Dave reminded me of this Penny Arcade strip which got us to talking about security questions. At work, we have a policy where any password reset requires you to answer 3 of 5 security questions. The questions are completely free choice and are obviously supposed to be things like “what was your first childhood pet?” or “where were you born?”. It’s important to note that the security questions are asked by someone on the IT helpdesk and not shown on screen.

As far as I can tell, there is no policy on what the questions should be which seems almost like an invitation for them to be as off-the-wall, amusing and frustrating for the person asking as possible. Here are a few ideas that myself, Dave and Russ came up with.

Q: How many fingers am I holding up?
A: Three.

Q: Flalafalalalalfaalalfal?
A: Sorry, could you repeat the question?

Q: What are the capital of Peru?
A: No, it’s what *is* the capital of Peru, you idiot!

Q: Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?
A: Because I am made of bird food.

Q: Who’s the worst IT helpdesk operator in the world?
A: You are.

Q: And I would do anything for love, I’d run right into hell and back / I would do anything for love, I’ll never lie to you and that’s a fact / But I’ll never forget the way you feel right now, oh no, no way / And I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that, I won’t do that / Anything for love, oh I would do anything for love / I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that, oh I won’t do that / Some days it don’t come easy, and some days it don’t come hard / Some days it don’t come at all, and these are the days that never end / Some nights you’re breathing fire, and some nights you’re carved in ice / Some nights you’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before or will again / Maybe I’m crazy, but it’s crazy and it’s true / I know you can save me, no one else can save me now but you / As long as the planets are turning, as long as the stars are burning / As long as your dreams are coming true, you better believe it / That I would do anything for love, and I’ll be there til the final act / I would do anything for love, and I’ll take a vow and seal a pact / But I’ll never forgive myself if we don’t go all the way tonight / And I would do anything for love, oh I would do anything for love / Oh I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that, no I won’t do that / I would do anything for love, anything you’ve been dreaming of / But I just won’t do that / Some days I pray for silence, and somedays I pray for soul / Some days I just pray to the god of sex and drums and rock ‘n roll / Some nights I lose the feeling, and some nights I lose control / Some nights I just lose it all when I watch you dance and the thunder rolls / Maybe I’m lonely and that’s all I’m qualified to be / There’s just one and only, the one and only promise I can keep / As long as the wheels are turning, as long as the fires are burning / As long as your prayers are coming true, you better believe it / That I would do anything for love, and you know it’s true and that’s a fact / I would do anything for love, and there’ll never be no turning back / But I’ll never do it better than I do it with you, so long, so long / And I would do anything for love, oh I would do anything for love / I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that, no no no I won’t do that / I would do anything for love, anything you’ve been dreaming of / But I just won’t do that / But I’ll never stop dreaming of you every night of my life, no way / And I would do anything for love, oh I would do anything for love / I would do anything for love / But I won’t do that / No I won’t do that / Will you raise me up, will you help me down? / Will you get me right out of this godforsaken town? / Will you make it all a little less cold? / I can do that! I can do that! / Will you hold me sacred? will you hold me tight? / Can you colorize my life, I’m so sick of black and white? / Can you make it all a little less old? / I can do that! oh oh, now I can do that! / Will you make me some magic, with your own two hands? / Can you build an emerald city with these grains of sand? / Can you give me something I can take home? / I can do that! oh oh now, I can do that! / Will you cater to every fantasy I got? / Will ya hose me down with holy water, if I get too hot? / Will you take me places I’ve never known? / I can do that! oh oh now, I can do that! / After a while you’ll forget everything / It was a brief interlude and a midsummer night’s fling / And you’ll see that it’s time to move on / I won’t do that! no I won’t do that! / I know the territory, I’ve been around / It’ll all turn to dust and we’ll all fall down / And sooner or later, you’ll be screwing around / I won’t do that! no I won’t do that! / Anything for love, oh I would do anything for love / I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that, no I won’t do?
A: That

I can guarantee, for that last one, that I’d still be weeping with laughter by the time it came round to giving the answer. Any more suggestions?

I’m in a very familiar reflective, philosophical and slightly melancholy mood today. I probably experience this three times a year, usually after I’ve been somewhere or watched something that gives me a different perspective on how people choose to live their lives. On what people value. Because, whatever I might pretend, my life isn’t prioritised very well. It’s based around maintaining security and minimising risk, on smoothing over differences in opinion and avoiding conflict, on keeping my head down and accruing what I can. I hope that I am generally fun to be around, but I worry that I am rarely more than that. I’m the sarcastic guy, on the handle-end of every comment and put-down, first to ridicule and find fault and most likely last to come to for compassion and understanding.

Seeing examples of people who genuinely look out for each other, whose pleasure comes from helping other people (not to be confused with helping people out so as to appear smart) and who share raw emotional connections, with all the risk and the arguments and the sacrifices that that brings, is always a humbling experience. It is something to strive for although I’m not sure I even know the first step. No, I do know the first step and it is to acknowledge the desire to change. My problem comes tomorrow, or the day after, or next week when only the faintest shadow of this feeling remains (and yet the hollowness is there, just better concealed). How can I remind myself of the worth of taking this road and how should I measure my progress? Any ideas?

I think it’s fair to say that I’m not a massive Bon Jovi fan.  Certainly, in comparison to the girl that I sat next to on the Milton Keynes to Euston train the day after the gig, I am nothing.  But, then, she was one of the “inner circle” (whose sole purpose is seemingly to talk a LOT about Bon Jovi to people they meet on trains) and I…  Well I can’t even see the outermost edge of the outer circle from where I’m standing.

But, from where we were standing at the National Bowl, I could just about see the stage.  It’s actually a pretty good venue since, being a bowl shape, pretty much everybody can see the stage (just at varying degrees of resolution).  This contrasts with somewhere flat, like Hyde Park, where the shorter folks don’t get to see much (unless they sit on my shoulders in a very amusing attempt to take some photos, Chan).

Even as someone who enjoys, rather than follows religiously, the music of Bon Jovi it was a pretty special experience.  Once Nickelback had depleted their t-shirt cannons and done THE SONG (as Dave would have demanded, had he been there) the sky seemed to darken a little more dramatically as if to better show up Bon Jovi’s light show and big screen.

The band took to the stage and the fan club members at the front screamed and held their banners as high as they could.  The sound boomed out magnificently, and you couldn’t help but smile and rock out to the likes of Keep The Faith, Bad Medicine and, of course, Livin’ On A Prayer.

They played an immense set of well over 20 songs and included all the crowd-pleasers as well as a few more obscure tracks (that I learnt from my train companion they hadn’t played at other shows on the tour).  Jon seemed a little distracted, I guess, but then I hadn’t seen them before so didn’t know what to expect.  The atmosphere was great and I certainly enjoy reliving it via their best of album on my iPod for those early morning starts.  Although air-guitaring my way down the road to the station is a bit embarrassing when spotted.

I got to play my first DS multiplayer games this weekend; it was great!  The fact that the whole thing *just works* (whether connecting wirelessly to a friend next to you or via the internet to lose really badly at Tetris against someone in Japan) is ace and the number of multiplayer modes that most of the games support makes for plenty of variety.  OK, I mostly played Mario Kart and Tetris (surprisingly good 2-player and I can only imagine the carnage with 8 people) but I’m looking forward to pitting my wits against someone at a Brain Training calculation battle and setting aside a weekend to take The Mark on at Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

The fact that you only need one cartridge to play most games multiplayer (though having two cartridges sometimes gets you additional options) is also a genius move since you don’t end up stuck playing the one and only game that you and your friend have in common.  Hooray for how well thought out all of this is.

In other DS news, New Super Mario Bros is rocking my socks off (mega mushrooms still make me laugh) and, having completed the Advance Wars: Dual Strike campaign mode, I foolishly asked to borrow the GBA Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2 cartridges off Mark.  My train journeys have never flown by so quickly (unfortunately, the same is also true of most of my free time)!

It’s a long time since I’ve been to The Leadmill. In fact, prior to May of this year, my last memory of a night there is when Relly came to visit me in Sheffield (before we shared a house in our final year at uni) and we spent a night drinking random flavoured vodka and dancing to the finest indie money could buy. Still, I think that The Leadmill remains one of the greatest venues in the country and I’m sure I’d be there most weekends if I spent more time in the city of steel.

My May visit (I’m a little behind in recounting this, I agree) was to see the most excellent songsmith from the other side of the Pennines, Mr. Jim Noir. For once, one of those “Other customers who liked The Divine Comedy also enjoyed…” emails was right and, having bought Tower Of Love, I was hooked and so delighted when my friend Kilian also showed an interest in going to see him. And so I found myself in a cool, dark Leadmill waiting to see what the Noir live experience was all about.

But first there was the matter of three support acts. Guy Honeymoon was first (”Yes it is my fucking real name and if anyone says it isn’t I’ll fight ‘em!”) and played a selection of nicely-crafted but slightly lacking solo acoustic numbers to the still (at that point) tiny crowd. Somehow I managed to find myself standing in front of the smoke machine in such a way that it looked like the smoke was coming from between my legs. This amused me and I didn’t move.

Boy Voyeur were next and, despite it being their first gig together, were surprisingly good! (Tip: I’d steer away from googling their name and instead just put their name into myspace. Yes, *shudder* at myspace but still better than the search results you’ll get). The uncomplicated combo of just guitar, bass and vocals worked really nicely with the deeply-felt lyrics and I think a lot of the audience was shocked at just how good they were. I really hope they manage to get a record together (I signed up to the mailing list but nothing doing so far).

It was pretty clear from an early stage that 19 year old Paolo Nutini was going to be pretty big. His performance was incredibly polished and the songs finely honed. Although a little bit too MOR for my taste, I suspect that he has already found a number of lifetime fans on the light channel and I noticed recently that he’s even been bothering the charts. His shoe-related song was a highlight, I think.
So, the main man. Wearing some kind of generic military uniform and trademark bowler hat, Noir was all smiles as he took to the stage amongst his collection of garden gnomes. It was clear that he was having a great time throughout and there was plenty of banter with the band and crowd in between all the favourites from the album (including an ace extended version of My Patch). The crowd adored him and sang along to even the more obscure songs. He played Computer Song, which I was hoping he might do. Also, the keyboard player looked a bit like Chris Addison. It was an excellent night of music.

I finally got round to adding a link to my (half-complete) retailer-neutral wishlist. Not that I don’t think that Amazon do a great job; more that I end up buying lots of the stuff on the list myself and it’s handier to have it in the same place as all my other lists, namely rememberthemilk.com. With the release of a mobile version recently, rememberthemilk has definitely become my to-do list app of choice (it’s free, fast and fairly pretty) and it’s usually sitting in a browser window on any machine I happen to be using. If only I could actually get the SMS alerts to work…

Oh, anyway, feel free to buy me loads of great stuff. Actually, it’s more meant to help out friends struggling to think of birthday presents or whatever rather than for random strangers to buy stuff because this blog is just, well, so rockingly infrequently updated that it is teh awesome. But, whatever.