3rd Gen iPod, down but not out

My 3rd Gen iPod broke today. I was gutted. The thing had surpassed all expectations, lasting over 4 years with the original battery still going strong. I plugged it into the eMac this morning and it made a horrible whirr flowed by a click, like the hard disk head just gives up.

After trying all the normal soft solutions suggested by Apple, Google came up with this page. It turns out that putting a bit of pressure on the hard disk can get rid of the problem. As suggested in the article I opened the ipod and put a business card inside the case to increase the pressure (I knew those 200 business cards from my old job would come in handy). Unbelievably, this worked. I thought I'd blog this incase anyone else had a similar problem.

Update: This worked for a about a day. I've now given up on the iPod and convinced Jen to buy me a 16GB touch for Christmas. Any one doing the same should take advantage of the iPod trade in programme, saving 10%.

Don't judge a video game by its cover

'Super Smash Brothers Brawl' (Wii) turned up from Lovefilm today, after I spent a good five minutes last weekend saying how much it didn't enjoy any of the previous versions of the game. After playing Smash Brothers for a few minutes I feel like i'm lapsing into premature old age - I don't know who I am, where I am and sudden death is imminent. Jen's excuse was that she wasn't really looking at the names of games she was adding to the rental list, she just went for the ones that had good covers.

Modern video games, with their retina-burning epilepsy-inducing mental graphics can put a pretty reasonable representation of the game on the front cover. This wasn't always the case. Take Jungle Hunt (1982) on the Atari 2600 as an example. Here's the cover:


How good does that look! Look at the detail, the mustache , the baying crocodiles, the cheeky monkey, the elmo watch. This must surely be the most advanced video game experience since that bit in D.A.R.Y.L when the pre-pubescent T2000 managed to get Pole Position running at 200fps. It's 'the arcade hit!' I remember when I first found this game at my aunts, circa 1998. The anticipation of what could only be the greatest game ever was unbearable. I plugged the cartridge into the Atari, switched the TV on and waited what seemed on age for the game to slowly reveal itself while the CRT warmed it self up.


Fucksocks.

Partial Sufficiency: End of Year 1

Fail.

A Fear of Unflying

I mentioned in my last post my irrational fear of flying. I've discovered that what I actually have is a fear of unflying. Charlie Brooker put it better then I ever could in his weekly Screen Burn article (paper back here)

I'm not afraid of flying. I'm afraid of unflying. I'm afraid of that rare moment when an aeroplane malfunctions and is instantly transformed into a mode of transport approximately 200 times less secure than a Disprin canoe; a chillingly efficient air-to-ground missile intent on delivering you and your fellow travellers straight to the heart of splatsville, no matter how loud you scream into one anothers' ears.

When ever I'm flying a scene from Fight Club comes to mind. The unnamed protagonist (Edward Norton) is sitting on a plane whilst delivering a monologue on how he wishes every plane he's on crashes. The plane he's on then falls apart before Norton's eyes whilst he has a vacant yet expectant look on his face. Every 5 seconds on a flight I'm playing out this scene before my eyes, watching the passengers being sucked out the Easyjet Boeing like the alien & human hybrid at the end of Alien Resurrection.

Talking of Brooker, there's a new series starting on E4 next month called 'Dead Set'. I'm too lazy to explain what it is, so here's E4's description...

Dead Set. Britain has a big problem. The dead are returning to life and attacking the living. And the people they kill get up and kill. But a few people are oblivious to this - that's because they're the remaining contestants in Big Brother. Cocooned in the safety
of the Big Brother house, they're blissfully unaware of the horrific events unfolding outside - until eviction night...

You can view the trailer by visiting the official site. In truth, I'm bored of Zombies. I love horror, and I consider Zombies to be the most terrifying whilst equally hilarious monster going. The problem is, the zombie film really is a diluted genre of late, ever since it was embraced by the mainstream in the decent Dawn of the Dead Remake and the classic Shaun of the Dead. Thankfully, this is written and directed by Charlie Brooker , co-creator of Nathan Barley (great) and writer of the weekly Screen Burn column (see above). So here's hoping it will have the hallmarks of a classic Romero movie, violent (Brooker is an angry man) and funny whilst providing some interesting social commentary/satire.

FAC 73

I've been wanting to buy a copy of the infamous FAC 73 vinyl for sometime. Factory records assigned each of their releases with a 'FAC' code, FAC 73 being 'Blue Monday' by New Order.

For anyone who hasn't heard the infamous story, the sleeve for Blue Monday was so complex that every copy of it sold lost Factory money. And to make matters worse, Blue Monday was estimated to have UK sales of over 1 million.

As with many anecdotes, this version of events that I was sold by some b-grade music mag was a bending of the truth, a liberal use of artistic license. It turns out the loss was only made on the die-cut sleeve, which were discontinued in favour of the cheaper and actually profitable non die-cut sleeve. Nether the less, any profit from the new sleeve was most likely swallowed by FAC 51 AKA the Hacienda.

I love this story because the whole incident was a perfect example of Factory's approach to the music business - Financially a disaster on a astronomical scale, whilst still producing some of the most important music of the 80s, if not the 20th Century.

I picked up a non-die cut italian import of the sleeve in Barcelona this week and it looks brilliant. The sleeve is 12" version of a 5¼" floppy disk. The only text is down the spine, simply stating 'FACTORY 73'. A code using coloured boxes down the right hand side of the sleeve is translated as 'FAC 73 BLUE MONDAY AND THE BEACH NEW ORDER' (thanks Wikipedia). The italian important has an inner yellow sleeve, which makes the cut outs all the more striking.


I'm off to sunny wales now for a few days in the parent's caravan before going back to work.

PS - I particularly liked the way I nonchalantly mentioned that I purchased the record in Barcelona. In truth I hate flying and generally only leave the country once a year. More on that in the next post I guess.

I'm the Best [Man]!

It was my Big Brother's weekend last week and I was fortunate enough to be asked to be his Best Man. When Neil first asked me to be his best man my not-so-well-considered response was 'oh no'. Note: This is one of those few questions where 'oh no' is a really bad response. Others include 'Will you marry me?' and 'I'm pregnant'.

Of course I was happy to be my Brother's Best Man, flattered in fact. My response was purely down to fear of giving the inevitable speech. I'm quite good at doing stuff in front of crowds. I think it's something to do with singing in a band through out school. Nothing can be more scary then singing Radiohead album tracks at bi-annual school ceremonies in front of 100's of parents whilst sporting a ginger afro (Growing my hair long did not work as expected). Regardless, I was still filled with dread, mainly because I didn't have a drummer to blame if it all went tit's up.

To make it even more difficult, I decided not to cop out and use the internet for one liners. I've seen a few best man speeches and the ones cribbed from the internet never sound quite right. The delivery is odd and blatantly not the words of the person giving the speech. So it was down to me, my memory and my sounding board (Jen).

The mainstay of any best man's speech is sentences that start with 'I remember when...', 'When X was Y...', 'X won't want me to mention this, but...' or even 'I remember when X Y'd a Z'. For this, I needed to remember stuff, which is a problem. My long term memory is great, if I have some a cue to trigger the memory. This is pretty much why I've started blogging any slightly interesting thing that happens in my life. My hope is that I can read over this in 10 years and it will be a good enough cue for the memories to come flooding back.

Thankfully I had mum on hand for memory cues, and over two weeks things came together quite nicely. To act as one of the aforementioned cues in 10 years time, here's my speech

It feel's like I've known Neil all my life. [Believe it or not, this is a joke]. Growing up with Neil I was him go through a number of phases. In one such phase Neil starting wearing nail varnish, eyeline and even a dress. OK, he was 8 and it was a fancy dress party but it was a bit worrying that he ran around shouting 'My name is Rowena and a drink Ribena'

When Neil was 16, he found his first love - himself. Honestly, he had more beauty products than the body shop. You wouldn't think it looking him at him now but he used to have a floppy fringe that he'd style for hours everyday. If it was reflective, he'd check himself out in it. I vividly remember one dinner when I looked up to see Neil mesmerized by his reflection in a spoon.

At about the same age Neil found his first life partner - Mr Wilkinson. Neil's been working for Wilkinson's now for 12 years, which coincidentally is the same age as the pick'n'mix in the Kettering branch. If Neil ever goes to a town or city that he hasn't visited before, he turns into a spy for Wilkinson's own brand MI5 checking on the competition - other Wilkinson's. I honestly stood outside the Nottingham Wilkinson's for 15 minutes while he sneaked around mocking their pitiful toilet roll display.

When Neil's not working undercover for Wilkinson's, he's fishing. What I was going to do here was say a bunch of really bad fishing puns...and I couldn't think of anything better, so here we go.

There's no trout that Neil's caught the catch of the day
Cod only knows that Neil's netted salmon special

Now I know Neil's been looking forward to his big day for years. And last December it finally came!



I was a bit worried that Neil would still be hung over from the stag do. OK, it was two weeks ago but I'd never seen him drink so much. 3 Lager shandies and a Baileys! Amazing!

In all honesty, I've spent the last two weeks trying to think of embarrassing things to say about my brother and it's been hard, because he's one of the nicest people I know, and I'm sure him and Corinne will be very happy together.

And here's a picture of me and Jen laughing at something.

Watership Dave

Something (and hopefully not someone) left us a present on our doorstep Wednesday morning. A dead rabbit. And it wasn't any rabbit, it was a baby rabbit. A cute little bunny, with ants crawling all over it's face and exploring it's cute bunny ears. Being the man I let Jen go to work and said I'd deal with it. What a guy.

Problem was, when I went to pick it up it kicked. Then it moved its head up and made some horrible noise. It wasn't a dead rabbit, but rather a dying rabbit. Bugger. I know that the right thing to do was to put it out of it's misery. I have quite vivid memories of my dad lobbing the head off a suffering bird with a spade and thinking nothing of it. Thing is, although sometimes it's feel like it, i'm not my dad. Yeah, I saw bits of wood on a Sunday, wire light fittings and drive a Skoda (don't laugh), but i'm still not my dad. So I did what any liberal wimp would do, re-housed it in a shoe box with food and water and spent half an hour picking off the ants from it's dying body so it would have some dignity in death. It was dead when I got back from work 8 hours later.

Despite leaving the rabbit to die an arduous and painful death, at least it had some dignity. I think that says something profound about the human condition, i'm just not mature enough to know what. After all, I'm not my dad.

Got satnav yesterday and then spent half an hour finding out how to get to work (I knew this already), how to get to mum and dad's house (I knew this already) and where the nearest petrol station was (I knew this already). Money well spent.