There’s a discussion on Thumped about the merits of “visuals” at gigs/shows. Personally speaking, I’m all in favour of some sort of visual show to accompany the music, especially when the music of the particularly chin-stroking variety. Although I can see where many people’s complaints are coming from: it gets very tiring seeing the same handful of movies being chopped up to make a visual backdrop.
So that’s why I think something like EffecTV is such a good idea. Armed with a computer running Linux and a webcam, you can create some pretty interesting visuals in real-time, for a tiny, tiny budget. Installation (on Ubuntu, at least) was a snap. And it goes some way to providing a middle-ground for the people who don’t want to spend the night looking at a DJ nodding his head and people who don’t want to see the same old stock footage soaked in irony.
Here’s a shot of me playing with it earlier - not mind-blowing, but bear in mind that this was being displayed on my desktop in real time.
I recently bought another new DVD player - a Sony DVP-NS52. Both the Sony Store and Peats offer to make this player multi-region for an extra EUR20. I opted not to go for this and take my chances unlocking it myself (albeit safe in the knowledge that I could bring it into Peats and get them to unlock it at any time in the future for the EUR20).
Anyone with a region-locked Sony DVD player could do worse than to check out Selen.org’s Making the Sony DVP-NS705V multi-region before shelling out for a “chip” or anything like that. Although this didn’t list my model explicitly, it did say that it theoretically should work for the entire “NS” series, and has even worked across other models. I tried it on mine last night and success!
One note though - Windows 2000 and XP have nasty IR support. You’re much better grabbing a DOS boot disk from bootdisk.com and using that instead.
My girlfriend took off to Westport on Friday for a hen weekend, leaving me with an entire weekend to myself. By Friday evening, I had slipped back into the exact lifestyle I lived before I met her. Watching bad movies, eating food that would rot my teeth (and my gut) and playing games that would rot my brain.
Over the course of a single weekend, I watched nine movies (For the record: Children of the Corn I-III, House of the Dead, Jaws, the Incredibles w/animators commentary, Red Sonja, Exorcist III, Clerks). I also spent some time rearranging my DVDs. After trying a few standard organisational schemes (Alphabetical, chronological..), I decided to set myself a challenge and organise my 800+ DVDs by colour (and then by sub-colour, e.g. white background with red writing, white background with blue writing).
I’m not entirely thrilled with the results. Disappointingly, approximately 60% of my DVDs have either black or white sleeves, which means that our shelves look a whole lot more sterile than I’d hoped.
My favourite organisational scheme so far has been contextual - Robocop beside Total Recall beside Scanners (Paul Verhoeven directed Robocop, he also directed Total Recall, Total Recall has Michael Ironside who also starred in Scanners). Because the context is purely my own, it makes the whole thing more personal. This was fine when I had a couple of hundred DVDs, it could be done in an afternoon. At 800, I think I’ll need a week off work.
I also spent a while getting back into GTA: SA. Given the recent furor about the “Hot Coffee mod”, I’ve been shocked at the amount of stuff that people aren’t getting upset about. For example, a billboard with an image of a girl licking her lips suggestively and the words “A taste of what’s to come” that suddenly gets a hole ripped in it to change the words to “A taste of … come.”
Browsing around the cookery section in Chapters, I came across a book called “Potatoes: Mash and More.” Atkins be damned, I love potatoes and I’m always searching to make the perfect mash. Unfortunately, the book doesn’t reveal any previously-unknown tips, so my mash remains at “average”, but it does have a few other good ideas which suit my tasty-but-easy demeanor.
So last night, I decided to try out their “Potato Bravas”, with a few changes.
Ingredients:
(Serves 2)
10 small new potatoes
1 Chorizo, chopped into thin slices
1 medium onion chopped fine
4 tablespoons Olive Oil
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 teaspoon “Cajun” seasoning
Salt
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 220 degrees.
Chop the potatoes into 1cm slices and lay them in a baking tray, one row deep. Drizzle all over with olive oil and salt, and put it into the oven for 30 minutes, turning occasionally.
Make the sauce: put the olive oil, water, red wine vinegar, chili powder and cajun seasoning into a bowl and mix well. Add some salt to season.
In a pan, fry the onions until they’re opaque but not brown, then add the chorizo. Turn the heat down to a low simmer.
Pour the sauce into the pan and add the potatoes. Keep turning until the potatoes are completely covered and the sauce has reduced down.
Pour into bowls and serve with sour cream and salsa.
Now I have one less reason to go to the Market Bar.
A few things before I disappear for the weekend (still no broadband at home!)
BBBQ
The weather being unnaturally sunny and warm, and I being Irish and a slave to tradition, we’re having a barbeque tonight. As well as making tabbouleh, babaganoush, Moroccan pork chops and the old favourite: cheeseburgers, I’m hoping to approximate the taste of the chicken wings from Elephant and Castle, which are easily the best in Dublin (Magruder’s on Thomas Street taking second place).
Games
My copy of Everyone Loves Katamari arrived today, and I’m hoping to give it a good blast over the weekend. But my back-log has reached the point of panic. I’m also in the middle of playing:
God of War
Gameplay is fast and kinetic - you can literally tear your enemies apart in a shower of blood. “Contains Strong Bloody Violence” indeed. The sex mini-games are slightly embarassing, however.
Destroy all Humans
Bought cheap in Game. Not the most spectacular game ever, but worth the occasional look. Amazing physics though :)
Midway Arcade Classics 2
I bought this purely for Hard Drivin’_ and _NARC, two of my favourite games when I were a lad.
To top it all off, my girlfriend and I are playing Silent Hill 2 together (her: to prepare for the upcoming Roger Avary movie; me: because I just can’t play that game on my own).
Cycling
I bought a bike last weekend, and have been making the most of the freedom it has given me. It has broken the chains of lunchtime bondage - Spar/Centra/Mannings (virtually the only places to get lunch on Thomas Street). I’ve been zipping into Blazing Salads for lunch and eating it in Stephen’s Green, and have been gorging myself on their baked tofu and goat’s cheese pizza.
So far, I’m please to say that I haven’t really been in any major scrapes, touch wood (touches wood), but if you see someone on a grey bike whizzing past you and he looks like he’s not really paying any attention - watch out! And sorry!
johnke.me