Rob, Rambling

"it keeps the news flowing at quiet times, like summer, with desk-chained hacks slightly re-writing..."

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:53:15 +0100

“it keeps the news flowing at quiet times, like summer, with desk-chained hacks slightly re-writing the same old hackneyed shit written by people who are much less talented yet better paid than they are.”

- From a post on The enemies of reason about churnalism in the media and how the summer especially seems to be an endless flow of rewritten (if we’re lucky) press releases on inane subjects.
It’s true when it speaks of PR people being overpaid in comparison to the journalists who get their material out to a wider audience. I’m only 24, yet I already know of a few people who have left journalism behind in favour of a better salary in PR.
I’m sort of a hypocrite on that front, as I was a business journalist who got poached/saw the light and crossed over the fence to work in the industry that I used to write about.
But at least I’m not in PR.

Happy Freedom From Those Damn Americans Day!

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:46:00 +0100

To all my fellow Brits.

Today is my ex’s birthday, and I sent her a card the other day. It was one of those one with a...

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:37:20 +0100

Today is my ex’s birthday, and I sent her a card the other day. It was one of those one with a quote on the front, this particular example apparently from a Japanese proverb:

No road is too long with a friend by your side

Or something like that. Pretty cheesy, right? She’s going through a hell of a lot at the moment, and I feel like I’m not giving her the support that she probably needs. I like to think that I’m available for her if she wants to talk to me, but the sheer distance between us (4 hours on the train) makes things a bit difficult.

My intention was to write her a letter too, but when I sat down the other night to actually put pen to paper, I wasn’t sure in which direction to go. I knew roughly what I wanted to say, but didn’t have any sentences in my head, or any real structure.

I just let the pen guide me and wrote in my usual rambling manner, but as I was coming to the end of the third (small) page, I realised that I was not saying what I wanted to say.

I’d been intending to reiterate my support for her, to tell her that I still cared, and that I was there for her if she needed me. I wanted to say that even though we were no longer together, she still meant a hell of a lot to me.

What in fact came out was a sense that I was telling her my life is going brilliantly, and has been since we finished. Not, I should point out, because we broke up, as there have been many other factors in the last 12 months which have had a positive effect on my life.

It wasn’t explicit, but I definitely felt that she would pick up on the undertone there. And that would be the last thing she needed right now: a slightly gloating letter from an ex-boyfriend.

I decided not to finish nor include the letter in the card, but instead to just put a couple of lines inside. I wrote something like this:

Yes, it’s a corny line [referring to the quote on the card], but I mean it. You ever need anything, you let me know.

Short, concise and to the point. Unlike most of my writing.

I hope she reads this in the way it was intended. As in that I still care, and want her to know that. It’s always difficult being friends with an ex, but we were close before we were together, and I think we still are now.

Tomato rotting timelapse by Lobster Pictures (on Vimeo)I love...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:36:42 +0100

Tomato rotting timelapse by Lobster Pictures (on Vimeo)

I love this kind of thing. I remember there being a video of a bowl of fruit decaying that was a big hit in the 90s that was pretty cool.

Thankfully, the gym won over the pub. My first session for a few weeks, what with one thing and...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:40:14 +0100

Thankfully, the gym won over the pub. My first session for a few weeks, what with one thing and another, and it felt good to get back. Admittedly, I didn’t do as much as I was doing this time last month, but it was a (re-)start.

On the treadmill: 5.12km in 27 minutes. That’ll do pig, that’ll do.

Dammit, my water bottle leaked all over my bag this morning, drenching my book. As I’d almost...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:57:47 +0100

Dammit, my water bottle leaked all over my bag this morning, drenching my book. As I’d almost finished it, I ploughed on nonetheless while on the train, with each page nearly transparent and sticking to the next.

But, I got it finished, and I’m glad I did. I wrote last week that I was struggling to get into We Need To Talk About Kevin but I’m glad that I persevered. I got quite enveloped in the characters, and the ending is nigh-on perfect (if a little damp in my case).

The book has really, really put me off having kids though. I wasn’t exactly hugely enamoured with the thought of mini-mes anyway, but the horrors (and helplessness) this mother/narrator experiences are mind-blowing, and unfortunately all too believable.

Roisin Murphy - Cry BabyShould I ever find myself in the...

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:02:27 +0100

Roisin Murphy - Cry Baby

Should I ever find myself in the position of having to do a DJ set, this is absolutely the song I would use as the opener. It’s got a great intro, and then gets straight into a pounding bassline with some typically Roisin-esque vocals. Brilliant.

My Second Lipdub: Faithless - Insomnia (on Vimeo)My second...

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:22:19 +0100

My Second Lipdub: Faithless - Insomnia (on Vimeo)

My second attempt at a lipdub, this time with some editing and a couple of takes.

It may seem a bit odd to do a dance track for a lipdub, but this is one of my favourite ever songs. It was very difficult to keep my head still and not nod along.

The clip’s a bit long, with some instrumental bits at the start and end, but I’m pleased with how it’s turned out. A touch arty, perhaps, but I like it.

This kind of post is why I love reading blogs

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:38:00 +0100

This kind of post is why I love reading blogs:

likeomg has written an absolutely brilliant, heartfelt post that for me just defines what blogging is about.

It’s stream of consciousness, unedited, and glorious. I love writing and reading this kind of material, and I hope likeomg realises just how good it is:

i’m re-engaging, communicating, and for the first time in as long as i can remember, genuinely happy.

Just found this on my phone while I was looking for something...

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:32:00 +0100

Just found this on my phone while I was looking for something else.

The shattered mirror in question is a wingmirror from a car that the girlfriend had borrowed from work. Someone came a bit close on a narrow road and knocked it off as we were driving to a Mauritian restuarant for dinner (which was incidentally very, very good indeed).

On My Travels (via Vimeo)A little video I knocked up with some...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:44:03 +0100

On My Travels (via Vimeo)

A little video I knocked up with some clips from my phone at various points over the last few weeks.

Set to Star Guitar by The Chemical Brothers, because a good chunk of it is from a train.

The Half-Year ReviewIt’s July 1st, midway through the year, so I figured it’s an...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:18:03 +0100

The Half-Year Review

It’s July 1st, midway through the year, so I figured it’s an appropriate time to look back at how the last 6 months have gone.

My biggest change was moving house, which included moving to a completely different area of London, being very close to the girlfriend, and getting a new housemate. All 3 have turned out to be pretty damn enjoyable, and I can’t tell you how much being this close to the girlfriend has done for our relationship.

Being with the girlfriend has been THE high of the year so far. I don’t tell her that I love her (I hate the word and how much pressure/weight there is on it nowadays), but I think I do. I’ve always been a massive slowburner when it comes to this kind of thing, and generally don’t fall head over heels instantly. 9-10 months into our relationship, and I can safely say that each time I see her I fall for her even more. I’m pretty sure that’s a good sign.

Relationships with friends have been come and go. I’ve not seen as much of many of them as I would have liked to, but I’ve also found many new friends through the girlfriend and work. My circle here in London is widening, but I find myself becoming ever more distant from my original circle. A good mate leaving London to go back to our home town didn’t help.

Along the same lines, I haven’t seen all that much of my family. I think I only went back to my hometown (and therefore my parents) twice in the first half of this year, and they haven’t been down to London. I speak to them fairly regularly, but I’ve never been that close to them anyway. Hopefully my dad will be down soon for a night out, which should be a good crack.

Work was going OK until about Easter, but since then I’ve really turned a corner. I’ve achieved more in the last 6 weeks than in the previous 6 months, and with spectacular timing I have a pay review shortly. I thoroughly enjoy my job, and don’t mind the long hours too much. Keeps me out of trouble.

My finances have taken a bit of a battering, as a result of two unforeseen events: £1000 of dental work, and a £900 Arsenal season ticket becoming available. Without those costs, my bank statement would be looking quite healthy. As it is, there’s a lot of red ink. But I have a plan for the rest of the year, which should hopefully be aided by a pay rise.

I’ve not done too much in the world of culture, but have managed to squeeze in some cinema visits and my first gig in years just recently. A good few weekends have fallen by the wayside with plans discarded after a heavy Friday or Saturday night. I prefer socialising to being cultured, I guess.

I’m pleased with how my levels of creativity are increasing. I love this blog, and couldn’t really imagine life without it at the moment. I take loads of photos everywhere I go, and have done a couple of videos too, which is something I want to do more of later this year. I think my writing skills have improved, and I am proud of what I post.

My levels of fitness were great until I went on holiday at the start of May, after which I’ve found it difficult to get motivated again. I really need to get back into the habit of going to the gym at lunchtimes and even at the weekend.

My diet hasn’t really changed. I don’t cook too much at home, but when I do it’s invariably healthy and fresh. I never buy ready meals, but sometimes find myself skipping evening meals for no good reason. I could do with saving money by taking lunch to work, but am not organised enough for that.

So yeah, 2008 has been a cracking year for me so far. I can’t wait to see what the rest of it has to offer.

"A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed..."

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:00:42 +0100

“A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed relationship, it must be maintained, and with far more devotion than the truth, which carries on being carelessly true without any help.”

- We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
For some reason this line just spoke to me. In context, it’s a nothing sentence, a throwaway phrase. But it hit me as the truth. A lie multiplies each time you tell it, causing further lies until you don’t know what the truth is any more.

“What is a bear market?” …[Long-winded explanations from financial...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:26:20 +0100

“What is a bear market?”

…[Long-winded explanations from financial websites]…

noraleah

It’s easy: a bear market is one going down (i.e. losing value), and a bull market is one going up (i.e. gaining value).

If the market is looking bearish, the indications are that it is set to fall at least a little, while the opposite is true for a bullish market.

If lots of investors/analysts say a market is either bearish or bullish, then it tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy as the people with money listen to them and then act accordingly. This is where the vicious circle bit comes in, and why me see market “corrections” in both directions.

It’s easy, honest. And not just because I work with the markets every day!

The girlfriend was in town today for work, so I just nipped out to meet her for a spot of lunch on...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:54:29 +0100

The girlfriend was in town today for work, so I just nipped out to meet her for a spot of lunch on the grassy area near my office, seeing as it’s the hottest day of the year so far.

I snapped a quick photo of her, and was just about to post it here when I thought to myself: is this OK?

She knows full well that I blog, and that I post pretty much everything about my life here, and doesn’t have a problem with it. I don’t know if she reads it or not, and I don’t ask. Best not to, I have found, given my problems with real-life people reading my previous blog.

I found myself looking at the photo on my phone and wondering if she’d approve. If I were in the photo, I’d post it without a second thought, but as it’s just a portrait of her, I figure it may be crossing a line a little. The blog’s not about her, it’s about me.

She’s a big, big part of my life, but I feel that I should expose her to the joys of the web audience when she hasn’t specifically asked that I should do so. It’s sort of invading her privacy, I think.

Suffice it to say that it’s a cool photo, but it won’t be appearing here. I’ll have to take more with me in the frame too.

As the film Wanted drew to a close yesterday, all I could think of was the line from Jay and Silent...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:54:51 +0100

As the film Wanted drew to a close yesterday, all I could think of was the line from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, right at the end, when the audience walks out of the film-within-the-film. Randal, of Clerks fame, says:

I’m going to blast that flick on the internet tonight.

And so here I find myself, talking about Wanted with that line running through my head. It wasn’t that bad, just overly ridiculous. Yes, it’s an action film about being able to make bullets curve, but the level to which you need to suspend your disbelief beyond that is crazy.

The action sequences are pretty good, although they seem to be cribbed from other films to a certain extent. There is a definite nod to Equilibrium in some of the shootouts, and the car chase scenes are reminiscent of Die Hard 4 and the Mission Impossible films.

I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece, but the film just didn’t grab me. It wanted to do a bit of a Fight Club, showing an ordinary man having enough of his mediocre life and standing up to those who kick him down. But even that was shoddily done, with some poor use of voiceover.

The whole mysticism/fate debate was glossed over pretty quickly too, as was the way in which the main character suddenly had an incredible grip on the history of the Fraternity (“That’s in eastern Borovia!”). Plot holes aplenty.

I hate to rip on a film when some love and attention has obviously been lavished on it, but it was just too ridiculous for me. I have to think that it’s a case of style over substance, because the film does look and sound brilliant. I’m a big fan of the director’s previous work (Night Watch in particular), and with this being his first American film I have to suspect that he’s just trying too hard.

Basically, if you’re capable of completely suspending your disbelief, and are willing to sacrifice any semblance of a decent plot in favour of some good action scenes, you’ll like this.

Me? I wish I’d chosen to see Hancock.

"It's fun enacting the D.M.C.A!"

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:07:25 +0100

"It's fun enacting the D.M.C.A!":

Ever wanted to know whether the lyrics to YMCA could be redone to commemorate the passing of the DMCA? Well, they can.

Kudos to croooner at reddit.

Yesterday, we watched the entire fifth series of Peep Show in one go. It had been a few months...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:43:21 +0100

Yesterday, we watched the entire fifth series of Peep Show in one go. It had been a few months since we watched the first four and I had forgotten how incredibly hilarious that show is.

Find a way to watch it and do so.

dalasverdugo

Oh dear God yes. Peep Show has been the best thing on British TV for the last few years, even if the last series was a touch OTT for me. It seemed like the characters (Jez especially) had become shadows of their former selves, and became involved with increasingly bizarre scenarios.

There seemed to be a lack of comeuppance to some extent, of just desserts. Jez was willingly destructive towards Mark’s life and his own, yet Mark did very little to combat this. In earlier series, there were occasions when Mark snapped and showed his resentment towards Jez’s actions, but in the most recent series there was an element of resignation, save for the episode when he controlled Jez’s money for a little while.

Having said that, the recent series was still funnier than anything else in the last few months, and is definitely worth watching.

I need to watch Clerks again

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:33:35 +0100

Mom: Excuse me, do you sell videos?
Randal Graves: Yeah, what're you looking for?
Kid: Happy Scrappy Hero Pup.
Randal Graves: Okay, hang on, I'm on the phone with the distribution house now, lemme make sure we got it. What was it called again?
Mom: Happy Scrappy Hero Pup.
Kid: Happy Scrappy!
Mom: She loves it.
Randal Graves: Obviously. Yeah, hello, this is RST Video, customer number 4352, I need to place an order. Okay, I need one each of the following tapes - "Whispers in the Wind", "To Each His Own", "Put It Where It Doesn't Belong", "My Pipes Need Cleaning", "All Tit-Fucking Volume 8", "I Need Your Cock", "Ass-Worshipping Rim-Jobbers", "My Cunt Needs Shafts", "Cum Clean", "Cum-Gargling Naked Sluts", "Cum Buns III", "Cumming in Socks", "Cum On Eileen", "Huge Black Cocks and Pearly White Cum", "Girls Who Crave Cock", "Girls Who Crave Cunt", "Men Alone II: the KY Connection", "Pink Pussy Lips", and, uh, oh yeah, "All Holes Filled with Hard Cock". Uh-huh... yeah... Oh, wait, and, what was that called again?

Awesome…are those the White Cliffs of Dover? ...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:00:40 +0100

Awesome…are those the White Cliffs of Dover?

guardianofgimcracks

Afraid not. Those are the cliffs on the south-west side of the Isle of Wight, between The Needles and St. Catherine’s Point. They were very pretty, but the scenery was the last thing on my mind at this point…