I've had it. I was trying to do some graphic design for an upcoming project, and having run out of computers that run my ancient copy of Photoshop, I had to resort to using the GIMP. My previous encounters with it had been less than productive, but I was out of options, and recent news promised a much improved program.

Unfortunately, it's still as horrible to use as ever. Made to look like Photoshop but unaccountably different from it in a myriad annoying ways. Incredibly straightforward operations like selecting part of an image and moving it require arcane keyboard commands. Tools keep on resetting.

Still, I struggled on, learning its ways, making progress. I saved the file I'd been working on and went to talk to my housemate. When I got back and re-opened the file, it was completely scrambled:

Good-bye, two hours of work since the last backup. I'm now uninstalling this scrapheap from my machine.

PS Neat Stuff Will Eventually Appear Unless Dave Is Driven Insane By Computer Gremlins.

I have just acquired a shiny new MacBook Pro, and have spent the last two days setting it up. One of its fun new features is the "Word of the Day" screensaver, which scrolls past words and definitions from the built-in dictionary.

So when I sat down just now, it called up the definition of the word "corpulent". Well, thank you, computer.

Apart from that it's a pretty neat machine.

(More ramblings to follow.)

It's nowhere near 2012 yet, and I'm already fed up with the London Olympics. I was never very happy with the idea anyway, and the sheer idiocy exposed in this year's Olympics has made me dread the event.

The most nauseating thing in 2012 will be the huge amount of public money indirectly ending up in private coffers. The government is using public money to build giant facilities and carve a gash deep into London, closing businesses, displacing people. And who will benefit from this money? The contractors. The TV channels. The corrupt Olympic organisation itself. The companies who advertise in the Olympics.

This abuse of public money (my money I pay in tax, I realise, worrying slightly at the bourgeois flavour of the thought) is excused by a strange mix of nationalism (it brings nations together), regionalism (aren't you proud of London), and a general sense that you couldn't possibly be against public sports.

Well, to be honest, I am. I hate public sports. The fake sportsmanship. The corruption. The seething nationalism. The huge amounts of money changing hands. The way that a sporting event ends up displacing something that actually matters from the headlines.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with "private" sports. Moving your body, playing games, teamwork, all of that is fun, and good for you. I don't want to abolish local football teams, or people going for a jog in the morning.

And what of the people getting displaced by this behemoth? This is obviously rampant in China, where the government sees no problem in just bulldozing whatever they want to make the stadiums. But the same thing is happening in London. It was kind of difficult for me to process, the idea that the government is actually allowed to take away your land just because influential organisation #7 wants it.

Two years ago, when the world cup was on, I got attacked by a bunch of drunken teenagers. My friends got attacked by another bunch of hooligans. I didn't feel safe that summer. When the UK failed to make it into the euro cup for this year, I was insanely happy.

Now people will probably accuse me of being mean-spirited. But could you just allow me to express this: if the millions of pounds being poured into this country-wide masturbation that is the 2012 Olympics were put into say, hospitals, wouldn't this make for a better world?

So who's joining me? Against the 2008 Olympics. Against the 2012 Olympics. Against any Olympics. Against corruption, your money ending up in rich bastards' wallets, and a fake "Olympic spirit" we're all supposed to buy into.