SpawnPoint

My sister got married two weeks ago, this isn't something I'd normally blog about but there were some circumstances that made it a bit more special than your usual wedding.

This was my sisters second wedding, her first husband died of leukemia after a year long battle about three and a half years ago, aged 33.  It's impossible for me to explain just how tough this was for her, they'd had a child about ten months before he got ill, so looking after a child and a seriously ill husband was extremely hard.  The next few years were also extremely tough as she dealt with the grief, raising a child and then trying to move on with her life.

She started dating again and met her future husband after appearing in a TV documentary called Young And Widowed (not 100% on the title).  Someone she worked with mentioned that her brother had lost his wife at a young age too and suggested they meet up.  They hit it off straight away, around six months later he took her on a trip to New York and proposed to her in Times Square, on one knee, in the rain.

Her new husband had three children with his first wife, so all of a sudden I'm now an uncle/step uncle to four children, rather than just the one.  Fortunately they are all great kids and get on with each other well.

The wedding went really well, my five year old nephew gave my sister away and all the other children had a part to play in the ceremony.  The couple both looked so happy, he hardly took his eyes off her all day.

It didn't sink in until a few days later just what a massive difference they have both made to each others lives.  The change in my sister from a few years ago to now is truly amazing, and I'm sure it is the same for her husband who went through the same things.

I suppose the moral of the story is that no matter how low or unhappy you are, good things can happen if you give them a chance.

The internet can be a confusing, bizarre and frightening place, filled with incomprehensible language and terrible things hiding behind innocent sounding names.  It can also fill your head with really pointless knowledge, like the names of foreign TV presenters of shows you will never see or sports stars from sports you will never watch.  I found this out the hard way, curiosity isn't a good thing on the internet so ask yourself before you look something up, do you really need to know?.

In order to defend myself from any more internet horror or filling my head with utter crap I have decided not Google certain things, like these;

1.  Leroy Jenkins.  A common name on online games, sometimes used as a battle cry.  Who, or what, is a Leroy Jenkins?  I don't know and I don't care, I can live quite happily without knowing.

2.  Goatse.  This could be a trap.  Apparently it does not include goats, which is probably a good thing.

3.  A mudkip.

4.  Chris Hansen.  looks like a tool, probably is, I don't need to know any more.

5.  Any American sports star.  I'm English so I have zero interest in American sports like Baseball, Basketball or eating competitions.

6.  Paris Hilton.  If everyone follows my lead and ignores her, the world will be a better place.

7.  Rule 34.  The internet apparently has rules, at least 34 of them, I'm not exactly sure what Rule 34 is but it is usually accompanied by disturbing pictures.  Avoid.

8.  Any of my brothers ideas for "new" fetishes.  They're weird and I really don't want to find out that people actually do any of them.  Possibly related to Rule 34.

9.  Chocolate Rain.  Sounds like a trap or an annoying song, either way it's best avoided.

10.  Obscure acronyms.  If it's not obvious from the context then I'm not looking it up.  DYJHIW PUTMAs?

For those of you that know about some of the things I've listed and want to spoil my ignorance, I will not be reading any of the comments.  Ha!

So this week I made my 1,500th post and banned my 300th cheat , next stop 2,000 posts and 400 cheats banned.

I've stopped calling people who cheat in games hackers, and now call them cheats, which is all they are.  Hacker makes them sound like they actually know something about how the games work, whereas in reality all they do is download something and follow some instructions.

They have about as much right to be called a hacker as athletes who take performance enhancing drugs have to be called a pharmacologist. 

It's supposed to be summer in the UK a the moment, but we seemed to have lost it somewhere. After the wettest June on record we've just had the wettest July on record, and July hasn't even finished yet.

I know the UK has a reputation for being wet but this is ridiculous. Large parts of the country have flooded affecting over a million people, tens of thousands are without power and water, tens of thousands evacuated from their homes and thousands needing to be rescued from the flood water. The damage is expected to cost up to £3 billion. Some pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/53621220@N00/

Food prices are going up as well, as lots of crops have been ruined by the rain.

The thing that annoys me most every time there is a flood is the inevitable footage of really smug people in canoes. You see them on the news, happily rowing past flooded houses looking so pleased with themselves for having the foresight to buy a canoe. They look like they are almost happy that their house got flooded just so they can get some use out of their canoe.

I've just been to the local ASDA supermarket to pick up up a few things and a really nice bottle of whiskey.  I got to the check out and the guy at the check out didn't scan the whiskey so he asked for £3.47 instead of £33.47.  Without much thought I said "are you sure about that?" then he realised his mistake and scanned the whiskey.

A free bottle of whiskey from ASDA (owned by WalMart) would have been nice and I doubt I would have felt too guilty about it.  So now I'm regretting my honesty.

Channel 4 in the UK is going to broadcast a documentary about the immediate aftermath of the crash that killed Princess Diana along with Dodi al Fayed and Henri Paul.  There have been lots of programs about Diana so why the controversy?

The program is going to use photographs taken in and around the tunnel the night of the accident.  And this is where the controversy starts, Channel 4 stated that some of the photos "have not been seen on television before" some seem to have interpreted this as meaning these pictures must have been considered taboo by everyone else.  This then leads people to assume that the pictures must have been considered taboo for a good reason, so they think the pictures must show something gruesome.

The result of that kind of logic is an ever increasing sense of outrage that snowballs into some sort of national campaign against Channel 4.  So now we have massive media coverage, politicians getting involved and the whole thing becomes impossible to ignore.

Apparently one of the most controversial images in the program was also used on the front page of a daily newspaper, yet I don't remember any controversy about that.

Here's my cynical view on the whole thing.  Channel 4 make a documentary about Diana, the press release makes it sound a bit controversial.  The papers then seize on this, because as we all know Princess Diana sells more papers.  Really, put a picture of Diana on the front page of a newspaper and it sells more.  Then some rent-a-quote politicians join in just because they can and they don't get the chance to be on telly much.

The end result is more people watch the program and more newspapers get sold.  Wow, anyone would think they planned it.

Anyone tuning in just to see the pictures should just stick to watching Police, Camera, Action or the one with Sheriff John Bunnell.