BenPaddon.co.uk

So as much as I would love to go back to Comic-Con today, there’s a chance I might not. I’m absolutely shattered - so very, very tired - and everyone else here is asleep. It’s a bit awkward because I have Dino’s camera and he and Casy still have one of my bags of swag, not to mention the fact that I still have a few interviews to record. It’s… well, it’s awkward. At the very least I’d like to say “Turrah!” to Scott, Kris and the other HalfPixel dudes (although I will be seeing Scott again at PAX). And Mark, obviously.

I’m so tired, though.

Dilemma.

I like Firefox. I don’t get quite as “Holier-Than-Thou” about the browser as others do, largely because it’s just a web browser*, but I can read web pages the way nature intended (i.e. without a bunch of Internet Explorer proprietary shit getting in the way) and so all is right with the world. Firefox 2 is not without its bugs, however, and one bug in particular is beginning to… well, to bug me. It’s this one:

Quick find bar opens when typing in text fields

The / (slash) and ‘ (apostrophe)keys are shortcuts to open the Quick Find bar. You can also configure Firefox to automatically search for text when you type any characters outside of a text field. When typing in a text field these characters should show up in the text field and not trigger the Quick Find bar.

I don’t know if this bug has been fixed in Firefox 3 as I haven’t downloaded it yet (I’ll get into that in a bit) but from what I can recall while researching the bug a year or two ago it was one that Mozilla were aware of but weren’t fixing. I remember reading that when people reported the bug the Firefox devteam would get quite arsey about it, saying that they had no intention of fixing it and stupidly telling people to fix it themselves because it’s Firefox and it’s Open Source and they have Better Things To Do than to fix one teeny tiny bug. Indeed, a simple Google search for firefox Quick Find bug reveals a number of fixes available. Mozilla never fixed this bug themselves, though. Note that down because I’ll be referring to it later.

The bug is annoying, but as it only happened sporadically (maybe once a week, if that) and it can be “fixed” by opening and closing a dialogue box such as the Options window or the “About…” blurb, I saw no real pressing urge to repair the glitch.

Spin on to this past two weeks - this glitch is now popping up every time I run Firefox. Not just on my desktop PC at home, but on my laptop and my work computer as well. I’ve come to anticipate the glitch by first opening and closing the “About…” dialogue, which is easy enough, but then there are some other small glitches which occur as a side-effect of this - opening a new tab with Ctrl+T doesn’t automatically place the focus on the address bar, for instance, so I can open a new tab and type in an address only for nothing to happen at all.

I yesterday I was about to do what I always do when a program is glitching on me - look for an updated version. Then I remembered that, oh yes, Firefox 3 was released this week. And, oh, weren’t Mozilla trying to go for a download world record on June 18th? The little cogs began a-turnin’ in my head and I began to wonder: What if Mozilla deliberately “timed” this bug to become more annoying around the time Firefox 3 launched? What if the very reason they decided not to fix this glitch and become arrogant cocks at the mere mention of it were because they had planned to use it to encourage annoyed people to update when FF3 became available on the 18th?

I’d deliberately avoided upgrading to FF3 before I came to this realization because the browser is incompatible with pretty much every plug-in and add-on available for FF2, but now I’m even less inclined to want to update. I don’t like the idea that Mozilla may be forcing people to update their browser just because they want to break some kind of non-existent, unimportant, trivial record. I don’t like the idea of being forced to update at all, to be honest. And now, as if by magic, Firefox is refusing to acknowledge input from the arrow keys, so in order to me to go back and fix a typo I had to click on it rather than use the arrow keys to get back to that point. Harrumph. Harrumph, I say.

Anyway, that’s my Unnecessarily Paranoid Conspiracy Theory for the year. Tune in again next June.

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* I have a great deal of difficulty comprehending why it is exactly that people get so militant about their choice of browser. Firefox users tend to consider themselves the Cats Meow because they happen to have a standards-compliant browser, which is also Open Source (and we all know what a bunch of elitist wankers most Open Source advocates are). Opera users tend to rank themselves higher than the Firefox users because their browser is somehow more compliant and passes some obscure test that only people who work in web design for a living will have any idea about.

Why does anyone actually give a shit? Why does anyone give any bodily fluid about which browser they’re using? As long as nobody’s using Internet Explorer aren’t we basically alright? Get a little perspective, people.

On Wednesday night I recorded an interview with the wonderful guys at the GigCast, where we talked about Jump Leads, Ghost Hamster and PodWarp 1999, amongst other things. You can listen to the podcast here, if you’re interested.

I mentioned last week that Dino Andrade, voice actor and founder of SoulGeek, and I had lunch about my getting involved with the site. For some reason, Glod only knows why, Dino seems to think I’m talented and asked me if I’d be interested in taking control of SoulGeek Radio, the podcast Dino’s been planning on doing for the site for some time now. He also asked me if I could help video-edit the remaining footage they’d filmed for SoulGeek TV. Naturally, I said yes.

Today we met again for breakfast on the Disney Lot (he had an audition there, so it made sense) and as well as handing me some of the video stuff for SG-TV he offered me the job of Producer for SoulGeek Media. That’s not just putting the podcast together and editing the videos but essentially handling every single aspect of SoulGeek’s audio/video output. Naturally, I said yes.

This is all incredibly exciting stuff. The podcast is taking shape and hopefully we’ll have some recording in the can inside of the next couple of weeks. I have some writing to do for… well, for a part of the podcast (again, as I said, I don’t want to give too much away about that just yet, but I’m fairly confident that it’s not something a great number of other podcasts are doing - watch this space!), but all in all it’s looking good! I’ll keep you guys informed as and when stuff happens.

In an attempt to make my blog seem as mundane as possible, I’m now going to talk about my posture.

Those of you who listened to Saturday’s edition of The Program with Kris Straub might recall a very brief discussion about how photogenic I’m not. Kris mentioned that he’s seen photos of me and I always seem to be slouching, which is something I’ve been vaguely aware of now for a long time. I’m 6′ 4″ and a lot of stuff - door handles, bathroom sinks, elevator buttons, etc. - seems to have been positioned lower than I require it to be. Plus I like to keep eye contact with the people I talk to, so if I’m walking and talking to them it’s easier to simply lower myself down so that they’re not looking up my nose. That and it’s less intimidating. Also I’m scared of heights.

However, Kris is right and I need to be less slouchy and more upright and awesome. That’s been my goal this week - stand tall, walk proud (I narrowly avoided the urge to write “Walk Hard”), etc. I’ve been pretty successful save for the fact that since I’ve been keeping myself upright my back has begun to ache and, as I mentioned above, everything seems to be just out of reach. It’s annoying, to be sure, but I imagine it’s something I’ll get used to.

In other news, I had lunch with Dino Andrade on Tuesday. For those of you who don’t know, he is (amongst other things) the voice of Skull on PvP: The Series, and the founder of geek dating site SoulGeek. He’s also a good friend and a top bloke, and I’ve been wanting to work with him for a while now. Fortunately for me he wanted to work with me as well, and he’s decided I would be the perfect guy to produce and co-host Radio SoulGeek, the official SoulGeek podcast. So lunch was mostly us talking about what we want out of our respective futures (there appears to be a fair amount of overlap there, which is nice) and planning the format for the podcast. It’s all looking incredibly promising and I don’t want to give away too much but besides the usual stuff - Geek News, Interviews, music, all of which will be delivered in a unique, fun way - there’s some really cool stuff that I don’t want to go into too much now for fear of ruining the surprise. I can promise you that it’ll be available to everyone (not just SoulGeek members) and, assuming we do it properly, it’s going to be a must-hear podcast. Whee!

There’s also some very cool stuff happening with Jump Leads in the near future but I definitely want to keep that one to myself for now.

Anyway, that’s enough from me for the moment. I have work to do!

This could be the most important post-Crystal Skull tee-shirt you buy. Ignore the fact that it’s being sold from the Jump Leads tee-shirt store. Just buy it.

I love videogames, and I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t (unless we’re including Jack Thompson, but whether or not he qualifies as a person is another matter entirely). That said, I can’t help but spot glaring problems with the way the games industry works at the moment. I can’t imagine why people haven’t spotted these flaws and corrected them already, so here they are in all their splendour. There’s some unsavory language ahead, mind. You have been warned.

Let the good times roll.

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Vincent came into work yesterday after spending most of the week suspiciously AWOL, bringing with him one simple command: “Look in the freezer.” A short walk to the kitchen later, opening the freezer revealed… well, nothing. That is, until Vincent put his hand in and pulled out a nondescript plastic bag. He handed it to me, and I immediately knew what the contents were. I peeled away the slightly stiff packaging (arf) and inside was the Ninth Doctor, still bound and gagged. He has since been returned to his rightful triumphant position on my work desk, but there are questions which still need answering.

For instance, how did Vincent know? He claims he was little more than “just the messenger,” but I’m sure he’s more than just a simple Pez Dispenser*. I might even be inclined to say that he’s the mastermind behind the entire thing.

I shall keep you all informed.

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* “Pez Dispenser” is a term I coined to describe any sort of job which adds an unnecessary component to a workflow. The thinking behind the term is this: Pez, those horrible yet somehow enticing fruit-flavoured candies, generally come with those horrible plastic dispensers in the shape of a cartoon character. The candy goes in and they can be dispensed by pulling the head back (apparently teaching kids that there are sweet rewards in store for breaking peoples’ necks). The thing is, you have to spend time and effort loading the candy into the dispenser before it can be, well, dispensed. It’s quicker, easier, and less of a chore to just eat the fucking candy and skip the dispenser altogether.

The Doctor lives. The organization responsible for the kidnapping have sent me this video and demand that I post it on my site if I wish to see the action figure again.

I have to say, I’m surprised that they were able to get Talking-To-His-Daughter-While-Drunk David Hasselhoff to participate.

Went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last night and absolutely loved it, but checking my email this morning was a haunting experience.

Those of you who follow by Twitter feed will know that I got into work on Monday and found one of my Doctor Who action figures had been, for want of a better work, kidnapped. This morning I received a strange missive from someone referring to themselves only as “¢”. The message reads:

Mr. Paddon -
Sometimes we must separate friendship with business. My long time associates are not pleased with the riff raft you have been bring into the office. They feel that the element you bring to your desk harms the true purpose of promotional dolls and detracts from the true meaning of toys. Or at least that is what i gather, they are not the most comprehendible people I have worked with.
I am merly acting as a messaganger between your sect and the sect I represent. I personally asked for this assignment to protect the over all integerty of stealling workmakes toys. I am not activly envolved in the demands, negotiations, or selection of victims. I am merely a go between. The only set condition I have for you is I merly be refered to as ¢.

Here is the first picture and statement from the toys for america liberation front.
“Ben Paddon, you are no longer in control of your twitter. If you want to see the proof of life video and see your presicous doctor, you will put the following phrase on your Twitter Blog ever hour for the entire work day of Thursday, May 22, 2008.”
“The Sky is Falling”
At 5 pm, if conditions are met you will see your Doctor on Video. For now, here is a picture.

¢

This is naturally a very strange scenario to find myself in. I have a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, but I must confess I find myself conflicted here. If anyone can offer advice, I’m all ears.

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* An alternative title for this post would be “We don’t negotiate with Twitterists”

Euan has “redubbed” the latest PvP strip. I’ve posted it up over on SkyScraper, our collaborative writing blog. Enjoy!

Click to embiggen. It looks spectacular.

This boxset is going to have all 14 episodes, all of the special features from the Special Edition boxset that was released in the UK in 2005, and also:

• New exclusive commentary with director Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes (nee Stevenson) and guests Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Bill Hader, Matt Stone, Patton Oswalt and Diablo Cody.
• Exclusive Spaced On Stage reunion Q&A recorded at the National Film Theatre, London in October 2007.

Exciting or what, eh campers? Fun Fact: This will be the third time I’ve bought a “complete” Spaced Boxset. I bought the UK edition twice - I got it when Amy and I broke up, but she then asked to “borrow” it and decided to keep it instead.