Miscellany

Welcome, fellow iTunes haters!

My traffic spiked like a demon on a drug trip when I posted about iTunes the other day (yes, that is what happens to demons when they go on drug trips). So welcome! If you need to know more about my adventures, leave a question in the c-c-c-c-omments.

I will post more substantially this weekend: it has been a busy (and fairly stressful!) week but things seem to be coming together and I have that Friday feeling, so things are looking up.

I am sad I missed International Talk like a Pirate day this year, though. Aaaaaaarrrrr.

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…

Software

iTunes 7 sucks

8 Comments

Sleek, glossy and ‘simple’ as it is, getting iTunes 7 to work on my machine required:

    installing iTunes 7 (error message)
    uninstalling Quicktime
    reinstalling iTunes 7 with quicktime (works, but doesn’t detect iPod)
    uninstalling iTunes 7 AND quicktime
    reinstalling iTunes 7 and quicktime
    restarting machine 3 times

…and breath. No wonder people are complaining. Man, that Steve Jobs really busts my chops.

You wanna fight Steve? You wanna fight? Bringit.

And to all you people saying that this wouldn’t happen if I had a Mac… shutup. I was kinda tempted by Linux after seeing this, though:

Personal

House hunting

2 Comments

Whilst I can currently afford a slightly cramped shoebox in the London environs, I have started to look around. Circumstances, y’know.

Interesting reading through the code once again:

“Well proportioned” == tiny.
“Delightful” == shit.
“Light and airy” == small, dark and cramped. Has a window, somewhere.
“…moments from the amenities of…” Miles. From. Everything.
“…on a popular residential road…” Miles. From. Everything.
“Well located…” == located, if not on, then adjacent to a busy railway track and/or motorway.

Cynical? Moi?

Can’t believe Foxton’s are still doing well after that BBC thing…

Internet, Software, Technology

Windows Live Writer

Windows Live WriterSo I’m checking out Windows Live Writer; in fact this post, and the post before it were written using it. For those not in the know, it’s a ‘super exciting’ (thanks for the tip, Simon ;)) WYSIWIG blog editor. Well, it seems more than that and I’ve only been using it for five minutes – it’s a highly extensible blog publishing application, integrating with a number of blogging engines (including WordPress).

The community around it is impressive; its been around for all of a month and already there are numerous plugins (including one for Flickr, which is already up, running and more stable than my Tantan plugin). I may add more Flickr images to my posts than strictly speaking necessary in the days to come…

In short; excellent. Try it out if you find you’re not a fan of your blogging engines normal back-end. Expect it to do the standard MS trick of inserting random crap into your HTML if you edit in rich text mode, though. One of those inevitabilities.

(ah, I see there’s a problem with the Flickr API that’s messing with theTantan plugin. I should fix that…)

[tags]microsoft, software, internet, blogging, technology, windows, wordpress, flickr[/tags]

Comics, Television, Writing

Hero vs. Anti-Hero

Wesley Crusher, Beverly Crusher, and Deanna TroiChris pointed me to this review of an early Star Trek: TNG episode. It’s very, very funny, and actually seems to be written by Will Wheaton, who played [[Wesley Crusher]]. But it highlights a choice that the writers made about Wesley: that they were going to make him a very straight-laced hero. Which is the polite way of saying, a complete and utter loser. Which is a polite way of saying all the worse things viewers thought about the character.

I suggested that [[Lobo]] might have made a more appropriate character base for the character – no-nonsense, tough guy, who swears a lot and lives by his own rules. And not even them. Lives by no rules at all. What a crazy cat he would be.

If only it were that simple. I am glad that this decade has seen a slight rejection of the traditional conventions of heroism – there’s a bit more darkness in the heroes lighting up the screen and stage. From Harry Potter to Ghost Rider to Spidey and back again – few have the tedious do-goodishness of Wesley.

[tags]startrek, comics, lobo, wesley, writing, heroes[/tags]

Film

Strolling down Sugar House Lane

2 Comments

Sheila and Arvind @ SHL Arvind arranged for us to be given a tour of his movie set! Sugar House Lane, due for release in March 2007 (or thereabouts) enters its final week of production this week and we got to see the set in full splendour – a fantastic old warehouse near Bromley-by-Bow. The Art Department have really gone to town and its a remarkable, remarkable sight. The graffiti (which is hysterical, and one of which references a Myspace link) was put together by the rival East London and West London graffiti massives. Awesome.

Loads of photos on Flickr, as ever, but I really would encourage everyone to check out the blog — there’s content from loads of people involved in the production of the film, behind the scenes video, and photos from their Flickr photostream.

For those wondering what the movie is about, here’s the official synopsis:

Crackhead, Killer, Accountant.

Disillusioned middle class city boy Tom is looking for something in the back streets of London; he thinks D – a young desperate drug addict can give him what he needs. But what D’s offering comes with more than just a price tag…

Holed up in a derelict warehouse, with the impending threat of local crimelord Hoodwink at their backs, both men play an intense game of cat and mouse; scrambling to cut a deal and make sense of the very lives they may be about to lose.

The crew and cast seem awesome – check them out on imdb. I’m very excited. And I’m very pleased at how well they’re doing the whole social media thing; Flickr, YouTube, competitions for readers of the blog, the whole shebang. Please check it out, link to it, write about it, and let me know if you want an iconic SHL sticker – I have a few to give out!

Music

Remastering in progress

For those of you anxiously awaiting ‘The Firefox Love Song’, it is currently being re-engineered and recorded. Pob liked the song when he came around to help tweak it, and has decided that it has to be re-recorded from scratch to get it sounding really good. He’s promised we’ll retain some creative control, though, which is clearly important ;).

Mazmo had even come around to record the vocals! But think we’ll persuade her to do it again when Pob’s laid down a better version of the audio… (I’m hoping to get to play at least one guitar on the remastered version, but we’ll see)… In any event, it looks like the credits list on the Public Betas’ first single is growing ;).

We’ll keep you posted. If enough people comment insisting to hear the demo (let’s call that number 15 so it is quantifiable ;)) then I’ll stick it up.

For those waiting for the novel – sorry. I’ve been distracted. It is being worked on…

Miscellany, Observational

Cycling off the night before

1 Comment

Man, cycled for about an hour and a half today. Which was cool – just surprising as my ‘winging’ it policy completely failed to stand up as I got lost in West London on my way to Portobello. Still, in the end I made it and enjoyed the scenic route. And I managed to fix Arvind’s wifi (well, mostly) which was geekily satisfying.

How I was able to cycle for an hour and a half given the lack of sleep (was out till the small hours at a v. fun birthday party on Sat…) is really beyond me, though.

Oh, at said party Lou inferred that I say ‘man’ too much. Which is probably a fair criticism. And Pob told me off for starting a sentence with ‘so…’. Apparently doing this makes me not only American, but a Microsoft Employee. I’ll resist in future ;).

Armand David's personal weblog: dadhood, technology, running, media, food, stuff and nonsense.