8
Feb
Posted by Christine in Blog. Tagged: Android, Apple, iPod, Lists, Nano, Playback, Podcasts, ProPrompter, Touch. 8 Comments
I’ve always been an iPod Nano person. I had the first gen Nano, a long, blocky, black thing, with a small and grainy screen, and enormous body. I skipped the second generation in preference for the third, although I was initially wary of the squat little thing. From a taller, more elegant solution, the third gen was a bit of a handful. It’s no surprise to me that they returned to the elongated shape for version four.
I never wanted to upgrade to a bigger iPod, aside from storage space, because I liked the compact nature, and it was perfect for transcribing. When I had the time to complete Sidepodcast transcripts, it was a great way of listening, pausing, typing, repeat until complete. Now, though, I have no time for transcribing, and more time for playing with apps.
Mr C has had the iPod Touch for ages now, and I’ve been allowed peeks at it every now and again. Oh, who am I kidding? I totally comandeered it and bought games I wanted to play, to the point that Mr C was aghast at the things Genius was recommending him. “Farm Frenzy 2?” he would say, eyebrows raised.
After writing about our experiences with the teleprompting app ProPrompter, we were informed that a new version was out, that allowed remote control from one iPod Touch to another. That’s two, in the same house. Cue an order with Apple. Yes!
So, now I am the proud owner of an iPod Touch. I have only been using it for about two days and already, I am in love with the iPod experience all over again. Here are five things that have been revolutionary to me:
- The skip back thirty seconds feature. I spend every spare waking moment I can with my ears plugged in and people are always trying to grab my attention. I naturally lose focus on what I’m listening to, but the scrub functions are so inaccurate. Skip back 30 seconds, and keep on listening. Genius.
- Podcasts in the same order as iTunes. I’m not sure there is any adequate expression of frustration I could use to demonstrate my feelings about the Nano. The Archers is listed under A in the iTunes podcast list, but falls under T once it’s loaded onto the Nano. Suffice it to say, this is no longer a problem.
- x2 speed playback. I can listen to double the output in the same amount of time? Sold.
- Podcasts listed in date order, earliest first. I could never quite figure out why sometimes the Nano would go from one podcast to the next and sometimes it would stop dead at the end of a file. Nevertheless, if it did play straight through, I wouldn’t want it to because the podcasts are listed from most recent backwards, meaning listening to things out of order. Not really an option, and thank goodness it’s fixed.
- Erm, did I mention the x2 speed? I don’t actually have a fifth, but I really do enjoy listening to half hour shows in 15 minutes. I have to pay slightly more attention when they’re talking fast, but it is very worth it.
I get the feeling I might be talking about apps a little bit more on this here blog, which makes me feel guilty towards Android. I’ll try and share the love.
6
Feb
Posted by Christine in Blog. Tagged: Advertising, Building, Council, Cranes, Slogans, Supermarket. 1 Comment
Recently, I drove past one of those building sites with white boarding all the way round. It was early on in the building process, as there was no sign of any brickwork, and merely a crane or two ready to get going. On the white boarding were some advertising hoardings, preparing you for the new supermarket that will appear at some point in the future.
The slogan read something like: Delicious things are worth waiting for.
Someone had defaced the ad, crossed out the word ‘waiting’ and replaced it with ‘bribing the council’.
Love it.
5
Feb
Posted by Christine in Blog. Tagged: Eating, Flavour, Fruit, Peach, Resolutions, Sharon Fruit, Taste, Texture. 9 Comments
One of my personal resolutions for 2010 was to try and eat five new foods. It sounds stupid, I know, but it’s harder than you might imagine.
I’m not all that adventurous when it comes to food. I don’t mind trying new things, but it turns out I’m quite picky about what I eat. I either like something or I don’t, there isn’t really a middle ground, and I can be a bit precious about textures and other things.
I wasn’t always this way and I don’t particularly like it, so in an attempt to stem the tide of pickiness, I set up this resolution to pick some new foods and try them out. I headed straight for the exotic fruit section of a certain supermarket, and after a little bit of perusal, I stumbled across this.
The sticker says it is a Sharon Fruit, and after some investigation on Wikipedia, I have learnt the following:
- It’s actually called a Persimmon. There are a few different types but this one is from Japan. The reason it’s a Sharon Fruit is because it has added chemicals to ripen it. Oh joy. Presumably that was Sharon’s idea.
- You can eat it fresh, dried or cooked, and it’s advisable to take the skin off and enjoy the insides. Apparently, if it gets super duper ripe, you can just pierce a hole in it and scoop the insides out like a yogurt. Gross.
- It’s a bit like a tomato, but takes the shape of a pumpkin and is a nice, bright orange. If you eat it when it is not ripe it could be bad for you, and it can also make horses ill if they eat too many of them from the orchard. Huh.
Well, here goes nothing.
The Sharon Fruit cut in half.
Ready to eat.
My first reaction was of relief that the fruit didn’t taste bad. It was hard to compare it to anything, a unique flavour, but if I had to pick something, I’d say it was like a peach. It was sweet, but not quite as strong a flavour as a peach, although it certainly wasn’t bland either. I’m not sure it was appealing, but like I say, I was just relieved it didn’t taste bad.
The bit I didn’t like was the texture. On first glance, it looked okay, as though it would be similar to a mango or a pineapple. It seemed that the more handling the fruit had, trying to remove the skin, etc, the more slippery it got, and to be honest, it was really quite slimy.
I didn’t enjoy the texture and the taste wasn’t anything to write home about, but I ate a good few pieces and was happy with that. I conclude that the Sharon Fruit is weird, a sort of hybrid of other fruits without having anything particularly outstanding to make you want to buy it for itself. At least I tried it though, eh? I wonder what the next food will be.
4
Feb
Posted by Christine in Blog. Tagged: Android, Apps, Blogging, G1, Google, Media Future Change, Mobile, Wordpress. 3 Comments
Hi there, I am testing out the new WordPress App for Android with a random post. To make it slightly worthwhile, here are some snippets of thought:
- Why is it people never ask what you did the previous evening or weekend when you actually have something worthwhile to say?
- What is the etiquette on retweeting someone who has their Twitter account protected?
- I really need to do a Media. Future. Change episode soon.
I’ll be back in a moment to test out the edit function and report my findings.
—
Well, there you go. It does work. Interesting.
Firstly, the app was crazy slow to start with, but once it had found all my settings and refreshed to find the latest information once, it seemed to speed up.
I’ve used the regular WP site on the browser and that isn’t exactly a problem, but this app is obviously designed to aid usability and it does that well. Bigger buttons, easier tick boxes, even linking to MFC was a piece of cake.
It couldn’t load my categories, which was odd, and when I tried to post the post initially, I had no connection which crashed the app. It can’t handle not being able to publish, but when I found the 3G I was looking for, it was fine.
I have an old phone, of course, so perhaps the sluggish and buggy nature can be partly ascribed to that. Android has moved on from my poor ol’ G1. Still, the app works, and is an excellent concept for mobile blogging, if only it was a bit more responsive.
4
Feb
Posted by Christine in Baby Panda Thursday. Tagged: Baby Panda Thursday, Embeds, Panda, Photos, PicApp. Leave a Comment
Honestly, I want to stop posting pictures of baby pandas in the snow, but they’re just so darn adorable.
2
Feb
Posted by Christine in Blog. Tagged: Celebrations, Film Watch, Groundhog, Groundhog Day, Phil, Predictions, Winter. 3 Comments
Yay for Groundhog Day!
I didn’t know I was particularly bothered about Groundhog Day before, but apparently it is something that makes me keep an eye on a Twitter search to see what Phil decides.
I am ascribing this to the fact that over the past year or so, I discovered marmots were ridiculously cute, and of course, Groundhog Day was the first Film Watch movie I covered. So, now I want to go to Punxsutawney and see what it’s all about.
I mentioned the celebration to someone at work and they didn’t know what I was talking about. I looked at them incredulously, as I couldn’t believe it was possible not to know about it. They looked at me incredulously, as I tried to explain forecasting the weather based on a groundhog’s shadow. It’s actually hard to do without sounding like a crazy person.
Still, Phil has done his stuff, and we’re going to get six more weeks of winter. I just hope the snow stays away.
1
Feb
Posted by Christine in Blog. Tagged: BBC, Birmingham, College, Drama, Farms, Marketing, Podcast, Radio, Sausages, Soap, The Archers. Leave a Comment
Note: I enjoyed writing my little Christmas thoughts post on the Archers, and thought I could turn this into a monthly thing. I have long been saying how I would love to keep a blog on the soap, but as I’m constantly running about a week behind, it doesn’t seem worth trying to start one. However, I do like to discuss it, and I think it would be fun to look back on, so here are my thoughts for January.
Ah, of course, how could I miss that? Annette was pregnant and Leon was the father. That’s how the story continued. I have to say, Helen’s interfering nature did not come across well as she tried to get Annette to see all the options. The poor girl was reduced to tears several times before Helen would stop going on about it. Once the decision was made, it was Helen who was upset. She never really came across as so much of a control freak before, but my eyes have been opened. There were some redeeming qualities as she cared for Annette afterwards, and even offered to do her work for her, but I’m still a little concerned about scary Helen.
On an only slightly related note, how irritating is Susan?
One thing I find quite odd is the “Brenda can’t find a job” storyline. On the one hand, it’s good to highlight the ever-growing problem of graduates not being able to find jobs once they’re done studying. But on the other hand, I would have thought that someone interested in doing marketing and PR, wouldn’t want to stick in Ambridge anyway. There can’t be that much call for such occupations in the village and surrounding area. A city would be more suitable for that kind of thing, wouldn’t it? Isn’t Ambridge supposed to be near Birmingham? I would head there if I was Brenda.
Did we start to hear the tiniest little hint of Mike’s exasperation with Vicky? I certainly couldn’t live with such a bubble of enthusiasm all the time, so I don’t blame him for heading up north by himself. Even if she did make him a flask of soup and some cold sausages.
Speaking from experience, it’s quite hard to have a social life when you live out on a farm in the middle of nowhere, and I think Ruth went too quickly from: “Thank God she’s staying at college” to “And just what time do you call this?” It’s called compromise, and unless it becomes a regular occurance, it seems a bit harsh to jump down the poor girl’s throat. It’s not often you find yourself thinking David is being the reasonable parent in all this. I can’t wait to hear the “You treat this place like a hotel” line.
Finally, I quite like the Jazzer loves Fallon storyline, if only because unrequited love is really quite a rare thing in soaps. I wonder how long this will last for. I do find it hard to follow the conversations though, with Jazzer’s interesting accent. I was telling Mr C how much he reminds me of the policeman from Allo Allo, particularly when he was discussing how annoyed he was about something and said he was “pied arf”. Excellent.
28
Jan
Posted by Christine in Baby Panda Thursday. Tagged: Baby Panda Thursday, Embeds, Panda, Photos, PicApp, Snow. 3 Comments
Only one picture today because how freakishly cute is this??
27
Jan
Posted by Christine in Blog. Tagged: Computers, Highlighters, Paper, Post It Notes, Staplers, Staples, Stationery, Work. 5 Comments
At my first proper job, not the one where I did a lot of washing up, or the one where I walked out after four hours, I was a bit of a geek. I was the youngest person there, and we did a job that involved no computers or telephones or anything. We shuffled bits of paper, noting down numbers and adding things up, and we were assigned teams to keep our motivation up. I was ridiculously good at this job – I am capable of doing mundane things for a longer period of time than other people. Not that much longer, but enough to get things done.
So, I was the youngest on the team, I was crazy shy and wouldn’t go to the pub with them, plus I did double the work everyone else did. It is conceivable that they hated me.
My one saving grace, though, was that being such a swot allowed my team a bit of leeway when it came to… well… messing about. As long as we got our work done and kept our numbers up, we were essentially allowed to do whatever we liked. I imagine this ethos can only come about in a company where they know the work is dull, and they have employed young people, and those who are just saving until they can go travelling again.
Things we got up to included covering all our stationery in Tipp-Ex, particularly the whole punch. Once it was all white, it could then be coloured in with highlighters. Obviously.
Another favourite was doodling on post it notes and passing them back and forth. I don’t really remember why, but this was a great time-waster that kept us occupied for hours. As I am not a good artist, I would try and do patterns with the three biros I had – red, blue and green.
Finally, we kept a staple monster. If you collect used staples for a good period of time, they all start to group together and look like nanobots or something. It’s fun. Honest.
Recently, the cleaner at work complained that the discarded staples were getting caught in the mesh of the bin and could we dispose of them another way. I collected them in a cup. Then I couldn’t quite bear to let them go. It’s like being a teenager all over again.
27
Jan
Posted by Christine in Film Watch. Tagged: Ballet, Billy Elliot, Boxing, Dancing, Denim, Film Watch, Full Monty, Green Wing, Riverdance, Teachers. 2 Comments
Fast Facts
Title: Billy Elliot
Director: Stephen Daldry
Year: 2000
Run time: 1hr 46
Background Info
Mr C has been recommending this film to me for ages, and I never really got round to watching it. With the iPlayer featuring it over Christmas, we sat down to watch it together. I was expecting it to be much like The Full Monty.
Live Blog
00:01:14 – You know, I never really jumped up and down on my bed. I feel I may have missed an important part of childhood.
00:07:16 – They say you have to be light on your feet to box. That would help dancing.
00:09:40 – What a really supportive teacher she is!
00:11:56 – Uh oh, double denim!
00:13:25 – Great late night talking! It’s like sharing a room with Father Jack.
00:14:05 – That girl just disappeared! Is this secretly like the Sixth Sense?
00:15:25 – 50 pence for a lesson? Bargain.
00:16:25 – He has to take his bed apart every time he wants to get to the gloves, madness.
00:18:17 – It’s a library on a bus. Weird.
00:20:07 – Bathrooms are a bit small for ballet, I think.
00:21:32 – It will be hard to keep the ballet a secret if he goes about prancing in the street.
00:25:26 – What is wrong with ballet, anyway?
00:31:51 – Oh gosh, he’s leaving behind quite a mess. There are feathers everywhere.
00:34:02 – Do people really speak to teachers like that?
00:36:17 – That boy is a very convincing girl.
00:41:01 – There can’t be many dances with a football in them, he’d certainly stand out.
00:44:10 – That’s gratitude for you, isn’t it? She’s giving up her time and teaching him for free and he shouts at her.
00:52:47 – Does no one lock a door at all? He’s been through about four houses and twice as many doors and not found a stumbling block at all.
00:58:33 – It’s handy that those work style boots have taps in them, isn’t it? Also… isn’t tap a different discipline to ballet?
01:01:57 – Argh! No going near pianos with hammers, even if you are cold.
01:06:27 – There’s no dignity in trying to take off a tutu quickly, whatever sex you are.
01:06:50 – Now he can Riverdance, too?
01:16:10 – “What’s it like, like?”
01:18:30 – Oh my god, it’s the Green Wing doctor playing a doctor!!
01:34:50 – How heavy can his suitcase be? I thought they were poor.
Conclusions
It’s a good film. As I mentioned at the start, I was anticipating a Full Monty style film and it is just like that, if a little harder to understand, and a lot more gritty. These people have real problems and dancing is a way out for the boy, rather than stripping being a temporary solution. Also, “What’s it like, like?” is my new favourite saying.
STYA Rating: 4/5
Recent Comments