A night in Edinburgh

Monday, August 18, 2008 ~ 1 comment so far

For the past few years my mate Keith has worked in Edinburgh producing the lighting for the Military Tattoo. I’ve never managed to get across to see him, or any of the Edinburgh Festival before, until yesterday.

He gets accommodation for the few weeks he is there, and as luck would have it there was a spare bed last night. So I packed an overnight bag and hopped on the train, meeting Stuart who was coming through for the night. There were no real plans, just a few beers, dinner and maybe a show if the mood took us.

And we did just that, partaking of a few shandies, and a rather good Thai meal in a nice restaurant tucked away down Old Assembly Close (I think, it’s a couple down on the right from Fleshmarket close). We then managed to get a couple of tickets to watch the Jim Rose circus. Keith knew someone who was working on the show so we got in for nothing which was just as well as it was gratuitous nonsense.

That said, I can now say that I’ve seen a woman spurt blue paint from her arse onto a canvas… can you?

It was a good night, followed up by pancakes and bacon for breakfast. However I am a little fuzzy still, age making hangover recovery just that little bit longer.

Private Private

Friday, August 15, 2008 ~ 14 comments so far

Continuing the terrible titles, this is a take on Catch-22, for no particular reason other than being able to play on the word “private”. Think yourselfs lucky I didn’t choose the schoolboy route and go with “Show us yer privates”.

Oddly the only reason I’m writing about this is because Twitter is currently dead, if it wasn’t then my comment on the issue would’ve been something along the lines of “@plasticbag – nice pic on BBC website! And don’t some people get in a tizzy sometimes..”.

At this point I should probably explain that I’m talking about the recently opened Fire Eagle service which

“… stores information about your location. With your permission, other services and devices can either update that information or access it. By helping applications respond to your location, Fire Eagle is designed to make the world around you more interesting! Use your location to power friend-finders, games, local information services, blog badges and stuff like that…”
[from Fire Eagle help page]

It’s a smart idea, and one which plays nicely into the fact my iPhone has GPS built-in so I can ping exact location information back to the Fire Eagle website at any time I choose. Clever.

But, of course, the privacy nutters (I use the term advisedly) have leapt all over this, stating that locational information could be stored by any of the 3rd party websites or applications that use Fire Eagle and then they’ll know where you have been!

Don’t get me wrong, I realise such things could be abused but from what I can make out Fire Eagle has considered such things. For starters they let you control the level of granularity of the geographic information that you share with other services, from pinpoint co-ordinates to a “I’m near this city” level location. Whilst you can purge your current location from the service at anytime, the privacy busters are more concerned about the historical information that could be stored.

Now I can see that will be an issue for some people, and that having a system know where you’ve been is worrying as it will, no doubt be used to guess where you will be at a given time and then… umm… yeah. Not sure what happens then.

Worse is the possibility of a hi-tec burglar watching out for your location changing before breaking and entering your house. These days I’d guess it’s not that hard to find an address for someone who looks rich, use Google maps to get the geographic co-ordinates of their home and then just wait until they update Fire Eagle with a new location (hey hang on, that DOES sound simple, eep!!).

Or, you know, if you are worried about it DON’T USE IT!!

And no, I’m sorry but the argument of “some people won’t know any better” doesn’t cut it. If they don’t know any better why are they signing up for a service they don’t understand? The Fire Eagle website does a pretty good job of telling people what it is all about so perhaps we need to shift a little responsibility on to the individual?

I’m sure some of you have stronger opinions on this topic than I do, I’d love to hear them. But be prepared to be mocked for, if I’m honest, I really don’t believe the end of the world is nigh because someone knows where I am.

Why you should watch the Olympics

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 ~ 22 comments so far

One reason I like the Olympics, especially now the BBC red button is so heavily used for additional coverage is the.. er.. additional coverage that all the sports receive. So far I’ve watched a little basketball, fencing, archery, canoe slalom, badminton, weightlifting, boxing, cycling, swimming, and diving. That’s all before the athletics have started.

I’ve watched tennis and football too but they get enough coverage (thankfully there isn’t an Olympic golf contest!).

There is one thing that the BBC remain good at, and I guess it’s largely down to their researchers, is building stories into each event, adding personal backdrops to the unfolding drama and, for me at least, helping to drag you into the excitement.

Add in some skilled commentators who understand that their audience might not understand the finer points of the given sport and it’s an excellent combination (if only they’d managed to shut up during the opening ceremony, where they managed to spoil two surprises).

An example, the men’s cycling road race. At about the halfway point there was a breakaway of 3 riders. Now I’ve watched enough Tour de France to know that breakaways are difficult and that the peloton (the chasing pack) usually reel them back in (strength in numbers and all that).

However the breakaway pulled out a 30 second gap and managed to hold it. With a third of the race to go 2 more riders broke out of the peloton to try and reel them back in before the finish. They managed to get about 15 seconds out from the peloton but couldn’t catch the leaders. Then, with the race entering the final quarter, the last few kilometres, a lone Swiss rider broke from the peloton.

Now, this is a one off event, 3 medals and that’s it. Why the peloton didn’t work harder to catch the leaders I don’t know (there is an element of teamwork at play here too, with the Spanish riders in the peloton probably holding back because they know they have one of the front 3 riders).

Back to the Swiss rider then, and all of a sudden he’s catching the first 2 breakaway riders and no sooner has he done that than he starts to drag them up to the front 3. The kilometres are ticking down, surely the front 3 can’t be caught … but wait! there they are, just up ahead…

By now I’m on the edge of my seat. One man has to work VERY hard to close such a gap, surely he won’t have enough left for the final few hundred metres to the finish line, uphill!

6 riders turn the final corner, up out of their seats, legs pumping hard, lungs burning, adrenalin flooding their veins as they realise they could win! The Russian rider breaks into a sprint, but surely he’s too early!! The hill continues, the other riders are weaving hard now, focussed, determined, they catch the now fading Russian and pass him, the Spaniard edges ahead, the line approaches… HE’S WON!!!!

But what of the Swiss? Does he get anything for his efforts? Any reward at all? I’m desperate to know, unsure if he was beaten into 4th or managed to earn 3rd place and a coveted medal… the tension is killing me, come on commentator!!

He did it, he got bronze!! WOO HOOOOO

OK, so maybe I get a little wrapped up in such things a little too easily but I appreciate the effort, the training, the techniques and strategies at play, and not just in cycling. The mental pressures are as tough as the physical ones at times, and for some this is a one time only chance, the pinnacle of their sport.

How can you NOT be dragged into such drama? How can you possibly flick idlly to Eastenders or Big Brother when there is REAL emotion, real guts and passion on display.

Honestly, if you aren’t watching the Olympics you are some weird kind of cretin. It’s not about sport, it’s about passion, commitment and desire. It’s about despair and pain, about winning, about competing, about focus and drive. Tears, laughter and joy, not medals. It’s about being alive.

Isn’t it?

Storage

Monday, August 11, 2008 ~ 10 comments so far

I have a MacBook, and I really enjoy using it as it is a very nice experience.

I have a PC, and I really enjoy using it as I am a power-user and have it tailored to the way I work and I’m very comfortable in the environment.

I find myself wanting to use the Mac for more but as I’m still learning keyboard shortcuts I find myself pausing and.. well it’s still not as fluid for me as working on the PC. Part of that is the resolution of the MacBook screen which is, these days, rather low. Hence my recent ponderings about a KVM to allow me to hook up the MacBook to my LCD monitor.

Anyway, another thing that stops me switching fully to the MacBook is the pitiful hard-drive. My music collection ALONE, is larger than the drive which brings me to the topic of this blog post.

I think what I need to do is switch out all of my storage needs, files, photos, music, to an external drive. That way it doesn’t matter what machine I’m on, I can just switch the external storage drive and access whatever I need.

So I just need to figure out how to move the iTunes library files to an external drive and I’m all set, I think… Ohhh yeah, and buy a big enough hard drive (and backup).

Or maybe buy an iMac… hmmmm

Fluid Languidity

Sunday, August 10, 2008 ~ 2 comments so far

Yesterday was spent flitting between family visits (bar my Gran as both Louise and I still have remnants of nasty colds and we’d hate to infect her), the evening including some TV and the movie The Matador which I knew a little about but which exceeded expectations by a country mile. A little bizarre and Pierce Brosnan is brilliant, well worth a lazy evening watch.

And today, well bar a brisk walk to test out my knee (it’s throbbing as I type, but not as badly as before) we’ve mainly dotted around the house doing our own thing. Some Olympics have been watched, washings done, rooms tidied and games played. A quiet day, lazily drifting from task to task.

And all washed down with litres of Blue Mountain coffee. Delish.

Knee-ly there

Thursday, August 7, 2008 ~ 4 comments so far

(I do love me a craptastic punific title!!)

I was at the physio yesterday and, bar a spot of confusion over the eccentric loading exercises I’d been given previously*, it went well. It’s the small things that matter you see, and the fact that the physio was able to prod and press on that tender spot under my left kneecap WITHOUT ME WANTING TO PUNCH HER IN THE FACE WITH A BRICK was, I believe, a very good thing. Progress indeed.

After a course of ultrasound on my knee the physio gave me some new exercises (raised-heel weighted squats, some lunges and more flexibility focussed work) and an entire week within which to make some progress. I’ll need to go for a couple of brisk walks at some point as well to see how well the knee holds up to that kind of exercise.

All in all it’s good progress, with the hint that I may be able to start jogging again, lightly, in the near future. It will be difficult to get back into the routine I’m sure, and I do need to shift some weight ASAP before that, but I have the advantage of knowing that I can start from scratch and work my way up.

I will go back to jogScotland without a doubt. The way they structure their programs lends itself to rehabilitation of an injury, so I’ll likely slot into one of the beginner groups and just take it easy. We’ll see how it goes I guess.

So, on a gloomy rainy grey day I have a glimmer of light, and it just goes to show what can be achieved when you actually listen to the experts and stick to the training programme they have given you (yeah yeah, shut up).

* Eccentric loading is, as it sounds, a way of exercising an injured area without adding undue stress. One of the exercises I was given involved a simple squat, you lower yourself into the squat then lift the injured leg off the floor before raising yourself up out of the squat with your good leg. The physio yesterday questioned it, as did I as you aren’t actually working the injured leg (but that’s the point!), and there was a small moment where I wondered if I’d spent a month doing the wrong exercises!! Thankfully, I hadn’t.

Finish This Sentence

Wednesday, August 6, 2008 ~ 6 comments so far

Ignoring the fact I have been specifically tagged, and not completed, a few memes in the past couple of months, this one I think I can tackle. Thanks to Cliff for the open invite.

1. My uncle once: remembered my birthday (LOL!!).

2. Never in my life: have I chosen to eat a raw tomato, ick ick ick.

3. When I was five: I had the run of the house as my sister had yet to appear.

4. High school was: much the same as anyone else who was smarter than most and didn’t “fit in” with the cool kids.

5. I will never forget: finishing my first 10K and the emotions that went with that.

6. Once I met: a homeless person and bought him coffee and a doughnut.

7. There’s this girl I know: Who writes a blog that no-one reads, and she’s really good but hates getting compliments (and I’m not linking to it until I get permission).

8. Once, at a bar: I stole a bottle of champagne and no-one noticed.

9. By noon, I’m usually: ready for lunch and checking what the afternoon holds.

10. Last night: I did some work on a blog design, it’s coming along nicely (and the client is really nice, that helps).

11. If only I had: more discipline.

12. Next time I go to church: I’ll, again, wonder why I’m there.

13. What worries me most: is what the future may or may not hold.

14. When I turn my head left I see: a MacBook and the remnants of my lunch.

15. When I turn my head right I see: out of the window, across the cul-de-sac.

16. You know I’m lying when: I don’t tell the truth.

17. What I miss most about the Eighties is: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!.

18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: an obscure snob, sitting on the sidelines whilst the main play unfolded, chipping in with witty asides.

19. By this time next year: I’ll be a year older.

20. A better name for me would be: Mr. Research.

21. I have a hard time understanding: people who are happy to accept the status quo, who accept prejudice as fact and remain inconsiderate of others.

22. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: only be there to gloat.

23. You know I like you if: I smile when we talk.

24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: whoever nominated me.

25. Take my advice, never: that plate of melted cheese? Don’t eat it.

26. My ideal breakfast is: filter coffee and toast with lashings of butter and honey.

27. A song I love but do not have is: the live version of Hotel California that they use on MTV sometimes (OK OK, Q or VH2).

28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: Climb up to the castle, and enjoy the view down the Clyde.

29. Why won’t people: just get along?

30. If you spend a night at my house: red wine and takeaway curry, good music and laughter.

31. I’d stop my wedding for: no-one as I’m already married, thanks!

32. The world could do without: idiots.

33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: let ANYONE stick ANYTHING in my EYE EVER.

34. My favourite blonde(s) is/are: Marilyn Monroe.

35. Paper clips are more useful than: not having paper clips when you need one.

36. If I do anything well it’s: convincing people that I can do anything well.

37. I can’t help but: constantly need something to hold my attention.

38. I usually cry: at soppy movies, or soppy TV shows, or… basically any form of simple emotional manipulation and I tear up.

39. My advice to my child/nephew/niece: only you know what YOU really want, learn to listen to yourself.

40. And by the way: one day this blog will cease to exist.

And I’ll take the same route as Cliff and wimp out of nominating anyone in particular. Instead, if you haven’t blogged for a while or just fancy a change, grab the sentences and finish them yourself.