Banned? Aw, come on...

Chrome (yes, I'm still using it, more on this at a later stage) has found a new friend:

This gets my vote for "least friendliest error message of the year". The site is FishingFan - I'm not sure how or why I stumbled there, but I think I'm glad I'm banned...

A "Don't F**k With Me" look on his face

I've just spent the past 25 minutes walking the floor of my in-law's spare bedroom with an 8 kilo bag of demons clutched tightly against my chest. 

Fionn has had an eventful day, travelling West, home for the holidays, and his regular sleep pattern has been disturbed. You just try and put me to bed Dad. Hands-on at the best of times, this evening's nap has quickly escalated into a battle of wills. Enraged with tiredness and a deep sense of injustice, my only tactic is to hold him close, using shush-pat and soothing words to try and get him to relax enough for sleep to take over.

As I pace, sweating, back and neck beginning to spasm, I think back on all the times I've been driven close to the edge by him - all the times he refused to sleep, refused to stop crying, all the times I came close to giving voice to every parent's dark secret: sometimes, just sometimes, you could almost convince yourself that you hate your child, that you are the victim here, that they are being so unreasonable...

I keep pacing, and before too long he let's go and drifts off. It's the very least I owe him. Goodnight Fionn.

Shout out to my crew

A big Christmas hello to the eBU - you know who you are....

And I wish it could be Christmas...

At the IIA Social Media WG on Friday, listening to Roseanne talk about her blog reminded me that the reason I got involved in this in the first place was to post about the young fella. So here's the update: he's 90% sitting by himself, his favourite noise is coughing (himself or other people), he likes butternut squash and porridge (not at the same time...yet), dislikes baby rice, and he cut his first tooth today.

Some pictures of the tyke getting into the Christmas spirit follow:

From fionn_antlers_061208

From fionn_antlers_061208

Our tree, which Fionn didn't so much as lift a finger to help decorate...

From fionn_antlers_061208

Come on kids

Last night, lying alone in bed, I did something I hadn't done since I was a teenager...I put on my headphones and listened to some music before falling asleep.

I listen to/hear a lot of music throughout the course of the day (19 tracks a day according to Last FM) - on my commute, in the office (I can't work without tunes in the background), having dinner with S. Thinking about it last night reminded me of the "No Music Day" article in last week's Ticket, how we all have music forced on us as we go about our normal activities, be it elevator music, ringtones, hold music. They advocate a complete ban on music, but that's a bit extreme for my liking. Last night I was able to give the music my full, undivided attention, and it was a revelation. 

I listened to the titular track from Radiohead's vastly underrated 2003 Kid A. When it was finished, I listened to it again, just for the sheer unadulterated hell of it. I heard every note, every twist and nuance: the brooding atmospherics of the xylophone, the distorted cajoling of Thom's vocal, the stacatto rhythm driving the whole piece forward. It was an amazing experience - everyone should try it tonight. Pick any song, I'm not going to pretend that Radiohead is eneryone's cup of tea, but give it a go.

Mix-um gather-um

I like mixtapes. The Expert of MJEX fame has a cracking one over at The Slate, and some others I'd recommend include Hot Chip's DJ Kicks (a seriously ecletic collection of party tunes), and Superpitcher's Today (Kompakt-flavoured minimalist-techno goodness). Thing is, I can't scrobble the individual tracks when the mixtape is stored as a single MP3 file - if you really want to create a record of each of the songs you're listening to, you need to slice up the master file using something like Audacity, save the individual files, and then craft the ID3 tags by hand. Yes, I actually have done this - now you know what I did with my time before I became a parent.

Anyway, it'd be great if it was possible to store the ID3 tags of n songs, (maybe their start/finish position?) within the file data. I remember reading somewhere about a French company who've released a new music file format that stores the individual "modules" of a song (drums, lead guitar, vocals, etc.) within the file, as well as the song entière itself. Something like that would be cool. I'll post the link to that article here if I can dig it up.

IIA Net Visionary Awards - RHK

Got to put on my glad rags and party 'til the wee hours last week (well, after midnight anyway) in the salubrious surrounds of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham.

Some pics below, may be some more to follow...

From iia_netvis_301008

From iia_netvis_301008

From iia_netvis_301008

From iia_netvis_301008

That was the only drink I had all evening, I swear...

Cheers to the IIA for a great night out, and congrats to the winners.