mamma mia

Taffy's developing piano skillset has been under the tutelage of someone new these past several months. She appears to very much appreciate the new teaching style, and all is rosy surrounding the ebony and ivory music thing. Or is it? Somehow or other, a disease has entered the house - a blight and a scourge upon our senses. No longer are we safe in our beds on a sunday morning, a pleasant tuesday lunch can be shattered and found quivering on the floor. The dog and, yea even the mice in the roof have all but gnawed off three of their legs to escape the cacophony that rises like burning polystyrene from a BBQ hotplate. What is this perversion of music?

Behold the Dancing Queens of Yesteryear

I am not intending to drag the children through every major cathedral ruin in Great Britain. But I do wish to see both Rievaulx and Bolton Abbeys in Nth Yorkshire. The latter is a terminus of the Embsay & Bolton Abbey Steam Railway. Nuff said.

a copy?

Updated my homepage subject icons just because we were bored. A change is as good as a holiday. I must research the author of that statement so I can take my small red dog to vomit on his grave. For the Azeroth records: my NE dis Pr dinged 51, Lach's NE ar War hit same, whilst Taff's Gn dem Warl is now 64 and her NE bal Dr is 69. One more weekend free of assignment guilt, then I will be back into the skulls and spines of my mind-numbing radiography masters. That is a neat Schumi vid: the boy was good.
Concordski: What was the thrust to weight ratio difference of the Tu-144 (without Tu-160 engines) compared to Concorde?

Bummers in music part 1. Sonata Arctica sacked Jani Liimatainen and replaced him with Elias Viljanen. Apparently he was fragging around with his compulsory Finnish military service or something. The sound won't be the same. I bought their latest album, Unia, and it does sound cool from the first listen, something that IMs AMOLAD didn't manage for me at first. A weekend off beckons - I don't go on call until sunday night. Our current roster has Al and I on call 19 nights out of 28 - it's been that way or a worse variation on it for fifteen years now. The boss is now 99% sure that we will have three extra radiographers by around xmas, and will be going onto an eight person - eight week cycle with four shifts each weekend day, and two each weekday evening period. The trouble with 99% probabilities where I work is that the dice only come up favourably 1% of the time. Even so, things will not improve for the sonographers anyway: same call ratio.

classical concert in briswegia

Next February at the Briswegian Entertainment center there will be a concert featuring a 6 piece ensemble - 4 strings, one percussion, and one screaming his lungs out. Originally from east London, the group, Iron Maiden, formed in the late 70's and have been splitting ear drums ever since. The concert, SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME, will be somewhat retro with an accent on their 80's material. A specially fitted Astraeus Airlines 757 will cart their 60 crew and 12 tons of gear around the world, piloted by their lead singer Bruce Dickinson. When asked for a hint as to the concert playlist, the manager Ron Smallwood only responded with: ...fans have been pestering me for details of the tour and especially asking which songs from that era will be played. That may be as easy as a run in the hills but we will keep our aces close to our chest on this issue. I know it would only take a couple of minutes but at this stage of planning, I'd have to be clairvoyant to know what they will do. I'm sure though it will be no revelation for you that we intend to make up for those wasted years by visiting a large number of hallowed metal venues around the world. Historically 'Powerslave' was an incredibly important album for the band and it would be madness if we didn't give the fans a taste of the full on Iron Maiden show from that time. With our jumbo there really is no rime nor reason why the band cannot now visit fans almost everywhere as many have been real troopers to have waited this long. Heaven only knows what the band will choose but if l could and did tell you now l would have to shoot you! You'll all have to be patient and see. But it will be spectacular. No fear!!"

Well, that gives us no clues at all then. But I do know where I'll be on Feb 12.

no, I haven't watched BLINK yet, but I will

Where have all the Italians gone? Long time passing. Casey murdered them, blitzed them, creamed them, rode faster than them as well. This decade has been typified by two point sometime average of Italians on the MotoGP rostrum any given week.

Gordon: Disgraceful!
James: Disgusting!
Henry: Despicable!

Not this year. Kawasaki getting Hopkins next year WILL be big boost for the green machines, and Suzuki won't be riderless with Capirossi and Vermuelen, not by a long shot.

[Thomas careens down the track with a jet engine propelling him from behind. Up ahead at the crossing gates waits Bertie]
Bertie: Want a race Thomas?
[Thomas, in a flash, speeds by]
Bertie: Never mind.

Braves new house looks cool - a bit more controlled with a six foot fence to keep Buffy the wonder climbing dog in, and less bush to produce black snakes, brown snakes, redback spiders, taipans, carpet snakes, funnel-web spiders, and those deadly koalas. More lawn to mow though: number six may be interested to know that Briswegia is getting some REAL rain this week. Ta-dah!, I can't decide if I have ever heard of the sister scissors.

Gordon: Duck called me a galloping sausage!
James: Rusty red scrap iron!
Henry: I'm old square-wheels!
Sir Topham Hatt: Well, Duck?
Duck: I only wish, sir, that I'd thought of those names myself. If the dome fits...

The kids have all just been to the dentist this a.m. - seven fillings for the twins, none for Lach and one for Taff. The latter celebrated by leaving her ipod on the ground in the car park in the pouring rain. So what's floated to the top of my (dry) pod?

After Forever: Remagine
Within Temptation: The Silent Force
Edenbridge: The Grand Design
Turisas: The Varangian Way
Avantasia: The Metal Opera
Sonata Arctica: Unia
Stratovarius: The Chosen Ones
The Proclaimers: Best of

I'm orn me wey, Uh-hah, uh-hah.

Which mission is the pic from? (embedded ID has been removed from top corner). I would kill for a new moon english night: preferably warm(ish), with clear skies and even just a good pair of binocs. I would be completely visually lost of course - maybe one day. Yes, Mr Roentgen was the dude I had in mind... Hope your first day on the new job was cool.

not ok 4 pk

Excellent. My favorite GP driver from the 80's has lost his license for getting too many speeding and parking tickets. And so has his wife. Piquet jnr ought to send Fisichella and Kovalainen off to the same driver education course as Mr and Mrs Piquet so as to improve Renault's standings. Speaking of Renault - now that the SBS coverage of Le Tour is over it's a relief to not have to watch the same TV ads for the Mégane over and over and over and over and zzzzzzzz...

Nelson Piquet in the Brabham-BMW Formula 1 in 1983 at Paul Ricard

What was the SECOND music video shown on MTV when the music channel made its debut in 1981?
a. "Stand and Deliver" by Adam and the Ants
b. "You Better Run" by Pat Benatar
c. "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles
d. "Girls on Film" by Duran Duran

forty in the shade

Hit 40 and got my cat. Taff splurged her pocket money and bought a 6Gb mp3 player to replace the 2Gb one that went through the washing machine. And the drier. It was very clean and very stuffed. She assures me this one will not require laundering. It already has eight talking books on it, several score classical pieces, some Michael Card and Heritage Singers, and about forty episodes of the Goon Show. Radio Active stays on my pod only...
Le Tour has finished it's rinse cycle for another year. It made very cool television despite the media's focus on illegal activities, and we are looking forward to next year's circuit de frog. It was a bleak motorsport weekend, made more so by Tony Stewart winning at the brickyard. For such a talented driver, he is a complete pratt. MotoGP heads for a summer break with Stoner 42 points up on Mr Rossi. My next semester at charlie sturt uni officially started today, but am yet to receive any course materials - not that critical though as I don't usually open the wrappings until week six.

armagedawossname

WoW news (for posterity again): Taff's Dr dinged 65, Lach's War is still 41, Roo's Dr dinged 42, and my NE Pr is 39 - should get a catmobile 2nite. Last night we stayed up for the time trial penultimate LeTour stage which was a real thriller and saw Cadel hopefully secure his 2nd spot for Paris. O so close to the maillot jaune, but next year is another tour, and with a little luck, a whole bunch less drugs. This afternoon we attended T & L's annual piano recital at the Alstonville house with less than one step. It went well due to having a short participant list, and due to us bringing our own munchies rather than waiting the statutory two hours for the waiters to fulfill any given lunch order. An apology by the music teacher at the recital conclusion explained some of the suboptimal performances: two of the piano keys were sticky (i.e. went down, stayed down) and another had a unique sound (i.e. it's internal hammer was managing to hit several notes at once). The piano in the cafe will have some work done to it before next years recital - probably.
Mohamed Haneef has gone home. It all seemed to have been a complete cock up - the guy isn't, wasn't, and never intended to be a terrorist. Hospital registrars are a wierd bunch generally, but what the hey. It makes you wonder if there is some grand scheme out there to undermine global Christian/Muslim relations in order to precipitate international anarchy and release the four winds of strife. The amount of pointless middle-east head kicking that is going on is more than you would expect just because Dubya is paranoid, or wants more oil, or is looking for the minuscule proportion of WMD that he doesn't already control. Nothing like a good conspiracy theory to keep you warm at night - probably.

us or them

So big Bernie has decided that the US is out. What exactly does Indianapolis Motor Speedway chief executive Tony George mean when he says "After several discussions, Bernie Ecclestone and I were unable to agree how to keep F1 in Indianapolis for the near term" ? I would have thought that the US was an extremely important place to shove your face in, marketing wise. Surely Mercedes, BMW, Ferrari, Renault, Honda, and even Toyota would be peeved by this decision - advertising exposure is WHY big auto business goes racing - the US is not a piddly market. Maybe eight years of traveling to Indy got boring for Bernie and he wants to go to Singapore instead.
I've been officially banned from playing any of my music within earshot of any family members, with the possible exception of the dog. This being sick and staying at home is very hard on them - any interruption to the hundreds of hours of continuous Bob the Builder, Strawberry Shortcake, and Freddy Fish theme music must be heart wrenching. I think I will move my PC downstairs and install a Guiness keg in the bar. I'll walk the line?

clair or rat trap

What is it about goths? I mean I know I never get into the sunlight, and I tend to wear black a lot, and my natural sleeping hours are between dawn and mid arvo, but I'm not gothic. OK, a few of my fav groups are a bit goth-metalish: Entwine, Battlelore, After Forever, Mortal Love, Tristania, Penumbra etc, but some aren't: Sonata Arctica, Iron Maiden, Dragonforce, Paul Young. OK, so I'm joking about PY, he IS a bit gothic. I haven't actually heard a PY song for... must be fifteen years at least: I must go out and buy some, not.
Raymond Edward O'Sullivan 1972 potentially. If not then I'll keep looking. Famous for his legal battles rather than for the Mikado? If not GO then maybe Sir Bob (1978) - depends on your meaning of band? Radio Active would be extra cool! I have the cassette box (circa 1984) somewhere, but the tape died long ago. Probably got chewed in a car stereo - remember that happening often? It's been ages since my car ate a mp3 disc.