Buy My Book!
July 19th, 2008 at 20:35

I’ve reached another milestone. Now, not only can I refer to myself as a “newspaper columnist”, but I also technically qualify as a “published author”. Obviously, this is because I’ve written a book:

So you know what I’m going to ask you to do now: Buy my book! It contains my best newspaper columns from the past 18 months, as well as previously unseen material and directors commentary. Buy it now by clicking the link below:

Oh, go on. It’ll help me pay my ridiculous tuition fees for my Masters.

It’ll also be available on Amazon and the like in a few weeks time with any luck. But I think if you buy it from Lulu I get more money. At least, I hope I do.

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Eurovision Live Blog Tonight
May 24th, 2008 at 12:33

Just a quick reminder, that I’ll be liveblogging the Eurovision Song Contest tonight on here. Check back at 8pm, to get live commentary on what you’re watching on screen. Who knows, I could validate your opinions, or make you violently disagree with me - either way, it’ll be better than Wogan as they’ll be much more swearing.

You’ll also be able to submit your comments live and join in and stuff. It should be terribly exciting.

So come back at 8!

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New Project: Two Minute Hate!
May 18th, 2008 at 14:48

I’ve started a new project: Two Minute Hate.

The idea is that every day they’ll be a new Enemy of The People, which we can all sneer at together.

So go on, take a look, give me some feedback, suggest some names, and if you could give it a plug on your website I’ll love you forever.

(I’m obviously going to keep blogging on my proper blog here - this is just a side-project - so don’t worry, James O’Malley fans!)

(Also, I’m liveblogging Eurovision again on Saturday, if you’re into that sort of thing)

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If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere
May 12th, 2008 at 15:37

To paraphrase Frank Sinatra:

Start spreading the news,

I’m in it today,

I am a part of it, New York, New York [Times]!

Apparently, my old nemeses as GodTube have received an investment from a London hedge fund - and as this is newsworthy, I got an e-mail from John Metcalfe at the New York Times who was writing an article about it, and he wanted to know more about what involvement with the site, given that I was one of the first people to be banned. And so in today’s business section… I’ve been quoted in the NEW YORK TIMES. Y’know, the paper from the movies! The American paper of record! Here’s what they said about me (I added the links in myself):

Mocking Christianity is definitely not allowed [on GodTube]. James O’Malley, a 20-year-old from Leicestershire, in Britain, posted a series of videos last year that jeered at evangelical theology. During a videotaped walking tour of the Natural History Museum in London, he referred to a plesiosaur fossil as a “liar-saur” and noted that volcanoes tended to erupt in non-Christian countries.

“The first couple of videos, where I spoke about Biblical infallibility and homosexuality, remained on GodTube and were treated like any other video,” Mr. O’Malley said. “It was only when I posted a third video suggesting that the earth was flat and that astronauts were part of the ‘round earth’ conspiracy that they finally cottoned on to the fact it was a hoax, and I was banned.”

So now I can say I’ve been in the New York Times. I cannot tell you how amazed I am about this.

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Universally disliked layout in “slightly less ugly” shocker!
May 9th, 2008 at 23:50

I’ve been doing some incredibly nerdy things today, and I’m blogging about it because it took bloody ages to get right, and I want to create the impression that it wasn’t entirely futile. Remember before when everyone hated my blog layout? Yeah, everyone hated it, with the Twitter bit to the left getting some particular stick. So I’ve tried to remedy it by making it seem slightly less cluttered.

I’d go into detail and explain what’s changed, but it is unbelievably tedious to describe (ie: I don’t really know what I’m talking about either). Here’s a diagram instead:

Basically, its crudely showing how things that I witness in real life eventually end up as something you ignore and scroll past on here. I’d like to say the lesson here is “look and appreciate how much raw electricity is wasted transmitting James O’Malley’s thoughts across the world”, but really the lesson is probably something like “James likes making non-standards compliant flow charts”.

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Comment is free… but facts are satirised
April 29th, 2008 at 15:09

Yesterday, I was surprised to learn that I’d been quoted in The Guardian’s Joe Public blog. It was a post about whether or not commuters should be allowed to vote in the London election, so they quoted a bit of that stupid thing I wrote about gerrymandering a couple of weeks ago. Here’s what I said:

I really, really want to vote in the London mayoral election. It isn’t fair. I’m being denied the vote just because I don’t live in London. It’s a textbook case of gerrymandering: they’ve drawn up the boundaries specifically to deny people who don’t live in London a vote on who gets to be mayor of London. It’s annoying too that the vote is in early May, as I have every intention of moving to London before the end of the year - and if I do, I could potentially be stuck in a city ruled by Boris Johnson, a man who can’t even run a quiz show properly, let alone a major world city.

Unfortunately, they’d pasted it in, and in the process, lost all of the italics, which was there to indicate that I was being sarcastic. So hilariously, I’ve managed to wind up a load of Guardianistas, who as it turns out, are almost as credulous as creationists…

Surely surely surely surely surely this is a wind-up….

Just checked my watch and April 1st was 4 weeks ago. Next we’ll have travelling salesfolk requesting a national vote valid for any constituency they happen to pass through in the course of their business. I like the chap who seems to think posession of an Oyster card gives him the right to vote. Absurd.

Surely James O’Malley was taking the piss

Doh! I have an oyster card must travel, not I have a oyster card must vote. This must rate as one of the most stupid articles I have ever read.

There’s loads more which also seem a bit aimed at me - take a look, its great.

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Nerdy blog update!
April 21st, 2008 at 16:05

Warning, if you think an IP address is a postcode in Ipswich, then this might bore you to tears.

I’ve got an incredibly important essay to hand in on Friday - and an even more important dissertation to hand in the week afterwards. So what have I been doing so far today? Quite possibly the most efficient procrastinating ever. Rather than concentrate on things that actually matter, I’ve been busy improving the Twitter feed on the left hand sidebar of the blog.

Now, aside from merely having the text of my latest Tweets, I’ve enhanced it - if I broadcast a live video to Qik, using my mobile phone, that will alert my Twitter - and now rather than just link to it, it’ll display the video in a flash video box so you can watch it on this very same page (there was no end of hassle involving having to parse a second Qik-specific RSS feed and regex out the variables and all sorts). I’ve done something similar with photos, that I can also send in to Twitpic with my mobile phone - if I send in a photo, it’ll now be shown in thumbnail form on the sidebar, with its caption if it has one. I’ve also added a text “glossary” that reads my tweets and if it spots any keywords (like “Adam Hart Davis“), it automatically magically changes it into a relevant link.

I’m pretty damn pleased with it all though - I thought that when I signed up to do an arts degree, I was resigning myself to a lifetime of technological ignorance, not even being able to grasp the simplest of gadgets, but happily, as it turns out, I’m still shit-hot at coding. Well, sort of.

What’s the point in all of this? Well, if you’re asking that question that you don’t understand what web 2.0 is all about - its about doing cool things because you can, not because they serve any practical benefit to the rest of humanity. Really - prior to the invention of Facebook, did you ever have a desire to play Scrabble online?

I’m going to London on Wednesday, so if you stay tuned to my blog, you’ll be able to follow my thrilling adventure in real time! Quite why you’d want to is, er, another question.

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Goodbye Blue and White (and Red)
April 3rd, 2008 at 19:27

If you’re a regular visitor, you’ll probably have noticed that things look a little different. I got bored of the red and blue layout, so wrote myself a lovely new green blue, yellow and black one. If you’re reading via RSS, now would probably be a good time to click “view original”, so you can understand what I’m talking about”.

Needless to say, getting it working has been no end of hassle - I am working with computers after all. But I’m quite pleased with the results.

There’s some exciting new features - recent comments are linked to on the left hand sidebar, and perhaps most excitingly, the latest 24 hours of my Twitter feed. That’s right - if you just can’t get enough of me, you can follow the tedious minutiae of my life in near real time. Or at least, you will when I get it working.

I’ve got some other plans for further enhancements that I’ll implement in due course. Its amazing how motivated you become to code stuff when you’ve got a more important, ten thousand word dissertation that you should be doing instead.

So, what do you think? Post comments with suggestions/criticisms/etc below - it’ll help me check that comments are still working at least.

Update: Focus groups don’t like the colours. So I’ve gone for a more conservative blue. That’s small “c” conservative. Big “C” Conservatives are more green and deceitful these days.

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Taking Criticism
March 21st, 2008 at 16:50

I think generally, I’m quite thick-skinned. This isn’t just an excuse for being fat either - when people criticise me, I like to think that I can take it and learn from the experience. I mean, I have survived eight rounds in the ring with Anne Robinson, so I must be pretty good at it.

I got an incredible e-mail this morning from someone who didn’t leave their name, but I think its much better than the last piece of hate-mail I received.

“Upon reading your article(s) in the ‘herald and post’, i have come to the inevitable conclusion that you sir, are a gaping cunt of gargantuan proportions. i find your opinions inexcusably blatherskite.

“Feel free to continually fellate yourself all over the pages of the paper, safe in the knowledge that your reply to this (if in the paper) will literally be shat upon’t.”

Yeah, I had to look up the meaning of “blatherskite” too. It turns out that it means “foolish gibberish”.

The weird thing is though, that upon reading it I didn’t break down into tears (I was already crying for an unrelated reason), I actually took it as a sort of badge of honour. Or more accurately, it was further evidence that people were actually reading. Clearly this person felt angered up enough to go to their computer, search the internet for me, then send me an angry diatribe. The greatest authors and film makers spend years trying to produce content that will evoke and emotional response in the audience, to try and get a reaction. Schindler’s List and Titantic cost millions of dollars to make and countless man-hours of hard work by thousands of people - yet I’ve proved that its much easier to make someone’s blood boil and provoke their emotions that way. All it takes is calling the general public idiots, or something.

This does worry me though. If I’m treating criticism as a sign that I’m “doing the right thing” then how am I better than the Westboro Baptist Church? They love it when people get angry about them. I’d claim that its a case of what Nietzsche famously said: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” - but that’s obviously wrong. Take getting your legs chopped off, for instance, or a non-fatal bullet wound.

In retaliation for this I’ve done the most logical thing and set up a Facebook Fan Page for myself. I already have six fans - that’s only seven less than Heather Mills… and everyone thinks she’s great!

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Yet more proof democracy doesn’t work
February 10th, 2008 at 20:56

Hey, remember the UK Independence Party, or UKIP as they’re also known? You must remember them - they have a lurid yellow and purple pound symbol logo and have been the replacement joke-party for the Monster Raving Loony Party in recent elections. Every election cycle, they come up with a load of ludicrous joke policies, stand against the main parties, get barely a handful of votes and then lose their deposits.

Of course, there are some people who just don’t seem to get the joke, and for some unfathomable reason, treat them as an almost legitimate political party - including the leadership themselves. It would be fair to say that they have a bit of an image problem - David Cameron, of all people, said that they’re “fruitcakes, loonies and closet-racists“. Its difficult to find evidence to the contrary.

This said, I really can’t see why they have an image problem when someone who cites the Farage Youth as their homepage posts the following comment on my blog:

“Dear fuckhead,

You’re a big fat unfunny cunt and I hope you get AIDs and die.

Not only that, but being as your parents are massive whores I also hope they get infected with some horrific STD, maybe syphilis.

Your blog is so bad I believe it has given me cancer. You manage to give new meaning to the phrase ‘fat uniformed student twat’, a F.U.S.T if you will.

What a massive gaping cunt you are.”

Clearly UKIP’s hopes for the future are bright if they’ve got powerful young minds like this supporting them. It almost makes me worry what the “everyone left of far-right” opposition are going to do in the future if they’ve only got massive, gaping cunts like me supporting them. I mean, aside from ignore them as a political insignificance and pay attention to them only for a little light relief.

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