We Saw a Chicken …

Blog

  • spent too much time in the henhouse

    The Chuckie Egg Professional’s Resource Kit (warning: loud embedded YouTube video of the BBC B version) is a worryingly complete website about Chuckie Egg. You don’t know Chuckie Egg?

    chuckie egg

     You should. I’ve probably spent more time playing this than any other computer game. It was even my workhorse for testing how quickly my fast tape loading routines worked on the Amstrad (I think I got somewhere north of 9000 baud on a good tape, and it loaded back more than once, so – success!)

    There are emulators and versions for just about every computer made, so go nuts.

  • disnaeland

    Conclusive proof (if any were needed) that Scotland invented Unicode:

    didnae

    isnae

    wasnae

    If you try to display a UTF-8 apostrophe on an ISO 8859-15 system, you get a reasonable representation of didnae, isnae and wasnae.

  • oh no, wait, this is even more moronic

    I was mildly incensed to see an ad truck tootling about downtown. What was even worse was that it advertised cleanourair.com, a site purporting to help individuals reduce their carbon footprint.

    Get this: the founding sponsor of the site is VisionAdz, a company whose sole purpose is to have ad trucks tootling about downtown, polluting our air and my eyes.

    Bill Hicks was right about advertising types.

  • burning question

    What’s the proper name for someone from Saskatchewan?
    (apart from “Doug”.)

  • few people will understand this

    zx_printer.png

    zxcolours.png

  • sustainable much?

    It would seem that Elizabeth May, leader of the Canadian Green Party, is against wind farms on the Nova Scotia coast. This in a province that gets 75% of its energy from imported coal, and has some of the best wind resource in Canada.

  • strings = strings + 10

    Perhaps somewhat rashly, I bought a Godin SD XT from Encore Music Exchange. It seems to be a lot of guitar for the money (others agree). Still no amp for it, so it’s sounding like a very quiet bee when I play it. A tonally rich bee,of course.

    I do have to make special mention of Encore. It’s a very friendly store, and the owner has it set out like a living room. I’m sure I’ll be back.

    So why ‘strings + 10’? Even more rashly, I bought a wee bit of Canadiana on eBay: a Northern Doane-style concert ukulele. Hey, it was cheap …

  • shrapnel

    To the Coinstar machine again, to deposit $143.47 in change. Of course, you only get $129.41 of that back. Since I last visited it on 17th November, that’s 62¢/day for the last 232 days.

    Nerdly? Me? Just wait until I write about spoon heft …

  • i wish i had my camera with me

    The semi-skilled busker with the snoozing-in-the-guitar-case spaniel was performing at Osgoode tonight.

  • 18 things I’d rather have than an iPhone

    In response to Jill’s post to fegmaniax:

    1. Batavus Personal Bike
    2. Lagouille pocket knife
    3. The Muppets Series 2 on DVD
    4. a better film scanner
    5. a Bill Rickard banjo
    6. Danelectro guitar (like Syd’s)
    7. “Unicorn Power” t-shirt
    8. duplexer for my inkjet printer
    9. titanium spork
    10. a ream of Blue Angel printer paper
    11. A4 feed tray(s) for my printer(s)
    12. Sumo Lounge beanbag
    13. silent Mini-ITX motherboard
    14. bluetooth GPS
    15. Fixpencil
    16. Vivitar 285HV flash gun
    17. Pelican case for the RB67
    18. nylon-strung old Harmony banjo.

    I was trying to get to 100, but I guess I’m not that acquisitive.

  • Keep September 25th Clear …

    ‘cos Thomas Dolby’s playing The Mod Club.

  • Uncle Dave on ill-advised facial hair

    Look at that man with all the hair around his mouth
    Like he swallowed a mule and left the tail hanging out
    – I’ve Got The Morning Blues

  • Steelwinds

    Catherine & I are just back from visiting our friends in Kent, OH. On the way there, I knew we’d pass the new Steelwinds wind farm in Lackawanna, but I didn’t realise just how striking it would be from the Buffalo border crossing. We drove into Lackawanna, and parked on the lake shore. Steelwinds looks like this:

    Steelwinds, Lackawanna, NY

    The Clipper turbines turn extremely slowly, and are some of the most graceful ones I’ve seen. Good work!

  • a landmark day in Ontario

    Tim Hortons finally got Interac in Ontario. Western Canadians will no longer be frustrated with their eastern siblings. (well, I’m sure there will be some other bones of contention ….)

    Oh, and we technically implement Kyoto today.

  • Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog – books: The elephant not in the room: what happened to Uncle?

    Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog – books: The elephant not in the room: what happened to Uncle?

  • disney work

    Disney Opera House, Los Angeles

    I tried to get more of a ‘joiner’ effect, but Hugin’s just too good at stitching. Still, it’s angular enough for the Disney Opera House. The original is approximately 90 megapixels.

  • injera frenzy

    Catherine and I just had lunch at Queen of Sheba on Bloor just east of Dufferin. It was good; gentle spices and tons of flat bread to eat the meat and sauces with.

    I can’t believe I have never had Ethiopian food before. I shall remedy that soon.

  • the land camera

    pola2a.jpg

    RB67, 127mm @ f/3.8, expired Polaroid 664, 1/125s

    My first attempt with the RB67 and Polaroid back. With the metering prism and the handgrip, the RB67 weighs over 4kg, so it’s not something you want to wave about.

    Something’s a bit weird with my film. Every picture I take has the top left corner missing:

    pola1.jpg

     Is the developer dry? Am I pulling the film through the rollers too slowly? Too fast? I dunno.

  • it’s summer, so …

    … it’s time for the CREST Wind Energy Summer School.

    It’s about the best way to start out in the wind industry. I went there back when it was at Imperial College. So many of my friends and colleagues in the industry have attended.

    I wish the same course were run in several locations. Loughborough isn’t on most people’s travel plans.

  • pee-yew

    There is a very bad smell blowing into Union Station from the east. It has a kind of burning manure tang to it.