Xtranormal - create your own 3D animation

Keeping the kids amuzed on a Sunday morning can be somewhat slow, but when @joecar mentioned Xtranormal to us this morning we tried it out... and how addictive it has become. To me, sure - but my 5 yr old loves it.

So we created a story (i helped him out but all the ideas, script, names and so on were his and you can perhaps guess someof his influences!).

Here is it below - you can also see it here and in youtube . I suggest you try it out - some things still to be worked on, but in general very, very well done.

TESCO miss the point on the web and PR

Tonight we were expecting a home delivery from Tesco in Glasgow at 5pm. At 7.55 PM with the kids wandering where their milk was, we got a call saying they won't be coming due to "staffing issues". I am furious for obvious reasons - none worse than the fact i now need to go shopping to get breakfast for the kids for tomorrow and it is really late and pouring outside.

I am writing to them in response to an email i received so i will keep you updated and see how things progress (or don't).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Mr. Livingstone here. I included Terry Leahy in this and additionally will blog what happens at :
http://weblivz.blogspot.com/2008/10/tesco-miss-point-on-web-and-pr.html

Are you taking the piss? We have a 2 year old and a 5 year old who were waiting on milk before bed time because you were due to deliver before 7. You phone 1 HOUR late on a Saturday night to tell us this, asking if we can "come get it" !? You had from 5pm at the very,very latest to know of any apparent staffing issues.

What is WORSE is this pathetic general letter you have sent us - you never even took the time to send something personal. We never even had an opportunity to file any complaint and "you have been dissatisfied" is an understatement.

I would have been irritated at a cancellation earlier, but calling 1 hour later than the latest it was supposed to be here combined with a pathetic general letter (I assume the typists also had the evening off due to the rain) means we will no longer bother doing business with you and move to Asda or equivalent.

Additionally, I am a high profile online UK blogger and Internet consultant so you can bet a few people will hear about it and i will be looking out for someone at Tesco who can look into this.
Now I have got to go out into the pissing rain at 8 PM on a Saturday night to get milk for tonight and the kids breakfast for tomorrow morning.

For what it's worth - you don't need to concentrate on staff issues - you need to look at your PR... a phone call earlier in the day would have saved hassle for all of us.

steven
http://livz.org

________________________________
> From: online@tesco.co.uk
> Subject: Tesco Online Vouchers
> Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 19:51:19 +0100
>
>
> Dear Mr Livingstone
>
> Thank you for notifying us of your complaint. We value our customers' feedback, which helps us to monitor and improve our services.
>
> We are sorry to hear that you have been dissatisfied with the service you recently received from Tesco. As an apology we would like to offer you a ? 10.00 eCoupon, with our compliments, to spend on your next grocery order on Tesco.com. To use this eCoupon simply type in the code XXXXXXXXX when you reach Checkout. This eCoupon can be used from 4 Oct 2008 to 4 Jan 2009
>
>
> If you have any questions, you can also e-mail us at online@tesco.co.uk. Or you can contact our Customer Helpline on 0845 722 55 33 between 9am and 11pm Monday to Friday, 9am and 8pm Saturday and from 10am to 6pm on Sundays.
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> -
>
> Tesco.com
>
>
>
> Tesco.Com Limited
> Company Number: 3942522
> Registered in England
> Registered Office: Tesco House, Delamare road, Cheshunt, Hertfordshire EN8 9SL

social web, without the kids

I listened to an interesting question at SuperNova that was put to Clay Shirky around the SPAM issues around Web 2.0.

He answer was based around reactive solutions managed by the crowd. That is YOU don't manage the comments etc but rather the members of that community do this for you. Which works great in the adult world (most of the time).

I DO have issues around this - more and more i am beginning NOT to trust the crowd. No necessarily the people i know, but rather the way that companies tend to promote media created by the crowd.

YouTube for example will show many videos that just should NOT be seen by kids (and some of them by adults!) by default until someone flags this. A recent experience taught me this. So, someone - or likely a number of people - need to flag a video before it is removed ... which is just too late when all you wanted to do was show your kid a "Puff the Magic Dragon" video.

How could this work better? Well, for a start ONLY show videos recommened by specific friends - all others are not seen by default. Links from videos work in a similar manner. Same with comments.

This stuff isn't hard and with OpenSocial i'd expect youtube to be making this higher priority than allowing MORE comments on videos.

It concerns me that the younger generation are being ignored in the social web and i'd like to see a hell of a lot more effort put into it than PICS which the social web seems to completely ignore.

Tommy Burns - Rest in Peace

Today myself and the family went early to Celtic Park to pay our respects and say goodbye to Tommy Burns - one of the most commited Celtic players of my lifetime.

I used to watch him with my Grandad on the terracing of Parkhead - Paddie Bonner, Tommy Burns, Roy Aitken, Danny McGrain (who we met at Celtic Park on Sunday) and more - Tommy Burns being particularly memorable for me as he presented me with my first football medals as a 10 year old boy. Even then the thing that stood out (other than his head of hair!) was how pleasant and unrushed he was, despite the demand of his time.

I was particularly proud of my son Xavier who, as when we did the same with Jimmy Johnstone, asked loads of questions and even held his scarf aloft for You'll Never Walk Alone. I was the same when i watched Tommy as a player.

It was also poignant for me as from where i stood i could see Tommy on the big screens in the stadium. I don't mind saying I shed a tear for the great man. It's sad but i know he is up there watching and still nervous about Thursday.

When all is said and done, i can be very proud that i have the chance to meet and chat with a true Celtic legend. It's amazing how big you realize the club is when something like this happens - people are part of the club not only when alive, but for a hell of a long time after they have gone ... you realize this when on the tour.

Tommy will now be another of those. If you know your history.

Twists and Turns, Tommy Burns - gone but never forgotten.

Oh, What a night

Last night myself and my wife Loreto went to see Oh What a Night, a musical production starring Kid Creole.

Fantastic night, some excellent music and afterwards we went for a drink and the crew happened to be at the other table across from us too.

It's a different way of life (my cousin in Ireland works for an Irish band and tours constantly so i know what it is like), but it must be amazing to see 400 people going crazy!

Comback Trail

Not posted for quite a while for fairly good reasons. Took a bizarre reaction to some antibiotics - long story i won't go in to. It's being looked into anyway - i may post more... very frustrating period.

Still, been working for NHS developing and architecting their FAST search environment. Very powerful technology. More on that soon too.

Good to be back!

Xavier wins Enjoy a Ball trophey

Xavier won the Enjoy-a-ball trophey this week for kids so he decided to show it off and by the way he is holding it i get the feeling it may not be the last!! Well done wee man!

BBC Blast in Glasgow

By chance yesterday we wandered into the BBC Blast event in Atlantic Quay, here in Glasgow.

My son Xavier was fascinated as soon as he saw one of our friends on the big screen (she presents the news on TV) and with that and getting a special badge which went around his neck, we weren't going home anytime soon. It wasn't too busy, but the quality was quite high with artists, musicians, reporters, producers and so on all doing various things to keep your attention.

My son even wrote his own news report abut saving the earth from a meteor which is printed and laminated. It was a dangerous walk home as he asked me to read it to him - along with his sister who, at 9 months, discovered the "Franci-saurus" in Chile.

I still think there must be better ways of raising awareness of events in your local area and i'm thinking hard about that just now.

Son back at school

Xavier went back to school today (Nursery really, but he calls it that) - he is only 4 and just missed out on the "big" school.

He has a great day apparently, very social as he is now the "big kid" and looked afer the little ones really well.

He ALSO corrected the teachers on his name, which they randomly spelled last year. Now he says "There is no need to look it up, it is X-A-V-I-E-R".

He also remembered every teachers name which was pretty impressive consdering i need a map and compass to get home at night.

Francisca and her first tooth

Francisca has her first tooth. She keeps touching it with her toungue. So today i got her a bright pink toothbrush.... it will be the only time (for maybe 60 years) that the expression "toothbrush" has such a literal meaning.

Meanwhile we got some old XBox games - first time we have bought any for years as we don't want Xavier obsessed with games. Right now he's playing Star Wars Lego edition.

Cool - we just managed to configure the Logica JoyStick i bought last week (which nothing worked with)... Xavi is loving it!

The oldest house in Glasgow

Yesterday we went to the Provands Lordship which is the oldest house in Glasgow. I wasn't sure about the exact age of the house until i saw a 28k US Robotics modem, a subscription to CompuServe and Mosaic running poining at an old AltaVista site (AV was my favourite search engine for years - i still use it on ocassion) - yep, it is from A.D. 1471.


























Glasgow has a load of interesting things to see and a couple of hours turned into 8 hours (it's on the other side of town which we don't visit too often).

The drugs don't work

Arghh - missed a meeting i wanted to be at this morning. To get over this viral thing i seemed to have got i have been taking my fair share of pills. I'm sure the pills have made my mind slow to a whirrrrr.......

It hasn't helped a lot with my head, ear or sleeping. Today there has been some letup, but hopefully it's drawing to a complete end. My wife is just happy she has energy again and was up early this morning (as i was) cleaning the place up.


I'm sure nursery school is the source of all this! We were fit human beings until nursery school - now i feel like i catch anything, even if my son only says other kids have it!

5 year anniversary and West End Festival

Today is the 5th year i have been married to Loreto. It is "wood" apparently, show i chopped down a tree - hellish to wrap! Ok, so i got some flowers. It's been a fantsatic 5 years so far and with 2 kids, the next 5 are going to be amazing! Happy Anniversary (i dunno if loreto reads my blog - there's a commitment question!).

We also went to the West End Festival today. An excellent day and an incredible number of people turned up - must have been tens of thousands. With a pram is can be tricky, but we got up early and went to the source, where is all started. There was so many photographers that i thought they were actually part of the parade. Some pics below.

SpringWatch and Hunterian Museum

Today was a family day. First was out early to the BBC Springwatch festival which is trying to "Do one thing" for wildlife in Glasgow. Basically teaching people how they can help improve the environment - and that can only be a good thing.

Xavier saw Nina and the Neurons on stage which lefyt him wandering where the Neurons where... he also did beach cleaning, played some music and generally looked around.





















We then went to the Glasgow University Science Festival which was much cooler (based on the intended age which i thought was higher) than i expected. Xavier spent a good couple of hours playing with various puzzles, creating silly putty and so on. Even Francisca played some musical instruments - well, i helped out a bit there :)

Finally, we moved next door to the Hunterian Museum which has also just re-opened.





















That was cool as well, although by that time it was a long day, so looking at things was getting testing for the kids. We then hung around in the University gardens whilst Loreto fed Francisca and now kids are sleeping and i have a Tiger beer. What a day!

feeling ill

God i feel terrible today - got some variation on the flu. Actually i got it from my wife who got it from my son. My throat is almost completely closed, so eating is hard.

Lemsip please.

Glasgow Science Centre

Had a great (and very long) day at the Glasgow Science Centre today with my wife and kids.
We were lucky enough to see the bridges being raised for the boats to pass as well.

Took a lot of pics, but three best are below.

Xavier's "floating head" ....



Xavi in the cockroach house (actually a photo of a video screen capturing Xavier watching the cockroaches in another part of the building)



A boat on the Clyde, the Science Centre behind, BBC Scotland headquarters on the left and the IMax behind the Science Centre...

Ben Lomond Summit!

Well, after my last attempt a year or so back, we finally got to Ben Lomond. I tweeted the summit.

We even managed to get caught in a freak snowstorm which nearly froze my hands off - managed to forget my gloves for the first time ever.

Here are some pics, with more on flickr. You can now see where i was on a map ...

Family and Geni

Well, over the weekend Francisca started eating "solids" for the first time. Yep, Steak and Chips with a side order of Garlic bread. Well, actually baby rice, but much the same. She really enjoyed it, unlike Xavier who i remember spitting it out when he first tried it.

Today was cool as we managed to get in touch with our cousins in Ireland to help build our family tree. I have only been to Cork once - where my Grandad is from - but loved it. I wish I could have kept more in touch with family over there, but i'm hoping through Geni we can make an effort at doing it. Ireland is pretty much my 2nd home but i've seen so little of it. I really want to return to Cork soon with my wife and kids (we were in Dublin last year, but i want to see Cork again) and hope i can meet some relatives through it.

Geni is quickly becomming my favourite site.

A story from Xavier

Xavi left a story for me on my web page - about a dinosaur, so natuarally i had to share it with you! Click to play.

Dinosaurs Story ( mp3 )

I warn you - it's cliffhanger... i was left asking "what happened next??????".

Freakonomics and picture

Just finished reading Freakonomics and as always i emailed the authors with some thoughts - hard to do at this time on a Friday when everyone has left for the day! I recommend you read the book - the perfect parenting chapters are good and my son has a challenge on his hands with the name Xavier :) IMHO the gun/swimming pool argument misses the environmental contexts of a gun and a swimming pool, but what do i know!?

A computer scientist dabbling in economics (or whatever the heck i should call it) is like a project manager with Visio. Peligoroso!

Now out to join everyone for a late friday beer at the bunker.

I also meant to post up a latest picture of Xavier and Francisca - we managed to get them to stay still for 100 milliseconds.