albumbyyear

Suffering From Abandonment Issues?

2011-11-17T12:34:00.002Z

Looking back over my previous entries makes my absence from here over the last few months seem quite suspicious. My last post was ridiculing people who were up in arms about being tracked by their iPhones and then I disappear for a while...

Luckily enough I haven't been being held in by Apple in their presumably lovely and well designed holding cells, I've just been working. I've also given up on my project 365 as firstly my MobileMe gallery wasn't anywhere near as accessible as Flickr, and also Apple are shutting it down at some point in favour of iCloud (which is awesome by the way - synced game saves across ios devices? SAAAFE)

I'll probably start it up again next year, probably using Facebook. I'll then probably blog about it around this time next year explaining why I've given up and how next year would be different if the world wasn't going to end.

Happy New Year!

Anyway, I've enjoyed posting in this blog but the problem is I'm struggling to find a use for it. If I find anything worth sharing I'll usually just put it on Twitter or Facebook and at 26 years old I've finally realised that writing about your emotions online is a little bit gay. Maybe I'll start writing about books I've read? Since getting a Kindle I've been reading a lot more. Tina Feys autobiography was hilarious, Generation Kill was excellent but my favourite book I've read this year has to be The Postmortal (or The End Specialist in the UK) - its set 100 years from now in a world where death has been cured and deals with the effects on society the cure has. (Hint: it doesn't end well)

So yeah, check it out. You must like reading, this is a blog after all.

The iOS Tracking saga...

2011-05-05T11:07:00.000+01:00

So I know I'm a bit late to the party here but I just wanna weigh in with my thoughts on the whole iPhone tracking story from two weeks ago.

At the speed news moves now this may seem irrelevant, especially considering in the time its taken me to blog about the issue someone has made a whole episode of South Park about it. But it's worth talking about just to cut through the hysteria..

My Map

I have no problems posting this on here as firstly, not many people read this and secondly if you wanted to find out my movements it isn't necessary to have this map. Most people know I live in Guildford and work in Cranleigh. That explains the concentration of dots there.

I go to a lot of gigs in London. I tweeted about going to Cheltenham to see a mate & a gig in Gloucester. On my Facebook you can see pictures of a stag do I went to in Bristol. These all show up on the map but if you did wanna follow my movements you'd already know I've been to these places by looking at Flickr/Twitter/Facebook/Overhearing me in the pub.

The argument that if someone got a hold of your computer and viewed the files doesn't hold water either. If they're accessing your computer then THEY'RE ALREADY IN YOUR HOUSE AND HAVE PROBABLY ALREADY RAPED YOU.

The Best Laid Pans

2011-05-02T22:55:00.005+01:00

So it turns out that Flickr has a 200 photo limit - which has kinda put paid to my "Take One Photo a Day" project.

I'm currently downloading all of the photos I've taken so far and moving them onto my MobileMe gallery. They'll still be viewable, but they won't be on the worlds largest picture sharing site. Bollocks.

The link if you wanna carry on seeing what I'm upto:

MobileMe

Facebook Cull

2011-03-29T16:43:00.006+01:00

About a month ago I did a pretty huge cull of Facebook friends. Not with clubs or icepicks like a Canadian, just a clearout of people I never speak to.

I was kinda inspired by a post on UnrealityMag that I can't find anymore about how Facebook is getting too big. Too many "friends" posting too much inane stuff. It really struck a chord with me as at the time I was trying to figure out what I used my various social networking profiles for. Twitter for news/celebrity stalking, YouTube for videos (uurr obvs) and Facebook which seemed to be a continuous feed of noise when really I thought it should be a tool for staying in touch with my friends.

Now this isn't me telling you what you should use it for as some of the most amazing inventions have come from people not using things properly but it's what I thought I could use Facebook for.

"Naked ladies? On the internet?! Why would you put that on there?!"

This is literally the first thing that comes up when you Google "Naked Ladies on the Internet"

Prior to the cull I had about 450 friends, most of whom I'd accrued through importing old MSN messenger lists, schoolfriends adding me, colleagues from work and the occasional girl I'd met at a party who I'd spectacularly failed to pick up. Afterwards I'd whittled it down to about 350.

My criteria were brutal. Basically I asked myself had I seen this person in the last five years and did I want to continue hearing about what they were up to? Especially if it was unlikely that I'd see them in the future.

"Is that Nick over there?"

Unfortunately the bulk of people culled were old schoolfriends. I wanna use this opportunity to say it's nothing personal but if we weren't part of each others lives since school and hadn't made the effort of meeting up in the intervening TEN years what is the point of us knowing what we're doing on a day to day basis? Not to say I won't ever speak to them if I do bump into them again, I just don't see the point of hearing the minutiae of their lives.

Putting it in such simple terms does make me seem like a bit of a dick, but I stand by decision and the fact that I have nearly as many followers on Twitter means nothing. Honestly.

One Blog Post a Month

2011-02-24T22:02:00.004Z

So yeah, been neglecting this a bit haven't I?

In all fairness I have been doing a lot - moving house, running a phone shop, wooing the missus etc but one thing I have kept up with is my Project 365 thing. Granted I had a bit of a hiccup when my iPhone4's camera stopped working (which is why you'll probably notice the picture quality dropping dramatically in mid February for like a week) but after sending it off for repair Apple in their infinite kindness just replaced it for me. The pictures are up on my Flickr feed if you wanna check them out.

I also did a massive Facebook friend cull. I'll go into this another time as I feel it deserves its own post, and lastly I tried Jailbreaking my Apple TV.

It worked, and I even managed to type some code into Terminal that downloaded XBMC onto it before spectacularly failing to get any of my content from my iMac to play. So I just gave in and converted all my videos to MP4. You win this round Apple..

Project 365

2011-01-05T21:45:00.006Z

Happy New Year!

Normally I don't make new year resolutions. In fact, my resolution every year seems to be "don't make a new years resolution" and unlike most of you out there I actually stick to it. However after being inspired by my friend Nick and his adventures trying one new thing a week for a year (his exploits can be found here: 52 New Things) I decided to try and take one photo a day for the whole of 2011.

I'm doing this so like Nick, I can look back on my photostream (or blog in his case) and be reminded of things I'd accomplished this year. Granted I won't raise a bunch of money for charity or end up releasing a Christmas single but I might just end up reminding myself of something awesome that I'd have otherwise forgotten about.

Now unlike most resolutions like going to the gym, or eating less or other hard things this will probably be quite easy to accomplish. I've managed five days worth so far and I'm pretty sure I've captured the spirit of each day.

These are the first few I've taken. The rest you can find on my Flickr stream which is linked on the right of this page!

This was taken New Years Day. My flatmate left the kitchen tap running and flooded downstairs. This is what happened when no one answered the front door.

On the 2nd my girlfriend and I went to Kingston. She had to exchange some shoes and I ended up in the Apple Store buying an Apple TV I kinda didn't need.

This was my first day back at work. After returning home I set up my Apple TV and marvelled at the fact Apple didn't include a fucking HDMI cable in the box.

One of my close mates' first son was born just before Christmas. I'd always said I'd buy his kid his first pair of Converse.

Today my buddy Dobby and I visited him and met Anthony Jr for the first time. I've never seen a kid look so much like their parents at three weeks old.

I'm gonna periodically update this blog with photos of note throughout the year, in addition to my normal musings about technology.

So, in the words of my girlfriend "Lets hope you can keep it up this time"

2010-12-25T10:16:00.003Z

Firstly, Merry Christmas!

And second, I found this today - a famous photographer (I've never heard of) has invited people to submit photos of themselves recreating old family photos.

I've been reading through some and pretty much all of them are incredible. Either touching, funny or both.

It has to be said though that this is my favourite:

Ze-Frank.com

Tiny Pies Thrown at Tiny Bees

2010-11-26T11:39:00.003Z

Stolen from Gizmodo.com

This is a video of tiny pies being catapulted at tiny bees and wasps.

Obviously if I need to explain why this is here you have no sense of humour whatsoever. Go check out the Alan Titchmarsh show instead, it's on Channel 4 now probably.

"Connection Error"

2010-11-21T18:00:00.007Z

Last Sunday I had what can only be described as a complete technology meltdown.

I'd set my Virgin Media V+ box to record the last Formula One race of the 2010 season while I was at work. The championship was gonna be decided and so to avoid hearing the result I went completely off grid, no Facebook, no Twitter, nothing.

I returned home and started watching the recording having successfully avoided any news about who'd won, one of my preferred drivers (anyone who isn't Fernando Alonso) was leading and things were going fine until lap 10 when... My V+ Box told me it was full up and hadn't recorded any further.

No problem I thought! I'll just catch it on the BBC iPlayer catchup service that you can access through my Virgin box. It wasn't there.

I decided to try using my PlayStation 3 to see if the BBC had made the feed available on the iPlayer app - once I'd signed in and done the obligatory software updates there it was, the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. I fast forwarded to lap ten and continued watching the race.

...Until lap 16.

I looked at my router and instead of the familiar little green light there was a flashing amber one instead. This meant, in laymans terms, that my broadband had just gone out. Cockit.

According to the instructions this means "Bad Times"

Maybe I could get iPlayer on my iPhone? After checking, apparently you need to be connected to a wifi network.

I racked my brains thinking of a way to watch the rest of the race without any kind of Internet connection and suddenly it struck me! My iPad! I moved to the one spot on my house where I get 3G reception (luckily its my bedroom, and not the toilet or something) and loaded up the site. After fifteen minutes of buffering I got one minute of footage. It wasn't working.

The worst part was that I couldn't do anything to pass the time while the broadband came back on - couldn't go online or watch tv incase I found out the result so I just sat there reading a copy of OK that was on the table in front of me.

In the end the broadband came back on at about 10pm and I watched the remaining three hours before bed but it really got me thinking about the reliance we have on technology to entertain us.

If the broadband had gone down on it's own then that would have been fine, if the V+ Box hadn't recorded the whole race then i'd still be able to watch online but when four separate pieces of technology fail at the same time (albeit three of them reliant on the Internet) it left me pretty screwed.

So what else did I learn? Next F1 season I'm digging out the Betamax.

Stop Fiddling With That! You'll Break It!

2010-11-16T11:36:00.004Z

Over the last year or so I've found myself increasingly "fiddling" with technology I own.

Having thought about it, It's always been a part of me since childhood but has been suppressed for the last 15 years - possibly as a result of the bollocking I got for taking apart (and failing to successfully reassemble) my Dads 19th century pocketwatch.

Since moving out and away from my dads watchful gaze I've started doing this again. Putting a bigger hard drive in my PS3 kinda worked, installing Android on my first gen iPhone and more recently taking apart my iPhone 4 and replacing the glass back with a metal one. Bizarrely this makes it look more like the old version but also has a nice retro charm to it.

The irony of referring to a three year old phone as "retro" isn't lost on me by the way!

I'm not sure why I do stuff like this though. I guess some of it is just to see how hard it is, sometimes it seems to be for more practical reasons. Maybe it's a repressed need to show my dad that I don't break everything I touch.

...still don't think he'll let me anywhere near that pocketwatch though.

Posted with LifeCast

You did what with the what?

2010-11-10T00:30:00.004Z

Just a quick update - I spent this evening putting the Google Android mobile OS onto my first gen iPhone.

I'm certainly not the first to do this and if I'm honest it was pretty simple. What's amazed me is that three years ago the iPhone was released and became a symbol of locked down "unhackable" technology and now a short time later some guy can shove a completely unrelated Operating System onto it in the space of an evening because there's nothing on TV.

I know I shouldn't be amazed by the speed that technology develops by now, but Christ, I totally am.

Instagram

2010-10-14T10:20:00.004+01:00

Recently I downloaded an app for my iPhone called Instagram. The best description anyone has come up with is that it's like Twitter but with photos.

You take a photo, apply a filter and upload it. The beauty is that you can follow your friends or just view the public feed - this is generally where you'll see the most interesting pics as unlike Flickr all of these photos have come from mobile phones so they're typically a lot more spontaneous than ones taken with high end SLRs.

In an oldskool way I guess it's more like messing about with your mates and a Polaroid camera than Flickrs "posing with the family for a traditional portrait shot that you need to get developed so it can be handed to grandma at Christmas" type photos.

Having said that, considering that Flickr is the most popular photo sharing site out there the app does let you export your shots to Flickr, which is what I plan to do - my photostream is linked below!

flickr.com/olliechapman

2010-09-29T13:52:00.006+01:00

I found this today.

I have no idea what Minecraft is, but it seems to be some kind of collaborative building thing where you use blocks to make stuff. Houses, castles, tunnels etc.

Oh, and a 1:1 scale version of the God damn Starship Enterprise.

The moment the camera panned round to reveal the scale of this thing my mouth actually dropped. I may have also shouted "HOLY SHIT" - but thats between me and my neighbours.

I couldn't be more impressed by this.

From Unrealitymag

Everything is Amazing & Nobody is Happy

2010-09-28T19:14:00.005+01:00

After reading yesterdays post about today's tech my buddy Dan got in touch and sent me the link to this video of Louis CK talking about the expectations we have of our gadgets.

It couldn't be more accurate.

Also, follow him on Twitter @DanJHill

You Can Do What With The What Now!?

2010-09-27T23:07:00.004+01:00

So I've been super busy with work recently.

Our shop has been transformed into what can only be described as an Apple Store, but for mobile phones. I guess the discussion at head office went something like "what would happen if we put a premium retailer into a shithole of a town like ********?"

The answer seems to be nothing, except making us a greater target for theft due to all the live stock we now have on display.

You may think I'm overexaggerating about *********, but this is a place where Sainsburys puts security tags on meat (yes, MEAT) to stop crackheads stealing it for crack money/awesome BBQs.

Usually they are less hot crackheads

On the upside, I get to dick about with new technology all day and have even discovered some uses for stuff I already own.

Turns out that if you plug an external hard drive into an Apple Time Capsule it'll broadcast its contents to everything on your wireless network. The end result is me being able to stream any video content to my iPad when I'm in bed or my iPhone while I'm "working"

Me. This Morning.

All you need is an app called Air Video and the client running on your main computer and its good to go.

This is what I adore about living in todays world - stuff that even my dad couldn't dream of is now commonplace in my life. I'm equally terrified and enthralled about what technology I'm gonna be selling and using in the next 10 years.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

2010-09-09T17:22:00.006+01:00

Incase anyone didn't know by the various tweets/times I've talked about this movie/bed wetting I've been super excited about seeing Edgar Wright's movie version of Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

It must have been February when I started paying attention to the film - I love everything Edgar Wright has ever done and so in preparation for the movie I started buying the Scott Pilgrim comics. After having seen Watchmen without having read the graphic novels beforehand I figured that doing the opposite would give me a much greater insight into the characters and story.

Both approaches are a double edged sword as in Watchmen (which I enjoyed) I picked up on a lot more the second time I watched it after having read the comic and with Scott Pilgrim as much as I loved the movie there was a lot of awesome stuff that was left out from the books. Entirely understandable of course, there are six books being crammed into a two hour film.

Despite this, the film is easily the most enjoyable thing I've seen this year.

Wright has done a brilliant job of getting all seven exes into the film and fleshing them out just enough for the audience to understand their motivations and backstory. If you hadn't read the comics you'd still come away satisfied, which is the real achievement - getting the core themes of the books across to the viewer.

Finally, one last reason to see this film. It looks absolutely nothing like anything else ever made.

There were points during the movie where I just sat there open mouthed trying to remember if I'd ever seen anything like this in anything else. Go and see it for this reason alone - you could have seen a thousand films and none of them will look like Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

Also, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona is SUPER hot.

A Double Back To The Future Post!

2010-08-12T12:30:00.005+01:00

I posted on Twitter today that my plans for today were watching all three Back To The Future films to celebrate 25 years since the franchise started.

Thanks to one of my followers I've since found out that the films are being re-released at the cinema from October 1st!

More info here at The Incredible Suit which is a pretty awesome movie blog I've stumbled across recently.

On a slightly related note I've been on a massive 80's binge recently. I think it was spurred on by seeing Hot Tub Time Machine and since then I've been buying old John Cusack movies up like theres no tomorrow. I even bought the GTA: Vice City soundtrack the other day and it hasn't left my car stereo since it arrived. Last night I saw The A Team movie and proclaimed it "the finest 80's action film ever made" and as I write this I'm listening to a new band called "Reckless Love"

If you like your hair metal then I urge you to check them out!

myspace.com/recklessloverocks

I write like..

2010-07-14T13:31:00.001+01:00

Just found this awesome tool that compares your writing style to a "proper" author:

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

A Quick iPhone 4 Review

2010-06-30T21:08:00.005+01:00

If you have the faintest interest in technology or mobile phones you'll know that Apple released the iPhone 4 last Thursday.

It's been their most successful product launch in their history and despite my predictions it actually went quite smoothly! Now you'll also have probably heard about the signal issues that are caused by holding the phone in it's bottom left corner. Personally I have seen this and yeah it's kinda annoying. However it will be fixed in the next few weeks with a software update so there isn't really much to worry about there.

A few friends who still own 3GS's have said that they don't see a massive improvement with the iPhone 4 and to an extent I agree. Although the new screen is amazingly clear and the camera blows pretty much everything else out of the water it is more of an evolution than a revolution, despite what Apples "This Changes Everything... Again" slogan implies. However the iPhone 3GS, despite being a year old was up until last Thursday still the best phone on the market.

The iPhone 4 runs a bit quicker, is a bit smaller and does a bit more. So yes, not life changing, but it makes the experience of owning a mobile phone better than it was before, so in that respect Apple have succeeded. They've made the best phone out there even better.

Am I Getting Tired of Festivals?

2010-06-20T22:32:00.005+01:00

Short answer, no. not in the slightest.

There is nowhere else you can go where you can see a massive range of legendary bands or meet people who at the start of the weekend are strangers but by Monday have become your friends, having bonded through a shared taste in music or a bizarre experience involving naked girls and a man with an acoustic guitar.

I was at Download Festival last weekend and of course it was spectacular fun (I saw fucking AC/DC for gods sake!) but the experience also struck me as being a bit routine. This was the twelfth festival I've been to, starting with Reading in 2002 and since then the plan has pretty much been the same. Set up Thursday, get hammered. Wake up Friday, feel awful, see bands, get drunk, take part in shenanigans and so on until Monday when you pack up and go home. Up until a few years ago the five days have always seemed a lot longer than five days, but for me recently it almost seems to come and go in a blur.

I woke up Monday morning wondering if I should bother doing this anymore. Maybe start going every other year until the magic comes back. Like the old adage goes, you can have too much of a good thing.

However later that day my iTunes was on random and "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC came on. I couldn't help smiling at the thought that four days ago I'd seen this song live, and today I was tagged in a bunch of pictures taken that weekend. Looking through them I remembered why I always go through the early mornings and the freezing nights and the overpriced food and the carrying of the heavy as fuck tents. It's because festivals are awesome and I'm not gonna be able to go to them forever, so why not get as many in while I can?

Here's to a great Download 2010. And of course I'll be back in 2011...

Obligatory Apple post..

2010-06-07T23:03:00.002+01:00

So yeah I caved last Friday and bought an iPad.

It's beautiful. The Marvel Comics app I wrote about previously is as good as I hoped. The web browsing puts my iMac to shame and I've already used it to take some long ass notes during meetings when a laptop would have been inappropriate and a pen would have run out.

I never intended to buy one on Friday, I just happened to be in the Brighton Apple store and I just happened to have been paid my Christmas bonus and they just happened to have them in stock. What was I meant to do? Slap fate in the face and walk away?

Honestly, yes I could have done without it but what kind of an Apple fanboy would that make me? Besides, how else was I gonna watch the iPhone 4 launch video? On a laptop like a normal person?

Terrified of the future post #47

2010-05-23T12:58:00.002+01:00

I saw this video on Gizmodo just now and frankly I'm terrified.

It was about 1:12 in that the uncanny valley feeling kicked in. It's clearly a machine, but it's making organic movements.

I mean look at it jump. Its a goddamn machine, jumping!

Kids These Days...

2010-05-17T19:15:00.002+01:00

I made a troubling discovery this weekend - Pop culture that I consider quite recent is almost unknown by young people.

Clearly thats quite an obvious thing to say. For instance when my dad talks about a band or tv show from his youth I'm probably not gonna know what he's on about, but in this case it's stuff from only fifteen years ago.

I was at a friends 25th birthday party this Saturday which was being held jointly with a 19 year old friend of hers. Myself and my buddy Sam turned up dressed as MTVs classic mid-90's heroes Beavis & Butthead and while yes we did get a great reaction from the group of people our own age, we were also confronted with a lot of blank stares from the 19 year olds.

It was the latest in a series of incidents that have really made me feel my age.

The first was my decreasing ability to do anything whilst hungover, the second was being referred to as a "grown up" by one of the girls at work...

I guess everyone goes through this at some point in life, but my god it's bizarre. It's like I'm moving out of my teenage "I'm gonna live forever" mindset and realising that I'm an adult now.

But then on the flipside, is it a bad thing that I've only noticed this as I approach my 25 birthday?

Why Don't More Bands Do This?

2010-05-04T18:50:00.004+01:00

I got an email yesterday from the Funeral For A Friend mailing list explaining that they had a new EP coming out.

Obviously thats not massive news but the way they're funding it definitely is.

The band have partnered up with PledgeMusic.com to sell packages of varying value ranging from £8 to download the EP once recorded to a £500 acoustic gig at your house. 10% of the profits then go to charity.

I have to say this is one of the reasons I love this band, not just that their music is amazing but they always seem to think outside the box when it comes to doing stuff for their fans. I remember seeing them at the now bulldozed Hammersmith Palais back in 2006 on the "Hours" tour and prior to the gig you could pay something like £16 for a token that once the gig had finished entitled you to a two CD recording of that nights show. So about half an hour after the band walked offstage I was leaving the venue with an album of the gig I'd just been to. No band I've seen live before or since has done that.

This pledge music idea is a similar thing, give the fans something unique and they'll always part with their cash. 24 hours after sending the email out the band are at something like 98% of their target. It's maybe something the record industry should take note of!

Anyway if you're a fan of the band its something you should check out. For the record, I bought the personalised CD EP and the Vinyl EP with handwritten lyrics. £45 well spent I'd say.

www.funeralforafriend.com/pledge

iPhone + Marvel Comics App = Win.

2010-05-03T13:05:00.003+01:00

If further proof were needed as to my lazyness, instead of having to get out of bed and walk three feet to grab a comic book from my shelf this morning I downloaded the Marvel iPhone app.

To say I was impressed is a massive understatement - personally I think it actually improves the medium.

I've found that when reading a physical copy of a comic it requires a fair bit of concentration to actually absorb the artwork while reading, whereas the app will zoom in on certain text allowing you to read that before zooming out to reveal the accompanying image. Or vice-versa.

Maybe this is the lazyness creeping in again, but I quite like being shepherded to what I need to look at next. Its like being guided by a good director.

My only reservation is the small size of the iPhones screen.

The upside of this? Another reason to justify an iPad..

Plans Can Be So Fragile..

2010-04-25T16:44:00.002+01:00

So after yesterdays meticulously planned pub crawl blog post it occurred to me that as it's the last weekend of the month I didn't actually have any money. Neither did my friends.

So we had a BBQ and a kickabout in the park instead.

I will revisit my pub crawl plans soon. Probably when I can actually afford it!

Pub Crawl 2010

2010-04-24T10:46:00.002+01:00

So in a repeat of last years Guildford Pub Crawl I'm going to try and incorporate social media into todays drinking session.

I'll be using Brightkite to post geotagged updates on which pub we're in and the shenanigans that ensue.

This is the route we're attempting:

View Ollies Guildford Pub Crawl 2010 in a larger map

And you can follow my progress on Twitter by either following me on Twitter or using the hashtag #GPC2010

Wish me luck!

PIXELS

2010-04-08T19:18:00.003+01:00

Have any of you ever wondered what would happen if 80's videogame characters came to life and attacked New York?

Yeah me too...

Again, the creativity of people astounds me. And it begs the inevitable question of "how the living shit did they do this?"

Another Schwarzenegger Post

2010-04-02T19:07:00.001+01:00

The 160 best Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes:

And yes I watched all ten minutes - the last quote is a classic.

A Movie About My Life..

2010-04-01T10:07:00.005+01:00

I was gonna post this while telling everyone that my secret screenplay has been greenlit, considering that its April 1st and all.

However I can't be bothered.

It came about after one of those discussions on who you'd get to play you in a film of your life. Realising that my old team in Woking had enough characters for a decent comedy movie I, pardon the pun, knocked this up:

Judd Apatow would be proud.

Although it does need Paul Rudd in there somewhere. Maybe as a customer, or as the friendly delivery driver...

The Power of the Internets

2010-03-26T20:14:00.002Z

This is kinda amazing. Simon Pegg (aka: Scotty aka: Tim Bisley) posts a joke tweet about a new film he's thinking of writing called Jet Bike Steve. He plays a pirate/Robin Hood character who rides a jetski and fucks up billionaire bankers yachts.

Here's what I find fascinating:

The idea runs and runs until people are making Lego models, knocking up images of action figures in Photoshop. There's even a campaign on Facebook for the film to be made. Within hours this had appeared online:

And finally Jet Bike Steve parodies of current films..

I love the Internet.

Scott Pilgrim Teaser Trailer

2010-03-25T17:06:00.006Z

As I've mentioned before on Twitter, I'm super excited about the upcoming Scott Pilgrim film.

About three weeks ago I ordered the first Scott Pilgrim book, mainly down to those alarmingly accurate "You Bought This So Buy This" emails from Amazon.co.uk. I knew Edgar Wright was directing the movie version and combined with my experience of Watchmen where I found I enjoyed the film more having read the comic I took the plunge and ordered it. (It wasn't really a plunge, the book was £4.95)

Suffice to say I'm really impressed. Michael Cera is perfect as Scott and kudos to actually giving Brandon Routh a role as Todd. He's been criminally underused since Superman Returns. (Check him out as a gay pornstars boyfriend in Zack and Miri Make a Porno!)

And in one of those very rare occurrances where I'm happy to be proved wrong, Mary Elizabeth Winstead looks great as Ramona Flowers. I was pretty unsure of her being cast, but fairplay, whoever chose her made a great decision!

Trailer is here:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/universal/scottpilgrimvstheworld/

Ooh a funny!

2010-03-20T14:14:00.003Z

No particular reason for updating really - I just found this video online and thought it was really funny.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

(Not viewable on iPhones/iPads - But I'll probably end up buying one regardless)

Summer?

2010-03-01T11:04:00.003Z

I woke up this morning to a very unfamiliar sight.

Summer!

I'm pretty sure I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder to a degree - most of winter I'm a miserable bugger, my only consolation coming in the form of coffee and drinking until I can't feel the cold anymore. However the first sunny day of the year and suddenly I perk up, excited about the summer ahead.

- Rage Against the Machine (yes I did get tickets, courtesy of my brother having 23 tabs open and pressing the refresh key a lot) Download, Reading Festival, drinking a cold cider by the river, several mates birthdays, BBQs.

Life is just so much more awesome when the sun is out.

I actually feel kinda guilty about being inside instead of being out doing something productive. But then again, it might be really cold still...

Rage Against The Ticketing System...

2010-02-11T20:50:00.003Z

So Rage Against The Machine have announced details of their free gig as a reward for getting them to number one last Christmas.

I’m pretty surprised by the way you get tickets. You register, log on at 9am next Wednesday and then enter your registration number into a lottery. If you then win the subsequent lottery you get two of them.

I appreciate the fact that the gig is free so obviously there’s gonna be a load of demand to get in but surely a fairer way to distribute tickets would be to somehow prove that you actually bought a copy of the single.

I’m sure the lottery method is more efficient, or something. But it strikes me as mightily unfair that as long as you log on to See’s website at 9am you have more chance of getting a ticket than someone who bought say, three copies of Killing In The Name last December.

Oh well, here’s hoping I get in!

No Broadband? Oh..

2010-01-26T13:30:00.003Z

Long time no blog!

Yeah, doesn’t really have a ring to it does it? But hey I’ll persevere.

I moved into a new flat at the beginning of this month and since then, bar a Vodafone USB modem I haven’t been able to use the internet. During this enforced “internet sabbatical” it occurred to me how many of my gadgets are near enough useless without a broadband connection.

Putting new music onto iTunes took an age as I had to manually enter the song and album information and I’ve only now been able to go and download the artwork (Yes I’m incredibly anal about having the artwork, coverflow just looks rubbish without it)

My PS3 worked, but only for gaming. I realise that sounds ridiculous considering its primary job is to you know, play games but I couldn’t use BBC iPlayer, download software updates or new games but the biggest tragedy? No Modern Warfare 2 deathmatches. I had to actually go to a friends house to play multiplayer. It was like being in 2004.

I could edit videos. In a way I was quite fortunate in that being broadband-less freed up some time to do this, but sharing said videos proved to be a bit trickier.

Even my consumption of music dropped. I stream it straight from my iMac to my speakers in the living room, but without broadband this left me with the option of either putting on headphones and listening to my iPhone or sitting in my bedroom with the door locked and using the iMac speakers. Not the most social of things to do.

But then neither is playing Austrian Death Machine at full volume in the living room.

I made by far and away the biggest fuss about having no internet over the last three weeks but I think thats squared by me being by far and away the biggest (only?) geek who lives here. For the two normal people I live with it wasn’t as much of a problem. I wouldn’t take this blog post as an indictment of how reliant the world is on broadband, instead an indictment of how reliant I am.

But then you should have seen one of my flatmates reactions when she found out LivingTV was included in the package.

Gig Of The Year

2010-01-01T13:28:00.003Z

Gig of the Year

Originally I was going to try and do a list of my top five albums of 2009. This was scuppered by a few things; I bought loads of albums last year and trying to narrow them down to a top five would be impossible. Secondly, I thought doing a top five gigs of 2009 would be much more interesting.

An album at the end of the day is an album. The same every time you listen to it. A gig is different every time you go and even if two people attend the same show, chances are that they’ll have totally different experiences and memories of it.

One last caveat. I’m not counting festivals as one gig as there are good parts (the bands) and bad parts (carrying your camping gear which always seems heavier than last year/needing a poo)

5. The Blackout - Reading Festival 2009

This was actually the hardest choice to make on the list. Steel Panther at Download was the other contender and yes they were amazing and a complete surprise but that couldn’t overcome the sheer fun I had during the Blackout’s set at Reading.

It’s hard to describe why I enjoyed them so much. When I’d seen them on the main stage at Download a few months beforehand they had been good but in the confines of the Festival Republic stage they were simply incredible. If anything it was because of the smaller stage. At Download they seemed to have been swallowed up by the sheer size of the place. Their fans were dispersed everywhere, whereas at Reading the whole crowd was there to see them, concentrated in one place. Clearly it made all the difference.

4. You Me At Six - Reading Festival 2009

Again on this one the crowd made the difference. At Download (admittedly not the best place for a pop-punk band to play) the crowd was pretty sparse and those who were there seemed to be out of curiosity. At Reading they had the whole second stage packed out with people who knew every word of every song. Same set at both venues, completely different results.

What made it so great for me was the company. I watched You Me At Six with pretty much my whole camp, some of whom went to school with the band. You could see the pride in their faces at watching them doing so well and their enjoyment of the moment was amazingly infectious.

And lastly, any band that can come on after Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones and play a set like they did deserves to be in the list.

3. Motley Crue - Download 2009

I was actually a bit worried before seeing The Crue. On a holiday the previous October I’d read their autobiography “The Dirt” and although I’d heard their stuff (and of their reputation) I’d never owned an album. In the intervening months I really got into the band but in the run up to Download a lot of the reviews I read of their gigs weren’t hugely complimentary.

Safe to say that this show was one of the good ones.

Motley Crue are one of those bands where you forget how many classic songs they’ve had. There I was watching Vince Neil singing Kickstart My Heart, Mick Mars playing guitar better than I ever will despite his poor health. Actual legends playing these massively famous songs right infront of me. Highlight of the show? Tommy Lee coming to the front of the stage and passing two bottles of Jack into the crowd and telling everyone to take a swig and pass it back.

Yes it was gimmicky but at the end of the day, it was Motley Fucking Crue.

2. Prodigy - Reading Festival 2009

I don’t really remember much of this if I’m honest. Glowsticks, UV facepaint, lots of beer and some close mates.

This isn't me. Sam's Gene Simmons facepaint was much cooler than mine.

For the whole hour set I think I saw the stage twice. Normally I hate being at a gig where you can’t see the stage, with Prodigy I was too busy dancing to care.

1. Limp Bizkit - Kentish Town Forum

Along with my friends Nick, Sam and Unass, Limp Bizkit were one of the first bands I got properly into back in 2001. By 2002 Wes Bordland had left. For seven years between then and this year I’d resigned myself to the fact that if I ever saw them live it wouldn’t be with the original lineup.

Download Festival changed that. There I was watching LB with the original lineup playing Break Stuff. Amazing.

However it was their gig at the Forum a few months later that really blew me away. At Download I was somewhere in the crowd, Nick was somewhere else, Unass was running late and Sam was at home with his girlfriend. Knitting probably.

What made my gig of 2009 was the thing that’s made most of my top five shows so good. The company I was sharing the moment with.

Nick, Sam, Unass and myself watching the original lineup of Limp Bizkit playing the songs we’d fallen in love with eight years ago in a gig none of us thought we’d ever see.

The crowning glory?

Unass had a pass for unlimited free beer.

Top 5 Films of 2009

2009-12-30T23:53:00.006Z

So at work today one of the guys sprung a question on me that I really should have put more thought into by now. Especially considering that a few months ago I was debating the film of the decade. He asked what my top five films of 2009 were.

Off the top of my head I came out with them but in no particular order - a few hours later I think I’ve got a vague idea. Here goes:

5. District 9

Any other year this film would have been a lot higher. I loved the way it combined the documentary style footage with conventional sequences and Wikus has to be one of the best realised original characters of the year. Funny, caring and when dealing with the Prawns, a bit of a dick. A human essentially, not just a one dimensional “good guy” or “bad guy”. When I found out that Sharlto Copley’s performance throughout the film was completely improvised it blew me away.

Aside from the obvious parallels with apartheid which have been dissected by people a lot smarter than me, the action sequences were great and the way it sets up a sequel is perfect. My one criticism is that if an alien ship really appeared over South Africa there would be no way in hell that the Americans wouldn’t be all over it. Regardless of national sovereignty.

4. Watchmen

I’ll freely admit that I knew very little of Watchmen prior to Empire magazine running a feature in the lead up to the films release. I read it and it looked kinda interesting. My buddy Dan had just been given the comic as a birthday present and since finishing he couldn’t stop saying how great it was. It was these two events that led me to seeing it at the newly installed IMAX screen at the Wimbledon Odeon.

What Zac Snyder did so well was make the film reasonably accessible for people like me who hadn’t read the comic while putting in a fair few nods to the source material for the people who had. After reading Watchmen myself I noticed that the opening sequence manages to get a hell of a lot of backstory into the film without adding to the already massive 3 hour runtime.

Watchmen Intro from Hanz Meier on Vimeo.

That isn’t to say that if you saw the film with no knowledge of the backstory it would make complete sense, just ask my brother who having sat through the dvd then had to read the whole comic to know what was going on.

Yes fanboys complained that the ending had been changed, but if I’m honest the film ending made a lot more sense than the comic ending. So kudos to Snyder for having the balls to change it. The casting was spot on, I couldn’t think of anyone better to play any of the quite unique characters and any film that gets me to watch a lecture on the Watchmen comic at a music festival easily deserves to be in the top five.

3. Star Trek

I was expecting this to be amazing. I’ve adored literally everything that JJ Abrams has touched and as with Watchmen the casting of Star Trek was spot on. Simon Pegg as Scotty and Zachary Quinto as Spock were particularly inspired choices.

The best decision Abrams made was the (SPOILER) alternate timeline plot. It completely freed him to do whatever he wanted without pissing off the hardcore canon worshipping Trekkers (myself included) while making a film that would actually interest the general public. Perfect example would be my friend Nick, he’d refused to watch anything with “Star” in the title before this film came out but having seeing it his exact words were “That wasn’t too bad actually!”

Here’s hoping for a sequel!

2. Zombieland

On paper all three films lower down on this list should be above Zombieland. A revolutionary sci-fi film, a perfect adaptation of the best graphic novel ever written and the best Star Trek since “Wraith of Khan” and yet somehow I enjoyed a zombie film more.

I love zombies, a good third of my dvd collection has the word “Dead” somewhere in the title but this film is more entertaining than any of them bar Shaun Of The Dead. As I wrote in my original post about Zombieland it came out of nowhere and I think this is why I enjoyed it so much. I went into every other film this year with the expectation that it would be pretty good - and they were. However I went into this one expecting some generic tough guy partnered up with a generic wuss guy shooting generic zombies. But hey, I love zombies so I was willing to endure it.

What I got however was a hilariously well written and acted buddy movie with the best cameo of the year. And zombies.

There wasn’t a point during the entire film that I stopped grinning like an idiot.

1. Avatar

Obviously.

In all fairness I was debating whether to put this at number two instead of Zombieland but in the end I couldn’t do it. This film was hyped beyond belief and once I’d left the cinema I was almost disappointed that it had “just” lived up to my expectations, whereas Zombieland had gone way beyond them. But as I said earlier I wasn’t expecting anything from Zombieland whereas I was expecting everything from Avatar.

And because Avatar simply lived up to the expectations placed upon it I’m giving it my film of the year award.

Avatar.

2009-12-26T13:44:00.002Z

I’m assuming that this post will very quickly be lost in the torrents of news articles/blog posts/lawsuits from the creators of The Smurfs that have come out since the release of Avatar, but I was so impressed by the film that I had to write something about it. Regardless of this post resembling a raindrop in Cockermouth in terms of importance or readership.

The film was incredible. I won’t go into individual performances and how good they were as I’d be here for hours complimenting literally everyone.

Now the plot is basically “Dances With Wolves” or “The Last Samurai” but this is missing the point entirely. The story is an excuse for James Cameron to take you to another fully realised world with its own ecosystem, culture and history. The guy created all of this from scratch. That in itself is amazing, but the fact that it’s been implemented so well and so believably is a testament to both his imagination and his skills as a director.

Leading up to the release of the film the internet was awash with comments saying how shitty the film looked, what was up with the Na’vi and so on. I never really understood why people were saying this. Were they thinking that somehow James Cameron would make a BAD Sci-Fi film? The guy who made Terminator 1 and 2? The Abyss? Aliens?

Right.

Does anyone remember Titanic? Cost overruns, rumours of cast and director not getting on? Predictions it would be a massive flop? Oh shit hang on, it went and made a billion dollars.

Good shout there internet commenter guys.

If you can, go and see it in IMAX. This will sound incredibly pretentious but after leaving the cinema it felt less like I’d just seen a film and more like I’d actually returned from Pandora.

...to a parking ticket yes. But even that failed to dampen the experience. See this film. I’m going again next week.

Another Galactical Pondering

2009-12-17T21:53:00.001Z

I was messing around on Gizmodo today when I stumbled across an article featuring a video made by The American Museum of Natural History that perfectly bookends a blog entry I wrote back in August about our place in the universe.

What’s compelled me to post it is the bizarre feeling of both pride and sadness I get when watching it. For example When zooming out you see the constellations of man made satellites orbiting Earth and at 3 mins 33 seconds the outer limits of what we know actually exists in our universe. The pride stems from the knowledge that we have the ability build those satellites and to see that far out into space (tying in neatly to the theories put forward by Michio Kaku in the earlier blog post of our universe being nothing more than a random bubble)

The sadness however, stems from me knowing that in my lifetime we won’t come anywhere close to exploring a billionth of that known universe.

I’ll be lucky to get a Moon base.

Coincidence or just plain WTF?

2009-11-28T01:39:00.003Z

Despite this blogs musically aligned title yet technology based content I’m yet to write a post that combines the two. Tonight, with the help of a few beers and a couple glasses of wine I’m here to rectify this.

On the way home from a gig in Kingston this evening my buddy Nick and I were reminiscing about how awesome the original Gran Turismo on PSone was. We chatted about the soundtrack, how blown away we were by the then amazing graphics and our old cars. The Mitsubishi GTO Twin Turbo being one of our classics.

Now actually using this car in a race was effectively considered cheating. Four wheel drive, great acceleration and when tuned properly it would put out 950BHP. Kind of like bringing the US Marines to a playground scuffle. Overkill, essentially.

As an aside, another similarity of this car to the US Marines is that neither of us had ever seen them doing their shit for real. Understandable really. It’s hardly something you’d see a local WAG drive to Waitrose or in the Marines case, clearing tangos from Esher Best Kebab & Burger.

During the journey back home I’d knocked together a rough playlist of the best original GT songs on my iPhone, Lose Control by Ash, Sweet 16 by Feeder and As Heaven Is Wide by Garbage. Rocking out was the order of the evening. The last thing we expected while turning into my suburban road was the sight of a mint condition GTO Twin Turbo parked at my neighbours house, yet there it was, almost inviting us to blow our minds.

Now my question is this - is this a coincidence? That two friends just happened to be chatting about an 11 year old videogame, listening to its soundtrack and being randomly confronted by THE ACTUAL FUCKING CAR they were talking about. Or was it an the most elaborate and customer targeted GT5 promo ever?

Debates in the comments please.

All New Music Is Terrible!!

2009-11-14T22:45:00.002Z

It occurred to me earlier today that over the last two or three years, bar the Download and Reading festivals I’ve only been to see a select few bands live. I checked my pile of gig tickets and all I keep finding are Funeral For a Friend, Iron Maiden, Feeder and Bowling For Soup ones.

Now thats not to say that I have a limited taste in music, in writing this post I’ve had iTunes on shuffle and heard Paramore, Biffy Clyro and Sabbath already but why am I only seeing the same bands over and over again? Is it because I know they always put on an awesome show and so won’t have wasted £35? Or is it because there aren’t any decent new bands around at the moment?

I’m inclined to go with it being 20% the former and 80% the latter. Yes Maiden and so on are always great live but I haven’t been properly blown away by a new band since 2005. I’ve enjoyed a lot of albums since then and seen some great performances at festivals but then I haven’t followed it up by going to see that band at their own show. This is probably where I’m going wrong.

So, as of now I’m gonna go back to what I did as a teenager. If I like an album then I’m booking gig tickets and seeing who wants to come along.

See you at Steel Panther in March!

Jonathan Ive Talks Design

2009-11-12T00:48:00.002Z

This is why Apple products are better engineered than everything else.

Gizmodo posted this clip a few days ago from a documentary on Industrial Design called “Objectified”.

It’s a rare insight into the thoughts of Jonathan Ive, fascinating for how he describes the importance of minimalism in his work. The example in this case being the idea that an indicator should only be an indicator when it’s displaying something. When it isn’t being used it shouldn’t be visible.

It’s the little things like this which make Apple stuff such a joy to use, but personally my favourite part is his enthusiasm for even the more “mundane” aspects like the mounting points on the underside of the MacBook keyboard.

It makes spending £950 on a laptop almost seem worth it.

How Gran Turismo 5 Will Stop Me Speeding

2009-11-05T22:06:00.004Z

Today at work I was chatting to a colleague about what games we were looking forward to over the next few months when we got onto the subject of racing. Specifically, Gran Turismo. He never had much interest, I’ve loved every game and my buddy Nathan will only buy a PS3 when it’s released.

I decided to head online and have a look at the cars that were meant to be in GT5 and came across what appears to be a fairly definitive list.

Firstly I was amazed at the sheer size of it and secondly, as with any man/child I wondered if my car was included. Lo and behold on page two I found it - a Mk 1 Volkswagen Golf. This was about the point where my competitive streak kicked in and decided to look for my friends cars to see if we could organise a race between them, one of my longest held ambitions in racing since first playing the original Gran Turismo back in 1998. Obviously back then none of us could A) Drive and B) afford the Japanese exotica that was the mainstay of the GT1 dealerships, but with 950 cars in GT5 then it was almost certain that we could finally compete against each other without endangering our real life licences. Or lives, for that matter.

So I present - The Race of Champions. Trial Mountain. March 31st 2010.

Ollie “The Man” Chapman

Nick “The Butcher” Butcher

Nathan “Cockblocker” Ridgwell

Sam “I Like Drumming” Colston

How Not To Change A PS3 Hard Drive

2009-11-03T20:14:00.005Z

If you’re a follower of mine on Twitter (@OllieChapman - plug!) then you’ll probably recall my attempts to change the hard drive in my PlayStation 3 recently. I was upgrading from the standard 60GB to a lovely new 320GB drive as I only had about two or three GB left, and also in its old age the 60GB drive was starting to suffer memory lapses. Game saves, mostly.

As the day wore on the tweets got progressively more despondent - despite having watched numerous instructional videos on YouTube warning that it was very easy to strip the screws holding the drive in the case I… erm, stripped the screws. In my defence though, they’re totally made from plasticine.

The new 320GB Drive

The empty drive slot

The slightly battered drive casing once things had gone tits up

My now useless PS3

After consulting with a helpful chap at my local PC shop I was told that the only way to remove the screws would be to drill the shit out of them. Annoyingly, although not surprisingly, he also told me that as with every Sony product they have proprietary screwdrivers which I should have used. Even worse was the fact that a friend of mine has that screwdriver.

It also turns out that as the screws are so small, its near impossible to buy replacements. However if there is one thing that I have learnt from this experience its that if your girlfriend/wife/life partner is constantly nagging you to throw out all the old electrical stuff you’ve been hoarding for the last 20 years DON’T LISTEN TO THEM. We found some screws small enough in some light fittings that my dad has had since I was four years old.

The irony that they’re now holding together a state of the art games console isn’t lost on me.

Once they’d been screwed in it was fairly simple to reinsert the drive and close the PS3 back up. Now it’s simply a case of hoping that the new drive doesn’t catch fire somehow and burn my house down.

Formula One is Exciting Again?

2009-10-18T20:27:00.004+01:00

Back in 2001/2002, inbetween the raucous parties and hedonism of my youth, my buddy Nick and I loved nothing more than to settle down to a weekend of playing Grand Prix 2 on his PC.

The great thing about the game was the ability to fully customise everything. Team names, drivers, car liveries. Literally everything. For a laugh we decided to create a team from scratch, calling it “Chapman TVR” - myself being the “team boss” and second driver, Nick as the number one and TVR being the fictional engine supplier. We used the drivers from the 2001 season with the only exception being Juan Pablo Montoya being put into a Mclaren. I think it was because he looked better in grey.

As our fictional season progressed Chapman TVR started picking up wins and actually looked like a contender for both the drivers and constructors titles. After an epic battle with Montoya in Japan, Nick won the drivers title and at the final race in Adelade, Chapman TVR won the constructors trophy.

As fun as this was, Nick and I often spoke about how this could never happen in real Formula One. I suppose this was part of the appeal of Grand Prix 2. It was a refreshing alternative to the dominance of Ferrari and Mclaren. A brand new team turning up and winning both titles in its first year was simply unthinkable.

This perception persisted until this afternoon.

Well done Jenson. Well done Brawn GP. You deserved it.

Schwarzenegger Sunday!

2009-10-11T11:44:00.001+01:00

So today I'm off to Guildford to take part in what has now come to be known as "Schwarzenegger Sunday"

The full lineup of films I'm gonna be watching today are:

- Predator
- The Running Man
- Total Recall
- Terminator
- Commando
- Last Action Hero
- Jingle All The Way
- Kindergarten Cop

Beer, pizza and Arnie. Is that not the perfect Sunday?

Posted with LifeCast

Where did Zombieland come from?!

2009-10-11T00:47:00.004+01:00

I was not expecting that.

Three nights ago I went to go and see Zombieland with a couple of friends. I’d had my eye on it since seeing the trailer a while back and was looking forward to killing an hour and a half with a bit of mindless gore and hopefully some gratuitous headshots. However about 10 minutes in I realised that the film was something a bit special. As “For Whom The Bell Tolls” played over the opening credits (gaining a million awesome points in the process) I pondered the question that if the rest of the movie was as good as the opening sequence then it’d easily be a contender for film of the year. 80 minutes later with the credits rolling, the first thing that came out of my mouth was “...I think that was better than Star Trek”

Now for both regular readers of this blog (Hey Dobby! Hey Tom!) you’ll remember that some friends and I are sorting out a list of the top ten films of the decade. For 2009 I’d chosen Star Trek. Until Zombieland.

I thought I should have a few days to think about it before I came to a final conclusion but I just keep being taken back to the theatre and grinning constantly for the whole 90 minutes. Maybe I enjoyed the film so much because I had no great expectations of it, but then I guess that’s the magic of cinema. For every film you’re massively disappointed by (hello Transformers 2) you end up with a movie you check out for curiosities sake and end up loving.

Much like the Dark Knight had these massive expectations placed upon it and yet surprised everyone by being even better than they expected, Zombieland managed to go from just another zombie film into a rom-zom-com that stands shoulder to shoulder with Shaun of the Dead.

I’ll watch Star Trek again when it comes out on Blu-Ray, but I think for the above reasons, plus my first Tweet after leaving the cinema, my film of 2009 has to be Zombieland.

End Of The Decade? Already?!

2009-09-18T22:03:00.006+01:00

I was in HMV the other day with my buddy Dan when he asked me if I remembered all those nostalgic “Best Something Of The ‘90s” shows that were all over the TV back in 1999. He pointed out how weird it was that here we are in September 2009 and no one is doing anything similar. Probably because of the recession.

He did raise a very valid point and subsequently came up with the idea of getting a few friends together to debate the best film of this decade.

hi all,

so the idea is to work out a list of the top 10 best films of the 00's (beginning 2000) to commemorate the passing of another decade. once a final 10 can be decided upon by the group we can then watch them, either all or top 3 or whatever, feel free to chip in ideas. after discussing with Mark we thought picking a film of each year could be a good idea as a way of working to the film of the decade, I think that could be a problem if there's two films from the same year that are great. Also if a film appears on everyones list it goes straight to the final.

It doesn't matter what genre the film is but it must fulfill the following criteria:

Excellence: the overall quality of the film such as the acting, the cinematography, when you look back, film "X" is the first thing that pops into your head.

Originality: when you saw it you thought "i've never seen anything like that/done that way"

Rewatchability: how comfortable are you with watching it again e.g if it was on TV you find yourself watching it all the way through or just get good use out of the DVD.

If you put forward a film that the rest of the group does not reach a consensus on, be prepared to argue your case.

A few sub categories:

The Statham award; your own guilty pleasure movie

Honorable mentions; films that are great but just get squeezed out of the top ten.

It took me a fair hour of head scratching and scrabbling through my DVD collection but I came to this final list:

2009 - Star Trek
2008 - Dark Knight
2007 - Transformers
2006 - Casino Royale
2005 - 40 Year Old Virgin
2004 - Shaun of the Dead
2003 - Anchorman
2002 - 28 Days Later
2001 - Black Hawk Down
2000 - Almost Famous

Statham Award:
Snakes on a Plane

Honorable Mentions:
Cloverfield (2008)
Iron Man (2008)
Superbad (2007)
Serenity (2005)

Now I have been accused of being Mr Blockbuster compared to some of my friends “artier” selections but my God as much as I enjoyed Juno I just can’t bring myself to vote for it over Transformers.

I will however be keeping everyone abreast of the voting until we reach a consensus and then maybe film a few short interviews with everyone on their choices and so on.

Looks to be an interesting project!

"Ich Bin Ein Berliner"

2009-09-16T12:56:00.003+01:00

Wow. As a few of you may know I’ve been away on holiday quite a few times this year and on Monday I returned from a “Boys Holiday” in Berlin. Since then I’ve been really struggling how to convey how incredible a city it is when it came to writing the inevitable blog post about my time there.

I came to the conclusion that the best way would be to tell you how all four of us answered when we asked each other if we’d consider moving there. Within a heartbeat it was a unanimous yes. Nick even looked into whether his company had any vacancies in their German offices.

If there was one thing that made the holiday for us it was the people - they’re all super nice and despite the fact that they share our wonderful Northern European habit of drinking themselves into oblivion we never saw any of the violence you encounter in British cities after kicking out time. They also appreciated our attempts at German, unlike the French - who spit on you. Before sleeping with your wife and eating your dog.

Berlin is cleaner than London, feels newer and fresher. Considering half of the city is effectively only 20 years old we found some amazing modern buildings and plazas and although London’s history is just as long as Berlin’s the echos of its recent past are much more visible. Nowhere on Earth has played such an important part in influencing the events of the 20th century and the world we live in today.

But the one thing that sealed it for me? Four months ago I was in Rome. Four days ago I was in Berlin. Guess where I had the best penne carbonara?

Hint: I could see Checkpoint Charlie.

READING!!!

2009-09-02T21:26:00.006+01:00

Earlier this year when the Reading Festival lineup was announced some of my more unfortunate friends and colleagues were subjected to a horrendous amount of whinging from me about who was playing. “Worst. Lineup. Evarr.” “Fuck Reading - I’m selling my tickets” “It’s gonna be full of indie dickheads wearing skinny jeans” etc.

Now yes I was right about the indie dickheads but I could at least console myself that I wasn’t at V.

Now having returned from the festival I thought back over my weekend and realised that although it was my seventh Reading it had actually been one of the best I’d been to. I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about why this is and I came to the conclusion that it was down to the below average lineup. Because there weren’t loads and loads of bands I wanted to see it gave me a lot more time to wander around the site, see things I wouldn’t normally see and spend more time back at camp chatting to the array of ever younger people who end up camping with us every year.

Sunday was a prime example. Bar Kids in Glass Houses opening the main stage at lunchtime there were no other bands I wanted to see until Gaslight Anthem at 7pm so I took the opportunity to go to the Alternative Stage and listen to an hour long lecture on the hidden themes of the Watchmen comic book.

Later that day Adam Buxton did a talk on his Bug project with the BFI which was incredibly interesting. Then I went to see Gallows and had my face melted off. Brilliant.

And throughout the whole weekend I had a lot more free time to just chat to friends of the guys who’d camped with us in previous years and who turned out to be some of the sweetest kids in the world.

I guess I came away from the festival kinda thankful that the lineup hadn’t been as good as 2008’s because as bizarre as it sounds, the more bands I’d have seen the more I’d have missed out on.

Feeling Happy Are you?

2009-08-24T21:01:00.002+01:00

I had one of those horrible crushing moments this evening while watching this video:

Unreality.com had an article featuring videos of Michio Kaku talking about subjects as diverse as Alien Civilizations, Time Travel and AI. I remember that he’d previously done a brilliant series for BBC4 called Visions Of The Future which dealt with emerging technologies but also the positive and negative effects they’d have on human society. It was a fantastic change from the almost utopian image given off in similar programmes.

Anyway having watched most of the clips it was the above one that really made me wonder why I bother. Unfortunately for those of you with short attention spans its about 8 minutes in but the part where Kaku is talking about our entire universe being essentially a bubble really depressed me. Everything humanity has acheived over 2000 years; art, science, music, even Rustlers burgers amounts to no more than a speck inside a bubble. And that that bubble is no more significant than any of the other bubbles you’d find in a bottle of Coke.

Another of the videos deals with the problems humanity will face when moving from a Type Zero civilization to a Type One civilization.

If we can progress to a Type One within the next hundred years without wiping ourselves out then yes it’ll be a spectacular acheivement and yes I’m incredibly excited that in my lifetime I’ll see the beginnings of this. However even if in thousands of years we become a Type Three civilization then our mastery of our universe will still amount to mastery of a minute bubble in amongst millions of others.

And there was me thinking that going to work tomorrow couldn’t get any more pointless.

Humans? We’re screwed. PROPER screwed.

2009-08-04T14:40:00.004+01:00

On my daily trawl through various technology/gadget websites I came across a video on Gizmodo.com.

Now prior to watching this video I hadn’t massively worried about the impending Singularity as, amongst other things (such as it being really really far into the future) no matter how advanced an AI gets there is always the argument of how it’ll actually implement its nefarious plans. For example, the Unmanned Combat Vehicles that the USA and UK are flying over Iraq and Afghanistan. Regardless of how automated or self aware they become, they still need humans to put fuel in their tanks. A kind of accidental redundancy so that when they do decide that being ordered about by humans isn’t what they’d like to be doing the “uprising” will be over once they’ve run out of fuel.

But looking at the dexterity of the robots in the video terrifies me. If they get bolted onto a humanoid robot which can think for itself then the Terminator films will look like a fairytale. No human could possibly overpower a machine with reactions that fast, let alone engage in a shooting war with one. Even if you were armed with a pulse laser in the 40-watt range.

To Download Or Not To Download?

2009-07-13T18:29:00.003+01:00

One of the more interesting stories to break today has been the one concerning Morgan Stanley’s work experience teenage prodigy and his views on young people and their relationship to new media. The PDF can be found here and it does make for some pretty interesting reading. Of course most of the “facts” are more anecdotal than proven research and many articles have already been written asking for people to take this report with a pinch of salt.

What alarmed me, as a music fan is the section on… Music. Obviously.

Now I love that the author and his friends are so into listening to bands. I have a teenage brother who when he isn’t listening to music is playing it himself. This is squeezed into a lifestyle thats pretty much out of Skins, but thats neither here nor there.

What troubles me isn’t the part about illegally downloading music. Not the “criminality” of doing such a thing as it is a fantastic way of discovering new music and trialling new bands. My brother and I do differ in some respects, if I liked a band after downloading their stuff I would go out and buy their record and/or see them on tour. My brother wouldn’t but not because he loves music less than me. He just can’t afford to. I had a job at 17, he doesn’t. The point is that we both enjoy music just as much as each other.

It was this one line “They are very reluctant to pay for it (most never having bought a CD)” that that worried me, and having chatted to my brother about this it seems to be the opinion of most kids his age. They just aren’t worried about owning the actual physical album. He would be just as happy to have the songs in a purely digital format on his iPod as owning the CD and having discussed this attitude over many a beer with friends my own age we’ve come to the conclusion that we completely disagree. The consensus we reached was that it doesn’t feel like you actually “own” the album unless you’re able to sit there and thumb through the booklet, read the lyrics and so on while you’re listening to it.

Music journos and musicians have already said that the album in its current format is a dying medium, and if the views on what owning an album actually means can differ so much between people who were only born seven years apart, then what will those views be for people born ten or twenty years apart?

The decline in the quality of physical releases is already happening, a lot of American bands I’m currently listening to have noticeably cut down on the amount of effort they put into their artwork and booklets. Some only seem to include the basic legal bit and some shout outs to other bands and friends. I understand why, if the majority of your sales are going to be digital then of course it makes no sense to put money into creating a booklet that no one will read.

Unfortunately for me, if I buy a CD with minimal effort put into the artwork rightly or wrongly I’ll enjoy the album a little bit less.

And unfortunately for the record labels, I’m one of the few people paying for music and if I don’t feel like I’m getting anything different from a download, I might not pay at all.

Some Things Never Change

2009-07-12T22:19:00.003+01:00

As obvious as it is I feel the need to mention that I’m not much of a sport person. However this entry will comment on just that subject.

Still there? Not fainted?

Awesome.

Since I was 13 I’ve been a massive Formula One fan and as with everyone I’ve really been enjoying the past few seasons. The absence of Michael Schumacher may be a factor in this, or it may be that British people are actually winning things. Either way I’m still steadfastly refusing to acknowledge that these two facts are probably related..

Look at him. The big flying cheater.

Since the new rules for the 2009 season have come in I’ve also loved the massive swings in performance from the established teams compared to the tailend teams. As horrible as it sounds it’s really refreshing to see Ferrari and Mclaren struggling to perform while Red Bull and Brawn tear everyones asses off. Commentators are calling it “F1’s New Age” and saying how awesome and different the sport is compared to the late ‘90s and early 2000’s.

I look back on that era very fondly, I have a print of Mika Hakkinen overtaking Schumi at the 2000 Belgian GP either side of Ricardo Zonta. It was one of the best moves I’ve ever seen. But moves like that were very rare. Back then it seemed that the top two teams, Ferrari and Mclaren, were much more reliant on their technical directors than the teams are now. Something the 2009 rules like standard rear wings and slick tyres to increase mechanical grip were bought in to counteract.

And then it struck me. Who were the top two technical directors in the top two teams back in 2000? Ross Brawn and Adrian Newey. And now nine years later? Some dudes called Ross Brawn and Adrian Newey.

Looks like not much has changed afterall.

I found a funny!

2009-07-07T21:54:00.002+01:00

Apologies for the lack of updates recently! We’ve been all kinds of snowed under since the iPhone 3GS launch. Amazingly despite the massive costs (£500 +) of upgrading early we sold out of every handset within 4 days.

My time since then has mainly been spent giving the impression that I have some vague idea when we’ll be getting more of the bloody things in stock and placating people who have somehow melted their phones innards while updating to version 3.0.

Angry Apple fans are not nice people.

However, my main reason for updating is purely down to this video. Again, thanks to the internet I would have never had the chance to laugh my ass off at this incredibly simple but incredibly funny sketch.

I could write an essay on the impact of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube on the ability of people to get around traditional media organisations and make their voices heard like in the recent Iranian elections, but this has already been done to death everywhere so lets all just bask in the sight of someone who can only move like a Street Fighter character popping their clogs.

When I die, that is how I wanna go.

Want a new iPhone but still tied into your contract? Complaining? Grow up.

2009-06-10T12:59:00.004+01:00

So its been just over 24 hours since Apple announced the iPhone 3GS and about 26 hours since the iPhones UK carrier, O2 announced the prices for the device.

You.

Worryingly, its been 26 hours and ten minutes since the most ridiculous shitstorm I’ve ever seen has erupted over those prices.

When the very first iPhone came out it was priced at £269 plus the contract. Six months later when the 3G was released those early adopters were allowed to upgrade early to the new device as long as they signed into a new 18 month contract. Simple. This was allowed because they had paid the unsubsidised price for the original phone.

Now very naively a large proportion of these people are expecting to be allowed to upgrade again to the 3GS. Despite them being tied into an 18 month contract and getting the 3G handset for free. The reasoning seems to be “Well you let us do it last time” despite last time being a massive exception to the rule.

Now, to get a few things clear. Firstly, I REALLY want the new 3GS, and yes I’m bummed out that I’ll have to pay for it. And secondly, I’ve worked for one of the major mobile retailers for the last four years and I can safely say that the iPhone to iPhone 3G upgrade was the only time that has ever happened.

What you typically find with iPhone customers is that they think they are special. That because they’ve purchased an Apple product it gives them certain privileges over “normal” people. Now this simply isn’t the case, they (myself included) have signed into an 18 month contract and just because something new has come out this doesn’t mean O2 are obliged to release them from their contracts. Why should they?

If it’s because a newer version of your phone has come out then O2 would have to do that for anyone who bought a Nokia N95, or an N95 Black, or an N96, and in a few months, people who bought N97’s.

If it’s because they let you do it last time, it is as I’ve already said, you paid an unsubsidised price for the first iPhone.

My point is simply that just because your phone has an Apple logo on it you aren’t entitled to special treatment. You see out your contract like everyone else has done for the last 20 years.

Further comment on this issue is below:

gobsonsticks.wordpress.com
BBC News DotLife

iPhone 3GS

2009-06-08T21:16:00.001+01:00

This kind of concerns the literally just announced new iPhone, but not in the way you’d expect. Yes the new features are brilliant and market leading and probably incredibly well implemented and yes my grandmother will probably be on eBay within the hour to pay for one, but I’m more impressed by the speed at which the information spread.

Literally moments after the phone was announced in a conference hall in California I’d heard about it over 5000 miles away, disseminated this information amongst my friends and work colleagues and then discussed it with them. All thanks to the internet. Twitter and Facebook specifically.

In a similar vein, a friend once told me that while watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica on his phone the morning after it aired in America he realised that what he was doing was actually kinda amazing. That a programme which was shown in another country the night before was then put online, downloaded and then played on a device you’d normally only make calls on. In less than 24 hours.

Its one of those things we take for granted now, but imagine telling someone even ten years ago that you could acquire information or media content instantly without going near a major broadcaster like the BBC and they’d probably call you a madman, and then get back to worrying about the Millennium Bug.

My Cushions Arrived!

2009-05-31T19:15:00.002+01:00

I was starting to wonder where these cushions had got to but as if by magic I got an email saying they’d been shipped two days ago. They arrived yesterday and I’m very very impressed with the quality.

throwboy.com

If you’re an Apple geek they’re essential. All I need to do now is hide them whenever my girlfriend comes round.

Pimp My Golf

2009-05-29T17:47:00.006+01:00

For Christmas last year one of my presents was a bottle of plastic trim restorer for my car called “Back for Good”. I’d seen it in use at the Top Gear live event at Earls Court a few months beforehand and despite it being named after a Take That song it generally looked pretty awesome.

Being the slapdash guy I am I immediately rushed to put it on my car but upon leaving my house I noticed that it was really cold, being December and all, so I put it off “until later”.

Today marked my second attempt at putting it on and I have to say I’m not overwhelmed by the results:

Before:

After:

I think the best bet is scouring the internet for some black paint. Should do the job. Right?

More photos on Flickr, along with some from when I had my windscreen replaced.

Did you see Star Trek because JJ Abrams directed it?

2009-05-17T14:04:00.004+01:00

I finally got around to seeing the remake of Star Trek last night and much like everyone else I was very impressed. Not just with the film but with the way JJ Abrams handled it.

Obviously with sci-fi films the only people that see them are sci-fi fans. It makes sense, you wouldn’t go and see a rom-com if you weren’t a fan of Hugh Grant getting it on with a cute American chick and the same applies to seeing men in unitards piloting spaceships while shooting at each other.

However, there were an alarming amount of women in the cinema last night and this is what amazes me about Abrams’ filmmaking abilities. He can somehow craft a film that more than pleases the franchises original fans (he kills off a redshirt three minutes after they appear onscreen!!) while still making a film that appeals to people that would never have even considered seeing a sci-fi film a year ago.

If you look back at his past work too he has a very good track record. Alias was a much better attempt at the “female government super soldier” story than Dark Angel and when it came to Lost he’s made an incredibly frustrating, hard to follow science fiction tv show that is enjoyed by just as many women as men.

Hell, I even showed Cloverfield to my mum and she loved it - a film about a monster destroying New York and peoples necks exploding.

He’s clearly a genius.

What I would love to know however, is if someone else had made exactly the same film without any input from Abrams, would as many people have gone to see it? Is it because he directed the film that makes it socially acceptable for the man/woman in the street to go and see a Star Trek movie?

Or am I overstating the impact his name has had?

Could it be something of a Dark Knight halo effect? This time last summer The Dark Knight was due to be released and because of the interest surrounding Heath Ledgers death many more people went to go and see it than would normally be expected for a comic book movie. As word of mouth spread that the film was absolutely fucking amazing many more people who wouldn’t have considered going went to see it and it snowballed from there.

Because so many people enjoyed what essentially amounted to a comic book film is there now less of a social stigma attached to seeing these kinds of movies? Star Trek included?

Death of the High Street?

2009-05-02T12:03:00.004+01:00

A few days ago I found myself in the Oxford Street HMV preparing myself for a day of shopping with my girlfriend. I’d only intended to pop in, buy a dvd (its written by Tina Fey but I really don’t wanna say which film it was) and then spend the rest of the day looking bored in womens clothes shops.

It totally wasn't this film - I swear

Unfortunately buying that one dvd ended up costing me about £80 due to the cunning layout of the store which totally tricked me into buying loads of other stuff ranging from series one of 30 Rock (still Tina Fey related) to the blu ray edition of Rambo 4 (WTF!?) - “Why not? Its only a tenner!”

This experience really got me thinking about the contrast between online shopping and high street shopping. I’m a big online shopper, to the extent that I’m a member of Amazon Prime. But having looked back at my transaction history on Amazon I really only buy one or two items per sale - despite their constant recommendations for me at the top, bottom and middle of every web page. Compare that with a retail store like HMV. I rarely go into them but when I do I end up spending a fuckload of money on stuff that I generally want, but had no idea I needed before entering.

Obviously Amazon make more money from me than HMV, but is this the case nationwide?

I know I’d never get a chance to see either sets of figures but I’d be very interested in seeing the comparative Average Transaction Values of the two companies to see who’s was higher.

For instance was my experience unique in that I have absolutely no ability to say no when a product is thrust under my nose, compared to “making the effort” to click a link on a website for something I might want? Or does Amazon have a much higher ATV because most people thoroughly research their purchases before buying and so condense it all into one big order?

Lastly, if I didn’t get free next day delivery as part of Amazon Prime would I do that? As I’d be paying a delivery charge per item maybe I’d do the same?

Srsly wtf?!

2009-04-28T20:57:00.005+01:00

Upon returning home today I found this in my house. Aside from my dads allergies it also triggered a thought thats been knocking around in my head for a while. What really is the dominant species on Earth?

Before I go into this however I feel that I must apologise for not updating in ages. I’d love to say its because I’ve been busy but really its down to me being boring and having nothing to say.

Anyway, dominant species on Earth. Easy, its humans right? Well… What about the cute but completely disloyal cats that are regularly fawned over by little kids and single men who live alone? Who really is in charge in that situation? Because believe me when I was trying to move that little bastard he was having none of it and I felt like a complete pussy. Pun not intended, by the by.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

After a good ten minutes of trying I eventually gave up, sloped off and tried to reconcile the fact that despite the fact that I have thumbs and an iPhone I’d totally just been owned by a small furry thing that walked into my home and gave me the finger while cotching on my bed. Bastard.

This will stop you getting laid forever...

2009-04-08T23:56:00.006+01:00

I just came across these amazing cushions on Gizmodo.com and HAD to buy a couple. They're about £20 each so it was really hard to choose which two to get but they're pretty much essential for any Mac geek out there.

I think I made the right choice with these ones!

But now I have to wait six weeks for delivery. Boo. And my girlfriend will probably never have sex with me again. Double boo.

3D films are new now? Again??

2009-04-07T13:03:00.005+01:00

I saw Monsters vs Aliens 3D the other day and was actually pretty impressed.

Most of the time I have a policy of not seeing animated films unless they’re made by Pixar, purely on the basis that their films are so good that I’m usually disappointed by anything made by anyone else. It might also have something to do with the Pixar/Steve Jobs connection and me being a massive Apple fanboy, but lets not get into that.

However, despite the fact it was made by Dreamworks I couldn’t ignore the fact that the cast of Monsters vs Aliens includes Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd and the genius that is Will Arnett so I popped along to my local cinemax and stumped up £8.50 for the 3D version. I mean if you’re gonna be disappointed with a film you may as well do it with stuff flying out of the screen while wearing thick NHS specs right?

This is where the surprise happened. Firstly I really enjoyed the film, it was good enough to stand side by side with something made by Pixar and secondly the 3D effects actually worked. Prior to this the only stuff I’d seen in 3D were still images from a bunch of comics and a special issue of the “Dinosaur Information Files” which I used to collect when I was eight. And they used to give me headaches. But this was proper 3D - stuff in the foreground was noticeably closer than anything in the background and a special mention to the opening scene where a guy is playing with a ball and paddle where the ball actually came out of the screen. Amazing.

And yes, despite my best efforts I did try and duck in my seat when it happened. I defy anyone not to when there’s a 20 foot ball coming towards you!

Hopefully more films will start using this tech - James Camerons new film Avatar is meant to be seen in 3D as is the next Toy Story, but I hope it isn’t used unnecessarily either. Would Schindlers List be better in 3D? Probably. But it might also detract from it being awesome.

The only downside of my first 3D experience? Well all of the trailers were in 3D too, and unfortunately the first one was for the new Jonas Brothers movie which means the first thing I saw in this new revolutionary way of watching films was a teenage Mormon with no shirt on. Rubbish.

Hello!

2009-03-31T12:43:00.002+01:00

One assumes that if you're reading this you've come via my previous blog, or Facebook, or Twitter. In which case I dont need to introduce myself..

If not, then hello! I'm Ollie and I'll mainly be writing about tech, music and occaisionally drinking. Or a combination of the three.

Hmm..

2009-03-31T11:10:00.000+01:00

This works I take it?