16February2008
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source; Music.
I’ve got this album of 500 songs called The Rolling Stone Magazine 500 greatest songs of all time. Radio Chruz is currently playing Foreigner’s “I Want To Know What Love Is”. Its not really very rocky at all. More like a smooth pebble, rolling across the ocean floor.
I’ve spent the evening sorting out issues with Jokosher and the FLAIM database engine, two pieces of software I package in Fedora. The former wasn’t building due to new python egg policies which require the building of each egg from source rather than distributed as a binary. Thankfully the Jokosher developers use setuptools so the process was pretty simple and the script takes care of all of that.
FLAIM required a couple of patches, one of which I’ve punted upstream to get it building in x86_64. Keeping patch count down makes things much easier, packaging-wise.
Both packages track subversion checkouts rather than stable releases for various reasons. FLAIM is waiting for the day when ifolder finally arrives in Fedora.
Now listening to “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys. Its 1am and I’m still not really rocking very much…
16January2008
Posted by Christopher under: Music.
Whilst the U.K. has the best television in the world, it doesn’t have the best radio station. That honour goes to the dudes at Triple J in Australia. It is one of the last remaining stations where the music is more important than the person playing it. It has three separate streams on its website so goes out of its way to make its content accessible. Check it out if you get a moment.
22December2007
Posted by Christopher under: Music.
The Verve played Manchester Central on Thursday night and after a scrabble about on ebay I managed to get two tickets at half the cost of the original. Likewise with Ocean Colour Scene who played Manchester Academy on the Friday. The recently reformed Verve were in good form though a couple of songs got a bit of a butchering, The Drugs Don’t Work being one of them. Ashcroft seemed to just amble along into the beginning when it really is a ‘lights out, hush descends on audience’ moment. Instead he appeared to be tuning up then launched into the first verse. I know playing the same song for the rest of your touring life must be a bit of an annoyance but it still came across as a bit … odd. The new tune from the forthcoming album ended up in a crescendo of noise a-la Spiritualized Cop-Shoot-Cop or some such and doesn’t seem to be the commercial big hitter that the previous singles from Urban Hymns were.
OCS however were in a different league. Maybe it was the smaller and cosier size of the venue but decent, solid guitar rock doesn’t get much better than this. With three axes and (at times) an acoustic there was plenty of firepower to play about with. Simon Fowler has a cracking deep gravelly bluesy voice and although he appeared to be suffering from a nasty cough the performance was pretty much flawless. Great gig and by far the better of the two.
24August2007
Posted by Christopher under: Family & Friends; Music; Travel & Leisure; White Noise.
Ride-to-work music today was the latest Editors album. It’s a pretty rare day with barely a cloud in the sky and warmed up nicely - my drinks bottle was empty by the time I rode in through the doors at work.
I have booked my flight to Sydney for Rob’s wedding. I have known Rob since age eight or something and am best man for his wedding. We have travelled across the outback together and are still somehow on talking terms. He once rode from one end of New Zealand to the other to raise money for charity which gives a measure of the man. Although I have to wear a pink shirt for the wedding which I’m a bit worried about. How does the best man score wearing pink?
This week I’ve been lazy and only ridden into work once - today. The rest of the time I’ve dossed about which I hate but is always the easy option. Although I did get high yesterday sniffing damp sealer in the downstairs loo.
Films
Anyway, I’ve been watching films. Specifically:
The Bourne Ultimatum Latest Bourne films doesn’t disappoint. Matt Damon karate-chops people and the camera can’t keep up. Features London Waterloo with no McDonald’s trash floating about the place plus plenty of scenes of people performing computer cracks in less than ten seconds flat a la 24. 9/10 though.
Soylent Green Sci-fi film set in future. Planet has food shortage where everyone eats stuff called Soylent blue, yellow, green etc. Charlton Heston is annoying. 4/10.
Logan’s Run. Essential viewing for any nascent 30-year-old. People live in bliss until 30 when they get a chance to be re-born. Some get scared and get chased down by Runners and terminated, much like the replicants in Bladerunner. 8/10
Demon Seed. This came out in the year of my birth and is basically about a supercomputer that wants to become human but cant and solves the problem in an interesting way. 6/10
26June2007
Posted by Christopher under: Music.
Yes, 26th June is not just the day before Tony Blair resigns, its also the Day of Silence for those around the world who have ever listened to (or broadcast) Internet Radio. Which is why this post has no song for a title (as all previous have…)
Anyway, those filthy money-grubbing record company despots sitting high in their gin palaces in the United States are demanding yet more cash from Internet broadcasters and even have the temerity to backdate royalties to 1st January, 2006. As a former Internet DJ myself I have also taken the step of shutting down my GNUMP3d server in protest. If you live in the U.S. you can contact your local representative here. If not then just hope the greed won’t catch on but on past form edacity is a disease that spreads…
25January2007
Posted by Christopher under: Music.
Yes. Yes. Yesyesyesyesyes.
9January2007
Posted by Christopher under: Linux & Open Source; Music.
For those that may not have noticed I pick some of the titles for these posts from songs that I’m enjoying at the moment. The current one is a Killer’s track off their latest album, Sam’s Town. It’s pretty clear its the stand out track (it is allegedly the band’s favourite) and although its in my opinion a weaker offering than the original, at least they had the guts to try something different and I respect that.
Last night was WYLUG and the presentation was on Asterisk, a PBX open source telephone system. I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up a telephone network at home for a while now but found the terminology the hardest part to understand. It’s here where the WYLUG talks come into themselves. The speaker worked for a local VOIP provider and spoke intelligently yet simply. Essentially, I discovered that the only piece of kit needed (on top of a standard computer) is an ethernet to RJ11 adapter. Okay it does a lot more and even this isn’t needed if you wanted to use a software-based phone but nevertheless I have ordered one on ebay and asterisk is already installed and running on the server at home. Said server already runs MythTV and Gnump3d so I’m certainly getting my investment back! More on this to follow no doubt.
11November2006
Posted by Christopher under: Music.
I’m still in the process of working out how best to post and was in the middle of getting the SPAM-muncher for the comments section set up when a colleague from work called with the news that Steve Gibbons Band was playing at my local. Not having heard of said band but always up for something new, I polished off the Chi’ti that said colleague had brought back a few weeks earlier from France and walked down. I was not that impressed with the music but they did some reasonable Bob Dylan covers. I was somewhat refreshed upon my return home and the morning arrived all too early. TGIF.
