Month: October 2005

bookmark_borderGet a grip

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“Good grip!”

Isn’t it funny how the mind works, how seemingly trivial everyday comments open a little trapdoor in your brain allowing those little mental connections to trickle out.

Take the title of this post as an example. Ring any bells for anyone? The first line is what my brain conjured up, can you name the film?

The reason I mention this is because, during moments of pause and “blogging malaise”, my brain seems to take some delight in flinging open these trapdoors at all sorts of moments, particularly late at night when I’m trying to sleep. Most bothersome of it, I’m thinking of having it removed.

There I lay, watching the flicker of neon glow mark each passing minute with my brain leaping from trapdoor to trapdoor in an endless succession of self-referential connections that only I and possibly my wife (lying snoring next to me) would understand. Like a dream they float past my memory, tauntingly close but out of reach. Or to put it another way, I can’t remember a single thing that struck me as “bloggable” last night. Typical.

To more mundane matters then.

Louise’s brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner last night and the ever reliable Bombay Cottage did the business once again. Also got to play with Centarsia, a photo mosiac application, with surprisingly good results (some samples here). It’s a bit fiddly to start with but once you get to grips with it, and with a little care and some pre-editing, you can get some nice images… hmmm, there’s a space on the living room wall that might suit…

What else, what else?

This morning I came into work to find my mug was in the “just turned on” dishwasher. Not a happy bunny as I like my routine in the morning (in office before everyone, coffee, email, news… start work at 9). Isn’t it funny how little things like this can affect us.

Finally – anyone else noticed a drop in the number of spam emails? I hardly get any at all now, so either BlueYonder have beefed up their spam filters or spammers are targetting elsewhere… mind you, I don’t get that many real emails.. *sniffs*

Right. Enough. Work to do.

REAL content later, if yer lucky (and if I can decide on a topic – suggestions?).

bookmark_borderWood for trees

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Despite having far too many draft posts lying unfinished, and with my focus still elsewhere – finishing a long overdue website, writing up design thoughts for another, battling the demons of IE box model hacks, not to mention that thing that pays the bills – I find myself casting around for something to write about.

Nope.

Still nothing.

bookmark_borderCondoms

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Imagine if all major retailers started making their own condoms and kept the same tag-line…

  • Sainsbury condoms – Making life taste better.
  • Tesco condoms – Every little helps.
  • Nike condoms – Just do it.
  • Peugeot condoms – The ride of your life.
  • Galaxy condoms – Why have rubber when you can have silk.
  • KFC condoms – Finger licking good.
  • Minstrels condoms – Melt in your mouth, not your hands.
  • Safeway condoms – Lightening the load.
  • Abbey national condoms – Because life is complicated enough.
  • Coca Cola condoms – The real thing.
  • Ever ready condoms – Keeps going and going.
  • Pringles condoms – Once you pop, you can’t stop.
  • Burger king condoms – Home of the whopper.
  • Goodyear condoms – For a longer ride go wide.
  • FCUK condoms – No comment required.
  • Muller light condoms – So much pleasure, but where’s the pain.
  • Halfords condoms – We go the extra mile.
  • Royal mail condoms – I saw this and thought of you.
  • Andrex condoms – Soft, strong and very very long.
  • Renault condoms – Size really does matter.
  • Ronseal condoms – Does exactly what it says on the tin.
  • Ronseal quick-drying condoms – Its dry and waterproof in 30 minutes.
  • Domestos condoms – Gets right under the rim (puhleease).
  • Heineken condoms – reaches parts that other condoms just cannot reach.
  • Carlsberg condoms – Probably the best condoms in the world.

A little out of date but raised a smile here (pun intended!).

bookmark_borderA subtle hint

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A while back I mentioned, in passing, that I’d lost a little weight. Since then things have stalled a little and whilst I’ve not put any back on (my usual habit) I’ve not lost any more, but this week it’s back to the grind, watching the intake and burning some calories off.

Doubly so now.

Yesterday morning, as I got out of the car at the station, the button on my trousers popped off. My belt did it’s job though and thankfully managed to stop my trousers from succumbing to gravity and as it was too late to go back home to change I had little choice but to dash (in a rather awkward fashion) for the train. I even managed to get through the rest of the day with surprisingly little incident.

After work we nipped out to the local Lidl (supermarket) and when we got home, as I started to unload the car, I got another ‘hint’ that I need to step things up on the diet front. My belt broke (the buckle decide to part company with it’s own top bar). Somehow my buttonless, beltless trousers stayed up until I staggered awkwardly into the kitchen, saving the neighbours from a not too pleasant sight, and suffice to say that I’m taking it as a none too subtle sign.

Although a note on the fridge would have worked just as well..

Note: The belt was pretty old and on it’s way out, the leather was beginning to fray badly and I really should have thrown it out sooner. So if nothing else I’ll certainly not be taking any more risks on the belt front in the near future. Let this be a lesson to you all – wear braces!

bookmark_borderKerchinng!

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Apparently “Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money.” according to Jules Renard.

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball agrees and has kicked off another campaign to raise some funds to support his site. Whilst it’s certainly an issue to take stock of I’d venture that very few people make any kind of money running their sites – although Neil has announced that he made about £175 last month, which isn’t too shabby. Of course the highest profile (blog-wise) news on this front was most certainly Jason Kottke and his drive towards reader-supported blogging.

A quick caveat: I’m not concerned with those who are blogging specifically to make money. I’m talking largely about the hobbyist blogger, the majority of whom run their sites at a loss.

Thankfully my stats remain low so I don’t have any issues with bandwidth charges and the like but what if you do? Which is better? Adverts or a member/sponsor drive? Would it be possible for me to cover my costs for running this site? And more to the point, how much would YOU pay to read this site? (or perhaps how much should I be paying you?)

I will happily admit to having considered running adverts on this site but each time I do I find I can’t really justify them. My readership, whilst hugely intelligent and esoteric (somewhat good looking too), isn’t exactly numerous, and if I’m honest I think adverts just LOOK bad. In saying that, the idea of actually making a little cash, however paltry the figure, out of this hobby that I spend a lot of time on does hold some appeal. After all, what would be better than to get some cash for doing something you enjoy?

No, I don’t think I’ll ever go down the advert route (feel free to remind me of this if I ever do) but it does get a little draining to put time and effort into something with no reward. Ahhh now we are now approaching the crux of the matter.

I don’t begrudge John his readership (I’ve enjoyed his writing for some time myself), and he certainly has his own reasons for asking his readers to cough up a little cash (it’s not a huge amount, relatively) but I think just doing that crosses a line and possibly reveals one of the reasons you are involved in this funny little land of blogs. Yes, that age old question of “why do we blog?” rears it’s head again.

Do I blog for fame and fortune? Or something else, something a little harder to get a handle on, a little harder to define. Do I REALLY blog for me?

Well that question will remain unanswered but I can take Saturday as the perfect example of getting something good out of blogging. I got the chance to meet some interesting people, and as ever I came away with several good ideas, new points of view and a better take on myself.

Tell me, what price can you put on that?

bookmark_borderBlogmet

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They say you learn something new everyday. Yesterday was an exception as I lost count of the number of things I learned. Let me try and re-cap.

1. When arranging a blogmeet, provided the ADDRESS of the pub as well as the name. This will save at least two people getting lost (apologies to Peter and Corrinne).
2. Suggest everyone prints out a “blogcard” to save me scrabbling around for a piece of paper to jot down the attendees and their URLs (hat-tip to the very well organised Chameleon).
3. Don’t presume everyone reads the Scottish Blogs news page and EMAIL ALL previous attendees (apologies to Gunnella but thanks for turning up!)
4. Lots of other interesting things that will come to me once the fug of Guinness has cleared.

So, putting my guilt (points 1 and 3) aside, I can happily say that it was a great afternoon in the company of some lovely, intelligent and funny individuals. The fact that we were sharing part of the pub with a random assortment of fiddlers, a mandolin player and a couple of singers (one of whom did have a lovely voice), only added to the day.

As I mentioned to various people yesterday, I’m probably the worst person in the world to be organising these things given that I have such a terrible memory. It was with some relief that everyone who said they’d come along found the pub (eventually) and seemed to have a good time. Who attended? You ask. Well, and I’ll try and do this in order of “appearance”, I spent the afternoon with:

Some photos have appeared already, and there will be more here soon.

Another good day hanging out in the pub with “strangers that you kinda know”. What an odd hobby we share yet how rewarding it is. Many thanks to everyone who came along, see you in Edinburgh for the next one!