I was digging around the internet and uncovered some entries from my earliest foray into blogging. I was there as blogging was becoming big, not one of the early adopters, but definitely before it became mainstream to own a domain and a site.
My blogging instrument of choice was Blurty.com, which, now I look at it, is awful. Sadly, I was one of those early bloggers who didn’t try and be profound (although that may be a blessing in disguise) but preferred to give highly insightful details into the comings and goings of daily life.
My only knowledge of Robin Hood comes from three places: that film with Kevin Costner, the film by Mel Brooks, and the current BBC TV series. I know that all three are a pile of tosh, there for pure entertainment value rather than anything historical or mythical.
Therefore, I’ve started looking into the legend of Robin Hood and would like to share some of my findings with you.
Naturally, no one knows whether Robin Hood was a real person or not, but he has certainly been given plenty of attention in words and pictures throughout the years. The way Robin Hood is depicted these days falls within a very narrow window of personality. He robs from the rich to give to the poor, he may or may not kill people but only for the greater good, and he is fiercely loyal to his King and Country. Some of the earliest works revolving around the character known as Hood are vastly different. In fact, even within each poem, his personality traits can get very mixed up.
If you are a Facebook user, you may be interested in the Franck Montagny page. It’s something you can subscribe to as a fan, and there are news updates, videos and pictures added all the time.
It was brought to my attention recently, because some pictures were posted of young Franck as he and his fellow Peugeot colleagues trained for the upcoming Le Mans.
On that subject,we have more information about what the boys got up to in the Alps. Team Manager Serge Saulnier said:
The strawberries do not like their new home!
The other plants are all doing okay. I hesitate to say thriving, but they at least still look green rather than a sickly yellow.
My text message gardening advice service (my mother) said that assuming they are bedded in correctly, and I am keeping them well watered, there is little else one can do.
I intend to give them some more attention, perhaps even talking to them. I must try and coax them back to the land of the living, otherwise the strawberry dream will be over before it has even begun!
Whilst I was searching Flickr for some cute baby panda photos, I came across this project called One Thousand Portraits.
Naturally, the premise is to take 1,000 pictures and it’s a very simple idea.
Our project is a true portrait of Britain created by photographing 1,000 people.
We stopped everyone who crossed our path on the streets of London, excluding nobody, asking the same question more than fifteen hundred times.
Just a couple of days ago, Franck climbed back behind the wheel of the Peugeot 908, reminding us all that Le Mans is rapidly approaching.
On Monday, at Magny-Cours, Franck put his recent training to good use by lapping the French track and getting some good testing miles under his belt. He got plenty of good running in, which will be good practice for what comes next.
The entire Peugeot team are heading to the Alps for more physical training. Apparently some pictures will appear on FKM’s official site soon, so I will keep you posted.
Remember the competition Franck introduced to design his helmet? Well, it’s over and done with and a winner has been selected. From what I can tell there were 30 entries submitted, which is nothing compared to Jenson Button’s helmet competition, but perfectly reasonable for a driver who only seems to emerge a couple of times a year.
The winner is Adrien and he gets some gloves as worn by Mr M himself. The helmet may make an appearance at Le Mans but more likely it will be a design used for the future.
A good film, nice and short, which makes a change. I found it hard to get into the feel of the film sometimes - not sure I can relate to troubled 12 year old boys, and you wouldn’t find me anywhere near a train track when a train is coming - but the acting is superb from such a young cast. Also fun to spot a young Keifer Sutherland in there.
Following on from my post about being a little bit more green, I decided to try my hand at growing some plants. As I pointed out previously:
I don’t have a garden, I live in a flat, and I can’t grow things. This can only end well. I am shopping for seeds and… whatever else one needs to garden this week, so I will report back on my progress.
I roped my green-fingered mother into visiting a garden centre with me, and at first I had modest plans. Maybe a few seeds and a bowl and that would be good. However, did you know there’s some pretty cool stuff in garden centres?
Over the past couple of days, Mr C and I have found ourselves at a loose end whilst waiting for a call on Skype. This is new territory for us, we’re normally in a constant state of disarray rather than relaxed anticipation.
Mr C, who has experience of such things, says that a lot of working in the media industry is like this. You wait for hours for your small part in proceedings, but you have to be there just in case. I couldn’t comprehend how one would fill the time, and suggested the Shopping Cart game. Apparently, this is not what happens normally, but we thought it would be fun away.
I don’t know why people complain about wind farms, I think they’re beautiful.
They’re the kind of thing I could watch all day. Hypnotising. Like driving through falling snow.
However, this news story is rather worrying. A farmer in Taiwan believes that 400 of his 750 goats have died due to exhaustion - a lack of sleep caused by the vibrations and noise of a nearby wind farm. There’s no proof, but it seems like a heck of a coincidence. More argument for taking these things off shore?
The first time I saw the MagSafe idea in action, I was impressed. The magnet is fun to play around with, and heaven knows I can be clumsy, so having a safeguard in place can only be a good thing.
Mr C has the MacBook with the funky power lead, but unfortunately, the laptop is on the way out. First it needed a new battery. The existing one didn’t work. It relied on mains power.
The main thing they should teach you in podcasting school is that sitting on a gym ball is very good practice. Firstly, it helps with your posture and, you know, it’s better than hunching over a microphone all day. Secondly, it doesn’t squeak or creek, as most chairs are known to do.
I can’t stand sitting on ours for more than about ten minutes at a time, but my podcasting partner in crime makes use of the gym ball during most of the live sessions we stream. He got the idea from our idol - Leo Laporte.
A couple of days ago, I talked about Wolfram|Alpha, which is making its way in the knowledge search universe. On a different search engine note, I found yesterday that Google wouldn’t load for me, and for a good few seconds, I was completely stumped as to where else to go.
Google is so integrated into my online experience and the little box in the top right of my browser makes searching so easy. Having the Google phone means other search engines might as well not exist.
Earth Day was about a month ago, and I misssed it. I didn’t feel particularly guilty at the time because it seems to be a US holiday, but everything since then has been telling me how green I should be.
Firstly, Boston.com’s Big Picture - which features sets of brilliant photos around a certain theme, if you’re not subscribed to this already, do so now - had some shots of Earth Day, which are really beautiful.
The Wolfram|Alpha search engine went live today, and it’s really, really cool. It’s not meant to be any kind of competition to Google, and in fact, links off to the Goog if you want to find web links related to your search term. Wolfram’s mission is to collate knowledge and give you hard facts about a given subject.
For example:
Searching for my own name gives me information on how popular it is, age distribution, expected number of people alive with that name, etc. I had great fun searching for countries, to view maps, the flag, population and more. A search on a past date gives you more information than you could ever need, including what the moon was up to, how long ago it was in days and any notable births or deaths.
When I first discovered Last.fm it was a revolutionary thing - all that music, available to listen to for free? It was a turning point for my listening habits. Most of the time, I would select a radio station - pop or indie or 80s - and listen away, occasionally skipping the tracks that weren’t to my taste. Being able to heart the best songs, track what I’d listened to previously, and share the music with others was a great thing.
An article on the BBC Magazine caught my interest, as it talks to two former “Miss…” winners, ie. Miss Great Britain and Miss Universe. The questions put to them cover what they have been doing since their title expired - now that they are “Former Miss…” instead.
Mostly, it seems that the beauty pageant concept is much bigger outside of the UK. In the US, it appears to open certain movie roles, and modelling work. In other countries the titles are held in high regard and offer celebrity status for no real reason.
This week is a crafty edition of the Baby Panda Thursday, as I’ve noticed a lot of photos of people being quite clever and making panda related fun stuff.
Firstly, a bizarre origami panda.
There are a couple of other views to show you how weird but also cute the panda is.
I had a quick search on Etsy for panda and there is a veritable feast of gifts and crafts on there. Here are just a few of my favourites.
I did enjoy it, even though I felt like it was going to be really dated from the start. Having some prior knowledge of the plot probably helped because some of the conversations get a bit jargon heavy. The songs tend to sort you out though. I do feel like the film is too long, but having said that, I’m not sure what they could cut out without losing something important (maybe just the bit with the cats).
It occurred to me recently that there are a few TV programmes I would like to go back and watch as if new. There are plenty of shows that I need to catch up on, but that’s a different matter. These are episodes I have watched, but would do anything to wipe my mind clean so I can enjoy them all over again.
Jonathan Creek. I had the biggest crush on the lovable magician’s assistant when he first appeared on our screens, and I watched the first few series several times over. The problem is that a whodunit with a twist isn’t particularly engaging once you already know how it’s going to end. There were only a couple of episodes where I guessed what was going on, and I’d like to rewatch now and see if I am any smarter. (I am not.) Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My overriding memory of this show is my friend telling me to watch a late night repeat of an episode I had missed - the one where Buffy’s mother dies. I watched and didn’t cry and that’s when I realised that I have a heart of stone. Therefore, now I have come to terms with that, I would like to go back and watch, and enjoy the series without feeling guilty that it doesn’t make me sad. Hornblower. Ahh, I am partial to watching a little bit of Ioan Gruffudd on screen, even if he is dressed up to the nine’s in dodgy 18th century sailor outfits. I remember being particularly dismayed when Mr Hornblower had his first on-screen kiss. Not allowed. Anyway, the stiff-upper-lipped-ness of the show appealed, but makes it hard to enjoy over and again. I’d love to go back and watch as new, though. Doctor Who. I hold my hands up and say I am one of those annoying people who has only watched the new series with the ninth and tenth doctor and still considers herself a fan. The problem is that the show is repeated endlessly on the iPlayer, and I get annoyed at seeing it. With only four new episodes this year, I’d love to go back and have the prospect of an entire brand new series to enjoy. Thunderbirds. Although any episode of Thunderbirds is easy to watch repeatedly (you know that the crisis will be averted in the end), my introduction to the puppets came when I lived with my parents. They were debuting on BBC2 for the first time in a long time. I was older than the target demographic, but watched them with my dad, and those were good times. As an aside, the film I would want to watch as new is Back to the Future 3. I may have mentioned previously how I saw the first and third films before the second one, so it made no sense. Having the benefit of watching the second film many, many times now, it would be good to go back and fix that.
A while ago, I pointed out one of the few online flash games that grabbed my attention, which was no doubt due to it’s bright colours and crazy ideas.
I’ve found another one, and this redeems me as it is much more sensible: You have to control the flow of traffic. It sounds kinda dull, but it’s really quite fun - the game is called I Love Traffic, after all. The cars zoom past and you’re in control of one or more traffic lights. The only goal is to get the required number of cars through the traffic light checkpoint without causing an accident.
Following his appearance on TF1 for the Bahrain GP, Franck has been invited on the Eurosport channel to discuss all the action from Spain.
A translate from his official site says:
For this new issue, it will be with other guests on the Grand Prix of Spain, which will take place this weekend in Barcelona and signal the return of Formula 1 in Europe…
Note in your diaries… Eurosport on Monday 11 May at 22:30.
Okay, now technically we’re taking a break from the norm here and looking at regular size pandas as well, but they are still cute, I promise.
There are quite a few webcams situated in zoos across the world, and that means you can often catch a glimpse of a panda or two. They tend not to do very much. I once watched a panda chewing on bamboo for ten minutes, went away for an hour, and came back to find it in exactly the same place.
But now I’m not quite sure.
When lunchtime rolled around today, I couldn’t decide whether to go out and get something to eat, or just stay in and hibernate in the office. It’s always a tough decision, you know, but usually if I’m hungry enough, the answer is obvious.
Today I just couldn’t come to a conclusion, so I submitted my will to the interweb. I searched for a few, free, easy to use, decision making tools, and this is what I came up with.
I am coming out the other side of a very brief cold, which I am grateful for because I know it could have been a lot worse. However, there are so many things that annoy me about having a cold, and these are things that a doctor wouldn’t be able to help with.
Sore nose. Forget the sniffing, coughing, and aching. The sore nose, developed from constant application of tissues, is the real killer. Last night I suddenly discovered I could breathe through my nose again, which makes a real difference when trying to sleep. Only I couldn’t, because it hurt too much. **Abundance of tissues. **Naturally, you go through a lot of tissues. Tissues are expensive. And they fill up the bins. And then you have to empty the bins, and go outside. And while you’re outside you might as well buy more tissues. **Boredom. **I couldn’t sleep, but I couldn’t really function to do anything either. I left work halfway through the day, and retired to bed, and all I can say is thank god for the iPod. Repeated questions. One of my few Tweets yesterday read: _“Yes I have a cold and no I didn’t go to Mexico over the weekend. It wasn’t funny the first time…” _Today I am programming: “Much better, thank you,” into my system. Lack of podcasting. Most of my hobbies involve speaking out loud in one form or another. This is not possible when you pronounce it: “Bormula One…d” I know I am not alone in disliking illness - I mean, who does? But I think some people do take better to just relaxing in bed and allowing themselves to get better, whilst I am banging my head against a brick wall and cursing the waste of time.
I have seen this film before, a couple of times perhaps, and knew that I liked it going in. The trouble was, I couldn’t remember what happens in it, but it didn’t take long for it to come flooding back. I suspect this is one of those films that is much better watching as if it’s new.
I came across a site recently that is perfect for planning meetups. Naturally, it’s called meetup.com. It’s basically another one of those sites that allows you to set up your own mini social network, and in this instance is the perfect place to plan each meeting of your online social circle.
We recently planned a Sidepodcast meet and we managed perfectly well on the wiki, but it may be that this site could have made things a lot easier. You can quickly post information and updates about the meet itself, you can RSVP if you’re planning to attend, and there’s a whole host of video and messaging options.
I have just read up about Jason Calacanis’s new podcast called “This Week in Startups” or perhaps TWiSt for short. From the original blog post about the new show, Jason says:
I’ve spoken with my good friend Leo Laporte about using the name “This Week in Startups” (or “TWiSt” as he called it) and he was so magnaemous [sic] about: telling me he doesn’t own the “This Week…” brand and that he would support me in any way.
I was looking around for some cute panda gifts - cuddly toys and the like, and found a veritable treasure trove on Cuddly Kingdom. I am particularly interested in the magnets, and the keyring.
Anyway, onto the good stuff.
Pandas rolling in the snow Credit: chickostix89/Flickr
Panda cub follows mother Credit: Alan/Flickr
I know I am a product of a generation with short attention spans, but I do feel like this story could have been captured much better in a shorter time. The cinematography was good, but I don’t think it was spectacular enough to justify a three hour film. That said, this is a multi-award winning film, so I guess I am probably in the minority.
First, I have to preface this entire blog post with the fact that writing for BellaOnline was an honour. I am grateful that they selected me to write for the site, and I learnt a lot from the experience.
I was signed up at the very end of January 2007, and have written for them for just over two years. Just a few days ago, I resigned from my site, and am no longer writing for them. My articles are still available on the Formula One section of BellaOnline but only until they are overwritten by the next editor. (I haven’t decided what to do with them yet.)
When we met up with some like-minded F1 fans at the Science Museum in London, the conversation spilled over into the pub and into the evening hours. One of the topics that really got me thinking was how we define sport.
I don’t remember how we got onto the subject, but I imagine it had something to do with our suggestion that if F1 goes down a particular route with the regulations, we’d probably prefer to watch darts instead. That leads to: Is darts a sport?
Some days I wish I lived in France.
It turns out that Montagny might have had a bit of a spot on French TV Channel TF1 during their Bahrain GP coverage.
I only read about this afterwards, and there’s not much I could have done about it anyway, but yay for Franck!
Over Easter, I took a well-deserved break and disappeared into the depths of the country for a narrowboating mini-break. My parents invited me to join them, as we journeyed a short distance along the Wey river, starting at Guildford.
Now, my mother could tell you all kinds of fascinating facts about where we were, and what we saw, but I mostly basked in the serenity of no cars, very few people, and… I want to say sunshine, but in fact, it rained. A lot.
There are no other films out there like this. It’s one of a kind, unique. With the benefit of over ten years on the market, it’s also become a cult classic, one of those seminal films that you have to see. I don’t always enjoy Bill Murray in films, but this one just works.
I do not watch enough films. I used to watch loads of films, usually when they came out in the cinema. But that was when I lived with my friend who loved movies, when I had more free time, and I had enough money to spend on seeing the same thing many times over.
I was put off going to the cinema because the nearest establishment to where I live is happy to spy on you with night vision goggles so you don’t pirate the film. Not impressed.
It’s that time again. A little cuteness to brighten up your Thursday. And don’t forget if you like all kinds of animals, not just pandas, then there’s info here about a site you should check out.
Mmm, lunch.
Credit: Kim’s Pics :)/Flickr
Earlier this year, Buzz Out Loud co-host Molly Wood left the show as a permanent host in an attempt to balance her life a bit better. Natali Del Conte stepped in, and it was obvious this was going to get some people’s backs up.
I’ve been listening to the show for a long time, now, but I don’t feel any sense of entitlement to it. BOL does have a very strong community, but as a podcast from a big company, it’s understandable that people will come and go. I guess, as a podcaster, I know what goes on in the studio, and I know that things change. You have to be adaptable. Nothing good can come from pining over what used to be.
If you are anything like me, you are quite partial to a cute and furry baby animal. Come on, admit it, you’ve had a look at one of the Baby Panda Thursday posts and gone: “Aww.” I know you have.
Therefore, this may be a site of interest to you. It’s called Zoo Borns, and it features cute pictures of ickle baby animals.
Don’t be put off by the fact that the front page is currently full of monkeys, there are a variety of different animals featured, and it’s updated frequently. Who knew there were so many zoos in the world?
Last week, the founders of Pirate Bay were found guilty of “assisting the distribution of illegal content online” in Sweden. The punishment is a year in prison and a fine of about £2.4 million. All the details are available to read in a fact-filled news item by the Guardian.
I didn’t follow the trial closely but some reports of what was happening filtered through to me. I am surprised the prosecutors managed to get any verdict considering they had to change the charges halfway through because they proved they didn’t understand the technology behind what was going on.
A couple of new updates on the official FKM site give us an insight into what the man himself has been up to off track. Whilst he’s not actually racing at the 1,000K of Spa, Franck turned up to a photoshoot with Peugeot.
The Google translate suggests:
Well, it’s true that taking poses in front of the lens is probably not his favorite exercise, but it could be harder and FKM knows.
Just a couple of pics this week as it’s somewhat hectic around here right now.
Mother and Baby Credit: lji123505933/Flickr
Snacking Panda Credit: Alan/Flickr
It is Easter this weekend, so no doubt there will be a lot of cuddly rabbits and baby chicks being the focus of attention. Let’s not forget our baby pandas though.
Baby Panda Bear Credit: Farrukh/Flickr
Seriously Tiny Panda Credit: Vicki/Flickr
So, as it turns out, Peugeot have decided that the lovely Franck won’t be racing at the 1,000 km of Spa. After such great fun at Sebring, I’m disappointed. Olivier Quesnel - Director of Peugeot Sport - says:
This is not a delay in our preparation or our work, but an adjustment in our organization. The priority remains Le Mans and I do not want to wear the team preparing three cars for this race… We have chosen six pilots selected according to their respective mileage at the wheel of the 908 HDi FAP.
I just want to write a quick note about all this fuss over the Eastenders Danielle death thing.
I read what happened before I saw it because I am always miles behind, but I am now caught up. In fact, I even watched the extra programme on BBC3 that was behind the scenes of the whole story. I am that sad.
The problem seems to be that it’s not fair to kill off a popular character minutes away from a happy ending when we have all invested so much time in the storyline.
