Photographers Rights

I read today that hundreds of photograhpers have staged a protest, outside Scotland Yard, against a new law under Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act which means they could be arrested simply for taking a picture of a member of the police, armed forces or intelligence services.

This is in fact news to me, and had I known earlier I may well have gone to London myself to join in. Whilst I understand the intention of the law, I find the way in which it could be interpreted and implemented hugely unsettling and deeply worrying. I feel it's just another step down the road to somewhere like Nineteen 84. A slow and inexorable impingement of liberties.

There are already a huge number of laws that as a photographer one might have to consider, which demonstrates that the statement "there is no law against taking a picture" to be a fallacy. A contact on flickr was recently trailed by uniformed police with video surveillance equipment simply for taking a photograph of a defence establishment building. I'm assuming this is because it contravenes the official secrets act 1911. Although I understand too well the tactic of police to intimidate the legitimate public when there is as yet no right to arrest.

So whilst I understand the spirit in which this law was passed, I don't necessarily think it's well defined or necessarily needs be implemented as law. Any law that puts a check on civil liberties should be extremely well considered otherwise it sets a dangerous and disturbing precedent.

Flickr Stats

I suppose I get about on average 60 hits a day on flickr. By far my most popular photographs are my Royal Marine set. They alone account for literally thousands of my page views and are probably the reason I can take such rubbish photos and still get so many daily visitors. Imagine how many would visit if I was any good?

Anyway, I was just browsing through my referrers the other day and it made me laugh. I've about twice as many refers from yahoo image search, which is perhaps not surprising given the owner of flickr. And given my stream, the top 4 hits are unsurprisingly "royal marines", "royal marines commando", "royal marine commando" and "kittens". Then a little down the list I get "crazy person", "basket of kittens" and "crazy maniac".

Why anyone would think I had any pictures of crazy people I don't know. I don't even know anyone crazy. Well other than myself. But I am intrigued by what a "basket of kittens" would be, and why so many people are interested in seeing one.

I'm also intrigued by the person looking for "cow that eats grass". More interesting I thought would be a "cow that doesn't eat grass". Perhaps one addicted to ice cream. Or even a cow that ate people! That would be crazy.

Down at 101 is "burger flipping" which is co-incidentally probably what I would end up doing if I tried to take photography seriously. If I did end up working in the food industry though I'd like to meet "kind cookies", I so hate the rude and selfish ones.

Just over half as popular is the google image search. This actually makes me wonder about the relative popularity of search engines actually. Do I get twice the hits from yahoo because twice as many people use yahoo to search for images? Is it purely because yahoo own flickr? Or do I take more yahoo-ee images. You know, the sort images that people who use Yahoo prefer and I'm being shunned by the more sophisticated google audience. Where do the most sophisticated people do searches for images. Other than flickr itself, I actually prefer live.com for image searches because I like the AJAX funkyness and you can't just keep scrolling down the page and don't have to click next. But I have no referrers from Live.

Again top of my google searches are "royal marines officer" and "40 commando". Over half the first 50 refers relate to the Royal Marines, or 40 Commando in some way. And ironically amongst the google results are a number of "site:flickr.com" searches. Do people really find it easier to search flickr via google?

There are less bizarre searches coming from google. The only one that really jumps out is "marines in sing", whatever that means. I thought ""joe townsend" +legs" was almost bad taste though.

I don't know how "guava+thai" found anything of mine. Nor some strange unicode search which I have no idea what it means, nor even what language it might be in. Probably Korean it looks like.

There were a couple from google.com that made me laugh (i.e. normal search, not image search.) Among them a grockle asking "what does ark at ee mean ?" And someone who wants to see images from "planet fish". I'd like that too! Then there was some odd ones like "site:www.flickr.com 2598186246" (a picture of brent knoll), "site:www.flickr.com 2580973670" (rusting tractors) and "site:www.flickr.com 2577596337" (purple flowers). I don't know if this is indicative of some craze where you can search for random images on flickr, or systematic of something else. I find it hard to believe someone would remember a number and go "Oh where was that really cool picture of brent knoll I saw the other day...hmmmm oh yeah I remember, it was image 2598186246 on flickr."

Sadly there was only one refer from google for someone searching for "Jamie Gordon". And that might well have been me. Or my mum!

Broken Computer

My computer is broken. It's some hardware failure, Vista is so crap the blue screen literally is just a blue screen, doesn't tell me anything. I've only managed to get one minidump out of it and it told me nothing that it's a "hardware failure", but I can't pin it down any more than that as it was only a minidump.

I'm gonna strip it down as I've a feeling it's heat related, seeing as it's at its most stable when it's first turned on. Check the fans, make sure the memory is still seated etc. I may also check in another hard drive and re-install XP just so I have a clean system to diagnose with.

I just bought an engagement ring, I can't afford a new PC as well, not for about another 3 years anyway.

Miserable

The weather has been so bad this October, I was really hoping for a spectacular autumn, and all we have is rotting leaves on boggy ground. It's so depressing. And the other day I had to spend about 4 hours outside trying to coax one of our kittens back inside who escaped, then I got freezing, and then soaked and covered in mud when at one point I laid down in the mud which was once our garden trying to coax her through the hedge.

All I want to do is go to Westonbirt to take a picture of the trees. I guess I'll just wait and go on my birthday and do the Enchanted Walk again. And try to capture Autumn next year.

So far this month, I think in fact I have not even taken one photograph. But I have run 19.45 miles, and burnt in the region of 2,669 calories. I don't think I've lost very much weight, maybe a kilos or two at most, but to be honest the scales fluctuate so much I have no idea what I weigh. But running is easier now so it must be doing some good. Although with the evening being so very dark now it's hard to run my normal route which takes my up a lane and through trees with no street lights. It's completely pitch black. I'll have to take a torch with my next time so I don't have to walk just so I don't run into anything!

The other day I did buy some skin tight lycra tights because it is so damn cold. I'm no Linford Christie I guess, but they are still embarrasing to wear without shorts. I also bought almost the most expensive pair of socks in the world because I had a problem with my foot. They were £8 a pair. My last socks I got from JJB Sports and were like £2 for a pack of 5 or something. But they are cotton and the trouble with cotton is it absorbs sweat and swells. The problem I had was pins and needles in my left foot after about 3 miles. The internet told me this was either too tight shoes, or a problem with my ligaments which a hamstring stretch would help. So I am doing extra stretches before and after running, and I have these new socks. They're are pretty comfortable, and make a huge difference to running just wearing them. So far also I've not had the circulation problem also, but my long run isn't until tomorrow morning so will see then.

I don't care how cold it gets, I just hope November is brighter. What I wouldn't give to see some snow this December too.

Good idea?

Just done another run, a short run. I'm not sure it was such a great idea as we are dancing tonight, but I picked a short route so hopefully my little legs keep working 'til the end.

2.49 Miles, 31 minutes, Heart average 163. Don't know how many fig rolls that is.

I don't know if this is an improvement on last time. I felt loads better doing it though even if I didn't run faster. Had a couple of stops to stretch to work out the cramp in my legs, but I ran for what felt like a much greater percentage of the time, albeit perhaps at a slightly slower rate. And I forced myself to keep running to the house right at the end for some distance - longer than I ever have before.

Now just got to get the Jive out of the way. D'oh!

Death to my Mac

rant on

I've finally had it with my Mac, I'm bootcamping XP MCE onto it again.

I originally setup my media center just before Christmas 2006. There was a lot on TV that we wanted to record and we were going to be away for a week. So I figured, "Hey Microsoft have some media centre doobery that can record TV, so let's install it from my MSDN subscription and see what it's like." I was sure that came under 'test and development' so I order a huge hard disk, setup my Shuttle XPC with MCE and bought a little USB TV tuner and the MCE remote.

The Shuttle was an old model, some Athlon variant, but it was quite a good PC - I used to use it to play two characters at the same time in SWG. But since I quit the game it was just gathering dust.

It all worked well to be honest, and soon we recorded pretty much everything we wanted to see over Christmas. MCE "just worked", it was Windows so adding it to the network was no problem, we could remote desktop if we needed to administer the machine, and we could SMB to the machine to copy to and from. And I took the opportunity to start ripping my CDs as MP3 so they could live on the media PC.

There were two downsides. Firstly the Shuttle XPC, at least my version, is noisy. Sure the fans are temperature controlled variable speed, but there are several in the PSU, case and graphics card. It's only really a gentle hum but it's a bit irritating. We lived with it for about a year anyway. The second problem was that the 'diversity' stick with two tuners could only actually record one program at a time. I couldn't get any support from the stick manufacturers because we were using MCE. They point blank refused to offer help because a) the card was recognised in Windows and b) we were not using their software. It was Pinnacle by the way. So for a long time I remained mystified as to why as soon as it attempted to record the second programme the first one stopped. I just put it down to the fact my Shuttle was slightly under spec and MCE can't encode two MPEG streams at the same time. It became a feature.

A few moths ago though my beloved Shuttle developed a bad case of fan rattle. Initially it was possible to just tap the case and it was stop, but eventually it became terminal. Time to replace the PC.

I looked around for fanless or quiet PC. There are many suitable PCs, but frankly some are grossly expensive. I wont say overpriced, but they are expensive none-the-less. So it was hard to find a suitable machine at an affordable price. Until I started to read about the Mac Mini. It was a pretty decent spec, by all accounts very quiet, and not too expensive. And bootcamp means one can run Windows. Perfect I thought.

So the Mac Mini arrived, I installed Vista onto it, and set it to look at my 1TB server with gigabytes of music, images and videos. For the first two days it was perfect. I never even touched Tiger or Leopard or whatever MacOS X is called, the machine was virtually silent and I it all just worked in shiny Vista goodness.

I want to say though Apple have really messed up with the Mac Mini in my opinion. In the version I'd bought, they had removed the dedicated graphics processor and replaced it with an on board GOU. Maybe this was to save money, I'm not sure, but at the end of the day it means to do cool graphic stuff, it needs to burn the CPU. Vista MCE contains a lot of moving graphics, and the Mac Mini turned from a "silent" PC to a hairdryer. It was an incredible noise. wtf?! Most of the time I wasn't even using the thing, I just had it at the MCE start screen. But notice the background colours change in Vista MCE? Yes, that is what was burning the CPU cycles and turning my little machine into a noisy behemoth. It took me several days of frigging in the registry to find the undocumented settings that let me turn off all the graphical crap and allow the machine to idle in peace. Playing movies still caused the problem, but at least when not using it, the machine was quite. Which I could live with.

Sadly my happiness was short lived. A few days later I started getting problems. Playing MP3s would randomly pause for about 30-60 seconds between songs. No that's not correct, it wasn't exactly between songs, it was more like 15 seconds after the next song had started. There was no reason for it I could determine. We had a 100 Mbps connection and the machine was just playing MP3s. Then weeks later the entire media library just disappeared. Network access was still good, and exiting Media Centre and going into Media Player showed the library was intact, but Media Center just didn't list any songs or images.

I managed to get the media library back, but the MP3 pause was still causing problems, it still could not record two channels at once and there was some other problem with the videos. Then I'd had enough. "Vista is rubbish. It must die. There must be a better way."

But do I go back to MCE 2005, or Mac OS?

Now Apple have a pretty good rep for graphics. People evangelise about how great it is and how they could never use a mouse with two buttons again. Freaks. But Apple do some things really well, so sure I'll at least investigate the possibilities. So what does Mac OSX offer?

Well to put it bluntly, frack all. Sure they have "Front Row" so it you want to try to work out how iPhoto works and import photos into the library without copying them into the machine, and you don't actually want to record TV, it works quite well. I mean it plays MP3s like a charm. But recording TV was kind of the reason I originally got a media centre.

Apple make AppleTV though, can this help? Well so long as you don't actually want TV then it works great. It's like Front Row in a box. Fantastic. But I can buy some TV shows after they've been broadcast apparently. I knew that aerial in the loft would come in handy. I'll pay for something the day after I could have watched it for free.

Lots of friends recommended I look at XBMC, and I did, right at the time they announced that Mac OS support was being dropped from the main project and branched into a different code base maintained seperatly. Because of organisational disagreements. Or, the developers on the two projects hate each other and can't get along. Meh, stupid GPL bedroom project.

But wait, there is a company called Elgato that make EyeTV, and it looks really cool. I mean this software looks like the dogs bollocks. Okay so there is no free electronic programme guide like MCE has, but everything else looks great. So I order a copy, restore the Mac Mini to its full OSX glory and prepare to rock and roll.

And how I loved it at first. The simple MacOS Front Row remote with like six buttons is cute. And it works well with EyeTV, just as soon as you realise that to stop watching TV to have to navigate the menus to the library, then recorded TV, then just play something, then open the menu again, go to the extra options and "stop" the playback - because for live TV the only option is to record it not stop it. Not really intuitive, but it worked. And it worked 100% of the time, not 20% like the Elgato remote with it more numerous but unlabelled buttons. And EyeTV doesn't play MP3s, so adding the Front Row option meant I had to VNC onto the machine and open a console window and type some voodoo magic to make the menu option appear. Fine, it's a Mac, there is no registry, they do things "differently", I can live with that.

So I had a PC that could play MP3s, couldn't display my pictures, I had no idea how to make it display any of my XVids or DivXs, I had no idea how to play APE or OGG music, but it could record TV. And the recording was really good, much better than MCE. The fan would spin up to half speed while recording, and half speed when playing back. Unlike MCE which would silently record but run the fan at full speed on playback. And the quality was brilliant.

But you know what EyeTV couldn't do? Programme guide! You'd think that was kind of important for a device that recorded the TV. In its defence it does comes with a 1 year free subscription to some service I have to start paying for next year. But about 5 of the channels it has completely the wrong listings for. Five US for example is some German film channel. BBC News doesn't exist despite the fact I can watch it etc. But worst, and which is intolerable, is that for reasons best known to itself it decides to stop recording some shows, record things I've never asked it to (even on different channels) and repeatedly starts recordings far too early or late missing the beginning or end of a show. I've now had to take to recoding the program before and after the one I want just to be sure I actually get something, then it's not guaranteed, I still occasionally get the odd random program it's decided to record for an unknown reason.

I suspect part of the problem is because I am not using the proper GUI, I'm trying to use the TV mode EyeTV menus. But you know why? Cos I'm using a fricking TV! I don't have a keyboard or mouse, I have a remote control with only 6 freaking buttons.

EyeTV is probably a lot better if you can use the main dialog. But I can't. And what else? The freaking dialog is larger than 800x600 anyway. I'm running my Mac onto a standard CRT television. It's not a computer monitor, it's not HD, it's just a TV. At 800x600 EyeTV looks reasonable, but the main GUI doesn't fit onto the screen. For weeks I was convinced there was no search function because the edit box is in the upper right hand corner, just off the edge of the screen. So to use that dialog I have to come upstairs, boot up my computer, run VNC and try to work out what the IP address has changed to, connect to the PC in super slow mode and drag the UI around the screen trying to access all the dialog buttons. In MCE you just search the free EPG from the sofa using their remote.

But what has put the nail in the coffin is the other day it told me there was an update, which I promptly downloaded, then came upstairs because it was asking for my password whihc I can't type using 6 buttons on the apple remote. But I forgot my password because it is different from the password VNC uses so after 3 attempts EyeTV crashed, and the machine is left with a broken EyeTV install because it could not cope with my not knowing my password. EyeTV is seemingly uninstalled in preparation for the new update which never installed. Great. I suppose I could find the CD and put it in the machine and use VNC to log on and reinstall the old version then redownload the latest version and get it to patch again. But I can't be bothered.

So I'm going back to MCE 2005. Vista MCE didn't work, for whatever reason. And Macs just are not designed for a headless media environment. Sure if you have a keyboard and mouse connected, and a resolution greater than 800x600 it probably works better. Or if you only use iTunes and don't need to watch or listen to anything in a non standard codec and actually record TV through an aerial it's probably good enough too. But for my specific needs it just doesn't work.

It's a pity because some things a Mac does, it does very well. But it's not fool proof, it's not necessarily user friendly, and sometimes it just doesn't work at all. I'm hoping MCE 2005 won't have the same problems Vista did on this PC. MCE 2005 on my old PC was great, it was just the PC that let it down. If it doesn't work then I don't know what to do. If only Virgin Media (cable) was available here.

/rant

Running

Aaarg, what a run. Well for me anyway. Last week I resolved to walk into work twice, so Wednesday and Thursday I did. Monday I had to give Pixie and lift and Tuesday it was raining and on Monday I had left my coat in the office. Friday I had to be in work for 5am as we were travelling up to Leeds.

So I walked in on Wednesday and Thursday. It's just shy of 2.5 miles each way the route I take, so it was pretty good exercise. Then on Saturday I had to pop into town to get Tahini paste so I walked then too. I reckon I've walked about 13 miles this week.

This morning I woke up fresh. Yesterday I didn't, I was up at 4am, drove over 500 miles and didn't get home until 8pm. I was tired on Saturday.. But today I was fresh and decided to go out for a little early morning run.

It was actually an amazing feeling. Today I was actually running! I didn't get to the corner puffing and panting requiring medical assistance, I kept on running. I kept on running past the sports centre, past the shops, past the park. It was almost like a Forrest Gump moment, until nearly a mile later I did stop. Now you might think that 1 mile is pretty poor, but then you might also not find size 36 inch jeans tight (I swear the reason is Pixie shrank them in the wash).

The pause was only brief however and I managed a really good distance before I decided to walk a little way. By that time though it was hard to keep my heart rate under 180, even on gentle inclines, which I don't really want at this stage. So it was a bit of run walk trying to stay in the 160-180 zone.

In the end I managed 3.5 miles in 43 minutes, with an average heart rate of 165. According to Map My Run I burnt about 600 calories which sadly in context is only about 9 Jacobs Fig Rolls. So I can eat another 7 and still feel good about myself. Yay!

Will have to see if I can keep up the resolve next week and build up the miles.

Running

I started running again last week, and this morning I was out in the mist trying to get a few miles in. I "ran" a little over two miles, I was hoping for more, but it's definitely above the curve I'm trying for. My breathing felt much better, and managed to keep my heart rate over 170 without feeling like I wanted to die, but the problem was my legs. About half way I started getting really bad cramps and the lactic acid was really burning. I stretched a bit at the half way point and tried to recover a little before tuning back for home, but I had to do a large proportion of walking on the return trip.

Last year I was hoping to do the Taunton Half Marathon. I started my training last November and I think I was doing some quite respectable distances given the fact hippos don't normally run all that well. But at Christmas I had some awful illness which knocked me out, literally, for two months. After that I was never able to recover my fitness enough to be able to carry on training, so I just let it lapse.

Hopefully I can keep it up and join the running club (in what November?) and see if I can get some fitness and lose a bit of weight to boot. I think the Taunton Half is around April time next year so hopefully I can be ready for it.

Google Chrome

Okay I don't know if this has been a secret until today, or if I am just completely out of the loop. Well I guess, how exciting can a browser really be? But OMG, this Google Chrome is freaking cool.

Download it now and use it.
Read the really cool comic to learn more.

Seriously it rocks. And it's fast. Download it!

I've always used Internet Explorer to be honest. It's easy to access, I'm familiar with the icon, and it starts faster than any other browser I tried on my system. I did at one point toy with Firefox after all the hype, but it starts slower than IE on my machine. And I use the internet for work, if I need to go to wiki to look something up, or more commonly visit MSDN or one of the Microsoft blogs I just want to go there. But IE7 is a bloat monster and it's hardly stable. And the fact IE7 screwed over the Google toolbar, which was the most convenient way to search pages, really pissed me off. I don't blame Google for wanting to write a browser just to get back at them. And there were so many things IE7 did that were stupid. But I can't deny, IE7 was always there when I clicked the button. And some things you have to live with. Don't you?

But I read the Chrome comic and I instantly though this sounded great. So I've been sitting here all night just hitting F5 waiting for the Chrome download to be brought live again. It installed in less than a minute. It looks uncluttered. It's blindingly fast. Okay there are a couple things that don't look quite right, My Ebay is barely readable as the text is too small and some other websites only rendered the toolbar and no page, which a refresh fixed. But there's only a couple of things it did a bit strange and so many things it does right. Straight out of the box.

Holy crap and it's spell checking in blogger for me, cos I don't spell too good always that's a mighty fine feature!

Did I mention incognito mode?

I tell you, IE8 will have to be pretty freaking good to compete with this.

Kitten Claws

We have 6 kittens.

We never chose to have so many, and we would prefer not to have so many. It's very expensive to buy food, vet bills etc, and with so many bottoms it's very smelly work cleaning up the mess. But we adopted a feral cat who became pregant before we were able to get her to the vets, so now we are inundated with her kittens. A huge litter. It was actually 7 in total, but we've only managed to get rid of one.

Although they are very affectionate, our kittens have very sharp claws, and each has 5 claws on each of 4 paws. Usually it's not a problem, perhaps they'll pad on your face in bed, or pad on your legs occasionally, but usually it's manageable. But they've developed an annoying habit of jumping on things, including people. If I am in my chair, I have to be careful if my arm is on the arm rest because they will jump up, with claws extended. Or they'll bypass the arm of the chair altoghter and try to jump directly onto my shoulder from the floor. Or *shudders* they'll wait until the morning when I'm just wearing my boxer shorts and I'll go downstairs to feed them breakfast and they'll try to jump onto my back - my naked back!

About 10 minutes ago I was just downstairs, and Pixie was upstairs doing something. I called to her to ask a question, and I stood at the bottom of the stairs talking to her at the top. About half way up the stairs, about in line with my head, was a kitten. I noticed the kitten shift position slightly. As if it was preparing to jump. To jump down the stairs. Or rather to jump across to the other object that a few feet away at about the same height. To the flesh coloured object that was making a strange sort of talking noise.

The next thing I saw was a kitten flying through mid air, legs out, claws extended, straight for my face. Now I know what they must have gone through in Aliens.

Perhaps we feed our kittens too much, perhaps we should add valium to their feed to calm them down a bit.

Tune in next week, for "When kittens attack!"

I could be who?

40 Commando Royal Marines
Originally uploaded by Nostromoo

On Thursday the 31st of July, 40 Commando Royal Marines exercised their right to parade through Taunton town center. This happened at lunch time so I took an early lunch and went out to watch, and see if I could get a few pictures.

It was a fantastic parade, with thousands of people lining the streets and I got some great images. Well great for my standards anyway. I posted them up on flickr and managed to get nearly 500 hits in one day!

So come Tuesday I figured I could snd my photos into the local newspaper, surely they would have a page for readers images right?

Well sadly it turned out that Tuesday was too late as they had already layed out the Marines page, but the lady promised she would forward my images to the sub editor, although it was unlikely they would use them. She could however add them to the website if I liked. On Wednesday however, I got a curious email from the gazette telling me one of my images "was on the front." On the front of what? Surely not the paper? Surely you just mean "home page" right?

Anyway, come Thursday morning I stoppped of at the paper shop on the way into work, and low and behold, front page!

Well this was fantastic news. So I bought two copies, one to read and one to be copied by monks onto high quality archive paper, then covered in clear resin, dried, smoothed and locked in a climate controlled bomb proof safe. My partner sent the image to her parents, who evidentally were also quite impressed. I saw Pixie after work, all bright faced, saying her parents said I "could be the next David Bellamy!"



Thank you, I think.

Where people meet

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I met Pixie. By a "long, long" time I mean 4 years ago on 17th July 2004, and by a "galaxy far, far away" I mean Brighton. Let me explain.

Pie Crust

Okay a little background. Well okay, a lot of background. I just love Star Wars. I've owned VHS copies since they came out and watched them I don't know how often. And played so many of the franchised computer games. I can't begin to image how many hours I played X-Wing, B-Wing, Tie-Fighter and Imperial Pursuit as a boy. So back in 2003 I was absolutely enraptured to learn that a starwars MMO was coming out! Even though at the time I had no idea what an MMO was, I knew it was a computer game and it has Starwars dammit! Star Wars: Galaxies had been born! If I was going to break my MMO cherry, then this is surely the way to break it.

Forums appeared and as the game was developed more of the world was revealed to me. I read about adventures in the Dune Sea, combat with monstrous beings, player communities, traders, Rebels, Imperials, spies. And the ever present hint of secret Jedi-ness lurking in the shadows. I was excited, nay aroused, as week by week, more features were added and more beta stories appeared on the forums. And believe me, what really sold it to me was a story about fishing. The first fishing expedition. I was, excuse the pun, completely hooked.

So as soon as I could I pre-ordered from the States, I'd even have paid for the guy tio stand in the queue and by a copy when the door opened at midnight, and ten have it chilled and air freighted over. I waited patiently for the release date to arrive. And in due course, a DHL man arrived with a huge box demanding some exorbitant amount of import tax. "Here, take my wallet, just gimme the box!"

And thus began a series of late nights, followed by 4 hours stints in bed, followed by work, then home to repeat again. To mix a metaphor, I was grinding my day job just to get home and fire up the game. It was unhealthy. But boy, back then it felt sooooo good!

Thus Gorja La'Tau was born, forged on the harsh plains of Talus. He became a warrior! I was Rebel scum.


The beauty of Star Wars Galaxies to me, was the flexibility of the class system. It's something no other MMO I have tried has had. And something SWG sadly lost in 'upgrades'. When your character was born into the game, they were nothing, but they could be anything. The only limits on what "Class" you were, where your own desires (within the confines of the game mechanic "skill points" of course). I toyed with several professions, as my whims changed, combat, crafting, healing, but always I kept my dancing skills. People always used to laugh at me that I played a Star Wars game but most of all I enjoyed the dancing. But it was fun to unwind doing it.


I had known a nice lady called K'Vera in the game since almost the first week I had been playing. She had a band called Talus Moon. I learned tips and tricks from her. And we even met in person. Here we are in Bristol:


Sometimes I really think I am Mark Corrigan. I'm the one on the right.

Eventually however the game really started to piss me off. The game wasn't as much fun as it used to be. There seemed to be continual changes and a general overall degredation of the immersion. So in typical Nostromoo style I packed my bags, sorted my affairs and decided to quit. Well, not without going out with a bang! I decided to go to Coronet City, visit the cantina (which is like a bar) and strut my funky stuff. And then quit. Always leave them wanting more, see?

Cooked apple filling

So after that brief *cough* background story, we come to the title of this post. Where people meet. Back in those days, I was Gorja. Or rather, he was me. I made him that way. He was lost, and to be honest I was lost.

So there I am in game land, alone, when all of a sudden there's someone else there. As pixels go, these were pretty cute. And wait, did she just /wave at me? Maybe I'll try a ..... /wink! Ha! Interaction. She's probably a man though, most of them are you know.....

Actually she wasn't, and she was very sweet and fun to talk to. So we did. She was an Entertainer, and I was an Entertainer. I danced, she played, or someone else played and we both danced. And I forgot I was going to quit. I was lost, but then I was found. And instead of quitting we both joined Talus Moon instead.

And inevitably, Talus Moon had another get together, this time in Brighton. And this was the first time we met in person:


Did I say I was Mark Corrigan? That's a Barbour jacket you know, and I'm not a farmer. Do you know how old I was there?

So where do people meet? Well some meet through friends, in bars, in clubs, in supermarkets. Some meet on train station platforms. Some actually meet in "cyberspace". It's strange how people meet. There are many stories.

Custard

So it was 4 years ago. The 17th of July 2004. There was an Edward Hopper exhibition at the Tate gallery, so I'd invited "Sassira" to join me in London. She likes art right, everyone likes art. We're just friends. Friends go to art galleries in London all the time. What's wrong with that? It's just an Edward Hopper exhibition. If that's all it is, we can board our trains afterward and never speak of it again. But if it's not......nah, don't get carried away. It's just an Edward Hopper exhibition. We'll meet, have a very pleasent discussion about Nighthawks, then slowly drift apart again like passing ships.

So as depicted in glourious 640x480 camera phone colour goodness, we met for the first time without the company of friends:


And we had a good time. We saw the painting, and talked about Edward Hopper. We had lunch. We talked some more. We walked back to the station though Hyde Park. And we held hands. And we got to the station. And we kissed.

And for the entire journey home I thought about it. We spoke on the phone. And I was happy. Across the table on the train Fred was happy too, although we didn't talk much:


Fred got off with his owner in Swindon. I stayed onboard.

So that's how we met. A chance encounter in a virtual bar. A 3D computer animated representation of the greatest science fiction franchise to have existed. Had I decided to leave a week earlier; had she decided to come in a week later; we never would have virtually met. And without virtually meeting, I would not have met her at all.

Coffee and mints

After London of course I met her again at her home:


And we had a baby!


Oh wait! No, that hasn't happened has it. That was just a baby I was holding.

Data Protection

For legal reasons, I would like to point out the following story is purely fictitious. Any resemblance to actual event or to persons living or dead is purely conincidental.

So my better half works for a local college. She writes databases and such like, and develops custom software for them. Tomorrow she has to go out of town on a training session, so about a month ago she tried to book the train tickets online. It's not the first time she's used that booking company so after two weeks she was surprised that the tickets still had not arrived.

So she rang their Indian call centre and explained that none of the tickets had arrived. But was told there was nothing they could do until the day before the journey. She just had to wait to see if they turned up until then.

So another two weeks later, today, and she's due to catch the train at 6 am tomorrow morning. She rings up the call centre. "What is your name? Oh I am sorry madam, we cannot speak to you, we must speak to the card holder only."

"But the tickets are in my name. I booked them."

"Yes but you are not the card holder. And due to data protection we cannot divulge information to you."

"I don't want any information. I already have all the information. I booked the tickets a month ago. They were addressed to me. They havn't arrived, and my train is tomorrow. I need you to sort it out."

"Oh I am very sorry. Please have the card holder call us."

Apparently someone else in the office did ring back and claimed they were the card holder. "Oh yes Sir, we will send the details to the station office. You can collect the tickets in an hour." That should be all that is necessary shouldn't it? The tickets will be at the station when we get there right?

Later that day then we went full of optimism to the station, expecting to find the tickets. "Sorry love, nothing in that name here."

"Well maybe they are in the card holders name. Can you check that name."

*rummage through paperwork* "Nope, nothing of that name. And nothing even going to that destination. Let me try ringing the booking company." He picks up a phone and gets though to the Indian call centre, quotes a reference number...."No I'm not the card holder, I'm the station master..." *more murmering* "..okay then. Thank you." *hangs up* "Sorry love, he won't talk to me. You'll have to get them to fax us to give you the alpha-numeric reference code."

We this is pretty rich. She's ordered these tickets a month ago, they never turned up, so she tried to talk to them herself only to be fobbed off until the day before and then told they won't speak to her anyway.

Oh did I mention that she had used a college credit card to book these tickets. It's registerd in the vice principal's name. So she has to ring the vice principal up after work in the evening and ask him to call an Indian call centre to sort out the tickets?! Oooooookay then.

Well this was about my limit. I decided to take the bull by the horns. Got my mobile out, and called the number. "Right look her my man. I have a reference number here, number xxxxxxxxx, you see. Now it seems there has been some cock up and the tickets have not arrived and they are not at the station as promised. Now I jolly well want something done about this, what!"

"Okay Sir, now to comply with the data protection act, can I ask you some questions?"

Damn I can see where this is going.

"Ummmmm, yes."

"Are you the card holder?"

Now have you ever seen that Simpsons episode where Homer wants to quit his job and writes Mr Burns a letter. But then later regrets it and wants the letter back? So he goes to the post office and puts on his most plummy voice. "Hello, my name is Mr Burns. I believe you have a letter for me?" "Yes Sir? And what is your first name?" Suddenly I see this scene flash before my eyes.

"Are you the card holder," asks this Indian chap.

"Umm, yes of course"

"And what is your name"

Shit! *turn to my other half* "Shit! What's his name." She tells me.

*back to the mobile* "It's "

"Yes Sir. And what is your registered address."

*gives college address*

"Okay Sir, let me see....."

What!?! I got away with it? Probably eventually I will go to jail because of this. However, 10 arduous minutes later I managed to get this guy to fax the station the details the station needed to print and release the tickets. And another 15 minutes after that the fax had finally arrived and the tickets secured.

I don't really know why this had to be so complicated, and quite what the point of quoting "data protection" as the reason they could not help, yet it seems so easy to bypass. What on earth was that supposed to prevent? Do they think that after I get the tickets sorted out I was going to ask, "Oh one more thing. I seem to have forgotton my mother's maiden name and the name of my first pet. You couldn't remind me could you?"

If there is a moral to this, it's don't use QJump to book train tickets. Probably also somewhere I should be repentant for impersonating the Vice Principal of the local college. Although considering it was such a f**k up and 11 hours before the journey there were still no tickets and they still refused to do anything about it, strangely I don't feel bad.

First

So I've decided to create a blog. Basically because I don't really want my flickr account to be a photo blog, and often there are things I want to say about an image, or photograhy in general that are not suited to flickr. I figured with a real blog it gives me a lot more freedom of expression and allows me to post images that are not so technically good, but which friends and family might appreciate or be interested in, or which might just be special to me.

I might also take this opportunity to comment on computer stuff, seeing as that is something else I am quite familiar with.

I've already referenced some great photography feeds on teh left, so if you're into that please take the time to visit Strobist, Joe McNally or David Tajada and I am sure will will learn a great deal from them as am trying to do.