Blog On The Motorway

Ellen has a new phone, and the response it has engendered in me has not been pretty.  It’s one of those all-singing HTC Android phones that falls under the title ’smartphone.’ And by Christ is it smart.  Up until I saw it I actually thought that my lovely LG phone that I have had for the past year was quite good.  It allowed me to look on the internet and everything.  Ellen’s phone makes my LG look like a Jackson 5 reunion, absolutely surplus to requirement.  Added to this that the software is all Google, my online brand of choice, and it makes this new intruder into my home seem like a wanton hussy, flirting with me while my old phone sits in the corner of the room and weeps.

Now I don’t intend to run through all the reasons that the HTC is so good, but trust me, it’s every bit as nice as an iPhone, with the added benefit of you not looking a complete ballache by holding it. (Sorry Gray, couldn’t resist) but it has gotten me thinking about just how much the internet has become a part of my life in the few short years since Jonic took me aside and really explained it all to me.  Right now if I had Ellen’s phone I would be streaming music on my Spotify while scrobbling to my last.fm, updating my twitter and facebook in one swoop and reading the 60 odd blogs I have on my Google Reader.  And that’s even before we get to the three websites I now run.

I honestly don’t know how I would cope now, without the Internet.  I mean, I’m old enough to remember a time when there was no Internet, at least not for me.  For a good few years we just didn’t have the net at home, and I didn’t have access at work, and I was fine. Possibly had a bit more free time as well.  But the idea of never speaking to someone I have never met on twitter ever again, or discovering what new music is out there at the touch of a button, to not have these things now would terrify me.  And yet at the same time I know that I have barely scratched the surface of the wonderful world of the Internet.

At the same time, I do look at little Rosie and wonder exactly what this new interconnected world is going to mean to her.  Obviously, she’s going to grow up an a house where information and connectivity are a big part of her world, and by the time she gets to school the world will no doubt have moved on dramatically once more.  It’s an exciting time. But anyway, I don’t really know where I am going with this, except to say that my envy of Ellen’s new phone made me sit up and think hard about how dependent on the net I am these days, and how that seems to me to be a very positive thing.  As one of the readers of this here blog, you are a very big part of why I love it. So cheers.

So it’s official, I am utterly shit.

Having promised not to let my extracurricular activities preclude me from updating this place, the truth is that Year of Health and Demon Pigeon (not to mention the fallout of that business at the tail end of last year) have been keeping me pretty busy of late. Incidentally, both sites are now live, and I have to say I’m pretty pleased with the results, both in terms of the lifestyle change that Year Of Health has enacted within me, and in how Demon Pigeon has turned out, given it’s my first foray into the wider world of ‘doing the internet’ properly. If you haven’t done so yet, do go check them out.

But enough of the digital pimping, what else is new with me? Well, I’m in a new job, so that’s nice. Things are going pretty well at the moment, although I’m bloody knackered by the end of the day. Ellen got me the complete Buffy box set for Christmas, and to my pleasant surprise she’s really enjoying watching it with me at the minute, and we’re not even up to the bit in season two when it all gets really bloody good. You know the one, where the person does the thing? Yeah, you know. Don’t pretend you don’t.

I saw Avatar twice at the cinema, both times in 3d. The first time I was staggered by the sheer beauty of it, and the second time I realised that under all that brightly coloured 3d fauna there lay at the heart of it a distinctly average film. I’m going to be interviewing one of my all time favourite bands, and even if it is going to be via email that’s pretty bloody cool. Oh, and I’ve become a Gleek.

So I just wanted to pop by and let you all know that I’m still here, which I am, and that I fully intend to update this more often, well aware as I am that I owe you good people a lot of Cross Blogination posts. The fact that it’s my turn as well should spur me on a bit.

So how are all of you?

The current war in the charts for the Christmas number one spot has me conflicted. For those of you who don’t know (in my last post I left out one American in particular and I don’t want to do the same again) in the UK we have a show called X Factor, much the same as American Idol but with just enough format tweaks for it to justify its relabeling. Every year I watch it, for the same reasons that I watch American Idol, because not everything has to be cerebral, sometimes I like to watch dumb shit.  During the show I pick the one contestant who seems to be marginally talented, and then they either win or lose and I never think of them again. It’s just not my cup of tea, music wise, but as an entertainment show it’s gloriously awful and entertaining to watch.

But then the show ends, and the winner releases their single, just in time to trample all over the competition for the Christmas number one. The X factor winner’s single has been Christmas number one for the last five years, all but destroying what used to be an entertaining British pastime, namely talking down the pub with each other who was going to be Christmas number one. It used to be a big deal. I remember being a kid and suddenly the charts seemed quite important around Christmas.. But that’s no longer the case.

Until this year. Sick of the situation, a groundswell movement has to try and get ‘Killing In The Name’ by Rage Against The Machine to be Christmas number one instead.  A ridiculous idea, doomed to failure, except that with over half the week gone, Rage are beating the X factor single by about 40,000 copies. So there’s a very real chance that this could happen.

But enough background, most of you will be going, ‘yes Paul, we know this.’ But anyway, my initial thoughts about this were pretty much against it. For one thing, this is mainly gonna benefit Sony, of whom one of the main people is…Simon Cowell. Both singles are on the same label. Second of all, there is something to be said for the idea that everyone buying the single are behaving with the same sheep-like mentality that the people buying the X factor single are exhibiting, especially given the song’s ‘Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me’ message. And so at first I dismissed it.

But then the other night I was sat on Twitter that all of a sudden it occurred to me that I was looking at it all wrong.  I then considered the situation again.

• Do I love Rage? Yes, unreservedly, they are one of my favourite childhood bands, and they introduced me to both metal and hip hop.
• Would I like them to be number one at Christmas? Totally.
• Do I like the idea of Simon Cowell in a strop? Indeed I do.
• So why don’t you buy the download then? I dunno, how much is it?
• 65p from play.com……

And so I made up my mind, and downloaded a song that I have previously bought three times on CD, once on single, and once on tape.  And now I am hooked, scanning the news hourly for fresh sales figures.  But now, as if to confirm that I made the right decision, Rage appeared on Radio 5 live at 8.50 this morning.  So, just as people were pulling into work, they were greeted with this:

Now I should point out this is decidedly NSFW. But the fact that Rage are back, playing together, and getting to do that on Radio 5 with Nicky Campbell (a horrible little turd if ever there was one) is surely cause for celebration.

So what are you waiting for? Go buy the single!

After some deliberation the decision has been made that now is the time to unleash onto the world our new project, so get down on your knees, and make Demon Pigeon your new God.

That is not to say that we’ve gone live with it just yet, but more that we’re getting quite bored of not telling anyone about it.  Besides, it might be a good idea to build expectations, so that we can roundly let those same expectations down when we launch in January.

To wit, expect nothing short of the greatest website that your eyes have ever witnessed, and prepare those same eyes to weep with unbridled joy at the marvellous spectacle. Oceans will shift, cities will be levelled. Women and children will tremble in fear.  Governments will fall.  It’s all gonna be a bit epic, to be honest.

So what is Demon Pigeon, you may well ask yourselves.  Well at the moment it’s a holding page, but come January the somethingth (we’re not altogether decided on that) it will be a metal site, chocked full of news, reviews, interviews and more.  Unlike other sites out there, we will also be covering areas that are of general interest to metalheads, from books to comics to film to art.

But who these magnificent bastards who will be helping me with this endeavour?  You may well ask.  My Co-Editor and all round fancy gent is Daniel Cairns, and he will also be running the new @demon_pigeon Twitter feed.  If you are on Twitter, go follow us now, since Dan is a lot funnier than I am. 

As well as this we also have Games Junkie extraordinaire Andi Hamilton. And no, it’s not the little writer of Drop The Dead Donkey, and yes, I’m as disappointed as you are.  Also joining us is Noel Oxford, writer extraordinaire, and fellow escapee with Dan from another metal site.  Rounding out the team is Dom Sohor, who will be making the whole place look awesome with his lovely shiny visuals, and occasionally words too.  Go check out his gallery, it’s full of awesome.

So that’s the big news that I couldn’t tell you, so consider yourselves duly told. If any of you are massively disappointed by this, you know what to do.

So today was supposed to be Cross Blogination but I haven’t had the chance to do it yet so that’ll be tomorrow.  I’m mega busy at the moment but I just wanted to say that I am currently a very excited Paul.

I’ve mentioned before that I have got a couple of projects lined up for the new year.  One of these in particular I have agreed not to talk about until its ready to launch. But I want to talk about it. But I can’t. So I’m going to be vague and cryptic instead. I do hope you don’t mind.

Today heralded some excellent news, because through the magic of twitter I contacted someone who is a little bit of an idol of mine, in writing terms.  I’m sure he would shudder at the prospect of being anyone’s idol, but I’ve been reading his work for many many years, and it was his work, biting and witty and blunt, that was the first of its kind to really stand out to me. Put simply he is one of the reasons I wanted to become a writer in this particular field. 

I met him a few years back and was a bit overly gushing, so since then I’ve tried to keep my fandom a bit under the radar when talking to him on Twitter.  It’s wierd how the strangest people become idols in your field. I suppose it’s a bit like entrepreneurs becoming fans of Alan Sugar.  Anyway, it’s not like I follow him around, or even read every single thing he writes, but his influence on me was profound at a particular moment for me.

So anyway, today I sent him a message telling him briefly about the project we are working on, and asking if he had any advice. He messaged back and said that he’d be glad to share it, and also he’d be glad to contribute some writing to it.  So now we have one of the biggest and best writers around bringing his considerable expertise to bear on our little project, and suddenly it all feels very real, like something we can actually achieve.  I am quite excited about this project, I’m working with some really talented writers already, but this latest addition, in whatever capacity he contributes, will just be the icing on the cake.

As I say, a very excited and happy Paul today. Come back tomorrow for Cross Blogination, where I shall be reviewing an album so far outside of my normal tastes that it might as well be a Jedward album.

For all of the ‘big ideas’ that I have on a regular basis, I have a terrible knack of letting the dust settle on them for long enough that I move on from them.  You may have noticed that there has not been a lot of movement on the Blood On The Motorway front recently, so I thought I’d make some promises on here that might spur me into action.

So here goes.  Blood On The Motorway will be launching in January 2010. There, I’ve said it now. Have to live up to it. Can’t go disappointing you now. 

In this spirit I’ve also tried to kick-start some action on my other ‘Untitled Online Project’ that I am doing with some chaps I met on Twitter.  This one seems pretty exciting actually, so hopefully by the end of month one of next year I should have more than enough on my plate.

Around here I’ve decided to make my ‘Letters to Rosie’ a more permanent feature, since they seem to go over pretty well and they are a nice thing for me to do. Hopefully one day she will read them all and decide I’m not such a bad Dad after all.  I’m going to keep it to one a month to start with, but we shall see from there. Cross Blogination is going pretty well, and if anyone else has any ideas for things they would like me to do more of, then let me know.

In a year that has been dominated by the reformations of some of the biggest bands in rock history (AIC, Pavement, Rival Schools, hell even Led Zep) an announcement crept out the other night that will make absolutely no impact on the worldwide music scene but managed to make me and a very select group of metalheads happy as a collective of pigs in excrement. Will Haven have reformed.

Will who? You may well ask. Will Haven (not a person) were a band from Sacramento, California, friends of the Deftones and Far, and purveyors of one of the most ungodly rackets ever known to man or beast.  Thunderous and tectonic riffs and the guttural and hugely emotional roar of lead singer Grady Avenell.  They split a few years back and reformed again with another singer, but never had the chemistry of when Grady was in the band. But now he is back.

I met the band when they were touring their third album,Carpe Diem. They were playing at the Manchester Academy, and myself and my friends Rich and Barker arrived in plenty of time before the gig, as we wanted to see both the support acts, but also because we were determined to go backstage and meet our heroes in the flesh, young and lacking in shame as we were.

Our friend Moira had worked at the venue and had told us a secret way to get backstage without hassle, but when we arrived we quickly found that a redesign had made this nigh on possible. So after a while we retired to the bar.  We had been there only a few minutes when in walked the band, minus Grady.  We tried to remain as calm as possible, and were going to wait for them to sit down before we approached them, but then their guitarist Jeff looked over and spotted Barker’s home-made Far T Shirt, and they all made their way over.

They asked if they could sit with us, and we stammered our appreciation, and then for about half an hour they sat with us, chilling and talking and laughing at our jokes.  They may have just been a struggling metal band who still had their day jobs back at home, but this was like meeting the Who for us.  They were the sweetest and loveliest guys you could meet.  Later, we saw them again as we milled about between support acts, and I met Grady, who took my song suggestion and gave it pride of place as their opening encore song.

Of all the bands I have met they remain my favourite, no matter that nobody has ever heard of them.  They were probably shocked to find that a bunch of kids from the other side of the Atlantic had been so humbled to meet a band that struggled to even get a record deal in their native land, but not as shocked as I was to find that the old adage of ‘never meet your idols’ can thankfully be absolutely wrong.

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Last night was the climax (oo-er) of Gray’s 48 hour tweetathon, and in the last few hours he got loads of high profile support from the likes of Jonathan Ross (who even donated £50) and he smashed his £1000 target with hours to go. I was there for the last hour and I must admit that everyone got a bit emotional at the end, when Gray posted as his final tweet the theme from Cheers. Well done mate, and lets hope all those new followers stick around to check out Cross Blogination!

Tomorrow I will be doing something a bit different as it is Blog Action Day in support of action on Climate Change.  I haven’t decided fully what I am doing for it yet, but if you have a blog and would like to get involved, check it out.

I’m in quite a good mood today.  Work is not sucking quite so hard at the moment, and a few things have been cleared up and whatnot.  Secondly, I’m still buzzing from last night’s ‘epic night of telly.’ True Blood was spectacular, I loved how well drawn the various characters are, and the tension is very well managed. Generation Kill was very good too, and Criminal Justice is excellent so far as well, even if it remains the most depressing piece of drama ever made.

I have also now officially finished my first module for my OU course, so I’m just waiting for my final mark and then it’s onto the second module.  My average mark is around 70% so far, and that’s even taking into consideration the massive mess I made of one assignment.

On top of this, I appear to have gotten involved in yet another ‘unnamed online project’ with someone from Twitter.  I have promised not to say too much about this while we are still in the process of making ludicrous statements of intent to each other, but it promises to be the bestest and greatest thing that teh Internet has ever seen. Even better than this blog that you are reading right now.

I know, you’re sat there right now, reading this (look at you, don’t you look nice today?) and wondering to yourself, how can that even be possible!?  Well, it is.  And we will show you, just as soon as we stop talking about it and start to do it.

And if that’s not enough ‘Epic Awesome’ for you, then you will be pleased to hear that this week the benevolent First Buses have extended one of their bus routes to take me from my house directly to my work. No more getting off the bus and walking the last fifteen minutes for me. No. I think this is their way of apologising to me for all of the miserable joyless bastards they have been employing over the last few years. You know, the ones who see that you only have a ten pound note (still legal tender as far as I’m aware) and then tut and shake their heads as though you have defiled their grandmother and then shaved their cat on the way out.

So, to recap, it’s a good day, and I am in a good mood.  Which is nice.  How are you?

So that was interesting.  The whole 7 days experiment was, I think it’s safe to say, pretty successful, although I will admit defeat on the timescale. I forgot how little I am on the computer over the weekend, and the fact that I had an OU assignment due in at the same time. But overall it’s been lovely to get the feedback that I have, and nice to see the rise in visitors too, but most of all it’s been good to do some writing that has stretched me a little bit.  Some of the topics were quite hard to wrap my head around, so thanks to everyone who left a suggestion, and I hope that you all liked it.

One thing this week has shown me is the potential of this blog, so over the next few weeks I’m going to try some other interesting things. I already have something in the pipeline for a collaboration with a fellow twitterer, which should be up and running in the next week.  In the meantime, as ever, any thoughts on stuff you’d like me to write about are always welcome.  The first issue of Blood On The Motorway is done, second issue is being written, so it wont be long before that starts.

Other than that, the big news for me is that I’m about to say goodbye to Microsoft completely at home. Unfortunately work is another matter, but tonight (or over the weekend) I will be installing Ubuntu on my PC at home, and saying goodbye to the steaming pile of excrement that is Vista.

It’s been a long and slow decline in my relationship with Microsoft.  Like most people like me, who aren’t particularly techie, Windows and its products were always just easier. As the default setting on every PC I’ve ever used (I used a Mac once. Didn’t like it) I learnt the Internet through Explorer, used Media Player to play music, even had a hotmail account, and ‘made do’ with the tools at hand.

It wasn’t until I met Jonic that I realised that there was more out there. I mean I had always known that there were alternatives, but I figured they would be so impossible to use that there wasn’t any point. This is the mythology that Microsoft have perpetuated throughout their history.  But then Jonic showed me Firefox.  It was a joy. Even in its infancy it was smoother and easier to use, and came with an added sense of freedom.

Next up was Gmail, and again a whole new world of usability. I still love Gmail, and am now a bit of a slave to the Google machine. I don’t know what I would do without iGoogle. (Clue: I may get more work done.) But now I’ve decided to take the next step away from the hideous chud of an operating system that is Vista.  I’m sure I don’t need to list its faults here, you will all have heard or seen for yourself.

For someone moving very slowly into the world of tech geekery, the move to a Linux based OS is quite a large step, but I’m determined to do it, and do it on my own.  Wish me luck.

So once again it’s been a while since I’ve blogged, I’ve been suffering with a writers block so severe it’s become crushing. But really it’s hardly surprising, given that every day seems to bring so much to comment on that it’s impossible to choose.

First of all we have total meltdown of our entire political system, which sees every range of the political world running around, flailing their arms, blaming the system for allowing them to steal and promising to ‘do something about it.’

Secondly, we see that the tabloids have a new sport, which I like to call disability taunting, wherein the red tops go positively agog with the news that a woman with learning difficulties reacted to instant global superstardom by acting like someone with learning difficulties struggling to deal with an overwhelming change in their life.

Thirdly, we see North Korea’s heirs to the throne staging their own talent contest by trying to be more threatening to the world than the others. Less Britain’s Got Talent, more North Korea’s Got Apocalypse.

Now, planes are falling from the sky, the world’s ex-biggest company has gone bankrupt, doctors are being shot in America for helping women, and Africa has yet another calamity of a nation on the brink of disaster.  And yet, through it all, half the publishing houses in the UK are more concerned with the divorce of the two most despicable people imaginable.

Happy days, eh?

On the plus side, while there is a massive whiff of FAIL all around the world, I have recently discovered the marvellous FailBlog, which makes me chuckle whenever it drops a lovely little thing into my google reader. So it can’t be all bad.