England's Rock Art - the website launch

Image154
Originally uploaded by pebblesfromheaven

We were invited to attend the launch of a website today - England's Rock Art

B took the photos used for the scrolling images on the front page, and they were also used for the front cover of the extremely flashy-looking brochure!

It was a great day where the volunteer team demonstrated the survey techniques, displaying models which could be viewed best wearing 3-D specs!!!!

Big Brother and Baghdad

I was watching some of the live streaming of this year's Big Brother House on E4 yesterday. I found myself warming to them as they were playing "Top Trumps" with nutritional information panels from food labels!!! That's great, but how bored do you have to be before you do this??? Hahahaha.... then, I realised I was sitting watching people playing Top Trumps with nutritional information panels from food labels...


And this morning, I was amused to discover that Nicholas Witchell is now BBC Baghdad correspondant. This is entertaining because up until quite recently (so recently the BBC website today still shows it as such) he was BBC Royal Correspondant. Notably a couple of years ago Prince Charles was overheard referring to "that man" in the phrase "These bloody people. I can't bear that man. I mean, he's so awful, he really is!" and old Nick never quite seemed comfortable in the role ever since. So whether it was his idea or the Beeb's, I think it's pretty amusing, and we can all make up our fly-on-the-wall version of what went on in the office of the Head of BBC News the day he got his new job .....

As a footnote, I'd like to present the following screendump I got from Seti.

Yay! I have two Solfest tickets in my sweaty inbox

Phew ... the tickets for Solfest were released today and as with anything else well saught-after yet trumpetted, the website didn't make it long after the 9am opening.

After two hours pressing redial, B finally managed to speak to a real human willing to take his credit card details so woohoo with purple stripes, we are going to Solfest again!

Wooo... Supergrass, Chas & Dave, Roisin Murphy, Alabama 3, The Pipettes ... gonna be a guddun! Can't wait.

Solfest 2007

Solfest 2006

My New Website!!

I've invested in a "complete package" product which on first attempts seems as easy as blogger to use - that is to say, easier once you know how but better than trying to use html.

I've put up some photos of some of my jewellery creations - but I have a shop on there with the intention of at least making the software pay for itself!!

I'm quite chuffed with it - and although there's room for a blog on it I'll probably keep this one going with general stuff and keep t'other one for stuff to do with making jewellery.

So! Please take a look, browse about, and let me know what you think!!

cheers

www.pebblesfromheaven.co.uk

Thanks "Flame Force Five"!

Take a look at these babies:



Aren't they just gorgeous?!

They are proper real handmade lampworked glass beads. Made by playing with fire, so quite appropriate that they should be so bright!

Can you believe, I actually won these? By luck? Incredible! I never win anything!!

The deal is I have to turn them into proper bits of jewellery, which is a massive problem because I can't stop stroking them for long enough to see them imprisoned onto wire or cord... it's so sad.

Thanks Sarah!

check out her website Flame Force Five - lots more glassy loveliness

Back from the Dead

OK to be fair we've been back online for 2 weeks but isn't that rediculous?

"They" can get broadband to remote island communities but "they" can't manage to supply a 21st-century housing estate to fulfill demand.

I presume someone had to die in order for us to get our line. Or something. I had to take desperate measures - I emailed the ceo of BT. It worked; I was in regular communication with an Openroach man who was very very helpful and sympathetic but unable to change the fact that here we have the "wrong sort of wires". But at least I didn't have to ring that stomach-knotting, head-banging, bloody-awful, should-be-outlawed helpline any more.

In order to survive the technological famine, I've had to persuade myself intellectually that I don't need the internet, no-one's interested in my views and no-one will miss me anyway. So I've mentally "lost the urge" to talk rubbish (online anyway).

Plus, I have my new job to occupy me! Wayhey! I get to play with goo all day and pretend I know what I'm talking about. It's great!

So sometime soon I'll tell you all what else we've been up to during the blackout. It just might take a while for me to get used to the idea.

Addicted to flickr

Well it's quite easy - you join up, create a member name, icon, profile if you want to, and start posting loads of pics (which I'm not exactly short of) and other people view them, sometimes comment on the (usually complimentary!)

It gets very addictive, when you get other people praising you and you feel part of a group and so you join in and post back, have conversations, etc etc. Before you know it, you actully give a damn whether your photos are removed from such-and-such a group because they don't fit in with the group moderator's idea of what the group is all about.

So you set up your own group, (sod 'em!) and invite other people and they post pictures to your group and comment on each others pics and it's all one happy family.

Then, you start reading the more political threads about whether you should support yahoo really, or who owns the photos and read the small print etc etc ... all gets a wee bit involved.

So anyway that's where I'm at - when I log into my computer, the first thing I do is check to see if I have any Flickr comments, and if anyone has joined my group or posted more photos, etc etc ...

great stuff!

Makes me wonder where the future lies for this sort of repository. The day all the electricity dies, will all these photos cease to exist? How sad would that be?

The Steve Fossett Game

The adventurer Steve Fossett went missing 12 days ago ... it's all very mysterious, and the situation has now developed into a possible modern-day Bermuda triangle incident.

Now I can't admit to being a huge fan - I was aware of him and his exploits but to be honest can't really understand the mentality of people who like taking such risks or "challenges"; it's just not me.

But this morning, when I realised that the story had disappeared from the headlines without resolution, I investigated and found a link on his website telling us how everyone can take part in the search.

They have split the satellite photographs of the search area into little patches, and by signing up through Amazon (of all places?!) you can review patches of ground for his plane, by comparing it to a photo of what it would look like. Obviously, this one's a "no".



This interactive haystack-searching allows people from all over the world to take part and at best makes them feel like adventurers themselves, giving them the satisfactory feeling of being some help, or at worse turns the whole thing into some sort of online game.

Ach - I played the game for a while, not really knowing if I was being helpful or if they were just making us push buttons to make us feel heroic. After all, if he crashed there's not much chance that the wreckage would be plane-shaped...

Race For Life - The Sequel!

Last year I did the Race For Life with some family, including my wonderful Auntie Kath who has subsequently sadly been beaten in her fight against cancer.

I've signed up for this year's event in Carlisle on 8th July.

Sponsor me if you can!

I'll try and look more sporty this year...

Thanks!

Is it me?

I am so sick of signing in to websites.

eBay. paypal. ezboard. amazon. flickr. blogger. gmail.
wordpress. orange. the bank account. the savings account. tesco. yahoo. fucking charlie chan.

YES it's me. Just like it was twenty minutes ago. Remember? Or do you have the brain of a goldfish?

bloody things.