Glastonbury 2011: Before I Forget
Somebody else just asked me who I saw and already I’m struggling to remember. It isn’t that the performances were forgettable, it’s more that it’s such a different experience it doesn’t feel real.
Wednesday
- Set off at 00:30
- Arrived at 06:00 with hardly any traffic queues
- Huge queues for all the gates which didn’t open until 08:00
- 08:00 gates opened and it started to rain
- Waited in the car for the queues and rain to disappear, eventually the rain did so we made a move
- Hours later we were in and tent was up and all concepts of time vanished
- Despicable Me 3D
- “SE Corner”
- Metronomy
- Summer Camp
- Emmy The Great
- Guillemots
- B.B King
- Radiohead
- (last 2 songs by) Mumford and Sons
- U2
- (end of) Abandoman
- Feed The Fishes
- Phil Kay
- Stornoway
- Graham Coxon
- Robin Ince
- Elbow
- Coldplay
- Esben and the Witch
- Don McLean
- Attila The Stockbroker
- Paul Simon
- Eels
- Gruff Rhys
Losing Track Of Time
I was supposed to have more time on my hands. I’m in a new job working fewer hours than before and from home so there is no commute and yet I’m increasingly finding myself wondering where all my time is going. I’m seriously wondering if I need to introduce a timesheet system to my weekends so I know how Monday morning comes around all too quickly.
It’s the longest day of the year and somewhat annoyingly I’m trying to get some sleep now before midnight and it’s going to remain light for most of that time. It doesn’t seem like it can possibly be six months ago when I was still settling in to a new and exciting year full of opportunity and possibility but it is. I don’t know what I’ve done or what I should have done. A new job is something. Taking a photo every day has been easier than I thought and it’s only recently when I’ve been working from home that I’ve had some difficulty. I have struggled trying to write this blog every week but that is perhaps because I keep putting it off and then rushing something on a Sunday. I’m only writing now because I’m going to Glastonbury first thing tomorrow (literally, we’re planning on leaving at midnight) and this is my last opportunity to write something this week. I have another idea for a photo project which I am quite excited about. Of course I have lots of unactioned ideas floating around my head, maybe I just need to grab one and do something with it. Right now though I need to try and get some sleep.
Portal 2
When I started playing Portal 2 I tweeted:
Portal 2 has more lol moments in the first 15 minutes than most Hollywood comedies http://bit.ly/lA8Ipl@GetGlue#Portal2
I stand by that statement and the excellent humour and performance by Stephen Merchant as Wheatley continues into the game during the early stages. A good sign of a great character is one you really miss when they are not on screen, unfortunately this also makes it obvious where Portal 2 get’s it wrong. When Wheatley is missing the game really seems to drag on and rather than step up the gameplay so you don’t notice, this also seems to be the weakest part in terms of game design. Running from one big open space to another, desperately scanning for a tiny patch of “portal-able” wall to progress just isn’t fun and I really struggled to be motivated to carry on. Great inventive puzzles were desperately needed here instead of just finding all the pieces to join together in the correct order. I think Portal 2 is a good game but I ended up thinking that, like most games, if it was about a third shorter it would have been a great game and maybe could have been released last year.
In Defence Of The RT
I like the “new” Twitter RTs, there I’ve said it. I know I’m in a minority, it still needs some work and there’s room for retweet and quotes (as most apps, seem to call it and Twitter choose to ignore). The official retweet allows the full tweet to be repeated without needing to add in an extra username and prevents the original from being manipulated. Mundo Jazz like having fun with Twitter and if people don’t know them their twitter activity might eventually get them banned. However funny this series of fake retweets were on Friday it does show the major flaw in the traditional retweet.
Mundo Jazz Retweet Fun on Storify
(Hmm, can I not embed this?)
The other advantage is not seeing the same tweet repeated multiple times when everyone you follow retweets it. Of course it might be nice to be able to see popular tweets from within your network and I’m surprised not to have seen this easily on display in any apps or even the Twitter home page. Seeing when your tweets have been retweeted might also be useful but you can do this from the retweet menu (“Your tweets, retweeted”) and now receive an email notification for retweets.
A Problem With Modern Gaming
The other day I was fortunate enough to find myself with a spare hour and I thought I’d have a quick go on Lego Rock Band. I started up the Xbox, put in the game and started assembling various drum kit parts that had been stashed away behind furniture. Before I started I made myself a drink and then, finally I was ready to start. I hit start button and had to log in to start the story mode. It was at this point that I was told an update was required to the game…
For some reason, this happened twice. I think both updates were required before I could start the game which got me wondering why did the game wait until I started before checking for an update. This probably wasn’t a normal situation but the game had been loaded and showing intros and demos for around 10 minutes before I started a game. Shouldn’t the first thing the game does be check for any compulsory updates? Even if that had happened I’d still have to wait for the downloads and have more of my hour’s playing time taken up. I’m not saying updates should happen automatically but getting notifications on the dashboard or even emails to say compulsory updates need to be installed before I can play again. At least that way, if it’s a game I knew I wanted to play again I could do the download before I had a rare opportunity to play.
It’s not just the Xbox, after this I thought I’d check to see if any of my Steam games had updates…
The Blog With No Name (Yet) 