... a Channel 4/Channel 5 collaboration:
The 100 best 'X superlative Y' shows of all time!
Including such classics as "The 100 best adverts featuring a camel", "The nation's 25 favourite toilet rolls" and "The 50 worst mobile phone ringtones of all time". Hosted by Jimmy Carr, who has to do these shows because his stand up work is that bad.
Honestly, do we never grow tired of these programs?
Probably the most frustrating thing is that it's patently obvious who or what will win from the outset. Best number 1 ever? Bohemian Rhapsody, obviously. Best cartoon ever? Simpsons, obviously. Top of the all new 10 Commandments list? Well, to be fair that one was a surprise, as the winner was "Treat others as you would like to be treated" which not only appears in the Old Testament Law ( Lev. 19:18) but is also quoted by Jesus ( Matt. 22:36-40) as summing up all the other commandments. Not that Channel 4 mentioned this, but never mind.
Anyway. I guess this isn't really news. Rubbish shows on TV? You think?
Jobwise, so far so good BTW.
So, today is my last day of my current job. I start my new one on Monday. I am very glad of this.
I would, however, like to thank my outgoing employers for one thing: their internet connection.
Without the use of their nice shiny 2Mb connection, how else would I have amused myself while stuck with nothing to do at work? Thanks to that nice fat pipe I was able to amuse myself reading rubbish on the web, creating this new website, adminning a server on the other side of the country, downloading numerous iso's for linux distributions, getting lots of (free) software, watching movie trailers, and picking up demos for games.
Thanks also for... um... no, that was about it. I'm exceedingly glad to be leaving this job.
I have finally succeeded in getting Linux to boot from a USB flash drive. This in addition to be able to boot it from a floppy disk, a CD and a regular installation on a PC.
I have a degree (partly) in computer science.
I am learning Perl and Python and C.
I run Gentoo Linux more than Windows.
I have read Just For Fun by Linus Torvalds, am about to read The Cathedral And The Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond.
I really want one of these.
Sorry ladies, I know all this geekery must be driving you wild, but I'm afraid I'm already spoken for.
Man, I'm a flaming geek and no mistake.
Alison went away for the weekend, to visit a friend she was at uni with.
So while she was away I... did the ironing, hoovered the house, watered the plants and cleaned the bathroom. Hmm. Married life must be getting to me.
Sure, I also spent 4 hours in my dressing gown playing Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (good game, looking forward to Chaos Theory in the near future), watched too much TV, stayed up late and didn't cook anything more sophisticated than cheese and tomato toasties but even so... cleaning the bathroom? Man.
Anyway.
I saw that Golf GTI advert again last night. They now appear to have edited out the bit with the dodgy jump on the lamp post. I understand why they did it, as it's badly edited (when he jumps he's one way round, then they change shot to show him hanging onto the lamp post and he's the other way round - d'oh!) but it's a bit of a shame too as the move looks pretty cool.
Also, what's the deal with some dance music becoming quite likable? I mean, normally I can't stand the trashy dance music that gets into the charts, but in the past 6 months or so we've had Call On Me by Eric Prydz, My My My by Armand Van Helden, Shine by the Lovefreaks (sampling ELO - woohoo!) and now some song about catching a falling star or some such nonsense. 4 dance tracks I like in 6 months? At the turn of the century it could take 6 years to find that many bearable dance songs. I'll try to keep a check on myself, in case this peculiar infection spreads, but in the mean time if anyone catches me in Woolworths buying Ultimate Trance Trip Hop Hits 2006 Big Beats Edition, then please beat some sense into me.
Right. This is a bit random and waffly, so I'm going to go home before I get snowed into this miserable school.
3 things very quickly...
- I'm writing this from my new job. They've arranged for me to come in for a couple of days during half term, when I have a break from my current job, so I can get used to the place and the people, which is cool. I've spent two days fixing PCs, mainly removing things from inside CD drives and floppy drives. Best find yet? A Polo mint inside a CD drive. Did I eat it? Yes.
- I saw Ocean's Twelve at the cinema the other night. It wasn't as good as the first one. One of the great things about the first one, was that the heist was very complex, and they went into great detail to show how they got around each challenge, using everyone's area of expertise. The sequel was far too shallow, and a lot of the characters seemed to serve no real purpose.
- Alison and I went to see The Reduced Shakespeare Company on Sunday for (a day early) Valentine's Day. It was proper quality. They are a trio of Americans who rattle their way through all 37 of Shakespeare's plays in about an hour and a half. Some are covered in fair detail, others are brushed over in a moment, all are extremely funny. We had a great time and I highly recommend the show to you if you have the chance to see it.
Back to eating my lunch then. Bye.
So... The Brit Awards last night, all over the radio today, and on the TV tonight. Nice.
The good
Keane (great band despite the lack of guitars) and Franz Ferdinand (great band because of the guitars) did well with two each. I'm not too struck with the Scissor Sisters, but well done to them for getting three. I'm pleased - and quite surprised - that Muse got best live act, but it's certainly well deserved.
The bad
The Streets over Morrissey? Please. Girls Aloud should have got best pop act instead of McFly. Joss Stone is also quite overrated if you ask me. Oh yeah, it's also a bit of a crime that Will Young got best single of the year. Give me a break.
The weird
Gwen Stefani for best female? She's had one single this year! Granted, Radio 1 play it about 6 times a day, and it's great, but its only one single. Is the album really good enough to make her best female? Did all the judges forget Kylie's ongoing success?
The "hey, it's not mainstream enough"
Green Day didn't win best international. Hardly surprising. I'd have liked Muse to get more too.
The "Damnit, just because it gets karaoke'd every five seconds doesn't make it a classic""
Angels by Robbie Williams gets best British single of the past 25 years. What?? Are the judges all teenage girls? Granted, of the other nominations, there was Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush (I can't abide that song) and Leave Right Now by Will Young (please do, Will, please do) but there was also We Are The Champions by Queen and the mighty Love Will Tear Us Apart by Joy Division. I wouldn't mind betting that half the judges had never even heard of that last one, let alone Joy Division.
There's hundreds of songs that are better than Angels, but I guess it's the mainstream vote that counts.
Ho hum.
Last night, at 10:29pm Ellen Macarthur officially completed her round the world voyage. The trip took about 71 and a half days, which beat the previous world record by more than a day. Now why would anyone want to spend nearly 72 days at sea on their own? She's had to cope with dangerous conditions, a reportedly uncomfortable ship, limited food supplies, very little sleep, and extremely restricted contact with anyone. Why would she want to do that?
Because she loves sailing passionately.
Let's face it, you wouldn't do that unless you really, really enjoy sailing. She's passionate about it, and loves being out there at sea, regardless of how dangerous and difficult it is, and how insane it might seem to the rest of us. She's already planning more trips for records she wants to break, like crossing the Atlantic. She lives sailing, and puts everything she has into it, and is brilliant at it as a result.
And what of other people with other passions?
Sport is an easy example for this kind of thing: David Beckham is brilliant (or at least he was at his peak, Euro 2004 notwithstanding) because he loves football and trains incredibly hard.
- In the world of business and computing, Bill Gates is a brilliant businessman. Whether his software is any good is not the point - he is a great and dedicated businessman, which is reflected in the billions he's made. On the other side of the computing coin, there's Linus Torvalds, who loves computing and programming so much that he wrote the core of an operating system that has a real chance of rivalling MS Windows, for fun and distributed it for free. How about John Carmack? The man is a programming genius, who is pushing hardware to it's limits and creating some beautiful game engines that few can compete with.
- What about the world of music? People like Thom Yorke and his merry band are clearly dedicated to producing some incredible music. Or there's people like Tom Morello or Matt Bellamy who do amazing things with guitars that I can only dream of.
- Moving on from music, there's people like Bono and Bob Geldof, who are unlikely to stop banging their drum any time soon.
- Consider some Christians. Andy Hawthorne clearly isn't going to stop doing what he's doing until he's led all the young people in Manchester to God or died trying. That man is incredibly committed to what he's doing.
So what's my point in all of this? I guess I find it quite intimidating that some people are so dedicated to what they do - they are so passionate about something. People who will practise their "thing" day in day out for hours on end. Can you imagine practising free kicks for hours every evening? Programming for no reason that that you enjoy it? Playing the guitar from when you wake up to when you go to sleep? Sailing around the world? Lobbying for a political agenda? Giving your entire life up to try to save a city for God? I don't know if I can.
I'd love to be passionate enough about something to eat, sleep and breathe it, and give my all to it and excel at it. And I know that thing should be God, but it's... difficult.
An old friend wrote a poem a while ago that kinda says some of this. It's called Just Like Me and you can find it about halfway down the page in that link.
The new Volkswagen Golf GTI advert is awesome.
You may have seen it on the TV by now. It's also available at numerous places on the internet, such as over at The Guardian's website. If you've not seen it, check it out!
It's a reworking of Gene Kelly dancing in Singing In The Rain, from back in the mists of time. It's been redone with a bunch of break dancers, kitted out in the same suit as he wore and with wigs and so on, with Gene's face composited onto the video. It's not a perfect job, and you can easily see that the face mapping is not seamless, and there's a stupid bit of editing when he jumps onto the lamp-post but at the end of the day who cares? It's just damn cool and never mind the little flaws.
It's a nice step forward for this kind of computer technology. They've been claiming for a while that they could do things like put Marilyn Monroe in a film using old footage and computer trickery, and this seems like quite a step in that direction. Not sure how useful it is to be able to "resurrect" dead actors, but I'm sure we'll find out.
In other advert news, there was an ad on the TV for ebay last night. Now, I'm a huge fan of ebay, and have bought and sold many things on there in the past, but it still seems weird to see it advertised on the TV. It's weird to see some parts of the internet, and specifically the web, becoming so... mainstream. I know it's been growing, and loads of people have been getting hooked up lately, but adverts on the TV for an auction site? That seems like quite a step to me.
Jo Whiley has been playing Willy Mason for ages on Radio 1 now, and he's even made it onto Scott Mills' show. He's doing a session at Maida Vale tonight with Zane Lowe which is probably worth a listen. Oxygen is a top tune. Lyrics follow...
Oxygen by Willy Mason
I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.
On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.
I wanna see through all the lies of society
To the reality, happiness is at stake
I wanna hold up my head with dignity
Proud of a life where to give means more than to take
I want to live beyond the modern mentality
Where paper is all that you're really taught to create
Do you remember the forgotten America?
Justice, equality, freedom to every race?
Just need to get past all the lies and hypocrisy
Make up and hair to the truth behind every face
That look around to all the people you see,
How many of them are happy and free?
I know it sounds like a dream
But it's the only thing that can get me to sleep at night
I know it's hard to believe
But it's easy to see that something here isn't right
I know the future looks dark
But it's there that the kids of today must carry the light.
On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.
If i'm afraid to catch a dream
I weave your baskets and i'll float them down the river stream
Each one i weave with words i speak to carry love to your relief.
I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be
We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.
On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew
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