2:18pm: The answers
Today's lesson: when your LJ doesn't have many readers anyway, making a quiz wilfully obscure doesn't lead to many people answering it.

( That film quotes thing )

6:49pm: Meme and quiz, now combined into one handy package!
Via matgb:

Rules:
+ Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
+ Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
+ Post them here for everyone to guess.
+ Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
+ NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions.

( You can't handle the truth! (Because that quote's not in here) )

6:08pm: You don't get rid of me that easily
I'm back, and now trying to solve the mystery of why I didn't get the 'time to renew your domain' emails.

10:04am: No idea why, but my website appears to have disappeared. I'm waiting to hear back from the hosting company as to where it's gone...

5:10pm: Like everyone else, it's meme time...
82% Chris Dodd
81% Dennis Kucinich
80% Mike Gravel
79% Bill Richardson
76% Barack Obama
73% Hillary Clinton
72% John Edwards
71% Joe Biden
41% Rudy Giuliani
35% Ron Paul
35% John McCain
28% Mike Huckabee
25% Mitt Romney
19% Tom Tancredo
15% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

10:26pm: Because I always wanted to be a rock star
From srk1:

1. Go to the Wikipedia home page and click random article. That is your band's name.
2. Click random article again; that is your album name.
3. Click random article 15 more times; those are the tracks on your album.

My band is Kopparberg and Aspeboda Court District
Our album is Imber

The tracks are:
1 E11 s
Wangenried
Glendora
List of state leaders in 973
Iranian pottery
Edmund Hambly
List of DC Comics Publications
Damien King
Pumice
Gilles Poitras
Operation World
Karl Georg Albrecht Ernst von Hake
Is Paris Burning?
Abilene Zoological Gardens
Lancelot Phelps

I'm guessing I'm a member of what the press would no doubt call 'the Swedish Sigur Ros' - "Operation World" and "Is Paris Burning?" would likely be the tunes most used for background music in BBC trailers.

9:05am: I don't know whether to be insulted or relieved by the last part
via nhw:

5:13pm: Watch the tension float away
So, for the last few weeks I've been having to deal with the tension of 'will there be an election next month?', and even though I was always feeling it was unlikely, I was concerned that the last week was getting us into a Guns of August situation where it would end up happening because everyone was ready for it, even if no one actually wanted it. The reason this is affecting me more than normal is not just because I'm now a Councillor, but because I've got a very senior role in the campaign locally, so when an election eventually comes, I'll probably be doing a month of very long days.

Then this afternoon, there was the incredible tension of England against Australia in the Rugby World Cup, culminating in ten minutes of incredible tension as they held onto that two-point lead right up to the final knock-on.

So you can imagine how relaxed I'm feeling now, given that ten minutes after the end of that match the news came through that Gordon Brown had decided not to call an election, meaning I can now properly relax and make plans for the next month or so.

First on the agenda: how do we start a proper, national, cross-party campaign for fixed-term parliaments?

11:41am: Please, keep Bonnie Langford away from me

Link: The Which Doctor Who Are You? Test written by TottersLane on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

10:30am: Stop! In the name of the Ordnance Survey!
I got stopped by the police last night.

So, it's about 9pm and I'm giving a friend a lift home after a meeting. We've just pulled into the development where he lives and are beginning the slow meander through bizarrely twisty roads and around parked cars to get to his house - because the developers didn't just want to slow traffic down, they thought it would be nice to send drivers gradually mad - when I see three police officers by the side of the road and one of them steps out into the middle to flag me down.

Of course, being an obedient, concerned and law-abiding citizen, I stop and immediately start thinking 'Oh shit, what have I done, what's possibly illegally and dangerously broken on the car, whatever you do don't make an Osama Bin Laden joke right now' as you do when randomly confronted with the presence of enforcers of the Law in the middle of the night. Of course, my hopes that I don't look too shifty are immediately hampered by the fact that the driver's side window on my car doesn't work, forcing me to open my door with a sheepish 'window's broken' as he approaches and my mind's spinning out a repeated series of events, none of which end that well for me.

'Excuse me, sir.' he asks, with a little pause for me to conjure up a few nasty questions to follow. 'Do you know where ____ Drive is?'

Yes, it turns out that there are parts of Colchester where the road plan is so confusing, the police can't find their way to the scene of a crime. Luckily, my friend is able to direct them there and they go running off down to it. Now there's an anticlimactic story for you...

1:26am: In your LJ, taking your quizzes

Link: The Which Lolcat Are You? Test written by GumOtaku on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

8:53pm: Spoilers in the strangest places
( If you haven't seen the end of Last Of The Time Lords yet, don't click here )

10:13am: That Doctor Who quote meme
From various people:

When you see this post, quote from Doctor Who (classic or new series) on your LJ.

"You think it'll last forever. The people, and cars, and concrete. But it won't. Then one day it's all gone, even the sky. My planet's gone. It's dead. It burned, like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust. Before its time."

11:20pm: These things come in threes
( The Sound of Drums and DW series 3 in general )

9:00pm: Unspiration
Some of you may remember that way back in the mists of time (January, I think), Big Finish announced a Doctor Who short story competition. Well, the winners were announced yesterday and I wasn't one of them. Somehow, I have a feeling that writing the story on the afternoon of the deadline and entering it about five minutes before the contest closed without rewriting may have harmed my chances. Or, I'm just rubbish. You decide.

Yes, to save it from skulking away on my hard drive for all eternity never to be read, here in all its unedited and unrewritten glory, I give you 'Unspiration':

( Or you can just ignore it and not click on the cut. Your choice. )

3:17am: And the results are in
In short, I won. In a bit more detail, click here.

5:33pm: And for my next trick, proving that black equals white
via matgb and doctorvee



Though in this case, 'smart' seems to mean 'able to spot trick questions and have a decent knowledge of American trivia'. Still, this clearly indicates that I am better than all of you and you should be paying homage to me, or simply paying me, whichever you prefer.

3:21pm: Vaguely amusing, perhaps
I just found this list I came up with of suggested titles for films, if there were a Satanic film industry on the lines of the 'adult' industry:

How To Make A Satanic Quilt
Sacrificing Private Ryan
Beelzebub and I
Being Aleister Crowley
High School Ritual
What's Possessing Gilbert Grape
Eternal Darkness Of The Mind That Has Not Surrendered Itself To Our Dark Lord And Master

10:22pm: No idea what this means, but I like being random

Find my LJ Mojo!

11:38pm: The latest meme
Via nhw and matgb:

I'm a Talent!

You're a risk-taker, and you follow your passions. You're determined to take on the world and succeed on your own terms. Whether in the arts, science, engineering, business, or politics, you fearlessly express your own vision of the world. You're not afraid of a fight, and you're not afraid to bet your future on your own abilities. If you find a job boring or stifling, you're already preparing your resume. You believe in doing what you love, and you're not willing to settle for an ordinary life.

Talent: 51%
Lifer: 33%
Mandarin: 46%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

9:05am: Because when I join, that means it's jumped the shark
For anyone who might be interested, I now have a Facebook profile.

EDIT: And now the link should actually work, too!

9:50pm: They plant the living, and harvest the dead!
Via communicator a "search youtube for the year of your birth and post a video" meme. I was going to go for this McDonald's training video but then realised that it was only the styling that made it 1972, the content is probably still used for training there today.

So I went for something that could only come from the early 70s - grindhouse and blaxploitation trailers:

( Includes the word 'honky' )

1:28pm: They're not horn-rimmed, but I do wear glasses

Mr. Bennet You scored 50 Idealism, 54 Nonconformity, 41 Nerdiness

Are you on the list? Congratulations, you're Mr. Bennet! You are one mysterious person with mysterious motives. Despite all the mystery, it's clear that you believe what you do is for the greater good, and you are obviously a well-educated person in your field. Your best quality: Dedication to your work/organization/etc. Your worst quality: Keeping too many secrets

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 53% on Idealism You scored higher than 60% on Nonconformity You scored higher than 22% on Nerdiness

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

1:55pm: Because everything feels better after a good strop
Dear HBOS,

A couple of things to consider when hiring people for your lost and stolen cards helpline:

1) While it's good that your call centre is in the UK rather than India, just hiring British people doesn't mean they're able to communicate in English. Someone who mumbles, chunters and runstheirwordstogethersoitshardtotellwhichiswhich should perhaps be considered for a job that doesn't require them to use the phone.

2) People who call this line are likely to be rather stressed with images of nefarious villains stealing as much as they can from their account. It might be an idea to inform your staff that it's best to be polite and helpful with these people, not stroppy and working through a routine. Specifically, when someone says they can't find their card but the last time they used it was at the counter in their local branch, don't make it sound like it's a huge task for you to call that branch. Which, incidentally, is something the customer would have done himself if he could get have hold of the branch's number.

In short, perhaps consider letting your call centre staff see how helpful and friendly the local branch were when confronted with the same problem.

10:16pm: Together with Tom Jones, I battle zombies
via desertempire:


Which Survivor of the Impending Nuclear Apocalypse Are You?
A Rum and Monkey joint.