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'everything is nothing if you've got no one'

Thursday, January 30, 2003

Old but cool hat?
Remember The Strokes? Here's a great session they did for Terre T.'s Cherry Blossom Clinic on WFMU way back at the end of the 2000. Realaudio Strokes session - fast forward to about two hours in.
Posted by Edward @ 05:39 PM GMT
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Reaching out from afar
Someone from the Interactive Multimedia department coverted a VHS tape into a Quicktime movie. It was a promotional video of Bath and Bath Spa University aimed at people in China. As it was in Mandarin I couldn't understand most of the commentary but it was interesting that the college is spending a lot of money recruiting from far and away. They are realising that China has such a massive growing economy it would be silly to miss the opportunity to create important links with them. Bath itself has a fair proportion of Asian's studying here, I think at the other Bath University and the main college in the centre. It's a nice place to study but isn't really accessible for most people if you include the cost factor. They start interviewing for the academic year. I remember it well last year coming down for my interview, the fact it was pouring down almost put me off.
Posted by Edward @ 05:25 PM GMT
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Tuesday, January 28, 2003
Jumped high enough, reward yourself
Glad that this part is over. My presentation has been on mind for the past week. Although I could have done things much better and put my point across a bit better with more depth it rose interesting questions that I can address in my essay. These 9:30am-7pm Tuesdays are too much, especially when there is no place to get some snacks or a cup of tea after 3:30pm on our campus which is ridiculous. Flash was very interesting and we got through a lot of the basics. It's amazing what we learn in four weeks and the quality of some of the projects that people produce at the end of it.

Been looking at the new Apple 12" G4 Powerbooks. They look beautiful and I really like OS X, having the capability of dabbling with Unix underneath. Only thing is that they are still a tad expensive. Oh well we can dream. I could buy over 130 albums with the same amount of money. It's debatable which I would enjoy having more. Music tips the balance I think. So a 20gb iPod it is then!!! No seriously, there are some great albums worth getting this week including the new Teenage Fanclub compilation.

Posted by Edward @ 09:03 PM GMT
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Monday, January 27, 2003
Snip snap
Here's a nice link that was posted on the Media-Squatters mailing list. The Editing Room. Basically a site for spoof scripts of movies. I read the James Bond one and it was pretty hilarious. People have too much time on their hands to do this kind of thing.

I've managed to infect my household with The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots album. They are all hooked and rightly so. A superb collection of songs. Fight Test and AllWe Have Now are my personal favourites. Speaking of which, the compilation of the 2003 has arriving soon and I haven't heard it yet. The fourth installment of Dave Godin's Deep Soul Treasures will be a corker as the past three volumes have been. Mr Godin has the touch to find the greatest deep soul tracks. His Eddie and Ernie compilation is a work of genius too. Both available from Kent Records on the Ace label.

Posted by Edward @ 06:58 PM GMT
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Saturday, January 25, 2003
You have the choice
Okay I'm one person who hardly ever watches any Hollywood blockbusters because generally I guess they don't seem to excite me as older movies do. However on thei occasion I just watched Minorty Report with my housemates. There was definitely no minority report on the verdict. The last 40 minutes turned the film into a bit of a joke and the 'seen it all before' and 'how original' remarks started flowing. But to be fair it had a nice idea about it. Maybe if it wasn't presented in such a hi-tech way and trimmed to it's core idea it might have worked better but it wouldn't be so Cruise or Spielberg would it. Nice to see Samantha Morton as Agatha in there, star of the great Morvern Callar. That's enough blockbusters for five months I think.
Posted by Edward @ 10:54 PM GMT
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Friday, January 24, 2003
Blogerreha
After yesterdays missive, I am a lot calmer now. However I am truly getting sick of blogs. Not blogs in general but looking at their merits. It has been very interesting and I have learnt a lot about blogging but it doesn't give me enough of an insight into it. Anyone know of interesting articles on blogging by any chance?. By that I mean ones with a different take on bloggin, rather than the usual superficial comments of how it creates better communities and is a new form of journalism etc.

Bit old this news but finally the one most Windows iPod users have been waiting for. XPlay version 1.1 will allow you to copy songs from your iPod back to your PC. This is good news as I lost some of my MP3 on badly burnt CD-Roms and only have copies of them on my iPod. Soon enough I will be able to get hold of them. Read about the features of XPlay 1.1 currently in beta. Unfortunately it still doesn't solve the problem with the iPod battery life. It can be okay sometimes but other times it just dies fairly soon after a full charge. I thought the Sony polymer battery could take more charge cycles, even mobile phone batteries can withstand loads of charging and topping up.

Posted by Edward @ 07:27 PM GMT
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Thursday, January 23, 2003
A dangerous mind
At the danger of getting myself a lot of trouble I shall post my current thoughts carefully. I know I am meant to be putting my full efforts into this Interactive Multiimedia course and believe me I am. However the current state of play indicates I will have some problems getting through it unless I can change my mindset and work with theory. It takes more than reading a few 'influential' essays and try as I might I just can't find a way past the first post and that seems to be a bigger handicap with a bigger penalty. A bigger question is does it all matter as long as I get to the road I want? A tricky one. Three bad nights of sleep with this on my mind and the rumble of trucks going over a metal sheet covering the roadworks keeping me in touch with the night.
Posted by Edward @ 07:41 PM GMT
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Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Your mind plays tricks on you when your body dozes off
My brain is frazzled. Late evening Java sessions don't make as much sense as they should do even if you have done it before. Having chosen to do my Cultural Theory presentation next week, it's puts undue pressure on me to get all the work done this weekend. I am obviously going to put my best effort into it but I know how easily I could also fall into the trap of just obtaining a mark so that I pass the course. Sometimes things end up being compromised because the timing involved and personal situations, on an academic course this is also the case. Starting Flash next week will probably take the workloads to a new level. Now I understand why we haven't seen one of the guys this term going from full-time to part-time and now part-part-time.
Posted by Edward @ 08:53 PM GMT
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Monday, January 20, 2003
Brown with sticky stains
So we are back in rainy city. To make things worse there is new gas piping being laid on my street so it is nice and muddy. Fantastic.

I was suprised to hear that VSO have had a 40% decrease in applicants since September 11th. I would have thought that the people that they are attracting would not be too perturbed by the potential war threats across the globe. I know VSO has a policy of making sure countries and areas are safe for volunteers before sending them out there. It would not be high on my list of priorities. If you are going out to help someone you need to take that risk, you are just as likely to encounter terrorism in the UK so do you not walk out in the street. Anyway I still have ambitions to do a VSO before I am thirty. This was upped from twenty-five as I have few major setbacks getting there. Read the full story on the VSO volunteer crisis.

Posted by Edward @ 06:45 PM GMT
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Sunday, January 19, 2003
You questioning my taste
I am gutted at not being to see Cidade De Deus (City of God). I went along to the Watershed in Bristol and it was sold out ages before the showing. Will have to wait a few more weeks until the cinema in Bath shows it. Should have known nothing was going to work out from the week I've had.

Here's something interesting The Observer asked a few people the song that changed their life. Some interesting choices and some, well, not so interesting choices. Under these circumstances I can easily forgive people for making naff choices as the song in question probably defines a great moment/era in your life and to the outsider they will never understand unless they were there with you. Mine would have to be Little Hands by The BMX Bandits. The first song I heard by them in the early 90's, in bed on Hit The North on BBC Radio 5 and started my love for the twee-pop Glaswegian band.

Posted by Edward @ 05:38 PM GMT
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Shimmering grace full concrete angel dust
Most people have some sort of fridge magnets or decorations on their fridge. Unless they have an extremely smart kitchen and wouldn't dream of spoiling the smooth lines of their Smeg fridge. Anyway we have a set of magnetic poetry on ours much like a million other students. When I can be bothered the randomly chosen words are put into a semi-coherent manner.

Here are two untitled examples


Magnetic poetry untitled 1

Magnetic poetry untitled 2
Posted by Edward @ 05:27 PM GMT
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Saturday, January 18, 2003
A bit of loose change
Am I insanely bad at using a till? That's the question I keep asking myself every Saturday. When I cash up after my shift at Oxfam I find that I am nearly always writing a negative amount in the last box. Usually it's a few pence and that doesn't matter. What usually happens is that I end up having no pennies left near the end of the shift and start giving two pence to people. Sometimes though the discrepency is more like a quid but I am always very careful when giving change. I actually count the money back to them just to be on the safe side. The only explaination I can think off is that the float was wrong from the previous day as I don't count it in the morning. Either that or I cannot count correctly. It makes me feel worried as I am in effect losing money for a charity even though we did pretty well today.

Manchester City's defeat at Newcastle proabably says it all after losing the Fowler deal and Keegan going off on one at the Chairman. Here's hoping neither the team nor the manager bottles it at this stage of the season.

Posted by Edward @ 06:03 PM GMT
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Friday, January 17, 2003
This is all I have
This guy MC.Clintock has created wireframes of all the furniture in his house and then photographed everything. Really quite strange but quite fascinating. In his latest blog entry he says that he has photographed everything. I can't however somehow believe that unless he has an extremely tidy house. What about those odd items little items you get lying around. For example I could probably see about fifty items on my desk like a squidgy bean bag stress reliever, Singing In The Rain handcranked music box and a host of bullclips etc. I do like the fact when you go to his iPod you get to see his music collection though. The line underneath my iPod would say something like "I've got only a tenth of my CD collection on here. Would like higher capacity version.". In the end I think cataloguing all my possessions would not be a good idea after my house move. I expect to find even more junk if I looked closely enough.
Posted by Edward @ 03:30 PM GMT
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Thursday, January 16, 2003
Reflective screen
Learnt a new word today phelgmatic it means sluggish or not easily excited or agitated. Guess the meaning came from phelgm. I was pretty phelgmatic today though. Things have gone really slowly and although there are days you want that to happen I haven't done anything of note apart from make some cheeese and pepper bread buns.

In my early high school years I obsessively played one of the best video games in the world. Super Mario Kart had a brilliant level of competativeness as a single player racing game but as a two player game is where it excelled. The battle modes were a work of genius. It really defines the word 'fun' in a video game. So it was nice to see that even my aging computer could emulate the Super Nintendo and I could recreate those moments. It's not quite the same but gives you enough to remember. I can't believe that was about ten years ago.

Posted by Edward @ 08:22 PM GMT
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Tuesday, January 14, 2003
I don't have any personality
My friend Adam is doind his thesis on personality and music. He needs people to do the test (which I implemented for him) so if you would like to be involved then please go to http://onoffonoff.org/personalitytest/ and answer the questions. I must warn you that it's not a short test involving over 80 questions so only do it if you have time to think about the questions otherwise the results will be messed up. You'll get a summary of your personality type which is quite interesting and a copy of your answers.
Posted by Edward @ 09:34 PM GMT
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Your in a bad way and I've got some plans for you
So it was a bad outcome but at least it wasn't too late that it made a mess of things. It was better that I knew now. My registry was corrupted on my computer for the first time too. Can't believe that this stuff is happening. I think this may be an indication of what is going to come this week.

So start of term and things are still in some ways a bit of a mess. A bit of disorganisation makes for a closer knit group. Had a brief look at Quicktime VR. A relatively old technology but if used properly can be brilliant like this excellent spinning head example. Also had a talk from a local new media company which was informative. Good to hear that there are still companies doing well in this tough time. The early evening Java lecture was quite draining having started early and it was a good refresher on Unix and SQL, for people who were used to graphical interfaces it was a bit of a steep learning curve but it's well worth learning. In general it was nice to see everyone again.

Posted by Edward @ 09:18 PM GMT
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Monday, January 13, 2003
Straighten your back and muster some courage for life
Having a really bad day today, most things have turned into dust (unfortunately too delicate to talk about here). All the plans I have made have been disrupted or cancelled. Not good at all. Start the new term tomorrow which hopefully should take my mind off a few things.
Posted by Edward @ 05:26 PM GMT
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Sunday, January 12, 2003
Rock and Roll lifestyle part 2
From Thursday night...

So after everyone got kicked out of the club I turned into a roadie helping to lug a huge bass amp down the road to the van. Three of us were lifting this thing and we must have dropped it 20 times. Hope it still works. Not enough space in the van so I take Pop Threat in a cab back to my place, where the subsequent loudness wakes up the entire house and we get a telling off. Quite rightly so. At least everyone woke up fine and we staggered into town to meet up with the Real Losers and a greasy breakfast clutching bags of duvets and sleeping bags.

A classic moment in the cafe - Sean from The Real Losers buys a cup of coke and asks how much it was. The cashier goes 'one pound eighty-nine', Sean goes 'What! twenty pence!'. All of us look quizical and start laughing. Not quite sure why it was so funny but even now I find it funny. Probably the worst breakfast I've ever had. Memory returns after someone get's their digital camera out and we browse through the shocking photos.

What a weird night in a place like Bath too. I was half expecting the Bath Chronical to cover the shocking gig.

Better visit Pop Threat's website before they take it all down. There's no news about the split. Must have had a change of heart.

Posted by Edward @ 06:19 PM GMT
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Up down turn around, please don't le me hit the ground
Last night was really bizarre. I was invited to a classmates house for a dinner party along with some other classmates. This so nice and civilised that I almost didn't fit in. We had to bring our own plates and cutlery as Jessica didn't have enough sets. Delicious greek food, some wine and lots of chat and gossip about the course, life in London, the in-laws, parents having sex and the like. So I get back home and my housemate was having a belated birthday party which I knew about. What I didn't know was how drunk everyone was and the silly capers that Malcolm has again been up to whilst tipsy. He was a complete wreck. I thought this was going to be a civilised affair but it was pretty much the opposite, nice cosy atmosphere though even if people were drunkenly falling over each other and spilling drinks all over the carpet. There were some bad moods later on in the night and some people got upset. It's going to be a touchy household for a few days. Someone got lucky though.

That's it for going out and parties. No more till the end of term as I have gone overdrawn this month which isn't good since we are only two weeks into it. Time to sort out my finances and organise my workload.

Noted: Manchester are going to get some 16 giant sundials constructed at various parts of the city. Hope they are going to look as spectacular as the Commonwealth Games memorial sculpture that they are planning on building.

Posted by Edward @ 06:06 PM GMT
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Friday, January 10, 2003
Rock and roll lifestyle
So last night I gave myself the night off because I have been working hard for the past week or so. I went with a friend to see my friends band, Pop Threat, play at the Bath Moles Club. Having turned up quite early we saw the supporting acts too. The Seven Inches were a Bearsuit-esque type band and quite twee. There were lots of gimmicks like using a cardboard guitar and all sorts of weird dancing and bopping around by the lead singer. They seemed like they were having fun and that's what counts. The next band The Revelations were White Stripes garage-rock. I was impressed by them as they had the raw energy and being a three piece quite minimal. The lead singer had really impressive hair shooting out at all angles yet all frizzed up. Missed a bit of the The Real Losers trying to regain my hearing by standing at the back, punk-rock all over but good execution. By the time Pop Threat got onto the stage it was late and the band had had a fair bit to drink. It was the first time they got a proper rider do I guess they made the most of it. What followed was a great moment in rock and roll. They get on stage and start to play but they couldn't hear themselves so everyone was out if synch. Darren attempts to sort things out and causes a argument. Caroline storms off stage followed quickly by Darren. Leaving Juliet on bass and Mick on drums. The lead singer from The Real Losers gets on stage and does improvised rock and roll screaming. It must be noted that Mick was really drunk at this stage. Five minutes later Darren and Caroline reappear and seem to have sorted out their differences. They then annouce that the band are splitting up and continue on with a few more songs. Well actually they repeated one song twice but nobody cared. So that was it. Everyone then got subsequently leathered not knowing what to make of it.

Posted by Edward @ 04:31 PM GMT
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Wednesday, January 8, 2003
See you in the Northern sky
Although the heating is now half fixed, which means one heater was working in the multimedia suite it was still cold. It snowed lightly for about two hours today on the upper hills of Bath but it won't stick. It made the walk back home even nicer than previously.

The lack of other IM students coming into college is a bit disconcerting, either they are beavering away at home or they got all their work done over Christmas. Hope it's the former. Although my Director project on my former record label is not entirely bug free, the amount of work to get it working on the Mac and the PC has meant I have decided to leave it as it is before I break it. The start of term has already become unwelcoming.

Here's a great link I found ages ago but forgot about it When I Am King. Some mad cartoon that is done really nicely although it is heavy on download time. It was in a listings book I read today. Shame the T-shirts are not available anymore, they were really nice although slightly rude.

Posted by Edward @ 08:58 PM GMT
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Monday, January 6, 2003
This time it's one degree too far
Went into University for the first time since the Christmas break and blimey it was cold. I thought our toilet was cold but it was colder still, sitting around with gloves and a coat one is not the way to go. I am always curious why in most educational establishments the heating always fails after a holiday break. When I was in primary school this was always happening and all the kids had to get sent back home which was no bad thing. Same thing at high school and also in college. In University it wasn't compulsary to hang around so you just didn't turn up for lectures and things. Must be all those ageing central heating systems that don't like sudden switch off's.

The walk back home from uni is a always nice but the dusk and the moon made lower Bath look extremely nice this evening. Can't beat a nice brisk walk on a cold day.

Posted by Edward @ 10:05 PM GMT
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The bell man says 'going down'
Just been researching some stuff on the web and found this nice article on Apple and how it has created all the tool required for digital piracy from audio to video. It's a nice perspective but I still feel Apple are in it for the money and don't want to touch too many organisations nerves.
Read Apple and the Pirate Everyman

For about 5 minutes my web host went down. That's the first time in over six months that it's been down, doing a good job.

Posted by Edward @ 01:03 PM GMT
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Sunday, January 5, 2003
Now we are full
Everyone is back in the house now which is makes it a bit more cosy. Although the coldness of half the house is still shocking even with people living in it.

Been reading Small Pieces Loosely Joined by David Weinberger which is extremely interesting. His points of view about the Web is all sensible. Things to do with space, time and perfection are well written. Small quote:


It will never be perfect - complete, final, total, true without exception, good without hestiation. It is, therefore, a genuine reflection of our imperfect human nature, and a welcome relief from the anal-perfectionism imposed on much of our real-world lives.

A good read so far and not much over the top theory that makes it difficult to grasp.
Posted by Edward @ 09:20 PM GMT
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Saturday, January 4, 2003
Nice and cold
It snowed for approximately half an hour in the centre of Bath. I was hoping it would last a little bit longer as I'd not seem proper snow in Manchester for a while. The Oxfam shop was really quiet. Lots of people off loading lots of junk though, mostly unwanted Christmas gifts and decorations. Walking to the shop this morning at about 9am, the Lower Bristol Road was the quietest I've seen in the morning. I was wondering if people had given up going to the shops but it was soon busy by the afternoon. Everyone trying to get hold of sale bargains that they won't want next week.

I've had a change of heart about some big companies. I've been wearing watches made by Swatch for the past 15 years. When my Swatch Beat (with silly Internet Time on it, or also known as the chunkiest commercial watch in the world or the watch that has a animation of a dog peeing on a lamppost) broke a strap bracket, I was informed I couldn't get it repaired by three different shops in the US and over here I thought that I'd had to abandon it. It held together pretty well with superglue for a while and then it fell apart again. As the last resort I wrote to Swatch and they sent me some replacement brackets for free. I guess some companies are better than others with their customer service. Unlike Next who Andrea my housemate is having a shoe size problem with.

Posted by Edward @ 07:15 PM GMT
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Friday, January 3, 2003
Musically I'm stupid.
Finally it has stopped raining and judging from the newspaper reports have avoided some major flooding. In the meanwhile I have made the most of my going through the backlog of demos I have been sent even though my label has been closed for a good few months. Some good tracks, I am still constantly amazed with the amount of talent around not being heard. Have also finally brought Low's Trust album which is beautiful and had a few tracks in John Peels Festive Fifty. Speaking of which it was quite a good run down including my favourite Laura Cantrell track (Too Late For Tonight) off her new album.

I've uploaded a new picture onto The Lomographic website. Should have a few more new photos up their soon. The peace has been broken and Malcolm has returned to the house. He's already persuaded me to go to the pub. Blimey I can't let the new year start with being a typical student.

Posted by Edward @ 04:27 PM GMT
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Thursday, January 2, 2003
A spirited performance
So I managed to get out for a couple of hours before it started raining again. Walking past the River Avon I could tell things were bad and going at a hell of a pace. The water level was dangerously high. Now I do wish I was back in Manchester. With the rain pouring down, making a chocolate cheesecake seemed quite appropriate. Just waiting for my housemates to return.

The Guardian has compiled a list of hot tips in technology for 2003 and that includes blogging and blog related stuff. Read Guardian Online 2003 Survival guide.

Posted by Edward @ 06:38 PM GMT
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Buying panic
So far I have resisted the January sales. After moving house I realise now more than ever how wasteful I have been. I donated three bin bags worth of stuff to charity shops. If we buy something that is cheap but never/rarely used it then for me you've wasted your money. Actual not buying and being content with what you have is more difficult yet infinitely satisfying over retail therapy. You'll probably end up taking a load of things back anyway. Having said that I still need to curb my record buying habits but I have never wasted my records.
Posted by Edward @ 09:48 AM GMT
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