Part of me dies when the word Twitter comes up in conversation, regardless of how much I like it. This spoof of the Facebook film is very good though. I’m going to stomp around office cubicles bellowing “HASHTAGS!” now, so excuse me.

Illustration: Demetrios Psillos

It is 6am. Behind thick set curtains rain has been falling for an hour or two and dark light of the morning has begun to sneak in around the edges. Though Exeter is far from the coast, seagulls are making seagull noises, sharp and pleasant in the empty morning. A cooing pigeon chimes in for a second, sounding like the woody village – the place where home is always home, regardless of where I move about to.

I have not slept, and have been reading Lucy Mangan of the Guardian. I have decided I like journalism. If it continues this way, I could easily begin to regularly read the Guardian. I could even begin to wear brown corduroy as I hear Guardian readers do. I could, I suspect, be very good at both.

Lucy Mangan has written about the Famous Five, and today has also written a brief James Bond play which centres around a picture. In the picture is a cat that looks suspiciously like a pretend cat I have been making up stories about as of late (also looks much like this). There is also another cat in the picture who looks like a black bear (right).

It is a rather good screen play, and it is not just about cats. It is not something I would usually read, but I have been reading it out loud, amongst tears falling down my face and hissy, noisy sniggers that stopped me talking. Perhaps I was delirious. You can read it here, and I hope it makes you smile if you do. Now I am going to play about with blogging calendars and watch Sherlock Holmes gleefully.

I am two weeks behind the trend but I very much like Sherlock, the BBC’s new Sherlock Holmes. This runs with a love for the original Holmes, clue-based logic, a secret adoration of the bumbling Jonathan Creek, and rude but witty dialogue. I’d put the trailer up but it takes the good bits out of context and plonks funky music over them, so you’d probably loose all respect for it immediately.

I have written a sterling Bitchbuzz article about it, including the words ‘detective-icity’ and ‘wankerness’. Find it here, and the show is online via the BBC online.

A week or two ago I missed Mr Shirky talk about Cognitive Surplus, because a train was delayed. Inside I sobbed violently, but got over it okay. Essentially it’s “the idea of spare brainpower in the world’s collective mind just sitting there waiting, wanting, to be harnessed.”

He has a similar sort of talk up on Ted, above. (I really have to stop posting TED talks up here.) I like it though, because I can sit happily and reflect on the number of projects like Bored of Brighton taking place around the world to help people. And I like shiny Clay Shirky because a great deal of the second year of my degree focused on his work, and he writes about blogging nicely. All this makes me happy.

Today, the ever-wonderful Information is Beautiful have created a visualisation: US adults watching TV vs. the creation of Wikipedia. “A shocking proportion,” he says, but then.. we do multitask, no?

“One balloon and a couple of evenings after work — Dyson engineers show how inducement and entrainment works on the Air Multiplier™ fan.”

This video is fun and whilst it shouts “Hello. I am a hip and minimal video-that-wants-to-be-a-viral” it’s lovely. Engineers are doing engineering things in an entertaining and non-techy way. “We could line up fans!” we think. “I was great at dominoes when I was younger.” Suddenly the world’s inner-child suddenly wants to be a fan engineer when it grows up.

“Inducement and entrainment of the air” says Dyson. “Wheeee” I say.

via Andy Kinsella

Oh hello, lots of shoes hanging infront of a balcony? This sort of arty shit makes me happy. I pottered around Clerkenwell Design Week (by which I mean they lie as it lasts only 3 days) before going to the Pop Up Pirate typography bar thing (Bitchbuzz review here).

I thought a light by Dare Studio was cool, but distracted myself from a lot of things that weren’t that interesting by trying to juggle a camera and a square of pizza. Pepperoni can be a tricky bitch.

It was all pretty interesting apart from the section about floor panels. The band that played from the balcony was pretty good, though I don’t know their name. There was lots of shiny stuff to keep me entertained. And fancy back-lighting of a wall behind a chair. Some of it came in mirrored cubicles. I could have wept. Photos instead of words.

Oh, and a Robot thing that doubled as a bike rack. CAN I HAVE ONE?

A cat lives in our house. She is brown and called Sub-bass which is is a silly name for a girl cat, or any cat. She is quite nice for a cat but has no manners. She looks cunning when she covers her poo in sand. I am bitter at the cat for making me think crap like this.

This cat likes standing on things and being tall. He is quite elegant and I like his collar. If I had a posh cat that stood up I would call him Lucius and he would like books. He would also live in a dark green study.

This cat is called Rocky though, which is less brilliant and he is watching birds. It seems a good past time for a cat. He is not as good as Keyboard Cat though. I am apathetic about cats but if they make music or watch birds they can be my friend. Maybe I will demand Sub-bass makes a viral for me. I don’t think she has any good skills though.

More info on the cat at boingboing.net who have the latest low-down.

A wonderful Kinder Surprise advert from the 80s Have a good chocolate haze-filled Sunday. We are off to the pub to get rid of our hangovers.

This is really cool!

A steampunk musician called Yoshi Akai has made a magical lego music-making machine. It’s called the “Sequencer MR II” and turns coloured lego blocks into sound:

“A contraption that uses three-dimensional Lego structures to emulate a three-channel, eight-step sequencer, where each differently colored plastic brick produces a different sound and complex combinations (including tremolo and overdrive) are possible when the blocks are stacked. Akai tells us it works using resistors embedded in each and every block, with parallel networks of resistors formed as the bricks pile up, equalling lower resistance and thus a higher frequency sound generated by the contraption. Akai says he’s building sound more than playing sound.” – engadget

I want a play..

It is very easy to poke fun at Nicholas Cage, but I am not one to sway from such a practice.

I saw Kick Ass yesterday – and when I say yesterday, I mean around Saturday but I have been distracted from writing about it by other more unimportant things. Kick Ass is a perfectly good film to accompany a Friday night of gorging on popcorn, which was main our goal of the evening. Cage, generally known for wearing the same expression in such films as Lord of War and many others (that I have not seen but many claim to have done), appears at one point. I leapt in my seat. Glee, thought I, it’s Cage! I will be able to write a review – a hilarious anecdote explaining why Nicholas Cage is rubbish, and how even I would make a better and no doubt far superior actor.

He plays a thin faced beige-wearing father with an eagerly acting daughter, a bit in the realm of Leon‘s Natalie Portman but with a higher neckline. It’s a strange film from the production company behind Layar Cake that borders on Fox Searchlight’s version of not-particularly awkward indie (say 500 Days of Summer) and in the same sort of way there’s lots of faux awkward scenes that aren’t at all so.

Undoubtedly the worst parts were the painful advertising swipes of Pepsi cans and Pepsi-filled phrases hitting the screen. We collectively shuddered.

The mystery is that Nicholas Cage is in no way irritating. It’s all really quite pleasant once you get used to it, and for some reason they’ve also stuck in some South Park-style Jewish accents throughout the cast – which may in fact be typical New York – which makes it all quite snigger worthy. As intended, it’s a jolly, and escapist feel-good film with no risks attached to watching it and in this way I feel barely warrants a review because it is as good as you’d expect. It’s is appropriately accompanied with a good music-filled ending as the genre dictates and unlike Bruce Almighty’s “that’s the way the cookie crumbles” they’ve also pulled off the one take-away quote: “With no power comes no responsibility” now popping up on a mass of social networks.

The biggest downside? There was a 2.0 joke which I laughed at. It was shameful but I reveled in it.