What was I doing on the 24th of Saturday this last week? Driving nearly 300 miles there and back to London to attend the MCM (Movie, Comics & Media) Expo.

I have never been to such an event before so I had no idea of what to expect, ah well okay, I had some idea but my expectations were exceeded. I travelled to London with my friend Lee to attend this event. I didn't really have any particular reason to go however after speaking to a friend belonging to my Japanese class I became interested to see such an event for myself.

After a long drive I saw and as I drew near to the venue I saw people. Many people and most of them dressed up. That's right - cosplayers. Now, I have been aware of the cosplaying for a long time but never actually attended an event where it was going on. I was, for want of a better word, fascinated by all the endless varieties of costumes some of which has incredible detail. From Storm Troupers to School Girls it would seem there was a costume for ever major cult TV Series/Film/Anime. The event it's self which I should explain is basically a very large memorabilia fair with a few side attractions took place in a very large room and was packed. You had to shuffle around this place to get anywhere and there were thousands of things to see. Since there is no real organisation of merchandise on sale there was a huge mix up of various collectables from stand to stand. T-shirts, figurines, DVD's, video games and plush toys were rife.

It was a nice day when we travelled to Expo and this had managed to tempt a good many people outside away from the dingy confines of the large rented room. The bright sunshine combined with equally bright cosplay costumes gave a cartoon-like feel to the environment. It certainly was interesting to photograph. I took my Canon D400 with me but I regret not having taken more pictures, it was my first time trying to photograph such an event and I didn't really know what to do.

My friend and I came away from the event having enjoyed it quite a lot even though we ventured there for not particular reason. I couldn't resist buying a few retro gaming related t-shirts and a replica Star Wars light saber which was perhaps not the best of buying ideas. I'd certainly contend with the idea of going back next year.

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I'm not alone in my opinion that the latest Ubuntu Linux version - 8.04 LTS was disappointing. I moved to Linux in early 2005 when the first iteration of Ubuntu became available, since then I have really enjoyed using the platform, it's software and the nice feeling that you're using a combination FOSS projects instead of commercial ones.

Late 2007 I bought a Mac Mini, it was quite a random purchase, I guess I wanted to have a play with OS and quite fancied using it just for media things, video editing, song composing and photography related things as after views a few demo vids of iLife '08, I thought the Mac seemed like a pretty good platform for these type of things. Anyway, enough about Macs...

The latest version of Ubuntu is perhaps visually the nicest, the icons have been tweaked again amongst other things. The problem is that Ubuntu seems to have changed a little, the worst thing being the Xorg setup. Ubuntu now seems to be less reliant on the xorg.conf file and favours magically detecting your resolution via your monitors, EDID. When it works it's great, however, when it doesn't I have no idea how to fix it. The latest Ubuntu feels as if things have changed and I must rediscover how to fix them by scouring the Internet. After becoming accustomed to the Mac I began to wonder if I should even bother doing this.

I'm getting older and busier and I feel the times when I could sit down in front of a computer for hours taking pleasure in working out how to fix X, Y and Z are now gone. Instead, I'm now lazy, I want things to work first time as advertised. The Mac, so far, has indeed offered this. My biggest reservations about using the Mac are that it lacks some of the great software I have been used to using, in most places I have found alternatives often with price tags however. Perhaps the thing I liked the most about Linux was the geeky side, having a terminal to hand whenever one should need it, being about to get under the hood. The power to hack if one desires to do so, this in large is still available on the Mac. The terminal and all it's lovely commands are still here because it's a UNIX OS, commands that are missing can be easily added via Darwin Ports or Mac Ports. I began to asses the two operating systems and found that for me, OS X comes favourable close to Linux and in some ways can surpass it. However... the thought of having to support the latest iteration of Ubuntu Hardy Heron did not sit well and as such provided the tipping point in me jumping ship to OS X.

In closing I would like to say that my opinion of Hardy Heron stands on no technical ground and is simply an opinion based up on the "feel" and tasks needed to perform to customise it for my usage based upon comparison to previous version of Ubuntu. I have not given up on the platform and will no doubt revisit it somewhere along the line. I'm still a Linux and Ubuntu fan despite this seemingly negative post

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It's not often that I buy a music CD... okay so I never buy music CD's. I prefer to download them as I'm not a fan of having the needless clutter of polycarbonate and printed paper in my room. However, I do make exceptions, exceptions such as when having to buy the CD and then rip it is the only way of getting it however it has to be an artist I have a very strong liking of to warrant this kind of special treatment.

Enter Hiromi, a young Japanese pianist whose style of music is quite unlike anything I have heard before. Often it's described as some form of Jazz/Jazz Fusion with classical influences, though I think you could write a paper on trying to describe her music. Listening to it is the only good explanation in my opinion.

I have become quite obsessed with her music, so much so that she might just be my favourite artist. Generally, I have never been able to decide on a favourite artist because my tastes change often but there are always a small group of artists I listen to fighting for that top spot and Hiromi is certainly one of them. I have collected all of her albums and am so anxious to get my hands on her latest album that I have pre-ordered it.

It's due out on Tuesday, June 10th in America and and Europe (having said that Gemany already has it?). If you are interested in listening to something different listen to some of the samples on her website.

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Today at work during my lunch break I quite fancied a quick go on Mario Kart DS, I have been quite addicted to Mario Kart Wii recently, especially the online play and having a DS and copy of MK at work the only thing I was lacking was a WiFi connection.

I take my Mac to work and connect to the Internet via a wired LAN connection, this leaves my Mac's WiFi card free to use for sharing my Internet connection with my DS. There are a few pitfall's that one can encounter when doing this so this news post is just a quick guide written in the hope that someone else may stumble upon it and find it useful.

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This is quick unhelpful unlinked/not referenced list of all the Mac software I use without any reason for why I do so. It's here only so I can remind myself of what I use should I wipe my Mac and wish to reinstall the applications below. However, one day I hope to turn this into a more useful list.

Mail, Safari, Safari, iPhoto, GarageBand, iCal, Address Book, AdBlock, Cyberduck, Adium, Skype, Transmission, Money 2, iKana, AppZapper, Perian, Eclipse + PDT, TextMate, Stuffit Expander, CSS Edit 2, Quicktime Pro, AppFresh, MAMP, Rulers, Growl, Firefox 3, SynergyKM, Hex Color Picker, ScrobblePod, Pixelmator, Backup, Quinn, iWork, iLife, MacPorts, TinkerTool, Spark, Anxiety, AppFresh, Colloquy, EyeTV, Flickr Uploadr, Gimp, Google Earth, Inkscape, InsomniaX, Joost, Pixel Mator, Screen Flow, SyncDifferent, Terminal, VLC, VMWare Fusion, ZSNES, img2icns, macam.

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