Aliens are among us...

Well, they are if you believe Luchezar Filipov who is (or perhaps was, until this) deputy head of the Space Exploration department at the Bulgarian Academy of Science, who recently gave a press conference to give an update on how alien contact is doing...

Apparently, the aliens are communicating with Bulgarian scientists through the use of pictograms in crop circles and are 'friendly and willing to help us'.

With that said, the aliens are apparently unhappy with the use of artificial insemination and - in a move perhaps designed to keep the Taliban happy - are also critical of the use of make-up (both get slated for being 'unnatural').

I would officially like to say, I'll have some of whatever Mr Filipov has been smoking...

Give the gift of Chlamydia this Christmas...

Ok, so I stumbled across this company and simply had to blog about it.

You have to admire the demented genius of this - a range of giant-sized, cuddly, soft toy microbes representing some of the world's most feared bacteria and viruses.

The green one on the left is Chlamydia and is part of a set that includes E-coli, H1N1 (Swine Flu to its friends) and MRSA. I can't help but imagine some of the intriguing conversations (and subsequent turkey-based choking) that may be going on at Christmas Dinner tables around the world this year...

Granny: "So, what did Father Christmas give you two for Christmas?"
Little Billy: "He gave me Chlamydia, Granny."
Little Sally: "I wanted him to give me Chlamydia as well but he gave me Syphilis instead..."
Granny: *clutches chest*

But it's not just your common-or-garden viruses and sexual transmitted diseases. Oh no! They also have in stock a soft-toy version of the Ebola Virus - one of the best candidates for wiping out huge swathes of human life should it ever mutate into an airborne variant.

I'm just wondering how US Customs would respond should you, in answer to their question of 'anything to declare?', reply 'Nothing, apart from the fact that I've got enough Ebola Virus in my suitcase to give to my children and all their friends...

A new day, a new novel...

Today I started work on my second novel.

The first novel was finished over the summer in a bout of frenzied writing and, while I really liked it, I don't currently have any intention of submitting it for publication. The second novel, however, is an altogether different beast and I've set my sights firmly on writing something that is quite at home sitting on a bookshelf in Waterstones...

I can't tell you too much about it at this stage save to say that it's set in the late 19th Century and contains more than a smidgen of humour. Oh, and the first line (well, unless I revise it later) is:

"I awoke, for the second time, on Wednesday morning with a sore toe."

First day...well, afternoon...

Well the first afternoon of my, quite possibly world changing, facebook group has not been entirely successful. And, when I say not entirely successful, I actually mean entirely unsuccessful...

But - fear not! - time is very much on my side.

Meanwhile, over at vkontakte, my group is already doing a roaring trade with 10 members straight away. So, it seems - yet again - the revolution must start in Russia!

An idea...

How many times have you found yourself thinking 'if only I knew someone who did that' or 'if only I knew someone I could ask about that' or even 'if only I knew someone I could borrow that from'

Well, that was the idea behind my new attempt at spreading a little worldwide joy - the creation of groups on facebook , vkontakte and (hopefully soon) myspace where people can ask for - and grant- favours for other people.

I think there are always times when we need help; whether it's finding a great restaurant to propose in or borrowing a two metre banana (if you need one, let me know!). And if there was a huge group of people in one place able to ask and return favours, wouldn't that be a cool thing?

Maybe it's a crazy idea - but I kind of hope it might work...

How Facebook suggests friends

A brief aside...

Today, after years of total neglect, I blew the dust and cobwebs off my facebook account and peered inside. Not a whole lot it had to be said; although there were a couple of images to the right hand side of the screen labelled as 'suggestions'.

These are, apparently, people that Facebook has decided that you might know - based (I assumed) upon mutual friends. So far, so good. But, in amongst the list of suggestions was a name that I recognised from a long, long time ago - Aleks Krotoski. She's (and I quote from her website) "an academic and journalist who writes about and studies technology and interactivity". But I don't know Aleks from this; I know Aleks because - at one point in a long distant past - I shared an office with her then boyfriend and bumped into her in a shop that sold cheap (but strangely tasty) Yorkshire pudding based edibles.

And that's it. That's how we know each other. How on Earth did Facebook know about this??? And she's not the only person from my time before blogging that peered at me from the murky waters of the 'suggested friends' page - people I've not even thought about, but who are somehow linked to me...

I'm slightly scared. Facebook appears to know more about me than I do myself...

Sorry

Updates have been a bit thin on the ground recently, haven't they?

This is, contrary to what I would like to believe, all my fault. So I feel an urgent need to bring you up to date with things:

1) My epic blues trip. Sadly, due to fiscal constraints, this is very much on the back burner...

2) Running is going a little better - it has declined a little with the recent inclement weather but I am still getting out once or twice a week. And, at the beginning of October, I even managed to (bravely) slog through a 10km race (52 mins 14 seconds if you're wondering).

So, with discovering the blues off the menu, I decided I needed something else to doodle around with in the background and hit upon an idea for something in a similar area to my earlier 'applying for unsuitable jobs' which will, at the least, provide me with some degree of amusement. Can't say too much about it yet - all hush-hush, etc. - all to be revealed soon...

A minor setback to one set of plans...

Well, I didn't quite manage the 'run on two consecutive days' thing *blushes* - you see, I forgot I would be going out to watch the Champions League final on the night. And I forget that when watching football at the pub, I always seem to drink too much beer. Not only that but, having drunk far too much beer already, I accidentally called into another bar on the way home (I didn't plan it!) and met up with a couple of people - which of course required that I consume more beer. And, since I'd already drank FAR too much beer by this point, it seemed just about the best idea in the world ever.

The consequence was that the only way you'd have got me out of bed at 6am the following morning was if the house had been on fire. And I'm pretty certain I'd have stayed in bed as long as possible in the hope they could put it out before it reached where I slept.

I did go running again today though. Same route, same result (three laps). I am certain my legs will complain loudly about it tomorrow.

New Guitar Techniques magazine arrived - will peruse it at my leisure later - but it looks to be jam packed with cool stuff as per usual. I just keeping hoping that is possible to improve my guitar playing skills just by reading it enough (perhaps through some kind of osmosis).

New Guitar Recording and Other Stuff

Well, I've been working on my blues a little bit - to the point that I actually went as far as trying to record something last night. It's a blues in C, using a backing track from Guitar Techniques magazine. 

Upon relistening to it; I quite like it. It starts a little bit awkwardly but gets better as it goes on. Possibly.

One frustration I have with my playing is that, while I love the fast playing of people like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Bonamassa, Paul Gilbert, Joe Satriani (and a host of others) it's just not something that seems to come naturally to my playing. It's not that I can't play fast - in isolation I can pick reasonably quickly - it's just when I come to improvise it seems that my mind tells me to play slowly. I'm not sure whether it's simply I'm not good enough or whether I should accept that playing slowly is my bag. After all, BB King seems to get by without too many blazing runs or sweep picking...

Have a listen to my latest effort HERE

On an entirely different note, I've decided I really need to get back to being in shape. Too much sedentary work, not enough exercise, etc. So this morning I went for a jog in the local park. Managed three laps (which I guess is about 2 miles) and felt pretty good that I'd actually got up at 6am and gone running. Whether I can make it two mornings in a row, we'll have to see...

Recorded some guitar...

I was listening to Joe Bonamassa's 'The River' and really enjoyed the slide guitar so I thought I would retune my guitar and dig out an old glass slide I'd purchased several years ago...

I tuned the guitar to F-C-F-A-C-F  - which may look a more than slightly strange tuning (I was a little dubious, it has to be said!) but it turned out to give a fabulous sound.

The only problem was I couldn't find my slide and, despite attempting to improvise with (amongst other things) the neck of a beer bottle (while still attached to the rest of the bottle) and a bacardi shot measurer, I didn't quite manage to capture the glorious sound of a slide guitar.

Still, I liked the tuning a lot so I decided to have a go at finally recording something (after about five years of silence) and so got my PodXT set up to record with my laptop and RiffWorksT4 to record with and provide a drum backing.

You can hear my recording here - it's two tracks of guitar, one gently overdriven (Blackface) and the other a far heavier sound (Treadplate). It's one take for each so maybe a bit messy but, still, I'm quite pleased with how it sounds. Be interested to hear your comments...