Tuesday 24th August 2004
Song: Brand New - Shower Scene
For the geeks among us who missed this particular /. article, read this. A blog by a Microsoft employee, wanting to enable more collaboration between Microsoft and the open source world. It's quite interesting, IMO. Another article that proves that not everyone who is employed at Microsoft is evil...
However, it seems unlikely that MS will be opening up Office of Visual Studio anytime soon. What would be very good though, as a few of the commenters mentioned, was Explorer. Personally I don't care *that* much about the fact it's bundled with Windows, and the monopoly laws etc. What bothers me, is that it's frankly a steaming hunk of shit. :)
Saturday 28th August 2004
Song: Evanescence - Taking Over Me
Well well... I think my primary blog readers are all sitting out in a field somewhere getting high, but I felt that an update was in order anyway.
On Wednesday, I went along to see my employer at the bookshop to see whether or not he was still interested in having me work there or not, now that he was back from holiday, and so there was no longer a shortage of staff. He's basically continuing his smiley approach of "If you want to work, come in, and I'll pay you while you work... if you don't want to work, stay at home". I then explained that I wasn't sure if there'd be anything for me to do now that everyone is back from holiday, so he said then that if I go in, he'll try his best to find some task for me, but if there isn't anything then he'll simply send me home. I had no complaints with that :)
Later that evening, I went off to the pub with Matt, my brother, Marc, and his friend Kirsty. It was pretty average, except at one point after I'd just won my second game of pool (of two), I got all loud and silly about it, making everyone aware of my greatness. Then some guy on the other table asked me if I wanted to play him. Apparently he thought that I actually thought that I was good... I felt kind'a obliged to play. So I did... and lost. I wasn't seven balled (where the loser still has all seven balls remaining when the game is over, for those who don't know) though, so it wasn't *that* bad. He then asked if I wanted a game of doubles, nodding at the guy he was with. So I accept, as he seemed quite friendly, despite his accent making it hard for us to communicate. So I get Matt over... and we lose. Again, it was pretty close though. We then played again... and again. In the end, we'd played five games, they won 3-2, if I remember correctly. It was nice though... they did want to play for money though, which I wasn't up for.
Soon after that was over, my brother phoned the bowling place in Bracknell, and booked a lane for about 20 mins after the time of the call and booking. So... we rush. Out we go, quickly pop home, so my brother can pick up his ball, and I grab my dearest iPod. I then hop in the car with Matt, along with my iPod, for the sake of better music than what my brother was offering. We just get out of Knaphill, onto the A322, and suddenly all the traffic is still. If the traffic was moving, it was probably about a 15 min journey, and we had about 10 mins before we were meant to start bowling... so needless to say that a traffic jam wasn't really needed. As we eventually got closer and later, it became apparent that there'd been some sort of big accident. It appeared to be on the other side of the road, but the police had actually blocked off both sides of the road (this is a part of the road where there's two lanes each side, and a grass divider down the middle with a metal barrier on it). So we get forced off of the A322 onto some little road, and we're lost. Already about 5 mins late. We pull over, so that drivers can discuss where to go... and then we set off again. It was only about 2 mins before we were back on the A322, past the accident point. However, there were a *lot* of police around, and my brother was kind'a crapping himself due to the illegal nature of his car. We got away though... and were soon back on the road, and moving fast. The only other part of the evening worth mentioning was that I won the bowling... I rock.
Thursday saw me heading off at 9am to Reading with my dad. He'd somehow managed to get away with working from home for some of the day, and only being in his office from approx 10-3. That's what we were aiming for anyway. We were late, again due to traffic. Festival goers in their masses, and who were clearly not from the area, due to their poor lane discipline. This only angered my dad further. We eventually made it to DLC Cars, in Reading, where I was to spend another day sorting out their computers (that my dad and I installed a few weeks ago) and teaching them how to use them. Most of the day was spent sitting doing nothing waiting for Windows XP's Service Pack 2 to download and install (had do it on three computers). Some of that time though was spent talking to Kelly, a girl who works there doing admin stuff, but most of the time that the phones aren't ringing, she has nothing to do... so we had a little chat about driving, Reading Festival, airplanes and a few other things... never met her before, so was a bit awkward at first as I always am, but she was nice enough. My dad was late to work because of traffic, and once he left to come and get me, he was late again due to traffic. We'd then missed our proposed finishing time of 3pm... once my dad eventually got back to me (nearer 5pm). We didn't leave immediately. All in all, including travelling time, it was around an 11 hour day. The good news though, is that it didn't feel that long.
One moan though, that I feel I need to make... MS-DOS batch files. Those things are pure and utter evil. As a wee kid, playing around with MS-DOS 6.22 and WIndows 3.11, I made and edited a few batch files, to do little things. This was when I was like 8 or something, so the idea of a for loop was not something that I understood. However, one thing that I was asked to do for DLC required some files to be copied over a network every now and again... so it seemed easier for them, to give them a simple batch file that they can run when they need it. So I looked up how to do a "if fileexists(file)" type thing, and found out... so I then opened notepad and made a kind'a prototype, using psuedo code/English where I didn't know the syntax for something. I soon got that finished, and was happy. Using the old "/?" flag, I quickly learnt about how DOS does it's if statements, and for loops. For loops took a bit of playing, but I eventually got there. Lord only knows how DOS parses batch files, but I read about something *very* weird in it's for loops. The syntax is:
"FOR %variable IN (set) DO command command-parameters]"
However, I then noticed this...
"To use the FOR command in a batch program, specify %%variable instead of %variable."
If *anyone* can explain why that would be, please tell me... I really can't figure it out.
Anyway... in general, I learnt that batch files are the worst thing ever made. Bad enough to make me wish I knew VB Script so I could solve the problem that way. Basically, my complaint is that batch files not only encourage, but *force* bad programming. For example, this is what I wanted to do. This is gonna look like bash, with the addition of a "fileexists" function that I'm too lazy to look up the bash equivelent of.
for i in *.*; do
file=$i;
if fileexists c:\bmx\bak\$file
echo $file;
done
The reason I wanted to do that, was just so I could make sure my for loop... what I was soon to learn though, was that there's no fucking way what-so-ever to do more than one command per iteration. ie, the most I could do was assign $i to $file, then it would loop round again. Fuck you Microsoft. But wait wait... it gets better. Batch files don't particularly well support functions... only GOTOs. (Any programmer reading this should know that using a GOTO in a program or script guarantees you a place in hell). However, what you can do, is make a label, and then use "call" to run it, thus emulating a function call, as once the block of code allocated to the label (there are no parenthesis or begin/end blocks of any sort either, so it's bloody hard to even get GOTOs to work right) ends, it returns back to where it was. But wait... it gets worse. Because apparently variables in your batch file, for whatever reason, are not global to that file. So once I'd done my "call" to my poorly constructed label/goto/block of code, I could no longer access my %i that was holding my filename... AAARGGGHHH! I went back to google and found out that I can do "call label %%i", which passes %i in as a parameter to the label, when I then learnt can be retrieved using %1. So I finally got it to do something. I then had another problem where the flow of the script wasn't what I thought it should be, but with no way to debug it, I had no choice but to just let it go (this resulted in me not unmounting a network drive that I had mounted). Also, with no return values from called applications (or maybe just no knowledge or documentation (God if only there were man pages in DOS) on how to get it) I had more problems there. Another thing you can't do, is line breaks where you want, ie, I had this:
if not fileexists E:
net use E:\ \\Danny\Danny /persistent: no
However... I can't do that, I *have* to do
if not fileexists E: net use E:\ \\Danny\Danny /persistent: no
This wasn't really a huge problem... I just don't like being forced into bad code layout.
For those interested to see what I made... click here to see my creation, and all the comments that I made at the time of writing it.
After writing all that, I've now forgotten what I did yesterday, but I doubt anyone cares... tomorrow I'm gonna be in a big field... not quite Reading, but nevermind.
Wednesday 25th August 2004
Thought I'd share this. :)
Monday 23rd August 2004
Song: The Used - A Box Full Of Sharp Objects
Here's an article about how 8 pixels cost Microsoft millions. Also "a Spanish-language version of Windows XP, destined for Latin American markets, asked users to select their gender between "not specified," "male" or "bitch," because of an unfortunate error in translation". There's a few other things there too... seems that poor Microsoft aren't too sensitive about religious matters either...
"The software giant managed to further offend the Saudis by creating another game in which Muslim warriors turned churches into mosques. That game was also withdrawn."
They're a strange company...
Thursday 19th August 2004
Song: Vonda Shepard - The Wildest Times
Well after much talk about little doing, yesterday I decided to pay a visit to Arthur Lords in Chobham. It's a fairly big piano and keyboard shop. Most things there are in excess of £1,000, but since they seem fairly specialist I thought they must have *some* cheap and cheerful things.
I was soon approached by some very un-charismatic salesman who seemed to have very little interest in talking to me. Obviously he had to try and make a sale, but I made some efforts to be friendly and talkative, which he promptly shot down. I made it quite clear at the start that I was a cheap-ass, but was after an electric keyboard to play with. He showed me the usual things, and then mentioned that he had a second hand one, if I was interested... it was apparently a few years old, but at the time worth around £1,100, now going for £140. I was interested immediately...
He showed me it, and played what was probably some generic keyboard salesman tune. However, the quality of sound that this keyboard was making was very good indeed... It seemed to have been kept in very good condition.
So anyway... I left it for the night to think about. Went on a mission with my brother to find old my keyboard books in our loft, and did so (yay) and had a quick look over them, remembering all the songs that I used to be able to play. Got excited, decided it was worth £140.
Went back today (twice, due to worries about it's size) and eventually handed over the card. Thankfully they use chip and pin there, which I was worried about because the signature on my card is awful. It seems unlikely that I'll ever be able to replicate it. Anyway... that's my story. I've been playing on it for a bit, and am quite happy. Remembering chords was a lot harder than I'd expected. Especially as the book I'm using now (the ones I used 10 years ago) plays most of the chords in their first inversion. However, when playing the songs, it becomes immediately obvious as to why they've done that.
I seem to have got the hang of Yesterday, by The Beatles already, which pleases me. When I'm Sixty-Four also sounds quite good... just need to get the hang of the chords though. I still worry about my left hand though. :\
Oh, and finally I think I should thank Marc for driving the three journeys. :)
Monday 16th August 2004
Song: Straylight Run - Holding On
Another dream... from this morning. Usually I have weird dreams after waking up early and then going back to sleep, but this one was quite early, before waking up at 8...
I was back in my old house installing linux on my computer, and then later was outside in some unrecognised field playing football with some kids. There were about 30 of them, and a few other people my age.
I can't remember the joiner, but I was then walking to a field, where I knew there was some very big political thing going on... and for some reason, I also knew/had very strong suscpicion that it involved the end of the world coming. So while I was walking to this field to hear this news about the world ending, my concious was somehow thinking of a Marilyn Manson song called "Last Day On Earth", with a line "We'll be together while the planet dies", but I was trying to think of some line in that song about holding hands. (When I woke up, I grabbed my iPod, put on Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals album, and in the song "Speed Of Pain" I found "Hope, that we die, holding hands". Taddaa! Anyway...)
I then arrived in this field in my grandparents' car. (Remember I was walking there a moment ago). We all gathered around in this field for a bit, but the next thing I know, we're outside my house and people were being executed. This whole time btw, I didn't get panicy about imminent death. For some reason, it was Nadia and Shell of this years' Big Brother doing the executions. Anyway, they didn't seem to be killing everyone. The rest of us were sent somewhere to do something. Memory is vague here, but I for some reason remember they were playing rugby or American Fotball, or something (in the house, I believe). Anyway, I was just watching, and then I found a secret passage which took me upstairs, to what is my parents room. I was planning on climbing out of their bedroom window and making a run for it. There, I found someone else who was also planning escape, and told me to go back through the secret passage, but go out to the back garden (my parent's room window faces the front of the house). I don't remember how or why my conversation with him ended, but quite soon Nadia and Shell were coming up stairs with their axes, and took away someone else to kill.
Pretty soon, I was to be executed. Nadia and Shell came to get me (this was actually the first time that I got a chance to see and realise who they were). They took me downstairs, and I kneeled on the floor and they both swung their axes at me, in perfect unison. Everything went black for a bit, and then it came back and everything was bright and pleasent. I then walked to back garden (which wasn't the back garden of this house, but all joined up in the dream), and sat around with other people who were presumably also dead, talking about Marilyn Manson. At the time, I hadn't at the time made the obvious connection to the lyrics from earlier. It just seemed like a common interest and something to talk about.
And... that's where it ended. I rock
Saturday 14th August 2004
Song: Taking Back Sunday - Number Five With A Bullet
I was standing in some shop reading Kerrang yesterday, about some tour with Linkin Park (headlining), and then it had The Used, Funeral For A Friend, and Korn. I *really* wish I could see that.
The Used and Korn... who would have ever thought?
That is all...
Thursday 12th August 2004
Song: Something Corporate - Fall
So annoyed! For a little over a year now, I've wanted a piano. I used to have keyboard lessons at a younger age, which I stopped at some age I can't remember. But as I got older, I wished I'd kept it up. So anyway... at some point while at college, I decided that I'd really like a piano, knowing that I could never afford one. More recently, I've been considering buying a little electric keyboard to entertain myself with.
Then yesterday, I got offered an upright piano for £50, which is less than half of what I was preparing to pay for a keyboard. But... I can't get it, 'cause this stupid house is too small and we have nowhere to put it. Our old house was quite a bit bigger than this one, and had plenty of space. In fact one of the main reasons for moving to a smaller house was that we had more space than we needed. Now that my brother and I had grown up, we didn't really need such a big house. Since then, I've been wishing I had a bigger bedroom, and my dad really regrets losing all that space we used to have (from a double garage to about 2/3 of one), and we've lost a bedroom, which is what he turned into a study type room for him to work in. Anyway... I'm just so annoyed that after wanting a piano for so long, I came so close to getting one!
I've been particularly unhappy lately, with the way it looks like I may never again be able to play guitar. My hand appears to have not settled properly, like it has in the past, following my recent problems with that. I can't get a F barre shapecomfortable. It just feels like something's being stretched, and that my hand doesn't want to be pushed that far. It's so frustrating. And I can't even play an open E, because of my thumb. I've spent a year practising over and over, and was finally happy with how it was all going. And now... gone. It pisses me off. Anyone who's ever taught themselves to play an instrument before should know what it'd feel like if they had to suddenly give it up as soon as it starts getting interesting and enjoyable.
Blah.
Tuesday 10th August 2004
Song: Savage Garden - Affirmation
heheh, this was so good... I had to share.
Monday 9th August 2004
Before I get into the bulk of this, I thought I'd say that I've just got back to the doctor, and it's now official that my wrist is ok. I'm now a bit too scared to use it too much though. :\ I thought if I left that at the bottom that most people with no care for Charlie would just skip past this entirely. So here we go...
Bob,
I wont carry this on much more, as I think it's quite clear we've just got down to difference of opinion. I will just say though that I agree with what you said here:
"i really want to say that i'd like to think about every band based purely on the music, but sometimes i find it difficult, as the personalities do affect things. to use a strange analogy, sometimes i find actresses in films more attractive if they play a character who has a personality i like. shouldn't logically make a difference, but it does."
More often than not, I find that girls I meet seem more attractive once I get to know them, if they have nice personalities. So I see where you're going with that. I'd just hope you'd give Charlie a second chance.
You also said: "you realise that more likely than charlie fading into obscurity would be charlie playing with fightstar on cd:uk."
Again I think this is just difference of opinion, but personally I'd hope he learnt his lesson from Busted, and wouldn't let that happen again. If when they get signed we see a repeat of Charlie's mistake, then I expect I'll side with you on this whole debate. Until then, I'd like to hope he wont make that mistake again, and am anxiously waiting to see.
Finally you said: "i feel guilty for attacking charlie so savagely when i know you like him. i do however appreciate this e-debate (is that a new word?). it helps sometimes to actually have to think through why you think things."
No need to feel guilty, I'm not gonna take offence to this all. It's not like he's a really close friend of mine. But yes, I too have appreciated this. :)
Sunday 8th August 2004
grr, fuck. I had written out half of what I was gonna write, then our dishwasher fucked up, and the power for the whole house went off. Bugger...
Right, so like I said... this update is just fro Bob. As I have no way of leaving feedback on your site, I assumed you'd read this...
Although you're right in saying that him being in Busted is the first thing you think of, the reason I wasn't allowing Busted as a reason against him was because I think a moan about Busted on the whole is worthy of it's own rant. You also mentioned James... Cheif song writer in Busted. Personally, I don't think it's something he should be proud of. "I messed my pants, when we flew over France". I'm not gonna make any effort to defend James as a song writer. I'd also like to say I agree with "the other two are, clearly, fame-hungry, egotistical maniacs who like nothing more than seeing their faces on every channel". To be quite honest... I'm not sure what Matt is even doing there. It's rare you can actually hear his bass, and he doesn't really seem to do much with it on the whole. He actually used to play guitar before Charlie joined, then he got moved down to bass as Charlie was a better guitarist. Matt also jokingly said that Charlie was a better bassist than him too. Anyway... to me, the heart and soul of Busted is that James fellow. He writes most of the songs, and seems to be living the sort of life and making the sort of music that he likes.
As for Charlie himself... what you said seems to basically be saying that he's a sellout. And you explained your reasons well, I'm not gonna try and challenge them too much. But of course, I'm afraid there are a few things that I will say. In the beginning, there was a rich kid called Charlie who started playing guitar at a young age, also picked up piano and drums at some point in his life. Later came an NME magazine. From what I understand, NME seems to cover a fairly wide range of music types. Including pop, and some form of "alternative" music. Matt and James, currently unsigned and with a few songs written (including "What I Go To School For", and "Sleeping With The Lights On") put an advert in NME for a guitarist, and Charlie replied, and so Busted were born. I don't know what Charlie thought he was getting himself into, but I'm still quite sure that he hadn't anticipated this. He might have seen this as a chance to make music for a living, and get to tour etc. I firmly believe he hadn't anticipated answering questions in interviews about his chosen style of jump, and singing songs about Matt's science teacher. Unfortunately though, he was soon trapped. I think it's also fair to say that once the label saw what they could do with these three lads, they naturally took over. It's not unknown of for Charlie to not appear in interviews, and I read somewhere that he did once say he doesn't like doing all the promo stuff at all.
I think your painter analogy is a bit off... as that suggests that he was already somewhere in the music industry before joining Busted. ie, if he had Fightstar three years ago and joined busted last week to make more money. I do understand what you're saying. I just don't entirely agree with it.
As for the bands who wont play until Charlie leaves, or Funeral For A Friend laughing at his expence, I just think it's sad. Regardless of whether or not he jumps around and sings about a guy next door called David, he is still a fan of their band. I think it's also unfair that the band on stage would use their position to make more people pissed off with Charlie, by making all their fans wait for him to go... I just think it's incredibly harsh.
"it makes it worse when he advertises my favourite bands to all the trendies when he does it (if i saw lots of little busted kids wearing idlewild t-shirts because charlie does, i would die)" I see your point again, but I don't think that's Charlie's fault. If he wants to wear an idlewild t-shirt, I think he's allowed to.
To end, I have two question for you, Bob. If he were to leave Busted, fade out of the spotlight into obscurity, whilst playing with Fightstar at the Underworld and The Garage... would you hold a grudge against him still, or would you give him a chance to redeem himself?
Finally... have you actually listened to Fightstar? If you can listen to them as a small, unsigned London based band, and not as Charlie from Busted's side project, I'd like to hear your opinion.
Sorry if this seems a bit fragmented in places. I've tried to keep it orderly, but unfortunately it's just how I write.
Saturday 7th August 2004
My hero
Friday 6th August 2004
Song: Vonda Shepard And Robert Downy Jr - Chances Are
Not sure what the original source of this was, but I found this on Fightstar's forum:
Charlie isn't his record company's darling!
Charlie Simpson from Busted has every reason to be happy. He's a pin-up on bedroom walls across the land, his band have just sold out their second tour of the year and they've picked up an armful of gongs at award ceremonies. Yet he's still whingeing at every opportunity and now his record company has grown so bored with his petulance that he's been told to stop acting like Harry Enfield's Kevin the Teenager and get over it.
The bushy browed star wants out of the chart-topping group by the end of the year because he considers Busted's material to be too teenage and poppy. He also has his own 'indie' band called Fight Star, which he'd prefer to concentrate on. However, his record company has politely but firmly remeinded him that if it weren't for Busted no one would be the slightest bit interested in Fight Star in the first place.
What's more, Charlie can forget about leaving the group at the end of their Christmas tour. He's contractually obliged to give his label one more album, not to mention the customary greatest hits package. So before any teenage girlies start ringing the Samaritans, you can rest assured that Charlie will be around for a while yet - no matter how reluctantly.
This got me wondering though... what happens when bands split up, with regards to their contract? Do they just have to pay to get out of it, or what? (I realise it's probably down to the actual contract, but I'd imagine they're all pretty similar). Busted are scheduled to release a live album at the end of this year, however I'm assuming that that wont cover what was said thee about having to give one more album. But again... depends on the contract I guess. Poor Charlie. To be totally honest though, at the risk of losing whatever small amount of credibility I currently poses, I should say that I'd actually prefer it if he stayed with Busted. Obviously keep Fightstar going as a side project, but I wont deny liking Busted, for what they are. What I'm not saying though, is that they're particularly incredible...
Bob, if you read this, could you briefly outline what it was that you particularly don't like about Charlie. Keep in mind, that citing "He's in Busted" as one reason wont really convince me. :)
Thursday 5th August 2004
Song: Taking Back Sunday - I Am Fred Astire
I saw the new Taking Back Sunday video on Scuzz the other day... the video itself wasn't too exciting, to be honest... but the fact that it was Taking Back Sunday made it exciting enough.
For those TBS fans among us, you may be interested in this. Live performance of new single.
I'm quite tempted to make a new page on this site, where I keep a diary of sorts, for my really weird dreams. This morning saw me being a passenger on a bench (the ones like you get in pub gardens) that was being driven round Old Woking. I was one of 5 people on there, another was my brother. The other faces or names were unknown. The peak of it was when we pulled into this place, it was kind'a like a petrol garage but there were no petrol pumps or anything. I went in to buy a bottle of coke, and I got charged more than what was printed on the price label on the bottle cap, so I caused a fuss. I was arguing that the seller is legally obligated to sell the item for the advertised price (which I think is true, but I'm not certain), and he refused to give me
some money back (as I'd given him what he'd asked for, this was before I saw the price tag). It then turned into a fully blown argument and we were both getting very angry, and in the end he got pissed off and gave me a load of coins. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I know it was over £1.50. I can't remember if I got the drink or not, but I did then walk out, but not before I tried to give him some money back, as I felt bad for taking more than the cost of the bottle.
I then had to go to the toilet before we set back off on our bench through Old Woking. For some reason I was familiar with this place, and so knew where the toilets were, but as soon as I got in there (there was about 10 or more other people in there) the building started rocking violently, which for whatever reason made it impossible for me to urinate. It eventually stopped, and then in walked the reason for the shaking building... it was the arsehole who wouldn't let me have the coke for the advertised price. So I said something like "I thought it'd be you!" and then stormed out, still with a full bladder. I then got back on my bench, nearly crying by this point, and asked my brother (who was effectively driving it (by that I mean it was him I had to ask to get it moving... there was no driving mechanism attached to the bench)) if we could go now, and fast. In a matter of seconds we were back on the road on our bench.
And to think some people think I should seek psychiatric help. Pfft.