peteashtondotcom

As you’ll notice, I’ve been up all night. Normally this would be a bad thing but I think it’s going to be okay. Plan is to go to bed now, get up about 8.00pm, eat some food and then go out, alone, into London with the camera. Of course, if someone should call be between then and now and request my company this new years eve, then I may well take them up on it. That’s not a hint - I’m kinda keen on staying sober this year and taking photogs. Then, at 12 noon, there’s the London Parade, a tradition I’d never heard about before. Be interesting to see what kind of people turn up for it.

Okay, I’m resorting to the lazyweb. What I need is an RSS-XML feed reader that with either a) run on Mac OS9.x or b) run on this server that will both let me add my own feeds rather than just trying to replicate Google News. I can find plenty for OSX and plenty that run on other servers with a dictated list of feeds, but nothing that might replicate the rapidly growing collection of feeds I have on the sidebar there in an easily updateable and maniplulateable manner.

What I really want, I guess, is netnewswire for OS9.x. Anyone know if there’s anything approximating that around?

Stigmergy and the World-Wide Web, or how we all became ants building a nest we can’t even see.

Fancinating article comparing the bits of the internet that work with the behaviour of ants and termites. Well worth a read.

If we want to talk so badly why not use email or pick up the phone? The weblog has got to be the single most inefficient mechanism for communication that has even been invented. Webloggers should be committed en masse. There’s only one problem: It works.

via evhead

There’s a new mp3 in my library. A Day In The Life by The Fall will be online until another work of bizarre genius comes my way.

I’ve decided to start my own photoblog. I like the idea of just collecting my favourite photographs in one place and adding to it over time, so here it is. Right now I’ve just used 6 or 7 random pictures to get the layout right and once I’ve built up a few more I’ll delete them, but this is where you will hopefully find the cream of my photography, or at least some nice things to look at.

The most recent photo is also on the sidebar via the magic of XML. Now, imagine something like that for stripblogs…

Seventy four photos from my Grandma’s 90th birthday party on December 22nd. On this page are thumbnails that link to full size photos.
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But he didn’t count on Jeremy being there to catch him.

I got three photos ready for The Mirror Project but they’re not accepting new submissions till the new year, so I’ll post them here for now.
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Oates for Tanger is a nice photoblog notable for the innovative thumbnails that aren’t actually thumbnails. Rather Alan crops a strip of the photo and uses that. The resulting page is a collage of seemingly random strips of image that when clicked take you to proper photographs. Neat.

I’ve been ignoring those Switch add parodies because, even though I’m a Mac user, I don’t like adds. But this one is worthy of note. It’s by an American guy who moved to Canada and realised it was much better than living in the US. Interesting having watched Bowling for Colombine. (direct link to movie). (via Axis of AEvil).

Met up with Helen this afternoon and then with others (Brett, Sarah, Matt) in the evening. Helen’s brother is a photographer so she’s used to being a subject. Here’s a few photos.
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Bed at 5.00am. Oopsy.

Digging deeper in the Raed blog I came across these archived posts where Salam reacts to the UK government’s dossier on Iraq. Of note are the comments left and his response to them.

I’m aware that so far I’m looking like a pro-Iraq type and that I could enter into some kind of bad warblogging situation like what Tom did so to try and stave that off, let me just say that I was receiving emails from Serbian cartoonist Sasa Rakezic (pen name Aleksander Zograf) during the NATO bombings a few years back and they shed a whole new light on the situation. I’m very glad to have the same opportunity for news from the ground here.

(I’m going to mirror their particular posts on this site for posterity. the posts, the comments)

Doc Searls back-linked to me. What does this mean? Am I now blogarati?

;)

I’m posting this here rather than on BugPowder because, to be frank, it’s not BP material and because I think the non-comics people amongst you might find it entertaining. As I said in a previous post, every week on New Comics Day, the New Comics come into the stores around the world. They come from a company called Diamond who issue a list of what to expect. Got all that? Good.

This guy, going by the name A.K., writes Title Bout where he dissects this list in a most irreverant manner exposing, if you like the duality of the modern comics fan. On the one hand he has the dedication to his hobby to write this thing and the knowledge to pull it off, but on the other he knows how stupid and ridiculous the whole thing is.

I should point out that when I talk about the sphere of comics I inhabit I am not refering to this one. It’s all rampant positivity in my camp!

Tip of the hat to Dirk for the link. Nice one.

Note to self - never blog something you’re hoping to do cos the demons of fate will stop it happening. Turns out I didn’t see Helen and Matt tonight. Not telling you when I will see them.

So instead I wrote my first small press review in ages for the new and improved TRS2 site. Hopefully more will follow.

Rob came back to the flat this afternoon from his family Xmas and was going to Gosh, the comic shop, for it is New Comics Day today. For the unitiated, every week on Thursday the New Comics arrive at shops throughout the land and all the fans make their pilgrimage to buy their weekly fix. I stopped buying regular monthly comics a few years back so I don’t do this no more, but at one time I was there with the best of them. So we went up to Great Russell St and perused the shelves. Then onto the pub for a couple of pints with Jamie-of-Titan which was most pleasent.

Hopefully this eve should be spent with Helen and Matt - I haven’t seen Helen for an age cos she’s been in Amsterdam so that’ll be nice.

I’m glad I’ve found Where is Raed ?, a blogger in Iraq who should offer a bit of light onto the opinions and experiences there at the moment. Intriguing blog, too, what with all those “Dear Raed” letters in it.

While re-arranging the kitchen I shifted our tumble dryer along a couple of feet. In doing so I realised that the vent, which I assumed was plugged into a hole in the wall, was in fact pointing flat down on the floor thus not letting the damp hot air out of the machine. Doh. So I stuck it out of the window and, hey presto, clothes dry in half the time. Sometimes one wonders, one really does.

Oh, don’t worry Anna. It now looks like this:

Much nicer, don’t you think? The living room, however, needs a bit of work. Trust me, it’ll be okay!

Neat little distraction from b3ta - It’s a piano made up of a man slapping himself on the face. And it works. Click on the little star to get it to play a song I can’t quite place. If you know it, answer in the comments box.

Stumbled across this while digging deeper into Jez’s site - he’s got an RSS 0.91 feed for the Updated UK Weblogs. Rather a neat little thing to play with should you have the tools / knowledge. I have some ideas…

Interestingly there’s naff all available on RSS feeds - even the recent XML books don’t mention them in passing - so it’s to be expected that one would be around the corner. Content Syndication with RSS looks to be a good one mainly because it’s written by Ben Hammersley and comes from the O’Reilly stable. Watch for it in March.

Here’s eight photos in full size with commentary from yesterday that I’m particularly pleased with. Some of them have a bit of the Nan Goldin about them, but that might just be because Graham, Jackie and I are all big fans of hers so I’m reading that into it. Still, I’m starting to enjoy portrature of my friends at play.
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31 photos from Xmas day. Click on the tumbnails for the bigger picture
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Just for the record, and even though I haven’t worked the book trade Xmas this year, I wanted to record that when James, the Bloomsbury rep, showed me Schott’s Original Miscellany back in the Autumn I knew it was going to be the big Xmas novelty book this year. And I was right. It’s also a good little book as well, which makes a change.

Pepys’ Diary looks to be a project worth following. The orginal text from 1660 has been converted into blog posts and will be updated daily though the year. Neat application of the blogging medium methinks. (via boingboing and Ben Hammersley.)

AintNoBadDude is Brian’s weblog, and Brian was the chap at Xmas dinner yesterday. He said he was one of the first post-Sept 11th warbloggers before that term became one of abuse, as well as one of the few left-ist ones at the time, and he’s an interesting chap with multifaceted interests. It was interesting talking to someone who uses the same medium but in a completely different sphere - there were very few blogs we both knew about. I think Samizdata was the only one and that was just because I’d submitted stripblog to their glossary. So no real “blogcircles” there.

Lovely Xmas day. I got up late, which was a bit of an arse, but made it to Graham’s by four in time for food. Present were Graham, who I work with, Jackie, his mate, and Brain, another blogger it turns out. I will look up his site when I’m back on my puter - currently blogging from Graham’s. We had food, drank sparkly stuff and gin and danced to Phil Spector. It was a good evening.

So, we didn’t watch On The Waterfront in the end, but Casablanca more than sufficed. I wanted to continue with the pre-1950s motif but Mel insisted on watching Cabaret which wasn’t actually that bad and got me intrigued again about the Christopher Isherwood books on which it’s based with that whole Weimar Berlin malarkey. During these two some Cava and beer was consumed and it was getting close to midnight. I wanted to watch The Life and Death Of Colonel Blimp, another Powel and Pressburger masterpiece, but couldn’t find my copy, so plumped for I Bought A Vampire Motorcycle which is much better and much worse than it sounds.

All in all, a top Xmas eve!

Went fora walk about 5.00pm with the idea of picking up some comics to read and a bit of techy kit from Tottenham Court Road, but everything was shut, which was odd, it being London and all. Phoned a mate who I knew was working but he was shooting straight off for Xmas. Everyone I know is out of the city, bar the people I’ll be seeing tomorrow. Felt a bit weird so I bought some food (the corner shops are all open over Xmas, being mainly run by Muslims and all) and decided to spend the evening watching old movies. A Matter Of Life And Death later Rob and Mel came home with notions of nachos and cheese, so we’re going to eat them them while watching On The Waterfront then pop to the pub for a couple of beers. That should do it!