Friday before Christmas

I feel a little bad that it's Friday already. I was sort of hoping for it to feel like I'd had more time off. Ah well, at least Christmas is really on top of us now. There's still time to get a last minute gift or two!

Been so long...

I finally have a bit of time to myself! Thank goodness for the festive holidays. More soon...

Halloween 2011

I've been incredibly busy lately, both at home and at work. At times like these the blog has to take a backseat. Time for reflection and general musing has to go out of the window.
To mark Halloween we have carved our pumpkin and it will be outside tonight to ward off the evil spirits. I believe they are called Jack'o'lanterns in the US? We put a candle inside. I always find pumpkins surprisingly dense. This year I've noticed that the pumpkins seem physically bigger than they have for a few years. I wonder if the growing conditions have been good?
Anyway, time for me to get back to rhe world of work, so have a happy Halloween all!

Sunday Morning Musing

I watched a bit pilot episode from a series I bought a boxset for from the library about six months or more ago. The series is called Over There. I'd never heard of it before. But I enjoyed what I've seen of it so far. The DVD stopped playing though, so it's either in need of a clean or it might be that the mini-DVD player I was using is a bit too sensitive for it.
I expect I'll be helping with the cleaning of the house today. I also have some work to do and I'd like to have some time to myself but I've probably had that already, it's 8:19am.
Yesterday, my wife and I had some time on our own to do some shopping for Christmas. It's good to get out on our own, amazing how much less stressful it is without the children. Even though I love my kids and don't think they misbehave, it was nice not having to worry about them.
I am using an official iPhone Blogger app to post this. They finally got round to building one, I've been looking for one for a long while and have been surprised they didn't have one. I might have been persuaded to move to WordPress if Blogger was going to remain stagnant. But with the redesign and the smartphone app, I'm settled.
I want to get the iOS5 for my iPhone 4, the iPhone 4s looks good but I won't be trading in my iPhone. I might get my wife the iPhone 4s for Christmas but I need to consider the cost a bit more before I decide. Christmas doesn't seem so far away.

Hue and Cry

A truly wonderful vocal performance. I loved this band but I always felt they were underrated.

19 Adele

I love Adele's voice, it is so emotional and powerful at the same time. I've been listening to tracks from this album for some time and it just dawned on me that this calls for a blog entry in my favourite albums category. I don't really have much back story to this post. Except to say one of my favourite tracks on it is a great cover version of a Bob Dylan song (Make You Feel My Love). Infact, I also love Bob Dylan so expect to see some Bob Dylan albums getting the nod on this blog too.
I've heard Adele's normal speaking voice and was quite surprised by it. She sounds very down to Earth and normal, instead of sounding like the Superstar that she is.

Favourite track: Tired

Red - Saturday Scavenger Hunt

This is late, due to a very long day out yesterday. But here is my entry for the Saturday Scavenger Hunt. We attend a fair number of sport events and there are competitions known as Red Belt Rumbles, so here is my son's red belt. When it is first handed out to the children by the coach and they have to put it on for the first time, it is a great for the children to feel the pride and sense of accomplishment. I love the way they use coloured belts in Judo to reward progression.

Alright, Still - Lily Allen

This is an artist that on paper, I shouldn't like. However, it is inspite of everything else that I still enjoy the music on this album and her voice, phrasing and  songwriting. I love the melodies, the lyrics and the ska beats and horns. There is an Englishness to the songs that appeals to me and the personal nature to them. I know there are some mockney jibes about her and I'm pretty sure that she didn't grow up on the streets in poverty. But my exposure to the tabloids is fairly limited, so I have listened to the music more than I've read about her. I don't like the whole album to the same degree but there are some wonderful songs on this.

Favourite track: Knock 'Em Out

Strife

Over the last few years I've found life generally more difficult in various ways. I did think long ago that life for me would be sorted once I got a regular job with good pay, a car of my own, a wife, kiddies and a house. I have all of those things and yet sometimes I don't feel any happier than when I didn't have any of it. Life is certainly more complicated the more involved you get. I often say the wrong things or react in the wrong way or even just appear to be thinking a wrong thought and then everything turns toxic. I probably am very difficult to live with sometimes. Short of a personality transplant I don't know what the answer is. At times I just think I'm sliding down a slope and have nothing to hang on to anymore.

Mellow Music for a Sunday night

Hope you like this song by two great artists.

Big Fat Moon

Hasn't the moon been big and fat recently? I love the moon when it's big and fat and close to the horizon and there is still enough sunlight before the sun goes down. I overheard a question on the radio this week, asking how much does the moon weigh. The answer was of course some ludicrously heavy amount, actually it weighs nothing but has a mass of several million million kilos.

To be precise :  mass of the Moon = 7.36 × 10²² kilograms

The moon is a thing of beauty I think. Something to be observed from a distance, rather than seen up close - I have no desire to set foot on the moon. I do wonder whether man will ever have the resources and patience to venture into space and colonise another planet? We know so little about the universe really. I do find it fascinating to listen to scientists who try to make the complexities of quantum physics understandable to the common man. I wanted to be a mad scientist when I was a young boy, inventing rocket ships and ray guns. I still do have those desires infact. Never going to happen though - I just don't have the processing power in my brain to do calculations and I think you need to have a great deal of brain versatility to become a physicist. Dreaming doesn't hurt though does it?

Mary Lou Lord

I first heard about this album while reading a glowing review of it in Melody Maker. That particular music paper no longer exists. This was back in the 1990s. It's one of the few albums that actually lived up to the glowing review. It is simple, folksy music but quite charming at the same time. I think all the songs are cute and catchy and deeper than they first seem. I don't know how many copies of this were ever sold, I suspect it wasn't produced in the same quantities as more popular artists, being released on K Records (I think, writing this without it in front of me). I vaguely remember there was some connection with Kurt Cobain and I don't think Courtney Love approved - I believe I even read a news story once that Courtney bashed Mary Lou but that might just be complete nonsense dreamed up by an over-imaginative journo.

Favourite track: The Bridge

The Need for Art

I realised today that I love art. It allows me to explore the creative minds of other human beings and make insightful connections that would otherwise be lost or trampled. It sounds trite but there is a simple fact in this.I believe that when I'm being creative it actually helps me to relax and understand myself, and possibly others, better. For too much of the time I'm stressed about work or other stuff. I sometimes think how peoples lives change, go in unexpected directions, not through their own choice. And I wonder if anything like that will happen to me. Or will I carry on and keep going as I have been for the last few years. I don't have any answers to the question, of course. But it must be nice to do what you love every day, instead of doing what you have to, in order to earn money. Art can be an escape from the humdrum of reality. I like that too about art.
I'm pleased that P.J. Harvey won the Mercury Music Prize this year, I love her work, it's so original and interesting.

Today is the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. I was at work when it happened back in 2001, I remember seeing a photograph on the web of WTC1 with smoke pouring out of it - live streaming of the BBC website was not possible since so many browsers were trying to access it. At first I could only accept that it was a terrible accident, a plane hitting the tower. I thought the terrorism theory was just scaremongering. Then the second plane hit and I could scarcely believe it. It was beyond my comprehension, beyond the realm of real life. Then the tower's collapse, to be followed by the collapse of the second tower. The terrorists could not have known that their attack would prove so effective. It is so shocking to be alive and watching something like that. In 100 years time it will be in our history books. May all the victims of that day rest in peace and the people who survive them find the strength and courage to live their lives day by day with a place in their hearts reserved for loved ones lost.

Let me introduce my new feature...

I've introduced a new label tag to this blog, if you select the tag 'albums' you'll start to see my posts of albums I consider to be very good. In each of these posts I will tell a story or say why I think the album is so good and I will include my favourite track or tracks.
Who knows, you may even read the entry and consider a listen, if it's not an album you've heard - or you might agree or disagree with the album by the band or track on the album. If you feel strongly, why not post a comment?
This is going to be a pretty permanent feature because I have so many great albums and discover new ones all the time. I hope you like reading these and that it inspires you in some way or other...

Paranoid - Black Sabbath

I can listen to this album all day and never get bored. As the starting point for a new feature of this blog, I can't think of a better way to begin. Sabbath came up with so many great riffs in their early albums, it seems like they must have made some kind of pact with the devil (of course, they did no such thing and actually thought a lot of the black magic brigade at the time were nutters). The story of the band is well known, Tony Iommi's fingertips cut off in a machining accident and Ossie Osbourne working in an abbatoir, coming together in Birmingham in the West Midlands. It is close to my the town of my birth and I think there is something in the fact that the area was known for iron and steel and black smoke billowing out of furnaces and foundry chimneys. I still remember the constant sounds of a machine press a few doors down from our house in the street. This album reminds me of my childhood and happy memories.

Favourite track: Hand of Doom

Midweek

I don't normally post on a Wednesday. I don't know what has gotten into me! I have enjoyed a nice couple of days without work on Monday and Tuesday this week. On Monday, I enjoyed the last day of the summer holidays for my daughter. On Tuesday I did the same with my son. Both are now back at school for the autumn (fall) term. Their next holiday is the last week of October, I want to take some leave to spend a few days with them then - so I have something to look forward to.

I keep feeling the urge to write but keep pushing it away and finding other things to do. I mean "write" as in story writing or something but at the same time I feel like I wouldn't be able to create something I'd be happy with. The hardest thing is to start writing - I used to have a book that contained lots of little writing activities designed to let the imagination roam free without having to worry about producing anything. I was told once that writing is like exercise, if you don't do it frequently you don't get any fitter. I'm not sure the analogy works 100 per cent but I think there is some truth in it.

A Golden Oldie

Back to school week

Posting this using Blogger's new user interface. It's very clean and simple so gets a thumbs up on that score.

This week my kids go back to school. My daughter starts at her new school on Tuesday. I'm going to be around on Tuesday but I work away from home for a couple of days. I find this difficult as I'd really like to be around for her for a few weeks, but working from home a couple of days is already a luxury I have: guess I can't push my luck too far!

I feel like this time of year signals the run up to Christmas. Programmes like X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and that ilk are all starting their run up to Christmas, so that they can pull in advertisers. My sons birthday is in a few weeks and a month after that it's Halloween, then Bonfire Night. That's when the dark mornings and dark evenings kick in.

We got our heating sorted last week. It gets warm really quick, that might be because it is already warm enough though! We are having a lot of rain but it isn't too cold with it.

I have a couple of days off tomorrow and Tuesday, I'm pretty glad about that.

I'm starting to think about Christmas.

New

I feel like I've got a new Netbook. But I haven't, I'm still using the one I bought a couple of years ago. Last night I restored it from the recovery partition again, for the second time since owning it. You see, I counted up all of the applications I had installed and the list was HUGE. I was using it just like I would a notebook/laptop and I never intended that I would use it like that. It was taking longer and longer to load Windows and then I would have to wait while all the applications loaded, including things like the antivirus package and my anti-Spyware protection loaded. So basically, it was taking like-forever! Hence the decision to wipe it and start again. Now I have a fast loading Netbook again and I've only installed the minimum necessary software. There are a couple of programs I need to add but my email, office, social networking, blogging, bookmarking apps are all online and accessible through my favourite browser: Google Chrome. I feel cleansed and so does my Hard Drive.

We visited the town this morning and picked out a Hitachi stereo/CD/FM radio/iPod sound system for my daughter. She is starting to get interested in music of her own choice. So the time is right for her to have her own music system. We've had music players in the kids room before but they were mainly for our own use, now she has her own room as an 11 year old she has a clearer idea of what she likes to listen to. It wasn't all that expensive and the sound is quite good. I tried the speakers on the shelf but they actually sound better on the floor with their backs to the wall. I think that has amplified the bass.

It's match day 3 of the new football season. My team is West Bromwich Albion, they are playing tomorrow, rather than today like some other teams. I've been playing quite a bit of a football video game series called FIFA, it's published by Electronic Arts and at the beginning of all their games they have someone say "It's in the game", which I find a bit funny. I normally find that football games get very very cheap much quicker than other types of videogame. I think it's because the teams move between leagues each season and clubs change team members during the transfer season. So when you buy a new football game you expect it to have up-to-date teams and players. At least as up-to-date as at the start of the season at any rate. But I found this morning that I was able to create a new tournament and add the current crop of teams to it, so I might not have all the current players in the teams but I can mirror the teams that are in the current season's league.

Not much to post about

This is probably going to be a random post, as I don't seem to have much to say about anything. We're still sorting through stuff we brought with us when we moved. At least I can say its in the garage and not in storage where we would be paying for it. I found out where our local recycle centre is, after taking a few wrong turns. I briefly looked at Google Maps before I set off and the signposting to the centre wasn't, well it just wasn't - at least not from the direction I was travelling. The wrong turns did lead to to find a country park and a local wood, so I don't feel too bad about losing my way; sometimes a wrong turn helps in some other way (a bit like life!). The recycle centre itself was smaller than I've used before but it had a better feel to it. At our old centre I used to feel that the staff were a bit sharp, meaning I felt some trepidation before putting my rubbish in the skips, occasionally I would get one of them shouting I was putting something in the wrong skip. I know it's their job but I hate being told off.
I did a bit of gardening this weekend with my wife. Putting some slate chips down around the shrubs on the front garden, had to buy 8 bags and boy they are heavy! I did some digging in our back garden, which is much bigger than our old one. It's got some borders, grass, a stepped area and a patio. I would like to work out a design for it, my wife doesn't think it'll ever happen but actually I can't see her agreeing to what I've got in mind anyway. I like gardens that have secluded areas and interesting things. The garden centre where I bought the slates from had these ornaments that were zombies climbing out of the ground - just the head and arms as though they were rising from the grave. I thought they were quite cool but my wife would never have one.