Royal Mail artificial 'intelligence' has a way to go

Out there in the world of cool companies and technology there's a lot of fun pseudo-AI bots that can be played with, nominally in the interests of 'customer service', but in reality, often just to try and make them talk dirty.

A prime example of this being implemented well is 'Ask Anna' on IKEA's homepage (bottom left), in which a nubile young blonde will discuss sci-fi and the weather, if you so desire. She does have an unhealthy obsession with trying to sell you IKEA products too, but - with looks like that, you can't complain about one little foible.


_{Ah, Anna. How I love to see you smile and flutter your eyelashes at me}

A prime example of this being implemented badly is 'Ask Sarah' on the Royal Mail homepage (top middle), in which a menopausal make-up counter assistant will discuss how little she knows with you. I'm fairly sure she's not actually a 'chat bot' in any meaningful sense of the word, and is instead just a little search engine.


_{I don't know where your parcel is...but we have 2 for 1 on all Pantene products today!}

Even more frustrating that Sarah though, is the automated phone based 'Track & Trace' service offered by Royal Mail, which lets you discover precisely what's happening with your Special Delivery parcel...supposedly. Again, the actual state of affairs differs somewhat - here's a short snippet of my conversation with the automated girl (who was made to sound as much like a real person as possible):

Hi
Hello, would you please read out your tracking number for me
Su...
..she interrupts, and I realise it's not a real person
Please read out just the numbers and letters, and nothing else. For example, read out 'GZ1234..and so on'.
GJ2247423GB
Let me just confirm that, did you say GZ2247423GB?
No
Sorry, I didn't understand that, please say either 'Yes', or 'No'.
No
Sorry, I didn't understand that, please say either 'Yes', or 'No'.
No
Sorry, I didn't understand that, please say either 'Yes', or 'No'.
No
Hello, would you please read out your tracking number for me. Please read out just the numbers and letters, and nothing else. For example, read out 'GZ1234..and so on'.
GJ2247423GB
Let me just confirm that, did you say GZ2247423GB?
No
Sorry, I didn't understand that, please say either 'Yes', or 'No'.
No
Sorry, I didn't understand that, please say either 'Yes', or 'No'.
No
Sorry, I didn't understand that, please say either 'Yes', or 'No'.
No
Hello, would you please read out your tracking number for me. Please read out just the numbers and letters, and nothing else. For example, read out 'GZ1234..and so on'.
GJ2247423GB
Let me just confirm that, did you say GZ2247423GB?
No
Sorry, I didn't understand that, please say either 'Yes', or 'No'.
No
Sorry, I didn't understand that, please say either 'Yes', or 'No'.
No
Sorry, I didn't understand that, please say either 'Yes', or 'No'.
No

..it went on much longer than I can be bothered holding Ctrl+V for.

You'll be glad to know that this kind of automated speech does have a future though, I recently took part in regional testing (putting on my best Welshy accent) for another, as yet unreleased service, which was absolutely superb, even in this early testing phase. It was for a company who are more known for their technological innovation though, rather than a company known for going on strike and losing things.

--

I should also probably add, to Royal Mail's credit, after fifteen minutes, I eventually tricked the automated phone girl into transferring me to a real person, who answered everything quickly and efficiently in all of about 10 seconds.

Unfortunately though, for now it's:

Humans 1 - 0 Technology :(

Next round: Laser deathmatch.

--

Also also, I still don't have my copy of GTA IV. Which is lucky, because if I'd been influenced by its violent tendencies, I'd probably vent my frustration at not having it by shotgunning some prostitutes.

New site design

With thanks to Tie-Dye Heart artist Gib for some graphical flair to make it all happen. If you fancy seeing what things would have looked like if the graphics were left up to me...


<sub>Firstly, let's get some fading at the edges


Now for a 'ripped page' effect (on the left, click to zoom)</sub>

Beautiful

Turn the lights off and the volume up, then watch this:



This is Manu Delago playing the Hang, a relatively new instrument created in Switzerland in January 2000. It's melodic, percussive and beautifully unique and I really, really want one. Unfortunately, there's only two people in the world making Hanghang, and demand has become so high that you have to personally apply to have one made. Also - they're simply not to be found for resale, for obvious reasons :(


_{Three Hanghang - what a cool pluralisation}

As such, I've contented myself with buying all three of of Manu Delago's albums, which should be arriving fairly soon. I'm also really hoping to go and see him either in London on Thursday the 15th of May, or Glastonbury on Saturday the 17th of May. If you can make either of these dates - then please please let me know, though I'll probably just go on my own if not.

Finally, if I'm feeling particularly upset that I can't purchase my own Hang, then I can play with the fairly crude E-Hang that some kind soul has created. Here's hoping it's still a work in progress :)

Twitter - A Beginners' Guide

0: What is twitter?

Twitter, often called a 'micro-blogging' tool, is 2007's answer to social networking. Wherever you are, you can post short messages answering the question 'What are you doing right now', for others to view. Likewise, you can view what your friends and e-friends are doing too - or even use it for quickfire conversations.

I got into it quite a bit back when it launched, before losing interest as few of my friends would use it. I now have a few friends using it, so I've taken up the habit again, and I'm writing this guide in the hopes of getting a few more.


1: Getting started

Let's start with the basics :)

1.1: Register
The first thing you'll want to do is sign up for a Twitter account. It's a quick and painless process, and they won't sell your details to dubious 'adult entertainment' sites :)

1.2: Find your tweeting friends
Dancing With Myself was an 80's classic courtesy of Billy Idol, but Talking To Yourself is just a symptom of mental illness. Pop onto the Invitations page to find anyone in your Gmail/Hotmail/other address book already on Twitter and start 'following' them - or invite some more. Once you spread the word a bit more, other people will start following you, and you can then stalk watch them too.

1.3: Customise your Twitter page
Upon purchasing a new Role-Playing Game, any self respecting geek will spend the next 8 hours designing their character and picking a name for them. Likewise, I imagine you'll want to customise your page.


2: Set up your devices

Hard though this is for me to contemplate, but apparently Cool Stuff^TM can happen when you're away from a computer. Rather than just ringing a couple of your favourite people, why not tell the entire internet straight away?

2.1: Mobile Phone
On the devices page, you can configure your mobile phone to send and receive texts from Twitter. I personally just use the sending feature, as I got annoyed at being woken up at 3am to hear what people were drinking. Texts are just your standard network rate, and will count as freebies on any contract - and there's no charge to receive them.

2.2: Instant Messaging
Those enlightened few amongst you using GTalk or Jabber can add twitter@twitter.com to your friends and tweet directly from your IM client. The rest of you, just move along...nothing to see here.

You can even get other people's tweets sent to your IM client too - choosing which ones you want. Once again, set this up on the devices page.


3: Publish your Tweets elsewhere

Try though you might, you're going to end up with some friends who aren't geeks. They won't install one of the many Twitter readers, nor will they visit your Twitter page. But they do need to know what you're eating, and how it tastes. So let's get that important information a bit more in their face.

3.1: Facebook
There's a little Facebook app by the name of TwitterSync that can automatically synchronise your Facebook status with your Twitter updates. Unlike other Facebook apps, it won't ugly up your profile, and it's very slick, well featured and reliable. Highly recommended.

3.2: Windows Live Messenger
Twessenger is one of the few Windows Live Messenger add-ins you can currently play with, and it'll update your subline with your tweets. If you want to install it now, I'd pay close attention to the README.txt you get, as the interface is still only half-done from the Windows Live side. Works fine and safely for me though.

3.3: Your website or blog
Twitter Badges are customised so that with just a click or two you can have your Twitter feed on your Blogger blog, Live Space or other site. Alternatively, if you're the kind of guy or girl that likes to do things yourself, you can just use the RSS feed that your tweets generate.

As a final note, Twitt-Twoo should be your choice if you're on Wordpress.


5: Other random Twitter crap
Like every web 2.0 meme that exposes an API, Twitter has a million other applications which take advantage of it, or not - as the case may be.

5.1 Twitter/maps mashups
TwitterVision is a mashup of Google Maps and Twitter which shows you the most recent tweets worldwide, and where they were posted. It's a fascinating and time-consuming way to procrastinate, and an app in which you can lose yourself for hours at a stretch.

Some people have recommended GeoTwitter as an alternative, but I find it a bit clunky and ugly. TwitterVision's the way.

5.2: Rich Desktop Client (Windows or Mac)
twhirl is a gorgeous, flashy little desktop app built on the exciting new Adobe AIR platform. Super-powerful with multi-account support and online/offline support. If you've not tried AIR out yet, this is a good starter app.

5.3: Vista Gadget
Twadget - possibly the worst application to follow the Twitter app naming convention. Sounds more like something one could be arrested for in the middle ages. Useful if you're a Vista fan though.

5.4: Mac Widget
Twitterrific is your alternative if you've got a sexy little Mac and you haven't yet formatted it and put Vista on ;) Cool little Widget, and absolutely beautiful.

5.5: Outlook integration
Brought to you via OutTwit - not very good looking, but useful for those of you who live inside the world of Microsoft Outlook.

5.6: Firefox integration
The most popular Firefox plugin for Twitter is TwitterFox, which adds a little symbol in your status bar, which can then pop-up a textbox for updates. Personally though, I much prefer TwitterBar, which integrates slickly with your address bar, without getting in the way.

--

That's all folks, hope it helps - and feel free to start following me.

Xx

Shakeaway

Rather than sit around in my (awesome, tie-dye) dressing gown all day today, I decided to take Julie-oh out for a nice walk. Unfortunately, being Reading, there's precious few places to actually go for a walk and so it was off to the town centre for us.

To prevent her from wandering into every shop in The Oracle, I had to make sure that we both had some messy drinks in our hands and so it was time for me to finally get around to visiting Shakeaway, which I'd always meant to do, but hadn't yet got around to.

They have around 150 flavours, from Tic-Tacs mint to Jammie Dodger, from Sugar Puffs to Orange Marmalade - even Farley's Rusk featured on their rather eclectic list. After choosing any combination of these flavours, you can then have whatever you want on the top of bottom and add in a bunch of extras. Alternatively you can just choose one of their specialty milkshakes that they've had years to put together.

From the Shakeaway website:


_{"Average choosing time for a Shakeaway customer: 4.47 minutes".
Average fashion sense: 1/10}

For a full menu, I'd recommend the Shakeaway Milkshakes Download but their awful, 90's website does have it in plain HTML format if you'd prefer; Shakeaway Milkshakes Menu. It's quite amusing if you can stand the <marquee> tags.

They have stores all around the South - and even the wit to create a custom Google Map of Shakeaways.

Off you go.

DeLOLrean

I've started hiding some extra bits of amusement and fun to Tie-Dye Heart recently, for those people I've noticed who are pinging the site to find every last bit of content. I'll let you find some of it yourselves (the treasure hunt is particularly fun) but for those who read over here too, I'll share this, as it's not original:

Back To The Future - Via AOL Instant Messenger

I've only put BTTF part 1 up for now, but I'll upload the other two at some later date. I highly recommend watching the full film and then reading over the whole set of conversations. You won't, but I still recommend it. It's an awesome film if nothing else.

Enjoy, and go hunt out some of the other joy.

Xx

My copy of GTA IV is in the post...

...and I won't be home when it arrives!

*cry*

One liners

I love Tommy Cooper style jokes, aka 'one-liners'. I was browsing through a big list of Tommy Cooper's One Liners trying to find a certain joke (below) when it ocurred to me that they're not really one liners at all - but two lines long at least.

Line 1: "So I got home, and the phone was ringing. I picked it up, and said 'Who's speaking please?'
Line 2: And a voice said 'You are.'"

Some of the ones on that site are three or four lines long. The misnomer is disgraceful.

"And the back of his anorak was leaping up and down, and people were chucking money to him.
I said 'Do you earn a living doing that?'
He said 'Yes, this my livelihood.'"

I'd visited the site after being reminded of a favourite one liner, and sending it to a few people on MSN. Most of them let me get to the punchline before replying, but one girl didn't:

Ina says:
Yesterday, someone offered me 8 legs of venison for £50
Imogen says:
jesus christ
Imogen says:
did you buy it?

I was almost tempted not to supply the punchline ('But I said "No, that's 2 deer') there...

Surface is in the real world

From Gizmodo:

Multi-grope: Interacting with Microsoft Surface at the AT&T Store

We've not got any in the UK yet, but the Microsoft Surface (<-- click this, leet site) has suddenly appeared in 5 mobile phone shops in the US yet. I'm almost tempted to go out there just so I can play with one.

Paris Hitch 2008

I've just spent 36 hours hitch-hiking to Paris, eaten an average bowl of chips and then caught a 12 hour coach back to Bath. Tomorrow morning I need to be at a venue in Cardiff to start work at 6am. I'm off to sleep very soon...but here's a quick update as to why I suddenly disappeared off the face of the planet a couple of days ago.


_{The secret to hitching? Smiley faces and the word 'CHARITY'}

I was on the phone to Lucie at 11.30pm on Thursday night, having just had what I thought was an exciting adventure with a fire alarm in Asda. I thought I'd been fun and impulsive suggesting we follow a BMW leaving the Asda car park to see if they were going to another supermarket (they were).

More fun, and more impulsive, and more exciting, was finding out that her partner for the Bath University Paris Hitch had let her down and that she needed someone male to travel with. After checking I met the strict criteria it was a very early morning train to Bath for me on Friday morning, after a late late night staying up making sure that Work wouldn't fall apart without me for a day.

A million health and safety briefings at Bath later, and it was time to start hitch-hiking. Finding a lift to the M4 was no problem and a couple of cars and a lovely lorry-ride later, we were at Newbury Services. Stepping out of our ride to Newbury Services, we were accosted by a gentleman who saw our sign and offered us a ride to Reading Services. 4 seconds from leaving one ride to getting another - that has to be some kind of record. Pity it was just back to Reading, which I'd left at 7am to get to Bath...


_{I had to point out the problem with Lucie's original idea to get us on the M25 going anticlockwise}

An unplanned trip to Heathrow followed (to the chap from Roadway to Runway: 'No, the M4 is *not a dual carriageway with a nice lay-by, and no we can't just "run across it". Also, screw you for dropping us at Heathrow) which did rather put us out a bit. Once the police had moved us along from the terminals, it was a long long walk around London in the rain before a charitable cabbie got us back on track - all for free.


_{Dover really was quite cold}

A Polish lorry driver took us down to Dover (letting us off in the middle of the docks, in an area security were very unhappy to see us in) where we ended up spending the night. People aren't too happy to pick hitchers up at midnight in the dark and cold I'm afraid to say.


_{On the ferry, our 'destination whiteboard' also served well for Pictionary}

After a cheap night in the Eastcliff Hotel (possibly the worst establishment on this island), we managed to get through to Calais the next morning, which is a complete and utter dump. We eventually arrived at Paris around 8.30pm - just in time to walk through some increasingly disturbing ghettos before finding our Hostel. Then, after the aforementioned plate of chips, it was a coach ride all the way back again.


_{I wasn't the only tired one on the coach ride back. Aren't they cute?}

Bed for me now.
Xx

Travelling around

Well I'm on the road with work a lot more over the next few weeks, so if any of my scattered friends want to meet up at any of the below dates/places - send me a mail or something. Or you could even use the comments button here, it won't bite folks ;)

April
Friday 18^th
London

Sunday 20^th - Monday 21^st
Cardiff

Tuesday 22^nd
Woking

Friday 25^th
London

Tuesday 29^th - Wednesday 30^th
Old Windsor

Wednesday 30^th (that's not a typo...eep)
Manchester

May
Thursday 1^st
Manchester

Friday 2^nd - Monday 5^th
Bath

Wednesday 7^th - Thursday 8^th
London

Tuesday 13^th
Glasgow

Friday 16^th
Newcastle

Tuesday 20^th - Friday 23rd
Birmingham

Saturday 24^th
London

Friday 30^th - Saturday 31^st
Lake District

June
Sunday 1^st
Lake District, Birmingham

Monday 9^th - Friday 13^th
Newquay

--

Assume I'm in Birmingham for any dates not listed :)

I'm on Graphjam, woo!

As those close to me may have noticed, I've recently become increasingly addicted to all this graphical. I always like geekery and science, naturally, but the rise of the internet's graphing meme has grown on me to the point where I can't go a single day without drawing a few graphs. I actually abandon verbal conversations halfway through to go and draw my sentences on a whiteboard instead.

Unfortunately my first contribution was made some time ago, when I was still young and naive, and so fits quite firmly into the grey area of the following:



Still though, it's not too bad, and does promote good usage of the English language - so go vote for it (just click how many pies you think it deserves over at Graphjam...and then spend the next hour browsing the rest of the site:



You may have noticed, by the way, that I used Google Docs to create that graph by the way. An online, web-based office suite that saves all your data to an online space, meaning that you never have to install any software or manually transfer any data?

Sounds good, but it's not quite as powerful or simple to use as Microsoft Office yet. Still though, it's the future...

New Guitar!

You've won this eBay item: Left Handed Custom Jazz Bass (140223264158)



Wooooooop! :D Although, to be honest, I wasn't really expecting to lose the bid. I don't really think that the online market for fretless left handed custom jazz basses is exactly booming. ^{[citation needed]}.

..damn my ingrained Wikipedian habits. Well, here goes:

0.25% of people
I'm starting with a US figure as most eBay users are...American. Population of 300,000,000 ^[1], guitarists in the US: 750,000. ^[2]

0.025% of people
Approximately 10% of people worldwide are left-handed. ^[3]

0.0025% of people
Approximately 10% of those lefties that play guitar, play left-handed guitars. ^[4]

0.00225% of people
Whilst I don't have a reliable figure, I also know that a not insignificant percentage of left-handed guitar players merely buy right-handed guitars, and flip the string around. Examples include Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney. ^[5] I'm going to use 90% as a generous figure for left-handed people who play left-handed guitars.

0.0022500..01% of people
I'm presuming that few if any right-handed people play left-handed guitar, but I suppose we should accept it's a possibility, and some of these musical types are quite eccentric. No reference here, so disregard if you wish.

0.0000832500..01% of people
3.7% (20 of 539) of bass guitars on eBay today are fretless. ^[6]



0.0000099900..01% of people
12% of guitars on eBay are basses. See above.

0.000000199800.01% of people
No-one likes jazz, at all. I'm using 2% as my figure for simplicity of mathematics, and because I have another definite source for this. When I stood up at a meeting of the Aston Live Music Society in my second week of University, and asked if anyone else in the room wanted to play jazz, 98 other heads turned to avoid me and look into their drinks (one person put their hand up).

46 people
eBay has 233 million registered users ^[7]. Multiply that by my percentage and we end up with 46 people. That's 45 other people who might want to buy this guitar too, and I was fairly confident none of them would be looking for a new bass guitar today. I was right.

--

Anyhow, I digress. I have a gorgeous new guitar! More about that when it arrives.

If you got this far in the post, by the way, I recommend reading GeekSpeak: Why Life + Mathematics = Happiness, you'll love it.

I have found the most bizarre website in the world

I popped the word 'Laundrette' into Google a second ago, just to check I had the spelling right (I don't have FireFox with SpellChecker on this machine...also, the correct spelling is 'Launderette', so I'm glad I checked), and was so intrigued by the top search result I couldn't stop myself from visiting:

The Laundrette
Here are my reviews of laundrettes I have known. Please feel free to email me with your laundrette reviews and I will add them here...

With reviews of three launderettes in Birminham, and one in Shifnal - followed by links to websites that appear to be for Australian launderettes, and then one to A comprehensive list of launderettes near the waterways in the U.K..

Utterly surreal.

Two things

1. Some medical advice



2. Some musical advice

Listen to Dizzee R4sc4l. I admit, he can't spell, his website is pink and he can never manage to get his hat on straight. On the other hand, I've been subjected repeatedly to a song of his in my housemate's car, entitled 'Fix Up, Look Sharp'.

I'm not entirely sure what fixing up is meant to mean, or how it relates to looking sharp, but I am impressed that he's got something very melodic and cool sounding out of one looped, sampled drumbeat and acapella vocals. I'm more impressed however, by some of the lyrics.

2.1 Possessions
Some rappers like to brag about the amount of cash they have stashed away. Others about the copious amounts of drugs and alcohol they possess. Others again wish to regale you with tales of the size of their female entourage. Not Dizzee. Dizzee R4sc4l thinks you'll be more impressed by the following:

"[I've got] Trainers by the truck load, trainers by the tonne"

Clearly a man to be reckoned with. Personally, I've only got three pairs, and I think that excessive.

2.2 Personality
Again - where his competitors may want you to know about how 'bad' they are, or let you know that they're violent and surly, Dizzee is a bit different. He wants you to know how sweet he is. Isn't that cute. And, sweet he is indeed:

"I stay sweet as a nut, sweet like Tropicana"

Some rappers may be scared to end a line with 'Tropicana', given the obvious lack of potential rhymes, but our boy isn't scared here. I'll let you listen to the song to hear his masterful scheme.

2.3 Pedigree
Finally, and this is what does it for me, Dizzee proves he really is a lad of superb breeding, fully suited to the rough scene of the ghetto he likes to rap about. Congratulations and awards are clearly in order for being the first rapper to reference this eminent British institution:

"Come to me with an attitude, come a cropper,
I'm old school like Happy Shopper"

Superb.

UpShot

Today I've spent most of the day in front of the TV, playing with XNA Game Studio 2.0. I've come up with a relatively fun upwards scrolling shooter, a bit reminiscent of Xenon II - and others of that genre.

One of the major failings of XNA is that it's bloody hard to actually share your game out to someone else - so I'm not going to bother with that until it's complete, but here's a screenshot:



As you can see, it's still somewhat a work in progress - although that's mostly aesthetic. I've got little numbers rather than healthbars, and random images grabbed from the web instead of actual texture for my ships, bullets and other such things. The bullets are in fact just the logo from Tie-Dye Heart.

The worst enemy in the game is the German at the moment. The French are weak cowards who hide as far away from the player as possible. There's more, but you get the idea ;)

It's even got some retro-sounding soundtrack that I put together using some free clips from BBC OneMusic which is frankly a superb service - and one I'm very impressed.

There's only a few 'levels' for now though, and the powerups are a little too...powerful. If you can stay alive for more than five minutes your bullets will take up half the screen and obliterate any enemy nearby. Still though, fun to play and fun to make.

Flash Mob + Rickroll = Rickmob!

FlashMob
A group of people, typically students, will arrive at a designated public location at a specified time, and perform an inane act synchronously, and then abruptly leave.


_{The London Splashmob in Hyde Park}

Rick Astley
King of the Universe. Rather famous for his 80's pop hit Never Gonna Give You Up.

RickRoll
Being directed to a certain place on the internet, but instead finding yourself taken to the above video. Apparently, watching 'Never Gonna Give You Up' is something to be avoided...but I actually visit that link without provocation, just for fun. I love Rick Astley.

RickMob
Hundreds of people, at Liverpool St. Station, all singing Never Gonna Give You Up. How did I not manage to find out about this in advance? How did I miss this momentous and life-changing event? I could cry.


_{The video's pretty poor quality, I admit, but the best I could find}

[citation needed]

I was happily looking around Wikipedia a bit, trying to find the name of a certain chap from Greek legend for an XNA game I'm writing (Bellerophon was the fellow I was looking for, by the way) - when a little something caught my attention in the article on Pegasus:

"On the last day of his life, when Zeus transformed him into a constellation, a single feather fell to the earth near the city of Tarsus.^{[citation needed]}"

Now, asking for substantiated references for events that the Greeks weren't even too sure about seems a bit harsh - but if that's the done thing...I thought I might join in.

The articles on Jesus were very carefully worded (all 'the Bible says' and 'according to Luke') so I couldn't have much fun there. I was tempted to edit certain other pages - such as publishing this preview:


_{Click to embiggen}

Eventually, the temptation to vandalism faded - but I decided to go and look at some other examples. If you fancy watching some hilarious arguments online, then I'd recommend looking up the 'history' and 'talk' pages of various controversial Wikipedia articles. Chuck Norris for example.

There's also days worth of entertainment around the Mudkip(z) meme. Highly, highly recommended reading.

Summer plans

Today (presumably) for being so wonderful, my contract at MS was extended until the end of June. Given that I've got a house here in Reading 'till the start of July anyway it's probably for the best - but it does make my plans of landing a job over at Last.FM over the summer.

I'd planned to work for 3 months with them, doing various bits of drone work - and listening to lots and lots of new and exciting music. I imagine the office atmosphere would be pretty leet too (rumour has it they hold their interviews in their giant ball pit).


_{I imagine work at last.fm would look like this every day}

Unfortunately, doing that with my next contract extension would involve starting on July 1st and finishing on October 1st at the earliest - not really the best idea given that University probably want me to turn up for my final year. Also I have various other fun things planned:

• Week's drinking in Newquay, in a Caravan, at Summer Break 2008.


• Long weekend's camping in the Lake District


• Week long roadtrip to Belgium with The Idiots


• Possibly working at (and therefore, otherwise attending) Reading 2008 ^{will you be there?}


• Professionally recording various jazz compositions/jams in Cardiff


• Various other short trips and events...depending on budget and friends

So, let me know if you have anywhere exciting you want to go (with me) and I'll set about filling up the gaps in my schedule. EasyJet's a mere £30 or so return to many lovely places :)

Mondays

It's 2.45pm, and I want to shoot myself. Here's my day so far:


_{Click to embiggen}

On the plus side - graphs are ace.

On fruit

I don't think I've consumed quite as much fruit in a 24 hour period as in the one just passed, and I can tell you that I currently feel awful. My head is throbbing, bright lights hurt and my mouth feels inexplicably dry.

It all started yesterday, with a seemingly innocent apple in the office, around 3pm. I thought, 'hey, one little bit of fruit won't harm my work' and indeed, I managed to get on with another couple of hours of productive coding before it was time to head home.


_{As a child, I was exposed to all kinds of fruit through subliminal advertising in children's TV}

Back at the house, before I headed out for the night, I stopped by the kitchen for a quick banana. All true students know that it's best to start eating at home, before you move on to expensive pubs and bars - after all, you can buy nice and cheap and in bulk at any supermarket.

Shortly enough, I strolled out to a micro-brewery/pub nearby to meet Will for his birthday celebrations - and decided to sample one of the pub's latest specialties, a mango beer. The fruit orgy continued with a passion fruit beer and in a short amount of time, I was feeling decidedly lightheaded.


_{Strawberries - so sweet and tempting}

We strolled over to the Oakfield Social Club later on, where I had Früli recommended to me. A couple of these lovely strawberry beers later, and then I was back on the apples with a nice pint of Weston's cider which appeared in my hand.


_{The humble apple, so seemingly sweet and innocent}

The rest of the night passed in a bit of a blur, and I dread to think what other fruits I consumed. As I awoke this morning, I swore off all fruit forever (as one is wont to do), but I'm already back off out to the Social Club tomorrow for an event entitled 'Let's get drunk and try and play jazz'. Should be fun. I hope they have pears.

--

In related news, have you gotten around to voting on The Fruit Graph? - Inspired by this little comic, which caused a lot of fuss on the internet:


_{Entitled, 'Fuck Grapefruit'. Click to embiggen.}

The power of editing...

I recently came across this movie trailer on YouTube:



Perfect, or what? :)

Silent Music

Audible songs are everywhere nowadays, and they're really starting to lose their edge. I'm far more impressed with some of the textual and graphical representations of songs I've found whilst browsing the internet for April Fools today (of which there were many, many brilliant examples). After getting RickRoll'd by both YouTube and Blogger (hey thanks Google *sadface*) I stumbled across this:


_{I checked, the proportions are accurate}

It seems there's an entire subculture of people who get up to making these graphs - there's some Flickr sets of them here and here, for example. Here's another one I love.



We also can't forget XKCD's superb, superb UML compliant contribution to the whole meme:


_{I doodled this in my exams}

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If you visited XKCD today, you'd notice that it redirected to Questionable Content. When I first saw the following in Questionable Content's twitter feed on the site...



...I thought that this was a joke Randall was playing on everyone - even Jeph, but it's actually a lovely circular, three way April Fools with XKCD redirecting to Questionable Content, Questionable Content redirecting to Qwantz Dinosaur Comics, and Quantz redirecting to...XKCD. A good prank...but a superb marketing ploy.

You might think I've been off on a bit of a tangent here, but I was actually just leading up to yet another way to display music, as posted on Quantz's Livejournal...lists!

For example:

# Things I ain't afraid of:

* no ghost


# Strange things in the neighbourhood (partial list):

* seeing things running through head
* invisible man sleeping in bed


# Things that make me feel good:

* bustin'


# Who you gonna call:

* Ghostbusters
* I can't hear you
* Louder

--

• Things across which Daddy has flown:
  • the ocean
  
  
• Things which Daddy has left behind for me:
  • a memory
  • unknown
  
  
• Things which we don't need:
  • no education
    
  • no thought control
    
  • no dark sarcasm in the classroom
  
  
• Conditions in which teachers are requested to leave them/us kids:
  • alone
  
  
• Things the having of which is dependent upon the eating of meat:
  • pudding
  
  
• Things which I don't need:
  • no arms around me
  • no drugs to calm me
  • anything at all
  
  
• Things which I have seen:
  • the writing on the wall
  
  
• Things which, all in all, are or were just bricks in the wall:
  • it
  • you

And on, and on - you get the idea, check the LiveJournal post for more.

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Edit: One final one Clush just found after reading this: