Archive: December, 2002

I leave Brighton for one week and look what happens.

It would be very, very sad indeed if the West Pier were to be lost.

The crisis with the ruby iMac seems to be over. The local Apple centre were able to patch it up, thereby saving Christmas.

Time to celebrate with some more pints and tunes.

I’m in Ireland and I’m having a grand old time.

There’s only one fly in the ointment. I sent my old G3 Ruby iMac from England to Ireland a few days before sending myself on the same route. I thought it would make a nice present for my mother. Thanks to Parcel Force, however, the machine is completely useless.

Luckily, I insured it when I sent it but it’s still a hassle. I’m trying to get it repaired at the local Apple centre but they probably won’t be able to do anything before the new year.

I was really looking forward to introducing my mother the wonderful world of email and the web. Now we’ll have to wait and see whether that’s going to happen anytime soon.

Apart from that, though, everything is going swimmingly. On the evening that Jessica and I arrived, we ended up at a session in the local music bar, The Roaring Donkey. Since then, we’ve been soaking up the atmosphere of Christmas in Cork.

We also found time to see The Two Towers at a matinee showing but due to the unfortunate presence of countless boisterous kids, the experience was not a pleasant one.

Oh, well. We’ll just have to see it again, won’t we?

I’m off to Ireland today.

I’ll be there for the next three weeks. I’m not quite sure yet how easy it will be for me to have access to the internet but I’ll try to keep posting regularly with some holiday snapshots.

Land of stout and tunes, here I come.

Four hobbits gathered ‘round an iMac.

There’s something so fitting about that combination.

Compare and contrast:

The top picture is a holiday snapshot of Jessica with some rocks in Arizona.

The picture on the bottom is Jessica with a billboard here in Brighton that depicts some Marlboro country.

The angles are slightly different but those are definitely the same rocks.

Now look at the caption on the billboard: “Nevada’s Heaviest Rock Group”.

Proof positive that the tobacco industry is lying to you.

It’s that time of year again when everywhere I look, I see the abbreviation "Xmas".

Now, I understand the history behind it and it has become second nature to mentally substitute a "Christ" for the "X".

But what happens if this mental substitution spills over into other X-words?

Microsoft would be the manufacturers of the Christbox (as well as Windows Christ P), Bryan Singer would be the director of Christ-men, my Mac would be running OS Christ and this website would be written in ChristHTML.

Steven Levy has written a great article outlining the history of Google and how it has come to dominate life on- and offline.

What I find funny is that even the people inside the googleplex get spam emails like this:

“Dear google.com,

I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

Went to see She Haw. They were great.

If there’s one thing worse than “discrimation” in the sporting world, it’s illitery* in the publishing biz.

*yes, it’s a deliberate mistake. Irony, etc.

It’s not unusual to see slick interactive websites promoting the latest hollywood movie, but it’s unusual to see a slick interactive site promoting a book.

Life of Pi has all the usual bells and whistles you’d associate with a film site but the aim is not to get you into a cinema but to get you reading a book.

Here’s an interesting image…

A solar eclipse over Africa as viewed from the International Space Station.

On a completely unrelated note, here’s another interesting image…

This time it’s something man-made but intangible: Brighton Boat is a picture made of GPS coordinates. The 67.77 km image was made by Jeremy Wood on his bicycle.

Get into the spirit of the season with some online advent calendars.

There’s an amusingly irreverent one from The Framley Examiner, a pretentious, practically content-less one from some web designer and a genuinely heartfelt one from Leslie Harpold.

I just saw Nick Cave buying cheese in the same supermarket where Jessica and I previously spotted Fatboy Slim.

There’s not much I can add to that.

Now that it’s the weekend, you must be asking yourself “Hmmm… I wonder if Jeremy went to see any concerts organised by The Gilded Palace Of Sin at local intimate venue, The Albert?”

Well, it’s funny you should ask…

I did go to see Laura Cantrell last night. It was a sellout show and I managed to get one of the last tickets.

It was fun. Put me in a room with a country band complete with pedal steel guitar and mandolin, and I’m happy as a pig in whatever it is that makes pigs happy.

That said, I have to admit that their thunder was stolen by the support act, She Haw, who will back to play their own gig next Thursday. To judge from the audience reaction last night, they’re going to pack the house to the rafters.

I’ll be there and I could probably write the journal entry for Thursday night/Friday morning in advance:

“Went to see She Haw. They were great.”

Awright geeezzaa! Here’s a bi’ ov fun. A site that’ll translate whatever yew say in’er dock n’ key rhymin’ slang.

In silk an’ lace yew ‘aven’t guessed, dis en’ry ‘as already been run fruff da grinder.

Go on - ‘ry it. Sorted mate.

"Snap! Crackle! Adactio!"

"Adactio Makes Everything Better."

"Poppin’ Fresh Adactio."

"With A Name Like Adactio, It Has To Be Good."

and my favourite:

"It’s Not TV. It’s Adactio."

all come courtesy of The Advertising Slogan Generator.

I could go on…

"Yo Quiero Adactio."

"Welcome To Adactio Country."

… you get the idea.

I had the good fortune of seeing Lambchop play just down the street from me on Tuesday night.

It was good fortune not just because the band was better than I was expecting (I’ve never been a huge fan), but also because I didn’t have to pay to get in. Anna Moulson of Melting Vinyl, who was organising the gig, put the entire line-up of Salter Cane on the guestlist to thank us for opening up the recent gig with My Morning Jacket.

It was an unexpected, but most gratefully received, treat.

It’s nice to see The Guardian getting behind the Save Our Seafront campaign - it’s just a shame that they used a picture of the wrong pier.

Thanks to Richard for the links.

Another weekend, another concert organised by The Gilded Palace of Sin.

This time it was Puerto Muerto, an unusual duo from Chicago who were rather good.

As usual, the concert took place in local pub, The Albert where they have a nice selection of mexican beers including the elusive (here in England, anyway) Dos Equis. They also have a mexican beer + tequila offer which was a source of much merriment last night but also caused a somewhat fuzzy head for most of today.