I Can't Sing stuff.

I don't normally go on about work very often. Largely its dull and boring and its the same thing day in and day out, but occasionally, just occasionally we get drama.

Clearing out a bin at work we found that one of my tenants had been a part of the recent(ly closed) musical I can't sing.  Its loosely based on the X Factor, but mainly comes across as an extended TV Burp sketch (its co written by Harry Hill) from bits that I've subsequently seen online. They are definitely funnier read out than sung that's for sure.

How do I know this, because I have a few ring binders with the sheet music and a script from the show, as well as a few other bits and bobs including an etched spanner with I can't sing on it.  Not sure if this is valuable or not or whether its worth the hassle scanning and putting up the sheet music, maybe in 40 years time.

X Files Season 10

Big fan of this back in the day and didn't realize that Chris Carter had authorised this comic as a continuation of the TV show.  This is something else I'm trying to get scanned in as I have most of the Titan comics lying around with a few graphic novel anthologies as well (that and Edge Magazine I definitely want some space back).

Finally we always have room for wildlife.

Saw two odd things today while out in the garden, the first was a newt not sure of the species though it could be a Common Newt.  Its hiding under some plants by some bricks and is very small.

About an Inch long fact fans.

I also saw a Rosemary Beetle which are new to the UK and are pests on Rosemary, Sage and Lavender.
Its rather nice and appears golden in the light, but if you catch it a certain way then it turns green with red stripes.

Not a great shot, but you can see the lines on its back just about.

A Tumblr half full!

Been looking into getting a Tumblr account to document a few messed up ROM Corruption screen grabs as a kind of modern art thing, but have come across a few stumbling blocks vis a vis accessibility.  I already follow a few folks tumblrs via bookmarking rather than sign up and already it seems that as a Straight White Male with Aspergers who is happy with his gender I'll probably not be accepted.

Most of the posts on here are heavy on the Misandry, if you don't know what that is its kind of like those adverts where the guy is portrayed an imbecile by a group of laughing women i.e its the opposite of Misogyny.  Oh being called a rapist by some Millie Tant wannabe with cropped hair and unshaved legs is fine but it gets worse.  Most of the people on their seem to be transexual or sympathize with the trans community, and apparently we 'Cisgender scum' don't get how hard it is every day for them.  For those who don't get it cisgender = gender normal, I.E if you were born the sex you wanted to be instead of in the wrong body.

I don't have a problem with this except that its a FUCKING stupid name for us.  It sounds worryingly close to Cif floor cleaner (what we used to call Jif back in the day) and I personally would have gone with gender locked and gender unlocked, still thats me.

In other news I found out that the imbecile factory that is Kiss FM, had a Record library.  I got some decent stuff today at a bootsale and saw they had these stickers on them that said Kiss FM Record Library, can't find much online and what there was is from Google books. They had some pretty good stuff mind I got a
Live at the Brain compilation and Bobby Konders Bad Boy Dance and some non library stuff including a white label of MLO Wimbourne (or Wimbourn as its shown on the label due to a missing 'E') and a hard techno compilation that is mostly Freddy Fresh and Woody McBride tracks which is cool.

Steve Moore R.I.P

Had a weird coincidence in the week.  As part of the big bank holiday weekend I went on various trips out, the West end, up on the tube to Epping and closer to home at Oxleas Wood (we didn't write about this but suffice to say the highlight was a small dog getting into the cafe and scrounging before being ushered out) and just a side note I've been reading the current issue of  Fortean Times (the greatest men's magazine ever) and there is a picture of Severndroog Castle which is part of Oxleas Wood with the late comic artist Steve Moore (it was his obituary).

It set a few flags up in my brain as his face seemed familiar and the article said that he lived at Shooters Hill (a local) and I turned the page and then it hit me.  There was a photo of three people Alan Moore (no relation) creator of The Watchman comics, Steve in the middle and his brother Chris at the end who I knew.  

For those of you who don't know who Chris was, he was our cactus club treasurer and expert grower of Asclepiad plants, up until his death from Motor Neurone Disease back in 2009 and a really nice guy.  I didn't know he had a brother who was famous and he never really said that much about it, he may have came to one or two of our meetings when Chris was in a wheelchair (this would have been around 2007) but it was just a vague memory and probably not correct.

Looking on Wikipedia they have a list of the stuff  Steve worked on including a lot of  2000AD stuff and Marvel comics as well as a lot of stuff on Chinese topics for Fortean Times (current issue has an article of his on a 1st century sorcery panic) and compiling anthologies like strange deaths and the Fortean Times source books.  

Theydon Bois.

Took a trip out today to the end of the Central line, as its bank holiday monday.  Its not the real end of course, that would have been Ongar but that closed sometime in the nineties, but for arguments sake this means Epping and its forest. 

We got off on the central line at Theydon Bois, (pronounced Boys) a place along with Upminster that I've always wanted to see, and to be honest it didn't disappoint.

Theydon Bois in its near entirety.

I used to think Hornchurch was the first signs that this was the country rather than London, Theydon trumps that.  And then some.  Its a small village transported that feels like its fallen out of middle of Essex and dumped onto the borders of London, and is a real culture shock, as there is nothing much like it on the Kent side (though to be fair they've never extended the tube that far, the bunch of sissies).  There's a Tesco express and a few shops but apart from that its like the country has reclaimed its own. 

Epping forest itself is really nice and busy, I saw plenty of cyclists and dog walkers along with a few picnicers such as ourselves. There was a lot of downed trees mainly Beech but with a fair few Silver Birch as well, also as my mum said a lot of temporary pools too. 

Pool Closed.

We stopped for lunch and I decided to take a few pictures of stuff, they had a Scarce Cardinal Beetle on one of the logs which is about 2cm long.

Pyrochroa Coccinea.

After lunch we made our way out of the woods and headed into Epping, which is a much bigger town it feels a bit like Ealing but much more rural.  They had a market on with various stalls selling stuff and one of the stall owners was lugging round a brown poodle which was endearing (sadly no photo).  They have a nice old church and another building which could be a former church but is now a Ford dealership.

Is that a satellite dish?

Looking around town and we decided to make our way back, and out to the not very well signposted tube station, which like Hornchurch is some way out of town. They had one of those Cancer you Cunt* posters as race for life was coming to the North Weald, and then home.

*Part of the shouty confrontational British Cancer Research campaign to beat cancer.  I.E. you run a bit for cancer research but only if you are a woman.  Seriously I've never seen one for Testicular or Prostrate cancer or for Movember, its as if women only get cancer.

Abusing Android for fun and profit.

As I'm an idiot and am sure I've done something like this before, I've always wondered how far Android can be taken and what other stuff I'd love to see improved.  It all started with a report that some Samsung cameras now run Android, and its gotten me thinking what else could you cobble together to run Android with. First of all....

A Camera.

Link above aside, I would really love this to be used on a serious camera, with all that entails such as additional lenses and the added function of something like Photoshop built in.  Add generic ports for PC out and massive battery life and this could be a winner.

A Smart Phone.

My idea of a smart phone is perhaps a lot more different than yours.  For starters I did a whole post on these a few years back, essentially it had a DS clamshell design with physical controls, and a seamless emulation of every system going. So far only the new Blackberrys really measure up to that with their sideloading of Android apps because their own appstore resembles a tumbleweed strewn graveyard compared to the main players.

My revised take on this is still a DS clamshell design but with one side as a dedicated keyboard and the other as the main phone screen, sort of like an updated PDA.

A Tablet.

Yeah I know these are "highly original", but these do have a twist with them.  For some unknown reason, I would love a tablet that incorporates two unorthodox ideas.  The first is a Graphene battery, for massive power reduction and to free up space as it'll be the size of a wafer.  I see the guys at work constantly charging their phones most of the day, and would think that if they could get this to run equal to the battery life of the old green screen Gameboy it would be excellent.
The final thing I'd love to see added would be a solid state drive, those ultrathin and fast drives you add to PC in order to speed up loading. I've a neat idea where you don't get any removable storage slots, just a SSD which loads pre partitioned with Android and places to put stuff.

A Console of sorts.

My Final twist on this is probably the most contentious of all. A lot of people seem to have done this, whether its OUYA via Kickstarter or some of the big companies, my idea is just a pure pirate device.  Taking my cue from the limitless supplies of  Famiclones out there, I would love to see an Android set top box recorder, along the lines of  the Sky + or Tivo that doubles as a console.  Unlike most of these android devices, it wouldn't be an online smart TV (there's plenty of those), but would allow you to record TV instead, dump it out onto memory stick or memory card for upload to PC in a variety of formats, or simply store it to its internal Hard Drive.

It would gain updates via the internet either through the phone line or memory card via its internal card reader. Finally it would play android games downloaded via  the net as APK. files and would soft patch in external controls for any controller added to it via USB.

Acid Day Round up.

You'll get three, yes three postings over the bank holiday period so hold on tight as I'll take you on a trip up town and have a few round up of smaller news too.

PS2 to get unofficial Sixaxis support.

I never did actually grade up to PS3, what with the rise of online consoles, online updates, RROD / YLOD and the fact that the TV I used for gaming before fucking off to the darkside of portable gaming, was basically a tiny CRT portable, means that I don't know if those new dualshocks for PS3 and PS4 was backwardly compatible with the humble PS2 (hint they aren't).  

Ginger and TV for comparison.

However it looks like someone is finally getting their act together and hacking back support for those newer Dualshocks.  Looking at his Cheeky Github it seems there is also a library there for Wii as well so as long as you have a means to read homebrew on either Wii or PS2 then it seems that its worth a punt.  For me I don't have a PS3 or PS4 Dualshock to test out so no go here.

ACID Day.  (: ) )   
A trip up town today to see if they have this in stock, and came home disappointed (well sort of). I didn't get it as I crucially forgot its name but came up trumps in other regards. 

First of all a trip to Phonica as they are boss, and looking in there they have the new Luke Vibert album, Ridmik, if you liked Ace Of Clubs on FirstCask records then this is right up your alley, its acid all the way with Proper Gander being my highlight and track of the year.  They also had Interfunks off shoot Fatjack on his own label Acidicted with the superior Acidflash and  passed up on a promo version of Karim Sahraoui on Transmat (with bonus Strings Of Life). 

We thought we would look into Sounds of the Universe on the corner of Wardour Street and see if they had it.  They always have weird stuff so if you want that old afrofunk album its the place to look as they are boss.
Still couldn't think what it was on but looking through their stacks of house they had Paranoid London Paris Dub 2 which was one of my tracks of last year.  Massive old school acid monster and I'm having that.  We decided to veer off onto to the gay bit and see if an old arcade is still around, yup and  had a few pinballs for play but they were fucked.  Metallica pinball wouldn't even give us a game and lost about a quid on Pacman ball.

All in all a good trip out.