So you may noticed, I’ve been busy with organizing BarCampLondon7 (and my studying) that I haven’t found as much time to blog here. I’ve written about BarCamps before (see here, here, here, here, here, and here) and attended more than my fair share (I think I’m on #11 or 12 now), but now I’m finely helping with organizing one myself. It is a lot of hard work, but it’s so much fun! I can’t wait to see how this Barcamp turns out.

If you’re interested in coming along, we’re giving out the second wave of tickets for BarCampLondon 7 through a lottery. It is now live, and you’ll be able to enter it between midday on 30th September and midday on 3rd October. Check out the BarCampLondon website for more details.

As regular readers here might know, I love the Terminator movies (well, the first two mainly) and I love the IMAX. Combine those two together… awesome!

This Saturday (3rd October) starting at 23:30 there’s a Terminator All-Nighter, showing all 4 Terminator movies back-to-back. That’s practically 8 hours of Terminator!

If you’re interested, there are still tickets available on the BFI website (£26 for Adults, £16 for Students, £18 for Concessions).

Just a quick post (from out the Apple store) about an event I’m going to tonight. I’ve been invited to the launch of two new flavours from Smirnoff: Green Apple and Lime.

The cool thing is that for this launch they’ve got a 10 meter long ice sculpture of the London skyline at Covent Garden. Awesome, right? If I’m right it should be on the north side of Covent Garden Piazza from around 18:00 on. If you decide to show up and have a look, don’t forget to mention my blog (Miss Geeky) and you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win Smirnoff Green Apple and Lime take away packs.

I’ve gotten access to the sampling area, where I’ll be trying out these two new (hopefully) tasty flavours. I’ll try to blog about them, whatever cocktails they come up with and the massive ice sculpture some time this weekend.

I should have blogged about this sooner, but I’ve been so busy lately. I got some great entries on my Find The Hidden Treasure contest last week, that I had to share a couple of them with you.

Zain:

Hidden Gem: Ambala Sweet store. Something about syrupy sweets and a sunshine ky make a miserable me a little happy. Unfortunately, I’m nowhere near the sweet store and the weather is overcast.

Judith Lewis:

my hidden gem: The Chocolate Society Shop on Elizabeth St. If you don’t know about it, you’ll never find it but they have the BEST chocolate cookies I’ve had in a long time and my favourite chocolate brownies. Their chocolates are fab too!

Genevieve Hassan:

My hidden gem in London: If you’re a die-hard meat eater, you’ll never have considered Food For Thought – a small basement vegetarian restaurant in Covent Garden. They serve the best dessert in the world – the “Strawberry Scrunch” – a crunchy biscuit base with fresh cream, bananas and strawberries, plus they give you a HUGE portion! I challenge anyone to find a better dessert.

Emma Persky:

My Hidden Gem:

If I told you then it would no longer be hidden! Oh well, there are lot’s so I’m sure I can reveal one of my favourite to you 🙂 But which one…

Hush. Yes, that’s the name of the restaurant. Why (the name that is)? Because it’s hidden away in a small courtyard at the end of South Molton Street so innocuously that you would never, ever find it, unless you knew it was there. No signposts or glaring neon signs point the way, and that’s jut the way they like it. You know a restaurant (and upstairs bar) must be good when its bursting at the seams even though it receives no footfall traffic.

The cuisine is modern british with a hint of french influence. My favourite dish being the “Gratin of Macaroni Cheese with (or without) Bacon” as a started. Enough to share, but so good you’ll regret that decision.

Oh, and did I mention that they have a wine list to die for!

sheilaellen:

My Hidden Gem in London has to be The Orc’s Nest (6 Earlham Street, WC2H 9RY).  It’s a treasure trove for anyone who’s into games – board, role-playing, cards or otherwise.  Packed full of the essentials to get you started, plus extension packs and ephemera.  And despite the bold yellow and black metal frontage and stunning Orc’s head logo, it’s surprising how many people walk past without ever noticing it’s there.

The winner of the contest was Judith Lewis with her chocolate store gem (I’ve got to visit that shop sometime!), but she couldn’t make it to the event. So the runner-up Emma Persky joined me last Thursday to the Joy Store to do some treasure hunting.

The event was pretty interesting. There were cupcakes and champagne for all the blog writers plus winners, and we got to see a shiny new Ford Ka (I loved the colour! It was almost Miss Geeky red, but slightly nudging a bit more to the pink side). We all had to find 1 Ford Ka miniature in the store, which we could exchange for £60 worth of Joy Store vouchers. Sweet!

Finding the miniatures wasn’t hard at all, so we got to spend 2 hours trying on clothes and picking out what we wanted for free. I ended up with a black zipper dress (still not completely sure about that dress though, the shoulders are a little bit too eighties) and a silver grey dress with gathered sections. I really liked the style of the Joy Store, but almost all the clothes I tried on didn’t fit me. Guess I have a slightly different body type (wide hips, small shoulders and waist) than what they design for.

Still, I had a great time (who wouldn’t with free champagne, free cupcakes and free dresses!). For the rest of September, every Friday every Joy Store in the UK will have miniature Ford Ka’s hidden in their store. If you find one, you can get a £10 voucher, and some of them will even be for a £100 voucher!

I heard about the onedotzero Adeventures in Motion festival a couple of weeks ago, and almost forgot it was happening this week. It’s running from tomorrow, Wednesday the 9th of September till Sunday the 13th of September at the BFI Southbank.

The festival is all about showcasing up-and-coming talent alongside leading creatives within the arts of digital animation, motion graphics, experimental shorts and music videos. They’ve got some amazing stuff going on, and I’m hoping to make my way down to the Southbank on at least one of these days.

For starters, there are a couple of movie screenings. On Friday there’s a preview of Pixar’s Up with a Q&A afterwards with director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera. I wish I found out earlier; I’ve been dying to see this movie, but it’s sadly completely sold out. On Saturday though there’s a screening of Mary and Max; I think I might have posted a trailer of it a while ago, but if you missed it here it is again:

It looks sweet, right? Next to the movie screenings there are also a couple of compilation programmes, showing a selection of short movies with a similar theme. I’m really interested in terrain, featuring 19 shorts:

terrain will take you on a journey traversing arresting moving vistas from directors who hail from a diverse spectrum of disciplines but who all share one common fascination – the myriad environments in which we dwell. from the extreme visual clutter of over-populated cities to the tranquility of rural panoramic plains as well as otherworldly imagined spaces.

Besides that there are also installations and innervisions, which are free to visit. Some of the installations look pretty cool, like an interactive music video lounge, and a huge projection on the National Theatre that lets you interact with the visual via handsets, text and Twitter.

The onedotzero Adventures in Motion festival runs from 09 September – 13 September at the BFI Southbank. To see the complete schedule, check out the onedotzero website.

Recurring readers might remember my blog post from last year about the Hide & Seek Festival. It was a great three days of playing pervasive games, meeting like-minded people, and running around like crazy. This year the event is again being held for three days, and it sounds like it’s going to be just as fun.

The event will take place in and around the Royal Festival Hall, part of London’s Southbank Centre. They’re starting this evening at 19:00 with a couple of games (with as theme Beyond Werewolf), including Grand Emperor (which I’ve been wanting to play for some time now) and Hermit’s House (Players take the roles of a group of people stuck in a haunted house, and must find creative ways to solve the problems presented to them).

Tomorrow and Sunday the games run from 11:00 to 18:00, although if you just want to dip in for some brief gaming, you can drop in (and leave) at any time you want. It’s sounds like as if it’s going to be a fun couple of days, and I’m really interested in going. I’m not too sure about tonight or Sunday yet, but I’m definitely going to make it tomorrow (although 11 might be a bit too early). Check out the complete schedule on the Hide & Seek website, so that you can plan which games you want to participate in (no need to sign up or anything). See you there?

In anticipation of Terry Gilliam’s latest movie The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the BFI Southbank are holding a Terry Gilliam season. Each of Gilliam’s movies will be screened 2-3 times in August (excluding his short features). So that’s:

• The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
• Brazil
• The Brothers Grimm
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• The Fisher King
• Jabberwocky
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Tideland
• Time Bandits
• Twelve Monkeys

Check out the dates of all the screenings on the BFI website.

I think it’s a great idea that the BFI are screening all of Terry Gilliam’s movies again. I loved Twelve Monkeys, but never got to see it in the cinema. Plus I still haven’t seen Brazil, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or Tideland, even though they’ve been for ages on my list of films to watch. If anybody else is up for it, I’m thinking we should arrange a meetup to (at least) one of these movies; leave a comment behind if you’re interested.

Thanks to BFI, I’ve got two pairs of tickets to give away here to any of the Terry Gilliam screenings mentioned on their site. All you have to do is leave a comment below with your name, email address, and which Terry Gilliam movie is your favourite (and why). Entries are open to anyone, but you have to be able to come to London to enjoy this prize. Contest deadline is July 31st 13:00. I’ll contact the winners that same afternoon and they’ll be able to choose which movie and which screening to go to.

Check out the screenings for the Terry Gilliam season on the BFI website.

The main difference of seeing the TED talks in this conference type structure instead of just online, is that you discover and notice the different themes and structures of the talks. For instance on the first day, there were two sets of session slots: the first called What We Know, the second Seeing Is Believing?. While they’re not all exactly about the same subject, they all are connected in some way or another, and it’s great for your mind just to wander around for 1.5 hours within one related topic, but with different views.

Yesterday there were 12 talks/performances, and I have to admit I did zone out a bit at a certain moment. Not all TED talks are interesting to everyone, but the beauty of TED is that everybody should find something within them that will spike their interest. The talks that really stood out for me were the following:

Alain de Botton: the world we live in is a meritocracy; if you have talent, you’ll get to the top, your position in life is merited and deserved. Because of that our failures “hurt” more than they used to; formerly 200, 300 years ago, it was God/the universe/fate that caused you to fail. Nowadays we take much more responsibility for the decisions in our life and where we end up in life.

Willard Wilgan: Wigan is a microsculptor, who creates miniscule sculptures that fit on the head of a pin. He explained how he got into it, and showed some of his amazing creations. There’s an exhibition going on at the moment here in London; I’m thinking of organizing a geek trip to it (let me know in the comments if you’re interested).

James Geary: Geary is an aphorist; he loves short, witty sayings that are known as aphorisms (I had to look up the definition: “a pithy observation that contains a general truth”). He gave a couple of his favourites, like “Mirrors would do well to reflect alittle before throwing back images.“, “Baldness is the gradual transformation of the head into an ass, first in shape and then in content.“, “A weekend wasted is not a wasted weekend.” While juggling Geary presents, the five laws of aphorisms: 1. brief, 2. definitive, but not necessarily true, 3. personal, 4. philosophical, 5. it must have a twist.

Steve Truglia: as a Hollywood stuntsman, Steve has done his fair share of amazing dare-devil stunts; being set on fire, skydiving, driving a car through a loop de loop. But now he wants to do the biggest stunt on earth: jumping from the edge of space. Steve first tells us about the history of stunts, and how technology has helped moved the art from taking dangerous risks to being in control of the safety at all times. In his Project Space Jump, Steve wants a helium balloon to take him to 120.000 feet, where he’ll jump down. The main challenge was developing a special space suit; one that’s lighter, more flexible and cheaper than the current NASA suits.

I tried to summarize the talks as best as I could, but some of them (especially the first one from de Botton) was much more deeper than only this. All of these should be released on the TED website one day. That’s the problem with TED though; you’ll never know exactly when they’ll release certain videos (they’re still releasing talks from 5 years ago). Anyhow, these are definitely ones you should check out once they’re available online.

For more TED Talks, check out the TED website

Two weekends ago I went to OpenTech, an informal, low cost, one-day conference on slightly different approaches to technology, democracy and community. One of the highlights of that day was hearing the talk of Sir Bonar Neville-Kingdom, her Majesty’s most senior civil servant concerned with information and communications technologies (or ‘ICTs’). Here he speaks about about the benefits of how government uses Opentech and ICTs to provide Intercept Modernisation, Personalised Services, and Safeguarding your Identity:

Click to play

I’ve been asked by the great guys from Firefox to inform you all about their upcoming Launch Party here in London:

The Firefox 3.5 Launch Party London will be held next Monday the 6th of July from 7pm at the Shooting Star pub in Middlesex Street, near Liverpool Street station. Sign up on Upcoming if you plan to be there: http://bit.ly/ffldnpty

Firefox release parties have traditionally been for the whole geek community around the world – last time there were 865 of them, with over 6600 people attending. So even if you are just a Firefox user, do come along and have a drink with us 🙂

I’m still trying to figure out if I can make it myself, but chances are you’ll see me there.