Random Ramblings
OK, so I’m sitting in my living room, on my comfy leather recliner with my feet up, BMX decorated bean-bag of my youth placed upon my lap onto which is perched my laptop, upon which I am typing. I’m listening to iTunes and the frankly awesome ‘Price You Pay’ from the album ‘War Stories’ by UNKLE is pumping through my Senheissers in a most pleasing fashion. I’m here because the people in the bottom flat are in the back garden having a party. They’ve also cranked up a BBQ, which unfortunately has seeped through my open windows to transform my previously clean and vaguely floral smelling bedroom and clean washing into a meat feast and carbon smell-o-scope delight. I figure I may as well use this time not being spent wrapped in the cozy embrace of duvet writing something for my blog.
Today I’ve spent in the company of my Gran, Poppa, and little brother. We spent most of it wandering around Llandudno, which was nice. I’ve been wandering around a bit more recently as the evenings have at last been respectable in terms of weather, and work’s been so hectic that I’ve been doing anything to not be sat at a computer when I don’t have to be. In fact it’s only this week that I’ve come to realise why my parents like going on walks - something I never understood as a child. Why anyone would want to go out and just walk - what on earth for?! Well, turns out when you’re sat inside all day watching beautiful weather happen, then go home once it’s gone cool or cloudy, or inclement in some other fashion, it gets irritating. Apparently the human creature needs outside time. So I’ve been out and about with and without camera during the evenings, which has been rather nice.
Wednesday evening was awesome - after work I went around to Ben’s where he, myself, and Vicki departed for a meal at Fat Cats. I encountered the worst fish and chips I’ve ever had presented to me, but being eminently British I did not complain, choosing instead to register my displeasure with a look of disdain and a touch of derision directed at the dry remnant of what I presume to have once been some sort of aquatic creature, and a side order of one half-heartedly cloven and enthusiastically over-watered example of vegetable matter. It wasn’t so much a plate of food as a culinary crime scene. My only comfort was that Vicki’s spag-bol appeared to have sustained no such brutal treatment, and neither did Ben’s plate of whatever it was. The conversation was pleasant enough to draw my attention away from the sensory protests emanating from my mouth, which was both a pleasant thing in and of itself, and a good indicator of the quality of the conversation.
After Fat Cats we had a drink in Varsity, where the new menu drew us like moths to a flame. It was unfortunate then when it turned out the new mixers were off the menu due to a lack of appropriate ingredients. I settled for a J2O anyway, which was pleasant enough. But none of that was the really cool stuff. No, the really cool stuff was after getting back to Ben’s, where we decided that the night was so clear we’d grab the sofa, take it into the back yard, and watch the stars. Added to that I hooked up my laptop to some speakers and provided some frankly brilliant tunes to add to the atmosphere. As it grew colder we transformed the sofa into it’s alternate mode of ‘bed’ and got under two opened out sleeping bags. Horizontal, in a bed, listening to Proem, Colleen, Craig Armstrong, Deep & Chilled Euphoria, Boards of Canada, Late Night Alumni, Slowdive, Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, Ulrich Schnauss, and The Verve - this is the most awesome way to watch satellites orbit, shooting stars blaze through the sky, and admire the vastness of reality whilst considering that each of those dots are incomprehensibly large balls of sustained nuclear explosions in the distant past. Being all snug next to an attractive petite blond doesn’t hurt matters either.
This weekend is a bank holiday, which means an extra day off work. I’m not sure what I’m doing with it yet, but there’s the possibility of Mike and Kate dropping by which would be brilliant. If not then I will be pestering Ben to get up at non-student hours to go do something before he starts work. Failing that myself and my camera may go for a trip.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough that I can’t stop yawning, and my eyes are watering in supreme tiredness. I think the land of sleep awaits. Tomorrow I have a few ideas for blog posts that I really need to sit down and write. Why is it that when I’m in the shower I can formulate coherent and interesting posts, but when I step out I’m incapable of properly recalling them for transposing into articulate written word? I don’t know, but it’s damned annoying. If I remember correctly there was one about music, and another which was a psychological observation of my own behaviour. I’m sure you’re thrilled.
Goodnight!
Entry Information
- Posted:
- Sat, 25th Aug 2007 at 23:08 UTC
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Comments
skip to comment formI still think you write well
GD.
Hey Matt,
I'll re-iterate what GD said - a very well written post. And I've just downloaded Unkle to hear what all the fuss is about.
Phil
Just to alert you to the fact that your RSS feeds seem to be doing something strange. Initially I used Google Reader and on this it showed your recent postings but when I tried to go to the article it simply redirected me to another page of Google Reader (it didn't seem to happen on any other blogs). I have since moved to Pageflakes and this also seems to have a problem with it - it messes about with the alignment of all my feeds and again doesn't let me go to the full article.
Apologies if you don't understand this (it's very difficult to describe in words!) but thought you might like to know seeing as I know how much you love usability/accessability!
It also doesn't seem to like my e-mail, apparently it isn't valid.
Hi Joey,
Thanks for that - I did know about it, but I've done nothing because it was actually Joel who's hacked together the feed system, and as he's well over-worked at the moment I didn't think I'd pester him about it. I use Google Reader too, and know exactly what you mean.
As for the e-mail, I think there must be a mutation I've not accounted for in the regexp, you're not alone in having that problem. I've got it on my list of issues to fix with the re-design (which I've actually done some work on recently. I need to set myself a dead-line though or it'll never get finished - I'm already on the third start-over).
Also, thanks GD and Phil!
@Joey
I hacked together a really quick feed system for matt because it was a right pain him not having one. I never tested it, and yes it does think its a new post everytime a new comment it made.
However, i was in a rush and honestly don't care that much about it. It works enough to let me know of changes (and until matt gets off his butt and does a version 5 with some actual functionality - have seen his backend? think phpmyadmin - its not going to change)
Yeah, this isn't so much version 4 as version 3.5 when I think about it - I never did finish the archives, or do a few other things I had planned. It's a sad truth that my site actually seems to loose functionality each time I re-do it. Remember when it used to have forums? And a gallery?
Anyway, less talk about my backend.
Are you still dead against using software like Wordpress/Blogger? You could still host it on your webspace using the Wordpress software, customise it to your liking and then you wouldn't have to spend as much time faffing.
I know you used to enjoy doing your own site but that was when you had a lot more free time and you actually wanted to spend it in front of a PC, and also there wasn't really a viable alternative then. I can recommend Wordpress anyway, very easy to use and there are some great add ons to customise your blog.
I've been dabbling with Wordpress on the (still in beta) Karova blog. It's nice, but I've got 927 posts, and over 1,100 media entries I'd need to port across. The time it'd take me to figure that out and to re-engineer the HTML/PHP templates to do what I want, I think would be as long as getting off my ass and coding my site again from scratch. Same as any of the other blog engines and templating systems (movable type, django, symphony, expression engine, etc.), I've already got a bit done on version 5, including a cache system - but as usual the progress stalled some months ago.
I'm in a bit of a quandary over it all. I'm wishing I'd discovered and used Wordpress back when I started my website (though I'm not sure Wordpress was around back then).