Banksy – ‘I don’t believe in Global Warming’ Closer

Banksy – ‘I don’t believe in Global Warming’ Closer

Originally uploaded by RomanyWG

Awesome. All I need to say.

How to stop 300 tonnes of metal

The answer to this question is simple: Fashion a train out of this metal and let it snow.

As you can guess this is post that has spawned out of rage. I have always tried to give the public transport system the benefit of doubt but my foolishness has ended this weekend.

In Europe; Switzerland, Austria, Germany or any other country in fact. The “adverse weather” conditions such as snow and rain do not affect their public transport systems. Especially their trains which run on time, at normal speed and with heating. In England the whole system breaks, admittedly is was never perfect, but it really just grinds to a halt.

For instance, this weekend I thought a jouney to Kent to drop off Christmas presents wasn’t too much to ask. It had snowed over the thursday night but even in the fields this snow was only shoe height, not exactly off-piste depth. I had arrived at Charing Cross station on friday evening to catch the train and witnessed some strange and frankly bloody annoying things take place. I was under no illusion there would not be delays but didn’t expect the plethora of issues I witnessed:

1. The station had the entire poulation of London in it. Fact.
2. There were a crowd of carol singers risking their lives by taking up space for angry commuters and generally destroying my Christmas cheer.
3. There was also an employee who had decided that instead of announcing useful delay information over the public address system, he would instead make up trains and describe all delays as being 15 minutes long.
4. The train I was aiming for had 4 of these “delay” periods making it actually 1 hour late.
5. The same train actually vanished for 15 of these minutes too as there were no announcements, and it wasn’t on the board either.
6. Once the platform was announced only 3 of 15 gates were opened to move everyone through.
7. On boarding the train we were greeted by the most ridiculously cheerful women ever, not just cheerful but “on something cheerful”
8. The train then had to travel at reduced speed (20mph) most of the way due to maintenance, or snow as I like to call it.
9. There was no heating on the train which meant I nearly shattered my teeth from chattering.
10. In total from wait to destination it took 3 hours.

It was a horrible journey which I put to the back of my mind and enjoyed the weekend. The issue came back 1 hour ago when I arrived at the station for the return journey; the train was delayed. But there was no expected time, it just said delayed, turns out only half and hour which after friday seemed fantastic. So here I am, travelling at reduced speed raging about how completely attrocious the public transport it in England. Aaahhhhhhh!!!

I used to love snow but thanks to national rail and it’s friends I have grown a passionate hate for it. I think I shall move to Europe. Soon.

Enjoy the snow (those who don’t travel) and have a lovely Christmas.

P.S. Sorry for the spellling, I am still sat on the train, with no heating again and my thumbs aren’t quite responding as I require to type correctly.

Pretty Things, Check.

Why am I blogging about jewellery? It’s a bit out of the ordinary for me isn’t it.

Well, that’s because this is extraordinary jewellery.

Imagine jewellery that doesn’t just stick to the norm, breaks the mould and makes everything that little bit more fun. This is exactly what young designer, Sally Pawson, brings to the table.

“An upcoming designer, maker; Sally Pawson is definitely one to watch out for. Her colourful, playful jewellery pieces use traditional jewellery techniques to combine printed aluminium sheet and silver. Resulting in contemporary, affordable pieces that will amuse and delight. Sally’s collection is made in a variety of seasonal hues, inspired by the countryside and gardens surrounding her rural Somerset studio.”

Sally takes the fun and playfulness of her jewellery straight into her wallpaper designs too, recently featured in the Sunday Times. Not standard boring wallpaper though, it’s Interactive Wallpaper! Not only is it funky and cool off the roll, you then get to unleash the coloured pens and pencils and join up the dots, creating unique patterns and a truly modern feature of your home. Imagine defying the parents and drawing all over the walls without getting a telling off.

I’m not sure about everyone else but I love buying something different for Christmas presents and what better than beautiful handmade  jewellery. So stop reading this, click the link and head over there to take a look!

 

Know how to exploit the weak points

If you are ever threatened by monsters, aliens, robots or any other bad guys then this poster from Olly Moss will surely help survival for quite  a bit longer then the average joe.

Found this through Gizmodo, and A Life Well Wasted.

 

 

 

Who writes these stories?

I read the Metro newspaper on pretty much, a daily basis. Before anyone reminds me I know it is a FREE paper so I shouldn’t complain about it, but it has annoyed me too much now and I feel I must rant!

The gaming and movie reviews SUCK!

I don’t mean the final scoring of a review, I pay little attention to this bit anyway. What I mean is; What a pile of gibberish, its like they copied a review from a pre-release one, that another gaming/movie website, already produced a month earlier. There is no indication the reviewer has even played the game or watched the movie and this does my nut!

Again, I know it is free but it would be a much better free paper if they either wrote a real review or just “cut the chuff” out of it altogether! Arrrrhhhhh.

Okay, rant over.

Toe Socks are wierd

Late night post I know but I felt the wierd things that are Toe Socks deserved a mention.

I once owned a pair of red and black striped ones (dennis the menace style). They have since gone missing, possibly stolen for how cool they made me look?

Described by a friend earlier as,

“making her toes feel tingly and odd”

I agreed with the feelings but mentioned that I wasn’t convinced they actually did guys sizes, and it was a unisex version I had once owned.

How little I knew.

There is a larger supply of mens toe socks than I realised for instance here where there is whole pages of mens toe socks.

Tonight I learnt something.

Tell me what you think and whether toe socks make your feet tingle too?

Streaming. Done.

Okay I mentioned in the last post that  it was possible through the magic floaty data dust known as wifi you can stream movies from your computer to your Xbox 360 instead. Read on…

The program you need is called tversity which as you have probably guessed from all other software I’ve mentioned is FREE. There is the option to upgrade to the pro version but I’ve stuck with the basic one and it does all I need so far.

Keeping it short and sweet; install, activate and enjoy.

It runs a media server on the computer which is found on the Xbox 360 dashboard under the videos section,  and allows you to play movies and videos straight onto your TV. I have had very few issues running it so far and there is loads of support on their website and  forums if there are any issues. Before being recommended tversity I didn’t realise it was possible to stream without having more expensive specific versions of windows  which support media streaming, that’s why it rocks so much! And it saves on consumable media like DVD’s and CD’s.

Right enough geeking for tonight. Stream away.

Quick and Simple DVD Burning

So you have got hold of your video files, now how the hell do you turn them into a DVD that you can watch on your DVD player, Xbox or another PC? Keep reading for the solution…

I won’t go into how to get hold of your movie files as these could come from handycams, mobile phones, torrents (not that i’m suggesting you illegally download them) or your own DVD rips. However you get hold of your digital movie files you have the issue of actually watching them. Do you suffer the smaller computer display(okay I know some people have 37 inch displays etc) or turn them into a DVD to watch on your large HDTV that you bought for that very reason?

Well I’m guessing you would go with the TV. I’m also assuming you don’t want to stream over wifi to an xbox or ps3? That would be a whole other story which I’ll address later on.

The software I would suggest as it has always worked well for me is DVD Flick

DVD Flick is FREE! And it is nice and straightforward to use. It has loads of features but keeps it’s easy for begginners too. Full info can be found here , this explains all the file formats it supports.

All you need to do is find the file you want to burn to DVD, decide on menu options, if you want it burnt to disc after encoding or an iso for burning later, and then click Go.

As it’s free give it a go and see what you think, I would not suggest running it on a low power processor though, as it will take till the end of time to finish.

Enjoy.

Open your eyes to Open Gallery

I was recently introduced to Open Gallery by a friend and in my normal response to art related stuff promptly ignored her and nodded in agreement and said yes in all the right places and proceeded to not think any further about it.

Foolish.

Having now actually paid attention and looked at the projects they are truly awesome! Open Gallery is all about Video Painting. Their info on the site explains in more detail:

“Video paintings are filmed in a single take with a stationary camera. They contain no edits or subsequent manipulation. Video paintings show the world in real time. The video painting is non-narrative. There is no dialogue, no sound. In contrast to the film and video tradition which has been dominated by the provision of meaning and understanding, the video painting aims to escape our cultural and perceptual closures, freeing the viewer to play in the openness of the image.”

Even if art is not normally your thing, this should catch your eye. It is completely different and has an impact unlike other (more boring) forms of art. Take a look at their website or follow them on twitter and see something new.

Munch Bunch Yogurts

Short and Simple.

Munch Bunch split pot yogurts are a marvel of engineering. They somehow arrive with the strawberry and vanilla split in half with no physical barrier???

It’s crazy stuff.

Not quite perfect due to the shaking in excitement