Video

Full length version of Beastie Boys – Fight For Your Right (Revisited)

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Full length version of Beastie Boys – Fight For Your Right (Revisited)

This may be the craziest half hour I’ve spent on the u toobe. Mild anarchy! A-list cameos! Dodgy acting! Will Ferrell playing cowbell! Spraying! (of more than one kind).

“They can’t even untie a f__ing dance mat”

The Peacock and the Chickens

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Here’s a video I made of the mating and courtship ritual and display of the Brockwood peacock. He spends a lot of time with the hens. Unfortunately they are not peahens but chicken hens, so they are not very interested, despite his best efforts. And his best efforts really are spectacular, with his huge feather display, the shaking and the lunging. He’s almost as impressive viewed from the back. This palaver carries on for more than twenty minutes at a time. Some peahens came over a few weeks ago from a farm half a mile away but they didn’t stick around. Maybe he got lucky that time…

Here’s how it’s supposed to go:

Lyric of the Day: Ask – The Smiths

Posted on by Duncan Toms

My Lyric of the Day posts are usually chosen by a lyric that’s in my head when I wake up, or by particularly relevant line or two, like yesterday’s yellow moon on the rise, or today’s spending warm summer days indoors. (Although it is still spring; in my mind the lyric was warm sunny days…)  So many good lines in this song. I just read a funny forum where people are saying: those lyrics are wrong, it should be the bond that will bring us together. Fortunately it is asserted that bomb is correct. Then someone says: no, it’s bong.

I enjoyed this live version. Apparently the audio is dubbed on from the Rank live recording.

Shyness is nice and
Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
You’d like to

Shyness is nice and
Shyness can stop you
From doing all the things in life
You’d like to

So, if there’s something you’d like to try
If there’s something you’d like to try
Ask me I wont say no, how could I?

Coyness is nice, and
Coyness can stop you
From saying all the things in
Life you’d like to

So, if there’s something you’d like to try
If there’s something you’d like to try
Ask me I wont say no, how could I?

Spending warm Summer days indoors
Writing frightening verse
To a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg

Ask me, ask me, ask me
Ask me, ask me, ask me

Because if it’s not Love
Then it’s the bomb, the bomb, the bomb,
the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
That will bring us together

Nature is a language – can’t you read ?
Nature is a language – can’t you read ?

So, ask me, ask me, ask me,
Ask me, ask me, ask me

Because if it’s not Love
Then it’s the bomb, the bomb, the bomb,
the bomb, the bomb, the bomb, the bomb
That will bring us together

If it’s not Love
Then it’s the bomb
Then it’s the bomb
That will bring us together

So, ask me, ask me, ask me,
Ask me, ask me, ask me

Lyric of the Day: Yellow Moon on the Rise – Neil Young

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Yellow moon rising tonight, the night before it’s full:

There is a town in north Ontario
With dream comfort memory to spare
And in my mind I still need a place to go
All my changes were there

Blue, blue windows behind the stars
Yellow moon on the rise
Big birds flying across the sky
Throwing shadows on our eyes

Leave us
Helpless, helpless, helpless
Baby can you hear me now
The chains are locked and tied across the door,
Baby, sing with me somehow

Blue, blue windows behind the stars
Yellow moon on the rise
Big birds flying across the sky
Throwing shadows on our eyes

Leave us
Helpless, helpless, helpless
Helpless, helpless, helpless
Helpless, helpless, helpless
Helpless, helpless, helpless

Japan Quake and Tsunami – Inside the Evacuation Zone – Video

Posted on by Duncan Toms

This compelling video was filmed last Sunday. Two Japanese tourists head into the 20km no-man’s-land of the evacuation zone. Radiation meters beeping like crazy, they proceed to as far as 1.5 km from the Fukushima nuclear plant. On the way encountering ghost towns, deserted apart from roaming cattle, and, sadly, the pet dogs left behind when the humans fled.

Scrap Book: Mexico Weekend Surf Trip 2006

Posted on by Duncan Toms

While staying in California three of us took a weekend surf trip down to Mexico. The first night we stayed in the crappiest campsite, a car park basically, just somewhere to sleep before heading further south:

We drove all the next morning in the intrepid VW. The sign says ‘What have you got to risk?’

After a crazy bumpy track we arrived at the crazy bumpy Campo 4 Casas hostel, right on the cliff over the surf spot:

We surfed that afternoon and next morning we headed back north, looking for a sweet spot:

With armed checkpoints:

We piled back over the border late on Sunday all Mexico’d up

“Patriotism is a disease” – Einstein, quoted by Peter Joseph of Zeitgeist

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Peter Joseph, of the Zeitgeist Movement talks a lot of sense. Here’s a short interview with him in which he outlines the basic principles:

Come back to the basic necessities of life
The current economic system is intrinsically flawed
Almost everyone suffers under this system
Eliminate war, famine, most crime, all monetarily related
Think globally, not nationally
Self interest becomes social interest
Invent not for money but for a better world
Undo psychological distortions

Good stuff and not just wishful idealism, nor communism. I find he comes across better in this interview than in the lengthy movies:

110324 Nature Tour of Brockwood

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Ten days ago, Phil, a visiting biologist gave a nature tour of some of Brockwood Park. He was kind enough to let me film it. The video doesn’t contain the whole tour but an edited thirteen minutes. We learnt something about chicken relatives in the forests of India, dog’s mercury, daffodils known as Lent Lilies, the corkscrew hazel, pigeons eating stones, birds of prey regurgitating the indigestible fur, feathers and bones of their kill, the formation of flint, and the nutritious qualities of beech sap and young hawthorn leaves. The spring has advanced considerably in ten days and it’s looking so much greener than in this video:

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Steps: 5544

110321

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Comic relief in reverse. It does show up how patronising comic relief can be; not that the causes aren’t worthwhile. And how ridiculous our behaviour is in affluent countries.

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Really like these images of the supermoon. Here’s a few of them:

We all see the same moon. Obvious, yet… makes me smile.

The first day of spring also makes me smile. Roll it on.
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Entered into the world of Uncharted, which so far is much more fun for me than Little Big Planet. Snooping around ancient sites, climbing up stuff, discovering shit. Like a movie you take part in (albeit a B-movie, or LOST)

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Steps: 4977

110312

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Went to Petersfield, got on the bus to Selborne, walked to Petersfield. That’s my idea of fun.

On the bus there was a little boy with his dad and granddad, going to Alton to ride the steam train. Are you having a nice time? Are you having a nice time? The father kept asking. Are you having a nice time? Because daddy wants you to have a nice time. I’m having a nice time, the boy reluctantly replied. Sat just in front, I wasn’t convinced. Then a sudden retch and sploosh, the boy was sick over the window and seat then promptly burst into tears and wailing. This lasted many minutes as granddad got the wet wipes out and tried to mop it up. Once he’d stopped crying, again the boy repeated, I’m having a nice time. By then I’d moved further back in the bus because it smelt of sick up there.

The walk was very good for me. Four hours out in the open, following the chain of hangers south from Selborne to Hawkley, then over the meaty Shoulder of Mutton hill to Steep and Petersfield, through an area called Little Switzerland. The waterfall is always a delight, so near to home.

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This evening watched The Social Network for the second time. Geeks! Harvard! Jocks! Coding! Not listening! Pilfering! Partying! Blogging! Suing!

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Steps stepped: 21,340 (A new record)

110208 Alton to Selborne

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Yoga when I woke up, then breakfast before driving to Selborne. From there I caught the bus to Alton so I could walk the first part of the Hangers Way back to Selborne. The path is 21 miles long and heads south and east from Alton to Queen Elizabeth Country Park south of Petersfield, so today’s walk was a third of the total. I expected the bus to be a mostly empty Tuesday morning rural bus, but no, it was full of teenagers headed to the college. That feeling of being watched as I looked for an empty seat, only one spare because the kids were sprawled over a couple of seats each. The first part of the walk was fairly boring, through the industrial part of town and over large fields. As it got hillier, it was more fun. It took about two and a half hours walking, with a couple of short breaks, sitting in the late winter sun. New growth pushing up in the woodland, the leaves of the bluebells. Keep it rural! Here’s the walk video I made:

Weekend Walk 24 – Alton to Selborne – Hangers Way from Duncan Toms on Vimeo.

This afternoon, resting, editing the video which takes an hour or so, plus export and upload time. Otherwise continuing looking at TVs and buying a Playstation 3. But this morning during yoga I saw through all this entertainment and constant occupation, to something simpler, purer, more in touch, real, whole. It’s a question of right action and what to do with my time on this earth, what to do with each day. At the end of it: ‘Oh, I saw some fine movies and played some games, rode some waves, made some good friends, loved and was loved, worked a lot.’ Well, maybe that’s what there is, but something else is touched upon when deep in a stretch or in relaxation. I can’t force it, but I can allow it to come. It’s not something more, but unrelated to all that I know.

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Steps stepped: 14,706

110217

Posted on by Duncan Toms

I’ve been resting in bed again most of the day. Still feeling weak. I seem to get this every few months. I don’t go down as hard as I used to with dizziness and aches, but that same sick feeling I’ve felt for a few years now gets close by and I loose strength to do very much. There’s nothing for it but to rest up and sleep when I need.

I watched a move called Easy A. An above-average teen movie, interestingly for me set in Ojai, California where several of my friends live. The central character is quite bright yet falls into the trap of what people think of her, and is sucked under for a while by the rumour mill. You get to see quite a few shots of the city centre and surrounds, and of course a lot of the school. I really liked the parents; very funny yet caring.

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Caroline passed her driving test. Good on her! The nerves failed her somewhat and she made some mistakes, but the examiner must have noticed her general competence and ability. That means no more driving practice sessions, which are quite hard on my own nerves. For the time being she’ll be able to borrow my car for work and after a while get her own.

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This evening watched Human Planet about the grasslands of the world. Incredible footage of hunters stealing from lions, ambushing kudu, fishing for snakes, working with a bird to collect honey, fending off and then burning thousands of birds, catching and milking horses, and rounding cattle with helicopters. Men in copters was a strange site after 45 mins of traditional ways. Here’s a clip I uploaded of the kudu hunt:

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Steps stepped: Not many more than 1000. Snoozes snoozed: Many.

110216 Hackintosh

Posted on by Duncan Toms

Prefer Bing to Google? Not sure why anyone uses Bing, but here’s an interesting article. Basically it seems that Microsoft are copying Google’s search results. To prove it, Google fixed a couple of fake search returns for a search like ‘djksijljeejjw’ or something, so it would return one page that had nothing to do with this search string. The very same nonsense search on Bing returns the same page! It’s not against the law, but someone from Google, who put a lot of resources into refining their search algorithms, said it’s like looking over someone’s shoulder in an exam. Microsoft; never original.

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Back to Google, here’s a You Tube internal error message I saw today:

500 Internal Server Error

Sorry, something went wrong.

A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.
If you see them, show them this information:

ZIf_ar2jfRmr7JcVVsJWAfNznnucO5iItQlLBks_BSQihlIGVHaznxT_v8rs
pZGSETqkFWoOaNU2TF9ZEDDvQmqxhDQqgMnTU_WKVBLhdxqapoyWEOsBOfWR
Z6E2HtctdG5w-tFRDo7zS4JDeggKFH3Go-FRApMF0J6DOhHKwBsg9L6mg5ws
E7GJpqJg3MfxVGLVy7iOyHrwXviXqnoLkgBnUTJdHvP3BX-20RH6lU8z-glS
SULOhWrecoVhLPCxP0P5iDMzHq-zMjgmFpRT_KVQPsVSJsFOsrUhWEQY2… etc

– while uploading this:

Vic and Noel, different generations, same humour.

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I’ve been looking into building a PC for a Hackintosh experiment. Thanks to Kakewalk and iBoot/Multibeast it’s apparently easier than ever to run OSX on PC hardware. You have to make sure the hardware is compatible to what Apple uses. So far it’s looking like I can build a brand new high end i7 silent PC for around £640. (i.e. near Mac Pro performance for the cost of a Mac Mini)

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Steps stepped: Not very many. I’ve been at home sick most of the day.