Monday, October 23, 2006

Bacon, Vodka and a Church at midnight

Last Saturday morning was less than enjoyable, shouting Welsh at the sink for the best part of two hours I'd had enough of the punishment. All week I'd been promising myself to keep it small the following Friday, so that I could perhaps enjoy Saturdays the way they're meant to be enjoyed..by looking at the outside world under the glow of a Mac screen.

However, an ill-timed call from Pompy during my first and last pint in Browns, led me down south within the next 50 mins. The evening started quite quiet, even the occasional single was purchased when the lure of a double was only a further 40p. 20 units invariably led to another and before long I was dancing out of tune, and singing out of beat. It really was that bad.

Anyway, walking home at about 1 o'clock, we pass a church. There are a few people outside, but we proceed with caution, not wanting to get too involved with the God Squad at this hour. A few yards down the road however, and someone else hasn't quite got the same idea. A rather un-intellectual drunken rant about Dinosaurs and Darwin filled the air. Some little twat was kicking off, and although I'm a man of science and reason, the gathering outside the church were clearly uneasy. So a mate and I helped move this chap away and restored peace. My good deed for the day and it was only 130am.

THEN it got weird. We were thanked and asked in for a bacon sandwich. All good I thought as I was led down the cloisters by a religious nut. Turns out they're not that bad. I spent the next hour talking to a Vicar in jeans about pretty much everything. It was pretty cool - I wasn't claiming to be right and neither was he, it was just a decent conversation with a chap clearly more sober than me, although I held good ground without sounding too much like a drunken fool pissed off that Father Christmas doesn't actually exist. Turns out they believe in monkeys as well, and there was the occasional time when I thought - Hmm, good point.

Waking up the next day, I thought about the night before, and although you won't catch me sticking a fish to the back of my car, I was very impressed at the way the Church wanted to engage the unengageable - ie the drunken rabble roaming the streets of Pompy on a Friday night. Nice bacon sarnie too.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Procrastination

It's amazing the amount of 'urgent' stuff you can find to do when you can't face the washing up. It was simply a matter of live or death that I configured my Squeezebox to show my Twitter activity.

Well Hung in the bedroom

It's not everyday one gets inspired while in the dirty Weatherspoons at the bottom end of town. I was sitting on / stuck to a chair a few months back and saw some 'local artwork' on the wall. One particular piece was a fantastic display of Photoshop filters entitled 'Castle 4'. The artist / barman had taken a photo of Windsor Castle, 'found it's edges' and duplicated the image 4 times while applying various colour filters.

OK, so this wasn't be best example of making your own stuff for the wall, but it got me thinking I was going to do the same. The great thing about it, is you can design the image in exactly the colours that you know will suit the room, ie Red for the lounge and Blue / Brown for the bedroom.

I wanted it to be clear that I'd made the images and also wanted to give it a personal touch. That's why I've decided to make both of them from photos I'd taken in the past.

The first one I created for the lounge and printed out at A1 size with full bleed down the sides. The original photo was taken on top of the empire state, and I messed about it Photoshop until I was happy with the results. I then sent it off to photocanvasprinting.com who for less than £100, printed, mounted and sent it back within the week.

My second canvas I wanted to create was for the bedroom, we'd recently returned from holiday in Crete and I'd had a nice photo of Helen that I wanted to create an image from. Under strict instructions of keeping it brown and blue, I designed the image on the right which I then had printed at A2. Unlike me, it's now well hung in the bedroom.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Cafe


Cafe
Originally uploaded by tumbleweed1979.
This weekend, I went back home see my folks. I thought I'd go for a walk and went to Hayling Island, a place of many happy memories as a kid. By the looks of it, it hadn't changed much in 20 years. Quite sad to see, but the sun was just at the right place to take some photos.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Squeezebox / Last.FM geekness

After very little effort, I've just set up my Squeezebox with my Last.fm account with SlimScobbler. Who wouldn't want to do that!

A Squeezebox, for those unaware, is a wireless device that you plug in to your stereo that allows you to play any songs from your iTunes, BBC's Listen Again (Judge Jools!) or ShoutCast streams from the comfort of the lounge without geeking it up through a computer.

So, while it's doing that, it can send all the info to Last.FM who cleverly work out my 'tastes' and continually adjust my personal radio station, recommended bands and neighbours. Which in turn I can play back through my Squeezebox with the Last.fm pluggin. Using the remote, I can enter tags, artist names (for similar to), and it will play it straight back. Allowing me to listen to anything I like without even getting off my arse. Brilliant.



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