Yet another post about the telly
December 20th, 2005 at 01:15

Christ on a bike, television is brilliant! It’s just a shame that schedule I’m pleased with doesn’t require any sort of subscription, box, or decoder. BBC Two is fucking excellent at the moment.

Newsnight! Extras! American Dad! Family Guy! The American version of the Office! All one after another! Hooray!

I’d like to make this into a funny update, but I’m too busy watching TV. Presumably I’ll eventually get like Ricky Gervais, and the only thing I’ll be able to tell you about and satirise is what I do all day. In this case, the television industry.

I’ll be like the Radio Times only slightly more cynical!

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Bat-teries
December 18th, 2005 at 18:48

I’m just a bit surprised that the product pictured above actually exists. I mean, I like a cheap cash-in as much as the next man, but Batman Begins batteries… why?

They don’t even use the batteries pun, like I’ve used in the title- the only thing that makes these stand out from regular batteries is that they’ve changed the font to the Batman begins font and in the process broken the first rule of branding: Don’t use your title font anywhere but the title, have a seperate one for sub-headings!.

Worst of all is that they’re shit. I carry my digital camera everywhere I go, under the assumption that one day some news will happen, and I’ll be there to photograph it, and flog the pictures to the highest bidder. This also means that I’ve started taking photos of the more mundane things in life- I was taking pictures whilst sat on the train the other day of the carriage interior and the buttons everything… until I realised with my unseasonal coat and face that used to contain a beard that I might look a bit like a terrorist or a Brazillian- both fatal occupations. But my point is, I originally had a pack of ten of them, and in little over two weeks there’s nothing left. They drain faster than my will to live when listening to creationists.

Hollywood executives! This bits for you… I’ve thought of some other ideas for cash-in products:

• Nania naan bread.
• Speed speed.
• Speed 2 speed. (Like the first one but missing a key ingredient)
• I, Robot telescopes and contact lenses.
• Pocahontas poker set.
• James O’Malley action figure. (Please?)

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Sky
December 17th, 2005 at 19:52

To celebrate the birth of Santa, I’ve had Sky put in to my bedroom, meaning I can now watch The Third Reich in Colour whilst talking to people on MSN, and fall asleep in my own bed whilst watching the Sky News paper review on the Sky News Active loop. Hooray!

Even since my laptop died, I’ve been unable to do this- think of all of the episodes of Extreme Engineering I’ve been missing! Rather than get another laptop, I’ve bought the TV to the computer instead. Today, whilst surfing it up and refreshing my blog hit counter, praying that someone will have visited, I learnt about deflecting an asteroid heading towards the earth, what the Tudors did for us (started the defence industry), and how to colonise space.

I’ve just been flipping through the EPG (electronic programme guide) now, and I nearly decided to watch the Political Memoirs select commitee on BBC Parliament, but I’ve realised that it’s a Saturday night- the most exciting and dynamic night of the week, where normal people watch The X-Factor and go to nightclubs and take LSD. This considered, I’ve opted for Channel 4 News instead. I like the in-depth analysis and slick presentation… and I can whistle the theme tune.

I’m quite worried that Sky might be affecting my mind though- perhaps making me stupider. Late last night I was flicking between Animaniacs on Boomerang (not as good as I remember, disappointingly) and Spiderman on Jetix. It still amuses me how they always say they’re going to “destroy” Spiderman rather than “kill” him, especially in contexts where the only word that works is “kill”. “Your blaster nearly destroyed me!”, “I’ll destroy you Spiderman!”.

Maybe Sky will eventually kill my mind? Maybe it’ll enhance the history part of my brain at the expense of the “using winamp for background noise” part of my brain? Who knows? The real question now is: Megastructures (the Aswan Dam) or Century of Warfare (The airbourne invasion of Norway)?

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Data Protection Update
December 17th, 2005 at 16:24

You might remember how a couple of weeks ago I got my data protection request from my former employers back. Since then I have submitted a similar request to my former school and have been waiting for a response.

Yesterday in the post I recieved a letter in the post in which they attempted to play me at my own game. Much like how I was citing the act to demand a response within 40 days in my letter, they were citing the same 1998 data protection act to demand that I pay up ten pounds to get my data photocopied. I assume this was their attempt to try and shut me up, and “win”.

I went up to my old school yesterday, chequebook in hand, and handed them a cheque for the tenner they’d requested under the data protection act, 1998. I think they were slightly surprised that I was paying them.

What made it worse was that I saw one of my old business teachers in the office at the same time I was trying to hand over the cheque. At the same time I tried to explain what I was doing to him, the office people thought I was explaining it to them, in a flippant and “stick it to the man” sort of way.

Either way, I’m sure they must have loved me- I’d come to the office with a reasonably difficult request at quarter past three on the last day of term before Christmas.

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Fire!
December 16th, 2005 at 23:36

I was quite alarmed earlier on when two fire engines turned up outside my house. As with most excitingly looking pictures I post, there’s no interesting anecdote attached. The neighbours oven had caught fire, but it had been extinguished as soon as the fire brigade got here. It did have half the street out taking photos though.

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I’m such a bastard.
December 15th, 2005 at 21:23

Not in the literal sense, you understand- my parents were married before I was born.

A couple of years now, I heard on the nerdish TV Forum I mentioned in my previous update that ITV’s new Saturday morning programme, replacing SMTV would be called Ministry of Mayhem. Whilst an awful name, I thought “Wow! What a cybersquatting opportunity!”, and quick as a flash, I’d registered ministryofmayhem.co.uk. Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration- I was only about as quick as an average ITV viewer.

Its emerged in the last few days that in January, “MOM”, as it became known will be getting a new name- probably due to a distinct lack of mayhem (or at least, I read, as I’ve never actually watched the programme). It’s apparently now going to be called “Stephen & Holly’s Saturday Showdown”.

Guess what domain I just bought.

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The ITV News Channel
December 14th, 2005 at 15:38

It has been confirmed today that the ITV News Channel will be closing down in January- perhaps at the same time as the rebrand of the rest of the ITV Network. (They’re getting new logos and graphics and stuff).

At the risk of sounding like Crystal Walrein, I’m going to tell all of you lucky readers about a forum that I frequent.

Now, I read a forum full of nerds who talk about the graphics used on news programmes and related stuff like that. Whilst I don’t venture into the thirty page discussions on which CA (Continuity Announcer) played Morris Dancing 0r Invisible Walls Long (BBC Two idents… the bits between programmes with the ‘2′ character) and then crashed into Ceefax at 3am (that’s when they show Teletext instead of programmes on the telly), and what music CD they’re playing over the top of it, but I do take a great interest in news programmes. I do politics, afterall.

(Did you know that the music on ITV Nightscreen, the pseudo-Ceefax equilivent on ITV, varies depending on what region you’re in? It’s to test the regional network.)

But anyway, another thing on this horribly sad forum I occasionally (ie: three times daily) check is the “mocks” forum- this is where the resident nerds mock-up some new graphics for something, and the other forum members can comment on them. No, really.

Like every other forum on the internet, it’s full of thread fascists and an elitist clique of long term members who criticise everything unreservedly… unless what you’ve done is upto broadcast standads. My point is, I don’t contribute because:

i) I can’t use 3D software well enough.
ii) I can’t get reasonably sized jpegs to look nice.
iii) I can’t find the diagram of the safe areas I used to use.
iv) I have a life.

With todays news about ITV, I decided to pick up my virtual crayons (ie: literal mouse) and design a new set of graphics for the news channel when ITV relaunches in the new year:

As you can see, it’s much more minimalist than the current set of graphics- I think they should tone down the horrible clashing blues and yellows and go for a more neutral black.

I can’t make music, so you’ll have to use your imagination- but I think an excellent new theme tune would be a sort of light hissing sound- similar to what you’d find if nothing was being broadcast.

Keeping in mind the tiny budget, I think alterations to the set will also be very cost effective- the channel shouldn’t need a flashy set to sell itself, it should be judged on the merits of its content alone. As the name “ITV News Channel” is a bit of a mouthful (especially for viewers of other ITV hits like ‘I’m a celebrity’), I think the name should be shortened to something like “Quiz TV Coming Soon to Freeview channel 81″.

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My Space
December 13th, 2005 at 20:31

Now, I’m probably six months behind the times and ranting about a subject that’s been displaced as a fad by something even newer and more garish, but this My Space “social networking” thing is bloody awful.

Far be it from me to complain about a website that includes a cascading style sheet after the head tag has been opened, but ‘My Space’ makes PUK look like W3C.

Not that this means anything to anyone. But I challenge you to go to any so-called ‘Space’ and find one in which the author hasn’t corrupted the layout and design with awful colours, horrible animation, ghastly over-sized pictures, and embedded video and audio content. For fucks sake!

Why do the morons people who use it fill their page with lists of what they like and don’t like, or those ridiculous e-mail surveys that threaten to curse you if you don’t fill them in? Then there’s the whole friends thing. “Look at me, I’ve got $i friends! I’m so popular!”… what does this prove? Why should anyone who visits care who your friends are? Why should I care who your friends are?

I mean, I know I’ve got a blog- the new internet fad that’s so hip and cool that even the BBC are trying it now- but at least I try and entertain. I’m writing in this qualitative way to try and keep you, the user, interested in my thrilling life. If I was to post a list of my favourite bands, or an image saying “you are a goat… click here to find out what animal you are”, linking to a quiz in which the user can find this out, would it be half as good? Oh, alright, would it be two-thirds as good?

Start counting down the days until I register on My Space- I started this blog with equal cynicism (and I mixed tenses more than a muscle in spasm).

In researching this article, I actually turned my speakers off and closed my door, in order to hide the embarassment of having to browse such a veritable avalanche of shit.

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Illness II
December 11th, 2005 at 20:41

Unexcitingly, I’ll unwell again. I just feel the need to update about this thrilling occasion so that it’s logged. When I look back on this blog in a few years time, I’ll be able to say to myself, “Ah, yes. I was ill”, perhaps followed by an anecdote about what I did when I was well again.

It’s not even an exciting illness. I’ve just got a blocked nose, headache and feel a bit shit. I was quite worried when Dundas, who’s training to be a doctor, informed me that this is known as the “common cold” and that there is NO CURE. I’ll soldier on though, albeit not in the literal sense. Rather than run through the trenches, dodging mortars and torturing POWs, I’ll instead spend my time tomorrow resting and attempting to watch most of the BBC’s daily news and politics programmes that come out of TC7 (Breakfast, Working Lunch, Newsround, Newsnight – they share a studio). I’ll even watch The Daily Politics (that comes from Westminster). I’m going to have an excellent day.

Being ill isn’t that bad- the “slight laxative effect” that came with the paracetamol didn’t happen. Hooray!

Oh, and this has nothing to do with the essay I’ve got to do for Wednesday. Honest.

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I don’t want to be infamous… I want to be… famous
December 10th, 2005 at 20:15

Having a blog is making me something of an ultra-local celebrity. People from all walks of my life now regularly tune in for the latest gossip on Jamesomalley. It’s frustrating though- as this is a website, I don’t get the instant “celebrity” reaction that say, Dave Gorman, would when doing his stage thing. What’s more is that I don’t know who’s reading or paying attention. Everytime I do find out someone is reading, it unnerves me slightly more and more.

It makes me want to self-censor. Should I tell “you”, the reader, about all of my class-A drug fueled binges where I end up spending a night in the cells, or should I keep it quiet in cases my parents see?

Should I criticise a lecture I’ve had because it was rubbish? What if my university is reading?

I already know my former-Wilkinsons colleagues have read all the stuff I wrote about working there. I’ve no idea if they still keep up with my adventures now, though. It was weird going into a pub a whileback and hearing people shout “Tillmonkey!” at me.

Matt’s girlfriend, Beth, reads this blog whilst she’s at school. I’m practically a teacher aid. (NOT ‘teaching AIDS’).

My driving instructor found my blog, thanks to my mother. Just because I made one quip about women drivers, I spend the entire lesson being worked harder than ever before.

I think one of the strangest things to happen though is that someone found my blog by searching for “jd market harborough“- JD of course, being one of my many friends. Whilst they could have been looking for anyone named JD, or indeed, any drink or sports shop, it seems they were looking for the JD I know.

Gina, JD’s girlfriend, MSN’d me earlier to let me know that her mother reads my blog. She apparently told Gina the story of my latest foot-in-mouth incidident, from my perspective!

This is very odd- not only are people I know well reading, but people I’ve never met, and have no intention of meeting could be reading too!

Right, here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to name and shame yourselves- everyone reading post a comment explaining who you and are how you know me. I’ll follow this up with a post explaining the highlights.

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