All posts by Kevin

Culture, Media, Personal, Technology

Music in the Kitchen

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Music in the Kitchen? Sure, I can play that game; despite not being much of a chef.

A photograph of a BT Voyager Internet radio.
The BT Voyager

In fact, music has recently been rejuvenated in our kitchen with the arrival of a BT Voyager Digital Music Player. Sitting simply in the corner, it allows us to listen to anything our computer can play on CD, MP3, or stream via the Internet. Consequently, I’ve been listening to NPR and the CBC a lot recently.

  1. What is the total number of music files on your computer?
    • No idea. Does it matter? It’s quality that counts.
  2. The last CD you bought?
    • Shortly after Christmas I heard a discussion on CBC Radio about the best Canadian albums of 2004. One of those mentioned was My Favorite Distraction by Coral Egan. Think Sarah McLachlan crossed with Joni Mitchell.
  3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
    • Trouble from the album of the same name by Ray LaMontagne.
  4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you.
    1. Jack Reardon and Sacha Distel’s The Good Life as performed by Betty Carter on Look What I Got!
    2. Al Jarreau’s interpretation of Lennon and McCartney’s She’s Leaving Home is a marvel, as I’ve said before.
    3. Corcovado as performed by Astrud Gilberto, João Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Tommy Williams, Milton Banana and Stan Getz. It’s the epitome of cool.
    4. Once in a Lifetime by Aretha Franklin from the album Yeah! Aretha Franklin in Person — a great preformance recorded live at a nightclub in 1965. The crowd obviously doesn’t realize that the young Aretha will become the undisputed Queen of Soul. At one point you can clearly hear a young woman let out an indignant “ouch!” as if she’s just been pinched, and during the next song a man whistles the theme music to the Twilight Zone. Philistines!
    5. Softly, William, Softly from the album Concord on a Summer Night by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. A magical song-without-words on an atmospheric live recording.
  5. Who are you going to pass this stick to and why?
    • Anyone who reads this post and cares enough to reciprocate; because they obviously care.
Technology

Mobile madness

A photograph of the outside of a Vodafone shop.
Where have all the customers gone?

Apparently, the UK has more mobile phones than people these days.

On one hand, that’s not surprising when you consider that Vodafone, O2, Orange, and T-mobile all have shops within 200 meters of one another on my local high street. Strangely however, the biggest of them, Vodafone, hardly ever has any customers in it.

People must be buying their phones some other way.

Technology

Amazing

We had spinach for dinner this evening (among other things), and not for the first time I found myself wondering: Why does cooked spinach leave a film that you can feel on your teeth?

Well it seems it’s all down to those annoying oxalate crystals.

Isn’t the Internet simply amazing?

Personal

Blue Jean Chef

My sister, aka the Blue Jean Chef, has a new web site designed by yours truly.

It’s the first time I’ve used the new-ish open source blogging tool (aka Content Management System) called WordPress, and I have to admit that I was impressed. I found it easy to setup, and there are lots of plugins freely available to customise it to your needs.

It’s so good in fact that I’m seriously tempted to switch from MovableType to WordPress myself.

Technology

My del.icio.us links

I’m experimenting with del.icio.us, a “social bookmarks manager”.

So here are links to some of the web pages that I found interesting recently (the annotations are mine):

Media

UK front pages

You may be familiar with BBC New Online’s UK Front pages web page. Or then again, you may not.

BBC Front Pages screen shot.
BBC Front Pages

In any case, I’ve grown tired of clicking on each newspaper’s link sequentially so I’ve created my own page that displays all of the available front pages at once.

You can access it at https://www.kevinlaurence.net/ukpapers.php.

Note however, that the images come from the BBC’s web site and are therefore ultimately beyond my control. For example, the front pages were available for 1 January 2005, but not 2 January 2005. Could this be the result of someone at the BBC not working on Sundays? Use at your own risk.

Update (2 Oct 2005): The BBC ceased providing images of the UK’s newspaper front pages in early August 2005, so my “summary” page no longer works. A similar service is currently available at www.newseum.org, but few British newspapers are included in its database.

Culture

Crossword puzzles

On the last day of 2004 BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour featured an interesting report on the history of crossword puzzles (RealPlayer required). Did you know that the first crossword appeared in 1913? Or that the first collection of puzzles gave Simon & Schuster its start?

Personal

With bells on

Feet wearing different multi-coloured socks.
Little Miss Matched

My five-month old daughter has just been given a great pair of Lamaze Foot Finder socks. As well as being very colourful, the two insects on the tips of the toes contain rattles. They’re supposed to stimulate development, and they were an immediate success with our little girl.

Colourful socks with insects on the toes.
Lamaze Foot Finder socks

I wonder if this is a sign of things to come, however? Little Miss Matched is apparently a big hit with 8 to 12 year olds in the US!