Author Archives: Cas

Five Questions, Roro Style

I’ve had these questions sitting in my inbox from roro for a few weeks now. I’m not going to say exactly how many weeks because it’s embarrassing. I expect there’s therapy available for people like me who are chronic email-not-reply-to-people (and a better name as well) but till I avail myself of that help… You’re all screwed. Sorry.

Anyway, the deal was, still is in fact, that I answer truthfully any five questions that roro saw fit to throw at me. In return, I get to ask five questions of anyone who steps up to the plate in the comments and volunteers for the torture fun. They in turn get to ask five questions of their volunteers and… You get the picture.

So here are the questions that arrived and here, *gulp* are my answers. All of which are hand-on-heart, swear-on-the-life-of-my-imaginary-pet-guinea-pig, abso-positively true. Ish.

1. Who would you most like to catch you dancing in your underwear?
Wow. Straight in with the big ones. You have to keep in mind here, the sight of me in my underwear is one that really should be reserved only for my worst enemies. As for me dancing in my underwear… Heaven help us, some things just don’t bear thinking about! OK. Sorry. I should be being serious about this, shouldn’t I?
Underwear. Me. Dancing.
Shudder.
Er, if I could get over the embarrassment, I’d opt for the RLO. Reasoning? Well, he only sees me as the slightly kooky admin at work who refuses to do his filing. If ever a sight was going to get him to see (and hopefully adore) the real totally kooky me, it would be me dancing in my underwear.

Oh dear god please say that never, EVER happens. At least not before a first date.

2. What’s your favourite Sunday dinner (aside, of course, from the Roast)?
My Mum’s beef and macaroni pie, with her blackcurrant cheesecake for afters. Mmmmmmmmmmm. Or my Dad’s griddled salmon with roast peppers. Or… To be true, I don’t eat Sunday dinner much. I’m not that much of a foodie. Lately, my absolute favourite meal has been a couple of hot buttered muffins. Dear god, I don’t know what Waitrose put in their English Muffins, but they are as addictive as crack. *drool*

3. You’re single and on the prowl. Someone comes over to you who you might not usually notice or be attracted to. They whisper a magical phrase to you and you SWOON. What did they say?
I’ve been thinking about this a LOT and I don’t think there is a single magical phrase guaranteed to get me swooning. To be highly unoriginal, a compliment is always good. Or you going try going the really corny route – go so unbelievably corny that I’m just forced to laugh and re-evaulate you. For me though, I’m thinking it’s more HOW they say it than WHAT they say. With some accents you’d have me at ‘hello’. And no I’m not saying which accents. A girl has to have some secrets.

4. What was (or will be) your proudest moment?
Graduating from Liverpool.
There were times, many many times, I didn’t think I would make it. I came this close to not finishing. So to walk across that stage, shake the Dean’s hand, to not fall over on the steps (which was a big thing for me!), and to sit back in that chair knowing I’d done it – and to get a First as well? No moment in my life has made me feel prouder to be me. There might be one or two in the future that could beat it but… We’re talking the biggies here: kids (medical miracles permitting), finding that significant other, discovering the cure for cancer, going into space. Short of them, I don’t think there could be many moments in my life that could make me feel prouder.

5. What’s the worst book you ever read?
The Da Vinci Code. There are other books that I just never finished, but the Da Vinci Code has the dubious pleasure of the worst book I’ve ever been stupid enough to read from cover to cover. Twice. Yes, twice, because I just couldn’t believe it was really that bad. I mean, it had all that hype about it, right? But truthfully, it is the most god-awful book I have ever had the misfortune to pollute my brain with. And there’s this whole other story involving the Psychotic Stick of Blonde Candyfloss and a missing copy of the book which, upon it’s return I ended up throwing in the bin, but I’ll save that for another time. I don’t think my blood pressure could stand recounting it again.

It was just a bad book.

And those are my five questions answered *breathes a sigh of relief*.
Any volunteers to be interviewed in return? Just say so in the comments.

Oh, and if you were wondering why there was no Roast this week, I was too busy playing on the beach. For some reason frostbitten toes just seemed like more fun 😀

Grrr @ Tiscali

Once again, the Internet is down at Meadow Towers and I’ve been told to expect it to be down for the next 24 hours.

I’d make complaints against Tiscali, however it’s only actually been twice in two years, it just seems like more because the last time was so recent.

This means that I can only access the internet at work and, as I’m not working this afternoon (Monday) or at all tomorrow (Tuesday):

  1. I won’t be able to check email till Wednesday
  2. I won’t be able to respond to comments till Wednesday
  3. I won’t be able to rescue any comments from the moderation queue till Wednesday – any comments with links in them are automatically moderated, so if you want to avoid getting stuck, don’t put links into your comments. Also, moderation is set to kick in if I’ve never had a comment from you before. I know this sucks for new people, and I am very, very sorry but if you saw the amount of spam Akismet catches for me on an hourly basis you would understand.
  4. I will be climbing the walls because I’m going to be missing my internet fix!

Just to keep you informed 🙂

Sunday Roast: nothing more than a private brainstorm

So I’m writing this roast instead of doing revision (don’t tell my parents!). I did have oodles of things bookmarked to share with you this week, but somehow when I re-read them all, most of them just didn’t seem worth it. In fact, the only piece of news that still even mildly amuses me is the Illinois baby who got a gun permit. To be fair, I’m not sure why I feel it isn’t a good roast unless there’s something from the BBC or NYT in there, but it might be something to do with wanting to make a good impression. I do read serious stuff online, honestly!

But who am I trying to kid? I’m really just as a frivolous an air-head as the next ditzy brunette. So here’s some other stuff from around the web this week that WASN’T in the news:

(forgive me if my intros/explanations are lacking something this week. My brain is a bit busy trying to remember the finer points of English grammar, styles of rhetoric and why Don John was such an evil bastard in Much Ado to locate my usual zing).

Oh, and not for nothing – I’m noticing a slight trend in my reading back towards the more serious/thought provoking and away from the frivolous. I blame Neko and her “just do research in your own time, who needs a PHd” idea. I doubt this trend will last long though, so don’t worry your pretty little heads too much. Just look on it as an opportunity to expand your horizons along with me 😉

Trust is an Externality – a musing I would probably lightly maim someone to be able to write. Ooodles of thought provoking ideas.

I’m starting to have a few feelings coalescing into baby ideas around the idea of the online/offline divide and how invested people can get in mediated social spaces. I’m not sure how much these idea-germs are original and how much derivative, but I do have the inkling there’s something to be said in there somewhere. To that end, I’m starting to collect evidence and this Wired article on virtual rape, while unsavoury, provokes some interesting questions.

I love it when science fiction meets up with reality. Wired have a great piece of neuroplasticity and training the brain to ‘see’ with other senses.

I didn’t realise that typeface was such a contentious issue till I got embroiled with the design department at work and we went head-to-head over fonts and the like (Arial size 12, by the way, is NOT the answer to all problems!). I’m only just starting to appreciate the finer of points of, say, Info over Garamond or kerning, anti-aliasing, point sizes and serifs, but shoot me if I ever get this obsessed!

I bring you the Kitty Keyboard Cover, because it’s important that you deny your feline friend the fun of ruining your work.

Luckily y’all who comment here at Bright Meadow are lovely people who know how to place nicely with others and I’ve only had two or three really nasty comments. But not everywhere is as friendly as this little blog, and trolling is a genuine problem out there – here are some tips on how to deal with them.

For all you LOLCAT lovers out there.

Something doesn’t taste quite right to me about this timeline of the past, present and future of the Web. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m getting that feeling which is my inner research spidy-sense tingling. And it’s not just the glorious use of the Flickr colours on that graph.

Tyme’s article on online communications and crossing boundaries links in nicely to something of danah’s I was listening to on the bus with regard the lack of visual clues online. There’s a whole other ramble I won’t go into now because 1) it will bore you and 2) I’ve not written it yet. Let me get this A Level out the way, then let me have my two week holiday, and I promise I’ll get writing again.

I really have no use for this theme but it did make me have a giggle of glee when I discovered it thanks to Anne’s computer setup.

For all you anthropologists out there, through the power of Flickr, I can bring you the secret life of Gummy Bears.

I think anyone who’s read more than a page of Bright Meadow will have some inkling that I’m interested in this whole emerging online thing and how people are using the new mediums to do old things – the 6 Million People Flickr group is leveraging the online community beautifully to try and create a new form of the traditional memorial.

If only you could favourite whole sets on Flickr – Brighton graffiti

And because I always like to end with something that will stay with you – You Are A Pirate!

Welcome to the Dark Side

If you really, truly want to freak everyone around you out, I recommend switching the colours on your computer screen. This is very easy to do in Mac (hit apple key+alt+ctrl+8 all at the same time) and works really well, just giving you the negative image. In Windows XP it’s harder and less effective, demanding a trek into the Accessibility panel (Start – Control Panel – Accessibility – though there is a shortcut once you’ve activated it), and once it’s activated EVERYTHING is slightly altered, with different icons and IE is totally screwed, so it’s not quite as seamless. 1

Why do it at all though, other than the afore mentioned freak-out?

Well, it’s one hell of a lot easier on the eyes. I’ve long used the ‘white on blue’ option in Word and love that WriteRoom lets you have total control on the colours of your font and background. Whenever I read text on a website or on screen, I almost always highlight the paragraph I’m reading with the mouse. I guess this is the digital equivalent of sticking your finger on the page but it has the added advantage of changing the contrast from (normally) black on stark white to (in my case) black on soothing lilac 2.

Switching the whole computer does take a bit of getting used to and some things just don’t work – pictures for one. And there are some websites that just look weird – the Bright Meadow penguin (Mr Flibble) is currently freaking the crap out of me. But that’s all ok because it’s just the case of hitting a few keys and normalcy is returned. 3

Before I go any further down this route, I will say this to a few people who might be reading this and going “but Cas, I’ve spoken to you before and you are rather vocal in your hatred of white-on-dark themes”. I still am. There are perhaps a handful of white-on-dark designs I’ve seen which I like. The majority just don’t do it for me, whatever ‘it’ is. They don’t float my design boat. I prefer light, fresh and clean. Dark is just too, well, dark. Plus it’s really hard to get the contrasts right and they all to frequently end up unreadable. I’m not advocating that everyone suddenly start designing white-on-black – though bearing the use of off white in mind might be a good idea.

Rather I am suggesting users try for themselves switching their monitor colours. It does ease strain on the eyes and, as mentioned at the start of the post, it totally confuses those looking over your shoulder. This isn’t a design choice imposed on me, this is my own choice.

And all you designers out there: I know you’re probably already fed up to the back teeth with talk of accessibility, but think on this. I’m average. I have fairly normal eyesight. I’m viewing the web on an averagely priced LCD screen. I’m using a fairly common browser (Safari) with no bells or whistles. Yet if I’m flipping the colours and playing around with the accessibility options on my computer, it’s a good indication that I might not be the only one. There’s more of us out there than you think and if I can’t view/use your site for whatever reason when I’m doing something not that unusual, I probably won’t be back.

So here’s what I propose: everyone flip the colours on their computer for the afternoon. See what you can do, see what you can’t do, and then think how you might be able to make it a bit better. For me, I’m off to tweak some of the grey I’ve used here on Bright Meadow as the contrast isn’t quite good enough.

End notes:
1 XP might be more customizable in this respect than I am giving it credit for. The only Windows machine I have access to is my work one in which most of the customization is locked out

2 As an aside, I do so love how customizable things are on Macs. OK, so you can tweak things in XP too, but it’s about five advanced degrees harder than it should be.

3 I did try to take screenshots to show you what I see when I look at sites like 9rules (dear lord there’s suddenly a lot of peach) or Flickr, but I can’t. Because it turns out that OSX flips the colours in such a way that my screenshot widget doesn’t pick it up. It just shows what should be there, not what I see.

As a fourth aside, having to flip my screen colours and needing to bump the font size on most of the websites I read is a sure sign I need new glasses. Good job I was getting bored with my current frames really, isn’t it?

People, stop it!

OK, if you love me people, you’ll stop inviting me to your universities to do PHds.

I can’t afford it.
I don’t have the idea I need – sadly “ooh, I’d love to play around reading about online stuff for three years” doesn’t quite cut it as a PHd topic.
And most importantly I was in therapy by the end of the MSc. Literally. I’m not sure I’d be alive at the end of the PHd!

This doesn’t mean I don’t want to DO a PHd. As I’ve told Neko a lot lately, I’m very, very jealous of you people who can just do research as your 9-t0-5. I’d love to do a PHd. I just don’t think a PHd would love me.

So yes. Stop taunting me with your shiny new departments and old professors who’d like to work with me again. Stop it I tell you!

Or, if you insist on keeping on doing it, at least tell me that there’s oodles of funding and propose a topic for me 😛

Sunday Roast: faking a smile with the coffee to go

Here would be where I normally write something witty and funny and describe my week in a pithy manner. Um, sorry folks, no can do. Things happened, I know they did, just they aren’t very interesting. But I will say this: the RLO has upped his Facebook stalking and is now besmirching my reputation across the ‘net by denying that I can make quilts. I so can you disbelieving… Oh, I can’t think of something rude enough to say, so I’m just going to content myself with sticking my tongue out at you and holding back favours at work. Hell hath no fury like besmirched Project Support 😛 😉

And now that I have quite gleefully said more than I should on the blog, it’s on with the show.

A new school being built in Peterborough is to have no playground. And where precisely do they expect the kids to go on their breaks? And to get the fresh air and exercise that everyone is pretty much convinced actually HELPS children learn?

A web-based TV channel for deaf viewers has launched.

Everyone’s favourite astronomer, Patrick Moore has blammed silly TV on women. And then called for separate channels. It’s all because we’ve gone PC and made women commanders, apparently… Nope, I just don’t have the words for this one.

As someone who’s known she’s allergic to artificial colours and flavourings for a LONG time, this warning is hardly news to me. Ah, E102, E124, E110, E122, E104 and E129, my arch-nemesisis. Your days are numbered.

From a country that still has no seat-belt laws (and what is with that insanity btw?!) talk of banning texting whilst driving is a big thing. Who cares if it’s a “challenge for law enforcement”, it’s the right thing! (Mobile phones & driving is a big hobby-horse for me. Don’t get me started!)

Jay has just the thing for a soggy Sunday afternoon – Toblerone Fudge (and come back to the comments Jay, we miss you!)

I love it when I find new blogs and as we all know how much I like to share, here’s the latest gem I’ve discovered: Anne Helmond’s blog and the post that snaffled me.

Ever wondered why there are no unicorns in heaven?

We’re always quick to broadcast bad customer experiences on the internet, but we rarely trumpet good service. Well, I want to share the good experience I had with Dolphin Music. The Brother Dearest wanted some guitar pedal thingy for his birthday and provided a link to what he wanted on the Dolphin website. Now normally I would have then gone to see if I could find it cheaper elsewhere or on a site I knew and trusted (e.g., Amazon) but as I wouldn’t know a decent sustain pedal if it got up and introduced itself, I decided to go with the one that I had the link for. At least I knew I would be getting the right one! So I added it to my basket, payed for it, and waited. This was on a Sunday midday-ish. I shortly got the email saying “thank you for your order” and an hour later I got an email from Dolphin telling me that my order of 1x sustain pedal had been dispatched. They then proceeded to provided me with the name of the courier, the tracking number, and links to the various ways I could track my order. I was told to expect my purchase within about 48 hours but that the courier could tell me more. Sure enough, I got home from work on Tuesday to find one sustain pedal had arrived in the post. I expect I would have got it on Monday if it hadn’t been a bank holiday…

So far so average, though the extra tracking information was nice. What made me go “oooh!” was an email I got on Friday that said

“Thank you for your recent order with Dolphin Music. Your order was shipped on *DATE* and you should have received it by now. If you haven’t then please call us on *FREEPHONE NUMBER* and we’ll see what’s happened”

It then went on to clearly state their returns policy in case they’d delivered the wrong thing and just generally be nice and unexpectedly helpful. The kind of service you expect from a small family firm that genuinely cares about it’s customers, not a faceless internet organisation. Bravo Dolphin Music I say, bravo!

(And just checking the website again, I thought they looked familiar – they have a shop in Liverpool that was a favourite ‘lurk and lust’ venue for both my brother and myself)

Pretty art and the thinkspace gallery.

My Flickr Score is 1790. What’s yours?

What do you get when you cross art, literature, and modern printing techniques? 41 Places of course.

And that’s it. I’m off to work on more of The Never Ending Quilt that I promised the Crazy Canalman two years ago (eek) and then provide coffee and towels to Brother Dearest, the Crazy Canalman and S who’ve been out on a boat in the English Channel all weekend. My family are just certifiable.

Sunday Roast: ok, at this point you’re abusing sarcasm

Once again, a week has gone by with little action on the blogging front. There’s been some behind the scenes writing but nothing is quite at the stage where I feel comfortable sharing it. I am devilishly annoyed because I had a stonkingly brilliant idea coming home on the bus on Thursday, but by the time I got to the computer I’d forgotten it. You see, it was such a good idea I didn’t think I needed to write it down because I wouldn’t forget it… Just goes to show you how much I know.

Anyway, once more with the roast. It’s not a huge one, but it’s not teeny either, just kinda average sized. Not that size matters of course 😉

I haven’t used Pandora in a while because I’m not spending every waking hour chained to my computer any more, but when I was in full-on research/writing mode, Pandora is responsible for saving what was left of my sanity. So I can understand the blow it will be now that some non-US listeners will be blocked.

Two girls in Wales have been fined for drawing with chalk on the pavement. It’s chalk which, by it’s very nature, washes off. Yes, hearts and rainbows are highly subversive but… What next? Are kids going to be given ASBOs because they’ve drawn a hop-scotch grid outside their house?

I’ve not ventured into the weird and wacky world of Linux myself, but I know plenty of people who have made the plunge for a variety of reasons (more than one because of GIS licensing issues, but that’s another story) and they all said it’s surprisingly not scary. Hopefully more people are going to think the same thing, or else Dell shipping Ubuntu on Linux PCs isn’t going to be as successful as they hope!

The British Library are compiling an e-mail Domesday Book. I’m not quite sure as to the use of it, nor am I sure any of my emails will be appropriate (too personal!) but it could be a cool idea. Go, email them! I will if you will.

I saw these last week but didn’t roast them as I wasn’t sure if I was going to get some for my brothers birthday or not and he does (on rare occasions) stop by the blog. But I’ve got his present now, so it’s safe to share these cute mugs.

We had the lolcats last week, but I just had to share these adorable fluff-balls.

I have a policy with items I’m not sure about roasting – if they cross my radar from two or more sources I respect (and who I not-so-secretly adore) then I have to roast them. This map fills both categories, and also led me to this so I kinda had to roast it, even though I do so hate to follow the herd.

You might have noticed a distinct upswing in Archaeology/geeky related links lately. I blame Neko for reminding me of the fun. Grrr. Anyway, the Museum of London is doing some groovy stuff at the moment but, rather than tell you about it myself, I shall let Tom explain everything. Well, he’s done such a good job, it would be a shame to waste all his effort 😉

MOO took the blogging world by storm with their MiniCards – I’ve got a handful from various people in my Filofax, and they always get people talking when I reach for the business cards – and now they’re going for the double with these adorable NoteCards.

As you might have noticed, my mojo has been on extended leave at the moment. I get the odd postcard to let me know it’s ok, having fun without me in groovy places like Iceland and Timbuktu, but I’ve still no idea when it will be back. Which sucks for me, because writing is part of me and it’s not nice when a bit of you is missing, and which has to suck for you because you have to put up with reading the drivel I’ve been spewing lately. So perhaps these tips will help me? Idea 13 is intriguing me, even if it is a little ghoulish, though I am detecting a flaw with the cunning plan: I need to be able to write to write my future obituary. Doh!

A quick writing tip from one of my favourite TV writers.

And lastly, some movie trailers to enjoy:
Fantastic Four – Rise of the Silver Surfer – You should know by now that I have a soft spot for crappy movies. Not as big a soft spot as Moose, but still, it’s there. This appeals to that spot. That’s all I’m going to say.

Civic Duty – I’m intrigued by this one as I genuinely can’t see how this will play or end. Normally I can predict quite closely the plot of a movie. This one, not so much. If the neighbour IS a terrorist, then basically the film is saying paranoia and rampant xenophobia is OK. But from everything in the trail, the neighbour clearly is up to something dodgy… Plus, Richard Schiff is in it, and he’s an actor I could watch all day.

Hairspray – I’ve never seen the original, but along with my soft spot for crappy movies, I’ve got a gooey chocolatey centre for musicals and stirring, uplifting tales of the bullied girl making good…

Duck – And I’m including this because I haven’t got a fracking clue what it’s meant to be about and I’m hoping someone else has an idea!