I've been rather busy the last couple of months having a go at building my own PHP CMS, modelled on the MVC design pattern. At work, I'm currently using a rather large, feature-stuffed home-baked CMS, brewed in-house by our PHP freelancer. Learning the ins and outs of this system over the past 6 months has inspired me to have a go at building my own. Two months later and, well, I'm still working on it. But I like to think it's certainly getting there.
I saw Ratatat at the weekend, and, like a lot of artists in my music collection, they are a band I know due to a couple of songs I discovered by them years back. Ratatat were supporting Vampire Weekend at the Brighton Centre last week (who I'll get onto shortly), and as much as I enjoyed Vampire Weekend, it was Ratatat who left me yearning for me. Luckily, I managed to get hold of last minute tickets to see the twosome performing again a few days later at a much more intimate venue. I was not disappointed.
In the second of tonight's posts, I want to get down a few more of my experiences from New York City. Something you can't really avoid when travelling - unless you are an extremely clued up type - is being a tourist; especially in a city the size of New York. In the post I describe what it's like being a tourist in NYC. I've also included another of my photographic favourites taken in the city - you can check it out below.
On an entirely unrelated note, this is my 100th blog post!
I've decided to break my 20-day lull with a double-post. The posts are related, yet contradictory (I will explain). The first post for tonight will explain my absence. Or rather, the following photo will. I am proud to say I have now visited the place I consider to be the city of all cities; the big daddy of them all, New York City. In the second post I cover the topic of tourism, or rather, being a tourist in the big city.
I write this on the train back to Brighton from London after an evening being entertained by funky blues rockers The Black Keys. I can't say I was overly keen on the duo before tonight, having only heard a handful of songs. And even now, with their latest album Brothers sounding in my ears, on record I can't say I'm particularly enamoured with them. Live, on the other hand they're a different ballgame.
It would be quite easy to lump NBC's new show 'The Event' into the fairly standard FBI 'big secret' American format of television show, à la Flash Forward. It may be a little too early to judge how this programme will play out, although similarly to Flash Forward, 3 episodes in and it has left me hungry for more.
I haven't been looking forward to a film as I have The Social Network for quite some time. From the moment I first saw the familiar white lettering on the blue background I was intrigued. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Facebook junkie; sure I blog about it now and again and I'm on it every day (but who isn't these days). But I think it's more the awe-inspiring story of the 26-year old billionaire that had the idea that gets me.
If, like me, you often find yourself reading an article on your iPhone in bed, it can be a little annoying when you're on your side and the iPhone's accelerometer tries to compensate by changing the orientation and going into horizontal mode. For about 2 months now I've put up with it, assuming it was a feature Apple have chosen to lock down, with Jailbreaking being the only option. And after 5 minutes of Googling, it looked to be so.
It's taken me far too long to figure this bug out, but I'm pleased to announce I've finally nipped it in the bud. For as long as version 2 of this blog has been in place, the timeline hasn't always worked as it should. To summarise, for those who haven't noticed, clicking on a date in the timeline that should show the blog(s) posted on that day, often came up with "0 entries posted on..." - when clearly the timeline shows otherwise.