Somebody?

Josh writes:

Can somebody help us out here? Apparently, Brain Stab was mentioned "in the paper" on Sunday -- the Herald on Sunday, I think. I'm just wondering, purely for the sake of ego, if this is true or not. I can say that we haven't seen any real increase in site traffic since Sunday, which either means it's not true, or no-one cares what the Herald on Sunday says. Obviously, I'm stumped.

In other news:

Aw...

Oh shit.

Administrivia

Josh writes:

By popular demand -- well, demand -- Brain Stab is proud to re-introduce the expanding posts thingy that it used to do. In other words, at the author's discretion, only the start of longer posts will be displayed on the main page, and you'll need to click on the Full Post link to go to the page with the full post on it.

The Full Post link is at the bottom of every post, even ones where what you see on the front page is all there is (like this one) -- that's just the way templates work. Still, if you're the kind of person who'd whinge about having to click a link unnecessarily to find out if there's more to a post, you're probably the kind of person who'd whinge about having to scroll past all those long posts to find out if there are new comments, so fuck ya.

The above post was brought to you by Josh's as-yet-unsatisfied-this-morning caffeine addiction. Thank you.

Cotton

Josh writes:

Ooh! Ahh! A new look for the site! Still a work in progress -- it'll be more interesting by the time it's done, but for now at least it's in the New Blogger style, with the super-expando Archives bit and RSS feeds for comments as well as posts and the wider layout which does away with the need for the "full posts on separate pages" thing and the complete inability to handle basic JavaScript without mangling it so that it doesn't fucking work. But that's not important right now.

What is important is that the change of theme marks Brain Stab's second birthday -- look at that little first post, all the way back in 2004. This is as good an excuse as any to make a few changea around the place, some of which may be far-reaching and earth-shattering. Of course, we were thinking along similar lines after the first birthday, and nothing really came of that.

The title, for the less matrimonially-inclined among you, relates to the traditional gift for 2nd wedding anniversaries. I note that the 3rd anniversary gift is leather. Watch this space next year...

Now Hear This

Josh writes:

OK, so Blogger finally seems to be allowing team blogs to convert to Beta. I have done so. Everything looks OK so far, although Morthos has reported irregularities... disturbing irregularities... trying to log on.

If everything goes pear-shaped over the next wee while, well, you'll know why.

Welcome to the future

Apathy Jack writes:

Hello again The Internet. For your entertainment (because that’s all we are to you isn’t it? Dancing monkeys! Bastards.) we’re having a theme week where we’re discussing the concept of life in the future. To kick it off, I thought I might just repost something I wrote for an old vanity project, on almost exactly this theme (because, you know, I don’t have any new ideas...) but then I thought I’d give you something well written instead: something I stole from RSJS’s livejournal a while back because I liked it so much. I haven’t asked him if it’s okay, but, y’know, life’s like that sometimes...

(By the by, my original thing is here, just in case any of you were wondering. You weren’t? Fair enough I suppose... On with Jellybean’s thing.)

...

Welcome to the future, population us.

I had a creepy feeling in my neck that the telemavision has been lying to us, that the star-spangled future of warrior Amazons in gold cardboard bustiers and big-chinned jocks fucking aliens with some red-white-and-blue space-cock was a myth and we’re forever going to be trapped in the rather dull and lifeless “now” that seems to be invading our every pore like some temporal Mormon-fungus. But something occurred to me: We can’t all be Captain Kirk. Remember in the schoolyard when you and the other geeks would hide behind the Home Ec. room to play handball and lie about girls and play “Star Trek”? You do remember, oh yes. Don’t come the raw prawn with the “No, I was a jock hanging around knee-deep in uniformed sweethearts and singing Nada Surf singles” you were a geek. You’re reading a fuckrying-out-loud Live Gerbil on a weekday, so stop lying to yourself. STOP IT! The point is, when we were running around wielding our old Casio calculators in the plastic cases which you could flip open like a communicator until the lid broke, and your compass for a phaser, there’d be an argument between nerd alpha-males. Because even in the group of six monkeys, one was going to be Uhura. Some poor sexuality-questioning grey-uniformed preteen was going to be the sucker with the salt-shaker in the ear making coffee for Kirk.

Now when there’s only six of you, and one person has to be tea bitch, and another has to be a fat Scot, and yet another has to be a pudding-bowlcut Davy Jones daydream believer saying “Wessels” all day, you realise that being the Kirk and getting the alien totty ain’t too easy. Now look at the big picture: You didn’t get to be Kirk in a group of six. So why the fuck do you reckon you could be Kirk amongst six million? Fat fucking chance. No matter how much mankind evolves, no matter how far into he future we stumble; for every boldly-going infinitive-molesting spacedog that humps across the Milky Way, there’ll be a few million tea-ladies in short skirts doing fuck-all except opening hailing frequencies and asking if the boys like their coffee black like their women. We are in the future, there are space-travelling xenomorph-boffing chins striding about in the torn shirts. But we’re not the Kirks, we don’t get phasers. Most of us are the bitches who make the grommets that usurp the widgets that transphase the Morons who uplink the downloads and cross-reference the jumbo shrimp to make sure the food replicators on the Enterprise don’t piss hot shit into Kirk’s coffee mug. The only show that really got this right was “Blake’s Seven” in which most of the futuristic wankers were beaten-down mud-covered freaks cowering in caves like dogs. Like DOGS I tells ya. Sure, the antiheroes zipped about throwing photon torpedoes (light torpedoes? Man, they travelled slower than a turd down a playground slide) at each other from wobbly cardboard spaceships, but most people wore brown and lived in mud. That’s the future we got.

Theme Week - The Third Job I Should Be Doing

That Morthos Stare writes:

We all have jobs. For some the job is their life whilst for others it is a paycheck generator. Whatever the case, be it corporate lawyer or assistant bagger, we have jobs.

That doesn't mean we have to like them. Indeed, it would be very odd of you not to have thought 'I wish I was doing X,' where X is another job entirely (one that probably pays better or really does have a causal Friday; or, in my case, a formal Thursday). Have, however, you thought about that 'other' other job you could be doing?

Or, maybe, by job you think we mean another task to add to your list? Sure, that sounds good? What's the third thing on it? Or maybe by job you mean... Wait; we don't have an age restriction on this page so I'm not going there. Let it suffice for me to say that the following sentence, had it been included, would have included the words 'minge,' 'cock-hungry,' 'rhinoceros' and 'mucus-membranes.' It wasn't going to be pretty.

The third job, presented by some of our, eer, finest minds. Some of us might not be open to comment. Probably something to do with their vaginas.

Damn, I thought we weren't mentioning those.

Theme Week: Lesser Known Moments of Hesitation

That Morthos Stare writes:

'Somewhere in the world History is happening...' It's cliches like of that kind that get a philosopher's blood boiling and a blogger smiling. 'Brainstab' isn't about history; we're not expecting an MTV-retrospective to feature 'Of course, it was Jack's early days as a vigilante thought-terrorist on 'Brainstab' that...' Nor do we expect that you are discussing our sassy-statements at the water cooler, but we hope you've taken a little note of our ways and means.

Which brings me to 'Theme Week.' As I think I've stated elsewhere I'm somewhat against change if I'm not leading it. When our fearless leader, Josh, imposed change upon us as soon as I was out of the country I had to impose myself upon it. Thus 'Theme Week.' It exists for no good reason than to massage my heavy, steroid-abusing, ego. That I've dragged my compadres and good friends into it is another matter entirely. Some say they only exist to satisfy my base desires and they would be right. Other claim that they plot forever against me and wish freedom. They would be right as well. I just call myself 'The Sti...' Bugger. Sorry. Should excise that section.

Theme Week. I set my friends a task; tell our public about a Lesser Known Moment of Hesitation. This was a compromise on my part; I had originally wanted the topic to be on something like the 'Once and Future Tea-party' or 'Aristotle's Lost Book on Comedy' but that's because I know what I would write for that. 'Theme Week,' should it work, should really not be 'I've got a good idea; let's see if the others can match it.' It's just the selection of a random title that might well produce fruit. No pre-conceptions, no hidden diatribes, just blind inspiration leading all of us astray.

In daily installments.

Thus I present to you, for this week only, a series of short educational snippets of 'Brainstab' psychology entitled 'Lesser Known Moments of Hesitation.' Each the product of its own mind, I ask that you make of them what you will.

Arf! Arf!

Josh writes:

What's that, boy? Apathy Jack's flatmate actually knows how to use Photoshop?

Arf! Arf Arf Arf!

He's made us a new logo that provides a more radical departure from the previous one than merely a colour change?

Arf!

Why, I'll update our blog template straight away -- good boy!

Little Timmy's bloated corpse was fished out of the old well two weeks later. Stupid fucking dog.

By Way of an Explanation

Josh writes:

As I recall, the conversation went something like this:

Josh: It's a new year, and we're one year old now -- time for a change. New look to the blog, some new contributors -- perhaps even a new name.

Apathy Jack: Yes. These all are good ideas. Have a biscuit.

Josh: Thank you. So, any ideas for a new name, new look or new people?

Apathy Jack: No. You?

Josh: No. Arse. OK, how's this for an idea: We add a guest account -- call it "Guest Ranting Bastard" or something (I'll think of a better name later) -- and invite people we know who might want to contribute on an irregular basis to use it?

Apathy Jack: Could work. Of course, most of the people we know a very, very lazy. Lazier even than us -- at least we have a blog.

Josh: Worth a try, though.

*time passes*

Josh: Hey everyone, I've added a Guest Ranting Bastard account and changed the colour scheme while I was at it, as this provides a visual change while being significantly easier than coming up with an all-new design! In the spirit of democratic participation, I thought I'd give you a chance to offer your opinions on these things that I have already done.

Everyone else: We unanimously approve of everything.

Josh: It's agreed then -- the changes shall remain just as I have made them.

Everyone else: Thy will be done.

Morthos: Also, it could be neat if one of us set a theme from time to time, and we all wrote posts on the theme.

Josh: Sounds peachy. Now shush, dear -- grownups are talking.

Jellybean: Meh, the new pink style makes me think I'm writing in a vagina. It's inspirational. There's a theme right now -- "musings from an electronic pudenda".


And it pretty much degenerated from there.

Alright, that's not quite how it happened -- there was no biscuit.

Small Housekeeping Note

Apathy Jack writes:

To address something that has happened a few times now: I turned off commenting on my posts because it got a little bit too much like what Warren Ellis called retard farming. It’s not that I don’t want to hear from the proles as such, and there’s every chance I’ll stop bothering to hit the “ban” button at some point, but there is a certain etiquette, I feel. When I’ve opened comments for a specific reason, talking about something wildly off topic (especially, but not only, another post that I’ve made, for example) is silly. Worse is commenting on someone else’s post – that just strikes me as being faintly impolite. I don’t mean any offense to anyone, but Brain Stab has an email address on the side of this very page, and my address is in my profile, so if you want to tell me something that badly, it’s not like you don’t have any options.

Of the New

Josh writes:

Things currently Of the New at Brain Stab:

• New member - welcome to Brother Morthos, purveyor of a religion more fake than Scientology and Catholicism put together.
• New template. It am pretty.
• New e-mail address. Over on the right there. No, down a bit.