An Idiot and a Pen

Started but not finished

2010-03-22T06:02:00.000-07:00

I've decided to clear out the cobwebs and post a draft that I've had lurking around for some time, I thought it was too good to be left unposted.

Jumble is Massive!

This is going to be one of those, what the hell is he gibbering about now sort of blogs, like a David Lynch film but in blog form.

First off Iggy pop, you have to love him, the man seems to have discovered that the secret to immortality is not owning a t-shirt, but selling car insurance? (or time as he frequently reminds us) I also find it amusing that he mentions having a birth certificate, I never thought he was born, just dehydrated from a mountain, also if i can't keep track of mine, how is he going to keep track of his? Maybe it's tattooed to his leg, god knows.

Titles are hard, blogs are easy.

2009-02-13T04:22:00.000-08:00

I have a few friends who surprise me on occasion by coming out with some wonderfully funny sayings, I give you as way of example an actual moment in time:

The Scene: About 4 in the morning in a takeaway based in Chippy Lane Cardiff

The Protagonists: Mr J. - A Northern lad with no mental defects.
Mr R. - Another Northern lad based in Cardiff, the reason for Mr J's location.
Miss E. - A Northern Welsh lass.
T. C. M. - Takeaway Counter Man.

Mr J. - I could murder a kebab, a big greasy donner.
Mr R. - Get one then
Mr J. - I'm not sure how it works, am I at the right counter? I can't see the salad.
Mr R. - Nah it'll be fine, just order one with everything.
Mr J. - Yeah, yeah, I think I will.
T.C.M. - What you havin' mate?
Mr J. - *In a sudden gruff Northern accent* Chips and gravy mate.
Miss E. - What?
Mr R. - I thought you wanted a Kebab?
Mr J. - I did.
Miss E. - Why didn't you order a kebab?
Mr J. - I panicked.
Miss E. - What?
Mr R. - What?
Mr J. - I panicked and ordered the most Northern thing I could think of.

* 30 Minutes later*

Mr J. - Those chips were really good.

Goddamn, it's a good job I'm fairly unconditional with my friendship. Although I've come out with my fair share of ridiculous sayings, thankfully none of them spring to mind, however should I ever gather all of my friends in one place I'm more than convinced that we could fill an A4 page in less than 10 minutes.

Click, Click.

2008-11-21T05:58:00.000-08:00

Yes it has been a while since I was last here, and a lot has happened in the roller coaster of excitement that is my life, but that's another blog entirely.

Anyway the point is that I have found myself doing a lot of photography (most of it free) which blows since I am mostly unemployed, however this has left me plenty of time to pursue other avenues of interest, such as talking to myself and air drumming. However i have been curing my boredom in other ways; such as finding out what happens when you place a developing Polaroid into the microwave (Sparks, a horrible smell, angry housemates and very little else) or cruising photography forums to find pure awesome in photography form, some of which i have found, like the worlds largest pinhole photograph.

Which this brings me neatly to the main point of this blog (it doesn't, but who cares) photographic equipment, I love it, but I love to tinker with things, i want to know how things work and I like the fact that new equipment can make you rethink your style of photography completely. However there is one thing i do dislike about new gear, its the people that have all of it but only have one very lonely and cold braincell huddling towards the back somewhere whimpering every time it hears a distant creak. I was at a gig the other day for reasons of fun and i saw two photographers who irritated me profoundly, the first was a small emo child in front of the stage taking photographs at a 45 degree angle, (every freaking one!) now i'm not so heartless to get annoyed at the as of yet unlearned, but when i spied a look at his camera, he had a brand new (honest to god, not even a scratch) Canon 40/50D worth between £800 - £1100 (inc standard lens), I mean come on! It's a semi pro camera, choice of weekend warriors and professionals alike and he had one, my Canon has seen so much action that the flash doesn't pop up anymore and there's a groove where my thumb rests and I would have to think twice before buying one.

So the next guy is somewhat worse, he was atleast old enough to pay rent, so no blaming this one on the parents who are convinced their little genius will bring them riches in their old age (he won't he'll go to uni and do a course entitled "Media Studies" in which he chooses all of the classes, either by name 'coolness' or what he thinks the token hot girl is doing (he won't ask her, he'll just guess, and by pure chance get it entirely wrong) he'll then scrape through with a third after repeating each year twice, fail to get a job in the university city, come home and live with his parents until he's 27 at which point his mum will get him a job at a hair dressers as the assistant hair sweeper, he'll eventually end up as a manager in a Tescos, still living at home, having long since sold his camera for pot.) so anyway the other guy, he was even more of all the gear no idea. Pretty sure he had the brand new 5D Mk 2 (£2300 body only fact fans) plus a stupidly lovely lens and a nice flash it is the flash that i want to draw your attention to now, you will notice that it has a diffuser on it (to help remove the shadows you get with direct flash) you will also notice, as he kneels down infont of the stage to take a very exciting upwards shot, that the flash is pointing towards the celing, or more specifically its about three inches away from my eyes at which point it goes off and I am blind.

He continues to do this to vaious people in the front row, most of which are there to enjoy the music, i note that more than one person has the "i'm going to punch you in the back of the head" look in their eyes, "why does he have a diffuser on if he's bouncing the flash off faces and celings" I hear you ask, good question, not only that, but the celing in this particular establishment was black (lets break it down for the science. The colour black absorbs all light waves and reflects none, white on the other hand reflects all light waves, red only reflects red and absorbs all other etc etc so now you know why pointing a source of light at something black will fail to light up the room.) "he must be a moron" I hear you cry, yes and here is some more proof:
A short while before he'd finished blinding every fucker in the room he then perched next to a speaker stack to get some shots he had his camera on it's side (turning it anti-clockwise if you must know), now he seemed fairly unhappy with these shots, i'm guessing they were too dark, I know this because the brain donor had his flash pointing directly into the speaker stack, he didn't figure this out and infact looked surprised when his next shots looked over exposed.

Thankfully the band were rather good and he vanished off before the half way mark and so he still has all of his limbs and equipment.

First Past the Post

2008-03-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

"Today we remember the greatest social-economic master mind the world has ever seen, George Bush.
The man who appeared to many outside of the US as a perfect representative of the American people of that time is today to be remembered fifty years after the greatest economic recess in modern history. George Bush the architect behind the 'Economic leveling out' as it was called afterwards, is credited with creating a 'new world order, one in which all people are equal'.

The American people may have suffered some hard times from 2010 onwards but because of it, the economic status of the world has never been more secure. We trace the fall of the 'new empire' and find out the whys and wherefores.

The downfall of the U.S. starts on September 11th 2001 and the subsequent 'war on terror' causing many to play it safe and so the market slumps a little, however the constant news reports on terrorism around the world does little to ease the worries of the Americans, who start to spend less and less on consumables, the markets show very little change until the annual reports come in and then companies are reporting low profits, some are even reporting first time losses. This trend continues and so the banks take note and begin to lend less and take fewer risks causing another slight dip in the market, until the worries carry across the pond and start to affect the UK market.

In 2007 the UK saw Northern Rock declare financial instability causing thousands of people to withdraw their savings within days of reports, worsening the situation. Northern Rock was eventually nationalized and the 'credit crunch' became apparent to the average man.
Months later US bank Bear Stearns also declared problems being described by one business analysis as "Americas Northern Rock" but unlike Northern Rock Bear Stearns had its majority shares bought out and was shored up with private money, which was ultimately it's undoing.

The U.S. kept it's economy afloat with borrowed money, meanwhile Europe and the Asian states flourished without the U.S. dominating the market and they themselves started lending money to the U.S. In 2011 the U.S. economy finally failed causing a brief world wide recession, causing Canada to hastily shut down its borders from American immigrants.

America never regained its technological superiority, the automobile industry moved to Europe then on to Japan."

The New Deli Post - March 27th 2061

A fictional outcome of the credit crunch.

Why George Bush?
- In the years he's been in the White house, the man has spent massive amounts of money on military uses causing inflation to drop, affecting housing prices, and causing massive losses to American businesses which have never experienced them before. The losses in business affected the banks and made them weary of lending to each other, meaning that now each bank was entirely on its own with no way of getting itself out of trouble should any problems occur.
Banks are international entities and so these problems weren't limited to north America. The banks got scared and Northern Rock collapsed and became a public entity, Bear Stearns however had its majority taken over and so the economic gene pool gets smaller and more risky.

Please Facebook Responsibly.

2008-02-25T10:21:00.000-08:00

Having a pro-active status on Facebook is the first step to greatness.
As sayings go, that's probably a bit rubbish, it's also a massive lie. Facebook is fast becoming the world largest social networking site (Myspace still holds the number one spot, despite being an unwieldy behemoth) it's also becoming the number one choice to waste a serious amount of time. I have friends who seem to literally conduct their whole lives around Facebook, my girlfriends cousin even announced his engagement through it.

However despite it turning some people into an e-Junkie, it does have some good points. First of all it allows you to keep tabs on all those people who you vaguely remember but never really spoke to, even though you spend your formative years sat next to them and occasionally letting them take the blame for your own misdeeds. School memories aside the main purpose of Facebook is to let everyone know exactly what you are doing with each one of those precious minutes that have been bestowed on you, which judging by a brief run through the most recent ten status updates is not alot (one of them even includes a reference to a baked potato, if that is honestly the most interesting thing you can think to write then just give up and go back to bed).
Maybe it's me, maybe all of my mates need to know this sort of information and i'm out of sync with the rest of the world, or more likely it's those mates who don't update their statuses every two minutes that are out having a good time and like me are baffled when they next sign in to find that Facebook is demanding to know what you've been up to, like a particularly neurotic girlfriend, almost causing you to go "woah! I've y'know just been out doing stuff, with my mates" I'm dreading that one day it'll innocently start asking about Myspace and then it will be time to move on, just like i did before.
I'm not proud of the way i treated myspace, yes it was slow and ugly and hardly ever did anything useful but it didn't deserve to be dropped on it's arse. One day i just got up and left and didn't come back for nearly a year, by which time it'd changed the way it looked and operated, and was no longer the social networking site i knew it as.

Back to the good points of statuses on Facebook (which is why i started writing this, and not to turn Myspace into some jilted lover) those people who do occasionally write proactive status updates sound like they might actually be doing something useful rather than checking how fat your old class mates have got (not very) but does anyone chase up these people who proclaim to have completed all of their coursework in 4 hours, no of course not. For all we know they could've just lied to everyone they know, (which is what it must be like working for The Sun) i suggest that we should all ask for proof of these people who have enough time to be fairly active and yet update their status no less than 15 times in one day. This form of Facebook lying is bad for your reputation because when you finally get the courage to venture outside and meet up with your friends they will find you dull and uninteresting (and horribly pasty skinned) and your real social life will be over followed shortly by your Facebook one.

I can feel the carbon in the air tonight ...

2007-12-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

Climate change is happening, there is no doubt about it, yes it seems to be the hot topic these days with many companies going green, my favourite example is Marks and Spencer who have initialized their 'Plan A' (because there is no Plan B) which quite frankly sounds damn scary. The truth is that we've done some serious damage already, the effects we're feeling now are from 30 to 40 years ago, we won't know the effects that our culture of want is having until it is too late. It is true we are not 100% sure what causes the odd weather or the un-seasonal temperatures but then science is hardly ever completely certain about the big picture, the untestable things; i have to admit however, seeing as there appears to be a lack of planets with the same properties as ours, that i'll just follow their advice blindly on this one.

In the recent years the amount we know about global warming has increased vastly, we've found that the greenhouse gases that were despised in the 90's actually help to keep our planet at a perfect temperature for life. We've found that the antarctic ice keeps a perfect record of the amount of carbon in the air, fantastic for us, as we can plot a simple graph to show the changes in the amount of carbon in the air. Yes it is true, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere does naturally fluctuate in waves (between 200 and 220 parts per million) we however are currently at 380 PPM. There is no way that this is a coincidence, we have changed our atmosphere considerably (statistics show that we are adding to this figure at 2 parts per year). The real worry comes when we try to reverse this effect, the longer we leave it the harder it is, until the atmosphere eventually goes into positive feedback and then we are in real trouble, once this occurs the very things that have been absorbing the carbon will die, rotting to produce more carbon and ending all life. The point at which positive feedback will start to occur has been pinpointed to 430PPM, which leaves us 25 years to drastically cut our energy consumption.

I feel there can be no clearer case for cutting carbon than this, and if we happen to be wrong, then so be it, we will have atleast achieved something, not as a nation or as a people, but as a planet, something which can only lead to better.

"I don't have to remind you of the two forces which are currently converging on our lives. The first is that the source of energy that is hardest to replace, more or less impossible to replace, - and I mean, liquid fossil fuels, - that source of energy is now running out. The second is of course that the consequences of the fossil fuel burning that has brought us here today, are now being visited on us. And everything around us, all this that seems so solid, that we took for granted, that we just lived with and expected always to live with, that was seen as non-negotiable, suddenly looks contingent. All this begins to look like a great tottering pile, balanced on a ball - a ball that's about to start rolling down hill."
- George Monbiot (3rd December 2005)

For more information on this please see http://www.bitc.org.uk/document.rm?id=5244

A bit more about blogs.

2007-12-03T13:12:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me today when i logged in to have my (almost) daily bitch/ponder that despite only being signed up to this for four days, i've already got 5 drafts sitting waiting to be looked at, re-written and eventually discarded (either onto the internet or the bin).

I feel that this is probably down to my writing style, which to be honest would probably be called 'sprawling' by a particularly kind nun. I admit that i talk utter crap most of the time, this is more than likely due to the fact that i have an idea and then rush to get it down, but amongst the excitement i forget the main point and have already diverted along a tangent, leaving me a little lost and confused (like a child who's lost his mum in a supermarket).

Nearly all of my blogs start with a specific aim, which quickly gets lost in the general flippancy of my comments and my total willingness to suddenly dive down a dead end tangent with no real way to get back to the main argument. I would like to give a clear and precise reason for this, but i don't have one, i'm like that in real life as well, just bimbling around with no real idea of the point.
So yeah .. it's not writers block.
Also i lied to you, this post has nothing to do with blogs.

When i was young, life was so wonderful, magi[COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT]

2007-12-03T11:42:00.000-08:00

No this blog, isn't about copyright infringement, nor is it about that particular song, it is about feeling nostalgic for being young.

Everybody has a phase where they wonder what it would be like, to go back a few years and be in school again or maybe even just have a bit more hair and a lot less you.

Those people who do ponder this unanswerable question are just being nostalgic, however if you act on it and buy a motorcycle (and associated leathers) you're automatically having a midlife crisis (despite motorbikes being pretty cool); but what if i wanted to go out and buy a motorcycle wear leather trousers all the time and generally make a bit of a nuisance of myself? I'm sure many people wouldn't think much of it what with me being a fair distance away from my 30's. But when you think about it, how many young people do you see actually wearing leathers and riding a motorbike? not many.

Which leads me believe that this is less a crisis and more a Revelation (Yes, with a capital R) these people have decided to have one last go at doing what they really want to do. When you're twenty you just want to look cool and have a good time, but you're an adult now, and you need money to live, so you get a job.

Fast forward 25 years and you've settled down, you've got disposable income, sure the kids want a new puppy, but fuck that, its time to buy a bike. Yes it may seem irresponsible but you are doing something that you've wanted to do for some time, and i think that's right, you're not hurting anyone (yes i know the kids want a puppy, but they wont become crack addicts if they don't get one) and you may look a little silly, but well done, you've achieved something.

I guess the reason for this blog is that, i've recently become one of the 9 'til 5 masses, and i do really enjoy my job, but i know that it is not what i've always wanted to be.
When i was 8 i wanted to be a map maker, i thought you explored jungles in the morning then did some colouring in in the afternoons.
When i was 15 i wanted to be in a band, i played with a couple of bands did a few gigs, had a good time. I eventually realized that i don't have the musical ability to be a professional musician. Since going to uni, i've wanted to be a war photographer, i'm currently working in marketing; this doesn't mean that i've given up on the idea, or that i've settled for second best. It just means my plans have been put on hold until i've got an idea of what to do to get there. Even if i don't become a war photographer i've at least got my midlife Revelation to look forward to.

An Introductory Blog

2007-11-30T15:29:00.000-08:00

A short bit on why i decided to start a blog, would suffice here, i feel. It is generally agreed that a nice introduction about yourself and why you've decided to push your thoughts onto a wider audience, is an acceptable first blog. Why this should be i have no idea, the premise that someone other than your nearest and dearest would want to read about what you and brad did at the weekend, and how he is "just the sweetest guy" baffles me, and why they would feel the need to spend time (when they're not with you) reading about you. It smacks of unresolved childhood issues.

Obviously i'm being trite and flippant, there are those who use blogs as an open debate, to reach like minded people who want to connect in a way that you never could in 'the real world'. Imagine if you spoke in 'Blog'; just stood and performed soliloquies before striking up an odd 'take it in turns' kind of conversation in which replies are usually planned and referenced. So blogging has it's place, and the fact that now a number of news stories have been broken in blogs gives the world of blogging a solid reason to exist, as an extension of the public forum and not just a pretentious piece of self advertisement.

However there are those that will mis-use this wonderful tool to talk about how much they miss Brad now that they're over Brad (i know, it's sad, they were such a lovely couple) or how Tim is like Brad 2.0 (what a hussy, she moves on faster than a greased up snake).
It's sad that not every blog will be full of thoughtful comments which make your faith in humanity grow with every passing word or that leave you with the feeling that braincells are not a rare commodity, but that is how the world works, the rough with the smooth.