Spotted on the way home through Central London late one night this week -  looks like even our road signs are doing their bit to help out the Big Society.

One for people who like the idea of Drivvle, I’d say.

Spray – Twitter Campaign

The rest of the EP is well worth a listen and purchase too, if you’re into that sort of thing.

This appeared on the back cover of Issue 73, upside-down compared to the rest of the mag.  (Just like the Student Radio Awards magazine, actually, but that was two-mags-in-one.)   Presumably knocked up mega-quickly at the last-minute when an advert deadline fell through, I can totally sympathise with the frame of mind of its mystery author.  Those were the days.

Ricardo Autobahn’s TV/film samplefest The Golden Age Of Video features a certain Mr. Drebin at 2:06.  All together now…

Ricardo Autobahn – The Golden Age Of Video

Those following my Twitter account (and if you’re not, why not, eh?) may have seen this already.  Pointed out by treblekicker the other day, it’s a one-note series of images depicting the above cat.  And a rock. Cat rock, you see?  (It costs $29.99)

Each one has a different slogan, all of which make exactly the expected amount of sense.  As a bonus, there’s occasionally a Spanish cat which pops up all moody and black, accompanied by (I am reliably assured) some bizarre Spanish.

I mean, what’s not to like?

Cat Rock on Tumblr

It indeed prompted me to dredge back through the last decade, to seek out a couple of US comedians from the turn of the millennium whose twangy comedic pop tickled fresh-faced Uni youngster Rik back in 2002.  The Ukes of Hazzard caused a minor Internet sensation with their unique take on traditional relationship problems;  their trick – singing wonkily atop the enthusiastic rattling of ukeleles – surpassed the desired randomness quotas of early web users and Warwick students alike.

The video sealed the deal.  Produced on a shoestring, with reams of digital production and a whole lot of love, it’s been viewed over 2 million times, which for something predating the YouTube generation by such a long chalk is quite an achievement:

The Ukes of Hazzard – Gay Boyfriend

Those were the days.

As a bizarre footnote, a UK CD single release popped up sometime around the death of pop music in 2004.  Autotuned and cruelly stripped of folksy instrumentation, its cookie-cutter bubblegum pop faded quickly out of the dying charts and into obscurity.  I picked up a copy in Oxfam on Portobello Road – I’m not overly surprised that no-one bought it.

(I’m out of ukelele-based anecdotes now.  I promise.)

They also employ engineers that own ukuleles, and love the web so much that they compose songs about the new features in CSS3.

Next week, a checkout attendant sings a song about conveyor belts, backed by the Latvian Male Voice Choir.

If there’s one word that can describe a lot of UK house music from the mid-90s, it’s flaccid.  Whilst European ravers pummelled their ears with the massively tuned kick-drums of gabber, British clubbers bopped apologetically to beats that wouldn’t burst a paper bag.  Leading this Charge of the Wet Brigade were The Bucketheads and their tedious anthem The Bomb!

Kenny Dope presents The Bucketheads – The Bomb! (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)

Another grand example of house glued together with irritating sound-effects, The Bomb!‘s repertoire comprises some kind of alarm noise and a clipped sample of some yelping ladies, presumably excited by the tune’s unique percussive stylings of a haddock being slapped against a clothes-horse.  It’s the 9-minute version from the Positiva Classics series that’s forever etched on my brain; it’s not so much the eternal build-up that’s galling – though it’s bad enough – but the let-down when you get there.  4-or-so minutes of wiggling to a frenzied yet random arrangement of the aforementioned three samples should be paid off with a little more than a man with a bugle, and then some more of those three samples.  Not even a vocal lifted from Chicago can lift it for me, guys.  Sorry. Even after recent listening, why people ever liked this remains beyond me.

It’s not all bad news.  Michael Moog took the basic melodic idea, chucked out all the FX, added some more sensitive percussion and released a more satisfying albeit cocktail-loungey version in That Sound.  It has a chunkier if typical Full Intention remix-by-numbers on the flip and is generally worth seeking out if you’re desperate for some of this riff in your life.

I can only assume that if you collect all 8 phone colours and get 50 text messages you’ll go bright yellow, your hair will stand on end and you can run around for the rest of the day making people explode until your battery runs out.

The moment of schoolboy mirth below is an excellent example of why you should read it.

(Couldn’t find the original strip, sadly.)

It’s hard to shed a tear for the demise of GeoCities, even though I should as it started my web design career.  It’s difficult to mourn that which is long-forgotten, though – it’d be like becoming upset about for my cat who died years ago.

The truth is that I once had a GeoCities site, but all I recall about it was that the background was black, the URL was impossible to remember, the web FTP interface was unbelievably bad even for those days, and they had some Javascript that stuffed a shuddering GeoCities logo into the bottom-right corner.  I have no idea what it was actually about, and slipping peacefully away into history is the best thing for it.

The Archive Team are to be applauded for their efforts, though.  They’ve rescued all the under construction GIFs that they could possibly find and whacked them on one eye-bleeding page for posterity.  I haven’t seen so much irritating crap in one place since I was last in a Starbucks, so naturally I picked out a few of my faves and archived them here too, y’know, just in case…

“More updates to come once I’m back from primary school”

“Who turned out the lights?”

Nothing says class like a 3D rotating construction sign (with only one side)

Nothing says “we’re not quite sure what we’re archiving” like saving ancient Javadoc .gifs for posterity

Hey, quit ruining my childhood memories!

This is just a little bit like that Catchphrase episode.

I seriously have absolutely no idea what is meant to be going on here.

Believe it or not, this was actually about as reliable as Mac OS 9 dialogs got in my experience.

Achtung!  Awful designen!

Actually, I know a couple of people who could use this.

It’s an interesting browse which the eagle-eyed could probably pick up from a charity shop bin inamongst old compilations of Bloom County, Doonesbury and Calvin & Hobbes, even though sometimes it can be a little too true to real life…

Let me tell you, it kinda takes the edge off your trendy stylings when they’re unexpectedly accompanied by the nu-urban sound of your smalls.

Elsewhere, my mp3 player appears to be going gradually senile.  It seems to have acquired what can only be described as a Climie Fisher fetish.  Every so often, it’ll crash, reboot and proudly proclaim that their one 80s hit is the only song available to play.  No amount of skipping, persuading and swearing is able to persuade it otherwise.  While Climie Fisher Mode is activated, I can be treated to 6Gb-worth of “Love Changes Everything”.

Sounds like a great excuse to post the video, if you ask me.

(Sadly this version doesn’t have the excellent intro bit, but maybe that’s just me.  Go here for the extra 5 seconds.)

(Yes, I’ve removed the actual tabs.  No, they were just a bunch of 90s YouTube music videos.)

Sorry.

And for that, I think we should all be thankful.

That’s a bloody small inbox if it’s full with only 5 messages in!

Why would I want to open an inbox full of hate mail?

Why would I give out my email address to people I don’t like?

What kind of “buddy” sends you hate mail?

Do two of them hate me so much that they’ve sent me 2 hate messages each?