a lot of stuff and nonsense from eclectech

I've got some new gadgetry that means I can get my old video footage into my computer and I have been playing with it this week. It has involved a great deal of smiling at memories.

In some instances I've just patched the video together, such as this timelapse footage taken in the Highlands. On some pieces I've added some scribbles, such as this piece from the Pass of the Cattle, near Applecross. For some pieces I went 100% scribbles, as they seemed right. The lizard is an example of that; the original lived in Watson Bay, Sydney.

I have a feeling that my particular liking for the colour orange came out of the trip to Australia. We spent a week driving through the desert, ending at Uluru. Orange was dominant, and I don't remember being so partial to it before then.

Memories can be very fine things.

Labels: blether, scotland, video

...today has been rubbish. On the plus side I made this and quite like it. It's a love story; a modern day Romeo and Juliet or somesuch.

But with fewer words. And no deaths.

There is also a desktop wallpaper version of the wee guys.

Labels: blether, desktop wallpaper

Hmm. This blog is officially a year old today, although in spirit it's probably only 2 or 3 months. It's taken me a while to adjust to it as a channel for blether. Still, worth a wee boogie I think.

To stop this being a self indulgent blog post about blog posts, have a couple of news links too. First up, the Lords gave the ID cards bill a bit of a hammering. Good stuff. If we're going to have an archaic institution like the House of Lords it's good to see them doing something sensible. I feel they made the right decision for the wrong reason, but making the right decision is a good step.

Next up, drunken idiots post hamster. This made me angry for a couple of reasons. The first is obvious I hope, they posted a hamster; poor wee thing. That in itself probably wouldn't have caught my attention sufficiently to post it here; I don't mean to be cruel, but there are worse things happening in the world. This is here because of a personal foible. I got annoyed by the quote from someone defending them, "These two young men are clearly very intelligent and have made a very foolish and stupid error."

I'm just going to repeat that with a look of astonishment on my face. They are "clearly very intelligent". Good grief, what terrifically low standards she has. I realise they managed to get into a good university but that just means they're educated. That's different.

I shouldn't let it bother me really; intelligence doesn't exist. It's a hypothetical contruct used to describe something that we want to measure in order to understand ourselves, so maybe she's quite right to call them intelligent... if it doesn't exist we can define the term how we like.

My definition varies somewhat.

Labels: blether, dance, disgruntled, NO2ID

The Open Rights Group are now up and running with a successful pledge behind them and worthy plans to campaign for civil liberties in the digital domain ahead of them.

This is a good thing.

On an unrelated note, You're Gullible is in the Lycos Viral charts 5 days after the song is removed. How odd. It's been online for nearly two months complete with top spoof tune; now it's a silent sulky splattering it's in the top 5 virals. And I'm not going to mention the apostrophe crime. Not at all. Oh no. [Update: hooray, someone fixed it!]

Labels: james blunt, open rights group

So, the You're Gullible silliness; short(ish) version.

Mr DogHorse recorded a spoof of You're Beautiful. It made me giggle so I made a spoof of the video to go with it and added some tomato splattering. People came. They watched. They listened. They splattered.

People who liked James Blunt said "That's quite funny although they're wrong" (the majority from what I've seen) or went into a huff (the minority by far). Over a month ago James Blunt played it and threw a few tomatoes at himself, or so it says on his web site. His fans appreciated the fact that he took it on the chin. All fine so far.

People who don't like James Blunt or had heard that song more than should be possible in one lifetime were a little ruder; but I don't think we caused that, we just provided some therapy.

Anyhow, it gets a fair amount of traffic each day then after Mr Blunt's Brit nominations it becomes news (!) and appears on Channel 4 (nothing to do with us, we only found out afterwards in a flurry of emails). Two days later DogHorse, myself and other people involved in hosting our sites (UK based) get legal threats and told to remove the song. We do, because it's just a bit of fun and silliness shouldn't cause hassle. I think it's a ridiculous overreaction to a non-commercial parody, but we're not in the US with their nice legal protection of parody and in the short term we need to find out what the situation is in the UK.

There was an article about it in The Independent today, and I've been told it was on the music news on BBC6. Based on the number of emails I've had today it's appeared elsewhere as well. If you know where, please let me know. Ta.

Labels: blether, james blunt

I'm not usually one to recommend television shows but the current Stephen Poliakoff season on BBC4 is not to be missed. Unless you can't get BBC4 of course.

I helpfully point this out after two of his plays were shown this evening, Friends and Crocodiles and Caught on a Train but the best* is still to be shown. Shooting the Past is magical; a story of a photographic library, the people who work here and the wonder of photographs and the stories they hold. It must be 6 years since I watched it and I can still remember sections amazingly vividly. Wonderful. Watch it if you can.

*In my opinion, and all that.

Labels: blether, neat links

Apparently You're Gullible was just on Channel 4 News. It's hard to imagine quite what makes it news, but I assume it's something to do with Mr Blunt's nomination for a few Brit Awards. Anyhow, it has sparked something of a frenzy on my website which is no bad thing, bandwidth munching aside.

Now I must stop getting distracted by telly things* and get my head down and do some animating, I have a deadline and it's close. Have a jolly picture in my absence.

*Cheers to all who contacted me to let me know though!

Labels: blether, dance, james blunt

So, Blair's warped idea of respect involves reversing the principle that people are innocent until proven guilty. Well that's just dandy (BBC news report). I have an idea* to complement this form of 'respect'. If we need such "summary powers" used against us, let's retaliate in kind.

How about introducing a law so that if any political party or MP accepts money from any company or individual that could have influenced a political decision they have to prove that they weren't influenced, or give it up? If they can't prove it the money gets distributed to a charitable organisation, possibly one setup purely to point out** to idiot politicians that they can't just throw away our fundamental rights on the promise that it will keep the neighbours quiet.

On a slightly lighter note, when I first read the BBC headline from the above article I assumed it was something to do with George Galloway in Celebrity Big Brother. Heh. Anyhow,before I get started on another rant regarding quite how wrong it is to use the Big Brother concept as entertainment I shall add some soothing birds and head away.

*Actually, the idea was from Mr Tech, but I've decided it's mine until someone can prove otherwise.
**Preferably with a big pointy stick.

Labels: disgruntled, news links

I had an email the other day from someone who'd been mooching around my site and wanted to know how I had become interested in penguins. After a quiet giggle to myself about how my life had turned into one where strangers contact me with such questions I realised I wasn't sure about the answer.

Then it came to me.

Opus the penguin. First penguin love and star of Bloom County (still my favourite comic strip, just easing ahead of Calvin and Hobbes by a penguin nose). That's him on the left in the photo and you can find out more about him at the Berke Breathed website. You really should. As well as the cutest bow tie wearing penguin you can imagine, the comic strips are both smart and funny.

But it's not all cartoon penguins. You only need to see a penguin in person** to see that they are wonderful creatures; comedic waddling on land, graceful in the water, pre-dressed in evening wear and, well, just lovely. The other penguin featured in my photo is Kilgore Trout, a representation of a penguin adopted for me for Christmas. Hooray!

And look! At the International Penguin Conservation Work Group web site you can adopt a penguin too. It's full of information and the man knows his penguins.

Crikey, this was meant to be a couple of quick penguin links to fill the gap whilst I'm busy getting some work animations finished off, and I've been pootling around penguin sites for an age. It seems there's nothing like a bit of penguin distraction.

* The title of a Bloom County book and, I realise, surprisingly relevant to my post. Splendid.
**Forgive me, I do tend to anthropomorphise.

Labels: neat links, penguin joy

May all your dreams for the new year come true.

Especially that one with the tapir and rubber duck.

I assume that's not just me anyhow.


Musical new year greetings

Festive fireworks

Labels: flash animation, flash toy