FluxmunkiBlog

Experiencing the XLERATOR

2007-08-29T11:23:00.000Z

A while ago I blogged about the joy of hand dryers. Last night I was pointed in the direction of an actual XLERATOR hand dryer!! in the Old Arcade in Cardiff centre, kind of odd as it's a bit of an-old-man pub. I can atest that it is indeed an awesome hand dryer (as you can see from the picture). I also recently had the opportunity to use the Dyson Airblade, at the London Eye, again a very cool hand dryer. Eeee it's all changed since I was a lad, I remember when all the hand dryers had a big round button you had to press and blew at a mediocre rate. Now it's all crazy.

Captain Planet rings, bargain!! or are they?

2007-08-28T15:44:00.001Z

A short while ago I was reliving the memories of an old cartoon called "Captain Planet" the show was kind of awful, but in a way that made it kind of cool (just like those 'cool' kids that wear 'grandad' clothes and make them cool). Captain Planet was a superhero that basically tried to save the world from environmental disasters and pollution and stuff. He was helped by the Planeteers, some human kids that had special rings that gave them powers (Earth, Fire, Wind, Water and Heart), yes, heart was indeed a bit of a rubbish power compared to the others. So recently I was looking at the official Captain Planet website (the show must still be shown in Portugal or something) and saw that you can order an absolute tonne of merchandise!! how cool! Best of all you could order a whole set of the planeteer rings (special abilities not included), and what's more they were only $4.95 for the whole set!! So that's got to be a wise purchase in anyone's books, so I went about trying to order them only to find (after registering etc) that the delivery to the UK was a little 'steep'. A staggering $56.26!!!! omg!! I haven't been able to find them sold anywhere else or on ebay, so I haven't been able to buy them (therefore robbing myself of such joy). If any helpful reader would like to send me the rings for a more reasonable price I'm open to offers! THE POWER IS YOURS!!

Hand Dryers

2007-04-24T21:15:00.000Z

This post is about a highly infectious obsession, rivalled only by the mummin' phenomena (one from the archives to come!). This obsession is usually spread during nights out involving pubs and alcohol.

Have you ever noticed the difference in hand dryers in different toilets? Some of them are weedy little things that kind of breathe over your hands (some might say seductively, but not me, no) While others nearly blow you off your feet. The trick to avoiding this obsession is to just acknowledge this fact and move on. However if you start noticing the names and models of the different dryers you start having 'favourites' and almost ranking them "this is the best hand dryer I've used in some time!"

A slight ironic twist is that you tend to use hand dryers whilst you are under the influence of alcohol, so you stand there going "the XL2000, that's good I must remember that for later" then tomorrow you've somehow forgotten (although I guess this keeps that game fun for longer!)

My unique hand dryer idea that I came up with when alone in a pub toilet with pretty good hand dryers is a completely new revolutionary way of drying your hands. What you do is to stand in front of 2 dryers, having one hand under each!! surely that will halve the time (and double the pleasure?) However, this reveals the importance of the instruction showing you to rub your hands together, just having the hand under the air is not enough!!

Details/Links: The XLERATOR It makes your skin ripple! There are literally dozens of references on the net to them, people just can't get enough! The official site is so full of chrome it almost blinds you!

One from the archives 'Cornflakes'

2007-04-23T10:03:00.000Z

An obsession that spawned many other obsessions and that has been re-invented by many people the world over.

Dates Of Obsession

this obsession was rather short lived. It started a few years back, i'd say around about 1998. It continued for about a week I think, then slowly faded away.

Story Behind Obsession

Picture, if you will, four young boys, on a voyage of discovery, on the brink of manhood, facing the rigours of the great outdoors. Okay, now replace that with the image of 4 juveniles, in a pair of tents in the lake district, replace the voyage of discovery with a voyage of having absolutely nothing to do, and the rigours of the great outdoors with thinking of new ways to use the word cornflake. Somehow the word cornflake became a wildcard, a word that could be used in the place of any other, the main game was to think of films then replace one of the words with the word cornflake, eg "the blair witch cornflake" (this was one of the most overdone). Later on the word cornflake also became slang for the act of masturbation, eg "Im just going for a cornflake" This lead to rather amusing film titles such as "the cornflake that time forgot".

Details/Links

Possibly came into existence from a previous site I worked on called Reservoir Eggs
Spawned the possibly more successful badgering, and the not so successful Mashed Potato
Extensions to this obsession include the expansion of topics, such as band names and computer games, good examples being: Rage Against The Cornflake, Kornflake, smashing cornflakes, Cornflake Fantasy 8
If you have a suggestion for any type of cornflake please enter it by leaving a comment, if yours is good enough it might make the top 10!!

Top 10 cornflakes

10. Interview with the Cornflake 09. Cornflake Park 08. Buffy The cornflake slayer 07. Terminator 2: Cornflake day 06. Teenage Mutant Ninja Cornflakes 05. he land before cornflakes 04. Jurassic cornflake 03. The cornflake that time forgot 02. Honey i shrunk the cornflake 01. The never ending cornflake

Where are they now?

I haven't played this game for quite some time, but whenever I read some of the old faves they still make me chuckle. Also seemed to be one of the popular 'polls' on the old site, occasionally you'd get some quality user suggestions.

The Reverse Wave (The ultimate driver signal)

2007-04-17T20:58:00.000Z

Drivers like signals: the open palmed "go on, cross, I'll wait" to show who the bigger man is. Or the hands raised in bemusement "what the hell was that? did you learn to drive at ASDA?". Or some that are too rude to mention here. My favourite, however, is the reverse wave, this is where someone lets you out in front of them (either changing lanes or pulling out into traffic) and the only way to show your appreciation is to raise your left hand in a 'reverse wave' "cheers for that, much appreciated". It is one of the nicer, selfless, and unpatronising driver signals available and I love it, both as a giver and a receiver. The dark side of this obsession is that I now expect to receive the reverse wave whenever I let someone out in front of me, when this occasionally doesn't happen, I have to resort to one of the signals too rude to mention here (or at least think about it... I'm far too polite to ever do that). Comments are welcome on your favourite driver signal.

One from the archives 'Tunnocks Caramel Wafers'

2007-03-29T13:16:00.000Z

An obsession from 2001

Dates Of Obsession

I think this was mainly around the 2nd year of college, making it 2000-2001.

Story Behind Obsession

Tuesday nights I used to stay at my dad's house, and I would therefore go to college from there on Wednesday, I would raid the cupboards for things to take to eat at college. Now we always used to have multi-packs of a very special biscuit namely "Tunnock's Caramel Wafer Biscuits" We would always have these as they were quite cheap and my dad is always on the lookout for special deals. After arriving at Physics late (the bus was always late) I would sit through the first half of the class thinking about the Tunnock's lying in wait in my bag, little did anyone know the deep dark thoughts in my head, when the teacher was talking about quantum physics I was thinking about the sweet chocolate melting on my tongue, when my friends were talking to me I was thinking of the crisp biscuit crunching in my mouth. Half way through the lesson we would usually be given a short break, this would give me the chance to put into action my plans, oh I remember that sweet taste even now.

Details/Links

A fun game we used to play was where I would challenge people to tell me what the wrapper said and if they got it word for word I would give them a bit of the biscuit. The actual phrase was "More than 4,000,000 of these biscuits made and sold every week" Now you wouldn't think that this would be too hard to remember with such a reward, but my friends got it right remarkably few times

Official site not very good in my opinion.
Someone more obsessed that me quite amusing really, unfortunately I think it might be serious, damned religious nuts! appears to be from a sermon on temptation, nice!
Tunnocks Appreciation society a site run from St Andrews uni.

Where are they now?

I haven't actually had a tunnocks for some time now, however they still haunt my dreams I guess it's pretty much the same as crack or cocaine, once you're an addict you always feel that craving.

As is often the case I was a major trend settor on the inter-super-high-web and since my obsession many 'cooky' sites/forums have had obsessions with Tunnocks. Of course I liked them before they were famous!

The best ever image. Imagine the fun you could have in that!

One from the Archives - Bepés Beard

2007-03-21T22:29:00.000Z

In an effort to reduce the amount of effort to create blog entries I have decided to occasionally ‘take one from the archives’. The idea being that I copy the article from the original fluxmunki site but add a ‘where are they now’ section to update you, the reader.

Dates Of Obsession While living in shared house at university (2002-2005) Story Behind Obsession Bepé or not Bepé, that is the question. "Bloody students! all they do is watch TV all day" is a terribly stereotyped view of students, however it is largely true; in my shared house of 5 many an hour is wasted in front of the TV, a large proportion of which are spent watching soaps. Now I'm as big a fan as the next person of that classic soap 'Neighbours' which is a quality piece of televisual entertainment, but I must say I'm not a big fan of Eastenders, Coronation Street or Emmerdale, soaps, which at times, I am obliged to watch. You may say that I should get off my backside and go and do some work, after all you pay your taxes. However one of the chief culprits is my lovely girlfriend, and she has a knack of 'accidentally' making sure we cook tea so that it 'just happens' to be ready in time for Eastenders. Also often it so hard to get out of a settee that I may watch it as I unfortunately sat down at the wrong time. If you can relate to the above scenario here is a way to pass the time while the TV leaks mindless drivel:

Read the TV mag, this may pass around about 5-10 minutes depending on the quality and interest of the mag in question.
Stare blankly at the TV - if you are lucky you may be able to stand around about 30-40 seconds of this before your brain tries to shut down.
Play the "Go through the TV mag and Bepéise everyone" game.

The idea behind this game is that the stars of Eastenders and other soaps which fill TV mags are obviously aware of how tedious their show is (unless they are in Neighbours) and the only way to escape capture is to disguise themselves as an ex-lover of the italian stalion Bepé. Everyone knows that soapstars aren't the brightest people and hence aren't great at disguising themselves; they think that by drawing a ludicrous beard (as sported by Bepé) and writing "I Love Bepé" on their forhead they will get away with it. The way that they write on their forhead is by using a mirror, which, due to their silliness, results in the writing being backwards! Oh Deary me! To play the game you must go through the entire TV mag and turn each and every person into Bepé, this requires a Bepé beard and backwards writing of "I love Bepé" on the head. Details/Links Apparently Bepé is not spelt Bepé, but is in fact spelt Beppe, pah! what do they know? Who ever heard of an Italian without an accent over at least part of their name? an example front cover that has been Bepéised This front cover was sent in by an amateur Bepéiser, although there are problems such as not Bepéising every person there is obviously promise.

Where are they now? Although still a lover of the Bepé beard, I tend not to watch (m)any soaps nowadays and hence have not played the game for a while. Recently a friend of mine texted me “I’m in a bar with beppe :-)” and forgiving the mis-spelling of the name and the inexcusable use of the smiley this was surely exciting. As you can imagine this is quite a lofty claim so I demanded proof and was rewarded with the following picture message (look at the wonders of modern technology!). Note the face of my friend has been disguised to maintain Brendan’s anonymity. A while ago a colleague with too much time on their hand also did a partial Bepé of me:

Tosh – AKA Kevin Lloyd

2007-03-21T22:21:00.000Z

Tosh is an immortal Date Of Birth 28 March 1949

Date Of Death 2 May 1998

Notable Filmography The Bill - DC Alfred 'Tosh' Lines Many bit parts of British TV programs

Reason for Immortality Although not a huge fan of 'The Bill' when I did watch it I used to like ol' Tosh, he was a stereotypical copper; slighlty overweight, with a ludicrously large moustache but when called upon he was "second to none when it came to solving cases."

Statistics (See top trump card) If there was a moustachage score then Tosh would score a lot higher. Tosh could blatantly hold his own in a bit of fisticuffs.

Details/Links Eight children, one adopted 'The Lloyd Brothers' - Page about Kevin and his brother Terry, who was the ITN news reporter who went missing in Iraq. Kevin Lloyd's IMDB page

The Immortals – An introduction

2007-03-21T22:18:00.000Z

This is a section from the original fluxmunki.com, I’ll gradually migrate the existing immortals and eventually add some new ones. This post serves as an introduction and a place where people can post suggestions for new immortals (by posting a comment on the blog)

There are some people who are just fantastic, who you can't possibly live without, everyone has lists of people that they think are great, somehow my friend and I managed to conceive the idea that these people are in fact immortal, as they never seem to age. This obviously lead onto the idea that they are immortal in a Highlander stylee, in that there "can be only one" and that they hunt each other and then if they decapitate another immortal they gain their power and stuff, and the last one left standing gets the top prize (you get nothing for a pair, "NOT IN THIS GAME"). Many people seem to realise that these people are special, but if they were tuly immortal then how can we explain the poor immortals that are sadly dead? The explanation here nicely ties up all loose ends!

Don't know if this is in good taste? but perhaps we could run a sweep stake on who will win? I’m bagsying old Rolf.

I have created a top trumps game using the Immortals, this means that you can simulate the battles that will one day take place between these fearsome fellows. Simply click on each immortal and print the top trumps image: Brian Blessed Bronson Cookie Monster Geoff Green Giant Greg Evigan Alec Guiness James Mason Michael Caine Mr T Oliver Reed Pob Rod Hull Rolf Sean Connery Tony Hart Tony Robinson Tosh

Signing on Hollyoaks

2007-03-19T22:57:00.000Z

This post is in relation to the Sunday edition of Hollyoaks that has a little bloke in the corner who signs what is being said in the show (May not always be a bloke). What I was wondering one Sunday watching this with friends (I wouldn’t normally watch it – it’s an appalling show!!) is what would happen if there was a character who signed? What would the chap do? Would he mirror the signing? Or would he just keep ‘quiet’ (still)? Or maybe he’d actually say the words out loud? Who knows, has anyone ever seen a signed shown with a character who signs? Raising this question lead onto much silliness suggesting what would happen if you turned the volume up/down would the chap wave his hands more/less excitedly? Or would he perhaps shrink/grow? Hmm an interesting question I’m sure you’ll agree.

Do people use logic when spreading their toast?

2007-02-27T00:29:00.000Z

So the question is: You are making 2 slices of toast and you plan to put 2 different spreads onto the toast (1 spread per slice). Do you make any sort of logical decision as to which spread goes on which slice? Or do you just randomly choose one and spread like you’ve never spread before? Posing this scenario to a small sample group revealed that people varied hugely in the amount of logic they applied, one person even professing to being completely random in the choice(she might as well have had ‘anomalous result’ scrawled on her forehead!). So a few reasons:

If one spread is preferred then this will go on the ‘better’ (see section 2.6 – the definition of ‘better’ when applied to toast) bit of toast. However if one spread is preferred the obvious solution seems to be to have both bits with this ‘super spread’ on it.
As above but reversed, this seems to be an attempt to ‘level the playing field’ and give the weaker spread a fighting chance.
A common reason was the warmth of the toast, most people liked the toast to be warm and to melt the butter/margarine, and then they would put the ‘better’ spread on this slice.
Thickness of the bread (raw toast) some spreads are rather delicate and work best on a thin slice of toast, others have the power and substance to manage a thicker slice, maybe even a crust! (e.g. Marmite and Peanut Butter)

So to summarise people have a wide range of reasons for choosing how to spread their toast, varying from notions of ‘betterness’ to thermal properties. The morale of the story is it takes all sorts to make the world go round and you should respect everyone’s toast style and perhaps experiment with different toast cultures occasionally, or ‘stop being so anal and just spread them randomly.'

Who decides which way up the universe is?

2007-02-27T00:26:00.000Z

We are all fairly familiar with the picture of the solar system with the sun in the middle and all the planets orbiting it in (surprisingly enough) a plane* (not an airplane - that would be silly). So which way is North? Which way is up? How fortunate is it that we (at least in the northern hemisphere) treat north as up, and the solar system picture also has north as up? So what happens when the earth's gravitational field flips? (As it apparently does every few** years) Does the universe also flip upside down? Do we have to re-orientate our view of the solar system so north is still up? Does the universe itself flip upside down (seems unlikely). Also will we need to do a product re-call on all of our compasses to swap around the N and the S? hmmmm interesting question I hear you wander. Well apparently it won’t make much difference and we’ll just say that the old north is now south and vice versa. * I must admit this always seemed rather odd to me, if the planets were formed when the sun was formed etc and it was 'proper loud' and stuff wouldn't all the planets have just been in random orientations around the sun, each orbiting in its own plane? Well I believe that the answer is something to do with the fact that the sun has its own axis of rotation, and then gravity and stuff has something to do with being perpendicular to the axis of rotation, and hence the planets' orbits orient themselves to being in a common plane, perpendicular to the sun's axis of rotation! Good attempt - 8/10 see me ** Might be a 'few' more than a 'few'

Welcome

2007-02-26T23:49:00.000Z

Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls, geeks of all ages. Welcome one and all to the all new Fluxmunki Blog! To those of you who don't know this blog is the sequel to the original http://www.fluxmunki.com/ site that recently departed this virtual earth. Although the site got a fair amount of hits it had fallen into disrepair and when the renewal fees for my ISP were due I noticed that I had not updated the site since 2002. So I let him/her/it die, with the promise that one day it would return. Since then I have thought of a few things that could have gone on the site and also decided that the site would work as a blog (I like to think that it was a sort of blog a long time before blogs were 'cool' 'trendy' 'hip' [and other yout' words]). Hence FluxmunkiBlog. Now as all good US series know a new series should always be introduced with a good double bill, to get viewers hooked onto the new series, and FluxmunkiBlog is no different (in some ways at least). So here is my double bill, 2 brand new, never been aired, obsessions to kick off the blog: