Constant storm damage might be good for business, but there's no denying that—year-on-year—the weather up here's getting worse.
How's things where you are?
Monday, 30 November 2015
Thursday, 26 November 2015
A Little Bit Cuntry
Believe it or not, I've had country music on-and-off my mind ever since last month's Halloween party. Dug out a few old albums; even tried streaming a few of the local stations. Sounds torturous, doesn't it? Well, yes and no.
It'll probably come as a surprise—to exactly no one—to hear that I listened to A LOT of country music growing up. In fact, for a number of years, it was probably THE ONLY thing I listened to—y'know—products of our environment and all that. Now, I'm sure some of you are horrified by the prospect of growing up on an all-country diet—and frankly—I don't blame you. Especially if, when you think about country, what pops into your head looks and sounds anything like this …
… or this …
… which—let's be honest—are really just male and female version of the same fuckin' hideous song.
Oh, and let's not forget the Aussie equivalent, which is equally fuckin' hideous and looks and sounds like this …
If you listened to all three of those songs from state to finish, I'm going to have to assume you're some sort of masochist—especially if you watched the videos as well. Sadly however, that shite is exactly what you'll get if you go to your wireless and tune in any country music station.
But that's not how I remember things being in my day …
In my day, the undisputed king of country music, or as we called it—music, was the one and only Slim Dusty.
It's hard to describe just how big Slim was amongst certain populations at that time—so I'm not even going to try. Suffice to say that if you even so much as touched a guitar in those days, you could bank on the fact that somebody was going to ask you to play "Pub With No Beer".
… But of course, even the most die-hard fans need a little variety; so, aside from John Williamson who arrived on the scene in the mid-late '80s …
… American singers were also quite popular. For instance, Lee & Nancy …
… Kenny …
… Dolly …
… and—of course—John, Willie, Waylon, & Kris (who thoughtfully teamed up for a bit; meaning I don't have to mention them separately).
Okay, so one of the problems I have when discussing music is that I possess neither the knowledge nor the vocabulary to express myself properly; so you might have to use your imagination a bit here. What I'm going to put to you—dear reader—is that if you listen to the older songs which I've posted above, you can hear a distinct commonality to the way they sound—enough so, that you can easily see why they'd be lumped together under a single descriptive label. But I also put it to you that—collectively—they're different enough from the boot-scootin' abomination that is contemporary country, that the two groups should in fact be classified as two completely separate genres. I am therefore proposing that modern country be renamed to something else. At this point I haven't figured out what exactly. "Redneck Rock" is about the best I can come up with.
Whay say ye?*
*Okay, okay; I know that what you're probably actually saying is, "I don't give a shit Alex! Talk about something interesting!"; but c'mon, just humour me, 'ay?
Tuesday, 24 November 2015
I paid €20 to do this to myself—and it feels like I ate a bee.
A parody of the thousands of makeup tutorial videos you can find on YouTube? Whatever it is, it's one of the funnier things I've listened to in a while. The timing and delivery are better than most professionally made comedy sketches I've seen.
Having watched the video above, it may be hard to believe this, but that young lass has done a number of interesting and humorous little films on Irish culture, politics, and social issues that I've enjoyed (along with a lot of frivolous cruft, which I haven't). I dunno what it is about this one; it just kinda sums up my whole feeling towards the beauty industry, I suppose. … And can anyone tell me what that shit she put on her lips was actually meant to do? (I feel safe in assuming it's a real product)
Monday, 23 November 2015
Procrastinating Pop Music Monday
Right now, I'm listening to music and organising files while I try to work out what my stupid contribution to this year's family Christmas card is going to be. See, my big mistake was that one year I thought really hard about what to write, and—apparently—IT SHOWED. So now when I send in my contribution, the response I inevitably get back from my mum is along the lines of, "*tsk* Come on luvy, I know you can do better than that. *tsk* Why don't you write something like you did that one year? *tsk* Everybody loved that one, y'know". What I really feel like writing is, "If you really care to know what Alex did this year (which I can't imagine you do), you can look at last year's card, because it was just more of the fucking same". The lesson here, my loves, is that you should never put any effort into anything unless you absolutely have to.
How are things going with you girls? Getting into Chrissy prep yet? I had a mailbox FULL of catalogues EVERY DAY last week. I shudder to think what December's going to be like.
…
Oh wait—that's right—I was going to post the music I'm listening to. Does anyone remember Sophie Ellis Bextor? Pommy girl, dark hair, sort-of-squarish face, burst onto the charts in—like—2000, when she provided the vocals for this Spiller track …
… and then followed that up with this solo hit …
… before disappearing into obscurity. Well, she's still around and still putting out albums; and—truth be told—I really like the one she put out in 2011.
Especially this track …
… and this one (here—curiously set to re-edited bits of other music-videos … but in the wrong aspect ratio?) …
… and this one (set to what looks like behind-the-scenes footage … which works disturbingly well, considering the song's about some creepy bloke who keeps calling her up just to breathe heavily into the phone.
Enjoy.
Sunday, 22 November 2015
Super sexy soccer-inspired summer hairstyle.
Here's where I first posted about the haircuts that caught my interest while watching the women's World Cup this year.
Word-Processor Round-Up
Okay, since I got the message loud and clear that nobody wants to hear me talk about free and open-source operating-systems (unless you do Suze?), I'm going to skip that part and go straight to free and open-source word-processors. Hmmph.
LIBRE OFFICE - Summary: Top pick.
The gold standard in open-source office suites. It's a direct continuation of the largely defunct OpenOffice, which was a continuation of the totally defunct StarOffice, which dated back to the mid '80s. As far as I know, it runs equally well on Windows, Mac, Linux, & FreeBSD, and the project prides itself on being as compatible as possible with Microsoft document formats. Also, while the toolbar layout is completely configurable, I don't think the defaults have changed much since the first version shipped in 2002. So, if you're looking for a "retro" version of MS Office, this is probably as close as you're likely to get.
While I don't have this installed on my home computer or use it on a day-to-day basis, I have spent a ~fair~ amount of time with it, and like it about as much as I'm capable of liking an office suite. If you have to use a word-processor, at least try giving this one a whirl.
OPEN OFFICE - Summary: Dead.
The original open-source competitor to Microsoft Office. LibreOffice is where it's all happening now, so use that instead.
ABI WORD - Summary: Small. Simple. Nice.
The simple and lightweight alternative to LibreOffice. Note that this is just a word processor and not a whole office suite. There's no spreadsheets, databases, powerpoint, diagrams, or other bullshit here. It runs on Windows, Linux, & FreeBSD, but the Windows version is a bit behind the others. I've used AbiWord numerous times in the past, and might even prefer it over LibreOffice. It might be worth a look if your needs are fairly modest.
CALLIGRA - Summary: No.
This is actually the word processor I have installed on my machine at home. The reason for this is that it comes bundled with a really nice digital painting application called Krita. I use it to open MS Word documents that people send me, and, well, that's about it, really. I don't particularly like it, and wouldn't recommend using it unless you're a bit of a masochist.
EMACS - Summary: ♥♥♥♥♥
Alright, I know that nobody reading this is actually going to contemplate using Emacs, but I just couldn't resist. You see, I'm in love with Emacs—and yes—I would fucking marry it if I could.
Emacs isn't a word-processor; it's the world's most powerful text-editor. Some people say that title belongs to Vim, but those people are talking out their arses. Don't get me wrong, I use Vim all the time and think it's great, but the two don't even compare. You see, Emacs isn't even really a text-editor; it's an interactive environment for the LISP programming language. What that means is that it can do anything that can be programmed in LISP. Apart from writing blog posts like this one, I also use it for …
- writing code; including (but not limited to) HTML, Javascript, Java, Python, Perl, C, various shell scripts, and of course, LISP;
- taking and sorting notes;
- writing email and other stuff;
- a terminal emulator;
- a file manager;
- a calculator;
- a diary and calendar;
- a project planner;
- a structured to-do list and personal information organiser;
- and for generally keeping my life in order.
Oh, and yes, I also use it as …
- a word-processor.
The neat thing about using Emacs as a word processor is that you don't have to stuff around, digging through menus, clicking on toolbar icons, and wondering "why doesn't this look the way I want". Instead, you use a markup language called TEX—which works a bit like HTML—and then "render" your document in whatever format you want (usually PDF).
It probably sounds complicated, but it's a system that works remarkably well, and gives you a lot of control over how things look … as long as you know how to markup your document properly. Which brings us to why nobody reading this is ever going to try Emacs.
You see, Emacs is designed to work with or without a graphical interface. Which means it's designed to be used without a mouse. In fact, it's designed to be used without having to take your fingers off the home keys. Everything it does, it does through shortcuts and typed commands. For instance, instead of using the arrow keys …
- CTRL-F: moves the cursor forward one character.
- CTRL-B: moves the cursor back one character.
- CTRL-N: moves the cursor down one line.
- CTRL-P: moves the cursor up one line.
- CTRL-A: moves the cursor to the start of the line.
- CTRL-E: moves the cursor to the end of the line.
- ALT-F: moves the cursor forward one word.
- ALT-B: moves the cursor back one word.
- ALT-A: moves the cursor to the start of the sentence.
- ALT-E: moves the cursor to the end of the sentence.
And this is barely scratching the surface of the surface. There are scores of default shortcuts and hundreds of typed commands; and of course, every shortcut and command can be re-programmed. Even basic key-strokes like "A" & "SPACE" can be re-programmed. They can even be programmed to change depending on context; remember, it's an interactive programming environment after all.
Okay, that's probably enough about Emacs. For now. Don't be surprised if you hear me swoon over it again in the future though. You have been warned.
Monday, 16 November 2015
You'd think I'd learn to just say "no" when people invite me to parties.
Hello, I'm back, and kicking things off with a spoOOoky Halloween themed post that's—what?—only a bit over two weeks out of date. This is probably going to be a bit of a theme around here for the foreseeable future, as I work through all of the notes marked "do a post about this" that I've accumulated over the last couple of months. I suspect I'm going to be making illustrations of things that happened in October, long into 2016.
In order to speed things up a bit, I may have to cut back on artistic quality even further. "Is that even possible?", you ask, looking back quizzically at some of the crap I've posted here in the past. Well, as you're about to witness, yes, yes it is. What I'm proposing is taking things to a Leunig or possibly even sub-Leunig level. I just wanted to put that out there, lest people think I've given up trying altogether. If complaints are forceful enough, I may consider reconsidering this approach.
And now, onto the subject at hand. Or not. Before we jump into what happened two weekends ago, allow me to take you back to the days before I had a blog of my own; when I used to hijack Melba's comment threads with my stupid stories. Coincidentally, this tale comes from (almost) Halloween of two years ago, so it's (almost) on theme. Besides which, it's important backstory for what comes later, so just trust me that you should read it first. I do know what I'm doing. Sometimes.
Okay, cut to present day, and a few things have changed. Sammo has moved out of Marty's house, and Marty's new girlfriend—a woman whom we will be referring to as "Barb"—has moved in. Marty met Barb through Sammo. I will leave the importance of that detail up to reader discretion.
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