:: Psycho Pets and Techno Babble ::

This Pet Food project is driving me insane - not so much because of the lacklustre subject matter, rather that the researchers have submitted their data in the wrong format. I seem to be spending more of my time correcting technical errors than checking Venezuelan wet dog food brands... My attention is drawn as usual to the subject matter of the current project. I wouldn't mind betting that I eat twice as many chocolate bars when we're researching Packaged Foods and I developed a hearty smoker's cough during Tobacco whilst attempting to sample more of the available market. Being petless, I haven't succumbed to the urge to buy Tiddles a new toy mouse or invest in some super-premium jazzed-up meaty-chunk-laden bisco-snacks for Woofbags. In fact I don't even like dogs. I agree with Jeremy Hardy that anti-turd byelaws ought to zhuzhed up a little. Any unfortunate victim of mid-pavement canine defecation syndrome should have the right to hunt down the mutt's owner and lay a bum cigar on their living room carpet. Most ridiculous of all is the current trend to humanise pets as much as possible. Not content with pet clothes (the japanese are suckers for this, apparently) manufacturers have now foisted flavoured water for dogs on the eager public. As if to make up for this over-pampering, Italian fisherman have reportedly been using kittens as bait to catch a particularly large species of catfish.

In :: TechnoNews ::, it has emerged that the government hasn't yet got to grips with security issues on shared documents. With the current media focus on government dossiers, these kinds of revelations could prove to be damaging. For once Microsoft's inbuilt inanities might have served us well - certain MSWord files formerly downloadable from government websites revealed the full chain of tamperers, editors and cobblers(-together). No wonder all government documents are now being published in harder to trace pdf format. For anyone with a hotmail account, the news of a Dutch spam-demon's demise will be met with a hearty cheer. Long have our inboxes been plagues with offers to enlarge your penis by at least two inches or advertising Britney in a compromising position with a pachyderm. Bestial congress aside, this must be a positive sign for beleaguered emailers worldwide. But there's still a long way to go before messages offering me debt consolidation stop landing on my virtual doormat. some messages about porn, however, are always welcome - such as the news that a former porn-star is running to become the next mayor of St Petersburg.

Flitting along the web's wide boulevards, it's always a pleasure to be distracted by multifarious offers and purchase opportunities. Some are perhaps not quite so useful as one might hope. Others carefully tread the line between plausibility and pikeyness.

No pix today. Tough shite.