Sleepypete's Pillow

Ouch. A broken nose! That must have been one rough game of cricket! Nice aged hat, though.

This post brought to you courtesy of a theme from the wonderful blog of Carmi Levy 🙂

Thematic Photographic is something Carmi does weekly, with a different theme each week. I’ve not put in a Thematic Photographic before because I’ve always struggled to think of something worthy. This week it’s “Aged” and I think I have a suitable piccy 🙂

Here goes :

That’s my last cricket hat and I hope the different colours show the effect of ageing …

You’re currently looking at the underside of the hat, the part that never got exposed to the sun. The dark blue is how the hat started life, the light purple is what the sun did to it. Yep – that’s a lot of UV rads hitting that hat to bleach it so much ! I don’t play nearly as much cricket as I used to but when I did, that hat was kinda like stapled to my head. I’d wear it all the time, except when I was bowling. I’m a bit older and wiser now, so I wear a helmet when I bat. The occasional dark spot is actually blood – I was wearing this hat when I broke my nose.

I should probably wash that hat ! I haven’t worn it since I broke the nose, it was one of the things that got changed with the rest of my kit. So there’s definite signs of age. The hat held together extremely well on top of a muppet who dived around in the field far more than was healthy but was well on the way to turning white from all the UV !

PS Was highly curious to spot another of my retired cricket hats at my sister’s place at Xmas … Yep, she’s still got the white hat that I retired after it got moldy … I made the mistake of leaving it in a golf bag that got rather damp due to typical English summer rain. And that white hat must have been about 18 years old ! I think the one above must be 16 years old.

You may need to check out the A-Patch …

It’s an unofficial thing for MSN that lets you dig into the registry files to rip out all the rubbish 🙂 So my MSN doesn’t throw the adverts at me and is generally more streamlined than standard MSN.

Not seen the 46 minute hogging of the cpu since I changed pooter. Dunno what happened there – PCs aren’t PCs unless they act mysteriously !

I’m about to walk away from my MSN account. The volume of spam that the Messenger app is generating has suddenly spiked. Ironically, Google Mail and Google Talk have always insulated me wonderfully from all that silliness.

And the Google stuff works wonderfully and seamlessly on my BlackBerry. The MS code? Um, not so much.

(Congrats on your 300th post. What a momentous milestone…I’m so glad I’ve been able to share part of the journey with you!)

I think I have a bit of Number 5 in me (from Short Circuit). He’s a robot who gets turned sentient by a lightning bolt and when he’s learning, he craves new knowledge. So he goes “InnnnnPUTT!” to try and get the person he’s fallen in with to show him new things.

I get bored easily, so the music satisfies part of my own craving for “InnnnnPUTTT!” 🙂

I’m reasonably happy with the surround speakers I have at the moment but they’re not quite as good as the system I used to have … That’s a Rotel amp coupled to some rather large Tannoy speakers 🙂

That pairing is a little too large to fit comfortably where I live now though. Will have to see what turns up when I eventually replace my kit with HD stuff 🙂

I never knew there was a trombone on the opening track to the Flood album by They Might Be Giants …

Jumped over a few stepping stones to more gadgets over the past couple of days. For a while, I’ve seen a few people’s MSN Messenger contact info bars show what they’re listening to and I’ve wondered if I’d be able to do that through iTunes. It’s a bit useless but I like my gadgets enough to see if it could be done. In the end, it’s been done through complete accident rather than any grand design 🙂

I’m often logged into MSN at home and I’m happy to give out the address to blogfriends. It’s not the iceangel.mercs@ which is on my profile, although I do see emails that go to that address. Although the Mercs don’t exist any more, I’m keeping that address for sentimental value 🙂 My MSN address has too much info to put where phishing scanners can see it, which is why I’m not going to post it.

When testing out the Airfoil app (linked in post below), I was originally going to test it using a couple of Windows Media Player tracks that came with this machine. As it turns out, Airfoil didn’t work too well with WMP but it’s gotten me the iTunes track info into Messenger 🙂 The problem’s one of Digital Rights Management, where Vista objects to the trust chain being broken into. Airfoil’s an application I’ll get “Sometime” but that sometime will be when the dollar to pound rate is more favourable, so the $25 licence fee costs me less. Until I get a telly that supports HDMI inputs, I don’t see too much of a need to acquire the Airfoil app.

It’s the difference between “Want” and “Need”.

I “want” the chocolate and orange flavoured muffins from the shop but I try to avoid having too many because I don’t actually “need” them. Unless it’s a day when you’ve had a lunchtime meeting out of the office and you’ve missed when the sandwich bar is open 🙂 Muahaha – I think the “need” there is to have an excuse to hunt the muffin 🙂

The “want” vs “need” battle is one I find myself fighting fairly constantly with food … My weight is fairly stable but still a little high compared to what it should be (I’m around 2 stone overweight for the muscle I currently carry). I find myself “want”ing far too much rubbish but I’m getting better at only munching when I “need” to.

The telly’s another example, I “want” something new, shiny and high def but will resist until it breaks into being “need” … Old telly is still going strong at the moment, so I have a little while yet which should let me regenerate a bit of cash (after buying laptop) as well as allowing the market to settle a bit. It does make it a mite more frustrating for people looking to buy me stuff though 🙂

What else has been happening ? The CrazieBoys watched the film Defiance last night and it’s not often a film finishes with the people leaving in a decidedly sombre atmosphere. Cracking film this one, tackling a very tough subject in a horrible time for many. A very well done to the makers here as they’ve done a cracking job here.

Work is still being stimulating and we’re moving into a very “interesting” time. With the possibility of being “interesting” in quite a few ways. Plus I still get to talk to great people and completely cave in when the finance girls ask me for money. It’s part of the job honest … And no, it’s not that kind of job. Ermm … think I’m digging me a hole here … They’re a good bunch our people, it makes working on the project far more satisfying when you can have a bit of good harmless fun with your workmates 🙂

Like being able to make your boss crack up by sending him an email that says “Ok, I’ve just lost all hope of concentrating on writing this document …” The trigger was highly pretty contractor girl sitting on a desk that was right in my eyeline past my screen. That’s sitting on the desk, not on a chair behind desk. Not totally politically correct but harmless fun and I think my boss knows me well enough now to know that while I would be highly distracted by highly pretty contractor girl, I’d still be cracking on with being professional. (In the end, I got dragged away by someone, so I didn’t spend too long in gaze-mode !)

That’s a lot of the reason I’ve stayed where I am for so long, the project itself is an interesting one and is continually moving forward. But it’s the people who really make me stick around.

PS That muffin was definitely more healthy than the chocolate bar alternative 🙂 Honest !
PS2 Must work on psychological techniques to help me resist feminine wiles. Somehow, I think that may be a project doomed before it starts.

I have a separates system with Wharfdale speakers and it really does make a difference. However, you have not heard anything unless you’ve played music through a decent professional system. We used to do this all the time in the theatre while we were setting up shows 🙂

You are cordially invited to
A ‘Hearts and Flowers’ Party
from 8pm UK time
Friday 13 February 2009
until 12 midnight UK time
Sunday 15 February 2009
at the Palace of the Crazie One

http://craziequeen.blogspot.com/2009/01/hearts-and-flowers-party.html

cq

You obviously like music a lot. 🙂

It has been a while since I started up this blog 🙂 Although I did have that big long break in the middle.

So what have I been up to over the past couple of days ? One of my targets of things to buy has been a bag for the laptop – which has led to me joking about handbag shopping 🙂 Still getting a bit of mileage out of that one but I’m having to start watching out there cos the joke’s getting stale and expected. So I need to find me a new joke.

I’ve been enjoying the iTunes -> Airport to decent speakers quite a bit over the last week or so and I’ve finally got the setup tweaked to absolute satisfaction. When I first hooked it up, I’d not long since watched Iron Man, so my speakers had crept into being a little bass heavy. Not me – the subwoofer dial crept up on its own … honest 🙂 The problem was there just a little too much bass for music. You need some bass in there to make the punchy bits punchy but too much tends to drown out the subtle parts of the music.

It’s just about right now and is showing off one of the new albums I got yesterday extremely well. That’s Rockferry by Duffy, I grabbed the deluxe edition with an extra 25 minutes of Duffy. I’m not so impressed with the other one, which was Snow Patrol’s Songs for Polar Bears. I think my Snow Patrol expectations must have been raised quite a bit by Final Straw and Eyes Open, which are both outstanding albums.

What’s the big deal about having the music on the decent speakers ? If you haven’t heard decent, well set up hifi sound, then you really don’t know what you’re missing. Honest 🙂 A good setup brings out all the subtlety that the artists put into their music plus you’re able to pick out the individual parts a lot better. Things like the trumpet solos, the drums and strings on Gloria Estefan’s Oye Mi Canto (current iTunes track). And Mark Knopfler going “1,2,3” when kicking off guitar on Making Movies. Tori Amos and the pedals of the piano.

All good stuff, which people tend to miss out on either because their speakers aren’t up to it or aren’t set up properly. My speakers aren’t great (I’ll be looking to replace them with the HD upgrade I’ll do) but they mostly do a good job. They’re a set of surround speakers made by Creative Labs about 10 years ago, which aren’t available now but cost me about £200 when I got them. They’re designed for being hooked up to PCs, with 5 small speakers to surround you and 1 subwoofer to deliver the bass. I haven’t actually had mine connected to a PC for 7 years now. Since I moved into this house, they’ve been permanently hooked up to my dvd player, with the Airport Express now letting me get iTunes music across to them.

What’s on the playlist at the moment ?

I’ve picked up albums by Paramore, Hoosiers and Goldfrapp as well as the Snow Patrol and Duffy ones, so I’ll be listening to those soon as albums instead of as the individual tracks. Duffy’s is the best of that collection. Arctic Monkeys has been a very pleasant surprise, their cheeky sound will be gracing my Party Shuffle and iPod for quite a while. Lene Marlin has another album out as well as the two I have, that’ll be coming from Amazon some time 🙂 Evanescence is another where I’ll be hunting more albums.

There’s also the old favourites like Mark Knopfler’s Dire Straits, Kate Bush, Gloria Estefan, Alisha’s Attic, Pink Floyd, Tori Amos and Edie Brickell. The iTunes library is currently sitting at 2287 songs for 6.5 days of music and I’ve actually listened to 1112 of those over the past fortnight.

PS No handbag yet. Friday’s centre of Bristol session got pushed into being a Saturday session because I was getting pain from my right hip. No handbags on show in the centre, which was kinda expected. I aborted the trip up the hill to Borders though cos of traffic and didn’t peek in the Staples. Kinda unsure about how to get into the Staples near Cabot Circus, there doesn’t seem an obvious way in from the main roads. Not too bothered there cos I’ll be very close to a different Staples at the end of the month when I go to wish my dad a happy birthday 🙂

PS2 No dropouts whatsoever on the Airport audio link … the only issue has been that this laptop can be a little slow to find the router again after I need to reset it. (Router issue) Will be checking out a utility called Airfoil sometime, which will let me throw any audio to the Airport, not just iTunes. Could be handy when I get a decent telly to let me take advantage of the HDMI output 🙂