don’t don’t don’t

I just tried Skype at the urging of some colleagues. Unbelievably good. I spoke to Gerd in Italy and it was crystal clear. This is hardly cutting edge news seeing that Skype has over a million users but I’d never heard of it.

down on the upside

A downside of blogging is when your girlfriend stops you buying stuff that you don’t need. And she knows this because you wrote about it in your blog.

So… even though I’m just a beginner, I really enjoy playing my guitar and having a new electro-acoustic/PRS/Roland MicroCube would benefit my playing enormously. Fact.

organisation

Yesterday evening was spent setting up my new printer and organising my digital photos.

The printer is a Canon PIXMA IP4000 and I’m very impressed with it. It’s fast, quiet and the photos I printed direct from my camera looked great. Some that were printed from HP’s new digital Ixus were a little dark but still good. I removed PS Album from my computer and installed Picasa. Then I sorted through my images, deleting duplicates, stuff that was rubbish and then added keywords.

The thing I find with Picasa and Album before it is that it’s very hard to resist organising/naming the actual folders in the same way as the albums within the application. I mean, the point of these packages is to use the albums and keywords/tags to organise things and not have to worry about where the files really are.

killing nemo

We were house/cat/goldfish sitting at the weekend for the mackems across the street. On monday morning when HP went in to feed the cat, Nemo, the goldfish won by the mackems’ four-year old boy at the fair, was dead. Even though they are mackems we knew the lad might be upset so after texting to check, we went out and bought a replacement. We called him Nemo II. Neither Tom, Nemo’s owner, or his big sister Brittany spotted our goldfish subterfuge.

john peel

I’m saddened to hear that John Peel died today. I remember a period in my teens when I would religiously listen to his show every night and he introduced me to all sorts of weird and wonderful music. I clearly remember how startling it was to hear The Message by Grandmaster Flash for the first time. In later years I have collected Peel Sessions by many bands – Orbital, Plaid, Autechre, Boards of Canada, etc. I even went to a Peel Session Live concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London with a bill of Cornelius and Orbital. When Peel shuffled on stage to announce Cornelius in his own inimitable style he was afforded a reception surpassing that of the band he was there to introduce.

dr. evil

Over the weekend, Jack and Alfie swapped roles with Alfie taking on Jack’s evil mantle and Jack becoming a little angel.

On Sunday Alfie went missing. As we searched for him, rattling the treat tin and calling his name, Jack was bounding around with us almost as if to say “look at me I’m being good”. Just when we were really getting worried, Alfie emerged unconcerned from nextdoor’s cat flap. Even then he tried to run away when we attempted to put him back in the house.

And yesterday evening I looked out of the study window and saw them both across the street. We don’t really like them being at the front of the house where the road is – especially when Alfie is still small and without much road sense. Jack ambled further down the road with Alfie following so HP went out and rattled their tin of treats to get them home. Jack came sprinting home and was rewarded with some treats and his orange spiral toy. Alfie ignored the offer of food (a minor miracle in itself) and wandered even further from home. The git.

splat

I ache in all sorts of funny places after four days of decorating. At least downstairs is almost finished now – only one wall left to paint. It’s been such a ball-ache we’re already revising the plans for upstairs and only painting places that actually need painting.

a canon for HP

The other day I bought HP a Canon Digital Ixus II on Ebay: it’s a refurbished model and comes with a proper guarantee and everything. To all intents and purposes, it’s new.

HP doesn’t take many photos with her existing camera, an APS Ixus, so I’m hoping that the digital will encourage her some more. I’ve replaced our printer with a nice new Canon model which will mean she can print direct from the camera and the new printer is much quicker than the Lexmark it’s replacing. The printer is also for me, of course. I tend to take a lot of photos but never print them. This is because our old printer was really slow plus the quality wasn’t that great. This was highlighted when I tried the new Kodak kiosk in Boots. It was really expensive but the prints were very good quality and came out quite fast. I knew it was time for a change.

I’ll also install Google’s Picasa image management software on Maude, HP’s PC. Picasa is great. I had Photoshop Album but Picasa is much better and it’s free! I find PS Album usable but quite clunky whereas Picasa was so intuitive to use and it positively encourages you to make full use of it’s limited features. I like focused software like this.

bad case of gas

That’s Gear Acquisition Syndrome, not wind.

I’m learning to play the guitar. I’m not as disciplined as I should be but I’m making slow progress. I have a decent and perfectly playable electric guitar – a Yamaha Pacifica. So why is it that every few weeks I have to draw on vast depths of [previously hidden?] self control to stop myself buying either another guitar or an amp. The guitar choice for a while was an electro-acoustic. Then it was something PRS-like with twin humbuckers and a trem. Recently it was anything cool-looking with twin humbuckers and a trem. And for the past few days, it’s been back to an electro-acoustic. In fact, I’m watching two of them on Ebay right now.

It’s ridiculous. I can play a handful of chords and I want two guitars. I try and justify it by saying I could have a new electric down tuned. How stupid is that? What’s to stop me down tuning my Pacifica? Er, nothing. The justification for the acoustic? HP always complains that the acoustic sound of my Pacifica is horrible (even when I’m playing it properly). Ergo I need another guitar.

Wanting an amp is even more stupid. HP wouldn’t put up with any kind of volume and who the hell am I going to play to? I am very tempted by a Roland Microcube though. Especially if I get that electro acoustic…

I want…

…one of these: