Phil Sherry : Spring 2008

The Joan McCartney Memorial Guitar.

A.K.A. the Fender Jim Root Telecaster, but I bought it with money My Nan™ left to me in her will. Legend.

Once upon a time, Jonathan Gay wrote:

Macromedia Flash began with a few bits of colored plastic.

And upon reading John Gruber’s “Who Can Do Something About Those Blue Boxes?”, it looks like that’s how it’ll end.

Those of you who know me in real life will probably know that my Nan died last week, passing away quietly in her sleep.

Born Joan Frances Farley in 1923, she went on to be a nurse and saw loads of action in the war, stationed in India. She hated curry to her dying day. Eventually, she married Joseph McCartney and the legend of Joan McCartney was born. Together, they were two of the most amazing people I’ll ever know. I feel beyond lucky to have known them and had them as Grandparents. They gave my mother the best upbringing they could manage and she passed all of that on to me.

Whilst in Liverpool for her funeral, my girlfriend, Li, thought she’d give my mother some good news and mentioned that we’d been thinking of getting married. Ten minutes later, my mother called me upstairs and told me my Nan really liked Li and hoped we’d get married, so in light of the recent news, it made sense for us to have something of my Nan’s: a ring.

We were driving home to Teesside that day, so I suggested that we drive via the Lake District and have lunch in Keswick (where my parents had their honeymoon all those years ago). We had a nice lunch but the weather was against us. As we couldn’t walk anywhere nice, I had to whip the ring out in the car. I asked Li if she’d marry me. She said Yes.

We are happy.

The last real band I was in was Ladder, back in 1996. Now, apart from a brief reunion with the lads to play at the wake of two mates a few years back, I’d not played a proper gig in 13 years. Blimey, I sorted that out tonight.

We only played for 30 minutes, but we did pretty fucking good for our first gig: no fuck-ups of any kind, crowd was into us, couldn’t have gone much better. Awesome.

Here’s my final review of Battlestar Galactica, now that it’s finished:

• Seasons 1 + 2 = WIN!
• Seasons 3 – 5 = FAIL!

I’m done.

I lost roughly three hours today. I was copying some files from my old PowerMac (AKA: the Smurf) to my MacBook, when the connection suddenly dropped. Turns out the Smurf had a kernel panic. D’oh! “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll turn it off and on again, and then carry on where I left off.” But no.

Kernel panic on reboot. Every time. Even when trying to boot from a DiskWarrior DVD. Hmm.

I found this lying around, thought I’d share.

1. High tech equipment is often driven by a computer with a DOS prompt. (see RoboCop).
2. High tech companies don’t do offsite backups of the data (see Terminator 2).
3. All media devices are readily available – ie If someone hands you a DAT tape with important data on it your PC will have a DAT drive.
4. No matter what you ask a computer to do it will respond with a percentage complete bar–graph – especially when searching for data it can accurately give you the time remaining until it finds that data.
5. Data searching will always involve displaying all the searched data on the screen until a match is found – this is true of text and graphics such as fingerprints.
6. Telephone calls can be easily redirected through places all over the world, and upon a trace a globe will be displayed complete with lines travelling between each place.
7. Deleting of data always takes just a little less time than it takes the bad guys to knock down the door.
8. All technology is plug and play – every computer can have any piece of technology attached.
9. High tech graphical interfaces are often driven by hundreds of keystrokes which do not appear anywhere on the screen.
10. IP addresses automatically supply the feds with the physical address (ie log on and they know where you are!).
11. Word processors never display a cursor.
12. You never have to use the spacebar when typing long sentences. Just keep hitting the keys without stopping.
13. All monitors display 2 inch high letters.
14. High–tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA, or some such governmental institution, have easy–to–understand graphical interfaces.
15. Those that don’t will have incredibly powerful text–based command English.
16. Corollary: You can gain access to any information you want by simply typing “ACCESS ALL OF THE SECRET FILES” on any keyboard.
17. Likewise, you can infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing “UPLOAD VIRUS.” Viruses cause temperatures in computers, just like they do in humans. After a while, smoke billows out of disk drives and monitors.
18. All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain’s desktop computer, even if it’s turned off.
19. Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn’t go faster than you can read. The really advanced ones also emulate the sound of a dot–matrix printer as the characters come across the screen.
20. All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backward.
21. People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving the data.
22. A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.
23. Any “PERMISSION DENIED” has an “OVERRIDE” function.
24. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. In the movies, modems transmit data at two gigabytes per second.
25. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the control panels will explode, as will the entire building.
26. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen. There are no ways to copy a backup file — and there are no undelete utilities.
27. If a disk has encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access it.
28. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it’ll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms.
29. The more high–tech the equipment, the more buttons it has. However, everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren’t labelled.
30. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality–defying three–dimensional, real–time, photo–realistic animated graphics capability.
31. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real–time video phone capabilities and the performance of a Cray X–MP.
32. Whenever a character looks at a VDU, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face.
33. Computers never crash during key, high–intensity activities. Humans operating computers never make mistakes under stress.
34. Programs are fiendishly perfect and never have bugs that slow down users.
35. Any photograph can have minute details pulled out of it. You can zoom into any picture as far as you want to.

Whilst wandering around the local Zavvi during their administration/closure sales, I spotted a bargain: Hitchcock 14 Disc Box Set. All discs have extras in the form of behind the scenes interviews with any actors who are still alive, Hitchcock’s daughter, etc. Great value. Anyway, me and The Missus decided we’d watch them in chronological order (as listed above). We’re only three movies in and already we’re loving it.

Saboteur & Shadow Of A Doubt are both black and white movies, and both amazingly old in every way (which caused us to giggle more than a little bit, sorry). The next movie we watched was Rope. From the minute it started, we could tell things had stepped up a little. Apart from being in “glorious technicolor”, everything was just so much more… Hitchcock. The classic Hitchcock tension was there; the acting was worlds apart from the previous movies; the music wasn’t totally 40’s, etc. Each scene was one long take, which would last around ten minutes, as that was the average length of film in the camera. I wonder how many modern actors could last that long without fluffing their lines. We were both totally gripped and thought it to be most excellent (and, like, totally bodacious, dude).

It soon struck me that I’d love to have the money to fund a remake.

Jake just hit me with a meme, so as it’s a Sunday and I’m looking for things to do in an effort to put off the housework, I present you with seven things you may (or may not) know about me:

1. When I was about 12, part of my English class involved being asked to write two pages about my favourite book. With much excitement, I wrote an entire text book about Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy and got told off for writing too much. I gave up English homework there and then, leading another English teacher to tell me I’d never amount to anything. I guess that’s why I’ve had a couple of books published and translated into foreign languages then, eh?
2. I had an operation to remove baby teeth from my nasal cavity when I was 14. That was about as much fun as it sounds.
3. My favourite places in the world are San Fransisco, Waikiki, Sydney, New York, Stockholm, and, of course… Liverpool.
4. I was born within 10 miles of Liverpool’s Liver Buildings and lived within that radius until I was 34. I’m merely a visitor these days, but it will always be Home.
5. Paul McCartney once referred to me as “a bloody good bass player”.
6. I have been to San Dimas High School. I had a most excellent time and insisted on being called “Philip John Sherry, Eqsuire” for the duration.
7. Blaze Bayley (singer of Wolfsbane, a Heavy Metal band from the mid-90’s; he also recorded two albums as Iron Maiden’s singer) once told me I was being “far too heavy metal” and asked me to calm it down a little so that I didn’t get the band into trouble.

I don’t really know many people who blog these days, so I’ll just have to pass it on to The Missus, Chris Mills, Jon Hicks, and Jon Sidnell. If I can think of three more people, I’ll whack them with it.

My favourite guitarist and slight hero, James Patrick Page, Esq., is officially a pensioner today.

Keep on rockin’ that Les Paul, Jimmy.