UnorthodoxY Archive It's wasn't what you thought

… are idiots.

There’s been years I’ve been disappointed by the winner of (Celebrity) Big Brother. This year is the first in time in ages that I’ve been surprised by the order that the final five leave in.

Was the rest of the country watching the same show I was? Everyone that voted for the winner should take time to experience what they’re feeling, remember it — that’s what it feels like to be wrong.

Ah well, I’ve just finished a kick-ass steak (with broccoli and blue-cheese sauce) and I’ve got a full glass of wine.

I’ll cope.

A few days back, amongst a typical ramble, I said

Although having separate location updates would be cool for the frequent travellers, but not everyone wants to be found …

I turns out that a service to do that already exists, complete with Web 2.0 name: Dopplr. It’s a social network thing based around travel, allowing you to track where your contacts are going so you can see if you’ll end up in the same place at any point. It’s the sort of thing that would work really well for people who travel frequently for one reason or another.

It’s pretty slick, the interface is easy to use it integrates nicely with lots of other sites. It pulled my old trips out of Google Calendar automatically and it had a bash at working out which of my Flickr photos where from which trip.

I can produce a public profile page to show where I’m going, it’s linked in the sidebar but dopplr.com/traveller/SpaceDog will get you there too. I’d prefer if there was an option to not use my real name on that page, but I could always change my profile. I’m already linking to my real Facebook profile on the sidebar so it’s pretty obvious who I am.

Dopplr also has modules you can add to your own pages, so I can embed lots of different things here, like this.

I’ve only played with it for a couple of days, but it’s got a lot of neat touches and while it’s just ‘fun’ at the moment I could see it being really useful if more people I knew used it.

Serendipitously found on Ewan Spence’s blog.

I keep an eye on my friend’s Facebook status updates, it’s a little odd at times but it’s amusing in it’s own quirky little way.

The whole one-liner, no extra info, is a bit confusing sometimes “Someone is glum.” or “Someone else had a close shave.”. WTF? Stop being all mysterious and stick a ‘because’ or something on the end of that.

The coincidences are particularly perplexing, like when two people, who have nothing in common and don’t know each other, reference the same Greek myth within days.

If I’ve been off-line for a bit and I read a few days worth at once it gives a good overview of what people have been doing or where they’ve been. Although having separate location updates would be cool for the frequent travellers, but not everyone wants to be found …

All of this, and the popularity of mini-blogs like Twitter, got me wondering about the possibilities of sorting through all this information.

If you examine an anonymised feed of status updates could you extract something useful, could you guess the mood of a nation? the world? Could you examine the Blue Monday equation? (hint: it’s bullshit).

News services are already starting to monitor these things to cover breaking news, but I wonder if they can be used predictively.

Perhaps the next big thing is sifting through all the little status updates and tweets and pulling something useful out of it.

Maybe it’s already being done.

Time for a fluff post to start 2009, I almost summoned up the energy to live-blog the Celebrity Big Brother launch show, I’m kinda glad I didn’t.

Brief thoughts and predictions after the jump in case you haven’t seen it yet (and care that much).
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Happy New Year to my loyal readers ;) 

No new resolution for 2009 I’m afraid, I did have one ready but my impending relocation to the other side of the world makes it a little difficult. So far 2009 I’ll desperately trying to sort everything out and not f–k up my new job. By 2010 I’ll hopefully be in a position to try and set myself some sort of challenge. 

Anyroads, happy new year everyone, more posts to come in the new year.

Time for the final verdict on my 2008 resolution: I did it, kind of.

The short version is that I have now visited all 27 EU countries, but not really all of them in 2008. Germany and the Czech Republic only got a few hours each and in Ireland I only made it as far as standing outside Dublin airport. However I’d been to those three before and everywhere else got at a few days or so. I’m going to call that done, I’m not one for pedantry.

You might have noticed a new link on the right-hand side on the front page, the EU 2008 contains links to all the write-ups that are done and I’ll update it as I do more. It’s also got some other stuff that about my trips. The pictures tend to appear on my Flickr photostream before I get round to the write-up so keep an eye on that too.

So how was it?

Surprisingly stressful, two years would have been a far more reasonable time frame to do 27 countries and would have allowed me time to take longer trips and travel by train more. I also screwed up my early trips badly and left an odd set of countries later on, much more forward planning would have helped.

But I’m glad I did it, there are some places I’d never have discovered otherwise althought there were times when I was very glad that I was moving on after a few days.

In general there’s a whole set of cities where I now have a fair idea of my way around. Plus, if I hadn’t been doing this I’m not sure how seriously I’d have considered moving to Manila, in total I’ve spent a lot more time this year getting myself around the world than I ever have before.

I’m still stunned I’ve managed not to cock anything up and miss a flight, or lose something important, or get seriously lost, or worse. It’s a matter of time I guess.

There were a few highlights, go to:

Bruges, if you want proper European old-town style and great beer.
Barcelona, if you want somewhere to take a bunch of people safe in the knowledge that they will all find something to do.
Krakow, if you want another old city with some must-see stops just a few hours away.
Ljubjlana, if you want somewhere nice, friendly and well organised stuck in some spectacular countryside.
Luxembourg, if you just want to escape from everything for a few days on your own.
Vilnius, if you want the most un-touristed city I visited, go there before everyone else does.

and a couple of downsides, avoid:

Bratislava, unless you want somewhere grey, dull and populated by the most aggressive pickpockets I’ve met.
Bucharest, unless … actually just avoid it, it’s truly the worst city I visited. Sorry.

I’m actually fighting the temptation to just book a quick break somewhere for a weekend in January. It’s a pity the Bruges ferry has been cancelled or I could nip over to the Ice Festival, what’s worse is the replacement service in the spring doesn’t take foot passengers, boo!

First up, Merry Christmas everyone, I hope that your holidays haven’t been credit crunched too much. 

Second I notice that I’ve not posted anything further about my job situation, that’s because most people who read this site regularly already know. Still, that’s no real excuse.

The Edinburgh office looks to have some sort of a future until 2010 but with reduced numbers, sadly some people have already been ‘let go’ as they say, there will be more up until June when the office reaches it’s new target.

However this no longer directly affects me because I have a new job.

Almost exactly three months I was sitting in a bar in Malta looking out over the sea and thinking, “You know, I’ve been in Edinburgh for years, maybe it’s time for a change.” And now, in around four months time, I’ll be moving to Manila.

Funny how things work.

It’s not really sunk in yet, there’s so much stuff to sort out here before I go that I’m not sure when the reality will hit me. And once I’m there there’ll be so much to do at work that I’m not sure when I’ll finally notice that I’m living in the Philippines.

Hopefully it’ll generate some more content for this site too but first I’m going to make an effort to tie up the 2008 stuff over the next few months. 

Please, please, please, somebody tell me this is a joke: 

Burger King releases new men’s body spray, Flame, with “a hint of flame-broiled meat”.

More here.

Last January you may recall me mentioning: 

That’s not all, over the weekend I won a raffle, netting me both a hamper of Mexican goodies and tasting menu for two at Le Trois Garcons. Spot on.

Well that raffle is rolling around again this year, your starting point should be this page: Menu for Hope 

The idea is that (foodie) people from all over the world donate prizes and you can buy virtual raffle tickets for each prize. It’s a pretty neat idea, there’s already some cool prizes and more will be added. Last year there was also a list of the prizes which had fewest bids near the closing date so you could try and scoop up some last-minute goodies. 

There you go, you’ve been warned, go forth and win stuff (while also supporting charity).