...And Now For Something About Monkeys...

Infinite monkeys + Infinite Typewriters + Infinite Time = Shakespeare

Really? Even an infinite number of monkeys have a lifespan and given an infinite number of time, they'll die typing, assuming that they actually type at all. I would imagine you'd also need an infinite number of Glade Plugins and some sound muffling headgear to try hide the smell of an infinite number of monkeys and the constant "Ook-Ook-Click-Clack" of infinity times ten monkey fingers on an infinite number of typewriters.

What is most annoying about that though, is why Shakespeare? That seems pretty fucking unimaginative. They would type infinite combinations of letters. Every human text in existence would be written and written backwards and written in every language there is.

There would also be a fuckload of new languages, infinite dictionaries taking every language ever and translating it into an infinite number of completely new languages that nobody actually speaks. So even with a page of complete shite, in those infinite languages, you can surely translate it to say absolutely whatever you want.

Every organism who has ever lived and ever will live, will have infinite autobiographies written about them, backwards and in an infinite number of languages. Every piece of text they wrote would have infinite reviews.

They will accurately predict the future. Not that you'd be able to pick out which one was correct, but still. They'd write up every scientific law that binds the universe together using concepts we've never even thought about yet.

Which brings me around to my point. If you'd like to donate a monkey to me, to help this experiment happen, or a typewriter, or even some time, then please email me and I'll put your name in the credits if you like.

Cluckety-Fuck! It's Some Over-Due Results!

Having not been poisoned to death by German luncheon meat, it's about time to post some results. I could lie and tell you that I've been really busy, but I haven't. There were a couple of delays which meant these ended up being a few weeks riper than planned and to be honest I can't even remember exactly what they were. By the time the results were in, I'd sort of lost momentum and couldn't find the inspiration to write something awesome. So I've given up. What follows is unapologetic bollocks so I can put this behind me and possibly come up with something new. Now for the part you've all completely forgotten about:







These are some sandwiches. What doesn't come across very well is the fact that by the time we actually opened these, the sellotape one was getting quite liquidy.














My hand wrapped in sellotape after removing it from the sandwich.















Apples!
















More apples!
Actually it's the same two apples, wrapped. This photo should be before the one above, but tough fuck. Be grateful I'm writing this up at all.














Again, these should really be before the picture at the top, but...













A comparative shot.
















Also, cling film is better than sellotape... THAT WAS WELL FUCKING WORTH IT, WASN'T IT? WHO THE FUCK WOULD HAVE GUESSED THAT COCKING CLING FILM WOULD BE BETTER FOR PRESERVING FOOD THAN A CHEAP ADHESIVE TAPE?

I can't believe it took me so many months just to come to that conclusion, but hopefully you enjoyed the first part, at least, if you bothered reading any of it at all.

HAPPY NEW FUCKING YEAR... Wankers...

Note: If your resolution is more than 1280x1024 and the images above aren't lining up with their captions, go fuck yourself. You're really not missing much...

B3ta's Sellotapey Food Experiment: Part 1

Issue 341 of the B3ta Newsletter suggests the following:

"* SELOTAPEY FOOD EXPERIMENT - store your food by wrapping it in sellotape instead of cling film. How long does it stay fresh? What does it taste like? When you get your sandwiches out at work, what looks do you get?"

And so it begins...

The Plan

The plan is a wonderfully simple one, consisting of two key parts. Firstly, we're going to take a selection of delightful foodstuffs and wrap them in equally delightful sellotape, so we can take them into a highly populated area and see how people react when I dig into them. Incidentally, the 'we' I'm talking about is myself and my girlfriend, Emily, who aided me in recording the results, as well as selecting and wrapping the food in the first place (note the lack of 'we' when it comes to the actual eating).

The second part is a titanic struggle between the forces of cling film and sellotape. With a selection of identical food wrapped in each, we plan to see which of them goes off first. Naturally, this is going to take time and the food has only been packaged since about 8:15 this morning.


The Prediction

Do I really expect sellotape to keep food fresh for longer, or even just as long as, cling film? Fuck no. I do expect to get some odd looks sitting around and tearing tape off my lunch, though and I wouldn't be lying if I said I wasn't positively thrilled about the concept.


The Experiment

The experiment began with Emily getting up early (which I was reminded of throughout the day) and packing my lunch at about 8:15, using copious amounts of cheap adhesive tape to wrap up some cheap canned meat sandwiches and cheap apples. For some reason, she saw fit to avoid allowing the tape's cheap glue to contact the food, for fear of me being poisoned to death by toxicness, despite my objections that it took some of the fun out of the experiment. However, she still saw fit to feed me shitty canned German meat that came to a grand old total of of 39p a can, which is probably roughly equal to the metal's scrap value alone.



We headed into town at around 2pm and searched for a nice public place in which to unwrap my goods. After some hanging around waiting for old people to move the fuck out of our way, we snatched a bench outside The Bridges, Sunderland's indoor shopping centre. We were sat right by the doorway, as well as having a set of cash machines directly in front of and behind us, so this was a high traffic area.

As Emily fired up the camera, I rifled through my gay coloured cooler bag to find a suitable piece of fruit and instantly hit upon an issue. Finding the end of the tape was pretty tricky and I quickly gave up, resorting to brute force to try to get to the edible interior. Then when I snapped some of the tape and eventually did get a good length of it off, I quickly reached a point where the rest of it disappeared under the apple's massive tacky coating. It took some time. Close to EIGHT FUCKING MINUTES, in fact.



Despite the cocking about involved, there weren't nearly as many people weirded out by this as I thought there would be. When we first sat down, there was an old woman who obviously grew tired of me doing science in her presence and slinked off, muttering to her friend that one or both of us were stupid. The woman on the bench next to us was giving us an open mouthed stare and once the camera was off (fucking typical) she came over and told us that there was 'a bin just over there'. We did plan on rounding up the sellotape we'd released into the wild after we were through, anyway. A young man with fierce facial hair sympathised with us and pointed out that there was always one who complained.

With that, we packed up and wandered about a bit before heading for a pub, where I planned to unravel the German meat sandwich with a pint. Despite this pub being one that served food, Emily seemed to (WRONGLY) think it was good idea to ask them for a plate, because it'd likely be messy and unfair to the staff if they had to clear up the table afterwards. We were at loggerheads over this one, because I seriously doubted that they would let her have a plate, despite her lying about me having a food allergy and once we'd been told that we weren't allowed to eat our own food in there, we couldn't claim ignorance if quizzed. She clearly has too many morals to be a real scientist.

I managed to convince Emily, who was by now laced with wine, to try it my way at another pub, which we did. This time, the tape was easier to shift. Clearly I'd managed to get myself some awesome tape-picking skillz after the incident with the fruit. This attempt attracted even less attention than the previous one, curiously. While the video ran out before I could properly finish the eating of the sandwich, we did take this snap of the empty tape, which came about just a few seconds later.

The Conclusion

The conclusion I've drawn from part 1 is that if you use sticky tape instead of cling film, nobody will give a flying fuck, but that it takes some practice to get the stuff off. Maybe if you put some sort of paper tag on the end of the tape, you could wind it off like a beauty. By the time the sandwich was rescued from the tape, it was quite squashed, but it still tasted okay.

Stay tuned for an update on how the cling film vs sellotape head to head is going.

America's #1 Retarded Brand Name

First of all, I'm going to discuss a brand name that has been grinding on me since I saw it advertised in a bus stop. It's American, which doesn't surprise me, because I'm British and this is the sort of stereotypical nonsense I've come to expect from our cousins over the pond. It could just be intentionally humorous and I could just be missing the point, but I prefer to believe it's not the case.

Trojan Condoms.

The ad was for their 'Her Pleasure' variant which showed a girl who was quite clearly dead. She was very pale, her eyes were closed and her mouth was hanging open. Trojan Condoms call themselves "America's #1 Condom" and claim to be "trusted for over 90 years".

You'd think in almost a century, someone would have pointed out that Troy was quite possibly the most famous successful infiltration in history. The Achaeans knocked out a sweet wooden horse which they hid in and presented as a gift to get past the gates, and then they bust out and slit up the Trojans while their guard was down.

Everyone knows that story which, incidentally is fucking ace, even before the shitty film. Trojan Condoms is as retarded a name as Hindenberg Airlines, Auschwitz Gas Company, or a Princess Diana Special Edition Mercedes with a GPS system that stops you from entering France.

And, like everything in America, they have larger versions, which they call Magnums, because every American knows how cool guns are. Then they have the Magnum XL, for guys with really big egos. However, they don't have a specific size listed, which leads me to assume that most Americans are poorly endowed, which means that the larger Magnums are roughly equivalent to the normal Durex sizes we have here. It's pretty evident that most American men are compensating with their 7ft wide, 3 miles to the gallon SUVs for driving to the office, and it also explains why Durex is only the second most popular brand in the US, with Trojan taking a whopping 70% of the market, clearly they like to be reassured by their supposedly larger prophylactics.

Not that I mean to make any sweeping generalisations about Americans or their genital issues.

I Have Returned!

After a lengthy absence, I have finally decided to take up the art of writing bullshit again.

I'm sure you remember, (and by remember I mean never ever read,) my fantastic article on draining swimming pools with biscuits. That was me, but I've lost the password for that account, so I sadly can't continue with that.

Now that's out of the way, I'm going to say as little else personal bollocks about myself as possible and do my best to keep things interesting.