I have a generic Asus brand desktop running Ubuntu Studio 10.04 with a Behringer FCA202 firewire soundcard for sound input. The Card came in a neat “podcasting kit” from a local retailer and it included chunky headphones, a nice microphone and a 2 input mixer.

The most trouble I have is that the firewire drivers in Linux need to be recompiled from source, so each time I reinstall I need to hunt down the tutorial I followed last time to make it recognise the card. After that I only really have issues with Pulseaudio and Jack clashing (the card will only work with Jack, and so will the software I want to use) and an odd bug where the output from the card will stop. I have this quite often and the only way to restore is to unplug the card and restart Jack.

Internet DJ Console

The main bit of software for the stream is Internet DJ Console. Very neat system complete with 2 playlists for fading between songs, VOIP features, streaming, recording, jingles and a tonne of automation. In the show I did last week, I wrote a script to link the songs and used IDJC’s “Announcement” entry whenever I wanted to say something. The playlist would play the songs, then when it got to the announcement it would stop, display the text I wanted to say and turn on the mike. All I needed then was to say my bit, reading from the autocue, then press okay to continue the playlist. If I knew exactly how long my bit would be, I could set a time so I wouldn’t have to click, something that can be very audible on the mike.

Reaching the announcement in the playlist, it prompts me to speak and continue the list

I recorded the show (something that can be done inside the console automatically) and reran it in the evening, pushing it into the liquidsoap queue via cron script at 8pm (or it would have done if I hadn’t used an apostrophe in the filename, grr!). Thus is would be good for podcasts. I can’t however as, despite most of the tracks being CC, the college is only licensed for streaming music.

Stuff I plan to do next it make a nice intro/outro track, maybe a jingle, and explore some more of IDJC’s features.

The show will probably be every Friday 11am (CET) and repeated 8pm at radio.etfos.hr

Some thoughts on what I wanna do after the break…

Short story collection

I wanna write and self publish a short story anthology with my wife (who will also translate into Croatian). Already got 2 that I think are ready, one being Jigsaw already published on the site. It’ll be CC licenced, tho I might add NC to the general licence.

Learn keyboard

Got a music keyboard, need to learn to play it. Simples.

Coding

Got various coding projects to do. Make a WordPress and Drupal version of my Joomla module. Also my brother pointed me towards Panda3d, an open source 3d engine which uses python and xml.

We’re staying in a lovely hotel not far from where we stayed when we came here two years ago. It’s part of a spa so we’ve been enjoying the facilities, mainly the pool and hot-tub, so much we’ve only been in the sea once so far! In the evening we’ve been walking along the prom and having cocktails and/or ice cream in the various bars. Discovered I like Mojitos very much, but after last night’s half litre of beer (and subsuquent over sleeping) I might have to stick to the virgin Cuba Libres… Rum and coke without the rum
We’ve been hunting for a mysterious cake shop here called Millenium, but since there are several places called that including several hotels it’s been elusive. The quest continues.
We foolishly bought some nasty raspberry vodka. Mixing it with coke (or even ice tea) makes no difference. Still have to drink it up though. Might manage it before the two weeks are up.
Leonardo’s Bar (next to the Savoy hotel) is very nice, and the Collasium bar and disco is fun as it’s right next to the sea, but a little pricy.
Right, that’ll have to do for now, might update next week. Cya!

The holiday should give me time to reflect some on the year just gone. Our anniversary is on the 6th aswell so it’ll be a reflection on married life as well as life in a forign country away from home.

I’ll likely be sans internet out on the coast but I might check in if I can find a hotspot.

Ciao!

Summer plans

Still not concrete yet but basically taking August off from work, traveling to the coast for a couple of weeks and hopefully having a week in the UK to catch up with friends and family. Looking forward to it.

Bought a piano

Got a nice MIDI keyboard this week. Managed to play “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” using both hands so far thanks to a neat training program built in. It also has a USB MIDI interface which works great under linux so should be able to create some quality tracks and learn to do proper music.

Reading

Lots of reading recently. Read Cory Doctorow’s new book “For The Win” and loved it, prompted me to blaze through some more of his books, all available on his site as CC licensed ebooks. The guy is such an inspiration, make me wanna just churn out the stories I have in my head and share them regardless.

I’m also reading the Scott Pilgrim comics in preparation for the film adaptation coming out in a few months. A very odd blend of romantic comedy with video game fantasy and self aware comic jokes.

Weather

It’s bloody hot out here! Often hitting 30 degrees with blazing sun, relieved only with the occasional thunderstorm. It’s only gonna get worse as the summer grinds on!

Linux

Been running Ubuntu 10.04 for a while now both on my netbook and work pc. Sticking to Linux Mint 8 at home, I’m sure the wife wouldn’t appreciate any distro hopping, and the main thing we use it for is watching our movies and tv via XBMC. When we move to our own place I wanna get a nettop for the TV and relegate the main PC to an office room.

Lost my 2 USB keys recently, so am a bit lost when I want to test out a distro on my netbook. One was 16gb and the other was 8, shame I was only really using them for boot images.

More use of site

This site runs on a Debian VM with Linode and it’s only serving this site. I wanna use it more, maybe set up a wiki or forum. Need something that might serve more people. I guess if I start producing more entertaining content than this blog there will be more usage, my music and writing are likely candidates. I’d also like to do more code development, create a webapp to run on the site, django looks promising as I’d like to learn python. Maybe a simple PHP thing would be good to start with as that’s what I’ve been using in Joomla.

Dump ends

Nearly 500 words there, not bad, <cliche> must do more often </cliche>.

Be seeing you!

PS: Doctor Who is now much better, game was fun and the Van Gogh one was awesome!

Doctor Who has gotten much better with the last 3 episodes. The Weeping Angel 2 parter was more than I was expecting and very enjoyable. Last week’s Vampire story was also great fun and Rory is an excellent addition to the Tardis crew.

Of course, filming for some of this episode was done in Croatia, not far from where we honeymooned. I blogged about it when it was happening. Nice to see my adopted country in my favourite show.

Currently I’m trying to hack my Joomla module into a releasable form. Lots of nasty hacks got it working on the site in-situe so it’s a bit of a headache to get it working generically.

Cory Doctorow’s new book For The Win is out and available for sale and free download here. Just started reading it and enjoying it a lot.

Anyway, back to work. Caio!

*SPOILERS!*

The quote in the title is from “Destiny of the Daleks”, the 1979 Dr Who story starring Tom Baker. The opening scene sees his current companion, a Time Lady called Romana, in the process of a regeneration. It’s not explained quite how but she appears to be choosing bodies in the same manner you try on clothes, change then give the Doctor a twirl to see if he approves. One of these bodies is a tall and slender woman who towers over an already tall Tom Baker and this prompts the response “Too tall, take it away!”

And it is this line which is stuck in my head whenever I even think about the new Dalek design.

They looked fine on the cover of the Radio Times, I’m sure I’ve seen the ball jointed eye before and I like it. The neck rings are a bit like a hoover hose, or a ribbed marital aid but it’s not too bad. The eye is interesting but compared to the subtle detailing of the previous generation they are far too busy.

Here is my big beef, the skirt and middle section are scaled up and warped, but the top section is the same size. Forget stairs, these things will have trouble getting through doors! And why do they have these extended back sections? Agh! Aggggh!

*deep breaths* Okay, I’ve ranted, done now. I’m sure I’ll get used to them. I agree with the idea behind the change, I love the movie Daleks (and movie Tardis) but aside from the colours, the 2005 daleks were basically the movie-style.

And how good do the “Ironsides” look? That matt paint look reminds me of the renegades from “remembrance”. And when the Doctor attacks one with a massive wrench and it justs takes it, so solid and menacing.

I’m in an odd mood now, after a high point with the first episode, the next two have left me with a sinking feeling and of the rest of the series I don’t really have any episodes I’m looking forward to. Next is Weeping Angels and River Song, both I thought should have been left as one offs. Then later we have Vampires in Croatia, Van Gogh, Stonehenge and possibly another old baddie. Hopefully I’m gonna be surprised and it all picks up later on.

Don’t get out to the cinema much, but with my newly renewed driving skills and it being Friday night me and the wife went out for a movie and a meal. I knew Kick-Ass was out this week but had no idea it was worldwide, we’re used to waiting a few months here in Croatia.

So we got there for the first showing at 6pm and it was super-quiet, we were the only ones on the lower level and I think only one couple was on the top. Only one advert and one trailer (hope Iron Man 2 is good!) and straight into the movie…

The main conceit of the movie is similar to Watchmen. In Watchmen, people are inspired by comic books to become real-life masked-vigilantes. However in Watchmen this all happens in the 30s and we are shown a 20th century where they are commonplace and the consequences of that.

In Kick-Ass however, we are shown it happening now. Dave Lizewski is a teenager who asks himself why noone has tried doing it before so he promptly orders a costume, confronts some local thugs… and gets stabbed. Not only that, he gets hit by a car and gets every bone in his body broken.

This perhaps answers his question, the only people who would mask up and fight crime literally get their ass kicked. But this doesn’t put Dave off, being hit by a car is almost his radioactive spider, his bones are plated together with metal “like Wolverine” and his nerves now have a higher tolerance for pain. He sets up a myspace page (do people still use that?), gets into a fight with more thugs and shoots to youtube stardom when the fight is caught on camera-phone.

While you might think this is Dave’s story, I found that he is just a window into another story in progress. Big Daddy (Nick Cage) and his 11-year-old daughter Hit-Girl are the real story. Out for revenge on a local mob boss (Mark Strong), Big Daddy and Hit-girl are professional vigilantes, slaughtering rooms of dealers and heavies in awesome sequences which are, as I believe is the current internet parlance, “full of win”.

Okay, it might seem disturbing that a father is raising his daughter to kill and maim, and this is touched apon in the story. Perhaps too lightly but it is acknowledged. Really though, she is awesome. In fact, she probably has the biggest bodycount of the film, as well as having some of the most varied methods of killing ever in a movie. But it gets a bit uncomfortable to watch when near the end when she starts to get her ass kicked.

The last major character is Red Mist, son of Strong’s mob boss who suggests he pretends to be a superhero to lure out Kick-Ass for his father. His character is interesting, torn between loyalty to his father and his new friendship with Kick-Ass.

I won’t say much more about the story, for all it’s silly-ness it doesn’t pull any emotional punches. The love interest is only there to give Kick-Ass something to lose, but as I said, Big Daddy and Hit Girl are at the core.

Lot’s of British talent on display here. The director did Layer Cake and produced Guy Richie’s Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, thus a lot of actors in this you will recognise from Richie movies. Mark Strong in particular is great, a mob boss frustrated that his whole empire is apparently being dismantled by a freak in a suit.

Music is awesome, lots of tracks which must have been picked for a temp track but just stuck because they were perfect (main theme from 28 Days Later in particular). The Prodigy are in there too along with Elvis, Sparks and The Dickies cover of the Banana Splits theme tune (perfect for Hit-Girl’s introductory fight).

In conclusion, it’s a fun film, not for people of a nervous or moral disposition, and is another great deconstruction of the comic-book-hero idea. I’ll certainly seek out the comic book original (although both script and book were developed together). As to why people don’t do the hero thing in real life, I think anyone smart enough to do it successfully would be genre-savvy enough to know it would only encourage “super-villains”, and then where would we be?

I’m in two minds about this episode. It’s really driving home the fairytale aspect that Steve Moffatt wants in his version of Dr Who which I am totally on board with but my god there’s a load of plot holes.What’s the deal with the smilers and the winders? Why does the Doctor so quickly decide to lobotomise the whale? Why is there a record button in the booth?

Say what you like about the RTD era, but I never believed there was as many plot holes as people made out. There may have been in the plot but every one I noticed was at least covered by a snatch of dialogue or ADR.

Luckily, Moff’s stuff is so nicely written and the style is so good that on first view we mostly miss all this. I’m thinking that this season, at least at first, will be a bit uneven as the production team get used to making this show. It’s like 5 years ago again, except there’s already a big expectation from everyone. There just won’t be enough time to fix some of the early episodes and we might get a few “Rose” and “Aliens in London”-style flawed episodes.

Having said that, The Moff himself admitted on Confidential that he only put the half-human/half-smilers in because it was scary… So what do I know? :p

Anyway, next week we have “Power of the Daleks Redux” written by Mark Gatiss and starring Ian McNiece as Churchill which I shall enjoy no matter what just because of those facts!