Fairly lengthy title there but it does what it says on the tin. After a bit of tinkering yesterday, I’ve added a nice little alternative way to browse my blog posts; via a google map. I’ve limited it to any posts in the ‘travel‘ category because that’s really the only section that warrants the feature. Otherwise, the map would have tonnes of markers all above my house - it’d be odd.

So if you have a look in the travel category, you should see a custom map with various markers of my face (with shades on naturally, because most of the posts are holiday based) and if you click on them, you’ll get a little pop up telling you about that post. The map will only show you posts from the particular page you’re looking at - as in, there’s more than one page of ‘travel’ category results, so the map will display markers relative to the posts that are displayed below it. It’ll also center itself to wherever the top post on that page is located.

It’s fairly basic but I think it’s nice and it wasn’t actually too difficult to pull off. Feel free to praise me for my fine work haha..

(Oh, and I’ve added this post to the travel map, in a fairly random location so don’t go thinking it’s broken - I meant it to do that).

I love google maps. I could happily spend hours just zooming around the world looking at stuff, and in fact, I probably have done just that. It’s awesome. And it keeps getting better and better - and now it’s even better again! The street view option which started off not too long ago with a couple of North American cities now offers imagery from what looks like every major U.S. city and a decent handful from Europe. But no UK representation (yet).

It’s a great tool for checking out potential holiday destinations.. or even past holiday destinations for a hint of nostalgia or to remind you of that road where you nearly got ran over in Prague for instance (that particular view isn’t available yet but I’ll keep you updated).

I’ve just spent a short while checking out Rome and Paris and I’m just amazed at the sheer amount of coverage they have.. Go google!

I wonder how long it’ll be until they send the camera car to my village…

Barack Obama.

71% of first time votes; 66% of under 30’s; 95% of the black vote, (43% of the white vote); 56% of female voters. Even 24% of white evangelical Christians is a victory in itself surely(?) And a commanding win in the Electoral College results. Deservedly so too. (via).

I didn’t stay up too late last night to follow the results because to be honest, I expected it to take a little longer than it did, but since early this morning I’ve been listening to DJ Z-Trip’s ‘Obama Mix’, reading the coverage from the BBC, then watching the acceptance speech. Without wanting to sound cheesy, it really does feel like we’re living through a genuine piece of history. And it feels good. (ha! and there was me trying not to sound cheesy! ). Regarding the speech briefly, I thought it was great. Particularly liked the Ann Nixon Cooper thread and referencing the changes she would’ve seen in order to raise hope for the future. Nicely done. Some sort of credit should go to John McCain for appearing magnanimous in defeat, though the people who still insist on boo-ing any mention of Obama really need to take a cue from the man they so adoringly support. Ridiculous.

But anyway, as poplicks says; Hello to President-Elect Barack Obama. … So long to the nightmare of the last eight years. Hello to the next four (at least) of trying to clean it all up. … So long to 24 hour, cable news insanity, hologram punditry. Hello to TMZ and Perez Hilton coming back as our leading news sources. … Hello America. Welcome the new dawn.

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.
…
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

- Barack Obama, November 4th 2008.

(the photo at the top is taken from here.. lots more photos here too)

If you’re not sure who Futura is, you need to recognise. Go and look at his website. It’s a bit odd, and actually I think I prefer the older version of it which was really odd but it’s still worth a peep. Probably my all-time favourite artist/designer.. there’s just something about those shapes and colours that I always think is awesome. Not to mention his earlier graffiti work. The man is a legend. One of my top inspirational books is this which by the looks of it is rather hard to get hold of nowadays. Yay for being ahead of the game.

But anyway, there’s a small piece on him in issue 50 of vapors magazine. To be honest, it’s not the most in depth interview but it’s nice to see that he’s still doing stuff. I feel like I haven’t been aware of any new work for a long time, but maybe that’s just me being out of the loop. In fact, I did miss this Burton snowboard design which is supremely fresh. If I could snowboard, that’d be my shit.

So yeah, go and read the article.. and have a look at the other stuff in the magazine. It’s a good issue (some GZA, UNKLE, Jean Grae and other stuff inside).

Today’s the day. Exciting innit(?)

If you’re American, you really need to go out and vote. Do the right thing. If you’re not American, join me in keeping your fingers crossed.

Click here for more videos from Vote For Change

The one downside to this culmination of months and months of campaigning is the end of all those designs/free music/comedy videos/etc that have ran alongside the campaign trail. Ah well. Who cares, as long as they don’t get in.

Barack Obama x Z-Trip x Shepard Fairey x Fresh Pressed from Barack On! Obamathon on Vimeo.

Go forth and vote!! Oh, and if you need something to listen to while you’re strolling to the polling station, try this.

It’s been a while since I’ve taken any photos.. of anything.. I seem to go through these stages where I take a lot of photos, and then don’t for a long time. It’s not that I don’t want to. I keep on seeing photo opportunities and I mean to do something about capturing them, but I haven’t gone out with my camera for a while, and I’ve been fairly busy with other stuff.. etc etc etc.. So, I have to resort to ogling other peoples work. Like this stuff.

I can’t remember how I came across yyellowbird’s flickr page, but I’m glad I did. Lots of instant favourites. There’s dozens of sets to browse through if you have a minute or two. I really like the muted colours and dated retro feel of them. There’s a whole set called ‘lights‘ which features some lush bokeh and is just gorgeous. Very nice stuff.

It’s photos like this that make me want to pick up the camera again. Proper inspiration. Don’t be too surprised if some similar shots pop up in my photo stream at some point.. as a homage of sorts .

yyellowbird on flickr. Go and look.

This isn’t really the time nor the place to have a discussion on religion and all that jazz.. But in a nutshell, I don’t believe in God and I think it’s a bit odd that other people do. But if you want to believe, that’s fine. I really don’t care, just don’t feel free to share your beliefs and I’ll do the same .

I don’t dislike religites, in fact some of my best friends swear blind that there’s a God, but I do dislike being preached to. And alas, there’s plenty of examples of that happening in day to day life. Which is why I think it’s nice that things like this exist - if only to provide a bit of balance because let’s face it, much like the ‘Deus Caritas Est‘ type of posters, this campaign wont get anybody to change their mind will it(?) Or will it? I dunno. I suppose a bit of atheist publicity might sway some of the undecided currently languishing in limbo. Or it’ll just offend staunch believers. Either way, kudos to Ariane Sherine for getting the thing started. I read about it last week, and then it was on Have I Got News For You, and then I saw some more stuff about it this morning and I felt like I wanted to add my (albeit limited to this blog) support to it.

There’s a nice quote on the website which says (regarding atheism);

It’s about making sense of the world, thinking freely and feeling liberated because of it. It’s about using your intellect and sense of reason to learn what life is about, and having the courage to think for yourself. It’s about relying on evidence when deciding on your beliefs, and being brave enough to speak the truth.

Surely no-one can disagree that that’s a decent system to live your life by?
Go atheism!
Dinosaurs are great!

Atheist Campaign.org

So you already know what Pixar are about. They’re the animation studio with major skillage who used mess with Lucasfilms, Steve Jobs and Disney but now roll dolo. Their catalogue is pretty much the most solid collection of films from one studio ever. I still haven’t seen Wall-E yet but everything else gets a two thumbs up from me. Even Cars.

There’s tonnes of images and whatnot covering their work out there but I bumped into this site and particularly like the stuff they’ve collated. It’s not extensive by any means but there’s something to be said for being selective. Just a wee collection of artwork from the films, and links to other sources. It’s a nice selection, worth a look.

I’m unashamedly a Big Brother viewer (or at least, I was until the last series this year, which I didn’t bother with at all). I’ve mentioned it here a few times before. I think it’s entertaining.

I also like zombies. They’re clearly the best type of horror fodder. Especially the ones that roar and scream and run and are still just about stupid enough to let you think you can escape, until the sheer number of them overwhelms you and you become another member of the horde.

So when I saw this viral a while ago for a show which would combine Big Brother with zombies (no jokes about it having done that for years already), I thought it’d be worth a watch.. and it was(/is).

‘Dead Set‘ started with an hour long episode on Monday night on e4, with a half hour installment last night and 3 more to come every night this week (ending on Halloween.. ooohh! spoooky!). If you’ve missed the two so far, they’re probably available on 4oD, or other un-endorsed sites perhaps, or the DVD comes out next week apparently. However you manage it though, you should watch it. The zombie bits are delightfully gory, the Big Brother bits are spot on (in terms of inanity, humour and realism) and it’s wholeheartedly recommended. There’s a bit in the first episode where a man in a wheelchair is pushed into the path of a zombie as a temporary barrier from the munching and I feel like I shouldn’t've laughed but I did. Out loud. A lot. Actual L O L. Oh, and it’s created by Charlie Brooker. Good stuff.

Much like the spoon predicament.

You ain’t seen this, right(?)..

Yet again, I’ve decided to re-design this site (mattnortham.com in case you’re confused) because the old design was boring me a bit. It’s barely been a few months since that last design debuted and in fact, this design isn’t too far removed from the previous version. It’s more colourful at least. Most of the legwork can be seen on the homepage but there’s a few new things with links and stuff that you might notice by just clicking around.

I’m not normally one to go on too much about the design process or anything like that so I’ll end it here.. Just a note to say that it’s live. Oh, in case you’re using IE6 still, here’s a screenshot of what it’s supposed to look like. If it doesn’t look like that, feel free to comment and let me know.. I may decide to ‘fix’ it. My testing process has been admittedly a bit slack for this

It’s been a fair while since any new Sage Francis material came out, let alone any stuff with a expressly ‘political’ theme.. I still remember downloading Makeshift Patriot a month after ‘9/11′ and being overly impressed with the way it really seemed to capture that moment in time. (The signed 7″ of one of the original pressings of that track is one of my prized possessions) . But anyway, what better time to step back into the fray than this, the last few weeks before the US presidential election..

‘Conpiracy To Riot‘ is, on the face of it, a track released to highlight various issues surrounding the Republican National Convention last month - notably the arrest of his fellow Providence poet and musician Jared Paul but as Sage points out, it’s really..

..less to do with a friend of mine possibly looking at jail time, and more to do with citizen’s rights continually being trampled on. There are thousands of innocent people in jail right now because of their lack of finances. This is a principle thing as much as it is personal. Attorneys working with the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU are identifying this year’s RNC as one of the most extreme examples of strategic, premeditated attacks on the First Amendment in U.S. history..

You can familiarise yourself with all the background info, check the song lyrics, make donations, and of course, download the track for free on the Conspiracy To Riot microsite. It’s recommended.

http://www.strangefamousrecords.com/conspiracy/

A quicky here celebrating the wonder that is retro game covers. Sort of. They’re not strictly realistic (as pointed out by many geek commenters who really should lighten up) but it’s a fun reimagining of some current games and how they might look twere they downgraded to a pixel steeze.

via

I don’t see how anyone would fail to be a fan of old game covers/booklets. Much like illustrated movie posters, there’s this certain quality which can only really be achieved by many many hours of painstaking hand drawing. Proper works of art.

There’s plenty of examples to be seen at car boot sales up and down the country if you don’t mind getting up at 7 on a cold wet Sunday morning.. Or you could just check out this flickr set that I’ve been looking for an excuse to link to for years or this post full of atari game covers which has should help you to put those ‘modern’ ones at the top into context.

I’m not usually one to get overly sentimental but this series of photos by Phillip Toledano actually almost brought a tear to my eye. Really.

‘Days With My Father‘ is a collection of photos he took of his 98 year old Dad as an “ongoing record of my father, and of our relationship … for whatever days we have together“. The photos alone tell an amazing story but occasionally, he’s added a couple of paragraphs to accompany the images and it’s those that perhaps strike the biggest chord. Clearly (based on the comments at the end of the project), it’s especially poignant if you’re in a similar situation, but I think for anyone that might feel like they don’t get to make the most of their time with a particular person, this site will bring it home.

Go look.

If you believe what pessimistic, panicky uninformed nutters are saying, the world will end tomorrow. It’s been fun.

In case the news has escaped you, tomorrow is finally the day when CERN are unleashing the Large Hadron Collider (not at all to be confused with the Hardon Collider as seen on cracked…).

The details are far far far far too complex for a lowly blog like mine, but National Geographic did a nice piece about it earlier in the year that’s now available to read online and worth a peep if you’re baffled by the idea of subparticles, neutrinos, antimatter, supersymmetry and multiple dimensions that affect gravity. Actually, I’ve read it a few times, and still don’t fully get it, so maybe it wont help, but it should. Basically, it’s exciting if you’re into quantum things or even if you’re just curious about what a $6 billion 17 mile long machine that can fire things at 99.99 percent the speed of light will end up doing.

The whole ‘end of the world’ thing stems from the potential of some sort of black hole being created, but even it if did happen, it’d be so massively small that it’d do nothing other than destroy itself. Which is reassuring, but at the same time, slightly disappointing The worse thing that could happen is nothing; the best thing is.. who knows. All sorts of crazy particle/matter/dimensional stuff is going on and seeing as the LHC records 15 million gigabytes of information yearly (that’s about 41 thousand gb a day), it might take a while to sift through the results. Still, that’s what we pay those scientists for. Watch this space!

I was going through some old records last night and it made me think of this video of Paul Mawhinney’s music collection. The video has been doing the rounds for the last month or so but I remember reading about it at the start of the year when he was trying to sell it on eBay and I presumed that it had actually sold and was in safe hands, but apparently not. A $3m bid fell through and as far as I can work out, the collection is still for sale.. Surely someone wants to buy it(?) DJ Shadow? Premier? Dre? If I had a few milli to spare, I’d happily snap it up.

Anyway, the video is only short, and worth a watch if only to get a vague idea of what a couple of million pieces of vinyl in the same place looks like. Crazy.

The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

More about the story here, or on google.

4 words that have the initials R, A, T and M.
You’re a fool if you can’t fill in the blanks.

As pretty much the only reason I wanted to go, Rage Against The Machine were always going to the highlight for me, and while there was a risk that they’d be a letdown because I was looking forward to it so much - they weren’t. Just amazing. My only complaint (apart from the lack of volume that afflicted everybody on the main stage) is that we could’ve/should’ve tried to get closer to the front because we seemed to end up in a patch of people who were happy to stand with their arms crossed and only appeared to know Killing In The Name. Eejits. Bouncing around to Know Your Enemy, Sleep Now In The Fire and Guerrilla Radio, we must’ve looked a tad odd to the statues behind us but it’s Rage for fucks sake.. etiquette and inhibitions had no place there. The whole set was great, and featured everything you’d expect right through to the rant during Wake Up (although really, surely it’s getting too late to mention Bush & Blair?). It’d be hard to single out highlights, but coming out and doing Bombtrack in the jumpsuits was loco, and the Freedom/Killing In The Name encore was fever pitch.

Epic. Definitely one to remember.

It’s a bit shit that the band have a ‘no filming’ policy going on because it means that for video footage, you have to resort to shaky hand cam stuff on youtube. Like this.

Rage aside, we managed to catch a few other bands across the Friday and Saturday. Worth a mention; Manic Street Preachers, Justice and Dizzee Rascal. Slightly mentionable; Queens of The Stone Age, The Ting Tings, The Killers, Bloc Party, Jack Penate, The Wombats, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong, Hifi Handgrenades and Santogold. Utterly forgettable; Editors, Ida Maria, The Subways, The Enemy, The Fratellis, countless other ‘The’ bands. I’m sure there were other people worth seeing but as I’ve said before, it’s not really my ’scene’ so I’m not really fussed. But I did have lots of (mostly Rage inspired) fun. Good times.

Wu-Tang to headline next year(?)

(plenty of photos/video here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/readingandleeds/)

It wouldn’t be right to let such an awesome spectacle go completely unnoticed; although I think that the BBC are managing to single-handedly cover enough Olympic action for the whole world. Apparently if you were to take every televised minute and written sentence that has been produced by the BBC about this years Olympic games, turn them into tiny people called Olymbits whose natural inclination is to stand on each others shoulders Cirque du Soleil style, then climb up the Olymbit stack, you would actually bump into God and the baby Jesus in the sky. Apparently.

I actually love the amount of coverage the beeb are putting out this year. Non stop live coverage online for every event, mostly with video footage - 6 different live streams on the red button on tv - hours of dedicated coverage on the terrestrial channels - and 5 Live doing the business for the radio. It’s loco. All your needs catered for. Unless you’re not a sporting person of course. Actually, scratch that because surely no-one can deny how good these games have been. Pure entertainment and so many amazing feats I wouldn’t even know where to start with a list of my favourite things thus far. Though it would probably be something like…

The opening ceremony.

Managed to see bits of it while we were in Paris, and the sight of Li Ning running around the inside edge of the stadium roof was brilliant. Unless we have someone running in the London Eye like it was a giant hamster wheel, I don’t think we’ll be able to top that in 2012. (more pictures here)

Argentina coasting to the football final
After the mini dispute with Barcelona regarding Messi was sorted, they’ve not looked back, winning every game on the way to Sundays final against Nigeria and are moving one step away from retaining their Olympic title. I’m not a big Argentina fan (blame it on this) but they deserved to beat Brazil in the semis yesterday. Ronaldinho has been a bit of a non-event which doesn’t bode well for Milan this season but who knows.

Yelena Isinbayeva jumps insanely high (with a pole)
Helped in it’s greatness because of the ‘gonna kick her butt’ comments by her American rival who really couldn’t compete..

“For the first 90 minutes of the competition Isinbayeva did not attempt a vault but sat trackside, her baseball cap pulled down low over her eyes. When the bar reached 4.70m she decided to stop passing and cleared the height at her first attempt. By that point seven of the 12 competitors had been knocked out.”

- The Guardian

She then went on to sail over 5.05m (16ft 7in) for a new World Record. See, that strikes me as kinda cocky (and rightly so) but not as cocky as..

Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt

How can someone not even really try for the last 10m or so and still get a World Record in the 100m(?) At least he worked hard for the 200m record last night. Both are unreal achievements but the latter in particular is probably more memorable. Michael Johnson, while commentating on the race, seemed happy for the Jamaican but surely deep down he’s curled up in a ball, hugging his gold shoes and weeping.

Natalie du Toit comes 16th in the 10k swim
16th doesn’t sound especially impressive but if you know about her, you’ll see why I think this is worth a mention. Good stuff. It’s the first year that the 10k outdoor swim has been an event, and I can think of few events that I’d least enjoy doing. Utterly knackering.

8 Golds, (7 World Records, 1 Olympic Record) for Michael Phelps
Not to mention approximately 173 drug tests too I’d imagine. Not that I’m trying to imply anything. He’s clearly not on performance enhancing drugs, he’s just a machine sent from the year 2029 by a race of artificially intelligent computer-controlled machines who want to crush every humans will to compete in swimming competitions in order to dominate the medals table in all future Olympic games. And speaking of the medals table..

Great Britain is 3rd
With 17 gold, 11 silver and 11 bronze (at the time of writing). Kudos to everyone involved. So many individual success stories and noteworthy moments but I’m happy to leave it at a general level of praise. Does this mean we get a massive bronze medal at the end?

Just three days left to go til the closing ceremony on Sunday and I’m sure it’ll be on a par with the opening. Politics aside, it looks like China have done a great job hosting this and heaped the pressure on London to match it in 4 years.. I’m sure it will. I mean, the logo is a great start isn’t it(?) What could go wrong(?)

Anyone know how to get tickets for the opening ceremony…?

It’s been a chockablock couple of months in terms of new musical offerings and while it’s beyond me to comprehensively review everything I’ve been listening to lately, I wanted to mention a couple of things in no particular order, with examples!

Doomtree - Doomtree
Easily one of the most talented collectives in hip hop right now, Doomtree finally blessed us with a group album (self titled). It’s rather good. As with a lot of their stuff, there’s a big punk influence meshed with the straight up hip hop and it works gloriously. P.O.S. is probably the most noticeable face of the crew but there really is no weak link to be found.

Download audio file (02-drumsticks.mp3)

The Game - LAX
3 albums and countless mixtapes in and Game is still superbly embodying almost everything you love about gangsta rap. There’s still no Dre reunion but to be honest, I’ve given up noticing. You can criticise The Game’s lyrics as much as you want - (the consistent name-dropping is getting to almost a parody of himself by now) - but one thing he’s always shown is an ear for a quality beat, and to his credit, while not necessarily stellar, he’s never weak on the tracks.

Download audio file (10-house-of-pain.mp3)

GZA/Genius - Pro Tools
Not a great album title, and to be honest, not a great album on the first couple of listens, but that’s probably because I can’t help but compare every GZA release to Liquid Swords and that’s not especially fair is it(?) There’s no denying that there’s just something lazy about his delivery these days though, and it’s a shame because lyrically, he’s still a beast.

Download audio file (05-7-pounds.mp3)

Ice Cube - Raw Footage
Listening to this album it makes me wonder how the fuck films like Are We There Yet? ever got made. Ice Cube clearly isn’t meant for the kids. It’s a welcome return to form and is the reason I said that The Game is ‘almost’ everything you love about gangsta rap.. Because as much as he idolises NWA, his content isn’t a tenth as good as Cube at his peak (or even remotely close to his peak). Peep the video for Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It. Brilliant.

Download audio file (03-it-takes-a-nation.mp3)

Also in rotation and worthy of a listen (and maybe a future more detailed post);

• Nas - Untitled (didn’t really live up to the hype but still, not bad for his NINTH ALBUM!!! mental.)
• The Wackness - Soundtrack (nothing new to be heard but a good one for reminiscing to when it wasn’t all business..)
• El-P - WeAreAllGoingToBurnInHellMeggamixxx2 (free on the def jux site and even better than the first one)
• One Day As A Lion (a fairly decent stand in for new RATM material)

It’s nice working in an environment that can produce something like this. I remember vaguely talking to one of the people behind this earlier in the year and while I thought it sounded like a fun idea, that was about it. Who’d've thought that the project by Boredom Research (via the National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University) would end up covered by so many people.

If you’re unfamiliar with ‘Real Snail Mail’, it’s basically this:

An e-mail is sent to a tank containing snails fitted with RFID chips. If and when a snail wanders by the e-mail collection site, its RFID chip will pick up the message. Then, if and when that snail wanders by the drop-off point in another area of the tank, the e-mail will be delivered (at that point, via the Internet, of course).

Genius! I believe it’s just had it’s proper exhibition at siggraph 08 but the snails have been hard at work for months now, with varying success. You can check the progress of each ‘agent’ (and add your own message!) at the official site - Real Snail Mail.