Earth: Mostly Harmless

Errata ad nauseum

• Spotted these in the supermarket. Oh dear, oh dear oh dear. Black pudding fingers in batter. Deep-fried meatballs. And I love the patriotic branding, too.
• From mid-September, I will be the Free Software Foundation Europe’s intern in Zürich
• I graduated n shit.
• Revisit The Show with Ze Frank. Yes, I know it finished over a year ago. But it’s still awesome, sportsracers!
• I will be in New York City for a good portion of next month, and in Chicago for a weekend. Suggestions of what to do/see are welcome (comment or bigredball@gmail.com ).
• Hulk congratulates you for getting this far down the bullet list.
  

Swingometer

I came in to work happy this morning. Firstly, because it’s a beautiful day. And secondly because of this.

1930s

What a lovely euphemism.

See how you’d stack up as a 1930s husband or wife.

62 As a 1930s husband, I am Superior Take the test!

Golly gosh!

An observation

Top Gear, series 11, episode 3.

Time difference from broadcast to posting on iPlayer: 1 hour
Time difference from broadcast to availability (in presumably higher quality) via BitTorrent: 2 hours

Impressive no? Especially as the BitTorrent release groups have to re-encode the stuff before posting it.

Fan-zones

I don’t pretend to know anything about football, but the criticism of Austria and Switzerland’s preparations for Euro 2008 looks to be misguided, if Zürich is a representative example.

I’ve been there since yesterday - for reasons which I won’t mention in case I jinx something - and the whole place has seemingly been transformed. The Limmatquai, the main street which runs along the river, has been turned into a fan mile, with a carnival atmosphere and all sorts of scrumptious food. There’s a lot of live music going on and a huge Fan Zone has been set up at the botttom of the street. A lot of the local shops have special Euro 2008 lines and window displays, and the Euro seems to be accepted as an ersatz currency (though I think that’s the case for most touristy areas here anyway). And fans are being given free public transport throughout Switzerland and Austria on match days as part of their match tickets.

There were reports that Scotland was on hand to take over should Switzerland fail to prepare sufficiently. Unless Zürich is an anomalous example then I can’t take these reports as anything more than UEFA grandstanding (ho ho ho).

On a separate note, my passport was checked while entering Ireland from the UK on the way here. What gives, Common Travel Area?