This morning I left on a big jet plane for Brittany, France. Currently I should be somewhere on the road to Saint-Malo, destination:La Route Du Rock music festival. It’s an understatement to say that I’m excited about seeing The National live, as well as Yann Tiersen and Owen Pallet. Very excited indeed.

Checklist:

4 pairs of jeans
1 pair of shorts
10 pairs of underwear
12 pairs of socks
6 t-shirts
3 shirts
iPhone 3Gs
iPod Touch
iPhone/iPod charger
Earphones
Old Nokia (+ charger)
Canon 40D (w/ 24-70 2.8mm)
2 batteries + charger
5 memory cards (12gb)
Deodorant
Toothbrush/toothpaste
Vaseline Pocket size
Moisturiser
Foot moisturiser
French phrasebook
Sunscreen
Pro-Plus
Passport
Money

This will be followed by a few days in Quimper, before two days in dirty, yet elegant, Paris.

This brief trip will be completed by a weekend stop-over in Birmingham to see all it has to offer.

Back soon, hopefully with plenty of photos and inspiration.

The iPhone (3Gs) is bloody beautiful! I still can’t believe some of the stuff it does, it does those things so well and it’s a phone! I’ve owned an iPod Touch for almost a year and gotten to know many of the apps, its general workings (does being able to almost touch-type count for anything?) and, those who know me will know that I’ve been pining for an iPhone for the longest time. To be able to have internet anywhere and not wander the streets in search of wifi like a twat. No more.

Of course the good far outweighs the bad, but that’ll be for another post. Yes, I would find fault with any device, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t voice those issues. Two days ago I posted a series of tweets detailing a number of gripes I have with the device; nothing major, just little issues, one or two were resolved, or work-arounds explained by those on Twitter. Each of these tweets began with “Things I don’t like about the iPhone:”.

It became apparent that one or two people had become irate at this line of tweeting and told me off for whining, asking why I bothered getting it, and with threatens of unfollowing. They were in the vast minority, and after being told to continue, I did. I got plenty of fantastic responses, and it was great to know that, although a little late to the game, I’m not the only one with minor issues as to the way Apple do things.

Here are each of those tweets with my reasoning behind each:

This is purely an aesthetics issue. On the iPod Touch, the headphone lead comes out from the bottom, which is less conspicuous than protruding from the top, white lead swinging to and fro when using it.

It would be very rare that I would send SMS messages to many people (unlike the bands and promoters who send one each week to inform of whatever gig and event is happening that evening to a list of those who likely aren’t interested). However, on this occasion I did find myself sending a txt to a large number of people to inform them of my new number and was simply irritated by the way this works. In the long-run I can see how it is a good thing.

A few times I have hit the “home” button only for nothing to happen. Unlike on the iPod Touch where there was a definite *click* when pressed. I’m certain this has been the case on other iPhones I’ve used. Not a major issue of course.

Of course I’m not trying to be a pervert, what about taking a photograph during a classical performance, play or other generally quiet event where sound would be heard. It certainly would appear that simply turning all sound off will solve this problem. Not what I was expecting, but it was a unanimous vote.

Lesson learned. Don’t get too distracted while walking!

So you can create your own ringtones (Mine is currently the intro to Certified by Calvin Harris), but only given the option of 7 tones for txt messages. I’m currently using “Glass”. Oh and I don’t permit options which require jailbreaking the iPhone.

Being quite limited on space, it does take quite a while to carefully select the music I want to listen to, which differs greatly depending on my mood. But when I selected “sync ringtones” followed by ‘apply’ only to find that this action had unticked “manually manage music and videso” and in turn removed all the music from the device, I was indeed a little pissed off. Lesson learned.

[admittedly these "tweets", as created using code from Blackbird Pie, don't look great in an RSS reader, maybe I'll just stick to screenshots from now on.]

Other than the fact that the Lock button isn’t as prominent as I was used to on the iPod, I guess there isn’t really much else (at the minute), well besides the battery life, but I’ve always been aware of that and may well look into one of those battery life extender things I’ve heard something about, and will ensure to always have a mains charger on me at all times.

I will may follow this up with a post of what I like about it, which will include the feeling of walking through busy streets listening to music when suddenly it lowers to have the ringtone audible; press the button on the remote, and begin talking. Click to hangup and music starts again. Curious of the time? Hold down the remote button and say “time” only to have the time told to me and that was done as a complete guess.

I may also scrutinise the Vodafone plan/tarrif when I get a chance, and will be interested to see how their voice and data roaming holds up, especially in terms of cost.

The camera ain’t too bad either, here’s a photograph I took today, complete with a small bit of cropping using the Photoshop iPhone app:

Belfasts Gay Pride parade took place at the weekend; and as always, was a great atmosphere. With the rain really only affecting the protesters who stood outside the City Hall, billowing their words of wisdom to a crowd who would only rather they behave in a more respectful (more Christian?) manner, and, frankly, practice what they preach. Is everyone not equal? Does love and happiness count for nothing? And what f**king business is it of theirs anyway?

That was quite angry. Anyway, here are a few photographs from the day:

The Protesters

Toy Story 3 is by far one of the greatest films I’ve seen in a long time. An emotional roller coaster of tears and laughter, of love, loss, redemption, childhood, memories, growing up, and of playing with the toys we did as kids. It is a beautiful reminder to those of a certain age who remember leaving behind those childhood artifacts. All the more poignant for me, and I suspect a few others, as I’m certain I still have the Chatter Telephone somewhere in the roof-space; unfortunately I wasn’t able to find it when I looked yesterday and didn’t bother to put on shoes so I could tread around the fiberglass on the relatively unstable floor.

Anyway, one of the greatest things about the Toy Story 3 experience, and many of the Pixar movies before it, is the short film shown before the main feature. In this case it was a film called Day & Night (watch here), which really hit me on so many levels. The film is about two characters, Day and Night, who meet at first jealous of each other, but then realise what they can offer each other, both happiness and joy in their own ways. It is a beautiful tale of how two people come to see the each other through other perspectives.

When Day, a sunny fellow, encounters Night, a stranger of distinctly darker moods, sparks fly! But as their suspicions turn to curiosity, they are delighted to find that this budding friendship can offer a new perspective on the world.

Were they not the keepers of daylight and darkness, Day and Night would be a couple of average Joe’s — Day busy with sunshine and joggers, Night focused on the stars, and drive-in movies. But when their paths cross, Day and NIght find that they are more alike than different both are fearful and jealous, but ultimately proud to share the best of themselves as they discover, better together than apart.

The most significant part of the film for me is the radio broadcast, taken from a talk given by motivational speaker and author Dr. Wayne Dyer, the words match the mood of the film perfectly; that no one should be afraid of the unknown, where would we be without it.

Fear of the Unknown. They are afraid of new ideas. They are loaded with prejudices, not based upon anything in reality, but based on… if something is new, I reject it immediately because it’s frightening to me. What they do instead is just stay with the familiar. You know, to me, the most beautiful things in all the universe, are the most mysterious.

At the end of the film the two characters fall head-over-heels for each other, they accept each other, and what they can offer each other. To me, it is about tolerance and acceptance. This can be related to so many issues; race, sexuality, politics. That everyone should be accepted for who they are. We are all different, and all the same.

Yesterday, as part of Belfast Pride, I went along to the QueerSpace Historic Bus Tour; I was informed and entertained and met some great people.

When I first saw John Baucher’s (a.k.a. Moochin Photoman) through the viewfinder (photographs (and indeed some of his non-Ttv images) I thought they were a bit shit. To me the off-focus, black border, scratches and bits of dust on the lens (or more likely, viewfinder) only detracted what could have been a good image.

In time my opinion changed, just like in the beginning I didn’t appreciate John’s almost straight-from the camera approach to publishing often bland photographs, instead I realised that these were all part of a greater idea, of documenting the “normal” and “ordinary”.

This is what the exhibition looked like. It ran from 5th – 25th July in the Waterfront Hall.

John manages to see things, and has a skill for approaching people; capturing a great side of them in their portraits. In some ways I am reminded of Irving Penn’s Corner Portraits style he adopted in 1948 by placing his subjects in a tight corner he was able to make them feel as uncomfortable, or nervous, as he felt shooting them. On the other hand, many took his approach in their stride.