Putting Zeros and Ones in Order

I took ownership of a nice new Western Digital My Passport 500Gb drive this week, and my is it nice and spanky good, all sleek and black n shiny n stuff.  So most of my time has been spent organising my entire digital life and backing it up onto said drive.  I opted for the larger 500Gb drive as my thinking was "I've been dabbling around in the world of computers for many many years now and I've accumulated a vast array of personally created quality videos, photos, mp3's and other various digital flotsam.  I'll need such a large drive to fit ALL of it on.".

I have since discovered that my digital footprint is somewhat smaller than i first though.  Around 360Gb smaller infact.  And I'm now left with a mostly empty external hard drive, feeling somewhat deflated and wondering where all that stuff that I thought I'd done actually went.  Nowhere I think, as it only existed inside ones neurons.

On the flip side though, its been quite fun discovering little random videos that I'd made here and there, flicking through old travel movies and generally being all nostalgic (one of my favourite pastimes).  Still my favourite of the short films we made many years ago is this one about making some chicken soup and how it can improve your outlook on life :

Written, filmed and mostly edited all in one night, it was most fun indeed.

This week I am wishing I was as cool as this guy.

My Architects Stuff - About Time!

Finally got around to uploading a few of the My Architects pictures, taken in the years of following them around on their musical adventures.  There mostly from around the UK with a few of the Canadian tour, few promo pics that we took and a few pictures for cd covers and website backgrounds etc.  Enjoy.

My Architects - Promos

My Architects - CD and Web Stuff

My Architects - Gigs

My Architects - Misc

Also, theres the video I made from the Canadian Tour :

Part 1

and Part 2

Oh, and the music video I did for the single Airborne, almost forgot :)

Some of my favourite Picture Findings of late

A little collection of photographic gems from the world of the interweb (mostly the great failblog.org) :

Lego Hawkings

Content Dog

I want some non-real chicken

Just what the hell is going on here?

Yum

Spelling is hard

And the ultimate crowning glory :

Genius.

Gibberings

Not a whole lot going on at the moment, well, other than I have spent the past months working out a complete change of life/career.  Spending hours looking over jobs, weighing them up based upon their merits, amount of fun and prospects/pay, is somewhat of a thankless/boring task but ultimately fruitful.  At least in the fact that I know there are a hell of a lot of jobs out there that I plainly do not want to do (in fact this stretches to practically all jobs as, obviously, I'd much rather do nothing and have money).  But I did come up with a good list of 57 that I'd like to try, after a little more whittling and fine tuning I've reduced this to a good 12 career paths to try.  Have now just finished working these into a fairly coherent plan of try this, then try this, if thats shit, then try this.  Ultimately though I'm deceiving myself (in a nice way though), as my actual plan is to do all the trying above, fully expecting it not to work out as planned and general life to happen around it.  The big plan is just a facilitator, but shhhh, don't tell me that or it might not work.

Other than that, I've been listening a lot to two very good bands :

http://www.beirutband.com/

and

http://www.thebirdandthebee.com/

They're both a bit different (well, bird n t' bee are a little more pop-y but don't let that interfere with listening to them), give them a listen.

And I've also become famous (actually, not in the slightest bit) thanks to the badmovieclub.  Having people pick out my drunken tweeted ramblings as funny is a nice little comforting thing :)  My Tweets

And if I could only be as cool as this guy, then I'd be a happy bunny.

BadMovieClub

Bad Wine
Check

Apple and Cheese
Check


The Happening paused on the opening screen
Check


Laptop with TweetDeck installed and running
Check


This is how my night of BadMovieClub started, a seemingly silly idea to have a lot of people on the internet watch a bad film all at the same time and comment on it via twitter. Only thing being, its not a silly idea, its an addictive idea, very addictive. I don't think i watched much of the beginning of the film as I was following the ridiculous amount of posts people were making. That combined with the general lunacy of the films plot was a heady mix.

So 30 minutes into the film, the experiment in mass watching isn't going so great. I'm quite enjoying it but there are one or two hundred too many people tweetering away, updates are coming in at around 30 every 15 seconds or so, too many to keep up. But there are a few little gems of the tweet world every now and again so it keeps some of my attention.

I soon realised that the trick is not to read what everyone is saying, as i'd be spending more time reading a lot of inane crap rather than watching the film. So, just glancing back and too, getting into a nice rhythm with it, picking up the odd funny comment by people, it definitely added to the experience. It kind of led to a confirmation that most people are pretty much the same (in a good way, rather than a bland way), I'd see something on the screen, think about how odd it was or something weird that i'd infered from it or think something just plain silly (like where's Ferris when Alan Ruck appears) and bam, i'd refresh twitter and see other people posting the exact same though. Uniformity can be comforting and nice.

The whole thing was really rather fun, watching a film with a group of dislocated strangers, doesn't sound like it would be, but it was.

Theres another showing at midnight with Phil Jupitus as the celebrity host, don't think I can manage two viewings in one night. No matter how delectable Zooey Deschanel is.


Incase you're wondering what the hell all this is, check out :

http://www.twitter.com/glinner
or
http://www.badmovieclub.co.uk

Star Trek and Snow

Is it just me or can nobody else take Simon Pegs serious expression in this photo seriously?  I'm sure one day I'll be able to do so, but I've seen him being far too silly in far too many things that I can't help but giggle at his steely menacing-eyes look.   And also, why is everyone pretty much looking straight on at the camera apart from the only woman in the pic?  Is it supposed to be a sultry look off to the side to feign how sexy she is or to give the impression that this sneaky woman just popped her head into the big man shot at the last second?  Either seems equally ridiculous.

But, saying all that, my balls are literally tingling with excitement at the new Star Trek film, it looks so amazingly awesome.  Now I'm sure there are gonna be some bits in it that make me wince, but the space battles look like they'll numb my brain enough with pure joy that I will no longer care about any cheesey moments or clunky dialogue.

Now, take a look at the picture above.  This is my experience of "The Worst Snow to hit Britain in 18 Years" as the BBC News website more or less puts it.  The far left is the morning of Day 1 of this catastrophe, the second picture is the afternoon and the third is Day 2 of Britain in Chaos.  Now, personally, I don't think it was that big of a deal.  Even the pictures I've seen of the rest of the country were a bit grim, but for an hour or two during a snow storm.  Can these things really bring the whole country to a stand still?  When did we become such pansies?

Its Me

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E3KRvWW4Cc0

I want to Drink this Coffee

Its just so Happy to be coffee!

The (possible) Demise of Skins

Skins used to be a rather good TV show, aimed at kids but with rather good stories and characters, but only ran for two series in its original form.  They've not relaunched it with only two characters remaining, and small, bit part caricatures rather than any fleshed out real human types.  The rest of the cast seems to be filled with irritating stereotypes who bear little resemblance to anything other than a tabloid view of what kids are like.  And most of the jokes seem to of the 'lets swear and throw in a nob gag now and again' type, which I do like, but that was never the point of skins.  It was a serious drama show hidden underneath a vail of teenage flotsam and gibberish.

Thankfully though, there is a little saving grace.  I almost switched off the episode and then something magical happened, the genius that is Ardal O'hanlon appeared as a pissed off, swearing grumpy teacher who can't be arsed with all the self help pamphlet shite that is dished out to them.  There may be hope yet.

Andrew Sachs is a Cock

Ok, well, maybe he's not a complete cock but at least that is the way he comes across in the following piece

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/article2165367.ece

Whether the sun jiggerypoked around with what he said to make it seem that way (its not beyond them), I dont know.  The whole thing with Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand is quite ridiculous though, mostly as the people who complain about it more often than not haven't heard the show, or any of the Russell Brand shows before that.  And that the show isn't aimed at them, and shock horror, they find it offensive.  I find it offensive that Songs of Praise is made with my licence money (ok, well, not really but i'm making a point), its a horrific program, but its made for a particular audience of old farts and religious fruitcakes.  So be it, the BBC is catering for all.

Then theres the oft said mistake that it was a prank call.  That somehow J n R decided to ring up Andrew Sachs to shout out lewd things down the phone.  He was on the show to promote whatever Christmas time crap he was peddling, then couldn't be arsed answering the phone for the interview.  They then left the messages, most of which was apologising.  Was it in bad taste?  A little.  Was it funny?  Most definitely.  Should it of been done?  Yes.  Was he asked by the editor if it was ok to use and he said yes?  Yes, saying that he couldn't hear him properly is a bit lame, what else is he gonna be ringing up to ask?

So, in conclusion, the idea that "Poor old man gets phoned up out of the blue and said horrible things to about his lovely sweet innocent little granddaughter" may sell news papers, the fact is it was "Old guy who used to be on TV wants to be on a popular radio show to sell some stuff, can't be arsed to show up for the interview and has some lewd comments made about his porn star granddaughter (check out www.c fnm.net if you don't believe me) who's in the satanic sluts".

Granted, he may not of known about his granddaughters somewhat lewd life choices, but thats hardly J n R's fault.  He couldn't of been that close to her if he didn't know any of this stuff and he shouldn't take it out on them.

Plus, theres the complaints procedure for the BBC, you can only lodge a complaint against a program.  Not in support (and for some insane reason, they don't count the million or so listeners to the show who didn't complain as in support).

Jonathan Ross is a very funny presenter, I don't watch his show for the (mostly) booring ass celebrities that are on it.  I watch it to see him take the piss out of them and be a funny fucker.  And don't even get me started on the whole "Jonathan Ross gets paid 6 million a year" ill-informed crap.

Obama'd

Thanks to the great Dave Gorman (http://gormano.blogspot.com/2009/01/yes-we-can.html)

My new(ish) love : Podcasts

Having never really paid much attention to podcasts in the past, thinking they were little more than idiots that can't get a paid radio job babbling into a microphone about whatever gripe they had within that week or merely just spouting some lunacy that was going through their mind grapes, I believe I was missing out as they are mostly said shite, but there are a few gems amongst the polished turds.

It all started with (ofcourse) the great Ricky Gervais, Steven Merchant and Karl Pilkington podcasts.  Without these works of genius I doubt I'd of even started listening and hunting for other podcasts.  If you haven't listened to them yet, I'd highly recommend it, Karl is amazing.  The only downside is that they are now "Audio Books" and you have to pay for them, quite rightly though, as why should people do stuff for free just because we like it and are stingy fuckers?

My next great discovery was the Adam and Joe Radio Six Music Show by the great Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish.  In terms of podcasts it doesn't get much better than this, they are comedic geniuses and I've loved them since the days of the Adam and Joe Show on tv.  Its the snipped up bits of their radio show bookended with little extra bits of them, usually apologising for how bad they think it went, reviewing their show.  If any podcast is gonna persuade you to become an addict, it is this one :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/adamandjoe/

This then led me to the amazing Collings and Herrin podcast, to be honest, if I had to, I'd have a really tough time choosing between this and the Adam and Joe podcast but, only just, I think it would win as my favourite of all the podcasts.  Its not as polished as most of the other top podcasts but its such a personal podcast, in that strange way that the internet works where you feel like you know people just because you read/listen to them so much.  Its not always hilariously funny but is always a joy to listen to and their banter back and too is getting to be much better than that of Adam and Joe.  How I do wish they'd get together and do a foursome (and then hear all the bumming jokes that would come out of such an event).  They do this every week, for FREE!  Listen to it, and listen to them all!

http://www.comedy.org.uk/podcasts/collingsherrin/

and read their blogs, they're good

http://www.wherediditallgoright.com/BLOG/index.html

http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/

Next up is a new kid on the block, Phill Jupitus and Phil Wilding, to be honest I'd never heard of the latter Phil in this pairing, but he is a comedic genius (yes, i know, everyone is a genius in this blog post) so don't let your lack of knowledge of him put you off.  Its another of the completely recorded for free, available for free podcasts and is all the better for it.  Its basically them, asking answering a load of questions and just chatting about random stuff taking the piss out of each other (the recipe for any good podcast).  It is rather good, and they have done a foursome with the aforementioned Collings and Herrin (although without many bumming jokes).

http://www.phillandphil.co.uk/

Next up came the Armstrong and Miller podcast by timesonline, in the guise of TimeGhost.  Originally recommended by the illustrious Andrew Collins on their podcast, but in the guise of saying it wasn't really that great.  After the first few episodes of them finding their feet it does get genually great, especially when they start slipping from character or referring to their real personalities in the third person.  Its done as a piss take on art critics, but only very loosely.  Its mostly them taking the piss out of whats going on in the world and trying to make each other laugh by coming out with some truly crazy stuff.  Brilliance.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/comedy/podcasts/

And the last of my favourites is, The Bugle, the news fix of the podcast comedy world.  Headed up by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman its a weekly piss take of the world of news.  Its a bit more scripted than the other podcasts, but doesn't suffer as it seems scripted in the sense that each does their own, ending up in them making each other laugh and react to the comedy gold that they come out with (although Andy does talk way too much about sport for my liking).  Its slightly in the vain of the Daily Show (where John Oliver also works), which isn't a bad thing.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/the_bugle/

There are a million (maybe exaggerated) other really good podcasts out there, the new humanist ones are pretty good and Radio 4 has a rather good selection of documentary style podcasts of which More or Less is by far my favourite.  A weekly look at the world of statistics, what could be better!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/directory/station/radio4/

Its all a Conspiracy, 24 hours a day

Today I finished watched the first 4 episodes from the new series of 24.  It is ridiculous, as it should be, but the thing about it that grates the most is the whole secret cabal of powerful and rich men(ie. THEM) that are masterminds behind somewhat insane plots.  I mean, really, starting wars/having people killed/mass complicated technological plots/etc to make money is a bit idiotic, there are far easier ways of doing so.  But, it is at the end of the day just a TV show and I can forgive it for its stupidity (if i can live with people saying gibberish like "I pinged the line to reset it." as a perfectly valid way of stopping a hacker, i can live with anything).  It is, however, lazy writing.  With the amount of money that is pumped into the show by Ford and they're always shiny new motors, you think they could get a semi intelligent writing staff, or at least a technology/anti-nutjobconsipiracy consultant to guide them in a slightly better direction.  Still, its ace to see ol' Jack Bauer running around beating people up again.

The larger irritant though is that there are people out in the real world that actually believe all the conspiracy theories that are bounced around the internet.  I mean, its nice that these nutjobs think that there are plenty of amazingly intelligent people out there, a real positive vote for the human race.  But that they think said intelligent people would be stupid enough to do some of the crazy conspiracies that are abound, is somewhat counter intuitive.  It belies the experience of the nutjobs that they've never worked in a group environment before, getting lots of people of varying intelligence and capability to all work towards one goal without any cockups is practically impossible.

I understand where it comes from though, trying to put simple explanations on complicated events or by assigning some unknowable level of intelligence to people doing things or events you don't understand.  The latter of these I've experienced much myself in IT, most people view computers as this unknowable complicated thing that they just can't understand as they don't have this "thing" that people who understand do.  This "thing" is merely experience and practice, attainable by anyone, the only difference being its easier to get to by some people.  This carries on into everything, if you don't know about steel melting temperatures or the unpredictable nature of what happens in a building fire etc then thinking that the twin towers were taken down by explosives is a much simpler and readily acceptable idea.

Of course, sometimes simple explanations are missed and a complicated plot is put in place to explain a certain bit of evidence or event.  The best example of this is the moon landing, all kind of theories have been put forward, mostly about the photos.  Most of which are because people have a bad understanding of photography or because NASA did at one time release some fake photos along with the real ones to protect the technology used.

There'll always be idiots around though, so no point worrying about it :)

Drunkenness and the Stupidity it leads to

Well, last night was an experience to say the very least.  The night started out rather good, a few drinks, a few games on the xbox with the full rock band kit and lots of merriment, plus a few drinks.  But at some point I drank a little too much.  Well, I should say, after my lovely vodka ran out I drank something (I believe Gin) that seriously disagreed with me and I drank a lot of it.  I've been drunker before on a few occasions, most of the time leading to something or other that in the morning I'm quite surprised about, but last night was a whole other level.

At some point after midnight, probably around 1 or 2am, my memory of the night stops and is just a series of more and more disconcerting flashes.  The first is singing on rock band.  Not too bad.  Then randomly ringing up people whilst standing in the kitchen.  Not advisable when so drunk, but not too bad.  Mixing myself a drink and being told off for using all the malibu.  Pretty bad, as I believe there was quite a lot left previously.  After that it gets a little more sketchy.  I remember vomiting in the bathroom, not quite making it to the toilet, but probably getting most of it into the bowl.  Then trying to clean up the mess i'd made on the floor (and probably making it much worse).

I've then no idea what happened.  I've no idea how my friends go wind of the fact that I'd been throwing up or what they did about it.  But they were taking care of me and i found myself outside on a bench with my coat on (I just hope I didn't vomit anywhere else within the house and they had to put me outside).  I sat there shivering away in a state of complete confusion, throwing up a little more here and there and clinging onto my friends hand for dear life.  I was then put into a car and driven home, in itself a very scary experience.  I had my head in a bucket from what i remember, a bucket with a tesco bag in, but i don't think I was sick again.  What I do remember is trying to look out of the window if the car to see where I was and not being able to.  My eyes didn't work.  At that point I was terrified.  I've never been so drunk that I felt like I could just die from the sheer confusion of it all.  I just stared into my bucket asking for help and sobbing occasionally.

They got me home, I remember shouting out my alarm code whilst not being able to stand up outside my door, and somehow they got me into bed (hopefully carty didn't get the job of removing ones trousers).  I then woke up at 7am wondering just what the hell happened.

Its only the second time in  my life I've thrown up on a night of drinking (the next morning doesn't count) and quite possibly the most out of control I've ever been.  I'm just glad I have some good friends who looked out for me.

A New Day, A New Blog and Annoying Opticians

I've been blogging on vox for quite a few years now, only joining and starting a blog as a easier/lazier way to mass tell all of one's friends about my traveling adventures (see picture for a brief overview of said traveling adventures), and decided that I do infact quite like scribbling down my thoughts onto a relatively anonymous website for all and sunder to see. So, as a result, I've decided to start a more ponderific blog here to capture my more random thoughts on a non strictly traveling vibe.

My first rant, Vision Express in the Trafford Centre. How shit they are. For 9 months now I've been attempting to get myself a new pair of glasses and at the same time try to get myself a working pair of contact lenses. The glasses have been the biggest of these two pains in the arse, the first pair I was issued with were stiff, uncomfortable, gave me gargantuan headaches and were generally shit. I got a new pair of lenses made for them, exactly the same. Got a new frame, bit better but still pretty bad. Got another lens made, worse as they measured my eyes wrong, seemingly thinking that my pupils were located next to my eyebrows (ie. they put the centre of the lens next to the frame at the top, giving them an unpleasant bottom heavy wedge look). Got another lens made and fitted, seeming ok but back to the uncomfortable problem. 6 months of going in and getting them adjusted and they'd managed to turn my glasses into torture devices, headaches, double vision, blurred sight unless I looked straight ahead etc. Now, after a ridiculous amount of visits, they have given me a new frame with the old lenses in and realised that the problem all along was that the glasses needed curving around my face. Why didn't they spot this obvious thing months ago? Why did it take months and various idiots seeing me to discover this? Especially annoying since the very first time I went in I've been saying the glasses need to be closer to my face, which they took to mean via the centre, not even considering the outer edges.

To summarise, they're idiots for the most part, but its just so annoying that for the entire time I'm going in to tell them that there's something wrong they believe I'm just not quite used to the glasses yet and just do the standard minute adjustments without ever really listening to me.

Contacts, bah, don't even get me started. They work for the most part, that is unless I want to read or use a computer screen, then everything is blurred. Not a focusing problem, but getting them to understand this point is beyond my abilities. Time for a new opticians.