26 February 2007

Earth From Above

View our home planet from a different viewpoint with some simply stunning images.

The works of photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, especially the aerial shots are always interesting, often stunning, and sometimes awe inspiring.

It is amazing how viewing things from a different angle can literally give you a new perspective on them.

Link

Girl On A Motorcycle

When I was a younger man I used to meddle with photography.

At a photography exhibition in Glasgow (probably early 80's) I took, developed and printed this photograph (click on it for a larger version) of a young model. I was quite proud of it at the time as it turned out not too badly, reasonable composition, slight overexposure around the face but captured the texture of the leather jacket quite well.

Sadly my photography never really took off, being restricted to taking the odd family snap these days.

As for the young model, I wonder what happened to her?


Follow the link to find out.

22 February 2007

Compound Interest

It's not big and it's not clever, but the knowledge that somewhere in academia land there exists a scientific paper with the glorious title "Studies on the Chemistry of the Arsoles" has left me grinning like a Cheshire Cat all day.

Arsole is, of course, the arsenic equivalent of pyrrole; a chemical compound with the formula C4H5As. It is not remotely funny and those of you stifling a fit of giggles should go to the back of the class and face the wall!

More fantastically named chemical compounds, such as Adamantane, Cummingtonite, and Moronic Acid can be found at Paul May's site.

Link

19 February 2007

Prisoners of YouTube

Excellent article over at Radar Online all about the people who have unintentionally become "stars" on YouTube. People who have been caught on camera doing something strange or embarrassing that has caught the imagination of the viewing public and word has spread like wildfire. Some of the viewing figures for these clips are truly astronomical and it is hard to imagine what it must feel like to be on the receiving end of such ridicule.

It seems to me that as I have aged the potential for making a complete fool of yourself has increased dramatically, faux pas that were once witnessed by a handful of people are now regularly posted to tv shows like "You've Been Framed" and uploaded to YouTube. Watching people crashing, falling, unintentionally hurting themselves, or just generally making arses of themselves seems to be the new entertainment - comedy without the jokes, the scripts, and the star comedian.

In this new Web 2.0 age we are all potential comedy stars. Who's next? It could be you! Are you the new Star Wars Kid? For your sake, I hope not...

Link

16 February 2007

Compilation Cassettes

Compilation cassettes or Mix Tapes have been the subject of a lot of writing on the interwebthingy and also featured heavily in the Nick Hornby book "High Fidelity".

When I was a great deal younger I used to spend a lot of time making up compilation tapes. Transferring music from vinyl onto cassette was a time consuming business, especially trying to get the music to start just right, without too big a gap, and without the sound of the stylus coming down on the record. A tape compiler had to develop a very close relationship with the pause button on his cassette deck as this was the key to the whole enterprise.

I mainly used to make up these tapes for taking away on holidays, to get a variety of music without taking three large sacks of tapes!

I recently came across my old tapes (never played now) in the garage and thought it would only be fitting to preserve them for posterity on here. You will be able to tell by the contents roughly how old these tapes are. Another good game is to try and spot the tracks that have crept into the compilations with the express purpose of keeping my better half happy.



Compilation #1 : Cut Price Goods and Special Offers

Side 1

  • Love You More - Buzzcocks
  • Complete Control - The Clash
  • David Watts - The Jam
  • Heart Of The City - Nick Lowe
  • Picture This - Blondie
  • Sweden - The Stranglers
  • Satisfy My Soul - Bob Marley
  • You're More Than Fair - Ian Dury
  • Identity - X-ray Spex
  • Rat Trap - The Boomtown Rats
  • Heartbreaker - The Rolling Stones
  • Editions Of You - Roxy Music
  • Hey Joe - Patti Smith
  • Elvis And His Boss - The Residents
  • All Around The World - The Jam
  • White Man In Hammersmith Palais - The Clash
  • Less Than Zero - Elvis Costello
  • Gobbing On Life - Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias
  • Slaughter On 10th Avenue - Mick Ronson

Side 2

  • Don't Care - The Boys
  • Hang On To Yourself - David Bowie
  • Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue - Ramones
  • Shock Me - Kiss
  • Mongoloid - Devo
  • In The Flesh - Blondie
  • I'm Still Waiting - Diana Ross
  • My Way - Sex Pistols
  • Orgasm Addict - Buzzcocks
  • Break It Up - Patti Smith
  • Boy From New York City - Darts
  • Miss You - The Rolling Stones
  • She's So Modern - The Boomtown Rats
  • Rich Kids - The Rich Kids
  • Fast Cars - Buzzcocks
  • Do Anything You Wanna Do - Eddie and the Hotrods
  • Angels With Dirty Faces - Sham 69
  • In The Street Today - The Jam
  • Tank - The Stranglers
  • I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea - Elvis Costello
  • Whole Wide World - Wreckless Eric
  • Kill - Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias
  • I'll Be Waiting - Santana

I have updated this compilation into a playlist at finetune , I managed to include most of the tracks from the original tape and had to add some others to meet the minimum track requirement. Enjoy.


KKKrazy

Picked this up from Neatorama.

Possibly the most surreal photograph I have ever seen in my life...

Link : http://www.flickr.com/photos/35393854@N00/369225968/

15 February 2007

You can't judge things by their name

I can't help but like this advert.

Simple but effective, and I just love the payoff line.

Link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U-dYleBVFo

14 February 2007

Digging that vault

Treat yourself to some musical magic.

Wolfgang's Vault features streaming media presentation of hundreds of concerts by major artists many of which are from the archives of promoter Bill Graham.

The concerts have all been transferred from tape into digital format, cleaned up and repaired.

It is definitely worth a browse through the extensive listings, I'm sure there is something here for everyone.

I am currently listening to Van Morrison playing The Bottom Line, NY in Nov 1978 and it is pure class.

Link : http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/

12 February 2007

Suggestive Digestive

Don't you just love the interwebthingy...

I was sitting this morning having a quick cup of coffee and a digestive biscuit when it struck me what a timeless classic of the biscuit world the digestive is.

I'll bet there is a site on the internet devoted to telling everyone about the delights of this great biscuit, I thought to myself. Lo and behold, 20 seconds later, after quizzing the ubiquitious Google I found "NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown.com".

The site mission statement sums things up nicely " Well I think we should all sit down and have a nice cup of tea, and some biscuits, nice ones mind you. Oh and some cake would be nice as well. Lovely. "

A great site full of useful reviews, polls, and news items.

Satisfies all your biscuity needs!

http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/

11 February 2007

Safety First

During working hours I work for a large organisation which quite correctly places the utmost importance on safety.

Like most good things in life this focus has progressed from the sublime; driver awareness, plus a behavioural safety course that really changed how I thought about things; to the ridiculous; having to put lids on plastic cups containing cold drinks before taking them back to your desk, etc etc.

I therefore found the article on safety performance in the offices of the Health and Safety Executive on the ever enjoyable "alastair's heart monitor" quite ironic. Link : http://almax.wordpress.com/2007/02/11/from-the-times-online/

(I truly believe that this is ironic. Rain on your wedding day is definitely not ironic, no matter what Ms. Morissette says.)

9 February 2007

When Saturday Comes

Football tomorrow. Hooray!

Off to Pittodrie with The Wee Fella to watch the Dons take on the mighty Dunfermline. Weather has been crap all week so no doubt the Merkland Stand will be like Ice Station Zebra as usual.

Let's just hope that we see some exciting football on the pitch to warm us up a bit.

Dumbarton, my real team, are due to play East Fife away. EF are in freefall after a blistering start whilst the Sons are grinding out positive results. Lets hope for another three points to keep the challenge for a playoff place alive.

Looks like the poor weather will have put paid to the chances of the Under 9's team that I coach getting to play their fixture on Sunday. It is looking extremely doubtful unless Saturday is a scorcher, despatches the snow and thaws out the pitch.

8 February 2007

Digitalis

The advent of digital music players, iTunes, p2p filesharing, bit torrent, etc etc has been a real boon to those like me that are borderline music obsessives. Nowadays there is virtually nothing that you can't download at the drop of a hat completely legally, or sometimes slightly less than.

Rare tracks, albums from the past that you couldn't afford at the time, new stuff, unsigned bands, concert recordings, mashups, covers, old favourites...

With my iPod hooked up in the car I have access to 52 bazillion tracks. Put it on shuffle and its like listening to your own personal radio show, the random selections throwing up interesting juxtapositions and changes of mood and tempo.

Absolutely fan-bloody-tastic!

Except...

I find I don't listen to stuff with quite the same fervour anymore. Perhaps its an age thing but I suspect its more than that. Music has become commoditised (if there is such a word) - its too easy to get hold of and requires less of an investment. If I read about some new band that sound interesting I see if I can download something and give it a listen. Occassionally I will listen a second or third time but by then I will have found something else that stirs my curiosity.

I no longer listen to music, I mean really listen...playing the albums again and again and again 'til the music becomes embedded in your brain forever. Now I listen, enjoy, and move on.

Is this just me, or is it now the norm?

I miss the ritual aspects of the old days:

- Record shops that didn't look like a branch of Superdrug. I remember the mysterious dark cave that was Listen Records, just off Sauchiehall St in Glasgow. You felt like a member of a select club when you passed inside. Strange music pumping out LOUD, racks of mysterious album sleeves, the "Frankly Cheaper" bags with the picture of Zappa on the side. This was not a shop for the followers of the Top Twenty, you just knew you would get laughed out into the street, by the unfeasibly hairy man behind the counter, if you asked for the latest single by Dollar or The Goombay Dance Band. I used to spend hours in there, hours...
- Vinyl albums and proper cover art. People walking around at school with albums under their arms, kind of like a statement of their identity, who they were. Some commonplace like Deep Purple - Made In Japan, Frampton Comes Alive, anything by The Rolling Stones; some esoteric, Amon Duul, Van Morrison's Hard Nose The Highway, Patti Smith's Horses. I remember vividly when Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here was released, everyone coming out of Listen had that album - up and down the length of the street there were people slicing or ripping open the black polythene covering to see the artwork on the sleeve. It was an event...

Back in the car if a track from those days comes up on the iPod I am always surprised to find that I still know all the words, even if I haven't heard them for a frightening number of years.

I must have really really listened then.

Virgin Territory

The screen sits and stares back at me, blankly. Mocking me.

How the hell do I start this thing?

Where are all of the pithy, witty comments that were running through my head when I was toying with the idea of kicking this whole thing off?

Will anyone read this anyway?

Will I care one way or another? Who knows? Not me.

With that we launch this new endeavour. Don't expect too much dear reader, I have no idea how regular or how good the postings will be. This is very much an experiment. Who knows what may come tumbling out. Hopefully we may have some laughs, provoke some thoughts or share some sage nods of rememberance along the way.

Let's see...