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| 05:25pm 10/07/2009 |
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It's the weekend, and I have cookies :-)
But sorry folks I won't be making PlanetAngel tonight, just got too much to do before Glade, plus now it takes a whole lot more time out of my weekends to come to London unplanned.
EDIT: Hmmm I seem to be on a train to London dammit. |
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Read 6 - Post |
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| Most certainly a positive week |
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| 06:50pm 09/07/2009 |
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This week has turned out to have some great things happen:
1. The promotion that I've been waiting 15 months for has finally been granted to me. This has come at just the right time, considering I had been on the brink of making my CV public on several job sites. It came with a token salary increase too, which even though it only equates to a few percent more is very welcome :)
2. I passed my Postgraduate Certificate in Management, which makes the many thousands of words of management analysis (bullshit) and a smattering of some interesting insights into business all worthwhile.
3. I'm going to Glade festival. Thanks to a) some gentle persuasion ;-) and b) a cheap ticket! As long as it's vaguely dry it should be great weekend, and a timely warm-up for Italy two weeks later. Even though it's near Winchester I don't think I'm going to manage to fit in seeing Southampton-ey people, though having said that... we could meet in a pub in Winchester one lunchtime?? |
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Read 2 - Post |
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| (more) Summer sun |
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| 06:05pm 29/06/2009 |
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mood:  content music: Commercial Hippies
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Love sun, love heat, chilled white wine, windows open, tunes on. |
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| New noize / industrial / idm albums for review |
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| 10:02pm 21/06/2009 |
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music: Cybernetic Fuckheadz - Gonna Erase Your Soul
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Got a load of new music recently from Kinetik, Discogs.com etc so I'm going to be working through the following albums in the next few days and giving a quick report probably next week of how they all sound:
Synapscape - Again
Coreline - Bone and Blood as Stone and Mud
Orphx - Teletai - Rarities And Remixes
Xotox - Silberfieber
Flint Glass - Circumsounds
Cybernetic Fuckheadz - Cybernetic:Fuckheadz
Control-System - Erkenntnis
VA - Kinetik 2.0 compilation |
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Read 1 - Post |
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| Beardyman |
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| 11:29pm 15/06/2009 |
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Bangface on Friday was freakin' great in part due to Beardyman mashing up a sick set of breaks, d&b, 90s electro etc etc :D
And it came to my attention on Saturday thats to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kotenok that he's also capable of such gems as the following:
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| Questions x3 |
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| 08:53pm 11/06/2009 |
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A rhetorical question I came up with and was rather contemplating whilst doing the washing up this evening:
"Much of modern contemporary and popular music is based around multiples of 2 beats (i.e. 4-4 time, the origin of which I don't need to go into here). Digital computing and electronics is mostly based around binary and products of binary (octal, hex etc).
If humans were tripedal, music would be vastly different today; this almost certain. But how would it have affected the evolution of electronics, digital circuitry and computing? Would we still have come up with a 2-state transistor? |
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Read 3 - Post |
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| Textsfromlastnight |
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| 11:37pm 09/06/2009 |
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music: Ms Gentur - Selfconstruct
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I love my work more than most of my friends, but that doesn't stop me getting distracted by gems like this...
http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/best-nights/
Records of the best (and worst) texts from 'last night'. Mostly from US college boys and girls and what they got up to. Quality stuff!
A proper update / post / reply to comments will happen soon, honest! |
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Read 11 - Post |
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| 09:48pm 05/06/2009 |
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I can't believe... Eddie Izzard performed a 'secret' gig in Worcester. Last week. When I was 3000 miles away. Damn!! |
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Read 1 - Post |
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| 03:06am 31/05/2009 |
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Damn jet lag. I can't sleep but im taking the time to eat and get my appetite back (this usually gets totally disrupted when I travel).
So yeah i'm back in the UK, its going to take a little while to sink back into normality though! Still, im actually quite happy to reurn to my new flat, which really feels like mine already, ad get stuck into settling down her :-)
On the radar in future weeks, albeit tempered by my need to recoup some money, are
- Seabound + Antichrist
- Planet Angel chilled for cybersquish's birthday
- Some form of gathering party here in Malvern for my housewarming and my birthday!! |
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Read 8 - Post |
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| 03:41am 29/05/2009 |
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Ok so this is the first time I've been in the States *not* on business, so i've been working on the best ways to stretch a tourist budget to the general expenditure of business expense, and I've come up with a few top tips (not definitive, but worth a shot):
#1 Amtrak Rail travel- Somewhere along the journey occupy reserved seats, and move the occupants baggage to the overnead racks. Get out laptop and assume "corporate working" look. Conductor moves 1+ to business class.
#2 Montreal: Censored for now :P
#3 DC: Big fake hair +big boots = free coffee from tourists
#4 Arriving early AM in a city (e.g.after 2am)? Don't book that night, but the next one. Turn up at ~7am and ask for an early check in.
#5 Hotel bar: Request a cocktail a) not on the menu and b) where one ingredient is absent from the shelf. When the ingredient is found later, complimentary drink(s) ensue. |
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| 10:01pm 28/05/2009 |
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Lol... ordering an appletini from a large african american barman strikes me a hilariously camp. Oops.
A huge thunderstorm has forced me in from the hotel pool into happy-hour bar time :P But at least I have had some sun here in DC, and a fairly constant 26-28C with 60-80% humidity has been moistly welcome.
I'm flying home tomorrow evening and I'm really not looking forward to it. Saying goodbye to Kelly on Monday morning was fracturing, but I fear the arrival back to England away from this wonderful continent will give me an extra sense of removal. I truly believe that somewhere on this side of the Atlantic I shall reside for at least a period of time over the next few years. Exactly where couldn't say, but its something which will provide me a challenge, an opportunity, and a goal. The ambition I have is to make something of myself, not purely residing in the country of my birth |
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| Vacation update #1 |
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| 10:41pm 20/05/2009 |
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mood:  accomplished music: Cervello Elettronico - Negate the Instigator
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Kinetik 2.0 once again totally ripped up Montreal with the collective of alternative electronic genres from girl-fronted synthpop (aka. Barbie-Body-Music) right through to German powernoise stopping off at EBM, harsh industrial, IDM and a host of other in-betweeners.
Band highlights were:
Ayria
- For girlie, poppy, bouncy fun
Memmaker
- For DANCE!!!! Simply stunning music, so much energy, live guitar, and Yann in a lab coat
Terrorfakt
- The full band, angle griding, beating the s*** out of oil drums. BIG american men.
Interlace
- Dark, slightly post-apocalyptic feeling
Marching Dynamics
- Never heard of them before, but feel like a slightly noisier version of Mimetic. Never got to see their faces on stage- they wore masks.
Soman
- Dance dance techno mutherf***ers!! Best set I've seen by the bald man. Work those low pass filter knobs :)
Grendel
- Always gonna be fun and stompy
Cervello Electtronico
- Taken me long enough to see these guys and well worth the wait. Dynamic, deep, and complex music just the way I like it. I don't know who the usual members are but they had Ben (terrorfakt) on drum loops and the lead from I *think* Accessory on bass guitar as well as two in the middle working the samplers.
Mimetic
- Nice... very nice :) Not as long a set as at Maschinenfest but played all the good tracks
Architect
- Highlight of the whole festival. Joined by Synnack + 1 other on stage to make for the most complicated and rich set I've ever seen from him, brand new and stunning in every way.
Iszoloscope
- Best set I've seen from the pair, lots of the more break-ey tracks and the crowd loving it. Not so live though!
Noisex
- Even though I don't know them very well, I loved this. Big band, lots of noise.
Winterkalte
- Couldn't play as long a set as we're used to but still top-notch. Not loud enough though!!
Das Ich
- Despite feeling quite broken by this point, it was good to finally see one of the first bands that I got into in industrial
Icon Of Coil
- Once again... dance your ass off fun :) Andy seemed to be really loving playing as Icon for once, and seeing them play tracks which I've heard week in week out for several years was such a tingly feeling :D
XP8
- Nice way to round off the weekend
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So that was the music element... the weekend took on so much more than that, but you'll have to wait to get an update of the rest of it. I've just moved out of the apartment we were staying in into a hotel here in Montreal for the next 5 nights or so, so it's time for me to get down some more relaxed R&R, beer, ice hockey on TV, reading... etc etc.
It been rather more chilly here than this time last year. Northerly winds blowing from the Arctic have been biting at times, and last night it was close to freezing point, but tomorrow its predicted to get up to 28C. Its just crazy the ranges of temperate experienced here.
My Molson Berry beer beckons me so I shall sign off now, hope all is well back home! |
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| Journeys |
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| 11:55pm 09/05/2009 |
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... and like pilot_ag I'm almost done packing too. The route will be to leave here tomorrow morning, to London, get dreads put in, say goodbye to Domina + Tom, go to Reading to see Rachie, stay there overnight, Monday to Heathrow, to New York JFK, and Tuesday New York Penn Station to Montreal, where I'll meet up with pilot_ag on Wednesday. Plans involve Kinetik Festival, nights partying with Canadians, chilling out on Mont Royal, looking at jobs and living stuffs, seeing sights etc etc. Then I have another week or so in Montreal, and some as yet unspecified plans to see me back down in Washington, DC in about three weeks time :D
Yay!!! |
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| T-minus |
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| 03:19pm 08/05/2009 |
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Three weeks off starts here... sweeeeeet :D
Got a *load* of things to do before leaving the house on Sunday (flying on Monday though). But I'm rather totally excited about it all!! |
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| 1xd PgC completed..! |
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| 01:02am 03/05/2009 |
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Thank fuck it's done!!! 7300 words... it should just about pass... but it's finished and submitted and that's all I really care about now!! :D |
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| 12:14am 01/05/2009 |
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This final dissertation for my management PgC is proving a total pain to write... I just can't get the tone or a properly focused argument going. Tbh I just want to get it finished whatever state that might be but even that's seeming difficult.
But once this is over I will be SO happy :D and have a few days to relax and do what *I* want in the evening for a change! |
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| Surviving the pandemic- an IT perspective |
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| 10:17pm 27/04/2009 |
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1) The principal swine flu vectors are: Airborne contagion, unprotected email and Facebook. Accordingly, issue staff with flimsy paper masks, confine them to their cubicles and ban them from social networking until the World Health Organisation says otherwise.
Make sure your email antivirus software is fully up to date. A spokesman for top net security company McManTec told us: "Unfiltered email communications can facilitate the spread of H1N1 through your network in a matter of minutes with catastrophic results. Imagine your office littered with dead employees slumped over their workstations while those still breathing are coughing blood onto their BlackBerries."
The spokesman concluded: "We advise the immediate deployment of McManTec AntiPandemic 3.0®, the only known cure for 99.9 per cent of all viral menaces."
2) There is a clear and present danger from all pig-based products. Establish a "pork cordon" around your premises with security checkpoints to prevent employees smuggling in suspect foodstuffs. Be especially alert for bacon sandwiches - the traditional cure for alcoholic excess. Any worker who has eaten a bacon sandwich within the last five days should be placed in a plexiglass containment cubicle and closely monitored for the symptoms of swine flu.
Be aware that these are identical to the symptoms of a particularly spectacular hangover, so try not to panic unduly if some staff begin to shake uncontrollably and collapse under their desks - this may simply be the result of 16 pints the night before.
3) Protect key staff by isolating them from the swine flu threat - at gunpoint if necessary. Sysadmins should be sealed in the server panic room and provided with filtered air and sufficient foodstuffs for approximately two weeks. Under no circumstances should they leave the room until the Daily Mail says it is safe to do so or the supply of microwaveable mini pizzas and instant coffee runs out, whichever comes soonest.
4) If current scientific predictions are correct, around 80 per cent of the world's population will be dead with the next two weeks. Your company could be critical in rebuilding the planet's population, so select suitable members of your staff for an intensive breeding programme, to begin immediately.
Females should be selected for their sexual attractiveness and fertility. The "alpha male" tasked with mating with this genetic reserve will be the most senior member of management left alive after the pandemic has cut its swathe through the boardroom.
5) Stay calm. |
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discontented