).

So, I don’t watch much TV amymore, pretty much because 99% of it is mindless celebrity-worshipping, house-improving, public-ridiculing pointless drivel.

New! Britains Ugliest Dumb Child! Phone in and vote for your favorite!

Every time you turn the damn thing on it is some pointless, no-brain-required phone-in votey type bullshit that has absolutely no value whatsoever, and is annoyingly followed by 80% of the brain-dead population who probably couldn’t even spell “anathema”.

However, what I do like to do is watch those programmes that I enjoy on BBC’s iPlayer. I refuse to use the other players from the other channels. ITV’s is a pile of utter wank that seems to only have soaps and celebrity phone-in nonsense (Britan’s Hardest Street Gangs vs. Chopper Coppers Buying Houses To Do Up, On Ice!! Phone in and vote for your favorite!) and pretty much  nothing that may have been on in the last few days (kind of missing the point of a ‘catch-up’ service there, ITV). Channel 4’s 4OD service does have a few good programmes but the service and player itself is so janky and broken that I refuse to use it (oh dear, lost your stream half way through after waiting five minutes for the damn player to load up on your third attempt watching Time Team? Tough shit, sit through all the damn adverts at the start again, please. And wait whilst the player spools for a minute after you drag the slidey thing across).

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Yup, we’re still all pretty much screwed. Maybe.

So…remember in previous articles how we have discussed various ways in which civilisation could be wiped out with very little warning? Global cooling, tidal waves, impacts, supervolcanoes?

These, I am afraid, are mere irritants. Nothing major. How about an event that would guarantee 100% extinction, with no notice whatsoever until it actually happened? How about something that may have already taken place? Worried?

Meet WR 104. More after the jump.

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1/2 million US pager messages from 9/11 posted online

Leaks website wikileaks has posted over half a million pager text messages online, all from US communications networks and all sent between 3am, September 11 and 3am September 12, 2001.

Wikileaks has not revealed the source of the intercepts, but claims that the context in which the data was sent to them a few weeks ago along with other information confirms their validity.

The messages were broadcast “live” online on the wikileaks site and also Twitter between 25th and 26th November, with each message posted at the same time it was originally sent. More details after the jump.

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New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

So this week’s strip is up. Been a little while, but I had…um…other commitments. Like, you know, hunting Skags and chasing Rojas through the favela. But what the hey.

Take a big bite out of this weeks strip, right here.

Science, Carl Sagan and dancing weasels, oh my!

It is irrefutable that science is awesome. Also not in question is the awesomeness of Carl Sagan.

But Carl Sagan set to music and auto-tuned? Fucking awesome.

Facebook readers, as always,  click here to see the videos.

The songs were created by The Symphony Of Science 

And to round off this little collection of awesome, something silly:

(and yes, I know, but “weasels” worked better in the title…)

 

wtf?

omg, wtf? lolcat

So, with the current slew of Xbox Live users finding that their consoles are banned into oblivion from Xbox Live because they are modded and for playing pirated games (which requires modding of your console) over the last few weeks, I have found a new venue that provides vast amusement at the expense of the incredulously stupid.

If you find yourself in need of a good mixed dose of chuckles and schadenfreude, you could do no better than head to the xbox.com suspensions forum. This is the only place that you can try to get answers when you find your console has been banned from Live, or your account suspended, for any infraction of the ToS, CoC and EULA.  And it can get fucking hilarious.

Although lately the official responses from Stepto, Bootblack et al have become merely stock, form posts (probably due to workload) some of the older threads are fantastic. Nothing beats the posts where a righteous soccer-mom posts up to express her disgust that her 10-year old little angel of light (who is a good boy, attends Sunday School, and blushes when people say rude words) has been suspended totally without justification – only to be told with no hint of delicacy or subtlety that their “little angel” had the motto ”YO YO I K1LL B1AACHES F**CK YOU!! SCR3W B111ATCHES IN THE 4SS!!!” in his profile. Strangely, the previously up-in-arms parent never replies, but the sound of a headslap can be heard for miles.

And then you get some classics:

Why man get init, man didnt mod his console I got it from boi still blad. Man wanted to buy modern warefare 2 but now blad need to save up to get a new console init.
Whagwarn doe wid dis when am I unbanned init.

Holla back
safe blud
[gamertag redacted]

I give up.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online

Remembrance Day, Poppy, dogsounds, Martin & Wolf, furry, webcomic, web comic

Doctor Who: Dreamland first clip! Oh dear…

So we have the first clip of the new animated Dr. Who mini-mini series, Dreamland.

I was intrigued by this, but now, after seeing this shoddy, shoddy piece of crap, all I can think is “What, people get paid for animation this bad?”

Turn the lights off, lock the door, and go home. Nothing to see here.

(facebook readers click here to see the fucking awful video. If you must).

And, what is it with CGI animators and designers NOT BEING ABLE TO DO LAPELS, ever? Christ.

No new Avoid Spikes this week

sick, unwell, poorly sick, bleagh, sick as a dog

So it seems the god of tiny microbes is playing a little game with me. I seemed to have picked up some bug that decides to incapacitate me only after 6pm Fridays and before 9am Mondays.

This is the third weekend that I have been ill, shivery, bunged and full of unpleasantness, after a normal and unaffected week at work. I’ve head of 48-hour ’flu but this is ridiculous.

So, anyhoo, apologies for another week without a strip, we’ll get there eventually. Hopefully. 

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

Avoid Spikes, dogsounds, furry, webcomic, Martin & Wolf, Foxx Wolf, Seren, HaloAaaaand…we’re back!

Apologies for two weeks with no strip. This week’s strip is testament to two great undeniable truths:

1. Four-year olds scare and confuse me

2. I really, really suck at Halo.

Catch this week’s tale of humiliating pwnage right here.

dogsounds reviews: Halo 3: ODST

 Halo 3: ODST, BungieSo, here we are again with another dogsounds reviews:, an occasional series where, if you hadn’t already guessed, I review the latest game to have caught my gaming attention. This time, we look at Halo 3: ODST, Bungie’s “yes it is, no it isn’t” sort-of standalone, kinda not-quite an expansion to the venerable Halo trilogy. Read the full review after the jump!

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Get dogsounds music right here lets!

Why did I stop composing? And would you like some free music?

You know what? I haven’t written a single piece of music for a number of years. My synthesizers sit here, quietly gathering dust. I lost the spark; an inquisitive sense of inventiveness stemming from years of listening to Jarre and Vangelis and others fuelled a desire to write my own music. I had no training, no musical education. I just wanted to have fun. And I did. Find out what happened to that spirit (and get free music) after the jump.

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New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

Avoid Spikes, dogsounds, web comic, furry, sniff test, stinky, Martin & Wolf, Mart, FoxxEvery man subscribes to this point of view. In fact, it was the search for a pair of wearable socks that prompted this strip.

Catch a whiff of this week’s musky strip right here.

New Avoid Spikes comic online!

Avoid Spikes, dogsounds, Foxx, Mart, furry, webcomic, web comic, Halo 3: ODST, ODST, Bungie, VISRSo, as I am currently working my way through Shadow Complex, I thought how more fitting to do a strip about Halo 3: ODST? That’s how my GRATE BRANE works, folks.

I have long hated the move towards darker and darker games – kinda sucks when you have a hi-def console and a big huge shinyshiny hi-def TV and play a game that takes place in dark, not-much-visible settings. Bit like putting a Fiat 125 engine in a Ferrari, no?

So it is nice that the VISR mode in ODST for once makes darkness cool. Well played, that man. There’s a reason dogsounds hearts Bungie.

Catch this week’s black-as-the-heart-of-an-evil-kitten-huffer strip right here.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

Avoid Spikes, Martin & Wolf, dogsounds, furry, webcomic, web comic, conspiracy theory, aliensSo, this week’s strip is finally up, apologies for the dealy. Blame Mike and his garage, and Mart and his birthday.

I like to hang around conspiracy forums. It’s entertaining, and just very occasionally you actually get something sensible. But for the most part, this is pretty much what you get.

Catch this week’s strip, which actually doesn’t exist, but actually does exist, and which is funded by a secret government black budget skunkworks program, and which actually isn’t, right here.

Alex Jones shoots self in foot; inserts into mouth

Alex Jones, Charlie Sheen, Prisonplanet, lie, bollocks, pathetic

Oh, Alex Jones. That decibel-heavy, shouty loud protester of all things New World Order and conspiracy. Many people dig a good conspiracy theory; many people seek the truth where they feel there are lies. But not all charge for their services. And for those that pay for such services, they expect, well, from a self-confessed truthseeker, the truth. Funny that.

So what has the internet’s number one cause of earache done to illicit the ire of may conpiracy theorists and truth seekers around the world? Find out after the jump!

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We are ODST

This is the latest trailer for Halo 3: ODST, out September 22nd.

I’m pretty sure the real motiovation behind these trailers is Microsoft saying “look, see how utterly fucking awesome a Halo movie would be? Huh? Huh?”

And you know what? I utterly agree. If this is what a mere ad agency can pull off – this and the Believe campaign being even slightly better than the Neil Blomkamp/Peter Jackson shorts – then imagine what a movie studio could do.

Anyway, watch and be awed. That’s a lot of story, action and emotion in just one and a half minutes.

Facebook readers – as ever, click here for the video.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

Avoid Spikes, dogsounds, Martin & Wolf, furry, webcomic, Mass Effect

Foxx: Yes, yes, I know, Mass Effect came out in 2007. I only started playing it recently after Fallout 3 got me into the more RPG type of game. Bite me.

Anyway, although I am thoroughly enjoying the game, I have to call out BioWare for giving me a hairy-scary complicated inventory and gameplay system with pretty much NO TUTORIAL OR EXPLANATION WHATSOEVER. Fuckers.

“Here’s our game, it’s really quite complex, GO!”

Catch this week’s frustratingly frustrating strip right here. Full instructions are provided.

dogsounds reviews: Fallout 3. Again. After 200+ hours of play.

Fallout 3, review, dogsounds, dogblog, Bethesda, Xbox 360Yup. Still awesome.

New Avoid Spikes comic now online!

Avoid Spikes, dogsounds, Martin & Wolf, furry, webcomic, coffee, Foxx WolfSo, finally back up and running now I have some time to myself! Apologies for the downtime, but there are times when real life has to come first.

Anyway, catch this week’s caffeine-free strip right here. I think we have all been to this place at some point.