Volume 73
29 Jun 2006
I just tried the new Flock beta. It looks a bit better than before but it is stuffed with interfaces to services I don't use so what's the advantage? Designed for a clique I think.
28 Jun 2006
It just suddenly started raining torrentially here.
I just fielded an enquiry call from Nigeria. How do spammers manage when people phone them? This guy sounded like he was standing in lift shaft with 53 other people. I could barely hear what he said at all.
IMPORTANT : the BR machine will be switched off from Friday 30th until (at least) the 4th July. There is power system work going on over that period in the building in which it lives. So not only silence, but also darkness. But it's Newcastleton this weekend anyway.
Steamtoys - it's doing the rounds but several people have sent me this one today so it clearly wants to be posted here.
Cory Sucks - it's the Disney obsession that really gets me. Disneyland smells funny and is so utterly, utterly naff. I have no idea why people go on about it so much (I will say though that the parades are done well and that the night time shows with lights and stuff are spectacular)
27 Jun 2006
26 Jun 2006
25 Jun 2006
Why did they even ask? Does Disney have people working the graveyard shift? (You cannot imagine how much I detest Disney for what they've done to Winnie the Pooh. It possibly makes me more angry than Matgaret Thatcher does and that is going some) I'm also typing this without my glasses so it may be gibberish. Well, more gibberish than usual.
Interesting idea but if course it does rely on people having peepholes in their door, and I don't know a single person who has one. Could also freak someone out badly.
24 Jun 2006
23
23 Jun 2006
I wonder how you stop text inputs from doing a submit of their form when you hit return. Anyone know? I'm sure it's either obvious or impossible; it won't be something in between.
I'm listening to a bizarre song by the Sons of the Pioneers called Move Along You Lazy Cattle in which they are singing to the cattle telling them to get a move on and to fill up on clover because they aren't coming back from the journey and that they'll get 10 cents a pound for them. They also claim that there's a prairie in the sky where cattle go and that they will meet them there. Personally, I don't think that I would want to meet them myself as the beasts might just be a tad angry.
22 Jun 2006
21 Jun 2006
Blind Willie McTell is another person who gives great interjection. (I'm listening to his track Razor Ball)
20 Jun 2006
RIP Top of the Pops
19 Jun 2006
The wireless died as soon as we left the station yesterday - I counted at elast 20 people trying to connect at one point and these were only the ones who had open wireless connections on their laptops. I suspect that many people simply don't realise the information they are broadcasting to the whole train, like 'Fred Smith iBOok g4 17"'.
18 Jun 2006
I'm on the train at the moment, though it is in fact not moving as it hasn't left yet. And it's pointing the wrong way for some reason, though they do keep assuring us that it is indeed the right train.
17 Jun 2006
Drove from Wick to Edinburgh today. Wick is the deadest town I have ever been in.
14 Jun 2006
Silence will possibly reign (or possibly even rain, or indeed both) for a few days as my father has been taken ill whilst on holiday and I am heading up to Wick to see him and my mother, and probably drive them back home when he gets out of hospital.
My iTunes Music Signature - it really does capture the experience of walking past my office.
Going to see Lou Reid tonight.
13 Jun 2006
Everyone is linking to this - but what is going on in the 3rd image down on the right? And what has it to do with iPods or, indeed, TP?
12 Jun 2006
11 Jun 2006
Better allotment shot in local.live - these are quite old as it is still all cultivated in them.
10 Jun 2006
great, but of course it's so big all the cars will break down before they get round it even once.
Surely 2.55 isn't really that late. I may feel dreadful at 9.00 though.
9 Jun 2006
Oh, I really like Sade's Smooth Operator. A perfect pop song.
Torn - why are the audience in fits? It is isn't that funny. In fact it's barely funny at all.
I took my goatse stickers into the common room here and almost nobody understood them. How odd. Do they use a different Internet to me?
Gould's second Goldbergs Part 1. Part 2. Uploaded only yesterday so it will probably vanish. It's fantastic to see him playing it. Astonishing technique.
The ValleySchwag arrived this morning.
John Fahey - absolutely wrecked. The playing is in this clip. And here is another tune by him
8 Jun 2006
More JD, well sort of - terrible recording, and they are the most unprepossessing bunch I have ever seen. Is that Skaggs on the mandolin at the back again? I just can't tell - all these country boys look the same to me.
JD Crowe & the New South - I can't work out how old this is. I don't think that it's Skaggs on the mandolin, though it could be - it's the same solo as on the record! But Jerry Douglas isn't there and I think the singer is different. However, this is one of the all time classics and JD Crowe is a true banjo master
Scruggs, Skaggs, Watson - nice examples of Doc's interjections. Fairly dull Skaggs mandolin solo though (actually Skaggs looks awful in this video, especially compared with the real oldsters)
More F&S - is that the same Gibson Granada in all these clips??? Earl really in his prime in these last two
I note from the Guardian last week that this "5 a day" lark is just because the UK government doesn't think people will buy into bigger numbers. It seems that it is "17 a day" in Japan. I'm a vegetarian and I don't think I eat 17 different fruit/veg in a day.
I note that other people have got their ValleySchwag, and mine has still not appeared.
There are some pictures of some lovely five string electric mandolins at emando but I can't actually get it to let me link to the page. Don't you just hate when people don't understand what the web is about?
7 Jun 2006
I definitely won't be buying a Deering then. Not that I am in the market for a banjo anyway - I am perfectly happy with my Ibanez Artist.
Bizarre, but a fine backing band. Thank you "someone" (As the comments below the video say, what is DLR on?)
RIP Billy Preston
6 Jun 2006
5 Jun 2006
Cracking set of piano video links over at White Man Stew. (That's Round About Midnight that Monk is playing, Pat) The Oscar Peterson track is AMAZING!!!!! (though Joe Pass needs turned up a little) Watch Joe Pass's face about 3 minutes in when they start trading licks and Peterson does something entirely uncopyable. You also get to appreciate how huge his hands are when he starts playing stride about 7 minutes in.
I've now 2G in my work desk machine. Seems to make a difference.
"I liked it so much better when conservatives weren't trying to be cool. I liked their, stern, iron-jawed parental disapproval of everything that happened since Calvin Coolidge blew town. I liked it when they thought it was all devil music sent by Khrushchev to take advantage of a young populace already weakened by fluoride in the water and Elvis on the electric television set."
4 Jun 2006
NY Goofs - I am mystified by clowns : not funny, scary, freighted with cultural baggage etc. etc.
3 Jun 2006
I need a large source of old J-pop videos, the ones where they put the lyrics on the screen. I reckon that they would be good for learning to speed up one's reading of Japanese, even if you can't actually understand it.
I didn't know that Fenella Fielding is Marty Feldman's sister.
2 Jun 2006
Prolapse - in favour of eating in front of the TV, Rambling - jewellery for sheep, Wormcast - downloadable worm, Bacchanalian - to bet on an outsider in the space race, Tissues - important matters in Yorkshire. I'm listening to I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue if you hadn't guessed. You'll have had yer tea?
Good grief, there is a lot of med spam getting through the filters today.
I was thinking about Doc Watson. He's one of those people who makes perfectly timed interjections : "You pick one, boy" and stuff like that. Most people can't do it and get it to sound right. It's a sort of duende thing - there are people who do the claps for flamenco (who have a name that I can't recall offhand) because they are so good at doing it right. It's like going Hyeuch during a reel, or Yeah during a great improvisation. It's just hard, and there are those few people who can just do it and add to the overall quality. Bastards.
Woot, Rickie Simpkins and band storming through Sally Goodin' - fantastic!
1 Jun 2006
I tried that Applet that maps links as a picture that everyone has been linking to on this page and it BSOD my machine.....
Ah, Tony Rice playing Lost Indian - sounds like Doc Watson's in there somewhere too.
Great Joe Pass video - I saw him in the 70s at the People's Theatre in Newcastle. He was amazing. (via White Man Stew)
"Who Took the Cork off my Lunch? A Tribute to WC Fields, comic genius and anti-hero" - it's on Radio 4 today and sounds as thought it might be good. Pick it up on listen again or tune in live.
31 May 2006
Spade Cooley (Who murdered his wife and dropped dead back stage when he had been let out of prison for one night only to play a gig)
Anyone know anything about the legal side of forming co-operatives in the UK? I haven't found anything useful on google yet.
I just bought a bottle of Licor 43 which is rather nice. (try a splash of it over strawberries and vanilla ice cream)
30 May 2006
Good grief, toothbrushes are complicated now. The ergonomic handles don't fit in the toothbrush holder and you practically need a training course to use them. And of course they cost a ludicrous amount of money and youa re supposed to replace them at ever decreasing intervals. My current one has some weird thing in the handle that bends when you press too hard. I think. At least it doesn't vibrate. Yet.
Contortion and Flexibility images (which I got to when looking for info on the Ross Sisters whose clip was linked on J-Walk today)
29 May 2006
No excuses on save lives in may yet.....
On-line Chinese tools (I don't know if these are same ones as Gary linked to over at Thumbrella)
28 May 2006
27 May 2006
I listened carefully to the mosquito sound and heard nothing. Then I realised that I had the sound turned off. Mind you, when I put the sound on I still didn't hear it - I need to check with some young ears that there is a mosquito sound there..... I played it to my daughter and a friend (without telling them what it was) and they both went "what a horrible noise!!!" So it does work.
26 May 2006
RIP Desmond Dekker
Now I'm coming back from Edinburgh on the train.
Hey! Mobilog! I'm on the train going to Edinburgh.
25 May 2006
Hmmmmmm "I would have dismissed Eric Julien's message regarding danger from a comet fragment on May 25, 2006 as simply crackpot tidings were it not for some dreams and experiences which others and I have had, first two years ago and then again this year" Interesting to see what it says tomorrow (assuming we are not all washed away of course).
I see that Paypal mobile has arrived here. Clearly the first thing to do when you find a mobile is to try and see if you can send yourself some money....
24 May 2006
aaargh, 2 hours of Salsa and then an hour and a half of digging at the allotment : I'm knackered.....
I didn't know that George Clooney was Rosemary Clooney's nephew.
23 May 2006
I hadn't realised that Kevin Kelly is an evangelical. Explains a lot.
22 May 2006
Men with banjos who know how to use them - don't know when this was, but Earl's looking OK. Better than Pete Wernick.
21 May 2006
I never knew that Mingus had Lou Gehrig's disease.
20 May 2006
Hmm, I see I should be thinking about agressively monetizing this weblog. EAT MORE CAKE! (cake marketing board?),
RIP Freddie Garrity
19 May 2006
10 things you don't need (several of which have been mentioned here before, but there are some new ones)
18 May 2006
More on last nights concert : the stand out was Bryan Gear from Shetland accompanied by Violet Tulloch, wonderful, wonderful Willie Hunter style playing. The "star" player was Calvin Vollrath who was also fantastic though in a completely different way : vast technique and skill in lots of different styles. Lots of good sound samples on hist site, including his tuned named for Bryan Gear which they played together last night. (They all played in Edinburgh the night before and Phil Cunningham and Ali Bain tutned up so that must have been better). The end of the gig was weird as it looked as though all the fiddlers were going to come on and play together and that seemed to get stifled very quickly for some reason.
17 May 2006
Fantastic fiddle concert at the Sage, Gateshead tonight. More details when I have time.
16 May 2006
Pzizz - I wonder how this is different from the brainwave generator software I linked to recently. Apart from not being free.
Backward Bush (this must be one of the few domain names containing the word bush that doesn't lead to pr0n
15 May 2006
Bessie Smith singing Alexander's Ragtime Band makes the cut as well.
I can't imagine anything sounding better on a misty may morning than Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush and Vassar Clements playing Blackberry Blossom
14 May 2006
Just round the corner from me. The publicity is a tad OTT but I'll probably be going along.