Archive for November, 2008

Kate And Jon’s Annual Photo Shoot

Published by Jon on 30 November 2008 in Friends. 5 Comments

I should have posted these shots some time ago but me being me I never got around to it.

Kate came around one Sunday, what feel’s like yonks ago, and we went out for a couple of beers. Kate being Kate of course she didn’t manage to get to Nottingham until gone 18:00. On a Sunday. So as you can imagine we didn’t party particularly hard.

I’m happy to report though, that when I got up in the morning I found that my bin hadn’t been disturbed during the night. I think you all know what I’m referring to.

For those that don’t know what I’m referring to, let me clarify.

My subtle allusion is to an incident from a number of years ago, whereby Kate fished some pizza out of a bin and had it for breakfast. Bad enough you may think but no, there’s more. The pizza had been discarded along with a number of used tea bags.

I think that takes recycling a step too far, no?

In the interests of balance I would like to point out that Kate denies ever having fished the pizza out of the bin. She claims it was merely resting in its box (on its own, no tea bags), atop the bin.

That’s what she would say though isn’t it?

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Star Trek

Published by Jon on 29 November 2008 in Movies. 4 Comments

The new Star Trek is shaping up nicely. Can’t say that I like all of the casting choices but Spock and Bones are perfect.

It sounds like they’ve sorted out a decent plot too. Guess we’ll have to wait until May to see for sure though won’t we?

Spock’s a nice touch but is it me or does he look uncannily like Brucie in this trailer?

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Normal Service Resumed

Published by Jon on 29 November 2008 in Aside. 0 Comments

Looks like the site’s almost back to normal. Never again!

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Well That Went Well

Published by Jon on 29 November 2008 in Announcements. 0 Comments

Except it didn’t.

My plan to renew my Wordpress installation and change my blog theme have gone proper wrong.

Primarily the version of Wordpress I’m using is out of date by several revisions, so an upgrade of that would have been good but (there’s always a but) the theme I’d chosen which is a K2 style, is broken under anything more modern than Wordpress 2.7.

So, to cut a long story short I’ve just fucked it off for now. The blog is working, sorta, and I’ve changed the Lightbox effect on images but I’ve still got a major job on my hands to get it properly sorted. Lots of admin to do.

I also want to get my One Year gallery centred on the page, but it’s proving a real bitch to do. Damn it.

So far outstanding jobs are:

  • File structure housekeeping
  • Element alignment (galleries and video)
  • Video hosting (move files back to Revver)
  • Various layout issues
  • Investigate Twitter feed’s temperamental nature
  • Update Wordpress without breaking anything
  • Document issues with NGGallery
  • Reduce categories, tag all posts
  • Clean up photo galleries (tagging, image sizing)

I can’t think of anything else at the minute but it looks like these issues will have to wait until I take a break in January.

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Crackerwax Is Dead

Published by Jon on 11 November 2008 in Announcements. 9 Comments

I’ve decided to retire this site.

It’s looking old and well past its best and as Restless Cheese said the other night, it’s a bit word heavy.

So, in order to revitalise www.crackerwax.com I’ve been fiddling with a test site.

Have a looky!

Bear in mind it’s not finished and is only up there to give you a feel for the style I’m going for next.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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Hen Do’s Terrify Me

Published by Jon on 7 November 2008 in Idiots, Photos and Ranting. 2 Comments

I snapped this while I was out getting some coffee the other day.

Hen do. Shudder.

Hen do’s seem to be viewed as a great excuse for overweight heifers to trot around cities they’d never normally dare visit, dressed like chubby prostitutes, shouting their fat northern mouths off and generally indulging in their usual small town, gobshite behaviour, just on a bigger canvas.

There are normally an abundance of cock shaped novelty items floating around too.

Oh and just before any smart arse (Tony I’m looking at you) decides to put a comment on this page about my apostrophe use in ‘do’s’, I’ve checked before.

It’s acceptable as typographical embellishment to add clarity.

So there.

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This Is True

Published by Jon on 7 November 2008 in Aside. 0 Comments

‘Change gear, change gear, change gear, check mirror, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That’s a lot of effort in a day.’. Ten points to that man.

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Video 2000!

Published by Jon on 4 November 2008 in Cool, Freaky, Funny and Geeky Stuff. 4 Comments

My Dad bought a Philips Video 2000 system in the early eighties. It came with a groovy little video that showed you how to use it, y’know program it and such.

The one abiding memory I have of this video is a little fella in a hat, that spoke gibberish and had the most amazing bendy fingertips. In fact I sometimes think I imagined the whole thing.

No more though! Now, thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I’ve found the actual video! Rejoice in its bizarre splendour.

Freaky, huh? Made all the more freaky by the weird alien thing that it makes you imagine actually starts your recordings when you’re out and the music towards the end (a cross between Jean Michel-Jarre and a bad trip in a fairground). Amazing stuff.

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President Obama And The Chance For Change

Published by Jon on 2 November 2008 in Events and Politics. 0 Comments

The latest Gallup poll has the Democrats sitting on 52% of the vote and the Republicans on 41%. This is good news.

Americans have spent the last eight years living in what amounts to a dictatorship. With fudged elections and battles with fictitious, unseen terrorist enemies Bush has lost credibility.

On top of this his attacks on foreign countries, each of them carried out with a cry of freedom, being little more than attempts to seize control of their resources, it’s about time the USA stood down from its role as global oppressor.

Should Barack Obama win tomorrow’s election, and I for one hope he does, he will have a monumental task ahead of him to convince the world that the USA can change.

Too long have Americans been seen as illiterate, boastful and brash. As bullies that proclaim their superiority to the rest of the world by dint of the fact that they claim to have God on their side and have the guns to back it up.

The USA is simultaneously enriched and bankrupted by the notion that you can be what you want to be and that everybody has the chance to control their destiny.

Sadly this is not true.

One look at the top ten in the Fortune 500 from 2008 shows you that only a select few are in charge of the world and chances are you’re never joining their club.

  1. Wal-Mart Stores
    CEO: Lee Scott
  2. Exxon Mobil
    CEO: Rex Tillerson
  3. Royal Dutch Shell
    CEO: Jeroen van der Veer
  4. BP
    CEO: Tony Hayward
  5. Toyota Motor
    CEO:Fujio Cho
  6. Chevron
    CEO: David O’Reilly
  7. ING Group
    CEO: Michel Tilmant
  8. Total
    CEO: Christophe de Margerie
  9. General Motors
    CEO: Richard Wagone
  10. ConocoPhillips
    CEO: James Mulva

Oil, automobiles, a bit of money and a retail giant. The men at the helm of these companies, and they are all men, are in control. It is these people that Obama will have to deal with.

Now I don’t know enough about Senator Obama to know which side of the fence President Obama will be on. My guess is that he’s not too deeply ingrained into the world that President Bush is, I can only hope that he will be enough of an outsider to effect the change required.

My fingers are crossed.

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My Underground Bunker Inches Closer

Published by Jon on 2 November 2008 in Cool, Geeky Stuff, Photos and Places. 4 Comments

It looks like BT are flogging a whole series of tunnels underneath High Holborn in London. The asking price is unconfirmed but I bet it’s more than I could raise.

I love shit like this, it’s too cool for words. Can you imagine how amazing it would be if it was turned into a hotel or a night club?

Underground snooker club?

It’s awesome to think that places like this even exist. It was built during the war, which is clear to see and has ended up, through privatisation, belonging to British Telecom. Now they’re selling it off.

Them's big tunnels.

As is mentioned in the Telegraph’s article it’s unlikely it will be turned into a hotel because of risks about fire evacuation and such but some enterprising individual could work out a way around that, surely?

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What To Do!

Published by Jon on 2 November 2008 in Announcements and No Idea. 8 Comments

I’m sitting here in front of my Mac and I can’t think of a single thing to write, well apart from this thing about how I can’t think of anything to write.

Sometimes it feels like there’s too much to do and I’m paralysed by the choice available to me.

So I’m sitting here listening to Eels and lazily browsing the web.

So often do I end up sitting in stasis, unable to move, not going one way or the other for fear of missing something. Unable to even commit to watching a film, two hours is too much, I might miss something else.

Consequently I miss everything.

This is a mess isn’t it?

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