Tuesday, March 30, 2004
What to post? What to post?I dunno. I'm tired. Cant go to bed yet though. Apart from having to go to the bank, I promised I'd go see my mum after I'd finished in town.
Thank god for coffee.
I'm thinking I need to get a life. Posts in this blog have become incredibly mundane.
Ah well, I should be getting the new pc this week, all being well, and then I can get down to making some new music. It may not give me too much to talk about as such, but I'll probably makes new tunes available on here for a short time as and when they're done... so at least there'll be something to listen to, even if there's nothing worth reading.
That reminds me... I must get some new guitar strings. I cant play to save my life, but with cubase, i think I can still make good use of what tiny ability I have.
Steve 7:43 AM [+] (0) comments
Monday, March 29, 2004
What a small world we live in.I'm so used to chatting with people from all over the world, and even the few english people in the england chatroom tend to be half way across the country, so it came as quite a big surprise to find myself chatting to someone who's only about 2 miles away from me.
Very refreshing.
Steve 6:16 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, March 28, 2004
How deeply troubling.Take a complete moron, two even dumber robots. sit them in front of an unbelievably crap movie and let them talk all over the top of it.
This is TV?
What's even more disturbing is.... I haven't switched channel.
Steve 12:56 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, March 26, 2004
*Benway makes a minor modification to the laws of physics and declares that E=MCdonalds.Steve 10:59 PM [+] (0) comments
This blog entry is just for spidergir (no, I didn't miss an 'l') who is harrassing me for not posting for two days.
Now everyone join in and tell her she needs to write a blog of her own, so I can return the favour and bug her for not posting every single day ;-)
Steve 1:05 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
I was a bit gutted recently when Yahoo LaunchCast locked me out of my own radio station till the end of the month for exceeding some arbitrary bandwidth allowance. Everyone else can still listen to it... just not me. Bastards.Anyway, having played all my CDs and mp3s to death I went hunting for something new to listen to on winamp. After a night of trawling through assorted industrial techno, trance, goth, 80s retro and whatever other stations, I finally found one that kicks arse.
Super Slut Radio (dodgy name if you ask me) is very similar to my own Launch station in the music it plays. I haven't decided of it's more varied or not yet... but it does play quite a lot of stuff that my own station doesn't, but that I still like. This has to be a good thing, as I can take notes and expand my own playlist.
Anyways... if you wanna check it out, it's probably 3/4 of the way down the radio stations media list, somewhere in the mid 20s listener count. I'd post a link to the homepage, but I can't find one, so you'll just have to go look for it on winamp
Labels: launchcast
Steve 10:35 PM [+] (0) comments
Ever meet someone who's an almost exact dopelganger of someone you know?
I was sat chatting on irc with a woman last night, and during the course of the conversation she sent me a couple of pictures of herself. The resemblance she bears to an old girlfriend who broke my heart around 10 years ago is striking... I had to double-take when I saw the pic just to be sure it wasn't her.
Freaky... very very freaky.
Steve 6:04 PM [+] (0) comments
How funky is that?
I got an email requesting permission to use one of my tunes in an educational video. I think it's a school project of some kind, so no big deal in itself, but just knowing it's been used at all makes me a happy chappy.
Update: Okay... it's a bit more than just a school project. The video has recently won the B.P.A. (whatever that is) educational video state finals, and my tune will be used as the backing soundtrack when it goes to the national finals.
I'm gonna try and get a bit more information about this so I can include it on the page where my tunes are kept, as it's good publicity, and they've offered to send me a copy of the video. I probably won't be able to view it, as UK and US video standards are different, but we'll see. I dunno if it's vhs, dvd or what yet.
Labels: music
Steve 1:55 AM [+] (0) comments
That was fun.
It's very rare I actually chat in private with people when I'm online... usually just sitting and talking in the main channel.
So recently a yound lad had been watching my cam and gave the url to a friend of his. She's a sociology student from Argentina, and even though her english isn't perfect, we sat and had a conversation about language, and how it affects people's lives, perceptions and how they think.
Just goes to show... not every person who pops a window out of the blue onto your screen is an idiot, and some are very much worth talking to.
Labels: chatrooms
Steve 12:10 AM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, March 21, 2004
It's very rare I get to meet the people I chat with in #england, having only met one person from there in the past.Yesterday I had the great pleasure of meeting Gary and Cherry, aka smiffycom and SCSIwuzzy.
They're a really nice couple, down to earth, chatty and easy to be around. My kinda people.
Labels: chatrooms
Steve 3:01 PM [+] (0) comments
Seems like that new pc can't come too soon.
The backlight on my laptop has played up once before, and now it's died altogether. The screen still works, but with no backlight, it's impossible to see what's on it, so I've had to hook up the crt monitor from my old pc again, and frankly it looks awful.
I've been checking out the desktop pcs at Dixons and there's some good ones in my price range, but I don't care much for the after sales support there and the staff in my local store are generally a bunch of blithering iadiots, always bickering among themselves, so I don't think I really wanna get one from there.
I'll go take a look in PC World and see what they've got, though to be honest, I've heard bad things about after sale support there too.
There's also the funky little pc shop in wolverton that makes up systems to order from scratch, which sounds like a good option, but it's one of those here today gone tomorrow kinda places and while I trust their ability, I don't trust them to still be there if things go wrong.
Finally there's The PC Shop... an amalgam of Tiny and Time. I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole... their reuptation is so bad.
Decisions decisions.
Oh, and before anyone says get one on mail order or online coz it's cheaper... no way. I want bricks and mortar, and local... so I can walk into the place and look them in the eye.
Labels: computers
Steve 2:10 PM [+] (0) comments
Friday, March 19, 2004
So hmmm.It's been a while.
Not much going on... not that I wanna speak about here anyway.
Probably gonna be getting a new pc in a couple of weeks, which should be fun. I just have to figure out how to get it home, as they usually come in huge boxes and I don't drive. Guess I'll just grab a taxi if I can't scrounge a ride.
Other than that... it's all life as usual, mostly staring blankly at my laptop screen.
Saying that, I've got my head burried in a book at the mo (ok, not at this exact second). Darwin's Children by Greg Bear. Hard sci-fi... the best kind.
Labels: books
Steve 11:56 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, March 14, 2004
As a favour to said channel owner, and coz he badly needs some linkage to get noticed on google, here's a link to his Baby Photo Gallery website.Though I'm not into babies myself, it's a very cute and pretty site, so any other bloggers who like it might like to give it a brief mention too.
Steve 4:59 AM [+] (0) comments
Friday, March 12, 2004
My compliments to the channel owner for being a more reasonable person than I am. I'm an op again.Steve 10:21 AM [+] (0) comments
Mmhmm. "We'll talk about it in 12 hours" was the response I got.
12 hours means 4am my time. Needless to say I was asleep. No way I'm jumping through hoops.
Steve 7:53 AM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Out of boredom and frustraion with the huge influx of lamers, I asked for ops back in #england.Dunno how that'll turn out. Depends on whether the channel owner holds a grudge after I blasted him over his handling of a situation a while back.
If I were in his shoes and some malcontent ex op asked for ops back, I'd say "sod off", but the other ops say he always gives ops back to people who resigned, as opposed to ones who were deopped for bad behaviour.
We'll see.
Steve 2:09 PM [+] (0) comments
Having gotten things working again I settled down to watch a couple of movies.
Have you noticed how now DVDs have become popular the movie distibutors are re-releasing absolutely everything in their back catalogues... stuff you've not been able to get on vhs for years, if ever? A lot of it's on budget release too.
A couple of months ago I spoke about watching the cold war doccumentary style drama Threads, depicting a nuclear attack on the uk. Well, yesterday I picked up a DVD copy of the other nuclear war film released around the same time. The Day After depicts a nuclear attack on the US, more specifically, Kansas City.
The production values are higher, but I found the typical Hollywood gloss detracted from the outright horror of what it was trying to portray... especially with Steve Guttenberg in a lead role. I just kept waiting for the Police Accademy gags to slip out.
The other film I picked up was one I wasn't sure if I'd actually seen, or just read about in a magazine... coz I recognised certain screen shots on the back and remembered thinking how cool they looked at the time.
Turns out I hadn't actually seen it... and still haven't bothered to watch all of it, coz it really is quite crap. That'll be The Incredible Melting Man then.
Good(ish) effects for the time, but it seems that's where all of the budget went, coz the script, acting and directing are diaboical.
Labels: movies
Steve 11:32 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Okay... it seems to be working again.I dunno what went wrong, coz I had assorted harware failures left right and centre. Monitor, sound card, adsl modem all refued to work at one point or another.
A system restore seemed to fix things, but I'm still rather jittery about it.
Labels: computers
Steve 10:55 PM [+] (0) comments
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
My laptop's broken... or rather the monitor is. It just stopped working, mid mp3. No glitching, flickering or anything.
So I've hooked up an external monitor from my old pc, which is a pretty poor arrangement, but it's gonna have to do till I can get it fixed... and god I hope I can get it fixed, coz this was a grey import... never officially imported. (Obviously they didnt tell me that when I bought it.)
Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Steve 5:56 PM [+] (0) comments
I'm bored.
The cheques have cleared.
Time to go shopping.
Steve 10:47 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Anyway, enough with the grouching.Having a bank that's a bit crap turns out to have an upside. I have several cheques that I'm waiting for to clear, so seeing as I'm up at stupid-o'clock just lately, I take a wander to the atm machine a mile or so from here each morning to check my account.
It's really nice walking along normally busy streets when there's not a soul around, especially when the weather's not too bad.
The daily treck to the atm's become something of an enjoyable ritual now... I don't quite know what I'll do in the morning when the cheques clear.
Go shopping... maybe? There's a 24 hour store just a bit further down the road. Though I prefer to do that at around 3am.
Steve 8:50 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, March 08, 2004
HmmmRe-written version of this post as the original was waaaaaaaaaay harsh.
Okay, let's just say I'm an itsy bitsy bit ticked off.
Let down or otherwise fucked around by three people in a very short space of time... people who really should know better.
It just does my head in a bit coz it leaves me wondering, is it me? Am I *that* insignificant?
I guess that's the price of being a geek. Everyone's happy to know you when they want something done, but take it into the real world and it's a different story.
On a lighter note, a solution to this issue is at hand... right here.
Steve 10:26 PM [+] (0) comments
Saturday, March 06, 2004
I know, I know, I know... I really don't wanna turn this blog into nothing but a linkfest... but you just HAVE to see this. Its even better than the badgers.... probably.We Like The Moon
I'm hooked. Can't.... stop........... sing..ing........... We like the MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
A lot of the stuff I keep coming across on StumbleUpon has got me thinking I need to add a new section to my Benway Entertainment site, concentrating on funny or fascinating flash animations.
There are just so many out there, and some are really amazing.
Another I recently got into... another MrJuggles showed me ages ago that I really didn't investigate properly (I need to be shaken violently sometimes) is Homestarrunner. God only knows why I didn't realise how brilliant it is.
You've got me curious now Juggles.... what are these two sites you wanna show me?
Steve 3:17 PM [+] (0) comments
Thursday, March 04, 2004
So, I wasn't paying attention when I posted about StumbleUpon.Yes it is a Mozilla addon, but it works with IE, Linix and Mac browsers too.
Now go an install it... you'll never look back.
A bit more to show you how cool it is...
When you click the button to go to random sites... you get to not only rate that site depending on how you like it... you get to comment on it to. More than that... you can go along to your fave sites, rate them and comment on them.
As an example, suppose you went to Movabletype.org, you could rate it, and if you were to comment on it, or just go and read the comments... THIS is what you'd find.
It's like having weblog comments on every single site on the web.
Obviously you cant comment on it from the link I just posted here, coz you arent a logged in user (unless you are).
Steve 1:04 PM [+] (0) comments
Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, with fully restored badger scenes
Steve 8:59 AM [+] (0) comments
Badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger mushroom mushroom badger badger badger badger badger badger badger a snake!!!
Steve 2:32 AM [+] (0) comments
I've added a new link into the menu bar on the left.
Where I've Surfed Today points to my StumbleUpon profile page and includes links and comments to sites I've visited most recently.
Obviously *really* good sites will still get linked to from here, but even so... I'm finding an awful lot of great stuff out there and if I linked to all of it... well... it's time consuming and doesn't really make for good blog reading... though I dunno that this blog makes for good reading anyway... but still... I have a format that I like to keep to and a link blog isn't my thing.
Am I ever rambling or what?
Steve 12:08 AM [+] (0) comments
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Remember the "Smack The Pingu" game I linked to a few weeks back?I just found a wonderfully twisted variation of that site...
give it a try.
Steve 11:25 PM [+] (0) comments
I may have mentioned this Pong Animation before, but I just found it in my bookmarks after I dont know how long and laughed my head off all over again. I'm thinking it may have been Juggles who mentioned it originally... not sure.
Go check it out. It rocks.
Two more funky sites I came across with this StumbleUpon thing...
Tower Of Bears and whatever this thing is.
And there's more...
For anyone who's ever wondered how bears make contact with aliens, HERE is the answer.
Pig latin Google. WTF?!?
Seen the Crusha advert with the singing cats? Check this out.... and this.
There's loads of funny little games out there... and this is one of them.
Steve 12:52 AM [+] (0) comments
Okay... completely disregard everything I just said.
I just found a wonderful reason to use Mozilla instead of IE, and it's called StumbleUpon.
It's not completely unlike the Grapevine addon (for IE) that I mentioned here a few months (a year even?) back... where users click on sites they like and you get to see random sites rated by others... blah blah blah... I'm not describing it very well.
Anyway, suffice to say I ditched grapevine after a time because it was unstable and turned out to be a bit crap anyway. StumbleUpon, on the other hand is proving to be a quility addon, with lots of very cool features and a whole community backing it up, with forums, chats, profiles, loadsa stuff.
Just go take a look at their website and see what I'm talking about... then get yourself a copy of Mozilla to run it. It's worth it. I'm converted.
Steve 12:19 AM [+] (0) comments
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
So, the Mozilla browser then huh?Seems you're not cool if you still use Internet Explorer... only lamers and newbies use IE, and netgods use Mozilla. Is that so?
Well... I installed Mozilla last night just to see what all the fuss is about.
Yeah.. it has built in popup suppression and yeah it's maybe a tiny bit faster than IE and yeah, the tabs are very nice... but so what? You can add popup suppression to IE very effectively with the google toolbar, and it's not THAT much faster. So it all comes down to the tabs.
Is it really a good exchange? Tabs in exchange for not being able to use sites that implement MS' variation on Java... not being able to use the many sites that insist on IE, having screwed up layouts on sites that were tested solely on IE... ?
Nope.
Next time someone tells you you're lame and don't know anything coz you use MS IE, just point out that while IE may not be standards compliant... the *web* is not standards compliant... it's *IE* compliant.
Steve 9:29 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, March 01, 2004
There's something really special about going out on a frosty morning at 8am and walking 3 or 4 miles into town, just because you feel like it and not because you have to.It's kinda peculiar when 8am is near the end of your day as opposed to near the start... but even so... MacDonalds breakfast (supper?) is always welcome in my day.
Steve 10:40 AM [+] (0) comments
Fascinating.
There are two characters who frequent the england chatroom, both considered trolls to some extent.
Thing is, they both have a bizarre way with language.
One... the original is utterly surreal. You have to really warp your mind to get even a hint of his meaning... but there is meaning, however obscure. I've come to admire this character as something of a walking work of art. He'll always cause problems and always get himself kicked out... but I can't help liking him.
The other is a wannabe. He has aped the original's use of language to some degree, making it very difficult to grasp quite what it is he's trying to say. The difference is, he actually *is* trying to say something that people would understand, and when you figure out what it is, you see that he's just a miserable malcontent... a whiner.
Now for the longest time I've wondered what would happen if these two should ever actually meet in the channel. Would they have some bizarre and surreal, unintelligable conversation?
Well, tonight it happened, and the result was fascinating.
The original saw the wannabe for exactly what he was and in his own obscure and surreal way, ripped the wannabe a new asshole.
Brilliant entertainment.
Labels: chatrooms
Steve 6:41 AM [+] (0) comments
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