Friday, September 30, 2005

Got Wood?

Me, Captain Depper, Phatboyian and Leslie went to look at some woods this evening. Doesn’t sound blog worthy I grant you, but we’re thinkin’ of buying them.

Captain Depper and I are doing a
dry stone walling course in a few weeks, something I’ve always fancied, and it’d make a good place to practice my budding craft, roast the odd pig, do small scale LRP stuff, camp and to use as a bit of a base and as a chill spot to partake of the hong.

We’re lookin’ at a co-op arrangement between a few of us. £250 a share. The location’s a bit hush-hush at the moment as it’s going for auction (closed bids) and we don’t want no competition. It’s Derbyshire anyway and local to loads of walking, biking and sites we already use for the likes of
Grimm Tales.

It needs some TLC, notably a bit of drainage and a brush cutter, but at 1.6 hecters it could be a winner…

Thursday, September 22, 2005

In Matrimony, the one Eyed man is King

The wife and I were watching X-Men and X2 (back to back) the other night with friends, a dinner, booze and DVDs kinda thing, when the whole 'Wolverine's a hunk' thing came up amongst the ladies.

Fair enough says I, I'm more than happy ogling Famke Janssen, especially with the far improved and shorter haircut.

Then the wife says to her mate "Yeah, but Wolverines too dangerous, women fancy him but you wouldn't marry him would you" and gives my hand a squeeze in an allegedly supportive 'I prefare you my dearest honey-bunny' kinda way. The other ladies in the room nodded sagely.

So that makes me Cyclops then? All married men can be swiftly categorised by the single, universally recognised, lamest darn character in the Marvel Universe (well, okay, slight exaggeration, there was the likes of 'Maggot', 'Amphibius' and 'Strong Guy'). But we should see this as a compliment? Is this how the opposite sex sees us? Really? Truly?

They see us as Scott Summers, poster boy for 'goody-two-shoes' and the 'safe bet'? Scott Summers, the all round squeaky-clean self-righteous little snot who plays it clean and hasn't even got his own catch phrase?

What, my dear lady wife, in our long history together, would possibly make you think that I would think that being a school prefect and wearing shades indoors is 'cool'? An adamantium skeleton, now that’s cool.

I tried to draw a comparison by saying it was like "I got Jubilee when I was after Scarlet Witch", but she didn't get the analogy.

By this blasé comparison of my spouse I somehow feel that marriage makes one less of a man and, while I got my Jean Grey in the end, I worry for a world were Logan could be considered a potential wife beater and the one eyed boy scout a 'catch'.

Seen the cast for X3 yet? Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut and Kelsey Grammer as Hank McCoy. Totally inspired...

(life is shit)

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

In Stores Now!

X-men Legends 2: The Rise of Apocalypse, hits the streets today.

It's a bit Capcom for my tastes, but the new trailer is totally tasty wank-fest, and I do like my En Sabah Nur. Who knows, we might get a bit of Essex if we're lucky.

Hell, any game were ya get to play Magneto can only be a plus.


Monday, September 19, 2005

Avast, me proud beauty!

Don't forget kiddies (especially Captain Depper), today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and it's your turn in the barrel.

Do you know a staysail from a mizzen top gallant? No? Me neither, but it sounds good and that's what today is all about.

Stick it in Outlook to recur every year. For a few suggestions, nip over to Pirates Realm or there's plenty on the official site.

Go on, give it a go, it annoys the b'jesus out of people in meetings and if you claim it's a holy holiday (and, therefore, part of your religion) there's sod all they can do about it.

Trust me, I live on a boat.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

Flirting with Librarians

The Mrs dragged me to the Jane Austen Society Ball this weekend in Bath.

I presumed I was going to have a fairly dull evening but It wasn't quite as bad as I'd feared. Adam joined us (-Cat alas), Ellen, Pig and Colin came over from Ireland sans dress uniform.

They loved a bit of Byron last night. Even when we were strolling down by the river lookin' for somewhere to have some predance hong, us gents got stopped by droves of Japanese girlies and mobbed by pretty American history students who (literally) clamoured for photos. Strange how a well dressed bloke can have such an effect...

The ball was teaming in frustrated librarians looking for their Mr Darcy and with giggling young costume students. To be honest, I sheelessly flirted with owt in a frock. There was a bloke count of us, an admittedly fine crop of older 'Mr Bennets' and a couple of 'ordinaries'.

Me and Pig played some Merde de Tete and learnt some new regency game that did little to make up for the average tasting £20 a pop plonk and being scowled at for not dancing properly. Jema flirted with everything in regimentals.

The Georgian Guildhall is an excellent location that scum like us would never normally get to play in. I think we qualified as 'the naughty table'. The older women scowled at us and the younger women fluttered eyelids at us from behind fans. The gentlemen flocked to dance with Jema and, as I say, I shamelessly held eye contact with anything pretty.

Afterwards we got blathered, nearly got in a street fight with some townies, ended up in some club/pub dancing to bizarre 80s stuff and I collapsed into a hostel bed, around 4, with my face stuck to half a pack of cards and a kebab.

Failure is not an Option

Here's a good one for you.

Go to www.google.com, type in 'failure', and hit 'I'm Feeling Lucky'.

Sweet.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Legal, DECENT, honest and truthful!

I've had to change my 'comments' stuff on my blog as I am miffed off with them being used to advertise someone else’s crud.

I work in Search Engine Optimisation, and it's narrow minded, weak of vision, pathetic, semi-automated, link hungry, flat headed, illiterate, juvenile, flatulent, spam-mongers like this that gives the work of
serious online marketeers the worst of names.

Why should I have to suffer their thinly veiled, generically bland commentary and platitudes that has obviously only been created with the soul purpose to cow-bar in some trawlable link to the webcam charms of a 19 year old. Trust me, if I find I need the services of a Viagra vendor I am perfectly capable of finding my own.

I apologise to my friends and to the genuine well wishes, you will now have to authenticate postings via a short security system to prevent automated posting. Unfortunatly, these people have made it neigh-on impossible for genuinely interested visitors to share opinion or to throw their own musings into a (all be it superficial and badly spelt) debate. If I were less a creature I would mail-bomb every last man Jack of you back to the Stone Age and multiply submit your pages so that no search engine would ever register your like again. I just glad Blogger has come up with a midterm solution.

Legal, DECENT, honest and truthful. Have you forgotten, or did this new brand of advertiser never learn?

If you would like to discover how to conduct yourselves properly and effectively within an advertising environment, may I recommend the personal blog of Seth Godin and his highly amusing All Marketeers are Liars. We do not have to let our standards and ethics slip just because the internet provides us with a degree of
anonymity. We are not immune. There are better ways of gaining a few trawlable links and click-throughs.

Apologies for the rant, but these people are pond scum, filth-wizards and swine’s to a man.

If you've no clue what I'm whitterin' on about, check
this classic article on The Reg.

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

DVD Review - Hustle, Series 2

"The Con is On, again..."

Just as slick, just as cool, just as smooth and just as glossy. We're back again with that lovable bunch of hard working crooks as they rob from the rich of our capital and give to, well, they keep it actually, but that doesn't stop them being jolly nice people...

Surfing on charm and wits, and covering all the angles, comes the regular tight-knit players. The talented long con artist Mickey Stone,
the young fiesty wannabe Danny Blue, the world-weary fixer Ash Morgan, the clever (and drasticly foxy) Stacie Monroe and the old hand (the one and only) Albert Stroller.

Some characters, notably Stacie, are a bit under-used. Extras are a bit thin, but there is a nice and fairly comprehensive BBC style 2-part documentary, 'The Big Finish' - The Making Of Episode Six.

All in all, not much to grumble about, and if you saw or bought the first series don't miss this. Yet another twisty-turny, beautifully scripted, 2 disks of BBC quality drama. Television like it 'orta be.

Please take my licence fee and make another series.

Movie: 4.5 out of 5
Extras: 2.5 out of 5

Saturday, September 10, 2005

What I'm doing...

Sometimes, usually at parties or when I get to hang around on shoots, people sort of shuffle their feet, look into their coffee or their JD and Coke, and say the inevitable "So man, er, what is it you do for a living now". Great. In that 'Didn't you have a career once' kinda way...

Many moons ago and back-in-the-day, I did a shed load of SEO (for Mannie and the guys at PNL as well as for my own Internet Marketing co-op venture) when nowbody else knew Jack about the likes of Google, Auntie Yahoo and Uncle Inktomi. Suddenly it's the thing to know and it's deja vu on our classified site and I'm designin' the likes of Houses for Sale in Derbyshire (incorporating Cars for Sale in Derbyshire and Jobs in Derbyshire through an open portal of For Sale in Derbyshire) and the same for Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Hull and East Riding and rolling out all over the country in the coming year to supliment our AdWords campaign for our This Is Derbyshire, This is Leicestershire, This is Nottinghamshire (etc.) sites.

While not movie orientated, this is actually surprisingly cool because I'm also hip deep in Accessability and W3C stuff, Info Architecture, Design Elements and the whole User Experience thang, plus I'm on constant stand-by for any multi-media projects (now being the official Multi-Media Producer for, I guess, the whole Northcliffe Group) and ready to leap into a shoot like a gazell when the oppertunity arrises.

Plus I still go work with good-old Shafts McGuire and Howard 'H' Smith with the inevitable steadicam rigs and the new MK-V Alien Revolution stuff.


As most will know, there was a big flap last year cos the loverly folks I work with at Northcliffe Electronic Publishing and I got ourselves a 'Childrens Learning' category BAFTA for the key stage 2 history interactive education site, Headline History.

Please go and check it out. It's massive and it was a 2 year labour of love (I doff my cap to Duncan, Andy, The Snellmeister, Julie B, Elaine, Genevera, Jon 'Milkeybar' W, Julian, Ben, JAP and the crew, plus my A-Team of performers from Burton Theatre). I don't think I've ever worked as hard on anything, ever. I was co. designer, technical coordinator, director, sound and video editor, a plethora of assorted hats. We also won a load of other shiny desk fodder as well, too numerous to go into.

So now you know what's occurin'. I can say 'oh, it's on my blog' and you can follow some links and witness the pitness and it'll stop me having to justify my existance at parties untill the wife chirps up with the thoroughly scripted 'He got a BAFTA you know' (actually, she loves that line, almost as mush as my mum does).


Back to movies soon, uber streamin' stuff again. We have plans here and I'll post any news when I'm allowed. Things are afoot at NEP, this is a very exciting time but Duncan and Julie B would butcher me if I said too much ;-)

Boomshanka.

Friday, September 09, 2005

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Flash Media Server 2

I have died and gone to geek-boy heaven -

Announcing Macromedia Flash Server 2
&
Flash Server 2 Product Features

Now, on paper, the single numero uno choice for streaming media, full stop, no contest, this is the daddy, the cats whiskers, the dogs nuts, the works, el presidente, the big cheese (and not the crap kind with fruit in it that insane people buy at Christmas), the bees knees, the Ayatollah of Rock-and-Roll-a, the Jewel of the Nile, the Planet of the Apes, the 'more of the same'...

Just for starters (being Macromedia) it supports that saucy little minx know as the 'On2 VP6 codec' with tons of real-time broadcast features, auto player/bandwidth detection and buckets of interactivity stuff (like 'video hot spots' and 'multiple camera angles') for us to play with.

It'll be at IBC in Amsterdam tomorrow (see you there H) and it makes me want to touch myself. Is that wrong?

Kneel with me. Let us worship together, at the alter of Flash Pro 8...