:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Thursday, February 06, 2003 ::

The first impartial review (that we know of) of the Gusset Silencio e.p. ver 3.001a9k has just been published by Armin at Parasite Shop. It reads:

“First release from Bristol-based duo who recently supported Venetian Snares & Fanny on their European tour. This CDr features over 27 minutes of music spanning 10 tracks of vastly different styles, ranging from chilled downtempo beats to re-worked popular music mash-up. There are some nice samples from Nirvana's classic "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that spring to mind and a personal favorite has to be the short-but-sweet "The imagination is in the spelling", soon to appear on the up and coming Death$ucker Compilation CD.”

If you haven’t bought this very limited release yet, you should do now. Just follow the link above and hand over you credit card details to Mr Parasite. No, he’s a really nice guy, honestly. You know you want to. ;-]

PS: Popcorn, I don’t know much about CSS, try whatever you think might do it!

:: Dan 6.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Think I might be on to something.

"Memorize this: In the CSS box model, padding and borders are added to the overall size."

hold on that's boxes not tables, maybe we should have ago at DIV/DOM/CSS boxes and drop the table we have. (absolute position and all that)

:: popcorn 6.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Hmm, ran the code through the W3C MarkUp Validation Service and the WDG HTML Validator. W3C wont even look at it because we don’t have a character set definition in the header and all WDG found was a spurious close font tag in the footer (now removed). Oh, well. Good luck guys if you look at it some more!

:: Dan 6.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Ooooh techie!

:: Spokesy 6.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Increase your Whuffie rating and get some respect: article about an interesting looking book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Its a novel about a possible future where the world operates in a star trek style no money, no hunger, blah, blah sort of utopia but keeps the whole thing interesting with the concept of "Whuffie". The general idea seems strangely similar to Eric Raymond's explanation of the hacker culture in The Cathedral and the Bazaar: "Your personal Whuffie rating is constantly updated online so everyone can view it. The more you have, the higher the esteem in which you're held. ... if you've contributed a lot of unpaid programming to an open source project such as Linux, then appreciative users will buy you drinks wherever you go." You can download the whole book in a number of formats here.

:: Dan 6.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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still sucks
I had a hacked up copy of the page running at home working perfectly,made the changes here and it then looked shonky in every browser I tried :(

so I fixed it for IE and left it there, will try again later.
And no-one makes a fully compiant browser yet

Bit miffed, I should be a tech show today, but my techie has had to go on a course so I'm stuck here checking laptops in and out >:-|

:: popcorn 6.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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You misunderstood about the standard compliance thing Channon. To rephrase what I was saying: to get it to work in IE I used TD width=””, TD width=”” is standards compliant not IE. Anyway, how’s it looking in Mozilla and Opera now?

:: Dan 6.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Please excuse this page for displaying incorectly, aiming for browser compatability.

Bear with us.

:: popcorn 5.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Think the links bar should be a different colour too....but now I'm just being picky :)

:: popcorn 5.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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IE, standards compliant? don't make me laugh.
Font sizes are different from browser to browser, and it could also be down to screen res....hmn

The comment is a quote from George Doors (Dawes?) song from a couple of weeks ago.

--edit--
Nope, not screen res...

:: popcorn 5.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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I can only test it in IE at the moment, so do whatever you need to to sort it out in Opera and Mozilla. Ideally do it without changing font colour too much. TD Width=”” is used to sort it out in IE, which should be standard compliant, hmm? Maybe the others use bigger pixels, you know like Duplo instead of Lego? Sounds stupid I know but font sizes are different between PC and Mac so anything is possible I guess.
I was thinking about removing the heading bar altogether once this is sat in the main site frame set so your bizarre comment can stay.

:: Dan 5.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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new look, looks a bit shonky in Mozilla and Opera (not tried IE yet) due to downward stripy bit getting in the way of the text, but that sould be easy to sort out. posibly just with a different font colour

Should I have a play with the css later?

I've changed the header phrase as well, feel free to change it back.

:: popcorn 5.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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I’ve been asked where the name Gusset came from. It actually came out of a brainstorming evening over at Clay’s house. (That’s Clayton Hickman for those who don't know, now editor of Dr Who magazine, and also artist of our first three gig posters, see the gigs page on the site) Clay, Channon, and I sat round for a few hours listing possible band names. Channon came up with the name, based on the previous evenings episode of Bottom, the one where Richey and Eddie decide to steal a car and disguise themselves with a pair of tights over their heads.... one pair for both of them, a head in each leg, all sorts of hilarity ensues when they can’t even find the car in said situation and Eddie suggests that he thinks the car might be “Over there! Behind the gusset!”

We also came very near to being called (among other things) “Two fat duvets 22”. I’ll post more of the alternatives as I remember them.

Sorry if this destroys the magic for anyone, I’m sure you thought it was much more interesting and unusual before you heard that story.

:: Dan 5.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Oh look! There’s a new look to the web view. This is in preparation for our floatation (ie when we go public on www.gusset.co.uk)
So be warned – someone might see what you say! Please post your views on this, or any objections you might have, right here. And I might change my mind.

:: Dan 5.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Talking of Jon, he should probably read this.
Everyone else here will have no idea of what it is like to work with Jon (I only did so for three months almost a year ago and it’s still at the front of my mind). You could post up your list of “Jon’s Crimes” if you’re happy he won’t ever stumble across it. (Maybe we should go back and change his name?)

As for the Colm Meaney / Brendan Gleeson thing I have to take back what I said about good ol' Colm and refer to my previous comment about my inability to recognise faces.

:: Dan 4.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Dan,

I've just probed Jon (shudder) and he's going to Florida on 23rd Feb and he has applied for a passport. Reckons he's been told that he's given it plenty of time and that he'll be alright. I'm torn. On the one hand, I'd love it if his plans were totally scuppered by his procrastination but on the other, I could do with him leaving the country for a couple of weeks. It's a toughie.

Also, strangely he's not going with his woman. He's going with a mate. I haven't asked anything beyond that.

I agree in general with your review of 'They Shoot Immigrants, Don't They?'. I thought it was a great film that could have been a classic. I'm looking forward to seeing Scorsese's 4-hour version. That might help explain a few things. I can't recall seeing Colm Meaney in it, though. Are you getting your Colm Meaneys and Brendan Gleesons mixed up? It's a common mistake. My wife does it all the time.

If you want to see a masterpiece of a movie, get yourself off to see 'City of God' (When Brazilians Take Smack) when it arrives at the Arnolfini later this month. You won't see a better film this year. (Unless you rent Citizen Kane and The Gofather Part II and watch those but you know what I mean) Also, Spider (When The English Patient Starts Remembering Stuff) isn't bad. It's quite upsetting and Ralph Fiennes mumbles alot but it's a thought-provoking piece.

I'm off to see The Pianist ('Have I Got Jews For You') on Thursday. I'll let you know if it's any good.

:: Simon 4.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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I have just received the most ridiculous piece of Spam I’ve seen in months. (Except maybe that one that claimed to be a valid anti war petition you just had to write your name on and forward to everyone you know, then when it has 500 names on send it back to sucker@viralmarketing.com or something.) Anyway, this one is the classic “send this on to everyone you know and eventually the whole population will read it”, with some fundamentally flawed mathematics explained by the most patronising git to every explain a Fibonacci Series (and assume that not one person would send said mail to someone else who already has it). So if you haven’t seem this, enjoy:

>Subject: Petrol Prices - could it work?
>
>
>Hmmmm.... but thought you might be interested to see this anyway...
>
> We are going to hit close to 89p a litre by the summer. Want petrol
>prices
>to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action. This makes
>MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy petrol on a certain day" campaign that
>was going around last April or May!
>
>The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't
>continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of
>an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.
>
>BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can
>really work. Please read it and join in!
>
>By now you're probably thinking petrol priced at about 77p a litre is
>super cheap. Me too! It is currently 79p - 83p for regular unleaded in
>some towns. Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have
>conditioned us to think
>that the cost of a litre is CHEAP at 77p - 80p, we need to take aggressive
>action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace.... not sellers.
>With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take
>action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is
>if
>we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And we can do
>that WITHOUT hurting ourselves
>
>How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying petrol,
>but we CAN have an impact on petrol prices if we all act together to
>force a price war. Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T
>purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are
>one), ESSO and BP. If they are not selling any petrol, they will be
>inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other
>companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact, we need to
>reach literally millions of Esso and
>BP petrol buyers It's really simple to do!! Now, don't wimp out on me at
>this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach
>millions of people!!
>
>I am sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you sends it
>to
>at
>least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten
>more
>(300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth
>generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If
>those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then
>30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further,
>you guessed it.... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!
>
>Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all. (And
>not buy at ESSO/BP) If you don't understand how we can reach 300
>million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... well,
>let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am... so trust me
>on this one.)
>
>How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten
>more
>people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably
>be contacted within the next 8 days!! I'll bet you didn't think you and I
>had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference.
>If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on PLEASE HOLD OUT
>UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGE! It's easy to make
>this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol at Shell, Tesco,
>Sainsburys, Jet etc
>
>
>
>Boycott BP and Esso!!
>

PS: Also note how there is no plan to change who is boycotted to the current top two even if BP and Esso do drop there prices.

:: Dan 4.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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This site has "engrish" subtitles of a LoTR:TTT DVD

Includes such classics as: "i am ooh i made so much" , "the trace of Mr Fodo full lost" & "how he will take me he is still big for it"

:: popcorn 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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American suing culture may have just changed the net forever.

:: popcorn 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Welcome to BogBlog!

:: Dan 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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That's about as funny as IP can get!
"...many carriers can be used without significant interference with each other, outside of early spring. This is because of the 3D ether space available to the carriers, in contrast to the 1D ether used by IEEE802.3. The carriers have an intrinsic collision avoidance system, which increases availability."

Popcorn: Is that the best review you can do? I don’t think anyone is likely to decide to buy it on the strength of that!

Indecently, I saw When Immigrants Attack (a.k.a. Gangs of New York) on Friday. Didn’t match up with any of the reviews I heard before hand, which all said it was either “Scorsese’s best movies since Goodfellas” or “Utter Gash” (to paraphrase). I would actually sum it up as “very good in places, but generally pretty average”.

Just to clear up what was good about it first:
All of the acting was fantastic, Daniel Bay Lewis was every bit as good as everyone said he was, Leonardo DiCaprio stood up amazing well against him, Cameron “no where near as attractive as people make out” Diaz was far better than usual, and even Colm “Chief O’Brian” Meaney pulled out an unexpected convincing impression of an Irishman in what would obviously been a very challenging role for any actor who hadn’t made an entire career out of having an Irish accent.
Very good camera work (no surprise there) and some particularly stunning set pieces. (One in particular got me as tense as I think I’ve ever been sat watching a film, I could hear my pulse when Amsterdam was pinned to the table by Bill the Butcher.)
Very good editing, except for continuity problems.
Good script, and nice dialogue. Could easily have been too complex but nice use of subtle flashbacks explained everything nicely. (At this point I have to justify myself as not being so stupid as to not be able to follow simple plots but I have real trouble recognising peoples faces so this worked for me.)
Quite a lot of gore, although not as much as expected.

Now the negative points:
Seems to have been messed about with too much in post. I think reshoots stand out due to continuity errors – and no I’m not being really geeky about someone’s club being in the opposite hand every time it cuts to them, it’s far more glaring stuff like Ed Wood style lighting changes!
Hilarious “oh, what should we do??? I know, lets bomb everyone!” ending. Tck, Americans.
I don’t believe it. That’s the long and the short of it. Although some things like this may well have gone on around the time, I think its all been exaggerated to the point it’s just farcical. I mean, are we really suppose to believe that there were bars that took payment for drinks in severed human ears? Hardly a stable currency. When was the last time you heard something was worth its weight in ears? And what were they going to do with them afterwards... make Pinna Stew?

Now I know it’s not exactly a period drama, but surely some historical accuracy isn’t asking much? Maybe there were incidents like this... but in the context of the shear number of equally unbelievable things it’s easy to dismiss all of it.

:: Dan 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Got my wifi working at home

Blogging from the toilet!

:: popcorn 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Review : silencio e.p. ver 3.001a9k
Good. Buy it.

:: popcorn 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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If you noticed the net was slow last week, due to slammer, you can see just how slow here. look at the drop off on the seven day rolling graphs.

:: popcorn 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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It's been updated for added QoS!

original: Standard for the transmission of IP datagrams on avian carriers

update: IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service
and AFIK there's lots of stupid RFCs.

:: popcorn 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Haha! Avain/IP sounds hilarious.
I can see why someone might write something like that as a joke, but an oficial RFC is just taking the piss isn't it?

Over what distance was the 6bpm average recorded btw?

:: Dan 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Does there have to be a point tho'?
For example there's an official RFC for Avain/IP (IP over carrier pigeon). Not particularly useful but it works (a whopping average of 6bits/minute throughput)

slow day

:: popcorn 3.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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H20/IP... Hmmm. I'm sure there are better ways of doing that. One of the big name pro audio companies, I can't remember which, once had a stand at a trade show sending digital stereo audio, S/PDIF, down a peice of damp string, just to show what was possible! Surely you could get a better image down damp string than a tube full of water? But still, whats the point?

:: Dan 2.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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Did you shave his pubes to match?

:: Dan 2.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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a bit arty but some interesting ideas especialy H2O/IP and PoilceState

:: popcorn 2.2.03 [Arc]    ::
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