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September 29, 2003
When was the last time a website...
...gave you vertigo?
Rockboarding is one of those sports where your brain will route round the obvious definition becuase, well, nobody would do that. Would they?
Yes, it's snowboarding. In a snowboarding-style mountain location.
Only without the snow.
Some people are very very very strange.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 05:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Talking of which...
I didn't realise that www.mountkristos.com was back up again!
Superbly silly stuff. (Yet faintly sinister)
Posted by Tom Dolan at 04:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Creative Directors
Once again I've come away from meeting Tim Wright and Rob Bevan fired up that it's possible to get far more out of life than I currently am.
This is not necessarily a painless experience. In fact it's been fairly financially ruinous on two occasions - the grand piano and the swish club membership are respectively Rob And Tim's Fault. For which, on balance, I have to thank them enormously.
However, and this is the actual *point* of this post, Tim has sneakily started up a blog without telling anyone. And while I should have been working this afternoon, or at least sneaking out of the office to buy emergency bags of Iams lest the cats take compromising photos of me by night and blackmail me for a lifetime's supply of tuna, I have been giggling at yet more of his charmingly sinister ideas.
I was particularly pleased to see the Fils Blanc project finally committed to paper, even if not in its original form.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 04:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Depressing when all seen at once
The PDF of the deck is unbelievably compelling reading. I'm not sure if it's 100% accurate on all fronts, as there could be a certain amount of selective reporting here. But then, even if only 50% of this is true, it's 200% terrifying.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 02:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 26, 2003
b3ta *really* arrives
I thought it was going to be when Weebl and Bob appeared on MTV, but now I realise it's when Joel 'Rathergood' Veitch gets to do a window at Selfridges
(Shame the pics didn't get cleaned up in photoshop first, but it wouldn't have been very b3ta, would it...)
(in fact, I'm tempted to amble along there to see if it's static, or if there's really clunky animation going on)
Posted by Tom Dolan at 02:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Synchronised Spam?
Today, I got an interesting thing sent to my email inbox. So, at 14:34, I forwarded it to some people who might be interested. At *exactly* the same moment as someone else in the office.
Regardless, the World Beard and Moustache Championships site is still worth a look.
Via herself.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 02:42 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Making a difference
This quote from Britt Blazer's excellent essay against the ongoing privatisation of the internet.
Ever since I was a kid, I've wondered if I'd have the guts to diss the English in a 1775 coffee shop. How would I have conducted myself in mid-thirties Germany or later, in occupied France? Would I have stood up and attacked McCarthy when he was the Ashcroft of the fifties? Those were all opportunities to say something unpopular at the risk of persecution and ridicule. Leave aside whether I'd have dumped tea in the harbor or hidden Anne Frank. I have simply hoped I'd have the courage to take a stand surrounded by neighbors telling me to sit down and shut up.
It also contains a link to John Walker's Digital Imprimatur, which I'm going to make the time to read properly.
Sometimes I'm an early adopter, sometimes I'm stubbornly late. But often I find myself just ahead of the tipping point. I think this could be just one of those moment. Where the users of the internet turn round and say 'no, *ours*'.
Via The Obvious.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 02:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 25, 2003
Beautifully Put
Senor Coates beautifully sums up my feelings on the whole David Blaine thing - and moves out into a whole bunch of wider, yet still familiar, feelings too.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 01:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
From Japan, of course
Adidas's Billboard Ads feature Tethered Soccer Players 10 Stories up.
A bit like that matrix-style table-tennis game I linked to a while back.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 11:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 22, 2003
Heavy Rotation
As time goes on, and I get to hear it for the...ooooh....80th time from a TV on the other side of the office, "I believe in a thing called love" by The Darkness is inexorably melting into the christmas carol "The Holly and The Ivy".
Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 19, 2003
I question the wisdom...
of putting a 'journal' on the Avril Lavigne site, which has been updated four times since May.
Not really placing that 'connect with your fans' thing at the front, is it?
Posted by Tom Dolan at 11:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wood, apparently.
I'd just like to thank the wonderful creator of this site for having endured five exciting and interesting years of marriage with me.
It's amazing when you look back, just how far it's possible for people to come.
We still lived in a rented house, had the shadow of huge debt hanging over us, dreamed of being pop stars, thought I might not get another stint back at the beeb, had no cats, no baby, two utterly knackered cars and our only major financial commitment to date had been a bottom-of-the-range washing machine and a bottom-of-the-range bed.
It's also odd to look back at that day and realise how many people we now consider close friends weren't there - because we didn't even know them. So, Mark, Martha, Des, Shaz, Marv, Matt, Euan, Flip and many more - in our memories, you were there. And we all had a lovely time.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A cute Dave Shrigley?
Edward Monkton has been responsible for a bunch of cards we've been sent recently.
There's a naive silliness behind his simple black-and-white designs, but also something deeper.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 08:14 AM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
September 18, 2003
Christmas List
(The little trailers are worth a look - particularly the michel gondry and spike jonze ones. You realise the full scale of what they've both done.)
Posted by Tom Dolan at 06:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 17, 2003
And lightening the tone....
Lance Arthur's "Funny Things I Have Said to 'Famous Bloggers' that the 'Famous Bloggers' did not find funny at all made me laugh out loud. It felt very familiar. Both accidentally and deliberately.
(Mind you, I have a genetic imperative. My Dad once Innapropriately Pointed Some Things Out to a bespectacled MajorSoft ware company owner. No hints there, obviously.)
Via Wherever You Are
Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In Memoriam
A brief impulsive google search after a conversation about the free musicians magazine 'Making Music' found this mention of my greatest boss at the BBC on
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply: you no longer have to see
I'm out of the office for the forseeable future..
Multimedia business should go to Tom Dolan on 50245 or Michaela Blackman on
51127.
Jon Lewin
Jon never recovered, never came back to the office. And is still missed by just about everyone who knew him. To this day I feel his influence in everything I do at work, and how I try to manage people.
Odd that something as simple as an 'out-of-office' can engender such strong emotions.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 16, 2003
Damn and Blast
Yes, I know it's been quiet recently. I'm going through one of my efficient phases where I don't fritter my life away on such trivia as "fun". (Though recabling the studio was a fun/work hybrid)
However, it sounds, according to Planet Parent that I should just get used to that.
Our first baby, Oliver was only six months old when I fell pregnant again. When I found out that the tummy bug I’d been suffering from, was in fact a baby, I sat on the stairs and cried. Steve said that he didn’t want me to think of it as ruining his life but rather to consider it as ruining both of our lives.
or
I (and I guess anyone else out there who’s not had the experience) blithely expected these gatherings of mums to be cosy, gossipy, rather bland affairs, with plenty of cake and some cooing over each other’s offspring. I didn’t expect to be competing in the parenting version of The Weakest Link. Your child doesn’t sleep, eat, smile, crawl, walk etc. you are the Weakest Parent – goodbye!
Really funny, and rather worrying.
Via Oblomovka
Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2003
Trivia from the archives
The BBC Comedy Guide should definitely come with a health warning. I've changed my desktop wallpaper about 10 times, and have to wrench myself back to doing real work.
My current little gem, though, is the credits for Alas Smith And Jones. The sheer scale of the writing talent is amazing, including some names you wouldn't expect.
Moray Hunter and Jack Docherty?
Phil Nice and Arthur Smith?
Mark Steel?
And amazingly, John Irwin and Paul Martin. Before the latter changed his surname to Merton!
Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 11, 2003
Proud
My very esteemeed lady wife has just launched the absolutely *huge* and unbelievably browsable BBC TV Comedy Guide - everything '39 to '99 at the moment.
Just *so* good!
Posted by Tom Dolan at 06:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Only In Essex
I'm sorry mate, but if Glynis Barber ain't in the buff, I ain't interested...
(Though I suspect both parties are as bad as eachother)
((And I think more of the internet community would remember her for being in Blakes 7 rather than Dempsey and Makepeace, but that's nit-picking))
Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 09, 2003
Tescos and Meat
Charlie Skelton is quite vocal about why we should avoid Tescos meat. Nope, not an anti-globalisation or pro-vegetarian rant.
(Don't forget to follow the 'pissed off' link)
Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 08, 2003
Let's drink the world dry
Although it's been widely reported for its 'political bombshell' status, the thing I find most horrifying about Michael Meacher's Guardian article "This war on terrorism is bogus" is the sheer scale to which nations are prepared to live outside their means. And act as though they're always going to be able to.
It's a scarily compelling argument for renewable, and even nuclear, energy sources. (Though in the case of the latter there are obviously 'supply' issues with Johnny Foreigner too.)
Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
No longer deliberately rubbish
The b3ta ethic has definitely moved up a gear over at HumanDescent
Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 05, 2003
Indeterminate Vintage
This may be a few months old now, but I thought the crash different video was rather fun, and - in the days of OS9 - sadly true. Very occasionally. Still love them more than PCs though.
Via an email from Nairnski
Posted by Tom Dolan at 05:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 04, 2003
Cliche
I *will not* be one of those people who sets their baby scan pictures as their desktop wallpaper. I *won't*.
(probably)
All healthy as far as anyone can tell tho.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 03, 2003
Subconscious Realised
This is what all my dreams were like between the ages of 14 and 20-odd.
I should have got out more.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 03:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Perspective
So, randomly chosen from 3544 MP3s, I get the following musical selection first thing this morning:
- In the cage - Genesis
- Living in a box - Living in a box
- Stuck in a rut - the darkness
Is my iPod trying to tell me something?
Posted by Tom Dolan at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Fred Durst has *so* much to learn
I love the subtle smut of the planned Christmas single by The Darkness
'Christmas time, don't let the bells end, just let them ring in piece'.
(via no rock and roll fun )
Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 02, 2003
Busy
Should I be flattered that my comments system is worth spamming?
Roll up roll up get your Lev Manovitch desktop wallpaper????????
Currently using Dan Hill's fab PPT on adaptive design to push through procedural changes on our work CMS. Got a whole bunch of examples of 'abuse' of the system that I'm trying to turn into valid uses - will post up here at some stage.
How can a publisher issue an ISBN for a book they haven't even got a signed contract for?
How can I create a mission statement without using falling into all those work-speak traps that Andy Law so mercilessly tears apart? "Empowerment", for example.
Work parties - some are nice. Some could make too many assumptions about how you want to spend your time. We'll see.
More later...
Posted by Tom Dolan at 07:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
