| The rise and fall of the Victorian Transport Ministry |
[02 Jun 2009|06:55pm] |
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mood |
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 amused |
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The ad by the Victoria Government spruiking their "Smarter transport options" rips off the drum track of the Shadows' "The Rise and Fall of Flingel Bunt". So much so that it could well be a sample. They have however turned it into some other song. They don't fool me though!
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| The Channel 10 voice-over people |
[02 Jun 2009|12:39pm] |
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mood |
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 irritated |
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So, watching Dr Phil (as you do when you're not working) and there's an ad for "Merlin". The two people who do the voiceovers are annoying me. This will be a common feature of my posts: things that irritate me.
The man has a deep gravelly voice and sounds like he has a cold. The woman treads a fine line between sultry and bored. When they speak the lines they modulate their voices in a sing-song way which somehow drives me absolutely nuts. I want to punch them.
The woman's voice in particular seems to be quite common across TV and in particular commercial radio. There's a particular tone they take, talking about things in a sexy but disconnected way: they want to sell you something but they're actually thinking about something else. If I were more musically inclined I'd be interested to map the notes and see if there's a particular pattern, like a tune that they put the words to each time.
More "you know what really grinds my gears?" later.
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| Annoying iPod behaviour |
[31 May 2009|02:44pm] |
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mood |
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irritated |
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music |
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Believe it or not - Joey Scarbury |
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In the past few years I've hardly used my iPod: I haven't needed to as I don't really like listening to music on public transport (the headphones are annoying to deal with, I find, plus I like to be able to hear what's going on). At home I have my Airport Express so I can play music from my laptop which is easier than the iPod interface.
Due to having a lot of music sourced from various locations the volumes are at different levels, so in my 1500 or so favourite songs I manually made some of them louder. This was achieved over a long period, obviously, so all my music plays at a fairly even volume.
Except for when I play from my iPod!
At mum's house I have my iPod hooked up to the stereo and every time it gets to a song I've manually made louder (via the iTunes volume adjustment) it plays twice as loud as the unadjusted songs. I can't understand why this. The song is half the volume naturally, and the adjustment makes it about the same. If anything it should play quietly, ignoring the iTunes adjustment: that I could understand.
It's got a feature called "sound check" which is supposed to do this adjustment automatically but my experiences with it weren't great: it make sure sound funny and took an age to adjust things. Toggling that makes a small difference but nowhere near this current problem.
Mum's asleep on the couch at the moment and so far things like "Take the skinheads bowling" blaring out at a huge volume haven't woken her up, so that's one problem I don't have to worry about, I guess.
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| Hello again |
[10 May 2009|12:55am] |
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mood |
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 sleepy |
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Well LJ... I may just start you up again to capture some of my thoughts over the next few months. Pens at the ready.
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| Credit cards |
[03 Jan 2009|11:19am] |
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Just a tip... if you ever get hit with a "missed payment charge" on your credit card or a similar "fee" which is really a penalty, just call them up and ask for it to be refunded. Doing so in a reasonable manner, waffling on about not keeping an eye on the date, sorry, it's now paid in full, generally pay on time etc will usually result in them doing a "once off" refund of the fee.
It happened to me with my Westpac card just recently as I stupidly booked my flight home on it rather than my UK card (long story) and the fee was the final straw.
I think it mainly comes down to two things: firstly the bank wants to look good, and secondly these fees aren't actually enforceable due to them being penalty charges to recover the bank's cost. The bank's cost is actually almost nothing, so any challenge to them should be successful.
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| Oh no! |
[26 Dec 2008|06:56pm] |
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mood |
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 sad |
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music |
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Soho Vibes - Mo Horizons |
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I have just found out that the Rainbow Hotel has closed in my absence! I was planning on a Sunday session there with friends when I came back in Feb to see the Grand Wazoo... wahhh! Looks like it's because the lease wasn't renewed. What does this mean? I hope it's not being turned into flats, although given the problems they've had with residents in the past I wouldn't be surprised.
Oh, so many good memories of that place. Hot Summer nights seeing the Paul Williamson Hammond Combo with Claire and drinking VB for a laugh, afternoons with Jan & Dec seeing the Grand Wazoo... I guess nothing lasts forever. But sometimes I wish certain things would.
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| Logging |
[16 Dec 2008|04:01pm] |
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Ahh, you see so much more when you're logged into LJ. I must have been logged out for a week or more. Hello again: I am now up to date with your lives once more.
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| Unpaid |
[17 Nov 2008|12:27am] |
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music |
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Life 2: Unhappy Ending - Stars |
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Today I got a notification from LJ saying that my paid subscription would be expiring soon and $19.95 would be deducted in a few days. I have cancelled my automatic payment now, as I don't think it provides enough incentive to pay for it any more. It's also a case of fewer and fewer people using it now. In 2002 when I started it was growing, and I met some great people through this, but it's been a couple of years since my friends list changed. Maybe it's just me, but I think sites like Facebook have syphoned off all that stuff. I don't think it's a good thing as I haven't met any "friends" through Facebook (I don't think you can) however it's the reality.
I'll still keep posting, I think, although I don't think my mobile phone photos are going to come through any more: I believe that's a paid feature. Ah well. I think the refusal to pay is more out of disappointment that the owners of LJ have managed to let things pass them by.
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| I'm not behind the curve |
[16 Nov 2008|09:56pm] |
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music |
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Hurricane Jane - Black Kids |
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No really... but sometimes it's just that even though I'm aware of a song and have been enjoying it for a while, I miss things about it, or don't realise just how good it is. The song "Hurricane Jane" was everywhere (well, on 6 Music a lot: that's good enough for me) about 4 months ago but it's only now I have listened to it on my spiffy large £10 headphones. And my, this song is wonderful. Generally for a song to be classed as an Andrew wonderful™ song it needs to have the minimum three things: a great bassline, good drumming and slick production.
Naturally it's the bass that really interests me, and in this case there is a real master at work here: subtle, driving yet meandering, and so smooooooooth. Especially during the chorus.
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| Viewing |
[05 Nov 2008|09:14am] |
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Oh, if only that area there were open- i could stand up there and get a great view! Actually no, if it were open there would already be people up there taking up the good spots. One tends to forget that part.
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| Money |
[03 Nov 2008|09:27pm] |
I do like how that handful of coins is about 30 australian dollars.
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| Snow |
[29 Oct 2008|09:50am] |
...and it keeps snowing! October, etc. Cool!
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| Geezus |
[28 Oct 2008|09:59pm] |
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mood |
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 cold |
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music |
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Bend - The Egg |
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So it appears that Autumn's been dispensed with and Winter's sitting in its place. It was about 5 degrees today, and my hands froze while walking from work to the tube station, and when I got out at Tufnell Park, there was snow on the ground. SNOW. It had been snowing! We're only supposed to be a third of the way through Autumn!
I did hear the other day that we're in for a proper Winter this year. I am all for that actually, however with gas and electricity prices having gone up 40% in one go this year (no pussyfooting around) it's probably going to expensive to heat this little flat. At least with this one we have a thermostat: with the old flat, the heating was either on or off, and so probably wasn't that efficient. This way we can set it to 17 degrees so that when it's on it won't get tropical like the old place.
Hmm, what else apart from the minutiae of my central heating? My mum visited for two week recently: I suppose that's worth a mention. I took the time off work, we did the touristy things, went to York for 3 days, etc. The girls were away for most of the time which worked out well. I can't help but think it wasn't coincidental that their New York holiday happened when it did.
My science course is going well: first assignment back and I did went alright: made some silly errors like not using units throughout entire calculations. What the? I remember in maths all you had to do was show your working and make sure you stated your answer with the correct unit at the end. Oh well, I'm sure it was mentioned and I overlooked it in my haste to get to the interesting stuff. No final result for my maths course yet: for some reason I don't get it until December. Passed it easily though.
Saw the Boosh. They were so-so. Show I saw at the comedy festival many years ago was way funnier. Have tickets for Sigur Rós at Ally Pally next month. We are looking at which panto to go to for Christmas. Hansel and Gretel looking good at the moment.
I should go study. Bye Livejournal, sorry for neglecting you!
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| Bread and jam |
[11 Oct 2008|05:31am] |
Bread and jam for £2.50 at monmouth coffee at borough market. It's very social. And the best coffee in london to go with it.
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| Steam powered |
[11 Oct 2008|05:30am] |
National rail museum in york. This thing set the steam rail record at 125mph. Not bad eh?
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| Goodness me |
[08 Oct 2008|11:01pm] |
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Two months ago the Pound was worth about $2... today it is worth $2.57. This is good for me; yes, good for me.
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| Man in a horse |
[14 Sep 2008|11:57pm] |
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
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| Liff |
[14 Sep 2008|09:38pm] |
British place names rock.
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