I’ve started going through my old CDs now that I have them out of boxes and in a huge cupboard in the living room. While I’m pretty much mp3-only these days, I’ve a pretty huge collection and I can see me digging through and ripping some of the older ones. Amongst them are some classics I’d pretty much forgotten about so now and again I thought it would be nice to pop them up here. Some have memories that go with them, so do excuse me if I waffle.
As Hans would say, it’s my blog so I can write what I want!
First entry is the first release from a Hollywood band called Love/Hate entitled Blackout In The Red Room. To the best of my knowledge (without going to Wikipedia, in other words), they only released one other album – Wasted in America. [update: they had another five including a “best of”]
If memory serves, I got my first copy of this album – on vinyl – as part of a competition prize, probably at the Gateshead Garden Festival way back in the late 1980’s. I absolutely loved it. High tempo, sleazy, varied, shouty choruses… perfect.
I was also lucky enough to see the band at the Newcastle Riverside back in the days when it was a tiny venue, not the dance club or offices that it later became. This dinky place held around 500 (probably far less, really) and the gigs were rarely more than a tenner. This one was packed to the rafters and the band played pretty much the entire album plus a couple from the second album which hadn’t been released at the time. I recall the title track and a lovely ballad called “Don’t **** With Me”.
I believe the band are still going, with their last tour in 2009 including a UK leg that I didn’t know about (dammit). If the album’s still on sale, it’s definitely worth checking out. In the meantime, if you go to what I think is their official page (lovehate.com) there are links to all their songs in mp3 formats. Many of the links don’t work, but those for the first album certainly do.
Once more I attempt to make this blog a little more than the review-fest it’s become! Again, apologies as I don’t find a lot of time to blog about anything else and – I hate myself for admitting this – I put far too much of my other stuff on facebook these days.
I know. I’m evil.
Still, what’s up?
I’m a fair bit of the way through a long-term teaching contract, my first as a full time certified teacher. I’ve landed on my feet with an excellent school, great support and (generally) good pupils. It’s great being able to get a good run at a job which is my own responsibility, but still a little worrying that I don’t have a permanent position. Obviously, I can’t complain – I have a job and there are plenty of other people who don’t. It’s just that lack of security as to what happens in a few months time?
Well, if there’s one thing that I really learned while travelling it was how to take one day at a time and roll with things.
For the three of you who didn’t know, Gillian and I are now engaged and will be getting married – in Jamaica – on October 22nd this year. I’ve set up another blog which will be filled with details about the wedding. As it stands, it has some background information, mainly about the engagement, but as the Big Day approaches I’ll try to put more things up.
Shortly before the wedding, though, we have another event… sometime in July (date to be determined shortly) we will be welcoming a new addition to the family! Gillian’s on week 11 at the moment and everything seems to be progressing well. We should know the sex of our little bundle of joy in the next couple of weeks. If it’s a boy, we’re sorted for room sharing as our youngest is also male. If it’s a girl I’m pre-empting puberty and applying for a shotgun license.
Work starts again tomorrow after the lengthy Xmas break and I have to be up and running as soon as I get in. This full time lark is a definite jump up from my probationary year – more responsibility, more hours, more classes – but it’s flying by. I’m covering pretty much every level that the school has to offer. I honestly don’t think there’s another job that offers this level of variety.
So that’s it at present. Engaged, father-to-be and teacher. A bit of a change from when I started this blog so many years ago!
I have five gigs to attend this week. In fact, I’m just in from the first (Machine Head at the SECC). However, due to this silly “work” thing I have to go to each day I’m going to struggle to get the reviews up shortly afterwards, so expect a deluge over the weekend.
In addition, I got a new toy – a Panasonic Lumix TZ20. It has a cracking zoom and the photos from the gig tonight are definitely a step above what I’ve been getting in the past. Not professional level by any shot, but definitely more “keepers” than “chuckers” out of the 200+ I took. This means more upload time to Flickr, but what the heck. It’s all fun!
I also promise that I’ll try my best to get back to some general posts on here rather than the constant film and gig reviews.
I still hear a lot of people whinging about how children play too many computer games, and how they’re bad for them. I have a lot of experience of video entertainment (this doesn’t mean I’m any good – I’ve just played them a lot), and some limited experience in the child-rearing side of things but here are some things I’ve noticed.
Our littlest is around 3½. Despite his age, he’s still not a talker and has some communication issues which are mainly due to problems with his hearing. We got an Xbox at Christmas and he, of course, wanted to play all the time. But he was rubbish. Worse than me rubbish. Which is very rubbish indeed. He’s very active – too active, frankly. Runs circles round us and will chase the dog or cat for hours, bounce on the trampoline, run around outside until he falls over and comes home screaming… you know, a proper kid. As such I’ve no issues with him spending some time glued to the telly if it keeps him quiet and out of our hair for a bit.
There aren’t that many toddler-friendly games for the Xbox, but what we have so far are: De Blob 2, Megamind (scratched to hell and unplayable), Toy Story 3, Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Star Wars. Over time, he watched us playing and we often let him have a spare controller in co-op mode. This usually involved him twiddling the two joysticks randomly and giggling when a Lego character dropped off a cliff in an explosion of coins, releasing a Wilhelm scream. Or Wilhelm Wookie roar. Or whatever.
Hey, he was happy.
Over the last few weeks, though, he’s taken to it big style. He can’t read yet, which means we often have to explain things to him, but if the game has good use of imagery then this can help. Toy Story 3, for example, has “help” bubbles that show you a ghosted image of a character performing an action while the keys you need to press are displayed next to them. The Lego games are similar, although both games suffer from the player often having to be in just the right position for those buttons to work.
What’s amazed me, and prompted me to post this, is how quickly he’s come on since we sat him down with a controller and let him loose by himself. I just sat with him this morning as the played through the train stage at the start of TS3. Aside from one section which I did for him, he completed the whole thing himself. Picking aliens up and throwing them off the train, throwing bouncy balls at moving targets, smashing boxes open, jumping and double-jumping gaps and obstacles. Wow.
Lego Star Wars has captured his imagination more than the Indy game and its simple problems in the early levels are just right for him. After some demonstration from myself, he’s able to work out some of them with no assistance. Swapping to use the correct characters to perform a task is an example. If he sees a C3PO head, he knows he needs the right kind of droid. Sparkly things? Jedi force. Bounty Hunters only? Wander off, find a helmet machine, get a helmet, go back and get through the door.
And so on.
He can now control the characters and camera independently using the two joysticks. His timing for jumps is good. Not brilliant, especially double-jumps where he often can’t hit the jump key quickly enough in succession, but still pretty damn good.
Now, he’s a good kid with his other toys. He loves tool kits and his Toy Story figures – and his sister’s Lego much to her annoyance. But I don’t think we have much else that has improved his logic skills or hand-eye coordination as these computer games.
I actually think his communication has improved slightly as well, as he tries to explain where and how he’s stuck, or tells us what he’s managed to achieve.
Over and above that, he’s learned how to check whose profile is active when he comes to the console and change it to his own. It’s simple image recognition (as I said, he can’t read but he can identify the icons and avatars), but it also shows he’s aware of what “belongs” to him and to others.
So to those who say that kids shouldn’t be let anywhere near computer games? Think again. There’s a time, a place, and a use for them.
It’s been a while (again) since I had a non-review post on this blog, mainly as I post everything on Google+ and Facebook these days. In a bid to redress that balance, here’s a quick post about something that happened last night.
I’d popped out for the evening to see an old uni mate. Gillian asked me to pick her up a bottle of wine while I was out, which I duly did. The thing is, you can’t buy alcohol from the supermarket after 10pm up here so I had to buy it as I left the house, ferry it around and bring it home later on. Me being me, I also couldn’t just buy a bottle of wine. Not when Morrisons were doing cider on three for £5.
I drove to Tom’s, stashed the booze in the boot for safe keeping, enjoyed my evening and headed home around 11pm. I even remembered, on the way back, to get the booze back out of the boot so it wasn’t slamming around when I went round corners.
Just as you get into our estate, there’s a single-lane humpbacked bridge. I waited for the lights to go green and drove over. Just as I went down the other side, a beautiful full-grown fox darted out in front of the car.
I jammed on the brakes.
The fox stopped, stared at me, pooped a bit of fox poop into its fox underwear and scarpered back off from whence it came.
The bag of bottles slid off the passenger seat into the footwell.
You know that “pop” sound that large bottles make when they are no longer bottle-shaped? Yeah, I heard that. As I pulled into the driveway I could smell the alcohol.
Thankfully, as everything was in a bag, there was no broken glass to dig around for. The three cider bottles had survived, but the wine was now only drinkable by a very desperate alcoholic who didn’t mind the mingled taste of carpet fibre.
So I now have a car that stinks of booze instead of stinking like “new car”, meanwhile I went to the Flex Fleet Rental to get a replacement while mine was being cleaned.
I am dreading being pulled over for something innocuous and then being forced to have a blood test because my car has been drinking and not me.
Thanks to those on facebook who’ve recommended something to get the smell away. Off to Morrison’s shortly to see if I can find any of the scary chemicals mentioned…
