so there are a few modern british comedies that i like, and you’ve certainly heard of one of them – ricky gervais’ magnum opus, the office. but have you heard of these?

extras – ricky gervais at it again as a tv and movie extra who just can’t seem to get a break. each episode features a special guest star playing themself. key scenes for the humor – patrick stewart, and a full episode featuring kate winslet as a nun.

the other two are a little less mainstream:

garth marenghi’s darkplace – the premise is that it’s a bad 80′s mystery of the week / horror show, rereleased as a commemorative edition with commentary from the writer (garth marenghi, a bad stephen king knockoff) and the actors involved. it’s absurdist humor at it’s finest, complete with terrible special effects and “crap” acting. the title credits are worth the price of admission themselves, honestly. you can get all of the full episodes on google videos. note richard ayoade as dean learner playing thornton reed.

the it crowd – richard ayoade reappears, this time as maurice moss – nerdlinger i.t. employee and center of much comedy. once again, full episodes are available on google videos. the second episode is particularly hilarious.

hopefully those of you who are snowed in today here in seattle now have plenty of new funny to watch.

just in case you haven’t seen these yet, i was cleaning out my web-dump repository and figured that you might be interested, dear readers. some lord of the rings animated gifs from the intertrons: boromir’s invisible phone, mortor, and a catapult: part one and part two.

the elbow is healing up nicely, i’ve been riding my grownup bike all week, the rb-t with a brand new homebuilt rear wheel. i am excited to go out with point83 again tonight for the first time in about a month. hopefully i will still remember how to mix alcohol, cycling, and ridiculous laughter to have a great time. i certainly am excited to see everyone, and despite the weather turning craptacular we’re hoping to go out and tour some serious christmas lights displays around seattle.

the as-yet-unnamed mbp has been some solace while i’ve been gimped up, i’ve been playing tons of civ 4 which is both good (fun!) and bad (staying up until 4am). i am looking forward to playing a bunch over the weekend while i am in the place which shall not be named. i also need to work on my battlefield skills, as rulezero lan parties appear to be forthcoming in the new year.

in nerd.job news i am actually taking positive steps to shape my job situation, first and foremost i am taking my also-unnamed computerization project in a new direction for a version 2.0 release. thanks to my buddy miles from .83 i’ve hooked up with the uw solstice project and i’m working on getting a handle on developing applications in that framework. the major advantage is that they already have an online questionnaire system that i can leverage into being a deployable, centrally administered repository for instruments. there are some detail ideas in there i need to get ironed out first, of course, but it looks very promising. i’m also meeting with my old college friend jon bumgardner after the new year on a promising-sounding side project. it’s time to break out of this rutting job funk and get excited about programming again.

of course, working in perl rather than vbscript will help with that as well. regexps ftw.

in media news, those of you who still haven’t picked up the issue of cranked with my article in it, now have yet another chance since it’s been syndicated over to the agenda, a diy publication out in rhode island. now if only if my follow-up article can be of that quality? maybe after christmas i’ll have something with enough substance to ship off to my fantastic editor.

i also strongly, strongly recommend listening to the streaming sufjan stevens christmas albums, especially the one from 2003 is fantastic. this past week some of my friends invited me to see danielson: a family movie (or, make a joyful noise HERE) which was a fantastic documentary and gave alot of background about the danielson family band and the early formation of sufjan’s career. the honesty and frankness that they discuss the intersection of faith, music, and creativity was inspiring.