tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2009-11-10:/Head Full Of Wrong is that most despicable of things: a personal weblog of only minor interest to the majority of people. Feel free to come in and have a poke around, though.MokoFeed2009-11-10T14:55:36+01:00tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-10-23:/2008/10/23/hospitals-and-potentialchickens-4918936/alffly2008-10-23T17:24:54+02:002008-10-23T17:27:20+02:00 <p>I don't much like hospitals. Of course, that's a sentiment so common that it approaches cliche, but I feel like I should mention it. I, and other members of my immediate family, have spent far more time in hospital than, wait for it, would seem healthy. Bad-dum tish.</p> <p>Yesterday my father was admitted to hospital, and I couldn't be happier.</p> <p>Even writing that now feels strange, like I've entirely missed the point of hospitals being a place where you go when things are going badly. But after weeks of watching my father's health spiral rapidly downwards, it's a relief to know that he's finally going to get some help.</p> <p>The NHS gets a lot of grief. There seems to be a neverending stream of complaints, of newspapers packed with tragic stories of mistreatment and MRSA. Of course, that's because the loudest people are always those with complaints. People who are satisfied just go home and get on with the rest of their lives; they don't feel it necessary to contact the tabloids to say how well everything went. I know how they feel, because I shan't be contacting the newspapers with a glowing report of yesterdays events, but I feel like some record should exist of how things sometimes go exactly right. Hence, here I am.</p> <p>So, yesterday afternoon I took my father to his GP to have his latest worrying development examined. After a brief - and, miraculously, early - session, the doctor recommended that we go to the hospital. While we waited he wrote a letter of admission, and while we were travelling to the A+E department he telephoned ahead to ensure that they knew we were coming and that we  wouldn't have to wait. We were taken virtually straight from reception through for examination, which was performed promptly and efficiently by an exceptionally friendly and helpful nurse. Within minutes of that examination he was getting treatment, and within two hours he was on a ward.</p> <p>He's already perked up overnight, and while things are still bad and there are still numerous worries around his health, the response so far has been exceptional. And it's amazing what a knock-on effect this good experience has had; the rest of the family are far more at ease, and far more confident that we'll be able to get him through this.</p> <p>He's not out of the woods by a long way, and he'll be in hospital for a week at a bare minimum, so I'm not counting my chickens just yet. All the same, to stretch the metaphor to breaking point, this is the first time in a long time that I've even acknowledged the existence of chickens, and even potential chickens are an improvement.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/10/23/hospitals-and-potentialchickens-4918936/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-10-22:/2008/10/22/caring-is-hard-4910274/alffly2008-10-22T03:19:15+02:002008-10-22T03:20:09+02:00 <p>There's a big problem with making a commitment, even to yourself, that you're going to do something every day, and it's this: no matter how enthusiastic you are, or how good your intentions, you never know when something's going to come along and kick your face off.</p> <p>That's been happening to me lately - unforeseen circumstances of least desirable kind, which have conspired to make my life a very unpleasant place to be, and which have leapt, jaguar-like, straight to the top of my list of priorities with an ease which reveals just how flimsy and unimportant everything else I was doing actually turned out to be. Thankfully, these circumstances have not affected my ability to construct long, overly complicated sentences which do not so much get to the point as meander nonchalently around it, casting longing glances in its direction, as I have now proven twice in a row.</p> <p>I have had to make a hard decision, and the conclusion I've arrive at is this: I have to indulge myself more.</p> <p>The dreadful circumstance I referred to before is the rapidly declining health of my father. I'll not go into details, but what started as a painful but relatively harmless injury has seen his health spiral out of control. It's been a genuinely harrowing time, and I don't know when it will end. My reaction has been to concern myself primarily with him: I have basically become a part-time carer, sharing the responsibilities with my mother, which has meant that I have set aside my own needs and desires in order to best look after my dad.</p> <p>It was when my hair, which is generally collar-length, reached the base of my shoulder blades that I knew something had to change. I love my father, but I'm trying to rebuild my own life. Much of what little progress I'd made has been undone in the last few months. I have become housebound, not through depression but simply because I've needed to be around my dad; unfortunately, an obvious side effect of that has been, wait for it, a resurgence in my depression. I want to take care of my dad, but I also have to take care of myself.</p> <p>So, I'm going to go back to doing some of the things I used to enjoy doing. Blogging is a small start, and represents more of a mental shift than anything else: for a while now I've been unable to concentrate on anything other than my father's illness, and returning here will hopefully mean that I'm able to start concentrating on other things. Next tuesday I shall have my first driving lesson. After that I shall have to look for a job. Hopefully these steps will lead to other things; having the ability to be more outgoing should lead to me actually being, well, more outgoing.</p> <p>The trick, of course, is to try and find a balance between taking care of myself and taking care of my dad. I suppose that's the balance that all carers struggle to find, and I wonder how well I'll be able to do it. I <em>will</em> worry about my dad no matter what I do, and I <em>want</em> to help look after him, but at the same time I have to be slightly selfish and worry about my own life.</p> <p>At the very least this marks my return to the world of blogging. Beware, internet, beware.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/10/22/caring-is-hard-4910274/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-09-17:/2008/09/17/they-walk-amongst-us-probably-4738069/alffly2008-09-17T01:33:25+02:002008-09-17T01:33:25+02:00 <p>See? I <em>told</em> you that the Large Hadron Collider was going to be trouble.</p> <p>The documentary evidence is right there, a couple of posts ago. I wrote that the meddling fools at Cern were meddling with forces that must not be meddled with. I predicted danger in the shape of alien overlords from another reality. I predicted no less than the end of civilisation as we know it. A touch melodramatic, perhaps, but bound-to-be-accurate nonetheless.</p> <p>And now look what's happened. As predicted, the walls between dimensions are crumbling and terrifying <em>things</em> with claws and proboscides and attennae and gross wobbly bits are starting to come through. That's right folks, the aliens have arrived - and they've gone to Louth.</p> <p>It turns out that Louth has become a hotbed of UFO activity. Weird glowy red lights have been spotted hovering over hills and in clouds. And the number of sightings is suddenly on the rise, by coincidence just after the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider - or, as I like to call it, the Large Alien Warm-Welcomer.</p> <p>Some news services would be concerned at drawing a connecting line between vague glowy lights in Lincolnshire and what would appear to be a completely safe experiment conducted hundreds of miles away, but the <a href="http://www.louthleader.co.uk/news/UFO-sightings-connected-to-Large.4492819.jp">Louth Leader</a> has put themselves at the risk of almost certain ridicule/men-in-black-visitation by running this groundbreaking story. For this they should be applauded - unlike my own local newspaper, which insists on reporting on crime and local events and sports and NOT ADMITTING THE UNDENIABLE TRUTH!</p> <p>There are probably some disbelievers amongst you. You might say that the weird, glowy lights could be pretty much anything. You might point out the this all started when the Louth Leader ran a story about recently released MOD documents which mention a UFO sighting at RAF Binbrook, and that the fact that people suddenly started seeing weird stuff in the sky after that smacks of mass hysteria. You might point out that even if aliens had been attracted by the experiments at Cern, a more sensible destination for them might be, well, Cern, rather than a town in Lincolnshire. These are all good points, which can lead us to only one inevitable conclusion: you're in league with the aliens.</p> <p>So, step forward, brave people of Louth. Step blinking into the beaming, glowy light of truth! You have forced us to confront the alien threat amongst us. I applaud you.</p> <p>Now run, people of Louth! Run for your lives! <em>While there's still time!</em> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/09/17/they-walk-amongst-us-probably-4738069/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-09-14:/2008/09/15/poker-again-4728361/alffly2008-09-15T00:12:11+02:002008-09-15T00:12:11+02:00 <p>My arch-rival in poker, that insufferable dandy Lord Tankington-Smythe, seems to have been intimidated by his previous decimation at my hands, because last night he didn't even bother turning up for what transpired to be my second win on the trot. He cried off citing some manner of stomach complaint, but his protests had a hint of cowardice about them. I shouldn't be surprised if he mysteriously develops some kind of muscle wasting disease, leaving him unable to properly grip a hand of cards ever again and therefore unable to face another drubbing.</p> <p>Thankfully, there are all manner of gullible folk lining up to donate their money into my winnings fund, and last night another four of them fell to my quick-witted chip-play and unreadable bluffs. My own dear sister was a worthy opponent but was the first to fall. The Lawyer fell next, and then Arachnor, Master of Spiders. The dramatic heads-up play took place between myself and Anguilia, a woman with whom I have butted heads many a time, but her mathmatical skills and feminine wiles could not hope to stand before the onslaught of brilliance that at times threatened to overwhelm her like a tidalwave and sweep her clear of the gaming table. A noble victor, I quickly and quietly accepted both the plaudits of my defeated opponents and, more importantly, their money.</p> <p>I might be worried by that old saying "lucky at cards, unlucky in love," except that my victorys have come not through luck but through skill, bravery and not a little application of charm. Watch out for me, for surely I shall soon be bestriding the world of poker like a muscular, firm-buttocked collossus. You'll see.</p> <p><em>Tonight's post has been bought to you in the style of a boastful nineteenth century diarist, and by the number twelve.</em> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/09/15/poker-again-4728361/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-09-13:/2008/09/13/still-alive-4723339/alffly2008-09-13T19:35:49+02:002008-09-13T19:35:49+02:00 <p>So, it's Saturday and, thus far, the world remains remarkably untouched. Reality as we know it is not unravelling around our ears. Perhaps Stephen Hawking was right. Perhaps those scientist types at Cern actually know what they're doing.</p> <p>But then again, perhaps not - especially since I have already proven beyond any shadow of doubt that Stephen Hawking is an emissary of our future alien overlords, busilly preparing the way for our future domination and enslavement at their hideously clawed hands, or suckers, or tentacles, or whatever apendages they might have. Hawking is not to be trusted, and therefore we must continue to regard the activities at Cern with the utmost suspicion.</p> <p>And anyway, the actual proper testing at Cern won't begin for four years. That makes it 2012, which by weird coincidence is the date that the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar says is the end of the Fourth Age and the end of the world as we know it. So if you've got any desperately important things to do, best you get them over and done with before then.</p> <p>Now don't get me wrong, I have no problems with the idea of scientific advancement. It's been pointed out that many of the things that we take for granted in our everyday lives have been created as a byproduct of seemingly risky experiments - the space race, for instance, led to developments in fields such as cat scans, running shoes and sports bras. It's just that landing a rocket on the moon seems significantly less risky than attempting to punch a hole in the fabric of reality. If that's what it takes to develop a more efficient new non-stick frying pan then I'm not sure it's worth it.</p> <p>Still, any new discovery has an inherent element of risk about it. Perhaps the scientists at Cern will do as they've set out to and discover wondrous new things about the way the universe works. That will be some comfort - when I've been spaghettified into screaming atoms and sucked into a swirling vortex of uncompromising nothingness, it'll be nice to know why it's happening.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/09/13/still-alive-4723339/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-09-11:/2008/09/11/head-full-of-other-stuff-4710967/alffly2008-09-11T01:22:12+02:002008-09-11T01:22:12+02:00 <p>It's now five days since I last posted. My existential doubt has, to some extent, passed, and I'm back in the blogging mood.</p> <p>Several things have been occupying my brain since my last visit to my own little corner of the interweb. These are they, in no particular order:</p> <p><strong>Poker</strong> - I have finally won a game of poker, beating three teachers, one a mathematician, and that insufferable dandy Lord Tankington-Smythe. I was, of course, gracious in victory, and certainly did not whoop or jump or pump my fist like a chromosome-deficient American fratboy.</p> <p><strong>Half Life 2</strong> - I cannot tell a lie. I have been gaming a lot recently, but I have a good reason: it's Half Life Bloody 2. I bought The Orange Box from the excellent Steam online shop, and I've worked my way through Half Life 2 again. As an example of how highly I regard Half Life 2, it's the only commercial game I've completed more than once. It's just great.</p> <p>Then I played Half Life 2: Episode One, which is the first expansion pack for Half Life 2 and is great, but not quite as great as Half Life 2 itself. Right now I'm half way through Half Life 2: Episode 2, which is abso-bloodly-lutely brilliant. It's all I can do to stop myself closing this webpage right now and start playing it again.</p> <p>However, it's not my favourite game in the package. That honour goes to...</p> <p><strong>Portal</strong> - Portal is a first-person puzzle game that comes as part of The Orange Box and it is, in a word, amazing. You are a test subject in a series of lab experiments based around a portal gun which you can use to create interdimensional portals in solid concrete. Walk into one and you'll come out the other. It's such a simple idea but it creates a puzzle game or startling complexity; everytime you succesfully solve a puzzle you feel like the most intelligent person in the world, which is quite good for me since I don't normally believe myself to be the most intelligent person in the room, often even when I'm on my own. And once you're through the initial nineteen test levels the game takes a turn and goes off at a brilliant new tangent. Skillfully designed and packed full of genuinely laugh-out-loud moments from your A.I. companion GlaDOS, Portal is quite the best game I've played in a very long time.</p> <p><strong>The Paralympic Games</strong> - If I'm a fan of the Olympics, I'm an even bigger fan of the Paralympics. Partly that's out of respect for the athletes, but partly it's because it's so damned entertaining. I genuinely find wheelchair basketball to be a more enjoyable sport than able-bodied basketball. And I can't wait until the Murderball - sorry, we're calling it wheelchair rugby these days - gets going.</p> <p><strong>Fear</strong> - I don't know if it's because playing a lot of Half Life 2 recently has made me worried about the experiments of scientists whose aims are well-intentioned but who seem thoroughly unprepared for the possible consequences, but I'm getting concerned about those bods at Cern. I know Stephen Hawking says everything is going to be fine, but he's probably laying the foundations for our subjegation by interdimensional alien overlords as we speak.</p> <p>What am I talking about? Well, think about it. A scientist. In a motorised wheelchair. With a robotic voice.</p> <p>Stephen Hawking is Davros.</p> <p>Anyway, I've been drawing up blueprints for some kind of bunker-like structure in my garden so that I can ride out the inevitable laser-powered holocaust at the hands of our future transreality masters. All I need to do now is kidnap Keely Hazell so that I can brick her in with me and, when we finally emerge from our wattle-and-daub safehaven, start repopulating humanity with beautiful, hairy babies.</p> <p>You think I'm insane. But when the Zragians beam in from Dimension Twelve and proclaim me Overlord of Earth you won't be laughing. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/09/11/head-full-of-other-stuff-4710967/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-09-05:/2008/09/05/when-gigs-go-bad-4683960/alffly2008-09-05T03:43:47+02:002008-09-05T03:43:47+02:00 <p>The open mike night rolled around again on Tuesday. After my triumphant featured set at the last gig I was looking forward to playing again, even if it was only at the open mike section. I had three songs lined up and ready to go. At 8 PM I would head down to the Crown and rock the crowd once more.</p> <p>At quarter past seven I got a phone call from my sister telling me to phone my good friend Lord Tankington-Smythe, one of the two organisers of the open mike night. And by the way, would I like a lift? Yes I would, says I, so we arranged for me to be picked up in fifteen minutes.</p> <p>While I waited for my lift to arrive I gave Lord Tankington-Smyte a quick phonecall. He had some bad news: all of the featured acts for that night had dropped out one after the other, and he had noone to take their place. Would I mind doing a longer set?</p> <p>Now I don't know if it was pity for a friend that made me say yes, or if it was some kind of idiotic hubris, some mis-placed belief that I could actually pull it off, but I agreed. I agreed to play a thirty minute set. In fact, I agreed to play the thirty minute headline set at the end of the night. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake.</p> <p>After getting off the phone I realised that I was being picked up in ten minutes. Ten minutes to gather my instrument, get my gear together and somehow expand a nine minute set into a thirty minute set with no way to work out which songs would flow well together and no way to practise. Suffice to say, I spent most of those ten minutes worrying about how I could never do all of the things I needed to do in ten minutes.</p> <p>So, I arrive at the pub thoroughly unprepared and order a drink. And then, since I'm not on till last, I systematically order several more drinks. By the time I take to the stage I'm half-terrified, half-drunk and half-stupidly optimistic, which according to my maths makes one-and-a-half idiots. First I play two of the songs I'd originally planned for my three song set. Then I realise I've forgotten what the third song in the set was going to be, so I start making up the set list as I go along. I make it three quarters of the way through a cover before realising that somehow I've ended up in entirely the wrong key. I proudly announce that my next song is one of my own composing, play the opening chords and realise that I don't know the words. After that I realise that I've forgotten how to play all of the songs I'm supposed to know how to play, so in desperation I um and ah and then I ask the audience if they have any requests.</p> <p>Thankfully crowds love a well-meaning idiot, so they don't do the obvious thing and kindly request that I get the hell off the stage.</p> <p>And here's the problem: I was awful. I was too drunk and too scared and too unprepared to be good. But people were still telling me that they enjoyed it and that I was great. But I wasn't. I was bad.</p> <p>So, if people said I was good when I know I was bad, how can I trust that they were being honest when they said I was good before? Have they just been patronising me all along? Or, by some miracle, did I actually manage to pull this gig out of the bag by sheer dint of admitting my mistakes and making a joke out of them?</p> <p>Oh, how I love existential doubt. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/09/05/when-gigs-go-bad-4683960/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-09-01:/2008/09/01/drove-my-chevy-to-the-levee-4668178/alffly2008-09-01T19:24:31+02:002008-09-01T19:24:31+02:00 <p>...And the levee was absolutely soaking wet.</p> <p>It's hurricane season in old New Orleans once again, almost exactly three years since the devestation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Large parts of the city have been evacuated, and fingers are crossed that the new flood defences will be strong enough. The expert opinion seems to be that Hurricane Gustav will not directly hit the city; that instead Gustav will hit somewhere to the west. The city is locked down as much as it can be; now it's just a question of waiting and seeing.</p> <p>We had some floods of our own here in the Midlands last year. They were pretty bad, and some areas are still recovering from them, but in general the government response was pretty good, bearing in mind that it didn't happen in London and most government officials appear to believe that anything north of Watford is an uninhabitable, blasted wasteland right up until it turns into Scotland.</p> <p>By comparison the US government's response to the destruction in New Orleans seemed naive at best and criminally neglectful at worst. Even now, three years on, the scheme to upgrade the levees around the city are only 25% complete. The earth and concrete levees are stronger and larger than they were in 2005, but even in their upgraded state they still wouldn't stand up to a hurricane of Katrina's strength.</p> <p>There were lots of fingers pointed in the direct aftermath of the floods alledging that the government's response was slow because the majority of those left homeless in New Orleans were black. It was said that if that level of destruction had happened in a city where the majority of the populace were white then the government would have acted much more quickly. I dont know whether that's the case or not, but I'm certainly very interested to see what's going to happen in the aftermath of Gustav.</p> <p>Good luck, New Orleans. I've got my fingers crossed for you. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/09/01/drove-my-chevy-to-the-levee-4668178/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-30:/2008/08/30/tentacles-and-stuff-4656241/alffly2008-08-30T02:37:47+02:002008-08-30T02:37:47+02:00 <p>Hey. It's been a while. I feel pretty bad about that, but I feel even worse about the fact that I return to you not with morsels of interesting opinion but instead with shameless self-promotion. Ah, such is life.</p> <p>There's a little online gaming community that goes by the name of Kongregate. Kongregate hosts online flash games while also providing chat rooms and forums and challenges. I always felt a little bit bad about wasting time playing Flash minigames, but Kongregate's simple scheme of adding challenges to certain games, with a "badge" as a reward for completing said challenge, has dazzled me into submission. What can I say? I'm a magpie, I like shiny badges.</p> <p>Anyhoo, I've contributed two pieces of art to an online card game hosted at Kongregate. <strong>The Necronomicon</strong> is based upon H P Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, and allows you to take on twenty levels of AI opponent in a tactical battle. It's a fun game - fun enough, in fact, to tempt me into digging out my dusty copy of Photoshop 7 and knocking up a couple of card images to help out the game'c creator. Fun times for all.</p> <p>The game can be found right <a href="http://www.kongregate.com/games/GamesofCthulhu/the-necronomicon">here</a>, so give it a try. My artwork graces the cards Blessing of Hastur and From Beyond. What are you waiting for? Go check it out. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/30/tentacles-and-stuff-4656241/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-23:/2008/08/23/good-game-4627720/alffly2008-08-23T18:43:50+02:002008-08-23T18:43:50+02:00 <p>I suppose it was too much to expect that we'd stay in third place of the Olympic metal table forever, but it's been a good run. While the BBC was worried about the Australians creeping up and overtaking us, my personal fear was that the Russians would find their form and unfortunately that's exactly what happened.</p> <p>It's a shame, but that shouldn't take the shine of what has been a remarkable performance and our best medal haul in goodness knows how long. It's important to remember that we're choosing from a much smaller pool when picking our olympic squad - the three nations currently above us are China, Russia and America, all of whom have significantly larger populations than our little country. With so many people to pick from, it's not surprising tha China have been able to find a few who are good at sports.</p> <p>I doubt we'll win enough golds in the final events of the games to leapfrog the Russians again, but all the same this has been a brilliant games. Well done us. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/23/good-game-4627720/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-20:/2008/08/21/sound-and-vision-4615983/alffly2008-08-21T00:21:14+02:002008-08-21T00:21:14+02:00 <p>It's been a few days. I'd make an excuse, or, at the very least, explain myself, but I've got an issue of Computer Weekly in front of me with an article about blogging in it, and they reckon you shouldn't even mention that you've been away. So I've screwed that one up already.</p> <p>A few posts ago I mentioned the excellent Audiosurf, a synaesthetic computer game which makes roller coaster-style racing tracks out of your favourite mp3s and then asks you to race upon them. Synaethesia in gaming is something that I find interesting, and I'm always looking to play other examples.</p> <p>So imagine my joy at finding <a href="https://typo3.digipen.edu/index.php?id=986">Synaesthete</a>, an abstract isometric shooter made by students at the Digipen Institute of Technology. Based upon the solid arcade foundations of games like Robotron, Synaesthete builds its whole experience around an excellent dance soundtrack which influences both the visuals and the enemy patterns. The conceit of the game is that you're controlling an antivirus program in a collective electronic conciousness, but what that really means in that you're a little white guy and you shoot stuff. The difference is that the targetting of enemies is handled for you, leaving you to concentrate on movement and rhythm.</p> <p>This rhythmic element plays out in the form of a Guitar Hero-like grid that is overlain on the screen whenever enemies approach. Coloured squares scroll down it, representing the notes of the soundtrack playing in the background. You have to tap keys on your keyboard in time to the squares, with the strength of your firepower depending on how close to the rhythm you are.</p> <p>I'm not really sure I'm explaining it very well, so here's a gameplay video that does the job much better than I can:</p> <p>It's not perfect, if I'm honest: most of the time you can concentrate on pressing the key that corresponds with the left-most column of the grid; that column represents the kick drum, and it's by far the most simple rhythm to follow. You're rarely given much of an incentive to move away from it, which makes things much easier than they could be. But hey - it's free, it's fun, and it moulds together sound and vision in a way that makes me quiver with joy. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/21/sound-and-vision-4615983/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-15:/2008/08/15/coign-of-vantage-4590486/alffly2008-08-15T02:37:58+02:002008-08-15T02:37:58+02:00 <p>Just a quickie tonight. <strong>Coign of Vantage</strong> is a great little flash game that tests your spatial awareness. It's fun and addictive, and comes highly recommended.</p> <p><a href="http://www.bobblebrook.com/games/coign-of-vantage">http://www.bobblebrook.com/games/coign-of-vantage</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/15/coign-of-vantage-4590486/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-12:/2008/08/13/playing-games-with-the-olympics-4580013/alffly2008-08-13T00:21:24+02:002008-08-13T00:21:24+02:00 <p>The Olympics are underway, and Britain's performance so far has been pretty good. We've got a whole bunch of medals, and today I saw an epic match between Gail Emms and Nathan Robertson, Britain's mixed doubles badminton team, and the second-seeded Chinese team, a match which Emms and Robertson managed to pull back in classic style after looking completely out of it.</p> <p>But then we get to the news that parts of the opening ceremony were faked, I didn't see it myself at the time, but I've reviewed the sections in question and I'm a little perturbed. We, the international television-viewing public, were shown footage of fireworks which were filmed before the ceremony started and inserted into the live pictures. Other fireworks were computer generated.</p> <p>I'll probably sound snobbish for saying it, but I don't care if some of the fireworks were computer generated, for the simple reason that it was stupidly obvious and if you were fooled by them you need to have your eyes tested. So when we were having a shot of Beijing shot from a helicopter swooping over the city, I didn't think that the fireworks that were supposedly launched from the buildings and yet managed to keep pace with the copter rather than being zoomed past were real. The only thing about this episode that disturbs me is that one of the world's major powers can't afford better graphics software.</p> <p>The other fireworks thing annoys me more. Everyone agreed at the time that the opening ceremony was fantastic, epic, beautiful. But it wasn't - it was less epic, less fantastic, less beautiful than the organisers led us to believe. Such basic chicanery seems against the spirit of the games somehow.</p> <p>The story that's really annoyed me, though, is the incident that seems certain to go down in history as Little-Chinese-Girl-Gate. One of the highlights of the ceremony was a small Chinese girl, cute as a button, standing in the centre of the main arena and singing. Except she wasn't; she was miming. That much doesn't come as much as a surprise; it was pretty obvious from watching that she wasn't singing live. I don't mind that, but I do mind the fact that she was miming to someone elses singing.</p> <p>The actual singer was a different little Chinese girl. She was the one with the lovely voice, but someone in authority decided that she wasn't cute-as-a-button enough, and so they drafted in a better looking child. Again, it seems to go against the Olympic ideal to favour someone so because of outward appearance, and while I understand that the organisers wanted to present a "perfect" event to the world, to do so by lying to us makes them look, well, dishonest.</p> <p>Then again, this is China we're talking about. Are we really surprised that a country which has edited the massacre of students by members of its own army entirely out of history is now been shown to be willing to lie to the rest of the world? I'm obviously not comparing the events of Tiannamen Square, with a miming child, but this whole incident is indicative of a country and a culture determined to present a perfect outward appearance no matter the cost.</p> <p>In any event, changes that were made to the ceremony to make the whole thing appear more perfect have, in being discovered, had exactly the reverse effect. Maybe the rest of the Games will run smoothly and with perfect equanimity, but even the smallest controversy that occurs from now on will be seen to be happening on top of an opening ceremony marked by untruth. That's not what the Olympics should be about. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/13/playing-games-with-the-olympics-4580013/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-10:/2008/08/11/when-i-come-back-around-4569305/alffly2008-08-11T00:47:54+02:002008-08-11T00:47:54+02:00 <p>It's eight o clock on a warm Sunday evening. I am sitting at my laptop suffering from a hangover and sleep deprevation, with Meet On The Ledge ringing in my ears and my new festival hat on my head. My festival hat is named Alan.</p> <p>Cropredy was, in a word, amazing. But since I have the space to write many words rather than just one, I think I shall do just that.</p> <p>Cropredy the festival takes place in Cropredy the village, a small picturesque community with a canal running through it. The festival is organised by Fairport Convention, and it boasts of being the friendliest festival going. It takes place on the first Thursday in August and runs for three days. This year it was headlined by Supergrass on the thursday night, The Levellers on the friday and Fairport Convention themselves on the final night.</p> <p>Some other bands played too, but frankly I couldn't tell you what any of them sounded like because those were the only three acts I heard. Supergrass were great, The Levellers were slightly less great - although I'm prepared to admit that might be because I'm unfamiliar with their stuff - and Fairport were epic. And that's almost all I'm going to say about the music.</p> <p>I went down with a gang of friends, many of whom had been to Cropredy many times before. This was my first time, so I was suprised at the number of people we ended up with in our gang - in the end there must have been twenty five of us crowded under a marquee, chatting and laughing and drinking port. There was no real thought of heading down to the festival field and watching the bands because sitting in a field enjoying good alcohol and good company was more than entertaining enough.</p> <p>Eventually we headed to the main festival site to trade tickets for wristbands, and then we headed for the most important location at a gig like this - the local pub. The Red Lion Inn was heaving, and since it was bright and warm most drinkers were sitting in the ancient graveyard across the road. We joined them and sat on the grass with old yews arching overhead. My first thought was that it seemed a trifle disrespectful to the long-dead, but whether it was the sun or the cider my mind soon changed. If you told me that a hundred years after I die my graveyard would become a place of goodwill and laughter I wouldn't mind a bit.</p> <p>The people you meet at Cropredy are incredibly friendly. There were many people who I randomly said hello to or who said hello to me. Under normal circumstances I would never say hello to a random stranger in the street, and if one greeted me I would be expecting a subsequent mugging, but here those kinds of thoughts never even occured to me. The sense of community is overwhelming.</p> <p>On the second day the guys ditched the gals and went for a Boy's Day Out. We went to the other pub, The Brasenose Arms, where bands were playing as part of the Festival Fringe. Since it was sunny again we went across the road with our drinks and sat beneath the famous Cropredy village sign. And then we spent the next six or so hours doing what blokes do best: drinking beer and talking bullshit.</p> <p>When the Boy's Day Out was first mentioned to me I was slightly sceptical. Surely if I wanted to sit on the grass and drink all day I could do that in my home town and save eighty quid on festival tickets? But here's the truth - I couldn't. None of us could. Some of it was the weather and some of it was the company, but a large amount was the location. It needed the relaxed atmosphere and the friendly crowd. And also, in my home town I wouldn't have seen the Piano Man.</p> <p>I'm told that the Piano Man was at last year's festival. He is a relatively short, wiry man with a quick smile who rides around the streets of the village in a tuxedo and top hat on his mobile piano. The piano is apparently a device of his own creation, a marriage of the aforementioned musical instrument and the workings of a bicycle. He pedals for propulsion and steers via an ingenious mechanism which works by him sliding his piano stool forwards and backwards to change direction. It's a work of brilliance, of dark brown teak and shiny brass, recalling in equal parts Jules Verne and Willy Wonka. If you call him over he'll stop and give you a song.</p> <p>On Saturday it rained, and the whole place turned into a quagmire of sticky brown mud. Amazingly, the toilets were still surprisingly clean. At most festivals you're lucky if the toilets still work after three days, and at some of the really hardcore festivals you're lucky if the toilets haven't been collected into a huge pile and set alight like some kind of huge sacrificial pyre dedicated to the faeces god, but at Cropredy the toilets were kept stocked up with paper and in relatively good order. This sort of thing becomes increasingly important as I get older, and Cropredy is now the high watermark of bathroom cleanliness.</p> <p>The festival ended with Fairport Convention's performance. They were joined on stage at various points by performers from many of the bands that had played the previous days, as well as the mighty Robert Plant. They played a great number of songs that I didn't know and that I came away from absolutely loving. They closed, as they always do, with the epic and beautiful Meet On The Ledge, a song about loss and the redemptive power of friendship. It still seems like the most appropriately timed song in the world.</p> <p>I'm tired. Since I started writing this post I've abandoned it once to go down to the pub for a post-Cropredy pint. In the true spirit of the festival, that single pint turned into many pints, and a few minutes spent with friends has turned into hours.</p> <p>I'm tired, I ache, and even though I've showered I'm still fairly sure there are things living in my hair. None of that matters a jot to me right now. This has been the best festival I've ever been to, and without doubt one of the best things I've ever done in my life. I can't wait to do it again next year.</p> <p>See you there. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/11/when-i-come-back-around-4569305/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-06:/2008/08/06/title-4552970/alffly2008-08-06T23:15:11+02:002008-08-11T00:49:01+02:00 <p>Tomorrow I travel to Cropredy. Cropredy is a folk festival. I don't even like folk music.* What I do like, however, is sitting in a field getting drunk with my mates. I will be doing that and little else for the next four days. It's gonna be great.</p> <p>Or is it?</p> <p>Yes it is. See you in four days.</p> <p><em>* Actually, I don't mind folk music. I really like Damien Rice and he's quite folky, and I love Joanna Newsom and she's both folky and weird but strangely attractive in a winsome kinda way. In fact, I actually quite like folk music, and I only pretend to dislike it so that I can maintain my facade of bullish not-liking-folk-music-ness. Sorry. I'll go away now.</em> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/06/title-4552970/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-06:/2008/08/06/after-the-gig-4548511/alffly2008-08-06T01:06:21+02:002008-08-06T01:06:21+02:00 <p>So that went better than I had any right to expect.</p> <p>The gig, I mean. All that stuff I said about the set list being carved in stone was nonsense, of course - I dropped one song in favour of a Lemonheads number about camping, which seemed appropriate since I'm off to a music festival on Thursday. I made a few mistakes and fluffed a few words, but the crowd were appreciative and the mistakes seem to have been overlooked.</p> <p>The reaction to my own songs was far better than I'd hoped. I made sure that there was some confusion by slotting my own songs in amongst the cover versions without actually telling anyone which was which, and since the covers weren't hugely well known noone seemed very sure which were my tracks and which ones I'd stolen. Afterwards I got my friends to guess which were which, and there was a enough doubt for me to conclude that my songs were comparable to those written by the proffesionals. Whether that says good things about me or bad things about the pro's I'll let you decide for yourself.</p> <p>The only real blip was the drunk who tried to invade the stage, tripped over a step and went flying, taking my pint with him, but since that was actually one of my friends I've decided to be fairly forgiving. I'll make him suffer for it, that goes without saying, but I was at least able to prevent myself from manhandling him physically off the stage.</p> <p>The comment that pleased me most of all, though, was from a friend who was attending for the first time and so had never seen me play before. It wasn't the music he was commenting on, it was me personally - he said I was a completely different person on stage. And he's right: when I'm up on stage and performing, and everything is going well, and the crowd's enjoying it, I <em>am</em> a different person. I'm a <em>confident</em> person. I love performing because that feeling is amazing. I might be terrified before hand, but once I'm up there with the adrenalin going it's indescribably good.</p> <p>I wonder how long I can carry that feeling with me before it fades? Last time I felt like this was after my first ever open mike night, and I was on a high that lasted for weeks. I like being like this, I like being happy. I need to make it last.</p> <p>The next open mike night is a month away. It's can't come soon enough. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/06/after-the-gig-4548511/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-05:/2008/08/05/fear-of-music-part-4544012/alffly2008-08-05T02:57:56+02:002008-08-05T02:57:56+02:00 <p>So I think I've got my set list sorted out. It became easier when I discovered that someone I'm trying to impress won't be at the open mike night, so I don't have to worry so much when I make a mistake - except about the drunken mob who'll be listening to me. And they're just my friends.</p> <p>The set list currently contains several songs I'm confident about playing, including Taking Back Sunday, Eels and Evan Dando. It also contains several songs that I've written myself and which I'm very definitely not confident about playing.</p> <p>I've never performed my own songs in front of anyone, you see. Not even my family. Hell, I even make sure my neighbours are out before I practise them. So this is trial by fire for those songs. It's nervewracking enough to be up on stage performing in front of people, let alone laying open your thoughts and emotions for everyone to see.</p> <p>Still, I'm determined not to change my mind any more about what I'll be playing. No more prevarication. No more faffing. This set list is carved in stone, and that means that tomorrow evening I'm going to be performing three of my own songs.</p> <p>Shit.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/05/fear-of-music-part-4544012/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-02:/2008/08/02/randomness-4533511/alffly2008-08-02T15:59:21+02:002008-08-02T15:59:21+02:00 <p>So, the internet then. I know there's a world of information out there, but does anyone else find that they mostly end up visiting the same sites over and over again? Much like in real life, where perhaps your daily path will take you from your house to work to the shops and back home again with only occasional deviation, it's easy to find that your internet travels become equally entrenched in routine.</p> <p>Thank goodness for <strong>Random Website dot com</strong>, then. It's a simple page with an illustration, a disclaimer and a single link. Clicking on that link loads up a random webpage. Easy, effective and entertaining.</p> <p>Try it for yourself <a href="http://www.randomwebsite.com">here.</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/02/randomness-4533511/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-08-01:/2008/08/01/fear-of-music-4529590/alffly2008-08-01T15:14:59+02:002008-08-01T15:14:59+02:00 <p>I currently have The Fear.</p> <p>There are several things that I'm not-bad-but-not-great at. One of them is singing, and another is playing the guitar. And I'm not being self-deprecating - I have friends who are very, very good guitarists and singers. I can play a bit and sing a bit, which is better than most but not as good as some. And yet somehow I find myself headlining a local gig.</p> <p>It's a monthly gig at a local pub, and it's nominally an open mike night, but there are always three named acts. I've done two open mike sessions and next tuesday I'll be taking to the stage as one of the named acts. The last one on, in fact. Headlining.</p> <p>Now let's be honest; I haven't been performing live for very long and I'm merely good as opposed to the usual acts who are brilliant, so the decision to put me on last is probably a sensible one. The crowd will have begun to thin by then, so if I mess the whole thing up there won't be that many people to see it. But all the same, my name is at the top of the posters and I am afraid.</p> <p>It's not the performing as such, although that prospect is terrifying. No, what's giving me The Fear with capital letters is the fact that no matter how hard I try I can't seem to prepare for the gig properly. I have no idea what my set list is going to be. Normally I'd know exactly what songs I'll be performing by now, but I just can't seem to pin down the final list. It's like I'm missing a big crowd-pleasing number that'll lift the lid off the place. Both of my previous performances had one, and while I'd love to just play all my favourite songs I have to bear in mind that the best way to win the crowd over is to play something that they know and not just fill the set with obscure shoegazing indie songs.</p> <p>Of course, not knowing what I'm going to play is making practising a bit difficult. By now I should just be practising the set list, but since I don't have one I'm just arsing around playing whatever pops into my head, which means I'm generally playing those obscure shoegazing indie songs I mentioned earlier. Should inspiration suddenly strike I'll only be left with a couple of days to learn a completely new song, and inspiration shows as much sign of striking me as I'm showing of mastering the power of telekinesis. </p> <p>I'm proud of myself for being able to get up on stage and perform in front of people; if you'd told me a year ago that I'd be doing this now I'd have curled into a little introverted ball at being talked to by a stranger. But I can't shake The Fear, and it's starting to get me down. I'm reminded of a quote by that great philosopher Homer Simpson - "Trying is only the first step towards failing." That's an awfully defeatist attitude, and I'm sure once I'm up on stage everything will be fine, but right now I wish I'd never even looked at a guitar. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/08/01/fear-of-music-4529590/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-31:/2008/07/31/title-4525725/alffly2008-07-31T18:27:58+02:002008-08-01T03:26:52+02:00 <p>I've been doing a little more reading into John McCain and his campaign to be President, and frankly I'm surprised.</p> <p>Remember when the Tories were trying to discredit Tony Blair with their "New Labour, New Danger" posters showing Blair with glowing red eyes? Tony Blair described the posters as "vicious." Frankly, compared to campaign tactics in the US, the Old Red Eyes Is Back posters were a ringing endorsement.</p> <p>McCain's campaign has shifted almost entirely from McCain's strengths to Obama's "weaknesses". At the end of July, the McCain camp put out a telvision spot comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The intention was to show that Obama is at best obsessed with celebrity, and at worst intellectually hollow. In speeches McCain has repeatedly stated that Obama "would rather lose a war to win a political campaign." Since Obama has never said as much this shows a remarkable insight on McCain's part, unless of course he has psychic powers. And how scary would that be?</p> <p>For a 71-year old, McCain is showing a surprising grasp of the usefulness of the internet in his campaign. He's been running a series of web ads which go unannounced in the mainstream media in the hope that they'll spread virally. One is simply a photograph of Obama alongside a photograph of America's favourite insane foreign dictator Fidel Castro, with a caption saying "Fidel Castro thinks he is the 'Most advanced candidate'". The obvious implication is that Castro, that famous enemy of democracy, thinks Obama is great, and therefore Obama must be an enemy of democracy too. In fact, the quote from Castro is a mistranslation of a fragment of a quote taken from an article written by Castro and published in the state-run newspaper Granma. The english translation posted on the Granma International website translates "advanced" as "progressive." Not only that, but the article is one that is otherwise overwhelmingly negative of Obama, but that doesn't matter to the people behind McCain's campaign.</p> <p>Then there's the advert directly blaming Obama for rising fuel costs because he objects to new oil drilling in the waters of the American Outer Continental Shelf. Of course, he's only one of many senators objecting to the proposals, and he has never, as the advert claims, said "No to indepedance from foreign oil," but that doesn't prevent the ad asking "Who can you blame for rising prices at the pump?" before fading in a backing track of people chanting Obama's name over and over again. Interestingly, McCain said in a speech that the oil crisis is a problem "Decades in the making", so it's interesting that Obama has only been in the Senate since 2005. It's not like he's been there for almost a quarter of a century, like some other politicians. Like, for instance, McCain himself.</p> <p>Or how about the viral that claims that Obama voted against troop funding? In fairness, he did - once. He voted for troop funding over ten times before he finally voted against it once in 2007. The reason he voted against troop funding that one single time is that Bush had previously vetoed a troop funding bill that set a date for withdrawal from Iraq. It was a protest vote, a sign of a man acting out of conscience. Interestingly, before Bush vetoed the previous bill he was recommended to do so by one John McCain.</p> <p>The same ad criticises Obama for "never [having] held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan". That's true. In his role as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on European Affairs, Obama has never held a senate hearing on the non-European country Afghanistan. McCain, on the other hand is the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and yet he missed all seven of the hearings that his panel held on Afghanistan during the past two years, according to ABCNews.com</p> <p>Or how about the speeches where he states that Obama will raise taxes for 23 million small business owners, despite offering no proof for claims based on out of date figures? Or the radio ad that claims Obama voted to raise taxes on Americans earning as little as $32,000 per year, despite the fact that the resolution Obama voted on actually proposed to raise taxes on people earning more than $41,500 per year in total income, and the fact that Obama's own tax plan would result in a tax <em>cut</em> for people earning $35,000 a year?</p> <p>Or the Spanish language radio ad which aimed to show that Florida would benefit from the McCain-endorsed Columbia Free Trade Agreement, despite the fact that <em>every single figure quoted in the advert but one</em> is wrong, and the one that isn't wrong is rounded up to support McCain's stance? Or the ad stating that Obama has said no to energy "innovation" and to "the electric car" and to "clean, safe nuclear power", despite Obama's proposal last year for a $150 billion research program into clean, renewable energy and the fact that Obama has said he won't say no to nuclear power as long as it is, wait for it, "clean and safe."</p> <p>I could go on - no, really, I could go on for a <em>very</em> long time - but I'll spare you. I won't even get into the biased Neocon news services and radio shows. Suffice to say, McCain's campaign is not attempting to counter Obama's policies and statements; it's there purely to portray Obama as dishonest, empty-headed, vain and, worst of all, unpatriotic, a crime that's viewed in America with the same level of disgust we reserve for child molesters and horse murderers.</p> <p>McCain makes a big deal about his military service, and his bravery can't be taken away from him. But that was bravery <em>40 years ago.</em> I'd like to think that the McCain who was beaten, tortured and imprisioned for five and a half years, the McCain who refused early repatriation unless every POW captured before him was also released, would look upon the McCain of today with disdain. It's hard to believe they're the same person.</p> <p><em>This post was researched from a variety of sources including <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/">The Huffington Post</a> and <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/">Factcheck.org</a>. I am in no way stating that Barack Obama has not been bending the truth to win the election, but the Balance of Lies seems rather tilted in the direction of McCain. I do not endorse either candidate, because endorsements are dangerous and you should really make up your own mind. And yes it </em>is<em> my business who wins the election because whoever does it will become the most powerful politician in the world and after George W I'd much prefer it to be someone I'd trust to look after a small child or animal without supervision.</em> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/31/title-4525725/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-30:/2008/07/31/the-first-black-president-of-america-4522671/alffly2008-07-31T00:46:37+02:002008-07-31T00:47:09+02:00 <p>The US Presidential race just gets more and more controversial by the hour. First the major American news networks had a go at John McCain for an advertising campaign telling what we in the old country call "lies" about Barack Obama - that he refused to go and see wounded US troops because he wasn't allowed to take the media with him. Now it turns out that Obama has had the TV networks on his side all along, covertly spreading propaganda on his behalf over a period of years.</p> <p>I'm talking, of course, about David Palmer, the fictional US President in the television series <strong>24</strong>, played by Dennis Haysbert. During a conference call to reporters, Haysbert told them that he believes his portrayal of a black man in the White House helped lay the foundations for Obama's campaign.</p> <p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-07-01-haysbert-obama_N.htm">Here's</a> a quote from USA Today:</p> <blockquote><p>"If anything, my portrayal of David Palmer, I think, may have helped open the eyes of the American people," said the actor, who has contributed $2,300 to the Illinois Democrat's presidential campaign.</p> <p class="inside-copy"> "And I mean the American people from across the board &mdash; from the poorest to the richest, every color and creed, every religious base &mdash; to prove the possibility there could be an African-American president, a female president, any type of president that puts the people first," he said Tuesday.</p> </blockquote>  I mean honestly, how is that fair? John McCain can't hope to compete with a massive tinseltown conspiracy that's been secretly brainwashing the US public via the medium of a violent television show. It's no wonder he has to lie about Obama: it's the <em>only weapon he has left.</em></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/31/the-first-black-president-of-america-4522671/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-29:/2008/07/30/grab-a-slice-of-hollywood-4518226/alffly2008-07-30T00:51:50+02:002008-07-30T00:53:26+02:00 <p>£75,000. That's how much it will cost to buy your own Tie Fighter.</p> <p>It's times like this that I wish I were made of money, because then I could literally give my right arm to buy it. I admit it - I'm a geek, and as such I would love to buy a Tie Fighter. I just can't help myself.</p> <p>The Tie Fighter is just one lot in a huge auction being held on August 1st by <a href="http://www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/16511">Live Auctioneers</a>. Other items up for sale include the axe used by Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Marty McFly's hoverboard from Back To The Future II and III, a pair of stone tablets as held by Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments, and, get this, the pistol from The Outlaw Jose Wales, a .44 calibre Colt Walker in its original holster. Oh, and Ben Affleck's costume from Daredevil, which I personally would buy just because it's from a film that contributed to the death of Affleck's career. I would worship it like a shiny leather God.</p> <p>Actually, there aren't many things in the auction I wouldn't buy. Of course, I would then be bankrupted and living in a house full of largely useless crap, but at least I'd own the sword used by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian. It squirts fake blood. Who could ask for anything more?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/30/grab-a-slice-of-hollywood-4518226/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-29:/2008/07/29/the-facebook-conspiracy-4513658/alffly2008-07-29T02:05:05+02:002008-07-29T02:11:14+02:00 <p> Facebook, the popular social networking site, was originally created by the CIA as a means of gathering information about internet users.</p> <p>I have been reading about that today. I have also been reading about attracting hits in search engines by using controversial or often-searched-for words and phrases in your writing. Can you tell?</p> <p>It appears to work as well. Charlie Brooker's column for UK newspaper The Guardian on July 21st was about exactly that subject. He deliberately inserted the words Poker, Naked, Viagra and Lohan into the otherwise innocuous title of his column - not long after it was published a comment was posted at the Guardian website by someone who had searched Google for the words "naked viagra" and Brooker's column was already the second listing.</p> <p>My views on the subject mirror Brooker's own. His article was actually centred around his wrath at sections of the printed press who deliberately write their articles in a way designed to appeal to search engines, by inserting certain phrases into them whether they have anything to do with the subject at hand or not. It's already bad enough that we're constantly marketed-at by soulless corporate bastards without having the act of reading the newspaper becoming like walking down the main street in Akihabara with hundred-foot-tall neon signs flashing adverts directly into your eyes at retina-scarring levels of brightness.</p> <p>Of course, this isn't a new phenomenon. Adverts in Victorian penny dreadfuls pulled exactly the same trick with bold, exciting headlines at the top of adverts for utterly mundane things. Almist all tabloid news articles follow the same lines - the Sun even goes so far as to <strong>bold</strong> exciting or saucy phrases in the opening paragraph of an article just to make sure you've noticed them. This is why I don't read much print media any more - the whole thing is to depressing for words.</p> <p>As for the Facebook Conspiracy, check out the article <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10456534">here</a> for more details. It's a sordid tale of slightly twisted pasts and not-really-underhand dealings. Some of the people who work at companies that put up funds for Facebook used to work at, or with people who used to work at, some US Government departments. Something's definitely dodgy, although whether it's Facebook or the conspiracy itself is something you'll have to decide on a personal level. I wouldn't want to influence your thinking. That would sound a bit like, well, a conspiracy.</p> <p>Boy, writing the tags for this post's gonna be fun! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/29/the-facebook-conspiracy-4513658/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-28:/2008/07/28/four-minutes-past-two-4508694/alffly2008-07-28T02:16:05+02:002008-07-28T02:16:05+02:00 <p>Four minutes past two on a monday morning. I find that I think better at night - or, to be precise, in the early hours of the day. Not more clearly, I should point out. If anything, it's quite the opposite; I think less clearly, and I seem to allow my mind to wander off at tangents and around corners far more easilly.</p> <p>Back when I used to write on a semi-professional basis I would always do my best work at this time. It was when I'd have my best ideas, come up with my funniest jokes, weave non-sequiturs most easilly into the ongoing text. As a cartoonist I was thinking at a premium in these ungodly hours too.</p> <p>I wonder if there's any reasonable basis for me feeling this way? Perhaps it's the simple matter of the bits of the world directly surrounding me having gone to sleep, leaving me to think in peace, but I'd like to think that there's more to it than that. I'd like to think that as I become more tired and less firmly grounded in the waking world I also become more inventive. I don't know, perhaps I'm just pissing in the wind.</p> <p>Either way, blogging whilst tired certainly makes typing more interesting. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/28/four-minutes-past-two-4508694/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-26:/2008/07/26/a-moving-story-4503160/alffly2008-07-26T20:44:22+02:002008-07-26T20:45:41+02:00 <p>It will probably not come as much of a revelation if I tell you that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do. Even if you haven't moved house yourself you'll have heard the phrase somewhere. And it's true; I once moved apartment three times in two months, and I can now honestly say that I'd rather trap my testicles in a draw than do it again.</p> <p>Unless, of course, you're not the one doing the moving. If you're just there helping out then it becomes a much more enjoyable experience. It's like that old saying: if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then you're probably standing around chortling while your friends stomp about complaining at each other, bumping into one another whilst carrying huge boxes full of books and moaning about how tired they are.</p> <p>Never underestimate the power of physical exercise to kick you out of a depression. Laughing at your friends' discomfort also helps. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/26/a-moving-story-4503160/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-25:/2008/07/25/anger-regret-4498460/alffly2008-07-25T18:49:58+02:002008-07-25T18:49:58+02:00 <p>I am angry. I am not angry at anything in particular, I just have general low-level rage bubbling away beneath my skin.</p> <p>I don't like it when I get like this, partly because I don't know what causes it and partly because it makes me unpleasant to be around. I'm never sure whether to ask my friends and family for help and risk alienating them by taking my mood out on them, or to become introverted and keep myself to myself. I suspect that I'll do the latter; it's what I normally do, but then I get angry at myself for being introverted and not being able to change my ways. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p> <p>Right now I can't see a way out of feeling like this. I hate it so much. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/25/anger-regret-4498460/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-24:/2008/07/24/right-out-of-nowhere-4493855/alffly2008-07-24T18:44:04+02:002008-07-24T18:44:04+02:00 <p>Depression is a funny old thing. Not funny ha ha - that would kind've defeat the object - but funny-how-it-comes-out-of-nowhere-and-kicks-you-in-the-gut-just-when-you-least-expect-it. That kind of funny. Which isn't very funny at all, really.</p> <p>Thankfully I have a temporary cure, in the guise of Audiosurf. Audiosurf, for those who don't know, is a PC game, a strange hybrid of racing and puzzle games, which takes your music collection and uses it to generate the courses you'll be racing on. For those of you who haven't tried it, I can heartilly recommend that you try the demo, available <a href="http://www.audio-surf.com">here</a>.</p> <p>Audiosurf is fun on a couple of levels. It's fun for the sheer thrill of racing and thinking quickly on the fly. It's fun to try one of your favourite songs and discover that not only is it a great song but it also makes an amazing racetrack. And it's fun for the synaesthetic thrill of seeing the course reacting to the song; glowing lights and undulating courses pulsing in time to the music. It's a rush.</p> <p>Music and gaming are two of the things I can use to kick myself out of a rut when I'm depressed, so to see the two combined so perfectly is excellent news for me. In honour of what has rapidly become my favourite game I've started a blog to collate ongs which have surprised me in their brilliance. It's called Adventures In Audiosurf and it can be found <a href="http://adventuresinaudiosurf.wordpress.com">here</a>. Give it a go. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/24/right-out-of-nowhere-4493855/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-23:/2008/07/24/f-u-k-d-4490694/alffly2008-07-24T00:34:05+02:002008-07-24T00:34:05+02:00 <p>I arrived here tonight with a very definite topic for discussion, but I've just noticed something that's made me completly forget about it. I am a fickle boy.</p> <p>The thing that has distracted and amused me is this: The "Write" page for blog.co.uk has a field for the title of your post and, beneath that, a larger field where you can type the post itself. Between the two is a blue bar which contains several buttons for embedding things into your post like hyperlinks and smilies. This is, in itself, not particularly interesting.</p> <p>Also on this bar are four buttons for altering the font. There's a Bold button, represented by the letter F in a bold font. There's an Underline button, represented by the letter U underlined. There's an Italics button, represented by the letter K in italics. And there's a Strikeout button, represented by the letter D with a line through it.</p> <p>FUKD. That can't be a coincidence, surely. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/24/f-u-k-d-4490694/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-22:/2008/07/22/title-4485458/alffly2008-07-22T21:25:31+02:002008-07-22T21:26:58+02:00 <p>Crowds are gathering in Belgravia protesting the arrest of Radovan Karadzic and his upcoming handover to the UN war crimes court in the Hague. They are confronting riot police, shouting, chanting and hurling missiles, according to the BBC. It is expected that this is only the beginning of prolonged and violent protests.</p> <p>There was some protesting going on in the UK today as well. Dan Glass, a member of the group Plane Stupid - a group dedicated to protesting the building of a third runway at Heathrow Airport - has today attempted to glue himself to the Prime Minister.</p> <p>Glass was at Downing Street to recieve an award from PM Gordon Brown. He managed to smuggle a small, non-metallic container of superglue through security and coated his hand with it. When Brown went to shake Mr Glass' hand, Glass touched his other hand - the glued one - to Mr Brown's jacket.</p> <p>Reports from here become confused. Plane Stupid claim that Mr Glass successfully glued himself to the PM. Downing Street, on the other hand, says that the attempt was unsuccessful and that while Glass may have touched the PM's jacket for a few seconds "There was no stickiness of any significance".</p> <p>I have two thoughts about this. The first is that we're supposed to be on some kind of permanent terrorism alert where we've got to be suspicious of anyone carrying so much as a matchbox-sized handbag, and yet somehow Downing Street security managed to allow a known protestor into the presence of the Prime Minister carrying an unmarked container full of a substance which could very much have been absolutely anything. Sure, it might have been superglue, but equally it could have been poison or mercury or hydrochloric acid. We could have ended up with a nightmarish "Our PM Is Two-Face Out Of Batman" scenario, and I don't think anyone wants that.</p> <p>The second is that we British must be the politest protesters in the world. When French students are annoyed they run around the suburbs of Paris burning cars. Since they also live in the suburbs of Paris there's a good likelihood that they're burning their own cars, which just demonstrates how annoyed they must be. In Israel a Palestinian has been shot dead after attacking cars with a bulldozer. And it Britain? We dress up as superheroes and chain ourselves to railings. It's not even on the same scale.</p> <p>Not that I'm calling for more violent protests on the streets of Britain. It's just that I'm not convinced that Gordon Brown will be convinced to intercede in the mutlimillion pound building of what I'm sure he hopes will be an important business link just because someone's put something sticky on his jacket. And not even significantly sticky at that. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/22/title-4485458/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk,2008-07-22:/2008/07/22/mapping-the-mind-4481335/alffly2008-07-22T02:11:01+02:002008-07-22T02:11:01+02:00 <p>I was recently introduced to a technique that many of you have probably already heard of but which was completely new to me, a technique called Mind Mapping.</p> <p>Mind Mapping is a visual way of representing a thinking process, and it works particularly well for people like myself who find even the smallest problem insurmountable. I'm told that the name for what I do is "catastrophising"; it's where if something goes wrong it triggers the thought that everything I know and do is also somehow flawed or wrong. Mind mapping is helping me overcome that.</p> <p>The technique is simple - you decide upon a goal and write it in the centre of a piece of paper. Around that you write down all of the things that appear to be standing in the way of achieving that goal. Then you go through those things one by one; for each one you branch off lines of what you'll have to do to make those things happen. Perhaps that will be the end of the process; more likely you'll find that one of those problems can be spun off into a set of further problems, and so on and so forth.</p> <p>The end result is that rather than having one huge, seemingly insurmountable problem, you end up with a lot of tiny, infinitely more solveable problems. Then you can set yourself achievable goals by compiling lists of these smaller problems and working your way through them one by one. For someone in my position (i.e. an unemployed crazy person) it's very useful to have a system that means that I have definite set goals to work towards.</p> <p>Now I'll be honest with you - it sounds like management bullshit. I realise, reading back the previous paragraphs, that I've even written it like management bullshit. My fingers want to insert phrases like "blue sky thinking." I'm one step away from suggesting we helicopter the idea around the room and see where it lands.</p> <p>But it works. It genuinely does. I've used it to plan out some of the things I'll need for a festival I'm going to soon, and I've gone from running around the room in a blind panic screeching like a gibbon with a stubbed toenail to merely panicking quietly to myself, which is far less distressing for the neighbours.</p> <p>Try it for yourself. If you can overcome your scepticism you may just find it useful. I did.</p> <p>Now, if you'll excuse me I'm just off to harness some strategic cross-media system paradigms in order to deliver out-of-the-box integration models and leverage analogous pinch-point synergy differentials. And then scrub the inside of my brain out with bleach. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://headfullofwrong.blog.co.uk/2008/07/22/mapping-the-mind-4481335/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>