Ten Years of Music

As an interesting idea for

We’ll start a good decade back, to 1999, an interesting year of anticipation for the new milenium, joining secondary school and

: This was one of those awkward beginnings, where I’m forced to reveal that, yes, I was only 11 years old and yes, I was still q

Foo Fighters, There Is Nothing Left To Lose

2000

Contestants: Coldplay, Parachutes or Radiohead, Kid A (which is a bit of a retrospective choice, as I did not find this for another two years. Actually, screw that)

2001

Of course Stereophonics, Just Enough Education to Perform was contending against albulms like Sum 41’s All Killer No Filler and that oh so memorable Tenacious D.

2002

Was the year I was introduced to Badly Drawn Boy by About a Boy, Coldplay followed up with A Rush Of Blood to the Head

The Old Me

I found an old news post I wrote back when I was a young’un at Toynbee Secondary School. It was an edgy, thought provoking piece that amused me so much I felt inclined to paste it on the internet.

And today at the quiet place of Toynbee a volcano erupted… aaaargh I’ve got lava in my shoe! Anyway, Mrs. Ode the nicest teacher you could ever meet; hot, sexy, sweet so and so here is a picture I have of her…Wait a minuet? Oh my god I’ve been talking about the wrong miss Ode, yuk! Well anyway young Rachel Stevens (not actual name) has been the victim of her skitsoism, and here is the actual conversation today Brad (I’ve always wanted to say that)

Rachel: “miss can I go to the loo?”
Miss Ode: “Yes but come back quickly!”(5 minutes pass Rachel comes back in)
Miss Ode: “and where have you been?”Rachel: “to the toilet.”
Miss Ode: “did I say you could go?”
Rachel: “yes.”
Miss Ode: “no I did not now you can have a detention for that missy!”
Rachel: “but miss!”
Miss Ode: “no butts now get back to your seat!”

As you can see this horrible, horrible tragedy is still happening and we should nuke Miss Ode because she offends me and all the other students. Over to you Brad (I’ve said it again, yay!)

Cloud Reel

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/read.php?CATEGORY_PK=&TOPIC_PK=1942

http://www.spacify.com/products-515-175-Catt.Dylan~Bed.html

http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/

http://illusion.scene360.com/design/5096/phantom-bike/

If form equals function, I think this is beautiful: http://www.maltron.com/maltron-kbd-single.html

R.I.P Interactive Media

It’s been a while people (Greg) and I’ve left my blog to rot like the moldy sweet potato in the back of my cupboard. No longer is it recognizable as part of a food group without first peeling back the layer of old crust to figure out if I still log on and check it’s comments, but aha! I can still cross confuse analogies like a man on fire, so I guess all hope is not lost.

I’m writing in the middle of putting my foot down, which as you can imagine is quite a challenge, but not as bad as rubbing one’s stomach and patting one’s head at the same time. I’m getting on with some work! No more slacking, “c’mon James, get to it!” Uh. Guess that’s not working out, actually, because here I am, procrastinating and writing a blog article instead of following through with the plan.

It’s cold in my house, and I’m feeling pretty demotivated, it’s hard to type as well so I shan’t be throwing out one of those essays like I oft could do before. I have had a lot to write about recently, going back to uni, getting a piercing, what I did in my summer, meeting up with people I haven’t seen in a while, there are some staple blog articles I could have pulled out but instead I’ve chosen to dabble into the rather repetitive “sorry it’s been so long’” post before moving onto the inspiration for my writing.

Interactive Media! Or it’s death, not as a whole, but as the course I am on. No longer is it unique in it’s alienation from what seems to be a well structured education system, they decided to try and improve the course by changing it into something more recognizable, and utterly bland. No offense to those who are on Digital Media courses, you guys pretty much do the exact same work as we do, but merely labeling ourselves as something different made us stand out! I’d much rather have a degree in Interactive Media then the latter, it’s more interesting, and the approach was different, that may not even have changed but now some people will never know! Luckily, I still managed to pick up an FdA in Interactive Media, but it’s not got a mark! One of those other ways we were different last year was that it was just pass or fail. Not remotely what I wanted, sure, but it was different, and that is totally art school. Fuck yeah.

So Interactive Media is dead and along with that is the older course aims. I was part of the end of a generation and for once it seems to have favored on my side, instead of all those time I came out of school or college watching them improve everything as soon as I left. I don’t feel so bitter, although I’d love to get my full degree in Interactive Media.

Anything to feel a bit special.

Oh right, they changed the name of the University I’m studying at too, which also sucks… But that is a story for another time! (perhaps tomorrow?)

RE: Pudding

This article has had a lot of interest since its posting.

Interestingly, not because people are interested in how much I like Christmas Pudding but actually because of the link to a Ninja Panda. 

Thanks to the power of WordPress stats, I know that the highest search term to link to my blog is ‘dougie poynter’ with, at the time of writing, 475 views. Behind that is ‘badass’ with 180 odd and then, amusingly, ‘ninja panda’ with a solid 90, of course ‘panda ninja’ also has 45 so collectively I put that at 135. Other amusing (but less linked) terms are ‘christmas jumper’, ‘evil panda’, ‘my vajayjay is painin’ and ‘midget pun’.

There is a reason for me to bring up this amusing (pointless) fact, however, because today I took a trip down to the corner shop near uni and, amongst the sweets, gossip magazines and inane collection of household items you might want in an apocalypse there was a ninja panda.

That’s right. For £1.99 I could be the proud owner of an awesome ninja panda toy, an offer I couldn’t refuse! I gave up my lunch for this strange hybrid of Kung-Fu Panda, Bruce Lee and Wolverine! That’s how dedicated I am to the cause, folks, all I had left was 16 pence for a Chuba Chup!

Anyway I have run out of interesting things to say so bugger off.

It’s so wrong…

That I have had 73 links to my blog from the tag ‘Children’s Porn’.

That is all. =<

Comparitive Thinking

Today, I am going to talk about comparative thinking, and the dangers of it.

As you may well know, comparative thinking is that logical process that often, illogically, convinces you to believe that the grass is greener on the other side. The trouble being, that quite regularly, the grass is greener on the other side… it’s just chemically enhanced and will slowly build up inside the gut of your stomach if you eat it… and of course to get to the other side you have to cross a bridge under which a troll lives who will eat your soul, or in the very least shank you and take your wallet.

So why does it still hang around? Why do we still encourage compatitive thinking to come with us on dates, go through everyone’s monthly paychecks and secretly glance sideways in the changing room at the leisure park? Why don’t we just obliterate this thought process entirely and all feel better in the knowledge that, compared to when we were comparing things all the time, we’re much more mature and rounded people. Well, aside from the obvious point of impossibility, it’s never going to be as simple as wiping this nature out from out collective psyche with a brillo pad, but the analagy perserveres and I’ll endeavour to provide some clearer reasoning with a little bit more rambling.

There are some positives you can glean from comparitive thinking, but you do have to be made aware of the problems, the slip holes of logic that you’re likely to find while navigating my minefield of visual metaphores. Logic isn’t taken as a class in school, this point made abundantly clear if you take a glance at…

Logic is one of those strange self imposed developments. It’s something we’re expected to have, and only a few people I know are abundantly wealthy in. So here I am, saving all of you the trouble of learning from your mistakes by learning from mine, if you’re engaged and receptive at least. If not, this might still prove and entertaining for couple of minutes at least.

Comparative thinking also breeds the shared guilt logic that so horrified

Comparative thinking can be a positive thing, of course, when you think about how much better off you are compared to all those hungry orphans stuck in Oxfam adverts, but in the greater part it seems to be used in a negative, jealous manner.

Reals

Another annoyingly watchable advertisement from Xbox Live. Well done Microsoft, well done, your powers of marketing are, as expected, deviously evil.

Link!

Bond, James Bond

I have always appreciated the bond movies, always, even the bad ones that people don’t like to talk about I find appealing in a gloriously watchable manner. There are many different parts to the big James Bond pie; spy intrigue, action, overblown travel expenses, gadgets, suits, gambling, pretty girls, undercover action… er, I might just stop before my pedantry gets the better of me…

I recently picked up Quantum of Solace on DVD, which is not exactly a format that gives it justice and, frankly, this one could use all the help it could get. The story for Quantum is killed most, not by anything it does, but by it’s inability to match up to it’s predecessor. The great big shadow that the near-perfect Casino Royale casts upon this small tale of revenge and gratuitous action sequences makes Quantum feel a bit like a regression, though not towards the back catalogue of previous Bond movies, more towards the influences our new Bond has… To be fair, when I say influences what I mean is influence, singular, Bourneular.

My post today, however, is not about the film itself but in fact another of the many slices: the songs. You see, all day today I have had a single beat stuck in my head, which I have only recently figured out as the intro piece to the new Bond theme by Jack White and that keyboard woman.

As far as I can tell, the Bond franchise stands fairly alone with the music included as a large part of the marketing. Music and films are brilliantly merged, sure, but not many people go out and buy each new variation of the Harry Potter theme. I’m not entirely sure what side of the fence I stand on this nowadays, there have been some truly amazing tracks produced under the James Bond banner (I am a particular fan of the Duran Duran one) and even recently with the Casino Royale intro music and this new rendition I have nothing I can really find fault in… no, no that is not true! I’m pretty good at finding faults in things, and I’ve got just the one for you, in the form of a question:

Why have all the Bond themes been produced by American artists?

The list goes back a whole long way, there hasn’t been an English performer involved in over two decades worth of films; Gladys Knight, Tina Turner, Sheryl Crow, Garbage, Madonna, Chris Connol, Jack White and Alicia Keys? I can’t really complain about these American artists (well, I can.) because some of their songs are not terrible at all. And the latest? It might surprise some to know that, in fact, I’m a big fan of the music, er, just not the annoying whiny singing.

And I love the Casino Royale theme, though I don’t think it’s brilliantly Bond-like it’s pretty awesome (and it comes with the greatest bit of motion graphics I’ve seen). I just want to see something British in there, do people relate to that? What is wrong with our music industry that we can’t even pick a
thematic song from our own shores… or has Bond become so truly
American (that bastard) that slowly we’re willing to hand him over to
the butchery of Hollywood… Or perhaps I’m deluded, and he’s always
been part of the butchery of Hollywood? I’m not sure, but if Casino Royale was about cutting away the build up of faff from Bond, then I’d like to see this new direction take a moment of nostalgic thought and consider bringing in something actually English. For a change.

Also, why is this video not available in England, where it was made…