| 今日 |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|12:03 am] |
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| Further Confusion |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|05:48 pm] |
Is anyone local to Chicago that I know going to FC and would be willing to pick up two sculpture items for me and take them back to Chicago with you in carry-on?
If so, please let me know. |
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| What adventures I've been having... |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|08:49 pm] |
Mainly related to the bloody weather!
It's affected everything I've done lately... I went to visit the missus for 'our' christmas, since we won't be seeing each other over the next week, as she's off with her family, and we exchanged our presents (and opened a couple), and getting down there was hell due to the snow - it was fine until I got right to her neck of the woods, and then the trains were all scuppered. I ended up walking a mile and a half on my own, on icy country roads, in the dark... which was actually pretty hardcore, and awesome. Especially since I didn't fall over once!
Then on Sunday we went for a walk with her folks and sister, which was made all the more 'exciting' by the snow, which by now had turned to ice - but the views, and the lush country pub we had dinner in, made it all worthwhile. And we saw a gorgeous siberian husky too, who was very friendly, and whose owner let us pet him (he was more interested in getting off of his lead and going for a run though)
Getting home was, bizarrely, free of any real problems... I have no idea why, but I was glad.
Work this week has been exciting though - yesterday we were all sent home early because of the insane snow. ALL the buses in Reading were cancelled, so I had to get the train - which was, amazingly, running on time. I also got it back in to work this morning, since the buses were cancelled at that time.
They were (apparently) running on a reduced service in the evening, and I tried my luck, since when I left work, they were running to where I could get off and comfortably walk, after checking their live update service.
However, once on the bus, and at the final stop, which was way ahead of schedule, it turned out that noooooo, the buses were now running at least a mile from where would be any use for me, so I had to tramp my way through the snow to home. This included a walk past a streetlight that died when I walked past it, down a darkened footpath away from any houses, only to come on again after I had passed... creepy.
I made it home, and I've spent most of the evening engaged in therapeutic aircraft modelling while watching Dr. Who.
I'm now half-crossing my fingers that work is cancelled tomorrow, as I don't much fancy navigating my way across the inevitable ice rink of death that the pavements will become overnight, but I know i'll have to brave it ... wish me luck! |
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| Minnesota to DC to Pennsylvania |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|08:32 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Drive Away - Matthew Ebel | ] |
Recap: I was in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and just heading out on on my flight back to DC via WI. Tuesday.
The Milwaukee Wisconsin layover was a few hours, so I can sort of say I've been there, wish I had baggage space for all the cheese. A strange thing witnessed on the flight, a lady carrying on a cat wrapped up in a towel; she said he was physically disabled and could not move unaided. Finally it was back to DC 5pm for one leg in what was to be a very long day (up at 8am). Reagan airport is right in the middle of Washington DC, it turns out this is a very bad place to try and reach at 5pm on a Tuesday. At the advice of my friend to be wed, I hopped on the metro and rode all the way to the very end of one of the lines. There I was picked up and a group of wedding guests was immediately ferried to a tuxedo hire shop. We'd emailed in all our measurements, but this was the first and last chance to make sure they all actually fitted. Things were rather last minute due to my flight getting in a bit late.
Some tweaks were needed; they just ordered in different size garments according to what we said we needed, to be picked up later in the week. I had to be run back to the metro station again, while also repacking my suitcase. My weekend clothes had run out and I had to swap out fresh ones from my main suitcase, which had thoughtfully been brought along. It's quite hard to repack two suitcases in the back of a cramped car, pitch dark, speeding through traffic. So I got back onto the metro and this time headed for the Washington DC union train station. We thought I had plenty of time for the train I was due to catch, but because of some cancelled metro trains I got there with 2 minutes to spare. Pre-booked tickets, no possibility of catching another; I had to find a kiosk and print them out from my internet booking too.
Somehow against all the odds, I made my train at 9pm, this was to be a trip to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was Tuesday night, 5 days after arriving, I'd already checked off 6 states visited. This leg was to visit ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) irchance, a friend I've known through IRC a few years now and is as passionate about the Lion King as me (well, nearly as much). Now I've never travelled on USA trains before, save the DC metro, which is much like any mass transit underground system for a city: it worked well enough. UK trains are much loved and much reviled, travelling to what seems like everywhere, late, slow, costing the earth. We love them (or take them for granted) because they take us nearly everywhere, we hate them for everything else. They can be cramped, crowded, dirty, but okay I guess. I don't use them much because the car tends to be cheaper.
USA trains, as a friend warned me, it was like I'd accidentally wandered into first class. I was in coach class, cattle class, the cheapest of the cheap. The seats were huge, wide, tons of legroom, tons of space, the general body of USA trains seems bigger, even the single deckers that I was on. The cost was excellent, the service and staff second to none; even the food wasn't too expensive. I had to sample their food because I'd literally not had any time to eat before then. We got to my destination in just a couple of hours, made me wonder why anyone would fly it as I'd seen in the leg out of DC the previous week. This is where I got to witness the impressive architecture and open space of 30th street station in Philadelphia. As a counterpoint to the spectacle, the station seemed filled with crazy people I kept having to rush past without stopping, it wasn't even that late (11pm).
This is where I caught the much reviled Septa local train to travel to irchance's part of town. Despite giza's warnings, it was okay I guess, though the door system was weird, and I didn't appreciate a guy shouting the stops in my face in a very loud voice for the entire journey (my stop was at the end of a very long line). Put that info on an LED display, damn. Finally I met my friend, whom I will call Hadley! It was about 1am by the time we got to his apartment, bearing in mind I got up at 8am. Again I was zombified and we pretty much crashed out straight away.
The next day was the Wednesday, and we headed out to enjoy a very fine breakfast at Chik-fil-a, my very first visit. A strange place by my standards, more than 50% of the staff were white and middle aged. I state this purely as an observation; where I come from the reverse is nearly always true. At the risk of putting my foot in my mouth, this feels like a better state of affairs, in so far as over 50% of menial work being performed by the ethnic majority (I consider fast food work to be menial work). It's logical, right? Anyway, leaving that minefield behind...
Hadley is a lovely guy, very sweet, very smart, into a bunch of deviant things I am, and appreciates the more insane side of humour also. Cute also, cute accent, and more obviously gay than me. Not a bad thing. Again I was to suffer the random generosity of internet strangers. We had to hit the road; he was driving us to another friend's house in Long Island, New York state. Not a route for the faint hearted, and we left reasonably late to avoid traffic hell. I paid my way of course, as I've done for all of my trip. It was almost exactly 10pm when we got there, crossing another two states off my list, New Jersey and New York. |
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| Ponymobile: 4, Other Cars: 0 |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|01:13 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Work | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sore | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Work noises | ] |
So I got in a wreck last night. I pulled through a gap in the traffic and got hit out of nowhere by a car I hadn't seen. It was my fault but she must have been hauling ass or had her headlights off or something because I honestly have no clue where her car came from.
Lucy was in the passenger seat (which took the full brunt of the collision) in her carrier and buckled in. She's fine, thank God, but I was freaking out and crying and petting her. The cops and EMTs seemed to just materialize moments after the crash. I was hysterical but managed to get a few pictures. Left the camera in my truck though.
Called my stepdad (who is always willing & able to help me out when I'm overwhelmed whereas my own Dad woudl just yell at me and guilt me out for the next few weeks and my Mom is more hysterical than I am). They got there pretty quick too.
The cop tried to get his cruiser out of the road and had a hell of a time not getting hit himself. That section of road is a mile south from the mall so all northbound traffic is thick and full of crazy holiday shoppers who would rather run your ass over than delay their shopping. I would have laughed if the cop had been hit (he nearly was by half a dozen different cars who didn't seem to see the flashing lights or hear the siren).
I am oddly glad that the other girl's car is much more messed up than mine. She was driving a cheap Chevy Aveo thing and her engine compartment is now much more compact. Headlights, grill, bumper, all of that is toast. Her passenger airbag went off but I don't think the driver's side did. I got some pictures of her car too along with her license plate.
Put Lucy at my apartment and fed her. Mom wanted me to go to Saint Francis b/c I was so out of it (from shock not injuries). I wasn't bleeding or even bruised so we tried a minor emergency but it was a two-hour wait to see a doctor. Just said "eff it", went to walmart for tylenol ($2, woohoo!), and she and David took me back to their house.
After a night's sleep I'm feeling a little hungover but still not bruised or anything. My head is sort of muddled. I keep losing track of what I'm doing and when. That's fromt he adrenaline rush, then the adrenaline crash, and sleeping in a very cold room (~ 63ºF) on a very hard bed. I got to meet Lisa's new kitten. He's cute and surprisingly warm. I call him "Frank". :3
Tonight I get to take the truck (via a free tow truck - thanks Geico!) to the Ford dealership a mile from my house. That's where we bought the truck to begin with. I also apparently signed up for rental assistance so I get a free POS rental car from Enterprise (we're talking Nissan Versa or Chevy Aveo aka a DEATHTRAP) until my truck is fixed. Yay for free rental car! I wonder if they'll let me pay the extra $3/day to upgrade to something like a Toyota Corolla. I really don't want to be driving some tin can around for a week while they put a new door & windshield on my pickup.
Ugh - time to get back to work and see if I can't dig myself out of all this mess.
Oh and HAPPY HOLIDAYS if I don't post again before Christmas. |
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| Snowed in... |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|02:53 pm] |
So last night Basingstoke was hit by some of the worst snow in the country (how can snow hit someone and be bad I will never know)... Anyway today was officially a now day!!!
Thing is I loved it yesterday coming home - I walked 4.7 miles in the snow and got home in about the same time as it normally takes me to wait and catch a bus... So I might just start walking home in the evenings - I've never seen so many people in Basingstoke walking before either!! The streets were packed and completely grid locked and people were actually walking *smirk* ahhh the irony...
I wish Aggy was in bed with me this morning to cuddle up to as it would have made the snow all the more special than it already it; Anywho this morning I was ambushed by one of our neighbours kids to go sledging with him and his mom down at the Grange and it was an absolute blast!!! I don't care what anyone says - I come from a tropical climate and snow is still fun *grin* |
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| Snow And The Misanthrope |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|12:25 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | plays | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
Last night I went to see The Misanthrope with slemslempike. I may not share Slem's deep appreciation of Keira Knightley but she was very good, as was Damian Lewis in the title role. The script was sharp and sparkled along nicely.
I got to do my party piece about how Molière's comedy is descended from the Greek New Comedy of Menander and the Roman Comedy of Plautus and Terence, because I did about a fifth of my degree on the subject so I feel I should mention it occasionally.
When it started pelting with snow at 3PM, I felt quite smug that I'd decided to get the train in again. I was less smug on the concourse at Charing Cross at 10PM as I watched my train's details progress across the departure board without gaining a platform number, then vanish only to reappear constantly 'expected' at a minute earlier than the current time.
It eventually slunk in half an hour late, and what with that and a wait at Grove Park for a guard to walk over from the depot it was a quarter to midnight by the time I got home and I was feeling pretty misanthropic myself.
As I trudged up the road, a large fox trotted out of a nearby garden towards me. I said "Hello fox!" and it gave me a look of dismay, skidded to a halt, spun 180° like a cartoon character and galloped back the way it had come. |
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| Feeling Fat |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|10:06 am] |
Three days before Christmas, this is not a good feeling. Granted, it's largely because I can't get to the gym at the moment. I live with my Dad and it's not fair for him to drive out in all the snow, late at night, to pick me up. I haven't drunk that much but little increments make a big wuff. I had been making progress a fortnight ago - I had lost some weight - but I probably have piled it back on again. I wish I could stop drinking and nibbling.
I guess the sluggishness and inertia of this time of year is taking its toll too. Clean trousers are always a little tight due to the contraction in the wash. Thing is the fleeces are a little small too. I hate my belly :-(
Ah well, guess all I can really do is sort it in January. But I have a special piece of attire (see posts below) that I need to fit into this Christmas - I just hope its stretchy and doesn't show off my hideous belly too much... |
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| Shameless |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|09:16 am] |
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Burdened by an overabundance of cash? Why not buy me something from either my Amazon Wishlist or my Wishlistr one. That will guarantee you Christmas cheer and some respite from the coming Hedgehog Uprising :) |
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| nusic mews |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|07:08 am] |
Okay, some music news, seeing as a) I can't sleep, b) I've been meaning to post this for ages, and c) it'll let me close down some tabs, so I have less to return to when I come back from my folks'.
- Schrödinger's Dog on SoundCloud
This is the new place where I'll be posting individual tracks, remixes, DJ sets and all that good stuff. Basically, the stuff that goes on SC is the stuff that I would normally post on LJ, and I may still do that; however SC will now be the #1 place for non-album tracks, works-in-progress, ideas, and whatever else I feel like flinging up there. It's quicker to upload stuff there, as I can (usually) just put an mp3 up and make it available for download, so it's a faster way to share. I'm planning to upload a mixture of older and newer stuff, but it's early days yet. I also have a DropBox on there, should you wish to send me... well, anything I guess. Awesome tunes, samples, stuff to remix, whatever's cool.
- Schrödinger's Dog on BandCamp
On the other side of things, BandCamp (which I found largely thanks to Atomic Skunk) is the place where I post more complete work. It features albums and EP's, and notably everything on that account is original -- no remixes or any use of others' work. Another important point about BC is that everything is, and as far as I'm concerned always will be, available for free, in pretty much whatever format you would like. It's a pain uploading the .wav files, but it's worth it for the fidelity of the end result. So far I've posted 2 EP's and 2 albums, and I think that's pretty much me done for the year. Everything's posted under a Creative Commons license, too.
With the announcements out of the way, I figured I'd post about some other musical stuff I've found and liked. First up, most folks will have probably heard about Nine Inch Nails having done their last live performances ever (for certain values of "ever" I suspect, but I digress), although Trent's been a little ambiguous as to whether this means the end of NIN entirely -- and hopefully it isn't. Anyway, a number of fan projects have sprung up to document the last shows, most notably This One Is On Us. Among the remarkable performances of those last shows, one of particular note was the first ever complete performance of landmark 1994 album The Downward Spiral. Although this is going to be available as a semi-official bootleg DVD, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube here. The project's Twitter feed is worth following, as it occasionally throws up real gems like this comprehensive collection of NIN bootlegs.
Also via Twitter, a friend recommended Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture, a new journal with some pretty interesting content. Talking of interesting, and I'm pretty sure I only tweeted this, there's a full manual for Neon the lightsynth/visualiser built into every X360. Most people don't know that you can actually control it, and it's a lot of fun to play around with; Jeff Minter's stuff has been something I've followed for years, since the days of the Atari ST.
More locally, and found via a friend who's sadly no longer on LJ, I've recently enjoyed two excellent mixes based on the Sheffield sound: Destroyed By Gods, which has good commentary on the page, is largely about the scene before I came here, but nonetheless remains a part of my background and influence; Brain Aided Dancing is perhaps a more diverse mix, tied together by the common thread that the artwork on all releases was done by the Designers Republic. This studio officially closed in January of this year, but I suspect they will go on; I fell in love with their style as soon as I first saw it, perhaps on the iconic PS1 game wipE'out".
Sort of related to the Sheffield sound, TG have released their version of the gloriously, weirdly wonderful Buddha Machine: Gristleism. I've not got one yet, but it's quite high up on the list of things I'd like to get hold of.
Moving on to free stuff now, Vulpvibe Records have renamed themselves (again?) to Lapfox Trax, and have a ton of free music, as well as a few bits for producers, all of pretty high quality. It's not entirely the kind of thing that's to my taste, but there's a few on there that I like. There's also some pretty nice free stuff over at Big Lion Music, and the guy's worked on a lot of chiptune/game music type stuff. There's some apps for sound creation over at leafcutterjohn.com, but I haven't yet had time to check them out; similarly, there was a bunch of cool stuff over at programchild.biz, but as of yesterday (at least) the site seems to be down.
Back over on SoundCloud, I would recommend the following:
- Pretty much anything/everything by Beatman and Ludmilla, and not just because they were the first strangers to follow me on SC.
- Similarly, I would be remiss if I didn't recommend jeremylk's stuff, as he's a good friend who's supported me virtually throughout my music-producing career. I particularly like Killing Moon (Lord Kook's Retrobreak Mix), in his words a 'Dance-floor-oriented, break-beat-flavored remix of Echo and the Bunnymen's seminal "Killing Moon"'.
- I also love mosaik's remix of an Imogen Heap track, The Song That Never Was.
- Finally, I'm pretty impressed with Bassnectar's dubstep-y Where Is My Mind (Bassnectar Remix), of course a version of the legendary Pixies track. I'm a bit indifferent to the rest of the band's output -- it's competent but doesn't, for me, really stand out -- but this remix is sweet.
This may well be my last post of the year, and certainly the last I'll make from home; I'm due to be going to my folks' today, insomnia and potential delays due to snow nonwithstanding, but I should be around online a bit. Plenty more to write about, but it can wait; I'll be back in about 2 weeks. |
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| Attention to livejournal, and friends from that |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|12:19 am] |
Following from my comment yesterday it seems I've found how to get my beloved ascii text box back ^^
Also following from my thoughts yesterday, it struck me that I do need to spend more time finding out how those around me are doing, and that doing so gives that rewarding fuzzy community feeling.
I suppose it all started when I went abroad for so long. After all, if I'm not around, its only natural for me to fade from people's consciousness. And also being away having adventures in some far flung country means its hard enough to be there for my wonderful Temjin, let alone anyone else.
But the fact of the matter is that I'm back, and as far as I know, I'm not going anywhere soon! ;) |
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| 今日 |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|12:02 am] |
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| score! |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|05:55 pm] |
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Nevermind on that previous link soup, Karnythia's missing relative's been found. |
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