klondike_klive

Specifically a child molester.

One of my first ever gigs was writing comedy sketches for a BBC digital channel using MS Comic Chat, which they filmed as if it were a super low frame rate cartoon. The most incredibly cheap TV. I think we (my writing/performing partners and I) generated a few hours of usable footage for them and got paid about 50 quid each.

By coincidence it's flying ant evening in my part of the world. One of them just flew into my mouth and I said HDJWNSK three times in a row.

Its still one of the summer jobs I look back on with a wistful what-if. I worked in a small (10ish employees) factory in the 1990s. I selected, bent and inserted resistors into fire alarm PCBs. If I'd been there longer than 6 weeks I think I'd have learned more about it. But I'd already lined up my next job at the pub a few doors down.

I would for sure be that rookie who is paralysed with indecision over whether to read "clean" as an adjective or an imperative. Is it telling me that it's clean or that it needs cleaning?

Pipe smoking has always seemed a bit more acceptable than other methods. The smell of pipe tobacco burning is much more fragrant than that of cigarettes or cigars. It also has a kind of nostalgic charm.

I made a herbal smoking mixture recently with various dried herbs and leaves. Mullein, lemonbalm, marshmallow root, hazel, blackberry and beech leaves, which I smoke in a briar pipe that I've had for years. It's a nice way to relax in the evening every couple of days or so, although I'm sure it's not entirely free of harmful chemicals. And I wouldn't do it outside of my own garden, not until I'm into my 60's I think. I'd be too self-conscious.

It's taken me reaching my fifties and entering an entirely new career to realise this. That arrogance and ambition of youth, the hard-line unwillingness to compromise and study other people's work really held me back!

I had the same experience when I ran into him at a bar backstage at a Blur gig in the mid 90s. My dad was friends with his dad in 1960s Sheffield, but since the bloke walked out on his family when Jarvis was 7, it wouldn't have been much of a conversation starter.

I use an Xppen 24" Pro display tablet. I enjoy using it but my Linux mint machine simply won't boot with it plugged in. I haven't figured out a workaround beyond physically disconnecting both cables every time. And when I boot up and reconnect, my machine never remembers the screen mapping, so there's enough friction there for me to avoid plugging it in for days if not weeks at a time.

I made a hat - an old one was getting threadbare so I used a seam ripper to take it apart, drew around the parts onto new fabric, and sewed the parts together. The brim was a bit tricky and the stitching isn't super straight because of the thick canvas (also, I wish I'd made it out of thinner material) but I get a kick out of saying I made it!

Tech specs for specs tech!

I just knew who this was going to be before I even opened the link. One of the few accounts I miss from having deleted Instagram from my phone!

Animators (and storyboarders, layout artists, illustrators etc) are still taught to prioritise the clarity and readability of the character's silhouette, although they're usually working with a three quarter view (between side profile and front-on) rather than a profile like the shadow puppets here. Still I can't help thinking this film would be a good object of study.

Some of the forest scenes remind me of the original King Kong in their use of dark foreground shapes and framing devices to give an impression of scale.

https://youtu.be/j6DaB0Is4jM?t=1720

https://youtu.be/1vNv-pE8I_c?t=72

Reminds me of getting a new pen and notebook for Christmas and all I could think of to write was "this is my new pen"

My mother lost her sense of smell after surgery for nasal polyps in her teens. She was mortally afraid of fire breaking out in the night and not being able to smell it.

I've been asked to come give a talk about my career(s) at a school where a friend of mine works.

Thinking about it is turning into a bit of an existential audit. Even though I've been the recipient of a big nationally-recognised award in my field, most of my adult life has been alternately starving in a garret and working for peanuts to make huge faceless conglomerates richer on licensing deals, all the while struggling with an undiagnosed neuro-developmental condition.

On the face of it I've been enormously successful in my career, yet executive function struggles meant I hit a wall 20 years ago and couldn't ascend to management. Now I've aged out of my industry and have had to pivot to a bunch of different things.

I'm really wondering what to say to these kids. The most honest version would be some version of the Far Side cartoon with a mother mantis saying to her dozens of wide eyed offspring "Of course, long before you mature, most of you will be eaten."

Not a recommendation per se but I used to use Amphetype on Gutenberg texts to practise touch-typing. There's something about writing out a book that hits differently to reading it. You skip less, odd parts stick with you. I think the last one I tried was The Island of Dr Moreau.

"Here's the nap room. Don't be seen using it."

I've been resisting this for various reasons. Parking apps, maps, camera, podcast app, many many timers, and banking apps are all phone functions I use quite often and I can't see obvious ways around them which don't involve lots of other gubbins which I will inevitably lose or forget.

I could possibly uninstall everything but the absolute necessities on a smartphone for when I need it, and otherwise carry a flip phone. Maybe use the flip phone for tethering so the smartphone doesn't need a Sim card. But it seems that might be introducing lot of extra stress into my life, especially for stressful jobs like parking before a meeting, keeping up to date with clients, etc

Yes, it does help. But it's too easily switched off. I basically have to be my own worst enemy I have to order to prevent myself from being my own worst enemy!

That's just what I've been doing after deleting Instagram from my. phone. I can't trust my evening dopamine-seeking behaviour with the phone app, but there's much much less stickiness in the browser.

A while ago when I got Resident Evil on the Wii. I found myself really fed up and depressed with the pee and poo coloured levels and relentless misery (maybe I should have known better than to rent Resident Evil!)

I had the idea of taking classic 3d videogame levels and landscaping them with flowers and benches. Executive function got the better of me, I but I still muse about it from time to time.

Have you listened to his "business funk" mixes? Too stimulating for work (for me) but so much fun. In my head it's the soundtrack to me striding through an open plan office barking nonsense business jargon.

that is beautiful. and inspirational. although I know that I don't have anywhere near enough energy to carry through on this kind of thing!

What's the betting that it's (somehow, eventually) the taxpayers?

Surely the American way of saying "REN-uh-saunce" is further from the French than the British pronunciation?

It's a mess. Do I look in the list of frequently-selected countries and hope to find that we're still in there? Or look for UK? United Kingdom? Great Britain?

I've been foxed before in American forms where I'm forced to select UK but it shows up as GB, even though there is no GB in the list! Every time I come to fill out the form I look at what I did last year and go through the same anti-pattern.

Animation is having it's best year yet, apparently. And yet nearly all of my peers (in our late 40s,early 50s now) who worked on world famous shows, are having terrible trouble getting a job and are pivoting to literally anything else.

Can you post a link or maybe just the name? I'm curious!

I really like the doppler effect (?) of the sound as the tape gets longer.