i’m not sure if it was the artist’s intention but people do the strangest things beneath a huge mirror, half-lit by a massive artificial sun – spookily suspended by mist – in the tate modern’s turbine hall, on a saturday night. it felt like a festival, with everyone sitting or lying down in circles on the floor. except here they were giggling at the shapes everyone was making in the reflection above. there was a definite feeling of awe-inspired fun in the air and i’m not surprised to read what the staff are reporting!
Kill Bill verdict
just been to see kill bill and i have to say i liked it! with all the anticipation there has been surrounding the fruits of tarantino’s six year absence, it’s difficult to not become caught up in the preamble. i’ve being i’ve been hearing mixed reports and didn’t know what to expect – apart from lots of violence. yes – there’s violence – but it doesn’t quite hit you in the same way as that mr orange scene does in reservoir dogs. i was expecting to be scared and, to be honest, i’m not very good with scary movies – especially on a delicate sunday evening. but i was laughing all the way through! don’t expect any ground-breaking cinematics – just classic kung-fu hilarity, with ott blood and not a scary moment in sight (apart from the first scene, maybe). i loved the mixing of film styles – with live action blending into anime. the music went well with the mood of the scenes (was that ironside?), though i can’t see the soundtrack becoming a pulp fiction-esque classic. all in all – a stylish, bloody and trashy yet entertaining tribute to bruce lee/samurai movies and spaghetti westerns.
Northern lights coming South?
i’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for the northen lights that apparently you can see as far south as kent due to some serious sun storms. still no luck but then again i wouldn’t really expect to see anything through the glow of london. i live in hope.
Google-whacking
it had to be done – after much amusement, i’ve found my first google whack!
.net going standards compliant?
it looks like somebody has written an inheritable framework for web controls that produce xhtml 1.0 strict compliant code. excellent! it’s only in beta but certainly a step in the right direction. they say they won’t be releasing source code, so i wonder how much they’ll be charging?
cross-platform delivery, the microsoft way
i went to the .net roadshow on wednesday and was suitably sold to by microsoft geeks. the new .net framework actually looks like a great development platform and visual studio is a rather nice coding environment. i just couldn’t get my head around microsoft’s claim to enable “cross-platform delivery”. yeah right – as long as it’s a microsoft platform.
and the code it spits out – ergh! it is such a shame – server side controls and the idea of coding behind pages are the best ideas to come out of .net and are on the path of enlightenment to separating logic from presentation (in much the same way as jakarta’s mvc framework that i’ve gotten so used to in struts). but the html code that things like asp:form tags spew out is ridiculous. microsoft sits on the w3c standards board and built .net from scratch but still can’t develop these controls to output valid html (let alone xhtml)! i guess this same company can’t build a compliant web page on their own site either so at least they’re consistent.
it looks like i’m going to have to spend a lot of unnecessary time overriding all server side controls using customized Render() methods to output what i want. not ideal. with any luck microsoft will listen to the development community and change this annoying “feature”.
i’m getting the decorators in
right that’s it… i’m re-doing the stylesheet for this site. i’ve been reading designing with web standards lately and, without getting all evangelical about the virtues of XHTML and CSS, i’ve learnt a few things i didn’t know before and it bothers me to see things i could make better on this site.
Back in London town
It seems the only time I have had lately to casually browse or blog has been very brief – usually during a lunch break in between mouthfuls, slobbering over my keyboard. I paint a pretty picture for you, I’m sure. We have not had decent Internet access at home either, due to our recent move (from Brighton back to London). But all that has changed – I’ve got a new wireless network up and running at home and I’ve just finished my latest project at work.
So – I can finally upload those photos from the states. Some classics from the tubing… but I doubt Cab and Phil will think so!
London bound
Back from the States after a hectic couple of weeks with Claire, Felix, Phil and Cab blundering about New York and its environ. Ashley is now married. Phil is now thirty. And our livers are all slightly more damaged than before we left. Some classic photos – especially from the tubing.
And now we are moving house – tomorrow! Nothing is packed. London here I come.
I’ll be back
All change… We’re moving back to London. Change is good, I keep telling myself. Oh yes – no looking back, keep on trucking. And it’s a lovely flat we’re moving to. And that daily commute I loathed so much (how can network south east trains be so crap?) will be a thing of the past. But I can’t help feeling sad for leaving Brighton. It’s a lovely place, especially in the Summer. I’ll be back.
