Blog on Shrieking.net

A Dig Through My Spotify Profile, Part 3

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 12:30:39 +0000

This is part 3 of a journey through my Spotify profile. If you haven’t, check out part 1 and part 2.

After albums comes a weird folder named Curated. A while back, presumably bummed out about not being at Glastonbury, I decided to organise an online festival. For a week, I encouraged my friends to make Spotify playlists representing the stage of their choice, and to my surprise, they listened. Spotstock ran for three years, producing wonders such as The Trouser Tent, The Martini Roso Stage, The Dubstep Room and At The Movies. I keep every Spotstock year in a folder. For a long time, I ran a small webapp displaying them all, but that’s gone now. Perhaps I should get it back online.

A Dig Through My Spotify Profile, Part 2

Tue, 07 Feb 2017 16:23:20 +0000

This is part 2 of a journey through my Spotify profile. If you haven’t, check out part 1.

Moving on, I have a folder of collaborative playlists. I can’t link any of these, as they’re semi-private, but among them I have Our Favourite Songs, which a group of us started some time prior to 2010. I have no idea how many people have looked at it over the years. We add things to it now and then. It is now 40 hours long, containing 619 songs. The quality of songs on there is extremely variable. I also have three related playlists from my friend Darren, who, upset at the lack of Boards of Canada on Spotify (mercifully rectified today), asked for our help in finding music that is “Like Boards of Canada”, “Not Quite Like Boards of Canada”, and “Not Like Boards of Canada”. They remain an excellent resource.

A Dig Through My Spotify Profile, Part 1

Sat, 14 Jan 2017 17:41:22 +0000

I’ve been using Spotify for a long time. I’m not 100% sure when I started using it, but it launched in 2008 and when I gave out invites to my friends, one of them took a 2 character username, so I guess it must have been 2008 or 2009. I have been using playlists from the start - I even have collaborative playlists from before they stored the date in which each song was added. Deep in all of this, there are some real gems, so I thought I’d dive through them and dig some up.

Cool Stuff My Friends Have Done Recently

Mon, 09 Feb 2015 13:19:01 +0000

I have a lot of awesome friends doing awesome things. Lately there’s been a few in a row, and I want to tell you about them. I hope you don’t mind. If you do mind, you can stop reading now. Sorry to have bothered you!

Small Tales and Fairy Fails - Paul Duffield

Paul’s one of those people who just makes amazing thing after amazing thing, and his latest Kickstarter is for yet another amazing thing: a collection of five of his recent comics spanning from futuristic science fiction to a medieval knights-n-magic-’em-up. It’s less a Kickstarter and more of a pre-order (Plus it’s already funded), it’s got 48 hours left at time of writing, and it looks great. Look at it.

Some Quick Notes on a Wedding

Mon, 22 Dec 2014 10:36:41 +0000

I am, as I’m sure you can understand, a little short on time, but I wanted to jot down a few thoughts about my wedding before I vanish for a bit. I’ll start by saying that I simply can’t do it justice in words and that I am absolutely delighted with how it all went.

I want to thank everyone again. “thank you” is a phrase that unfortunately is a little one-size-fits-all in our language, I think, so you will just have to take my word for it that this is the kind of thank you that comes with the underlying knowledge of an eternal debt - I will spend my days hoping that somehow, some day, I will have the capacity to make you feel as happy as you have all made me feel this weekend. I will thank as many of you personally as I possibly can, but it will take time to get around you all.

Stag Weekend

Tue, 11 Nov 2014 21:33:58 +0000

I have a hard time buying presents for people. I fret and worry about how it will be received, what the present means for the other person, what the act of giving says about our relationship. Will they like it? By giving it, will I reveal that I know nothing about the person I am giving to? Receiving a present puts me in a similar boat. To receive a present you don’t like is to realise that someone else doesn’t know you like you thought they did. Surprises are the same. Stag weekends are the same. When your friends begin planning a weekend for you, you hope, and you pray, that they are, in fact, your friends. That they know how to show you a good time.

Giving Blood

Mon, 06 Oct 2014 13:39:44 +0000

On Tuesday 30th September, I gave blood for the first time. I’ve always thought about it, but never ticked the box on the form for some reason. Signing up for a new GP this year, I finally decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I chucked myself on the organ donor’s list, too, for good measure.

I forgot about it after that, but a letter dropped through my door a month or so ago with red ink on the envelope, inviting me to book an appointment at the upcoming blood clinic. I was stressed and busy at the time so I skipped over it, and felt bad. I left the letter on my desk as a reminder to sort it out next time they came around.

Surviving Wedding Fairs

Tue, 09 Sep 2014 19:23:46 +0000

Someone on Twitter recently asked “Has anyone ever been to a wedding fair? Are they awful?” and I made a few comments, but I felt like the 140 character limit wasn’t enough for the topic. I thought could write a bit about surviving (and enjoying) wedding fairs. Fairs (and trade expos too, for that matter) are big scary places full of people, usually crowded, usually noisy. It’s easy to give up all hope immediately, but chances are, there’s probably stuff in there you want, and you’re going to need to go, so you might as well try to enjoy it. Here are my tips for not going completely mad.

What This Blog Is Now

Thu, 12 Jun 2014 09:04:15 +0000

I’ve had a blog on and off since I was 16, and this incarnation of it (shrieking.net) has existed since 2002 in some form or other. Between 2007 and 2008 it was most frequently used, as my public travel diary. In 2013 Posterous closed its doors after being bought by Twitter, leaving me blogless for a while. Now, in 2014, I am writing again.

It’s hard to know what a blog is “supposed” to be these days. A big part of me feels like the blog, as a concept, is dead, and most people writing them these days are basically writing self-published magazines. That’s cool, I don’t mind that at all - in fact, I read many, on and off. I get most of my good recipes from bloggers. The problem is, I have a hard time being that focused. The online diary - the weB LOG, remember - has moved to Tumblr, where it has become a forum for reposting cool stuff you find on the internet. I don’t have a problem with that, but that’s not me either.

Soooooon

Sat, 31 May 2014 10:39:30 +0000

Soon! Soon. It has been a long time since I’ve had anything to write on the internet, but I thought I’d try to get back to it. I’ll put the archives up, too. Hooray.