Monthly archives: July 2008

Tweets today

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08:37 Blog: Tweets Yesterday tinyurl.com/5awydt #

12:00 I did have an urge to shout "Gordon's alive!" Brian Blessed style during Dark Knight. #

13:46 Can't think of things to clog about. Apathy attack. #

13:47 Does apathy attack or does it just lie around waiting for you to find it? #

14:22 Blog: Guinnenberg tinyurl.com/5p9fzz #

14:22 Blog: Pineapple Chutney tinyurl.com/55cvpc #

14:22 Blog: Critical Mass July 2008 tinyurl.com/5qk7t3 #

14:42 The day I get my PAC number mobile email decides to work again. #

14:50 2 Wheels Good: Over reaction as usual: I have no sympathy for Jason Howard, the cyclist.. tinyurl.com/574253 #

14:50 How to Save the World "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter" tinyurl.com/6yhjey #

15:11 Putting end credits on venn episode 1. This one has snog AND nagging monkeys. Bet Dark Knight didn't. #

18:07 Scale: More Death Race pictures tinyurl.com/57vo6h #

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Tweets Yesterday

This entry was posted in Spinneyhead Twitter on by
11:36 Blog: Miss Russia 2008 tinyurl.com/67vjl6 #

17:41 Increasingly annoyed at not being able to send emails from phone. Currently have 4 dating back to saturday in queue. #

20:15 Getting into Dark Knight is hellish. It had best be worth it. #

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Update I signed up to LoudTwitter a few days ago as a way to add content and replace the box that had been in the sidebar and only had the last three tweets in it. I’m having teething troubles, as the mail to blog function doesn’t seem to be working- this post was forwarded from one of my email accounts, which had actually received five mails from Loudtwitter, three of them empty. Let’s see what it sends me today then I may try post by email again tomorrow.

Ratty T

This entry was posted in 1:32nd Ford Hot Rod model car rat rod on by

Model T chassis- front Z, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

I’ve become fascinated by rat rods in the last year or so, so when I got a Lindberg model T in 1:32nd scale it seemed natural that I should make something old school.

It’s a simple model, so I’ll try to keep my modifications to it simple. The first step was to drop the body nearer the ground. As in the real thing, this was done by Z’ing the frame. The chassis is cast as a single piece incorporating the sump and some of the front suspension. The trailing arms helped me line everything back up when I cut through the rails just behind the radiator mount. The thickness of the cut allowed me to insert a section of plastic strip into the gap which gave a firm mount for the step. A similar process was followed at the rear.

The frame rails and suspension have been painted Games Workshop Chaos Black, my flat black of choice. The sump and trailing arms will probably be Boltgun Metal. Everything will get a light coat of rust before the car goes together.

Fred Bear Attacks

This entry was posted in Products on by

Fred Bear Attacks, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

The first of a series I’m going to call “Not Quite The End Of The World”. It’s the SAS versus a giant teddy bear, in some corner of a scrap yard. Who will win?

More pictures in the Fred Bear Attacks set.

Headz- Cowboys

This entry was posted in cowboys Etsy Products silly on by

Headz- Cowboys, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

You may remember a batch of severed cowboy heads from a month or so ago. They were for this. I’ll probably make an Indian Headz as well, for sale on Etsy when I get an account.

Hand lettered, so it looks different on each side. I’m not entirely happy with the varnish finish, but that should buff out. See more pictures in the Cowboy Headz set.

The Bechdel Test

This entry was posted in Global Weirding memory sex sexism Venn writing on by

Charlie Stross has posted a piece about Alison Bechdel’s rules for movies (though she attributes the rules to Liz Wallace.)

1. Does it have at least two women in it,

2. Who [at some point] talk to each other,

3. About something besides a man.

Time to test some of my output against the rules. I don’t think Global Weirding passes, but then it’s a first person tale from a male character, which Stross allows a pass for. Ruby Red does pass, because of conversations between Elaine and Ruby. Deputised Experts, I think, has conversations about the investigation between female characters, so it should be okay as well. And George and Hannah talk about everything but men in Memory, though George was written primarily as a geek and could have just as easily been a man. Venn? Well, there’s only one female character in episode 1, and lots of the following episodes are specifically about sex and relationships, so…..

The Dead Code

This entry was posted in DVD Movie Nostalgia Review on by

I watched WarGames: The Dead Code last night. I think the best word to sum it up is unnecessary. Replacing nuclear holocaust with bioterrorism and WOPR with RIPLEY it follows almost exactly the same arc as the original film, right down to a virtual replay of the ending.

All this film did was make me want to watch the original again. It’s WarGames‘ 25th anniversary this year. If you can play Region 1 discs there’s a 25th Anniversary edition coming out soon. Wired talked to some of the people involved in WarGames, including the scriptwriters, director John Badham and geek crush Ally Sheedy.

Teenagers kicked

This entry was posted in music piracy on by

And the rest of us who want to share music.

I lost a lot of respect for Feargal Sharkey on Thursday morning listening to him making a weak case for the BPI’s deal with six big ISPs. In contrast, a representative of In The City was on The Revolution that evening telling the truth- there are lots of ways for musicians to reach out to fans and make money, it’s only the record companies who are suffering, and then only because they want to rip off the musicians and treat their paying customers like thieves.

I would pay for a service that gave me access to the back catalogue of all the major music labels (and all the indies, of course), so long as it didn’t send me files that were crippled with code that kept me from moving them when I upgraded computers, stuck them on my phone or bought an MP3 player.

The Dis from Brazil

This entry was posted in clone Fiction Movie Princess Diana silly on by

Extrapolating from a conversation last night.

There must have been enough genetic material to be swept up from the Parisian tunnel that someone could have got a decent bit of DNA from it. Replicate that, stick it in a few dozen eggs and set yourself up with a baby farm somewhere in South America (or certain parts of eastern Europe, where they’d be even less obvious) and wait. Then, in 2016, when they’ve all turned 18 break out the bowl cuts and let your army of simpering blondes loose to be bedded by older toffs, rugby players and cads. They will also steal the hearts of Britain whilst you carry out your nefarious deeds unnoticed. We won’t even have Gregory Peck around to sniff out the conspiracy.

(2012 would make a more dramatic year for them to be released, what with the Mayan calendar ending and the London Olympics, but they’d only be 14 and that’s wrong.)

(There’s a listing in imdb for The Boys From Brazil due 2009, but no information. What’s the betting it’s yet another unnecessary remake?)

I’ve turned off the Internet

This entry was posted in RSS Spinneyhead on by

The RSS feeds, anyway. I was finding that all I’d do was scroll through reading updates and by the time I’d reached the bottom there’d be a new set to look at, so I’d start again. I have no self control when it comes to information.

I may log in to Bloglines and clean most of the feeds out, so I’ve got a shorter list, but I have found myself more productive since I closed it last week. Information addiction versus increased productivity. Can there be a trade off?

Update I shall now look at my RSS feeds once a week and have a mad frenzy of linkblogging as a result.

I've turned off the Internet

This entry was posted in RSS Spinneyhead on by

The RSS feeds, anyway. I was finding that all I’d do was scroll through reading updates and by the time I’d reached the bottom there’d be a new set to look at, so I’d start again. I have no self control when it comes to information.

I may log in to Bloglines and clean most of the feeds out, so I’ve got a shorter list, but I have found myself more productive since I closed it last week. Information addiction versus increased productivity. Can there be a trade off?

Update I shall now look at my RSS feeds once a week and have a mad frenzy of linkblogging as a result.