Stuff, Wotsits and Thingies

OOPS I married a sketch!

// January 28th, 2009 // 13 Comments » // illustration, photos, photoshop

Everlasting gobstopper

// January 26th, 2009 // 9 Comments » // random

This just occured to me.

As much as I love Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factoy, the ending is just ridicilous. There is absolutely no way Charlie would hand over The Everlasting Gobstopper. Ok we get it, Charlie is the bastion of honesty he’s not going to slip it to Mr. Slugworth (now working for Alan Sugar by the way) but there’s just no way he wouldn’t keep it for himself anyway. It’s an everlasting gobstopper! Why would he hand it over!? Most unplausible ending ever.

Train of thought: I was installing a wireless scanner, and still get amazed by that kind of stuff. I put a photo in the scanner and it magically floated through the air and popped up on my monitor! Just like Mike Teevee.

Related: I once did a mixtape called “The Everlasting Gobstopper mix”. When you got to the end of the tape you’d turn it over and it continued at the same point in the mix on the other side. Then when you got to the end of that side, the same thing would happen. I managed to get clear tapes with no markings at all. No A. No B. No start. No finish. An everlasting gobstopper mix. I think I got those tapes free with Cornflakes.

Yes this one is definitely getting filed under random.

Book shelf

// January 25th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // photos

Might be time to start a new ‘book shelf’.

bookshelf, originally uploaded by jbraine.

Great song

// January 22nd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // music

I just heard this at the weekend on that Orange unsigned act show and I’ve been singing it ever since. Tommy Reilly – Give me a call.

The last time I remember that happening was when Steve Earl was on Jules Holland. Simple little song but I’ve been singing the chorus ever since.

Anyone spot Steve playing an ex Junky in the Wire ?

Best technology blogger!?

// January 20th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // blogging

In case you came here from today’s Irish Blog Awards nominations and wondering how the hell I got nominated as a best technology blogger… well, me too!

Ok I knew there were on or two technology posts so I had a look through the years posts and was surprised to find 9 ‘technology’ posts, so there are few more than I thought. Some are a bit of a stretch though.

Hey, I ain’t complaining! Very nice to be appreciated regardless of category, specially seeing as I’ve been very quiet lately. Bizarrely enough I haven’t had so much time to blog since leaving full time employment. Plenty of contracts and what not keeping me busy. I have a to-do list longer than recent dole queues.

So thanks for the nomination! Whoever it was.

• 
  Macro Man!
  
• 
  Installing and reskinning Wordpress
  

• 
  Rate my ISP
  
• 
  Upgrade yer auld browser!
  
• 
  Do you like to chat?
  
• 
  Sat navs are fecking ace
  
• 
  Another Google reader tip
  
• 
  Robot dog parody
  
• 
  Piclens
  

A very short story

// January 9th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // illustration, waffle, web, writing

“He lifted her bloodied head – eyes gouged out, bedroom door ajar; he looked inside then prised the knife from her hand and repeated the act.”

I thought I’d have a go at a twitter sized (140 characters) short story during the week. Though I did get one WTF?! reply, thankfully the Dublin homicide team didn’t smash the door down; recently a friend of a friend of…. twittered about smothering her daughter, very obviously joking and in context. Soon enough the LA cops were banging the door down. Yikes.

I wish my wife was this dirty

// January 8th, 2009 // 8 Comments » // Uncategorized

I wish my wife was this dirty, originally uploaded by jbraine.

Schizophrenic

// January 3rd, 2009 // 2 Comments » // design, waffle

I saw this logo today and I laughed out loud despite the fact that it perfectly represented one of my pet peeves. It’s a clever logo, yet at the same time I couldn’t believe a company were using a mark that perpetuated the king of misrepresented ailments.

Despite many cultural references that would have you think otherwise, Schizophrenia has nothing to do with split personality. Indeed the word is actually derived from a Greek word meaning split mind but it’s a name that just happened to stick, despite being considerably inappropriate.

Alas my quest to chastise said company was a bit of a wild goose chasing a red herring, or something. When I arrived at the original source of the logo, it turns out it’s not a real company name, just an idea for a logo by a designer. And commenters there have already pointed out that this logo is an exact representation of what schizophrenia isn’t.