Warm Jam

Not quite as amusing as when they lost their membership list, but considerably more poetically inept.

The Register brings to attention their “Battle For Britain” campaign, complete with Spitfire poster.

“The British National Party has pulled off a bit of a blinder by fronting an anti-immigration campaign with a poster featuring a Spitfire belonging to 303 Squadron of the RAF – the “most effective Polish squadron during the Second World War”, as the Telegraph puts it.”

How good is that?!

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The Register carries this rather excellent story. Sacked workers at a Sony VHS factory have taken hostage the Sony France chief executive. I’m not sure at what point you get to claim indignation when a VHS factory is shut down – the format’s all but redundant, after all – but I really rather like the course of action.

To say I have a strong distaste for Sony would be an understatement.

• They’ve included viruses on their CDs (See the Wikipedia article), to which their response was (and this is a genuine quote) “Most people, I think, don’t even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?”
• Then, the uninstaller created “a far greater security risk than even the original Sony rootkit“.
• Their SonicStage and Connect MP3 player software is terrible, despite the premium costs of the players.
• They were the focus of a class action lawsuit when their PS2 lasers were shit.
• They were sued, and ultimately removed feedback rumbling from PS3 controllers, since the whole technology was ripped off from Immersion with niether payment nor even acknowledgement.
• Then there’s their suing Lik Sang into oblivion for daring to legally buy their products wholesale in Japan and sell them on to Western consumers, because it circumvented their region encoding & price hiking.
• They’ve consistently tried to introduce proprietary formats with no place in the market – Betamax, Minidisc, and UMD.
• Most spectacularly, they’ve manufactured laptop batteries for Dell, HP, Lenovo and Apple which have exploded with flames reaching six foot plumes.
• Most recently they’re bitching about the Change4Life campaign using a Playstation controller in their attempts to get kids off their sofas from time to time and get some fresh air.

So, if anybody would like to kidnap any more Sony execs under any thin veil of industrial action, or just recreationally, you have my blessings. That said, I won’t be purchasing any fresh VHS tapes, solidarity or none…

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I’m finally getting my appetite back after the hospital’s culinary efforts, so went to town a bit yesterday evening – these are the results.

Slow-cooked pork belly in soy sauce, lemon juice, honey and ginger glaze, with broccoli, ginger rice, and crispy kale. Total comfort food, read on for a vague how-to.

The pork goes in at gas mark 3-ish, about a quarter inch deep in the marinade (mix the listed ingredients to taste) for anything from an hour and a half. This time I think it was in there about two hours, regularly turned & basted. When it’s ready you’ll be able to cut the fat with a spoon.

The kale gets stripped from the stalks, splash of oil (sesame in this case) and some salt (not much, it shrinks a lot in the oven so it’s easy to over-season) then in the oven at something less than gas mark 1 for 25-ish minutes (not in with the pork though, as the steam stops it from drying out).

Rice was mixed with some finely sliced ginger then steamed, and the brocolli was just chucked in boiling water for a couple minutes then briefly in a frying pan with some of the (cooked) marinade from the pork.

Everything but the broccoli is cooked pretty slow so the timings are flexible, which is good because my coordination sucks. Presentation is my usual “fuck it, I’m going to chew it up in a minute anyway”.

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I had a hernia op on Thursday morning, and it’s taken a little longer than I expected to get well enough to post an update. Tore it back in September moving boxes for a house move, though it only presented in October, and only got to seeing my G.P. in December (in case he’d tell me not to go see Sick Of It All, you see?). All that taken into consideration, from a referral around mid December to treatment in early March is a pretty good turnaround – I was able to capitalise on someone else cancelling by taking a short notice appointment (I was offered the Thursday the immediately preceding Monday)!

Onto the ward at 07:30, second on the list, out of theatre by noon. I now have a 10x15cm Prolene mesh patch in my crotch for theoretically the remainder of my existence, that is assuming no infections or complications necessitating its removal!

Gratuitous scar pic, click to enlarge:

I have to add that the poor shaving job was their doing, not my own. Sidenote: if that’s ever your job, please, just shave a little bit further so there’s room to apply a dressing without adhering it to my pubic hair.

Wasn’t supposed to be walking for a couple of days, so the stomach bug I picked up there that had me running for the lavatory every ten minutes all Friday was even more unwelcome than it would have been under otherwise healthy circumstances. Add my name to the decriers of hospital cuisine.

Now I’ve only got the wound itself to deal with, I’m much happier, and eagerly awaiting regained mobility. I guess I’m going to have to take it very easy for a fortnight or so, and exercise and “strenuous activities” are supposedly out for six weeks. By that point I may start pushing my luck, so I’ll take things as gently as I can for as long as I can to minimise any negative impact later.
The wound itself basically feels like a particularly deep burn, and bending my leg illicits an upscaled but similar sort of pain to flexing a finger after scalding it on the grill. It’s unpleasant, but manageable – “taking it easy” is by far the most burdensome part of healing. Blue skies and cool breezes outside aren’t making this any easier, it’s perfect running weather. So so pretty. I want to be outside! I want to at least be in the workshop with the doors wide open!

Convalescence is not a favoured activity.

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