...And it stopped raining.  Woop.

We had our first BBQ in the new garden yesterday which was fun.  Really great to catch up with everyone, and enjoy a few drinks.  Jo cooked, we all ate and drank, I didn't have to drive.... Good deal really!

After the food came Leanne's drinking games...

And, of course, no party would be complete without somebody falling over (and for once, it wasn't Maz)...

And, us adults, rediscovered the fun of balloons...

More photos here

We got around to finishing the garden yesterday (after my manly effort a few weeks ago), ready for a BBQ this afternoon.

Here's the before and after...

Before

There once was a pile of mud...

...and next to it was more mud...

...And then along came Ali and his power tool...

...And his elves (his mother, Jo and Elle)...

...Ali rotorvated, Jo and Elle raked and flattened, and Ali's mum laid the turf with precision...

...The next week, Ali got bored, and bought some Australian palms and some funky grasses (not actually their technical name), and some of those bark chipping things...

...Then Elle planted some vegetables, Nathan bought a horrible garden "Snail on a Ball", the grass grew, Leanne bought Jo and knome called Jim, the furniture and BBQ were put up, and the final result was a garden...

After

...The end.

BBQ later.  And it's raining.

But all these good ideas, they never come to all that much I know.
So raise a glass to liberty, and let it go.

Stumbled across this rare track the other day (from a limited edition CD he gave out at some gigs a few years ago) - it's quite a cool song.

Far better than a Snail on a Ball is the present that Sam gave me for maintaining her web site.

A swear these are the best tasting brownies I have ever had.  The batch lasted around 7 hours with the housemates around.

Further verification of their tastiness - the last time Sam made me some, I was in London cutting the 5:13 trailer.  Whilst we were editing, a squirrel came through the window and took one straight from the cooling tray.  Lucky thing.

...at least get me something nice.  I mean, come on:

How am I even supposed to pretend to be grateful for a "Snail on a Ball" garden ornament?  Thanks Nathan.  Ah well, having a BBQ next weekend.  Hopefully somebody might accidentally smash it.

My absolute favourite artist of all time, David Ford, has recorded a live version of his recent(ish) single, Go To Hell, in a kitchen in New York beginning with kitchen utensils and a looping system...  Genuis.  Gutted I missed his last tour.

He's on tour in the states at the moment.

This is why: a) we have artists, and, b) why I probably got a D in GCSE art.

Link 

(Actually, the real reason I really got a D in GCSE art was that my crazy art teacher thought it would make my "Dolphin Shoe" (for some odd reason, we had to make animal themed shoes out of paper mache) more authentic if we left some dead fish in it over the half term break.  Anyway, needless to say, the shoe not only smelt vile, but the room couldn't be used for a week, and everyone else's work had to be thrown away after moderation)

I used to think it was a bit pointless to take time off work, and not go away or something, but it's been quite nice to be honest.  I haven't done a great deal, really.  I was sort of planning to get stuck into a couple of projects for Chaos but I ended up managing to avoid work for the entire week, which is a record (I even managed to work in Mexico last year, and had to work for two days when in Paris last year).

Anyway, the most productive I've been last week involved me doing my garden.  I'm feeling sort of old and grown up typing this, but, yes, I managed to turn the soil and rubble pit that was my back garden into a full blown garden, with a lawn, flower bed (complete with palms) and a vegetable patch.  Heck, I even hired out and used a rotovator for the task.  Anyone who knows me should know that when it comes to DIY, I'm beyond useless (my last attempt, putting together a bedside cabinet resulted in a drawer being constructed before realising I forgot to put the bottom in), so I'm sort of proud of myself in an oh shit, I'm growing up kind of way.  The lawn was a group effort mind.  I rotovated, Elle and Jo raked and jumped on boards to level it, and then my mum helped lay the turf.  Thankfully, they're still building houses behind us, so we could dump the excess dozen loads of unused mud on the new gardens (although they wised up to us midweek, and have locked all the gates).  So, yeah, all ready for Summer BBQs.

Otherwise I have: Drank in the afternoon whilst sitting in the Royal's beer garden in hot sunshine which got me excited about living here throughout the Summer (especially when the bars open on the waterfront), completed Condemned 2 (the scariest game I've ever played) with Leanne, tried teaching bunny tricks and failed but at least he's toilet trained now, went shopping in Bath with Ben and bought some new clothes and three new albums (Barenaked Ladies, One Republic and Scouting For Girls), read a book (something I only seem to do when I have time off) called Plum Island, reached a 68% score on Brain Challenge (Elle is still hovering around the 9% mark), drank a lot of coffee in a lot of coffee shops, got back into some sort of fitness routine (realising I'd paid out £90 in gym fees over the last few months and I hadn't used it was a good motivator), read the scripts for the new movies I'm editing this year, caught up with Dave and Jade and met their new baby, Jack, and otherwise, just sort of chilled out...

Finally, after many many (about seven?) months worth of work, the project I've been developing for the London Grid For Learning, has entered beta testing.  The project, developed for Electronic Blackboard, features games and activities for every item on the national curriculum.

It's been a bit of a hard slog, but at least I know, for sure, that I am smarter than a ten year old.

Which means, I can actually have some time off.  Woop.  Ten whole days worth.  So, if anybody fancies a catch up, give me a shout.  Hoping some of the Clevedon lot might be back (those that are still students, at least).

More details here on the maths stuff

Just set up a blog on my work web site (Chaos Created).  I'd imagine most of the stuff I post there will get duplicated here, but if you want a nose around some of my work stuff, the link is here.

A few details have been released via a cast advert for the first of the two feature films I'll be editing on this year.

Perantauan Pictures and Befour Media UK, the team behind S'kali are now casting for their new feature-length horror/drama, written by Arivind Abraham and Keith Leong and to be directed by the former.

The film now has a name, 5:13, and I had an almost-final draft of the script sent over last week and I think it's going to turn out to be a great film.  It has a far more universal appeal than S'kali and horror/thriller films from smaller film companies seem to be doing rather well as of late.

The film begins shooting on 5th May.

Teaser Trailer

Went up to Derby to see my brother (and his new house) and we hit Alton Towers yesterday, along with Jo, Leanne, Rebecca and Maz.

It was a pretty fun day, and a nice break from the never ending projects I've been working on.  Alton Towers was pretty much dead (great for us).  The longest queue was ten minutes and for the most part, we could just walk onto any ride we wanted.  Air is still easily the best coaster in the UK (Stealth at Thorpe comes a close second).

So we pretty much had the park to ourselves, allowing multiple rides on everything (along with the excessive riding of the river rapids - Maz came prepared with her umbrella.... Leanne got soaked).

Jo has his height/coaster phobia (although, he did ride Air), so because of odd numbers, we took it in turns to ride with "Justin", our imaginary friend for the day, hence the odd photos.  That's me and Justin in the photo above, sat in the front seats of Rita Queen Of Speed.  I also lost on Duel....  I blame my gun.

Anyway, it was a cool long weekend, and now I'm into a 3 day week before the bank holiday weekend (wrapping up, finally, on a major project), which shall be a designated lazy weekend, unless we get some nice weather in which case I'm going to start on the garden, as bunny needs a run around.

Photos from Alton Towers are here.

Another reason why I love living with Elle...

"I used to love silent movies as a kid.  What were they called?  The talkies?"

I'm not sure exactly what happened.   Maybe blame the freak weather for limiting what I could do with my day off yesterday, but I seem to have bought a rabbit on a random trip to the garden centre to look at garden furniture.  He is actually adorable.  He's a Netherland Dwarf Rabbit, which apparently are meant to be quite skitty, but he's beyond sociable and seems content to just snuggle up, he's been out with Elle watching Jeremy Kyle and daytime trash for most of the day, and then out with me since I got home from work.

So he's living in my office until I get the garden done, which is great as I can now talk to myself all day and not feel quite as crazy.

I had a meeting yesterday about my next project for Electronic Blackboard.  Once the maths project ships, and the Climate Project is through (and I've had a week or so to recover), I'll be moving onto Big Day Out, a series of flash based applications commissioned by the UK's learning grids.

One of these projects was commissioned for the South West Grid for learning, and if you want to check it out, the link is below.

It's a neat online service, built in Flash and hooked into a database that allows children to explore certain areas of the UK and discover what they're famous for.  They can then complete an activity, and every activity has an outcome that can be stored in a scrapbook for the individual school, shared with any other pupil on the network and emailed to anybody with an email account.  For example, I could go in, visit Weston Super Mare, build a sandcastle, and then share the results.

From the press release for the West Midlands version (which I'll be working on):

Did you blink and miss this year’s summer? Not to worry, you can now revisit the Summer by making sand castles in Bournemouth, go fossil hunting in Dorset or have a day at the beach in Cornwall. These are just some of the many Foundation and KS1 modelling activities available to all schools at http://bdo.swgfl.org.uk .

After completing the activities pupils can send postcards with their results. The activities are designed to be facilitated by an adult and promote discussion. They are ideal as whole class activities on an interactive whiteboard.

The 15 activities have been produced by i-Board in collaboration with the South West Grid for Learning. More activities are planned for all around the country including the West Midlands. WMnet are working with i-Board to produce 15 activities which will highlight the best of the region especially in terms of industrial heritage.

If you fancy a play, you can have a look at one of the South West builds here.  There is a cool interface that is being worked on at the moment that will take pupils between the different areas of the country in a similar style to Google Earth.

Play with the South West Big Day Out here

Coming to the end of a couple of major projects over the next week or two.  The Climate Change project for Birmingham schools is nearly complete (it's just going through a bit of tweaking/bug catching) and I've developed two out of the three activities for this one, and the i-board Maths project, which I've been working on since Q3 last year is just about complete too.

The maths project has been absolutely huge - it's basically activities to cover the entire curriculum for reception, year one and year two, tied together with a pupil and teacher interface and will be appearing in all London primary schools this year.  Apparently there's 264 games in there now.  That explains the tiredness.

Also, a couple of web projects, including the redesign for i-Candy, a salon and spa in Bristol, are just awaiting final text.

So, the plan is to get a week or two off an unwind a bit.  I seem to have fallen into the trap of having very little free time, and there's a few things I wouldn't mind doing.  It'd be nice just to get away from the computer, catch up with some friends that I've not seen for a while, maybe get away for a couple of days, turf my garden ready for the Summer, play some games, catch a movie or two and just relax a bit.

Oh, and sleeping in would be nice.

I'd like to put forward a proposal for rating films in the future that wipes the floor with the BBFC classifications.  It's what's become known as the Elle test.

The procedure is simple.  Sit Elle down in front of a scary film.  If she's ok, the film passes the Elle test and we can label it a 15.  If she throws up, the film fails the Elle test - label it an 18.

Black Christmas failed the Elle test last night, and it wasn't very pleasant for anybody...  Although incest and the consumption of human eyeballs is enough to put anyone off (and makes Black Christmas the least Christmassy Christmas film ever).  Previous films to fail the Elle test include The Descent (where she mistook a pile of twigs outside our house for bones) and Hostel (although that may have been my fault for bursting into the room with a drill at an opportune moment - I'm a joy to live with sometimes).

Yes, apparently, Johnny Depp is moving in with his family down the road (joining other Port Marine "celebrities" - term used very loosely - such as Johnny Briggs, Helen Adams and one of the Atomic Kittens).  Leanne, ever so slightly confused when I told her, was under the impression that he was moving in with us....  Elle, on the other hand, is already investing in a camera and a pair of binoculars.

I'm working on another climate change game for Midlands schools.

I finished the transport game yesterday, and I'm now working on a second game which teaches primary school children about saving energy (and therefore creating less CO2) around the house.

It's quite a simple idea - there's a house with two children in, and they're cold and shivering.  The pupils have to make them comfortable, and they can either do this by turning up the heating, or by doing other things, such as putting more clothes on the children and closing windows and doors.

It's quite a simple concept, but I've ended up having to code up a working boiler system.  I'm sure it won't be appreciated by six year olds, but the game has an "outside temperature" a "standard house temperature" which increases and decreases based on the number of windows and doors open, and a "target temperature" on the boiler which the pupils can change.

Anyway, the boiler kicks in when the target temperature is higher than the temperature of the house.  Switch off the heating and the temperature will drop (slowly, if windows and doors are shut, quicker if they are open) to the "standard house temperature" (which again, is lower if windows are open).  Whack the heating up and the boiler fires up, creating CO2, and warms up the house until it hits the target temperature, then it switches itself off, like a thermostat.  The temperature will try and drop, but every time it decreases by a degree, the boiler will fire up to try and maintain the house temperature.

The children then have their own feedback system - they freeze and shiver, remain comfortably happy, or sweat depending on how much they are wearing and the temperature of the room they are in.

It's a pretty complex system, but it gets the message across.  The pupils are timed and have to maintain the happiness/comfort level of the children in the game, and obviously the best way to do that is to stick some extra clothes on.

Once they've completed the game, and the two others (saving energy around the house, and the transport game), they're issued with a printable certificate of their eco-friendly-ness.

Been busy over the past couple of weeks working on a climate change project:

The project, developed for primary school children, features three games, as well as a narrated story. The games explore how children can have an effect on our planet and explores the effects of transportation and the use of electricity. Chaos has developed one of the three games for use within the project.

In one game, developed by Chaos, children can decide by simple drag-and-drop how a street of children travel to school and how much fuel they can save by doing things such as car sharing, or cycling.

The game I'm working on sits in with two other games (one of which is about saving energy around the house), and has been commissioned for use within primary schools in the Midlands.

The end result is quite impressive.  Children can see how much CO2 (Collin CO2) is produced, and then see news reports from around the world in a sort of "if everybody did what you have done" manner.