Rat award.

I’ve been awarded this ratsound sticker!

A few days ago I wrote about how much I had enjoyed reading Dave Rat’s blog “Roadies in the Midst”.  Then today there is a comment from Dave Rat saying “Wow! Thank you!  Honored for the props!!”  how cool is that!  It is the whole ‘small world’, humans linked together in ever less physical ways, thing.

So, later on I was talking to Ross and Hoggy, the guys at GBR / ChurchAV  (who pointed out the Rat blog in the first place) and mentioned that Dave Rat had popped up on my blog… Hence the ratsound sticker awarded for “celebrity comment of the day”.

Now I need some suggestions as to where to put this sticker in order to give it the honour it is due.  Young Malcolm said I shouldn’t put it on my face because it wouldn’t stay – and toddlers know about stickers.  I did think covering up the apple logo on my laptop but I think that is against the laws of mac ownership. I certainly don’t have a cool enough home sound system to justify a ratsound sticker…

So, if anyone has any (clean) suggestions for the best place to stick my Ratsound sticker do please let me know.

Movie: Amazing Grace

On the face of it Amazing Grace could be a fairly dry story. OK so it is about the abolition of the slave trade, which is great, but on the Bill through parliament which doesn’t sound too interesting to me. But it is a beautiful film, well worth catching. The unfolding of the story, the growing passion of William Wilberforce and his personal struggle of whether to be a parliamentarian or clergyman is enthralling.

On the film making front I was amazed by the scenes at the docs showing sailing ships and lots of work going on, and will be interested to find out how they did it. This is undoubtedly a good story well told. The characters are engaging and although at the start I found the moving between two time frames confusing this settled down fairly quickly. Good movie and it made me want to come away and find out more about the subject.

Quote:
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

laugh of the day

Continuing the theme of blogs I read.  I have mentioned Scott Adams Dilbert.Blog before but today’s was so funny, here it is in full…

Excellent New Product for Men

If you’re a guy, you’ve probably heard way too many times a variation of this not-really-a-question: “Could you hold my purse?”

As you know, there is no way to hold a purse in a manly fashion. After sixty seconds of transporting a designer bag full of Tampons and lipstick, your testosterone will be so low that you’ll be playing field hockey and lactating.

You can try holding the purse in a manly, irregular fashion, but it won’t help. It’s still a purse. And you’re holding it. You big wuss. Say goodbye to your gonads; they’ll be hiding in your torso like two BBs in an airplane hangar.

That’s why I invented the PursePliers ™. They are exactly like regular pliers, but you carry them in your back pocket in all times in case you are asked to hold a woman’s purse. When you hear the call, “Honey, would you grab my purse?” you whip out the pliers and use them to safely transport the purse and its wuss cooties.

The recommended way to lift a purse with pliers is by grabbing the zipper and holding it the way you would hold fresh road kill, at a safe distance from your body, just in case it’s not totally dead. Research has shown that wuss cooties can not cross pliers.

While there is no manly way to touch a purse with your bare hands, there is no unmanly way to use pliers. Your PursePliers can be used in a variety of situations, including shopping for a blouse for your wife, passing the low-calorie salad dressing, and tucking in a baby.

PursePliers: Their time is now.

Rat’s Blog

I have taken the last two or three weeks to read (or at least catch up with) a fantastic blog. What I found unique about this blog is that it has a defined start point and purpose, which makes it well worth going back to May 2006 and read the full thing.

It is written by this human:

(I really like his turn of phrase ‘humans’ and may directly steel this)

 

Who is sound engineer on tour with these guys:

Red Hot Chili Peppers home page

 

His office look like this:

Explanation of why they are in swim suits

This is far from just a blog about music or technical ‘sound engineering’ stuff (some sections are clearly marked as “sound nerd speak” so that if it gets too in depth you can skip it). It certainly would be of interest to Peppers fans, but isn’t full of backstage gossip on the band in fact they are almost incidental to most of what goes on.  What I find fascinating is the look behind what goes into putting on a live rock show and moving it from place to place. It is also an amusing look into the life or a Roadie and a travelogue of what happens on thier days off in various cities around the world (for example, a day off in Glasgow from last year) not to mention their traveling and hotel adventures. It is highly amusing, at times moving, and always interesting.

There are too many threads to this blog to pull out any highlights it was a really fun read as a catch up and I’m looking forward to the ongoing adventures of a sound man on tour.  If you can, take the time to read the full thing it is worth it.  If you really can’t then at least read the opening month or so to get the hang of what is going on before plugging into what is happening now.

Roadies in the Midst – Dave Rat tours with the Red Hot Chili Peppers  (the blog)

Or, to read from the start

Paul Merton’s Impro Chums

16 March is Comic Relief night 2007 16 March is right in the middle of Glasgow International Comedy Festival 2007 16 March – Ross treated me to a night out at The Kings to see Paul Merton’s Impro Chums.

A great night, watching a very talented group of people doing what I think must be the riskiest and purest forms of entertainment. Just putting yourself out there in public and something funny comes from nowhere.

The set up is usually very simple with just six people on stage and an audience giving suggestions when asked. I can’t even begin to highlight anything specific, as it wouldn’t make sense if you weren’t there. What I can say is that I was in pain with laughter and would recommend this show to anyone who can get tickets. I haven’t been to anything else at the Comedy Festival this year, but really should do this more.

I Feel…

I feel like I’m in a tumble dryer
upside down and back to front
facing in and out at the same time
I don’t know how to get out
I don’t know if this will ever change
I don’t know why this is happening to me

I feel like I’m being ground to bits
crushed and chopped, loosing pieces of me
I don’t know how long it will go on for
I don’t know who put me here
I don’t know why this is happening to me

I feel like a scrap of paper blowing along the street
No use to anyone, stood on, crumpled, forgotten
Rubbish not even good enough for the bin
The hopes I had have gone
My dreams – being given to others

I am alone in a café waiting
I was left here while my dad went for a ‘swift one’
I don’t know how long it’s been, but I’m bored
I don’t know why this happened to me
I don’t know who cares

I don’t want to ‘feel’ anymore

– anon,  2002

Time Travel

BST (British Summer Time) is three weeks away.  So on Sunday 25th March 2007 you are required by UK law to wait up till 1am then run around changing all your clocks FORWARD one hour.  You then realise it is now 2am and collapse into bed.

Usually I find the whole changing clocks thing a fairly stealthy event.  However somehow this year I have become aware that it will be happening with three weeks notice.

So I was wondering if I could get ahead of the game by moving my own time forward 20 minutes for the next three weeks?

It would mean that I would be 20 min early for everything this week, but also I would leave everywhere 20 min before I was supposed to, which might not be ideal.

Also, the following week I would be 40 min ahead of the world, which would be great.  Early to work, early to bed, and I would be able to finish anything which takes less than 40 minutes before anyone else has even started it.  Surely this in itself is a kind of mini super power!

And of course I would be acclimatised to that sudden jump to BST that everyone experiences.  That inexplicable way you find yourself saying “the days seem much longer” when of course they aren’t.

I think the main reason this is going around my head is that it is 5:30am, I still can’t sleep and can hear the dawn chorus (well one or two birds anyway) but it isn’t light yet… so, all in, loosing an hour’s seems a fairly good idea at the moment.

Food: Baby Grand

Went for a meal with a couple of friends – time for a review…
Baby Grand – Charring Cross pre-theatre menu.

The place looks nice, and has a fairly good reputation so I was looking forward to this. I’ll start with the food, because it was really good. OK, so I had a burger and chips which doesn’t sound that great, but it was a real home made burger with fantastic big hand cut chips and a nice salad. There was also a ‘home made relish’, but not enough for my taste. This was followed with a poached pare with ice cream (there was much more description to this but I can’t remember) this was also very tasty and a good size pudding. So overall, the food was good quality and OK value I think at £13ish per person inc drinks.

However, apart from the food it really wasn’t that nice. It was fairly busy, but really not enough room between tables – it was very intrusive if anyone had to get out between the tables as, well there arse was in your face. The music was far too loud and intrusive, making conversation across the table very difficult and then there was the service. When we got service the staff were very nice, but some time after the main course was cleared away I had to go to the bar to find a waitress to give our order for the next course. Again when we were ready to leave I had to go hunt down a bill.

So, overall not a totally enjoyable experience. Don’t go if you are in a rush – i.e. pre-theatre, or if you would like to talk those you are with. But again – the food itself was excellent so at what point is the food more important than the experience. Well not at this point.

ASBO Jesus

The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus

Climbing, trust and thinking hands

I went to the Glasgow Climbing Centre for the first time tonight (*) and I discovered that my hands do actually have a mind of their own!

The climbing was fun, the knots, belaying, finding a route and figuring out how to move, all great fun.  The only time I felt any nerves was at the top of a climb when you lean back and let your partner lower you down the wall.  Now, I’m not that fat, OK so I am probably carrying more than I should, but the friend who took me along is probably one of the more petite people I know.  So the obvious application of physics should result in me hitting the ground as she bumps her head on the roof.  However, before we started she showed me how the belaying thing works and how that couldn’t happen (although I think her feet did leave the ground).

So fair enough, I trusted that if I fell all would be well.  But, there is something different about deliberately letting go and giving up control.  As you climb if anything you are becoming more aware of how you are taking your weight in a small grip and are in tight and deliberate control of your movements.  Then you get to the top and have to give up that control and trust the equipment and your partner on the ground < insert ‘that’s a bit like God’ analogy here >

The first couple of times I had to do this I found that my hand disagreed with the concept of not holding onto the wall any more.  I lent back and moved one hand from the wall to the rope.  I then moved my other hand to the rope only to discover that the first one was back holding onto the wall. I was disappointed with this hand, so moved it back onto the rope only to catch the other one making a break for the wall.  There is obviously some inbuilt “this guys mad, we are clearly off the ground and should be holding onto the wall” subconscious mechanism at work here.  It took deliberate focus to stop holding on and get back down.

All in I think I managed four or five climbs and some ‘bouldering’ where I first felt my arm twinge a bit.  I kind of got the hang of belaying but need practice.  I definitely want to give this a go so will book up for a course then try to find more folk to go with.  Then I can take this one thing off my list of “things to start doing, do more of or be better at”

(*) I have been to the Climbing Centre once before with Jo and Rach, when we made a film all about trust.