Sunday, October 30, 2005

Burning The Wicker Man

We took a trip to St Fagans yesterday, where they were holding all sorts of Halloween festivities and the now traditional Wicker Man burning. No human or animal sacrifices involved, and by the look of him, very little effort either.

I've never been to one before so my excitment was high, expecting something like the one in the excellent Wicker Man film. Instead it was a big stick with some twigs sticking out... Still, it went up well enough, despite the dreadful weather, and Elis was impressed with it, you'll spot there was quite a big crowd there also.

For your entertainment, some photos from the day, hover for more detail.

Been far? No, Just Roman around...

Celtic Pagan bloke gives us all a history lesson.

Burn Wicker Man! Burn!

Catching nice now

The audience looks on...

Dad! Call the fire brigade!

Unfortunately, Edward Woodward was not available to reprise his famous role

Another shot of the audience

The Pagans looked at Derek, annoyed he'd forgotten the wild boar kebabs to burn on the bonfire

Bobbing for apples in the air

Posted by Dio Bach at 23:47 | 4 comments | links to this post

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Mark Bryan

Hello, still here, just about. Been busy updating Chav Mum for Shazza. I've done the blog bit for her but still need to work on the rest of the site. Its keeping me out of mischief if nothing else.

On another note - just admiring some of this artist's work. I can see a lot of what I'd like to do in my work in there, especially in the nature paintings. The one on the left is my favourite, its called The Tornado Men. There are lots of great paintings in this exhibition of his work. This one is also superb, as is this.

I really like it, but its just reminded me of the unfinished canvases I have in my shed - To be honest, I can't see me getting back to them anytime soon as I'm four sheets to the wind on the web stuff for the foreseeable future. I can live vicariously through Mark's work in the time being.

Posted by Dio Bach at 15:26 | 6 comments | links to this post

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Welsh Avatars For Bulletin Board

As mentioned in previous post - I put a load of avatars together for my Welsh themed website BB. They're not marvellous but there's a bit of variety. If you want them they're various views of Wales, some Welsh symbols and bits and bobs. That's me first set, I think I'll do another when I can take some more time to do the photos specifically. Wales Avatars By DioBach.com (465k - Rar File)

Posted by Dio Bach at 19:40 | 3 comments | links to this post

Saturday, October 15, 2005

St Fagans - Galleries And Red House

/Me looks down at last post. Hmmm. Must have been quite jolly last night. :)

Out to St Fagans this afternoon, I wanted to take some photos for my sites, specifically of some stuff in the galleries around folklore and that. Not much to say really, its not ideal to be shooting through glass, a couple of nice things here for your entertainment.

The Mari Llwyd is a dressed horses skull, paraded around villages around Christmas time. And there's corn dollies and some wassailing stuff. I'm being brief as I will be writing about them in more detail shortly.

I have it in my head I 'm going to make a small set of Message Board avatars, as there's a distinct lack of a Welsh Set for PHPBB. Hence the football top. I kind of like the simple composition. Talking of which, we follow with some views of the houses around St Fagans, mainly the red house I enjoy snapping. Flying visit tonight.

The Mari Llwyd - Grey Horse

Corn dollies

Wassail vessel

Detail - Wassail vessel

Old football top

Views of the Red House at St Fagans

Posted by Dio Bach at 22:42 | 2 comments | links to this post

The Pissed Post

Bare with me and humour me. I've had this affliction for many, many years where by every so often I have to get pissed, on my own, and listen to music all to myself, miming and crying along as the highs and lows hit me.

Well, haven't done one for a good while. Tonight I should have been asleep hours ago but instead I'm pissed (on cider! blurrgh!) and loving my music and my laptop. I can pin-point a whole raft of songs I love listening to in this state, some of which will make you wince. I don't care though, because this is my escape valve, and I loves it. :)

Long boring song list in no specific order for playing at these times, to follow for own personal gratification.

Cranes - Starblood
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love (shuddit)
Nico - Evening Of Light
Velvet Underground - Black Angels Death Song (Note to Mr Chicky - still want this played at my funeral)
New York Dolls - Subway Train
Big Country - The Crossing + Restless Natives (old habits die hard)
Pavement - Filimore Jive
Yo La Tengo - Deeper Into Movies + Tom Courtney
Truckstop - Coast To Coast
Sugarcubes - Birthday
A Silver Mt Zion - The Triumph Of Our Tired Eyes (Natch)
Meltwater - Help Me Daddy (Yes my band - I especially loves it at these times)
The Stooges - Little Doll (Apocalyptic Guitars and the end of the world)
Joy Division - Novelty

Then at this point I curse the ones I missed, fall into bed pissed and wake up about lunchtime the next day, wondering where the day went and annoying Mrs Dio. :)

Still, I've been a busy boy, so down time is called for.

I look forward to the day I can annoy Elis by making him listen to this shit, as he stays up late on the night me and Nursey stays up late an pissed to talk bollocks about life and enjoy our music. Man things are good these days when I can shut the whole shitty planet out of my head for a few hours and float on the sounds of joy. Bitchin'!

Posted by Dio Bach at 00:52 | 1 comments | links to this post

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Twice In One Day? You're Spoilt

Armageddon out of here. Collection of freaky end of the world art from Jehovah's Witness types. Look in wonder as the heavens open and the scary people smile blankly. [DEAD LINK] Jesus Christ, God's chosen King, will destroy this world at Armageddon.

And as we all know, you can't beat a good finger. So here's Pancho Villa's for your entertainment. Culled from Boing Boing.

Posted by Dio Bach at 09:33 | 0 comments | links to this post

House!

Finally got my Bingo site sorted out. I started it back in June, then detoured and did four other sites in its stead. I came back to it a few weeks ago and made changes from what I'd learnt in between.

Like all the new sites its got a lot of site wide CSS, includes and what not - little touches I'm quite happy with. Whilst making it I've realised how much Bingo has been in my life from a young age and how much of it has slipped into some of my work (stories, art and photography).

Over coming months I'll gather that material together to add to the site, as hopefully people begin sending stuff to put on it as well. And as well as getting that sorted, I spotted some new stories on the Crazy Frog which mentioned that some of the toys would be 'sought after' come this Christmas.

Ever one to make a quick buck I added a Crazy Frog online store to the site. (I realise none of this will be of any interest to any regulars here but hey - a links a link)

I've decided on no more new sites for now - and I'm going back to do some redesigns on some older sites, whilst occasionally adding stuff to the newest sites. They're all slow burners which I'm leaving to grow over time, so I'm not panicking about filling them with content. As ever, I'm not around much so pardon me. :)

Posted by Dio Bach at 08:58 | 0 comments | links to this post

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Soddin' Typical

Well, bit of a missed weekend to be honest. Spent Saturday recovering from a stinking hangover garnered the night before meeting up with a friend from the internet world and showing him the delights of Cardiff's drinkeries.

Hat's off to Ronan for putting up with my drunken ramblings - I don't think I can remember the last third of the evening with any definite clarity. I'd say thanks to Nursey as well, as he also joined us - but he's used to my incoherent and drunken stream of conciousness by now.

Spent most of Saturday morning alternating between vomiting and sleeping, got up around 2.30ish to a very peeved Mrs Dio then decided probably a good idea to go out to try and get some fresh air to feel straight again.

A nice simple trip to Cardiff Bay was in order. The light was lovely so I started snapping some, only to get really cheesed when I realised I didn't have fresh batteries. Not long later they died on me. Anyways, here's the results of a few of them - hover for more details.

Elis on the boardwalk at Cardiff Bay

Father and son - semi Shadow portrait

Long shadows on the boardwalk at Cardiff Bay - winter must be coming...

View of the tower of the Pierhead Building at Cardiff Bay

There be dragons... The Pierhead Building's nationalistic decoration

Long shadows on boardwalk at Cardiff Bay

Looking towards the Pierhead and new Assembly building at Cardiff Bay

A less obvious view of the most photographed piece of public art in Cardiff Bay

A nice chilled out day today. However, it's back to work in the morning feeling like I've not gotten anywhere this weekend with my web work. Hoping to get my site about Bingo up and running by the end of the week - then its time to come back, stop the new releases (Weird Wales, Weird England and Office Annoyance) and consolidate, rebuild and reconfigure existing sites. Fun and games.

Posted by Dio Bach at 22:01 | 1 comments | links to this post

Web Fun Sections & Bits

Dio Bach's Updates

Blogging Friends & Contacts

Previous Posts

Dio Bach's Web Fun Archive