Has new toys ...

Before launching into the main post, a few words for an Auntie who passed away this weekend. We always got a very warm welcome when visiting the Northern branch of the family and a lot of that was due to this lovely lady who I had the great privilege to have as an aunt. Very sad to hear that she's gone, thoughts go out to the Rotherham people.

Cunning plan : head over to get new eleccy bits on a Sunday when, theoretically, traffic will be quiet.

Doh ! So much for the cunning plan, I ended up having my arms almost coming off carrying half of the new toys the couple of hundred yards to the car park. (I decided to take the Richer Sounds people's advice on the other half and parked outside the store)

So - what have I got ?

I got bored of waiting for the Denon kit, plus I was reading reviews that said that their budget AV kit was a bit lacking compared to the competition. So I went for an Onkyo TX-SR508 and a set of Tannoy SFX5.1 speakers. This afternoon was spent setting it all up after this morning had me dismantling the old gear and moving things around a little. (there's still a bit to do there)

<> Quick addon - the Onkyo is now On Probation. I'm getting regular sound cut outs of about 0.5 secs each time. Suspect that it's a heat related that the amp has no business having because it's in open space.

The Onkyo receiver is simple enough, you put the multitude of wires in and turn it on. I'm impressed with how seamlessly it has snuck in between my various bits and pieces. Cable box goes to telly as before, telly sends audio to receiver. Blu-ray goes through receiver to telly. Itunes will go in the front for now, until I get me another lead. Xbox will go in there too but is another that needs a lead because I got to scavenging. It has menus that can overlay on to the telly screen.

Let it do its automatic setup and it's all sorted.

The speakers are a similar story, although I wasn't really expecting having to cut the leads down to size myself. There's a decent amount of cable included (looks like 42 strand thickness) and it cut down easily with normal wirecutters. Glad I found some of those, perhaps a scary sign of my maturity (maturity = scary bit) is that I wasn't looking forward to going Old Skool (teeth) to strip the wires.

How's it sound ? Telly sounded great, including not having the grating sound that's marred the telly speakers since I cleaned the dust off.

There's a lesson : Dust keeps vibration away

I'm now watching Star Wars Episode 1, which (with a little tweak to boost the centre speaker slightly) is sounding quite impressive. It'll sound better when I have the room arranged to satisfaction as clutter tends to deaden sound. Getting good bass thrum from the loud stuff and it's picking out the huge selection of noise sources (people in crowd, music from action, things like that) pretty well.

Music testing (extensive) will come later. For now though, I have to draw this post to a close cos the popcorn is getting cold. And the Boonta Eve Classic just started.

Pocket has hole burning through it

It's getting closer ...

That's Techie Stuff buying situation. There's people claiming to be selling the amp + speakers that is now definitely a ME WANT. Watching Iron Man 2 off blu-ray (awesome film) tonight kicked it up from "me would likey" to "ME WANT". You see, most blu-rays come with a soundtrack that my current amp + speakers doesn't understand, so I need an upgrade.

I also need to move a lot of stuff around, to make a new setup work better. Trouble is, there's people claiming to be selling it but unless I see a box in a shop, I won't trust them. I also prefer to buy local too, it's just so much easier being able to drive to a shop than have to arrange time away from work (or weekends) to pick things up. The internet shop results have a couple of promising options but those options are 100 miles away on the way to/from where my mum & dad live (and 100 miles away from Mom 2 as well).

Local wins out in being able to head back to pick up the bits you should have bought but forgot. Like the 3 trips to B+Q to fix a weepy ballcock. (In this case, it'll be picking up wire ...)

It's getting closer though. The PC upgrade is getting closer too. There's now a 22/23" touchscreen with decent screen performance on the market, made by Viewsonic. So there's a couple of times (neatly coinciding with a couple of key dates) where I'll buy stuff coming :

Birthday - the new Denon surround sound set. Hopefully they won't let me down here.
Xmas - PC Upgrade. The later you leave PC stuff, the better the stuff that arrives. And then you don't look at hardware or prices for at least 6 months because you depress yourself thinking about what you could have had if you'd waited a week.

The Denon gear will need to be shown off. That's a given. Which means sometime over the next little while, I'll need to clear the house out ... I live in clutter, which is curious for an OCD tending person. I know where my clutter is though, including the stuff I should have thrown out a while ago. I have it mapped, so clearing it up weirds me out. It's one of the many contrasting elements of my personality :

Order vs Chaos. Mad Scientist vs Methodical. Sprinter vs Couch Potato. (I do like the feeling of pinning the ears back and GOING FOR IT). Solitary vs Herd. I like my space but it does get awful lonely sometimes.

It's just coming into Birthday & Xmas season at the moment too, so I'm trying to keep a lid on what I impulse buy. The PC and Denon are both way far out of the present bracket, which makes it safe for me to lust after them.

And it is lust too, lust in the way only toy loving engineers can have.

(We engineers have "normal" urges too - I went ~wibble~ many times earlier watching Iron Man 2, ~wibble~ moments strangely coinciding with Scarlett Johanssen appearing in the Black Widow outfit)

So - showing off the goods. What do I need to do for that ?

Make house presentable (urg). Rearrange lounge (easy). Break out the hoover (whereditgo?). Remove old telly (may need help or forklift). Pass on the old speaker set (see PS below). Find someone who will help me appreciate it (challenge).

I'll settle for lusting after better bits for the moment and maybe, just maybe will get cracking on cleaning house & rearranging main room.

PS After I get the Denon, I'll have a Creative Labs DTT-2500 set going spare to a good home ... As good as most budget hifi setups at music (comparing to Rotel RA820A amp and Big Tannoy speakers - translation : very decent budget stuff) and it only cost me £160 new about 10 years ago. Very discreet too with small components on display with the big one hidden.

Hugs

Someone I know could do with one of these :

Sleepy's Top 10

Ok, I tried staying awake while watching the football but have found it more and more difficult to not nod off. Which makes it a perfect time to go hunting Youtube for links to videos of my iTunes Top 10.

Most of these are in the Top 10 because they've been in my library for a lot of years but they're also there cos they're amazing songs too.

At No 10, we have the opening track off Kate Bush's The Kick Inside. It's Moving. Really overdoing it on the dancing :-)

9th is one from Tori Amos and I have to admit, it has been a Pretty Good Year this one. My own personal confidence is up (no coincidence that I'm busier) and there's been a good few successes along the way. Cricket this year was good fun. This song is off Tori's second album, Under The Pink (album version is better, there's a very weird bit in the middle of this live version!).

At 7 and 8 are a couple of very rare Alisha's Attic tracks from their Attic Vaults 1 cd which never got to the shops. I got this one from Ebay, direct from their Mom. At 7 is Free and 8 is Too Far Forgotten. Both typically upbeat AA tracks that'll get your toes tapping. We want Attic Vaults 2 !

Number 6. Oh absolutely wonderful stuff from Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. Beware though, this song could make you cry. It's Ghost of a Dog.

Oldie and a good one at 5 with The Bangles. One of those tracks that somehow didn't get to a greatest hit. I love it, it's Return Post and a lot rockier live than on their first album ...

4th is my favourite Alisha's Attic track, it's The Incidentals from their Illumina album. You know those tracks that have their own momentum that picks you up and sweeps you along with them ? This is one of them. Can never resist singing along to this one, even when I'm not alone ...

Top 3 ! Third most listened to is All About Eve with Martha's Harbour. I've been enchanted by Julianne Regan's voice for the past 30 years ... and this song is the one that kicked that off.

2nd is another Edie Brickell song from her Ultimate Collection. No youtoob link though because "1873" is too rare for anyone to link it ...

Most listened to track ? Another All About Eve :-) This one's the Apple Tree Man. (Dunno what the pics on that link are all about ...) More of Julianne Regan's unique voice in that trademark AAE combination with the acoustic guitar. They don't make music like this any more ...

I've listened to Apple Tree Man 66 times so far and if I hadn't changed how I select what I listen to, that may have gone through 100 :-) Wonder what it says about me when my favourite songs are ladies singing of love.

Artists that just barely missed out on being in this Top 40 were :

Adam and the Ants : Ants Invasion. This one has Epic Feel running right through it.
Michelle Shocked : Can't find Vx Fx Dx but here's one almost as good, all the way from Anchorage, Alaska.
Suzanne Vega : telling the other side of Calypso and Hercules. (Listening to "Songs in Red and Gray" at the moment)
Before that Costner film, there was Robin of Sherwood and a very special soundtrack. Tracks like Together We really helped set the tone.

And finally, F1 coverage hadn't been the same when it was on the channel with adverts. However, when it came back to BBC there was an instant feeling that it was back where it belonged. How come ? The unmistakable chords of the guitar solo in The Chain by Fleetwood Mac.

Holiday or Grind ?

Think I've achieved something this week - I've managed to go the whole week without the cabin fever erupting.

I've even had enough supplies in to last it this far. Probably won't last until Monday/Tuesday (never go shopping on a Monday night ...) which means emerging out the front door. I've had the car parked in CK's drive (he doesn't use it and there's an understanding on lifts & stuff) which has kept it off the road but has me feeling very guilty about leaving it there.

I haven't been completely walled off from the world, although that is tempting sometimes. I've had a works laptop at home with me and have been occasionally checking in. It's a sign of IT progress that you can log in with your own broadband and have a completely secure connection. Handy for any organisation, they all have stuff that they don't want the competition to know. What it means is that I'll have an easy reintroduction to the routine on Monday, having got all the super urgent stuff out the way as it's come this week. I also haunt 2 forums, Facebook and have been keeping up with the guys & girls in WoW when I've not tunnelled into Grind Mode.

What have I been getting up to ? Lots of gaming, lots of music :-)

The gaming has been heavily in Warcraft, which is good and bad. I've been collecting Achievements, which is an ingame way of saying "I Done Stuff". It's changed the way I play, in that I've concentrated on a main character instead of switching around several like I used to. Mind you, that's partly because I've been grinding money.

Question : What did you do on your time off work ?
Answer : I was working For The Horde

Heh heh heh.

I've been overdoing it too, as I have to watch the time I spend in game. It's strange, extended Warcraft time hits me with a tensing up in my collarbone. But it does give me a perfect excuse to listen to lots of music.

I've had a few "new" albums appear in the last couple of weeks :

The XX - an iTunes live EP. If you've not heard of The XX, they're the Next Big Sound of 2010. My sister and I heard one track from them which was offered free as iTunes Single Of The Week. Within the day we both bought their debut album and we've followed that by buying the live EP. They have a fairly unique sound and are a Must Listen.

Sleeper - Smart. An older album but still a good one. One beef I have with the shops is that if they think a group or artist is finished, they'll not bother stocking their music. So an album like this or even a group like The Cardigans get criminally ignored, which leads to artists giving up before they've gifted us with all their talent can give. This album's another good one from Sleeper.

Cardigans - iTunes Originals. Kind of like a Greatest Hits, which I usually steer clear of because I've usually got all the tracks on albums already. This one got bought because it has commentary from the artists themselves. Really enjoying this one, it's recent enough to have a lot of their best stuff on it.

KT Tunstall - Tiger Suit. Another talented artist who's graced us with another excellent album. Here's the best track from it, which kinda sums me up to : Still A Wierdo

PS Listened to 1757 tracks so far for 4.8 days of music in the last 4 weeks :-) Over 800 different tracks in a week. Will have to see if I can break 2000 or 5 days.

If Facebook (and blogging) existed years ago

Lol :

More here :
http://www.hotsynch.com/funny/fb.html?re&ref=nf

Yes, this is one of those FB things I had to steal.

What's the best way to avoid mistakes ?

Research ... Research & even more Research.

All good, just as long as all that research doesn't turn into procrastination :-) I'm good at that too.

I'm researching a couple of areas at the moment. Going back into Warcraft has hit my current games PC hard enough to have me seriously considering some new hardware. I'm also looking at upgrading my amp and speakers to something that'll handle the soundtracks on Blu-Ray discs better. The problem there is surround sound, my current speaker set doesn't understand DTS codes and gives me stereo instead of surround.

There's a few times when I've bought kit and had problems with it. I've then looked it up online to find a heap of "Why'd you go for that pile of xxx ? It's rubbish !" comments. So I do my research now. I have a few sources for that, including places like www.overclockers.com (can go to Supreme Geek level). I'll also look in magazines. This month saw the arrival of a Custom PC mag and PC Gamer to replace the now dead PC Zone.

You can find yourself behind the times very quickly in computers, as the pace of progress is lightning. I make it a rule to not check bits sellers for a few months after I jump into an upgrade as you buy one week, next week something better is out. It's also half the price. Can get depressing so you ignore the price lists for a while.

How do you catch up with what's current ? Know what to read and what to research ...

That means, figuring out who the idiots are (Computer Shopper) and who are more interested in pumping up ratings for their advertisers. The telltale signs are people who continually pump up ratings on some products (What Sony magazine aka What Hifi ? reputations like that don't come without being earned) while ignoring others. Like you know there's an awesome component out there that you want to read an independent test for but the magazine on the shelf covers 5 products from another company instead. So the magazine stays on the shelf. The best tests back up their opinions with hard numbers.

I think I've learned something from Custom PC and PC Gamer this month, which will definitely go into the bits I'll buy. I'm on leave this week, which would have been the perfect chance to build (and thoroughly test!) a new box. It'll wait a while, because a couple of bits of technology (SSD drive and touchscreen) aren't ready yet. For "ready", read "cheap". My current box just about handles what I throw at it, so I can afford to wait a bit.

The hifi world is another story though. I really don't know where to look for advice on what to get here.

A new hifi is a considerable investment and there's quite a bit of individual taste that goes into appreciating it. Or so say the magazines ... That's not my main beef with the magazines though, it's the snobbery they put into what they write. They'll put "Budget amplifier supertest" on the cover and then ignore all the £150-£200 amps. The price bracket they look at is stupidly high. Yes, I can actually afford £600 for an amp or £800 on a speaker set but that's not because I tend to go for that kind of frivolous spend.

So the hunt for new hifi stuff (the one I have is over 10 years old ...) isn't being informed as much as the hunt for pooter gear. We'll see what turns up. I reckon it'll be a piece of Denon kit, as they're a well trusted make that rarely gives anything other than Excellence. And when they don't know how to make Excellence, they buy it in from people who do. Like rebranding Tannoy or Mission speakers with the Denon name. Good for both companies.

Trouble with Denon though is they're being slow to get their stuff in the shops and people like Onkyo (who dat ?) and Pioneer are beating them to it. So it's tempting to spend the money now instead of waiting for Better.

Will I pay attention to the research when I eventually jump ? Maybe ! But by researching, I'll know more about what I'm getting even if I do compromise.

Oh - I'm on holiday this week, where I intend to do not very much at all :-) Until I get cabin fever (hopefully that'll hit on a sunny day) and then I'll try and resist spending cash on expensive electronic stuff.

Thursday Thirteen - more Top 40

It's a Thursday Thirteen day again, I'm doing this Top 40 thing so I get an excuse to zero my iTunes playcounts ... what can I do !

Top 40 - I left it at 21 last time so now it's numbers 20 to 11 with a bonus three to finish.

1 - At 20 with 58 plays is one of the best tracks ever to come out of All About Eve, it's Wild Hearted Woman (with a bonus for the first 3 minutes). I know a couple of these, they're great fun to be around but you have to watch for getting burned ...

2 - At 19 with 59 plays is Crowded House with Four Seasons In One Day. I'm fully intending to camp the telly for Friday pm and the weekend to watch Ryder Cup Golf. And I'm betting Four Seasons in One Day is something I'll be watching.

3 - More weather related stuff (an omen ?) as Crowded House tell of the Weather With You in the 18 spot.

4 - 17 is All About Eve again with What Kind Of Fool (typically bad BBC sound engineering there). There's a line here "leaves all their treasure to rust in the rain". That'd be my chav neighbour (not CK) who's left a box of tools outside his front door, separated from the pavement by a small sapling. They've been there for months without mysteriously disappearing ...

5 - 16th sees Kate Bush with the signature track of the Lionheart album : Oh England, My Lionheart. It's in the middle of this album and when it starts up you just stop and go Wow. For the second time because the track Wow comes up earlier.

6 - 15th is more Kate Bush singing about what we all know : Mother Stands For Comfort. This one is from the Hounds Of Love album, need to listen to these again - soon ! Remember folks, whatever the trackname says, our mom's need our support too. Look after them :-)

7 - 14th is back to All About Eve with the final track off the Touched By Jesus album. Are You Lonely ? Yeah, I get pretty lonely these days. But I have some great friends that take the edge off that. Oh, that's not whale music that starts it, that's David Gilmour of Pink Floyd playing with his guitar.

8 - 13th. A change ! Tori Amos with Space Dog. This one is typical Tori Amos, quirky and fun. Have a listen, it'll make you grin.

9 - 12th is a favourite of advertisers. You'll definitely recognise Aquarium when you hear it, originally from Carnival Of The Animals. Beautiful piece and it's the most listened to piece of classical or soundtrack music in my library.

10 - 11th in the library and last for today and it's Kate Bush again with one of the most sensual tracks ever written. It's what I hope I am : The Man With The Child In His Eyes.

11 - and the first of today's random tracks ... There's a couple more albums on the way to me, the first is the one that got away from Sleeper. The new album is Smart but here's one from their first album. You know when things fall to bits and you wonder : What Do I Now ? Classic Sleeper, hoping for more like this from Smart.

12 - the other album on the way is KT Tunstall's new Tiger Suit. Linky here is to Suddenly I See, as an answer to the last track :-) Great video.

13th - Has to be a tribute to one of the Great Hollywood actors who died today. Always a star, Tony Curtis.

A gaming life

First mention is an aside. Summer 2010 will be known as the Summer of the Great Cake Famine. That was broken in style today with our Snow Queen bringing in a banquet of home made nomnoms. I join the rest of the project in restarting my diet tomorrow.

Quote "That strawberry cake was da bomb! Lush :)" A very happy birthday my dear Snow Queen :-)

I tend to go in cycles with my gaming. I'll go for one game and play it to death. This time, I'm back in the slippery slope of World of Warcraft ...

It's a recurring theme from the first phase of my blog, although the circumstances have changed considerably since then. When I started up this blog, I'd just had a relationship break up and reacted by throwing myself completely and utterly into the game.The stuff in game replaced relationships outside. Before, I'd been doing things with my partner, now I was filling the gap by doing stuff online with the guild and with Guildlink.

The in game stuff had completely taken over from the real life stuff. I learned later that this was rather unhealthy. I'd been keeping a guild together and negotiating our participation with the Guildlink alliance of guilds. Gamers tend to be quite headstrong and being disconnected from the face to face by being on the internet really doesn't help there. A lot of silliness is created in the text only medium that doesn't happen face to face.

I also ended up expecting a little too much from a few people involved in the game, which led to the unhealthy stuff I mentioned earlier. Blog Part 1 is a rollercoaster tale of ups and downs, where I ended up bouncing in and out of the game as it got too much.

I'm hoping for a bit different this time around, having been in for about a month now. The situation is very different. I'm away from some real aggro that built up on my previous server, having jumped to a different one to join some rather fantastic people called Violence Reborn. I knew one or two of them from the old server but hadn't really been involved in what they get up to. I've had that privilege now a few times and I'm really enjoying coming back in.

But ... and there's always a but ...

Moderation is always the key. Too much of a good thing will sour the experience. I can only take so much of the more intense gameplay style in WoW before my shoulder/collarbone muscles try to strangle me. I'm also enjoying having no responsibility this time around. There's plenty of respect coming my way (I think some expectations I'm having trouble living up to as well) but no responsibility. Except perhaps to be worthy of that respect. Being a guild leader was a rush for a while but I'm quite happy to avoid anything like that in the future.

It's kind of a "Do Once" thing. Happy being just a player now, it's easier to arrange your life around that.

There's one difference between the WoW experience and the Eve experience : respect. I've never felt I've had that much respect from the Eve crew, outside of the few I know from face to face. Respect for each other is the key to good relations. It's earned too, which is probably why I don't have it from the Eve people. I've simply not been in game enough.

So there we have it. Summer's come to an end and with it the cricket season. Gaming is filling the gap and it's pretty good at the moment. The cycle has me using Mass Effect for an unthinking blast, Settlers IV for brainless R+R and Warcraft for enjoying chatting and playing with other people. And the shoulder keeps it in healthy moderation.

You can lose yourself in these games, be that through emotional stuff or going to bed at 3.30am to get up at 7.30am. Too much of no sleep and you'll get fired. Not good. The emotional stuff gets heavy too but I'll hopefully avoid that as long as I avoid responsibility.

I think I ended up doing Wall Of Text again. Reckon I'll be saving Numbers 20 to 11 for a later date but ... if anyone else has been seeing iTunes 10.0.1.22 problems with Airplay network speakers after the last patch : uninstall iTunes and reinstall. That should sort the network connectivity issues caused by some shoddy patching.

Really enjoying the gaming. WoW's been dumbed down a little more but I think what they've done is tidied it up a bit. Achievements add more purpose to the game. My third Iceangel just earned her first title : it's now Brewmaster Iceangel. Not a Merc any more but I'll not be changing my url :-)

Take the strain ...

... roll it into a little ball, throw it away somewhere and lose it.

That's what I hope to do sometime soon, before I do actually lose it. We're at a very busy time at the moment on the project, which is being accompanied by Great Things happening too. Lots of success at the moment, crossing fingers for some more of the same soon. It's come through a lot of hard work from everyone* involved, me included.

I'm bushed now though - I throw everything into what I do and have a tendency to burn myself out while getting on with it.

*Did I say everyone ? Well ... part of the strain I'm feeling at the moment is the expectation I seem to have as a "Go To Guy". It's a fine reputation to have, except it tends people to ask you to do stuff for them. Stuff they should really be doing themselves. (Definitely when it's their own jobs they don't seem capable of doing)

Maybe they think I'm really calm when inside, I'm being the whirling dervish going nuts trying to figure out how to do something. It's only some people (the lazy ones) who wind me up when they push their work on to me. With other people like The Angel, our Snow Queen and Ms Sunshine, it's a case of "why didn't you ask sooner ?"

If a pretty lady asks me to do something, I'll usually jump at the chance. And you know with the 3 ladies above, they've already tried their hardest to figure it out on their own. All I ask in return is the thank you and the smile which comes naturally. A smile from a pretty lady brightens the day like nothing else. It's worth more than gold, platinum or the first teacake in the morning.

There you go - cooperation is gained more willingly with a smile than a "do this because I don't want to"

It's a bit of a shame, because it takes the gloss off the successes we're having. Sometimes you believe that success happens despite some people rather than because of them. Maybe that's because we have a lot of special people to make up for the lightweights.

That's enough of that for now :-) Had to get it out and say it because I find it easier to deal with struggle by expressing it than if it's bottled up to fester. (I also have a strong management chain to help fend off the more unreasonable demands)

More Top 40 time :-)

At 30, bit of classical with Fossiles from Carnival of the Animals. This one is one of the more famous from that piece.
29 sees a bit more Kate Bush with Army Dreamers. Wonder if anyone thought when Army Dreamers was written 30 years ago that the world would see the Falklands War shortly after or that it would be in the state it's in now. This one's from the Never Forever album and is just about as poignant now as when it was written.
28 is another Kate Bush track with Wow. This one is from the Lionheart album and sums up Kate perfectly : Wow. I suspect listening to Kate Bush from an early age is one thing that fed my fascination with ladies with long dark hair.

27th is a track from Edie Brickell's Ultimate Collection. It's a track called Vodka, done with Carter Albricht. Listened to this 57 times in iTunes, it never gets old. Can't link it though, you'll need to get that cd :-)
26 is one of the more beautiful songs in my collection which closes out the Scarlet and Other Stories album from All About Eve. It's a story of The Pearl Fishermen. Very beautiful, very tragic and something else feeding that fascination from No 28.

25th and played 57 times is Alisha's Attic describing my normal state of being : Late Again. This one is another of my extensive Alisha's Attic B-side collection.
At 24 is another Alisha's Attic track, one of the signature tracks from their first album. I Am, I Feel, which kinda sums up the feelings I was pouring out up top :-) (TOTP's disaster of a sound department strikes again!) No miming here :-)

23 is the only entry in the Top 40 from Sleeper, with Click ... Off ... Gone. Proving that it's not just good vocals needed for great songs, the music around this one makes it stand out.
22 is Something from The Beatles. If there's anything that describes Love, it's this song.
Finally for today's part of the Top 40, it's Scarlet by All About Eve which has had 58 listens so far.

Time to round off a Wall Of Text with something I know somebody's going to be looking for ... There's a band I've been introduced to recently that isn't in this Top 40 cos of the head starts the All About Eve's, Kate Bush's and Alisha's Attic had. They're on the Patrol with one of my favourites from these guys : Chasing Cars.