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I consider myself to be a bit of a worrier. In fact, my boss once told me – “you are the last person I would want to be stuck on a life-raft in the ocean with”. This is because we were stuck in a train and I was listing all the possible reasons we would continue to be stuck for another seven hours. As it turned out we were only stuck for another hour, which, considering it was a British train, is pretty much standard.

A lot of the time there is genuinely nothing to worry about. But then I worry that I must have forgotten to worry about something.

I’ve seen people who don’t worry at all. They seem happy, but they are also frequently a bit dumb. So, there has to be a middle ground. I’ve decided that I want to worry a bit less than I currently worry, but not stop worrying completely.

So, I have been thinking about why I worry so much, and I believe I know the answer…..

Twenty Four Hour News.

Seriously! I spend all day bombarded by stories of doom and gloom. All Twenty Four Hour News channels and websites do is provide predictions of impending financial crises, analysis of what would happen if a world leader wore a pink shirt to a state dinner and comment on the alleged sexual lifestyles of professional footballers.

The news used to be a once a day, 3o minute list of the stuff that HAD happened. Because twenty four news has to fill so much airtime (research has shown that twenty four hour news channels are on air an average of 100% of a day), it has to be entertaining, to keep people watching. To make news entertaining, channels will add fancy graphics, bring in “experts”, run simulations, photoshop pictures and even give major news stories there own theme tunes. They also make everything as terrifying as possible, and any story, no matter how small, is jumped upon, like a bouncy castle of vile drama.

This is why I worry. I’m constantly being told about all the bad stuff that’s going to happen to me. How, if I eat white bread my arms will fall off, or I’m going to be sleeping rough in a years time because the government is secretly planning a £8 million a year red car tax.

So. I’ve decided, for the month of August. I will not watch any twenty four hour news, or visit any news websites. I just don’t wanna know. Well, actually there are some things I do wanna know, for example if a news story affects any of my loved ones directly. Therefore, I have tipped off family members to keep an eye on it and if there is anything they feel they should tell me to do so. Otherwise, I wanna be given the chance to break free from news, and all the worry that comes with it.

So, it will be interesting to see just how easy it is to escape the news channels. It will also be interesting to see if I worry so much when I don’t know every little detail of every single thing that is happening at any given time.

I will report back with my findings at the end of the month. Let’s just hope that no news, is good news.

There was shock tonight as it was revealed that a once common domestic creature is slowly fading away towards extinction.

The creature, which originates from Japan, was found in millions of homes across of Europe and North America in the late 1990′s. Nowadays it seems that, through a mixture of old age, and an increase in the number of predators, their numbers are dwindling.

It is believed that in less than two years there will be no more “Original Nokia Phone Chargers” left in the wild.

It was once socially acceptable to ask “has anyone got a Nokia charger?” in almost any environment, resulting in approximately 950 chargers being thrust towards you.

These days, you might not be so lucky.

The chargers decline is due in part to the increase in the number of  iPod to USB cables, whose numbers have skyrocketed in the last three years. iPod to USB cables reproduce at an alarming rate and consume vital kitchen drawer space, the natural habitat of the original Nokia phone charger.

These must be proper randy buggers...

One scientist said, “when I left for work this morning, I had two iPod to USB cables in my house, on my return this evening – I found twelve.”

There have been several attempts at increasing the number of Original Nokia Phone Chargers in captivity, as a last ditch effort to increase numbers. However, the outlook is bleak for a once loyal servant.

With so much hi-tech equipment floating around the various football stadia in South Africa during this world cup. Many consider it remarkable that none of it is used to enforce the laws of the game, the football governing body preferring to rely on human judgement. However, humans can sometimes get stuff wrng. See.

There have been a number of poor refereeing decisions in this tournament, which may have turned out very differently had technology been applied to the decision making process. For example, Brazil’s Kaka was given a red card because he got walked into. The USA have had two goals disallowed, even though the ball was clearly over the line. Argentina manager Diego Maradona has not been sent to the stands once, despite clearly being Diego Maradona.

These poor decisions have put the pressure on FIFA to reconsider it’s policy on technology.

Other sports, such as Tennis, Rugby and Quidditch have fully embraced technology, and it’s use is now an everyday part of the game. The camera never lies after all.

So Fifa have caved, and the first drips of technology are set to make an appearance in Football. There will be no video technology just yet, however, for the first time ever, a robot will take charge of a world cup final. Not just any robot either. C3P0, best known for his role in “Star Wars” has been chosen as the right man, or thing, for the job.

Yellow really brings out the lights in his eyes

C3p0′s sidekick R2D2 will act as linesman during the game, alongside Johnny-5 on the other wing.

Although the decision to allow the robots complete control of the game has been welcomed by many, some are concerned. The robots are set to learn the rules of the game from the code in the FIFA video games, which many say will lead to ridiculous offside decisions.

It is also unclear what will happen should it rain, or if a ruffian tips R2D2 over. When questioned about this risk R2D2 replied with a sequence of high pitched squeaks, but still made more sense than England striker Wayne Rooney.

We are now coming up to the end of  the first week of the World Cup. So far, the world cup has been responsible for many headlines, however none concerning the actual on field action. One issue dominating the tournament at the moment is the quality of the balls in use. These balls are reported to be causing various players issues and are causing epic levels of controversy.

However, whether you love them or loath them, the Adidas Jabulani is doing one job brilliantly. It is providing previously unseen levels of innuendo, when compared to any other international sporting event.

Usually, the sporting innuendo highlight of the year, comes from Wimbledon, due to start in a few days. Every year, without fail, millions wait for Sue Barker to announce – “Andy Murray may face a hard time in the Men’s Semi’s”. That little gem is nothing compared to the amount of ball talk we’ve had in just one week.

England’s Joe Hart said of the balls – “It’s hard work with them, but good fun.”

The Serbian Keeper Vladimir Stojkovic said the balls were the worst he had ever played with and he should know because, as he put it – “I have played with many different balls in my time.”

Italy striker Giampaolo Pazzini highlighted a concern for many men when he spoke of his ball issues – “I go to the ball, but it moves half a meter and you end up just shaving it on contact.” Why not just go for immac Giampaolo?

Thinking about the balls is keeping some players awake. Ithumeleng Khune of Nigeria said that the balls “keep you from sleeping because you are thinking about tomorrow and how you are going to manage to play with these balls.”

“The balls arrive really fast and the players are having problems controlling them.” said Fabio Capello, the England Manager.

Even the man reguarded as the best player in the world by many, Argentina’s Lionel Messi has been having trouble understanding the balls. “The balls are very complicated” – he said.

Other players seem to like their balls however, and suggest that practicing with the balls helps. Roque Santa Cruz of Paraguay said – “I think that we need time to learn the intricacies of the balls”.

Whatever your opinion on the balls, one thing is for sure. Never in the history of the world have so many people discussed openly how they are getting on with their balls. This is truly a wonderful thing and provides the perfect excuse for the production of childish blog posts such as this one.

Apple have recently released their newest iPhone, the originally named iPhone 4. Apparently, according to Apple’s adverts for said “lifestyle device” – it “changes everything, again”. However, leading scientists have issued a list of everything that will remain unchanged by the new iPhone. On the basis of this, we expect Apple to withdraw the advert with immediate effect.

Here is the list -

The final episode of Lost.

Climate Change.

The boiling point of water.

The distance between London and Paris.

The speed of sound.

The Population of Chad.

The number 72.

Cups.

The smell of damp tarmac.

Snow.

Pancakes.

Everything that has happened before the release of the iPhone 4.

Bread.

Gunther from Friends.

Having an itchy back.

Yeah, not quite. Jog on.

Cats.

Aircraft.

Wikipedia.

The Bible.

Legs.

Ham.

Doing that thing where you jump up because you are dreaming that you are falling over.

The letter Y.

Colours.

The size of Croatia.

Lemons.

Dogs.

The price of the iPhone 3G S.

The Pope.

Which way is North.

Physics.

The Guitar.

Russell Brand.

Shoes.

The English Language.

Sushi.

The Simpsons.

The ratio of lost sneezes to actual sneezes.

E = MC2

Atoms.

England vs. USA World Cup 2010 result.

Cheesecake.

Monday Mornings.

and

Footstools.

When 75 year old Sid Watt made the decision to leap into the 21st century, by buying an iPad, he couldn’t wait to get started. He was excited about being able to listen to his favourite music and audiobooks. However, the excitement was short lived when Sid was unable to find the nearest iTunes store to his home.

Sid, from Eastbourne, on the south coast of England, had wanted an iPod touch for a while, but held off until the iPad release because of the larger screen. He said “The iPod touch screen was far too tiny, and the device was of a similar size to my TV remote control, which would have lead to several hours of frustrated attempts at changing channel.”

Sid first ran into problems when trying to play music on his iPad.

“It kept telling me there was no content present, and content could be purchased from the iTunes store. I went into town, there was no iTunes store. I went to London, they have everything in London don’t they…no..no bloody iTunes store. What a joke. Where the hell do they want me to go to buy music for this thing?!”

Obviously, Sid is unaware that the iTunes store is in fact based entirely online, and is not an actual high street store. Many of Sid’s friends and family are also aware of this, but they have decided not to tell him, because it is quite funny to keep him in the dark.

The retired school teacher said “All I want to buy is a couple of LP’s – Jim Reeves, Chuck Berry, and that Jay-Z and Linkin Park mash up.”

Sid has made several phone calls to Apple about the lack of iTunes stores in England.

“All they keep telling me is the iTunes store is international. Obviously not. I’m sending this bloody thing back, I am not travelling half way around the world to buy music for this thing.”

With many people considering the iPad as a sort of “iPod for seniors”, this could become a regular problem, and Apple has adjusted it’s support terms and conditions to reflect the problem.

5.3 – No support will be given to the over people who ask for the physical location of the iTunes store. They will be considered too stupid.

Sid has now returned to listening to music on vinyl, saying – “ironically, it is easier to find stores selling records than these iTune thingymabobs.”

Twice a year, a list of the Top 500 most powerful supercomputers in exsistence is released. These machines are incredibly complex, cost millions of dollars and fill multiple rooms. In return, they are capable of crunching numbers like you wouldn’t believe. To get an idea of how fast, imagine a large calculation is an Oreo. Your home PC or Laptop would eat the Oreo by following the standard three phase “twist, lick and munch” procedure, at a rate of one Oreo per ten seconds. A supercomputer wouldn’t even consider “twist, lick and munch.” It would swallow the Oreo whole. Three at a time.  This works out at an average of fifty Oreo’s per ten seconds. That is a lot of Oreo’s.

So, what exactly are these machines used for? Lots of crazy cool shit. Well, most of the time it is boring and unimportant research, such as looking into how we came into being, or studying climate change models. Don’t worry though, some supercomputers do also perform socially useful functions. Here are some examples of recent supercomputer uses.

• A $350m supercomputer in California is used to process the Autotune for all Britney Spears records. This was first attempted with standard studio hardware, however it was not capable of performing the number of pitch corrections per second required to make her voice sound just passable.
• A large supercomputer cluster in Switzerland is used to host the popular social networking game “Farmville”.
• A supercomputer at MIT is used to automatically generate the scripts for all ”Straight to DVD” American Pie spin offs.
• Since the reduction in funding for the space programme, NASA has raised additional funds by allowing gossip website TMZ access to one of their supercomputers. It is believed they are using it to try and work out exactly how many people Tiger Woods has slept with.

Most of the worlds supercomputers are hosted in Europe and the United States. However, China and the middle east are areas which have increasing computational power available. Even small nations are joining the supercomputer party. Tristan da Cunha, the worlds smallest inhabited island, recently announced it was opening its first computer research centre. However, the main supercomputer has been created by connecting three XBox 360′s together, meaning capabilities are limited.

Iceland is a relativity young country, physically it is still growing, or should I say “was” still growing. In recent months it appears Iceland has entered its teenage years, with its decision to start smoking, and be generally disruptive.

Hundreds of Millions of pounds have been lost by airlines, and millions of people have arrived late to their destinations or in some cases, not at all, thanks to flight cancellations.

Last night, at a meeting of the UN’s “Adolescent Response and Security Executive” (ARSE) it was decided to remove the country from the planet, thus eliminating the risk of further disruption.

The Icelandic ARSE representative did have the power to veto any decision made, but was unable to attend due to his flight being cancelled.

It took just seventeen minutes for the ARSE to come to a decision, and they voted overwhelmingly to blast Iceland into space, with the help of some rockets, and half a million elastic bands. Oh, and some Diet Coke and Mentos.

An hour after the decision, Iceland was gone, as these images from Google Earth show -

Iceland Pre Expulsion

Iceland Has Gone

A UN spokesman paid tribute the people of Iceland who are no longer with us, saying – “It’s a shame, but I have thousands of air miles to use up.”

It is not yet known if Icelandic Pop star Bjork was on Iceland at the time of the expulsion, a neighbour called at her US home to see if she was in, however she reported – “It’s oh so quiet.”

There is no denying that social networking has completely changed the way we communicate, share information and look at pictures of people we like. Now, social networking has found it’s way into AS Level ICT exam papers for the first time. This has caused great divide amongst teachers. Some say that social networking should be included, as it is a relevant and current form of ICT, while others say that the module is further proof that A-Levels are getting easier.

The exam will be taken by students from June 2010. A similar module that covers the use of Smartphone such as the iPhone and Blackberry is also being planned.

The Department of Voter Apathy is reminding all United Kingdom voters to register if they really can’t be arsed to vote in the upcoming election. With record numbers of voters not really caring who wins the next election, it seems more people than ever will stay at home, head down to the pub or even attempt sexual relations with their long term partner come polling day.

You can now download a copy of the form required to register as not interested in registering to vote from the DVA website. However because I am a bandwidth pimp I have put a copy below.

Form 24A/6

I asked a selection of people about whether they would be not voting or voting. Here’s what they had to say.

“Meh.”

“Pah.”

“Piss off, Knobhead”.

“I don’t see what this has to do with work, what exactly is it you do here again?”.

All non voters need to register by 5pm on Star Wars day.