Staple Diet

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Archive for August, 2005

Musical Interludes

Aug 31

Posted by Ian in Music

These last couple of weeks have been fairly exciting from a musical point of view. I dj’ed for both Sarah Lou and Zoe’s birthday parties, which were both fantabulous, getting to hang with new and making even newer friends. My mixing on each was somewhat dodgy, but to be honest I’m a bit out of practice.

Tim had been preparing for his CD launch for his band “Walking Wounded” all week last week, and their performance upon Thursday at Journeys showed off all their hard work (although unfortunately, I don’t think the same can be said of the random geezer who decided to perform last minute inbetween them and the support). One of the conversations I had while I was there was with the infamous Carl (who was playing some crazy dub and reggae), revealing the sad news that Fridays “off the shelf” at BSB is to come to an end. Its a bit of a shame, the guys had a great set-up there, gave me the odd gig offer now and then and I’ve met a fair few randoms through events they’ve put on, always enjoying it due to all the guys having a sound appreciation of good music. So long…

An afterparty from Zoe’s meant a bit of a late one on Friday, although a night absolutely chocka of funky soul, breaks and beats from full-fat at Moloko’s. It was a great night, great music and a great change to be making such a trip with a posse rather than being a loner. The same can be said of last night, due to the trip over to Bristol for Jurassic 5’s performance. Although Cut Chemist wasn’t there, Numark absolutely rocked the place with the solo’s he’d put together, with one crazy “do-wop” solo. It was fab to finally see him in action, after all the vids I’ve watched of him with Chemist and DJ Shadow. I stunk so much of weed when I returned it was disgusting.

Anyway, seems I’ve been inspired to check out a few random artists on Warp, namely Brothemstates (did the music for the Sprite ad) and the Rip Off Artist from Kid 606’s Tigerbeat Label. I also ordered the KEEPINTIME dvd off ninjatune by, er, pretty much everyone :) . Warp and Ninjatune are both having sales of sorts at the moment if you’re interested.

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Bizarre Dreams

Aug 25

Posted by Ian in General

I’ve been having some really random dreams this week, the strangest part being I can actually remember them. Here’s a few examples:

Sunday – I had one of those ones where, you’re aware you’re asleep and can control whats going on, but was face down on my bed and completely overcome by something and unable to move any part of my body. When I woke up, with a bit of a start, I’d only been out for a half hour.

Monday – I dreamt I was down the beach somewhere in Cornwall, an absolutely beautiful place it was, when a huge tidal wave comes crashing in. Everyone legs it, leaving all their belongings. In the aftermath, I return searching through all the debri, which contains a high volume of digital cameras. I’m unable to recover my own, and am instead just left with the case.

Tuesday – In this dream I seem to be visiting the cinema where, for some reason, they’re selling hugely discounted bags of popcorn (£100 -> £0.75!). They are massive bags and although really rather tempted by them, I decide to pass as I don’t think I’ll be able to share the immense amount of popcorn they contain with anyone before it begins to taste stale.

Like I said, pretty bizarre.

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Trials Unicycling

Aug 19

Posted by Ian in Unicycling

I was inspired yesterday by watching a few vids on the internet of crazy kids doing trials unicycling, so decided to go out for a ride in the evening round Roath Park. It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden, but it seems you don’t forget. Nor do the ‘oh I’m original’ taunts cease, such as “oi, mate, you’ve lost a wheel!”, “pull a wheelie!” etc etc. Anyway, it was nice to finally ride mine without fear of the horrid scratching which I usually obtain from my previous saddle. Alas I think it’ll be a long time before I’m able to perform smooth grinds along benches and the like.

Apparently, I’ve heard in Japan where unicycling was invented, trials unicycling is as popular a sport as mountain biking, but I don’t believe this for a minute as I’ve never seen any evidence. I was also wondering what the policy on unicycling upon pavements was…people don’t seem to mind, seem more bemused than anything and move out of the way.

If anyones interested, they can have a look at the Land’s End to John O’Groats record that my mates broke, 5 years ago. I believe today would be the anniversary of Jay wrecking his van.

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Sunny Somerset

Aug 17

Posted by Ian in General

I went back home this weekend for Tim and Becca’s wedding. Although the weather didn’t hold out – it was raining all day, the guys made the most of it and the service was fab. Music was provided by Mr Maynard and a string quartet. By far the most amusing thing was the pastor’s inability to use a radio mike without whispering the whole service. So amusing sentences like “Don’t fall down the steps….like you did yesterday” abounded.

The evening ceremonies – a barn dance and a whole ice-cream cabinet full of sweet’s (which I duely explored without instruction – insighting a bit of a riot!), were held at the Haynes motor museum, which I don’t think I’ve ever been too despite it being upon my doorstep. This was quite cool as it gave us something intersting to look at whilst wondering about. One of the cadillilacs was almost the exact same model I won (though a year older). If it had been the same car I think I would’ve been a tad annoyed as we offered it to them when I won it. Anyway, it was great to catch up with everyone, old faces (my old neighbours!) and see the Yeovil crew.

The weather improved loads the following day – so I made the most of it and drove out to ham hill. It’s changed loads since I went out there last so was a bit confused to find the quarry somewhere else to where it used to be. Anyway, I stayed out there as the sun set and took a couple of pictures. It’s a really beautiful place as you can no doubt see, and holds many fond childhood memories.



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Small Mercies

Aug 11

Posted by Ian in General

I went to watch Charlie and the Chocolate factory last night – which I thought was great, compared to the original preconceptions I had of it from trailers, reviews and the like. Anyways, I was sat there at the end as all the children were walking out of the factory thinking, “Well, at least I’m not as thin as Mike TV”.

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Unwanted Affection?

Aug 10

Posted by Ian in General

So, after renewing my insurance policy today, I get handed the piece of paper with my policy number and the words “Ashley, love”. I’m unsure whether the guy wrote this in awe of myself or indeed it had been written previously on the pad in use. Either way, the words in that order don’t make any sense. Dyslexia perhaps? There’s been a bit of talk and reading recently involving dating with integrity, not settling with second best and the like, but this ranks a few rungs below that upon my ladder unfortunately.

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Ideal Images

Aug 3

Posted by Ian in General

On a lighter note, I went to a ‘focus group’ last night which was fairly surreal. I’d been asked last week to attend, and had agreed not actually knowing the subject matter. On sunday I was informed that it was going to be on ‘mens cosmetics’ (something I’m obviously very familiar with!) so didn’t really know what to expect. After arriving, discovering two of my old coursemates were there (and on the same course as Garima), we sat down for like 45 minutes talking about our opinions about luxuries, cosmetics and as many tangents we could stray off on as possible. It was all fairly amusing, except for the part where I was forced to admit to moisturising in front of a bunch of guys I’d just met…(I get really dry skin!)..

What it did leave me thinking was the whole aspect of image and how we can become overly concerned with it. Most of you who know me know that I’m not overly bothered with combo’s of clothing, I tend to buy on the off chance and whatever is suitable and cheapest. What I am a little more concerned about is my build, but only because people generally comment to me in disdain due to how thin I am. For all those people, I’m really sorry that you seem to have a problem with this, feeling the need to bring it up all the time. I am what I am, God made me this way, I can’t help high metabolism, its not my fault, leave it out!…..really I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be blessed with such a skinny, lanky, body – I’ve had health problems in the past because of it and not the eating disorder kind either. I could understand desire for the tall, dark, handsome, intelligent, humourous, modest angle, but not the lankiness..

Hmm, tangents again, so much for the ‘lighter note’.

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Millions of Wrongs don’t Make it Right

Aug 1

Posted by Ian in Faith, Geek, Music

I’ve had quite a lot of talks recently with people about the subject of piracy, be it music, films, software, whatever. You might think that being a Computer Scientist and DJ, that I’d be quite blase attitude toward it, but it’s quite the opposite really.

My take on it, is, whichever way you come at it, it’s theft. That might sound quite harsh, but I might as well to cut to the chase. If you download or copy cd’s with no intention of rewarding those who created it with payment of some way shape or form, I’m sorry, I really can’t see it as a good thing. You might argue that fat cats mark up media with artificially high prices, with little going to the original artists, but it’s untrue for the most part (there are a huge number of people involved in producing most albums) and goes a short way as to why you should award those artists with no payment whatsoever…these artists do after all sign contracts and know what they’re getting themselves into for the most part.

Admittedly, there are occasions where my opinions blur. In the case of mix cd’s, I see the cd as a showcase for the DJ’s mixing skills, as well as those songs upon it, so I’d quite happily download mixes from the net. If there is a good track within, I’ll add it to my collection anyway, the majority of the dance music scene seems to encourage these methods anyway – getting their artists to produce mixes and distribute them online so people buy the bare, unmixed, tracks. It gets really messy with the issue of sampling – I’m not even going there….

What’s a little more scary, is the attitude Christians take to piracy. I’ve known in the past Christians quite happily pirating software worth thousands to produce albums or websites for projects in the Church, with little or no concern for what they’re doing. Surely there’s something wrong there – making Church websites with stolen software? The majority of the time its simply not necessary for the tasks in hand either, there are other ways of achieving the results in a more ethical way. (Ask me if you want to know how)… I’m probably more sensitive in this area, due to the fact I create software myself.

I was really disturbed when I first got into sharing applications as a teenager at the volume of Christian music available, Delerious, Redman, Jars of Clay, you want it its there…it seems we’re just as bad as the rest of the world here. The Gospel Music Association even has the stats to prove it. The Bible calls for us to ‘abide by the laws of the land’ because such authorities ‘have been established by God’ (Romans 13:1-7) – if we’re going against them we’re going against God. I can’t see that laws for copyrighting music, films go against what God says, so really we have no reason for being so lax in this department.

I was reading a book called the Net Commandments back along which describes how easy technology has made it for us to sin (or cybersin – but that sounds like you need a peripheral). Not only this, but its also removed a large majority of the barriers which have been in place which otherwise may have presented us from sinning. I’d love to see some of us going into Virgin and using our MD to record the album we’re sampling at the listening point, it’d never happen.

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