The CAI is awesome!

No, not the Kai, but the CAI.

For those of you who have never watched Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the Kai I'm talking about was Kai Winn. A character so odious and slimy she could slip between the microscopic gaps in an hermetically sealed air lock. I would actually wish for a transporter accident episode just in the hope she would be welded into a metal bulkhead to give her some compassion and warmth.

But since this isn't Wikipedia it's not the place for in depth discussion of odious Star Trek characters.

The CAI is the Cardiff Arts Institute, and it is AWESOME!

Not because of the funky music room cunningly arranged so that only a handful of people (aka the band) could see and hear the music.
Not because of the hard chairs.
Not even because of the single wash basin in the toilet with four taps (call me strange but I don't really care to be thigh to thigh when washing my hands with a man who has just been touching his penis. Call me hetero if you will).

Nope. It's awesome because of one thing.

They have Lego on the walls.

In case it's not immediately obvious what that means I'll trying to phrase it in another way.

They have Lego on the walls.

Look, here's a picture.

Go here for some more pictures of lego on walls.

If the camera on my phone wasn't so poor I'd have taken a better picture. Perhaps of the phrase "big balls" that someone had put up there. Or of one of the many phallic symbols.

They have flat lego bases glued to the walls and an ample brick supply to suit any need.

How cool is that? A place you can go to listen to some music, have a drink, and play with lego!

In fact the atmosphere is so cool it's actually chilly. I looked up from my recreation of a Mark 7 Sea King Helicopter with fully functioning rotor blades at my date and I actually think I froze a little.

I think I recovered well by letting that drunk guy in the street hug me - it showed my sensitive side.

I showed my humourous side this morning in reply to a text asking if I'd escaped from the crazy hugging man. I said he might have been crazy but he cooked a mean breakfast.

She's been laughing so much at that she hasn't been able to reply.

Growing as a writer

I wrote this here line today

Richard was chowin down on waffles, with bacon too, and the pair of them were waving it at him, linking their arms and nibbling on the crispy rashers like two lovers.

I think I must be getting better because it only took me about thirty seconds to delete it. 

HTC Hero Review

This is not so much a review, more like a page I'll update with things that really, really, really tick me off about this phone.


For details on the spec: go here.
For an actual review, why not try Engadget. 


The Hero is a nice phone. What makes it for me however are that it has one or two unique features, not seen on any other phone.

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The "I've been kidnapped from a movie theatre, my phone is off and my hands are tied up with electric flex so I can barely move my fingers" mode


When powered down the power button switches into a  whisper sensitive pressure mode. The merest hint of a touch is enough for the phone to launch into the forty seven minute start up sequence complete with cute animated robot and happy "tada" sounds.


This is great if your arms are pinioned behind your back and you can barely move you fingers. Less good if you have powered down your phone and placed it inside your jacket pocket. Perhaps when you're in a movie theatre, or while observing an extremely delicate brain surgery procedure. 


Pleasingly the back cover is rather easy to remove so it's possible to rip the battery out of the phone in the dark. 


The "I have no friends, my family were all eaten by a truculant Wilderbeast and I never get any wrong numbers" mode


Combined with an aversion to web browsing, watching You Tube videos and pretty much using an app at all then it's possible to get to around mid afternoon without having to plug your phone in. 


During a day trip to London I took this phone with me and subjected it to the following:

• Some moderate web browsing on the train to look up a couple of places we wanted to visit. One or two websites, read a couple of blog posts
• Three to four short phone calls, a minute or two long
• Occasional GPS use to work out how best to get us lost
• Read two emails
• 0 porn videos 

The battery was down to 15% by about 6PM.

If you're going anywhere for the day - take a second battery. Heck, going out to Starbucks for a quick coffee? Take a second battery. Perhaps I should be even clearer. Are you going to turn your phone on today?


Yes. Then get a second battery.

The "You've just burst your ear drums and want to lower the volume on your music?" mode
Alternative name of this is the "Fuck You" mode.


When this kicks in the phone will fail to respond to your frantic volume lowering attempts for several seconds, then it stores up every single press of the volume down button and processes them all leaving you with no you sound at all. 
It then applies this technique in reverse until you are left with severe hearing damage.
This sequence appears to be infinite. 


The quasi phasic multi temporal chronoton camera*

This is 5 megapixel and no flash.

And it's a bit shite. 

But it does come with some interesting temporal based features

As you can see from this picture of a festive London street this camera has been able to detect a passing car from 7 minutes in the future. 

Unfortunately it struggles with anything less than around 93% bright sunlight.

And the video record feature sucks. The sound might suck but trying to even watch something you've recorded results in a mild aneurysm, so have tried not to go there.

This camera is no good for any human being who cannot literally freeze the blood in their veins for around 14 minutes to hold the camera motionless. Perhaps Iceman could produce a blur free picture, assuming of course he also possesses the ability to compensate for the rotation of the earth.

Just like that talking guitar from the play within the film Moulin Rouge this camera can only speak the Truth. See the photo below.

In case you don't know me - I live in a fine city called Newport. And it's Great. 

Versus an Apple iPhone

I conducted an exhaustive series of Gadget Show style tests - placing a call, texting whilst sawing off my big toe, subjecting the phone to a small thermonuclear device - and in all of these the Hero came out on top.

Well, aside from the the vaporisation due to nuclear fission test. That was judged based on the amount of mass lost. The Hero ended up around minus 100g. The iPhone came out with 0g mass lost. 

Oh, and the Hero is far, far cheaper than an iPhone. Getting one also means you an keep your loathing of the overly smug iPhone adverts - Hey! Now you can book cinema tickets! With your Phone!

Not like I've never been able to do that before or anything...

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* Sorry, was watching an Episode of Star Trek: Voyager earlier. It was set totally in the Holodeck and they still managed to lose 47 shuttle craft.

Day trip to London

Early tomorrow morning I'm off to London with a couple of friends. And by early I mean really, really early. Getting up at half past four because that way I can get a train ticket for less than the price of a small family car.

It's become something of annual tradition - every year we talk about training it up to London to go visit some shops and quaff ale and eat food like we did that one time, about five years ago. This year it's actually happening! Woo hoo.

So I thought I would post here a list of possible things we might be doing tomorrow. Then on Wednesday I'll post a list of things we actually did...

Could visit the Tate modern - there's going to be a big black box to walk around in. If the artist is anything like me (i.e. secretly laughs on Deal or No Deal when the idiot opens their box to win 5p) then there will be numerous shin high protrusions

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/unilevermiroslawbalka/

Could go to Harrods, I've never been. Not to buy anything, I am a cheapskate after all. Just have a bit of warm up, maybe a cup of tea (if I can sneak it in)

Could swim in the Serpentine, never done that either

http://www.tiredoflondontiredoflife.com/2009/08/swim-in-serpentine.html

There's a 19th century operating theatre:

http://www.thegarret.org.uk/

Bit like going to see Saw six suck I imagine

Perhaps we'll drink at the BBC's favourite pub and see terrific top telly types.

http://www.tiredoflondontiredoflife.com/2009/04/drink-in-bbcs-favourite-pub.html

Or the London Film Museum

http://www.themovieum.com

And not forgetting of course, the Marmite Shop!
http://www.marmitepopup.co.uk/

We also need to fit in:

• Eating food some place nice
• Finishing all of my Christmas shopping
• Intravenous coffee shots. Or red bull. Anything with caffeine really

On the sheer fun that is the pastime called swimming

Since I hurt the back of my foot a couple of months ago (running), and since I hurt the front of it a couple of weeks ago (stairs, large Gin and Tonic, my filing system on said stairs), and since I'm bored of sitting on my exercise bike in a room with a radio that only plays the Archers (even when in CD mode), today I decided I'd head out for a swim.

The odds were stacked against me.

My only trunks are now in their teen years, looking very faded and slightly marked in places from one summer when I was painting the lounge ceiling white during a heat wave.

Not to forget of course that's it the middle of winter. There's something ever so slightly off putting about leaving my warm house, getting into my frigid car, the inside warming up just as I reach the car park, then stripping off and having to cross the slippery tiles past the smirking teen lifeguards knowing that yes, it's lovely once you're in, but first you have to get past the blinding flash of arctic cold that is the pool.

And then have to deal with the inevitable ballooning of the trunks and the moment of half panic - are these the ones that go transparent?

Plus, I hate swimming. Length after length, width after width, the monotonous grind, trying to suck down hurried breaths and getting mouthfuls of water, feeling pretty nippy and then getting passed by an old guy with a float and only one leg.

It's not a surprise that the pool closed four minutes ago and I'm sat in my office writing this.

So I came up with a cunning, cannot fail, I'm warm now so sod tomorrow, plan.

It goes by the name of Early Swim. It scares the bejesus out of me.

But at least right now I'm warm.