|
|
VSX, A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist: Starbuck Powersurge - a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of Viper Squad Ten, a long-disbanded group of stranded timetravelling troubadours, formed to help finance repairs to their time-machine. Now very much stuck in C21... [ Archives ]
[ Comments ] Click on a post's Comment link to view or add Readers' Comments. No purchase necessary. (Click [!] for backup Haloscan Commenting). [ Search ] [ Site Feed ] Atom [ Copyright ] All text is copyright the Viper Squad Ten blog team 2003-2006 unless otherwise quoted or credited. If we've not credited you properly, please let me know. Throw us a link if you're desperate enough to use this guff... [ VSX Latest ] |
[ Tuesday, November 30, 2004 ]ShortbandStarbuck [10:38] Comments: 0 [] I know that there is a wealth of knowledge and goodwill floating around the interweb, a veritable global University of Intelligentsia, stuffed to the rafters with e-Genies just waiting for a problem for them to help out on. So this one's for you. My Dad's recently got ADSL broadband installed, and blimey, it moves like a whippet with a hungry cheetah tied to its tail. And then. A few minutes later. It stops. Pages not found all around. I've noticed that the two green arrows in the system tray turn yellow, and hovering over them with the cursor advises "DSL Modem: State - Training" (or worse, "no signal"). However, if I perform a Health Check (from the desktop icon for BT Broadband Help) it indicates that "BT Broadband Help has tested your connection and established that you are successfully connected to BT Broadband." And its true - from that moment, you are connected again. Until the next time, that is... Now the world and his wife knows that "training" the line comes from the days of analog modem connections. Remember the long sequence of hisses, beeps, and just some other plain weird sounds after the dialing of the modem? Training the line means to negotiate the best possible speed on the line. Sometimes, line noise can interfere with normal DSL line traffic, so, the modem must negotiate the best possible speed despite the noise. With the noise, the best speed can't be offered, so, it throttles the speed back through a negotiation sequence so that you can get the best speed and connection stablility despite the noise. Or so I read somewhere. My parents dial-up line was famed (amongst sad circles) for its noise. Perhaps its not getting "something" back through the firewall when it trains? If you're bothered, its a BT Voyager 105 USB ADSL Modem, and they're using Windows 98, IE 6.0 and Zonealarm 5.5 (for which a clean reinstall predictably didn't help). Google has failed me, BUT I DEMAND ANSWERS! He might even buy you a pint... [ Sunday, November 28, 2004 ]# Then we crashed the wedding #Starbuck [21:00] Comments: 0 [] My old University friend Sarah R was wed to Alex W on Saturday, and we were fortunate to be invited along for the celebrations at Browns Courtroom (82?84 St Martins Lane, London WC2N 4AA, address-fans). Sarah's internet vessel has been known to drift by these pages, so I would just like to publicly thank her and Alex for a wonderful night's fun and frolics. I hope that my own wedding can live up to the standard they've set. The evening wasn't just celebrational, it was educational too. Alex is not English as presumed but is in fact so Dutch that he should be passed from the left-hand-side. The same goes for Santa (and his friend Black Pete). My life is now upside-down. Suprise of the weekend was my first "dry" night in months on the Friday, the suprise being that we were staying with the original newts-out-of-water, DJ Tim & Mrs DJ Tim. And neither of them are pregnant! We more than made up for it the following day, mind. Excuse me, now - I've got to go and excrete some of my dissolute kidneys... [ Friday, November 26, 2004 ]Oh you can tell by the way I use my walk...Starbuck [13:15] Comments: 0 [] Feeling ground down by life? Work too stressful, and too much to sort out in your personal life? Then you need my help. One of the most important lessons that I have learnt in life is to stand up tall - don't slouch. Heads up! Stride quickly and purposefully through your day, even if you actually have little purpose. It not only gets you through (and possibly ahead) at work, but its exceptionally good for your mental health. Boost that self-respect... you deserve it. In the words of Dizzy Rascal in Stand Up Tall, "Get your Backs up backs up back off the wall... Don?t give it heart hearted give it all pull your socks up and stand up tall" Or more succinctly, "Can?t run the marathon without trainin or stretch the arse hole without straining". Ahem! [ Wednesday, November 24, 2004 ]Separated at birth?Starbuck [23:11] Comments: 0 []  Watching Joe Pasquale on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here night in night out, the realisation has slowly dawned on me - the "squeeky-voiced "comic"" must surely share a fair few codons of genetic ancestry with Mollie "Mrs Slocombe" Sugden..."Does exactly what it says on the tin" Starbuck [20:12] Comments: 0 [] Those that know me will be aware that I love the feeling of a dripping piece of meat in my mouth as much as the next man (as long as the next man isn't Julian Clary). However, being of a liberal atheistic bent myself, I'd like to disseminate this link to Vegblog, or to give it it's full title, "A liberal's atheistic Vegblog"; authored by Brit ex-pat in the US "Veggiedude", also known as Tony Martin, though hopeful not THIS one. It's at this point that I was going to make some comment comparing the election theft of Ukrainian "Prime Minister" Viktor Yanukovych with Bush Junior in 2000, highlighting the inspirational response currently being carried out by opposition supporters in Ukraine. However, my dinner's ready... [ Sunday, November 21, 2004 ]The Incredibles - the reviewStarbuck [14:13] Comments: 1 []
[ Thursday, November 18, 2004 ]Truth and liesStarbuck [22:01] Comments: 0 [] I met this man down the pub who knew a man who had it on good authority that blogging has only been encouraged to allow the furtherment of the American goverment's global database project to gain complete information awareness on every detail of our lives. But then the barman butted in to put him right - he'd read somewhere on the web that a bloke in prison had overhead on the bus whilst on day-release that organisations providing blogging facilities are in fact funded by organised criminal masterminds. The Yakuza (Blogger), the Triads (Movable Type) and the Italian Mafia (Typepad). They're using our casually thrown-away data to feed their password-crunching software. They want our identities and our bank accounts. Personally, I've got bigger concerns. It snowed in Britain today, and everyone knows that "Islamist" terrorists will use the year's first snowfall as a signal to release dirty bombs across the nation's city centres; the Gritters loads will be seeded with radiation. Despite it being known that dirty bombs don't actually cause any signigicantly detrimental effects on a victim's health, I don't want to get caught in the resultant gridlock... Truthful and non-conspiratorial aside: Its true about the ineffectiveness of dirty bombs. And whilst on that subject, Vaara from the Silt blog has provided transcripts of the Power Of Nightmares documentary that I mentioned a few weeks back. You should click HERE for the link index, Torrent files also available. Its your duty as a free citizen of the world.) [ Wednesday, November 17, 2004 ]Like Doves We RiseStarbuck [13:07] Comments: 0 [] Last night I experienced a performance of Amajuba: Like Doves We Rise, part of The Oxford Playhouse's 2004 tour. Quite amazing - beautiful, soulful and honest theatre, a piece that scrubs clean the tarnished genre that is the "musical". Very powerful, very moving, and truly life-affirming in an age when braveness and dignity has been so often displaced by cynicism and fear. "So good that I bought the soundtrack". Oh sod it, just read the press release, wouldja: Celebrating 10 years of freedom in South Africa. [ Tuesday, November 16, 2004 ]PunaceuticalsStarbuck [15:42] Comments: 0 [] There's a slight story currently doing the newsround about an advert for Viagra being taken off air for failing to adequately mention side-effects and for suggesting that it delivers better sex. The story may be wafer-thin, but what an excuse for some puntastic headlines. Sourced from Google News: FDA Hard On Viagra Ads Viagra ad stiffed. Cold shower for Viagra ads Hard Times for Viagra Ad FDA wants Viagra ads yanked Viagra ads pulled OK, maybe the last two are innocent, but I'm just trying to cater for YOUR dirty tawdry mind, dear Reader. [ Sunday, November 14, 2004 ]Cyber-Satan blog RIPStarbuck [17:06] Comments: 0 [] Thanks to The Saturnyne for alerting me to the death of one of the best blogs on my blogroll, Cyber-Satan. I'm keeping the links open on the slight chance that it becomes resurrected, but my hopes aren't high - blog owner Astolath has oft wondered about its future. It was a very well written, very unique British blog, sourced from a mind far more intellectual than the blogger's norm. And please note, reverse-snobbery-shitheads, that "intellectual" is not an insult but more something to aspire to. And I aspired that VSX could be half as good as CS, or half as funny. Cyber-Satan.com's tagline was "Culture, Alienation, Boredom and Despair", and ironically I'm going to be feeling a lot more of that now. Its a strange feeling. I wish that I'd had more time recently to keep up-to-date with my regular blog-reads. People's lives have been passing me by. I wish I could've seen the last post before the site was killed. According to S, in his last post he "said he didn't have anything else to write anymore... *sigh* Good blog. Great guy". Very true. One really does feel like these people - you people - are true friends. I don't want to seem melodramatic, but it almost feels as if a friend has died, or something, and that you're going to miss their company. But that would be melodramatic, so in fact I'll just say "so long, and thanks for all the fish." Life update Starbuck [16:33] Comments: 0 [] There's been a whole lot going on in Mr Starbuck's life of late, and not a lot of time to catch up on my favourite blogs (over there in the right sidebar) let alone keep the world enlightened about my progress through the Twentyfirst Century. So there now follows a series of four short sharp updates for all you e-celeb ("yeah, right") obsessives. I apologise for the non-blog-standard order of this posting above the subsequent four postings. However I am a timetraveller after all. I thank you. Honeymoon destination Starbuck [16:32] Comments: 0 [] It's now looking, beyond an unreasonable doubt, to be Koh Samui. Its a relief to have finally honed in on one destination, now we just need to focus on the actual accommodation. Can't wait! Special thanks go out to all you lovely VSX readers for your enormous response to my desperate plee for help, as well as the good folk at Carrick Travel. Christmas time, mistletoe and wine Starbuck [16:31] Comments: 0 [] Finally the weather has taken a frostier turn towards Winterval. Which is good, because the conversion of our town centres from centres of commerce into the hives of Santa's worshippers doesn't seem so unnatural when you're no longer enjoying the last gasps of Summer. So what if every shop in the land may be decked out in holly and tinsle as they blast out Slade's Greatest Christmas hits - its cold! Anyway, I can't be judgemental about the earlification of the Chrismas period - we've had some of our own Christmas decorations up for ages. In fact, we've not actually taken them down since last year. Luckily its only a pot of painted silver twigs and a 15-centimetres tall Christmas tree (it was once alive and sitting under a frosting of fake snow - now, its only the fake snow that's maintaining its structural integrity.) # Well it happened years ago when you lived on Stanhope Road # Starbuck [16:30] Comments: 0 [] Ah, children - aren't they marvellous? Especially if you don't have to have all the responsilibity of looking after them and bringing them up. Our Bristolian friends Jon & Fi have moved up to the Midlands in search of a better accent, which means we've got a couple more proxy-children of our own (one severaly months the other several years) to play with and hand back at the end of an evening. I know for a fact that I haven't (and won't) grow up. "Growing up" is purely something people are conditioned to pretend to do in this artifical construct of a society of ours. So its always a joy to have the excuse of kids to just let go of all pretence and regress back to your childhood. I could never get bored pretending to be space ships or trains or cowboys or Silicon Invaders From Mars. Its great - a lot of my friends are either in the process of gestation or have recently spawned, but its even better having some local playmates! Now, let me at that online Etch A Sketh... Encore Starbuck [16:29] Comments: 0 [] Being a big fan, I, like many others, rushed out to buy the new Eminem album on Friday. And I must admit to being quite disappointed. Despite some outstanding standout tracks, there's a whole lot of weedy stale raps drifting atop some uninspired music. It would've been incredibly difficult maintaining the slick oral brilliance of The Eminem Show, but I would've been pleased as punch if Em had returned to the raw witticism of The Slim Shady LP. The music could've gone anywhere (or just gone full stop) with his usual skills of lyrical dexterity. But alot of the time he just seems intent on annoying the listener. A bit of a downer, all in all - starting well, but floundering. And it says a lot about the quality of the previous few tracks when slightly whiffy single "Just Lose It" starts to sound up there with "Without Me". Still, I'm only a few listens in, and what do I know. He's sold a lot more albums than Viper Squad Ten, Dieticians Featuring Fat and the Leather Lads Featuring The Lesbian Love Triangle put together. [ Friday, November 12, 2004 ]Urin8Starbuck [10:37] Comments: 0 [] I'm afraid that today's essay is about men's bits and toilet etiquette. I've been having some general toilet anxiety the last few days. I seem to keep on walking into the Gents toilets at work just a few moments after one of my colleages must've gone in, and its getting embarrassing. It seems that every time I head into the Urination Station the same bloke is standing there at one of the two urinals. Maybe its coincedence, or maybe he actually lives there, but I'm getting a bit self-conscious of it. It's stopping me from performing comfortable micturation - my doodah is becoming a don't-dah! He's And as for people who try to hold a conversation at the urinals - whether business or social... I just can't cope. I end up squeeking one word sentences, trapped but desperate to escape. I don't know why - its not as if I've got anything to be embarrassed about. (Wahey!) And whilst I'm talking todgers, another bugbear of mine raised its ugly head (though not that head) in Spain earlier in the month - naturists. In particular nudist males. Why oh why do they insist on parading their sorry bodies back and forth across the shore like some caged hairless polar bear? Gentlemen in trunks don't seem to feel compelled to perpetually stretch their legs on the seafront like this. And when they start stretching other things, as men tend to do (they might give it a scratch to get the sand encrustations off, or a little tug to work the brine out of the wrinkles) - its enough to put you off your hotdog! [ Thursday, November 11, 2004 ]Firefox official releaseStarbuck [13:31] Comments: 0 [] No more beta versions, and the Preview Release is no more. Mozilla have now released the official bona-fida Firefox 1.0 for all your browsing needs, and you should download it now. Unlike myself, who's home telephone line is buggered and who can't download a single byte. [ Tuesday, November 09, 2004 ]Hold me to accountStarbuck [23:04] Comments: 0 [] I was vaguely interested to see that one of my free Hotmail accounts has now been upgraded to 250 Megabyte capacity. Only vaguely, as I never use the damn thing nowadays, but I still feel compelled to check it now and then, just in case anything slips through from anyone not au fait with my newer email addresses. Clinging onto old email addresses isn't a good thing - I wish I could just dump them - but I can't trust some long-lost acquaintance not to want to contact to tell me that they have won the lottery and that they'd like to share the winnings with me for having told that brilliant Chris Rea joke one drunken evening travelling, or something. It's made me think, though. I have EIGHT email addresses at the moment. Three Hotmail addresses, two Gmail ones, one ISP address, and two work addresses. Sometimes I feel that I am fragmenting. Mostly I feel that I am wasting my time maintaining the partition of my electronic cyberself into all these different compartments. And I am sure that eight is a fairly conservative amount of addresses to have nowadays. Here's hoping that I can find a free solution for automatically forwarding mail from these differing extraneous accounts whilst maintaining their validity. Maybe I'll get spammed the answer... [ Sunday, November 07, 2004 ]HoneymoonsterStarbuck [18:11] Comments: 0 [] Dear Friends, and you, being fellow humans, are friends by virtue of reading these very words. I ask for your help. Myself and Mrs P-to-be are still in the honeymoon-planning doldrums. Now the last time I put out a desperate plea about this, fellow blogger Lawn Greengrass stepped into the breach to recommend Current contenders include -
Nothing to fear but fear itself Starbuck [17:04] Comments: 0 [] I must not fear. Fear is the mindkiller. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear's path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.Frank Herbert, Dune [ Friday, November 05, 2004 ]Love and RocketsStarbuck [09:41] Comments: 0 [] # Remember remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason, and plot # Yes, the reason for my brief slip into traditional folksong is clear - today is British Fantavision Day, when the good people of the British Empire celebrate the foiling of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up shedloads of gunpowder under the Houses of Parliament, a celebration that is today commemorated by, erm, blowing up shedloads of gunpowder. VSX would like to (rather lazily) contribute to the celebrations by redirecting you to Rocket Mania. For those who missed it the first time round, its a fantastic firework flash game for you to play within your web-browser whilst you should be working. Go on now, be away with you. Oh, but before you go, one last thing. If you happen to see the resurrected corpse of Guy Fawkes during this time of year, please take your social responsibilities towards reanimated terrorists seriously, and burn that conspiratorial cadaver to the ground. Thank you. [ Wednesday, November 03, 2004 ]Fear factoryStarbuck [19:06] Comments: 0 [] And so I awake from the sweet dreams of Mediterranean sunshine, only to be thrust into the nightmare of a smirking demon, bullying a terrified populace lost within the darkness. And I feel sickened and saddened, as George W Bush's re-election campaign, lurching into action in the days following September 11 2001, snakes its way to its predictable conclusion. It looks like a sizeable lost population of my American cousins have strayed away from from their Land Of The Free, and I hope the others can show them the roadmap. And don't even start about the other roadmap... Maybe that last Bin Laden video was the swing. Maybe it's a two-way thing. The Bush administration acts as a recruiting sergeant for terrorists, and its very much in Bin Laden's interest keeping Bush in power. I tell you, although tonight I'm glad I'm not American, I don't feel too hopeful for the human race. Our capability to spout nothing but barefaced lies and our incapacity to resist such poison don't mark us out too impressively on the sentient timeline. I hope that enough of my British brethren have been watching the remarkable BBC documentary The Power Of Nightmares over the last few weeks. The final episode of this superior series is tonight, and I'd hate the Orwellian darkness of this Neo-Con way of thinking to find root over here. The previous two episodes have explained this too-confusing world to me in an enjoyable, watchable manner, and it should be made mandatory viewing, not only for us, but for the world at large. If you've missed it see if you should seek out copies on BitTorrent or something. But who am I to pass comment on another country's "free" elections? Someone who cares about the world, and is utterly concerned for America's so-called freedom, that's who. Still, only four more years to wait until Hilary. And in the meantime, here's some gallows humour from Billyworld:  [ Complete Viper Squad Ten blog archives ]April 2003 / May 2003 / June 2003 / July 2003 / August 2003 / September 2003 / October 2003 / November 2003 / December 2003 / January 2004 / February 2004 / March 2004 / April 2004 / May 2004 / June 2004 / July 2004 / August 2004 / September 2004 / October 2004 / November 2004 / December 2004 / January 2005 / February 2005 / March 2005 / April 2005 / May 2005 / June 2005 / July 2005 / August 2005 / September 2005 / October 2005 / November 2005 / December 2005 / January 2006 / February 2006 / March 2006 / April 2006 / May 2006 / June 2006 / July 2006 / August 2006 / September 2006 / October 2006 / November 2006 / December 2006 / January 2007 / February 2007 / March 2007 / April 2007 / May 2007 / June 2007 / July 2007 / August 2007 / September 2007 / October 2007 / November 2007 / December 2007 / January 2008 / February 2008 / March 2008 / June 2008 / September 2008 / May 2010 / June 2010 / July 2010 / October 2010 / November 2010 /[ VSX Latest ] |
 Photos, vids, webgames, broken links etc. [ Other blogs, from back when time was endless ] Regular: A Girl I Used To Know Cyber-Satan.com Diary of a Wages Slave Doing The Right Thing Doppleganger The Frumplingtons In The Aquarium Iron Monkey Mr Biffo's Blog NiceGuyUK The Saturnyne's Lounge Sensei Katana The Stratford Upon Avon Strumpet Two Tone Also: A Day In Paradise AfterTheDebauchery And Then He Said... Antipasta The Armstrongs Autoblography Background Noise Boing boing Boopses Captain Fishcake Chilli and Crackers Confessions Of A G33K Deus Ex Machina Groovymother Keelhauling Memepool Open Book Planet Maffydoo Random Acts of Reality Retro Remakes Richard Herring Sensitive Light Shuffling Chunks Snowbabies Travelkev random blo.gs random Blogger [ Photowankery ] www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from Starbuck Powersurge. Make your own badge here.
[ Censorship ] [ Blog admin ] « Obscure Logs » [ VSX Latest ] |
Rate Me on BlogHop.com!
help?