my tumblr thang

Oh dear ...

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 18:26:00 +0100

My employer in their wisdom have been revamping the whole organisation lately, our store has been having a refit to become like some kind of flagship and along with this comes a new uniform and name badge. I’d been told all about the badges etc, they are to include pretty pictures that give some kind of hint at the wearer’s personality or whatever - you can even put little notes under your name. Of course I had little fantasies about the possibilities (I believe one of the options was a cupcake hehe) of this but as soon as I was told about it my cynicism kicked in and lo and behold my suspicions were more correct than my pessimistic imagination was capable. I’ve been told today that when I go back to work after my lovely 3 weeks off, I will be presented with a name badge with a football on it because I have a penis. Those with vaginas get a sunflower badge. This is only in my department, everyone else got to choose from a variety of cheesy cliparts.

Oh wow. There will be such a kicking off lol. This is one of those moments where having family in the same workplace really pays off lol … I have a whole week to prepare my tirade :-D This is gonna be one of those days managers are told about but hope never happens. First Facebook and the “their” issue, and now this. I decided quite a while ago that I didn’t want to put my gender issues up in peoples’ faces, but when stuff like this happens, what am I supposed to do? There is literally NO WAY IN HELL I am walking around with a football on my chest lol …

"I’ve gone all pink!"

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:36:00 +0100

“I’ve gone all pink!”

- I was a little late listening to Kermode’s film reviews this week … his Mamma Mia is a classic :) Also since I’m writing about it again for a moment, can I just say, I thought Brosnan’s singing was fine? I’d rather hear an honest portrayal of the moment than auto-tuned slickness any day.

I didn’t know this was goodbye :-( Toby had to go to sleep...

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:24:00 +0100

I didn’t know this was goodbye :-( Toby had to go to sleep today :-( He’s been having trouble breathing and it was apparently really bad this morning and it turned out to be another tumour. I don’t know what else to say. Sorry, duplicate pic … but it means something else now :-( Goodbye to the greatest 3-legged kitty there ever was and the sweetest kitty I ever knew.

Grr.

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 22:03:00 +0100

Anyone else hate when they go to the front page of Flickr and the moment you click on a link to a contact’s page or whatever, you see a a really cool pic in the “recently uploaded” panel but of course when you finally back button, it’s gone to the ether (since, for example, in the past minute there were over 5,000 uploads LOL), and when you click through to the recently uploaded page you can’t even view more or anything in an attempt to chase it?! lol.

Just a random thing that’s been happening to me TONS lately lol. Am I missing any cool “hacks” to view recent uploads etc better? I’m guessing there are some browsers that more effectively snap back to show exactly what you originally saw or something - weirdly enough though Safari has a feature called “snap back”, it’s not doing that for me lol (edit: even when I mark it for snapback, grr).

Whooooooooo!

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:45:00 +0100

Thanks to here (mostly) and here (to realise you take off the listen.m3u bit of the URL lol) I just managed my first successful live broadcast (basically the sound of my parents watching Coronation Street coming through my MacBook’s internal mic LOL) into Second Life.

I’ve been trying on and off to figure out how to do this for almost a month now. It began as a simple attempt to get whatever music I want playing on our beach … I figured it’d be a no-brainer to get Last.fm playing in there but no such luck. But then I got into the live music and, I won’t lie, though it was the wondrous Harmonia Trefoil and Kim Seifert that have really been inspiring me (Kim especially on the guitar front - I’ve actually touched my guitar every day this week, lol!) … it was the handful of rotten performers that were still getting tips and adulation that really made me think maybe, just maybe, I could do it too, lol.

I’d looked at live365 and Via Streaming for streams and such but they were both just that little bit expensive for where I am right now. It was that first linked article that made me realise, what an idiot, I hadn’t even thought of looking for streaming servers in SL itself, lol. The prices seem insanely lower looking around the search listings there. I still like the idea of eventually using Live365 because they pay for royalties etc which I’m assuming covers cover songs also (one thing I find a bit suspect of a lot of SL artists not being entirely legit on, would love any links to discussion on that matter actually) but the next step will definitely be renting a stream through SL to play with.

For now I can at least use Nicecast on its lonesome to broadcast to my guinea pig Sarah and maybe even a handful of strangers who happen to happen upon my happenings. I’ll post the stream link here when I finally get going anyway, you don’t need SL to hear me but it’s more fun if you do :) lol.

Wow

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:35:15 +0100

I think my i.am address at ambival.net may have finally stopped getting spammed lol (lol, I really hope that sentence didn’t just bugger that fact). I didn’t even realise the account was still active ‘cos I’ve deleted it a few times but I remember now I had to reactivate it to get into Zoetrope a few months ago (hmm, that reminds me, I never did finish that chain of thought lol). I discovered this because 34sp e-mailed me ‘cos my marnie@ address (that takes me back lol) was threatening to consume the universe with its gargantuous dark matterish core of the stuff. Okay, there were over 5000 messages in there. But the i.am account? Just 2000, and not one of them since the aforementioned Zoetrope mail. Pretty cool. But a little late lol - happy with my gmail and .Mac (err, MobileMe …) aliases right now :)

A big standee for this movie stood out from the overcrowded sea...

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:39:35 +0100

A big standee for this movie stood out from the overcrowded sea of cardboard cutouts that greeted us at the multiplex seeing Mamma Mia! (we actually had to walk through Eddie Murphy’s head to have our tix checked LOL). It was a different poster to this (this one, I couldn’t find a bigger version) but just as cute. I may have to make another big screen trip in addition to Wall-E, Dark Knight etc, ‘cos this looks like one of those movies that I will just adore.

:-D lol me wants a pair of those in Second Life …...

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:37:00 +0100

:-D lol me wants a pair of those in Second Life … shouldn’t be too hard to do in fact :) via www.aintitcool.com

edit: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet …. voila! hehe :)

Casting Rumors for Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland' - Cinematical

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 17:23:48 +0100

Casting Rumors for Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland' - Cinematical:

Oy … if this is true then, what a waste. I know I’ve said of many of the older Alices that it doesn’t really bug me if they have the right spirit about them, which is often the case; and I don’t doubt that whatever Burton does will be interesting and true to a consistent vision etc … but seriously, if you’re gonna take so long to finally make yet another version of this story, it makes no sense to me to not finally do it “right” … There’s gotta be a 7-year-old girl out there who’s perfect for the role. Heck there’s probably a hundred. But anyway. It’s just a rumour for now :-/ Even Evan (hehe) Rachel Wood would (lol) have been better, I hadn’t heard that rumour. I would’ve thought she’d have something to do with Marilyn Manson’s Lewis Carroll thing though. Weird that he’s cast a 20-year-old as Alice too, and it’s not her.

Oh, hmm … I just read the comments of that article and somebody said it might be a motion capture movie like Beowulf. That changes everything. There are 60-year-olds who still sound like little girls, so it mightn’t matter who they cast in the end lol.

"He needs you. That’s very me."

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:39:23 +0100

“He needs you. That’s very me.”

- I don’t know how that was so perfect … but it was.

"… originally a low budget TV movie …"

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:07:53 +0100

“… originally a low budget TV movie …”

- LOL Martha Kierney on High School Musical on Newsnight. Hmm. I doubt it was THAT low … There were a bunch of cuties talking about the stage musical. I don’t know quite how to feel about that. I obviously haven’t seen the show but I think I can make an educated guess that it can’t possibly match the movie and that there are *way* better shows out there, even for kids, that could use the theatre space better. They got a balance going though, one of them saying, “I like it ‘cos it’s cheesy,” and another saying, “the diction wasn’t amazing”, lol, they can’t any of them have been over 12. I’m more excited about hearing my cousin Fiona’s reaction to seeing Chitty in Cardiff hehe.

Mamma Mia ...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:06:56 +0100

Gagh I’m too lazy to find it but I’m sure the clip must be out there, Meryl Streep singing “Winner Takes It All” in Mamma Mia. I have forever hated the idea of this and any “jukebox” musical, but since I started my Oscar Predictions page for next year, I have not strayed from the gut instinct that it’ll be nominated for Best Picture in ‘09 (after The Departed and No Country etc, it’s even easier to believe, just think about it …), and that clip - I saw it on Richard and Judy last night and I swear, my hand just shot to my mouth I was so literally gobsmacked by the emotion on display. There was a show on ITV tonight about ABBA in general and the movie and I couldn’t be more excited about the movie. I still wouldn’t want to see the show on stage because, as the clips in the doc kinda showed, it’s so easy to do this show badly - there’s this attitude that comes across that’s like, “It’s Mamma Mia, we don’t even have to try,” and it winds up like menopausal karaoke night or something lol - but on the big screen, with this cast, with the beautifully produced music … I swear this movie cannot fail to make even the cynic like me bawl for joy.

Ooh, embedded replay :)

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:53:00 +0100

Ooh, cool, I can do this now with my Facebook Graffiti doodles. Was particularly proud of this since I haven’t so much as touched the Graphire tablet in over a month, lol. You is obviously Sarah, not you who’s reading. Unless you’re Sarah :) (Edit: none of this will make sense if it’s read on the tumblr dashboard or without Flash, lol - it’s not important lol …)

Goddammit. It currently uses “their” which...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:06:00 +0100

Goddammit. It currently uses “their” which apparently annoys, umm, around 30 people (I searched for “facebook his her” and there are all of two tiny groups lol) - which wasn’t perfect but I was perfectly happy with it. If they’re actually gonna force me (I’ll just not answer as long as I can) then I guess it’ll have to be “her”. I’m sure that will confuse my friends SO much less than “their”. Thanks Facebook. Edit: ok there is another group with almost 70 members. Which I guess makes it all like, totally unanimous … Edit 2: apparently hidden in the code of that box is the more direct “please select male or female” lol. This annoys me so much. Do people *really* care that much what I have between my legs? Does it really confuse them so much that I don’t identify remotely as male but I accept that I’m not female either? Is it that hard to understand? Do I have to have disfiguring surgery to get through to ya? Etc. lol like I wrote in the queer positive facebook group, I’m on the red wine and mad … so for now I’ll just be quiet. Sigh can I just move to Second Life? Please?

"We Like A Big Pie."

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:36:00 +0100

“We Like A Big Pie.”

- omg, Marco Pierre. I won’t beat around the bush on this one ‘cos I’ve too many other to-dos to do today lol, I Am Gay For Him LOL. The purring was icing on the cake. Absolutely my favourite TV chef :) Gorgeous food, amazing personality, if I absolutely have to have a male role-model then, it’s him lol. Edit: omg lol spoke too soon for the quote, “I’d like a chunk. You’re so naughty. I should spank you with rhubarb sticks.” LOL!!! Edit 3: lol sorry I feel like a horny teenager or something I just saw this line on the linked page, “Every time I go to the seaside I always have fish and chips because I love the romance of it all,” … even in the 2 weeks of last year’s Hell’s Kitchen I don’t think I quite realised HOW in love with him I am. I absolutely must throw his books into my next Amazon cart hehe :) I loved the little girl who had a pet rabbit at home too, lol, but of the rabbit dish had to say, “but it’s very nice” LOL.

IMDb :: Boards :: "Doctor Who" (2005) :: Hell of a cast list (possible spoilers!!)

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:09:54 +0100

IMDb :: Boards :: "Doctor Who" (2005) :: Hell of a cast list (possible spoilers!!): awww no Maria :( I expected as much but it’s nice knowing for (a little more) certain in advance. And if she does show up it’ll be even more exciting.

Amazing Chain of Events :)

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:53:00 +0100

WARNING: this may strike some as just plain silly.

I forget now what my original plan for today was, lol. I found a fix for a few freezing bugs I’ve been having in Second Life that really came to a head in a miserable night yesterday, so for the first time in a while I ventured in there during the day. I found myself at the Kids5b sims that I’ve already mentioned - discovered the whole second sim with even more to behold. Seriously just between those two sims, Second Life is just an overwhelming wonder of creativity, if you’ve a computer that can handle it then you’ve just gotta check it out. But from there I found my way to the main SL5B exhibition … which I thought was a nono for child avatars, but there are a handful of places for us and they’re incredible. But I wandered from those too … and found the main stage.

I’d heard about live music in SL before, in fact I just missed a concert at the Kid5b sim last night by a couple of minutes and was pretty bummed about it, but it never quite captured my imagination a lot. I mean - the cynical objections to the idea are obvious … you’re looking at a computer generated avatar going through the motions of a prewritten animation, beaming across the net, and who knows where and when the audio you’re hearing is coming from?

So, anyway, this girl starts to sing on the stage, Kim Seifert. It could’ve been anyone, my first experience of SL live music. But she was good, great, amazing. I stayed for over an hour in the end, and towards the end, it was so good that I started to regret that Sarah wasn’t there “with” me. Not to mention that it certainly sounded live. Sarah got on but arrived just a little too late. We stayed for two more artists - Christion Dinzeo who wasn’t bad, not the greatest singing voice but a really infectious personality, and someone we didn’t really like, we only heard a song and a half or something. We went back to our beach and sat on the pier for a while.

But, moments later, I got a message from the group I’d joined while listening to Kim (“I got Kimmee’tude” hehe) - she was gonna be singing somewhere else in 15 minutes :) So me and Sarah put on our recently acquired matching pink sun dresses and went along to the Lily Pad. And there was Kim singing again.

Now for a moment, I actually worried, ‘cos she started with the same Johnny Cash song I’d heard at the SL5B stage. Then, halfway through the song, she coughed. She was so self-deprecating about it and apologetic but to me it was about the coolest thing she could’ve done (up till then at least) - I started to think that maybe it really was live afterall.

Then it started to get really cool. There was a little frog at the front of the stage accepting donations for Kim. I’d started to feel guilty when the artists earlier were mentioning tips, I suddenly realised that other people were actually genuinely supporting them instead of just leeching like little me LOL. So I threw L$20 in (in retrospect, she really deserved a LOT more, but I hope there’ll be other occasions in the future). And when she finished the song she was singing, she thanked me, personally, vocally - it’s the first time I’ve heard my SL name spoken out loud, lol … I know it’s so dumb, but it felt so special.

Later I made a request, from the list of songs she’s “learning” on her website. Again she said my name (actually, she talked to me a few more times too, saying I looked adorable and things hehe) and explained she couldn’t do it, but I really didn’t mind, like I guess it says a lot about me that such communication means so much to me or something but, whatever, all I feel is the warm fuzziness :)

Then she said she was gonna do the last song of the night, “Amazing Grace”, another that she’d done earlier at SL5B. She always ends on it and she always dedicates it to someone. And she dedicated it to “this cute little girl …” :-D I know, I know, it’s weird, it’s weird. But what can I say, I’m weird. I’ve never been made to feel so special by a randomly encountered stranger in my life. I managed to record the song and it’s here - Kim, if you somehow stumble across this entry, I hope it’s okay that I’m sharing it.

And the best part is Sarah was with me dancing in her matching pink dress :) Again I know it probably sounds weird to most people but, it was really just such a special day moving into night, we’ve been together as far as I’m concerned for 6 years, but that was our first real date, it really felt like as shared an experience as anything in the real world :) I put yet more screenshots on flickr.

Even iTunes have been quick on this one hehe! Last major mention...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:49:00 +0100

Even iTunes have been quick on this one hehe! Last major mention I’ll make of this I promise :) Pretty happy with the 30-sec clips again … every time I listen to it now I realise more how everything sounds like crap next to the first 4 songs but I remind myself that I’ve been unfortunate to hear it a hundred times by now :-P Also iTunes has the release date as 17th June, not Friday the 13th as Amazon lol … so that’s nice … I noticed it’s iTunes Plus too, which is cool - I only realised the other day that Teething has at some point in the past year been upgraded to that. My own music aside completely, CD Baby has gotta be one of the best value services on the net, it’s just unbelievable what they do and where they take your music.

The disk image for Visual Hub which looks like a nifty app -...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:41:00 +0100

The disk image for Visual Hub which looks like a nifty app - downloaded ‘cos I got the Tonys telecast but it’s in grr MPG format (the DVD player plays DVDs and DivX/XviD, and that’s where I’d like to watch it lol).

"Why do sl residents decide to become either parents or children? There are probably as many answers..."

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:49:43 +0100

“Why do sl residents decide to become either parents or children? There are probably as many answers as avatars doing this.”

- Having children and creating families in Second Life - iReport.com - wow, precious sense on the issue! hehe.