It seems I’ve been meme-tagged again. So, to slightly obscure the fact that I don’t find the time to blog at the moment, here’s what my bookshelf says about me!
Category: fun
I see that Webcrediboy took my nickname for him to heart!
I just stumbled across Webcredible’s particularly innovative way to get accessibility and usability tips across to their visitors: The Webcredibles. How have I managed to miss this over the last three months?!
Checking back through my recent textpattern logs, I found I’d got linkage from Joe Clark regarding his appearances at @media 2005, during which he was referring to certain organisations as “w*nkers”.
Well, needless to say that the phrase of the day was soon established and several ideas came about, one of which was the Joe Clark Web Accessibility Validator. All that’s needed now is an open-source WCAG accessibility validator. Hmmm…
Anyway, all this reminded me of the graphic I knocked together after @media last year, so I thought I’d dig it out and share.
Original photo by Patrick H. Lauke
Four jobs I’ve had in my life
- Web Developer/Web Designer/Webmaster
- Sound Engineer
- Hospital Porter
- Electronic Engineer (work experience building power supplies)
Four movies I can watch over and over
- Back to the Future
- The Incredibles
- Wayne’s World
- Bladerunner
Four places I have lived
- Barnstaple, Devon
- Next door in Barnstaple, Devon
- Just around the corner in Barnstaple, Devon
- the lovely and historic city of York
Four TV shows I love to watch
This is tough, as we don’t watch any TV anymore.
- CSI
- Simpsons
- Red Dwarf
- Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Four places I have been on vacation
Most recent first…
- California, USA
- Arizona, USA
- Germany
- Tenerife
Four websites I visit daily
- Accessify Forum (shirking but lurking)
- Flickr
- del.icio.us
Four of my favorite foods
- Cheese of various varieties, including the cake kind
- Toad in the Hole
- Apples ‘n’ cheese
- Banana Chips
Four places I would rather be right now
- In bed
- Back in time
- Watching a gig
- Playing a gig
Four bloggers I’m tagging
- Pete, damn…
- Zach, damn…
- Derek, damn…
- Kate, damn…
Keeping an eye on Google’s Holiday Doodle – I love the oodles of doodles that Dennis Hwang churns out – but what on Earth’s going on?! A plug? A socket? Guessing Christmas Lights next… is this the start of a competition for the “best dressed” website?
With these guys in charge, we’re all screwed!! Maybe we can do something about it.
Try and guess what it was I was looking for.
I'm sure we've all completely embarrassed ourselves from time to time… during random moments of stupidity… or when talking about things that we're really not sure we know anything about. Well, inspired by Jo's last post, here's a few things I feel mightily stupid about.
Quoting the Jon…
“Copper Spaniel” – When writing an answer on the March Party quiz sheet this weekend. The annoying thing is that I knew there was something wrong with it when I wrote it down! When it came to marking, the team marking our sheet queried our answer. Everyone laughed at me. =(
“I wasn't alive last century.” – When talking to Jo about how the kids that she looked after at the nursery weren't alive last century and what a scary thought that was.
“Shall I run her over in the car and bring her back?” – When talking to Jo about taking a friend somewhere in the car.
“I forgot about guinea pigs.” – You know, I have no idea what I was on about with this one either.
“Hey, we could grow a beard!” – When talking to my mate Nick about us growing beards… but the concept of two people growing one beard is quite funny.
And I'm sure there are other stupid things I've said, but I can't think of them right now… I'm sure some old friends from school will be able to remember many times of stupidity on my part.
Quoting others…
Having recently dug up parts of my old personal website, here is a small selection of fun quotes from acquaintances (who shall be protected by anonymity):
- “The universe is just one big pudding.”
- “Can you get a menstrual cycle from Halfords?”
- “I cannot come on a weekly basis.”
- “Consider an electron in a one-dimensional, square potential well.” – Take a three-dimensional object, make it two-dimensional and then consider it to be one-dimensional? You wonder why I had difficulties with parts of my university degree?
- “I'd hate to be a lesbian and be pregnant.”
- “Imagine they're cows, only spherical.”
How about you?
Have you recently embarrassed yourself through your own stupidity? Is there something stupid you once said that still embarrasses you when you think about it? C'mon! Confess!
Yet another meme… so soon after the Musical Baton?! Yeah, thanks a bunch, Pete!
Anyway, why is this a “literary stick”? It's a meme by him. Maybe this should be a media meme? Maybe I should start an @media meme to entice people into the pre-conference networking opportunities that lie in wait on the @media 2005 Flickr group. Maybe not.
Random five songs
The first five songs played when I put my entire digital music collection through Winamp on random:
- Searching (Erykah Badu – Baduizm live)
- Days Like This (Van Morrison – Days Like This)
- Another Place To Fall (KT Tunstall – Eye to the Telescope)
- Like Suicide (Soundgarden – Superunknown)
- Dynamite: I Am Your Animal (Gong – Camembert Electrique)
Current book I'm reading (or pretending to read)
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman (currently on loan from the kind Mr Urmston).
Last movie seen in a cinema
The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy (at Vue, York).
Five people to hit with a big, knobbly media stick
- Tommy Olsson, the new face of accessibility. (Another Baton)
- Matthew Bookworm Pennell (Me, me, meme)
- Kate Monkey, Monkey, Monkey… (And my favourite colour is, like, totally fuschia…)
- Karl Moggy
- The permanently tangential Rich Pedley
Update, 03.06.2005
Hmm, there's a Meme-o-meter for this one.
OK, I wasn’t going to get involved with this, but after catching up with all the malarkey (!) at lunchtime, I couldn’t resist.
A quick Google Image Search for “Durstan” picked up some interesting images, and having been kept updated with SxSW 2005 via Flickr, I couldn’t resist using this photo by Richard Rutter.
Credit where credit’s due
- Original “Where’s Durstan?” concept by Andy Clarke, based on the “Where’s Wally” character by Martin Handford.
- Original painting (“The Dressing Room”) by Arthur Durstan (or Arthur Durston?).
- Arse by Durstan Orchard himself.
- Arse photo courtesy of Richard Rutter.
- Drunken (although he denies it) signings by Stan (a.k.a. Jason Santa Maria).
Update
Jo decided to get in on it as well with this one: 
Hello, I'm Jon.
I'm an accessibility consultant, developer, tester and trainer with a particular interest in establishing sustainable approaches to inclusion. I'm recognised for my knowledge of accessibility on mobile devices, primarily on iOS and Android. I test websites and apps, but I love training teams to work with accessibility in mind.
Elsewhere