Happy five years

Today is my blogging anniversary, my blogiversary if you will. Much like Josh and Donna in The West Wing, I have an earlier blogiversary but I chose to celebrate this one. As five years ago today I wrote my first post on here (that actually stayed). There have been highs and lows since (I think I'm definitely in a blogging low right now) but I didn't want this to pass without it being noted. My life is so different now compared to then. And yet so strangely the same. And on here I have a record of most, ok, some of it.

Happy birthday Tina the Princess. You could start school now, if, you know, you were a real person and not a blog.

The interweb sure is cool

I've liked Arcade Fire for a while. In fact iTunes tells me theirs was the first song I ever downloaded! But this, this is just cool.

From The Purple Revolver:

Arcade Fire have set a new gold standard for music videos for new song We Used to Wait off of their new album, The Suburbs.

It’s basically one big ball of HTML5/Google Maps/musical goodness.

The video was announced today on the bands Official Google Blog, which details exactly what elements went into its creation.

Dubbed The Wilderness Downtown (developed by writer/director Chris Milk) the video is a new kind of musical experience, reminiscent of the hypertext storytelling of old but much more advanced.

Basically, you go over to The Wilderness Downtown page using Google Chrome (don't use Safari!) and type in the address of your childhood home when prompted.

If Google Maps has enough footage of the house, you’ll be pooled into a multi-browser movie of your own making.

The experience of watching this highly personalized video is not easily described, but basically the story of childhood ending as time rapidly slips away, trees shoot up out of nowhere on your old street, culminating in an opportunity to write a letter to a younger you.

The new endeavour really shows off the capabilities offered by HTML5. As the Chrome Experiments page expresses, the new audio, video and canvas tags mark a new and exciting direction for personalised music videos.

Check out the new video here:

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

Truth be told, I don't know what HTML5 is. But I do recognise a cool video when I see it. Try it! My actual childhood street didn't work, but my dad's Belfast one did.

Andy Williams has let himself go a bit

My mum got a new computer this week. It's very exciting! She's gone back to Mac, her computer roots. Forever and a day my mum had a Mac. She had a Classic II, then there was one with a coloured screen (actually that was the one I used in university), and then there was the first of two of the famous coloured iMacs (Grape and Blueberry Mac geeks).
















Thankfully her new one is a bit more advanced that this.

Anyway, to help her out I have been showing her the ropes, as it were. Well she's good on computers, but with something new sometimes she can be all at sea. Now, in all fairness she's not like my dad with computers, who, when he held a mouse couldn't work it. (It kept moving down as he moved it up, and he had no clue the wire was supposed to come out the top of the mouse.) But this week I told Mum to go to a certain website, I can't remember why, it was part of her training. But she just looked at me like I'd asked her to fly to the moon by flapping her special wings. She said after it was because Safari looks so different. We'll not mention that the principle of address bar is same. And in the exact same place. But ok.

One of the things we did we did was transfer her music. But for reasons best known they were in all sorts of a mess. Albums split, no artwork, but album artwork in the music folder. We tried to use the useful 'Get Album Artwork' that iTunes has. While it helped for most, I can't help but feel it got some wrong. I took some screen shots from Cover Flow to illustrate some of the mismatches.






















Ok, close enough. I see what you were going for there, 60s and Soul were clearly the key words here.





















Again, solid attempt. But clearly you don't know my mum if you think she's into her karaoke hits.





















Hmm. Not sure what you aiming for here, iTunes. Blues Sound Good Vol. 1? For future reference God will usually refer to a Christian album.





















Andy Williams has never looked like this. Or that guy in the Hawaiian shirt.

But the best one has to be this effort. Again you can see what iTunes was thinking.





















This is wrong on many, many levels iTunes.

At this point I feel it my daughterly duty to say (and before she bans me from her new shiny computer for posting this) that the album my mum, of course, actually has this Vineyard one. You knew that, I knew that, iTunes didn't know that.

Right must go, been listening to too much of my mum's music. For the past while it's been Glenn Miller.

'Pennsylvania 6-5000!'

Silver Blizzard adventures

I might have mentioned before that I got a new bike for my birthday! I know, ever the 9 year old. It's fun to go places on your bike, especially in the great summer weather we've been having. I thought a bike would be better for my knee than running. I can actually hear it creek when I get up! It's quite disturbing, although not painful (however more on that later). I have taken to taking pictures from where I end up cycling to on my bike. Which is lucky, because now I can post them on here!

This is from my first cycle to Brown's Bay in about fifteen years. This was taken on the saddest day of the year, 23rd July, but the weather made a special effort and it was actually quite good! Self-timer shots are tricky, and I was annoyed that I cut my front wheel off in the photo, so I thought I'd try again.

And got this one of me running into position. I think my phone slipped and it took extra, valuable seconds to put it up again. Not be deterred, I tried again.

Yeah, so the wheel cut off isn't that bad afterall.

I went another day, more cloudy, but better self-timer skills.

Florescent colours are the only way to go on bike.

I cycled to Carrick one day. It was not as bad a cycle as I feared, with the busy main road and all that, but just as I was coming into the town at a set of traffic lights, a big cement mixer went past me. It's weird you'd think you'd hear something that big coming behind you, but maybe because of all the other traffic noise I didn't. I promise he did not move out one inch from his usual place in the road and with the shock, the noise and the wind from him passing I nearly died. I was able to recover enough to display my feelings to him. That's right I...shook my fist at him. I may have sworn too, but he wouldn't have heard that. The people at the bus stop however were left in no uncertain terms as to how I felt.

The traffic light incident didn't stop a beautiful self-timer shot at the Castle though.

On days when the weather isn't great/I can't go far/I can't be bothered I usually cycle up to the cemetery. 

Sure, it's not as picturesque, but I still took a photo.

My biggest cycle to date has been all the way into Belfast! I was so please I made it! The weather was amazing that day. I actually got tan lines on my legs! 

I think the most surprising thing was that it only took an hour to do. It takes 30 minutes in the car! I can see now the appeal of cycling in rush hour.

I cycled along that footpath/cycle path and into Duncrue. It was weird to be as close as this to cars travelling at 70mph and nothing but a bit of wire fence between us. Woooommmppphhhhh! The bit from Whiteabbey on was easily the best bit of it all. It nearly reminded me of East Coast Park in Singapore. Without the acres of park, big jumbo jets landing at the airport and dozens of big tankers in the sea. Well I said nearly.

The next day the weather was still great so out again I went.

Brown's Bay was packed out, packed out I tell you!

There's always some idiot that reckons he's in a 90s Brit Pop music video.

While I was out I noticed that my left knee was a bit sore. That evening it got much worse. And the next day was pure pain. Apparently this can be common when you start cycling a lot. And that weekend I definitely cycled more than my average mileage. So I've put it down to that. I haven't been out since because I've had the cold, but now my knee is better and my sneezes have stopped I think I'll try to get out again soon. Definitely before the summer is out I want to go up the Antrim Coast. Might get the train to Larne though.

I can think of no finer tribute

It always makes me laugh when I see 'Happy Birthday' signs along the road. They always look so rubbish. You rarely see a good one. And they always get left up too long and are getting all dirty and gross. Take a look at these fine examples.

Points for ICT skills, but you failed in the glueing. And I'm sorry but if you can't outshine a sign for allotments then clearly this birthday means nothing to you.

Happy what now? Lurch? Happy Lurch? That's the message you wanted your loved one to see? Oh no wait, you just didn't think through the sticking of your sign. Well don't they just feel special with your half hearted attempt?! And what, pray tell, makes you think you can cover important road signage for the rest of the driving world? Huh. 

But this one, this one took the biscuit.

I don't know what you did, but I really don't think an apology painted so pathetically on a big white sheet is going to get anyone's forgiveness. Plus everyone knows you need some sort of name or coded message. This could be to anyone.

I know, you best get back to the drawing board for my 31st birthday celebrations eh?!