Hello everyone,
I’ll get to that oopsie later. First … Day 13 !
That’s Ahsoka Tano’s Jedi shuttle there. Not from a Star Wars thing I’ve watched, it’s from one of the Disney series. I have to admit shifting from being a total Star Wars addict to being completely out of touch now with what’s on the streaming services. I saw those as another unnecessary expense that I didn’t have the time to actually get the value out of. I’ll catch up on series telly but I’m a bit behind on the recorded stuff.
I think my losing touch started with the deletion of the Expanded Universe books from the established canon, with those being swept aside in favour of movies that turned out to be … a bit awful, especially when episode 8 ignored a lot of the established Star Wars universe rules (gotta be consistent with how your universe works, even in fantasy) and then episode 9 deleted a lot of the promising threads from the movie before. I was unimpressed and they didn’t exactly make me interested in signing up to the streaming service to watch more.
However, after bouncing off the Jedi Outcast due to having fundamental personal conflict with its control mechanism and experiencing bugs I didn’t want to troubleshoot, I massively enjoyed Star Wars Outlaws. It was a wonderful little bit of Star Wars to experience, wander around in, do crimes and have fun with the story. I’ll buy it when it gets a tempting enough discount on Steam.
Wait ! Today’s post concept was supposed to be a bit of a music party 🙂 It’s been a little while since I’ve gone down the Youtube recommendations and let them do impromptu karaoke to the videos (sorry neighbours). One remembering from Steelpanda aka Nikki’s lovely chill Lego building stream (Twitch link) was Floppotron … She’d played a weird synth version of Last Christmas, so I had to check if there’d been a Floppotron version. Answer – yes, here’s a link :-D.
It’s … different.
What’s a Floppotron ? It takes hardware from the Dawn Of IT Time and uses in ways that were never envisioned by the designers. We used to depend on floppy drives of 3.5 inches, 5.25 inches and 8 inches. And then there were the printers … All of them have motors that would make a hell of a racket. And Mr Paweł Zadrożniak gave us the Floppotron. It looks like it’s evolved over the years since the (here’s the Star Wars link!) Floppy Duo playing an absolutely brilliant for what it’s on version of the Imperial March.
They don’t make the hardware like they used to. But my headache is increasing listening to that so time for less grating music.
Something I’ve thought absolutely magical since I first saw it was this animated video to Goldfrapp’s sublime cover of It’s Not Over Yet. That song may have started me on listening to Goldfrapp and led to me buying all their albums. And then there’s the animation which is beautiful and heartbreaking.
Next up is going to another animation, this time of Communication by The Cardigans. They said on a collection album that they like to write lyrics that are subtle until they come up and hit you on the head with an axe. And Communication is another very thoughtful, maybe not so much with the axes, song.
Going back to another song on in the background of stream today, I’ve always been a huge fan of the incredible voice that Kate Bush has and she was always massively ahead of her time with the music that she gave us. And it’s still popular with tunes like Running Up That Hill. And she made brilliant albums too that would run the songs in together.
Talking of brilliant albums, there’s always Pink Floyd and Wish You Were Here is always a favourite. Maybe not so much for the middle tracks but oh so definitely for Shine On You Crazy Diamond and the title track, Wish You Were Here which started on the album as someone tuning the radio to find something they liked before starting to play along to what they found on their guitar.
A much more recent discovery for me has been Metric, here they are with IOU. They have a different sound that caught the ear with Gold Guns Girls and a definite catchy energy.
Talking of catchy energy, another fairly recent vibe has been The Veronicas with the sexy energy throbbing through their Untouched, which I’m selecting on the youtubes while chair dancing to Gold Guns Girls.
Back to a couple of favourites from when I was growing up, plus one a little later. All About Eve were a big part of my listening when I was a kid, here’s their breakthrough hit Martha’s Harbour. And one from a bit more recently, Blue Sonic Boy for the Doctor Who fans. I love how she just wanders off into the back of the set for a little while to let the guitar soloists have their moment, with the wander timed just so to have her back in time for more singing.
I nearly reposted another thing there but that feels better :-D. I kinda miss sketching, although my head isn’t quite ready to return to that yet.
Next up in this musical mystery tour is something from Chris Rea (I was looking for a bloke singer to post a link to, it’s almost all been ladies so far). It’s not one of his Christmas songs, it’s the bright and happy Loving You Again.
I feel like I need a bit of cute and there’s Lisa Hannigan waiting there to brighten up this particular pub’s evening with I Don’t Know. Must look up to see if there’s anything new from this lady.
Last few ? Here we go. Gotta pick up the iPad soon so I can get that at least one chapter in before bedtime. Talking of books … sometimes they’re awesome in the first draft, sometimes they need a : Rewrite. There’s Sia.
And here I am tempted to go on listening to the great music on the youtubes. Maybe one day I’ll find my way to Mexico ? (Maybe not, bit toasty there). Anyway, that’s a lovely song by The Staves, who do have an album out that I need to get.
Penultimate song for this post – if you’re sad and need a cheering up, one thing is guaranteed to give you some happy feelings, a Kitten Marching Band.
Last one for tonight – I’ll be setting the recording thing tonight so I can Wake Up (wonderful happy track from Sakura Girl) to the cricket that’s on too late for me to watch before going to bed.
Night all, sleep well have a lovely day.
PS The security oopsie was me leaving my bag in a coffee shop after having lunch. Unattended suspicious bag left under a table ? Eeek ! But courtesy of a guy (who I was watching because he was tripping the threat warnings talking to someone on the next table) was watching me a bit too close as I left, I picked up bag before getting too far. Kinda indicative of bad brain times though !