middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins

A slow worm. Oh joy. I have a real fear of snakes and even though this is technically a lizard of sorts, it’s very much a snake to someone that doesn’t like snakes.

Although these lizards are often mistaken for snakes, there are a number of features that differentiate them from snakes. The most important is they have small eyes with eyelids that blink like lizards. This is a feature that is not found in snakes. They also have visible ears like lizards do, which snakes do not have. They also have a notched tongue rather than the forked tongue of a snake. They shed their skin in patches like other lizards, rather than the whole skin as most snakes do. Also, the pattern of their ventral scales is totally different from that of snakes.

Oscar (our cat) has been bringing in quite a few of these lately and every time it fully freaks me out. Also, “Slow worms are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 from being killed, injured or sold “. Random post over and apologies for the slightly crappy photo - didn’t wanna go too near and leaning made it hard to keep the camera still.

Ages ago I came across the image of a white cat wearing blue swimming goggles and I chose to adopt it as my avatar and profile image for Facebook. I now use it everywhere I’m online (look at the top of this blog or click through to one of the other places I am) and I’ve even just got some Moo cards printed up with ‘the cat’ on.

So, it was a bit of a shock this morning to be emailed a link to a massive picture of ‘me’ in the Daily Mail this morning - included in a feature on LOLcats. It just felt strange.

I once tried to get in touch with the owner of the original image to find out more about the cat and check he/she doesn’t mind me using their image, but the website I took it from didn’t reply. Seeing ‘myself’ this morning has made me realise how much I do really want to know more about the cat in the blue goggles so I’m going to get on the case with finding ‘my owner’. Hopefully I’ll be able to update on this soon and I might need your help in doing so!

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I’ve been in the US for the past two weeks. I am in fact still feeling really jet-lagged which is on the whole a bit crap. I decided that although I took my laptop out there to do a few bits and bobs I wasn’t going to blog or Tweet. I failed on the Twitter front but haven’t blogged for ages, so by means of a gentle introduction back into it here’s some random US inspired thoughts, observations and images.

1) Mobile phones with massive aerials are very common in the US. They look a bit like our toy phones that are filled with sweets with those bendy little aerials. My guess was that it’s because coverage isn’t as dense as in the UK where we have a mobile phone mast rammed up anything that can take it without the local community kicking off.

2) There is no stigma attached to hip/belt mounted devices. Related to the above, I couldn’t get over the gadget belts sported by all sorts of people. Big racks of massive mobiles with floppy aerials in leatherette cases.

3) Stereotypes exist for a reason. Sorry guys but I saw so many incredibly fat people in the US and the whole place is geared around eating and driving. Well Florida is anyway. It really did amaze me, so much so I started a bit of a collection of fat people shots. I know. Really wrong but I couldn’t help myself. Here’s three generations of big asses looking at rays.

4) New York is very similar to London. Apart from the fact it smells different, there’s steam coming out of vents, the buildings are taller on the whole, the traffic lights swing and you can’t walk a block without getting hassled to buy something - mainly bus tour tickets.

5) The grid system is easy but a bit boring. I can see why US peeps think London is quaint with its little roads and streets. There isn’t really any of that in New York, only massive boulevards that give the impression of immense space and scale.

6) The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue really is amazing and it really is packed 24 hours a day. Bit of a mecca for me going to the Apple Store. When I got there, guess what, it was full of all the same stuff as in all the other stores. But that glass cube . . . it rocked.

7) Animals rock. Especially monkeys and killer whales called Shamu. He even has his own website. But, as Charlotte pointed out (and you can see in the image below) all the dorsal fins were bent over - a side effect of being in captivity. Left a bit of a sour taste.

8 ) Stuff is really cheap right now. The pound is spanking the dollar so the numerous malls and cheap factory outlet sites are rammed with people stocking up on Nike trainers, jeans and other stuff. Including me. I bought a pair of Nike SB Air Tre A.D.s that I tracked down in a shop in what felt like gangland. No-one else would get out the car.

9) Twitter really delivers when you’re in a different country. One day we were all starving and wanted to go and get a full-on American breakfast (see number 3 above). I tweeted and immediately got a response from Claudine at the Telegraph (@claudineb). We then headed to the Theater Row Diner and had an amazing breakfast, while I spent the whole meal explaining what Twitter was and how I’d found it.

10) For the second time now I saw a guy ‘pleasuring himself’ in public. It wasn’t good and left Charlotte and I feeling violated. And to make matters worse it was outside the Museum of Sex which I had taken a picture of seconds earlier AND we saw him flick ‘pleasure stuff’ off his hand and onto the phonebox. (The first time was in Soho in London by a tramp in his sleeping bag). Not good and sorry to present you with that image.

11) Going to Ground Zero is overwhelming and something you should definitely visit and pay your respects at. But for some reason I wasn’t as moved as I thought I would be. I think it’s because you see the massive US flag and you see people getting on with it and construction taking place and that stops you from reflecting 100% but instead makes you feel positive about the future. Don’t know what’s more to be said on that.

12) Britain just can’t seem to pull off a show/big thing like the US can. Disney, for all it’s cheese and tackiness, is amazing and the Magic Kingdom light show at night is insane. I think it’s down to the people. We just can’t be that false/enthusiastic/corporate/crazy/child-like/blinkered/professional (delete as appropriate). Think of Terminal 5, Millennium Dome, British Rail, Tate Modern crack etc.

Um, that’s it. I didn’t want to end on number 10 for obvious reasons and now don’t want 13 and more than that seems excessive. I’ll definitely be going back and thoroughly enjoyed my time in the US. In the meantime I feel I have a better understanding of US culture (well at least NY and FL) and an enhanced appreciation of the great things about London.

So, today is April Fool’s Day. And don’t we know it! As a sign of how connected we all are and how fast things move these days, here’s a comprehensive list of April Fool’s Day activity on Wikipedia already. Really does make you think about how we are indexing our own lives and everything we do on the planet. The BBC’s “Flying Penguins” seems to be a real winner in particular - especially on Twitter. Fair play I say. Do you think they were trying to beat the famous spaghetti trees April Fool’s Day prank (see below)?

Anyway, happy April Fool’s Day and all that. Why do we do it again?

Swiss Spaghetti Harvest (1957, yes 57!)

Don’t really know what to say about this, other than, check out what people have made using Tampons. There’s step by step instructions for each item and even a video of someone playing Ode To Joy on a pan pipe made of Tampons!!!? Nothing is off-limit when it comes to the interwebs. All a bit random but something I feel compelled to share. Sorry about that. This is definitely the oddest post yet. Wonder what Tampax make of it? Is this site helping to break down those taboos?

Here’s a selection of some of the things featured on Tampon Crafts and a snippet of some of the copy from the site:

The Menstrual Militia is now recruiting! Arm yourself with a Tampon Shooter and report for target practice and tactical tampon maneuvers. Safe for indoor or outdoor use, this air-powered gun fires tampons “bullets” up to 20 feet. Our Tampon Bandolier insures that you’ve always got a supply of ammo at the ready, plus you’ll never have to hunt around for a spare tampon in case you really need one.

Tampon Gun

Tampon Ghost

Tampon Pan Flute

A video of someone playing a Tampon Pan Flute, as you do

(Found via sk-rt)

UPDATE: Wired has ran something on this and it looks like it’s the SECOND Twitter marriage proposal!

I’m offline for a few hours and look what I miss - what must surely be the first ever marriage proposal done via Twitter. Congratulations Emily and Max! Quite literally everything is happening on Twitter these days.

Drew just pointed me in the direction of the Twitter Fan Wiki. It’s a nice resource for everything Twitter, as you’d expect. Amongst everything on there I came across this - a Matrix-like Japanese mash-up of Tweets (done by this guy). Pretty nice me thinks.

Which reminds me, have you seen this blog - Stuff White People Like. Japan is in there, which I pointed out to Ged over at RC! But then I’m just as “guilty” of loving Japanese stuff so there we go. Anyway, enjoy. There’s so much more to come from Twitter. We’re only just at the beginning when it’s all a bit noisy and people are starting to itch for the next level.

Right, it’s Friday and this is funny. Really funny I thought. It had me LOL, genuinely LOL - GLOL to be precise. Not quite ROTFL or even LMAOROTFL but GLOL none the less. See what you think. In a nutshell, man writes about a particularly crazy woman that bought his fridge. Funny entry gets picked up by the interwebs and ends up on the front page of Popurls. I read, agree and then perpetuate the cycle. Have a good weekend everyone. I think I need it and so do you.

Here’s a snippet:

3. Please call me only once with ALL your questions. I left for the day, and had 5 messages on my answering machine, the last one was at 11:30 pm. Frankly lady, you were sounding a bit too crazy by the end of the day. It’s a fridge. A small metal box that keeps shit cold. I don’t have the fridge’s family tree. For all I know the fridge’s was conceived by a slutty young Maytag that graced some hillbilly’s side porch. I don’t know the exact age of the fridge. I bought it a few years ago, I used it for a couple of months, ok, I lied, I used it a whole year. The fact is, you’re not buying a race horse, you’re buying a used fridge.

200 people freeze and unfreeze in Grand Central Station thanks to Improveverywhere.

[Via Fallon Planning]

I’ve said it before and I know I’ll definitely say it again, but I really do love the Internet and everything (nearly) that it enables.

My dad (self-confessed technophobe) has just set up his brand spanking new internet radio (Roberts WM201) - using the easy to use Netgear browser interface and adding the radio manually by MAC address to the trusted access list. I was able to go to the Roberts website, download the manual and run through the whole set-up procedure with him.

He’s now happily surfing over 6,000 internet radio stations and checking out on demand content from BBC Radio 4 from his study in the Northumbrian hills (where he can’t get FM because of said hills and only just gets broadband because of the distance to the nearest exchange).

And for I think perhaps the first time ever, dad’s got a piece of kit I haven’t got! Bit jealous really . . .

Nice one dad and thank you Internet.