Rambling Update

Hello folks.

My back hurts like crap. This is possibly due either 1) sleeping in a poor position, or 2) standing up for about nine hours straight playing FIFA 09 on the Wii. I was going to go to key some more gubbins into the database at the Radio Station, however I got up at an unfeasibly late time (1.30pm) to do anything other than have a bath. So tonight, surely, will see the en

BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH ON THE LAPTOP

As I was typing the above, the laptop flashed and did the blue screen. BAD_POOL_ERROR. Arses. All seems ok now, but, crap.

Yes, as I was saying, tonight (barring further blue screens of death) should see the end of the 12 month mission to convert all the tapes from Audio 90/60/12 minutes to MP3. I will celebrate, then tomorrow convert the TASCAM mixing desk things. Shouldn't take long, as they are maximum 20 minutes each. Well, not 12 months, anyway.

iTunes says I am down to the last 8.9 days of unheard music. This will rise when the fully archived stuff goes in. There's about 5 G's of it to go in.

Recently read books:
Googlies, Nutmegs & Bogeys - The Origins of Peculiar Sporting Lingo; Bob Wilson

Fighting Talk - Flimsy Facts, Sweeping Statements and Inspired Sporting Hunches; With Johnny Vaughan and Colin Murray

Emphasis on sport, there.

Breaking news from the laptop:
"Windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown...Problem Event Name: BlueScreen"

Wow! Insight!

Other news:
Folowing the departure to pastures new of my nameless newsreading crush, several replacements have appeared. Which itself is worrying - this suggests a permanent position that needs to be filled, so to speak. So, doyenne of the unbelievably late nights on BBC News Karin Giannone steps forward to fill that gap, whilst elfin Laura Tobin ably assists on the weather presentation duties. Why am I telling you this?

Sport:
Every team in England are adept at shooting themselves in the feet. Repeatedly. Special mention goes to Liverpool, a team I still hope win the league this year. Excellent play, had the chance to slap rivals Manchester United with verbal joust which needed to be followed by a good result. Good result failed to materialise, Liverpool now behind Manchester United on GD, but with a game fewer to play.

Notes:
America inaugurates 44th President, no obvious news angle there.

Righto, a few presentation issues to rectify, and this wayward update is complete. Eyes down for more Twitter updates and fuller blog updatery in 2009.

What a year it will be, all 11 months of it that are left.

Welcome To New York

It's two years since visiting New York. My visit coincided with the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. In the five years until visiting the site of the towers, every day those indelible images of the 'planes disappearing into history haunted me. If that did that to me who only heard the events live, I will never understand how it felt to be either in New York or in those fateful buildings on the day. 

By visiting, the terror aspect for me from that day was diminished. 

Here are some pictures, some sombre and some less so from a couple of great days in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

For this post, commentary is above the pictures.

We took the subway south to the pier, to visit the Staten Island Ferry on the 11th. After taking some nice views of Manhattan, we sailed back and walked north. When we seemingly ran into the entire world's news crews. I took the opportunity to stand by one of the remaining items that were beamed around the world from the lenses of Jules and Gedeon Naudet.

Here's a fat me looking away from Manhattan on Staten Island.

Atmospheric skyline shot. 

A view from the Staten Island Ferry of both Brooklyn (foreground) and George Washington bridges.

On Liberty Island, with helpful accidental picture of the hole in the skyline at the bottom right.

Times Square, at night.

The last remaining above ground bit of the WTC complex, known as the "Survivors Staircase". This was moved in March 2008.

Nice shot of a street.

Street signs for the easily confused...

And the view from the gallery...
Inside Grand Central Station
Looking South towards downtown, with Liberty Island and Ellis Island on the right.

And living a bit of a childish dream, outside the Ghostbusters firehouse!

Here are some words I invented...

Yep, just came across some words that I claimed to have invented in 1998:

• Glurty
• Sleb
• Gimm
• Perbulo
• Teg
• Flubble
• Gnaah
• Joom
• Furt
• Nenvex
• Goom

Old Poetry

After looking through some of the utter dross that I wrote whilst at college, I decided to not publish anything. There are several, numbered reasons;

1. It simply isn't good enough
2. Some of the lyrics and titles would be defamatory
3. It is really, really poor
4. It's a little embarrassing for some historical exes
5. Some of it is teeth-gnashingly bad

Hopefully that clears it up.

I did find a two line stanza that stuck in my throat, from the poem "Waiting For History", which was:

As I sit and wait for History

I could be doing something better with my time

...which nicely sums up my last fifteen years or so.

Looking back I know I was referring to History with a large H, the subject, and not the passage of time; yet the lines nag at me about wasting time thinking about doing something better and never actually doing it. 

In essence, I'm telling the modern me off from a library desk in Halesowen, in 1996. Man, that's deep.

Tales From My Youth 4

Hello again,

A few words tonight for Mailbox, the legendary teletext service that following transition to the internet seems to have ground to stop.

Paramount Text (P-Text)'s Mailbox was the vision of the Paramount Channel's in-house teletext production staff for a 'letters page' for the channels innovative teletext service. This was more interactive than a classical letters page, as it took messages from letters, faxes, answer-phone messages and the new medium of emails...and tried to print and reply to as many as possible. Submissions ranged from questions on programme scheduling to guitar chords, and detailed technical data about satellite receivers to surreal mental pictures.

(I was lucky to have a message printed on Mailbox in 1996.)

Mailbox exploded in popularity, with occasionally over one hundred pages of comments per night. There were some tongue in cheek campaigns, like to propel Chage and Aska's 'Castles In The Air' into the charts. Regular contributors were revered, and some even had their own sections - Odo's Sci Fi news, for example. "Ed", "24 Hours" and "48 Hours" were the teletext forerunners to the blog. P-Text even 'repeated' Park Lane, the Oracle teletext soap opera. It is possible that the first email to a teletext service in the UK was published by P-Text. The non channel related service was mirrored online from 1998 onwards (I think). 

As Paramount Comedy Channel (as it became) had less requirement to provide a teletext service, Mailbox ceased on broadcast but continued online (www.newmailbox.co.uk), when updates would be available either online or delivered in mail format.

I checked back in recently, and it hasn't been updated since last July.

Something A Little Pretentious 2

Hello,

here is a delightful picture of me allowing a little pretentiousness into my life, a few years ago. Fear not! I was pretending to be French.

Tales From My Youth 2

This is The Dorch - The Album. Don't worry if the time seemed to have stopped in late 1995 - it might have actually have done.

Consolidated/Crack MC - You Suck

Stealers Wheel - Stuck In The Middle With You

Emf/ Reeves And Mortimer - I'm A Believer

Black Grape - In The Name Of The Father

Levellers - One Way

Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger

The Offspring - Come Out And Play

The Beastie Boys - Sabotage

Body Count - Body Count

Rage Against The Machine - Bullet In The Head

Babylon Zoo - Spaceman (Radio Edit)

Josh Wink - Higher State Of Consciousness (Original Tweekin' Acid Funk Edit)

Blur - Country House

The Monkees - Daydream Believer

The Chemical Brothers - Leave Home

Run-D.M.C. - Walk This Way

The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night

Pulp - Common People

Skunk Anansie - Weak

The Presidents Of The United States Of America - Lump

The Presidents Of The United States Of America - Peaches

Paul Weller - The Changingman

The Jam - Going Underground

The Clash - Should I Stay Or Should I Go

Cypress Hill - Insane In the Brain (Explicit Album Version)

Supergrass - Going Out

Supergrass - Alright

Free - All Right Now

Various Artists - Are You Gonna Go My Way

Menswear - Daydreamer

Green Day - Basket Case

Cast - Fine Time

The Prodigy - Firestarter

Oasis - Roll With It

Ocean Colour Scene - The Riverboat Song

The Offspring - Self-Esteem

The Offspring - Nitro (Youth Energy)

Black Grape - Reverend Black Grape