mytbc

Projects, hoozoo!

There’s something reassuringly manly when it comes to maps. While I’m sure the stereotype about women not being able to read maps is untrue, maps are very manly. If you give a map to a man, he can spend hours poring over it, studying it in detail, lost to the world.

Initially, he will be studying it for funny place names (for example, in Glasgow, there’s an area called Springboig, which I love the name for), and then he may study it for places with similar names (Gallowhill in Paisley, and Garrowhill in the east end of Glasgow). Exciting stuff, eh?

But after that, he gets to why he really loves maps. Planning where to visit. I am a nightmare for this. I love maps. I really, really do. And I love to plan out routes that I am going to cycle. I have hundreds of them, all in my head, and every time I look at a different map, I plan out more.

And so, it was with this love of mapping, along with a love of cycling, that I came up with the idea for my honours project this year.

Basically, the idea is that one will duck tape a mobile phone with built in GPS to the front of their bicycle, and I will write a small program that will log the GPS data while a person is out on a bike ride. This data will then be uploaded to a website, which will display a map (yummy) of the ride, along with some statistics, speeds, altitudes and so on, and it will all be very exciting for all involved.

Now, all I need is a name for it…

On Commuting

So, I started working recently. Real exciting stuff, too. I am a JOB TITLE for COMPANY NAME, hells yeah! OK, so working for a company that does ACTIVITY would be awesome if I were the kind of person who does CRIME RELATED TO ACTIVITY or whatnot, but that’s just not my bag, dawg.

One of the nice things about the job is that it’s about a couple of miles from my house, which takes me about 12 minutes to cycle. And I cycle it every day, sun or rain, along the wonderful facility that is the Clyde Walkway. This is part of the Sustrans National Cycle Route 75, and it goes from just outside my house to just outside my work.

Thing is though, recently they’ve been doing a lot of construction work down by the river. To give them (whoever THEY are) their credit, they (always with the mysterious THEY) have made sure the cycle path never closes. At one section, they’ve rebuilt the cycle route about 3 or 4 times in the past year or so, probably, just to make sure it’s always open.

However, they’ve started working at a bit now where that’s not an option. A temporary solution has been granted though, they have closed off a lane of the road beside the river with cones so that it becomes the cycle lane. As this was previously used for parking, it makes not much difference to the road users, who get as much room as before, but it does mean us cyclists can continue to cycle safely off road.

HAHAHAHAHAHA, had you fooled, right? Like car drivers would ever consent to letting cyclists do so safely.

Their gall makes me mad every morning. Their selfish behaviour, parking in an obviously closed lane, causes me to either cycle on the road and potentially get crushed between the van and a lorry or something, or I have to cycle on the pavement, which is illegal, and is dangerous for the pedestrians who are not necessarily looking (or listening) out for cyclists.

I think I’m going to start leaving notes under their wipers.

Whatever Is Wrong With That?

So, when I was about 8 years old, I moved from my old home of Balloch to Perth, because my mum no longer liked my dad so much, or something. Anyway, for the first wee while, before moving into the awesome world of the homeless shelter, we lived with my Auntie Alma in an area called Tulloch.

The local primary school, Tulloch Primary, was the one I attended, before we moved house and therefore primary. I was only there for a few months, probably, and I have precious few memories of the place. One, in particular though, stands out because I still don’t really understand how what I did was wrong.

So, after I finished my lunch one day I went back up to our classroom to get something from my school bag before going out to play in the park just outside the school. As I was up there, one of my classmates, a girl whose name I don’t remember but will call Kelly, because it seems like a typical name for girls, came in. Ok, that was a long run-on sentence so, to re-iterate, Kelly came in to the classroom, crying.

When the teacher asked her what was wrong, she revealed that she had wet herself. Obviously, this is distressing for a young girl, and it is understandable that she was crying. I did not intend to overhear the conversation, but what are you going to do, eh?

So, I sneaked out, as you do, and as I got to the bottom of the stairs one of Kelly’s friends asked me what was wrong with Kelly, so I told her that she’d wet herself. I did so only because I knew this girl was Kelly’s friend. I then went out to play, forgetting about it all.

Next thing I know, the teacher comes storming out of the school and yells at me for telling about Kelly’s accident, and then leaves me sitting outside the headmistress’ office, even more upset than Kelly was. I was crying because I’d done wrong, apparently, but didn’t really understand what. Luckily the headmistress was nice, and didn’t yell at me, and when I got back to the classroom, the teacher had calmed down and let me churn the butter we were making.

However, I still don’t understand what I did wrong.

Whatever is Wrong With You?

So, that awesome band Marillion have started a contest, where you can download a copy of a song from their not yet released album, and make a video for it. Then, one simply uploads that video to youtube, and bam, whoever gets the most hits gets £5000. I think I’m an ok video editor, so, here we go:

Ok, so an update is required, apparently.

Life is pretty OK. I have a girlfriend, but no job. Going to get one though, somehow. I do have interviews lined up. That’ll be fun.

I turn 22 on Wednesday. I’ll be old. Wooh.

I’m Beginning to Suspect that I may just be an Idiot…

So, Frenzy. Possibly the biggest event on any Scottish Christian’s calendar. For years, I have heard about how great Frenzy is. For years, I have been unable to go, having scheduled a sailing holiday in early June for the past 6 years. This year, for a variety of reasons, I was unable to book the sailing holiday. This was great, in a way, as it meant I could now make Frenzy.

Excellent. Delirious? are really awesome live. Last time I saw them, I was amazed. Then I went home and cried, but that’s a whole other story. Chris Tomlin, I mean, wow, that guy’s music really, really gets me going, spiritually. David Crowder Band, I can only imagine how fun it is singing along to O Praise Him with the sort of crowd you’d get at an event like Frenzy. To say I was looking forward to it might be a minor understatement. I’m sure the other bands would be excellent too.

Then, the day after Frenzy, Kirsty McGee is back. That woman I fell in love with, back in February, apparently. Oh, the yearning I have to see this concert is incredibly strong.

Then, t’other day, Mr. Strong spoke to me on MSN. A bit of back story here, last June, Mr. Strong and I cycled 220 miles from Glasgow to Inverness to raise money for a mission trip he was taking to Bolivia. I mainly helped out because I really wanted to cycle from Glasgow to Inverness.

Anywho, t’other day, Mr. Strong informed me that the old rascal Ginger Dave was going on a mission this summer to Peru, and that he was looking to raise a wee bit of money for that. Mr. Strong had also kindly volunteered my services as a planner to Ginger Dave.

Thus, I found myself at Ginger Dave’s place of abode on Monday night, several maps in hand. And lo, we reached a plan. On some Friday night, we would travel to Inverness, on the following Saturday we would take a quick jaunt on some bicycles down the Great Glen Way to Fort William, approximately 65 miles, and then on the Sunday, we would climb Ben Nevis, Britain’s tallest mountain.

View Larger Map

Oh dear.

Worse, the only dates suitable for this? The weekend of Frenzy and Ms. Mcgee. Why on earth did I agree?

Surprise! On the dangers of Internet Shopping

Well, perhaps danger is a strong word. I mean, there are certainly dangers of Internet Shopping. Identity Fraud, for example. My friend Christine, for example, recently got scammed out of £180 due to the wonderful identity fraudsters. Poor girl.

But today, I am here to warn you of another, far more worrying danger. The danger of buying something, then forgetting you bought it. Because, if you do this, there might be a case where you buy it twice, which did nearly happen to me. Luckily, this time, I did not buy things twice, I bought them once, only I thought I’d bought them nonce.

So, I was surprised recently when I got an envelope from Portland, Oregon. Upon seeing the envelope though, I was able to remember having pre-ordered a live solo album from Colin Meloy, he of the melodious voice behind the Decemberists. It was a welcome sight, and an even more welcome listen.

I have seen the Decemberists live just once. It was meant to be twice, but sadly, they cancelled that tour. This album does not reflect a Decemberists live show, but then, it was never meant to. This is a Colin Meloy show. Well, technically, a compilation of several shows.

That said though, it is still a wonderful album. It is the sort of album that makes you want to sing along as you peddle desperately up that bastarding hill at Kings Park where some dobber just threw a McDonalds Cup at you from their car. Not even that is enough to distract you from the wonderous noise coming in your ear. Highlights for me, perhaps sadly, are the three songs from Picaresque. I’m sure I’ll come to love the other songs on the disc, the more I listen. However, the familiarity of the songs from Picaresque make them a more comfortable listen, for now.

Now, if you were paying any attention to the photograph above, you’d notice that the CD is not the only thing there. There’s also a book. A book which looks suspiciously childlike.  It does have a lot of pictures.

Craig Thompson, who I just noticed has a link to Carson Ellis from his blog page, who did the artwork for the aforementioned CD, wrote a wonderful book called Blankets that I bought last year. Blankets is a tale of him growing up and falling in love for the first time. A simply beautiful book. One I read in totality sitting in Borders, then bought anyway.

So, I decided to buy his first book, “Goodbye Chunky Rice“, under the assumption it would be as good. And, it is. It’s a very different book. No nudity in this one, instead, a sad little turtle.

It’s beautiful, and you should buy it. I don’t care if you don’t like graphic novels, you should buy it anyway. Right now. Go.

More Poetry?

So, Paul wrote a comment on my last post about poetry that I found interesting.

“The more abstract and the less personal the poetry/prose/song/painting/whatever it is, the easier it is for the author/composer/creator to not hate it. So with this generative method you can say you like it without appearing vain because you didn’t actually write the phrases themselves.”

It’s an interesting explanation for why I like the poems I’ve generated, and it certainly does apply, at least a bit. But I don’t think it’s about vanity. Generally, I do not like things I have written. For example, years ago, I created the first version of mytbc, and added a few stories that I’d written to it.

For a laugh, you can read this one. It was written as a Standard Grade English writing assignment when I was 14, so, it’s pretty awful. Like all the stories I wrote at that age. People liked it at the time, and that’s the thing I don’t get. When I read my stories, or poetry, or whatever, all I see are the weak points, the parts blatantly ripped off of better authors, the awkward phrasing, &c, &c.

So, generative poetry for me is a way to be creative. A way to be creative without having the weak spots that I generally focus on, because after all, I didn’t actually write it, I just found the seed and generative algorithm.

A quick note

This blog now supports Gravatars for commenters.

A Little “Treat”

You’ve all seen Rooster Cogburn: Official Wildlife Expert episode 3, right? No? Go watch it, you git.

Look, here’s a photo of Tom recording his section of it. Hooray Tom!

Anyway, while we were recording the audio, I made a few extra little recordings, which Paul then turned into a song, which I found recently. So, here it is.

Hope you enjoyed that…