Jack Yan on Vox

If I haven’t “neighboured” you from the new place

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:53:23 +1300

The compose screen is still taking hours to a full day to load on Vox, which means they still have not fixed their very serious glitch that is locking out a growing number of users. (Patricia Volonakis Davis was locked out by September, and my troubles began on October 28.) If I haven’t “neighboured” or “friended” you from lucire.vox.com, please know it was an oversight as I skimmed pages of existing neighbours very quickly to make the new URL a “home”. In such a case, please feel free to “neighbour” me first and I will reciprocate if I know you.
As of December 4, here was how Vox’s reliability looked:

   Yellow signifies the days when things were normal. Pink represents the days when I had partial access (waiting typically hours for the compose window to show). Red days were the ones where Vox blocked me completely from making any new posts.
   I’ve since had a 24-hour period (over the 4th and 5th) where I was locked out of this blog again, and was forced to the new location (and on to Tumblr, which is the one service that has gained from Six Apart’s failings).
   Patricia was emailing Vox with her problems for ages, to no avail. I know now how she felt, even if I did have Daisy batting on my side and referring on all my information. She seems to be the only person at Six Apart who cares.

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Pablo Ferro’s best opening title is still Bullitt’s

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 22:08:51 +1300

There’s still no rhyme or reason on when Vox allows me to access my blog here. This morning, I got in a private post, but clicking ‘Create’ again, nothing happened for the next hour.
I wanted to share this opening title from Bullitt, after posting another one from Pablo Ferro on my Tumblr blog. This remains my favourite Ferro design. Though set in Chicago, only the skyline scene was shot there; the rest was in San Francisco.

Opening Titles For Bullitt

There’s something great about US design in 1968. From there, as someone mentioned to me, it went downhill.
I see ’68 as a positive year for a lot of design there, while ’69 began to look garish, particularly in fashion and hairstyles.

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Fire up the golf cart

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:57:29 +1300

That’s a surprise. The compose window only took minutes to load, rather than days. Miracles never cease.
For your entertainment, two videos featuring a Q&A with Gene Hunt himself, Philip Glenister. The f words have been bleeped out, but they’re not words you’d expect the fictional DCI Hunt to use. And the real-life Philip Glenister doesn’t have very nice transport here. Where are the Cortina and Quattro?

We Want Answers - Philip Glenister Pt 1

We Want Answers - Philip Glenister Pt 2

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US rag thinks Aussies celebrate Thanksgiving

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 13:35:04 +1300

This is hilarious.
   Because the entire planet outside the US does not have a November Thanksgiving Day, a tiny number of Americans, including The Hollywood Reporter, got upset that the Aussies (and, for the record, the Brits) aired Flash Forward’s 10th episode before the US.
   And, inevitably, it got on to the Torrents.
   Now these folks are pointing the finger at Australians for doing something Americans do commonly and regularly.
   ‘How dare those pesky Australians do what we do!’ they say, with their fingers pointed toward the southwest. ‘Gosh, we hate how they speak English and drive SUVs and big cars! Who do they think they are?’
   Not only is this massive and rather funny hypocrisy, The Hollywood Reporter’s “journo” says this: ‘For the record, Aussies do have a Thanksgiving holiday, but it's in May and they don't really do it right.’
   Australians have a Thanksgiving Day?!
   I have lived in the antipodes for three decades and this is the first I have heard of it. I also don’t remember any story about the first white settlers getting there and doing a big feed for themselves and the Aboriginals.
   Hey, I’d love to hop over to Sydney to watch their next parade in May with giant inflatable Ned Kellys going over the Opera House and floats in the shape of the Holden 48-215.

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Random photos from yesterday

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:19:17 +1300

Not sure how many hours the compose screen took today, but here it is.

   This post will be non-sensical only because I didn’t want to waste a compose screen, since they are rarities. On left is the football match last night. At the right, mutant strawberries (the DLE envelope is a size guide), also from last night.
   Katie Taylor (the current Miss New Zealand) deleted the pics I took of her—sorry, lads.
   Given what Patricia told me with her issues, I have no confidence the Vox boffins will ever fix their bug. She’s been at them since before September. While Daisy is a huge help and actually cares about Voxers, I wonder if anyone else at Six Apart gives a damn.

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Forced into setting up a new Vox space

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:29:55 +1300

Wow, a day to load the compose window. Vox is really dying.
   Folks, I am carrying on Voxing. I had a few days on Tumblr, but it doesn’t have room for comments, nor does it have the privacy settings I want. Other platforms are a bit lacking on that, too. Maybe my habits have adjusted to Vox over the last three years, and I still like it (when it works).
   After discovering that setting up an alias meant that I could blog on demand again, I have set up a new account at lucire.vox.com.
   I explain there that I don’t like setting up noms de plume, so I had to justify it to myself by using it for work (specifically Lucire). And it was better for me to get lucire.vox.com rather than some splogger pinching the name.
   I have “neighboured” many of you (my apologies for any accidental omissions), and hope you can follow me there. I will eventually rejoin a lot of the groups as well.
   I may put my private posts on there for friends and neighbours, which is the principal reason I like Vox.
   I will still keep checking in here, not just because of the spammers who will undoubtedly leave comments, but I believe I can take a Pandora’s box approach to Vox’s failure. One day, this blog will come right. Mind you, Patricia gave up in September when she went through exactly the same scenario as me, and Ninja still has to use Internet Explorer just to use Vox, so maybe I should not hold my breath. Yesterday, Vox began blocking my access to the recent activity page, and I heard from Snowy that that has begun happening to him, too.
   If only everyone was as caring at Vox as Daisy.

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Free promotion for the House Industries guys

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:42:04 +1300

Only an hour to get the compose screen loading on Vox today …
   I had another tab open and it took about 10 minutes.
   Nothing much to blog—I am just seeing if Vox has ﬁxed things. Turns out it hasn’t, though I am still wondering why on earth the three people who have been blocked to varying degrees are all oriental. A heck of a coincidence, but what are the odds?
   For your entertainment, a video that Tanya referred to me for all the font geeks out there:

Neutra Face : An Ode On A Typeface (A Bearded Poker Face Parody)

House Industries must be thrilled with the free promo.

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The WSJ goes weird

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:23:19 +1300

This time, it did take a few hours before Vox allowed me to compose again. I have heard from Robin, who logged on as me using one of those newfangled Iphones in Las Vegas, and he could get this screen, though there were still some issues.
But at least Daisy has confirmed that she, too, cannot get the compose screen once logged on as me.
Meanwhile, this is not the only website that has gone weird. Here’s how the The Wall Street Journal now looks online, after I clicked through via Google News:

WSJ gets ugly

I am not sure how we are expected to read this properly. There are some weird stylesheets at play here.

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Hire The Protectors for $2

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:57:04 +1300

I wonder if Vox has fixed things, because this compose screen took seconds to come up. It also took seconds after I clicked to edit the original post.
Another recent purchase, for $2 (really):

The Protectors - Vol. 3 - Series 1 - Episodes 17-26 [DVD] [1972]

   I know these weren’t that good to begin with, but for a couple of dollars, it was nice watching a few episodes from a series I enjoyed as a kid.
   There’s one more left at the Warehouse in Lyall Bay, last I looked. Strangely, it means I only have the first set to get to have the whole series—and the last one I bought set me back a grand $5. Imagine if I could get the the remaining one for another $2.
   Lew Grade has made plenty out of me, but not through Protectors DVDs.
   Incidentally, this post is worth a repeat of this cover of the theme tune from Rinaldi Sings:

Rinaldi sings ‘Avenues & Alleyways’

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Trading in at Real Groovy

nobody@vox.com(Jack Yan) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:43:39 +1300

James Bond Ultimate Collection - Vol. 3 - From Russia With Love/On Her Majesty's Secret Service/Live And Let Die/For Your Eyes Only/Goldeneye [DVD]

At least I no longer have to wait hours, but I do have to wait minutes and several reloads to begin composing on Vox.
   I have never traded DVDs before, but after buying that fancy Casino Royale set from Real Groovy, I didn’t need my old two-CD one any more. I also bought a five-movie James Bond set (left) a while back, which meant I had doubled up on one of my favourite Bond films, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I took them in to Real Groovy.
   How it works: one goes to the trades’ counter at the store and hands them over. The store gives you an option of store credit or cash.
   The two DVD sets, which cost me around NZ$60 to buy to begin with, were worth NZ$12 used as store credit; NZ$6 if I wanted the money.
   As I buy from Real Groovy all the time, I opted for the former, to which they issue a credit note, redeemable on a future purchase.
   Sony has still done well out of me. While I only paid NZ$5 for the new Casino Royale boxed set—because of Real Groovy’s loyalty scheme—that’s still NZ$34 overall (NZ$35 purchase price for the first set, NZ$5 for the new one, minus NZ$6 for the trade). The five-movie set was NZ$39—let’s round it up to NZ$40 for easy calculation—which means each DVD was NZ$8. The original On Her Majesty’s Secret Service DVD was c. NZ$25, so that’s NZ$27 out of my pocket for the copy I have today.

James Bond Ultimate Edition - Vol. 4 - Dr. No/You Only Live Twice/Moonraker/Octopussy/Tomorrow Never Dies [DVD]

Since I have all the Bonds I want out of the 22 Eon ones made, I am in no hurry to plug the gaps, but it seems these boxed sets are the way to go. I buy them when I see them on special, but I am not sure if I will buy the remaining two (I also have vol. 4), so Moonraker is the next to head to Real Groovy—I forgot to take it today. If it also nets NZ$6, then an NZ$18 credit on the sixth season of Mission: Impossible (below) will make it worth buying here rather than via Amazon.com. I await its arrival—we are somewhat behind the US when it comes to these sets’ release.

Mission Impossible: The Sixth TV Season

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