Look at us we are all shiny and new .... or why it is good to live with a geek

Well look at this we all looking all shiny and new thanks to a new theme being applied to my blog. To be honest I quite liked my old one but today we eventually managed to work through the manual steps to upgrade some of the software that I use and the old theme no longer worked so now we are all new and improved.

As is always the case with upgrading something (at least when it is not software for my Mac) things were never as simple as they should have been. We followed all the steps for the automated upgrade, it said it worked but check everything later and lo and behold it said it still needed to be upgraded.

In a fit of temper I decided to leave it, rather than throw my laptop across the room but tonight we made a concerted effort to actually look at it, and with the help of him in doors everything is now up to date and I have the new shiny useful features. On the down side every time I need to update the software I need to do it manually.

To be fair did I not live with a techie, despite some good instructions i would still be working on it just now, or the Mac may well have taken a pass out of the window courtesy of my foot. I would not have been so annoyed had their not been the auto update feature, but then again these things are sent to try us and if nothing else at least it is sorted for the moment

Avast and ahoy

Well it is nearly that time of year again - September the 19th is almost upon us so it is time to dust off your peg leg and polly the parrot while practicing looking scary.

Yep International Speak like a pirate day is only 1 week away. This year it co-insides with the chance of me having to do jury duty. This being the case I am hoping to return verdicts of walk the plank and send him to Davey Jones. I am not sure if that means that I will be excused but you never know!

Anyhow - if you need to practice you Piratease then you should check out the official site to prepare yourself properly. Generate your pirate name and find out your role on the ship. Thar she blows


Next year I am working towards being the Captain next year

You are The Quartermaster

You, me hearty, are a man or woman of action! And what action it is! Gruesome,
awful, delightful action. You mete out punishment to friend and foe alike
– well, mostly to foe, because your burning inner rage isn’t
likely to draw you a whole lot of the former. Still, though you may be
what today is called “high maintenance” and in the past was
called “bat-shit crazy,” the crew likes to have you around
because in a pinch your maniacal combat prowess may be the only thing
that saves them from Jack Ketch. When not in a pinch, the rest of the
crew will goad you into berserker mode because it’s just kind of
fun to watch. So you provide a double service – doling out discipline
AND entertainment.

What's Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

The beat that my heart skipped

Sounded like this.......

Well ok so there is not actually any sound here but that is not what I am actually making reference to. For those of you who are familiar with the tune you will recognize it a the title of a track by Dan le Sac v's Scroobius Pip.

As bands go they are perhaps not what you would expect. There are only two members and one of them does not play any instruments and the other plays a mac book pro. That should not put you off of listening to them though. While the backing tracks are played from Garage Band their music style is definitely not techo, and while they definitely work with the spoken word you cannot pigeon hole them as producing 'Rap'.

if you think of more beat-nic poetry readings and open mike shows then you will get more of a gauge as to what style you can expect. If you pay attention to the lyrics you will find that there is a lot of meaning there in terms of what people go through every day- but somehow they manage to do it without coming off as being self reverential tits.

Having seen these guys in concert I can honestly say that it was one of the most enjoyable shows that I have been to. They performed in King Tuts Wah Wah hut in Glasgow and the intimate setting worked really well with their style of music. The crowd seemed to be engaged throughout and the fact that they were happy to just chat with folks created a really positive atmosphere.

Initially we picked up their music off of myspace after seeing them on one of the free telly channels but found that it was pretty hard to buy their singles as there were only a couple available. On the back of this tour they have released an album (Angles) that you can pick up from Amazon or their site and I would definitely recommend it

Anyhow - thinking about it a wee bit more has brought to mind just how much things have changed for me in terms of the new music that I listen to. With the rise of the 'social networking’ sites there is now a great deal of opportunity for non mainstream artists to get their music/writing/other creative work brought to the attention of the general populous rather than being reliant on one of the bigger radio stations/tv channels putting their work out there. Now granted some of this new wave of information may well be a pile of old guff, but it does allow for greater choice for us all in terms of what we surround ourselves with.

So with all this choice will the way that we choose our entertainment change? I think that the answer to this is not just yes but yes, and it already is. Take a look at the packages that are offered by the likes of the satellite TV companies where by you can choose what you want to see and when, effectively creating your own television channel and the gradual rise of internet TV we can see people changing the way that they use technology.

Perhaps this will also have some effect on the production companies who cancel shows because they cannot hold the viewing figures for their shows at the X Million level or perhaps it will make them worse - but either way I guess it is fair to say the times they are a changing

Probably the hardest puzzle in the world - ever

Don't remember if I said before but as one of my christmas gifs I received what may well be the hardest puzzle in the world - ever.

Now I am not renowned for my patience with things that annoy or frustrate me (other than my occasionally forgetful husband for whom I have indefinite patience - probably because he puts up with me and brings me lots of cups of tea) so this would not seem like a gift you would want to give me, but it has been strangely intriguing.

The puzzle is called the Isis and it works something like this. You get a wooden box which, when you open in contains a metal sphere about the size of softball (or a medium sized grapefruit). Thats it- no instructions or anything. If you look closely at the sphere you will see that there are a number of hieroglyphs it and that these seem to be arranged in rings. If you continue to look you will see that some of these rings look like they move.

You may have seen this advertised on a number of gizmo sites like firebox, or on the Dragons Den TV show where no one wanted to invest in them. I think that they may have made a mistake in choosing to not invest, but as I did not see the show (because it makes me cringe) I don't know.

Your goal with the strange thing is to open it and get the key that is inside, which should then allow you to travel somewhere in the UK to find some treasure. You cannot force the puzzle to open - you need to work out how to dismantle the sphere in some way. If you get really stuck then you can access a set of clues after you have registered the puzzle. Of course in order to not make it too easy the clues are encoded - and you need to work out how to decode then before you can read them. Of course there are no clues as to how to do this either. If these are not enough then you can purchase additional ones at £5 each.

After guddling around with my Isis for a couple of days - not having the faintest idea as to what I was doing - I downloaded the clue book and managed to crack some of the clues. They are not straight forward (just like everything else thus far) and tend to be quite cryptic in nature. I think I am about half way through working out how to solve the first part of this puzzle, but I may be mistaken.

If you get one of these then, if you are like me, you will wonder why the box has a deliberate curve to the top that will hold your Isis - trust me you will need it.

So time will tell if I can solve the puzzle - you never know I may work it out before they bring out the new one - though at my current rate it is unlikely. If you are interested then you can check out the site of the makers Sonic Warp who have a heap of other equally infuriating puzzles - just incase Isis is not your cup of tea.

It's only Rock and Roll

So what do you think it would be like to be a rock star I don't mean like someone that has won X-Factor or one of these other make me famous shows - but a real rock star. What is a rock and roll life style like and how do you manage the fame and adoration that comes with it, and more to the point what do you do when it goes.

If most of us are honest we have all pondered what it would be like to be famous in some respect, it is why we are all so interested in what the rich and famous do. We want to live vicariously through them.

Personally I have always had a real interest in the biographies of some of the well known folks that we may see on stage, on the telly or on the big screen. The things that they have done, and the people that they have worked for just intrigue me. The strange worlds that they live in are so removed from the way we real folks live, that is in some cases it is as food as reading any fantasy novel.

So anyway a colleague at work lent me a copy of the Motely Crue book Dirt. This book charts he rise and fall of one of the biggest 80's Rock bands with a vert frank look at the way the guys lives and the things that they put themselves through.

As with all of these types of books you find out a bit about the background of all of the members of the band and what drove them to be who they are now and indeed who they were then, but rather than have this laid out neatly for each person, you get the information throughout the book. Each chapter of the book is written by a different member of the group and provides their view on what happened in any given situation. This causes some interesting conflicts for some of the tales that are told as you are presented with 2 or more completely different versions which just don't marry up.

I have to admit that I spent a lot of the book thinking - just how are these guys still alive. When you look at all of the things they did to themselves, they really should be dead somewhere, yet they made it out. This really is a tale of egos and excess and you get to see how the band destroyed it's self.

While you get the tales that make you go, man they were just dreadful to be around you also get the ones that make you go - how could someone survive being treated like that. There are bits of the this book that just made me laugh out loud (esp the story of Mick thinking he was dead and walking into a door), and bits that made me want to cry (the chapter Vince wrote about his daughter is one of the most awful things I have read in a long time) and you really feel like you have a better understanding of why these guys were and indeed are, the way they are.

Perhaps one of the things that stays with you in this book is a line from Tommy Lee where he talks about not being able to stand silence, and I think this is the case for a lot of the guys. When there is no one there and the fans went home - the guys did not know how to cope and found ways to numb the pain.

In a way this is a story not just of the rise and fall of a band but rather the tale of a group of young men who eventually grew up to realize that the world owed them nothing and they had to be responsible, but did it in the public eye.

If you are easily offended or shocked then this may not be the book for you as it really is no holds barred, but if you want to see how some guys, who in the end loved music managed to conquer the world for a short time while not quite killing themselves then give this a shot. Hell it's only rock and roll but I like it!