ala.sda.ir » Livejournal

Self Portrait #1

Alasdair — Fri, 28 May 2010 21:32:11 +0000

I let Miranda get at the new iPad. Behold the result of 10 minutes playing with the Brushes app. She is no longer allowed at the iPad.

LJ In Lack Of Respect For Users Shocker

Alasdair — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:41:02 +0000

Just a heads up - if like me, you habitually post a lot of links to LJ, or hell, even if you don't, you might want to be aware that LJ are now tracking and otherwise interfering with outbound links. There is an easy way to opt out of it, and I have done so, so in theory, the links I post should be tracking-free, but you might want to go swithc this track off for yourselves as well. (Details in the link.) It's not a vast evil in the grand scheme of things, and I am not about to throw my toys out of the LJ pram - it's only tracking clicks on outbound links to some domains, but it's still tedious user-profiling crap, but it should have been better announced, and ideally operated on an opt-in basis.

(Info via apiphile. Cheers for the heads up.)

Token heads up

Alasdair — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:04:48 +0000

Just because I know that leaving anonymous comments means you don't get a notification if I reply - I have replied to all the anon comments left thus far on yesterday's post, so if you're curious about what I had to say in response to you (or anyone else) then you can go back and check now.

RPG filter?

Alasdair — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:47:55 +0000

So, I spend quite a lot of my spare time running, playing, or thinking about running or playing RPGs, and I do have a fair amount to say on the subject, and have been thinking about trying to set some of it down for a while now, and prompted by mindwanders, I thought I might see about getting on with it in the near future.

I am aware, however, that quite a number of my friends don't have much interest in that kind of thing, so I thought I'd set up a filter for it, so as not to accidentally bore anyone rigid.

So: who wants in?

View Poll: #1470997

Haven’t Done A Book Meme In A While

Alasdair — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:56:26 +0000

Don't take too long to think about it. 15 books you've read that will always stick with you. They don't have to be the greatest books you've ever read, just the ones that stick with you. First 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

The House at Pooh Corner - A.A. Milne
The Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
45 - Bill Drummond
Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
One Fine Day In The Middle Of The Night - Christopher Brookmyre
Accelerando - Charles Stross
The Great Shark Hunt - Hunter S. Thompson
Bane - Joe Donnelly
Raw Spirit - Iain Banks
Fucked By Rock - Zodiac Mindwarp
Night Watch - Terry Pratchett
Quantum Psychology - Robert Anton Wilson
King Rat - Chine Mieville
I Was Dora Suarez - Derek Raymond
The Complete HP Lovecraft - HP Lovecraft

Nicking nalsa's Variation: that took me six minutes and ten seconds - timing myself made it a bit more interesting. (Also I could have been faster, but I was disqualifying comics.) (I suspect that my inclusion of Kitchen Confidential might be partly due to bleed from his list, but I left it in, because I think it deserves to be there anyway.)

Adding My Own Twist: If you'd like to know more about a book, or what it means to me, leave a comment explaining what you'd like to know about my relationship with that book, and I'll tell you.

Re: Gothic London: City of the Deranged and Disorderly Dead

Alasdair — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:36:41 +0000

Minimal interest to most of you, but there were a few "I'm interested" comments on yesterday's post. I'm afraid that when I went to book at around 11pm last night, the ticket site they linked to only had two tickets left, so while I did buy both of them, my spare is going to sparksoflight since she was the one who actually pointed the event out to me, and fair's fair, after all.

Yesterday's link yesterday does contain a phone number, if you want to try the box office yourself, and see if it's just that the site had a tiny allocation. Sorry I wasn't more helpful/organised/swifter.

A Living Work Of… Er, Yeah.

Alasdair — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:58:25 +0000

Right, leaving to go stand on a plinth for an hour. Those of you who suffer from incurable bordedom and who can't make it along to Traf Square will be able to see me at http://www.oneandother.co.uk between the hours of 10 and 11pm UK time. You won't be able to miss me, as I shall be wearing a white suit, to ensure that I don't accidentally blend in with anything, and to provide passers by with maximum mockery value. Plus, I will have camera and tripod set up.

One last reminder

Alasdair — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:15:41 +0000

I am on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square between 10pm and 11pm tomorrow (Monday) night. My plan is to take pictures of the crowd in the square. Which means I need a crowd, and in a perfect world I need the crowd to be interesting looking. So, please, if you're at a loose end, stop by, and if you feel like dressing up, I'd be delighted.

If any of you feel like re-posting this call for interesting looking volunteers in your own journals, I'd be very grateful indeed.

Genuine, For Real And Serious Question

Alasdair — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:57:12 +0000

Can anyone think of anywhere in London I can get an astronaut costume from on very short notice, and for sub 50 quid? I need it this time next week. I don't mean an average, shitty fancy-dress-party type outfit, I mean something that actually looks within some reasonable mark of the real deal.

You morning dose of… of… of something.

Alasdair — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:59:52 +0000

I don't know what the fuck this is other than "RoboGeisha".

Enjoy.

Free Instructions

Alasdair — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:42:27 +0000

This is the best image I have seen today:

In the spirit of this image, if you leave a comment, I will respond with your very own set of free instructions.

Michael Jackson: A quick poll

Alasdair — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:40:42 +0000

I have no particular axe to grind here, I'm just curious about something. According to my LJ profile page, there are 284 people who read my journal. Allowing for people who won't see this because they have filtered me away for doing nothing but posting links, dead journals, people who have lives and don't compulsively read LJ and people who just can't be arsed filling in a one question poll, I figure this give me a potential respondent pool of up to three people, which is enough to at least satisfy my curiosity.

See, I know a lot of people who will chin strokingly talk about Jackson's impact on pop music and how "he may have been a bit of a freak but those first two albums..." (I include myself in this number), and my friends list today is full of tasteless jokes, grief stricken comment, and other responses to his death but I don't know how many of those commenting actually own any of his albums, and as I say I'm curious:

View Poll: Michael Jackson

NB: if you own more than one copy of an album for some reason, please only count that album once.

It Is New Emusic Day

Alasdair — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:20:47 +0000

Which is always a happy occasion. Because I am a smug bastard, on a very old price plan that I have stubbornly refused to change because they don't offer anything like it at the moment, I get 65 tracks a month for a tenner.

But still: I like to use Emusic for getting exciting new music. Because I'm paying anyway, I figure I might as well use it to get new stuff.

So, if you're of a mind, recommend me stuff I won't have heard of. I'm not genre picky, so go for anything. (If you've got the time and inclination to check it's available on there, that would be ace.) But please: take the time to tell me why the artists in question are ace, and pick out some tracks you particularly think I should check out - if I get enough interesting recommendation, I may just grab a few tracks per artists this month, and then grab albums in future months...

Go! Tell me of your modern music!

Brigstocke On Religion

Alasdair — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:17:31 +0000

I was astonished to discover that there are people in the world who haven't heard this, and very specifically that one of them is tyrell, who, I suspect will be cheering along with this. So I am posting it, just in case anyone else hasn't heard it, because as far as I'm concerned, this should be played in every school in the country as part of a balanced RE syllabus.

No Need To Thank Me

Alasdair — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:10:49 +0000

And many more works of the Special Unicorn Tattoo Magic (including an old favourite) available here.

A Little May Day Music

Alasdair — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:02:56 +0000

Desperately Seeking

Alasdair — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:37:14 +0000

Abandoned industrial/warehouse space in London. I would really like to do some photoshoots in derelict industrial/warehouse space, or on largely empty industrial estates. Anyone know of anywhere that would fit this bill that I can make arrangements to use that won't see us having to scale fences to break in and/or getting chased off by security guards?

Hell, I'm even willing to sign indemnity paperwork and/or pay modest/reasonable fees for the use of the space.

Anyone know of anywhere? Anyone got *access* to anywhere that they'd be willing to let us into for a few hours on a Saturday/Sunday in exchange for beers or modest remuneration?

On A Lighter Note:

Alasdair — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:42:51 +0000

A guide to horses. Very important.

(via Phil)

Camille O’Sullivan

Alasdair — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:45:51 +0000

Would anyone be interested in acquiring a pair of tickets to see Camille O'Sullivan at The Soho Theatre next Tuesday? stu_n has a couple he needs to sell and to my chagrin I don't have the time next week to go myself, so I said I'd ask around.

In case you're wavering: she is ace, and you should go.

Just Ace

Alasdair — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:51:18 +0000

via mighty_god_king

A Recommendation:

Alasdair — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:24:58 +0000

I am posting just to say: if you are not watching riotclitshave then you fucking well should be. It is the best round-up of weird, wonderful, absurd, and occasionally horrible, images that I know. Every time I finish looking at a particular set of pictures, I am comforted that the world is a better, stranger and more interesting place than I thought it was.

Here, for example, is one of today's images.

Someone out there in the world genuinely has that inked on them. Either the world is a marvellous, entertaining, fucked up place, or we urgently need a nuclear armageddon to scourge the face of the earth with white hot fire. I'm good with either.

You wait for ages…

Alasdair — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:06:17 +0000

This is not intended to badger people, and I apologise for spaming the friends pages of uninterested parties, but I'm aware that the poll I posted yesterday was posted late at night, and may have gotten lost/buried down people's friends pages today.

It's a poll about who might be interested in coming to my place in Tooting to get your picture taken in an unusual outfit that you might happen to own. So obviously, if that's not you, then you can skip this, but it's just that when I mooted the project a while back I got a reasonably enthusiastic response from a decent number of people, but when it comes to actually to arrange something to happen, the response has dropped off markedly.

So: if you in the course of your life, dress up in funny outfits, for goth/fetish/steampunk/LARP/furry/steampunk/other reasons, and want a pair of photos of you taken, please, pop back and fill the poll in...

Photography: At The Bus Stop

Alasdair — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:55:57 +0000

Bet you all thought I'd forgotten, didn't you?

I hadn't. But a couple of days after I first posted about it, they started digging up the road. They finished digging it up a couple of weeks back, but I was busy with stuff at work, and other randoms stuff, and didn't really have time to think about it. And anyway: the weather's improving a bit. And while I do want some shots in the rain, my general preference is likely to be for sunlight. Of some kind.

Those of you wondering what the fuck I'm talking about, by the way, should go here, but the brief version is that I have a number of friends who belong to one or more subcultures that involve dressing up, and I want to do a series of photos with willing people of two shots each - one in normal clothes, the other dressed up in their finery, in identical poses at the bus stop.

I'm planning to get groups of 3-6 people in at a time - that should give me enough time to get decent photos of each person, and mean that we've enough space about the place for people to get changed, apply make-up, and so on.

So, for those of you interested (and if you didn't say you were interested last time, you can always say so now), please indicate dates that you would be willing/able to lug a costume to my place in Tooting, and have a few shots taken of you, in exchange for all the tea and biscuits you can consume, and hi-res digital copies of the two resulting images.

I'll then drop people emails trying to sort out specific dates/times/groups. I'll probably want a range of daytime/evening/night shots.

NB: like I said last time - this is a moderately busy bus stop, on a main road. You won't be out there in your costume very long, and it is literaly outside my front door, but still: it will be pretty public. That's the appeal of the project - the very ordinary context. So if you're nervous about being seen in public in the outfit you want to use, do say - we can always try and arrange a night shoot, when the street is emptier, but I would like *some* day shoots if I can...

Everyone follow that? Good. Please to be ticking the boxes.

View Poll: Photos at the bus stop!

Publication!

Alasdair — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:10:27 +0000

If anyone of this parish happens to be the sort of person who might pick up a copy of Bizarre magazine now and again, then you could do worse than pick up this month's issue, as one of my photos is in it, alongside their review of the Amanda Palmer gig I was at the other month. I sent them a choice of photos, so naturally, they've used the one I like least, but still, that's one of my photos in print that is. I am now an internationally published photographer. (I've previously been published in Sweden, some years ago.) Which is nice.

Attention Creatures Of Toronto

Alasdair — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:06:21 +0000

I'll be in your town, drinking your booze from the 7th to the 15th of May. Suggestions for places to eat, drink and take photos of neon signs are required.

Extreme Sheep-herding

Alasdair — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:36:43 +0000

No, really.

Invisible Cities

Alasdair — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:59:58 +0000

Anyone want to confess to having my copy? I haven't seen it in a while, and I kind of miss it.

Gervais and Elmo

Alasdair — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:01:08 +0000

I am not a fan of either of them. But put them together, and there is a very special magic.

Friday Night Comedy Hour

Alasdair — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:02:45 +0000

A meme, lifted from budgie_uk for the purposes of providing me with distraction in between my Friday night programming:

Ask me a question, any question, and I hereby promise I'll answer it dishonestly. I may prevaricate, I may stall, I may just simply flat out lie. But I'll not answer the question honestly and straight-forwardly.

Note: neither the questions nor answers are screened. However, I reserve the right to screen any questions if, y'know, it's funnier.

Go!

I Am In A Cheery Mood Today

Alasdair — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 16:19:13 +0000