It's a CELEBRATION (bitches). Karl Rove has decided to call it quits from his position as Bush's "Deputy Chief of Staff". "The Architect" has only until the end of August to corrupt the world beyond all repair, after which he'll be gone without a trace. (well, he'll be working at Halliburton, or as Guiliani's personal pet. I'm sure there's no love lost there)

It's times like these I really have to fight back the tears. Rove quitting - walking out the door on my birthday of all days. It's enough to make a grown man break down and cry. At least we'll still have the memories... Say do you remember when Karl Rove first met George W Bush back in '76? Well it all happened when Bush Snr asked Rove to deliver some car keys to a fresh faced young dubya, on break from business school... (cue dreamy crossfade)

"Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma - you know, wow", Rove recalled years later before making a hasty exit to find a moist towelette.

Ahh good times. World Politics will feel so empty without Karl Roves enormous head in it. All we'll have left are those precious few memories of the Rovinator... And well... the P.A.T.R.I.O.T act... Torture... The largest scale wiretapping ever witnessed in the history of mankind... The DHS... And of course the hatred of the entire planet...

Goodbye Rove... May your remaining days be filled with the same amount of love and compassion you've emparted upon the world.

Everytime I go to write lately I find I'm coming back to the same political topics. I'm desperately waiting for the world to return to a compassionate, moderate normality - Not so much because of the stress of having the world run by monkeys... More just because it's so fking boring. It's sapped our creativity and turned us all into politicians... and politicians are inherently fucking boring.

Seriously, I don't want to give a shit about torture and corruption and civil liberties and pollution... I want to draw and jam out and write and create with others. I want us to come up with creative ways to bring people together so we can share our lives and experiences.

I don't want us to be war slaves any more. I don't want us to again be thrust into endless debate about whether or not killing people is a good idea, or whether it's a good or a bad idea to pour 4 trillion tonnes of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere each year, or whether we should or shouldn't fear nouns like "terror".

I don't want us to fear an invisible enemy. I want to draw robots and spend time in the sun. I want to see a creek, shed my clothes and go for a swim. I want people to smile at each other in the street again. The only way I can see out of this is by liberating ourselves on a personal level. Shed your prejudices, your fears, your addictions. Find your own personal inner peace and we'll work together from there.

The question is, "If I can't overcome (and am therefore enslaved by) my own addictions to TV, junk food, a wasteful commuter lifestyle, what have you, how can I reasonably expect to not be enslaved by opportunistic external masters?"

A nation of slaves will manifest as an enslaved nation. Only a nation of sovereigns can manifest as a sovereign nation

- biggD (Via Digg)

Today my mind is officially blown. There aren't too many things that would drive one to want to be arrested in the Philipines for being a drug mule, but this is perhaps one of them

This comment sums it up better than I ever could

holy shit. my head is on the wall behind me, in little bloody pieces.

Thats quite a visual, but have your Mr Sheen on hand... It really is that awesome. (and just incase you'd forgotten, here's the original)

Did you know there was a 14 hour extended version of "What the Bleep Do We Know"? 14 HOURS! If you spend 14 fucking hours seeking the quantum truth from a deaf white woman, an enlightened black midget and a host of theatrically bankrupt experts, your brain will implode

Enlightenment in 10 Easy Steps

You heard correct! Forget the wheel of time! Throw out your old "Mortal Coil". We can provide the answers in one quick and easy digestible form!

Learn how the Buddhist masters used their understanding of the nature of reality to get them their new car, that pay raise or the perfect body you've always dreamed of!

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Don't get me wrong... "What the Bleep Do We Know" is good (the original 2 hour version). It could be worse (It could be "The Secret") but the Eastern Cultures did it first - and better... much better.

I have a new appreciation for the plight of the lowly emo thanks to
The Great Emo Experiment

Thanks "Great Emo Experiment"

I might be emo for the moment, but I heard from someone that winners don't make excuses, so I will refrain from telling you how my computer died after I moved a single cable, three days out of the video card warranty. I'll refrain from whining you about how I dreamt that I was violently punishing a spyware programmer after my computer got infected with strange little programs sending packets of my information back to their cheezel infested orange lair. I won't even give you an emotional outpouring about about how virus manufacturers try to cynically milk us for more money by pretending viruses, trojans and spyware are all different problems with different software solutions. Winners don't make excuses. Winners don't need excuses.

Maybe if I was using a Mac...

If you look down the sidebar today, you'll notice a new category - "Pin-Ups!". Yes it's under the "Popular Pages" section - maybe a little pre-emptive, but cmon... Who doesn't love Pin-Ups? Old Gay Preachermen thats who... There I said it.

So in spite of potentially losing the lucritive "Geriatric Gay Preacherman" Demographic, I've decided to do a series of Pin-Ups and make them available here as free wallpapers. As usual, if you have a particular scenario you'd like to see played out in any of these drawings (get your mind out of the gutter - think PG), leave me a comment or drop me a line and I'll give it some thought :)

The first of these is a pinup style version of "Dee" contemplating the consequences of her bloodlust. Hot huh...

Alright, I've neglected the daily doodle for the past week. I've been busy designing the master religion, the master species and the master Web 2.0 app (and yes, it's taken me all week) But I haven't forgotten you... ;)

I've put some of the latest Daily Doodles up in the Sketchdump. Some of these are older images (otherwise known as classics) which were previously on the DailyDoodle before I made the DD all snazzy and Web2.0, so I've reuploaded them so you can see them in Hi-Res...

Incidentally, if you have anything you'd like me to draw for a DailyDoodle, drop us a comment on the DD page and i'll see what I can do!

For my housemate, the countdown has begin. In less than 9 months he will be graced with the presence of a small, possibly hairy, replicant of himself. There's less than 9 months left of peace. Everyone knows that babies are loud, demanding poo factories. (Adults are not much better really)
For most, sex is like a cosmic electrified candy... The apple in the garden of eden... Generation after generation the same thing has happened for so long that we now call it "the miracle of life". The real miracle is that we've never learned that 12 seconds to 4 hours of steamy hot passion often leads to 20+ years of unsteamy, frosty parental monotony...

"mmm candy... *zap!* ow!... mmm candy... *zap!* ow!"

Yeah I'm cynical I know... Unlike the accidental demon spawn of so many other passionate embraces, my child will be a pure angel. I know what you're thinking:
"What's one lone speck of perfection in the torrential birthrate of idiocracy-esque rampant, unprotected libido?!" Fear not padwan for I have a plan...

Unnatural Selection

Once I have completed an extensive seeding campaign, I'll retire to behind the silk curtains of my lovenest and be fed grapes for 9 months while I await the inevitable phone calls. Once I have accrued the names and addresses of the first 3000 of my children, I'll gather them together to live with me in my Greco-Roman palace.
I'm assuming most will only last in the pits for a few months, but some may survive for years, feasting on the flesh of their fallen brethren. The lone winner and survivor of course will be given the title of "Most Awesomest", cleaned up and raised under my devoted, infinitely kind and eternally loving care.

Desperate measures, because life is too important to leave things to chance...

Recursion's a bitch. There's no two ways about it (just the one... that goes around and around and around). Fortunately for us, humans were written in a clumsy enough manner that they simply break when they're presented with infinity rather than commit to the loop. It's a nice feature really.

As a librarian, having a perfect memory would be incredible. As a human, I'm glad I forget

- Some old guy I saw on Derren Brown once

It makes me understand the blue screen of death a little better. It's not like your PC can drink to forget. It just breaks down and starts pouring out it's stream of subconscious hexadecimal misery on your parade. You reset, the power surge flushes the ram and we're back. Suddenly the PC is dreaming again! Harbouring ambitions of rendering webpages, and counting string lengths. It's full of life, fresh faced and oblivious to it's former concern. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

Update: You broke the server!

This one got a few visits and brought my server to it's knees! It's all back up now though (as you can probably tell by the fact that you're reading this)

There's been a lot of talk lately about why Linux has such a slow uptake amongst the mainstream "Microsoft" audience. Of course the usual jokes arise - "My stupid mum got stuck compiling the kernel" etc. Everyone knows by now that there are stable, georgeous Linux distros such as Ubuntu, so these kind of arguments no longer hold water.

Nowadays when we discuss the reasons that businesses and families don't take on Linux, people have to look elsewhere... sometimes quite far elsewhere. We try to pin the blame on all kinds of worldly problems, from ignorance, to apathy, through to a devious corporate stranglehold.

Time to Face Facts

While I'm sure there are elements of all of this in the mix, the simple fact remains that many (the vast majority) of applications are not available in Linux flavours. There are going to be obstacles in the way of getting major software companies to develop for Linux, and broader takeup pushed by companies like Dell is certainly a good start, but the Linux community needs to really understand that without the software, people will not switch.

Now I want to see Linux running through the meadows and across the plains more than anyone, so I'll repeat this for those in the back.
Until Linux can run *the* software people need, THEY WILL NOT SWITCH

The current attitude is akin to telling someone you want to watch "Spiderman 3" and being handed "HollowMan 2"... hey it's all film right? We need the software that we need. There's no alternative. There's no compromise. Concentrate on achieving that goal and you'll find that when it can run the software people need to run, Linux will wipe the floor with Windows.

On another note, my girlfriend's computer's in the shop right now, so I can finally take the opportunity to make linux comics