At the weekend, we returned to the shopping “mall” to pickup my new wedding ring that was ordered the previous Monday. It is identical to the one it is meant to replace. The original was lost in 1999, the last time we had a proper holiday in fact, and was claimed by the English Channel. While frolicking in the surf with The Missus on St Aubin’s Bay in Jersey, the biggest wave I have ever seen (it seemed really big, honest) knocked me off my feet and took me under the water. When I regained my footing, I instantly noticed that my wedding ring was gone. Before the wave hit, I was in good spirits, laughing and playing in the sun and afterwards, I was reduced to blubbering and sniffing like a big baby as I frantically searched in the bubbling surf for the missing piece of jewellery.
Now I have a replacement and this time it is slightly larger to take into account of my larger fingers (I blame the guitar playing, honest). It is very sparkly, sparkly and I am feeling like Gorgeous George at the moment.
Bugwatch Update
On Friday, I entered the kitchen to hear a loud thumping noise. I initially thought it was a bird trapped in the kitchen, such was the noise, but on investigation I noticed it was a bug. I caught it and took photographs. It was as big as my thumb and very, very quick. I didn’t like the look of it. What do you think?
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Nature is all around us, but we are too busy rushing around to realise that the order of law is really that of tooth and claw. In the garden, a dead mouse, which looked as if it had been killed by one of the many cats in the area.
I think the little mouse has a sad beauty about it and I think the picture would make a great album cover.
Meanwhile, it is spider season at Chez Lock. The eight-legged freaks are everywhere! But I don’t mind spiders, we even had one in our bed the other night. After walking Alex this morning, I noticed that one spider had caught his breakfast, while I settled for a bowl of cornflakes and a cup of tea.
And here’s a close up of the action…
So I wrote the first 6,200 words of “Dead Rock Star” the other day. This equates to roughly two and a bit chapters. I handed it to The Missus and she pointed out that the concert scene needs to be extended and the death of the character was over too quickly.This is good and bad all at once. It’s good because, at last, I feel that The Missus is developed enough as a reader to see the inadequacies of my writing and isn’t scared to tell me, but it is bad because I don’t want anyone to say: “Hey – that bit is rubbish!”. What she said kind of tallies up with what I was feeling, but I am writing differently this time around. Before I was about getting it right in the first take – every chapter was delivered “as finished” and complete, whereas this time around I am writing a lot more freely and openly, leaving spaces for bits to be added on a second pass. I am not sure if this is a good way of writing or not, or whether I should go back to the “get it right first time” approach.
At the moment, I am feeling a little tense and afraid because we’ve no money and there’s not much work on the horizon. I don’t like it.
Airside wins two Alex Awards in the US
Design company Airside have recently won two prestigious awards at the “Alex” awards in the US. These awards are for packaging design and I would like to take this opportunity to blow my own trumpet. Parumpetty rump!!!
I wrote a profile of AIrside for MediaPack magazine and this article was seen by one of the judges on the panel who then nominated Airside’s work for Lemon Jelly’s recent “64-95” album. I’m really chuffed for them as I am a big fan of Lemon Jelly and Airside and I am really chuffed that my work sometimes makes a difference, even if it is a load of arty desinger types getting a pat on the back. Hurrah for me!
fans.gorillaz.com :: multimedia
The official Gorillaz Fansite has the video for “Feel Good Inc” available for download in Sony PSP format. Now that’s clever. I can imagine a lot of record companies are going to start doing this – offering FREE downloads of pop videos for the PSP because of the promotional impact it will have. Clever stuff.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Smart pegs keep rain off washing
While this is clever, the designer hasn’t considered the problem of washing already on the line. If you used their “intelligent” pegs, your washing would be locked down while the rains fell. At least with traditional wooden pegs, you can still run in and get the washing in.
My record for getting a full line of washing back into the house in a downpour is currently 1 minutes 24 seconds.
Domesticated, moi? You betcha! 🙂
BBC NEWS | Technology | Sony’s PSP breaks sales records
It’s no surprise the PSP is a success in the UK. FIrstly, it is a great bit of kit (my PSP is currently famous and starring in the current issue of Webuser under the title “Small Object of Desire”) and secondly, Sony launched with 25 top software titles plus a slew of UMD Videos. My only complaint is the cost of the UMD videos – they want up to £21.99 for some titles. For example, Hellboy is £17.99, but in the US I paid $12.99, which is around £7. If Sony dropped the UMD videos to between £5 and £10, then they would be hitting out of the ballpark.
But you don’t need to buy UMD videos when you can convert your existing DVD movies to PSP format. I’ve used a number of video applications but the best of the bunch is PSP Movie Creator. It converts DVDs straight to MP4 format without ripping the disc first. An average title takes about 50 minutes to convert and the results are stunning. Meanwhile, XOOM Movie Maker should be avoided like the plague as it doesn’t actually convert DVDs, it only works with Region free titles which limits the discs you can convert.