Neu!

Hey.

++

You still coming here?

It's been pretty quiet, aye? I've been pretty busy, is why.

Hope to get back to regular blogging shortly.

USB Stealth Switch

The USB 'stealth switch' claims to be "the worlds first desktop cloaking device". From the GadgetLite blog:

This device can be hidden and controlled under your desk! With its 6″ USB cable, its foot tap button can be placed "hiddenly" under your foot. Once the foot tap is stepped, the following functions can be activated according to your preset options:

1. To switch or hide your current window/all windows instantly.
2. You can preset to bring up a preferred window at all times.
3. Password to protect your computer.
4. Mute sound, etc...

In other words, the 21st century version of the Boss-key.

Bright Lights, Big City

Kiran gave me a copy of Jay McInerny's (possibly-)quintesstial 80s-hedonistic-decadence novel last night to read in my (semi-)sick bed. I knew only the film adaptation with Michael J. Fox in the lead role, and to be honest I don't remember too many good things. I'm also having trouble reading the protagonist's second-person dialogue in anyone's voice other than Marty McFly's.

I'm really enjoying the book though, and giggling unselfconsciously at bits like:

IT'S 6 AM, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE???

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy.

You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might come clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder.

Then again, it might not.

A small voice inside you insists that this epidemic lack of clarity is the result of too much of that already. The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where two A.M. changes to six A.M. You know this moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is gratuitous damage and the palsy of unraveled nerve endings. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush. Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers. They are tired and muddy from their long march through the night. There are holes in their boots and they are hungry. They need to be fed. They need the Bolivian Marching Powder.

All this really just leads me to the realisation that there have been far too few drinks lately, here at Drinks-After-Work. This is not going unnoticed by management, either. On one hand there is a certain sensible rationalisation going on; indeed, how many times can I really write the same story about going to the pub and watching some band, or a game of rugby, without boring everyone including myself. On the other, the simple, painful truth is that there just hasn't been that much going on. Look how neglected my "debauchery" channel is, for godssakes. Why? I've been tired. Sick. Sore. Busy. You name it, I've been it.

So. This has got to end. here. now. Taken under consideration; report-back expected shortly.

...

NP: Boris with Michiuo Kurihara -- Rainbow (aQuarius)

Following their recent successful collaboration with American doom-drone-druids SUNNO))), who could Japanese behemoths Boris turn to for another joint effort in channelling the ultimate in psychedelic heaviness? They'd already teamed up with Keiji Haino some years ago, but there's another underground Japanese psych-scene guitar hero who Boris NEEDED to get freaky with (as proven here), and it wasn't Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple (though that's bound to happen someday...). No, as you already know, it's Michio Kurihara, formerly of Tokyo retro psych legends White Heaven, currently in both Ghost and The Stars. He's also played a bunch with Damon and Naomi, and released his own solo album Sunset, also on Pedal. His West Coast '60s inspired guitar style is virtuosic and distinctive, and certain to spark something special with the Boris crew, as any Kurihara fan would expect .............................

The hard word

Right on. It's time to take this blog in hand. I've been unbelievably busy on so many different thangs -- work, the new Foxy Digitalis, the new AudioFoundation project, writing for FD and the Wellingtonista, running Palindrone, working on new seht material, trying to get some new Stumps releases off the ground -- who really has time to post here? Well, I have managed 20 or 30 posts since the New Year which is not tooooooo bad, but it's the quality as much as the quantity, y'know.

So this here is where I put the stake in the ground and say "NO MORE!"... where I put my hand on my heart and faithfully promise to update much more frequently (dare I say daily???) and with much better content. Oh! The melodrama!

...

Saturday night was Antony's birthday. Fifteen or so of us spent several hours on the cushions around the low tables at Cafe Istanbul, which was lovely and left me with the following thoughts:

• I'm never, ever going to do that again -- my back is still sore. Am I getting old?
• Are belly-dancers really supposed to be dangerously obese? And, even if so, are New Zealanders really ready for the challenge of upping and dancing with one in the middle of a restaurant? Or is it just cringingly, excruciatingly embarrassing.
  
• BYO whisky (in the hip-flask that Ms. Brown gave me) is a great idea and should be done more often -- it really adds a hitherto-unknown element of intrigue and danger into what is otherwise the fairly straightforward procedure of going out and eating food.
• I still really, really like Mediterranean food. Yes, sure -- it's all very low-brow and so on, but damn if it don't taste good.
  

Apparently after James and I left at about 11pm, somebody broke down in tears at the table, and the party moved downtown; Kiran didn't get home until 4am. Am uncertain at this point whether it was a good or a bad thing to have missed all this.

...

NP: Circle of Ouroborus - pretty much everything they've ever released, actually (aQuarius).

Foxy

Hi. I've been really really really busy. I've been helping to build the new Foxy Digitalis website. It's way better than the old one - there's still the Reviews and Features but there's now a Blog and the Podcasts are much more prominent, and there's much more integration of information providing multiple points-of-access into the content. Check it out.. there's lots to see.

For your continued edification - and I'm nothing if not concerned for y'all edification - here's links to a couple of my recent postings there..

Four blues for a low Sunday My baby left me and I just don't know.. my car broke down and now I gotta walk to work.. my landlady is a mean old broad.. etc. Well along those lines, my head hurts and I'm feeling sorry for myself.. so here's my "Four blues for a low Sunday" (17 December, 2006)

Chant down Babylon A reggae music, mek we chant down Babylon... and if that doesn't work, it's good to know that there're always a couple of other options (13 December, 2006)