On The Jazz II

Spam filters in the chilled foods section

2008-11-20T18:32:00.009Z

Today, for the first time in ages, I was in a Sainsbury's supermarket. I used to shop there quite often but these days I don't get there much. There are two main reasons. First off the big branch, i.e. the good one, is miles away from where I live now. There is a smaller Sainsbury's local near me but it's a deathtrap.
You think I'm kidding, but this is what happened about a month ago when I was there:

that's right. The ceiling fell down and almost took out that lady. Nice. I've only been back once since but I left pretty quick. I think even Evel Knievel probably just wanted his groceries when he popped to the supermarket. Thanks Sainsbury's but I can live without the adrenaline rush of cheating imminent death every time I buy food.

Anyway, back to the point. Today I was in the big Sainsbury's. The one which, I assume, actually has a stable ceiling. As I was cruising around with my trolley, checking out the merch (new Tropicana blood orange/normal orange mix? Sounds like it might be worth trying sometime but for now I'll stick to pure Sanguinello - don't see much point in reducing the awesome content), something caught my eye. It appeared that Sainsbury's were actually selling a Spam Filter in the chilled meats section. Obviously I had to back up and find out what the hell was going on.

It turns out that what I had (mis)read as it fleeted through my peripheral vision was 'Spam Fritters'. Which of course isn't particularly exciting but I have to admit it does make a lot more sense.

I am in awe.

2008-11-20T00:12:00.001Z

You should be too.

Oh man...

2008-11-15T00:06:00.001Z

That old trick?

Close but no cigar

2008-11-12T21:15:00.002Z

Nice try Apple.

OK, here's the deal - as you undoubtedly know I'm quite lazy. In the same way that I quite like music. Thus you would think that I would be within Apple's ideal demographic for their iTunes Music Store. The kind of person who really wants music but can't be bothered to physically go and buy it should be the kind of person who could singlehandedly download us all out of this recession.

Having previously been, in a previous life, something of an audiophile I'm actually kind of recovering. My primary source these days is my laptop, though admittedly via a rather nice (but cheap) DAC. And so whilst I would not previously have contemplated buying a nasty compressed music file*, last night I figured that for something like Generation Landslide by Alice Cooper I could live with the compression and I almost spent my first 0.99 Bushbucks there.

So why didn't I? Because of stupid-ass region locking. I clicked 'buy' but I wasn't allowed to buy the track. I first registered for the ITMS when I was in the US (so I could download Guardian podcasts). Now, I'm sure I could re-register in the UK - but you know what? The thing that makes it really good for lazy people, where you get music without having to go and buy it... Amazon also has this feature. And for someone who's bought enough books, CDs, DVDs and who knows what else over the years it's all set up ready to go (both in the US and UK and any other country they have local sites in I believe). And since it comes on a CD, it's uncompressed. Bonus.

*well yes, I can hear the difference but I assume Apple ain't selling 128kbps files.

I hereby sentence you to 5 years...

2008-11-11T15:24:00.002Z

...of hard dancing.

Judo DVD

2008-10-19T17:16:00.001+01:00

For those of you who missed this.

Calling it.

2008-10-19T13:36:00.004+01:00

Just in case you're not a nerd - there's a new Trek film coming out. Paramount are trying to re-invigorate the franchise that has rather lost its way in recent years with a whole new 're-imagining' (stupid, stupid Hollywood term) packaged up as a sort of prequel/how-it-all-began story (this is apparently still fashionable - damn you Lucas).

Anyway they have J.J.Abrams on board, who apart from sharing a name with a main battle tank and the progenitor of the Israelites, is hot stuff in the movie biz these days. The point is, I think we can expect a fairly large facelift as evinced by this picture:

Why is Joey on the Enterprise?

and this quote from the linked article:

'We weren't making a movie for fans of Star Trek. We were making a movie for fans of movies.'

OK, that's fine. As long as he realises that people who liked Transformers are not fans of movies.

So this is what I'm calling. It's very mundane but I'm so certain of it I'm going to put it out there. When the new film comes out there will be at least one review with the following headline:

It's Star Trek (Jim), but not as we know it

guaranteed. Or your money back.

Way cool.

2008-10-14T23:02:00.000+01:00

I'm not usually a fan of tattoos

2008-10-14T09:18:00.004+01:00

but one has to admit this is pretty cool.

From news.bbc.co.uk

2008-10-12T20:05:00.004+01:00

So this is kind of why it would have been a good idea to not piss off every other country in the World over the last 8 years.
Just saying.

Things to watch

2008-10-12T00:56:00.003+01:00

For those with time on their hands:

Also be sure to take a look at ted.org

It'll take your breath away

2008-09-29T21:50:00.002+01:00

so tonight I was pretty exhausted from a 3-hour maths-a-thon so I decided to just chill out and make something I've been thinking of for a while. Give it a second and it'll make perfect sense:

Ol' Groucho never heard of this club!

2008-09-25T21:53:00.001+01:00

"I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member."

I think I have a new hero.

2008-09-24T00:03:00.003+01:00

Whoever writes toplessrobot is pretty awesome.

For example:

Mickey Mouse rolls out
Michael Bay has no idea what a tank looks like
The Dark Side Won (or, Everything's Gone to Sith)

it keeps me entertained anyway.

What the hell?

2008-09-22T22:46:00.001+01:00

You guys spell 'analyse' with a z? Analyze? You have to be kidding me. Do you also write analyziz?

From the Department of Good Ideas

2008-09-15T11:26:00.003+01:00

article

I think the answer to the supposedly rhetorical question of the last quote is an emphatic yes.

And you thought your latency was bad...

2008-09-12T16:48:00.002+01:00

(image source)

at least it's measured in ms and not megayears

It's the final countdown

2008-09-10T07:32:00.003+01:00

Here comes the end of the world folks

or so some people think.

Ah...lag!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-09-09T06:52:00.001+01:00

It's doing my head in.

And you thought Apple's Time Machine was cool.

2008-09-07T08:21:00.005+01:00

Well, maybe you did. Someone must have. You'll see why it's mildly relevant in a bit.

Anyway, I'm back home now and lagging like crazy. It's almost 08:30 here and I'm wide awake. You may think that's a good thing, but consider that I went to be around 3, got up at 7 and spent about half of that time surfing the web in bed on my laptop, and you can see that I'm going to conk out sometime this afternoon. Thus the whole shifted cycle will repeat itself. Pants.
On the plus side I got to meet my new niece and see the other one again too. They are both so awesome it's unreal.

OK, back on topic. I spent most of yesterday installing various linuces on an old IBM T21 laptop. I went through a lot of distros, trying to find one that worked (long story, may well rant about it soon). Anyway, I went to bed unsuccessful.

And I dreamt. An awesome, stupid, ridiculous dream. I dreamt that I installed an OS on a laptop that, get this, enabled time travel. Not Apple's crappy 'Time Machine' (aka backup to people who don't feel the need to misnomer things). Real, actual time travel. That's right, we don't need new physics, a flux capacitor, or a phone box. We just need those hidden syscalls.

Unfortunately I'm now awake, and while I'd love a time-travelling OS, I'd be happy with one that actually works.

Flash! aaaaaaaaaah ahhhhhhhh!

2008-08-28T07:39:00.002+01:00

The best Flash game I've ever seen (although Desktop TD is pretty damn fun)

Fancy Pants Adventure World 2

Barackula 08

2008-08-23T23:59:00.001+01:00

Barackula from mark mannschreck on Vimeo.

Uncle

2008-08-20T00:24:00.004+01:00

I'm an uncle again!
My second niece was born yesterday. She was a bit early so unfortunately I'm still in California and won't get to see her for a while :(
Hopefully I will be sent some photos soon because I can't wait to see my second niece!

Good things are a comin'

2008-07-30T10:42:00.002+01:00

I have a couple of projects on the go which will soon start to see fruition. Check back soon.

They're animals!

2008-07-25T07:45:00.002+01:00

This is not going to end well:

and this does not even start well: