Both clans are here or nearby, sleeping. Our rings, worn throughout engagement, are freshly polished and nestled in little boxes (we feel so naked without them!)

All is quiet.

Kathy, I love you.

All our tomorrows start here¹.

P.S. Still yes?

1- Apologies to Neil Gaiman.

Tags: w00t!

Nine inch Nails does it again!

No really! New single out, full download available shortly from here.

Update: a little while later they released the whole fricking album! Sounds good too, have at it here.

Tags: NiN

Kathy made a recent addition to her wheels. 'scuse the crap fisheye photo, 'twas taken late in the day with my phone...

and her latest acquisition...

looks like a big animal... sorta like a puma...

Tags: Halo, warthog, subaru, brumby, brat

You remember a while back I had a bit of a rant about one telemarketing company that kept on calling our landline even though all of our numbers are on the Do Not Call register? Well seems like the register is causing more of these cockbite spammers to get starving enough to try to get around the restrictions.

We're now getting about one call every couple of days, always with a Sydney caller ID but different company-like premium numbers ie. ones that end in 00 or 11. They hang up as soon as you or the answering machine picks up. I'm guessing the idea is that if you call them back you're somehow giving them tacit consent to call you. It's pissing me off. Not hugely but just enough to (once again) wish that s[p|c]ammers and telemarketroids (is there really much of a difference?) be the first up against the wall and shot in a revolution. In the knees.

Seems I'm not the only one. There's a really handy site that helps you gain more info about these bottomfeeders: whocallsme. Turns out every single 02 number we've had of late has been on this database. Ah well, it keeps the answering machine amused...

a special circle...

Tags: spammers, diaf

Try this if you've a minute or two. It's interesting when you compare yours to other results.

Mine is after the cut. Read More...

Cool.

It's not a huge stretch to come to the conclusion that iPods and other DAPs have well and truly changed the way we listen to music. Having as much as your entire CD collection in your pocket will do that.

I think Chappo nailed it one day when we were rabbitting on about... whatever it was we were rabbitting on about at the time. He said he likes listening to albums all the way through and thought that the "mp3 generation" was missing out. After thinking about it and experimenting I think he's right.

All of a sudden the concept of an album as a coherent piece of work in its own right is diminished and shuffle play or album/artist/genre traversing playlists, and single track digital purchases reign. Tracks live or die by themselves, and if you listen on full shuffle, transitions can be at best amusing but more likely downright jarring. I'm not saying that Enya and Rammstein couldn't eventually get along having a few bevvies at the local, but musically it's a bit of a jump.

Sure, you could just turn shuffle off but that makes picking music a completely manual process (sayeth he in his best blonde 'Maths is hard!' voice...) iPods these days - and I'm sure other DAPs worth their salt - have a nice compromise called Album Shuffle, that (funnily enough) picks an album at random, then plays it from start to finish before moving on. It's not rocket science but I think it's significant in that it can help you re-appreciate each album.

I've been listening this way for the last month or so and it really makes a nice difference. My work commute is anything up to 45 mins so that fits in up to an album each way. It's like you're no longer listening to some radio station programmed by a musical version of a dyslexic, but you're listening to your CD collection again. I'm not describing it here well but give it a go, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the difference.

Tags: iPod

...would be inaccurate.

Would it be inaccurate to say that the content of this blog has gone mouldy to the point where it's developed its own currency, culture, and is plotting the demise of the rest of the site? Not so much.

More updates inbound.

Tags: No really