Wattvision

Thanks to Dilbert (Scott Adams) I am now desperate to have a wattvision sensor in my house.  It just seems to make perfect sense.  We are a household of increasing gadgets and I think this would allow us to take control of our carbon footprint and save money.  I thought blogging and tagging would add more weight to the case of getting the UK energy suppliers on board with this kind of technology.  Who knew my cartoon friend Dilbert would lead me here?  It just goes to show the power of blogging, tweeting, social networking and tagging; it certainly beats word-of-mouth.  Have a look at wattvision here and let me know if you agree with me on this.

Legend of Zelda - the ocarina of time

Ah - this brings back memories - what a classic game.  Team Teamwork Presents The Ocarina of Ryhme. Worth a listen here.

Fireworks

Another attempt at High Speed Filming - Fireworks now theres some fast paced action.  What do you think?  Again I've used Dan Arborise Days Even Years as I think it works really well.

Clive James

I remember nothing so funny as watching Clive James on TV when I was little.  Every time I hear him speak or read anything he's written I'm always entertained by his humour, observations or depth of knowledge on a subject.  The other day I came across a BBC news article from his weekly column and I thought it was so good that I had to link to it on my blog.  There's nothing like a fallen celebrity to hook you in to a story and the 'so true' description of Nicholas Cage had me laughing: "Nobody will be left desperate by the career of Nicolas Cage except those who have been unfortunate enough to see his movies, in all of which he pops his eyes with his wet mouth half open, looking exactly like a man who wants to buy Windsor castle and employ the tenants as ground staff".  Is it just me or does everybody hear Clive James in their head when they read it?  But the article is much more insightful and wide-ranging than I could ever give him credit for here.  So I'll just let you go and read it. 

Good Advice

Since first hearing Baz Luhrmann's Everybody's free (to wear sunscreen) about 10 years ago - and absolutely loving it, I was pleased to see those inspirational words of Mary Schmich (Chicago Tribune column in 1997) being used in a recent anti-bullying campaign: 'Bullyproof'.  It made me listen again to that song and it really is beautiful:

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….

You’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra quation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard;

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…

follow me on twitter

Since giving up facebook - and vowing to leave social networking sites for good, I'm now on twitter.  It's not quite as exciting as I thought and I've yet to read anything funny or particularly interesting.  I'm on twitter here

Life in Slow Motion

Not a Plug for the delightfully beautiful music but just some inspirational footage of a trapped moth filmed in high speed.   The music incidentally is by Dan Aborise called Days even years.  The film is by me. Enjoy. 

More baking

More baking on my day off.  This time I made muffin size fairy cakes.  You can see a normal size cake on the far right of the photo.  I also baked a ham and had ham and pease pudding with roast potatoes for dinner.  I think that meal combination is my favourite meal to eat at the moment.  

Do you like pease pudding?  Let me know any tips on this real feel-good food.

The cooking and cup-cake decorating tools worked really well.  Butter icing is a good topping to use but I'm starting to get the hang of it.  Colleagues at work have enjoyed the many highly-decorated ginger biscuits I keep taking in to work anyway.

Clothes without lycra...

...no good to anyone. Come on clothes makers someone invented it for a reason. Use it!
And now I've just looked it up. Joseph Shivers I applaud you for this marvellous invention.

Baking

Today I felt like getting into the Christmas spirit.  I did some baking with my son and we made a gingerbread family and put together and decorated a gingerbread house.  As you can see we're not the most talented decorators in the world but it was great fun.  I think my son munched through more than his fair share of cake decorations and gingerbread men anyway.  The gingerbread daddy on the right of this photo is carefully hiding a few bites out of the roof so now it is no longer something we can share with other people particularly as I look back on the photos at his dribbling nose.

In order to decorate the gingerbread house I purchased a fantastic cake decorating tool and I think you'll agree that it looks great.  Really easy to use especially for children.  Believe me this is not a simple tool especially if you haven't got the mixture just right.  It is either so stiff that you cannot squeeze it out of the tube or its too runny and doesn't hold its shape.  I really think I'm going to have to practice with this a bit more.  I'll let you know if I come up with a good ratio of ingredients.

Well they are pretty tasty and it is such a fun thing to do with children especially if you don't mind the mess and them eating far too much sugar.

Not a Green Roof in sight!

I went on a tourist attraction in Sheffield at the weekend - a giant ferris wheel in the centre of town.  It was a lovely day and you could see, well not quite far and wide due to Sheffield's topography so you couldn't really see beyond any of the 7 hills that make up the landscape of the city, but it was really interesting.  Despite Sheffield having a policy of requiring 80% green roof coverage on new major development in the city I didn't notice any green roofs.  The roofscape [if that's a word] was disappointingly grey.  If you click on the image you get a nice shot of Park Hill in the background. 

Spiders

Incy-wincy spider spun its web on a tree

In came the wind and blew poor incy free

down died the wind and out came the sun

now incy-wincy spider its catching flies and having fun.

New Camera

Yey - I got a new camera and I love it. This is an example of the high-speed filming and yes its nothing special but its such an excellent feature. This is a very windy day by the way and its slowed down and captured so you can see the detail. It works better on things that are moving really really fast like popping a champagne cork or a humming bird for example. I din't have either to test it on but the weather was blusterly. I'll work on a better example.

spiders

I have to admit that I really, really don't like spiders.  Seriously I really have a deep loathing of them but I can't help photographing them especially their webs.  I am really down this week as I don't have a camera and its really getting to me.  Suddenly everywhere there is a photo opportunity for something amazing and all I can manage is the piddly little almost pre-historic camera put into to my mobile phone.  I would point out that this is a major failing on the part of HTC - come on guys this is a state of the art phone.  Not only can I get my email, browse the internet, use bluetooth, wi-fi, gps, google maps and pretty much anything else you can think of, my phone can do and I love it for this but it has the worst camera.  Not a problem when you have a perfectly good camera to hand.  Oh what a bum!  Having said that here is a pretty nice picture it took today after the dust created by the man doing the plastering.  Not as good or as close as I would like but okay.  I know, it no prize-winner but the webs did look amazing all around the garden.

The last film I saw at the cinema

My son is only 2 and a few weeks ago I took him to the cinema for the first time.  His eyes certainly lit up when we went in, possibly all the lights and colours but mainly all the sweets and pic 'n mix on display.  Anyway I really enjoyed taking him.  We went to see Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.  I do love modern animation especially pixar films and whilst I only managed to see the first hour of the film I did enjoy it but I can't really give it a rating.  All in all a good experience for us both though.  It had been so long since I went to the cinema that I can't actually remember the last film I went to see before that.

I think the film makers were too anthropomorphous with the characters in an extremely american-centric way.  I guess that's what makes the film funny.  It pokes fun at the everyday foibles of life.  I do think this side of the film was lost on my son though.  I'd say not as good as the first two Ice Age films but okay.  I think I'll take him to see Toy Storey 3D - see what he makes of that.  I'll let you know.  Still no camera but I have an itchy trigger finger that's just not satisfied with the camera on my mobile phone.

Carved in Stone - update

At the weekend I visited Black Rock, a much loved destination from childhood.  My son loved it as much as I remember loving it as a child.  Whilst I was there I took a closer look at some of the fine detail and the effort put in many of the engravings on the rock face and I was amazed.  There are some beautiful and almost profound inscriptions left for posterity.  I wish I had a photograph, but the next best thing is to link you to an image I found on flickr.

Green tomato chutney

I finally put the green tomatoes to good use and made some chutney and I can honestly say that it is delicious and goes very well with cheese.  I would ordinarily post a photo here but my camera is broken but I'll post one soon.  10 jars worth should keep me going!  Growing tomatoes was a worthwhile exercise after all, even without a glorious sunny summer to ripen them.

Some Films I don't like so much

There aren't many films I wouldn't sit through but I can honestly say I was a sleep, within 5 mins, after going to see the much hyped 'Blair Witch Project'.  Well that was 10 years ago now and I haven't fallen a sleep at the cinema since.  But then again I haven't been to the cinema for quite some time now.  But I do love the experience.

Since my last post I have thought of some films that I didn't enjoy (and not that they were altogether bad - I just don't think I could bring myself to watch them again):

• The fisher king
• One hour photo
• Casino Royale
• The Flintstones
• The Hudsucker Proxy
• About Schmidt
• Sleepers
• LA Confidential
• Shine
• Being John Malkovich

Well that's all I can think of right now.  I'd like to know if anybody disagrees.

Lovely weather

I can't believe it's only 90 days until Christmas.  You wouldn't know by today's weather:

Some Films I like

I couldn't think of a post today so I thought I would write down some of my favourite films (in no particular order):

• Contact (and the book is excellent too)
• The Matrix (the two sequels ruined my affection for this film)
• Erin Brockovitch
• The Lord of the Rings
• Goodbye Lenin
• Amelie
• Signs
• the 6th sense
• unbreakable
• Groundhog Day
• The Incredibles
• Bridget Jones
• Four Weddings and a Funeral
• The Trueman Show
• The Abyss
• Dances with Wolves
• the Cider House Rules
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Forest Gump
• Big
• Freaky Friday (jodie foster)
• Castaway
• Dazed and Confused

I love films so this list could go on and on and on; what are your favourites?  I think I'll do a post soon of some of my favourite actors.  Bye for now.