<insert crazy ramblings here>

I was walking past Oxford Circus, when I saw an unusual busker. There was two guys each with a set of plastic buckets up turned round them in a semi circle, seating on another bucket. One of them was bashing away with a set of drumsticks, using rim shots and different volumes to create different sounds. After a bit his mate picked up the rhythm and the two of them improvised an awesome bucket solo.

On my internet travels I've seen a couple of comments recently on how genre stuff isn't taken seriously by literature geeks.

These two things are more connected than you'd think.

I took GCSE music largely because it meant I got to muck about with computers. I'd never really learned to play music, and scrapped past the performance sections. But for the compositions, I had a access to MIDI keyboards, drum modules and a compute with cubase.

For one of my compositions, I decided to muck about with the drum module, and wrote a whole piece that was nothing but drums. Lots of drums. Starting with a few riffs, and layering them over each other, building up in complexity, matching the tones of the drums to make a sort of melody. Anyway, it was okay.

One day I sat down and someone had swapped the drum module out for a keyboard without me noticing. So instead of the melodic drums, I got atonal staccato piano. Which I intrigued me, so I used that as the kicking off point for my next piece. It was a different piece, but built the same way the drum piece had been, containing just about the same amount of complexity, and "story".

The external examiners gave the staccato piano piece over a grade higher score than the drum piece.

Ah, that thing about artists being refused entry to the UK was on the Down the Tubes Comics blog.

Last night I went to Forbidden Planet for the launch of Cory Doctorow's latest novel: Makers.

I was intending to buy the book and leave it pristine. Only rereading it once the serialisation on tor.com had finished. That plan lasted all of about 5 minutes. There's some good bits come up, some lovely character development, and at least one WTF? moment.

Speaking of WTF, that has to be the quietest book launch I've ever been to. I was shocked. I got there about 15 minutes into the hour, and there was only one person there. I spent a good few minutes fanboying (Cory recognised me from a previous signing! Eeh!) and SMOFing (Looks like he probably can't make it to Eastercon). And it was only as I was leaving that another person arrived.

[Poll #1474202]

XKCD on airport security.

I once failed to convince an airport security guard to let me keep my 150ml deodorant, as it was an aerosol containing gas and fine particles, but no liquids.

I also failed to convince them to let me keep plastic knitting needles by arguing that the pencils I had with me were far harder and pointier. They let me keep the pencils.

[Poll #1471551]

( Reason for poll )

I went up to the roof at lunch time yesterday, and took some photos of London. I have a whole slew of photo accounts out there on the internet, but realised I didn't really want to upload the photos to any of them. That and thinking about how to deal with crossposting to scratch_uk lead to this poll:

[Poll #1468489]

A little while ago Sarah McIntyre lamented that she didn't know how to crochet and wouldn't able to learn in time for BICS. She wanted to make a pair of horns for her book launch.



But I know how to crochet! So I knocked up a pair, finishing them on the train to Birmingham, and gave them to her on Saturday. I think she liked them, she certainly wore them all weekend :)

(I forgot my camera, so I'll update this post if I manage to get hold of a photo of jabberworks wearing them).


( Pattern for Moris the Mankiest Monster horns )

Standard Fan Art Disclamer: All characters remain the property of their respective authors, and I have neither asked nor obtained permission to use them.

Cross posted from Scratch UK

Using only what I could find on my work PC at lunch time, here's the breakdown of how the voting went:

Thanks to everyone who donated!

Given that I shaved on the morning of the 1st September, I'll shave it off on the morning of the 2nd October. But for an added bonus for those who voted for a thin top lipper, I'll wear one to work, and maybe even to the Birmingham International Comics Show over the weekend.

Click here for Photos (and donations).

Check the privacy settings of your last days posts.

I shall point anyone who laughs at me for not having flash installed on my main browser, or grumbles about No Script making sites harder to use, to this post.