Joke fit for an 11 year old (3)

A man is arguing with his wife who says he is far too fat and unfit.
"Get in shape!" she yells at him
"Get in shape?" the man shouts back. "I AM in shape. Round is a shape."

Sky Plus - Update

Have just heard back from the Sky Customer Care department...

They are sending and engineer out next Thursday (Free of Charge) to replace my faulty Amstrad box with a brand new Sky+ box.

Wooooot!

Lightroom 1.3

For all those Lightroom users out there, version 1.3 is now available from Adobe

From the Readme...

Lightroom 1.3 includes corrections for the following issues:

• Writing XMP metadata automatically has been corrected for performance issues
• Printing with the native resolution option enabled no longer sets the wrong dimension for portrait oriented images
• Prior to Camera Raw 4.3 there was the possibility that artifacts in edge transitions could be introduced through the Bayer demosaic and luminance noise reductions algorithms. This has been corrected.
• The Canon sRAW format and the Fuji compressed RAF formats are now supported.

Lightroom 1.3 includes the following enhancements:

• The import dialog now offers the option to render 1:1 previews as part of the import process
• The export dialog layout has been enhanced
• A Lightroom Preview Export SDK is available for developers to create and distribute Export Plug-ins. Further details are located on Adobe Labs

Katherine Jenkins

I have just taken delivery of "Rejoice - Special Edition" by the very lovely Katherine Jenkins.

I have to say it's my favourite album of hers to date... My iTunes rankings for the tracks are:

• 3 x 2 Stars
• 10 x 3 stars
• 2 x 4 stars

and that's not bad by anybodies reckoning!

Sky Plus

Over the last 12 months, I have been experiencing a problem with my Amstrad PVR2 Sky+ box... When it's recording, and you are watching another channel, or even just pausing a channel and watching a few minutes behind, there is a major 'skipping' and blanking of the audio track.

It seems, according to the forums on DigitalSpy that this is a known issue, with a significant number of these Amstrad boxes, caused by a software update last year.

The forums are full of success stories from customers who have received new boxes free of charge - even when the original box is well past it's warrantee period.  There is a very useful template supplied, along with the email address of James Murdoch (CEO of BSkyB) to request a replacment.

I sent my e-mail off tonight, i'll keep you posted as to the outcome.  If they don't change it, I have to decide if I pay £150 for a replacement unit myself, or take up the free offer of a BTVision box for BT employees.

Oh Bugger!

After last night surprise snow, looks like my proposed golf round is off today.

Joke fit for an 11 year old (2)

From BBC Newsnight

There were these two monkeys in a bath.
One says "Ooh, ooh, ooh, aah, aah, aah"
The other one says "Well, put some more cold in then."

Musical Discovery

"Raising Sand" by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss

From the Amazon.co.uk Description:
American bluegrass star Alison Krauss and Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant team up for one of contemporary music's most unlikely partnerships, and in doing so create a memorable and diverse collection of lovingly crafted songs.

The MusicOMH review expands on this:
It's a curiosity that, just as the Led Zeppelin revival is reaching fever pitch, Robert Plant is sneaking out this album of reverential duets with Alison Krauss. What it does, though, is show the singer's softer, sensitive side - something not all that apparent when atop thunderous Jimmy Page guitar riffs.

In his recent solo career Plant has tended to keep an open book, as last album 'Mighty Rearranger' testified, with its variety of loosely world music-influenced songs. Raising Sand narrows the parameters a little to concern itself with lightly bluesy music, but at no time does either singer sound restricted.

Quite the opposite. Krauss is an ideal vocal foil, and at times the two really do sing as one. The real revelation is Plant's ability to sing quietly, with exquisite tenderness, for long periods of time. Whilst there were occasional hints of this with Zeppelin this is uncharted recorded territory, and the accompanying textures are parted in respect of this.

Finally, the BBC review:
The first thing you notice about Raising Sand is how the pair's vocals compliment each other. Krauss’ honey-sweet chords can be saccharine on her own work at times, but here she's balanced by the mature grain of Plant's almost whispered delivery. On "Killing The Blues" or Gene Clark’s "Polly Come Home" they nudge up against each other, buoyed up by Greg Leisz’s floating pedal steel. And this from a man renowned for going ‘baybeeee, baybeee’. Phew...

Joke fit for an 11 year old (1)

From BBC Newsnight

Patient: Doctor, Doctor I feel like a moth
Doctor: What?!
Patient: I feel like a moth
Doctor: You don't need me, you need a clinical pyschiatrist
Patient: I know, but your light was on.

iTunes Ratings

I have decided it's about time I actually tried to get some sort of order to my iTunes music collection, and step 1 of that process is to 'rate' as may of the tracks as I can.

Stage 1:
Decide the definition for each of the 5 star ratings.

• No Star - Not yet rated
• 1 Star - If I never heard this track again, my life would probably be better, but certainly no worse for it!!
• 2 Star - I wouldn't change station on the radio if this track came on, but I would never request it either!
• 3 Star - The base "I Like It" level, it's not a 'Great' track but it is 'Quite Good"
• 4 Star - If this track came on the radio, you sing may well sing along to it, you would almost certainly feel a little bit of pleasure upon recognizing it.
• 5 Star - A 'Desert Island Discs" contender, a real favorite.

Stage 2:
Create 6 'Smart Playlists' based on each of the above ratings

1. 218 Tracks, 13 Hours
2. 416 Tracks, 1 day
3. 319 Tracks. 1 day
4. 146 Tracks, 10 Hours
5. 22 Tracks, 1.5 Hours

That only leaves 9067 Tracks (27.5 Days!) to be rated!

2nd time around HGC

Managed to play 12 holes today. Having switched from a 'Trolly bag' to a 'carry bag' certainly helps around this hilly course.

A couple of the scores were *very* pleasing, but several holes were let down by just one wayward shot, that ended up costing 2 or even 3 to recover. The 7th and 8th especially seem to be causing me some problems.

Overall, I am quite pleased with 54 for 9 holes, it is 10 shots better than last week!

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	HOLE
4	4	5	3	4	3	4	4	4	Par35
4	5	7	5	6	5	7	7	6	54
10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	9	HOLE
4	4	4	4	4	3	3	4	4	Par34
7	8	7	-	-	-	-	-	-	54

Wow!!

Just checked the site stats for www.rockbox-themes.org, Visitors to date this year:  1.3 Million

The data volumes downloaded from the site this month amounts to almost 170GB!

The above graph shows the number of visitor per month for this year, Octobers figure being over 267,000.

Katherine on Strictly

Katherine Jenkins and Andrea Bocelli on BBC One's "Strictly Come Dancing", performing "Time to Say Goodbye"

First time around HGC

Only 9 holes played due to time constraints, and several of the holes poor scores were partially down to me trying to work out where the flags were!! The rest of them were down to me getting to grips with the ball hardly ever level with my feet!!

It may take a few attempts to get my score back to the low 50's again!

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	HOLE
4	4	5	3	4	3	4	4	4	Par35
5	8	8	5	9	4	9	6	9	64

So a rather disappointing 29 Over Par...

The Last Supper In Detail

At http://www.haltadefinizione.com/en/ you can view a 16 BILLION pixel rendition of this classic work of art...

The interface is pretty slick, and if you are unlikely to get chance to see it in the flesh anytime soon, it may be the only way you will ever get to see it in detail!

From the BBC News site:
An Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, reported that a sophisticated monitoring and filtration system introduced during a restoration of the chapel in the late 1990s was not preventing particles or substances that could damage the work being brought in by visitors.

The Last Supper was painted by Leonardo da Vinci at the end of the 15th Century and, because of the experimental techniques he used, parts of the masterpiece subsequently peeled off and were badly damaged.

The BBC's Frances Kennedy says the paper reported that equipment monitoring air quality inside the refectory showed that levels of fine particle pollution had tripled in the past two years.

It quoted experts suggesting these particles could settle on the work, eventually creating a dark misty layer.

New Family Member

Almost forgot to mention, the Bright family are now the proud owners of a Hamster called 'JaffaCake'

The kids have brought it between them, and he spends 1 week at a time in each of their bedrooms.

Halesowen Golf Club

Well, I've gone and done it! - I've just joined Halesowen Golf Club.  Not the greatest time of year, you may think, but it does have it's advantages.

1) Membership is from April to April, so it's not such a large initial outlay for now. 2) It will be a lot quieter around the course over the next 3 to 4 months, so I can potter around without too much embarrassment.

Not Getting Any Better

This weeks golfing trip was to Himley again...  It was a little on the cool side (10 degrees!) and we were racing to get finished before it got dark...  Ok excuses over!  We were both dire!!  Every Tee shot put us in trouble!

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	HOLE
4	4	4	4	4	3	5	4	4	Par36
9	5	6	7	7	5	6	9	5	59

So 23 Over Par...

I did at least manage a draw with Neil!!

Getting Better

Warley again on Monday afternoon. After a good session at the range with the Driver, I was feeling quite positive and apart from a couple of scuffed shots from the tee at the 6th and 8th, and some difficult long grass on the 8th it was a very good round - one of my best to data...  And I even managed to get a par on the 9th!!

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	HOLE
4	3	4	3	3	4	4	4	4	Par33
6	5	5	5	4	7	7	9	4	52

So 21 Over Par...

Still managed to loose to Neil by one shot!!

All Change

Today I submitted 30 days notice to cancel my Membership at the Gym, thereby saving me in the region of £600 per year.  I also requested an application form for joining Halesowen Golf Club as a member, costing approx £650 per year.

That is not including the joining fee, which you actually pay over THREE years, and only covers WEEKDAY usage.  Full membership to cover weekends is an extra £150 per year, and given the limited chances I would have to get out to the golf course for any length of time in a typical weekend...

I am also considering letting Alex join, that's £120 for the years - 7 days, so I could go with Alex on a Sunday afternoon etc, and caddy for him over a few holes??  Not too sure about that yet tho'