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Welcome to the 30th BestofMe Symphony

// June 28th, 2004 // 4 Comments » // Personal

Bestofme Symphony – 30th Edition

Greetings fellow lobsters and welcome to the 30th Bestofme Symphony. This week’s compositive offering includes a diverse selection of musical styles and techniques. So without further ado….

Overture – School of Rock (Comp – Andrew Ian Dodge – Dodgeblogium)

Our evening’s entertainment opens with this prelude featuring a number of modern rock stanzas. Notable moments include the solo by the highly praised artist Jack Black.

1st Movement – Eminem: A Translation (For White People) (Comp – Peter Petrisko – The World According to Pete)

With obvious urban influences, P Petrisko (in association with The Institute of Racial Harmony and Understanding) has created a master piece of contrasting styles. Building to an epic finish both classicists and modernists will find something to like in this evocative piece.

2nd Movement – Pigskin John (Comp – Pietro – The SmarterCop)

A cheeky little movement with some interesting choreography. The second movement of the Symphony has a special guest star appearance by John F*** Kerry in a previously acclaimed performance of an American Football referee.

3rd movement (Adagio in F) – Islamofascism: Mikey Likes It (Comp – The Watcher – Watcher of Weasels)

A dark and angry piece with strains of ancient Middle Eastern disharmonies, The Watcher will not be short of support for the message engrained within our next movement. Worthy of note is the light fiskiness present on the second coda – masterful indeed!

4th Movement – Constitutional Amendment to Hunt and Fish (Comp – Interested Participant – Interested-Participant)

Opening with a fanfare of epic proportions, the 4th movement from Interested Participant quickly moves on to a more pastoral theme. Note the jarring, off chord percussion that has been said by some to resemble gunfire. Whether you agree or not this piece is certainly worthy of your careful attention.

5th Movement (Beaujolais Minuet) – Light Party (Comp Robert – XSet)

As we draw to a close your host provides this snappy minuet. The piece explores themes of wine and universal harmony before giving way to the Finale.

Finale (Birthday Sonata) – Wow! I’m one year old today! (Comp – Susie – http://practicalpenumbra.mu.nu/)

A light and trilling finale to our evening’s listening. Susie once more amazes nay astounds the audience with a stunning blend of “Happy Birthday” and her own uniquely touching love story.

That concludes this, the 30th symphony. Thank you to all who’ve taken part and good night!

Next week’s Symphony will be the 31st and will be hosted by the WetWired Crew

Hosting: Would you like to host the Symphony? Send Jim a note and he’ll get you on the schedule.

Submit to the Symphony: Want to be a part of next week’s edition? Check out this post for submission help. Entries should always be sent to bestofme@jpeacock.net regardless of who the Symphony host is.

Spread the word: Webloggers, how about some linky love? Just think of how happy your readers would be if you gave them a path to such a wonderful reading selection.

Email Reminders: If you’d like to be sent a reminder about the Symphony, join the mailing list. There’s one email sent on Thursday or Friday to remind you to submit for the next Symphony and one on Monday with the location of the newly posted Symphony.

The gloves are coming off

// June 25th, 2004 // 7 Comments » // Tech

I’d like you to do the following please:

Load Google

Type XSet

Click on my page (it’s normally second from the top)

Now here’s the deal. For some reason I have never managed to hit the top spot in Google for the word XSet (despite my domain name actually being XSet.co.uk) and I’ve just done a quick review to see if I can find out why. I’m stumped. I mean Ben Raven’s XML database is useful (and my site is an inane pile of drivel) and all but I get more hits per day than he does in a week. I have over 160 links compared to his 30 ish. So where the heck is Google getting its rating from?

So you may notice a slight re-branding around here. The sidebars, for example, now boast XSet titles. I’m not going to ask you to google bomb XSet (although you can if you wish) as link quantity obviously doesn’t do it in this instance but mark my words by this time next month I will be top of the Google Pile… you don’t mess with an SEO consultant.

I’m a Loony!

// June 25th, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal

Find out which lonny you are at Rum and Monkey

You are Charles VI of France, also known as Charles the Mad or Charles the Well-Beloved!

A fine, amiable and dreamy young man, skilled in horsemanship and archery, you were also from a long line of dribbling madmen. King at 12 and quickly married to your sweetheart, Bavarian Princess Isabeau, you enjoyed many happy months together before either of you could speak anything of the other’s language. However, after illness you became a tad unstable. When a raving lunatic ran up to your entourage spouting an incoherent prophecy of doom, you were unsettled enough to slaughter four of your best men when a page dropped a lance. Your hair and nails fell out. At a royal masquerade, you and your courtiers dressed as wild men, ending in tragedy when four of them accidentally caught fire and burned to death. You were saved by the timely intervention of the Duchess of Berry’s underskirts.

This brought on another bout of sickness, which surgeons countered by drilling holes in your skull. The following months saw you suffer an exorcism, beg your friends to kill you, go into hyperactive fits of gaiety, run through your rooms to the point of exhaustion, hide from imaginary assassins, claim your name was Georges, deny that you were King and fail to recognise your family. You smashed furniture and wet yourself at regular intervals. Passing briefly into erratic genius, you believed yourself to be made of glass and demanded iron rods in your attire to prevent you breaking.

In 1405 you stopped bathing, shaving or changing your clothes. This went on until several men were hired to blacken their faces, hide, jump out and shout “boo!”, upon which you resumed basic hygiene. Despite this, your wife continued sleeping with you until 1407, when she hired a young beauty, Odette de Champdivers, to take her place. Isabeau then consoled herself, as it were, with your brother. Her lovers followed thick and fast while you became a pawn of your court, until you had her latest beau strangled and drowned.

A severe fever was fended off with oranges and pomegranates in vast quantities, but you succumbed again in 1422 and died. Your disease was most likely hereditary. Unfortunately, you had anywhere up to eleven children, who variously went on to develop capriciousness, great cruelty, insecurity, paranoia, revulsion towards food and, in one case, a phobia of bridges.

Gibbered from Pixy

I can finally do this damn Meme

// June 25th, 2004 // 2 Comments » // Personal

Because I now have an MP3 player. So the first 20 tracks on random are:

Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) – Jimi Hendrix

Love Hate Game – SOil

Can’t Hold Us Down – Christina Aguilara (meant ot delete this one!)

See You When You’re 40 – Dido

Shanti/Ashtangi – Madonna

They Can’t Take That Away From Me – Frank Sinatra

Momma Cried – Alison Krauss and Union Station

New Style – Orbital

Fixed Income – DJ Shadow

Over Our Heads – Zero 7

My Girl – Otis Reading

Sub-Domestic – Constantines

I’ll Fly Away – Alison Krauss

Minus – Beck

887 (Strcuture) – Banco de Gaia

Faust – Rhythem Doctors

She Hates Me – Puddle of Mudd

Tommy (Overture) – The Who

Magic Window – Boards of Canada

Thanks to Johhny Huh? over at IP for reminding me that I’ve never done this one…

Retro Sexuallity is the name of the game

// June 25th, 2004 // 1 Comment » // Personal

And the game was found over at the ever erudite Bad Example.

SCORING:

Give yourself one point for every “yes” answer

21-25: True Retrosexual – The code of honor, decency, and reliability you have adopted will serve you well throughout your life, even though it will probably be cut short by a heart attack at age 45. Men of your caliber: George Patton, John Wayne.

16-20: Retrosexual-In-Training – You’re still pretty manly, but you’ve got some definite wussiness issues that need addressing. You’ll probably be ok if you just drink more whiskey and shoot a few things. Men of your caliber: George W. Bush, Charleton Heston.

11-15: Wuss – Take the umbrella out of your drink and the finger out of your asshole, and there may be hope for you someday. Men of your caliber: John Kerry, Jacques Chirac.

10 or below: Hopeless Girly-Man – You might as well get implants and hormone injections, because your Y chromosome obviously isn’t doing you any good. “Men” of your caliber: Liberace, Michael Jackson.

(more…)

Syndication (or what the hell is this atom business anyway?)

// June 25th, 2004 // 4 Comments » // Tech

I spent quite a while buggin people to get Atom Feeds… and here’s the problem. Most of the bugged have actually gone and done it but not all of them know what they are for. So, for the benefit of those who’ve yet to discover the joys of content syndication here is Rob’s Quick Guide to Atom, RSS and Feed Readers.

Let’s say that you’ve been blogging for a while and you have a fairly sizable blogroll. To go through the thing and check on all your favourite Bloggers takes quite a while and you may miss some absolute gems simply because you don;t have the time to click every link and read every post… Enter syndication

(more…)

Property is properly pigging me off

// June 24th, 2004 // 11 Comments » // Personal

There have been a number of people recently who have been getting started on the property ladder. Jim and Clancy have just grabbed themselves new places, Tilesey has bought a flat, Markiss bought his house last year…

and I’m starting to get a bit narked by all this nesting.

You want to know why?

Simply it’s because I can’t buy a house in Jersey!

Now those of you who know the situation in Jersey may as well stop reading now as you’ll know everything I’m about to rant about. For those of you who are un-aware let’s start with a little background.

Jersey operates a very strict immigration control system. It has to. It’s only 9 miles by 6 and anyone who’s seen the place will agree that it’s a lovely place to live. The two main controls that Jersey has in place to deter unwanted immigrants are both time based license systems. For jobs we have the Regulation of Undertakings which basically means you can’t get a job without a license until you’ve been in the Island for over 5 years. Licenses to work are like gold dust but that’s not my problem. I’’ve officially been resident for over 6 years and so can apply for any job I wish.

No, my problem derives from the second control – Residential Qualifications (or Quallys for short). Property in the Island is divided into a number of Categories which correspond to different levels of qually. The are three basic types of property – A-H, J Cat and Un-Qualified.

So how does one get quallys? In one of three ways. You are either born with them or marry someone who already has them. You can buy them; known as a 11k qually as you have to guarantee to pay at least £11,000 in income tax per year which requires an asset base of some £25,000,000 or you can wait until you have been resident for over 17 years and then you are granted your quallys… 17 years! I’ll be 41 in 17 years time!

As a resident with no quallys I am restricted in a whole host of ways. Firstly I am only allowed to rent non-qualified accommodation. Of course non-quals places are rented out at a premium – paying £800 per month for a one bed room flat is not unusual – and are generally not as nice as qualified places. Secondly I’m not allowed to buy a house over here…

Well, that’s not strictly true. I could buy a place but I’m not allowed to live in it unless I bought a non-quallied place. There are no non-quallied places for sale and when they do come up they are normally bought for stupidly high prices by property companies who know they can let them out to unqualified residents for extortionate rents.

So you may be able to see why I’m not too happy with this situation. Jersey is my home. I live here, work here, have family and friends here and fully intend to continue doing all of the above. Despite all of this I am still considered to be a second class citizen and am denied basic rights until I either make a few million quid or am 24 years away from retirement…

It saddens me that I will have to leave this fair isle because of some bureaucratic immigration system which seems to favour the rich over the hard working*. So to all of you who have bought or are thinking of buying your own place, whatever the nightmares you may encounter in paperwork and legal beagles, just be thankful that you live in a country that respects your right to own your own home because you could live in Jersey**.

*I was tempted to add “Comrade” but who knows if the FBI reads this site…

** As a side note property prices in Jersey are also astoundingly high (think central London prices and add a bit) and so a one bedroom starter flat would cost me approx £160,000 even if I could buy one … which I can’t.

Atomic Power – can you feel my power?

// June 22nd, 2004 // 2 Comments » // Tech

My Non-RSS blog roll is shrinking. Maybe this is due to the simple fact that I spend more time than I should nagging people both here and in the comments of there own blogs. Maybe it has more to do with blogger’s recent revamp whereby they offer Atom feeds as standard. Either way, having nagged Markiss and Jeremy into syndicating their sites I suppose I have to pick a new target. Let’s review the list shall we?

Aiee! Run From Kelvin’s Brainsplurge!

Does Kelvin’s excellent site need an Atom feed? Yes It most definitely does. Why? Because I’m lazy and having to click that damn link to see if he’s added anything new is really starting to wear me out!

Cheddar X

Everyone’s favourite Cheesy MeMe. New content on a weekly basis and a mad scramble to be the first with this week’s cheese. An Atom Candidate? Absolutely!

Dummies 4 Destruction

Personal Site for a guy in the UK. I read on a regular basis but not often enough to warrant a feed I’m afraid. This one can stay where it is.

Fuck Everything

Not everyone’s cup of tea but good for the odd snippet. Needs a feed? Nah…

Gravity Zero

If anybody hasn’t been to Charles’ site yet I recommend you do. the most regular poster his content is normally though provoking. And of course there is the diary which currently notifies readers via email when it’s updated. Save yourself some hassle Charles …

Junkopia

I’ll step lightly over this one.

MadPony

Closed – no point.

Mike the Marine

Yes yes yes. Why this guy* is still living in the land of the Bloggered I do not know but at the very least he could make things a little easier for us civvys to keep up with the latest intel.

and watch the hits roll in**.

So there we go, plenty of new targets for me to pester until the whole world is syndicated and I don’t ever have to load my browser again … Mwuahahahahahaha!

(On a serious note, if anybody would like help implementing an Atom feed or doesn’t quite understand how it benefits blog owners, blog readers and indeed the entire internet please drop me a comment.)

*I know Mike off doing something very exciting and top secret at the moment so I won’t be putting much pressure on him – besides he could kill me by looking at me so best be nice!

** It should be mandatory for anybody over the level of Adorable Little Rodent to have at least a basic feed.

Another good reason why one should avoid amazon when drunk

// June 21st, 2004 // 4 Comments » // Personal

Some of you (and you know who you are) are only too aware of the pitfalls of Amazon … especially when you’ve had a few and are back in front of the computer checkin on your roll. Amazon offers a host of wonderment, a veritable conucopia of collectable fun and it doesn’t even matter that you can’t focus on your credit card – it remembers it for you.

So here you go, my top 5 signs that your druken e-shopping is getting out of hand:

1) You get random packages turning up that you don’t remember ordering

2) Your mail box contains over 5 Amazon confirmations the following morning

3) You find yourself the proud owner of Cheers series 1 through 6 inclusive and you don’t even like Cheers

4) You get a call from your old flatmate 3 days afterwards as you forgot to update your shipping address and they don’t like Cheers either

5) The new computer game you just ordered arrives and it’s for the PlayStation … and you don’t even own a PlayStation

Remeber kids, just say no!

Yeah baby – 90’s Rock and Roll

// June 21st, 2004 // No Comments » // Personal

find your geek decade at spacefem.com

(Snaffled from LeeAnn faster than Sonic on speed)