New Graffiti animation from Blu

Blu has released a new stop-motion graffiti animation. Each frame of this would stand up as decent graffiti. Yet its also an animation. Which is fairly amazing. I originally posted about Blu on my Graffiti 2.0 post and there's some footage from the first one mixed in to this much bigger piece:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Speaking of graffiti, apparantly this wounded Celtic Tiger is somewhere around Dublin. Anyone see it?

Tricks of the mind

TV. I spend a lot of time giving out about it. That soul-eating suckbox sitting in the corner, dominating all your senses. Slowly eating your life. Hours where you could be making, creating, living, loving. Or even depleting the long list of depressing chores, to live a more clutter-free life. Not just ridding the pile of unironed clothes but the cobwebs in your head. A night on the sofa, wasted life-hours, ending with a fat gut, laden with guilt, like the soiled sock hidden under the bed of a teenage boy.

Woah. I'd just intended to post that I read Derren Brown's book recently and I'm looking foward to his Trick or Treat show again tonight and all that bile just spilled out. What I'd intended to say is that while I do loath the tellybox at times and would love to see it in the bin, I do love good TV, rarity that it is. I've a few heroes I love to watch on the box; David Attenborough, Roy Mears, Richard Dawkins, Armandi Ianucci, Charlie Brooker, Stephen Fry. And I love a good film, or a good quiz (not to be confused with a gameshow).

I just hate when we end up sitting in front of the stupid thing watching crap as if its some kind of domestically social event. And I hate that late night plastic soap plaguing the screens; neither serious nor funny. Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Plastic Polly, Fucking Funty. They're all the same shallow numbeties. And I despise the kind of TV programming designed to reel you in and suck on your very soul, either for the rest of the night (Top 100s) or the rest of your robotic life week after week (soaps). And Fridays are the worst, just when you're too tired to do anything else, they lay on the thickest excrement from the bottom of the barrel.

Woah. Let's try again. Derren Brown's Trick or Treat is on tonight. I like Derren Brown and I find his work intriguing. He could so easily be dismissed as an annoying magician, and he often is. But he doesn't do magic. Psychological tricks, amazing memory feats, and general head fucking but no magic. And he'll be the first to admit, nay shout from the rooftops, that anyone who claims to read your mind or predict the future is nothing but a shyster.

I read his book, Tricks of the Mind recently and it's highly entertaining. Actually it starts off a little bit puerile, with the kind of bad jokes and puns, that people new to writing haven't learned to resist yet. Like people dabbling with electronic music using too much reverb, or budding design enthusiasts using too much drop-shadow. Resist! But the silly puns are gone by the end, as are the silly tricks, from the start of the book. There are fascinating insights into lie detection, cold reading, hypnosis, NLP and memory. Not that showing you the tricks of his trade makes it easy, or possible, to do likewise. Could you fly a plane after reading the manual? The second half of the book is a scathing attack on all forms of mumbo jumbo, from fortune tellers and psychics to healers and religion, which puts him into hero ranks for me.

I'm suddenly reminded of an otherwise clever young guy who constantly regurgitates a line that I reckon some lecturer told him and he thought it was clever. He reckons that Irish Atheist are just rebelling against the Irish Church and it doesn't reach any further than that, which is the biggest load of cock I've ever heard repeated. Like most Atheists, I despise all forms of superstition: fortune tellers, mind readers, lucky black cats, unlucky magpies, psychics, mediums, the number 13, prayer, heaven, hell, god, afterlife, auras, amber beads, luck, souls, ghosts. It's all the same mumbo jumbo to me. Catholic or Muslim, Jew or Gentile.

Woah. Let's try again. Derren Brown's Trick or Treat is on tonight. It's an entertaining little show. Last week was a 'Treat', a guy was shown how to add facts from hundreds of books to his short-term memory and kicked ass in one of the biggest pub quizzes in the UK. In tonight's episode, a girl picks the 'Trick' card and has to wrestle with her conscience over the torture of a cat. I'm guessing that it's Brown's version of that famous obedience to authority experiment carried out by psychologist Stanley Milgram.

Trick or Treat

10.00pm. Channel 4.

Then turn it off and play some scrabble, or bake a cake, or see what fun you can have with some facepaint and a sleeping child. Or... maybe... just watch Peep show on straight after Derren Brown. Then if you've had a few cans, Balls of Steel might seem like a good idea. And then before you know it, it's 2AM and you're woken by the stale beer spilling onto your lap in a cloud of self-loathing on another wasted night.

Some great photos by a Great uncle

My Great Uncle, Harry Braine, set up the Dublin Camera club in 1945. Apparently he spent some time in the Tower of London having been arrested as a spy for being found with photos that were used to plan attacks with the bouncing bomb, or something like that. I say apparently as male members of my family have been know to talk a lot of shit, not least of all the oul lad, also named Harry Braine. Although his shit-talking is more fondly remembered.

Apparently, he also had one of the first cars in Dublin and he also invented the car battery, or at least a part of it. Although I have seen photos that give the latter some credence, and there's no doubting that he was a prominent member of the Photographic Society of Ireland. According to the History of the Dublin Camera Club (pdf), club meetings were sometimes held in his Drumcondra garage and he won many awards. The Bathers, above, is available to buy for a mere €300.00, maybe I'll buy it some day. But it's on a long list of currently unaffordable luxuries, and having my tattoo removed is top of the list.

Here are some other great shots he took. Some backstage photos from Dublin theater back in the day. Found at www.news4.ie

John Harry Braine.

P.S. Speaking of photography, here's a fascinating project:

  This exhibition features people whose lives are coming to an end. It explores the experiences, hopes and fears of the terminally ill. All of them agreed to be photographed shortly before and immediately after death.

Kidney confirmed as Ireland coach

It's coming...

Dance on the box

For all their failings, RTE have always been pretty good at supporting shorts. Dance on the box has been running for the past few weeks now, featuring four dance themed shorts. Big brother watches some street dancing in the last of the series Monitor tonight.

Dance on the box:

RTE2 @ 11:15

Tonight (Thursday May 1st 2008)

GTA3. Used. Out now!

Save yourself money, queing and stabbing by staying one version behind the posse! As Grand Theft Auto IV hits the streets for a half a ton, I just nabbed a copy of GTA3 on ebay for a fiver. You gotta picka pocket, or two.

Statcounter: Some news and a tip

If you have a blog or website, you probably know what statcounter is and probably use it. If you don't, you'll probably find this post fairly boring - but in short, Statcounter shows you interesting stats for your site. Not only a count, but what links have brought people to your site or what they Googled to find a page on your site. If you're anal, you can even sometimes track who, when, and why people come to your site (Yes evil brethren, we could see your every move!).

I often see people on web design forums ask whether to use statcounter or Google Analytics. And the answer is Statcounter(free) for small personal sites, Google Analytics(free) for small businesses and for really serious Web Analytics, you want the kickass Omniture SiteCatalyst(Very not free).

The News

So the news is that Statcounter (which by the way is Irish owned and hugely successful) are in beta testing for the latest release. I think they've major user interface problems and could really do with getting in a professional UI expert (or if they could just keep the left nav consistent). Anyway - the beta release has a few new features, namely exit links. Previously, you could just see where people have come from - but now you can boldly see where they have gone before, or erm after. So all the blue bits in the image below are only available in the beta release.

The Tip

Until they integrate it with the current release, you have to add an extra piece of code to your site to play around with the beta. I didn't put it on every page for now, just the main page. But it made me realise, you could use several different tracking codes on your pages. One main one to go on every page, one to go on your blog, and one for extra sections of your site. For example I have a section called 100 painters which quite often gets more traffic than the rest of my pages put together, but it's not very interesting traffic to keep an eye on -but now I can completely filter it out by having seperate tracking codes.

I realise this post may have completely bored you stupid - but may be slightly useful if you use statcounter and are a bit anal about it. Oh christ. After all that I've just discovered the beta release is 5 months old but somehow the beta post appeared as a new one in my feed reader. No wonder it has 500 comments already. Yo statcounter, put it live already! All of the above is still valid, just not as brand new as I thought it was.

Firewire slothiness

We've had a video camera for years. Six or seven years. I only got around to getting a firewire card last year. Then a few months ago I got a firewire cable and then this week I got the correct firewire cable. Organised or what?! So straight to business when I got it - I wanted to test it straight away and the clip below was the first tape I grabbed from the pile.

It's the game, SuperFlyGuy, that four of us made in college a couple of years ago for the end of year exhibition. You could fly around the city we built, using gloves that had a sensor inside (Wii had a spy in our camp!). So you could just fly around by doing Superman motions. If you look closely, you can see a few dublin-inspired buildings. Irishstu, did some sterling work on it, including the spaceship and the monorail/trains.

Still drawing willys

Yeay my first published graphic work (well first time in a book anyway). Much bigger news of course is that the first copies of the book have arrived. Congrats again to the Missus. Booyakasha!

I reckon my images would have been a fair bit different had I not read Tufte's classic Visual Display of Quantitative Information last year.Very worthwhile read.

My New site: Beating RSI

I kept intending to write an RSI post here; tips on beating RSI - based on my own experience. Then I had a bad relapse and didn't feel so cocky. But in the meantime I realised I had much more to say than I could fit in one blog post. So I've started a new blog: Ways to beat RSI at www.beatingrsi.com. Please spread the word if you think it worthwhile.

I'm using Wordpress this time as opposed to blogger and Wordpress wins hands down. From setup, to redesigning, to writing posts and managing the blog. Big thumbs up to the Wordpress people.

Noisey f*ckers

I don't usually blog about me or my general day-to-day stuff but I need to let off some steam. I can't sleep now, again, because I'm still trembling with hostility. I've just gone in next door barefoot in the rain and nearly broke the door down with my fist. A crowd of people spilled out from the packed hallway confused and gurning to see me shouting at them to shut the fuck up. I usually wouldn't say boo to a duck, but press the right buttons at the right time and I go off like a fucking rocket.

I don't mind the odd party but you should hear these funts*. Three or four nights a week sometimes. Saturdays, Sunday's Wednesdays, any days. They don't care. They don't care that this is a residential road. They don't care that we have a kid or are just about to have another. They don't care that we've banged on that door thirty times already. Thing is they can't just listen to music; they have to whoop and holler all the time, and play bongos, badly.

The missus has tried talking to them during the day when they're not chewing their own faces off and this week she gave them one more chance before we take legal action, and they were very apologetic. So you'd think they'd pipe down this weekend. But nope. They've fired the bongo player but they've hired more whoopers. And there's not much you can do these days. The cops don't care. And the legal route doesn't look worthwhile. Me? I'm finding it very hard to resist fucking with them in my special own way. I could get very creative with the clothes on their washing line. Or you can have all kinds of fun with ketchup and letterboxes. Some nights I have to try very hard not to carry out some of the shit that goes through my head when I'm lying there listening to their fucking whooping. Inconsiderate wankbags.

*If anything good has come out of this night it's the creation of the word funt.

Your number's up mate

I remember exactly where I was on 9/11; waiting to get an 84 to D2 to pick up my P45. I was 30 years old wearing 9 carat gold, looking forward to playing some 4 to the floor on my 1210s 24/7. There was a guy in the seat in front of me with his walkman set to 1 louder. 808 State's remix of UB40's 1 in 10 blasted back towards me. I moved to the back of the bus and tried to read my book, Catch 22. But I couldn't concentrate. I had to do a number 2. I looked out the window but couldn't see much. The window was clean, but my eyes were beginning to fail me. I'd been to the optician last week but his eye machine was 1/2 broken; he told me I had a 50/50 chance of 20/20 vision. I remember that day well, the optician was on level 42 but the elevator was out of service and there were 39 steps on every floor! I had to run all the way as my holiday started that day. I was going on a cruise to sail the 7 seas for 40 days and 40 nights, and then back again. Yep, around the world in 80 days.

The driver was doing 90 down the N11 in a 60 zone. I thought I could feel the bus slipping a bit, it was an icy day. Just as I was trying to convince myself that he knew what he was doing, the bus went into a big skid and did a 360, knocking some guy on a honda 50 a whole 9 yards into a girl on a 3 wheeler. 10 white knuckles gripped the seat in front of me. I no longer needed to do a number 2. I ran down the stairs. The driver was on his walkie talkie "One two. One two. This is car 54. We got a 10-42. And I'm injured. They got me bad. I repeat we've got a 10-42........ 10-20 Good buddy Roger that......... hey I heard that Jimmy you 2 faced prick, 2 fast 2 furious me arse... could have happened to anyone... ".

The downstairs of the bus was full of unhappy campers, 1/2 of them thrown from their seats and sprawled on the floor. There were 12 Angry men, 2 fat ladies, 3 men and a baby. All screaming at the driver, who was the image of Desmond Tutu. He got out of his box and held his palms up towards the passengers trying to calm them. "Please forgive me" he said "and lest we not forget Luke 22:14, Set your spirit free, it's the only way to be. I wanna really really really wanna zigazig ha". A rivulet of blood appeared on his forehead, trickled quickly down his face and he collapsed. "He's gone to 7th heaven" muttered one of the ladies. "On Cloud 9 if you ask me" said one of the men. I got my mobile out and rang 999, heard a satanic voice and realised I had my phone up-side-down. I rang again and got put on hold. I couldn't believe it. I had to listen to Beethoven's 9th symphony on an emergency line. And some 90210 ritch bitch was yelling into her mobile "I SAID I WAS, LIKE, IN A CRASH!". I told her to shut up and knelt beside the driver to feel his pulse, the fat lady was right. I closed his eyes and muttered under my breath, "Your number's up mate, your number's up".

Big Shoe

For not other reason than waking up before everyone else, wanting to do something creative, and these being the first three images I decided upon before the beasts arose

Gorgeous

Gorgeous piece of work by Robert Hodgin using processing (music is by Goldfrapp). I've used processing a little bit before and have seen a good few other projects - but nothing as visually stunning as this. Read all about the project at www.flight404.com.

Sat navs are fecking ace

I was just about to leave a comment on Grandad's post - but remembered I wanted to have a good old rant about my special relationship with sat navs and the bad press my little babies receive. I love Sat Navs - but to a lot of people they’re the “mobile phone” of the noughties. Remember when yuppies got mobile phones and you wouldn’t be seen dead with one? No way. I’m never ever getting a mobile phone. Yuppie twats. I haven’t seen a more reviled piece of technology since the glorious days of yuppie bashing. Every last one of us eventually gave in, and now as we slowly lifted our heads from the shame of mobile phonery, the first device to catch our spiteful eye is The Sat Nav – but lo, not only does it glisten, it speaks! Its fractured vocabulary commanding us to go forth and turn left. Surely the work of Beelzebub.

My introduction to Sat Navs was a few years ago in a taxi leaving Madrid airport. I remember it fondly. I sat in the back ignoring the sandy landscape for the whole journey, transfixed by the box of direction. Yet I considered it a luxury and placed it at the back of my mind, until riches came my way. Then one Christmas, I unravelled a shiny parcel from my generous sister-in-law and found probably the best present I’ve got since Big Trak introduced me to the concept of tears of joy.

You see not only is it a great gadget but I very much consider it a disability aid. I really have such an amazingly terrible sense of direction that I am literally lost without it. I can now go places I’ve never been before! I swear I have such a disabled sense of direction that I could turn a corner and completely lose track of what direction I’m facing. And spoken directions go in one ear and out the udder. I could easily set off for Belfast and end up admiring the Cliffs of Mohr. And that's after spending 17 hours trying to get out of the one way system. And I am completely at a loss as to how people drive in alien countries without Sat Navs. Without my trusty companion, I definitely would have been ended up crawling around the Nevada dessert, licking vulture skulls.

Ok I can follow a map - but not while I’m driving. Neither can I turn a page of a map book while driving. And at its most basic, that’s all a Sat Nav is; a map with continually turning pages. A map that attaches to your window instead of flapping all over the place and falling from the passenger seat to the floor. Denying these small leaps of innovation is futile technophobia that also smacks of I’m alright Jack, while hundreds of us suffer the interminable agony of this crippling disability, ahem.

Jury Service

I was called up for jury service this week. The first thing anyone said to me when I mentioned it is “If you want out get out of it just blah blah blah”. What’s that all about? While not exactly a barrel of laughs, I thought it’d be a really interesting life experience. I didn’t try and get out of it - but I have to admit I was having second thoughts on the day. It’s all fairly unnerving, or at least it is for people like me who are easily unnerved by certain situations.

After a lengthy roll call of about 200 possible jurors, and some brief instruction on the day, Justice Carey arrived, and straight off the cuff ran through a summary of the current case. I didn’t even see the defendant arrive but all of a sudden I was listening to grisly details of a man accused of murdering his brother in a knife and hatchet fight. So I peaked over the rail and sure enough there he was with his head in his hands. It only struck me then that this is the central criminal court and it was all going to be very serious shit. I saw three different people who were accused of murder.

I couldn’t believe the amount of people around me cracking jokes or noisily reading papers. I felt like nudging the guy beside me and saying “Look, that’s tomorrow’s news right in front of you, right there!” When the jury were sent off to reach a verdict (they found him guilty of manslaughter), it was our turn.

The atmosphere was unbelievably tense. Nerve bugs like me feed off that shit. I was feeling more nervous then the new defendants that had just strolled in. Jury names were picked out of a hat and people filed up to the jury box where they were either sworn in, rejected (by prosecution or defence team), or shouted up that they had a holiday in a couple of weeks. A few people seemed to get cold feet and copied the holiday idea. I was surprised at how many people swore on almighty god. Not one person requested to attest. I guess when you’re surrounded by peers, it’s easy to forget the general populace still go through the motions of Catholicism (or are actual believers).

My name wasn’t called for either of the two new cases. Both would have ran for at least four weeks and both were murder cases; the guy who allegedly grabbed the steering wheel of a car, causing the death of a bloke who he argued with in a club earlier. And the other case was a guy who casually pleaded guilty to an attempted murder with a sawn off shotgun in Stillorgan. Nice. Imagine the amount of waffle I’d write if I actually ended up on the jury.

A bit of the old ultraviolence

Funny Games is one of those films where you get exactly what you expected to get and that’s just fine. There are a couple of cinematic tricks, and possibly some deeper ponderings about the treatment of violence in film but at its heart it’s a pretty good thriller.

It’s a classic setup with a small cast, and a small set. Though the premise is somewhat contrived, the reality of pain, both physical and mental, is treated with a bit more respect than you’re used to getting. A rich family are held captive in their splendid lakeside holiday home by two demented posh boys. They’re ever-so polite and mannered, yet sadistic little pricks, sure to be the spawn of a one night stand with Hannibal Lectre*.

The boys do their job well though; despicable at first sight in their glowing tennis shorts and punchable pouty mouths. Tim Roth and Naomi Watts are as good as ever, though there’s something about the sight of Watts’ snivelling snots and tears that’s starting to seem a bit over familiar now. She’s sure to be remembered for snots and nipples, despite her stellar performance in Mullholland.

I’ve not heard much about Funny Games before seeing it but I know it’s a remake and I’d like to see the original, which is no doubt much better - but Funny Games definitely isn’t one of those shit remakes doing the rounds.

*Erm, well, that’s if they were twins, or brothers.

Making Babies

I've been frantically working on a website for the missus in time for her imminent book launch. The new site is www.makingbabies.ie and it went live today. All feedback welcome. Will be re-doing the background/header imagery. Few people already saying its a bit much.

Cassette changer

Does anything strike you as odd about selling a toy like this in 2008?

I went for a walk at lunch and ended up rooting through the ice cream fridge in the local garage, fine day that's in it. The rack of toys over the fridge caught my eye. This Cassette changer is a tape that transforms into a dinosaur. "4 to collect!". Was only two quid so I bought it just to see the expression on the little lad's face.

I've got a surprise
Oh what is it!? What is it!?
Here
Eh what is it? what is it?
Well it starts off as a cassette...
A what?
A tape
A what?
Look over there!
Hey look, a T-Rex!
Ooooh A T-rex! Where's the cat set gone?

Next week I'm getting the floppy disk that turns into pterodactyl.