Yesterday I returned to Exeter from the camping trip I went on, on Tuesday. Tallis and I packed up our stuff and set out for Moretonhampstead – a village not far from Exeter – to head to the Spirit of Music, a small music-appreciation festival that is hosted twice per year a few miles outside of the village. Tallis spent her maturing childhood growing up there, but it was the first time for my friend Simon and I.

I bought a new tent, and made sure I had everything ready, and was greatly anticipating setting out to the camp site. Even after I had checked the weather forecast and learnt that the days were cursed with rain and wind, my spirits weren’t dampened.

It seems as if my time away from the Internet has damaged my writing ability. Stick with me.

I had a fantastic time when I was there. Everybody was very lovely. I made new friends, got to know new people, ate vegan food and was quite physically active; playing frisbee and football and such things. The days were nice, and the nights were nicer; sat around a camp fire, everybody with their musical intstruments which got more and more exotic. You could really feel that everyone was away from an urban society, and had a certain sense of freedom about them.

The campsite was rather quiet, to be honest. Not that I wasn’t expecting that, but it would seem that in May the site is filled with a rather clique group of people (the people who are dedicated to the event), where as in August, when the weather is nicer, more people turn up.

During my time there I didn’t really learn much, apart from a few amatuer camping mistakes (such as learning not to pitch a tent uphill), but I had a lot of time to reflect on the person I am and the things I do.

Right now I’m back in my chair, thinking to myself that I much prefer my tent, and if I could take my laptop with me to work, I’d happily be there all year round. Actually, that’s a lie, it was beautiful coming home to dry socks and a clean toilet, but a huge part of me much prefers the work that you put in to gain simple things, such as boiling water and keeping warm.

I’m aching a lot due to sleeping on a rollmat, but I had a fantastic time. Hopefully by August I’ll have the money to buy a few more essentials, but I can’t wait to break away and go back there again.

I’ve not yet sorted out an image gallery, so the pictures aren’t yet up, but when they are, I hope you look at them.

Language capability will catch up soon, I hope…

The latest release of WordPress, version 2.5, introduced a pretty big redesign of the dashboard. A few new features were thrown in as well, such as the option to upload multiple images to a post and then display all images attached to the post simply by typing gallery (in square brackets). However, whilst this is a fantastic idea, using this method links thumbnails to a page displaying the image thumbnail once more, and then clicking this thumbnail displays the full-sized image.

I am guessing this is just an overlook, or a bug, but currently there isn’t a variable you can define in the shortcode, or an option you can change to get the gallery shortcode to link thumbnails directly to files. This can be easily fixed by editing a file in the WordPress installation.

WordPress 2.5.1:

1. Navigate to your WordPress install.
2. Browse to /wp-includes/
3. Download/open “media.php”
4. Scroll to line 402
   $link = wp_get_attachment_link($id, $size, true);
5. Replace it with the following (or just change “true” to “false”)
   $link = wp_get_attachment_link($id, $size, false);
6. Save and upload the file

Obviously this edit will be overwritten if you reinstall or upgrade WordPress, but hopefully when 2.5.2 is released, this will be fixed and the edit won’t be needed.

Popular retail website Play has recently been redesigned. I don’t exactly know why, the website functioned pretty decently, and it looked quite nice. Regardless, some idiot has gotten their hands on it, and look at what has happened!

Aside from the various spelling errors around, such as “By 3 classic PC games for only £10 including Theme Hospital, Red Alert 2 and Broken Sword 1 & 2″, there are various consistency errors. For example, clicking on the Xbox 360 bargains page takes you to a page where the first thing Xbox 360 related (the 360 console) is the 4th item down on a list made of large images.

I actually visited the website to check the price of a PS3. So, I hovered over “Games” in the navigation, clicked on “Sony Playstation 3″, ignored the new releases and top sellers and clicked “Hardware” in the side menu, then scrolled to the bottom of the page and browsed items 1-20, 21-40 and finally 41-54 before I found the actual PS3 console. The model I was looking for – the 60GB model – didn’t even have a price listed on the overview, because they had none in stock. Clicking the product revealed that there were various items available at playtrade for prices higher than I care to mention.

What a bad job.

The weekend just gone was rather a good one for gigs. Having seen Pendulum on Sunday, Tallis and I also went to see Skindred on Sunday. They were supported by a few local bands, all of which are working their way up, so it was great to see some friends and local musicians supporting a bigger band, even if I’m not hugely fond of any of them.

Once again, stepping into the venue caused your entire existance to be engulfed in sweat and moisture, which was pretty gross, but none the less Skindred put on a fantastic show. Unfortunately, half way through their set the fire alarms went off, which was, needless to say, very annoying for all of us inside; it must have been a great anti-climax for Skindred as well. Thankfully not a lot of time spent outside, and we managed to get back in to the moisture zone of doom after a massive kerfuffle with 2,000 people and a small wooden door, which could have resulted in a much stickier situation. Skindred resumed the gig fantastically, but towards the end of the show I felt the room was getting a little too crowded and hot, so that ruined it a little for me.

Both Skindred and Pendulum are playing Download festival, which we are attending, later in the year, so hopefully I’ll get to see them both again. If I have to miss them, at least I’ll be able to do so with the experience of seeing them both earlier in the year. Unfortunately, once again I couldn’t buy a t-shirt. Dammit.

Last night Tallis and I went to the great hall, a venue on the Exeter University campus, to see Pendulum. They were performing as a band, rather than DJing their music, which I was a bit hesitant about seeing – but after the support DJs cleared the stage and they started playing, it was fantastic.

It’s very surprising actually, if you listen to the roots of their music before the keyboard player and the various other synth effects kick in, how influenced they are by progressive metal. Towards the end of the gig, they began one of their songs with just the two guitarists, bassist and drummer – and most people in the crowd were giving the horns and had a bit of a mosh.

Actually, if you spend a lot of time listening to their music, or any dance music, you realise how very simple it is, yet comes together so beautifully. I’m not usually one for dance/club music, but honestly, they were amazing. Their lighting technician, although he only had a small setup to play with, did a truly fantastic job, and all in all the show was amazing.

I think the thing I like most about the atmosphere though, is the fact that most people simply enjoy themselves and dance. When you go to see a heavy band, you have to be wary of the people around you, unless you’re really keen on getting involved with the fight pits. I think that sort of occurance spoils a performance for people who don’t enjoy that sort of activity, because they’re spending more time focused on their surroundings and not on the band. At the beginning, when the DJs were playing, a few kids were pushing each other around, and it looked as if it was going to be irritating, but when the place filled up it didn’t seem to happen again.

The Great Hall got absurdly hot, and the humidity was so thick you probably could have cut slices out of it with a glow stick, but it was a great night, and I think I lost half a stone through sweating and dancing.

Unfortunately I couldn’t afford to buy a t-shirt, which goes against my goal of getting t-shrits from every band I see, but hopefully I’ll be able to get one online.

I’m looking forward to seeing Pendulum again at Download festival, but right now I’m sitting here with stage envy.

Skindred on Sunday!

It’s rare that I will blog about my life at home. Sure, I’ll write about what has been going on, but I won’t really go into detail about what its like to live in this house; some things are just better left unwritten.

This weekend just gone I spent in Luton, visiting my friend to celebrate his 18th birthday. It was fantastic to get away from Exeter, and it was brilliant to meet him and spend the weekend there. I had a great time.

Whilst sitting on the train travelling to Luton, with no WiFi to enjoy, I closed my eyes and thought quite deeply about what life is like here in Exeter, and the things I would change. I spent the majority of the journey being quite pensive actually. I thought a lot about my theroy of bubbles.

I see the world as a lot of bubbles that interconnect and join in various places. Bubbles are inside other bubbles. It’s probably quite confusing to picture unless you can see in my mind, but let me try to elaborate anyway. My bedroom is in a bubble. Outside of that bubble is my house, which is in another bubble. Outside of that bubble is Exeter. There are various other bubbles dotted around, but they are of no importance right now. Basically, when you go outside of one of these bubbles, various feelings in your heart and in your mind become more faint, and you notice them less. With each bubble you leave, more feelings become faint, but also others become stronger. As the train to Luton travelled further away from Exeter, I felt all of my stress, depression, anxiety and hatred slowly leave my body, and it felt fantastic. Almost as if the sun had come out – inside me. I didn’t feel anything bad. I knew that nothing was wrong, and everything that weighs on my shoulders when I am at home stayed back at home, waiting for a shoulder to sit on.

When I got to my friend’s house, I walked through the door of a very nice house. It was beautiful. Putting the size and excellence of the house aside, a whoosh of sweet-scented niceness consumed my entire body. It was one of the nicest feelings I have ever felt; walking into a house where the occupants don’t smoke. Not only that, though, but you can feel the atmosphere and environment of the house. When I walk into my house, I can feel the stress and unhappiness of the people inside it, because despite the smiles you might see in this household, nobody is really happy. It just seems to be an endless struggle through one problem to the next, with general dispute and arguments entwined with it all. I hate to say it, but that’s how it is. Walking into my friend’s house, I could feel the peacefulness and happiness. There was no ethereal presence screaming at you, begging you to be angry, and feeling that was such a huge climax that my smile spread from ear to ear.

After thoroughly enjoying my time away, I returned to Exeter. As the train approached, I felt the weight of everything returning to my shoulders. The gloom of being unemployed, still. Going back to a house that is filled with stress and arguments, and smokers. All the little niggly things that annoy me began to annoy me again, simply because being constantly stressed make my fuse so short that any small thing could make me snap. It was horrible. I got home and walked through the door, the house was quite dreary. The smell of cigarette smoke rushed through my body and there was no smile. My hatred returned.

I hate to say it, but I hate it here. I really, truly hate it. I can’t wait to get away. I can’t wait to be able to walk into my own house, where I have more than a room to myself. A place that I can call my own where the smell of smoke doesn’t linger on everything. I don’t think smokers truly understand how disgusting and horrible it is for non-smokers’ clothes to stink of smoke, and how irritating and shameful it is to have other people recognise it, and then ask if you smoke.

My Mum spends her working life cleaning and re-establishing houses, and therefore she has become a bit detached to what our house used to be like. It’s not messy or anything, but a couple of years ago she would feel uneasy if a cable was visible on the carpet, or there was a pile of something in a room, and now she doesn’t seem to mind as much because she can appreciate how tidy her house actually is. Though, I don’t have that appreciation and respect because I’m not in her position, and due to my upbringing with her, the house constantly appears untidy to me. That’s not a problem, it’s just something I felt like writing.

There are a lot of things that I could write about here about the various things that really get to me at home, but I’ll save it for another time. Problably when I move out (when ever the fuck that is), and have a clear mind as to what living here was really like. I just need to get out. I need to find a job and I need a house, before I either go insane or become stupidly stressed and depressed, and lose interest in the world.

A short while the wall broke my mobile phone, which was the result of a lapse of momentary rage; it happens. Due to the lack of money to afford an iPhone, I had to go on a bit of a hunt for a cheap phone. Part of me was tempted to re-buy the phone I had, but instead I chose the Nokia 2760.

I honestly dislike phones that have a stupid amount of features. When I have a phone I like to have a phone that makes it easy to call and text people, and store information. I’m not bothered about listening to the radio, having a camera or storing MP3s – all of that is functionality for a different device that I’d spend money on to get the quality.

Anyway, the 2760 seemed like a nice phone. It had an appealing battery life, and only set me back about £30 from O2, which was a nice deal. However, after using it for a while it has come to my attention that this phone was clearly manufactured for mentally and physically incapable bastards.

The amount of times I’ll be typing a text, and accidentally hit send or save because of the poor button layout, or I’ll be typing a text message and have to go back and re-type words simply because the software can’t keep up with the speed that I move my thumbs is unbelievable. Perhaps it’s because I type my texts in proper English, and the developers were incapable of forseeing that as a situation that would ever occur in SMS messaging.

Another thing that is really irritating is how it manages to fail at a simple task, such as the address book. A useful feature is to be able to have groups of contacts. I like my address book to be organised, and use it properly, so that contacts have multiple numbers, etc. I also like to use peoples’ full names so that I know exactly which Sam “Sam” could be. Obviously that level of organisation gets a bit messed up when you have contacts such as “Mum” and “Dad” amongst “Andy Williams” and other such people, so naturally you should be able to create a group of contacts. However, instead of simply having a group within your address book where you can store more contacts, the contacts have to exist in the address book and in the group, which practically renders organisation completely pointless.

I really don’t understand how a team of developers and engineers can work so hard on a product that is supposed to be simple to use and understand, and fail so hard. Why do these people come across as so detached from how people really are, and how they behave. Why are they so incapable of producing a product that is actually simple to use?

Fail.

As some of you may know, GTAIV was released a few days ago – something I have been looking forward to for a while. I pre-ordered the game on Play the day before it was due for release. I knew I wouldn’t be getting a copy anytime soon, but I thought I’d pre-order it anyway.

Anyway, the day of its release my friend Josh came over with the copy he pre-ordered from HMV. We messed around, enjoyed the game and everything else, but I’ll save that for another blog post, or RewiredMind. Later that day I spoke to another friend, Andy, who said he bought a copy from Zavvi, who actually had games in stock on the day of release (probably because Zavvi is such a lame name and nobody wants to go in the shop).

After umming and arr!ing about it the next day, I decided to cancel my pre-order and strolled into town to pick it up from Zavvi. On my way, I decided to pop into the new Gamestation, which one of my friends recently used to manage. Due to that being the case, and hosting a few competitions with RewiredMind a little while back, a few of the Gamestation employees know me, and often greet me nicely when I enter the store. Naturally I partake in some idle chit-chat with them, and during that I happened to ask “Hey, do you guys have any copies of GTAIV in?”. Ten minutes later I walk out of GameStation with a copy of GTAIV, having handed over my card without even asking how much it cost. Not that I’m overly bothered by this, but it turned out that I paid £45 for GTAIV in Gamestation; I could have got it for £38 in Zavvi.

It just goes to show, really, that when you are in customer service, being inviting and friendly really can be the difference between a sale and an unsatisfied customer.