X-Planes
I’m currently working my way back through the archives of http://xplanes.tumblr.com, which are full of great and odd aeroplane photos.
Monthly archives: March 2009
Tweets today
23:27 Blog: Big Numbers tinyurl.com/csubxd #
23:27 Blog: Tweets today tinyurl.com/c5yh8j #
11:15 Just followed a load of people. Mostly comics related. #
11:17 @Sarah_Hartley And me, but I’ve been doing it for a while. #
11:22 @technicalfault Amongst many other things 🙂 #
12:34 @MagicDan85 I tried that Relentless Green the other day. It wasn’t bad. I can rarely tell if caffeine’s affecting me until I’ve had too much #
13:27 Into town via as many bike shops as possible. #
14:02 Bike Doctor interrogated for the bike shop feature. #
14:27 Edinburgh Bike interrogated for bike shop feature. And I have a contact number for possible review bikes. #
14:51 Bicycle boutique interrogated for bike shops feature. I’m not normally this productive, must be Spring. #
15:18 Harry Hall interrogated for bike shop feature. #
15:30 Evans Cycles interrogated. Forgot to take a picture. Now out of questionnaires and convenient bike shops. #
16:54 Got me a movie oh oh oh. Slicing up eyeballs oh oh oh. Girl you’re so groovy oh oh oh! #
19:26 RT @timdifford: Harry Hill interrogated for burp shop feature. #
19:34 @Kalyr And now I have to listen to some of B-Sides Themselves for some strange reason. #
22:09 @technicalfault 2nd hand’s an option at that price. Try GBH bikes, just off Tib Street near Centro. I’ve not interrogated them yet. #
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Resilience Economics
I haven’t given up on Sounds of Soldiers, but I have reached a point where I need to get everything written thus far into a format where I can organise chapter order and set about revisions and plotting the ending. So there probably won’t be many moe chapterlets in the near future.
This piece by Jamais Cascio reminded me of some of the themes of Sounds of Soldiers, so I’m bookmarking it to refer to when I begin the edits.
Tweets today
10:01 Yesterday I got glorious sunny footage of Manchester. Today would be more realistic. #
19:30 Mapping FAIL. So far Platial has put Withington Cycles in Algerian desert and northern Iowa. A long way to go for my local bike shop. #
21:21 This week’s Wednesday film will be Duplicity @ 6.30 @ AMC. #
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Big Numbers
In 1990 Alan Moore self published two, of a planned twelve, issues of a comic called Big Numbers (wikipedia). It was to be a tale of trouble in a small town, with chaos theory and fractal geometry informing the structure. I bought both issues, I don’t know if I still possess them. The third, and possibly fourth, issues were drawn but never published, but photocopies of the lettered part three did exist.
One lucky Ebayer got a set of the photocopies and has scanned them and poted them to his LiveJournal.
via Forbidden Planet
Tweets today
15:59 I finally turn up to I Bike Platt Fields and the sun comes out. I am that great. #
18:08 I have the house to myself :-). And no plans for debauchery :-(. #
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Tweets today
23:25 Blog: Tweets today tinyurl.com/d2jlz5 #
05:13 Scale: Vintage Racers in action tinyurl.com/cj29me #
06:28 On Two Wheels- Cycling makes you a better person tinyurl.com/d76l9m #
16:25 Blog: Extreme Sheep Art tinyurl.com/cwa3g5 #
17:56 Critical Massers assemble! #
18:04 Manchester’s taxi drivers are having their own demo. Bastards, stealing our idea! #
18:12 Streaming video- qik.com/video/1329388 #
19:26 Blog: Shoot and Benny tinyurl.com/dme77f #
20:31 Streaming video- qik.com/video/1330336 #
21:25 Blog: Rollapaluza tinyurl.com/d9opkj #
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Rollapaluza
Rolling road bike races. I haven’t volunteered.
Shoot and Benny
Here is something you really want to shoot with and here is a Benny Hill Url which is also amusing if you use adblockpro.
Extreme Sheep Art
This is extreme sheep art which was pointed out to me and I thought Ian might be interested in.
Tweets today
23:24 Blog: If you can’t say it with flowers then don’t say anything tinyurl.com/chlg4g #
23:24 Blog: Tweets today tinyurl.com/dypqun #
11:24 Blog: Kittens! tinyurl.com/cd737c #
11:33 Testing out Twhirl. #
11:40 @SkippyUK Just another way of using Twitter at the mo. I have plans that involve using multiple accounts, will see if it’s good for that. #
11:46 @SkippyUK I don’t even know what #EventBox is. #
11:49 Suddenly the sky is blue. Perhaps I will cycle in after all. #
13:00 And now hail!? Hold that cycling in plan. #
13:25 Blog: Because the music that they constantly play, it says nothing to me about my life tinyurl.com/comy9z #
14:39 Wussiness, and practicality, wins over cycling in. #
16:25 Digging the kitsch in cafe pop. #
18:07 Tempura black pudding sounds interesting. Maybe if I get hungry before the kitchen closes. #
18:20 It’s ladies’ night in The Northern. They’re having an Ann Summers party or something so our meeting’s moved tables. #
18:53 With bonus Rags to Bitches fashion show (not Ann Summers, oh well). #
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Vintage Racers in action
If, like me, you’ve got a couple of the reissued Airfix vintage car kits from a couple of years go these vintage racing pictures could giveyou some conversion ideas.
Technorati tag: Scale Models
Because the music that they constantly play, it says nothing to me about my life
Panic on the streets of London
Panic on the streets of Birmingham
I wonder to myself
Could life ever be sane again ?
The Leeds side-streets that you slip down
I wonder to myself
Hopes may rise on the Grasmere
But Honey Pie, you’re not safe here
So you run down
To the safety of the town
But there’s Panic on the streets of Carlisle
Dublin, Dundee, Humberside
I wonder to myself
Burn down the disco
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music that they constantly play
IT SAYS NOTHING TO ME ABOUT MY LIFE
Hang the blessed DJ
Because the music they constantly play
On the Leeds side-streets that you slip down
Provincial towns you jog ’round
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
HANG THE DJ, HANG THE DJ
Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ, Hang the DJ
HANG THE DJ
But I was listening to the Carter USM cover version
Kittens!
And not in the “That’s a horrible image! I have to think of something else! Kittens! Kittens! Kittens!” way that was first used over New Year. Check out the super cute gallery of Clouded Leopard cubs.
via bioephemera
Tweets today
23:24 Blog: Tweets today tinyurl.com/dd43ky #
10:48 May need a new scanner. My current one has a mark all the way down the glass that I can’t get at to see if it’s a scratch or cleanable. #
14:24 Blog: Here be dragons tinyurl.com/cnhogq #
14:24 Blog: Some people have too much time on their hands tinyurl.com/dj9y39 #
15:56 @Kalyr Dunnn Dunn GOLD! Always believe in your soul! You’ve got the power to know! You’re indestructable! #
16:13 @Kalyr Context? We don’t need no steenking context! #
16:27 Into town to buy a diary, meet an actress and watch a crappy film. #
21:25 It’s called Knowing because the message is obvious as soon as Nic Cage starts talking about heaven. #
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If you can’t say it with flowers then don’t say anything
This is the song that donated the title for Sounds of Soldiers. There are too many books that aren’t very good that take their titles from the Bible or works of great literature. I’ve always wanted to write something better than a Tom Clancy (I’d say better than Dan Brown, but that would be aiming low) then take the title from something supposedly low brow like the indie music I love.
The Christmas cards and greetings are arriving
Across the shifty sands to the war
by the time I get to read them she’ll be rising
To a 50/50 chance and nothing more
Through the sleet and drizzle
You can hear the sounds of soldiers
The Kalashnikov and splutter
On a sunny day
From the east of the middle
To the north and south of nowhere
People earn their bread and butter
In some funny ways
CHORUS
Meanwhile…
In the corridors of power
Where the talks are in full swing
If you can’t say it with flowers
Then don’t say anything
Because I want to see my children
Grow up into healthy human beings
I want to see them walking, running
Playing, laughing and singing
CHORUS
I’m just outside the home
of Christmas now
And I’m dying
All across the shifty sands there’s blood and guts
By the time I get to Jesus she’ll still be crying
I guess a 50/50 chance wasn’t good enough
Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine – Say It With Flowers
Also- This Is The Sound Of An Eclectic Guitar – A Collection of Other People’s Songs
Tweets today
23:24 Blog: Tweets today tinyurl.com/dju6hh #
09:36 Good at the sex, crap at the seduction. #
15:02 £5 bento boxes at Walrus. Nice, and very good value. #
16:51 How many Mancunian drivers actually understand box junctions? #
19:06 @technicalfault Ten minutes or so. We were the only people there at the time. #
21:41 @grimnorth well, it’s in Staines. That’s not a good start. #
22:23 Blog: Sounds of Soldiers- Two Kinds Of Safe tinyurl.com/czl3hf #
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Sounds of Soldiers- Two Kinds Of Safe
I can’t sleep.
My parents, and my brother and his family, arrive tomorrow and I’m going to introduce them to my girlfriend, a former lover and the grandson they don’t know about. I should have told them, I know, but communication’s been a bit ropey. I miss my student days, when the most I had to worry about when they visited was hiding my housemates’ joints.
The gun’s keeping me awake as well. I’d forgotten the paranoia that being armed generates in me.
It’s a nice piece, a mongrel constructed from at least three weapons. The actions are all smooth, trigger pressure is about right and there’s been a little bit of machining and weighting to improve the balance. Robinson’s lady friend is an above average gunsmith. There are three magazines- one left empty on a rotating basis to rest the spring- and a box of rounds.
I thought about keeping it a secret from Sally. But there’s no way a piece that well hidden could be any use.
We sat at the small table in the kitchen and I stripped it down whilst we talked about being armed. “Do you really think it will make us safer?”
“No. And yes.”
“You can’t have it both ways.”
I started putting the gun back together again. “It’s sort of two different kinds of safe. When I came off the bike the helmet saved my life. It didn’t prevent the accident, but it made the difference between being alive and functional and being dead or brain damaged. That’s why I wore a helmet in the first place. No matter how careful and vigilant I was I couldn’t change the fact that there were a lot of idiots on the road.” I handed the reassembled, unloaded gun to her. “Fully loaded it’s a bit heavier” She pointed it at the floor and pulled the trigger, jumping when the hammer fell on an empty chamber. “The gun’s a bike helmet. I’ll do everything I can to stay out of trouble, keep us out of trouble, but the gun is there just in case.” I slid the magazine into position, but didn’t chamber a round.
Now the gun’s in the bedside table, where I can get at it easily if I have to. It’ll go somewhere safer if Robert junior ever stays over, but otherwise it stays close to me at all times.