Category Archives: Personal

Personal, Writing

Repeating old arguments

You may have noticed I’ve gotten slightly more, erm, esoteric in the topics of my posts lately. (oh no, a blog post about blogging, run run run!!).

That’s for a few reasons.

Reason number 1: I’ve gotten bored (bored bored BORED bored bored) with reading fifteen takes on the same thing. Google buys YouTube, Edelman fakes blogs, company XX launches new web2.0/social media tool, David Blunkett is crazy, David Cameron is tedious, here’s a video of one videoblogger interviewing another videoblogger etc etc. I mean, I still like finding out about those things but the repetition was wearing thin, so I won’t add to it unless I really really want to. And I should probably extend my blogroll…

Reason number 2: Despite the ridiculous traffic I’ve been getting (apparently around 1,600 unique visitors a month, between 14-16 RSS subscriptions per day, and a total of 700MB worth of traffic a month)… well, there was no real need for me to tell you that. Just showing off. But really, the point is, I’m writing this for me and I’m glad that some of you seem to enjoy it. But I’m not going to try to anticipate what other people expect of division6 and try to write a bit more from the heart.

Reason number 3: I have been inspired. Askaninja, Scary Duck, Ze Frank… these guys do stuff about nothing every now and then and they do it brilliantly. A show about nothing… where’ve I heard that before?

So I hope you like the ‘new’ division6. I will rebrand a little soon (perhaps following some of your suggestions) and am on the look out for a catchy tagline; something as ground breaking and inspired as “Scary Duck: Not scary. Not a duck.” — would be nice.

Personal

My new masthead

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{democracy:2}

Powered by the awesome democracy.

Update: For those of you have been unable to vote, I have disabled IP logging so multiple votes can be received from one IP address. Basically if more than one of you was in the same office, or home WiFi environment, odds are you could only cast one vote per household. Now you can only cast one vote per machine, which seems more sensible.

Personal

Masthead + lens flare == great

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Kieren was writing recently about Edelman/Technorati’s top 100 blogs list. Whilst I’m slightly sceptical of the entire premise of their ranking system (not Technorati’s link authority rating, but rather Edelman’s determination of which blogs are ‘UK’, etc), I did find Kieren’s comments on blog mastheads quite interesting. His theory:

…why do only 50-odd other blogs link to mine? That has always seemed like a healthy number but when I compared to others, even the most mindless, waffling, regurgitators of nonsense get more links.

So I took a fresh look at my blog and realised – it’s me! It’s my stupid mug staring down at people that has done it. I’ve crossed some invisible blog cultural boundary by having my pic up in the header of my blog and I’m suffering because of it.

I have the same issue! I’ve been thinking for a while that my masthead needs a redesign, and whilst I expect few of the readers of my blog would have the time or inclination to help support those efforts… I figure you might have an alternate suggestion for the picture I’m using above. What would most effectively represent what I’m doing here? Any suggestions welcome. And if I get to use a lens-flare effect, that’d be great. I love that lens-flare effect. It is awesome.

Post in the comments or email me at the usual place! If I use your suggestion I’ll get you something nice. Like a bear claw.

Personal, Writing

A great couple of days

The last few days have been good. I mean, really good. My long-anticipated birthday celebrations went ahead, a significant number of friends made a significant amount of effort for me and I had a great time. Thanks to all who came along and wished me well; it meant a great deal to me and was appreciated.

Today, in the anti-climactic wake that ensues any great self-involved event, I busied myself with life-admin. Not the most interesting way, perhaps, to spend a day off, but I’ve finally cashed that cheque from the IRS, I’ve filed everything that was piling up on my desk, done the requisite loads of laundry, installed a Wiki in my webspace (purpose tbc) and… and this is a separate point, really, but…

I’ve decided on the main plot/motivations for the novel. I’ve even mapped out a scene-by-scene breakdown for a short story version which I’m going to try to write over the next week or so. If that works, once tested on a couple of unsuspecting friends, I’ll be able to work to expand it into a novel proper and see about sharing some elements of it with the world at large. It’s not quite there in my head yet but I now have a proper structure to flesh out and its very exciting. My whiteboard, needless to say, is currently full!

The only downside to the last few days (other than the fact that they’re over) is the fact that my camera went AWOL on Sat night. If you chance across a Sony DSC-T7 camera with lots of pictures of me and my friends on it I’d really appreciate it returned… do get in touch.

Music, Personal

The Melangogost

Sigh. Still a lot of life-admin to do. Some part of me was feeling so positive about this evening that I thought I’d come back and write half a dozen songs for The Public Betas. Needless to say, I haven’t, but rather had a pleasant evening of cooking and online grocery shopping with Monkey Sister. Which has been nice – am resolved to be less anti-social, acknowledge that I’ll never manage to read the whole internet, and spend more time with people. Which, methinks, is a good amibition.

That said, I do have a few things I’d like to blog about, and think I might do a kind of melange blog post. A melangogost, if you will. And even if you won’t. The things are:

New music (to me, anyway): listening to [[Gotan Project]] (thanks Nick), [[The Fratellis]], Athelete and more. Getting into my Indie a little (INDIE), but still looking for new recommendations. Tell me of more of these, how do you call them, bands? Also listening to The Minutes Music, which I do quite like even though they are my friends… ;)

New outlook: the whole turning 26 thing shouldn’t have mattered. But I no longer think of myself as ‘yoof’, really, as the last vestige of that fell away when I ceased to be entitled to a YP travel card. So I’ve made a list of things I want to achieve; big, difficult things that I really, really need to do to make my life more… exciting. Will keep you posted. The list currently stands at:

    travel (have holidays to Havana and Edinburgh booked, which is something)
    write novel (erm, slow progress)
    band/music (well, I have a myspace page),
    get fit (more on that soon…)
    get driving license (have established I’m entitled to swap my Malaysian license for a UK one, I just need to order the form off the non-functional DVLA site)
    buy house (nope, no chance)
    get famous (erm, stranger things have happened?)
    get rich (erm, again?)

New path: I have, for no particular reason, started to be quite interested in Ninja stuff. Well, there is a reason; it’s this website. It’s unbelievably funny. It confirms my belief that little is funnier than ninjas or pirates (Guybrush Threepwood AND Johnny Depp are testament to that truth). Much as I’d like to follow the path of a pirate, I think using my newly purchased sword (oh yes), I can make better use of time by learning the way of (some form of martial art). My sister’s bloke, the Keeper of the Goat, might agree to show me some useful sword forms. He’s an Aikido master and I think has a grade three belt in grass intimidation (ok, not my joke, which you’ll note if you watch the askaninja videos…).

New season: Winter is annoying me. I mean to kick its ass this year.

New puns: ‘oyster moment’… it was touch and go. My Monkey Sister is a genius.

And that’s it for now. I’m going to go practice some sword forms… and then maybe do a little composing for The Public Betas. Wish me luck!

Update: Managed to both learn some sword forms and write some music tonight (although the sword forms need work, and the music sounds a little too much like the Smashing Pumpkins…) — still, a start!

Personal

Man-flu

Have had a good couple of days of birthday celebrations but have now come down with the dread MAN-FLU, a virulent strain of a deadly disease which has symptoms including having a sore throat and wanting to go to bed.

Have I mentioned before how much I really *hate* being ill? I just need to find some quarantine tape now so I can cordon off my desk and avoid spreading the ‘lergy at work.

Send me your sympathy in comments, comic books and DVD box sets as my evenings are likely to be spent doing very little where possible over the next few days (birthday parties and leaving do’s notwithstanding – d’oh!).

Personal

It’s my birthday…

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So, it’s my birthday and I’ll start a blog post with “so…” if I want to ;)

After I woke up this morning to fight off an imaginary bat, I checked my email (yes, yes, I do that, I am a geek) to about 15 lovely emails from family wishing me. This was followed by big hugs from my parents as I left my room. Funny how you don’t realise that you do miss that on your birthday, no matter how used you get to being without it, or how old you get! Also have had lovely greetings and a v. amusing card from work folk… a good day so far!

Anyway, more family-oriented birthday fun tonight (more celebrations to follow later in the month, I’m trying to break records for how many birthday parties I can wangle!).

Wish me in the comments if you’re so inclined, alongside anything you think I should resolve to do in my 26th year on this fair planet.

Love, Armo

Books, Personal

Creovationâ„¢

Just finished reading the v. entertaining ‘Who moved my Blackberry‘ — a book which hits so closely on everything that is bad about big corporate and marketing environments it is just eerie — and thought, as a laugh, that I’d check if www.creovation.com was registered. Creovationâ„¢ is a concept that the lead protagonist, one Martin Lukes, comes up with – marrying innovation with creativity (obviously!) — which is singled out as being a particuarly ridiculous marketing non-concept.

And amusingly, a London-based marketing firm has that name, although its proposition seems a little more solid than most of the rubbish that Martin Lukes comes up with in the novel.

Thanks to Douthers for pointing me in the direction of the book and lending me his copy.

Personal

Parentals

My parents are visiting for the next few weeks; not sure what that’ll do for the blog post frequency but I thought I’d warn you all anyway. It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks and it’ll be the first time in 9 years I’ll have been able to celebrate with my folks, and the first time in 14 years since I’ve celebrated with them on the day.

That’s quite significant, really. Looking forward to it…