All while I’m away

Everything I’m interested in and have been waiting for seems to be happening during the very small, two week window that I’m going to be on holiday.

I’m going to be spending the last two weeks of July, including my Birthday, with my in-laws at their new home in Northern Portugal - I’m really looking forward to it as the house is fab, there’s some stunning places to see and there are NO SHOPS for miles

But now I’ve found out almost everything I’ve been looking forward to is happening while I’m away.

First it was just the Harry Potter book - it comes out two days after I leave for Portugal - I can live with waiting for it until I get back of holiday as I’m not going to have THAT much access to media while away - I can probably avoid newspapers etc…

Then it was The Simpsons Movie - I’ve been looking forward to this since it was first announced and the bloody thing comes out the week after I go away on holiday.

I’ve just found out about a Top Gear special as well where the three amigos will be racing from Canada to the North Poll - 450 miles over some pretty tough conditions.

The Top Gear Special is on my birthday and my wife is taking me out for a meal - while I’m on holiday in Portugal - I’m a Vegetarian so, given my experience of Portuguese restaurants in the past - I’ll be eating omellete and a tomato salad.

Now I find that the BBC iPlayer, an app I’ve been RAVING about for the last year or so is due to be released on 27 July - still while I’m away in Portugugal and not able to download it.

There will probably be a load of other things as well that I want to see, do, watch or take part in while I’m on holiday - gotta love life haven’t you!

More

I’ll write more about each of the individual things when I’ve experienced them for the first time. This is going to be later than other people get to write about them but you will hear my opinion eventually.

I may still get to watch Top Gear as my Father in Law has Sky in his house and can recieve all the BBC channels - through a pretty big dish.

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Dalek, Cyberman and another alien

As you may remember, I spoke last week of my excitement that a Dalek and Cyberman had been booked to appear at the 2007 Jersey Battle of Flowers.

This in itself is VERY exciting because I love the Battle of Flowers and am a massive Doctor Who fan but it’s just got a LOT better for me.

I’m going to be going around the Battle arena  on the float with the Dalek and Cyberman AND POSSIBLY one other Alien I’m not going to mention yet incase it doesn’t happen.

Basically I’ll be going around with them and taking photos of them with the crowd in the backround, of the crowd themselves and basically making sure they don’t get into any trouble.

I’ve got to make sure the Battle Bee doesn’t come up and shake hands with the Cyberman or any other charactors for that matter.

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I’ve been Pownce’d

OK boys and girls I’ve joined YET ANOTHER social network - this one is more along the lines of Twitter and Jaiku than Facebook and My Space though.

I’ve just recieved an invite to Pownce, the new service by Digg guy Kevin Rose and other VERY talented people - it basically lets you post comments, files, photos, links etc and have them seen by friends and the public (if you want).

It’s half a Tumblog and half Jaiku - it lets you add friends by searching for them or inviting them (limited invites at the moment as it is a closed system still) or, in a similar way to Twitter - letting you have fans that have befriended you or friends you’ve befriended back.

The About us page described the system as “a way to send stuff to your friends. What kind of stuff? You can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more. You can do it all on our web site, or install our lightweight desktop software that lets you get out of the browser.”

The desktop software is VERY cool and does give this site one thing over and above the other services - yes they have Desktop apps available but not as good, and natively supported as this one.

What I can do with the system is fairly limited at  moment because I don’t have any friends - if you have a Pownce account feel free to add me to your friends and I’ll add you back.

I normally like to give my invites to things like this out fairly freely to blog readers but as I’ve only got six I’m going to need to be a bit more selective.

The site is fantastic, it’s intutive, attractive and builds on services like Twitter and Jaiku perfectly by taking what they do best, enhancing it and adding extra features.

I’m looking forward to testing it properly when I’ve got a few friends on the site but as I don’t have that many friends in the first place - who knows.

To be hones tthough - I’m not sure I need another site like this one - I’m only updating my blog once or twice a week at the moment, I’m only writing on Jaiku or Twitter every now and then and my Tubmlog is sustained almost completely by feeds from everything else.

I haven’t updated flickr properly in weeks and haven’t put a new video on You Tube in ages - the only thing I’ve updated is the Ryan is… section of my Facebook profile.

So do I have time for another social network? I don’t know but I know I do have time and use for a service that lets me send relatively large files to my friends - that is useful and that’s something Pownce can handle.

I’ll invite the first two people with a blog I can read to post - I’ll be your friend.

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Facebook = life?

There are twenty-something thousand people working for the BBC at the moment, it was twenty six thousand but with staff cuts I’m not sure what the exact number is.

Anyway, a quick check has just shown that there are 14,027 people in the British Broadcasting Corporation network on Facebook - that’s people with a BBC e-mail address and so BBC staff (even if that’s freelancers).

So more than half of people working for the BBC are on Facebook - I’ve recently had a friend request from my boss - luckily he’s a good bloke and I don’t mind having him see my profile - but in other cases that might make you a little worried.

With My Space it was a bit of my life that wasn’t really my life, it was a different side of me than I show while I’m working as it was the side that was into alternative/punk music and loved going to gigs - on Facebook I need to be grown up (apart from the odd food fight) and it has become an extension of ‘work/life’.

I’ve been a member of Facebook for a while but just pretty much ignored it as nobody I knew was on - in the last couple of months that has changed completely.

Now one of the first things everyone at work does it check Facebook - often to send a message to the person sitting next to them - but thats no different to the age old send someone an e-mail then phone to make sure they got the e-mail and then send an IM to make sure they understood the phone-call.

I love my social networks, I’ve admitted in the past to having a bit of an addiction to them - but Facebook seems to be more than just a social network, or at least it’s more than a social network that takes you away from real life - it’s a place where I’m friends with people I actually know - which is just weird.

It’s a place where I’m friends with people I work in the same building as - god even my wife is on Facebook - she’s not my friend yet though - she’s lost her username and password.

Add me as a friend if you like - I want to get a bit of sanity back into my Facebook friends list - a few people I’ve only met virtually for a change - god how the internet is making my local life even more local!

My Facebook Profile (this should work) >

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Dalek and a Cyberman

Part of my job means I get told about things often well in advance of many other people - things that are decided but not completely confirmed - and sometimes I don’t know about anything until well AFTER everyone else.

For the first couple of years of the Jersey Live festival I knew who was coming over to play pretty early on but was sworn to secrecy, I’ve known about opening ceremony’s for the Island Games but couldn’t tell.

And most recently I’ve known about the changes to the Battle of Flowers for a couple of months, including a REALLY exciting addition to the normal floral floats - but have had to keep shtum.

Well now I can say - a Dalek, a Cyberman and Nick Briggs doing their voices will be going around the Battle of Flowers arena on 9 August for Battle of Flowers parade.

It will be a Dalek and Cyberman as seen in the new series of Doctor Who.

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Looking forward to that…

OK so I’ve been away from the blogosphere for a while - well sort of - I’ve been producing the BBC Jersey Island Games blog written by the stations Assistant Editor from Rhodes, but I haven’t been writing my own blog for a while.

Which means I haven’t been able to talk about anything in the media world that’s been happening - I’ve just been sat on my own in a hot office for 14 hours a day working on ’sports’ content.

But that’s all over now and I can get back to the land of the living - well digital anyway.

I’ve been thinking about my first post back for a while and what form it should take, what I should talk about, whether it should be at the same time as a new blog template or not - and then I couldn’t think of anything to write, am too tired to create a new theme and don’t have the enthusiasm for any research.

So my first post back is a sort of long winded hello, it’s basically the blog version of saying ‘back’ in the same way that my last post was the blog version of saying ‘brb‘ when I had to leave things for a week or so.

I do have other posts planned and saved in my draft list - things I’ve wanted to blog about over the last week but haven’t had time to write in full - but i’m not sure I’ll ever get around to them.

The Draft List in Wordpress is a brilliant idea - in principle - but it suffers the same problems as other brilliant ideas - ME - because I’m able to save a post as draft and come back to it - I end up with dozens of half started blog posts that I forget why I started in the first place and end up deleting a week later.

Anyway, I’ve moved house - we found a fab three bedroom Edwardian town house within our budget that, despite a few little faults - is fantastic and just what we wanted.

I’ve got the WiFi set up and working throughout the house and ‘garden’ and have Sky+ which I can’t imagine ever not having now - it’s just amazing.

I still need to sort out my boxes of books sitting next to my desk and the hundreds of DVDs sitting in the DVD cupboard in completely the wrong order - It’s been annoying me since my wife put them there) but other than that things are working well.

I’ve even had a go at DIY - I put the new wall lights in and even managed to wire the oven to the wall - I’ve always paid someone to do that before.

I guess it’s true what they say about hitting 25 (I’m 26 in two weeks) - I’ve even thought about buying a shed!

Oh and I’ve also pretty much switched from My Space to Facebook as my social community of choice - if you want to get hold of me just add me as a friend on Facebook - I’ll accept all requests unless you’re a spammer - then you can go put yourself in a blender

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Rain, rain go away

Bloody rain - it’s July for @£%!& sake, when will the sun get off its arse and push the rain away.

Here is a ‘missing dog’ style advert.

MISSING

ROUND YELLOW THING USUALLY FLOATS AROUND IN THE SKY!!!
ANSWERS TO THE NAME ”SUN”
IF U SEE HIM TELL HIM IT’S F**** JULY!!! 

Whats the point in living on a beautiful island with fantastic beaches if it never stops sodding raining. We BETTER have a bloody good August or I’m going to build a spaceship, fly to the sun and kick it in the bollocks.

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