Words are a tool for effective communication. To my mind, communication is the relaying of one concept from an individual or group to another individual or group. If a message makes it from one party to another, understood and intact, communication has been successful. Unfortunately, in conversation, you get assholes who receive the communication, unpack it, understand it, then point out to the sender all the things that are wrong with it.
Person A: How is this pronunced? Dickhead: Don’t you mean pronounced?
What has this achieved? Dickhead has made an individual or group aware of the fact that Person A mispronounced something, but he’s also conveniently informed everyone that he’s basically a complete waste of oxygen and should probably be avoided at all costs. I would urge you to do the same. If someone prefers the perfect execution of a message to the content of said message, they are probably not worth your time.
As a footnote, I am very pedantic when it comes to planned written communication. Misspelled signage, incorrect punctuation et al are a sign of laziness or unjustifiably high self esteem (I know I’m right, I don’t need to look it up). Short, observational blog posts do not count as planned communication, so if you’ve spotted a mistake, I’m not a hypocrite and your observation of my hypocrisy is moot. Ha.
Getting post is great; except for when it’s bills. It’s nearly always bills, or some fucker claiming you owe them money, or inviting you to be in a free prize draw, or a takeaway menu. It’s never good stuff, unless you’re expecting it.
What I like about Lovefilm is it’s a benevolent little package that lands on your doormat that isn’t a bank statement or council tax. It’s an hour or two of enjoyment, that you didn’t have to go and get. It’s the modern-day equivalent of a stork (or something).
I haven’t used my camera in ages. There is no excuse.
Me: Sorry I didn’t help out with the housework this afternoon Charlotte: That’s OK; you had something you needed to do Me: What was that? Charlotte: You wanted to watch the basketball Me: PROFIT
So, there you have it. Somehow, I have managed to convince Charlotte that a game of the playoffs that’s like 2 weeks old is important enough that it takes precedence over housework.
Every now and again, I get too comfortable with my life and start doing stupid stuff. I don’t know why, but I have an innate inability to cope for very long when everything is going well. This leads me to fabricate problems, or set myself stupid personal tests that I’ll invariably fail because I fucking set them.
It’s normally around this time that I start writing embarrassing, demotivational messages on my hand. Stuff like “You don’t need to smoke”, or “Stop fucking eating all the time” are what we’re talking here. If nothing else, it’s just frustrating.
I also have a trick of completely ditching or changing really insignificant things in my life – for example, I have changed my main web browser, stopped posting to twitter and Facebook (except for replies! What a renegade!), and stopped sitting and mincing about on my laptop all evening. I know; life-changing shit, right?
Is anyone else like this as well? I can’t be the only one who gets used to being happy and needs to fuck things up just to feel something new.
This is now totally my favourite piercing ever. I’ve had a fairly close-knit run of colds the last week and I think my body has stepped up its healing game. After a pretty long 9ish months, this is all-but healed. It still aches a little bit, and I don’t think this will ever be my natural sleep side again, but there (gross alert!) is no leakage of any kind from it now. Just a smooth, perfect little hole (8mm).
I just wanted to take a little bit of time to confirm to anyone who also read Conch Stretching; not for the faint-hearted that you should not stretch your conch (or any other part of your body that’s made of cartilage). You shouldn’t really go see a guy and get him to punch a hole in it either, but if you must have holes, go for a dermal punch. It’s gross, it hurts like fuck and it bleeds like crazy for about a week. You seriously might think you’re going to die, but it is so worth it. I wouldn’t trade this piercing for all battered Mars Bars in Scotland now.
People have started asking me how I did it now, as well, so hopefully that will continue and I can actually take it out and show them!
When it comes to taking photos of ships, it’s difficult to get in a decent position at Southampton docks. I have previously moaned about being unable to take a decent photo from the same place that the following Norwegian Jade one is taken from, however, sideways-on seems a lot worse. Careful what you wish for, I guess.
Some people just really want to go on a cruise, I guess.
QM2 looking flat and dull and like there’s a silver bullet caravan in front of it.
Event photographers are like parasites. They get in your peripheral vision with their flashes and their barging and have a habit of inflicting a bit of annoyance on at least one attendee of any event they’re at. Gig photography, you can get away with to a certain extent; there are generally lights and noise and more than one bargy individual so you can blend a bit.
Tonight, however, I am a hypocrite. I wanted to play with my new flash stuff, so I threw self respect to the wind and took my camera. As a side note, it’s just my luck (and maybe an omen) that my camera battery began to die when I took it out of my bag! Nonetheless, it reaffirmed my suspicion that you can’t take artistically viable photos of someone talking in a room where there are flipboards on the walls! My shyness resulting from disdain at flashing cameras at events like this have not helped at all, but for what they are they’re ok. With that in mind, here are some blokes talking about some stuff, maybe even pointing at a screen. Enjoy.
Dan Griffey, the organiser of OpenWeb
Kev Wilson, talking about the iPhone app development cycle. Turns out it’s pretty similar to any development cycle, but with the added loveliness of the App Store.
Jof Arnold telling people not to write iPhone apps for profit unless you’ve got an ass-load of money to plough into it, you’re doing it for a client who has an ass-load of money to plough into it, or you’re doing it for anyone who’s prepared to make no money from it!
Paul Boag, pointing out the obvious. With crazy eyes.
