Saturday, June 21, 2008
finally!
Bombskare have a single out. Just got home from the launch gig (where - as usual - they rocked) with the CD in my sweaty mitts. Will post more when I've listened to it through a few times (live music doesn't always translate well to recorded... but so far so good) but had a great night!
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
distracted
1,000 apologies for having been an absent blogger of late, been busy playin' with my new toy.
So a brief cheating update (mostly by way of linking to friends' blogs). First full weekend with Hobbes I went adventuring in Dumfries and Galloway with Liz, we stopped in at Roslyn Chapel (since it's pretty and neither of us had ever been) and then spent most of the rest of the day playing on the B roads, except for about a half hour spent sitting at a junction somewhere in D&G watching every horse in the world trot past. No really, all of them. Liz took pictures (of assorted pretty things, not of the horses) and they can be found here.
Bank holiday weekend (so not last weekend but the weekend before) Liz joined me again this time for a trip up to the west coast just north of Arisaig, we took a tent and an instant barbeque and had a lovely evening on the beach on Saturday. Then on Sunday the implausibly good weather we were enjoying tempted us into a quick jaunt over to Skye (making me late back for plans with Nete and Keith - sorry again guys!) Once again Liz did a better job of documenting our travels than I and her words and pictures are over here.
This weekend just gone, Justin invited me along on his friend Toby's stag weekend in North Wales. I'd met Toby a couple of times before and enjoyed his company immensely so didn't feel like a total gatecrasher. I did however feel just how out of shape I am the day after we climbed Tryfan. Note to self, get into the hills more often. Justin, like Liz, has been a better blogger than I of late and posted about the trip here.
So yeah, that's pretty much what I've been up to - driving my fantastic new car all over the country with friends. Bliss. Must stop going away every weekend though because I can't really afford to be buying that much petrol and oil... That said next weekend I'm dashing down to Doncaster to visit friends and family there. Then I'll give it a rest for at least a week or two... unless the weather's really good...
In other news Flash turned out to be terminally broken (or at least in need of an £850 repair, which on a 3 year old laptop amounts to the same thing) so via the great consumer continuum known as eBay I'm selling off two laptops (one working, one not) and some other odds and ends to pay for an almost identical (but working) replacement for my broken PowerBook. Flash is dead, long live Flash II.
So a brief cheating update (mostly by way of linking to friends' blogs). First full weekend with Hobbes I went adventuring in Dumfries and Galloway with Liz, we stopped in at Roslyn Chapel (since it's pretty and neither of us had ever been) and then spent most of the rest of the day playing on the B roads, except for about a half hour spent sitting at a junction somewhere in D&G watching every horse in the world trot past. No really, all of them. Liz took pictures (of assorted pretty things, not of the horses) and they can be found here.
Bank holiday weekend (so not last weekend but the weekend before) Liz joined me again this time for a trip up to the west coast just north of Arisaig, we took a tent and an instant barbeque and had a lovely evening on the beach on Saturday. Then on Sunday the implausibly good weather we were enjoying tempted us into a quick jaunt over to Skye (making me late back for plans with Nete and Keith - sorry again guys!) Once again Liz did a better job of documenting our travels than I and her words and pictures are over here.
This weekend just gone, Justin invited me along on his friend Toby's stag weekend in North Wales. I'd met Toby a couple of times before and enjoyed his company immensely so didn't feel like a total gatecrasher. I did however feel just how out of shape I am the day after we climbed Tryfan. Note to self, get into the hills more often. Justin, like Liz, has been a better blogger than I of late and posted about the trip here.
So yeah, that's pretty much what I've been up to - driving my fantastic new car all over the country with friends. Bliss. Must stop going away every weekend though because I can't really afford to be buying that much petrol and oil... That said next weekend I'm dashing down to Doncaster to visit friends and family there. Then I'll give it a rest for at least a week or two... unless the weather's really good...
In other news Flash turned out to be terminally broken (or at least in need of an £850 repair, which on a 3 year old laptop amounts to the same thing) so via the great consumer continuum known as eBay I'm selling off two laptops (one working, one not) and some other odds and ends to pay for an almost identical (but working) replacement for my broken PowerBook. Flash is dead, long live Flash II.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Hobbes
I found my car!
On Saturday my lovely friend Phil helped me drive all the way down to Oxford where there's a garage who specialise in FIAT Coupes, and who had a low mileage 20v Turbo in Broom Yellow with the various options I wanted and comfortably within my price range... The car turned out to be exactly what I was looking for (unlike the others I've been to see which all seemed right on paper but were disappointing in person) and so I bought it.
Driving back up I discovered that he's definitely a he, and - later on - that his name is Hobbes (like Calvin's Tiger.) So far we've been very happy together.
I'm too tired to write more just now because I spent my lunch hour going to the Council for his parking permit and then after work we went to Halfords and I bought a stereo (the previous owner took theirs out which, given other indications of their idea of good taste, is probably for the best) and some other "essentials" (like leather upholstery cleaner, a fire extinguisher* and a first aid kit) which I then spent the last few hours fitting and using to clean Hobbes interior... now I'm tired and hungry but before I go here's a picture of my new friend for anyone who's not yet seen him(clicking will get you a bigger version):
handsome devil isn't he? his FIAT badge is missing because some oik in Halfords car park pulled it off while I was inside shopping, but a replacement is on its way.
Right. Dinner...
* every car I've ever owned has carried one and thankfully I've never yet had cause to use it but it's one of those things I think every car should have, just in case.
On Saturday my lovely friend Phil helped me drive all the way down to Oxford where there's a garage who specialise in FIAT Coupes, and who had a low mileage 20v Turbo in Broom Yellow with the various options I wanted and comfortably within my price range... The car turned out to be exactly what I was looking for (unlike the others I've been to see which all seemed right on paper but were disappointing in person) and so I bought it.
Driving back up I discovered that he's definitely a he, and - later on - that his name is Hobbes (like Calvin's Tiger.) So far we've been very happy together.
I'm too tired to write more just now because I spent my lunch hour going to the Council for his parking permit and then after work we went to Halfords and I bought a stereo (the previous owner took theirs out which, given other indications of their idea of good taste, is probably for the best) and some other "essentials" (like leather upholstery cleaner, a fire extinguisher* and a first aid kit) which I then spent the last few hours fitting and using to clean Hobbes interior... now I'm tired and hungry but before I go here's a picture of my new friend for anyone who's not yet seen him(clicking will get you a bigger version):
handsome devil isn't he? his FIAT badge is missing because some oik in Halfords car park pulled it off while I was inside shopping, but a replacement is on its way.
Right. Dinner...
* every car I've ever owned has carried one and thankfully I've never yet had cause to use it but it's one of those things I think every car should have, just in case.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Sad Mac
Flash is poorly. Yesterday I picked him* up to write an email and found that the screensaver had frozen** and the machine wouldn't respond to any input. I forced a restart and within a few seconds was back up and running, then a few minutes later he froze up again, screen still fixedly displaying the open desktop but nothing responding. Another forced restart and the same result so I shut him down and left him be for 24hrs in the vain hope he might sleep it off.
Today he made it as far as the login window before locking up, when I made a second attempt at starting him he just sat with a blank screen angrily whirring fans at me. I think that means he needs to go to the doctor's and since I didn't get AppleCare that's likely to be expensive. Bugger.
Happily I am really bad at getting round to things. For the last month or so one of the two bargain PowerBooks I bought on eBay - when Iain commissioned me to find him a new laptop for going back to Japan with - has been sitting waiting for me to get off my arse and put it back up for sale. Iain went with the newer of the two - a mid 2004 Aluminium PowerBook G4 (spruced up by yours truly and christened Rerun). The other machine was a late 2002 Titanium G4 which had no battery and which I've called Ariel (after giving her Sparky's old NewerTek high cappacity battery which I removed before sending him to the insurance company 3 years ago and have had kicking around ever since meaning to put on eBay... like I said, bad at getting round to things)
Anyway I was going to sell Ariel back on eBay after doing a little work on her with some other spare parts I had kicking about, including (if I could coax it into working) Iain's discarded PC wireless adaptor... but I've been kinda busy and poor old Ariel has just been sitting in a corner doing nothing but occasionally charging and discharging her transplant battery (which seems in good order if a little eccentric after spending 3 years in a cupboard)
When I was forced to admit that Flash is not well, I decided to dust the old girl off and set to trying to make her talk to the Belkin wireless card, and after a bit of scrabbling about forums and support pages, (and an inexplicable 15min where the card was installed, apparently working but not connecting to the router) I have a usable stand-in for my poorly laptop (and a much more saleable prospect when Flash is all fixed)
Fingers crossed it's nothing too serious.
*Yes "he" I'm an anthropomorphist when it comes to computers and cars. In the unlikely event that that's news to you, you'll just have to deal with it
**on a picture of Ben Browder. I'm not blaming him
Monday, April 07, 2008
YAY Sci-Fi!
I just got round to watching Friday's Torchwood... anyone else reading this who cares probably already watched it but just in case I won't risk spoiling anything. Suffice it to say I'm impressed that they did something that drastic to the story structure, and can't wait to see how the next series shapes up.
Happily (because the BBC's scheduling got all mushed up) Doctor Who follows right on its heels (there'd usually be a gap) and (judging by Saturday's offering) Catherine Tate's presence might not ruin it completely... and BBC4 are showing an old William Hartnell story which I've never seen, and when all that's done there's a stack of episodes of that Terminator spin-off to fall back on...
...and I stumbled on an Iain M. Banks last week which I'd not yet read and which I'm loving!
So yeah: Yay Sci-Fi! Handy too to have lots of this stuff around to unwind with after yet another hectic day at work (work is all good by the way, there just aren't enough hours in the day is all).
<poddles off happily to geek out on the sofa some more>
Happily (because the BBC's scheduling got all mushed up) Doctor Who follows right on its heels (there'd usually be a gap) and (judging by Saturday's offering) Catherine Tate's presence might not ruin it completely... and BBC4 are showing an old William Hartnell story which I've never seen, and when all that's done there's a stack of episodes of that Terminator spin-off to fall back on...
...and I stumbled on an Iain M. Banks last week which I'd not yet read and which I'm loving!
So yeah: Yay Sci-Fi! Handy too to have lots of this stuff around to unwind with after yet another hectic day at work (work is all good by the way, there just aren't enough hours in the day is all).
<poddles off happily to geek out on the sofa some more>
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Brutal
I'm pretty sure I've posted about this before in a way but I had a quick scan through the archives and can't find anything* relating to it. Ho hum. Anyway I've been thinking about brutalist architecture a lot today, partly because the desktop picture preferences on my Mac at work are currently set to shift at 30min intervals through a folder of images called "structure" which is a grab bag of architectural photos, some my own, some which just moved me. Amongst them are some of this gentleman's excellent photographs of the (then doomed, now gone) Tricorn Centre.
I remember being deeply saddened at the time by its demolition and by the reported jubilation at the centre's destruction. It was a unique and (in my opinion) beautiful example of an architectural style now long gone, but which embodied an (also long gone) optimistic view of the future and of ourselves... Celebrating the erasure of that seemed wrong somehow.
Demolition went ahead in spite of some protest, and the Tricorn now exists only in memory (sometimes electronic). The good burghers of Portsmouth reportedly rejoiced, and (since I have no desire to live in Portsmouth, Tricorn or no) many would say I have no right to censure them for that... the same could I suppose be said were the residents of Rome to decide to demolish the Forum, or the Parisians to tire of Eiffel's tower... to my mind the only significant difference is historical perspective. Incidentally Portsmouth was (as far as I can tell) rewarded with this in place of their detested "concrete carbuncle". I hope it pleases them, but I can't imagine it ever making anyone's soul soar in quite the way its sculptural predecessor irrefutably could.
Anyway, Garfield's photographs (at least the versions stored in my collection) are of a resolution which pixelates somewhat when displayed full screen on the state-of-the-art MacBook Pro I'm privileged to use all day, and being of a graphical bent this bothers me. So in a (rare) free moment I stopped to look for some other higher resolution photographs of the Tricorn to replace them**. In doing so I found myself reading a lot of articles about the impending demolition of another of Luder's grand works, the Trinity Centre in Gateshead, aka the Get Carter Car Park.
I'm not really sure why I'm so moved by the destruction of these gargantuan concrete sculptures, but I am. The same short sighted, small minded rhetoric keeps being spouted to justify removing these (intentionally) run down buildings from these (intentionally?) run down communities which they were designed to reinvigorate. It genuinely makes my heart ache... but I can't in all honesty pretend to care a great deal about either Gateshead or Portsmouth. I think what gets me is the loss to the world at large, and the rejection of that optimistic vision... sure it was flawed, neither the Tricorn nor the Trinity ever really worked as originally envisaged, but both are/were beautiful and inspiring spaces with real potential.
Moves are afoot to limit this kind wanton destruction of our unfashionable architectural past. They're primarily motivated by a recognition that knocking down and starting again, makes sense only by our existing unsustainable economic model's standards. Re-use is a far more environmentally responsible approach to buildings which fail to meet their initial remit (for whatever reason) and/or fall out of vogue. I hope that out of this necessity a happy side effect might be that the future suffers fewer of these cultural losses at the hands of fashion. I'm a naive optimist you see... which might be (in part) why these structures speak to me in the first place.
*incidentally the archives are getting somewhat unwieldy now that there are almost 5 years' worth, so next time I have time I'm going to look into revising the page to deal with them better... if anyone has a good suggestion for a neater archive solution feel free to email me on the usual address or comment
**I succeeded thanks to flickr. Anyone who's interested should look here as there are some genuinely stunning shots
I remember being deeply saddened at the time by its demolition and by the reported jubilation at the centre's destruction. It was a unique and (in my opinion) beautiful example of an architectural style now long gone, but which embodied an (also long gone) optimistic view of the future and of ourselves... Celebrating the erasure of that seemed wrong somehow.
Demolition went ahead in spite of some protest, and the Tricorn now exists only in memory (sometimes electronic). The good burghers of Portsmouth reportedly rejoiced, and (since I have no desire to live in Portsmouth, Tricorn or no) many would say I have no right to censure them for that... the same could I suppose be said were the residents of Rome to decide to demolish the Forum, or the Parisians to tire of Eiffel's tower... to my mind the only significant difference is historical perspective. Incidentally Portsmouth was (as far as I can tell) rewarded with this in place of their detested "concrete carbuncle". I hope it pleases them, but I can't imagine it ever making anyone's soul soar in quite the way its sculptural predecessor irrefutably could.
Anyway, Garfield's photographs (at least the versions stored in my collection) are of a resolution which pixelates somewhat when displayed full screen on the state-of-the-art MacBook Pro I'm privileged to use all day, and being of a graphical bent this bothers me. So in a (rare) free moment I stopped to look for some other higher resolution photographs of the Tricorn to replace them**. In doing so I found myself reading a lot of articles about the impending demolition of another of Luder's grand works, the Trinity Centre in Gateshead, aka the Get Carter Car Park.
I'm not really sure why I'm so moved by the destruction of these gargantuan concrete sculptures, but I am. The same short sighted, small minded rhetoric keeps being spouted to justify removing these (intentionally) run down buildings from these (intentionally?) run down communities which they were designed to reinvigorate. It genuinely makes my heart ache... but I can't in all honesty pretend to care a great deal about either Gateshead or Portsmouth. I think what gets me is the loss to the world at large, and the rejection of that optimistic vision... sure it was flawed, neither the Tricorn nor the Trinity ever really worked as originally envisaged, but both are/were beautiful and inspiring spaces with real potential.
Moves are afoot to limit this kind wanton destruction of our unfashionable architectural past. They're primarily motivated by a recognition that knocking down and starting again, makes sense only by our existing unsustainable economic model's standards. Re-use is a far more environmentally responsible approach to buildings which fail to meet their initial remit (for whatever reason) and/or fall out of vogue. I hope that out of this necessity a happy side effect might be that the future suffers fewer of these cultural losses at the hands of fashion. I'm a naive optimist you see... which might be (in part) why these structures speak to me in the first place.
*incidentally the archives are getting somewhat unwieldy now that there are almost 5 years' worth, so next time I have time I'm going to look into revising the page to deal with them better... if anyone has a good suggestion for a neater archive solution feel free to email me on the usual address or comment
**I succeeded thanks to flickr. Anyone who's interested should look here as there are some genuinely stunning shots
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