⅛ - One Eighth (Video)

Travel with me along the roads of the English midlands.


(Watch on Google Video)

I had originally sent this video to YouTube, but I was very disappointed with the quality, so I'm using Google Video instead. (I guess its all the same company now.)

The music is Infatuation by regular commenter, Gamma Goblin. (Cheers!)

The acknowledgements at the end are mostly YouTube user names. (messabout1, smithysrat, samsarajade and SeeVeeBee.) The Thai Garden is a restaurant.

Hope you enjoyed watching!

We're spoiling the ending for your own good!

Spoiler warning
The article contains spoilers for the Monk episode Mr Monk and girl who cried wolf. You may not want to read this if you've not seen it.

Just before tonight's episode of Monk (on Hallmark), the announcer warned viewers that a man covered in blood would appear at various points throughout the show. That's fair enough, but the announcer then reassured us all that "he's only playing a joke on Sharona".

The episode itself covers Sharona gradually losing her sanity and we're not meant to know - as viewers - if this man is real or an hallucination, until the big reveal at the end.

I'm all for warning people that they may find some shows upsetting, but giving away the ending like that seems unnecessary. I already know that both Sharona and the man-in-blood are in reality both actors.

What's up with comments 2 - This time its personal

The old issue with delayed comments is up again.

Basically, if the first attempt to transfer comments to my server fails, it won't try again until I post a new aticle or someone else leaves a comment. It doesn't tell me there is a problem unless I make the effort to look at the post-a-comment page.

The new blogger system, it says here, includes an improved system for FTP users. Hopefully, once I can move over to it, it will sort out these annoying problems.

In the meantime, if you don't see your comment turn up afer 5 minutes, you can try making a "Delete Me" comment, to make it try again. (I'll delete them as I see them.)

Cooking a beef casserole (Video)

I'm on fire today!



No really, I'm on fire. Someone grab a fire extinguisher!

Feeding Time! (Video)

Hurrah! I've finally worked out how to edit Quicktime video files. Enjoy.



Here's the link to the original request for a name. If you want to suggest a new name, leave a comment either here or on this video's YouTube page.

I've been everywhere, man.

I've visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited? made by marnanel map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey. © Crown copyright 2001.

I always wanted to be a radio DJ

Thinking about where I am now, and what I do... I realise I should have been a radio dj circa 1978; my jokes make the ones in Christmas Crackers look good, my grasp of reality is slim - meaning that imaginary dogs like Arnold could form part of my show; and my taste in music... while varied, is pretty much non-threatening for the most part and good listening.

I should have realised this, when a fair amount of my early childhood was spent with an old record player and a cassette recorder; constantly making my own "radio shows"; unfortunately most of these are long and gone - the advent of cassette-based computer programs caused much of that early unbridled creativity to be forever lost. C'est la vie.

In this day and age, I could easily set up my own radio station; technology is pretty simple and easy to use... so why don't I? Too much effort. Too much effort and all that copyright and royalties stuff. Look at BBC Radio; although you can listen to their streamed media, you can only download "music-free" highlights of shows in their podcasts [although, these are usually quite entertaining and well worth the minute it takes for it to come down]

Maybe one day I'll be a DJ. But maybe I'll go off in another direction. Who knows. I am what I am, where I am. And such is the way things turn out. Like an upside down cake. Don't know how good it's going to be until it's flipped.

Catch you laters
M.

Wikipedia vandalism cleanup

Several days ago, while discussing Wikipedia with a friend, I was shown an act of vandalism on their old college's page which had been left unfixed for a week.

"Marian has been rated the worst school for academics by various sources however it has recieved unanimous votes for the #1 party school in the World."

-- Wikipedia.

This edit was made early on the 25th of October. It was finally reverted this evening on the 6th of November. That's about twelve and a half days.

Perhaps everyone else who was also watching this page also decided to see how long it would take instead of just fixing it.

Important questions of our time

I've got a MySpace account.

Now what?

Review - Olympus micro-mini digital camera

For my recent plunge into the world of amateur video production, I had to buy a new camera. My old digital camera was very good for stills, but the video function only recorded silent videos, as it has no microphone.

This was recorded using my new Olympus μ-mini digital camera. (5 megapixels.) I planned to transfer the recorded file directly into YouTube, but this clip, at a little over five minutes, went over YouTube's 100MB limit. As such, I had to get a friend to compress the video down a bit.

Here's my review. More notes below. Even if you don't care about the camera, you can look at the nice scenery from a nice walk along the Grand Union canal.



I forgot to mention in my commentary (totally unscripted) that it has a strange battery - there no way I could use standard battaries like AAs. It did come with a charger, but if the battery ran out, I'd have to go home and recharge, unless I had a spare. The trade off is that this camera is tiny, but I think I'd rather have the regular batteries.

As promised, I've taken some still pics and a video sample. These files all came directly off the camera and put onto the web server, without any editing or touching up.

A short video clip. (1.5 MB)
A still picture, taken at the same time I did "7 miles from Ludlow".
Some sheep.
Some ducks at twilight. (The flash did go off.)

Enjoy.