mardi 26 août 2003

The drummer from hell. & the LCD factor... One previous neighbour's sex life was singularly athletic and rewarding. This I can tell you with my usual impeccable taste now that she and her live-in boyfriend have moved on to bigger pastures. But like me, that delightful and civilised pair had a strong aversion to rude wake-up calls, which was hardly surprising given the late hour when the racket through the wall would sometimes come to an exhausted end. August being the month of the pneumatic drill, I was wrenched out of nightmare well before the permitted hour of 8:00 am. As what passes for consciousness seeped into my system, it struck me that this infernal object was a remarkably regular and peculiar-sounding drill, like a deep heartbeat amplified by several factors of 10. The vibrations rocking my bed were also dissimilar, like a carpenter using a hammer with inhuman precision, stopping for a second or two to make slight rhythmic alterations every four or five minutes. All attempts to return to the dark dream proved fruitless. A glance out of the window disclosed nothing untoward in the street. When I went into the living room, the noise was more disturbing still. Eventually I opened the door on to the landing. Oh Lord! It was them right next door. Now I heard the rest of it, the occasional electronic screech and some caterwauling from what was once an innocent babe in arms. "That, Daddy," the Kid informed me when she finally got up in her own time, quite undisturbed by the noise, but still looking like I felt, "is techno for breakfast!" "Well, it's worse, darling, than anything you've ever subjected me to -- including the band I'm not allowed to insult any more." Honestly, it's not just my advanced age. A lot of the popular music really was better when I was a lad! Several of the Kid's favourite bands know this perfectly well, otherwise they wouldn't spend time at the beginning of the 21st century making noises which are extremely derivative of what I used to listen to in the late '60s and the Seventies. It's the LCD factor that comes with computers that I blame for some of the worst contemporary horrors to assault my ears. I speak not of the "liquid crystal display" (Howstuffworks), but the lowest common denominator. Much as I appreciate the considerable benefits information technology has brought to music, there's nothing more aurally offensive -- in my own very humble opinion, of course -- than a bunch of kids who've learned how to make a drum loop and let the bloody thing run for whole tracks on end, without the slightest creative intervention apart from a few almost equally unbearable additions electronically plastered on top. I had a hard time yesterday -- as perhaps ½ of the Loyal Three and Three-Quarters might have noticed should (s)he have spotted the chopping and changing in the new sidebar to the right -- picking among Amazon's choice of feeds into this 'blog. Every time I thought I'd got the balance right, some object would flash up to unsettle me. I "have no problem with" -- more on that in a sec -- helping to promote cultural artefacts which are not to my own remarkably cultivated taste, but I'd much rather not blemish this haven of peace and tranquillity, as rich in its way as a Zen garden, with dog turds. Such excreta may well be somebody's idea of a best-seller, otherwise they wouldn't be on the list, but they're also a product of our LCD consumer culture, fabricated like junk food with as little polluting human intervention and thought as possible. Fortunately, if those Amazon people decide to allow me to continue to be a partner in spite of this little exercise in creative self-expression, I gather that I may arrange to customize those feeds even further, offering you exactly what I fancy. Probably I would also be able to reduce the number of flashing ads to the required minimum, which I couldn't work out how to do by myself. I hope they don't conclude that, this way, I'd be no use to them at all... zzz "I have no problem with..." "You've got a problem with... "Ah, but that gives me a problem! You see, while I don't have a problem with..." This exchange, only very slightly exaggerated though the real one was more drawn out and included numerous other "problems with", was characteristic of a whole conversation I endured recently on the Beeb's 'Sunday' programme, a sometimes interesting religious affairs broadcast that begins on Radio 4 at an hour when usually I try not to be out of bed. I won't steal the thunder of an e-mail Tony's plotting to the Beeb, which will consist almost entirely of the contemporary clichés he finds hardest on the ears. But when it's done, I'll let you have it. I hope he includes a tiny little news presenter's tick that drives me up the wall when they introduce a soundbite: "This report by so-and-so." Would it really be so exhausting to say "This report is by..."? zzz As you can see, I got out of the right side of bed this morning. I have little choice. Getting out of the left side would take me straight through the wall into one of the young neighbour's bedrooms. So now I'm going to take my excellent humour off to the canteen, along with constipation (the Immodium actually worked for once), and see what other joys I can find to write about. Or then keep a promise to take Marianne to inspect Angelina's nipples this afternoon. "You really do have quite a taste, like teenage boys, for bright and beautiful heroines," the Wildcat observed. "Yes," I confessed. "Women like you." "But they're also pretty murderous." "So where's the difference, my love?" 1:42:55 PM  link   your views? [] Other people's outbursts. Nothing like a rant Why spare the loyal 3 ¾ what I didn't spare myself? Political feelings are running high, chez Glenn of the Beeb, Victoria, Heli, and others. "WE ARE NOT MARXISTS AT THE BBC: And don't listen to those capitalist imperialists who say otherwise!" That was Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit. He links to a report in 'The Independent'. The views of a top BBC telly exec will be music to Tony's ears. My friend hasn't bought or read a Murdoch paper in years. On principle. Loathes the bastard. Victoria gives vent at Blogcritics, but added that the ruder version is at her own place. Where, of course, I thought I'd enjoy it even more. "Now, in news sure to offend a hell of a lot of people but after watching the BBC, NBC, CNN and hearing about the bombings in India, the renewed fighting in Israel, and the fact that the International Red Cross is pulling most of their workers out of Baghdad, when the fuck will the United States just leave them to it and let them all just blow the fuck out of each other?" I can disagree with some of what she writes, but I really like the spirit behind it at 'tekwh0re' (for more). Neat site! North of me, Heli's also had it up right up to here! "What do we have here in the Netherlands? Kleptocrats! George Bush has set a very bad example. The only difference with organized crime is that a government can make laws that make their crimes 'legal'." (Heaven and Hell Radio) They could send you Chirac instead? On similar lines: "Every year, the Pentagon is allocated $1.1 trillion $400 million, and never has to account for it. Where does the money go? 'More than $1.1 trillion of federal government money is missing. Our government leaders say they will not account for it. However finding this money could solve all of our federal, state and local budget crises. Where is the Money?'" Cory (but on Sunday) at Boing Boing for the rest... Victoria wants 'Troops Out' abroad. Bill Gallagher's fuming about conquest much closer to home: Other than the obvious conquered peoples of the USA, which include the Native American People, and the African Americans, there exist a very large portion of European types who are in the strictest sense of the word, conquered, and who exhibit starkly many social traits of a conquered people. But this isn't your usual Confederate rant. At 'l.a. indymedia'. Meanwhile, also across the Pond: Donald Rumsfeld plans to fight terrorism by goading terrorists into action, and then catching them out. One article mentions this program, the other talks more in-depth about it and aspects of the first article in general (both are from November 1, 2002). One "disgusted Copolymer" submits outrage to 'morons.org' What happened this weekend? We're nowhere near the full moon... 12:41:51 AM  link   your views? [] 'NetNewsWire 1.0.4 ships' ... along with a hack "Highlights of this release include using Web Kit (the Safari HTML renderer) for HTML display, custom style sheets, displaying differences in updated items, performance boosts, TypePad support, support for gzip compression, and more. "For more details, see what’s new in NetNewsWire 1.0.4." [Ranchero] At his place, meanwhile, Jonathan Rentzsch published a hack for people wanting a widescreen version of my favourite newsreader. Brent tells us so. I've done enough hacking myself for a while. Brent could include this as an option in NNW 1.1. I've joined the little SVP list. 12:10:08 AM  link   your views? []

nick b. 2007 do share, don't steal, please credit under artistic licence terms; contributing friends (pix, other work) retain their rights.