Wasting bandwidth since 1996

Tags are annoying little things. The trouble is, I always forget to add them when I write a post. As a result, I have a couple of hundred posts that I need to trawl through and retrospectively add tags to. It’s not an interesting thing to do

You’ll also, no doubt, have noticed many banjo posts lately. That’s because the lovely little instrument has been consuming my free time of late. All of it. I do seem to be making some good progress with it, though. See, I’ve been playing guitar for about 25 years or so, but I kinda hit a plateau halfway through the first year and as a  result never quite got past playing a few chords. In the five or so months I’ve been playing banjo I’ve gone way past the level of guitar playing I’m at.

Which is nice. Because it’s a lovely cheerful instrument. All I need to do now is make more time to play it

The tab for this in the Ken Perlman book is straightforward but a bit plodding. Fortunately, we have Patrick at The Daily Frail offering a few suggestions of things that can be tried to liven it up a little.

Nelefa.org is officially an adult! The domain was originally registered on this day in 1997 – 16 years ago. How time flies when you’re talking utter pish.

So – as a mini-celebration, I’m going to list my favourite film of each year nelefa.org has been alive.

• 1997 – Contact
• 1998 – Saving Private Ryan
• 1999 – The Matrix
• 2000 – O Brother, Where Art Thou?
• 2001 – Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring
• 2002 – Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers
• 2003 – Lord of the Rings – The Return of the King
• 2004 – Shaun of the Dead
• 2005 – Serenity (tough year – Batman Begins, Sin City, Revenge of the Sith)
• 2006 – 300 (close call against Pan’s Labyrinth)
• 2007 – There Will Be Blood (another close call – No Country for Old Men)
• 2008 – Gran Torino (amazing year! The Dark Knight, Taken, Iron Man, Hancock)
• 2009 – Star Trek (honourable mentions to Zombieland, Watchmen, District 9, Moon)
• 2010 – Kick Ass (honourable mentions to Scott Pilgrim, True Grit, 13 Assassins, and one other which wins overall)
• 2011 – Rubber (Sorry – I loved it to death. Honourable mention to Thor)
• 2012 (so far) – Avengers Assemble (Honourable mention to Iron Sky)

But there has to be an overall ‘favourite movie of the last 16 years’, right? And there is. Really really tough choice, given we’ve had some amazing movies in the last few years, but my overall choice is:

• 2010 – The Book of Eli

There we have it. Happy Birthday, Nelefa.org. This list of movies has nothing whatsoever to do with the nelefa.org site – in fact a list of games would be more appropriate. But that’s just what they’d be expecting

No, really, I am. Thing is, I moved house (again!) recently. Probably a kind of backwards move, as far as most people would think, because I’ve gone from a lovely old sprawling farmhouse on top of a hill to a tiny little end-terrace in the middle of Livingston.

Fact is, I love the tiny little end-terrace. Not just because it’s significantly cheaper but because it’s small and cosy and central. It’s going to be an exciting couple of years going forward – I have some great plans. But I’m not telling you what they are because I’m evil like that.

Something has been afoot with nelefa.org recently. I think something nasty got into one of the wordpress scripts. I *think* it’s now fixed, but if anyone notices anything odd, please tweet me on @johnmdow.

And can I just say – thank feck. It’s been a long week, but at least (after an hour or two more) the weekend will be spread wantonly before me. And so many things to do! Now that Harmony is here, we can get on with some Babylon 5 – we have about half of season three to watch. Also planned is a rampage through some more of Dead Island and (hopefully) the start of another play through of Alan Wake – this time on Nightmare difficulty.

I’m very glad it’s nearly the end of January. This month has seen my budgeting system really pushed to the limits after some unexpected drama at Christmas. Getting there, though – slowly but surely.

You’ve perhaps noticed a few more blog postings than usual on here. I seem to have fallen into the same trap as everyone else and allowed facebook to take over my usual ramblings. I’m not entirely sure how this happened, but I’m not really happy with it. Facebook itself is a nasty and intrusive goblin of a site and I think the sooner I wean myself off it the better.

Anyhoo – I seem to have wandered off the point. Happy Friday, everyone! I’ll see you on the other side.

It’s that time of year again! This year has seen much awesomeness pretty much across the board, so without further ado I shall leap right in there.

Books

Well, I kinda lagged behind a little this year and never made my target. So far, my read list is sitting at 45 books, a little under one a week. Given that most of these were dirty great long ones (I’m looking at you, Bruce Trilogy) and I wasted the better part of a month struggling through the terminally dull Carrion Comfort, I don’t think I’ve done too badly. I’ve discovered some new things this year (Wheel of Time, The Passage) and rediscovered some old things (The Gap Series) but two things stand out.

My book of the year has to go to The Passage, by Justin Cronin. Fantastically epic and absorbing, it was also the first book I read this year. An honorary mention has to go to The Dark Tower series. I finally reached the end of this journey earlier in the year, and I have to say it was truly magnificent.

Music

Lots and LOTS of music this year. Again, a few new discoveries and some old rediscoveries. Album of the year is easy though – it goes to Stand Up and Fight by Turisas. These guys are going in all kinds of interesting directions right now. They class themselves as ‘viking metal’, but I think they’re selling themselves short. The music is a fantastic juxtapose of light and shade, with growled vocals balancing choirs and soaring violins countering heavy guitars. Awesome stuff.

Movies

There can be only one. Rubber, the story of a sentient, psychic and murderous… erm… tyre easily provided the most entertaining 80 minutes of the year. Yes, there were a lot of ‘bigger’ films and ‘better’ films, but Rubber is the one that showed something new. Not surprising, really.

Games

Dark Souls (Xbox 360). Not one for the casual gamer, Dark Souls is punishing, brutally difficult and plain downright unfair. But never in a way that feels unfair. A masterpiece.

So there we have it, folks.

Christine by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Took me a long time to read this, due to various external factors, but it was well worth the record. I think I was about 14 when I read it the first time and the re-reading brought back a while pile of happy (and not so happy) memories. It seems that books have an ability to connect me to my past that nothing else comes close to.

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I think, on the whole, August was a rather awesome and epic month. For one thing, it saw Careless Talk finally unleashed upon the world. Writing it was a bit of a roller coaster – it was started during one of the darkest periods in my life and then had to sit, half written, for an eighteen month period while I tried to put things in order. What came out of the bottom of this, though, is a bit of fiction that I’m really proud of.

August was also the month of the Grand House Hunt. At last I’ve managed to find somewhere that has been chosen rather than just being whatever is available at short notice. The Grand Move will be taking place at some point in October and between now and then there’ll no doubt be a lot of frantic running around.

After getting Careless Talk out there, I fiddled around a little with something called The Sounding and then hit a brick wall. I somehow managed to convince myself that it was because I didn’t know where it was going and opted to start working on the follow up to Careless Talk. And almost immediately hit another brick wall. The problem is, ladies and gentlemen, burn out. Careless Talk was such a deeply personal and emotional journey that it just drained my batteries. Well, I’m all recharged now so will be getting back to work – on The Sounding. At almost fifty thousand words in, I’m not sure how I managed to convince myself it wasn’t working.

So – September is a shiny new month, filled with all kinds of possibilities. I’m hoping to end it with a manuscript approaching completion.

Firestarter by Stephen King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Very very good. There are a few odd little phrases used here and there – the occasional repetition. I suspect Mr King was living in interesting times when he wrote this. None of that detracts from what is essentially a straightforward tale of anti-establishment paranoia from the era of War Games and E.T.

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