19 October, 2004

Now! And Then

Maybe it’s just me… maybe it’s personal taste… maybe it’s to do with when I was born… but I’ve always felt that all the best dance and trance music was produced between about 1990 and 1996. It’s all there. After that it all got silly and rappy and sounded like the same old stuff. Before that I was too young to care by far, but even so, it doesn’t seem to be up to scratch.

I theorised once that dance music – good dance music – ages: and that the best dance music at any given time was approximately nine years and eight months old. Perhaps that’s just to do with my age, again, or maybe it’s to do with humans and how nostalgic they get about things about ten years ago. Or maybe I’m still too young to develop such a theory anyway. But there’s a lot of people who’ve supported me in this brave little theory.

At heart, I’m a rocker. Give me something with a wild man on a guitar and lyrics that actually mean something and I’m in my happy place. But secretly, I’ve always had a passion for dance music, particularly trance music (or, as I put it – dance music with the bassline removed either entirely, or alternately, throughout the song). It’s great to write code to… and it’s amazing how productive you can be on a long night’s hacking with some dance music thumping away in the background, as I suggested some weeks back. It’s because you don’t have to think when you’re listening to dance music… it just happens. But the thing that makes good dance music good is that it makes you feel happy (discussions about beatrates divided by heartrates and theories about the reasons for this are left for another day).

So; as I said, there’s been a nasty lull in dance music for the last eight years or so, with only a few notable and worthwhile tracks released therein, IMNSHO. But the other day, in Burger King with Gareth, I ended up in a discussion about the music that was playing on the radio at the time. It was dance music, but it was actually good. We suggested that we may be entering a period of revival of “good” dance music. So I’m spending the evening on alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.dance, downloading heaps of randomly-selected new dance tracks, to see if they’re any good.

It’d be nice if they were. I have some big coding projects to do before Christmas, and I could do with some mindless happybouncey music to do it to.

Feel Like Santa

I bet Santa’s busy this time of year, too, judging by the fact that the supermarkets seem to have completely forgotten Halloween and Bonfire Night in favour of Christmas. Let’s see, there’s…

Another Busy Weekend
I’ve spent another weekend helping out those folks at Aberystwyth Nightline with the training of their new volunteers. Despite having graduated and leaving the organisation earlier this year, they still invited me back to help impart some knowledge onto the new trainees. Which was nice – it’s good to still feel wanted despite being an “old fogie” to it all – but draining: I’m not used to working harder at the weekend than I do during the week.

Next Weekend’s Not Much Better
From a being busy perspective, that is. Next weekend I’ll be in Scotland, of course, to witness and celebrate Kit and Fiona‘s wedding. Amazing how fast that’s crept up. In other news, Jon and Hayley are now engaged, and much merriment ensues.

Move To The Technium
SmartData has now pretty-much entirely moved to Aber Technium, a lovely seafront building just 10 minutes walk from my house. Sadly, this means that I now have a whole heap of extra work to do, setting up new server gear and sorting us out with our own online dedicated server. Despite my protests, the company has decided that our first dedicated online server is to be a Windows Server 2003 (Web Edition) box, which means we can’t go with Diogel, my first choice for web hosting.

In Other Web-Related News
And in another almost-as-geeky turn of events, Ruth, JTA, Andy (the rock monkey), Matt and I are working towards getting a virtual server together. The server that currently hosts Scatmania, Abnib, Troma Night, and others, is getting a little crowded these days, so we’re going to alight and find ourselves greener pastures.

And Finally, An Interesting News Item
This amused me today: an Oregon student was surprised to have his house assaulted by police and rescue teams, after his new wide-screen television began to suddenly transmit the international rescue beacon signal. He’s been offered a free replacement.

And on that note, I’m off home.

Instructions On How To Clean Your Toilet

Put both lids of the toilet up and add 1/8 cup of pet shampoo to the water in the bowl.
Pick up the cat and soothe him while you carry him towards the bathroom.
In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids. You may need to stand on the lid.
The cat will self agitate and make ample suds. Never mind the noises that come from the toilet, the cat is actually enjoying this.
Flush the toilet three or four times. This provides a “power-wash and rinse”.
Have someone open the front door of your home. Be sure that there are no people between the bathroom and the front door.
Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids.
The cat will rocket out of the toilet, streak through the bathroom, and run outside where he will dry himself off.
Both the commode and the cat will be sparkling clean.

Sincerely,
The Dog