Starting a couple of freelance sites shortly and finishing one off soon.

Listen to some Telefon Tel Aviv and ‘M’.

In other news, the new Four Tet LP is ace. If you can only listen to one, do dig Plastic People. So much good music coming out this year. Burial, Ulrich Schnauss, Bonobo, Hybrid, Unkle and Trentemoller. Very excited indeed.

Hoping to finish up a couple of web sites shortly and have another two to start soon. Really excited to be working on these in my spare time.

Feel like I’m riding a wave of ‘code confidence’ right now…taking on challenges I would normally have left behind. Hoping to look at the Zend Framework in the next few weeks too…once I’ve (slightly) mastered CodeIgniter.

Already some of my favourite bands are starting to release details of their impending albums.

The following, especially, have got me very excited indeed:

• Four Tet – There is Love in You
• Burial
• Bonobo – Black Sands
• Hybrid
• Massive Attack – Heligoland
• Pendulum
• Unkle – Where did the Night Fall
• Ulrich Schnauss

Work-wise, it’s been a productive start to the year. Been working on a number of exciting webby projects. I’m trying to take more risks, when I can, just to keep the skillset looking good. One of these is learning a bit more of OOP, which will pay a lot in the end, by cutting down a lot of the coding I do. Really want to make 2010 all about self-improvement in a number of ways.

I’m fortunate enough to be taking a break from things by heading to the big smoke of London this weekend. I’ve got a short list of must-see places (Tate Modern, Elms Lesters, Hideout store, Dover Street Market and Camden Town Market) and no doubt finding time for doing the touristy point, look down at the map, and point in a different direction entirely, then nod. Think I’ll fit in just right! Got any suggestions of your own for places to visit in London?

Hopefully will have bagged some piccies for the blog on my return. Stay tuned.

Another brilliant slice of Adam Buxton…

http://adam-buxton.co.uk/ad/2010/01/08/alone-in-the-shed-part-1-2-news/

Check it out You like?

I’ll be 25 in a couple of weeks which is a scary one to believe. I think I’m going to make next year count in a lot of ways.

Musically speaking. Found this pretty incredible blog ‘a strangely isolated place‘ (after the Ulrich Schnauss album). If you like your ambient, soundtrack music then you can’t miss it: Darkness & Wonder Mix

Pick up your ears for these two beauts…

Highlights on the music front for me this year have been strong albums from We Fell to Earth, The XX, Moderat and a new slice of Rob Dougan which bodes (very) well for the future: http://www.solangeazagurypartridge.com.

Going to try plan these posts out a little more in future.
I can’t help thinking it’s all coming out a bit ‘bleurgh’.
Normal service will be restored shortly.

Until next time….

Radio, on the other hand, has some unspeakably great gems. I’m a mad-addict for late night Classic FM, Annie Mac on Radio 1 and BBC Radio 7. The latter has some brilliant comedy shows late on most nights. Well worth plugging into.

This blog post is just a brief introduction into some of my favourite TV comedies. Feel free to add your own in the Comments.

PEOPLE LIKE US
Highly under-rated TV series from the late 90s starring Chris Langham as Roy Mallard. Here’s a snippet from the show featuring Bill Nighy as ‘The Photographer’…

OPERATION GOOD GUYS
A little-known comedy, again from the late 90s. Fantastic characters and performances. Pre-The Office, this is some brilliant fly-on-the-wall comedy with DI Ash’s looks to the cameras worth the admission fee alone.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
What can I say?! Almost perfect. Come On!

ALAN PARTRIDGE

JAM

CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM

There’s so many more I’ve left out so I’ll definitely end up adding to this post in the future. Stay tuned.

In the meantime….got some suggestions of your own? TV or Film, share them in the Comments and I’ll add them here.

Enjoy!

This fella’s an insanely talented designer with pretty good web building(css/html) skills.

I got a buzz from just showing him little ways to speed up his development. Simple things like PHP includes, functions, firefox plugins and templating. Tricks I really just take for granted now, but easily forget how useful they can be to speed things up and how ‘exciting’ it was to discover them for the first time.

Here’s some of the links we checked out, just a snippet, you may find them useful yourself….

SOME WEBBY LINKS

http://www.alvit.de/handbook/

http://960.gs/

http://www.dezinerfolio.com/2007/04/22/the-web-designers-tool-kit/

http://www.webcredible.co.uk/

http://www.mezzoblue.com/tests/revised-image-replacement/

http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/content/a-css-framework

http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/top-10-most-usable-content-management-systems/

http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/20-tools-to-make-the-life-of-a-web-developer-easier

Strange as it seems, I’m not all that wild about the web. It’s a great platform for work and can be exciting, but you’d never find me discussing code at length, or eager to get that final Google Wave invite. I’m enjoying my role right now, but who knows where the future will be…

I don’t tend to follow too many blogs myself either, though do keep an eye on TutsPlus and SitePoint for the latest word on the web. Alvit.de’s Handbook and Smashing! are also pretty amazing for articles and inspiration.

As far as my own learning goes, I’m hoping to tackle CodeIgniter and build a C# .NET web site over the next few months. Video and Animation is something I’d like to get back into if I can. Finding the time and motivation is another matter…

KINDA NEWS FLASH

If you’ve got an idea for a site(something simple ) that I could try in CodeIgniter or C#, leave a message below. I may be crazy enough to come back with a finished product.

Brrr….it’s nearly Christmas. Until tomorrow……

Bent – “People”

Bent – “Exercise 2″