london pick ups and take me back to london

Panorama of Buckingham Palace

London is a place that will never disappoint me, no matter how many times I'll visit. I can honestly say that the past few days I haven't wanted to leave - we did seriously consider paying more for another night.

On the first day, Charlotte & I ventured straight into Camden Town which, to sum up: is very surreal, even in January. I spent most of my time there quiet; just taking it all in! If you've been down, you already know what it's all about. I think you'll need an entire day dedicated to walking and exploring Camden to really realize what it's all about. There are so many knock-off stores you just have to love it, & the amount of people flogging their music on the street was pretty cool; you could tell how passionate they were and I spoke to one who seemed quite down to earth about his music - I just wish I had some cash on me to check out his music! I think it's a place where, the people who populate it are already aware of what they are & simply run with it, which I think is absolutely brilliant.

We decided to visit Big Ben at around 8pm that night - I really wish the photos were developed so I could post them. I was in absolute awe. Looking up at him, lit up and glorious made me feel oddly patriotic and humble. The architecture is fantastic and is really shown off in the night time. The rest of that evening was spent wandering around the Thames & Piccadilly Circus - which is one of my favourite places. London looked beautiful at night.

London Pick Ups

The following day we spent mostly shopping and 'fitting everything in' as we made a map on Google Maps of places we wanted to go, shared on our phones (which btw, Google Maps was a saviour with the London Underground) - so we spent a lot of time shopping around SoHo area. Originally went to Dover Street Market, which unfortunately was closed for the SS'13 swap over. Disappointed but, I was focusing on the bigger picture. As you can see; mostly shopped in Johnny Cupcakes & BAPE. The Bape store was pretty cool, the guy was nice and I'm going to be getting a lot more Bape this year, what with it being Year Of The Bape (#YOTB...). Other stores include the Candy Store, which I'm not the biggest fan of, but seemed slightly better than the Birmingham one and Supreme. The Supreme store was disappointing as most of the items left were S and XL, curse being a medium!

In terms of customer service though, Johnny Cupcakes is next to none. I've been twice and the guy who works there is just so easy to talk to and down to earth. I'd love to just be able to hang in there all day. I didn't expect to come back with so many Johnny Cupcakes items, but hey, 'Oliver Twist effect'. Also, as pictured. I couldn't resist buying a Picadilly Circus road sign from those tacky Britain tourist stores.

I think to really sum up, we didn't do any of the conventional touristy things; which would be cool but I don't know, maybe we're 'too young' to want to spend time doing that, but I had a great time taking my girl to London and experiencing it first hand. I'd absolutely love to go again very soon. This time, I think I'd take more money and have an extra day...

supreme f/w 12 navy box pullover pick up

supreme navy box pullover

I couldn't resist. (Sorry Josh)

Picked her up this morning from the ParcelForce depot north of Birmingham; sent to me from a guy in California & worked out to be priced just above UK retail after currency conversion, so I'm pretty stoked about that!

ParcelForce definitely deserve a shoutout here for assisting me on Twitter, it helped ease the ridiculous customs charge... but hey, I get paid next week so all is fine. I'm excited to wear this around London.

Speaking of London; me and Charlotte head off tomorrow for 2 days. I think our general plan is to see the sights, head to some museums; shop and take all of London in, really. I'd like to lurk around some bars to have a brief encounter with London nightlife! On top of all that, it's gonna be great to have a "getaway" with my girl.

Apparently, we're going to Tiffany's too. I don't know how my wallet I feel about this.

On a side note, I won some tickets for an Enter Shikari return gig in London next week. It's 350 capacity; so that's pretty cool! I've met the gang once, they were insanely nice & a bit drunk. If I can't go, I'm definitely giving the tickets away to some fans who deserve them.

Just a short post today. My next post will no doubt outline some London pick-ups and be written about our time in London. I'd like to write some posts that aren't about things that about events occuring in my life soon, so we'll see how that pans out.

Adios!

Got a slice of Raspberry Pi

1TB Hard Drive, 8GB SD Card & Raspberry Pi

This morning, I brought something I'm quite intrigued and excited about - The Raspberry Pi. This is a small, credit card sized mini PC intended for pure experimentation. My base purpose for this little machine is to be a basic home theatre PC via the 1TB external hard drive you see above.

For months I've been hounding for the ideal set-up when it comes to my media. The Xbox 360 was simply a laughing stock when it came to handling outside media; the PS3 improved this experience nicely - despite PS3 media server not playing nicely on my network and having trouble with filetypes - the 'ecosystem' just didn't connect fluently. Fluency is what I was really searching for when it comes to managing my home media. It was for these reasons that I didn't opt for an Apple TV, Roku, Boxee etc. streaming box. The aforementioned devices each have great elememts; but all just lacked something.

I would have loved to have just purchased an Apple TV; jailbreak it; plug in a USB hard drive and away I go. Alas, in Apple's ideal world; you're locked down to their ecosystem, where your media brought from iTunes is stored in the iCloud and controlled by your iPhone to watch on your Apple TV. Want to take it elsewhere? Fuck you. Want to switch devices? Fuck you. Want to watch it without a network connection? Fuck you.

With the Raspberry Pi, I have a significant amount of freedom compared to a pre-bundled set-top. In an ideal world; I'd have a machine similar to this running Android 4.0+ (albeit there is an Android port for this - though very unstable). Maybe in the future...

To extend on previous posts; I am going to be using my Nexus 4 as a remote for this device and plan to integrate NFC tag use in this automation. For instance, I'd like to have a tag on my wall that, when scanned will enable the remote app, wake the Raspberry Pi up and start playing any random media I have.

I'm looking forward to tinkering with this, I do have high hopes for it but I have to remember that while it can handle 1080p media, it is only a £20-30 device; so I'll have to meet some limitations halfway. I'm also looking forward to making it look nice, I'm going to make a custom case for it. Perhaps hollowing a Tardis, a niPod classic, maybe an old Gameboy. Who knows? I'll be making a blogpost when I decide!

But er, I forgot to buy a USB WiFi adaptor.

Moving Forward

"New year, new me!"

Perhaps, I've seen nothing but absolute disgust for this phrase through social networking platforms and the like. I agree with the instance that you perhaps don't need the turn of a new year to better parts of yourself, but then again I disagree that you need to be cynical against one who is willing to do it. It's my optimistic nature talking; but I think it can be a good thing to use the new year as a time to change yourselves. A lot of humans work better under time frames - think of school and college; how much work did you do when you knew the deadline was tomorrow? That surge of motivation knowing you have a time frame to adhere to did wonders to your work, so what's the difference?

I've been feeling so motivated lately, I love it. I like feeling active and knowing I want to stay active and stay productive. I've been using progressive steps instead of dumping everything at once, I know that overloading will just force me to slump back and forget it all - so, every day I've made a list of things to do that day. Some small, some bigger. As time goes on, I'm hoping to obliterate the idea of making a list and doing said things on autopilot (having a list couldn't hurt though, eh?)

Until the 15th, my absolute priority is UCAS. It's pretty much 90% done - I have a reference on the way and need to finalise my decisions. After the 15th, I'm going to set my priorities to Croft Sessions. Namely getting that website finished, contacting a shitload of people, pushing more marketing and really fine-tuning the whole project.

January is looking to be a pretty good month, Work is going pretty well; David's finally had his baby (congratulations!); I'm in the longest relationship I've ever been in and couldn't be happier. I'm heading to London at the end of the month for a few days with Charlotte and get paid half a week after that. So all in all, pretty damn good month!

Next payday, I plan to pickup a few clothes, NFC tags, spend money on marketing and we'll take it from there.

Anyway, I'm supposed to be getting ready for work and having lunch, see ya next time.

Tech & Life

It's no doubt that in the world of 2013, smartphones have become even more prevalent in our lives. For years, we've been sold the idea of 'constant connection' in terms of socialising and information online. While I do think this is a great concept, I certainly feel the power of the smartphone has been greatly underutilised by the masses.

Since the integration of Siri into Apple's iOS 6, it seems to be that the focus of smartphones has now become more than the already established 'communicating' element and now, marketing domination is now being fixated onto the 'assistance' element of smartphone. As in, your smartphone is not only a tool to communicate, but your very own assistant. Google Now is a brilliant example of this. I referenced how Google Now operated in a previous post - but the brilliant element of this is automation.

Automatic assistance is the thing which, I honestly believe is going to propel this year within the smartphone environment and is something which I am currently looking into integrating more in and around myself now. Android apps like Tasker - an app which revolves around automation based on situation (e.g. If WiFi on, turn sound up) am going to seriously start looking into and utilising more.

As the Nexus 4 is NFC capable, I am going to be buying a few NFC tags and utilising them around my house along with Tasker, just to make things more and more convenient. Eventually, I want to work my way up to create some form of ecosystem between Android, Windows 8 & the PS3. Specifically for TV & Films and what not. I haven't quite thought of the most convenient way to automate this, but it'll come.

Something I honestly can't wait for is NFC payment in-stores to become a mainstream thing. You just have to hover your phone over an NFC tag at the store and you've paid. I can see myself wasting a lot more money when this comes into play. Something else that I think would work wonders is NFC and public transport. Flashing your phone on a tag at the station and a list of ticket options appear on screen to instantly buy

I'm going to London at the end of the month for two days with Charlotte, I'm taking her for a 10 month anniversary present and I cant wait! There's going to be a lot of photosphere's and Android utilisation. We've already made our own Google Map to load onto our phones with places we want to go, so Google Now should recognise that and direct us!

While we're down there, I guess we plan to "see the sights" and we want to go on a lil' shopping trip, so there'll be a "London Pickups" post very soon!

One month later

Wow, has it really been a month since I last posted? I guess time flies when you're... well - what was I doing? I guess you can argue the conventional 'oh work was heavy and the Christmas time.. you know what it's like' excuse but what it really came down to was just myself. |

I absolutely adore my free time and find myself consistently trapped in the juxtaposition of wanting my leisure time but wanting to be productive outside of work. The argument is that I know I haven't been and for some reason I am not combining leisure and productivity. While there have been short bursts of productivity; they are short lived, I've had this problem for too long and it's something that I'm only recently coming to seriously address. It sounds comically cliché but the only person I'm hurting is myself.

That is why I am now focusing on myself. Addressing this issue and abolishing any variance of "I'll do it later" and simply getting shit done. I'm going to become more focused, more refined version of myself. I think acknowledging these flaws is a step in the right direction towards the person I want to be.

2013, I am coming for you.