Losses

The wonderful French radio station FIP has disappeared from the Brighton airwaves, and Porky Whites are no longer available from Asda.

What I want do do though is say goodbye to Kurt Vonnegut who spoke many words directly into my brain. This image, at the time of writing, is the home page default:



Eidt: FIP is gone for good now it looks like, Porkies are back, and Kurt Vonnegut is still dead..

Astroturf

I played football tonight for the first time in years: I have never played on astroturf before and I had no idea how abrasive it is.

I can never stay on my feet when I play in defense: I like to go for the ball and get it no matter what, so I end out doing sliding tackles: astroturf is more like glasspaper than grass, so I have no skin on my right knee or elbow. Other than losing miserably I enjoyed it a lot: it reminded me of the last time I played, back when I lived in my old flat.

I was turning out for an Ericcsons team in their sports and social league as a favour for a guy I worked with (who was a Kiwi and had never played 'soccer' in his life before: I also have a medal for being part of a winning ESSC baseball team) and managed to get a decent grassburn one week: I was cleaning it with peroxide (yes, I was a single man) when I dripped much too much on the graze and kicked upwards involuntarily: I must have had shoes on (I don't remember it hurting my toes) so the Stanley knife I used to keep on my coffee table took up, turned over once lazily in the air, and embedded itself into my leg. I didn't know which to say ouch for, I imagine I swore a bit.

(We did play at Glastonbury a few years ago but that wasn't an organised game: we were on tv though according to legend)

Long sleeves and trackie trousers next week! Shinpads are a bit woofy though, without boots.

Google Desktop/Mac

I've never installed a Google desktop search product on Windows, let alone seen the need for one on the Mac - why would you when you have Spotlight? - but seeing as Mr Pinky asked so nicely I will give this new Google Desktop/Mac a go on old failthful G3 iBook.

My main problem with these multi-search programs is that I always know in advance where I am looking. If I'm looking for a document or file, it's on my local disk. If I'm looking for a web page, it's on the internet, and the two don't really coincide: equally, if I'm looking for an email, I search there, whether that's local or internet (ie Gmail). I can imagine that under some circumstances you would want to look for all info about a topic, whether as emails or files or webpages, even though I can't think of one myself. Perhaps the program will offer that opportunity (if it ever finishes indexing!)

Edit: on reflection, I would probably use this type of search at work (where I don't have a desktop search program anyway, mostly because everything is stored on the network somewhere and/or on an Exchange server)

Administrative entry

Imageshack.us trashed my profile picture, which as a free service is of course entitled to do. So I've had to upload it again, which is why this post is..

If the cap fits..

Firefox has a few problems with Microsoft and certificates - Microsoft insist on self-signing rather than participating in the trust network - but this one made me laugh:

Everything Virgin does is shit.

We get broadband and TV from Virgin, who took it over from NTL. In the course of their first weeks of operation they have fucked up their contract with Sky and lost Sky One, which means the missus can't watch Lost. And now, suddenly and very inconveniently, it's very difficult to get through to torrent sites where episodes of Lost can be downloaded - sites like The Pirate Bay are suddenly unavailable (they can be pinged, but no connections can be made through a browser)

This is intensely annoying - not Sky One, which I am quite glad not to have any more, but I like to be able to go to whatever website I like. I linked to The Pirate Bay once before, to something I found on their "legal" page, which is worth a look, if you're not a Vigin customer that is and you are allowed to access it by your internet provider (there's also a Turkish internet provider which blocks TPB according to it's wikipedia entry)

Unfortunately our house has neither a rooftop aerial nor a BT phoneline so it will be inconvenient and expensive to change away from Virgin to Freeview and ADSL, but I think we'll be doing it.

Everything Virgin does is shit. I phoned up for Beck once to topup her mobile and the voice menu was all "Hey you" and "Great! You've topped up your mobile -- cool". Arseholes.

Edit: I'm not the first to notice.
Edit: Still no access in April.

No kidding..

Gutsy

Watching a TV program about Kamikaze and Bushido during WW2 on channel 203: "Japanese soldiers would strap grenades or mines to themselves and attack tanks".

Neat

All software installations must require some kind of user action these days - I think this is the best example of a graphic installer instruction I have seen. Whether you're a Mac user or not you should be able to tell what you need to do.

Secret gig

Me and Beck went to a 'secret' Jarvis gig at Concorde II yesterday, a warmup for the tour proper which starts next week. The venue isn't really used to your actual proper band (it's Fatboy Slim's home venue) and it shows: the seven strong band are crowded on the stage, the lighting rig fails (they play the first song in darkness then put a static spot on Jarvis and up the stage lighting, the basic blue and red bulbs on the the stage rig) and the monitors weren't particularly well positioned according to JC who claimed they only worked at knee height (and did most of one song at that level to prove it). The bass was a bit jagged maybe but overall it was not too bad a sound for a venue with debatable acoustics (and maybe PA) and at least good and fucking loud (more swearing later) with the bass drum battering the stomach, bass guitar hammering my aching knees, plenty of noisy guitar. What a gig ought to be, especially the first gig of the new millenium.. ahem.

They open with 'Fat Children' from the new album which is released next Monday: superb. Wasted on this audience, I'm sorry to say, who hardly seem to move. This is the first time JC has played live in years, he's nervous and rambly between songs, but he picks up and soon the animated arm-dancing and twitching is back: he picks up a guitar for a song or two, charisma starts sparking: we're at the back, there still doesn't seem to be much dancing going on though: one factor is age, Beck won the "audience average age" game with 32, but also seemingly the Concorde have fucked up again and put a big gap between the performer and his audience. Plus the band play no Pulp and that's what the audience would love to hear.. Jarvis repeatedly apologises for the unfamiliarity of the material, at one point likening it to looking in a fridge for 45 minutes: afterwards you get the feeling that it was bright, but unappealing. At least that's the way I remember what he said.

The new material is actually very good, I will be buying the album when it comes out next week, in the meantime there's jarvspace. After a while the band started to sound a bit 'samey', perhaps they could try to introduce more dynamics into the set, but maybe that wasn't practical in the Concorde II as it's a bit primitive. Of course there are dynamics in in the songs, Mr Cocker's signature is the high quality of his songwriting, and he takes the time to explain what some of the songs refer to: 'Big Julie Rules The World' is a mashup of a book and an early-developing girl from Loughborough (home of Ladybird books, you'll be fascinated to discover). 'Disney Time' was partially inspired by Dumbo's mum.

They play the songs from the Jarvis album, a B side (Jarvis satirically mocks the term B side, prefers 'differently abled song') called One Man Show, and a song he wrote for Lee Someone called Big Stuff. 'From A to I' is superb, it's about evil being everywhere 'from Auschwitz to Ipswitch' and seeing evil when you look inside yourself.

Then they go off, come back on and do 'C*nts are Running The World' which apparently is the hidden song on the album.. fun for when the vicar comes round 30 minutes after you've been listening. Actually, it's a stormer and available from iTunes. Jarvis is conversational, affectionate, grateful: the audience is slightly perhaps withholding of their favours, unamused by the unfamiliarity, but applause is generally warm and generous. The odd chant of "Jar - Vis" goes up, someone shouts for 'Common People', ironically maybe, though introducing Candida Doyle from Pulp for one song heightened the audiences' hopes of hearing a favourite song: you never know, however unlikely you know it to be.

Our thanks to Carl for the tip-off for the tickets, nice to meet his new wife Gretchen too.

Me with hair and a dress

My sister Jane sent me this picture a while ago - it's my maternal grandmother Sarah, Auntie Belle and Uncle Dick taken in 1913 or so.

Edit: Mum sent me a picture of me in a dress! (all the babies wore them then)

Hating Jimmy Carr

We have an rule with no exceptions in our house: any TV program fronted by (or prominently featuring) Jimmy Carr is switched over immediately. Try it, you'll like it..

Having said that, the only thing that's on that I currently like is series 6 of The Sopranos: once this final series is over (next year) I've only got ER left and that's been going downhill a bit maybe, or plateaued perhaps to be polite. Everything else is dead or gone - I won't watch The Simpsons on TV unless I am absolutely guaranteed nothing past series 8 will sully my eyes. I won't watch new ones anymore at all. I wish they had sacked them all when they threatened to strike for more pay (Fox advertised for soundalikes) and not made the later series. It's the worst example of cultural dilution in my lifetime: they took what was human and decent and honest and made it into a self=parodic freakshow. Homer isn't a father now, he's a monster: my own 'Jump The Shark' moment was when he was lying on the kitchen floor smashing beer bottles in an ep called something like '3 gays and a condo': that just wasn't the man i'd seen before who always tried to do the best for his family albeit in his own hopeless way. And I felt this before I had children in case you think that's a factor.

Anyway, Homer never goes to work (they make meta-jokes about it) and Bart and Lisa never go to school (not properly). They haven't written a properly-structured episode for five years or more, just "The Simpsons are Going To Japan/Brazil/Mars/England" or whatever crazy escapade they have this week. Marge doesn't care for Maggie, who never falls over any more, have you noticed?

It's sometimes possible to tell from the opening credits if it's a new ep never seen before (avoid at all costs) or one made years ago which you've seen a thousand times (you will still get something new from it if you watch it closely, and still enjoy it if you don't)

Incidentally, 'Happy Days' was considered part of the counter-culture when it was first shown: 'The Fonz' wore a leather jacket and rode a motorbike, perhaps the definitive images of rebellion to adults when I was an adolescent. Now it looks like the softest of cashmere conformity.

Oh, and I'm going to buy Resident Evil 4 from eBay so I might not be back for a while... never played RE before, sounds like fun. (Edit: too difficult!)

To the tune of "Stop the Pigeon"

Tap the trackpad, Tap the trackpad, Tap the trackpad, Tap the trackpad .. many thanks to robh, I have enabled this and it's great! He says it is a pain on his Powerbook but on this iBook it works gloriously. I used to use gestures in Firefox but I never made the connection, anyway I need to >tap<

Edit: robh has also encouraged mt to use scrolling gestures, double-tap on the trackpad over the scrollbar button then drag it down. I've got it to work (in a motor sense) , but it only really seems useful whent the scrollbar button is big (ie the text is small) as otherwise you run out of room.

Apres le deluge

In our 10-foot-square garden we have a 100+ year old pear tree. The upper reaches are infested with spiders, the garden was dug up last year for the conservatory, but this year it has been spectacularly and massively fecund. Huge quantities of blossom (I was shovelling it off the path) and consequently a major crop of pears.

Back before the West Pier was burnt down (by the thugs and criminals who own and run the other pier) it was home to a gazillion starlings - they really did used to blacken the skies, swirling in massive crowds. One of the things a few hundred did was to descend on our tree, and in the course of a week eat every single fruit (prefectly eaten cores would waft gently to the ground) tweeting to each other as they ate. It was a grand spectacle.

Now though the pears fall when overripe and they splat on whatever they hit. I was up cleaning the conservatory the other week cleaning handfuls of rotten pears out the gutters again. I have an improvised compost heap which I dumped them all on, though it hasn't been working at full capacity because there haven't been any grass cuttings this year (because the grass shrivelled up without water). Needs cutting now though, and all the pears have fallen now. Leaves next, cycle of life continues. We lie on the conservatory floor watching..

When a rotten pear splatted on the concrete or the glass or fell and rotted on the grass we called it a "chocolate pear". Certainly they were brown..

New look Windows

The Vista RC1 builds (finally got 5536 going) have new mouse cursors, including a throbber-like replacement for the 'hourglass' cursor - say hello to the Spinning Radioactive Doughnut Of Death: this image doesn't spin for obvious reasons.

Feet of clay

Glasgow isnae Brighton, but I was disappointed to hear of the firemen who refused to attend gay pride. Brighton's Gay Pride parade passes the end of our street every year, and up in the front are the Police. In order to avoid isolating gay and lesbian coppers they all march. Makes me fucking proud. The firemen could learn a trick from that, the big bufties.

BAD Vista

I got one of the pre-RC1 builds of Vista (5536) as I have lost interest in it somewhat and a new build always sparks interest for a while.

I always seem to be running operating systems on inadequate hardware: Windows 95 on a laptop with 2MB of RAM, OS X 10.4 on my beloved G3 ibook (384MB RAM), Windows 2003 Server on a 1Ghz P3 with 512 MB.. and several builds of Vista in a virtual machine with 334 MB. As I have mentioned before (bloody dell) I can't have more than 512 MB in my PC without a new motherboard, which so isn't going to happen.

Anyway, this is the result. Vista RC1 requires 512 MB of RAM to install..



Notice that it's the Vista installation that requires 512 MB of RAM.

Edit: I thought I'd give it a go at work. I wasn't expecting an MS-DOS error from Longhorn Server.. to be fair this is a result of Virtual PC failing to handle the DVD, using Microsoft's Virtual CD program to mount the ISO works every time.

Spam scouts

If you have a blog and you are fighting the good fight against comment spammers, look out for bland and seemingly innocuous "nice site, thank you" comments from people with distinctive names you don't recognise: they could be spam scouts, where if this one innocent comment gets through then thousands more follow chock full of the usual links. A quick google (sorry Google) for the name or comment text will usually tell one way or the other: check if the same user always leaves the same comment.

Edit: here's the guy - Jeorge Lukasing

Brave bold Sir Robin

Went to see Robin in hospital today - he had an operation yesterday to stitch his heel together with meccano.. his tibia and fibula split it when he landed heavily after vaulting an obstacle two weeks ago today (the kind of event that introduces you to the Twilight Zone of youth: you can still see it, but it isn't there any more.)

He's bearing up - Robin is tough - but he's going to be laid up for a while.

Uri Grossman

"I once thought of teaching my son a private language, isolating him from the speaking world on purpose, lying to him from the moment of his birth so he would believe only in the language I gave him. And it would be a compassionate language. What I mean is, I wanted to take him by the hand and name everything he saw with words that would save him from the inevitable heartaches so that he wouldn't be able to comprehend the existence of, for instance, war. Or that people kill, or that this red here is blood. It's a kind of used-up idea, I know, but I love to imagine him crossing through life with an innocent trusting smile - the first truly enlightened child"

David Grossman

Uri Grossman was killed last Saturday by a anti-tank missile in southern Lebanon. [Source]