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June 28, 2005
Je Suis Proud Encore Un Fois
Mum's made it into French.
(Previously known as "The Spectre of Hairy Hector")
Posted by Tom Dolan at 08:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 27, 2005
In My Professional Capacity
Because of the scale of what I've been up to recently, it's a long long time since I last launched anything. So it's with great pleasure that I announce...a teaser site.
But what a teaser site. The folks at GlueLondon did mighty fine. (And so did internal folks Sreenivas, Andy, Imran and David)
>> MTV:starzine
(You can win tickets to the VMAs in Miami too)
It's so odd to think that in a little over a fortnight, I'll have launched the real thing. (None of us will think much of it, but then it's not aimed at our sort.) And the big Java networked game will have gone to QA...
Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Meanwhile, over in Germany
Enough of the Tim Westwood bling, pimp my fahrrad!!!!
Posted by Tom Dolan at 10:33 PM | TrackBack
June 21, 2005
Happiness
The time to spend playing with your family and not thinking it's a distraction from something else you should be doing.
New piano pieces to learn.
New books to read. New books read.
A good New Zealand Sauv.
Knowing everyone back at the office *is* coping.
Discovering a lovely wedding between lovely people.
The time to read what's been going on in the flickr and blog world of my friends.
Holidays are lovely. I'm going to stop postponing them 'until it's a good time'.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 19, 2005
Fingers Crossed.
Best of luck to Matt Locke who's doing the London-to-Brighton bike ride today.
It's not too late to sponsor him
Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Catalyst in the Hat
I have to admit I'm rather enjoying the new single from Jamiroquai. "Feels Just Like It Should" carries on with the very welcome journey he started with the album Synkronised. I was never convinced by this "must be only done on the original instruments" line, and the arrival of Pro Tools and a million samplers in Jay Kay's life seems to have only done it good.
However I can see why people don't like it. Or rather miss the point about what he's trying to do.
He's no longer trying to be Stevie Wonder, or Parliament, or any of those things. After all, they did it better. Instead he's pushing the studio technology as far as it can towards making the album that those guys would have made if it had been possible at the time. The hugely complicated arrangements, layering melodies and rhythms between different vocal treatments, basslines that are actually sung though god-awful toilet-roll-sounding filters and gated to hell and back.
He's become the 'Garbage' of Funk. (Just as they stop being the Garbage of Rock, sadly).
I love all the overproduction. I don't mind that it's traded some gutsiness for a bit of sterility and a more intellectually satisfying approach. It's a *clever* record, and to be honest I don't have a problem with that. There's still plenty of feel in there, and the tech doesn't drown it, it carries it.
(I should also add that having worked with some of the recent output of music colleges in '04, I have to say he's got a hell of a lot more soul than what's being churned out at the moment. Never have I heard such mastery of Herbie Hancock's chord structure, and such little understanding of why he chose those chords in the first place!)
Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 11, 2005
Double Kylie
Really rather excellent Photoshop Work
via Holy Moly!
Posted by Tom Dolan at 12:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 09, 2005
52 4 U
I note with great excitement that Tim Wright's Oldton Playing Cards will shortly exist.
Oldton is a great site, a fascinating browse, and it's great to see one of our finest digital writers come back to the physical world. Admittedly in his usual inimitably, inspiringly different style. When online caroline is long gone, and nobody has software that can still read JPEGs, we can look back at how interactive fiction evolved in the early 21st Century.
Do order a pack.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 08:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hell it'll do.
More work on this later. At the moment this blog is a tool, not for creative self-expression and artistry. Perhaps mirroring my own life experiences.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 05:39 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The Builders Are In
It's late at night. Or is it early in the morning. And I can't sleep through stress. Roll on end of July when all is done and dusted!
However this does mean that
(a) I've done some boring braindump things about the stress
(b) I've finally got round to looking at why the comments have stopped working on the blog since I did the upgrade.
For better or worse, they now are.
Big thanks to this article on elise.com which explained that you need to add the domain of your blog to your typekey setup, not the blog url or the MT app installation URL as the Typekey form would indicate.
Unfortunately, one side effect of this is that you have to completely strip down all your templates and start again when you upgrade from MT2 to MT3. Half-arsed measures just don't work.
So the blogroll, flickr links etc etc will be arriving over the next few days as I get time...I haven't forgotten you all. And like the design, it probably all needed an upgrade anyway.
Posted by Tom Dolan at 04:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
