Being Blonde

Cake queen Rachel created another masterpiece for Garrys birthday

ROCKING!

So Keith, you think that by hoarding handfuls of M&S plastic cutlery, sealed in cellophane, you will be able to enjoy your favourite onkens and mullers, safe in the knowledge that no-one else’s cakehole has dirtied the precious spoons (and forks)?

Think again…….

I have just done the geekiest thing in my life - taking 2 days off work to play a computer game.

Worth it?

I think so…

The queue was about 50-70 people at 12am. Thanks to a mate in the front of the line I had the game at 12.05, and played it till 5am.

The game = best game you will ever play!

We managed to make it to the Highland Fling this year.

No, nothing to do with cabers, it’s an annual web developers conference held in Edinburgh.

Yes, I know this was almost two weeks ago but thanks to some distractions and a bout of The Dreaded Lurgi I’ve been unable to write a post about this till now.

This year’s conference was titled “The Browser and Beyond” and had an eye to the future of what the web will mean in three, five, ten years time. It covered topics from mobile browsing through real time updates to desktop applications built using Adobe AIR.

Alan has put in place a superb presentation format too. Breaking from the usual mold of post-presentation question/answer sessions, instead the speakers landed on what looked much like a therapist’s couch to be interrogated by Paul Boag. Ammunition/questions supplied by the audience over the mediums of twitter, email and paper aeroplane.

Some very enjoyable presentations made it an entertaining day as well as informative but I think the day was summed up best by the very first speaker (Mark Norman Francis of Yahoo! Europe). “The web is change”.

He’s right - looking at the history of the internet from the olden days of ARPA net through to modern times makes you realise just how much has changed in such a short period of time. The internet is only 39 years old and it’s far from set in its ways. Google (which I refer to as “the other half of my brain” at times) has only been around 12 years. Web standards HTML with CSS has only really taken off in the past 6 years, and it’s still not everywhere. Just compare the “99% bad” Flash animations of 2000 with today’s accessible, powerful application framework.

Some people might think that once they’ve got an application or a website all of a sudden that’s the internet problem “solved”.

If it were only that easy… People are finding new ways to interact all the time (and old ways are falling by the wayside - just check how popular email isn’t with the younger generation), social networking is the big thing at the moment but there will be something new next year or the year after next (it might still be social but it’ll be different). It might be something sparked by ubiquitous wireless access. It might be something completely out of the blue.

I don’t think the browser will be going anywhere soon but change (as always) is in the air. Who knows we might be fighting off Pterodactyls in our Zeppelins before the decade is out (cheers for that Simon).

In the words of Corporal Hicks: Stay frosty and alert.

Here’s looking forward to next year’s conference.

If this shirt is true, and Nick has defiled the gene pool of Madagascar with his demon seed, it would help explain the large number of unique species to be found on the island.

Meanwhile this is the latest episode in one man’s quest to dominate this blog. Nick has featured rather heavily of late.

He’s so vain, he probably thinks this song blog is about him.

It isn’t, but I have put in place a new archive category just for posts about, or featuring, Nick.

Mug share. I hate mug sharing. It’s not the whole idea of sharing I don’t like, I’m forever giving away my last Rolo, it’s the whole other folks lips round your rim that I can’t handle. Let’s face it, most workplaces are full of coughs and sneezes, especially at this time of year, so the last thing you want when your supping on your cup-a-soup is to be thinking - is that a cold sore scab or a crouton floating in my mug?

So I just don’t do mugs at work. The last one I had was a couple of years ago and it went walkabout within days. I disowned it immediately. The last time I saw it the copier repair man was slurping from it.

There’s only one thing more gag inducing than mug share and that’s cutlery share. Whilst shared office mugs get a bit of lip action the cutlery gets the full gob. Knife sooking, spoon licking, picking teeth with forks. It’s disgusting. We might as well all share a toothbrush. We don’t do we?

And so it is that I scoop fistfuls of plastic cutlery (in sealed bags) from food halls and bring it in to work. Perfect for that mid morning yoghurt. As you’ll see from this photo of my latest grab I’ve also introduced forks in case I have a lunchtime salad or sushi (I can’t work chopsticks).

These aren’t for my exclusive use so if anybody is of a similar persuasion when it comes to cutlery then feel free to use one. “Tuppers” Owenson is already one of my best customers when he brings in an Activia Biopot.

We had a night out at the Revolution Awards yesterday. Grolsch Coincidence had been shortlisted in the fmcg and creative categories. Competition was fierce and we didn’t manage to come back with a gong this time, but the work was “highly commended” in the fmcg category.

Then it all went pear-shaped…

Are you really what you shirt Rob?

Or just suffering from some kind of attention deficit?

…ya not wrong there! Just look at my peaches!! They’re less than 24hrs old from Sainsbury’s and look how much mold has already accumulated. When it said “ripen in fruit bowl” I didn’t think they meant over night to the extent of inedible! *huff*

Nick stars in two consecutive blog posts. Eat your heart out Alan Partridge.