Category: Blog

Poster Boy (part two)

November 6, 2012

Earlier this year, this post caused a few chuckles. Who doesn’t love terrible old photos?

Certainly not me! So with pride, two more:

Lovely aren’t they? Thanks to my brother for fishing these out of an abyss 🙂

Now, some analysis. Obviously these two photos were taken at the same time as before, and painful as it may be to admit, the calendar dates it as 1987. The bottom picture (these were taken in my room) shows bits of the same posters as before. But there is now more to be seen, so much more!

For starters, in the top picture, in which I’m pulling off an early Monkey D Luffy look, the wall behind me is plastered in vaguely homoerotic art. Most prominent above me is a Depeche Mode poster (circa 1985), but I can also see Duran Duran, U2, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw and (dare I admit it?!) Wham. Can anyone decipher any of the other posters?

Ignoring my outfit for now (and frankly, for ever), let’s investigate what I hold. In my right hand is my yellow (yes, yellow) Sharp QT12 cassette player. This may have been my second favourite possession in those days. In the other hand? Well, lets just say this poster is proof for anyone who doubted this post (specifically the third-last paragraph).

But, as much as you’ll guffaw at the photo with me in it, the true gem for me is the lower of the two photos. Here we see a very rare example of my artistic skills of the day! On the dresser and back of the door you can see four pictures that I drew. The one partially cut off is an Alphaville picture, possibly the cover of Forever Young. The other three show my renditions of the following…

The white dragon from Caverns Of The Snow Witch:

The cover of Afternoons In Utopia, done in a very minimalistic style:

And a ‘Mezzodaemon’ from Fiend Folio:

If you look very closely, you can also see gamebooks in the little bookshelf in the lower left (under a statue of Mary)!

I love this photo. All the same sorts of things I rave on about now are right there – 25 years ago. I just love that I was drawing massive drawings of monsters from gamebooks and sticking them on my wall.

Next time I see some college nerd strutting his stuff, I can say with confidence “Let me tell you kid, I was drawing mezzodaemons even before you were born!” 🙂

Return Of The Trophy Challenge!

October 30, 2012

In the history of this blog, no two posts have generated as much controversy and commentary as the legendary ‘Trophy Challenge’ entries (*). You can review them here and here.

Two years have passed since that last post with nary an update! Dear readers, it pains me to say that the competition fizzled. My opponents, like craven dogs, simply gave up. They stopped logging on, they let their PS3’s die and didn’t buy a replacement, and worse of all they admitted defeat. The challenge was over…

Or was it…?

Good readers, you’ll be overjoyed to learn that the challenge didn’t end, it merely moved! We collectively turned our backs on pS3 trophies as a measure of our merit, and instead wholeheartedly adopted Apple’s Game Center as our new flagship. Happily, I can report all such original contenders have once again rekindled their competitive streak, and unendingly seek to raise their Game Center achievement total above all others. (Of course some of them seemingly sought to hide their participation behind new usernames, but it was a work of trifling deduction to match them to their old PS3 ID’s)

In addition, a fresh face has entered the contest. This person – let’s call them ‘Bearbles’ – has sprinted from the starting line like a raging horse, and has truly and quickly become a force to be reckoned with in the hallowed halls of my Game Center friends list.

At last, the update we’ve all been waiting for: Here, my beloved followers, is the most recent standings, using the same user names as were used in the old challenge:

The above chart shows total Game Center score. With great humility, I will direct your attention to my name, on the left.

And yet, what if we inspect average score based on the number of games played:

I tip my hat to you Bearbles. You are a force to be reckoned with in the sport of Game Centering. If you can keep that average up and play the same number of games I have, your total score would verily dwarf mine.

I vow, loving readers, that I will update these standings periodically. And such updates will no doubt be necessary, for an even darker horse is waiting in the winds. A veritable Mycroftian in the world of competitive-achievement-score-accumulation, he is even now preparing to obtain his first iOS device and has no doubt already set his sights on unseating up to Foosrazzle, probably Bearbles and even – dare I say – the current undisputed King of Game Center Achievements – myself 🙂

* – Boldfaced lie

iPhone Panoramas

September 21, 2012

iOS6, the latest version of the iPhone and iPad operating system is out. Amongst other changes comes the ability for iPhones to take panoramic photos. Here’s one I just took:

Click on it for a larger view. Not bad is it? Considering how easy the interface is to use, I’m very pleased with the implementation and the field of view. Note that the version uploaded here (not the preview above, the image you seen when clicked on) is actually one fourth the size of the original (which is 8000+ pixels wide and 6MB). I can’t upload the original file due to filesize limitations on the blog uploader.

Here’s a closeup showing the detail level:

I rescaled the above (the actual picture you see when clicked on, not the preview) to double size. You can see it’s a bit pixelated to be sure, but still quite good considering how tiny a fraction of the original panorama this snippet is.

I’m planning on using my phone as my sole camera during my upcoming Australian trip. I was a bit hesitant because I always liked the panorama mode on my camera. While the new iOS version lacks some of the functionality (you can’t change direction or limit angle for instance), it seems to do a very good job.

Robot Claw