Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Little Things (That Need to Go Away)

Posted on by

A little while ago I posted an entry about the small things that give me little moments of glee. Today I’m going to write about some of the small things that give me little moments of despair or “wtf”.

1. Live-tweeting a TV show or film every time something happens or every single minute (unless your name is Baratunde Thurston and you’re hate-tweeting Twilight).

Twitter is a huge beast that stretches across oceans, borders, continents and languages. It can be used to share important news items, give up to date information about something happening RIGHT NOW, let your pals know what you’re up to, or just link people to interesting articles or bits of Internet fodder. If you use Twitter you’ll know that sometimes a news feed is slow, and sometimes you can barely keep up.

What Twitter does not need is an endless stream of “That guy fell down #comedyfilm”, “omg his trousers split #comedyfilm”, “Ha that’s his boss! #comedyfilm” or “Watching something on a UK-only TV channel that isn’t relevant to 99% of the world but I’m going to do this every minute for an hour”. There’s no need, really. You can easily say in two or three tweets what you blether in 50.

2. Going to a concert wearing the band’s shirt.

Isn’t it enough that you paid for a ticket, turned up at the venue, paid an extortionate amount of money for a small beverage and are willing to be treated like cattle so you can see one of your favourite bands live? If it’s a weekday night you’re also going to be going to work the next day with your ears still ringing and stomach churning from nasty venue food. That’s enough dedication. I know that humans are still very primitive in a lot of ways and that includes wanting to belong to a tribe and informing others of your loyalties and interests. That’s fine if you’re into that sort of thing, but you’re here to have a good time with people from similar tribes so just relax, yeah? You’re only going to get beer and sweat all over yourself anyway, so why risk ruining an expensive shirt?

3. Not saying “please” or “thank you” to staff in shops/restaurants/anywhere.

Retail workers are people too! Weren’t you ever taught basic politeness? If someone does something nice for you, even if it’s their job, don’t be a dick.

4. People getting annoyed by things that don’t directly affect them.

Touché. We’re all only human :)

The Funtography Adventure Continues

Posted on by

Isn’t it funny that we focus so much on the sharpness, brightness and quality of images that a camera or smartphone camera can produce and then spend additional time (and often money) making our crystal-clear images look old and knackered?

I know how to develop rolls of film in a darkroom and use bits of cardboard on sticks and other hodge-podged tools to create nice effects, but I think the advent of affordable, accessible technology has made me hunger for quick and easy solutions. Sometimes I worry that all of this convenience has damaged my attention span and made me impatient, and I start feeling sad for the loss of the old ways and then I remember that I’m not even 30 yet so shut up.

ANYWAY. I have an Android phone. I’d get into the reasons why I prefer Android over iOS, but I don’t wanna. The camera isn’t the best (which is fine, I’m not expecting it to replace my DSLR or a decent compact), but I enjoy playing with photo apps to make snapshots look a little bit more special. They do veer into the realm of hipster quite a bit, but it’s nice to have choice. Sometimes you want perfectly clear photos, sometimes you want to make something look old.

Instagram is absolutely huge and seems to be the most popular photo tinkering and sharing app out there, but for now it’s only available for iOS products. They say it’ll be coming to Android “soon”, but you know, short attention span… I want my fix now. I found what I wanted from Retro Camera, but it does restrict you to five types of old skool cameras and you can’t add more filters or do additional tweaking to photos. For on-the-fly stuff it’s a great little app, but sometimes you want to play around a little more.

Pix: Pixel Maker is a new photo-tinkery app from Team ColonO (ew..?) in Korea. It boasts 30 photo filters, 24 film layers (or effects) and 16 different frames to make your images sparkle. Literally too, if that’s what you want. I downloaded it this morning and decided to have a play around with one of the random photos stored on my phone.

When you open the app it shows a simple starting screen offering you the option of capturing a photo with your camera or choosing an existing one from your gallery:

Very simple. I like it! I decided to use a hi-res photo from one of last year’s wanders around my local park to start with.

When your photo loads into the app, you can start playing around with filters. The menu buttons don’t have text, but the ones at the bottom go “Filters”, “Film Layers/Effects”, “Frame”. The star lets you save a combination of effects and other options as favourites, and the lightning bolt is the randomiser function.

I started off by sharpening the image. You can do this up to three times (the app will let you apply up to three filters at any one time) and it’s pretty effective:

Swans are spooky, right? Let’s get a spooky filter on there. There is one called “Horror”, but I choose “Nightfall” to retain the orange of the swan’s beak.

I’ve got space for another filter if I want it, but I think it looks ok as it is so it’s time to move on to film effects. There are loads of these things, and they actually look pretty good. I’m not sure what you’d use some of them for, but I guess that’s why they give you so many so that you can arse around and experiment.

Hm, nah. A bit further along you have options to make your photos look like they’ve been scuffed up with scratches, ink splotches or textures.

Frames next. Keeping with the scruffy theme I chose a  rough-edged one, but they also have floral, fancy and standard, or you don’t have to add a frame at all.

Hit the plus symbol in the top right to bring up the additional options to save your photo. I hit the Home button by accident but the little warning made me smile so I took a screenshot of it.

 :O

The end result:

There are also options to share your jazzed-up snapshots through Twitter or Facebook, which is handy. I also decided to test a photo from my phone’s camera, and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out:

This is using the “Horror” filter. It was really foggy this morning and made everything a bit Silent Hill, so I think it was an appropriate filter to use.

So yeah, I think this is a worthy app. It does require more time to fiddle with photos to get them looking as you want, but if you’re used to fiddling in Photoshop (other software is available) then hunching over your phone to do the same isn’t too big of a leap. I’m impressed with the variety of options available and the simplicity of the application, and for something that is free (FREE!) I think it’s definitely worth a look.

Sriracha? Burger Me!

Posted on by

(Ok, that probably doesn’t work if you’re outside of the UK)

I’ve heard the stories, I’ve read the editorials, I’ve drooled at the recipes, I’ve seen the tributes. I’ve never been so sure of anything; I needed Sriracha hot sauce in my life. Was I able to find any in my northern city? Hell no. I found plenty of alternatives, but not THE rooster sauce with the green nozzle. All hope seemed lost until I remembered that the internet exists.

Earlier this week a delicious package arrived courtesy of Amazon UK containing a modest-sized bottle of fiery goo, and this evening I decided to open it up and give it a try. Tonight’s dinner was venison burgers, and while they already have a distinct flavour and some nice seasoning a little extra spice is always welcome.

First impressions: boy this stuff looks like it has a kick. I have been fooled by brightly-coloured substances claiming to be “hot” before, so I decided to have a taste test and ate about half a teaspoon’s worth. OW! Yeah this should be good.

So how to do this? I guess if I was making burgers I’d just add it to the meaty mix, but today’s are store-bought (still good though) so I decided to add some blobs once the burgers were cooked. I didn’t want to go too crazy to start with, so I only used a weeny bit.

They did get a bit burnt. I hate electric hobs.

Let’s get a look at that dinner:

Lookin’ good! Accompanying the burger is a stack of oven-baked sweet potato wedges. I didn’t know you could even do such a thing until NH and I demolished a basket of them in Toronto last year, but now they’re a firm favourite in the Nerdly household.

The taste of the sauce is quite strong which I imagine is because of the garlic. It reminds me of Wagamama’s chili men sauce but a little less sweet and not as gloopy. There’s quite a nice tingly burn to it too, but it doesn’t overpower the flavour. I think next time I’ll use a little more to see how feisty it can get, but it was very pleasant. Maybe I’ll add it to my next pasta sauce in lieu of extra garlic to make it more arrabbiata, or make exciting scrambled eggs for brunch one day.

So yes. I think I have been converted to the ways of the rooster. More heat!

Gamification: For Life With Added FUN.

Posted on by

Or at least life with added tolerability.

Every morning we wake up, go to work, slog through a day, come home, go to bed. Boring. Boring boring boring. To make things a little easier to bear between 6am on Monday morning and 5pm on Friday afternoon, I like to try and make things a little more interesting by turning the most tedious tasks into little no-tech-required games. EXAMPLE TIME:

1. The “assemble your lunch and do your make-up while your breakfast cooks” minigame.

After a few years of practice I pretty much pwn at this game now, but I still like to play it every morning. My workday breakfasts are usually a bowl of porridge or a poached egg on toast, and as soon as you start everything off (turning on the hob, sliding bread into the toaster or lowering a PoachPod into a pan of boiling water) it’s go time. It doesn’t take very long to assemble a lunch as I’m the queen of freezer leftovers (part of another game I like to call “GOTTA EAT, DON’T WANNA SPEND MONEY”) it’s just a matter of making sure everything is packaged and stashed in the fridge without dropping blueberries all over the floor or squishing a banana underneath a tub of frozen soup.

The make-up is the tricky bit. One wrong move and you can smudge your eyeliner or poke yourself in the eye with an eyeshadow brush, and if you sneeze it’s a combo-breaker with a time penalty. You win the game if you finish up just as it’s time to retrieve your eggy or toast, but you lose style points if you burn anything, especially to the bottom of the pan. It probably says a lot about how much I value my appearance too, seeing as it takes 3-4 minutes to poach an egg.

2. Beating the neighbours out of the front door.

I’m a creature of habit when it comes to getting ready and out of the door for work. If you stick to the same routine after a while you can function pretty much on autopilot and if you’re lucky you don’t properly wake up until you sit down at your work desk. One thing that breaks my routine is my alcoholic neighbours from down the hall. If you step outside and they’re waiting for the lift (or elevator) you’re forced to snap into “small talk” mode which I really can’t face at 7.45am.

The key to winning this game is to keep an ear out for chatter, or more often than not, shouting. If it sounds close, hang back. Let enough time pass and then make a break for it. Get out of the door, lock up and summon the lift. If you manage to make it all the way downstairs and out of the main door without being bothered you win.

Those are just some things I do in the caverns of my own head when things get a little too repetitive and need spicing up a little, but I’ve been having a think about some aspects of gaming that would just make life easier rather than adding challenges and rewards.

Multiple dialogue choices:

The staple of any decent RPG, these are useful for moving along a storyline, getting more information, or deciding whether your character is a lovely person or a total git. If we had these in real life you’d never be stuck for an answer ever again, even in the most awkward medical situation.

Overhead directional arrows:

I’m not sure if that’s the proper name for them. Those things that appear in the sky in some driving games that point in the direction you’re meant to go. You know what I mean. Anyway yes. One of those would be very handy if you’re going somewhere you haven’t been before and don’t happen to be driving a car with a GPS in it.

Objective markers:

In games this can be used to find objects, locations or NPCs. I’d apply it to NPCs (or as they’re also known, “people”) because it’s always a pain having this conversation:

Me: “Hey, we’re here, where are you?”

NPC: “I’m next to a man wearing a hat.”

Me: “Ok that… that doesn’t help. Where’s the man?”

NPC: “Next to me.”

Never again! Simply make that person your next objective et voilà:

Come on wearable augmented reality, get a move on.

Chronic Case of The Uglies

Posted on by

I may have mentioned this before; I work in an open-plan office surrounded by real people. They all have very normal conversations about very normal, well-adjusted and acceptable things, and one thing they love to talk about is the latest beauty fad and great deals they’ve found on dermal fillers or nail filing or colonic irrigation or brainwashing or whatever, and it can get quite confusing. They talk about “therapies” and “treatment” as if looking normal is a disease that needs to be eradicated. Like smallpox but more expensive. While I agree that there are conditions that do need actual cosmetic treatment, I don’t see any reason for most people to lust for collagen implants or chemical peels.

I often wonder whether all of the fuss and faff of the more popular treatments is worth it, so I’ve been doing a bit of hunting around and reading. As you do.

1. Botox.

Botox is the brand name of the toxin produced by the bacteria that causes botulism, one of those lovely illnesses that is fatal in up to 65% of unlucky people if it is left untreated. If it is ingested it can cause nausea, vomiting, fever, double vision and paralysis, but if you inject it into your face it makes you look like an age-defying android. Hooray!

Botox does have its medical uses though and can be very effective in alleviating muscle spasms thanks to its paralysing effects, but most people know it as the thing that gets rid of your laugh lines. Or any lines really.

2. Eyelash extensions.

That’s exactly what they are. Yup. No. Eyelash extensions are extra eyelashes applied with glue ONE AT A TIME. That’s got to be fiddly. What if you sneeze while it’s being done? The end result is quite impressive, admittedly, but I don’t think they’re for me. I don’t think I’d have the patience to let someone fiddle around with my eyelash area; especially if they were using tweezers. My Room 101 would be someone slowly faffing around with a pair of tweezers next to my soft squishy eyeballs. Two plus two is five! Whatever you want!

3. Nail enhancements

Those nails are lovely.

French-tipped nails, fillers, nail art, acrylics, gels, cuticle softening… What’s the point, really? Fingernails are there so we can scratch an itch, pick coins up off tables and peel stickers off consumer durables. I will admit that I used to paint my nails black, purple, dark red or silver in my younger days, but has anyone’s life been seriously impeded because their fingernails are plain or not long enough?

Also when I see something like this, I can only think of one thing…

“I bet you have a bidet.”

The Little Things

Posted on by

It’s been a pretty crappy week. Last week we lost Kilgore and then on Sunday night Winston succumbed to what appeared to be a stroke so now we have no fuzzies left. So it goes, as Mr Vonnegut said.

To try and cheer myself up a bit I’ve been thinking about all of those nice little things that we can easily ignore but actually go quite a long way to giving us tiny moments of subconscious glee. When you start looking out for them you soon forget your troubles and the world seems a lot shiner. Here’s a brief list of things that make me happy without me even noticing most of the time:

1. Popping the seal on a jar of instant coffee.

There are probably a number of reasons why this is a pleasant activity; you get new coffee, as soon as you pop the seal the smell of coffee escapes, and it’s quite satisfying to perforate the foil or paper seal so that it makes an audible “pop” sound. In the Nerdly household I’m the chief seal-popper, although that makes it sound like I inflate and burst pinnipeds. I don’t do that.

2. Dry shampoo.

Washing and drying your hair is such a faff. I hate it in fact. If you’re only popping down to the shops or going out after a day at work it’s a waste of time to go through your ablutions all over again. Plus washing your hair all of the time makes it go weird, so hooray for stuff in a can. You just spray it all over, brush it through, and you’re good to go. (Note: Not a soapdodger).

3. Entering a DLC or additional content code correctly on the first go.

This isn’t too tricky to do when you’re using a PC, but if you’re trying to use an Xbox or PS3 controller to get your extra swag it’s a git. You have to keep peering at the code, twitch an analogue stick about to ssslllooowwwwlllyyyy select the right letters and numbers, and then try not to lose your place. It’s not very intuitive if you’re more of a PC person. Today I needed to enter two codes for SSX; one for some special snowboard I got for pre-ordering the game and another that will let me earn credits from global events or something. The first one took two attempts to get right, but the second I got correct first time. Hooray for me! Hooray! Hooray!

4. A nice conversation with a stranger.

I’m a very introverted person but I don’t think I’m shy. I’ll talk to anyone as long as they’re not a dickhead or overbearing, and some of the nicest trips I’ve taken have involved chats with strangers at some point. Obviously you need to be wary of naughty people pretending to be nice, but there’s nothing wrong with showing a friendly face and helping people out if they need help or just fancy talking to someone else. 

I’ve spoken in (horribly broken, it’s been a few years) French to a lady who once worked with my old French teacher, discussed Radiohead with a man on a bus, and swapped photography tips with an elderly gentlemen at a train station. Most chats just involve the weather (hey, I am British after all) or small talk, but if you can cheer someone up with a joke it’s nice for everyone.

5. That first cup of tea when you get home.

It doesn’t matter how far or how long you’ve been away from home, it’s always nice to mark your return with a nice hot cuppa. I used to hate hot beverages but working in an office, the passage of time and marrying a coffee drinker soon turned me to the dark side. It’s a worrying sign of adulthood and the inevitable transformation into your parents when the first thing you want when you step through the door is a nice cup of tea and a sit down. Sod the luggage, laundry and pile of post on the mat, get the kettle on.

There. I feel better already :)