Archive for Life
Can’t. Stop. Watching.
August 10th, 2008 • Life, Strange, Technology
Rock Abuse, Part 1,703
August 9th, 2008 • Life, Music
Transpires that a UK Top 40 hit was the launch of a gum ad campaign. Says the Beeb:
But in studying the words of all the hits, I failed to spot the significance of the chorus to Brown’s number. “Double your pleasure/double your fun”, he sings - a line I should have twigged was from the Doublemint gum jingle used since 1960.Now Wrigley’s have come clean. In a press release they reveal how the song is an extended version of a new jingle for their product.
“The summer release of Brown’s smash hit, Forever, which featured the unmistakable Doublemint gum jingle lyrics, kicked-off the creative partnership between Brown and Doublemint gum”, the company announced.
“Wrigley consulted with Translation Advertising (NY) to conceptualize and identify the artists behind the jingle remakes.”
‘Conceptualize and indentify’? Reassuring to someone is still holding the flame of face-melting rock rebellion aloft.
Garfield strays into existential angst
August 5th, 2008 • Life
Garfield: cheesy American cartoon strip. Garfield minus Garfield: surreal observations on the American mind. Cool ideally, brilliantly effective.
Autism: is TV the culprit?
July 28th, 2008 • Life, Television
New report points to television being a cause behind the growth of autism in the US (it has gone, apparently, from one in 2500 children in the late ’70s to one in 166 today).
No, I said Drive… put it in Drive…
July 27th, 2008 • Life
The film that that doesn’t see black
July 27th, 2008 • Life
Watched Collateral again this morning. Probably the sixth or seventh time I’ve watched the film right through. I begun to wonder why I find it so habit-forming - I’m certainly no major fan of either Cruise or Foxx, and the plot itself is hardly life-changing (in fact, Vincent’s attempts to intellectualise his killing is just annoying).
Then I realised: it’s the cinematography, Mann’s digitised vision of nightime LA. A little Googling unearthed what was so special about it:
The difference between film and HD, says Cameron, is that film’s sensitivity falls off sharply at the bottom of the curve, transforming subtle shadows into deep rich blacks. But what if, he asks, you went into those shadows? “How do I record what the eye sees at the toe of the curve?” Where everyone is trying to make black, Mann decided he would go into those shadows and pull out information to create intense emotions.
But I reckon there’s more to it than technology. The most memorable scenes are set in the most miserable locations; shit-cheap motels and nameless side-streets, usually with the skyscrapers of downtown LA as a distant backdrop. If you’ve ever strayed from the path inn any major American city, Collateral works on a whole new level.
How did the Roman Empire fall, exactly?
July 22nd, 2008 • Life
Watched Road Wars on SkyOne last night. Ten minutes in, I had a brief, well… moment. I suddenly became aware that I was sat on a sofa somewhere in Surrey, watching images on a television screen.
Those images were depicting a society that has collapsed. Civillians showed no fear of the law; they were happily spitting at and punching the police, taking a smug pleasure in knowing that the punishment will be at least four sizes from fitting the crime.
I tried to imagine what I would have felt if I had been watching those images on a sofa in 1950s Britain. I can only imagine a mix of terror and disbelief; the people I see around me every day do not behave like this. No-one does.
Of course, Road Wars is both political and sensational. The police collaborate with Sky in its production, presumeably to make a broad point that the police are in control. I also suspect that high-ups within the Force quietly sanction the references to minimal sentences: most coppers I know feel that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
A lesson in determination
July 15th, 2008 • Life
You think today was a struggle. You’re glad to be home, to recover from the slings and arrows of your day at the mill. Read this, and think again.
Nabil remained on Mutanabi Street, overseeing reconstruction of the shops even as he struggled to rebuild himself. A month later, he left to undergo further surgery. “He is a believer,” said Mohammed Taha, a family friend, as workmen on scaffolding repaired the wall above the thick Grecian columns outside.
A Baghdad Bookseller, Bound to His Country - washingtonpost.com.
First five days with a 3G iPhone
July 15th, 2008 • Life, Technology
Rule number one: turn off the location services. Now put your black-backed new toy on your desk, and go for lunch. Come back. See the battery bar? Hardly moved, has it? You lose GPS, sure, but be honest - how often do you navigate your office holding an iPhone to your face.
Rule number two: reset. Chances are that you started using your 3G iPhone the moment it left the cute box. You were alarmed by the rate at which the green battery bar headed leftward. So you read a few forums, and found that a simple reset made a difference. So you did, and it did.
Rule number three: picket O2’s head office. You spend your days in your company’s Teddington HQ. When you had a Blackberry running Vodafone, you never lost signal. Now, you spend two hours standing outside of your building striking jaunty poses, waiting for that little blue 3G square to light up. Only option: write a stern letter to O2.
Otherwise, life with the latest iPhone is sweeter than toffee cheesecake that’s been kept in a hive.
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