dullneon : the artfully reserved, somewhat withdrawn & less graphically intensive single page feed

• Columns UI (foo_ui_columns)
  An alternate interface for foobar2000 based on a panel layout
• Album Art Panel (foo_uie_albumart)
  Displays album art in the main player
• Console (foo_uie_console)
  Attaches the console output to the main interface
• Discogs (foo_discogs)
  Retrieves album data from the excellent Discogs.com
• (foo_title)
  A skinnable ‘mini-player’ for foobar2000
• Last.fm (foo_audioscrobbler)
  Old-school plug-in for Last.fm
• Winamp Spam (foo_winamp_spam)
  Emulates WinAmp 2.x so you can use WinAmp plugins
• Inactive Tracks (foo_skip)
  Skips tracks you don’t like

Honestly, after seeing this video, I’m convinced the boys from Simian Mobile Disco should have named this track “It’s The Weed” — the video would have made perfect sense!

1. If you think you’ve found it the first time, you’re probably lost.
2. “Straight ahead” is a relative term.
3. Road signs work on a backtracking system: seeing a sign probably means that you’ve just missed the turning.
4. Different maps may mark the same spot differently.
5. Just because the policeman smiled at you and gave you detailed instructions does not necessarily mean he was right.
6. “Jalan Sehala” means “one-way street” in Malay, so stop wondering why you keep seeing the same Sehala Road.
7. Just because it is a one-way street where you’re on doesn’t mean the road can’t change into a two-way street.
8. The place you want to visit will be on the other side of the road.
9. To turn right, you may have to keep left.

A spot-on list from the ExpatSingapore website. As humorous as some may sound, those of us who have been in a car to Malaysia know these things are not exaggerations at all. But it’s not as if it has stopped us from visiting our friendly neighbours across the Causeway from time to time.

The MDA’s corporate video is so bad and cringe-inducing that it’s not even funny. These guys can’t even look superficially cool, even if they tried.

The only consolation is that this would make a good case study for aspiring film students to pick out what went wrong and where.

Read the background notes to appreciate the sheer genius.

There’s never enough time
Only, only… A glare off rainbow bridge
Pin prick to the heart, again and again
I felt every spark

Tokyo, a fantastic second track off Brit band Athlete’s just released Beyond The Neighbourhood. In a bid to amp up their radio friendly unit shifter quotient, they have added more ‘experimental’ electronic layers to the music. There’s also this niggling feeling that you may have heard some of these songs before somewhere; case in point being the beginning of “Best Not To Think About It” really, really sounding like Streets Of Philadelphia. But overall, this album is definitely a nice step up for the band — more organic, more atmospheric and definitely more interesting.

On a night when a point would do for England, their first half showing was that of a side who were intent on getting their manager sacked, with their so-called ‘world class performers’ such as Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard looking more like non-league players having an off-day.

» England get dumped from Euro 2008

You can use your mobile phone to make calls, send and receive text messages, listen to music, surf the web, remotely control your computer and even control an electric skateboard with Bluetooth. I doubt Groundsurfing will ever make it to the X-Games but you’ll never know.

[Via engadget]

24th November, 2007 is Buy Nothing Day, a “24 hour moratorium on consumer spending” which you can participate in by not participating in consumerism for at least a day.

And since I can’t really grow my own breakfast, lunch and dinner where I live, I guess I’ll have to buy my groceries before 24th November so I can participate in Buy Nothing Day. That’s still OK, right?

While I mull on that, MTV (which regularly shows half-naked chicks and broadcasts stuff like Jackass) has a little soul-searching to do as well — they decided the above Buy Nothing Day commercial was against their “standards” and refused to sell Abusters air-time.

There wasn’t any point. I just move some money from one pocket to the other.

» Thom Yorke replies to what probably was a redundant question

Every day for two and a half weeks, Tom Manning created a comic strip based on the text supplied by spam e-mails.

Tom took the words from the e-mails – the e-mail subject became the title of the comic, the author’s name was that of the spammer – and imagined how the content might translate into a daily strip. Very interesting stuff, similar in theme to what they do at Spamusement.

While on the subject of spam mail subject lines, you just have to see Linzie Hunter’s Spam One-liners.

You can trust the French to come up with a TV commercial like this.

Over the next few hours/days, I’ll be removing the Snap Shots feature I had installed around here for good.

It used to be a cool, nifty and free feature to preview things like an Amazon link or a YouTube video without leaving the page. But now, they have aesthetically fucked it all up with advertising in the previews. I perfectly understand their need to make money, but previews with ads don’t look too awesome on personal websites.

I think Snap Shots would still be OK for link directories, but for now, it’s goodbye Snap.com from dullneon.com (and I’m not the only one, it seems).

Naeem Juwan is the one man show known as Spank Rock. And what a show he puts on for us on Fabriclive.33, featuring a great selection of some sparkling tracks, spanning the good old 80s (Yes’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart”) to the ultra-seductive Uffie (“Hot Chick”). The Spank man himself drops in some lyrics here and there (most notably over the oft-used Mylo’s “Drop The Pressure”). If it sounds like I am gushing, it’s because I probably am — this is an excellent set that will get any party going all night long (despite there being no Lionel Ritchie).

That must’ve been one crazy, messy video shoot! From the New Young Pony Club album, Fantastic Playroom.

This series of great pictures of Vietnam from the late 60s was actually scanned from some found photos whose owner was also eventually found.

A home-made 85 minute animated CG movie made by one man over a period of almost 4 years financed by just his own (and his wife’s) savings.

Woah.

The Mitsuoka Orochi is a Japanese supercar that is reviled and revered in equal measures. It is beautifully designed with fluid curves and arcs but rather disappointingly, this US$90,000 car is powered by just a 3.3 litre, 230 horsepower engine.

Just you wait and see
I won’t stop until you see…
I’ve got your love in my pocket… your love

Love In My Pocket, a very catchy track from VHS or Beta on their third studio album, Here Come The Comets. They seem to have moved away from their original retro disco flavoured sound and made a more indie-pop-rock record. It’s a pretty good effort, though I just wish the first track, the stylishly snappy Euglama, lasted longer than just 68 seconds.