I realised that it's been way too long since my last update; as I'm in the mood for getting things done...the photo with this update is of some marigolds which were overdue being planted along with the wall-bracket they're hung from; must admit I don't recall ever having planted anything before, but as it involved power tools to fix the hanger to the garage wall it found it's way onto my radar...
Here's a new entry...
I was sat in the office last week when my occasional desk-mate (I have a hot desk next to mine) mentioned twitter was becoming a search destination, in that people are using it to find out whats current and who's talking about it; e
ffectively live search and in fact how they caught Google a little off guard.
We got chatting and in amongst talking about twitters breaking of the @reply feature (and later retraction) I noticed Martin (occasional desk-mate) was following Dave Gorman. Being something of a fan of DG I looked to see what he was talking about, apparently on his next tour he's cycling between venues. Last time I encount
ed DG he was driving between US seaboards - well driving from Califronia to the East caost along the scenic route doing his utmost to avoid buying fuel, food or lodgings from any of the large corporations (aka the Man) and instead trying to rely solely on Mom-n-Pap businesses.
Now normally at this stage (having found out that one of my favourite commedians is touring) I'd find that all the local gigs were sold out, but on this occasion not only is he doing 3 nights in Andover (about 30mins away), they've
still got tickets and because it's a warm-up to his tour (presumably) the tickets are only £10! Not only that but I've found out about his tour early enough to book at either The Anvil and/or The Appolo next year. Although by this stage he's admitted he won't be cycling between dates.
So I booked up for The Lights at Andover at lunchtime; during the phone call (I couldn't get the seat allocation I wanted online) the nice lady (she was very efficient and on the ball) asked how I'd heard about the gig. I'd like to think we heard some moulds being broke when the reply "on his twitter stream" was heard.
A few less years later, Stride gum paid for him to travel to a bunch of countries filming him doing is terrible dance. The resulting video went on the net too.
After being deluged with emails, he later convinced Stride to repeat that act of generosity, but this time invite the people who'd emailed him to join in the dancing.
"14 months in the making, 42 countires and a cast of thousands" later, we have the result...
Thursday November 23, 2006
Something to fill the 4 seconds wait...
Recently one of my old bosses blogged about a BBC report around how we only give (web)pageloads 4 seconds before clicking elsewhere. Well, seeing as today is Thanks Giving Day in the USA and tomorrow is Black Friday (the day when our American cousins historically start Christmas shopping in ernest), maybe I can show you something to do whilst you're waiting for the status line to change from Waiting to Read to Done when you're doing your on-line present shopping, particularly if you'll be shopping on Amazon.
Ever find that you're not quite spending sufficient to qualify for free shipping/delivery? Well if you try one of these sites:
Depending on what you're buying and how much the delivery charges are, it can be cheaper to buy something extra than buy just your item and pay the postage fees. For instance buy a electric toothbrush for £14 and you'd have to pay £5.88 P&P, a total of £19.88. But a quick search on one of these websites reveals you could buy Old-Time Cats Stickers: 24 Pressure-Sensitive Designs for £1.28, taking you up to the £15 threshhold. Yet you'd only pay a total of £15.28 saving over £4.50 and getting an extra Christmas present for some distant cat-loving relative into the bargain!
I heard about this website on the weekly Money Saving Expert email sent out by Martin Lewis, the man behind the excellent Money Saving Expert website. This is a great source of money saving tips on anything and everything by finding the best deals and beating the system. The site's honours include a Parliamentary Motion commendation!
Take a look, there's shed loads of hints and tips (almost entirely UK-biased I'm afraid), subscribe to the weekly email (it's free) and listen out for Martin's regular appearance on the Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2 (yes it's true I listen to Radio 2, as well as Radio 1!).
For all of you States-side: Happy Thanks Giving, and try not to over do it!
Sunday November 12, 2006
DataCentre like no other!
Don't know if you've had chance to catch the latest Bravia TV commercial from Sony yet; okay I'm a little behind the times on this one. The Ad has been running for a couple of weeks now, although there was a huge amount of viral advertising kicking around including bystander videos. It's the follow up to the classic Bouncy Balls commercial, except this time the bouncy balls are replaced by 70,000 litres of paint and North Beach/Russian Hill, SFO have been replaced by Glasgow's Toryglen estate!
There's a write-up on in the Magazine pages of the BBC News site which goes into detail how they found a 60's Tower Block in Glasgow which was awaiting demolition, covered surrounding houses in (very) very large polythene sheeting, paid off the locals and then proceeded to explode those 70,000 litres of paint off over the shop.
I don't reckon it's quite as cool as the original Bouncy Balls ad, it's a little bit too British to honest! Don't know if the decision to avoid an ubercool, downtempo, voal/lounge/dub soundtrack was premeditated (Balls was dubbed with José González's cover of Heartbeats. Something like that might not have sat so well this time around.
Would it encourage me to buy a Bravia? Well I'd probably be encouraged to start looking once I'd seen the advert on someone else's HDTV. Start looking after Christmas that would be, and probably not at the Bravia "Engine" range (1) because they don't seem to do a 37" screen (I've been told we can have a 37" screen!) and (2) cause I think an engine in the living room would probably be too noisy, especially when you're trying to watch something good on telly!
It did leave me thinking though, what might we be able to do for a Project Blackbox TV commercial? Maybe we could enlist the Top Gear'sJeremy Clarkson - he's renowned for having a bent for trying to destroy his most hated cars (and any caravan) by varying and increasingly more inventive means; he once resorted to targetting a Corvette with an helicopter-mounted gatling gun.
dropping it into shot (must have been at least a 30 foot drop)
driving it through the "production office"
hoisting it 240 feet aloft another 60's tower block and having the tower block demolished from beneath the Toyota.
It survived all that and was still drivable (they allowed themselves to do roadside repairs where necessary, but no parts could be replaced and the only consumables they used were a few sprays of WD-40 and a gallon or so of diesel.
Hmmmm on second thoughts, maybe that's not sure that's quite the message we'll be going for with Project Blackbox.
Thursday May 21, 2009 
