Category Archives: Miscellany

Miscellany, Personal

Weird dreams #4

I really need to lay off the all-cheese pizzas before bed. Oh, no, that was in the dream too…

This time, I was at a job interview, had received an offer, and the MD of the company came up to me afterward and said “there’s been a problem,” and listed all the bad things I’ve ever done since I was twelve, which he had mapped out in a small brown bound notebook. These include, apparently, being surly to customers at Marks & Spencer where I once sold suits (something that’s never happened, honest).

There were also an inexplicable number of people from my old school working for that particular firm, so perhaps it was really a nightmare…

Some of this actually made sense in view of the kind of day I’ve been having recently…

[Listening to: In the Garage – Weezer – Weezer (03:56)]
Media & Marketing, Miscellany, Personal, Television

Weird dreams #3

I know there’s been a slightly overload of techie/geeky posts lately, so here’s one that’s just plain eccentric. I’ve had odd dreams before, but last night’s was a two-parter, full on Captain Weird of dreams (well, three parts, but part three was too disturbing to be spoken of. Ever. Again.)

Part the first: I was a kind of Radar O’Reilly/Captain Piers hybrid figure from M*A*S*H, and the 4077th had been substantially disbanded as everyone’s tours of duty had come to an end. Only BJ, me and (oddly enough) Colonel Henry Blake remained. So I helped them get home, somehow, by persuading Icore that the 4077th was useless when not a team, and that team had gone. They were happy to go home, and grateful to me for my manipulative scheming.

Part the second: My brother decided to have a party themed on Imperial Russia (don’t ask me how that works, I’m not quite sure, but it involved caviar and vodka – and funny hats) – and I was meant to be leaving the house but couldn’t quite manage it. The flat was much bigger than the one we actually live in, but structurally similar, and during my failure to leave, I kept wandering past a section that had been modelled like a McDonald’s and inhabited entirely by Koreans eating cheeseburgers.

It’s possible that my latter dream was a subconscious commentary on the state of globalisation, the death of ideology and the resurrection of the bizarre themed party, and the former simply my desire to be the hero acting out. Then again, its possible that I just like to dance the dream of the surreal.

[Listening to: The Remedy – Jason Mraz – Waiting For My Rocket To Come (04:17)]
Miscellany, Technology

Ferrett Hammock

Alright, I happened to click through to the US Google site for a change, and curiousity took me through to Froogle, Google’s extremely punny comparison shopping site. I then noticed that it had this listed as a recently found item.

How odd the people of the Interweb are.

[Listening to: Couldn’t Get It Right – Fun Lovin’ Criminals – Mimosa (03:47)]
Current affairs, Miscellany, Technology

Redder than the Sun

Labour: I see redAlright, this is a post about two things. First, it’s about New Labour: some chaps called Tim Ireland and Balders, who I believe are friends of Chris, have put together a really excellent video presentation (warning: its a 1.3MB flash video, with good noise) outlining exactly where Labour has failed to deliver, and why the Tories would have been worse. It’s entitled, or at least themed, “I see red”. It goes by quickly, but is damn entertaining, damn informative and extremely well done. Check it out.

The second thing I’m blogging about is, well, again, blogging. A meta-level post: the point being, why regurgitate stuff on my blog that Chris has already posted on his, and no doubt has been blogged about everywhere else in the world? Well, because that’s how memes propogate: a meme, a viral piece of knowledge, is as successful as it is profligate: by my talking about it to my somewhat esoteric audience (which does include more people than just Chris and Tom, honest – about 5,000 hits this month, I think), the various Blog tracking services (Technorati, Blogdex etc.,) track the popularity of certain memes and rank them accordingly – they do this by scanning blogs with ‘bots – web programs that trawl for information. In fact, a substantial part of the traffic this site has seen is due to these network agents.

It’s really a remarkable way to track the progression of an idea – hence these remarks.

The impacts to branding, guerilla marketing and dirty tricks campaigners are reasonably obvious, but fortunately most good memes are still free and free of commercial sponsorship. Be interesting to see how it goes; the Blog seems to be on the up-and-up in terms of popularity (every loser has one), and increasingly communities of well read, well thought people doing more than rant about random internet crap are popping up. Watch this space.

[Listening to: Don’t Hate The Playa – Ice-T (04:04)]
Miscellany, Music, Technology

Damn critics

Man, some random dude surfed to my site and reviewed my crummy demo track. Doesn’t anyone read the notes alongside it: that its my first attempt at solo recording and I *know* it sucks? Oh, and I *know* I can’t sing?

What’re we going to do next, go and beat up some six year olds for saying that ‘Britney is Great’ on the internet? Although I’m vaguely touched that he felt it needed reviewing. I mean, life’s too long to not spend reviewing random amateur demo tracks you’ve scoured the net for.

Not that I’m bitter. Hrumph.

[Listening to: Wonderboy – Tenacious D – Tenacious D (04:09)]
Media & Marketing, Miscellany, Television

The commercialisation of the British institution

Parky’s moving to ITV. No static links yet, but the Broadcastnow reports that Parkinson is moving away from the home he’s had at the BBC for the last 33 years.

First the Boat Race, now Michael Parkinson. What next? What’s the BBC to do?

It’s particularly interesting in the light of recent fuss over the Beeb’s funding and over distributing license fees between commercial and non-commercial ventures (i.e. ITV and C4 could be getting some of our license fee payments). Ofcom is stretching its arm.

It’s fascinating, really. The broadcast National Identity of the UK is redefining itself, and the BBC seems to be struggling to keep up.

[Listening to: Erasure – A Little Respect (03:33)]
Miscellany, Personal

On the interpretation of dreams

Last night, I had the strangest dream (apologies to Art & Paul). I stole a Bentley from a guy called Olly, drove it off a cliff, helped Olly recover it and then stole it again.

(a) I don’t like or aspire to Bentley-ownership (no, really: I aspire towards Mercedes ownership, that’s my poncey dream-car – specifically a 1993 SL320, in black)
(b) I don’t know or have any particular angst towards anyone called Olly
(c) The Bentley was manual transmission. I don’t think Bentley do that.

It was weird. It was very Bonnie-and-Clyde (without a Bonnie, sadly), and very high adrenaline. Weird.

[Listening to: In the Jailhouse Now – Soggy Bottom Boys – O Brother, Where Art Thou? (03:36)]
Film, Media & Marketing, Miscellany

Three films & some random bits

Alright, I’m knackered, it’s been a long weekend, and it was a ludicrously long week before that.

But, three films seen recently before I forget that I’ve seen them:

Mystic River – winning Academy Awards for Tim Robbins and Sean Penn, this was an entertaining and eminently watchable film. It tells the story of three childhood friends, separated by time and distanced by a traumatic incident in Tim Robbins’ character’s childhood, coming together when Sean Penn’s character’s daughter is brutally murdered.

House of Sand and Fog – a gruelling, yet beautiful and moving film, I felt I’d achieved something by the time I’d finished watching this. An administrative error leads to Kathy (the beautiful, beautiful Jennifer Connelly) losing her house to the state, who auction it to Masoud Behrani, a retired Iranian army Colonel immigrant played brilliantly by Ben Kingsley. The film tells the story of the confrontation of wills, and deals with issues of alienation, identity, self-worth and depression.

Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman – evidently the only cheerful film I’ve seen in a while, Bruce Wayne has to work out who a mysterious new vigilante is, at the same time dealing with the likes of the Penguin, Rupert Thorne, Mr Dusquene and Bane. A good story, well animated and acted, and with GREAT DVD Extras.

Now, to sleep, perhance to dream (superhero dreams)…

[Listening to: Stupid Thing – Aimee Mann – Waiting for My Rocket to Come (04:27)]
Miscellany, Personal, Technology

Ahead of time

Damnit, I’m still being a techie. I remembered reading about Stuff Magazine detailing a list of the top ten gadgets for 2004, and being pleased that I had a number of them. I reckon that I’m approximately 80% geek according to this. Here’s the list: how do you scale up?

# Bluetooth Mobile (Nokia 6600)
# MP3 Jukebox (Apple iPod)
# Plasma Screen (Pioneer PDP-434HDE)
# Home Cinema (Pioneer NS-DV990)
# Personal Video Recorder (Sky+ for BSkyB)
# Digital Camera (Pentax Optio S4)
# Games Console (Microsoft Xbox)
# Wi-fi Laptop (Sony Vaio)
# Wireless Network (Netgear)
# Watch (Seiko Arctura Kinetic)

Approximations allowed in scoring (i.e. SPV e200 instead of 6600 as a bluetooth mobile, Creative Jukebox in place of iPod etc.,)

[Listening to: Seven Years – Norah Jones – Come Away With Me (02:25)]
Miscellany, Personal

8 days a week

Although it’s been a 4-day week, I’ve crammed in enough activity for substantially more than that, and am feeling very, very ready for the weekend. Which is good, because there are parties to be had.

Today is Chris’ birthday, so be sure to leave him lots of messages on his blog, and if you’re an attractive woman, make him unsolicited offers. It’ll provide much intrigue and excitement. Don’t pretend to be a woman, though, that’s just not funny.

[Listening to: Barbossa is Hungry – Klaus Badelt – Pirates of the Caribbean OST (04:06)]