- did my first C & C++ programming

- moved out of Croydon

- watched live rugby at Twickenham

- visited Istanbul, Ireland and Northern Ireland

- partook of some live theatre around ASDA

- first ever beer festival

- first stag night

- first Notting Hill Carnival

- shook booty to DJ Assault

- got snowed in

- finally joined Facebook (using a pseudonym)

- released an iPhone app

- had a day at the races

- started going to the cinema weekly

ShapeSeq is a deceptively simple musical instrument built to encourage instant play.

There are four primitive shapes to choose from representing four oscillators. As each shape is moved around the screen, the pitch and volume moves with it.

Every shape has it's own loop, and every movement is recorded on the loop for instant playback. As the loop can be varied by size and number of steps while it is playing, all kinds of new sounds and effects emerge.

First preview of Shape Sequencer version 2 which I am developing in C++ using openFrameworks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gioP_kxFSU&

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jun/26/michael-jackson-tnt-show

A new category of error, as Channel 4 pulls a sketch about Michael Jackson just as the news comes in about his death, leading to several minutes of the Channel 4 ident being played silently instead of the segment.

This also highlights how much easier it has become to capture and re-publicise live-broadcast television errors, which I'm hoping will lead to greater archiving of these kinds of errors.

My eyes were feeling a bit tired today so I installed the Stylish extension and an excellent style called "NightShift - eye care" that changes all colours and even dims images. Another reason to stick with Firefox.

I also installed this Zenburn Windows XP Theme (zip) based on one by Jason McBrayer. Zenburn is a low contrast colour scheme originally for Vim.

Now it's like my eyes are resting in a pool of cooling grey.

I continue to be addicted to Firefox largely because of the following extensions:

Adblock Plus - development of the original adblock stalled a long time ago. I have barely seen a banner since 2001, and wonder how others cope.

FireGestures - Once you learn gestures, everything else is too slow. I've been through several other gesture extensions, and this one is the current favourite, although I do have to switch off a lot of options.

British English Dictionary - It's easy to forget to install your language variant dictionary, as US English is so often the path of least resistance.

Custom Download Manager - I like downloads in a tab not in a separate window.

Undo Closed Tabs Button - A tiny change, but so useful. Other tab options are available.

NoScript - For security and annoyance avoidance, turning off javascript is often a good idea.

Firebug - the last word in web development awesomeness.

Honourable mention to Live HTTP Headers and User Agent Switcher which I install when called for.

In photography class, I was taught that a properly executed black and white print should contain a perfect black and a perfect white, however minute. The full range of tones in between were then available to the image. This serves as a metaphor for a statement about film-making I would like to assert for discussion: that no film can be called great if it doesn't contain a moment of humour. It may not be a joke, it may not be an element of comedy, or a deliberate insertion agreed upon by the whole chain in the film-making process, from writer to director to actors to DP and so on. But something of the classic dichotomy of drama.

I don't seek to exclude abstract film, or non-narrative sequences - these can be funny, light-hearted or even comedic too, of course.

Even a comedy film, or a great joke, must therefore contain an element of tragedy, however minute. Perhaps an element that is only exposed on reflection, dissection, analysis; but a perfect black, or white, nonetheless. A counterpoint.

Maybe this approach excludes too many films from the echelons of greatness. But don't debase the value of non-great films - I don't want to assert that non-great films don't deserve our attention or time, just that they don't reach the level of true greatness.

Try and think of a Hitchcock film without at least some moment of wryness. Or try and think of justifying the greatness of a loved film that doesn't have some humour in it.

Maybe the same can be said for theatre, literature, music or other arts. I'm working on it.

This year we:

- got well into spinning around on bikes - going to Brighton, Box Hill, Brasted, between Seville and Cordoba, 47.5 mph down Titsey Hill and through London at night (occasionally without lights or a full complement of contact lens – neither recommended)
- got sonically sliced and reassembled by a blistering Autechre and .snd gig in Hearn street car park. Had to leave early, but could still hear the beats a good five minutes walk away
- started a dangerous habit of European city breaks, and had a series of glorious meals in Paris, broken only by some serious dancing in the original Favela Chic
- tried to keep rock climbing, semi-successfully
- left one career; got another job after visiting the pub
- saw (and loved) my first Chagall at From Russia, an exhibition teeming with quality, exhilarating to see Kandinsky’s and Malevich in the flesh
- marvelled at Richard Serra’s malleable steel playground
- shook out some demons at various dread sound systems at my first Notting Hill carnival
- grasped and gasped my way round Roger Hiorn’s Seizure
- tasted madelines (metaphorically) at a Mogwai gig
- cried at a Rod Stewart song
- probably reached the crux of hipsterdom seeing a poet do a reading along to Gang Gang Dance in Hoxton. Whilst wearing jeans that were probably on the skinny side.
- got even more hipsterish when watching some free jazz in Dalston, including a man playing a bin bag filled with gas. It was a furious, exhilarating concert though
- politely clapped to a man prancing around on a JCB
- spontaneously combusted to Herbie Hancock encoring with a Keytar
- pestled my own pesto
- visited Riverside for some World Championship darts, discovered that it’s really not my sport
- still haven’t used the mango destined for that fish curry
- sat on cushions in the Tate's turbine hall and got assaulted by some early computer animation, it was well techno

- completed Crysis on a 32" LCD
- saw Public Enemy at Brixton Academy; Alva Noto at the ICA; 808 State, Arthur Baker and IF at Jacks; Squarepusher and LFO at the Astoria; Loefah and Hijak, Mala and Skream at Black Sheep Bar
- Stuart Lee at the Hen & Chickens and at the Soho Theatre
- Richard Herring, Phil Nichol, Josie Long, Bridget Christie, Will Adamsdale, Pappy's Fun Club and Dave Goreman with free bangers at Battersea Arts Centre
- Steve Coogan at Apollo
- Elizabeth and Rayleigh at Croydon Library Theatre
- lots of Bug at the BFI with Adam Buxton
- Sean Locke at Hammersmith Apollo
- Mighty Boosh at the O2
- Frank McGuiness' Oedipus with Ralph Fiennes at NT
- lost my father
- felt like I was having a heart attack from grief and fury at 3am
- played a lot of Mass Effect
- bought an iPhone
- got a massive boil on the right eyebrow which had to be surgically removed
- moved offices and employer without changing jobs
- properly got into podcasts (Collings and Herrin, Dream Chimney, TwiT, The Tone Generation)
- got Miró, Calder, Giacometti and Braque in some perspective at the Royal Academy

- worked as a teaching assistant
- in the same 6-hour period: attended York Museum of Popular Culture, dressed like a hippy and swore at numerous children despite it being my jobsworth and met Tom Baker while eating a penguin
- had the drummer from the Housemartins and the Beautiful South give a workshop for da kids