Sub-chaos

Why is it you wake up one day and electronic devices, apps or software that were formerly useful and stable suddenly stop? Apple, Samsung, Sony, Google, Facebook, BT, Twitter or HP; they all do it without explanation. "Can't locate the network, error 404, insufficient memory, data cannot be found, different format, instruction not understood, not recognised, file missing." The list is endless but worst of all is their stubborn refusal to carry out the action they did easily and smoothly yesterday - like printing, uploading, downloading, having a set screen format, showing you the default settings you agreed.

Back in the 90's we patched and debugged programmes and thought that all this conflicted shit would stop any day soon. We championed collaboration and sharing. That never did happen. It's looking to me like a complex conspiracy (even as I type this the Blogger error bar is telling me "an error has occurred" by adding a stupid pink stripe to the top of my screen, no proper explanation is offered or a solution, there's just this "error" somewhere. It suggests that it may involve the spell checker but that's still working, WTF!) that confirms that the universe is an imperfect place where everything is at odds with everything else; incompatibility rules and chaos wants to take us over. It would if it could but the trouble with chaos is that it can't organise itself sufficiently to do this (it is chaotic after all) so we have sub-chaos; normal life and irritation and relentless error messages.

For the record: Samsung refuses to upload photos to Picasa despite doing it for the last nine months with no problem. iPhoto now accepts Samsung Jpegs despite rejecting them for...nine months. You are complete and incompetent bastards, whoever you are!

In car selfie

Somewhere outside a branch of B&Q people are taking selfies from inside of their cars while sending texts and trying to remember quite what it is they are there for. A dark and steady rain is falling. Today's purchase was a new lock for the bathroom door. The previous locking system having capitulated in the the great and slightly drunken pre-New Year festivities late one night or early one morning. It was a long story that I may tell another day but thankfully the duvet has been renewed and some order restored.

Out on the river those panic merchants at SEPA are warning of imminent flood risks and secondary pestilence. It's all across the web, the modern media and the East Coast seeking out it's potential victims. We stepped out in our waterproofs into the mayhem and hysteria at 1630 to check the necessary levels. The sea was as calm as Galilee used to be, albeit the waters were lapping higher up towards the road and other people's houses. Comforted by the littered and milky waters and the viscous tidal patterns we retired for some leftover pasta engineering works and Saturday wine; always the best of the week after Friday.

UnChristmased

Favourite Christmas picture (I'm not the daddy either).

There the deed is done, the once gay and proud Christmas tree lies naked in the back garden, the lights and tinsel are back in their boxes, the baubles and holly are rested in shoe boxes and old shopping bags. I'm experiencing a bloody great feeling of relief, a sense of decluttering and some smug satisfaction now that it's done. Christmas is fun and crazy and infuriating, I enjoy it but I'm well glad when it's all over and parceled up and away. Outside a storm is raging and the windows are rattling - winter holidays are ok most of the time but the extremes of the Scottish weather works against any bid to go outside or even empty the Hoover.

Today's post is my 2000th and marks the rough tenth anniversary of this blog (forget the other two running and stuttering in the background). Not the most interesting, prolific or regular of blogs and with many hits that come and then...go. I sometimes wonder where I'm going with this and when the plug will be pulled on this mode of "chucking lumps of rubbish into a black hole" communication or will it just die a slow and dignified death? Who knows, it's just one of those many manifestations of the marvels of chronic uncertainty that keeps us all going really.

TV Sherlock: finally got around to watching the return last night, not sure what to make of it yet, roll on Sunday's episode. David Blane seemed able to pull stunts to shock and entertain a little more effectively the other evening - no crimes were solved or prevented however.

Now down and out and in the garden.

Still running out of time

The world according to Beachcomber: Today, the last of something called twenty thirteen and a topic of some excitement here and there, the sun shone so I cycled and wondered about a bit fuelled only by strong cauliflower cheese and weak tea. Out exploring my favourite things discovered were a) the washed up ladder and b) a big and useful (?) log. The log was eventually retrieved from the beach using an unreliable wheel barrow and a fair amount of physical effort. It's now in the garden awaiting the allocation of some proper and permanent function once the weather stabilises.The spooky wee shrine can be found in the local derelict graveyard. It seems to have been disturbed by the wind and weather and a few essential artifacts are missing (animal bones, voodoo dolls, dead flowers, human blood etc.) so I imagine it's delicate powers are running at a bit of a low level right now, the rites of spring will no doubt perk it up; that and the Satanic dancing and chanting.

Late Great Christmas Message: On a more philosophical note my questioning type of advice to one and all would be to ask you; "just what voices are you listening to and believing in and why?" A lot of people are listening to incorrect or wrong and distorted messages that are coming from their brain's left side, their fuzzy feelings, the BBC, their cats, their peer group, imagined gods, their dead budgies, rap artists or junkpile magazines, music, social media and websites. So get yourself sorted out and listen to some of the positive messages about yourself that are broadcast regularly from friendly forces in deep space and act upon them. In closing I'd ask you all to stay classy in 2014 and watch a little more of Sky Arts 1 and Discovery Turbo and buy some more useless shit on eBay and Amazon in order that the economy can remain highly stimulated and active and my pension pot can flourish.

So here's to 2013...

Christmas video posted late

Ali filmed this using a remote time lapse camera on delay and so compressed about 6 hours into a minute. The soundtrack is an edit of "Seasonal Strut" by us. It's been on FBook and now gravitated to YouTube. Anyway that was Christmas, next it's New Year I believe.

29th December

Grumpy stone lion tile has gloomy potential in or around the new wing.

Out seeking a fresh air cure for the usual  self induced hangover and being led along the shore road by enthusiastic grand children. As it turned out a full Atkin's Diet style breakfast and a Coke eventually did the job a few hours later and normal service has now been restored. 

Spotted today in a Fife car park. This cheeky conversion of what I think once was a Suzuki van is a  clever piece of work.

Winter Warming

The roar of the pyromaniac induced solid fuel burner, the roar of the winter winds and the roar of the boiling seaside. All strangely comforting at this time of year.

TFWM

Here's a player from Bandcamp where you can listen to and download our Christmas type extravaganza (it's also on Jamendo now). Other than that and  I know it's only the 23rd but I may not blog much over what I hope is a busy and enjoyable holiday spell. End of message, Happy Crimble one and all.

Woodland Daily Motors

Picture 1. This old (they all are old now of course) Porsche 924 is apparently abandoned in a back garden nearby, it reminded me of Neil Young's Trans-Am song; "the old Trans-Am by the side of the road that needs a headlight fixed." This Porsche needs a bit more than that if it's ever to get back up and running. Blood, sweat, tears and black finger nails. Shame it's finished in "60 day blue" paintwork.

Picture 2. Blocked in by a Fiat 500, it could've been worse I suppose.

Just pay attention, out there, in the countryside, in the woods, maybe down by the beach; there are many lonely and unwanted cars that need a home for Christmas. Will you help please?

Ding Dong - Digital Litter

I say, this looks rather good if a little over sized and formatted without the finer points of Blogger and basic spacial awareness being taken into account. Is it possible to purchase a copy or are these foolish but generous individuals just giving it all away again?  WTF is their business model and why are they even bothering? It'll all just  end up as more digital litter on some file sharing website in Eastern Europe and they'll have loads of fans in Israel and the Philippines and fail to engage with any of them, believe me. Sometimes when I think about IS I just feel that they really don't care much about the money or the under exposure, it's all just red wine, Christmas cards and Maltesers to them, really.

Artificial Intelligence

"Hello Dave...aka CBQ."

Understanding 2001(the film) in 8 easy steps:

1. Aliens put a device on Earth that fast-forwards the evolution of apes to a higher form.
2. The higher form (us) find a similar device buried on the Moon.
3. When found, it sends a wake-up call to its buddies' portal, left out near Jupiter.
4. We take a hike to Jupiter, entrusting the lives of the crew to an A.I.
5. The A.I. goes loony-tunes and wastes most of the crew (later we find out why it went bananas).
6. The last crew member slips into the portal and is whisked across the cosmos.
7. He ends up in a kind of zoo, built from blueprints of his memories, and therefore a place that he will understand.
8. Time is an illusion. Doubly so in that place, which can hardly be described as real. He sees himself as he is now, as he will be as a dying man, and how he will be when advanced to the next stage of evolution.

Got that?

P.S. The device or sentinel also looks like a cinema screen on it's side but moves through various angles, cinema therefore captures, describes and changes history...that's another theory.

The word or term or whatever "artificial intelligence" (A.I.) was first used/coined/spoken in 1955, the year of my birth.

Trivial but

It's a nice enough ham salad sandwich on brown bread but was supposed to be a wholemeal roll with roast beef and salad- at least that's what my brain told my tongue and mouth and larynx to order at the cafe counter. Alas my own severe Central Scotland speech impediments cannot be translated clearly across the great divide of wide open lands and barren glens leading up to Brechin in the far north (About 65 miles away). You can understand how easy it is to start a civil war or carry out a decent tribal feud when there is so much simple but effective linguistic misunderstanding going on in the world.

I wonder...

...if any of these carefully placed books might be copies of The Quran or Das Kapital or even The Hobbit? 

Busy with a piano

Mad but friendly, dark and liquorice microphone tells us in strange microphone language that  we're all too busy with the seasonal nonsense to make any sense and then somehow send silly material out all over the place in blog form. We're also busy with a clever piano bit.

Dunfermline Daily Photo

Here's the Moon Kid's custom art installation and  modified bench located on a public path a few yards from Dunfermline's own Carnegie Hall. This bench is available for use by the general public 24/7 most days, weather and advance bookings permitting. Suggested uses include: having a wee rest, sitting doon fur a fag, swigging Buckie, a five minute meditation interlude, dog pee venue, snogging a bird, a spiritual retreat (temporary), sorting out that troublesome shoplifting spoil, reading yesterday's Daily Record, adjusting yer kegs, spying on folks in cars, taking time out from sk8boarding,  or just sipping a quiet can of fine Polish lager and scoffing a Greggs steakbake. The choice dear reader, is all yours.

Looking Forward

It's official, I'm looking forward to Christmas this year (is that a new thing?). Perhaps it's age, battered hormones, sense of entitlement, dutiful weather, unread horoscopes and unseen alien interventions in my life all finally coming together to celebrate both the great meaningless and the mighty but tiny meaningful. The best of everything and worst of very little, materialism, greed and relative safety, a new way of seeing just punching me in the face. We're not so badly off in this badly run country, that probably makes no sense but it's true. So forget those media darlings, talking heads and political twats that have annoyed the hell out of you all year. Most of them are just fuzzy images full of ignorant wind and discoloured fermented urine. So dig the pants out of Christmas despite them. Simmer in the unfair heat and the oven like warmth, some strong red or amber drink, ridiculous food and noisy bairns and ignored new toys, all scattered around in some chaotic storm of warped religious nonsense with the promise of scattered anti social snow. Nothing matters apart from driving out any Winter demons that by now badly need driven out and then enjoy the slow process of delicious blame, delight and extended recovery. All I really need to do now to experience the most from this bizarre and selfishly internalised festival is to get my car's exhaust fixed, record an album, do a little shopping, go to work a few times, tidy up, iron shirts, wrap up things, drive north, drive south, spend money, have a few good ideas, find a tree, make things up on the spot...etc. And don't forget out there, above the skies and for as far as Brian Cox can clearly observe, it's only a big fat hologram of a thing that we're seeing. Something about that thought gives me an appetite for life.

So another storm passes over

Songs that I've woken up to by mostly singing to myself in a comforting way (or possibly are being sung by weird and sinister  celestial choirs stuck in a loop playing inside my head) this week:

Hue & Cry - Violently (no idea where that came from, truly awful).
Steely Dan - Deacon Blue. Turns up from time to time.
Frankie goes to Hollywood - Power of Love. Heard it on the radio.
The Smiths - Charming Man. Not a surprise.
Neil Young - There's a World. Hadn't even thought of this one for years.
Theme from Sir Prancalot - ?
Random and forgotten Christmas Carols. Putting it down to the time of year. It's better than having tinnitus I suppose.

This is never as bad as it looks.

Somewhere in Central Scotland.

I strayed out past Grangemouth the other day and in the moody grey morning caught these odd, giant so-called Kelpie Heads roaring with no voice at the uncaring motorway traffic. Sometimes everything looks like art and sometimes there is just no art to be found  in anything. Scotland's struggle to understand continues...

Beginning to look...

... a lot like a good time to form up a comprehensive to do list that I can sign up for. Of course it's a bit too early for the pre-Christmas panic, that's next weekend but I can hear it's still, small god-like voice whispering and nagging, hoping to get it's own way and break me down into a quivering shopping hungry mass. Amazon, eBay and Black Friday were not all they were cracked up to be, just lists of dumb gifts from the Generation Game conveyor belt brought up to date, digested and digitised. All the consumer mantrap things I said I would avoid this year, based on last year now surround me. Most of that rude learning I've so quickly forgotten. The simple solution is of course to take an afternoon off work and just go mad, the trouble is that the opportunity to grasp that precious, obvious  and fragile moment is fading in a kind of comedy slow motion way, all vague and grainy and unfunny. So it's beginning to look a lot like panic.

Just a feeling

In the great and over arching cosmic wondering of it all it can sometimes feel like you're not really making any progress at all - sometimes plus and extra (ditto) ordinary sometimes and sometimes heavy plus. That of course is quite untrue, just a feeling you get. Ignore it if you can.