Memoirs of a Roadie

Sweet Home Chicago

Posted on 23rd June 2008

Last week I was in Chicago for YAPC::NA. It was great event and a great city. I was there 2 years ago for the conference, and got to see some of the city then, so this time around I opted to find some other places to discover. I've still left plenty to discover, so next time I return I plan to finally get to go up the Hancock Tower and do the Ganster Tour.

The conference itself was at the IIT, on the south side of Chicago, and a short walk from the L. On the first day I gave a talk entitled "Understanding Malware", during which David E Wheeler thankfully caught me on camera, so at least I have one photo of me speaking :) On the second day I gave my "How To Be A CPAN Tester" talk, which seemed to go down well. I'll write more about the conference on my use.perl blog, but over the next week I hope to get my photos up online. Unfortunately the quality of the photos hasn't been as good as previous efforts, as I seemed to struggle with focus and light most of the time. Looking at some of the guys taking pictures throughout the event, I dearly need a DSLR. Hopefully this time next year my wish will come true.

My thanks to Theory for allowing me to include the photo he took of me at the conference here.

Mr. Self Destruct

Posted on 12th June 2008

Picked up a useful procmail tip the other day, and thought I'd help to promote it here. See Filtering mail with procmail for more details. As I hadn't done a cleanup of my backup mail files for some time, I was using up 1.5GB of disk space for messages that had already been processed. Most of the mails were spam, which have since been deleted. However, figuring out which files to delete is awkward as they all get named using the format of 'msg.XXXX', where XXXX is a random set of alphanumeric characters. This little tip, collates all the days mail into a single file, thus making it much easier to delete archives. I can now set up a cron job to delete month old archives once a month and keep my disk space at a more manageable level.

#
# Used for keeping a backup of each days mail.
#
BACKUP=$MAILDIR/backup
TODAY=`date +%d-%m-%Y`

#
# Save a copy of each email received into a file of the form
# '~/Mail/backup/dd-mm-yyyy'.
#
:0 c:
$BACKUP/$TODAY

The Last Sucker

Posted on 9th June 2008

Last Monday I finally got to see Ministry, as they took in Wolverhampton on their "C U LaTour" farewell tour. The gig was great, if a little unusual, and featured plenty of moshing. They played for just over 2 hours, and was the same set they've played elsewhere in the UK. The only difference between the UK set and the US set has been to replace the final encore of Under My Thumb (Rolling Stones cover) with What A Wonderful World (Louis Amstrong). I bought the covers album on the way out, and having heard the tracks, I think perhaps the UK set ended on a more upbeat note than the US one.

The main set consisted of 4 or 5 tracks from the last 3 albums, and as such was a very anti-Bush type of affair. Not that I mind the songs, but in the UK the sentiment behind the songs isn't perhaps as powerful as they are in the US. Seeing as it was the first time I had got to see them (I've missed the last 3 tours for a variety of reasons, all of which have been extremely frustrating), I was happy to hear anything. The first set of encores featured So What, NWO, Just One Fix and Thieves, all of which I was more than happy with. It would have been great to have heard others, but had I sorted myself out properly and got to earlier tours I would have.

The band played behind wire mesh, which gave the effect of The Blues Brothers playing Rawhide in that country bar from the film. It actually gave the whole stage a club feel, and the audience certainly reacted as if it was too. There was plenty of moshing going on, but as the venue wasn't completely sold out, there was still space to avoid the mosh if you wanted to. In fact it was probably one of the most polite mosh pits I've ever witnessed, which is possible due to the fact many of the moshers were punks and a couple of girls even got stuck in. Nobody got really hurt and there was very much a good shared riotous enjoyment about it all. I stood on the edge of the mosh pit, and had a great view of the stage. I haven't looked at the photos yet, but hopefully some of them came out.

It'll be a pity not to be able to see the band again, but Al feels his journey with Ministry has come to an end, and seeing as he has plenty of other projects still lined-up, it's unlikely it'll be the last we'll hear of him, and maybe a RevCo or Lard tour might happen. Well I can wish can't I ;)

• Ministry - Wulfren Hall - 2nd June 2008
  

Between The Wheels

Posted on 8th June 2008

A friend of mine, Arnaud, has been planning the trip of a lifetime for a couple of years. Earlier this year he began his sabbatical from work and prepared for his trek from France to China. Although based in Cheltenham, UK, he first headed over to France to stay with his parents and make final preparations for the trip. However, there have been a few issues regards getting into China, so at the moment he's unsure of whether he have to fly in, or will be able to ride in.

He has a website, Frog On A Bike, which he has been updating on a regular basis, with tales of his journey and plenty of photos and even a few videos of his trek. He's currently in Russia, heading for Astrakhan and Kazakhstan. Considering it's only been 6 weeks since he hit the road on 21st April for his World Tour, he's travelled a very impressive distance. It's been great reading of his travels, and looks to be a journey I would have loved to have done. Although, I think I would have had to drive rather than ride. I'm not that fit these days :)

The funniest sight he's seen so far has to be the Fake Police Car. I'm just hoping the UK police don't get ideas and start putting these around the country.

Shangri-la

Posted on 7th June 2008

Nicole commented the other day, after watching the latest ACT ON CO2 advert, that whoever coined the term 'Carbon Footprint' had come up with a really good idea to get people thinking about their contributions to global warming. While I don't think that global warming can ever be changed by individual effort, I do think that pressure on manufactures to reduce packaging, or to find and use alternative forms of energy, are much more likely to offset the emissions contributing to global warming.

However, it also had me thinking about who actually did coin the term. After a bit of research, it seems widely accepted that William Rees, a Canadian environmentalist and ecologist, first coined the term "Ecological Footprint" in 1992. Although not quite the same, The Carbon Footprint is seen as a subset of issues involved with the Ecological Footprint. Rees developed a method to calculate our ecological destruction based on our consumption, and appears to have been a catalyst for changing how we look at our consumption levels. The Carbon Footprint, in most definitions looks specifically at fossil fuels, but nowhere that I've seen, actually indicates who was first to actually reference the term for that type of measurement.

Having done a bit of reading, I'm much more intrigued to see if we can change attitudes to our Ecological Footprint, as the environmental damage we are doing, especially in terms of the completely useless amount of packaging we use these days, is possibly a bigger contributor not just to the resources we use, but the amount that gets dumped to landfill. Although alot of packaging these days can be recycled, too much is just being thrown away. I'm also alarmed by the amount of fossil fuel crops we are globally producing now. A news item recently highlighted that as food crop farming has become so much less profitible, we could soon find food becoming a luxury commodity.

But back to the original question. Who did coin the term Carbon Footprint? Any ideas?

Last Of The Teenage Idols

Posted on 6th June 2008

Last weekend we took DanDan to the Grassroots Football Live event at the NEC in Birmingham. When we initially found out about the event we thought it would involve some dedicated training for his team, Callowbrook Swifts. We did think it was a bit odd that adults were charged more than children if the event was aimed at them. It wasn't until we got there we discovered it was actually more like a trade fair. As a trade fair it wasn't bad, and we did end up getting the usual compliment of freebies. DanDan was miffed that he didn't get a Mars football, but then he was the only one to get a England beanie hat.

There were several training sessions that you could sign up for, so in the afternoon, we did sign the boys up for a training session with some of the Leicester City coaches, and another later with a FIFA coach, but they were quite short sessions. Still the lads did seem to enjoy the day overall.

Nicole and I are not football fans really, so although many of the names I knew, I was mostly unphased by them. Graham Taylor, Harry Redknapp and Steve McClaren were there, together with several reportedly well know players, including a guy called Billy Wingrove. Now I have nothing against Billy, but all I could think of while I watched him was, well okay he can do some clever tricks, but is he any good on the field and can he score goals? I'd never heard of him, so figured he probably wasn't the next golden boy for England, however, on returning home I discovered that he doesn't play for any club, all he can do is tricks. As entertainment that's fine, but if you expect your opponent to sit there waiting for you to show off to the crowd, then I think you'll soon discover how useless your trick skills are worth. As such I found the attention put on him was largely misplaced.

For me there was one point that did interest me. I spotted that Dario Gradi was going to be presenting a train session, so went along to catch some of it. He was using the Alex youth team to highlight tactics, and was exactly the sort of thing that I was expecting from these sessions. After the session I did something I wouldn't normally do. I went and asked for his autograph. A couple of young lads had already asked him, as he stood on the sidelines afterwards, so I thought I'd take the opportunity too. I had a short chat with him, mentioning that I used to live near Crewe, and he was in good humour as we talk about how the place had changed. Funnily enough I moved away from Crewe the year Dario started his mangerial career at Crewe Alex.

All in all, an interesting day, and perhaps for older lads it would have been more beneficial, particularly the tactics and ball control training sessions. I'm not sure we'd go again, but I do think it was good for DanDan. Perhaps next year, we'll let his Nanny and Grandad take him as they're much more interested in football than we are :)

Not Fade Away

Posted on 17th May 2008

The Cadbury Cricket Pavilion (as it is often referred to these days), is quite a grand building. It was originally opened in June 1902, and was a gift to the Bournville Cricket Club to commemorate the coronation of King Edward VII, hence its other name of The Coronation Cricket Pavilion. The black & white photo shown here is taken from The Food of the Gods, by Brandon Head (available thanks to Project Gutenberg), although alas it doesn't recall when it was taken.

Earlier this year, Dan's team Callowbrook Swifts, played a match against Cadbury Athletic on the Sports Field, so I took the opportunity to take a few photos of the Pavilion as it is today. I assume it is still used by the Bournville Cricket Club, as they still hold cricket matches here during the summer months. One of many Bournville treasures.

Head Down

Posted on 13th May 2008

Nine Inch Nails have done what many record labels would be absolutely terrified to do. Trent has given his latest album, The Slip, away for free. And not any old dubious quality download (like a another high profile band tried to do), but top quality MP3s, together with lossless FLAC and M4A files, and the WAV multitrack files to enable fans to make their own remixes. In fact fans haven't been slow in uploading their remixes to the remix.nin.com site either, several tracks off the new album are already there as well several hundred other mixes.

Trent has been quite prolific in recently with this being the fourth album in as many years. Okay so Ghosts was an experimental project, but it still counts. Of the 3 regular albums, he started to change tack slightly, and although the albums were still very much Nine Inch Nails, there was more of a whole album feel, rather than a collection of songs. This was never more so than on Yero Zero. It was only recently I discovered the Year Zero alternate reality game, which has been fascinating to read about. I knew there was a concept behind the album, but never realised the scale it had been conceived on. The NIN Wiki has lots of info if you're interested.

The Slip, however, goes back to the regular collection of songs. On first listen I wasn't completely bowled over, but did think it was worth playing again. The album is a grower, and after several repeated listens, there are a few tracks that I'm starting to think will be firm favourites in years to come. After listening to remix of Head Down, entitled Head Down (Further) if you can find it on the remix site, I relistened to the track and felt I'd opened hidden door. Hopefully it won't be too long for the tour to come to the UK, then I can make up for missing the two gigs they scheduled then cancelled in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, then rescheduled while I was in Vienna.

However, the biggest buzz about the current way Trent is doing business, is going to have a few people sitting up in the record industry, taking notes. The Slip, has been released completely free, with a Creative Commons license that allows you to play, listen and remix to your hearts content. Trent even states on the website "thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one's on me", which is quite a bold statement. You will be able to buy a CD, and judging from the responses, most fans are likely to do just that. Even though you can get the album for free, it's more about being able to listen to the songs on whatever medium you chose, without any fear of the RIAA or similar. Trent no longer has a traditional record deal, and being much more clued into the technological revolution that has been happening for the last 10 years or more, and indeed has positively embraced it, understands probably better than most what his audience will give and take. There aren't many artists that are comfortable just giving their music away, in fact Prince is the only other person I can think of that would, seeing as he's already given away his last album, Planet Earth, as a free CD with The Mail on Sunday.

I don't think artists and record companies will be rushing to follow suit, but I do think more artists will be considering the benefit of having their fans play with their tracks to see what they can come up with. Nine Inch Nails though do have quite a creative fanbase, that many others must be envious of, and one that is very loyal, as Trent himself astutely notes. I'm enjoying listening to the Remix site, and can imagine an official remix album may well see a release a some point. But then again, that wouldn't be anything new for Nine Inch Nails.

So Glad 2B Alive

Posted on 12th May 2008

Back in February we went to see Bleeding Hearts as The Adam & Eve in Digbeth, Birmingham. It was also Gel's 40th birthday, and a great gig to celebrate it. It was also great to see Paul Rogers at the gig too, who I hadn't seen since my days with Ark, in fact since 1994. There were quite a few old faces in the audience, as well as plenty of new ones too. The was a complete mixture of old and new songs, with more emphasis on the newer songs. I did mean to make a note of the setlist, but got complete caught up in taking photos.

The Adam & Eve is quite a small pub, though long, so although you can't necessarily see well at the back, you could definitely hear the band. In fact most of Digbeth could probably hear them, and undoubtly would have said they deserved all the encores asked of them. After the live album I was quite eager to see the band again, but unfortunately it ended up being a little longer than intended. Since The Adam & Eve gig, they've done a couple of German tours now, and are set up to do a few UK gigs around the Midlands, so hopefully we'll be catching up with them soon. Expect more photos then, and hopefully a setlist next time around.

• Bleeding Hearts - The Adam & Eve - 16th Feb 2008
  

High Speed Dirt

Posted on 11th May 2008

Callowbrook Swifts had their last match today. Despite going ahead at 2-0 early in the match, they were drawing 3-3 at half time. But the heat took its toll and Hampton managed to score another 2 in the second half for a final score of 3-5. It could so easily have gone in Callowbrook's favour, as in one instance Dan led a great run down the left wing, crossing to Joel, who hit a lovely shot at goal, but hit the post and was caught by the goalkeeper. With several other attempts on goal, and a few corners, it wasn't a lack of trying on Callowbrook's part. It was a shame for Ross, as he did make several great saves, but Hampton got themselves into good positions and made it difficult for him to cover all angles.

There's a break for the summer now, although training still continues. There are also two new players starting with the team ready for the next season, so it'll be interesting to see how the team dynamics work with the new additions. Callowbrook, as they are at the moment, have come on leaps and bounds in the last 6 months, and they're still getting better. The previous two matches they won 4-2 and 4-0, so they've proved they can do it. 11 goals in the last 3 matches, not bad in anyone's book. I'm looking forward to the next season anyway :)

• Callowbrook Swifts vs Hampton Sports