Ginger DJ Rob

Remember the poor this season. Merry Christmas peasants! ( Image found on the L magazine website )

Like everything pathetic about the UK, my work closed because of the deep snow and imaginary travel chaos (even though the main routes were open and buses up to the University of Sussex were still running). A relief for those with hang-overs and great for my plans of visiting my dad in Norfolk . I say working from home but checking emails and adding a web page to the site that I manage hardly qualifies as a full day's work. In the background, the TV news was permanently on checking for the weather and travel. Could I even make it to Norfolk by car? I had to check out my mum's old house, which the tenant had moved out, and to see my Dad but with at least 6 inches on our street and Norfolk being affected by the snow it was a tough decision. With no one else 'working from home' I left at 3pm and ignored the media doom-sayers. Getting to Norfolk was actually easy with the main motorways clear. Norfolk was just as bad as Brighton though the temperature was getting lower a

Yesterday was an interesting one. It was my work's Christmas meal and night out with luke-warm meat and veg (I blame it on the half-cut catering staff who could double as Victorian cockney ladies of the night from the language they use) followed by a charity raffle. Prizes ranged from a night's stay at a Lewes hotel (half the staff live in Lewes!), some dodgy wines, pulp fiction books to the strange contribution of an AC/DC in concert blu-ray video. The evening was held at the upstairs of the Open-House near London Road station starting with a well put-together quiz then into a disco. I made my excuses quickly and didn't stick around for the music as the last Pond pub quiz of the year, nay decade was also on. Bit of a crap turn-out really with only three teams entering. My out of the blue team name won us the fake, stick-on moustaches with "I ain't getting on no B.A. plane fool". Unfortunately, this was the only thing we won as our arch-enemies who always s

  Picked this up from following Daft Punk on Twitter . They seem to be breaking new photos and the odd bit of news about Tron:Legacy which comes out next year.

I see the retail version of Beelzebub, Tescos has got itself into trouble over the Christmas card pictured above. Too right I'd say. BBC news story explains all.

What a night at Soulwaxmas! First of all I must thank my amazing missus, Kerry for getting me some excellent gifts this year. I must be one of the most difficult people to buy for but she's done it again and again. Presents awarded this year were: Charlie Brooker 's new book, The hell of it all; Star Trek on Blu-Ray ; a B+W kasemann polarizing filter (an inspired idea) and Nikon SB900 flash (thanks Kev for the technical advice). I'm a lucky, lucky boy. I tired the filter down at the seafront taking some photos, and although it was raining I was rewarded with a rainbow behind me. The evening started with a quick buffet and friends (thanks again Kerry) before the mini-bus up to Brixton Academy . An 8 seater with a return journey worked out at £250 (about £35 with 7 of us). So much better than the thought of waiting on a cold platform and multi-taxis. Shame we had to put up with some dull Radio 2 sounds. Amazingly, even after turning up 15 minutes late we arrive in Brixto

Work's been a little slack lately waiting for others to do their bit. Ever since the volunteering I did in November and meeting a number of local ' social media ' experts I've been addicted to Twitter. It's quite handy having a job that means I can experiment with these web technologies. I've never needed to worry about getting caught on Facebook as I can say I'm 'researching' though others would probably say 'stalking' or the industry technical term of 'lurking'. The video below (think of me as the bearded, baseball hat-wearing guru) lampoons this new trend of marketing though from the Twittering I see from such experts I really wonder whether the industry is getting away with offering these services or if their clients are really wearing the emperor's new clothes . I've been to a couple of interesting web/social media seminars and presentations lately. Switch off now if you're not really bothered. First of all its w

I ignored the rumours and believed the hype (and some of the media reviews). But it was mainly down to pledging my support to the Boosh family being produced by Baby Cow, the producers behind Noel Fielding and Julian Barrett 's surreal Mighty Boosh . Only the Duke of York's was showing the flick and as we entered the foyer I nearly stepped on local Oz legend and cinema patron, Nick Cave . He didn't hang about as I think he saw the previous Australian film. Turnbull or Bull to his mates has been stuck in his flat for over a year, refusing to come out and begins thinking back to his Eurpoean road trip with Bunny. Cue elaborate scenes and visuals integrating Bull's flat and contents with the holiday that would make French director Michel Gondry green with envy. It was good to hear Rich Fulcher ( Bob Fossil ) voice the seafood restaurant chain phoneline but the humour highlights are few and far between. Another Boosh regular, Richard Ayaoade (Saboo) appears as a very d

Image by jlori via Flickr After all the web hype and lurking at others commenting about it I've finally got to use Google Wave . I'd registered my interest a couple of months ago but only got an invite via a kindly Brighton New Media member. Two days after that I was sent my offical invite from Google so now have a work and personal account. Bear in mind that this is still a beta release so there should be some final tweaks to come. Here's some very initial thoughts: If you're not a web geek here's a quick explanation as to what Google Wave actually is. At the moment most people will see it as a web email service similar to Hotmail but you create 'waves' which can act as messages so you can attach files, photos and links etc. The Wave itself can develop as a conversation (think Facebook comments on a status) as others can add their own comments or files, images etc, etc as well as correct or add text to the original message you started. If you'r