A little tip for the next 13th of February: if you need to pop into a supermarket on the way home from work to pick up a few bits and pieces, forget it. You will find yourself in a queue with approximately 70 men clutching flowers, chocolates and whatever Valentine cards are left on the shelf (and there’s usually a good reason why nobody else has bought them). If you’re male and one of those people who worry intensely about what complete strangers think of them, be aware that anyone casting their eye along the queue will assume that everyone in it — yourself included — is the kind of lazy, disorganised idiot who finds themselves buying the remnants of the supermarket’s Valentine stock.

While I don’t wish to generalise, us men are clearly the useless sex when it comes to preparing for Valentine’s Day; only one woman was buying anything remotely Valentine-related, although she may well have been buying that Johnny Cash CD for herself (and you never know, perhaps someone’s husband will receive the treasured Valentine gift of half a pint of semi-skimmed and a wholemeal loaf). The vast majority of men in the queue were buying last-minute Valentine gifts (assuming they weren’t planning on kicking back in front of the football with half a bottle of cheap champagne for company), and in fact, I believe that is the masculine trait: if women are the fairer sex, then men are the last-minute sex. We wait until the last minute to buy things; we wait until the last minute to clean our houses; we wait until the last minute to use the toilet, for goodness’ sake. We’re seemingly incapable of doing anything ahead of time, with the possible exception of buying alcohol; say what you about us, we can organise a piss-up, whether it be in a brewery, our front room or in the street (as is compulsory every 2 years when the European or World Cup comes along).

So here’s to us men; the last-minute, piss-up sex. We might not be able to get you flowers on Valentine’s Day but we’ll certainly be able to sort you out with a Budvar or two.

Oh, and guess what? The “bits and pieces” I wanted to pick up on the way home from work were a card and some chocolates. That’s right — I was buying Valentine gifts at the last minute as well. That’s a twist ending even M. Night Shyamalan couldn’t beat.

Watch as I shoehorn increasingly ludicrous twists into my subsequent blog posts in his honour.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty sure that reading pro-Web2.0 posts from one of your comedy heroes is a sign of impending apocalypse.

Also, to whoever found my site while searching for information on hiding man boobs: I salute you for your thirst for masculine mammary knowledge.

From gamesindustry.biz via a comment on the Guardian Gamesblog:

Violent videogames are being targeted as part of a new campaign launched by Take A Break magazine after more than 80 per cent of respondents to a reader survey said they should be banned.

The campaign, which is titled Mums’ Army, is aimed at putting a stop to anti-social behaviour on the streets of Britain. According to the Take A Break website, “Ordinary people are finding themselves on the frontline, their lives curtailed by feral youths who bully and fight, get drunk, sell drugs and rule by gangs… It’s time for the ordinary women of Britain to show a united front.”

[…]

GamesIndustry.biz contacted Take A Break editor John Dale to enquire about the campaign - specifically the issue of whether it should be up to parents to take responsibility for which games their children play.

“I think that’s a perfectly decent point, but it doesn’t go very far,” Dale said, arguing that although there are laws against selling 18-rated games to minors, children still get access to them.

“The law is also supposed to stop the sale of tobacco and alcohol to those under the legal age, but it still goes on.”

Yes, those under the legal age obtain tobacco and alcohol but I don’t see the Mums’ Army rushing to ban smoking and drinking (although I concede that they could be the next targets in their campaign). Instead, they’re going after relatively low-hanging fruit of violent video games and “gangsta lyrics and music videos which promote[…] disrespect, drugs and violence”; way to go, mums!

Ever considered the fact that 18-rated games are finding their way into little kiddies’ hands because their fuckwit parents are buying them? I’ve seen plenty of under-18s hanging around outside shops asking people to buy booze and fags for them but I’ve never seen them outside Game, hassling grown-ups to buy GTA for them. I’ve also heard plenty of anecdotal evidence from the people that work in game stores about the fact that some parents are quite happy to buy BBFC-certified games for their children despite having the age restrictions pointed out to them; no doubt if the retailers point-blank refused to sell the games the parents would be up in arms, writing angry letters to the Daily Mail and Take a Break about how poor Tarquin was so upset at receiving Lumines instead of Liberty City Stories that he stole Mummy’s A-Class Merc, joyrode it to their weekend home in Devon (running over the au pair as he went; stupid girl, would’ve jumped out of the way if she’d understood Tarquin shouting at her but she doesn’t speak a word of English you know; these damn immigrants should be sent packing if they’re not going to integrate, this country’s going to the dogs, I tell you) and razed the cottage to the ground, so why hasn’t anyone done anything about these loutish shop assistants who are refusing to accept the simple fact that the customer is always right, and setting a poor example to Tarquin in the process with their backchat and cheek?

On the other hand, I’m behind them all the way in their campaign for the law to “be more sympathetic to those who are provoked by yobs into breaking the law”; the next time some drunken twat decides to moonwalk in front of my car while I’m driving I’d like to think that I’d be perfectly within the law if I were to run the fucker down — and if losing the opportunity to play GTA: Bridgwater is the price I’d have to pay, my only response would be “Private tossr reporting for duty, sah!”

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself after my post yesterday about the contents of my bag (which, incidentally, is an off-the-shoulder number rather than a rucksack); after all, I’d managed to spin out what was essentially a list of stuff into a ~250-word blog post, which isn’t bad going (and over the course of the next week or so I’ll be posting the contents of a multitude of receptacles). But pride, as they say, comes before a fall and when I got home from work there was someone waiting for me who wasn’t best pleased with what I’d posted.

When I listed three magazines I habitually carry with me I neglected to mention the fourth; namely SFX. Having bought it from the very first issue, you could say it’s my first love out of all my current reads. But there it was, lying on the doormat, glaring accusatorily up at me. How could I forget it? How? It’s the cold shoulder for me tonight, and no mistake; instead of thumbing through its pages in bed, I’ll have to stare at its back cover all night and if, if it deigns to allow me to read it tomorrow it’ll be on its terms, not mine. There’ll be no skipping to the V for Vendetta feature tomorrow, oh no; I’m going to have to read every preceding page thoroughly (even — no wait, especially the list of contributers, lingering over every job title and every name). Then, and only then, can I read up on what a Godawful mess the second second assistant director on Street Fighter: The Movie has made of Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s wonderful comic book. (Incidentally, the term “graphic novel” is for people who think they’re above reading comics; if you call them “graphic novels” then you’re probably the kind of person who buys the Harry Potter books with the “adult” covers because you arrogantly assume people will be fooled into thinking you’re reading real, grown-up literature)

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, I was using a magazine I’d forgotten about in a previous blog post as a metaphor for an offended girlfriend. Please note that I wouldn’t normally spell things out like that but I’m doing so just in case this post attracts any fans of James McTeigue’s work as second second assistant director on Street Fighter: The Movie starring everyone’s favourite action hero, Simon Callow.

Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, I was making light of James McTeigue’s previous work (as second second assistant director on Street Fighter: The Movie starring everyone’s favourite action hero, Simon Callow and everyone’s favourite theatrical luvvie, Jean-Claude Van Damme) and implying that it makes him unsuitable for the job of bringing V for Vendetta to the big screen.

FURTHER EXPLANATION IS UNNECESSARY.

There’s a post over at 43 Folders about how we’re all carrying way too much stuff around with us at any one time, along with links to handy hints on what you should and shouldn’t carry.

There are plenty of good ideas there; the contributers have obviously been thinking about how to get the most out of what they’re carrying and I really like the idea of travelling light by looking ahead to what I’m planning on doing and packing the required tools. Unfortunately, I’m too lazy and disorganised to do this which means I invariably end up carting a load of stuff around wherever I go; magazines (usually the latest issues of Private Eye, Retro Gamer and Terrorizer), a 256MB USB memory key, GBA SP and a 512Mb EFA flash cartridge, Sony Vaio Pocket MP3 player, Dell Axim x30i, and miscellaneous crap — sunglasses, chocolate, painkillers, Lemsips, etc.

Is it really necessary for me to carry all that around at all times? Probably not, but it means I’ve always got something to read if I decide to nip into a café without having to go out of my way to get a paper or something beforehand; if I’m ever bored at work I can hide in a toilet cubicle and play a few turns of Fire Emblem; and if I’m ever approached by an attractive lady in a hotel bar and asked if I have any Lemsips then — well, we all know what that means, eh lads?

Besides, I know for certain that I’ll never be short of entertainment if I find myself on an unexpected transatlantic flight.

English Cut is an interesting little blog belonging to Thomas Mahon, a bespoke tailor in London’s Savile Row (where a suit will cost you upwards of £2,000 — nearly 6 months’ rent for the likes of me). In particular, this entry caught my eye:

All my demands in a shirt were well covered, and surpassed.

Call me a pleb, but my demands in a shirt are pretty basic; something that helps hide my man-boobs and doesn’t look like it’s been fished out of a skip will usually suffice. I might consider looking for something a little more refined if I was catapulted into the problogging stratosphere or had a sudden windfall (note to self: buy a tenner’s-worth of Euromillions tickets this weekend; Papa needs a new pair of pants!), but until then I’ll have to stick with suits from Top Man and shirts from Matalan, although Thomas also has some handy hints for suit-buying on a budget.

Hang on, what am I talking about? I never actually wear my suit other than for job interviews and weddings, so why am I even entertaining the thought of buying another one? Is this a symptom of the materialistic, acquisitive culture we live in, forcing me to buy suits I neither want nor need? Or is this a sign that I’m actually growing up, despite my best efforts to the contrary? Is buying a second suit one of the seven signs of ageing, and if so — will Oil of Olay do the trick?

From Schadenfreude:

Andy Rutledge, a Texas-based graphics designer, has redesigned the frontpages of both Google and eBay with the goal of optimizing their usability and aestethics.

It’s quite staggering how much, much better they both turn out after he’s worked his magic. Easy to navigate, uncluttered, well-structured, marketing-friendly, intuitive, attractive, relevant - they’re better in every imaginable way.

The one thing I can think of that isn’t necessarily an improvement is the Homogeneous2.0 look, specifically the use of background gradients, rounded corners and the drive to keep everything visible without vertical scrolling; the problem being that the two sites start to lose some of their individuality and start becoming indistinguishable from any number of online social apps, or whatever. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (to coin a phrase) but when you’re part of the Web1.0 old guard, it smacks a little of trying too hard to be “down with the kids”; if you’ve ever seen middle-aged relatives jiggling about to Top 40 dance music at a wedding disco, you’ll know exactly where I’m coming from.

On the whole though, I do like the new designs and certainly wouldn’t complain if Google and eBay were to adopt them tomorrow; however, if the gradients and shiny buttons also made an appearance I’d be tempted to pull them to one side and whisper that maybe, just maybe, the web equivalent of a Hoxton fin on a 40-something middle manager is something they may wish to reconsider.