Monthly Archive for: ‘December, 2006’

Resolutions Review 2006

How did I get on with my resolutions for 2006?

1. I will not drink caffeine after 7pm on a ~~school~~ work night.

A success! Switching to caffeine-free diet coke and decaffeinated Earl Grey helped.

2. I will not use the PC before leaving the house for work in the mornings
- it is not necessary to check email and read blogs at 6am!

Started off with the best of intentions, but this pretty much fell by the wayside by the Spring. Must try harder next year.

3. Instead, I will use the time saved to have breakfast every morning.

As with 2, I started off well, but have slipped back to my old ways in recent months. Renewed efforts required.

4. I will memorise the names and dates of English monarchs since 1066.

Pretty poor. I was certain that I’d be able to achieve this within a year, so promptly forgot about the task until late November. A late surge of effort saw me memorise details only back as far as Queen Anne, so there’s much left to do here.

5. I will finish converting all my vinyl to MP3.

Did I heck. What a laborious and dull task that is! Much easier just to download the same tracks where possible, although I have a few bits of obscure vinyl that I still haven’t been able to find online..

6. I will sell / dispose of my server.

Yes! It was out of the way by spring, when we had to get the flat ship-shape to entice potential purchasers. Can’t say I miss it.

7. I will bag some Munros.

Another failure, regrettably.

8. I will finish my MCSD.

Uh, partial credit. On 18th March I passed exam 70-300, “Analyzing Requirements and Defining Microsoft .NET Solution Architectures”, but I still haven’t got round to doing exam 70-316, the Windows apps one. Don’t know why, as by all accounts it’s pretty easy – I should get this knocked off really.

So, I make that a score of two-and-a-bit out of eight. Pretty poor, huh? But I’ve been busy, and it’s been a highly productive and enjoyable year all told, not least because of moving home in the summer. 2007 promises to be similarly full and life-changing, but I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow….

Which Superhero Are You?

My results:
I am Superman

Superman		70%
Robin		67%
Spider-Man		65%
Supergirl		55%
Batman		50%
Iron Man		50%
Hulk		45%
Green Lantern		30%
The Flash		25%
Wonder Woman		20%
Catwoman		15%

You are mild-mannered, good,
strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Flashing My DVD Drive

As I mentioned earlier this month, shooting in RAW on my shiny new Canon EOS400D has many advantages, but the obvious disadvantage is the increase in storage requirements – the average shot I took on Boxing Day was around 8.5 Mb, and they all need storing somewhere. So, on our last trip to the supermarket I bought myself a spindle-full of TDK DVD-R discs, with the intention of backing up all my RAW “negatives” to disc.

Incidentally, if you’ve upgraded to Vista you may be frustrated that some old favourite disc-burning software such as Nero no longer works properly. There are alternatives – I’ve been using a trial version of SwiftDisc for the past few days, which works just fine, and is super-easy to use.

Anyway, I was surprised to discover that my TDK discs were unrecognised by my DVD drive, which is a Sony DVD RW DW-D22A, dating from Autumn 2004. Some cheaper “Mr DVD” brand discs, bought some time ago, worked just fine. The solution? I needed to upgrade my drive’s firmware, from “BYS1″ (06 Aug 2004) to “BYS3″ (17 Nov 2004).

If, like me, you’ve never messed about with upgrading firmware, you might be surprised to discover just how easy it is. There’s a great collection of firmware at this site, which also provides a page explaining how to go about the process. I used the Windows-based LtnFW software, which allowed me to backup my existing firmware and overwrite it within a few minutes. Now I’m able to make use of my shiny new spindle of discs, and preserve this Christmas’s photographic memories for many years to come.

Christmas Presents 2006

Obviously my main present this year was the Canon EOS 400D that I got earlier this month (Santa kindly understood that a few week’s practice would be necessary in order to take some decent festive snaps!), but I found the following waiting at the foot of the bed on Christmas morning:

Once again, thanks to everyone who gave Santa a helping hand!

The Best Thing I’ve Heard All Year – 2006

“Regard art critics as useless and dangerous” – Manifesto of the Futurist Painters

With that stark warning ringing in your ears, here’s my list of the best albums I’ve heard during 2006:

	Neil Young – Living With War If I had to pick one person to write a protest album about the Iraq war, it would definitely be Neil Young. I blogged about this scathing and visceral attack on the Bush administration back in October, and my opinion of it hasn’t diminished over the past couple of months. It remains a strong collection of work with an energy and quality that has been lacking in Young’s work since, ooh, at least 1994′s Sleeps With Angels.
	Snow Patrol – Eyes Open Just a few albums ago Snow Patrol were indie plodders putting out the kind of records that would only be bought by people like me. Now they’ve broken into mainstream by releasing anthemic radio-friendly tracks such as Chasing Cars, You’re All I Have, Set The Fire To The Third Bar, and (my personal favourite), It’s Beginning To Get To Me. And look who they namecheck: “Put Sufjan Stevens on, and we’ll play your favorite song, Chicago bursts to life in your sweet smile remembers you” …which brings me on to…
	Sufjan Stevens – Illinois I realise that this was released back in 2005, but I didn’t get round to hearing it until early this year! This is the second in Sufjan Steven’s grand plan of releasing an LP for every state in the US, and it’s an absolute corker. Beautiful, melodic piano-led tunes that will be seeping out from my late-night headphones for many years to come.
	Belle And Sebastian – The Life Pursuit Belle And Sebastian never fail to deliver the goods, and this Tony Hoffer-produced follow-up to 2003′s Dear Catastrophe Waitress is no exception. Brilliant lyrics once more from Stuart Murdoch and the band are sounding tighter than ever, combining to make a deliciously upbeat seventh album.
	Pipettes – We Are The Pipettes The Pipettes are on a mission “to turn back the clock to a time before The Beatles ruined everything”, and their weapons of choice are polka-dot dresses and mesmering hand-jives. I’m a sucker for female-fronted bands singing bubblegum pop songs about love and disco dancing, so there was never any doubt that this would end up on my favourite LPs list.
	Long Blondes – Someone to Drive You Home Hooray, another female-fronted pop band! And they hail from Sheffield! And quote Morrissey! How could I resist their charms?
	Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out Of This Country Camera Obscura are a Glaswegian indie who came to my attention when I heard their fantastic single Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken (an answer song to Lloyd Cole’s 1984 (Are You) Ready To Be Heartbroken?). The video to that single is quite cute too – check it out on YouTube. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the entire album (their third!) is of a similarly high quality.
	Guillemots – Through The Windowpane The Guillemots’ album makes it onto my list primarily because it includes my favourite track of 2006, Trains To Brazil. The title is a reference to the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, and the subject matter of the lyrics concerns the ongoing spate of terrorist attacks, suggesting that we should “live and be thankful we’re here” whilst we have the chance. Soulful vocals and decorative horns help to make this the most joyous, life-affirming pop song I’ve heard in many a long year.

Honorary mentions to the following other fine opuses:

James Brown Is Dead (really)

I had the great pleasure of watching half a James Brown set at the V98 festival at Leeds in August 1998. My original online journal entry for that day is here.

We had started the evening, like most people at the festival, watching headliners The Verve on the main stage – they were riding high in popularity at that time following the release the previous year of their Urban Hymns LP. I had always been a bit gutted that due to an injury they had pulled out of supporting Oasis at Sheffield Arena in April 1995, but to be fair Pulp were a more than adequate replacement, and that turned out to be the first time I heard Common People.

Anyway, back to 1998, and despite the great songs, The Verve had no stage presence whatsoever. As I wrote at the time:

Emperor’s new clothes or what?! I may as well have sat at home listening to some CDs and turning my bedroom lights on an off.

So, we skulked off to the dance tent to catch the last half of the James Brown set, and I will always be glad that we did. What a showman! Even at 65 he was bouncing around the stage like a maniac, whipping the audience (of mainly teen and twenty-something indie kids) into a frenzy with his shouted and impassioned vocals. The contrast with a statuesque Richard Ashcroft could not have been more stark.

BBC News: James Brown Obituary