sky why?

Sky broadband's brochure shows someone watching movies on an Apple PowerBook with the logo photoshopped out. In reality, you can't use the service with a Mac; it has to be Windows xp. I installed the software and downloaded a random movie (which took about 90 minutes on my 2Mb broadband link). So now I have 28 days to watch Starsky and Hutch on a PC. Or I could just dial it up on the television. Immediately.

I'm sure this will become a great on demand library in due course, but at the moment it feels rather like a test.

virtual desktop blues

Woke up this mornin'
It was Sunday in my head.
Woke up this mornin'
It was Monday in my bed.
Realized that ringin'
wasn't in my head.
That was my alarm clock
Gotta work instead

Got the time change blues? try this. Seriously.
And thanks, diamond geezer, for the link.

hello mum

Happy Mother's Day!

musical interlude

I've been helping with some music recording across on Christina's site and we decided it would be quite fun to create a 'mix it yourself' version of one of the songs. Its the tune called 'wind' and to be truthful we havn't really finished it in any case.

However, we decided to put all of the individual tracks that make up the mix into a zip file as a set of mp3s. These can then be dropped into a program like Sonar, Logic, GarageBand, Protools, Cakewalk and so forth and then remixed.

Someone adventurous may even feel like either re-singing the (rather simple) vocal line or alternatively using the vocals and maybe the rhythm line to add a new instrument, such as a guitar. Its a very short track at around two minutes, but I'm sure there will be someone interested to have a play.

Here's the folder : Its around 20Mb and unzips into mp3s. Most music software can convert these back into WAV files or AIFs to use in the mixing software. If you decide to have a go a) please comment and b) send us the outcome!

The pieces are:
rhythm - the backing track
left clap - some conventional drums
right clap - some very wild drums
christina - the vocals
buzzybee - a bassline from a novation synth
007thenamesbond - a short james bond guitar lick
trippypad - some strings and blips
foodblender - a food blender

We have made them all exactly the same length (2:03), so they can be laid next to one another in the mixing software and when played will already sound okay.

And this is what it sounds like in the current mix by Christina Nott with some rashbre help.

time machine

The clocks in the UK change this weekend, but not until Sunday.

I was at Michele's fabulous site earlier today and left a comment there for Karen. Through some sort of time warp, the comment propelled itself into the future and is stuck on tomorrow's date.

We now need to send a dalek to exterminate the misplaced comment.

blender

What happens when you try to make a pop song using a James Bond guitar and a food blender?

Well that's what we tried with the half finished track that Christina Nott has already loaded here. I must admit I've had a certain hand in this.

I thought I'd put a copy on here as well, although it still needs another verse to make it around three minutes.

Sometime soon I'll load a Christina track listing into here referencing across to the tracks we've already made on the other site.

Click below to be amazed (?)



Or if you don't have a Quicktime plug-in click here:

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Thursday Thirteen (V16)

1. I hear that the replacement for Windows 2001 (xp) has been delayed until 2007. My machine running an early release will need to wait a little longer for new vistas to unfold.
2. I gave my blog a makeover during the week to hide some of the creeping buttonage. Now the buttons pop up when we click a folder.
3. I decided I would also implement cookies so that the blog would remember its state the next time it was opened.
4. The open trackbacks I created a week ago now also have a popup (I used a toaster icon), so they can be hidden when not needed. I did this because the main users of trackback seem to be politically driven. This way, reading their posts is optional, but they still count as references.
5. The latest Christina Nott track is a work in progress, but I think it has a good sound.
6. Sent fellow blogger Aginoth some wishes via cq. Aginoth is in hospital but by all accounts improving.
7. NaNoEdMo progress is slow. I have had too many evenings doing other things. I will still finish the revision though.
8. Been listening to Neutral Milk Hotel in the car for several days;
9. Looking forward to the new web site from bubble and squeeek. I have an invitation to the opening!
10. My version of Badge was also remixed and is now on Christina's site. The Hoxtons sunshine of your love is still an interesting comparison.
11. Is still my favourite number;
12. I was showing as a Maurading Marsupial on TTLB today.
13. My car had another glitch this week. It dropped into 'get you home mode' and lost its acceleration power until I switched it off and on again, although I waited until I was home before I tried it.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
Leanne, Chickadee, Judy, Raehan, Janne, Andrea, cq, amanda, venus, elle, mar, tnchick, kimmy
(leave a comment, I'll add you here!)

Get Leanne's Thursday Thirteen code here!
Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave your link as a comment and I will link to you and you can continue the chain!



Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

rain song

And if yesterday's post was horrible, here's a nice one about Christina Nott's new track, called "Rain". The version on Christina's site is still really a work in progress, but it sounds quite good. We've added a guitar at the start and cut it down to a shorter length for the internet. And there's another acoustic version in the making, too.

horrible

I thought I'd do a horrible post today and happened to find the trailer for slither, which appears to be a new movie about ghastly slug like monsters that devour whole towns full of people. The advertisement shows what look like the revenge of the hot chile peppers, so I assume the film is somehing of a comedy, though with a sense of do-gooder righteousness, when we click to take a look a big warning with 'R' and lots of messages about how nasty the film is flood across the screen.

The alternative today would be to write about the UK budget, where it would be tempting to use the same headline. However, as Roger Bootle, Economic Analyst for Deloitte's has commented, in macro terms, this was one of the least significant Budgets in living memory. More a political budget and parliamentary theatre, rather than economic management. The Chancellor is playing for favour whilst he tries to position himself to take over from Tony Blair.

And today's post is open inline trackback enabled - so feel free to publish your own trackbacks, which will appear directly in this post, complete with references back to your blog.

Tag: UK Budget, Chancellor, Tony Blair

duck

Out tonight in Ascot, to the Oriental restaurant, where we had a round table for eight of us to enjoy dinner together. This was originally to have been our meeting in Florence, but instead we had Italian, Belgian, Swedish and UK folk together in Ascot. An enjoyable combination including crispy duck, Tsing Tao and a good natter! And tomorrow, an early start from the hotel.

scrap?

BBC Radio 4 starts its broadcasts at 0530 each morning with a medley of tunes from different parts of the British Isles. This composition is known as the UK Theme and has been used for around 30 years. It is to be scrapped in April, although a re-recording is also to be released as a single at around that time.

The tune is a well known station identity for Radio 4, as is the one at around 0100 in the morning called "Sailing By", which is played before the frequency is turned over to the World Service.

The Beeb's rationale is that the time at 0530 is better used to provide a start of day news briefing. Here's the tune.

Or here is a really old BBC TV station ident.

creme theme continues

We've had music by Cream, Krispy Kreem and now its Cadbury Creme Eggs to continue the theme. I had a couple of emails and comments that suggest these are not so well known in some parts of the planet.

Well the attached link won't help a lot, but it is a bit of fun.

Groovy.