forget blogging...

... addicted to facebook

welcome to glasgow...

This rather disturbing music video was filmed pretty much outside our new office. Prizes to anyone who can transcribe the lyrics.

panorama on scientology...

I'm sure many of you have seen this video of - now legendary - bbc reporter John McSweeny losing his temper a wee bit while filming a documentary about Scientology.



The full programme is online at the moment - go here and follow the watch now link, to see what drove him to it. A really good watch.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!

Sheffield United RELEGATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you West Ham, Carlos Tevez, 10-man Wigan, Ferguson and Benitez's team selections etc etc and of course respect as always to good loser, sportsman and gentleman Neil Warnock for taking it on the chin.

crazy instrument...

diving pics...

turtle
Originally uploaded by nicktryg.

... my flickr page has two versions of many of these snaps - I uploaded originals yesterday, then again after Rach's expert re-touching.

Great holiday - well done to all involved, especially Tim - now Open Water, Advanced Open Water, and Enriched Air qualified. I think he liked it.



Very happy with:

Explorers Tours
Ocean College Dive Centre
New Casio underwater housing
New Cressi mask (with rear view mirrors!)

lovely interface...

here

I've got a portal to design in the next year. Should we be inspired by things like this? Are flash homepages passe? Could this be a skin for certain sectors of audience, with something more standard and conservative for others?

Any comments appreciated.

egg update...

Charts now added to google spreadsheet.

The lighter birds Omelet and Scramble remain consistent with 5-6 eggs per week. Margo is laying more than we expected, but will always be an egg or two behind the others. We're expecting a lull shortly, alongside the Summer moult.

Cost per egg down to £2.53.

tortilla...

... made by Cristina, the Spanish partner of one of our designers. She made it with Kingsfield eggs and olive oil from her mother's garden. Absolutely delicious.

more scandinavian japes...

some happy norwegians with too much time on their hands...

more web 2.0....

go2web20 - a nicely designed directory of web 2.0 sites. One I really like is picnik - an online image editor. Apparently photoshop is going to have an online version soon.

ipods..

Have I mentioned how much I love my ipod? I've had one for over 4 years, and bought a new 8gb nano in the new year. It looks just like this, it's very small, and very red. The best new function over my old brick is being able to rate songs on the move, which has made smart playlists much more interesting and varied.

And I love total random play. I've just had the following sequence:

Scott Walker - Mathilde
Ed Harcourt - The Storm is coming
The Clash - Hateful
That Petrol Emotion - Creeping to the cross
The Strands (same band as Shack) - X hits the spot
Radiohead - Paranoid Android
Scissor Sisters - Laura
Eels - Novocaine for the soul
The Doors - LA Woman

Not too shabby.

Margo is off the mark!

Check out the latest productivity chart. We're down to £6.27 per egg, brilliant, although this will change as we shortly have to spend £5.50 on another sack of pellets.

We didn't eat it. We suspect she got taken by surprise - it was in the run rather than in the laying box, and she had trodden on it, breaking the shell. But it was a lovely dark brown speckled colour, and I'm sure the next one will be delicious.

Hopefully she will start laying in the appropriate place now. It must be a confusing time for a hen. Life is normal, peck peck, dig dig, chomp chomp and suddenly BLAM eggs start appearing out of your 'vent' on an almost daily basis. Ask yourselves, how would you feel?

Chad Vader...

I like this. Some more:

Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6

last day's filming for 'abolition'...

... out and about around the Merchant City in Glasgow. These merchants (who still have streets named after them - Buchanan St for example) traded in goods like cotton, sugar and tobacco, from plantations in the Caribbean (more street names - Kingston Bridge, Virginia Street - well known in Glasgow), using slaves from Africa as their workforce. Imagine it - exploiting humans, in terrible conditions, in far flung places, all for the sake of supplying the public's demand for cheap goods... wouldn't happen today, right?

Here's the central BBC site commemorating the abolition of the slave trade. Our site, for schools in Scotland, is going live at the beginning of May, with the TV programmes broadcast sometime in the Autumn. I'll be reminding you to set your videos nearer the time...

A drawing of me...

BBC web 2.0 talk
Originally uploaded by ghostschool.

... at a presentation last week, by one of the designers downstairs. Although I look bored, I wasn't at all, it was an excellent presentation about web 2.0 which kept me thoroughly engaged for an hour.

(I suspect my boss, who gave this presentation, has also found this blog)


Speaking of web 2.0 type things, here's a flickr group compiled by colleages with photos of our new building which we're moving to in the summer, at various stages of construction. And here's a google map, showing where we're moving from and to.

dundee - proud to be the home of the 'dandy'...

About 2 seconds after I took this, a fight broke out between the little pikey standing by the cash machine, and another one out of shot. It's a great place, Dundee.

chicken-based cartoon...

From the wonderful 'Perry Bible Fellowship', published on Fridays in the Guardian. Follow this link for more...

fans of marmite and guinness rejoice...

more here.

maggie - mistress of her domain...

hot fuzz - and another law enforcement look-alike...

It's ages since I enjoyed a film as much as Hot Fuzz. Great script, acting, editing. Go see.

And look at Simon Pegg - it's Chris!!!

nothing but the latest technology at BBC scotland...

today's photo - 1st day filming...

... on the first tv programmes I'm producing - two documentaries covering the abolition of the slave trade, to be broadcast in the autumn. This is one of our expert contributors, in front of a green screen. The garish studio colours are because we were borrowing studio space from a gaelic children's show. Fun!

rachel simons design...

Rach's online shop is up and running... and in my completely unbiased professional opinion, it is excellent. Go on, buy something!

today's photo - handfeeding the chooks...

today's photo - trip to the rugby...

... to see Scotland beat Wales 21-9 in the 6 nations. Not a classic match, no tries, a few moments of excitement, but a really great atmosphere in a sold out Murrayfield. Shame about the incomprehensible pissed jocks sat behind us, one of whom I suspect was responsible for the vomit I had to step over in the bogs on the way out. Match report and video highlights, courtesy of the world's greatest broadcaster, here.

Earlier in the day, England performed poorly to beat Italy. Coverage here. Thank God our wee Jonny is back, scoring 15 of the 20 points, becoming the 5/6 nations highest ever points scorer in the process, beating ugly ginger welsh Neil Jenkins (who is still the highest points scorer in all international rugby).

google spreadsheet of egg production...

... can be viewed here.

As you can see, the cost per egg is plummeting - down to £11. And when recalcitrant Margo gets going, it'll be down before you know it. Athough we will need to spend another £5.50 on pellets soon.

Thanks for the advice Tony - this is a good tool. However, a few things I'd like to see are:

- safari support
- charts
- automatic publishing directly into blogger - there's probably a way of embedding it in the right column, but I'll wait for one of you clever bods to email me the code :-)

PS - publishing HTML from excel is crap - formatting goes to shite.

egg production chart...

Tech note - exported from excel as jpg.

new york new year - photos...

from the top looking north east
Originally uploaded by nicktryg.

I do love it there. Hopefully back in the summer - might be going to an education conference in Altlanta in June, my flights have an option for a stopover... with any luck, finances will have recovered from this New Year trip, man it's easy to spend money.

what is this web 2.0 anyway?

youtube link

quite fun this really.

not blogged for ages. Just found a macos "widget" which makes it really easy, hence the splurge. 

I spent a few nights a few weeks ago trying to make a new site on iweb, but it's not very good. I spend all day making web sites, agonising over what I hope is interesting, engaging content, and what was coming out at home was really really dull. Some photos - which I can do on flickr. A list of current media habits - as if anyone cares, gadget radar... really zzzzzzzzzzzzz. The chicken productivity chart does have legs though, and I will try to find a way of doing that as easily as writing a blog. Any ideas? 

The thing is, those of you who read this know what's going on in life, because you all read the missus's blog. It is totally up-to-date, better written like, and more funny. Don't read this one! Maybe I'll post a few photos or something. 

PPS

While I'm on geek alert, and on a bit of a roll, and England are losing at football (plus ca change, meh), I would like to share my excitement about my new DVD player. It's great. It plays DIVX, so I can FINALLY watch things I've (legally) downloaded on the TV. You know, I've not watched an episode of my own programme on TV since series 2 in Sheffield. What's more, it upscales DVDs via HDMI to 1080, and they looks top. Well done to everyone at LG. 

PS

Christian is correct about the lack of posts, damn, my secret is out. Man did I enjoy the fact that I get to do a torture scene every episode now, and not just once or twice a series. AND that Zephram Cochrane is my dad. 

Speaking of being a total geek, how good is Heroes? it's got Doctor Who AND Sulu in it!!! 

I'm back!!

but only because I saw chris's ultimate PDA on this other blog.