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20/10/09 : Quote of the day

The number of people who thought that the equipment wrote the song for you - "Well, anybody could do it with the same equipment you've got" - Fuck! Off!
- Andy McCluskey (OMD)

That possibly slightly odd quote was from the rather good recent BBC documentary Synth Britannia, about "synthpop" in the early eighties. I was seriously into electronic music at the time, until the rave/house/dance music stuff came along and spoilt everything (at which point I started listening to rock). It always used to annoy me that if I was talking about any type of synthesizer or drum machine or whatever someone would always say, "isn't that one of those things that does it all for you?".

Ignorance is sometimes understandable, but ignorant people who seem to have an opinion on the thing they know nothing about really piss me off. Another example I frequently came across (some years later) was on the mention of the band Iron Maiden somebody would always say "aren't they all devil worshippers?"

No, they're not. (Do genuine devil worshippers actually exist?)

Anyway, back to the synthpop - here's a great early example for your listening pleasure.

[UPDATE: Here is the Synth Britania documentary on YouTube].

19/01/08 : Tim impresses himself with his typing skills

I think that 65 words per minute (plus two errors) is pretty good for a non office person.

There's something I want to know though. Sarah often goes nun-nights before me, leaving me sat at the computer in the dark. Now, touch typing is about not being distracted by having to look down at the keys right, so, why is it that when it's dark I type at half the speed, make twice as many mistakes and keep having to look down at the keyboard (which I can't actually see anyway)?

30/08/07 : Room 101

I'm not going to tag anyone with this - it's probably something that's been done before anyway - but if anyone wants to have a go, the rules are simple: select 5-10 things that really annoy you then write a bit about why you think they should be consigned to Room 101. Try to have a mixture of serious and not, and avoid obvious things like "murderers and rapists". Here is my selection.

1. Religion. Millions of people trying to restrict the freedoms of others, arguing about what their version of god wants us all to do, killing each other and stuff ... and the thing is, yeah, god doesn't actually exist . . . (this statement usually prompts the response "but you can't disprove there's a god", resulting in me having to point out that I don't have to disprove something that hasn't actually been proven in the first place).

2. Text/chatroom speak. I prefer reading properly constructed sentences rather than strange, almost newspeak-like abbreviations and phrases. The acronyms irritate me too, partly because they tend to be ridiculous exaggerations - I mean, when someone writes ROFLMAO I'm pretty sure they're not actually rolling around on the floor in hysterics. And LOL - laugh out loud - which seems to end every sentence - is just a replacement for the exclamation mark. Which is two characters shorter!

3. Straight across fringes.
Pretty girl, spoilt.
Actually, I think the reason that I don't like this is the fact that it chops the head in half, in a kind of "Look, this section is my hair, that section is my face" way. The first time I saw Sarah she had a straight across fringe and I had to check with someone else as to whether she was a babe or not (she was).

4. Possibly the worst noise in the world is electronic dance music - the type that consists of a fast four-beat bass drum with deeply irritating noises over the top - being played by a neighbour in the middle of the night with the bass turned right up.
When it comes to actual music though, it's country music that annoys me the most. Partly it's the actual sound, particularly the pedal steel guitar whining away in the background. Mostly it's the almost clever way in which depressing lyrics are added to sickly sweet tunes.

5. The Daily Mail. Why do I hate this paper so much? Well . . . it's the hysterical reporting from the floodgates. The spreading of moral panic. Exaggerating "society's ills" then putting the blame on any group of people they find "distasteful". Immigrants for example, who are all potential terrorists and should be sent back to where they came from. Or teenage single mothers, who are all scroungers that deliberately get pregnant because they know they will be provided for and who should have their benefits stopped because that will stop them all having sex in the first place apart from the ones who still do it but they can starve on the streets or perhaps we should build Victorian-style workhouses for them . . .
Basically, it's written for middle aged, middle class, compassionlessly conservative, progress hating right-wing bigots. People who like to start sentences with "bring back" - followed with things that liberal society should be glad to be rid of (hanging, public flogging, national service ...)

6. This might seem petty, but it annoys me when I read something and find the word "there" where it should be "their" or "they're". As the three words mean completely different things, it shows that the person who wrote it just bunged in a word that sounded right without really understanding what they were saying.
It also irritates me when things are repeated to emphasise a point that doesn't need emphasising. "One, single solitary bean" for example. Either there was one bean, or there were a different number of beans. You can't make it "more definitely" one bean by adding two other words that also mean one! I call this the "danger hazard" syndrome, after once seeing a notice being placed by a spillage on a shop floor stating "DANGER! HAZARD!" - so, that means "be careful, because there is something to be careful of"?

7. Aubergines. I once came across some in a pasta dish and, if I hadn't have known otherwise, I would have thought that someone had chopped up a slug and thrown it in the pan. Chunks of sludge with a weird skin around it. And a whole one is even worse when cooked, resembling a giant turd. Yuck!

8. Spiders. Mention to someone that you don't like spiders and they're bound to say either "but they can't hurt you" or "they're more scared of you than you are of them". Well, duh, obviously ... but then phobias aren't rational things. When I was a kid one crawled over my face when I was half asleep in bed, which I suppose it where the fear comes from (although it's more of an extreme revulsion to the hideous creatures than fear).
A flat-mate of mine once kept a tarantula, and that was ok until one day we walked into the front room to find the lid of the spider's tank on the floor next to a sheepish looking cat. This induced a moment of quite extreme panic. We found the thing climbing up the wall, which at least made it easy to capture.

03/11/06 : Brrrr!

You know that winter is on its way when it's warmer in the walk-in fridge at your workplace than it is outside.

(Note to self: Must stop saying "They really should get some heating in this room" when going into the freezer section. It was slightly funny to start with but I'm starting to annoy myself with it now).

23/10/06 : Um, hello again

Nearly two months have passed without a post. There is a simple reason for this; I'm kind of a bit crap at blogging. I have an idea for a blog and I like setting it up and designing the template and all that, but before long the novelty of actually writing stuff wears off and it just becomes a chore.

It's a particular problem with this blog as I'm not writing about anything in particular, just everyday life. Everyday life is (mostly) quite pleasant, but it probably doesn't make for interesting reading.

I'm not giving up though - I think what I'll do is widen the scope, adding the odd rant (like in my previous blog) and linking to interesting bits and piece that I find.

So, ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your hats - exciting and interesting posts coming soon. Maybe.

03/07/06 : A new post!

For the most part since the last time I posted, it's been hot and sunny - stupidly so over the past few days. The sort of weather that makes people moan about the heat (when it gets cooler the same people complain about the fact that summers are now crap and not as good as when they were young).

The summer may be all very nice and that, but it's not particularly interesting to write about.

In non-outdoor related activity, I've played through Super Mario Sunshine (great game, but the lack of variety means that you can only play it when it's sunny), Banjo-Kazooie (small but perfectly formed), Glover (even smaller but entertainingly weird), Conker's Bad Fur Day (the antidote to cute platformers) and am currently playing Metroid Prime again, which is perhaps the best game I've played (apart from the Zeldas anyway). I've also been watching Buffy Season 5 and am working my way through the Star Wars and Star Trek films. And I read Ben Elton's Dead Famous, which I got for Christmas about three years ago (the first novel I've read from the once brilliant Mr. Elton - and it's not bad) and have started re-reading Are You Experienced? by William Sutcliffe - possibly the funniest book I've read.

That's about it for now. If anything interesting happens, I'll be back ...