The world is potato-shaped
This is an experiment with on-the-move wireless internet access. GNER offer wireless access (for a small fee) and I decided I’d give it a go. So here goes: a photo taken with my laptop camera, uploaded to Flickr via GNER‘s wireless connection and blogged via WordPress. And all this from the (relative) comfort of my seat on a moving train. I love technology when it works!
I’m high up in the clouds, on my way to glamorous Limoges. I’m listening to DJ Olive’s set from Rhythm Incursions’ latest podcast and typing this post (offline of course, it’s only a Ryanair flight!). It’s great to be able to do all this while you’re flying through the clouds. This is my first out-of-the-house laptop experience and I’m really enjoying it. The air hostesses are as orange as usual with added gold accessory tack. It clashes beautifully with the bright blue Ryanair uniforms.
For the first time ever, I got stopped at airport security and had to empty all my backpack contents for a security guy to scan them. I kinda knew this would happen. For this trip, my backpack contained:
One really disappointing thing about this plane: The windows are too mucky to take pictures. Rubbish! Man, someone’s wearing a really strong perfume. It’s hurting my delicate nose!
Hello all! Or should it be “Hello me!”. Because as opposed to my other blog 1 Pixel Out, which gets about 9000 visits every month (Yeah!), this blog is visited by mainly one visitor. And that’s me. Well, I do get the odd LIMA member visiting because of my extensive collection of reviews and photos of LIMA gigs. Talking about photos, I have finally decided to move my galleries to Flickr. I have even created a LIMA group where you can find all LIMA related photos (of course).
Why the move to Flickr? Well, it’s a long story. I’m a web developer. I like writing my own web software and I’ve always had a tendency to dislike online services that offer hosted solutions for personal stuff. However, I have finally realised that this dislike is no longer valid. Why? Because the web has finally evolved into something Really Useful. The new wave of web apps like Flickr, del.icio.us or Technorati now offer really useful services and are also so powerful and easy to use that I feel totally comfortable using them for my personal stuff. Hence the move to Flickr.
I am also a very recent Mac convert. I’m writing this post on my brand new MacBook Pro (which is also my first ever laptop). I am now totally in love with Apple software and hardware but I had to find replacements for the software I had on my Windows PC. The hardest transition was from Picasa to iPhoto. I think there is no doubt that Picasa is a superior piece of sfotware engineering but I was determined to find an alternative for Mac. With Picasa, I had my own template system to export my galleries as XML so I could publish them on this blog. After some extensive research and some playing around with iPhoto, I finally decided to give Flickr a go and maybe 5 minutes after creating my account, I fell in love with the whole concept. After uploading a few pictures and reaching my photo sets limit (3 for a free account), I upgraded to the pro account which is incredibly cheap ($25 a year!). This move to Flickr should mean that I will be posting a lot more photographs. By the way, I have a really good collection of shots from a walk I did last Friday (including the wind turbine shot from my last post). I will be posting them on Flickr and linking to them from this website soon.
Hop Bof my friends! The future is bright, the future is tomorrow!
I’ve wanted to take this picture for a long time. I could hardly believe it when this appeared on the only wall kids could use to play ball against. One day, a Sky Digital guy arrived to install the dish and the sign. Having hundreds of shit channels and being fed advertising all day long is obviously more important than allowing your kids to play out.
I just did something really stupid. Actually, no!! It wasn’t me, it was bad software design. I use this little programme to cut samples out of my mp3 files. It’s called mp3trim and it’s very basic. You choose where the sample starts and where it ends and you click Save! (more exclamation mark abuse, the Internet / computer world is littered with exclamation marks).
So, I was cutting a sample from the very excellent Walk the Last Mile by Barry Adamson so I could post it on this blog and I clicked Save! without thinking. You guessed it, I really should’ve clicked Save As. Maybe that’s why they added the exclamation mark. Well, it wasn’t enough to deter me. Thinking about it, it probably encouraged me. Now, I need to rip the CD again (I do own the CD by the way).
Anyway, here’s the sample: Barry Adamson‘s excellent voice on the intro of Walk the Last Mile:
[audio:adamson-walkthelastmile.mp3]Bought loads of stuff yesterday. New clothes, new music, new hair. New hair? Well, no, I didn’t buy new hair, I just got it cut shorter (very adventurous!). Anyway, got some new clothes, hence the new tiny-pic™ in the sidebar (can you just about see the new hoody?).
Couldn’t resist a second-hand CD shop on my way back from town. Bought 3 albums:
The guy in the shop told me: “There’s an odd one out here“. 😉 Anyway, it was really good to hear this again:
[audio:sepultura-roots.mp3]By the way: the audio player above is also new. Expect more audio gem samples in the future.
3 weeks without a cigarette. I feel rather good. No major breathing problems, no scary pains in the chest area. Yes, I feel pretty good. It’s early October but today was warm. Played frisbee at lunch time and it felt more like Spring than Autumn. Good isn’t it?
Should be. I’m increasingly pleased with my photos. The self-portrait I took at the Brudenell Social is my favourite so far. Even some of my party photos are going to feature on some website somewhere sometime… I think I need my own camera. With my very own I think I’d have an even stronger sense of ownership. Hehe. Just came up with this theory. I’m good with theories me.
This is the first proper personal post on this blog. Might there be more to come? Who knows? I certainly don’t (certainly not me, certainly not me). This blog is growing in a strange organic way. I wonder if anyone is reading out there? I should write more and with more song references (I like song references (I also like brackets a lot)).
Hey! I think I could get used to this type of writing. Feels like I managed to write a decent amount.
And what about substance?!?
Well, I’m thinking that substance will eventually turn up at one point. This post might be a little weak on the substance side but you have to start somewhere, don’t you? I know I can do this. And am I not the main reader of Lepti? I mean, isn’t this my personal weblog? Well there, I can write what I want.
Till next time, my advice for today is: make stuff.
I feel gooooooood…
It’s finally here. After a few false starts, torrential rain and positively chilly winds, Summer has arrived. Glorious sunshine and hypnotising blue skies, it feels good to be living again. Man, it feels good. Perfect temperature for listening to Infected Mushroom‘s masterpiece The Other Side, the second disc of the Converting Vegetarians album. Oh yes. This is high quality stuff. You just have to listen to it loud. Actually, louder that loud. The orchestration and arrangements are superb, the rhythms always flow in the right direction, the diversity of the sound textures and the variety of the melodic influences make this a piece of work of the highest quality.
Highlights: Converting Vegetarians and Blink
Disappointments: NONE