I’ve just done a complete fresh install of WordPress 2.3.1 here on the Soapbox. Gave it a good scrub and now it’s all shiny. I’ll update the theme over the Christmas holidays. In the interim I’ll just leave this default theme in place.
Update: New theme in place. I like it 🙂
Michael Bywater has a rant on The New Humanist website about atheists not calling Christmas by that name. I agree with him. It’s known as Christmas to everyone and their dog. It’s not a religious festival for very many people that I know. From what I can see it’s not a religious festival anymore in the UK at all. Christmas is a national holiday to eat too much, spend too much and have a good time. Religion has nothing to add.
But we can and should call it Christmas. Lets avoid the so called War on Christmas drivel that gets trotted out and just have a good time over the holidays. Don’t worry about offending anyone. Religious or non-religious.
BTW: this is what a real War of Christmas would look like:
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This is a bit of a blast from the past. First released in 1972 on the Argus album by Wishbone Ash. The whole album is stunningly good. I could have picked several of the tracks for the Song of the Day, but Sometime World was chosen as it is very, very good indeed. Wishbone Ash were one of the first bands to use 2 lead guitarists. The guitar parts are multi-layered, complex and, most importantly, sound wonderful. Sometime World has a guitar section that reminds me of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird . If you liked that you’ll love Sometime World.
My advice? Buy Argus 🙂
Well sort off. Retro in looks and sounds like a real old phone when it rings. The numbers on the rotary dial are push buttons. See picture below. Quite heavy. Which is good, you can walk away from the phone with the handset and the base stays put. The whole things feels solid. it also gives a nice satisfying clunk when you put the handset back in it’s cradle. This is the 2nd new phone I’ve got recently. The other being an iPhone, which I’ll write about soon.
Click picture for larger view
BTW: The phone above is available from John Lewis.
I’ve just moved into a new role in work. My new title is Technology Consultant. A major part of the job function will be finding, evaluating and introducing new technologies into the company I work for and into our ICT offerings. I’ll also have a team of people working for me. Should be fun. Getting paid to look at new stuff. Obviously there will be more to it than that, but still…
The Omni Group have announced pricing and a release date for OmniFocus. I’ve been using the beta versions for a while. It’s a very nice application for sorting out the things you need to get done. It can help you implement the Getting Things Done methodology. Well worth checking out if you need an application to help sort your life out and keep track of all the tasks you need to do in work and personal life. The also have a nice movie, that is the first of a series to be posted, to show how to use the application.
I haven’t heard this song for ages. Several years, until it came up on random play in iTunes today. I was working from home writing stuff for work with the music as background. I did something I very rarely do these days and just let iTunes play songs at random from the whole library of between 4 & 5 thousand tracks. That’s just under 20 days of music if I let it play through the whole library.
Anyway it threw up In a Broken Dream by Python Lee Jackson with Rod Stewart as guest vocalist. This is a truly wonderful piece of music. The vocals are fantastic. The guitar is blistering. The bass guitar is stunningly good, and the drumming is a perfect rhythmic complement to the whole thing. It’s tracks like this that remind me what a truly wonderful thing music is. Brilliant.
I can’t find it on iTMS to link to it. There is a YouTube video of about 3 minutes 30 seconds of the track. It’s a video of a vinyl copy being played 🙂
It’ll let you get a good feel for the song. I have it on the best Rock Album in the world…ever. Vol 1.
The SF Sketchfest comedy festival is on in SF from 10th to 27th January. Happy days. I’ll be in San Francisco for 10 of those days. Have to keep an eye on the Sketchfest schedule to see who is performing on the nights I’m there.
First heard on the current TV ad for the Saab 93. Grabbed from iTMS.
Taken from the album Let There Be Love.
I’ve used my Marriott points and BA AirMiles, as discussed here, to book 10 days in San Francisco in January for Macworld Conference and Expo 2008. Planning on going to a day long Office 2008 launch event on Monday 14th, Steve Jobs keynote and expo hall on Tuesday 15th and then the Mac IT conference for the rest of the week. I’ll be in San Francisco from Friday 11th so will have a weekend before the conference for exploring and getting used to the time difference. I’m going to hire a bike and ride over the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito for lunch one day. I’ll have 1.5 days after the conference in San Francisco as well, 9 nights in total. Happily I have enough Marriott rewards points banked over the last 2 years to get the hotel for free (apart from local taxes). I’m also flying British Airways Club World both ways using BA Executive Club points to upgrade. Sweet 🙂
Terry Pratchett’s latest book featuring the Moist von Lipwig character who was introduced in the excellent Going Postal . I didn’t think that Making Money was as good as the other recent books in the Discworld series. For one thing it felt a bit short and rushed at the end. Was still a good read though. Looks like Moist will get another starring role in a book about taxes. Allegedly, Terry Pratchett said at a book signing in the USA that it would be called Raising Taxes.
BTW: I read this on my Sony Reader.
I wrote previously about choices for a new car when my current leasing contract ends. I had a Honda Civic Hybrid on loan today for a test drive. I love it. It has a 1.4 litre petrol engine but it feels much more like 1.8 litre. It uses electric motors to assist the engine when required, and the batteries get charged when you brake or go downhill. The hybrid feels as responsive as my current 1.8 litre Renault Laguna, plus it’s really nice to drive. Weird getting used to the engine turning off when you stop moving! Going to call the leasing company and find out how much the 1.4 IMA EX version with built in Sat Nav costs.
Thrown up on random play on a flight from San Francisco. It has an excellent guitar solo in the 2nd half of the song. Paul Roland’s stuff is very quirky but I love it. Snippet available on iTMS.
A few years ago I was in San Diego and got the head burnt off me by the Sun. I learnt my lesson then and don’t venture out in sunny climes now without a hat. I’ve now learnt the same lesson for my arms and neck! During a walk from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco yesterday, I got sunburnt on my arms and neck a lot. Lobster Boy rides again! Next time I’m walking along the sea front in San Francisco, it’ll be Factor 50 sun block for me (next time will either be MacWorld in January 2008 or the Apple WWDC in June 2008).
Posted from my iPod touch.
Update: Pictures from said stroll along the sea front are available here.
So I read on TUAW that some iPod touch units were starting to hit the Apple stores in the USA. So I hightailed it round to the San Francisco store to see if I could get one. I did. A 16GB one. There are unboxing photos in the web gallery linked on the right. In addition to being an iPod, it’s also a WiFi enabled Internet device. If you are reading this post then it seems that I can post to this site using the built in Safari web browser. More details and thoughts on the device to follow.
Update: Post spell checked and categories set from my MacBook Pro a few hours after posting from the iPod touch.
The Song of the Day category is for listing any song or piece of music, that I’ve heard on a particular day, that has reached into my brain and lit up the pleasure centres! There won’t be a post every day I expect.
Today a song that I really enjoyed when it came up on random play on the iPod in the car, was Back Chat live from Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl. Brilliant stuff. John Deacon’s bass playing is superb. I love this track from the Hot Space album. I was at the 1982 Milton Keynes Bowl concert. Right at the front at Brian May’s side of the stage. He does a sizzling lead break in Back Chat 🙂
Canicula. What does it mean?
Canicula is the Latin name of Sirius, The Dog Star.
Canicula
(||Ca*nic”u*la) n. [L.canicula, lit., a little dog, a dim. of canis dog;
cf. F. canicule.] (Astron.)The Dog Star; Sirius.
Sirius is in the constellation Canis Major and is the brightest star in the sky. More
info about Sirius can be found on Wikipedia.
Scivener may be a nice app. But it’s developer should dry his eyes. Jeez. The ADC Select membership includes pre-release versions of MacOS X. No promise is made about when versions will be made available. Attendance at WWDC is a separate issue. Many of the sessions at the conference discuss features that are in the latest Leopard beta so it makes sense for attendees to have access there and then. Apple have already said that they will post a Leopard beta for Select ADC subscribers in the near future.
Possibly. Paul Rodgers has been talking to Billboard.com. Apparently there are nine songs recorded for the new album. Some interesting insight into how Brian May holds the different layers of a song in his head and directs the recording of each bit individually. It then comes together in the edit. BTW it says in the interview that BHM has just got his PhD in Astronomy. According to Brian over on his site (see entry entitled Musing at Imperial College posted 18th June 2007), he has just finished the thesis but has still to submit it, do his defence and present to the Imperial College Astronomy Department. So still a bit of work to do. If you’re reading this, good luck!Anyone else doing a PhD should check out the PhD student comic strip. Actually that’s worth putting in your RSS reader even if you’re not doing a PhD.
