Adidas Shield with rimless performance inserts

As promised.

Links roundup

Hey honey, I've had an idea about that engagement ring.

Turn any iPod into an iPod Shuffle in 3 easy steps. Bah! I can do it one.

Great t-shirts

Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Winer

Dave Winer (the disputed father of blogging) sometimes comes up with some really profound things. Stop Energy for instance. For this reason I try and check in to his blog every now and then to try and catch the very rare moments of brilliance.

However, on the whole he is a very dull and incredibly self obsessed. He's now started recording himself as part of the podcasting fad. Someone should tell him to stop. If ploughing through his blog wasn't bad enough, listening to him makes me want to stick pins in my eyes.

Imagine my delight when this article turned up on el reg confirming just how pompous he really is.

Secret thoughts

Mail art projects have been around since I was at college, and they seemed very dull. However, this is a great idea, with occasionally beautiful results and best of all you can see the results without going to a gallery.

Afrotastic

I can see it's going to be an embarrassing month.

Inspired by my "sixteen" photo, Terry and Jill found this classic shot from our time at college.

You won't be surprised that it was not long after this photo was taken that I cut all my hair off. It had taken about 2 years to get to this stage, and although it was long, about shoulder length when you pulled it, it was a LONG way from looking anything else than stupid.

Oh, and any resemblance to the hair bear bunch is purely co-incidental.

Tag team

The sleep deprivation tag team were in full effect last night. If it wasn't one, it was the other, or the other.

All I want is some sleep. sob sob.

I should rent them out as psychological warfare consultants.

Friend or Foe?

There is one question that would let me know immediately if someone was at the same stage of life as me....

Which member of Hi5 do you think is the best shag?

Official: Caravanning is cool

In the same way that dhtml is so cool?! apparently caravanning is cool. No - seriously. We've bought a caravan we're that serious about it. It fits a lot of the things we wanted to achieve. We can travel and show the kids a simpler, less commercial life as a foil for their normal world.

We've bought a French made 5 berth Sterckemann 485ce which is the max we could pull with our car. We'd seen a great german hymer caravan with the same layout, but it was too heavy - and I'm not buying a 4x4 just to pull a caravan. Of the caravans I looked at the two most stylish (apart from the airstreams) are the t@b and t@b xl (above), although the xl is too heavy for a normal car. I think there is a gap the market for a light weight caravan utilising modern plastics.

Anyway Terry tells me that its cool, and if its good enough for Jarvis its good enough for us.

Sixteen

Blamestorming

Loving this.

BLAMESTORMING.
Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline
was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Booze and the banality of life

This week has been the first week in a long time that i haven't had any booze. I'm doing it partly to lose weight and partly to prove to myself I'm not an alcoholic. I'm hoping to make it to February.

Its sparked some interesting conversations. Lou can have a glass of wine with her dinner for the taste alone. Not me. I want to get pissed. Not bladdered, just blur the edges of the day. Why? To postpone the banality of life for another day.

Unfortunately, booze does a very good job. Days become weeks become years, and the longer I postpone it, the less chance I have of actually doing anything about it.

That dinner party question...

You know that question you sometimes get asked at interviews about who you would want to be at a dinner party with. Well i've decided to make a list, its confined to the living otherwise it could (and would) get ridiculous. I wouldn't do a dinner party of course, more like a works night out - a trip to the pub and then a curry. Anyway this is who I've come up with so far.

Craig Johnstone. The ex-Liverpool player who became Head of innovation at adidas via the predator. Really interesting man, always problem solving, taking risks, won and lost millions. Originally from Australia he comes across very natural and appealing.

Thomas Heatherwick. The guy who recently became better known for his work "b in the bang in Manchester". He's done some great stuff in a relatively short life. He seems especially good at finding partners to outsource to. I'm not sure about his modernist views - paraphrased, anybody who is interested in referencing the past is a coward for not facing the future. Might be a bit of an arse in person but it would be good to find out.

Steve Jobs. I don't think Steve would be good at socialising (Jonathon Ives seems like he would be better), but it would be great if we could get him to let his hair down. His global commercial perspective is something that at least Craig would be able to relate to. I'd be most interested in his reflections on his recent cancer.

Terry Dixon. I would want my friend Terry to come along for the ride. I think he would enjoy talking to Thomas, because he does exactly the same area of stuff that Terry would given the chance. Tel should be one of the most influential creators in this area. He has a very delicate touch and balances beautifully between old and new. I'd love to work with Terry in the future, because he is one of the few people who I think has a more natural feel for technology in art than me.

Alain de Botton. Funny and intelligent - dissector of modern life, Alain is another one who wears the same clothes every day, so Steve would have a kindred spirit.

Norman Cook. You've got to love Quentin (no really - hence the Norman) for still using an Atari ST to do his music on. He says he can't go on stage without having half a bottle of vodka to turn himself into Fatboy Slim. He says he's tried to do it sober before - but he ended up thinking what shopping he had to get tomorrow, and what he thought, as a 40 year old man, he was doing waving a towel round above his head.

Its interesting that I haven't got any women in the list so far. Is that because I can't relate to women as easily as men? Don't know.

Update on mac mini

Thanks to Macworld for the this article. So there is one RAM slot - if you get one with 256 (not enough), you'll have to throw it away to upgrade. I'd definitely go to 512 as the move to a gig is so much more. And a superdrive - probably, but now I'm making a more complicated decision than before.

When we are on extended holiday will I take this + a monitor, or a imac g5 or an ibook, or do I wait for the pb g5, or do I get a mini now and sell it when the pbg5 comes out. Hmmm. Decisions, decisions. One further minor issue - according to Lou we have no money for a purchase.

Mac mini and other short stories

Apple continue to march on under Jobs. I've not watched the webcast yet but the macmini seems the stand out product. As soon as I can confirm that I won't invalidate my warranty by upgrading the RAM myself, I'm gonna git me one.

Talking of Jobs with Adam this morning, I was reminded about this incredible meeting about the Segway. Wow.

Although he gave them a hard time, I wish I had Jobs thinking about MY products all night.

My products of 2004

Good

Fiat Multipla 1.9JTD V(2000)

I love our car. Lou loves our car. The kids love our car. Nous luvacarons. Vous luvacarez.

I love the crazy way it looks, and I love what they were trying to do with it. We thought about getting a new style multipla but have you seen the way it looks? like a dull van. I think that our shape's looks will age well, as they'll still look similarly weird in 10 years time.

Its fun to drive - but gets a bit floaty round corners when its heavy. Its not long but WIDE and its a tardis. I fitted a sofa in it the other day no problem. I mean IN it, with a closed boot and everything. We're constantly amazed what you can get in. Its got 6 seats and good boot space. On long journeys we've taken to folding the middle seat at the front down and attaching the laptop on it with a belt so the kids can watch DVD's. Get us.

Like one of the family - I love it in spite of its imperfections. The inside coloring is a bit crap. Its a sea of maroon, a bit like the school disco in 1984. The seat belts ALWAYS get stuck in the doors, and the rubber bits around the doors periodically fall off.

That said if this one konks out I'll definitely consider getting another one of the latest ones of this shape. Did I mention that we love it?

Adidas A263 Shield with A741 rimless inserts

My specs are great. If anyone is thinking of getting a pair (HAHA) then get the Nikon thin lenses, whether you have a large prescription or not. The other ones look slightly worse from the side, and more annoyingly my eyelashes catch on them. Thats when I've glued them on and mascarared them up, of course. BOOM BOOM.

I've slightly modded the inserts for purely cosmetic reasons. I cut out the bridge between the two lenses - and I will probably do the same with curved bits on the side of the inserts as I don't think they offer any mor grip than just the plastic cushion at the front.

What they do that the joe 90's didn't was confuse the general public into validating the other crap that I'm wearing at the time - so they think i could be fashionable.

The other interesting side effect is the way people try to sell stuff to me. For instance, I was looking at caravans (YES CARAVANS, the latest um cool thing) on Sunday (THE LORD'S DAY! we are SLIDINGGGGGGG) and the man had been talking to us about this particularly cool German number, and looking at me he struck on an idea.

"Its very MODERN isn't it, not like the OLD TRADITIONAL TWEE type of caravan." Hmmm. The irony is it works! Bing bing - "Modern you say? Computer says yes". When I can find some batteries for the digi-camera I'll take a picture of me in my space-boy specs.

Fluoxetine hydrochloride

This year I took the advice of my doctor and started taking the no-frills brand of prozac. I've been suffering with mild depression since puberty, but I've been scared to take the happy pills. I didn't know what effect they would have. Would they change me? Would I get addicted? I also got scared about whether it was all part of being creative, and that I would lose that too, the only thing I like about me. In the end I got to a point where I didn't care what happened.

For me depression is not feeling down - its the absence of emotion. Its chronic tiredness. Its nihilism. Its the inability to enjoy anything. Its hating yourself for being like this. Not good news when you have a young family. I was a nightmare to live with.

The counselling I received was, in the main, pretty amateurish. When there is no great childhood story to follow up, or you feel the same whether your personal situation is good or bad, the counselling proves pretty annoying. The most bizarre thing about it was they could only offer counselling in business hours, they're obviously not expecting anyone who has a job to be depressed, and if you are depressed we'll try to make you lose your job by getting you to attend every week.

It seemed pretty obvious to me, with a long term problem like this that it was physiological not psychological. There has been a lot of comment about the prescription of SSRI's but I have nothing but good things to say about them.

I was sinking in the pool and was too tired to struggle to the surface. In fact I didn't care if I drowned or not. Like a life-jacket the SSRI's float you back to the surface. They don't get you to the side on their own, but they give you time and energy to do that yourself.

I've no doubt they helped saved my marriage and avoid the split up of our family. On bad days I still feel pretty nihilistic, but now I can say that I want to stay alive and I am enjoying being with the kids and Lou. Sadly, even though I can rationalise why I need them, I'm embarrassed about having to take these pills. In fact I feel a bit of a cunt, but better to feel a cunt than be a cunt.

Daniel Kitson

Funny man.

See him if you can.

Modal-rich briefs

You HAVE to get some of these. Make sure you get about 90% modal. Wearing these feels like your cock-n-balls are cupped firmly but delicately in the hands of a Malaysian princess. Trust me, if you haven't got any - GET SOME.

Bad

The house

Our house is like an adopted child thats gone off the rails. As much as I try to love and help it to heal, I get a nagging feeling that the roots of abuse and discontent are too deep for me to ever make a real difference. I'm resigned to damage limitation and I periodically regret the decision to take it on and resent the constant effort involved in trying.

Windows XP

Does anyone in Redmond use a laptop? After having a powerbook it as been a big disappointment. Compared to the instant wake of osx, xp sleep/resume functionality is absolutely shit. My particlar favourite is when it hibernates with low battery, so you plug it in, start to resume windows, put the kettle on, make a cup of tea, and when it finally comes back it gives you the message to plug it in because of the low battery. Aaggggghhh. Roll on the pb G5.

Meet, attract, and date TONS of single women

Good job i'm not single, with this information I could be dangerous.

'"Hi beautiful, would you like to dance with me?"'

'What happens next? She's going to die laughing and think that you are so funny. Plus, you will make a very favorable impression on her because women love a guy with a sense of humor. And, of course, she will most likely dance with you.'

via memepool

Chiaroscuro: photo from Cassini