Category Archives: Personal

$Stan->age++;

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Assuming I remember to publish this post on the correct day, one year ago to the day our son Stan entered the world.

I’ve managed to refrain from posting too much about him, but I figured now is a good time to reflect a little on fatherhood, and the result is essentially several posts that I probably should have written over the course of the year.

I must admit, I’ve never been a big fan of children – never one to “koo” over babies.

2 years ago, given the choice of having a kid or having money and freedom, I could have taken either. At the time I felt it certainly would be good to have a kid. I didn’t know why, other than the fact most other people do it so there must be something to it. It doesn’t help that those that do have kids spend their time moaning about it, only to tell you it’s the best thing they’ve ever done… only they can’t explain why.

At the same time, if we couldn’t conceive then there certainly would be perks. I know people who have chosen the option not to have kids and now live a fulfilling lifestyle as a result. They see something they want and they can afford to get/do it.

Better Than Expected

First of all, good for them! I can definitely see the appeal. But all I would say is, being a parent so far has been an amazing experience. Before Stan, I simply couldn’t imagine how enjoyable it would be to actually have Stan. He’s made me feel feelings I never realised existed, and brought out aspects of me I didn’t expect.

Like being a proud dad for instance. Of course, I kind of expected to feel like a proud dad, but not with such ease. Stan really doesn’t have to do much and I’m incredibly proud to be his dad. From simple things like when he performs a party trick in front of family (eg. you tap your mouth making a noise, and he responds with the same action) to silly things. Of our friends, almost all of them have daughters and as a result, most of Stan’s ‘friends’ are girls. They’re all a bit older than him and they all play with him. In the mind of this proud Dad, he’s the boss. He’ll sit there in his paddling pool (read: Hot Tub) like some kind of pimp, whilst his bitches try to entertain him. It’s obviously not really like that, but I still feel proud of him for being there. Believe me, pimps and bitches ain’t my thing. So why on earth I’d have a strange sense of proudness for it is beyond me.

So given the ease in which proudness comes about, when I see the mums and dad’s of people who have really achieved something, I can’t help but feel good for them – and wonder what is going through their mind?

All the sick, poo, sleepless nights, inability to relax when they learn to crawl, concern when they’re ill. All the crap. It really doesn’t matter. It’s so worth it.

If nothing else, it’s worth it for the feeling you get when you’re in work having a slightly shitty time and you remember something they did the evening before. Or the week before.

At the moment I love the fact Stan is so passionate about playing with his toys. You put him down, he instantly sets off the grab his favorite toys and plays. Such a simple thing, but it puts a grin on my face just picturing him doing it. He’s happy!

Or the sound of him crawling around, hands slamming against the floor, off to find his mummy – panting away with excitement as he crawls. The thought of that makes me happy. I’m even more desperate to get home from work now-a-days.

And of course, the often referred to feeling you get when you get home from work and he’s pleased to see you. Most parents will tell you about this one when asked what’s great about parenthood.

You’re the first person to have kids…

I remember when Becky was pregnant with Stan, my brother told me that when you have a kid, you feel like you’re the first person to ever have kids.

I didn’t really know what he meant by that, but recently I realised – or at least I think I did. I find myself excitedly telling people about something Stan has done, as if no other baby has done it before. I know they probably have, but it doesn’t matter. To me it’s massive! It’s groundbreaking! He’s a fucking genius!! So the poor people I talk to, have to listen to me singing Stan’s praises. If they’ve had kids before, they’re thinking “Yeah, kids do that..”, and if they haven’t had kids they don’t really care anyway. Just like getting married, I never found other people’s kids truly interesting until I had one myself.

It just gets better…

Another thing my brother said to me is that it just gets better and better. At one month you’ll think to yourself “Nah, he’s perfect. Don’t change…”, and the same at 3 months, and 6 months etc. And at the time of him telling me this, I thought “Nope. I can avoid this. A baby isn’t much fun anyway. Everyone knows that a cheeky 3-year-old is far more fun than a baby that just sleeps, poos and feeds”. And yet, when Stan was just sleeping, pooing and feeding, he was perfect. I really didn’t want him to change. He was so innocent and cute. Who’d have thought something that does so little can be so perfect.

But as I write this – and in spite of the fact I’ve now learnt the lesson many times over all ready – I honestly think Stan just happens to be at that perfect age right now.

He’s inquisitive, happy, playful, reactive, not cheeky, cute, loving, absorbing and all sorts of other great things.

What could top him at 1 years old?

Happy birthday Stan!

Unrandom Acts of Friendlyness

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One thing that struck me on my trip to America last year was how unfriendly the English are compared to the Americans (at least those in and around Atlanta). Don’t get me wrong, when you know people in England, they’re as nice as pie, but its not that often you’ll walk down the street and some stranger will say “Hi” to you. In America this happened all the time. Not only that, but when they do speak to you, they (from my point of view) string things out a little. When you say goodbye in America it’s “you have a nice day now” and they seem perfectly happy to chuck in all those unwarranted words. In England it seems we’ve gone to great lengths to  say as little as possible. “Cheers” is just about manageable.

This isn’t a complaint against us English. The novelty of being nice wore off by the end of the two weeks and I wanted to revert back to my old ways of sticking on my headphones and living in my own world. Being nice to strangers can be tiring when you’ve not had much practice.

Even in England though there are exceptions to the rule. We’re not always so closed off from each other.

I can think of three situations where we let our guard down and speak to people, regardless of who they are:

Christmas Day

The most obvious is Christmas Day. Walk down the street on Christmas Day and all of a sudden everyone you pass makes the effort to say “Hi”. Stand with a stranger long enough and it might even escalate into a full blown conversation.

Glastonbury Festival

Stan, my Son

Stan's visual debut on this blog

The 2nd situation (for me at least) is the Glastonbury Festival. This probably applies to any event/situation where people are brought together by a common interest. Not only do strangers chat at Glastonbury Festival, but they go so far as to ask if they can share your log fire – and they’re always welcome – and they’re happy to return the favour.

Fellow Parents

I encountered the 3rd situation over the weekend. Again it’s generated by a common interest. I took my son Stan over the park for the first time and had a play on the slide and swings. A couple other young families then entered the park. Strangely it seemed completely natural to chat to these people. If we passed in the street we’d probably have gone out of our ways to lower our heads to avoid eye contact.

I’m not entirely sure why I’ve written this blog post. The Christmas Day friendliness has always fascinated me, but maybe it’s just an excuse to finally post a picture of Stan on this blog…

Stan: Hello World!

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If my new born son Stan follows in his Dad’s footsteps, and assuming Object Orientated Programming will still be of use in 18 years time, he might appreciate this bit of geekery. I’m sure I’m not the first to do it, but as I thought it up without seeing it before, I’m pleased with it :-)

class Stan extends Greg, Becky {
   // Constructor
   function Stan () {
      print "Hello World!";
      print "I was born at... 1247991540";
   }
}

It’s already been a huge pleasure getting to know you Stan, can’t wait to do more of it :-)

Itunes playlist for songs you like but don’t listen to enough

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I’ve created a really enjoyable itunes ‘smart playlist’, which I’m listening to now whilst sorting the garden out.

I’m not a big fan of hammering a tune so this ones ideal. Basically its a playlist of songs I like but don’t listen to much for one reason or another.

Its all songs with 3 stars or more with less than 4 plays.

Its bringing up some great old songs I’d forgotten about (ie. I rated them without listening because I know they’re great) and songs I loved on first listen but forgot about.

How Not to Sale a Car to Me

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A few weeks back we bought a new (well, second hand) car. It was one of the more painful shopping experiences I’ve had, and its not because I have no interest in cars.

We went to a local dealer called Somerset Cars Sales. It was a painful, frustrating, demoralising experience for one reason: the cars were not priced up.

Instead we were given a printed price list which you can use to match up the make/number plate.

At a guess there were between 100-300 cars and it wasn’t easy finding the price.

As we were on a budget (as most people are), it was quite a demotivating process. We’d see a car we’d like, eventually find the price and then realise its too much. This happened again, and again, and again. Eventually we found three cars in our price range that we didn’t mind – but none of which we wanted to buy. There may have been many more in our price range – one of which we might have bought – but it was simply too much hassle. It wasn’t a pleasant shopping experience at all.

We then went to some other dealers who had prices shown. This was soooo much easier and enjoyable. Right from the start we could see what we could get and there was no disapointment.

Why would you want to encourage disapointment? I hope at the very least its a logistical reason (ie. To many prices to maintain) rather some kind of sales trick (ie. Before the customer realises it costs just a little too much, let them fall in love with it).

We eventually purchased are car from a dealer called Brian Plowright. He didn’t have a huge selection, but if he does have what you need then I highly recommend him.

He’s a great salesmen in that he’s very friendly, goes above and beyond what’s required to make a sale and doesn’t push the sale.

Certain people in mobile phone shops could learn a lot from him. None of this ‘as I’m you’re new best mate, and cause I like you (,and cause my boss says I have this much scope for discount to make a sale) I’m going to throw in this discount’ bullshit. No in your face, jump on you when you enter the store.

For example, the car we bought had a small dent in it. We asked whether we could either get a discount or have it fixed by him. He told us we’re getting a good deal anyway, so no. Fair enough really – he knew he’d made the sale. However, when we went to collect the car a week later he’d had it fixed at no extra cost.

That’s how to generate good word of mouth. Unlike Somerset Car Sales which I can’t put down enough.

The ‘Elbow Effect’

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Its that time again! To make it sound dramatic, records are being ‘smashed’ on this blog (today sees its busiest day to date), and its not because I’ve written a clever, insightful technology related post linked to from Techmeme.. Its all because the band Elbow are back on tour.

Back in April of last year I posted a review of an Elbow gig, and a couple days later the set-list for the gig. And every time they tour, those posts get what I consider to be a reasonable number of hits.

Already today, the blog has had 40 new visitors, and during ‘Elbow Touring Season’ it averages around 30 a day. Its not a huge amount, but its much larger than I ever thought would look at this blog.

The set-list post has now received 1,347 hits – that’s more than half the number of visits to this blog. I sometimes wonder whether anyone has stuck around since reading it? Anyone bookmarked me? Added me to your RSS reader? If so, feel free to comment below.

I posted the link partially because I thought it would be useful info for others, but also to see if there was demand for set-lists. At the time, I didn’t know if there were any sites out there dedicated to the task. I thought, if there was demand it might be worth setting up a set-list wiki where people can add setlists to the gigs they’ve been to in order to help others. Given the response to the post, I started putting the plan into action. I got so far, then decided to Google for such a site just in case, and found setlist.fm. As with all the good ideas, someone’s already beaten me to it and done a much better job.

Easy come, easy go.

Douglas Adams Quote

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I do like this Douglas Adams quote from a Tech Dirt article I read. Generally speaking its true. Hope I don’t fall into the trap though:

1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal;

2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it;

3) anything that gets invented after you’re thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it’s been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

25 Things About Me

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I just wrote this for Facebook. Given that I’ve put some time and effort into it, I’d just as well post it here too.

Here’s 25 things about me:

  1. I was born with one nut. So too was someone else in school. Strangely, he got loads of stick for it and I got none. I’m to old to care about it now so knock yourselves out. For the record, I’m now fully armed and operational in the man sack department. When I was a kid, I had an operation which rescued my stray ball.
  2. I’m a very shy person and it pains me to publish this list.
  3. I feel guilty over the daftest things. I remember as a kid, me and some friends broke some bird eggs by mistake. I think I went home and cried to my mum over it. I haven’t changed much, although I can hold back the tears better now.
  4. I’m really anal with copied media. I won’t watch copied films, I won’t listen to copied music. When I say “Oh, I’ve got that album!” I want that to mean I took the time to buy and own it. Nobody gets me where this is concerned.
  5. My folks never hit me as a kid. I was ruled by the word “disapointed”. To this day I still fear disapointing my folks.
  6. Glastonbury may only be on for 5 days a year, but its been home to so many highlights in my life.
  7. I love music in an indescribable ways, but I’d still give it up to keep Becky (I would resent her if she made me choose though :))
  8. As I get older, I’m appreciating family more and more.
  9. In certain ways I’m lazy. I think that ties in with my love of technology.
  10. On New Years eve this year I wore tights to keep warm in a very cold London (and as a joke with Becky). Ignoring the technicallities of it all, its probably the most liberating thing I’ve done to date. Including it in this list ranks 2nd. My cross-dressing days end their though.
  11. Contrary to the usual pattern, the older I’m getting, the more left wing I’m getting.
  12. Old people who whinge about young people annoy me. I don’t class myself as young, so its not a defensive thing.
  13. I’m classist in the sense that I’ll forgive someone who’s working class for doing something, but dispise someone who’s middle class for doing the same thing.
  14. The most exciting album I’ve heard in the past couple years is Of Montreal’s Skeletal Lamping. Prior to that it was Modest Mouse’s “Good News for People Who Like Bad News”. Finding the next one is what keeps me buying music week in, week out.
  15. I’m a news-junkie. For me, watching news is no longer watching other people’s lives. Its more like fiction where no-one gets really gets hurt (<Loud Homer Simson Whisper Voice>I realise they doooo</>). I think my junkie tendencies come from missing 9/11 take place live on TV. I don’t want to miss the next big event.
  16. I probably surf the net more on my Blackburry than I do my desktop or laptop. With that in mind I want an iPhone.
  17. I seem to do most of my thinking walking to and from work. If I did as much thinking sat at a keyboard, I’d have a frequently updated blog.
  18. After years of thinking, as it stands the tunes I want played at my funeral are Arcade Fire’s “My Body Is A Cage” and The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize?”. If I was pushed for a third – right here right now – I’d say Pixies’ “Monkey Gone To Heaven”. The title speaks for itself. Curse you all if it doesn’t happen. A bonus would be having Gogol Bordello’s “Gypsy Punk” album played at my wake, with people being in the right spirit to dance and drink to it. That only happens on TV though.
  19. I’ve probably spent more time in my life thinking about what songs to have played at my funeral than any other subject. I won’t even be there to witness it.
  20. The thing I love most about technology (ignoring the fact it saves me time and effort) are the possibilities it brings. It gets the creative juices flowing just thinking about it.
  21. At the time, I was the first person I knew who had the Internet. Dial-up and Amiga didn’t really do it justice. Firefox, it wasn’t.
  22. More often than not, I’m not overly fond of my job, but when its good I really enjoy it. I’ve never had that in any other job, so I think I’m on to a good thing.
  23. I now understand why the media keeps on barking on about young people having disposable income. I still don’t regret not saving mine when I had it, no matter what my mother says.
  24. I can’t wait to have my baby in my arms. Can’t explain why. Just cause.

25. Despite what everyone says to me, the day will never come where I actually appreciate getting ID’ed. It also seems possible that the day will never come that I don’t get ID’ed.

TheyWorkForYou: Making me want to vote

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Until now, British politics hasn’t bothered me in the slightest. I follow it in the news (simply because I watch more news than is healthy) but I’ve never had the urge to vote. That’s unlike the American election where if I had the chance, I’d have happily voted for the Democrats.

My not wanting to vote has been down to the fact that neither party (Sorry Libs) interest me in anyway (I neither like or dislike them – unlike in American where I really do dislike the Republicans and quite like the Democrats). I’m tired of the spin, lies and party-politics. Just one episode of Question Time is enough to do that.

However, thanks to a Tim O’Reilly blog post, I stumbled across the site TheyWorkForYou.com. I’d heard about it before, but despite visiting it I never really read it.

The idea is, you type in your Postcode and amonst other things, it tells you what your MP has voted for and against.

Seeing that my Bridgwater Conservative MP (Ian Liddell-Grainger) is:

 

  • very strongly against a hunting ban
  • very strongly against a smoking ban
  • very strongly for the iraq war (ok, I was too at the time)
  • moderately against equal gay rights

 

makes me want to vote the chap out. More here.

Its the first time I’ve been able to see what he’s about. In his defense I’ve never tried to find out. But now I know, I don’t like it.

Congratulations Ian Liddell-Grainger, you’ve had that McCain effect on me and you’ve made me want to vote.

PS. His homepage looks like it was created in 1997. Classy.

Random Thoughts II

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Thoughts that don’t deserve their own posts:

  • MTV2 vrs NME TV? Considering how much I use to enjoy M2, it pains me to say NME wins it.
  • The best few hours of radio is on a Sunday evening on BBC 6Music. Listener 6Mix followed by Guy Garvey. For new music though, weekday evenings with Marc Riley and Tom Robinson are both solid. Both on 6Music too.
  • Whether I like it or not, Techmeme and Friendfeed seem to be stopping me from using Google Reader as often. I think I actually preferred it when I didn’t have the options.
  • Best soundtrack on TV (at least before the series ended)? The Apprentice (UK). I’m not a big fan of background music (especially the way US tv does it), but this music adds to it.
  • Worst theme tune? Girlfriends on Trouble. Becky watches it and it cuts right through me.
  • Best album of the year so far? Its a close fight between Nick Cave’s “Dig” and Elbow’s “Seldom Seen Kid”. Elbow have the advantage of me seeing them live though.
  • MGMT’s ”Electric Feel” has just clicked. Would sound great on a Sunday afternoon.