sleepinginmyhead

web 2.no

I live in West London, in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It's nice. The council in H&F are what you might expect from a local authority, a bit slow and very 'red tapey'. When we were flooded last year, the process for getting a skip license was a joke, as is the procedure for a parking permit. They are trying though, and they send me a monthly email newsletter, the equivalent of a council newspaper i guess. It's quite a good way for me to find out about what they're spending my money on, not that i often agree with their choices, but it's good to know.

It's nice to see the council embracing new communication methods, but i think they've over-reached themselves this time. Luckily our council tax is going down by 3% this year, and to celebrate, the H&F council decided to get some of their office staff to do a terrible terrible video, and stick it on Youtube. Not only is it embarrassing, but they seem to have forgotten that people can leave comments. Perhaps just stick to email next time eh?

UPDATE: I SMELL SLEAZE.
i have too much time on my hands, i went through the comments, and there are a lot of negative ones, but some positive ones like 'cool band, cool singers, can i book them', and 'What a way to get a message across, I had such a laugh, nice to see new technology being used without any cost to get a message across'. Of the 8 people who left positive comments, 4 of them are from users who joined on February 1st 2008. Any chance they are H&F staff in the office?

UPDATE 2: REMOVED!!
oh dear oh dear oh dear. So many negative comments, essentially providing a forum for people to bitch about their council. Such was the response that Hammersmith and Fulham council have removed the video, oh dear oh dear oh dear.

gaijin invasion

So you all know by now that i'm in Tokyo (yes chuck, i am), but today is a little different. I am now the only westerner in the whole of my (huge) office, after the last remaining colleague from London had to leave last night. As a result i feel pretty isolated, a proper 'gaijin' if you will. Quick japanese lesson, jin means person, so an English person is 'igris-jin', a Japanese person is 'nihon-jin', an American person is 'america-jin', but 'gai-jin' just means 'foreigner' or 'person from somewhere else'. It's not that nice actually, quite lonely, but luckily i have my trusty youtube and adam and joe keep me learning and smiling.

high budget skate videos

I like skateboarding, i used to do it a fair bit before my body grew into the heavy mess that it is, and as such i have seen my fair share of skateboarding films. Some stand out, but they usually follow a standard format: Each skater gets a segment, each segment is segued with some handycam footage of the roadtrip, or a 'jackass' goofball moment, at the end their is a slam section where we see the skaters fall and fail. Over the top is usually dubbed some terrible metal or (occasionally) hip hop, by terrible bands who have no record deal (hence no rights to pay for the vid). The result usually doesn't make for particularly interesting viewing, and especially so for non-skaters.

The segment below is directed by Spike Jonze, yes the famous one, the one who did the fatboy slim video, him. It's really nice, slow motion shots of tricks and explosions, which i have watched three or four times already. It's quite reminiscent of his promo for Girl skateboards video of a few years back, where the boards were digitally removed in post production. Skateboarding is such a beautiful thing, both in participation and viewing, so it's nice to see it getting decent cinematography and budgets. Enjoy:

Lakai, fully flared intro

Spike Jonze promo for Girl Skateboards.

let's get extreme

I used to have to go to school on saturdays, seriously. It really sucked, mum and dad were all tucked up in bed eating breakfast, and i'd heve to get my uniform on. The only thing which made those early saturday mornings bearable was a show called 'Activ8', which was basically a half hour collection of extreme sports videos. I actually began to look forward to 7am on a saturday... That got me thinking. I reckon we are right in the middle of the age of extreme sports now. Advances in technology and decreasing travel costs have made thrillseeking easier and wilder. Below is a selection of Youtube films of some of the more extreme sports out there. I love them, it amazes me how far we can push our bodies. One thing's for sure though, the people who make extreme sport videos have awful taste in music, but ignore that, and let's get radical yeah?

Film 1. Snowboarding is huge. It's perhaps the biggest participatory extreme sport amongst my friends. This pushes it somewhat though. I've been caught in an avalanche before, and it's way scary, but this was a big one!

Film 2. Dan Osman was a nutter. I say 'was', because he's dead. Not surprising you may say, after watching this. Before bungee jumping, there was 'bridge swinging'. Climbers used the inherant stretch in the rope to absorb their falls, but no-one did anything as big as Dan Osman. He died doing this in 1998.

Film 3. More Dan Osman. He was also one of the world's best practicioners of soloing, that is climbing without a rope. Ridiculously dangerous, and requiring great skill, a true extreme sport.

Film 4. Two nutty french fellas living in Chamonix have invented what they believe to be the height of 'le cool'. Cliff skiing with a parachute. When i ski really fast, the feeling of weightlessness at the apex of a turn is amazing, but getting 20 feet off the ground must feel bananas. more here.

Film 5. Speed skiing is mental too. This was the world record, secured in 1997 at 243km/h (151mph)

Film 6. When did mountain biking get so mental? Watching this makes me feel sick. Some of the jumps are ridiculous.

Film 7. Laird Hamilton, the former male model is one of the greatest surfers of all time. Some of the footage from teahupo is jaw dropping

base jump selection: Base jumping is mental enough, here's a good example. Some people want to push it further though, skateboarding off the edge, riding a motocross bike off the edge. But once you've jumped, that's it really, until now. the flight suit enables a substantial amount of forward movement, leading to some incredible footage.

morning noon and night

I have the dubious pleasure of working right in the centre of London's financial district (it's a long story). Luckily i'm quite high up, so i have a great panoramic view of the city. I have cobbled togther a few pieces of timelapse footage from three points, taken at morning noon and night. Hope you like it.