sausage and mash

We all love sausageandmash

2006-04-18T13:28:00.000+01:00

...in fact, I had some yesterday for dinner. Anyway, You all may well know that I started a project, a new website called Second Shot, a couple of months ago. After a lot of stopping and starting and general faffing about, I've finally got it the way I think is best for a long running website.

I won't bore you with the whats and whys - that can be found at Second Shot - all you have to do is investigate the site and grab the RSS that's there. As with everything I do, I like to get some feedback from readers/viewers (good or bad) as it can only make things a little better.

And as for this place, sausageandmash, it's unlikely to get updated. It's been fun and a great place to vent out, and I was especially pleased with actually getting this blogspot name. So I'll be keeping it for as long as possible, but ultimately it's now redundant. The same goes with the Round England, Round Ireland and Round London blogspots, but again I'll keep those names because, well, because I can. I'll probably use them when I get round to doing some more travelling (they are the best and easiest way to document things).

Right, I'll see you at Second Shot.

Second Shot's (rather limp) launch - Hazzah!!

2006-04-06T02:43:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been about a month since my last post telling you lot about my new project. And now, finally, I've decided to launch Second Shot and get it out there for the masses to see.

However, you'll find that it's quite, quite empty and needs some serious bulking, but at least you have an idea of what to expect. I just wanted to get it known and for people to download the RSS feed so that they can abreast of the developments.

Please refrain from laughing at it for the time being.

Spread the word; taking a Second Shot has never been so good.

/dies; cause: death by cliche

Everyone needs a SecondShot

2006-03-08T21:17:00.000Z

Nothing exciting other than to say I'm building up a new website, SecondShot, and for which I've been learning Flash to make some fancy user interfaces. Surprisingly, it's pretty easy to get a basic layout and Flash swf file embedded into HTML, ready for internet users to have a play.

And so I'm currently stuck on designing a nice logo as well as the rest of my content. I've ideas but they have yet to be put down on (electronic) paper. Keep an eye out, it could be a good one.

Getting nowhere fast

2006-01-30T22:42:00.000Z

Been neglecting the blogger for some time now due to not having anything vaguely interesting to write about. Plus, I've sort of stopped with the drawing at the moment although I've still one spare. Besides sitting on my arse and trying to find a job, I've mainly been doing not much else.

Well, actually, I went to a Graduate Assessment Day the Friday just gone, and I'm supposed to be hearing from them tomorrow to tell me that I didn't get the job. For some reason, although I'd like to think I did pretty well, I don't think I've got it - just stepping into the foyer and seeing the other 'contestant' was enough for me to realise that out of the six there, I could probably best at 3rd or 4th. Aye, aren't I self-confident, eh? Anyway, we'll see but I'm pretty sure it'll be a no-no.

EuroMillions, then - what's it at now? Something like £150 by the time it comes round to Friday, as it was £125 last week I think. I've been meaning to buy a few tickets for the past couple of weeks, so third time lucky and I might just scoop myself a little bit of change. This the Chinese 'Year of the Dog' (Happy New Year, by the way) and it's supposed to be my lucky year, so we'll see about that too (assessment day was on Friday, two days prior to the new year, so that could be the unlucky feeling for the above).

And I think I'll have this journal I've been knocking around finally licked. It's been a long time coming and mainly due to me being a lazy bugger - and then I'll still have to edit it at some stage when it gets rejected. Ah, all the fun of being a postgraduate without that sinking feeling.

How highly unexciting.

Room with a view

2006-01-19T11:41:00.000Z

The art of illusion

2006-01-16T11:19:00.000Z

How to be an actor

2006-01-10T11:30:00.000Z

Sealant problems

2006-01-08T19:16:00.000Z

Maybe I'll get a job as an artist

2006-01-06T21:48:00.000Z

All this jobless malarkey means that I get to draw lots of crap. Expect this to be a common occurrence, if not daily, until I get a life of some sort.

Art, but is it?

2006-01-05T20:17:00.000Z

Finally, I can start my blog comic strips that I planned many moons ago. My sister got herself a Wacom graphics tablet and, according to her, it's one of the best of the previous generation. And I like it a lot!

So with ideas in mind and a 'pen and paper' at hand, I've finished off my first comic 'strip'. It's a bit strange to use at first because, for me anyway, it stretches my hand-eye coordination more than anything else has before - it makes me feel a bit retarded, but I'm getting used to it quickly.

Hopefully, I'll be able to continue with this calibre of work so that both you and I can enjoy it to its fullest. Or not.

Click on each to enlarge

God damn (and he probably would), my handwriting's crap...

Happy New Year

2006-01-03T12:46:00.000Z

Yes, it's late, I know. But better than never. Possibily.

Fireworks were impressive in London this year (on TV, as I didn't want to bother with the potential of getting stuck in London due to Tube strikes) - makes up for the few years gone that have been totally crap. £1-million gone up in smoke (and lights)...

Be good for the New Year, otherwise Santa will come and get you.

King Kong go rooaar!!!

2005-12-30T21:27:00.000Z

You'd have thought that most of the UK population have already gone to see Peter Jackson's King Kong by now, what with it having been out a week or two before Christmas. But obviously not, as myself and the family trundled up to the local VUE cinema to watch the 3-hour remake of the black and white original, only to find the screen room chock-a-block with people already settled in the best seats.

We found some seats pretty close to the screen, the best of a bad bunch I suppose, and made ourselves comfortable. I won't bore you with the details of the film as there's just too much to cover properly (at least, to do it justice), but whilst watching it I couldn't help thinking back to the 'Making of King Kong' et cetera TV programmes and realising that the backdrops weren't really there, post-production effects added, and other such things. It's the first time that such a thing has really happened to me, and it was quite distracting and annoying, pulling me out of the world that Jackson strove hard to embrace us in.

Other than that, it was a pleasant story of deceit, love and understanding (and other things that I'd missed), how a big ape has feelings too, and learning that most of the audience were squeamish when large bugs came out of the tree trunk's cracks that the actress was hiding in (when being attacked by dinosaurs).

All's well that ends well, when the big lovable furry thing falls off the Empire State building and manages to keep all his innards inside of him. The End.

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-25T10:32:00.000Z

Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you all have lots of fun and enjoy the break from work/dole collection/other (delete as applicable), and to quote a friend of mine, I hope that Santa has been good.

Yay!

Knife City - making video games look bad

2005-12-20T14:59:00.000Z

I saw this on the lunchtime news and, honestly, was shocked and disappointed by it. It's an advert by the Met Police about the dangers and consequences of carrying a knife around, aimed at those hoody-youths of today, entitled Knife City.

When I first heard that the ad was combination of video-game graphics and real-life footage regarding knives, I instantly had a hate reaction to it. Not because they are trying to get youths to realise what happens when you carry a knife around - I'm all for it, definately, any way to get guns and knives off of the streets is a way forward - but my hate is because they used (albeit succussfully, I admit) video-gaming as a reference to it.

The games industry has a hard enough time as it is with uneducated-band-wagon-jumping-Daily-Mail-readers and all those that think the Playstation, GTA, Manhunter, et al. 'killed my son/daughter/dog/fish' - and now the Met Police come up with an advert that is more or less saying that video-games borne the knife/gun culture on the streets today! Honestly, I couldn't believe it. Those tabloid readers are going to have a field day with this one and shout the likes of "See, we were right! Even the police think videogames are evil!". Stupidly, as usual (or as expected), those readers will be missing the point of the advert - there are consequences of carrying a knife, life's not a game. It's not 'videogames make violence happen', nothing like it at all.

Don't get me wrong, the advert is effective (the shock tactic usually works for me, except in this case as I knew what was going to happen, but it would have worked), but why use (or should that be target) the video-game industry on such a matter? I do hope that it's not because the Police are a bunch of Daily Mail reading idiots, but in fact are reaching to the youths in a way that they understand.

Mind, I'd imagine that a lot more under-18s than over-18s that are carrying around knives, and yet games that closely depict real-life violence get 18-rated anyway. So those hooded-youths mixing up gameworlds and real-life worlds shouldn't be playing these sorts of games anyway and therefore shouldn't be getting mixed up with the 'different worlds'. If that makes sense - basically, parents should be made more aware of what their children play on their consoles, and that they shouldn't have them in their rooms but some place where there's adequate supervision. And then the children need to be educated in the fact that when someone dies there's no coming back, and the same with them.

If everyone would stop being stupid and realised that games are just like any other form of entertainment, then there would be less Daily Mail readers (or knife crimes, whichever is worse).

Apologies to those Daily Mail readers that don't fit in with the tabloid's stereotype. Mind, you should think about reading a newspaper instead of that magazine.

Shoot the crow to Ben Folds

2005-12-14T11:44:00.000Z

Saturday just gone saw myself and a load of Irish friends-of-a-friend venture into the Trafalgar Studios, London, to watch James Nesbitt and Co. perform Shoot the Crow - a story about four Irish working-class men (constructing and tiling toilets and showers) planning a heist on an unallocated palette of wall tiles. The two pairs have exactly the same plan; it's coming up to lunch and they need to create a situation to get the other pair somewhere else away from the tiles - so it'll be to the local to celebrate the final day of one worker. One in each of the pair have concerns about the heist whilst the other has a reason, but the former are soon won over when they realise that they too have future plans that could be helped with a few more 'readies'. What follows are comedic to-and-fros, life situations and the reality of working in a dead-end job, a poke at the 'what is art' question, and the obligatory double-cross-back-stabbing when one worker talks to one of the other pair.

This play is said to portray some aspect of the working-class life in Ireland many years ago, and as the characters reveal themselves you do feel for them and their situations. Problems can be solved with money but that's not everything as Nesbitt explains when he relates himself to his father for not being there and spending enough family-time - the actor even sobs on-stage although it was quite a chringing moment. The acting was superb and the script kept the comedy flowing nicely, but the only thing that got me was the incredibly thick Irish accent making the local phrases all the more difficult to decipher. Admittedly, some of it went over my head but I got most of it, and I liked the fact that the dialogue wasn't 'dumbed down' and kept with its Irish roots, so to speak, otherwise the magic would have been lost. The play completely engrossed me with everything going so smoothly, which you would expect from professionals, but it was good to see that the actors hadn't lost interest as the Saturday's evening showing was the final of three continuous weeks, twice daily.

Towards the end of the play, the two pairs confide - well, Nesbitt opens up to the other pair, much to the annoyance of his original partner-in-crime - and all four are in it together, ready to steal the tiles. Lunchtime arrives and the coast is clear - except it's not, when one worker gets a call with unwanted news. Not only do they have further work but the tiles are for another room that they missed. You can see the huge blow on their faces after having been jumping around and joking about their future plans, but Nesbitt doesn't have any of it as he's determined to carry out his promise of spending time with his son and taking him to the cinema - he doesn't care about getting sacked and his closest workmate says he's not covering for him. When the youngest worker comes in he concludes that the overtime goes three ways but it's not to be - for all that the worker shouted at Nesbitt, he'll make up a lie and cover Nesbitt's back. You can't go stealing and nothing comes easy in life, and for all that's said and done it comes down to helping one another to make things that little bit more bearable.

Fast forward past the post-show drinking and for some reason not actually having a hangover on Sunday morning, all the way to Tuesday and it's Ben Folds night. After a day trotting through some streets of London during the morning and afternoon with Nav (Tottenham Court Road, Portobello Road, an Anime exhibition in County Hall near Westminster, and a glance at some of the new exhibits at the Tate Modern), we headed to the Carling Academy, Brixton, for the support band The Maccabees and the headline act of Ben Folds.

The Maccabees sounded good and because they were relatively young they were quite fresh and keen to perform well. The only comment against them, and it's pretty major, is that each of their songs sounded similar to each other - each song had the lead guitarists jamming fast, blasting out chords and not much else - they were overbearing and the vocalist didn't stand out enough (except for his epileptic dancing that made me laugh - I've seen it somewhere else before done by some famous rock singer). Personally, I don't see them getting too far unless they start doing something about those guitarists and getting some melody out, because I only started to enjoy each of their tunes when they stopped hammering and starting doing some riffing, even if it was only four different notes over and over.

Now Ben Folds, well, what can I say but yet another excellent, excellent gig. There wasn't going to be any new material, that I knew, and even though I had heard some of his new music in June at Southampton it was a great surprise and pleasure to hear some of his older material from the Ben Folds Five days. This time I had bought standing tickets (Southampton only had seating) so it was a case of getting to the Academy in good time and finding a good place to stand. Luckily there was a support band so most of the crowd were in the bars and that let Nav and I get a good view of the stage - when it was Folds time, the standing area was pretty much filled up but not stupidly tight and jostling. And I'll say that standing is so much better than seating, because even though you have to bear the 2-3 hours you are able to get into the music mood more easily and jig around (yes, that's what I was doing but so was everyone else).

The crowd were singing along, which I thought was great (although I don't know if artists like that sort of thing, but Ben Folds makes us sing harmonies so I suppose he can't complain). I nearly sang out my tonsils and most probably annoyed the two people in front of me who didn't seem to be singing (or jigging) along with the rest of us. The gig was absolutely fantastic, the majority of the crowd were with Folds, but more importantly everyone was cheering. Those of you who know me know I love playing the piano, and honestly it was Ben Folds that brought me back to the keys and chords and showed me how much fun it can be. I'll stop now otherwise I'll be here forever.

Boom and Doom (crap title because it's late in the evening)

2005-12-12T23:16:00.000Z

As you're all well aware, there have been explosions in Hemel Hempstead, about 10-miles NW from me. Now apparently, people 100-miles away heard the explosion and some were woken up by it. But me? I didn't hear a thing - and why? - probably because I was in a state of heavy-sleep due to having been out the night before. Anyway, by 5pm there was a nice big black cloud floating over us, as you can see here:

And finally, Nav has come round for the Ben Folds show and showed me his iPOD Nano. I'm not one for Apple stuff but this was more interesting than most. For those of you who know Doom (the video game), this might be fun otherwise, well... have a look anyway and see the power of the Nano! Woo, as good as those old PC running DOS.
Doom on iPOD Nano

Things to do, so much time to do them in

2005-12-07T23:29:00.000Z

I'm not exactly a Christmas Srooge or Bah-Humbug or whatever it is, but I really don't fancy Christmas shopping all that much. It feels like a normal shopping session and as per usual I normally don't buy anything present-like. Maybe because I usually go on my own, but this time I'm off with Joanne so things might be a little more interesting. Mind, I've kind of told myself that it would just be a window shopping session, unless there really is something that tickles my fancy there-and-then.

Saturday sees me off into London Town to watch 'Shoot the Crow', an Irish-comedy theatre play starring James Nesbitt, Conleth Hill, Jim Norton and Packy Lee. I'll be heading with our own little Miss Irish, Caroline (no, not as in Miss Ireland, although she is, well, you get the idea...) and a whole load of her friends, one or two I may know. Can't wait actually - I've not been to a big-production theatre play in about 8-years (I went to University drama production a couple of years back which was good fun).

Monday sees me off to have a chat with an employee of a recruitment agency so that they can get a better picture of what jobs I'm looking for - apparently it's what they have to do as companies ask if they have seen us potential employees (probably soome sort of personality check thing to make sure us unemployed are a complete bunch of morons).

Tuesday sees me off to London Town again to watch the fabulous Mr Ben Folds, bashing it out on the piano once more in the UK. For all I care, Folds could just sit there talking and play little side pieces and I'd still be thrilled to bits, because I've got so much admiration for his mad skills on the piano - he may be bettered by many others, but there's just something about his fun-loving playing that wins over (... erm... something).

And why am I telling you my plans for the up-coming week? Because I've a memory like a sieve and won't remember, and this blog makes a god diary.

This week I have...

2005-12-01T23:02:00.000Z

...mostly been ill. Well, actually, most of last week but since the weekend I've been getting much better, thanks for asking. Getting ill is no fun so don't do it, kids.

I suppose it was kind of good timing as most of that week was horrible anyway, with no prospect of doing anything exciting outside as it was windy and rainy and generally not very nice. Mind, there's not much prospect of me doing anything exciting anyway, because that's just me. However, there are plans for the week ahead, oh yes there are! Except, I won't spoil them for you now, but will tell you later on next week - nothing exciting for you, only for me (and those others that will be there).

I've started writing my book but haven't got far as I've told myself that I should finish off my research journal first (yes, it's still going on). I've managed to form some sort of plot that seems vaguely like a decent story, I've got protagonists, and I've got ideas for panning it out in the future.

And just because it's been a completely boring post for you guys, I thought this might be relevant and not at all useful:

A bogey is a piece of dried nasal mucus, and your nose makes nearly a cupful of snot every day. Snot is produced by the mucous membranes in the nose, which it moistens and protects. Snot works by trapping the dirt particles and keeping them in the nose. After these particles get stuck inside the nose, the mucus surrounds them along with some of the tiny hairs inside the nose called cilia. The mucus dries around the particles. When the particles and dried-out mucus clump together, you're left with a bogey. Therefore, your nose is working if you are able to pick bogies out your nose.

So snot is not made of liquified brain, which is what I thought before.

Fingernails are made from keratin

2005-11-24T21:56:00.000Z

This was bugging me for quite some time (about 3 or 4 years), but I've finally bothered to check what fingernails are made from. Hard, curved plates of keratin - so there you have it.

They first form a few centimetres past where you first see your fingernail up to before the knuckle, and is also known as the matrix.

The white spots that you sometimes find on your fingernail are damaged nail, technically termed "leukonychia", and would have happened up to 8-weeks prior to their first appearance - by which time you'd have probably forgotten about whacking your finger/thumb.

Which means, apparently, that the white spots aren't a sign of calcium or zinc deficiency - which is what I was told.

And yes, I'm incredibly bored.

The 3 aRse: Reading Riting and a Rifmetic

2005-11-14T19:44:00.000Z

The Three Rs - I find it quite funny that the Government classify the three essential skills that children must obtain during education by playing with words (and pronunciation). Surely that doesn't help they young 'uns who are quite easily influenced (read, don't know what's right or wrong (or rong)) and may have unwitting parents who can't spell themselves (or for themselves - ha de ha ha).

Anyway, I'm not about to rant on the Government and their (in?)ability to do things right for the education system, I just want to say that everyone should take some time to take time out and relax with a good, decent sized fictional book. In fact, the past few weeks have seen the BBC advertise RAW (seemingly aiming at adults too, probably because they would have the least amount of free time). Why am I advocating reading? Because it's actually good fun and as educational as going back to school.

I've always been a keen reader (albiet not everything, but then who is?) because it feeds my imagination when else I'm not doing anything useful with my brain. I'm able to imagine situations and locales through words better than anything else, maybe even than when someone is making one up on-the-spot. But ask me to imagine some strange Wallace-and-Gromit-esque contraption for anything and I'm stumped - truly, I don't think I could come up with anything that would be considered eccentric. But situations, actions, locales, atmosphere, that sort of thing, I can do if you just give me a scenario (and some time to think) - maybe it comes down to the fact that I watch a hell of a lot of films and TV programs, but then you don't get to think of your own situations, etc. because it's all done for you, for your eyes to feast upon. And in that way, you would probably never rethink the situation/locale in a different way because - bang! - it's onto the next bit of action/locale/situ/whatever. We'll have enough on our plates just trying to contemplate what's just happened, never mind time to think the situation anew.

And that's where books are brilliant - you read at your own pace and have the chance to re-read things, providing ample time for you to imagine it and move on. And it's your own imagination, your own locale, your own atmosphere - that's what makes it awesome because no-one else is going to think of exactly the same thing. You're not tied down to see what the director wants you to see - you're on your own. And if you can't imagine the situation then, well, you're buggered really - but surely no-one is that bad. Remember, just because you can't describe it, doesn't mean it's a shit imagination - it's just not all that vivid.

Music does the same thing to me too, especially when I'm travelling and I've got my headphones on, tapping away in my own little world, staring out the window. Usually, it's music videos going through my mind which in turn provides myself with little snippets of action video - say a protagonist doing something er... 'actiony', or maybe some slow-moving, calm-as-you-like descriptive footage.

So this kind of pulls itself back to the film/TV aspect of things. I reckon I've got the imagination to write something, a book or a script, something big and challenging, but ultimately something that is good fun. I've been thinking about doing some writing lately (I like to think I can write some funny stuff), but I can never think of a plot/storyline. When I do have something in mind, it seems difficult to stretch it long enough for a book and hence I get annoyed and ignore the whole idea.

I've yet to think of something to write about - maybe I've lost my plot writing devices because I've been reading a lot lately and therefore can't think of anything 'new' (when in fact, everyone is still using the same genres but telling a different story). Oh well.

So, there you have it; reading and writing, two of the three Rs covered. Arithmetic will have to come later, after I've sold the rights to my book.

Job Interview No.1 - failure

2005-11-10T12:51:00.000Z

Boo hoo...

Oh well, will just have to wait for the next one.

Job Interview No.1

2005-11-07T20:18:00.000Z

Today was my first job interview for a, shall we say... proper job out in the outside world. It's been a long wait as I was first contacted about the interview two-and-half weeks ago, but the wait itself isn't a problem as I've been continually job searching (and I've been getting calls for other jobs which I've consequently turned down because they weren't what I wanted to do). It's the wait after the interview that's a pain (another 2-weeks until they reply), but I know I shalln't be relying on getting today's job.

Mind, it's not that I completely lost it, started dribbling and babbling, and running round the table flailing my arms. I'd like to think that I did quite well, but I know that the company (in the sector of 'engineering consultancy building services') had numerous applicants today, all vying for the few graduate (scheme) positions available - we'll see, we'll see.

Anyway, not to give too much away of the interview process, but they asked me why I chose my A-levels, Mechanical Engineering (and whether I like it), about my projects, about my MA at Brunel, and about aspirations (to which I remember saying something stupid like "I love you"... no, that's not right... erm.. along the lines of "nothing too big, but it would be nice to make something that has an indirect effect/affect on people" (without the slash, obviously)).

Then they asked my to draw a bicycle, which I cocked up the first time, but redeemed myself on the second chance after they pointed out that you couldn't actually physically steer my first one (I had placed a rod between the front wheel and the pedals... yes, I know, I know...), but they me reckons that I further made improvements on other mechanical aspects of bikes.

Then they wanted to know how much I knew about heat transfer, involving the cooling of a room. Wasn't difficult and I made a quick calculation in my head which initially seemed stupid (like "I love you"... do do do dooo), but they seemed to agree with me on the number I pulled out (0.25kW, if you're interested) - although I hope they weren't taking pity on little ol' me.

Some chit-chat about their company (after me asking them about their work structure), and about The Venue (which is one of their projects; a swimming pool refurb in my town), and then that was about it. I didn't walk out of the place all that happy with myself, felt that my speaking was stop/start a bit too much, but that's a problem with me. Mind, first interview so at least I know what to expect the next time.

Settle down, Spaz

2005-10-28T20:35:00.000+01:00

I've got to say that I am, at times, a bit of a teleholic and there are some TV programs that I try not to miss because they are so well produced. I've seen a lot of TV during my life time - yeah, I'm quite proud about that because it keeps me up-to-date with current affairs and whatnot - and although there's (obviously) been a lot of change in the style and making of programs, the one thing that I've notice is the general tolerance of bad language on television.

I suppose it's because I try not to swear too much, especially at home (although you can catch me doing so under my breath), but I won't say that I don't because it's quite cathartic. Anyway, I'm sure that 'crap' used to be quite a bad word when I was a young teenager, and 'fuck' was even worse (I'm sure this word got many films an 18-rating back then).

But now, 'crap' is okay around 6pm because it's in The Simpsons, 'fuck' after 9pm (oi, stop it!) and in 15-rated films (at least, I remember hearing it a few times before), and 'cunt' (apologies, I don't like the word either but it's for sake of example) is quite freely used in 18-rating films. Now don't get me wrong, a bit of bad language is okay and probably builds character (and teaches kids bad words), and I'm not against it unless it's totally out of place (that is, more wrong-time-of-day-and-audience rather than overuse of).

It's just that foul language is becoming more tolerable in this modern society and whether it's a good or bad thing, well, it's not for me to say. Personally, I don't mind it so long as the context is relevant, because I feel that expletives are just a strong way of expressing one's feelings - it shows that person's instantaneous emotional reaction to a situation.

Oh and 'spaz' is a word that isn't used enough - I know, I know, it's un-PC but the way it can be integrated so seemlessly into sentences is amazing - sometimes I think it's a special (no pun intended) talent to utilise it properly. Family Guy, season 3, the episode where the FBI come in and take over the house - that's where the post title comes from - that made me laugh for longer than it really should have.

And why is bad language becoming more tolerable in our modern society? I don't remember any particular point in my life when someone important said "Right, well, I've had enough of this taboo subject. Fuck it all." But maybe that's just it, the number of taboo subjects back in the day was immense but now they've become more topical, and the world has become more colloquial.

To be honest, I don't know if anything is taboo anymore.

Someone send him to the ER

2005-10-27T01:17:00.000+01:00

I see Robbie 'Smug Bastard' Williams has a new album out, Intensive Care. I bloody well wish he was there himself - tosser. But, you see, it's not that he's personally done anything to make me feel this way - it's just that he's a bit of a twat sometimes.

Like Jamie 'Fat Lips and Tongue' Oliver - he was a bit of a wanker too, especially in the early days. But he's managed to climb up my list, and it was actually good fun watching him start up a restaurant with trainee kids - maybe it was the fact that he was sufferring quite badly. Me thinks he's actually kinda okay now.

Random ranting, really - nothing much else.

Round and round and round we go

2005-10-24T12:33:00.000+01:00

I've got a taste for travelling now - a real thirst for going out there and away from the 'same ol' same' - since going on that expidition round England. Yes I know, travelling around England doesn't exactly sound that exciting but it was, if nothing else, very interesting. I kept telling people that I've never travelled England even though I've lived here for 23-yrs, so I thought I'd put an end to it (although my geography of our island hasn't improved all that much).

I'm still envious about those that travel the world (namely Caroline or my brother), but still, going places near home can be as fun. So following up on my and Nav's England travels, we have both decided that Round Ireland (2006) will go ahead some time next year. Hopefully, I'll be employed and have some readies coming in (Layer Cake has some of the best London colloquial terms) and then take a huge slice of holiday time off for my Irish travels.

Furthermore, we've also talked about travelling Round London and possibly using another Morton book. For me, this will be an on-going thing, as I've started to investigate London town a lot more recently and finding the diversity of it all quite, quite appealing.

So it looks like this could be the start of my own 'Round...' series. If funds increase, I could well take it abroad, but for the time being I'd like to think of it as my own Michael Palin-esque travel adventures.

Feel free to post comments of places for me to visit, be it England, Ireland or London:

Round England 2005

- downloadable pdf of blog for offline reading

Round Ireland 2006

Round London

Fun fun fun!!!

2005-10-23T19:37:00.000+01:00

It was a pretty active week just gone, which means that I probably won't be doing much else for a while now. Since the last time I spoke to you guys, Nav came up to London on Wednesday to stay for a couple of nights before his conference/presentation in Regent's Park area. Thursday saw us head to Cutty Sark/Greenwich Park area to have a look at the University of Greenwich, Camera Obscura, Maritime Museum and Oxford Street/Regent Street.

Having seen the Obscura at Bristol, I was excited to visit the one in London as many people have said that its skyline is something to marvel at. My brother had been before and said it to be a good view, but when we got there it didn't seem as impressive as that in Bristol. Firstly, the magnified view was in a set direction with no means to closely examine any other part of London. Secondly, the magnified view itself was too magnified - at least, more so than the Bristol Obscura. I was a disappointment honestly, but luckily we didn't have to pay to look - mind, the view from the Observatory hill was very nice although it was busy at the lunch hour we attended. And we stood on the GMT line - all very (un)exciting...

Thursday night saw Nav hold his head in his hands as he got a call from his work colleague apologising for leaving their presentation posters on the Southampton-Waterloo train! It was too late to get run prints in a local shop, although on Friday morning we found that it wasn't possible anyway. So Nav headed into London with nothing but his laptop and a Powerpoint presentation - however, it turns out that his colleague managed to print B&W A1s in time for their presentations (although the entire event was .

Friday afternoon (after getting a call for my first job interview - yay!), I eagerly headed down to Southampton to visit friends. Everytime I trek there, it's always pleasant and fun - it's a different feeling visiting friends and places when you don't live there (even though I was there for four years). I thought that I'd make the effort to get there that day as Max was too - didn't want to let him have all the fun. Meet-up with the usual crew, and managed to get Tom to come along for the night (nice to see him after more than a year), and Friday night was seen away in Clowns followed by Jesters... ah dear, naked young 'uns dancing around being idiots - luckily my vision was blurring so as not to have my attention drawn to them (the short glimpse of a bloke's naked back was enough). More drinking and OAP-dancing and soon 2am was upon us, so it was time to depart. Suk's lounge sofa was pretty comfy, even more so after a few drinks and heavy head.

Next morning, after de-smellifying myself, I got my usual tingly face and hands syndrome from drinking to a jovial state and probably from having only 5-and-half-hour deep sleep (which was enough, mind). A hugely fatty fry-up, a walk around the Common to burn it off, and then finding an ice-cream van to put it all back on instantly. Kieran left with other arrangements and Caroline (whom many hadn't seen in a long long while but still as smiley-cheery as ever), found Suk, Max, Ian and I at the Gordon's Arms in a deteriorating state towards zombification. I still had my tingliness which didn't seem ready to recede yet (probably until I started drinking again). We all met up in the late afternoon - after Ian painted his pig (not a euphemism... surprisingly) and Caroline had seen to other things - for curry, beers and more beers in a pub. It's always nice to catch up on things and discuss things in an adult manner (basically slagging off the young 'uns who choose Degree in Surfing - I mean, wtf?! - and other such pointless degrees which flood the market and consequently lower the Degree status, rant rant rant...). Oh and meet Polly a couple of short times over the weekend - my, she was her busy self, running from table to table chatting to friends - good ol' Polly.

Another late night and short but heavy sleep, more tingling in the morning and practiced poaching eggs with Suk - me reckons we perfected it:

boil the 1-and-half to 2 inch-depth water and then down to a simmer;

stir the water slightly to make a vortexy-whirlpool effect;

crack in the egg (one at a time) from a low height;

let it cook (2-3mins to keep the yolk soft), take out with slotted spoon, and serve.

What not to do, which we did, was to poach the egg in fast moving boiling water because the eddy currents (ooh, how scientific!) will rip apart the egg white before it has a chance to solidify as one piece, leaving you with lots of flaky looking egg white part. Looks a bit yucky, but well, expect toget it at least on the first poach.

Lunch with Lucy and fiance Graham, Suk, Ian, Max and I - and then it was off back home after saying good-byes and see-you-soons. The train journey was an arse though, 2-hours on the train Soton-Waterloo, and then another hour to home - some 45-mins to 1-hour longer than it should have taken. It was, however, made up with me sitting diagonally opposite a rather cute-looking, mid-20s (me reckons), brunette. puuurrrrrr.....

Green London

2005-10-15T11:45:00.000+01:00

It's amazing what you can find in London if you just stop and look. Yesterday was a day in London with Joanne, starting out in Regent's Park. Now, I've lived so close to Central London that I've never actually bothered to have a decent walk around the place - it's kind of like "well, I'm right next to it so I can go anytime". So it was nice to have a proper stroll around Regent's, which was quiet compared to Hyde Park. I suspect that it's because it's not as accessible and is out-of-the-way from the main shopping districts. Having got flapped at by pigeons, we decided not to invade their territory any longer and headed towards the riverside.

It's always nice to have a chat with Jo, who usually asks things to get to know you that little bit better - so don't fret if you happen to meet her, she's just like that...

We had a close inspection of the London Eye (only because we were right next to it) and found that they take pictures of people in the capsules when (and only when) they are in line with the axle. Whether it's the first or second time you level the centre is not determined as it's up to those controlling the camera. Something to remember when I go on the Eye. Had coffee at Tate Modern and then walked further towards London Bridge to head towards Canary Wharf.

Didn't get a proper look around but the Wharf certainly does seem impressive (first time I'd visited). There're glass skyscrapers in all directions, yet there's a feeling of openness on level-ground in the area just outside of the station. Beyond here, it opens out and you can see how concentrated the Wharf is once you get to the other side of the Thames. We'd taken the DLR to Cutty Sark/Greenwich region in the hope that I could show Jo the 'camera obscura', (or here for contact details) but when we had actually found its location, it was too far to walk with the time we had left. That's because we had a dinner booked at Cafe Rouge - which was lovely, to say the least. French/British-style food. Go and experience yourselves - a really friendly place with a nice atmosphere.

And that was about it, really. Time flew along pretty fast and it was all very enjoyable. Made sure Jo got home okay, and then thought I'd better hurry along as I managed to catch the penultimate District/Cirle Line tube in order to set me towards Kings Cross.

And then something happened on the train journey home (see below)...

Like an orange water drinking fountain...

2005-10-15T11:15:00.000+01:00

On the train back home, something undoubtedly disgusting yet quite humourous happened. Seeing it happen was disturbing, it's nothing to be proud of - in fact, it was a little worrying because what could happen as a consequence, but luckily there were her friends about to look after this unforutnate woman.

It was comfortable on the 12:38am Kings Cross to Bedford Thamelink train yesterday - free seats and commuters half asleep from a night out or working late. It was pleasant with the usual quiet atmosphere that comes with late night travelling. A group of three friends were sitting in the next set of seats, with me having the vantage point (if you could say that) of being able to see the rather drunk woman as she plopped down into her seat and began to doze off. One guy seemed pretty knackered to, which the other seemed okay. Now, it wasn't exactly a rough ride on the train - just the usual amount of to-and-froing and up-down movement, but I suspect that anything like it could be uncomfortable when you're not feeling too good. And, I think, the woman was unconsciously feeling a slight tummy upset (to say the least).

I don't know if you want to read this rather graphic description, but what the hell. It was serene and what happened next could never have been foreseen. I was looking at the woman who had a dress that was decorated with fake spider web and spider, head tilted back slightly, silently sleeping. Suddenly, and this is where one should consider this post's title for full effect, without any tell-tale signs the woman started to slowly gurgle out a steady stream of orange-coloured vomit.

Now, it wasn't a slow dribbly gurgle, but if you imagine (and I'm sure you've seen it before) one of those water-fountains that you can press and water spouts up and out, except remember the ones where there wasn't enough force and the water folds/falls back on itself to make that gloopy, lumpy, bubbly water effect. Now colour that orange (like fizzy Tango, if you will), add a bit more weight the the liquid, imagine a spout somewhat larger than a fountain (say, mouth sized), and... well... yeah, you kinda get the picture now.

And it was like the water-fountain button was jammed for a couple of seconds, as it seemed to go on longer than it should have (maybe it was that folding/falling effect...) and flowed down onto her dress (presumably, I couldn't see). Under-the-breath cries of "That's not right. That's just not right!" came from the male friend sitting next to the woman as he covered her up from prying eyes of those who may have seen the consequence of too much drink. The other male friend tried to stop himself laughing out loudly yet failed to keep the sniggering within him as it made its infectious way to the former friend who had a wide smile on his face.

What happened next was astounding and so amazing that you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it yourself. You do little things when you're asleep and you wouldn't know. This woman, having spewed her evening's drinks, gently thumbed away any remanants of her liquidy innards off her chin, eye's still closed and not a frown on her face - in fact, there was a kind of calming smile from getting a bit of shut-eye.

I tried not to join in, but when you see someone stiffling a laugh caused by someone else, it's hard not to have a smile on your face.

Dammit, no more!

2005-10-12T00:47:00.000+01:00

HTML editing is such a pain in the arse. I've been faffing about to get rid of something on the individual post pages (unnecessary extra white box on sidebar menu, if you happen to have spotted it before) - and finally worked out what was wrong with the HTML code. Took bleeding 2hrs to sort out and turned out to require moving only a couple lines of code - and only 2-lines away from where they originally stood.

Bloofy that's it - no more... huff!

What a sad, sad day for clay models

2005-10-10T21:16:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, my sister and I went to VUE to watch 'Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit' - a true British comedy film it was too. Lots of good jokes, nice and engaging storyline, and a great twist (which, for once, does not happen right at the end but some place in the middle). The jokes run along nicely, even spread out, and there were some for the parents too (especially the warning label on a cardboard box that covers Wallace). There were some touching moments too, and I laugh in the face of horror (films). Great stuff, you must go see this.

Anyway, I thought that I would talk about the film because I read in the news earlier today that the Aardman/Wallace and Gromit studios had been burned down - meaning that everything all the way back to Morph has been destroyed and lost. All that history gone! I couldn't believe it, it was a real shame - but I suppose they can be thankful that they had finished the film already.

I suspect that some tabloid newspaper will report this disaster with the headlines: "Not A Close Shave", or some such crap.

Let's hope that Nick Park can get things back to normal quickly so he can film some more W&G.

I'll buy that for a dollar

2005-10-09T23:37:00.000+01:00

Couple of days back I was scanning through the free channels on our Sky box thingy and after getting through a load of crap and foreign stuff, I came across the many shopping channels that 'help' stereotype Sky TV. The usual trash of fitness machines and ornamental tripe was on display, but one caught my attention - so much so that I watched it for 20-mins to its conclusion.

The 'V Authentic Slicer' was on show and the guy exhibitioning the device made it look awesome and really sold it. He was slicin' and dicin', chippin' and choppin', gratin' and shreddin' his way through all manner of vegetables that would require such verbs.nbsp; The speed at which he went through the vegetables was amazing and, boy, they looked perfect.nbsp; Usually, I'm not too concern with preparation and all that lark, but with the V Authentic Slicer, I see no reason why people wouldn't use the time saved on displaying their salads and sandwiches in an extremely appetising way - I know I would... possibly.

There are some going on ebay.co.uk for about £16-20, which is a few bob less than retail price.

Other than that, there was crap all on at 2am, so I decided to go to bed.

Damned if I don't, apparently...

2005-10-07T14:13:00.000+01:00

I was supposed to meet that friend yesterday, but she was a little busy and I was lazy. Should have seen her off at Heathrow too, but she insisted that having a good chat on Messenger last night would clear things up - which it did, I think. Big hug to you Farica - see you soon.

A friend that I met at Southampton said that he didn't like saying 'good-byes' when departing from friends, instead using 'see you later'. And I guess that's true really, because it's not as if I'll never see or contact them again. I try to take that stance with such situations, because it feels better than closing things off completely.

I'm still kicking myself.

Damned if I do, and damned if I don't

2005-10-07T01:02:00.000+01:00

quite...

Shortpacked meets Katamari Damacy

2005-10-06T12:12:00.000+01:00

Still been reading Shortpacked! (and so should you lot too) and me thinks the author/artist has been playing on his Playstation lately.

For those of you who don't know, Katamari Damacy is a game that involves you rolling a ball over objects to pick them up and score points.

Shortpacked meets Katamari Damacy : strip 1
Shortpacked meets Katamari Damacy : strip 2

More to come, no doubt.

Lo-and-behold! A job offer...

2005-10-06T11:56:00.000+01:00

except it's not as exciting as it sounds. Yesterday, whilst out with friends in London, I got a call from a recruitment company (as I have been forced to place my CV onto job boards now... sulk) and they asked whether I would be interested in working as a member of their recruitment personel. Now, don't get me wrong because a job is a job, and honestly, it was exciting to have been considered for a job so swiftly (I had posted my info only 4 days previous). But to be offered a recruitment job to vet other engineering student CVs isn't exactly what I had in mind when wanting to flex my Mechanical Engineering knowledge.

They've got to phone my up today to sort things out properly as it was too noisy to talk out on the streets of Chinatown. I think I'll tell them to stuff it (but in a more polite fashion) - there's no prospects in the job, I feel.

Now, I've just got to wait and meet a friend to sort out an incident that happened yesterday night. Boy, it wasn't pleasant - heads will roll...

I knew thee well...

2005-10-04T13:53:00.000+01:00

Farewell to Ronnie Barker, aged 76, a true British comedian.

quote: "He was much loved and admired for his appearances in the long-running series The Two Ronnies, with Ronnie Corbett, as prison inmate Fletcher, in the series Porridge, and as Arkwright, the bumbling, stuttering, sex-obsessed shopkeeper in Open All Hours."

Take care, Ronnie.

(to be sung) Jeeesus Christ, Suuuper...PSP

2005-10-03T22:46:00.000+01:00

I've been reading Eurogamer for a few weeks now and it's pretty damn good - I advise you to go have a look if you are interested in video-gaming news, mainly because it (seems) home-grown (i.e. British). Anyway, they reported on Sony getting a slap on the wrist for their Italian adverts about their 10-years in the gaming industry (Yahoo news version here). I whole-heartedlylaugh at Sony's face. Like this:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! In. Your. Face. Exclamation mark.

Points of View

2005-10-01T01:42:00.000+01:00

But not with Anne "Annie" Robinson, nor Terry "Radio 2" Wogan, nor Eamonn "GMTV" Holmes.

I bloody well hate spiders - I'm such a sissy - but I thought I'd have a gander at this 20-million year old spider, it being very much dead so can't scuttle along at high-speeds. They don't seem to have evolved much during the years (in terms of shape), so obviously one of the better (want of a better word) 'made' living species known to man.

Sony Playstation is 10-years old! Happy Birthday, you game-destroying, scummy bastards! Sorry, did that slip out? Personally, I think that Sony have done good and made the games industry more popular among the mass consumers, but they haven't really done much to add to the creativity of gaming. Sure there are some great games for the console, but there's nothing directly from the company of which has made me feel that I have to get a PS or PS2 (or even a PS3). Sega have been and always will be a favourite of mine.
What I won't deeny and agree with (having read the BBC report), is that the Playstation did indeed advance 3D technology compared to the Sega Saturn although that was said to be a 2D-biased platform. The PS was quite capable of pushing polygons in its infancy and even more so in its latter years. Well done on that front.

This caught my eye due to the recent talks of it being unhealthy to mother a child late on in life (i.e. 40-years and up). Except it wasn't what I expected and turns out to be a story about a woman giving birth to her daughter's baby, Annie. So does that make the surrogate mother Annie's mum or grandmother, or both, or neither, or something else completely? Like an alien monkey from Mars...

Finally, because otherwise I'd go on forever about the news, is the decommissioning of IRA arms. I'm sure it's to be a joyous news to all and one great leap for pease, but the news articles hits something that I hadn't even considered - people's knowledge of arms. There is no way to get anyone to forget all the technical knowhow that they may have learnt over the decades. I'm not one for history - although the BBC make good use of the internet to give you the relevant details in their special report sections - but here's the low-down on the IRA. I should read this one at some point, but I've given the link to the first page as to how the IRA (formerly, Provisional IRA) were formed. I'd like to believe that the N.I. troubles are associated only to those who fall into the categories of Catholic, Protestant, Loyalist or Republicans, but there will always to be 'civilian casualties of war'. I worry because I've a Iraish friend who's living in Northern Ireland so it's not nice to think anything should happen to her. Although now she's working in England, so I think past tense 'worried' is more appropriate now.

Ooh... the problem with me a blogging is that it can take so long - even worse when I'm watching TV ('The Hand That Rocks The Cradle' was on - awesome film). I'm so slow that new news comes up on the BBCi headlines (at this time of day/night too). So, finally, no really, this time it's for real: minimum wage goes up to £5.05. Hazzah! to those who can't quite be arsed to find a proper job or make an effort to advance themselves. Ooh, how controversial!

Finding jobs is easy. Actually getting them... well...

2005-09-26T22:23:00.000+01:00

I feel as if I've been neglecting Sausage and Mash but turns out that I've only been away for 4-days. And in those 4-days I've been trying to sort out a proper job for myself to see me through my unthriftful nature. I don't think that I'll never be able to find a job because I can fall back on my engineering degree, and even then I'm trying to whittle down my choices by being located in London. The major problem I see is actually getting the job I want to have - maybe I'm being picky, but I suppose that if I try for those and fail then I know where to go from there on. I'm not worried about rejections because I'll be expecting them, but it will grate me if the companies don't reply, especially seeing as I've taken the effort to stay old-fashion with snail-mail of CV and cover letters. I'm sure everyone still likes to have receive a letter that isn't a bill or junk mail.

I've been playing Messiah on the PC, which I had started a long time ago and got stuck because I was crap at games then. Now, I've managed to get further although it managed to crash on me, then noticed the time and thought it was a sign for me to stop playing, which I did and set off to bed. The premise is that you control a Bob, a chubby baby angel, who's been sent down a futuristic Earth to sort out the mess we're in. You can possess characters and run around in their bodies to help complete your mission. So far, so good - a proper review will be posted soon.

Also playing Full Spectrum Warrior. Now, the reason I got thise, besides it said to be a great game, is that: (a) it was £4 at CEX, (b) it is Xbox Live enabled (i.e. I can play multiplayer online). Hazzah! I thought - it was a bargain that I couldn't pass up. But I was disappointed when I tried Online to find that there was nobody playing, nobody had set up any games. I had better experience with Top Spin but not by much - only one or two games set up and nobody wanting to join my game - so I'm kind of thinking that I've joined Xbox Live a little bit late. Well, especially seeing as Live has been solidly running for a couple of years and that the Xbox360 is just round the corner.

The experience was a bit off-putting, and I don't want to get my online fix with Halo2 because I've read so many bad things about it lately - mainly the screaming/annoying US teenagers to be found on the servers. I'm thinking that I may well have missed out on a lot of fun, and am going to have to wait until I get an Xbox360.

In a galaxy far, far away...

2005-09-22T21:11:00.000+01:00

...thousands of virtual citizens and hunters died from a virtual plague. Most humourous it is too.

Earlier today, I found and setup an RSS program that downloads all the relevant bits of news and info from a number of different sites, and shows them as short paragraph emails. It's absolutely awesome; I get to stay up-to-date with the news, and don't have have to go through all the blogs individually to check for updates. It doesn't notify on blog/post comments, but then I suppose that's probably a good thing as some places get loads and it would just be plain annoying to be alerted to such a minor thing.

And I know the following thing probably isn't exactly legal, but it's promoting the Sega Dreamcast nonetheless so there's still good in it - there's been talk of Chankast being a very good Dreamcast emulator for the PC. The author says "..it's a tribute to the great DC [Dreamcast]." I've yet to test it but it seems to support a great deal more games than any other emu (of which I know of two others).

Now, I must type up some cover-letters for jobs to feed my gaming habits.

Layman's Bible

2005-09-22T15:44:00.000+01:00

Scanning through the pages of The Times, I stumbled across this article about a slimline Bible. I reckon that I'd benefit from it as it's aimed aimed at those who are curious about the origins and message of Christianity but prefer not to spend too much time filing through the "boring tracts" of the original publication.&bnsp; Although, having read a few extracts from the new version (juxtaposed against the original) it leaves a lot to be desired. The 100-minute Bible, £3 plus P&P - if anyone gets it, let me know what it's like.

The Flying Steveman... like Scotsman, but with... oh, never mind.

2005-09-21T23:26:00.000+01:00

Went to Uxbridge/Brunel today to get something hard-back bound (i.e. binding), which resulted in a job fairly well done. Most of the pages were put in straight, but room for improvement is there. Provides student discount so it's a very good price for what you get - especially when hard-back binding is not readily available. A-minus.

Met up with Usman and had a nose around his new room in Halls, which is essentially the same thing as last year except in mirror-image layout. Also, briefly visited Leo and Farica but sorely not long enough - probably spend about 30-45 minutes with them as I was in a rush to get into Central London before Maplin shut at 7pm. Will spend a proper amount of time next week with the peeps, after Farica gets back from her holidays in Europe (hope you have/had fun). Was also going to see Joanne (and Hon), but decided not to because I didn't have time plus I forgot to bring along a page of job ads for Jo (I figuratively shot myself in the head by the time I got to my local train station, having forgotten to rip out the Appointments from the Design Week magazine).

Turns out that Hon has severely sprained his ankle playing football - says he can't walk that good, yet managed to get from 'up north' down to London to see Jo. Lucky then, that he's driving an Automatic. And that was another reason why I didn't really want to visit those two either - as Jo terms it, I didn't want to be a 'lightbulb' (or gooseberry, or whatever the hell you call it nowadays), and so let them send some quality time together, etc etc. Turns out Jo had to do the food shopping on her own, mind.

One thing on GamesRant - a big thank you to James for helping out on the games reviews - much appreciated. I reckon that this is the real-deal with our GamesRant website and it's going to kick-off properly.

Finally, does anyone know where I can find a cable that has a connector that will fit a 'Mini USB 4-Pin R/A SMT One Salient Point' mini-USB socket, and the other end having a standard Type-A? I've managed to find the obscure USB connection type for data transfer of my portable movie player, but need to find/buy the cable. I'm seriously thinking about soldering in a more standard mini-USB socket as I don't want to have to caddy the PMP's HD each time I want to watch something new.

Shopping in the London Underground

2005-09-18T12:04:00.000+01:00

I'm kinda thinking that there's no aim to this blog other than for me to tell you people of stories and such like life-activities. It's not as if this blog has anything remotely useful or unique to offer. Doesn't mean I'll stop posting, but just thought I'd let you know.

Was looking through Design Week (issue 15th Sept.) for the latest on all things 'designy' and there's some interesting things on developing certain London Underground stations into small shopping and relaxation stations. Such places are to include; Tube Stop shops (for groceries, dry-celaning, etc.), restuarants and bars, places to rest, and communication stations (like phones and internet). There's a nice render of what Keane Brands wanted the stations to look like, and it looks just like a normal bar. Transport for London (TfL) and such like want to get this going calling it 'Underground Bar Kitchen' (UBK).

Now I'm thinking that this is going to make London public transport that little bit more enjoyable. I know it's not going to effect the services we currently have, but at least things will be more bearable. At very least, it is possible to meet friends and colleages away from the hustle and bustle of London streets, and meet in a relatively quietened-down area before venturing forth.

But of course, what use is this if everyone hates public transport and decides not to use the Underground. TfL needs the money for improvements, but commuters won't use the system because there have been little or unnoticeable improvements. It's a classis Catch-22, so someone will have to fold for there to be some advances. Unfortunately, it seems that the government/TfL assume us travellers are willing to bail-out and pay hiked up fees (as I hear that prices for London transport tickets are to increase next year). Are we really? - well, most probably seeing as we're paying out our noses for everything else. Even though the TfL/Ken Livingstone have a sizable chunk of funds for development (about £10bn over the next five years), I very much doubt that more than half will go to the system itself and more likely that the fat-cats will lick up that creamy milk of money instead. Pessimistic or just plain fact?

Okay, so we give them the money and we expect tangible rewards - we want something that we can see and easily notice, knowing that our money has been spent appropriately. And I'm sure it is (or will be) but the thing is that TfL aren't doing it regularly enough. Yes, I'm sure that you can point out the improvements here and there, but I suspect that they've been sparodic and that's the problem - having big improvements every-so-often may not be the best way to go about things. How about smaller but more regular improvements? - this way, people may feel that their daily payment for tickets is being properly managed and used. Maybe they could think of it like a child saving pocket-money - maybe every month theirs a magazine that they want to buy and share with others. TfL could be the child; they get (pocket) money from commuters to which they spend on improvements, say a visual 'in-train/tube' station location system with destination direction aid. I saw this in Spain and it was basically a standard train map where the current station would light up and an arrow pointing in the direction of travel. I know that the Tube has scrolling message boards but for quick confirmation visual images are much better - especially for foreign travellers and holiday-makers. Even I have to ask when I'm in a rush, making split-second decisions on whether the Tube is north- or south-bound. Maybe I'm just illiterate.

However, there's a flip side to this argument supporting increased ticket fees and improving the locale more than the system itself. And it's to do with human pyschology in relation to design - and here's my spin on things from what I've research over the past year for my Masters:
Design something aesthetically pleasing and people will forgive/overlook the shortfalls.

The two aspect may seem unrelated but it's been researched by others in the design-field that; where positive aesthetics come into play, users themselves feel more positive. Consequently, the users will be less frustrated to problems and more open to suggestions. That is, aesthetically pleasing objects improve their usability (as well as the obvious ergonomics of the product/service). They won't solely focus on one method to solve a problem, but will think more. And this is something that Keane Brands and TfL can aim to work towards - basically, it's a cheating way to get commuters to feel more positive towards the London transport system. Essentially, there needs to be a way to relieve the frustration of the common problems with the transport and this may be to distract people from the actual problems.

Funnily enough, their 'new three-year design roster [is] up for review next month' and that the 'new frameworks [product development, branding and graphics] must be in place by 1 April 2006'. Hmm, April Fools anyone?

Like a cute rabbit...

2005-09-15T20:04:00.000+01:00

...said a friend of mine (Farica, in fact, aah, ain't she so sweet!) - it's the two front teeth, allegedly. Ehh, what's up, doc?

Was out yesterday for most of the day - Joanne had arranged a get-together to celebrate her boyfriend's birthday (Hon-Ban) and another friend, Leo. However, she had told both that they were going out to celebrate the other's birthday so didn't know that it would be for themselves also. And somehow, brilliantly, it worked! Having had lunch out at Meza, a spanish cuisine restuarant which was okay but not great, we bus'ed it back to Jo's flat for the surprise celebration of a couple of cakes and present exhanging. It was all good fun and around about 6pm, it was time to depart; Hon and his younger brother went off to watch Arsenal play (and win 2-1), Leo had dinner arrangements (god knows how he can have any more food after those cakes), which left Jo and I to have a stroll around Hyde Park.

We talked and strolled about the lake on the west-side of the park and stared at the swans and ducks. Then is was down to the Royal Albert Hall, through a flowery path with a number of inquisitve squirrels wanting food (maybe next time), watched joggers go by, into Whiteleys for some evening tea/coffee, and finally off to see Jo home.

I finally managed to get back around 11:30pm, after heading to Kings Cross Thamelink, deciding that I should be going to St. Pancreas instead and then getting there to find that they had changed the Thameslink trains back to the ol' days (which I knew but had forgotten), walking quickly back to Kings Cross, and quite possibly having just missed my train and having to wait 30-mins for the next one. Spotted quite a few Arsenal supporters out and about, but they didn't seem at all joyous what with Arsenal having won their match.

Thanks for a great day Jo, much appreciated. See you guys again soon.

It's like a magic holdall

2005-09-13T00:34:00.000+01:00

Since I've been back hoome, not too much has happened even though nothing particularly interestin happens to me anyway. Sunday saw me putting my piano into my room as well as rearranging it to make the necessary space, which consequently meant that a cupboard had to be removed and placed elsewhere in the house, followed by my bedroom door having its hinges placed on the other side of the doorframe so that it swings the other way round. That pretty much took the whole day due to the necessary faffing about of carving into the frame and door for the hinges, drilling holes for screws and other such stuff. Add to that the moving of things and it a tiring day.

Today didn't much let up although it was less strenuous - there was me ripping up bits of old paperwork, bills, etc. to make room for the new crap. I really must chuck some of that stuff away - I'm sure it's of no use whatsoever... So about half of my gear is packed up, but there's still the computer and the stereo - bothing wanting space where only one can have it. I'll deal with that tomorrow me thinks.

So whilst I was cleaning out the old, I found that I possessed bank statements from mid-1999! Now that's impressive even if a little pointless, so I got rid of them all except for the 2005 stuff. I think I must have throw away a couple of trees or so, but I didn't want to recycle them for the fact that they have personal information on them. I'd rather believe that the paperwork was being dumped in a landfill site where nobody would see the contents, than with people sifting through it for use if recycled paper - don't ask why, it just provides me with piece of mind that gets me through the day.

Hmm, I see England won The Ashes then - Well Done, England... about time too. And apologies for the lack of debating of news-related items - I haven't touched a paper in a while and have lost track of the TV news due to unpacking.

Ah yes, was watching Hell's Kitchen the other night (and tonight too: ITV2, Mondays, 9pm) and it's pretty darn good. The winner is posted on that website, so don't look at it if you want to follow the show, but I don't think it makes much difference - I think it's about how that winner got to the end that counts, and that will involve watching each show anyway. Anyway, very entertaining, very funny and Ramsey is as harsh as ever. I've not seen a proper episode of the UK version with him teaching non-celebraties, but I couldn't believe that he even swears at customers. But I suppose he can get away with it because he knows that he's able to get the restuarant back up to standards if he wants it to. Plus he's probably got enough money to lose without feeling the monetary consequences. Probably one of the few things worth watching on television nowadays.

Currently sitting in the living room and there is a large moth bashing itself into the lighting - I wonder, don't they learn that they can't land on it because its too hot? Why don't they stop or just perch themselves on something that isn't the lightblub?

Okay, that's all you'll be getting from me - I can't think of anything more/interesting to write about.

More than you can shake a stick at...

2005-09-10T19:52:00.000+01:00

I forgot to mention yesterday about a portable movie player that I bought from a friend of a friend. For £40 I got myself a 30GB HD and the components for a widescreen LCD movie player (even up to DivX of mpeg4), as well as being a picture viewer and music player. I say components because the seller had pulled the thing apart to inspect a fault - and whilst doing so, managed to break it even further. So with the ever-skillful Usman (hall's mate), he and I fixed the player with a few solder jobs here and there. I think it's working now but I managed to corrupt a spare HD whilst transferring data through a caddy - which was incredibly annoying as I had just copied a load of photos from other people of the celebratory party at the pub (see yesterday's post). Think it's all okay now - minus the pictures - need to get them again.

So, the electronics job went on until about 3am this morning, and I needed to leave the accomodations by 10am or so (which turned out not to be true when I actually left around about 11pm). Luckily, I had sorted out most of the packing during Friday and I found that I had managed to collect a lot of things over the year - probably as much as I did during my two years at the rented house in Southampton. Anyway, managed to get everything into two cars and back home where most of it is still lying about the house in pieces - must deal with before the end of the day.

Ummm... well the plan is to wait until the middle of next week when the final results come out for the MA: Design, and then I'll start updating my CV and sending them out to companies. I found out that IDEO aren't conducting interviews until the end of September, so I've kinda got a month to sort things out. Hmm, that kinda assumes I'm not going to get any other job than the IDEO one - we'll see, but hope that's not the case.

Okay, I've got to sort out this HD for the movie player. And then unpack properly. And setup the rest of my gear. The fun never stops.

And the fat lady sings...

2005-09-09T13:33:00.000+01:00

Woohoo! That's it, it's all over - my time here at Brunel is done and dusted. Yesterday saw the last day (of three) of presentations for our final dissertation, and seemingly everyone did well because it was kind of implied that we had all passed and therefore were to be awarded the degree of Masters of Arts. Whether we passed or got a Distinction, we would find out later - or in fact, today I believe. Joanne wanted a Merit, but for this course there wasn't this option - it was just going to be a simple Pass or Distinction - shame really.

Well, just checked and if it's up-to-date, I've just been awarded the Masters with nothing saying anything extra - Hazzah!, no over-qualificationness for me - I've got a social life...

So what with all this presentation prepping, I've not been blogging due to practicing my speech although something of interest turn up on the last few days (more on that later). Have to say that it went as well as I could have hoped for - seemed to flow nicely and completed it in time. Questions were answered reasonably well too. Ah yeah, I'm pretty chuffed. So, having finished the course, and the director and staff giving little speeches themselves, we all trundled, in drips and drabs, to a nearby (and very pleasant) pub next to the canal. General banter was had and such like, and there was a plethora of picture-taking. There were digital camera left, right and centre - it was pretty amazing and damn good fun too. I think that there are quite a few of me being silly and stupid - but then that's nothing unusual.
A message for all those MA Brunel students who have photos: Can all of you who have photos leave a comment (go to the bottom of this post and click 'Comments') - maybe, somehow, we can get a compilation of them all and make them available for downloading.

And following on from the party were the sad goodbyes of fellow students and friends alike. Hopefully, I'll be able to meet again those who have to return to their home country - you lot have been so much fun to be around with and will be sorely missed. If you ever visit and are around London, give me a call - I doubt my mobile number will change. But of course, there are some who will be staying in the UK for a while longer, and those that actually live here.

To you all, take care and keep in touch. Best wishes.

Happy Birthday, Dennis

2005-09-05T01:12:00.000+01:00

Have come back from a birthday dinner of a good friend from Brunel Uni - about 18 of us met up at Oriental City, Colindale, for drinks, food and karaoke. Was a great night had, although the spicy food got my (usually rock-solid-like) stomach and got a little upset. That went after a while with ludicrous amounts of water (because I hadn't drunk anything for the whole day) and was feeling much better half-way through. I've got photos, but don't want to post them - private affair and whatnot.

Sang Wonderwall by Oasis, as well as trying to get everyone to sing Happy Birthday. Except, just at that precise moment, Dennis had a phone call to attend to and left the room without me noticing until too late. Whatah-mistakah-to-makah. There was a lot of toasting and 'cheers' made out to each other, with Dennis doing the rounds to each and everyone of us - which was great, I feel, so much more different than my past experiences of 'pub-cheers-drunk-spew'. There were also two cakes sliced and dished out. Seemed like everyone had enjoyed the evening.

Oh, and again (although never has been posted before), had heavy discussions (read, aruguments) with Joanne (hello Jo, hope it's okay to put your name here - one day you'll be famous and thank me for it, I'm sure [hmm, chinny reckon]) whilst driving to and returning from Oriental City. It's good fun really, although there are times when you could just strangle the girl... oh you're still here Jo, hi, erm...

Nah, love ya really - it's actually (strangely) fun - somehow she even managed to make me argue with her boyfriend.

The beginnings of an idea...

2005-09-04T12:53:00.000+01:00

To follow on from the previous post on webcomics, I also implore you to to check out this one on The Bunny (and friends). It's awesome and smart, and some of the drawings are phenomenal. And that Bunny is just so damn cute! Man, do I sound camp... Loved this one because I now know this artist used to watch Due South and therefore, respect is due (can't wait for the fourth and final season to come out on DVD).

So, having read a bundle of webcomics (see previous post) and also finally understanding where a friend's own drawings come from, it got me thinking about doing my own short comic strips. I'll be able to inject it with my own foul humour and finally get myself back into drawing and doodling, something I fondly remember doing many moons ago. I once copied (but not traced, as I made it larger than the original) Sonic and Tails from a computer games magazine. Coloured it in and showed it to a friend who then didn't believe I drew it myself - honestly, I was a little annoyed at the time, but thinking about it I suppose I could take it as a compliment. I also drew a number of other pictures too - they still look pretty good even now - so I really want to get back into it. Supposes there's no excuse either seeing as I'll be finished with Uni work and looking for a job.

So this comic then. Unsurprisingly, it's going to be based on two characters, Sausage and Mash (really, because it's easy to draw them and hopefully will allow me more time to get on with the other parts of the comic). I've already got an idea for the first comic strip, but nothing else, so this could be an extremely short comic.&nbps; Don't know when I'll get the first one out, but probably as soon as I get home where we've a scanner - does mean that I'll have time to draw up a whole load of them.

Finally, all this thought of making a comic strip started my designing my own blog banner, as you'll probably have noticed by now. Pretty sweet and didn't take too long to do - maybe I do have some 'designerness' in me.

Two webcomics you must read

2005-09-03T22:31:00.000+01:00

This is going to sound quite, quite sad - and it probably was - but I spent the whole of Friday (i.e. yesterday) reading through a webcomic by David Willis. He's done a couple of webcomics, namely 'It's Walky!' (a.k.a. 'Joyce and Walky!') and 'Shortpacked!', and both are excellent. I love this style of carton drawing - it's uncomplicated but has all the detail you'll need.

So yesterday, I read 'It's Walky!'/'Joyce and Walky' from beginning to end - that's 2,476 comics since 8th September 1997 (the figures I know because I used Offline Explorer to download it all). Boy, it took forever but I finished it all in under 24hrs... just... (okay, so I'm a slow reader!). It starts off as a couple of old friends having just moved into university digs and meeting new and old friends - this set of comics was the 'Roomies!' sub-set. I say sub-set, because Willis amalgamates two or three different stories into one long story spanning the 7-years of the comic (and is in fact still on-going, albeit on a subscription based service). This 'interlinking' is not noticable at first but after a while it ties together, and does so fabulously. Anyway, these friends soon get split into groups and separate stories are made for each. The main storyline is that of Martians coming to attack Earth and wipe out the human race, and only a group of super-humans can stop the upcoming onslaught. There are certainly a few surprises in the story and with the characters, and the comic-strips are nicely done to give some suspense (although luckily I never had to wait until the next strip was published).

However, there were a few stories around about 3-quarters in where the art-style changed noticably and they tried to add in new characters (another bunch of friends from a parallel universe, etc.). It didn't work for me and kind of ruined the flow of the comic. I was worried that it was going to continue throughout, but soon the art-style returned and so too the jokes. Talking of jokes, there are some excellent ones, especially near the beginning of the comic because there didn't seem to be this underlying story of the 'imminent destruction of Earth'. That's not to say the jokes were lacking later on - far from it - they were still good, but spread out between a larger number of strips. In fact, the story did get quite serious at times and I only noticed with hindsight - I was so engrossed with the comic that I didn't care that there was a distinct lack of jokes, it was a storyline that didn't let up and made the comic a 'page-turner' (or whatever the electronic equivalent is).

And it was gory, sad, funny, happy, interesting, suspense-filled, quizzical, stoical, stylishly poked fun at the Americans and British, ballsy, ... it was a complete mix of emotions. I absolutely loved this webcomic and highly recommend that you take an hour or so a day, trundling through each and every comic strip from the very beginning. It's abolutely worth it, just becareful that you don't get carried away and try to read them all at once. It sucks away your time, but at least it's time well spent.

'It's Walky!'/'Joyce and Walky' is in two forms: (1) a subscription-based comic that extends the main storyline main storyline with strips of what is happening with the characters; (2) a free comic every Saturday that continues the lives of Joyce and Walky (and maybe others) with standard length strips.

And then there's Willis' more-recent 'Shortpacked!' webcomic. This one revolves around staff in a toy shop and their everyday lives. There doesn't seem to be any major underlying story here. Also, a couple of characters are taken from 'It's Walky!' and put into this story. Initially, I had read all on the Shortpacked! comics and didn't really understand why, when the two characters met each, one of the them was tongue-tied for words at having seen met them before. Having read through Willis' first comic, it makes perfect sense. The jokes in this are pretty good too, and what with it just day-to-day storylines, there's a punchline in each strip. Shortpacked! is published more regularly (once every 2 or 3 days, maybe). Well worth checking out too.

Pinch Punch First Day of the Month...

2005-09-01T15:45:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year again. September. Oh yes indeed. Never fails. You can count on it to be on time every year...

Got myself a USB memory stick with mp3 player and memo recorder. Was £50 which I thought was well worth it considering it's 1GB - the memory sticks cost about £40 alone (maybe more), so for a little bit more, I thought the music features would come in handy. Here's what it looks like:

Approximation by my middle finger size: it's slightly longer, about as thick as, and approximately 1-and-half the width. Entirely made of plastic (nearly). The sound quality is really good, SnR of 90 (for those of you in the know).
It's just like an iPod Shuffle (yes, it has a random play function!! Amazing, I know (!) - it's as if no other music playing device has ever had a shuffle function...), except cheaper. Oh and I don't look like everyone else with it either. Ha de ha ha!

The news of over 960 people dying in a stampede in Iraq because someone (possibly) crying wolf of 'suicide bomber' is quite worrying. I don't think that a suicide bomber alone could have caused that amount of carnage, but those people are so worked up about the current situations of the warring factions that anything could provoke a surge of frigthened screaming and panicky running. There has got to be an undescribable amount of tension out there.

Ah, just remembered that the (kind of new) Sony PSP is out in Europe finally - not that I'm buying one. It looks pretty funky though, what with it being a portable media player and entertainment system. £180, don't know if you get anything with it, but no doubt the stores will be offering deals left, right and centre. Find out its specs and compared to other handhelds at the BBC.

Finally, what the hell was Al Fayed thinking... Diana bronze unveiled at Harrods. The world has gone nuts.

The end of the world as we know it

2005-08-30T12:27:00.000+01:00

Well, this nicely follows on from my last post about the destruction of the universe:

Telescope views death of galaxy

Bank Holiday and its weekend

2005-08-27T21:52:00.000+01:00

edit: check out GamesRant - it's the new and updated version of my old GamesRant website.

I headed home for this Bank Holliday weekend hoping to continue with my 'doing of nothingness' as I was as Brunel, and so far I think I'm progressing very well, thanks for asking. Early this morning, I was in a half-asleep state and there were these baby birds in a nest just outside my window, tweeting away (rather annoyingly though - was trying to stay asleep). The tweeting wasn't so much the 'tweeting' sound you are probably imagining right now, but more like 'clicking' sounds. And being in a state of semi-sleep, these clicking noises transferred themselves into my sleepy dream of someone (possibly me) clicking a PC mouse button. Incessantly clicking. And it was bloody annoying, I can tell you. I got up instead of trying to sleep - it was about 10am anyway.

Found this on BBCi: Squirrel helps with mobile calls. How cute is that?!? That's so awesome - I want one. Click on the link for the pictures of it in use (about 1/4 way down the page). Looks like you stuff the mobile into its tail (and not its arse like I first thought).

Now, you see, this sort of technology people should like - it's comfortable with human interaction. It does things subtly and doesn't distract you. I thought about it awhile back, I'm living in the generation of what is probably only just the birth of electronic technology. I mean, born 23-years ago and I can remember all the technology I've every used since I was young and growing up through teenage-hood and now to young adult - technology has been exponential in its improvements and growth. I must (or at least hope) have at least another 60-years left in me and I can't wait to see what's going to happen. Gadgets have been the main development in life I reckon - people are buying more and more gadgets and electronic toys like music players, consoles, PCs, boothtooth this and that, different types of recordable media. I kinda like to think that I'm lucky to experience this booming technology - ultimately, it's great fun.

I remember the games machines I used to play on: Spectrum, Commodre 64, Atari, Mega Drive, Amiga 1200, Saturn, PC, Dreamcast, Xbox. And soon Xbox360 (yep, that's the one I've going for).
I remember the playable and recordable media there were: cassette tapes, floppy disks, cartridges, cd-roms, cd-r/rw, dvd-r/rw and dual-layer. And now there's Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs.
Mobile phones are another thing. And that nicely ties things back.

Just finished watching 'The Butteryfly Effect' - an interesting and worthwhile film about the effects of chaos theory. It was in by about 30-45mins and I was wondering when the hell some 'butteryfly effect' was going to happen. And then it did. The protagonist goes through a few different scenarios and the consequences of his actions. It's quite an interesting proposition, but I think maybe a little extreme? I don't know. And the end was a little abrupt and sad. All in all, a good film.

Something for you people to dwell on until next time. I'm currently watching Alien and there are these huge space stations. You think that's ever likely to happen? I'd kinda like to know what happens in so-many-million-years from now; will the earth collapse into the black hole that the sun will finally become (that's what I think), will we build space stations to live on, will we colonise another planet (think Total Recall with Arnie). Until next time.

--steven

and the beat goes on...

2005-08-20T00:32:00.000+01:00

and the beat goes on.

Managed to finally get my dissertation printed via laser colour printer free of charge (shock-horror! esp. where Brunel Uni is concerned, anyway). Just had to supply the paper to print it on - and that I did, through Brunel Uni's reams of paper they have lying around in offices (shock-horror! etc.)
And then I put it into binding - metal spiral binding (similar to those you find on monthly calendars).
Had a pleasant chat with the lady working at the binding place - talked about working abroad and holidays and such like travels.

It was wet, yet not miserable, day today. I think that I was pretty grateful for the chill in the air after yesterday's horrific heatwave. Apparently, there was a thunderstorm at 6am (Friday morning) but I was out completely - slept like a log and woke up around 9am to the sound of my alarm. Pain in the arse especially as it was a nice morning to stay curled up in bed. Was supposed to go with Usman (hall's mate) to see someone about some papers, but turned out it wasn't going to happen. So I could've slept in, but I suppose getting up at 9 had its good side. I think...

Oh and yesterday, Usman and I managed to get myself signed up onto Xbox Live - have only just bought it as we've recently got broadband at home. Although being at uni might seem contradictory, I've signed up here because MS are giving away free games to those who register. Bargain, I thought.
Yeah sorry, probably gonna be talking about games for most of this post - so you can come back another day if you want.
Played a bit of Tom Clancy Rainbow Six demo, although the demo seems to contain everything you need to play online (has other playable parts included) - so it seemed pretty nice of them to give that away. Shot people and chatted aimlessly (and vice versa) - was all very good fun.
Tried to play Outrun2 but there weren't any servers or people playing it - must not be that good then.

I'm a bit of a games fanatic - well, I was years ago - but it kinda died down when I was at uni (more interesting things to do, like go to pub), and now it's picking up again. Probably because there's not much to do around here in Brunel. Did I tell you that I bought GTA: San Andreas for the Xbox? Well, I did (a while back) - and I've managed to finish it - that game was/is ridiculously addictive for no apparent reason.

This has reminded me of the time Nav and I attempted to make a website on reviewing computer games - our own reviews on a load of games we had access to. We wanted to go through a load of Dreamcast games but I think we just ended up playing Rez (go check it out - also on PS2 - it's unbelievably awesome). Check it:

www.gamesrant.co.uk

Forza Motorsport (Xbox) looks promising on Xbox Live - would like to try that out some time - was playing it today and was it was fun. The thing I like about this game (and that of MSR and PGR1&2) is that you get to race normal street cars - well, souped up ones, but street cars nontheless. Like the VW Golf (looks like a Mark 3 or 4, I forget) or the Audi TT. Cars that you can actually obtain in real life without having to rob the bank.

Might have a whirl on The Bard's Tale (PC) - it's got some great dry humour and the game itself isn't too bad either. Oh right, that'll do - I've loaded it up now so I'm off to play.

--steven

give that back! gentleman on the right

2005-08-17T00:45:00.000+01:00

Lots of things to edit on my report, but all's good and the supervisor makes sense of it all. Which is handy, as I was getting pissed off writing it. Now, after a fresh pair of eyes, it's going to look a little bit better. Halfway there, but I think that the last half with take twice as long to do.

Especially if I faff around on the internet like I'm doing now.

A picture of my chin-fluff, except now I've shaved it off. Tried to wash it down the sink but the monster swirled around the basin for a while. Think I scalded it down the plug hole... Looked in the mirror and looked young again - much like the picture of Nav after he shaved off his (proper) beard. A slight stubble has grown back already.

I can't believe how hot it is in my room at Brunel - I know it doesn't help being on the top floor and being next to the water heater/boiler room - but it's ridiculously hot and stuffy and humid and nasty. The fan is back on and I'm struggling to do any work because of it. Maybe that's why I worked so well at home.

You know, it really pays to be stupid. I know better than to stick my little finger in between the guards of my fan, but I was just poking the moving fan and it was okay. Nothing much happened. I only put a little bit more pressure on and slow the fan down a little bit, but I've now got this blister on the end of my finger. And it bloody well hurts. ouch... stupid fan...

I'm thinking I might post up some recordings of songs that I've written lyrically, but not musically. Well, not for the piano anyway (but for the guitar). I've been told that they are quite depressing (think Coldplay) but lyrically okay. Want to hear what other people think. Honestly, that is. I can take the critisism.
I won't cry.
Like a little girl.
Hiding upstairs.
In the corner of her room.
Hugging her security blanket.
Crying.
But I've got no proper recording equipment so it's going to sound pretty shocking. Will have to have a couple of days practice, no doubt. No diggity. Anyone else got anything that I can aspire to?

-- steven

Sold! to the gentleman on the right...

2005-08-14T22:06:00.000+01:00

Finally, after gawd knows how long, I've managed to finish my major dissertation up to the first draft - now just waiting for the supervisor to red-ink it all and hand it back - only a week left before deadline.
X-Factor is now a methodology which I won't even bother to explain as it's far too complicated. It's not what I expected I would end up having, but it'll do for now as I can't be bothered to sort it out.

Today, there was aircraft crash in Greece - most unfortunate situation, but that's really a serious understatement. Greek officials to call 3-days of official mourning to start tomorrow. Just read the news that there was an apparent drop in cabin pressure, the pilots unconscience and the passengers were freezing. Surely something up with the plane - if I remember to, I'll log the outcomes.

I've been growing a stubble on my chinny-chin-chin and upper-lippy-lip-lip for the past week and it's only about 5mm long. The only reason for this is because I don't have a razor handy as I'm still at home (been here for the past week as it turns out that I'm far more productive here than at Brunel - I've got the same distractions so I'm not too sure what's going on - it might be San Andreas, that's quite time consuming...)

Just saw that Lincoln Cathedral is being used for the 'Da Vinci Code'(sp?) movie (out in May 2006) - and I can't remember what it looks like - will have to look at my photos and stuff.

Right, now going to watch Alien Resurrection on DVD, Special Edition.

-steven

Fangled wirelessness and some

2005-08-10T00:59:00.000+01:00

--@some stupid time andstill working

Been so incredibly busy with dissertation/report writing that I've managed to be more unexciting than usual. Have been home since Friday morning and not planning on heading back to Brunel until I get a draft done for my supervisor - it's coming along nicely but there is still so much to do, and I don't know how much of it will seem new to the markers - here's hoping they have forgotten all the old stuff I wrote.

I've got crap wireless access here - the router is on the other side of the house on the ground floor - that's about three walls and a ceiling the transmission has to go through, and it's not doing it well (enough for my liking). Messenger goes nuts too... oh well, I suppose it stops me from getting distracted by the internet as it's doing now.

Turns out that there wasn't a perfect order for the links between Usability-Ergonomics, Usefulness-Technology, and Desirability-Aesthetics - i.e. they didn't appear consecutively. I managed to cock up part of my UUD-ETA construct classification business and calculated it wrong, resulting in... hold on, just closing down messenger - pain in the arse program...

...resulting in Usability-Ergonomics appearing further down the list. The top three are: oh hold on, shit, just spotted something...

...sorted... are: Usa-Aes 59.4%; Des-Aes 58.7%; Use-Tec 57.3%.

Usa-Erg scores at 48.5% which is quite low in relation to the rest of the other (inc. UUD-UUD and ETA-ETA relationships).
Mind, I'm still pretty happy with the top three relationships even though the first isn't what I wanted. Major publications and many journals and papers state that there is some connection between an aesthetically pleasing object and its rated usability - some stuff to do with pyschology and how you find a beautiful product easy to use - i.e. you essentially look past its shortfall because it's so good in some other area.

It's actually quite interesting, even to me who has been reading up on all this for the past 9 months or so. Exciting stuff.

Oh also, today, I got an email from our Masters course director about an available position at IDEO, London branch. Interestingly, he specifically put my email address down along with my supervisor's and then CC'ed it to the rest of the group. Fair enough, I thought, seeing as I think I'm the only one really involved with Human Factors and emotions and such like. Deadline for the application is 17th August, so not long. Want to hand in a summary of this Tangible Emotions report as part of the application (they ask for it).

Nearly finished that Jason Bourne book - only another 100 pages or so... hey, it's a big book, plus I only read it when I go to sleep.

And finally, because I really should be getting on with work and the fact that I said I would treat myself to a break after I got the Results chapter finished (which is nearly, nearly done, honest), is that I read somewhere in blogger.com that to increase my own blog traffic I should read other people's blogs and comment regularly, who then may return the favour. So I'll start doing that soon, once I get this draft out the way.
Also, they said to turn on certain settings to increase the awareness of my blog, which I have done.

Right, laters - and don't go stealing my results. You won't have the proof to back it up anyway... ha de ha ha...

god, I'm knackered.

--steven

getting the hang of this html stuff (geek!)

2005-08-04T14:53:00.000+01:00

-- @14:56

Well, you may have noticed some extra stuff on the sidebar thing on the right. Am getting the hang of this HTML malarky and editing the blog template. Blantantly, I should be doing some work but cannot be bothered at the moment - I've got a 20K report to draft up by Wednesday coming up, but I know that I'll be able to do it easily (taking into account the long nights that I'll be working two days prior to the deadline).

I won't bore you with the details, but it's about Tangible Emotions for product designing. Basically, I'm trying to make up a way where designers can control consumers into purchasing their items. I know it sounds '1984'-esque but saying it like that makes it easier to understand (I'm really doing some sort of guideline that designers can consult at 'trade-off' situations during the product development stages).

Need to do lots of work now, but am getting distracted by:

Blogging and editing my blog design;
My piano, which is sitting right next to me saying 'play me, dammit!';
Suddenly realising I'm putting in HTML code into my blogs without thinking (a bad sign, surely);
The sun shining into my eyes;
Everything that has nothing to do with work.

Well, I wondered if that bullet-point listing HTML code stuff worked? I can't be bother to edit it if it doesn't. Ooh, there's a preview button...

Yep, it works. Back to work, I suppose...

No more vlogs ahoy!!

2005-07-29T10:45:00.000+01:00

--- @10:45am

Whoops-a-daisy.
2nd day in a row with going over my daily bandwidth allowance. I think I'll have to take those video files off - sorry people. I doubt it's the people who see it here, but I did make links to them at:
www.thesuburbs.org.uk

...which is a Ben Folds (Five) messageboard website. My post was read 190+ times (with a few of them being myself), so you imagine how many times it may have been downloaded.
I'll put up single files from now on - get rid of these old ones for now.

--- @ 2pm
Supposed to be doing my project research report but have somehow managed to divert from finishing the 'Acknowledgements' page to editing my sausageandmash blog. I think I'm getting the hang of it now. I've put up a new 'Currently reading...' section - might think about doing something else too, but that'll be for later when I want to get distracted from work again.

Also, trying out different posting methods, because I keep editing my posts, so I think that I might stick in '--- @TIME' so that I (and you) can keep track of things on a single post.

Just been reading back on one of my posts, re: moral dilemma on using someone else's wireless:
Wireless hijacking under scrutiny

So no more 'borrowing' of wireless internet then. Mind, we've got our own now - hazzah!

--steven

more vlogs ahoy!!

2005-07-26T18:44:00.000+01:00

Apologies to those who tried to access the vlog on the previous post - I changed the URL address. But to make up for it, I've put up three more to total at 4. I've obviously far too much time on my hands. I recommend right-clicking and 'Save As..' for each one (each are about 20MB big).

One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces

Kate

Army

Philosophy

Honestly, I play better at piano :P but was trying too hard are getting them within 3 minutes. (yeah yeah, any excuse will do...)

Enjoy.

my first vlog

2005-07-24T23:45:00.000+01:00

I talked previously about vlogs and now here is my very first. My love for Ben Folds (Five) is shown in this video (of many, no doubt). The song is called:
'One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces'. It's the first track from the BFF album 'Whatever and Ever, Amen'. Get yourself the album if you don't own it, it really is one of the best from the group.

Much like katelink.blogspot.com, my footage is shot from a digital camera. I have a Canon Powershot A510 (great compact camera with configurable manual settings, like aperature, shutter speed and manual focus). Unfortunately, I can only take up to 3mins of footage at 320*240 resolution (and 30secs at 640*480), which means that I've had to play like a bat out of hell on this first song (the original song is about 4m30s or so).

However, this time restriction is made up for the fact that the video file format is AVI (uncompressed footage) - so it allows me to do whatever I like with it. Fantastic stuff. However, I thought that playing the song fast (and well) was going to be difficult, but actually finding the best way of presenting turned out to be more annoying.

After much faffing about trying to find the best quality vs. file size, I've finally settled for QuickTime *.mov files - and I highly recommend it to anyone else trying to compress AVI movies. A 50MB AVI (320*240px size) down to 20MB .mov!! Excellent! Well done, Apple/QuickTime.

Enough background story - on with the show. You'll find here (it's best to right-click and Save As...):
One Angry Dwarf

Hope it works. Have fun and give us any feedback at all - good or bad.

Cheers.

vlog - doesn't roll off the tongue like blog...

2005-07-18T00:04:00.000+01:00

I was searching around the 'net for some things about Ben Folds (can't get enough of the guy) when I happened upon a fellow blogger on blogspot:

katelink.blogspot.com

So there wasn't exactly a huge amount of BF stuff on her site (just a small video clip), but I found the idea of video-logging, or vlog, very interesting. I was thinking to myself: "I like video editing, it's good fun and I've done some in the past - might give it a go."

And Katelin (I think that's the blogger's name) had pointed out a coupld of other vlog sites, which I proceeded to click into and have a look. I didn't view the videos bar one, and that alone gave me an idea of what people might seeing or are interested in. It wasn't anything fancy, didn't require actors, etc etc, it was basically a blog in video form. Sweet. Well, I've got the tools to do vlogs, so watch out for some in the future - just don't expect them to be any good.

Onto other things, it's been pretty hot and stuffy for the past few days here in London. I bought myself a fan last Monday and have left it on day and night - I don't think if turned it off for more than 10mins. It's kinda helping although more often than not it's moving the hot air around in my room, rather than providing a refreshingly chilling air flow (unless you stand right next to it).

Oh and am going to another Ben Folds concert - Brixton Academy, London, on 13th Dec. 2005 - I've always wanted to see the man play live and this year I get to see him twice - absolutely awesome!! I really can't wait - want to get the early too as it's stalls standing and presumably 'first-come-first-served' for standing nearest the stage. This time, I'm taking my digicam, even if the Brixton Academy website says that they will take all recording devices away. We'll see what we can do... big baggy jumper or something like that...

ummm... played some badminton on Friday - first bit of proper exercise in 5 weeks (I was on travels for three of them, excused myself for one week, and got lazy for another). Was good bit of running about but I really need some new trainers because I kept slipping around - totalling not safe, especially when I want to change directions suddenly - might twist something untwistable. snap!

Can you tell I'm struggling to write anything vaguely interesting? I thought that I should post up something. Aah yes, was thinking about getting a cheap/old iPaq for GPS and wirelessness, but decided against it as it won't be used for anything else - maybe when they get dirt cheap and people are paying the buyers to take them away.
Erm... watched some Ben Folds videos - a load I've not seen before - worth checking out if you're a fan, and even so if you're not - I recommend Riverfest selection in either case:

www.mightyboy.net

Cool - that'll do for now - I think I'll get some tea (it's 12:35am here in UK, so that's tea as in drink, not food). Or seeing as I've a load of bananas that are going off plus I have a carton of custard some place in my room and I've got some cheap-immitation Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, I could make myself ill and combine them all together... O.D. on sugar. Lovely.

Speeding comedy

2005-07-09T21:57:00.000+01:00

Was watching 'Comic Strip Presents...' (British TV comedy from 1980s) yesterday and found that one episode called 'Summer School' was filmed on location at Brunel University, West London. I only know that because I'm currently studying there, and so it was quite nice to know a second 'claim to fame' for the university (the first being the film 'A Clockwork Orange').
The episode was about a group of adults living out pre-historic lives in straw-hamlets, etc etc. For those who know Brunel grounds, it was filmed on the concrete quad area next to the Lecture Centre and Refectory/Student Union building.
And they also tried to catch fish in the stream with spears - that was pretty funny too.

Also yesterday (I couldn't think of anything to post yesterday), my travelling friend of 'Round England', Nav, tells me that we did manage to get a speeding ticket, doing 37mph on a 30mph road. We thought that we had got away with it all but alas no. And it happened on the last day of our travels - sod's law.

Just finished watching a Marx brothers film, 'Duck Soup' - I think it's the first Marx brother film that I've watched completely, and boy it was pretty damn funny. The plot was of a new leader (Groucho Marx) causing problems with another leader of another country and starting a war. But it's the comedy that's the thing that you need to look out for - it's all pretty plain and simple comedy, but it's all good.

And now Nav tells me that he has shaved off his beard and the expected untanned chin was not as bad as we thought it would be... possibly. I've not seen it but I'm sure it's fine... yuk yuk yuk :o)

For the first time since I've been back home from travelling England it was actually sunny, albeit for part of the day. So I sat outside and tried to do a super hard So Doku. Keyword being 'tried' as I thought I nearly completed one of the grids but turned out that I had done something wrong and managed to mess it up. And then I couldn't trace my steps back and thus I gave up. Ah well, good waste of an hour or so in the sun.

Geez, I take forever writing a single post - it's nearly been an hour, I suppose it's what happens when you have the TV on... bad TV, sit!

umm... that'll do for now.

stoic londoners indeed

2005-07-07T23:59:00.000+01:00

cor blimey guv'nor!! what is going in the world these days. I reckon you all know about it so I won't bored you with the details. I and all those that I know in and around London are good and well (thanks for you concern, JB).

It's not as if bombings haven't happened in England or London before but it all seems quite surreal for some reason. I suppose because it's so close to home (living in the London area, that is) and that I've got a better understanding of the world now than I did before (hardly watched the news many years ago).

But it was good to see that the Londoners were keeping up with the true British tradition of 'stiff upper lip'. At some point during the continuous news, a reporter told of people in fear but the visuals showed a load of people lining up at a bus stop, seemingly uneffected by the event - I thought that was amusing - kind of like, "whatever..."

at 10pm: 38 dead, over 700 injured.

On to more cheerful news, turns out that Nav had picked up a poisonous caterpillar at Lands End (see Round England with a Coolbox blog - Lands End post). I suppose it should have been obvious, really, what with it being brightly coloured. And also, that wasn't a snake that we found in Portland.

I tried out those So Doku puzzles in The Times T2 section today, and I managed to get the first done, then messed up the 2nd and 3rd. The last one (the hardest of all three), I thought I was doing quite well thinking that I made a successful guess at placing the numbers, but I was wrong. I just turns out to be a case of trial and error I reckon (or luck), because I don't see any other way of finding out the correct numbers without going through practically the whole thing. And then it turns into another guess-session when you get to another dead-end.

And I also found out that Ben Folds might be doing another (short) tour in London this coming winter. Will definately have to go see that, although tickets are £30. Mind, I reckon it'll be worth it.

Now going to find out how much my Round England trip cost...

what the?!?

2005-07-07T00:13:00.000+01:00

So I'm checking my email and because I've set that thing in blogger to send emails of the comments people make, I get 7 emails in the space of 2-hours. And they are all about how those people found my blog.

Woooo!!! Man, I feel popular!

Other than that, nowt happening. Oh, except the moral dilemma of should I or shouldn't I be using someone else's wireless internet access (short story is that they haven't WEP encrypted access so there's free broadband internet). Of which I'm currently using.

Moral dilemma over? Probably.

So today (or stricly, yesterday), London won the bid for Olympic 2012 - which was a shock to me to be honest. I didn't care for or against it, but we've got it now in 7-years time. East London Stratford will look more beautiful than it could ever dream of (apparently). So either the people of Stratford know this, or have been deeply insulted by the GB Olympic Committee team.
Shares of Belfour Beatty (sp?) go up 4% and a woman claims to have won £900 on a 30-1 bet (that's a £30 bet, right?). Well done to you all.

Oh and found out that I've got Bs for my Masters grades so far - lovely and consistent, and as I've always expected from myself - nothing to fancy otherwise I'll only fall back down.

Why is gammon and bacon not put with the other fresh meat in Tesco (or our local Tesco, anyway)? Why are they two aisles apart? This confused me and I thought that they didn't have any gammon - I was going to cry right there in the store...

True.

Time for a mandarin, I think.

and so it begins...

2005-07-05T20:09:00.000+01:00

Hello all,

I'll be assuming that nobody will find my blog in the mass of blogs that are already out there - probably just as well because I won't have anything interesting to say.

I'm surprise one person found (and then continued to read) my previous blog 'round england with a coolbox' - in fact, if that person could tell how and why they found it, that would be most appreciated.

So right, like the tag-line says; it will be colloquial (i.e. expect spelling mistakes), it will be nonsense (i.e. expect ramblings), it will be at its best (i.e. expect crapness). Let's begin...

Today, I sorted out my other blog to get the missing pictures showing. I played 'Landed' and other tunes by Ben Folds on my piano. I played Resident Evil 4 with infinite rocket launcher ammo. I've yet to do any uni work.

Other things have probably happened, but I've got such a bad memory that I've forgotten them already - maybe they weren't of any particular interest. Yeah, I'll stick with that arguement.

Right, can't be bothered with this anymore. Stay tuned and see if it gets any more exciting than this. It'll be pretty difficult, I know, but stranger things have happened.

edit:
oh my god, doesn't this blog look girly in colour? I like the purple writing any stuff, but the BG is horrid - anyone got any ideas?