Category Archives: Personal

Personal

Parents

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At some point, growing up, you turn against your parents in a small way. Or at least, I did — it felt occasionally a duty rather than a pleasure to see and hang out with them and a distraction from the every day business of going out with friends and generally tearing up the world.

Maybe I’ve matured, or its the stabilising influence and general inspiration of going out with Amanda, but over the last few weeks with my folks visiting, it’s just been amazing to hang out with them. My folks are talented, funny, interesting and brilliant (what else, I guess, would you expect when their progeny includes, well, me), and I’m pleased to have reached a point where I can enjoy and appreciate them as people, not just as their son. Of course, they’re not without their limitations but everyone is, and there genuinely feels to have been a change in me that I am more able to accept them (and others) as they are.

My Dad used to talk a lot about shifting your perspective when I was younger. Speccifically in the context of wasted food much of the time, or in addressing complaints that I was ‘starving’ (“Think of the children in Africa… are you really starving?”) — but something seems to have shifted recently. And it feels good.

Personal

Firefox 3 – download day

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Mozilla is trying to get into the Guinness book of records with most downloads in a 24 hour period. It’s going on now – get Firefox, spread Firefox.

If you don’t know what that is, and you’re reading this in Internet Explorer — [doink]. That’s me hitting you in the head with a rubber mallet. It’s an awesome web browser, and is to surfing the web what spoons are to eating soup — a necessary tool, and a curvy, shiny piece of awesomeness to boot.

(I haven’t actually installed FF3 yet. Mozilla’s load-balancing is good, which is to say the website was still up for me to hit download, but not that good, in that I’m getting 5 k/b per second down a pipe that should give me 1.25 mb/s. I’m looking forward to it, though, in a geeky kind of way).

Update: FF3 installed on three machines now and I’m loving it on all of them. Most of my extensions/add-ons have been upgraded (not the Delicious one, oddly enough) and it seems to run smoother, faster and less resource intensively than before. Although it does seem to have a larger RAM footprint than FF2, where my systems would grind to a halt with this much memory in use in earlier incarnations, FF3 seems well stable. Happiness is a shiny new browser. Yes, yes, I’m a geek.

Personal

Fame is having your blog targeted by PRs

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I’ve been pitched! As someone who’s always treated this blog as a self-indulgent dumping ground for any random thought that occurred to me, it’s flattering that someone thinks I have an audience and coherent enough content to feel it’s worth targeting me.

In any case, (and I’m not paid to promote these guys), if you want last minute father’s day gifts, you should…

Feckless Shoppers Warned Against Smash-and-Grab Gift Buying Kiss goodbye to panic gift buying: new website LateLateGifts.co.uk is helping thousands of last minute shoppers cope with Father’s Day. The idea behind the site is simple. Users can browse 60+ shops that offer immediate, same day or next day delivery gifts to take the stress out of last minute shopping. Time is of the essence for the feckless gift giver, so the easy to navigate website offers simple search options to help users find the presents they need pronto. Shoppers who are really racing the clock can search same day delivery gifts. For those with a day or two’s grace, Late Late Gifts lists retailers offering delivery by the following morning. The range of shops means there’s an ideal gift for everyone. From electricals, gadgets and computers to jewellery, chocolates and experience days, it’s all on offer – and delivered fast. Late Late Gifts creator, Richard Kershaw, was inspired to build the site by his own shoddy gift-giving habits: “I know all too well the stress of last minute smash-and-grab gift buying. But I was certain I wasn’t the only person who was, well, just a bit rubbish at buying presents. “I couldn’t find anything out there to take the pressure off buying gifts for your nearest and dearest. I hope that Late Late Gifts will make Father’s Day and those other big occasions a little less daunting.”

Thank you Kay Smith of LateLateGifts.co.uk.

Personal

Health

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I’m trying to be more diligent about diet and exercise at the moment, having had enough of being ludicrously unhealthy. Wii fit is helping a bit, but if you catch me at a moment of weakness, please snatch the cheeseburger/pizza/whatever out of my hands and slap me in the face with it, then try to pot it in the nearest bin. Also, if you want to play squash in West/Central London let me know.

Thank you very much.

Personal

Grosse Pointe Blank year

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This year marks the 10th year anniversary of my leaving school. There’s a reunion and all, and I’m trying to make up my mind as to whether I go.

On the plus side, a lot of what I went through falls into the category of “crucial, formative stuff” that’s made me who I am today, and I am very fond of a few of my peers and staff there.

On the minus side, the half dozen or so friends I had at school may or may not be going, and I didn’t have a lot in common with the remaining 100 or so folk in my year. Every encounter I’ve had with them since then has been very amicable… but, y’know, do I want to throw myself into a context where I (at least 10 years ago) categorically did not fit in?

Have any of you gone to these reunion things not knowing many people well? Did you have fun? Did you tell people you were a professional killer by trade? Were you at school with Minnie Driver?

Incidentally, it’s also the 10th year since I matriculated at college and I have no ambiguity about that party. I’m going in with bells on. But then — I see half of those friends on a weekly basis.

Postscript: TEN YEARS man. TEN YEARS.

I can’t find the “ten years” scene on YouTube so this will have to do.

Music, Personal

Songkick – find local gigs from bands you like

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I was an early tester for Songkick, a social music application that scans your musical tastes and finds you local gigs to buy tickets for. A friend introduced me to a founder of the service who invited me in, but it is now open to all.

It’s awesome. I’ve become determined to be a little less middle aged and do more fun stuff like this mid-week and so the emails recommending gigs all around London from bands I already like? Fantastic. It probably wants integration with Last.fm so it can draw on historical listening patterns rather than just what you’ve got in your database (I have a lot of crap music I really ought to delete/archive)…

That said, I haven’t got around to booking anything yet. Maybe I’ll start with the next Urusen gig in a couple of weeks…

Personal

Out in Africa

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I’m off on holidays tomorrow – Tunisia – for a much needed break. Will not be very connected for the week, so please do contain your desire to speak to me until the 20th. Expect pictures and anecdotes on my return.

Recommendations on what to do whilst I’m there on a comment / email before 2pm tomorrow please ;-)

Have a good one, all.