my tumblr thang

This will be too long for a tweet but it’s not much....

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:35:40 +0100

This will be too long for a tweet but it’s not much. I’ve been thinking about Michael Jackson and how I feel about it, and how I feel about people’s responses to it, ever since Thursday night and I think I’ve boiled it down to the following.

The media can mourn Michael Jackson the celebrity if it wants to - that’s their loss afterall. I’ve seen that c word thrown around a lot, mostly by way of somehow dismissing MJ’s death, refusing to grieve, itching to bring up his weirder qualities. The word celebrity has been destroyed this decade by wannabes and reality TV. I flatly refuse to use it to describe Michael Jackson. The world lost a true artist this week, perhaps one of its last, and that’s why I’m sad.

Anyway he’s free from this world that thank god never truly got to tell him just quite how unwanted he was by some. He was too big and too much of a dreamer for this place. He loved children and did nothing wrong in a world where those two things aren’t allowed to lay together, especially if you’re a Celebrity. It is sad that he is gone but truly the thing I am thinking of most now is: he’s free.

Don’t use a credit card … sponsored by American...

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:19:03 +0100

Don’t use a credit card … sponsored by American Express …

hehe, that rocks. Yeh I couldn’t wait so I found 3.0...

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:46:56 +0100

hehe, that rocks. Yeh I couldn’t wait so I found 3.0 another way :) Sadly I can’t get the new hardware till the new year. Oh well.

Don't Rub It In, Morrissey ...

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:18:49 +0100

… I got more than my fill of Melanie tonight :)

“We Will Resume

“I am very pleased to confirm that we will resume at Luxembourg this coming Friday (5 June), absorbed and collected. I have been reconstructed by a Wiltshire hospital and I am as close to good health as I’m likely to get.

“I apologize to everyone caught up in the to-ing and fro-ing, but the disappointment of postponement is less than the disappointment of hearing me sing on one engine.

“I should stress that nothing has been canceled. The four London concerts are repositioned in July, and both Birmingham and the Royal Albert Hall are October fixtures. I’ve endured a titanic struggle against an intolerable virus lately, and although Hull, Hartlepool and Manchester were nights that comprised a whole life, the physical limits were reached. False notes crush the soul.

“Besides Luxembourg and beyond, I am excited about the October release of Swords, which is an 18-track compilation of b-side of singles from the last three albums. This will be a Polydor release.

“Thanks to everyone who bought ‘Years of Refusal’. We were the number one seller in the UK for the week of release, but, as with ‘You Are The Quarry’ and ‘Your Arsenal’, we were booted off the number one spot on the last hour of the final day. We cried.

“I would like to point out that some passable creature is using my name and sending sharply chiseled replies to people via Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. This person is not me. Not enough happens in my life that I would wish to share it with others. I do not scan these sites - or whatever they are - so I can only hope that whoever is posing as me is at least worth talking to. Beware of false imitations.

“Thanks for reading these unvarnished facts, and thanks for giving us some greatly enjoyable nights on the Refusal tour.

“Absolutely Yours,
Morrissey. “

My top 50 albums right now … finally got them all into...

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:18:34 +0100

My top 50 albums right now … finally got them all into iTunes at the same time. They fit onto my old 4GB iPod Nano too. Listening to the first 200 of Rolling Stone’s top 500 album list hasn’t done much to shift these :)

baby art blog : child abuse chic

Mon, 25 May 2009 21:36:06 +0100

baby art blog : child abuse chic

I haven’t tumbl’d in ages I know lol, you’re...

Thu, 21 May 2009 20:06:14 +0100

I haven’t tumbl’d in ages I know lol, you’re probly best following me on Twitter for the day-to-day what I’m doing stuff, but I felt like checking in and this seems like a good excuse, my first scribble for album 3’s cover. All songs are at least part written and I’m determined to get it done at least within the year …

On SL Music

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:29:00 +0100

It’s not often I find myself compelled to harness all my “writing skills” to spill out some words almost against my will but I got an IM in Second Life last night during a show that I really felt needed an answer and I’d like to share that answer ‘cos I think it needs to be discussed and the solution seems kinda obvious to me. Someone claiming to be a student studying the legal side of artists, DJs, etc in virtual worlds, asked me what I thought being such a flagrant lawless. It’s an issue - and I’m sure the following will convey this - I’ve spent some time in the past 6 months thinking about. This is what I sent. They had IMed my main avatar Melody too hence the opening line.

hi, I’m sorry I didn’t get to reply to this yesterday. These are mine and Melody’s thoughts on this: we would *love* to comply with the industry and it would be a lot more fun if it was all 100% legal, but I’ve looked into this and there simply is no license agreement offered by them that covers our situation and income (which is pretty much non-existent and that’s true I would guess for more than half of SL performers and almost 100% of venues). The “immense numbers of potential viewers” you mentioned is nonsense in Second Life, the limits of which are well-documented. The *best* sims can accomodate at the most 100 avatars, and most performers/venues will only use a 50-user stream because even that quantity of punters is rare to find at a show. I would say in my 6 months of performing I have averaged 15 people per show and that’s an optimistic estimate. We use the stream less than 10 hours per week and, as I said, what we make from it has never more than covered Second Life fees.

On a side note, one of the ways I have always “justified” the questionable legal side of things is: people are at these shows in Second Life because they want live music. They kinda don’t care what they hear most of the time as long as it’s live. They weren’t going to buy that song you sang if they didn’t come and hear you sing it. Ironically, however, just the other week, I had somebody IM me after a show, asking me what was the Fiona Apple song I sang. She then proceeded to buy it from iTunes. So if anything you could argue that it’s *promoting* the artists. I’ve never claimed anybody else’s work as my own. I realise that a license fee should be paid, but until somebody either creates a license that makes sense or simply asks us to stop, I really don’t see this as an issue. This is before even considering the shady area of suggesting that these relatively small SL gatherings could almost be classed as private parties. I’m pretty sure you’ll hear the same from most SL music people.

I’ve discussed it with a couple of people since responding and it has only become clearer to me having put together the above statement. This is, in my opinion, the industry’s only option: I sell my own music online and via a company called CDBaby I get all kinds of revenue levels. The minimum streaming amount I see is in the order of 1/10th of a cent per play. I’m fine with this. If you apply this figure to my figures above, 20 songs per show, 15 listeners, 10 hours a week, it comes to about $12 a month which I would be happy to pay. The only solution I have seen so far on the publishing companies’ sites that suggests is might cover the SL situation is a blanket type license running into the $thousands, and you’d need more than one if you wanted to play artists from differing publishers. The music industry keeps complaining that they’re losing money, but they’re losing even more by not claiming what they could claim. I’m almost positive about this: people will pay if they can afford it. Sorry about another soap-boxy post but this stuff really gets me mad.

This American Life - "Somewhere Out There"

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 05:58:11 +0100

This American Life - "Somewhere Out There" :

It’s been a while since I even listened to This American Life let alone ranted or raved about it here and what an episode to return to. As they often do, they started off kind of annoying me. Then it grew on me again. Then, 30 minutes into this show or thereabouts, the “Tom Girls” story. I don’t wanna tell you what it’s about or get too much into my thoughts on it, ‘cos they cover it better than I ever could and I quickly get in a mess on this topic and wind up saying nothing. I just wanna say, please, even if you never listened to This American Life before, if you’ve got about 20 minutes to spare, listen to this one story. It’s one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking, anger inducing (because of some of the ignorance you hear) yet hopeful (‘cos of how fully the girls’ self-knowledge comes across - who they are simply can’t be denied) things I’ve ever heard on something that is really close to my heart.

When I read, or like in this case, hear that there are girls like this out there who actually have the ability to express themselves so young and at least hope to be taken seriously, therefore with luck get some important things pertaining to the “problem” done in good time … let’s just say, bad idea to listen at work. I wish I’d had the same chance, and I hope one day all kids do. The American Tail song that follows it was admittedly milking the moment, but hey, I’ll never turn down a good cry. Please, please listen, I don’t like to come across as preachy and stuff but I just really wish everyone on earth understood this thing. I’ll get off the soap box now, thanks :-P

FAME (2009) - First Official Movie Trailer (via sortiecine) omg,...

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 02:28:17 +0100

FAME (2009) - First Official Movie Trailer (via sortiecine) omg, I think they have actually managed to not f*ck it up lol.

"TOY STORY 3… They showed a piece of artwork from Toy Story 3 that I hadn’t seen before. It was kind..."

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:20:49 +0100

“TOY STORY 3… They showed a piece of artwork from Toy Story 3 that I hadn’t seen before. It was kind of a haunting image, actually. Woody has his back to us, overlooking Andy’s room. Woody’s head hangs low. Andy’s room is now a teenager’s. There’s a hill of dirty clothes in the middle of the room, a guitar in one corner, car posters on the wall, etc. No toys to be seen except for Woody himself. Like I said, a sad image.”

- Ain’t It Cool - I think I should start collecting tissues now.

Stepping it up just a touch, I resolved to make it to #100 on...

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:30:00 +0100

Stepping it up just a touch, I resolved to make it to #100 on the Rolling Stone list by the end of March (I wanna do the whole 500 by my next birthday, next Feb …) and only just made it :-P My own tops list (which I’ll only feel comfortable posting once I’ve listened to all these) hasn’t been affected much by these recordings, but it’s certainly a great musical education full of things I wouldn’t otherwise have gone near and I can’t fault their selections, even though I’ve got issues with including compilations, greatest hits, soundtracks and such in a best albums list LOL. If nothing else, working through this list is about the only thing I’ve kept up with so far this year …

(this lot runs a total of 2 days, 1 hour, 28 minutes, incidentally, lol)

I love my work playlists, I’m expecting this one to pass...

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:56:33 +0000

I love my work playlists, I’m expecting this one to pass the 7 hour shift particularly pleasantly :)

message from Kryten (via bobbyllew) - hehe, too excitin’,...

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:51:52 +0000

message from Kryten (via bobbyllew) - hehe, too excitin’, there’s not a chance in *hell* I’m working this Good Friday. Robert Llewellyn’s tweets have been awesome to follow these past few weeks.

I love the iPhone - as I’ve written here already, even...

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:59:04 +0000

I love the iPhone - as I’ve written here already, even moreso jailbroken; but I have to say, that is one embarrassing shortlist for 3.0.

If anyone reading this reads my movie reviews at ambival.net...

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:12:00 +0000

If anyone reading this reads my movie reviews at ambival.net you’ll have noticed I’ve started including a still from the movie in question with reviews. As they say a picture tells a thousand words and it kind of adds something to my process, especially when I’ve little to say, to choose an image that I think captures the movie best. Sometimes it’s hard, however, to grab a still that looks good even at 498px wide which is what the site design calls for.

I found a nifty procedure for Pixelmator, an app I’ve really been growing to love lately since I re-installed my OS and once again resolved not to use a dodgy copy of Photoshop LOL. I’m sure it would work in other image editors too, though. It’s something I messed around with quite awhile ago so probably half stole from elsewhere, but basically it involves a combination of enlarging the image to megapixel proportions, adding a slightly blurred noise layer and tweaking the opacity thereof (setting it to Overlay blending seems to work good here too), then sharpening and reducing back down to the required size. Not exactly step by step, lol, but the key to it is messing with the settings ‘cos they differ depending on the image you start with. This picture is a side by side comparison of one I just grabbed from 36 Fillette which was a particularly bad version, I think VHS converted to DVD at lower than the aforementioned 498 resolution. You can see full size version here.

Man I drool every time I see this picture lol. Probably even...

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:48:14 +0000

Man I drool every time I see this picture lol. Probably even posted it before. I was looking for a still from Fat Girl lol. I think I’ve got, like 5 of these DVDs. ‘N probably not even seen many more.

via images.amazon.com

LOL, take it Emily. Windows dies inside me cosy OSX.

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:45:45 +0000

LOL, take it Emily. Windows dies inside me cosy OSX.

Digital Red Nose - hehe, nice. I was thinkin’ they should...

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:11:00 +0000

Digital Red Nose - hehe, nice. I was thinkin’ they should do this with poppies for Remembrance Sunday a couple of years back. (edit: yuck, though, that’s some nasty compression …)

For reasons unknown even to me, I’ve found myself on the...

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 05:41:24 +0000

For reasons unknown even to me, I’ve found myself on the prowl for cute icons, frankly almost fully intent on 100% cutesifying my entire dock, LOL. I absolutely adore these first ones I found these first ones I found for my Stacks. The pink pig is my own creation from a Flickr finding, a replacement for Cha-Ching’s default icon. Not as cute as I really wanted - I have this idea of icons on the Dock all being like cuddly toys on a shelf - but it was a minor education learning how to do it right.