IkoStar

Goes tae supermarket….

I didn’t say anything of course but I couldn’t help but notice that they’ve made all the staff at my local supermarket dress up as elves.

I remained calm. No raising of an obrobrious eye-brow, no “taking-my-business-elsewhere” etc, no shouting, no being escorted strugging to the door by security personel. I kept my shit together and was the very esscence of zen-like calm… I let my warring feelings wash over me, wash through me and when they had passed, only I remained.

The staff genuinely seemed more cheerful than usual as well. I don’t know why. I’d be fucking furious if someone made me to dress up as an elf. I mean I never understood it at the time, but looking back now I know exactly where Grumpy off Snow White etc was coming from. He’s the only one who had a scrap of common-sense.

Anyway, whatever. That was the hilight of my day. As a reaction (perhaps as a type of misdirected revenge), I’ve decided to move the storm-troopers etc from the bit on the right into a blog post… they’ve had their day. They were good while they lasted, but now it’s time they were put out to pasture.

I think I might put links to other bits of the site etc. Something needs to be done. Loads of people are turning up - but staying for an average of about 7 seconds… which is like 1/2 a goldfish’s memory.

Idiots.

Today I made a favicon with this (favicon making thing).

I like favicons. They’re like ant art.

This favicon is actually taken from a thing was playing with a couple of years back… I got it blown up to A0 and printed on canvas.

I think I kindof prefer it as a favicon.

Anyway - the numbers make up a magic square... ie:
each column adds up to 111.
each row adds up to 111.
each diagonal adds up to 111.
it has the all the numbers from 1 to 36
and the whole lot adds up to 666.

Which rocks.

If you click the picture above, you’ll see a great big version and you’ll probably aquire awsome skills.

I bought this the other day:

I really didn’t see any alternative. It’s by famous New Zealand artist Timon Maxey… one from his early period - from around the turn of the century.

It’s ever so good - and quite big. Too big for my place, so I gave it to my Mum for her birthday. It’s hard to say whether she’s pleased or not. She “seems” pleased, but that could just be a act. She’s an actress, and well-practiced at pretending to like things that I get her for her birthday.

Time will tell I suppose. Time will tell. Time alone can judge a great work of art, and in this case… similar perhaps to the subject of this painting, I’m quietly optimisitic.

It came like a solid blow to the solar-plexus… followed by the inevitable progress of despair: denial, anger, depression, bargaining… I went down to the sea and stared disconsolately at the waves as the sky darkened above me….

… and eventually (with a heart like cement) I came to accept that my iPod was no longer the best one available.

Arse. That’s it, I’m defiantly going to commit suicide.

Or maybe buy another one. I haven’t actually filled up the old one yet though fuckit. How am I supposed to keep up?

So I did the numbers. According to Moore’s Law, the capacity of these things doubles every two years, and accepting the KLF’s definition of the ideal pop-song being 3 minutes, 20 seconds long, you get this table:

Which gives the following chart, using Google’s really rather good new chart-making thing.

Growing iPod capacity by number of years it takes to listen to a whole one

So somewhere in the mid-to-early 2020’s you’ll be able to get an iPod with more music than you can listen to in your entire life. And it will all be shite.

In fact the singularity will actually hit in about 7 years… which is when the capacity is increasing so fast you won’t ever catch up… ie: if you started listening in 2014, by the time you get to the end, another one with double the capacity will have come out, and you’ll have to start again without having any time off at all.

Imagine that…. wading thru Color Me Badd at four in the afternoon on your 45th birthday (as evening’s shadows lengthen) knowing that you’re not even 1/2 way and you’ve got another 55 years of Freddy and The Dreamers and that one with that fucking singing frog and so on. Ravell’s Bolero at 4am on your 60th Birthday. Bom nernernerner nernernerner nernernerner ner. Bom nernernerner nernernerner nernernerner ner… all the while thinking about what might have been. Bom nernernerner nernernerner nernernerner ner. Bom nernernerner nernernerner nernernerner ner. On and on.

You’ll go mad, so this is what I suggest you do:

Get a whole load of iPods (a couple for each ear) and listen to them all at the same time, played at about 5 times the normal speed.

You’ll still go insane, but more quickly and in a more interesting way.

So that’s my advice.

ps:

If you started listening in 2026 with your new 100 year iPod, by the time you got to the end, the latest iPod to come out will hold:
628,077,138,145,804,000,000,000,000 years worth. Six hundred and twenty eight million, billion, billion years of the shitest music anyone’s ever heard.

Face it, you’re fucked. You might as well give up now.

click to enlarge

Before you start feeling sorry for me though… and although the incident with the shirts did actually happen, it isn’t actually the whole story. The truth is a little more complicated.

In actuality, I do happen to have an utterly stunning collection of shirts - I have my own tailor (Sam) who rustles me up little silk numbers at vast expense. Earlier today I went to seem him and blew another $1200, and I only went out to look at some books… and I was wearing just such a shirt when I found myself four-sheets-to-the-wind in Courtney Place at 3am the other night.

I’d been round every place that would still serve me, and a fair few that wouldn’t… gave $600 dollars (in a moment of drunken largesse) to some tramps and for some reason gave a massive cubic-zirconia diamond to the bouncer of the karaoke place in Cuba St. I was making my way down Courtney Place when I spotted some policemen with someone spread-eagled over the bonnet of a car… so naturally I went over to offer my assistance.

In my mind I was as austere and circumspect as The Earl Of Montrose in this:

But on reflection, I was probably more like the bounty hunter in this:

Both of whom are played by John Hurt (who is a genius) and both of which are excellent movies but more on that later.

They didn’t see the funny side. They’ve got no sense of humour NZ police, and they’ve all got moustaches. Why? Why would they do that? It’s like deliberately growing a massive eyebrow over your mouth. Fucking weird man… and it fucks with your sense of humour.

“Mr Taylor. You have the right to remain silent and…”

“No YOU have the right to remain silent”

“Please don’t interupt. You have the right…”

“No YOU have the right to remain silent”, I said, twirling a fore-finger under his nose.

Then they hand-cuffed me and told me to wait over there.

I was outraged. Do they not know who I am? I demanded my rights etc. I demanded to know their names, ranks and serial numbers… they were not amused (but were forced by HM’s law to comply). They said that they were going to take me down to the station. I was even less amused than they were. The situation was rapidly worsening.

I waited in the street with my hands behind my back muttering and cursing.

Then the big policeman (the one with the hat) turned up to assess the situation. I think they probably figured out that I was going to turn into a massive pain in the arse, and although there was a degree of chest-beating going on, they decided it would be better to get me to piss off. They gave me a warning and told me to go away.

I wasn’t going to have that. I told them then and there that I was most certainly going to lodge a formal complaint with their superiors and that their conduct had been outrageous. Unfortunately though… the next day I couldn’t actually remember what it was that I wanted to complain about… and although I’m not a lawyer, I suspect fairly strongly that this might weaken my case somewhat.

So after a brief, but devastatingly scathing speech (that nearly got me arrested again). I tottered off to another bar, then woke up the next day, dead.

So that was that.

Anyway, the first movie above is Rob Roy, which is utterly brilliant on account of Tim Roth playing the most dastardly villain to ever grace the screen… and that clip has possibly the best sword fight in cinematic history. He’s a vicious fop and utterly brilliant.

The second is from The Proposition - which is probably the best cowboy movie ever, even though it was set in Australia - and it was written by Nick Cave who is a sort of rock-star. “Look-a-yonderrrrrr, Look-a-yonderrrrrrr” he goes. “A big black cloud come”. Marvellous.

I went on earlier about charisma… and Nick Cave’s got it. I went to Reading Festival (UK) every year for about 15 years… there are generally skinny blokes playing indie pop during the day and their presence evaporates at about 10 or 15 yards. Nick Cave is the only person I’ve seen who’s got the charisma to hold down a 30,000 capacity venue on his own in broad daylight.

The man’s a god… and when I lived in Brighton, he used to shop at the same supermarket as me.

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The Mirror Project - a site of loads of people taking photographs of themselves in the mirror, brainchild of Heather Champ who takes photos, does stuff for Flickr (I think) and dreams up world-changing ideas a good 6 years or so before anyone else does. 1999. The latter days of the 20th century. Roughly 650 million of the people on this planet weren’t even born yet.

As far as I’m aware, this is the first ever Web 2.0 site - user generated content and whatnot, and still going strong to this very day. I don’t even think it’s been given a makeover etc. A cultural artifact if ever I saw one - though not “of a time” exactly, on account of being well ahead of its time.

The photo above is of the unnervingly talented Sprouts from Swervedriver, taken during the making of this video :

Sound’s a bit scratchy, but you get the idea. Apparently they’re doing a comeback tour (ur ur) next year, which would be worth checking out. I hadn’t listened to this track in about 15 years and it gives me fucking goose-bumps man. This was the soundtrack for my life for a while, and very untidy it was.

Anyway, I think Heather Champ might be doing a tour as well - or at least giving a talk at Webstock down here in NZ in the New Year.

And before anyone says it - no, Web Dev is not The New Rock and Roll… I don’t know what is mind. Signs are though, what with the reforming of Led Zep, Swervedriver (who are easily comparable quailitywise), The Police, The Rolling Stones etc… I think The Old Rock and Roll is probably The New Rock and Roll. I mean Madonna’s last tour made a qtr of a billion dollars - and she’ rubbish.