Stop Politics, Save Currynomics

Most Londoners should be able to tell you that the National Gallery overlooks Trafalgar square. So before I was exposed to the secret limbo knowledge, I encountered one of the best protest slogans I've seen:

"Stop Politics, Save Currynomics"

The protest was centered on the new immigration policies that are allegedly causing a lack of ethnic culinary chefs.

Now I'm a fan of the curry, the noodle and yes, even the sushi so I would certainly be perturbed if they were denied to me.
There was one problem with this protest. It was pretty lame. It mostly consisted of people milling around and occasionally someone would have a bit of a shout on a badly set-up sound system. Surely my gluttony deserves better support than this.

Up above the streets and houses of London

Rainbow London Mayor's Debate

I've never thought of Boris as a pink hippo but now I can't stop.

Sage Advice

Lately, I've been pretty lax in updating my blog. I mostly blame a hectic work schedule. I will try to do better.

Last Sunday I went for a bit of a London wander and ended up at the National Gallery.
Natural digestive impulses required a visit to the facilities where I encountered some truly sage advice which I've imortalised in the accompanying picture.
(Needless to say there were some odd looks from the general public when I was finished. I would have thought that camera noises from a public toilet would be pretty normal in London).

For the hard of sight (Click image for a larger version), the writing on the stall door is:

Beware of Limbo Dancers

I'm the downest with the ethnics

So what do we have here... A mix of our favourite bumbling mayoral candidate and some "street journalism" has resulted in a fantastically surreal interview between Boris Johnson and BBS Asian Network presenter - Nihal Arthanayake:

BJ: A lively ... interest in Turkey.

NA: How often do you go and see your family?

BJ: It turns out I've got plenty of Turkish cousins living and working in London.

NA: Did you just find out when you needed it to get the ethnic vote?

BJ: I'm happy to say that lots of Turkish relations have been coming and going in our family for a long time.

NA: Are you down with the ethnics?

BJ: I'm down with the ethnics. You can't out-ethnic me Nihal.

NA: How many bhangra gigs have you been to over the last few years?

BJ: I can't remember. But my children are a quarter Indian so put that in your pipe and smoke it.

NA: Okay, let's not try to out-brown each other.

(Courtesy of This Is London)

I so rock!

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i'm an eccentric negro comedian.

I am such a child

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Woo!

Ric Flair Finance // Welcome to Ric Flair Finance

That's settled it for me, I'm buying a house in the US.

(This may help add some context)

I saw it with my brain

I hate my brain. It uses every opportunity it can to get me into trouble. To illustrate this I offer this miniature play:

One fine Summer's day, amino finds himself walking round Covent Garden. The birds are tweeting, the tourists are smiling and all is well.
amino's eyes: What is this we see before us. Street performers! How
quaint.There's a statue person, a magician and someone in whife face pa.....
amino's brain: Argh! mime! Hands, throw shopping at it.
amino's hands: Are you sure? We had to hand over the credit card quite a few
times to get these bags.
amino's brain: THROW!

It's at this point that the mime is covered in a thin veneer of my newly purchased possessions and I am wondering if white face paint is an advantage in an urban steeplechase.

Through this small insight into the workings of my psyche, I think you'll agree that the brain needs some punishment via the medium of optical illusion.


The video shows the effects of an Ames Room. If anyone out there has a spare garage, building an Ames room will bring you wealth and the admiration of beautiful women. Here's a picture to get your construction started (via).


If the magic size changing people haven't befudulated the little grey cells yet then how about some 4-dimensional fun with Tesseracts.
Trying to put it simply, the tesseract is to the cube what the cube is to the square.



So what is this 4th dimension that makes the shape so special? Well according to Olaf Holt (I have no idea who he is but he seems to know about geometry):

Well. . . any other direction! That is, to visualize the tesseract, there doesn't need to be a physical analogue of the fourth dimension. All you need is your imagination

Thanks Olaf, I think.
His page is quite an interesting read if you want to go some way to understanding how to make a tesseract.
Another good source of information is the Wikipedia article, however it does go into some mathematical depth.

I hope that this information has helped and through a strict regime of geometric punishments, you too will be able to cut down on your mime abuse.

Capitalism - the chauffeur of ingenuity

Sometimes you see a product on the shelves and you think:

"Now that's a great idea. That's going to change my life (see my last Geek Out post).
If I do not own this thing, surely rabid Scotsmen will run down and insert burning Welshmen into my person"

Other times you see something like Barry the Beaver by Jeremy Fish. The image of this toy evokes images of such ambiguity I refuse to link it directly so you'll have to follow the link yourselves.

The picture not enough. Read the description.


I'm sorry Barry, I'm not sure I can be your best friend. Maybe, you can take the role of the weird friend that nobody leaves alone with their pets.

How to guarantee youself space on a train

Step 1 - have a beard.
Step 2 - have a slightly dark complexion
Step 3 - profit!

The carriage is packed and I have 2 empty seats next to me.
Hmmm, actually... I hope I don't smell.

Oh and check me out. I can blog from a train.

There are consequences!

BBC NEWS | England | Wear | Housing chief's record net payout

A "malicious" campaign of harassment against a housing group in
Wearside has resulted in what is thought to be the biggest internet
defamation payout.

Damn, there goes my idea for http://www.ihatemimes-theyarescary.com

Future Weapons: Kitty Cornershot

I truly fear the kitty.

DJ Shadow+Cut Chemist Roundhouse London

I've been listening to Hard Sell by DJ Shadow and Cut chemist recently and it's inspired me to post.
Go buy this album now.

I saw them live at the Camden Roundhouse a couple of weeks ago and they were brilliant. The supporting act for the tour is Kid Koala who I've been listening to for a while now and he's always been superb.

The rules for the tour are pretty mind blowing for a DJ gig.
2 djs, 8 turntables, 4 mixers, 2 Guitar pedals and they only play original 7-inch records. No laptops, computers or anything else allowed to sully the mood.

The gig started out with a mellow build up from Kid Koala, finishing with a sublime remix of moon river. Unfortunately most of the crowd didn't arrive until after Kid Koala left the stage which I think is a crying shame.

Dj Shadow and Cut Chemist then took the stage. If you've not heard their sets before, just think of 2 jesters who have leaned to mix better than most people on the planet.

The video I've posted is of their Apache remix which has been kindly uploaded by leedowdall on youtube.

Tonto... Tonto, Tonto

The new coins and the Daily Mail's reaction

Wow, there's some frothing craziness out there.
As many of you will have heard, the UK Royal Mint has issued some new coin designs. Most people I know are pretty indifferent about them. After all, you don't really spend an inordinate amount of time staring at them and you can still spend them on sweeties and comics.


The coins in formation. (picture from the Royal Mint site)

I thought this would the the universal opinion until I was pointed at the Daily Mail comments section -
Goodbye Britannia: A first look at the new designs for Britain's billions of coins | the Daily Mail

My current favorite comment is from Mickey the Manc:

"Decimalisation was the start of the decimation of this once fine nation.
Won't be long before the monarchy is kicked into exile... we can see what is happening and are doing nothing about it."

Hmmm.
decimalisation + new pictures on coins -> exile of the monarchy
I'm not sure I follow the logic myself. I shall have to ponder what could possibly be the next step according to this model.

For more examples of some outstanding reasoning, the BBC Have Your Say page is a gold mine. The comments on there are argument enough for teaching deductive reasoning in schools.

Geek Out - The Asus eeePC

Ok, so it didn't take me long to geek out. Today's topic of conversation is the Asus eeePC. I'm not going to bother reviewing it's hardware or software features as that's already been done to death. The real question is would you use it if you got one?

The eeePC is an aspirational gadget. You want one because it's going to change your life. It's tiny, so small that you can take it everywhere with you. You'll be able to blog from all those interesting places you regularly visit, upload pictures of that mountain bike trail you just conquered, etc...

I own an eeepc, I've had it now for a couple of weeks. I'm living the dream.

The tone of this post not withstanding, it is a deeply cool little gadget. However, be warned, I suffer from an affliction known to many of us - gadget lust. I believe in those aspirations! (About now is when I need a gospel choir plugin for blogger. You hear me Google?)

I do carry it around most places, well, when I'm not at work which eats up 5 days a week. But the rest of the time, it's in my tasteful man-bag. It weighs almost nothing at all so I hardly notice it's there and when it is time to get my eeePC fix, usually in coffee shops or occasionally the pub, it's fully functional. I've uploaded pictures, sent email, checked the internet, chatted to friends; all while un-tethered and free.

Now here's the rub. I live in London. It rains at this time of year. It rains alot. This can limit your more outdoors-ey pursuits.
I'm not sure about anyone else, but when it's cold and wet out, I'm less likely to meander around discovering cool things to electronically document and sitting outdoors with an espresso while rocking to youtube doesn't really cut it in the rain.
So that I don't kill my social life entirely, I use the winter months to see galeries, watch movies and generally make an arse of myself down the pub. Unfortunately, on these occasions, I'd rather take in my surroundings than be chained to a screen.

Don't be disheartened though, I have still found myself using the damn thing, even in the British Winter. A rather large proportion of planning for a friend's stag do has taken place in the pub, over a beer. Come the date of the do, my trusty eeePC will be by my side for the weekend. I would go into the details of the stag do, which would make it clearer why I would want a laptop with me, but that would be telling.

So how do we make more sense of the practicality of an ultra mobile laptop? There are two must-have companions for the eeepc:

1. A phone capable of sharing it's internet connectivity (MDA Vario II). Depending on wireless access points is a drag and can actually be quite
   difficult in London. The Cloud and T-Zones are ubiquitous, but they ask
   for money.
2. A camera that takes SD cards (Luminix TX2). Taking, editing and uploading pictures on the move is where I find the most use for my eeePC. It's much easier to mess around with pictures when you've got 10 mins to spare in the day rather than batch processing the lot in the evening when you get home.
   

With those two companions and the promise of Summer, the eeePC makes alot more sense.
There is one tiny wrinkle with the glorious picture I'm painting of my halcyon Summer to be. Everything I've mentioned, I've already been able to do on the move on my Vario, sans eeePC.
Pictures get uploaded with Shozu, Friends are messaged with Parlingo, emails exchanged with Gmail aand the built in client and the web surfed with pocked IE. But then again, it's just so fiddly on the phone. I much prefer the eeePC experience.

The other main usage I'll be getting from the weee device will be on my travels. There's nothing more annoying than taking up valuable room in your hand-luggage with a dirty great laptop. That's valuable duty free storage space.
Again, armed with a camera, all you regular readers should be getting blow-by-blow accounts of my holiday jaunts... well, not too frequent updates, it is a holiday after all.

Reading through this post again, it does strike me how negative I sound. I don't mean to be, I think Asus have created a fantastic little device that I will be getting more than enough use out of for £200. The point of this post is actually gadget agnostic. Aspirational devices do not enable the aspirational lifestyle. You have to do that yourself, so if you'll excuse me I'm surfing a volcano in an hour.

Transient Thoughts

Today I have mostly been thinking:

• What do singing zombies sound like?
  A musical version of The Evil Dead is possibly one of the greatest ideas to hit the entertainment scene since Mrs Baracus decided that her son would look rather fetching in a gold necklace
• What evolutionary genetic fate made cows so damn tasty. I realise that over the centuries they have been bread bred to be succulent but I very much doubt that Cow Zero tasted like a turd burger
• I like waffles
  

First Post!

I think I'm a little late to this whole blogging malarkey. The world and it's dog seems to have a blog (no, really - http://suzydogsblog.blogspot.com/) and on every conceivable topic there is (yes, really - http://thefruitblog.blogspot.com/).

So why am I wading into the socially charged quagmire of the blogosphere at such an advanced age (blogmire, perhaps)?
Well, I'm a forgetful soul. Some have said my swiss cheese brain is a marvel of humanity and the fact that I am able to function on a day to day basis is proof of a higher power.
As much as my ego is swelled by my contribution to the great "Is there a God?" debate, it is diminished to a greater extent by my id's unfulfilled desires to collect trinkets of events in everyday life.
Back in the good old days, ids everywhere were placated through the judicious use of scrap books and the annual trial by holiday snaps. Being a gentleman of the 21st century, such antiquities make me laugh, ha HA!.
So to the crux of the thing... I'm here to make a record of stuff so that I can return to it in my dotage and use it to punish the young.

So there you have it - the raison d'être