dcinput

I’m on my way to the West Coast of Ireland for a few days and am patiently waiting for my flight at Stansted airport. Pretty good wifi though a little on the expensive side. Airport security is still high from what I can tell but no transparent plastic bags for hand luguage.

The support team at Flickr have narrowed my upload problem down to my ISP having bad routing to their site. All much of a muchness really as my broadband agreement with Be has expired and I’m not renewing it since I am packing my things and uprouting to Kentish Town in North London. The new apartment is really impressive, massive open plan kitchen/living room with breakfast bar and two big double bedrooms. Wood floors throughout. I can’t wait!

Todd Zeigler has some tips for news websites. In my opinion some of the d-cinema news sites should take some advice because as I see it most of them are in the dark ages. Getting d-cinema information is painfull.

I must say despite its ugly appearance, I’m really tempted to get a Blackberry or a Trio looking at all the hive of activity thats been brewing in this space over the past few weeks. Winer has some come up with something I’d like very much to play around with: Yomoblog.

Mark Smith is on sale! I’ve put in a bid…

The Secret Garden Party at the weekend was great. It’s a really small festival and so has this very intimate feeling to it. A hell of a lot of people were dressed up in all sorts of amusing costumes. It did rain but I was very lucky that each time I seemed to be at a tent and so never really got wet. Though I didn’t know hardly any of the bands and DJs I saw, they were all good too. The only thing that was a shame was that they didn’t get a late license and so all music had to stop at 1am. I’ll be there next year for sure. The photo on the right is of the lake in the middle of the site. Very beautiful setting.

Secret Garden Party 2006 pictures on Flickr.

Looks like dEUS are starting rehersals for their new album. Most people reading this probably won’t have heard of this band but I grew up listening to them. They helped shape the way I think about music. How great is it that I can subscribe to my favorite band with RSS? How would I have ever seen this otherwise?

I haven’t seen them perform for many years. They say they haven’t played in Antwerp their hometown for over ten years. I saw them play there in the Cartoons Cafe in the summer of 1996, but they were playing under a pseudonym that night. This was while I was working for 3M there, carying out experiments on Post it adhesives, right before I jetted off to London to go to university.

The Belgian alternative rock scene of the nineties - you kind of had to be there to understand. To this day, music in Belgium is really cutting edge. It’s very low key and if you don’t pay attention you could easily miss it. Nevertheless somehwere in between the shadows lies a whole world of massiely creative and talented musicians.

Hey it’s Pukklepop this weekend - another festival from my youth. Wow serriously kick ass lineup this year!

Oh boy. Though it is nice and sunny in Hackney right now, the BBC seems to think that it going to be miserable later. I might need to invest in some waterproof pants before I head up there. On the bright side, at least since yesterday it seems Saturday only has light blue thunder and no rain.

…and as if just to rub it in, Monday and Tuesday are looking fantastic. Thank goodness I’ll be back at work by then.

Snakes on a Plane hits the screens in the US. There’s been so much hype about this film I find it amusing. I worked with some folks that were doing lots of vfx on it a few weeks ago and they were supposed to get me a signed poster. Hmm. Good review here.

Terra Plana which aims to be the most sustainable designer shoe brand in the world have opened a new store in Covent Garden. They make superb looking shoes and they are eco-friendly! They’ve also posted their first blog post. Hi Melissa!

This weekend I am going to the Secret Garden Party, a music festival in an idealic setting near a beautiful lake. The websites description is certainly intriguing…

“Imagine…cocktail bars in limos, confession boxes and pulpits, The ‘Fuck Yeah’ Bar, cheerleaders, love potions, The Festival of Fools, Frat House Olympics, Afghan Polo, human curling, tipi saunas, blonde vs brunette room service to your tent, fire-light theatre performances and if our luck holds…boating on the beautiful lake as the sun sets land the band plays on…”

I’m a little worried about the weather, what with flood warnings and everything. I’ve packed my wellies and waterproofs and I’m praying the tent has no wholes. Fingers crossed those guys at the BBC weather room have got it all wrong. I just noticed that there is thunder on Saturday. Oh dear!.

While the dcinput Flickr photo stream might not be very impressive due to my lack of a decent digital camera, it’s something that I did use quite a lot. In the last 2 months however I have been unable to upload photos for some unexplained reason. Each time I try it simply hangs and eventually times out.

I have sent several emails to the Flickr support team and on one occasion received an email back explaining that due to the nature of my case, it was being escalated to a “technical specialist”. The result is that I can’t share my Madrid pictures with you all until its sorted and it’s made me really mad! Grrr.

My trip to Madrid has come to an end. I’m writing this in the airport at a Starbucks somewhere in Terminal 4. The flight leaves in an hour and I have a little battery power left so I fugured I would splash out on the 5 Euros it costs to get online.

We still seem to be able to carry on hand luguage despite all the terrorist scarry stuff happening in London over the last few days. Traveling by plane isn’t that much fun anymore!

Madrid is a really wonderfull city. Its been so incredibly hot, blue sky every day. Hanging out in terraces scatered throughout the city, drinking and eating well while watching the world go by has been really relaxing. The night life in Madrid is second to none, nothing really gets going till about 1-2 am and then it carries till dawn. They tell me that many people go straight to work after a night out. No wonder they need siestas half way through the day.

It seems my Spanish was good enough to carry me through some great conversations, which I am very spleased about. I’ll be looking into doing a course when I get back.

Many thanks go out to all the wonderful people I met while here, too many names to mention now but you’ve all made my trip here one to remember. I will definitely be back.

Time to head to the gate as the plane is leaving soon and batery is at 5mins. London here I come.

It´s so hot here. I saw the weather report earlier: a young lady standing in front of a map of Spain covered entirely in yellow suns - how very Fast Show. Scorchio!

Today I am off to Mardid for the week. Check out the HOT weather: 35C/95F everyday!

The Big Chill festival over the weekend was superb. It’s a very different atmosphere to other UK festivals. The crowd tends to be slightly older, in the 25-35 age group and overall it’s busy but with lots and lots of space in this picturesque valley + lakes setting. It’s a lot less grimey than other events I’ve been to - showers on every camp site and lots of posh food. My new favorite festival!

Today is the first day of a long awaited holiday. I am just about to leave for three days at The Big Chill Festival somewhere in the north west of England. The weather forcast is looking ok so far. Lets hope its not a repeat of the last Glasto. Another amusing Glasto picture. No mobile blogging this year as I haven’t hooked it up yet.