Overheard #30

Apparently, this was at a family dinner:

I quite like the diminutive walrus though.

I don't think it has anything to do with Ianklych.

Now Wii Am The Master

I don't own a Wii. But I know a man who does, don't I Paul? What do you want for Christmas, mate?

Wii light saber attachment + Lego Star Wars = Geek heaven!!

Appa Days

Afternoon. Just testing the new embedded flash player. Have a listen if you like, it's 'Appa' by Badmarsh & Shri (one of Freyja's favourites):


Yep, that seems to work. Now to try and change the default colours (although I'm a fan of grey, luckily).

EDIT: colours changed! Thanks, Alex...

Look In The Mirror?

Hang on, we appear to have been relegated!

(click for bigger)

Good win though, Wigan understandably came for a draw and we had to dig deep (especially in the face of some, er, 'borderline' tackling from Lucky Emile, amongst others) but Willy G showed why he's captain with a fine headed goal and Rosicky marked his return from a long-ish injury with a nice finish to a swift counterattack as Wigan had to press forward in search of an equaliser with only minutes left.

Oh, and did I mention this? Arsenal old-boy Grumpy Nic doing us a favour at last :)

Ready, Steady, Mech

Flatpack creatures to download (PDF), print out and build!

Perfect for those wet winter (and, to be fair, summer) Sunday afternoons, fellow Dads :)

Readymech Series 002

(My favourite is Tentaclopse...)

L B O

I saw a sticker on the tube the other day promoting this lot, so I checked it out:

London Breakbeat Orchestra

"Taking the orchestra to venues more commonly associated with DJs and rock bands, the London Breakbeat Orchestra demonstrates that orchestral instruments can be used for far more than classical music. Killer grooves, turntablism and FX plus 30 virtuoso instrumentalists combine to create floor fillers live. LBO is at the forefront of the underground electro-acoustic dance scene."

Rather fun crossover project. They've done Radio 1 sessions and that. Some tracks on the website too.

England 2 - 3 Croatia

I think this sums up England's performance, not just tonight but throughout this (non-)qualifying campaign:

England 2 - 3 Croatia

Still, at least we get rid of Quiff Boy ... what's that?
He hasn't resigned yet?
You're joking, right?

No?????

Overheard #29

Ahem.

There was a very good interview in the Observer with Girls Aloud. Actually, it may have been a bit frothy.

Overheard #28

To give this some context, it had been suggested that we needed to put a disclaimer on a document saying that it was most definitely not a certain other kind of document. Our noble leader piped up with:

Well, what else can it be - it's not a bloody sausage roll.

I'm still (inwardly) chuckling.

Breakout The Bunting

I'd really like this on a T-shirt (click for bigger):

xkcd does it again *applause*

RCRD LBL

Here's an interesting idea; rather than treating their customers as criminals, a group of record labels (including Warp, Modular and Kompakt for starters) have teamed up with a variety of music blogs/websites (Drowned In Sound, Seen) to offer ad-supported online content for free:

Seems to have only been going less than a week, but I imagine many more will want to jump onboard. They ask you not to 're-host' anything you find but in return offer a variety of widgets for your website/blog so that you can have auto-upating content direct from the RCRD LBL site (although if I'm honest I tried to get the Warp Radio widget to embed here and it wouldn't so some work to be done there. Or perhaps I am a muppet. That's more likely.)

Anyway, this was the weekend roundup of the posted MP3 - some interesting stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. More details of the usage policy and the Creative Commons license in the FAQ. Sign up, looks good.

HelvetICA

Last night, I spent 80 minutes looking at a font.

Helvetica*

Alex has written a brief review here with which I concur, on the whole. So type designers (should they be known as 'font fiddlers'?) are a bit crazy. And people who make films about type designers are also somewhat on the squiffy side :)

But it was a very entertaining documentary with some lighthearted moments - and that was, I think, the first time I have been to the cinema since Freyja was born in December 2005. It was really enjoyable; the ICA is a very intimate venue, with only ~6 rows of ~10 seats. There was a good deal of chuckling and light-hearted comment; it was more like watching the film in your front room, on a massive telly with a few mates round.

And yes, you were even allowed to take your beer in.

* this may not be Helvetica, obviously

Surreal Landscape Of Nostalgia

No, not Milton Keynes, but an interesting dissection of current parents' favourite, In The Night Garden on StrangeHarvest:

In the Night Garden - Surreal Landscape of Nostalgia

Not sure he needed all the screenshots, but my curiosity was piqued by this paragraph towards the end:

"The history of children's TV echoes throughout. There are references to the Magic Roundabout in the bandstand, to Camberwick Green in its mechanics, to Thunderbird 2 in the Pink-Ponk's [sic] green livery, to Trumpton in the echoey naive folk music. The texture of the image is made just as rich by combining live action, rickety stop-frame and gradient perfect CGI, and the soundtrack whose organic sci-fi squelching might have arrived fresh from the Radiophonic Workshop. The programme construction is perhaps the most sophisticated on British TV. And the effect is fantastic."

Blimey. The Pinky Ponk is Thunderbird 2 - look:

Overheard #27

Who said City boys are incapable of meaningful relationships:

Right, I'm going to spend more time with my synthetic woman.

Higher! Lower! Take The Money! Open The Box!

Good grief.

'Cool Cash' card confusion

"Tina Farrell, from Levenshulme, called Camelot after failing to win with several cards. The 23-year-old, who said she had left school without a maths GCSE, said: "On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't. I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher, not lower, than -8 but I'm not having it. "

Well, you're not having your £10,000 either, duck :)

(from the Manchester Evening News)

Demento (Slight Return)

Rattled, Fergie old fruit?

Man Utd probing Arsenal 'abuse'

"Manchester United are compiling a security dossier after claims that their manager Sir Alex Ferguson was verbally abused by Arsenal fans."

You. Don't. Say.

Sheesh :)

Grapes, Anyone?

Ah, it's nice to see we have them this rattled so early in the season.

Hargreaves mocks Arsenal 'beauty'

"Both of our goals were from really beautiful pieces of play ... their goals were a bit more scrappy."

So Rooney scuffs his shot, which rebounds off his knee onto Gallas's elbow and trickles in at the near post past a wrong-footed Almunia. Er, yes, beautiful. I will happily admit that their second was a lovely flowing move through Saha and Evra but so was our first and Cesc's cool-headed finish showed real class.

Sorry, Owen, wrong again.

Ferguson criticises referee Webb

"On our bench, we were getting terrible abuse from people two or three feet away from us. There is a lack of security. It is absolutely disgraceful the abuse you and your staff take. All sorts of things are being shouted and screamed at you and there is an absolute danger here."

Now I am very glad he has brought this to the attention of the watching media. Next time 65,000 people at Old Trafford start chanting 'disgraceful abuse' at Arsene Wenger, I shall watch with pride as Sir Alex halts the game, marches to the centre circle and turns to the fans with arms spread wide, shouting "Stop."

No, really, I'm looking forward to it.

And three final words: "Game. In. Hand."

Like, The Colours, Man

If you don't subscribe to strangemaps, do so at once. This one is brilliant:

The Colourful Side of the Moon

"This map is of the dark side of the moon, which here looks more like a Jackson Pollock action painting, its riotous colours corresponding to geological materials and phenomena. Many of the colour spots are circular in nature, reflecting the large number of meteorites that have impacted on the lunar surface, unprotected by an atmosphere, over many, many centuries. The map is one of a series produced by NASA and the US Geological Survey between 1971 and 1998."

Mesmerising.

USBeer

New great thing #1,238,656:

Can your flash drive do this?
*burp*
Pardon.