All posts by Armand

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)]
Gaming, Media & Marketing, Technology

Xbox LIVES!

Alright, I mentioned earlier that I was thinking about getting Xbox Live and, well, I did, along with Magic The Gathering: Battlegrounds and Amped 2, and I thought I’d post some thoughts.

The infrastructure is incredible; Xbox Live has a unified ID system, so you have one login, one friends list, across all the games that you play, and you can keep track of your rankings, friends and downloaded content, some of which is charged at a premium, using the Xbox Lived-up dashboard.

The headset plugs into the controller and works well enough. The ‘mute’ button is definitely useful, as you don’t always want to talk to people in Phoenix, Arizona, playing Magic at 4am local time.

Despite using a very small proportion of my ADSL connection (connected as it is via a network bridge/cross-over cable, via a wireless network), there’s very little apparent latency or lag for either game and the VoIP service that works in game is pretty clear.

At £29.99 including a year’s subscription, I reckon Xbox Live is well worth it, if you play with any keen-ness any of the games it supports (and they are increasingly legion).

Just so y’all know, my Xbox Live ID, oddly enough, is ‘Division6’, and I’m honing my red & white spell book for some major ass-kicking. I’m ranked about 500 in the world (mad skills!), out of about 10,000 Magic players. My aim is to kick the bejeezus out of Matt (aka CSmith), who’s a couple of hundred above me in the league table. He’s a little raging goblin.

Alright, that was remarkably geeky. I think I’ll write about sport and women for a while to straighten myself out.

[Listening to: 08-Led Zeppelin – Immigrant Song – – (02:24)]
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)]
Books, Media & Marketing

Meme of the Day, apparently

According to Chris, I need to do the following:

   1. Grab the nearest book.
   2. Open the book to page 23.
   3. Find the fifth sentence.
   4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

For me, this is Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and the text is:

   “His tie was dark grey silk, and the tie pin was a tree, worked in silver: trunk, branches and deep roots.”

That’s really not that interesting. These meme-things are definitely overrated.

Although ‘deep roots’ is a profundity in itself.

[Listening to: Bend Me Shape Me – American Breed – Tales Of A Librarian (02:09)]
Current affairs, Miscellany

Concorde and Victory

Concordalicious Yesterday, Concorde made its, like, 7th “death march” up the Thames and onto Scotland, and Kate asked me if I wanted to go watch it. Curious as to what kind of spectacle it would make, I popped down there to have a look.

It was a big event; many, many people by the Westminster and Lambeth bridges. As they parallel parked the gigantic, wasteful, polluting, inefficient and ultimately failed aircraft, emblazoned with Scottish flags and other pagan iconography (this is a joke, Scottish people everywhere), I wondered if I could raise any appropriate comparisons to the magnificent house behind it… but then decided that I didn’t quite have the degree of wit or political know-how for it. Suggestions on a postcard.

All the same, it made for some interesting photos. The plane says “Concorde in Scotland” and the lift which raised it off the barge is clearly marked “Abnormal Load Engineering”, which I found amusing for some reason. Read the BBC’s report here. I think calling it “history in the making” was hyperbole much, though.

[Listening to: Absolutely (Story of A Girl) – Nine Days – Away From The Sun (03:06)]
Film, Media & Marketing, Personal

I hate jet-lag

It’s been nearly a week and I’m still waking up too early. Of course, this morning it was at least partly caused by some monkey (silly monkey, look at the silly monkey) trying to fax our house phone at 06.32, and, of course, BT “do not have the caller’s number”.

Two films to talk about briefly; both of which I dozed off in, and therefore comments will be insubstantial. The first, an American movie (apparently for a change) – Ocean’s Eleven (the remake). This was re-watched the other night following a late supper with Kate, because we both felt the need for a silly film. Of course, I’d seen it before, but still deeply enjoyed the excellent performances from Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Friends’ Elliot Gould, and the deeply amusing Bernie Mac (who reminds me of the excellent and improbably named Cedric the Entertainer). It was great for the second time, even if I did doze off a couple of times, but was disappointed to find out that the sequel, due out next year, is going to be called Ocean’s Tweleve. Come on, guys, some imagination!

The second is the beautiful but VERY weird and very Japanese Spirited Away, which, unsurprisingly I watched with Matt and James. Like Princess Mononoke, its a fantastical Japanese anime film, but not really comparable in any other way. It dealt with extremely odd concepts of reality, good and evil, and had some of the weirdest protagonists I’d ever seen. The heroine, a little girl called Chihiro, struggles through a kind of twisted dystopic ‘Wonderland’, assisted and sometimes antagonised by a talking frog (nothing Disney about him), a dragon vaguely reminiscent of Atreyu (or was it Valkor) from the Never Ending Story, and a monochrome monolith called ‘No Face’ in an effort to rescue her parents, who have been turned into pigs. I’m going to watch the end of that film again to catch what I missed out on through my inadvertant naps – definitely intriguing.

I also finished reading Jennifer Government and Hey Nostradamus, mentioned in earlier posts. Spectacular books, both, one for its comic simplicity and the latter for being a profound and moving examination of faith in the face of hardship. I’m not a religious man, but have come from that background and was very impressed with Douglas Coupland’s careful narrative, telling an excellent story as well as dealing with issues of struggling with faith and dealing with personal disaster.

Oh, and a link to a “hot internet nerd” – a 20-year old girl from somewhere in the US who’s made a name for herself largely by being a girl and promoting herself as an ordinary individual. Unlike some of the weirdos on the internet, I didn’t surf to her site by typing “hot internet nerd” into google (no, really), but rather through a link in someone’s blog that I was reading. Honest. Anyway, I thought her blog was reasonably amusing for those with a spare minute.

Busy week this week. Posting frequency to resume at the weekend. Hope you’ve all had an egg-filled Easter and are ready to rumble. By the way, you might want to steer clear of Primrose Hill for a few days – those durned kids with their egg-and-spoon races have left fragments of boiled eggs all over the place. It’s going to smell like the 3rd circle of hell in a few days…

[Listening to: Try – Nelly Furtado – Folklore (04:40)]
Technology

Hello Transatlantia!

…by which I mean, hello to all the lovely Canadians who have been reading my site! I should probably password the webstatistics, but I’ve found them to be of moderate interest; and its somewhat gratifying to realise that other people read my site more than I do (I use Mozilla rather than IE as a browser – and yet IE 6.0 is the most popular browser to readers of my site).

Mozilla is brilliant, by the way. Get it. Now. Tabbed browsing! No pop-ups! Do you know what that means? Never mind, you still need it. Really.

As to other things; jetlag, shopping, driving and other preparations, as well as seeing many members of extensive family have occupied Malaysia time. Interestingly, though, my sleep-deprivation-jetlag-preparing-experiment seems to have worked reasonably well, and I’ve adjusted to Malaysian time reasonably rapidly. Of course, that means my only excuse for my relative inactivity is the heat… but that sleep deprivation thing did make me go slightly loopy. I don’t recommend it; no wonder Channel 4 got in trouble over its reality TV programme Shattered.

Saw American Splendor last night. A movie about how real life is difficult – which evidently can make for a pretty interesting film. Reasonably gritty and given a sense of the real by interstitials with the characters on whom the film is based (the mature – not adult – comic book writer Harvey Pekar primarily). A film, even a docu-film, about a subject this self-involved would have been easy to do badly, but it wasn’t. Muy Bueno – read Harvey and his wife’s blog here.

Film, Gaming, Media & Marketing, Personal, Technology

Adieu

I’m off to Malaysia for the next week, visiting family for Easter; blogging frequency will almost certainly be reduced. So in good housekeeping style, there’s a few things I ought to set out clearly here, having failed to blog them in any sensible way.

Things seen:

(a) Continuing, brilliant ER, mediocre, but sometimes amusing Tripping the Rift, Simpsons, Smallville and Frasier continuing through their current seasons.
(b) Bubba Ho-Tep is a great film about a black JFK, an impotent Elvis, and a Mummy wearing a cowboy hat. Not just cult, but very clever too. Stars the epic Bruce Campbell.
(c) Zatoichi and 21 Grams are both films worth watching; the former a performance piece/far east cowboy feature, the latter a sometimes over-clever but generally moving film from the creator of Amores Perros.
(d) The remake of Starsky & Hutch is a less good film, but completely enjoyable
(e) The new Orange Film Foundation (or whatever) ads. That guy is DAMN funny. Anyone else think he’s a bit Kevin-Spacey-esque? Any links to info about these ads would be appreciated.

Things done:

(a) I’ve also been introduced to Xbox Live and intend to get it myself (if I can get it all to work, with my Xbox Live, a patch cable, a Mac and a wireless network – told you I knew about the tech) so that I can beat Americans at Magic: The Gathering.
(b) As well as the rebranding/self-hosting of this site, I’ve found an AMAZING blogging tool which posts using the Blogger API, so you know what I’m currently listening to (as seen below).
(c) Finished Jennifer Government (brilliant), and am proceeding nicely with the Rogue Nation of Badass Devils and the Republic of the Sunne on Nation States.
(d) Started Hey Nostradamus, as recommended by Chris, and Absolution Gap, as recommended by me. Alistair Reynolds’ previous Revelation-Space-Universe books are pretty good too.
(e) I’ve added Brazil, Heat and Donnie Darko to my films-I-should-have-watched-by-now list (having finally crossed off The Usual Suspects a few months ago). Any takers for some video nights?

Things revealed

(a) Damian is the one with the continental fruit beer fixation, as noted on the napkin of a thousand blogs.
(b) Tom & I are working on a secret project. It’s very exciting.
(c) I’m trying to stay up all night to prepare myself for the jetlag to Malaysia. The jetlag caused by the introduction of British Summer Time is contributing to a sense of increasing dazedness. Might post again later, especially if I decide to rewatch bits of Hi Fidelity again…

See y’all…

[Listening to: My Friends – Red Hot Chili Peppers – One Hot Minute (04:03)]
Miscellany, Personal

Sporting Goodness

I’m not a massive sports fan. Point of fact: the first time I ever spent an entire day in a pub was about a month ago, for the Wales-Scotland encounter in the Six Nations. It was a lot of fun; I sat with Daf and some of his mates at the Isaac Newton in Cambridge and cheered the Welsh onto their victory.

This weekend saw a reprise; the England-France game on Saturday (supporting England, despite a constant stream of insults from Rachel, an England fan, who’d decided that my support of Wales at any point in my life was unfounded and absurd), and the Boat Race on Sunday evening.

Unsurprisingly, the England game left me largely nonplussed (I think anyone who wears those skin tight tops deserves to lose, but both teams couldn’t, so…), but Cambridge’s victory in the boat race had me very happy. Standing on the bank near Hammersmith bridge, whooping and cheering and very definitely feeling the underdogs – Oxford seemed to have about 80 times as many supporters on the banks as we did – I finally began to understand why people support teams and follow sport.

I don’t intend to start doing it in any way – quite apart from the sport I play, I have enough hobbies… but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

[Listening to: Zak and Sara – Ben Folds – Rockin’ The Suburbs (03:14)]
Personal, Technology

Facelift

Thanks to the help of Chris and Tom, this blog has had a substantial facelift, is now blowered by pogger, has had comments naturally disabled then artificially re-enabled by haloscan, and is now hosted on new servers. It also has a new counter, but just mentally add ‘1170’ to that, because that’s how many clickthroughs the blog had when it was hosted on motime.

I think its pretty rocking, and I can stop wasting time making it look good and get back to my arbitrary (yet pleasurable) writing of nearly completely meme-free blogs.

Although I will try to get some links up in the blog template so you can click between Chris’, Tom’s and my blogs (in our blog-ring of three), should you desire.