Monday, April 20, 2009

April 20, 2009 - Second set

11.30 - And here we are again. Spot the difference between this photo and the series from an earlier April 20.

10.30 - My desk

9.30 - The view from my smoking spot (2)

9.30 - The view from my smoking spot (1)

8.30 - I needed something to photograph before I went to work


[END]

April 20, 2009 - First set

7.30 - Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

7.30 - This is one of the ferns I photographed on a previous April 20.

6.25 - Still no food in the bowl

6.10 - Really, are you getting up anytime soon?

5.30 - Are you getting up to feed me?


[END]

Friday, March 27, 2009

My Little Pony as famous film characters

My favourite is the stormtrooper.

Link

[END]

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Recent Tweets 3

Recently, I was...

thinking about the unreliability of memory


thinking US Life on Mars' Sam Tyler's mother's name is Rose?


looking for cheap hotels in Paris' 11eme arr for my trip in November


starting my 4th last day of holidays


@peeboo do you have "Lee Remick" on disc anywhere? It's not on anything you sent me.


working out the setlist that Dirt and I will be playing at Chantal's 40th... in October, probably.


listening to NZ rugby commentators realise they'd better explain what "get in behind" means.


using some of my remaining download allotment listening to awful "songsmith" videos on youtube.


feeling shagged after a couple of hours of whipper-snipping.


@peeboo Yes, starting to lose interest already. Too much work scrolling through all of Stephen Fry's tweets.


I have no idea anymore why that is relevant.


my nana died a few years ago. That's my dad's mother. My Mum's mother, Ronnie, died in 1969 either just before or just after I was born...

Thinking Isaka Cernak is no Tahj Minnicon.


reading about Zombies attacking Austin, Tx. http://tinyurl.com/aqotcv


hanging around the house


staying up past midnight


Wondering what two after 909 would be...


don't know if I'm going up or down with you, M. C. Escher. http://www.mcescher.com/


understanding that the name of this tune is the "funky drummer".


In my slightly less drunken state; wondering if "Dear God" isn't the best song ever written.


or maybe 7... except this makes 8.


Worrying if 8 tweets in an hour makes me strange.


listening to "Psychodrama City" by the Byrds. Wondering if Symo would have felt better if he'd got up at 3am and slammed down a diet Coke.


welcoming you to the cheap seats.


feeling sad about Kirsty MacColl

[END]

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Name Module 3 of the International Space Station

Those who watch Colbert will already know about this, but NASA is having a competition to name the newest module on the International Space Station. Their choices are:

Earthrise
Legacy
Serenity
Venture

Guess which one is 81% ahead of the nearest competitor?

[END]

Friday, March 06, 2009

Friday, February 27, 2009

Did you know...

that if you google "steve coogan being attacked by a crocodile" this blog comes up as the first entry? (A handy hint if you can't remember "Boycat's Dad".)

that I am listening to "Crescent" by Bitch Magnet right now?

that Boycat wants to be fed?

that Symo appears to have deleted his twitter profile?

that I'm now listening to "Soda Jerk" by Buffalo Tom.

that my broadband is getting flakier by the day?

that the song on my random windows media player is now "Blue Line" by Let's Active?

that I'm about to hit "Publish Post"?

[END]

Recent Tweets 2

wondering why I can't copy and paste recent entries from twitter...

# Thinking about the archway of aerodynamics,2:53 AM Feb 20th from web

# @peeboo Need more than that.2:52 AM Feb 20th from web

# In my drunken state; wondering if "Here Comes the Sun" isn't the best song ever written.2:23 AM Feb 20th from web

# ...arrest me for sedition for "Loudmouth Hothead", they're welcome to try.1:21 AM Feb 20th from web

# Realising that with a Twitter, Google, Blogspot, etc., account that it's hard to remain anonymous. Oh well, if the government wants to... 1:20 AM Feb 20th from web
[END]

Friday, February 20, 2009

Matthew Coley

Here's the recent story about Matthew Coley.

[END]

Under the iron bridge we kissed

yes, that was an 'omage.

[END]

More music more music more music

Here's something else I did last year. This has actual live guitar in it, rather than samples played on Hydrogen, although it has a lot of them, too. It's mostly another drum machine programming exercise.

102 bpm song


[END]

Recent Tweets

Jimbo is...

(Read in reverse order)

  1. In my drunken state; wondering if "Won't Get Fooled Again" isn't the best song ever written.
  2. Wondering why Victor J Kennedy is interested in me. I just watched the doco; I'm not bi-polar. Boycat's Mum ( my wife) is, though.
  3. Realising Rugby Union is not the same game that I played in high school 20 years ago.
  4. Wondering if anyone in Aus twitters from their phone. If so, how, and what does it cost as far as the phone company is concerned.
  5. wondering what @peeboo is working on at the moment.
  6. About to drive Boycat's Mum to the airport for her trip to Melbourne.
  7. Wondering if anyone else read the story on Matthew Coley in last Saturday's Courier Mail magazine.
  8. Watching the Stephen Fry Bipolar disorder doco.
  9. Watching American Idol.
  10. Reading Tony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential".
  11. crying at the death toll
  12. suppressing the urge to write "typing at the computer"
  13. eating baskin robbins ice cream
  14. watching series 2 of "intelligence"

[END]

Twittering

So, have we abandoned our blogs in favour of twitter?

https://twitter.com/jmspdly

[END]

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Stuff

I'm on day 10 of 35 days long service leave.

Boycat's Mum's Mum has cancer.

We almost lost the dog a few months ago; he snapped his ACL and was quite miserable for a while. But he's lost a bit of weight now so his quality of life is better.

BobSpeaking gave me the latest (Early 2008) Bob Mould CD for Christmas, so I've been listening to Bob Mould for 40 days now. Gee, the drum machine on the hubcap album annoys me.

I saw Dirt and Carl and Frank and Lorenzo at Id's funeral a few weeks ago.

I'm watching the end of season 4 of Battlestar Galactica on theSci Fi channel, so my mate Dave from work doesn't have to download it for me.

[END]

Monday, February 09, 2009

Holy crap, I've joined twitter

I only did it to follow Charlie Brooker and Stephen Fry, but that "What are you doing now?" box at the top is so tempting.

[END]

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Vale Iain Clacher

For those who knew him, It is my sad duty to report that Id died last month.

I will never forget playing Interstellar Overdrive when he sat in with Slaughterhouse Joe. And who could forget the infamous "You're sacked" gig with Dirt and the Rebels?

[END]

American "Life on Mars"

He's not Sam Tyler. She's not Annie.

[END]

Friday, December 05, 2008

I want you back...

I got the CDs, thanks PeeBoo.

Of course that makes me a music pirate (as if Symo's DVD of eels and Beatles didn't already make me so), something I've been against; since I know what it costs to pay for a recording session. BobSpeaking is an inveterate pirate.

Hmmm. Do you ever listen to a song and think "I've ripped that off" ? Possibly you have to have written a song.

Anyway, I'm sure I have a song that has the lyric "I want you back" repeated randomly throughout. It seems I ripped that off from "Man O'Sand to Girl O'Sea".

I remember once realising that I'd ripped off a song from the Undertones' "Sin of Pride" album. I can't remember the song or the bit I ripped off now, but when I listened to that album again, I thought "Hmmm..." I think it was a guitar line that went "da-dah da-dah da-dah-de-dah-dah".

By the way, my neighbour two doors down is an Irish woman and one of her dogs is named "Feargal".

Oops the boss is home, better go now. One final thing - "People Say" ? I always liked the B-side "Don't Let Him Come Back". My sister Annie had the original single. Or was that the B-side to "Lee Remick" ?

[END]

Friday, November 28, 2008

Hi Y'all

Thanks Paul, I got the CDs. You know that I had all of the Husker Du except the Zen Arcade outtakes, right?

And I've got REM Accelerate. My review: Meh. It's better than recent stuff, but it's pretty much REM by numbers. A lot of the songs sound like faster, rockier versions of old REM songs. There's one that you can sing "Losing My Religion" to, etc. For the record, BobSpeaking thinks much the same.

You know what I'd really like - the non-bonus-disc of "Don't Try This At Home". I listened to about three hours of the Billy Bragg podcast when I drove to Sydney in August, and I couldn't get the crappy "Sexuality" demo out of my head. I had to use YouTube to listen to the Johnny Marr version. Also "Workers' Playtime".

Also, you could send me that Go-Betweens best of. I've got a couple of tracks, but I'd like the whole thing.

Hi Symo. Welcome back to the unreal world.

[END]

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Also I...

...downloaded the Hydrogen drum machine, and the Kristal and Audacity audio programs and I started creating music again. I won't say writing, because mostly what I've done is create some stuff while learning to program the drum machine and use the other two audio programs.

These are the first things I did. These are just Hydrogen and Audacity, I didn't get onto Kristal until later. All of these sounds are various free samples from around the net programmed in and sequenced in Hydrogen; there's nothing live here at all. I actually prefer "test 2" to "test 3" because of the piano (a sample from the end of "Leave the Biker" from Fountains of Wayne)...

test2_110bpm

test3_110bpm

I'm pretty sure this gives the game away about who I am. Oh well, if they want to arrest me for the sedition on my previous blog, "loudmouth, hothead", they can go ahead.

More stuff when I transfer it from a Wave to an MP3...

[END]

Recently I...

...read some Kurt Vonnegut short stories that I printed off on 7 March 1998. (EPICAC and Long Walk to Forever). See, when I say "I'll get to it" I do mean it.

...watched "Pump Up the Volume" again. It may be an indicator of my age -- did I mention I'm now 39 (!?!?!) -- but I really like this movie. I just worry the the next 4 years in the US will be like this.

...wagged work twice in the past fortnight.

...watched "WarGames" again. What a cool movie.

...I can't think of any more. I'll post again soon, I promise.

And of course, I posted again to my blog for the first time in 4 months. Kung-fu S, where are you? No one can do this without you.

[END]

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Stuff I did since I last posted anything substantial...

I watched the movie eXistenZ... It's like Videodrome but with videogames. It was interesting, but in the end it came down to the standard problem with 'fully-immersive' video games. It may as well have been called "Better than Life".

I watched an interesting "Air Crash Investigations" about DC-10 accidents in the '70s. The reason I was interested is that, growing up, I always knew there were problems with DC-10s, but I never knew why precisely*. I knew their cargo doors fell off - funny thing is, there appears to have only been one incident in 1972 and a crash in 1974, that's all, so I'm not sure why I was aware of it. Maybe the investigations took up the rest of the '70s and that where it entered my consciousness. (I was aged between a half and ten-and-a-half in the '70s.)

It's that weird thing where there's stuff you 'always' 'knew', but it's a lot of years before you learn the real story. And this is such an esoteric thing to know, I guess it's because my parents like to travel a lot.

I watched R.E.M. on the Colbert Report. The song was okay. I guess I should probably buy the record.

I watched the final episodes of a couple of great shows - Life on Mars (Yes, torrent fans, I waited until the ABC showed it, given that trying to download it - even if I knew how - the torrent would use up my monthly bandwidth allocation) and Intelligence, a great Canadian show about spies and drug dealers in Vancouver where everyone was informing on someone else and lying and double-crossing the rest. There's a conspiracy theory going around that the Canadian government got it cancelled because Stephen Harper (the PM) is a U.S. Arselicker and the show was perceived as being anti-American.

I learned why so many people think Dane Cook isn't funny. Dane Cook, Vicious Circle was on the Comedy Channel. But I acknowledge that I am not his audience, not being a drunk white guy from the south side of Boston.

I watched Flushed Away, another CGI animated film; this one about rats, mice and frogs in the London sewer system. I don't think it made much money in America. It's very frenetic and it's very British - Americans usually like their jokes to be telegraphed. It's an Aardman film, so it's weird to see Nick Park-like designs being computer animated.

I watched some Indian Premier League cricket. I don't know who I support yet, but what is interesting to me is how in the Knight Riders vs. Chargers match, Australian captain Ricky Ponting was telling Indian bowlers how to bowl to Andrew Symonds. If this continues, International cricket will get very interesting because players from all countries will be privy to these typoes of team secrets. Except for the English.

I bought the R.E.M album and Fountains of Wayne's back catalogue from Amazon. (I used to own the first FoW album, but it got nicked from the car, or the cafe or somewhere.) They should arrive next month.

I received all of my Fountains of Wayne albums and the R.E.M. one, except the FoW b-sides compilation; because I've been writing this for weeks. I haven't listened to them all yet.

I bought a $2000 treadmill. I'm hoping to teach the dog to walk himself. Jane get me offa this crazy thing!

I watched more Indian Premier League cricket. I think I like Kings XI Punjab. I don't know why, I just found myself hoping they'd win. I thought I'd support teams that had my favourite Australian players in them, except it seems that for every Michael Hussey, James Hopes or Adam Gilchrist each team also has a Picky Ponting, Andrew Symonds or Matthew Hayden. I also discovered that I don't really dislike Warney as much as I thought.

Australia's Next Top Model and Project Runway have started, So You Think You Can Dance has ended and can someone please kill David Archuleta on American Idol?

This wasn't supposed to be anywhere near as long as this. It was supposed to be a simple "This week I watched TV and ate a lot of crap", like at the end of Charlie Brooker columns. But I forgot to send it home from work three weeks running.

[END]

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Jury Duty

Day One. No one was called.

Day Two. Called Up. We sat around for 20 minutes, then watched a video telling us about the system, then we sat around for an hour and then they came in and told us that the defendant had pled guilty, so we weren't needed.

Day Three. No one was called.

Day Four. No one was called.

Day Five. Public Holiday

Day Six. Jurors 65 to 130 were called. That's not me.

Day Seven (Today). Called Up. We sat around for 20 minutes. They played us the video again. They told us that the matters dealt with before the trial were taking longer than usual, so it would be a little while. That was at 10. They told us that again at 10.30. At 11.05, they said it would be 5 minutes. Around 11.30 they took us into the courtroom. After the formalities -- it was a stolen car case -- they started calling jurors. They'd done 6 with no challenges and then they called me. I was almost up to the bailiff to take the affirmation and I got challenged. By the time we got out, it was around midday. Buggered if I was going back to work, since I'm on Miscellaneous Leave with Pay, and only two of my six team members are at work (the rest are on training). So here I am.

Today's trial was due to take 3 days, so I assume that means no one will be called for the next few days (because there's only one court that tries cases at Beenleigh). That would leave Friday, and I doubt they'll call people in for one day before a long weekend (next Monday is Labour Day) so that would be it until next week, my last week on call.

[END]

Sunday, April 20, 2008

April 20. The Fourth Set

4.50pm. Watching TV. Yes, I'm 16 months behind.

5.50pm. The cat gets two photos but I don't get any? That's better.


[END]

April 20. The Third Set

1.50pm. Boycat's parents say hi to the mud at Manly.

2.50pm. Just something for the afternoon.

3.50pm. My chilli plant.


[END]

April 20. The Second Set

8.50am. Outside at home.

9.50am. What time do you call this? I've been waiting for FOUR hours!

10.50am. At the Chandler markets.

11.50am. Going to get some lunch at the Manly Hotel.

12.50pm. At lunch (we "shared" mine first).


[END]

April 20. The First Set

5.50am. Daddy! Wake up, it's April 20. You've got to take some photos. Oh, and feed me!

6.50am. No photo. Daddy didn't wake up. Instead he went back to bed and dreamed of taking April 20 photos (and, for some reason, of Steve Coogan being attacked by a crocodile).

7.50am. Coffee!


[END]

Friday, April 11, 2008

My Phone Says

It's Paul's birthday. It's that right?

Assuming it is... happy birthday; you're 40 next year.

Scary.

[END]

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Seriously

How come if you tool around on the internet for long enough, everything leads back to xkcd?

Speaking of which, this one is really cool.

No power in the 'verse can stop me.

[END]

Charleton Heston is Soylent Green

Story.

Get your hands off me you dirty ape!

Now someone can pry his rifle from his cold, dead hands.

But seriously, I know at least one of my readers was a fan of Soylent Green, although I believe your women were called "conversation" and not "furniture", if I recall correctly.

[END]

Friday, April 04, 2008

Photos from the past few months

Flooding on the Logan River.

The view from my seat at the Roar's home semi-final.

Playing bowls in Tuggeranong.

Buffalo Tom at the Zoo.

Dirt at Buffalo Tom.


[END]

This mini bar is not complimentary


...you should hear what it says about you when you leave the room.



[END]

Friday, March 14, 2008

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

Well, it's the end of an era.

Today, I went to work in Gold Coast City. On Monday, I will go to work at the same place, but it will be in Logan City.

[END]

Thursday, March 13, 2008

REM Stuff

But I'm sure Peeboo already knows about this.

[END]

Buffalo Tom at The Zoo

I just got home.

It was awesome. They played Sunflower Suit!

Yes, they played Treehouse and Summer and Velvet Roof and (of course) Taillights Fade and loads of those songs with one word titles that I can't remember which is which, but man, they played Sunflower Suit!

They didn't play Birdbrain, what a shame

Dirt was there, as was Robbie Warren and a couple of other people I know. I took some photos, but I have to load them off my phone to see if they're any good.

[END]

Friday, March 07, 2008

Hey Mick

Good to hear from you again. It's been like 10 years since Cheeky Machine disappeared off the face of the 'net. You're a photographer now?

Yes, it's me. I pretend that my identity is secret; but, as Lisa Simpson says, if you follow the clues, you can work it out.

So that makes my audience at least 4 real people and some sock puppets.

[END]

Monday, February 18, 2008

Summer Glau plays ass-kicking teenager

Whoa, that was a casting masterstroke. I would never have thought of that.

(I read she checked with Joss if she should do it.)

[END]

Friday, February 15, 2008

Welcome to all of my reader

D, how did you find me? I'm interested, 'cos it is a little insight into how this internet thingy works.

I now have 3 readers. Yay! Three more people listen to me on the 'net than listen to me in real life.

By the way, I'm not sure if people know, but if you post a comment and then delete it, the original comment will still be emailed to me.

[END]

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Best intentions

Imagine this. Imagine it's back before we understood as much about alcohol; about how a person's reflexes, etc., could be diminished even though they appeared fine.

Someone has drunk too much but the think they're right to drive. Someone else needs to get to the train station to catch a train for some very important purpose. So the first person offers to drive them. Person two makes the train and gets to do their very important thing. Person one has an accident on the way home and wipes out a car full of people.

Is this okay because person one had the best intentions and they didn't know at the time that it was wrong?

Misc 080213

Say Hi to Professor Johnny Marr. (He's from the Smiths, Peeboo.)

I had a dream this morning in which I said to a person "Where is this?". She said "Brisbane". I said "This isn't Brisbane, this is a dream landscape."

The Queensland Roar won, 2-0 to go into the Preliminary final by the way.

Coolamon - not the fertile crescent but not that far from Bogan Gate, all things considered.

[END]

Friday, January 25, 2008

Qld Roar, Qld Roar...

Currently, we're at 80 minutes in the first leg of the semi; it's nil-all. But...

Griffin McMaster is pretty good. I hope we keep him as back-up to Liam Reddy next year. Of course, I haven't seen Matt Ham play, since he's been injured since July.

It will be a real shame if we lose Sasa Ognenovski to Adelaide in the off-season. Our defence looks pretty solid with Moore and Sasa, with Danny "Surely none of these cameras will see if I thump this guy in the head" Tiatto in the mid-field.

Full-time; 0-0. We've got to win at home in two weeks, otherwise we're out. But no matter what happens, it's our Best. Season. Ever.

[END]

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Streetwise Street Punks

"Why is this kid standing out front of the 7-11?"

"Shit, act normal."

[END]

Tasword for the Commodore 64

I have a whole bunch of 5 inch floppy discs originally created in a program for the Commodore 64 called "Tasword". They have a lot of my early fiction on them. Does anyone know how I can get the data off them? I don't care if I have to clean it up a lot.

Ahhh, forget it, I've just had a quick look through my filing cabinet and I can't find the folder the discs are in. I did, however, find a folder marked "Paul Booth" which contains a series of cartoons from approximately 3.8.90 (according to the title on one of them) which contain stuff like nine drawings of a chair, nine drawings of a toilet tank, nine drawings of a power-point and of course the classic "James needs a blue snake" and "Bart Simpson being hit by a bus" from the trip at Servodio's...

[END]

Fascinating New Thing

So I got out of the shower at about 7.50 this morning. As I was getting dressed, I could hear Sky News coming from the lounge room (I was a few minutes behind 'live to air') and they're talking in those tones where you know there's breaking news and somebody has died. They're talking about some role from some movie, and it sounded like they were talking about "Brokeback Mountain". So... someone from Brokeback Mountain is dead. Please please please, tell me it's not Jake.

I wasn't that big a fan of Heath Ledger. I did like his 'couldn't give a shit' attitude. I will be very interested in seeing "The Dark Knight". But I haven't seen a lot of the films they've been talking about all day; I kinda saw "Brokeback Mountain", in that I was in and out of the room as Boycat's Mum watched it.

But I really liked "10 Things I Hate About You". I'm a sucker for a remade Shakespeare film. The title of this post is a reference to the Semisonic song ("f.n.t.") that plays during the paintball scene in that movie.

---

I've been thinking about time. When did Neil Armstrong land on the Moon? The Americans say one thing, we say another. When an Australian dies overseas, when do they die? New York time or Perth time?

At least September 11 happened on September 11, unless you were in New Zealand.

[END]

Friday, January 18, 2008

Holiday snaps

Coolamon, NSW.

The Coolamon Post Office.

The Royal Tavern, Coolamon.

The Coolamon Fire Brigade

The "Up To Date Store", Coolamon.

Empty storefront, Cowabbie St, Coolamon.

Note: This was the first hot day of our trip. It just got hotter and hotter, culminating in 41 degrees on New Years' Eve in Melbourne.

[END]

How rude are you to telemarketers?

It's a bit of a weird situation. We have a silent phone number (for which we've never been charged the $3 a month, by the way) but we still get a couple of telemarketers who have our phone number - thanks, I think, to my mum who gave my number to "trendwest" who have since changed their name to something else.

They're just about the only people who call us on our landline. Well, I think it's them - someone has been calling us several times a day for the past fortnight at least - we pick up the phone and there is a very long silence and then - if we wait long enough - someone for whom English is not their first language asks for one of us. I won't say my surname* but it has a couple of Es in it, which they stretch out.

Anyway, I'm reasonably polite to these guys, since they're making $1 an hour in Bangalore... I just found myself saying "Anyway, I'm not interested, thanks for calling, bye."

How polite are you?


*I'm still pretending that I'm untraceable, although my blogger nickname and my flikr logon and all of the hints spread throughout this thing mean anyone could find me... since this blog has a post that links back to my old blog which is technically illegal under Australia's sedition laws.

[END]

Friday, January 11, 2008

Help me write a song

It's simple, just take these words and make them rhyme...

What would Bjorn Nitmo do?

Sixth of May what a sad sad day
"Let it all come out," she said
Grant, I hope it was only a rumour
And this line would end with a word like 'dead'

At least I'm writing again

She said "Why do bad things happen to really good people?"
But I think there are no good people

This is a revolutionary suicide
Keep your emotions down. Children, this will not hurt.

George, you lived your life like a football match. It was a game of two halves.

Aegrescit medendo -"The disease worsens with the treatment" or "The remedy makes the disease worse" or "The remedy is worse than the disease" or "He becomes ill by being cured"

It rubs the lotion on its skin/
Or it gets the hose again

Howl at the paratactic syntax

I'm so cool Armani wears my clothes

A line from her letter, May 24


...that's all I do, non sequiturs that rhyme and then I do some Em, Am, G, D progression over it. Have a go, you can't be any worse than me.

[END]

Mandy Moore

Why, oh why do I really dig Mandy Moore doing a cover of "Senses Working Overtime"? [No YouTube link because the one I used a month ago is now gone. Although someone else has used it as the music for their own video.]

Is it because I like this song so much that I'm really chuffed when a chickypopster likes it too, so much that she decides to cover it and makes it the lead track off an album. Kind of like if Britney or Christina decided to cover "Cattle and Cane" or "It's a motherfucker"?

[END]

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Speaking of Cyclones

A guy from my team got a temporary placement with the NT Invasion Taskforce. He would have arrived in Darwin on about the 3rd of January. Good to see you pulled out the nice weather for him.

[END]

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas to all of my reader

Merry Christmas.

As usual, I've been a slack bastard and haven't sent any cards. I received some, thanks muchly.

[END]

Friday, December 21, 2007

Ripping songs off YouTube

Do you guys know about vixy.net, which enables you to save an MP3 file of stuff on YouTube?

[END]

Hey!

(been trying to meet you...)


I'm fourth on google for the phrase "Mitch Easter solo album". That probably explains why Beth from Atlanta read my post and left a comment. (I always wonder when someone outside my usual readership of two leaves a comment. For example, who is the anonymous who told me about the change in venue of the Rubber Bug gig?)

[END]

Friday, December 14, 2007

God save the village green!

Let's just say that someone is getting the Kinks' "Village Green Preservation Society" for Christmas... And Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, it if arrives before Christmas.

If you've seen the movie "Hot Fuzz" (and I recommend it if you haven't) you will hear songs from these two albums.

It reminded me of the village green at Twickenham. There was a second-hand/antiques shop nearby.

I don't know where this post is going, but here are some YouTube links...

The Kinks, "Village Green Preservation Society"

The Kinks, "Lola"


The Small Faces, "Lazy Sundays"

[END]

There were just two ads in a row with Mr. T in them...

Snickers, "Get some nuts" followed by "World or Warcraft". Hmm, I don't know what to think.

[END]

Friday, December 07, 2007

Canonicity 2

Thanks for the link, interesting discussion, but what do you think?

My personal opinion is that deleted scenes sitting on a DVD listed as "Deleted scenes" are not canon, but if at a later stage they are integrated into the actual episode, they become canon.

I'm not sure about the canonicity of scenes that appear in one version but then are deleted in a "director's cut".

And what about stuff like "Blade Runner", where there will be (is?) a third version. What really happened in that movie (no spoilers please).

Did Greedo really shoot first?

[END]

So are they trying to tell me...

...that Bob Dylan is the fifth Cylon?

[END]

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Canonicity

Boycat's Mum went on a bit of a shopping spree the other day. $600 on herself, $99 on me. But that $99 was Battlestar Galactica Series 1,2 and 3 (plus the mini-series). Each of the seasons has a disc of deleted scenes. Which raises the question, are deleted scenes considered canon?

My opinion is maybe, but probably not.

A scene deleted because the episode is running overtime could well be canon; but they don't really tell us why scenes are deleted, so we won't know if the show-runner wanted to put it in and didn't have the time, or if they dropped it because it wasn't working or because it wasn't quite the direction they wanted to go in. If it wasn't quite what they wanted, it isn't canon. Discuss.

As an aside, Boycat's Mum is a big fan of BG. When it first came on to the Sci-fi Channel [I'd watched it on Channel 10, but I'd lost it somewhere at the start of season 2 because of their dodgy scheduling], I started taping (discing? recording? byting? storing? fat piping to the hard drive? cutting actors out of residuals?) it, and she was sitting on the lounge when I first started watching 33 and it grabbed her attention. She's the one making me rush through the end of season 2 and season 3 now...

[END]

Saturday, November 24, 2007

I'm happier now

I come not to praise Howard but to bury him. Never (ever) forget the Tampa, Children Overboard, Workchoices...

Some thoughts...

Kev-o-sev has a great speech writer.

The Australian economy is not Australian society.

Farewell Andrew Bartlett, I hope you keep blogging.

The Senate is a bit of a worry.

[END]

What's wrong with me?

Why can't I care only about myself? Why can't I be happy if John Howard wins? What do I care if Australia turns into a United States survival-of-the-richest society? After all, we bought our house in 1993 for $145,000 and I'm a gazetted ASO5 in the public service and Boycat's Mum has just won a permanent AO4 - we're pretty much set for life. I don't have to care about people other than my immediate family, so why do I?

Why do I give a crap about people that I don't know who don't have enough money, or education or a good enough job to earn the kind of money that I do? After all, when I run into these people at work they don't like me, so why can't I just say 'Fuck you people, I've got mine'?

[Yes, I've started drinking early. Why doesn't anyone have Don's Party on TV tonight? Did I mention I'm a pessimist? I usually say being a pessimist means you can't be disappointed, but you can be presently surprised. Why do I feel like I'm going to be very disappointed tomorrow?]

[END]

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Top Gun

Jeez guys, I know about Sleep with Me, my point was I've never really subjected myself to Top Gun before (not a fan of Tom Cruise, 80s rock or militaries blowing shit up). The issue is not how smart Tarantino was for seeing the subtext, it's about how could people not be talking about the homoerotic subtext (supertext?) from the day the movie was released, it's so bleedin' obvious.

[END]

Friday, November 02, 2007

Qld Roar, Qld Roar... uh, whatever


So the Roar won tonight. I'm now a member with my tickets to 5 of the next 6 home games. Watch them not win a home game for the rest of the season. Pessimist, me?

Matt Scolaro was almost right. When he left the Reunion last weekend with the Roar down 2-0 or 2-1 he said they would win 3-2. Well, they were 3-2 until the third minute of extra time... (it finished 3-3) so you can imagine that I was very nervous during extra-time this week. But we got the win thanks to a goal from Reinaldo.

Reinaldo scored, finally, because he didn't have time to think. Simon Lynch finally scored last week [his second goal, the first was a penalty] because, again, he didn't have time to think. Don't let these strikers think!

The A-League's slogan this year is "90 Minutes, 90 Emotions". Are they kidding? For a Queensland Roar supporter, there's just one emotion for the whole game. Fear. How will we fuck it up this week?

The Rosalie 1986 21year reunion was last week. I got to see quite a few people I hadn't seen for a while. Of course, I embarrassed myself by not recognising a lot of people. Of course, I never hung out with them at school, why should I remember them now? Luckily my Ambassador, Boycat's Mum was there - she introduced herself to people and got their names. (And all the Phoneman family goss.) Jeez, Javier Sanchez looks like he should be playing in Serie A. Paul looked well-rested, strangely. Avio is balding. Whimpy is just himself, but 20 years older. I'm babbling.

[END]

The worst sentence I've ever seen in a court decision

"The pettifogging casuistry exhibited by the defendants' arguments is to be deprecated."
See Paragraph 4.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Misc 071003

I watched Top Gun last night. How gay is that movie?

Is anyone else suffering through a plague of moths?

Can the Queensland Roar's bad record against New Zealand teams continue? I'll be there Friday night to see if I ever get to see a Roar victory live.

It'll be 32 degrees here tomorrow. It's only October, for god's sake.

Anyone gonna buy the new Radiohead album? (Apparently, yes.)

Happy Sputnik day (for tomorrow).

Sulu gets his own asteroid.



[END]

Oh, crap...

It's the yearly Daylight Savings debate.

[END]

Friday, September 07, 2007

Congratulations

You have one of those. I still am one of those.

So Syme will have to share a birthday. That'll be easy to remember.

[END]

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Torchwood Series 2

Who knows if those of us relying on free-to-air will ever see Torchwood series 2? In the middle of Series 1, Channel 10 dropped it back to midnight Tuesday night, so I don't hold out a lot of hope of them showing series 2.

[END]

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Steve Fossett is missing

Steve Fossett, billionaire adventurer's plane is missing. I don't really care one way or another about billionaire adventurers, but he did keep me entertained the week I was recovering from my first bike accident, so I hope he's okay.

[END]

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

You know you're old when...

You realise "Bust a move" by Young MC is 17 years old.

He'd be Old MC by now.

[END]

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Apparently, I didn't go to school with the mad bomber

According to an anonymous commenter - and why shouldn't I believe them, this is the internet and I believe everything I read - John Amundsen was only at Rosalie for Grades 4-7, then he went to Terrace in 1979. So I didn't go to school with him, I only went to the same school as him. (Although if you want to argue that the Primary and Secondary sections were different schools, then I didn't even do that.)

It's weird getting comments on a posting from May 2006 - and no, I don't compulsively check all of the comments from old posts, I get an email - my article must come up on Google or something.

Speaking of Google, a blog post of mine was second top when you searched for "Minnesota Triplets" recently. (Someone from Minnesota who had triplets was first). Now we're second, because the news.com.au entertainment guide page (listing the Zoo gig) is now first. Take that, Patrick Smith, who didn't believe I was in a Hüsker Dü tribute band.

[END]

Monday, August 13, 2007

C'mon, admit it...

...we all went through a Star Trek phase.

I remember someone (Paul? Syme?) years ago telling me they had rented the latest TNG videos and put them on their credit card because they had no money left (eat or watch Star Trek? Eat or watch Star Trek? Hmmm...).

I was watching the original Battlestar Galactica on the Sci Fi Channel, and that was followed by Firefly ('Serenity Pt 2') and that lead straight into the Sunday Night Trek-fest.

TNG
was something about Worf's son Alexander coming back from the future to save himself from turning out to be such a wuss. In Voyager, 7 of 9 got multiple personality disorder because of some virus Species 6339 created, then DS9 had an episode where Keiko had been taken over by a wraith who wanted to kill the wormhole aliens and forced O'Brien to sabotage the station to help. Then Enterprise was on - I haven't seen much Enterprise, but honestly, who has? - someone was trying to find out what Reed liked to eat. And then TOS had the infamous "Spock's Brain".

My point is, hands up if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

No one has their hands up, do you?

We all used to watch and even if we haven't seen anything for such a long time, we all know the characters and the situation and thus we could all watch any episode of any show and know immediately what is going on.

[END]

Another Girl Another Planet

The Sci Fi Channel is using The Only Ones' Another Girl Another Planet as music in one of their advertisements.

I first heard this song on a movie soundtrack that my sister, Anne*, had - I think the movie was called "That Summer" but it's really hard to find details about it. The listing on IMDB seems about right, but it doesn't have soundtrack info, so I can't be sure. Bob-speaking will know.

Anyway, whatever the movie was called, the soundtrack was fantastic - it was the first time I heard the Undertones (the song was probably Teenage Kicks) and it had The Only Ones of course, and many more that I can't remember right now.

I've often thought that this was the best soundtrack for any movie I'd never heard of.

*Anne was way ahead of the game musically; before they got stolen she had the Go-Betweens' Lee Remick and the Riptides' 77 Sunset Strip 45s.


[END]

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Holy crap, Boycat's got his own MySpace page...

Link

[END]

Grant Hart answers questions

Myspace blog

[END]

ReacTable

Given that at least half my "audience" reads Wired, you've probably seen this; but, the reacTable is pretty cool.

I'm not sure if it will ever be anything more than an alternative to the Theremin, or if anyone other than Bjork can do something with it; but it's an interesting project.

I can see people using it in the studio, to set up a sound (like a mutated beat) and then using it, or editing different things together, but using it live seems problematic.

On the off chance you don't know what I'm talking about, here some YouTubules:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MPG-LYoW27E

Bjork - Pluto




[END]

Friday, August 10, 2007

We sing better than your wife


David Beckham played his first Major League Soccer (MLS) game for the LA Galaxy today (Thursday night U.S. time) in front of 45,000 people at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C.

Beckham came on as a sub in the 72nd minute.

His team lost 1-0 to (Washington) DC United, but he did do one nice pass to Landon Donovan while he was on.

Beckham has technically been an MLS player since 1 July, but apart from 14 -odd minutes against Chelsea in a friendly, he hasn't played because of an ankle injury picked up with England and exacerbated with Real Madrid.


Destinies converge: Last year, Fred played in Melbourne's A-League winning team, this year he's playing in MLS for DC United. Last year, David Beckham played in Real Madrid's La Liga winning team, this year, he's playing for the LA Galaxy.

[END]

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Paully Paul B

No Bragg boxset.

Yes, I want it, thanks.

[END]

Dr Who: Reply

Family of Blood hasn't been on free to air yet. (Can you send me instructions on torrents? Although I only have 2GB per month, so torrents are probably out for me.) But Syme, I think you're right with the comments about the big red reset button - I think that's a problem with the 45 minute format, there isn't enough time to develop any depth before it's time to "solve" whatever problem it is.

Even though late-period "classic" Doctor Who was pretty much always four episodes with a very strict structure -- 1. What the hell's going on? 2. That's what's going on. 3. The companion gets taken hostage 4. Resolution -- at least 88 minutes was sufficient for some depth. 45 minutes is just not enough, so two-parters are always welcome. Although, as I mentioned, I hate the Dalek stories. I don't want individuality, don't want love; I just want EXTERMINATE!

Re the Doctor's companion. We're always going to get a modern person because the companion is supposed to be the viewer's "entry" into the story because they're supposibly someone like us.

My fave "companion" of the revived series so far is Mickey Smith; and not just because I saw Kidulthood last week. I wasn't too big a fan of Rose per se, but at least those stories had some depth mostly because we got some feeling for the people left behind. And what it's like to be the tin dog.

Wiki still says Catherine Tate is to be the companion for next year, based on a July BBC article. They say the BBC has "announced" it. The entire article gives me the idea that a lot of other people didn't particularly like Martha either.

BTW - Channel 10 didn't have Torchwood on this week and it isn't on next week either - a repeat Law and Order: SVU is on instead. WTF? [Later: It's on Tuesday nights at midnight.]

[END]

Sunday, August 05, 2007

I chose the new design of my blog because...

it reminds me of classic period TARDIS interior.

[END]

Doctor Who - 2007 series

Syme, when you gave the latest series of Doctor Who a 3, what was that out of? 5 or 10 or 100?

Those of us watching on free to air are up to the Lazarus Experiment. I've got to say, I'm either not warming to Martha Jones or I'm missing Rose. (Or maybe the stories are just crap. For example, I've not been too impressed with any of the Dalek stories in the past three years up to now apart from the battle of Canary Wharf one. And Shakespeare and a knock-off of the Fifth Element, please.)

Actually, it's not Rose I'm missing so much as Mickey Smith. I kind of like it when the Doctor's companions don't really like him. Which is why I'm interested in Catherine Tate coming back as the companion next year. Am I bovvered? Are you disrespecting me?

I might like Martha in Torchwood, too. Two of the Doctor's old companions together would be interesting. Who would Martha have her obligatory Torchwood lesbian kiss with, though?

[END]

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Replies

Triplets - I don't know, night time, I assume.

DVDs - No worries. I'm still living in 2005. And you managed to fit a lot of stuff on. Waiting gave me time to clean up my computer. I have less than two gigs left on my hard drive. I've still got to clean up a lot of these songs where I've got both .wma and .mp3 versions.

[END]

Friday, August 03, 2007

In the City

I'm listening to "In the City" by the Jam. There's a line in it "In the city, there's a thousand men in uniforms/ and I heard they now have the right to kill a man". This was 1977, or something like that. Ask Jean Charles de Menezes about that.

According to the Guardian, the UK Police now want the right to take DNA samples from litterers.

[END]

We've got new computers at work...

they have a DVD drive/CD burner, so I can finally access the DVD Syme sent me, thanks man.

I have some of these albums (some of the Beatles) but not a lot. Groovy.

You are truly Lennon Bell.

[Where does the live Wilburys stuff come from? "My Back Pages" is basically the Byrds version, with Roger (Jim) McGuinn singing.]

[END]

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Misc 070722

I just got broadband. Let's hope it just allows me to do what I used to do on dial-up, only faster. Sure, I've used 516 MB in the past 36 hours.

I got a spanky new phone - a Nokia N73 - with a 3.2 mpx camera and a 2GB music player. This probably isn't that exciting to those of you with your 1 terabyte iPods, but for me it's pretty cool. Oh, and it also make phone calls.

[END]

Minnesota Triplets 2 - UPDATED


The irony of being in a Hüsker Dü covers band is that we have to play the songs live as they are on the records, not like Hüsker Dü play them live.


Dirt keeps talking about some live recording where Bob only sings about five verses in Divide and Conquer (it's got about about 10)... but we have to do the whole lot.


Although not at practice last week with Woodduck, since I was singing. I just sang the same verses over and over, and I only managed to do about 5 verses in Divide...


Photos taken from a live video that I've got, live at the Camden Palace, circa 1985. (Note the reflection of my lounge-room light in every picture.)


[Holy crap, have you seen the photo of Bob on Wiki?]

UPDATE:
Black Sheets of Rain?

[END]

Saturday, July 21, 2007

TARDIS shaped USB hub

firebox tardis usb hub

I searched Syme's blog (hey, the name hasn't changed now for weeks - what's goin' on?) and I didn't see a mention of this, which is strange because I go to Syme for all my TARDIS-related news.

The place that sells the USB hubs also sells little dongles that flash when your phone rings.

[END]

Friday, July 13, 2007

Australian Football - Let's face it, we're not very good

So, like the Americans, we can't beat Iraq, either.

Let's face it, for the entire World Cup, we were ahead for about five minutes - the last five minutes against Japan. Then we lost t o Brazil, came from behind to draw with Croatia and lost to Italy. In the Asian cup, we came from behind to draw against Bahrain and now we've lost to Iraq. Even with Vikuda, Kewell and Cahill on the park, we have to face the fact that we're not very good.

[END]

Minnesota Triplets

The Triplets are playing at the Zoo on October 13 (I think: whatever the Saturday is).

We've had one practice together, which was pretty good, considering we haven't played together for 7 years,and we haven't played these songs for longer than that. The line up is Dirt on vocals, the Alien on drums, Michael Woodrow is travelling from Melbourne to play bass. I'm playing guitar and Ross MacLennan is also playing guitar. Ross played bass at a practice two weeks ago at Red Star, 37 Brookes St, Bowen Hills.

We'll be there tomorrow - Saturday - from 10 til 2. I haven't worked out with Ross who will play what, but I don't really see the difference between a 4-piece Triplets and a 5-piece Triplets.

[END]

US Election 2008 - The contest I'd like to see

Ron Paul vs. Mike Gravel

[END]

Friday, June 15, 2007

The Avengers (Movie)

Nine years late, I've seen The Avengers movie. Yes, it's garbage. And the worst thing about it: Uma Thurman. What were they thinking? Some of it is quite droll, but they needed someone a lot better to play against Ralph Fiennes.

[END]

Petrol prices

How stupid can people get - on the news a few weeks ago "Petrol prices leap by seven cents ahead of public holiday!" Well, of course: it was Thursday. Petrol prices always go up on Thursday; and that particular week, they didn't go up as much as they usually do.

Today (Friday - after the weekly rise) the price was $1.19. Two weeks ago, on a Tuesday (before the rise) the price was $1.20 - prices are coming down.

And anyway, if the government were really serious about global warming and stuff, they wouldn't complain - prices are too low anyway.

[END]

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Misc 070609

For those about to enter the institution of marriage, we salute you. But you know what they say about institutions... Seriously, I hope you're planning on procreating: on Peter Costello's standard of one for you, one for your partner and one for the country; you, me, Paul and Danny will be running 11 children behind by the end of this year.

It's raining. (He says, thinking of Marge Simpson and donuts falling from the sky.)

I've had plenty of other things to say in the past few weeks, but then I think "Who wants to hear about that?" I've got to snap out of it: if every blogger thought about whether anyone really wanted to hear what they had to say then nothing much would ever get written.

Atlantic hurricane season started last Friday. Let's hope this year is more newsworthy than last year. I can say that of course because I live nowhere near the Atlantic ocean. Maybe what Pensacola needs is another big storm to clean up the Saufley Field landfill.

I've been remiss in posting my tedious local sports reports this season. Basically, the Souths Logan Magpies and Taringa Rovers had horrible starts to the season. The Magpies are second last and I haven't seen a table for the Brisbane Men's Soccer Premier League, but I'd guess Taringa would be in around the same position.

But, in the NRL, it's good to see the Gold Coast Titans doing better than the Broncos.