[want good food on the airplane? then read this...]

I found this and thought I'd share. It's about the last time I went on tour. I published it once in my 'zine Looking for a fish-drying plant.

...so a few months back I was in this band and we were playing gigs in christchurch and dunedin... and we flew to chch and back on air new zealand and we told 'em we were a cultural group and registered to receive special meals of various types -- the guitarist got vegan which was pretty bad and the drummer got islamic-halal and that was worse but i really scored -- i was jewish-kosher and that was really quite a good deal... 'course i nearly gave the game away when we boarded the the flight attendant asked me if i wanted to open the meal tray myself and here's me thinking "oh yeah you cook it and i'll open it alright" so i said yeah ok and we sit down and then there he is with this sealed tray full of all this kosher food and i looked at it and said thanks and then he sez "are you going to open it sir? because we need to start preparing it right away because this is just a short flight" and i realise that i had to open the fucken thing then and there and verify it's kosher-ness or something and pro'ly say a prayer or something but i just sorta broke the seals with my thumbnail and looking kinda stupid gave it back to him... but the meal was pretty good when they brought it... and it even had a certificate of kosher-ness signed by the rabbi who prepared it... so that night we played christchurch and the next day we went in a car to dunedin and played that night and the next day we came back to christchurch quite late and i went to this party with some people i knew and we ended up going to denny's y'know the all-night restaurant... we went there at about 4.30 a.m. and we had some food and then it was pretty much time to go to the airport for the 6.20 flight back to wellington.. and by this time i was having trouble staying awake on the plane for long enough to eat my kosher breakfast of course which the flight attendants had to prepare specially 'cos of some administrative error and it took them ages -- we could see wellington by the time they presented it to me -- and i couldn't eat anyway cos of going to denny's and all but i felt compelled to try so i wolfed a bit of it and i got indigestion and then had to work real hard to stop myself from laughing when three of them came up and started apologising for their incompetence and virtually bowing and scraping (seriously -- there was no placating them -- they were acting as if i was some kinda v.i.p. and was going to order them to be executed or something or that they were going to pop off to the galley and commit hara-kiri) and the head flight attendant made a special point of pointing out the junior f.a. whose fault it all supposedly was which was a really uncomfortable moment because initially i said "oh it's no problem" and then she pointed her out again and virtually commanded me to commit the hapless girl's name to memory -- actually i felt like a victim of some sort of cultural stereotyping -- are jewish people particularly reknowned for complaining and merciless filling-in of customer satisfaction surveys? (only perhaps in the popular-media seinfeld-woody-allen sense of jewish people)... it was really ridiculous... simultaneously feeling annoyed at this racial discrimination as well as being annoyed and embarrassed that, travelling as i was under false pretences, i wasn't actually deserving of such discrimination, and frustrated at the culture of complaint and litigation we now seem to belong to where something like that can't go wrong without people having to both feel like they have to make a big thing out of it and defend themselves in pre-emptive strikes against the making of the big deal, and appalled thinking "how often does this happen to other people"... especially real jewish people maybe even not from n.z. who really want their kosher breakfast and might get it a little late on an early-a.m. flight from christchurch to wellington, and have to put up with these horrible desperate fawning arseholes... maybe they mistook my tiredness for grumpiness -- should have just told 'em i'm not a all-nighter-and-then-morning person!

so i was going to say next time you fly air new zealand tell 'em you're jewish and sit back and wait for the fun to start but about a week after this air n.z. announced they were stopping serving meals on domestic and short haul flights and i couldn't help feeling more than a little bit responsible.

Going to Sydney-o with my effects units in my pack...

Yeah.. going to Sydney on Thursday morning, to play some The Stumps shows and a solo gig too. Here's some links with info if you think you wanna make it.

Friday night (2nd Sept) I'm supposed to be doing a solo seht show at the latest Impermanent Audio event, and on Saturday night The Stumps are playing in the Sound No Sound extravaganza at The Mandarin Club. No idea where the show on Sunday night is; guess we'll find out when we get there.

UPDATE

Sunday September 4th
The NZ Possie @ Yvonne Ruve {104a Hibernian House / 342 Elizabeth St, Surry Hills}
plus whoever you wish to collaborate with.

Spam, spam, spam, spam...

In the last few days I've received various unsolicited messages from Puffin A. Earthward, Recollection T. Geometry, Senselessly P. Angioplasties, Dionysus Schwartz, and, uh, Himmelfarb.

Working for a living never looked like so much fun.

Blog, death, and blog-death

Because every other bastard has been posting (even Kate), I thought I'd better do something. So - since we have several orders of business, let's get into it.

1. Charles is a dirty ho.
The other morning she woke me around 5.30 making all sorts of racket. "Oh" thinks I, "Charles has brought a mouse in" for she was making all the right sorts of running and tossing and jumping noises. After a brief period of silence I got up to check and she surely had caught a mouse, for I saw her sitting there in the cold grey of dawn, looking very pleased with herself, chewing with a mouse-tail hanging from her mouth. "Good on ya Charles" I thought, "give it what for" and went back to bed.

An hour later I was again roused from my slumber by Charles doing her daily morning-wake-up routine. This involves jumping on the bed, standing on my chest, saying something like "rrah rrraow" and giving me a big wet sloppy Charles-kiss. A big wet sloppy Charles kiss is a strong nuzzle/headbutt where she sticks her big wet sloppy cold nose in my face, and sometimes licks me on the mouth as well. Usually I manage to avoid the licking; this morning I did not and I spent several minutes feeling sick and trying to convince myself that I hadn't just earlier seen her chewing on vermin. I succeeded partially; the self-deception lasted until I got up and stood on a still-juicy mouse-tail in the bathroom.

2. Java my script up, masher
Hey the second piece of Java-script I've ever written is now live on this page. See if you can spot it. (Tip - you might have to refresh the page a couple of times).

And of course if you're enough of a nerd you'll know how to inspect the page source and so on. So get fucked. I'm mainly talking to you, Styles.

3. My new site.
I've been working on an electronic bio/portfolio. It's as simple as possible - it's all HTML with no scripting or anything, 'cos I want to be able to drive off of a CD-ROM. To test it I loaded it onto stephenclover.sphosting.com. I'm also experimenting with an idea to foil email-address harvesters - encoding my email address backwards in the "mailto" link. I'm not sure that it's so obvious what to do once your mail app fires up, though. Ultimately I will write a piece of code which decodes some sort of an encoded email address - like my own derivation of base-64, or the weird encoding they use in SMS messages or similar... and this will work like a treat!

Anyway if you wanna check it out go right ahead but be warned; pop-ups galore!

which leads me to...

4. Good, free, no-ads, no-pop-ups web-hosting.
Is there such a thing? Any suggestions. Subdomains are ok. Or else, anyone want to lend me some webspace and a subdomain while I get this thing going? I plan to ultimately get a domain and proper hosting and so on, but for the moment, I'll consider anything.

5. WTF of the week.
Is it my imagination, or are cullottes somehow back in fashion? Perhaps not ones like those (right) but cullottes all the same?

Floaters

I just found out that the new girl one of my friends is seeing is someone I was seeing for a while about 18 months ago. This's never happened to me before; it's a bit weird.

I recently worked out that one of my favourite blogs, one I read all the time, is written by someone I went to high school with. Now THAT's even weirder.

Oh, and I just discovered something floating in my coffee. Which is weirdest of all; since I made it and I definitely didn't put anything in it.

*sings It's a small world after all...

Sightings and double-takes

Really irritating not to have my camera on hand this morning as, riding the bus downtown to work, spied groups of people dressed almost exactly like the wonderful and enigmatic The Residents, prancing along Lambton Quay. Was enough to cause me to violently double-take, injuring my neck slightly. Principal difference between these folk and The Residents of course is that The Residents tended not to wear sandwich-boards advertising brand new Vodafone 3G services (sorry, not going to link to Vodafone).

Wonders at feasibility of following...
me: "Hey, Boss, gotta go home sick, neck hurt quite badly."
Boss: "Oh yeah? How'd ya do it then?"
me: "Turned head sharply cos thought spied lengendary San Francisco anonymous art-concept multimedia pop-band walking along Lambton Quay. Cricking noise, yelps, etc."

All downhill from there, one suspects.

More The Residents here (erm The Residents 'bog' [sic]), and here.

Geek slut

...is one of my favourite blogs. I've been meaning to link to it for ages. His tagline reads "Geek. Soldier. Slut. A glimpse of an American horn dog" - and what else do you really need to know? Well, it's insightful, entertaining, and usually more than a little frightening. WARNING: this blog may or may not be work-safe; depends where you work, really.

Ross P. Kettle's newest cartoon is again a damn funny one; at least for my New Zealand politics-enabled readers.

NP: La Monte Young's A Well-Tuned Piano. I'm not going to upload it, because it's about 5 hours long.

NZD and a QP

Tonight I went to the launch of the new Quality Planning website. Minister for the Environment Marion Hobbs (you'd think I'd be able to link to her somewhere.. but no..) spoke, and everyone was happy and clapped. I drank wine, and then I drank some more. I wasn't exactly responsible for the QP site; but put it like this - if certain parts don't work, it's definitely my fault.

This is my new NZD profile photo. I really like it. It's from my blue period. I think I look really hot and I hope all the ladies do too. I quite like how it looks like someone has smacked me in the eye. Actually it looks like someone - or even different people - has smacked me in both eyes. In reality it was about 4am when I took the photo and the only thing that had smacked me in the eye was a dozen beers and several martinis. I particularly like the ambiguous way that it looks like I've got two double chins; or else only one chin and two Adam's apples.

If you couldn't tell, my webcam sucks. Actually, it's not my webcam; that's all we're going to say about that.

Tonight the rest of The Stumps came around. I played them the new album I've been mastering for several months now, and only just completed. They loved it. We got drunk and played it very loudly. We were supposed to be practising but we never got around to it. It's only two weeks now until we go and play gigs in Sydney.

Last night I dreamt - once again - that I was having sex with one of my workmates. Well, it wasn't even just sex - it was a full-blown relationship and house-buying and interior decorating and all that crap. And the workmate in question was someone with whom I have hardly had anything to do; have hardly spoken to for more than 12 months, even. Am looking forward tonight to finding out if the curtains arrive and if we get the loan approved. And so on.

Love is a fist

I felt sick all day today. Sick like going to get sick, like soreness building up in my throat and so on. Had to go to the doctor (The Mill Liquorsave) and get myself a script (1 litre of Teachers)... just took my medicine (a COLOSSAL belt of whiskey followed by another big glass to be sipped) and feel a lot better. Hence I am sitting here, eating my tea (stir fried bubble'n'squeak - leftover rice, leftover pasta, some chopped cocktail olives...) and blogging.

For weeks after The Jarman left, I was telling everyone that I was loving living alone. And I was.. I mean, I wasn't lying. I really was enjoying my new-found freedom and ability to do whatever I wanted and get really drunk all the time and be a bit of a slut. I just realised, however, that it's all bullshit. I hate living alone. What I meant, when I told ppl I was enjoying it, was really just that I was enjoying feeling less bad about coming home after 9 or 10 hours and spending several more hours on my own stuff. I was feeling less guilty about working late into the night every night recording new solo seht material, or building the next The Stumps album, or correcting the artwork for a new release, or making up 20 parcels of CDs and sending them to radio stations and magazines all over the world... fuck I just read all that and it makes me sound like such a shit boyfriend; forget you ever read it and just carry on about yer business, ok?

I'm listening to the first Mr Bungle album, and it's so GREAT! Goddamn it, it's nearly 15 years since my best friend Iain Wickens brought it to school and said "Man you gotta hear this album, it's got the new Faith No More singer on it, it's INSANE". And it's nearly ten years since one of my 'friends' (read - fucken loser who I lived with for a while) stole my CD copy of it. To this day I don't believe that the dick realises that I knew all along. Arrgghh.. long story, ok?

The other day I was feeling adventurous so I whipped up a profile on NZ Dating; "I'm gonna wreak some havoc" I said to myself (and to the_sifter, if I recall correctly). Wish I'd never bothered now.. just keep on getting emails from people whose feelings I can't bring myself to hurt.

Ms. Brown is going off, if you hadn't been keeping up. Also the_sifter aka J 'to the muthafucken dancing-with-myself" S has appeared in the drinking buddies on the right. *hic*

There's no place like home... there's no place like home... there's no place like home....

Ross P. Kettle's latest cartoon...

is really funny.

Good weekend, all?

NP: The proto-goth/industrial granduer of the Cocteau Twins' Persephone, from their 1984 album Treasure.

By the way, calling it proto-goth/industrial isn't by any means intended as an insult; just trying to place it, y'know?

A good bloody mary, these days, is hard to find

I like Bloody Marys a lot, but I often find other people don't. Possibly it's because they're piss-weak (the Bloody Marys, I mean); possibly it's because they (the non-believers) don't know any better. Either way, I myself like them very very hot and strong. I could number the bars where they make a Bloody Mary to my taste on the fingers of one hand; the number of bar-staff who do the same are even less numerous. So obviously, I had to start making my own.

I've linked to this Bloody Mary recipe [drinksmixer.com/drink581.html] before, but to be honest it's on the piss-weak side. There's a good number of variants if you inspect the table on the right side of the page, and some of them get pretty fancy - clam juice? Wasabi anyone?

Ultimately, however, I had to come up with my own special recipe. I've been working on it for weeks and weeks now, and I'm finally ready to share it with the world. It's not actually too special, but without any further ado, I give you:

Stephen's "Dirty Bastard" Bloody Mary

90 ml (3 oz) pure tomato juice, chilled
60 ml (2 oz) vodka of moderate quality, chilled
30 ml (1 oz) sherry, preferably dry
15 ml (1/2 oz) Worcestershire sauce
8 very generous dashes of Tabasco sauce
a big squirt of fresh lemon juice, preferably straight out of the guts of a fresh lemon
a large pinch of sea salt
a big grind of pepper
at least a tablespoon of horseradish cream
a big ol' dash of celery salt

Combine in a shaker with ice, shake long and hard and then pour the lot - ice and all - into a shortish, round glass.

Forget about all that celery stalk shit, just slug it down. You'll possibly be left gasping, and with a very tingly feeling in your guts. That's exactly the point.

Notes:
1. All liquid measures based on the rough equivalency that 1 single measure = 30 ml = 1 (liquid) oz.
2. Chilled vodka is vodka kept in the freezer. The better the quality vodka, the less it freezes, or so I understand; conversely, the more it freezes, the more of those really sexy ice crystal thingies form inside the bottle.
3. A generous dash of Tabasco sauce is obtained by upending a bottle of Tabasco sauce and thumping it with the heel of your hand. The ejaculation is voluminous and spectacular, so make sure your aim is true.
4. For sherry, Noilly Prat will do. Whaddaya mean you don't have any in the cabinet!?
5. You'll wanna be careful with the horseradish cream: not too many additional ingredients, and no chunky bits. Seriously, the chunky bits are EWWWWW.
6. The name? The resulting drink is not not the most attractive shade of red - any painters out there will know what I mean when I say it's as if I hadn't cleaned the all the green out of my brush before I used it in my red.

Ms. Brown got over it...

... and now she's been added - in her rightful place - to my drinking buddies.

That's not her picture, though... that's just an image of Melissa Ethridge (following chemotherapy) I'm temporarily leeching from some website. I found it by querying google images for "ugly lesbian", and it returned pictures of Ethridge. Wow.

Melissa Ethridge rocks. So does Ms. Brown.

Miscellany, thirst

I feel I should point out that I am fucking terrified is some sort of a new-lad response to the somewhat-earnest I am not afraid (thanks to Smackie for this link too), which went up following the recent bombings in London.

Cereal disappointment of the week: Kraft's Grape Nuts, which bear no relation to grapes or nuts, but are rather much more like little pieces of barley shrapnel which have a tendency to shred the roof of your mouth.

I wish I would stop dreaming about having sex with my workmates. And mainlining heroin into my large intestine (I don't even know if this is possible, let alone a common-practice).

Oh, and right at this moment, I really really really need a drink.

Fear is what I feel...

I am fucking terrified (thanks to Smacked Face for the link).

Bring me the liver of John the Baptist

Remember when you were a teenager? You were starting to drink, but you had no idea about the power of booze. The best thing that could happen to you was that you would get hammered on cheap vodka and spin around a few times and fall over and throw up, y'know "Welcome to the awesome power of booze, junior" and that would pretty much be the end of it. You now know your limits.

Being a little bit older than that now, but not any wiser it would seem, I performed an experiment similar to the above exercise the other night, with spectacular results. The purpose of the experiment was to see how many martinis and vodka 'n' limes I can safely drink in two hours. The results of the experiment have been documented in the latest edition of an esteemed medical journal, but I will summarise them here as 0 < x < (i+j) (where i is the number of martinis and j the number of vodka 'n' limes). The experiment was actually conducted in two parts - (1) as above and (2) a follow on experiment to determine how much hard liquor I could then consume as quickly as possible and still remain standing.

I started at home with three home-made martinis - put it down to a combination of boredom and nerves. That night I had a date of sorts ("a couple of drinks after work") so after having fortified myself so effectively, I strolled downtown to meet her. We repaired to the nearest dark, quiet bar (Good Luck) where we drank vodka dressed with tortured lime flesh. After two of these, we moved on to Tupelo where Ms. Brown was holding her birthday drinks. "Brainwave" I thought, "I'll buy a round of 1951 martinis for myself and 'the date'". Beautiful drink, beautifully made, the only problem? She didn't like it. No problem, I fetched for her another vodka 'n' lime. Not one to waste a beautiful drink though - beautifully made and all - I sculled her martini and then, feeling strangely thirsty, finished mine off shortly thereafter.

It all happened in an instant. I distinctly felt a hand reach in and tie a knot in my cerebral cortex. I swayed. All my powers of reasoning and logic were gone. I was having trouble starting sentences, and even more trouble finishing them. And I needed air. Date decides it's time to go home. End of part (1). The answer to the problem in question is less than 5 martinis and 2 vodka 'n' limes, in about two hours.

The rest of the night passed in a whirl. One Manhattan and another vodka 'n' lime later and I began to have trouble staying on my feet - not helped by my enthusiasm for a birthday dance with Ms. Brown from which we both ended up sustaining injuries on the concrete. We left Tupelo soon after for a friend's place where we were served COLOSSAL vodka 'n' sodas in those COLOSSAL wine glasses - they really were inappropriately large. Later still we walked back across town to Havana. You must bear in mind that it is only due to the precepts of logic and the post-match analysis that I can relate this to you as I have absolutely no recollection of doing so. At Havana I couldn't talk, could hardly stand, and was having trouble seeing. Got separated from the others, couldn't find them, panicked, and went home, stopping only for chocolate milk and random kleptomania at the mini-mart.

I'd actually advocate performing a similar experiment every few years or so - it was a quite useful undertaking - but obviously not in quite the same circumstances. My predilection and propensity for making a complete twat of myself in front of the people for whom I have the least desire to make a complete twat of myself in front of is quite breathtaking.

Image courtesy of http://agrino.org/elocon/fun/04

Kitty hates us

From the deserted service station across the road from my house...

indie-show 1-August-2005

Indie show time again (well, it was on Monday night):

Billy Corgan | All things change | The future embrace
Interpol | Slow hands | Antics
Bailter space | Glass | Tanker
The Sound | Desire | Jeopardy
Gang of 4 | 5:45 | Entertainment
Band of susans | Ice age | The word and the flesh
The Unicorns | The clap | Who will cut our hair when we're gone
The Jam | In the city | In the city
Maximo park | Graffiti | A certain trigger
Interpol | Obstacle 1 | Turn out the bright lights
The Killers | Smile like you mean it | Hot fuss
Richard Hell and the Voidoids | Blank generation | Blank generation
Bush tetras | Things that go boom in the night | Boom in the night (compilation)
Shellac | Song of the minerals | At action park
The A-frames | U-boat | Black forest
The Fall | Frightened | Live at the witch trials
Luna | Still at home | Rendezous
Luke Hurley | Mona lisa | Make room
Ride | Totally forever | Totally forever (single)
Billy Corgan | Now (and then) | The future embrace
Luke Hurley | Make room | Make room
Arthur Russell | That 'sus / wild combination | Rough trade sampler CD
Arto Lindsay | Cross your legs | Envy
Comets on fire | Pussy footin' the duke | Blue cathedral
Heka | Twilight | Last spiritual gas-station (before the end of civilisation)
The Buzzcocks | Something's gone wrong again | Singles going steady
Tindersticks | Jism | Tindersticks (s/t)
The Elected | Go on | Me first

I played two songs from Billy Corgan's new album; two from my favourite score of the moment, Luke Hurley's Make Room LP (more Luke Hurley, also here); and rockin' new tracks from The Unicorns, The Killers, and Maximo Park which fit in beautifully amongst old favourites from The Jam, The Sound, Gang of 4, The Buzzcocks, Band of Susans and Richard Hell. The A-frames and the Bush Tetras completed the post-punk extavaganza.

I also featured another track from old friends Heka, and something off my brand-new LP copy of Shellac's At action park - and goddamn it sounded good!

Ranos has left the building...

but he's got his blog up and running. Check it.

Subway she is a porno...

Reasons which may go some way towards explaining why Interpol weren't as great last night as I was hoping:

1. Apparently they have been on the road for 18 months. I was exhausted after one month touring; I can't even begin to imagine how they are feeling right now.
2. Their setlist needs reworking. They opened with a dirge and the bulk of the middle of the set was all songs in the same tempo and pretty much in the same key as well. More variety required. The end of the show and the encore fucking rocked.
3. Uber-hipster bassist Carlos D's proto-fascist outfit (and here and here); don't get me wrong, I love it, but it may have invoked bad energy from some fucken hippies or something.
4. Hiring a touring keyboard player from a one-man Kraftwerk tribute act is a mistake. No one wants you to jump around behind the keys like a twat, dude, but just let us know you're alive from time to time, ok?

Ok, ok, just joking about #3.

I always watch the bass-player at gigs, for an indication of how the band is feeling; it's a simple trick but more often than not, it works. Last night Carlos D. was pretty much fixed to the spot, looking like he was having about as much fun as I was having; that is until the 2nd to last song in the main set, when he suddenly sprang into life, prowling the stage and skipping around waving his huge bass. Then the band woke up with a bang, and roared through the last songs and I was suddenly nodding away with a huge grin across my chops and it was a real shame when the house lights came up, signalling the end of the show.

And I still have trouble paying $60 for a ticket to a gig.

All images (c) the owners where applicable. Click on any photo to follow link to owning site.

Cold turkey... has got me... on the run...

Last night was interesting. At the last moment I dragged myself to Mary Newton Gallery for the opening of their latest group show, featuring work by David Cauchi (see David's invite here) (my previous excursion to a DC opening) and The Jarman. David is showing a new ink-on-paper work which is bloody good (there's a moderately poor - by his own reckoning - picture of it here) even if he's ripping me off to buggery. (Ha! Just kidding, Dave). The Jarman is showing some more of her ever-popular plastic-bead burning houses.

You know how when you're in a serious relationship, your friends become her friends and her friends become your friends and so on? That all goes to the dogs when you break up. How weird was it walking into a room full (there were 100+ people there) almost exclusively of The Jarman's friends. I had such an instant paranoid seizure ("just add water! ready in seconds!") I almost had to leave immediately. As it was I had to latch on for far too long to the couple of people I know independently. It was a huge relief when Gary F. arrived.

Later I went to see Kung Fu Hustle, which screened recently in a sold out session in the Film Festival (I almost prefer the alternative name Gongfu). The film - a parodic kung fu farce - is hilarious. Set in 1940s Shanghai (which looks awfully like a Chinese comic-strip version of 1930s Chicago) it has huge and epic kung fu battles featuring techniques ranging from the sublime - The Palm that Falls From Heaven - to the ridiculous - The Toad, and Lion's Roar ("Ooh I didn't know Lion's Roar could be done with a loudspeaker! I surrender!") as well as comedy domestic violence, a gang of sartorially-extremist axe-wielding mobsters (the "Axe Gang"), ancient musical instruments which fire volleys of invisible whirling blades, the worst-looking kung fu masters you can't ever imagine (The Beast - the world's worst killer - was a sort-of cross between Hannibal Lechter and LOTR's Golem/Smeagol) and a ridiculous romantic subplot/flashback scenario involving the lead character as a scrawny, runty picked-on kid and a mute girl.

Highly recommended.

UPDATE For some reason, I forgot to mention that Kung Fu Hustle is screening at the Embassy.

Drinking buddies galore

myegoism blog is another local Wellington blog and it's a great read too; on the strength of her deeds alone, Kate has joined my drinking buddies (on the right there ->) and been added to the Drinks-After-Work all-time honour-roll.

Kate writes candidly and hilariously about her experiences with the type of gallows humour possibly unique to the recently-dumped. Being in the same boat I identify strongly. Oh and if you're wondering about the picture, she's currently incognito. This is, after all, Wellington NZ - home to little more than 100,000; it's definitely better to play on the safe side sometimes when it comes to being read and recognised.

Sheeit, just what I needed. Someone else to go drink for drink with of a weekend.

UPDATE Kate's picture kept disappearing - may or may not have something to do with me trying to leech it - so I made my own copy and I gave her a little black cat as well. It's meant to be her cat Salem.

Funny

I thought this (shiver-me-timbers) was really funny.

Random beauty #1

So I'm sitting working on a track in my multi-track software. I'm having to make some very, very minute adjustments to the gain on a couple of tracks because they are clipping in the mixdown. I'm using the volume-envelope tool on the waveforms; suddenly I've turned a couple of 2D geometric outlines into a beautiful rendering of snow-covered mountain peaks. (Click on the image for a closer look.)


God bless sub-harmonic boom.