Category: Interwebs

  • Wait a minute, Michael Jackson is DEAD?!

    BBC News have this morning posted an article about some artists pulling out of the Michael Jackon tribute concert at Schoenbrunn castle that contains a couple of choice quotes in it.

    Representatives for Mary J Blige, Chris Brown and Natalie Cole said neither of the three would be at the event on 26 September at Schoenbrunn castle.

    […]

    “The star is Michael Jackson – it’s not about name dropping and who else will be there,” producer Georg Kindel said.

    I don’t think Michael will be able to make it either, Georg. He’s dead, you see.

    “It seems that there is a lot of confusion regarding the confirmed talent for the tribute – we are rechecking and confirming each artist personally,” Kindel said.

    So you could say that you’re making a list, and you’re checking it twice.

    “I’m sure the show is going to be fantastic and I’m looking forward to seeing you there” – Katherine Jackson

    Oh dear, I hadn’t planned on going. Katherine will be so disappointed.

    Okay, I’ve had my fun.

  • Search for a Star

    I was looking at the analytics statistics for Jump Leads, and I discover that rather a few people have found the site by searching for “british comedy sci fi” (oddly enough, most of these searches seem to be coming from Google UK). Out of curiosity, I thought I’d find out where we stand on Google’s search results.

    The results are… well, see for yourself:

    Google UK results for "british comedy sci fi"

    I have to say, I’m rather proud of this. Which is, I will admit, rather silly. But there we are.

  • An open letter to Companies Who Send Out Spam Email

    Dear Time Vampires,

    Thank you for your rescent correspondence, in which you have expressed an interest, nay, concern that my penis may not be quite as long and hard as my lady friends might perhaps prefer. Your suggestion that I “make [my] pecker glorious!” (a suggestion you made in the interest of “carnal victories!”) did not fall on deaf ears. That being said, while I appreciate your continued engrossment in the size of my sexual organs, your concern is unwarranted.

    Similarly, I do not gamble. I never have done. Alright, technically that’s a lie – when I was 12 I put a £1 coin into a fruit machine in a pub, but I didn’t win anything and the experience left me dispondant towards the notion of gambling. It’s unlikely, then, that I will be visiting any one of the online casinos you have recommended to me over the last six years.

    Finally, I must stress to you that I am not Russian and do not presently live in a house with a Septic Tank, so I must politely decline your cleaning fluid.

    With regards,
    Ben Paddon

  • I Wonder Who Authorizes the Adverts on Facebook?

    Er...Because they’re not doing a very good job.

  • James Moran is not your Bitch

    From Torchwood writer James Moran’s blog, concerning some of the angry, bitter feedback he’s had from a small group of “fans” about certain decisions they made during the story plotting process:

    So here’s the deal: I’m a professional writer. That’s my job. I write what I write, for whatever the project might be. I have the utmost respect for you, and honestly want you to like my work, but I can’t let that affect my story decisions. Everybody wants different things from a story, but this is not a democracy, you do not get to vote. You are free to say what you think of my work, even if you hate it, I honestly don’t mind. But the ONLY person I need to please is myself, and the ONLY thing I need to serve is the story. Not you. I will do my work to the very best of my ability, in an attempt to give you the best show, the best movie, the best story, the best entertainment I possibly can. Even if that means that sometimes, I’ll do things you won’t like. I won’t debate it. Either you go along with it, or you don’t. None of it is done to hurt you, or to force some agenda down your throat, or anything else. It’s all in service of the story.

    I have to say, I agree with him entirely. Read the entire post here.

  • Ben’s Boomer’s Day Off FAQ

    I’ve been getting asked a lot of questions about Boomer’s Day Off lately. Has there been a resurgance in its popularity? I’ve no idea. Anyway, I tend to get asked the same questions over and over, and I’m going to go ahead and answer them here as best I can before I climb into bed.

    Will there be any more episodes?

    Honestly, I don’t know. Michelle seems to want to do another one, and I’d love to do one if we can come up with an idea that actually furthers the story of these characters. There’s a lot standing in the way of us doing another episode, though – it all depends on whether the cast want to do it. It’s a huge ordeal getting everybody together, getting the make-up ready and so forth.

    What would the fifth episode be about?

    We have’t yet hammered out a concrete idea. Michelle had some rough ideas. She reads the comments on YouTube and the feedback we get through Steam, and where possible she tries to give little nods to stuff the fans want. One of the things people really wanted to see was Frank the Tank, and she spent some time last month looking into how we could do that. I’m perhaps a little bit more skeptical as to whether or not we could pull off a Tank on our limited budget, but anything is possible.

    Can you give me Tim’s/Michelle’s/Ben Dunn’s contact details? He/she is so awesome.

    No. Sorry. Michelle and I made our Steam handles available on the videos, and our email addresses are both publicly available, but that’s about it. I’m not going to give you Ben Dunn’s address or Tim’s phone number. (Yes, people have asked. Creepy, creepy people.)

    Are you going to boycott Left 4 Dead 2?

    No bloody way. You know how utterly ridiculous the entire boycott is? People are complaining about how the game hasn’t had any serious content added to it, but you know what? We got an entirely new gameplay mode and a map to play it on. For free. We’ve had hundreds of hours of entertainment from a game that cost us $50. Compare that to some games, which offer only six or seven hours of gameplay for $40-60. Some people claim that the development of a sequel shows that Valve had no faith in the original, but they started development of L4D2 almost immediately after they finished development of L4D. You don’t jump straight into developing the sequel if you think the game isn’t going to sell in the first place.

    Left 4 Dead continues to be an utterly fantastic experience and in all honesty I don’t expect the sequel to be any less.

    Are Tim and Michelle a couple?

    Nope!

    Are you and Michelle a couple?

    Nope!

    Are you and Tim a couple?

    Nope! I just let him jump on me sometimes.

    What else are you working on?

    Kill9 have a few projects in store for later in the year, and I’m not going to be involved in writing any of those. Kill9 will be doing a musical, and I’m considering auditioning for that, but I’m not sure my voice is quite up to par. We’ll see.

    As for me, I continue to roll on with Jump Leads (we’ll be at Comic-Con this year, more details to come shortly) and But, Sir…, and today I launched a new podcast called Ben Paddon’s Feeble Excuse wherein I interview people I want to talk to just for the Hell of it. PodWarp 1999 is more or less done but we may be doing a reunion special in the near future. And I’ve started drawing again, so there’s a chance I may launch a second webcomic – one I’ll be drawing myself.

    I think that pretty much covers every question I’ve been asked so far. I’ll update this list as time goes by, assuming anyone asks me anything that isn’t “wen r u doin part 5????”

  • Targetted Marketting

    Parky

    How does Google target ads to my website?

    Google automatically delivers ads that are targeted to your content or audience. We do this in two ways:

    • Contextual targeting
      Our technology uses such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and the overall link structure of the web, in order to determine what a webpage is about and precisely match Google ads to each page.
    • Placement targeting
      With placement targeting, advertisers choose specific ad placements, or subsections of publisher websites, on which to run their ads. Ads that are placement-targeted may not be precisely related to the content of a page, but are hand-picked by advertisers who’ve determined a match between what your users are interested in and what they have to offer.

    From the Google AdSense support website.

  • Give Us The Details For The Account You Don’t Have

    This morning I received the following email:

    *** NOTICE OF FINAL WARNING **

    Account Action: 3 Hour Suspension

    Account Offense: Violation of EULA and Terms of Service – Transfer of Account Ownership

    Details: An investigation of your World of Warcraft account has found strong evidence that the account in question is being sold or traded. In accordance with EULA section 4, Paragraph B, listed below:

    World of Warcraft -> Legal -> End User License Agreement

    and Section 8 of the Terms of Use:

    Blizzard Entertainment -> Legal -> Terms of Use

    A 3-hour probationary suspension is pending on this account, awaiting confirmation from a specialist. A final warning has been issued. The investigation will be continued by the Account Administration team to determine the any further suspensions. If the account in question is found in violation of the EULA and Terms of Use, further action will be taken. Be aware that any additional inappropriate actions may result in the permanent closure of the account.

    Thank you for respecting our position on this matter.

    =========================================================
    ** We request that you verify your legitimate ownership of the account here:

    (https://us.battle.net/login/login?service=https%3A%2F%2Fbattle.net%2Faccount%2Findex.html)
    =========================================================

    Any disputes or questions concerning this account action can only be addressed by Account Administration. To learn more about how Account Administration is able to assist you, please visit us at http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowaa/.

    Account security is solely the responsibility of the accountholder. Please be advised that in the event of a compromised account, Blizzard representatives typically must lock the account. In these cases the Account Administration team will require faxed receipt of ID materials before releasing the account for play.

    Please visit the World of Warcraft Policies and Terms of Use Agreement: (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01712p) and (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/termsofuse.shtml) for further information.

    Regards,

    Billing & Account Administration
    Blizzard Entertainment
    http://www.blizzard.com/support/accountadmin/

    This is odd because I don’t have a World of Warcraft account. Okay, no, technically I do have a WoW account, but it was a 15-day trial account on the European servers and I only played it for three days. Why would I be trying to sell that account?

    The answer: I’m not. This is a phishing email. That long link that they want me to click, the one for the site that they want me to go to to verify my details? Yeah, that URL isn’t where the link actually takes you to (and, in the interests of security, I’ve changed the link on the information above – you’re all smart people and I know you wouldn’t fall for a scam like this, but better to be safe than sorry).

    I don’t usually bother sharing this sort of email with you, but as this is the first WoW-related phishing message I’ve received I figured it was worth sharing. It’s interesting how the game has become so incredibly mainstream that scam artists (and I’m loathe to use the word “artist” to describe someone who tries to scam money out of others) can mass-send emails like this.

    Extraordinary.