Big Willie Style
Right enough, he was playing in an aircraft hanger, but our seats were reasonably central and close to the stage, so at least there was something to see other than a little grey-haired blob, and something to hear other than echo.
Unfortunately, we did have to sit through Eddi Reader and friends, and their squeaky clean, overcooked "folk" which has next to nothing in common with the sort of music that... you know... folk make.
In contrast, while Nelson might be a 73-year-old supermerchandised icon of the country establishment, there's still something kinda grubby and occasionally even a bit ramshackle about his music which endows it with a humanity that's infinitely more likeable. R was a bit disappointed, however, by the atmosphere of the place. What would have had something of a party atmosphere in Texas was instead a rigidly-organized all-seated event with bouncers on hand for the whole night to make sure nobody dared stand up, or, God forbid, dance. Then again, there he would have attracted a much more diverse range of ages, whereas we felt like the youngest people in attendance last night.
Tonight I'm going to try and go to the gym, for the first time since November. Not a second too soon, either, since my diet of has consisted mainly of deep-fried lard sandwiches, and I'm feeling extra-unhealthy.
Labels: music
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Sunday, January 28, 2007
Sleep and Nelson
We slept pretty late today, since for the first time in a couple of weeks we've got nothing on that demands we get up. I'm now paying for it with a headache and the feeling that I've wasted half the day, but I'm grateful for the opportunity just to put my feet up, though.
We would probably have gone to bed earlier last night if we weren't kept awake by the drunk neds outside who kicked in the close door for the nth time. When we moved in it was a relatively quiet part of the street, and the shop downstairs was one that sold cards and smelly candles and the like. Now it's been replaced by a 24-hour store. Apparently, the most popular in Glasgow, especially after the pubs get out, and every weekend there's some disturbance down there. It's making us want to sell the place and get out, which is a shame because we love the flat. We've got a tiler coming next week to do the kitchen and sort out the wee bathroom, then I think we're going to tidy up what's here and get the hell out of Dodge.
Tonight, however, we are going to see Willie Nelson - which, being married to a proud Texan, is somewhat obligatory. He's always great, though, and has an energy that belies his 73 years. Unfortunately, he's playing the SECC in Glasgow. Hopefully he's in one of the smaller halls, because I've seen many an act swallowed up by one of its huge, soulless caverns. We went to see Eddie Izzard in there a couple of years ago, assuming that, and he was such a tiny, distant blob that it was almost exactly like watching a video with bad, echoey sound. So at the interval we went home and did exactly that, except from the comfort of our sofa and without 20,000 other people in attendance.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Decomputerisation
As part of the eternal war against kipple, yesterday I sold my SNES and N64 consoles to Dave in work. I'm sure he'll give them a good home. They simply weren't getting used often enough, and my life is cluttered enough as it is. I seem to vacillate between a pack-rat mentality which drives me to collect stuff I really don't need, and a more minimalistic personality that just wants to chuck out everything and have a life that can be easily packed in one suitcase. Right now, I'm in the latter stage. It's not that there weren't games for those two consoles that I enjoy, but I've got most of them on GBA, DS or Gamecube now, and Goldeneye just makes me feel ill when I try to play it nowadays.
I have too much crap cluttering up this house. I threw away all my old Edge magazines the other day, which was quite liberating. I still have a wardrobe full of old computers and consoles, some of which I owned at the time they were "current", and some bought on a whim from eBay, hooked up once or twice, then banished into the darkness to gather dust. These need selling, but for most that's a lengthy project in itself. My Atari ST and Amiga in particular were well used, and need a proper cleaning before they can be sold. And a thorough testing to make sure they still work, of course...
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Cat Scratch Fever
Well, this week hasn't been too bad work-wise. (So far, touch wood, etc etc.) This is mainly due to schedule-juggling, however, so there's a sense of deferred, rather than relieved, stress, but it meant that I was able to get away and take Lucy, our eldest cat, to the vet last night. She's been coughing a lot, in a manner that sounds as though she's about to bring up a hairball, but she never does. Naturally, getting her to the vet was a struggle. She hates being put in her carrier, and getting her in there is a two-person operation. One of us must quietly get the box down, stand it on its end, and open it, without Lucy seeing, while the other picks her up and quickly drops her in it. As soon as she sees it, however, she starts to struggle, and we both ended up with multiple scratches. From that point on she won't stop miaowing until she's actually in front of the vet, when butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and she goes back in the box without any hassle, only to start kicking up a fuss as soon as she is outside again.
The vet reckons that it's not hairball-related, and that she's either allergic to something in the house (we've been told not to light any incense or scented candles for a while), or she has a minor infection. He gave her antibiotic and anti-inflammatory shots, so hopefully it'll clear up soon.
Just to perfect the evening, on the way back she decided to have a pee in the box, requiring that she have a bath when she got back. Cue more howling and scratching.
She's not a badly-behaved cat in general, just a wee brat when she has to do something she doesn't want to.
It's Burns Night tonight. We were thinking of going to Oran Mor, since we enjoyed last year's so much, but we're suffering from a bout of end-of-month skintitude coupled with a packed weekend ahead, so I think we're just going to give it a miss and have a quiet night in.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Mr Peanut Head
So, it's a Monday at the start of a week that's likely to be pretty stressy, but I'm actually not feeling too bad. Maybe it's because it's likely to be less stressy than last week, by comparison, and maybe it's because the sun's out and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Cold I don't mind so much. A crisp, frosty morning can be quite pleasant when it's bright and sunny. It's the darkness and rain that depress me.
Going to get my hair cut later. R said "don't come back looking like Mr Peanut Head", meaning that my normal utilitarian number-2 all over is out of bounds. She says it makes me look like a criminal. I like it because I hate getting my hair cut, and having it shaved maximizes the amount of time I can leave until haircuts. I've been putting this one off since before Xmas, but my sideburns are getting out of control and I'd better get seen to before I start looking like Kim Newman, god among men though he may be.
I read a great article the other day about the music of the Sami people of Northern Scandinavia. It's the oldest extant musical tradition in Europe don'tchewknow, and reads like something I'd love to hear. I've had a bit of search for some recordings to download, but it's slim pickings so far. I'll keep looking though. I've never been one for hunting out "world" music, but the descriptions I've read of the "Yoik" are fascinating.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Losing My Wiiginity
Last night we went round to Simon's for a shot of his Wii, and while it's hard to shake the perception that it's just a Gamecube with a nifty controller, I enjoyed myself immensely, and will be getting one as soon as our financial situation is more stable. Wii Sports, Rayman and Warioware all got hammered, with the frenetic minigame madness of the latter providing the most giggles as well as the clearest indication of just how versatile the Wiimote can be, having you use it like a pen one minute, hold it over your head the next, before making you flap your arms frenetically or hold it at your hips and hula. You will, of course, look like a twat, but you'll be having so much fun you won't care.
Today was pretty quiet. We got up late, then got fired into giving the kitchen a proper clean, going through our cupboards, taking everything out, and chucking anything that was past its date. And believe me, there was a lot that went in the bin, the oldest item having a use-by date from 2003. Also dumped was a lot of stuff we knew we'd never use. Actually, it was pretty cathartic - I quite enjoy chucking stuff out. It's pretty liberating to be free of stuff that's just cluttering up your life.
Next step: the spare room/office/junk pile. But not today.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
After-Party
We had our celebration for R gaining dual-nationality last night. I think everyone had a good time - I certainly did. Not too hung-over today, either - just that slightly fuzzy feeling which is actually quite pleasant. I'm pleased to report that nobody embarrassed themselves too badly. Just some good tunes and a good laugh with friends. Perfect.
I'm quite glad it's over, mind you. I have been feeling pretty stressed about the whole thing since coming back from the US, and on returning to work last week we all got one of those "there's a big release due in a fortnight so we expect you to work late until then." I don't mind that too much - it doesn't happen all that often and it's pretty much par for the course. I doubt that there's a software company in the world that doesn't require its developers to put in some extra hours near release time, but it did put a crimp on the time I had available for party-related planning, and I am a dreadful one for leaving things until the last minute.
Tonight I think we're going over to a friend's house to play with his Wii. (Fnarr, etc.) This will be my first shot of one, so I'm quite looking forward to it. We were planning on getting one after returning from the US, but after spending a lot of cash on a new computer I can't really justify a new console as well right now. Though I can see that position changing depending on how much fun we have tonight.
In the meantime, however, the house is an absolute tip and I need to be cleaning, not blogging...
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Space Is, Like, Really Big...
... claims Danish scientist. At least according to the Guardian.
And this is news?
Of course, I'm sure there's more to the study than the article makes out, but it's that sort of lazy reporting that perpetuates the myth that's so prevalent, at least in this country, that all scientists do is waste taxpayers money by sitting around and "proving" the bloody obvious.
Bad Science is a great blog based on Dr Ben Goldacre's articles for (ironically) The Guardian, about both poor science writing and the activities of those members of the scientific community who don't mind taking backhanders in exchange for endorsing spurious study or other on behalf of a corporation with PR to gain from it.
Crunch
Today, after jumping through many hoops, and having to take a test that 99.9% of the British public (myself included) would have failed, my wife Rebecca became a British citizen! The ceremony was quite low-key, but pleasant, and took place in the former Italian embassy building at Park Circus - the place where we got married almost four years ago. Even though there was the necessary swearing of allegiance to the Queen*, the registrar went to great lengths to emphasise that those present were becoming citizens of Scotland as well as the larger United Kingdom, which I think was sensitive and went down well.
This doesn't mean that she has renounced her American citizenship, of course. She now holds dual nationality, and is champing at the bit to apply for her British passport. We'll have to look for a cheap trip to somewhere on the continent when she gets it so that she can break it in, and swan past immigration control as an EU citizen!
Afterwards my parents took us out for a nice lunch in a restaurant outside the town, and, as Moosh has pointed out, the snow had returned that morning and had kept up, so I got to crunch through a little bit of fresh powder after all. The waiter, coincidentally, was a kid that I had been friends with in school, but hadn't seen in about fifteen years, which was nice but a little odd. On the drive back to Glasgow the sun came out, and the snow-covered fields looked Christmas-card pretty.
Tomorrow we're having a party to celebrate. I've been a bit stressed this past week or two while trying to get stuff organised, but it's all come together at the last minute and I think it should be fun, providing everyone turns up who says they will!
* - R had planned to quietly forget to say the "the", and pledge allegiance to the rock band fronted by the late Freddie Mercury, but the phrasing didn't allow it, so I guess she has to do whatever Liz says after all.
Labels: diary
link | 0 comment(s)Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Snow
Last night, leaving work quite late, it started to snow. Big, wet flakes that disappeared as soon as they hit the ground, but were nevertheless quite pretty. That's the only snow we seem to get nowadays. Just as childhood summers were perpetually sunny and warm, my winter memories are all of icicles hanging off the roof of our house, crunching through deep, thick snow, and risking life and limb hurtling down hills on a sledge. Even if it was cold enough for it to lie, living in the city means that it would last long before turning, at least, into a treacherous brown sludge. Growing up I lived at the end of a suburban street, in a house with a garden, and when it snowed a plentiful supply of white, virgin powder was mine to tramp through. The crunch of powdery snow underfoot is one of my favourite sounds to this day.
Labels: diary
link | 1 comment(s)Monday, January 15, 2007
Spelunking Monkeys
Back at work today, about which, I'm sure you can imagine, I am over the moon, oh yes. I've only been away for a couple of weeks, but it seems much longer, and naturally I have no idea what I was doing before I left. 300 unread emails took up a good chunk of the morning, however, though most of them got immediately deleted after one glance at the subject line.
Last night we went over to Marceline's for some dinner, accompanied with plum wine. I'd never had the latter before and found it a little sweet for my tastes, but not unpleasant, and dinner itself was ace. Afterwards we headed out to see Joanna Newsom, who was wonderful, though I didn't quite realise how close to the stage "Row B" actually was. Not being able to fidget in your seat or yawn (even though the place is over-heated and you're tired) because the act you're watching is literally right in front of you is slightly unnerving. It was a great show, however, and it was nice to see so many big grins on the faces of people shuffling out into the cold, rainy night.
Lissa gave us a lift back to the South Side, and in the car we riffed on the "little pixie" image that J. Newsom has been granted by the press, coming up with ever more outlandish claims ("She drinks strawberry tea with fairies.", "She is the spirit of a unicorn that takes human form once every hundred years."), though if you scratch the surface of her lyrics and put aside prejudices regarding her voice, there's a dark heart to her songs that suggests that she is anything but the blushing innocent she is made out to be.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
When I'm Cleaning Windows
Even though I'm now a member of the Mac club - a club that, amongst other privileges, means that I get to go to a wee shop in the west end if I want to buy software or accessories off-the-shelf, rather than Dixons or Woolworths or any number of other high-street stores where the plebeians might shop - I still have a requirement to run the odd Windows app. When I work from home, I normally just connect to the company network and use remote desktop, so that I'm actually using the hefty Dell box on my desk rather than my home machine, which is really just acting as a terminal. I had hopes that I would be able to continue doing this straight from OS X, since there is a port of Windows Remote Desktop, but sadly the VPN software we use doesn't come in Mac flavour, so Windows it is.
Secondly, for music creation I tend to use a combination of FL Studio (nee "Fruitloops"), and Cool Edit Pro. Cool Edit can probably be replaced by Garageband, which came free with the Mac, but I do still love Fruityloops and it'd be a shame to lose all my old projects.
At first I thought I would just dual-boot the Mac using Boot Camp, but the problem with that is that it only supports Windows XP, and all I have is a copy of Windows 2000. I looked into buying a copy of XP, but it still, to my surprise, costs about £200 for a copy of Home Edition. No thanks.
Instead, I've been playing with Parallels Desktop, which is a nifty virtualization app for Intel Macs, allowing them to run my copy of Windows 2000 from within OS X without having to reboot, so with my Mac plugged into my monitor running in dual-screen mode, I can have Windows on one screen and OS X on the other, and drag-and-drop between them.
As a massive geek, I think that's the mutt's nuts.
Obviously, it'll never be as fast as running Windows natively, but it's still miles quicker than my creaky old PC. It does mean that for work purposes I'll be running OS X, running a virtual machine, remotely accessing a PC, which will in turn be running a virtual machine for development, but as long as it works it's fine by me.
Photos
Pics from Christmas and New Year are now on R's Flickr,
Labels: photos
link | 0 comment(s)Thursday, January 11, 2007
Wet
It is, as they say, pishing it down outside, which is making us feel particularly glad to be home after two weeks of near-unbroken sunshine, let me tell you. Actually, I'm feeling a lot more positive today than I have since I got back. The last couple of days have been spent in a weird funk of random napping and feeling sorry for ourselves, but last night I slept in the way that people do in movies. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was out, and as soon as the alarm went off this morning, I was awake and ready to get up. Weird. Normally my nights are bookended by at least an hour of restlessness and the same length of time again spent slapping the "snooze" button and going back to sleep every nine minutes.
Labels: diary
link | 0 comment(s)Monday, January 08, 2007
Happy New Year
Back on British soil after a very good Christmas and New Year, unfortunately topped by me contracting food poisoning on the last day. That was an enjoyable 7-hour transatlantic flight, let me tell you. So now I'm sitting here glugging lucozade and feeling sorry for myself, but it's maybe fair payment for the ace time I had on holiday, so I shouldn't get too upset.
Pictures will be Flickred in due course.
As well as the first post of 2007, this is also the first post on my new computer. The exchange rate is ridiculously good just now, and my old PC has taken to randomly resetting itself (and was never much cop to begin with), so I splashed out on a new MacBook. Yay.