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, December 05, 2008
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]
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]
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]
...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]
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]
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]
Assuming it is... happy birthday; you're 40 next year.
Scary.
[END]
Sunday, April 06, 2008
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]
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]
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
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]
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]
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]
(I read she checked with Joss if she should do it.)
[END]
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