little bits of everything

I got tickets for Genesis ! Roll on July 2007.

Here's a game: www.lost.eu/4b1e No spam, no catch as far as I can see.

Genesis are touring again next year and I'm quite excited. They're my favourite group, but considering that, I'm a pretty rubbish fan: I only have 3 CDs. I never replaced my vinyl and tape with CDs for the other albums I have. I haven't joined the fan club. However I'm really really looking forward to seeing them live. tags: Genesis , Genesis tour

I rang Powergen today. I got a message "Please leave your name, address and telephone number". So I said "My name is blah, my addres is blah blah blah, my phone num"- "Thankyou for your message" I rang back a second time with my phone number. I didn't bother ringing a third time with the message, they can ring me. It's like the sticky note labelled "Complaint Form" with a small box in the middle and the message "please write your complaint legibly in the box".

Aaaaaargh! Originally uploaded by paulmorriss . Many more shots of people from the past where that one came from.

223884674_250342bb20_o Hosted on Zooom r

Houseleek on wall Originally uploaded by paulmorriss . I've dug my old SLR (Olympus OM-2) out of the cupboard, stuck on some closeup lenses I was given, and gone round taking pictures. I went for extreme depth of field, probably a bit too much, but it was just easier as I didn't have to worry about slow shutter speeds. Some of the things I was taking (waving flowers, wasps) weren't going to hang around while I set up a tripod, so I had to be quick. This one's my favourite, I just love the colours, and I like those plants anyway. Click on it to see it bigger and see my other ones.

Kite and clouds Originally uploaded by paulmorriss . I've uploaded some black and white photos that I took years ago, but scanned yesterday. Here's my favourite.

Croquet lawn with bench Originally uploaded by paulmorriss .

Police searching the woods in High Wycombe Originally uploaded by paulmorriss . I told the BBC about this, and they asked to use it on their website. My 15 minutes of fame has come.

I'm looking forward to the BBC's new series Robin Hood . I loved the old ITV series Robin of Sherwood . I haven't seen that one for many years, so I don't know if it would be worth watching again. I watched Blakes 7 as an adult and it really wasn't very good, so spoilt my childhood memories. When I saw the BBC's page on its new series I thought that it sounded like they were trying to repeat the success of Doctor Who in putting a lot of budget and creativity into an old story to get a new audience. The Stage had the same idea too. Tags: Robin Hood BBC TV

Fallen tree or sculpture? Originally uploaded by paulmorriss .

40 today One thing I found boring when I was younger was old people talking about what it was like to be old. So if you're young, don't read this. So what's it like to be forty? Some people say they don't feel any different to when they were 20. That's not true of me, hopefully I've learned something in the past 20 years. I don't feel much different to yesterday. On the other hand though, people who are old enough to retire don't look that old.

Our home PC is in a seriously bad way. I used to email myself little reminders from home to work and vice versa. Now I have to write things on a bit of paper which travels to and from work along with my lunch in my rucksack. Any little online jobs, such as renewing my vehicle tax, have to be done at work. As the saying goes, you don't know what you've got until its gone. I just hope I can recover the photos that I meant to back up to CD but never quite got around too. And the emails.... You'd think that being an IT person I'd have sorted a good backup routine. As they say, the cobblers children have no shoes.

I found myself recording a DVD for Duggie Dug Dug on Saturday. It was more fun than I thought it would be, and interesting to see how filming is done.

wall of death Originally uploaded by paulmorriss .

DCP03498 Originally uploaded by paulmorriss .

Google Talk is now localised (not localized) for UK English. So instead of saying "Your Gmail contacts are pre-loaded into Google Talk so inviting or talking to your friends is just a click away" it says "Your Google Mail contacts are pre-loaded into Google Talk, thus inviting or talking to your friends is just a click away". They're having a laugh aren't they. We don't say "thus" in the UK, do we? tags: google google talk

"See what the world is searching for" says Google Trends . Red Sox, thanksgiving, super bowl, grits and hurricane Katrina are listed as example searches. So that would be what the US is searching for then. The results are interesting, it can tell what city you're in when you do a search. Here's a search for Google and evil . The graph shows no results before November 2004. So that's when they started being evil. Hmmm. tags: google

Plasma Originally uploaded by paulmorriss .

I saw a plotline from Star Trek in the latest episode of Doctor Who, School Reunion . The scenario in Star Trek is this: they land on a planet which is a paradise. The people on the planet try to get the crew to join them, as everything is perfect. The crew, usually Kirk, refuse, saying they don't want everything to be perfect, they like things how they are. A similar thing happened in Dr Who. Not that the bat-people looked like creatures from paradise, but when their leader offered the Doctor and his team/gang/entourage the chance to make the Universe a better place, Sarah Jane said that she liked it how it was. Why do we distrust those who offer a better place? tags: Doctor Who

DCP01405 crop Originally uploaded by paulmorriss .

I've just finished "Long Way Down" by Nick Hornby. It's a great book, about four people who meet at the top of a tower block on New Year's Eve as they are about to commit suicide. It steers clear of sentimentality and fake happy endings. All four tell their owns stories, so you have to admire the different styles he keeps switching between.

A bit of free advice on the subject of washing machines. The German ones are reliable. John Lewis own brand is really a German one. This was told to me by a washing machine engineer, so should be pretty reliable.

"The new Nissan Navara - it gets respect" so the sponsor of Scrapheap Challenge on Channel 4 in the UK says. "We want a Nissan Navara" say the boys. "Why?" I say. "Because it gets respect." So I try to explain how you can't always believe adverts. It gets me thinking though. They aren't allowed to say some things though, such as "this breakfast cereal will make you thinner", yet they can say that getting a particular car will cause bin lorries to move out of the way for you, which clearly isn't going to happen. So what lies are they allowed to tell? Things that are generally unprovable? Things that no sensible adult would believe, even though children might? What do you think?

I regularly get phishing emails. Today I got one from "S A Salmon Security Advisor Barclays Bank PLC." Salmon. Phishing. Come on guys, you could do better.

On a news report about Norman Kember the "live" reporter said what people on "emails and chatrooms" were saying about his oversight of thanking the people who rescued him. So Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Participation Age , they are listening to us. (Is that too much hype?) Last night on the BBC News at 10 there was an item on the Blooker prize prompting me to write the above. tags: Participation Age Blooker

DCP03408 Originally uploaded by paulmorriss .

You can now find yet another home page for me, Paul Morriss , on Google. Not sure what to do with it long term.

This aquatic pachyderm meme is going to spread like http://www.origamiproject.com/, just watch.

I have just completed " Prey " by Michael Crichton. It's like Jurassic Park with the technology-out-of-control theme, but this time it's nanotechnology. It compares with Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, but the former comes off better. I found Digital Fortress quite a good page-turner, but the science, cryptography mostly, wasn't very believable. I don't know much more than probably being able to stumblingly describe public/private key encryption, but what I read sounded too stupid to be close to present or future reality. "Prey" had the nanothings evolving very quickly, which I'm sure just couldn't happen, but if you concede that point then it's quite an exciting book. It would be good to make into a film, which is probably at the back of Mr Crichton's mind given the success of his dinosaur books.

When I was at school one of my favourite books from the school library was "Elements of Typography". I was strange like that. If you are too then listen to typeradio.org . tag: typography

"Don't worry if some of your readers are using browsers which do not support the FONT FACE tag." How 1997 .

This seems to be the year of reunions. One of the projects I worked on at Logica , before it because LogicaCMG, is going to have a reunion this year. Every year one of the ex-members sends out a newsletter as to what the members of the project are up to. There was a good atmosphere on the project, which must be why we want to keep in touch. Through Friends Reunited I've been asked to take part in a school reunion. And one of my dad's seconds cousins is trying to get together a load of people related to his great grandfather. I'm not sure which I'll end up going to...

I've renamed my techie blog and relocated it to manypies.blogspot.com . The name comes from the phrase "I have my fingers in many pies".

IMG_0322 Originally uploaded by paulmorriss .

Dub Side of the Moon - reggae version of the Floyd album - sounds great!