All posts by Armand

Bad dreams #34564: the Apple iCar

Pah, Steve Jobs won’t leave me alone. He invaded my subconscious. Last night, I dreamt I decided, in a spur of fancy and rebellion, to buy an Apple iCar. This doesn’t exist, but in my head it looked like a hybrid between a TVR and a Dodge Viper, had a docking cradle for the MacBook Pro that came with it, and cost £12,000.

None of which seem likely for the moment that Apple does enter the car market (quick prediction: 2018), but in my head it was also a hybrid. And Pescetarian. Which seem probable.

Now I’m annoyed with myself.

Glastonbury 2007

Whoa. That was awesome. I mean, painful, smelly, muddy, challenging and really quite a lot for me to take, but also really very wonderful. Amanda’s help throughout it – from helping me with the Campcraft (not a core strength of mine, it seems, despite years of DofE experience), to her total flexibility in which music we saw – was genuinely a lifesaver and made the festival for me.

But it was wonderful for other reasons too. The music, the atmosphere – the crowds, both a boon and a curse – and the general ethic of the whole thing. Anti-social behaviour was derided as ‘not very Glastonbury,’ everyone was discussing things in terms of previous festivals, the solstice at the Stone Circle was quite special and the group of friends we were with were fantastic. I’ve already bought Damo and Matt B some Somerset Cider for their help in relocating us when our campsite flooded on the Saturday…!

Things I didn’t like: the LONG walk from carpark to campsite with heavy pack (I’m out of shape :-(), the mud, the toilets (I know they’re better than they were, but the long drops are only less gross than the portaloos, they’re still worse than everything else), the crowds, the lack of many places to sit down and rest between bands.

Bands I saw (this the important bit for me)… Mr Hudson & the Library, Mik Artistik, The Guillemots, The Fratellis, Lily Allen, Helen Boulding, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Mika, Rufus Wainwright, The Pipettes, Super Furrys (from a distance), Maximo Park (from a distance)… and probably a couple more. I persuaded Amanda to leave early on the Sunday as I wasn’t too well, so was sad to miss the Chiefs on Sunday evening, but still managed to have a wonderful time.

Photos on Flickr if you need proof ;-).

I’m sorry

I said I’d be there for you and I haven’t been. But you wanted me to listen more, and I have been. I’ve been listening carefully, but I just haven’t wanted to argue. Sometimes its best to sit back and let other people talk when you don’t really have anything to say, don’t you think? Isn’t that what we agreed?

No? You disagree?

Well, I’m sorry. That’s the way I feel, and I’m going now, to camp in the mud and the filth and the loud music and the fields of Glastonbury, and if you want to we can talk about this when I get back.

Good bye. Oh, please don’t cry, Blogosphere… I hate it when you cry. I promise I’ll try harder.

Still quiet

It’s still quiet on here as most of my more mundane updates are now being “microblogged” on Twitter and Facebook, with links going out on Delicious (man, I’m pretty web 2.0). Join me on those, and I will look for ways to increase my writing time so I can post more substantially on here. Happy Bank Holiday weekend, y’all!

Highstreet vs. Online: a tale of broken technology

I have always been, and will continue to be an advocate of online shopping. I get most of my stuff from one site or another, love the concept of shopping comparison (t’is the Indian in me), but, yesterday, when my motherboard deep fried itself, I couldn’t wait for replacements to arrive.

So: the walk down Tottenham Court Road, and inspection of a few shops. The prospects didn’t seem good: everything was significantly more expensive than the online prices I was aware of, and none of them filled me with the confidence that they could put the pieces together I needed. Then I got to a shop called Yoyotech: they were friendly, helpful, professional, competent, and actually quite charming. I spent half the day in there for one reason or another (some of the parts in the first build they gave me ended up being faulty but they resolved it for me seamlessly) and I was really rather impressed. You can imagine the stress losing a PC would cause a Technophile like me…

But I’m all back up and running now, and grateful to Serge, Courtney, and even Brian the wandering pro poker player (see you at the Gutshot!). Even Microsoft’s Product Activation helpline was particularly helpful for Vista’s inevitable hissy fit. I’m now I’ve got a shiny, eco-friendly Core2Duo powering the beast…

For the geekily curious, my ‘control station’ is powered by an Intel E6600, 3GB of RAM, Nvidia 7950GT graphics with dual monitors, Audigy2, and about 700GB of delicious storage)

Cash for phones

One of my agency’s clients, Mopay, has just released this viral:

I think its pretty funny (and no, I wasn’t involved in this one). The service is good too; mobile phone recycling, for which they give you money. Check it out.

This year really has been the year where the world realises that the things we do have an impact. It’s not all about Al Gore’s PowerPoint skills, I’m sure, although no doubt its helped.

Updates

Some updates. I’d call them musings but they really don’t deserve that much credit.

I’ve been quite busy for the last month or so. Lots of gigs, parties, work (so much work), so I’ve gotten behind on almost everything. My RSS feeds are collecting unread items like Mrs Haversham’s house collects dust. It’s horrible, I tell you. It’s almost got to the point where I want to abandon Google Reader and start again afresh.

But I won’t. Because I’m not that crazy.

I have been occupied with one thing or another. Facebook seems to have been stalking most of my friends, leaping into consciousness a couple of months ago and adding yet another form of communications I need to check. I wish there was a simple way to route everything to Gmail (although I do like the Facebook interface…).

There’s been gigs. Minutes and Urusen both have had/are about to have lots of gigs. I’m going to one next Wednesday in Farringdon. Do come, and sign on the wall on the open Facebook event I’ve created to foster interest. Urusen are truly amazing; I can’t recommend them enough.

There’s been films. Good, good, bad, & ugly. I was very sad about Spidey being bad. The Xbox360 game is not terrible, though.

There’s been games. Spider-Man 3, PokerStars (lost too much money!) & C&C. Jon @ EA sent me both the PC & Xbox360 versions of C&C, and between the fact that my PC can’t quite cope with all the effects and the fact that the 360 version has a pretty clever control scheme, I may end up replaying it on Xbox. It is, needless to say, an awesome game.

There was (briefly) exercise. Got to 10 consecutive days of working out then it all went rather to pot. Am looking for encouragement, squash buddies, cycling buddies, anyone who can persuade me that I should be out doing something at some point.

The flat move is imminent, which is rather stressful. In a few months I will not be where I am now. I should probably have a party to celebrate / commiserate. It’s been a wonderful 6 years here, it really has. Due to the fact that wherever I move to will be a bit smaller, I am looking at ways of making my PC quieter. A silent PSU is en route, and I’m hoping to make the transition to Core 2 Duo in a couple of months (unless Intel wants to help me out sooner? I wish we really did get crazy quantities of freebies working in PR…).

My own writing has stalled. As you’ll have noticed from the silence on the blog. I’m still full of ideas; and will work up an action plan to get them written up.

I’m still getting used to Vista. The fact that iTunes runs like a dog on it (I can’t believe they haven’t fixed this, stupid sniping betwixt Apple & Microsoft camps just ends up annoying innocent consumers like me in the crossfire) means I’m WAY behind on video podcasts too.

And now, there’s going to be sleep. A good night’s worth. See y’all.