Time

Crikey, the strangest thing, I was looking through my old blog to find the site of that guy in New Orleans who rides out the storm for his server, and I stumbled across this old precursur to ill theatre.

Check out the screen

Its like same ol same ol.

Bah, just found him, looks like interdictor doesn't stay in New Orleans any more. It was so cool back in 2005, I wonder if anyone's going to be live blogging it this time.

Whoever does is going to become one of these brief internet celebrities.

Ooh, hang on, I've found it.

HERE

Alien

And here's a video of an real life Alien / Shark hybrid

Honey

In response to this thing on Indie-MP3 I recorded me a crap version of Just Like Honey which you can download by doing a right click save as here

Cretinous Tesco labelling #37

IMG_5396
Originally uploaded by manc_ill_kid

Look at the photie to the right, click through to see it bigger if you can't read the labels. So which one is the more economical to purchase, given that they're essentially the same thing?

See, the '£1.53 per Kg' and '97.6p/Kg dr.wt' that's supposed to be there to make these decisions easier, has been hijacked to confuse the consumer.

These cunts make it harder.

I've got a sodding IQ of 140 and even I can't figure it from the information given. Do I really have to pick up the can and find out what the %age fluid is for the three bean salad and then scale it to get accurate comparative numbers?

For fucks sake, both products are own brand, this is entirely within the control of Tesco, they've done it on purpose.

Count

Yay, my arty site has had 2,000 hits today and its barely 8pm, this bodes well. If I get that many hits by noon, its usually a 4,000 day, so who know's what it'll be like at close of play.

I think the post that's done it is a Top Ten list of most popular images. I did the same thing two months ago, and got a load of traffic. Aye, its a cynical thing, sooking them up, and swilling them around. I might start doing a weekly top ten thing on different topics to bump traffic up.

So a week back I got a google content warning slapped on the site, which prevents me from seeing what sites traffic has come in from. Its frutrating, but I'm soldiering on. It looks like its knocked off about 20% of my readership on average, I'm back where I was six months ago. Its not so bad.

Over on the gig review blog, not so many gig reviews going down. I just can't find it in me to type up the reviews, and barely post photies from the shows. It could just be that traffic is so low, its sapping my enthusiasm. Even last.fm has no listeners for the last podcast, apart from me. Its a bit disappointing. And thats even after pimping it on the art site.

Hmph

I'm really tired, still got a whole day of work to do, and its Friday night, woo, party night.

Implementation

Spent last night working on my implementation of Simbowlie in a variant of Rule110.

Rule110 is a one-dimensional two-state cellular automaton with a three bit rule table, this we already knew, in order to function as Simbowlie, the rules and states have to be modified.

Where Buro9/DavidK is represented by 111, SimTasty represented by 110 and naturally SimIdles by 101. All other members are extrapolated from these three integers, for example 111110 is SimGordon, 111101 is SimQuagga, 101101 is SimSaz, and so forth.

I've left it repeating for a few hundred generations so far, and whilst they're still talking about Tigermilk, the old Hug thread has made an appearance as 00010011011111 which looks very much like a 'spaceship' in cellular automata.

Below we can clearly see a politics thread rendered in Rule110 Simbowlie


One of the main hurdles in this approach is the final rendering, how to make it look like Bowlie. I plan to use some kind of Busy Beaver routine, but it's going to take a while to sort out the different colour schemes.

Tenk

Tried to run 10K for the first time. I've done 7km and once 8km before, but I ws inspired to try the whole thing, two laps of Regent's Park.



Did it in 38 mins 20 seconds according to my Nike+ widget, but I'm a little sceptical, by the map it was only 9km. And god knows whats's with the line going down at the end there, I could have sworn I finished at a sprint.

Will have to recalibrate and try again, once my feet have grown back.

It ain't pretty what drives me, but it works.

Ooh, I found this wonderful site which has all the consecutive world records for the 10K. By the looks of things I'm only 6 minutes off the world record in 1847. I reckon I could easily whip William Jackson's ass, if only he hadn't been dead for a hundred and fifty years.

Washing up survey

Well, the results are all in, and in terms of when people do the washing up, given the three options of:-

• After cooking, but before eating
• Just after eating
• Sometime later

The results look like this

Cos as well as putting a survey on this website, I put the same poll a few other places as well, to get a more diverse or perhaps balanced picture. The wee graphs for each 'sample population' look a bit like this

The actual numbers of respondants behind it, with a total of 119, votes break down like this

And since we're in the business of breaking down to individual populations, you can't quite say that most people who read my blog wash their pots and pans before eating the food they've just cooked, because five of those votes came from the same IP address, but different computers, within a five minute period. Which kind of suggests some who doesn't know about deleting cookies running round the office and using everyone else's computers to vote.

So if we adjust the numbers so that five of those votes just count as one person, the graph looks like this

Its a clearer trend, no matter how you add it or average it

So now, if confronted with the opinion "Most people wash their stuff before they start eating," we have some broad statistical data to show the accurate response is "No, you're clearly insane, most people don't, most people leave washing stuff until some point in the future, heck, I think I might even go to bed and do the washing up in the morning."

For the less knowing folk who might use this data for later research, each sample group is outlined below
Nuddy chick army - viewers of the naked chicks on post-it notes website, these are 78% male / 22% female, 50% American / 50% rest of the world
ill and ancient - friends and acquaintances of mine, 16 to 40 years of age, 80% UK, 60% female
bowlii - me, Rosiebunny and KenJuggle
bowlie - users of the now defunct bowlie.com messageboard

***Update***
For those who prefer their graphs with bars

Advanced IQ test

Took another IQ test on Facebook, calling itself the Advanced IQ test. It gave me a score of 148, despite getting nine of the fifteen questions wrong.

This brings my funky average IQ after taking five such tests to an incredible 127. That old 78 score from when I was drunk at uni still bringing down the average.

thrills

Its all exciting over on my other blogs

Last Night From Glasgow Indie Eyespy - I've put up a podcast, its all songs from bands I've seen this month. Not all the bands mind, cos some were shite, but some nice tunes.

Ill Theatre - Some thrilling pictures from the end of Bowlie, kind of epic and sad I reckon, but I'm biased, I drew them.

Naked Chicks on Post-It Notes - Maybe to never be updated again, Google have slapped a Content Warning on it so I can't see where the traffic's coming from, its like I'm blind. Hardly worth carrying on, unless I rely on Technorati

Naked Pigeons on Post-It Notes - There's always room for pigeons

Vidz

Trying to think of a decent name for video webcasts of bands playing gigs in my bedroom, just like Last Night From Glasgow used to be, but cooler and now in London.

Ideas so far include:-

• Live From Wembley (alas I don't live in Brent any more)
• Last Night In Bed
• Last Night From Glasgow From London
• Last Night From Glasgow But From London
• Last Night From London
• Last Night's Gig
• Annoy My Flatmate
• Flatmate Annoyed

Aw man, this is going to be world domination once it gets going, but it needs to be right. How many pageviews did I lose on Glasgow Indie Eyespy, Last Night From Glasgow and Last Night From Glasgow Indie Eyespy because the names weren't snappy or memorable enough?

Or have I come so far with this millstone that there's no going back. Sack that, the whole 'in for a penny, in for a pound'-thing is bullshit. I can get it right fourth time lucky. I just need a name.

Any suggestions warmly appreciated.

And While you're thinking about that, here's some of my favourite shows from the first run of Last Night From Glasgow


The Great Money Trick - Final Feeling


Blitzhoney - America


The Just Joans - Friday Afternoons Down The Union


Scunner - Lost at the Fair


Tom Snowball


St Deluxe - Its So Hard To Fall In Love

Hmm...
Top google search term to find this blog today
the murder of chris gilmore

Cap

I don't know quite enough about capacitors.

They have capacitance in farads (MF, UF, NF, PF)
They have voltage ratings in volts
They have tolerances as a percentage
The have temperature ratings

They might have speeds and a few other magical properties

Depending on where they are used different properties are more or less important.

In power supply circuits its the voltage which is most important
In phono level amplification the tolerance is most important
Also, in timing circuits tolerance can be important

They can come in different package sizes using different magical capacitance technologies

Aluminium can
Blue box
Yellow box
Brown blob
Blue disc

Aluminium cans are my favourite, they are usually in the UF (micro farad) range. Its a safe bet to go with Panasonic FC series all the time, except if you need them in a pre-amp stage where the Elna version is preferable, or if you need really big 10,000UF ones where Panasonic TSUP is the sort of thing you're after. We use through hole ones, but you cn get surface mount ones too, one day it would be cool if we just used surface mount, cheaper to assemble, aye.

Just read a cool wikipedia article about the Capacitor plague, apparently someone in the far east cocked up the way they make the caps so since 1999 units with a really bad failure rate have been popping up. If you can control such things, stick to suppliers you trust and use Panasonic FC.

I'm slowly figuring out the other types, I think its about tolerance. Brown blobs are the best, followed by Yellow box, followed by Blue box. Not so sure about where the blue disc ones fit in.

I think the Brown blob caps are Tantalum capacitors with a 1%, 2% or 5% tolerance
I think the various box caps are MTK polyester or maybe MFK polyester even MKS, not sure what the difference is, they can be very high voltage around 600V with 5%, 10% or 20% tolerance

swing

There's this bit in season one of The Mighty Boosh, where Vince and Howard are sitting in the zoo and Howard is complaining that Vince is always happy. I think the exact line is "You find a peanut in the morning and thats you happy for the rest of the day". Its rather neat. Sometimes I do that. Not often mind, but sometimes, and sometimes I don't even need the peanut, I just need the spirit of the peanut, and I'm buzzing.

It happened this morning. I didn't actually find a peanut, but I was overwealmed by waves of euphoria.

I have a long list of incredibly urgent and important things to do, the list gets longer and longer every day, and the things are still really important and urgent and if we don't get these parts ordered, if I don't find a supplier, if I don't write a QC checklist, then oh, things aren't going to come out on time, customers will get upset. All kind of more and more problems.

But this morning I am buzzing.

It could just be that I'm drunk, those two beers last night still getting processes. But I doubt it.

And this afternoon, I'm going to be ploughing the depths of depression (the natural human emotion, not the serious mental disorder). Its going to be hell, I can see it just on the horizon, looming closer.

spoi

You may have noticed the poll I'm running at the moment on this blog, to collect some statistical data on washing up practice.

I do like my statistics, and numbers and the internet, I have graphs and spreadsheets and lists, oh the hundreds of lists.

The strangest thing just happened on statcounter, at around 16:00 it looks like this blog was visited by five different computers using the same IP address 81.105.217.157, possibly computers in the same office, the first one came in from my Facebook profile. And at the same time, the poll at the top of the page registered five votes for 'Before eating food' option.

I'll have to include a note about skewing of the results in my final presentation.

10

Bit of a fuss on the political blogosphere about Downing Street's response to a petition on calling for Jeremy Clarkson to be Prime Minister, aye, someone spent five minutes to make a video for thegovernment channel on youtube website. The fuss is about it being a waste of tax-payers money.

First, I thought it was a bit crap. Secondly, there are other far more worthy petitions that didn't get as much of a response.

But thirdly, what is a little more worrying, is that since about 9am this morning, for the past six hours or so, the Jeremy Clarkson for Prime Minister video seems to have been used on the Number10 website to accompany a story about British solidarity with France in the deaths of some soldiers in Afghanistan.

Slightly inappropriate, aye?

Unless, of course, I've got the wrong end of the stick and www.number10.gov.uk is a scrape of The Daily Mash

Res

I need to find a supplier for these resistors.

I think they're cermet wirewound, they need to be 0.22R 5watt, with a lead spacing of 7.5mm or maybe 7mm, I guess if they have long leads then the spacing isn't so relevant.

Have already tried RS, Digikey and Farnell, but only found things that don't fit. Am tempted to try to get the naked chick army on the case, but surveys show most of my readers aren't at work. Would they do a favour on their own time?

Supplier should preferably be in the UK or US, and whilst I need thousands of these things generally, I need about 400 of them quicksmart.

Hec

This song just came up on random, The Hector Collectors - Banned from Kasino - Recorded live at The Winchester Club sometime in 2005.

Its about being banned from the internet forum you spend all you time on. Adam gets it just right, "I used to go there seventy times a week", "I must confess, all the times I pressed refresh", "we've all been split up by one little cable", etc.

Bol

Not sure why there is a photie of my old school here, can't quite be bothered to read the article to find out and there's no 'Bolton' when I search the page.

Here's another photie with different girls getting their results

Behin

This one will slay you! Remember a month or so ago I did that video of doing simultaneous-one handed origami and I was all getting excited cos it was on Boing Boing, and then the whole crashing depression realisation that despite being on top of my game and winning at all that kind of thing, I was still crushingly dark, isolated and lonely.

Anyhoo, here's my first attempt at one-handed origami done without looking behind my back. Watching it will waste five minutes of your life, you don't get those minutes back.

One handed origami without looking from Chris Gilmour on Vimeo.

Its not very good. Proof of concept aye. If I did it again, I'd need a cameraman to video it, rather than a fixed camera, also this version the paper was kind of pre-creased, it had a diagonal, and the finished bird looked crap.

*Update*
Aw man, those MIT guys beat me to it in a throwaway moment in what could be the world's first action origami movie.

rec

Amusing adventure on the bus home last night. Now, its not often you hear the recorded announcement "All passengers must leave the bus immediately", but together with the smell of burnt rubber filling them bus.

We'd escaped from HDIF early, just after uncle K had done his DJing, and found a bus. It was weaving round dark streets near mysterious London park, when the bus pulled over and didn't start moving again.

Then came the announcement, everyone on the top deck stayed in their seats, glancing nervously at each other until I stood up and headed for the stairs.

Alas, there wasn't much smoke or flames. Just looked like there was a pool of coolant leaking underneath.

A couple of replacement buses came long in about ten minutes.

Not that exciting really.

Ooh, but there was this guy at the bus stop wearing really cool golden dancing shoes and silver jeans.

tra

Back on drawing Ill Theatre strips now. It was a flawed attempt at drawing my life as a webcomic/graphic novel. Sadly I lost the will do do it a few months back, but my mojo is back.

New strips from here.

There's wee older / newer posts links near the bottom of each page. Oh, if I could use Blogger to make them bigger buttons, with arrows on them, life would be about two buttons better. Think of the wonderful and joyous webcomicy things you could find more easily and intuitively.

Interesting adventures and storylines in the past include:-

Half-arsed Time Travel - Some kind of Life on Mars vibe and stabs
Climbing into the internet - Imagineering and rejoining bits of the internet
Back on Bowlie - Trying to deal with my bad rep

Roundup #167 - Bowlie Final Countdown photies

In lieu of Bowlie, this is a round up of all the photies across the internets from the Final Countdown Weekend. That'll be Friday night's quiz thing, the gig at Jamm on Saturday and the picnic on Sunday. Aye

Flickr
Mine
also mine
Mae
Angel Justine
Inuitmonster
Your Funny Uncle
also here
Ms Bexy
Sunshine Pop
James I Skinner
acb
String Bean Jen

Facebook
Astrid
Jens
also here
Reb

If there's any I've missed, feel free to let me know.

Run

Went jogging last night, did 5km in 24 minutes, about 11 minutes than my flatmate's average.

But it lead to half a discussion. First the statement "5km, that's more of a women's distance", nah, men and women both compete in it.

Secondly, the statement "Well, men and women don't compete against each other", well, not officially, but I'm sure they do all the time.

Thirdly, the statement "It would hardly be fair if men competed against women in that one", yeah, it would be pretty unfair for me to run against Paula Radcliffe, she would so whoop my ass.

Thrilling stuff, I'm sure you'd agree. This is why I try not to chat to my flatmate unless it can't be avoided.

21 text

21 text
Originally uploaded by inuitmonster

This is what I look like when I'm sending dirty texts

02 MIK

02 MIK
Originally uploaded by inuitmonster

Hmm, pretty sure it wasn't me.

We pay?

We pay for this, right?

BBC front page, top news splash, is a fucking regurgitated advert for some parenting website.

This is what we pay our licence fees for, aye? Marteting for fucking Sarah Stone, editor of Gurgle.com?

Whichever cretin put that on the website ought to have their arse booted.

j

Meh, seeing this squeee-fest, makes me sad, reminds me of this picture what I drew and more realistically this and this video and hawking them on my blog two years back.

Crikey, I'd forgotten, they were turbulant times.

How things have changed, aye

Blo

I wish the folk who read this blog had blogs I could read.

Wor

A few weeks back I went to the cinema with a girl, we saw Iron Man. She was kind of cute and we got on okay, just not quite well enough to see each other a third time, hmm, actually she ran away the last time I saw her, its damned disconcerting when that happens.

I loved the film, comic book aye, but to me it was a film about manufacturing engineering, a film about design and manufacture.

Encountering design and management problems and solving them. Making problems go away.

It was an idealist movie.

Alas in real life problems don't go away. You can't fix something and it stays fixed, you can't give folk simple tasks to do without it coming back and you have to do it yourself.

I'm checking a bill of materials, its wrong and needs checking manually cos the software that generates it crashs when you try to run certain reports. There's no one here who can fix it, there's not enough time or energy to get someone else to fix it. Instead there's me checking six hundred components, line by line, trying to use my mad ninja manufacturing engineer skillz to sense if something is wrong...

What? a 4K7 0805 resistor going to ground? That can't be right, I'm sure it was a 4R7 1206.

I'm not sure what resistors do, I don't know what this one does, but I have to speak to two or three people to find out if this part has actually changed or if its just a mistake and what could possibly go wrong if its changed.

Why can't we just curl up on that sofa now and watch DVDs until we fall asleep?

Why are there always things in the way. Why's it so difficult? Why don't the problems ever go away?

New

New video from teh Just Joans

Hey boy

Quite shameless the inclusion of uncle Colin, but predictable too.

fam

I has teh fame
Shaza photie here

Hang

I think my hangover is just starting to kick in. When I awoke this morning I was still quite merry.

How do I write about last night/yesterday, considering most of the folk who read this blog were conspicous by their absense, and the folk who were there, well, they know what happened.

I started off very quiet at the picnic, slightly worried by people running away or avoiding my, but then this one time Rupert beckoned me in from my isolation. Chatted to a few people in the park, folk who I well, usually chat to at this sort of thing.

It was only after the wandering the streets in torrential rain that my anxiety broke, and at the pub I was fair chatting to lots of people. Kind of developing a new technique of chatting for a bit to lull folk into a false sense of security, being quite nice, and then getting introduced. It sort of undermined people's preconceptions.

At first anyway, I think as I got drunker and more boisterous, I reverted to type.

Was I even there?

Not sure, I think I was half there and half drifting over the waves of the text-messageosphere.

It was missing people, great swathes of folk from the past eight years of Bowlie, missing. Whatever reasons they have are pish.

ducks

So yeah we all got drunk and starting fucking on the street like ducks
photies here
This one's like a huge panoramic one if you click through

Las

Photies from last night

www.flickr.com

Meet

The people who weren't there last night. Their absense makes me feel sad, but I try to figure whether it was me who killed them or if there were other factors.

Of course there were other factors, but have many can I claim a majority stake of blame for them not coming.

Fighting the urge to write a list of the missing folk.

Also fighting the urge to do other things:
a) Pie chart of blame for Who Killed Bowlie
b) Create my half of the Tree of Life
c) Make another t-shirt
d) Dry hump randomly

However, I have photies to process and documentaries to narrate.

Still adding and trimming

Bowlie in Glasgow 2000 to 2007 rough edit 4 from Chris Gilmour on Vimeo.
Look, it'll probly only make sense to a few people. but it means a lot to me.

I was at the thing this evening, and although I spoke to like loads of people and caught up with unexpected people, even folk who predate bowlie by severa years, I still missed out on seeing loads of other people. There are tinges of sadness, but at the same time there were like dozens of folk who I dearly love who weren't there.

Its the end of days.

The folk who weren't there are still out there some where. Apart from its not really out there, its still 'real life' and this, this is just a shadowy niche that folk fall in to.

I was scrawling names in my notebook of folk who weren't out tonight, but it went on for pages and pages and then someone would mention someone else who wasn't there, and they once meant so much to me.

Little bit of editing

So I trimmed some of the clips down and inserted wee bits of Dog on Wheels where appropriate

Bowlie in Glasgow 2000 to 2007 rough edit 2 from Chris Gilmour on Vimeo.
The continuing quest to make a short fast cut documentary thing. Still no idea how to fit the narative on, or even how to avoid obvious choices of songs.

Chocolate

Given the choise, I think chocolatey goodness wins out every time

Sorry chaps, but the pull was too strong

See the whole photie-set here

Glasb

So I was in Scotland for the past day or two. Whilst I was killing time I shot some video for a wee thing I want to do, all fast cut with places I used to go and live and some commentary I've got to write about Bowli, Glasgow and Belle and Seb.

This is just the raw footage. Some folk reading this will know what it means, you were there then, but most folk will have to wait for the final edit.

Bowlie in Glasgow 2000 to 2007 from Chris Gilmour on Vimeo.

Okay, there are elements of stalking I guess. I'll edit them out later

Edin

Eep, getting the night bus to Scotland tonight so I can bum around Glasgow videoing places for my dumb bowli documentary idea, bits of the Botanic Gardens where we'd lounge one summer, and the Woodside Social Club.

Also gotta squeeze in a trip to Edinburgh to see Hibbett's show on Wednesday. God knows if I'll make it back for the festivities at the weekend.

Also it means I'll be neglecting my other websites and fitness regime for a few days, which is a bit of a pain, but hey ho, they'll survive.

Hmm, does this widget from Nike+ work?


If it does, I can sling it in my side bar.

Other links to click on include Rosie off of the internet running dressed as a tortoise if she can get over £200 of sponsorship. Just imagine it.

Bow2

More from my personal history thing on Bowli, I think I'm missing great swathes of adventures and people. But hey, if I mention everyone by name and who I was dry humping and when, there'd be complaints.
We posted regularly, every day, madcap schemes, times of crisis, emotional support, new bands, old bands. There was a nother meetup arranged, same place, slightly different people, fewer people, Dave in the dumps, killiedaft, Prost, we wandered to record shops, we drank coffee.

Time passed again, Belle and Sebastian released Jonathan David and played a show at The Barrowlands, there was going to be loads of us there, we met in the dark and swapped tapes and CDs.

I moved house, graduated from university, worked as as temp and I got myself a girlfriend. The relationship wasn't much cop, and I spent a great deal of time moaning about the girl on the messageboard. We broke up after the requiit six months and I got on with my life.

What was this, 2002?

A gentleman called John was starting an indie club night in the West End at the Woodside Social club, it was to be called The National Pop League, and folk from Bowlie were travelling the length of the country to attend the first one.

Me and my flatmate went along, to see what it was like.

It was dark and I didn't know anyone there, we spoke to no one. These were people off of the internet who I'd never met in real life, I didn't know what they looked like.

The next month my flatmate and I were a little more confident, we chatted to some spanish girls who were at National Pop League.

Was it the end of 2002? Belle and Seb were playing at Glasgow QMU, some of us were to meet up beforehand, once again, I had no idea what anyone looked like, but located some girl who I'd gone on quite well with online, but alas no chemistry whatsoever in real life. I remember Stuart on stage begging the crowd to be quiet so he could sing oh come oh come emmanuel, it was a bit naff so I wandered home.

It was about six month down the line that Lars Wishing suggested a few of us meeting for a drink before Pop League/ We met in Bar Oz, just down Great Western Road, there were four of us there, Lars, Chandelier, Sillygirl and me. In the Woodside there were other folk off of Bowlie that I was introduced to, Num Num first then others, pixels on the screen became cute pop kids dancing and we got very very drunk.

Is that when the golden age started? I dunno, it was a bit of a rollercoaster of club nights, bands, gigs, parties, friends and drinking.

The Jeepster messageboard changed its name to Bowlie, I moved house, and introduced more friends to the forum, the scene grew and pulsated.

When was the Anti-War March? was that 2004? I'm getting confused on dates here. Quite a few of us turned out for that, it was rather jolly. I have fond memories of eating Sillygirl's chocolate coated coffee beans as we surged through the quays.

Gnar

Actually no, its not exactly like this. It was about thirteen years back. But these days, I'm just too bitter to hang around being the someone to talk to. But I so empathise with the sentiment.

Exci

OOh, excitement over at MJ Hibbett's Exciting Life in Rock as he talks about a gig that I was at. First time I ever saw MJ Hibbett play live, and it was just like he say. The act who played a few days earlier doing the same Boom Boom Shake the Room was Alex Thee Moths.

And he mentions Katie from the Just Joans, its like the seeds of indiepop being sown.

Bow

I think I'm gonna make me a wee eight minute long documentary about Bowli, my relationship with Bowli. Just a video for YouTube, a testimonial maybe, video clips of where and when.

Well, pretty boring if its just videos of a computer screen, I don't even have half the computer screens. But I can get Manchester and Glasgow and some of the people too...

It started in the summer of '96, sure other folk will disagree, but hey, for me it started in Leigh in '96 in a friends house. We were starting a band, and needed inspiration, my friend Craig played us some CDs Mogwai and Belle and Sebastian, I wasn't paying too much attention, I wanted more of a Britpop direction.

Time passed and I went to university in Glasgow, sometime in the middle of 2000 I found myself chatting to a friend from school who lived in Glasgow and wa better at staying in touch with folk from school. She said that Craig had been making friends with Belle and Sebastian fans on the internet.

It didn't take long before I was signed up to the Jeepster messageboard, Jeepster were like Belle and Sebastian's record label and I'd found Craig. I remember stilling in a computer room at university, in the Engineering building, logged on to the Jeepster messageboard reading a thread about dreams. It was pretty fey stuff, and quite boring.

Months passed before I logged in again, I'd broken up with some girl, she dumped me, and wanted me back the next day, I wanted to get in touch with old friends and make new ones.

The first Jeepster meetup was in the cafe in Borders, some time in March '01. I was drunk and had woken up in a strange house in Pollockshields. We had little idea what anyone else looked like, or how we were to meet. Just folk in a crowded cafe. Two people made eye-contact and suddenly a crowd formed. Pixie Princess, Crimson Star, the youngster, LadybugLiz, Dave in the Dumps and me...

foo

Odd thing, I went to the supermarket yesterday, and rather than head straight to the ready meals and pot noodle department, I stood in the fresh veg section and pondered what to buy. In ma heid I could see images of food, meals prepared by hand, the possibilities of ginger root and red onions, sweet potato mixed wth regular potatoe in mash.

Hey, this may be a normal occurance for folk, but for me it happens about every eighteen months. Scurry ye, scurry back to the annals of my blog trail, consult the spreadsheets, what happens every eighteen months or so? And what has happened now?

Ach..

Went to Nottingham last night, this you already know from reading the gig review here. It was rather fine fun, chatting to folk off of the internet and from gigs, gazing at the bands from a safe distance.

And now, feelings of emptiness. A boring Saturday spent stabbing the keyboard and watching Mighty. I feel a sense of loss, something has slipped away.

Still time to finish my tea, go jogging and wonder to the cinema on my own, catch Batman

Aw man

My art site has been locked by blogger for being a potential spam blog. Bah, no more post-it note pictures there for a while I guess.

Smittens gig last night, was so hot, I love those kids.

Smittens gig tonight too, its going to be great.

Things and stuff, its going to work out okay.