Those following the development of Tweetbot won’t be unfamiliar with the difficulties that Tapbots had to overcome when making the app, most difficult of which was Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie, which later became Twitter for iPhone. By doing this, and making the app free, Twitter pretty much shut down the market for iPhone twitter clients overnight. Tapbots, it seemed needed to do something pretty special to get people to switch to a paid client. Guess what… They did it.

If one word summed up the feeling of using Tweetbot, for me it would be “right”. The level of functionality that has been shoehorned into such a sleek, minimal UI is unbelievable. Tweetie brought us the beginning of gesture based control with pull-down-to-refresh and swipe-to-reply/retweet/more but Tapbots have evolved this concept dramatically. Not only are there more gestures, you can set a custom action (triple tap) to do one of a number of things. Swipe left to view related tweets and right to view all tweets in a conversation. It just seems like the way things should be. The best thing though, is that Tweetbot doesn’t feel alien. I’ve used Tweetie/twitter for iPhone for well over a year but picking up Tweetbot was a breeze. Things you would expect are still there and work in much the same way, pull down to refresh, for instance. The new functionality compliments existing UI conventions, it doesn’t defy them.

My only gripe is one that doesn’t even apply to me; Tweetbot doesn’t include any push notification support. Up until recently I used Twitter push notifications and I know a lot of people who still do. The fact that switching client means they would lose that feature might be too jagged a pill to swallow for some people. That said, if Boxcar include it in an update, it could be easy to overcome.

So all in all, this is a very, very good app. Stable operation, exceptional UI all with Tapbots’ trademark design and sound effects makes Tweetbot well worth the £1.19 price tag. Get in there while the offer lasts, you won’t regret it. I now hope that Tapbots put some of the revenue that Tweetbot generates into developing an iPad version. The iPad has been without a half way decent Twitter client for far too long. If anyone can do it, Tapbots can.

What the hell kind of book would you write!? I hear you ask. You see, I’m a cynical fucker. I make observations of the world’s shortcomings that people with a normal brain wouldn’t notice or ever care about. In a way I’m the bitter old bastard that yells at kids for doing something that affects him in no way what so ever. I see problems and annoyances where others don’t. So the “book” would be a sort of Clarksonesque indictment of the world as I see it. I think I’d split it up into chapters based on what I was talking about (the web, TV, movies, people etc.) however, seeing as it will more than likely be a website, I’m thinking of doing something along the lines of an art-directed blog. Sort of like how Sam Hardacre and Greg Wood and Jason Santa Maria do it with each “article” being styled in such a way that it would compliment the theme and subject.

Exactly how I’d execute it is still up for debate. I don’t intend on having comments open so maybe I could hard code the lot. That, however would present the problem of it requiring quite a lot of tinkering each time I posted a new page. Ollie Kavanagh’s Hip Hop Quoted site seems to do exactly what I’m after and it’s built on WordPress (win) but what that dude’s development skills make me look proper retarded. It’s all a learning curve, though and I think I’ll get there one way or the other. Maybe this will help… If you have any resources to share or tips that will help me cut my art direction teeth then please get in touch.

As for web standards, the site will be highly experimental. It will take much inspiration from the Sam Brown school of thought and will include fancy CSS3, HTML5 and browser specific pretties that mean it will not look the same in every browser. (Read: if you use IE you’ll probably be shit outta luck.)

Located out in the sticks in, tiny, Denby Village, Derbyshire, Denby Lodge Steak house is a true diamond in the rough. As I told someone just yesterday; “It’s nearly impossible to get a good steak in England without needing a mortgage” so believe me, it’s worth travelling a decent distance to get to, although I’m super lucky that it’s practically right on my doorstep (Just the other side of Ripley). The place looks big but not over the top. In fact, there are no signs on the outside that make mention to the place as a steak house. Even when you walk inside it just looks like a large country pub with the obligatory brass ornaments hanging over the bar and the old wooden furniture. To get to the restaurant you go through to the back room which is a dedicated dining room. Despite being cozy, the place still looks very old fashioned and unimpressive.

The menu is printed on a single side of A4 but on closer inspection the place begins to reveal what a gem it really is. There is no messing about. There are a handfull of starters, pretty old fashioned like smoked mackerel and prawn cocktail but they’re very reasonably priced. Then on to mains. Now, although there are a couple of other dished (a lesagne and chicken chasseur) this place is called “steak house” for a reason. On offer there is Sirloin (8oz or 16oz), a 20oz T-Bone, and Rump (12oz or 24oz) They also have certain nights of the week where a monster 32oz Rump is available! All are served with chips or jacket potato, peas and salad. Prices may make you go “What? that can’t be right!?” these are some cheap steaks! The 24oz rump I ordered was £10.95 which when you consider just how much you’re getting is astonishing. Nat has the 8oz sirloin which was still an incredible deal at £6.75. It’s not all about quantity though. A steak is only worth it’s money if it’s done right and believe me, the chef here knows what he’s doing! I ordered my steak medium-rare and it came out just perfect; tender and juicy like in the picture (Steak in the picture is not the one I had last night). Nat ordered her’s medium-well and from what i saw, they nailed that too. I will say that in my experience they do tend to ever-so-slightly under cook the steaks so if, like me, you like a steak rare, I’d suggest you ask for it medium-rare at Denby Lodge as rare would be closer to blue.

As if my half cow wasn’t enough, I turned my attention to the deserts menu. There are actually 2 deserts menus; one with ice cream sundaes and another with cakes. I’ve had items from both in the past and they have been excellent. This time though, I went for ice cream and so did Nat. I had a summer fruits sundae which was just perfect following a large steak as the tart berries were a real palette cleanser. Nat had the sundae called Dark Temptation which, as the name suggests, is a chocolate sundae. It also has banana in it and two wafer straw type things. It, too was excellent.

As I’ve already pointed out, the prices are amazing. We had: 1 24oz rump, 1 8oz sirloin, 1 side of onion rings and 2 ice cream sundaes and the bill came to £25.45.

Honestly, I don’t know why it was over a year between visits. I shall definitely make sure that this doesn’t happen again. If you want to check the place out for yourself just enter the postcode: DE5 8PH into your sat nav or Google maps… unless you have your steak well done. If you do, then you don’t deserve to eat it. That is all.

I also plan, after watching seasons 1-4 watching the Feature length movie which was made to be a part of the whole story and an interim between seasons 5 and 6. The movie, titled “Fight the Future” was the first major revelation that Earth was being colonised and the government was in on it. It’s status as a feature length movie wasn’t just in order to conveniently bridge the gap between 5 and 6, it needed the bigger budget it got from 20th Century Fox in order to fully display the special effects it needed to, especially in the climax where we see a gigantic space craft rise out of the Antarctic ice.

Sure, after season 7 they could and, arguably should, have called it quits with Scully (Gillian Anderson) pregnant and Mulder (David Duchovny) abducted but they didn’t and despite the characters not being as rich and interesting as the previous stars, seasons 8 and 9 did yield some very interesting and well written episodes, not to mention some seriously mind-bending ones. An example of this is when agents Dogget and Reyes (Robert Patrick and Anabeth Gish) come up against a murderer who is able to walk between parallel universes as well as one who is able to kill his victims by separating his soul from his physical body. My favourite part of the series has to be seasons 4-6. You can tell in these episodes, more than ever, the writers were really feeling the personal and professional relationship between Mulder and Scully and much more interesting and, at times, amusing stories resulted. My favourite episode of all time is in season 6 and was a two-parter (Dreamland I and Dreamland II) This episode saw mulder swap bodies with an Area 51 operative called Morris Fletcher played by Michael McKean.

I suppose what’s really got me going on this is news that a new X Files movie is in the pipeline and will not be linked with the original story arc. Since the final episode of the series, The Truth, left with Mulder and Scully on the run from various pursuers and the final, unavoidable invasion date revealed I can only assume that the story takes place some time between 1993 and 2001, during the time that the original series took place. This will undoubtedly lead to an obscene amount of fan-boy fury as it will, unless Chris Carter is very careful indeed, lead to some continuity errors and glaring plot holes. You have to be super careful of this kind of thing when writing science fiction.

But yes, as I write this I’m watching the second episode in season one, Deep Throat where, guest star, Seth Green seems to sport the same haircut as Agent Scully. I’ve got a long way to go but I’m gonna enjoy it. The X Files is my favourite television series of all time. It’ll take something pretty spectacular to move it from that pedestal.

For those not familiar with Rollins, where the hell have you been the last 25 years!? Seriously, the man is a genius, and I don’t use that word lightly. I can’t say I’m so keen on his music with Black Flag or Rollins Band but I respect the ground he broke with the former. It’s his spoken word and comedy I love most. He’s like a really excited child and the way he tells stories is second to none. I’ve always been aware he was a pretty funny guy having seen bits and pieces of his comedy and appearances in films such as Bad Boys II and The Chase, but it’s only in the last year, following my first viewing of his Shock and Awe Tour DVD. On that DVD he talks of Dating, George Bush, Life in LA and meetings with the rich and famous in a way that caused me to shed a tear with laughter on several occasions.

Since watching that DVD I have found myself scouring YouTube for clips of his other live shows and skits from his TV show, Letters from Henry being some of my favourites. I’ve found his views not only hilarious but highly intelligent and agreeable. For example his opening “rant” on the Shock and Awe DVD about George Bush’s “let’s go to mars” speech was not only spot on right, it was side splitting!

I think the reason I like his material so much is because I see a lot of myself in how he is. I get worked up about how many adults read Harry Potter, I’d act like a 5 year old on speed if I got the opportunity to work with a loved celebrity like he did with William Shatner and I draw equal amounts of disgust and amusement from the state of the world stage today. It’s the main reason I started this site after all, to share my feelings about things that amuse/irritate/shock me and hopefully provide something that someone might enjoy reading. Henry Rollins is my kind of guy. Crazy, immature, hyperactive… but sharp as a tack and about as smart as they come.

Here, look at some of my favorite clips of the great man himself:

Henry hates dating.

Meeting William Shatner Part 1

Meeting William Shatner Part 2

Surreal Conversation

Letter to Ann Coulter

Letter to David Beckham

Letter to Laura Bush

I hear you say it now! “You’re only saying it because you grew up then!” and you might be right about that… I mean, what’s to say that in 10 years time we won’t have a bunch of 20 somethings going around talking about how good Pokemon was and how they don’t make cartoons like they used to? It’ll probably happen.

But OK, what’s brought this on? Well, this picture (Click for larger image):

I know 99% of you will be like…. “what? What the fuck are you on?” But let me assure you, when you used to watch that cartoon and had all the action figures it puts a massive smile on your face. That’s Dino Riders! “Harness the Power of Dinosaurs!”. The basic, albeit ridiculous, premise was futuristic, telepathic humans called the Valorians who use their telepathic abilities to tame Dinosaurs for domestic use as well as military use against their enemies the Rulons who had also taken control of dinosaurs, by using brain boxes – big bulky mind control helmets. Only 14 episodes were ever made because the series was simply a vehicle for Tyco’s toy line. Come on, what kid wouldn’t think that an armoured T-rex with more guns than a small army was wicked awesome!!??

It basically got me thinking of the other kids shows I loved back then. Take M.A.S.K for example. It was a fairly low quality hybrid of two very successful cartoons of the era, GI Joe and the Transformers. It’s slogan forms the title of this very post. Illusion is the ultimate weapon. Like I said, this TV show wasn’t the best quality but the Toys made it. I personally had a fair few, including the great big Gas Station play set:

That was awesome!

Another one I used to love was Captain Power. This was an odd ball. It ran for 22 episodes which each contained a segment of audio and visual material intended for interaction with the toys. You could buy the toys and actually “interact” with the TV show and play a kind of video game. I never had any of the toys but if I remember rightly, a couple of friends did and I remember the video game being kinda fun The main Toy was supposed to be a kind of space ship with a pistol grip that blew apart when it sensed a certain signal from the TV show.

If that nostalgia trip wasn’t enough for you let’s talk about movies. The 80′s were the golden age of cinema in my opinion and I think I know why. The 80′s were about the first time special effects became good enough and cheap enough for smaller studios to make films that maybe wouldn’t have gotten the green light in previous years due to cost. Combined with the fact that this also meant that film ideas we’d just never seen before were now possible.

We got so, so many classics. The Goonies, Back to the future, Ghostbusters, Aliens, Robocop, Terminator, Indiana Jones, Predator, ET, Die Hard and Beetlejuice to name but a few! I watch these movies over and over to this very day!

As annoying as he is, Calvin Harris is quite right to have love for you if you were born in the 80′s.

I’d heard rumours like “As big as Meadowhall” from a very early stage and, having friends who live in Derby, I got to see the progress of the build quite often. Truth be told I couldn’t see it being anywhere near the size of meadowhall. There simply wasn’t enough room in the centre of Derby…. I was kinda wrong. I finally went on the Saturday (Yep, clever Dan decided to go on the very first Saturday it was open) and after going on a tour of the city trying to find the parking I went in. I was in shock and awe for the first 20 minutes I was there. This place is seriously huge and about as modern a building as I have ever been in.

Where we ended up first was the food court which had the feel of a busy urban centre populated by individual street vendors, Asian style. Surprisingly the only outlet I recognised in there was KFC. This was a refreshing change from the chav-haven foodcourt of a certain Sheffield based mega-centre It too was ultra-modern and the faux hardwood latticework that made up the roof was awe-inspiring I found myself gawking upwards like a turkey in a rainstorm for a good few minutes at it.

I had some noodles from the Thai noodle bar which, while rather expensive, were pretty tasty. I could have chosen, other than the noodles and KFC, Specialty pies, Indian, shish kebabs, sandwiches, salads, Chinese food and a couple of others. There are outlets for mid-mall snacking too with, my personal favourite, Gloria Jean’s Coffees getting it’s second UK location (the first being McArthur Glen).

The future is bright for Westfield, good job too when just building a centre puts you £340 million in the hole. There’s a 12 screen cinema to come and they are, roumour has it, in talks to get an outlet of Wagamama -See source- to join Pizza Express and Nando’s in the Restaurant area. I’d be happy if they got it!

Shops are standard as far as shopping centres go but smaller, alternative shops are shut out by huge rents (upwards of £20,000 a year) for even the very small outlets. Jewellery shops, perfume shops and primarily clothes shops. Big names like Debenhams and M&S take their usual place as the biggest outlets in the centre.

What I found most interesting about the new centre is it’s integration into the existing Eagle Centre. It means that while it will have a very palpable impact on the city centre, it doesn’t segregate itself from it. This means that it’s impact on the trade of other areas of the city will not be so extreme as shoppers can easily and maybe even accidentally venture out of the centre into other areas of the city.

There’s plenty of parking and even on what will be the busiest Saturday before Christmas I managed to find a space in the 2000 capacity Westfield Rooftop car park.

My biggest complaint is the lack of any cash machines in the main centre. I had to venture outside the centre to withdraw some cash and then, because of the extra volume of people, had to queue for 10 minutes to use a machine. None of the food vendors take debit cards as of yet either and nor do the car park pay stations. These alone ensure your need to carry cash and as such venture outside if you don’t have any on you before you arrive.

Although to all intents and purposes the centre isn’t yet fully finished, it’s still bloody impressive and you can see where all the money was spent and why it’s taken years to get to this stage. I say go and check it out but go one Thursday or Friday evening (or better in the day time on a weekday) when it will be less busy and it will be more relaxed.

Some people said that they had a really ace week actually interacting with real people again. Some said they hated it and actually felt like they had withdrawl symptoms. It got me thinking that I want to give it a try. So that was it. I came home and logged into myspace for the last time for a week. I posted a bulletin that said I was taking a week off and I’d be back on the 7th.

This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to go a week without something I’ve been addicted to. Last year I had a go at giving up caffine for a week. I knew I had an addiction but I had no idea how bad it was until I gave it up. The first couple of days was dead easy. Drank water instead of tea or coffee and drank no coke or red bull. By day 4 I felt like absolute crap. I had a splitting headache and felt so irritable that I could have bitten the head off a kitten. I felt feverish. So I packed that in after 5 days. After one cup of coffee I felt almost 100% again.

This particular challenge will only be made more difficult by the fact that Reedy has now moved out so the house is quiet. Obviously nights that I see Nat aren’t gonna be an issue because when she’s round I don’t even turn my PC on. We just sit and watch movies or play Gran Turismo. I’m only in day 2 at the moment but it’s seemig pretty easy thusfar. Mind you, the caffine abstenance seemed a breeze at this early stage too.

It’s kinda making me want to try other different Kenny vs Spenny style challenges. See if I can do a week without something or a week doing something every day. I’ll have a think about that.

Put simply, the film talks about how the government, rich elite and mass media (yeah, they are all one and the same pretty much) control us in three different ways. They control our hearts thorugh religion, our minds though the creation of a perpetual enemy and our wallets through central banking systems. The film is in three parts each detailing one of these.

Firstly, religion. Zeitgeist suggests that most modern religions and specifically Christianity are derived from one common doctrine, Astrology. Jesus is the sun and his 12 desciples are the 12 signs of the zodiac. The cross is not a christian symbol but a pagan symbol representing the sodiac. Jesus was born, died, stayed dead for three days and then was resurrected and ascended to the heavens in much the same way the sun sits lower and lower in the sky through the year before seemingly staying still for THREE DAYS and then beginning to sit higher in the sky again.

The film draws countless similarities between Christ and the Egyptian sun god Horus (and other religious figures from various points through history). Both were born of a virgin, both on the 25th of december, both signified by a bright star in the east which lead three wise men to the birth, both were sold out and crucified and both were resurrected after three days.

Basically the film is showing how the vast majority of organised religions are simply a re-branding of astrology as done by the ancient Egyptians, pre-dating both Christianity and Judaism.

Next, war. The film focuses first on what happened on September 11th 2001. The Jury’s still out for me on this one but they make some extremely valid arguments to suggest that the events of September 11th were an “inside job” The fact that all three buildings WTC 1,2 and 7 all collapsed in a way that fits perfectly the model of a controlled demolition, the fact that on certain films you can see small (what seem to be) charges detonating down the buildings fractions of a second before the main collapse, and let’s not forget the occurence of 2 plane crashes that seemed to involve no planes.

And why? Simple. To justify the United Stated occupying countries of vast financial importance because of their natural resources. In a word, oil. But not only Oil, oh no… there is a lot of money to be made in war. From both sides. And that is why, the film shows, that the United States’ involvement in WW1, WW2, Vietnam and now the middle east was, in fact, Self Justified. Pearl Harbour was forseen weeks in advance but was allowed to happen to make the country do a 180 over night from 80 odd percent of the country opposed to involvment in the war one day to over 1 million men volenteering to fight the next. Sound shocking… well something worse happened in Vietnam. A US destroyer was sunk by 2 NVA PT boats which kickstarted America’s entry into Vietnam. Only problem is, that event never acually happened. It was a total fabrication. In fact if the events of 9/11 were a genuine terrorist attack, it would be the first time in about 100 years that the United states had a genuine reason to enter a major international conflict.

And finally, money. The film went into the role of central banks and corporations screw us by borrowing and borrowing and then kindly handing the debt on to us in the form of income tax. I’ll have to watch this part again cos not all of it made sense but it was pretty shocking. Talking about how the major FatCats, the Rockefeller’s and Rothchild’s etc could send the country into depression with a simple roumor and would do so to recoup cash if needed. It was crazy. It showed how the federal reserve bank made it so that money was litterelly not worth the paper it was printed on. Whereas before it was worth a value in gold bullion, now was simply called Legal Tender.

I suppose what I’m saying is. Watch this film! But try and keep an open mind while watching it because as with the material of Michael Moore and Jon Stewart it is easy to be drawn into believing it through shock tactics.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ 

Please, watch it and comment me, let me know what you think.

Dan.

Anyway, I go get changed and we set off. I get to mansfield to discover that they had removed Initial D from the arcade bit! This night just keeps getting better. So I text Nate Dogg an tell him and he replies that I should kill some fools! I’m inclined to agree.

However… the simpsons movie was pure aceness!! It could have been done in an episode… sure but this was all nicely polished and really well animated. Also… quite shockingly, you see bart’s wang! I was like as if you’ll ever see that in an episode!! Another funny thing is that they kill off Green Day and then Mrs. Lovejoy plays American Idiot (Funeral Version) on the organ in church! Obvously I’ll do a review of it later on…

So the film was good and the night was turning out alright… Until… Near Hilton I was aproaching a junction and looking left and right to see if I would be able to go when… SHIT THE BLOKE IN FRONT OF ME HAS STOPPED!!!! CRASH!!! and I bumped into the back of him! Fuck, shit, bugger, bollocks, cock, Barbara Striesand!!!!

So we both pull over to the side of the road to check out the damage… My bumper is cracked and theres a small dint in my bonet near the H emblem but the damage doesn’t look too bad. His car, however didn’t seem to have much of a mark on it at all… a bit of a scuff but that appeared to be it. So I say to him “I suppose you want my insurance details etc…?” and to my surprise he didn’t seem bothered and said “Well let’s just wait and see what the damage is. Give me your phone number and name.” So I though.. ooh, this might not be so bad. He either is planning on being nice if possible and not going through the insurance… orrrr… he’s not insured himself. Either way I’d be thankful. He said he’d get it looked at and call me today or tonight to let me know whats going on. So fingers crossed it’s all ok. For now it’s just not knowing that’s kinda doing my fruit in.

I just couldn’t believe I’d done it. I’m a super careful driver and people take the piss out of me all the time saying I drive like a grandad. It just goes to show. Be careful on the road guys, one momentary lapse in concentration and you end up in a right mess. I’m thinking with the minimal damage to his car combined with what a heap of junk it was… He’s not gonna bother taking it further. Of course I’d be happy to pay for a new bumper for him out of my own pocket if he needed it but like I say… I think the most it will need is some back to black. Fingers crossed.

Well, let me tell ya… I was friggin wide awake after that!! I don’t think I blinked on the way home. lol

Ta ta for now people.. I’ll let you know how I get on.