Good Do

Went to a big works party at KoKo in London last night. They stuck is in hotels, coaches down there for the lot of us, free bar, hired the whole place, top food etc. Here's some photos care of Dexter, here from Sian, and here from Naimi.

I'm a bit fragile this morning but avoided dancing and career suicide. By eck, they know how to throw a party. A very convivial evening :-)

Runaway Bride Trailer

So, when's Christmas again?

Easily Bought

They Should Have Bought It

When the current bun decided to do the headline 'PERV HUNT .COM' (about an online pedophile register), you'd think they'd have registered the domain first.

But no. Heaven forbid the print media would be so savvy. So instead, someone has pointed all that traffic to The Sun's own "Page 3 Rookies" site, which stars 18 and 19-year-old topless girls.

Well played, whoever you are. Well played. 😊

"You Have 20 Seconds to Comply"

Samsung has partnered with Korea university to develop this machine-gun equipped robotic sentry. I so love tech directly from Aliens.

This puppy has twin cam pattern recognition and a 5.5mm machine-gun. The robot audibly warns intrudes before applying the perfect headshot. This little sweetie goes on sale in 2007, for $200,000, and will be "deployed on the border between North and South Korea".

I might get one for the ally way at the back of the house.

Get Down With Your Blue Self

So. Me and a lass called Angel, my personal shopper, went 'tripping the light fantastic' at the Blue Note this evening :-)

The place was rammed with (virtual) couples doing the same. People from all over the world, who probably only know each other as an avatar, getting down to Bix Beiderbeche and chatting while they do so. Now I see the social side, and it is what you make it :-)

Hell of a frock Angel. Cheers for a cool evening.

Strange though in't it. I think I'll keep all this to myself for a bit.

Jazz. Nice!

I've taken to dressing sharply and hanging out in bars playing ragtime and jazz. A bit more role-play orientated and seems to suit being 4' 4" and blue. Kinda 'Woody Allen meets cattle mutilation'.

I'm developing quite a collection of cocktails and acquaintances. People are generally friendly and supportive to this asexual newbie ET. I can see how the social side of this would get marginally addictive. There really are no boundaries because, quite frankly, that leggy brunette you're tangoing with could be a sheet metal welder from Runcorn called Steve. People say 'hi' now when I go on line and quite a few folks from work etc. are giving it a go too.

I have a date to 'go dancing' over the weekend with a lass who has become my self appointed 'personal shopper'...

Die Spinne

There's a new Spiderman 3 trailer out.

Come on Sam lad. A bit of Flint Marko and a bit of Venom. Nice.

Thank god they didn't go for a villain with a goldfish bowl on his head...

Oolon & the Seven Predators

Met a load of Predators this evening who have adopted me as a bit of a mascot. Seven, seven foot tall monsters and me, drinking cocktails and talking about the comparitive penetration value of assorted high calibre sci-fi weaponry. We come in peace. Yeah, well, not in 'Clan Alien' they don't.

Surreal...

Billy No Mates

I'm still doing a lot of exploring. Interaction, especially group interaction, isn't something I'm diving into. The art side of this I get though. Big time...

Big Bed

So I'm flying around and I find this amazing cool house, and I go in and it's full of sex 'pose-balls' and this enormous bed. So I thought, "well, hay, there's no body here" and I start trying some out. I'm new at this. This is my first time. I gotta explore, ya know.

I'm there rutting away in comedy fashion. Having sex, this little blue alien, on this big dragon bed with an invisible partner. Giving the pillow oral and everything. Trying the lot out. Laughin' my head off. I look up, move the camera round, and there's this massive naked bloke covered in tattoos and with this ungodly erection, hands on hips, looking right at me.

I made my excuses and left pretty damn sharpish...

My Other Life

I am about to enter Second Life.

Social networking is hot for us right now, and a Snow Crash metaverse style 3-D virtual world (totally built and owned by the residents) sounds too cool not to try. Right now, it's home to 1,288,782 virtual 'people' from around the world. Surely they're not all geeky art fag yiffy pervs?

There will be no blogging for a bit, sporadic at best, but I will report back with my findings. I will post a daily picture to keep you updated.



American Apparel was the first "real world" company to open a store in SL. The launch of their latest shop has created a viral buzz that spread to Forbes, Business Week, etc. Naturally, that viral buzz bolstered salës for their on-line and off-line clothing.

A number of other real-world brands are in there too. Intel, Nissan, Reuters, Sony BMG, Adidas, Sun MicrosystemsCNET, and Wired. Major marketers, advertising agencies, and news outfits are all starting to take part in Second Life.

Reuters was the first news bureau to set up shop in Second Life, and there are a number of other news outlets and websites that are reporting on the daily events on 'the grid':

• 3pointD
• New World Notes
• Second Life Herald
• Metaverse Messenger
• Second Life Insider
• Tao's Thoughts on Second Life

A gob smacking $500,000 dollars (i jest you not) is spent on 'the grid' every day. This is real money, not just the Linden dollar (the SL currency) and a few hundred peeps are actually making a full-time living on Second Life.

With these kind of numbers, this is a platform that businesses should be looking at as a potential marketing opportunity. Mechinima opportunities aside, for me SL is an interesting way for businesses to reach consumers, test marketing strategies, release new product ideas with relatively little investment and examine social networking.

Wish me luck. Here we go. We come in peace...

Speedy Cookie Monster

Firefox (bless em) used to block 3rd party cookies. A bit naughty this, but in 2.0 they seem to have got rid of the on/off-ability. I only just noticed and I've been recommending this to all and sundry.

If you want to sort it manually, do the usual "about:config" in your address bar, then change network.cookie.cookieBehavior from 0 to 1.

Oh, while you're at it, here's something that will speed it up a bit. Normally it will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it'll make several at once.

"about:config" as usual.

Then alter the entries as follows:

• Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
• Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"
• Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.
• Then right-click anywhere and select New>Integer. Call it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0" (the time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves).

That should be well faster. My conscience is clear.

Steve Terada Would Kick Your Ass

Every now and then you see something (other than adverts for Medical Research Trials) that makes you think superpowers might just be possible.

This is Steve Terada. Steve is a man who probably stands under freezing waterfalls getting beaten by his own gang of oriental chicks with bamboo poles. Then, he probably fights crime. Anything else would be a waste.



Sorry about the music.

Pioneer Passes

Nigel Kneale, best known for the Quatermass TV serials (and the films of the 1950s) died yesterday at the age of 84. The man was a pioneer and his work was ground breaking genius. He was Britain's first significant television dramatist.

The Quatermass Experiment stunned the BBC audience back in conservative 1953, and paved the way for the likes of Doctor Who. A year later, and questions were asked in Parliament about his adaptation of 1984. He was still writing for TV in the 90s and Kneale was a genuine small-screen visionary whose (often fantastical) work also inspired the whole Hammer horror phenomenon.

The passing of a living legend. There are so few left.