Beneficial Finance

It's worth pointing out that Beneficial Finance is a seriously fucked-up organisation, and really ought not to be trusted with your money.

I took out a consolidation loan with them a few years ago, and a year ago, when I moved into this new place, I visited the office to give them my new address and to get my balance amount.

Flash forward to today. By my calculations I should've had only a couple of hundred quid left on the balance, so I decided to pop into the office and get it cleared.

First, they took my address to confirm my identity, but they couldn't find me. That's because they didn't apply my change of address a year ago.

And when I asked for the balance, it was over a thousand pounds more than I was expecting. That's because they gave me the wrong balance last time.

Hey, maybe the account with that balance had the address changed to mine? Who knows? Do you think they care?

Superjail

Superjail is the story of a psychedelic jail run by a sadistic Wonka-esque warden. It's ultra-violent and ultra-funny.

The Fragile Army

My copy of The Polyphonic Spree's latest album, "The Fragile Army" (and a stunning signed poster), arrived safely from Good Records last week.

The previous two albums have been SO close to fucking perfect, but I can't help myself skipping over "Middle of the Day" and "Ensure Your Reservation". I haven't found any track yet on "Fragile Army" that I'm not almost always in the mood to hear. For the first time I can remember, I've bought an album without a single duff track!

The album slides in with a nostalgic snip of "Together We're Heavy" from the previous album of the same name, then kicks into the deliciously bouncy ("I feel so excited and delighted today, 'cause you decide to be in my life...") "Running Away".

The track "The Fragile Army" goes a little slower and deeper, and jumps into beautiful abstractism about a third in. With months, I know (1) I'll be singing the backing vocals without realising it and (2) I'll wake up one morning around 3am and suddenly realise what it's all about. I love it.

"Guaranteed Nightlite" is a very, VERY close second to "Mental Cabaret" for the top spot on the album. "Mental Cabaret" is right up there with "Light and Day", "Hanging Around The Day (Part 2)", "Hold Me Now" and "Two Thousand Places" to make my top5 Polyphonic tracks of all time. It's got such an incredible range in the sound, catchy lyrics and a great beat. "Guaranteed Nightlite", much more than other tracks, really shows off these guys' vocal talents and makes me wanna sing along.

In a word, "Light to Follow" is "otherworldly", with an unusual synth feel and wonderfully ambient repeating lyrics.

The rest of the tracks are just... awesome. Just awesome. If you like The Polyphonic Spree then you'll definitely love this, and if you're looking for an introduction to their world then this CD would be a great first in your collection.

RSS

Don't forget you can subscribe to my RSS feed so you NEVER MISS A SINGLE CAPS LOCK.

I totally recommend FeedGhost on Windows and NetNewsWire on the Mac. And if any of you crazy dudes wanna syndicate FoxBoom! on LiveJournal then that would be SO FREAKIN AWESOME YOU GUYS!

Blogging is so therapeutic.

Vacation: Denied

I have to miss Scotland this year, so here's some shots from two years ago. I WOULD LIKE TO GO BACK.

Red-Headed Step Child

It's me, a.k.a. the little mad scientist, a.k.a. Beaker.

Someone called me a "cute emo boy" tonight. IS IT TRUE? IT MIGHT BE!

Authoritah

a.k.a. "Nyah!", this dude does NOT respect your fucking authoritah.

Tom Waits did it

OMG LIKE "Come On Up To The House" is one of my favourite songs EVAR.

Dear Cookie

Dear Cookie, a letter.

Jon's Theory of Everything

I just found this old e-mail I sent at work, which describes my Life on Mars/Doctor Who unification theory. Bear in mind this was written on the sly while I was supposed to be doing real work, so forgive my scatty memory and logic. OKAY IT FOLLOWS NOW:

Sam being hit by the car coincided with one of the "rift" experiments that Torchwood was performing immediately prior to The Battle of Canary Wharf. This (1) had him in his coma during the Cyberman invasion, and (2) jolted his consciousness through to the (past of the) parallel Earth where Rose now is.

Given the "coincidences" that brought the Doctor to that point in space and time, it's possible the Master is also present (whether due to the same coincidences or he manipulated the situation). Also given that the Master can inhabit and physically heal a human body, he may have seen Sam's apparent suicide and loss of consciousness through free-will as an easy host, hence his appearance and explaining his poor health.

The Doctor, with the help of Jack and Torchwood, manages to safely recreate the rift, and they all go back to 1973 on the parallel Earth to find Sam, so that can they can shift Sam's consciousness back into his original body thus displacing the Master. Gene spies on them and gets caught, and is brought along.

Back in the present day, the Master is defeated and Sam returns to his body, but there is a TERRIBLE ACCIDENT and they cannot recreate the rift, so Gene is trapped in 2007.

And thus begins "Ashes to Ashes".

OpenID

I just created an OpenID account at MyOpenID so I can leave authenticated comments on my buddies' LiveJournals without the expectation of keeping a blog there.

OMG TEH DECENTRALISED AND OPEN DIGITAL IDENTITY???

Adventure Time

Adventure Time is the awesomest!

Somewhere Only We Know

After two years at the-company-I'm-not-allowed-to-blog-about, I decided for reasons-I'm-not-allowed-to-blog-about to leave.

At first, I thought about leaving, and I felt liberated. Then I applied for a job, and I felt a twinge of guilt. Then I got an interview, and I felt like a cheat. Then I got an offer, and it was bittersweet. Then I handed in my notice, and I felt sick.

The support I've received from everyone has been amazing, despite my feeling like I've stabbed them all in the back. All kinds of promises of keeping in touch have been made, when I'm sure both sides know time won't be found. I'll miss them all.

Together, we wrote the best software-in-our-industry in the country, and we have the awards to prove it. Our senses of humour were perfectly synchronised. Sure, we had the bad times too, and too many afternoons taken off to work off anger, but that's only because we all cared so much about the product.

I think I'm only just now realising that I may never work for another company with that kind of atmosphere.

Fucking hell.

BUT NOW, WHAT? TO THE FUTURE? OKAY NOW!

I've double-checked my new contract, and I don't see any clauses banning me from saying I'll be starting at Twofour Digital next month.

EXCITED YES, BUT ALSO QUITE TIRED RIGHT NOW, SO GOODNIGHT.

Sunshine

Woah... so you guys in the US haven't seen Sunhine yet?

It'll probably be the best film you see this year.

Local Photo-Journalism

I love spotting local photo-journalism on Flickr. It's all about the unusual things happening in the places I see nearly every day.

Photo by The Happy Robot. Click through for the story.

Steam Trek

Steam Trek: The Moving Picture! The distant future, 1980, hundreds of miles out in space...

Equal Rights for Robots!

Charles Kline was arrested today for holding up an "Equal Rights for Robots" sign in humorous protest against a hate-speech gathering at Kutztown University.

Apparently, in Kutztown, it's okay to hate gays, Jews and Catholics, but it's illegal to have a sense of humour.

Props to Arcturus for the story.

Newbarn Farm

The fantastic Newbarn Farm now has a blog!

I'm a sucker for my favourite brands getting personal with blogging, especially with a neato little RSS feed which I can dump into NetNewsWire (which, incidentally, has just been upgraded to v3.0 and looks very slick). Say what you will, but I like to keep up to date with my local bondage shop and my favourite shaving gel.

The Fragile Army

Wheeee! The Polyphonic Spree's latest album, "The Fragile Army", is now available to pre-order.

I just snagged me the limited-edition CD/DVD combo. I love those guys so much!

And in other news, Facebook is fucking addictive. I've been putting in all my job and school dates, and... well, I only have one friend at the moment, but it all looks and works a whole lot fucking better than MySpace.

WAYNE!

Yo, Wayne? I didn't register with that e-mail address, so can you add me again with "joneccleston@mac.com"?

Facebook

Goin' with the flow, and joining Facebook.

Self Portrait

Improv Everywhere

"Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places."

I'm somewhat envious of the fun they have. ^^