Category Archives: Random

Woah, it’s been almost a year

My oh my, doesn’t time fly?

It seems like I have been neglecting Stella Was A Diver for so long now that almost a year has passed since my last post.

Bad me.

That’s what a new job will do to you. But, seeing as I am still getting traffic, I shall endeavour to get back into blogging. Poke me if I don’t do a very good job please.

Back to the old style of things, here’s a few interesting things I’ve been doing in the last few weeks…

I went to see the fab little French stop motion animation film called A Town Called Panic a couple of weeks back at my all-time favourite cinema Screen on the Green (it has sofas and they bring you wine to your seat, what’s not to love?). Trailer below:

Essentially a feature-length Cravendale advert written by someone with an over-active imagination and short attention span, this is a fab little oddball of a film.

When I was invited to go to Museum of Everything two weekends ago I was super excited. Tucked away on a back street near Primrose Hill, this place is a veritable rabbit warren of interesting things curated by Sir Peter Blake. Think Victorian fairground paraphernalia and freak show memorabilia, and a hodge-podge of children’s toys rubbing shoulders with an incredible taxidermy collection from Walter Potter’s Museum of Curiosity. Go see whilst it’s still there, if only for the boxing rats.

If you ever has the pleasure of visiting La Clique during their London residency then you’re pretty much there with La Soiree. In a temporary, wooden, saloon-styled big top on the South Bank I enjoyed a night of comedy and cabaret from the weird and the wonderful – think contortionists, hula hooping and leftfield comedy with a sprinkle of vaudeville, a touch of naughtiness and a generous helping of humour. Check it out here.

On a musical tip, it’s been a bit quiet on the gig-going front of late, though I did manage to catch Crystal Castles at the Roundhouse. On a Friday night and with a relatively late start, the shouty electro-tinged duo got the entire venue dancing. An awesome start to the weekend. Tons of exciting gigs coming up in the next month or so including The National, Fujiya & Miyagi, Soulwax and my beloved Interpol. Oh, and my first ever ATP too.

I’ve also been eating some delicious food recently (note my ever-increasing stomach) at the likes of Hix Oyster & Chop House, Giant Robot, Moro and best-steak-ever at Gaucho. My tummy’s starting to rumble even as I type.

Finally, I feel I should mention The Social Network, given my line of work. When I heard that they were making “The Facebook film” I decided it would be terrible. When I saw the trailers and (albeit rather nicely designed) website I still wasn’t convinced. Even the through-the-roof Rotten Tomatoes ratings and raving reviews would not move my scepticism. Then one evening, my friend who works for an unnamed popular film magazine told me that it was actually really rather good and suprisingly quite funny. So I went to see it and I must eat my words as I actually quite enjoyed it. I am now mostly looking forward to the next social network themed film, Catfish – trailer below:

Anywho, I think I’ve rambled quite enough for one day now. There’s plenty I have forgotten and plenty more to come.

Methinks this blog could do with a design refresh. Any thoughts/assistance welcome…


Popularity

Today my blog views rocketed massively and I don’t know why… am I being spammed with views?

Life is starting to settle down a bit so (hopefully) regular posting shall recommence shortly…


Today I got Google Wave

Google Wave

Thanks to a small amount of pleading with an ex-colleague, my geekery dreams came true this morning when I opened up my inbox and discovered an invite to Google Wave.

YAY!

For those not familiar, in short, Google Wave is a new service which combines the techy goodness of email, IM and wiki. It allows users to create collaborative documents online which can be added to and amended, in real time, by others. All participants in each Wave (think of it like a group of people on an email list) can collaborate, edit, change and add to the Wave, and they can see exactly what other people are doing on the Wave, as they do it.  A playback feature allows participants to view the changes in the exact order that they occurred over the course of the Wave to view how it has changed over time. All very handy. On top of this, Google is also integrating tons of useful gadgets that will add new mechanics, services and magic to the Wave, such as a real time translation service, excellent for communicating with people who may not speak the same first language as you.

The downside? Hardly anyone I know has a Google Wave invite just now. Access is still by invite only, presumably as Google is still fine tuning (it does seem a tiny bit buggy and there appears to be a small and vaguely irksome time lapse on typing/displaying of text) so trying it out and testing its full potential is, at the moment, somewhat limited. However, I can see how it can become quickly addictive, waiting and watching as other participants in your Wave type, as well as incredibly useful for both business and personal uses. Need to be able to work on something with people in different locations (at home, different offices, clients, contractors and so on)? google Wave is perfect. Arranging a get together with a group of friends scattered across the country (or even world)? Google Wave is perfect. I could go on…

Surely Microsoft is quaking in its shiny little boots at the launch of Google Wave – I see it as a far superior and advanced successor to Outlook – though I would imagine that Microsoft (and any other key email platform for that matter) will either be launching their own collaborative email mechanic in the not-too-distant future, or else planning to integrate with Google Wave in one way or another. Only time will tell.

For now, beg, borrow or steal yourself a Google Wave invite and have a play!

And here ends my slight rant/love affair with Google Wave.


I have been a bad girl

sorry

I haven’t been posting on here for a few weeks now, naughty naughty me. This is mainly because I have been busy at work, in the process of purchasing a flat AND working on some other little projects in the background…

Here are some things I have found, liked, done and thought about during my blogging absence…

  • Spending far too long creating a Halloween-themed Spotify playlist (which now seems to have disappeared?)
  • The (quite disappointing) Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain
  • Desperately wanting a Google Wave invite
  • Amazing brunch in Roast
  • Getting slightly obsessed with True Blood (but only until Heroes comes back on)
  • Re-living my obsession with Metronomy (again), The XX and Prince
  • I want to go to the Digital Design exhibition at the V&A next month

My weekend…

gin albion Fish Tank

…went a bit like this:

  • Gin & Tonics
  • Making website magic
  • Miso & my flatmates & The Reader: a fair representation of a book I didn’t actually love
  • Albion goodness in the form of baked goods and caffeinated beverages
  • Fish Tank: bleak, terrible dancing, verisimilitude (yep, I was a film studies student for a while), worth seeing, will win awards
  • Breakfast Club Sunday supper

Happy days…


My bank holiday weekend

When I photographed some flowers at Kew

  1. Party in a phone box: STOP TAKING PHOTOS OF ME!!!
  2. Clissold Park: Glorious sunshine, can of cream soda.
  3. Inglourious Basterds: Witty, funny, clever. A Tarantino triumph.
  4. Kew Gardens: Flora, fauna, photographing. Sweet.
  5. Sin Nombre: City of God with multiple narratives woven together. Tres bon.
  6. Holiday shoppery hell. Argh…
  7. Nice coffee and a sit down in Soho.

My traffic

traffic

I just had a look at this blog’s traffic.

It amazes me what some people search for and end up here.

Yesterday’s favourite was “gwyneth paltrow pleasures delight”. Seriously.

If that was you then please get in touch, I am intrigued!

Also, big shout out to my lovely colleague Jimmy whose Facebook profile consistently sends traffic my way. Love you Jimmy x


THE INTERNET IS BROKEN!

As the juicer of squirrels says: http://squirreljuice.net/2009/08/twitter-down-again/

OMG!


A quick fix of nice links

trashy pin-up cups

Due to my busy-ness, here are a couple of links that I liked the look of this week…

  1. Trashy Pin-Up Art gallery over at Trendhunter
  2. Ironically amusing collection of hints & tips from trashy womens mags at the Hero of Switzerland blog
  3. Random sandwiches at insanewiches.com
  4. Nice tilt-shift time-lapse animation of a beach
  5. flickr gallery of hand drawn-on cups

Lovely!


Tales of taxidermy

Two links on my favourite subject today:

The Gopher Hole Museum

The Gopher Hole Museum in Canada – a museum dedicated to gopher taxidermy, link from neatorama.

Twisted Taxidermy from Trendhunter

Twisted Taxidermy – Trendhunter’s collection of the oddest of odd taxidermy.


The Meat House Kit

The Meat House Kit

Potentially the weirdest thing I have seen in a long while, you can buy your very own kit to build a house out of meat…

Only in America.

Link from neatorama.


Lego Arcade

Lego. Retro computer games. Stop motion animation.

What is not to love?

Yet another neatorama joy link.


Jelly on a plate

jell-o

I love the work of Bompas & Parr, aka The Jellymongers, and their epic jelly sculptural delights. Today let me introduce you to The Jell-o Mould Competition. Naturally, it’s American and, naturally, it’s frickin’ awesome!

Read more at Eat Me Daily…

(Thanking Neatorama for the original link)


Heart beats fast like a tiny machine…

…I am electro boy. I am electro girl.

Just spotted this competition for The Mighty Boosh fans on the YouTube homepgae. Video from Naboo explaining below…

Series 4, anyone?


Hidden restaurants

Hidden restaurant

Thanks to my dearest, darling housemate, I have just discovered a plethora of exciting hidden restaurants dotted around London including one ran by an ex-chef at El Bulli.

Find out more here…


Bumble bees

bee

No, not mulitple yellow robots from TRANSFORMERS…busy busy bumble bees, i.e. me. SO much so that I haven’t had the time to blog this week.

Sorry.

Will try harder.


Best thing ever!

barbie table football

Barbie Table Football. Awesome.

More here, thanks Miss Cakehead ;)


We’ve started a movement

twitter bird

Over lunch, we decided to start a Twitter movement.

Search for #pointless_band, add your own, etc etc.

See what happens…


The tales of Milk Toof

My Milk Toof

Cutesy blog documenting the tales of Milk Toof.

Read and love at My Milk Toof.


Rick’s Custom Squirrels

a custom squirrel

Yet more of my taxidermy obsession…Richard Nadeau creates custom squirrel taxidermy.

Weird and wonderful.

Link: neatorama


Facial Hair ist fantastiche!

mmmm, beardy

Great image gallery round up of the best facial hair from the recent Beard and Mustache Championships at Cakehead Loves Evil…


New favourite taxidermy blog

taxidermy that is bad

Taxidermy That Is Bad.

Courtesy of my morning Metro reading.


Happiest People Ever!

happy

Tres funny blog of non-happy looking people in photographs.

Link here…


Passive-aggressive notes

passive-aggressive note

Stumbled across passiveaggressivenotes.com this morn and I LOVE it.

A collaborative blog where people send in post-its and other notes they find, mostly with a passive-aggressive flavour.

Happy reading!


New Salad Fingers!

“Maybe you can come and tuck me in tonight, sailor…”

Forgot how much I love this weird creature. The song at the end is amazing!

More Salad Fingers, and other assorted oddness, here…


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