One of the best parts of living on the coast is that I could be down the beach 3 days last week, be sailing on a 4th and still put a full week in at work. Yes, I had just a touch of sunburn, I was rather tired and this week just isn’t as good but you have to look on the bright side.
Artist: Sigur Rós
Track: Ára bátur
Why: Two words, it’s beautiful.
Where: Website | iTunes
With the sweeping assumptions that the entire financial world stays the same, the interest rate is frozen colder than the LHC and I fail to get a pay rise ever again, I’m proud to report I’ll have paid off my student loan in a little over 15 years and 2 months.
Perhaps I should create a Facebook event to celebrate, except that I don’t think you can create events that far in the future.
Artist: Attic Lights
Track: Bring You Down
Why: Another slice of shiny Glasgow indie pop.
Where: Myspace | iTunes
The life of a wannabe web designer is simple, surf about all day repeating “wow, that looks great, if only I could create something that looks that good”. I’m not saying that I don’t like my own work, I’m just a perfectionist and there will always be someone else’s work that is more perfect than mine! Anywhay, something I’ve always struggled with is the round cornered rectangle. I guess it’s something to do with not having photoshop and having to make do with more modestly priced tools (ie free) which means an ancient version of Paint Shop Pro from the front of a magazine and Inkscape. I’ll admit that I haven’t tried very hard but never quite got the hang of it using either application.
Then last week, for reasons far too tedious to discuss here and now, I came across pChart, a php based graph drawing tool that uses the GD graphics library. Behind each of the example graphs, a perfectly anti-aliased rounded rectangle. Sure, creating graphics as the output of a php script isn’t the most efficient method available, but it’s working for me and that’s what counts.
So just as my phone was starting to forget it’s messages, what’s that coming over the horizon but a potential saviour in the form of o2 bluebook, offering to save all my text, photos and contacts on-line. You might think it’s the answer to all your prayers, and the end of me having to write all my important numbers in my address book just in case my phone followed the Sony Ericsson tradition of bricking itself randomly.
However, you’d be wrong. What the service actually provides is a useful by-product of a law passed in July 2007 which forced phone providers to store details of your calls and texts for a year, just in case the police or your council need to get at the info. The thinking? If the data was available to complete strangers, why not make it available to the actual person. Clever spin!
Sure, most phone companies were doing this voluntarily beforehand anyway, but it just makes you think?
Once more up the motorway dear friends, and this time they didn’t give me a tank. For the purposes of getting from A to B (and back again) this week - the Mazda 3, in a delightful shade of boring silver and with a 1.6 petrol engine. Despite having never driven a Mazda before, I might as well not write this, because the 3 is fact the current Focus with a different haircut and a less ironed shirt. While the one ‘new’ focus I’ve driven was a diesel and went like the hamster up front had been replaced by roadrunner, the 3 most definitely does run on hamster power and there just wasn’t the power available in 3rd that I like from either the diesel focus or my own dear fiesta. In addition, in the whole 500+ miles I had it I never mastered moving off in 1st properly although this might just be a familiarisation thing.
On the plus side, the sound from the radio/cd player was good, if just a bit heavy on the bass (and one day I’ll get a car that can integrate with my ipod) and the climate control worked like a charm (it needed to). I’m not sure why the cylon style red lights on the front of the radio needed to flash whenever I touched one of the controls, but that’s just being picky. The ride was good, as was the seating position and after a couple of hours in the hotseat it was still comfortable to drive. What did annoy me though was that as a hire car it had to be left full of fuel which meant filling it up halfway home when the tank ran dry and then again when I got home to replace the 1/4 of a tank that I’d used finishing the journey. Getting only ~400 miles from the tank is a good 75 miles less than I get from my little fiesta. The old pool cars (diesel Mondeo) used to handle the whole journey on single tank and still have some left over.
In conclusion, all very nice, does the job, wouldn’t buy one. Especially not in silver.