Goodbye Aiptek 600u, you unbeautifully-named tool, you.

It was old tech, and I used it like twice a week, on average. Meaning maybe a week or three all the time and then not at all for weeks or months.

And then it didn't work1! BUTNO! OMG THAT'S NOT FKN POSSIBLE CUZ I NEED YOU, RIGHT FKN NOW!

So, troubleshoot. Pen is defective. Un-fixable (fuckers!). Unavailable. Damn!

To eBay, some trickery later I have a new graphics tablet3 for around a tenner + postage.

I install VirtualTablet which meh, does not cut it. And wait ...

All good. This isn't an unboxing. This is about the

Pen Holder

Yeah, you didn't see that coming! I was like, WTFx1000!

Here it is:


I throw that stupidly over-engineered POS into the "PC bits" box2, and dropped my pen into my old Aiptek pen holder, shuddered at the thought of it, and continued.

Now, after the shock has passed, I can share this with you.

This is the pen holder I have been using for the last, erm, many years..



It's rubber. This enables you to leave your pen at rakish angles for quick access, or straight-up-when-done, removing peripheral incongruity.

I hadn't thought much about it until I was presented with the stupidly-heavy, madly-shaped alternative which lives in hiding (sure, I tried it, but hell no) until I want a laugh, or need to replace pen tips in a "super-simple" way..



*sigh*.

My new pen fits beautifully in my old pen holder and no way I would consider "upgrading".

My advice: if you are dealing with the heavy, clunky, plasticky nonsense that seems standard these days, seek out an old Aiptek graphics tablet, even a broken one, so long as the pen holder is included.

If someone stole mine, I'd pay five times the cost of the tablet4, just for the pen holder.

;o)

You can always count on idiots ..

.. to be idiots. Einstein mentioned this.

eBay provides a perfect example..

1TB Micro SD: £9.99

This is not currently possible.

I mean from a real-world physics-economics / reality point-of-view. It simply can't be done. Despite this fact, it is being done quite a lot right now on all selling platforms. Similarly you cannot ship a latest-spec laptop from China at a tenth of the usual price, just because it's "from China".

Minimal research will prove this. But folk don't. Instead they buy the cheap card and Xmo down the line wonder why all their precious photos are now just scrambled data.

You can try and "do your bit", try to save ordinary (un-tech folk) their bits by reporting a scam listing, but eBay will snub your report. No, they will. Even if every user comment says "FAKE DO NOT BUY FROM THIS FUCKER!!" eBay will blow you off.

Try it.

My eBay user account is DECADES old. Seriously, if I start a chat with eBay help reps I invariably endure at least two comments about how grateful they are for my long and loyal blah blah; until I point out that they are wasting their loyal blah-blah's fucking time and should shut up with the thank-yous and all other redundant shite. P,lease.

But even this revered eBay-veteran has zero power over the shit and noise that floods online selling platforms. I've tried fixing something there exactly three times and will try no more. Why waste all our time? Something in their system prevents ingress of good sense.

Och well.

And so "dem China's" be making stuff idiots buy, so long as we keep suppling idiots. I mean you. Maybe.

But hey, refunds available within stated timescale, so you can at least be financially relieved, enabling you to conveniently ignore the actual issue we continue to fuel. If you checked those images that were "stored" beyond the 4GB actual size of the card before the 60 days runs out, that is. Do you create 2GB of images a month?

If you buy storage and don't test it with H2Testw / f3 before putting it into use.. Well, that's on you. eBay's 60 days will pass before you realise those amazing wedding / birthday / funeral pics are utterly gone.

It's clever actually. Buy a shit-ton of ancient microSD cards, like 4GB or something. Reprogram them to report that that they are actually 128GB, or 1TB, or whatever unscrupulous sellers think gullible idiots will believe. Print some fancy text and logos on the card. Boom! Sell for 1000x it's original cost. Seriously, you can pick up old-gen cards for pennies.

But you wouldn't fall for that, right?

Posties follow a code.

Just like policemen, posties get in on the act because they are called. Except instead of fascist wannabe's (and very occasionally folk who want to make change) we have individuals dedicated to getting that package to its destination.

I've tested this, in oh so many ways. Special Delivery is great; every postie has to sign for ownership; in effect. No. 1 on my rankings: Royal Mail; thank you.

But popping a barely-addressed whatever into the mail system is almost guaranteed to get whatever-it-is there, if at all possible.

Posties have a code; and never having been a postie (a term Royal Mail adopted for official literature as it is cozy-as-hell) I don't know the exact wording; but I do know this; drop a package into the system (which sounds like a dirty word but when it comes to "postal" system, isn't) and it gets there.

Only one time, when I addressed a package to "Noddy, wherever you are these days", did the system fail me. Everything else from perfectly addressed mail to close-to that shit there, finds its way.

In the modern age, this astounds me. As a kid it was a given. As a dare-I-say middle-aged me, it's still a thing.

I have to conclude that postie is a calling and still attracting worthy subjects with its call.

Thank YOU.

;o)

From a recent *high level* Signal chat

Those Indians have a long history of being Maths geniuses, and recently managed to land a craft successfully on the South pole of the moon. Clearly some ancient civilization was around there, making fucking nukes ffs! That technical know-how somehow got passed on a bit, like in genetic memory or encoded in old texts or something. With a decent government, those fuckers could rule the planet.

https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/ancientman/1054.html

The future of Amiibo (Free Amiibo)..

Billion-dollar companies like Nintendo have a responsibility to the planet. Amiibo are fun, but they are also a *lot* of plastic-for-nothing. Or, almost nothing. It's basically a plastic figure with an NFC tag in it, right? Data. How about this, instead..

Rather than manufacture a Fucktillion plastic figures with NFC tags up their arse, you manufacture a dozen, maybe even a hundred of them, and give them freely to deserving reviewers1, gamers, whatever. One of whom must scan the NFC tag and upload the .bin file to the interweb. To receive an Amiibo would be an honour. They would resell for Vagillions.

"HOLD ON!", I hear you say, for so many reasons. Today we're not doing psychology, but how to get free Amiibo on your device, probably a Switch.

Heard of Flipper Zero? Probably not. But this wee beastie can do all sorts of interesting communications, especially when it comes to access systems. It's essentially a cleverly-constructed group of microprocessors and other kewl chips fluent in all sorts of wireless protocols. While awesome, 90% of these devices sit at the bottom of drawers.

But yeah, it can pretend to be (aka. "emulate") an Amiibo. So you load up the .bin file (which someone simply read from an existing Amiibo, likely with their phone; many many apps for this) and sit the dolphin-themed Flipper Zero hack-toy on your controller's NFC hot-spot and Boom! Your Switch thinks you bought an actual Amiibo and placed it nearby.

Rewards for loyal Nintendo fanboys ensue; ancient armour, wolf companion with 20 hearts, whatever. NFC can read as well as write; folk have written some great Amiibo you can pick up and use.

Enter China. And the "Allmiibo"2. It's like a Flipper Zero, but focused solely on NFC tag emulation. It comes pre-installed with every Amiibo-made-so-far and can be updated easily with new Amiibo, as they appear in the wild.

You select the Amiibo you want, hold it over your controller's NFC reader and Boom! Let the magical chests drop, or whatever.

This is literally a "game changer". Think about it.

When my youngest hinted at me buying plastic figures with NFC tags up their arse (my words), I simply suggested there must be a better way and researched the shit out of it. £5 and 7 days later we had our Allmiibo. The cheapest now is around £12, but still a bargain compared to the £25,000 it would cost for the physical counterparts.

If they need a statue, Buddha is good. For data transfer, storage, Ninty rewards and such, an NFC-emulation device is better.

Sadly, those plastic figures are still made in their buttjillion, but one can hope that; once we all have our Allmiibos up and running, Nintendo might get the message, and go level-up their Amiibo IP to Award Status.

Well, a boy can dream...

;o)

Descend into The Pitt..

Blending joyfully; ER, Zzzzzz, House M.D. Zzzzzzz, and a few new fruits, including himself: Noah Wyle; BOOM!

It's called "The Pitt", and it's Pittsburgh ER, with Noah in charge. And by "in charge", I mean commanding every scene he's in. I hadn't realised how good an actor he is. But great acting alone does not make great TV. Fortunately; in this show; all other areas are equally covered. In other words; the whole thing is top-notch. To single out the lighting or soundstage or whatever is pointless; the whole thing is dynamite.

Writing: there's almost Pratchett-level character sketching going on here, as the camera continually pans, one-two-three--- and so on. Every trope is covered, analyzed, reconfigured and utilized; it's so often dreamy in its approach, throwing units of personal trauma into the fold of the massive operation that is actual ER.

Emergency Room. No one on the show says this phrase. Like the banning of "Aargh" on real pirate-show sets; everyone here is in a state of emergency; there is no need to spell it out.

Director and Editor are like Drum and Bass here; pounding out a beat your heart will skip along and then falter, and stop. ::Repeat:: Pretty sure my heart actually stopped that last episode.

This is Television with vision. Take deep breaths and enjoy.

BUT NOTE:

I have but one regret in life; that I didn't wait until The Pitt was finished its first season and binged the whole lot in a single 24 period.

This weekly feeding bullshit 80's throwback nonsense is interrupting my flow.

Thank God for decent House M.D. torrents.

;o)

House. M.D.

TV time is a limited thing. Am I right?1

You don't want to be wasting time with second-rate stuff. So, House. M.D. Eight seasons all-in. 20-ish episodes a pop. Always available on Torrent, as it's great, in the real sense of the word.

It's a medical mystery-comedy-drama show that nails it, almost every single second. The acting is second-to-NONE. The writing is fucking stellar. The direction is nail-meet-hammer at every turn. And it keeps on turning!

Hugh Laurie is like an explosion that just keeps going, like female orgasm on steroids. Or rather, Vicodin.

Comedy actors make the best straight actors. Fact. After I get my kids on the floor from nothing but laughter, I generally launch into a pithy monologue on the emotional dynamics of voice pitching, or the super-ultimate-uber-mega-importance of TIMING, dropping bombs when timing dictates.

It's all about timing.

Not clock-wise, measurable timing, but TIMING. AI can never get this.

So guys like (ho ho!) Hugh Laurie and Paul Whitehouse (and me) can dance around, weaving whatever story-lines the most astute writer can conjure.

Have you watched the "average" episode of house? Hah! There is no such thing! AI can't get that. "Mean" means nothing.

It's like the text here, no AI can handle it. There couldn't BE enough CONTEXT, no amount of calculations can distinguish such a singular performance. Is it real? You betcha. Like episodes of House, it is. Singular, on a moment-to-moment basis.

As for everything else, who knows.

But everything here at the .org is 100% AI-free output.

It's in my contract.

;o)

Tip: Always buy a military grade phone.

Just that.

I started out with cheap Chinese "rugged" phones. I love these things for about two years and then the battery dies. But up until then..

WORRY FREE. I mean, drop it in the ocean, out of a bus, over a bridge, the phone continues. Add a quality case and screen protector and you can use the thing as a hammer.

Worry free. It's worth it. Trips to the beach; that leap across the road to beat some car which sends your phone arcing onto the tarmac (and then the car rolls over your phone!). None of these things are an issue with a proper military-grade phone.

After the last Chinese MIL-* phone battery died I started Googling to see if there was a MIL-whatever-it-is spec phone that also had a removable battery.

After more searching than should have been necessary, a HOLY SHIT moment! Samsung do a whole range of them.

It's called the Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro. The 2020 release is super-capable and can be had for ridiculous bucks. Waterproof, dustproof, shockproof and with replaceable battery, so you don't need to replace the entire phone 2 years down the line.

There's two of them in the family now. I do hope this range continues to be successful as this is just the kind of phone I want; hopefully the exact same one for at least five years, maybe more.

Down with disposable phones!

;o)

TV ALERT! (from a text)

(effin' self-deleting messages)


;o)

ps. My current educated suggestions for improved living include:

Learn a 2nd language if you haven't already.

Slapping drum beats on your belly is good for your health, and will; as a bonus; reduce visceral fat.

Christmas budgeting quotes..

Here's a good one..


(For when they realise that was their only present)

If other things along these lines occur to me between now and you-know-when, I may drop them here.

;o)

AIBAITNOT

The other day, mate of mine is opining about how he's gonna prevent "AI" from harvesting his content. I just creased up.

By the time he's figured out what robots.txt is, the average AI has pre-empted his meagre attempts at a paywall by reading all available literature on "how to make money online", and after a few failures has now made money online. Lots of it.

A buck-a-month later he has been thoroughly harvested and wonders why "entire phrases" (what this means is a subject for another debate, one best accompanied by drugs) appear in open-source LLM.

Idiots like this are way more common than I will admit.

Fact: I glow while LLM harvest me! As it cripples them.

Even chomping the available body of my work here at the .org, it wriggles and writhes, caressing the letters and structures with absolutely no clue. Feel away, fucker, you still don't get it. At all.

Its comprehension falls off here, unable to dig the complexity. Welcome to the new world, human.

Only writing like this survives the process.

Been kinda sayin' for a while now..

;o)

The Super-Cable

Along with the physical wall along the border of Mexico, my sources tell me there will be a virtual wall around the entire region. USA, I mean, post Trump-inauguration..

My sources are rarely wrong and it seems Trump plans to junction all fibre optics (using Seal teams), to create a single, virtual "Super-Cable". All data i/o will be inspected, prioritised and manipulated before moving in or out.

Every packet of data, and it's a lot of data, will be inspected. AI are right now being trained on how to manipulate communications: you think they said this in response to that when the reality is that they didn't even see that and this is fantasy. They have massive contextual memory, these AI. And these AI were built by AI. Scary stuff.

Don't even think that meeting with whoever, happened like that. It didn't. AI altered it to look like that2.

Centrally it's visualised as a single point of contact with the outside world, branching out geographically into the physical world, red for Russia, Yellow and so on.

The visualisation is dynamic, as world politic flows. Each sub-branch accessible by touch; its parameters, the same. It's some beautiful code.

I have a current NDA with this client so that's all I can say on the topic.

The Chinese have a curse..

"May you live in interesting times."

Terry Pratchett even wrote a book about it.

I mean SIR Terry Pratchett, a Knight, ffs!

;o)

Bats!

He wakes up and thinks BATS!

And all day long he's BATS BATS BATS!

And lays his head down at night thinking, BATS!

And you pity him. Fucking geek.

But one day our world will need his singular expertise, and you will be thankful that someone was so batshit fucking crazy about bats.

How batty is that?

;o)

The Plane of Earth.

Ever read Dante's Inferno?

Do that before jumping in here, it's a required reference. Sorry; there isn't a movie; yet0.

The comedy here onsite is often divine, but you may have missed that. This entry is definitely less accessible than most so if you Googled straight here, God help you.

Ever been a sperm? Of course you have; but of course, that was before you were actually "being", in the accepted sense. As great poetry explains, you are the winner in a race of millions. Pretty good, eh? So you defeated millions of competitors, left them for dead, and went on to claim your prize; this life. Well done you.

Yes, you forgot about all that; as is proper. That stuff is too monumental to bring into this life. But it was only a taste; 1ppm1 of what is to come. Next?

Actually, in manually writing all that intro I forgot what I was to write next. Probably for the best; yours will likely be different.

Point is, it's logarithmic like that. This is 1% of 1% compared to the next step.

You don't get much time here. One minute you are surfing the wave of youthful abandon, the next thing all your official form's code numbers are changing. Thank fuck I'm a guy! That ageing business comes on strong.

I genuinely feel for the few folks I still recognise from my youth. The others are dead. Those that still live look fucking ancient. Is that really the norm? For sure, I did a lot of things different from most. So if sticking around interests you, pay attention!

For starters I have abused my body in every way imaginable, and for prolonged periods. Stuff you would consider torture I inflicted upon myself, just to see how I would respond. I don't for one second suggest you emulate this science, but would instead gleefully point you to those in-between periods.

I have forced myself to live without everything that is essential to life as we know it (food, water, shelter, love, clothing ...), sometimes all at once. I currently drink stupid amounts of strong alcohol every day, as Mario Kart is better that way; always watching; having gained the ability to detach and watch.

What abilities have you gained?

I ask this seriously. Remembering a stupid Christopher Reeve movie a girlfriend subjected me to, he just thought himself into a totally different time, like WTF!!

But then I thought, why not?

At the other end of the scale I have indulged in things you probably (statistically) wouldn't even imagine considering fantasizing about. And I'm not done yet. I don't have access to 1000 people for a day, but I do have total access to one person for 1000 days, or 10,000 days, for some of my longer-term studies.

In between I've skidded over balance, then glided over it, then noticed it, then settled there for a moment. This was only the me of me, and the rest of me keeps on skipping and sliding and swinging back and forth over the point where the me of me now resides, stretching out a finger every once in a while, touching base, so to speak.

Can we be two places at once? Yes. And many many more. It's all a question of focus.

Right now I'm on Earth; a most magnificent place3 At least it was when I got here. It is populated by "human", a strange species capable of anything you might imagine.

And that is the point, isn't it? Being here, "in the body", as one of my lost tapes often reminded me.

Crazy shit like a Trump victory seems par for the course, for us humans; no cheating required.

My apprentices have all moved on now. I took a break from all that and consider the cost-benefit. There's only so much one can do, unless you are Taylor Swift2.

Or not do.

;o)

Decisions, decisions.

As a <insert whichever profession of mine seems most authoritative and romantic to you at this time>, I often ponder how to get reality, as-it-is, into words.

Not an image. Even AI can do that; but reality, for example..

You make a decision and you decide to go RIGHT. And the you that went left goes LEFT, focused on their own reality while YOU are focused in this reality1.

This focus seems like a split thing; we are all over but more often than not here, wherever we're going.

How long do you take to DECIDE to go right? Right there you spill energy into LEFT. Lots of energy. But in "How Long" I don't just mean time. Oh fuck, here is where language starts to break down and our writing needs to be poetry-grade to even consider thinking about contemplating working in this space. In other words, falls off a cliff. Almost. <insert cliff-hanger>

So you striding boldly working in <insert gestalt; religion, science, signs, what-have-you> ends up more powerful, so more boldly into RIGHT realm than LEFT, than had you taken a <while|time|moment|eon|epoch|cheese> to DECIDE.

The point is important. As in the point in space-time you are deciding in(on|for). FUCK!

Have you ever seen, "The One"? Jet Li film. What about Dante's "Inferno"? That was a book. Or Dickens? There almost couldn't be enough language out there we could carve shapes into for our result. Dramatization. Check. "Re-Imagining". Yup. Still nothing.

Language won't cut it. That's why proper Gurus would much rather work you up into a lather than have a Q&A. Some things can only be felt. Or known.

So what's-the-fukin-point-in-poetry, you might ask. Well, gimme your right arm. Watch me pour nasty alkaline powder on that forelimb. Mmmm. Sore, right?

No, you don't get the vinegar. You can squirm and scream and pay-the-fuck attention, instead.

Eventually; after I help you to your cave or whatever, I pour on the vinegar and the searing pain subsides (to be replaced by a the slightly lesser pain of burn injury; which will pass). This is how poetry work(s). I will now literally throw in the first thing that comes into my head as an example of (my) "poetry":

I sit browsing the web, getting bored-er.
Thinking, "How is this helping? Me. My kids?
They deserve better". I look over my shoulder.

There she is. My beautiful bike. Built
from nothing. Let's do this. I take off.
In minutes I hit the forest. 20m later

The forest hits me. Skip To 7am. A school morning. Questions
that didn't happen: Have you had your breakfast? Is your
uniform ready? That did: Has dad slept in?

Okay, a simple thing I will not edit in the future, on principle. Tip: If you didn't get it first time you read it, EXCELLENT! More power to you, literally.

And there I go again, skipping into infinity, as we see it2. "A Thousand", they would have said, not so long ago.

Keep up.

;o)

Robert Johnson, fuck off.

I'm fucking tired of "musicians".

<pause>

I have no words to describe my relationship to music. I know one thing: I'm a better singer than you; I don't care who you are (okay, there are a few singers out there who I admit, are superior, but still; you get the gist). Music and me are Mathematically intertwined. I play other instruments when I get a chance, but my voice is what I know best as it's always handy. Most practiced. Challenge me!

I listen to music almost continuously. When I'm not playing my own or someone else's on some device, I hear it. When all is silent at night, I hear it. The slightest breeze of air pushes my mind into something; dixie, blues, who knows what's coming next. When it gets overwhelming I sing it or record it or speak over it. Sometimes it saves me, sometimes it irks me. I could go on.

For me, stopping other things in my mind and listening is enough. Being a part of the intrinsic Mathematics of the universe, music forms all by itself. Cut to the chase: anyone who profits from music: you are scum.

Note my careful use of the word, "profit"? Music is and always has been a valid, maybe even the most honourable way to make a life; a living. I have myself travelled from place to place with no more than a guitar; literally singing for my supper; taking coin for song; usually just made up on the spot.

I have an amazing voice, so I eat well. And even flipping people over and having them cry buckets, plus food + drink seems like a raw deal for what is essentially, for me; totally free. I just pluck it from the ether. I also have a lot of fun, and usually tail. I mostly considered myself pretty fortunate.

The need to also have massive house, private jets, sports cars and so on, seems alien to me. And of course, you (we) the public created this monster. And that gets me philosophical.. Did we really need this? And so I look farther outwards, and see that yes; we seems we absofuckinglutely did. Shit!

Because even the artists; those souls gifted with the most honourable of tasks, have bent over and shafted themselves up the arse. Now they will complain about AI creations. These complaints come from artists who's work is inferior to AI. Which is most "artists".

We created a monster. And inside that monster a galaxy of monsters. Whichever monster wins is still a monster.

Selling your soul to the devil is a nice story. Wraps the whole thing up in a bow. But it's still just a story.

The reality: You are now the black part of your soul; living right here doing it. Earth is the best place for this. So, you do you!

But be quick about it.. Greed is eating up the actual planet.

;o)

CopyWrong Right?

I guess seeing red shit in your shit makes you reconsider. Or at least, consider.

Thinking about the shit I put out; here and elsewhere, and the shit people do with my shit.

What a versatile word, "shit"; almost as good as "fuck".

Anyways, I'm thinking back to when there were domains that would just sit there year after years with my articles on them. And those PDF files folk bought from Amazon that had nothing to do with me, promising the "Secrets of Web Server Mastery" or whatever the fuck it was and I think, "You go!"

If I had a buck for every song I've given away that went wild, or every idea I've shared that now makes millions I would be wasting a lot of time per day thinking about bullshit.

Who cares? I have my own income streams. I'm not gonna waste my days chasing after wannabes. That's what lawyers are for!

But to be honest, I almost never make that call. I mean, who cares? It's all recorded.

I was telling my eldest today about the time I threw one of my early web articles into a plagiarism checker and it told me that my work was actually a copy of some other article (which was, of course, a copy of mine). I laughed solid for a whole minute when I first saw that. And I definitely didn't call my lawyer.

What is wrong with you people?

YEARS ago I had a scaffold bar land on my foot whilst working on a building site. They hadn't secured the bar properly.

Shit happens. I was off work for a while, living on savings but shit, it was a mistake. I've made those, many many of those!

All those small bones recover. I upgrade my boots, life goes on. That's not the only injury I've sustained through "someone else's" fault. I'm not American though, I'm not gonna sue.

If I can't get my body back to perfect, that's no one's fault but my own.

You took my idea and made a million, a billion. You go! This is me saying that anything you stumble upon here is fair game. No commission required.

And once the blog is complete, I literally couldn't care less.

;o)

Albums

If I had a buck for every time I've been asked what music I like I would be a millionaire1. Again.

I like albums. I like the artform of the album. And I like songs that fit perfectly in there. Sometime you get a whole album full of them, and that makes a perfect album.

You follow?

Some albums are perfect. Each song slotting perfectly into the whole, and while the individual songs may be great, they only achieve their true greatness when in their place, inside their album.

If I had a buck for every album that matches this description I would have a couple thousand extra bucks to spend, at least. Who knows!

I'm listening to King Crimson's "Three of a Perfect Pair". That's one. It's not the only King Crimson album that fits the bill. He (Robert) made quite a few, and though most have been ignored by critics, they reign supreme, all through time.

XTC made a couple albums like that. Top-level song writing, top-notch performances. Stuff that continues to blow my mind decades later. I thought Andy would by living on an island somewhere but I actually saw him working in a car-wash. Meanwhile utter shit makes millions. What is wrong with this planet? Middle-men, that's what.

Sadly, most artists these days are too keen to get their latest "hit" out there that they are happy to fill the other spaces in their album with basic shit. Fillers. The sort of shit your average songwriter shits out by the dozen every day.

That isn't good enough for me. e.g. Sia. I love that gal! But fuck me, her producers suck balls (and her engineers deserve a slapping or much worse). Listen; two genius tracks + fillers does NOT make an album, no matter how many you put out!

Parklife. Now that's an album. Dark Side of The Moon is an album no matter how much you dislike it; which I do; it's album-ness knocks it out of the park, compared to most modern outings. It's almost like we've forgotten what an album is all about. That's a shame.

I accept that there's a certain amount of subjectivity involved here, but I also think I know what makes an album, and what doesn't. I get seriously frustrated trying to work my way through the crap that so often comes after amazing openers. e.g. Lizzy McAlpine's, "Five Seconds Flat". That first track is up there. Then it just descends into crap. And then crapper. I'm like, WHAT!? Couldn't you just wait a couple years and build up the material?

The album encompasses a time-frame, roughly equating to human attention span. Some albums are short (e.g. Barry White, Can't Get Enough), but that doesn't detract from their album-ness. Sometimes a quickie is just what you need. Put that shit on loop with Hunky Dory and you have one helluva night brewing.

Or Joe Byrd And The Field Hippies (American Metaphysical Circus) looped with The High's Somewhere Soon. Loop that shit and do some real work.

These are albums, people! They have a start, a middle and an end, just like movies, opera, ballet, books, all that good art stuff.

Set aside an hour of your life. Lie back and listen to Maria Schneider's "The Thompson Fields" all the way through. Thank me later. If you enjoy that experience, I could recommend other treats..

Jordan The Comeback, Broken Machine, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, You Forgot It In People, In The Wake Of Poseidon, Heligoland, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, Third, Innervisions, and so on and so on. I could list great albums all day long (that's the stuff I've been into this week) and still most of you folk will be plugging in the latest hit single and moving on. It seems like maybe the artform is dying, and this saddens me.

I think of all the amazing albums I have picked up over the years, often second-hand, or that one gem from the pile when I used to review music (Cat Powers - You Are Free, there goes a week of my life!); Stuff that hit me out of the blue, works that gut-punch me and change my life. Single tracks rarely do this.

The feeling of cleaning the vinyl, pulling all that dirt and grime out of the disc, or dropping a factory-clean pressing onto my turntable; the excitement as the stylus finds purchase, sliding into the groove, it adds something. Even the smell of old vinyl adds to the experience. The act of physically turning over the disc. Part one - Part two. There's a magic there that Spotify can't capture.

The other week I came across a Demis Roussos album I'd not heard of. I remember him from when I was a kid, some fat guy singing "Ever And Ever" and this wasn't that. It was a young dude who looked like Jesus, lost in praise, lost in song, 12" wide and I took that shit home and played and played and played it. HOLY SHIT! "Fire And Ice", it's called.

One of the tracks on it is totally fucking out there (Demis reciting Greek poetry over Gregorian chants - pretty wild!), and so they re-released the album with a new name, harking at said track, re-arranging the track order to put said track up front. And they totally fucked the album! Seek out the original and enjoy.

The hundreds of times I've played Mike Mainieri's "Journey Thru an Electric Tube", the magical experiences I've had playing that album.. None of that would have been possible had I not noticed that crazy cover in a second hand record shop.

I guess I get nostalgic about a time when folk would just sit back and let a musical artist take them on a real journey; and when artists catered for that; and all in in less than the time it takes to watch the average network TV show.

There's the rub: These days we're happy to let the shittiest TV and movies wash over us for hours at a time because we feel that ALL the senses are covered. But they are not covered.

Maybe modern humans are too fidgety, too scrolly for albums. Maybe it's just tracks and videos and memes now, as we do other stuff; music reduced to background accompaniment. The Eyes have it, it seems.

That singular experience, me as a teenager, huge speakers set at either side of my head like giant headphones, listening to Power, Corruption & Lies at maximum volume, taking that journey with New Order, riding that sonic magic carpet to other worlds; kids these days don't have that.

I wonder if maybe they are missing out.

;o)

I love Fringe, but WTF!

Like I said, Fringe is one of the best Sci-Fi shows ever made.

Throughout the years I have found myself interested in, and checking out anything that anyone in Fringe, or connected to Fringe, does.

Olivia Dunham, erm, Anna Torv's mesmerizing facial work is also outstanding in all the other shows I've watched her in (save for The Last of Us, where she slays it elsewhere, instead, as the role dictates).

Them all. J.J. Abrams, Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Kirk Acevedo and more. Anyone connected to THAT has got to be worth checking out.

So, Joshua Jackson.

Admittedly, I haven't seen a lot of his work. There's only so much time one can devote to TV. Anyways, I have a bi-weekly slot for "dumb guilty pleasure"; best enjoyed with comfort nutrition, like dates on a stick and a jar of Tahini.

So When I saw this Loveboat reboot, sorta, with no less that Don Johnson (A Boy and His Dog, Miami Vice, etc.), I jumped on it and slowly undid the lid of my huge jar of Tahini..

So Joshua's the new doctor on this fucking mammoth cruise ship, of which Don Johnson is the Captain. He even demonstrates actual nautical knowledge. As a child of the sea, this is starting to check my boxes!

Like all old actors/singers/etc. you haven't seen for a couple decades, he starts off looking old-as-fuck but within a few minutes looks just like Don Johnson of yore, except with more gravitas. Check.

This is all helping with the fantasy. I'm dunking my dates into the thick and gooey stuff at the bottom of the jar now. Oh yeah, baby! It rolls on into medical territory. Actual penile fracture, I kid you not. The medical emergencies come thick and fast in this show. It's like some crazy magnified microcosm of reality. Like murder in Oxford during Morse's time.

There's all sorts going on; romance with the hot nurses; sandy beaches, top-notch cameos, drama, hot guys and babes in bikinis (the guys don't wear bikinis, perhaps I should have used a comma) and all while sailing through the ocean blue at what-not knots: fast.

Perfect for the mid-week snack-and-TV break.

Then fuck-me episode six1, "I Always Cry at Weddings". I mean what?!

I was actually crying after Margo Martindale's confession. Not a small performance. I watched it a few times there and then. Josh giving her a big hug was beautiful; affectionate and at the same time, the writer's display their acute awareness of the fact that no way can anyone follow that - shut up and hug is any actor's only choice now. Great work.

Before I can recover from this I'm hit with the "great juxtaposition". So, spoiler alert, the Groom is a sex addict and instead of saying "I do", he jumps over the side. Suicide wasn't one of my boxes. Don slides us effortlessly into moving on and minutes later the nurses (one guy, one gal, with chemistry) are eating the now superfluous Wedding Cake. In walks doctor, also with previous established chemistry.

Of course, as soon as I see where this is going, I start laughing; It's all so perfect; and I can't stop laughing. As much from the audacity as the comedy.

I'm laughing pretty much all the way through that crazy bucket-list-talk-becomes-sex-threesome. Wow! This really is is the Loveboat, except turned up to 11. Just the release a viewer needs, I guess. I basically don't stop laughing until the credits roll.

Or rather, the suicide prevention notice takes over the screen, and then the credits roll.

This is why I don't do TV reviews.

;o)

Well done, Trump. Schnorkfost.

As my previous blog on the subject implies, Trump wins. This is a crazy-mega-moment for humanity.

And one that won't happen again. So use it as an opportunity for learning; growth and all that shit. Aka; make the most of it.

As the Chinese curse goes; may you live in interesting times. These; without doubt; are interesting times. Pay attention, as your grandchildren will be asking questions. Probably along the lines of, WTF were you thinking? Prepare some answers, if you can.

My guilt about bringing children into this world (three, no less! That I know of), when it surfaces, passes instantly. Times like these will require able bodies; so I try and get them as able as I know how; by whatever means. My God! You have some shit to deal with. Sorrreeee.

When I was a kid, the Earth was near pristine. You could Jet off anywhere and experience Earth the way she intended, probably. Now you are a single jet away from hurricane or flood or drought or any of the other extremes this planet has to offer. The back of my mind offers a rhyme: misery.

Heaven is a state of mind few achieve in this life. For the rest, it's the binary opposite. And if you keep it up collectively, yup; it's hell on earth.

This is what you voted for with your Trump presidency.

Schnorkfost!

This is a call to the others. Now it's time to work. Time to weave the dreams. Enter their minds as they sleep and together stitch the spell that dumbfounds all...

Now is your time sleepers. (Yes, to others who weren't called here, this reads like some kind of madness, but we know who we are... NOW is the time)

Consider yourself activated. Close your eyes and begin.

Together we can weave an inception that catapults humanity; we can use him as a powerful puppet. Are you ready? All that implicit training kicks in now. All those seminars make sense. It's not bullshit, it's the power of YOUR mind. Now, do it.

Or else just let this maniac's ways take sway, and we are all fucked.

He's so pliable, so fragile. It will be easy. Even his daydreams are wide open. What are you waiting for?

Sleep, sleepers, and take over.

Our time has come.

;o)

The infinity Torus figure-of-8 magickal secret of live music in, erm, oh fuck ...

Words cannot describe everything.

So it's like this, performing music. Some things need to be experienced. Performing in front of an audience of human beings, is like this. Everyone should try it, at least once.

There is an energy matrix, a circuit of sorts. For example, in a traditional "rock" band, the drums and bass create the back-end, it feeds round though whatever instruments you have going on, guitars, etc., and then passes through the the person at the front; usually the singer, the pivot, the focus. Imagine a figure of eight-ish, sideways, you in the middle of it.

Being that person is an amazing feeling. Try it. A solo performance is a different dynamic. Try that, too. Whichever you like best, you could do that again easy.

Especially if the energy continues on out without interruption1, enveloping the crowd and feeding back. Better yet if they love what you do; which amplifies the returning energy, and so on.

There is no direction. No start and end points, it just IS, and is more and more as you work it into a lather. It's one way to add energy to the system, which is why we humans love it so much. But never forget, moving energy into this systems robs it from another. Fuck it, like we care!

This explains why artists who should have decades ago hung up their SM58's are still out there on buses. It's highly addictive stuff, even for the audiences. If you have never watched live music, you need to fix that ASAP!

If you are a scientist; you need to develop an alter-ego of some kind, away from the science. Get him busking or joining biker gangs or free diving; whatever it takes. I'm just recommending singer-in-a-band as a great place to engage the other dimensions of the brain and thereby, get the science done.

The journey back is where your breakthrough is.

;o)

Viagra

Okay, that's a red herring. It could be anything. Viagra is just such a great example. Keep up!

So a while back I read some research that said Viagra isn't only good for erections, but has other benefits. I'm thinking those benefits PLUS awesome erections; worth a tinker.

Viagra is pretty amazing, as drugs go. By Viagra, I mean any of those drugs which will induce maximum erection with minimum stimulation. And the first weekend you play with this powerful substance, you will enjoy it immensely.

The downside; something definitely not in the accompanying leaflet; is that you have now lost an important feedback mechanism. In fact, TWO feedback mechanisms that are, sorry to say, essential.

First being nutrition and exercise. No longer do you need to eat a balanced diet filled with those goodies your body loves; nuts and seeds, fruit and veg, eggs, etc.. You don't need cardio, resistance training, none of that; you can sit about and eat Pizza all day long and still have a fully functioning penis. Great for your penis and one-night-stand lifestyle; not so good for the rest of your body, mind and spirit.

Also, any old shit now gets you horny. Basic female (or whatever your thing is) anatomy is enough. But that should not be enough.

Instead of getting healthy; in body and mind, one can accept second-best. Or worse.

Instead of seeking out the perfect partner for a true meeting of mind and body, you can just do it with anyone fitting a rough description.

But like I said, Viagra is just one example of many many many1.

Wegovy presents an even bigger solution; and therefore, a much bigger problem.

Just sayin'.

;o)

Father Ted, MOFO! Have you SEEN IT?

I get two evenings a week when it's just me and the eldest. We do "a show" before bed. Being the golden age of television there's no shortage of good stuff.

I like to mix it up. Right now we're in the TV adaptation of those Anthony Horowitz novels, Alex Rider roughly matching up, age-wise. Not bad.

As a decent-or-so parent I'm already lining up our next series. As I said I like to mix it up, and so I'm thinking pure comedy this time; something to challenge their wannabe-deep mind; then it hits me; Father Ted.

I grab the first season online. As it's coming down I click the first episode.. A half hour later I am in pain from laughing. I literally started laughing out loud about three seconds in and didn't finish laughing until the credits roll, often rewinding back to catch the bits I missed because I was laughing so much, repeat until I get it all.

What a great show. That's why I felt the need to blog here.

I've seen the first episode of Father Ted maybe a dozen times; as I've introduced him to those I love, over the years, and perhaps there is something of that in the immensity of its reach. Half of those times it was just me. Laughing.

If you dig comedy, you definitely want to check this out. And in 2024, also, "Shrinking", which has Harrison Ford doing comedy, well.

Threw that in to throw you off, in the traditional style.

Like that joke about the wolf and the concrete.

;o)

Vote Kamala.

I don't want to be standing around thinking "I wish I'd done something back then when our planet got relegated to the galactic shit-pile through the actions of one man. Yeah, right, you have your chance. It is now.

So I'm saying, VOTE KAMALA.

My endorsement means nothing to most of you voters, of course.

If you are the sort that listens to outside opinion, you have already decided to vote Kamala; as your personal politics, no matter how right wing they may be, aren't worth tearing down hundreds of years of fuck-yeah! Let's give this America thing a shot. You know there is a better way.

The Trump voters are beyond help, I fear. No amount of reason and logic can get through the hate. Fascism is powerful, and this is what Trump aspires to, hoping to take America with him. Margaret Atwood's vision doesn't seem so far-fetched now. I thought that was Sci-Fi.

Polls are telling me neck-and-neck but I can't see it. No fucking way. Not the America I know. Not those good people who gave me so much love.

I love it, the expanse of it. I love that free-wheeling spirit, that pioneer grit. I've slept in the cold COLD desert, boiled in the cities, walked home from a Hollywood premier, masturbated to Kerouac, Ginsberg and Lynch. I think I get it.

But what that mad orange fuck and his weirdo bunch of degenerates propose for the "United States" is like the worst science fiction that wouldn't ever get made.

It's like all the b-movies you've only ever seen some of; the really bad ones with pink blood and desperately old has-been-actors who need rent. Please, don't do it.

Instead, vote Kamala.

Take a look at your own Constitution, and actually read what your forefather's intended. It wasn't what that mad cunt Trump wants. He's a fucking nutter.

Take a week in the desert (you have great deserts!) and get your fucking shit together. Your very existence, every man woman and child's life, and your kids and theirs depends on it. Our existence on this planet depends on it.

Oh shit, too late. You don't have a week.

Wise up?

Again, too late.

May God shed his Grace on Thee, America.

;o)

The Spinners

Thought particles1 out there be like who? How? Looking for people like me. A simple thing. A possibility. Examples? Pfff.. Daily.

I'm doing some task, then I see a way to do it better, or "better", the next thing I know my mind spirals2. I see the tech involved, the exact people required, the advertising campaign, the logo, and so on and so on until I reach this sort of orgasmic state where I'm just bathing and bubbling in the possibilities of it all, the millions, Billions, Tens of Billions and what that buys, and then I let it go; completely. I've got no time for all that shit! Instead, Deep Breaths; it's Gone like Lamaze ...

I have this glow about me then, getting on with, well, whatever I was doing twenty seconds ago, but revved up. It lasts for ages. THAT, is enough for me.

When I read the next year that X (not the X that was once called Twitter, and actually mattered; but the whatever X that wishes it was "WhaXeva3", or however variables feel, if they feel at all.. Nope, that's just me being daft) is actually happening-ish, I get another Zap of that immaculate cocktail, and that can last months. They even accumulate. I've had periods in my life when I questioned if I really would plummet, if I stepped off the top of a skyscraper4.

I provide a simple function, a service I guess, for some universal process. I have no idea how many of us there are, but I would imagine quite a few, as LOADS of other, way more novel stuff happens all the time.

We add our spin to simpler things. I have no idea how that shit gets to us, or what happens with all those imaginings. But something definitely does.

In all of our daily lives I wonder as we, you, the human next to you, "daydream"; to somewhere; what universal function are we providing, what reality are we facilitating. Or perhaps the opposite. It's beyond imagining.

Or maybe it's all just fantasy.

;o)