I know I have been very quiet lately, and I make no apologies for that. I think it always sounds a bit precious when somebody apologises for not updating a blog for a while, and a bit presumptuous; I expect few people even notice and even fewer care if I decide not to write anything for a week or two. Anyway, there are lotf reasons, and one of the big ones has been the footie. [Read more →]
The Germans are coming
June 24th, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Life
I see from my local paper that the Germans are coming to Crawley this weekend, from Crawley’s twin town, Dorsten. According to the Crawley News:
More than 100 people from Dorsten are coming to the town to enjoy 48 hours of sport and music.
What could possibly go wrong?
I think they will all be back home in time to watch the big match, but will probably have to endure seeing tabloid headlines about ‘the hun’ wherever they go.
And relax…
June 24th, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Life
Time to revise the Guinness Book of Records because it looks like the longest a human can hold their breath is about 11 days. Ever since that disappointing result against the USA there has been the worry that England wouldn’t get through the group stage of the World Cup, which only got worse after the Algeria game. Now we have scraped through and the simultaneous release of breath across the country probably affected barometers. [Read more →]
Vidler does it again
June 17th, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Music
Another little masterpiece from Mark Vidler (AKA Go Home Productions) from a new 4-track EP.
All four tracks can be downloaded as MP3s on the GHP site, along with some older stuff too. On the old GHP site tracks would often be available for only a short time, so I’m in the habit of grabbing what I like straight away just in case it disappears. [Read more →]
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A glitch in the matrix
June 15th, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Music, Technology
According to Spotify’s ‘related artists’ feature, “users who listen to Nightwish also listen to… “ Within Temptation, Disturbed, Iron Maiden, Linkin Park, Rammstein, Bullet for my Valentine, System of a Down and… um… Enya.
They are not wrong though. I saw the name and thought, yeah. Haven’t heard any Enya for years, let’s have a bit of Orinoco Flow.
→ No CommentsTags: Spotify·WTF
It’s all kicked off
June 12th, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Life
The World Cup has started at last.
I watched the pre-tournament concert on TV on Thursday night, which was a bit disappointing. Instead of showing it live, the BBC showed edited highlights, but their idea of a highlight is not necessarily mine. For example, Amadou & Mariam were on the bill but didn’t feature at all on the BBC, and Hugh Masakela was cut off in mid-song at the start. On the plus side, they did show Angelique Kidjo doing a couple of songs. [Read more →]
Alarming inability
June 9th, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Life
I have a licence to drive cars. It will also allow me to drive pretty large vans and minibuses. I can operate computers with some confidence and figure out the various combinations of settings and buttons to do all sorts of things on hi-fi separates. So why do I have some sort of dyspraxia when it comes to operating our alarm clock?
OK, it is a little more complicated than a basic clock because it is a clock radio that is also the base station for a cordless phone. The phone has long gone and we never use the radio, but the buttons are still there. We must have had it for nearly ten years but I still find it impossible to turn the thing off in the morning. On the rare occasions when I have to operate it, like this morning when Jayne got up at some stupidly early hour, I just blindly stab at buttons until it shuts up, but I don’t know until ten minutes have passed whether I have killed it or just hit snooze.
It is always snooze though. Statistically, I should turn it off completely at least some of the time, but it is always snooze.
→ No CommentsTags: Doh!·Gadgets
Bristol fashion
June 8th, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Life
The planetarium attached to the @Bristol museum
Jayne and I were very impressed by Bristol at the weekend. Although I had been there before it was a very long time ago and all I can really remember about it from then is the CLifton suspension bridge.
I knew it was the home of Banksy, Concorde, Johnny Morris and Wallace and Grommit as well as the location for Teachers and Being Human but that was about it. [Read more →]
Unsolicited testimonial
June 7th, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Life
The Bristol Hotel from across the harbour
Jayne and I enjoyed a short break in Bristol. More of that later, but for now I want to praise the hotel we stayed in – The Bristol Hotel.
It is not cheap, in absolute terms, but for a two-night stay we were happy to fork out for a bit of comfort. Having said that, our stay was not too expensive either because you can get good deals booking weekends at short notice, and some of the facilities were a lot better than I have had at more expensive places. [Read more →]
Novelty worn off
June 3rd, 2010 · Posted by Skuds in Life, Technology
I think I have lost my geek mojo.
Today I decided to skip lunch at work, in protest at the canteen having bloody courgettes and cauliflower on the menu together yet again, and went over the road to look in the shops instead. Where I work the local shops are Comet, Currys and PC World. There was a time when I could have spend hours in any of those shops drooling over all the goodies, but today I just couldn’t get excited about anything there.
Part of the problem is that I really have everything I want. If I don’t have it then it means I don’t really want it. That never used to matter, but I just can’t get worked up about things I don’t have, or slightly better versions of things I do have but don’t use to their full potential anyway.
I think this might persist until something breaks down and I have to look for a replacement. The AV amp is looking a bit fragile at the moment…
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Actually I hope they stick with...
